Vinemine discussion

[Eldaquen]

I appreciate that the Dev's have taken the time to look at vinemine a level five spell. Just a couple of thoughts regarding the new vinemine and the DC's that the spell now has.

-I reviewed six of my druids to see what the Vinemine: Hamper movement DC would be. I found that two of them had Hamper DC of 36, two had a DC of 38, one had a DC of 39, and one had a DC of 41. All six are 40th level, all are epic focused: conjure, of which five were made to be casters and one was dedicated to be a dragon.

-Another player helped me test Vinemine: Hamper with their lvl 34 barbarian. Their barbarian had a 65% chance of making the save.

-Both of my pure fighters have a 50% chance or better to make these saves. Of course that is after the pure fighter FoM token ends (which lasts something around 10 minutes).

-Vinemine: entangle had a DC of 31. I am not sure why but Vinemine: entangle's DC was significantly lower than Hamper.

-The old vinemine: hamper movement had no save to avoid it. All anyone had to do to avoid the slow affects was simplely not enter the area where the spell was occuring or have FoM on themselves. Also was not party friendly so druids had to be very careful when and where they used the old vine mine.

The new vinemine is virtually useless in the relic wars. Any dex build will be immune to such a low DC. Of the builds whose reflex saves might be low enough to fail the save (fighters and barbarians) one is basically immune because of a token. Both of my pure fighters reflex saves could have been higher, but why bother when pure fighteres receive undispellable FoM that lasts for upwards of ten minutes.

Once some time ago one of my caster druids faught a level 40 pure fighter. It took me five attempts to finally slay that fighter once, vs his 4 kills against me. Stonehold was useless because of the fighters FoM, SoV was useless because the spell has no affect when initially cast giving the fighter time to leave the area of effect and would not enter again (basically paused the encounter until the spell ended). So how did I finally win, I ran around as a panther for ten minutes and waited for the FoM to finally en. Once it did then I used stonehold and harms. Ten minutes of running away, had the fighter realized I was just waiting for his FoM to end I'm sure they would have left and rested to recharge.

Any dex build will be completely immune. I envy mages whose slow spell save is against will instead of reflex, at least mages and sorc have a chance to use slow.

One final thought vine mine is a level five spell. Ice storms and inferno are also level five spells. Why would a druid slot vinemine and not ice storms or inferno so just maybe able to...with very low chance of success catch a strength based barbarian that was not buffed with FoM.

Edit: The build I thought would have DC 41 DC vinemine doesn't ... actually it is only 39 so amend the above to exclude reference to a 41 DC vinemine. Build does not have epic focus: conjurer.

[Eldaquen]

Another player once said that Vinemine was druid's tactical advantage (paraphrased as I don't remember exact quote). Reflex saves with such low DC's the spell will not see action in epic areas or in epic level pvp.

[mining]

-Entangle seems to have issues. I'll be looking into why this is.
-Hamper Movement's slow is good if it goes off - its a big AoE so if you hit 3 people with 50% chance to go off, you've got, what, ~87% chance of forcing them to fail it and be slowed, which is super horribly debilitating. Also, it removes haste, as per the wizard/sorc/bard/trickCleric/wand/scroll/isthereanythingelsewithslow? spells.

[mining]

Vinemine Entangle: Tested to work, DC fix next reset.
Entangle: Fixed next reset - had some issues with people with the druid feat due to ordering.

[Eldaquen]

That was my point that there are few foes that will have a 50% chance to fail, in fact the majority will be completely immune to the spell (reflex saves over 40). Again the only builds that will possibly have a 50% chance to fail would be str builds that are not pure fighters. Any dex build should make a 41 DC with ease. Most druids' hamper DC will be lower than 41.

Tested the new spell changes with a 40th level vs a level 34 str based barbarian. The barbarian had a 65% chance of succeeding, that is a 35% chance of failing. Even that barbarians reflex save is only going to improve as it progresses towards 40th level, further reducing the chance of failure.

Two nights ago MA and SL raided NC, every build they used except 1 would have been immune to any spell with a reflex save attached to it.

[Rufio]

I just tried these out.

The haste stripping aspect of hamper movement is useful, but the others suck pretty badly.

