Druid Agility line Animal charm for 3 concentration points. Useless in raiding, useless damage in a grouping context, still useless damage in a solo content - charmed mobs become so weak for starters, secondly where are the animals in TSO, name me some animals in all the TSO shard instances.... think hard... there's what a couple of animals in the snowy room in the crucible shardzone and.... and... and... that's it? junk this aa and startover - cures casting speed/recovery maybe? Animal Mez - no1 can use mezz raiding at all, no1 uses mezz outside of raiding anyway, even if you do use mezz, where are there any animals that actually need mezzing... junk this aa and startover - beneficial reuse maybe? Regens Booster - mostly great, but lowering the duration without lowering the recast, MAJOR oversight, in some situations it can slightly decrease your healing effectiveness by leaving this hole in the group healing cycle, until you really work at getting reuse gear. 8 sec duration, but, 15seconds (3cast plus 12 second reuse) until it's running again. Tortoise shell endline - stifle effect has to be removed, 3m radius has to be increased. Druid Str Line Natural Boon - healing amount simply isn't enough to be a direct heal, if it was a stackable ward, then maybe, meleeing often carries risks, esp. in a raid context with all the stun meleer damage shields etc
From a grouping PoV. Druid Agility line Animal charm for 3 concentration points. Useless in raiding, useless damage in a grouping context, still useless damage in a solo content - charmed mobs become so weak for starters, secondly where are the animals in TSO, name me some animals in all the TSO shard instances.... think hard... there's what a couple of animals in the snowy room in the crucible shardzone and.... and... and... that's it? junk this aa and startover - cures casting speed/recovery maybe? Animal Mez - no1 can use mezz raiding at all, no1 uses mezz outside of raiding anyway, even if you do use mezz, where are there any animals that actually need mezzing... junk this aa and startover - beneficial reuse maybe? I couldn't agree more these AAs are nothing but a waste of 8 points just to get to the needed healing bonus. I'm not going to drop 3 of my buffs just to charm some stupid animal that's going to end up dead from an AE. And I'd like to meet a druid who's used the Mez in the last 2 years. I don't even remember where these spells are in my book. Regens Booster - mostly great, but lowering the duration without lowering the recast, MAJOR oversight, in some situations it can slightly decrease your healing effectiveness by leaving this hole in the group healing cycle, until you really work at getting reuse gear. 8 sec duration, but, 15seconds (3cast plus 12 second reuse) until it's running again. I don't think I have a problem with the way this works with my current gear (mostly T2 and instance gear) my reuse time is low enough that I can keep group and ST HoTs going constantly if I'm paying attention. Tortoise shell endline - stifle effect has to be removed, 3m radius has to be increased. Oh! My! God! Yes! The stifle I can live with but that 3m range is a joke. Increase the range so that its in line with what bards get. I used this for the first time in a raid in VP this past weekend, but everyone had to stand right on top of me. I was planning to drop it that night, and if it hadn't been for that one mob it would already be gone. Druid Str Line Natural Boon - healing amount simply isn't enough to be a direct heal, if it was a stackable ward, then maybe, meleeing often carries risks, esp. in a raid context with all the stun meleer damage shields etc Wait, you're saying you don't melee during raids? Don't you like getting killed by the AEs and leaving your gorup w/o a healer? /sarcasamoff I think if it had a component that gave the druid a ward along with the group heal that could be enough to make this a great AA; right now however its really an after thought. I melee in groups when I remember, but its just easier and safer to not move up to whatever corner the tank is moving the mob to.
