Shattered Kingdoms

I agree that voodoo is pretty much worthless now. However, instead of staying on the same old lines of sending spirits out, I think that it would be super cool if shamans could animate their spirit dolls to become a pet for a limited duration, much like a certain cabal spell that does the same with treants. The strength of the pet would be directly linked to the level of the spirit doll in use and PC spirit dolls would get bonus levels and/or strength. These would be able to be dispelled easily like elementals but should do pretty decent damage and have the ability to rescue.

Shamans should get rescue.

I always wanted to see Shamans get something like astral projection.
Allowing them to leave their body in an unconscious (but would not leave formation) state, and explore up to a half dozen or so spaces away.
Primarily an exploration skill, allowing them to see whats around the next corner before the party walks in.
If they were not visible in this form, could easily be used to scout out nearby enemies for PvP though.

QFT This has always been near top of list that I want shamans to have too.

Well you can just kill someone on purpose during happy hour with a shaman to raise them, that kinda counts.

Heh.

I have seem to run into the problem in the last few days where my typical charms that I would get with one cast are now taking two or three. My gate spell which I have mastered is now taking upwards of three casts to hit a target and worse yet two in order to hit stones. I would also like to state that my charms seem to be significantly weaker than they were towards the begining of the week.

I have to express once again, increasing the difficulty in such mundane tasks does not add any fun to the game, it increases my time sink which hampers my fun, and worse off makes me less likely to explore.

I really wish you would rethink how you approach saves

You mentioned failing portal stones, but there is no saving throw involved for gating to a stone. Therefore it seems likely you may be sabotaging yourself, possibly by wearing heavy armor gear and lowering your spell success chance.

I'm curious if this is across the board, or if just with some specific NPCs/races, as the above suggests that some NPCs may have been slightly buffed in some ways while others may have been slightly wimped in others.

I have gate mastered. I will have fail shots against normal NPC targets and once in a great while I will still have a fail against stones.

Mastered does not guarantee success. Since your reply was long after the actual event, I still suspect you were wearing some heavy armor at the time (or could have also been frenzy). If you want to take this further, you need to send me logs of it occurring and you doing 'skill' and 'equipment' commands immediately afterward. Send via PM please. Thanks.

Resistance are still mad frustrating. I am landing my spells within in two tries a lot, and I don't have art maxed yet, but I am still running into patches where I am casting ten times or more and the spell won't stick.

This may just be the RNG bending me over a barrel