Epic Archers are now beyond epic - they break basic DR rules

[Angelus_dead]

That sounds like a remark a non-caster player would make.

Wrong: in reality, it sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Sirea]

Nah, hes got a cleric with the torc. I almost agree with him; the item is incredibly overpowered and completely re-balances how characters with a sp bar play. It basically forced them to add items like the bauble and the epic spellstoring ring, because its still quite possible to get more sp out of the torc during a normal run of a quest, without trying, than even the epic SS ring could give you.

The gap between sp users with and without torcs is so vast as to defy description and, consequently, balance. Just soloing a normal sins on Jaerlach I get back 10 mana pots or more worth of spell points in a simple 12-15 minute run. In epic DQ2s, I've seen Divatank, Rocka and Fanfare get back 15+ mana pots worth of SP by grabbing archer aggro. There's almost no way for them to balance for infinite resources in a game that is based around resource conservation.

I love the item, but it is a massive balancing problem, and probably a big part of why the cost of quests keep going up and up and up. Imagine how many extra sp you could get out of something as simple as healing part 3 of tod if, instead of killing the orthons that aggroed on each cleric, they were instead kept stoneskinned and one person scroll healed them.

It's not just the Torc, it's Con-Op items too. Add in things like the Bauble and Epic SS Ring, and you've pretty much got endless mana. With a Torc and two ConOps on Sohryu it's ridiculous how much mana I can get back in such a short time. If they nerf the torc, then they'll have to nerf ConOp too, and that's gonna **** off a lot of caster types.

In the case of the archers, their damage was a bit weak before on Epic, weak enough that Sohryu could sit there with a shield and Bramble Casters and keep herself up with potions while getting mana back. The damage is probably more in line now with what it should be, maybe a bit on the high side though...

[Angelus_dead]

I love the item, but it is a massive balancing problem, and probably a big part of why the cost of quests keep going up and up and up.

It's a relatively minor reason: the main cause is that the devs need monsters to feel dangerous, but previous design mistakes constrain them from easily giving them burst DPS.

Imagine how many extra sp you could get

As an experiment, I took off all gear except the Torc, went alone into an empty room, and expended a single material component. Four minutes later I came out and had 521 more spellpoints than when I started, or 130 sp/min. That's the low end of free mana income, and the rate could have been much improved if I self-healed from scrolls, or had found additional monsters to help assault me.

instead of killing the orthons that aggroed on each cleric, they were instead kept stoneskinned and one person scroll healed them.

Stoneskin, nah. Orthons are pretty happy to stay at range, so you can just Bramblecaster (that causes only a minor problem in reducing typical heal crits)

If you look at the core game design, it's pretty obvious that the Torc should never have been allowed to stack with itself.

[Angelus_dead]

Learn to accept that some regular forumites like to spew drivel without any practical experience in said class, no desire to play said class, or quit playing said class after a level or two.

Are you aware of how bad you're making yourself look by writing stuff like that? What are you trying to accomplish?

[Sirea]

Wrong: in reality, it sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about.

I fail to see why the remark you've quoted would paint me in such a light

[Junts]

It's a relatively minor reason: the main cause is that the devs need monsters to feel dangerous, but previous design mistakes constrain them from easily giving them burst DPS.


As an experiment, I took off all gear except the Torc, went alone into an empty room, and expended a single material component. Four minutes later I came out and had 521 more spellpoints than when I started, or 130 sp/min. That's the low end of free mana income, and the rate could have been much improved if I self-healed from scrolls, or had found additional monsters to help assault me.


Stoneskin, nah. Orthons are pretty happy to stay at range, so you can just Bramblecaster (that causes only a minor problem in reducing typical heal crits)

If you look at the core game design, it's pretty obvious that the Torc should never have been allowed to stack with itself.

I agree with you on all these things, and still love the item.

Con opp is not necessary; the torc procs roughly 3-4 times as often. Anything returned by concordant opposition is gravy and primarily useful to people who do not have heal/reconstruct to restore themselves.

On the other hand, I do feel that having a bauble+epic ss ring will pretty much relieve anyone who can't self-heal off their bar from really caring much about the torc or concordant opposition; having 1500 sp worth of clickies (or more) is enough for any caster in any quest. My sorceror has never really needed to torc back more than about 1000-1200 sp in anything, even soloing or doing epic (or doing solo epic), so I imagine he will pretty much put his torc away when he gets his epic SS ring.

On the other hand, for anyone who can self-heal with sp, the item is so much better than every other item that it's not even funny.

[maddmatt70]

It's a relatively minor reason: the main cause is that the devs need monsters to feel dangerous, but previous design mistakes constrain them from easily giving them burst DPS.