Warden Panel Cure tree Cure tree aa's need a major rework, I think this is on the horizon. Tranquility having faster ticks and maybe going groupwide with 5 points would be a nice thing to see in the cure aa revamp. Root & Snare tree Snares and roots AA's are zero use in a raiding context, everything is immune (even to the agility debuff afaik) - very little use in a group context (there's maybe 2 exceptions the healing skellies at the end mob of one of the JW instances, vaults I think not maidens, if ur doing those for a laugh or aa for new alts - and the mob that you fight with suits in AoB - and that's only if a mezz class can't stop them better) solo there is a little more justification for using the roots/snares, but the few times you might want to rally don't warrant the aa expenditure. Naturewalk is a nice endline, but everything upto it bar the SoW increase feels a waste - most especially the "deagro with rooting mobs next to you, so they have no choice but to not goto the tank and hit you or the mage next to you instead" why would I want to reduce recast on a skill I almost never cast. I'd be really happy about seeing aa's to boost our buffs or heals or both - I just don't think many wardens see snaring and rooting as vital parts of their day to day role
I've always thought the animal charm/mez was junk that never fit into my playstyle. If I wanted to do that kind of stuff I'd be an EQ1 Enchanter. But a scan of this forum will show that there are Wardens that have these abilities as an integral part of their playstyle. I'm personally bummed I had to waste 8 points here to get to the "good" ability on the fourth line, but in life you often have to give a little to get a little (Or a lot) Regens? You make a lot of arguments in your posts about how abilities are a waste when on a raid. If you're raiding there's nothing at all wrong with the regens as you should have gear/buffs to have everything running non-stop if you had to continually spam every heal you have. Tortise Shell? 100% agree. It's all but useless in it's current form unless you have so many healers you're not needed. If that's the case why not bring another AE blocking class? Natural Boon? Soloing I MAY have had to cast one heal a fight or as a top-off after fights were done. It's not designed to replace real heal spells. It's helpful in 90% of group content as well. Not every ability is a failure or requires a change because it's not applicable to a raid environment. Cure tree? Yes, it's a joke. I like the idea of having Tranquility's tick time reduced along the lines of our HoT tick reduction as you spend more points in it. Groupwide would be amazing, and perhaps overpowered. Root & Snare? Much like Natural Boon, raiding is not the sole place where the worth of an ability is found. Macro that you're using PBAE root. If people can't be bothered to move when you're trying to save them and yourself, that's natural selection at work. If it's a specific fight where you need to stay in the spot you are in and you're a distance from your tank and have aggro, run the add to the tank and then root it. If it's hit the fan so bad that you have no other options but to get overwhelmed, figure out what you did to cause such a blunder and don't do it again. Wardens have the best root in the game. I said earlier I didn't want to mex and charm like an Enchanter, but it is fun being able to ghetto CC adds if the rest of the group is willing to work with you and not be concentrating solely on their CA/Spell rotation to the neglect of what is happening around them. As a final note. Every class I've played (I'd guess every class in the game, but since I have not played them all I can't make that statement) has junk abilities you have to waste points on to get to good stuff or abilities that would be nice that you can't justify spending the prerequisites on. You point out the weaknesses in Wardencentric abilities. A similar post can be made for every class I have played signifigantly. Not saying that you don't have some valid points, just that we are not unique in AA lameness
Torri@Lucan DLere wrote: I agree with you Torri. That doesn't mean that weaknesses shouldn't be brought to light though. With most of my toons (and I do have a fairly sizeable stable of alts) I have come to expect a worthless ability that you have to throw the required 4 in just to move past it. However, the one thing I do find slightly unique/annoying is that the mez/charm BOTH being in the same line is a whole lot of suck before you get to the regen boost. I know you basically said this too but it is worth repeating since there really is just the one ability in the whole tree worth getting. (Ok, two if you count tortoise shell which certainly could use some tweaking.) As for the regen boost itself, I'd really rather not see that touched. It's one of my favorite AAs in the whole druid tree and I'd be concerned that any changes would end up making it worse.
