A Thread Which is Not about how Shadows Respond to Fire Spells

[MysticTheurge]

While it mentions both shadows and fire spells the following thread is not about how they respond to each other. Rather it is about how players respond to all incorporeal creatures and why. It's also about what can be done about that to improve the game. It has nothing to do with the changes from monday's patch.

Look guys, and by guys I mean Devs, here's the deal. The reason people use Wall of Fire on your undead is that they suck. We mostly use it on the incorporeal undead and here's why.

You can't cast spells on them. They phase out all the time and you waste your SPs on "not a valid target." I even tried casting some spells now that I have quicken. It still doesn't work. You either spam them, wasting about 75% of them and landing the rest, which is not good for your SPs, or you just give up on spells other than persistent AoE spells.

This problem is almost equally true for everyone else. Melee characters' best option is to stand around swinging at thin air hoping to catch them when they phase back in. Ranged characters have it easiest, relatively speaking, but given the problems inherent in Ranged attacks in DDO, that's not saying much. They also suffer from some of the same issues as everyone else, what with the things disappearing right out from under your arrows.

Wall of Fire on the other hand hits them every time they phase in. It's like you custom designed it for these super-annoying crappy-ass mobs. But then you get upset that people are just Wall of Fire-ing everything. But the problem, honestly, isn't Wall of Fire. It's the phasing.

People would still Wall of Fire if they didn't phase, but we wouldn't layer them and drag them all over. We also wouldn't be quite as upset when you just made things immune to Wall of Fire because there would be other valid, useful, reasonable tactics to use against them.

I know you've justified this phasing before by saying the things are intangibly sinking into the floor, and I've fired back with several reasons why your justification is flawed. The biggest reason is the Ready action, which allows PCs to essentially hold their actions until the target appears and fire at will. This means your sink-into-the-floor tactic really just delays everyone's assault on you in D&D. It's nothing like the "I'm going to waste all your SPs and make you just stand around looking like a dumb ass" tactic that it is in DDO. Thus, quite clearly, there's a problem with your implementation of this tactic.

And all of this is on top of the already existing difficulties of incorporeal undead. It's bad enough that no one can crit them, or sneak attack them and that we all have to use our ghost touch weapons, which are generally sub par (or suffer a 50% miss chance). And there's almost no chance to hit them with an instant death effect and stop it all before it starts, since all the spells don't work and the chances of finding a ghost-touch disrupting weapon is slim-to-none. Then you add this "feature" that just wastes time, resources and patience without actually adding anything to the game. It's not fun.

Since there's pretty much no way to implement "ready an action" for a real-time game like DDO, it's time to just give up the ghost (pun intended) and get rid of the phasing that incorporeal creatures do. I'll even let you keep it on Ogre Magi and Phase Spiders (since both of them have abilities that are much closer to their implementation), but the incorporeal undead have to stop. I don't lightly ask you to do things that would just benefit the players. And I'd never do it for no reason at all. But this has always been a problem and it's just getting worse.

So here's the deal. Get rid of the phasing and I guarantee you that the majority of the complaints about how LotD sucks will stop. It's a tactic that's not in keeping with the D&D rules. It's a tactic that's extremely unpleasant for the players (and not in a "Aw shucks, you got me" kind of way). And it's a tactic that needs to go.

[Dirac]

Had to check the dev tracker to understand what the heck is going on with the threads.

Still agree. Yes. please. Phaseing is not challenging, it is not fun.

[arcanna]

/Signed a thousand times

[Arianrhod]

Well, I hope this one is allowed to stay independent, though the opening post does have a few references to ...that spell

Anyway - agree, phasing out would be better gone.
Failing that,
Decreasing the chance to phase might help, will have to see how it plays out. Putting a timer on phasing, so a creature can't phase out for a certain amount of time after phasing in would probably help more, since the problem isn't so much about them spending too much time phased out as too little time phased in (not enough time to target/face/cast/swing/shoot).

[oronisi]

Well, I hope this one is allowed to stay independent, though the opening post does have a few references to ...that spell

Anyway - agree, phasing out would be better gone.
Failing that,
Decreasing the chance to phase might help, will have to see how it plays out. Putting a timer on phasing, so a creature can't phase out for a certain amount of time after phasing in would probably help more, since the problem isn't so much about them spending too much time phased out as too little time phased in (not enough time to target/face/cast/swing/shoot).

