totems

[pitt]

Shamans have 5 totems: Weasel, Boar, Unicorn, Owl and Bear, which might start to become more useful now that stats are becoming more important. But they're still kind of a pain to use. Each totem has an associated penalty. Each increases a stat by some amount, and decreases another by a lower amount. These penalties mean that when you cast one, you're going to want to cast another to make up for the penalty for the first, until you have them all :P This means that (Disclaimer: I going to make a few assumptions about their affects; I could well be wrong, I never used them much! They're only for illustrative reasons anyway):

They never drop together, since they're all different level spells, so you can be left at a disadvantage at an unfortunate time. Maybe these could just all become the same level, so there's some chance of them all dropping together? Maybe they could be grouped into complements.. Get Boar (+str -dex) and Weasel (+dex -str) at the same level,and Unicorn (+int -wis), Owl (+wis -con) and Bear (+con -int) at the same level, so the ones you get at the same level cancel each other's disadvantages.

They spam your score! Each totem has 3 entries on the 'affected by' section, which is 15 lines with them all up.. I usually use a little laptop screen, and this makes it really hard to tell which spells are down ;) I think that this is maybe intended to be a hint that the spell affects 3 different stats (e.g. weasel totem might be +3dex, -1wis, -1con or something), but it's still really spammy. Maybe there could be a conig option or something so you only see 1 line for each totem on your score, and the hint of the affects could just go in the spell help.. (Help weasel totem: Take on the characteristics of the weasel, known for its speed... but its poor health and bad judgement also).

Anyways, this note is long enough for now :) Leave some comments!

[Solaron]

As well, it's possible to get dispelled and have only the negative affects remain for the remainder of the spell's timer. That sucks too!

Not sure if recasting fixes though.... Solaron and playing shamans just don't mix.

[Anonymous Mammal]

Durations = 1 + level

Totem +(1 + level/5) -stat -stat
------------------------------------------------
Bear con 3int 4luc
Boar str 2wis 2dex
Owl wis 3con 4luc
Unicorn int 2dex 2wis
Weasel dex 2str 2con

Total at level 30: +2con +5str +3wis +4int +3dex -8luc
The negative stats are static, meaning they are the same no matter what level they are cast at. The beneficial stats increase as level increases.

I hope this information is helpful to further this discussion, as I can understand Pitt's argument.

[Pol]

Hey, that's very useful! Thanks for posting that :)

Pol O'Song

[pitt]

If that's accurate, the magnitude of the stat changes is a lot bigger than I'd expected.. I figured you probably got +3 or +4 at level 30, and the penalties were -1 or -2. Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to just make the stat gain maybe 2+(level/10) and remove the penalties? That'd go a long way to making them more usable, make the different drop rates irrellevant, and clean up the score all at the same time :)

[Solaron]

I like that idea. It's a self-only buff anyway, no reason not to let them be a bit more powerful.

[Pol]

We need a Leprechaun Totem to affect luck...:)

Seriously though, I think the stat losses are a bit severe. I like the idea of keeping some drop (if you take on the characteristics of a totem animal, you take the good with the bad) but as they lay out now, totems really aren't useful at all until L30, if even then.

Perhaps keeping a static -2 per stat, and and only dropping 1 stat instead of two?

Something like this, maybe:



Level 5
BEAR BOAR OWL UNICORN WEASEL TOTAL
CON 2 -2 0
INT -2 2 0
WIS 2 -2 0
STR 2 -2 0
DEX -2 2 0

Level 10
BEAR BOAR OWL UNICORN WEASEL TOTAL
CON 3 -2 1
INT -2 3 1
WIS 3 -2 1
STR 3 -2 1
DEX -2 3 1

Level 15
BEAR BOAR OWL UNICORN WEASEL TOTAL
CON 4 -2 2
INT -2 4 2
WIS 4 -2 2
STR 4 -2 2
DEX -2 4 2

Level 20
BEAR BOAR OWL UNICORN WEASEL TOTAL
CON 5 -2 3
INT -2 5 3
WIS 5 -2 3
STR 5 -2 3
DEX -2 5 3

Level 25
BEAR BOAR OWL UNICORN WEASEL TOTAL
CON 6 -2 4
INT -2 6 4
WIS 6 -2 4
STR 6 -2 4
DEX -2 6 4

Level 30
BEAR BOAR OWL UNICORN WEASEL TOTAL
CON 7 -2 5
INT -2 7 5
WIS 7 -2 5
STR 7 -2 5
DEX -2 7 5



Given that the caps for INT, CON and WIS have been lifted, +5 for a stat isn't a huge gain, especially one that's temporary in nature. Further, DEX and STR are still capped and totems won't be able to raise those stats above racial/class maxes anyway.

I also like Pitt's idea of making all the totems acessible at the same shaman level (between 5 and 8, for example). This would allow a shaman to cast a full set of totems and have some net gain overall. The piecemeal availability of these spells which seem to be intended to be used together makes using them quite diffucult.

Cheers,

Pol O'Song

[pitt]

I like all the ideas so far, but thought I should also throw in some 'out there' ideas for extra totems in case Tynian feels like doing something crazy! I do think the idea of totems is a great one and it could have more interesting affects than stat tweaks, and add some extra unique-ness to the shaman class..

Eagle: +fly (remove plain fly spell from shamans?), +detect hidden, -damage absorb (ok not the most interesting penalty, but wait I got more!)

Turtle: big ac bonus, makes each move (n/e/s/w/u/d) take longer real time.

