Hard to Kill --> Haunting

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Originally Posted by sephiroth1084

stuff about haunting

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Seph with haunting on average you are going to be able to kill 1 mob every 15 seconds regardless of your dc.

If you kill something and then kill something else before the 15 seconds you now have 30 seconds of debuffs to wait out. If you push ahead of the 15 sec per kill the system brings you back. This is regardless of dc/gear anything. So why gear out. Why strive to be better. Why spend destiny points on lower necro cooldowns or better dc's? Why go tier 5 illusion archmage for a second pk. Why ever even carry circle of death as an arcane, or slay living as a divine. Why not just be an evocation archmage or better yet a sorc.

There is no class in this game that should be limited to one kill every 15 seconds.

I am not one of the so called people that never want a nerf, I was one for saying helaing amp needs to be looked at with some of the values out there and the difference between human/half elf and other races.

However I do know that instakills are not the issue here. Sorcs are just as adept at killing things off fastly and for some reason melees think they are cooperating with the sorc when they both do dmg but regardless the sorc doesn't need the melee there for any reason.

Same went for before the change to epic ward in epics and these spells werent allowed I was soloing into the deeps and many other epics before than (often inviting in people for the end fight/chest) I once killed 750 tieflings in echrono (got 3 scrolls grr) without deathspells and didnt need a single melee to do it.

Haunting is a flawed mechanic because it attacks the wrong end of the problem. While instakills can be problematic and could use a small tweak it doesn't change the fact that melees are extremely inferior to casters. It just changes the flavor of the op caster.

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Originally Posted by gravestones

Let us look at this from another perspective: it is fundamentally unbalanced that a melee can keep on swinging ad infinitum, while arcane and divine casters are limited by a finite blue bar.

On very long engagements with limited rest shrines, the DPS output of a melee greatly exceeds that of any arcane. In fact, melee have the potential for unlimited damage output, with no cap and no cost! That is utterly outrageous and fundamentally unbalancing. Arcanes and divines get to stand around and do nothing while the melee enjoy themselves, racking up damage to their hearts' content.

Akin to Haunting, melee should be constrained by Fatigue. Anytime a melee scores a critical hit, they accumulate a debuff of -2 to hit that lasts 30 seconds. These debuffs stack. In order to clear the debuff, the melee must stop scoring critical hits and allow the debuff to clear. In the meantime, melee can use less effective weapons with lower crit modifiers, or perhaps up their UMD so that they can use wands that cause damage or even scrolls.

Melee will have a choice: continue to try to score critical hits for greater damage and ultimately be unable to hit for quite a while, or score a couple of critical hits and take a break from their primary weapons focus and favorite weapons while the Fatigue wears off.

Sounds good doesn't it?

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The debuff sounds like a good idea, but I would be concerned about those poor melee who have to stand around with nothing to do while they are debuffed.

Perhaps we could balance the game by adding in some party responsibility for melee. Arcanes provide buffs as well as their personal DPS. Divines provide buffs and heals as well as their personal DPS. Melee? They are providing nothing but their personal ego stroking (oops, I meant to say DPS).

I would suggest that when debuffed, the only way to dispel it would be to swing without causing any damage for a minute (time interval negotiable). During that interval, their swings would restore spell points to the party members with a blue bar.

Melee players should be able to get on board with this because, after all, they ARE team players.

What about tying the penalty to group size?

e.g. group size of 1 gets a penalty of 0 per kill.

2-3 gets a penalty of 1

4-6/raid size gets a penalty of 2.

It would encourage more tactical play when you actually have a group where tactics matter, and people who are forced to solo because of awkward time zones would still be able to use their instakills whenever they like.

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Originally Posted by sandypaws

What about tying the penalty to group size?

e.g. group size of 1 gets a penalty of 0 per kill.

2-3 gets a penalty of 1

4-6 gets a penalty of 2.

It would encourage more tactical play when you actually have a group where tactics matter, and people who are forced to solo because of awkward time zones would still be able to use their instakills effectively.

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It would encourage more solo caster ownage.

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Originally Posted by sephiroth1084

Increasing the cooldown does the same thing as Haunting

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Obviously false. With Haunting, a nice Wail completely cuts you out of using ANY instakill for a long time.

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Originally Posted by sephiroth1084

This is basically how Haunting works... You cast Wail, and kill 10 monsters. Then you use it again in 3 minutes (or much less if the stack timer gets lowered) at no penalty.

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Come on, Sephiroth. Let's be honest. You cast Wail, and kill 10 monsters, and you can use NO instakill spells for ninety seconds to two minutes. *That's* how Haunting works. And it's unacceptable.

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Originally Posted by sephiroth1084

Haunting gives us an option, a decision, while longer cooldowns remove decisions.