I like the timer idea. Phasing creatures should be scary. They phase out and you don't know where or when they are going to come back. Instead they do it like 50 times a fight, and you know almost exactly where they will phase back in.

Make phasing happen less, make the enemies move around while phased out. Make it scary and less annoying.

[Seanus]

Agreed, wholeheartedly. I play a caster most of the time (Sor 14), and I'd be content throwing Lightning Bolts and Magic Missiles IF I could get incorporeal creatures to stay visible for more than half a second. In pen and paper, sure, they can hide in walls, floors, ceilings, etc, but as Mystic said, in pen and paper, we can ready an action to unload on it as soon as it appears. Not to repeat the point, but as it was previously mentioned, we are unable to ready actions here, which makes the shadows and other incorporeal creatures basically god-moders. They sneak their hits in and we can't do much of anything. Nothing is even remotely reliable. Long story short, the phasing really must stop, or at the very least cut down immensely in it's repetition. It's at the point now where it just isn't fair. It's just swinging blindly praying for a hit, and keeping an eye on your constantly depleting HP. So please, Developers, cut down on the phasing. It just isn't fair to the players.

[Kerr]

Agreeing with myself, again, yes, Phasing sucks. The AI is too flakey, there has to be a long cooldown between phasing in and out again. The way that incorp undead phase in just long enough to take an attack and them out again is ridiculous. Also, you should not lose targetting on them because they are a masive PITA to reacquire for spell casting targetting and make being a meleer against them just an advertisement for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

[Spectralist]

I agree. I could not stand LotD part 2 because of the constant phasing. I haven't even bothered giving part 3 a chance because of it. If i were told that part 3 has no incorporeals, or that they do not phase out constantly then i might actually run them.

Undead are getting rather old to begin with, but incorporeals are simply unbearably frustrating and tedious.

PS. Love the thread title!

[Mourn]

Make the "in phase" longer so we can at least do something. Otherwise the only thing that I have to use to kill them is wof.

[Qzipoun]

Thanks for reposting this MT, got buried in that mass thread

(I don't believe in merging thread but not my decision )

[ChaosTheEternal]

Hear, hear!



It's been a problem from the beginning, something I'd call a poor design choice, before the implementation of Shadows and Wall of Fire.

Shadows (and the other Shadow/Umbral ilk) made the problem much more prevalent, as they did the phasing thing much, much, much, much more often. But the problem was always there.


The right thing would be to fix the design flaw (either remove phasing for incorporeal undead or enforce a cooldown timer for phasing on all creatures), not just band-aid what we do because of that flaw.

[Raithe]

Since I was too late last time this thread was created to post my agreement, I'll do it this time.

I agree. The phasing in and out is mind numbing play that seems to lose all credulity. Vampires going bats is included.

[Hafeal]

/signed

Not only would it make the new mod 5 more enjoyable, it would make all of the old Necro quests enjoyable for the first time.

[arikka_hador]

Since there's pretty much no way to implement "ready an action" for a real-time game like DDO, it's time to just give up the ghost (pun intended) and get rid of the phasing that incorporeal creatures do. I'll even let you keep it on Ogre Magi and Phase Spiders (since both of them have abilities that are much closer to their implementation), but the incorporeal undead have to stop. I don't lightly ask you to do things that would just benefit the players. And I'd never do it for no reason at all. But this has always been a problem and it's just getting worse.

Obviously, tons of people are agreeing wholeheartedly with this, and I'm one of them! Phasing has been annoying since the wraiths in Delera's Tomb, in my opinion. A few people are angry about the situation with the Desecrated Temple of Vol, as well--apparently this update has made a situation where the quest is practically impossible to complete, now. It's just not fair, and it's just not fun.

/hug <MysticTheurge> :P

[Riggs]

signed

[BigNastyMP]

MT, I appreciate when you post and it is obvious that you care about casters who play this game. However, I do not agree with much of what you say here and I can elucidate my position in a manner in which I am sure you can understand. This is not a personal attack.

