Clinging Darkness

[Asher]

There was another thread on snare that was supposedly resolved but whatever was done to resolve the problem didn't resolve it for this spell. On Live, Clinging Darkness (Regent Symbol of Innoruuk clicky) stopped mobs from running.

IIRC, lower level mobs that didnt have that many HP still ran but moved very slow. Definitely by the time I was XPing at level 30 the mobs were stopped in their tracks at low health.

I don't know if this helps and I assume you already have access to this but here is the link to lucy:

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=344

Asher

[skorge]

Yea, you are right. I think, however, on emu servers, snare works differently or something...hell, on Shards of Dalaya they fixed this by not allowing any mobs in the entire game to run, lol. Took awhile to get used to.

[Asher]

Whatever it is it really blows.

Any chance we could change the clicky to a basic snare then or perhaps increase the slowed movement or whatever it takes to get the thing to function?

I was hoping to be able to solo dungeons in Kunark but without snare it will be rough.

[Asher]

This got knocked back to page 4.

Possible quick fix is to just increase snare %'d on the spell. I know mobs run faster on this server and that is most likely the reason this spell doesn't function as it should.

Any chance there will be a fix?

Asher

[Uthgaard]

Clinging darkness is an especially low snare percentage spell that is especially weak when you first get it. It will get tolerable with level and further spells in the line.

[guineapig]

I have played a druid, ranger, SK and wizard to various levels on this server and the snare lines all seem to coincide with the way they worked on live.

All snares are not the same though so keep that in mind.

[Asher]

Clinging darkness is an especially low snare percentage spell that is especially weak when you first get it. It will get tolerable with level and further spells in the line.

This is great for necros and SKs but for those of us who use the Regent Symbol of Innoruuk we are shit out of luck.

On Live clinging darkness stopped mobs in their tracks. They didn't move. Here they still move even though I am level 49. I am not sure which snare %'d stops mobs from moving but since mobs here move faster than mobs on live the % would probably need to be higher to stop them from moving.

I assume solving the mob movement speed problem is much more difficult so a quicker fix would be to increase the %'d to the point where mobs will stop moving when this spell is cast on them.

Regent symbol of Innoruuk was one of the best clickies for TRL and HUM Inny worshipping priests. Currently it is a PoS 36 second DoT for 5 a tick.

If we could just increase the snare to stop mobs from moving for the duration of the spell you would make many clerics and shaman happy. :)

If you need any additional information or proof about this spell stopping mobs on live let me know and I will try and dig up whatever you need.

Asher

[Asher]

I have played a druid, ranger, SK and wizard to various levels on this server and the snare lines all seem to coincide with the way they worked on live.

All snares are not the same though so keep that in mind.

I am just guessing at what the problem is. All I know is that it stopped mobs on live and it doesn't stop them here. Any sort of fix would be appreciated.

Asher

[Cogwell]

I never remember clinging darkness being able to fully stop a running mob, and I played a SK for years on live and used this as a primary aggro tool (thus, it was active on mobs a lot).

Maybe once they were more damaged, and ran slower, it would fully stop them, but not at 20% or whatever it is when they begin to run.

[Uthgaard]

Regent symbol of Innoruuk was one of the best clickies for TRL and HUM Inny worshipping priests. Currently it is a PoS 36 DoT for 5 a tick.

Clinging Darkness
DoT for 30 Hit Points (HP) in 6 ticks
Decrease Movement between 24% (L4) to 30% (L10)


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Classes: Shd (L15), Nec (L4)

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Range to Target: 200 feet

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Skill: Alteration
Allowable Targets: All

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Resistance Check: Magic + 25

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Mana Required: 20
Spell Duration: 6 ticks (36 seconds)
Duration Formula: 1
Casting Time: 1.75 seconds
Spell Recovery: 2.50 seconds
Recast Delay: 4.0 seconds

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Spell cast on you: You are in the grip of darkness.
Spell cast on someone: Soandso is surrounded by darkness.
Spell fades: You darkness fades.

This spell is exactly as it was in classic.


