Lets talk about PM

[Daemoneyes]

hi, i am a PM and disappointed.

playing a PM in pnp may have mislead me somehow but i really expected him (in DDo) to be a Master of Death and Undeath, who seeks out path to immortality

and well, as i woke up with an lvl18 PM, i only see a crippled wizard with spells so limited that most arent worth taking and yeah thats frustrating.
Especially when i see sorc and start to think why the hell do i have so much spells when none of them get the job done?
Some examples?

learning that PM SLA cant be maximized or empowered but all other SLA can

Death Auras cant be emp/max

learning that undeath to death is limited to 4 targets..
i thought my DC was so bad and thats why only a few skelets did fall.. really i was frustrated at that moment i discovered the target limit and since then never use that spell again

learning that undead forms are not doing what the should do
like Fear immune, Piercing immune, critical immune, immune to burning blood and several other spells (seriously i cant cast them on mobs but they on my? gm fiat! nothing more..)

Symbol Death, hell 1neg lvl? thats awefull, awefull weak. why no instakill like circle?

about the wail nerf i cant say much never used the old version but the new CD is killing the fun...

and now even more fun with Poison and Disease immunity removed without a way to cure the stat damage!

also dont let us forget the summons, in PnP they are the butter and bread in DDo they are just annoying and not even annoying for the monster no, annoying for the PM
no way to control them, weak beyond imagination, and so heavy in enhancement points its ridicules
also whoever thought more then 1 summon would break balance should be fired (in lack of better words that arent censored)
even 20 of those skelets would do nothing!



and yeah sorry ended as rant but hell theres so much wrong with this class i couldnt shut up

[Simplesimon1979]

Having death aura Max/emp would be too much.

In form we are immune to burning blood and fear unless they just changed it and haven't noticed yet.

Instantly kill 4 target with 50 SP isn't a bad thing.

I don't mind the new wail ether. Pop it off and kill these two enemies and then run over and kill to archers and then run over and kill two more.

As long as you cure the disease/poison before the timer you won't get any stat damage. Hopefully restore will work in form soon.

[Kakashi67]

Still OP.

Try a bard or a ranger.

[Daemoneyes]

Having death aura Max/emp would be too much.

In form we are immune to burning blood and fear unless they just changed it and haven't noticed yet.

Instantly kill 4 target with 50 SP isn't a bad thing.

I don't mind the new wail ether. Pop it off and kill these two enemies and then run over and kill to archers and then run over and kill two more.

As long as you cure the disease/poison before the timer you won't get any stat damage. Hopefully restore will work in form soon.

why should it be too much?
when something kills me its 90% of the time one hit (and those 1hits are happening way to much...)

well i saw fear symbol above my head after hero was dispelled and burning blood did hit me

4 target for 50 sp is bad, with 50 sp u can kill whole rooms in mere seconds so why the 4 target limit? its not as if u can spam this spell, way to high CD
either unlimited targets or scrap the CD (also u need heighten for it to work later so this makes the spell even worse)

dis/poison working on undead is just so against fluff and logic, i hate it nothin more
also its not as if i have any space on my 10 shortbars left so why make us use more?
and even if, we should get at least +10 on the saves for that stuff
also giving us no way to get rid of statdamage is ridicules (and no, 1 piece people rumor about doesnt count as way to cure) btw there are enough undead who can drain our stats, that makes the missing statrestore even more ridicules

yeah i know even more rant, but i am an old man and we are supposed to rant all day
keeps us movin :p

[akash]

Well PMs are still the master of death, they shine in insta-killing mobs, and none other class can do better than them. I know new poison and disease thing hurts, I hope DEVs should give us a way to remove those effects since we are not dependent on divines. Going out of form to cure and again reforming in Lich will definitely hurt a lot. Also about mastering the undead slaves, I suggest DEVs should give us some new spells like mass enchant undead or things like that. If PM SLA got metamagic effects, I believe Sorcerers will stop playing the game and roll a PM.

[Daemoneyes]

Still OP.

Try a bard or a ranger.

dont see anything wrong with bard, except a few items arent granting the right bonus

never liked ranger but my mecha is doin fine so i dont see a prob with it
also i know lots of ranger who have no probs

[Daemoneyes]

Well PMs are still the master of death, they shine in insta-killing mobs, and none other class can do better than them. I know new poison and disease thing hurts, I hope DEVs should give us a way to remove those effects since we are not dependent on divines. Going out of form to cure and again reforming in Lich will definitely hurt a lot. Also about mastering the undead slaves, I suggest DEVs should give us some new spells like mass enchant undead or things like that. If PM SLA got metamagic effects, I believe Sorcerers will stop playing the game and roll a PM.

well insta killing costs most of the time way to much sp
acid rain or ice storm is more often then not way better

well i dont see PM SLA are OP with Metas
in fact a WF Archmage has the same selfheal and DC and can use Metas for SLA
also they still cost SP for PM, cause the death auras arent for free and without them a PM is really fast more dead then undead

[LordMond63]

First off, if you want to see something overpowered, look no further than a Warforged Arcane.

I'm not jealous- I play one (I'm not dumb, either)- but anyone who says that the combination of immunities and self-healing, with next to no mitigating drawbacks, doesn't make for a character at the top of the food chain is simply deep in denial.

I also play a PM, but it certainly looks like I jumped aboard that bandwagon just before it ran off the track. How, exactly, does one poison or disease something already dead? The main vulnerability of the class is to being one-hit, usually by Light damage. A WF can cast Reconstruct against high burst damage and he's fine in seconds; assuming that we PMs survive the burst damage, we have nothing equal to the Reconstruct spell as a quick-heal, so we have to hide for a bit until our non-Empowerable Death Aura or repeated casting of Negative Energy Burst heals us up....assuming that the mobs will leave us alone that long.

Along those lines.....I've noticed recently that, after I cast Death Aura, it takes a few ticks for it to begin healing me, even though my pets begin healing immediately. Not more than an inconvenience between fights, but it can be deadly during one. I've reported this as a bug, but not even gotten an autoreply as yet.

The pets aren't bad, but there needs to be a higher level Summon- maybe 7th or 8th level- that allows us to call forth an undead equivalent of what Archmages do. I think their summons top out at CR16 or so...I could live with that.

I'm not about to say that PMs totally got the shaft. I play a Bard and I tried to play a Ranger. Both of those classes needs some lubbin' in the worst way possible. But let's call on Turbine to improve all classes to make them all credible choices rather than to ask that some be nerfed to bring them down to the level that others perceive their classes to be.

[-Zephyr-]

Along those lines.....I've noticed recently that, after I cast Death Aura, it takes a few ticks for it to begin healing me, even though my pets begin healing immediately. Not more than an inconvenience between fights, but it can be deadly during one. I've reported this as a bug, but not even gotten an autoreply as yet.

Do you wear spell absorption items ?
Mantle, pale lavender, silver flame talisman ? All those will absorb the ticks of your auras until depleted, because auras are somehow considered dangerous for yourself.

[Merlin-ator]

You want to know why pale masters seem underpowered? Because we casters keep getting nerfed pretty hard. You can blame whiny powergamers for this, as their massive ego takes a hit when they don't top the kill list. "Your Wail is useful and helped me when I was surrounded by monsters. That's OP, please nerf it Turbine!" "You used your firewall and kited mobs through it when you were out of mana and used all of your pots, that's OP, nerf it!"

Like the old Armor Class system, the only people who broke necromancy were multi-TR toons with the best available gear and the best past life feats. Turbine nerfed it anyways, and I don't blame them for it. When babies start crying, you want to do anything to shut them up.

[akash]

well insta killing costs most of the time way to much sp
acid rain or ice storm is more often then not way better

well i dont see PM SLA are OP with Metas
in fact a WF Archmage has the same selfheal and DC and can use Metas for SLA
also they still cost SP for PM, cause the death auras arent for free and without them a PM is really fast more dead then undead

AM metas cost overall SP pool to purchase it's a great loss for an arcane, good WF AMs I know never take a single SLA maybe except the web. If you are worried about sp and dying frequently as PM, then obviously you are missing some items. Get yourself a GS con op, boon of undead, torc and you will be ok.


A WF can cast Reconstruct against high burst damage and he's fine in seconds; assuming that we PMs survive the burst damage, we have nothing equal to the Reconstruct spell as a quick-heal, so we have to hide for a bit until our non-Empowerable Death Aura or repeated casting of Negative Energy Burst heals us up....assuming that the mobs will leave us alone that long.

Have you tried out fully Empowered, Heightened, Maximized, Quickened Negative Energy Burst yet? I know it will cost you a lot of SP but definitely save your life better than Reconstruct. It heals my PM for over 400 hp in a second.

