Spell Critique

[Rommuluss]

The next expansion is around the corner, and I have no doubt the our Shaman Correspondent and the EQ spell Developer, whomever that may be, is hard at work looking at Shaman spells. The purpose is to give these folks another reason to carefully consider the next line of Shaman spells( you may argue, they wont bother on this forum--I have sent this directly to EQ Development to ensure that someone MIGHT look at it).

We all have our opinion about them, but I would like to appeal, or at least highlight my viewpoint on the current 76-80 Spells. My stance may differ from some, since this critique will be based on my personal experience largely during Raid encounters.

I have played my Shaman as a main character in a progression guild since 10/01, and in Diligence( with the exception of a brief stint elsewhere) since 9/02. At the very least, I think its fair to say, my experience using these spells is significant.

This exercise is not designed to be purposefuly controversial, or ridiculously critical, simply to whine and moan, or suggest that Shaman are not powerful enough, relative to other classes. Rather, to look at utility, and to make reasonable comparisons across priest classes about the that issue. Life is not 'fair', in my opinion, so to make equations with EQ, to make cardboard cut-out classes would not be desirable, even if it were achievable. I will add some possible alternatives or solutions.

First, I would reference those interested to the list of Broken Spells on this board. I will not re-address this issue. I make the assumption that each spell we have is fully functional for my evaluation, and based on Rank 3:

Shaman Level 80, #6
Talisman of Bloodworg---Fine
Shade of Renewal---Fine, although marginally weak in certain situations and far inferior to Cleric Elixir of Atonement. Improve somewhat.
Thorn Wiling---Largely useless, except in probably rare event circumstances. As a level 80 spell, completely underpowered. Replace/remove, or void next series.
Vengeance of Kerafym---Useful, but relative to Rancor, underpowered for 80th level spell. Improve significantly, or eliminate in favor of a cold DOT, magic nuke/dot or some other damage spell that justifies this level.
Preincarnation---Fine.
Ward of Resurgence---Interesting conceptually, potentially useful defensive spell, but wholly impractical with current duration, necessitating use of a valuable gem slot virtually in perpetuity. Improve Duration( and mana expenditure if necessary).

Conclusion: 2, Fine. 2 underpowered, 1 impractical, 1 essentially useless.

Shaman Level 79, #5
Chant of the Darkvine---Marginal. 6 Corruption for a group( vs 24 for Expatiate Corruption, Cleric) is at best situational, since lower level Corruption AE's and spells will either require 2 group casts, or some 3-4 to heal a single person, which is time consuming and impractical. Improve cure to 8 or more.
Pocus---Fine
Rancor of Agony--Fine
Talisman of the Stalwart---Fine.
Tundra Crumble--- Very Marginal/situational. I haven't personally used Cold damage for a number of expansions, so my actual preference is to list this as Useless. It casts too slow, in the first place, overall is weak DPS for the effort, and most important, requires another Focus effect---which is problematic. Dispose of this entire line of damage spells, or as I suggested above, make our 'pinnacle' 80th damage spell cold related---damage over time, etc. ( on a side note, I suppose one of the intial premises was that Barbarian Shaman from Everfrost should have this power, which hardly applies to Ogres/Trolls, or presently to Frogs or Vah Shir. There is no reasonable 'lore' reason to keep this spell line, but old habits apparently die hard).