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Haunting does give us an option. The option to play like a fool. Haunting is a massive penalty to people who are bad at math and continue to use Wail. Haunting kills Wail. If Haunting goes live, they just need to take Wail out of the game. Keeping it around will only penalize the folks who don't understand how to effectively use their spells.

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Originally Posted by sephiroth1084

I don't think Haunting should remain as first described...I think it needs a cap on the penalty, a lower timer for each stack, and should come with a reduction of cooldown for all spells involved, so that if you fail to kill anything, you can try again quickly, and if you want to, you can use a really weak Wail more often.

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If you want to, you can use a really weak Wail more often? Um, why would you do that?

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Originally Posted by LeLoric

It would encourage more solo caster ownage.

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Explain how implementing a save penalty on the base of group size would encourage more caster ownage? Provided the penalty is appropriate, it's a soft-cap on Wail that nerfs the spell significantly. How is nerfing Wail to encourage more solo caster ownage? Please explain that miracle of magical thinking.

Edit: Ok, I'll leave that. I didn't realize he meant *party* size. I thought he meant the size of the group of mobs you are Wailing. You are absolutely correct.

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Originally Posted by LeLoric

Seph with haunting on average you are going to be able to kill 1 mob every 15 seconds regardless of your dc.

If you kill something and then kill something else before the 15 seconds you now have 30 seconds of debuffs to wait out. If you push ahead of the 15 sec per kill the system brings you back. This is regardless of dc/gear anything. So why gear out. Why strive to be better. Why spend destiny points on lower necro cooldowns or better dc's? Why go tier 5 illusion archmage for a second pk. Why ever even carry circle of death as an arcane, or slay living as a divine. Why not just be an evocation archmage or better yet a sorc.

There is no class in this game that should be limited to one kill every 15 seconds.

I am not one of the so called people that never want a nerf, I was one for saying helaing amp needs to be looked at with some of the values out there and the difference between human/half elf and other races.

However I do know that instakills are not the issue here. Sorcs are just as adept at killing things off fastly and for some reason melees think they are cooperating with the sorc when they both do dmg but regardless the sorc doesn't need the melee there for any reason.

Same went for before the change to epic ward in epics and these spells werent allowed I was soloing into the deeps and many other epics before than (often inviting in people for the end fight/chest) I once killed 750 tieflings in echrono (got 3 scrolls grr) without deathspells and didnt need a single melee to do it.

Haunting is a flawed mechanic because it attacks the wrong end of the problem. While instakills can be problematic and could use a small tweak it doesn't change the fact that melees are extremely inferior to casters. It just changes the flavor of the op caster.

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I don't think Haunting is that penalizing.

Ignoring that, what would you propose as a solution to that imbalance between casters and everyone else then?

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Originally Posted by LeLoric

Seph with haunting on average you are going to be able to kill 1 mob every 15 seconds regardless of your dc.

If you kill something and then kill something else before the 15 seconds you now have 30 seconds of debuffs to wait out. If you push ahead of the 15 sec per kill the system brings you back. This is regardless of dc/gear anything. So why gear out. Why strive to be better. Why spend destiny points on lower necro cooldowns or better dc's? Why go tier 5 illusion archmage for a second pk. Why ever even carry circle of death as an arcane, or slay living as a divine. Why not just be an evocation archmage or better yet a sorc.

There is no class in this game that should be limited to one kill every 15 seconds.

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Strictly speaking, you aren't limited to one kill every 15 seconds. You are limited to something like one *instakill* every 15 seconds. The folks stumping like mad for Haunting want to force you to get all your other kills like a sorcerer (or be a hage/hold bot while twiddling your thumbs). Basically, they want to nerf you because they don't like the STYLE in which you get your kills. It's not "melee friendly" enough. It's also a huge nerf, since wizards don't have the SP or nuking power of a sorcerer.

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Originally Posted by Braegan

I can see that in the current state wail-fests are a bit OP. My last run of ToD on hard with my PM (which is on the good side of gear/build but not uber IMO) out of 98 kills I racked up 50. When one person out of 12 is responsible for more then half the entire raids kills that's a wake up call.

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I would have to say that is a pretty powerful PM that you have there.

I have over 80 ToD completions, on the same server as you, and I can think of at most a handful of times when an arcane has dominated the quest like that. In most runs that my cleric is in, ToD is a melee feast.

As has been pointed out many times, the game shouldn't be engineered around what the top 1% achieves unless, of course, DDO can be successful with 1% of its current player base.

Devs: please do not lump Implosion in with Wail. Implosion is not overpowered - it is already extremely limited.