[Rizzia]

My only gripe with being a PM is stat damage, sure if you have a cleric/Fvs with harm slotted they can remove it, but 90% dont carry it. Oh and they cant be bought either, so no-one can scroll you either..well a PM can trade-in for them, but I think thier BtC.
If we could stat damage/poison undead mobs then I wouldnt have an objection, but we cant. So an undead form PM should be immune.

Tell a lie..theres also the light damage. Only undead mobs, that I can remember, that naturally take increased light damage are vampires. Yet all PM forms take increased light damage, and of course the way mobs spells work is different to our own, which results in searinglight spam across 90% of the game, or the occasional sunburst-insta death on a failed save.
In the new content its Divine punishment and while yes mobs version hits less (which it should since we dont have inflated hps) it ticks faster. A tier 1 DP on EE hits for 115ish light dam a tick on a lich form PM (about the same as a tier 2 on EH). I didnt hang around to find out what a tier 2 hit for.

As for limited spells..there are tons of necromancy spells, Not a whole lot do damage, but theres a nice range of debuffs etc.

[DarkForte]

hi, i am a PM and disappointed.

playing a PM in pnp may have mislead me somehow but i really expected him (in DDo) to be a Master of Death and Undeath, who seeks out path to immortality

and well, as i woke up with an lvl18 PM, i only see a crippled wizard with spells so limited that most arent worth taking and yeah thats frustrating.
Especially when i see sorc and start to think why the hell do i have so much spells when none of them get the job done? You seem to be approaching your PM with the mindset of a sorcerer. They play as two completely different classes.
Some examples?

learning that PM SLA cant be maximized or empowered but all other SLA can Again, you seem to want to play your wizard like a sorcerer. Your SLAs are not your power, your high DC spells (and not only necromancy) are your true force.

Death Auras cant be emp/max Max-emp death aura would amount to casting it at 90 + 90 + 75 + 150 = 405 spell power. That amounts to (22-28) * 505% = 111 - 141 healing every 2 seconds, for over 2 minutes, and if that doesn't seem broken to you, I don't know what would convince you.

learning that undeath to death is limited to 4 targets..
i thought my DC was so bad and thats why only a few skelets did fall.. really i was frustrated at that moment i discovered the target limit and since then never use that spell again

learning that undead forms are not doing what the should do
like Fear immune, Piercing immune, critical immune, immune to burning blood and several other spells (seriously i cant cast them on mobs but they on my? gm fiat! nothing more..) Equip a medium fort item and enter undead form. If you get critted like that, I'm calling shenanigans. Also, I've never been hit with burning blood in form, it normally shows up as immune.

Symbol Death, hell 1neg lvl? thats awefull, awefull weak. why no instakill like circle? You can kite mobs through it, to amount for a lot more.
about the wail nerf i cant say much never used the old version but the new CD is killing the fun... Complaining about nerfs you couldn't measure?

and now even more fun with Poison and Disease immunity removed without a way to cure the stat damage! This one I'll have to agree with, it's ridiculous

also dont let us forget the summons, in PnP they are the butter and bread in DDo they are just annoying and not even annoying for the monster no, annoying for the PM
no way to control them, weak beyond imagination, and so heavy in enhancement points its ridicules
also whoever thought more then 1 summon would break balance should be fired (in lack of better words that arent censored)
even 20 of those skelets would do nothing! Summons are weak for everyone, not only PMs.



and yeah sorry ended as rant but hell theres so much wrong with this class i couldnt shut up

Responses in RED

[Burradin]

LOL, hoping the OP is joking as I have solo'd EPIC after EPIC since the expansion and do not even shrine most of the time. To borrow from Steve Jobs (who I never liked), maybe you are holding it wrong.

[Qezuzu]

Palemasters are extremely powerful. Even while they cry bloody murder from the Wail nerf, they're still one of the most powerful classes in the game.

[luvirini]

Basically palemasters are overpowered only if they are overgeared. They are gimps until they get the gear.

I was so rudely reminded about it trying to solo bastion of power on hard at level 19 before update 14 on a wizard that I have soloed elite without any problems at level 20.

The old build that soloed it on elite was a level 20 drow 28 point build with less hitpoints(about 470) and lower necro DC(40) than the two lives later at 36 point half elf level 19 with 550+ hp and 41 necro DC.

After 2 failures I gave up, got my level 20 xp in challenges, leveled up to 20, got my epic gear and went back on elite and completed the elite boringly easily. Even though at level 19 I had both conc op and torc to give me spellpoints back, but the incoming damage was just too much.

I have soloed that same quest on hard with a totally ungeared 32 point build sorceror with fairly big difficulty, but successfully, at level 18, and with a moderately geared 32 point build favored soul at level 19 with fairly small problems.

Also a thing about palemasters is that their selfhealing get to be quite ineffective at higher levels(>20), the burst that heals for 80-150 points just does not cut it when the trash on epic elites hits you for 150/hit and you have 750 total hitpoints.

[sephiroth1084]

hi, i am a PM and disappointed.

playing a PM in pnp may have mislead me somehow but i really expected him (in DDo) to be a Master of Death and Undeath, who seeks out path to immortality

and well, as i woke up with an lvl18 PM, i only see a crippled wizard with spells so limited that most arent worth taking and yeah thats frustrating.
Especially when i see sorc and start to think why the hell do i have so much spells when none of them get the job done?
You are clearly doing something wrong.

Some examples?

learning that PM SLA cant be maximized or empowered but all other SLA can
They never could and it never mattered. The fact is, other SLAs cost spell points, while the PM SLAs cost HP, which you regenerate via Death Aura. They are cheap and spammy, and don't need to deal more damage.
Death Auras cant be emp/max
It never could and it never mattered. The Radiant Servant's healing aura can't be Maximized or Empowered either, as far as I know. Healing for 30-90 a tick, every 2 seconds, is plenty of healing for nearly all situations. If you want to see how OP it would be if that number were doubled, go run some tough content with another PM, where you make sure to stay within aura range all the time. It's ridiculously powerful! No need for it.
learning that undeath to death is limited to 4 targets..
i thought my DC was so bad and thats why only a few skelets did fall.. really i was frustrated at that moment i discovered the target limit and since then never use that spell again
Oh noes! Not killing 4 targets for 50 SP!? Whatever shall you do?! Why are you complaining about a good spell with a strong effect? What spell could you be throwing that does as much for as little? If you're running low level content, nuke. If you're running high level content, your nukes are not going to be killing stuff in one shot, and probably cost more than 50 SP anyway. Yeah, you may be hitting twice as many creatures, but it will take longer, and cost more SP ultimately.

learning that undead forms are not doing what the should do
like Fear immune, Piercing immune, critical immune, immune to burning blood and several other spells (seriously i cant cast them on mobs but they on my? gm fiat! nothing more..)
Some of those may be bugs. Also, keep in mind that you gain some undead traits, but are not, in fact, undead.
Symbol Death, hell 1neg lvl? thats awefull, awefull weak. why no instakill like circle?
Pro Tip: Kite stuff back and forth through your Symbol. Those neg levels add up fast! And neg levels got a boost, and are twice as effective as they used to be (-2 to stuff, instead of -1).
about the wail nerf i cant say much never used the old version but the new CD is killing the fun...
The cooldown could stand to be lower, but it's still very effective.
and now even more fun with Poison and Disease immunity removed without a way to cure the stat damage!
Yes, this is annoying, mostly because they took away the PM's immunity without giving back a solution to deal with their new vulnerability. Finally, a really legitimate complaint!
also dont let us forget the summons, in PnP they are the butter and bread in DDo they are just annoying and not even annoying for the monster no, annoying for the PM
no way to control them, weak beyond imagination, and so heavy in enhancement points its ridicules
also whoever thought more then 1 summon would break balance should be fired (in lack of better words that arent censored)
even 20 of those skelets would do nothing!

Summons in DDO suck. Period. Apparently that can't be helped. It's a shame that a bunch of pieces of the PM has to do with a feature that is utterly worthless, but the solution is to just save the AP. Not that hard.

and yeah sorry ended as rant but hell theres so much wrong with this class i couldnt shut up
Comments.

[Handpicked]

hi, i am a PM and disappointed.

playing a PM in pnp may have mislead me somehow but i really expected him (in DDo) to be a Master of Death and Undeath, who seeks out path to immortality

and well, as i woke up with an lvl18 PM, i only see a crippled wizard with spells so limited that most arent worth taking and yeah thats frustrating.
Especially when i see sorc and start to think why the hell do i have so much spells when none of them get the job done?
Some examples?

learning that PM SLA cant be maximized or empowered but all other SLA can

Death Auras cant be emp/max

learning that undeath to death is limited to 4 targets..
i thought my DC was so bad and thats why only a few skelets did fall.. really i was frustrated at that moment i discovered the target limit and since then never use that spell again

learning that undead forms are not doing what the should do
like Fear immune, Piercing immune, critical immune, immune to burning blood and several other spells (seriously i cant cast them on mobs but they on my? gm fiat! nothing more..)

