Please remove all insta kill from the game

[Catabree]

I'm sick of doing quests where the entire dungeons is killed before you can even get to the mobs. This is the most OP function in DDO and needs to be nerfed more than any dps has ever been nerfed.

[magaiti]

You are a new player and don't have the right idea yet of how insta-kills are balanced withing the game.
Once you start running some actually difficult content you'll be grateful for every mob you don't have to worry about thanks to a timely insta-kill, as you'll have you hands full regardless.
If you don't believe me, try rolling an insta-killing character and I assure you you'll have your share of difficult time as well.

[Targal]

Spellcasters with insta kills and CCs can make the way to the boss easier, but it doesn't mean they can make the whole game easy. It has been so for 14 years. DDO is a role-based game at all.

[Soulfurnace]

Plz bring better bait.

[TedSandyman]

I agree with the OP in sentiment but have to also agree with the others that removing isn't the best option.

These high end, multiple instakill builds, when run on anything less than end game, high reaper levels, simply destroy everything in the dungeon, including all of the fun for anyone who isn't them.

What is being complained about isn't about instantly killing a few mobs to make it easier to get through. The problem is that when you have a lesser player, they don't actually get to play, any, at all.

For some reason, many of you high enders like to join LFMs on lower levels and then blast everything from one end of the dungeon to the other, leaving absolutely no enjoyment to be had by anyone else.

And, even worse, some of you think you are doing the rest of us a favor. As if the only reason anyone plays this game is to gather as much XP as possible in the shortest amount of time. Some of us like playing the game actually and don't appreciate your insta killing ability. And none of us are impressed by it.

And, even worse than that, some of you think that if you are not one of these high end players, you don't deserve to play the game or have any fun. Those of you getting ready to reply about how the OP and I are just lame low enders who cant get any kills and feel bad about it. Yes that is exactly what we are.

We are people who don't max out everything and don't have infinite amount of time to infinitely grind out RXP and dont want to spend days upon days of mind numbing grinding for the perfect gear so that we can play this game and have any fun. Some of us think you should be able to play and have fun regardless of your level and that a few extremely overpowered inconsiderate jerks shouldn't be able to so easily ruin the enjoyment we get from the game.

This game is unplayable for the most part unless you are a high end nuker or simply play solo. And the biggest source of that frustration is walking into a dungeon and every single fight everything is dead before you can even start to swing a sword.

Everything dead, instantly, again and again and again with almost no limits. A few years back they limited the number of things that Wail could kill at once. They limited firewall many years ago because it basically had the same effect. There used to be some understanding from the developers that a good game needed to have some limits.

But all of those developers are gone now. All we have are people who think the solution to power creep is harder dungeons and senseless workarounds like champions and reapers that are nothing but kludges. And that power creep is killing the game for everyone except those at the top of the power creep.

Why do we have to add dungeon levels that nerf healing, nerf damage dealt, increase damage from mobs, increase hitpoints of mobs when we could just as easily and more sustainably limited the amount of damage done by single overpowered classes. The dungeon nerfs you, that is OK. The developers nerf you and you never hear the end of the whining.

[magaiti]

I think you've confounded so many things here.
Insta-killing, nuking, the bad state of certain combat styles in general, the gap in power difference between optimized/geared and non-optimized builds, the gap in gameplay skill/experience/knowledge between veterans and casual players, the difference in perspective and the attitude...

There's no way to resolve the difference in power and expectations, except player communication.

If you don't want to be carried, state so in the lfm, like "flower sniffing run, zergers/nukers not welcome". And if someone dares to ruin your day out of spite, you'll have the right to squelch them, or something.

If you join someone else's lfm, you have to accept the consequences, including the possibility of being carried.

[arkonas]

I'm sick of doing quests where the entire dungeons is killed before you can even get to the mobs. This is the most OP function in DDO and needs to be nerfed more than any dps has ever been nerfed.

lol this had to be a bait. new account and first post. lol so you want to remove spells that are in pen and paper. haha.

[Catabree]

Plz bring better bait.

What do you mean bring better bait? I play melee toons, and by the time I get to the pack of mobs nearly everything is dead. What isn't untrue about that. With 1 or 2 instant killers in the party it totally ruins the game. I might as well wait until the quest is finished and roll up at the boss. They need to remove mass frog, circle of death and wail, they are too OP...anything that can clear an entire room with one button is overpowered...how can it not be. No its not a troll post.

[Catabree]

I agree with the OP in sentiment but have to also agree with the others that removing isn't the best option.

These high end, multiple instakill builds, when run on anything less than end game, high reaper levels, simply destroy everything in the dungeon, including all of the fun for anyone who isn't them.

What is being complained about isn't about instantly killing a few mobs to make it easier to get through. The problem is that when you have a lesser player, they don't actually get to play, any, at all.

For some reason, many of you high enders like to join LFMs on lower levels and then blast everything from one end of the dungeon to the other, leaving absolutely no enjoyment to be had by anyone else.

And, even worse, some of you think you are doing the rest of us a favor. As if the only reason anyone plays this game is to gather as much XP as possible in the shortest amount of time. Some of us like playing the game actually and don't appreciate your insta killing ability. And none of us are impressed by it.

And, even worse than that, some of you think that if you are not one of these high end players, you don't deserve to play the game or have any fun. Those of you getting ready to reply about how the OP and I are just lame low enders who cant get any kills and feel bad about it. Yes that is exactly what we are.

We are people who don't max out everything and don't have infinite amount of time to infinitely grind out RXP and dont want to spend days upon days of mind numbing grinding for the perfect gear so that we can play this game and have any fun. Some of us think you should be able to play and have fun regardless of your level and that a few extremely overpowered inconsiderate jerks shouldn't be able to so easily ruin the enjoyment we get from the game.

This game is unplayable for the most part unless you are a high end nuker or simply play solo. And the biggest source of that frustration is walking into a dungeon and every single fight everything is dead before you can even start to swing a sword.

Everything dead, instantly, again and again and again with almost no limits. A few years back they limited the number of things that Wail could kill at once. They limited firewall many years ago because it basically had the same effect. There used to be some understanding from the developers that a good game needed to have some limits.

But all of those developers are gone now. All we have are people who think the solution to power creep is harder dungeons and senseless workarounds like champions and reapers that are nothing but kludges. And that power creep is killing the game for everyone except those at the top of the power creep.

Why do we have to add dungeon levels that nerf healing, nerf damage dealt, increase damage from mobs, increase hitpoints of mobs when we could just as easily and more sustainably limited the amount of damage done by single overpowered classes. The dungeon nerfs you, that is OK. The developers nerf you and you never hear the end of the whining.

I dont have a problem with nukers a bit inoying when they zerg and kill everything. But I can at least reach the target and get a hit or two. Instant killers i can even reach the pack, what's the point of cleave when one champ is left, its stupid.

[AbyssalMage]

I'm sick of doing quests where the entire dungeons is killed before you can even get to the mobs. This is the most OP function in DDO and needs to be nerfed more than any dps has ever been nerfed.
I'm sick of forumites calling for nerfs. I think you should all be banned. Period! 10 years and people still need to ruin the fun of others so they can feel less inadequate.

[Soulfurnace]

What do you mean bring better bait? I play melee toons, and by the time I get to the pack of mobs nearly everything is dead. What isn't untrue about that. With 1 or 2 instant killers in the party it totally ruins the game. I might as well wait until the quest is finished and roll up at the boss. They need to remove mass frog, circle of death and wail, they are too OP...anything that can clear an entire room with one button is overpowered...how can it not be. No its not a troll post.

hahahahahahaha

Instant killers are currently in a bad spot because a GOOD melee is so dominant right now. Work on, uh, self improvement then lol

[Steeme]

You could try soloing at an appropriate difficulty - at least until you get the "hacking and slashing is fun...." out of your system.

When grouping, I'd imagine you would try and figure out how to be useful. Cleave is pretty good at smashing crates - why not get your group a 15% xp bonus on breakables while they clear the way to the boss? For balance in the universe, you could roll a DC caster and switch roles next time.

[magaiti]

I dont have a problem with nukers a bit inoying when they zerg and kill everything. But I can at least reach the target and get a hit or two. Instant killers i can even reach the pack, what's the point of cleave when one champ is left, its stupid.

Cleaves are out of favor at this partcular time in ddo history. 2HF builds have strikethrough instead, other melee styles are better suited for single-target dps anyway, just tear through mobs one by one.
If only a champion is left after a nuke, all the better. Go right to business instead of dealing with lowly trash.

[False_Gods]

Sadly insta kills are one of the worst features in the game and it makes the game really really bad. Trying to lead a group where everyone has a good time is difficult enough and having an insta kill caster is one of the worst offenders along side being in too low a difficulty setting with an overpowered Alchemist or Sorceror.

One of the worst things you can experience in a group is having an insta kill caster instakiling 80% of the enemies while the 4 melees in the group fight over scraps trying to get a swing in here or there. It is one of the worst experiences you can have in any game, period and it often sends me off playing other games for days or weeks at a time.

The sad part is how a person knows they are making the experience garbage for the rest of the group but there is so little camaraderie and such poor spirit that people don't care. I don't play insta kill characters at all, most of my sorcerors are Acid and conjuration based, since that has many damage over time and crowd control that involves the rest of the group and if I'm on an Alchemist it doesn't take a rocket scientist to cast freeze/cindersmoke and other crowd control type spells and then add dps as needed to make sure that everyone is involved and having a good time.

After playing this way I really have to wonder who the people are that I'm playing with that can make the game such a low quality garbage experience for everyone else. I can only imagine what these people are like in real life.

Make all insta kills damage based. Also give them a neat effect when they hit the enemies it would go a long way to make the play style less boring for the people using it so they aren't solely siphoning their enjoyment out of the other people who are having one of the most boring experience of their lives running around like a fool trying to participate.

[KoobTheProud]

lol this had to be a bait. new account and first post. lol so you want to remove spells that are in pen and paper. haha.

Just felt the need to point out that PnP has different limitations than DDO.

Insta-kill spells that can only be cast a limited number of times per day are very different than insta-kill spells that are reusable many times between shrines.

The problem DDO has right now is that there are many very powerful effects that are essentially infinitely reusable in the game system since shrine placement tends to prevent people from ever running dry on spell points. AoE's, insta-kills, Inquisitive and Repeater fire, returning shurikens, etc. Lots of very powerful effects with very few real limitations.

You could also add in melee cleaves that have no endurance limitations since characters never tire in combat, etc.

[Cavalier]

As was stated by another poster above, when you put up an LFM, mention that you want a balanced party/no nukers/no insta-killers and trust me, most if not all of them will avoid your party.

I am currently in a Racial Reincarnation run, trying to blitz (read ZERG) through some really unpleasant lives and I am in XP/Min mode right now, so insta-kills and nukers are my friends, hell, I even play a Warlock for this very reason (I am a Pally usually) and use nuking and insta-kill spells to get the quest done ASAP.

The fact that I do not want to "smell the roses" as it were is not a question of not being a great guy to group with (I come with an OLD SCHOOL mentality of being prepared when I join a group with everything I need for myself and stuff for others), but of being in a mode which right now precludes me from doing so in the name of efficiency.

[merlinfire1]

insta kill spells are among the many things that make ddo unique compared to other mmo's. hopefully nobody listens to this horrible suggestion.

[Justicesfury]

I dont have a problem with nukers a bit inoying when they zerg and kill everything. But I can at least reach the target and get a hit or two. Instant killers i can even reach the pack, what's the point of cleave when one champ is left, its stupid.

