Dear Devs: Information please on Air Elementals

Saying melees need an anti-zerging monster that they are completely unable to touch sounds a lot more like someone has a ****ed off caster and melee hate than being interested in game balance.

I would love to see every single monster in the game that has any kind of knockdown/trip/overrun/charge ability to HAVE to hit first. Several monsters like wolves and hobgoblins finally lost their 'trip even if they miss' ability, even though bugbears still have it. Minotaurs are somewhat annoying, but only charge once in a while.

But air elementals throw you across the room even when you dont get knocked down, and do it without a hit roll, even if they are paralyzed or dancing - you get close to hit it with a weapon - you get tossed.

If a monster doesnt hit you, it should not be able to apply affects to a player. Period. Or else..give players the ability to stun/trip WITHOUT needing to hit, just trip and its a straight save....which of course would be overpowered.

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Originally Posted by Riggs

Saying melees need an anti-zerging monster that they are completely unable to touch sounds a lot more like someone has a ****ed off caster and melee hate than being interested in game balance.

I would love to see every single monster in the game that has any kind of knockdown/trip/overrun/charge ability to HAVE to hit first. Several monsters like wolves and hobgoblins finally lost their 'trip even if they miss' ability, even though bugbears still have it. Minotaurs are somewhat annoying, but only charge once in a while.

But air elementals throw you across the room even when you dont get knocked down, and do it without a hit roll, even if they are paralyzed or dancing - you get close to hit it with a weapon - you get tossed.

If a monster doesnt hit you, it should not be able to apply affects to a player. Period. Or else..give players the ability to stun/trip WITHOUT needing to hit, just trip and its a straight save....which of course would be overpowered.

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Well, I do get ****ed I cannot get into more Shroud runs on my sorc :) But, I have no hate for melee toons. I actually am rolling one up myself at the moment. Also, I like a good zerg as much as the next guy.

If there are bugs in the AI, which allow the mob to do things it shouldn't (ie attack when paralyzed), fine, they should fix it. My response, was to the OP (and a few others) who basically were saying, take them out of the game because the masses have spoken, we hate them. It was implied (and not in a subtle way by the OP), that every mob should have an exploitable weakness, therefore making every mob, easily killed by a tweaked out melee build. This is what I object to.

As stated before, there are tons of mobs that casters really need a melee toon to beat down. In RR, I can name several. In the end, casters can kill almost everything, but what good are you if you have 0 sp after 2 minutes.

As far as balance, casters (especially arcanes) are far in the minority to melee builds, and this hasn't always been the case. So, is that balanced?

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Originally Posted by sephiroth1084

Even a single air elemental can make for a very unpleasant play experience.

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In any quest instance, anywhere in DDO.

There is a reason why the Air room in PoP NEVER gets done.

OH NOOOOO MY TWF WOP MACHINE CANNOT SOLO AIR ELEMENTALS!!


Jeez.
Let's see...
What can you bring to kill it...

A cleric.
A Sorc.
A wizard.
A wounding ranged weapon.

You can also avoid fighting them with...
A fear clicky
A symbol of Fear clicky
A fearsome armor
A dismissal clicky
A bard (charm/suggestion/fascinate/dance ball)


I am sorry, but if you cant handle an air elemental, it means your team does not have a Cleric, Sorc, Wizard, Ranger, Bard, or anyone with a decent DEX score or UMD. Well, poo.

make sure u carry a caster with insta-kill at all times. Air ele's may be able to knock u all over the place, but thier fort saves......save The Reaver Raid.....are pathetic.

And don't even get me started on the Reaver Raid...hope everyone who complained about it being to easy is happy now....know this, that whenever Turbine does something to nerf the game to answer ur pleas, they DO NOT do it in a conservative manner...it's extreme....so please just take the free ride already and get ur kicks and challenge from something else!!!! lol


/end rant

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Originally Posted by bobbryan2

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Originally Posted by Bogenbroom

Welcome to the mirror image of what it is like to be a caster in half of the high end content. Red or Purple named? Can't do squat. High end giants? Can waste half your spell points performing some crowd control on *some* of them as they are immune to half your spells.