Symbol Death, hell 1neg lvl? thats awefull, awefull weak. why no instakill like circle?

about the wail nerf i cant say much never used the old version but the new CD is killing the fun...

and now even more fun with Poison and Disease immunity removed without a way to cure the stat damage!

also dont let us forget the summons, in PnP they are the butter and bread in DDo they are just annoying and not even annoying for the monster no, annoying for the PM
no way to control them, weak beyond imagination, and so heavy in enhancement points its ridicules
also whoever thought more then 1 summon would break balance should be fired (in lack of better words that arent censored)
even 20 of those skelets would do nothing!



and yeah sorry ended as rant but hell theres so much wrong with this class i couldnt shut up

/signed

I waited to see what update 14 would be like before buying MotU. My credit card was sitting on my dresser. After playing my rogue and seeing the weird stuff like no trap parts I switched to my PM for the rest of the day. I was so glad I waited. Soon as I saw my PM getting poisoned that was enough for me. Credit card is back in the wallet.

[mwgarn]

My biggest problem with pm post u14 is I spend most of my time standing in my wall of fire or ice storms now.. Why not be a sorc instead...

[doomboy]

when i hard that your symbol of death is only giving one neg levels, i was a little confused. do you mean on a save? or in general? because most of the time, my symbol instakills. but in the end, PMs are still very powerful, especially in the demonweb :D the PM SLAs are very handy, specially as they use HP so you can save SP, not to mention that a cleric can heal you if you are not in form, giving you extra ammo :p
also, PMs are immune to neg levels. take that into account.

if you don't like it, don't play it. that's all i have to say. in the end, me and my PM kick ***

[Kakashi67]

when i hard that your symbol of death is only giving one neg levels, i was a little confused. do you mean on a save? or in general? because most of the time, my symbol instakills. but in the end, PMs are still very powerful, especially in the demonweb :D the PM SLAs are very handy, specially as they use HP so you can save SP, not to mention that a cleric can heal you if you are not in form, giving you extra ammo :p
also, PMs are immune to neg levels. take that into account.

if you don't like it, don't play it. that's all i have to say. in the end, me and my PM kick ***

Symbol of death gives one neg level every time a mob runs through it.

You're probably thinking of circle of death.

[Rawel_San]

A well built and played PM is a force to be reckoned with. Might not be the most OP character in the game,
but it's **** close. I say that as someone who has been playing an end game PM for about 2 years now.

[sephiroth1084]

Honestly, I have no clue what the nay-sayers are about. The last Epic Hard Devil Assault I ran on my PM, I had more than twice as many kills as the entire rest of the party combined. This is with the nerfed Wail, and was in a group with some fairly solid players, all well-geared, and a casting divine chucking Destruction or Slay Living (can never recall which looks like which) and Implosion whenever they were off timer.

If my PM dies, it was because I was being stupid or not paying attention.
She doesn't feel any weaker now than she did a month ago, and looks to only be getting stronger.

[350zguy]

PMs are nasty sauce.

They are stupid powered compared to most classes.

I have a PM, going from "base" wizard to PM, is like gaining 20 levels in power.

Put on an epic robe of shadow, and a few other items, and you're just silly uber compared... The epic D, and past lives, only make it even more silly.

Not that I think they should get toned down. ALL players should feel this uber @ 20... you're 20!!! With epics! You should feel uber.

[Simplesimon1979]

Sorry could resist to show how week Pm's are.

http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae137/simplesimon79/ScreenShot00093.jpg
I know it was only on normal but had to start some were there :)


http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae137/simplesimon79/ScreenShot00076-1.jpg

[Daemoneyes]

Comments.

You are clearly doing something wrong.


yeah maybe
but for me it shows that everything that would be worth insta-killing has DW and everything else is in such masses that only Acid Rain and or Ice Storm bring good enough SP/kill ratio


Comments.

Also, keep in mind that you gain some undead traits, but are not, in fact, undead.


and that is so halfassed that it just sucks,
why would one only want to gain some undead traits?
i mean we are talkin about people who play with life and death, they are simply not the guys who only do something evil a bit...


Comments.

Oh noes! Not killing 4 targets for 50 SP!? Whatever shall you do?! Why are you complaining about a good spell with a strong effect? What spell could you be throwing that does as much for as little? If you're running low level content, nuke. If you're running high level content, your nukes are not going to be killing stuff in one shot, and probably cost more than 50 SP anyway. Yeah, you may be hitting twice as many creatures, but it will take longer, and cost more SP ultimately.


well 50sp are 2 Acid Rain & Ice storm and there are not much enemy's out there who take more then those 3 castings to kill and its not limited to 4 targets and has not such a long CD
actually its more likely that i kill 10-20 targets with those 3 castings after train`ing
also if we talk about highlvl enemys undead to death wont kill anything
cause its DC is way to low, so we need a feat: heighten and more SP which makes this spell even worse


Comments.

They never could and it never mattered. The fact is, other SLAs cost spell points, while the PM SLAs cost HP, which you regenerate via Death Aura. They are cheap and spammy, and don't need to deal more damage.


ah yes i forgot PM heal is free of SP cost... oh wait its not :p (also as mentioned PM heal sucks at highlvl)
also the PM SLA lower youre survival chances so they cost far more then the few SP like Archmage or Sorc has to pay
insofar it would only be fair to let PM also emp/max there SLA

[sephiroth1084]

yeah maybe
but for me it shows that everything that would be worth insta-killing has DW and everything else is in such masses that only Acid Rain and or Ice Storm bring good enough SP/kill ratio



and that is so halfassed that it just sucks,
why would one only want to gain some undead traits?
i mean we are talkin about people who play with life and death, they are simply not the guys who only do something evil a bit...



well 50sp are 2 Acid Rain & Ice storm and there are not much enemy's out there who take more then those 3 castings to kill and its not limited to 4 targets and has not such a long CD
actually its more likely that i kill 10-20 targets with those 3 castings after train`ing
also if we talk about highlvl enemys undead to death wont kill anything
cause its DC is way to low, so we need a feat: heighten and more SP which makes this spell even worse



ah yes i forgot PM heal is free of SP cost... oh wait its not :p (also as mentioned PM heal sucks at highlvl)
also the PM SLA lower youre survival chances so they cost far more then the few SP like Archmage or Sorc has to pay
insofar it would only be fair to let PM also emp/max there SLA
So, like I said, you're doing it wrong..

[Daemoneyes]

You want to know why pale masters seem underpowered?

Like the old Armor Class system, the only people who broke necromancy were multi-TR toons with the best available gear and the best past life feats. Turbine nerfed it anyways, and I don't blame them for it. When babies start crying, you want to do anything to shut them up.

never said PM are underpowered just that its disappointing to play, the just dont feel PM like, it feels just like an week sorc or archmage
u run out of SP fast u dont have anything special (100 fort isnt so special if i still need to slot fort ... immunitys are gone.. oh yeah waterbreathing sure the thing i only wanted when deciding for PM....)

and yeah i am sure with epic gear u can be OP but hell whos not OP with epic gear?
also that stuff doesnt grow on trees so it takes forever to get as an normal player who doesnt want to raid each evening.

[Daemoneyes]

So, like I said, you're doing it wrong..

instead of just saying that i am a looser u could point out what i am doing wrong so that i can enhance my play but i guess thats not an option huh? ...

[Qezuzu]

also the PM SLA lower youre survival chances so they cost far more then the few SP like Archmage or Sorc has to pay
insofar it would only be fair to let PM also emp/max there SLA

This quote makes me think that, not only are you bad at playing PM, but have never actually played one.

The SLA's do not "lower your chances of survival". With Death Aura, you'll be healing whatever damage you do to yourself in seconds. Even if you don't understand the concept of kiting, i.e. "not getting hit by mobs so that most of the health you get back from aura is damage you did to yourself", if the ridiculous low HP cost of the SLA's are killing you, then you're the gimpier caster that I've ever seen.

No, seriously, you are doing it wrong.

[Qezuzu]

\Like the old Armor Class system, the only people who broke necromancy were multi-TR toons with the best available gear and the best past life feats.

This is absolutely false.

[janave]

Palemaster is still one of the most OP classes. Its also one of the most polished of the Prestige Classes.

Seriously if you feel lackful for the class id start looking at how *you*, the player could improve, maybe time to do something else than rotating between wails and fod.

I totally understand the classes that are lacking in power, their cries are just, necros arent one of them. PM is easily in the highest tier freely accessible for anyone joining the game.

The best advice here really is to try something else, maybe a bard or thief acrobat, than switch back to your PM, what a relief :).

