Dear Devs: Information please on Air Elementals

[Mirta]

Then we should make Melee Fodder too. Something that moves faster than a Hasted Monk 20, and uses melee attacks for 150 damage per hit at GTWF, True Seeing and a to-hit of +16, with an SR over 60 and DR5,000/- vs magic.

That should be 100% fair. Oh, and vs a splashed class whose main class is Wizard, Sorc, or Cleric, they get a to-hit bonus of +60.

Alternative: A critter that targets only casting classes, ignores AC altogether, has True Seeing, Ghosttouch, and a massive Antimagic Field(not cone, Field. A field the size of the Marketplace.). It stops moving when all casting type classes are dead, regardless what is beating on it. It uses mainly Ranged attacks for about 50 damage per hit, and any spells cast near it cause it to go into Spell Drain mode, negating all Scrolls, Potions, Wands, and draining all SP from anyone with SpellPoints before killing them.

Whoops! It seems we already have those! They're called "Red Named" and "Purple Named" monsters. We've recently received more of these with mods 6-8. With the inexplicable immunity to fire many monsters have, along with red named devils and orthons with immunity to fire we really don't need more anti-caster monsters.

[brool]

but you still are still viable as a caster against red named. Even with immunity to fire.. your magic missle is probably all red number dmg. You're debuffs land just fine against red or purple named mobs.

however against the air ele, melee's might as well just hit the recall button.

[QuintonReece]

Ok, aside from the sarcasm, dev bashing, and turbine bashing......

I agree that the air elemental is over powered and something needs to be done to fix it.

Devs could you please comment with your thoughts, whether you agree or disagree and whether you are considering any changes?

[mediocresurgeon]

I suspect air elementals will be fixed when Turbine releases druids, who have the ability to turn into an air elemental at level 15. Let them keep the air elementals the way they are. When I roll up my druid, I want some revenge!

Also, my grief detectors indicate that people are unhappy with the Reaver Raid. The Reaver Raid has not gotten much harder, even though the air elementals managed to get a fortitude save. Why? Casters have infinite mana in that raid. Spam Dancing Sphere, enervate, finger of death. Remember that air elementals, like most creatures, are subject to damage from Wall of Fire and Acid Fog. As I'm sure most players are aware, high saves only get you so far.

[Zuldar]

While air elementals are annoying, they're not as bad as they could be. If the air elementals were made strictly by raw then it would be able to hold you aloft for a good minute or two, dealing damage every round. A big enough elemental would be able to grab a full party, possibly causing a wipe right there.

Guess what I'm trying to say is it's the lesser of the two evils.

[Emili]

I suspect air elementals will be fixed when Turbine releases druids, who have the ability to turn into an air elemental at level 15. Let them keep the air elementals the way they are. When I roll up my druid, I want some revenge!

Also, my grief detectors indicate that people are unhappy with the Reaver Raid. The Reaver Raid has not gotten much harder, even though the air elementals managed to get a fortitude save. Why? Casters have infinite mana in that raid. Spam Dancing Sphere, enervate, finger of death. Remember that air elementals, like most creatures, are subject to damage from Wall of Fire and Acid Fog. As I'm sure most players are aware, high saves only get you so far.

Reaver raid is the only place the elementals are balanced for the quest given that melee and others have the means to twart the knock-down.... leaving all classes a possible function in the encounter.

Air elementals outside the reaver raid are the problem for melee... results outside is to avoid them and deal damage(range/cast) from a distance. What is ridiculas is a casting class is totally capable of seeing them from afar and casting an very easy instant-kill - thus no great feat, nothing special, no glory, no risk, nor challenge - thus the mob may as well not even exist when a caster is around... A ranged class takes at least a little risk as the creature at least acknoledges a foreign presence before it is wop'd to death or banished. While, a melee class has a heck of a time dealing with them... thus I have equal respec if someone told me they melee'd off 6-10 air elementals (outside of reaver raid) as if they would take on a raid boss alone

[Thailand_Dan]

So why don't they create mobs that are immune to all spells? Well, already have tons of those. Maybe on a wizzy, you can swap out spells, but for a sorc, you are kind of stuck with your build. Fire/Cold specked, sorry nothing to do here, move on.

You can use enervation, waves of exhaustion, or magic missle...ok, so I can either debuff, and have someone else kill them for me, or use a 1st level spell on them. Whoo-hoo!!! Who needs level 7/8/9 spells anyway?

List of mobs your typical fire/cold sorc has problems with:

- All Red named
- All Purple named
- Clay golems
- Iron Golems
- Beholders (unless a melee can distract them first)
- Anything Blackbone

And these are just a few of the ones that have been in game forever. The most recent mobs have gone even further down this path, ie Devils, Orthons, mobs with tons of hp, ice-giants, etc. So, it helps to have a balanced party.

Fix the broken AI, ie does not stop attacking while paralyzed, etc. But don't complain they are just too hard for a melee to handle. Not everything should fall at the mighty feet of w/p. They should not be removed from game.

[Venar]

Start using common sense sometime.

Fixed for accuracy.

