New spells discussion thread.

[Nodnal]

I am very much against another beneficial song. Allielyn and I have been raiding together for quite some time now, and we never have a lack of beneficial songs to play. We get A LOT of great beneficial songs, and only a handful of detrimental songs. I think adding more utility and variety to detrimental songs would be a lot better. Also, the singing boost idea most likely will not happen. Devs are already scared of what PoT4 can do, they do not want to have to rebalance even more encounters because we can make it better.

Multiple bards are already very effective on raids, and we have a lack of detrimental songs in our arsenal. We need more choices when singing songs at the bad guys, not at our friends.

 

[Rorne]

I am very much against another beneficial song. Allielyn and I have been raiding together for quite some time now, and we never have a lack of beneficial songs to play. We get A LOT of great beneficial songs, and only a handful of detrimental songs. I think adding more utility and variety to detrimental songs would be a lot better. Also, the singing boost idea most likely will not happen. Devs are already scared of what PoT4 can do, they do not want to have to rebalance even more encounters because we can make it better.

Multiple bards are already very effective on raids, and we have a lack of detrimental songs in our arsenal. We need more choices when singing songs at the bad guys, not at our friends.

They could always (if possible) set an upper limit on how much it could increase the singing mod. I mean you are obviously geared better than a majority of players and I was thinking more so for lower tier bards and such. I feel you on the detrimental side of things but I ask where is there to go? Really a bard's songs cover almost all detrimental kinds of effects. Aside from combining some in a singular song or giving an next step in a damage line I don't see what is to be done. The thing is this self only beneficial song would also help the damage lines overall and I think it's a larger addition to the class as a whole than just one more damage song.

 

[Loxo]

Will Channel Essence count towards the spell FT cap? seems obvious, but it stuck out as a problem to me

 

[vistachiri]

They could always (if possible) set an upper limit on how much it could increase the singing mod. I mean you are obviously geared better than a majority of players and I was thinking more so for lower tier bards and such. I feel you on the detrimental side of things but I ask where is there to go? Really a bard's songs cover almost all detrimental kinds of effects. Aside from combining some in a singular song or giving an next step in a damage line I don't see what is to be done. The thing is this self only beneficial song would also help the damage lines overall and I think it's a larger addition to the class as a whole than just one more damage song.

I don't really recall them having any damage increase detrimental lines of dots, am I correct in figuring this? How about something like that. A % damage increase on damage being done against a given target. 4 ways to go about it as far as I see it.

1) Pbae
2) Target Ae
3) Pulsing dot
4) DD

In any case, any would add a recourse affecting damage against that mob for a few ticks.

 

[Allielyn]

As far as bard songs it sort of looks like you guys might be stumbling for ideas. I would like to suggest a self only beneficial song that adds a mod to instruments and singing across the board (think of it like an Orchestra) that stacks with items and instrument mastery. The reason I think this is a valid idea is that on a raid it gives the bard the choice of playing two beneficial songs at normal potency or one with an increased potency, this might also make multiple bards more desirable on raids as each could play a more potent version of one specific song and encounter less overlap.

It's not a bad idea, really. What I like about it is that it increases bard utility and versatility, while at the same time it doesn't actually replace a lower level bard song to bring 'more' to the table. In that respect it really does match what bards are all about: more utility, different songs, every step of the way.

The downsides I see to it are first, as Felyn said, what we really feel a lack of at the high end is detrimental songs. While we have a great arsenal of potential beneficial songs to play, our list of detrimental songs is fairly short. (This is especially true in the raid game. Grouping game is a different story with slow and snare and mez popping on in there). For this reason I know I have pushed for more detrimental songs and would prefer to see those. However, that depends on what they're looking for on these songs. Do they want ones for grouping situations or raiding situations?

Second, I agree with Felyn that a self-only augmentation song runs the risk of scaring the devs away due to what bards can already do. I don't think it's a huge issue depending on the rate of augmentation - say .2 mod or so - it could be balanced. (adding a +.2 mod to POT4 would increase total resists overall by a whopping 15 each. I would venture to say devs could negotiate fair tradeoff for losing something like 5 overcap mana regen or 12% spell focus or 5% healing focus). But I do see the Fear of Big Numbers on Bards from the dev team all the time, so I guess we may as well preempt the devs Shock and just toss it before they get to it =P.