Snake: +critical hit percentage, +chance of poisoning target on hit, lose at least 1 attack per round (i.e. if you have 3rd attack skill, it's ineffective while the spell is up)

Great Cat: +hit +dmg bonus, occasional forced attacks on much smaller mobs (you feel an irresistable urge to pounce on a cityguard!)

Camel: cancels hunger and thirst penalties while spell is active, lowers chr (have you ever smelled a camel?)

Anyways, I'm sure more creative people could come up with many more.. my point is that I think the current totems would be great with minor changes like those suggested, but the totem concept doesn't necessarily need to be limited to +/- stat affects!

[Anonymous Mammal]

I was just going over the totals here
Total at level 30: +2con +5str +3wis +4int +3dex -8luc and was wondering if the bonuses (if you can call -8luck a bonus) you get from having all five totems cast outweighs the need to constantly recast them (and at varying intervals)?

Seeing as how each of them affects two other stats in a negative manner, if you cast one you will need to cast the rest just to cancel out all the negatives. However, there's nothing you can do to cancel out the negatives against luck.

Consider the following:
+2 con isn't that much of a bonus, so don't cast bear totem.
The totals at level 30 then become -5con, +5str, +3wis, +7int, +3dex, -4luc.
Well, now +2con seems like a reasonable bonus considering.

Ok, so how about we only cast the the con, int and wis totems?
The total at 30 then becomes: +4con, +0str, +5wis, +3int, -2dex, -8luc.
This seems a little better, but seeing as dex is a pretty important stat, you wouldn't want to have to wear an additional +2dex to make up the difference.

So let's add weasel totem to the mix.
Total: +2con, -2str, +5wis, +3int, +5dex, -8luc.
Well, now we need to wear an additional +2str. Adding boar totem to this puts us back to having to cast all the totems again.

Each totem is dependant upon having each other totem in order to actually get a bonus from them. This is only true now because of the recent changes to allow up to 25 int, con and wis which each have varying affects upon a character. The dependancy upon each other totems makes these spells useless (or at least not very helpful) until all five totem spells are acquired.

A re-evaluation of each totem and their affects would greatly improve their use and value as unique shaman-only spells.

[Cordir]

*** Based on suppositions that have been shared with me from mortals, and not on the basis of any personal experimentation as an Immortal ... ***

I have always heard two things :

1) Since 3x, players have had to wear exp gear the entire level, for every single mob, for it to 'burn in' and positively affect the level. In 2x, you could exp wearing whatever you wanted, and just switch into your leveling set for that last mob or two.

2) Totem spells temporarily 'suspend' the code's ability to track eq 'burn in' -- thus (prior to recent changes making int/wis more useful), a player could load up on damage gear while leveling, then switch to their 'stat leveling set' just before leveling, so long as they had the appropriately beneficial Totems in effect (a gross positive affect to +wis, +int, +con, +luck)

I do not have characters that actively level, and haven't, for .. er.. an embarassingly long time, so this is all second hand information that I do not personally know to be true.

It was always told me that this benefit was the true value of Totems.

Your mileage (or experience) may differ (greatly).

-C

[pitt]

hrm.. I never heard that while I was levelling... I was always too scared to ever use them in case I messed up my gains. The only times I ever used totems was when I was poisoned, weakened or deafened and couldn't pick up something important without the temp str/dex boost.

[Anathema]

2) Totem spells temporarily 'suspend' the code's ability to track eq 'burn in' -- thus (prior to recent changes making int/wis more useful), a player could load up on damage gear while leveling, then switch to their 'stat leveling set' just before leveling, so long as they had the appropriately beneficial Totems in effect (a gross positive affect to +wis, +int, +con, +luck)


Can anyone verify this? I have played shamans primarily for 10 years and never heard of the susped ability of totems. Frankly I havent been using them for fear of killing my levels which already are pretty bad.

[Belsambar]

Well, if you haven't been using them, then you can't really say if they're beneficial or not, can you? As far as getting them to drop/stay up, try playing with pumps. Pumping, even if it doesn't improve the spell, often improves it's duration. You know, on those days where you're bored, you don't want to gold/exp/random, and there's no-one to kill...try testing those spells you've never used. Play with them. Personally, I don't see why you don't think the +'s aren't beneficial enough.....at level 30, do you really need luck ((ignoring the need for levelling offclasses)) ? And either way, doesn't that save quite a few slots you could fill with some +luck? So you have to keep recasting....whoo-hoo. Such a problem, recasting spells....((if mages were to cast ALL the defensive, or otherwise 'helpful spells (helpful or not, in truth) they'd still have more to keep recasting...not that anyone uses half those spells, which is why no-one finds them useful...it may have uses and you won't find them until you have that spell up for like 24/7 for a couple months and then someday you see something and go 'Ohhhh. Well, crap, wish I'd found that sooner!'))

Bottom line, they're pretty useful. ((And don't tell me "You're not a shaman, what do you know?")) You just don't find them so. or are scared of them, so you'll never know if they're helpful or not.

--- SIDE NOTE ---

'EQ burnin' does NOT require the SAME eq. That is a myth. It require the same amt of level stats per set in regards to exp gained. If you gain 0 xp while re-equing the 3con 6int 7wis and 9 luck you need to level like the set you had just before you lost it, oh well.

And one thing I ~have noticed from experience~ is that lost exp also gives you a chance to exp 'some' while re-eqing. I've gotten some really nice levels where I had to re-eq 2, maybe even 3 times. Or more. I've also had absoluet crap levels where I had the same set the entire level. Or even better, should you actually be worried about gains because of deaths, die a bunch of times till you have at least your starting TNL. And proceed to xp that back off as if you had never died with your new set.