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

[Seanus]

Consider one other aspect to the phasing. If I'm not mistaken, the 50% incorporeal miss chance does not apply to many spells as we have no touch attacks. Therefore, the only way to give Shadows the ability to 'dodge' spells is to make them phase. Some will argue that we should just implement touch attacks, but those same people have also suggested many other changes that will never, ever get implemented with the resources the dev team currently has (this would fall into that category). I suppose the doable game mechanic change would be to make shadows zoom around much faster thereby making them harder to hit with ranged spells/attacks (or even give them the ability to dodge ).

As for difficulty? If you remove phasing, they will just die even faster in a firewall (or by any other method), making the quests that much easier. Since DDO quests are mostly and exercise in resource preservation, killing things faster means the quest is easier (to those that just say phasing makes it longer and more annoying, but not harder). Shadows will need some beefing up to compensate. More frequent attacks would be the obvious one as their ratio of attacks to the time they are vulnerable to attack just went down considerably.

And if I'm not further mistaken, I thought that the Monster Manual description of Shadows described their tactics (in part) as popping out of a wall in a dark corner somewhere, making an attack on an unsuspecting adventurer, and then popping back in. Sounds like it's in the spirit of phasing at least.

On another note .. lets see some Blink Dogs!

In pen and paper, any magical spell can be avoided 50% of the time by an incorporeal creature unless the spell has the [Force] descriptor. So, I says remove phasing and give spells a 50% miss chance, just like attacks. It can't be that hard.

[GeneralDiomedes]

In pen and paper, any magical spell can be avoided 50% of the time by an incorporeal creature unless the spell has the [Force] descriptor. So, I says remove phasing and give spells a 50% miss chance, just like attacks. It can't be that hard.

If they could do that, and playtesting did not reveal it to be even more annoying than phasing, it would be an even better solution

But at least you can see where they are coming from.

[Vorn]

Minority report--I like the phasing. I think it needs adjusting along the lines of Eldarin's post. Lag/latency issues server side/client side make targeting extremely difficult if not impossible instead of challenging under the current set up. Adjusting the randomness of their phase sequence and their time on station ought give folks the chance they long for to successfully target the little boogers (however I doubt folks will change to other spells--it seems everything gets pretty much the same treatment these days). No doubt it is annoying to many people--dang it missed again! I kind of like annoying monsters though, well except spastic mummies, but those are so mod 3.

[MysticTheurge]

If they could do that, and playtesting did not reveal it to be even more annoying than phasing, it would be an even better solution

At least at that point you could add some stuff to reduce the miss chance. A Ghost-touch metamagic, or a line of enhancements that reduces the miss chance.

As it is, there's no mechanical way to tweak it because it's just a "that's not a valid target" message.

[Memnir]

I agree - phasing has gotta go. It's been one of the single most annoying aspects of DDO for as long as I've been playing.

It's a lousy mechanic, and it annoys the living hell out of 99.9% of the player base.

[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.

[ChaosTheEternal]

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.

Which is part of the problem, where they merely have to attempt to hit constantly hoping that their swing occurs in the small window that the mob phases in and back out.

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.

Incorporeal creatures do not exist on the Ethereal plane.

Phase Spiders, Quari Stalkers, etc. exist on the Ethereal Plane and jump over and back (phasing), but Wraiths and Spectres and Shadows exist only on the Material Plane, so their phasing makes a lot less sense.

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.

Acid Rain? Oh, 10 seconds of 3d4 damage per tick if they manage to step into the little rain cloud.
Acid Fog? 2d6 per tick, lasts a bit longer than Wall of Fire, has Solid Fog's slowing effect.
Blade Barrier? 1d6 per level (min 11d6), but they can phase right through the blades without taking damage.
Compared to...
Wall of Fire? 2d6 + level (min of 7) per tick (doubled against undead), with a static area and a decent duration.

Acid Fog is the closest winner, but since mobs only take damage after a full two seconds inside instead of when they come into contact, like with Wall of Fire, then every tick, they can phase in and back out without taking a hit.

I don't care to include spells like Fireball because if they can phase out and cause a person to waste a spell like Scorching Ray or Magic Missile, they can phase out and dodge a Fireball.

Some spells do work against these phasing undead...

Except for when they're phasing out and dodge the spell (e.g. Fireball) or force you to lose the spell (e.g. Magic Missile).

... and the ethereal bracers make any weapon, including disruption, ghost touch.

One unique high end rare item.

How many level 8 and 9 characters you think have them? Since that's what the Shadow crypts are "level appropriate" for, and that's the biggest prevalence of phasing monsters.

At level 8 and 9, what do players have to fight incorporeal undead?

Best weapons are (surprise surprise) ghost touch weapons, which won't have Disruption or likely another good effect, and Wall of Fire.

