More support for Wis DC casting please

[mikarddo]

I dont mind that wisdom based DC casting is behind Int based. I dont even mind if wisdom based DC casting is slightly behind Cha based. But right now the difference is getting too large imho.

Magister is stronger than EA and Magister does not offer Wis nor wisdom class caster levels. Thats is probably fine.

The Magewright set is really strong for Int or Cha - with no alternative for wisdom.

Wisdom minor artifacts are troublesome. The best one is in the glove slot which is taken by the Gloryborn Gloves. The second best is in the bracer slot and thus collides with the Flamecleased set (I know druids dont use that but druids have even more problems).

In Feywild gear the Autumn and Winter sets are the interesting ones. The Strap of Autumn Leaves has int and doubles in both sets. There is no wisdom at all in either set (nor is there any charisma in fairness).

Filigrees for int are really strong with 2 raid filigrees _both_ in sets that offer +DC. Further, all 3 of Eye, Ottos and Zarrigans have an int filigree.
Cha is behind with 2 raid filigrees and a cha filigree in all 3 of Eye, Otto and Zarrigan - but the raid filigrees are not in the proper sets.
Wis is way behind with only 1 raid filigree not in a worthwhile set and not even a wis fili in Ottos.


I hope future loot will help wisdom catch up a bit.
- A raid filigree with +2 wisdom for Eye+Ottos.
- Another +2 Sacred DC item not in the Glove slot nor colliding with the Flamecleased set
- Something like the Magewright set but with wisdom, evocation and conjuration (necro would possibly be asking too much).

Also, the ED revamp hopefully will help as well, not least druid DC casters.

Spread the love a bit :)

Any comments are most welcome.

[Ultinoob]

+1

Maybe it is because wisdom builds can heal themselves and therefore has to be nerfed in some way. Not sure how the developers think...

[slarden]

I agree on some points. Magewright does support artifact set bonus for dc, but one piece should offer insightful int, cha, wis and the other quality int, cha wis rather than each piece focusing on only one stat. Magister should support wisdom. The lack of raid filigree for wisdom is definitely puzzling - seems like something they can fix easily.

Gear tetris is a problem for many builds - wisdom builds have 2 easy-button sets that synergize nicely with druid and wisdom-divines. Both sets work with clouded dream for 4-piece set with artifact+ exceptional bonuses. Wisdom casters are the only class that can make full use of mass frog which is one of the best epic spells available. Wisdom builds don't need to use a feat slot for force of personality to get a decent will save unlike charisma casters. Wisdom is the only class with an item like blood of blossoms giving stat 21, insightful stat 10 and sheltering 55 all on one item although obviously casters would prefer it to be autumn rather than spring. So the news isn't all terrible for wisdom casters. As someone that plays charisma, int and wisdom casters I don't find wisdom to be terribly disadvantaged.

Band of Diani ir'Wynarn is a fine artifact equal to the int charisma versions (charisma just got this with the most recent update) but competes with bracers in flamecleansed fury set. That is not unlike the same problem some charisma and int casters have with the optimal artifact competing with other gear slots. There is one artifact for charisma, wisdom and int that provides 22 stat, 2 quality dc and quality spellpower. Goggles compete with esoteric set and collective sight. Necklace competes with pendant of bottled moonlight, winter court necklace and legendary amber pendant.

There are builds in worse shape - for example a charisma sorc or warlock that wants to go cold-based. They have no set bonus aside from esoteric which requires using a robe to get a bonus to spell lore. Hruit only supports wisdom artifact bonus.

If a fleshy warlock or sorc needs self-healing they are absolutely locked into exalted angel or going robot.

I agree with much of what you say but I don't think the problem is limited to wisdom-casters or even casters. Gear tetris with sets is problematic for many builds as is destiny limitations.

From a strictly favored-soul perspective which is the only class where people can choose main stat - most people tend to think wisdom is the best choice because mass frog is that good. I am one of the few that favors charisma over wisdom, but my reasons are mostly due to versatility rather than straight-up power.

[Monkey_Archer]

I hope future loot will help wisdom catch up a bit.
- A raid filigree with +2 wisdom for Eye+Ottos.
- Another +2 Sacred DC item not in the Glove slot nor colliding with the Flamecleased set
- Something like the Magewright set but with wisdom, evocation and conjuration (necro would possibly be asking too much).

Also, the ED revamp hopefully will help as well, not least druid DC casters.


While better raid wisdom filigrees would be nice, gear tetris alone cannot solve the issues for wisdom casters. The obvious issue is Epic Destinies and outdated Enhancement trees; the core issue is the DC system itself.

Pale Master, Angel of Vengeace and Apothecary add 7-8 DCs, whereas Divine Disciple and Season's Herald only add 4. Add this to the +5 or 6 DC advantage magister has (depending on how many stat points are feasible) and you effectively have a 10 DC deficit before even considering gear. While Cleric domains can close the gap slightly, the filigree/gear issue pushes the DC deficit back to about 10 and even higher for druids.

Epic Destiny revamp aside, another major issue is the gap between primary spell school focus and secondary/teriary/etc.. Being 10 DC behind in primary is bad enough, being 20 DC behind on secondary schools makes those spells effectively useless.

Ideally this whole issue would be solved by changing to a D50, D100 or AC-style system. That way the DC deficits between caster/stat type and spell schools would result in meaningful and more subtle differences in effectiveness, rather than just being useless.

[slarden]

While better raid wisdom filigrees would be nice, gear tetris alone cannot solve the issues for wisdom casters. The obvious issue is Epic Destinies and outdated Enhancement trees; the core issue is the DC system itself.

Pale Master, Angel of Vengeace and Apothecary add 7-8 DCs, whereas Divine Disciple and Season's Herald only add 4. Add this to the +5 or 6 DC advantage magister has (depending on how many stat points are feasible) and you effectively have a 10 DC deficit before even considering gear. While Cleric domains can close the gap slightly, the filigree/gear issue pushes the DC deficit back to about 10 and even higher for druids.

Epic Destiny revamp aside, another major issue is the gap between primary spell school focus and secondary/teriary/etc.. Being 10 DC behind in primary is bad enough, being 20 DC behind on secondary schools makes those spells effectively useless.

Ideally this whole issue would be solved by changing to a D50, D100 or AC-style system. That way the DC deficits between caster/stat type and spell schools would result in meaningful and more subtle differences in effectiveness, rather than just being useless.

Raid Filigree and destiny is really the major deficit for wisdom casters. Class support is solid. Gear tetris is in the middle as far as builds go - at least for me.

Comparing a necro cleric to necro warlock in terms of class features:

Warlock Necromancer
Spell Level 6: 0
Capstone: 2
Soul Eater: 1
Total: 3

Cleric Necromancer
Spell Level 9: 3
Capstone: 1
Divine Disciple: 2
Domains: 4
Total: 10, or +7 DC compared to warlock

Exalted Angel
Cores - Generic: 3
Stat x6 - Generic: 3
Magister Twist - Necromancy: 3
Total 9 Necro / 6 Generic

Magister
Cores - Generic: 6
Stat x 5 - Generic 2.5
Necromancy: 6
Total: 14.5 Necro / 8.5 Generic

So even comparing a warlock in magister (which sucks due to no self healing) compared to a cleric in exalted angel - cleric still wins on dc. More realistically a warlock runs in exalted angel for self healing and ends up being 6 behind cleric.

So yes add wisdom raid filigree. Make sure all classes can max dc in destiny redesign and still address other class deficits such as self-healing. But when looking at classes warlock really needs to be first on the list for a caster pass because it's behind on dc and dps and suffers from being over-nerfed several times.

In terms of the DC system I disagree. D20 actually works for caster as it rewards high investment in DC. Anything with a standard DC calculation is working fine and all classes can achieve workable numbers (including warlock which is the most disadvantaged in terms of dc). It's only class, racial and destiny abilities not based on traditional dc that are broken and don't scale properly- and a few oddball spells like trap the soul, banish and absolute zero which should be reworked to work like all other dc spells.

If they try to smooth it out you will end up with homogenized builds where everyone focuses only on DPS because there is no payback for maxing DC.

[mikarddo]

Some good replies, thanks.

While I agree that gear alone does not do it all, its a fine and often easy place to start. The ED revamp hopefully will solve more.
I also agree that warlocks are in an odd place, but so are druids.

Hopefully the next semi-xpac will see
- not just another raid +2 wisdom filigree but one thats in a DC set (see how well int raid filigrees synergize with sets)
- atleast one more and preferably 2-3 more +2 Sacred DC items (having just one item with that effect is bad for everyone and counter the arguments that nerfed the spell power belts)
- Something akin to the Magewright set that does not exclude wisdom.

