Bringing Melee classes back in line with casters

[Seneca_Windforge]

I read the first 5 pages of this thread before going cross-eyed, but this entire discussion is missing one important element in it's discussion. You are speaking of capped lvl 14 casters who aren't worried about xp, xp debt, re-entering penalties, or anything else that comes with a cap on the content.

I remember a time when casters had pk.....that was it for insta death....scorching ray was a single ray and still wasn't very powerful...CK and solid fog where godly and the only time a caster was allowed to use them without irritating the entire party(due to graphic design) was if it was faster than letting the 4 melee in the party destroy the room...and 80% of a casters spellbook was toilet paper for the melee in the party who only waited for haste. I remember a lot of other stuff too, but moving right along...

Suggesting that changes need to be enacted for balance between classes when we have been at the current lvl cap for months on end just doesn't seem prudent to me. I don't recall people running into GoP or Vol immediately after mod 5 launched with 4 sorcs and 2 clerics. I'm not saying sorcerers and wizards aren't powerful, I am saying that many of them aren't playing as they would if there were an unknown lurking around the corner. Mod 5 was especially harder on the melee classes given that it is consisting mostly of undead and they are immune to critical hits and are for the most part vulnerable to fire which happens to be the bread and butter of most damage dealing casters. Given that, this entire discussion is skewed from a vantage point of complacency in our current surroundings that gives the illusion that casters are superior to all other classes for damage and effectiveness.

If you want to stop some of the power casting classes exhibit, lets try to find out where 10 stacks of 100 major mneumonics came from on the AH and how someone is able to sell them for 200k plat each...hmmm. Casters may have unlimited power at present, but let the devils and demons of mod 6 descend upon us and let's get a little further into the progression of the game before we cry foul for melee.

You know, I can agree with the bolded part.

Also, maybe I am in the minority, but...I like having some melee's around when I play my wizard. If I form a group, I typically try to get one melee, one caster, one healer (not necessarily a cleric), and one person to deal with traps (this person may also fill one of the previous roles, too). Once I have that, I pretty much accept whoever else requests to join, unless I know that a particular quest will really need extra melee-power, or casting-power, or whatever.

If I am doing a quest that I know is particularly easy...I pretty much disregard the above and take whoever wants to come along.

[Yaga_Nub]

Why don't we just delete everyone's character once it gets capped, without warning or waiting? You hit the XP cap, it's immediately deleted.

Why don't we also auto-delete casters that enable all the metamagics at once?

Why don't we also send out assassins to people's houses who buy plat?

Seriously... talk about overboard.

We're trying to BRING PEOPLE HERE not make them leave of utter hatred and loathing of the game.

I do, however, think our Plat Cap is far too high.

Ok drama queen.

The point is that there isn't a penalty right now for ANY capped character class that means much. But capped melees don't need to run back to town for mana so they don't leave the quests as much.

There needs to be some kind of severe penalty for a capped (and even non-capped) casters who recalls for mana or any other reason. I like MT's suggestion of a non-removable negative level. If it was implimented, I think it should stay in effect until the quest is completed or 30 min whichever is LONGER.

I do think that mana pots are an issue because they are so easy to get. So don't take them out if that means that the sky would start falling and people leaving in droves as Glasscannon suggests. Reduce their effectiveness by 75%. They should be there to give a caster one last chance to get a spell off before dying or to cast teleport of greater teleport and get the group out of danger.

[Stravkos]

Frankly, I disagree with almost all of the changes people are proposing here. There are a few problems with casters, but not nearly as many as people here are arguing for.

Wall of Fire

To start, Wall of Fire is overpowered(I play a Sorc/14). I hate the tactic of spamming as many firewalls in an encounter as possible and just watching everything die. So how to fix it? Simple.

Every time a mob gets damaged by a wall of fire, it gains "Wall of Fire Immunity". This would work just like Web immunity works now-that mob is immune to any damage from any wall of fire for the next 6 seconds. This accomplishes the following things:

1) Wall of fire damage per second goes down. Currently it hits once every 2 seconds(or close to it). No more watching everything melt as a wall of fire hits for 200 damage/2 seconds(200 damage every 6 seconds is significantly weaker).

2) Multiple walls of fire cancel each other out. The highest(or first) to hit does damage, everything else is negated by the 6 second immunity.

Wall of Fire Immunity should only be granted when hit by the main wall of fire(not the smaller damage of standing near but not in a wall). This ensures that the damage of the main wall isn't constantly being negated by the small splash damage as mobs run through it. And heck, while you're at it make mobs with double vulnerabilities(cold undead) only take 3x damage instead of 4x. There's really no need for WoF to do that much damage, even with my nerf.