There is a semantics issue about whether this thread is about shades and WoF, in which case there is one super-thread for that discussion, or if this is about players’ reactions to phasing mobs. Different in theory, but most of what is discussed here is about phasing (specifically shades) and WoF. I don’t want to linger on this point, but this is all part and parcel of the same larger issue. I understand you do not want your thread merged with the others. However, your opinion, while stated more often and better written than the norm, is still just one person’s opinion among many. As is mine.

You argue that WoF is not the problem, phasing is the problem. I disagree. WoF is the least creative, most over-used and most over-powered spell in this game currently. Yes, I use it all the time. All sorcerers and wizards carry it and use it consistently. It damages every mob in the game except for shades, fire elementals, fire mephitis, a few raid bosses and a handful of other mobs. The spell WoF abuses the less intelligent AI of mobs who insist on standing in the range of the WoF despite taking lethal damage from it. Entire quests, especially the new content, consist of the party pulling everything to a central location where multiple WoFs cut down mobs efficiently and without a fight. It was a problem in black anvil mines, it is a problem in LotD. I understand that this argument addresses the exact point you said this thread was not about, so I move to what this thread is about: “how players respond to all incorporeal creatures.”

Targeted spells, even quickened, do not work consistently on phasing mobs. Fighters swing at empty air until they connect and even rangers have problems hitting with ranged attacks. You cannot hit what is not there, and phasing mobs are often chilling on the ethereal plane laughing at you as you swing and cast at empty air. A readied action is a good tactic to utilize in turn-based pnp games. DDO is not pnp, and readied actions are, by your own admission, not able to be implemented. You say that phasing mobs share the following philosophy: "I'm going to waste all your SPs and make you just stand around looking like a dumb ass.” I agree that wasting spell points makes you look like a dumb ass, but phasing mobs are not forcing you to cast targeted spells, wasting your SPs, or swing against nothing. You must admit that there are other alternative AoE damaging spells available to us. They are not as powerful as WoF but they do exist and they affect phasing mobs like WoF used to.

You make a point that these phasing mobs are difficult to kill. Incorporeal undead are immune to crits, immune to sneak attacks and have a %50 miss chance versus normal attacks. I imagine that they are also immune to trip, stun, sap, poison and many other specialized attacks. Ghost touch disruptors are rare and insta-kill, save or die, spells are not very effective against them. This is true. However, you say, “all the spells don't work and the chances of finding a ghost-touch disrupting weapon is slim-to-none.” Some spells do work against these phasing undead and the ethereal bracers make any weapon, including disruption, ghost touch. We have the ability to kill them effectively at our disposal right now, post change. If they were invincible, then I would have a problem.

These mobs have been made more difficult to kill, but that is a good thing in my book. We used WoF on these phasing undead because they did suck: they were very easy and they hardly presented a challenge. This has been changed. They suck less now because they are harder. You call it a waste of resources, time and patience while I say it is not a waste. It is not fun for you, but one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

What we can probably agree on is that the blanket immunity to WoF given to these phasing mobs is a lazy quick-fix. High fire resistance or the ability not to stand directly in the middle of a WoF are both changes that would accomplish the same goal of preventing WoF abuse. I am positive that the Devs have heard the collective shout of protest from casters that have been negatively affected by this change. Please make sure that the reaction we give to the devs is one of measured rationality instead of knee-jerk emotionalism lest all aspects of challenge be removed from the game.

Respectfully yours,

[MysticTheurge]

You argue that WoF is not the problem, phasing is the problem. I disagree. WoF is the least creative, most over-used and most over-powered spell in this game currently.

Be that as it may, it wasn't over-used enough in other quests to warrant special fixes. And the reason remains that it's not WoF in particular that makes people use it so much vs. incorporeal undead, it's the phasing. That's the general gist of this post.

It damages every mob in the game except for shades, fire elementals, fire mephitis, a few raid bosses and a handful of other mobs. The spell WoF abuses the less intelligent AI of mobs who insist on standing in the range of the WoF despite taking lethal damage from it.

No more so than any other persistent AoE spell. Some, like acid fog or blade barrier actually damage more enemies in the game than WoF. It's the particular way the WoF damage is implemented that makes it so appealing against incorporeal undead. They get hit every time they phase in. This essentially turns their annoying, obnoxious, tactic back on them.

A readied action is a good tactic to utilize in turn-based pnp games. DDO is not pnp, and readied actions are, by your own admission, not able to be implemented.