[Simplesimon1979]

ah yes i forgot PM heal is free of SP cost... oh wait its not :p (also as mentioned PM heal sucks at highlvl)
also the PM SLA lower youre survival chances so they cost far more then the few SP like Archmage or Sorc has to pay
insofar it would only be fair to let PM also emp/max there SLA

Are you wearing Nullification item. My aura ticks for the high 30s low 40s every two seconds and I've had crits over a 100. Burst gives around 185.

Yes base sp for acid rain is 15 but are you running it with no metas on. When you add empower and maximize your at 53 sp. Wail is 50sp, heightened finger 48, and heightened CoD is 47 at 20 with the wizard capstone

[Daemoneyes]

This quote makes me think that, not only are you bad at playing PM, but have never actually played one.

The SLA's do not "lower your chances of survival". With Death Aura, you'll be healing whatever damage you do to yourself in seconds. Even if you don't understand the concept of kiting, i.e. "not getting hit by mobs so that most of the health you get back from aura is damage you did to yourself", if the ridiculous low HP cost of the SLA's are killing you, then you're the gimpier caster that I've ever seen.

No, seriously, you are doing it wrong.

i am sure U wont get hit when u kite 15+ mobs through Ice Storm
so casting SLA while kiting them wont lower youre HP for more then 1 sec or even god forbid u may get more damage then youre Aura heals so SLA could make a difference

but i am not so uber and still get hit from some mobs when i kite them and some hit real hard after the shield mastery nerf
also i dont have youre uber saves, so disintegrate hits me hard and having 15-30hp more when disintegrate or light damage spell hits me, actually makes a huge difference in survival

[Qezuzu]

i am sure U wont get hit when u kite 15+ mobs through Ice Storm
so casting SLA while kiting them wont lower youre HP for more then 1 sec or even god forbid u may get more damage then youre Aura heals so SLA could make a difference

but i am not so uber and still get hit from some mobs when i kite them and some hit real hard after the shield mastery nerf
also i dont have youre uber saves, so disintegrate hits me hard and having 15-30hp more when disintegrate or light damage spell hits me, actually makes a huge difference in survival

I don't actually have an arcane caster atm, however all the issues you stated would only be a problem on someone who is bad at kiting, doesn't know how to deal with a large amount of mobs, and has low saves. None of these issues are inherent to the Palemaster PrE.

Try a Discoball, perhaps. Or mass hold. Or, you know, Wail them or something. So you take less damage. And Finger the casters that cast light/disintegration. They generally have low fort saves. A Circle of Death will do when there are multiple casters.

Palemaster is insanely powerful. You are simply inexperienced and undergeared.

[Daemoneyes]

Are you wearing Nullification item. My aura ticks for the high 30s low 40s every two seconds and I've had crits over a 100. Burst gives around 185.

Yes base sp for acid rain is 15 but are you running it with no metas on. When you add empower and maximize your at 53 sp. Wail is 50sp, heightened finger 48, and heightened CoD is 47 at 20 with the wizard capstone

dont wear a nulli item atm but a potency 52 with +9
and i have lore items equipped

so yes my aura heals about the amount u mention but its still often not enough with and Bursts are costly
(and yeah got a shield and pierce DR +stoneskin)

i only have Max and with cove dagger its +12 SP (cap would be 11)

and yes i see what u mean but most enemys have DW so wail/circle/fod are not an option and those who dont have DW are weak ones so ae-dots are way better then instakilling them

and those few that are worth instakilling and dont have DW are mostly casters u can snipe before the cleric next to him casts DW

did i mention that i dont like DW? ^^
seriosly way to much mobs have DW, its kinda ridicules to see every mob cast DW when u get near

[Simplesimon1979]

dont wear a nulli item atm but a potency 52 with +9
and i have lore items equipped

so yes my aura heals about the amount u mention but its still often not enough with and Bursts are costly
(and yeah got a shield and pierce DR +stoneskin)

i only have Max and with cove dagger its +12 SP (cap would be 11)

and yes i see what u mean but most enemys have DW so wail/circle/fod are not an option and those who dont have DW are weak ones so ae-dots are way better then instakilling them

and those few that are worth instakilling and dont have DW are mostly casters u can snipe before the cleric next to him casts DW

did i mention that i dont like DW? ^^
seriosly way to much mobs have DW, its kinda ridicules to see every mob cast DW when u get near

Dagger only lowers the sp cost by 4 so it adds 21 sp. Potency isn't that good anymore since the update. Your better off getting one for each element you use. DW realty doesn't get used that much. Clerics have a low fort save so you can snip them with a finger of death before they cast it.

[trespasser]

I do not feel like even getting my 5th life pale master to level 20 at the moment.

Their DCs do not matter much since there are only 3 spells that care for necromancy DC, and wail is a huge 'meh'. Their healing is subpar to the new reconstruct, their immunities are gone. Its so awesome - I became undead and the trait I picked is quad damage from light spells and the inability to cure my stat damage. Oh, and water breathing.

They are incredibly bugged - no spell absorb items, party members killing you at will, very weak SLAs, 600 damage from a lvl 2 spells, getting stat damage.

They don't excel at anything - WF Sorcs, fvs of any kind and even WF wizards take them to the cleaners in every single thing palemasters can do. So I suggest to the OP to make one of those chars. Easiest will be a WF sorc if you want to play a decent arcane.

And let the forum folk that never played a PM say how incredibly OP they are - the players that ever tried them are getting rid of them pretty quick

To those pasting screenshot of 'achievements' - bards and monks are soloing Echrono hard and Edevil's hard, don't pretend you did anything worth mentioning. Character class is completely irrelevant when the content is a joke.

[Simplesimon1979]

I do not feel like even getting my 5th life pale master to level 20 at the moment.

Their DCs do not matter much since there are only 3 spells that care for necromancy DC, and wail is a huge 'meh'. Their healing is subpar to the new reconstruct, their immunities are gone. Its so awesome - I became undead and the trait I picked is quad damage from light spells and the inability to cure my stat damage. Oh, and water breathing.

They are incredibly bugged - no spell absorb items, party members killing you at will, very weak SLAs, 600 damage from a lvl 2 spells, getting stat damage.

They don't excel at anything - WF Sorcs, fvs of any kind and even WF wizards take them to the cleaners in every single thing palemasters can do. So I suggest to the OP to make one of those chars. Easiest will be a WF sorc if you want to play a decent arcane.

And let the forum folk that never played a PM say how incredibly OP they are - the players that ever tried them are getting rid of them pretty quick

To those pasting screenshot of 'achievements' - bards and monks are soloing Echrono hard and Edevil's hard, don't pretend you did anything worth mentioning. Character class is completely irrelevant when the content is a joke.

Why would you pick vampire.

Show a screen shot to back your clam of these solos.

[Fefnir_2011]

Still OP.

Try a bard or a ranger.

Getting really sick of this. Show me a first life Pale Master soloing epic elite demon queen in his korthos skivvies and i'll take it back. But for now, the nerf has happened. The melees got to whine about how weak and feeble they were for long enough, and now developers have given what the anti-magic users asked for, and you still whine.

I'm going to start the rumor that repeater barbarians builds are OP and should be nerfed, because it makes about as much sense. Because the real OP class now is monks/monk splashes with GMoF, who got the old Wail and don't even have to worry about SP regen, they just have to keep building ki which any monk can do forever. So don't give me this BS that PMs are still "da uberest and most needing nerfeded" class.

/rant off from a sick of it divine and arcane player.

[wkavinsky]

Death Auras cant be emp/max Max-emp death aura would amount to casting it at 90 + 90 + 75 + 150 = 405 spell power. That amounts to (22-28) * 505% = 111 - 141 healing every 2 seconds, for over 2 minutes, and if that doesn't seem broken to you, I don't know what would convince you.

Just so you know, the PM enhancements aren't actually granting SP - with my 102 negative SP, i'm ticking for 38-56 on death aura, not, (90+102) -> 192 -> 292% -> (27*2.92) - (33*2.92) -> 78.84 - 96.36 healing :)

[350zguy]

You realize that most of their data on the characters comes from actual game data.

They probably have logs of deaths, wins, losses, kills, and everything else, sugar and spice.

Players complaining about something is nothing compared to a data mining on wail and seeing it has more kills than any other spell in game... and then tweaking it, so it isn't so attractive.

Just like the Wall of Fire nerf of 3 patches ago.

When you can spam one spell, non-stop, and win 90% of every dungeon, the spell is out of whack.

-me

[mwgarn]

DW realty doesn't get used that much. Clerics have a low fort save so you can snip them with a finger of death before they cast it.

seams to be a lot of stuff casting it on the new u14 content.. And toss in necros and undead mobs in the mix with fleshy mobs and wail dosnt hit what you need it to hit.. CoD with it's double saves tends to not work when you need it to the most.. Best bet is PW kill as long as you don't lag and only encounter one cleric every 2.5 min...

