Rant about OP warlocks and some balancing issues

[Sanader]

Hi all. Here I am, writing while in another party full of warlocks and repeaters.

First of all, what brainless monkey made the warlock spell list? I'd trade my whole wizard spellbook for a warlock spellbook. Warlocks have more dathspells than my PM? More buffs that my wizard? And they don't waste SP on nuking so they can use them more often? What the heck? Don't get me started on that tentacles. Why the hell arent those in wizard spellbook?

Okay, now when that's out the way, WHERE ARE SPELL POINTS? You decide to reduce spell's nuking damage by 80% in reaper mod and give wizards what? Those little souls that whole party fight over and usually warlocks take cause they are in melee range?

One might say: well wizards and soeerceres can nuke for more damage with all the metas. REALLY? I ran R3 (higher would be even worse) and I NEVER had my metas on. They eat to much SP. METAS are only good for spell like abaliies (btw, warlock spell like abalities >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all wizard nuking spells).

And for the end: WHERE ARE MELEES? Whos idea was to introduce a fighter feat that gives 3prr??? Well actually, idea is fine. Here is my opinion how to fix barb, paladin and fighter tanking: give them 4 feats (with lvl requirment): lvl 6 = +30 prr, lvl 12 = 60 PRR, lvl 18 = +90PRR. They all STACK!

Thank you for reading and for gods sake: nerf warlocks already (not their damage, they just can do eveything that other classes can do but better. Better tank, betetr CC; better insta kills, betetr buffs, better scrollhealing. Like ***). Fix SP usage. Noone wants to play a CC bot. Warlock can be a CC bot and nuke. I advice to cut meta cost by half and cost of CC spells by 75%. Don't forget to add tentacles to wizard spell list.
And give those melees some feats so they can survive (if they chose survivability route).

P.S. Some people say CCing is quite easy and that SSG should increase the primary mob saves, so more CC spells are used. My awnser: Yeah right, I have no betetr thing to do than using 3 quicked and heightend spells on a group of 7 mobs. Infinite SP or remove SP cost from CC spells and ill sign that idea.

[meleehater]

https://optclean.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Popcorn-Time.jpg

[Six_Gun]

So much fail in one post.

This has got to be satire right?

[nokowi]

Okay, now when that's out the way, WHERE ARE SPELL POINTS?

Warlocks are supposed to have unlimited use of many of their abilities in 3.5. Giving them something unique is important, as long as such a benefit comes with enough costs to make the class choice important.

Your question should be about the trade-offs of Wizard (or Sorcerer) vs Warlock if that difference is your concern.

[Livmo]

Warlocks are supposed to have unlimited use of many of their abilities in 3.5. Giving them something unique is important, as long as such a benefit comes with enough costs to make the class choice important.

Your question should be about the trade-offs of Wizard (or Sorcerer) vs Warlock if that difference is your concern.

Wizards and Sorcs have not had their balance pass yet. Warlocks are not OP, but rather Wizards and Sorcs have not been rebalanced, yet, for today's game envirionment. Warlocks came out in the modern state of the game.

Of course after artficer please and ty on those passes.

[FranOhmsford]

Wizards and Sorcs have not had their balance pass yet. Warlocks are not OP, but rather Wizards and Sorcs have not been rebalanced, yet, for today's game envirionment. Warlocks came out in the modern state of the game.

Of course after artficer please and ty on those passes.

Exactly!

Wizard especially is weak in today's game - It's still better than Cleric, FvS and Artificer but that's not saying much!

Sorc isn't so bad but it too hasn't had a pass and needs one - It's just going to be last because Wizard, Cleric, Soul and Arti {possibly Druid too} need their passes first - Sorc is the least bad of the classes that haven't had their passes.

[Livmo]

Exactly!

Wizard especially is weak in today's game - It's still better than Cleric, FvS and Artificer but that's not saying much!

Sorc isn't so bad but it too hasn't had a pass and needs one - It's just going to be last because Wizard, Cleric, Soul and Arti {possibly Druid too} need their passes first - Sorc is the least bad of the classes that haven't had their passes.

For added value on the Sorcs I've been running either Bladeforgered or PDK. I do hope they go thru wizard before sorc.

[Chai]

How does nerfing warlocks (or anything else people want nerfed when its the FOTM) stop melee from being one shot killed? Do we want more contributors or less contributors?

[LT218]

Hi all. Here I am, writing while in another party full of warlocks and repeaters.

First of all, what brainless monkey made the warlock spell list? I'd trade my whole wizard spellbook for a warlock spellbook. Warlocks have more dathspells than my PM? More buffs that my wizard? And they don't waste SP on nuking so they can use them more often? What the heck? Don't get me started on that tentacles. Why the hell arent those in wizard spellbook?

Okay, now when that's out the way, WHERE ARE SPELL POINTS? You decide to reduce spell's nuking damage by 80% in reaper mod and give wizards what? Those little souls that whole party fight over and usually warlocks take cause they are in melee range?

One might say: well wizards and soeerceres can nuke for more damage with all the metas. REALLY? I ran R3 (higher would be even worse) and I NEVER had my metas on. They eat to much SP. METAS are only good for spell like abaliies (btw, warlock spell like abalities >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all wizard nuking spells).

And for the end: WHERE ARE MELEES? Whos idea was to introduce a fighter feat that gives 3prr??? Well actually, idea is fine. Here is my opinion how to fix barb, paladin and fighter tanking: give them 4 feats (with lvl requirment): lvl 6 = +30 prr, lvl 12 = 60 PRR, lvl 18 = +90PRR. They all STACK!

Thank you for reading and for gods sake: nerf warlocks already (not their damage, they just can do eveything that other classes can do but better. Better tank, betetr CC; better insta kills, betetr buffs, better scrollhealing. Like ***). Fix SP usage. Noone wants to play a CC bot. Warlock can be a CC bot and nuke. I advice to cut meta cost by half and cost of CC spells by 75%. Don't forget to add tentacles to wizard spell list.
And give those melees some feats so they can survive (if they chose survivability route).

P.S. Some people say CCing is quite easy and that SSG should increase the primary mob saves, so more CC spells are used. My awnser: Yeah right, I have no betetr thing to do than using 3 quicked and heightend spells on a group of 7 mobs. Infinite SP or remove SP cost from CC spells and ill sign that idea.
2015 and 2016 called and would like their posts back please. The warlock horse is getting really moldy at this point.

Reaper is a completely different paradigm for DDO. Why would you expect that all the builds which worked well in non-Reaper would automatically work well in something that changes as many of the rules as Reaper does? When Reaper went live, a lot of my guild rerolled or TRd into builds specifically designed for Reaper. Funny thing is, none of them are warlocks but they run end-game 6-skull+ on a daily basis and do it so well that there are friends and non-guildies lining up to get in their group each night.

At higher skulls, warlocks are mediocre at best. Anything they can do, other classes can do better. Wizards are better at CC and instakills. Melee and ranged do more DPS. Proper tank builds make a warlock tank look bad... really bad.

[FranOhmsford]

2015 and 2016 called and would like their posts back please. The warlock horse is getting really moldy at this point.

Reaper is a completely different paradigm for DDO. Why would you expect that all the builds which worked well in non-Reaper would automatically work well in something that changes as many of the rules as Reaper does? When Reaper went live, a lot of my guild rerolled or TRd into builds specifically designed for Reaper and they run end-game 6-skull+ on a daily basis. Funny thing is, none of them are warlocks.

At higher skulls, warlocks are mediocre at best. Anything they can do, other classes can do better. Wizards are better at CC and instakills. Melee and ranged do more DPS. Proper tank builds make a warlock look bad... really bad.

Warlocks are the easy button build - That's why Elitists hate them so much!

It was the same with Paladins and Holy Sword! I still can't believe that got nerfed AGAIN! ONCE WAS ENOUGH! Pally is comparatively weak now - All other Melees are stronger!

Note it's not the builds that do the most DPS at the top end that get nerfed, it's those that have the highest BASELINE!

And yes Warlocks aren't just about DPS but that's the thing about Warlock - It's specifically made to have a high BASELINE to allow newer players quicker entry into harder content {It doesn't work perfectly - I've seen some pretty bad Warlocks and I've managed to gimp a couple myself!}.

[Phoenicis]

Warlocks are the easy button build - That's why Elitists hate them so much!
8<SNIP>8
And yes Warlocks aren't just about DPS but that's the thing about Warlock - It's specifically made to have a high BASELINE to allow newer players quicker entry into harder content {It doesn't work perfectly - I've seen some pretty bad Warlocks and I've managed to gimp a couple myself!}.

That's what alot of people don't get about warlocks.

They are strong (very strong in a good players hands) in low - moderate difficulty content. Their effectiveness falls off (hard in the hands of a not-so-good player) in higher difficulty content.

[Renvar]

that's the thing about Warlock - It's specifically made to have a high BASELINE to allow newer players quicker entry into harder content

Source? Or did you just make that up?

[zehnvhex]

Wizard especially is weak in today's game.

This is a bit misleading.

A wizard who can hit his spell pen/DC's is the most powerful class in the game bar none. They are massively broken in the current meta.

A wizard who cannot hit spell pen/DC's and needs to rely on nuking is a dumpster fire.

[CaptainPurge]

Hi all. Here I am, writing while in another party full of warlocks and repeaters.

First of all, what brainless monkey made the warlock spell list? I'd trade my whole wizard spellbook for a warlock spellbook. Warlocks have more dathspells than my PM? More buffs that my wizard? And they don't waste SP on nuking so they can use them more often? What the heck? Don't get me started on that tentacles. Why the hell arent those in wizard spellbook?

Okay, now when that's out the way, WHERE ARE SPELL POINTS? You decide to reduce spell's nuking damage by 80% in reaper mod and give wizards what? Those little souls that whole party fight over and usually warlocks take cause they are in melee range?

One might say: well wizards and soeerceres can nuke for more damage with all the metas. REALLY? I ran R3 (higher would be even worse) and I NEVER had my metas on. They eat to much SP. METAS are only good for spell like abaliies (btw, warlock spell like abalities >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all wizard nuking spells).

And for the end: WHERE ARE MELEES? Whos idea was to introduce a fighter feat that gives 3prr??? Well actually, idea is fine. Here is my opinion how to fix barb, paladin and fighter tanking: give them 4 feats (with lvl requirment): lvl 6 = +30 prr, lvl 12 = 60 PRR, lvl 18 = +90PRR. They all STACK!

Thank you for reading and for gods sake: nerf warlocks already (not their damage, they just can do eveything that other classes can do but better. Better tank, betetr CC; better insta kills, betetr buffs, better scrollhealing. Like ***). Fix SP usage. Noone wants to play a CC bot. Warlock can be a CC bot and nuke. I advice to cut meta cost by half and cost of CC spells by 75%. Don't forget to add tentacles to wizard spell list.
And give those melees some feats so they can survive (if they chose survivability route).

P.S. Some people say CCing is quite easy and that SSG should increase the primary mob saves, so more CC spells are used. My awnser: Yeah right, I have no betetr thing to do than using 3 quicked and heightend spells on a group of 7 mobs. Infinite SP or remove SP cost from CC spells and ill sign that idea.

You mad sis?

[Hutoth]

Hi all. Here I am, writing while in another party full of warlocks

Warlocks and Reapers Online

oh wait - wrong thread

[PermaBanned]

I can't remember the last time I saw such depths of fail and heights of win both reached on the first page of a /rant thread.

I thank you all for the entertainment ;)


Warlocks... I've managed to gimp a couple myself!.
Did it take effort, or are you just that gifted at gimping?

[CaptainPurge]

I can't remember the last time I saw such depths of fail and heights of win both reached on the first page of a /rant thread.

I thank you all for the entertainment ;)



Did it take effort, or are you just that gifted at gimping?

https://cdn.meme.am/cache/instances/folder134/69098134.jpg

[karatemack]

The problem with the game isn't Warlocks or Mechanics or thrower builds or whatever other FoTM OP build you want to cite... in fact... I don't believe ANY nerfs should happen until ALL of the class passes are FULLY complete!!!

The essential problem with the game over the past few years is that the level cap was extended from 20 to 30 without a solid plan on how to get there.

Look at the debacle over equipment. GH Update releases and then within 1-2 updates that named loot is replaced by random loot gen. The CC changes were amazing, but since there was no time to go back through and update old loot... it means that nearly ALL heroic named loot/raid loot is no longer highly desirable (there are a few outliers such as the ring of SS). Then there's the new random loot effects which were unique and great... but which went away because of ghostbane-gate or some other half-baked system.

Then you start to dig through the classes. How can you determine what a "baseline" is when you're adding new game mechanics and difficulties (IE: Legendary and Reaper) in the middle of trying to balance out class power? And don't get me wrong... the DEVs have a difficult challenge. They have to balance out the classes while ensuring each individual class retains a certain sense of uniqueness to it while also trying to limit player power from scaling too high with all the various feat/enhancement/race/class/epic feat/epic destiny/twist/etc combinations which are available. And I'm not arguing that some OP build would not have still been discovered since there are thousands of us... and a handful of them... but still... this is why the progression for every class should have been mapped out before the transition from level 20 to level 30 began. It's very clear that the DEV team is doing their best to make adjustments as they go along... but that simply isn't the best course of action. Years ago we were told Swashbuckler would be the new "baseline" for how each class/enhancement tree should perform. I wonder if that's still the case.

And lastly we have the quests themselves. Clearly there was not nearly enough content to support the level jump at first. This meant that there was a constant demand to flesh out more content and led to a serious dip in the quality of dungeon design. The classic modules which have been adapted for DDO are great and I really enjoyed Slave Lords... and yet quests which are immersive and aren't just "beat down sacks of hit points until you beat down the biggest sack of hit points" are less common than those that are just that.

Oh wait... I did think of another item. As new crafting systems have been introduced (and older crafting systems neglected due to DEV time constraints or whatever... I'm looking at you challenge gear...) and as our old loot becomes outdated (but dammit I spend countless hours grinding for some of this stuff) and as new collectibles are introduced... the strain on players to have more and more storage space has yet to be appropriately addressed by the DEV team. To the point where now people are flat out losing items during TR and customer service isn't even addressing the issue other than to say "we are working on it" but with no real compensation for long-time dedicated paying customers who deserve a resolution.

I get that SSG transitioned from WB control under Turbine to their own gig. I get that there will be some growing pains along the way. But there are a few things which are FREE to get right. Taking time to address player concerns is one of them. Stopping from being "busy" developing to map out a solid plan for the future (not just 1 to 2 updates ahead... but how to bring EVERY class in line... map it all out on the board) so that your time can be productive... and actually communicating the results of those conversations with the players would be solid steps in the right direction. Many of us still love playing DDO and are happy to be paying customers. Hell, even though it feels like we're all in a live beta test group... this game has many high points and can still be an amazing product if the game direction is clearly established and paying customers are treated as valued members of the community instead of useless fodder.

