My opinion on how to play a shaman (Although dated and in need up updating to current spells) has always stated that we are a Hybrid Priest. And next to Bards are able to work in every mechanic the game has to offer. -We can Pull/Split and CC (VP AAs) -We can solo (We Druids and Clerics have taken all the groups, we can Root Dot.. you meet a lot of necros this way) The Big 4 however have always been: -We can Heal (Splash + Alliance + Frostbitten Gift not to mention the Group Heals and HOTS)(Yes our DD Heal is a joke) and are an amazing insurance policy to any group as a backup healer -We can enhance or cure any Stat on any member in our group (We make you stronger and faster) -We can decrease any Stat on any mob in the game (We make them slower and weaker) -We can DPS (Our DDs are a friggin joke except to intentionally break a root, but our Dots allow us to stack and forget while we get back to Debuffing/Buffing and Healing) The interesting thing, is that there are classes that do all of these things BETTER than we do.... but no one does all of it like we do. However our greatest strength (IMHO and the one mechanic I have enjoyed the most in playing this toon for 18 years) is our ability to make a group more flexible and durable when going deep. Our class can pull a group out of a bad pull or too many adds situation because we CAN backup the healer WHILE parking mobs off of the tank ALL THE WHILE sliding to the top of the DPS chart burning everything down AND YET STILL hitting Lion/3d Spire/Epic/Ancestral Aid/Pact of Wolf and our Circle of Power/Mana/Health clicky and turning our group into a collective of HULKS. Dear Daybreak, Dont break this balance. Is it ..... odd that I make a Monk/Rogue/Wizard/Ranger look weak on the parse on a boss? Perhaps........ But remember what the class was designed to be in the begging.. It was a multiplier. Master of None capable of All. Dont over nerf the only FUN mechanic of the 4 we work in. Do this intelligently.
the balance needs restored. it's fun being able to molo literally any zone in game, but we need to be nerfed. does this go a bit far? perhaps, but only in that it doesn't reduce the mana cost along with the dmg of our dots. logic applies, there's no reason a support class should be outdoing a dps class on the parse. right now we (support) are on par with necros wizards and zerkers (dps) if we don't have to worry about buff locking the mob or having to stop to heal. Monks and Rogues (also dps) have to get lucky to match a shaman who has the freedom to only dps... that's just not logical. how did you put it? Master of none, capable of all? that's not the current case. combine with the fact that we essentially have limitless mana (for at least about 20 min) and we're not the master of none, we're out of balance in this area and it needs corrected. lastly, an example. IMO there's zero reason a shaman should be able to go into VP and molo the crestra's task there. While this dmg nerf will not technically prevent us from moloing that task, it would make what was already difficult into something only an exceptional player could do, maybe (based on what I've heard, we wont' have the dps to beat respawns without help).
daybreak reminds me of that guy we all know that just cant do anything in moderation .. you ask your buddy to turn up the music a touch, so he cranks the volume as far up as it will go land wrecks the speakers lol my advice is don't expect them to do anything less than neuter your class when you have a inc nerf .. just bend over and get rdy I group with a shaman buddy almost everyday, this is sh*t nerf and we all know it.
I dont use a merc when I solo, not sure what the point would be. Your tank isnt strong enough to break the healing chain long enough to do reasonable DPS.......... a Rogue or Wizard are just going to break dot or get hit........... and a cleric........ for what, insurance once an hour when you hang in too long getting beat on trying to park something..... nah, thats what TOTEM is for. I dont think our solo DPS is broken, I do believe our Group DPS is too powerful and should be brought down into balance. But a Support Class......... dont know how you choose to play your shaman, but I have never been what I consider a support class (Enchanter/Bard) much less a one dimensional class (Zerker/Rogue/Monk/Warrior/Cleric/Druid/Wizard) which is booring as hell.
cleric merc is for tanking in VP, where pet tanking is messed up until the patch. or... consider that as a raid shaman I can stand toe to toe with any not-named mob in RoS when I have my healer merc out. otherwise, when i'm feeling lazy, the puppy can tank any single mob up to VP, and the pet toys for agro + the merc frees me up to DoT without worrying about breaking root. solo dps / group dps is the same thing.... and in our case, it's nearly the same as our typical raid DPS (because we don't typically get the same caster support that say, a wizard/necro will get)... one of them is not OP without the others being OP. Our DPS potential has been pretty extensively looked at in another thread. I think around 450k is what the highest parse was at? that's numbers that a pure DPS class with proper support puts out, and shamans are not pure DPS. the primary role of a shaman on raids is ADPS and healing... that's support brother.... regardless of what you consider yourself. if you're not supporting then you're failing. if you're not raiding, well daybreak really has already demonstrated they don't care about the non raiding game (according to the plethora of other posts on the subject in the vet forum)..