Reentering Quests

I don't really see this as a big problem. Players only do this once they're capped(or in the event of a wipe or near wipe), and any good player will complete a quest quicker by simply running through it normally than by constantly recalling out for mana. Still, if you want a simple(and popular) solution, here it is:

Normal Difficulty: Same as now.
Hard Difficulty: Can reenter a quest once. After that quest is locked till it finishes or resest.
Elite Difficulty: Quest is locked. It's elite.

Simple, keeps casual players from getting frustrated, and makes elite a little bit harder.

Metamagics

I disagree strongly with all the suggestions presented here.

1) Limiting metamagics by level is a horrible idea. Which would you cast-a delayed blast fireball for 14d6 damage with no metas available, or a regular fireball for 20d6 damage with maximize?

Easy choice. If we can't meta higher level spells, the only useful damaging spells will be low level with metamagics running. That's a huge step backwards. I want higher level spells to be useful, I don't want to be forced to use lvl2 and 3 spells because they're the only ones that do any damage. We had this until the metmagic change, and it didn't work.

2) Increasing the cost. Bad idea. We had this too. What happened? No one used damage, every caster was a buffbot/crowd control.

The fact is, if casters are viable at all as damage dealers, their power will increase exponentially as you add more to a group. If you have a Barbarian, then add another Barbarian, you get 2x the damage. If you have a Sorcerer and add another Sorcerer, you get 2x the damage multiplied by the number of enemies hit. Two Delayed Blast Fireballs smashing into a group of enemies will do a lot more than two Barbarians who can only engage one enemy at a time each. The simple fact is that a caster can damage all enemies at once, so with more casters their damage overlaps. Whereas fighting classes can only damage one enemy at a time, so adding more simple increases the number of enemies you can damage by one. But if you nerf caster damage dealing abilities, then a single caster won't be able to do enough damage to make a difference, and everyone will play CC/Buffbot again. I don't think a group of 1 Tank/2 Clerics/2 Sorcs/1 Wizard is any worse than 3 Tanks/1 Rogue/1 Wizard/1 Cleric(which was the standard for a loooong time).

If you want to help melees, you'll need another approach. Here's some suggestions:

1) Have enemy casters cast Prot: Energy on their allies. A Prot: Fire can increase the HP of an enemy by 120 vs a caster, without having any effect on melee effectiveness. Same for Fireshield. Add energy immunity(for us and enemies). Make dispelling a useful tactic.

2) Make casters a higher priority target for enemies. This gives tanks a role as protectors. There's no reason melee characters have to be DPS.

3) Change enemies to be like this: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...46#post1471046


I think changing the game like this would lead to a much better play experience than any of the suggestions proposed in this thread so far.

[smatt]

After considering the problem of the WAY over-powered caster and their completely unlimited casting ability, due to the proliferation of shrines, mana pots, and the ability to recall fo0r mana as often as they like..... I see 2 choices.....

#1 The Devs actually do something about it, which in the eyes of the casters will be the destruction of life itself, and bring about a million posts/LFM's/etc etc where they act like 4 year olds falling on the floor having temper tantrums because they've merely become easily the most powerful classes in the game, instead of being the most powerful classes in the game by several magnatudes.

OR

#2 Just leave things as they are, let em' have their little power trip, and ego stoking joy, going around showing off like a bunch of junior high school kids, only concerned aobut THEIR fun....

I'm thinking that #2 is the preferable route

Now now, this is tongue and cheek... Not all casters are like this at all, and many people who play other classes act exactly the same....

[stonecircle]

I agree with you O.P. I think the unbalance comes from the "Lack of Friendly Fire".

The high damage spells like firewall in DDO are based off of damage in the pen and paper game. In PPo you cant just throw down spells and run around like an idiot. There is massive power with no realism or concequences.

Its been discussed before and pretty much decided that you cant have friendly fire due to griefing, so the only solution is to decrease damage, or increase the save time(this would slow damage and also decrease caster aggroe so fighters dont have to chase everything due to bad A.I. and selfish casters)

Making the spells more costly or taking out shrines just makes people recall as they expect everyone to wait.

OR bring back the "speed attack exploit" and apply it to ranged as well.

[sigtrent]

I agree with you O.P. I think the unbalance comes from the "Lack of Friendly Fire".

The high damage spells like firewall in DDO are based off of damage in the pen and paper game. In PPo you cant just throw down spells and run around like an idiot. There is massive power with no realism or concequences.

