Defiler questions.

Brook · 11-11-2010, 11:55 AM

Not new to the game but new to a Defiler.

I am in a progression guild locked at 50 right now and going over the parses of last nights raids I noticed that because we ward, our heal parse stays at the top, this I understand. I am sorely lacking in AA because I pl'd to 50 to fill a slot and will be getting AA caught up now that I am where I can raid. I went down Str first and put some in the defiler tree to increase Bane of warding. I plan on hitting the Wis line next.

My damage is pretty much null and dogdog often outparses me. Should I be trying to do damage or just concentrate on keeping the wards running, curing and debuffing?

Dogdog:

All of his heals are aura of warding, on a couple of short trash encounters I noticed his healing was really good coming in just behind mine, Why? What do I need to do to get him to ward more often like that?

Bane of Warding:

This looks like it should provide a lot of healing but I cant for the life of me see what its really doing on the parse or how much its contributing. I know its got to be something I am looking at wrong could someone please enlighten me? Is it actually a good thing to keep going every time it cycles?

Christ we cant kill Squat:

I have never played a character that did such abysmal damage when solo. I mean we can kill things but it takes forever. I am usually out of power at the end of a fight with a ^^^ 6 levels below me. What am I doing wrong or are we pretty much locked to being in a group to get anything done?

I am willing to bet none of the devs have ever tried to solo on a defiler. Maybe we could get Rothgar to try one out and he can fix us up a little the way the Coercer got fixed when he tried one. Just a little more damage solo would be awesome.

Griffildur · 11-15-2010, 06:41 AM

There already is a recent defiler AA discussion, just have a look and you'll get some nice points there.

I don't really see the point of locking at 50, progression or not progression, unless you do it for AA reasons.

You will be missing so many of your abilities, it's not even funny. You won't have spell crit gear, you won't have enough aa to unlock SF abilities, or even your stances.

I do agree we are slow to lvl regardless of spec and killing takes a while, but it's not really that bad, since you get a lot of xp anyway. Any class can be soloed to 90 these days, us included.You just have to live with it, accept the fact we're not really killing machines and just keep going.

Regarding dogdog, look at the descriptions in your STR tree. It's a chance to proc so it is not reliable. While there are items you can get to improve that ( funny this is discussed as well ), you wont be getting it at 50.

Get one of those AA mirrors when you can and use it for a solo / raid setup. Once you hit 90 and get some nicer gear from instances / raids, your spell crit will go up a lot.

If you need power you need to address that asap, get Cannibalise urgently , this is what keeps us going all the time , when many others are running oop.

Btw, powerleveling a defiler really is a bad idea, you need a lot of AA to improve your capabilities. I only have 178 AA atm and there loads of useful abilities I don't have. The stances are very useful , I use the healing one for groups / raids and the other for solo mode.

Brook · 11-15-2010, 02:18 PM

Thank you for the reply, I have been going over that post and picking up tips, unfortunately most of those tips are for people who are post 80 which doesn't do me a lot of good.

You may not understand locking at 50 but its for a progression guild where everyone locks and we do the raid content at the level it was designed for...there is no mentoring from higher level toons allowed. When we knock out the T6 raids we will lock again and do the T7 stuff, etc... Thats the point of locking for the content and not just AA. We are in no rush to reach 90.

I agree that PLing a defiler was probably not the brightest move one could make, but its done and I am trying to figure out the best places to start with AA considering the level. It seems I may be on the correct path.

Thanks also for the tip on Cannibalize, I will look into that when I get home.

Alima_Tunare · 11-20-2010, 03:46 PM

We kill slower than a one armed ranger. For raiding stay focused on your healing, definitely get cannibalize, you've soloed so you know your dps is squat, but casting your damage spells is still important since they offer some debuffs. Its not about how much dmg they do but how much debuff they offer. I havent looked at the lower level gear in a long time so Im not sure what bonuses they offer. You want to look for items that offer you potency, crit chance, crit bonus and plus to ability. Sounds like a lot but getting a mix of items will help you out no matter which you have more of. Your wards have hidden heals that you have to go snooping around for to find on the parse....your biggest omg asset. I raid a defiler but im not the best expert out there, each of us probably takes a different path in how we work. I build my heals to be consistantly big and always going (as in wards). Potency is going to make everything you do ...errr....more potent heh. Plus to ability is going to add on top of what you do as a flat amount. Crit chance will help you crit and crit bonus will add to the crit making it more significant.

For AA you will need to choose the way you work. Dog line is good, free wards are nothing to complain about, lil group haste doesnt hurt either. Cannibalize...just do it, its yummy. Many of the end line abilities arent that special so only focus on the one or two you actually need. Remember you arent the guy who pushes someone off the cliff, youre the one who ties their shoelaces together.

tarb · 11-20-2010, 07:40 PM

What about adornments, what stat should a defiler go after adornment wise for mainly group instances?

Sedenten · 11-24-2010, 12:50 PM

tarb wrote:

What about adornments, what stat should a defiler go after adornment wise for mainly group instances?

Potency and reuse are king and roughly equivalent for us unless your reuse is already exceptionally high. For the other adornment slots where you cannot use potency or reuse, plug in whatever you're lacking--I did casting speed for cloak/legs and ability modifier jewelry slots/breastplate. I wouldn't bother with crit bonus for any slot, as it's effectiveness is halved for our wards--go with potency instead for those slots.