The discussion of Ready an Action is to point out that this implementation of incorporeal creatures is not faithful to D&D. At least not in spirit. It may follow the letter of all the relevant rules, but in truth this kind of thing is highly ineffective in pen and paper D&D. I know, cause every encounter I've run with incorporeal creatures or phase spiders or anything similar, you just can't pull this sort of thing off.

You say that phasing mobs share the following philosophy: "I'm going to waste all your SPs and make you just stand around looking like a dumb ass.” I agree that wasting spell points makes you look like a dumb ass, but phasing mobs are not forcing you to cast targeted spells, wasting your SPs, or swing against nothing.

No, but you have a choice. If you're a melee character, you swing a lot and hope you hit them when they phase in. Or you stand around waiting for them to phase in, then try to charge. In the former scenario you look like the aforementioned "dumb ass" while in the latter you're far less likely to hit anything, just prolonging the already frustrating experience.

As a caster you have a few more options. Try to cast targeted spells, probably wasting SPs in the process. Cast persistent AoE spells (generally fire wall for the reasons I've previously discussed). Or just don't cast spells and wait for the melees who are busy swinging at thin air to eventually kill the stuff.

You make a point that these phasing mobs are difficult to kill. Incorporeal undead are immune to crits, immune to sneak attacks and have a %50 miss chance versus normal attacks. I imagine that they are also immune to trip, stun, sap, poison and many other specialized attacks.

Indeed, the point being that they're difficult to kill before they start using cheap tactics that aren't faithful to the D&D rules.

However, you say, “all the spells don't work and the chances of finding a ghost-touch disrupting weapon is slim-to-none.” Some spells do work against these phasing undead and the ethereal bracers make any weapon, including disruption, ghost touch. We have the ability to kill them effectively at our disposal right now, post change. If they were invincible, then I would have a problem.

My reference to "all the spells" not working was specifically to those spells which are instant-death spells. None of the ones that are currently implemented function on undead. This will change in Mod 6 with the implementation of Trap the Soul, but in the meantime none of them work (and, even once that's implemented it doesn't help much at mid-to-high-levels, 9th-14th).

Yes, the "ethereal bracers." Great, that's all well and good. Now what about the people who don't have this one specific named item from a high-level quest? As several people have suggested in other threads, it's not a good idea to hang the entirety of the metagame on a single item.

By and large, the point here was simply to bring to the fore the fact that undead in general and incorporeal undead in particular are already hard to kill. There're no shortcuts and most people are using sub-par weapons or taking a 50% miss-chance. They're obviously not invincible and I don't believe I ever suggested such a thing. They're just hard to kill, even before you add any sort of phasing in and out.

You call it a waste of resources, time and patience while I say it is not a waste. It is not fun for you, but one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting that the changes that have been made were a waste of time, resources or patience. I don't have anything to say (in this thread at least) about the changes that were made.

Fights with incorporeal undead rapidly become a waste of resources, time and patience though, largely because of the phasing mechanic. You was SP. They take longer to kill than other comparably rated enemies/quests. And people quickly run out of patience for their phasing "tactics."

As I tried to emphasize before, I've had a problem with incorporeal creatures and their phasing long before yesterday, long before Mod 5 even. I've always thought it was a cheesy, no-fun, not-in-line-with-D&D-3.5 tactic. It just seemed like an appropriate time to restart the discussion.

[BigNastyMP]

MT and Chaos, I agree with much of your responses. I disagree with some points and will explain. I was going to say that there is the death to undeath spell that insta-kills undead, but, seriously, who would I be kidding? You are correct there.

"Be that as it may, it wasn't over-used enough in other quests to warrant special fixes." Except, the doors added to BAM to prevent pulling all mobs into a WoF was a special fix. WoF went through doors and has been used in raid exploits both which have caused special fixes. These fixes may also have been influenced by other persistent AoE spells, but WoF is one of the offenders. I understand how custom made firewall feels against those phasers, I do. It made killing phasers easy, too easy and now there has been a change (a change we have nothing to say about).

As to the spirit of D&D, I do not recall seeing shadows in action but I can imagine that they are easier to kill with the ability to ready an action. The second they appear, I cast. The AI of the mobs standing in a firewall is not in the spirit of pnp either. There must exist a happy medium between what pnp allows and what DDO allows, one is limited only by the imagination while the other has finite programming limitations.

