Elemental Apotheosis: Fire and Meteor Swarm

[Clemeit]

tl;dr The Fire Savant Capstone (active portion) gives a net -2 Caster Level to Meteor Swarm (the Fire Savant's signature fire spell)

This was already brought up in an earlier forum post (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/502948-Savant-Caster-Levels-amp-Meteor-Swarm-contradictions-Paging-Tilo-et-al), but the thread has since gone stagnant, and there were no developer responses.

Each Sorcerer Savant has it's own unique set of spells geared towards their favored element. The level 9 spells that were added in Update 41 do a great job shoring up the upper bounds of a spell caster's book, giving each Savant a unique end-game spell to top off their rotation. Earth Savants can take Acid Well, Water Savants get Iceberg, and Air Savants have their Thunderstroke. Each of their respective Capstone Enhancements do a great job complementing their level 9 spell - adding a passive +1 Caster Level (CL) and Max Caster Level (MCL), and a further +1 CL/MCL when in the Elemental Form.

Indeed, even Fire Savants get a level 9 spell geared towards their element of choice: the infamous Meteor Swarm. This spell has been plagued with bugs since the beginning of time itself. Some have been addressed and fixed over the years, and some - like casting 3 meteors instead of 4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ETvJCNDi9o) when the Quicken Metamagic Setting is turned on - have yet not. It's a fairly complicated spell after all. You're casting 4 projectiles; each one arcing over long distances; each one exploding into an AOE; and each one dealing two types of damage: Fire and Bludgeoning. This leads us to the source of the feature that's the topic of discussion.

Meteor Swarm's Fire damage is affected by Fire Spell Power (SP). It's Bludgeoning portion is affected by Force SP. Since it deals two damage types from different SP, its CL and MCL are both affected by Acid CL/MCL modifiers (or perhaps Earth? The two terms seem to be used interchangeably in the Sorcerer trees, so perhaps they're one in the same). The test is easy enough to reproduce. Roll a sorcerer, acquire Meteor Swarm, and observe the difference between the CL with and without Earth Savant Cores (which grant +1 CL/MCL with Acid/Earth spells). Which begs the question: why is Meteor Swarm part Fire and part Earth? I believe Meteor Swarm in D&D is listed as a Fire spell, not an Earth spell (https://dndtools.net/spells/descriptors/fire/).

Each Savant's Capstone grants Passive and Active bonuses to their respective Element and penalties to the others - which is fitting. The active portion of the Fire Savant's Capstone Elemental Apotheosis: Fire is granting +1 CL/MCL to Fire Spells (this affects Meteor Swarm) and a -3 penalty to - among other elements - Earth (which also affects Meteor Swarm). This leads to a net loss of 2 CLs when using the Active Form of the Fire Savant's Capstone. This is entirely detrimental to the Fire Savant's own level 9 spell, and effectively makes the Active Portion of the capstone useless (unless you don't cast Meteor Swarm - but it's so good and so fun I don't know why you wouldn't if you went Fire Savant).

Of course players can just use the passive element of the capstone - grating +1 CL/MCL to Fire spells, and a -1 CL to Cold spells. No big deal. But I would like to see this issue addressed by a developer. I can't imagine that the Capstone of a Savant negatively affecting that Savant's signature spell is working as intended.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

[Arctigis]

tl;dr The Fire Savant Capstone (active portion) gives a net -2 Caster Level to Meteor Swarm (the Fire Savant's signature fire spell)

This was already brought up in an earlier forum post (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/502948-Savant-Caster-Levels-amp-Meteor-Swarm-contradictions-Paging-Tilo-et-al), but the thread has since gone stagnant, and there were no developer responses.

Each Sorcerer Savant has it's own unique set of spells geared towards their favored element. The level 9 spells that were added in Update 41 do a great job shoring up the upper bounds of a spell caster's book, giving each Savant a unique end-game spell to top off their rotation. Earth Savants can take Acid Well, Water Savants get Iceberg, and Air Savants have their Thunderstroke. Each of their respective Capstone Enhancements do a great job complementing their level 9 spell - adding a passive +1 Caster Level (CL) and Max Caster Level (MCL), and a further +1 CL/MCL when in the Elemental Form.

Indeed, even Fire Savants get a level 9 spell geared towards their element of choice: the infamous Meteor Swarm. This spell has been plagued with bugs since the beginning of time itself. Some have been addressed and fixed over the years, and some - like casting 3 meteors instead of 4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ETvJCNDi9o) when the Quicken Metamagic Setting is turned on - have yet not. It's a fairly complicated spell after all. You're casting 4 projectiles; each one arcing over long distances; each one exploding into an AOE; and each one dealing two types of damage: Fire and Bludgeoning. This leads us to the source of the feature that's the topic of discussion.

