Morroiel
10-31-2015, 11:02 AM
Epic Destinies
Universal:
1) Remove caster levels per core (move to epic level advancement)
2) Change stat bonuses to pick any of the 6 stats
3) Change all SLA DCs to Formula: 10 + Cha Level + Stat Mod + DC bonuses to school
Magister:
1) Change Arcane Adept: Passive: -20% insight bonus to sp cost, Active(100 sp, 3 min cd, 1.5 min duration): Debuff, all spells you use against this target which are not saved refund 50% of their cost.
2) Add Automatic Metamagic Options tier 3/4: with 3 ranks - lvls 1-3, lvls 4-6, lvls 7-9, or 1/3, 2/3, 3/3 reduction.
3) Change Arcane Spellsurge: costs sp (maybe 100), increases spell dcs by 10, duration 1 min, cd 5 min (or 30 seconds, cd 2 min)
3a) Alternative: Add Deific Diadem like buff (+1/2/3/4/5) DC to School for repetitive use
4) Remove Sigils, Replace with Extra Spell (add's a spell to your spell list at appropriate level - tier 1 = lvl 1-2 spells, tier 2 = lvl 3-4 spells, etc) Allow taking from any spell list
4a) Alternative: Keep sigils but drastically buff their effectiveness - overall 1.5X on the numbers, increase duration, reduce cd (put sigils on shared cd)
5) Master of {Spell School}: Keep CL add, change to remove MCL from spells from that school
6) Call Kindred Being: Buff CR / Stats etc - make it usable - summons are in a really bad spot but this one ability above all should be easy to make into a good spot
6a) Make Buffs / Strength of summons' spell like abilities tied to your dc in the spell school
7) Change Arcane Tempest: SLA based off Spell School
7a) Necro: Single Target long long cooldown - save: suffer death's wrath permanent neg levels and big RUIN like damage, fail: death (works on all mobs, purple/red named automatically save but suffer neg levels)
7b) Evoc: AOE force energy burst, reduces reflex saves by 5 for 10 seconds afterwards
Draconic:
1) Dragons Fury: Active: For the next 30 seconds, all your elemental spells of dragon type receive 150% spell power scaling (cooldown = 5 min)
2) Daunting Roar: Reduce CD to 30 seconds, add spell point cost (maybe 50 or something)
3) Dragon Spell Knowledge: Addition: Removes max caster level on spells of that element
4) Secondary Spell Knowledge: Raises max caster level by 2/4
5) Go Out With A Bang: Toggle, Automatically Triggers when you drop to 25% health, gain greater invisibility, diplo effect automatically works on all but red/purple named (cooldown = 5 min)
6) Dragon Breathe Augmentation: 50% chance (does not work on red/purp named) - also allows regen of breathe at 1 per 5 min
7) Dragon Breathe: Additional Ranks lower cd: 2 min/1 min/30 sec
8) Energy Vortex: reduce cd to 1 min, change so that works like firewall, save for first tick, no save for additional ticks
9) Draconic Hunger: When you kill: gain 50 temp hp, 50 temp sp | while draconic fury is active: reduce 25% of spell point cost for spells of your element
10) Epic Moment: While active: gain 100 prr/mrr, restore 1% of damage done with element as hp, gain immunity to element, you benefit from draconic fury even if it is on cd
11) Flyby Attack: (30 sec cd)
12) Barrier of Scales: Gain 50 prr
Epic Feats
Epic Spell Focus: +3 to school instead of +1
Epic Universal Focus (requires 3 spell focus or 2 greater spell focus feats): +2 to all schools
Elemental Substitution: Swaps elemental damage
a) Multiselector: fire, elec , ice , acid
b) Replaces with opposite
c) possibly make it scale with original element spellpower/caster level/etc
d) possibly only partially substitutes, 50% or something
Note: main reason for this is to provide more mileage out of the spell list - for instance delayed blast fireball/meteor swam becomes usable in devil content
Enhance Spell: Removes max caster level cap on spell
a) increase spell cost by 10%
Intensify Spell: Maximum Damage of Spell multiplied by 2 (e.g. 6d6 would be 36*2= 72)
a) probably would want to change to max damage of spell and adds 500 spell power or something to that effect, adding additional multiplicative factors might be too much
b) increase spell cost by 50%
Extra Spell: Allow the learning of a single spell from another list (e.g. a sorcerer learns blade barrier, a cleric learns finger of death, a wizard learns evard's tentacles), the spell functions as any other spell on your spell list