The invisibility of the camouflage is just a utility spell for running past things without see invis because it is not improved invisibility. It won't help with combat.

the entangle is dc based, and seeing as it is only a level 5 spell, spellcraft applies to the save, and druids are inferior dc based caters, It will never get used outside of low level pvm. Same goes for the lower level entangle spell.

Seeing as the number of druid only spell are very limited, i'd like to see them made useful. Also, spike growth is still disabled.

[mining]

Watch this space re: Spike Growth.

Re: Rest: Up for discussion, suggestions preferred. Invis is intentionally utility - it wasn't making Mass Camo useless, hide buffs too strong, not interested in AoEs on the ground where possible.

[Rufio]

Hmm... I can't think of anything at the moment, I'll have to get back to you on that.

I do have ideas for some of the other druid-only spells though.

[Bargeld]

So arcane casters are gonna get utility spells out of their defunct ones next?

[mining]

So arcane casters are gonna get utility spells out of their defunct ones next?

Which one's are defunct? I didn't think any... Oh, Balagarns horn? Maybe. We'll see.

[Eldaquen]

Watch this space re: Spike Growth.

Re: Rest: Up for discussion, suggestions preferred. Invis is intentionally utility - it wasn't making Mass Camo useless, hide buffs too strong, not interested in AoEs on the ground where possible.

Well here's a suggestion for spike growth:

Starting with Spike Growth a 3rd level druid spell. Bioware implemented so the spell covers the terrain with small spikes. I believe this is the root cause of the spell causing the AI issue. So propose it be changed to a ranged attack causing 1 time damage to a single target, similar as Quillfire does now.
Role play reason or new description: spikes or thorns grow under the victum's skin inflicting piercing damage as they grow outward.

To balance out damage change to 1d4 piercing damage plus 1d4 pierce per 2 caster levels. Maximun damage to be determined by spell focuses as outlined below:
No focus: Maximum pierce damage 40
Spell focus: Maximum pierce damage 50
Greater spell focus: Maximum pierce damage 60
Epic Spell focus: Maximum pierce damage 80

A level progression of damage for a non focused druid caster follows:
Caster level ..................Damage in pierce..........Maximum damage (assuming max roll)
......................................................................No Focus.....Focus.........Greater......Epic
5..................................2d4..............................8................8................8................8
6..................................3d4..............................12..............12..............12..............12
8..................................4d4..............................16..............16..............16..............16
10................................5d4..............................20..............20..............20..............20
12................................6d4..............................24..............24..............24..............24
14................................7d4..............................28..............28..............28..............28
16................................8d4..............................32..............32..............32..............32
18................................9d4..............................36..............36..............36..............36
20................................10d4............................40..............40..............40..............40
22................................11d4............................40..............44..............44..............44
24................................12d4............................40..............48..............48..............48
26................................13d4............................40..............50..............52..............52
28................................14d4............................40..............50..............56..............56
30................................15d4............................40..............50..............60..............60
32................................16d4............................40..............50..............60..............64
34................................17d4............................40..............50..............60..............68
36................................18d4............................40..............50..............60..............72
38................................19d4............................40..............50..............60..............76
40................................20d4............................40..............50..............60..............80

[Rufio]

So arcane casters are gonna get utility spells out of their defunct ones next?

but unlike druids, wizards are good casting classes.

[frogofpeace]

So arcane casters are gonna get utility spells out of their defunct ones next?

Which one's are defunct? I didn't think any... Oh, Balagarns horn? Maybe. We'll see.

Horizikaul's Boom, too

[Adventurer#1337]

huh? and restore balagarn horn spell? Noobs can't deal with it? Or the problem is that gives a purpose to sorc/rdd casters? Need to draw it
Anyway I find slowing a whole party is a bit excessive, like casting many bigby grasping at once, with the difference that bigby grasping hand lasts 15 seconds extended or unextended and this vinemine lasts minutes.

[mining]

huh? and restore balagarn horn spell? Noobs can't deal with it? Or the problem is that gives a purpose to sorc/rdd casters? Need to draw it
Anyway I find slowing a whole party is a bit excessive, like casting many bigby grasping at once, with the difference that bigby grasping hand lasts 15 seconds extended or unextended and this vinemine lasts minutes.

Vinemine lasts the same duration as a Wizard/Travel Cleric's Slow Spell, and has a similar DC, due to how druid cannot get quite as high DC.

Re: BIH, I don't know why it was disabled.