Ancient Wandering set / IF stack

[Irin19]

You can do 1 stack without the set bonus so by having this set bonus damage is only reduced by a further 8%.

You make that 8% sound paltry, in a game measured in fractions of percentages 8% is huge.

[Oelle]

You make that 8% sound paltry, in a game measured in fractions of percentages 8% is huge.

its not really huges. those 8% dont add up on mitigations
sure, if you are a captain-tank, those 8/12% add up on your battlehardened state buff and on all those other cappies buffs.
if you are a champion/beorn tank, those 8/12% add up on many defensive buffs they have...
but if you are a warden/guardian/anyotherclass, its just 8/12% less taken damage (or 9.1/13.3% if you are using a 10%scroll).

if it were a bonus to mitigations, it would be incredible. getting from 74% mits as a guard healed by a minstrel to +12->86% would actually be a decrease in taken damage by 46%. but its not. its just around 10%. not more, not less. nice, but far from huge. burg/lm debuffs on enemies are still much much better.

[Joedangod]

You make that 8% sound paltry, in a game measured in fractions of percentages 8% is huge.

The point being that this set bonus is not a 12% reduction, it is an 8% reduction in incoming damage (stacking on top of other -inc damage buffs) as you can already do 4% without using the set at all. You should also remember that 2 slot armour is a big drop in stats for yourself as well.

[Irin19]

We will just have to agree to disagree.

The sets that are marginally better for personal stats, well, I won't subject myself to farming boss 1 in SS or BS hundreds of times.

Philosophies will vary, there are many options, none of them are awful. I will still defend that an extra 8% for your heavies in fellow helps me as a healer...

[Matanan]

The point being that this set bonus is not a 12% reduction, it is an 8% reduction in incoming damage (stacking on top of other -inc damage buffs) as you can already do 4% without using the set at all. You should also remember that 2 slot armour is a big drop in stats for yourself as well.

You dont lose stats, you just lose ego. In the end you have 45k moral instead of 50k but you take 8% less damage so no change in survivability. Your job ist to keep your group alive. People make mistakes. We can do those misstakes, beacause we can stack moral without crippling your heals. The others cant. They have to gear for might, agi or will. Little question. Would you use the groupe bubble if it would give the group 8% moral instead of of 1500?

[Joedangod]

You dont lose stats, you just lose ego.

Are you aware that I am just trying to clarify what using this set actually does and have neither advocated for or against its use in content?

This set bonus gives you -8% incoming damage more than you can get without this set. To make this set bonus good you must invest 10 trait points into a trait. You lose a roughly 10% chunk of your own morale to use this set. Finally you need to start using around 1 inspire fellows every 10-15 seconds to maintain this buff (remembering that inspire fellows is around half the aoe healing of bolster courage and 1/4 of the combined single target and aoe heal on the tank). Basically you need to make every 3rd/4th heal inspire fellows which results in a (roughly) 14-19% drop in aoe healing due to bolster courage being a much stronger heal, thus making this set mostly useful in scenarios where people are being one shot rather than scenarios in which people need a lot of healing. The single target healing you output is more affected where it drops up to 25% as each inspire fellows replaces 2 strong heals with 1 weak one on your selected target (Bolster Courage + Bolster Our Courage vs Inspire Fellows).

Therefore this set bonus is great if you fulfill the following criteria:
- You have 10 spare trait points.
- You are in an instance where 1 shots occur (but are still small enough for this set to help reduce the damage, morale threshold one shots remain an issue, possibly a bigger one)
- You yourself are not pulling aggro (you have less morale now and are pulling less single target healing that could burst you up to full)
- The damage is mostly split between the group and not on the tank

Personally, no I do not use this set. I would use it for a yellow heal build but not for my blue build. My minstrel was leveled to fulfill a need for healers within my kinship, I do not care for it much so have not bothered going above 73 trait points (it's also wearing a large number of major essences). I'm also far too used to tanking adds in instances and I enjoy stupid things like doing a DoS where the entire fellowship stacks puddles on one spot for the tank to stand in whilst he holds the boss (I also do much more idiotic stuff like volunteering to heal a bear tank). All these things add up to this set bonus being bad for me and thus me not using it.