a) alternatively allow at heroic levels but limit it to lower level spells
b) allow to be taken as many times as you want
Epic Spellcasting: Improves echo's of power significantly: regens sp slowly till (caster class level / 2)% of total spellpoints (e.g. wizard level 18, rogue 2, would be 9%), @ 8 spell points every 6 seconds, +1 dc to all spells
Enhancements
Pale Master:
1) Change spell criticals to also increase multiplier by 10, so a max pale master would have 40% crit multiplier to neg energy
2) Change SLAs
2a) Remove them and replace with things like circle of death sla for tier 5, etc
2b) Buff them, significantly
2c) Alternatively, keep rank 3 but make it a single rank and only cost 1 or 2 points
3) Change Cloak of Night - reduce effectiveness of light/repair/ etc by 20/35/50%, increases neg energy amp by 20/35/50 (perm while in form)
3a) alternatively place neg energy amp somewhere - this is the single biggest problem with this tree is that pale master healing as drastically dropped off since changes to healing amp
4) Negative Energy Conduit - increase neg energy amp by 15/30/45
5) Necromantic Focus - (ranks 3) +1/2/3 to necro dcs
6) Change Skelly Pet
6a) Remove completely and replace with anything remotely good
6b) Fix to actually be worth using / both ai and stats
7) Improved Shrouding: Archlich - increases spell pool by 10%
Arch Mage:
1) Change Core SLAs (they do not need to follow 1/2/3/4/5 for spell levels, this is a remnant from the state of slas back when this tree was originally made)
1a) Ex. Conjuration SLAs: 1) Grease, 2) Web, 3) acid blast, 4) evard's tenticles, 5) cometfall
2) Master of Magic: Add to current effects, +50 spell critical multiplier with spells of your school
3) Energy of Scholar: Reduce cost per rank to 1, or double effect per rank
4) Secondary School Mastery: add to current effects, Receive the first two core SLAs for that school
5) Arcane Supremacy: Clicky (90 sec cd, 12 sec duration): +100 crit multiplier, + 25% crit chance
6) Arcane Bolt/Blast: allow metamagics to apply
6a) move blast to tier 4
7) School Mastery II: (ranks 2, cost 2 per) +1/+2, stacking cooldown reduction 10% when using these spells
8) SLA for School (powerful) 3 ranks 1 per
8a) ex. Enchantment: Disco or Mass Hold or Howl of Terror
Add a 3rd Wizard Caster Tree (Wizards shouldn't be forced to be pale masters)
1) Should focus on damage/utility more than spell school bonuses
2) Should provide some way to increase positive healing effectiveness (heal amp, addition of healing effects, positive spell power, etc)
2a) its important to not be mandatory, just an option
Savants:
1) Move tier 5 slas down to tier 4
2) New Tier 5 slas added (2 points, 1 rank)
2a) Air: Eladar's Electric Surge
2b) Fire: Wall of Fire
2c) Acid: Acid Rain
2d) Water: Niac's Biting Cold
3) Spell Pen: (3 ranks, 2 points each) +1/2/3
4) Awaken Weakness: +10% per stack, 5 stacks, 15 sec cd, 30 sec duration, 5 sp
5) Elemental Diversification: If non-force is chosen, remove penalties for using that element while in elemental form
6) Tier 5 Special Ability DC Changes: 10 + Cha/Con Mod + Sorcerer Level + School Bonuses {also allow metamagics}
6a) earthgrab: conjuration (works on all but purp/red named) | cd reduced to 8 seconds
6b) heat death: evocation | damage scales with spell power / metamagics etc | cd reduced to 15 seconds (works on all)
6c) icy prison: evocation | damage scales with spell power / metamagics etc | cd reduced to 15 seconds (works on all but purp/red named)
7) Elemental Form: same except 10% penalty only effects non-main elements (e.g. air savants dont have the cost when using chain lightning or hold monster but do when using wall of fire)
7a) secondary element (fire/water for air savant) can have the penalty removed by elemental diversification
7b) Add Crit Multplier to elemental form: +100 to element, -50 to opposing element
Add a 3rd Sorcerer Caster Tree (Savant doesn't count as 4...)
1) Pref Focus on Utility / DC casting or Force/Non-elemental damage
Spells
Revamp Dispels: deathward and fom provide great counterplay for enemy casters to use but should be dispellable.