Conclusion: 3, Fine, 1 Marginal, 1 Very Marginal

Shaman Level 78, #6
Ancestral Hearkening---Fine.
Ancestral Intervention---Fine.
Bite of the Brownie---Fine.
Bloodworg Focusing---Fine.
Gemmi's Restoration---Fine.( although this spell is weak for high end burst DPS situations, and relatively mana inefficient when compared to other priest classes, I personally contend that any 'improvement', if contemplated, should be focused on our heal over time).
Halcyon Zephr---Fine, but underpowered relative to Clerics, again. They are the main healing class, so its kinda hard to argue---but, did we not have this spell first? And since its arguably our most efficient heal, and the cardinal Shaman healing spell, should it really be overcast? In my judgement, this marginalizes Shaman healing signifcantly in a raid. Druids have Adrenaline Swell, which is instant, and cannot be 'altered' by Clerics, even if weaker than Clerics. Should we not be entitled to some heal that is unique(in this case, I mean has only heal effect---not a proc., like Langour)? ( the argument that slow is a our 'true' heal spell, is an interesting counterpoint, even thought BST and ENC have slow, we can overide them.) Various recent posts and arguments about healing balance on the EQ forums, at least in terms of Shaman, could arguably be solved by allowing Shaman a better hot spell than Clerics or at LEAST, to not let theirs negate ours. But, this is a long digression from the purpose of this post.

Conclusion: 5, Fine.

Shaman Level 77, #5
Feralsis---Useless. Find me a Raid NPC whom this affects( or even a subtype for most grouping), and it would be a marginal, or even reasonable additional detrimental debuff to our armementarium. Needs drastic code change to make this useful. Otherwise, dump it entirely.
Langour---Fine. However, the heal is weak, lets face it. Ideally this would be enhanced somewhat, but at least it has utility as currently implemented, and adds value to our overall healing 'style'...slow, steady, additive. (Regen+HOT+Langour+/-Epic).
Malosinatia---Fine. Crossover with Mages makes this less imperative, and in no way unique to Shaman. Arguably redundant----but one cannot count on Mages necessarily being in every raid, I suppose.
Vegu's Faithful---Useless( Fine). Raid(group). Simply not tough enough or high enough DPS to bother casting during virtually any raid encounter. This tradition of giving us a pet principally for group usage is cute, but most of us could find a better idea for this spell slot at level 77. Personally, I would like to see this consolidated with our AA Spirit Call line, giving us perhaps a 'leg up' on other classes who have these swarm pets, OR making it a spell cast single "swarm" pet that does perhaps Triple the Damage of the normal pet, lasts for two minutes with a 6 minute recast(or something to that effect). This would not please those who are already irritated by lack of gem slots, however. With the former, then, replace it with something novel, not necessarily ridiculously powered.
Rollist's Drowse---Fine.

Conclusion: 3, Fine. 2 Useless( or 2 group marginal)

Shaman 76, #6
Breath of Big Bynn---Marginal/Useless. Lack of focus effects is one criticism, and high resist rate on many Raid NPC's is another. Like the cold line, making Shaman literally have the most Damage foci effects of any class, is problematic. I rarely use this spell, unless soloing. Even then, its marginal. Replace or Improve resist check and/or available focus effect items.
Spirit of the Stalwart---Marginal/Useless. I never find that my mana pool, either in group( because of OOC) or Raid( when really everyone, or no one, could utilize the effects) ever justifies the use of this spell. I have never cast it.
Spirit of Vehemence---Marginal/Useless. In raids, I will occasionally use this for rebuffs, when mana is at a premium( uncommon at best), to buff a Tank mid-fight. Usually I hit the whole group, if for no other reason to avoid the inevitable next tell, of the next person in the group who needs. I seriously doubt anyone's game play would be remotely affected by elimination of this single target buff. Moreover, its 'taking the place' of a potentially novel or new spell, much like Spirit of the Stalwart.
Talisman of Vehemence---Fine.
Talisman of Cougar---Fine
Vestax's Spear of Venom---Fine.

Conclusion: 3, fine, 2-3 Useless/marginal

Totals: 28 spells, 16 Fine, 3 underpowered, 2 marginal, 1 very marginal, 1 impractical , 5 useless.

I truly wonder whether other priest classes's ( or any class) can honestly contend that 18% of their spells are useless, 32% dubious/useless or 43% dubioius/useless or clearly underpowered, from a utility standpoint. A question, or research project I have not studied. But that really doesnt matter so much, really. What matters is that for all those spells, something interesting/novel/unique could readily be implemented that would be more useful, and even fun.

