Bah. Well I can get buffs and immunities I guess. Of all things, it sounds like the SOW ability is our best one. At least it's easy to see how they could tweak it and make it better - change the recast time on the combat arts to make the ability useful. What would be worth getting, though, would be a reduction in WARD casting time. Replace the rez line with something like that for us ! MrrX's Character Journal
Yeah it's pretty uninspiring stuff overall, and the glacial strike actually says it ticks every 4 seconds ingame (could be a bug in the description) so its possibly worse than the spell. I did however put a point the ae line, and it's not too bad. Having a 1 second cast time on a 1k+ ae (100% crits) will firstly save on interrupts, and secondly I have found it is now worthwhile casting on single mobs, where I would normally never use the spell. This is because the spell would take a total of 6 second casting and almost twice the mana to do the same damage. Just not worth it on a single mob. I already had 3 points put into ursine augur to make up the 20 enhance, which connects to circle of the ancients now, so I didn't need to waste any on other melee to get to it. I think its definitely worth one point.
Well, I wasn't trying to cause any debate or anything, just throwing some info out, my wraith nuke isn't as much damage as yours as I don't raid and can't afford masters for the most part, As for me solo I seem to do a little more DPS in a group, i can go smack the mob REAL quick and at least do a little damage, while maintaining my concentration on keeping my group alive, as alot of times i'm the only healer in the group, which i manage to do pretty well in most cases.(unless your an over agroing mage or scout, then i tend to let you lay in the dirt, hehe). Overall tho, yeah our new stuff kinda sucks...but *shrug*...no worse off then we were before i guess. Crondar Spiritwalker
Over the past couple days, I've heard so many other classes say wow that will really healp after looking at their own aa ability panels. But I look at the mystic one and can't see anything that is going to turn the tide in any but the most marginal of situations. Bolster(noticable) Although the increase isn't that long, this is a spell that gets continuous use, so increasing its duration has some potential to have noticable gains. Avatar(useful) I suppose if your stuck in a DPS group instead of a MT group, you can cast avatar on a scout and the extra int would help his poisons? I can't see the wisdom benefit to the MT resists being all that substantial. Oberon(useful): Yes, if the power cost doesn't go up, then this boost gives more healing on low power which is when this spell most comes into play. Its not an earthshattering improvement in the spell, but at least useful. Foretelling (useful) Yes this will get used, but it seems increadibly small boost. I don't think anyone is going to notice it. Ursine(fun only) On any difficult content, I'm not in meleee range. Although lots of fun groups time meleeing with friends, so I'll enjoy the extra damage, but still feels like a waste of AA. SOW(?): I do pull this up once in a great while, but there's usually a scout or bard in the group to give much better run speed buf. Maybe I should think of it as the safefall buf instead. What equivalent safe fall does this give. Will my group be able to follow the monk through nizarra without getting falling damage if I cast it on all? Shadowy Attendant(waste, seldom used) I use this but mostly like was stated earlier when I need a heal myslef in harder, or in those casual groups where I'm beating on the mobs with everyone else. (You know the ones where even the mages are working on their melee skill) Ancestory(useful, maybe even noticable) Long way from gettng there, but seems worth a shot considering that some of the steps getting there are useful. ==================================================== Immunization( very nice) Preventing control effects for a modest time could be important part of many battles. I will probably get this eventually. Cures(waste or useful?) Adding a ward to cures? Does anyone know if these ward convert to a heal if they aren't used?. In most cases I'm still goint to have to continue to cure the effects so the ward didn't save me much. There are plenty of cases where the damage stops when the cure was cast so the ward doesn't get used. Many of the important cures are not to prevent damage to but remove the debuff/mana drain/control effect, the wards really won't help those either. Guess those are the paths that I'm even speculating on. Entire Rez line(waste): The number of times I'm doing an incombat rez and the amount of health power the player gets is meaningful are slim. Entire melee line(waste): Could be fun if all I did was solo and casual groups, but I'm generally not invited to a group for my melee prowess. If its casual enough that I can have some fun poking the mob with a stick I wil, but when its time to do my job, hitting the mob goes way down the list. Thanks for all the input, I asked a few questions above, I hope I didn't miss answers already posted while I skimmed this long thread.