Finally, I'd be a little curious as to how it would work coding wise. If it's possible, cool - at least it's something completely new to consider. And it would help bard utility on multiple bards in a raid, since they don't stack the same way 3x wizards or 3x rogues do. (Note it would promote stacking without making it necessary to have 2x bards on a raid by raising the rate at a ridiculous level).

Of course, all this is speculation based on the assumption that the current bard songs listed aren't the final ones. I know from personal experience that yes, Woldaff and the rest of the dev team are more liable to be super proud of their great ideas for songs and that there is a chance they won't change. We all may as well get excited about the idea that we'll never have to buy food and water again. =[

 

[Cyzaine]

We are not officially commenting on spells/songs, until the OFFICIAL preview occurs. No parts of the spells, be they number, name, effect, or anything are considered final until then.

That being said Song of Sustenance is here to stay!


Damn right it is.

 

[Clamml]

Big a big raider on live and not in this game so far as i just started shortly I do have some imput on the chanter side.

Group rune is just completely awesome and in some raids just might require a few chanters to help with healing or help with unresistable aoes even you are no LoS.

Another spell to cast on 2 or 3 people every 15 seconds is not really what is needed either. So basically 2 chanters on a raid, one does giantkin and the other does imp or whatever the new spell is to wizzards.

Sure they have benefits in raids and mostly in groups.

I have made several questions and suggestions about this next issue.

Upping the lvl cap on charm. How can a bard get a better charm then a chanter? Bards can almost do just a good of a job of CC as it is which basically leaves the chanters sitten there casting tash and helping with slows (which usually gets over written by a shammy 10-15 seconds later but any slow once engaged is called is better then none). But charm on raids will help dps but more important for the upping in charm is for the regular non-raiding chanter.

Like i said in previous posts after 49 charm is all but forgotten and that is/was the one of the features for lvl 65 and under chanters. Granted this is a totally different game but its the same mechanics.

What would hurt the game so bad that upping the lvl cap to 63 so the casual chanter can have some fun again. If it was ever upped I am quite sure there will lots of mobs and places that are uncharmable but whats so wrong about upping for other places so chanters can once again be a chanter and not a buff bot.

If you do a /who all druid you get..list is too many... /who all cleric your list is too many.... /who all shaman...list is too many... /who all anything on a typical late night. You do a /who all enchanter and you lucky if you see 10.

 

[dongsy]

If you do a /who all druid you get..list is too many... /who all cleric your list is too many.... /who all shaman...list is too many... /who all anything on a typical late night. You do a /who all enchanter and you lucky if you see 10.

Protip, using anonymous or roleplaying blocks unwanted "can you come give jb for 50p" tells.

So who else feels giantkin will never be used again once said new enchanter spell is acquired.

 

[Clamml]

well i was mistaken was i forgot giantkin has a 40% reduce in agro so this spell would mostly be kept up on rogues, or rangers.

the new AA is mostly for spell casters so that is where I can see giantkin still being used, either wizards or clerics for the crits if it does indeed count for cleric heals for crits.

 

[vistachiri]

Protip, using anonymous or roleplaying blocks unwanted "can you come give jb for 50p" tells.

So who else feels giantkin will never be used again once said new enchanter spell is acquired.

Ngl as I stated earlier. I'd be pretty pissed off if it were cast on me because of the illusion component killing my elemental form.

 

[gelu]

to be honest the clr big heal is stupid large. there is no need for it to be that big. I would rather have a bigger quick heal instead and a bigger hot. even if the quick heal cost like 700 mana that would be worth it.

 

[stope21]

to be honest the clr big heal is stupid large. there is no need for it to be that big. I would rather have a bigger quick heal instead and a bigger hot. even if the quick heal cost like 700 mana that would be worth it.

I think this is a great idea. It would make you "I can either go w/ my effecient quick heal and hope it pads enough for a big heal to hit afterwards, or w/ my ineffecient big quick heal and better ensure the tank live but at the cost that I will go oom sooner." Overall it adds more diversity/choices to a clerics line-up and I think that is marvelous.

 

[stope21]

Runic: Protective Lustration - I think this spell is great, and is a nice addition to our spell set.
Descending Judgement - I think this spell needs some work to be useful.


Allow me to begin with the biggest problems with agro high end:
1) Sk's are cutting into our niche of AE agro by being able to use Shout of Agony, thus further obsoleting paladins.
2) Many high end mob's MR is high enough that paladins really struggle to keep agro on just 1 mob.

