Fury Raid Buffs - Casters

[Draco the Grey]

I'm a level 70 Conjuror who's been raiding occasionally for about 3 months, and regularly for about one now.  Typical group I find myself in is Fury, Troub, Me, Necro, Sorcerer, Crusader/Scout.  What I've been noticing almost every time is that the Furies will usually run their 3 group buffs, plus Vim on themselves and the Sorcerer.  To be honest, this drives me nuts.  The reason for having a Fury grouped with casters is to buff their INT, and not just with the group buff. I have on occasion ventured to suggest to some Furies to drop Carnal Mask and their own Vim buff in order to have Vim on all three casters.  The responses have ranged from appreciative (usually from Furies new to raiding) to hostile (generally the more experienced Furies.)  Clearly a Fury would like to retain the extra power from Vim, though my own group buff gives just as much power in return, and I'm sure the other casters have similar buffs, while the INT would be put to far better use on someone 100% focused on DPS.  I do have a mid-30's Fury alt that I play from time to time, so I'm not utterly clueless when it comes to the class, though I clearly haven't raided as a Fury myself.  Am I going wrong here somewhere?

[Kishra]

Your thinking is fine. As a 70 Fury who raids 3 times a week, I usually dont cast VIM on myself, but instead throw 2 instances up on mages.As you said, even if we have enough healers, and I can focus on DPS, the extra INT on me isn't as good as the extra INT on a mage class (like a necro, warlock, or wizard). I always keep the group buffs up, just change out what I do with Vim. Kishra lvl 70 Fury Antonia Bayle Server

[Cale2281]

<p>I usually drop Spirit of the Hunt (unless we are fighting elemental based mobs) to allow two casters to get vim but I will fight to the death for the extra 721 power I get from Vim.  You can't do dps if you are dead and we can't heal you if we don't have power.  109 Int for a Conj at or above the stat curve won't be nearly as useful to the raid as a fury with a bigger power pool.  Consider the 98 int group buff a blessing or suck up to your fury more to get Vim but don't ask them to take it off themselves just to help you make the parse.   Also, if the Fury is in that group chances are that Int is adding to their damage as well so its not as if the INT is totally wasted.  </p>

[TheBu]

<p>Ba who let a conj in here...</p><p>he prob want two vims. one for him and one for his pet.. .hay why not give the pet agitate also... You can ask for vim but dont get mad if u dont get it. We made the furys so we could dps. So let us have one vim, it makes the game fun for us.</p><p> I normally look at how much dps a pet class is doing compared to me. and then wieght it, over the loss of power and damage. But hay. . u all ready have group buffs from a fury and from the caster right? how bad did u want the int?Are you also downing a potion as well? tell me ur fighting for it.. </p><p>I can and do drop Spirit of the Hunt in a group if needed. But in a raid it just depends on elemental aoes( aka not something u want to lose in DT) Carnal Mask i do not drop normally.. .thats 100 regen and not worth losing</p><p>to vim or not to vim...  yes vim is great for our power and damage but it also helps with our damage shields and flame spell.</p><p>shard please!</p>

[Migi]

I'm usually in a group with 3 casters, so I only keep Primal Spirit up (group int/wis) and 4 Vims for trash clearing. For boss mobs, I'll assess the situation and adjust buffs as needed. But yeah, I have to admit that the pet caster would lose out on the Vim over the Warlock or Wizard.

[Falc61881]

I totally agree with Cale here, as I almost never have spirit of the hunt up, unless its DT (well, AoA x4 had elemental as well, but I NEVER do that zone anymore) because elemental resists generally don't help much against most encounters.  I like to keep vim on myself, as it does give me power and will actually help my damage a lot more than the caster who's already at 800/900 int and over the diminishing returns cap, but it will help that caster a lot more than some elemental resists will.  Generally, SOTH goes down first, sometimes carnal mask as well if i need to vim someone else... because.... whats 732 physical mit really going to do to save a squishy who gets agro. 

[SpritRaja]

I never drop vim from myself unless I dont plan on nuking at all. ie. only for boss fights. The average raiding mage should be so far into the int curve that an extra 100 int does nearly nothing for them. My int however is close to only 600 int with vim on me. If i am nuking that extra int on me will improve raid dps more than on a mage. I do drop my resist buff for an extra vim if we are not taking any elemental damage. Dropping the mit/hp regen is out of the question due to agro pulling mages. That extra mit can be the 2 second difference between a dead mage or an alive one.

