Spell Pass Preview - Chaaannggeee!

[Torc]

Hey folks! As you’ve probably have already heard we have a major spell pass coming down the pipe. The full details will be released soon but we figured we’d cover some general cases and some the reasoning for the changes ahead of the Lamannia preview. Today we’ll look at the changes coming to spell cost ratios, CC spells, death effects, and spell points… here we go!

SPELL COST TO EFFECT RATIOS CHANGES:

For years now the cost of all spells have been strictly driven by this formula:

Base Spell cost = 5 SP + (spell level X 5).

IE: a level 1 spell is 10 sp, while a level 9 spell is 50 sp, and so forth.

While we got by with this, it didn’t exactly always make for the most diverse spell choices for those people who crunched the numbers to determine what to use. When you looked at the math, folks get very attached to certain spells, namely “wall of fire” for very logical reasons. This is a shame considering the art/dev resources devoted to the creation of so many other spells also floating in the system.

On another note, it has become a noticeable point that arcane casters are a rather difficult class to get into. The Classic 3.5 D&D concept of starting weak then gain cosmic power. While loyal to our roots we felt that perhaps the current learning curve is a bit too harsh, and we’re looking at making it an easier class role to enter for new players.

So we’re mixing things up! The spell pass was mostly focused on “damage” spells, but does extends into debuffs and other areas to a degree. We’re changing the costs and what spells do and we’ve changed far too much for me to cover it in just this post but I’m going to give you a list of examples to give you an idea of where we’re going…

Let’s take some main stream spells with a few “less popular” spells and see what you think….

Old way:

1. Burning Hands ( 10 SP)
2. Melf’s Acid Arrow ( 15 SP)
3. Scorching Ray ( 15 SP)
4. Lightning Bolt ( 20 SP)
5. Wall of fire ( 25 SP)
6. Delayed blast fire ball (40 sp)
7. Incendiary cloud: ( 45 SP)
8. Polar Ray (45 SP)

Now let’s change that too…

1. Burning Hands (down to 4 SP – other stats unchanged)

2. Melf’s Acid Arrow (down to 6 SP – Damage updated to 2d4 + 1 per caster level, duration locked to 12 seconds, now has double range, can no longer be enlarged or extended, ray targeting has been improved)

3. Scorching Ray (down to 6 SP – now has double range, can no longer be enlarged, ray targeting has been improved.)

4. Lightning Bolt (down to 12 SP – now has double range and 50% change to hit each target twice (back stroke!) – targets get an additional save against the back stroke). Can no longer be enlarged.

5. Wall of fire ( up to 35 SP – targets now get a reflex save for half when they first enter the effect, but no saves against the flames if they remain in the wall. Now only does an additional 2d6 against undead instead of double. Duration is now locked to 30 seconds regardless of level. Can no longer be extended)

6. Delayed blast fire ball: (25 SP/12 sp for trap version): trap cool down increased to 15 seconds, 10 seconds for sorcerers

7. Incendiary cloud (Cost remains 45 SP – Now does 2d4 + 1 per caster level in fire damage, no save. Duration locked to 30 seconds. Blind effect (previously no save) now has a reflex save. Can no longer be extended)


8. Polar Ray (Cost down to 15 SP, range doubled, can no longer be enlarged, ray targeting has been improved.)



So there is a lot going on here, and this is only a fraction of the changes going in to the spell pass. Essentially the cost of spells are being weighted now much more on their performance, method of engagement and the number of targets they effect rather than the old level-based formula.


• Low level spells that cap early (like burning hands) got discounted greatly.

• Drop and kite AOE dots such as wall of fire are now being treated as a more expensive/powerful attack form as we feel they really should be compared to other damage spells.

• Instant AOE spells got discounted some, to make them more appealing compared to waiting on kiting monsters through aoe dots.

• Single target damage and bolts are getting much cheaper, single target dots are getting cheaper and getting their effectiveness boosted.

• “Trap” type spells got really cheap to hopefully make them with consideration given the prep time they take, but had their cool downs increased to make them not a strict replacement for other in combat AOEs.

WHAT ABOUT CC?

Yeah okie, we mucked around with CC a little, and it goes into debuffs some… Here are a few high lights.

• Largely CC costs remained the same

• HD/HP caps we’re removed from most effects (yeah, I guess I should talk about death effects now, but oh, sleep works now!)

• Many debuffs had their cost reduced, and some had carrier debuffs added to them that temporarily reduced will saves regardless if the target saved against the original debuff.

Examples:

Crushing Depair: Cost reduced to 20 SP, now applies a weakn will effect for 15 seconds regardless of saving throw from original effect (will -5).

Touch of Idocy: Cost reduced to 5 SP, Now also weaks foes will save for -5 for 15 seconds regardless of save.

The notion is saving many of our under used debuffs and allow casters to punch harder targets/hit more reliably and get longer effect out of effects with quick re-occurring saves. That’s is if their willing to use a spell slot, and the spell points.


Full details to come, moving on for now…

DEATH EFFECTS:

Chaaanngggeeee….

• Costs remained the same.

• We’re pulling the death wards off epic and many pieces of content that had death proof monsters. There have been adjustments to “vorpal” weapons and the like that made us more comfortable with this change. Eladrin posted on these elsewhere if you’re looking for the sneak preview of that…

• Death spells had their cool downs increased, just a little on single target spells, a bit on AOEs. Single target spells are typically on a 8 second cool down, 6 seconds for sorcerers while AOE death effects are typically 30/25 respectively.

• Death spell on save damage was increased, so a blue hexagon won’t be a total waste of spell points, yet there will be more agro. We realize this and currently approve. Attempting to death a monster is a hate-able offense.

• There are some old death spells that got a new look and now their back in town:

Circle of Death: Now effects all targets regardless of Hit dice; Has been updated as follows:


Rains dark energy into an area. Living Creatures are subject to a death effect; getting a reflex save and then a fortitute save to avoid death. Targets who succeed against the reflex save suffer no ill effect, but creatures who success against the fortitute save will still lose 1d4 energy levels.

Power word: Kill!


Upper hit point cap removed except in PVP. Kills, no save, but spell resistance applies.
240 second cool down for wizards, 210 second cool down for sorcerors


SPELL POINT REGEN – Echoes of Power:

We’ll be introducing a limited form of spell point regen for players who have “magical training” (as in the feat). This is to avoid a true “out of gas” situation for our casters. The concept is that when a caster drops below a certain spell point threshold a spell point regen effect known as “echoes of power” applies itself until the caster reaches that threshold again. The goal is to allow low level players continue to cast level 1 spells at a diminished rate when their “out of gas” while high level players will be able to continue to use their PRE-s with the meta magics they normally require for high level play.

Currently in testing… these values are examples mind you…

• Echoes of power will appear when a player drops below 12 SP.
• Echoes of power will allow the player to regenerate at a rate of 4 SP every 6 seconds.
• Echoes of power will remove itself once a player reaches 12 SP or greater.



ETERNAL WANDS:

Not going to go into details here yet but eternals wands got a pass that increased their recharge regeneration rate and added desirable caster mutations.

Much more to come. That’s all for now folks, but be sure to participate in the Lamannia preview once it’s available to try out the changes!

-Torc
DDO Game Systems

[Absolute-Omniscience]

Awesome!

[Anneliese]

So if I kite a mob with evasion and decent reflex through a wall of fire, the mob takes 0 damage most of the time?

______________

In general, this sounds very interesting and nice. 2 thumbs up!

Probably a horror to balance tho.

[Aurora1979]

Harsh, firewall got da nerf :(

So, it seems that the intention is for arcanes to use alot more single shot spells?

That means its better to bin the wizard and roll a sorc, surely.

[Kralael]

SPELL POINT REGEN – Echoes of Power:

We’ll be introducing a limited form of spell point regen for players who have “magical training” (as in the feat). This is to avoid a true “out of gas” situation for our casters. The concept is that when a caster drops below a certain spell point threshold a spell point regen effect known as “echoes of power” applies itself until the caster reaches that threshold again. The goal is to allow low level players continue to cast level 1 spells at a diminished rate when their “out of gas” while high level players will be able to continue to use their PRE-s with the meta magics they normally require for high level play.

Currently in testing… these values are examples mind you…

• Echoes of power will appear when a player drops below 12 SP.
• Echoes of power will allow the player to regenerate at a rate of 4 SP every 6 seconds.
• Echoes of power will remove itself once a player reaches 12 SP or greater.



This

[Khurse]

You realize this means I'm going to have to think when I kite TOD now.

EDIT: Actually this mean that the Shadows in TOD get a reflex save, so if they pass it I don't actually get their aggro and they'll kill the party.

Pros- I can kill the party and pretend I'm upset about it
Cons- The party might expect me to use some other spell, and not die.

[Mellkor]

:mad:

wow. the most used spells get nerfed big time, while little used spells get some boosts. Testing will determine if they become useful.

Why not just dump all spells and just have generic magic damage based on level. And a generic kill spell. And a generic buff spell.


Seems to me this change is making spells more similar to each other.

Hopefully LLama will prove me wrong.

:mad:

[Jaid314]

Harsh, firewall got da nerf :(

So, it seems that the intention is for arcanes to use alot more single shot spells?

That means its better to bin the wizard and roll a sorc, surely.

well, sorta.

crushing despair (which now looks better when they *make* the save than succeed... unless they changed the on-success effect)
mass hold
wall of fire (they'll definitely be staying in the wall, and they'll be taking +50% damage).

but yeah, it looks like there's gonna be a bit more debuffing going on...

[Impaqt]

DEATH EFFECTS:

Chaaanngggeeee….

• Costs remained the same.

• We’re pulling the death wards off epic and many pieces of content that had death proof monsters. There have been adjustments to “vorpal” weapons and the like that made us more comfortable with this change. Eladrin posted on these elsewhere if you’re looking for the sneak preview of that…

• Death spells had their cool downs increased, just a little on single target spells, a bit on AOEs. Single target spells are typically on a 8 second cool down, 6 seconds for sorcerers while AOE death effects are typically 30/25 respectively.

• Death spell on save damage was increased, so a blue hexagon won’t be a total waste of spell points, yet there will be more agro. We realize this and currently approve. Attempting to death a monster is a hate-able offense.

• There are some old death spells that got a new look and now their back in town:

Circle of Death: Now effects all targets regardless of Hit dice; Has been updated as follows:


Rains dark energy into an area. Living Creatures are subject to a death effect; getting a reflex save and then a fortitute save to avoid death. Targets who succeed against the reflex save suffer no ill effect, but creatures who success against the fortitute save will still lose 1d4 energy levels.

huh? So if the mob fails both saves, they die. (Like PK) If they Make the Reflex save but fail the Fort Save they take 1d4 neg levels.

What happens if they fail the reflex but make the fort?



Power word: Kill!


Upper hit point cap removed except in PVP. Kills, no save, but spell resistance applies.
240 second cool down for wizards, 210 second cool down for sorcerors


4 Minutes? Ouch. not worth a slot.




SPELL POINT REGEN – Echoes of Power:
meh


ETERNAL WANDS:

Not going to go into details here yet but eternals wands got a pass that increased their recharge regeneration rate and added desirable caster mutations.

Much more to come. That’s all for now folks, but be sure to participate in the Lamannia preview once it’s available to try out the changes!

-Torc
DDO Game Systems

[RandomKeypress]

Wow - big changes. It will be fascinating to see how this plays out on lama. Will also be interesting to see the impact this has on mob casting.

[Cyr]

Wow, lots of changes.

I must say the ones which made me say wow I don't feel like playing a caster any longer are front and center though with Wall of Fire being nerfed dramatically.

It's great that instant damage spells are gaining some viability, but they really are only going to be effective with the meta's going and those are what matters for the sp cost of many spells.

The debuff changes seem entirely insane as they appear to be all about short term debuffs to follow up with a spell.

And a spell regen effect...wow we just keep on getting closer and closer to WOW don't we?

Incendary cloud is not as horrible, but still not great due to the unfathomable lack of random loot higher level spell caster boosting effects.

I give this a 2/10.

[countesscrow]

SPELL POINT REGEN – Echoes of Power:

We’ll be introducing a limited form of spell point regen for players who have “magical training” (as in the feat). This is to avoid a true “out of gas” situation for our casters. The concept is that when a caster drops below a certain spell point threshold a spell point regen effect known as “echoes of power” applies itself until the caster reaches that threshold again. The goal is to allow low level players continue to cast level 1 spells at a diminished rate when their “out of gas” while high level players will be able to continue to use their PRE-s with the meta magics they normally require for high level play.

Currently in testing… these values are examples mind you…

• Echoes of power will appear when a player drops below 12 SP.
• Echoes of power will allow the player to regenerate at a rate of 4 SP every 6 seconds.
• Echoes of power will remove itself once a player reaches 12 SP or greater.
-Torc
DDO Game Systems

This is a GREAT idea. However I think the cap is set to low. Make it a combination times your level. So lets set that value at 5 sp. So 5 sp X Level equals at level 12 .....60 sp. Below 60 it starts regening at 4 per 6 seconds. This allows the caster to atleast save a DDdoor or one powerful nuke for an emergency situation.

[BDS]

Not sure about this, guess we will learn and adapt as always.

[Aurora1979]

well, sorta.

crushing despair (which now looks better when they *make* the save than succeed... unless they changed the on-success effect)
mass hold
wall of fire (they'll definitely be staying in the wall, and they'll be taking +50% damage).

but yeah, it looks like there's gonna be a bit more debuffing going on...

Well, I get what your saying, but its not good really.

Mass hold has halfed in value to the progress of the quest, no auto crit makes it virtually pointless when soloing if my dreamspitter wont drain.

Wall of fire- IF they stay in the wall then yea, great, but they wont. The vast majority of the time I use FW im using it to kite through, not so much on static mobs (though obviously sometimes)

I realise changes happen and we gota roll with that. I realise some people didnt like the over dependance of firewall, and hold in epics..... but basically, today, ive seen my archmage (as he stands now) become vastly weaker then he was.... thats a pity to me having just spent a couple of months building him, working on gear and stuff.

[Shade]

So if I kite a mob with evasion and decent reflex through a wall of fire, the mob takes 0 damage most of the time?

______________

In general, this sounds very interesting and nice. 2 thumbs up!

Probably a horror to balance tho.

He didn't specific what teh save did.

A creature without evasion may take no damage.

I'd hope it's a save for half, but could be a save for none..

Overall most chances sound decent except one:
Nerfing extend as a feat.

I can see why you'd want to reduce the duration of say wall of fire and other persistant AOEs. But directly nerfing extend by having it simply not function is not a fun way to do it. The idea of the spell pass is to make more spells viable and balanced right? That can be done without nerfing feats like this.

Simply drop wall of fires duration to 15 seconds, and have extend apply. Thus extended = 30 second, as desired. Should not disable the feat simply because the spell is powerful and needs a lower duration.
Or perhaps something in between would be better: 20 second duration, 40 extended.

[Jaid314]

You realize this means I'm going to have to think when I kite TOD now.

EDIT: Actually this mean that the Shadows in TOD get a reflex save, so if they pass it I don't actually get their aggro and they'll kill the party.

Pros- I can kill the party and pretend I'm upset about it
Cons- The party might expect me to use some other spell, and not die.

the shadows have evasion or something? or are we assuming that's a save for no damage as opposed to a save for half?

[vVAnjilaVv]

I figured a WoF nerf would come eventually.......not gonna jump on the whining wagon tho...looks like far to many changes to spellcasting here to judge before trying....

I'm eager to see how it pans out.....I will say that the change to WoF is going to change caster play dramatically.

New incoming players will probably benefit from this overall change...talking about everything not just WoF....and experienced casters should easily be able to adjust if they are good players.

It's a global change to spellcasting in general...so I am not forseeing any real DOOM here....YET! :p

[Seikojin]

Interesting changes. I can't wait for the big list and lam preview. :)

[Tyrande]

You realize this means I'm going to have to think when I kite TOD now.

EDIT: Actually this mean that the Shadows in TOD get a reflex save, so if they pass it I don't actually get their aggro and they'll kill the party.

Pros- I can kill the party and pretend I'm upset about it
Cons- The party might expect me to use some other spell, and not die.

Use incendiary cloud instead. No save. Acid Fog will probably works too.

[Xyfiel]

I think this now makes wall of fire the most times nerfed thing in the game!

Did spike growth get changed?:D

[Yaga_Nub]

...

Power word: Kill!


Upper hit point cap removed except in PVP. Kills, no save, but spell resistance applies.
240 second cool down for wizards, 210 second cool down for sorcerors

...

-Torc
DDO Game Systems

In other words, PWK is still useless and won't be slotted. 240 second cool down means I'll cast it 3 maybe 4 times in a quest at the most because we have runs of most quests down to 10 to 15 minutes. 240 is a joke. I should be on the same timer as Implosion AT THE MOST. 30 seconds is more reasonable.

[Impaqt]

He didn't specific what teh save did.

A creature without evasion may take no damage.

I'd hope it's a save for half, but could be a save for none..

Overall most chances sound decent except one:
Nerfing extend as a feat.

I can see why you'd want to reduce the duration of say wall of fire and other persistant AOEs. But directly nerfing extend by having it simply not function is not a fun way to do it. The idea of the spell pass is to make more spells viable and balanced right? That can be done without nerfing feats like this.

Simply drop wall of fires duration to 15 seconds, and have extend apply. Thus extended = 30 second, as desired. Should not disable the feat simply because the spell is powerful and needs a lower duration.
Or perhaps something in between would be better: 20 second duration, 40 extended.

So you'd rather have a 45 Spell Point Extended Wall of fire that lasts 30 seconds instead of a 35 Spell Point Unextended wall of Fire that lasts 30 seconds?:confused::confused:

Its looking like Extend is turning into a fluff feat.... I can certainly think of some other feats to carry instead of Extend...

-____________________________

What about Divine spells Torc? THey gettin the same treatment?

[donfilibuster]

On another note, it has become a noticeable point that arcane casters are a rather difficult class to get into. The Classic 3.5 D&D concept of starting weak then gain cosmic power. While loyal to our roots we felt that perhaps the current learning curve is a bit too harsh, and we’re looking at making it an easier class role to enter for new players.


See, it is great when devs comment on the changes ahead of time. Saves lots of frowns and forum mumbling.

I am of the idea it is ok for devs to change things from PnP if they serve to fix things and bring balance.
Players suggest changes all the time on the basis that DDO differs from PnP but really this is domain of the DM only.

Good call on the poor apprentices, may we no longer see wizards start their journey to cosmic power by resorting to a great axe.

[Eladiun]

My first impression is I really don't like it.

[MeliCat]

"
• Death spells had their cool downs increased, just a little on single target spells, a bit on AOEs. Single target spells are typically on a 8 second cool down, 6 seconds for sorcerers while AOE death effects are typically 30/25 respectively."

AOE death effects? So this is like... um..? 30 seconds? um?

And delayed blast 10sec... I guess I should enjoy CC while I can on my sorc because I am so going to be awful at casters after this :(

Give up. I can't play a caster. Too hard.

[DasLurch]

I see nothing here that makes me ever want to play either of my arcanes ever again if this goes live.

Spell point changes are fine. The WoF nerf is sad, but honestly long over due. The cool downs are completely unacceptable IMO.

As far as changing spells that everyone agrees are auful, you've gone and FORCED players to now play with inferior spells and other crummy versions of them. I hope that there may be some other changes as opposed to what's offered here. All this looks like is casters being reduced to haste/holdbots. That is just weak.

The debuffs don't work on most of the mobs in the game, and we still haven't had the changes there announced and explained enough to make these changes sensible as far as I understand this.

The Echo of Power is worthless. No spells on any of my lists cost less than 12 points except a completely un enhanced MM. To quote a Kobold, Really???! REALLYY????

Please explain this better or hold this off completely. As it stands now, I have 3 characters that will just never get played again.

[bobbryan2]

So.. are metamagics getting changed?

Cuz changing spell base cost without changing metamagics seems to be a lesson in futility.

[Jonandu]

Big changes...

What Turbine seems to be doing is adjusting things for new player, which is nice. But how many old players will they loose in this process?

anyways carry on, changes suck

[TheDearLeader]

The Echo of Power is worthless. No spells on any of my lists cost less than 12 points except a completely un enhanced MM. To quote a Kobold, Really???! REALLYY????


I'm thinking this is to go hand-in-hand with both classes now having PrEs that allow them dirt-cheap SLAs.

[Seikojin]

Regarding Wall of fire:
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Wall_of_Fire

Seems like it is moving in line with PnP.
Just sayin'.

[Eelpout]

Overall most chances sound decent except one:
Nerfing extend as a feat.

I can see why you'd want to reduce the duration of say wall of fire and other persistant AOEs. But directly nerfing extend by having it simply not function is not a fun way to do it. The idea of the spell pass is to make more spells viable and balanced right? That can be done without nerfing feats like this.

Simply drop wall of fires duration to 15 seconds, and have extend apply. Thus extended = 30 second, as desired. Should not disable the feat simply because the spell is powerful and needs a lower duration.
Or perhaps something in between would be better: 20 second duration, 40 extended.