too many ways for disparity to be created in this game for them to balance anything properly skill difference, gear difference, group makeup and synergy, single account vs boxer, boxer using assist programs and boxers doing it the old fashioned way (like me) just tabbing. my crew is mostly in tradeskill gear now, at 108 with most of the primary aa's for 108. I killed 112 mobs in ot today dusted off my parser and tried to figure out a few things. at 112 trash mobs mostly sarnak and golems, my group entire group dps never once broke 200k my issue is primarily that I wont use assist programs, and that kills my dps. toons just sit till I tab to em to start em up. and when they complete their 5 line macro they do nothing but auto attack till I get back to em. keep in mind I'm not complaining or whining just reporting some observations. until today I ran healer merc, tank merc, dps wiz merc. (I wasn't sure my sk tank was up to snuff, it is now) I went 2 melee dps mercs and healer, I tried 3 dps mercs with just shaman healing. a melee merc on burn with roar of lion is out dps'd by a caster merc on balanced so what does that say about merc balance and our melee adps? I finally settled on 2 caster mercs and a healer, I tried three caster mercs but I lost too much on the shaman just healing so I really didn't gain anything with the 3rd caster merc. today I learned that when using caster mercs might as well just set to burn and leave them there agro control was never an issue at all, and the dps difference between balanced and burn is much much smaller than I previously thought. I did manage to rearrange some macros, and my group makeup and picked up about 40k total group dps but like I said I never once broke 200k total group dps. and I put this out here to show that everyone plays differently at different levels, different group makeups, different issues and problems. just because some are capable of outstanding dps doesn't mean everyone is. and from where I'm swingin I'm disgusted by the nerfs plural, the first dot nerf I could understand this one seems a bit excessive considering we were hit once already on the dots. now I haven't yet seen what the changes are going to do to me, but I would be willing to bet that its gonna hit me harder than the folks that pull out 400k dps numbers.
game balance does not rely on player skill or ability. game balance is based on what a class/character CAN do using 'standard' abilities. the game isn't designed for people to suck at it. you're botting, therefore not playing your characters at their best, or even at your best. this much is obvious because your dps on multiple toons sucks as badly as it does... with only 3 dots on a shaman, Jynx / Erogo's Curse / Scorpikis Blood, you should be pushing between 80 and 150k (depending on ranks and crit AAs)... that's no burns, that's less than 1 pushbutton hotkey for dots. I would argue your bigger issue is that you don't know how to set up your boxes properly. what it says is that dps mercs suck, regardless of if they're caster or melee... but melee ones have sucked since the onset of mercs.
your probably correct in that I could use some assistance in setting up my boxes properly I do look forward to be able to use jynx, ergo's curse, and scorpikis blood but those spells are not yet available to me at 108, (sorry, I didn't realize I didn't mention that in my previous post) and if your speaking of rk'2 's they are way outta my price range atm and named are likely not going to be doable for me until I hit 110 so it will be a while before I can try to farm em. and to me, I'm boxing not botting, to me botting is using outside programs to run your toons, I don't do that. you say the game should be balanced at what a character can do using standard abilities, but what ive seen, is that what standard ability means is different based on all of those factors I listed in the first paragraph of my previous post. I think you would agree that the very best most skilled most knowledgeable shaman playing a shaman in ros group gear with group augs is gonna get very different results than a the very same person playing a shaman in ros raid gear with raid augs. that same person playing with all their aa done vs that same person without, that same person playing with real tank or a tank merc. that person playing in a real 6 person group vs 3 boxes and 3 mercs. that same person boxing starting all his toons macros with a single keystroke vs one that has to alt tab to each toon to start them and every variation of all of those things combined that you can think of. because that is what makes up the player base, not perfectly skilled, perfectly auged, perfectly geared, perfectly grouped, players. lol so yeah I'm workin on achieving more and getting better and that's mine to own, but I still believe that there needs to be a place for everyone.
No no, I agree completely here. In the Raiding game thats what we are. A Shaman and a Bard are put into a group with Rogue/Monk/Ranger and our job is to keep their DPS output at a maximum, keep them healed and call when down. We also keep all pallies/SK/Rangers and critical on the Extended and rebuff/call of the hero. And we also keep Lion on a Tank/Cleric group that we ALSO have the responsibility of keeping alliance on........ All the while keeping Frost Gift and Splash going on the MT / Banner area. Yeah.... I agree. But sometimes, on some raids, the mechanics give you some flexibility to cast a few spells outside of that scope. But in a group setting..... There is way more downtime outside of that scope, so the flexibility to utilize your strengths comes into play. Depending on your groups makeup, you can be DPS or the puller or the backup healer, or the primary healer or all of the above. And for the soloing part, I do use the tank merc for summoning mobs when I am soloing quest. But for solo XP, Its all root dot and no merc is utilized. Most shaman if properly geared can tank yard trash and even hold their own on a namer if you can click fast enough.