We used WoF on these phasing undead because they did suck: they were very easy and they hardly presented a challenge.

And a lot of people use Wall of Fire because it saves effort wasting spells and clicking hoping you hit, because of a broken mechanic.

If they want to limit people kiting mobs, make them leash. They already did it once.

Or if they want to attempt to remove the full power of Wall of Fire as they coded it, implement it's weakness. Cold damage dispelling it.

They suck less now because they are harder.

No, they suck just as much because they are still broken. When they phase repeatedly, without a hint of a cooldown, and become untouchable by other means, they are broken.

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.

I do not refute that we should have a challenge.

But there is a difference between giving players a challenge and going "we don't like you doing this so nyah!"
And the changes with this update seem more like the latter than the former.

[Gabrion]

/signed

Plz fix this! And while you're at it, scorps should be fixed too.

[GlassCannon]

Scorpions burrowing into solid steel, brick and iron, and "Phasing undead" are the two key irritants in this game. They are worse that the monsters still beating the living frick out of you while Held/FtS'd/Paralyzed/Dead/Unable to Move/Unable to Act.

MT was kind about it. Were I permitted to use hard language in the forums without waking up a hoarde of trolls to express the level of frustration and pain these two aforementioned failures in coding have been, I would surely be banned not only from the forums, but from the game itself.

MT saying this is 'not fun' is a rather large understatement. Again, he was kind.

I had hoped you would fix these things sooner, but for now I simply avoid(like a plague) the quests/areas that contain "phasing undead" and broken scorpions, unless I absolutely have to go there to get where I need to be. When running to Ghosts of Perdition I can be heard audibly cursing while trying to get the invisible and untouchable superfast hard hitters that clearly bypass ALL armor class and can stat drain you with no save. I admit that I use four letter swear words almost every time. I don't dislike Wraiths, Shadows and Umbral Worgs... I utterly LOATHE them for the mere fact that they are partialy INVINCIBLE.

I adhere to MT's suggestion to completely remove phasing from all but the Ogres and Phase Spiders.

[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.

[arikka_hador]

Upon reading a few of these last posts, I agree that perhaps a "happy medium" could be achieved. No, the undead aforementioned could not phase. However, the coders are probably trying to represent how they could meld into the walls, floors, ceilings, etc. Perhaps we could all agree with the idea of putting a specific cooldown timer between when they can phase in and out again. Since I think a round is like 6 seconds, wouldn't it be more fair for them to stay phased in for that long (at least)? As a caster, that would give plenty of time for me to target and cast magic missile. Besides, phasing or not magic missile is NEVER supposed to miss, unless they are protected by one of those nifty Shield spells.

[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% 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?

[MysticTheurge]

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?

Because in truth, there are spells in D&D that should allow players to do just that.

[Cowdenicus]

The only thing I disagree with is it being hard to find ghost touch disruptors. I have pulled 2 so far.

[Aesop]

The only thing I disagree with is it being hard to find ghost touch disruptors. I have pulled 2 so far.

If you were on Argo I'd say send me one Especially if it is a shortsword

Aesop




ps

MMOOOOOOO!1!1!1!!!!

[Yaga_Nub]

Because in truth, there are spells in D&D that should allow players to do just that.

If we had the Etherealness spell, can't you drop in and out of the Ethereal Plane during the duration of the spell?

[ChaosTheEternal]

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").

Which tends to fall into the same field as, say, Fireball and Magic Missile. If they phase out as you cast it, you waste the spell.

If Incorporeal Undead did what they could/should be doing, instead of phasing, you could attempt to catch them before they go flying into a wall or through a closed door. But since they can "phase out" anywhere, any instantaneous direct target or AoE spell can be rendered useless.

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.

Is phasing game breaking? By concept, no.

By how it's executed, possibly. Incorporeal Undead and Ethereal creatures can, and in many cases do, get into a cycle where they phase in and immediately back out repeatedly. Even when no longer attacking, with no AoE spells down (like Blade Barrier or Wall of Fire), and by standing still.

Guess what melee have to do in that case?
Guess how many spells can actually hurt them in that case?

There's already one quest that can, and does, have a massive problem when that occurs. The Shadow Crypt. The Phase Spiders in there have done that to me repeatedly, which turns me off from repeating the quest (also, having to redo the Shadow Tombs, but that's a different story). But, they're not the only ones. I see Shadows doing the same thing out in the Orchard.

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

When Ethereal Creatures phase, they actually jump back to the Ethereal Plane, so they're not on the same plane as the Magic Missile, and can't be hit by it.

When Incorporeal Creatures phase, that, according to the devs, is how they represent going into the wall or floor, and Magic Missile cannot damage an inanimate object, nor can it go through a solid object to hit it's target.