Meteor Swarm's Fire damage is affected by Fire Spell Power (SP). It's Bludgeoning portion is affected by Force SP. Since it deals two damage types from different SP, its CL and MCL are both affected by Acid CL/MCL modifiers (or perhaps Earth? The two terms seem to be used interchangeably in the Sorcerer trees, so perhaps they're one in the same). The test is easy enough to reproduce. Roll a sorcerer, acquire Meteor Swarm, and observe the difference between the CL with and without Earth Savant Cores (which grant +1 CL/MCL with Acid/Earth spells). Which begs the question: why is Meteor Swarm part Fire and part Earth? I believe Meteor Swarm in D&D is listed as a Fire spell, not an Earth spell (https://dndtools.net/spells/descriptors/fire/).

Each Savant's Capstone grants Passive and Active bonuses to their respective Element and penalties to the others - which is fitting. The active portion of the Fire Savant's Capstone Elemental Apotheosis: Fire is granting +1 CL/MCL to Fire Spells (this affects Meteor Swarm) and a -3 penalty to - among other elements - Earth (which also affects Meteor Swarm). This leads to a net loss of 2 CLs when using the Active Form of the Fire Savant's Capstone. This is entirely detrimental to the Fire Savant's own level 9 spell, and effectively makes the Active Portion of the capstone useless (unless you don't cast Meteor Swarm - but it's so good and so fun I don't know why you wouldn't if you went Fire Savant).

Of course players can just use the passive element of the capstone - grating +1 CL/MCL to Fire spells, and a -1 CL to Cold spells. No big deal. But I would like to see this issue addressed by a developer. I can't imagine that the Capstone of a Savant negatively affecting that Savant's signature spell is working as intended.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

Good luck. The whole +CL +MCL thing has been plagued with problems
since it was first introduced (U9?) - some of the problems were fixed
with MoTU when Genasi briefly took an interest. The only real way to
check is to cast the spells over and over which will enable you (the
values converge quickly fortunately) calculate the dice used. Don't
believe the log.

[Pilgrim1]

Any idea what the max caster level is for meteor swarm? And any of the other new sells to. If you caster level is 30 and the max caster level is 25 then -2 cl has no effect.

[Steelstar]

tl;dr The Fire Savant Capstone (active portion) gives a net -2 Caster Level to Meteor Swarm (the Fire Savant's signature fire spell)


We're aware of this and plan to change it when we get to doing Savant tree adjustments.

[Chacka_DDO]

Any idea what the max caster level is for meteor swarm? And any of the other new sells to. If you caster level is 30 and the max caster level is 25 then -2 cl has no effect.

Which shows how senseless the caster level system is there should be nothing like a hard cap that needs to be increased in addition to the caster level, this double barrier makes logically no sense.
And the caster level should be = the character level (+other effects)
And of course then it maybe needs to have less dice per caster level if the spells are too strong but this is another question.

And not only damage spells need to scale with your character level.
e.g. bulls strength gives you only +4 strength just equal to a level 5 cannith crafted item while I would expect it gives at least +15 if a level 30 wizard casts it.

[Franghasea]

[I]Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.


This. While I could care less for that guy...the fact that you used this. LOL

Detroit City Til I Die

[Niminae]

We're aware of this and plan to change it when we get to doing Savant tree adjustments.

I don't understand why what is clearly a bug is being lumped in with Enhancement tree improvements, and then this improper lumping together is used as an excuse to ignore the bug until some unspecified future date.

Fixing bugs should be an ongoing task which is completely unrelated to and independent of the scheduling for currently unscheduled future game changes.

[Steelstar]

I don't understand why what is clearly a bug is being lumped in with Enhancement tree improvements, and then this improper lumping together is used as an excuse to ignore the bug until some unspecified future date.

Fixing bugs should be an ongoing task which is completely unrelated to and independent of the scheduling for currently unscheduled future game changes.

Essentially, efficiency.

We can fix a bug on a feature we're about to change, then spend time changing it again as planned,
OR
We can plan ahead, knowing that the planned changes will resolve the bug, spend that first bit of time fixing different bugs that wouldn't have otherwise gotten fixed, then spend time changing the feature as planned.

The latter gets more bugs fixed. Fixing bugs is an ongoing task. The future game changes in question aren't unscheduled, just not publicly scheduled yet.

[Pilgrim1]

We're aware of this and plan to change it when we get to doing Savant tree adjustments.

Since your reading this thread could you tell us what the max caster level of this spell is? Unlike the other new spells its not listed.

Thanks.

[Clemeit]

We're aware of this and plan to change it when we get to doing Savant tree adjustments.

Excellent! Thank you for your reply.

[Uifareth_Cuthalion]

Meteor Swarm's Fire damage is affected by Fire Spell Power (SP). It's Bludgeoning portion is affected by Force SP. Since it deals two damage types from different SP, its CL and MCL are both affected by Acid CL/MCL modifiers ... The active portion of the Fire Savant's Capstone Elemental Apotheosis: Fire is granting +1 CL/MCL to Fire Spells (this affects Meteor Swarm) and a -3 penalty to - among other elements - Earth (which also affects Meteor Swarm).