I like this idea. It seems it could accomplish what the Dev's want while not cutting extend spells usefulness in half. The 20 second duration and 40 second extend also seems like a fair middle ground.

Hope this gets considered strongly if they changes are a lock.

[Impaqt]

the shadows have evasion or something? or are we assuming that's a save for no damage as opposed to a save for half?


I use Blade Barrier to kite all the time... THey save for half. No big deal.

[SynalonEtuul]

Most of these changes sound pretty cool! I'm only dubious about the SP regen, and as Shade pointed out, the extend nerf.

[Shade]

So you'd rather have a 45 Spell Point Extended Wall of fire that lasts 30 seconds instead of a 35 Spell Point Unextended wall of Fire that lasts 30 seconds?:confused::confused:


Yea I would. Not sure why your confused.

Wall of fire is currently the "easy" buttton that all noob casters rely on.

Personally prefer 1 shot nukes, and use it only where neccesary to do well. It should have a high sp cost, and it and any other persistant spells should be extendable.

Maybe youd rather a 1 SP wall of fire that lasts 5000 seconds without extend on?

Probably not. but thats my point. Spell balance is one thing, making a feat less desirable is another. They need not be lumped together.

[kernal42]

The Echoes of Power bit adds no real strength to the classes, but it does allow spent casters to keep doing something to feel useful.

Which is exactly a good implementation.

-Kernal

[Gol]

I used to have a melee-wizard that I loved. Then epics dictated he have good DCs and carry holds.

So I LRed him into a enchantment spec archmage. He was good at epics and could solo near anything.

Now "helpless state" (aka Enchantment) is nerfed, necro-spec is nerfed via cooldowns, epics mobs have "substantially" reduced HP, and caster DPS is a bit cheaper.

I sense it's time to LR back into a melee with no-save damage spells again (with another feat to burn since extend is useless).

[Gimpinator]

How about scaling the Max SP you cap at with Echoes of Power?

12 Base, and an additional (+4/5 max per level) would actually be usable, post level 5.

[Lifespawn]

changing the base sp cost by 10 or so doesn't really help if metas stay the way they are
so not only will the wof nerf make the spell cost more per cast it also means no kiting because of reflex saves.


Melee casters can 100% count out that first tick of damage and hope that the ghosts and things that phase don't get a reflex save every time they come back in or they are screwed.


I think the nerf bat swung just a bit too hard we'll have to see how hp's get adjusted and it better not just be in epics with this change going live.

[Lifespawn]

Regarding Wall of fire:
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Wall_of_Fire

Seems like it is moving in line with PnP.
Just sayin'.

just fine if mob hp and saves go with it.

[Lozareth]

Everything useful and defining for the arcane caster classes nerfed. Hurray for our new, weak clothy bards without songs. :)

[Dragaer]

I'm thinking this is to go hand-in-hand with both classes now having PrEs that allow them dirt-cheap SLAs.

Sorcs and Archmage only. Pale masters use HP's for their "SLA". Do they get HP regen? :cool:

[slimkj]

Bye arcane casters as we know it then.

I hope the new version of them is viable.

[Shade]

I sense it's time to LR back into a melee with no-save damage spells again (with another feat to burn since extend is useless).

Which spells exactly?
I think the main tactic with said build was wal of fire.. It now has a save.

If anything, the changes will make having a high DC more important then ever.

Sure insta kills gain a long cooldown, but also keep in mind the variety of insta kills that actually work will expand.
Currently you got:
FoD, Wail
New DDO:
FoD, Wail, Cirlcle of Death, Power Word Kill
So 4 spells with longer cooldowns vs 2 spells with very short cooldowns. Exactly how many will we be able to get off in a given time? Not sure but I bet it wont be as bad as you make out.. And im sure someone can/will calculated that.

Even if its slightly less. The kill spells all gained alternate effects that work even on a same, thus adding some damage, if not killing thru damage.

My bet will be we go back to pre epic state in terms of the best builds:
1: Easy route: Insta killers. Some CC. Still bad at nuking. Generally palemasters.
2: Difficult route: Nuke spec. Some CC. Some insta killing, but not a lot. Generally elemental savants.

[Aurora1979]

Regarding Wall of fire:
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Wall_of_Fire

Seems like it is moving in line with PnP.
Just sayin'.

how so? I dont get your comparison.... Its been 15yrs or more since i played PnP but... if i remeber right, 1 round is approx 1 min... so thats 20 mins duration for a capped arcane + concentration, which is probably in the 30-40's or more..... so, duration wise, it doesnt seem the same.

also, no mention on d20 of a reflex save....

NB:.... obviously, im not suggesting we should get 50 min firewalls :) I get that a berf was due... just seems a very large nerf with not alot to replace it with. Ill wait till it goes live but from what ive read, if it all goes as suggested, then, for me, an arcanes no longer a char i want to play.

[TheDearLeader]

Sorcs and Archmage only. Pale masters use HP's for their "SLA". Do they get HP regen? :cool:

I believe its called "Death Aura" or something like that. Maybe lesser Death Aura will be cheap enough to be cast-able with the recharging SP. /shrug

[LookingForABentoBox]

Melee casters can 100% count out that first tick of damage and hope that the ghosts and things that phase don't get a reflex save every time they come back in or they are screwed.


Why are we assuming that the spell having a reflex saves means that all mobs will beat that save? Isn't reflex the lowest of all saves on mobs, on average?

[Dragaer]

I believe its called "Death Aura" or something like that. Maybe lesser Death Aura will be cheap enough to be cast-able with the recharging SP. /shrug

Its not 12 SP cheap - not even close. We'll see what it changes to.

[TheDearLeader]

if i remeber right, 1 round is approx 1 min... so thats 20 mins duration for a capped arcane + concentration, which is probably in the 30-40's or more..... so, duration wise, it doesnt seem the same.


One Round in 3.5, which DDO is based upon, is 6 Seconds. So take what you thought it was, and divide by ten.

[Impaqt]

Which spells exactly?
I think the main tactic with said build was wal of fire.. It now has a save.


Just when they enter it. Since melee mages tend to Fight IN the wall of fire vs. other mages kiting THROUGH the Wall of fire, it doesnt hurt melee mages near as much.

[maddmatt70]

Please tell me that haste and displacement can still be extended. That would be so painful if they could not be. I would be casting these spells all the time sigh on my bards.

I do like the changes. I am rolling up a wizard to mid level just to test out all the spells. Perhaps spellcasting will have real strategy in the future. That would be awesome if it did. I have always felt that spellcasting was poor in DDO. Too formulaic unlike the pnp game itself which was just so creative.

[moorewr]

How about scaling the Max SP you cap at with Echoes of Power?

12 Base, and an additional (+4/5 max per level) would actually be usable, post level 5.

I'm of the opinion that echoes of power is Not Meant For Us. It is probably a direct response to exit surveys where new players from standard MMOs started off with a caster and quit in disgust because they kept blowing their blue bar..

[Nick_RC]

Really like the look of this. Wall of fire is so bleh...bring on the proper nukes. I can see next mod being a complete nukefest if done right.

I think the cooldown on aoe instadeath is too long tho. Nukes will destroy things so much faster. Nuking was already superpowerful all the way up to cap. Its going to be even more so with wail reduced substantially.

I will definately NOT be taking extend as a feat now. I was iffy about it before now with WoF nerf (which i like) and being unextendable.... Il save the hasting for the bards.

N

[Aurora1979]

One Round in 3.5, which DDO is based upon, is 6 Seconds. So take what you thought it was, and divide by ten.

Ok, fair point, as i said, I played DnD long before 3.5 so, yea, im well out of date. Still though, that means 4- 5 min FW's according to D20..... so, to say they are pulling it inline with PnP.... i cant see how? Duration is shorter, and a new save thrown in.

[mehlinda]

Do you guys ever consider doing things in gradual steps ? Firewall has been overpowered since it has been introduced and I like making it cost more but not being able to extend it makes it cost way more. Fail.

Does Wail of the Banshee now have a 30/25 second cool-down. If the answer is yes, then we have another fail.

Looks like you took a bunch of spells which are useless after the market and lowered their costs so that they are now lower costing useless spells. Fail.

There are lots of spells in this game that have effects that don't measure up to the hd of the actual content we face and are therefore useless such as Circle of Death and Power word kill. They are not used because a lvl 20 sorc can kill things with Cone of cold in a lvl 10 quest faster than either spell would work and a lvl 20 sorc has no reason to be in a lvl 10 quest. If you want to make high level spells useful then make them work against monsters at the level range they would be used at and make them affect appropriate hd. This is your first non-fail.


Many of these changes look okay for Wizards but are brutal for Sorcs unless you really introduce the easy button and make Sorcs able to swap spells every few hours and if you do that you get another fail.

Scorching ray is not little used at level but is probably nothing more than a finishing spell at end game which is why many Sorcs drop it. Lowering the cost is great for low level quests but at end-game is not really going to be felt. To me it looks like most of the changes fall into this category. It looks like most of the changes only benefit low level questing and hurt high level questing. This = win for lowbies and once again, fail for endgame.

I used Sorcs as examples in most of this since they have to take spells semi-permanently whereas Wizards can adjust but Sorcs have been the unloved step-children for a bit now and this makes it seem even more so,,, unless we want to play them at low levels forever.


Without testing any of this I see most of it as your usual over-balance act and give it a double fail. I hope I am wrong.

[Gulnar13]

Which level is PWK anyway? I don't want to log my wiz right now to see.

[HarveyMilk]

This is all good news.

All arcanes (except water savant) will still want to OID + firewall. Undead will still take extra dmg and be kitable bc of their typically bad reflex saves.

The boosts to underused spells is a very welcome change.

Adding more incentives to debuffing is great.

The only thing I agree about being a bit too harsh is the cooldown on PW:Kill. Maybe 2 minute would be better? PW:Kill would be the best option for sorcs wanting to play the instakill game, but lacking the DC's of wizards, as long as they beat SR.

Edit: Why are the longer cool-downs on the other death spells good? So you can't just wail your way through quests. It's like trying to /cry your way through this thread. Annoying and not fun!

[knockcocker]

As far as I am concerned, WoF is used extensively because of it's efficiency, not it's DPS (unless you're swarmed
by waves of mummies). i.e. it was used due to lack of an alternative. I don't see how these changes help.

Also, I was happy when I saw the cost of the proposed SLAs for Savants. Now I've seen how much the non-SLA
versions cost, I'm not so happy.

I'd have liked to have seen all damage spells scale with caster level (e.g. Ice Storm!). It's a good way to scale
damage output with level without having to nerf feats.

[Zerkul]

I want to say just one thing ...


... it is ...


Doom.

[TheDearLeader]

Ok, fair point, as i said, I played DnD long before 3.5 so, yea, im well out of date. Still though, that means 4- 5 min FW's according to D20..... so, to say they are pulling it inline with PnP.... i cant see how? Duration is shorter, and a new save thrown in.

Not saying I agree with the changes, just defining how long a "Round" is. :) And if you need a Firewall 5 minutes long to burn something.. well, you're a Water Savant in Update 9! XD I made a funny.


Which level is PWK anyway? I don't want to log my wiz right now to see.

Spell Level IX.

[charmor]

Nice. Seems we'll have to almost relearn to play a caster, which IMO is great news.

Only thing that you devs will have to take a closer look in the future is the cost of metamagic. Metamagic costs are now base on current spell costs. With spell cost changes, metamagic will also have to change to keep all this work on spell changes balanced.

For example, I think it's fair paying 6 for Scorching Ray and almost six times this value (35) for Wall of Fire. However, I don't think it's fair paying 46 for a maximize+empowered Scorching Ray and less than twice this cost (75) for a maximized/empowered Wall of Fire.

IMO, matamagic will eventually have to work the way they worked a long time ago, multiplying the spell cost instead of adding a value. Maybe Maximize = +100% cost, Empower = +50% cost, etc..

[parvo]

While I support your efforts to better balance the game, the true imbalance lies in attack speed. Player characters attack wicked fast, even with spells. Enemies attack godaweful slow, even with spells. If that imbance were corrected, you could normalize enemy HP, HD, Loot, abilities and **** near everything else in the game.

As far as firewall goes, the spell itself isn't broken so much as the AI. In general the DDO AI is outstanding, but having enemies ignore danger was a miss. Correcting that would go a long way toward balance without having widespread (likely unintended) consequences.

In short, game balance is best achieved when the enemies have similar capability of the player character. That simple.

[NXPlasmid]

Well I, like others, am confused about extend. Did I miss something? I didn't see anything about extend being nerfed, just WoF can no longer be extended. Did extend get nerfed?

My take is WoF change is a good thing, and making more death spells work is awesome, but these are massive changes to the gameplay and will seriously screw with some people's builds. I can only hope that these changes got A LOT OF TESTING on mournlands. It would suck it this hit lama still in "concept" form without a fair amount of real player testing.... T

[Gol]

Which spells exactly?
Rays don't have saves. The Sorc PrE thread mentioned Melf's stacking with itself, as well. Also, WoF tanking is still viable if you're willing to stand in it as only the first tick gets a save. Generally, though, I'm still a fan of the renewable resource of melee DPS (and I'm still holding out for a Gish / EK type of Wizard PrE even though Wild Mage is still on the official list).


Currently you got:
FoD, Wail
New DDO:
FoD, Wail, Cirlcle of Death, Power Word Kill
CoD is more useful as an AoE Enervate IMO. PWK with a 4-minute cooldown isn't worth the spell slot. Yes, we went from 2 to 4, but I'm sure that we actually went down with castable insta-kills per minute.


My bet will be we go back to pre epic state in terms of the best builds:
1: Easy route: Insta killers. Some CC. Still bad at nuking. Generally palemasters.
2: Difficult route: Nuke spec. Some CC. Some insta killing, but not a lot. Generally elemental savants.
Problem is that AMs/PMs still have substantially higher DCs than Sorcs. We'll have to see how that balances, but initial calcs I've seen still put Wizards as more efficient nukers ("DP[Spell Point]"), though Sorcs may pull ahead in actual "DPS".

[NorthwindFusilier]

Cool, blanket immunities are getting removed, casters are finally getting some love. Wait. Oh, shiiiiiiiiiii.........

[Asketes]

well i'll finish my sorc life and go back to FVS on permadoc


and permaslayer will be my crafting/favor toon still..

and just meh:

- 30 seconds for a wail = sad face.
- what joker thinks people will use a spell that can be cast every 240 seconds?
- I won't bother with debuffs just like I don't now.
- FW change is interesting, if it's a save for half w/e, but if it's save for nil it'll be off my hotbar, would have made sense to make all those changes except the undead change. Casters are not super bosses on any one thing now. ***
- 16 SP, so it's a joke right? gonna burning hands Harry? not even enough for a DD..


I'm glad I'm better at playing my melee's as it seems that the majority of these changes are to increase the noob experience on korthos and the harbor, and take away the fun from the much higher levels.

afterword: as always, I'll refrain from really bashing anything till I get to try it in person. In the end of the day, it's my choice to pay and I do. I really have no room to complain.

[BruxaDo71]

5. Wall of fire ( up to 35 SP – targets now get a reflex save when they first enter the effect, but no saves against the flames if they remain in the wall. Now only does an additional 2d6 against undead instead of double. Duration is now locked to 30 seconds regardless of level. Can no longer be extended)

So Wall of fire will be heightened costing 60 sp, right?
If yes, it will be better use only Incendiary Cloud.

About the changes in a general aspect, I like it. Making easier or harder no matter, we'll adapt the changes and, possible, make more fun (at least on firsts weeks).

[Jhaeran]

Not a caster, and probably will never be. With that said, since I've come back from a level 10 cap hiatus, casters haven't seemed all that fun. Buffs, reduce level, mass hold, firewall. Maybe the occasional direct damage spell. The prevalence of mass hold in epics and general use of firewall being the worst.

On a pure jealousy note, I'm actually hoping it prevents a bit of the current solo-ability and requires at least epics be completed with a party. The whole "kite em through a firewall" or "find a safespot and let em burn" is pretty lame IMO.

Anyway, here's hoping the changes work out and open the door for some new spells/game mechanics. I'm hoping that with the changes to vorpal it makes epic a bit more fun and even a bit more challenging.

[marcosoneghett]

Simply drop wall of fires duration to 15 seconds, and have extend apply. Thus extended = 30 second, as desired. Should not disable the feat simply because the spell is powerful and needs a lower duration.
Or perhaps something in between would be better: 20 second duration, 40 extended.

I'd rather stay with this change to wall of fire. Make it 20n/40e so you don't also have to nerf a feat.

On a side note I predict a lot more of insta damage, punctuated by AOE effects. Think that on slower encounters it will work itself out. Don't think it will be good on fast encounters with tons of mobs spawning. Will have to wait for Lamania to see if I'm correct, tough.

[Tyrande]

Which level is PWK anyway? I don't want to log my wiz right now to see.

9th level spell, same level as Wail of the Banshee.

[donfilibuster]

How about scaling the Max SP you cap at with Echoes of Power?

12 Base, and an additional (+4/5 max per level) would actually be usable, post level 5.

Yep, not meant for use above lv 5. Think here that starting wizards are often told to get a great axe.


Which level is PWK anyway? I don't want to log my wiz right now to see.

PWK is the second most powerful iconic spell just below wish.
It represents being able to kill a monster with a mere word.

Naturally, this spell was meant to be used a limited number of times in PnP, wizards get four lv IX slots by default.
With SP the cooldown is what makes up for this. It is an annoyance but as someone pointed out there's now four instakills instead of two.

[Zerkul]

My personal opinion here in black. Do not read it if you do not like bad opinions because it is bad.

Well i'm an old player, very old one. To be honest i've not been so much easy with all the drastical changes DEVs made so far to the D&D mechanics but each time i see something new really i do not know where you pull these things out.

I do not like many of the new upcoming changes. I really think DEVs didn't play enough D&D to suggest such changes but, hey, it's not my own game: i can only choose to play or not. For now i'll stay to see how things go but, at least for me, things has gone too much far beyond my great will of playing and too far beyond D&D which is the main reason i started to play this game.

[Kza]

Argh boooring, im old i dont want to use 3856283 buttons. I want safely and smooth kite through a firewall or ice storm and dont button mash everything. Plz dont obliterate bladebarrier like this? I will TR to some more souls and thats nps. But plz plz dont nerf bb as this. Arghh and suckier damage and higher spellpoint cost on fw ugh ugh.

[DasLurch]

I have a guildie starting to talk me off the ledge some about this, but MAYBE some better example could help explain the situation. As it reads TO ME now, all single target removal spells got a nerf, all commonly used AOE duration spells got changed (some better some not), extend meta got hit with some of it's spells being weakened, and casters are being forced to basically rechoose all of their spells.

If someone can add some more light to this it would be appriciated.

I hope that there is some sort of spell swap token involved before this goes live. I won't pay to change 2 level 20 casters spell lists and a level 17-8 list around.

[Gol]

Yep, not meant for use above lv 5. Think here that starting wizards are often told to get a great axe.And they still will be. 12 SP is enough for Master's Touch. :D

[Aurora1979]

Not saying I agree with the changes, just defining how long a "Round" is. :) And if you need a Firewall 5 minutes long to burn something.. well, you're a Water Savant in Update 9! XD I made a funny.



Spell Level IX.

:) i did specify in my previous post that i wasnt edging for an Xmin firewall :) just trying to figure out the comment about it being brought closer to the PnP version.... which, as far as i can tell.... Its really not :D

Still, Ill have a look at that water savant.... Im an archmage out of work so gota adapt i guess :) To be truthful, if all these changes pan out as they appear they will then ill just shelve my arcane and run my melee's....

I genuinly dont mind that they feel firewall is over used but its over used because its just not practicle to nuke things to death, you need a damage over time spell.... without a replacment I dont see what they are angling towards. I would rather pay double SP for a FW to stay as it is, or UP other spells to make a balance. They nerfed firewall and there is not a viable alternative.

[knockcocker]

:) i did specify in my previous post that i wasnt edging for an Xmin firewall :) just trying to figure out the comment about it being brought closer to the PnP version.... which, as far as i can tell.... Its really not :D

Still, Ill have a look at that water savant.... Im an archmage out of work so gota adapt i guess :) To be truthful, if all these changes pan out as they appear they will then ill just shelve my arcane and run my melee's....

I genuinly dont mind that they feel firewall is over used but its over used because its just not practicle to nuke things to death, you need a damage over time spell.... without a replacment I dont see what they are angling towards. I would rather pay double SP for a FW to stay as it is, or UP other spells to make a balance. They nerfed firewall and there is not a viable alternative.

Exactly. Someone has really, really, totally misunderstood why FW is so prevalent on suitable targets. I'm still
trying to recover from the spell crit. changes...

[Kourier]

Pssssst: Incendiary cloud now scales with level like firewall and has no save AND blinds opponents on failed reflex save...

[goodoldxelos]

how about Trap the Soul?

[knockcocker]

Pssssst: Incendiary cloud now scales with level like firewall and has no save AND blinds opponents on failed reflex save...

So they answered our pleas for more effective, high level nukes by nerfing a L4 spell and translating
it's effects to a L8 spell. Nice.

