Worst of the Worst Spells

[Aexicas]

One important note is that Ice Storm and Wall of Fire won't stack - the Wall of Fire will be extinguished by the storm.

We're going to be going through a bunch of the spells and take the ones that are "less than optimal" and see what we can do with them, as well as adding more "specialty" spells that will by their nature be mostly Wizard oriented. (Deconstruct, maybe?)

We're also considering doing a pass on spell point costs, and a possible redo of the Sorcerer and Wizard damage amplification and spell crit lines - breaking the four elements back apart, adding more tiers (that may go beyond 40%) and adjusting the costs appropriately (Possibly 1/1/1/1/1/1... rather than 1/2/3/4, for instance).

We'll want feedback on what the "worst of the worst" spells are. I know the Power Words are way up there on that list, and there are a bunch of other terrible ones - maybe I'll go make that my next blog post...

So, that being said, what are YOUR worst of the worst spells?

I've always thought that there were a lot that were lacking, but ice storm (which of course is now fixed) was a big one.

Now adays, here is my list, edited as per MadFloyd's direction! His original post is as such, for you to follow:

I was just going to start a thread on this myself.

So I'm encouraging participation in this thread!

Personally, I'd like to see something like:

- spell name
- 1-5 rating on spell cost (1 being bad, 5 being appropriate)
- 1-5 rating on spell effectiveness
- comments

Trap the Soul:
-Spell Cost: 4 (spell points), 1 (physical cost)
-Spell Effectiveness: 2
-Comments: Not enough need for it, and the components take too long to gather. Not to mention the HD limit. Take off the HD limit, and make khyber shards drop more? Would be set.

Deep Slumber/Sleep:
-Spell Cost: 2
-Spell Effectiveness: 1
-comments: Particularly Deep Slumber. 10 HD? At level 6? You might hit a hobgoblin or two, but, thats about it. Totally not worth putting on a sorcerer.

Sleet Storm:
-Spell Cost: 3
-Spell Effectiveness: 2
-Comments: Just.... Sleet Storm.

Stinking Cloud:
-Spell Cost: 2
-Spell Effectiveness: 2
-Comments: Really, see sleet storm. Not as bad, and not as good, at the same time. The effectiveness is really not there, except in very niche situations; not something you'd carry on your bar everyday as a sorc.

Honestly, mostly its the HD spells over the others, but a few of the cloud spells could use a buff.

What's on your "most useless" list?

[khaldan]

All of the power words;1;1;I've never seen a single one work outside of a quest on casual.

Contagion;2;3;This would be better, except the ability damage generally doesn't do enough, and the disease would need to tick every 4-6 seconds to be worth throwing.

Acid storm(the short term one, not the fog);2;2;It's like firewall/new ice storm, but doesn't last that long and ticks maybe 3-4 times. If it stacked with itself, it might be worthwhile.

DBF;3;2;It's like fireball, but with more sp and slightly more damage.

Most of the summons could use a slight buff.

[Elfvyra]

That's easy...

Any spell that affects 'X' HD or 'X' HP.

[dragons1ayer74]

That's easy...

Any spell that affects 'X' HD or 'X' HP.

In additon to this and most of the others listed how about any/most of the cloud spells are they still all broken as in not working at all other than visuals?

[MadFloyd]

I was just going to start a thread on this myself.

So I'm encouraging participation in this thread!

Personally, I'd like to see something like:

- spell name
- 1-5 rating on spell cost (1 being bad, 5 being appropriate)
- 1-5 rating on spell effectiveness
- comments

[Eladrin]

I was just going to start a thread on this myself.

So I'm encouraging participation in this thread!

Personally, I'd like to see something like:

- spell name
- 1-5 rating on spell cost (1 being bad, 5 being appropriate)
- 1-5 rating on spell effectiveness
- comments

That's probably a good idea. Instead of the "Worst of the Worst" - more of a general spell rating thread.

[Bladedge]

Arcane and Divine spells or just Arcane spells?

[Duke-H-]

Not an arcane spell, but seriously.

Word of Recall

[Tobril]

Teleport/Greater Teleport
5
Good: Emergency egress and/or general transport is nice
Bad: Both need more locations due to new content areas

Word of Recall
2
Good: Emergency egress and/or general transport is nice
Bad: Needs more locations

Acid Rain
2
Good: Harms fire immune monsters
Bad: Extreme low duration for the spell level

Spawn Screen
1
I’ve never seen a monster create undead upon killing a PC.