The entirety of the metagame hinging on a single item is a very extreme sentiment. Ghost touch and disruption weapons mitigate these type of undead quite well on their own. The ethereal bracers provide the added luxury of combining ghost touch and disruption for endgame players. And, yes, incorporeal subtypes are not on the ethereal plane, I blame the ethereal bracers for that mix-up.

"Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting that the changes that have been made were a waste of time, resources or patience." Me neither. I was referring to killing phasing undead as not being a waste of time, money and patience.

The other spells that damage these undead are not as good as WoF was. No one is saying that they are. We have been given other spells that we can use successfully against these mobs and must learn to cast them better. No one has mentioned the 2nd and 7th level spells that puts these shades on your side of the battlefield (talk about turning their "annoying, obnoxious, tactic back on them"). There are other tactics out there other than just grabbing aggro and kiting through a WoF. Open that spellbook and dust off a spell or two.

MT said it best, "I've always thought it was a cheesy, no-fun, not-in-line-with-D&D-3.5 tactic." Except I speak of WoF shenanigans and not the phasing ability of undead mobs. These poor mobs out there die so fast already, a blanket immunity to fire and quirky phasing ability let them survive longer and that is good.

I think I have said what I can here. I'm not totally disagreeing with you but I do not think that the phasing ability of any mob is game breaking, it is not significantly reducing the level of fun, it is reasonably bypassed and not the cause for this much concern, consternation or change. Consider the fact that these incorporeal mobs are able to do bludgeoning damage in addition to strength damage. It speaks of a compromise to make the mobs more challenging, just like their phasing.

And GC, I guess I am one to look at this as a challenge and say, bring it on. I am not one to lower my face into my hands in abject frustration.

[Seanus]

If I may, it seems that you keep speaking of WoF. It's still a reasonable tactic against other phasers, so the only issue you seem to argue is that it's justified in giving the shades in Vol fire immunity, which it might be. You say dust off other spells in the spellbook, but what would be worth it? They phase out before the graphic touches, then the spell's wasted. MT already mentioned the only pseudo-reliable solutions for those particular shades, but even that can be bypassed.

Tell me something... Would it be fair if players could phase against, oh, the Stormreaver, or Velah, or any high end creature? It wouldn't be. So why is it fair for these creatures to phase on us? I use high end creatures as an example because we as an adventuring party of 6 present the challenge for these mobs equivalent to a raid boss. Besides... Since when can incorporeal creatures phase in and out? The only incorporeal creature that I can think of are Ghosts. And where are Ghosts? Nowhere, if I recall correctly.

I agree with MT in the fact that this isn't a faithful to D&D 3.5 tactic... And Wall of Fire is rather faithful, most undead we encounter have a relatively low intelligence score (6-8), making them more likely to charge right into a wall of fire... Especially if you take into consideration certain rulings from the Libris Mortis, which they have already started to do by taking monsters from that book. Undead that deal ability damage must deal that damage on a daily basis, or start to go mad (if they aren't already), and will do anything regardless of the risk to get their fix, because they essentially absorb it.

Anyways, now I'm just dragging on about a different point. Point is, the incorporeal undead shouldn't have the ability to phase because they never had it in standard D&D, and we don't have enough effective options to combat it, short of a few boomstick casters.

[Yaga_Nub]

"Be that as it may, it wasn't over-used enough in other quests to warrant special fixes." Except, the doors added to BAM to prevent pulling all mobs into a WoF was a special fix. WoF went through doors and has been used in raid exploits both which have caused special fixes. These fixes may also have been influenced by other persistent AoE spells, but WoF is one of the offenders. I understand how custom made firewall feels against those phasers, I do. It made killing phasers easy, too easy and now there has been a change (a change we have nothing to say about).

Absolutely 10000&#37; incorrect sir. The doors were added because we could aggro all the dwarfs and pull them back to the ladder that in near that door, climb up, and then range them at will with spells and ranged weapons. This was an exploit of the AI because the dwarfs couldn't climb up the ladder as well.

So please don't tie every broken and easy quest or broken and easy creature back to Wall of Fire and how over-powered it is (because it's not).

And Arikka makes a great point, force is supposed to hit even when phased so why doesn't it?