Do your PUGs ignore blade barrier?

[kinar]

If you put points into the crit range those figures go up.

umm...there aren't enhancements for BB crit...The only way to get a BB crit is with an arcane lore item (somewhat ironic actually) like blue dscale armor of a skiver.

[Lorz]

Things that out damage a Blade Barrier:

Fire Wall
Cone of Cold
Polar Ray
Heck Scorching Ray

HARM

any decent tank
almost every dual wielding ranger in the game
any decent rogue

(list is in no way complete)

Why would any melee toon take the time and penalty to kite **** he can kill through a BB?


Clerics are SO overrated.

[Lorz]

Oh one more thing....no complaining about how poor clerics dont get their BB used enough....


At least not until Bards get any respect from the party or for mob control.
IF you think your efforts are not appreciated you gotta play a bard to really understand what the words mean

[gamblerjoe]

cleric is the most powerful class in the game (both in PnP and DDO), and many top players share this opinion. bards are the (slightly) overrated ones. their most potent and recognized ability is fascinate. their most coveted ability is inspire courage, which is usually unnecessary (the fastest way to kill trash mobs is con damage, and red names are gonna go down even w/o the extra help). its preferred in most raids because its effects are multiplied by the high number of tanks (and the obvious need for dps on the raid boss.) also, in hound on norm, it allows the dogs to complete their job without needing a recharm. beyond that, all the good bards i know are wanted because of the person playing them, not the toon. in other words, iv never seen a good player on a bard go unappriciated, but i have seen a lot of bards cling to those 2 abilities and think they are the kitty's pajamas.

anyway, sorry for talking about bards so much. as far as clerics go, it is MORE about playing your toon well than building it well. if u know how the spells work, and in what situations they are effective, you are a bomb.

back to the OP. i have wasted my fair share of BB due to both poor use on my part, and incooperative tanks. I have learned not to sweat it, unless i am in this specific situation: I am the party leader, the grp is inexperienced and requires my leadership, and there is a part where i am unsure that we can get past without the old setup and burn. Even when this situation comes up, its usually fog and FW doing the work. If its a situation where i am just trying to speed things up and i put it in a good spot only to have the tanks go out of their way to agro the mobs and keep them out i tell them that they are wasting my time and my sp, and that they arent going to get anymore healing. If they dont require my healing, and are actually effective, then they are such a godsent that i dont care what they do.

[moops]

Blade Barriers are for Soloing, short manning, and God Awful pugs--and a couple of quests with bunches of trash mobs.

The People I usually run with have spent millions of plat/ hours grinding on their melees--of course they want to use their weapons. And they usually kill things faster than my BBs anyway.

I usually cast a greater Command/Heightened Shoundburst and then take out the casters--or melee myself.

[Solmage]

I am finding that many times after I cast this spell, the fighters I am with will run over to the enemy and start a toe to toe slugfest. Usually they don't move around at all until the critter they are focused on is dead, unless it tries to move, so it only syufferes from one hit of the blades. Often they will start their fight outside the blade barrier altogether.

I'm not really sure if a lot of players haven't played a cleric to cap, so don't know how to use this spell tactically, or maybe they think the best (only?) use for all my SP is healing them while they stand around flat-footed.

DDO is supposed to be an 'active' game. How do you get the fighters you run with to move?

???

Only cast it if you can TAKE aggro away from the fighters, AND you can handle it, AND it is more efficient than letting the fighters melee in peace with their w/p rapiers or greensteel stuff.

Otherwise, use heightened greater commands and soundbursts if you have the spell penetration for it (+24 or better), or go for an un-empowered un-maximized meteor to knock em down.

Incidentally, same thing applies to playing a caster. Yes, my firewalls are nice. But they're a waste on 4000 hp trash mobs unless they have a secondary purpose: For example, tossing a solid fog, and a 300 per firewall to steal aggro from the melees so they don't get whacked by the monastery monks on elite while they try to reach me.

[Spisey]

On my sorc I usually hypno with friendly clerics just to see the irritation

[sirgog]

I like using BB to take and hold aggro, while the other melees rip the foe apart with Con damage weapons.

Then, I only need to heal myself, and the SP saved there usually make up for the cost of a BB.

[Lymnus]

Works great in RWTD.

Run ahead. Quicken BB. Make sure your BB hits before their spell. They don't mind chasing after a mob or two, right?

:3

[Merkinsal]

Comeing at it after playing caster clr and ftr.I find it annoying when hey the clr has this nice bb up and the caster goes and fire walls out side of it when its much more effective to have firewall and bb together.That way if the casters jumping around the bb the mobs that move go in to the bb and the firewall while the melees are inside the ring swinging.

Ok so what you're saying is the caster got agro with firewall over your blade barrier and you want him to kite the mobs out of the blade barrier away from the melee, if they are in the blade barier as you wish with the firewal, when he should be kiting to the melee in the first place. There is so much wrong with that.

But anyway, what can happen is the mob the caster centered his spell on moved out of your blade barrier to a melee who grabbed agro away from you or put the firewall where the melee chose to fight.

A good idea might be to wait until the melee pick a spot and then lay down the blade barrier and if you pull agro away you can kite them. You're certainly less squishy than the caster who will be avoiding agro at all costs and will only be "kiting" to stay alive and bring mobs to the melee because the best place for the mobs is toe to toe with the melee in the firewall so the melee are not taking penalties and the mobs are not out of control running all over heaven and earth.

