Celtic Heroes

Many mobs experience a damage delay, even continuing to attack you after they are dead. It's been mentioned in the bugs section repeatedly. Mobs that wander in carrowmore are the most suceptiple to this bug.

As far as the delay in natures touch in beta the cast time was reduced by 1 second and the cd increased by 1 second so the overall time was the same but touch casts faster. However with cd reduce gear this makes the new time a fraction of a second faster overall.

This fix was in the right direction as the cast delay was far too long, you would watch teammates die while you stood there doing nothing.

Now if only the new animations for casters were redone properly this would be a good update. Shaking my upturned hands like I just flipped a table every cast was super annoying and I have no idea how that was any kind of improvement.

Thanks for bringing me up to speed. My point is that right now, there is a very clear deficiency of Druids. What does this mean? OTM should be throwing buffs at druids so that we see an increase in druids. And yes, some of those are going to be alts, obviously. But if druids are properly buffed, we should also see brand new players start to choose druids more often.

Buffs = plural, implying it takes many steps to bring the druid population up to par with the other classes. I'd say that taking out the heal delay is one of those steps. It baffles me that a 215 druid (not referring to Plus3) would be against such a change—and as you can tell from my sarcasm, I fail to see the logic in his/her reasoning

@swan
Yes something needs to be done with Druids. The touch buff that may make it into the live game is a good step, it makes natures touch feel more like a ranger heal in speed. I'm guessing we won't get a further buff.

The only benefit Druids have over other classes is the best damage reduction support and heals. However the way things stand now Druids aren't needed or wanted in my world except for a few bosses. Only some edl 6*, Necro (barely), Gelebron and proteus. Mordris can now be done cleanly without any Druids as tanks don't really need heals or buffs. Two tanks and a few idols and you never even lose aggro. So until you are level 215 you feel neglected and even then, even if you have great gear, you don't feel important.

It's not easy leveling solo, Druids are the worst class by a good measure. Just try to level with people as most often they will not want to level with a Druid, esp if on combos. I'm not saying Druids should level fast but they aren't needed for leveling others or many bosses.

The vast majority give up when they cast their skills before level 10, realize the energy is gone after hopefully at least 1 mob and there is no reasonable way to get it back. They either quit the game or pick an auto class like rogue.

It baffles me that a 215 druid (not referring to Plus3) would be against such a change—and as you can tell from my sarcasm, I fail to see the logic in his/her reasoning

I am 221, my signature was not updated

I honestly think what I wrote. With insta-cast touch, all that is required to do the druid job is to press the button when the tank health is down (or the group health is down). You do not need much attention and you do not need to follow the battle closely. A dual devicer could do efficiently. To me, that's a clear sign that there is no strategy required because you do not need to pay attention much.

Right now, with the delay: a druid that knows his job (and who is not dual devicing) casts touch *before* the tank/group is hit computing when the boss spell will land. Cast it right, and the heal will immediately cancel the effect. Cast it a bit too early, and the spell is wasted. A typical example are 180 trolls. They always start with their aoe spell followed by a big hit on the guy with aggro. It is easy to cast breath so that it immediately cancel the aoe on every group members, also leaving the guy with aggro with enough health to easily resist the big hit.

In general, I would like to see the battle system require much more attention and more use of spells and counterspells. The only examples now are warriors bashing, mages freezing and druids healing or casting DL/EDL offhands at the proper time to counteract a spell. Not enough considering the huge amount of boring spells we have.

(Note: the reduced cast time on lighthing is a different story. There was no strategy involved there and the reduction was very appreciated.)

I hope what I intended is more clear now, Swan.

Cheers

Lighthing Bolt, ACTIMAVATE!

I like the strategy aspect of the game as well, but not really to the point of risking a death because the druid in the group can't get his act together and time his heals right.

Support Druids are usually only implemented during a boss, and only when they're really needed (like Plus said), so if they're there the people being supported won't want to risk dying because their druid is lagging or some other issue. When it comes to endgame bosses people just care about killing the boss using as little resources as possible and getting their drops and leaving. Not so much about strategy at that point.

I don't want to see strategy completed removed from the game, but with in the case of Druids and making their support skills instacast, i'm all for it.

The way the game is set up, druid "timing" spells is a laughing matter. With how slow spells cast and what mobs do, it's just not set up for super "strategic" type game-play.

Go play OaC as a divine monk, running Legendary dungeons, and then you'll realize what casting buffs/heals is like strategically. The difference is, in that game, a lot of spells are insta-cast or near insta-cast because they need to be.

I'd be fine with a slightly delayed heal, if it were to cast faster. The cast time on it is ridiculous. A leveling druid (unless they have a lot of dex/using winds build) gets their heal interrupted repeatedly. What good does it do you to have a 4k heal if you can't even get it off? Someone will probably say, "well, you gotta time your heal juuuuust right". Cool...not everything can be timed just right in the middle of lixing, and once you're interrupted once, do you wait for that next perfect millisecond to try again? That just hinders lixing even more.

Just like any spell, I'd expect it to land right away as soon as it's done casting. It's not like you're calling in an Air Strike and gotta wait for it to land on the ground from the airplane.

Instant cast may be too op - don't forget if you keep the overall time the same this simeltaneouslu boosts cd reduce and thus boost your hps a lot. That is probably too op.


That said I 100% support the current beta mod. As it stands with lag and other issues you are hard pressed to use heal in time even if you are timing the game well. The 1 second cast reduce was a good move in my opinion. Hope this makes the game live.

Currently. It takes around 7 seconds to cast Touch. From press to heal. In that time a boss can cast buffs, AOEs, a succession of high dealing skills, or anything else that may suddenly kill the tank faster than expected.

I understand and appreciate the want for skill and timing in the support role, however with such a long casting time (dial + delay) and the randomizations of boss AI, timing heals has become a practice based on chance, not skill.

I actually think the interrupt in heals brings more strategy into a boss fight. If touch and breath were instacast, adds wouldn't be much of a big deal as it wouldn't interrupt touch on the tank and if u needed a heal, breath wouldn't be interrupted either. The interrupt forces you to take action as well as your dps. As annoying as it may be to get constantly interrupted, I think instacast heals would make bossing less strategic.

In most mmos, each group carries a Druid to heal that particular group.

With ch, the locking dynamic at bosses hinders this stratagy.

Because of this pots are not a penalty of bad play style, but a must in most raid groups.

Even when leveling they are a must because of a lack of Druids to lvl with.

I think adding reduce cast time to Druid gear would be a great way to fix this.
It would give the individual the option and ability to adjust the cast times to fit their own play style and needs.

Even add reduce cast times to even rings and weapons would be a good way to add it to the game without changing current game mechanics.

Just my 2 cents.