So there are monsters that melees find nearly impossible and monsters caster find nearly impossible. Are they Borked? Sure. Is it a game breaking? No. It is just a balance point between melees and casters.

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If your caster can't find anything to do... you're playing him wrong.

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Well, I wouldn't say "can't do squat" ... but they have severely limited the casters roll in this game. It went from casters being way too overpowered to being way too underpowered. Welcome to the pendulum swing that is DDO, they never do any changes in moderation.

QFT:

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Originally Posted by Thailand_Dan

... The Shroud, probably the most run quest in the game is limited to 2 (sometimes only 1) caster. And even there we have few jobs: buff the party, hit the crystal, FOD/PK the gnolls, and use debuff spells on Harry. ...

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Originally Posted by vVvAiaynAvVv

...know this, that whenever Turbine does something to nerf the game to answer ur pleas, they DO NOT do it in a conservative manner...it's extreme....

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Yeah ... :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Venar

OH NOOOOO MY TWF WOP MACHINE CANNOT SOLO AIR ELEMENTALS!!


Jeez.
Let's see...
What can you bring to kill it...

A cleric.
A Sorc.
A wizard.
A wounding ranged weapon.

You can also avoid fighting them with...
A fear clicky
A symbol of Fear clicky
A fearsome armor
A dismissal clicky
A bard (charm/suggestion/fascinate/dance ball)


I am sorry, but if you cant handle an air elemental, it means your team does not have a Cleric, Sorc, Wizard, Ranger, Bard, or anyone with a decent DEX score or UMD. Well, poo.

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Amen Brotha!

I concur with the statement regarding "being prepared" too.

Another note, does anyone have the Air Ele's stats? Say, the Reaver ones Str, Con scores? Is it easier to W/P them to death or weakening them so they stand still? Peace!

-Premier

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Originally Posted by Venar

OH NOOOOO MY TWF WOP MACHINE CANNOT SOLO AIR ELEMENTALS!!


Jeez.
Let's see...
What can you bring to kill it...

A cleric.
A Sorc.
A wizard.
A wounding ranged weapon.

You can also avoid fighting them with...
A fear clicky
A symbol of Fear clicky
A fearsome armor
A dismissal clicky
A bard (charm/suggestion/fascinate/dance ball)


I am sorry, but if you cant handle an air elemental, it means your team does not have a Cleric, Sorc, Wizard, Ranger, Bard, or anyone with a decent DEX score or UMD. Well, poo.

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My melee brings his WoP bow...... that and some fast movement = dead air ele's..... Sure they're annoying but..... Not the end all.....

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Originally Posted by GlassCannon

In any quest instance, anywhere in DDO.

There is a reason why the Air room in PoP NEVER gets done.

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Sure it does, as a caster solo.

It's just a pathetic attempt at adding difficulty to an overly easy game. What I don't like is the fact that my characters can make a save and still get knocked down as if they didn't.

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Originally Posted by Riggs

I have never seen a developer post about air elementals that I can recall, and would like some clarification please.

Is there a game breaking reason knockdown had to be changed from pnp rules to make it impossible to stand up around them?

As it is now;

- the dc is so high most people cannot stand up for more than 2 seconds no matter what their stats.

- Balance skill, despite the name, doesnt help you stand up if you skill is higher than your str/dex bonus. And getting up after isnt a lot of help if you keep getting knocked down every 2 seconds and starts a fresh 6 second timer. Pnp rules show a reflex save not a dex save, which would let people stand up a lot more if that was the case in DDO. And the save dc in pnp is a LOT lower than it is in DDO.

- pnp Air elementals are like the way Genies are implemented in DDO currently. One form that can 'punch' characters, then for short periods of time, followed by several turns of rest, they can assume whirlwind form and try to knock people down. but the knockdown is an attack, not a area all around that causes auto-knockdown to anyone that is within weapon range. So the implementation of how they work in pnp already exists, and in theory could be changed for air elementals also.

- Air elementals are present in every raid and flagging set of quests except Vons and Titan(well and the Sub, but beholders are another annoying broken monster). Chains and Wiz king(for Queen), Sos, Reaver, Vale and Ritual. So they are pretty much impossible to avoid if you run anything added to the game since 2 years ago.