And why is there never PLANNED time to dedicate to adjusting previously updated items? For instance... let's say Artis get their new shinies with U36. Then in the development cycle for U38 there should be dedicated time to fix/tweak/inspect anything that has been noted once those changes hit live. Nothing to fix there? Great! Use that time to fix some bugs. We should be getting quality of life fixes with every update whether or not Lynnabel happens to be around. It's great she gets stuff done, but why does it feel like it only gets done at the rapid pace it does whenever she's around? And please... please spend more time on quest development. Be creative and come up with some unique dungeon encounters which require more than just kill x number of y. We don't need 50 more cut and paste dungeons... but 5 to 10 a year which feel like hand-crafted unique encounters would be very nice!

Oh yeah... and one last thing (actually the last thing this time)... please don't ever EVER raise the level cap again. We are still feeling the growing pains from the last time you did and lost much of the playerbase as a result. A playerbase you could probably rebuild and even convince some people to come back... but you would have to do the following things:


Actually balance out all of the classes and flesh out the enhancement trees so that every class has 3 and has their own unique epic destiny. The classes MUST NOT have the same "feel" but should each function in a unique way when compared to the others.
Remove some of the grind. Not shared XP... but you could reduce heroic XP for HPLs and RPLs to 1.8 million flat across the board. Also, reduce EPIC xp to 6 million to align better with EDs. This would remove some of the grind... but you just added Reaper XP and racial PLs... so we'll be busy with that for a while. This will also help encourage people to play more of their alts again... which is something many once enjoyed about DDO (not talking 2-4 toons, but the 12-18 many of us used to have).
Implement practical player storage solutions which don't cost a fortune but allow us to have all the things without worry.
Take the my quest suggestion above to heart.
Improve customer service by 1000%. Actually... just burn in down and start over with a "the customer is always right" attitude.
Flesh the game outwards instead of upwards. New races. New classes (each released with 3 trees and and ED). Each of these would also add more "grind" but that is OK so long as you took my XP suggestion above.
RAIDS! 2-3 per year. Should be playable at endgame and some other lower level. Love RtSO... so more like that please. Should hand us our faces the first few times we step in unprepared!
Improved communication with players. Once you have a solid plan for the game in-general... this should get easier. Flying by the seat of your pants and then being disappointed when we don't like your ideas seems like a bad cycle which has led to frustration on both sides.
Advertise. Be a presence other than a man with a backpack at gaming conventions. (Not his fault BTW... he does an amazing job! But the company could equip him better than left over swag from events from years ago... c'mon son!)


/endrant

[Phoenicis]

Actually balance out all of the classes and flesh out the enhancement trees so that every class has 3 and has their own unique epic destiny. The classes MUST NOT have the same "feel" but should each function in a unique way when compared to the others.
Remove some of the grind. Not shared XP... but you could reduce heroic XP for HPLs and RPLs to 1.8 million flat across the board. Also, reduce EPIC xp to 6 million to align better with EDs. This would remove some of the grind... but you just added Reaper XP and racial PLs... so we'll be busy with that for a while. This will also help encourage people to play more of their alts again... which is something many once enjoyed about DDO (not talking 2-4 toons, but the 12-18 many of us used to have).
Implement practical player storage solutions which don't cost a fortune but allow us to have all the things without worry.
Take the my quest suggestion above to heart.
Improve customer service by 1000%. Actually... just burn in down and start over with a "the customer is always right" attitude.
Flesh the game outwards instead of upwards. New races. New classes (each released with 3 trees and and ED). Each of these would also add more "grind" but that is OK so long as you took my XP suggestion above.
RAIDS! 2-3 per year. Should be playable at endgame and some other lower level. Love RtSO... so more like that please. Should hand us our faces the first few times we step in unprepared!
Improved communication with players. Once you have a solid plan for the game in-general... this should get easier. Flying by the seat of your pants and then being disappointed when we don't like your ideas seems like a bad cycle which has led to frustration on both sides.
Advertise. Be a presence other than a man with a backpack at gaming conventions. (Not his fault BTW... he does an amazing job! But the company could equip him better than left over swag from events from years ago... c'mon son!)


/endrant

1. I believe steel said bard-swashbuckler was the baseline they wanted to hit for class power, so they have a target to aim for.

2. Gonna have to disagree here, you get more stat points, flatlining exp despite the added power is not good IMHO. Also, I like the extra epic exp required to cap after 6M, I get to level up again in my favorite destiny, then when I've filled that sphere again I can do another destiny until I hit cap. I like.

3. /signed

4. no opinion

5. The CS department has been much harder to spin up than was anticipated IMHO. They should have contracted with turbine for MUCH longer, fail on SSG's part.Not sure 'burn it down' is a good starting point though.

6 & 7 These go hand in hand, and I'm guessing adding either is a huge undertaking, something beyond to workload available to SSG to do both simultaneously. We will probably only be able to get one or the other...

8 & 9 Also hand in hand. Company is just starting up, these will come as things get evened out I'm hoping.

Gah, this sounds like I'm a fanboi, which I'm not.

I'm just willing to give SSG a little more time to get things smoothed out than some...

[Kebtid]

It is not a matter of something being op/underpowered but a matter of ssg working to slow on ballancing.

Popular games ballance their classes and tweak spells/effects (they dont have saves, most of them) on a monthly basis, in ddo ballancing for a specific class happened once after motu, twice if lucky.

They work to slow, im not really happy how they are not adding content, nor fixing classes, it feels like a standstill, as if they had 1 coder responsible for the whole game.
Ballance, content, game promotion, modernization of the game, everything is lackluster.

The biggest mistake you can make in games is character creation, you dont promote fun by making 1 class jack of all trades, master of many arts but make every class excel at a specific point and fail at a specific, thats how dnd was made and how the whole universe is promoted.
And that is the mmo logic that most games had.

Personally i doubt they will ever create ballance, they will only invent new mechanism that will push specific playstyles or nerf specific.
I got trust issues toward this company after hoping for so many years that they will make things right.

Trust is earned and they didnt make any effort in past 5 years to earn mine

[Arctigis]

This is a bit misleading.

A wizard who can hit his spell pen/DC's is the most powerful class in the game bar none. They are massively broken in the current meta.

A wizard who cannot hit spell pen/DC's and needs to rely on nuking is a dumpster fire.

I give you props for trying.

[Arctigis]

Wizard especially is weak in today's game - It's still better than Cleric, FvS and Artificer but that's not saying much!



/facepalm

Can wizards use: Suggestion, Mass Suggestion, Charm Monster, Mass Charm Monster, Dominate Person, Dominate Monster,
Control Undead, Web ?

[Kebtid]

This part of what he says is correct however. There is a trend on the forums where people seem to want the things that allow easiest entry to be nerfed, not necessarily the things that are most effective to be nerfed.

Wizards, sorcs, and anything with a repeater does just as well as a warlock when they are all well refined, PL'd out, Tomed out, geared out etc. When they are not PL'd out, tomed out, geared out, and refined, those builds contribute far less than a non PL'd non tomed non geared warlock (aka what Fran calls the baseline)

The reason we see less high end wizards and sorcs than warlocks is people have caught on, and began to realize the grind for what it is, and instead of participating in grinding something out for years, gravitate to what works right now. By the time someone today rolls a wizard and grinds out all the PLs they need to pass on DC and spell pen checks in high end content, the meta will have changed twice over. Or they can just play what they know works, right now.

Ive played both a warlock and a sorc in high reaper content while attempting to get hooked on the racial past lifes grind, did both lifes on high skulls and my sorc life was utterly weak in low levels but was way stronger then warlock in mid/high levels. (keep in mind that was on a fully tweaked toon, so it had top gear and all normal and epic plifes + tomes covered)
Issue is that once you tone down from lets say 6-8 skulls you end up going faster as a warlock.
On lets say skull 3, that is the safe spot for most builds for racial tring/reaper xp tring the most effective build is a warlock as your aura still holds potential to 1 shot packs and with temp hp you do not need to use charms and scroll heals like you do as a sorc.
While goolock is extremely powerfull a blastlock is effectively faster .

While we can agree and argue about what is most dps what is strongest, we need to be aware that top dps and lv 30 power does not matter in current ddo, now its all about zerging racials the fastest possible and that is where warlock is best and thus why they are so dominant.
Past lifes do matter, its a lie claiming otherwise, but to collect the current past lifes the fastest, the most secure and effective class is pretty much a warlock, doesnt matter if you are fully geared or not, actually the more gear and plifes you have the more secure a wlock becomes.

[Arctigis]

This part of what he says is correct however. There is a trend on the forums where people seem to want the things that allow easiest entry to be nerfed, not necessarily the things that are most effective to be nerfed.

Wizards, sorcs, and anything with a repeater does just as well as a warlock when they are all well refined, PL'd out, Tomed out, geared out etc. When they are not PL'd out, tomed out, geared out, and refined, those builds contribute far less than a non PL'd non tomed non geared warlock (aka what Fran calls the baseline)

The reason we see less high end wizards and sorcs than warlocks is people have caught on, and began to realize the grind for what it is, and instead of participating in grinding something out for years, gravitate to what works right now. By the time someone today rolls a wizard and grinds out all the PLs they need to pass on DC and spell pen checks in high end content, the meta will have changed twice over. Or they can just play what they know works, right now.


Sure, I do agree with this somewhat - and said as much in one of the other 'nerf Warlock' threads where the
concept of capability floor vs. capability ceiling was brought in.

I've played lots of classes through lots of lives - my main has currently completed Fighter and Barb lives
on the RTR train - not just Warlock. I just don't see where this 'OP Warlock' is coming from and I'm convinced
that the people saying it either don't know how to play or have been playing the same way for too long on their
existing builds.

[Arctigis]

Ive played both a warlock and a sorc in high reaper content while attempting to get hooked on the racial past lifes grind, did both lifes on high skulls and my sorc life was utterly weak in low levels but was way stronger then warlock in mid/high levels. (keep in mind that was on a fully tweaked toon, so it had top gear and all normal and epic plifes + tomes covered)
Issue is that once you tone down from lets say 6-8 skulls you end up going faster as a warlock.
On lets say skull 3, that is the safe spot for most builds for racial tring/reaper xp tring the most effective build is a warlock as your aura still holds potential to 1 shot packs and with temp hp you do not need to use charms and scroll heals like you do as a sorc.
While goolock is extremely powerfull a blastlock is effectively faster .

While we can agree and argue about what is most dps what is strongest, we need to be aware that top dps and lv 30 power does not matter in current ddo, now its all about zerging racials the fastest possible and that is where warlock is best and thus why they are so dominant.
Past lifes do matter, its a lie claiming otherwise, but to collect the current past lifes the fastest, the most secure and effective class is pretty much a warlock, doesnt matter if you are fully geared or not, actually the more gear and plifes you have the more secure a wlock becomes.

You'd say that a Warlock has a lower baseline for gear and pastlives and is more tolerant to the
player making mistakes? (in build and in general play)

If so, I probably agree. Is it top DPS? - no way.

[Kebtid]

You'd say that a Warlock has a lower baseline for gear and pastlives and is more tolerant to the
player making mistakes? (in build and in general play)

If so, I probably agree. Is it top DPS? - no way.


Yep, lower baseline and more frontloaded with utility.

Most obvious are the facts that in between the temp hps, cc, possible instakills and sp free blasting it allows for many mistakes, and in reaper content up to 3-4 skulls where its unpredictable what happens when a champ appears, a warlock has the highest chance to survive a unlucky encounter.
Being the safest option is the primary reason its highly popular imho, it also gives new players the best base class to learn content, and for vets it gives the safest base class to rush for past lifes.
Its a all rounder that is exceptionally good imho.
While there are other builds that have either more dps or more survival, none of those can merge survival, effective clearing and mov speed boosts while adding stuff like cc/instakills, kiting etc etc as warlock can do.
It doesnt help either that they didnt create reaper with the thought about making higher skulls pay more for the time invested, why they didnt do that i have no idea, but that was really a turn off for many vets.

A jack of all trades usually has the drawback that it is punished where highly specialized requirements are to be met.
Technical issue with ddo atm is that there is no such content, there is no trap that temp hps cant tank nor a boss where tanking is required, nor a place where you need a healer babysitter, nor a place where youd need thousands upon thousands of sp for cc only.

Now if they managed to make higher skulls more rewarding so that specialized roles were required and team oriented play, things might change.
But issue with that and we are aware of it is that we do not have a playerbase for consistent groups with roles.
I dont know personally how to solve all those issues and i dont think ssg has the money to fix all those issues.

[Ladislaio]

And for the end: WHERE ARE MELEES? Whos idea was to introduce a fighter feat that gives 3prr??? Well actually, idea is fine. Here is my opinion how to fix barb, paladin and fighter tanking: give them 4 feats (with lvl requirment): lvl 6 = +30 prr, lvl 12 = 60 PRR, lvl 18 = +90PRR.
And give those melees some feats so they can survive (if they chose survivability route).



Tanking is actually in a really good place in heroics right now. I've done 3 lives as a tank with different builds, and have found them to work well, even in r10 with only scroll heals. You have to sack all real damage tho, and the best build I have run ended up being 8 warlock 6 paladin 6 fighter, as warlocks are so very balanced. This build was tanking r2 MoD and r2 FoTP at level 23.

As a tank focused person I would actually much rather see some more ways to improve AC than PRR.

The main issue with tanks is that, for a TR, you are much better off running as a warlock or mechanic as these don't need a party for low reaper. Since they are so balanced.

[zehnvhex]

Yep, lower baseline and more frontloaded with utility.

The biggest issue, I feel at least, is that in heroics in low skull reaper the two blasts do enough damage to one round any mob, even bosses. Your typical boss in a level 10 quest has ~maybe 1.5 to 2x the HP of a regular mob, if that. In level 30+ content a boss mob is running 20~40x as much hp. An auralock, even with tricked out spellpower, isn't one rounding anything and you become painfully aware of just how far behind on the DPS scale you are.

But you aren't doing level 30 content. You're doing level 15 content where it's impossible to not accidentally kill things even up through R3. Double blast+arua or if you aren't a hamfist player you're probably doing either cone or chain and everything dies as soon as it comes into LoS.

ES is even made idiot proof by handing you resist energies, shield and displacement as SLA's even though they are part of a warlocks regular spell list. It's like the entire tree is "Here idiot, these are good spells. Use them." It takes a monumental level of talent to screw up a warlock in heroic low skull/elite content.


I've seen some pretty bad Warlocks and I've managed to gimp a couple myself!

>_>

<_<

^_^

[goodspeed]

Wizards and Sorcs have not had their balance pass yet. Warlocks are not OP, but rather Wizards and Sorcs have not been rebalanced, yet, for today's game envirionment. Warlocks came out in the modern state of the game.

Of course after artficer please and ty on those passes.

well they sort of did. When they got all those trees and sla's and the other classes hollered because their tree's sucked.