Griffildur · 11-29-2010, 07:35 AM

I was wondering about white adorns well and I tend to value potency and reuse . I don't know about other defilers but reuse seems to be really hard to get, a lot harder than potency, so I'll probably go with that. I haven't used any white adorns yet, but will have to soon SMILEY .

In terms of SF end lines ability , I gave up on dog heals completely ( we alread have 2 group heals spells and the end of line AA in the shaman tree is just so [Removed for Content] good - plus I already have several items that proc heals ). Instead I went for the group cure spell, put 8 points into that and, at the moment , I find that extremely helpful .

Sedenten · 12-04-2010, 05:07 AM

Mrrshan@Runnyeye wrote:

In terms of SF end lines ability , I gave up on dog heals completely ( we alread have 2 group heals spells and the end of line AA in the shaman tree is just so [Removed for Content] good - plus I already have several items that proc heals ). Instead I went for the group cure spell, put 8 points into that and, at the moment , I find that extremely helpful .

I'm really hoping the shared stats changes that are being implemented will affect all pets. If that ends up being the case, the dog line will become quite a bit more worthwhile (Aura of Warding critting 100% of the time with my potency and crit bonus affecting it).

I'm able to get away with only 4 points in the group cure enhancement--anything more just gets wasted. The situation gets worse the better gear you acquire, so I wouldn't be surprised if the group cure reuse reduction falls to the wayside with the direction itemization is going.

GorgukGrimmfist · 12-04-2010, 03:31 PM

Guys you have to remember that the OP is in a progression guild at level 50 and geared accordingly!!

They do not have the stats that we take for granted at level 90. It is time to get back to basics. Focus on crit, casting and potency. Crit and casting speed are stats that most of the people who have posted here assume to be capped when they make their gear choices. They are comparing apples to oranges.

At level 50 with very low reuse speed I wouldn't worry too much about that right now. Right now the OP's casting speed is still very low, hell self buffed it could be zero. With that casting speed casting wards, debuffs and all the other stuff we do takes much more time. I highly doubt that they can finish casting the key stuff before it starts coming back up again.

Focus on casting speed so you can quickly cast your spells during combat, when you notice yourself running out of heal spells to cast then its time to start looking at reuse.

Focus on crit. Ignore crit bonus entirely for now I would say. If you are not consistently critting, crit bonus is not helping you. Also our wards crit at half the rate of other heals so the benefits are even more marginal even with 100% crit rate.

Focus on potency. This modifies the base amount of your spells. It is good regardless of level and gear. It always helps. Potency = win.

Finally focus on ability mod. Be aware of your caps (50% of the spell) and adjust accordingly. Potency will help open up these caps. They are effective even without critting so you will get good gains even at level 50.

For AA's I would go Wis line first. 8% reuse, ritual, and ROA. All this stuff is very usefull in raids. I would then go down agi to get the crit chance and go dogdog or sta for more heal utility.

If you are running out of power get canny from defiler trees right away. IF you can maintain power in raids, go down warding line and debuff line I would say. At higher levels I can see dropping curseweaving but at lower levels it will still hold tons of value for you. Canny is a huge ability that I cast all the time, BUT if you are good on power the rest of the line is largely useless in raids for a MT healer.

Basically with 50 AA you can pick two lines. Take warding for sure, then take canny or curseweaving depending on need.

Sedenten · 12-04-2010, 10:33 PM

GorgukGrimmfist wrote:

At level 50 with very low reuse speed I wouldn't worry too much about that right now. Right now the OP's casting speed is still very low, hell self buffed it could be zero. With that casting speed casting wards, debuffs and all the other stuff we do takes much more time. I highly doubt that they can finish casting the key stuff before it starts coming back up again.
Focus on casting speed so you can quickly cast your spells during combat, when you notice yourself running out of heal spells to cast then its time to start looking at reuse.

Prior to casting speed being easily capped at the later levels, reuse has always been more important. Regardless of your level range, the base casting times/reuse of abilities remain the same. The only difference between the lower levels and the upper levels as far as the heals themselves is the base amount of the ward/heal. If anything, reuse becomes much more important than anything else because potency/criticals/ability modifier simply don't have as much of an effect on a 1000 point ward compared to say, a 3000 point ward.

The reason reuse is more important than casting speed is because base recast timers are in all cases longer than the base casting times of a spell. Even if you're able to cast a spell as quickly as possible, it'll do you very little good if you're waiting more than double that amount of time to reapply it. I'll do a couple of quick calculations using only base ward amount, casting speed and reuse speed to illustrate how your potential heals per second for a given spell grows in both cases:

Ward with 4000 absorption, 14 second reuse, 4 second casting speed0% reuse speed, 100% casting speed: 4000 hit points absorption / ( 14 second reuse + 2 second casting speed ) = 250 heals per second100% reuse speed, 0% casting speed: 4000 hit points absorption / ( 7 second reuse + 4 second casting speed ) = 363 heals per second

With the above ward, the best I can ever do is to cast it every 18 seconds with no reuse or casting speed. With maxed out casting speed and no reuse, I'm able to use that spell every 16 seconds. With maxed out reuse and no casting speed modification, that time drops quite a bit down to 11 seconds. I'm ignoring recovery speed since it really has no bearing on the comparison between reuse and casting speed. You could try and make the argument that getting the ward on someone taking damage quickly would be better but wards are meant to be preemptive and should be kept going the entire time. Bottoming out your casting speed won't help you hold your target up once all of your heals are down and you're tapping your fingers waiting on something to come back up.

