Caster balance issues

[MysticTheurge]

Irrelevant. What's an 80% increase on 1d12 compared to a 50% increase on a 14d6?

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

It only takes about 7 swings to get 14d6 out of 1d12 per swing (approximately speaking). So at a ratio of 7 swings per spell cast the barbarian is doing +80% to your +50%. Of course he can keep on doing it forever and you'll eventually run out of spell points.

So, how is that irrelevant?

Spell crit boosters are better, too.

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

[jkm]

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

It only takes about 7 swings to get 14d6 out of 1d12 per swing (approximately speaking). So at a ratio of 7 swings per spell cast the barbarian is doing +80% to your +50%. Of course he can keep on doing it forever and you'll eventually run out of spell points.

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

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).

lets also state that the fighter is operating unhasted and not using fighters haste boost 4


in the last update, they slowed the cooldowns of 1st and 2nd level spells for sorcs 9used to be 1 second now 2 will be 2.5 according to what is on risia)while speeding them up for wizards.

[jkm]

just to point out the silliness of the stats: that end skeleton guy in the tor has to be close to 10,000 hit points on elite.

also, would someone explain to me how 1 arcane can solo the tor for chests when you need at least 2 people to get more than 1 chest?

[BigNastyMP]

JKM, run it more than once for more than one chest.

[Silverblade-T-E]

Sigtrent,

You make the mistake that thinking the average of 6, is 3, it's not, it's 3.5 on a dice I already pointed that out regarding their hit points.
So lvl 10 wiz = 35 hp average damage Fireball.

The orcs have +2 on their Ref roll, they have to roll 18 or higher. 18, 19 and 20 = 3 out of 20, 15% save

You're right on groups of mobs being..odd. And personally, I always tend to give higher averages to any unusual mob, a bodyguard, ANY named etc, because, Darwinism applies: weakest die off. So, those orc bodguards, meh, I'd give 'em around 8-10 hp per die or the like...less the boss was afraid of them...and surrounded himself with guys who didn't threaten him

Uh, the wizard would be in a party, 1/3rd damage from him, tanks in the way to blck etc etc...it's prety good actually. be honest, 1/3rd right off such a tough mob is NOT something your party tank goes "haha, that was weak!" instead he goes, "Whew, that made my job a lot easier!" ebcause in PnP, PCs don't have the ludicrous gear and enahncements we get in DDO..least I hope not!
-in all the years I've played, my player's characters only ever twice got artifacts..though in my games, artifacts are literal "doomsday" weapons lol...DDO is ridiculous for gear.


On crits:
Casters use spells a LOT less than a melee swings, it's NOT "you cast 1 nuke while he swings 6 times" it's "you nuke once per minute, he swings 100 times per minute" so, the chance of crit massively falls in the favour of the constant user, NOT the infrequent user.
Easy example of this, what's better for total effect:
a) +1 on 100 rolls
b) +5 on 10 rolls.





If you answer b), go to the back of the D&D class

[Gimpster]

You make the mistake that thinking the average of 6, is 3, it's not, it's 3.5 on a dice I already pointed that out regarding their hit points.
So lvl 10 wiz = 35 hp average damage Fireball.

No. If you're talking about DDO spells, then a 1d6 comes out to 5 average, meaning a level 10 fireball is typically 50 typical damage.

It's understandable that reading the description you'd think 1d6 = {1,2,3,4,5,6} = (1+6)/2 = 3.5

But in fact, how DDO works is 1d6 = {4,4,5,5,6,6} = (4+6)/2 =5. You can run the game and test this yourself if you like.

[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.

[Gimpster]

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%.

A typical dwarf barbarian has a crit chance of 40% and a 3x crit multiplier.

[sigtrent]

You make the mistake that thinking the average of 6, is 3, it's not, it's 3.5 on a dice I already pointed that out regarding their hit points.
So lvl 10 wiz = 35 hp average damage Fireball.

The orcs have +2 on their Ref roll, they have to roll 18 or higher. 18, 19 and 20 = 3 out of 20, 15% save

True, I missed the numbers there, good catch, but the up shot is only a few points of damage, its not going to swing the encoutner around that much. And yes, 1/3 damage is decent, and you can do that in DDO fairly easily. I've gotten and seen others get lead kills in DDO using damage spells many times. I think a lot of folks just don't use them very well.

-in all the years I've played, my player's characters only ever twice got artifacts..though in my games, artifacts are literal "doomsday" weapons lol...DDO is ridiculous for gear.

