The unused shaman spell: Fury of the North

Glamrin

Glamrin

Staff Emeritus
The shaman lvl 61 spell Fury of the North (cold based nuke, base: 890, casting time: 7.25) is currently not really used by myself or any of the shamans I know on the server. This being the highest lvl cold dd, highest dmg dd a shaman gets, leaves all shamans to use dot's only for their solo or group dps.

In the past, and for some groups still, dots are a very viable source of dps, however, for many groups today the mobs just die too fast for a dot to be very effective, it might just get 1 tick in if even that.

The druid lvl 63 spell flamestrike has a base dmg at 1225 with a cast time of 5 seconds... and to my knowledge there arent really that many nukes in game with a cast time as long as that of the pretty much unused shaman spell (few nukes have a cast time over 7.25 seconds).

The difference between base dmg of the shaman spell and druid spell is fine, shaman main dps is dots. However, the long cast time is the biggest problem and what prevents people from actually using this spell.

I'd like to ask the cast time to be reduced to the same as flamestrike ie 5 seconds. I cannot really see a good reason for the current long cast time and putting it at 5 seconds would put it more inline. The difference wouldn't be huge, but it would make the spell useful and allow shamans to be of some use in high dps groups with another healer present.
 
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I think the point of fury of the north is an alternative to poison when a mob is immune, and not as a form of dps when you can't use dots. You have searing venom, which while slightly less damage, and slightly less mana efficient, it's considerably more dps due to the fact its only a 3 second cast.
 
And all really useful shaman dps spells are poison based, even though they have lines of spells in disease and cold (64 black plague (115dd 270per tick), 65 plaguewind(being an exception for ae dps) and 61 fury of the north).

in your scenario, when you consider a shaman might use fury (and yes there are a lot of places where poison based dps is worthless), he would be outdps'd by melee classes standing back and just throwing spells..

Reference: Fury of the north, 7.25 second, 890 base.
comparisons:

beastlord:
harsh winter, 1.6 seconds, 430 base. (1.6 x 3 = 4.8 seconds + time for reflexes), 1290 base dmg)
shadowknight:
deflux 1.5 seconds, 330 base. (1.5 x 3 = 4.5 sec, 990 base)
ranger:
icerend, 0.5 seconds 12sec recast, 875 base.
paladin:
expel undead, 2.2 sec, 273 base. (2.2 x 3 = 6.6 sec, 819 base... slightly lower, but wouldnt be using this spell in real scenario, would go for ae spells doing more dmg per mob and on multiples, included for reference)

...
then ofcourse those classes would have most of their dps from melee, arrows or other means. in comparison, as it stands you would be better off meleeing with disease dot active as a shaman than casting fury of the north. ie even if the thought were to use it as an alternative... theres no big point using it with its current casttime.

Lowering its casttime and putting it inline with druid dd casttimes and most longer casttime dd's in game wouldnt really unbalance anything. But it would make the spell useful in those scenarios you mentioned.
 
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I don't use FOTN for that very reason, takes too damn long to cast. Besides, the animation for Searing Venom is way cooler. Big-ass-green-snakes=win.
 
Fury of the North is for situations like First Ruins if you are fighting the poison immune dudes. Otherwise, you stack poison dots.
 
The only time I see Fury of the North being used is when you can't get 3 ticks off a Dot before the target dies. (or the target has massive Disease and Poison resistance).

The issue... 7 sec cast time for a 890 based nuke. Vs Just meleeing with Divine Rage.

Might sound odd but my Shaman has +2% critcal strike (its a fluk of gear not intentional) and hits over 100 regulary with his spear. Add Haste, weapon proc, and Divine Rage proc, those 7ish secs are better spent Meleeing the target then trying to nuke it with Fury of the North.
And this is asumeing those 7 secs arn't better spent debuffing the target or just hitting Canni a few times.

So your left with the use of Fury of the North only use, as being when a target is Disease and Posion resistance, and your Melee damage doesn't do more then the nuke. (or if you can't melee the target, WW or something).

Aka.... VERY limited use, so limited that I think I have memed and used this spell all of 3 times. Which were during my 61-63 levels. Once you get searing Venom its game over for this spell.

