Spell Costs

[bcbrown]

Originally Posted by Wilshire [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

We're going to have to disagree on the use of Befriend Animal, though. I have been having a decent amount of success using it to charm a high green or blue mob and then use that as a pet to attack an even con. I usually have to assist my pet win, and it ends up at 25% to half health when the fight ends. Then I hit hide, break the charm, and root-rot my (former pet). Gets me two xp kills pretty easily.

I'm not sure if this way of killing two mobs at once would be more mana-efficient than just rooting both of them and dotting though. I have to test that still.

I'm glad it works for you! Are you doing at least 50% damage to ensure you don't split xp with your pet? I think I was trying to charm-kill equally matched blue mobs in EK, and breaking charm before either one dies. Been a little while now though. Charming is definitely the most mana-efficient xp for a druid, though. Definitely don't miss out on gator pit and gator alley in CT, I think it's in your late 20s/30s.

[Duik]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Would love to read that if you ever find it

Well this wasnt the post i meant it does have some relevant info.
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...ls+area+effect

This is a quite relevant snippet from the magician page.

Originally Posted by Wiki
Target-Based Area of Effect

Mages have two types of target-based AoE fire spells: "columns" and "rains". Both are limited to 4 "hits" which includes the target (this is in contrast to the player-based AoE spells, which have a max of 25 hits). Unfortunately, from classic until about three months into Velious, if your pet is within the AoE it will "use up" one of those hits (it will not do any damage, but it will count against the number of enemies that can be affected). Without any in-class snare, the use of these types of spells is already quite limited, but rain spells have several quirks that make them even worse than you might think at first glance. First off, your pet eating one of the hits every wave (and only being allowed to hit 4 things, total) means that you will only ever hit your target mob twice if doesn't move. The work-around for this is understanding that the AoE is centered on where the mob was when it was first cast (it doesn't follow the mob around). Because of this, if you can move the mob after the first wave such that your pet is out of the AoE, but the mob is still in, it will take the remaining two hits (the mob and your pet taking the first two). That said, there are two other drawbacks to using rains compared to other types of damage spells: they have an innate 20% resist chance, and they can never kill a mob (if the mob is below 10% health and/or it would land the killing blow, it is automatically resisted). Both of these things were around until well after the P99 timeline and so they will always be in effect here.

[Jimjam]

Didn’t catch up the whole thread but I saw mention of rain.

When using rains stand just outside the range radius from the target so if root breaks it will continue to be struck while you recast root. You can normally squeeze in a couple of melee swings and DS hits while you do this.

Another strategy is to start casting root before each wave and duck cancel if the existing root doesn’t break.

Another option is to just tank while using rains. Be sure to use something as a target (pet, corpse, group mate, etc) which is in range of the enemy but out of range of you.


Regarding befriend animal, it is amazing for shaman who can use it to get a level 24 NPC pet at 29, an absolute blender for xp mobs once buffs are applied.

[Goregasmic]

Originally Posted by Namsaknoi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Similarly related, on live, mobs around level 40 drops around 4-5pp, while level 50 drops around 7-8pp, it's less than half on P99. I know this is probably in order to control inflation, but still not classic.

Outside of giants I don't remember getting 5pp+ from anything on live but then again my memory is garbage.

[shovelquest]

Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Didn’t catch up the whole thread but I saw mention of rain.

When using rains stand just outside the range radius from the target so if root breaks it will continue to be struck while you recast root. You can normally squeeze in a couple of melee swings and DS hits while you do this.

Jimjam over here playing everquest like

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[cd288]

Originally Posted by Duik [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Well this wasnt the post i meant it does have some relevant info.
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...ls+area+effect

This is a quite relevant snippet from the magician page.

Oh wow to this day I had no idea a rain spell can't kill something. Shows how much I've never used them lol.

That's wild and seems like it operates to make the spell line even more useless than it already is. I wonder what the thought process of the original devs was for that.