Crowd Control/Heroic Surge Feedback

[Xyfiel]

Junts you posted this today, and you are commenting on not worrying about epic CC being 30 seconds maximum. Do you see a correlation here? Like the fact I have stated multiple times that CC isn't going to be needed when nuking is the best option?
So nerfing CC durations help with your request how?

Firewall makes everything it works in a joke. I solo epic wizking. I could 2 man epic OOB in 35 minutes and get every kill .. all I needed was one person to open doors and bring me back more mobs to kill so I wouldn't get harried in a hallway. Wall of fire is the universal answer to every monster on DDO to which it deals damage, and when I'm soloing epic quests while talking on the phone and, -literally- the commands I'm entering into DDO to do so are 'hold forward and left to run in circle. Spam space bar so I am on the floor as little as possible. Ensure firewall remains in center of my circle. Use heal scroll in mid-jump when under half hp', I'm going to say that the spell absolutely breaks every single situation in which it works, hands down. If one isn't enough, spam for a 400 point crit ... or just cast 3 of them where you intend to circle, so that the mobs tick in and out between them all over once a second. You win.

Is there anyone on this game who thinks this is a fun or engaging playstyle? I love my sorceror in amrath simply because I have to cast other spells. Its sure as hell not necessary anywhere firewall works. I've run entire epic offerings where the only spell I cast that affected the mob was firewall .. and I got 90%+ of the kills and 3 manned it in 30 minutes. How is this good? I mean, its the only thing that lets us do that .. but how is that fun or good?

There's a reason every mob of consequence besides lailat in the last forever has been immune to fire! If it wasn't, I could probably solo it with less than 800 sp and 20 heal scrolls!

How ********.

[Xyfiel]

I'm going to delete all the ones to which heroic surge doesn't apply, or which, even if the mob failed -every- six second save, the affect would wear off before heroic surge takes effect on elite.

I didn't remove feeblemind or deep slumber because I don't know the (new, in feeb's case) durations for either, however, I suspect feeblemind is also not subject to heroic surge, as it's not an immobilization. Similarly for the blindness spells.

It would be useful if you were to read the actual description of what the ability's intended to do; many of the spells listed were listed because their durations were changed (often shortened, for player benefit) entirely separately from heroic surge, which is a 'x cannot be constantly cc'd for more than y consecutive seconds' effect. I'm not even sure it affects charm spells, but it probably does.

A vast majority of the effects you listed are so short even at their maximum possible duration with all saves failed that they cannot invoke a heroic surge as it was initially implemented on Lamannia. On elite, its a 60 second consecutive immobilization; normal and hard, even longer. The number of effects that last that long is exceptionally small.

Heroic surge is not a 'debuffs go 'way in x time' effect. It is specifically a clearing of control-removing debuffs.

This is mostly a player benefit that only inccidiently nerfs a few of the most overused and/or overpowered forms of immobilization, because the player timer is much shorter, and is designed to allow players to escape from that solo trapped in a corner with the air elemental situation. It is no threat to cc-oriented characters.

Some of those I listed because they are specifically mentioned as being changed, this thread isn't only about heroic surge feedback. There are general spell changes as well.

Now what is you thoughts that
1) by the time a player receives a heroic surge they probably already died, defeating its purpose
2) how this effects the blocking and removal of said effects for builds

[Aashrym]

Please name a non-flesh to stone form of crowd control that will routinely hit non-epic heroic surge timers (60 second duration).

There isn't any.

Epic is 30 seconds, so spam irresistable dance might overlap into it occaisionally. Everything else has 3-5 saves in 30 seconds, and on epic that means its not lasting the full duration.

What are you crusading against? the inability to lock level 10 mobs in a dancing ball for a minute? You still can. We don't have any CC that lasts long enough to routinely trip heroic surge.

There are CC effects that last longer than a minute. Several are listed already, so no real need to go there.

My biggest concerns are the blanket short duration, regardless of character build options specializing in CC or not and the immunity after the surge.