Engulfing Darkness
DoT for 110 Hit Points (HP) in 10 ticks
Decrease Movement by 40% (L12)

Dooming Darkness
DoT for 300 Hit Points (HP) in 15 ticks
Decrease Movement between 49% (L29) to 65% (L60)

Devouring Darkness
DoT for 1605 Hit Points (HP) in 15 ticks
Decrease Movement between 69% (L59) to 70% (L60)

Better snares come with better spells. If the dinky level 4 spell was the be-all-end-all of snaring, there wouldnt have been much point in having scaled movement modification on later spells, or other classes spells.

[Mardur]

Uthgaard no offense but you're missing the point a bit.

Yes, the spell is implemented the same here as it was on live. This is not the problem. The problem is with how P99 handles mob movement. The % snare on Clinging Darkness is surely the same as live, the problem is that mobs have naturally faster run speed on P99 than live. So say on live a mob run speed was 1.0 and here it's 1.25 (arbitrary numbers). After Clinging Darkness (30% snare) on live a mob would be running at 0.7 while on P99 a mob would be running at 0.875.

The result of this is the following:

The Regent Symbol of Innoruuk was a highly valued item on live and one of the main reasons that people made Troll Shaman. As soon as a mob went to run, the mob would stop dead in its tracks without running off and aggroing anything.

This item does not function this way here on P99, and mobs will still continue to move while fleeing from low health.

Yes, there are better spells in this line... however Clinging Darkness is the spell available on the Regent Symbol of Innoruuk, and thus the topic of this post. It does not function identically as it did on live, hence the bug report.

[Uthgaard]

The bug isn't with the item or the spell. The bug is with mob movement speed, a known issue across all of eqemu. Regardless, this spell never did and never will slow mobs to a halt the moment they start running, even if mob movement speed was the 0.05% slower that it would be if it were fixed.

[baub]

Necros would use engulfing on live, even at 60, because it stopped mobs dead in their tracks.

clinging was never good enough to do this.

[Asher]

Regardless, this spell never did and never will slow mobs to a halt the moment they start running, even if mob movement speed was the 0.05% slower that it would be if it were fixed.

That is incorrect.

I am not trying to be difficult so please don't ban/suspend me.
I will locate the proof when I get off work tonight.

Sure, an SK or Necro may never have noticed because when they got the upgraded spell they never used the lower level spell. At lower levels and I assume lower %'d of snare mobs would move slowly. When at higher levels and I assume the cap of 30% snare mobs were halted.

I agree the bug is with mob movement not the spell but I was hoping for a fix since the spell is not functioning as it did on live due to another bug that seems to be very difficult to correct. It would be great if we could just up the snare %'d beyond what it should be so the spell functions as it should. I will find you the proof that mobs were halted with this spell.

Asher

[Asher]

Necros would use engulfing on live, even at 60, because it stopped mobs dead in their tracks.

clinging was never good enough to do this.

Ask anyone who has used the regent symbol of innoruuk. You are incorrect.

Asher

[cvinion]

Went to the wayback machine for this one.....

link - http://web.archive.org/web/20001213024100/everquest.allakhazam.com/Guide_Necro.htm

Quote


Engulfing Darkness: An excellent upgrade to your Clinging Darkness spell. Same slowing effect as Clinging Darkness, but the damage-over-time aspect is considerably improved. It does about 100pts of damage over a 50-60 second span of time. At 12th level its expensive and you'll want to keep Clinging Darkness memorized for those times when all you want is a snare effect to prevent monsters from running. It cost 60 mana to cast (as opposed to 20 for Clinging).

And a timestamp of Last Updated 08/20/99 for great measure!

I know its not fact because its just written by someone in 99 when alot of mechanics were mysteries, but I feel this is a very solid quote from the #1 necro guide on Alla's at the time.

I also understand that the game mechanics on mobspeed are different, but I believe that because that this is a fundamental game mechanic to do with a specific item then maybe this one darkness line should be adjusted, and maybe all the others re evaluated to see if they need adjusted too.

But as far as Clinging darkness making the mob stop I believe this is concrete evidence that it does in fact make the mob stop at low HP.

[skorge]

Regardless, this spell never did and never will slow mobs to a halt the moment they start running, even if mob movement speed was the 0.05% slower that it would be if it were fixed.