[Satyriasys]

The mental gymnastics and self delusion people go through to rationalize warlocks as balanced is embarrassing and really highlights the horrible direction this game has taken. If you implement feedback from your players they will vote for overwhelming power every time and that's where were are now. Mindless, simple quests and mechanics that have been absolutely butchered over the years to remove any semblance of challenge paired with Warlocks who can sneeze to clear entire dungeons.

[ShinobiKitten]

The mental gymnastics and self delusion people go through to rationalize warlocks as balanced is embarrassing and really highlights the horrible direction this game has taken. If you implement feedback from your players they will vote for overwhelming power every time and that's where were are now. Mindless, simple quests and mechanics that have been absolutely butchered over the years to remove any semblance of challenge paired with Warlocks who can sneeze to clear entire dungeons.


I agree 100%. I truly cannot wrap my head around folks who try to say warlocks aren't OP and i truly feel that their addition to the game is ruining it.

[Arctigis]

The mental gymnastics and self delusion people go through to rationalize warlocks as balanced is embarrassing and really highlights the horrible direction this game has taken. If you implement feedback from your players they will vote for overwhelming power every time and that's where were are now. Mindless, simple quests and mechanics that have been absolutely butchered over the years to remove any semblance of challenge paired with Warlocks who can sneeze to clear entire dungeons.

How many Warlocks have you p[layed 1 - 20 recently?
How many 20 - 30?
How many other classes have you done the same with? (recently)

The reason why some people say it, is because they think it's true. It's acknowledged that Warlocks are much
more forgiving on gear (i.e. get Utterdark then just go Radiance - unless you use Tentacles for DPS also), more
forgiving on build choices (difficult to gimp) and relatively simple to play. They also have very few weaknesses.
They have a low skill bar relative to their total performance - but this is not the definition of overpowered.
Game balance has to be around the top of the performance curve, not the bottom.

There have been many threads on this recently and it's getting old. Please state specifically what you think
is overpowered about warlocks (and don't say DPS or I'm going to laugh).

[karatemack]

The mental gymnastics and self delusion people go through to rationalize warlocks as balanced is embarrassing and really highlights the horrible direction this game has taken. If you implement feedback from your players they will vote for overwhelming power every time and that's where were are now. Mindless, simple quests and mechanics that have been absolutely butchered over the years to remove any semblance of challenge paired with Warlocks who can sneeze to clear entire dungeons.

They justify it because mechanics and throwers are even more OP. But... the latter requires a little game knowledge and skill :).

[AbsynthMinded]

Hi all. Here I am, writing while in another party full of warlocks and repeaters.

All I got to say about Warlock's is;

If you can Pike Epic Elite Raids because you let the Warlock do it all because it's just easier, there's a serious balance problem.

/End Of Line

[masterofthewand]

The class is definitely OP. But because of the way they implemented reaper, the problem is far worse. And despite what the one gentlemen from the counsel was saying, no amount of "other" class passes will fix it.

I also agree with Satyriasys, we shouldn't justify a bad design. The introduction of warlock and reaper has changed the game for the worse. What frustrates me is there is a place for both in DDO. But unfortunately too few want to identify and fix the problem, the community has become complacent.

My problem isn't with warlocks themselves but with the implications their abilities have in reaper, primarily the aura and shining through. Its far too valuable in reaper.

And I no longer pug because of it. I spend my time in my permadeath guild these days. One less person putting up LFM"s.

[karatemack]

The class is definitely OP. But because of the way they implemented reaper, the problem far worse. And despite what the one gentlemen from the counsel was saying, no amount of "other" class passes will fix it.

Perhaps yes, perhaps no.

The boat on Heroic Normal or Hard being challenging has sailed. Unless you are completely new to the game with 0 resources and on a first-life toon (ALL of those conditions must apply) then you will yawn your way through 100% of that content. So... Reaper was a welcome addition to attempt to make old content challenging again... even if the implementation could have been better.

The reason for the other class passes being necessary... (or at least fully fleshed out and mapped out) is that any time new enhancement trees/classes/races/destinies/abilities are added to the game it messes with the relative power of EVERYTHING. At the same time, "fully fleshed out" and "balanced" does not mean equivalent DPS/Heals/Trap-ability/etc. The reason I hate the direction most discussions on these forums goes relative to class updates... is that most seem to just want MOAR POWER for the under-performing classes so that they homogenize in terms of DPS with the classes who were updated previously. This is one of the primary reasons I railed so much against the destruction of a core signature class ability.

I believe the hatred for Warlock is largely misplaced... primarily because the people making the argument seem to be under the impression that Warlock is King and don't really fully understand why. There are many builds which currently outperform Warlock... so why isn't everyone bringing those to the table when the OP discussion is being had?

[masterofthewand]

Perhaps yes, perhaps no.

The boat on Heroic Normal or Hard being challenging has sailed. Unless you are completely new to the game with 0 resources and on a first-life toon (ALL of those conditions must apply) then you will yawn your way through 100% of that content. So... Reaper was a welcome addition to attempt to make old content challenging again... even if the implementation could have been better.

The reason for the other class passes being necessary... (or at least fully fleshed out and mapped out) is that any time new enhancement trees/classes/races/destinies/abilities are added to the game it messes with the relative power of EVERYTHING. At the same time, "fully fleshed out" and "balanced" does not mean equivalent DPS/Heals/Trap-ability/etc. The reason I hate the direction most discussions on these forums goes relative to class updates... is that most seem to just want MOAR POWER for the under-performing classes so that they homogenize in terms of DPS with the classes who were updated previously. This is one of the primary reasons I railed so much against the destruction of a core signature class ability.

I believe the hatred for Warlock is largely misplaced... primarily because the people making the argument seem to be under the impression that Warlock is King and don't really fully understand why. There are many builds which currently outperform Warlock... so why isn't everyone bringing those to the table when the OP discussion is being had?

It's not so much hatred of warlocks but hatred for the implementation of warlocks and reaper combined that ruined it for me. For example, were I to build a melee toon built specifically with reaper in mind. I would almost be foolish not to take 4 levels of warlock and spend 21ap for the extra prr, mrr, and HP aura, and still get 5th tier in my melee tree. What could you possibly say to refute this fact. It makes for cheep survivability in general but in reaper its just cheese.

And if you want other classes brought to the table, how about pallys. Their self healing is hardly affected in low to mid reaper difficulty , as a matter of fact all positive self healing for divine is still too strong in terms of self healing.

I don't see the problem being in heroics at all. The small problems that first manifested in heroics when warlock was introduced, that being "they are OP", which just made them annoying. Has magnified exponentially for reasons few saw coming.

And I know this thread isn't specifically about reaper, but this is the game we are now playing at default setting. And warlocks "especially on reaper" have broken the game.

[FranOhmsford]

I'm just going to come out and say it.....

I NEED WARLOCK!

The game is way way too HARD without it because I can't get groups for Elite anymore! I've been playing a Ranger and a Cleric in Heroic Gianthold level content {actually Gianthold itself as well as other questing} and there's just no way I'm soloing Lvl 15+ Content on those characters - Vale, Spinner, Missing, IQ - It's not going to happen - Those characters are going to be completely stuck!
You don't want me running Reaper - I'm not good enough - So don't go saying that I should join Reaper Groups those of you who constantly put me down for being not good enough!

Other characters {many other characters} have been turned into Warlocks to do Past Lives on but I'm not doing a past life every 3 days or even every 3 weeks, it's going to take me a year or more just to get maybe 1 life further on each character!

SO DON'T TAKE WARLOCK AWAY like you took Paladin away!

STOP THE NERFS!

PLEASE!

[nokowi]

The reason I hate the direction most discussions on these forums goes relative to class updates... is that most seem to just want MOAR POWER for the under-performing classes so that they homogenize in terms of DPS with the classes who were updated previously. This is one of the primary reasons I railed so much against the destruction of a core signature class ability.


1. Bring all classes up to the current top (don't nerf anything).
2. Share any existing ability because it is not OP, and it already exists.

Combining 1 and 2 as expressed on the forums, every build should share every ability, completely removing the class icon.

Few on the forums understand design
3. Does a class ability provide something unique?
4. Is the unique ability valuable?

If 3 and 4 are true, then abilities should not be shared with other classes unless doing so is crucial to some design decision that has no other options. It's not just about having a role, but also about having many competitive options to fill a role, each with significant but useful differences.

Unique class abilities with many effective options are what allow people to play the game in a way they enjoy. One dimensional character builds (one obvious set of choice better than all others) and one dimensional challenge (damage spikes) produce a game that is only going to appeal to a much smaller number of people. (typically the FOTM crowd).

It's really should be about producing competing options and unique options within each tier of a class instead of bring class X up to Y level of power. The funny thing is that with competing and unique class options, it is trivial to bring a class up to any level of power, and trivial to balance an over performing ability (increase AP cost or move to higher tier) and this can be done without breaking most of the builds that rely on an ability.

[Drus-the-Axe]

A jack of all trades usually has the drawback that it is punished where highly specialized requirements are to be met.
Technical issue with ddo atm is that there is no such content, there is no trap that temp hps cant tank nor a boss where tanking is required, nor a place where you need a healer babysitter, nor a place where youd need thousands upon thousands of sp for cc only.

That's the crux of the problem.

I'm very not fond of Warlock. I've run a few and while interesting for a bit, found they tend to bore me before hitting 20. That'd be fine, no qualms with everyone having their own preference. Problem despite playing for years I DON'T run uber multi-life toons (I'm an altoholic - mostly 1st life, a few 2nd life). For group play, a warlock tends to pound through quickly leaving the rest behind. If I wanted to pike slowly walking behind picking up loot with nary a challenge that'd be fine.

But that's not the point.

I like party play (way more than solo) and don't really do the guild thing. If a party of 4 has 2 warlocks I know it's going to be a borefest and I intentionally AVOID such parties. I haven't gone so far as to outright ban warlocks from my LFMs, but I'll certainly say it's a negative when I'm looking to join one. I also prefer heroic to epic (sorry, but I *like* D&D, less fond of Turbine's generic-MMO play called epic). I've been a VIP since DDO started F2P so 8 years now? More? I know my way around.

Given that I like heroic, parties and few if any TR, Warlocks differ from other classes as they're generally OP to start with - jack of all trades, do many well (enough), no SP etc to manage and self heal well enough, throw in TRs and HP through the roof and it's BORING watching them race to 20+.

Reaper helps a bit, though TRs and multi-lifetimes of gear help (esp the boosts to HP) making it hard for 1st life toons in a party of multi-TR R3+.

Warlocks may not be all that in epic EE. No opinion how they fare in epic as I rarely play those levels. But in most heroic, thye degrade the game FOR OTHERS.

That's my beef with Warlock.

[Drus-the-Axe]

It's really should be about producing competing options and unique options within each tier of a class instead of bring class X up to Y level of power.


Nailed it

That please

[Drus-the-Axe]

The game is way way too HARD without it because I can't get groups for Elite anymore!

You know there's 3 other difficulties...

[nokowi]

I'm just going to come out and say it.....

I NEED WARLOCK!

The game is way way too HARD without it because I can't get groups for Elite anymore! I've been playing a Ranger and a Cleric in Heroic Gianthold level content {actually Gianthold itself as well as other questing} and there's just no way I'm soloing Lvl 15+ Content on those characters - Vale, Spinner, Missing, IQ - It's not going to happen - Those characters are going to be completely stuck!
You don't want me running Reaper - I'm not good enough - So don't go saying that I should join Reaper Groups those of you who constantly put me down for being not good enough!

Other characters {many other characters} have been turned into Warlocks to do Past Lives on but I'm not doing a past life every 3 days or even every 3 weeks, it's going to take me a year or more just to get maybe 1 life further on each character!

SO DON'T TAKE WARLOCK AWAY like you took Paladin away!

STOP THE NERFS!

PLEASE!

You could run hard just fine on these characters, and level in a similar amount of time.

These characters would only be stuck if you demanded to play a difficulty setting higher than those characters were ready for.

I guess if you enjoy only having one class to play now, you can say this was an improvement for you. My guess is you will get tired of Warlock far far before you reach any goals that you claim you need Warlock to achieve.

[zehnvhex]

All I got to say about Warlock's is;

If you can Pike Epic Elite Raids because you let the Warlock do it all because it's just easier, there's a serious balance problem.

/End Of Line

You realize of course we've been able to do this since well before Warlock was a thing...right?

[zehnvhex]

What could you possibly say to refute this fact. It makes for cheep survivability in general but in reaper its just cheese.

Learn to play?

I mean if you're getting hit in reaper you're pretty much doing it wrong. 4 levels of warlock is going to tank your dps something fierce. One cut and alacrity are really, really good for a fighter. That smattering of low hanging prr is not going to save you in R10 and in R1 it's not going to make/break your build. If you're doing R4~R6 you should have a full group and someone else should be taking the hits, not you.

I mean if you want to talk about OP you should look at what wizards are doing these days. I'll give you a hint, it's not warlocks that are soloing/duoing R10 quests.

I'm willing to bet most of the people who complain about warlocks being OP fall into at least one, if not all three, of the following groups:

1) Primarily plays heroic content
2) Primarily plays low skull reaper (1~5)
3) Is relatively new to the game (last ~4 years or so)

Every single warlock talking about how warlocks are not grossly overpowered also caveats it by saying that oven fresh warlocks are on the top side of the power curve. If you dumped a day 1 fighter and a day 1 warlock on my lap, I know I'm going to have an easier time with the warlock. That's not a point of contention.

I also admit that in the hands of a bad/mediocre player the warlock is going to perform better. You simply aren't as penalized as much for playing a warlock poorly then you are playing a fighter poorly. I imagine that's a significant factor in the "Warlocks are OP" mantra we see so often. It's bad players who can still hobble through a dungeon on a warlock while on a fighter they get wafflestomped.

That being said, a well played fighter is going to curb stomp a well played warlock so bad it's not even funny. But that's the melee problem right now in general. A well played melee is just stupidly good. You just don't see as many these days because a lot of the good players got bored and quit years ago so now we're left with the kind of people who think warlocks are OP.

[Phoenicis]

I believe the hatred for Warlock is largely misplaced... primarily because the people making the argument seem to be under the impression that Warlock is King and don't really fully understand why. There are many builds which currently outperform Warlock... so why isn't everyone bringing those to the table when the OP discussion is being had?

Simply because it doesn't suit their 'nerf warlock nao!' narrative.

[Rys]

I mean if you want to talk about OP you should look at what wizards are doing these days. I'll give you a hint, it's not warlocks that are soloing/duoing R10 quests.

Do you feel like soloing and duoing R10 matter in today's game? It doesn't seem too rewarding and effective to me :D:D:D

[masterofthewand]

Learn to play?

I mean if you're getting hit in reaper you're pretty much doing it wrong. 4 levels of warlock is going to tank your dps something fierce. One cut and alacrity are really, really good for a fighter. That smattering of low hanging prr is not going to save you in R10 and in R1 it's not going to make/break your build. If you're doing R4~R6 you should have a full group and someone else should be taking the hits, not you.