Neither of the two are common at the lower levels except via AA's, so it's a moot point when considering gear. That is true of most of the bonuses they will have access to. If you have a choice between the two and neither are capped, always go for reuse speed before you touch casting speed. Even at level 50, my formula for determining gear selection wouldn't change. Unfortunately, there's not much potency, reuse, casting speed or critical chance on gear in the 50's range. The only stat mentioned that is even remotely abundant on even raid gear for that range would be ability modifier.

GorgukGrimmfist · 12-05-2010, 04:19 PM

Koinoo@Crushbone wrote:

GorgukGrimmfist wrote:
At level 50 with very low reuse speed I wouldn't worry too much about that right now. Right now the OP's casting speed is still very low, hell self buffed it could be zero. With that casting speed casting wards, debuffs and all the other stuff we do takes much more time. I highly doubt that they can finish casting the key stuff before it starts coming back up again.
Focus on casting speed so you can quickly cast your spells during combat, when you notice yourself running out of heal spells to cast then its time to start looking at reuse.
Prior to casting speed being easily capped at the later levels, reuse has always been more important. Regardless of your level range, the base casting times/reuse of abilities remain the same. The only difference between the lower levels and the upper levels as far as the heals themselves is the base amount of the ward/heal. If anything, reuse becomes much more important than anything else because potency/criticals/ability modifier simply don't have as much of an effect on a 1000 point ward compared to say, a 3000 point ward.
The reason reuse is more important than casting speed is because base recast timers are in all cases longer than the base casting times of a spell. Even if you're able to cast a spell as quickly as possible, it'll do you very little good if you're waiting more than double that amount of time to reapply it. I'll do a couple of quick calculations using only base ward amount, casting speed and reuse speed to illustrate how your potential heals per second for a given spell grows in both cases:
Ward with 4000 absorption, 14 second reuse, 4 second casting speed0% reuse speed, 100% casting speed: 4000 hit points absorption / ( 14 second reuse + 2 second casting speed ) = 250 heals per second100% reuse speed, 0% casting speed: 4000 hit points absorption / ( 7 second reuse + 4 second casting speed ) = 363 heals per second
With the above ward, the best I can ever do is to cast it every 18 seconds with no reuse or casting speed. With maxed out casting speed and no reuse, I'm able to use that spell every 16 seconds. With maxed out reuse and no casting speed modification, that time drops quite a bit down to 11 seconds. I'm ignoring recovery speed since it really has no bearing on the comparison between reuse and casting speed. You could try and make the argument that getting the ward on someone taking damage quickly would be better but wards are meant to be preemptive and should be kept going the entire time. Bottoming out your casting speed won't help you hold your target up once all of your heals are down and you're tapping your fingers waiting on something to come back up.
Neither of the two are common at the lower levels except via AA's, so it's a moot point when considering gear. That is true of most of the bonuses they will have access to. If you have a choice between the two and neither are capped, always go for reuse speed before you touch casting speed. Even at level 50, my formula for determining gear selection wouldn't change. Unfortunately, there's not much potency, reuse, casting speed or critical chance on gear in the 50's range. The only stat mentioned that is even remotely abundant on even raid gear for that range would be ability modifier.

I understand the reuse mechanic. Try and think of this as more spells per total casting time. Right now their casting speed is a much larger portion of the total time. They are taking twice the time of the level 90 defilers to complete casting their primary spells. With the base reuse of the key spells (group ward, single ward etc etc) I highly doubt they can finish casting them and a few other spells (debuffs) by the time they start coming back up. Reuse only helps if your primary stuff is still blacked out. Your still assuming that the OP is "bottoming out casting speed". The OP is nowhere near cap to EITHER casting or reuse speed!!!. If you assume the OP has a decent amount of casting, which your comments seem to indicate, then yes reuse is huge. They are level 50 and geared/specced accordingly. They do not have curseweaving, they have zero or near zero casting and reuse. IF the OP can actually cast their wards and debuffs before group wards starts coming back up again I would agree with your arguement. If they can't finish casting their key stuff before it starts coming back up again what help did reuse have again? If you take one spell on its own with and without reuse yes your arguement stands. We dont stand and cast one spell over and over again, we have other stuff to cast which also takes time

I still say stick to the stuff that you will get the most benefit from NOW and not later, crit chance, potency and mod. The rest of the stuff is very important, but you have to focus on the basics first. Once you get to T9 you will be to reitemize your gear based on whats available and make the assumptions the rest of us have, IE 100% crit rate and close to cap casting speed.

Lets ask the OP, do you run out of relevent spells to cast? After you cast single ward, group ward and maybe 2-3 debuffs per cycle are the ward spells still greyed out on your hotbars?