[Funi]

As a Shaman that has cleared Crystallos and who's guild has this zone on farm status for some time now I'd have to agree with most of what has been posted here.

[Unmei]

While your analysis is kinda skewed towards the raid game, at least you acknowledge that in most cases. The place where you miss it is with Spirit of Vehemence (and spirit of the Stalwart. Oh, and I note you seem to skipped Talisman of the Stalwart entirely?). Single Target buffs exist for convenience. They do not "occupy the spot that could be filled with a more useful spell" since they did away with the idiotic arbitrary spell numbers from TSS. Group buffs should receive single target equivalents. For convenience. There is no loss for doing so.

[Yesak]

Really intelligent work. Since I've just recently hit 80, I can't really comment too well yet on your analysis. However, being a veteran player off and on since Kunark, there's a few things I always notice. For one, most of our spells are just recycled upgrades of spells we already have. New crappy pet,w ee! New useless disease DoT, yeah! New crappy ice nuke, hell yeah!!...... Same stuff for years.

Innovation in EQ spells will necessarily be hard to come by. In the almost 10 years EQ has been out, ideas for things like this have been kicked around, toyed with and just generally thought about all the time. However, innovation in a few spells will be hard. The devs realize that the people playing EQ now like the game as it is (in one way or another) or they'd be playing something else. This creates boundaries that they have to respect. So wholesale or rapid change and innovation simply will not work. Everyone remembers the new Coke formula from years back. It was probably a better taste and a better product, but it flopped because people who drank Coke, liked Coke and wanted to keep it that way. Same sort of thing happens to all established items, and now that EQ is basically entrenched, large changes risk losing alot of people.

Now for my pragmatic side. This next paragraph is dedicated to everyone, not Rom. I think everyone is aware that the devs are not stupid, nor are they adverse to innovation. However, asking them to be innovative and yet keep things within the boundaries already formed by EQ is hard to do after 10 years. Do them a huge favor and instead of telling them where they have failed, give them ideas on how to get better. Saying spell x sucks might end that line of spells in future expansions or do away with the current one, but it is not help at all in getting better spells out there. As players, we have intimate knowledge on how our class plays. Much better than the devs. Do them and us a favor and brainstorm some new spells or AAs. We can't guarantee they'll listen but it gets more done than saying the spells they have are worthless.

That being said, Rom, your comments on the crappier spells are great. I'm glad you're thinking about how to improve instead of just complaining as most of us seem to do. I'm curious to see where this thread leads. Might be a very useful exercize

[Khauruk]

[quote="Yesak"]I think everyone is aware that the devs are not stupid, nor are they adverse to innovation.[/quote]

I wish this was true.

[Yesak]

They may be misguided, or stubborn, or any number of other faults, but downright stupidity is not one of them (I hope, if they are just downright stupid, God help us all who play EQ).

[Vasei]

I'm also very interested in seeing where this goes, and hoping (die hard optimist that I am) the ad hominem attacks on the devs are kept to a minimum... do people really think that helps?

Given the thread title, this will probably be mostly about existing spells, and less about new ideas - but I really like the slant toward separating out group vs. raid utility on said spells.

No reason not to reach back, also...
Cripple - we used to be on par with enchanters for this line, was it intentional that ours is now far inferior?
Haste - as with cripple, enchanters have gotten upgrades, and we have not. Is it time to play a little catch-up?

Full list of vital spells lacking upgrades: http://samanna.net/wiki/index.php/Pre-OOW_Shaman_Spells
Group cure, group invis, even group lev - can we give up on the antiquated notion that giving us group spells will somehow take away from other classes? FoE doesn't somehow become less useful if shamans get group levitate. It simply becomes less annoying for us to single-target cast. Convenience isn't (or shouldn't be) a class balance issue. That seems to be the trend anyway, or did something about the guild hall teleport vs. druid/wiz ports somehow escape me?