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                Wail                Implosion
Max kills:        Unlimited        5               
Cooldown:        30 seconds        1 minute               
Targets:        Player chosen        Semi-random       
Timing:                Instantaneous        Spread over 10 seconds

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Considering it's a lot harder to boost both your DC and spell pen on a divine than on a wizard, much of the time Implosion won't even get you the full 5 kills. The only thing in implosion's favor is that it works on undead, which is more than fair given all its limitations. Any halfway decent melee can keep up with 5 kills per minute without issue. This is about letting divines get in on the offensive fun while keeping said melee alive.

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Originally Posted by LeLoric

It would encourage more solo caster ownage.

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That's kinda the point. Is there a problem with solo caster ownage? It's not like we're competing against each other for loot, right?

The idea behind haunting, as I understand it, is to make group play more fun for everyone else, yes?

If you're not grouping, this isn't really a factor anymore. Tying a party-mechanism to whether you're actually grouped or not seems rational.

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Originally Posted by Faent

Obviously false. With Haunting, a nice Wail completely cuts you out of using ANY instakill for a long time.



Come on, Sephiroth. Let's be honest. You cast Wail, and kill 10 monsters, and you can use NO instakill spells for ninety seconds to two minutes. *That's* how Haunting works. And it's unacceptable.

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If you kill 5 enemies with Wail, under the current dev proposal (I think that needs to be lessened), you'd be at -10 DC for 15 seconds, -8 for 15, -6 for 15, -4 for 15, -2 for 15. Given that the difference in saves between a "brute" and a caster may be as much as 10 points, you could use Wail again immediately upon its cooldown expiring and still kill some monsters.

The fact that, in the present endgame, a DC 44 Wail is godly, and some characters can get as high as a 52 DC (8 points higher), a totally maxed caster could use Wail again immediately and still be very successful. Remember, we judge good DCs by high success rate--a DC 44 in a lot of content is something like a 75-80% success rate. A DC 38 would be a 45-50% success rate. It would still work, even at a -6 penalty. Even a -10 penalty, though not necessarily reliably.

We also have many ways to debuff enemy saves, which further provides a buffer against the penalty.

The fact that we typically have more than 15 seconds between encounters means that we probably will lose 1-2 stacks minimum from one fight to the next. Finally, the fact that we have other spells available means that we can cycle our strategy from one fight to the next. As it is, many PMs don't use Wail or CoD every fight, but mix in Web, discoball or Mass Hold for some encounters, which end up being time for Haunting to further wind down.

If we simply had a longer cooldown on the spell, none of that is an option. Instead of saying, "Okay, I killed a bunch of guys with my first Wail, and can probably kill a chunk of the next group with another Wail in 30 seconds, even with a -6 penalty," or, "I tried killing 3 mobs with Wail and all made their saves, so I'll toss a debuff and try again in 30 seconds with a higher chance of this landing," you will simply have to wait 45 seconds, or 1 minute, or 2 minutes before being able to try again.

And again, I ask how long a cooldown do you think would be appropriate for Wail? When does it stop being too strong? When is it too weak?

(I'll not again that I think the penalty and duration for Haunt needs to be lessened, and that it should be tied to the spell that triggered it, rather than all Necromancy spells for each casting).

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Originally Posted by sephiroth1084

I don't think Haunting is that penalizing.

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It is roughly that penalizing, yes. Think about it more. I came to that conclusion (and have posted a lot of analysis) and I don't think LeLoric is just parroting my results.

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Originally Posted by sephiroth1084

Ignoring that, what would you propose as a solution to that imbalance between casters and everyone else then?

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Nerfing wail alone will put necromages roughly on par with the top-tier sorcerers and melees in terms of killing power. Depending on the size of the nerf to wail alone, it will put them behind top-tier sorcerers and melees in terms of killing power. A melee who doesn't build for maximum melee DPS shouldn't be compared to a wizard that does build for maximum trash DPS. Balancing top-tier casters against "everyone else" is not possible. Balance them against top tier everything else.

This sounds like a great change to me. Mass instant kills needed a nerf, they were ridiculous and made many classes obsolete past level 17.

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Originally Posted by GermanicusMaximus

I would have to say that is a pretty powerful PM that you have there.

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Well, we have to know more about this run. It's anecdotal remarks like this that contribute a lot to the perception that they are. In the first place, at least 15 of his kills were on mobs that the rest of the party never looked at (they pointed to the Orthons, Fire Ellies and Pups and said "You go deal with those.") So that drops him to something like 35 competitive kills. Then, of course, he may have been tanking and killing Shadows. So that's another 12 kills or so, dropping him to 23 competitive kills. See how this is going? Then, of course, we have to ask about the rest of his party composition, etc...