[Gol]

Pssssst: Incendiary cloud now scales with level like firewall and has no save AND blinds opponents on failed reflex save...
And blinds me without a save. /pass.

[Elaril]

I like the idea of a re work of the way magic works in combat. I don't like the idea of circumventing D&D rules to do so, however. The only thing that is upsetting to me about the potential nerf to WoF is the further deviation from the rules. I like the ideas proposed by some on this thread about reducing the costs of meta's on spells.

I'm not sure why wizzies get longer cooldowns than sorcs on dc spells, however. Longer casting times, ok, but I think some consideration about effective playstyles of the class should be taken. Sorcs IMHO should get longer cd's on nukes, wizzies on dc spells.

Oh, and one more thing. I've seen mention of people kiting through firewalls. Why? Other than certain very specific situations, why are you not kiting IN your firewalls?

[knockcocker]

Oh, and one more thing. I've seen mention of people kiting through firewalls. Why? Other than certain very specific situations, why are you not kiting IN your firewalls?

Probably because damage is applied every time a mob passes through a FW than every 2 seconds whilst a mob
is in a FW...

[Elaril]

Probably because damage is applied every time a mob passes through a FW than every 2 seconds whilst a mob
is in a FW...

But you lose that 2 seconds while the mob isn't in the firewall anyway.

[PopeJual]

SPELL POINT REGEN – Echoes of Power:

We’ll be introducing a limited form of spell point regen for players who have “magical training” (as in the feat). This is to avoid a true “out of gas” situation for our casters. The concept is that when a caster drops below a certain spell point threshold a spell point regen effect known as “echoes of power” applies itself until the caster reaches that threshold again. The goal is to allow low level players continue to cast level 1 spells at a diminished rate when their “out of gas” while high level players will be able to continue to use their PRE-s with the meta magics they normally require for high level play.

Currently in testing… these values are examples mind you…

• Echoes of power will appear when a player drops below 12 SP.
• Echoes of power will allow the player to regenerate at a rate of 4 SP every 6 seconds.
• Echoes of power will remove itself once a player reaches 12 SP or greater.


When I started reading, my first reaction was "OH NOES! TEH WoW IS COME TO GET US!!!1!one!!!"

After I finised reading the entire section, I like it. It lets people use their nearly-free spell like abilities (Hypnotism, Wings of Faith) without letting you get back enough spell points to save up for a significant damage spell.

Also, who's wife did Wall of Fire sleep with? I know at least something like that must have happened for you to take it to the woodshed like that! :)

[knockcocker]

But you lose that 2 seconds while the mob isn't in the firewall anyway.

You're doing it wrong.

[TheDearLeader]

But you lose that 2 seconds while the mob isn't in the firewall anyway.

I think they're referring to using multiple firewalls.

Put three in a row, kite back and forth between the three.

Tick tick tick - tick tick tick - tick tick tick.

It works if you're playing with an AI that has fast movement speed, and doesn't stop often to do silly things like chuck a throwing weapon at you.

[Shade]

But you lose that 2 seconds while the mob isn't in the firewall anyway.

2 seconds? No. Depends on how fast said monster moves in and out. Some are very fast.

[Ganolyn]

Melf’s Acid Arrow (down to 6 SP – Damage updated to 2d4 + 1 per caster level, duration locked to 12 seconds, now has double range, can no longer be enlarged or extended, ray targeting has been improved)

Is this going to affect the Tortured Livewood Bow in any way? If it casts at level 2 the damage will suck. If it casts at level 12 (ML for the bow) then you might have something.

[Elaril]

2 seconds? No. Depends on how fast said monster moves in and out. Some are very fast.

Many more are very slow. Like I said, situational.

[protokon]

Hey, looks like I can save a feat on my sorc and drop extend.

sweet :)

[Elaril]

I think they're referring to using multiple firewalls.

Put three in a row, kite back and forth between the three.

Tick tick tick - tick tick tick - tick tick tick.

It works if you're playing with an AI that has fast movement speed, and doesn't stop often to do silly things like chuck a throwing weapon at you.

Sorry, saw Shade's post first, see above.

[voodoogroves]

Making save or die more useful but making it so you can't cast it frequently is harsh to the point of potential disuse.

I'm also concerned about hotkey mapping. We all have bars but there is a limit to how many we can effectively cycle using primary bars, etc. I won't be cycling through a bunch of mouse clicks trying to get stuff to land. If the alternative is that all arcanes now are essentially warlocks with a preferred damage type (necrotic, force, etc.) Then I think those are done for me.

Too many changes at once. I really hope there is still a place for non DC casters, non direct damage casters and still foom for flexibility on the same character ... not simple specialization on a single elemental type where you're doing the same things just with a different element.

[Elaril]

You're doing it wrong.

Oh?

[Sweyn]

The Echo of Power is worthless. No spells on any of my lists cost less than 12 points except a completely un enhanced MM. To quote a Kobold, Really???! REALLYY????

If you read the OP you would see its intention was for the spells that sorcs and wizards get for dirt cheap with their PRE's.


How about scaling the Max SP you cap at with Echoes of Power?

12 Base, and an additional (+4/5 max per level) would actually be usable, post level 5.

See above.

[TheDearLeader]

On another note, did anyone have a vision, nay, a waking dream of them somehow messing up Purple Name immunities?

It would be *hilarious* to PWK Horoth. Even if it only lasted long enough for one ToD.

[Rodasch]

On another note, did anyone have a vision, nay, a waking dream of them somehow messing up Purple Name immunities?

It would be *hilarious* to PWK Horoth. Even if it only lasted long enough for one ToD.

If this is possible, i would not mind the cooldown at all, and would actually learn the spell on my sorcerer.

[NorthwindFusilier]

30 second cooldown on Wail is the worst for me. Come on.... keep the cooldown where it was and nix the damage boost, we don't care about that anyway.

[Kinerd]

I'm not going to attempt to keep up with what I am sure will be an enormous thread, so I will offer my feedback and leave.

The direct damage changes are really bad.

Getting rid of HP limits on spells is good.

Getting rid of silly immunities is great.

My hope is that the proposed direct damage changes are meant to give Turbine something it never intends to implement and only intends to retract, to demonstrate that it is responsive to player concerns.

[ddo4u]

Torc,

Since you are opening the lines of communication with players on this, could you give some examples of how the "Spell Pass" will affect Divine spells..

Thanks in advance.

[pie2655]

Cool!

[Raveneia]

Whats with the changes?

can't just leave the game as is

seems turbine are never happy till they keep nerfing and nerfing soon we won't have a game left

I mean its great for the low lev spells costing less but seriously past a certain level you don't even use half those spells
and Archmages get them cheap anyway..

and leave the cooldowns alone too

[xxHazexx]

5. Wall of fire ( up to 35 SP – targets now get a reflex save when they first enter the effect, but no saves against the flames if they remain in the wall. Now only does an additional 2d6 against undead instead of double. Duration is now locked to 30 seconds regardless of level. Can no longer be extended)




-Torc
DDO Game Systems

:eek:

[Calebro]

So.. are metamagics getting changed?

Cuz changing spell base cost without changing metamagics seems to be a lesson in futility.

This is exactly what I was thinking.

[Lifespawn]

Hey, looks like I can save a feat on my sorc and drop extend.

sweet :)


looks like i can save a char slot and drop my sorc.

[Lycurgus]

I have to applaud the devs for trying to redefine the role of arcanes. It's something that's been needed for some time, and this seems like a considered approach to doing so.

My one major concern is the increased cost of enhancements. Combined with what appears to be a push for casters to rely more on nuking and SLAs (which I find utterly boring, but that's another story), the changes we've seen appear as though they're going to place severe limitations on arcane versatility.

Is there ANY chance that the timer for respeccing enhancements will be reduced/removed?

[Kriogen]

Looks like will be burning twice as much mana for the same effect in U9 :(

[yodino]

The more time I spend on this game, the more it keeps drifting away from PnP. If I wanted to learn something new, I'd rather play a totally new game. Somehow these changes leave a bad taste in my mouth as an Archmage. It's being dumbed down to accomodate noobs.

Oh well, Iif these changes push through it's just another nail in the coffin for DDO. Star Wars: The Old Republic is coming out soon, and it looks like the spell change has made up my mind about which game I'll be playing.

[Soul-Shaker]

No longer DnD ;p just about all the rules changing. ;p

This pass is starting to look like:

Sorc losing their 1/2 cooldown ability as there isn't enough difference on short timer spells. Single target 8/6CD death spells and wail 30/25CD is pathetic. I might as well stick to Wizard because of higher DCs to make sure the spell lands. To balance can we cut down wizard spell book by 1 per lvl to.... j/king but I think you get the picture.
Extend becoming less appealing.
Wow, lightning bolt lvl 3 12sp vs polar ray lvl 8 15sp. I don't see the balance here. Lightning bolt will be good for low lvls till polar ray is gotten, then never needed again. As for firewall(lvl4) vs Incendiary cloud(lvl8), Firewall 35SP 2d6+20 and +2d6 vs undead for 30 secs compared to Incendiary cloud 45 SP 2d4+20 with chance to blind target for 30 secs(and chance for mob to run all over the place after being blinded + held) and no one likes trying to see through the cloud to melee. Still have no reason to take Incendiary cloud which does less damage and costs 10sp more yet only a 4 spell level difference. Shouldn't it be 4sp difference only, though I still wouldn't use Incendiary cloud.

[steelblueskies]

really makes one wonder if you guys have actually tried playtesting these changes in varied content levels.

ice storm was not as useful as wall of fire precisely because it could not be extended comparably, and granted a save as well as lacking double damage to an entire class of monsters. otherwise it was about as efficient. hell even without the double damage for undead, i'd bet my car that if you copied firewall, removed the undead double damage and changed its element( ie create lightning wall, acid wall, searing cold wall) they'd get used like crazy too, frequently more than wall of fire. and with quite a few casters filling their limited slots with more then one variant of wall of XXXX. it was efficient. a perfect example of too poweful but perfectly efficient, and the power problem wasn't due to the spell. it was the mobs.

the big problem in practice is mob ai is "dumb stick"- what they do is stand there, or run through such an effect as wall of fire, instead of attempting to go around it, or attack at range. as a result the problem is not the spell but the ai and players use of the two together tactically. yet one cannot modify the ai too much without causing performance issues on the servers runing thousands of copies of the code at once soo...

i suppose coupling the enhancement changes to elemental lines would compensate for the damage change to wall, but adding in a significant cost change is two steps to fix it instead of one, which seems one too far when also adding a save, and a cooldown.

which brings me around to the sp regen, if it won't eventually get one back to being able to cast ones highest level spell then it's predominantly a low level buff, to be ignored later as useless.

adding to this thinking, if a "pew pew" singletarget spam isn't effective in most places now(look at archmage sla force spells for example) then making a shift in that direction will not be a significant improvement.

what you need to do is think like this: if melee had say endurance and could only attack so many times irregardless of attack results, how would one balance that if endurance did not regenerate?

now if the melee can and/or should not be expected to be able to take hits ?

that is what this sounds like, simply replacing melee with caster.

additionally you throw in a desire for more diversity. i assume then that we will not be capped at 5 spells per level prepared then? otherwise diversity is not a goal to shoot for in this fashion. needing dozens of variations for effectiveness( an exaggeration, but one that keeps with the tone of your post) is foolhardy with such an artificial limitation.

you mentioned pnp 3.5 roots. the ai fix would address those roots, as a dm/gm would control the mobs. changing a spell like wof does not.
you spoke of mages going from weak to incredibly powerful, and have instead spoken to turning them into repeating crossbows.
as it stands one melees, then casts+melees, then casts, then cc's and casts, then just cc's (epic). because damage is insufficient without scaling for 1 player in some content, much less elite. we end up weak, having peaked in the mid teens.

the buff to damage from spells for helpless mobs will help even that vs melee, as will mob health changes to an extent. at least for higher tier content.
still not overpowering a melee class in the same situation. pots, and other healing effects are a stand in for endurnce in the earlier example. they get it for plat, readily, and for free from their healers initial sp pool each shrine.
we don't. cash, real money potions, and a small number of clicky effects, or a massive farm/grind/pray at ah.

i mean for the love of pete. 12 sp regen when out? removing mantle from certain raidbosses so lowlevel spells can affect them, okay fine so far, now consider their saves without a metamagic like heighten or somesuch. how are you going to afford the spell and heighten, much less empower and or maximize? you do realize how much a joke that sounds?

fear me i am a level 20 wizard archmage, i shall nuke you until half your friends are almost(33%from perfect health) dead, or incapacitated so the army i brought can slay them mercilessly, and then, having wearied myself, i shall wait for 12 seconds to cast 20-50 points of damage you may likely save against???

this is the problem with pitting dumb enemies versus equivalently powerful but better equipped significantly smarter opponents with the ability to coordinate. you will never achieve true balance, merely shift where the power lies, and this seems a move away from powerful.

but who knows, could turn out in workable fashion. call this a first look first response. after all it might not be too many devs without enough coordination on separate tasks, and if eladrin is right, we can always resort to tensers and convince mobs to help us find a nice pocket to hide in, until the group figures out whats what and stops brining us along.

actually, i think i know what it'd take to buy these changes. you dev's hop on your test server, and make a video running a few quests with these changes in place, and A: succeed B: still like the changes afterward. and i mean shavarath+epic+sands+something low level like irestone.

[Frebby]

So your basically taking how arcanes currently work, and trying to COMPLETELY change how they work in one patch?

I hope you've done your research well turbine.

The metas are what make spells expensive, changing the base cost a bit wont help if you like to actually hurt things (I.e. using metas...).

[Noelemahc]

Sorcerers made their place in the arcane role by being a little different than Wizards. Wizards had more spells to cast, while Sorcerers had less spells they could cast more often. Now Sorcerer cool downs are only slightly less than Wizard, taking away the main reason to play a Sorcerer to begin with.

Wizard has spell slots, ability to change spells at will (shrine obviously), and higher dcs. Sorcerer has more sp, cast twice as fast, and half cool downs. Now Sorcerers have more sp, faster casting... and that's it. Pots make up the sp difference, and Quicken makes up for the casting speed on a Wizard. Sorcerers lost the one thing that made them unique. There is now no reason to play a Sorcerer at all. Savants or not (which are very disappointing to be honest), I will just TR my Sorcerer to a Wizard and call it a game.

Cool down on the new power word still makes it not worth the spell slot. 4 minutes is way too long. Honestly it should be 1 minute, even 2 minutes is more reasonable. Duration on AoE spells being locked in to 30 seconds and not being allowed to work with Extend is a very poor overhaul. The whole point of Extend is that it is supposed to work on all spells that last greater than an instant, and less than permanent. Extend should work with every spell that falls in that category no matter what. Extend Spell is trivialized now and is no longer worth taking. Using it for one spell (Haste) is not efficient.

Elemental enhancement lines are also way too expensive now. Arcanes were already struggling with APs before (well really, who isn't). But now it costs 50% more aps just to spec the way you currently are now, which I don't think should be the case. I like splitting up the lines, I think it's a great idea. And adding more tiers is also great. However, it should cost the same ap to spec the way you currently are now, and more if you want to go beyond that 40% damage and 9% crit/2.25 multiplier.

Arcane casters were in desperate need of an overhaul to make them viable in end game. Their role was dumbed down to haste bot and mass hold bot, because they were not efficient enough at anything else. Now their spells that do matter are getting nerfed, enhancement lines are getting nerfed, and mob saves are getting increased. Arcanes with 40+ dc, which is not easily obtained unless you are completely raid/epic geared out and/or a multiple time TR, were barely landing spells now as it was.

Arcanes can and will run out of gas throwing out magic damage very fast, so they will never replace a melee dps (which in my opinion is very, very terrible game balance). So with crowd control taken out of the equation, and Arcane dps still being insignificant, what is there left for an Arcane to do other than haste bot (which will be done without extend now since it is a useless feat)? Again Bards do it better, and have better crowd control (you can't compete with Fascinate dcs in the 80s).

I was really hoping this update would give casters the boost they so desperately needed. Instead the more info I see being released, the more disappointed I get. Instead of a boost, casters are getting nerfed now more than ever and getting the biggest kick in the balls they've ever gotten.

[Spiteful]

Right, so your response to imbalanced spell comparison is to make sweeping, massive changes in spell cost and effects, thus replacing the current small set of overused spells for another. If you're making changes this drastic, either the chap that first came up with the numbers needs sending back to preschool, or the chap that suggested these needs to.
Either way, these changes lack subtlety, elegance, or imagination. Lets face it, most of this comes down to the overuse of firewall. Instead of tossing big numbers around, how about fixing the AI so they don't simply ignore it's existence? Firewall would become a blocking and herding spell rather than the exercise in AI exploitation it is at the moment.
Failing that, we could just leap straight to where this game is clearly headed and strip everything down to two classes; The hold down W and right mouse button fighters, and the red-bar watching healers that follow ten paces behind like women in a semi-civilised culture. It will save me the six months of umming and ahing before I finally give in, delete my account and go find another game to play.

[Ziindarax]

So you've talked about changes to the arcane class spells.... what about the Divine casters? Will some of their spells be affected by the spell pass, or is it only the arcane casters that are having their spells changed?



Hey folks! As you’ve probably have already heard we have a major spell pass coming down the pipe. The full details will be released soon but we figured we’d cover some general cases and some the reasoning for the changes ahead of the Lamannia preview. Today we’ll look at the changes coming to spell cost ratios, CC spells, death effects, and spell points… here we go!

SPELL COST TO EFFECT RATIOS CHANGES:

For years now the cost of all spells have been strictly driven by this formula:

Base Spell cost = 5 SP + (spell level X 5).

IE: a level 1 spell is 10 sp, while a level 9 spell is 50 sp, and so forth.

While we got by with this, it didn’t exactly always make for the most diverse spell choices for those people who crunched the numbers to determine what to use. When you looked at the math, folks get very attached to certain spells, namely “wall of fire” for very logical reasons. This is a shame considering the art/dev resources devoted to the creation of so many other spells also floating in the system.

On another note, it has become a noticeable point that arcane casters are a rather difficult class to get into. The Classic 3.5 D&D concept of starting weak then gain cosmic power. While loyal to our roots we felt that perhaps the current learning curve is a bit too harsh, and we’re looking at making it an easier class role to enter for new players.

So we’re mixing things up! The spell pass was mostly focused on “damage” spells, but does extends into debuffs and other areas to a degree. We’re changing the costs and what spells do and we’ve changed far too much for me to cover it in just this post but I’m going to give you a list of examples to give you an idea of where we’re going…

Let’s take some main stream spells with a few “less popular” spells and see what you think….

Old way:

1. Burning Hands ( 10 SP)
2. Melf’s Acid Arrow ( 15 SP)
3. Scorching Ray ( 15 SP)
4. Lightning Bolt ( 20 SP)
5. Wall of fire ( 25 SP)
6. Delayed blast fire ball (40 sp)
7. Incendiary cloud: ( 45 SP)
8. Polar Ray (45 SP)

Now let’s change that too…

1. Burning Hands (down to 4 SP – other stats unchanged)

2. Melf’s Acid Arrow (down to 6 SP – Damage updated to 2d4 + 1 per caster level, duration locked to 12 seconds, now has double range, can no longer be enlarged or extended, ray targeting has been improved)

3. Scorching Ray (down to 6 SP – now has double range, can no longer be enlarged, ray targeting has been improved.)

4. Lightning Bolt (down to 12 SP – now has double range and 50% change to hit each target twice (back stroke!) – targets get an additional save against the back stroke). Can no longer be enlarged.

5. Wall of fire ( up to 35 SP – targets now get a reflex save when they first enter the effect, but no saves against the flames if they remain in the wall. Now only does an additional 2d6 against undead instead of double. Duration is now locked to 30 seconds regardless of level. Can no longer be extended)

6. Delayed blast fire ball: (25 SP/12 sp for trap version): trap cool down increased to 15 seconds, 10 seconds for sorcerers

7. Incendiary cloud (Cost remains 45 SP – Now does 2d4 + 1 per caster level in fire damage, no save. Duration locked to 30 seconds. Blind effect (previously no save) now has a reflex save. Can no longer be extended)


8. Polar Ray (Cost down to 15 SP, range doubled, can no longer be enlarged, ray targeting has been improved.)



So there is a lot going on here, and this is only a fraction of the changes going in to the spell pass. Essentially the cost of spells are being weighted now much more on their performance, method of engagement and the number of targets they effect rather than the old level-based formula.


• Low level spells that cap early (like burning hands) got discounted greatly.

• Drop and kite AOE dots such as wall of fire are now being treated as a more expensive/powerful attack form as we feel they really should be compared to other damage spells.

• Instant AOE spells got discounted some, to make them more appealing compared to waiting on kiting monsters through aoe dots.

• Single target damage and bolts are getting much cheaper, single target dots are getting cheaper and getting their effectiveness boosted.

• “Trap” type spells got really cheap to hopefully make them with consideration given the prep time they take, but had their cool downs increased to make them not a strict replacement for other in combat AOEs.

WHAT ABOUT CC?