I disagree. When was the last time you were playing PnP and you actualy hit a party member with a damage spell by "accident". It simply doesn't happen. Hitting them on purpose... on occasion but only when they are likely immune anyhow. In PnP you have precise control over where you spell goes and who it effects. Sometimes you can't cast something due to folks being in the way, but generaly you can scootch over here or there to accomidate precise aiming. In DDO you really can't accurately judge what you will hit with a spell because everything is in motion and you don't have exact grid positioning.

The only real diffeence is that in DDO mosters are too stupid to get out of a wall of fire or blade parrier that is kicking thier ass. No friendly fire really is there to make those spells castable (without it we'd never use area spells), to avoid griefing, and to make it play similarly to PnP for practical purposes.

[Slayer918]

I disagree. When was the last time you were playing PnP and you actualy hit a party member with a damage spell by "accident". It simply doesn't happen. Hitting them on purpose... on occasion but only when they are likely immune anyhow. In PnP you have precise control over where you spell goes and who it effects. Sometimes you can't cast something due to folks being in the way, but generaly you can scootch over here or there to accomidate precise aiming. In DDO you really can't accurately judge what you will hit with a spell because everything is in motion and you don't have exact grid positioning.

Not to mention occasional server lag issues...

[gpk]

Frankly, I disagree with almost all of the changes people are proposing here. There are a few problems with casters, but not nearly as many as people here are arguing for.

Metamagics

I disagree strongly with all the suggestions presented here.

1) Limiting metamagics by level is a horrible idea. Which would you cast-a delayed blast fireball for 14d6 damage with no metas available, or a regular fireball for 20d6 damage with maximize?

Easy choice. If we can't meta higher level spells, the only useful damaging spells will be low level with metamagics running. That's a huge step backwards. I want higher level spells to be useful, I don't want to be forced to use lvl2 and 3 spells because they're the only ones that do any damage. We had this until the metmagic change, and it didn't work.

Well, what's the purpose of metamagics ? In DDO right now it just means you get to increase your damage by 1.5-2x for the cost of a feat and a couple of enhancements.

2) Increasing the cost. Bad idea. We had this too. What happened? No one used damage, every caster was a buffbot/crowd control.

Well again, whats the purpose of metamagics? Are the metas simply a force multiplier or are they meant to prove short amounts of time of higher burst damage.

The fact is, if casters are viable at all as damage dealers, their power will increase exponentially as you add more to a group. If you have a Barbarian, then add another Barbarian, you get 2x the damage. If you have a Sorcerer and add another Sorcerer, you get 2x the damage multiplied by the number of enemies hit. Two Delayed Blast Fireballs smashing into a group of enemies will do a lot more than two Barbarians who can only engage one enemy at a time each. The simple fact is that a caster can damage all enemies at once, so with more casters their damage overlaps. Whereas fighting classes can only damage one enemy at a time, so adding more simple increases the number of enemies you can damage by one. But if you nerf caster damage dealing abilities, then a single caster won't be able to do enough damage to make a difference, and everyone will play CC/Buffbot again. I don't think a group of 1 Tank/2 Clerics/2 Sorcs/1 Wizard is any worse than 3 Tanks/1 Rogue/1 Wizard/1 Cleric(which was the standard for a loooong time).

Sure and since a sorcerer does 2x the damage of even a mighty barbarian, why bring a barb at all ? To open doors?

If you want to help melees, you'll need another approach. Here's some suggestions:

1) Have enemy casters cast Prot: Energy on their allies. A Prot: Fire can increase the HP of an enemy by 120 vs a caster, without having any effect on melee effectiveness. Same for Fireshield. Add energy immunity(for us and enemies). Make dispelling a useful tactic.

Mummies cast fire prot, fire spell have always mauled them even before mod5 metas. How much of a elemental prot would you haveto give a mob? I hope those silly melees weren't trying to use any elemental weapons in elemental protected mobs.

2) Make casters a higher priority target for enemies. This gives tanks a role as protectors. There's no reason melee characters have to be DPS.

Ever see a caster with aggro? He just hops aroudn hasted and displaced and possibly re-casts the spell that may not have finished the surviving mob(s). Zero risk for all dead mobs. I thought the reasons for ranged damaged not being as strong as melee and increasive progressive attacks was precisely to avoid zero risk victory situations. Kinda hypocritical of us I'd say.

Maybe we should go back to the state of not casting while moving (unless you too feat) and no casting while hopping around like a madman.

Or if you prefer a slight edit:

Make tanks a higher priority target for enemies. This gives casters a role as protectors. There's no reason caster characters have to be DPS, they should be CC only.