Hopefully, the ED revamp will makes EDs somewhat more flexible (but without us having to face tough choices)

[Monkey_Archer]

So even comparing a warlock in magister (which sucks due to no self healing) compared to a cleric in exalted angel - cleric still wins on dc. More realistically a warlock runs in exalted angel for self healing and ends up being 6 behind cleric.
Well, if you want to compare the best case scenario for cleric to the worst case for warlock, then that is a conclusion you could reach... :rolleyes:

Meanwhile:
+3 DC in any other school in Tainted Scholar
+2 DC with Tainted Spellcasting
-2 saves AOE shaken effect
-2 saves aura (maybe this isn't worth taking)
-4 fort save debuff with Taint the blood

Warlock may be a more difficult class to play, but they are not behind in DC potential compared to cleric or druid.




In terms of the DC system I disagree. D20 actually works for caster as it rewards high investment in DC.
I suspect that my disagreement is with your definition of 'works' and 'rewards'.

Currently in DDO 'works' means your spells auto-fail by default, and 'rewards' means that if you play the correct race, correct class, with most or all relevant past lives and fully specialized in a single school you get 'rewarded' with the ability to spam the same 3 insta-kill spells and trivialize most content.

I personally find this specialist era of DC casting quite boring.

My definition of 'works' and 'rewards' would be more in line with PnP D&D, or what DDO used to be, or what DDO still has at lower levels:
I.E. Any race of any class can use any spell school and expect about a 50% chance for success, assuming level appropriate gear and proper stat allocation. Full specialization, optimization and past lives can bring that up to 95%, and both cases should still need to be aware of and target enemy weak saves.



If they try to smooth it out you will end up with homogenized builds where everyone focuses only on DPS because there is no payback for maxing DC.
DC casing in DDO is like running on a treadmill at the edge of a cliff. If you're fully optimized and fully specialized you do fine. If you're fully optimized but not specialized you're one step away from being worthless.

Allowing generalists and sub-optimal race/class combination to not-auto fail despite being fully geared would open up many more build options. There's also no reason why this would make max DCs any less valuable.

[slarden]

Well, if you want to compare the best case scenario for cleric to the worst case for warlock, then that is a conclusion you could reach... :rolleyes:

Meanwhile:
+3 DC in any other school in Tainted Scholar
+2 DC with Tainted Spellcasting
-2 saves AOE shaken effect
-2 saves aura (maybe this isn't worth taking)
-4 fort save debuff with Taint the blood



Based on your comments it doesn't seem like you played a necro warlock at a high level before.

A Necro caster is going to going to throw a a necro spell period - you aren't going to get AOE shaken effect or aura or debuff from a distance - you simply don't have the time - you target the right enemy with the right spells quickly or you are dead. None of that stuff ever comes into play in real game play. I've only met one person that plays tainted scholar tier 5 in many years of playing warlock - it's the worst performing tier 5 tree and offers no necro support - which is where you actually need the dc -it's not used by many. On the other hand divine disciple is the tree used by necro clerics.

So the devs should replace everything with just straight up dc boosts like cleric gets so warlock can reach DC potential closer to divines since their primary function is casting.

The only thing from your list that gets used regularly by a necro caster is tainted spellcasting clicky for a few key fights each quest and boss fights (more for dps).

ES builds get some use out of aura of menace but a DC caster will not. DC Casters typically go soul eater 41 with tainted scholar splash and no investment in ES. There isn't enough points. "Taint the blood" is funny. Nobody is going to prep an instakill target with an eld blast - the first animation is really slow and it only builds up a -1 save debuff per eld blast. The only place that really comes into play is boss fights for magic damage that go against a fort save. The same thing applies to shaken - that is suboptimal play in high-end content except against in a tiny tiny # of situational places.

So my original math was right. It would be great if the devs focus on straight-up dc boosts like they did for cleric - esp since with only 6 levels of spells they are at a -3 disadvantage right out of the gate. The reason they didn't boost warlock dc more is fully documented on the lamannia forums and all the reasons are full obsolete now.




I suspect that my disagreement is with your definition of 'works' and 'rewards'.

Currently in DDO 'works' means your spells auto-fail by default, and 'rewards' means that if you play the correct race, correct class, with most or all relevant past lives and fully specialized in a single school you get 'rewarded' with the ability to spam the same 3 insta-kill spells and trivialize most content.

I personally find this specialist era of DC casting quite boring. DC casting isn't in high demand but it's definitely not boring - very difficult to play at high levels but with a very high ceiling if played and built properly. High DC builds mostly support party play at high levels and have no other purpose. They generally aren't solo builds for example. I have an illusionist that does real well in a group R10 but can't solo much at all. There is NEVER room for more than one dc build in a party - dps is always the priority.

DC casting literally works for every dc casting class in the game. Warlock is the most disadvantaged in terms of DC and my dcs work fine in R10. Divines have higher DC potential currently.




My definition of 'works' and 'rewards' would be more in line with PnP D&D, or what DDO used to be, or what DDO still has at lower levels:
I.E. Any race of any class can use any spell school and expect about a 50% chance for success, assuming level appropriate gear and proper stat allocation. Full specialization, optimization and past lives can bring that up to 95%, and both cases should still need to be aware of and target enemy weak saves.

DC casing in DDO is like running on a treadmill at the edge of a cliff. If you're fully optimized and fully specialized you do fine. If you're fully optimized but not specialized you're one step away from being worthless.

Allowing generalists and sub-optimal race/class combination to not-auto fail despite being fully geared would open up many more build options. There's also no reason why this would make max DCs any less valuable.

What you are describing already exists. When targeting low save you can get targets 95% with every class right now with proper build, gear, investment.

Right now in DDO you either build a specialist (see illusion link in sig), generalist (see warlock link in sig) or dps nuker (so many builds in sorc/alch subforum you can reference). Specialists are built solely for group play in a support role. Generalists and nukers can solo but only a few classes work as generalists - warlocks and divines are probably the best at being generalists.

in DDO if they ever cap something at 50% effectiveness nobody will play it. If you optimize you can hit 95% but it requires sacrifice and still requires using the right spells on the right enemies. If you are not built for dc you can still get utility out of dc spells by targeting the right enemies. I mean most builds can get use out of greater color spray and it doesn't take much dc to instakill a caster. a nuking sorc can still have useful cc.

If they smooth out the curve where there is little difference between high and low dc investment you end up with everyone just spec'ing for dps and lose alot of build variety.

[Monkey_Archer]

Based on your comments it doesn't seem like you played a necro warlock at a high level before.

A Necro caster is going to going to throw a a necro spell period - you aren't going to get AOE shaken effect or aura or debuff from a distance - you simply don't have the time - you target the right enemy with the right spells quickly or you are dead. None of that stuff ever comes into play in real game play. I've only met one person that plays tainted scholar tier 5 in many years of playing warlock - it's the worst performing tier 5 tree and offers no necro support - which is where you actually need the dc -it's not used by many. On the other hand divine disciple is the tree used by necro clerics.
I don't want to argue playstyle, but I find it very hard to believe that you can play a max DC warlock build without ever casting wail (ie. in aura range) or ever using any eldritch blast, eldritch wave, etc...

My point was just that you're cherry picking the highest dc and best supported cleric spell school (besides evocation with sorc past lives) and comparing it to the lowest DC school for warlock, AND ignoring all the unique debuffs that warlock gets. Sure, you wont have all debuffs going at all times, but even moderately competent warlock play will give you a higher average dc than necro cleric. Compare any other school, let alone druid, and its not even close.



in DDO if they ever cap something at 50% effectiveness nobody will play it. If you optimize you can hit 95% but it requires sacrifice and still requires using the right spells on the right enemies. If you are not built for dc you can still get utility out of dc spells by targeting the right enemies. I mean most builds can get use out of greater color spray and it doesn't take much dc to instakill a caster. a nuking sorc can still have useful cc.

If they smooth out the curve where there is little difference between high and low dc investment you end up with everyone just spec'ing for dps and lose alot of build variety.
Perhaps there's a misunderstanding here, or I explained my position poorly. I'm definitely not advocating for a 50% effectiveness cap, that would be a terrible idea. (an 85% cap in r10 might be good for the game, but that's a separate issue)
I'm advocating for 50% effectiveness being reasonably achievable without full specialization.

Lets take your max DC illusionist as an example. 154 DC is somewhat excessive even for most endgame, but there are some mobs that need higher so its a good enough example.

Within that 154 DC you have:
3 focus
3 Past lives
2 Scion
1 insightful spell focus item difference
3 racial dc bonus
1 archmage
6 feydark
6 magister school focus
3 draconic twist
---
28 total illusion DC bonuses not available to other schools.

What does this mean for a d20 system? Either you are wasting your time getting DCs this high, or all your other spell schools will auto-fail on the same targets. (currently in DDO its a bit of both) With most endgame DC targets being in the 110-140 DC range, having 126 on secondary schools may be functional enough for this perfectly optimized build, but back to the topic of this thread, wisdom casters cant even come close to 126 for non-specialized schools.