Yeah okie, we mucked around with CC a little, and it goes into debuffs some… Here are a few high lights.

• Largely CC costs remained the same

• HD/HP caps we’re removed from most effects (yeah, I guess I should talk about death effects now, but oh, sleep works now!)

• Many debuffs had their cost reduced, and some had carrier debuffs added to them that temporarily reduced will saves regardless if the target saved against the original debuff.

Examples:

Crushing Depair: Cost reduced to 20 SP, now applies a weakn will effect for 15 seconds regardless of saving throw from original effect (will -5).

Touch of Idocy: Cost reduced to 5 SP, Now also weaks foes will save for -5 for 15 seconds regardless of save.

The notion is saving many of our under used debuffs and allow casters to punch harder targets/hit more reliably and get longer effect out of effects with quick re-occurring saves. That’s is if their willing to use a spell slot, and the spell points.


Full details to come, moving on for now…

DEATH EFFECTS:

Chaaanngggeeee….

• Costs remained the same.

• We’re pulling the death wards off epic and many pieces of content that had death proof monsters. There have been adjustments to “vorpal” weapons and the like that made us more comfortable with this change. Eladrin posted on these elsewhere if you’re looking for the sneak preview of that…

• Death spells had their cool downs increased, just a little on single target spells, a bit on AOEs. Single target spells are typically on a 8 second cool down, 6 seconds for sorcerers while AOE death effects are typically 30/25 respectively.

• Death spell on save damage was increased, so a blue hexagon won’t be a total waste of spell points, yet there will be more agro. We realize this and currently approve. Attempting to death a monster is a hate-able offense.

• There are some old death spells that got a new look and now their back in town:

Circle of Death: Now effects all targets regardless of Hit dice; Has been updated as follows:


Rains dark energy into an area. Living Creatures are subject to a death effect; getting a reflex save and then a fortitute save to avoid death. Targets who succeed against the reflex save suffer no ill effect, but creatures who success against the fortitute save will still lose 1d4 energy levels.

Power word: Kill!


Upper hit point cap removed except in PVP. Kills, no save, but spell resistance applies.
240 second cool down for wizards, 210 second cool down for sorcerors


SPELL POINT REGEN – Echoes of Power:

We’ll be introducing a limited form of spell point regen for players who have “magical training” (as in the feat). This is to avoid a true “out of gas” situation for our casters. The concept is that when a caster drops below a certain spell point threshold a spell point regen effect known as “echoes of power” applies itself until the caster reaches that threshold again. The goal is to allow low level players continue to cast level 1 spells at a diminished rate when their “out of gas” while high level players will be able to continue to use their PRE-s with the meta magics they normally require for high level play.

Currently in testing… these values are examples mind you…

• Echoes of power will appear when a player drops below 12 SP.
• Echoes of power will allow the player to regenerate at a rate of 4 SP every 6 seconds.
• Echoes of power will remove itself once a player reaches 12 SP or greater.



ETERNAL WANDS:

Not going to go into details here yet but eternals wands got a pass that increased their recharge regeneration rate and added desirable caster mutations.

Much more to come. That’s all for now folks, but be sure to participate in the Lamannia preview once it’s available to try out the changes!

-Torc
DDO Game Systems

[Trillea]

I have to say this: WHAT WERE YOU GUYS THINKING??

The drops to SP are good, getting rid of the hit dice/HP caps was good too, upping the damage of lower level spells is OK; but adding saves to iconic spells such as wall of fire, giving instadeath COMPLETELY ridiculous cooldowns (no spell should have more than a 6 sec cooldown - 1 round) is - and I hate to say this - completely friggin insane.

Changing the "start weak then gain godlike power" to "start weak end weak" is dumb, wizards and sorcerers are supposed to be the scariest ************* on the plane (or whatever plane they choose to be on). Diverging from this is going to tick off your playerbase beyond what you are expecting.

Do yourselves a favor and give this a LONG preview on Lamannia, (long enough to get 3 or 4 rounds of feedback) listen to your players, make changes as suggested, and find a good balance point. As it is this is an abomination unto Gygax.

[Thar]

I think this now makes wall of fire the most times nerfed thing in the game!

Did spike growth get changed?:D

Wall of fire and Rangers might be tied now for most nerf'd.

When was the last time you saw a ranger in a high level raid.

[ravengerpl]

5. Wall of fire ( up to 35 SP – targets now get a reflex save when they first enter the effect, but no saves against the flames if they remain in the wall. Now only does an additional 2d6 against undead instead of double. Duration is now locked to 30 seconds regardless of level. Can no longer be extended)


You have be kidding me.
Are you bored? Fix this (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=150534) instead making some stupid ideas.

[Sweyn]

Sorcerers made their place in the arcane role by being a little different than Wizards. Wizards had more spells to cast, while Sorcerers had less spells they could cast more often. Now Sorcerer cool downs are only slightly less than Wizard, taking away the main reason to play a Sorcerer to begin with.

Wizard has spell slots, ability to change spells at will (shrine obviously), and higher dcs. Sorcerer has more sp, cast twice as fast, and half cool downs. Now Sorcerers have more sp, faster casting... and that's it. Pots make up the sp difference, and Quicken makes up for the casting speed on a Wizard. Sorcerers lost the one thing that made them unique. There is now no reason to play a Sorcerer at all. Savants or not (which are very disappointing to be honest), I will just TR my Sorcerer to a Wizard and call it a game.

Bingo, the one thing that i loved about my sorc, and couldn't stand when i tr'd into a wizard, was the difference in cooldowns. Now it's a joke.

[donfilibuster]

I'd have liked to have seen all damage spells scale with caster level (e.g. Ice Storm!). It's a good way to scale
damage output with level without having to nerf feats.

Afaik the ability to bypass a spell cap is an epic feat, otherwise you are just effectively making a higher level spell.
(e.g. fireball vs. delayed blast fireball).



You're doing it wrong.
this. is correct.
i was also a on-spot firewaller and used to set multiples on top until things became white hot.
until i was pointed out to spread them and kite tru them.
you can try this in the cove, as opposed to dancing the goblin and leaving them to burn.
you can also try with Sinvala, a small bonfire on a spot not as good as a wide ring of fws spread around.



As it reads TO ME now, all single target removal spells got a nerf, all commonly used AOE duration spells got changed (some better some not), extend meta got hit with some of it's spells being weakened, and casters are being forced to basically rechoose all of their spells.

If someone can add some more light to this it would be appriciated.


Yes, all three easy tactics are now gone, not just one, all three: persistent area, instakill, autocrit cc.
Good or bad it paves the way for direct damage spells and melee damage where they were inneffective.




I mean its great for the low lev spells costing less but seriously past a certain level you don't even use half those spells
and Archmages get them cheap anyway..

and leave the cooldowns alone too

Indeed some people note the 'useless spells' are now 'cheaper useless spells', but not all spells are like that.
A few got actually usable, circle of death, sleep, etc. Gotta wait and see the final version.

And while the tiers are correct in that you are not supposed to use lower lv spells in PnP as well, it's generally that you have a wider selection of higher level spells available to replace them.
In DDO the small spell selection takes out a lot of the wizard's power so making the spells usable at higher levels should help that a bit.



Changing the "start weak then gain godlike power" to "start weak end weak" is dumb, wizards and sorcerers are supposed to be the scariest ************* on the plane (or whatever plane they choose to be on). Diverging from this is going to tick off your playerbase beyond what you are expecting.

This is true, the arcanes are kind of feared even at low levels. May be ubiquitous on high magic worlds but still a danger.

[Raiderone]

Well when Ice Storm was changed no extend was available. So it was kinda the writing on the WALL. ie no extend coming for FW. I wonder which spell is better now?
But what's good for the goose is good for the gandor.

Maybe drop AOE death cool downs a little, but if used Single Death spells also go into cooldown (AOE's cooldown). And vice versa. So if single death spell used an AOE death spell would go into a 8 sec or 6 sec cooldown too.

It makes sense to nerf or semi limit FW with Druids coming (hopefully).

Yah looks like I'll be dropping Extend. Good go to the Bards for buffs! BYOH... H stands for HASTE!

[Aurora1979]

Indeed some people note the 'useless spells' are now 'cheaper useless spells', but not all spells are like that.
A few got actually usable, circle of death, sleep, etc. Gotta wait and see the final version.



Am i wrong in thinking that sleep is just like hypno? Stops mobs moving, fighting etc, is removed when they are attacked.

So, in your example, at least 1 of the now useful spells is replicating what another, already useful spell, does.

I do agree that its worth holding out an seeing the finished effort.... Ive never complained about a nerf in almost 3 yrs of playing but this updates getting up my nose a bit.

[sirgog]

You realize this means I'm going to have to think when I kite TOD now.

EDIT: Actually this mean that the Shadows in TOD get a reflex save, so if they pass it I don't actually get their aggro and they'll kill the party.

Pros- I can kill the party and pretend I'm upset about it
Cons- The party might expect me to use some other spell, and not die.

Meh, just get a favored soul to kite it whenever one is available. Ten times easier than having an arcane do it anyway, and Nytharios doesn't do enough damage to warrant having more than one healer on the raid.

If no FvS is available, well, you can do it the hard way with Incindiary Cloud, Firewall, Acid Fog, Icestorm, or whatever.

[ddo4u]

Looks like will be burning twice as much mana for the same effect in U9 :(

Hey! It just so happens that spell point pots are 50% off in the DDO store today.
Guess we should all just stock up now, eh?:rolleyes:

[Raiderone]

Wall of fire and Rangers might be tied now for most nerf'd.

When was the last time you saw a ranger in a high level raid.

Maybe your just playing with the wrong rangers? AA's have become the rage lately.
So maybe you are playing with them. PEW PEW PEW... :)

TWF Tempest Rangers have no problem keeping up with DPS.
TWF was nerf'd more than Rangers. Tempest III's are still the best at TWF.

[Zerkul]

Tempest III's are still the best at TWF.

You forget TWF Kensai.

[Chette]

Let me preface this by saying that I am glad you are making significant changes to how arcane casters function. Right now it seems there is 1 and only 1 way to play a caster. Levels 1:6 (or 7) melee. Levels 7(or 8) to 20 firewall. Level 20 mass hold. I have tried a few variations on a theme, playing around with archmage, and always found it significantly poorer than the traditional fire/enchant caster. However, it seems what you are doing here is mostly just reducing the effectiveness of casters rather than giving them more flexibility and options. We want to try new things, we really do, but you have given us much choice. Here are a few items I have issue with.

1. Changes to spell point cost. Eg lightning bolt. Was 20 sp now 10 sp. Wow, half cost right? Not so much. An old maximized, empowered, quickened, lightning bolt was (20+25+15+10) 70 sp. A new one is 60 sp. This of course doesn't account for heighten at all, which most casters leave on all the time because, despite frequent requests, the devs have not implemented any way to turn metamagics on or off on specific spells. So that old lightning bold was 100 sp and the new one may be 90 sp, depending on how the heightening of spells now works. Single target spells, no matter how low you reduce their cost, will never replace firewall. Single target spells are great against bosses that aren't immune, and are used frequently (I love polar ray!) but they will never compare to something like firewall for trash dps.

2. Wall of Fire reflex save. Thematically, this doesn't make much sense to me, but lets ignore that for a moment. By adding a save I assume you will be making this spell heightenable. So now no only is the spell point increased, but there is potentially another 25 sp wasted on heightening it. If you think it does too much damage, reduce the damage calculation, but adding a save like this makes little sense.

3. Wall of Fire unextendable. This makes absolutely no sense. Any spell with a duration should be extendable. Again, if you think it does too much damage, reduce the damage calculation, or reduce the duration overall. If the spell is overpowered FIX it, but don't just break the rules of magic to do so.

4. Echoes of Power. This will be essentially useless past the first few levels. I like that you are attempting to give wizards who are "running on empty" something to do, but to be effective it needs to be scaleable. I'll do more damage meleeing than pew pewing a level 1 spell every 10 seconds.

[Aeolwind]

Lol, if they nerf blade barrier like this, they'll have to allow hirelings in raids, or boost bard healing, or everyone will have to switch to wf and wizards will become the clerics.

Hyperbole yes, but it would have an impact.

[Raiderone]

Meh, just get a favored soul to kite it whenever one is available. Ten times easier than having an arcane do it anyway, and Nytharios doesn't do enough damage to warrant having more than one healer on the raid.

If no FvS is available, well, you can do it the hard way with Incindiary Cloud, Firewall, Acid Fog, Icestorm, or whatever.

Don't worry BB's will be nerf'd next. Maybe they'll give them a reflex and fort save!

[Trillea]

Don't worry BB's will be nerf'd next. Maybe they'll give them a reflex and fort save!

Nope, they will have a 30 sec duration, unextendable, like every DoT here. Asinine IMO.

[goodoldxelos]

Please do not neglect trap the soul. Can we get a slight change to trap the soul so we can affect epic mobs assuming they have same hitdie numbers in the next update. ie. tiny=15 small =25 average=35.

[ddo4u]

Nope, they will have a 30 sec duration, unextendable, like every DoT here. Asinine IMO.

This is why I was asking Torc for input on the Divine side of things, because if it does end up this way, I can just stop gearing my cleric now, rename her, and TR into something else.:)

[protokon]

looks like i can save a char slot and drop my sorc.

I'm ahead of you on that one buddy, I deleted my sorc 2 months ago, was thinking of buying him back but definitely won't be after this!

[asphodeli]

wow, arcanes can add debuffbot to the holdbot/hastebot list. And what's with the extend feat, since some of the spells may not even be affected by it? I am somewhat neutral on this, will have to wait for Lammania to be updated to see how the changes go.

PS: Any changes to divine/ranger/paladin/bard spells? *cough cough*

[Chette]

PS: Any changes to divine/ranger/paladin/bard spells? *cough cough*

Good god man don't give them any ideas!!

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Wall of fire ( up to 35 SP – targets now get a reflex save when they first enter the effect, but no saves against the flames if they remain in the wall. Now only does an additional 2d6 against undead instead of double. Duration is now locked to 30 seconds regardless of level. Can no longer be extended)

This one strikes me as overnerf. Only 30 seconds? Pathetic. Most most of the punch against undead? Sad.

With these changes it doesn't deserve an increase in SP cost, it deserves a decrease.

And if blade barrier gets the same 30 second cap I'll be sad indeed. It's not like Clerics/FvS have a huge spell selection.

[cforce]

The New Thing is strong in this thread.




The possibility that I might choose to spec *out* of Wall of Fire on my sorc? <squeal like schoolgirl and clap hands>! I'm sick to death of Wall of Fire after Wall of Fire after Wall of Fire. I'll wait to see how all of this feels on Lam, but I strongly approve of the design directions laid out.

[Aurora1979]

Let me preface this by saying that I am glad you are making significant changes to how arcane casters function. Right now it seems there is 1 and only 1 way to play a caster. Levels 1:6 (or 7) melee. Levels 7(or 8) to 20 firewall. Level 20 mass hold. I have tried a few variations on a theme, playing around with archmage, and always found it significantly poorer than the traditional fire/enchant caster. However, it seems what you are doing here is mostly just reducing the effectiveness of casters rather than giving them more flexibility and options. We want to try new things, we really do, but you have given us much choice. Here are a few items I have issue with.



really?

i do it different. 1-4-5 melee.

5- 7 spells.

8-20 spells

20+ spells

Example, I soloed wizking epic tonight. I used, excluding buffs.

Wall of fire (predictably)
Halt undead
Ottos irresistable dance
Hold monster
Energy drain


now, look at those spells, you will see that generally i had 2 ways to fight.

Firewall, and kite/ perch whichever is your preferance.

hold/dance drain, and beat down with a dreamspitter.

Problem is, hold wont work for me now, as i cant level drain with my spitter.

Firewall will no longer be as effective. (slightly bad example here as I do think post nerf it will still be enough for undead heavy quests)

But in general, you can see.... with the new update... whats my choices to replace those?

Think I shouldnt be soloing wiz king epic? fair enough. Lets take a group run yesterday in snitch...

Hold monster
OID
Energy drain
Disco
Cloudkill
Firewall.

How about in party crashers, which i also ran yesterday....

OID
Energy drain
Firewall
Hold monster


.....

see its not that these are the only spells i WANT to use.... its the fact that these are the only spells that are effective enough TO use.

Another though.... 1 have 2200 odd sp. after buffs nearer 1900.

If I was to use direct damage spells i would get.... what 30 odd spells.... now, assuming 3 spells to kill a mob thats 10 mobs I can nuke before im out of mana.

Insta kills? Well, wail and fod will still be ok. Im not sure on circle of death, having never used it yet. But PWK with a 4 min cool down is just not worth slotting.

Cast it once in a mob fight and wait the next 2-3 mobs fights before the cool downs ready.....

I dont begrudge the changes, per say, I begrudge the fact that they have nerfed what I, and many others, built for using the only mana effective methods. We have not been given a replacment for that.

Sure, some spells are cheaper but I doubt very much that my chars going to make a good single shot spell nuker.

[Kriogen]

...
PS: Any changes to divine/ranger/paladin/bard spells? *cough cough*
Yes. Bush spell has 30 sec duration, can't be extended and has ref+fort save for zero damage.

But good news is Flamestrike costs 5 SP less. Divine nuke FTW. Oh, and you can now cast none-meta'd CLW every 10 seconds. Your pally will solo heal elite ToD with zero mana pots!

[bigolbear]

The changes to HD or HP limited spells are good - this is effectively giving us a bunch of new spells as previously they were unusable.

The changes to cooldowns are crazy - leave the **** cooldowns alone, or change the spells with sily cooldowns back to 6 seconds.

The changes to spell point cost are IRRELEVANT until we see what is going on with metamagics.
Its one thing to note that a spell only costs 40% of what it did previously but if the metamagic costs stay as is then the total spell point reduction will be trivial (aprox 5%).

Wall of fire should be fixed by fixing mob AI and if wall of fire is going to be a reflex save on entry then id suggest blade barrier becomes the same - reflex on entry with ticking for full damage on anything inside - infact this could go for all persistant AOE's and actualy brings them closer to pen and paper.

There is no reason to disalow metamagics on any spell, infact let us alocate metamagics when we drag a spell to our task bar so we dont have to swap them on and off.

Should the cost of metamagics not change then what we will end up with is a cheap way for all casters to basicly tickle the enemy to death eventualy on the cheap or cast a real spell with all the metas turned on.

With the massive hit point inflation in DDO spell damage needs doubling as standard and cost increasing to match to make turning on metamagics a choice rather than mandatory.

The regenerating mana is contrary to one of the most fundamental aspects of DDO compared to other mmos - were suposed to have limited resources, first turn atempts now mana.. you might as well just change the name to dungeons and WOW online.

I will wait to see how this all pans out AND i will probaly wait to see if you fix it the mistakes. I know its important to capture the new market from other mmos but please dont ruin what made ddo so good that the vets stuck with it depsite all the grief.

Over time this game has become about how much damage mele can do with casters in a support role, it has become simpler and easier, if you want to make the game easier for low lvls then fine but the midgame and end game are fine aprt from epic which as you know is thouraly borked.

I will conclude with this:
Tred lightly, things arent as broken as you think. let this roll on lama land for a good while and for goodness sake LISTEN to the fans your powerd by.

[pjw]

It seems were are in the process of removing some odd and annoying special rules (like arbitrary.immunities and HP limits that have no place in dro) so we should be careful not to replace then with other arbitrary and non-sensical rules. So:

- Extend should be applicable to any non-instant spell
- Enlarge should work on any spell with a range more than 'touch'
- fire should do double damage to undead

I worry about the fw changes, but want to see them play out alongside ice storm, for example. It does seem brave to increase the cost the spell at the same time as it's effectiveness is reduced.

[Requiro]

Thanks for information :)


(...)The full details will be released soon(...)
Hope that very soon ;)

SPELL COST TO EFFECT RATIOS CHANGES:
Great!

(...)When you looked at the math, folks get very attached to certain spells, namely “wall of fire” for very logical reasons. This is a shame considering the art/dev resources devoted to the creation of so many other spells also floating in the system.
Completely agreed. Glad that you see this.

(...)While loyal to our roots (...)
Please remember this. DnD system is great. We don't want another WoWish MMO :(

(...)examples(...)

(...)5. Wall of fire ( up to 35 SP – targets now get a reflex save when they first enter the effect, but no saves against the flames if they remain in the wall. Now only does an additional 2d6 against undead instead of double. Duration is now locked to 30 seconds regardless of level. Can no longer be extended)(...)
Good idea. I have only problem with additional damage for undeads. Additional 2d6 is a little too low in my opinion. Maybe 2d4 + (1 / 3 caster level)?

(...)8. Polar Ray (Cost down to 15 SP, range doubled, can no longer be enlarged, ray targeting has been improved.)(...)
Problem with efficiency. Who will use 45 SP for 25 avg damage (New Incendiary Cloud) if I can shoot in the same cost (3x15SP) for 300 avg damage (3x100)? Can be the same problem like with Wall of Fire today.