[Serpent]

1) Limiting metamagics by level is a horrible idea. Which would you cast-a delayed blast fireball for 14d6 damage with no metas available, or a regular fireball for 20d6 damage with maximize?

Fireball caps at 10d6. Can't go any higher. So maximizing a delayed blast fireball might be more economical for damage dealt vs mobs hit.

[MysticTheurge]

The only real diffeence is that in DDO mosters are too stupid to get out of a wall of fire or blade parrier that is kicking thier ass. No friendly fire really is there to make those spells castable (without it we'd never use area spells), to avoid griefing, and to make it play similarly to PnP for practical purposes.

I agree that the no-friendly-fire rule fairly accurately represents instant spells (lightning bolt, fireball, etc.) as you're not going to hit allies with them in D&D either, it definitely has larger ramifications for persistent AoE spells.

In most cases in D&D a persistent AoE spell is only going to hit your enemies once, as they cross the barrier to get to you. You don't then have the option of running through it yourself in order to make it hit them again. At least, not unless you want to take the damage too.

I'm not suggesting friendly fire should be added to DDO, as you're absolutely right about the fact that no one would ever use area spells otherwise. But it does, definitely, affect the dynamic of spells.

[Arianrhod]

Reentering Quests

Normal Difficulty: Same as now.
Hard Difficulty: Can reenter a quest once. After that quest is locked till it finishes or resest.
Elite Difficulty: Quest is locked. It's elite.

Simple, keeps casual players from getting frustrated, and makes elite a little bit harder.

I wish they would implement this. Make getting through an elite quest feel more like an accomplishment, and less like hurling yourself against a brick wall till you break through.

[redoubt]

Yet again someone is asking for a nerf based on the optimum min/max of a given class.

While I might agree that a twinked and min/maxxed sorc is very powerful, not all sorcs follow that template.

Feats:
max, emp, mt, imt, insert 5th feat here.

Enhance:
all fire damage, crit range, crit multiplier and sp.

As an example, my sorc has only Max of those I listed. He has the 40% boost to fire damage and only half of the crit mods. He had no sp enhancements. He is more of a charmer/CC type.

When you swing your nerf great axe at the max spec'd fire sorc, you will cleave in twain those who chose not to play max dps. (As in we will be back to no dps, unless we make our character a cookie cutter.)

So, in closing, please stop requesting nerfs.

Thank you.

[gpk]

It's amazing to me that people keep reapeating the same old illogical arguments:

"Back in mod1-2 for soem time my caster was underpowered so now it's my turn to be overpowered"

Sure, lets repeat the mistakes of the past. Thats great for the game!

"Zomg casters are SUPPOSED to be stronger!"

Yes and they WERE stronger in Mod4 and I didn't hear anyone complain, Mod5 Metas just doubled the gap between casters and the rest of the classes. The rest of the classes have been reduced to doormen.

"My caster is crowd control caster, please don't nurf mets becos they will nurf me too"

Didn't realize Max and Empower boost the damage of crowd control spells.

"Back at level 4 my caster was underpowered compared to the fighter so now it's my turn to be overpowered"

Really that's bad I agree. The mod5 metas do hurt lower level casters. Then again how much time did you spend at level 4 versus say 14?

[Treerat]

What's the matter? Mister "I'm so uber dps" no-AC no-Intimidate melee finally had someone beat into his head that he's useless? Anyone with half a working brain could have told you that 3 months after release. A character built to do one thing and only that thing will be inevitably be useless in the players mindset if they are no longer "the best" at that one thing. It's called the downside to min-max - you want to specialize you had better realize that there are going to be many more situations where you're not needed than situations you are a "must have."

Maybe next time when you make a character you'll think beyond the "how great can I make this guy at killing" and ask yourself "what else could this guy do to make him attractive to groups?" You'll be amazed at how readily groups will take in the melee who is willing to be the anvil now and then instead of always demanding to be the hammer that everyone else supports. Or the melee who can use scrolls to raise the cleric or remove the wizards Feeblemind. If you need an example just take a look at the Batman and its various off-shoots; a whole character archetype whose strength was versatility. Yes, versatility is something groups enjoy having in members - the more people who can cover multiple roles the less likely the group is to have to restart the quest because someone died where they couldn't be raised.

[SlipperyPete]

Madstone is a well balanced quest when it comes to the fighter vs. caster issue. Wide open areas where casters can't simply retreat and a well balanced shrine to encounter ratio.