Sedenten · 12-06-2010, 04:33 AM

GorgukGrimmfist wrote:

Koinoo@Crushbone wrote:
GorgukGrimmfist wrote:
At level 50 with very low reuse speed I wouldn't worry too much about that right now. Right now the OP's casting speed is still very low, hell self buffed it could be zero. With that casting speed casting wards, debuffs and all the other stuff we do takes much more time. I highly doubt that they can finish casting the key stuff before it starts coming back up again.
Focus on casting speed so you can quickly cast your spells during combat, when you notice yourself running out of heal spells to cast then its time to start looking at reuse.
Prior to casting speed being easily capped at the later levels, reuse has always been more important. Regardless of your level range, the base casting times/reuse of abilities remain the same. The only difference between the lower levels and the upper levels as far as the heals themselves is the base amount of the ward/heal. If anything, reuse becomes much more important than anything else because potency/criticals/ability modifier simply don't have as much of an effect on a 1000 point ward compared to say, a 3000 point ward.
The reason reuse is more important than casting speed is because base recast timers are in all cases longer than the base casting times of a spell. Even if you're able to cast a spell as quickly as possible, it'll do you very little good if you're waiting more than double that amount of time to reapply it. I'll do a couple of quick calculations using only base ward amount, casting speed and reuse speed to illustrate how your potential heals per second for a given spell grows in both cases:
Ward with 4000 absorption, 14 second reuse, 4 second casting speed0% reuse speed, 100% casting speed: 4000 hit points absorption / ( 14 second reuse + 2 second casting speed ) = 250 heals per second100% reuse speed, 0% casting speed: 4000 hit points absorption / ( 7 second reuse + 4 second casting speed ) = 363 heals per second
With the above ward, the best I can ever do is to cast it every 18 seconds with no reuse or casting speed. With maxed out casting speed and no reuse, I'm able to use that spell every 16 seconds. With maxed out reuse and no casting speed modification, that time drops quite a bit down to 11 seconds. I'm ignoring recovery speed since it really has no bearing on the comparison between reuse and casting speed. You could try and make the argument that getting the ward on someone taking damage quickly would be better but wards are meant to be preemptive and should be kept going the entire time. Bottoming out your casting speed won't help you hold your target up once all of your heals are down and you're tapping your fingers waiting on something to come back up.
Neither of the two are common at the lower levels except via AA's, so it's a moot point when considering gear. That is true of most of the bonuses they will have access to. If you have a choice between the two and neither are capped, always go for reuse speed before you touch casting speed. Even at level 50, my formula for determining gear selection wouldn't change. Unfortunately, there's not much potency, reuse, casting speed or critical chance on gear in the 50's range. The only stat mentioned that is even remotely abundant on even raid gear for that range would be ability modifier.
I understand the reuse mechanic. Try and think of this as more spells per total casting time. Right now their casting speed is a much larger portion of the total time. They are taking twice the time of the level 90 defilers to complete casting their primary spells. With the base reuse of the key spells (group ward, single ward etc etc) I highly doubt they can finish casting them and a few other spells (debuffs) by the time they start coming back up. Reuse only helps if your primary stuff is still blacked out. Your still assuming that the OP is "bottoming out casting speed". The OP is nowhere near cap to EITHER casting or reuse speed!!!. If you assume the OP has a decent amount of casting, which your comments seem to indicate, then yes reuse is huge. They are level 50 and geared/specced accordingly. They do not have curseweaving, they have zero or near zero casting and reuse. IF the OP can actually cast their wards and debuffs before group wards starts coming back up again I would agree with your arguement. If they can't finish casting their key stuff before it starts coming back up again what help did reuse have again? If you take one spell on its own with and without reuse yes your arguement stands. We dont stand and cast one spell over and over again, we have other stuff to cast which also takes time
I still say stick to the stuff that you will get the most benefit from NOW and not later, crit chance, potency and mod. The rest of the stuff is very important, but you have to focus on the basics first. Once you get to T9 you will be to reitemize your gear based on whats available and make the assumptions the rest of us have, IE 100% crit rate and close to cap casting speed.
Lets ask the OP, do you run out of relevent spells to cast? After you cast single ward, group ward and maybe 2-3 debuffs per cycle are the ward spells still greyed out on your hotbars?

In regards to where the entire argument about potency, reuse, etc. came up, there was a relevant post midway through this thread asking what adornments people go for (seperate from the original poster's question). In that case, potency and reuse will always be the best adornments to get for defilers of all levels and calibre of raiding. There's plenty of slots where casting speed is the best adornment you can use--I don't think think potency or reuse share an adornment slot with casting speed, though I could very well be incorrect on that. Given that the original poster will find very, very few upgrade paths for reuse or casting speed on gear, adornments will be where they'll be drawing benefit from the two at earlier levels.

Either way--at any level of the game, raiding or not, reuse will always trump casting speed on making you a more efficient defiler. You need both to be effective, but unless you're capped on reuse, reuse is going to provide more benefit even if you're sitting at 0% casting speed. The reason it doesn't "feel" like it's the case at level 50 is only because you don't have many options for either via gear at that level. Base casting times and reuse timers do not change between level 50 and level 90--they're the exact same. Therefore, the importance of one over the other does not change just because you're several levels lower. Prior to casting speed being so abundant in tier 9, reuse speed was still the better of the two. I don't know how you would expect the case to be any different when you're level 50.

