Idea for balancing the overpowered firewall

[Monkey_Archer]

It makes sense for CK to be affected by Maximize and Empower. Though, I am not quite sure, don't they already have Acid Fog?

Yeah, im not so sure either..
Assuming that CK and acid fog stack (i dont think they do) both combined still wont do as much as one firewall, yet costs about twice the sp.

If CK can be max/empowered, it would certainly give acid spec casters a way to compete with fire spec.... but nothing is stoping just stacking both CK and firewall to do twice the damage anyway.

This is the problem. There is no way to give acid casters an equivalent to firewall, without essentially doubling the total damage a caster can do with persistent area of effect spells. Unless they either nerf firewall, or prevent it from stacking with CK.

[Angelus_dead]

This is the problem. There is no way to give acid casters an equivalent to firewall

That's not "the problem". There's no serious game-design objective to make "acid casters" and "fire casters" closely balanced; especially since it's so easy to switch between them. If fire spells are more powerful overall, then so be it.

A more correct way to describe the problem would be
1. Wall of Fire makes it impossible to balance fire-immune and non-fire-immune mobs.
2. On non-resistant mobs, Wall of Fire has untouchably better damage efficiency than other spell choices.

[Borror0]

Yeah, im not so sure either..

It didn't read correctly. I forgot a few words. The last part of the quote should read "I am not quite sure of what you mean, don't they already have Acid Fog for that?"

Sorry about that.

Assuming that CK and acid fog stack (i dont think they do) both combined still wont do as much as one firewall, yet costs about twice the sp.

I didn't bother testing, but they're not intended to stack. Well, not the DPS part that is.

In all honesty, Acid Fog should not, alone, should not deal more damage than Wall of Fire. As Aesop said, Acid Fog has the huge advantage of slowing down mobs as well. If we are to make it deal more damage than Wall of Fire, then Acid Fog is twice more powerful than a level 4 (as it combines Solid Fog and Wall of Fire in one).

The same logic applies to CK, as it also lower mobs' Constitution.

Unless they either nerf firewall, or prevent it from stacking with CK.

There is no such problem.

Think of how powerful an untrained AF is right now. It would be similar for an untrained CK.

[Angelus_dead]

In all honesty, Acid Fog should not, alone, should not deal more damage than Wall of Fire. As Aesop said, Acid Fog has the huge advantage of slowing down mobs as well.

In addition, D&D game design holds that X acid damage is worth more than X fire damage, because more mobs will be immune to the fire (devils, red dragons, iron golems, and fire elementals).

You can easily picture how much better Wall of Acid would be in VOD (as compared to WOF)

[Borror0]

On non-resistant mobs, Wall of Fire has untouchably better damage efficiency than other spell choices.

I was going back through my feeds and I saw a post from a WoW developer on this subject so I figure I could quote him on why choice is important:

A key to games being fun is feeling like you have a choice. If you aren't making decisions then you aren't really playing a game -- you are watching something as a viewer not participating as a player. Game design has proven over many years that when you have choice A and choice B where choice A grants more power and choice B looks cooler or grants almost any other kind of benefit, a vast majority of players will choose A. In their minds there is no choice. It has to be A. Likewise if humans were the most powerful race and mages were the most powerful class then WoW would not be very diverse. We want tradeskills to be a choice. Having a best profession means that choice does not exist.

[Angelus_dead]

When I solo running with the devils on my caster, it is -faster- to finger every single mob with 38 cha and max spell pen; however, that leads to an extremely small (50-100 sp) window when reaching the shrine if something goes wrong. Fingering the Ghaeles and using 2 WOF to kill ~20 Bralani is actually quite a bit slower, but leads to having ~800-1000 sp at the shrine instead.

I just wanted to re-emphasize this.

It's hilarious to point to a level 16 character soloing a level 16 quest with a bunch of mana leftover, and try to somehow use it as evidence that his features aren't overpowered.

Newsflash: Quests are supposed to challenge parties of 4-5 players. To even talk about soloing one is to admit that characters are overpowered.

[Junts]

You're acting as if DPS was the only balance consideration. How many DPM (damage per mana) can a sorcerer put out against Sorjek? How many against Suulomades?

See the huge huge difference between those numbers?


It is, although BB is weak against the kinds of mobs who won't chase rapidly.


