Casters Are Dead.

[Samadhi]

Seriously. I hope I am wrong, really really wrong, and am missing something key. But, at the moment, casters seem to be absolutely useless in the majority of the new content.

A spell with a DC? Even on normal it is landing less than 50% of the time. No, I'm not capped yet, but nor am I seeing anything in the loot tables to significantly change this the way the Napkin did either. Maybe +1 from a better tome and +1 from a leveling point to bump up 1 DC? That is not going to make a difference when on normal nothing is sticking. Please note, I'm not talking about trailing to Wail everything by any means. I'm specifically referring to the most likely spells to stick (hold, web, etc). The only CC spell we have found to really make a noticeable difference is actually sleet storm.

So what does that leave - nuking? Mildly beneficial - but another well equipped melee is going to be more reliable DPS most of the times it counts. Buffing? I'll run my bards - theirs are better - and they can DPS/heal as well.

Please tell me how I am wrong so that I can adjust my strategies accordingly. Thanks.

[kudesnik]

CC, Acid Fog, Sleet, Energy Drain / Hold / Stone/ Max Emp Chain Miss / Otto irresistible dance.

This so far working out for me.

[Samadhi]

CC, Acid Fog, Sleet, Energy Drain / Hold / Stone/ Max Emp Chain Miss / Otto irresistible dance.

This so far working out for me.

Please define "working" in terms of a percentage.

If you are energy draining a mob just to hold it, you are wasting both mana and time, as far as I can tell. There are far too many mobs vs. the amount of mana you have to use this combo in any of the new Yugo quests.

[quintuss]

In the vale i can destruct even rares fairly reliable with my cleric.

At least at lvl17 i got a destruct success rate on the trogs in the new explorer area of like 5%.

Seems to me the casters are more easy to destruct than the other stuff.

Edit: Greater command worked only one time and curse 1 or 2 times.

At the moment im back to maximized BB's.

[kaelis]

Heighten permanently on, enervate/drain atleast once before any save spell, or ottos irresistable. Web has a ~20-40% success rate for me @ 18

[kudesnik]

Ok, at 38Cha:

None DPS:
Orthons Drain/Hold works almost always on normal.
Bearded Devil more of an issue, they warded against dance and so only option is to Energy Drain or Enervation few times ( BD have high SR ) so 70% of the time spell working - then stone.
Tieflings easy, ball dance or Otto's irresistible works in 90%. or CloudKill.

Control:
Acid Fog and Sleet Slow motion.

Max/Emp Chain Miss yes drains mana fast but if u have lots of mobs close to each other it's a killer spell. and sorcs. can almost spam it.

[kudesnik]

Again just to say you need to have well balanced party - good cleric - WHO can HEAL and good DPS. I ran same quest Iron Maw ( Bastion.. ) twice one with PUG - took us 130 min to finish lots of death. and next day with ppl I played before - 40 min. almost clean. New contect will kill PUGS till everyone get to lvl20 and get used to "how to..."

[sephiroth1084]

Ran Genesis Point the other night on my 17 Wiz. When we got to the part where people were running through the maze, I went up to the control room to throw the switches and dealt with all of the respawning orthons on my own. If they appeared one at a time, I'd throw an Enervation and FoD, which took care of about 80% of them without needing to toss another spell. If they appeared in 2s, I'd either hit them with Mass Hold (worked about 50% of the time), or I'd throw down a dancing ball and kite them through it until both stuck, then, in either case, I'd beat them down with a Dreamspitter. Went through a bunch of orthons with no real problem.

Also, monster HP has dropped enough that one or two CoC can take care of most of the trash stuff. Then if we got swarmed with enough stuff, I'd toss a Wail and hope to take out one or two things--worked most of the time: 5 things attack, 1 or 2 die.

[Monkey_Archer]

point form... tired...

36 intel, heightened to level 8:
finger of death - pretty much useless
web - working fairly well.. maybe 30-50% depending on target
irresistable dance -


Sins of attrition went fairly smothly with constant webs/displacements on party...
Firewalls work fine for tieflings, trogs, and elementals in a new invastion... spam nuking the endboss seems to be the game plan atm...

Going to try mindfog/dancing ball to see how that works... maybe mass hold monster when i get to 20...