11-11-2010, 11:55 AM	#1
Brook Tester Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 1,336	Not new to the game but new to a Defiler. I am in a progression guild locked at 50 right now and going over the parses of last nights raids I noticed that because we ward, our heal parse stays at the top, this I understand. I am sorely lacking in AA because I pl'd to 50 to fill a slot and will be getting AA caught up now that I am where I can raid. I went down Str first and put some in the defiler tree to increase Bane of warding. I plan on hitting the Wis line next. My damage is pretty much null and dogdog often outparses me. Should I be trying to do damage or just concentrate on keeping the wards running, curing and debuffing? Dogdog: All of his heals are aura of warding, on a couple of short trash encounters I noticed his healing was really good coming in just behind mine, Why? What do I need to do to get him to ward more often like that? Bane of Warding: This looks like it should provide a lot of healing but I cant for the life of me see what its really doing on the parse or how much its contributing. I know its got to be something I am looking at wrong could someone please enlighten me? Is it actually a good thing to keep going every time it cycles? Christ we cant kill Squat: I have never played a character that did such abysmal damage when solo. I mean we can kill things but it takes forever. I am usually out of power at the end of a fight with a ^^^ 6 levels below me. What am I doing wrong or are we pretty much locked to being in a group to get anything done? I am willing to bet none of the devs have ever tried to solo on a defiler. Maybe we could get Rothgar to try one out and he can fix us up a little the way the Coercer got fixed when he tried one. Just a little more damage solo would be awesome. __________________ But seriously, you're the kind of guy that zones into gears without a healer and spends the whole match talking about the fact there isn't a healer instead of contributing. I hate you, and everyone like you that plays this game. Please spend less time whining and more time winning, it contributes to the general growth of the game and makes gameplay more enjoyable for all.

11-15-2010, 06:41 AM	#2
Griffildur Server: Antonia Bayle Guild: First Lords Rank: Peasant (0-100) Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 1,136	There already is a recent defiler AA discussion, just have a look and you'll get some nice points there. I don't really see the point of locking at 50, progression or not progression, unless you do it for AA reasons. You will be missing so many of your abilities, it's not even funny. You won't have spell crit gear, you won't have enough aa to unlock SF abilities, or even your stances. I do agree we are slow to lvl regardless of spec and killing takes a while, but it's not really that bad, since you get a lot of xp anyway. Any class can be soloed to 90 these days, us included.You just have to live with it, accept the fact we're not really killing machines and just keep going. Regarding dogdog, look at the descriptions in your STR tree. It's a chance to proc so it is not reliable. While there are items you can get to improve that ( funny this is discussed as well ), you wont be getting it at 50. Get one of those AA mirrors when you can and use it for a solo / raid setup. Once you hit 90 and get some nicer gear from instances / raids, your spell crit will go up a lot. If you need power you need to address that asap, get Cannibalise urgently , this is what keeps us going all the time , when many others are running oop. Btw, powerleveling a defiler really is a bad idea, you need a lot of AA to improve your capabilities. I only have 178 AA atm and there loads of useful abilities I don't have. The stances are very useful , I use the healing one for groups / raids and the other for solo mode. __________________

11-15-2010, 02:18 PM	#3
Brook Tester Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 1,336	Thank you for the reply, I have been going over that post and picking up tips, unfortunately most of those tips are for people who are post 80 which doesn't do me a lot of good. You may not understand locking at 50 but its for a progression guild where everyone locks and we do the raid content at the level it was designed for...there is no mentoring from higher level toons allowed. When we knock out the T6 raids we will lock again and do the T7 stuff, etc... Thats the point of locking for the content and not just AA. We are in no rush to reach 90. I agree that PLing a defiler was probably not the brightest move one could make, but its done and I am trying to figure out the best places to start with AA considering the level. It seems I may be on the correct path. Thanks also for the tip on Cannibalize, I will look into that when I get home. __________________ But seriously, you're the kind of guy that zones into gears without a healer and spends the whole match talking about the fact there isn't a healer instead of contributing. I hate you, and everyone like you that plays this game. Please spend less time whining and more time winning, it contributes to the general growth of the game and makes gameplay more enjoyable for all.

11-20-2010, 07:40 PM	#5
tarb Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 50	What about adornments, what stat should a defiler go after adornment wise for mainly group instances? __________________

11-24-2010, 12:50 PM	#6
Sedenten Loremaster Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 680	tarb wrote: What about adornments, what stat should a defiler go after adornment wise for mainly group instances? Potency and reuse are king and roughly equivalent for us unless your reuse is already exceptionally high. For the other adornment slots where you cannot use potency or reuse, plug in whatever you're lacking--I did casting speed for cloak/legs and ability modifier jewelry slots/breastplate. I wouldn't bother with crit bonus for any slot, as it's effectiveness is halved for our wards--go with potency instead for those slots.

11-20-2010, 03:46 PM	#4
Alima_Tunare Loremaster Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 43	We kill slower than a one armed ranger. For raiding stay focused on your healing, definitely get cannibalize, you've soloed so you know your dps is squat, but casting your damage spells is still important since they offer some debuffs. Its not about how much dmg they do but how much debuff they offer. I havent looked at the lower level gear in a long time so Im not sure what bonuses they offer. You want to look for items that offer you potency, crit chance, crit bonus and plus to ability. Sounds like a lot but getting a mix of items will help you out no matter which you have more of. Your wards have hidden heals that you have to go snooping around for to find on the parse....your biggest omg asset. I raid a defiler but im not the best expert out there, each of us probably takes a different path in how we work. I build my heals to be consistantly big and always going (as in wards). Potency is going to make everything you do ...errr....more potent heh. Plus to ability is going to add on top of what you do as a flat amount. Crit chance will help you crit and crit bonus will add to the crit making it more significant. For AA you will need to choose the way you work. Dog line is good, free wards are nothing to complain about, lil group haste doesnt hurt either. Cannibalize...just do it, its yummy. Many of the end line abilities arent that special so only focus on the one or two you actually need. Remember you arent the guy who pushes someone off the cliff, youre the one who ties their shoelaces together.