I already explained that the current irrelevance of DPS is not supposed to be a permanent situation.


1. That's blatantly false.
2. Even if it were true, the game design objectives do not include every single class being solo-capable.


You've just proved that Wall of Fire is overpowered.

If anyone wants to estimate the approximate duration of a Sor'jek fight I'd be glad to give you a dpm breakdown, though in anything but the abstract the only time the damage output of the caster in VOD is relevant is at the very end, during the bats .. when it's hard to run out of sp even spamming your highest damage spells as fast as possible (and, properly equipped, the dps output there is, fact, useful).

Arraetrikos would be a far better example for your point, since he's dpsed all at once and not in intermittant stages with breaks.

The thing is, Angelus, its completely acceptable for some spells and/or classes to be better in some quests/bosses than other ones, as long as they are all still worth bringing.

Yes, wall of fire is overpowered; that doesn't mean nerfing it is going to make casters more balanced in the short-term.

[Angelus_dead]

If anyone wants to estimate the approximate duration of a Sor'jek fight I'd be glad to give you a dpm breakdown

Duration is irrelevant.

[Junts]

I just wanted to re-emphasize this.

It's hilarious to point to a level 16 character soloing a level 16 quest with a bunch of mana leftover, and try to somehow use it as evidence that his features aren't overpowered.

Newsflash: Quests are supposed to challenge parties of 4-5 players. To even talk about soloing one is to admit that characters are overpowered.

Shocking, level 16 characters can solo level 16 quests on normal. Completely shocking :P

I won't hesitate to point out that reaching the shrine with 800ish sp is pretty necessary, since you need to go kill Palin Valance before shrining since it will take ~2000+ sp to kill Taeron Rimond, and firewall will only do a small portion of the damage dealt to him (it's just not fast enough), though it's helpful.

[Borror0]

Shocking, level 16 characters can solo level 16 quests on normal. Completely shocking :P

Well, that was not the intended design but that's acceptable since skills and gears vary greatly.

However, it's possible to complete level 16 quests on Elite.

[Abba_Gadol]

The whole point of a Wizards spells are to be powerful since they have no hit points. Thier con is so low they have to have spell power to compensate or die. that is why they stay in the back. It kinda sucks to have a low level Wiz. So when we finally get leveled we are a major force.

I say leave it alone.

[Angelus_dead]

Well, that was not the intended design but that's acceptable since skills and gears vary greatly.

There's a crucial difference between "acceptable outcome" and "design objective", which would imply that future changes be constrained so that it always keeps working that way.

[Junts]

Well, that was not the intended design but that's acceptable since skills and gears vary greatly.

However, it's possible to complete level 16 quests on Elite.

I'm pretty sure there's no way at all that level-designers do not appreciate that the parties required to do their elite settings could individually solo their normal settings

There's that much gap between characters, and yes, I also solo some level 16 stuff on elite: that's a lot more about knowledge and avoidance than anything else, however, and in fact the only level 16+ quests where firewall plays a significant role in soloing is Ritual Sacrifice (for the elementals, though fast fingering is just as effective, it does work when you're laying down), with a minor nod over to Running (helpful but not essential) : soloing dust, rainbow and coal chamber often involves casting less than 4 firewalls total, soloing kobold involves none, monestary also involves none (though a fw-heavy tactic works equally well for 1-2 min more and less cahnce of bad luck), and even soloing Prey doesn't really involve much firewall: you're killing trash with web and ck, and using single-target spells on Kiljarne since firewall would kill Aussircaex too fast.

In fact, soloing at high levels has only a slight relation to firewall, its primarily extremely potent in lv 8-15 questing, the subterrane (if soloing garamol or on the hound side .. its useless on the vod side), and stealer of souls.

I'd be willing to say that I find that to be a pretty significantly small list of places firewall is a big deal at endgame, even soloing as a caster.

[Junts]

Yeah, im not so sure either..
Assuming that CK and acid fog stack (i dont think they do) both combined still wont do as much as one firewall, yet costs about twice the sp.

If CK can be max/empowered, it would certainly give acid spec casters a way to compete with fire spec.... but nothing is stoping just stacking both CK and firewall to do twice the damage anyway.

This is the problem. There is no way to give acid casters an equivalent to firewall, without essentially doubling the total damage a caster can do with persistent area of effect spells. Unless they either nerf firewall, or prevent it from stacking with CK.

