Parsing Tools

[Waking]

Hey, when are you Shaman types going to create a tool like the React Status the clerics use?Your wards can now be tracked right? Get on it so I can predict spike damage.please <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div>

[FelixDomesticus]

<div><blockquote><hr>hallohesh wrote:Hey, when are you Shaman types going to create a tool like the React Status the clerics use?Your wards can now be tracked right? Get on it so I can predict spike damage.please <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div><hr></blockquote>Pretty useless especially in raiding. Your reactives can be predicted (pre-set amount of procs), but ward is one huge pile of protection which can be used with ONE hit. One ae from raid mob can drop full powered group ward, also one hit from raid mob can drop single ward. Only prediction you need with wards is that it drops almost immediately in raids and in groups you do not need to worry about ward dropping anyway.</div>

[Thatdumbg]

<div><blockquote><hr>FelixDomesticus wrote:<div><blockquote><hr>hallohesh wrote:Hey, when are you Shaman types going to create a tool like the React Status the clerics use?Your wards can now be tracked right? Get on it so I can predict spike damage.please <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div><hr></blockquote>Pretty useless especially in raiding. Your reactives can be predicted (pre-set amount of procs), but ward is one huge pile of protection which can be used with ONE hit. One ae from raid mob can drop full powered group ward, also one hit from raid mob can drop single ward. Only prediction you need with wards is that it drops almost immediately in raids and in groups you do not need to worry about ward dropping anyway.</div><hr></blockquote>    What Felix said. Raiding, I sometimes forget what the ward icon looks like because it vanishes so fast after casting it.</div>

[Loki9s]

It is nice to be outside of the MT group and still be able to freely throw that ST ward knowing you won't be blocking the MT shaman because in 2 hits it's gone heh

[Mystiq]

This thread does <i>not</i> deliver <span>:smileyindifferent:</span>.React Status parsing tool? I haven't a clue what you're referring to, since this is in fact <i>not</i> the Templar/Inquisitor board.If you want to predict spike damage, read your logs, figure out the reuse timings on raid mob CA's and AE's, and use a timer mod. That or call Miss Cleo.<div></div>

[Banditman]

Miss Cleo is a Mystic.<div></div>

[Mystiq]

No I think she's just a psycho...err...psychic - not the same thing!<div></div>

[Thatdumbg]

    Unfortunately, Miss Cleo doesn't have much to do with it. Upon hearing that she was lying to EQ2 Players concerncing such spikes, Chuck Norris delivered a roundhouse-kick to her throat and she died of asphyxiation shortly thereafter.Currently, it is Chuck Norris who determines timers on AE's, CA's, spells, and how much they will each hit for (amongst other things pertaining to the game).As a bonus snippet (which is only slightly related), the word "Dev" was a gross mispronunciation of "Div", which was short for "Divine".The first creators and designers of MMO's in fact got their inspiration from Chuck Norris, who came to them in a dream. Because of their interaction with him, they were referred to by early playtesters as "Divines", which was later shortened to "divs", and has slowly been slurred until our current terminology came about.<div></div>

[Waking]

The reason this came up is because my guild is 12 to 18 manning the easier x4 T7 raids. We depend a lot on perfect timing. Youre right, procs are easy to predict. However, just knowing that my MT Mystic HAS a ward up, or 2, or none and the tank is just having a few lucky seconds of dodge, all make a difference about what spells I as a templar am going to cast next.It would be extremely useful to know the status of his wards, and its not something he can communicate to me in a timely fashion, I would never expect him to do so. Another thought is that often a non MT group Shaman will handle wards in a pinch, or use single target wards when MT uses his group, and vice versa to deal with huge volleys of damage.If I know that there are no wards up I dont spend time casting a group reactive, it takes too long to cast, I'll start pumping pure HP into my tank until the mystic can get his ward(s) back up.If it were true that knowing the status of your wards was useless there wouldnt have been so many questions and prods about pure numbers behind them, hence they implimented the "mouseover" number given in maintained spells window for wards, and added the number that reflects how much damage they take to parses. Surely there is a Mystic or Defiler out there that pays attention to these things.So just a query then, does no one see the value in making such a tool? If there is no interest whatsoever I guess I'll just ask the templars to adapt one. Wish I knew more about programming.<div></div>

[Vayn]

<P>Well, maybe this will help you see what people are saying:  Have your Mystic attach a macro to his/her wards and put it in a special channel and recast a new ward each time one drops. </P> <P>Then watch the spam roll by...  you can see the pace is completely different for trash than named.<BR></P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P> </P> <P></P> <HR> hallohesh wrote:<BR> Another thought is that often a non MT group Shaman will handle wards in a pinch, or use single target wards when MT uses his group, and vice versa to deal with huge volleys of damage.<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>There ya go.  :smileyhappy: Except there is no "vice versa" since you can't group ward outside your group.<BR></P>

[Waking]

Yeah bad choice of words therewhats the term for as usual, or as as standard in latin?My point was supposed to be that no matter who was doing the wards, I'd like to be able to see if wards are up and how strong they are graphically.<div></div>

[Waking]

And unless I misunderstand the way mystics work, you can cast both of your wards one after the other and then be waiting to recast for some seconds. As you know those seconds are precious in a raid. Especially considering those seconds for each cycle of wards will add up to much longer in the course of one encounter let alone an entire raid zone. The MT can die from bad luck, and I cant do anything about that but I can minimize all the non-luck moments.Gonna ask the clerics, thanks for the feedback.<div></div>

[Mystiq]

OK since I must be the only clueless one that didn't know what program you are referring to, and since you didn't enlighten us with a link to this Reactive Heal Parser so we'd know exactly what we're supposed to be scrambling to develop, <a href="http://home.maine.rr.com/eqaditu/RS2/" target=_blank>I found it myself</a>.  Though I have used ACT for a while I never knew this other parser existed.So, now that that's cleared up, yes the program does appear to be pretty handy for clerics, but I don't know of many software dev Mystics lurking around here, so chances are a comparable program using wards would sooner come from the developer of this parser than one of us, but uh thanks for the tip.<div></div>

[Terq]

Don't feel too alone there Mystique.  I was clueless myself.  Thanks for the link. 

