Caster balance issues

[sigtrent]

Nonsense

I just wanted to share an expereince I had on sunday. My guild was doing some pop runs and we had a couple people call it for the night. Casting the net on guild chat we picked up a sorcerer and a wizard. This left us with 2 socrerers 1 wizard 1 cleric 1 paladin and a bard. This would not do. So we did some juggling of characters and came up with 2 socrerers 3 wizards and 1 cleric. Much better.

Laughing about it, we went in on elite to give it a try and see what would happen. Never had a faster or smoother POP run ever. One death (because the cleric was having too much fun using destruction). Took about 25 minutes (not a record time but we wern't trying to go especialy fast). Every room was easy as pie and the end took all of a 12 seconds to drop the WF.

We had a more clasicly balanced party before that and while we did fine, but it was much easier with the all caster party. My guild is not an elite fighting squad, were casual but enthusiastic players. None of these characters are sporting scads of raid loot or tomes on every stat. The sheer amount of CC or damage an all caster party can put out is insane! It boggles my mind how anyone can think arcane casters are weak.

[Rentz]

i have absolutely no doubt that you simply 'pwnd' the dungeon.

however, I bet you all got garbage/useless/redundant chest and static rewards... am i right??

:P

i shelf'd my caster this weekend and stuck to my paladin... 3 paralyzers in 5 or 6 pop runs, and it was actually a tough decision on whether or not I should take the paras. but i digress.

for sheer offensive output a caster hasn't really lost anything with the recent updates.

[Ghoste]

I am convinced that a party of all casters is the ultimate way to go.

To fine tune that, make sure they are all self healing (ie. wf wiz and sorcs) and that at least one or two can cast raise dead or use the scrolls.

There was a thread a while ago about getting an all wiz/sorc party together, and eventually decided to go with a wf only setup. Unfortunately it seemed to fall through.

here's the link to that thread.

I have characters on Ghallanda (Ghoste, Raythe, Draugr) and Argo (Ghoste). If anyone's ever feeling up to some all caster runs, give me a shout.

[Uska]

I am convinced that a party of all casters is the ultimate way to go.

To fine tune that, make sure they are all self healing (ie. wf wiz and sorcs) and that at least one or two can cast raise dead or use the scrolls.

There was a thread a while ago about getting an all wiz/sorc party together, and eventually decided to go with a wf only setup. Unfortunately it seemed to fall through.

here's the link to that thread.

I have characters on Ghallanda (Ghoste, Raythe, Draugr) and Argo (Ghoste). If anyone's ever feeling up to some all caster runs, give me a shout.

Yeah was sorry to see that fall through I think several of us had some rl issues interfer at first I still have the high wis caster I made for that and he is still lvl 2 sorcerer I think but at work and cant check for sure

[Silverblade-T-E]

BigNastyMP,
unfortunatley for you, others noticed the same thing (giants resist less on elite vs stone to flesh).
Considering the screwups that occur in games, it's not impossible to suggest that the devs got some saves wrong way round or the like while creating that dungeon...FYI I used to find bugs, flaws and exploitable things in EQ and did feedback on that (was a beta tester who worked on the Magician class as that was my fave)

And you're damned right I call out "DOOOOM!" because soon, this game is gonna be a ghost town.
The ratio of "fanbois" to "everyone else" on these forums has increased, because more of the rest of the players have "left the game". hence all the request for server mergers etc...if the game was "great" and "healthy", that would not occur.
It is having problems because of fanbois and loot grubbers supporting bad dev decisions.

As I've repeatedly said: the dungeons are good, way the game works is great, but, the enhancements (player and items), Monty Haul, crazy melee attack bonus, has broken the game (D&D) and lead to over powered mobs and loot grubbing as the prime focus.

From experience, buffing melee is far more effective than anything else I can do, so *** should I bother playing, just get a buff bot or a House J NPC who can cast Blur/haste for 30 minutes, hm?
Buff = no resist. Buff = increase melee output either directly, or indirectly by keeping them alive.
I dont' have a problem with buffing, it's part of what a wizard can do, but when you actually look at how DDO works in play...it's grotesque.
A Maximized Cone of Cold is nowhere near as effective as a 2+ minute haste, unless the party is swamped and you get a crit off...and the Max cone of cold costs a hell of a lot more SP than extended haste.

There's not enough Spell Points for the amount of encounters in missions, because the encounters are ALL at the max CR which doesn't occur in PnP, thus, casters burn spells faster than normal D&D.

As said, glad the OP had fun
But just keep watching server populations drop and ask yourself WHY, and if you are making things any better by saying thngs are "ok".