Acid fog is only 2d6 damage with no +1/level: since +16 is a lot more than 2d6 (its 2/3 of firewall's capped damage base), acid fog even with full enhancements and potency is not a significant damage dealer unless its a crit.. that's often true for firewall, but it's even more true of acid fog, which ticks for 50-70 damage non-crit maxed out, and that's just not useful, especially without the recrossing option.


The new CK is +1/level, but with a save for half and no metamagic boosts, it will also be useless comparitively.

[moorewr]

This is for Boar. I said that Wall of Fire could be made more `directional,' and this is what I meant:

the d20srd definition of Wall of Fire..:

An immobile, blazing curtain of shimmering violet fire springs into existence. One side of the wall, selected by you, sends forth waves of heat, dealing 2d4 points of fire damage to creatures within 10 feet and 1d4 points of fire damage to those past 10 feet but within 20 feet. The wall deals this damage when it appears and on your turn each round to all creatures in the area. In addition, the wall deals 2d6 points of fire damage +1 point of fire damage per caster level (maximum +20) to any creature passing through it. The wall deals double damage to undead creatures.

If you evoke the wall so that it appears where creatures are, each creature takes damage as if passing through the wall. If any 5-foot length of wall takes 20 points of cold damage or more in 1 round, that length goes out. (Do not divide cold damage by 4, as normal for objects.)

The effect would be to make it harder to "fight in the fire."

[Monkey_Archer]

That's not "the problem". There's no serious game-design objective to make "acid casters" and "fire casters" closely balanced; especially since it's so easy to switch between them. If fire spells are more powerful overall, then so be it.

A more correct way to describe the problem would be
1. Wall of Fire makes it impossible to balance fire-immune and non-fire-immune mobs.
2. On non-resistant mobs, Wall of Fire has untouchably better damage efficiency than other spell choices.

Should have read:
This is the problem with CK being affected by max/empower.

Its not about balancing acid and fire spec... although it would be a good idea to do so. To offer choices, yada yada... (see Borror0's quote from Ghostcrawler)

Its about getting a similar benefit for a similar amount of spell points spent.
Im not sure if a couple con damage will make up for doing only 1/3 the damage of a firewall.... we will have to see.

A better example is acid rain. Same level spell... same spell point cost... same duration (approximately)... yet firewall not only remains as persistent area of effect, but also does around 3 times the overall damage.

[Nonan]

Shocking, level 16 characters can solo level 16 quests on normal. Completely shocking :P

I won't hesitate to point out that reaching the shrine with 800ish sp is pretty necessary, since you need to go kill Palin Valance before shrining since it will take ~2000+ sp to kill Taeron Rimond, and firewall will only do a small portion of the damage dealt to him (it's just not fast enough), though it's helpful.

True Junts, but you can always wait the 15 minutes for the shrine to reset then shrine again. i know it is a waste of time, but still doable.

[Borror0]

The whole point of a Wizards spells are to be powerful since they have no hit points. Thier con is so low they have to have spell power to compensate or die. that is why they stay in the back. It kinda sucks to have a low level Wiz. So when we finally get leveled we are a major force.

I say leave it alone.

If I understand your reasoning, it seems to be that it is boring and painful to play a low level wizard while it is fun to play a low level fighter, therefore it should be painful and boring to play a high level fighter and fun to play a low level wizard.

I think someone did not understand the purpose of a game.

[Trillea]

Should have read:
Its not about balancing acid and fire spec... although it would be a good idea to do so. To offer choices, yada yada... (see Borror0's quote from Ghostcrawler)

Its about getting a similar benefit for a similar amount of spell points spent.
Im not sure if a couple con damage will make up for doing only 1/3 the damage of a firewall.... we will have to see.

A better example is acid rain. Same level spell... same spell point cost... same duration (approximately)... yet firewall not only remains as persistent area of effect, but also does around 3 times the overall damage.

Acid-spec and fire-spec should only be attempted to be balanced with each other if you do not have the option to change it after your choices. As it is you can easily change your spec if something is needed for a specific quest/chain.

[Borror0]

As it is you can easily change your spec if something is needed for a specific quest/chain.

No, you can't. If you do, you're stuck for three days.

Personally, I don't like the fire/ice, acid/electricity and repair/force spec enhancement lines. I think they just remove options.