And as far as kiting goes, that's all fine and dandy again as long as you don't lag.. Every time I hit a SLA if the mob is to close to me my computer lags and the mob gets a bit closer.. If I switch to a scroll to conserve mana (rainbows ftw) I lag and mobs catch up to me...

And before it's brought up,
dispel is 10+1d20 vs enemy caster lvl (ecl) + 11
Break enchantment 15 + 1d20 vs ecl + 11
Greater dispel 20 + 1d20 vs ecl + 11

So at best greater dispel will work on a roll of 20 against casters of at most level 29.. Ok for epic normal most casters are around lvl 25 that I've seen but not epic hard and up.. It also conflicts with popular spells like gh, true seeing, otiluks, shadow walk, CoD, undeath to death, disentegate, flesh to stone, and reconstruction

[Daemoneyes]

Dagger only lowers the sp cost by 4 so it adds 21 sp. Potency isn't that good anymore since the update. Your better off getting one for each element you use. DW realty doesn't get used that much. Clerics have a low fort save so you can snip them with a finger of death before they cast it.

well i dont have the slots for each element atm so ill use the pot item also its only 20% difference from base spell at my lvl from what ive seen

yeah cove dagger is only 4 but ive got the enhancement line for Max.

Well since ive hit Gianthold and Vale DW is pretty much everywhere and sure sometimes u can snipe them but mostly they are in the back of the enemys and the hose like levels arent allowing much maneuvering

well as i already said its not so much that PM are weak its just that i dont like all those limitations, yes balance is needed but to achieve balance with limiting everything is just bad design (in pnp nobody would allow a GM to master a second round if his balancing is purely made of DW and nerfing Death spells against a PM group but in a mmo it should be ok?)

[sephiroth1084]

instead of just saying that i am a looser u could point out what i am doing wrong so that i can enhance my play but i guess thats not an option huh? ...
I tried, basically, and you told me I was wrong and spouted off a bunch of nonsense.

With Death Aura running, you can spam Necrotic Bolt and Blast to your heart's content. You rarely need any healing besides that, and have Negative Energy Burst for emergencies.

Use Finger whenever it's off timer, Circle whenever it's off timer and you have at least 3 targets grouped up, and use Wail on groups bigger than 4.

Use Symbol of Death to soften up large groups, especially orange named in epics by kiting stuff back and forth through the symbol.

Use AoE nukes to clean up whatever is left if you need it dead quickly, and if not, just spam Bolt and Blast while you CC them in Web/Mass Hold/Disco Ball/Greater Shout.

If you don't have the good gear yet, start working toward it (one of the robes with Boon of Undeath, and Torc are the biggies, but Lion-Headed Belt Buckle and Demon Consort bracers are good too).

Stop whining about your Pale Master being a gimp if you aren't bothering to play them to their full potential.

[Fefnir_2011]

You realize that most of their data on the characters comes from actual game data.

They probably have logs of deaths, wins, losses, kills, and everything else, sugar and spice.

Players complaining about something is nothing compared to a data mining on wail and seeing it has more kills than any other spell in game... and then tweaking it, so it isn't so attractive.

Just like the Wall of Fire nerf of 3 patches ago.

When you can spam one spell, non-stop, and win 90% of every dungeon, the spell is out of whack.

-me

Because arguing and whining on the internet is always well-reasoned and based on factual information....

You could never spam Wail and win 90% of any dungeon. You had to juggle spell cooldowns, know the types of monsters that you'd run into, be able to handle red-names and anything immune to instakills. Not to mention gather the gear and the past lives to be able to hit those kind of DCs anyway. Just ask a sorcerer on their first life how easy it is to solo every quest with Wail.

Intelligent players optimized and worked hard to get to the point where Wail made soloing difficult quests easier. And because you can't nerf brains, they nerfed Wail instead. There will always be a Wail, along with people who whine that they aren't crafty enough to know what it takes to optimize and will whine for some sort of nerf to these brainy people.

[ReaperAlexEU]

A well built and played PM is a force to be reckoned with. Might not be the most OP character in the game,
but it's **** close. I say that as someone who has been playing an end game PM for about 2 years now.


I do not feel like even getting my 5th life pale master to level 20 at the moment.

Their DCs do not matter much since there are only 3 spells that care for necromancy DC, and wail is a huge 'meh'. Their healing is subpar to the new reconstruct, their immunities are gone. Its so awesome - I became undead and the trait I picked is quad damage from light spells and the inability to cure my stat damage. Oh, and water breathing.

They are incredibly bugged - no spell absorb items, party members killing you at will, very weak SLAs, 600 damage from a lvl 2 spells, getting stat damage.

They don't excel at anything - WF Sorcs, fvs of any kind and even WF wizards take them to the cleaners in every single thing palemasters can do. So I suggest to the OP to make one of those chars. Easiest will be a WF sorc if you want to play a decent arcane.

And let the forum folk that never played a PM say how incredibly OP they are - the players that ever tried them are getting rid of them pretty quick

To those pasting screenshot of 'achievements' - bards and monks are soloing Echrono hard and Edevil's hard, don't pretend you did anything worth mentioning. Character class is completely irrelevant when the content is a joke.

i can personally vouch for rawel as a 2 year end game player. he moved on from my light RP guild to a power gaming guild and has taught me a lot of things about DDO and how to play the harder content.

i've seen his PM first hand in many of the lives he's been through and more recently part way through his twist of fate grind.

he completely invalidates the bolded part of your post. its not often i bite on these forums, but that statement was just so false i had to correct it.

[ReaperAlexEU]

well i dont have the slots for each element atm so ill use the pot item also its only 20% difference from base spell at my lvl from what ive seen

yeah cove dagger is only 4 but ive got the enhancement line for Max.

Well since ive hit Gianthold and Vale DW is pretty much everywhere and sure sometimes u can snipe them but mostly they are in the back of the enemys and the hose like levels arent allowing much maneuvering

well as i already said its not so much that PM are weak its just that i dont like all those limitations, yes balance is needed but to achieve balance with limiting everything is just bad design (in pnp nobody would allow a GM to master a second round if his balancing is purely made of DW and nerfing Death spells against a PM group but in a mmo it should be ok?)

i found using a slot to boost necro spells then my hands for other spells worked well. that way my healing was always boosted, and if i had the right stick in my hand my active spells were boosted too.

[trespasser]

i can personally vouch for rawel as a 2 year end game player. he moved on from my light RP guild to a power gaming guild and has taught me a lot of things about DDO and how to play the harder content.

i've seen his PM first hand in many of the lives he's been through and more recently part way through his twist of fate grind.

he completely invalidates the bolded part of your post. its not often i bite on these forums, but that statement was just so false i had to correct it.

I really don't care.
I play a wizard, its my main. Everything a pale master can do, another class can do better.
You can find posts from long time players swearing that the firewall change is a buff. They stopped after they tried it.
You can find posts from long time players saying the vorpal change is a buff. They stopped after they tried it.

A lot of players have evaluated the PM change already, the rest can still dominate stuff because of skill and gear. It will take them a bit longer to realize how much easier they can do so with pretty much any other class. Its back to a flavor build - no reason to do so outside of roleplaying or just trying to see how it is.


I tried, basically, and you told me I was wrong and spouted off a bunch of nonsense.

With Death Aura running, you can spam Necrotic Bolt and Blast to your heart's content. You rarely need any healing besides that, and have Negative Energy Burst for emergencies.

Use Finger whenever it's off timer, Circle whenever it's off timer and you have at least 3 targets grouped up, and use Wail on groups bigger than 4.

Use Symbol of Death to soften up large groups, especially orange named in epics by kiting stuff back and forth through the symbol.

Use AoE nukes to clean up whatever is left if you need it dead quickly, and if not, just spam Bolt and Blast while you CC them in Web/Mass Hold/Disco Ball/Greater Shout.

If you don't have the good gear yet, start working toward it (one of the robes with Boon of Undeath, and Torc are the biggies, but Lion-Headed Belt Buckle and Demon Consort bracers are good too).

Stop whining about your Pale Master being a gimp if you aren't bothering to play them to their full potential.

I have all that and more on top of it. Abbot robes, epic phiarlian cloak (which is still bugged for pale masters), abbot staff, epic green blade, whatever. I still find the performance of a pale master underwhelming. And killing stuff with necro bolt and blast? People keep bringing those up - you should sometimes do the math and see how much damage per second those are(unless you are from the Shade school of thought). Grab a weapon and melee - it can be more damaging with the new to-hit system.

Most people do not even realize that spells like power word kill and symbol of death DO NOT have a save - they are just as efficient for sorcs or 0 DC whatevers. At least you did not bring up the new Wail, I'll give you that. The CC you mentioned is 3 different schools - your DCs in those will be quite a bit lower than the presumably 2 focus schools you've chosen, considering one of them has to be Necromancy. In any meaningful content (if there is any left) that won't work. If we are talking waterworks elite - sure, shout all you like.