Do not change my quote. I meant what i said. You can comment on it, and disagree. But do not change my words and then say you "fixed" it. I do not need you to state my opinion. Certainly not you.

Apparently some people cannot accept the fact that only half the classes in the game can easily remove a certain monster. Me, i don't mind, it's a group game after all.
You can't melee a Cube either, but yet no one cries.

[bobbryan2]

So why don't they create mobs that are immune to all spells? Well, already have tons of those. Maybe on a wizzy, you can swap out spells, but for a sorc, you are kind of stuck with your build. Fire/Cold specked, sorry nothing to do here, move on.

You can use enervation, waves of exhaustion, or magic missle...ok, so I can either debuff, and have someone else kill them for me, or use a 1st level spell on them. Whoo-hoo!!! Who needs level 7/8/9 spells anyway?

List of mobs your typical fire/cold sorc has problems with:

- All Red named
- All Purple named
- Clay golems
- Iron Golems
- Beholders (unless a melee can distract them first)
- Anything Blackbone

And these are just a few of the ones that have been in game forever. The most recent mobs have gone even further down this path, ie Devils, Orthons, mobs with tons of hp, ice-giants, etc. So, it helps to have a balanced party.

Fix the broken AI, ie does not stop attacking while paralyzed, etc. But don't complain they are just too hard for a melee to handle. Not everything should fall at the mighty feet of w/p. They should not be removed from game.

My caster has problems with exactly none of those.

My melee still has problems with air eles.

Balanced party nothing... casters can still solo most every meaningful quest

[bobbryan2]

Do not change my quote. I meant what i said. You can comment on it, and disagree. But do not change my words and then say you "fixed" it. I do not need you to state my opinion. Certainly not you.

Apparently some people cannot accept the fact that only half the classes in the game can easily remove a certain monster. Me, i don't mind, it's a group game after all.
You can't melee a Cube either, but yet no one cries.

You can melee cubes....

[Venar]

My caster has problems with exactly none of those

Take the room with the 4 named huge Iron Golems in the Twilight Forge.
I am curious about what your caster did.
Oh, what? What did you say? Disentegrate for 500 dmg?
No man, i am talking about what you did when you ran it at an appropriate level, which is lvl 10, before you get disentegrate.
Same for the Wiz-King, the Hound, or anything with a mantle. Disentegrate? Not all sorcs have disentegrate. It's just one spell out of 25.
If disentegrate as the only working spell is ok for a caster, then Fearsome + wounding Throwing is ok for a melee. Both are limited but existing options.

[ToKu]

I pretty much agree that no class should be able to do it all. Last I checked DDO was a MULTIPLAYER game, are you telling me that you feel there should be content that you dont need a particular class for? If that were the case how would said class even get to experience said content?

Now if air eles were magic immune as well, we'd have a problem. However this sounds like : traps are to rogues like air eles are to arcanes.

Arcanes are a minority in alot of groups already (you only really need 1, 2 is pushing it, you only find 3+ in specific situations), 1 healer and a bunch of melees. Yeah sounds horrible that there is something those melees need help on. :P

[Riggs]

Claiming that because one monster is unbalanced for one type of class, not because of its nature - but because the rules were broken in making it, and using as an argument that another type of monster(s) are broken towards another type of class is bad logic.

The stupidly high hit points on many monsters now - especially Reaver refusge monsters is a horrible way for the game to be going, and goes way overboard, and yes makes casters typing to damage things a total waste of time. Yay I can kill ONE monster in a quest with my entire mana bar! why exactly do monsters have 3000-5000 hit points again in a game where they are supposed to be 12+ hit dice? Are they using d500s for hit points?

There are other threads about monster hit points, and it also needs to be rebalanced. Two wrongs dont justify keeping a bad system. Wops are also unbalanced after hit points went up because on many monsters dps is a total waste of time. That is also wrong. Same with more and more becoming immune to a raft of spells and effects (like fire elementals and giants in Sos), immunities AND 5000 hit points? "Hey I have a haste clickie, lets just get another melee rather than a caster, maybe a bard - they cant facinate or cast on anything, but hey they can add to my damage".

About melees...
A wop bow is only useful if you have ranger levels anyway, as the wounding damage wont go through on its own usually(I know smatt has a ranger level), and since a wop thrower is pretty much impossible to find for most people, sure that leaves the option to find a fearsome item and a wounding thrower, or even a damage thrower...if you dont mind spending 5 minutes killing a single monster. And if your not on any timed contraints - which you are in the Reaver raid and Sos.

And it still doesnt change the fact that the mechanic is broken. There is no monster anything like DDO air elementals in the pnp rules that throw someone 20 feet away without any kind of attack roll all the time every time you get within melee range.

Monster hit points also needs to be fixed, but thats another thread - and there are a ton of them. Are casters getting the shaft in several ways? Sure, also another thread. People complaining about 'well melees should need casters' seem to convieniently forget not long ago when people kept coming to the boards and bragging about how their sorcs could solo the entire game, raids and all - hey guess what? Stuffs gets changed to limit that kind of play (exploiting monster AI because it stands in firewalls like a stupid rock is also not a balanced way to make monsters).