If you aren't good enough to keep up with the rest of the party, please don't come to the forum to cry about it. Learn how to build your melee toon to get to stuff faster rather than whine.

[False_Gods]

I am currently in a Racial Reincarnation run, trying to blitz (read ZERG) through some really unpleasant lives and I am in XP/Min mode right now, so insta-kills and nukers are my friends, hell, I even play a Warlock for this very reason (I am a Pally usually) and use nuking and insta-kill spells to get the quest done ASAP.

Although its true that depending on what your on sometimes you don't mind it... overall I think insta kill should be completely removed. Make it damage based. Make things like Wail of the Banshee hit for 10's of thousands of damage every 2 seconds (at end game)... at least this way when you are playing in high enough skulls it will still be potent but the rest of the group will still be participating. I really see no reason whatsoever as to why there should be any insta kill type abilities when we have the difficulty settings we have (i..e increasing skulls etc giving enemies more HP... Insta killing has no place in the type of system we have. Make things like Assassinate do incredibly high amounts of damage that will kill most things.. but if the difficulty is high enough you will still require other party members to be involved. After all that is why we have difficulty settings in the first place... you increase the difficulty so that you need more people. Having insta kill.. even if you manage to get the same DC that I get with my crowd control spells makes no sense whatsoever.

On a side note.. insta kills have completely upended the entire fortitude save system. Back in 2008 I ran an experiment with Stinking Cloud...which would normally be a very useful fortitude based crowd control spell.. I found that many enemies pretty much had blanket resistance and the spell didn't land at all even when my DC was well over and beyond what would normally be needed. This was because of insta kill spells... the developers had to jack up the fortitude saves of everything to prevent insta kill spell users from killing everything instantly. So because of insta kill spells... any and all fortitude based crowd control spells were made completely useless.

[KoobTheProud]

The other problem with insta-kill is that it is a binary process. Binary processes tend to be bad in MMO's because they produce binary defenses as well and the incremental nature of MMO progress becomes distorted beyond all recognition - particularly at endgame.

[noinfo]

I agree with the OP in sentiment but have to also agree with the others that removing isn't the best option.

These high end, multiple instakill builds, when run on anything less than end game, high reaper levels, simply destroy everything in the dungeon, including all of the fun for anyone who isn't them.

What is being complained about isn't about instantly killing a few mobs to make it easier to get through. The problem is that when you have a lesser player, they don't actually get to play, any, at all.

For some reason, many of you high enders like to join LFMs on lower levels and then blast everything from one end of the dungeon to the other, leaving absolutely no enjoyment to be had by anyone else.

And, even worse, some of you think you are doing the rest of us a favor. As if the only reason anyone plays this game is to gather as much XP as possible in the shortest amount of time. Some of us like playing the game actually and don't appreciate your insta killing ability. And none of us are impressed by it.

And, even worse than that, some of you think that if you are not one of these high end players, you don't deserve to play the game or have any fun. Those of you getting ready to reply about how the OP and I are just lame low enders who cant get any kills and feel bad about it. Yes that is exactly what we are.

We are people who don't max out everything and don't have infinite amount of time to infinitely grind out RXP and dont want to spend days upon days of mind numbing grinding for the perfect gear so that we can play this game and have any fun. Some of us think you should be able to play and have fun regardless of your level and that a few extremely overpowered inconsiderate jerks shouldn't be able to so easily ruin the enjoyment we get from the game.

This game is unplayable for the most part unless you are a high end nuker or simply play solo. And the biggest source of that frustration is walking into a dungeon and every single fight everything is dead before you can even start to swing a sword.

Everything dead, instantly, again and again and again with almost no limits. A few years back they limited the number of things that Wail could kill at once. They limited firewall many years ago because it basically had the same effect. There used to be some understanding from the developers that a good game needed to have some limits.

But all of those developers are gone now. All we have are people who think the solution to power creep is harder dungeons and senseless workarounds like champions and reapers that are nothing but kludges. And that power creep is killing the game for everyone except those at the top of the power creep.

Why do we have to add dungeon levels that nerf healing, nerf damage dealt, increase damage from mobs, increase hitpoints of mobs when we could just as easily and more sustainably limited the amount of damage done by single overpowered classes. The dungeon nerfs you, that is OK. The developers nerf you and you never hear the end of the whining.
Gotta wonder who people are playing with for this nonsense.

Here are a few actual facts

dc casters can do very well in extreme content eg high reaper. Anything less and a good dps will be cleaning it out as fast or faster due to increased cd we scored on insta kills years ago.

There are many mobs that are base immune to many or all insta kill spells.

In more difficult content eg reaper you then have a significant proportion of mobs with death block and other outright immunities that will kill your 1 trick instakiller.


If you have a problem with power houses smashing through your low reaper or elite runs, put something in your lfm so they know, cause it wont just be instakillers or nukers, on that difficulty it will be every powerhouse build.

[noinfo]

I dont have a problem with nukers a bit inoying when they zerg and kill everything. But I can at least reach the target and get a hit or two. Instant killers i can even reach the pack, what's the point of cleave when one champ is left, its stupid.

You might want to talk to Timmy, he might be able to give you some pointers on how to play a melee, though in the mean time in addition to breaking boxes have you considered splashing rogue or Arti for trap bonuses?

[noinfo]

Sadly insta kills are one of the worst features in the game and it makes the game really really bad. Trying to lead a group where everyone has a good time is difficult enough and having an insta kill caster is one of the worst offenders along side being in too low a difficulty setting with an overpowered Alchemist or Sorceror.

One of the worst things you can experience in a group is having an insta kill caster instakiling 80% of the enemies while the 4 melees in the group fight over scraps trying to get a swing in here or there. It is one of the worst experiences you can have in any game, period and it often sends me off playing other games for days or weeks at a time.

The sad part is how a person knows they are making the experience garbage for the rest of the group but there is so little camaraderie and such poor spirit that people don't care. I don't play insta kill characters at all, most of my sorcerors are Acid and conjuration based, since that has many damage over time and crowd control that involves the rest of the group and if I'm on an Alchemist it doesn't take a rocket scientist to cast freeze/cindersmoke and other crowd control type spells and then add dps as needed to make sure that everyone is involved and having a good time.

After playing this way I really have to wonder who the people are that I'm playing with that can make the game such a low quality garbage experience for everyone else. I can only imagine what these people are like in real life.

Make all insta kills damage based. Also give them a neat effect when they hit the enemies it would go a long way to make the play style less boring for the people using it so they aren't solely siphoning their enjoyment out of the other people who are having one of the most boring experience of their lives running around like a fool trying to participate.

Yes we can tell you do not play one from your serious lack of understanding of how one operates and its limitations.

[HungarianRhapsody]

I agree with @OP. Please remove all instakill. Also, please remove all melee and offensive caster builds from the game. It is not any fun when I get to a room and everything in it is dead already. Sure I could actually get a striding item so I could actually get to the room quicker, but why should I have to change my play style when the obvious answer is to just make everyone else unable to kill enemies until I’ve had a chance to get there and do my part of the killing.

[noinfo]

Although its true that depending on what your on sometimes you don't mind it... overall I think insta kill should be completely removed. Make it damage based. Make things like Wail of the Banshee hit for 10's of thousands of damage every 2 seconds (at end game)... at least this way when you are playing in high enough skulls it will still be potent but the rest of the group will still be participating. I really see no reason whatsoever as to why there should be any insta kill type abilities when we have the difficulty settings we have (i..e increasing skulls etc giving enemies more HP... Insta killing has no place in the type of system we have. Make things like Assassinate do incredibly high amounts of damage that will kill most things.. but if the difficulty is high enough you will still require other party members to be involved. After all that is why we have difficulty settings in the first place... you increase the difficulty so that you need more people. Having insta kill.. even if you manage to get the same DC that I get with my crowd control spells makes no sense whatsoever.

On a side note.. insta kills have completely upended the entire fortitude save system. Back in 2008 I ran an experiment with Stinking Cloud...which would normally be a very useful fortitude based crowd control spell.. I found that many enemies pretty much had blanket resistance and the spell didn't land at all even when my DC was well over and beyond what would normally be needed. This was because of insta kill spells... the developers had to jack up the fortitude saves of everything to prevent insta kill spell users from killing everything instantly. So because of insta kill spells... any and all fortitude based crowd control spells were made completely useless.

So appart from garbage about damage instead of kill effects,. You base your issues on a 2008 experiment using a spell that many mobs would by its nature be immune to? and why invest in fort cc if you can instakill using a fort save? short answer is because you don't want to get killed by the deathwarded mob? Since you seem to be caster challenged there are many mobs that are immune to mind effecting and death magic.


I will be honest here, on my server I know of only a handful of decent dc casters but to all of you and those on other servers I congratulate you on inspiring the bitter tears I am seeing here, no matter how self inflicted

[Buddha5440]

I agree with @OP. Please remove all instakill. Also, please remove all melee and offensive caster builds from the game. It is not any fun when I get to a room and everything in it is dead already. Sure I could actually get a striding item so I could actually get to the room quicker, but why should I have to change my play style when the obvious answer is to just make everyone else unable to kill enemies until I’ve had a chance to get there and do my part of the killing.

This.

and while you're at it, I'm still waiting for the room with access to every quest in the game and a chest in the middle with every item in the game. After all, why should we have to spend the years and more some people have to get all their gear and skillsets...it's just not FAIR :(

[Pandjed]

I don't think, insta-kills are an inherent problem that needs to be removed entirely.

Many of DDOs "balancing-issues" stems from its vastness, as it supports many playstyles, the whole gaming experience changes within a single life, and the powercreep.

Foremost, it's absolutely valid to enjoy the game and the content, yet it's the same for zerging it. The first style is about the experience itself, the second speaks to our inner min-maxers and our inner speed-runners, and seeing how far you can push the system, how fast you can get through lives can be a blast in itself.

I do think, however, that currently the game adhers more to the second category, mostly by:
the only way to earn RXP is to run on reaper, the more skulls, the more RXP, which is the most difficult setting (which becomes more problematic with Reaper trees enhancing characters outside reaper)
the higher the difficulty, the better loot you get, not only via probablitly, but also bc mythic and reaper bonuses (and you need good gear to run high difficulties consistantly), and new quests usually only have named loot in the endchest
that there are too few quests in certain ranges so that running each of them once on normal sometimes isn't enough to level, especially after reincarnating
dungeon level is often misleading, as old quests can be insanely hard or laughable easy at their respective level range, so running on level can be very different in experience
there is little to no extrinsic reward of playing quests as intended or with all optionals, etc.

If the gaming environment supports this zerging style more and more, I can see the frustration for the players who just actually want to enjoy the game, as it seems like they're being screwed times over and over again, because the zergers get all the hard benefits (higher base-XP, RXP, quicker progression, better loot, not repeating quests, etc.) while the only thing they have is that they can tell themselves that they actually enjoy the dungeons in their fullest, which may be a reward in itself, but only if those dungeons don't suddenly kill them with a difficulty spike (or traps), undoing their progress in the worst cases.

That's why LFMs usually end up being zerg-sessions: If everyone in the game becomes more and more accustomed to this trend and grinding lives cause them to see the same content all over again, and their inner min-maxers/speedrunners think "Let's try this and that, and how does it compare to this!"

This has little to do with insta-kills though, as the fighter vanguard I recently played (shield, bastard sword, t5 kensei, capstone vanguard) mowed through the quests like nothing, making insta-killers cry, because they basically insta-killed the little hp I left, and only alchemists and sorcerers could even compare to my killcount (r3 usually though, so not the environment those builds shines the most). So removing insta-kills would just cause ppl to resettle on another working playstyle, which causes similiar results. It's not about the insta-kills, it's about how we look for tools that let us accomplish what our inner min-maxers and speedrunners desire.

