Our Debuffs are useless! ...

[Urian]

<p>... in most situations, There I said it. I am pretty sure most of you will argue about this with me, but the way I see it. Ever since I am 60+ I have been attending raids (our guilds don't have a lot of mystic/defiler) thats when I realized I have never used ALL of my debuffs so rigiously.</p><p>During solo or group play I rarely put debuffs on most fights, even when fighting names (Mostly yellow con or anything downwards) by the time my 3rd or 4th debuffs are on the mob is already down to 60% HPs. Since I am pretty heavy melee specced I personally believe any fights that don't last more then 15 - 20 seconds my group actually benefit more by just me throw the initial wards and melee away.</p><p>Am I the only one here think this way? Am I gimping my group by not doing debuffs? Inputs from our Mystic community will be greatly appreciated.</p>

[thedu]

No you are not gimping your group.  I could give a rats [Removed for Content] in some fights whether or not I can get debuffs off.  If there are enough DPS to discount debuffs then just concentrate on your nap.  Of course there are situations where some mobs are way underconned and if you can debuffing can killing it better then do so. Raids are another issue. If you DO NOT debuff in raids your raids will not be successful.  One of the worst things that can happen for a mystic is to be a single healer in an all DPS group in a raid.  I came out Number 3 for top heals in a recent raid.  My goal is to never be in top because as a mystic my best heals are debuffs.  If anyone ever complains about you not being in the top then next time tell them you wont debuff and see how the raid goes.  That's not to say that you can't kill raid mobs without debuffing, but the extremely hard/boss mobs need to debuffed as quickly and often as possible.

[Baccalarium]

In groups the mob is usually dead before I get more than a couple debufs on it.   But in groups I often only try to get a couple debuffs up front, and if it becomes clear that the fight will last longer then work in others.      On raid mobs I've definitely seen a difference and desire to keep those debuffs up.    One pickup raid that had two mystics,  I could swear the only difference between the wipe on a mob and the successfull take down of the same mob was delegation of which mystic would be maintaining which debufs for the duration of the battle so the debuffs stayed on the mob much more consistently.

[1Vis]

I really can't agree with the OP. In most group settings, yes. Even the nameds goes down without much fuss when faced with a good group. I maybe throw in the odd Wail of the Ancients at the beginning of fights with hard nameds, especially when they are in groups, but the mobs are normally down before I have had time to use more than three debuffs. But for raiding its totally different. I usually concentrate on constantly keeping all debuffs up, only interrupted by the need to sometimes keep 'my' fighter alive since I most of the time find myself being the OT  healer. And lastly for when soloing. I did some measuring of fight times and found that when I fought 68- 70 heroics, the fight went absolutely fastest if I  prewarded myself with both wards and then just we nt through all debuffs while the mob whacked away  at me. When the debuffing was done and I started to meele the mob went down so fast and easy that it was alm ost disappointing <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ************************************** <i>If you have complaints on my spelling or grammar, please respond in my own language to make sure that I understand what you write.</i> **************************************

[Java]

<p>My problem is that on Raids, I spend more time debuffing a mob then healing people because of the long cast timers and short durations of our debuffs.  I can keep all 6 debuffs up, but it takes me, based on cast times:</p><p>Single Target: ================== Eidolon: 2sec cast & 36 Sec Duration Shrieking Haze: 1.5sec cast & 36 Sec Duration Lambent Soul: 2sec cast & 72 Sec Duration Umbral Trap: 2sec cast & 72 Sec Duration</p><p>Group Target: ================== Lethargy: 3sec cast & 36 Sec Duration Wail of the Ancients: 2sec cast & 72 Sec Duration</p><p>The other debuff we have has no effect on epics since they have a power pool that is about as much as the entire raid combined.  Slothful Spirit is completely useless for an Ancient spell except in PvP.  With the above debuffs, which is mystic's job on raids, will take 12.5 seconds of casting not counting global recast time, so your looking at 16+ seconds to cast all your debuffs, not counting resists.  I will spend on average 20 seconds of my 36 sec durations casting debuffs, cast a few healers in there, and thats all I do for the 2 to 3 hours I raid.</p><p>My problem right now is that the cast time on our debuffs are way to long, being as that is what we do, to be a competent healer on raids.  If I am the only healer in a group, many times I can't cast my debuffs because I don't have time with those long cast times.  Mobs in places like CoV and OOB are hitting for 600 to 800 a pop and spiking as high as 1000 to 1200 every 1 to 2 seconds.  My ward is a 2 second cast with a 6 second recast.  That means I have to wait 8 seconds to get my second ward off and thats the time I spend casting my other heals since the mobs has already blown through the first ward within the first few seconds.</p><p>If we had time to get our debuffs in, then the healing would not be an issue, in some ways thats why I envy the defilers since their debuffs are reactive based on the tank getting hit.  No cast time needed.</p>

[Rayche]

I'm hoping in Kunark to see many of our debuffs combined into a single debuff. One that reduces the mobs ATK Speed and DPS as well as Melee Skills (Pierce, Crush, Slash)... possibly in slightly less overall effectiveness, but so we can debuff with a single spell and get back to the work of healing/DPSing... or deciding whether to lower a mobs noxious resists and stamina/str etc.