Uthgaard, your statement is understandable as the only folks that would have ever used clinging darkness in the game for more than a level or two would have been Inny-worshipping Trolls and Clerics who used this necklace. This would be me. I have used this necklace not only here but on Live in '99/'00 and again on the Progression server in 2005.

What Asher is saying is the snare effect on clinging darkness sucks...it's nothing something you can actually kite something with...but once the mob gets to running health (10-20% usually) the clinging darkness acts the same as snare in the fact that the mob just turns your back to you and halts completely (as long as clinging darkness remains on the target).

This is why the necklace was very useful and is actually why several people, including myself, chose a troll shaman over an ogre shaman.

From Alla's (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=1254):

"Keep in mind it lasts for 8 ticks so keep root loaded as a back up obviously and it snares at 10%..."

"PPS: this item rocks btw if you have nobody in the group with a better snare, and great for soloing when you don't want to waste mana and need to keep a wounded mob from running away. not to mention the nice little wis buff it has :)"

From EQClassic.org (http://www.eqclassic.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=1109):

"I can't speak from experience but it seems like a mana-free disease based 10% snare would be nice while root-rotting mobs. Sure it probably is resisted more being the lowest darkness spell, but do our disease debuffs not counteract that?"

"Many soloing shaman swear by the snare soloing imps in solb, or whatever. I think a malise would be an inexpensive way to deal with resists. To each their own."

On Clinging Darkness taken straight from Alla's (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/spell.html?spell=344):

"I concur, this spell is fantastic. It's great for aggro, speed, and emergency snares. I still use this spell at 46th."

I understand the problem with emu's I just wanted to let you know that the spell clinging darkness is not working as intended here therefore the Regent Symbol of Innoruk (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=1254) is not working as intended here which is a let-down for those of us who made characters based off this item and it's incredibly awesome power.

Like I said earlier in this thread, even on Shards of Dalaya (http://www.shardsofdalaya.com/) they realized the problem with movement and decided to make the mobs on their custom server unable to run at all (took awhile to get used to it, lol).

[Uthgaard]

Not every mob on live moved at the same speed. You can outrun some mobs on live without sow. You will find reports that it halted some and barely slowed others. Everything moves at 1.7 here.

I'm not going east to get west. The spell stays accurate.

[maegi]

This spell is exactly as it was in classic.








Better snares come with better spells. If the dinky level 4 spell was the be-all-end-all of snaring, there wouldnt have been much point in having scaled movement modification on later spells, or other classes spells.

And yet Snare a level 1 druid spell with no upgrades ever does the desired effect or did on live no matter how high level characters would get, you'd always find Snare on a druids spell memmed bar, especially in aggro happy dungeon environments. To not stop a mob in it's tracks with clinging or snare is not Classic in any shape or form.

[Asher]

Not every mob on live moved at the same speed. You can outrun some mobs on live without sow. You will find reports that it halted some and barely slowed others. Everything moves at 1.7 here.

I'm not going east to get west. The spell stays accurate.

You are right, not all mobs ran at the same speed but 99% did. Giants, Griffins, Shadowmen and some other magical creatures did move faster than normal. While I don't recall using this snare on these magical creatures you may be correct with them.

In my humble opinion a quick fix, is just to bump up the snare on this slightly maybe 1% or 2% so mobs stop running. This isn't over-powering and isn't going to make anyone use this spell over the higher level ones in the line but it will make it function as it did on live. I don't think anyone is asking to have all mobs speeds changed.

Anyone see a reference saying that it barely snared mobs? I remember at very low levels mobs did run but at the higher levels mobs were stopped.

I think I am going to reroll an Iksar Shaman for the additional regen when Kunark opens. I did pick this race/diety combination for this.

While I disagree with your statements, you are the boss and I will live with it.

Asher

[Uthgaard]

And yet Snare a level 1 druid spell with no upgrades ever does the desired effect or did on live no matter how high level characters would get, you'd always find Snare on a druids spell memmed bar, especially in aggro happy dungeon environments. To not stop a mob in it's tracks with clinging or snare is not Classic in any shape or form.

Clearly you've taken the time to research what you said.

Because, you know, snare doesnt also scale with level [Decrease Movement by 41% (L1) to 55% (L15)], and druids dont get ensnare at level 29 or anything.

This is getting retarded.