As an experiment, I took off all gear except the Torc, went alone into an empty room, and expended a single material component. Four minutes later I came out and had 521 more spellpoints than when I started, or 130 sp/min. That's the low end of free mana income, and the rate could have been much improved if I self-healed from scrolls, or had found additional monsters to help assault me.


Stoneskin, nah. Orthons are pretty happy to stay at range, so you can just Bramblecaster (that causes only a minor problem in reducing typical heal crits)

If you look at the core game design, it's pretty obvious that the Torc should never have been allowed to stack with itself.

People have a tendency to overstate the power of the torque because they overlook one factor and that factor is time. You had to spend 4 minutes shield blocking to get that mana which is 4 more minutes you could have spent completing the quest. An efficient use of mana throughout a quest with a constant non stop pace is almost always better then taking a time out and shield blocking from an overall time efficiency standpoint.

[Junts]

People have a tendency to overstate the power of the torque because they overlook one factor and that factor is time. You had to spend 4 minutes shield blocking to get that mana which is 4 more minutes you could have spent completing the quest. An efficient use of mana throughout a quest with a constant non stop pace is almost always better then taking a time out and shield blocking from an overall time efficiency standpoint.

The thing is, all you need to do to get back 1000 sp over the course of the quest is to wear the torc and conc opp and not avoid getting hit. just standing in the middle of the melee, mass healing the tanks while they take out the trash will generate more sp income than it costs to heal them. You don't have to stop and block and regenerate this way .. you can, but its main purpose is for soloing. For group play, you just have to stop avoiding being in the line of fire, and your mana, while not infinite, is way more than is needed to do the quest. You can do bastion and skip every shrine if you want that way.

The idea that you have to stop and let the torc be procced is wrong; the thing goes off more than 5% of the time, and arrows proc it around 10% of the time. If you stand in the melee and the tanks leave thea rchers alone so they'll hit you, you have infinite mana. Shield blocking not required.

[maddmatt70]

The thing is, all you need to do to get back 1000 sp over the course of the quest is to wear the torc and conc opp and not avoid getting hit. just standing in the middle of the melee, mass healing the tanks while they take out the trash will generate more sp income than it costs to heal them. You don't have to stop and block and regenerate this way .. you can, but its main purpose is for soloing. For group play, you just have to stop avoiding being in the line of fire, and your mana, while not infinite, is way more than is needed to do the quest. You can do bastion and skip every shrine if you want that way.

The idea that you have to stop and let the torc be procced is wrong; the thing goes off more than 5% of the time, and arrows proc it around 10% of the time. If you stand in the melee and the tanks leave thea rchers alone so they'll hit you, you have infinite mana. Shield blocking not required.

Understood, but I would bet that unless we are talking about blade barriors with clerics or casters casting firewall or something similiar or melee cleric/caster you are vastly overstating the amount of mana regeneration that is gained.

[jmelanie7]

Understood, but I would bet that unless we are talking about blade barriors with clerics or casters casting firewall or something similiar or melee cleric/caster you are vastly overstating the amount of mana regeneration that is gained.

Nope he is not, just get in the way of as many dmg you can, your playstyle will change drastically when you experience that.

[Angelus_dead]

You don't have to stop and block and regenerate this way .. you can, but its main purpose is for soloing.

And on Normal mode there is even less need to use it than ever, thanks to damage pullback.

If you're alone on Normal, then monsters pull back their damage so that standard enemies won't do more than about 10 points per hit. This effect is applied after DR, to prevent barbs and FVS from being nearly impervious... but with a design oversight, it doesn't compensate for temporary hitpoints.

The other Laliat item which enables limitless spellpoint soloing is the Bracers of Demon's Consort. They have about a 20% chance of giving you +30 hp, which is similar to having an additional 30/5 = 6 DR stacked on your actual DR. Because monsters pull back their damage without consideration for temp hp, it means they come out to doing ~4 instead of ~10 like they were meant to.

[Junts]

And on Normal mode there is even less need to use it than ever, thanks to damage pullback.

If you're alone on Normal, then monsters pull back their damage so that standard enemies won't do more than about 10 points per hit. This effect is applied after DR, to prevent barbs and FVS from being nearly impervious... but with a design oversight, it doesn't compensate for temporary hitpoints.

The other Laliat item which enables limitless spellpoint soloing is the Bracers of Demon's Consort. They have about a 20% chance of giving you +30 hp, which is similar to having an additional 30/5 = 6 DR stacked on your actual DR. Because monsters pull back their damage without consideration for temp hp, it means they come out to doing ~4 instead of ~10 like they were meant to.