IMO specialization should never exceed half the dice roll. ie. all available illusion bonuses should be roughly 10, not 28. Or change the system to d60 to accommodate the DC power creep.

[slarden]

I don't want to argue playstyle, but I find it very hard to believe that you can play a max DC warlock build without ever casting wail (ie. in aura range) or ever using any eldritch blast, eldritch wave, etc...

My point was just that you're cherry picking the highest dc and best supported cleric spell school (besides evocation with sorc past lives) and comparing it to the lowest DC school for warlock, AND ignoring all the unique debuffs that warlock gets. Sure, you wont have all debuffs going at all times, but even moderately competent warlock play will give you a higher average dc than necro cleric. Compare any other school, let alone druid, and its not even close.



The debuffs are absolutely a non-factor for dc spell-casting - they rarely come into play and aren't nearly equivalent to permanent bonuses to DC. Necro spells are typically used from range and not on the kill zone where mobs are being taken down with dps. They have a minor benefit for boss fights for pacts that go against a fortitude save.

There is no cherry picking - I included all the dc bonuses that come into play. You are actually trying to cherry-pick by making debuffs that don't provide much value equivalent to permanent DC boosts. Necro is the school I selected because it's the most common specialty with the highest saves to overcome due to inflated fortitude saves. Necromancy does require specialization where some other schools can be effective with lower dcs.

Again the #s I provided are not estimates - they are the exact bonuses provided by each class. Divine is way ahead of warlock on DC and I provided exact #s. Warlock needs a pass. Divine had their pass recently and it shows with all the DC boosts they have.



Perhaps there's a misunderstanding here, or I explained my position poorly. I'm definitely not advocating for a 50% effectiveness cap, that would be a terrible idea. (an 85% cap in r10 might be good for the game, but that's a separate issue)
I'm advocating for 50% effectiveness being reasonably achievable without full specialization.

Lets take your max DC illusionist as an example. 154 DC is somewhat excessive even for most endgame, but there are some mobs that need higher so its a good enough example.

Within that 154 DC you have:
3 focus
3 Past lives
2 Scion
1 insightful spell focus item difference
3 racial dc bonus
1 archmage
6 feydark
6 magister school focus
3 draconic twist
---
28 total illusion DC bonuses not available to other schools.

What does this mean for a d20 system? Either you are wasting your time getting DCs this high, or all your other spell schools will auto-fail on the same targets. (currently in DDO its a bit of both) With most endgame DC targets being in the 110-140 DC range, having 126 on secondary schools may be functional enough for this perfectly optimized build, but back to the topic of this thread, wisdom casters cant even come close to 126 for non-specialized schools.

IMO specialization should never exceed half the dice roll. ie. all available illusion bonuses should be roughly 10, not 28. Or change the system to d60 to accommodate the DC power creep.

I don't find it problematic that illusion dc potential is higher than all other schools because it's key spell phantasmal killer has 2 saves with a max 92.5% effectiveness vs. 95% - not to mention overcoming two saves is a challenge itself. Secondly there are very few illusions spells - phantasmal killer and greater color spray are the only 2 that get heavy use. So this means an illusionist will be relying on secondary school spells more than most other casters. Even with the high dc potential of illusion necro casters significantly outnumber illusionists. If the game was full of illusionist you might have a point worth looking into - illusionists are very under-represented so there is clearly not a problem with their dc bonuses.

The key to effective spellcasting isn't reaching a magical dc # it's targeting the right enemies with the right spells at the right time. With this approach you can be effective playing any class including warlock which is the most disadvantaged when it comes to DC potential.

In the past 6 months I played DC caster wizard, cleric, warlock, favored soul and alchemist (not including nuking builds). I didn't find divines to be disadvantaged and they were buffed better than average with U48.4 compared to other classes. The only frustration I have playing a divine DC caster is that I have to respec enhancement, destinies, twists and even gear between raiding and questing which I find tiresome. In raids nobody cares what your DC is they only care that you have healing wall and are fully healing spec'd.

[rabidfox]

The only frustration I have playing a divine DC caster is that I have to respec enhancement, destinies, twists and even gear between raiding and questing which I find tiresome. In raids nobody cares what your DC is they only care that you have healing wall and are fully healing spec'd.
Yeah, the routine respec'ing/gear swaps can be bit of a pain. When I get tells no asks me to come DC kill a run or spam AoE's, they want the big heals which is fine by me (always nice to be wanted for groups), but sometimes that means quickly fixing my setup.

[Kebtid]

How i would tackle this is not to handselect a specific class and compare to a different class.
Just use favored soul as example, wisdom vs charisma based, maxed out filigrees, each in destinies that support its casting stat or to get max sustainable dc (or burst in case for content like sharn and fey).
For charisma based, take a drborn evo in magister, for wisdom, i reckon a shifter would be the most common choice (or aasimar) in current meta (again in magister) since even with it not having stats, it offers most dc increase.

I do not consider putting into this discussion spell nuking, i play purely in r10, and casting while it can to some degree wilt down reapers with high sp investment, it is pointless when a melee can do what you do in 30 seconds (guesstimate i will know more since i intend to tr to a fsoul this week) in 1 hit.

I am sure people will notice the difference when they start comparing and see how behind wisdom based is.

[mikarddo]

Necro spells are typically used from range and not on the kill zone where mobs are being taken down with dps.


Slay Living, Mass Frog (transmutation, but still an insta kill), Implosion (evocation, but still an insta kill) and Wail all means getting close to the target.

So, some classes need to get into range to get full use of their insta kills.

[slarden]

Slay Living, Mass Frog (transmutation, but still an insta kill), Implosion (evocation, but still an insta kill) and Wail all means getting close to the target.

So, some classes need to get into range to get full use of their insta kills.

I was responding specifically to the notion that people are getting benefit from hitting targets with 4 eldritch blasts to debuff an enemy with -4 fort and shaken before casting a necro spell. Warlocks certainly aren't going to prep mobs with eldritch blast before casting wail or mass frog.

That debuff isn't even close to equivalent to a permanent dc bonus. Anyhow clerics have solid debuffing such as energy drain, cause fear, doom, bestow curse, enervation and necrotic ray which are in total better than what a warlock has. Those were all conveniently left off the list.


How i would tackle this is not to handselect a specific class and compare to a different class.
Just use favored soul as example, wisdom vs charisma based, maxed out filigrees, each in destinies that support its casting stat or to get max sustainable dc (or burst in case for content like sharn and fey).
For charisma based, take a drborn evo in magister, for wisdom, i reckon a shifter would be the most common choice (or aasimar) in current meta (again in magister) since even with it not having stats, it offers most dc increase.

I do not consider putting into this discussion spell nuking, i play purely in r10, and casting while it can to some degree wilt down reapers with high sp investment, it is pointless when a melee can do what you do in 30 seconds (guesstimate i will know more since i intend to tr to a fsoul this week) in 1 hit.

I am sure people will notice the difference when they start comparing and see how behind wisdom based is.

I am probably one of the biggest proponents of a favored soul using charisma over wisdom for the higher dc but most people think wisdom is better due to the utility of mass frog which uses wisdom as a stat. The DC benefit of a charisma favored soul is due to 3 things: epic destiny, filigree and dragonborn. It's not so much the wisdom DC is bad as the charisma DC is really really good and gives you some wiggle room to lower it for more survivability, dps, etc. - esp on a fully buffed out character.

I already showed how a warlock necromancer is behind cleric necromancer in DC and the same is true for favored soul and even that dc works fine in R10 if you select the right enemies with the right spells at the right time.

I don't think focusing on wisdom casters is the right answer because they aren't even bottom tier in terms of dc. The devs should look at caster dc across all classes and try for some balance as part of the ED changes. I am hoping the ED changes will address the magister vs. exalted angel dc differences. Filigree seems like an easy fix - add some wisdom raid filigree for gen 1 and 2. Druid, Favored Soul and Cleric all had a pass recently. It's time to look at Warlock and Archmage which are in most need of an update. They also need to look at spells that don't work past heroic levels like banish, trap the soul, etc.

Beyond that different races are going to offer different advantages and I don't think that should even be factored into the class discussion. If the devs find dragonborn bonuses problematic address dragonborn - the devs should never adjust class trees based on racial bonuses that favor or are perceived to favor a various stat or class.

In summary, there isn't a specific problem with wisdom dc there are a few very specific valid problems raised :

- Magister and Draconic don't support Wisdom (and exalted angel doesn't support int)
- Raid Filigree are missing Wisdom +2 options
- Magewright set doesn't support wisdom crafting on the items
- Perhaps a second look at dragonborn to decide whether the bonuses are reasonable (I personally think it's fine for a race to have an advantage like this)
- Mass Frog should perhaps support other stats

I don't know if the devs find these problematic or not.