[Zelkova]

Saphira@Crushbone wrote: <blockquote>I never drop vim from myself unless I dont plan on nuking at all. ie. only for boss fights. The average raiding mage should be so far into the int curve that an extra 100 int does nearly nothing for them. My int however is close to only 600 int with vim on me. If i am nuking that extra int on me will improve raid dps more than on a mage. I do drop my resist buff for an extra vim if we are not taking any elemental damage. Dropping the mit/hp regen is out of the question due to agro pulling mages. That extra mit can be the 2 second difference between a dead mage or an alive one. </blockquote>I just assume let them die... but, when I'm playing nice Carnal Mask is still the first buff I drop if there isn't a scout or fighter in the group. The extra HP from Spirit of the Hunt is more beneficial than the extra mit from Carnal Mask. With a class that can take a hit, the extra mit augments their existing mit and they have a "pretty good" chance to survive. A mage is still going to snap like a toothpick if they pull agro, mit buff or not. Oh and almost forgot... ALWAYS have Vim on myself. Not necessarily for the INT, but definitely for the extra power. Helps to spam the heals on Lifeburning necros and such. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Ciarr]

<p>I could be a little biassed since I play my fury as a healer....</p><p>1. vims go to casters if it is caster dps group and I don't have power problems, if I run close to oop constantly.. vim goes back to me (it usually also goes back to me if I know that there is a long fight ahead and power may be an issue) 2. vim goes to tank if there is a crusider on OT duty 3. assuming no level difference int goes to the caster with the lowest int (curve you know... lower int higher benefit), additionally I tend to favor sourcerers over summoners/chanters (mostly because summoners generate large part of DPS thru pet and chanters aren't really a DPS class) 4. if you keep pulling agro off MT expect to lose Vim... especially if there is another person who needs it 5. carnal mask... with the way mitigation is working this gives quite nice benefit to casters too, and as I said I play a healer and keeping people alive is my focus (dead caster generates 0 DPS....), I will take a 2sec extra to heal you over you being 1 position higher on DPS chart</p><p>of course there are some exception/special cases/etc </p>

[Draco the Grey]

Good responses everyone.  My gripe wasn't ZOMG no Vim 4 m3!  [I cannot control my vocabulary]!! <img src="/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  Rather, it was that it appeared that the Furies weren't putting any thought into what buffs they should be running.  It seemed to me that most were just running the same buffs that they do solo or in a group by default, then handing out one extra vim because there's only one extra concentration slot left.  I'd rather see more Vims up rather than buffs of marginal value, even if I don't get one personally.  Helping to maximize a caster's DPS doesn't just make them look good on the parse, it helps the raid overall - doing damage is their role, after all. Carnal Mask and Spirit of the Hunt may buy extra time to keep a mage alive, or they may not.  From my perspective, its not the healer's job to save a mage who pulls aggro.  If they can, great, but it's the mage's job to manage their own aggro.  A good Summoner should never pull aggro, and a Sorcerer who can't learn to manage their's will hurt the raid in the long run.  This, to me, is not a reason to run either of those buffs.  Of the two, I'd prefer Spirit of the Hunt for the HP.  The extra mit from Carnal Mask is only useful if the mob memwipes, has adds that will attack casters, or the mob does significant, and unavoidable, physical AOE damage.  The regen is pointless if the only damage we are taking comes at predictable intervals.  In most cases, the only damage mages should be taking is from AOEs. As far as Vim goes, generally it should go on Sorcerers first, since on them it has the greatest potential to add to damage.  Necros would come next, since their personal DPS accounts for a higher percentage than their pet.  Conjurors are closer to 50/50 due to EV and Blazing Avatar, and putting Vim on the pet is a viable alternative if the Conjuror is close to being capped, since the INT added to the pet would not only affect its spells, but also the aforementioned procs.  Conjuror pets have just under 400 INT self buffed, IIRC. I can't imagine that with a Troub and a Summoner or 2, that power would be that much of an issue outside of a few EOF zones, but if your group is staying out of trouble and the MT group healers have the MT healing under control, then by all means nuke away.  <img src="/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I'm sure not everyone will agree with my reasoning, but I figure if I at least got some people to think situationally about their buffs then that's all I can ask for. Edit:  Hehe, W-T-F gets filtered?  Yay for absurdity! <img src="/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[TheBu]

