On Thu, 18 Nov 1999, Eric Boller wrote:
>
> I just got level 25 last night and memmed Psalm of
> Warmth. I like the damage shield alot. Anyway, I
> haven't heard much discussion about this song other
> than the damage it does. I was wondering what
> people's opinions of it are. I'm thinking it would be
> great in a group and pretty awesome solo. Yet i never
> hear anyone talking about twisting it in. If you do
> twist it in, what do you end up twisting it with?
I *think* I covered this in the analysis. If not, I guess
Rokenn should add it. :-)
The song grants a damage shield, cold resist on par with
Elemental Rhythms with a normal drum, and infravision.
The song is more effective in small groups. The number of
times a mob hits your party does not increase with the number
of group members (it actually goes down since you kill the mob
quicker), so the benefit of this song is not increased as your
group gets larger. Thus in larger groups, it can make more
sense to use a scaling song (e.g. Anthem or Hymn). OTOH, in a
small group or while soloing, this song can easily account for
10%-20% or more of the damage applied to a mob.
The song is more effective in multi-mob engagements, typically
against greens which won't do much damage to you. It will let
your party concentrate on a main target(s), while letting the
extra mobs kill themselves by beating on your party.
Obviously if the extra mobs are doing a significant amount of
damage, you're better off mesmerizing or Lullabying them.
Hence it's most useful against swarms of greens. Just make
sure none of the greens run away.
Because the song damages the mob *when you are hit*, other
effects that benefit the party can lessen the effectiveness of
this song. Slowing down the mob's attacks, and raising your
agility/AC so you are hit less frequently will do this. In
the extreme case, mesmerizing the extra mobs will completely
eliminate the damage they'd take from this song :-). Keep
this in mind when deciding which songs to use. e.g. if you
must play this song (perhaps for the cold resist), and have a
choice between Chain (to slow the mob's attacks) and Celerity
(to speed up your party's attacks), this would be a factor
favoring Celerity.
The following is an algebraic calculation I sent to this list
when someone asked which he should use when soloing - Bellow
or Psalm of Warmth:
5 pts/hit at L25. You guys are lucky, it used to be 4 when I
first got it but got upgraded a couple months ago.
If a mob hits for D points on average, and you have H hp, and
the damage shield does S damage per hit, then the damage
shield will do S*(H/D) points damage over the fight. If the
mobs average N hits per song round (3-4 sec for most bards),
and Bellow does B damage on average (including resists),
Bellow sung once while weaving 3 songs will do (B/3N)*(H/D)
points damage. Divide to remove the common factor and you end
up with:
If B > 3S*N then it makes more sense to use Bellow.
You can figure out B and N with all the nifty new log parsers,
S you can tell from the messages when you're fighting. This
will work for multiple mob encounters too, just add up all the
mob hits when determining N. :-)
e.g. if your Bellow does 12 points on average, the mobs
average 1 hit per round, and the damage shield does 5 points
per hit, then:
12 > 3*5*1
Which is false, so in this case it makes more sense to use
Psalm of Warmth.
--
John H. Kim
kim@...