Herald Premo and Mass Camo

[chirality]

Two questions:

1) I see that Premo is counted as an Ench spell (and therefore basically as a "Herald" spell for CL purposes) for Heralds. However, I assume that the Div boost remains unchanged. Is this correct? Even though it's treated as Ench for Heralds, LSF Div still grants the additional +1 soak, and not Ench?

2) Mass Camo for Heralds...ok, how long does this last after a creature/player moves out of the AoE (or the Herald moves away from them)? Just like anything else, until next turn? Also...why does this grant enemies conceal as well as allies? Was that really necessary from a balance standpoint?

[maljin]

I guess you've got your answers by now, but since I've been looking into some Herald builds lately I've stumbled across this thread and tested premo in the chamber.

Casting the druid premo as a lvl 60 Herald (23 sorc, 17 druid) and letting the monkey hit me absorbs all damage as expected.

Buffing the monkey with gmw +15 will still absorb most damage (some crits hit for more than 50 damage, so the rest will get through).

If premo would be powered by the div foci, it'd cap at 50/+15 for my pure Herald so a gmw +15 should get through. If boosted by ench foci (lsf + herald spec for my build) it goes to 50/+16 and won't be pierced by a +15 weapon.


Something to further look into though: Does lsf + spec also boost a Herald with splash class with CL 59 (so 49/+14) to +16 (+1 for lsf as in the spell description, but maybe another +1 for the spec)?

And something I can't test in the chamber: Can you cast premo from your druid spell book and still wear a sorc shield? Most shields that allow full EV conceal are for wizards and sorcs and their description says explicitly that the shield won't interfere with Premo, EV or Gr. Stoneskin cast by a wizard or sorc. See Trappings of the Weave, Ur-Ward or even Asmo shield as examples.
While druids usually don't need to care about caster shields since they rely on gr. stoneskin that can be cast wearing large shields anyway a sorc CC Herald might wanna enjoy EV conceal (up to 70% with channeling and lsf: illu) and his super premo from the druid spellbook to pick some other lvl 8 sorc spells.
Would this kind of character be stuck with Teldar's Travail which says it doesn't interfere with those spells cast by wiz, sorc or druid?

maljin

[edit]: Something else just came to my mind: The ability buff spells belong to transmutation but have a special effect for Heralds. Does that mean Heralds get their full CL for these spells (which probably should be mentioned in the quasi class docs or the wiki) or does that mean only a Herald with 24 sorc or druid will get CL 44 for the max effect (+3 to stat checks) and only for the spells cast by this class?
Example: A Herald with 16 sorc and 24 druid levels would get CL 44 for druid spells so casting the mass bull's strength and so on will get you and your allies +3 on the respecitve stat checks while casting them from your sorc spell book you wouldn't get anything because it's cast at CL 16.

[chirality]

Thanks for the response, and interesting questions/observations.

Would like to know the answers to your questions...I won't likely be testing it anytime soon.

;D

[maljin]

I just tested with a monk splash Herald: gmw +15 makes the test monkey pierce premo every hit, so you only get 49/+15 even with lsf: ench and the specialization.

I tested the mass ability spells as well with a pure Herald (17 druid, 23 sorc) this time. They're supposed to last 1h per CL, !effects shows 34 min, the same as greater stoneskin (also 1h per CL) which isn't a Herald spell. Compare this to mage armor (conj spell, same duration) and it'll show 120 min left from !effects. Even though I can't test the supposedly stacking bonus for ability checks duration indicates that they're treated as trans spells and are therefore cast without counting both druid and sorc levels.

Imho that's quite a disappointment, since sorc CC won't get anything out of this feature unless you select the spells and kick out conj and ench spells at the respective levels (2 for the single target versions, 6 for the mass versions). Luckily there are not that many good conj/ench spells for a sorc at level 6, so you can pick up at least 2 mass ability spells, third spell being acid fog.

I'd be really glad if someone could test druid premo with wiz/sorc shields though. It doesn't need to be a Herald, just strip your druid from light armor, cast his premo and swap on a shield that says it won't interfere with premo cast by wiz/sorc. If it says 'Premonition canceled' it's likely that the same will happen for a Herald wearing a sorc shield and casting premo from druid spellbook as well.

maljin

[edit]: And I noticed something else: Static field seems to deal half magic half elec damage (for Heralds only or for other casters as well?). I can't remember having seen anything about this in the Herald changes or the spell description.

[buddhamind]

Jan 10, 2012 19:26:25 GMT maljin said:

I'd be really glad if someone could test druid premo with wiz/sorc shields though. It doesn't need to be a Herald, just strip your druid from light armor, cast his premo and swap on a shield that says it won't interfere with premo cast by wiz/sorc. If it says 'Premonition canceled' it's likely that the same will happen for a Herald wearing a sorc shield and casting premo from druid spellbook as well.

I might be able to test it when I get home.

Jan 10, 2012 19:26:25 GMT maljin said:

[edit]: And I noticed something else: Static field seems to deal half magic half elec damage (for Heralds only or for other casters as well?). I can't remember having seen anything about this in the Herald changes or the spell description.

Yes, and cold fog does magic damage too. Both effects are undocumented anywhere, to the best of my knowledge.

It would be nice if HG enhanced could get an update for all the Herald spell descriptions.

[wollstonecraft]

I can confirm that HoS can cast Druid Premo while wearing Ur Ward.

Afaik, descriptions of the Herald AOEs can be found in (or added to) your journal (!doc quasi hos.. I think). I know I've read them somewhere.

-WSCraft

[buddhamind]

^I'll take your word for it -- I tested and the only premo-compatible shields I can wear on my level 40 Herald are the UR ones that specifically say they are compatible with druid premo. Keep in mind this will still cancel any monk wisdom AC bonus if you splashed monk.