Of course, your situation might be different but that is mine and I feel that my decision stands up to scrutiny, are you certain that yours does?

[Nogen]

Are you aware that I am just trying to clarify what using this set actually does and have neither advocated for or against its use in content?

This set bonus gives you -8% incoming damage more than you can get without this set. To make this set bonus good you must invest 10 trait points into a trait. You lose a roughly 10% chunk of your own morale to use this set. Finally you need to start using around 1 inspire fellows every 10-15 seconds to maintain this buff (remembering that inspire fellows is around half the aoe healing of bolster courage and 1/4 of the combined single target and aoe heal on the tank). Basically you need to make every 3rd/4th heal inspire fellows which results in a (roughly) 14-19% drop in aoe healing due to bolster courage being a much stronger heal, thus making this set mostly useful in scenarios where people are being one shot rather than scenarios in which people need a lot of healing. The single target healing you output is more affected where it drops up to 25% as each inspire fellows replaces 2 strong heals with 1 weak one on your selected target (Bolster Courage + Bolster Our Courage vs Inspire Fellows).

Therefore this set bonus is great if you fulfill the following criteria:
- You have 10 spare trait points.
- You are in an instance where 1 shots occur (but are still small enough for this set to help reduce the damage, morale threshold one shots remain an issue, possibly a bigger one)
- You yourself are not pulling aggro (you have less morale now and are pulling less single target healing that could burst you up to full)
- The damage is mostly split between the group and not on the tank

Personally, no I do not use this set. I would use it for a yellow heal build but not for my blue build. My minstrel was leveled to fulfill a need for healers within my kinship, I do not care for it much so have not bothered going above 73 trait points (it's also wearing a large number of major essences). I'm also far too used to tanking adds in instances and I enjoy stupid things like doing a DoS where the entire fellowship stacks puddles on one spot for the tank to stand in whilst he holds the boss (I also do much more idiotic stuff like volunteering to heal a bear tank). All these things add up to this set bonus being bad for me and thus me not using it.

Of course, your situation might be different but that is mine and I feel that my decision stands up to scrutiny, are you certain that yours does?

You are wrong on so many levels...

[Joedangod]

You are wrong on so many levels...

Yet you fail to articulate what any of these "levels" are.

[Oelle]

in yellow trait tree, there is a talent for +5% tactical mitigation. that is just wanted. and the traitpoints for the buff are just used on the way there. they are not wasted.
healing as minstrel is nowhere a problem. as long as oneshots are no problem, minstrels heal like 500% of incoming damage. therefore, reducing their heal and giving out better buffs is nearly always a good idea.
if minstrel pulls aggro, its very good to have less incoming damage. having 45k or 50k morale does not change much either.
tankhealing is never a problem. but even when the tank is the only one that gets damage, if he gets less damage, its less of a problem.

[Drawbar]

Well, as I really liked the set, I did drop it now and took the 4 slot armour (and later the raid set), not nesc. because of bonusses on them, but for the extra slots.
That 4-slot got me some more stats eventually and to be fair, when you really need the IF bonus, you don't have time to keep it up anyway. So basicly not thát usefull eventually.

[Ethrildar]

Well, as I really liked the set, I did drop it now and took the 4 slot armour (and later the raid set), not nesc. because of bonusses on them, but for the extra slots.
That 4-slot got me some more stats eventually and to be fair, when you really need the IF bonus, you don't have time to keep it up anyway. So basicly not thát usefull eventually.

Are you saying you can't do an induction skill once every few other skills to keep IF at -12% inc dmg? I mean it's not like it does nothing else, it's still an aoe heal as well. Loss of stats is unfortunate but I think as discussed in this thread before, the bonus to the whole group is well worth it.

[Drawbar]

Be honoust and tell me have you tried it? And are you keeping IF on -12% in the raid without lacking heals if you're the main healer in the group?
I'm not about minies in yellow and/or off-heals.. Very viable to use as a buffer. But in blue main heals, the cd on IF, the inductiontime on IF ánd the time one buff runs out isn't just worth it imho.
The loss of stats wearing the set is too much ánd the -4% instead of the -12% is neglectable at most and outhealed very very easy.