I don't see heroic surge affecting gameplay on normal. I got bored waiting for it and killed the mobs instead. It does take a while to kick in. Elite where we see issues where it does kick in. With inflated saves, hp's, AC etc I find we do need more than that minute sometimes.

It wouldn't be so bad if the immunity wasn't included afterwards and all the mobs seem to break at the same time.

The surge kicks in on a static timer. If the static timer was a bit more random so mob's didn't break together and the immunity was not there after it kicked in I would have less issue. 3-4 min on normal, 2-3 min on hard, 1-2 min on elite. No mob heroic surge on casual.

I've heard a few posts that it doesn't kick in soon enuff to affect game play with the existing spell durations. If that really were the case it would have been wasted dev time we're paying for.

[Borror0]

I understand the concept that CC on a target removes it from thought for awhile, for some people.

No. That's not why it requires more brain activity. It requires more brain activity because the variables changes. Your HP total is a variable, your party members' HP is another, the number of monster attacking you is another, the number of monsters attacking your fellow party members is another, your spell point total is another, etc. having to reevaluate those variables is more brain activity as you have to reevaluate your course of actions as events unfold.

If you believe that watching CC mobs is just as much brain activity than having them break often and you needing to react to the situation than you also believe that everything going as you planned requires just as much brain activity than needing to revise your strategy because your opponent made an unpredictable move in Chess.

Have you considered that ineffective CC makes the game even less thought invoking since there are less options?

Loaded question. No reason to suppose that CC spells would become ineffective and doing so resembles very strongly a straw man. You should have realized by now that my position supposes that CC spells will remain worth using if only because 1) my whole argument relies on people using them more often and 2) I have been a strong proponent of making CC spells more effective than they currently are both inside and outside of this thread.

[Borror0]

by the time a player receives a heroic surge they probably already died, defeating its purpose

I agree. This is the reason I suspect the decision was taken to postpone the change: it needs more tweaking to accomplish the primary goal. You don't put a barely useful change in when most people feel so strongly against it. You wait until it's accomplishing the stated goal, so that you at least get benefit out of it.

[Xyfiel]

No. That's not why it requires more brain activity. It requires more brain activity because the variables changes. Your HP total is a variable, your party members' HP is another, the number of monster attacking you is another, the number of monsters attacking your fellow party members is another, your spell point total is another, etc. having to reevaluate those variables is more brain activity as you have to reevaluate your course of actions as events unfold.

If you believe that watching CC mobs is just as much brain activity than having them break often and you needing to react to the situation than you also believe that everything going as you planned requires just as much brain activity than needing to revise your strategy because your opponent made an unpredictable move in Chess.

Loaded question. No reason to suppose that CC spells would become ineffective and doing so resembles very strongly a straw man. You should have realized by now that my position supposes that CC spells will remain worth using if only because 1) my whole argument relies on people using them more often and 2) I have been a strong proponent of making CC spells more effective than they currently are both inside and outside of this thread.

Thank you for you factual information based on your neurosurgeon PHD Borror0. You will excuse me if I dismiss you opinion on that matter. No move is unpredictable in chess, all moves are governed by rules and a wise player studies all possible options. My brain activity would be the same because I am always studying the possibles, regardless of what actually happens.

Please see Junts firewall post in relation to this thread. CC isn't much worth using now once you reach certain levels of play, why would you want to use them more often when they are less effective?

[Aashrym]

"This allows players the opportunity to break free and defend themselves before the next onslaught rather than being completely helpless while monsters spam them with effects repeatedly."

That goal is the only one not stated, but it's pretty easy to infer what it was. Since the effect has "Heroic" in the name, it was most likely built for players first (as Heroic is usually kept to mean a player-only bonus) and then extended to monsters when developers saw an opportunity to kill two bird with one stone: CC effects don't need to last three minutes and in fact lowering their duration would improve gameplay.

I have been saying that for several pages now.