I think we really need something to either make us stand out in terms of AE agro or some kind of boost in single target agro ability. This spell just isn't it. Maybe even a boost somewhere else, like a quick casting 2500 pt base heal that you can use once every 10 minutes (would still be pallyish). Just something to further differentiate us from SK's.

My 3 suggestions to change Descending Judgement to:
1) Super low resist, large range PBAOE, that can hit up to 12 targets (like -400 resist adjust, and 75 range). Make it cost a large amount of mana. Using it You will be sacrificing a large amount of mana, but in return your nearly gauruntee that you will have a decent amount of agro on everything. This sounds like a pretty awesome spell, but in order to compete w/ shout it's going to take quite a bit. Even as a pally (the AE kings), I keep shout of 24/7 and value it dearly.
2) An unresistable spell. Will need to rival the utility of shout which generates 400+ agro on 6 mobs (total of 2400 agro should it hit max targets). The pally version could be about a 10 minute recast 1000 agro unresistable w/ 1 second cast. I dont really like this as it does not differientiate our class from sk's, but rather makes us more interchangeable. It simply levels the playing field.
3) A single target 2500 base pt 1 second cast time heal. Repops once every 10 minutes. Sort of like a faster LoH, but requires a slot on your spell bar. Could even drain a lot of your mana or stun you for 10 seconds.

As a whole, I feel SK's are treading far too close to our ability to tank multiple mobs. Even w/o shout sks can tank 3 mobs at a time fairly easily. Thus our AE agro only helps when tanking more than 3. But when there is more, they just shout and continue on. Throw in a whirlwind, a PoA sword, or a thaz BP and you're adding icing to the cake.


In conclusion, I think our larger group HoT is a great spell, but for our agro spell I'd like to see it changed to one of my 3 suggestions. The way it is now, I just don't see me ever using it.

 

[donfolstar3]

I find it strange that this thread has lost steam...

On necro spells:
Hierophants Breath: I would like to clarify my previous comment on this spell

Seems to me the PbAoE Dot is highly situational and would be more suited as a "regular" spell instead of a runic/artifact- nobody wants to raid and raid and raid and raid to finally get some spell they'll cast 2/3 times eve

I meant highly situation "in raids" and some spell they'll cast 2/3 times ever "on raids". Which in retrospect isn't true, it'll probably get cast a lot more then that, but still, imho, better suited to be a 'regular' spell instead of one only raiders could obtain- as it has many more uses in xp grind then raids.


Pox of Razad: I have to agree with Felyn/Paxx that the suggested mana cost makes this spell somewhat bleh. On a completely unrelated sidenote I noticed something peculiar about the suggested spells...

New Pet: Mag, Bst
New Swarm Pet: Mag, Bst, Wiz (?!?!)

...anyway, maybe something else could be put in for the Necro Artifact spell. Though it does seem to me that offering Necros a difficult to obtain artifact swarm pet that was "the best" swarm pet would offset then not getting a new pet spell. Or vise versa (only "the rough equal" instead of best).


Channel Essence: The more I think about this spell the more I do not like it. Besides the amount 'healed' being small fries and the added effect being a step towards mana battery-ness there are so many other necro spells that the community actually wants to see an upgrade to.

Assuming someone actually agrees with me above and makes the pbaoe dot a 'regular' spell, leaving a raid oriented slot open think how great a new zevfeers (or group healing lifetap) would be for offsetting aoe damage on raids?


Another idea I just want to kick in- Splart (opposite of Splurt?), a spell that STARTS ticking at high damage, but dwindles each tick. Work the numbers so that it would give necs the option of recasting every 3-4 ticks for decent, but mana inefficient, burst damage, or just to let tick away and enjoy the effects of the attached debuff (debuff to prevent stacking too).

 

[stickupkid]

Regarding bard songs:

I thought a bit about it and came up with several ideas which i think would be quite nice (some ideas were brought up already):

1) some kind of melee debuff for mobs other than slow (i dunno what it could do, but to lower mob melee dps) COMBINED with a huge aggro component which would act like some kind of tanking support/aggro song to use exclusivly when the bard is trying to tank

2) an upgraded single target chant. It could consist of 4 or 5 smaller portion for each of the resists, which add up together. So when you sing it the mob gets hit by 4/5 dots or dds based on fire, cold, poison, disease (and magic) resist. Dunno how useful that would be tho, maybe just an upgraded fire/cold chant like it was suggested already would be better. Either as double-action-power song or as one for each of the two resists.