[Iaga]

I'm sick of doing quests where the entire dungeons is killed before you can even get to the mobs. This is the most OP function in DDO and needs to be nerfed more than any dps has ever been nerfed.
You have your way of having fun - I have mine.
Why don't we just use the in-game mechanics to keep apart (LFM) so we can both continue to do so?

What is being complained about isn't about instantly killing a few mobs to make it easier to get through. The problem is that when you have a lesser player, they don't actually get to play, any, at all.
And on the other side is the player who joins an LFM, has no idea where the quest is, has a new build, can't contribute and when those mean nasty players don't burn down their pots and hold their hand so they can contribute, they run to the forums making posts like the ones in this thread.

One of the worst things you can experience in a group is having an insta kill caster instakiling 80% of the enemies while the 4 melees in the group fight over scraps trying to get a swing in here or there. It is one of the worst experiences you can have in any game, period and it often sends me off playing other games for days or weeks at a time.
If insta-killers bother you so much, why in God's name would you not exclude them from your LFM?

[glassesjr]

Stupid take and sounds like a personal problem to me.

[apsuman2]

<snip>
any and all fortitude based crowd control spells were made completely useless.
Speaking from personal experience with my last life, completed over the course of the last 2-3 months, Soundburst worked quite fine in reapers with mild gearing until mid-epics

[niknight]

Make all insta kills damage based. Also give them a neat effect when they hit the enemies it would go a long way to make the play style less boring for the people using it so they aren't solely siphoning their enjoyment out of the other people who are having one of the most boring experience of their lives running around like a fool trying to participate.


Let's look at instakilling as a "dps" effect: If a wizard decides to go all out with their instakill effects (Wail, FoD and PK), they can kill 20 mobs per minute. I didn't include PWK because of its 3.5 minute cooldown, nor Circle of Death since it requires two saves. If we assume that the average trash mob has 15K hit points (which is a bit on the high side outside of raids) AND none of the mobs are immune to instakilling AND none of the mobs make their saves AND we have no fail spell pen (for mobs with spell resistance), that would correlate to an average of 5K dps. It only seems like more because it doesn't take multiple hits to take the mob down. That's not really that impressive when you consider what the mid-tier melee builds are capable of. It's significantly less impressive when you take into account the amount of work necessary to get high enough DCs and spell pen.



I agree with @OP. Please remove all instakill. Also, please remove all melee and offensive caster builds from the game. It is not any fun when I get to a room and everything in it is dead already. Sure I could actually get a striding item so I could actually get to the room quicker, but why should I have to change my play style when the obvious answer is to just make everyone else unable to kill enemies until I’ve had a chance to get there and do my part of the killing.

While we're at it, we should also remove inquisitives, repeaters and throwers from the game for the same reason. And we should also nerf monk and warlock again... just to be safe.

[Thar]

I'm sick of doing quests where the entire dungeons is killed before you can even get to the mobs. This is the most OP function in DDO and needs to be nerfed more than any dps has ever been nerfed.

i vote that we remove all damage in the game then everything will be equal...

yes that is about the same request.

casters don't have unlimited spell points and melee can do more damage without limit. that's why you don't see raids with all casters. To hit DC's a caster needs a ton of pastlives, gear etc. Don't blame someone else from putting the work in to make their character good.

[Thar]

Sadly insta kills are one of the worst features in the game and it makes the game really really bad. Trying to lead a group where everyone has a good time is difficult enough and having an insta kill caster is one of the worst offenders along side being in too low a difficulty setting with an overpowered Alchemist or Sorceror.

One of the worst things you can experience in a group is having an insta kill caster instakiling 80% of the enemies while the 4 melees in the group fight over scraps trying to get a swing in here or there. It is one of the worst experiences you can have in any game, period and it often sends me off playing other games for days or weeks at a time.

The sad part is how a person knows they are making the experience garbage for the rest of the group but there is so little camaraderie and such poor spirit that people don't care. I don't play insta kill characters at all, most of my sorcerors are Acid and conjuration based, since that has many damage over time and crowd control that involves the rest of the group and if I'm on an Alchemist it doesn't take a rocket scientist to cast freeze/cindersmoke and other crowd control type spells and then add dps as needed to make sure that everyone is involved and having a good time.

After playing this way I really have to wonder who the people are that I'm playing with that can make the game such a low quality garbage experience for everyone else. I can only imagine what these people are like in real life.

Make all insta kills damage based. Also give them a neat effect when they hit the enemies it would go a long way to make the play style less boring for the people using it so they aren't solely siphoning their enjoyment out of the other people who are having one of the most boring experience of their lives running around like a fool trying to participate.

so what your saying is make every caster a sorc. pass...

[dennisck2]

To hit DC's a caster needs a ton of pastlives, gear etc. Don't blame someone else from putting the work in to make their character good.

I wish I could buy you a beer. To OP, if you don't like it, solo or use the LFM channel to make your own party. I have grinded the last couple years to make my caster/instakiller useful in high reapers. I shouldn't be nerfed because you haven't put in the time that I have.

[droid327]

If you're playing the appropriate difficulty for your level of progression, IKs are not just automatic kill buttons. Especially once you get up to a level/difficulty where Death Warded mobs are more commonplace, and of course when your DCs arent no-fail anymore.

If you're zerging "easy" content, though - whatever that might mean for your DCs - then yes its pretty much a OHKO. But, so is nuking. And so is Inqui. And, honestly, so is THF. Pretty much any over-progression character is going to wipe the map without breaking stride. The issue isnt with IKs, its with running with vets that are grossly OP for the content.

As others have said, simply post your LFM "no zerg" and most zergers will probably respect that. They probably dont want to run with a flower sniffer either so win-win.

[caberonia]

i know this is pretty obviously a troll post.. but the trick here is to bring other schools of magic up to the usefulness of necro. So that 99% of Dc casters aren't forced into instakills to feel a return on their investment.

There are many ways this can be done.. adjusting spell costs, adding spells, fixing broken spells etc etc.

An old example that is trotted out is why HOld/Charm/X a mob for Xsp when for the same SP you can kill them. Obvious answer is make the instakills more costly to cast than spells of the same level since the SP vs effect ratio is widely off at this point. This of course is just a simple example and one could delve into DnD sources for various other ways (rare spell components anyone??) or simply look at it from a gameplay balance perspective (adjust sp costs based on power of spell).

Just for clarity I am against Nerfing any school of magic.. i just think they spent way too much love in certain ones and haven't fleshed out others and balanced them all as a whole to make anything but instakills the flavor of the decade. I mean even when trying to flesh out schools such as illusion they blank out and think PK is the solution.. /sigh.

I'm going to stop here before it becomes one of my legendary diatribes about the brokenness of the various schools of magic, the state of magic as a whole in DDo and how much is broken with every magic system and the devs continuing to ignore it for their chosen one aka necro.. to this day almost every wizard is expected to be a necro of some sort.Necros should be a very RARE flavor build at BEST... SO MANY THINGS WRONG WITH THE MAGIC SYSTEM AS A WHOLE. grr /shutupnow

[Dragavon]

I'm sick of doing quests where the entire dungeons is killed before you can even get to the mobs. This is the most OP function in DDO and needs to be nerfed more than any dps has ever been nerfed.

Registered dec 2020 with 3 posts all in this thread. Obviously a troll account, do not feed it.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Plz bring better bait.

Are you one of those who play overpowered classes/builds ?
If so, then, yes, your reaction is understandable.


Registered dec 2020 with 3 posts all in this thread. Obviously a troll account, do not feed it.


Okay, then I'll feed you :

I was sooo sick of getting too late to the mob when the casters had burned (mostly literally) everything away so that I far to0o often felt like a fifth wheel on a car ...

I was so much sick of that - that I created a caster myself.

And voilá ! Now MY character is the one burning anything away ! Now that's pure satisfaction !



People already responded to me in other threads that "melee should be so fast that they are at the mobs first" , implying that melee should be running faster than fireballs, for example. Especially when the fireball comes from a character with a gazillion of past lives behind his/her back.


It is just so that for first-lfers and for newbies, melee is just ... BEEEP. Because they are not even able to run fast enough, as first-lifers.

The power people here of course ignore that. They want their game to continue, so they mark criticism of newbies as "madness" or as "trollery".
They suffer the "Curse Of Knowledge" and don't even want to admit that. Instead, they silently assume that everyone - and that includes Newbies with first-lifers !!! - holds the exact same level of power and of mechanics knowledge like they do. And that's why they call anyone with far less knowledge a "troll".

[Lonnbeimnech]

felt like a fifth wheel on a car ...


The fifth wheel on a car is the steering wheel.

[HungarianRhapsody]

While we're at it, we should also remove inquisitives, repeaters and throwers from the game for the same reason. And we should also nerf monk and warlock again... just to be safe.
Yes! As a player who doesn’t want to do any kind of optimization on his character, it’s important to me that other players not be allowed to optimize their characters either. OP and I are pretty clearly on the same page as each other here.

[Tilomere]

I agree with the OP in sentiment but have to also agree with the others that removing isn't the best option.

These high end, multiple instakill builds, when run on anything less than end game, high reaper levels, simply destroy everything in the dungeon, including all of the fun for anyone who isn't them.

...

This game is unplayable for the most part unless you are a high end nuker or simply play solo. And the biggest source of that frustration is walking into a dungeon and every single fight everything is dead before you can even start to swing a sword.



I totally redesigned how I thought about and play melee, ranged, and funzies builds due to the scope of power on uber arcanes in the game in order to have more fun. What I found I enjoyed was making an iconic to start closer to 20, then at 20 immediately going into low/mid legendary reaper. An uber level 20 caster won't be able to follow you into legendary reaper because they don't have the DC gear for it until 29. All their DC nukes will hit for half or be evaded for 0, and all their instant kill spells will fail.

An uber arcane generally won't join an R4 or so legendary group filled with leveling weaker players, and even an uber arcane has limits on how fast they can zerg legendary R6, but even if they do at least you get better of RXP/SXP/XP out of it.

This is one of the reasons I want access to epic quests for 15-20 iconic leveling. A level 15 uber caster has a DC of 60 or so, which is no match for R3 or so epic Wheloon.

[False_Gods]

Yes! As a player who doesn’t want to do any kind of optimization on his character, it’s important to me that other players not be allowed to optimize their characters either. OP and I are pretty clearly on the same page as each other here.

So your saying it takes an equivalent amount of "optimization" for an insta kill caster to do the effective 300,000 HP worth of damage on an R10 enemy as a damage dealing character to do 300,000 damage? Right. No it takes the same amount of effort to be 'effective' at what they do but the insta kill caster skirts the system entirely while every other character in the game is bound by increasing damage resistance as the difficulty levels increases.

If anyone actually has a legitimate argument aside from "Arf Arf you not optimized learn to play noob' I'd be interested in hearing it. Until then I think we can all agree that this is just business as usual with the usual people arguing out of their depth calling anyone a troll who points out that they are making no sense whatsoever.

[Justicesfury]

So your saying it takes an equivalent amount of "optimization" for an insta kill caster to do the effective 300,000 HP worth of damage on an R10 enemy as a damage dealing character to do 300,000 damage? Right. No it takes the same amount of effort to be 'effective' at what they do but the insta kill caster skirts the system entirely while every other character in the game bound by increasing damage resistance as the difficulty levels increases.

If anyone actually has a legitimate arguement aside from "Arf Arf you not optimized learn to play noob' I'd be interested in hearing it. Until then I think we can all agree that this is just business as usual with the usual people arguing out of their depth calling anyone a troll who points out that they are making no sense whatsoever.