For the casters against this idea - here's some quick input that may help your stance: when you run pop or any quest, this is just a good example, there's no need to finger of death everything then run out for mana and repeat it, who do you think your doing a favor for when you FoD a mob that is 1/2 dead for 14 level fighter?

Any sorc or wiz in the game can do that, do you think YOU'RE going to get "Da Sni1zzl3 1337" status because of this? I don't get that.

It comes down to common sense, it's a group game, play it like one.

[gpk]

What's the matter? Mister "I'm so uber dps" no-AC no-Intimidate melee finally had someone beat into his head that he's useless? Anyone with half a working brain could have told you that 3 months after release. A character built to do one thing and only that thing will be inevitably be useless in the players mindset if they are no longer "the best" at that one thing. It's called the downside to min-max - you want to specialize you had better realize that there are going to be many more situations where you're not needed than situations you are a "must have."

Ok please way to reduce the issue to a "max DPS, 0AC, no intim"

Your statement is so absurd I won't even waste time refuting it.

Maybe next time when you make a character you'll think beyond the "how great can I make this guy at killing" and ask yourself "what else could this guy do to make him attractive to groups?"

Your right, the answer is I shoulda made this guy a sorcerer.

[Riminy]

What's the matter? Mister "I'm so uber dps" no-AC no-Intimidate melee finally had someone beat into his head that he's useless? Anyone with half a working brain could have told you that 3 months after release. A character built to do one thing and only that thing will be inevitably be useless in the players mindset if they are no longer "the best" at that one thing. It's called the downside to min-max - you want to specialize you had better realize that there are going to be many more situations where you're not needed than situations you are a "must have."

How do you feel about barbarians? They pretty much min/max for DPS right? Or even better, A Sorcerer or Wizard. Min min/max two attributes (Cha and Con for example). Whats the downside to being able to kill everything in quest? Your completely right, there is no downside to being a caster.

Sometimes I dont even bother intimidating. It only lasts a few seconds and by the time they get to you they are usually running around in a firewall or they have been killed by a finger of death (I've watched Sorcerers stand there and just spam that spell on one monster until its dead. Taking 3 or even 5 times just for one monster. Their mana bar hardly moved. Divide 1900 by 40. That's 47 Finger of Deaths per shrine). And yes, my pally does intimidate so i know what I am talking about.

[SableShadow]

I think the core issues aren't caster vs melee dps; I think we're seeing min/max at work. The delta between a reasonably built character, with reasonable gear and the optimum min/maxed character, with maxed gear, is too wide.

Answers to this range from a global nerf and rebalancing of quests/mobs (CoH ED, for those that remember) to making more stats/skills/item bonuses more useful.

[smatt]

What's the matter? Mister "I'm so uber dps" no-AC no-Intimidate melee finally had someone beat into his head that he's useless? Anyone with half a working brain could have told you that 3 months after release. A character built to do one thing and only that thing will be inevitably be useless in the players mindset if they are no longer "the best" at that one thing. It's called the downside to min-max - you want to specialize you had better realize that there are going to be many more situations where you're not needed than situations you are a "must have."

Maybe next time when you make a character you'll think beyond the "how great can I make this guy at killing" and ask yourself "what else could this guy do to make him attractive to groups?" You'll be amazed at how readily groups will take in the melee who is willing to be the anvil now and then instead of always demanding to be the hammer that everyone else supports. Or the melee who can use scrolls to raise the cleric or remove the wizards Feeblemind. If you need an example just take a look at the Batman and its various off-shoots; a whole character archetype whose strength was versatility. Yes, versatility is something groups enjoy having in members - the more people who can cover multiple roles the less likely the group is to have to restart the quest because someone died where they couldn't be raised.

Ummmmm..... Ummmm.... ummmmmm....

Nevermind

[Stravkos]

Fireball caps at 10d6. Can't go any higher. So maximizing a delayed blast fireball might be more economical for damage dealt vs mobs hit.

Yes, but under a system that limits the amount of metas you can apply by spell level, you won't be able to maximize a Delayed Blast Fireball, ever. It's a level 7 spell, maximize would add +3 to the spell level. Unless we start getting level10 spell slots, you're stuck with a max of 30d6 for a level 20 Empowered DBF. Considering that a DBF with maximize+empower today does 35d6, that's a huge nerf. Any kind of spell level limit on metamagics would completely destroy damage based casters unless enemy HP's are dramatically reduced. And reducing enemy HP's would simply mean Barbarians would mow through crowds of enemies like a running through Waterworks.

So no, without a massive rebalance of enemy toughness, changing metas is not a good idea.