[Oelle]

Be honoust and tell me have you tried it? And are you keeping IF on -12% in the raid without lacking heals if you're the main healer in the group?
I'm not about minies in yellow and/or off-heals.. Very viable to use as a buffer. But in blue main heals, the cd on IF, the inductiontime on IF ánd the time one buff runs out isn't just worth it imho.
The loss of stats wearing the set is too much ánd the -4% instead of the -12% is neglectable at most and outhealed very very easy.

the loss of stats is like 2k morale, if you do not change equipment for every fight because of mitigations.
not that much, i'd say.
okay, its about 6k if you say you need no will as will only contributes very tiny bits to healing...
but i dont see the problem with sooo long inductions. with hymn on and traited inductionreduction and legacy, its short enough imo.

[Drawbar]

the loss of stats is like 2k morale, if you do not change equipment for every fight because of mitigations.
not that much, i'd say.
okay, its about 6k if you say you need no will as will only contributes very tiny bits to healing...
but i dont see the problem with sooo long inductions. with hymn on and traited inductionreduction and legacy, its short enough imo.

I know Oelle, but I'm building my evade gear now too So need to get some essence room

Edit: Let me refrase it: When I had the set on, I sometimes forgot to keep IF up 3 times. And you know what? I didnt notice a thing and neither did the group. Ofc I still have it and switch for it ONLY when there's a mob-dense area in wich
it's highly likely all of the group get hit often. But with less mobs/bosses, easy to tank stuff, I don't use it anymore. I really really don't see any difference in that -8% extra wich you get and need to keep up.
(IF used to be a high agro skill back in the days, with not that mucg healing output.. maybe that's the case.. Old habbits)

[Ethrildar]

When I had the set on, I sometimes forgot to keep IF up 3 times. And you know what? I didnt notice a thing and neither did the group.

...Yeah, you didn't notice a thing because instead of the group taking -12% damage, you're just outhealing the DPS by spamming more bolsters, however this saves nobody when they are one or two-shot, or going down faster than Bolsters can save them, in which 12% damage would actually make the difference.

[Drawbar]

in which 12% damage would actually make the difference.

It's 8% damage...

Tbh I'm with Joedangod on this

[Ethrildar]

It's 8% damage...

Tbh I'm with Joedangod on this

It's 8% MORE damage, but if you're only using it for 1/3 of it's potential, you may as well not use it. A 1% damage boost is meaningless, but using 10 of them is worth it. See how that works..?

[Miyolein]

Yeah BC has a has a greater AoE-Heal than IF, that is sad. But most of the time you don't need it. It would be nice to see how much of the actual heal is just overheal at the moment. Most of the time you dont need that much heal, but it makes healing easier and more comfortable.
At the moment I use 4 pieces of IF set, my lvl 65 OD gloves and the T2 raiding helmet with the yellow spec. (points spend in yellow/blue) I tried it and could heal 4/6 bosses in the new raid T2CM and IF is your mainheal again (good ol' times).
Ofc we can argue, that 2 more hymnes are not necessary, but your champs like it. ^^

[siipperi]

Yeah BC has a has a greater AoE-Heal than IF, that is sad. But most of the time you don't need it. It would be nice to see how much of the actual heal is just overheal at the moment. Most of the time you dont need that much heal, but it makes healing easier and more comfortable.
At the moment I use 4 pieces of IF set, my lvl 65 OD gloves and the T2 raiding helmet with the yellow spec. (points spend in yellow/blue) I tried it and could heal 4/6 bosses in the new raid T2CM and IF is your mainheal again (good ol' times).
Ofc we can argue, that 2 more hymnes are not necessary, but your champs like it. ^^

Pretty much this. I would say depending on the boss about 60-80% is overhealing. Considering my no legacy IF crits 8-9k it's totally sufficient heal to use as every 2nd or 3rd heal. As I have said before all you lose by doing this is a bit of HPS numbers that healers use stretch their e-p.