From the guy who put up a post about revamping the entire LFM system and make it that people have to be forced to play with him...

[Lonnbeimnech]

So your saying it takes an equivalent amount of "optimization" for an insta kill caster to do the effective 300,000 HP worth of damage on an R10 enemy as a damage dealing character to do 300,000 damage? Right. No it takes the same amount of effort to be 'effective' at what they do but the insta kill caster skirts the system entirely while every other character in the game is bound by increasing damage resistance as the difficulty levels increases.

If anyone actually has a legitimate argument aside from "Arf Arf you not optimized learn to play noob' I'd be interested in hearing it. Until then I think we can all agree that this is just business as usual with the usual people arguing out of their depth calling anyone a troll who points out that they are making no sense whatsoever.

DC casters are crazy overpowered until you play one yourself. Then you see all the limitations.

[Alttab]

I remember few years ago when reaper didn't exist yet, I was playing a healing cleric and I was feeling useless in some quests because people didn't need me and it made me stop playing for a while. But I talked with my brother in law and he remembered me that it is a cooperative game and if other players are strong, it helps the team. I never played an insta-kill caster, but I believe they cannot insta-kill everything and they still need a team to complete most quests. Especially in reaper, you want and welcome all the diversity of damage, healing, crowd-control, tanking, trapping and insta-killing when you can.

[kanordog]

What do you mean bring better bait? I play melee toons, and by the time I get to the pack of mobs nearly everything is dead. What isn't untrue about that. With 1 or 2 instant killers in the party it totally ruins the game. I might as well wait until the quest is finished and roll up at the boss. They need to remove mass frog, circle of death and wail, they are too OP...anything that can clear an entire room with one button is overpowered...how can it not be. No its not a troll post.

You can BLOCK players based on their class when you put up an lfm so untick the boxes and no more instakills.

Pick only fighters, barbs, pallys, monks and rangers and you can have your little diablo group.

[Avocado]

So your saying it takes an equivalent amount of "optimization" for an insta kill caster to do the effective 300,000 HP worth of damage on an R10 enemy as a damage dealing character to do 300,000 damage? Right. No it takes the same amount of effort to be 'effective' at what they do but the insta kill caster skirts the system entirely while every other character in the game is bound by increasing damage resistance as the difficulty levels increases. r.

Dcs go up by 14+ prolly more like 20 between elite to r10. So that is the equivalent of damage restance increase for damage dealers. You clearly have never played a dc caster or a caster in general as the dc increase is not trivial. It requires basically every useful caster past life in game to reach the dcs for no fail insta killing in r6+ sharn and feywild. No fail instakilling is the thing to strive for on a pm because its what makes then fun. No one has fun running around casting circle of death and fod on mobs that will 95% of the time. Its why there are so few arcane insta killers in end game. I can think of 4 on my server.

[Discpsycho]

So your saying it takes an equivalent amount of "optimization" for an insta kill caster to do the effective 300,000 HP worth of damage on an R10 enemy as a damage dealing character to do 300,000 damage? Right. No it takes the same amount of effort to be 'effective' at what they do but the insta kill caster skirts the system entirely while every other character in the game is bound by increasing damage resistance as the difficulty levels increases.

If anyone actually has a legitimate argument aside from "Arf Arf you not optimized learn to play noob' I'd be interested in hearing it. Until then I think we can all agree that this is just business as usual with the usual people arguing out of their depth calling anyone a troll who points out that they are making no sense whatsoever.

Good thing there aren't any builds that can do over 300k in a single attack...oh (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/515040-Super-Saiyan-Power-level-376k-(final-form)) wait (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/509363-Reaper-Endgame-THF-EK-Wizard?p=6258991&viewfull=1#post6258991), EKs can do that every 15 seconds. Cetus managed a crit for ~1.3 million, though admittedly that was more of a "stars-aligned" scenario

[Redtalktree]

Let's look at instakilling as a "dps" effect: If a wizard decides to go all out with their instakill effects (Wail, FoD and PK), they can kill 20 mobs per minute. I didn't include PWK because of its 3.5 minute cooldown, nor Circle of Death since it requires two saves. If we assume that the average trash mob has 15K hit points (which is a bit on the high side outside of raids) AND none of the mobs are immune to instakilling AND none of the mobs make their saves AND we have no fail spell pen (for mobs with spell resistance), that would correlate to an average of 5K dps. It only seems like more because it doesn't take multiple hits to take the mob down. That's not really that impressive when you consider what the mid-tier melee builds are capable of. It's significantly less impressive when you take into account the amount of work necessary to get high enough DCs and spell pen.




While we're at it, we should also remove inquisitives, repeaters and throwers from the game for the same reason. And we should also nerf monk and warlock again... just to be safe.

CLEARLY YOU ARE WRONG............ ITS the ALCHEMIST...... IF you cant take out a red ALert dungeon .. ain't doing it right...... warlocks, and any INQs, suxs super big ass at reaper at any level beyond r1

[timmy9999]

I'm sick of doing quests where the entire dungeons is killed before you can even get to the mobs. This is the most OP function in DDO and needs to be nerfed more than any dps has ever been nerfed.

OMG it just gets better and better , I can't get enough ....:)
He's got a point though, everyone was so focused on nerfing throwers, nerfing inquisitors, now nerfing alchemist with out looking at the elephant in the room. Let's not forget the IPS nerf. In saying that lets be honest, least half the pack is death blocked on r10 most the time.
I think they just need to give melee more run speed options, specially for pally. An alchemist has multiple sprint boosts and can clear the pack also before you can get to it...oh the butt hurt. Reduce cd on dire charge as well, that would be sweet.

[timmy9999]

You might want to talk to Timmy, he might be able to give you some pointers on how to play a melee, though in the mean time in addition to breaking boxes have you considered splashing rogue or Arti for trap bonuses?

God, Timmy could say he feels your pain , **** insta killers interfering with my ego.

[Soulfurnace]

Are you one of those who play overpowered classes/builds ?
If so, then, yes, your reaction is understandable.

Buddy this thread was started because "finger of death is too powerful" as a troll bait.
People like you ate the bait - and really, instant kill spells are too strong?

I think people make intentionally bad melees - even when good melees are posted publicly - and then turn around and complain about it. Really seems to be what happens.

[zappy]

this may be the greatest thread of all time!

i have laughed and laughed all the way from the start to the end, bringing the most enjoyment ddo has brought to me in the year 2020.

I AM THE INSTAKILLER YOU ARE AFRAID OF!!!!!!!!

fear me.

I have evolved instakilling into such an extreme art, that I have now developed an instakiller that can tank raids at the SAME TIME! (see link in sig)

but, why don't i just go and solo all the R10's? why do i have to join groups or at least find one other buddy?

maybe, just maybe, its my lack of DPS?

it takes awhile to kill r10 rednames with negative SLA's, id much rather have a good DPS player along for my runs.

[Catabree]

Buddy this thread was started because "finger of death is too powerful" as a troll bait.
People like you ate the bait - and really, instant kill spells are too strong?

I think people make intentionally bad melees - even when good melees are posted publicly - and then turn around and complain about it. Really seems to be what happens.

No, finger of death hasn't been mentioned , I mentioned aoe insta kills. Its seem this sit unwell with you, do you play a dc caster?
Its seem like you are wild trying to defend your play style. Why? Cause we all know aoe insta kills are the biggest OP feature in the game. So, instead of all you dc caster raining hell on melee, nukers, and ranged how about you take a leaf out of your own book and start admitting a massive change is required. Also no its not a troll account. Ive been playing for 5 years, but never posted on the forums. I also play insta kill cleric, alchemist, but mainly melee. Replacing aoe insta kills with damage sound like a good start.

[Tilomere]

but, why don't i just go and solo all the R10's? why do i have to join groups or at least find one other buddy?


Because your not playing an alchemist. :)

[Soulfurnace]

No, finger of death hasn't been mentioned , I mentioned aoe insta kills. Its seem this sit unwell with you, do you play a dc caster?
Its seem like you are wild trying to defend your play style. Why? Cause we all know aoe insta kills are the biggest OP feature in the game. So, instead of all you dc caster raining hell on melee, nukers, and ranged how about you take a leaf out of your own book and start admitting a massive change is required. Also no its not a troll account. Ive been playing for 5 years, but never posted on the forums. I also play insta kill cleric, alchemist, but mainly melee. Replacing aoe insta kills with damage sound like a good start.
I'd like to imagine after 5 years you knew how to play a melee, but I guess not.

Here's the secret; I don't play a DC caster. I play melee. Bear, barb, fighter, paladin (well, less paladin), bard, whatever. Unless I'm after a specific past life, I'm melee.
And I dumpster the absolute hell out of any dc casters lol

It doesn't matter how good the DC caster is - no, really, it doesn't. There's a fixed amount of kills per minute they can get. It's pretty low too. The only time they're annoying is in a quest with very few, spread out mobs. Any quest that's packed with mobs? Melee and nukers are all that matters.

Unfortunately, these forums are filled with people who can't make a melee work.

[timmy9999]

this may be the greatest thread of all time!


**** hes making Timmy look like an amateur...

[draven1]

I've pointed out this 5 years ago, but, still no action taken from devs, so, it's almost hopeless.
Sometimes, it seems devs don't have any concern about balance.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/455851-Instakill-spells

[Hobgoblin]

**** hes making Timmy look like an amateur...

this is hard?

[Chai]

Troll post or not, its hilarious that people moan about getting free fast as possible XP. Any slot someone wants to give up in some reaper group where people are killing things TOO QUICKLY, I will be happy to take. If I want to experience the plot I'll solo it a few times. After that, if I brought a regular lawn mower to a harvester combine party, feel free to plow it and tell me what the next quest is. I will make it there just in time to pike another completion worth of XP.

[timmy9999]

this is hard?

:) dont make me bring up expanding the reaper trees again.

[slarden]

I've pointed out this 5 years ago, but, still no action taken from devs, so, it's almost hopeless.
Sometimes, it seems devs don't have any concern about balance.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/455851-Instakill-spells

Likely because there isn't a problem. Instant kill builds have to go all-in which makes them weak at everything else - other than assassin which can be more balanced and also have great dps.

Instant kill builds are very lightly represented compared to dps builds right now- much more than at any point in the game I can remember except possibly when gianthold was brand new.

[Catabree]

I'd like to imagine after 5 years you knew how to play a melee, but I guess not.

Here's the secret; I don't play a DC caster. I play melee. Bear, barb, fighter, paladin (well, less paladin), bard, whatever. Unless I'm after a specific past life, I'm melee.
And I dumpster the absolute hell out of any dc casters lol

It doesn't matter how good the DC caster is - no, really, it doesn't. There's a fixed amount of kills per minute they can get. It's pretty low too. The only time they're annoying is in a quest with very few, spread out mobs. Any quest that's packed with mobs? Melee and nukers are all that matters.

Unfortunately, these forums are filled with people who can't make a melee work.

I will tell you how it is, your're only as good as the healer healing your ass. One pull and you get knocked down to 10% hitpoints what you gonna do then. Charge to the next pack hoping someone might throw you a heal then die. Sit like a stale bottle of beer while the insta killer wipe the entire next mob? Nothing is hard about playing melee with a healer, zerg so far ahead of the party of course u will win the kill count. Pop into the same room with an really good insta killer on r10 they can fire of circle of death 2 pk and a finger of death before you can even get to the mobs.

[boredGamer]

This all definitely depends on the difficulty level.

R8+ I've *never* heard anyone worry about a mob dying too fast. In fact, everyone is just relieved any time things are gone.