Katryna@Lucan DLere wrote: <blockquote>and putting Vim on the pet is a viable alternative if the Conjuror is close to being capped, since the INT added to the pet would not only affect its spells, but also the aforementioned procs.  Conjuror pets have just under 400 INT self buffed, IIRC. </blockquote><p>C i told u. .. he wants vim on his pet too... aRG!!</p><p>Regen is not "pointless" as we are normal eating our health to recover power. And power is always a issue for my fury.. even with candy and ps.. .every time i drop the Spirit of the Hunt i have a tank asking me if he is fully buffed. not tha i find its a big deal to lose some hp.</p><p>now i say this  stuff but note, i do still give vim away( if the mobs die sooner its better for me) </p><p>but u should let us know how much of a diffrence the vim makes on ur spells after u have a caster and our group buff and potion on u. and are u using int potions? this would show how important int is too u. cuz my fury loves em...</p>

[Draco the Grey]

Yes, I lug around several stacks of INT potions.  I also carry a stack of Noxious cures for those pesky disease traps, and it looks like I need to keep some trauma cures around as well for Treyloth.  Anything else you want to know?  <img src="/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Zelkova]

<cite>TheBuzZ wrote:</cite><blockquote>Katryna@Lucan DLere wrote: <blockquote>and putting Vim on the pet is a viable alternative if the Conjuror is close to being capped, since the INT added to the pet would not only affect its spells, but also the aforementioned procs.  Conjuror pets have just under 400 INT self buffed, IIRC. </blockquote><p>C i told u. .. he wants vim on his pet too... aRG!!</p><p>Regen is not "pointless" as we are normal eating our health to recover power. And power is always a issue for my fury.. even with candy and ps.. .every time i drop the Spirit of the Hunt i have a tank asking me if he is fully buffed. not tha i find its a big deal to lose some hp.</p><p>now i say this  stuff but note, i do still give vim away( if the mobs die sooner its better for me) </p><p>but u should let us know how much of a diffrence the vim makes on ur spells after u have a caster and our group buff and potion on u. and are u using int potions? this would show how important int is too u. cuz my fury loves em...</p></blockquote>The regen may not be pointless but it's a huge waste of a concentration slot. We have multiple, power efficient group heals we can toss about and probably will be tossing about pretty often already, a pitiful 17 hp per second extra (that's at the base, iirc but still a joke even with the AA maxed) is not needed. The mit portion is situational, of course. The way I see it, when raiding, this ability should only be up if you have no other priests in group (ALL other priests have an actually useful secondary effect to their mit buff) and you have classes that will be taking physical damage regularly, or who will likely survive if they do.. which is why I use it if I have heavy dps scouts in group (not bards) or fighters. Or as Draco pointed out, physical AEs are to be expected. If you use it any other time you are just cheating yourself out of a concentration slot imo. INT potions? Why... STA or WIS ftw. Survival is more important that squeezing an extra bit of damage from our nukes, but hey whatever you want to do.

[Ciarr]

<p>something which just came to me when I was rereading posts here was that it all may look a little different depend on type of raid you are in</p><p>from my perspective as someone who runs/joins pickup raids I tend to concentrate on survival, in pickup raid if you have a few naked people it's usually time to call it off, for a guild running it as a team, squeezing a little extra DPS at the expense of a few repair kits may be consider an acceptable loss</p>

[DarrkElf]