[Unmei]

[Tordail]

[Retron]

[Yesak]

I dont have a huge problem with dogdog being pretty weak. He's always been underpowered and never a real big weapon in our arsenal. Why do we want something we've *never* had before. That being said, I'd at least like dogdog to do more dps than the cleric hammer. It's kind of pathetic when the floating hammer unbuffed is doing more damage than dogdog fully buffed with champ and everything else minus pet gear. In my world, either bump up dogdog's dps slightly (not asking to be anywhere near mage pets, dont get me wrong) or stop the cleric hammer from backstabbing.

Just bringing up our ice nuke. The reason why NO ONE ever uses it anymore is probably the cast time. The speed of the game has picked up considerably in EQ. From expansion to expansion, fighting is becoming faster and faster. Raid encounters take longer but all group content is taking less and less time to kill mob_01. That means our DoTs are pretty much useless because they only go off for a few ticks before mob is dead. Our ice nuke is pretty much useless because of the high cast time/low damage. Most people use our almost insta-cast poison nukes simply for convenience. Can do a number of different things while gem is refreshing. The fix here is simple. Either lower the cast time on our ice nuke, or bump up the damage to make it worthwhile to sit there and cast. No need to remove the line, just a tweak is needed.

[Unmei]

In defense of Dogdog:

A) He does more damage than the cleric pet assuming that you are casting Cougar.
B) If he lives through four fights, he cost less mana than the cleric pets did, since you only had to cast him one.

[bundler]

there are a few possible tweaks i would like from what we got this time, but what i really want is the lines we skipped this time to be revisited and upgraded, champion, haste, fort, etc.
as to our pet, this has NOTHING to do with how our spells will be, but i wish pet focus items would work on our pets. it won't be much increase, but i actually have died with a mob under 5% and a little tougher pet might have made the difference. sure, other classes get more benefit from that drop, but why should a player drag his/her #5 alt char to a zone when we can use it? sony needs to remove the limitation there is on pet focus stuff, a lot of classes have pets, but sony only helps certain ones. i know, i know, we aren't meant to get it, but in a dieing game, why not give us another reason to log in and farm a drop?

[Khauruk]

[Brohg]

It's a tiered pet. Gains ~2khp per rank.

[Maccuul]

Preincarnation is ok but the duration is weak. One of those spells I wouldnt mind trading mana cost for a longer duration.

Ward of Resurgence is a lousy spell most of the time... You pretty much have to take out another more useful spell in your line up for what amounts to a solo only spell.
It would make a much nicer aa without a major duration boost and no major mana cost increase.

I hate to complain but shoot its time for a group version of Lassitude/Langour line so we have single and group choices on this buff to.
I wouldnt even mind a double the mana cost/double the duration trade for this spell either.

For pets its WAY WAY overdue that they recode pets to be a dynamic creation at cast time instead of having so many pets taking up space/memory.
They could just even have the pets check for a focus and autocast perm buffs that cant be dispelled or something.
It's a bad system in need of some serious attention.

We dont need 2 posion nukes.... convert one to another resist....

Disease line needs help.... a gimmick... something....

Thorn Wilting is beyond useless.

I think the regen line could use some sprucing up beyond the minor hp upgrade we get.
Be pretty neat if it could do something along the lines of causing a HoT spell to focus, crit more often or proc in some way or something.

Most importantly though imho is rk 2 spells are WAY too rare from this past expansion.
I am finding it impossible to find some of them for sale at all at any price not to mention how insanely overpriced most of the useful spells tend to be.
I think struggling to fill a spell book 8 months after a release is a bit rough in the area of rarity.
It is actually easier to GROUP some rank 3 spells than get their rk 1 or 2 counter parts. To me that is just wrong.