[Enochroot]

Ok so what you're saying is the caster got agro with firewall over your blade barrier and you want him to kite the mobs out of the blade barrier away from the melee, if they are in the blade barier as you wish with the firewal, when he should be kiting to the melee in the first place. There is so much wrong with that.

But anyway, what can happen is the mob the caster centered his spell on moved out of your blade barrier to a melee who grabbed agro away from you or put the firewall where the melee chose to fight.

A good idea might be to wait until the melee pick a spot and then lay down the blade barrier and if you pull agro away you can kite them. You're certainly less squishy than the caster who will be avoiding agro at all costs and will only be "kiting" to stay alive and bring mobs to the melee because the best place for the mobs is toe to toe with the melee in the firewall so the melee are not taking penalties and the mobs are not out of control running all over heaven and earth.

If you're laying down BB's for other people to fight in, as someone else said, you're wasting sp. BB works and is efficient because of the massive damage it can deliver to multiple opponents at a time (or a single opponent, but must use good kiting skillz), while the caster receives very little damage in return. To fight IN a blade barrier is about the worst thing possible.

IE - regarding above - if the melee are already engaging in a spot, BB is probably the wrong thing to use (but firewall is good, probably?). If there is already a BB in a spot, melee are the wrong thing to use (and probably firewall)

As stated, the way to play WITH melee are CC such as cometfall, soundburst, GC, or intimidate (seriously, it rocks) - the way to play solo or with heavy zergers and pwn the game is with BB.

[Impaqt]

Things that out damage a Blade Barrier:

Fire Wall THis spell is the only one that comes close.. against SOME mobs.. Very few End game mobs though
Cone of Cold One shot AOE. Can do more Damage in 3 seconds, but doesnt come close to the overall damage a BB can do.
Polar Ray Single Target. Gimme a break.
Heck Scorching Ray Again, Single Target. Note even close


HARMyet another Single Target


any decent tank i dotn see a lot of tanks Soloing Quests like Devils.

almost every dual wielding ranger in the game Ditto Above.

any decent rogue Ditto above.



(list is in no way complete)

Why would any melee toon take the time and penalty to kite **** he can kill through a BB? Maybe because the Cleric is doing a BB for a Reason. Your tajking too much damage.



Clerics are SO overrated. What server are you on?

WHenI get to the point that I start dropping Blade barriers in a Pug, Its in your best intrest to step back and let me do my job. Cause that means the heals have stopped.

[HumanJHawkins]

Yes.. in general... it's not smart to cast blade barrier when you have a group of melees that are wearing everything down.

Because they need to be stationary to be more effective... and if you're just having them kite through the blade barrier... you may as well be soloing.

What he said. Also, it takes a group of 2-3 fighters about 10 seconds to wipe out the typical small encounter. But it takes 20 seconds to get them to follow back to a BB or even a Firewall. I see too many Clerics throwing down a BB and then complaining that the melee's don't use it, when there was no need for it in the first place.

BB is only for large mobs (unless you are soloing), and is most useful if you are the kind of Cleric that will run right into the middle of battle to cast it so people don't have to figure out how to get the mob to walk through it. (A lot of the mobs in game will just switch to ranged and not follow anyway)

But for big mobs, groups of bats, etc. And when the spell can be cast on the mob, BB is great and people should use it. If a BB or firewall is right next to melee, it is lame not to step over into it, etc.

[Merkinsal]

If you're laying down BB's for other people to fight in, as someone else said, you're wasting sp. BB works and is efficient because of the massive damage it can deliver to multiple opponents at a time (or a single opponent, but must use good kiting skillz), while the caster receives very little damage in return. To fight IN a blade barrier is about the worst thing possible.

IE - regarding above - if the melee are already engaging in a spot, BB is probably the wrong thing to use (but firewall is good, probably?). If there is already a BB in a spot, melee are the wrong thing to use (and probably firewall)

As stated, the way to play WITH melee are CC such as cometfall, soundburst, GC, or intimidate (seriously, it rocks) - the way to play solo or with heavy zergers and pwn the game is with BB.

ty , I think you and everyone put this better than I could. Blade barrier is of course only effective and best used when mobs are moving thru it so for the sorc to put his fire wall inside the barrier to grab agro to kite the mobs into the bb, and I assume back out and back in, while the melee are doing whatever, is a poor use of the spell as was pointed out and would assume the sorc put the fw on top of the mobs to begin with.

I didn't think cometfall was such a great spell but for the situation the op mentions I have seen that work so very well and made me a convert too. At that point the melee have agro and the mobs are clustered. What better way to reduce damage to the party and turn the melee into....(fill in the blank, the only word I can think of is lawnmowers and I don't think jack the giant killer wf or dwarven fighter would like to be refered to that way ).... by knocking the mobs prone and taking a big chunk of hp out of them to boot.

[MissErres]

I was runnin around one day with my guild, having fun killin stuff, like usual. Now keep in mind I have 4 clerics and 3 casters myself, but on this particular day I was on my capped tempest ranger. I don't remember which quest we were in, but I'm just runnin along... whack whack whack... in the mindset of a fighter, just swing and kill. Along comes my 13yr old daughter, who also plays some. She stops to look and see what I'm up to and she says to me....

"Mom, that bladebarrier is not there for decoration."

I freakin lost it, was laughin so hard. Told the guild what she said and they all started laughing.

What's that old saying? "Outta the mouths of babes."? It was priceless.

~Missy