So what are you going to spend your 50 AA points on?

[Owlbe]

<div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>Looking at the AA layout its not as easy as it looks (for me anyways) to figure what I want.  I mostly solo/small group so the dog is going to be important I figure.  I really HATE the weapon restictions placed on some of the powers.   If you take the int. powers you need a staff and that basiclly excludes you from all the other lines.  Pretty dumb idea that I hope the change.  Another irk I have is most of the 5th powers are group oriented or not usable on your self.  I seem to like the passive powers instead of the glass cannon abilities.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>This configuration will use a 1h weapon and a symbol in the off hand as I don't want to have to switch anything.</div><div> </div><div>wisdom</div><div>-----------</div><div>6- + wisdom</div><div>8- pet +hp/dps</div><div>8- pet damage proc</div><div> </div><div>strength</div><div>-----------</div><div>4- + str</div><div>8- pet interrupts + small dd</div><div>8- group haste</div><div>8- group ward proc</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>This AA spec maximises the pet with the improved hps/dps buff, damage proc, hasted, and a timered interupt + procs.  when needed.</div><p>Message Edited by Omegarhino on <span class="date_text">02-16-2006</span><span class="time_text">02:22 PM</span></p>

[Geilt]

Made an excell sheet to deal with this,  this is my current plan, though im really not sure what i want to go with!!Sta: 4 4 4 8Wis: 8 4 4 5 8This should max out my heal crits, give me faster casting, and max out my wisdom + giving me a bit of my aggro to pet which i can choose not to send into combat.<div></div>

[Banditman]

You will be very disappointed to learn that Ritual of Alacrity cannot be cast on yourself.  So, you can give someone else faster casting, but you cannot give it to yourself.Yea, I'm not taking it either.<div></div>

[Kyin]

<div>If it says as is</div><div> </div><div>Str 4 6 8 8</div><div>Agil 4 4 8 8</div><div> </div><div>If it changes at all then something else</div><div>Fast cast if I can target myself and if it is a perm. buff</div><div>Immunities if it has a fast recast time</div><div> </div><div>Crit heals I can care less about as it is just a %chance to do more healing and not something I will bet the farm on.  Also healing is not the main thing I do as warding and debuffing is, healing spells are cast when needed though normally a ward is better.</div><div> </div><div>pet buffs and stuff looks great but I amwould love to have them but I am not a DPSer so I focus more on raid ideals.  As such my focus is around that.</div><div> </div><div>The spell slow at 8 I believe gives 13 secs spell slow and the pet interupt is at 6 and I know 4 gives you a 50% chance to interupt so this should mean that getting a spell off would be near impossible.</div><div> </div><div>Main focus of this build is group ward, group haste, group def. buff and Spell slow, with a minor in interupting pet.</div><div> </div><div> </div>

[GidionSWE]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Kyin wrote:<div>If it says as is</div><div> </div><div>Str 4 6 8 8</div><div>Agil 4 4 8 8</div><div> </div><div>If it changes at all then something else</div><div>Fast cast if I can target myself and if it is a perm. buff</div><div>Immunities if it has a fast recast time</div><div> </div><div>Crit heals I can care less about as it is just a %chance to do more healing and not something I will bet the farm on.  Also healing is not the main thing I do as warding and debuffing is, healing spells are cast when needed though normally a ward is better.</div><div> </div><div>pet buffs and stuff looks great but I amwould love to have them but I am not a DPSer so I focus more on raid ideals.  As such my focus is around that.</div><div> </div><div>The spell slow at 8 I believe gives 13 secs spell slow and the pet interupt is at 6 and I know 4 gives you a 50% chance to interupt so this should mean that getting a spell off would be near impossible.</div><div> </div><div>Main focus of this build is group ward, group haste, group def. buff and Spell slow, with a minor in interupting pet.</div><div> </div><div> </div><hr></blockquote>thats pretty much the way i think too...if the 2nd last STR ability got a chance to proc if anyone in ure group gets hurt but if its just if teh pet get hurt then i dont know

[Melio]

<div></div><p>As it stands now, I would go for</p><p>STR   4,8,8AGI     4,4,6,8WIS    8</p><p>Focus of that configuration is buffing/debuffing. In raid situations I will do well in MT/OT group (defense/parry/deflection/resistance-buff) and in melee group (attack speed). I'm not sure about WIS1 @8. Lacking wis buffs it would be helpful but in raid situations I'm very often way above cap. So, that 8 points could go elsewhere <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>I would really like to see Ritual of Alacrity (WIS4) changed to a permanent self-buff. Aura of Warding is imho worthless as it is now (at least according to spell description).And, of course, all those #5 abilites should get an upgrade (reuse timer, duration and/or functionality).</p>

[Kyin]

<div></div><p>Don't know why you say its worthless, its a 16% chance of a ward, thats a huge chance =)</p><p>Target says pet, that means the buff is placed on the pet but it grants to the group, or at least that is what makes the most sense.  Now if it is bugged and it just on pet then yes, worthless skill.  But I do not think that is what it is ment to do.  Hopefully a beta tester who has played with it can explain further.</p>

[SunT]