Katryna@Lucan DLere wrote: <blockquote>I'm a level 70 Conjuror who's been raiding occasionally for about 3 months, and regularly for about one now.  Typical group I find myself in is Fury, Troub, Me, Necro, Sorcerer, Crusader/Scout.  What I've been noticing almost every time is that the Furies will usually run their 3 group buffs, plus Vim on themselves and the Sorcerer.  To be honest, this drives me nuts.  The reason for having a Fury grouped with casters is to buff their INT, and not just with the group buff. I have on occasion ventured to suggest to some Furies to drop Carnal Mask and their own Vim buff in order to have Vim on all three casters.  The responses have ranged from appreciative (usually from Furies new to raiding) to hostile (generally the more experienced Furies.)  Clearly a Fury would like to retain the extra power from Vim, though my own group buff gives just as much power in return, and I'm sure the other casters have similar buffs, while the INT would be put to far better use on someone 100% focused on DPS.  I do have a mid-30's Fury alt that I play from time to time, so I'm not utterly clueless when it comes to the class, though I clearly haven't raided as a Fury myself.  Am I going wrong here somewhere? </blockquote><p>Well, speaking as the player that is usually the 70 Fury in my squishies raid group - Troub/Fury/Conjurer/Necro/Wiz/Warlock I cast the following buffs:</p><p>Primal Spirit (INT + WIS for group)</p><p>Spirit of the Hunt (HP + Elemental resists for group)</p><p>Carnal Mask (Physical resists + In-combat hp regen for group)</p><p>Agitate (+STR +AGI +Attack Spd) on Troub (does not use a slot)</p><p>Spineskin (Piercing dmg on attack) on Tank (does not use a slot)</p><p>Seasoned Predator (+STA +AGI +See Invis) on self (does not use a slot)</p><p>Shapeshift (+Spell Crit Dmg chance by 6.9%) on self (does not use a slot)</p><p>Ferine Vim (+INT +Pwr) on self</p><p>Ferine Vim (+INT + Pwr) on mage with lowest pwr, or whoever says they need the INT buff.</p><p>Personally, I have always cast Ferine Vim on myself, and do not see any situation where I would give that up.  In a hard fight Furies consume insane amounts of power.  I couldn't care less about the INT, I use that buff for the power boost.  Even if it only makes the difference of one spell - being about to cast that one last heal or group cure can sometimes make the difference between winning a fight or wiping the raid.</p><p>Dropping Carnal Mask would mean crappier in-combat hp regen but more importantly, lower physical resists for everyone in the group - when you cop a physical AOE (try raiding in EOF) then you'd definitely want your physical resists are high as you can get them - it may make the difference between copping an AOE taking 90% of your health, or killing you outright.   </p>

[Boli32]

I always keep all 3 group buffs going at all time in a raid... but then I have the main brig and the troub in my group nd the exatra health+mit really helps as they both joust and the brig actualy occasionally steals agro. As for Vim - That generally goes to the wizard in the group over the warlock b/c as we have discovered as soon as cast it upon the warlock its like a death sentence. Though it all depends who is in the group necro/wizard and warlock are the mian contendors for Vim. As for removing Vim upon myself.... well... there are two reasons I keep it on myself - once debuffs are down my job involves spot healing keeping my group alive and putting out as much damage a possible on any easy (trash) mob I can sometimes spend the entire fight withotu hitting my heals once in this instance the extra power and the fact I'll be the one most benifiting from the vim in my group means I keep it on myself. - On hard fights... I'm going to be burning power like there is no tomorrow; I'm goign to need the extra power That doesn't leave many fights....and I only know of a few where I drop all my group buffs and buff every mage with vim where we want absolute max dps and hope we kill it before too many dpsers die. Mages get very jelious and upity about why furys buff others before themselves and take it personally that we have the gall to kepe on upon ourselves when "OBVIOUSLY" its a mage buff and they should have it. But the fact remains if we buff vim upon ourselves it adds more damage to the raid as a whole than if we buffed the top parsing mage the only thing it nets the raid is one mage gets a slightly bigger bragging right. Every raiding fury always thinks carefully aobut where the extra(s) Vims go and dependant on fight and raid make up we do swap it around; its just most fights we find that that vim on ourselves is the best choice.

[Cale2281]

<p>It sounds like its raid dependent for most experienced furies here.  The key thing I've noticed is that most of us keep vim on ourselves and would rather drop a group buff if we absolutely had to vim a third person in the group. </p><p>Can't wait for the scouts to come on our boards and start asking us to put agitate on them rather than on ourselves!  (j/k)</p>

[CodeKill]

<p>Depending on what grp I'm in, will dictate who gets what. If I'm in scout grp, they have no buffs or very little to increase my HP or Mana, but in squishies grp I'll give out my spare Vim, and maybe the other if power is good. In main MT grp I give the MT agigate thorns and vim. But like I said alot depends on the hunt and the grp.</p>

[Catsy]

It is raid-dependent, but with that said I have a few rules of thumb about how I distribute my buffs. I'm almost always in the caster group on our raids, and while there is some variation depending on who signs up on a given night, our typical loadout goes like this: Me Necro Warlock/Necro/Conj Warlock Wiz Troub Vim #1 goes on the caster with the lowest INT. Vim #2 goes on the caster with the next-highest int. I'll prioritize sorcerers over summoners. If we are not facing mobs with elemental aoes then I will drop Spirit of the Hunt to Vim a third person. I do not ever drop Carnal Mask--the in-combat health regen cuts down on the amount of power-sucking group heals I need to use, especially when our necros are lifeburning. When raiding candyland zones like Labs where I'm not likely to need to do much healing, I'll Vim myself first so I can join in the nuking. Otherwise even putting Vim on one of our mages with 700 self-buffed INT will benefit the raid more than putting it on me.