[Oxarhamar]

Well, if you want to compare the best case scenario for cleric to the worst case for warlock, then that is a conclusion you could reach... :rolleyes:

Meanwhile:
+3 DC in any other school in Tainted Scholar
+2 DC with Tainted Spellcasting
-2 saves AOE shaken effect
-2 saves aura (maybe this isn't worth taking)
-4 fort save debuff with Taint the blood

Warlock may be a more difficult class to play, but they are not behind in DC potential compared to cleric or druid.



I suspect that my disagreement is with your definition of 'works' and 'rewards'.

Currently in DDO 'works' means your spells auto-fail by default, and 'rewards' means that if you play the correct race, correct class, with most or all relevant past lives and fully specialized in a single school you get 'rewarded' with the ability to spam the same 3 insta-kill spells and trivialize most content.

I personally find this specialist era of DC casting quite boring.

My definition of 'works' and 'rewards' would be more in line with PnP D&D, or what DDO used to be, or what DDO still has at lower levels:
I.E. Any race of any class can use any spell school and expect about a 50% chance for success, assuming level appropriate gear and proper stat allocation. Full specialization, optimization and past lives can bring that up to 95%, and both cases should still need to be aware of and target enemy weak saves.



DC casing in DDO is like running on a treadmill at the edge of a cliff. If you're fully optimized and fully specialized you do fine. If you're fully optimized but not specialized you're one step away from being worthless.

Allowing generalists and sub-optimal race/class combination to not-auto fail despite being fully geared would open up many more build options. There's also no reason why this would make max DCs any less valuable.

Agreed DC casting insta kills like this was extremely boring only played this type of caster once never again

[Vish]

Newer items with insightful devotion too

[AbyssalMage]

Agreed DC casting insta kills like this was extremely boring only played this type of caster once never again
You know what is also boring. Swinging at a NPC with 20k HP's. Either way we are both bored. The difference being there are individuals on this forum who believe the only way to play an MMO is to swing at an NPC for ~15+ seconds at a time. Anything less and they demand it should be nerfed.

[Monkey_Archer]

The debuffs are absolutely a non-factor for dc spell-casting - they rarely come into play and aren't nearly equivalent to permanent bonuses to DC. Necro spells are typically used from range and not on the kill zone where mobs are being taken down with dps. They have a minor benefit for boss fights for pacts that go against a fortitude save.
I didn't want to judge playstyle here, but the warlocks I'm thinking of can practically solo r10s by dropping CC, debuffs and deleting entire packs of mobs with CoD, Wail and mass frog. Sitting at range only casting finger of death and letting the melees kill stuff too is very considerate of you :)



There is no cherry picking - I included all the dc bonuses that come into play. You are actually trying to cherry-pick by making debuffs that don't provide much value equivalent to permanent DC boosts. Necro is the school I selected because it's the most common specialty with the highest saves to overcome due to inflated fortitude saves. Necromancy does require specialization where some other schools can be effective with lower dcs.
You literally picked the largest cherry from the wisdom caster tree, conveniently ignoring all other spell schools and druids (not to mention clerics only have single target necromancy), and compared it to the smallest cherry from the charisma caster tree...



Again the #s I provided are not estimates - they are the exact bonuses provided by each class. Divine is way ahead of warlock on DC and I provided exact #s. Warlock needs a pass. Divine had their pass recently and it shows with all the DC boosts they have.
...and all you managed to show was a 1.5 standing DC difference if you ignore filgrees, boosts and debuffs.

It is extremely amusing to me that you use this cherry picked 1.5 DC difference to say "Divine is way ahead of warlock ... Warlock needs a pass" and then two sentences later, in response to the 28 DC difference between max illusion and secondary schools


I don't find it problematic that illusion dc potential is higher than all other schools
:confused:

[slarden]

I didn't want to judge playstyle here, but the warlocks I'm thinking of can practically solo r10s by dropping CC, debuffs and deleting entire packs of mobs with CoD, Wail and mass frog. Sitting at range only casting finger of death and letting the melees kill stuff too is very considerate of you :)

You literally picked the largest cherry from the wisdom caster tree, conveniently ignoring all other spell schools and druids (not to mention clerics only have single target necromancy), and compared it to the smallest cherry from the charisma caster tree...

...and all you managed to show was a 1.5 standing DC difference if you ignore filgrees, boosts and debuffs.

It is extremely amusing to me that you use this cherry picked 1.5 DC difference to say "Divine is way ahead of warlock ... Warlock needs a pass" and then two sentences later, in response to the 28 DC difference between max illusion and secondary schools


:confused: Unfortunately warlock dps is bottom-tier so anyone wanting to solo R10 isn't going to start with warlock - but I have yet to meet someone soloing R10 on Sarlona on a regular basis - make a video here and there or solo an R10 here and there - sure any class can get some completions but warlock has no special advantage there. It's a good solid class for soloing R6 like many others. As for twisting my words as if I am sitting there and letting others kill things - do better than trying to make your point by saying falsehoods - it's not needed to stoop so low - if you want to disagree that is fine but there is no need to for those antics. Instakill is not an effective tool for killing mobs that are grouped up and cc'd in a kill zone. It's better to just dps the mob down once they are cc'd and/or moving/attacking at 5% normal speed. Instakill is mainly used for outliers not in the kill zone - archers, casters, etc. Wail is more situational now.

There is no cherry-picking at all. Necro casters are the most common DC casting specialists I come across by a very large margin -but in reality the # of players focused on DC casting has been declining for several years as it's only a specialty build that is in low demand - dps is king right now. Of course the most common specialty is a good choice for comparison. Why would I pick a sparsely used specialty to compare?

As pointed out necro cleric has a 7 DC advantage over necro warlock and if you want to include debuffing that advantage grows for cleric which has a much larger selection of debuffing spells compared to warlock which has mostly slow options with lower impact. Trying to include anything other than permanent DC bonuses is beyond ridiculous.

Your illusion example doesn't really illustrate anything. There is not a problem with the gap between primary and secondary schools - it's working as intended. The way good spellcasters operate is they learn what enemies to target with spells in their spellbook factoring in that their DC of secondary schools is lower than main school. Some classes like favored souls end up with a really solid dc in their secondary school because their class tree offers more generic DC bonus. That is the deal with illusion - it has a very high dc ceiling but very few spells so you will end using alot more spells from other schools than most other builds. That is why I don't find the high illusion DC to be a problem. The spread is largely due the extra bonuses illusion gets.

Right now every casting class can get a workable DC in this game. The specific issues pointed out in this thread which are reasonable is main stat limits in epic destinies and epic feats (magister, draconic, Exalted Angel, mass frog, etc.), lack of +2 wisdom filigrees (and a few other missing things) and possibly looking at dragonborn favoring certain builds (which I consider a non-problem - all races have different advantages there is no reason to get worked up over dc)

Beyond that wisdom casters did get a pass and have good support in their enhancement trees. Some other classes/trees still need a pass.

[kpak01]

..Magister does not offer Wis nor wisdom class caster levels. Thats is probably fine.No, it's not. Magister is supposed to be the caster tree. The devs have said so, and made it so there is no alternative. So Wisdom casters get shafted.
Wis is way behind with only 1 raid filigree not in a worthwhile set and not even a wis fili in Ottos.Yes.
Pale Master, Angel of Vengeace and Apothecary add 7-8 DCs, whereas Divine Disciple and Season's Herald only add 4. Add this to the +5 or 6 DC advantage magister has (depending on how many stat points are feasible) and you effectively have a 10 DC deficit before even considering gear. While Cleric domains can close the gap slightly, the filigree/gear issue pushes the DC deficit back to about 10 and even higher for druids.Yes.
Season's Herald only add 4Only 2 to most schools.
Epic Destiny revamp aside, another major issue is the gap between primary spell school focus and secondary/teriary/etc.. Being 10 DC behind in primary is bad enough, being 20 DC behind on secondary schools makes those spells effectively useless.The gap needs to be smaller. I don't want to hear about removing one of the few bits of D20 we have left like they did with AC.
I've only met one person that plays tainted scholar tier 5 in many years of playing warlock - it's the worst performing tier 5 tree and offers no necro support - which is where you actually need the dcIt's like you're unaware that T5 Tainted Scholar actually improves Necro DCs and T5 Soul Eater does not.
So the devs should replace everything with just straight up dc boosts like cleric gets so warlock can reach DC potential closer to divines since their primary function is casting.I'll trade you so-called "domains" for the better approximation of real domains that Warlocks get with Pacts. Where's my Domain spells? Oh yeah, Warlocks got them.
Nobody is going to prep an instakill target with an eld blast - the first animation is really slow and it only builds up a -1 save debuff per eld blast. It's like you're unaware of Epic Resilience. The first tiny hit is not just the Taint debuff but an extra +2 effective on top of that.
It would be great if the devs focus on straight-up dc boosts like they did for cleric - esp since with only 6 levels of spells they are at a -3 disadvantage right out of the gate.6-spell-level classes should be behind on DC, precisely because they are not full primary caster classes. I'm not sure why this topic is even worth bringing up.
DC casting literally works for every dc casting class in the game. Warlock is the most disadvantaged in terms of DC and my dcs work fine in R10. Divines have higher DC potential currently.If you're going to make silly comparisons, I'm pretty sure your Warlock is less disadvantaged in terms of DC than my Paladin.But I'm pretty sure the OP wasn't talking about Paladin or Ranger spell DCs, even though they are Wisdom-based casters with spells that have DCs.For an actually apples-to-apples comparison, how about we compare Cleric/Druid/WisFvS with Wiz/Sorc/ChaFvS and leave the secondary and tertiary casters out of it?
Druid, Favored Soul and Cleric all had a pass recently.This thread is specifically about DC casting, and you mention the Druid "pass"? Are you being deliberately insulting, or are you just totally unaware of the content of that so-called pass?
There is not a problem with the gap between primary and secondary schools - it's working as intended.It may be WAI but it's still a problem for the gap to be that big. There should some gap: good at main school, less effective at off-schools. But 95% main school and 5% off-school is too big.