[bundler]

ok, ok.....sometimes i think people just like to post contrary arguments, lol. i mentioned wanting pet focus drops to work on ALL pets, and i get the argument that it takes too much time to code that into eq.
SOOOOO.... instead of pet focus drops working on any pet, we get SEVERAL aa to increase our pets usefulness!! that will be how i address this, then. i want a tougher, more dangerous pet. if i can't make it happen with a drop, so be it that it CAN happen with a better pet being cast, or the aa to improve the pet. geeez, i never thought having pets with so many aa to be simpler than letting us have a clicky that makes a better pet.
honestly, this is one of the many reasons why eq is dieing. my idea may not be great, but the idea that it would be too hard to do????? OMFG!!!! all the time sony saved by reusing npc models from several expansions ago might have been used to code this instead of orcs that change shape in mid-fight and lag an entire zone,/sigh.

[Retron]

[Maccuul]

They are complicating the whole pet focus thing simply becsue they dont want to do it.

There is several EASY solutions.

MUDs had items that when worn increased your level.
That would only change the pets con level nothing else though.

However, if we already have aa to change our pets it would be darn simple to convert that code to focusing a pet.
As far as I know the aa to make the pets avoidance and mitigation increase does not make you summon a different pet but just items on that pet that change it.
Basically the back end is already in place to change pets this way.

They could also make it as simple as clicking an item to give you an aa.
Something like this was already done with classes and aa on leveling, and there is also the whole aa from an item click already in place.

Any argument on how hard it is are really a moot point because it is simply only as hard as they want to make hard on themselves.

Face it. It isnt all that hard to do. Maybe time consuming to redo the old focuses and get it all charted right so it lines up etc but its not HARD to do. They just dont WANT to do it.

Sheesh I mean are they really that uncreative and stupid?... I give them slightly more credit that they could do it if they wanted to and it wouldnt be all that hard either.

[Khauruk]

They're not that stupid or uncreative, or lazy. They're busy as hell is more like it. They have a several month backlog of fixes to get through QA, and are working like mad on the new expansion now. I know that the changes for pet foci are something Rytan really wants to go (he's said as much), but it's a pretty darn large undertaking, given how much things it can break.

It's one of those things that we all would like to see happen, even most of the main pet class players. But, it would need changes in both itemization and probably a weaker base pet for shammies.

Maybe if we push hard (but nicely) during beta, it can become a coding priority upon expansion release.

[Retron]

[bundler]

ok............sony has made their jobs obscenely difficult, OR this has gone way off my intended idea. i never intended for swarm pets to be benefiting from this, but why not?? why is it that sony can't VERY EASILY just give us next expansions pets when we use the focus?? it really scares me to think they have so little foresight that they would have no clue what next expansions pets will be like. i would hope there is some semi-linear scheme on what our pets level up like. in my really easy methodology, this next expansion would have pet focus items that simply bumped up ANY pet by EXACTLY one. if you have a normal tier one pet, you get a tier two pet. if you have a tier two pet, you get a tier three pet. now comes the REALLY fun part..........if you have worked hard enough to raid at the top level and get a tier three pet, you get NEXT EXPANSIONS tier one pet!! this works really easily on swarm pets etc. the exact same way.
now, if sony is soooooo poorly run they have no clue what the next upgrade to everyones pets may be like, this will be a problem. on the other hand, if sony DEMANDS that the people running eq have some plan towards the future, they just plug the future in to the game a little early.
i am not expecting sony to do anything overly complicated, just allow what SHOULD be a way to make pets a little more useful. my scheme may be waaaaaay different than however it has been done, but mine will work easily.

[Unmei]

[Unmei]

[bundler]

we should be able to bump any pet up a level easily, unless sony has such a mish-mash of scheme around pets they cannot use any linear formula. any defense involvling this being too much work is made possible only if sony has planned very poorly for any eq in the future. again i do not want a whole new scheme around pets, just the next upgrade.

[Yesak]

Bundler, you're funny. You're basically saying, "I want the next expansion pet's power that hasnt even come out yet", which is telling the devs to work at least 1 expansion ahead, as if they have everything planned out for the next year+ of EQ. Also, you are ignoring your own argument about there being no linear formula to the pet power. This is quite true, but this also means that devs tweak the power of EACH pet, as other people have posted.