3) another AE dot to twist with Denons Agonizing Discord in the right situations. Theres Bereavement to use, but that sucks damage wise and it seems it has a stun component too which might draw more aggro than without it.

by the way: why are the AE DDs which are really mana expensive not PBAE too instead of targeted AE? I almost never use them....well actually never ever did other than testing. This is because I end up getting hit myself if I use it in AE groups or i will need to run away first, which also sucks if i got mob sticking on my ass, which then will not get hit. Making them PBAE would make them so much more useful. This would also give those songs more of a Finishing Move feeling they are supposed to have as the name Denons Requiem Finale suggestst already. Please have a look into this while you work on the new spells/songs if you can.

3a) If changing the old AE DDs to PBAE is out of line.. introduce a new PBAE DD, with a long recast or big mana cost, that then acts like some kind of emergency and/or finishing move song for multiple mobs.

4) a melee debuff like i suggested in 1), but without aggro component. To assist on mob debuffing, other than slowing and maybe using occlusion of sound to lower resist. This would be helpful on raids as well as in groups. Some kind of bard cripple or so.

5) an escape type song or a single target memory blur/wipe. I guess the bard version of escape from live was "taken out" because it was too overpowered? (idk why it was replaced by speed like wind so enlighten me please). This would be so useful for so much situations i think. Scouting, Pulling, Aggro loss, Ass Saver and whatnot. If you think that an escape type song is too overpowered make it real long recast or huge mana cost.. up to complete mana drain, to make it some kind of emergency thing. (although im guessing nobody would mem it then other than very special situations)

6) if memwipe/escape is out of line, maybe some kind of ae hate reduction. Useful in those situations that the bard has alot of mobs on him, because he got stunned and all mezzes broke for example.

7) an Melee version of melody of the shield, which reduces the melee damage taken. Maybe they should stack, maybe they should not, idk really.

8) A fast/instant recast nuke dd song like the bellows, but without aggro/stun. Just pure damage.

8a) A Requiem like BIG nuke but single target. Aka Single Target Finishing Nuke.
---

Ok lol thats all i came up with now.. quite alot, and probably alot of crap or misplaced stuff, but take it as an inspiration. Some of the stuff, like an aggro song (with or without debuff and/or tanking support component), new AE dot, new chant etc. i really think are good candidates tho.

Sorry for my english and for writing so much ;P .. hope you can understand all and take the time to read it tho hehe.

k thx bye

 

[Xach]

Descending Judgement - I think this spell needs some work to be useful.

I agree, a rain for a paladin is pretty bogus.

Allow me to begin with the biggest problems with agro high end:
Sk's are cutting into our niche of AE agro by being able to use Shout of Agony, thus further obsoleting paladins.

Not even close. Shout has its uses and I'm glad we took the time to get it but its recast really limits its usefulness, especially since its very resistable. I also think your reasons for wanting a future spell to be changed should be because it fits your class niche, not because a similar class can do it and you want to do it too.

I think we really need something to either make us stand out in terms of AE agro. Just something to further differentiate us from SK's.

AE blinds don't accomplish this? I don't want to discredit your knowledge of playing a shadowknight, but I've spent plenty of time on both (even to the point most of my druid's AAs came from boxing a paladin) and AE blinds, at least in a group setting are extremely powerful. Adding another form of AE aggro that is good for the raid game as well seems overpowered.

My 3 suggestions to change Descending Judgement to:
1) Super low resist, large range PBAOE, that can hit up to 12 targets (like -400 resist adjust, and 75 range). Make it cost a large amount of mana. Using it You will be sacrificing a large amount of mana, but in return your nearly gauruntee that you will have a decent amount of agro on everything. This sounds like a pretty awesome spell, but in order to compete w/ shout it's going to take quite a bit. Even as a pally (the AE kings), I keep shout of 24/7 and value it dearly.

Again, I think you're putting Shout of Agony on too high of a pedestal. It only has a -50 resist check, I hardly see the reasoning in a -400 resist check spell to "compete" with shout. A spell with a resist adjust of -200, large mana consumption, and a long (minute +) recast I can see as reasonable.