[thedu]

Maybe the guy(or gal) who created the reactive parser might be willing to do it for wards. Although, to be honest it would be kind of pointless.<div></div>

[Banditman]

Can't be done for Mystics (or Shaman for that matter).You see, a Shaman Ward varies in strength by it's quality level.  My ST Ward might be 1860 points, while Shaman_05 might only have 1500 points in his Wards.  Depends on spell quality level.A log parser has no way of knowing the quality of a spell, and therefore it can't accurately decide how much power might be left in a Ward.And honestly, it's just not needed.Shaman are not Clerics.  We have other things we NEED to do in addition to Healing.  We NEED to get that mob debuffed.  Quickly.  I usually cast one Ward plus Torpor and then start debuffing.Playing a Shaman is a lot more difficult than you might realize.  It's not a simple matter of "Oh, the Ward is down, get another one up".Incidentally, not casting Reactives while a Ward is up is crazy.  That's the BEST time to have a Reactive.  While a Ward is up, the target is still getting hit - taking zero points of damage - but they are still being hit.  This means that the Reactive can still trigger, and since there was no damage done, the Reactive actually heals for it's full amount.<div></div>

[thedu]

That why I said it would be pointless...I just couldn't put it in the same words BM<span>:smileytongue:</span><div></div>

[Eepop]

You could probably just assume that its an adept 3.  If you are hardcore enough about raiding to need a tool like this, you [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] well better have all your shamans with at least adept 3 wards. The parser might sometimes say that the ward is down when its not with master 1 wards, but not too bad.  Could even go so far as to program in an entry box for assumed single target and group ward ammounts.  Then you could put in what you think is approprioate for your raid force, based on how you are outfitted (masters/relic pants/etc). I dont really see the point, but it is possible, and if you all think you need it, more power to you. <div></div>

[Mystiq]

<div></div>Yeah Banditman pretty much nailed it before I had really thought about the difficulty. And things like crit wards and casting them with the Marr's Blessing proc active, which bumps the strength up by 20%, would just add to the complexity needed to produce similar results with a program that can be had with reactives.Wards are a whole nother animal to keep track of. They aren't convenient little "charges" like reactives, nor are they like the equally countable regen ticks. A good shaman can keep track of many details concerning their wards - strength, expected duration, recast timers and whether the situation really necessitates chain casting wards on the tank - all while attending to arguably the shaman's more important role of debuffing. I just don't see a program enabling someone to micromanage the Zen of warding like the shaman can =.Your best bet is to let the encounter result, parses and overall tank health fluctuation speak for itself when it comes to making sure your shaman(s) are on the ball. "Let go, and let God....err....your shaman do their thing" <span>:smileywink:</span><div></div>

[Mistletoes]

<P>Someone hinted at it earlier, and I was thinking of something similar. It's nothing that you would do with a parse, but is something that could be done by SOE if they were so inclined. Some graphical representation of the current status of the ward could be sent in the "target's information" data, and could be rendered at the client.</P> <P>I was thinking of a couple of ways to do it.</P> <P>One way that would look cool, but would require you have the option turned on to see it, would be a maintained "glowing" kind of sphere that is displayed around someone who maintains wards. The more ward coverage that is applied, the thicker the glow appears to be.</P> <P>The other idea is taken from a mod that I saw a while back that showed two different kinds of degradation for wards in the maintained spells list, where a blue shade drops to represent time running out, and a different color shade along the other side of the icon to indicate how much protection was left in the ward.</P> <P>I have not seen anything that shows the same detail for your currently targetted PC / NPC. All I can see on them are the icons for what they have, with no indication of how long they will last, either from a time perspective, damage perspective, #reactives remaining perspective, or anything like that. Granted, when I look at my target, the icons are very small, so it's possible that maybe I need to figure out how to make them bigger, and I will see what I'm looking for.</P> <P>Whether it can be done or not may not be real problem though. It might be too resource intensive to do it, and might render people with less than optimal computer setups even less playable, which would mean it would have to be an option.</P>

[Loki9s]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Mistletoes wrote:<BR> <P>The other idea is taken from a mod that I saw a while back that showed two different kinds of degradation for wards in the maintained spells list, where a blue shade drops to represent time running out, and a different color shade along the other side of the icon to indicate how much protection was left in the ward.</P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>EQinterface?? I've been looking for something like that.<BR>

[Mystiq]

<div><blockquote><hr>Mistletoes wrote:<div></div><p>The other idea is taken from a mod that I saw a while back that showed two different kinds of degradation for wards in the maintained spells list, where a blue shade drops to represent time running out, and a different color shade along the other side of the icon to indicate how much protection was left in the ward.</p><hr></blockquote>If you've seen this mechanism in a UI mod, I'm sure we'd all love a link to it.</div>

[Mistletoes]

<P>Sorry guys,</P> <P>I definitely remember seeing a screenshot of something like that, but I never went out and got anything for it. I remember it showed the effect (can't say for sure that it was a ward) with 2 dimensions to it. One was the time remaining, and the other was the amount remaining. I can't remember exactly what the display was though. I think it shaded down for time, and sideways for amount, and I seem to remember red and green hues to the shade, but it was so long ago I can't say for sure.</P>

[Banditman]

You may be remembering the one that tracked poison for Scouts.<div></div>