Is the system messed up? Yup.
Should the devs have thought further into the future? Probably, but they didnt expect EQ to last half as long as it has, no one thought it'd still be around and very much alive in 2008

You are the exact thing that this thread didnt need. You are complaining and saying I WANT I WANT I WANT, without listening to logic or anyone else's arguments.

Now, your idea about tiered pets is useful and could work. However, to implement it 2 things would have to happen. First, the entire current pet focus lines would have to be scrapped and totally redone. All of it. Because right now, if we used tiers, there would either be about 10 "tiers" for a single pet, depending on the focus, or you would get tier 2.2, 2.4, etc. The second thing that would have to happen, in your world, would be for the devs to work at least 1 expansion ahead. No one does this, although it might be useful, almost no person ON EARTH works farther ahead then they have to. Ask anyone in any profession at any level. You work for the here and now and try to set the future up the best you can, but why focus on the future when stuff right in your face needs your attention?

Anyway, moving on. Just out of curiosity, does anyone use our poison nuke that isnt Sting or Bite? It's even more useless than our cold nuke because it is on the same resist as something we already have that is better (unless I'm mistaken here). I'm surprised no one has brought this up.

[bundler]

ok, my last post on this...we were supposed to come up with "wants" for next expansion, so i did. the CURRENT focus items and our CURRENT pets do not work together. my idea would work IF sony was willing to improve how they do things. our spell lines do not work on players and pets that are too low, the NEW focus items and NEW pets could work together, no previous pet would get the benefits.
you sony apologists are helping eq die, plain and simple. i do not want sony to do anything very difficult, unless having a future plan for this game is asking too much. did i not say i just wanted any pet to move ahead by one spot? we have THREE levels of pet spell, i expect similar spell tiers next expansion, nothing complicated there. our swarm pets are not one simple AA, we have several levels, easily bumped up by one. does anyone here expect our regular pets and our swarm pets to stay the same?
sony is not doing a great job of mapping a future, my request includes having a vision of what next. getting pets from next expansion merely involves sony looking ahead and setting things in place. as for business or individuals not looking that far in advance, you are sadly describing most of the USA, and we need to change. sony needs to plan ahead, and we all need to stop living just in the present.
we were asked for wants, i replied with a few. sorry for all here who were unhappy this got derailed, i never expected so much posting over why sony won't. my plan is at least as easy as a nigher spell or pet aa, it just depends on what sony wants to do.

[Yesak]

My idea is to also have fixes included with the wants. I'm not saying that your ideas are horrible by any stretch of the imagination, dont get me wrong. You have pretty accurately pointed out a problem and offered up a possible fix. What we were doing is pointing out why the fixes you mentioned wouldnt work, or would be hard to convince Sony of adopting it. Now your idea of new focus matching only with new pets is interesting. I honestly hadnt thought of it, and that might be something that would work. Would save a ton of work to just tinker with the power of 1 pet spell matching up with 1 or 2 foci instead of suddenly having shaman pets work with all foci.

My thought process here is, and maybe this is looking through rose colored glasses, but to try and HELP the devs. "Sony apologists"? My friend, are we in a fight against the devs and the company of the very game we play? I didnt know there was such tension (granted, I've only recently come back to EQ after an 18 month break).

I am not trying to defend Sony's decisions in any way, shape or form. But we have to live with most of them, unless we do something pretty drastic. Sony does need to look into EQ's future, which they are assuredly doing. My point was that how can we expect a game and its devs to plan head when in their wildest dreams no one saw how long EQ would last. The devs figured EQ2 would kill EQ and they could scrap it and move on. I'm sure all of the devs, if they could, would scrap at least 50% of the content in EQ and do a massive overhaul. I believe that was their intent for EQ2, but I could be mistaken. I mean, how antiquated are some of the current quests in the game or some of the zones that NO ONE ever goes to anymore. There are so many zones that it is mindboggling, yet 90% of them never get any use at all these days. However, Sony (and Verant) built the game and each decision drew new boundaries which have been ingrained so long that to change them would require a MASSIVE overhaul that simply isnt going to happen. The devs, and us, have to play within the boundaries already set. This is probably the most maddening part for both of us right now.