11-29-2010, 07:35 AM	#7
Griffildur Server: Antonia Bayle Guild: First Lords Rank: Peasant (0-100) Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 1,136	I was wondering about white adorns well and I tend to value potency and reuse . I don't know about other defilers but reuse seems to be really hard to get, a lot harder than potency, so I'll probably go with that. I haven't used any white adorns yet, but will have to soon . In terms of SF end lines ability , I gave up on dog heals completely ( we alread have 2 group heals spells and the end of line AA in the shaman tree is just so [Removed for Content] good - plus I already have several items that proc heals ). Instead I went for the group cure spell, put 8 points into that and, at the moment , I find that extremely helpful . __________________

12-04-2010, 05:07 AM	#8
Sedenten Loremaster Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 680	Mrrshan@Runnyeye wrote: In terms of SF end lines ability , I gave up on dog heals completely ( we alread have 2 group heals spells and the end of line AA in the shaman tree is just so [Removed for Content] good - plus I already have several items that proc heals ). Instead I went for the group cure spell, put 8 points into that and, at the moment , I find that extremely helpful . I'm really hoping the shared stats changes that are being implemented will affect all pets. If that ends up being the case, the dog line will become quite a bit more worthwhile (Aura of Warding critting 100% of the time with my potency and crit bonus affecting it). I'm able to get away with only 4 points in the group cure enhancement--anything more just gets wasted. The situation gets worse the better gear you acquire, so I wouldn't be surprised if the group cure reuse reduction falls to the wayside with the direction itemization is going.

12-04-2010, 03:31 PM	#9
GorgukGrimmfist Loremaster Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 136	Guys you have to remember that the OP is in a progression guild at level 50 and geared accordingly!! They do not have the stats that we take for granted at level 90. It is time to get back to basics. Focus on crit, casting and potency. Crit and casting speed are stats that most of the people who have posted here assume to be capped when they make their gear choices. They are comparing apples to oranges. At level 50 with very low reuse speed I wouldn't worry too much about that right now. Right now the OP's casting speed is still very low, hell self buffed it could be zero. With that casting speed casting wards, debuffs and all the other stuff we do takes much more time. I highly doubt that they can finish casting the key stuff before it starts coming back up again. Focus on casting speed so you can quickly cast your spells during combat, when you notice yourself running out of heal spells to cast then its time to start looking at reuse. Focus on crit. Ignore crit bonus entirely for now I would say. If you are not consistently critting, crit bonus is not helping you. Also our wards crit at half the rate of other heals so the benefits are even more marginal even with 100% crit rate. Focus on potency. This modifies the base amount of your spells. It is good regardless of level and gear. It always helps. Potency = win. Finally focus on ability mod. Be aware of your caps (50% of the spell) and adjust accordingly. Potency will help open up these caps. They are effective even without critting so you will get good gains even at level 50. For AA's I would go Wis line first. 8% reuse, ritual, and ROA. All this stuff is very usefull in raids. I would then go down agi to get the crit chance and go dogdog or sta for more heal utility. If you are running out of power get canny from defiler trees right away. IF you can maintain power in raids, go down warding line and debuff line I would say. At higher levels I can see dropping curseweaving but at lower levels it will still hold tons of value for you. Canny is a huge ability that I cast all the time, BUT if you are good on power the rest of the line is largely useless in raids for a MT healer. Basically with 50 AA you can pick two lines. Take warding for sure, then take canny or curseweaving depending on need.

12-04-2010, 10:33 PM	#10
Sedenten Loremaster Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 680	GorgukGrimmfist wrote: At level 50 with very low reuse speed I wouldn't worry too much about that right now. Right now the OP's casting speed is still very low, hell self buffed it could be zero. With that casting speed casting wards, debuffs and all the other stuff we do takes much more time. I highly doubt that they can finish casting the key stuff before it starts coming back up again. Focus on casting speed so you can quickly cast your spells during combat, when you notice yourself running out of heal spells to cast then its time to start looking at reuse. Prior to casting speed being easily capped at the later levels, reuse has always been more important. Regardless of your level range, the base casting times/reuse of abilities remain the same. The only difference between the lower levels and the upper levels as far as the heals themselves is the base amount of the ward/heal. If anything, reuse becomes much more important than anything else because potency/criticals/ability modifier simply don't have as much of an effect on a 1000 point ward compared to say, a 3000 point ward. The reason reuse is more important than casting speed is because base recast timers are in all cases longer than the base casting times of a spell. Even if you're able to cast a spell as quickly as possible, it'll do you very little good if you're waiting more than double that amount of time to reapply it. I'll do a couple of quick calculations using only base ward amount, casting speed and reuse speed to illustrate how your potential heals per second for a given spell grows in both cases: Ward with 4000 absorption, 14 second reuse, 4 second casting speed0% reuse speed, 100% casting speed: 4000 hit points absorption / ( 14 second reuse + 2 second casting speed ) = 250 heals per second100% reuse speed, 0% casting speed: 4000 hit points absorption / ( 7 second reuse + 4 second casting speed ) = 363 heals per second With the above ward, the best I can ever do is to cast it every 18 seconds with no reuse or casting speed. With maxed out casting speed and no reuse, I'm able to use that spell every 16 seconds. With maxed out reuse and no casting speed modification, that time drops quite a bit down to 11 seconds. I'm ignoring recovery speed since it really has no bearing on the comparison between reuse and casting speed. You could try and make the argument that getting the ward on someone taking damage quickly would be better but wards are meant to be preemptive and should be kept going the entire time. Bottoming out your casting speed won't help you hold your target up once all of your heals are down and you're tapping your fingers waiting on something to come back up. Neither of the two are common at the lower levels except via AA's, so it's a moot point when considering gear. That is true of most of the bonuses they will have access to. If you have a choice between the two and neither are capped, always go for reuse speed before you touch casting speed. Even at level 50, my formula for determining gear selection wouldn't change. Unfortunately, there's not much potency, reuse, casting speed or critical chance on gear in the 50's range. The only stat mentioned that is even remotely abundant on even raid gear for that range would be ability modifier.