The only "artifacts" in DDO are the raid items. Differnt folks play with different kinds of magic item levels. I've been in high and low magic games. Ultimately character abbities mean more. Give your wizard a +5 flaming burst great axe and... he will still rarely hit anything. It takes a combination of item and character to kick much but, and its all a matter of scaling. I think DDO items are a bit strong, but if you look at the random treasure tables, and the sheer amount of play each character gets (the PnP equivilent would be to play 20 DDO dungeons and then delete the character), its actualy not much of a variation.

You can get items like those in DDO if you played PNP hours and hours on end using the random treasure tables. Crazy good items would turn up from time to time and over the long haul your party, (and the 1000 other parties you trade with) would end up with quite the pile of loot. If there is any problem here its that the original rules were not set up for an MMO with thousands of PCs all trading gear with one another.

Try making a DDO character who never trades, never buys/sells items, never parties with anyone who does. You are a founder, you know what it was like first time around. DDO is only so twink because we the players make it so by seeking out the best items for our characters.

Casters use spells a LOT less than a melee swings, it's NOT "you cast 1 nuke while he swings 6 times" it's "you nuke once per minute, he swings 100 times per minute" so, the chance of crit massively falls in the favour of the constant user, NOT the infrequent user.
Easy example of this, what's better for total effect:
a) +1 on 100 rolls
b) +5 on 10 rolls.

Same story in PnP as well really. Melee characters get multiple attacks and never run out of juice. Casters have to pick and choose (especialy wizards) and you save your magic for when it will do the most good.

A caster in DDO can work their crit chance up to 18% without too much trouble, and with some spells like scorching ray you get 3 rolls at the crit chance (one per ray). You can cast it about as fast as a full 4 attacks from a melee, so you are only down about one crit chance. Each ray does around 30-40 points without critting and that is a typical melee attack damage number, although with SR you never ever miss a stationary target.

Meanwhile you can have your summoned creature fighting for you, and a firewall going, and etc... Casters are very good in DDO. If you are finding yoruself not contributing effectively you might need to look at your tactics.

The proof is in the questing, if a party of all casters can easily walts through a top end quest there really is nothing you can do to say casters are weak that isn't contradicted by the simple, demosntrable fact that they are not.

[Gimpster]

Try making a DDO character who never trades, never buys/sells items, never parties with anyone who does. You are a founder, you know what it was like first time around. DDO is only so twink because we the players make it so by seeking out the best items for our characters.

Players in PnP D&D also seek the best items for their characters. It's up to the DM to control the availability of that wealth, and/or to compensate for it by balancing future encounters with that wealth-level in mind.

It's fundamental that a good DM wouldn't allow a player to move a +5 mithral breastplate from a level 14 character to a level 6 character in a different party, but that is exactly what DDO permits.

[sigtrent]

A typical dwarf barbarian has a crit chance of 40% and a 3x crit multiplier.

Really? 19-20 improved crit.. 10%
Critical rage 2 adds 2 for a total of 17-20 which is 20%

So how is that 40%?

The only way you can do that I know of is sword of shadows.
14 - 20 with crit rage and improved crit

Carnifax is 18-20 + 2 from crit rage for 25%

A "typical" dwarven barbarian does not fight with sword of shadows. Perhaps in a heavy raiding guild, but even among the raiders I know most of the dwarves have great axes.

[sigtrent]

It's fundamental that a good DM wouldn't allow a player to move a +5 mithral breastplate from a level 14 character to a level 6 character in a different party, but that is exactly what DDO permits.

But there is no real DM here (and the item in question would need to be race restrict for a level 6 to use it). No one points a gun to your head and says you have to twink your characters. It is a personal choice. You can be your own DM and play however you like.

But in the rules in the PHB, you can get +5 items from a level 8 treasure horde. Unlikely, but it can happen. Roll it enough times and it will happen eventualy.

You can go through more combat encountes in a couple hours of DDO than you are likely to play in a year and a couple hundred hours of PnP.

People get this kind of jelousy that they think they have to be just as powerful as everyone else. If you want the game to be harder... just make it harder. What I hear is that people want it to be easier (the monsters have too many HP for my wizzard to kill them with a fireball) but they complain that the problem is that others are too strong, making it hard for them. So it boils down to.. make it hard for them so its easy for me... LAME!

The truth is that the melee strenth has a lot less to do with an extra +2 on a weapon than the fact it is a real time game and if you used the base D&D rules almost every fight would be over in about 6 seconds and it was probably felt that this made for some pretty boring combat. No time for strategy because if you blinked you'd miss it and human reaction times just arn't fast enough to take in all the information. By upping the HP they drew out the outcomes in combat, you can watch the trends happening and react to them.

