Sorcerer Capstone Preview: Power Surge

[Angelus_dead]

Preservation?

A percentage reduction to incoming stat damage. It does not function like Fortification, which is 25%, 75%, 100% (total blocking is a bad design). Instead it'd be closer to 25%, 63%, 82%.

[Tap4black]

WOW!

Next to the Rogue Capstone, this is definately the worst I've seen so far.

Here's an idea Turbine Devs, how about you take a step back and realize that DDO Sorcerers are not all DPS casters. Due to idiotic HP and moronic blanket immunities you have given most end game mobs, quite a number of us have elected to follow other schools of arcane casting. You do realize that there are more schools of magic that a Sorcerer can follow besides Evocation do you not??????.........

Maybe some of us prefer to not be a FW/DBF/Polar Ray spam casting outta mana begging for DV's drain on the party caster and prefer to actually think (Yes, I know we also look good but some of actually have a brain and like to use it in quest).

If you are going to move forward with this garbage as printed, at least give us the ability to spend our AP's on the Wiz Capstone so we can at least get SOME use out of being a pure class capped toon.

[vtecfiend99]

True, there could be a middle ground. Doesn't mean there is.

You could run into several problems:

• Mobs lasting so long it's boring.How would lowering their hp make them last longer than now?
• Spells becoming too powerful (CC and insta-kill, mostly)lowering mob hp would have almost no effect on insta kill and most CC... this statement is absurd.
• Stat-damagestat damage what? We are discussing changes made to MOBS start another thread for fixing stat damage. nothing you can do to a mob short of making it immune or having it self buff some form of protection will solve the stat damage problem, EXCEPT lowering the HP of the mobs so that the time to dps it with spells and non-stat weapons is much closer to the stat damage time.

And saying things like "there could be a middle ground, but doesn't mean there is"
is a little more than annoying. There are vary very few things that cannot be resolved with a compromise you know. Just because mobs USED to be at one level of HP and now are at ANOTHER level does not in any way whatsoever even come CLOSE to implying that those are the only two reasonable ranges for them to exist in.

In fact, it implies that BOTH of those extremes are not suitable seeing as they had too few then, and too many now, basic intelligence wold lead you to conclude that somewhere in the middle lies the solution...

[Angelus_dead]

stat damage what? We are discussing changes made to MOBS start another thread for fixing stat damage.

Stat damage is completely relevant.

Aside from instakill / fts (which can be countered by deathward + fortitude), stat damage is the whole reason hitpoint damage isn't worthwhile. Eladrin mentioned that this capstone seems weak because it's unimportant for sorcs to go for DPS, but he is trying to change things so DPS matters.

Nerfing stat damage would be an obvious way to make that change.

[vtecfiend99]

WOW!
Here's an idea Turbine Devs, how about you take a step back and realize that DDO Sorcerers are not all DPS casters. .

we decided to make the first Sorcerer capstone one that would be appealing to those damage-oriented characters..

Everything you need to know to kill your tantrum is in red lol.

[vtecfiend99]

Stat damage is completely relevant.

Aside from instakill / fts (which can be countered by deathward + fortitude), stat damage is the whole reason hitpoint damage isn't worthwhile. Eladrin mentioned that this capstone seems weak because it's unimportant for sorcs to go for DPS, but he is trying to change things so DPS matters.

Nerfing stat damage would be an obvious way to make that change.

I agree that nerfing stat damage in some fashion is needed. However, it is not even close to the only problem. If you could kill a mob in only a LITTLE more time with dps then it wouldn't really matter. The problem is that it takes ALOT more time to kill a mob with dps. I think it is too long, you may disagree and that is fine. I do not think that simply nerfing stat damage would solve the problem. DPS casters and melee would still be overwhelmed with the grossly inflated mob hp, only then there would be no alternative.

[Yshkabibble]

I will echo most comments. Next to rogues this is the worst. Not only is it not particularly powerful, but it is also not particularly interesting. I would have to agree that this one ranks near the bottom of the list (just above the rogue).

[vtecfiend99]

I will echo most comments. Next to rogues this is the worst. Not only is it not particularly powerful, but it is also not particularly interesting. I would have to agree that this one ranks near the bottom of the list (just above the rogue).

I don't think you can judge the worth of this until you know what changes E has planned to make straight DPS more viable.


IDK... I dont hate this capstone I think it's pretty cool. Guess it's just me lol.


And hey, it's not like they haven't listened to us about other capstones right? pally one got changed. Give it a fair shake.

[Xaxx]

Depends on how it's done. Remember M4 and M5? Mobs' HP was lower, and guess who won the DPS fight.

That's why there is a need to nerf the DPS as well.

LOL LOOOOOOOOOL

you wish to compare mod 4 and 5 mele weapons with mod 6 and beyond.. the shroud changed mele dps capability by leaps and bounds...