R4- for sure you can be in groups and never contribute at all. I get how it can be annoying for sure. I tend to agree with chai though - the easier the better and hey, just bump up the R's if there is zero resistance.

R6 seems to be a pretty nice sweet spot for grouping, imo (or at my build levels?). CC, dps, heals, and teamwork generally seem to come together better here in a more relaxed way than any other level (for me? I guess)

[Soulfurnace]

r10 they can fire of circle of death 2 pk and a finger of death before you can even get to the mobs.

Yes they can. That's what.. 7 dead? Okay. I'll get the other 5 left in that group.

Up to the next group? They can get... 3? At best. I'll get the rest. Assuming we're at 3 packs per minute (aka a good party), I'll get most of those as well.

The only time instant kills should beat dps is on spread out quests or quests with a bad group.

You mention heals - if that instant killer thinks he'll abandon everyone else, he'll need heals too. It takes them too long to deal with ALL of the trash, and then there's the things immune to instant kills he can't even start to harm. I understand you think you deserve to be top kills but have no idea how to get there, but work on improving your melee game. Instant killers are in a bad spot, there's a reason you barely see anybody play them.

[False_Gods]

Troll post or not, its hilarious that people moan about getting free fast as possible XP. Any slot someone wants to give up in some reaper group where people are killing things TOO QUICKLY, I will be happy to take. If I want to experience the plot I'll solo it a few times. After that, if I brought a regular lawn mower to a harvester combine party, feel free to plow it and tell me what the next quest is. I will make it there just in time to pike another completion worth of XP.

Yeah, you found it so 'hilarious' that we now have 25% of the player population that we would have otherwise had. Someone comes to play the game and actually enjoy the game and participate in the game and you are laughing at them wondering what their problem is as to why they are upset, I mean c'mon they're getting xp what are they complaining about.

If I laughed at you like you laughed away 75% of the game's population I would be banned from the forum from infractions.

[timmy9999]

Yes they can. That's what.. 7 dead? Okay. I'll get the other 5 left in that group.

Up to the next group? They can get... 3? At best. I'll get the rest. Assuming we're at 3 packs per minute (aka a good party), I'll get most of those as well.

The only time instant kills should beat dps is on spread out quests or quests with a bad group.

You mention heals - if that instant killer thinks he'll abandon everyone else, he'll need heals too. It takes them too long to deal with ALL of the trash, and then there's the things immune to instant kills he can't even start to harm. I understand you think you deserve to be top kills but have no idea how to get there, but work on improving your melee game. Instant killers are in a bad spot, there's a reason you barely see anybody play them.

Oh Healzbane no need to be nasty, back in my day I played the odd insta killer and also dabble in melee. Even i can understand both sides of the debate. Maybe you just don't have really good insta killers on your server. Maybe you're average and they are plan terrible.....hmm. Now not saying this is the case, but its certainly possible. Unless you run with Mr Catabree how do you really know. You are assuming alot about his/her skills, and the skills of the players he or she runs with, something to think about. Oh forgot to add, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! This is to all my forums friends !!

[noinfo]

I've pointed out this 5 years ago, but, still no action taken from devs, so, it's almost hopeless.
Sometimes, it seems devs don't have any concern about balance.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/455851-Instakill-spells


And you are just as wrong today.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Remember OP - you can always leave the group. Why play in groups where you aren't enjoying yourself? You're supposed to be having fun. Some groups I carry, some groups carry me. Sometimes I group with a buff bard who fascinates and holds while I kill everything, sometimes I'm playing with characters who are killing things so fast I enjoy parts of the quest that I normally don't notice since they don't need me swinging my sword. Think of the positives for running in powerful groups - if you're a good sport about things they'll usually pass you all the loot because they already have it. Or - don't be afraid to drop the difficulty level! After I went through Ravenloft on reaper with a fast-moving group, I went back and did the quests on hard so I could appreciate the setting and optionals. Finally, if someone has spent the time and effort making a character that crushes content more power to them. It's clearly something they enjoy. Unless you're willing to put in that time as well, why shouldn't they be more powerful?

[Soulfurnace]

Maybe you just don't have really good insta killers on your server.
I've run with arguably the best DC casters in the game. There's a hard limit on how many kills they can get.

You can have no fail DC and spell pen, but you won't magically instant kill more than that limit of kills per minute due to spell cooldowns.

[Havocthedemon]

And you are just as wrong today.

This! What a stupid thread from OP. I play mostly melee and it’s annoying in heroics when someone instakills something when you are about to kill it but I’ve never thought they should be eradicated. I’ve done instakill builds and it’s fun but are also challenging in their own ways. If you don’t want people to kill things play solo or only accept melee characters into your lfm. Though it sounds like your next post will be nerf the melee that is moar better than minez!

Is OP playing on casual or just spiteful because their melee toon is weak? I’m much more annoyed at a sorc just absolutely dpsing the mobs into oblivion than I have ever been vs a dc caster instakilling and I STILL am much more relieved there are less mobs to hit me when I close. If you roll an instakiller you’ll find out just how much you can’t do and I’m sure you’ll change your tune.

[noinfo]

Yes they can. That's what.. 7 dead? Okay. I'll get the other 5 left in that group.

Up to the next group? They can get... 3? At best. I'll get the rest. Assuming we're at 3 packs per minute (aka a good party), I'll get most of those as well.

The only time instant kills should beat dps is on spread out quests or quests with a bad group.

You mention heals - if that instant killer thinks he'll abandon everyone else, he'll need heals too. It takes them too long to deal with ALL of the trash, and then there's the things immune to instant kills he can't even start to harm. I understand you think you deserve to be top kills but have no idea how to get there, but work on improving your melee game. Instant killers are in a bad spot, there's a reason you barely see anybody play them.

Well to be fair, the mobs they missed are for the whole party, so unless your whole party is horrri bad or the mobs are immmunes a non bad insta should dominate kill though still hard cap limited.. What separates an instakiller from a dc caster is how they deal with immune mobs

[noinfo]

Yeah, you found it so 'hilarious' that we now have 25% of the player population that we would have otherwise had. Someone comes to play the game and actually enjoy the game and participate in the game and you are laughing at them wondering what their problem is as to why they are upset, I mean c'mon they're getting xp what are they complaining about.

If I laughed at you like you laughed away 75% of the game's population I would be banned from the forum from infractions.

I must have missed where they released the stats for these numbers.

If your argument was that overperforming vets on their primary toons were decimating dungeons reducing the enjoyment of new players, I would agree, welcome to the downside of the TR grind, but you instead called out instakillers of which there are not many (at least in the hi end where I live) And you get upset when others do not experience the same issues as you and suggest maybe it's a you problem. Post your build and what difficulty you run and I am sure you will get actionable feedback. or continue to complain about non issues and fail to address the actual problem

[timmy9999]

I've run with arguably the best DC casters in the game. There's a hard limit on how many kills they can get.

You can have no fail DC and spell pen, but you won't magically instant kill more than that limit of kills per minute due to spell cooldowns.

No but good melee have priorities, I dont just run around the room looking for the weakest target to fluff my kill count. Constant priorities give plenty of time for all wizard or warlocks cds to reset ready for the next pull. You can't base this on the limits of cd of a wizard. There are some pulls where mobs die straight away and others where a stack of reapers spawn. As a melee you blow all your CDs so you are on the back foot for the next pull. Dc caster are ready primed to spam with insta kill rotation ready between 8 for Fod and 30sec for circle of death from memory, plus all the pks, frog etc etc. In saying this , it is different for a rouge, as a rogue you have stealth and can get in close fast and take multiple target quick through insta kills to then move onto priorities, they can recover quicker than a pally. You have a good alchemist in the party and the dynamics change again dramatically.

Not sure how you roll, but while I'm playing melee dps, tanking dooms, killing fears etc the insta killer is in the back ground spaming around the room. All these things are always random and depend on the other classes and abilities of the other players, things dont always go in melees favour. Also no, really good insta killers going for the kill count dont wait for melee to be healed or ressed , don't wait for the tank, dont wait for anything, they will leave reapers , champs and just keep killing . Melee need time to recovery, dire charge, meld, need to wait for healer. Wizards and warlocks dont, as you can take cover, kite, charm hold etc. and move on. Finally nerfing insta kill is horrible idea, but an amusing post regardless.

[DerpDerply]

What do you mean bring better bait? I play melee toons, and by the time I get to the pack of mobs nearly everything is dead. What isn't untrue about that. With 1 or 2 instant killers in the party it totally ruins the game. I might as well wait until the quest is finished and roll up at the boss. They need to remove mass frog, circle of death and wail, they are too OP...anything that can clear an entire room with one button is overpowered...how can it not be. No its not a troll post.

K. I play melee toons too. The thing is tho that I kill much more than the nukers in my party because of how I position myself...way in front.

Don’t wait.

Get in there, build up your kills (and blitz) while you build up your lead. They’ll catch up in time to clean up while you get to move on to the next mob.

[Soulfurnace]

As a melee you blow all your CDs so you are on the back foot for the next pull. Dc caster are ready primed to spam with insta kill rotation ready between 8 for Fod and 30sec for circle of death from memory, plus all the pks, frog etc etc.

Not sure how you roll, but while I'm playing melee dps, tanking dooms, killing fears etc the insta killer is in the back ground spaming around the room. All these things are always random and depend on the other classes and abilities of the other players, things dont always go in melees favour. Also no, really good insta killers going for the kill count dont wait for melee to be healed or ressed , don't wait for the tank, dont wait for anything, they will leave reapers , champs and just keep killing . Melee need time to recovery, dire charge, meld, need to wait for healer. Wizards and warlocks dont, as you can take cover, kite, charm hold etc. and move on. Finally nerfing insta kill is horrible idea, but an amusing post regardless.

Not... really? By the end of an encounter your two biggest assets - dire charge and haste boost - are ready.

You can get a total of.. what? 6 FOD kills per minute? 10 from circle of death? PK has two saves (and the better dc casters, aka warlock and sorc, only get 1 because they aren't deep gnome), and is secondly illusion. Weakest option there.
Frog is a wis/trans (with broken trans) dc, so that's only working on undead or skeletons.

I think you may be playing melee in a really bad way? Melee should 110% be first into the room. Your positioning and dire charge is what sets the tone of the encounter. You group them, you dire charge them, all that's not helpless is things at the back - casters, mainly - can be fingered at leisure.
You're then pumping exceedingly high aoe dps into the pack of trash. If you see dooms, hit meld, intimidate it, keep going and come back to the doom once the trash is dead.

Dooms aren't scary - trash will kill you more often than a doom. Dooms have weak damage compared to 5 trash mobs.

Meld on cooldown? Nice, the next melee will intimidate the doom and meld.

You're the only melee? I hope you're a bear.

If the instant kill is running off alone.. let him. Watch him die. Then leave his soulstone there.

[SirValentine]

I've run with arguably the best DC casters in the game. There's a hard limit on how many kills they can get.

You can have no fail DC and spell pen, but you won't magically instant kill more than that limit of kills per minute due to spell cooldowns.

That's true, and even with CDs, very skilled players can include a lot of insta-killing. But if someone is throwing Finger (or even Wail/Circle) instead of Mass Hold at a large group of enemies at the start of an encounter, they are not a very skilled player, they are a selfish kill-count-padder.

If you're solo, whatever, but when you're supposed to be part of a team, CC groups first, then insta-kill after.

Either way, there's no need to nerf insta-kills in general, though. Players who just pad their kill count instead of helping complete the content more efficiently tend to be less welcome in groups.