[thedu]

<i>The other debuff we have has no effect on epics since they have a power pool that is about as much as the entire raid combined.</i> Just exactly how would you prove this isn't working? <i>If I am the only healer in a group, many times I can't cast my debuffs because I don't have time with those long cast times. </i> Group construction is the biggest problem with raids.  If your the only healer and your in the wrong group it just doesn't work to debuff.  I was in a similar situation in MM Inner sanctum recently with an all scout/mage group.  The majority of my time was dealing with doing group heals, etc. Inefficient and a waste of my class abilities.  With the right group situation you can find the time to heal and debuff.  It takes time to figure out the best strategies in raiding. If you feel that you aren't able to correctly utilize everything then talk to your raid leaders to find out ways of trying different group setups. <i>Mobs in places like CoV and OOB are hitting for 600 to 800 a pop and spiking as high as 1000 to 1200 every 1 to 2 seconds.  My ward is a 2 second cast with a 6 second recast.</i> These aren't raid zones.  Unless your talking about something else.  Torpor for me lasts a long time.  Don't know much about defiler debuffing so can't say anything about that; but it can work out even with the timing issues.  I have been able to debuff 2 to 3 times on boss mobs in raid and not worry about healing all that much.

[Finora]

<p>As the only shaman in the guild and one of the few regular healers that attends raids (pretty much always in the MT group at that), in raiding debuffing is invaluble. We once had another mystic attending the raid who was supposed to be on debuffs since he was in an off group and didn't have the off tank. He barely used any(pretty much only used the single target slow) and boy could the rest of the healers tell a difference.</p><p>Despite the fact I try to keep all the debuffs on the raid target all the time I'm still coming out second on the heal parse behind the MT cleric. I don't think my healing suffers all that much by me spending the time debuffing. =) It certainly helps the raid go better. I suppose if I didn't debuff I could top the parse, but the fights would be so much tougher it isn't worth it. I'm there to kill the critter, not top the heal parse.</p><p>In groups, debuffing isn't as important. I toss in wail of ancients on the pull and if I know its something that does a lot of dps I'll toss a dps reducer of some sort. Soloing it entirely depends on what mobs I'm fighting. If it's just something like the basalisks for the 65-70 writ, then there is unlikely to be any debuffing, those practically evaporate when I start meleeing them. Tougher stuff (like the stuff near deathtoll) will get at a couple of debuffs before I start beating on them, then they go down nearly as fast as the basalisks.</p>

[Urian]

<p>I think I have mislead some of you here.  I think our debuffs are great, I love them and its great that we can use them effectively in raids. My complain was that it don't get much use for group/solo content which for me thats about 70% of my gaming time.</p><p> As 1Vis had pointed out I had also doing a single target full debuffs (just not our encounter ones) when I solo heroic ^^^ thats 1-2 lvls below me when I solo, but thats rare. I only did it to get quests done and to show off my [Removed for Content] to my brig and guardian friends <img src="/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </p><p>I don't think it will be too much to ask to get our debuffs casting time lowered, even for raids constantly maintain debuffs stats on mobs isn't that hard, the hard part is mana management (for me anyways) IMHO.</p><p>In conclusion, my point been if debuffs are an signature for us mystics its not logical to limit us in that department 70% of the time.</p>

[Karlen]

In groups, I tend to use my stamina debuffs and sometimes my Lethargy debuff.   The others are mostly useful in smaller groups where we don't have a lot of dps (and thus the battles can be quite long).  For example, in a healer-healer-healer group or in a fighter-fighter-fighter-healer group. If there is sufficient dps, the mobs will drop quickly enough that debuffing isn't really necessary.

[wushupork]

<p>Yeah typically in a group setting unless it's Castle Mistmoore, I'll toss out Wail on pull for the stamina/resist debuff- makes my attacks hit harder and less HP to take off, it makes fights a fair bit faster. With tank typically fully pre-warded before pull they never really need healing before the stuff is dead.</p><p>Now I agree with the original point, from outside of a raiding perspective that whole part of our spellset goes virtually untouched in a group environ. In actuality even in a raid setting (aside from Eidolon and Wail) the scouts debuff their attack speed/dps enough with their CAs that I don't even worry about casting those half the time (on trash or trash named).</p><p>I would never argue with speeding up the cast times of course, the only one that really seems to take forever is Lethargy, when there's a big group of mobs and I wanna get that in I'm always chanting C'monc'monc'mon while it's going so I can reapply all the wards I see vanishing waiting for it to finish <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>