OoW familiars

In Omens of War we received 4 new familiars: Devoted, Greater Fire, Greater Magic, Greater Ice.

Devoted Familiar - 10 FT - 500 Mana Pool Increase - All resists +30 - See Invisible - Casting Level +9
Greater Familiars - 2 FT - 350 Mana Pool Increase - Fire, Magic, Ice resist +45 (exclusive) - See invisible - Fire, Magic, Ice spell damage +25%.

Previously through Gates of Discord we had: Allegiant Familiar, Fire/Magic/Ice.

One of the great things about the familiars (before OOW) was that a wizard could instantly change from Allegiant to Specialty instantly and the Fire/Magic/Ice familiar would overwrite the Allegiant. This was available each time a wizard had the Allegiant Familiar summoned (possible every 7-8 minutes.)

Fast forward to the OoW expansion and the 4 new familiars...

A wizard has summoned his Devoted Familiar and wishes to instantly switch to a specialized familiar for one of many reasons (tank died-need to burn down named npc, just pulled npc that ae's a heavy fire/magic/ice spell, etc). Not possible - with the new coding, the wizard must search through up to 20 buffs to find his Devoted Familiar Icon and click it off, lose 500 from his mana pool, and cast a new one.

Two problems:
1) Speed, The specialty familiars are instant cast and such should be able to be brought up when needed or wanted ASAP.
2) Mana loss, A wizard at full mana decides to switch to a specialty familiar at the last second - he takes 15 seconds to find his Devoted Familiar buff, click it off, and summon his Greater Fire Familiar - His mana pool drops from 10000 to 9500 as he clicks off Devoted, and stays at 9500 as he summons his new familiar - bringing his mana pool back up to 9850.

I am asking for the Ro's Greater Familiar, Druzzil's Greater Familiar, and E'ci's Greater Familiar to overwrite Devoted Familiar as their prerequisites did in GoD with our earlier Allegiant Familiar.

Fifteen seconds? Have you ever counted 15 seconds? If it takes you more than two seconds you need a better UI for your buff window.

Other than that, I agree with the premise of your post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quesci

Fifteen seconds? Have you ever counted 15 seconds? If it takes you more than two seconds you need a better UI for your buff window.

Other than that, I agree with the premise of your post.

I can see more than 2 seconds during a raid. I dont use my mouse at all during a raid. And I turn off a lot to reduce lag. There have been times it took me 5-6 seconds to locate the mouse pointer.

I really only use my mouse during a raid during buff periods where I have to click off the crappy buffs so as not to overflow my buff limit. OTOH I do believe the original post was a bit of exaggeration but the lost of mana is real. And not something to sneeze at since we are soooo mana limited.

Actually his 15 seconds is also counting the casting time to cast the new familiar.

Ah, I was unaware that the OoW familiars had a cast time. Lucy says they have a 0 cast time like the Gates ones.

It could take 5 seconds and it would be too long.

Read this very slowly... The point: We were able to instantly switch with no loss in mana in GoD, now we can't.

I think it's just an oversight and can be fixed if brought to Rashere's (if he's in charge of AA's still) attention. Losing this mana and a few seconds does matter to some of us. Instead of trying to break this down into tiny pieces , look at the big picture.

I have constantly used /feedback in game to request that ALL familiar buffs overwrite one another. It is such a simple fix that it is laughable, but without a change the inconvenience really highlights just how crappy an implementation familiars were in the first place.