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Originally Posted by Lormyr

This pretty much sums up how I feel about things too.

I won't claim to speak for anyone else here, but this is how I feel, and I am going to here and now speak it bluntly:

80% of the joy I get out of playing my wizard is not questing, or adventure, or the challenge of the game. The vast majority of my joy for that character is knowing that the 6 years I have put into TR'ing him, gearing him out, and coming up with the perfect character build have made him so powerful that he is able to trivialize 80% or so of the game's content.

That's right. I said it. I love having my super badass. The challenge that I enjoyed in this was the journey to reaching that point of capability - not the challenge of the gameplay.

Now, this is what I want to know. Some folks claim that a powerful PM trivializes alot of gameplay, and can potentially make that gameplay unfun for others by effectively handling the quest all on their own. Those are fairly reasonable views, but to those views I say this:

You don't have to group with those characters.

If a well built and geared PM is ruining your fun questing, don't group with them. It's really that simple. Or when they join your pug, tell them you like to take your time and enjoy the quest and participate heavily in it. If they don't want to be part of that, let them find another group.

No other player can ruin your fun. Only you are responsible for your fun. You have complete control over it. Between squelch and simply not grouping with someone, other people have absolutely no ability to impact your gameplay at all unless you allow them too.

Perhaps their needs to be an adjustment. That is not an easy point to discern or find a solution too. But if an adjustment occurs, don't do it for the wrong reasons. Make sure it is what the game needs to grow, and not what the players need to feel like they do more than smash crates. They already have full control over that issue.

And whatever you do, do not trivialize the great effort and years of time that some folks have put into making their characters unique and capable. That goes as much for the AC changes as the insta death issues.

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^ Words of Wisdom.

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Originally Posted by Faent

It is roughly that penalizing, yes. Think about it more. I came to that conclusion (and have posted a lot of analysis) and I don't think LeLoric is just parroting my results.



Nerfing wail alone will put necromages roughly on par with the top-tier sorcerers and melees in terms of killing power. Depending on the size of the nerf to wail alone, it will put them behind top-tier sorcerers and melees in terms of killing power. A melee who doesn't build for maximum melee DPS shouldn't be compared to a wizard that does build for maximum trash DPS. Balancing top-tier casters against "everyone else" is not possible. Balance them against top tier everything else.

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That still isn't a proposal. HOW? Increase its cooldown to once per 3 minutes like PWK? Increase its SP cost to 200/cast? Reduce its DC/monster effected? Make it do damage instead of killing?

And that leaves PMs with CoD (on a medium length cooldown) and Finger of Death (on a shortish cooldown) as their main tricks...that seems weaker than Savants to me.

It also doesn't address the fact that even FoD is very strong against high HP monsters that aren't immune. Should all high-HP monsters be orange named? That's sort of the route we've seen taken, which I don't like much, though that isn't likely to change with Haunting anyway.

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Originally Posted by Thrudh

That's not a bad idea either. Increase wail and CoD and implosion SP costs.

There are much simpler answers to this issue that we could try (SP costs, cooldown timers) than this new and rather complex Haunting system.

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I think Turbine developers get credit (internally) from creating complicated systems. It's defenitely in the culture. I have no problem with complicated systems when they actually add to the gaming experience. But this haunting thing does not. Turb broke the system by allowing nearly unlimited casting of any level spells, then create a complicated system to control powerful, overused spells. Doesn't make sense (except for job security).

There is a perfecly acceptable way to limit casting of death effects. Increase mana cost. Solved. Done.

Oh! And no form of Haunting or Hard to Kill or whatever solution ends up being the frontrunner among the devs should see Live play until it gets thoroughly tested on Lamannia!

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Originally Posted by sephiroth1084

Spell points aren't a very effective limiter on caster power, due to the prevalence of Mnemonic Elixirs, clickies, SP discount items and too-frequent shrines. Not to mention things like the Torc.

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I see this said quite often (at least on the forums), yet my cleric, who has all the in game spell point regen items, has to manage his spell point usage to avoid running out. A lot of the FvS that I quest with, although starting with more spell points, do run out, leaving me to carry the party to the next shrine or a completion.

I suppose the big wild card is how many stacks of store mana pots you buy...

In any case, if spell points are not an effective limiter, we should simply remove the spell point bar from the game and give everyone unlimited spell points. Of course, this won't happen simply because store mana pot sales tell Turbine that what you are saying is just inaccurate. Any player can validate that spell points are a limiting factor by checking the prices of major mana pots at the AH. They are selling for quite a bit more than 100 plat...

Clearly, if we are going to balance the game, melee toons need a limiting factor akin to spell points. If it can be replenished by an item purchased from the DDO store, that simply increases funding for the game.