[slarden]

No, it's not. Magister is supposed to be the caster tree. The devs have said so, and made it so there is no alternative. So Wisdom casters get shafted.Yes.Yes.Only 2 to most schools.The gap needs to be smaller. I don't want to hear about removing one of the few bits of D20 we have left like they did with AC.It's like you're unaware that T5 Tainted Scholar actually improves Necro DCs and T5 Soul Eater does not.I'll trade you so-called "domains" for the better approximation of real domains that Warlocks get with Pacts. Where's my Domain spells? Oh yeah, Warlocks got them.It's like you're unaware of Epic Resilience. The first tiny hit is not just the Taint debuff but an extra +2 effective on top of that.6-spell-level classes should be behind on DC, precisely because they are not full primary caster classes. I'm not sure why this topic is even worth bringing up.If you're going to make silly comparisons, I'm pretty sure your Warlock is less disadvantaged in terms of DC than my Paladin.But I'm pretty sure the OP wasn't talking about Paladin or Ranger spell DCs, even though they are Wisdom-based casters with spells that have DCs.For an actually apples-to-apples comparison, how about we compare Cleric/Druid/WisFvS with Wiz/Sorc/ChaFvS and leave the secondary and tertiary casters out of it?This thread is specifically about DC casting, and you mention the Druid "pass"? Are you being deliberately insulting, or are you just totally unaware of the content of that so-called pass?It may be WAI but it's still a problem for the gap to be that big. There should some gap: good at main school, less effective at off-schools. But 95% main school and 5% off-school is too big.

You are the first person here to mention paladin and rangers as "DC casting classes" - you can discuss that with the devs - I don't think anyone else considers these dc casting classes.

I don't agree with your assessment on save debuffing - it's only situationally useful - the most important thing is knowing your targets and what their saves are. As I said I think permanent DC bonuses and debuffing are two things that should be balanced separately and not together because they aren't equvialent.

I talked about mostly warlock, favored soul and clerics because I've spent considerable time playing each recently. I played and liked caster druid and want to try it out with the U48.4 changes, but the reality is dc casting is not in high demand so I am not super motivated to tr to another dc caster. DC casting is situationally ok in questing, sparsely needed in raids and not in high demand for groups in general.

I am not sure why you don't consider warlock a casting class - that is exactly what it is. The reason tier 5 tainted scholar doesn't come up much in examples is because it isn't played much at all. Nobody is going to give up soul eater tier 5 for tainted scholar tier 5 to gain 1 necro dc - it would just be gimping your character and still not close the gap with necro divines. The only tainted scholar builds I've seen anyone use is tier 5 soul eater with tainted scholar capstone because it maxes out dps potential, but since dps potential isn't good, few play a dps warlock build. But hey my warlock build is in my sig - if you think going to tier 5 tainted scholar improves the build you will have to explain how it does that.

Illusionists are not at 5% in their secondary school - I spent considerable time playing the illusionist build in my sig and secondary spells were also around 95% because I selected targets properly. The reason for the gap isn't that secondary dcs are really bad, it's because illusion itself has a higher ceiling due presumably to having only 2 real spells - one of which requires 2 saves and is capped at 92.5% effectiveness max. Making secondary school closer to primary school is an easy-button this game doesn't need. DC casting is one of the few builds less that is differentiated by how you play and I am making secondary spells work just fine with all dc casting classes.

[Monkey_Archer]

Unfortunately warlock dps is bottom-tier so anyone wanting to solo R10 isn't going to start with warlock - but I have yet to meet someone soloing R10 on Sarlona on a regular basis - make a video here and there or solo an R10 here and there - sure any class can get some completions but warlock has no special advantage there. It's a good solid class for soloing R6 like many others. As for twisting my words as if I am sitting there and letting others kill things - do better than trying to make your point by saying falsehoods - it's not needed to stoop so low - if you want to disagree that is fine but there is no need to for those antics. Instakill is not an effective tool for killing mobs that are grouped up and cc'd in a kill zone. It's better to just dps the mob down once they are cc'd and/or moving/attacking at 5% normal speed. Instakill is mainly used for outliers not in the kill zone - archers, casters, etc. Wail is more situational now.
Ok, snarky jokes aside... I just don't understand why you think this hyper specific sub-optimal magister cleric build getting a 1.5 standing DC advantage on paper with effectively only one spell (destruction) and being 10-20 DC behind in practice is somehow evidence that cleric is ahead of warlock. Can't include slay living without being in aura range (putting warlock ahead), cant include implosion its not even necromancy...



There is no cherry-picking at all. Necro casters are the most common DC casting specialists I come across by a very large margin -but in reality the # of players focused on DC casting has been declining for several years as it's only a specialty build that is in low demand - dps is king right now. Of course the most common specialty is a good choice for comparison. Why would I pick a sparsely used specialty to compare?

As pointed out necro cleric has a 7 DC advantage over necro warlock and if you want to include debuffing that advantage grows for cleric which has a much larger selection of debuffing spells compared to warlock which has mostly slow options with lower impact. Trying to include anything other than permanent DC bonuses is beyond ridiculous.
I'm not really concerned with heroics. In epic/endgame necro cleric is only 1.5 ahead in magister (and lacking 5 spell pen), realistically you'd play in EA and be 1.5 behind. The only debuff exclusive to cleric is energy drain. Entertaining this energy drain->destruction long range one-trick magister cleric build as a viable DC caster is what's beyond ridiculous.



Your illusion example doesn't really illustrate anything. There is not a problem with the gap between primary and secondary schools - it's working as intended. The way good spellcasters operate is they learn what enemies to target with spells in their spellbook factoring in that their DC of secondary schools is lower than main school. Some classes like favored souls end up with a really solid dc in their secondary school because their class tree offers more generic DC bonus. That is the deal with illusion - it has a very high dc ceiling but very few spells so you will end using alot more spells from other schools than most other builds. That is why I don't find the high illusion DC to be a problem. The spread is largely due the extra bonuses illusion gets.
Its working as it was designed, and the design is bad. Like I said before, a 28 DC gap on a d20 system is not functional. The ~20 DC gap that non-illusion primaries have is also not functional. The AC system powercreep happened in the exact same way (monk ranger builds had ~20 higher ac potential than non-monk builds) and it was redesigned because of this. The only reason you think its not a problem is because you're looking at it as a min-maxed gnome wizard, one the few hyper-specific builds capable of off-school DCs. Change race, change class. How functional are your off-school spells now? Please show me the necro secondary cleric that works in feywild...

[slarden]

Ok, snarky jokes aside... I just don't understand why you think this hyper specific sub-optimal magister cleric build getting a 1.5 standing DC advantage on paper with effectively only one spell (destruction) and being 10-20 DC behind in practice is somehow evidence that cleric is ahead of warlock. Can't include slay living without being in aura range (putting warlock ahead), cant include implosion its not even necromancy...

I'm not really concerned with heroics. In epic/endgame necro cleric is only 1.5 ahead in magister (and lacking 5 spell pen), realistically you'd play in EA and be 1.5 behind. The only debuff exclusive to cleric is energy drain. Entertaining this energy drain->destruction long range one-trick magister cleric build as a viable DC caster is what's beyond ridiculous.

First off - you were the one that brought up debuffs in your dc math - I am just pointing out that you completely omitted energy drain and numerous divine debuffs. If you think energy drain / destruction is ridiculous you should reevaluate your suggestion that 4 eldritch blasts followed by a finger of death is the way to kill enemies. Debuffs and permanent DC boosts are not equivalent. Permanent DC boosts are always superior because they used 100% of the time. Debuffs will always be situational.