As for labeling this as nonsense, it is not. Decreasing the predictability of combat and increasing the number of decisions a player has to make during gameplay - which is what lower CC duration would do - makes gameplay more varied and engaging. This is something generally true, as known by all game designers.

Additionally, you might be interested to read the guidelines of the forums you're participating to. Calling others' statement nonsense is prohibited.

You are right, you have bee saying lowering CC would improve gameplay for several pages now. You have yet to convince us tho.

Lower CC doesn't increase the number of decisions a player makes during game play. It give less options during game play and turns it into swing swing heal heal swing kind of play. Taking things away doesn't add variety, it destroys it. How are you going to back up your claim this is known by all game designers?

I can see that the dev's listed in the release notes that CC can be hard on players. They did not say anything more on the motives that you say are easy to infer. I do not believe that's an easy inference based on the fact some CC's were changed to make them better in the spell change notes.

Eg. Hypnotism now how a longer duration. If the Dev's agreed with your inference that longer durations are harmful to game play the change to that spell seems to contradict the goal.

I would therefore infer that cutting down all CC duration may not have been the intended goal. What you infer and what I infer are two different things. Since neither of can speak to what the dev's goals really were other than what was listed we still could use more input to their reasoning so we can brainstorm more.

Telling me that they stated the goals in the release notes and then subsequently telling me those goals are easy to infer are two different things.

[Aashrym]

I agree. This is the reason I suspect the decision was taken to postpone the change: it needs more tweaking to accomplish the primary goal. You don't put a barely useful change in when most people feel so strongly against it. You wait until it's accomplishing the stated goal, so that you at least get benefit out of it.

The primary goal listed in the release notes was to benefit players who were frustrated with getting locked down by worgs and air elementals.

The other goals were infered.

[Aashrym]

No. That's not why it requires more brain activity. It requires more brain activity because the variables changes. Your HP total is a variable, your party members' HP is another, the number of monster attacking you is another, the number of monsters attacking your fellow party members is another, your spell point total is another, etc. having to reevaluate those variables is more brain activity as you have to reevaluate your course of actions as events unfold.

If you believe that watching CC mobs is just as much brain activity than having them break often and you needing to react to the situation than you also believe that everything going as you planned requires just as much brain activity than needing to revise your strategy because your opponent made an unpredictable move in Chess.

Loaded question. No reason to suppose that CC spells would become ineffective and doing so resembles very strongly a straw man. You should have realized by now that my position supposes that CC spells will remain worth using if only because 1) my whole argument relies on people using them more often and 2) I have been a strong proponent of making CC spells more effective than they currently are both inside and outside of this thread.

I think I do see your point a bit on this. I don't agree with it because I like to plan and strategize. It looks to me like you really like high paced action.

I can't really say either is wrong because both are just preferred playstyles.

I can see why looking at a mob just standing there might be boring for you. For me being able to make them just stand there so I can plan my actions is using more active thinking and more fun.

[Xyfiel]

My suggestion:

1) give everyone starting at level 1:
Heroic Surge
Cooldown 5 minutes
Upon entering Heroic Surge, all debilitating effects are removed from your character, and for the next 15 seconds you are immune to debilitating effects.

This actually gives you a decent buff and enough time to kill the problem or to get away. It removes the "by the time the surge goes off I will be dead anyway" problem. It also still validates having saves and the ability to block/remove effects. It puts the control of the situation back into the players control. It can also be used in some end fights though, say Thrall of the necromancer. I think in the case that you can become immune for an end fight isn't that common because if it lasts that shortly you probably didn't need the surge to begin with.

2) adjust raids/quests as needed
make the Tod orthons at the last fight rednamed. You did it for DQ. Stop inventing new stuff when there are already ways to "correct" the problem. I don't think this is the best overall course to take, but one I have already lived with, and one that doesn't completly change gameplay. How many quests is long term CC really an issue?