12-05-2010, 04:19 PM	#11
GorgukGrimmfist Loremaster Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 136	Koinoo@Crushbone wrote: GorgukGrimmfist wrote: At level 50 with very low reuse speed I wouldn't worry too much about that right now. Right now the OP's casting speed is still very low, hell self buffed it could be zero. With that casting speed casting wards, debuffs and all the other stuff we do takes much more time. I highly doubt that they can finish casting the key stuff before it starts coming back up again. Focus on casting speed so you can quickly cast your spells during combat, when you notice yourself running out of heal spells to cast then its time to start looking at reuse. Prior to casting speed being easily capped at the later levels, reuse has always been more important. Regardless of your level range, the base casting times/reuse of abilities remain the same. The only difference between the lower levels and the upper levels as far as the heals themselves is the base amount of the ward/heal. If anything, reuse becomes much more important than anything else because potency/criticals/ability modifier simply don't have as much of an effect on a 1000 point ward compared to say, a 3000 point ward. The reason reuse is more important than casting speed is because base recast timers are in all cases longer than the base casting times of a spell. Even if you're able to cast a spell as quickly as possible, it'll do you very little good if you're waiting more than double that amount of time to reapply it. I'll do a couple of quick calculations using only base ward amount, casting speed and reuse speed to illustrate how your potential heals per second for a given spell grows in both cases: Ward with 4000 absorption, 14 second reuse, 4 second casting speed0% reuse speed, 100% casting speed: 4000 hit points absorption / ( 14 second reuse + 2 second casting speed ) = 250 heals per second100% reuse speed, 0% casting speed: 4000 hit points absorption / ( 7 second reuse + 4 second casting speed ) = 363 heals per second With the above ward, the best I can ever do is to cast it every 18 seconds with no reuse or casting speed. With maxed out casting speed and no reuse, I'm able to use that spell every 16 seconds. With maxed out reuse and no casting speed modification, that time drops quite a bit down to 11 seconds. I'm ignoring recovery speed since it really has no bearing on the comparison between reuse and casting speed. You could try and make the argument that getting the ward on someone taking damage quickly would be better but wards are meant to be preemptive and should be kept going the entire time. Bottoming out your casting speed won't help you hold your target up once all of your heals are down and you're tapping your fingers waiting on something to come back up. Neither of the two are common at the lower levels except via AA's, so it's a moot point when considering gear. That is true of most of the bonuses they will have access to. If you have a choice between the two and neither are capped, always go for reuse speed before you touch casting speed. Even at level 50, my formula for determining gear selection wouldn't change. Unfortunately, there's not much potency, reuse, casting speed or critical chance on gear in the 50's range. The only stat mentioned that is even remotely abundant on even raid gear for that range would be ability modifier. I understand the reuse mechanic. Try and think of this as more spells per total casting time. Right now their casting speed is a much larger portion of the total time. They are taking twice the time of the level 90 defilers to complete casting their primary spells. With the base reuse of the key spells (group ward, single ward etc etc) I highly doubt they can finish casting them and a few other spells (debuffs) by the time they start coming back up. Reuse only helps if your primary stuff is still blacked out. Your still assuming that the OP is "bottoming out casting speed". The OP is nowhere near cap to EITHER casting or reuse speed!!!. If you assume the OP has a decent amount of casting, which your comments seem to indicate, then yes reuse is huge. They are level 50 and geared/specced accordingly. They do not have curseweaving, they have zero or near zero casting and reuse. IF the OP can actually cast their wards and debuffs before group wards starts coming back up again I would agree with your arguement. If they can't finish casting their key stuff before it starts coming back up again what help did reuse have again? If you take one spell on its own with and without reuse yes your arguement stands. We dont stand and cast one spell over and over again, we have other stuff to cast which also takes time I still say stick to the stuff that you will get the most benefit from NOW and not later, crit chance, potency and mod. The rest of the stuff is very important, but you have to focus on the basics first. Once you get to T9 you will be to reitemize your gear based on whats available and make the assumptions the rest of us have, IE 100% crit rate and close to cap casting speed. Lets ask the OP, do you run out of relevent spells to cast? After you cast single ward, group ward and maybe 2-3 debuffs per cycle are the ward spells still greyed out on your hotbars?