(...) Essentially the cost of spells are being weighted now much more on their performance, method of engagement and the number of targets they effect(...)
Good idea. But please don't go too far from pure DnD system (like no more static damage please... Dice is the core of DnD)


WHAT ABOUT CC?
IMO: Not need to much changes. The showed one are good so far.

DEATH EFFECTS:
(...)
• Death spells had their cool downs increased(...)Good if their power grown. Bad if don't :) (...)
• Death spell on save damage was increased, so a blue hexagon won’t be a total waste of spell points Very nice. But can't be too powerful to not be better solution then pure damaging spells yet there will be more agro. We realize this and currently approve. Attempting to death a monster is a hate-able offense. YES I like this kind of thinking:) Very good idea. More logic in game made it more attractive
(...)

Circle of Death:

Rains dark energy into an area. Living Creatures are subject to a death effect; getting a reflex save and then a fortitude save to avoid death. Targets who succeed against the reflex save suffer no ill effect, but creatures who success against the fortitude save will still lose 1d4 energy levels.
Why no effect with reflex save? Something small (like 2d6 untyped damage) is better then nothing

Power word: Kill!
Upper hit point cap removed except in PVP. Kills, no save, but spell resistance applies.
240 second cool down for wizards, 210 second cool down for sorcerors
Hmm.. I don't know what to say. Super instakill is nice, but this colddown is so long… Still can be useful, because there is no good IX spells. Maybe less colddown? Something like 200 Wiz / 140 Sorc.


SPELL POINT REGEN – Echoes of Power:
:eek:

• Echoes of power will appear when a player drops below 12 SP.
• Echoes of power will allow the player to regenerate at a rate of 4 SP every 6 seconds.
• Echoes of power will remove itself once a player reaches 12 SP or greater.

Ok. After reading this over and over and think about consequences I think that this is good idea. But I suggest to increase the regenerate time (4SP for 8-10 second). Why? Because this is balance time for low levels, when you do quest more slowly. But for high levels (with more action) this will be only like last hope SL-a shoot, rather then normal tactic. And what about Archmage and Tier 5 SL-a? They are cost 15 SP and can't be cast with this ability :(

ETERNAL WANDS:

Not going to go into details here yet but eternals wands got a pass that increased their recharge regeneration rate and added desirable caster mutations.
This is nice news :) Waiting for more :)

-Torc
DDO Game Systems

Comments in yellow

My question is:
- Are there any changes in Pale Master and Archmage PrE with new Arcane Casting system?
- Are there any changes in Create Undead, Slow, Symbols spells?
- Are spell clickies on weapons will be change as well?
- Are Bard spell will be change as well?

[asphodeli]

Re: regenning SP below 12 SP

I support this only if this effect is removed as you level. Like say, once you hit CHARACTER level 6 or 7, you lose the regen effect. Otherwise, there will be strange builds like 8 Ftr / 12 Wiz using death aura to regain HP indefinitely

[moorewr]

Let's start small.

Dear Turbine developers:

Pretty please explain, in PnP rules terms, why Wall of Fire should no longer be extendable?

Love,
Moorewr

[pjw]

I always want extended haste, I rarely want extended resists etc.

Let me put metamagics per-spell on the tool bar, and get rid of their cool downs completely.

But above all, as someone else said, tread carefully: put this on lama for a long time and don't be afraid to rethink some if these changes.

[quityourjobs]

So many people willing to pass judgement on partial information.

"This new thing, it is bad..."

[Siskel]

1. When will we be getting free Lesser Hearts?

2. Seen no mention to repair spells. My guess is that we will not be able to enhancement them, and Reconstruction is getting the cool down nerf.

3. Hope to see the other changes, and I am really hoping that these were the worst of it.

[bobbryan2]

Re: regenning SP below 12 SP

I support this only if this effect is removed as you level. Like say, once you hit CHARACTER level 6 or 7, you lose the regen effect. Otherwise, there will be strange builds like 8 Ftr / 12 Wiz using death aura to regain HP indefinitely

Umm, no. Then my lvl 20 sorc can't use their SLA indefinitely.

[Trillea]

1. When will we be getting free Lesser Hearts?

2. Seen no mention to repair spells. My guess is that we will not be able to enhancement them, and Reconstruction is getting the cool down nerf.

3. Hope to see the other changes, and I am really hoping that these were the worst of it.

re: 3) I hope so too but doubt it.

[Calebro]

I think the main thing is that with the SP cost changes to damaging spells based on their usefulness, metamagics definitely need to be looked at again.
When Maximizing a spell costs more than simply casting the spells again, Maximize becomes a useless SP sink. It's even worse for Empower.

Example: Lightning Bolt: 12 SP, or you can choose to double that damage which MORE than triples the cost of the spell.
Or instead you can choose to add 50% to the damage, which MORE than doubles the cost of the spell.
Or you can choose to do both at for a total of 250%, which exceeds 430% of the original cost.

I really hope metamagics also got an overhaul, because otherwise they just became utterly useless.

[Book_O_Dragons]

Are there any changes to divine spells?

I really think implosion (clr/fvs 9) should get its cooldown halved (60 seconds currently). It will still be weaker than wail of the banshee because it kills a specific number of targets over time instead of being a one shot kill to all within range (no limit).

p.s. PWK is an enchantment spell with NO SAVE

[Requiro]

Re: regenning SP below 12 SP

I support this only if this effect is removed as you level. Like say, once you hit CHARACTER level 6 or 7, you lose the regen effect. Otherwise, there will be strange builds like 8 Ftr / 12 Wiz using death aura to regain HP indefinitely

And what you get against this strange build? :)

They are not good in Ftr or Wiz.

And this is creative build.

Good for them if they like play this way :)

[bobbryan2]

I think the main thing is that with the SP cost changes to damaging spells based on their usefulness, metamagics definitely need to be looked at again.
When Maximizing a spell costs more than simply casting the spells again, Maximize becomes a useless SP sink. It's even worse for Empower.

Example: Lightning Bolt: 12 SP, or you can choose to double that damage which MORE than triples the cost of the spell.
Or instead you can choose to add 50% to the damage, which MORE than doubles the cost of the spell.
Or you can choose to do both at for a total of 250%, which exceeds 430% of the original cost.

I really hope metamagics also got an overhaul, because otherwise they just became utterly useless.

There's a certain elegance to that as well, as sorcs need to pick up a different feat now.

[Missing_Minds]

I'm eager to see how it pans out.....I will say that the change to WoF is going to change caster play dramatically.


Correction, it will change 1 trick casters dramatically.

[sirgog]

The comments here make me /facepalm.

Sorcs go from 3-4 trick ponies - the worst class in DDO, with little other than bad DC Holds, Reconstruct, Haste, Displacement, Resist Energy and Firewall at endgame - to the highest DPS class in the game (by at least 100% when manadumping) and still people scream 'NO! This new thing, it is bad!' all because the one truly overpowered spell on their list gets a nerf it has needed for years.


Decent Nuker sorcs hardly used Firewall outside of undead quests anyway, except in conjunction with Discoball at endgame, or on the odd regenerating boss like Taeron Rimond or the Shroud lieutenants. Quicker to throw a DBF/Chain Lightning or two to wipe out a room, then run run run until dungeon alert, then repeat the process.


Previously Sorcs had to be held down because their ability to cast Firewall was so overpowering that they couldn't be given other nice toys. Now they have versatility, power, the ability to turn 15 SP into 286 damage every three seconds (Polar Ray, no metamagics, Superior Glaciation 8 only, not counting crits which add another 31.5% on average to that) AND the ability to burn mana to do damage more quickly.


Max-Empped Polar Ray spam is now over 320 DPS (and 20 damage per mana) even on Elite Horoth with his 80 cold resist. A Sorc that does nothing other than spam Polar Ray on cooldown on Horoth till Suulo spawns, then switches to Suulo and repeats, and drinks one mana potion then pikes the rest of the raid has pulled their weight as a DPS party member. If they add Cloudkill (for concealment), Icestorm and emergency Reconstructs on players at risk of death, they are probably the raid MVP.

[Theolin]

Sooooo if I am understanding this correctly

You are trying to make arcanes into DPS ... ok lets see a melee is 200(bad)-600(awesome) dps err call it 350 as a nice average sustainable dps on most mobs ... so

I can cast 1 spell per second .... I better be able to sustain 350ish DPS as well then! every time guaranteed no matter what ..... oh oops I cannot, well for like 2.5minutes with all the toys and sp regen clickies so with reduced costs by about 1/2 ill get 5 minutes .... oh wait its 10 between shrines oops

oh did I mention I have 2/3 the HPs as the melee .... hmmm seems like a fail is coming here who's gonna take a arcane now .... I can see it now shroud ... no arcane please need melee, Heals & bard, got to get haste somehow

Cool downs on insta kills lest see most fights last 10ish seconds + 5 seconds in between .... um well guess I wont be using them what once every 2ish encounters .. maybe ... ooooh boy goodie goodie its now a waste of 4 slots not just 2

looks to me like every wizard is gonna be a AM with MM SLAs force spec'd with haste and blur ... oh boy variety variety variety .... yippie oh they might have the rays/bolts as well for rotating in but variety ... not really

DOT spells ... well if I am soloing yea I might use them but in a group ... fights only last 10ish seconds and my tics are every 2 seconds at what maybe 60 damage each & this somehow compares to a melee how exactly ... ugh give me a sword & DP clickies I'll do more damage

tl;dr: so your trying to make casters more like they are in WOW ... umm gee thanks

[bobbryan2]

Correction, it will change 1 trick casters dramatically.

I don't see it. It didn't change casters who can keep the guys burning inside a wall... it just narrowed the amount of space you have to kite.

The big change here seems to be metamagic efficiency.

[pjstechie]

Interesting changes, will feel like a whole new game for a caster i think.



5. Wall of fire ( up to 35 SP – targets now get a reflex save when they first enter the effect, but no saves against the flames if they remain in the wall. Now only does an additional 2d6 against undead instead of double. Duration is now locked to 30 seconds regardless of level. Can no longer be extended)

-Torc
DDO Game Systems

I'd like to see how wall of fire compares to Ice storm...

[sirgog]

I think the main thing is that with the SP cost changes to damaging spells based on their usefulness, metamagics definitely need to be looked at again.
When Maximizing a spell costs more than simply casting the spells again, Maximize becomes a useless SP sink. It's even worse for Empower.

Example: Lightning Bolt: 12 SP, or you can choose to double that damage which MORE than triples the cost of the spell.
Or instead you can choose to add 50% to the damage, which MORE than doubles the cost of the spell.
Or you can choose to do both at for a total of 250%, which exceeds 430% of the original cost.

I really hope metamagics also got an overhaul, because otherwise they just became utterly useless.


Nope, Maximize still has its place.

Need high damage per mana? Turn the metas off.

Need high damage per second? Turn the metas on.

Also, don't forget that there are enhancements available (albeit expensive ones) that dramatically improve the SP efficiency of Maximize Spell, as well as items. You may not be able to fit Tier 3 Improved Maximizing into your build, but Tier 2 and Gloves of the Glacier drop the cost of Maximize down to 15SP (IIRC), and 12 if you can cough up all the AP for Tier 3.

Similar enhancements are available for Empower as well, but aren't very good value for AP, IIRC, except for the first tier.

[Requiro]

(..)

I really hope metamagics also got an overhaul, because otherwise they just became utterly useless.

For the most part – yes / maybe? We don’t see the big picture.

But what we know for sure that for most AOE spells empower and maximize metamagic will be still very useful. Maybe this is Turbine goal? AOE+Metas grown in power and single target spells will be just better without metas?

I'm worry more about Extended. After changes casters will be used it mostly for buffs…

But - we must test it first and then complain :) With complete new caster system there is no way that we can see all advantage now.

Most of this complains now are because This is just new thing (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=304817) ;)

[thenalim]

Let's start small.

Dear Turbine developers:

Pretty please explain, in PnP rules terms, why Wall of Fire should no longer be extendable?

Love,
Moorewr
I'd love to hear this too.

This update sounds absolutely insane. The changes in FW is rather stupid as it wasnt even good enough to compete with a decent melees dps to begin with and you can have 5 melees on a mob at any one time but only 1 firewall. Either way the cooldowns are what really gets me down, this is gonna reduse arcanes into something I have no interest in playing.

[Calebro]

Most of this complains now are because This is just new thing (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=304817) ;)

I'm not complaining. I like the changes coming for the most part.
But metamagics concern me. We'll see how it turns out when we have all the info.

[NorthwindFusilier]

Nope, Maximize still has its place.

Need high damage per mana? Turn the metas off.

Need high damage per second? Turn the metas on.

Also, don't forget that there are enhancements available (albeit expensive ones) that dramatically improve the SP efficiency of Maximize Spell, as well as items. You may not be able to fit Tier 3 Improved Maximizing into your build, but Tier 2 and Gloves of the Glacier drop the cost of Maximize down to 15SP (IIRC), and 12 if you can cough up all the AP for Tier 3.

Similar enhancements are available for Empower as well, but aren't very good value for AP, IIRC, except for the first tier.

Might be rough fitting those enhancements in, though. Iirc, it will cost more AP to get in your damage enhancements after the update.

[TheIvanovFamily]

Meh.

I don't mind trying out new changes to improve the game, but it is a bad idea to horribly nerf every used and popular spell in the arcane list at the same time you toss new changes in. At least try the spell improvements by themselves first, and if it goes well then nerf the other spells horribly. Then you will at least know if it is an improvement or just a laughable attempt at turning everything into a dps meter.

p.s.
Can we add in u9 a mod that will change arcane caster icons into sad faces?

[moorewr]

Nope, Maximize still has its place.

Especially given how easy it is to get free Maximizes now (Epic Ornamental Dagger, Noxious Embers, etc). My wizard gets more than two minutes of free maximizes per rest with his current equipment.

[voodoogroves]

I'm keeping an open mind too, but I think Torc, you and the other devs may be missing the component of playing-time and how that factors in.



Wall of Fire changes ... meh, ok. Duration is even ok, with the exception of what to do on super-boss-HP-stacks. Normal mobs don't last 30 seconds, but bosses and epic trash needs a long time to burn

SP cost changes ... meh, ok. I'm not sure they will have that much of an impact given the metamagics folks tend to run with, the discounts won't be that much.

How this balances with the splitting out and effective increase in AP lines ... I can wait and see.





The areas you need to pay attention to involve TIME as the most constrained resource.

Increasing cooldowns may look like it will apply a specific damage curve and the math works, but if it creates an annoying player mechanic where you have to kite, run, do whatever then it simply will not get used.

This is similar to the problem with Anthem (when it works). The song regen is too slow to be meaningful.

They same may end up applying to the SP regen if it isn't balanced right.




You see, the thing isn't whether or not you can plink away forever. I carry a returning throwing weapon for that, and I can set that to auto-fire ... I don't need a regenerating low-damage spell effect for that. It's about finishing in a fun, effective and time-valued manner. If there are no good time-valuable CC spells, if there are no recurringly-useful save/die or save/suck spells, they won't get used. Wizards and Sorcerers will turn into 3.5 Warlocks.

That's an extreme case, but that is my worry.


I trust you guys ... but I do see you changing a ton of things at the same time. This isn't an "epic reboot", this is a complete game change ... new AP costs, different SP costs, changes to lots of spells, changes to fundamental to DDO game states (helpless, stun, etc.). That's a ton of balls to keep juggling in the air at the same time. From a spreadhseet view, the new numbers may balance given EXISTING playing styles ... but if your new system creates too much player-wait and delays on items then the impact to playing style could throw all your algorithms out the window.


The Archmage and Pale Master both can be effective CC (conjurations, enchantments, etc.), save-or-die/lose and both have useful long-term DPS options. What was missing was the complete removal of some of those during epic quests. My worry is that in changing all of these things we may find that Pale Masters think of Wail and Finger NOT as valid instant-kill spells, but DPS-spikes like Touch of Death or monk finishers. That kind of play-style change will remove more spells from the "used and useful" list than any of your single adjustments.

[Lifespawn]

Especially given how easy it is to get free Maximizes now (Epic Ornamental Dagger, Noxious Embers, etc). My wizard gets more than two minutes of free maximizes per rest with his current equipment.

new players won't have them and lol at noxious embers being easy to get don't know about your server but i know maybe 10 guilds including my own that run abbot legit.

[Aurora1979]

For the most part – yes / maybe? We don’t see the big picture.

But what we know for sure that for most AOE spells empower and maximize metamagic will be still very useful. Maybe this is Turbine goal? AOE+Metas grown in power and single target spells will be just better without metas?

I'm worry more about Extended. After changes casters will be used it mostly for buffs…

But - we must test it first and then complain :) With complete new caster system there is no way that we can see all advantage now.

Most of this complains now are because This is just new thing (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=304817) ;)

I couldnt disagree with you more....

Which AOE spells are still VERY useful with meta magics?

As to the complaining about it being a new thing.... thats not the problem, you need to go back and read the vast majority of the posts.... Its not that people are complaining about nerfing our "beloved" firewall..... Its we have no other options.

All chars have certain templates they have to fit into....

A DPS melee needs to have the right weapon in his hands, or his DPS drops off significantly....

An arcane needs efficent spells to last till the shrine.

All they are proposing is to nerfbat the spells we currently use to make ourselves efficent and not replacing it with anything.

As posted by someone else above (sorry for not quoting properly, im tired) but wheres the wall of electricity, acid etc... wheres our damage OVER TIME coming from?

Melees can sustain damage over time. What is being proposed here COULD result in the following:

Me on my Wiz, zone into quest...

Buff all party memebers.....

follow them around watching them kill things not using my single shot spells as I dont have enough mana to kill more then a dozen or so mobs between shrines....

Keep following until we get to a miniboss. Unload all my sp.

Go to shrine.

buff party memebers.....

Follow them around until next boss......

etc

if we have no Sp EFFICENT way to deal with trash mobs, then we cant deal with trash mobs. end of.

Thats means now we join a quest for fun during 10% of it while beating on a boss......


EDIT:

I dont know how to retroactivly quote this so will have to make do but.....



"
I don't mind trying out new changes to improve the game, but it is a bad idea to horribly nerf every used and popular spell in the arcane list at the same time you toss new changes in. At least try the spell improvements by themselves first, and if it goes well then nerf the other spells horribly. Then you will at least know if it is an improvement or just a laughable attempt at turning everything into a dps meter."

This is my point. Im not whining about the loss of firewall, alone.... just.... ease it in.

In U9... if it goes according to whats been suggested then my (and many others) WHOLE char has changed.....

This isnt nerfing TWF and ruining your ranger... This is nerfing TWF then making rangers only use clubs.

[Requiro]

I'm not complaining. I like the changes coming for the most part.
But metamagics concern me. We'll see how it turns out when we have all the info.

I know, I know... I wrote this rather for posts like this: ...




This update sounds absolutely insane. The changes in FW is rather stupid as it wasnt even good enough to compete with a decent melees dps to begin with and you can have 5 melees on a mob at any one time but only 1 firewall. Either way the cooldowns are what really gets me down, this is gonna reduse arcanes into something I have no interest in playing.

... then yours :)

BTW: I'm so happy that they at last see the caster problem :) With so many un-wise changes lately, they give me hope for this game again :)

[voodoogroves]

I think the main thing is that with the SP cost changes to damaging spells based on their usefulness, metamagics definitely need to be looked at again.
When Maximizing a spell costs more than simply casting the spells again, Maximize becomes a useless SP sink. It's even worse for Empower.

Example: Lightning Bolt: 12 SP, or you can choose to double that damage which MORE than triples the cost of the spell.
Or instead you can choose to add 50% to the damage, which MORE than doubles the cost of the spell.
Or you can choose to do both at for a total of 250%, which exceeds 430% of the original cost.

I really hope metamagics also got an overhaul, because otherwise they just became utterly useless.

And if you're not using Maximize, you're swapping a SP/DPS metrics for time.

I really want to zap Lailat 3.6 billion times instead of cooking her in a wall because my SP lasts longer that way. Sure it only takes 2 hours now to run DQ, but my SP/DPS ratios are great!



This is my worry. Too many of these changes are individually ok, but systematically they won't matter because they make the game more tedious; people will gravitate towards the fastest / easiest / whatever method. Much of these changes may be effectively pointless if they make the various spells and abilities not simply "less useful" or "less efficient" but rather "not used".


When changing so much at once, that is a very real risk.

[moorewr]

new players won't have them and lol at noxious embers being easy to get don't know about your server but i know maybe 10 guilds including my own that run abbot legit.

OK, Noxious Embers was straining the point. :)

However, it seems to me that anyone with a level 20 character who really wanted an ornamental dagger has one by now.

[sirgog]

Sooooo if I am understanding this correctly

You are trying to make arcanes into DPS ... ok lets see a melee is 200(bad)-600(awesome) dps err call it 350 as a nice average sustainable dps on most mobs ... so
...

The very best melee DPS players stand around 350-400. Check Shade's 'DPS challenge, part 2' thread where he invites people to solo a 69000hp orange-named giant (with a cleric hireling) in Epic Claw of Vulkoor.

Epic SoS in Epic Marilith Chain, dual epic Ancient Vulkoorim Daggers (against a giant), dual Lit 2 khopeshs - noone has been able to backup a claim of 500 DPS on this guy with a video at all.