Increase Spell Diversity:
1)Level 8 and 9 spell lists are pretty limited for casters
1a) e.g. there are 8 9th level wiz/sorc spells: Mord Disjunction, summon monster, dominate monster, power word kill, wail of banshee, energy drain, mass hold, meteor swarm and of these only power word kill, wail of banshee, energy drain, mass hold, and potentially meteor swarm are actually viable in epics (4 or 5 depending on if you count meteor swarm)
2) Spell School Diversity is pretty low too
2a) Lack of Illusion Spells
2b) Lack of high level transmutation spells
3) High Level (8/9) Damage Spells are effectively all single target non-dot elemental spells
3a) introducing more damage spells to the lists with alternative effects would be immensely helpful
3b) Note zero electric spells exist above level 6 for wiz/sorc
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The above changes might sound like a lot (and truthfully that is a lot of changes) but its only because traditional casters have fallen so far behind.
I'd like to talk about why I proposed the changes I did:
Problems for Casters in Epics:
1) DC issues
2) Damage / SP issues
3) Damage / time issues
4) Lack of Defenses
My changes were mostly directed at 1-3. I believe casters shouldn't have the best defenses in the game. This is an area of counterplay essentially.
Most changes for 2-3 were focused on increasing crit multiplier, removing max caster level, and increasing spell point efficiency against single targets and with certain spells.
Magister changes make it dc oriented (with most of the boosts coming from non-twistable locations), note if you go dc focused your damage / time should suffer but your damage / sp should not
Draconic changes make it undoubtedly the highest burst damage destiny for casters (with most boosts coming from non-twistable locations), your dc suffers in comparison to magister though
Pale Master changes largely are focused on increasing dcs, increasing healing ability
Arch Mage Changes largely are focused on making the slas better, the damage better, etc. AND making arcane supremacy reliable for non-shiradi's
Savant Changes largely are focused on bringing up everything to the modern age (crit multiplier, updated DC formulas, addition of another SLA to tier 5, removal of penalties to sp cost on elemental form, etc)
Feats: largely focused on increasing damage, dcs, and ultimately sp issues - while also providing an option for taking an off-class spell from another list
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Are all the changes necessary? Probably not - you could also modulate the numbers significantly to provide varying results.
I think overall the changes I propose would elevate arcane traditional casters to where they need to be in epics (with dc casters still having issues in certain quests like DOJ due to all red names). However, the numbers I provided for most things (besides cds/durations) were largely done by feel based on my live game experience.
Hopefully, at the very least, some insight for new ideas are found by reading this post.
Cheers
Universal:
1) Remove caster levels per core (move to epic level advancement)
2) Change stat bonuses to pick any of the 6 stats
3) Change all SLA DCs to Formula: 10 + Cha Level + Stat Mod + DC bonuses to school
Magister:
1) Change Arcane Adept: Passive: -20% insight bonus to sp cost, Active(100 sp, 3 min cd, 1.5 min duration): Debuff, all spells you use against this target which are not saved refund 50% of their cost.
2) Add Automatic Metamagic Options tier 3/4: with 3 ranks - lvls 1-3, lvls 4-6, lvls 7-9, or 1/3, 2/3, 3/3 reduction.
3) Change Arcane Spellsurge: costs sp (maybe 100), increases spell dcs by 10, duration 1 min, cd 5 min (or 30 seconds, cd 2 min)
3a) Alternative: Add Deific Diadem like buff (+1/2/3/4/5) DC to School for repetitive use
4) Remove Sigils, Replace with Extra Spell (add's a spell to your spell list at appropriate level - tier 1 = lvl 1-2 spells, tier 2 = lvl 3-4 spells, etc) Allow taking from any spell list
4a) Alternative: Keep sigils but drastically buff their effectiveness - overall 1.5X on the numbers, increase duration, reduce cd (put sigils on shared cd)
5) Master of {Spell School}: Keep CL add, change to remove MCL from spells from that school
6) Call Kindred Being: Buff CR / Stats etc - make it usable - summons are in a really bad spot but this one ability above all should be easy to make into a good spot
6a) Make Buffs / Strength of summons' spell like abilities tied to your dc in the spell school
7) Change Arcane Tempest: SLA based off Spell School
7a) Necro: Single Target long long cooldown - save: suffer death's wrath permanent neg levels and big RUIN like damage, fail: death (works on all mobs, purple/red named automatically save but suffer neg levels)
7b) Evoc: AOE force energy burst, reduces reflex saves by 5 for 10 seconds afterwards