I mean if you want to talk about OP you should look at what wizards are doing these days. I'll give you a hint, it's not warlocks that are soloing/duoing R10 quests.

I'm willing to bet most of the people who complain about warlocks being OP fall into at least one, if not all three, of the following groups:

1) Primarily plays heroic content
2) Primarily plays low skull reaper (1~5)
3) Is relatively new to the game (last ~4 years or so)

Every single warlock talking about how warlocks are not grossly overpowered also caveats it by saying that oven fresh warlocks are on the top side of the power curve. If you dumped a day 1 fighter and a day 1 warlock on my lap, I know I'm going to have an easier time with the warlock. That's not a point of contention.

I also admit that in the hands of a bad/mediocre player the warlock is going to perform better. You simply aren't as penalized as much for playing a warlock poorly then you are playing a fighter poorly. I imagine that's a significant factor in the "Warlocks are OP" mantra we see so often. It's bad players who can still hobble through a dungeon on a warlock while on a fighter they get wafflestomped.

That being said, a well played fighter is going to curb stomp a well played warlock so bad it's not even funny. But that's the melee problem right now in general. A well played melee is just stupidly good. You just don't see as many these days because a lot of the good players got bored and quit years ago so now we're left with the kind of people who think warlocks are OP.

Not get hit? What game is he playing?

[nokowi]

Learn to play?

I mean if you're getting hit in reaper you're pretty much doing it wrong. 4 levels of warlock is going to tank your dps something fierce. One cut and alacrity are really, really good for a fighter. That smattering of low hanging prr is not going to save you in R10 and in R1 it's not going to make/break your build. If you're doing R4~R6 you should have a full group and someone else should be taking the hits, not you.

I mean if you want to talk about OP you should look at what wizards are doing these days. I'll give you a hint, it's not warlocks that are soloing/duoing R10 quests.

I'm willing to bet most of the people who complain about warlocks being OP fall into at least one, if not all three, of the following groups:

1) Primarily plays heroic content
2) Primarily plays low skull reaper (1~5)
3) Is relatively new to the game (last ~4 years or so)

Every single warlock talking about how warlocks are not grossly overpowered also caveats it by saying that oven fresh warlocks are on the top side of the power curve. If you dumped a day 1 fighter and a day 1 warlock on my lap, I know I'm going to have an easier time with the warlock. That's not a point of contention.

I also admit that in the hands of a bad/mediocre player the warlock is going to perform better. You simply aren't as penalized as much for playing a warlock poorly then you are playing a fighter poorly. I imagine that's a significant factor in the "Warlocks are OP" mantra we see so often. It's bad players who can still hobble through a dungeon on a warlock while on a fighter they get wafflestomped.

That being said, a well played fighter is going to curb stomp a well played warlock so bad it's not even funny. But that's the melee problem right now in general. A well played melee is just stupidly good. You just don't see as many these days because a lot of the good players got bored and quit years ago so now we're left with the kind of people who think warlocks are OP.

The correct argument about Warlock would be that it makes any other build choice sub-optimal for new players, and that is the easiest path to efficiently grinding out past lives.

So from a new player perspective, they see other new players out-performing them (possibly in a manner that limits their ability to contribute), and they see vets overwhelmingly playing Warlocks and dominating in an even larger fashion (due to optimal build/gear/past lives).

The game is largely based around 1-20 right now, so these observations are both appropriate and represent a large portion of the game. #1 and #2 probably represent over 90% of players, even without worrying about #3.

The fact that someone with many past lives and gear can do better on R7-R10 is irrelevant to 99+% of players. In the portion of the game that matters --> where people play, Warlock (as a class) is certainly over performing every other class.

Now whether this is good or bad is up to us to individually decide.

I really don't personally care about Warlocks, I just want better design by these devs in a way that allows them to maintain the game without the type of manpower required for their current system (3 years of class passes and having the game in a less balanced state than before the class passes). The number of Warlock nerfs already shows a failure in basic design choices, regardless of where you think they are now.

Devs need a better system for updating classes --> the current (updated) method of slowly adding a few things isn't an improvement if it is a substitute for using design goals, listing what is unique for each class, and sticking to different strengths and weaknesses for each class.

[Greyhawk6]

What does it matter if its not PvP??

Who cares if A is better than B? Not getting it really...makes absolutely no difference in a co-op game. In fact it sticks two fingers up to the cheesy champions and mobs than can move faster than the starship enterprise, phase through solid matter, cast spells that can't be interrupted and attack you from 100 yards away in melee if their animation has already started.

In fact I hate all these balance passes. After a time it makes everyone the same..I want disharmony, entropy, chaos, weak and strong. Thats D&D, not a game where everyone is special so nobody is.

[Cantor]

Not get hit? What game is he playing?

avoiding hits: AC, Dodge, Concealment, ranged kiting, is more effective than getting 20 more prr for <5% less damage when hit.

Especially in heroics where 9 martial pasts = rarely hit.

[Chai]

In order to have diversity the "sameness balance" crusade would need to be abandoned. When some PC class is given something new and unique and others see it being used and used successfully, the nerf demands begin anew, and the more successful those demands are at achieving what is demanded, the less diversity there will be in the game. This cycle has repeated itself from all the way back to the days of the batman build, and divine punishment entering the game, and repeated itself enough to where they now seem to have abandoned diversity, and use scaling systems for "balance" reasons instead. Spell power, melee power, ranged power, PRR, MRR, etc are basically just a sliding scale system for tweaking the degree of effectiveness of the same action. In order to get people to enjoy playing other archetypes again each must do something different than the other. Until then, the FOTM will be what people gravitate to by larger degree.

[Greyhawk6]

Exactly...so Warlocks are OP...YAY, power to the players.

I have one Warlock. Didn't enjoy it. Having fun with a Thief Acrobat. Cos its not about how many fractions of one percent you out-dps or, that one millisecond reaction time in row 3, column A on your Excel spreadsheet. Its about having a laugh.

I've played way too many games where the "passes" have made every class the same. Some "passes" have even made all the magic items the same. Down with player class thermal equilibrium!!

[goodspeed]

You know there's 3 other difficulties...

True they should take the point system out of the saga's. If one can't get the high reward because of lacking generated by the class itself it should be lowered to just completing the saga for the reward and take out the lesser tiers in points. Max being the only reward for completion on any level.

Spot on!

[Cantor]

True they should take the point system out of the saga's. If one can't get the high reward because of lacking generated by the class itself it should be lowered to just completing the saga for the reward and take out the lesser tiers in points. Max being the only reward for completion on any level.

Spot on!

Saga rewards for higher difficulties are: more xp/renown or more choice of tomes. If you are not blowing through elite, you can get more xp/min doing lower difficulties than the xp reward. It's not better tomes just more choices, no real reward here. Sagas have great balance of rewarding higher difficulties without it really mattering.

The reason players like Fran feel forced to do elite is not sagas, it's BB. (not calling Fran out, this is in response to their post)

PS. add more sagas, great system.

[Satyriasys]

What does it matter if its not PvP??

Who cares if A is better than B? Not getting it really...makes absolutely no difference in a co-op game. In fact it sticks two fingers up to the cheesy champions and mobs than can move faster than the starship enterprise, phase through solid matter, cast spells that can't be interrupted and attack you from 100 yards away in melee if their animation has already started.

In fact I hate all these balance passes. After a time it makes everyone the same..I want disharmony, entropy, chaos, weak and strong. Thats D&D, not a game where everyone is special so nobody is.

Balance doesn't only matter in pvp games. That is a ridiculous argument. People don't play rpgs to feel useless, nobody wants to feel irrelevant. Nobody wants to spend hundreds of hours gearing and utilizing their game knowledge to create effective characters only to be outclassed by some first life nobody.

[zehnvhex]

In order to have diversity the "sameness balance" crusade would need to be abandoned.

For a brief glorious period during mid/late WoTLK, tank balance in WoW was diverse and fun. Each class felt different, played different but achieved the same results. Then they made an encounter that vastly preferred one type of tank over the other. Blizzard responded to the whining by making the four tank classes basically all the same with a different colored particle effect on their taunt button. They extended this to pretty much every other class as well. Ranged spellcasters just had different colored fireballs. Some melee would do a spinning animation or a jumping animation or a who cares animation when they pressed a button to hit for 120% weapon damage and generate a good boy point they could use for their good boy point spender attack that would do 150% weapon damage.

That was pretty much the death knell for me.

DDO is, with a handful of exceptions, pretty **** diverse. I mean in the end we're just playing a giant excel spreadsheet but my tree build feels much different then my chucker which feels much different then my DC wighter which feels much different then my conelock which feels much different then my evo druid.

It's kept the game lively and every single class balance update they do shifts the meta considerably. The fighter pass made so many so-so builds exceptional and really broke open a lot of new splits. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of builds I can make/break after the Arti pass.

[Niminae]

Please state specifically what you think
is overpowered about warlocks (and don't say DPS or I'm going to laugh).

Warlocks do very effective DPS in heroics, and then that falls off in epics.

They are like a great many things Turbine/SSG has designed: They do not scale well.
Turn Undead: Works in heroics, almost useless in epics.
The list is long, a few have been partially addressed by bandaids (Master of X feats adding 10 spell levels to a small list of spells, adding "spells" in the form of feats such as Hellball, Ruin, etc.)

Is this a bad thing?

A few people have expressed in this thread that is disheartening to group with a warlock and watch them effectively solo a dungeon. So the people calling for class diversity above every other consideration should see the flaw in their argument: Diversity isn't an effective design goal if it leaves people who selected a "diverse" class feeling like the water carriers for a different "diverse" class. No matter how much you might hate to admit it, all classes need to be able to be relatively equally effective, and in DDO that means you have to kill 12 critters in order to get the door to unlock so you can continue on in the dungeon. Diverse power is fine, but diverse but disparate power is not fine.

===

Warlocks have gone through six (I think, that might not be the current count) nerfs, and yet we still see threads of this nature. Some of those nerfs have been really specifically targeted. Was it completely OP for a Warlock to be able to Hurl the crystal in Shroud phase 2? I'd say no, because any competent ranged or caster could do the same in a few shots/spells and that's not enough of a difference to make a difference to me. But apparently enough people complained about this and the devs felt that it had to be warded against Hurl... That's dev manhours being spent for what looks to me to be a very trivial thing. But it didn't stop people from having the perception, right or wrong, that Warlocks remained OP. And so those manhours appear to have been wasted. But now that darn crystal is safe from those rascally Warlocks!

It's funny, I don't recall the melee classes railing against the complete and utter unfairness of how the ranged and casters were so much more effective than they were against that darn crystal. I think most of their energy was taken up in the "One shot" threads...

[nokowi]

For a brief glorious period during mid/late WoTLK, tank balance in WoW was diverse and fun. Each class felt different, played different but achieved the same results. Then they made an encounter that vastly preferred one type of tank over the other. Blizzard responded to the whining by making the four tank classes basically all the same with a different colored particle effect on their taunt button. They extended this to pretty much every other class as well. Ranged spellcasters just had different colored fireballs. Some melee would do a spinning animation or a jumping animation or a who cares animation when they pressed a button to hit for 120% weapon damage and generate a good boy point they could use for their good boy point spender attack that would do 150% weapon damage.

That was pretty much the death knell for me.

DDO is, with a handful of exceptions, pretty **** diverse. I mean in the end we're just playing a giant excel spreadsheet but my tree build feels much different then my chucker which feels much different then my DC wighter which feels much different then my conelock which feels much different then my evo druid.

It's kept the game lively and every single class balance update they do shifts the meta considerably. The fighter pass made so many so-so builds exceptional and really broke open a lot of new splits. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of builds I can make/break after the Arti pass.

That's a fair representation, however those who were also happy with prior builds often find their builds broken. If you don't care about your play style or class, you can certainly find new things to break/exploit with every pass, whether it is through new classes or new bugs. If you enjoyed your chucker much more than all other builds, and change ruined that build, you might feel differently. Some people are still looking for their QP monks 4 years later. Some people want to play a real healer with party mechanics, like they had years ago, and they probably are not in R10.

I really enjoyed melee assassin until they broke it. I don't care to find the latest arti build. The difference is you don't care what you play, and as long as something works you are happy. Contrast that with someone that likes one or two specific builds, or one specific role.

[nokowi]

It's funny, I don't recall the melee classes railing against the complete and utter unfairness of how the ranged and casters were so much more effective than they were against that darn crystal. I think most of their energy was taken up in the "One shot" threads...

No because at one time both melee and ranged had separate roles, and it really makes zero sense why Warlock has a DC based ability to end the crystal, while other classes did not. At one time melee surrounded Harry and helped keep squishy ranged toons from dying. Melee were portal dps while casters were great insta killers (could also be DPS, of course).

People complained about paladin archers - because it makes no sense for them to be top ranged, just like it makes no sense for Warlocks to have a DC based ability against the crystal, whether it is OP or not. At a minimum, we would expect a sonic effect to have this kind of power.

[Niminae]

avoiding hits: AC, Dodge, Concealment, ranged kiting, is more effective than getting 20 more prr for <5% less damage when hit.

Especially in heroics where 9 martial pasts = rarely hit.

The 9 martial past lives are huge, and things like Natural Armor that were scoffed at not long ago are a smart thing to look into if you can fit them. Plus with the new CC it is far more easily available.

But Concealment?

Arborian T1 = True Sight
Archeron T3 = Dodge Bypass
Beast Mark T2 = Dodge Bypass
Cruel Soul = T1 = True Sight, T3 = See Invisible
Demon Soul T1 = True Sight
Elemental Fury T3 = True Sight
Fey Touched T1 = True Sight
Flame Born T3 = True Sight
Infernal Pact T1 = True Sight
Light Bearer T1 = True Sight, T3 = Uncanny Aim
Mark of Law T1 = True Sight, T3 = Dodge Bypass
Shadow Marked T3 = True Sight
Soulless T3 = Uncanny Aim
Soul of Ice T3 = True Sight
Stone Guard T3 = True Sight

Concealment is ignored by a large number of Champs, and certainly by the majority once their tiers start going up.
Dodge is only ignored by a couple.
AC is only ignored by a couple.
Incorporeality is ignored by none(? Why the redundant See Invisible then?).

[Drus-the-Axe]

The reason players like Fran feel forced to do elite is not sagas, it's BB. (not calling Fran out, this is in response to their post)

Yep. Reaper has brought some partiness to the tilted-too-far-to-solo-only play, but BB is still the root cause of many evils.


Yeah yeah, BB has merits blah blah. It also skews play in unhealthy ways for the playerbase at large and DDO's long term health. If you only play solo or a handful of close friends then BB isn't an issue. If you make or join LFMs - if you like a large healthy community of players NOT constantly pushed towards elite (and reaper) regardless of ability to handle it...