Ignoring the Xyfiel vs Borror0 Round 2 for a bit, since I won't be home for this week and maybe unable to post. Wanted to repost this suggestion for feedback. We could discuss the original release notes, but since they are reevaulating it already, seems that would just be senseless back and forth.

So come on people, throw out the brainstorming while they are looking it over again. We may actually be happy with the outcome.

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

I vote to lock this thread. All participants have given their opinions. Nothing else is being learned here.

Heroic surge is dead. CC lives. The end.

[Junts]

There are CC effects that last longer than a minute. Several are listed already, so no real need to go there.

My biggest concerns are the blanket short duration, regardless of character build options specializing in CC or not and the immunity after the surge.

I don't see heroic surge affecting gameplay on normal. I got bored waiting for it and killed the mobs instead. It does take a while to kick in. Elite where we see issues where it does kick in. With inflated saves, hp's, AC etc I find we do need more than that minute sometimes.

It wouldn't be so bad if the immunity wasn't included afterwards and all the mobs seem to break at the same time.

The surge kicks in on a static timer. If the static timer was a bit more random so mob's didn't break together and the immunity was not there after it kicked in I would have less issue. 3-4 min on normal, 2-3 min on hard, 1-2 min on elite. No mob heroic surge on casual.

I've heard a few posts that it doesn't kick in soon enuff to affect game play with the existing spell durations. If that really were the case it would have been wasted dev time we're paying for.

There are in practice very, very few that ever last a minute because most of them feature a save every 6-12 seconds (like greater command, holds, charm/dominate x, etc). On elite difficulties, its simply not realistic to expect these spells to last their full durations. On lower difficulties, they may, but the heroic surge timers for those difficulties were even larger, and well past the baseline duration (90+ seconds) that the spells are capable of lasting in one application.

The only spells to which this applies regularly are the one-save charm spells (suggestion and its kin), flesh to stone, and the fascinate school of effects. These are also, notoriously, the most overpowered and frequently abused forms of mob CC in the game due to their incredible durations and lack of repeated saving throws.

I mean, I like it as much as the next guy that the bard can fascinate 20 mobs in an epic quest and I can ignore them for 5 minutes, but that's pretty ridiculous and nearly unbalancable, which is why I like it so much.

As a player, I love thingsl ike that, flesh to stone, and wall of fire. As an objective observer, I recognize they are disproportionately powerful and tend to negatively impact things which are not. For example, shavarath and epic mobs have massive, massive will saves and bonuses vs charms becuase of suggestion (a 3 minute charm control with no re-save), which comes in a mass form that can affect a dozen mobs at once. Because the mobs have to be balanced to resist this spell, will save spells with repeated saves (like dancing sphere, dominate monster, holds) are almost useless, since the mobs have better than 50% chances to save against even the most highly specced, double focused, max dc builds. If they could only save against those effects 1/3 of the time or less, those builds would all run through spamming mass suggestion and charming 2/3 the mobs at a time, trivializing the content.

But the need to keep those spells under control leaves us with many, many useless will save spells that have at best niche, or 'awesome in easy content, useless in hard content' problems, like Otto's Dancing Sphere.

Something that helps control these forms of CC so that all CC can land more reliably actually makes CC more powerful, not less, becuase it allows those shorter and repeated-duration effects to be made useful without breaking the content because my bard can spam 2 mass suggestions and charm 10 orthons.

[Aashrym]

Originally Posted by Xyfiel View Post
My suggestion:

1) give everyone starting at level 1:
Heroic Surge
Cooldown 5 minutes
Upon entering Heroic Surge, all debilitating effects are removed from your character, and for the next 15 seconds you are immune to debilitating effects.

This actually gives you a decent buff and enough time to kill the problem or to get away. It removes the "by the time the surge goes off I will be dead anyway" problem. It also still validates having saves and the ability to block/remove effects. It puts the control of the situation back into the players control. It can also be used in some end fights though, say Thrall of the necromancer. I think in the case that you can become immune for an end fight isn't that common because if it lasts that shortly you probably didn't need the surge to begin with.