I've never really been able to work in the bracers, but the con opp hp proc and Healer's Bounty function relatively the same.

The again, my main mana battery toon takes so little damage (its all grazes) that I barely even have to cast heals in Sins .. just healer's bounty procs keep me healed through 20 mob packs.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Not a single archers in the game fires faster then a lvl20 ranger can. The fact they do more dmg per shot is not cheating.

Do you wear a deathblock item? Are they breaking the rules?
The mobs immunities aren't beyond what basic gear they should have. Pretty much the only one that has much effect on how we play is deathblock, which is something every player has very easy access to, why wouldn't the monsters?

Um they only have 50-70 AC. The exact same AC can be easily maintained by players with no buffs too. Fully buffed players can reach over double that AC, up to 130+.. The mobs aren't even close to cheating as badly as we can in that area.

They don't have such armor, if they did, they'd have 100+ AC. If you want them to have hitpoints similar to yours - run normal.

Enemy casters do have a function similar to concentration checks. They don't work the same, but you can interupt them. You need to hit them for about 30% of there HP with a single attack to do it. On epic that's basiclly impossible ofcourse.

Being not a single epic longbow has been crafted yet, I think that one is too early to call. Depending on how powerful they are, this patch could indeed be ranged love.

Players get the same thing. It's not a cheat.


Whine whine whine. Offer an alternative suggestion to make things harder instead of whining. Also every epic quest is quite doable under 40 minuits by a truely epic team, even the very very long chains of flame.

Well, I said I do understand why.
And of course some of what I said (+60 full plate) was an exageration.

Don't have a 20th lvl Rgr yet. So haven't been able to evaluate that.

It's not the death block, it's the immunity to stat damage and enchantments. That should be spell effects that can be dispelled IMO. Maybe other things too.

For instance, we should be able to use Mordakainens Disjunction on them, and severaly debuff them.

I'm ok with them being tuff. (I'm actually ok with most of the current game)

But in PnP 3.5, everything about the monsters is supposed to be explained.

Where do the saves come from? If it is a resistance item, I should be able to loot it.

Where does the AC come from? items? Lootable. Spells? dispelable. Maybe not easily, but possible.

I know why the devs have done what they have done. And it makes sense since we have no DM to regulate things.

But I still feel it's cheating.

Oh, and I have never seen casting get interupted on a monster...ever. In fact, death does not even stop them from casting.

I've heard others claim like you have that if you do enough damage it will interupt them. But I see Kobold shamen spell effects go off after they die all the time.

And recently I was disintegrated after I killed a caster.

Granted it is debatable that they could make a concentration check even if the damage they took was enough to kill them, or that they actually cast the spell before the effect showed up.
And that more than likely it's just am issue with the programming that cause this.
(which I explain as an attack buffer)

But it's still annoying.

[Junts]

Understood, but I would bet that unless we are talking about blade barriors with clerics or casters casting firewall or something similiar or melee cleric/caster you are vastly overstating the amount of mana regeneration that is gained.

Yeah, I don't really think I am at all .. the thing goes off like crazy. It's also important to remember that, in defiance of logic, it seems to proc far more often from ranged than melee attacks, so mobs like Orthons are particularly awesome for generating regen.

A torc user doesn't want blur or displacement .. they want to go find the character like shade and stand right on top of them and throw some mass cures. Both bars will go up.

[maddmatt70]

Yeah, I don't really think I am at all .. the thing goes off like crazy. It's also important to remember that, in defiance of logic, it seems to proc far more often from ranged than melee attacks, so mobs like Orthons are particularly awesome for generating regen.

A torc user doesn't want blur or displacement .. they want to go find the character like shade and stand right on top of them and throw some mass cures. Both bars will go up.

I think you are, but to each his/her own. Its not like mana pots are necessary on epic quests or anything the biggest issue on epic quests is the time it takes to first get a group together and then getting a quest done fairly quickly at this point. I zerge the group I am in as much as possible, try to buff on the run, etc. I want to get all the quests done in under an hour everytime I run them with the exception of OOB (under 35 min) and the raid which should be (15 ish min + 15 ish min dq1 flag/lfm time). I have been playing my bard Rabiez alot the last 2-3 weeks with this mindset.

[Angelus_dead]

proc far more often from ranged than melee attacks, so mobs like Orthons are particularly awesome for generating regen.

As a little test, 60 seconds with a single Orthon in the devil battlefield produced 129 torc spellpoints. I had to repeatedly move away because he creeped up to melee range.

[Enochroot]

Yet ANOTHER ridiculous knee-jerk reaction on game design.

