Demi-plane Shaman only item - Update from Zajeer 11-4

[Telosk]

[Scowls]

[Brohg]

A ton of resources went into storyline, zone design, and content. Itemization and spells are a pretty isolated facet of Everquest development. Each one gets one guy only to work on it. If you're going to criticize the game's makers & operators, at least criticize the right ones.

[Tugela]

[Tugela]

[Scowls]

[Maitz]

DoD storyline is pretty good and has been welll thought out imo not that you have experienced much of it outside single group tasks judging by your Curse of Blood aa's.Also I don't know what orc models have to do with it. Go bash the fag that made the models not Dev behind EQ lore (Vahlar). Mission arcs are a nice way to experience the story behind the game not just read about it or "experience" it on raids even if some are frustrating.

[Scowls]

[Moontrei]

[Scowls]

[Brohg]

[Bethiana]

[Scowls]

[Samanna]

[Gonlok]

used to have Ravenous Hunger, which had name and effect to the current Ravenous Sloth.

[Swobu_AB]

[Samanna]

[Swobu_AB]

[Samanna]

[Swobu_AB]

Samanna it is not just the uselessness of the Focus effect it is the items meaningful stats that are poor.

By meaningful stats I mean HP/Mana/AC Shielding, spell shield, stun resist etc.

Avoidance is the last thing shammies at the level where this item drops need any more of, well last after Regen 6 which is utterly and totally worthless since 1. Most shammies at DP raiding levels have maxed regen and 2. Regen is fundamentally pointless with the damage dished out in events we take part in.

Essentially this item becomes a 330 hp/mana earring with no other benefits and as such our class only item in this expansion is a lump of junk. There are better earrings available as pointed out at the start of this thread which plonk the entire shaman only class item firmly into perma rot status.

Yes to non top end raiders this item is kick arse, but to those of us that actually see these things drop (2 on one Hatchet 4 on another 4 and none on one) it is not good enough and needs to be addressed. If I was to equip this earring I would lose one of 2 useful focus effects and gain a bit of HP/mana, the other shammies in Raging Fury feel the same way, so far 6 of these have rotted for us and none of the 4 raiding shammies have bought one.
Incidentally since this thread started I have obtained the Lingering Sloth spell and situationally it's OK even quite handy, however with my existing beneficial buff extension item and AA's the duration is fine so a specific spell buff duration extension is utterly worthless unless it was by a massive margin like 500% extension. If the focus upped the strength of the slow so I never had to bother slow debuffing mobs (daydream) then again it would be useful.

As our class Rep to the devs and the item devs in particular you really should be aware that our demi plane class item is even worse than many of the other classes and needs to be drastically improved. I do hope that you begin to campaign on our behalf to get this item improved.

[Bethiana]

[Brohg]

[Gonlok]

[Brohg]

[Swobu_AB]

[Brohg]

[Swobu_AB]

As an update to this thread we have killed all of the DP mobs apart from Mayong on at least 2 occasions and all of the class items apart from the bard instruments have sold. Every shammy earring has rotted.

If this sheds some light on how appalingly weak the Shaman class item is compared to the others then hopefully you will continue to campaign to get this improved. Fortunately the last few Hatchets haven't dropped one to rot, but I am sure that we will see more rot shortly.

[Scowls]

[Kozul]

[siludorf]

[Brohg]

That chance to dodge mod isn't what you think it is. It's good, but only as one more inch in the battle to go a mile. The key is that the mod only works on Dodges, not overall avoidance. Compare to which has the line "1: Increase Chance to Avoid Melee by 50%". Commanding Voice is just a bardsong version of . The overall effect on avoiding melee is about 1.2%, I think you can check out the Vigdis compilation in the dropdowns for an explanation. That's not nothing, by a long shot; tanks will gladly pack on 1-200 ac to get the same effect. It's very far away from being overpowered, though. The fact that it's instant doesn't mean anything, since melee abilities are limited by cost, not cast times.

[Samanna]

I actually just made some corrections and additions to the dropdown Effects page, based on EQLive feedback.

[Brohg]

Are the edits highlighted? I'm very interested

[Samanna]

[Swobu_AB]

While that info is good and plenty of people appreciate the site links, I certainly do, they don't make our class item any better.

Are you actively campaigning to get the Rune-Etched Vampire Fang improved like the other class reps have? Most of the other classes have usable and decent class only items in Demi Plane and ours is horrible. The slot is good, the focus effect being limited to a duration on an already extendable buff is pointless and the stats are crap.

Regen at the level this item drops is maxed (and fairly useless with 1k+/tick dots), the 12% alteration skill mod is a direct duplicate of the Anguish hat which people are unlikely to be replacing in DP and is fairly useless anyway and Avoidance is liberally available elsewhere so shielding, spell shield, dot shield or stun resist would be of vastly more use.

[Samanna]

[Swobu_AB]

Well an educated guess is that he talked with no more than half a dozen shaman who had looted the earring by the time it was changed. We had let 2 rot by that time and 4 or 5 since.

Certainly from my perspective it needs improvement to be worth buying and equipping. My criticisms of the flaws in the item are visible in the post you responded to.

[Brohg]

[Alyna]

Maybe you can lobby to have the spell changed to be somewhat useful like a snare proc (maybe the one from the new VP spear), then the item won't need to change.

[Brohg]

Reverse proc Mala would actually be kinda hot stuff.