At the risk of stating the obvious, this would seem to be the bug. A spell that inflicts fire and bludgeoning (force) damage should not be affected by acid/earth spell power or level adjustments.

As an aside, I'd love to see a Force Savant tree. I imagine all the bonuses would be reduced one die step, since virtually no one is immune. Not sure what Elemental Apotheosis: Force would look like.

[Xgya]

At the risk of stating the obvious, this would seem to be the bug. A spell that inflicts fire and bludgeoning (force) damage should not be affected by acid/earth spell power or level adjustments.

As an aside, I'd love to see a Force Savant tree. I imagine all the bonuses would be reduced one die step, since virtually no one is immune. Not sure what Elemental Apotheosis: Force would look like.

Argent Savants are the closest equivalent, with Force Missile Mage being much less broad in its focus on force.
Argent Savants use the defensive side of Force-based spells, while Missile Mages are casters that like, love, appreciate, master and do sweet, forbidden things with Magic Missile.

In DDO, we have Archmage with Force Spell-likes - evokers in particular get a bunch more Force spells.
To add that identity to Sorcerer, we'd have to remove it from Archmage.

[A-O]

Gonna necro this with a question.

Since hte capstone gives -3 MCL to earth and that affecting MS, does that mean things that give +MCL to acid/earth give +to MS?

E.g. does secondary spell specialty +2 acid in Draconic grant +2 to MS as well? Or e.g. Earth savant 18 core?


EDIT: If we assume the combatlog when casting is accurate, it does not appear to buff MS. CL 36 without capstone active, and without secondary. CL 36 with Secondary. CL 34 with capstone without secondary. CL 34 with capstone, with secondary.

On the flip side, something is eihter bugged in Draconic, or Magister. Cause I only get CL 33/35 in magister. When it should net +3 MCL/CL in the T5, just like draconic gets in their T4.

Just tested in Fatesinger. It's Draconic granting +4 CL/MCL, rather than the +3 it says.

[Lonnbeimnech]

Since hte capstone gives -3 MCL to earth and that affecting MS, does that mean things that give +MCL to acid/earth give +to MS?

E.g. does secondary spell specialty +2 acid in Draconic grant +2 to MS as well? Or e.g. Earth savant 18 core?

earth savant cores, yes
draconic secondary, no

[Ultinoob]

[...]EDIT: If we assume the combatlog when casting is accurate[...]

I am pretty sure it's not. I know it is not accurate for druids. See this on a rant about it. https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/518007-A-word-on-caster-levels-and-max-caster-levels-for-druid-casters

This was also mentioned earlier in the thread.

You have to manually calculate the caster level.

[HungarianRhapsody]

EDIT: If we assume the combatlog when casting is accurate,

Unfortunately, the combat log when casting is not accurate for any class. It does not count the max caster level - that cap is applied to the spell, but not to what's listed in the combat log.

[Razor_Wit]

Hmmm. All this time I was under the impression the bludgeoning portion was conjuration...

[Frezar14]

The earth savant cores do increase MS caster level as the air savant cores decrease it (at lease via the combat log).

So really MS counts on fire and force spell power and then earth savant cores positively affect its caster level. Seems complicated for a much used spell.

Going into elemental form really seem like it could affect MS. Makes me wonder when its a good time to be in elemental form. I'm not level 20 yet but wonder if the positives of elemental form outweigh the negatives of it considering how often MS is cast.

[ChicagoChris]

Essentially, efficiency.

We can fix a bug on a feature we're about to change, then spend time changing it again as planned,
OR
We can plan ahead, knowing that the planned changes will resolve the bug, spend that first bit of time fixing different bugs that wouldn't have otherwise gotten fixed, then spend time changing the feature as planned.

The latter gets more bugs fixed. Fixing bugs is an ongoing task. The future game changes in question aren't unscheduled, just not publicly scheduled yet.

@Steelstar - was this ever addressed or is this still slated to be looked at when the Savant trees get addressed. And when would that be?

I haven't heard when the Savant Trees are being updated, but SSG did some work in U45P3:


Sorcerer (https://ddowiki.com/page/Sorcerer) core enhancements that increase Caster Levels with particular elements now affect Alchemist (https://ddowiki.com/page/Alchemist) damage spells.

[Steelstar]

@Steelstar - was this ever addressed or is this still slated to be looked at when the Savant trees get addressed. And when would that be?

I haven't heard when the Savant Trees are being updated, but SSG did some work in U45P3:


Sorcerer (https://ddowiki.com/page/Sorcerer) core enhancements that increase Caster Levels with particular elements now affect Alchemist (https://ddowiki.com/page/Alchemist) damage spells.



Still slated to be addressed at some point in the future, no current ETA.

[Taranthiel]

Still slated to be addressed at some point in the future, no current ETA.

How about an ETA on the servers coming back up

[majorhavoc]

We're aware of this and plan to change it when we get to doing Savant tree adjustments.

Has this been fixed??????