The most efficient way to run a Pale Master is to use otiluke/ball lightning/insert pure damage spell here/ on large groups of mobs. Its not sp efficient to bother with instakills except the odd finger here and there. If I wanted to do that, I would play a sorc.

[sephiroth1084]

The most efficient way to run a Pale Master is to use otiluke/ball lightning/insert pure damage spell here/ on large groups of mobs. Its not sp efficient to bother with instakills except the odd finger here and there. If I wanted to do that, I would play a sorc.
A weapon will be better than Necrotic Bolt, yes, but not Blast if you're hitting more than one enemy at a time.

As for insta-kills not being mana-efficient...using nukes...are you using un-meta'ed Otiluke's and Chain Lightning? How many casts is it taking to wipe out 4 creatures? If you have Maximize and Empower on, the spells costs almost as much (if not more) than a single Circle or Wail, which kills the mobs in one shot. How are you gaining more mana efficiency?

Also, you mana efficiency is irrelevant if you're getting to shrines or finishing quests with mana left over. At that point you need to start looking at time efficiency. Most of the time, simply killing a group of monsters is faster than nuking them.

[trespasser]

A weapon will be better than Necrotic Bolt, yes, but not Blast if you're hitting more than one enemy at a time.

As for insta-kills not being mana-efficient...using nukes...are you using un-meta'ed Otiluke's and Chain Lightning? How many casts is it taking to wipe out 4 creatures? If you have Maximize and Empower on, the spells costs almost as much (if not more) than a single Circle or Wail, which kills the mobs in one shot. How are you gaining more mana efficiency?

Also, you mana efficiency is irrelevant if you're getting to shrines or finishing quests with mana left over. At that point you need to start looking at time efficiency. Most of the time, simply killing a group of monsters is faster than nuking them.


The quests throw hundreds of monsters at us - you can't say - look at a single monster, finger is sp efficient cause the sorc had to use more mana to kill it!


Example:

I gather 14 not-too-strong mobs. And that is conservative considering the ridiculous amount of monsters we get ambushing/fighting us at the same time lately. How do I kill them?

Circle - 4, if none of them make their saves.
Wail - 6 if I am incredibly lucky and there isn't a death ward/construct/undead/immune/high fort mobs that make the save. Because according to wail , those are valid targets. Oh, and lets hope none of the monsters move even an inch, because the area of effect is really small too. Then what? You have to either finger each of the remaining 4 mobs if they are not immune or they don't make the save. Thats what, around 30 more seconds? Calculate the sp used. Don't forget circle/finger has to be heightened.

Or, I drop a maximized empowered non-heightened otiluke, then a ball lightning, kite around for 5 seconds if anything is left, otiluke again. Finger the last standing mob or hit it with the awesome slas - it will have a sliver of health left anyway. How much longer did it take me? How much more sp did I waste? Reflex saves are lower than fort on almost all mobs, you do not need to make the spell resistance check, non evasion mobs die even if they make their saves! And that works for 20 mobs too, making it even more sp efficient. No maximum number of targets.


Not to mention that the spells I used can be used again in 6 seconds - for Wail I have to wait a whole minute - most quests are done within 10-15 minutes or so. And on top of that have at least a 100 monster kills if you don't go for conquest bonuses.

Make a test in a quest like Sins of attrition. I did. The playstyle is gone, I just play as a boring dps char. No need to debuff, no need to care for necro DCs much.

[Metaljaw]

A weapon will be better than Necrotic Bolt, yes, but not Blast if you're hitting more than one enemy at a time.


Obviously you have not heard of cleave. And arcane blast has a save which most monsters in epics make routinely either taking no damage or 1/2 damage. Further DW completely negates any damage from PM SLA's.

Face it. PM's took a huge hit because melees whined enough such that PMs are not nearly as relevant. It is back to the old web/hold/dance of update 11ish. And like previous people have said, you need to roll a new PM to see exactly how massive these nerfs really are. Yeah quests can seem easy on my PM that has nearly every item in the game. It should. He's buffed to the hilt. It's like Shade saying he can solo a dungeon with eSOS, epic redscale plate, and a full set of ship/arcane/bard/divine buffs. Duh. The game can't really scale to that power creep well and still be available to 98% of the other gamers. He should be able to or he sucks.

Measuring capability by the elite results in what you have here. A gamer who is not an expert and extremely dissatisfied with a class he wants to play. The game at normal at least needs to be geared towards allowing players to play any class out there. Specific nerfs to slow down power players affecting the entire scope of people playing that class and not just the offending players is BS. And that is all the nerfs they have implemented BTW. Make it longer for me to clear out a room while I wait between cool downs. Like that is fun. Just what I wanted to do, run in circles more kiting thru webs/dancing balls so I can eat with one hand while waiting for either a circle/wail cool down to time out or for ice storm/acid rain to finish them off.

With melees doing 6K to 8K damage per hit on crits this seems a bit of BS.

[Kabaon]

why should it be too much?
when something kills me its 90% of the time one hit (and those 1hits are happening way to much...)


Burning Blood still affects you, but fire/acid resist makes that moot for the most part.

Poison I agree, but it's not like it's terrible.

Lastly 1 hit kills? Con is your friend. (It's not at all impossible to get over 400 hp on a first life pale master.

(Example my Drow PM from 2nd life was 427, 3rd life before Epic Destinies I had a hp of 600, now I'm 765 human)

[LordMond63]

Do you wear spell absorption items ?
Mantle, pale lavender, silver flame talisman ? All those will absorb the ticks of your auras until depleted, because auras are somehow considered dangerous for yourself.

Nope, none of the above.

In doing a bit more testing, I find that the second cast of DA does work, provided I cast it either immediately upon recognizing the first one isn't working or upon its expiration.

[DarkForte]

Just so you know, the PM enhancements aren't actually granting SP - with my 102 negative SP, i'm ticking for 38-56 on death aura, not, (90+102) -> 192 -> 292% -> (27*2.92) - (33*2.92) -> 78.84 - 96.36 healing :)

That is sad and needs to be looked upon. I can relate, since I'm seeing pretty much the same numbers you are at 105 equipment spell power with pale master III.

[Muspellsheimr]

Just so you know, the PM enhancements aren't actually granting SP - with my 102 negative SP, i'm ticking for 38-56 on death aura, not, (90+102) -> 192 -> 292% -> (27*2.92) - (33*2.92) -> 78.84 - 96.36 healing :)

That is sad and needs to be looked upon. I can relate, since I'm seeing pretty much the same numbers you are at 105 equipment spell power with pale master III.


You do realize that the text description for death aura is incorrect, right? It does 2d4 + half caster level, and the numbers you guys are seeing are roughly accurate.

[Faent]

well insta killing costs most of the time way to much sp
acid rain or ice storm is more often then not way better

False. When soloing Epic Hard for scrolls, I tried both methods (on an Archmage). When I used Acid Rain + Ice Storm to drop large groups of mobs, I got 215 kills. When I used Circle/Wail and the odd Finger, I got 375 kills.

Now granted, I wasn't amping my Acid Rain + Ice Storm as much as possible. Acid Rain was Epic Rock Boots amped, along with ToD Clickies and the Eardweller (but my clickies ran out fast). I didn't amp the Ice Storm beyond using Arcane Lore and Superior Potency, along with the Eardweller and ToD clickies. Still, I think it's clear that the instakills are more SP efficient.

In the past two days, I have burned through about two thousand Hearts of Hens casting Acid Rain + Ice Storm. Your Pale Master couldn't quite so easily hold all those mobs I was using these spells on in the AoE's. I was using free Webs on an Archmage to do that. So trust me, the instakills are far more SP-efficient for a Pale Master. And they're also more efficient for an Archmage.

Obviously, to get the most out of them, you have to know how many mobs they will kill, and only use them when you can kill the maximum number of mobs. And you have to get your DC's up there so they actually do the killing. But once you do that, you'll see that you're wrong. If the problem is that your DC's aren't where they should be, well, that's not a problem with a Pale Master.

[sephiroth1084]

Obviously you have not heard of cleave. On a wizard?
And arcane blast has a save which most monsters in epics make routinely either taking no damage or 1/2 damage. Further DW completely negates any damage from PM SLA's. Death Ward doesn't come up that often, and while Necrotic Blast has a save for half, I don't find it especially relevant--I have high DCs, and it's FREE.

If I need to kill a big group and for some reason I'm not using insta-kills (they are orange named, immune to death effects, but not negative energy), I throw down a Web or Disco Ball, drop an Ice Storm, and jump-cast-circle close around the group, hitting the most dangerous target with Bolt, getting them all with Blast, and making sure to keep within Aura distance so the ticks of that are contributing to the damage.