Draconic:
1) Dragons Fury: Active: For the next 30 seconds, all your elemental spells of dragon type receive 150% spell power scaling (cooldown = 5 min)
2) Daunting Roar: Reduce CD to 30 seconds, add spell point cost (maybe 50 or something)
3) Dragon Spell Knowledge: Addition: Removes max caster level on spells of that element
4) Secondary Spell Knowledge: Raises max caster level by 2/4
5) Go Out With A Bang: Toggle, Automatically Triggers when you drop to 25% health, gain greater invisibility, diplo effect automatically works on all but red/purple named (cooldown = 5 min)
6) Dragon Breathe Augmentation: 50% chance (does not work on red/purp named) - also allows regen of breathe at 1 per 5 min
7) Dragon Breathe: Additional Ranks lower cd: 2 min/1 min/30 sec
8) Energy Vortex: reduce cd to 1 min, change so that works like firewall, save for first tick, no save for additional ticks
9) Draconic Hunger: When you kill: gain 50 temp hp, 50 temp sp | while draconic fury is active: reduce 25% of spell point cost for spells of your element
10) Epic Moment: While active: gain 100 prr/mrr, restore 1% of damage done with element as hp, gain immunity to element, you benefit from draconic fury even if it is on cd
11) Flyby Attack: (30 sec cd)
12) Barrier of Scales: Gain 50 prr
Epic Feats
Epic Spell Focus: +3 to school instead of +1
Epic Universal Focus (requires 3 spell focus or 2 greater spell focus feats): +2 to all schools
Elemental Substitution: Swaps elemental damage
a) Multiselector: fire, elec , ice , acid
b) Replaces with opposite
c) possibly make it scale with original element spellpower/caster level/etc
d) possibly only partially substitutes, 50% or something
Note: main reason for this is to provide more mileage out of the spell list - for instance delayed blast fireball/meteor swam becomes usable in devil content
Enhance Spell: Removes max caster level cap on spell
a) increase spell cost by 10%
Intensify Spell: Maximum Damage of Spell multiplied by 2 (e.g. 6d6 would be 36*2= 72)
a) probably would want to change to max damage of spell and adds 500 spell power or something to that effect, adding additional multiplicative factors might be too much
b) increase spell cost by 50%
Extra Spell: Allow the learning of a single spell from another list (e.g. a sorcerer learns blade barrier, a cleric learns finger of death, a wizard learns evard's tentacles), the spell functions as any other spell on your spell list
a) alternatively allow at heroic levels but limit it to lower level spells
b) allow to be taken as many times as you want
Epic Spellcasting: Improves echo's of power significantly: regens sp slowly till (caster class level / 2)% of total spellpoints (e.g. wizard level 18, rogue 2, would be 9%), @ 8 spell points every 6 seconds, +1 dc to all spells
Enhancements
Pale Master:
1) Change spell criticals to also increase multiplier by 10, so a max pale master would have 40% crit multiplier to neg energy
2) Change SLAs
2a) Remove them and replace with things like circle of death sla for tier 5, etc
2b) Buff them, significantly
2c) Alternatively, keep rank 3 but make it a single rank and only cost 1 or 2 points
3) Change Cloak of Night - reduce effectiveness of light/repair/ etc by 20/35/50%, increases neg energy amp by 20/35/50 (perm while in form)
3a) alternatively place neg energy amp somewhere - this is the single biggest problem with this tree is that pale master healing as drastically dropped off since changes to healing amp
4) Negative Energy Conduit - increase neg energy amp by 15/30/45
5) Necromantic Focus - (ranks 3) +1/2/3 to necro dcs
6) Change Skelly Pet
6a) Remove completely and replace with anything remotely good
6b) Fix to actually be worth using / both ai and stats
7) Improved Shrouding: Archlich - increases spell pool by 10%
Arch Mage:
1) Change Core SLAs (they do not need to follow 1/2/3/4/5 for spell levels, this is a remnant from the state of slas back when this tree was originally made)
1a) Ex. Conjuration SLAs: 1) Grease, 2) Web, 3) acid blast, 4) evard's tenticles, 5) cometfall
2) Master of Magic: Add to current effects, +50 spell critical multiplier with spells of your school
3) Energy of Scholar: Reduce cost per rank to 1, or double effect per rank
4) Secondary School Mastery: add to current effects, Receive the first two core SLAs for that school
5) Arcane Supremacy: Clicky (90 sec cd, 12 sec duration): +100 crit multiplier, + 25% crit chance
6) Arcane Bolt/Blast: allow metamagics to apply
6a) move blast to tier 4
7) School Mastery II: (ranks 2, cost 2 per) +1/+2, stacking cooldown reduction 10% when using these spells
8) SLA for School (powerful) 3 ranks 1 per
8a) ex. Enchantment: Disco or Mass Hold or Howl of Terror
Add a 3rd Wizard Caster Tree (Wizards shouldn't be forced to be pale masters)