The herald quasi documentation does not give spell-specific descriptions. It just gives the requirements for the quasi and a description of the storm sprite, and the fact that you can have more than one damage cloud. The Herald-specific spell descriptions are in the journal under Wiz/Sorc Spells, but not in HG Enhanced.

After testing freezing fog and static field on my wizard, I can confirm that they do NOT do magic damage for non-Heralds. This is a Herald specific thing that is not mentioned anywhere in the Herald-specific spell descriptions, as far as I can find.

[maljin]

Acid fog deals Acid damage only (with the vulnerability it's quite high). But both Freezing Fog and Static Field deal 1/2 Magic and 1/2 of their normal damage type.

While the 2d6 str and dex decreases and the acid vulnerability are documented in the spell changes, the 1/2 magic damage is not.

I've added this to the Herald of Storms wiki page, since I find this one has the best overview of the changes and a very nice list with Ench and Conj spells for both classes.

Maybe I'll add some common misconceptions as well, but I'm not really good in making new things on a wiki, changing a couple of words here and there is no problem but adding an entirely new section is a bit different.
With misconceptions I mean:

• GMW not being a Herald spell, so only CC sorc (with CL 30 for sorc spells) will get a +15 GMW.
  
• Ability spells not being Herald spells so you only get the stat check bonus if you cast those of your CC (means sorc CC has to pick up the spells and can't cast them from druid spellbook).
  

Anything else coming to your mind?

Not related but: I can't seem to find the Herald changes in the quasi class thread on the forums, neither the entry requirements nor the benefits apart from some notes in the spell changes.

[chirality]

Meh not sure how keen I am on Static and Freezing doing half mag damage. I'd prefer full ele damage as normal.

Given that Heralds still get Horrid for mag damage I don't see really the point of this change. It's even pretty much a nerf vs. many mobs.

[wollstonecraft]

But Heralds get full, single-packet elemental damage from Orb spells.
Clouds also offer more than just damage anyway: stat and save redux, acid inflict, regen, insta death, and spell loss.
I'd rather have these special effects than just more damage.

-WSCraft

[maljin]

I'm with Chirality on this one. I prefer spells that do a single damage type instead of half/half; imho it makes playing more flexible and much more interesting. Instead of casting the same half/half spell twice to kill a monster which takes just one of the two types, cast the full damage spell once. If you want to do both types of damage just cast two different spells.

On the other hand I really like the special properties (feeblemind, stat loss, temp hp and so on) of Herald spells. While it's not the thing that makes a Herald for me (that would be the unique combination of certain druid spells with certain sorc spells) it is a way to distinguish one Herald from two players playing druid and sorc. Every quasi gets its certain specialties like threading, LoH blade thirst, SM blackstaff, BK bigbies that makes them different from the class combo they originate from.

Imho Acid is very well covered by the spell selection you've got, but that's because Acid is the typical damage type for conj anyway. Cold and Elec can be covered rather easily as well (especially if you have level 9 druid spells for SoV) while fire is lacking a decent AoE (making incendiary cloud a conj spell for Heralds would most certainly be enough to fix that). Sonic can only be gotten via orbs, I'm fine with that.

I guess everyone has their own priority list in elemental damage but mine would be Cold, Acid > Fire, Elec > Sonic. So on a Herald I'd take Greater Orbs of Fire and Cold to compensate for the lack of a decent fire AoE while Acid is covered nicely already and for Elec and Sonic the level 4 Orbs are good enough.

I'm actually posting because I wanted to comment on some little oddity I've found browsing through the spell changes documents. It says the level 2 ability spells are Herald spells (supposedly adding druid and sorc levels to determine CL) while the level 6 versions (mass) only say that they grant those special boni if cast by a Herald, but not being Herald spells themselves.
I'd really like some clarification on this topic: so the level 2 spells are treated as ench/conj spells with full duration and full CL no matter what CC you have and what book they're cast from and the level 6 version are not Herald spells so only grant they're special bonus if cast from the book of your CC since druid and sorc levels are not added?

maljin

[chirality]

Yeah, Malj you pretty much answered with my reasoning as far as the damage goes.

Wolly, I also would take the specials over just more damage if that's what it came down to, but this line of reasoning seems to be suggesting that the half mag damage was added as a sort of balancing factor for the cloud special effects? I don't think full appropriate ele damage along with the specials would really be imbalanced.

Consider that your point about having access to Orbs is in effect saying that well, if the clouds don't do enough damage, then they can resort to Orbs like any other mage. Reasonable, but brings full circle the "what makes Heralds worth playing vs. a real caster" thing all over again.

[maljin]

I tried the normal ability spells in test chamber as well: Same duration as the mass ability spells, so judging by duration only (nothing else I could do in test chamber) they're not Herald spells either and you need to cast them from your CC if you want the special version.

I'm still not sure if it's supposed to be like that though. While the documentation might imply that it should be, the spell description doesn't. And in fact there are a couple of Herald builds that suggest not to take the ability spells (on CC sorcs) since you get them via the druid spell book anyway.

Same with GMW for druid CC Heralds. I haven't seen a build (be it druid or sorc CC) posted not taking GMW even though my test Herald didn't get +15 until level 47 (23 sorc levels before 40 + 7 LLs with CC sorc = CL 30 for non-Herald sorc spells). So even with the extra rank from specialization GMW is entirely useless for druid CC Heralds.

And as for mass camo: If you rely on this, make sure you're not standing close to whatever you want to cast orbs on. While around 50% conceal might not be that much for melee chars with decent listen, it'll cut your damage done by orbs by 20-25%. I don't know the formula for it, but that's a guesstimate value casting maximized orbs at the test monkey without and with 51% conceal from mass camo.

maljin