[sigtrent]

however, I bet you all got garbage/useless/redundant chest and static rewards... am i right??
.

Incorrect. We had a +2 paralyzing dwarven axe, and a +1 paralyzing club of pure good drop in the chests, along with lots of 'decent' stuff. End rewards included two +6 stat items, a banishing crossbow and a few other nice goodies.

[theblaz]

Well, that settles it.

Casters are balanced.

What's next?

[llevenbaxx]

I always wanted to try that but without a guild I figured it would be more of a pain to coord than it was worth. Will have to try it sometime. Have gone through PoP as a wizard with a sorc and a clr, that was some good caster dominating fun too.

[Cowdenicus]

bah your all caster runs are meh.

Do it with all clerics, then you are so money.

[Jyvva]

It boggles my mind how anyone can think arcane casters are weak.

Individually, casters are fodder. My opinion. Others may vary.

However, I won't dispute the fact that four casters together can take out mobs.
DDO is a zergfest. Doesn't really matter what class they are as long as they can lay down the DPS as a group.

[Silverblade-T-E]

Gimpster,

No, I was meaning Pen and Paper D&D
since, yes, the average of 1-6 is 3.5, or for d12 for the hypotheticla orcs hps it's 6.5

DDO seems to use something like 1d2+4 or the like for d6 rolls *scratches head*

Mob saves also seem borked, not just too high, it feels like their saves are more like, say 1d10+10 rather than 1d20, because you notice increases in caster Stat bonus (Int for example) doing a lot more than you'd expect, and mobs failing a hell of a lot less than you'd expect by the d20 random.

[Solik]

1) mana (SP) is a managed (limited) resource

Most of the balance complaints I see come up in the end game... you know, where you don't need XP anymore and you can just recall for refill if you absolutely have to.

2) Efficacy meaning clickies, only 3 casters per rest period, and they last only 30 seconds per cast, and hence less effective

Potency.

You can also carry many Efficacy items if you wish (so, for example, you can equip something other than Potency items for further power boosts). You may have to carry fewer wands or scrolls to have the space, but that's the way it goes.

3) The increase save or die DC increase by 1 is comparatively useless because what is 1 DC compared to a DC 20 to 30 save? Yes, it is less than 5% and it uses mana. For a vorpal, rolling a 20 for d20 is 5%.

It depends. It's exactly +5% if the monster saves on a roll of 5 or above without the item (obviously you won't spam garbage monsters with save-or-dies if their saves are that good; we're talking important monsters that don't have immunities here). Amusingly, that's a 25% increase in your success rates (20 --> 25). If the monster saves on a 19 or 20 without the item, then having the item cuts their save rates in half (from 1/10 to 1/20).

Percentages are funky depending on what angle you look at it from.

Uh. 80% to 50%. That's how percentages work.

'Kay. Now let's look at numeric effects. I'll ignore Gimpster's comments for the moment, even though I'm pretty sure they actually help my case.

80% increase on a 1d12 is an average of around +5. 50% increase on a 14d6 is an average of around +25.

And of course, this is a level three spell being used here.

Now, you can get into the SP argument again, but that's entirely unrelated to caster equipment power. If casters don't have enough SP, fine, they don't have enough SP. Doesn't mean potency items are weak.

Uh. Spell crits? We're comparing to melee right? You realize they get "crits" without having to take any enhancements, right?

I was saying that spell crit boosts would be better than resistance-piercing boosts.

Casters can also get spell crits when equipping items, of course. And they even stack with enhancements, I hear.

plus a melee gets 7 swings to crit at a 10% chance on a great axe (lets not get into how ridiculously overpowered the sword of shadows is here) compared with a 1 time 9%/3x chance for the caster (sans items) if he is FULLY specced (meaning a ridiculous amount of action points to get there)

When a melee can do over 800 damage on a crit, you get back to me.

Want to talk repeated crits? Fine. How about a crit firewall?

No melee can equal the sustained damage output of a metamagicked, item-enhanced crit firewall. Not even close.

[Mad_Bombardier]

When a melee can do over 800 damage on a crit, you get back to me.

Want to talk repeated crits? Fine. How about a crit firewall?

No melee can equal the sustained damage output of a metamagicked, item-enhanced crit firewall. Not even close.

Let's talk about magic damage then. I was helping a guildie do quests for favor. We were in Freshen the Air on Elite, and I was having a good bit of fun lighting stuff up. I have Maximize, but wasn't using it. I figured, level 4(+2) quest, level 14 Wizard, not gonna bother. Landed a perfectly average Fireball crit on a Trog (not a chieftain, but armored warrior) for 242 dmg = 51 * 1.9 * 2.5 and the Trog didn't go down.