2) adjust raids/quests as needed
make the Tod orthons at the last fight rednamed. You did it for DQ. Stop inventing new stuff when there are already ways to "correct" the problem. I don't think this is the best overall course to take, but one I have already lived with, and one that doesn't completly change gameplay. How many quests is long term CC really an issue?

Item #1 looks too easy to me. I would prefer if it gave a new saving throw on all current effects instead. Doing it with new saves would still have players working it into build instead of ignoring will saves and would allow for a shorter cool down. 2 min maybe.
Item #2 has some merit. I'm not a fan of blanket immunities to prevent spells from working, but if there isn't a better way at least we would be applying a specific fix to a specific situation.

[Borror0]

[...] why would you want to use them more often when they are less effective?

I addressed that. Several times. Read the whole thread again, again.

It give less options during game play and turns it into swing swing heal heal swing kind of play.

You're conflating two things in one: the relative effectiveness of CC and the amount of decisions made during gameplay depending on the duration. The former is completely irrelevant to the discussion. If CC becomes less effective than desirable, it can be buffed. Discussing the effectiveness of CC is thus a red herring in this topic. Heck, I even stated (repeatedly) that it would be great to reduce mobs' resistance to CC within the same update...

As for the latter, lower duration CC leads to more decisions because you have to ask yourself what spell to cast more frequently since the effect laps more frequently. If your CC spell lasts the whole fight, you don't have to consider a CC spell being part of your next spells to cast.

They did not say anything more on the motives that you say are easy to infer.

Obviously. This is why I used the word infer instead of read...

I do not believe that's an easy inference based on the fact some CC's were changed to make them better in the spell change notes.

Only one of the many spells were changed to last "slightly longer" while most were given more frequent saves (ie nerfed).

[Aashrym]

There are in practice very, very few that ever last a minute because most of them feature a save every 6-12 seconds (like greater command, holds, charm/dominate x, etc). On elite difficulties, its simply not realistic to expect these spells to last their full durations. On lower difficulties, they may, but the heroic surge timers for those difficulties were even larger, and well past the baseline duration (90+ seconds) that the spells are capable of lasting in one application.

The only spells to which this applies regularly are the one-save charm spells (suggestion and its kin), flesh to stone, and the fascinate school of effects. These are also, notoriously, the most overpowered and frequently abused forms of mob CC in the game due to their incredible durations and lack of repeated saving throws.

I mean, I like it as much as the next guy that the bard can fascinate 20 mobs in an epic quest and I can ignore them for 5 minutes, but that's pretty ridiculous and nearly unbalancable, which is why I like it so much.

As a player, I love thingsl ike that, flesh to stone, and wall of fire. As an objective observer, I recognize they are disproportionately powerful and tend to negatively impact things which are not. For example, shavarath and epic mobs have massive, massive will saves and bonuses vs charms becuase of suggestion (a 3 minute charm control with no re-save), which comes in a mass form that can affect a dozen mobs at once. Because the mobs have to be balanced to resist this spell, will save spells with repeated saves (like dancing sphere, dominate monster, holds) are almost useless, since the mobs have better than 50% chances to save against even the most highly specced, double focused, max dc builds. If they could only save against those effects 1/3 of the time or less, those builds would all run through spamming mass suggestion and charming 2/3 the mobs at a time, trivializing the content.

But the need to keep those spells under control leaves us with many, many useless will save spells that have at best niche, or 'awesome in easy content, useless in hard content' problems, like Otto's Dancing Sphere.

Something that helps control these forms of CC so that all CC can land more reliably actually makes CC more powerful, not less, becuase it allows those shorter and repeated-duration effects to be made useful without breaking the content because my bard can spam 2 mass suggestions and charm 10 orthons.

So would you agree or disagree that setting the the surge to a more random activation without the following immunities could still work as an effective compromise for everyone?

[Junts]

So would you agree or disagree that setting the the surge to a more random activation without the following immunities could still work as an effective compromise for everyone?