BB. Skewing player perspectives for how many years now? :-(

[Niminae]

People complained about paladin archers - because it makes no sense for them to be top ranged, just like it makes no sense for Warlocks to have a DC based ability against the crystal, whether it is OP or not. At a minimum, we would expect a sonic effect to have this kind of power.

What makes no sense is asking the devs to waste development time for a single target in a single phase of a single raid when other classes had no issues dealing with that target... #SMH "Whether it is OP or not" should always be a consideration, so that the devs can spend their limited development manhours on far more important things.

Trying (and failing, but trying all the same) to apply logic/science to a fantasy setting with magic and wizards and dragons... Also #SMH. Sonic makes sense, sure. But then, so does simply removing the crystal to a different plane altogether.

[nokowi]

Yep. Reaper has brought some partiness to the tilted-too-far-to-solo-only play, but BB is still the root cause of many evils.


Yeah yeah, BB has merits blah blah. It also skews play in unhealthy ways for the playerbase at large and DDO's long term health. If you only play solo or a handful of close friends then BB isn't an issue. If you make or join LFMs - if you like a large healthy community of players NOT constantly pushed towards elite (and reaper) regardless of ability to handle it...

BB. Skewing player perspectives for how many years now? :-(

With a pause for BB, it really no longer serves any purpose.

They could drop it and replace it with just a single first time bonus (once per quest), something like 100/80/50% depending if you enter on E/H/N, with E/H/N always getting an additional 20/10/0% XP, and they could also keep a +30%? bonus for dailies.

Elite First Time: +100+20+30 = +150% XP
Hard First Time: +80+10+30 = +110% XP
Normal First Time: +50+0+30 = +80% XP

(2.5/1.8) = 39% faster XP on elite (if you can run elite in the same time as norm)
(2.10/1.8) = 17% faster XP on hard (if you can run hard in the same time as norm)

Elite Daily (non first time) = +20+30 = +50%
Hard Daily (non first time) = +10+30 = +40%
Norm Daily (non first time) = +0+30 = +30%

At the point where the games becomes challenging on 1st time runs (takes 20% longer for a given quest), you have the choice of 2 difficulty settings depending on your preference for challenge.

For dailies (not usually looking for challenge), you have a choice of 2 difficulties if it takes you 10% longer at the higher difficulty.

Raids could have double the daily bonus.

[nokowi]

What makes no sense is asking the devs to waste development time for a single target in a single phase of a single raid when other classes had no issues dealing with that target... #SMH "Whether it is OP or not" should always be a consideration, so that the devs can spend their limited development manhours on far more important things.

Trying (and failing, but trying all the same) to apply logic/science to a fantasy setting with magic and wizards and dragons... Also #SMH. Sonic makes sense, sure. But then, so does simply removing the crystal to a different plane altogether.

You assume they intentionally decided to let Hurl apply to the crystal, instead of it being a bug where they accidentally let it apply.

Having Hurl apply to the crystal, for no reason in the text of Hurl, while no other DC effects apply to the crystal is EXACTLY the kind of thing that needs to be fixed throughout the game. Individually it is no big deal, but when a good portion of players don't know what works on what, it is bad for the game. Games should be COMPLEX in the ability to try many useful things, but INTUITIVE in how things work.

It's not OP is the absolutely worst argument on the forums for any change or not change. 100 non OP changes become game breaking when combined. You can try and explain away why it can be moved to another plane, but then you can't explain why it is immune to other DC effects. You can't have it both ways. "Because that's the way it works" is the only defense, which is completely non intuitive, and is poor design.

[FranOhmsford]

The reason players like Fran feel forced to do elite is not sagas, it's BB. (not calling Fran out, this is in response to their post)


Wrong!


Yep. Reaper has brought some partiness to the tilted-too-far-to-solo-only play, but BB is still the root cause of many evils.


Yeah yeah, BB has merits blah blah. It also skews play in unhealthy ways for the playerbase at large and DDO's long term health. If you only play solo or a handful of close friends then BB isn't an issue. If you make or join LFMs - if you like a large healthy community of players NOT constantly pushed towards elite (and reaper) regardless of ability to handle it...

BB. Skewing player perspectives for how many years now? :-(

I was running Elite and Elite only LONG BEFORE BB!

BB forced me to run Elite AT LEVEL wherever possible!



You know there's 3 other difficulties...

Can people please get it into their heads that I have a choice....

I can attempt to run Elite with an IP up and hope someone or multiple someone's join me.
OR
I can run Hard and KNOW no-one's going to join me!

I DO NOT WANT TO SOLO THIS ENTIRE GAME!

The sheer difference in ALL rewards for running hard instead of Elite IS another big issue but it's not the MAIN issue - The MAIN issue is that I WANT to be able to group up, I don't want to be FORCED into soloing because there just aren't enough people around who will join a Hard LFM! {Especially for multiple quests or entire Chains!}.


I'm also in England and since I quit smoking I no longer log on at all hours of the day and night - After 20 years of my sleep patterns being completely pucked I am now sleeping 10pm to 6am or thereabouts every night!
This means that I am not going to be online at Peak Hours again - And most of my online time will be at hours when IF I AM LUCKY there will be maybe 10 people online within a 3 level spread of me!
At least half of those 10 will already be in quests, maybe ONE will actually have an LFM up that chances are I do not want to run because it's 15-18 Vale and I'm only Lvl 16 and don't want to mess my XP earnings up for later when I actually get to 18 and whoops I've already done Vale, where's my XP coming from to get to 20?
Of the other four at least 2 will be Banking and not interested in questing, while the other two will have already done the quest/chain I want to do OR like me not be wanting to run that chain this level!
AND THAT WAS BEFORE REAPER CAME IN AND NOW HALF OF THAT 10 WON'T RUN ANYTHING LOWER THAN REAPER!


BB has caused significant problems with grouping BUT IT IS NOT THE REASON I RUN ELITE!

I RUN ELITE FOR FAVOUR FIRST AND FOREMOST AND BECAUSE I DO NOT WANT TO RUN QUESTS TWICE IN A LIFE {in Heroics, I don't really have a choice in Epics but I'm NOT running Elite in Epics either!}.

[Arctigis]

Learn to play?

I mean if you're getting hit in reaper you're pretty much doing it wrong. 4 levels of warlock is going to tank your dps something fierce. One cut and alacrity are really, really good for a fighter. That smattering of low hanging prr is not going to save you in R10 and in R1 it's not going to make/break your build. If you're doing R4~R6 you should have a full group and someone else should be taking the hits, not you.

I mean if you want to talk about OP you should look at what wizards are doing these days. I'll give you a hint, it's not warlocks that are soloing/duoing R10 quests.

I'm willing to bet most of the people who complain about warlocks being OP fall into at least one, if not all three, of the following groups:

1) Primarily plays heroic content
2) Primarily plays low skull reaper (1~5)
3) Is relatively new to the game (last ~4 years or so)

Every single warlock talking about how warlocks are not grossly overpowered also caveats it by saying that oven fresh warlocks are on the top side of the power curve. If you dumped a day 1 fighter and a day 1 warlock on my lap, I know I'm going to have an easier time with the warlock. That's not a point of contention.

I also admit that in the hands of a bad/mediocre player the warlock is going to perform better. You simply aren't as penalized as much for playing a warlock poorly then you are playing a fighter poorly. I imagine that's a significant factor in the "Warlocks are OP" mantra we see so often. It's bad players who can still hobble through a dungeon on a warlock while on a fighter they get wafflestomped.

That being said, a well played fighter is going to curb stomp a well played warlock so bad it's not even funny. But that's the melee problem right now in general. A well played melee is just stupidly good. You just don't see as many these days because a lot of the good players got bored and quit years ago so now we're left with the kind of people who think warlocks are OP.

Hammer. Nail. Head.

[Arctigis]

Warlocks do very effective DPS in heroics, and then that falls off in epics.


They do 'enough' dps when blasting/bursting. It's nowhere near top tier though, even in heroics. I'd
much rather be many shotting down the end boss on my 1st life Ranger than on my 30+ pastlife
Warlock main.

[peterzenn]

Let me translae what the OP said, here:

"Maaan, I do not have the TP to buy warlock".

There. You are welcome OP! :)

[AbsynthMinded]

You realize of course we've been able to do this since well before Warlock was a thing...right?

It goes without saying that the power creep had been beyond the absurd fro some time. However it does not dilute the point that NOW, Warlock eclipses the ease to which any other build could have otherwise solo'd something.

[Cantor]

They do 'enough' dps when blasting/bursting. It's nowhere near top tier though, even in heroics. I'd
much rather be many shotting down the end boss on my 1st life Ranger than on my 30+ pastlife
Warlock main.

Right after single targeting ( or dod max 4 probably less targets and not full time) or lining up ips 200 mobs on the ranger, or walking nonstop aoeing everything on the warlock. Sure the end fight is longer on the warlock but the quest isn't. And on a cone build stricken consume cut down boss times and adds run speed so you can roll over stuff faster.

No my first life warlock can't outdue my triple triple swashbuckler, but he can hang.

[Chai]

For a brief glorious period during mid/late WoTLK, tank balance in WoW was diverse and fun. Each class felt different, played different but achieved the same results. Then they made an encounter that vastly preferred one type of tank over the other. Blizzard responded to the whining by making the four tank classes basically all the same with a different colored particle effect on their taunt button. They extended this to pretty much every other class as well. Ranged spellcasters just had different colored fireballs. Some melee would do a spinning animation or a jumping animation or a who cares animation when they pressed a button to hit for 120% weapon damage and generate a good boy point they could use for their good boy point spender attack that would do 150% weapon damage.

That was pretty much the death knell for me.

DDO is, with a handful of exceptions, pretty **** diverse. I mean in the end we're just playing a giant excel spreadsheet but my tree build feels much different then my chucker which feels much different then my DC wighter which feels much different then my conelock which feels much different then my evo druid.

It's kept the game lively and every single class balance update they do shifts the meta considerably. The fighter pass made so many so-so builds exceptional and really broke open a lot of new splits. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of builds I can make/break after the Arti pass.

Most of what you named here are AOE killzone builds. Theres diversity, then theres the illusion of diversity. Because the graphics on the fireworks are different, they must be doing different things? I disagree.

The handful of exceptions are the diversity in DDO. The tree is already declared not WAI, as have shuriken AA and those are already on the list for ReNeducation.
The rest of things you play, and named here, are not balanced® yet, but those who want them nerfed down to the same level will get to them in due course. If they were balanced the way people demanding nerfs want them balanced, they would do the same things, with that "different particle effect" on the buttons which perform the same function. Those things you named are whats left of the diversity in DDO. Some of that was already wiped out in the melee class passes. Instead of bringing something unique into each class, they added crit threat and crit multiplier into the cores. When they even tried to move it to a spell for one of the classes, the nerf demands happened. Thats how far outside the meta people were willing to think with the melee passes.

Do you see anyone playing support builds currently? They are few and far between. Most of what is considered support in this game can be had via gear nowdays, or scrolled with UMD. Most of those builds got knocked out of the meta a few iterations ago, and havent reappeared since.

Do you see anyone playing stealth builds currently? Also few and far between. They werent even the most powerful builds when they were good, but they did bring an entirely different playstyle to the table.

I do see some single target DPS builds dotting the landscape otherwise dominated by AOE killzone builds with a secondary emphasis on DC builds, but not enough to convince me that there are versions of those which are desired in the current meta for anything else other than flavor.

All I needed to do to see the servers arent "lively" as claimed was play some different games for a small amount of time. Two of the three I played were older than DDO, and alot more "lively."

Things that need addressing, in no particular order.
1. Aggro mechanics
2. Single target build relevance
3. Support build relevance
4. Endgame relevance (which will help with 2 and 3)

[meleehater]

The problem with borelocks is they ruin the fun for the rest of the group.

Aoe damage without sp cost, high defenses, cc, they can do everything faster than the whole group.

Who cares if they take longer to kill a boss if they killed 90% of the mobs?

Thats why people hate borelocks.

[zehnvhex]

Most of what you named here are AOE killzone builds. Theres diversity, then theres the illusion of diversity. Because the graphics on the fireworks are different, they must be doing different things? I disagree.

You can claim everything is just pushing numbers around on a spreadsheet. AoE or single target, stealth or zerg, you're still just filling up an xp bar at the end of the day right? I don't want to get into a pedantic argument. It's too early in the morning and too pointless when it's you Chai. The "p2w" semantic argument is still too recent.

Support is doing fine and well in DDO. DC wizards and evo druids are DDO's version of a support class and they are extremely desired and valued. We don't have much in the way of party buffs in DDO outside of maybe FoM but a good CC granting 50% bonus damage to the group and enabling the rest of the group is pretty much the core definition of a support character. The IK's are a bit much and I think the concept needs to be rebalanced significantly but that's a conversation for another day, another time.

If you want healer builds brought back then DDO would need some massive overhauls. That ship has sailed honestly. It would take too much at this point. Suffice it to say healers are dead and will forever remain dead in DDO. And you know what? As someone that played a Cleric through 7 years of EverQuest and a Paladin through 9 years of WoW? Good freaking riddance.

Stealth play is not doing so good though I agree. I'd love to see a retooling of stealth mechanics. I'd also love to see Rangers/Rogues get more viable mass CC as well. Entangle should have a more reliable function I feel and I'd love to see assassin rogues get a T5 or 5/6 Core ability that emulates the traps you get from Lines of Supply. I'd love to see an assassin rogue fill the role of a physical IK/CC character. Go in, lay a entangling trap, assassinate a high priority target and then keep them CC'd with other tools.

[Renvar]

I'm just going to come out and say it.....

The game is way way too HARD without it because I can't get groups for Elite anymore!

Are you not in a guild? Your guildies won't group with you?

[karatemack]

Are you not in a guild? Your guildies won't group with you?

That's a mean troll. :(

Be nice to the Fran.

[Hipparan]

The problem with borelocks is they ruin the fun for the rest of the group.

Aoe damage without sp cost, high defenses, cc, they can do everything faster than the whole group.

Who cares if they take longer to kill a boss if they killed 90% of the mobs?

Thats why people hate borelocks.

For me it depends on what sort of character I am playing when I am in a group with Warlocks. If I'm on my Sorcerer, I can out-kill most Warlocks, but if I'm running on my Paladin or another melee class it reminds me of the frustrating days years ago when all of the Wizards would FoD enemies before I got a chance to swing at them. Of course when you have a party that has one or two Warlocks and everyone else is a melee character, it can be frustrating for the melee characters up until the boss fight (where the melee characters get slaughtered because they have to be up close and personal with the boss).

[FranOhmsford]

Are you not in a guild? Your guildies won't group with you?

We're not all in 100+ account Guilds you know!

And having spent 7 years building my own Guild up in Levels I'm NOT leaving it now!

[Renvar]

We're not all in 100+ account Guilds you know!

And having spent 7 years building my own Guild up in Levels I'm NOT leaving it now!

Sounds like you are stuck in a box of your own choosing.