[Lemubie]

I can see what you're talking about with casting Ferine Vim on yourself... but I only do that when I'm in an easy raid zone and I can have fun doing more dps than healing. But, once I get in a harder zone where I'm going to heal alot more than dps, then I cast it on another mage in group, or a scout for the poison proc. I would rather have players that can control their agro while doing some dps get more use out of it rather than give me 2 more heals. I feel that the dps would add up more useful than the couple more heals from the power. All though, I don't normally have a problem with power even when chain healing with good power regen in group. I don't drop any group buffs to give me a buff. No group buff is worth taking away just to give me a little more stats in my view.

[SpritRaja]

Actually my mage group has pretty often said the troub deserves the vim more than them. All the troubs proc song damage are increased from that extra int. This increases every mage in the groups damage.

[Draco the Grey]

Actually, from everything I've heard, this isn't the case with the Troub procs.  I've had multiple Troubs tell me that their procs use our INT.  I haven't done any testing of their procs, but I know this is the case with my own.  Blazing Seed will use the INT of whoever I cast it on, and Blazing Avatar and Elemental Vestment will use my pet's INT.  The damage from Pyreshield is assigned to me no matter who I cast it on, so that uses my own INT.  I'm sure the results would be similar with Fae Pyre and Spineskin.

[Zelkova]

Katryna@Lucan DLere wrote: <blockquote>Actually, from everything I've heard, this isn't the case with the Troub procs.  I've had multiple Troubs tell me that their procs use our INT.  I haven't done any testing of their procs, but I know this is the case with my own.  Blazing Seed will use the INT of whoever I cast it on, and Blazing Avatar and Elemental Vestment will use my pet's INT.  The damage from Pyreshield is assigned to me no matter who I cast it on, so that uses my own INT.  I'm sure the results would be similar with Fae Pyre and Spineskin. </blockquote> The two big group troub spells that use their own INT on everyone are Aria of Acclamation and Precision of the Maestro. That alone is reason enough to give them Vim, but their single target spell attacks are aided by it also so that's a bonus. It helps US also. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Catsy]

Even assuming that that's true, I have a hard time believing that a Vim slot is better spent on a troub just to buff Maestro and Aria, as opposed to using it on a mage whose primary role in the group is to deliver huge dps based on their INT. In any given raid, I have four mages in my group who can benefit from two Vims, three if I'm in a position to drop my elemental resist group buff. I'm sure at a certain point the diminishing returns on stats would make the troub a better bet, but a mage would have to be pretty close to the cap for that to be true.

[Draco the Grey]

<p>A quick check of my parse data from FTH on Tues supports the idea that it is the caster's INT, not the Troub's:</p><ul><li>Wizard:</li><li>Dissonant Note - 278 hits, 348 min, 1451 max, 705 avg</li><li>Precise Note - 195 hits, 383 min, 1055 max, 619 avg</li><li>--</li><li>Me:</li><li>Dissonant Note - 556 hits, 299 min, 1016 max, 569 avg</li><li>Precise Note - 439 hits, 315 min, 770 max, 523 avg</li><li>--</li><li>Necro:</li><li>Dissonant Note - 576 hits, 276 min, 1025 max, 558 avg</li><li>Precise Note - 432 hits, 303 min, 789 max, 504 avg</li><li>--</li><li>Troubador:</li><li>Dissonant Note - 79 hits, 319 min, 965 max, 587 avg</li><li>Precise Note - 77 hits, 336 min, 686 max, 501 avg</li></ul><p>This is all imprecise, of course, due to crits, debuffs, AA's and everything else that goes on in an uncontrolled test.  The Wizzy's INT was buffed well over 900, while the Necro and I were rolling at about 800.  The Summoner data is a combination of the pets and the caster, explaining why we have twice the hits of the Wizard.  It also explains the wider variation on the high and low hits than the Troub.  The higher INT casters account for the high hits, while the lower INT pets are responsible for the lows.  Individually, the casters would average higher while the pets would average lower.</p><p>Edit: (The formatting options on these boards suck... Would letting us have single space lines be all that hard?)</p>