It's slow, but super-cheap. If I'm not soloing, and am grouped with melees, it isn't all that slow, because while I'm doing that, they're beating on the CC'ed mobs. Sometimes I'll use a Mass Hold if I want to speed things up. When monsters get to the point where 1-3 nukes isn't going to kill them, this is more mana efficient. When it gets to the point where 2 nukes won't kill them, insta-kills are usually more mana efficient, unless you're grabbing a dozen monsters and hitting them all with your nukes, and even then, if you're spending more than ~150 SP in nuking, you probably should have been insta-killing them (CoD, Wail, Finger costs less than that and will usually take out 11 monsters).


Face it. PM's took a huge hit because melees whined enough such that PMs are not nearly as relevant. It is back to the old web/hold/dance of update 11ish. And like previous people have said, you need to roll a new PM to see exactly how massive these nerfs really are. Yeah quests can seem easy on my PM that has nearly every item in the game. It should. He's buffed to the hilt. It's like Shade saying he can solo a dungeon with eSOS, epic redscale plate, and a full set of ship/arcane/bard/divine buffs. Duh. The game can't really scale to that power creep well and still be available to 98% of the other gamers. He should be able to or he sucks.

Measuring capability by the elite results in what you have here. A gamer who is not an expert and extremely dissatisfied with a class he wants to play. The game at normal at least needs to be geared towards allowing players to play any class out there. Specific nerfs to slow down power players affecting the entire scope of people playing that class and not just the offending players is BS. And that is all the nerfs they have implemented BTW. Make it longer for me to clear out a room while I wait between cool downs. Like that is fun. Just what I wanted to do, run in circles more kiting thru webs/dancing balls so I can eat with one hand while waiting for either a circle/wail cool down to time out or for ice storm/acid rain to finish them off.

With melees doing 6K to 8K damage per hit on crits this seems a bit of BS.
People were whining about the same thing when Amrath came out. Even well geared people couldn't insta-kill anything without prep. You have Epic Normal if you're really way undergeared, though even Epic Hard is rather laughable. If you can't insta-kill stuff, prep it first. Our tools for preping have gotten better. It's not mana efficient, but then there is supposed to be a difference between a well-geared character and a poorly-geared character. And honestly, if you were undergeared before, the new Wail is probably more helpful to you. Previously, you would throw a Wail, and half the mobs would survive (or more), then 30 seconds later you'd try again, and maybe net the same results, or worse. Now, Wail will at least prep stuff for you if your DC isn't high enough, making it easier to CC or Finger them. Magister gives you another preping tool (I'm not thrilled with it).

I never see newb casters using preping tools, yet they go complain that they can't play their character. Use Crushing Despair, Use Enervation and/or Energy Drain, use Symbol of Death and/or Symbol of Pain. If you're in a mediocre group on the whole, try to work with the melees that have Improved Sunder or Wounding weapons.

[Faent]

On a wizard?

Maybe so. Wizards can hit Epic mobs now. Easily. Everyone can hit Epic mobs now. Turbine catered to mediocrity, and made it trivial for anyone to hit anything. I don't know if wizards can hit stuff with weapons in Epic Elite, but in Epic Hard, I never see any misses. And if I'm running Challenges @ level 30, I still hit Epic Mobs with my Staff of the Petitioner 90% of of the time.

Casters should look into picking up decent weapons now. For reals. The idiotic changes to combat seriously boosted their ability to deal melee damage. Oh, and that melee damage is boosted by Holds. We don't quite have the Dreamspitter days back, but it's close.

[Daemoneyes]

Burning Blood still affects you, but fire/acid resist makes that moot for the most part.

Poison I agree, but it's not like it's terrible.

Lastly 1 hit kills? Con is your friend. (It's not at all impossible to get over 400 hp on a first life pale master.

(Example my Drow PM from 2nd life was 427, 3rd life before Epic Destinies I had a hp of 600, now I'm 765 human)

Well buffed i have around 360hp at lvl18 without toughness item, yes could be more but it was only the second char in ddo i made and at that time i had more a pnp mindset then a hp is king mindset.

But even if i had 430hp i would still get instakilled all the time
When u get hit for 600+ from lightspells and 500+ disintegrate having 400hp is meaningless
and thats with 32 reflex safe, dunno fort save atm but its also not so bad
still i fail almost every safe...

and thats ridicules, even on heroic hard u get hit for 400+ light
not really what i would say balanced

[Rawel_San]

Maybe so. Wizards can hit Epic mobs now. Easily. Everyone can hit Epic mobs now. Turbine catered to mediocrity, and made it trivial for anyone to hit anything. I don't know if wizards can hit stuff with weapons in Epic Elite, but in Epic Hard, I never see any misses. And if I'm running Challenges @ level 30, I still hit Epic Mobs with my Staff of the Petitioner 90% of of the time.

Casters should look into picking up decent weapons now. For reals. The idiotic changes to combat seriously boosted their ability to deal melee damage. Oh, and that melee damage is boosted by Holds. We don't quite have the Dreamspitter days back, but it's close.

The reason you don't see misses is because if you now have a weapon you're proficient in equipped you only miss
on a 1. On everything else you get at least a grazing hit. That said on decent mobs you will definitely
see many grazing hits it has actually become somewhat harder getting to hit on a 2 now with the new
combat changes since every +1 to hit usually means between 0.7-2 % depending on the mobs ac.

[sephiroth1084]

Maybe so. Wizards can hit Epic mobs now. Easily. Everyone can hit Epic mobs now. Turbine catered to mediocrity, and made it trivial for anyone to hit anything. I don't know if wizards can hit stuff with weapons in Epic Elite, but in Epic Hard, I never see any misses. And if I'm running Challenges @ level 30, I still hit Epic Mobs with my Staff of the Petitioner 90% of of the time.

Casters should look into picking up decent weapons now. For reals. The idiotic changes to combat seriously boosted their ability to deal melee damage. Oh, and that melee damage is boosted by Holds. We don't quite have the Dreamspitter days back, but it's close.
While some of that may be true, I'd not dump two feats on Power Attack and Cleave. Meleeing might be better single target DPS than cycling Bolt and Blast, but it isn't going to be better AoE DPS, and meleeing + Blast feels like it just slows both down.

[thakorian]

So did ya guys try the expansion drows on epic elite? Fun being a dc caster, isn't it. Oddly they seem to have much lower will saves than fort, I wonder why...

Better load up haste, rage and holds and grab a few dreadnaughts with ya, or alternatively just grab a few sorcs and pike at the entrance.

[deahamlet]

Well buffed i have around 360hp at lvl18 without toughness item, yes could be more but it was only the second char in ddo i made and at that time i had more a pnp mindset then a hp is king mindset.

But even if i had 430hp i would still get instakilled all the time
When u get hit for 600+ from lightspells and 500+ disintegrate having 400hp is meaningless
and thats with 32 reflex safe, dunno fort save atm but its also not so bad
still i fail almost every safe...

and thats ridicules, even on heroic hard u get hit for 400+ light
not really what i would say balanced
Were you not complaining about epics? And you're not even 20?!

There is a well known issue right now with elite casters and traps doing far too much damage.
And FYI Amrath elites are about one of the hardest quests, even pre u14 a lot of epics were easier than Amrath elites.

I releveled my wizard and I see no issues. She hasn't even used metas all that much and FoD, cod, wail are more than plenty. When there is a lot of weak enemies, acid rain in cc, otherwise wail, cod, FoD. I don't see a huge issue with the wail nerf but then again I was never one to run around and gather 14+ enemies... just not my style. 10 enemies at once, mostly killed from afar, then cc-Ed anything getting close and then see what I have available to kill them with.

My sorc is unbelievably op at the moment with her draconic at almost max. But my wizard was and still is more resilient (even as an elf now) and a lot more efficient despite 1000 sp difference. I can't wait to be back at 20.

And never let a cleric enemy survive longer than 2 seconds of it being within range. Same with bards (they suck! Lol).

I don't think wail change was particularly awesome, but I don't feel like wizards are so weak. Yes, I'll be honest with you... You want complete domination? WF ice savant with some past lives. You will murder everything in sight at 25 and reliably heal. Want power but a bit of a "living on the edge of death"? Play human ice savant.
Want fun, flexibility and still an ungodly amount of power? Oh and good self-sufficiency? Fleshy pale master.

If you want to complain... complain about classes that did get nerfed by changes, by stealth nerfs and new incompatible content? Welcome to FvS. And clerics to some extent. You can't kite very, well, only one instakill that you have room for feats for, 2 that you have no feats for... Lame single target spells other than a dot... Nerfed cannon... If you go melee the best devotion, impulse, radiance is on weapons so you're screwed... You have to fit empower heal amongst a very small list of feats or else you are beyond sub levels on healing compared to pre u14 because your spell power is cut in half and heal does not heighten anymore. Oh and a very lame destiny.