I think the combat line may have some promise, but if it does it will be 1) when leveling, and never having to buy the spell upgrades for those lines 2) when you've got all the combat AAs, and 100% crit from shaman AAs The main thing that the combat arts have over spells that havent been truly hit on yet is chance to hit vs a spells chance to be resisted. The combat art I have so far seems to land marginally more often than my spell would. If I had weapon mastery, it would probably be significantly more. I dunno. Seems like it might work out, and we wont really know until we get some folks with enough points to test it out.
rethink that one hehe the best grp speed buff from bards is 34% and a possible AA boost of +12%, but I'm told that most only take half of that and only because it's a pre-req for something they actually want. That means that your 50% sow is the best in game aside from you having to cast it on each individual member (but that in itself has its own ups and downs.. downside that you have to cast it 6 times, upside that ppl don't need to stay close to you to keep the benefit of the buff).
I have a few questions/comments on how some AA's work... I'm not particularly happy about our AA choices in general but trying to make the best of it... - Does decreases the reused timer of rezzes also apply to ghastly savior (instant rez)? That's the only way I could see it being a worthwhile choice - About the way the immunities skills are worded... does casting upgraded cure arcane (for example) have to actually cure an arcane effect for the ward to activate. What is the ward amount by rank and duration? (This is a noobish one) Would warding trauma mean warding crushing/piercing/slashing damage? How does the warding effect on Ancient Balm work, given that it can cure are ailment types? Basically, I could see this line being very useful or being total crap depending on exactly how they work.
Cures -- Could be a nice synergy between this and taking the cure enhancement on the Shaman AA line, especially if you are in a raid in the MT group and are the designated cure priest for the fight (or raid). SOW -- Most fun, but the so called Safefall component's detailed listing only reads as -5% per rank to the falling damage. No actual increase in increase in distance that you can fall. A free addition to an otherwise nice spell is about it. Combat -- I wouldn't take it myself, but if I was a soloer and wanted it: The reduced casting time would stop most interupts, and should leave more time for melee-strikes between casts. For that matter if grouped, it would let me squeeze in nukes more easily between heals and cures. But even if I wanted the combat line for either of those, not at the expense of downgrading from Masters
For the most part, the effects that really need to be cured are debuffs, not damage. Damage it is usually pretty easy to just heal through them (yes there are exceptions). So 80% of the time, you are curing because there is a debuff component to the effect. You cure it and you get a ward against that kind of damage. No more of that kind of damage is coming until the effect is put back on. The ward does nothing to block the incoming effect, and the debuff portion goes into full effect. If there is some damage component, it is warded, but again, this is usually easy enough to heal through. At which point, you are needing to cure again to remove the debuff. Ergo....crap.
OK - that makes a lot of sense. The burning question I have though is if the ward heals when it expires. Having another healing ward has to be a good thing - without that feature I'm on board the *crap* train . Sheesh, you think that's a lot of typing, click my link bro. MrrX's Character Journal
Now, if the trauma ward blocks melee damage(I dont know one way or the other), it would be slightly more useful. But it would not be enough to save the line, since you can just take trauma and ignore the rest.
Specialty Wards . . . ie Prophetic Aegis, Exhaltation of the Untamed, Aegis of Faith . . . no healing on expiration.
True, but as the Templar Equivilent AA is just a plain ole reactive, theres a faint glimmer of hope. Or maybe Templars just got lucky there.
Unless it was changed sometime between the end of beta and live, the crap err I mean wards don't heal on expire.
The Templar AA also requires the same type of damage to be done again in order to fire. I'ts essentially no different to ours.
thanks for this completly useless tree now its probably more usefull for a raid to take two defilers with it than one myst cure wards: a joke inmunity (against fear etc): much to short duration-too long recast complete rezz line: greater joke dmg line: nearly no difference from without it buff line: some little usefull improvements nothing great oberon barrier: completly useless without mt grp conclusion: before eof: good enough for ma grp - for mt grp defiler allways was the first choice with eof: not sure if even good enough for ma - close to losing its sense in raiding