Against foes vulnerable to curses, however, however, my calculations indicate that after an 80 second rampup, Sorcs should be able to 'mana dump' and do over 1000 damage per second for a short period in boss fights. Against curse-immune foes, DPS is still able to 'burst' to over 600, or sustainable at the ~300 mark.

[joeuhuh]

has anyone figured out what spells that werent being used are now actually viable?

all i can see is some spells had their sp cost reduced incien cloud got a little bump in dps but got its duration reduced from 2.5 minutes to 30 seconds and firewalls got thier duration reduced by 50 percent and thier spell cost doubled if heighten affects it because it now has a save-- oh yeah and a bunch of debuffs may actualy debuff now but as i dont have them on my sorc this does nothing for me

wail of banshee suposedly does some dmg if they fial save now im guessing it wil now be affected by max and empower agian making it cost soar astronomically in adition to a increas in cooldown from like 5 seconds to 20

so be thankfull u can roll ur mage now lvl easily to lvl 6 then reroll because ur useless after thatinstead of the other way around

how bout a hint if u are going to hange spell descritions increasing the number of dmg dice cap so the sorc pre actualy does something polar ray is only spell other than disintigrate which doesnt cap at lvl 20 and if u have epic staff of arcane pwr and abashai set its already maxxed at lvl 25so cold pre is worthless except for bypassing some dr

firewall base sp cost now 35 what will it be heightened 70? plus 40 for max and empower same with incindiary cloud so almost dbl spell pt cost and half duration makes it 4x less eficient

i jsut want to thank whoever thought it would be good to make sorcs useless raise dcs so we cant hold anythig even with max gear unless we use a ugo pot and a store pot and have a new fvs aura and a bard song-- nerf our main dmging spells and fgive us a pre that does little to nothing and while ur at it break up the elemental dmg enhancvments so they cost more aps 18 to max out one element instead of 22 to max out 2 and big whup to the enhancment going form 40 percent max to 50 percent that makes ur total spell dmg go from 3.6 to 3.7 times base dmg u might not even notice the change on most spells so now my sorc gets a pre instead of having 4 elements maxxed out imay be able to max out 2 elements and take the pre to tier 3
my now useful dc for cc will be nerfed and my firewalls will be much less cost effective but i will get a reduced mana cost for spells that dont do diddley on high end content and which i dont have anyways

i keep wondering why turbine cycles making casters fun to play then nerfing them to uselessness then makin them fun to play thne nerfing them again

i didnt play my caster for about a year and a half till i got into epics and really enjoyed playin it agian i guess that is over

[Ganak]

I am eager to see how this plays on Llama. When will we see Llama go up?



Nerf mass camo please.:o

[GotSomeQuestions]

My wizard gets more than two minutes of free maximizes per rest with his current equipment.
My Sorcerer gets five minutes, because I haven't given in and made a full Ornamented Dagger hotbar yet. But I might. It's not like they're exclusive.

[voodoogroves]

The very best melee DPS players stand around 350-400. Check Shade's 'DPS challenge, part 2' thread where he invites people to solo a 69000hp orange-named giant (with a cleric hireling) in Epic Claw of Vulkoor.

Epic SoS in Epic Marilith Chain, dual epic Ancient Vulkoorim Daggers (against a giant), dual Lit 2 khopeshs - noone has been able to backup a claim of 500 DPS on this guy with a video at all.


Against foes vulnerable to curses, however, however, my calculations indicate that after an 80 second rampup, Sorcs should be able to 'mana dump' and do over 1000 damage per second for a short period in boss fights. Against curse-immune foes, DPS is still able to 'burst' to over 600, or sustainable at the ~300 mark.

I agree with this - and it might be too strong.

What it may likely do is not just "uplift nuking" and instead make "nuking the only time-realistic option" with AM being force spec'd, sorc's being elemental spec'd, PM's being negative and FVS being light with essentially a bunch of stuff that amounts to a single "blast" or "aoe blast" playstyle.

[moorewr]

My Sorcerer gets five minutes, because I haven't given in and made a full Ornamented Dagger hotbar yet. But I might. It's not like they're exclusive.

Heh, I only carry one ornamented dagger. :p

[Angelus_dead]

So.. are metamagics getting changed?

Cuz changing spell base cost without changing metamagics seems to be a lesson in futility.
Yeah, metamagics really shouldn't have an additive +X cost. Since they give a multiplicative benefit, the cost should be a multiplicative Y% of the spell's base.

Hey! You know what? That's how DDO metamagic used to work, until Module 5 screwed it up... what a coincidence.

[voodoogroves]

Yeah, metamagics really shouldn't have an additive +X cost. Since they give a multiplicative benefit, the cost should be a multiplicative Y% of the spell's base.

Hey! You know what? That's how DDO metamagic used to work, until Module 5 screwed it up... what a coincidence.
Amen.

[PopeJual]

I'd rather stay with this change to wall of fire. Make it 20n/40e so you don't also have to nerf a feat.

On a side note I predict a lot more of insta damage, punctuated by AOE effects. Think that on slower encounters it will work itself out. Don't think it will be good on fast encounters with tons of mobs spawning. Will have to wait for Lamania to see if I'm correct, tough.


Extend will still be good for Haste and Displacement and, um...

Okay, I can't think of anything else. I'll probably take it as a level 1 feat just so I can extend my buffs until level 5-ish. Then a flawed or imperfect Syberis dragonshard and a trip to Fred will get me a swap.

[Trillea]

No, what they should do with metamagics is bring them in line - not with the extra damage dealt, but with how many spell levels they are supposed to add. Maximize is supposed to add an extra 3 levels to the spell. You want to maximize lightning bolt? The devs should figure out what a bolt-like level 6 spell would cost in SP, subtract the current lightning bolt cost, and there is how much it costs. Repeat for every metamagic for every spell in the game. Yes this takes some time, but shouldn't too much. Eschew Materials should add 0 sp, it's useless anyway. Extend should work for any non-instantaneous spell in the game as well.

[Kabaon]

I read Torc's post, but I'm curious.... doesn't this seem like a big screw over for pale masters? Our insta death spells are going to be virtually useless seeing as the cooldowns are huge. Leaving us to rely on our free abilites (becuase as I see it, that's pretty much the only thing we have goin for us come U9)

[Requiro]

I couldnt disagree with you more....

Which AOE spells are still VERY useful with meta magics?

I don't see all the AOE spells. But we see that for now only AOE damaging spells have the same (or more) SP (WoF, Incendiary Cloud). That why with Matas they will get more power. FoW cost 35 - 100% damage. With Maximize 60 SP - 200% damage. You gain 10 SP. That why metas are useful with AOE spell. And Metas can be still lowered by Enhancements and gear. Also see here: http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=3664286&postcount=157

As to the complaining about it being a new thing.... thats not the problem, you need to go back and read the vast majority of the posts.... Its not that people are complaining about nerfing our "beloved" firewall..... Its we have no other options.

You don’t know that. You see only part of the changes and start to complain. You don't even try this on test server, but you know that you don’t get other option. Try this, and then complain. Something what look bad on paper can be good in game and vice versa.

In U9... if it goes according to whats been suggested then my (and many others) WHOLE char has changed.....
So what? What is wrong with changes? Changes are good :) Are you not bored doing the same over and over?

This isnt nerfing TWF and ruining your ranger... This is nerfing TWF then making rangers only use clubs.
No. This is powerup TWF in shortswords, nerfing TWF in Khopesh and give ranger option to use one of them ;)

Comments in yellow

Ask yourself why are you using WoF? ...
The answer was given by Torc:


(...)While we got by with this, it didn’t exactly always make for the most diverse spell choices for those people who crunched the numbers to determine what to use. When you looked at the math, folks get very attached to certain spells, namely “wall of fire” for very logical reasons. This is a shame considering the art/dev resources devoted to the creation of so many other spells also floating in the system.(...)

That's why I'm optimistic with the upcoming changes :)

[sirgog]

I agree with this - and it might be too strong.

What it may likely do is not just "uplift nuking" and instead make "nuking the only time-realistic option" with AM being force spec'd, sorc's being elemental spec'd, PM's being negative and FVS being light with essentially a bunch of stuff that amounts to a single "blast" or "aoe blast" playstyle.

Melees will still have their place. But we might see people happy to take a 1 Wizard, 3 Sorc, 2 Clr, 1 Brd, 2 Bbn, 1 Ftr, 2 Rog group into Tower of Despair or Epic Chronoscope.

[voodoogroves]

I read Torc's post, but I'm curious.... doesn't this seem like a big screw over for pale masters? Our insta death spells are going to be virtually useless seeing as the cooldowns are huge. Leaving us to rely on our free abilites (becuase as I see it, that's pretty much the only thing we have goin for us come U9)

I'm willing to give it a shot, but this is my worry too.

Damage over time spells are getting reduced in effectiveness, except maybe for for stand-and-block types. Direct damage is going to get a boost. Save or die / save or lose will get higher saves and longer cool-downs.


This has the potential to turn a Pale Master into someone who rarely wails/finger/etc. because it is faster and less annoying just to death aura and blast bolt blast bolt blast bolt blast bolt blast bolt. etc.

I really hope it doesn't.

[Jaid314]

has anyone figured out what spells that werent being used are now actually viable?

all i can see is some spells had their sp cost reduced incien cloud got a little bump in dps but got its duration reduced from 2.5 minutes to 30 seconds and firewalls got thier duration reduced by 50 percent and thier spell cost doubled if heighten affects it because it now has a save-- oh yeah and a bunch of debuffs may actualy debuff now but as i dont have them on my sorc this does nothing for me

wail of banshee suposedly does some dmg if they fial save now im guessing it wil now be affected by max and empower agian making it cost soar astronomically in adition to a increas in cooldown from like 5 seconds to 20

so be thankfull u can roll ur mage now lvl easily to lvl 6 then reroll because ur useless after thatinstead of the other way around

how bout a hint if u are going to hange spell descritions increasing the number of dmg dice cap so the sorc pre actualy does something polar ray is only spell other than disintigrate which doesnt cap at lvl 20 and if u have epic staff of arcane pwr and abashai set its already maxxed at lvl 25so cold pre is worthless except for bypassing some dr

firewall base sp cost now 35 what will it be heightened 70? plus 40 for max and empower same with incindiary cloud so almost dbl spell pt cost and half duration makes it 4x less eficient

i jsut want to thank whoever thought it would be good to make sorcs useless raise dcs so we cant hold anythig even with max gear unless we use a ugo pot and a store pot and have a new fvs aura and a bard song-- nerf our main dmging spells and fgive us a pre that does little to nothing and while ur at it break up the elemental dmg enhancvments so they cost more aps 18 to max out one element instead of 22 to max out 2 and big whup to the enhancment going form 40 percent max to 50 percent that makes ur total spell dmg go from 3.6 to 3.7 times base dmg u might not even notice the change on most spells so now my sorc gets a pre instead of having 4 elements maxxed out imay be able to max out 2 elements and take the pre to tier 3
my now useful dc for cc will be nerfed and my firewalls will be much less cost effective but i will get a reduced mana cost for spells that dont do diddley on high end content and which i dont have anyways

i keep wondering why turbine cycles making casters fun to play then nerfing them to uselessness then makin them fun to play thne nerfing them again

i didnt play my caster for about a year and a half till i got into epics and really enjoyed playin it agian i guess that is over

please stop arguing in our favor. you don't appear to actually know what you're talking about, it's making us look bad.

- the savant prestiges increase the MAXIMUM caster level also. giving you potentially a 28d6 polar ray, 18d6 cone of cold, etc. if you had been paying any attention whatsoever, you should know this.

- wall of fire is a level 4 spell. heightening it costs an extra 30 spell points, not 35. and honestly, for most of the game you don't need extend on it because it should be killing things fast enough without extend (and in epics, everything lost 50% of their hit points... meaning you still need the same amount of wall of fire, which costs the same amount as you used to pay, since nothing about it's costs changed.)

- you won't be paying 25 for maximise and 15 for empower, because you are required to invest in feats that reduce those costs.

- wall of fire actually just got it's duration set to the current 20 level duration. the loss is in extending it, which actually costs more SP anyways.

- you not choosing to use debuffs has no bearing on the usefulness of those debuffs, nor on the usefulness of the CC those debuffs allow.

- 7 plus 6 plus 6 is 19, not 18. it costs 19 AP to max out the new elemental lines. basic math ftl i guess.

- you can change spells. go ahead and try it, you'll find that by changing spells to have other useful ones, you will still have useful spells.

- you don't need 4 elements. i get by just fine right now with only fire and ice. after U9 hits, i expect to get by just fine with force and one other. quite possibly only even putting a couple of points into force.

seriously, try some research. some of the savant lines actually improve spells that aren't even elemental damage, like water boosts horrid wilting and air boosts cyclonic blasts, and air even provides 2 elements to work with (sonic and electric). once you know what you're talking about, *then* come back and complain.

rabidly attacking things with clueless rants isn't going to help anything.

[Aurora1979]

Comments in yellow

Ask yourself why are you using WoF? ...
The answer was given by Torc:



That's why I'm optimistic with the upcoming changes :)

hmmm, cant quote your yellow comments properly....

"I don't see all the AOE spells. But we see that for now only AOE damaging spells have the same (or more) SP (WoF, Incendiary Cloud). That why with Matas they will get more power. FoW cost 35 - 100% damage. With Maximize 60 SP - 200% damage. You gain 10 SP. That why metas are useful with AOE spell. And Metas can be still lowered by Enhancements and gear. Also see here"

yes you gain 10sp.... but with the loss of damage by the reflex save and duration of firewall I doubt its a net gain, but ill leave one up to the number crunchers. my maths isnt great.

"You don’t know that. You see only part of the changes and start to complain. You don't even try this on test server, but you know that you don’t get other option. Try this, and then complain. Something what look bad on paper can be good in game and vice versa."

I can only comment on the information given to me.

using your theory then no one should comment on any update notifications. You are correct we are working on assumptions at the moment but I have said a few times tonight, Using the information we have been given..... I dont like etc...


"So what? What is wrong with changes? Changes are good Are you not bored doing the same over and over?"

No, im not bored. I only capped this char a month ago or so, as i said before. Im throughly enjoying my arcane atm. And Ive had.... maybe 6-8 arcanes before. Ive enjoyed all of them too. I dont just cast firewall and bunnyhop around, again, like i said earlier.... Not all changes are good. thats just a silly remark.

Your last comment, and quote by dev actually support what I, and others are saying 100% :D you have missed the irony.

You both admit the only reason we have become dependant on certain spells is becaus ethey are the ones most efficent.

ACCORDING TO THE PLANNED CHANGES...... all of these spells that we use regular are being changed.... with no replacment.

Im not against change, AGAIn as i said before, but there has to be a substitute.

[Velexia]

I'm interested in hearing how ToD part 2 is getting changed, to keep it from becoming even harder, with this super firewall nerf.

Devs, have you tried running ToD Part 2 with your new spell system?

[Tolath]

i cant say if changes are good or bad.we will see them online.
just we have to remove dungeons and dragons from the name of the game.

[Angelus_dead]

I think the main thing is that with the SP cost changes to damaging spells based on their usefulness, metamagics definitely need to be looked at again.
When Maximizing a spell costs more than simply casting the spells again, Maximize becomes a useless SP sink. It's even worse for Empower.
....
I really hope metamagics also got an overhaul, because otherwise they just became utterly useless.
Yes metamagics definitely need a revamp, but it's not accurate to say they became "useless". They did become bad game design, though.

The previous situation is that Maximize + Empower were almost always helpful for both the metric of throughput (damage per second) and efficiency (damage per mana). But now that DPS spells are having their costs lowered to below that of Maximize, the metamagics will often reduce efficiency while still raising throughput. (Efficiency is often the dominant concern in many quests). That's a fine change in concept... it's nice if players have some more choices to make, instead of simply leaving the metamagics active practically 100% of the time.

But there are two problems it creates: Some spells still have a high base sp cost, like Wall of Fire and Incendiary Cloud. Those ones continue to gain efficiency from Maximize, while Scorching Ray loses efficiency.
The DDO user interface for toggling metamagics on and off is bad, so making metamagics need to be toggled more means players have to do more struggling against a bad UI.

[satanofmetal]

Well, now i can say: If that ever comes live:

DooooooOOOOOOOOoooooooooOOOOOOommmmm²!

[Zachski]

Too many people are complaining about Wall of Fire nerf.

The whole point of this update is to introduce strategies OTHER than Wall of Fire. As soon as Lam hits, maybe you could spend less time crying and more time figuring out a new strategy BEFORE crying that the sky is falling?

Even if the update turns out not to be as much of a success as it could have been, you guys will figure out another strategy. I know it.

I, too, second that Echoes of Power should increase its cap as you level up.

Also, to the purists. This is not D&D 3.5E. This is an MMO that is based off of D&D. This is not a table top RPG that has been made massively available over the internet. MMOs have much different dynamics than TTRPG's do.

[Missing_Minds]

I don't see it. It didn't change casters who can keep the guys burning inside a wall... it just narrowed the amount of space you have to kite.

The big change here seems to be metamagic efficiency.

The casters that were doing that were only casting Wall of Fire. 1 trick pony.

metamagics were not touched to my knowledge.

And lets face it, how often did you fight in a Wall of Fire in PnP? Around it? Use the spell in every day encounters?

[KillEveryone]

I couldn't read the whole thread but I'm adding in my 2cp even though it is way back here and I don't think Dev's read this far back.

I'm glad to see changes to spells to make many more useful.

I'd still like to see a electric version of firewall or at least some kind of DoT for that element.

Not keen on extend being removed from some of the spells. Now the question is, should we take it just for haste and displacement. At least when it worked on firewall, there was other uses beyond haste and displacement. Any other buff spell lasts long enough that it doesn't really matter much beyond a few quests where you do need to extend blur...VoD for example. I just don't want to see another feat become useless.

My biggest concern with extend is that the metamagics will be applied correctly. I don't want my firewall(or any DOT) to get charged SP when it shouldn't from extend because of a bug that needs fixed and doesn't get fixed for a long time.

Enlarge as a feat might as well be removed from the game if there are a larger portion of spells that won't be able to use that feat. I'm figuring that there will be a good portion of spells that feat won't work for now going by what is currently listed. There were a few situations that it seemed like it would be fun to have and I had thought about using it for quite a bit more but it really doesn't seem worth bothering with now.

I'm glad to see the HD removed for those HD dependent spells. Getting them when we did made them pretty useless since the critter HD was past what the spell allowed for and any lower ones were just out leveled real quickly.

The cool down on Power Word Kill is a bit long. Nice that it only has to bypass SR but that cool down is just too long to bother with loading it. I could see it having a cooldown twice as long as Otto's Irresistable or FoD, but not 4 minutes.

[Jaid314]

I'm interested in hearing how ToD part 2 is getting changed, to keep it from becoming even harder, with this super firewall nerf.

Devs, have you tried running ToD Part 2 with your new spell system?

why would they change it?

nobody cares if the caster *kills* the shadows. all people care about is that you drag them away from the stairs and kite them.

if there was a level 1 spell that dealt 1 point of damage to a mob that went through it, that spell would be perfectly acceptable to use in tower of despair. people use wall of fire right now because that's what every arcane *has*, not because it's a requirement for the success of the raid.

[Angelus_dead]

Extend will still be good for Haste and Displacement and, um...

Okay, I can't think of anything else. I'll probably take it as a level 1 feat just so I can extend my buffs until level 5-ish. Then a flawed or imperfect Syberis dragonshard and a trip to Fred will get me a swap.
Yes, that looks a lot like what'll happen.

In a way that seems good... pretty much freeing up a feat slot on many Sorc, Cleric, and similar builds, because they'll no longer need Extend to double the damage output of WOF / BB for a tiny +10 sp. But there are downsides to discouraging Extend feats too.

[varusso]

5. Wall of fire ( up to 35 SP – targets now get a reflex save when they first enter the effect, but no saves against the flames if they remain in the wall. Now only does an additional 2d6 against undead instead of double. Duration is now locked to 30 seconds regardless of level. Can no longer be extended)



So in other words, in order to FORCE us to use other spells, you nerf the hell out of the one spell in the game that you KNOW is the bread and butter of every mage, making it MORE expensive AND less effective? NO. Just NO. How about you leave this spell alone and make whatever changes you plan to make to the other spells. If you truly think you are improving the rest of the spell system so much, then you dont need to club us over the head by borking this spell.

Seriously, just leave it alone. Yo umay make some non-mages happy to see the arcanes getting smacked with the nerf bat, but all you are REALLy going to do is tick off a bunch of arcane players needlessly. If the intent is to make the system better and to make it 'more enjoyable' as you said, then DONT mess with the things we LIKE and just fix the ones we DONT like.

I am all for a rebalancing pass that improves the overall system, but that doesnt mean that you need to nerf one of the signature spells of the class.

NOT signed.

[Angelus_dead]

why would they change it?

nobody cares if the caster *kills* the shadows. all people care about is that you drag them away from the stairs and kite them.
Shorter duration on Wall of Fire = fires end earlier = maybe some Shadowfiend slips through without being aggroed.