- overrun/knockdown/charge affects players even when the monster doesnt hit you. Charging Minotaurs, Mariliths that just wander by and knock down an entire party, and air elementals that knock down everyone within range, and zip around all over throwing entire parties down basically at will.

There are many things about DDO that people love, and love playing for long periods of time.

But when most players I know of get to a point where they run into air elementals, they start getting really angry at the game, and at Turbine for adding this monster to the game, and never changing it or taking them out despite numerous complaints.

Dear Turbine, if your intention is to make otherwise happy players really, really angry at you you are succeeding. If your intention is to make a monster so broken from pnp rules that capped characters that can beat up on a pit fiend run screaming from an air elemental sighting you have succeeded.

If your intention is to so break a monster and overpower them that it is seemingly no different than a pnp DM deliberately griefing the players at the table you have succeeded by a wide margin.

If the intention is otherwise, can we as players get some kind of timeline if there is going to be a change? or some kind of feedback as to why they are designed this way? So far I do not recall seeing anything official about them after much hopeful waiting for some kind of change, and something official would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you
Riggs

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Originally Posted by Venar

OH NOOOOO MY MONK, SWORD AND BOARD FIGHTER, AND BARBARIAN THF CANNOT FIGHT AIR ELEMENTALS WHATSOEVER!!


Jeez.
Let's see...
You don't have any options.

You can avoid fighting them with...
A fearsome armor
A bard (charm/suggestion/fascinate/dance ball) - This means that if one was not invited to the group, or is dead/compromised, put on that fearsome armor. if you don't have any, you are screwed.

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Start using common sense sometime.

Fixed for accuracy.

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Originally Posted by Mirta

It's just a pathetic attempt at adding difficulty to an already challenging game. What I don't like is the fact that my characters can make a save and still get knocked down as if they didn't.

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Yes, this is exceptionally irritating.

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Originally Posted by EinarMal

Ahem unless is is anti-player adjustments that is. They continually go back and make old content more difficult over time, even content many levels below cap to challenge more cap players running through old content.

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Which is the worst idea ever.

I just dont run quests with air ele's in them since they cheat.

IF you cant cheat and someone can cheat you, just dont go that way. :D

*really turbine should fix the air ele's, it is ridiculasly broke. Im not saying put an easy button on them, however atleast make them function the way they are *supposed* to. Thats all Im saying.*

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Originally Posted by Riggs

I have never seen a developer post about air elementals that I can recall, and would like some clarification please.

Is there a game breaking reason knockdown had to be changed from pnp rules to make it impossible to stand up around them?

As it is now;

- the dc is so high most people cannot stand up for more than 2 seconds no matter what their stats.

- Balance skill, despite the name, doesnt help you stand up if you skill is higher than your str/dex bonus. And getting up after isnt a lot of help if you keep getting knocked down every 2 seconds and starts a fresh 6 second timer. Pnp rules show a reflex save not a dex save, which would let people stand up a lot more if that was the case in DDO. And the save dc in pnp is a LOT lower than it is in DDO.

- pnp Air elementals are like the way Genies are implemented in DDO currently. One form that can 'punch' characters, then for short periods of time, followed by several turns of rest, they can assume whirlwind form and try to knock people down. but the knockdown is an attack, not a area all around that causes auto-knockdown to anyone that is within weapon range. So the implementation of how they work in pnp already exists, and in theory could be changed for air elementals also.

- Air elementals are present in every raid and flagging set of quests except Vons and Titan(well and the Sub, but beholders are another annoying broken monster). Chains and Wiz king(for Queen), Sos, Reaver, Vale and Ritual. So they are pretty much impossible to avoid if you run anything added to the game since 2 years ago.

- overrun/knockdown/charge affects players even when the monster doesnt hit you. Charging Minotaurs, Mariliths that just wander by and knock down an entire party, and air elementals that knock down everyone within range, and zip around all over throwing entire parties down basically at will.

There are many things about DDO that people love, and love playing for long periods of time.

But when most players I know of get to a point where they run into air elementals, they start getting really angry at the game, and at Turbine for adding this monster to the game, and never changing it or taking them out despite numerous complaints.