My guild has no one in it who plays at the same times as me and/or wants to run the same same content on the same difficulty as me. (pretty much the main reason for being in a guild in the first place)

But, I leveled a guild, so I must stay there on all my characters. (Obviously, you can keep 1 alt and mules in there to keep it available. All your characters don't need to be in there. You don't have to lose the guild entirely. This is not a binary, all or nothing, situation)

If you choose to not be in a guild with other like minded players who play at the same time as you, then you don't NEED warlock to be OP because you CAN'T find groups. You WANT warlock to be OP because you don't WANT to join a guild with other people because you don't WANT to leave the guild you started and leveled. (even though the goal of guilds is to facilitate group play among players with similar game play styles and objectives. I'm sure whatever guild you join will have all the same buffs available you have on your current airship)

At some point you need to realize that the game does not have to create/maintain a flawed design so that you can refuse to change and ignore obvious solutions to your problems.

[AzB]

I really enjoyed melee assassin until they broke it. I don't care to find the latest arti build. The difference is you don't care what you play, and as long as something works you are happy. Contrast that with someone that likes one or two specific builds, or one specific role.

That describes me and a couple other people in my static group perfectly. And sums up the main reason we're a static group. The norm seems to be "how close can we get to God mode with exploits and ridiculous builds" rather than enjoying playing a class for what it is. And no, none of us play warlocks. We all tried them and found them easy and boring. Perfect for high speed farming, not so much for enjoying time spent with friends on an adventure that could very well fail. Which seems to be a lost capability these days.

And clearly what the devs want as they increase grind. Farm until your eyes bleed.

[Chai]

You can claim everything is just pushing numbers around on a spreadsheet. AoE or single target, stealth or zerg, you're still just filling up an xp bar at the end of the day right? I don't want to get into a pedantic argument. It's too early in the morning and too pointless when it's you Chai. The "p2w" semantic argument is still too recent.

Support is doing fine and well in DDO. DC wizards and evo druids are DDO's version of a support class and they are extremely desired and valued. We don't have much in the way of party buffs in DDO outside of maybe FoM but a good CC granting 50% bonus damage to the group and enabling the rest of the group is pretty much the core definition of a support character. The IK's are a bit much and I think the concept needs to be rebalanced significantly but that's a conversation for another day, another time.

If you want healer builds brought back then DDO would need some massive overhauls. That ship has sailed honestly. It would take too much at this point. Suffice it to say healers are dead and will forever remain dead in DDO. And you know what? As someone that played a Cleric through 7 years of EverQuest and a Paladin through 9 years of WoW? Good freaking riddance.

Stealth play is not doing so good though I agree. I'd love to see a retooling of stealth mechanics. I'd also love to see Rangers/Rogues get more viable mass CC as well. Entangle should have a more reliable function I feel and I'd love to see assassin rogues get a T5 or 5/6 Core ability that emulates the traps you get from Lines of Supply. I'd love to see an assassin rogue fill the role of a physical IK/CC character. Go in, lay a entangling trap, assassinate a high priority target and then keep them CC'd with other tools.

Support is not doing fine and well as claimed. I think support was done away with long enough ago that people arent even clear on what the good support builds were when there was a meta that supported them. Evo druids are just another kill zone AOE build (my main is an evo druid currently) and DC wizards in the context of DDO are not a support build, although one could make and play one that way, theres not as much of a reason to, when you can spam death spells.

I do agree that the ship sailed here, but thats the problem, and NOT the excuse for not solving the problem. I get that there are people who refuse to play healers, support, and anything thats not instakilling or DPS in the DDO community, and thats fine - they can play what they want, but thats not a reason to rid the game of an entire archetype which supports multiple playstyles. It not only makes any claim of "more diversity" objectively false, it funnels in one type of player while funneling out most of the other types.

[Greyhawk6]

Balance doesn't only matter in pvp games. That is a ridiculous argument. People don't play rpgs to feel useless, nobody wants to feel irrelevant. Nobody wants to spend hundreds of hours gearing and utilizing their game knowledge to create effective characters only to be outclassed by some first life nobody.

Seriously?

I honestly couldn't care less. It's a lot less for me to worry about if captain e-peen is on a killing spree and I'm supping a beer and soaking up the exps. Whats not fun is people who have no grasp of their capabilities, being stupid and messing everything up - warlock or no. Unfortunately stupidity never had a balance pass :(

[Stoner81]

Unfortunately stupidity never had a balance pass :(

https://cdn.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/1344480104953_1958088.png

Stoner81.

[KoobTheProud]

I get that there are people who refuse to play healers, support, and anything thats not instakilling or DPS in the DDO community, and thats fine - they can play what they want, but thats not a reason to rid the game of an entire archetype which supports multiple playstyles. It not only makes any claim of "more diversity" objectively false, it funnels in one type of player while funneling out most of the other types.

The race to a DPS uber alles meta has happened in most MMO's at this point. It's a race to the lowest common denominator.

The motive is clear: a lowest common denominator meta allows the most people to potentially play in that meta. The problem is that many people who formerly played MMO's were playing them for something other than soloing in a party. They were playing for teamwork and to be a needed member of the team. They were playing because they liked healing and support. They were playing because whack-a-mole at high levels is extremely challenging and creates guesswork and moments of inspiration that are entirely lacking in the linear DPS process.

To a lesser extent the move to DPS over all reduced the value of tanking, as mobs that are killed in seconds and bosses that are killed in minutes require less tactical mitigation and more pure gear/hp as a replacement for sound defensive play. When trash took minutes to kill and bosses might take an hour of sustained effort over several tries the value of good tanks and good healers was higher than in the whirlwind meta that 90% of capped content represents.

In Reaper 10 Raids what we see today is a tank intimi-circle-kiting the big boss while a healer stands out of AE range and keeps the tank up unless a lag spike causes a downed tank. There may be a secondary tank kiting adds in a circle away from the main tank and boss. Almost everybody else is at range doing their thing because no melee DPS could sustain good damage trying to keep up with the kites involved, let alone taking periodic damage that no healer is assigned to cover because of the meta.

I don't raid Reaper 10 but I watch every video I can just for the entertainment value and the Frogger Tank is a really bad direction for the meta to have gone. It's partly lag-inspired because the hitches will kill a stationary tank faster than a moving one however the fact that almost nobody is trying to tank in place with a heal rotation in place is a bad thing for an end game environment. It encourages the DPS-DPS-DPS, mostly at range and devalues everything else except gear/hp and the ability to maintain a tight circle to avoid most of the strikes the boss is making.

[AbsynthMinded]

The concept of gaming at an appropriate challenge which required a balanced party is dead in DDO. I really can't complain at anything they do now that its far beyond hope to turn it back. Seriously.. The path to center would be the end of so much cheese and power creep. We would all enjoy one of the best things in life, ' The lamentations of the women '. Broken sno-flakes who will whine and wail at the brutality of it all. T'would be glorious!

[slarden]

Are you not in a guild? Your guildies won't group with you?

I think you missed his very obvious point. People are playing reaper and not elite. He wants to play elite in a group.

If a guildie asked me to play elite I would tell them they can join me in reaper instead. What he says is true - for people that don't want to play reaper - finding people to play with is harder than ever. For the people that cave and join reaper - they simply have less fun because they are running on the wrong difficulty level they don't want to play. The populations are small and the incentives too strong for reaper.

[Arctigis]

The populations are small and the incentives too strong for reaper.

Yes, I think this pretty much sums it up. BB (including 1st time) across Elite and Reaper should have been
the same IMO.

[Renvar]

I think you missed his very obvious point. People are playing reaper and not elite. He wants to play elite in a group.

If a guildie asked me to play elite I would tell them they can join me in reaper instead. What he says is true - for people that don't want to play reaper - finding people to play with is harder than ever. For the people that cave and join reaper - they simply have less fun because they are running on the wrong difficulty level they don't want to play. The populations are small and the incentives too strong for reaper.

That's because your guild is probably a guild of players mostly running reaper. There are guilds where the players don't run reaper. Just like there are guilds (before reaper and RTR) where the players mostly only do 1-20 TR's. There was one on Khyber I used to group with when doing TR's. After running with them a few times, I got to know them. They had been around for 8-9 years. They just didn't like Epics. At all. So they just played the game 1-20.

The forum population (which skews toward veteran and end game/meta game players) is probably heavily skewed towards reaper. The LFM panel is heavily skewed towards reaper.

BTW: I pretty much choose reaper only at this point. When in guild runs, soloing, or in PUG's. But, if a guildie asked me to run elite because that is what they want to do and are struggling to find groups for it? I'd run elite with them. Because, guildie.

[Chai]

The question is: why will the guildy REFUSE to run reaper when in a group? I understand why they would drop to elite when soloing, but why refuse to play reaper in a group?

[FranOhmsford]

The question is: why will the guildy REFUSE to run reaper when in a group? I understand why they would drop to elite when soloing, but why refuse to play reaper in a group?


BECAUSE THEY DON'T LIKE DYING EVERY TWO SECONDS!

Because they don't like or want to run Reaper!

Because they're character isn't ready for Reaper!


I hear a lot of play lower difficulties if you can't run Elite Solo but then I hear you must run Reaper with us too - WHICH IS IT?

[Chai]

BECAUSE THEY DON'T LIKE DYING EVERY TWO SECONDS!

Because they're character isn't ready for Reaper!


I hear a lot of play lower difficulties if you can't run Elite Solo but then I hear you must run Reaper with us too - WHICH IS IT?

R1 isnt that far off from elite. If they are dying every 2 seconds in R1 in a group, they probably are not soloing elite.

Being ready for elite solo = being ready for R1 in a group. There is no character strength reason why 6 players who can solo elite cannot complete quests in R1 when grouped together.


Because they don't like or want to run Reaper!

Why specifically? Thats the question. If the forums are correct and mass exodus is happening due to reaper, it would be good to see what the pattern is in the feedback of those who are leaving. To see this, specific reasons need to be given.

[FranOhmsford]

R1 isnt that far off from elite. If they are dying every 2 seconds in R1 in a group, they probably are not soloing elite.

Being ready for elite solo = being ready for R1 in a group. There is no character strength reason why 6 players who can solo elite cannot complete quests in R1 when grouped together.

You seem to think being ready for elite solo = having no trouble with elite solo and that's just not true - Even if you have no trouble soloing some elite bb quests there are others you may {not you personally} still need help with but you can't get that help in a decent amount of time because everyone's running Reaper!

Now also add in the severe increase in difficulty just from going from running E-BB Servants at 18 to running it at 16 - Then add in some more difficulty because it's Reaper now NOT Elite!

Yes there are still some groups up for let's call them overlevel Reapers but they're getting less and less too as people realise they're basically having to solo when those groups don't fill!


What's the POINT of Reaper if you're soloing it?

Reaper was meant to be about Grouping - R1 shouldn't even exist in the first place!

[Chai]

You seem to think being ready for elite solo = having no trouble with elite solo and that's just not true - Even if you have no trouble soloing some elite bb quests there are others you may {not you personally} still need help with but you can't get that help in a decent amount of time because everyone's running Reaper!

That would be what being ready for elite solo means, yes. If the player needs help soloing elite, they really arent soloing elite.


Now also add in the severe increase in difficulty just from going from running E-BB Servants at 18 to running it at 16 - Then add in some more difficulty because it's Reaper now NOT Elite!

Then add in the fact that you are running it in a 6 person group and not soloing, and we can conclude that 6 people all soloing elite, are capable of running R1 and completing quests in the same group.


Yes there are still some groups up for let's call them overlevel Reapers but they're getting less and less too as people realise they're basically having to solo when those groups don't fill!

Or put up an LFM.



What's the POINT of Reaper if you're soloing it?

Reaper was meant to be about Grouping - R1 shouldn't even exist in the first place!

My question has zero to do with soloing reaper. My question is why do players who are able to solo elite refuse to run reaper in groups. Since there is zero character strength reasons, there must be other SPECIFIC reasons.

[AbsynthMinded]

Being ready.. Ready to play the game how it's meant to be played now, solo or zerg.. A sad state of affairs.

People who Die a lot in Reaper, in my experience, do so because a simple lack of familiarity with the amped up threats, or are with a Party without any smarts to recognize that they need to go slower, stick together and have an experienced player explain a few finer points.

Or they don't have a Warlock in the party. Because if they did they could just safely Pike the quest and let the Warlock do it all stupid fast.

[Shiriru]

but... I can't wrap my head around what a warlock IS ! ?

As a cc/heal/sonic nuke type of bard, I always considered bards the kings and queens of buffs and cc... Built correctly also healing and supporting amazingly.
Or clerics the kings and queens of insta death mechanics and strong implosion-like bursts.
Or proper melee classes to be the best at tanking and taking all the monster hate..
Wizards and Sorcs to have amazing cc too and strong nukes..

What is a warlock ?
In my eyes, they screw up the entire point of having 'roles' in the game.. Basically they have more buffs than my bard does, they have CC if not better than mine... Who thought it was balanced to give them Mass Hold, when they already have fears, insta deaths, these tentacle things... Not to mention they can heal, especially well considering they all play in Exalted Angel and have cocoons and what not twisted.
Warlocks are always in the middle of the group of mobs, not taking any damage and bursting everything down with their aura thingy, while the stuff is perma CCed by tentacles and mass holds..
Who thought that giving warlocks access to each type of role in the game was balanced ? How come they can tank, insta kill, heal , buff, do very strong burst, can perma cc... have few SP issues..

Warlocks should either be nerfed more, having no access to many destiny trees, or other classes should be brought up to their standart.. because its not fun, when a warlock comes in my group, to start buffing , healing, cc-ing and doing everything - making other players feel useless...

I had this case , when I was a main healer in a EE quest.. a warlock joined and stated 'Don't worry i'll heal you all at the boss fight" - excuse my language but *** ?! Who thought giving a DPS oriented class access to so many unique buffs and heals, combined with their other stuff- overshadowing the real clerics or bards. By the time I cast my Dancing ball or Mass Hold or Irresistable dance, the warlock already CCed everything in the tentacles and got it killed before the Dancing ball even appeared ...Considering in lore, warlocks use dark magic, they should not allow warlocks to twist or use Divine EDs.. then they will be more balanced I think. Because I hate wasting SP to heal or buff someone , when the warlock already used the mass cure, or Divine Wrath or cocoon , or renew.. or all the buffs which are supposed to be unique to bards and wizards.

2 Days ago I did the Slave Lords on EH, with a friend of mine, who has several TRs and is mainly tank/melee built... well this warlock came, as a 1st lifer, and outtanked the tank - if this is even a term. He even started buffing my friend , when I already had him buffed with the same stuff and the warlock said " Oh I'm sorry, I thought that was my job... " ... if that's the warlock job, then what job a bard like me has then ?
I thought warlocks were a damage dealing , glass cannon-y class, who deals hard damage but needs some backup... I was wrong. They are the 1 man army class in the game, who zerg like gods, heal , buff, cc, tank, dps, ive seen some even open doors and find traps... OKAY !

