Will will saves be 2nd banana in mod 9?

[Trillea]

I know right now noone is worried about their will save. Everyone is worried about DPS, Reflex saves and Evasion. But come Mod 9 there will be a new danger that we already know about - Mordenkainen's Disjunction.

"Now what does that do" you ask?

I'll tell you.

1st it will dispel your buffs.

"Big deal" you say, "That happens already!"

Well I say "Yes it is a big deal because I haven't told you about the 2nd effect it will have! It will make all your uber raid loot/greensteel items/magical bonuses equivalent to masterwork items with no effects unless you make the will save!"

Now I have seen thread after thread that focuses on how the magical bonuses (burst/blast effects, on-hit procs, and all that) boost DPS. All this will be for naught with the addition of this single spell. It is a glaring hole in every Mod 9 build I have seen! I started this thread to raise awareness of this, in hopes that some of these builds can accomodate this, because as soon as your tempest ranger with an 18 will save is hit with MD 20/20 his AC, DPS, and all weapon effects will go *poof*

Please show me some builds that will mitigate this at least to some extent!

RAISE THE WILL SAVES!

[Cearina]

I think a good one is the 2 pal / 18 sorc. With the force of personality feat and other items you could probably raise your will save to 40 perhaps? Maybe more.

base for 2/18 would be 11
say a 38 chr at 20 14
personality feat 14
total 39

thats without adding anything for spells or resist items

[Trillea]

I think a good one is the 2 pal / 18 sorc. With the force of personality feat and other items you could probably raise your will save to 40 perhaps? Maybe more.

OK that may be good for a caster class and thank you. How about some melee classes that won't lose a TON of DPS from one spell?

[hydra_ex]

OK that may be good for a caster class and thank you. How about some melee classes that won't lose a TON of DPS from one spell?

Ahhhh thats the point? It will make DPS loss for all characters who are not specced to mitigate that one spell. Just like hold monster and command is the bane of all melees. I'd rather be up a hitting away with a mwk 2d8 axe (base dmg increase is not magical) than sitting on my but not doing anything.

Only builds would be a paladin or monk build, maybe a rgr with splashes. The iron monk would meet this requirement.
But yeah, disjunction, for me, is just another tank disabling spells, no different than command, or hold, or fts or... etc

[Phidius]

18 Pally/2 Monk

I bet these have some nice will saves...

[SableShadow]

OK that may be good for a caster class and thank you. How about some melee classes that won't lose a TON of DPS from one spell?

Pure Rogues.

[Trillea]

This one spell may very well be the equalizer vs. other classes for the monk class. Mordenkainen's may well be ready to strip all magical enhancements off weapons/armor/what have you but many of a monk's special abilities and almost none of their damage is based on this. Plus factor in the fact that a straight monk will usually have a fairly high WIS and all their saves are in the "best" category it will be very useful to have 1 or 2 in a group in a quest where this spell is used quite a bit.

[Cearina]

18 Pally/2 Monk

I bet these have some nice will saves...

Not so much. 18 pally only gives a base will resist of 6. The monk at 2 at least gives you 3. so 9 total base. if the pally is'nt heavily speced into chr you would be better with a pure monk .

Now it would rock if the pally was heavly speced chr and took the personality feat.

[honkuimushi]

The problem is that most melee won't be able to get their will save high enough to matter so it will be ignored. The base will save for Barbarians, Fighters, Rangers, Rogues and Paladins is 6 at level 20. If you have an 18 Wisdom or Charsma (insane) and a +6 item, thats another 7. And a +5 resistance item will add up to 18. There are a few other enhancements, and Greater Heroism will give you a +4, but it can be dispelled.

At minimum MD will have a DC of 10(base)+ 9(spell level)+4(19 Int) for a total of 23. So in the best case, a will save based melee will fail on a 1. Without GH he would fail on a 4 or less. Most melee will probably be looking at a 10 or so(13 Will save), or a 50/ 50 chance.

But remember that that's the minimum. Most casters casting level 9 spells have a casting stat of more than 19. A 30 would add 6 to the DC, meaning that the will save focused guy now fails on a 10 or lower and the average guy fails on a 16 or lower. And that still leaves out spell focus feats, enhancements and items.

If someone focused on Will Saves will fail more than half the time, you just have to plan on having the them disjuncted. Paladins and some multiclass builds will do better and some people will get lucky and save, but that will brobably be considered a bonus.