What's happened:

- torc was really good before
- they added more hp/sp proc items
- they decided to up the proc rate to a CRAZY level (why was this done?!?!?! was no one else wary of this change?)

- now they have to ruin archer damage to a totally unfun degree (crippling is one of the LEAST fun things in the game - yay!! hinder our movement more!!! what FUN!)


TURBINE - PLAN YOUR GAME AND STOP BEING REACTIONARY - change the **** archer aggro back and -


- revert the torc/conc op etc back to it's former or a shadow of it's former glory
- figure out your plan with DR, you can't seem to get it right
- stop hindering us with mobility for a challenge - it's annoying - I don't care if you put 1,000 beholders with 200 web spiders with evasion and 500 fire reavers in a room - just let us move around - it's fun to try and dodge all that ****. (Hint: above room has a mix of monsters that would nerf all the overpowered **** you can't seem to figure out, and give us a challenge)


To the poster that said Arant must not have a caster to say it's overpowered, then another poster agree with him? You're nuts, and have never played a caster/cleric with a torc properly yourself.


Any cleric/FvS/sorc/wiz with a sup. pot. VI item and torc needs NO other gear. That's it. Can solo the game. Groups that allow them to recharge as stated can heal vod/ToD/etc with virtually limitless or at least a large supply of sp (as stated, just stand with the group and swing/block, the group is taking damage, so are you, you'll need heals as much as them, but you get back tons of sp)


Look, I love my torcs, and maybe I shouldn't have pushed it on the forums for so long =P But the cats clearly out of the bag, don't go nerfing the game over 1 item, just fix your stupid oversights at their source.

[Junts]

Yet ANOTHER ridiculous knee-jerk reaction on game design.

What's happened:

- torc was really good before
- they added more hp/sp proc items
- they decided to up the proc rate to a CRAZY level (why was this done?!?!?! was no one else wary of this change?)

- now they have to ruin archer damage to a totally unfun degree (crippling is one of the LEAST fun things in the game - yay!! hinder our movement more!!! what FUN!)


TURBINE - PLAN YOUR GAME AND STOP BEING REACTIONARY - change the **** archer aggro back and -


- revert the torc/conc op etc back to it's former or a shadow of it's former glory
- figure out your plan with DR, you can't seem to get it right
- stop hindering us with mobility for a challenge - it's annoying - I don't care if you put 1,000 beholders with 200 web spiders with evasion and 500 fire reavers in a room - just let us move around - it's fun to try and dodge all that ****. (Hint: above room has a mix of monsters that would nerf all the overpowered **** you can't seem to figure out, and give us a challenge)


To the poster that said Arant must not have a caster to say it's overpowered, then another poster agree with him? You're nuts, and have never played a caster/cleric with a torc properly yourself.


Any cleric/FvS/sorc/wiz with a sup. pot. VI item and torc needs NO other gear. That's it. Can solo the game. Groups that allow them to recharge as stated can heal vod/ToD/etc with virtually limitless or at least a large supply of sp (as stated, just stand with the group and swing/block, the group is taking damage, so are you, you'll need heals as much as them, but you get back tons of sp)


Look, I love my torcs, and maybe I shouldn't have pushed it on the forums for so long =P But the cats clearly out of the bag, don't go nerfing the game over 1 item, just fix your stupid oversights at their source.

I do think that the addition of stuff like epic SS ring and bauble do cut back a lot on the torc/con opp factor, as with those the need to torc in almost every quest is minimal. But they really had to boost available so regen to compensate.

[Enochroot]

I do think that the addition of stuff like epic SS ring and bauble do cut back a lot on the torc/con opp factor, as with those the need to torc in almost every quest is minimal. But they really had to boost available so regen to compensate.

I feel those items have only made my casters even MORE overpowered ...


I can regen so much sp in a quest now, between shrines I feel like I have over 7000 sp ...


Regardless, they shouldn't make items and horrible game changes to "make up" for something - they should just fix the "problem" at it's source (and I don't think it was as *much* of a problem before, they've certainly increased it's problem-ness)

[Angelus_dead]

- they decided to up the proc rate to a CRAZY level (why was this done?!?!?! was no one else wary of this change?)

I did not notice the proc rate to have increased.

What did happen:
1. As player characters advance in level, the efficiency of healing spells improves. Back at level 12 you might have gotten 2 hp/sp, but now you can get 10 hp/sp or more. This means you don't need to spend as much of the sp income covering the damage. The level cap going from 16 to 20 was part of that progression.

2. Dungeon scaling was added, reducing monster damage on some modes. Rapid weak attacks gives the best Torc income.