There should ALWAYS be some kind of spell option for a monster, and some kind of MELEE option. Air elementals do not have a melee option - even if one is stuck in a dancing ball getting into weapon range causes you to get thrown back - reducing your dps to about....0.

No monster, no quest should require a certain class to complete. D&D is about options, not cookie cutter quests that require a certain makeup or you cant do it.

[StarKiller]

There is no monster anything like DDO air elementals in the pnp rules that throw someone 20 feet away without any kind of attack roll all the time every time you get within melee range.

.

Wrong. According to the MM, if you come into contact with an Air Elemental's whirlwind you automatically have to make 2 saves...1 to avoid being thrown and 1 to avoid damage. There is no attack roll by the elemental at all. I'm not saying that the air elemental in DDO isn't broken, it is. But the fact that there is no attack roll is correct according to pnp rules.

[Thailand_Dan]

My caster has problems with exactly none of those.

Alright, I guess you are the uber-doober of DDO. Can solo red/purple nameds. I stand corrected. You have no problems with these, so I guess noone should bring it up.

[bobbryan2]

Alright, I guess you are the uber-doober of DDO. Can solo red/purple nameds. I stand corrected. You have no problems with these, so I guess noone should bring it up.

I'm just saying... there are very few things my caster has a lot of trouble soloing.

There's a few red named orthons in the vale that aren't exactly easy pickins... especially that one in Ritual Sacrifice. But between heal scrolls, DQ torc and stoneskin... I can stand there taking a beating to get enough SP to polar ray him down.

I can do the same thing with disintigrate and iron golems. Golems tend to have atrocious fort saves, fail disintigrate all over the place...

Any sorc could really... with the right amount of gear and/or skill.

You don't have to get all hurt and saying that I'm uber-doober... because I know plenty of sorcs that are better at soloing than me. I'm just saying your argument isn't that good because good Sorcs actually DONT have problems with them.

[bobbryan2]

Take the room with the 4 named huge Iron Golems in the Twilight Forge.
I am curious about what your caster did.
Oh, what? What did you say? Disentegrate for 500 dmg?
No man, i am talking about what you did when you ran it at an appropriate level, which is lvl 10, before you get disentegrate.
Same for the Wiz-King, the Hound, or anything with a mantle. Disentegrate? Not all sorcs have disentegrate. It's just one spell out of 25.
If disentegrate as the only working spell is ok for a caster, then Fearsome + wounding Throwing is ok for a melee. Both are limited but existing options.

Let's take that room, shall we?

My caster normally takes down 2 of those alone even in a party full of other people. You can throw a jump on, and jump to the top. You're completely safe from any other attack, and could simply throw a dwarven thrower down at the golems, and take them out that way. (since disintigrate is apparantly off the table).

But the truth of the matter is that any sorc that wants to be able to kill golems uses disintigrate. It's the anti-golem spell in DDO. Wiz King is susceptible to any non-ice spell over 4th. The Hound is a raid boss... I don't right know what I would do as I've never been in a situation to solo him in the first place. It'd be pretty tough for a sorc to keep those 3 dogs alive on heal scrolls.

[ahpook]

Take the room with the 4 named huge Iron Golems in the Twilight Forge.
I am curious about what your caster did.
Oh, what? What did you say? Disentegrate for 500 dmg?
No man, i am talking about what you did when you ran it at an appropriate level, which is lvl 10, before you get disentegrate.
Same for the Wiz-King, the Hound, or anything with a mantle. Disentegrate? Not all sorcs have disentegrate. It's just one spell out of 25.
If disentegrate as the only working spell is ok for a caster, then Fearsome + wounding Throwing is ok for a melee. Both are limited but existing options.

The caster could also cast Tenser's Transformation and melee with GCB or smiting weapon. They might not succeed but they could at least try.

But this is missing the point. With the ele's you can get thrown down on the ground and not get another action for minutes as they knock you down repeatedly before you get up. If there are two of them this is almost guaranteed. And they can do this to multiple opponents at the same time. You have no chance to even TRY to succeed. Even casters can be hit with this if the ele's get too close.

[Riggs]

Wrong. According to the MM, if you come into contact with an Air Elemental's whirlwind you automatically have to make 2 saves...1 to avoid being thrown and 1 to avoid damage. There is no attack roll by the elemental at all. I'm not saying that the air elemental in DDO isn't broken, it is. But the fact that there is no attack roll is correct according to pnp rules.

A) I was looking up the SRD20 Air elemental stats before, and the whirldwind is a temporary 'stance' first off, and only throws you up if you enter the whirlwind, eitehr by attack or moving - not merely being within 5 feet of it.

B) DDO does not have any reflex rolls to resist whirlwind, just str/dex checks to stay standing. But when close, there is no roll, no attack, no save - just automatic knockback when within range.

As someone said - I also predict air elementals will be fixed the day Druids get to summon them or turn into one - because otherwise Druids will be able to kill any non-red named monster in the game without any challenge whatsoever.