<div></div><p>The problem I see with the pet buff is the part where the pet needs to take damage.</p><p>I dont imagine the pet has very many HP, probly about as many as the Illusionist Personae.  That is less than one good aoe.  So when will he get enough damage that does not kill him so you can take advantage of the buff?</p><p> </p>

[thedu]

What is the thinking behind the picks?  Soloing? Grouping? Raiding?Do you take your base values into account or not?  I'm still trying wrap my head around this....<div></div>

[Kyin]

<div></div><p>hmm thought I replyed to this but I guess I didn't.</p><p>Anyway, My build was for a raid mystic.  It is what I am though I would love to make a solo build just so I can dps when I need to but sadly that is not me. </p><p>The ward as I understand it is a group buff that just requires you to have your pet out.  For instance the pet is the medium to keep the buff up.  If the pet dies the buff goes.  Now if this is not true and the pet is the only one that gets the buff and the pet has to be hit then this is a useless buff.  waist your 8 points else were.  If it is a group buff then it is an amazing spell that will be highly sought after and make shaman much more loved (and defilers) even more loved in both AoE groups and MT groups and any pick up group.  I really hope it is a group buff because of the posibilites this thing can do.  Let us hope, let us pray. </p><p>Hopefully one of the few/many beta mystics can do a test run on this spell, and let us know how it works exactly.  But from what I hear there were alot of changes to AA system yesterday in beta so who knows what it is now.</p><p> </p><p>Gustave of Nek!</p>

[Banditman]

Aye - the pet taking damage is the game breaker there.  The pet simply can't take damage.  This isn't a Conjuror's Earth pet here by any stretch, it's not even the equivalent of a Conjuror's Scout pet. It's a triple down arrow pet, and is killed very easily.  DogDog isn't going to tank for you solo'ing.  He'll help provide DPS while you tank, but it's HIGHLY ineffective to ask DogDog to tank.A more appropriate (imo) mechanic would be for it to have a somewhat smaller chance to Ward when the pet damages the mob.<div></div>

[Kyin]

<div></div><p>So bandit the spell does require the pet to be attack for it to go off?  If that is what you just said then the spell sucks. =(</p><p>Guess its time to relook at skills</p>

[Kyin]

<div></div>Wait a sec I just went back and read the discription of Aura of Warding and it says your group recieves a chance to cast a ward when group members take damage.  This leads me to believe that it is just dependant on the pet to be alive to have the ward up.

[Banditman]

<div></div>Speculation is frankly useless at this point.  The AA's are changing RADICALLY nearly every day now.

[thedu]

<span><blockquote><hr>Banditman wrote:<div></div>Speculation is frankly useless at this point.  The AA's are changing RADICALLY nearly every day now.<hr></blockquote>Yah, they better allow for a lot respec's if they are changing it that much; and plus I wish they had allowed for a longer time to beta test...</span><div></div>

[lstead]

<div></div>I'm a mid-level group healing shaman and, well, I'm quite disappointed in these. I feel like I'm looking at mandatory and useless.Strength and wisdom. They offer the most and don't have weapon requirements. I'm betting that almost all of us end up strength and wisdom.The big thing is the weapon requirements. I make my weapon choice based on what is cheap and has a lot of wisdom. Nothing else. The intelligence line has a nice mitigation boost at the end, but if I understand the system, I'm going to be spending a lot to get there and many of the middle items would require a staff which I don't expect I'll be using anytime in the future. All the pet stuff is nice for soloing, although I don't like the idea of a pet, but I've solo'd greens to finish a quest maybe once or twice since 20 and I don't expect I'll be doing it more often at higher levels. I'll take what I get gladly, but I wouldn't choose based on it.<div></div><p>Message Edited by lstead on <span class="date_text">02-22-2006</span><span class="time_text">10:01 AM</span></p>

[Finora]

<div></div>I love the pet. LOL I was sorely disappointed to find that shaman got no pets in this game. Thrilled I can finally have one, even if he is more of a speed bump that something useful.

[Banditman]

Apparently you don't remember DogDog from EQLive very well.This pet is almost a mirror image.  A speedbump with minor DPS ability.  A help when solo'ing.<div></div>

[Thatdumbg]

   Upon further review now that they are mostly finalized, I plan to max the wisdom and stamina lines. This is speaking as a MT group raiding mystic. The amount it would take to make the pet immune to AE isn't worth the effects I could use with it on raids. A trip down pet that can't avoid AE's is useless. Thus, I say, screw the pet. Coagulate will be nice to have I'm sure, that extra 500HP can give a heal a chance to land. Lowering someone in my parties cast/recasts for 30s out of 3m is also worthwhile, for either the tank or someone else in the group situationally.<div></div>

[Owlbe]

<div>The pet is nice for a bit of dps... and I do mean a bit.  It hits slow  like once every 5 secs BUT it is a help.  I did notice the solo killing did go a bit easier with with dogdog. </div><div> </div><div>Also forget about it tanking ANYTHING.  It hits slow so its poor at holding aggro and mob a few lvls higher will kill it in 3 or 4 hits so I would severly question any aa that needs the pet to be hit like the grp ward aa in the str line.</div><div> </div><div>It is simply some free dps, take it or leave it at that.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div>