(Though I do say give Turn to Frog the same cooldown as Finger of Death, PK, and Destruction, instead of inexplicably being the shortest CD insta-kill.)



I think you may be playing melee in a really bad way? Melee should 110% be first into the room. Your positioning and dire charge is what sets the tone of the encounter. You group them, you dire charge them, all that's not helpless is things at the back - casters, mainly - can be fingered at leisure.


Ah, to have more melee who actually try to group enemies! Far too many end up scattering them.



Also no, really good insta killers going for the kill count dont wait for melee to be healed or ressed , don't wait for the tank, dont wait for anything, they will leave reapers , champs and just keep killing .


You're not describing "really good" anything, you're just describing bad players.

[Jerevth]

For what it's worth; most PUGs seem to be a race. Very few have a plan that outlines room entry, target priorities and so forth.
Melees first to draw aggro, Insta-kills for reapers, champs (that can be insta-killed), etc.

A professional discussion and plan for specific roles could make for a fun dungeon run, I think, however most are just there to get through as fast as possible so they can move on to the next TR.
At least in my experience, ymmv.

[elkorm]

......

I appreciate the way you are trying to explain things but I think you shouldn't get your hopes too high here.

The type of answers you get are showing (to me!) that people didn't really TRY to play melee and dc casters (and other builds....) on the higher end of the game but are discussing based on experience on ...r1? r4?
It's not a crime not contributing as much in high reapers people. Watch, see how others do things. Ask questions. That's called a learning curve for a reason....

Cheers
Elk

[elkorm]

That's true, and even with CDs, very skilled players can include a lot of insta-killing. But if someone is throwing Finger (or even Wail/Circle) instead of Mass Hold at a large group of enemies at the start of an encounter, they are not a very skilled player, they are a selfish kill-count-padder.

+1 Bud!

Cheers
Elk

[Soulfurnace]

That's true, and even with CDs, very skilled players can include a lot of insta-killing. But if someone is throwing Finger (or even Wail/Circle) instead of Mass Hold at a large group of enemies at the start of an encounter, they are not a very skilled player, they are a selfish kill-count-padder.

Ah, to have more melee who actually try to group enemies! Far too many end up scattering them.



On a DC sorc (my favourite), mass hold is instant. Although I'd still prefer they wait for me to go in first, just to group them. Makes everyone's day easier if the mobs are consolidated - any other melees will dire charge more, nukers will hit more, etc.

On the subject of grouping mobs tho, I think the reason you don't see it is because it's hard to do on high skulls (if you aren't a tank) and you'll die getting the hang of it.
And even after, you'll die if you screw it up.

[grudgebear]

you can block players based on their class when you put up an lfm so untick the boxes and no more instakills.

Pick only fighters, barbs, pallys, monks and rangers and you can have your little diablo group.

little diablo group.

Lul

[Theolin]

I agree with @OP. Please remove all instakill. Also, please remove all melee and offensive caster builds from the game. It is not any fun when I get to a room and everything in it is dead already. Sure I could actually get a striding item so I could actually get to the room quicker, but why should I have to change my play style when the obvious answer is to just make everyone else unable to kill enemies until I’ve had a chance to get there and do my part of the killing.

.... you must gather party before doing damage to mobs :) wish granted :)

[SirValentine]

You can BLOCK players based on their class when you put up an lfm so untick the boxes and no more instakills.

Pick only fighters, barbs, pallys, monks and rangers and you can have your little diablo group.

That won't work.

Barb: Visage of Terror
Pally: Holy Retribution
Monk: Quivering Palm, Dismissing Strike

So Fighter & Ranger only groups? Actually, you're probably OK with Artificers, too.

(And that's without even getting into all the various on-vorpal insta-kills available though class/enhancements/gear.)

[noinfo]

Not... really? By the end of an encounter your two biggest assets - dire charge and haste boost - are ready.

You can get a total of.. what? 6 FOD kills per minute? 10 from circle of death? PK has two saves (and the better dc casters, aka warlock and sorc, only get 1 because they aren't deep gnome), and is secondly illusion. Weakest option there.
Frog is a wis/trans (with broken trans) dc, so that's only working on undead or skeletons.

I think you may be playing melee in a really bad way? Melee should 110% be first into the room. Your positioning and dire charge is what sets the tone of the encounter. You group them, you dire charge them, all that's not helpless is things at the back - casters, mainly - can be fingered at leisure.
You're then pumping exceedingly high aoe dps into the pack of trash. If you see dooms, hit meld, intimidate it, keep going and come back to the doom once the trash is dead.

Dooms aren't scary - trash will kill you more often than a doom. Dooms have weak damage compared to 5 trash mobs.

Meld on cooldown? Nice, the next melee will intimidate the doom and meld.

You're the only melee? I hope you're a bear.

If the instant kill is running off alone.. let him. Watch him die. Then leave his soulstone there.

I would hate to see the casters you are running with, not able to land a pk? or handle a single pull of mobs? And if that's the only rotation your sorc is doing its under performing dc casting wise.

Dooms are more dangerous though often in pack than trash because we are talking about dc casters so if the are moving something has gone wrong. mass hold, prismatic/cod, ind targets kills and fts for those hold immune dw mobs on approach, wailing as you close on the remains

[Theolin]

On a DC sorc (my favourite), mass hold is instant. Although I'd still prefer they wait for me to go in first, just to group them. Makes everyone's day easier if the mobs are consolidated - any other melees will dire charge more, nukers will hit more, etc.

On the subject of grouping mobs tho, I think the reason you don't see it is because it's hard to do on high skulls (if you aren't a tank) and you'll die getting the hang of it.
And even after, you'll die if you screw it up.


Yep, grouping mobs is a skill just as most things, but if you have a good hate/itim tank it does make it much easier on the caster then, due to most of them not being able to survive a slight glitch. I love a good nuker running behind my hate tank its lots of fun to gather a few/several rooms and watch them melt most of them, and then a little damage on the rest to get my kill count up, save that cleave for just the right moment :)

[carsonfball]

I'm sick of doing quests where the entire dungeons is killed before you can even get to the mobs. This is the most OP function in DDO and needs to be nerfed more than any dps has ever been nerfed.

Instakills have slow cool downs compared to most other spells. This means that in a large group of mobs, you can only instakill a couple of them and still have to deal with the rest through other means.

[carsonfball]

I'm sick of forumites calling for nerfs. I think you should all be banned. Period! 10 years and people still need to ruin the fun of others so they can feel less inadequate.

+1

[Bunker]

I'm sick of doing quests where the entire dungeons is killed before you can even get to the mobs. This is the most OP function in DDO and needs to be nerfed more than any dps has ever been nerfed.

Remove all vorpal weapons from the game?

[Fivetigers33]

OP, to echo what has probably been said already. 1) improve your build and/or 2) increase the difficulty that you are playing on. If that doesn't fix the problem for you, start being more selective with who you group with. No need to neuter an entire play style because your kill count ego is bruised. Instakillers can't kill rednames or deathwareded mobs though, so that's where the tables are turned and they need you.



That won't work.

Barb: Visage of Terror
Pally: Holy Retribution
Monk: Quivering Palm, Dismissing Strike

So Fighter & Ranger only groups? Actually, you're probably OK with Artificers, too.

(And that's without even getting into all the various on-vorpal insta-kills available though class/enhancements/gear.)


Honestly every class has access to Falconry which has an instakill, Shadowdancer (Consume, Executioner's Strike) or Grandmaster of Flowers (EIN), and also Mass Frog. Rangers get Terror Arrows too. So there goes that plan. :p




Dooms aren't scary

I see this statement a lot, and it often comes from higher end players that almost exclusively play with other high end players, and they are overlooking the fact that not everyone is a top tier end game player. I do agree that Vengeance Reapers, or even Fear Reapers are more likely to cause problems for a good group.

However, for an average party that is actually capable of completing R10, but that the R10 completion isn't a given, Doom reapers are a legit threat. Not everyone has meld. Not everyone has a functional Intimidate. Not everyone has hundreds of cakes from... somewhere. That doom reaper that your group laughs at will likely kill 1-2 people in a lesser party. And the party will have to wait out the R10 death timers before anyone gets rezzed, players aren't instantly being caked up if something goes wrong. And if the wrong 1-2 people go down, it can easily be a party wipe.

Of course a typical response to this could be "get good", which to a certain extent I agree with. Some strategies are much better than others for dealing with Dooms, and if you aren't prepared you're just setting yourself up to fail. But pretending that Doom reapers aren't inherently a big threat is just peacocking. The main reason they aren't scary is because the party as a whole knows how to deal with them, not because Doom reapers themselves are insignificant.

[Chai]

Yeah, you found it so 'hilarious' that we now have 25% of the player population that we would have otherwise had. Someone comes to play the game and actually enjoy the game and participate in the game and you are laughing at them wondering what their problem is as to why they are upset, I mean c'mon they're getting xp what are they complaining about.

If I laughed at you like you laughed away 75% of the game's population I would be banned from the forum from infractions.

Trying to force players who do not play like you do to play like you do, is what causes the attrition. Getting rid of other players favorite options does not cause them to play like you demand them to. It causes them to move on.


I mean c'mon they're getting xp what are they complaining about.

Better not be complaining about the power gap. That would be a contradiction.

[slarden]

The devs should not really be thinking about nerfing DC casters but instead should be looking at why the population of DC casters is so low right now and steadily declining. It's almost laughable that posts like this are made at times when DC casting in general is at a low point historically.

Even for someone like me that enjoys the challenge of playing a DC caster - when it comes to raiding nobody really wants this. I have several alts to fill raid spots because there is very little need for a DC caster outside of too hot too handle and putting up dancing spheres in VOD. In both those cases the raids are mostly run on lower difficulty so the leaders would still prefer a high dps build that can throw dancing spheres, sunburst, etc. rather than a DC-focused build because all that investment simply isn't needed for EN and EH raids. The raid leader will almost always prefer a less-accomplished alt on a high dps build to a more accomplished DC caster.

When it comes to raiding DPS is valued over all else. When it comes to questing DPS can overcome challenges more than anything else. When you run into immune mobs as a DC caster options are very limited. You can brute force your way through almost EVERY level 30+ quest in the game with DPS.

Instead of removing interesting options from the game they should be more concerned about all content being about dps and raids being a dps test.

[Chai]

The devs should not really be thinking about nerfing DC casters but instead should be looking at why the population of DC casters is so low right now and steadily declining. It's almost laughable that posts like this are made at times when DC casting in general is at a low point historically.

Even for someone like me that enjoys the challenge of playing a DC caster - when it comes to raiding nobody really wants this. I have several alts to fill raid spots because there is very little need for a DC caster outside of too hot too handle and putting up dancing spheres in VOD. In both those cases the raids are mostly run on lower difficulty so the leaders would still prefer a high dps build that can throw dancing spheres, sunburst, etc. rather than a DC-focused build because all that investment simply isn't needed for EN and EH raids. The raid leader will almost always prefer a less-accomplished alt on a high dps build to a more accomplished DC caster.

When it comes to raiding DPS is valued over all else. When it comes to questing DPS can overcome challenges more than anything else. When you run into immune mobs as a DC caster options are very limited. You can brute force your way through almost EVERY level 30+ quest in the game with DPS.

Instead of removing interesting options from the game they should be more concerned about all content being about dps and raids being a dps test.

They would rather you be an enabler in quests and mass hold the mobs to prop up the THF/meteor swarm meta we are currently in.

[timmy9999]

That's true, and even with CDs, very skilled players can include a lot of insta-killing. But if someone is throwing Finger (or even Wail/Circle) instead of Mass Hold at a large group of enemies at the start of an encounter, they are not a very skilled player, they are a selfish kill-count-padder.