At least on my divine DC casters I take enlarge and that extends the range of slay living.

I showed the math already. Cleric necromancer is 7 ahead of warlock necromancer when comparing just class features - spell levels, enhancements, capstone, pacts, domains

Epic Destinies and Filigree are separate issues that should be addressed independently and not factored into class balance decisions. So yes - I agree they should give all casting trees wisdom, int and charisma and I think the same for epic spells like mass frog. I think wisdom raid filigree wisdom +2 should be added. I think set bonuses for future gear should support all casting stats in the future so gear tetris isn't such a pita. I suggested in the thread that EA and Magister should have the same DC potential when they proposed the magister changes - they disagreed and felt the arcane tree should be higher. but never gave a reason why. Maybe they had plans to buff EA but never did - who knows.

The issues raised with wisdom casting are fully related to filigree and epic destinies - so the problem isn't with wisdom casting it's with destinies and filigree. Wisdom casting is actually solid in terms of support in class trees if you compare the classes. Warlock and Sorc are worse in shape in that regard. The DC penalty for being in Magister as a wisdom build is 2.5. The DC penalty for filigree compared to charisma is 2.5.

Adjusting classes because of filigree, races and destinies creates a whack-a-mole approach to dc balance - it will never work. People complain EA is stronger than magister - so they buff magister to be stronger than EA and then people complain magister is stronger than EA.




Its working as it was designed, and the design is bad. Like I said before, a 28 DC gap on a d20 system is not functional. The ~20 DC gap that non-illusion primaries have is also not functional. The AC system powercreep happened in the exact same way (monk ranger builds had ~20 higher ac potential than non-monk builds) and it was redesigned because of this. The only reason you think its not a problem is because you're looking at it as a min-maxed gnome wizard, one the few hyper-specific builds capable of off-school DCs. Change race, change class. How functional are your off-school spells now? Please show me the necro secondary cleric that works in feywild...

We disagree on this point. I actually played the build and had no problem using my full spellbook. The DC is very functional and having to target enemies with the right secondary spells based on saves is something that adds fun and tactics to the game.

Warlock is the lowest DC I had of any of my dc casters and it works fine - including secondary spells.

[Monkey_Archer]

First off - you were the one that brought up debuffs in your dc math - I am just pointing out that you completely omitted energy drain and numerous divine debuffs. If you think energy drain / destruction is ridiculous you should reevaluate your suggestion that 4 eldritch blasts followed by a finger of death is the way to kill enemies. Debuffs and permanent DC boosts are not equivalent. Permanent DC boosts are always superior because they used 100% of the time. Debuffs will always be situational.

At least on my divine DC casters I take enlarge and that extends the range of slay living.

I showed the math already. Cleric necromancer is 7 ahead of warlock necromancer when comparing just class features - spell levels, enhancements, capstone, pacts, domains
I give up. If you want to believe that necro magister cleric having a 1.5 DC advantage only for destruction makes them a better DC caster because warlocks cant find 2 seconds to debuff or run in aura range and never cast wail, fine. I disagree.



Epic Destinies and Filigree are separate issues that should be addressed independently and not factored into class balance decisions. So yes - I agree they should give all casting trees wisdom, int and charisma and I think the same for epic spells like mass frog. I think wisdom raid filigree wisdom +2 should be added. I think set bonuses for future gear should support all casting stats in the future so gear tetris isn't such a pita. I suggested in the thread that EA and Magister should have the same DC potential when they proposed the magister changes - they disagreed and felt the arcane tree should be higher. but never gave a reason why. Maybe they had plans to buff EA but never did - who knows.

The issues raised with wisdom casting are fully related to filigree and epic destinies - so the problem isn't with wisdom casting it's with destinies and filigree. Wisdom casting is actually solid in terms of support in class trees if you compare the classes. Warlock and Sorc are worse in shape in that regard. The DC penalty for being in Magister as a wisdom build is 2.5. The DC penalty for filigree compared to charisma is 2.5.

Adjusting classes because of filigree, races and destinies creates a whack-a-mole approach to dc balance - it will never work. People complain EA is stronger than magister - so they buff magister to be stronger than EA and then people complain magister is stronger than EA.

Completely disagree with those suggestions (other than filigrees, that's a no-brainier). Good game design and balance is not about making all builds equal, its about making sure all builds are functional and have a purpose.
Its good that magister doesn't have wisdom, its good that mass frog is wisdom only, its good that illusion has higher dc potential, etc... there should be even more unique differences between class/destiny/playstyles.
The issue is that the magnitude of the gap exceeds the d20 system. Sub-optimal builds that are not min-maxed should be sub-optimal, not useless. If build a min-maxed half-orc khopesh fighter doing 30k+ dps I don't suddenly drop to 1k dps if I instead build an elf with rapiers or pick up a mace to hit undead. But this is exactly what happens to dc casters that don't play in the min/maxed necro meta. Again, I'm not suggesting that some first life flavor build enchantment spec dwarf cleric get 95% success with all spell schools, I just think they should be higher than 5% if they wear appropriate gear... because this is how PnP and heroic DDO already works, and how its intended to work...

Also, I never suggested changing classes to fix destinies. I just pointed out that wisdom classes (with the exception of specialist cleric domains) are 3-4 dc lower than int/cha classes (with the exception of warlock).

The buff to magister was stupid. All it did was force magister players away from the more interesting things like sigils and antimagic stuff...
If I were to make a suggestion for the destiny revamp it would be to give +1 DC to each epic power feat then remove all dc bonuses from destinies entirely. Magister could then be a defensive/utility tree focused on helping the party.



We disagree on this point. I actually played the build and had no problem using my full spellbook. The DC is very functional and having to target enemies with the right secondary spells based on saves is something that adds fun and tactics to the game.

Warlock is the lowest DC I had of any of my dc casters and it works fine - including secondary spells.
I would be more than happy to be proven wrong on this point, and perhaps I am. What I do know is that you need pretty close to 130 necro DC to get anything in feywild aside from the occasional pixie. Can you post a DC breakdown for a cleric hitting this as a secondary school with no focuses/etc ?

[slarden]

I give up. If you want to believe that necro magister cleric having a 1.5 DC advantage only for destruction makes them a better DC caster because warlocks cant find 2 seconds to debuff or run in aura range and never cast wail, fine. I disagree.



Completely disagree with those suggestions (other than filigrees, that's a no-brainier). Good game design and balance is not about making all builds equal, its about making sure all builds are functional and have a purpose.
Its good that magister doesn't have wisdom, its good that mass frog is wisdom only, its good that illusion has higher dc potential, etc... there should be even more unique differences between class/destiny/playstyles.
The issue is that the magnitude of the gap exceeds the d20 system. Sub-optimal builds that are not min-maxed should be sub-optimal, not useless. If build a min-maxed half-orc khopesh fighter doing 30k+ dps I don't suddenly drop to 1k dps if I instead build an elf with rapiers or pick up a mace to hit undead. But this is exactly what happens to dc casters that don't play in the min/maxed necro meta. Again, I'm not suggesting that some first life flavor build enchantment spec dwarf cleric get 95% success with all spell schools, I just think they should be higher than 5% if they wear appropriate gear... because this is how PnP and heroic DDO already works, and how its intended to work...

Also, I never suggested changing classes to fix destinies. I just pointed out that wisdom classes (with the exception of specialist cleric domains) are 3-4 dc lower than int/cha classes (with the exception of warlock).

The buff to magister was stupid. All it did was force magister players away from the more interesting things like sigils and antimagic stuff...
If I were to make a suggestion for the destiny revamp it would be to give +1 DC to each epic power feat then remove all dc bonuses from destinies entirely. Magister could then be a defensive/utility tree focused on helping the party.

I would be more than happy to be proven wrong on this point, and perhaps I am. What I do know is that you need pretty close to 130 necro DC to get anything in feywild aside from the occasional pixie. Can you post a DC breakdown for a cleric hitting this as a secondary school with no focuses/etc ?

Class support for cleric and favored soul DC is higher than warlock, archmage (non-pm wizard) and sorc if you look at enhancements, capstone, domains and pact only.

Any deficit wisdom casters have is based solely on destinies, filigree and choice of race You don't prop up class dc support because of destinies, filigree or racial choice - you either address those things or leave it as is if differences in dc potential are ok. You say you don't want builds to be equal. That is what we have now and yet this very thread is about things not being equal based on primary stat.

I can make every casting class function effectively at a high level for both primary and secondary schools, but part of making secondary school work is knowing which enemies to target with which spells.