You're missing the point. 'standard abilities' are what a character is able to do, not what the person behind the character is skilled enough to do. so those factors don't come into play. the game isn't designed to be a solo adventure, it's meant to encourage group play. so the balance has to be made around group and raid play.. not solo, not molo, not boxing or botting. so NA out those scenarios in your discussion because truth be told they don't matter when it comes to game balance. absolutely those factors will affect real world results, but again the balance is built around what your character CAN do and not what you as a player are able to do with that character. Also with regard to level, your entire DPS comparison is moot then. of course you're not doing what you could be doing in current content... you're not even using current content spells/abilities! get some levels, use the current abilities, and then get back to the discussion. Shaman DPS got a HUGE bump in RoS... on the order of 50% increase from EOK lines in most cases. just because there is time for us to do something else doesn't mean we should be one of the best at it. we have our primary role, secondary roles we should be reasonable at but not OP. currently we're doing more dmg than those for whom damage is their primary role.... all while still healing a group and providing appropriate ADPS. that shouldn't be the case if we were properly balanced in relation to other classes. absolutely, but again just because we can do it doesn't mean we should be the best option available. we are enjoyed in a group because of our flexibility. because as a class we're "good enough" to get the job done in many roles without being the best in most of them. absolutely. and we still will be able to after the nerf. so this comment is really beyond the scope.
shruggz said: ↑ “you say the game should be balanced at what a character can do using standard abilities, but what ive seen, is that what standard ability means is different based on all of those factors I listed in the first paragraph of my previous post.”you said "You're missing the point. 'standard abilities' are what a character is able to do, not what the person behind the character is skilled enough to do. so those factors don't come into play." and I'm sorry but I think you missed the point, that's why I used the same player behind different shaman characters showing different results. I'm asking you then, standard abilities under what conditions? how do you figure a base line on what a standard ability is? and what is it based on? group play? what kind of group? adps and synergies? aa's? some, half, most, all? heroic aa? gear/augs? last expansion t2?, this expansion t1?, this expansion tradeskilled? raid? spells rk1? rk2? rk3? this list of questions and choices can go on and on. all of these things and many many others would, will, and do affect a base line to be unrecognizable from one player to the next, just within the mechanics of the game no skill involved. so define it for me. if I'm reading what your typing correctly the game isn't designed to be a solo adventure, it's meant to encourage group play. so the balance has to be made around group and raid play.. not solo, not molo, not boxing or botting. so NA out those scenarios in your discussion because truth be told they don't matter when it comes to game balance. absolutely those factors will affect real world results, but again the balance is built around what your character CAN do and not what you as a player are able to do with that character. Also with regard to level, your entire DPS comparison is moot then. of course you're not doing what you could be doing in current content... you're not even using current content spells/abilities! get some levels, use the current abilities, and then get back to the discussion. Shaman DPS got a HUGE bump in RoS... on the order of 50% increase from EOK lines in most cases. you're not even using current content spells/abilities! get some levels, use the current abilities, and then get back to the discussion. your telling me that because I'm only 108 not 110 that my opinion doesn't matter yet. even though they nerfed spells down to level 70? (pretty sure that's what I read in the patch notes) and because I'm only 108 with my 108 aa's playing in the new 105-110 expansion I'm not using current abilities? I'm using all the ones available to me at this moment, as far as game being designed around group and raid play, yes at its inception but now not so much raiders and people who exclusively group are far outnumbered by boxers, soloers, moloers and every variation in between. I'm not trying to be a pain really... and I'm not saying that everything should be so easy even a caveman (like myself) could do it. I'm just voicing my concern. if I sound heated, I'm not. no matter how this goes I will do like I always do and adapt and overcome
It doesn't take an already-settled, arbitrarily decided upon, exact specific comparison point for standards of play to recognize that 5-boxing with alt+tab is below whatever that [hopefully but not even necessarily] reasonable standard would be. That you play that way isn't invalid or whatever, but if the perspective of that play style is what informs your opinions on class balance, then that opinion is not a useful one for game development. What you're doing isn't, functionally, Playing A Shaman. You have a shaman character in your 5-box alt+tab "crew", but that's not the same thing.