[vtecfiend99]

LOL LOOOOOOOOOL

you wish to compare mod 4 and 5 mele weapons with mod 6 and beyond.. the shroud changed mele dps capability by leaps and bounds...

He is gonna laugh at you now.

[Pwesiela]

Well, I'm going to make the plug that I've been making for the last who knows how long.

By the looks of it, we're never going to see anything that boosts the spell caster's ability in any school of magic. Instead we're going to focus on dps, dps, and hey! dps!

Fabulous. I have 3 spells this will apply to.

C'mon turbine. We ever going to see anything for the necromancers, the enchanters, the illusionists, the evokers? Ever?

[Pwesiela]

Everything you need to know to kill your tantrum is in red lol.

Because we all know that the other capstones are going to come out within weeks of the first ones.

[vtecfiend99]

Because we all know that the other capstones are going to come out within weeks of the first ones.

well... they are on a budget so....

[gfunk]

noooooo.... I dont want to roll a wizi!

Oh well, 1 human wizi coming up. hmm, maybe their intent was to make us sorcerer players want to create a new alt...

[Oreg]

Didn't read past the first page but I am underwhelmed with this one. I was really excited for my sorc after reading the wizard capstone and even if +2 cha wasn't under consideration, surely something better than this can be found?

OH and "Power Surge" to me means "activate this ability and for the next 20 seconds you don't expend spell points on your casts" useable x times per rest . Or for the next xx seconds you boost your spell points by 400 by digging deep like a stud.

The word "surge" in no way is reflective of a static increase in base damage for a few spells.

[vtecfiend99]

boost your spell points by 400 by digging deep like a stud.

hahaha, that made me laugh so hard. Not that you want that effect, but the digging deep like a stud part rofl. classic man, classic lol

[Noctus]

In the current endgame: meeeh.
About 1 in 20 spells i cast on my Sorcerer are damage spells. Many blanket immunities in combination with massive HP of monsters have mad going DPS-Casting a waste of SP in most cases.

So i hope that in mod 9 casting a direct-damage spell will be more worthwhile. In this case the Capstone might be worth taking.


So i cant decide if this Capstone is nice or not, yet.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

We're experimenting with different ways to make damage worthwhile again for both mundane classes and spellcasters.

And for DPS melee I hope. 1milllion HP monsters are not fun, at all.

[Angelus_dead]

The word "surge" in no way is reflective of a static increase in base damage for a few spells.

Thus my suggestion that you randomly know ahead of time your spell will crit, allowing you to aim it where needed.

[bobbryan2]

First and foremost...

In Mod 5, casters ruled the roost. DPS was a valid way of taking down enemies. There, it's said.

I'm not going to say DPS is worthless now, because it's not. When I solo on my sorc (still one of the easiest classes to solo on), I mainly use firewalls, dancing spheres, solid/acid fogs. No... these tactics don't work in any quest... really... they only primarily work in Monastery, Ritual Sacrifice, Coal Chamber, and some parts of the Spider quest. But that's ok in general... that it's not a universal strategy.

The problem I have.. is that a little more damage in those situations isn't going to help. Firewall + dancing sphere or fog is WAY overkill for a normal group of creatures. Doing an extra 10% damage is ok and all... but it's not capstone worthy. You were going to kill everything in the room 50% of the way through the firewall... but now you kill them 45% of the way through the firewall. It doesn't save you any extra mana... it doesn't really save you any life (if you were taking constant damage... you wouldn't last too long).

So... this capstone doesn't really help the situations where I 'do' use damage.

And it obviously doesn't help in situations where I don't use damage.

You know where this will help? It'll help kill Sor'jek faster with my firewalls doing an extra 10%... but that'll be a low level encounter by the time we get this. It'll help do a bit more damage to harry (but I really only blow my spell points to make it go slightly faster (and lately I just save my mana for Mass protection from energy... how's that for a sorc's job)

Basically... something's going to have to drastically change between how we view quests now and how we view quests at lvl 20. The trick to soloing is using persistant AoE damage to achieve maximum efficiency. You have to make your spell points last from shrine to shrine... so single target, and single cast stuff might as well be taken off the bar.

The devs kinda screwed the pooch by making firewall THE persistant DoT spell... leaving every other DoT spell in its wake. It would probably be ok if things like incendiary cloud and acid fog were actually better... but they're not.

And since firewall does so much overkill.. the extra damage doesn't actually help. So even for casters that use a lot of DPS still (me), this capstone still wouldn't do anything.

It'll be interesting to see how they make damage more interesting. They backed themselves into a corner with Mod 5... and giving casters so much damage potential... but then they made it even worse in Mod 6 by giving melees SOoOOOOOOO much damage over time.

When a ranger can give sustained 200 DPS.. and a caster struggles to double that with normal spells (and has a very limited pool) it means casters are hosed on any high HP creatures.