In my experience if you want to use necromancy spells you either specialize in necromancy or you use those spells on low-fort save dangerous enemies such as caster champs. The devs set the bar high for fortitude saves - they are very difficult to overcome in end game content and I think it's by design and I think it's a good design that you can only make super powerful necro spells work with sacrifice. Expecting to make necromancy instakill spells work on hard targets as a secondary focus isn't a reasonable expectation due to the devs setting the bar so high. You will have a sufficiently high dc to target low-fort-save enemies and use inflicts which works against a will save and synergizes nicely with pendant of bottled moonlight.

Divines have two choices - focus on evocation for dps + implosion or focus on necromancy for single target instakill plus better inflict dcs. I am not quite sure what your goal is with DC. Do you want to focus on evocation with a necromancy focus or necromancy with an evocation focus? By design there are many places in the game you have to make a choice on school and each choice you make for evocation lowers the ceiling on your necromancy dc. It sounds like you are trying for a balanced build with reasonable necro and evocation - but I am not sure. I am happy to put together dc potential for a cleric that is trying to balance evocation and necromancy even though I don't tend to build that way. Is that what you want?

[Kebtid]

Class support for cleric and favored soul DC is higher than warlock, archmage (non-pm wizard) and sorc if you look at enhancements, capstone, domains and pact only.

Any deficit wisdom casters have is based solely on destinies, filigree and choice of race You don't prop up class dc support because of destinies, filigree or racial choice - you either address those things or leave it as is if differences in dc potential are ok. You say you don't want builds to be equal. That is what we have now and yet this very thread is about things not being equal based on primary stat.

I can make every casting class function effectively at a high level for both primary and secondary schools, but part of making secondary school work is knowing which enemies to target with which spells.

In my experience if you want to use necromancy spells you either specialize in necromancy or you use those spells on low-fort save dangerous enemies such as caster champs. The devs set the bar high for fortitude saves - they are very difficult to overcome in end game content and I think it's by design and I think it's a good design that you can only make super powerful necro spells work with sacrifice. Expecting to make necromancy instakill spells work on hard targets as a secondary focus isn't a reasonable expectation due to the devs setting the bar so high. You will have a sufficiently high dc to target low-fort-save enemies and use inflicts which works against a will save and synergizes nicely with pendant of bottled moonlight.

Divines have two choices - focus on evocation for dps + implosion or focus on necromancy for single target instakill plus better inflict dcs. I am not quite sure what your goal is with DC. Do you want to focus on evocation with a necromancy focus or necromancy with an evocation focus? By design there are many places in the game you have to make a choice on school and each choice you make for evocation lowers the ceiling on your necromancy dc. It sounds like you are trying for a balanced build with reasonable necro and evocation - but I am not sure. I am happy to put together dc potential for a cleric that is trying to balance evocation and necromancy even though I don't tend to build that way. Is that what you want?

Just want to mention the sorc part, sorc ic competitive only because of double charisma filigrees that can be used doubled up and since it has full support from magister, actual savant trees are the most outdated trees in the game and it is terribly sad that as a sorc you benefit from no t5 that you have, best one would most likely be air for wings.

Sorc t5s are terrible and it does not feel pleasant to spend ap to get them either compared to any other caster.

[slarden]

I would be more than happy to be proven wrong on this point, and perhaps I am. What I do know is that you need pretty close to 130 necro DC to get anything in feywild aside from the occasional pixie. Can you post a DC breakdown for a cleric hitting this as a secondary school with no focuses/etc ?

I generally don't respond to these type of requests because I've learned over time that even if I provide the #s it gets dismissed anyhow.

If you are looking for a balanced cleric build that gets close to 130 in necro and evocation dc you can drop some necro bonuses in favor of evocation bonuses to get both to around 129. As a cleric you want death domain for the bonus destruction sla if you want to instakill. To the extent your evocation isn't high enough for reflex saves you have more ways to deal with that - where necro is pass/fail so this is what I would do. I don't see any compelling reason to take evocation over necromancy as your main school if you want to instakill things.

Feats
1) Maximize
3) Empower
6) Quicken
9) Completionist
12) Heighten
15) Necromancy Focus
18) Enlarge
21) Greater Spell Focus Necromancy
24) Past Life Wizard
26) Open
27) Embolden
28) Mass Frog
29) Open
30) Evocation Focus
30) Scion of the Plane of Shadowfell

Enhancements (assume 3 pts for tomes or racial past lifes)
Divine Disciple - 41
Feydark Illusionist - 24
Aasimar - 6
Falconry -12

Basic Gear Framework
Gloves: Gloryborne Gloves
Neck: Pendant of Bottled Moonlight (synergizes super well with inflicts for mass debuffing while doing damage)
Weapon: Legendary Prince's Sceptre
Shield: Alchemical Wisdom +2 Necro 9
Armor: Legendary Blessed Vestments
Cloak: Legendary Hallowed Trail
Bracers: Legendary Hallowed Castigators or Tattered Scrolls of the Broken One
Ring: Legendary Shattered Onyx
Belt: Legendary Black Satin Waste
Helm: Morion of the Undying

Wisdom (Aasimar)
Base:20
Level Ups: 7
Tome: 9
Completionist: 2
Racial Completionist: 2
Racial Past Life: 2
Enhancement bonus: 22
Insightful Bonus: 10
Quality Bonus: 5
Exceptional Bonus: 1
Profane Bonus: 2
Artifact Bonus: 4
Festival Bonus: 2
Alchemical Bonus: 2
Filigree: 8
Reaper Helm Bonus: 2
Enh - Racial Tree: 2
Enh - Feydark: 4
Enh - Divine Disciple: 4
Enh - Falconry: 1
Enh - Reaper: 5
Epic Destiny - Exalted Angel: 6
Twist - Arcane Hymn: 1
Twist - Acute Instincts: 2
Ship Buffs: 2
Remnant Potion: 2
Yugo Potion: 2
Total: 130

Necro DC
Base: 10
Spell Level: 9
Stat Bonus: 60
Spell Focus Feats: 2
Embolden: 2
Scion of the Plane of Shadowfell: 4
Past Life Wizard: 1
Other Past Lifes: 0
Enhancement Bonus: 9
Insightful Bonus: 4
Quality Bonus: 2
Augment Bonus: 2
Profane Bonus: 2
Artifact Bonus: 3
Sacred Bonus: 2
Sentient Bonus: 4
Death Domain: 4
Enhancements - Divine Disciple: 2
Enhancements - Reaper: 4
Epic Destiny - Exalted Angel Cores: 3
Epic Destiny - Magister Twist: 3
Ship Buffs: 1
Total: 133

Evocation DC
Base: 10
Spell Level: 9
Stat Bonus: 60
Spell Focus Feats: 1
Embolden: 2
Scion of the Plane of Shadowfell: 2
Past Life Wizard: 1
Other Past Lifes: 3
Enhancement Bonus: 9
Insightful Bonus: 4
Quality Bonus: 2
Augment Bonus: 2
Profane Bonus: 2
Artifact Bonus: 3
Sacred Bonus: 2
Sentient Bonus: 4
Death Domain: 0
Enhancements - Divine Disciple: 0
Enhancements - Reaper: 4
Epic Destiny - Exalted Angel Cores: 3
Epic Destiny - Draconic Twist: 2
Ship Buffs: 1
Total: 126

Illusion DC
Base: 10
Spell Level: 9
Stat Bonus: 60
Spell Focus Feats: 1
Embolden: 2
Scion of the Plane of Shadowfell: 2
Past Life Wizard: 1
Other Past Lifes: 3
Enhancement Bonus: 7
Insightful Bonus: 4
Quality Bonus: 2
Augment Bonus: 2
Profane Bonus: 2
Artifact Bonus: 3
Sacred Bonus: 2
Sentient Bonus: 4
Death Domain: 0
Enhancements - Divine Disciple: 0
Enhancements - Reaper: 4
Epic Destiny - Exalted Angel Cores: 3
Ship Buffs: 1
Total: 121

You can raise all these by 1 with 3-piece artifact dc +4 set. You can raise necromancy 1 more by dropping empower and taking epic necro focus feat.

You can raise evocation by lower necro, but in my experience based on end game saves this is where you want to be with your dcs - overweighting necro because fort saves are harder to overcome and you can debuff reflex saves by simply making enemies helpless. Wisdom saves in general are lower so this illusion dc for greater color spray is very workable and can be combined with soundburst and/or cometfall as needed in groups with varying saves. Even if you want to change twists and drop acute insticts or precise evocation for meld you are still over 130.

DCs are higher all around compared to what I am running as a warlock right now: Pure Casting Warlock DC Eld Blast Build (ddo.com) (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/460700-Pure-Casting-Warlock-DC-Eld-Blast-Build?p=6412576&viewfull=1#post6412576)

And my warlock does fine soloing R6 and running higher skulls with guildies.

Clerics do not have a problem with DC. They do need to add that 2nd wisdom +2 filigree. Clerics have a very good spellbook with damage spells that go against a fort save (necrotic ray), will save (inflicts) and reflex save (several) on top of instant kill and cc to make enemies helpless. So having an evocation dc in the 120s isn't really a problem.