IMO good CC (and mass displacements ) is vital for saving cleric resources... especially when running with lower levels (16-17)

[smatt]

I think the game is moving beyond simply zerging through insta-killing everything as fast as your little finger can hit the nuke button..... It'll take a bit mroe work and bit more party coordination, as well as some.... Yep, it's likely that the days of total sorcy domination 6 minute zerg-fests are over.... I'm finding on my non-pure wizzy that level drains the finger, and even PKs on certain mobs are working fine though. But melees are carrying a big part of the load so far as I can see in the new stuff.

Thank god, they're learnign yet again to mix it up, to give more classes a role..... Theyr'e getting away from the stupidity of 1 class rules them all, zergs them all boring BS, I'm so uber look at me go game play....

[cm2_supernova]

Thank god, they're learnign yet again to mix it up, to give more classes a role..... Theyr'e getting away from the stupidity of 1 class rules them all, zergs them all boring BS, I'm so uber look at me go game play....

Ya know smatt...your a great player but your posts are annoying as hell.

As for the OP...it seems to me to be a matter of over correction. Mod 4-5 Casters ruled them all...Mod 6-8 Casters lost a lot of their uberitude but were still very effective thanks to managable SR and DCs and effective use of run-n-burn tactics. Even in the shroud Casters can contribute to the Harry fight. Debuff, cloud and nuke, doenst seem to unbalanced to me.

Mod 9 seems to have taken it a bit too far due to the overly difficult spell DCs and high SR. Hopefully enough posts like these will either lead to better caster items or an adjustment to the mobs.

[Hafeal]

Yep, it's likely that the days of total sorcy domination 6 minute zerg-fests are over.... Thank god, they're learnign yet again to mix it up, to give more classes a role..... Theyr'e getting away from the stupidity of 1 class rules them all, zergs them all boring BS, I'm so uber look at me go game play....

My first impressions are to agree with you. Add in the DA system to DS and try a zerg run through Wiz King, for example, much more difficult, especially with full group and/or on hard and elite (sure a wiz/sorc can still solo it on norm).

[foxx]

CC, Acid Fog, Sleet, Energy Drain / Hold / Stone/ Max Emp Chain Miss / Otto irresistible dance.

This so far working out for me.

so far the groups with a solid caster have done better then the ones with out. dunno
maybe it's a perspective thing .

[smatt]

so far the groups with a solid caster have done better then the ones with out. dunno
maybe it's a perspective thing .

Darn it..... I'm going to agree... I had a HORRIBLE couple of runs with a particular caster the other day. And then the runs I've had with solid casters have gone very smoothly.... I play a barely competant caster and the runs we're still smooth. A well played caster, with a well thought out game plan is a big help. Just not what it was in previous content.. Differrent quests, different roles....

[tinyelvis]

so far the groups with a solid caster have done better then the ones with out. dunno
maybe it's a perspective thing .

I also agree with this statement. In fact, in general, my current party setup of choice is

2 casters (one DPS and one CC )
2 Cleric/Battle Clerics (since mob damage is low, both clerics are expected to pitch in from time to time)
2 Other

Clerics call out their blade barriers. Everyone stays together. Mobs are dealt with a little at a time. Everyone is expected to be as self sufficient as possible.

[smatt]

I also agree with this statement. In fact, in general, my current party setup of choice is

2 casters (one DPS and one CC )
2 Cleric/Battle Clerics (since mob damage is low, both clerics are expected to pitch in from time to time)
2 Other

Clerics call out their blade barriers. Everyone stays together. Mobs are dealt with a little at a time. Everyone is expected to be as self sufficient as possible.

And there it is to some degree, although I've also seen good runs with 1 caster and 1 cleric, mana can get tight IF the casters are careless and don't let the melees do their jobs, which is to be the main killing machines. But I think once toons are capped, this may rotate back to the casters a bit more, with more availble mana to blow through. It's pretty clear though, that melees will carry things a lot more in this content. No doubt about it.....

[Angelus_dead]

Seriously. I hope I am wrong, really really wrong, and am missing something key. But, at the moment, casters seem to be absolutely useless in the majority of the new content.

You're not surprised, right? It looks like a fairly predictable progression:
Shroud: Keep up the haste and fogs, plus maybe some heightened web. Oh and kill those gnolls.
VOD: Keep up the haste and fogs, plus maybe some heightened web. Oh and kill those bats.