1) Should focus on damage/utility more than spell school bonuses
2) Should provide some way to increase positive healing effectiveness (heal amp, addition of healing effects, positive spell power, etc)
2a) its important to not be mandatory, just an option
Savants:
1) Move tier 5 slas down to tier 4
2) New Tier 5 slas added (2 points, 1 rank)
2a) Air: Eladar's Electric Surge
2b) Fire: Wall of Fire
2c) Acid: Acid Rain
2d) Water: Niac's Biting Cold
3) Spell Pen: (3 ranks, 2 points each) +1/2/3
4) Awaken Weakness: +10% per stack, 5 stacks, 15 sec cd, 30 sec duration, 5 sp
5) Elemental Diversification: If non-force is chosen, remove penalties for using that element while in elemental form
6) Tier 5 Special Ability DC Changes: 10 + Cha/Con Mod + Sorcerer Level + School Bonuses {also allow metamagics}
6a) earthgrab: conjuration (works on all but purp/red named) | cd reduced to 8 seconds
6b) heat death: evocation | damage scales with spell power / metamagics etc | cd reduced to 15 seconds (works on all)
6c) icy prison: evocation | damage scales with spell power / metamagics etc | cd reduced to 15 seconds (works on all but purp/red named)
7) Elemental Form: same except 10% penalty only effects non-main elements (e.g. air savants dont have the cost when using chain lightning or hold monster but do when using wall of fire)
7a) secondary element (fire/water for air savant) can have the penalty removed by elemental diversification
7b) Add Crit Multplier to elemental form: +100 to element, -50 to opposing element
Add a 3rd Sorcerer Caster Tree (Savant doesn't count as 4...)
1) Pref Focus on Utility / DC casting or Force/Non-elemental damage
Spells
Revamp Dispels: deathward and fom provide great counterplay for enemy casters to use but should be dispellable.
Increase Spell Diversity:
1)Level 8 and 9 spell lists are pretty limited for casters
1a) e.g. there are 8 9th level wiz/sorc spells: Mord Disjunction, summon monster, dominate monster, power word kill, wail of banshee, energy drain, mass hold, meteor swarm and of these only power word kill, wail of banshee, energy drain, mass hold, and potentially meteor swarm are actually viable in epics (4 or 5 depending on if you count meteor swarm)
2) Spell School Diversity is pretty low too
2a) Lack of Illusion Spells
2b) Lack of high level transmutation spells
3) High Level (8/9) Damage Spells are effectively all single target non-dot elemental spells
3a) introducing more damage spells to the lists with alternative effects would be immensely helpful
3b) Note zero electric spells exist above level 6 for wiz/sorc
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The above changes might sound like a lot (and truthfully that is a lot of changes) but its only because traditional casters have fallen so far behind.
I'd like to talk about why I proposed the changes I did:
Problems for Casters in Epics:
1) DC issues
2) Damage / SP issues
3) Damage / time issues
4) Lack of Defenses
My changes were mostly directed at 1-3. I believe casters shouldn't have the best defenses in the game. This is an area of counterplay essentially.
Most changes for 2-3 were focused on increasing crit multiplier, removing max caster level, and increasing spell point efficiency against single targets and with certain spells.
Magister changes make it dc oriented (with most of the boosts coming from non-twistable locations), note if you go dc focused your damage / time should suffer but your damage / sp should not
Draconic changes make it undoubtedly the highest burst damage destiny for casters (with most boosts coming from non-twistable locations), your dc suffers in comparison to magister though
Pale Master changes largely are focused on increasing dcs, increasing healing ability
Arch Mage Changes largely are focused on making the slas better, the damage better, etc. AND making arcane supremacy reliable for non-shiradi's
Savant Changes largely are focused on bringing up everything to the modern age (crit multiplier, updated DC formulas, addition of another SLA to tier 5, removal of penalties to sp cost on elemental form, etc)
Feats: largely focused on increasing damage, dcs, and ultimately sp issues - while also providing an option for taking an off-class spell from another list
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Are all the changes necessary? Probably not - you could also modulate the numbers significantly to provide varying results.
I think overall the changes I propose would elevate arcane traditional casters to where they need to be in epics (with dc casters still having issues in certain quests like DOJ due to all red names). However, the numbers I provided for most things (besides cds/durations) were largely done by feel based on my live game experience.
Hopefully, at the very least, some insight for new ideas are found by reading this post.
Cheers