Dear Turbine, if your intention is to make otherwise happy players really, really angry at you you are succeeding. If your intention is to make a monster so broken from pnp rules that capped characters that can beat up on a pit fiend run screaming from an air elemental sighting you have succeeded.

If your intention is to so break a monster and overpower them that it is seemingly no different than a pnp DM deliberately griefing the players at the table you have succeeded by a wide margin.

If the intention is otherwise, can we as players get some kind of timeline if there is going to be a change? or some kind of feedback as to why they are designed this way? So far I do not recall seeing anything official about them after much hopeful waiting for some kind of change, and something official would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you
Riggs

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I know this is a very far out there and unconventional approach to a Dungeon & Dragons game. Balance out your party with a caster, WOW did I just suggest that a D&D party should have mixed classes in a quest for its successful completion? There are plenty of NPC's out there that a caster can barely touch so we try to crowd control them some for melee types to beat up on.

All casters secretly smile when melee types get blown around and we just cast a PK, finger or destrcution on them. POOF they are gone!

Djinn AI

Give it to the Air Elementals and DELETE AIR ELEMENTAL AI.

They will need a Bludgeon/Slash Melee Attack. Additionally, due to composition, they would deal about 1/4 the damage of an Earth Elemental.

Additionally, Djinn tend to have a troublesome problem of going Whirlwind a little too often. Once every 30 seconds is a bit much. They need a cooldown like Manyshot(2 minutes).

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Originally Posted by brool

I just dont run quests with air ele's in them since they cheat.

IF you cant cheat and someone can cheat you, just dont go that way. :D

*really turbine should fix the air ele's, it is ridiculasly broke. Im not saying put an easy button on them, however atleast make them function the way they are *supposed* to. Thats all Im saying.*

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It might be that air elementals are acting exactly the way they want them to, ever consider that. I do not think air elementals are broke, they are just a casters fodder.

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Originally Posted by shores11

It might be that air elementals are acting exactly the way they want them to, ever consider that. I do not think air elementals are broke, they are just a casters fodder.

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Then we should make Melee Fodder too. Something that moves faster than a Hasted Monk 20, and uses melee attacks for 150 damage per hit at GTWF, True Seeing and a to-hit of +16, with an SR over 60 and DR5,000/- vs magic.

That should be 100% fair. Oh, and vs a splashed class whose main class is Wizard, Sorc, or Cleric, they get a to-hit bonus of +60.

Alternative: A critter that targets only casting classes, ignores AC altogether, has True Seeing, Ghosttouch, and a massive Antimagic Field(not cone, Field. A field the size of the Marketplace.). It stops moving when all casting type classes are dead, regardless what is beating on it. It uses mainly Ranged attacks for about 50 damage per hit, and any spells cast near it cause it to go into Spell Drain mode, negating all Scrolls, Potions, Wands, and draining all SP from anyone with SpellPoints before killing them.

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Originally Posted by Premier

Amen Brotha!

I concur with the statement regarding "being prepared" too.

Another note, does anyone have the Air Ele's stats? Say, the Reaver ones Str, Con scores? Is it easier to W/P them to death or weakening them so they stand still? Peace!

-Premier

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Before you go around saying "Amen!" or "Preach it!"... you should learn how the mechanics work.

Having unmeleeable creatures is bad design. No ifs ands or buts. I don't remember any un-castable creatures... or even un-ranged creatures.

My sorc can pretty much solo anything... a few creatures a bit harder than others... but it's all possible. It's just not possible to melee down air elementals without an enormous amount of luck and bugged out AI.

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Originally Posted by shores11

It might be that air elementals are acting exactly the way they want them to, ever consider that. I do not think air elementals are broke, they are just a casters fodder.

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If you were to compare the ddo air elemental to the pnp air elemental you would have a different point of view. Yes the ele's are probably functioning exactly the way blowbine wants them to... However, thats not how they *were* designed in the monster manuel.

Gratned there is little in ddo that works the way its supposed to according to the phb.

I guess we should just make earth ele's immune to every caster spell and call it melee fodder then. :)