[Unmei]

To reinterate something I said a while back:

If you want your pets to suck less, ask the devs to make them suck less. Don't bother asking them to make pet foci work for you.

The -only- purpose for pet foci is to differentiate the pets of high end raiding pet caster from lesser geared pet casters. That's just not relevant to shamans.

If you want a better pet, work on getting a better pet. Come up with reasons why. Explain them. Work with your very capable community leaders. Don't say "wah, wah, this pet focus should work for me 'cause my pet is gimp" and expect people to agree.

[bundler]

what i want is for there to be more ways for everyone to keep playing, and every possible chance to improve a characters uberness is a carrot to work towards. i very much doubt that we will get much better at healing compared to clerics, so what we want is better CC (maybe an additional focus that works off of our epic click?? a greater % of slow, or a reduction in riposte or some other melee damage output from the mobs? maybe some burst increase in avoidance? this could be in addition to our 2.0 epic, and require the 2.5 quest being done. this keeps a really top flight shammy as one that has more than just the norm 2.0) during actual groupage. buffs are great to improve, but a group that is fully buffed by a shammy can get a beast or chanter and they are gtg. i would like to see an upgrade to champ that makes grouping with shammies even more desireable.
i bet most shammies use vp for most of our rooting, maybe we can get a new root, with a very short mez effect to prevent wipes on tight places. i know we won't get much mez ability, just 5 seconds or so might be great.
better cures would be great...faster reuse, faster cast, whatever.
our haste needs SOMETHING to improve. pure speed is nice, but maybe a small melee damage boost (as we seem to be patterned after a true Shaman that creates potions with effects, perhaps we could have a haste that can be tuned towards a special damage component like our bracers can) based around whatever quest path we choose. it could add a +1 damage of some particular choice, poison, disease, etc. this could work very similarly to how an aug would work. also, just like our armors that can get the "prismatic" effect, if a VERY dedicated player (read this as TOTALLY devoid of ANY rl, lol) were to do multiple branches of these quests, their haste would contain even more damage effects. now, if this were to be looked at soon, everything can be attuned to how this fits so as not to overpower us, but would cause enough dps increase so that it is noticeable in most any parsing. as with any aug, this would be subject to being stronger with crits, etc.
as to pet focus, my initial thoughts were that drops rot due to being unuseable by any class that can get to it, so making drops that can be used by more makes sense to me. sony changed cores to items that can be altered to be used by others, why not expand that?

[Unmei]

Haste doesn't need to improve. Haste cannot improve. Trust me on this.

[Yesak]

Have the devs capped haste like they have capped slows? So no haste will go over the current 68% and no slow will go over 75%?

[Retron]

[Unmei]

Well, considering that the haste cap is 100% and haste items in the 40+% range get more common every expansion, there's not really much room to grow. Enchanter haste is already a 0.001% increase over shaman haste on most people anyway.

[Vasei]

Given, the haste cap is a done deal. When I mention the haste discrepancy between shm & enc it has more to do with:

> Increase Chance to Critical Hit by 27% with All Skills (per http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?i ... ource=Live)

than the % haste. Unless that crit chance is useless for some reason?

[Unmei]

[Yesak]

I had no idea on the haste issue. I thought the little additions that chanters got on their haste actually did something meaningful. My bad on that. Now I think I understand your problem with hastes

[Kianor]

Enchanter haste also has some stats too - the ATK is nice, for example - at least for rangers and their "my ATK is bigger than yours" thing.

One thing that enchanter haste has over shaman haste is duration. Admittedly, the gap is less with the shaman's group version, but you still have to recast it less often!

[Unmei]

[Ssixa]