Really feel bad for you shamans i totally think the mana cost should get reduced to for you guys. They really dont know how to fix stuff right i still feel the hurt when i sit over the bard Dicho nerf... how can they can say it wasnt intended to work as it did after over a year.. events with mana/end drain was built around it... It only became a real issue when classes got additional self recovery mana end and they decided to reduce the bards battery roll.. If it was me id make a aa that was on a toggle if you use the high dps it puts a buff on you that blocks canni.... if you use lower versions no cani buff block..
this is my last post on the subject come what may, first whether I 3 box, or 5 box, or solo, or group is irrelevant (I 3 box by the way) I checked the data myself, (which is what I shoulda done first) but that has only increased my level of disgust on the nerf on all the dots I checked the increase from eok to ros runs from 36-42 percent example reefcrawler/scorpiki blood goes up 39 percent from eok to ros yeah that's a bit much the nerf to this line of spells is going to be -31 percent, so its still going to increase roughly 8 percent above what reefcrawler blood was in eok. all things given, I can live with that. gangaru/jinx increase of 39 percent from eok to ros, however post nerf it being decreased 59 percent wtf so what I'm getting from this is that post nerf its going to be doing 20 percent less damage than what the eok gangaru does now.... ridiculous. nectar line increases 42 percent but is getting reduced by 53 percent curse line increases 39 percent but is getting reduced by 45 percent our new ros dots appear to be going to do less for the most part, than what eok dots do now. with a huge mana increase over what spells cost in eok. that's not ok. those of you moloing in vp this may not affect much but those of us that struggle with t1 this destroys and that's the point ive been trying to get across. they increased our dots originally because our personal dps was the suck. they took it way to far... and brought us down once already, this second whack with the nerf bat would have been ok if they would tapped us with it once or twice, but to swing for the fences is gonna drop us back to pretty near where we were before the revamp to start with and that just sucks. the player base as a whole is made up of many many many types of players. and I just cant fathom how this degree of nerf is good for the shaman class or good for the game. just my opinion and I'm done on the subject now. good luck and good hunting.
If it makes you go get a real group instead of 3boxing, it's good for the game. If it makes me 3box instead of solo/molo, or go get a real group, then it's good for the game... if it makes shamans stop topping pure DPS classes on raids, it's good for the game... It will do all of those things, and probably have a negative impact on people playing the class as a whole. but I can't fathom how you don't understand that class balance and defined roles for archetypes are good for the game. but hey, to each his own
Maybe we live in different universes and my math is different then yours. I just checked all the Shaman's base DoT damage from TDS-EoK (live) to RoS (live) and I am seeing approximately a 65% increase on every DoT. I also went ahead and checked the values of every DoT TDS-EoK prior to any DoT revamps and then gave each the standard 21% increase that every class got. Here is what damage you would be doing if you had received no DoT revamp at all. Calculated in rank IIIs for simplicity. Sorry if that makes you mad. Dots: Breath of Hemocoraxius > Breath of Elkikatar. (1,688x1.21= 2,042 dmg/tick) (Test Server = 10,248) Livio's Affliction > Rirwech's Affliction. (1,450x1.21= 1,755 dmg/tick) (Test Server = 4,209) Livio's Malady > Rirwech's Malady. (7,269x1.21= 8,795 dmg/tick) (Test Server = 14,190) Spirespine's Pandemic > Vermistipus's Pandemic. (2,346x1.21=2,839 dmg/tick) (Test Server = 7,934) Garugaru > Jinx. (3,465x1.21=4,193 dmg/tick) (Test Server = 11,482) Nectar of Woe > Nectar of Suffering. (3,437x1.21= 4,159 dmg/tick) (Test Server = 9,778) Vengeance of Woe > Vengeance of Suffering. (7,343x1.21= 8,885 dmg/tick) (Test Server = 15,048) Reef Crawler Blood > Scorpikis Blood. (2,675x1.21= 3,237 dmg/tick) (Test Server = 12,357) Sraskus' Curse > Erogo's Curse. (3,674x1.21= 4,446 dmg/tick) (Test Server = 13,735) Swift Dots: Sephry's Malady > Hoshkar's Malady. (6,119x1.21= 7,404 dmg/tick) (Test Server = 10,248) Serpentil's Venom > Mawmun's Venom. (7,300x1.21= 8,833 dmg/tick) (Test Server = 12,357) Damage-wise, all your DoTs are doing more than what they would have done without a DoT revamp. I sympathize with you on the dumb mana costs. As others have said, the formulas that are being used to scale up these DoTs is messed up somewhere. We may even have to wait an additional month before we see any correction to the costs of your DoTs. I would even wage that the DoTs will be adjusted again because the values are not all increasing at the rate every other class is getting. Also, I don't think the original purpose of the DoT revamp was because your "personal dps was the suck." There were multiple reasons listed, but that was not one of them. Go back to the original DoT Revamp producer's letter to check that out.
The idea behind the dots doing more damage was so that you didn't need to go back and stack previous versions with current versions to reach your dot potential. That way less debuff slots were being used on the mob while still being able to do the same damage as stacking dots versions.
I think it also mentions bringing DoTs back more in line to usefulness as they were lagging behind what DD spells could do in a shorter time frame. I'll have to find the quotes on that one though.
