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.

[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.

[WaltzInBlack]

Did you manage to dps your way through them before taking casualties or did you skip?

[Bionca]

The vamp is fairly easy with a flesh to stone and then drop a nice fire wall on him and he dies prety fast that way.

[Nonan]

The only issue is when you face a larger number of Red Named mobs that cant be fingered/destructed/PK'd/or Danced. One or 2 is ok, but after that the Squish in Squishy becomes apparent. Still Max and Extend the Firewalls and let the BBQ begin!!!!!!!!! I love it when I see 100's fly !!!!!

I also liek to try the dualing aggro between 2 Sorcs, take a named mob, and sorcs ping pong the mob bewteen them using Scorching Ray to draw aggro, try it sometime, you will like it!!!!

[jkm]

or 6 firewalls with at least 1 or 2 critting for 350 a tick...

[Pyromaniac]

We had a 5 sorc, 1 fighter group run through POP on the weekend - yes we had the fighter because we had no more sorcs on at the time.

It was tremendously fun, because we got to do what we do best, and didn't have yells for buffs or get told to stand outside and pull the levers.

Reminds me of a lowbie 5 paladin 1 mage run through stormcleave eons ago....lots of fun

[BigNastyMP]

Congrats. I envy that party makeup.
Don't let SilverbladeTE see this thread...

[sigtrent]

Did you manage to dps your way through them before taking casualties or did you skip?

We skipped Air and Beholder on the run in question. Vampire is really quite easy with firewall and scorching ray. Marrut was pretty much the same story.

Strategy overall...
Eveyone stayed defensively buffed
Lots of firewalls and scorching rays for DPS when needed
Lots of Finger of Death, Destruction, and PK (My wizard is only level 11) for the rank and file monsters
Fearsome robes and fear spell as occasional CC
Cleric keeps folks healed as needed which really wasn't very often

I think one thing folks run into is when you are the only arcane, you have a hard time making your mana last an entire quest buffing the whole party, and also trying to cast offensively. When you have a huge pack of casters.. everyone buffs themselves and has lots of mana for letting loose. And when you have that many firewalls going doing damage is pretty easy and efficient and agro doesn't all go just to one caster. It gets spread around and the monsters end up switchign agro depending on who last blasted them. The biggest issue was folks all fingering the same mosnter and wasting SP. My Wiz has a fighter level and doesn't have finger so I spent some sections of the quest playing "pretend tank", basicaly getting initial agro or killing with stat damage. I didn't fight much in the actual rooms though, there it was either PK on memphits or Maximised FW+SR.

If anything, a casters problem in a traditional party is that the party is asking a bit too much from them. Buffing everyone and trying to help kill things just doesn't work out all that well in a shrine light quest. Melee characters naturaly prefer to be buffed than to watch you FOD or SR monsters, and sometiems buffing is the best way to go. But I really think limiting buffs to only those that are really usefull is the way to go. Some characters don't need all those buffs, some of them do. Same with any caster. A cleric that has to heal every last HP in the party is gonig to be hard pressed, but self healing is pretty common now. Self buffing is a bit less so except among those that like to play in small groups.

[Citymorg]

I play a capped, fire-nuker Sorcerer on Xoriat. She has a minimum of non-damage spells. Basically, it is the spells so valuable to the party that it would hurt the party not to have them. Haste, Web, Displacement (may swap this out), Solid Fog, Cloudkill and Resist Energy. Pretty much everything else is DPS. I expect my party members to go to House P if they want buffs, I nuke. If there is a particular situation that needs a certain spell (like the Air Room in Potp) I will cast the appropriate Resist (for 30pts instead of 20). Other than that, and an occasional haste, I don't buff. I scroll Jump and Greater Heroism (I have Finger of Death and Flesh to Stone). I let the fighters know that when they ask. I am willing to cast it, but it is going to cost money. Many do just fine without. That's just my playstyle and it seems to work for everyone. I have all the spells I need when I need them, but don't waste all my SP buffing before.

P.S.-The first thing I do when I enter a party is inform everyone that have very few buffs (of crowd control), so don't expect much. If the party is looking for a buffer/crowd control and say so, no harm done. I drop party and let them find someone else.

[Aspenor]

I prefer 2 casters to 1 for all quests.

[MysticTheurge]

I think one thing folks run into is when you are the only arcane, you have a hard time making your mana last an entire quest buffing the whole party, and also trying to cast offensively. When you have a huge pack of casters.. everyone buffs themselves and has lots of mana for letting loose.

And unfortunately for the assertion you're trying to make in the OP, "balance" has to consider both situations. In fact, the former is probably far more important since that's the situation that's far more likely to occur.

But maybe you're just suggesting that casters shouldn't buff people.

[Oran_Lathor]

Do you really feel we don't have enough mana for single (primary) caster groups, MT? I've found lately that I've had enough mana for buffs and to contibute otherwise, especially since most paladins/rangers are now capable and willing (at least the ones I play with..) to do elemental resists for the whole party.

I've actually found that I can give out whatever buffs are needed and still keep a respectable kill count while cc'ing all the while. Then again, both of my wizards are pretty tweaked out... I guess mana could be a problem for a more casually gaming wizard.

[MysticTheurge]

Do you really feel we don't have enough mana for single (primary) caster groups, MT? I've found lately that I've had enough mana for buffs and to contibute otherwise...

This is something that's came up a lot in the original SP discussion. My response tends to be "Just because I can stretch my SPs out doesn't mean I should have to." High level spellcasters should be able to be casting several spells per encounter. At high levels (in D&D), spellcasters are the way to clean up trash mobs (because one, say, fireball takes them all out). At high levels, spellcasters ought to be a force to be reckoned with all by themselves, at least when going one-on-one against a creature of equal CR (assuming, of course, that creature is specifically built to be anti-caster, like a golem).

But none of those things are true in DDO.

[Vi'Aed]

For wizards spell point frugality is certainly still an issue. My wiz is 13. With his magi item he has 1010 sp fully rested. Generally once I am done buffing (and I don't even generally carry blur or displacement) I'm in the mid to upper 700s.

Even then, 700 shouldn't be a bad amount, but it can get chewed up pretty damned fast. I try to make economic use of any spell over level 3, and use a great deal of things Hypno, Ray of Exhaustion, Touch of Idiocy, Slow, Otto's dance. (I'm a crowd control/debuff junky.) Heck, sometimes I'm just wand whipping lightning bolts, etc, to not just be standing there like an idiot. However, throw in one good caster-centric encounter (need FoD, PK, repeated WoF, etc) and that SP total plummets really freaking quick. Given that most of the quests I see these days seem to be 1 shrine that needs to be saved for as close to the end boss as possible... frugality is definitely the word of the day.

Part of it is, I believe, that I'm willing to buff. Every dungeon seems to require at least two (fire and acid) resists on every player. Generally more. Then Greater Hero on the tanks (and man does that eat SP) and the frequent hastes... it really takes a toll. I *should* put more of that onus on the melees in terms of them carrying resistance cloaks, shields, etc.

Just an opinion.