2) An unresistable spell. Will need to rival the utility of shout which generates 400+ agro on 6 mobs (total of 2400 agro should it hit max targets). The pally version could be about a 10 minute recast 1000 agro unresistable w/ 1 second cast. I dont really like this as it does not differientiate our class from sk's, but rather makes us more interchangeable. It simply levels the playing field.

Sounds like an awesome spell, but it has little to do with the niche that paladins fill. Their deal isn't unresistable spells. Again, I don't like the idea of basing one class off of what another is supposed to do, but I agree that this type of spell would make the Paladin too much like the Shadowknight.

3) A single target 2500 base pt 1 second cast time heal. Repops once every 10 minutes. Sort of like a faster LoH, but requires a slot on your spell bar. Could even drain a lot of your mana or stun you for 10 seconds.

This is the kind of thing I'd like to see. Even if you may not necessarily be able to grab aggro immediately because of resists, you'll certainly be able to save the person the mob goes off on to and get heal aggro from doing it.

As a whole, I feel SK's are treading far too close to our ability to tank multiple mobs. Even w/o shout sks can tank 3 mobs at a time fairly easily. Thus our AE agro only helps when tanking more than 3. But when there is more, they just shout and continue on. Throw in a whirlwind, a PoA sword, or a thaz BP and you're adding icing to the cake.

Again I disagree, depending on the situation it can be extremely difficult for a Shadowknight to tank multiple mobs. This coming from an SK who has Thaz BP. Even in a group situation if everyone doesn't assist on the correct mob they will 90% pull aggro. Ask Tyrone.

In conclusion, I think our larger group HoT is a great spell, but for our agro spell I'd like to see it changed to one of my 3 suggestions. The way it is now, I just don't see me ever using it.

I don't necessarily like all your ideas, but I can agree that the current form of the spell is quite useless.

 

[Severien]

-Shelter of the Ancients: Pet based 2000 point magic rune, 680 mana, 2 second cast, 30 second recast

I may only be a ranger as an alt, but am I the only one who regards this rather dubiously? Rangers exist to do melee damage from a range... they're the only class that does it, that's their niche, and they excel at melee dps. Generally the thought on raids is "how can I further increase my dps?" and not "How can I keep someone else's pet alive?"
The spell wasn't a terrible idea when it was imagined as a buff the ranger could cast to reduce AE damage. Runes mean recasts and a 2 second cast plus a short refresh translates to a dps drop and a serious annoyance for the ranger. Ranger isn't a pet class which doesn't exactly lead to a lot of incentive to even use it. In my opinion its a slap in the face to rangers even if its a small increase in utility. I would rather re-roll a rogue than have a mage bitching at me for not keeping his pet runed.

Don't get me wrong its a useful spell but I don't think its something most rangers would enjoy keeping on their spell bar and using. Perhaps we need to think up some other way to add to ranger utility that is more in the spirit of the ranger class and less of an annoyance to the player using it.

I'd rather have a 2hr duration Firefist.

 

[Dzillon]

RP wise rangers taking care of pets doesn't surprise me. And the Shelter line was thought of a while back, actually BST & RNG are still expecting the spells you're talking about, this one would just be a different style of spells of the same line. Imo it would be pretty awesome, except ranger would have to be near the pets which yeah, means less bowing and less dps.
Now if we could get off the "you're made for dps just don't move an inch bitch" I wouldn't mind. So what, rangers shouldn't use Chloroblast ever either ?
EDIT : actually you might not be pleased to hear that so just don't use it when it comes out.

 

[Xach]

The purpose of the ranger spell is to give them a reason to be on the raid. Their contributions thus far are limited as all they can really do to help the raid is to cast an annoying +attack buff that really only they want, and to add dps. And you can easily add a different dps class to achieve the same thing.

This spell is to give them their niche.

 

[Mythryn]

Ta-da!


Bard
Runic: Dirge of the Stalwart: Raid wide BUFF (not a song) for 500 mana, lasts 40 minutes, increase HP and AC by 100, 300 point rune.

Ranger
Runic: Flare Shot: Self buff for 1500 mana, lasts 18 seconds, adds a 1900 damage AE proc to melee.

Shadowknight
Runic: Scream of Horror: Target based 18 second buff for 800 mana, Increase aggression by 200%, 10% death save, add proc: Anger (75 agro)

Cleric AND Paladin
Runic: Zealous Might: Self based 12 second buff for 440 mana, increase attack by 100, DEX and STR by 50, overhaste, decrease aggression by 50%, add proc: cease (1 second stun)