I agree with the agility line complaint. I sacrificed the worthless animal lines to get the heal bonus line for years. Recently repecd to melee and ignored the agility line in dissappointment of the worthless lines to get that heal bonus. Dumped those aa into mitigation bonuses on shadow lines
snowline wrote: Regens Booster: Maybe you need to find a warden who hasn't gone agility tree (good luck) and compair your reuse speed with theirs. While the AA doesn't say it reduces the recast time, it does proportionally reduce the recast time as well. If it didn't, this would be a useless AA ability. As it is, it is godly and every warden should have it. Animal charm: All pets except for summoner pets take 3 concentration slots. All charms break very easily. They are all iffy crowd control or DPS boosts. However, charm animal is a left over from the EQ1 druid class. As flavor, it should remain. Personally, I'd love to see it replaced with a bear pet (which was more or less useless in EQ1, but we had one) but at least we can charm. Animal Mez: The mez is actually quite good for any situation you can use it in. Its a group mez with a fairly good recast timer. I've used it in Seb, Scion of Ice, soloing, chardok. Anytime you get a guard plus pet it works. It is hardly ever resisted. Amongst the "situational" AA abilities, this one actually works. Tortoise shell :I've used Tortis Shell before as a solo healer in instances and I've used it on raids. The way to use it is to know the mob leads in with an AoE, call everybody over and click it on before the pull. Now here is the important part, after the AoE hits click it off. Boom, your group is unharmed, and you arn't stiffled. Useful. It just takes a little ingenuity and thinking outside of the box. I don't see any other priests with AoE blockers. Natural Boon: If your in a raid where melee abilities will get you killed, then switch your AA. Its called a Mirror of Reflected Achievments, get one and use it. Most raiders have a raiding build, and then another build for more casual stuff. I can't think of a time where a raid will desperately want the melee abilities of a warden over having them stand at max range and heal where they are less likely to be hit with point blank AoEs and damage shields. In heroic situations and soloing, this AA ability works fine.
snowline wrote: Cure tree: I fully agree. The line never worked well, and after the cure changes it was completely unwanted. Usually the end-line ability can excuse a poorly made AA tree, but even the end line ability Shatter Infections is not seen as usable or wanted. The only good AA ability in the tree is the one to reduce the recast time on Tranquility. What I'd like to see introduced is a chance for any single target cure we throw to proc into a group cure, and a way to add more cure types to our group cure. Keep the recast reduction on Tranquility and give us a second cure curse spell or a recast time reduction on the end line and I'm happy. Root & Snare tree: Not all of EQ2 is about raiding. While rooting is the weakest form of crowd control, wardens do it the best. Back in RoK I used root to stop the skeleletons in both charsis instances. I've used root to control one of the sphinx in Scion of Ice. Mostly I use roots as crowd control while soloing. With the right group set up, you can actually root and nuke non-named heroics to death without any tanking. While this isn't a premire AA line for wardens, it isn't completely useless and it at least stands on par with most other class's middling to poor AA lines.
While I appreciate any comments about how to heal may be well intentioned, I'm not posting because I have problems healing and have come to the forums to complain abut how the class needs to make up for my playstyle. I'm posting my thoughts on playing warden because I expect they're looking at or have already looked at wardens before the next expansion, particularly as they have said they are changing cures for all priests, buffs and heals for us wardens - it wouldn't hurt for some other areas to be thought about too, maybe the window for those thoughts has already passed, but I'm posting some of my thoughts anyways. Yes, every class has some less useful aa's to get to more useful stuff - but an entire tree devoted basically to roots and snares is overkill in the warden panel, load all the root snare stuff onto just the first aa spend, and change the others to improve buffs, improve our instant heals etc.
While, I agree that the animal-related AAs and cures could use some changing; I don't think Natural Boon or the root AAs are worthless at all. Natural Boon with a melee warden is awesome; especially paired with the AAs that give us extra double attack. It may not be useful in a raiding situation where you shouldn't be meleeing much, but for soloing and PvP it is a great AA. I don't have any exact numbers, but when I was melee specced, a surprisingly large percentage of my total heals came from Natural Boon. (I think I once saw around 25-30% heals from Natural Boon from a zone-wide parse in a heroic instance.) The root lines are also useful in PvP. I don't play on a PvP server anymore, but when I did, the roots were great to stop runners so I dumped all the points I could into improving them. Granted, now that I play on AB I don't root all that often, I still wouldn't call them junk just because I don't personally use them much anymore.
Meirril wrote: Regen booster doesn't affect the reuse, it only lowers the duration. I just respecced and confirmed it, unbuffed my tooltips read: 0 AA: 2.56 casting speed, 10.9 reuse, 10 duration 8 AA: 2.56 casting speed, 10.9 reuse, 8 duration
7 second duration with a trouby of course. I feel the comment is valid, when that AA lowers the duration, that AA should also lower the reuse by the same amount.