Oh or artificers who focus on ranged dmg but must start with caster destinies and drag through dreadnought and maybe some have zero interest in shadow dancer but must go through that too.
Or rangers who have been very unloved in general and now there's the nerf to metas that they kind of need for heals... Like paladins.
Or any caster melee like divines or quirky sorc combos that start far from what destiny their build may need.
There are far likelier candidates for woe is me... And this comes from someone who mostly plays casters. Wizards are okay. If they listen to shade some more we are going to be f-ed but we are okay for now.

[doomboy]

tbh, for some reason my CoD isn't really killing those many people :(
not sure why. btw, if you have got the expac, a true beut of a weapon is the staff of the necromancer, and end reward from the 2nd chain. it gives a wonderful +3 to your necromancy DCs

[azmodeus1]

oh!...the op was serious?

53 necro dc does not leave me disapointed with my pm. and i took epic spell pen, don't have a +4 tome or all the fate points to slot in extra int for more dc.

[gerardIII]

hi, i am a PM and disappointed.

playing a PM in pnp may have mislead me somehow but i really expected him (in DDo) to be a Master of Death and Undeath, who seeks out path to immortality

and well, as i woke up with an lvl18 PM, i only see a crippled wizard with spells so limited that most arent worth taking and yeah thats frustrating.
Especially when i see sorc and start to think why the hell do i have so much spells when none of them get the job done?
Some examples?

learning that PM SLA cant be maximized or empowered but all other SLA can

Death Auras cant be emp/max

learning that undeath to death is limited to 4 targets..
i thought my DC was so bad and thats why only a few skelets did fall.. really i was frustrated at that moment i discovered the target limit and since then never use that spell again

learning that undead forms are not doing what the should do
like Fear immune, Piercing immune, critical immune, immune to burning blood and several other spells (seriously i cant cast them on mobs but they on my? gm fiat! nothing more..)

Symbol Death, hell 1neg lvl? thats awefull, awefull weak. why no instakill like circle?

about the wail nerf i cant say much never used the old version but the new CD is killing the fun...

and now even more fun with Poison and Disease immunity removed without a way to cure the stat damage!

also dont let us forget the summons, in PnP they are the butter and bread in DDo they are just annoying and not even annoying for the monster no, annoying for the PM
no way to control them, weak beyond imagination, and so heavy in enhancement points its ridicules
also whoever thought more then 1 summon would break balance should be fired (in lack of better words that arent censored)
even 20 of those skelets would do nothing!



and yeah sorry ended as rant but hell theres so much wrong with this class i couldnt shut up

That's why I am not playing my multi TR epic geared Palemaster, but my 1st life no gear Favored soul who I capped to 25.

[Scraap]

Thing about PMs from a design standpoint is what works is very binary, and the side-benefits scale poorly at present, so if you've got the DCs you're golden, and if you don't, you're generic wiz #5. Makes em pretty balance-sensitive.

Is a tricked out one a beast? Can be, if you bring the right tools. Anything less becomes more and more apparent the further away you are.

[azmodeus1]

sorry theres no excuse to not have a workable dc on a palemaster now, int spidersilks, int trinket, staff of the necromancer, maigster dc's.

if you're having trouble with your palemaster its not the class.

all of those can be aquired in a day, or a week if you only play weekends.

[Kakashi67]

That's why I am not playing my multi TR epic geared Palemaster, but my 1st life no gear Favored soul who I capped to 25.

But favored souls are gimp now too....or so I've heard.

[DarkForte]

well i dont have the slots for each element atm so ill use the pot item also its only 20% difference from base spell at my lvl from what ive seen

yeah cove dagger is only 4 but ive got the enhancement line for Max.

Well since ive hit Gianthold and Vale DW is pretty much everywhere and sure sometimes u can snipe them but mostly they are in the back of the enemys and the hose like levels arent allowing much maneuvering

well as i already said its not so much that PM are weak its just that i dont like all those limitations, yes balance is needed but to achieve balance with limiting everything is just bad design (in pnp nobody would allow a GM to master a second round if his balancing is purely made of DW and nerfing Death spells against a PM group but in a mmo it should be ok?)

If you leave them alive long enough to cast DW it's your own fault. No clerical mobs spawn with DW on them. That's why you kill them first, before they DW/FoM themselves. Calling mobs that buff themselves with spells they should have on their spell lists an example of bad design is silly. What sane cleric wouldn't cast DW when confronted with a lich?

[elkorm]

sorry theres no excuse to not have a workable dc on a palemaster now, int spidersilks, int trinket, staff of the necromancer, maigster dc's.

if you're having trouble with your palemaster its not the class.

all of those can be aquired in a day, or a week if you only play weekends.

This

[350zguy]

Mobs don't even agro if you finger one of them in a group.

Start with the rogues and work you way up...

Finger, finger, finger, finger, finger... Oh look. I killed 5 mobs at range, and none of them even took note they were dying one at a time.

I'm a PM assassin!!

I think I was at a mid 40s DC without trying... I had a 44 int I think? so that is +17, then the ED line for +3, then +2 for feats, +7 for spell level, + 2 for item, +10 base. So lets add that up... 41? I may have been 42, can't remember.

Anyway, a 42 DC works pretty well up till about 23 dungeons.

Even on failed saves, I'm seeing up to 600 damage. So, it's not a total loss no matter how you slice it.

[wkavinsky]

You do realize that the text description for death aura is incorrect, right? It does 2d4 + half caster level, and the numbers you guys are seeing are roughly accurate.

Source please.

Here's mine: DDO Compendium (http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Spell:Death_Aura)
Wiki (http://ddowiki.com/page/Death_Aura)

[Xynot2]

Let's not talk about one of the most OP classes. It's about time they got nerfed.

[PopeJual]

I tried, basically, and you told me I was wrong and spouted off a bunch of nonsense.

With Death Aura running, you can spam Necrotic Bolt and Blast to your heart's content. You rarely need any healing besides that, and have Negative Energy Burst for emergencies.

Use Finger whenever it's off timer, Circle whenever it's off timer and you have at least 3 targets grouped up, and use Wail on groups bigger than 4.

Use Symbol of Death to soften up large groups, especially orange named in epics by kiting stuff back and forth through the symbol.

Use AoE nukes to clean up whatever is left if you need it dead quickly, and if not, just spam Bolt and Blast while you CC them in Web/Mass Hold/Disco Ball/Greater Shout.

If you don't have the good gear yet, start working toward it (one of the robes with Boon of Undeath, and Torc are the biggies, but Lion-Headed Belt Buckle and Demon Consort bracers are good too).

Stop whining about your Pale Master being a gimp if you aren't bothering to play them to their full potential.

I was going to make a long post explaining how to play a Pale Master, but this is pretty much exactly it. Here are a few more tips.

Symbol of Death is not needed if your DCs are good enough to take enemies out. If your DCs are not good enough for the specific enemies you want to kill (and many enemies have good Reflex or Fort saves, so even if you're well geared, you might still need it), then run them through the Symbol of Death *mutiple times*. You can usually get melee enemies to run through a circle 4 or 5 times before it expires. Then hit them with Heightened Circle of Death to wipe them out. Any leftover enemies can either be taken down with Wail or with Acid Fog + Ice Storm or Acid Fog + Wall of Fire. You can throw down a Symbol of Death long before a fight starts if you know that a fight is coming. Symbols only last 30 seconds once they've been triggered, but they last 5 minutes while they're "waiting". In some quests, you can throw down a Symbol of Death and then let the cooldown finish before triggering the fight so that you have a second Symbol of Death ready as soon as the first one's 30 second clock expires.

Single enemies that you can't isntakill (mostly just bigger red names) can be taken out with Eldar's and Niacs. Throw down an Acid Fog + Ice Storm or Acid Fog + Wall of Fire if the boss has melee trash protecting it.

Symbol of Persuasion and Mass Charm Monster can tie up large number of enemies that you don't have to fight for a quest completion. If you're in a party, then only use this tactic if you're with people who are smart enough to run past charmed enemies (and uncharmed enemies that are aggroed on the pink hats as well) instead of demanding that you uncharm the enemies so they can be killed.

Slap on the Mabar docent/robe when you hit 20 for temporary HP procs that make you effectively immortal in many quests even without Death Aura.

Finger trash and orange Cleric enemies before they aggro on you/your party in order to keep them from throwing down a Death Ward/Mass Death Ward.

Make sure that you're the first party member in a room when possible since you can take a hit better than most of your fellow party members. *special note: this is not reccomended in Running With The Devils!*

Undead and Warforged enemies are harder for you to kill than most other enemies because you can't debuff them as easily. Just throw Undeath to Death or Circle of Death as appropriate and let Acid Fog + Ice Storm or Acid Fog + Wall of Fire take care of anything that survives.

Last piece of advice: see my sig.