The after immunity is pretty necessary; its still way cheaper to re-fts a mob than it is to kill it and the 10 more like it that will respawn if it dies for the rest of the fight. CC is a means of preventing damage and making the mobs easier to kill; its not supposed to be a means of pretending the monster wasn't even placed into the quest in the first place.

[Borror0]

Heroic Surge
Cooldown 5 minutes
Upon entering Heroic Surge, all debilitating effects are removed from your character, and for the next 15 seconds you are immune to debilitating effects.

I'm not sure why you think it's preferable to the current version of Heroic Surge. While on the plus side it does require more active thinking to use, it's a much greater "easy button" than Heroic Surge would represent (and you took issue with that).

In terms of usability, it fails in that the casual players has to know of its existence and use it appropriately. In that sense, it's an added level of complexity at the early levels of the game when the contrary should be happening (ie the learning curve would be improved by being less abrupt). It also fails if the situation occur more often than once per 5 minutes, though that is probably a minor point compared to the previous two.

[Xyfiel]

There are in practice very, very few that ever last a minute because most of them feature a save every 6-12 seconds (like greater command, holds, charm/dominate x, etc). On elite difficulties, its simply not realistic to expect these spells to last their full durations. On lower difficulties, they may, but the heroic surge timers for those difficulties were even larger, and well past the baseline duration (90+ seconds) that the spells are capable of lasting in one application.

The only spells to which this applies regularly are the one-save charm spells (suggestion and its kin), flesh to stone, and the fascinate school of effects. These are also, notoriously, the most overpowered and frequently abused forms of mob CC in the game due to their incredible durations and lack of repeated saving throws.

I mean, I like it as much as the next guy that the bard can fascinate 20 mobs in an epic quest and I can ignore them for 5 minutes, but that's pretty ridiculous and nearly unbalancable, which is why I like it so much.

As a player, I love thingsl ike that, flesh to stone, and wall of fire. As an objective observer, I recognize they are disproportionately powerful and tend to negatively impact things which are not. For example, shavarath and epic mobs have massive, massive will saves and bonuses vs charms becuase of suggestion (a 3 minute charm control with no re-save), which comes in a mass form that can affect a dozen mobs at once. Because the mobs have to be balanced to resist this spell, will save spells with repeated saves (like dancing sphere, dominate monster, holds) are almost useless, since the mobs have better than 50% chances to save against even the most highly specced, double focused, max dc builds. If they could only save against those effects 1/3 of the time or less, those builds would all run through spamming mass suggestion and charming 2/3 the mobs at a time, trivializing the content.

But the need to keep those spells under control leaves us with many, many useless will save spells that have at best niche, or 'awesome in easy content, useless in hard content' problems, like Otto's Dancing Sphere.

Something that helps control these forms of CC so that all CC can land more reliably actually makes CC more powerful, not less, becuase it allows those shorter and repeated-duration effects to be made useful without breaking the content because my bard can spam 2 mass suggestions and charm 10 orthons.

So would not lowering individual spell durations/fascinate make more sense? Would not lowering wolf and air ele trip dc make more sense? Do we need a complete change to all CC spells or just minor changes to the ones considered overpowered?

Firewall got changed, we didn't implement a dps spell change to do it. Charms already got changed once, I feel the difference in charms and dominate to feel right.

[Aashrym]

I addressed that. Several times. Read the whole thread again, again.

You're conflating two things in one: the relative effectiveness of CC and the amount of decisions made during gameplay depending on the duration. The former is completely irrelevant to the discussion. If CC becomes less effective than desirable, it can be buffed. Discussing the effectiveness of CC is thus a red herring in this topic. Heck, I even stated (repeatedly) that it would be great to reduce mobs' resistance to CC within the same update...

As for the latter, lower duration CC leads to more decisions because you have to ask yourself what spell to cast more frequently since the effect laps more frequently. If your CC spell lasts the whole fight, you don't have to consider a CC spell being part of your next spells to cast.