The times when a mage could contribute DPS against devils in Shroud or later were uncommon, and depended upon a ring of melees already clobbering the boss. As a melee in these quests, I can contribute simply by moving in a clump with the other melees and swinging around at whatever gets close... but if there's a mage with us, too often it doesn't make sense for him to even bother trying. With effort and luck he can steal some kills, but that's not a true contribution to the party.

The devs will have to try and find a way to fix the problems you experienced, and I tell you, I don't envy them the job. Part of the solution could come automatically when you move on to mobs who don't have so many fire-immune teleporters. Part of their attempt will be adding non-spellpoint spells to casters, so they can join in DPSing trash without burning points needed for a boss. But it'll take a lot more than that, and some of the changes would definitely have to upset one category of players or another. It'll be tough!

(A few other things that could help would be Dimensional Anchor as a self-buff aura, and something like Energy Substitution or Searing Spell. Aggro scaling by distance threshold could help as well, as could a Intim and Diplo skills that integrate with Hate points. But those topics get very complex very fast. And hey, Mass Enervate!)

[Sohryu]

Energy Drain/FoD/TtS FTW.

Sure more things are immune to fire but it's all about a change in strategy.

I've been using Trap The Soul more and more and it generally yields better results than FoD, and half the time you don't have to Energy Drain things first. They sell Tiny Khyber Dragonshards in Amrath now that you can buy and crunch up into Smalls and Averages, and they also sell Soul Bags in Amrath to hold all the gems.

[Raegoul]

You're not surprised, right? It looks like a fairly predictable progression:
Shroud: Keep up the haste and fogs, plus maybe some heightened web. Oh and kill those gnolls.
VOD: Keep up the haste and fogs, plus maybe some heightened web. Oh and kill those bats.

The times when a mage could contribute DPS against devils in Shroud or later were uncommon, and depended upon a ring of melees already clobbering the boss. As a melee in these quests, I can contribute simply by moving in a clump with the other melees and swinging around at whatever gets close... but if there's a mage with us, too often it doesn't make sense for him to even bother trying. With effort and luck he can steal some kills, but that's not a true contribution to the party.

The devs will have to try and find a way to fix the problems you experienced, and I tell you, I don't envy them the job. Part of the solution could come automatically when you move on to mobs who don't have so many fire-immune teleporters. Part of their attempt will be adding non-spellpoint spells to casters, so they can join in DPSing trash without burning points needed for a boss. But it'll take a lot more than that, and some of the changes would definitely have to upset one category of players or another. It'll be tough!

(A few other things that could help would be Dimensional Anchor as a self-buff aura, and something like Energy Substitution or Searing Spell. Aggro scaling by distance threshold could help as well, as could a Intim and Diplo skills that integrate with Hate points. But those topics get very complex very fast. And hey, Mass Enervate!)

I feel dirty... /agree

I would also like to add that Casters should be able to do stuff on a bigger scale. So i would like to things like walls of force and stone to affect the environment and control the battle field. I would like the fun of the Caster doing something that respects the true power in PnP not just adding DPS. Though Searing spell would be nice it just makes firewall and DelayFB the only spells to be used. There needs to be more real options out there that bend the world to a mage's will.

[Zippo]

Seriously. I hope I am wrong, really really wrong, and am missing something key. But, at the moment, casters seem to be absolutely useless in the majority of the new content.

A spell with a DC? Even on normal it is landing less than 50% of the time. No, I'm not capped yet, but nor am I seeing anything in the loot tables to significantly change this the way the Napkin did either. Maybe +1 from a better tome and +1 from a leveling point to bump up 1 DC? That is not going to make a difference when on normal nothing is sticking. Please note, I'm not talking about trailing to Wail everything by any means. I'm specifically referring to the most likely spells to stick (hold, web, etc). The only CC spell we have found to really make a noticeable difference is actually sleet storm.

So what does that leave - nuking? Mildly beneficial - but another well equipped melee is going to be more reliable DPS most of the times it counts. Buffing? I'll run my bards - theirs are better - and they can DPS/heal as well.

Please tell me how I am wrong so that I can adjust my strategies accordingly. Thanks.

How long have you been around?

You know that's how it goes one mods end game melees are king and the next end game casters rule. That's pretty much the way its been since the beginning. Its just the nature of the game.