When a melee can drop him with a single attack chain, and a boosted/critting Wizard, but non-metamagicked, can't with a single casting (same time period/rate of attack), something is wrong. Melee and casters are not 1 for 1. They are 4 melee attacks for 1 spell. Look at the damage output over your entire attack chain.

[sigtrent]

Landed a perfectly average Fireball crit on a Trog (not a chieftain, but armored warrior) for 242 dmg = 51 * 1.9 * 2.5 and the Trog didn't go down.

When a melee can drop him with a single attack chain, and a boosted/critting Wizard, but non-metamagicked, can't with a single casting (same time period/rate of attack), something is wrong. Melee and casters are not 1 for 1. They are 4 melee attacks for 1 spell. Look at the damage output over your entire attack chain.

What mele is doing that on a typical attack chain? I'm sure its possible but you need to crit more than once to pull it off. I recently worked up a pretty insane dwarven barbaran bard build. It should go about +30 to hit and +44 to damage at level 14, all buffed up. Even if I landed 4 attacks it is only apporaching 200 points of damage. One crit will send it up in the 250 range, two would put it over, but crit chance for this guy is still only 10%. A maxed out crit chance for wizard is 18%.

Also, fireball is far from the best damage spell for a single target. Scorching ray is superior and a level lower.

Don't forget your fireball is an area spell. You could have delivered 240 damage to a whole pack of monsters, somethign the melee can never do. Its like saying you took your cruise missile out and killed a guy by himself in the desert and then complained another guys 38 special killed him just as effectively. The melee is using his best weapon for the task at hand and you are using a middling to decent one designed for a different task.

[Tyrande]

Mana is a managed resource.

Most of the balance complaints I see come up in the end game... you know, where you don't need XP anymore and you can just recall for refill if you absolutely have to.

Yeah, arcane casters can do that when they are capped. How about uncapped casters that are 1 or 2 levels lower and still need XP? How about quests WHERE YOU CANNOT RECALL? like raids? Where is the balance there?

Capped casters can recall, but why should they do that when melees don't have to? They might also not familiar with the quest and/or the way back and get extra SP lost or health lost while on the way.

[jkm]

'Kay. Now let's look at numeric effects. I'll ignore Gimpster's comments for the moment, even though I'm pretty sure they actually help my case.

80% increase on a 1d12 is an average of around +5. 50% increase on a 14d6 is an average of around +25.

And of course, this is a level three spell being used here.

actually that would be a level 7 spell. the level 3 caps at 10d6 which puts us at around +13 with 1/2 the output.

[Ghoste]

You've inspired me.

[Drfirewater79]

I think there are alot of issues with messing with the way casters are set up

Casters are suppost to do more damage then other classes THAT IS WHAT THEY GIVE UP FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO DO WEAPON DAMAGE

if a caster with a cone of cold against a fire giant can do max empowered about 1200-1800 damage yeah sure that totally rocks but they get alot less then that on average hits against spell resistances sometimes a wizards fire wall max and empowered does only 5-10 in outer wall and 30 inner wall other times it does 30 outer and 300 inner and a sorc can maybe get 600 a hit if you think about it a fighter using top end weapons like lets say +5 shocking burst greatsword of cloud burst i see max damage at anywhere from 100-200 points of damage forget about it i am a pali using holy smite ability i could do up to 200-400 points of damage with onehit max rolls crit success and i have 5 chances to hit that damage per combo (roughly the same time it takes a caster to recast same spell again unless the are a sorc which the sorc gives up the ability to change spells at will

so lets say i dont crit and get low rolls guess what i bet i still do more damage then a low roll unmax'd unempowered caster spell

casters have to focus to become super powerfull

casters who dont take the feats required to be powerfull are effected by the changes drastically

so instead of crying that the caster stole your kill count you should maybe think about how often it is that a fighter gets the kill count all to himself cause i am betting that the missions where there are almost no shrines and where casters set CC instead of damaging spells go much different then the one or two times when a caster putting his best spell forward leads to some powerfull outcomes

man if you are scared of casters now just wait for lvl 9 spells you have not seen damage like fist of god 20d20 damage smashing an area repeatedly over time max'ed and empowered

muah ha ha ha ha ha ha

its about time players stuck together instead of complaining about how someon else managed to make better or more powerful character then you did instead just ask the guy how he did it and make your own