[Jaid314]

Shorter duration on Wall of Fire = fires end earlier = maybe some Shadowfiend slips through without being aggroed.

is it really taking you 30 seconds to run around the room? it's not *that* big...

[bobbryan2]

I'm interested in hearing how ToD part 2 is getting changed, to keep it from becoming even harder, with this super firewall nerf.

Devs, have you tried running ToD Part 2 with your new spell system?

There are plenty of other spells you can use. Hell, even fireball will probably work in a pinch

[shadow_419]

Shorter duration on Wall of Fire = fires end earlier = maybe some Shadowfiend slips through without being aggroed.

Hmm, good thing I stopped kiting shadows a while ago and switched to tanking them instead.

[Kourier]

Shorter duration on Wall of Fire = fires end earlier = maybe some Shadowfiend slips through without being aggroed.

Cloudkill or acid fog?

[Missing_Minds]

Cloudkill or acid fog?

incindary cloud will be the replacment i have a feeling. Close to acting like the old WoF did.

[shagath]

The cool down on Power Word Kill is a bit long. Nice that it only has to bypass SR but that cool down is just too long to bother with loading it. I could see it having a cooldown twice as long as Otto's Irresistable or FoD, but not 4 minutes.Would be probably a bit too easy way to kill epic monsters with that short cooldown if you just can beat their sr. Epic monster down every 5secs(FoD cd) no save?

[Angelus_dead]

Cloudkill or acid fog?
Since Incendiary Cloud is changing to be 30 seconds, Cloudkill and Acid Fog will probably change the same way. In combination with their longer casting time, they'll be worse than Wall of Fire as aggro-catchers.

PS. Notice that some Sorcerers will be gaining a speed-burst effect to help them kite more safely.

[mehlinda]

After my initial reading I gave these changes 5 fails of a possible 6.. I give it an overall fail quotient of enormous as I realize how enormously screwed Sorcs come out in this. I guess we all have an extra feat since extend is basically useless. I feel sorry for Burger King because they obviously spend a lot of money training people only to lose them to a Dev team that obviously doesn't play the game they work on...awesomely good fail this time. This only increases the gap between melee and caster and even greater is the void between Wizard and Sorc.

How about if you guys paid 6-12 people to play the game 8 hours a day who actually know how to play and then get feedback and then use a nerf bat when necessary instead of a nerf fleet.

[Philibusta]

Now, keep in mind, I don't play casters in DDO. Well, mostly not. I've got one lowbie wizard that'll probably remain a lowbie forever cause it didn't take me long to figure out that playing a wizard in DDO sucks compared to playing one in PnP. It actually even sucks worse than playing one in WotC&D (3E and up), and that sucked immeasurably compared to playing one in actual AD&D (1E and 2E). (I could go into reasons...like minuscule spell lists, no familiars, and lack of item creation (yes, boys and girls, wizards used to be able to actually create magic items!!) but that's not my point.


On another note, it has become a noticeable point that arcane casters are a rather difficult class to get into. The Classic 3.5 D&D concept of starting weak then gain cosmic power. While loyal to our roots we felt that perhaps the current learning curve is a bit too harsh, and we’re looking at making it an easier class role to enter for new players.

...Am I the only one that feels like this kind of thing is a dagger in the back to those of us who stuck with D&D in earlier years? Basically what I mean is, am I the only one who's sick of the game I grew up playing and loving being dumbed down? Now it's to the point that even the kind of half-brained idiots that used to make fun of us for being smart enough to play D&D (while they obviously weren't), can play it WITH us! Oh the joy!

Also..."Classic" 3.5?...sorry that made me rofl.

Anyway, on the topic of the thread (sorry)...


We’ll be introducing a limited form of spell point regen for players who have “magical training” (as in the feat). This is to avoid a true “out of gas” situation for our casters. The concept is that when a caster drops below a certain spell point threshold a spell point regen effect known as “echoes of power” applies itself until the caster reaches that threshold again. The goal is to allow low level players continue to cast level 1 spells at a diminished rate when their “out of gas” while high level players will be able to continue to use their PRE-s with the meta magics they normally require for high level play.

Currently in testing… these values are examples mind you…

• Echoes of power will appear when a player drops below 12 SP.
• Echoes of power will allow the player to regenerate at a rate of 4 SP every 6 seconds.
• Echoes of power will remove itself once a player reaches 12 SP or greater.

Cool! So my question regarding this is, when are melee's gonna get a "Second Wind" effect that kicks in when things have gotten hurty and the HP's are low? Yeah, I know, I know, "there's heal pots and clerics for HP", right? Well, there's also SP pots and Divine Vitality for SP.

[The10man]

So in other words, in order to FORCE us to use other spells, you nerf the hell out of the one spell in the game that you KNOW is the bread and butter of every mage, making it MORE expensive AND less effective? NO. Just NO. How about you leave this spell alone and make whatever changes you plan to make to the other spells. If you truly think you are improving the rest of the spell system so much, then you dont need to club us over the head by borking this spell.

Seriously, just leave it alone. Yo umay make some non-mages happy to see the arcanes getting smacked with the nerf bat, but all you are REALLy going to do is tick off a bunch of arcane players needlessly. If the intent is to make the system better and to make it 'more enjoyable' as you said, then DONT mess with the things we LIKE and just fix the ones we DONT like.

I am all for a rebalancing pass that improves the overall system, but that doesnt mean that you need to nerf one of the signature spells of the class.

NOT signed.

This is ridiculous!!! Saddest thing I've ever heard. "our other spells suck so in order to force you to use the sucky spells and see our neato art we'll nerf the best spell AND make it cost more SP" This is sad and WILL cost subs. Make other spells better/cheaper to make them more viable. STOP THE NERFING AND DUMBING DOWN!!! IF WE WANTED TO PLAY WOW WE WOULD!!!

[irivan]

hmm the jury is out, not sure i care that much about the firewall change as my tactics have changed so much for trash mobs, and i am confident that my DC's will overcome the saving throw anyway, unless of course mob Dc's have been jacked up considerably.

But i really like what they are doing with circle of death, sleep, and some others.....

Yin/Yang...i am torn...

[Aurora1979]

But i really like what they are doing with circle of death, sleep, and some others.....

Yin/Yang...i am torn...

This is a genuine question, not gonna go on again in this post but i properly curious.... what does sleep give that hypno doesnt?

[Meat-Head]

Agreed on nerfing extend and upping cooldowns = not so great. Also, that Echo should scale with level = /signed

But, the FW thing isn't that bad. Maybe they take half damage (somewhat realistic like reaction or REFLEX to touching hot surface).

But he said if they stay in the flames there is no save.

SO KITE MOBS ALONG THE LENGTH of your FW.

Problem mostly solved.

That's how I do it anyway. It's just enough room to run, turn, and jump over incoming mobs. Rinse/Repeat.

Still works just fine.

I think increasing the variety of spells used will be kinda neato.

[sirgog]

So, 200+ posts and not one complaint about the 'Easy Button' that is 15sp Polar Rays?

Bad form, DDO forums. Very bad form.

[Angelus_dead]

Power word: Kill!


Upper hit point cap removed except in PVP. Kills, no save, but spell resistance applies.
240 second cool down for wizards, 210 second cool down for sorcerors
Suggestion for using long cooldowns as a balance factor:
Only start the cooldown if the spell actually is cast, and only use the full cooldown if the spell actually works.

That is, if I click PWK but the monster teleports or dies before my spell happens, then I don't deserve to be punished with a multi-minute cooldown. (Imagine if two Wizards throw PWK at the same mob at once)
If I cast PWK on an enemy and it bounces off SR, I might not deserve the same long cooldown as if I had killed it.

[shagath]

So, 200+ posts and not one complaint about the 'Easy Button' that is 15sp Polar Rays?

Bad form, DDO forums. Very bad form.There should be save in polar ray to make it more enjoyable. ;)

[Kourier]

Since Incendiary Cloud is changing to be 30 seconds, Cloudkill and Acid Fog will probably change the same way. In combination with their longer casting time, they'll be worse than Wall of Fire as aggro-catchers.

PS. Notice that some Sorcerers will be gaining a speed-burst effect to help them kite more safely.

I don't see any mention of these spells being unextendable. That may be because they are not maximizable or empowerable. If all else fails, use fog cloud or something, I guess.

[Aurora1979]

So, 200+ posts and not one complaint about the 'Easy Button' that is 15sp Polar Rays?

Bad form, DDO forums. Very bad form.

yea but in U10 they will give all mobs cold immunities.... ;D

[Meat-Head]

So, 200+ posts and not one complaint about the 'Easy Button' that is 15sp Polar Rays?

Bad form, DDO forums. Very bad form.



Shhhhhhhhhhh!.... Nothing to see here... Move along please. :D

[Junts]

You realize this means I'm going to have to think when I kite TOD now.

EDIT: Actually this mean that the Shadows in TOD get a reflex save, so if they pass it I don't actually get their aggro and they'll kill the party.

Pros- I can kill the party and pretend I'm upset about it
Cons- The party might expect me to use some other spell, and not die.

Its already possible to kite tower without a damage spell - any persistent aoe with a debuff that affects them will get their aggro. You can kite just as easily with cloudkill or glitterdust as wall of fire.

This shouldn't change you at all.

I'll also point out that with few differences, what's being addressed here is not primarily spell efficacy (that being addressed by pre and enhancement changes), but damage:mana efficiency issues, which is to say the entire caster thread I started a year and a half ago. They're equalizing other sources of damage to the firewall sp efficiency range, and decreasing firewall's efficiency just a little to meet those changes. This change doesn't make polar ray do more damage - it lets you do things you can presently do with firewalls by casting chain lightnings or fireballs instead.

That lets other elements be effective and produces more dynamic, less jump-and-kite based play for the same endurance result.

The firewall changes are barely mentionable: you rarely need more than 30s of a firewall for what we use firewalls for, and the reflex for the cross is not a major change (it just somewhat reduces the thing that distinguished firewall from other aoe dots and made it so much better htan them, the ability to get damage outside the 2 second ticks).

[unholy1]

so ... the devs are mad cause the players only use the best spells so teh nerf the best ones and expect us to adjust. they are mad cause we kite mobs w low ai through a wlal of fire. what is really happening here is the devs are overcoming a lack of character AI development bt nerfing our tools. heres a hint devs u wanna see us use something other than firewall? make wall of force or wall of stone or wall of _______ from 3.5. i think getting away form the 3/5 core rules here is a bad call and will alienate many of teh faithful ole skoo PnP players which are the ones whose blood supported this game nad the pnp game through thick and thin. i guess turbine figures that since wow is so great that they should be more like them. if you truly want to make all spells more viable dont nerf just make all of the other crappy spells better. the first time a party watches a caster kite TOD with a spell liek touch of idiocy or solo epic wiz king with death to undeath people will get on board and want to be that caster who figured out something new. taking away WoF and nerfing other great spells is not the way to do it. and fyi i am from a time in this game before wall of fire when web was FTW. :mad::confused::eek:

[Jaid314]

So, 200+ posts and not one complaint about the 'Easy Button' that is 15sp Polar Rays?

Bad form, DDO forums. Very bad form.

i'm still getting a chuckle out of the "discounted" SLAs. oh goody, burning hands now only costs me 1 SP! because 3 SP was just *too much* :P

(yeah, i know, free metamagics... still find it funny :P )

[PopeJual]

And lets face it, how often did you fight in a Wall of Fire in PnP? Around it? Use the spell in every day encounters?

How often did you cast a Fireball into a melee in PnP?

In PnP, you have to worry about hurting your party members with your area spells. Additionally, spells did pretty terrible damage compared to the save-or-die and save-or-lose spells that were available.

Spells like Charm [person/monster/whatever], Hold [person/monster/whatever], Polymorph, etc. that would end an encounter in one casting ended up being much more effective than damage spells.

[fuzzy1guy]

:mad:

http://i56.tinypic.com/14o6n80.jpg

:mad:

[Junts]

Dear Torc.

How will heighten spell interact with these new spell costs? Previously, a lightning bolt heightened to level 8 would cost the same SP as a polar ray. Will this still be true? How will the metamagic interact with these costs and recognize what kind of spell its dealing with?

[Kabaon]

:mad:

http://i56.tinypic.com/14o6n80.jpg

:mad:

I so agree... at least as a caster who likes his cooldowns on insta-death spells.... wof isn't gonna be that bad folks.... most mobs have horrible reflex saves from my experiance.

What I said about the cooldowns to my fiance (who just started a caster to get wail) "I'd rather 2-3 decent insta-death spells than 5 ****** ones"

[Dexxaan]

:mad:

http://i56.tinypic.com/14o6n80.jpg

:mad:

Awesome.


ROFL


Turbine: Make other spells better...don't make the only decent ones.... Gimped


.

[zorander6]

Glad I only got my wizard to level 9. Wonder how long before they nerf cleric spells. :( If I could give negative rep I'd give it for this one.

No desire to play a wizard now.

[Philibusta]

Dear Torc.

How will heighten spell interact with these new spell costs? Previously, a lightning bolt heightened to level 8 would cost the same SP as a polar ray. Will this still be true? How will the metamagic interact with these costs and recognize what kind of spell its dealing with?

Doesn't matter, cause no one will be using Lightning Bolt, as they're nerfing the base damage to 1d3 (as opposed to the prior 1d6)

...also....


:mad:

http://i56.tinypic.com/14o6n80.jpg

:mad:

Fitting pic, but..shouldn't they be brandishing wizard staves instead of torches? :p

[Vernah]

While we got by with this, it didn’t exactly always make for the most diverse spell choices for those people who crunched the numbers to determine what to use. When you looked at the math, folks get very attached to certain spells, namely “wall of fire” for very logical reasons. This is a shame considering the art/dev resources devoted to the creation of so many other spells also floating in the system.

So we should be using spells other than wall of fire because the devs dedicated so much time in creating them? If so then please fix 3BC, Necro 1-3, etc. so we don't waste all the resources you devoted...

[moops]

If you want players to use the less popular spells. . .why not release new content in which these spells are the best to use?

In fact, instead of making us prob have to LR for our casters to be up to date/useful, why don't you make some End Game content that is not Epic?

This just really seems like a waste of time to fix things that really aren't all that bad. A friend of mine was excited cuz he can now get wings on his Sorc, and I was like, "Really? So you can run the same old stuff over and over with wings? Wouldnt you rather have a new quest?"

[Kabaon]

So we should be using spells other than wall of fire because the devs dedicated so much time in creating them? If so then please fix 3BC, Necro 1-3, etc. so we don't waste all the resources you devoted...

So by "Fix" you mean "gimp the **** out of"

Edit: Sorry.... I mean "Gimp it worse then they are now"

[Vallin]

This is a genuine question, not gonna go on again in this post but i properly curious.... what does sleep give that hypno doesnt?

I'm pretty sure they are essentially the same - except sleep looks cool and has a longer duration assuming they don't make their save.

Vallin.

[KillEveryone]

Would be probably a bit too easy way to kill epic monsters with that short cooldown if you just can beat their sr. Epic monster down every 5secs(FoD cd) no save?

Just not 4 minutes.

4 minutes is way to long, even for a spell with no save. Trash doesn't take that long to deal with. You'll be lucky if you get to use this spell more than twice between shrines.

I could have a better spell in there that will get used more even if that spell isn't a instant death type of spell.

One minute isn't too bad but I think that anything past that is too much.

Reasons are...I've hit my skill boost and activated the cool down but the skill didn't apply. It decreased the number of skill boosts I have available but I didn't get the boost applied(my buffs are not running off screen either.) I've activated a rage, gotten the cool down but didn't get raged. I don't like long cool down timers for this reason. I don't want to spam stuff, I just want to have a chance to use it even when the game has a hic-up.

I can see having a problem with this spell trying to cast it, nothing near you trying to hit you and no archers around but the game has one of it's moments. A spell example...I've been having issues with mass hold. I'm out of range of anything that can hurt me and I cast mass hold but I either don't get the purple ring of the area that it is targeted nor have I had the blue hexagon appear stating that the critter made any type of save yet the spell was activated and I had a cool down and lost SP and the critter isn't held.

Some of the changes I disagree with but I'm still looking forward to having these changes. My wizard has a spell book full of all the spells in the game yet most are not used because of the HD issue or they just cost too much SP to bother with loading. I'd like to see all the spells be used a whole lot more but this spell most likely won't get slotted much just because of the four minute cool down.

[steelblueskies]

The comments here make me /facepalm.

Sorcs go from 3-4 trick ponies - the worst class in DDO, with little other than bad DC Holds, Reconstruct, Haste, Displacement, Resist Energy and Firewall at endgame - to the highest DPS class in the game (by at least 100% when manadumping) and still people scream 'NO! This new thing, it is bad!' all because the one truly overpowered spell on their list gets a nerf it has needed for years.


Decent Nuker sorcs hardly used Firewall outside of undead quests anyway, except in conjunction with Discoball at endgame, or on the odd regenerating boss like Taeron Rimond or the Shroud lieutenants. Quicker to throw a DBF/Chain Lightning or two to wipe out a room, then run run run until dungeon alert, then repeat the process.


Previously Sorcs had to be held down because their ability to cast Firewall was so overpowering that they couldn't be given other nice toys. Now they have versatility, power, the ability to turn 15 SP into 286 damage every three seconds (Polar Ray, no metamagics, Superior Glaciation 8 only, not counting crits which add another 31.5% on average to that) AND the ability to burn mana to do damage more quickly.


Max-Empped Polar Ray spam is now over 320 DPS (and 20 damage per mana) even on Elite Horoth with his 80 cold resist. A Sorc that does nothing other than spam Polar Ray on cooldown on Horoth till Suulo spawns, then switches to Suulo and repeats, and drinks one mana potion then pikes the rest of the raid has pulled their weight as a DPS party member. If they add Cloudkill (for concealment), Icestorm and emergency Reconstructs on players at risk of death, they are probably the raid MVP.

becuase this isn't just affecting sorcerors. helloo wizards, and as has yet to be addressed by a dev, favored souls, and clerics, rangers, bards, anyone who umd's scrolls and wands or otherwise has an sp bar.
12 sp worth of perpetual regen. well that covers a human fvs free clw i guess making that moot...

commensurately, think about the impact on caster mobs in game! if their spells change too...

so sorcs get a win, and the rest of us all get.. erm bent over? no save kill spell in scroll form whee. failed saves vs mobs still apply a carrier save debuff on us too yay. sp efficiency who knows. more variety with same slot limitations<confusion> . its simple. someone in development doesn't get there will always be a min/max best, and or most reliable in varying conditions approach to everything. its also easier to mod a spell then add two checks to mob ai. path to player has firewall/other nasty effect? yes = range attack, no = beeline. standing in firewall/other nasty effect? yes= move, no =do whatever.

if each added check can be achieved with a single conditional test in its own function you should not be adding more then 12 clock cycles per ai loop at most including the function call. granted that adds up when dealing with thousands of copies on one machine of the ai code loop, it still fixes the bs without revamping everything and borking it into a weak, pew pew fest.

and of course using say an evocation archmage as an example, 1-3 sp sla bolt effects with saves are really competitive right?

what i see here is not being competitive with a ranger with returning ammunition. we can burst but we cannot sustain, and if we are the wrong class we cannot burst either worth a cows last lunch, especially in longer content and mid levels.

see as to melee having a second wind as someone mentioned, you have it. its called unconscious regeneration. you even have feats to boost it, and regen effects on items speed it along too. everyone gets it, even warforged(though they have to wait nearly a minute for it to kick in). the closest you come to a caster endurance wise is equipment damage which you cannot potion away. imagine each swing on a mob reduced weapon durablity by say 1. how long would you last in a quest even if it repaired to full on shrining? how many spares would you need? would you trade a poor dps weapon that was comparatively shipwreck shore noobie gear weak if it lasted 5 times as many swings? would you bring it along just in case even if you hated it?

maybe i missed something in all the news along the way but the savants are sorceror, not wizard. and frankly if wail worked pretty much all the time but took 20 seconds to cast, or wall of fire took a full 6 seconds to toss out there, that too would change up the game to about the same extent. and in many cases be just as broken, and render much just as useless.

we now have base spells in the same cost bracket as sla's without the prerequisites. spamming more also means more time spent CASTING, with the zerg minded non tactics the servers have moved to, one finds oneself responsible for survival more then the party . frequently one gets tossed a kiting role. are we to take combat casting , etc for better casting move speed now too?

and as to ornamental dagger free maximize- okay so in two weeks you bring a friend into the game: what do they do?

the reason the sense of doom is upon us isn't due to wof getting changed. its due to asically being saddled with not just a spell revamp, but mechanics, tactics, viability, competitiveness, enhancement, spec, and more all rolled into one, and that what we DO know already adds up to quite a bit of a mess given what we have seen, and more.

bb has a reflex save. mobs standing in it don't always trigger a resave. how about wof requiring one to kite through it to deal damage. should make melee players happy to stand in it damage free i guess.

and then there's pvp to consider too. you gonna save on flesh to stone vs a lvl 26 fts?

it's like i said earlier. i absolutely want to see a party of devs playtest at least four different quests at four different content levels, with at level characters, and no dm/godmode and these changes in place and say they were happy with it. if the design for the system has no workable strategies in mind when implemented then it may have no viable strategies at all, and modifying all of this without considering that side of things is blind revisionism.

lets see what they had in mind and if it works out for them in practice. when we get that then its time for us to start seeing if there's anything better. if the guys who made the changes won't even try it or wind up hating, or can't come up with workable strategies with the new changes, then it has no place going live even in a test form.

edit: and if you want us to use the junk, give us appropriate trash. enter the kobold is an example of this with the cr .5 mobs at the beginning. unfortunately its easier to eternal wand those, assuming they don't die if a melee looks at them crossly, and additionally that would mean picking up low level spells for damage in those limited slots. still feeling its taking something broken, and breaking it more to meet an artificial goal without serious consideration and testing/strategizing on the way to use whats left post change.