Also, how many mobs do you think will have that spell? Look at current mob spellcasters. Most have only a few spells and most don't have max level spells. A creature with 9th level spells should be fairly rare. I would expect several quest bosses to have it and almost certainly Raid Bosses will. I could even see certain existing bosses gaining the spell. But I wouldn't expect most random mobs or even Orange names to have it. I see it being treated like overrun. Noone expects to resist it, they just use tactics that make it less of a factor.

[Junts]

my pally has a 32 will right now and wil have like a 35 when the cap goes up..something like that, 31 after losing gh

[kamimitsu]

Pure Rogues.

This... this... and more this!

[alvarezII]

I know right now noone is worried about their will save. Everyone is worried about DPS, Reflex saves and Evasion. But come Mod 9 there will be a new danger that we already know about - Mordenkainen's Disjunction.

"Now what does that do" you ask?

I'll tell you.

1st it will dispel your buffs.

"Big deal" you say, "That happens already!"

Well I say "Yes it is a big deal because I haven't told you about the 2nd effect it will have! It will make all your uber raid loot/greensteel items/magical bonuses equivalent to masterwork items with no effects unless you make the will save!"

Now I have seen thread after thread that focuses on how the magical bonuses (burst/blast effects, on-hit procs, and all that) boost DPS. All this will be for naught with the addition of this single spell. It is a glaring hole in every Mod 9 build I have seen! I started this thread to raise awareness of this, in hopes that some of these builds can accomodate this, because as soon as your tempest ranger with an 18 will save is hit with MD 20/20 his AC, DPS, and all weapon effects will go *poof*

Please show me some builds that will mitigate this at least to some extent!

RAISE THE WILL SAVES!

ALL HAIL the bard! our songs dont get debuffed!

[Zenako]

Well if you look at the current DC's on many REF based attacks, they are into the 30's already, so that is entirely within reason for WILL based attacks.

The only reason most of the WILL based attacks are not a problem is that we as players tend to cast preemptive spells to negate them. Freedom of Movement knocks out a whole class of WILL based take out your enemy spells. Fear Immunity and things like that negate all fear effects and so on.

What will make MD more effective is that it is not imposing a specific effect (which can be countered 100% effectively like those above) it is merely removing effects from the target leaving them "natural" as the gods made them.

This could be a boon for WF as well. Imagine if there is a DC30 Poison effect, and you under MD, which means no save boosts, no items working (including that Prot Poison boost you have) and your saves are now only base + stat + songs or Paladins boost. Being IMMUNE to some things becomes a LOT more valuable.

My 30 (24) CHA paladin will have pretty good saves even without spells. But this will clearly make some things a LOT more challenging and perhaps make player skill and teamwork more important than uber gear to take down certain enemies.

A rogue with huge backstab bonus may well be the uber DPS option for any flankable mob.

Oh and my Spellsinger Bard long ago took Force of Personality and did not regret it.

[BattleCircle]

I'm not too concerned about the will saves as of yet, playing mostly Barbs I have learned to deal with it LOL

But this little tidbit from the Ebberon Wiki does cause me a bit of concern...

Whirling blades travel the plane like flocks of birds seeking out non-native inhabitants and attacking them.

[Geonis]

Not so much. 18 pally only gives a base will resist of 6. The monk at 2 at least gives you 3. so 9 total base. if the pally is'nt heavily speced into chr you would be better with a pure monk .

Now it would rock if the pally was heavly speced chr and took the personality feat.



My 14 Pally/2 monk, sits at 30+ on all saves (without Force of Personality). I do think Will is the lowest at about +32 or so, but not in fear of MD here.

Edit: And not really heavy Cha spec, think I started at 14. (14 base + 3 Pal APs + 1 tome + 6 item = 24/+7)

Will- (Pal) 4 base + (Mnk) 3 Base + 6 Wis (14 base + 1 Monk + 1 tome + 6 item = 22/+6) + 7 Cha + 5 Resist + 4 Aura + 4 GH = +33

[sisterjinx]

I know right now noone is worried about their will save.

Not "everyone" feels that way. Personally I DO worry about my will saves on my tank type builds because I HATE being held.

I'm currently working on a new build that should tear He** out of stuff and will have a respectable will save to boot. I don't want to share it cause not sure how it's gonna turn out yet but so far it's looking good.

[Shaamis]

Solution for Will save-challenged characters: Mind Blank Spell

Whether it will ever see DDO: Snowballs chance in Hell.

I had a high level sorc in PnP popped this spell on himself first thing every morning.

It would turn a fighter into a Juggernaut if they brought it into DDO, let alone any items that grant Mind Blank with a duration.

otherwise, sacrifice your DPS for a good will save build, because all of the DPS in the world means nothing when you are standing there with stars circling around your head.