If you're solo, whatever, but when you're supposed to be part of a team, CC groups first, then insta-kill after.

Either way, there's no need to nerf insta-kills in general, though. Players who just pad their kill count instead of helping complete the content more efficiently tend to be less welcome in groups.

(Though I do say give Turn to Frog the same cooldown as Finger of Death, PK, and Destruction, instead of inexplicably being the shortest CD insta-kill.)



Ah, to have more melee who actually try to group enemies! Far too many end up scattering them.



You're not describing "really good" anything, you're just describing bad players.

No, but we have Soul here claiming he can destroy any dc caster in kills hands down. Point being and by the sound of it he hasn't
run with a very good dc caster in a kill count competion, its just trash talk imo. Your right, they are not going to hold, they will drop a circle, split the pack and spam insta kills. There goes you bear dps as the mobs scatter. They will pull the next group while you as melee are finishing off the fear reapers. Ive seen terrible death dom. clerics destroy the kill count on r10 tempest spine, its hilarious. The stuff hits hard, with long corridors full of traps, they have the advantage...simple (slavers is another example).

[Rastallin]

I've run with arguably the best DC casters in the game. There's a hard limit on how many kills they can get.

You can have no fail DC and spell pen, but you won't magically instant kill more than that limit of kills per minute due to spell cooldowns.

There was a run where I set the kill challenge between Zappy and Milacias. Subversion from memory, walock vs wizard lower dc required in Subversion. Healzbane, I highly doubt you would have even gotten close to their kill count. Zappy pulled mobs from another dungeon to win the kill count! Im sure you play a melee well, but I also doubt you've gone head to head with good dc casters. Great challenge playing with these guys as melee, keeps you playing at your best, which most likely isn't that great in the scheme of things. But majority of the time Milacias bloody wins...sigh. **** insta killers and their **** insta kills :)

[SkyJ89]

Sorry if anyone had mention this earlier but 5 page of text is hard for me to digest in my limited time. I can understand what OP experience and I agree the instakill is a unique feature of DDO and should not be removed. However I feel instakill should not be a trigger happy spell that u can cast every few second. So instead of complete removing it from the gameplay, I suggest making it a secondary feature instead of a primary feature of a class/build.

To do that, give instakill spell an extra global 30ec cooldown that reset every time u use instakill spell. For example, after using insta kill spell1, a global 30sec cooldown will trigger so u cant use insta kill spell2 immediately. After the 30sec cd has passed, only then will the cooldown of insta kill spell1 begin to count and insta kill spell2 ready to use. And if instakill spell 1 is in the middle of its cooldown when insta kill spell2 is use, this will pause the cooldown while entering the global 30sec cooldown. After the 30sec has passed, the cooldown will unpaused and continue on ticking. In my opinion, thats a way to tone down the insta kill spell from being use too frequently and give other player a breathing room to play.

[Rastallin]

Sorry if anyone had mention this earlier but 5 page of text is hard for me to digest in my limited time. I can understand what OP experience and I agree the instakill is a unique feature of DDO and should not be removed. However I feel instakill should not be a trigger happy spell that u can cast every few second. So instead of complete removing it from the gameplay, I suggest making it a secondary feature instead of a primary feature of a class/build.

To do that, give instakill spell an extra global 30ec cooldown that reset every time u use instakill spell. For example, after using insta kill spell1, a global 30sec cooldown will trigger so u cant use insta kill spell2 immediately. After the 30sec cd has passed, only then will the cooldown of insta kill spell1 begin to count and insta kill spell2 ready to use. And if instakill spell 1 is in the middle of its cooldown when insta kill spell2 is use, this will pause the cooldown while entering the global 30sec cooldown. After the 30sec has passed, the cooldown will unpaused and continue on ticking. In my opinion, thats a way to tone down the insta kill spell from being use too frequently and give other player a breathing room to play.

There's nothing wrong with insta kills they do what the are designed to do. If you start increasing cd noone will play them. They will then be rubbish at clearing trash and rubbish in a boss fight...least atm they are good at something.

[noinfo]

Sorry if anyone had mention this earlier but 5 page of text is hard for me to digest in my limited time. I can understand what OP experience and I agree the instakill is a unique feature of DDO and should not be removed. However I feel instakill should not be a trigger happy spell that u can cast every few second. So instead of complete removing it from the gameplay, I suggest making it a secondary feature instead of a primary feature of a class/build.

To do that, give instakill spell an extra global 30ec cooldown that reset every time u use instakill spell. For example, after using insta kill spell1, a global 30sec cooldown will trigger so u cant use insta kill spell2 immediately. After the 30sec cd has passed, only then will the cooldown of insta kill spell1 begin to count and insta kill spell2 ready to use. And if instakill spell 1 is in the middle of its cooldown when insta kill spell2 is use, this will pause the cooldown while entering the global 30sec cooldown. After the 30sec has passed, the cooldown will unpaused and continue on ticking. In my opinion, thats a way to tone down the insta kill spell from being use too frequently and give other player a breathing room to play.

You may want to familiarise yourself with the already significant and finite limits of casters first

[noinfo]

There's nothing wrong with insta kills they do what the are designed to do. If you start increasing cd noone will play them. They will then be rubbish at clearing trash and rubbish in a boss fight...least atm they are good at something.

What the need is an update to thei debut spells. At the moment I carry ooze, dust and ash. But so ca anyone. It would be nice for effects like waves of fatigue etc to be useful again

[SkyJ89]

There's nothing wrong with insta kills they do what the are designed to do. If you start increasing cd noone will play them. They will then be rubbish at clearing trash and rubbish in a boss fight...least atm they are good at something.

Yup. Thats my point. Shifting insta kill from trash killing spell to a "troublesome target that must be dealt with immediately" killing spell. Like a backup spell that u use during emergency or like a fire sorc uses other form of spell to deal with high dex mob. In short, insta kill spell is still in the gameplay but not played as a primary build. Of course, to balance this, they need to increase the DC of those spell so it can be use as a secondary use.

[SkyJ89]

You may want to familiarise yourself with the already significant and finite limits of casters first

Meta are everchanging. There was once shiradi + magic missle is a thing. However I could only ask developer to plan something else for DC caster as insta kill trash mob does sound abit OP. Anything that make other player idle and doing nothing is bad.

[Rastallin]

OP, to echo what has probably been said already. 1) improve your build and/or 2) increase the difficulty that you are playing on. If that doesn't fix the problem for you, start being more selective with who you group with. No need to neuter an entire play style because your kill count ego is bruised. Instakillers can't kill rednames or deathwareded mobs though, so that's where the tables are turned and they need you.





Honestly every class has access to Falconry which has an instakill, Shadowdancer (Consume, Executioner's Strike) or Grandmaster of Flowers (EIN), and also Mass Frog. Rangers get Terror Arrows too. So there goes that plan. :p





I see this statement a lot, and it often comes from higher end players that almost exclusively play with other high end players, and they are overlooking the fact that not everyone is a top tier end game player. I do agree that Vengeance Reapers, or even Fear Reapers are more likely to cause problems for a good group.

However, for an average party that is actually capable of completing R10, but that the R10 completion isn't a given, Doom reapers are a legit threat. Not everyone has meld. Not everyone has a functional Intimidate. Not everyone has hundreds of cakes from... somewhere. That doom reaper that your group laughs at will likely kill 1-2 people in a lesser party. And the party will have to wait out the R10 death timers before anyone gets rezzed, players aren't instantly being caked up if something goes wrong. And if the wrong 1-2 people go down, it can easily be a party wipe.

Of course a typical response to this could be "get good", which to a certain extent I agree with. Some strategies are much better than others for dealing with Dooms, and if you aren't prepared you're just setting yourself up to fail. But pretending that Doom reapers aren't inherently a big threat is just peacocking. The main reason they aren't scary is because the party as a whole knows how to deal with them, not because Doom reapers themselves are insignificant.

I agree with your comment on Dooms, especially getting multiple spawns. If melee don't pick them up they start picking off party members quick. Yes you can bug them, etc etc but this isn't for everyone. Also ignoring them doesn't pay off either as someone ends up getting a 7stack one hit. Gratz on the solo bard runs, I watched some of the vids. Was seriously going to change to bard for a bit after watching that, you will have to give me some tips :) Personally I find fear reapers the biggest threat, especially when soloing. If you're playing melee you really have to get to the back of the pack and fully expose yourself.

[Redtalktree]

OP, to echo what has probably been said already. 1) improve your build and/or 2) increase the difficulty that you are playing on. If that doesn't fix the problem for you, start being more selective with who you group with. No need to neuter an entire play style because your kill count ego is bruised. Instakillers can't kill rednames or deathwareded mobs though, so that's where the tables are turned and they need you.





Honestly every class has access to Falconry which has an instakill, Shadowdancer (Consume, Executioner's Strike) or Grandmaster of Flowers (EIN), and also Mass Frog. Rangers get Terror Arrows too. So there goes that plan. :p



I see this statement a lot, and it often comes from higher end players that almost exclusively play with other high end players, and they are overlooking the fact that not everyone is a top tier end game player. I do agree that Vengeance Reapers, or even Fear Reapers are more likely to cause problems for a good group.

However, for an average party that is actually capable of completing R10, but that the R10 completion isn't a given, Doom reapers are a legit threat. Not everyone has meld. Not everyone has a functional Intimidate. Not everyone has hundreds of cakes from... somewhere. That doom reaper that your group laughs at will likely kill 1-2 people in a lesser party. And the party will have to wait out the R10 death timers before anyone gets rezzed, players aren't instantly being caked up if something goes wrong. And if the wrong 1-2 people go down, it can easily be a party wipe.

Of course a typical response to this could be "get good", which to a certain extent I agree with. Some strategies are much better than others for dealing with Dooms, and if you aren't prepared you're just setting yourself up to fail. But pretending that Doom reapers aren't inherently a big threat is just peacocking. The main reason they aren't scary is because the party as a whole knows how to deal with them, not because Doom reapers themselves are insignificant.

WAIT a minute.... you kidding right? Ranger with Terror Arrow? you actually played Arcane ARCHER recently?
(facepalm myself), you think ranger AA actually do any damage in erm any reaper level beyond R1?

no i dont mean the guys with epic/racial/heroic completionlist with 156 Repear points. (they can solo bare assed naked most quests at at R10) (:)

[noinfo]

Meta are everchanging. There was once shiradi + magic missle is a thing. However I could only ask developer to plan something else for DC caster as insta kill trash mob does sound abit OP. Anything that make other player idle and doing nothing is bad.

So it sounds a bit bad,? No experience playing one or it's cd or limitations, no experience running with one in your guild, have not read others responses, but you come in with ideas because metal change? Th reason the shield spammers existed for a long time was cheap damage and you could not land much at various point in time of the game. Anyone remember the newer amaranth quest disaster for dc casters?

The people actually complaining would be getting no kills in any of the groups I run in anyway and it has nothing to do with if any of us playing a dc caster. That being said the kill count is usually there just to tease Rast with, the real challenge is pking the mob he is trying to dire charge.

Bottom line, why would you suggest changes to something you have no clue about? Would hate to see the op in a group with 2 competent alchemists

[Rastallin]

That being said the kill count is usually there just to tease Rast with, the real challenge is pking the mob he is trying to dire charge.
Bottom line, why would you suggest changes to something you have no clue about? Would hate to see the op in a group with 2 competent alchemists

Common I know your true skill is waiting till the mob has 1hp left and then PK'in it. I could call this kill stealing but that would be a sore loser wouldn't it :)

[False_Gods]

Insta kill spells fly in the face of DDO being first and foremost a multi player game and it lowers the quality of the play experience for everyone. I avoid them because in my opinion each encounter should hopefully be more of a team oriented dynamic experience.. insta kill spells are like an instrument that is overpowering, out of tune and sounds bad and I know that each time I cast it I have lowered the quality of the experience for the rest of the group, much like someone blathering on over the voice channel incessantly when no one wants to hear them.