My 2 cp

Ether decrease its casting time
Increase its Damage
or Add a decent resist mod to the spell

Or a combo of the above :)
 
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Do shamans really need a better nuke? Who cares if you rarely use it, or if it is highly situational. Can you name a class who doesn't have a single spell they rarely use?

If mobs are dying so fast that even poison dots aren't worth it, would taking 2 seconds off this terrible nuke really matter?

Kirin said:
So your left with the use of Fury of the North only use, as being when a target is Disease and Posion resistance, and your Melee damage doesn't do more then the nuke. (or if you can't melee the target, WW or something).

Aka.... VERY limited use, so limited that I think I have memed and used this spell all of 3 times. Which were during my 61-63 levels. Once you get searing Venom its game over for this spell.
Click to expand...

Oh wow, you mean once you get a better nuke, you don't use the other worse nuke? How is this justification for making the lower level nuke better?
 
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Kirin Folken said:
The only time I see Fury of the North being used is when you can't get 3 ticks off a Dot before the target dies. (or the target has massive Disease and Poison resistance).

The issue... 7 sec cast time for a 890 based nuke. Vs Just meleeing with Divine Rage.

Might sound odd but my Shaman has +2% critcal strike (its a fluk of gear not intentional) and hits over 100 regulary with his spear. Add Haste, weapon proc, and Divine Rage proc, those 7ish secs are better spent Meleeing the target then trying to nuke it with Fury of the North.
And this is asumeing those 7 secs arn't better spent debuffing the target or just hitting Canni a few times.

So your left with the use of Fury of the North only use, as being when a target is Disease and Posion resistance, and your Melee damage doesn't do more then the nuke. (or if you can't melee the target, WW or something).

Aka.... VERY limited use, so limited that I think I have memed and used this spell all of 3 times. Which were during my 61-63 levels. Once you get searing Venom its game over for this spell.

My 2 cp

Ether decrease its casting time
Increase its Damage
or Add a decent resist mod to the spell

Or a combo of the above :)
Click to expand...

Haste + divine rage + omg max your fucking weapon skills = better then that nuke.
If a shm cant land his dots aka FR I would rather have that shm doing something other then casting a worthless nuke.
Im also bias in the fact that all of the times I ever Single Client or Duo box a Shaman I never found a decent use for the spell.
Everyone has an opinion and thats mine.
 
But do you think it is a problem that you don't have a use for it? There are a lot of spells like that, spread between all the classes. You level up, you get better spells. During the 60s, this happens a lot faster for some classes.
 
Junius is right, there are an awful lot of spells that are just plain useless 99% of the time, even at the level you get them. If every spell was omfg awesome in every situation the game would be boring. Fury of the north sux? ok well don't use it then, but it doesn't mean it needs to be good when there are other ways you can deal dps.
 
So you guys are basically saying that every class has useless spells, so why bother making a useless spell into one that is situational at best?
 
Cast time should probably be lowered to 5 or so, I don't know why it would even have such an insane cast time.
 
Jun said:
But do you think it is a problem that you don't have a use for it? There are a lot of spells like that, spread between all the classes. You level up, you get better spells. During the 60s, this happens a lot faster for some classes.
Click to expand...

Not at all. I know there are lots of "useless spells." Someone wanted me to elaborate on my previous post. I can do more efficient damage on a shm meleeing or getting it on with the pet then using mana on a spell that wasted a large chunk of time to cast.
I guess if you slowed everything and debuffed everything and couldnt land ANY dots you could try that spell. Its not in my spell lineup at all however.
Its the same argument I make about paladin spells. I have 2 set spell lineups and I dont need to use anything else. Thats my playstyle and works for me.
If you like the spell thats great, you found a use for it. Go nuke away and what wiz said, maybe it will have a reduced cast time and you could do something with it. I still prefer seeing divine rage procs which add up to more for free.
 
What he said :)

Knocking its Cast down to the 5 sec area like Wiz suggested would at least make the spell situation vs Useless.
 
Rather surprised that no-one's mentioned torrent of poison here. As a 65 druid, I often still use Blizzard for the "mobs are dying fast" type of stuff. At 580*3 for 380mana, torrent looks better on paper than blizzard, so what's wrong with it as a workhorse spell for high DPS groups?
 
Well in this thread thats a easy question to answer... its Poison based.

That said, I enjoy this spell and its in my spell line up fairly often. Works well in combination with Plaguewind for AoE crowds.
 
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