[Monkey_Archer]

Dear Torc.

How will heighten spell interact with these new spell costs? Previously, a lightning bolt heightened to level 8 would cost the same SP as a polar ray. Will this still be true? How will the metamagic interact with these costs and recognize what kind of spell its dealing with?

This is the most concerning thing for me with regards to the sp cost changes, especially for wizards.
Spending 25 sp to maximize a 15 sp spell like polar ray is entirely fair. You trade a bit of efficiency for more dps, not to mention there are easy ways to reduce maximize's sp cost with enhancements and items.

For spells like lightning bolt or fireball, or other low level damage spells, heighten could increase sp cost by 5 times, with potentially 0 increase in effectiveness (if your DC is already high enough)

[Auran82]

As I'm sure it has been mentioned before in this thread, I hope metamagics are being changed at some point soon as well. Perhaps back to the old +100% sp cost for maxamise, +50% sp cost for empower etc.

And as someone said, who is gonna use lightning bolt when a heightened one is going to cost 42sp vs polar ray for 15sp.

And boo to changing the cooldown on Wail to 35/25 seconds.

[PopeJual]

I think this will all be fine because they'll also break cooldown timers again like when we could do unlimited manyshot and Unyielding Sovereignty without the cooldown. :)

[MaJiK_13]

This is such Bullcrap!!! How often are they going to change casters? OMG you get used to one way then they change it up again and again. I understand there trying to attract new players but c'mon!!!! Do it one way and freakin keep it. I'm so tired of all these stupid changes. They say change is good but not in this game. If the game was real life situations you wouldn't be able to change things on a whim like they are doing now so W-T-F??? And yes I know it's a GAME but make it at least lifelike as possible. Isn't that what DND was originally based on. Un-changeable magic. DUH DUMMIES.

[Elaril]

Fitting Pic, But..shouldn't They Be Brandishing a Hodge Podge Of Various Counterintuitive Dual Wielded Weapons Because Wizard Staves Only, Generally, Have One Desirable Attribute On Them Instead Of Torches? :p

ftfy :d

[PopeJual]

Since so very many spells are going to be changed, has any thought been given to offering a temporary spell respec vendor for a couple of weeks after the release of U9?

Wizards have to deal with lots of changes and learn how to play their new class once U9 is released, but Sorcerers have to wait 3 days for each spell reset and they have a LOT of spells to reset once U9 rolls out.

[voodoogroves]

If hypnotize, for instance, has a long cooldown requiring someone to prep both hyp and sleep ... well people just WONT or they will only hyper specialize.

Worried about the multiple changes at once...

[Missing_Minds]

How often did you cast a Fireball into a melee in PnP?

In PnP, you have to worry about hurting your party members with your area spells. Additionally, spells did pretty terrible damage compared to the save-or-die and save-or-lose spells that were available.

Honestly, quite often. First strike team was... me. fireball.
2nd part were the evasions, then I see the setup and lob a fireball in the least worrisome region.

Caster willing to throw fireballs, and his own team mates aren't afraid? Got to get that caster. So they would charge and heavy hitters take over.

At the higher levels, via spat boots, take the feat to shape charge it. So I never had issues.
But fireball was hardly my only spell I used also. This was also the last group I was in.

So my own experiences over years... fireball used quite often. Wall of Fire... from scroll once?

[Elaril]

This is the most concerning thing for me with regards to the sp cost changes, especially for wizards.
Spending 25 sp to maximize a 15 sp spell like polar ray is entirely fair. You trade a bit of efficiency for more dps, not to mention there are easy ways to reduce maximize's sp cost with enhancements and items.

For spells like lightning bolt or fireball, or other low level damage spells, heighten could increase sp cost by 5 times, with potentially 0 increase in effectiveness (if your DC is already high enough)

Agreed, would be nice to have the option set meta's to be active on a per spell basis.

[tinyelvis]

..............................

Decent Nuker sorcs hardly used Firewall outside of undead quests anyway, except in conjunction with Discoball at endgame, or on the odd regenerating boss like Taeron Rimond or the Shroud lieutenants. Quicker to throw a DBF/Chain Lightning or two to wipe out a room, then run run run until dungeon alert, then repeat the process.
..............................................

Agreed. Have been trying to point this out to people for a long time. It honestly looks like some developers have been following me around in the game and decided,

"Hey this guy is blowing the **** out of stuff and having a blast....I almost never see him throw a wall of fire. Let's encourage this style of play and make this sort of thing easily obtainable by the masses. We'll have to nerf the **** out of wall of fire or they will never give up their crack and poor slow method of killing off mobs no matter the fun they miss out on though."

I can't hardly say a bad word about any of those changes. I will have more fun at all levels of play in the future.

[Seventh]

I never thought I'd see the day where the forums would whine about something even more than the U5 twf thing, but here we are. The instadeath cooldowns might sting, but other than that I see nothing but good news. Casting nothing but one spell throughout a quest sucks, and that applies just as much to FW while leveling as it does to Mass Hold spam in Epics. Glad to see em both knocked down a peg.

Casters have more options now. A bigger role in Epics. Good things.

And the ToD kiting/aggro grabbing thing makes me lol a little. As has been been pointed out, plenty of other spells to take its place, and that's really just a concern for those who still want to kite in ToD for whatever strange reason- we have better things to do in there now. Burst DPS ftw.

Just let the bard do it, he gets glitterdust.

[voodoogroves]

I never thought I'd see the day where the forums would whine about something even more than the U5 twf thing, but here we are. The instadeath cooldowns might sting, but other than that I see nothing but good news. Casting nothing but one spell throughout a quest sucks, and that applies just as much to FW while leveling as it does to Mass Hold spam in Epics. Glad to see em both knocked down a peg.

Casters have more options now. A bigger role in Epics. Good things.

And the ToD kiting/aggro grabbing thing makes me lol a little. As has been been pointed out, plenty of other spells to take its place, and that's really just a concern for those who still want to kite in ToD for whatever strange reason- we have better things to do in there now. Burst DPS ftw.

Just let the bard do it, he gets glitterdust.

My worry is exactly NOT that Seventh. My worry is that with the reduction in CC, instakill and AoE spells plus the reduced cost and increased performance of direct damage spells casters will not have more options ... other than which element to spec (force, negative, fire, cold, etc.) and spam those.

Bringing Wall of Fire in line? Good. Making other things work in epic, good. As it is though, the cool-down on wail/finger/others, the increase in epic saves, etc. means people are going to be hyper specialized.


Burst DPS is exactly the worry. Wizards will be able to be AM and spec force or PM and spec negative, sorcs the traditional elemental energies ... and instead of options it'll just be cycling through the various rays and burst DPS spells because the others (CC, instakill, etc.) are simply not worth it.

That's my fear right there.


Oh yeah, plus doing whatever random buffing people who don't have pots or clickies need.

[sephiroth1084]

Overall most chances sound decent except one:
Nerfing extend as a feat.

I can see why you'd want to reduce the duration of say wall of fire and other persistant AOEs. But directly nerfing extend by having it simply not function is not a fun way to do it. The idea of the spell pass is to make more spells viable and balanced right? That can be done without nerfing feats like this.

Simply drop wall of fires duration to 15 seconds, and have extend apply. Thus extended = 30 second, as desired. Should not disable the feat simply because the spell is powerful and needs a lower duration.
Or perhaps something in between would be better: 20 second duration, 40 extended.
I agree, and had the same thoughts about Enlarge. Players were already unhappy about Ice Storm's duration being unaffected by Extend, so the devs answer by making more spells unaffected? Then, with Enlarge already being more of a novelty than anything else to most players, they choose to remove its functionality for an entire category of spells? Really poor decisions in my opinion.

As for firewall...you're increasing the cost, lowering the duration, lowering the damage, giving it a save for the one part of its effect that totally separates it from other DoT AoE spells while also improving all of the other nuking spells we have with some combination of better SP cost, more damage or additional effects? I admit that firewall may still be worth using, but it's difficult to imagine how it would be. Can't say I'm a fan of this whole package, though I agree that firewall needed some nerfing. Tacking on the raised cost in addition to everything else just seems...mean.

[Auran82]

As for firewall...you're increasing the cost, lowering the duration, lowering the damage, giving it a save for the one part of its effect that totally separates it from other DoT AoE spells while also improving all of the other nuking spells we have with some combination of better SP cost, more damage or additional effects? I admit that firewall may still be worth using, but it's difficult to imagine how it would be. Can't say I'm a fan of this whole package, though I agree that firewall needed some nerfing. Tacking on the raised cost in addition to everything else just seems...mean.

I think firewall will still be useful in choke points where the rest of the party will be meleeing in the walls space, I agree with others here though, about the only time I kite anything through wall of fire lately is farming scorps at the start of Oob for scrolls, my cleric and FvS can do this fine with BB so I doubt the addition of a save will affect my sorc doing this too much. Most other times I cast WoF is because things are imobilised (danced, held etc) or are in a place where the fighting will be happening in the wall.

[Thar]

I don't understand the making extend unusable? It's already almost useless for buffs. Why remove it for persistant spells? change the cost if you need to mess with extend, but it still should be used.

That being said with all the changes, everyone should get a few free shards to be able to change feats for free. Almost every other MMO that made major changes made some manner of free one time changes to the population.

I'm not saying a lessor rest but free feat change should be appropriate.

[Blank_Zero]

I have only one thing to say about this:

Now all these caster-types understand how TWF melees felt in U5.

[Rodasch]

Cool! So my question regarding this is, when are melee's gonna get a "Second Wind" effect that kicks in when things have gotten hurty and the HP's are low? Yeah, I know, I know, "there's heal pots and clerics for HP", right? Well, there's also SP pots and Divine Vitality for SP.

maybe the same time that those sp pots are as easily available from vendors in endless supply as the heal/repair potions are? I don't know, but if you want to compare the two resource pools based on refillability, at least do so fairly.

[luvirini]

Long comments below each section:


Hey folks! As you’ve probably have already heard we have a major spell pass coming down the pipe. The full details will be released soon but we figured we’d cover some general cases and some the reasoning for the changes ahead of the Lamannia preview. Today we’ll look at the changes coming to spell cost ratios, CC spells, death effects, and spell points… here we go!

SPELL COST TO EFFECT RATIOS CHANGES:

For years now the cost of all spells have been strictly driven by this formula:

Base Spell cost = 5 SP + (spell level X 5).

IE: a level 1 spell is 10 sp, while a level 9 spell is 50 sp, and so forth.

While we got by with this, it didn’t exactly always make for the most diverse spell choices for those people who crunched the numbers to determine what to use. When you looked at the math, folks get very attached to certain spells, namely “wall of fire” for very logical reasons. This is a shame considering the art/dev resources devoted to the creation of so many other spells also floating in the system.


I agree on the limited choises you have currently if you want to be usefull and the low power of some spells compared to their level is a prime reason, not really the spell point formula. The spell point formula is actually good in that you know what the spells costs based on it's level and do not have to do the number chrunching on it. So a much better solution would have been to actually change more spells to be usefull instead of changes to costs.




On another note, it has become a noticeable point that arcane casters are a rather difficult class to get into. The Classic 3.5 D&D concept of starting weak then gain cosmic power. While loyal to our roots we felt that perhaps the current learning curve is a bit too harsh, and we’re looking at making it an easier class role to enter for new players.

So we’re mixing things up! The spell pass was mostly focused on “damage” spells, but does extends into debuffs and other areas to a degree. We’re changing the costs and what spells do and we’ve changed far too much for me to cover it in just this post but I’m going to give you a list of examples to give you an idea of where we’re going…



Actually the base change you are making with the changed costs makes things hader, not easier for new players.




Let’s take some main stream spells with a few “less popular” spells and see what you think….

Old way:

1. Burning Hands ( 10 SP)
2. Melf’s Acid Arrow ( 15 SP)
3. Scorching Ray ( 15 SP)
4. Lightning Bolt ( 20 SP)
5. Wall of fire ( 25 SP)
6. Delayed blast fire ball (40 sp)
7. Incendiary cloud: ( 45 SP)
8. Polar Ray (45 SP)

Now let’s change that too…

1. Burning Hands (down to 4 SP – other stats unchanged)

2. Melf’s Acid Arrow (down to 6 SP – Damage updated to 2d4 + 1 per caster level, duration locked to 12 seconds, now has double range, can no longer be enlarged or extended, ray targeting has been improved)

3. Scorching Ray (down to 6 SP – now has double range, can no longer be enlarged, ray targeting has been improved.)

4. Lightning Bolt (down to 12 SP – now has double range and 50% change to hit each target twice (back stroke!) – targets get an additional save against the back stroke). Can no longer be enlarged.

5. Wall of fire ( up to 35 SP – targets now get a reflex save when they first enter the effect, but no saves against the flames if they remain in the wall. Now only does an additional 2d6 against undead instead of double. Duration is now locked to 30 seconds regardless of level. Can no longer be extended)

6. Delayed blast fire ball: (25 SP/12 sp for trap version): trap cool down increased to 15 seconds, 10 seconds for sorcerers

7. Incendiary cloud (Cost remains 45 SP – Now does 2d4 + 1 per caster level in fire damage, no save. Duration locked to 30 seconds. Blind effect (previously no save) now has a reflex save. Can no longer be extended)


8. Polar Ray (Cost down to 15 SP, range doubled, can no longer be enlarged, ray targeting has been improved.)



Burning hands is still not really going to be worth it, as cone type spells are so annoying to cast with enemies running past you instead of running to you. -> A useless spell will still remain useless.

Acid arrow gets a a pretty harsh nerf, the only usefull levels 2 attack spell at higher levels currently. I guess I will have to switch to some other second level spell instead as the total damage it does will be way low compared to before and you would have to keep casting it. -> Make a usefull spell useless.

Scorching Ray will become fairly usable at levels 3-4 and slightly usable at 7-8 at that cost. ->A fairly useless spell becomes usable for few levels.

Lightning bolt might become usefull in certain special situations at the lower cost, but still in most cases either single target spells of blasts will be better. -> A useless spell remains so.

Wall of fire nerf is going to hurt anyone fire specced a lot and basically again make spellusers fairly useless for total damage at more levels. Wall of fire helps currently at levels 7-12 or so before this change, before spellcaters again fall behind in the total damage dealt as they will run out of spellpoints. ->one usefull spell becomes way less usefull.

Delayed blast fire ball would be usefull after the change if so many mobs were not fire immune and 25+maximise would not drain the 2000-3000 sp you have so fast. Still likely not worth using due to the blanket fire immunities. ->One montly useless spell remains so.

Incendiary cloud gets a slight nerf, but as it was mostly useless before.. ->one useless spell remains so.

Polar Ray.. oh my.. something actually increasing the power of casters in this change.. I am overly surprised. At 15 spellpoints this will become even more a general spell to cast by default.. ->one very usefull spell become way better.




So there is a lot going on here, and this is only a fraction of the changes going in to the spell pass. Essentially the cost of spells are being weighted now much more on their performance, method of engagement and the number of targets they effect rather than the old level-based formula.


• Low level spells that cap early (like burning hands) got discounted greatly.

• Drop and kite AOE dots such as wall of fire are now being treated as a more expensive/powerful attack form as we feel they really should be compared to other damage spells.

• Instant AOE spells got discounted some, to make them more appealing compared to waiting on kiting monsters through aoe dots.

• Single target damage and bolts are getting much cheaper, single target dots are getting cheaper and getting their effectiveness boosted.

• “Trap” type spells got really cheap to hopefully make them with consideration given the prep time they take, but had their cool downs increased to make them not a strict replacement for other in combat AOEs.



If the overall nerf is as bad as above example, casters will again have to mostly become support, where before at certain levels they have been able to give nice damage output. Oh well.. I guess it it time to TR to noncaster.




WHAT ABOUT CC?

Yeah okie, we mucked around with CC a little, and it goes into debuffs some… Here are a few high lights.

• Largely CC costs remained the same

• HD/HP caps we’re removed from most effects (yeah, I guess I should talk about death effects now, but oh, sleep works now!)

• Many debuffs had their cost reduced, and some had carrier debuffs added to them that temporarily reduced will saves regardless if the target saved against the original debuff.

Examples:

Crushing Depair: Cost reduced to 20 SP, now applies a weakn will effect for 15 seconds regardless of saving throw from original effect (will -5).

Touch of Idocy: Cost reduced to 5 SP, Now also weaks foes will save for -5 for 15 seconds regardless of save.

The notion is saving many of our under used debuffs and allow casters to punch harder targets/hit more reliably and get longer effect out of effects with quick re-occurring saves. That’s is if their willing to use a spell slot, and the spell points.


Full details to come, moving on for now…


The will save reduction will help, if it also works in places like epics, at below that a CC specced caster is allready able to CC most anything. ofcourse changes like that will allow non-CC specialists to do CC at need if they know how. That is however not very beginer friendly.




DEATH EFFECTS:

Chaaanngggeeee….

• Costs remained the same.

• We’re pulling the death wards off epic and many pieces of content that had death proof monsters. There have been adjustments to “vorpal” weapons and the like that made us more comfortable with this change. Eladrin posted on these elsewhere if you’re looking for the sneak preview of that…

• Death spells had their cool downs increased, just a little on single target spells, a bit on AOEs. Single target spells are typically on a 8 second cool down, 6 seconds for sorcerers while AOE death effects are typically 30/25 respectively.


This longer cooldown really makes certain spells like wail of banshee likely useless except as special purpose spells. -> atleast one currently usefull spell becomes mostly useless.



• Death spell on save damage was increased, so a blue hexagon won’t be a total waste of spell points, yet there will be more agro. We realize this and currently approve. Attempting to death a monster is a hate-able offense.

• There are some old death spells that got a new look and now their back in town:


Circle of Death: Now effects all targets regardless of Hit dice; Has been updated as follows:


Rains dark energy into an area. Living Creatures are subject to a death effect; getting a reflex save and then a fortitute save to avoid death. Targets who succeed against the reflex save suffer no ill effect, but creatures who success against the fortitute save will still lose 1d4 energy levels.



This might make the spell usefull, except for the long cooldown. ->one useless spell remains so.




Power word: Kill!


Upper hit point cap removed except in PVP. Kills, no save, but spell resistance applies.
240 second cool down for wizards, 210 second cool down for sorcerors



Could be usefull except for that cooldown making it totally useless. ->one useless spell remains so.




SPELL POINT REGEN – Echoes of Power:

We’ll be introducing a limited form of spell point regen for players who have “magical training” (as in the feat). This is to avoid a true “out of gas” situation for our casters. The concept is that when a caster drops below a certain spell point threshold a spell point regen effect known as “echoes of power” applies itself until the caster reaches that threshold again. The goal is to allow low level players continue to cast level 1 spells at a diminished rate when their “out of gas” while high level players will be able to continue to use their PRE-s with the meta magics they normally require for high level play.

Currently in testing… these values are examples mind you…

• Echoes of power will appear when a player drops below 12 SP.
• Echoes of power will allow the player to regenerate at a rate of 4 SP every 6 seconds.
• Echoes of power will remove itself once a player reaches 12 SP or greater.


Could be nice at lower levels.. no use at higher





ETERNAL WANDS:

Not going to go into details here yet but eternals wands got a pass that increased their recharge regeneration rate and added desirable caster mutations.

Much more to come. That’s all for now folks, but be sure to participate in the Lamannia preview once it’s available to try out the changes!

-Torc
DDO Game Systems
[/QUOTE]

Overall that is a pretty big nerf on casters. Currently casters are actually usefull to have in a party at levels 7+, first for damage then buffs when their damage output falls behind melee. With these changes they are still usefull for buffs and certain special situations, but now the total damage output will be lower than melee at all levels.

The cooldown timer nerf on death spells makes them basically useless as a spell you cannot use when needed is a wasted spell slot.

The end result is that the number of usefull spells got further reduced from what it was before, so only CC seems to a usefull role anymore after these changes.

Basically what I wonder is why all this need to nerf casters? I mean they are currently mostly allready way less powerfull than any melee class in most situations. A actual increase in their power would have been more in line with keeping balance.. but oh well.. I hope casters will still be allowed into parties after this.

[protokon]

Regardless of my take on these changes, +1 to Torc for posting these changes in advance (even if they aren't the exact changes that will ultimately happen).