The only reason insta kill spells even exist would be to try to stay in line with the table top rule set.. which has no place in a multiplayer video game. They should be nothing more than heavy damage fortitude-save effects. This would also make them more interesting to use.. as they can still be powerful.. but not be out of tune with the rest of group play. They can continue to have interesting visual effects ( i.e. the falling ashes from Circle of Death etc) and hit for big numbers... this would make them satisfying to use (still killing off weaker enemies much like a well aimed fireball or lightning strike can) and also keep everyone else involved in the equation in higher difficulties.

It sad that most of this thread tries to advise on how to deal with the problem by avoiding people who use it, keeping them out of your group, or telling people to just solo and not play the game with others if they don't like it. But then again, what else can yoiu expect from know it alls who are mostly interested in blowing their own horns rather than being proactive in solving problems.

[Fivetigers33]

WAIT a minute.... you kidding right? Ranger with Terror Arrow? you actually played Arcane ARCHER recently?
(facepalm myself), you think ranger AA actually do any damage in erm any reaper level beyond R1?

The guy was talking about instakills and said Ranger didn't have any. I simply pointed out that Ranger does have an instakill. There is definitely a Wisdom based Arcane Archer/Falconry/Frog/Grandmaster DC instakill build. No it doesn't do any damage, but yes it instakills everything.

[slarden]

Yup. Thats my point. Shifting insta kill from trash killing spell to a "troublesome target that must be dealt with immediately" killing spell. Like a backup spell that u use during emergency or like a fire sorc uses other form of spell to deal with high dex mob. In short, insta kill spell is still in the gameplay but not played as a primary build. Of course, to balance this, they need to increase the DC of those spell so it can be use as a secondary use.


That's pretty much all it is right now is a secondary spell to deal with some troublesome enemies - it has a very limited usefulness in high skull reaper once you factor in reapers, red names, certain champion types and high fortitude-save enemies on top of all the things that are flat-out immune to death spells or death-warded.

Nobody builds a necromancy-only build. When you play a DC caster you are expected to handle cc, debuffing and even contribute dps.

This thread is mostly a discussion about a problem that doesn't exist.


It sad that most of this thread tries to advise on how to deal with the problem by avoiding people who use it, keeping them out of your group, or telling people to just solo and not play the game with others if they don't like it. But then again, what else can yoiu expect from know it alls who are mostly interested in blowing their own horns rather than being proactive in solving problems. This is because the people complaining are the problem. People push back for the simple reason devs should hear all sides of the story as we've seen nerfs in the past that didn't make sense and appear to be based on threads like this.

Bottom line if you come to the forums asking for a nerf you better be asking for something that is really a problem - this is not.

[SkyJ89]

That's pretty much all it is right now is a secondary spell to deal with some troublesome enemies - it has a very limited usefulness in high skull reaper once you factor in reapers, red names, certain champion types and high fortitude-save enemies on top of all the things that are flat-out immune to death spells or death-warded.

Nobody builds a necromancy-only build. When you play a DC caster you are expected to handle cc, debuffing and even contribute dps.

This thread is mostly a discussion about a problem that doesn't exist.



This I agree. I haven't seen any DC caster spamming insta kill in high reaper. My opinion are purely a respond to the problem described in this thread and I merely suggest a solution to it. If the problem does not exist then no one need to worry about anything.

However I do want to remind people who ask for nerf to do their research before posting them. If the problem is faced by the community at all level of play or just a specific level of play. Because so far I have not seen any problem at high reaper and I have to agree with Slarden.

[Catabree]

This I agree. I haven't seen any DC caster spamming insta kill in high reaper.

What do the dc wizards do on your server on high reaper? Spam nerco blast and bolt while their skeleton knight tanks for them.

[noinfo]

What do the dc wizards do on your server on high reaper? Spam nerco blast and bolt while their skeleton knight tanks for them.

Sounds like what your asking for!

However he probably does not see many or any dc casters, for a reason.

[noinfo]

Insta kill spells fly in the face of DDO being first and foremost a multi player game and it lowers the quality of the play experience for everyone. I avoid them because in my opinion each encounter should hopefully be more of a team oriented dynamic experience.. insta kill spells are like an instrument that is overpowering, out of tune and sounds bad and I know that each time I cast it I have lowered the quality of the experience for the rest of the group, much like someone blathering on over the voice channel incessantly when no one wants to hear them.

The only reason insta kill spells even exist would be to try to stay in line with the table top rule set.. which has no place in a multiplayer video game. They should be nothing more than heavy damage fortitude-save effects. This would also make them more interesting to use.. as they can still be powerful.. but not be out of tune with the rest of group play. They can continue to have interesting visual effects ( i.e. the falling ashes from Circle of Death etc) and hit for big numbers... this would make them satisfying to use (still killing off weaker enemies much like a well aimed fireball or lightning strike can) and also keep everyone else involved in the equation in higher difficulties.

It sad that most of this thread tries to advise on how to deal with the problem by avoiding people who use it, keeping them out of your group, or telling people to just solo and not play the game with others if they don't like it. But then again, what else can yoiu expect from know it alls who are mostly interested in blowing their own horns rather than being proactive in solving problems.

Wait we have asked for you to provide your build so we can actually give you actionable feedback because the problem is not DC casters otherwise, everyone would be playing them. How many of them do you see? I count about 6 in end game reapers on Kyber (may be some more that I don't run with obviously)

[slarden]

What do the dc wizards do on your server on high reaper? Spam nerco blast and bolt while their skeleton knight tanks for them.

Great question. No this isn't what they do and as a side note many things are immune to the blast and there is no way around it - for example almost every construct in the game which are plentiful. DPS on a DC wizard is really bad at level 30 - one of the lowest dps builds in the game and even worse - it's constrained by spell points.

Very few people build DC casters - now so more than at any time in the game's history except possibly when Gianthold was new and DC casting was a wasted party slot for that content. DDO is a cooperative game - not a competitive game and DC casters are built primarily to support a party of adventurers - not to solo.

If you try leveling a wizard from 1-30 you might end up with a different perspective on it's power level, especially if you solo. I have an illusionist/enchanter in my sig that I built for reaper parties and it works well there, but nobody wants me to bring it out for the 3 new raids because they want DPS DPS DPS. I try bringing it and they almost always want me to switch to something else. I can solo some quests, but less than any other build I have.

The boss in legendary vision of destruction has 8.3 Million HP on LH and the toughest mobs in that raid are red-named orthons with many hit points. Nobody cares what my enchantment DC is because any sorc can cast a dancing sphere that will work fine for the devils on LH. The devils go down fast with or without a wizard. They just want me to do my share of the DPS.

The grass is always greener on the other side.

[kanordog]

That won't work.

Barb: Visage of Terror
Pally: Holy Retribution
Monk: Quivering Palm, Dismissing Strike

So Fighter & Ranger only groups? Actually, you're probably OK with Artificers, too.

(And that's without even getting into all the various on-vorpal insta-kills available though class/enhancements/gear.)


Stop splitting hair and intentionally missing the point of my posts so you can pick a fight with me.

[SirValentine]

The guy was talking about instakills and said Ranger didn't have any.

I didn't say Rangers don't have Vorpal effects. Anyone who can equip an ML1 Vorpal weapon "has instakills", sort of.

But Terror Arrow's effect is Fear. A Vorpal-only special is not in the same category as the primary, every-time effect being death, like Quivering Palm or Finger of Death.

[SirValentine]

The only reason insta kill spells even exist would be to try to stay in line with the table top rule set.. which has no place in a multiplayer video game.


That's nonsensical. If you don't like D&D, why are you playing D&D Online? If you want some very different non-D&D multiplayer video game, go play it.

[SirValentine]

Stop splitting hair and intentionally missing the point of my posts so you can pick a fight with me.

You mean the way you did with your reply to the OP?

You made a factual error in that reply, and I provided additional information. If the point of your post isn't clear, anybody missing the point is on you. I don't know who you are; I don't care you you are; get over yourself. I'm not picking a fight with anybody, but by the same token, I'm not going to avoid posting stuff just because it's you either.

If you don't want people to point out your errors, don't post errors in the first place. Or be able to graciously admit your mistakes. Or be self-aware enough to recognize when what you are complaining about is a response to the exact same thing you just did.

[Zretch]

What do the dc wizards do on your server on high reaper? Spam nerco blast and bolt while their skeleton knight tanks for them.

You let the "tank" go in, drop a Mass Hold on everything that's surrounding him, and then pick off targets that didn't follow. These can be archers, casters, whatever. For those, if you can insta-kill them, you do. If you can't, you throw another hold, flesh to stone, or whatever to pin them down. Once everything is locked down, if the dps hasn't already killed everything, drop an CoD or Wail if they're off cooldown. Not really rocket science. You're CC first, insta-kill is just a very effective form of CC for some trash mobs.

Every time I think to myself that insta-kills are OP, I go do a run of Good Intentions and remember why I have a melee character in addition to my CC wizard.

[False_Gods]

That's nonsensical. If you don't like D&D, why are you playing D&D Online? If you want some very different non-D&D multiplayer video game, go play it.

There's an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that really sums up this thread quite well. Larry runs into Christian Slater at a party and Christian Slater is going to town on the caviar spread. And Larry says c'mon man you enjoying that Caviar? You know its a party.. they put the Caviar out here for everyone, your supposed to take a cracker or two.... And Christian Slater is just piling it on and basically finishes off the whole caviar spread.

And its just like what we have here... I mean c'mon you denounced Dungeons and Dragons in the 80's.... and now your here wolfing down the caviar like a bunch of whoppers at a burger king. I mean c'mon have some class. You kiss your mother with that mouth?

[noinfo]

There's an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that really sums up this thread quite well. Larry runs into Christian Slater at a party and Christian Slater is going to town on the caviar spread. And Larry says c'mon man you enjoying that Caviar? You know its a party.. they put the Caviar out here for everyone, your supposed to take a cracker or two.... And Christian Slater is just piling it on and basically finishes off the whole caviar spread.

And its just like what we have here... I mean c'mon you denounced Dungeons and Dragons in the 80's.... and now your here wolfing down the caviar like a bunch of whoppers at a burger king. I mean c'mon have some class. You kiss your mother with that mouth?

Since you obviously don't want to improve, its ok, there is a setting for you that no instakiller should be able to come close. Casual. Its the first option on the left, if your lucky you might even get solo.

[Dragavon]

A
The power people here of course ignore that. They want their game to continue, so they mark criticism of newbies as "madness" or as "trollery".
They suffer the "Curse Of Knowledge" and don't even want to admit that. Instead, they silently assume that everyone - and that includes Newbies with first-lifers !!! - holds the exact same level of power and of mechanics knowledge like they do. And that's why they call anyone with far less knowledge a "troll".

If you do not want other players to do anything in quests then you should not join groups. Solo everything and you get all the kills. Noone to annoy you by doing anything.

[Lafshmaf]

If you do not want other players to do anything in quests then you should not join groups. Solo everything and you get all the kills. Noone to annoy you by doing anything.

Guy in general has zero knowledge, cannot detect an obvious throw-away account, but has lots of opinions. Comes with the place of residence I guess, low performance central.