Shattered Kingdoms

Only priests have to re-learn armor and weapon. Both classes have to learn the new item spell from scratch.

The way I see it, dolls just got a buff. They now provide a type of boost that stacks with enhancement boost and can not be gotten via any other method.

True, dolls got a buff, but doesn't solve the problem of them always being weaker than a shield.

I am having a hard time fathoming a reason why a shaman would decide to wear a doll instead of a shield, rather than instead of a weapon.

I think you'll find that there is still going to be quite a lot of thought and effort put into acquiring and enchanting an elite suit. Probably even more thought than before and perhaps as much effort too, although that effort will no longer be sitting for hours spamming the enchant spell until you hit three cherries on the enchant slot machine. It will be on acquiring gear that is correct for your needs to start with and then placing the right cherries on top.

Am I saying everything is going to be perfect coming out of the gate? No. I already said there will probably need to be some tweaks. But I believe they will be statistical tweaks and not wholesale changes to the new system. The update offers new depth that was obscured by the randomness of the old system.

While their damage with a weapon is less than subpar, I still don't see why you would not wield a weapon. You won't be able to kill someone with SA, and if you do wow... I really don't want to stay around for the length of that battle.

There was already one or more threads on this same topic. I happen to recall that Syn posted some cogent arguments. Go look them up.

Hey Edoras. Be careful what you wish for ...

Definitely not a fan of this change. And once again, no thought put into grandfathering of enchants or re-allocating stat points. Sad panda.

While I agree there -could- be a lot of potential for the new system I think that you're also not understanding what it takes to be 'competitive' in PK with the current SK trend - the difference between the current system and the past system is, while it was certainly a time sink it was conceivable that you could actually put together a kit that gave you some sort of leverage in PK if you were willing to put in the time to get it there.

Several of us have done the math and as of right now, the high end kit that you're going to be able to put together with the same amount of time invested in enchanting is hardly worth the effort at all. As well, all of the current equipment in the game is going to need to be redone and tailored to accomodate the new system. The new system and the splitting of MP in to two categories also nerfs melee in a way that they're going to have to make the decision between getting the "no vaseline" treatment from either physical damage or spell damage and casters didn't even need that sort of buff to begin with.

You seem to misunderstand what I am trying to say. Shamans -should- be wearing the spirit doll rather than a weapon because of the bonuses the spirit doll comes equipped with. What I am trying to convey to Muktar is that it's rather stupid to consider a spirit doll as a replacement to shields rather than consider the fact that shamans do not belong doing melee damage - they are a battle caster and their spells do more damage than any other spell set in the game if utilized properly.