12-06-2010, 04:33 AM	#12
Sedenten Loremaster Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 680	GorgukGrimmfist wrote: Koinoo@Crushbone wrote: GorgukGrimmfist wrote: At level 50 with very low reuse speed I wouldn't worry too much about that right now. Right now the OP's casting speed is still very low, hell self buffed it could be zero. With that casting speed casting wards, debuffs and all the other stuff we do takes much more time. I highly doubt that they can finish casting the key stuff before it starts coming back up again. Focus on casting speed so you can quickly cast your spells during combat, when you notice yourself running out of heal spells to cast then its time to start looking at reuse. Prior to casting speed being easily capped at the later levels, reuse has always been more important. Regardless of your level range, the base casting times/reuse of abilities remain the same. The only difference between the lower levels and the upper levels as far as the heals themselves is the base amount of the ward/heal. If anything, reuse becomes much more important than anything else because potency/criticals/ability modifier simply don't have as much of an effect on a 1000 point ward compared to say, a 3000 point ward. The reason reuse is more important than casting speed is because base recast timers are in all cases longer than the base casting times of a spell. Even if you're able to cast a spell as quickly as possible, it'll do you very little good if you're waiting more than double that amount of time to reapply it. I'll do a couple of quick calculations using only base ward amount, casting speed and reuse speed to illustrate how your potential heals per second for a given spell grows in both cases: Ward with 4000 absorption, 14 second reuse, 4 second casting speed0% reuse speed, 100% casting speed: 4000 hit points absorption / ( 14 second reuse + 2 second casting speed ) = 250 heals per second100% reuse speed, 0% casting speed: 4000 hit points absorption / ( 7 second reuse + 4 second casting speed ) = 363 heals per second With the above ward, the best I can ever do is to cast it every 18 seconds with no reuse or casting speed. With maxed out casting speed and no reuse, I'm able to use that spell every 16 seconds. With maxed out reuse and no casting speed modification, that time drops quite a bit down to 11 seconds. I'm ignoring recovery speed since it really has no bearing on the comparison between reuse and casting speed. You could try and make the argument that getting the ward on someone taking damage quickly would be better but wards are meant to be preemptive and should be kept going the entire time. Bottoming out your casting speed won't help you hold your target up once all of your heals are down and you're tapping your fingers waiting on something to come back up. Neither of the two are common at the lower levels except via AA's, so it's a moot point when considering gear. That is true of most of the bonuses they will have access to. If you have a choice between the two and neither are capped, always go for reuse speed before you touch casting speed. Even at level 50, my formula for determining gear selection wouldn't change. Unfortunately, there's not much potency, reuse, casting speed or critical chance on gear in the 50's range. The only stat mentioned that is even remotely abundant on even raid gear for that range would be ability modifier. I understand the reuse mechanic. Try and think of this as more spells per total casting time. Right now their casting speed is a much larger portion of the total time. They are taking twice the time of the level 90 defilers to complete casting their primary spells. With the base reuse of the key spells (group ward, single ward etc etc) I highly doubt they can finish casting them and a few other spells (debuffs) by the time they start coming back up. Reuse only helps if your primary stuff is still blacked out. Your still assuming that the OP is "bottoming out casting speed". The OP is nowhere near cap to EITHER casting or reuse speed!!!. If you assume the OP has a decent amount of casting, which your comments seem to indicate, then yes reuse is huge. They are level 50 and geared/specced accordingly. They do not have curseweaving, they have zero or near zero casting and reuse. IF the OP can actually cast their wards and debuffs before group wards starts coming back up again I would agree with your arguement. If they can't finish casting their key stuff before it starts coming back up again what help did reuse have again? If you take one spell on its own with and without reuse yes your arguement stands. We dont stand and cast one spell over and over again, we have other stuff to cast which also takes time I still say stick to the stuff that you will get the most benefit from NOW and not later, crit chance, potency and mod. The rest of the stuff is very important, but you have to focus on the basics first. Once you get to T9 you will be to reitemize your gear based on whats available and make the assumptions the rest of us have, IE 100% crit rate and close to cap casting speed. Lets ask the OP, do you run out of relevent spells to cast? After you cast single ward, group ward and maybe 2-3 debuffs per cycle are the ward spells still greyed out on your hotbars? In regards to where the entire argument about potency, reuse, etc. came up, there was a relevant post midway through this thread asking what adornments people go for (seperate from the original poster's question). In that case, potency and reuse will always be the best adornments to get for defilers of all levels and calibre of raiding. There's plenty of slots where casting speed is the best adornment you can use--I don't think think potency or reuse share an adornment slot with casting speed, though I could very well be incorrect on that. Given that the original poster will find very, very few upgrade paths for reuse or casting speed on gear, adornments will be where they'll be drawing benefit from the two at earlier levels. Either way--at any level of the game, raiding or not, reuse will always trump casting speed on making you a more efficient defiler. You need both to be effective, but unless you're capped on reuse, reuse is going to provide more benefit even if you're sitting at 0% casting speed. The reason it doesn't "feel" like it's the case at level 50 is only because you don't have many options for either via gear at that level. Base casting times and reuse timers do not change between level 50 and level 90--they're the exact same. Therefore, the importance of one over the other does not change just because you're several levels lower. Prior to casting speed being so abundant in tier 9, reuse speed was still the better of the two. I don't know how you would expect the case to be any different when you're level 50.