I'm sorry if I offend someone, but sometimes when I put up LFR, I disable the warlock spot- because I like to pretend the game is hard. Or at least harder, without that 1 man army coming and stealing all the spotlights from the other 5 people there.

[Chai]

The race to a DPS uber alles meta has happened in most MMO's at this point. It's a race to the lowest common denominator.

The motive is clear: a lowest common denominator meta allows the most people to potentially play in that meta. The problem is that many people who formerly played MMO's were playing them for something other than soloing in a party. They were playing for teamwork and to be a needed member of the team. They were playing because they liked healing and support. They were playing because whack-a-mole at high levels is extremely challenging and creates guesswork and moments of inspiration that are entirely lacking in the linear DPS process.

To a lesser extent the move to DPS over all reduced the value of tanking, as mobs that are killed in seconds and bosses that are killed in minutes require less tactical mitigation and more pure gear/hp as a replacement for sound defensive play. When trash took minutes to kill and bosses might take an hour of sustained effort over several tries the value of good tanks and good healers was higher than in the whirlwind meta that 90% of capped content represents.

In Reaper 10 Raids what we see today is a tank intimi-circle-kiting the big boss while a healer stands out of AE range and keeps the tank up unless a lag spike causes a downed tank. There may be a secondary tank kiting adds in a circle away from the main tank and boss. Almost everybody else is at range doing their thing because no melee DPS could sustain good damage trying to keep up with the kites involved, let alone taking periodic damage that no healer is assigned to cover because of the meta.

I don't raid Reaper 10 but I watch every video I can just for the entertainment value and the Frogger Tank is a really bad direction for the meta to have gone. It's partly lag-inspired because the hitches will kill a stationary tank faster than a moving one however the fact that almost nobody is trying to tank in place with a heal rotation in place is a bad thing for an end game environment. It encourages the DPS-DPS-DPS, mostly at range and devalues everything else except gear/hp and the ability to maintain a tight circle to avoid most of the strikes the boss is making.

I dont see this in most MMOs. More often than not in other games, an OP bunker gets you further than an OP DPS build, with far less effort. DDO is the outlier here in that it allows you to be best or near best at everything, while being able to cover up weaknesses with blanket immunities, and thats why full glass builds work. Most other MMOs dont allow this. Glass builds are high risk in balanced games due to having to trade away survivability, sustain, and recovery to get that uber DPS.

As for how warlocks affect balance, they are the OP bunker with zero opportunity cost for spell based DPS. They arent anywhere near the top in DPS, but they could be dead last on the DPS ladder and still be OP due to easily obtained survivability they dont have to trade off for.

Roles like tanking and healing were best in the Chronoscope/TOD/VOD/LOB era. Tanking those mobs required knowledge of how their mechanics worked. Simple face tanking didnt work. Simple circle kiting didnt work. Good play decisions were required, far above and beyond exploiting one gimmick to game the AI. Efficient use of SP and consumables also required specific in game knowledge for those encounters. being able to make the decision to use a scroll (mob will only cause splash damage in the next few seconds) versus having to use a full off-the-mana-bar-heal (mob will cause spike damage in the next few seconds) was a valued support platform skill.

Uber DPS alone doesnt win encounters in balanced games. You know when a game is unbalanced, when there is more and more pressure to build for DPS and nothing else.

[JOTMON]

Warlocks should either be nerfed more, having no access to many destiny trees, or other classes should be brought up to their standart.. because its not fun, when a warlock comes in my group, to start buffing , healing, cc-ing and doing everything - making other players feel useless...


http://i.imgur.com/4OXOgXL.png

[Aelonwy]

Why specifically?

Hmmm let me see if I can iterate my own personal dislikes of Reaper difficulty, not that I'm part of any exodus I just avoid what I don't enjoy.

1. One shot death that cannot be avoided or prepared for or mitigated. Obnoxious.

2. Creatures I cannot see, cannot reach, or otherwise cannot fight killing me at any speed. Really aggravating when some kind of damaging aura is ticking through a door or wall making it impossible for me to use a lever or open the door to get to the target itself.

3. My main is a cleric. I enjoy being a cleric. One of the best perks of being a cleric is the ability to heal oneself and heal oneself well. Reaper self-healing penalty feels like one of those grade school bad apple things; you know the one where the teacher says so-and-so was not behaving so no one can have a treat. Only cleric self healing isn't a treat its the fundamental basis of the class... except at some point the devs decided to hand out some form of self healing/healing benefit to almost everyone and this is their backwards way of taking it back which also penalizes the classes to which self healing is supposed to belong in the first place.

4. And this one is not limited to Reaper or DDO, but a general dislike in all games. I generally loathe any special immunities handed out to special snowflake mobs or bosses that otherwise cripple or nullify player abilities or tactical options essentially limiting or funneling build options into smaller and smaller choices of feats/enhancements/spells that have any purpose or chance of being useful to the player. This is doubly irritating when for whatever reasons players were enjoying equipping or building for an immunity and it gets taken away from them but not mobs. I expect bosses and special mobs to have incredibly high saves, I don't enjoy most of my abilities only being useful against trash. That's just boring.

5. The devs over-incentivized Reaper with too much XP over Elite, and benefits from the Reaper trees in regular play. This difficulty is not just about challenge as was previously advertised/discussed. This is more power for power-gamers that didn't need it or they wouldn't have been complaining that the game wasn't challenging enough already. Eventually, it will come full circle, and many of those that have acquired all the Reaper power will complain again that everything is too easy and there's nothing for them to do.

[Ryiah]

1. One shot death that cannot be avoided or prepared for or mitigated. Obnoxious.

One shots deaths were already in this game before Reaper. Avoiding, preparing, and mitigating it is done the exact same way you would have done it in Elite. By knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your classes, the enemies, and the various tactics you have available. The actual reaper enemies themselves can be effectively crowd controlled. Charming a carnage reaper to use it against the other enemies in the encounter is very effective.



2. Creatures I cannot see, cannot reach, or otherwise cannot fight killing me at any speed. Really aggravating when some kind of damaging aura is ticking through a door or wall making it impossible for me to use a lever or open the door to get to the target itself.

They've largely fixed this problem. At least with the fear reapers. Actual enemies being in positions that they can attack you while avoiding damage from certain classes has always been in this game to some degree. I remember a Threnal run once where one of the hounds had been placed on a ledge. It was outside the reach of our party and was repeatedly attempting to PK us. Then you have the problem where an enemy can be inside of a wall or pillar enough that you can't hit them but they can hit you.



3. My main is a cleric. I enjoy being a cleric. One of the best perks of being a cleric is the ability to heal oneself and heal oneself well. Reaper self-healing penalty feels like one of those grade school bad apple things; you know the one where the teacher says so-and-so was not behaving so no one can have a treat. Only cleric self healing isn't a treat its the fundamental basis of the class... except at some point the devs decided to hand out some form of self healing/healing benefit to almost everyone and this is their backwards way of taking it back which also penalizes the classes to which self healing is supposed to belong in the first place.

My last cleric life was run entirely through Reaper. Early levels were definitely painful but then they would have been equally as painful in Elite difficulty as Cure Light and Cure Moderate are very weak compared to Cure Serious, Cure Critical, and especially Heal. Once I obtained Heal self-healing became a non-issue outside of being hit by a plague reaper.



4. And this one is not limited to Reaper or DDO, but a general dislike in all games. I generally loathe any special immunities handed out to special snowflake mobs or bosses that otherwise cripple or nullify player abilities or tactical options essentially limiting or funneling build options into smaller and smaller choices of feats/enhancements/spells that have any purpose or chance of being useful to the player. This is doubly irritating when for whatever reasons players were enjoying equipping or building for an immunity and it gets taken away from them but not mobs. I expect bosses and special mobs to have incredibly high saves, I don't enjoy most of my abilities only being useful against trash. That's just boring.

Agreed, but at the same time it's important to remember that some of the alternative ways to create unique encounters are expensive to develop and may be outside of the server resources available. DDO is already very heavy on server resources with most encounters involving numerous dice rolls, raycasts, collision checks, etc.



5. The devs over-incentivized Reaper with too much XP over Elite, and benefits from the Reaper trees in regular play. This difficulty is not just about challenge as was previously advertised/discussed. This is more power for power-gamers that didn't need it or they wouldn't have been complaining that the game wasn't challenging enough already. Eventually, it will come full circle, and many of those that have acquired all the Reaper power will complain again that everything is too easy and there's nothing for them to do.

A different experience bonus wouldn't have had any meaningful impact. For years now we've been grinding out minor improvements to our characters in the form of reincarnation. By comparison Reaper enhancements are a massive improvement to our characters that take far less time to achieve. What is truly incentivizing people running only Reaper is the experience bonus you gain from completing a quest for the first time and the fact that Heroic content is much faster to breeze through. Therefore anyone who wants Reaper points in a timely fashion has to run Heroic.

[Aelonwy]

One shots deaths were already in this game before

With very few exceptions I don't experience one shot deaths outside of Reaper, therefor it is more frustrating and less enjoyable to play Reaper.



They've largely fixed this problem. At least with the fear reapers. Actual enemies being in positions that they can attack you while avoiding damage from certain classes has always been in this game to some degree.

Haven't tried Reaper since... June I think, it was still happening then and it was unfun.



My last cleric life was run entirely through Reaper. Early levels were definitely painful but then they would have been equally as painful in Elite difficulty as Cure Light and Cure Moderate are very weak compared to Cure Serious, Cure Critical, and especially Heal. Once I obtained Heal self-healing became a non-issue outside of being hit by a plague reaper.

I just ran my cleric through an entirely elite heroic life and had no trouble except from traps (not the best reflexes), beholders and Tharak Hounds. Reaper is an entirely different ball game from elite. One in which I can heal others very well but I'm a healer that has trouble healing myself, that is ludicrous.



Agreed, but at the same time it's important to remember that some of the alternative ways to create unique encounters are expensive to develop and may be outside of the server resources available. DDO is already very heavy on server resources with most encounters involving numerous dice rolls, raycasts, collision checks, etc.


I can understand the practicality and still feel the implementation is if not lazy at least a far cry from optimal, again this is in reference to this practice in any game not just DDO.



By comparison Reaper enhancements are a massive improvement to our characters that take far less time to achieve.

This ^ should not be the case, not according to how Reaper was first described to us. But because this^ is the case many people that would not otherwise care about Reaper feel if not forced, at least heavily encouraged, to run a difficulty many of whom do not actually enjoy.

Look, these are simply my opinions, my reasons as to why I do NOT enjoy Reaper. You can state your differing experiences and opinions but its not really going to change how I feel or what I do or do not enjoy. Chai asked a question, and I replied with my own opinions and reasons. My opening statement made it clear I did not feel I was speaking for anyone else but myself.

[simo0208]

http://i.imgur.com/4OXOgXL.png

So much doom in this thread. I am almost finished with completionist (then on to rqcials), and I cannot disagree more. Aure the warlock offers the most solo friendly build I’ve played. But the new favored soul is fantastic. So good in fact that I prefer it over the aura burst warlock. I have enjoyed all but artificer so far, and that’s due to that annoying sound more than anything. I was not a fan of the cleric being forced to take the war domain to essentially use the warpriest line. That locked out a goodly number of other domains that clearly would benefit from the line. But it’s a small criticism.

People do realize the game is cooperative and not competitive right?

And I play melees all the time, with zero problems until anout reaper 4, but that’s on me for not being powerful enough for it yet. Once I get some racials done, I’m certain I can get there. In fact I could do it no problem if io changed my playstyle a bit and used a more tactical approach.

I’m having a blast playing.

[boredGamer]

but... I can't wrap my head around what a warlock IS ! ?

As a cc/heal/sonic nuke type of bard, I always considered bards the kings and queens of buffs and cc... Built correctly also healing and supporting amazingly.
Or clerics the kings and queens of insta death mechanics and strong implosion-like bursts.
Or proper melee classes to be the best at tanking and taking all the monster hate..
Wizards and Sorcs to have amazing cc too and strong nukes..

What is a warlock ?
In my eyes, they screw up the entire point of having 'roles' in the game.. Basically they have more buffs than my bard does, they have CC if not better than mine... Who thought it was balanced to give them Mass Hold, when they already have fears, insta deaths, these tentacle things... Not to mention they can heal, especially well considering they all play in Exalted Angel and have cocoons and what not twisted.
Warlocks are always in the middle of the group of mobs, not taking any damage and bursting everything down with their aura thingy, while the stuff is perma CCed by tentacles and mass holds..
Who thought that giving warlocks access to each type of role in the game was balanced ? How come they can tank, insta kill, heal , buff, do very strong burst, can perma cc... have few SP issues..

.... By the time I cast my Dancing ball or Mass Hold or Irresistable dance, the warlock already CCed everything in the tentacles and got it killed before the Dancing ball even appeared ...


I came back to the game 5 or so months ago and I think this is the root of the problem. Not that warlocks are OP at any one thing (in the current meta of TR hamster wheel) - but that they can just do everything. That the class was built with someone saying "wouldn't it be great if my character also had ...".

Holy hell, they get all the best spells - why do they get every necessary buff ? DW, GH, jump, nightshield? Every necessary CC?. Then their class skills are ridiculous as well. Jump, UMD, intim ? UMD makes sense from a balance point of view, not sure where the others came from. Best DPS spells, AOE no sp insanity. Best survivability - here, take this no arcane failure medium armor for some reason.

And shiru, I totally agree - one of the big problems is simply EVARDS. It is a ridiculous spell that every warlock abuses to no end. Because it is ridiculous - no save slow! Damage. hold on failed save. Have to recast? Nope, it stays for 10 seconds. Who thought this was a good idea ? Take that away from warlocks and a lot of the OP zerg goes away. Or make Evards a capstone that is NOT in Englightened Spirit. Warlocks should have to choose between being DPS, CC, or survivable. Somewhere.

My current main is 18warlock / 2 rogue, and is ridiculous. CC, damage, traps. It's been great to farm past lives after being away for a long time, but it's seriously ****ed up, at least on the hamster wheel. It definitely is outshined in r4+ reaper by seriously good toons, but that is about it.

[slarden]

People do realize the game is cooperative and not competitive right?

Exactly - some of these posts are comical to read. Jump skill and spell is overpowered now. Deathward totally overpowered - I no longer need 5 visors of the flesh render in my pack it's a completely unfair advantage.

Better healers than clerics now because they have mass cure moderate wounds by choosing the exalted angel destiny which provides more benefit to divines ...

[glmfw1]

one of the big problems is simply EVARDS. It is a ridiculous spell that every warlock abuses to no end.

I am a warlock at present and I do NOT abuse this spell.
I use it sparingly and maximised/empowered, when mobs are too huge. If I used it too much it would totally drain my SP in no time.
I'd much rather have a fight take a bit longer than run up against a spell ward later on that I can't get rid of due to lack of SP.