Obviously. This is why I used the word infer instead of read...

Only one of the many spells were changed to last "slightly longer" while most were given more frequent saves (ie nerfed).

No matter how we phrase it or look at it we're not the devs and don't have factual knowledge of what they wanted to accomplish outside of making it easier on locked down players.

Lower duration on CC doesn't lead to asking myself what to cast more frequently. I'm limited in spell selection and SP. And I already do plan which spells to use. Sound Burst and Hold Monster are obviously much shorter in duration than Suggestion or Hypnotism.

Read the spell changes again. Those changes were made to diminish effects against players in most cases, not mobs. IE, not nerfed by changing the spell effects, only by the heroic surge effect given to mobs.

That would still imply to me that the intent was not to impact CC players as much as heroic surge does. It simply might not be the intended goal to impact players' abilities to lock down mobs regardless of our discussion on why it would or would not be a good idea.

There is too much inference and biased opinions without a dev simply telling us there were other goals involved in the heroic surge mechanic and why it was given to mobs. When I see the changes to spells it does appear to me that heroic surge may be counter productive to the goals. They look contradictory.

Look at more of Junts posts. When I read those I see facts and examples that make sense. Saying, 'most players like such and such,' or, 'most designer know such and such' is not a strong debating tool.

Junts is not telling us what the devs or players want. Junts is telling us why cutting back on CC in specific cases makes sense without comments that are circular and contradictory at times.

At this point heroic surge is not going live. I'm glad the devs are making that decision for now. I can agree in some cases our ability to CC can have a strong effect on the difficulty of the instance. Particularly anything spammed with Enervation or Energy Drain to lock in a bad saving throw.

I don't agree this is always the case and should affect my style of game play all the time. The bottom line is still at a place where adding heroic surge or not will have any effect on your game play style. You can always build a party without it and play like you want. Adding heroic surge does affect my game play style.

If it is added at some point there should be changes made.

I hope Junts does not mind being singled out. I did appreciate the way his (her?) points were made. I can edit them out of this post on request.

[Junts]

So would not lowering individual spell durations/fascinate make more sense? Would not lowering wolf and air ele trip dc make more sense? Do we need a complete change to all CC spells or just minor changes to the ones considered overpowered?

Firewall got changed, we didn't implement a dps spell change to do it. Charms already got changed once, I feel the difference in charms and dominate to feel right.

The air elementals are a widely known issue; the trips with the wolves really aren't that bad in DC terms. their problem is that they are at low levels, where the influence of random number rolls relative to your saving throws and skill checks is tremendous. Even the highest reflex save builds out there don't have enough reflex at levels 1-5 to reliably make saving throws, because the d20 is too big an influence over it. The wolves aren't nofail at their knockdown; rather, when player reflex saves are in the 4-9 range, and the dc is only 13-15, the chance to resist is sizable, but so too is the chance of failure, and its being spammed (or you're being hit with it by multiple wolves at once).

this is only made worse with abilities like actual trip (vs knockdowns like overrun) and the web spell which feature ability modifier checks. Its always comical to throw high-dc webs in DDO, where the mobs have a reasonable chance to evade being stuck in the web, but -nothing- except epic raiyum golems has enough strength to actually make the str check to break out of it, because a dc 34 strength check requires you to have like a 60 str to reliably escape. This, combined with reflex generally being mobs' worst save in DDO, is why the web spell is so incredibly effective. Despite having an every 6 second re-check to break out, that check is almost impossible for most mobs (and, for that matter, most players) to make due to the fact that it's a straight str ability check vs a dc designed for 20-30 reflex saves. Not even fighters and paladins can reliably make the str check to escape a high dc web!

Since both our saves and mob saves are much, much higher than our associated ability checks, those abilities will always be problematic. The dcs are usually set by the source material and/or are determined for the initial check which is going up against a normal saving throw, and the subsequent statistic or skill checks are disproportionately hard or easy (skill checks tend to be cake) to make.