DDO is what it is. THe massive number of people, the massively fast pace, the massive veriety of items... this will lead to massively powerul characters. It is an MMO and D&D is not. Them's the facts. If you want a tightly controled game you need to play with a limited number of people.

[Kethir]

Really? 19-20 improved crit.. 10%
Critical rage 2 adds 2 for a total of 17-20 which is 20%

So how is that 40%?

The only way you can do that I know of is sword of shadows.
14 - 20 with crit rage and improved crit

Carnifax is 18-20 + 2 from crit rage for 25%

A "typical" dwarven barbarian does not fight with sword of shadows. Perhaps in a heavy raiding guild, but even among the raiders I know most of the dwarves have great axes.

I think there's some barbarian enhancement that increases crit ranges.

Here's the solution to wizard dps. Increase monster hps.

I don't care how much your barbarian greataxe swinging dwarf does, he's not going to do 10,000 hps of damage in a swing. But that's exactly what my caster can do (as long as its not an undead monster). Eventually, monster hit points will be so yugioh (they are already on thier way there) that the only dps in a group will be the cleric, sorceror or wizard (via slay living, destruction, fod and pk). The rest of the characters will just shield wall for the casters, or better yet, retire (aren't characters who earn a living via physical strength all relegated to retirement after level 10? Thats what I thought).

I really am looking forward to groups of 1 sorc and 1 cleric, putting up lfms seeking sorcerors, wizards and clerics. It would be that way now,....i only the loot weren't so BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD.

[Balthazar_No_Oni]

Really? 19-20 improved crit.. 10%
Critical rage 2 adds 2 for a total of 17-20 which is 20%

So how is that 40%?

The only way you can do that I know of is sword of shadows.
14 - 20 with crit rage and improved crit

Carnifax is 18-20 + 2 from crit rage for 25%

A "typical" dwarven barbarian does not fight with sword of shadows. Perhaps in a heavy raiding guild, but even among the raiders I know most of the dwarves have great axes.

Well they may mean that they crit 40% of the time they actually HIT. Yes they do only crit 20% of the time they SWING. Just a guess....

[Silverblade-T-E]

I really despise having to use "one shot kill" spells to deal with content in this game, it's ridiculous.
So what if folk can Finger of Death through an adventure, like eh...what about undead/constructs and red names? what about wanting to use different spells? What about when they nerf spells like oh...giant hold tor? (by giving all giants freedom fo movement and death ward, and their saves are truly ridiculous)

I tend to preffer wanting to use enchantment and crowd control spells, which should icnlude grease and sleetstorm !!!, grr.
I can udnerstand enchantment won't work on undead/constructs, and on speical mobs like the insane ones in Madstone crater.
What I really don't like is seeing melee mobs save so much against Hold Monster etc.

Just because casters can do an adventure, doens't mean they are "powerful"
prison fo the Planes is grosssly gimped and quick, hence why folk do it.
Try ti with an all paladin party...bet they do well too.

I wan tthe game to move away from Monty Haul and lunatic enhancements (ours and items), and over powered mobs, back to D&D, so, skill, rather than zerg and loot, is what folk use to survive.
As I said WAAAAY back at start of the game, the devs started a stupid, dangerous arms race by adding enhancements, and I was right, why? 'Cause I've seen where that goes form my PnP games, so, I speka with experience of FUBARS

Folk who want DDO to be another stupid WOW clone, will kill the game, because oyu cna't out-WOW, WOW. EIther this is Dungeons and Dragons Online, or it dies, because D&D players won't play it...you don't upset the majority of your potential player base and survive.
Look at the amount of folk who left, my proof is clear, but silent. They dont' post, they LEFT.

Most folk I talk who left, loved the dungeons, as I do, but didn't like some of the following:
-Monty Haul. It's just wrong when Vorpals etc are common as they are now. it degrades the game and the "OOOH, looky!" of finding great items.
-Enhancements, ti screws with D&D rules, if it's broke, DON'T FIX IT!!!
-Not enough content, having to do the same quest again and again...
-Setting is bland, lot of folk don't liek Eberron (some do of course), but the city in DDO is boring. Compare it to Qeynos or Freeport in EQ2, lots of NPCs, witty dialogue etc.
-Messing with casters, nerfing them to PnP so often, but letting melee get crazy stuff.
-Not enough "out of dungeon things" to keep them inteested: roleplaying, crafting, guilds etc.

[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.