Warlocks played by people who don't know the ins and outs of equipment are not much different powerwise from other classes. As a crafter, I can maximise my spell power by knowing the right stat and skill choices, then pile the right equipment on top of them. If I couldn't craft I wouldn't be as powerful. A new player, not familiar with the rules, could play another class far more effectively with fairly random stat/skill/equipment choices, but would end up very underpowered as a Warlock if they did the same.

I know one player who thinks Warlock sucks... she has played mainly melee builds and finds her warlock underpowered and squishy.

IMO, Warlocks are essentially an easy button for people who understand the mechanics of the game. It would be interesting to see how Warlocks performed vs other classes in a quest that took your inventory away at the start and only gave it back at the end, forcing you to make do with lootgen throughout the quest.

[Loholt-UK]

I haven't read the entire thread but just want to respond to the original poster with a couple of salient points (that have probably been covered by other people already):

How does my overpoweredness (which has a lot less to do with being a Warlock and much more to do with having 70+ past lives and optimal gear) affect your game in the slightest?

How do you know that the Warlocks you are running with aren't Completionist/Epic Completionist/Racial Completionists and therefore should overpower you because you're not? Do first life Warlocks also own you, or do you not have the data to support or deny this conjecture? Maybe it's a question you should be asking.

Are the Warlocks who own you crafters? Do they have better gear than you because they designed an entire set and have the absolute optimal gear for their class when you don't? Maybe it's another question you should be asking.

Once this rant is over, whether or not the devs listen to you and whether or not Warlocks get the nerf you think they so richly deserve, I will still be overpowered because of the 70+ past lives and optimally crafted gear. Do you intend to mount another campaign to reduce my overpoweredness even though I earned it?

Asking for nerfs to classes/races will never be received well by the community. Why do you want to spoil my fun? Asking for your class to be buffed in specific ways is the way you should have gone, it's not my fault that your class and/or how you choose to play it isn't as good as my class and/or how I choose to play it so please don't ask for my game to be changed to accommodate your insecurities/lack of skill/lack of gear/lack of PLs/whatever. Whatever happens, you will still be a Wizard and your game will not improve one iota by nerfing me.

[boredGamer]

Exactly - some of these posts are comical to read. Jump skill and spell is overpowered now. Deathward totally overpowered - I no longer need 5 visors of the flesh render in my pack it's a completely unfair advantage.

Better healers than clerics now because they have mass cure moderate wounds by choosing the exalted angel destiny which provides more benefit to divines ...


Way to take a single point out of context. The whole point is that they are simply very good at *everything* - that stuff is just bizarre icing on the cake of already awesome. I'm sure you will nitpick one word out of this reply also, so I'm not going to bother saying much more. Except, "here, have Web also".



How do you know that the Warlocks you are running with aren't Completionist/Epic Completionist/Racial Completionists and therefore should overpower you because you're not? Do first life Warlocks also own you, or do you not have the data to support or deny this conjecture? Maybe it's a question you should be asking.

I ran my warlock as completely new first life as of a few months ago. No previous toons. No gear. No past lives. By the time I hit level 10 I was rofl stomping everything in the game. Nothing but a few twinked players could match kills (aside from other locks, obviously). Very few could match CC. Some toons were more survivable. This compared to my first life warlock. With no gear.

Now my lock has 6 heroic, 6 epic, lots of gear, and in many pugs I simply have to tone it down. I'll often just CC for pugs (web, BoGW + Evards, dancing ball when necessary but I think it's annoying). If I do DPS, suddenly I will be out in front, tanking, CC-ing, killing, trapping. That can't be fun for anyone else. I can run legendary reaper slavers easily solo. As I said before, up until about r3 and then the advantage curve tends to drop off towards insta-kill/CC wiz and other builds. (Although curious if respec install-kill/CC on warlock how that will do in higher reapers)

So why does this matter to gameplay ?

This has been discussed ad nauseam and I barely want to repeat why. I used to play 10 years ago, however, and loved the team dynamic, I almost always clericed (greater command, heals, damage mitigation) - controlling the battlefield for your team was the most fun I've ever had in this game. Hell, Blade Barrier messed up that dynamic on it's own. Now there are a rare few fights where this occurs. I can barely find a PUGger that understands standing in a doorway while the ranged with aggro stands on the other side. It's disgusting how few people use or understand any actual tactics these days. And yes, that is not as fun. And you can see it in raids, people just don't understand base mechanics because all of their prep has been watered down ****.

Disclaimer: At the same time, players - don't fight the meta - roll warlocks for a while or a build that really does work for you. Fighting the meta will only result in a loss of fun for yourself, imo. Unless you have a good static group or guild. The PUG scene is a rofl-stomp mess.

[bracelet]

Way to take a single point out of context. The whole point is that they are simply very good at *everything* - that stuff is just bizarre icing on the cake of already awesome. I'm sure you will nitpick one word out of this reply also, so I'm not going to bother saying much more. Except, "here, have Web also".




I ran my warlock as completely new first life as of a few months ago. No previous toons. No gear. No past lives. By the time I hit level 10 I was rofl stomping everything in the game. Nothing but a few twinked players could match kills (aside from other locks, obviously). Very few could match CC. Some toons were more survivable. This compared to my first life warlock. With no gear.

Now my lock has 6 heroic, 6 epic, lots of gear, and in many pugs I simply have to tone it down. I'll often just CC for pugs (web, BoGW + Evards, dancing ball when necessary but I think it's annoying). If I do DPS, suddenly I will be out in front, tanking, CC-ing, killing, trapping. That can't be fun for anyone else. I can run legendary reaper slavers easily solo. As I said before, up until about r3 and then the advantage curve tends to drop off towards insta-kill/CC wiz and other builds. (Although curious if respec install-kill/CC on warlock how that will do in higher reapers)

So why does this matter to gameplay ?

This has been discussed ad nauseam and I barely want to repeat why. I used to play 10 years ago, however, and loved the team dynamic, I almost always clericed (greater command, heals, damage mitigation) - controlling the battlefield for your team was the most fun I've ever had in this game. Hell, Blade Barrier messed up that dynamic on it's own. Now there are a rare few fights where this occurs. I can barely find a PUGger that understands standing in a doorway while the ranged with aggro stands on the other side. It's disgusting how few people use or understand any actual tactics these days. And yes, that is not as fun. And you can see it in raids, people just don't understand base mechanics because all of their prep has been watered down ****.

Disclaimer: At the same time, players - don't fight the meta - roll warlocks for a while or a build that really does work for you. Fighting the meta will only result in a loss of fun for yourself, imo. Unless you have a good static group or guild. The PUG scene is a rofl-stomp mess.

So to paraphrase: roll the game back 10 years. I think there was a "nostalgia server" thread somewhere.

[boredGamer]

So to paraphrase: roll the game back 10 years. I think there was a "nostalgia server" thread somewhere.

Without being flippant - there were some great aspects to 10 years ago, yes. It's ok to refer to previous things when trying to make a point about where things should / could go.

I do really like where the game has gone for the most part. But no one can possibly think warlocks, as they stand, will make for a better game 2 years from now.

Warlock player, again, to be clear.

[Tilomere]

3. My main is a cleric. I enjoy being a cleric. One of the best perks of being a cleric is the ability to heal oneself and heal oneself well. Reaper self-healing penalty feels like one of those grade school bad apple things; you know the one where the teacher says so-and-so was not behaving so no one can have a treat. Only cleric self healing isn't a treat its the fundamental basis of the class... except at some point the devs decided to hand out some form of self healing/healing benefit to almost everyone and this is their backwards way of taking it back which also penalizes the classes to which self healing is supposed to belong in the first place.



Clerics can solo reaper raids at level.

http://i63.tinypic.com/2qsw7r9.jpg

Clerics are fine. What they should focus on is buffing warlock single target dps and fixing warlock bugs. Like consume, which isn't scaling with metamagics or spell power scaling properly on dot ticks. Since more people play warlocks, such fixes and buffs would be of the greatest good. The divine pass and more divine changes are a waste of time. No one plays a FVS, why waste time working on them?

Or maybe they should make Ruin and GRuin hit 5x per cast.

[andina]

Yet another thread about nerfing warlocks.....do you people not understand this is a PVE environment and not a PVP environment? Other classes need a pass to bring them up to the state of the game. And before you start with all you play is warlocks i'll be happy to get on my lev30 sorc and run whatever you like. or my lev30 bard.

[Chai]

Exactly - some of these posts are comical to read. Jump skill and spell is overpowered now. Deathward totally overpowered - I no longer need 5 visors of the flesh render in my pack it's a completely unfair advantage.

Its hilarious how some of the same players will howl on the forums over years of time about how mobs having blanket immunities is unfair, but when players have them its all fine and good, when in fact the impact is the same for both. The difference is the players having them moves them further into their "must win everything" comfort zone, while mobs having them moves the players out of their "my build must be optimal in 100% of all content" comfort zone.

Jump, and limitless movement, are OP in a game where the AI can be strangled with a cordless phone (run in a circle and pew pew pew to victory). Deathward (and other blanket immunities) are OP in that it allows players to min max for one thing, then cover up all weaknesses caused by the "min" in "min-max" using blanket immunities. The fact that this did not just become the case with whats under discussion currently, and has always been an issue in DDO, does not change the impact of the issue this kind of stuff has on the game.

People want a balanced game, but when they poo poo and tut tut discussing the real culprits which unbalance the game, the state of the game remains unbalanced.

[masterofthewand]

Its hilarious how some of the same players will howl on the forums over years of time about how mobs having blanket immunities is unfair, but when players have them its all fine and good, when in fact the impact is the same for both. The difference is the players having them moves them further into their "must win everything" comfort zone, while mobs having them moves the players out of their "my build must be optimal in 100% of all content" comfort zone.

Jump, and limitless movement, are OP in a game where the AI can be strangled with a cordless phone (run in a circle and pew pew pew to victory). Deathward (and other blanket immunities) are OP in that it allows players to min max for one thing, then cover up all weaknesses caused by the "min" in "min-max" using blanket immunities. The fact that this did not just become the case with whats under discussion currently, and has always been an issue in DDO, does not change the impact of the issue this kind of stuff has on the game.

People want a balanced game, but when they poo poo and tut tut discussing the real culprits which unbalance the game, the state of the game remains unbalanced.


I don't think getting an AI update will happen.

I agree wholeheartedly that movement needs to be limited in some way, (especially ranged weapon users). I was very upset when they took the movement penalty away from artys using rune arms, they should put that same movement penalty on all ranged weapons. It literally make no sense that I can run full speed firing a bow or any medieval weapon for that matter.

[SiliconScout]

Just a heads up to everyone.

Warlock is on sale for 75% off, right after a x2 points sale so basically it's selling for 12.5% of it's regular price.

I easily predict that, looking at content historically, we will see the mega nerf bat slammed into Warlock by the end of the year. Grind out those easy lives now while you can!

[Spadedragon]

Just a heads up to everyone.

Warlock is on sale for 75% off, right after a x2 points sale so basically it's selling for 12.5% of it's regular price.

I easily predict that, looking at content historically, we will see the mega nerf bat slammed into Warlock by the end of the year. Grind out those easy lives now while you can!

Agreed. Every time warlocks go on sale they get nerfed again.

[Shiriru]

I do not want warlocks nerfed. Nerfing is never the resolution to any problem, it just causes even more problems with the community.

I more like want for warlocks to have a clear role, clear strengths and weaknesses, at least for a supposed dps oriented class. They seem to be jack of all trades , but this means not good in anything particular - however they are VERY good in everything they do, even more so than other classes with the same supposed strength.

My first character I ever made 3 weeks ago was a bard. Another jack of all trades - but they felt right ! They aren't so self efficient , from what I've noticed, unless they have many past lives, epic past lives and now - racial past lives.
However, bards are supposed to bring very decent CC and buffing, that's their whole lore idea... Then comes in the first life warlock, who has more buffs than I do, more CC than I do - and in fact, strong CC which isn't broken on damage and is very fast casted - unlike my fascinate which need 4+ seconds to cast and the moment someone looks at the mob - the CC breaks. Way more damage than my bard did, much more survivability - both in form of better SP management and also sheer ability to take more hits than my squishy bard. They also get to have UMD, which for some reason Wizards don't...

Comparing the 2 'supposed' Jack of all trade classes - bard and warlock, when compared , warlock definitely has the upper hand , also being way more new player friendly and easy.

So all i'm asking is - either set a proper role for Warlocks, or bring other classes to their standard.
I have no right , nor knowledge to state warlocks are 'OP', because I have much more to learn and see in the game, however from what I've seen from my 1st life bard ( currently Wizard 2nd life for the spell pen and DC feats ) , warlocks seem to have it easier than other classes on similar terms and equal grounds

The question then arises - are other classes Underpowered then ? Do they need to get buffed, rather than warlocks nerfed - speaking mainly for non-heavy past life feated/ first life classes. Because of course, every class with the right amount of past lifes and selected gear can be good. But without gear and past lifes - other classes pale compared to a warlock with no gear and PL.

[Nimdeadlee]

Clerics can solo reaper raids at level.



Hi Tilomere, is this your clonklock build? If so, could you please pm me some details? I've been trying to reconstruct it based on what I remember & thread comments, I think I'm half-way there :)

[MaeveTuohy]

Clerics can solo reaper raids at level.
.

But the screenshot shows you also as a warlock and in the raid with a paladin, so it isn't really an advertisement for clerics soloing raids.

No offense, I am sure you are a better builder and player than me and gratz on getting it done at level in reaper.

[slarden]

Its hilarious how some of the same players will howl on the forums over years of time about how mobs having blanket immunities is unfair, but when players have them its all fine and good, when in fact the impact is the same for both. The difference is the players having them moves them further into their "must win everything" comfort zone, while mobs having them moves the players out of their "my build must be optimal in 100% of all content" comfort zone.

Jump, and limitless movement, are OP in a game where the AI can be strangled with a cordless phone (run in a circle and pew pew pew to victory). Deathward (and other blanket immunities) are OP in that it allows players to min max for one thing, then cover up all weaknesses caused by the "min" in "min-max" using blanket immunities. The fact that this did not just become the case with whats under discussion currently, and has always been an issue in DDO, does not change the impact of the issue this kind of stuff has on the game.

People want a balanced game, but when they poo poo and tut tut discussing the real culprits which unbalance the game, the state of the game remains unbalanced.

I use 5 visors on any toon without deathward. Every character I have can quickly get to a max jump regardless of whether it's class skill. I am sorry, but these are nitpicks not serious balance issues.

[Ralmeth]

I don't think getting an AI update will happen.

I agree wholeheartedly that movement needs to be limited in some way, (especially ranged weapon users). I was very upset when they took the movement penalty away from artys using rune arms, they should put that same movement penalty on all ranged weapons. It literally make no sense that I can run full speed firing a bow or any medieval weapon for that matter.

I think it's funny that you can change your boots while running at full speed;)