[Monkey_Archer]

Divines have two choices - focus on evocation for dps + implosion or focus on necromancy for single target instakill plus better inflict dcs. I am not quite sure what your goal is with DC. Do you want to focus on evocation with a necromancy focus or necromancy with an evocation focus? By design there are many places in the game you have to make a choice on school and each choice you make for evocation lowers the ceiling on your necromancy dc. It sounds like you are trying for a balanced build with reasonable necro and evocation - but I am not sure. I am happy to put together dc potential for a cleric that is trying to balance evocation and necromancy even though I don't tend to build that way. Is that what you want?
Ok good. We do agree on the reality of DDO. I've already played both builds, (which is really just one min-maxed aasimar build with 2 focus options...) There are hundreds of ways to play a wizard, why only 2 (1) for DC cleric?
My entire point is that I should be able to play something else without becoming useless. An elf rapier fighter doesn't do 5% of the dps of a horc, a dwarf acid sorc doesn't do 5% of a dragonborn. Nowhere in PnP or even heroic DDO does any race or any focus DC caster drop to 5% effectiveness except in DDO's powercreeped endgame. Again, its not a problem that some races/classes/focuses/etc are better or get rewarded for specialization, its that some are useless.



I generally don't respond to these type of requests because I've learned over time that even if I provide the #s it gets dismissed anyhow.
I'm not going to dismiss it. It basically proves my point.

133
-2 Scion
-2 Focus
-4 Domain
-3 magister
-2 Divine Disciple
---
120 min/maxed secondary necro DC, which honestly isn't useless, so I'll retract my absolutist statement that its impossible. But, subtract the min/maxed triple completionist aasimar with reaper 2 morion helm and you're struggling to hit 115, i.e. back to pixies...

[slarden]

Ok good. We do agree on the reality of DDO. I've already played both builds, (which is really just one min-maxed aasimar build with 2 focus options...) There are hundreds of ways to play a wizard, why only 2 (1) for DC cleric?
My entire point is that I should be able to play something else without becoming useless. An elf rapier fighter doesn't do 5% of the dps of a horc, a dwarf acid sorc doesn't do 5% of a dragonborn. Nowhere in PnP or even heroic DDO does any race or any focus DC caster drop to 5% effectiveness except in DDO's powercreeped endgame. Again, its not a problem that some races/classes/focuses/etc are better or get rewarded for specialization, its that some are useless.



I'm not going to dismiss it. It basically proves my point.

133
-2 Scion
-2 Focus
-4 Domain
-3 magister
-2 Divine Disciple
---
120 min/maxed secondary necro DC, which honestly isn't useless, so I'll retract my absolutist statement that its impossible. But, subtract the min/maxed triple completionist aasimar with reaper 2 morion helm and you're struggling to hit 115, i.e. back to pixies...

The devs set the bar high for instakill period. It has nothing to do with wisdom casters or secondary schools. Wizard has the EXACT same limitation except they can get their necro higher due mostly to magister and favorable filigree.

If you want to instakill with necro at high levels you need to work for it. If you want to specialize in another school and use necro as a side project you need to pick low-fort save enemies.

If someone is 5% effective it's a problem with how they are playing a caster not the game itself. It's not about getting to a magic DC # it's about picking the right targets with the right spells.

At end game martial builds also try and pick synergistic races.

What you are describing as a problem is the thing that makes playing a caster so fun at end game. It's a high cost / high reward specialty build with an extremely high ceiling if built and played right. Unfortunately it's not in super high demand right now because it's easier to just dps everything down fast with current end game raids - with maybe 1 caster in the mix.

[Oxarhamar]

You know what is also boring. Swinging at a NPC with 20k HP's. Either way we are both bored. The difference being there are individuals on this forum who believe the only way to play an MMO is to swing at an NPC for ~15+ seconds at a time. Anything less and they demand it should be nerfed.

That we can agree

[Monkey_Archer]

The devs set the bar high for instakill period. It has nothing to do with wisdom casters or secondary schools. Wizard has the EXACT same limitation except they can get their necro higher due mostly to magister and favorable filigree.

If you want to instakill with necro at high levels you need to work for it. If you want to specialize in another school and use necro as a side project you need to pick low-fort save enemies.

If someone is 5% effective it's a problem with how they are playing a caster not the game itself. It's not about getting to a magic DC # it's about picking the right targets with the right spells.

At end game martial builds also try and pick synergistic races.

What you are describing as a problem is the thing that makes playing a caster so fun at end game. It's a high cost / high reward specialty build with an extremely high ceiling if built and played right. Unfortunately it's not in super high demand right now because it's easier to just dps everything down fast with current end game raids - with maybe 1 caster in the mix.

I don't have an issue with setting a higher bar for instakill spells, but that's not what they did. The saves are a high bar regardless of which spells you cast. Lowering saves by 10 and giving mobs a +10 save vs death would be setting a high bar for instakills. And besides, necro was just an example, it could just as easily be abjuration or transmutation, etc... all will be equally useless on not min-maxed specialist builds. The artificially low will saves are the only bandaid that keeps the dc system semi-functional.

Would you support reverting back to the old d20 AC system? So only min-maxed kensai fighters can hit things and everything else misses 90% of the time? Don't worry, your barbarian can hit the pixies 50% of the time, just attack the right targets... :rolleyes:

Maybe DC casters are not in high demand because they are pigeon holed into being specialists and sacrifice everything else to get there?

[slarden]

I don't have an issue with setting a higher bar for instakill spells, but that's not what they did. The saves are a high bar regardless of which spells you cast. Lowering saves by 10 and giving mobs a +10 save vs death would be setting a high bar for instakills. And besides, necro was just an example, it could just as easily be abjuration or transmutation, etc... all will be equally useless on not min-maxed specialist builds. The artificially low will saves are the only bandaid that keeps the dc system semi-functional.


Instakill is made harder due to save and also death immunity (deathward, orange named, reapers, some champs). This is largely due to player feedback I believe. Saves are on an enemy-by-enemy basis but my observation is that fort saves are highest, then reflex saves and will saves are generally the lowest. If I focus on necro for example I can typically succeed on my enchantment spells (and greater color spray) against most high-will-save enemies. On the other hand, high-fort save enemies can be out of range for even a maxed out necromancer and if you don't focus on necro as your main school you really want to focus on danagerous low-fort enemies. Reflex saves can also be high in sharn and fey but making enemies helpless helps alot against that so I've not found it to be problematic even on a blasting build.


Would you support reverting back to the old d20 AC system? So only min-maxed kensai fighters can hit things and everything else misses 90% of the time? Don't worry, your barbarian can hit the pixies 50% of the time, just attack the right targets... :rolleyes:

I don't think it's an equivalent situation. All enemies have a low-save stat and you use your full arsenal of spells based on your dc and the target's save. So there are enemies I know I can't instakill even with necro maxed out - so I typically target those high-fort save enemies with a different spell and/or try to get them grouped in cc. Hitting the low save is not very difficult at all - min/maxing is not needed. If you insist on your trying to finger a high-fort save enemy without max investment - it's just bad targeting. Sometimes that is the case even if maxing out your necro dc - the saves are that high!

But enemies always have a weak save - and that is what needs to drive the spell you select regardless of your school.


Maybe DC casters are not in high demand because they are pigeon holed into being specialists and sacrifice everything else to get there? It goes beyond dc casters - casters in general have low dps potential and to the extent you focus more on DC it will be even lower with possibly some swap items for bosses to bring it closer to a dps build, but some things like crit damage form draconic of and scion of fire you can't make up for if maxing out dc. 8-9 spots in a raid are dps spots and you mainly want martial builds for that as casters are too far behind on single-target damage. A raid may want 1 caster for cc or instakill depending on the raid - but no more due the dps hit the party takes unless that caster can also act as debuffer to increase dps. For LH raiding you can get away with lower dps so it's not as big of a deal. For many raids you would prefer a dps caster to cast dc spells such as dancing sphere vs. a dedicated dc caster. This is because a high dps party can take down dancing mobs super fast - there is no need to instakill them except to keep dps on the boss a bit more.

A maxed out dps caster with typical dc investment can still make use of their dc spells by targeting low-save enemies, but they certainly aren't going to finger a high-fort save enemy.

I don't find this problematic, but rather good design. We may have to agree to disagree on these points. I play DC caster frequently - and have played every class - most recently. As I tr I am focusing more on marital dps for raids though so I only have one active dc caster at the moment - my warlock. Within the past few months I played dc favored soul, illusionist, sorc, alchemist, cleric and a few other flavors of warlock.

Illusionist was the one build where I could hit targets not possible with other builds, but then some enemies that are easy to target with finger can't be killed at all with phantasmal killer due to fear immunity.