Thade
DINOSAUR THADE
Having recently acquired this spell, I would like to say, while it's a nice concept, in practice this spell is 100% redundant, and it lots of cases nearly useless.
First lets look at the spell itself. A targeted AE, costs 435 mana, 2.5 second cast, -25 resist adjust, 200 range, AE range 80.
It's first major flaw is it's a target ae, and target ae's have a very high propensity to hit the person who casts them. Next, you have the issue of, it's only useful against multiple mobs. If mobs are weak enough that you can tank many of them, it's a waste of time to reduce their damage out put. That time would be much better spent dpsing or healing or casting any other of shamans other debuffs. If the mobs are strong enough that you actually want to cripple them, you probably aren't pulling three or more mobs and single target cripple would be just as efficient and you wouldn't have to worry about debuffing yourself and all the negative effects that come with that. And while the -ac debuff is nice, chances are if you are pulling multiple mobs the shaman is probably dpsing and you have another healer healing, the spell wouldn't even be a considered option over another dot, or torrent of poison.
On top of the problems the spell itself has, in most situations fatebind kicks it's ass. The -20 resists from fatebind tend to outweigh the -ac from cripple in any raid or high end 6 man encounter due to how terrible a full resist is for a caster. Add to the fact that fatebind has five times the -resist check of crippling surge, and normal cripple has no -resist check at all. It becomes evident that cripple is the redheaded step child of the two debuffs.
After bouncing some ideas off some other people, came up with a few ideas for suitable replacements.
If you want to keep it to a debuff, another spell in the Insidious Decay line would be awesome. same cast time as insidious decay, with two differences; one make it debuff PR also. Lots of mobs have high PR and it gets to be really difficult to lands any sort of dps spell, leaving a shamans only real option to be meleeing or casting a 7 second really terrible cold based nuke, which is probably less dps than meleeing. Two make it increase the damage of all disease/psn based spells against the target by a small amount (3%?) giving it an added bonus for casting it against mobs you can land spells on without them being debuffed.
If it being a debuff doesn't matter!
Some sort of new non poison based dps spell
A new rain – disease or cold based, better than torrent of poison, but most importantly giving options against poison resistant/immune mobs.
A new dot – a new disease based dot, high damage high mana cost, just like relic/caress. Or a two part dot similar cryotoxin; casts a spell that casts two dots, one cold and one disease based or one poison and disease. Or possibly a 6 tick dot similar to necro fire dots, cold based, giving even more options for the high amount of mobs that have both high PR and DR. Lots of options here.
If you are dead set on keeping it, please make fatebind overwrite cripple. It'd let a shaman cripple and then overwrite it as need be with the superior debuff.
First lets look at the spell itself. A targeted AE, costs 435 mana, 2.5 second cast, -25 resist adjust, 200 range, AE range 80.
It's first major flaw is it's a target ae, and target ae's have a very high propensity to hit the person who casts them. Next, you have the issue of, it's only useful against multiple mobs. If mobs are weak enough that you can tank many of them, it's a waste of time to reduce their damage out put. That time would be much better spent dpsing or healing or casting any other of shamans other debuffs. If the mobs are strong enough that you actually want to cripple them, you probably aren't pulling three or more mobs and single target cripple would be just as efficient and you wouldn't have to worry about debuffing yourself and all the negative effects that come with that. And while the -ac debuff is nice, chances are if you are pulling multiple mobs the shaman is probably dpsing and you have another healer healing, the spell wouldn't even be a considered option over another dot, or torrent of poison.
On top of the problems the spell itself has, in most situations fatebind kicks it's ass. The -20 resists from fatebind tend to outweigh the -ac from cripple in any raid or high end 6 man encounter due to how terrible a full resist is for a caster. Add to the fact that fatebind has five times the -resist check of crippling surge, and normal cripple has no -resist check at all. It becomes evident that cripple is the redheaded step child of the two debuffs.
After bouncing some ideas off some other people, came up with a few ideas for suitable replacements.
If you want to keep it to a debuff, another spell in the Insidious Decay line would be awesome. same cast time as insidious decay, with two differences; one make it debuff PR also. Lots of mobs have high PR and it gets to be really difficult to lands any sort of dps spell, leaving a shamans only real option to be meleeing or casting a 7 second really terrible cold based nuke, which is probably less dps than meleeing. Two make it increase the damage of all disease/psn based spells against the target by a small amount (3%?) giving it an added bonus for casting it against mobs you can land spells on without them being debuffed.
If it being a debuff doesn't matter!
Some sort of new non poison based dps spell
A new rain – disease or cold based, better than torrent of poison, but most importantly giving options against poison resistant/immune mobs.
A new dot – a new disease based dot, high damage high mana cost, just like relic/caress. Or a two part dot similar cryotoxin; casts a spell that casts two dots, one cold and one disease based or one poison and disease. Or possibly a 6 tick dot similar to necro fire dots, cold based, giving even more options for the high amount of mobs that have both high PR and DR. Lots of options here.
If you are dead set on keeping it, please make fatebind overwrite cripple. It'd let a shaman cripple and then overwrite it as need be with the superior debuff.