Halt Undead
1 or 5
Situational – Highly effective against undead, otherwise useless

Sleet Storm
1 or 5
Situational – Must have freedom via item/buff

Grease
5
Hilarious
Can also be used by creative players as an alternative crowd control effect

Fire Trap
2
Poor effect for the planning required

Dimension Door
5
Emergency egress and/or time saving is highly useful
Unintended consequence of new proximity system requires arcane casters to be extremely brave during emergency egress situations (they have to leave last)

Symbol of Fire
1
Completely outclassed by wall of fire

Circle of Death
1
Good: Makes kobald assault easy
Bad: When the spell is acquired many monsters are ineligible targets

Summon Monster – All
3
Good: Distractions and extra support are nice.
Bad: No control of summoned creature ala hireling bar.
Other: It would be desirable to summon additional lower level creatures and/or add to the available choices for each level

Power Word – All
1
Inflated monster HP make these pretty useless

Trap the Soul
3
Good: Versatile “instant death”
Bad: Expensive, also a nuisance to crush dragonshards into the correct HD requirement

[Hafeal]

Spell name
Undeath to Death

- 1-5 rating on spell cost (1 being bad, 5 being appropriate)

3

- 1-5 rating on spell effectiveness

1

- comments
I have never seen it land either. Useless.

Spell Name

All 'Inflict" spells

- 1-5 rating on spell cost (1 being bad, 5 being appropriate)

5

- 1-5 rating on spell effectiveness

3

- comments

Need a boost to actually be an effective offensive weapon due to the inflated HPs of most mobs.

For MadFLoyd.

[Freeman]

Solid Fog: Does absolutely nothing since it was broken a year ago, making it completely useless.
Acid Fog: At least has the Acid damage, but it hasn't been slowing anything down as it should.

[Phidius]

Tenser's Transformation:

1. Cost - carry around pots of bull strength, get carried around in someone's backpack (probably to be left out of range of a rez shrine)

2. Benefit - Nothing that can't be gotten from a divine clicky and appropriate gear.


Sorry, I can't bring myself to list the spells that I find effective and fun.

[nanobot1994]

Wall of Fire.

That aside, the spells my wizzy never uses in quests are:

PW stun - Extremely overpowered in pvp, Extremely underpowered in the other 99% of the game (Yes, I personally love pvp, me being a wizzy, may or may not have anything to do with that)

Anything to do with HD or HPs is pretty much useless in quests. No clue at all how to fix that though.

On a side note, please dont nerf FW , right now, its one of the VERY few ways i can contribute to DPS, don't make me play a buff bot. I understand its over the top, but Ill be perfectly fine with it being nerfed if we get something to make a decent contribution to quests in its place. Not that anyone will care about this paragraph, but eh.

[Eladiun]

Arcane

1) Meteor Swarm
2) Power Word Spells/ Any HP/HD Tied Spells (cheating yes but this whole class of spells fails due to MoB HP being much higher than PnP)
3) Acid Rain
4) Sleet Storm
5) Fog Spells

Note: I ranked based on suck and adjusted for spell level.

[phalaeo]

I was just going to start a thread on this myself.

So I'm encouraging participation in this thread!

Personally, I'd like to see something like:

- spell name
- 1-5 rating on spell cost (1 being bad, 5 being appropriate)
- 1-5 rating on spell effectiveness
- comments

These are spells that I never find myself using for the most part.

Glyph of Warding/Greater Glyph of Warding
5
1
People will not wait for you to cast a symbol that does little damage, so not worth casting. I prefer the CC symbols... especially because Clerics have no enhancement lines for this.

Word of Recall
1
1
Useless. Cast off of scrolls or get a Royal Guard Mask/UMD. Would be better if Temple was in Jorasco near the Divine Vendor.

Seek Eternal Rest
1
1
Never cast it. I'm sure you know that even with the improvements to turning, it's still just.... not used.

Firestorm
2
2
Too expensive, and no enhancement lines... would rather cast Cometfall/Flamestrike

Poison/Contagion
3
1
Nobody is going to stand around and wait a minute for these spells to take effect.

Symbol of Death
3
1
It's a Fort. Save, so mostly works against.... casters. Who wont kite into your symbols to begin with. Also, does not work well at the level you get it- by the time you get it, all the mobs save against it (in my experience)

Thanks, guys!

[Geonis]

Seek Eternal Rest
1
1
Never cast it. I'm sure you know that even with the improvements to turning, it's still just.... not used.

I agree with pretty much everything you said except this.

It is obvious you have not played with turning since the change and addition of Radiant Servant.

I was able to solo Deleras (with hireling for switch and nothing else), using turning almost exclusively.

[Angelus_dead]

Personally, I'd like to see something like:
- spell name
- 1-5 rating on spell cost (1 being bad, 5 being appropriate)
- 1-5 rating on spell effectiveness

It'll be hard for players to give good ratings for spell costs, because we currently have no examples of how cost could be flexible. Right now all spells of the same level have the same cost... it's good to see the devs are open to changing that rule, but hard to say that some spell like Slow or Crushing Despair is effective but overpriced, since the price is negating effectiveness.

[Wizzly_Bear]

I was just going to start a thread on this myself.

So I'm encouraging participation in this thread!

Personally, I'd like to see something like:

- spell name
- 1-5 rating on spell cost (1 being bad, 5 being appropriate)
- 1-5 rating on spell effectiveness
- comments

I will limit my comments primarily to Wizard spells of levels 1-7 (with a few notes on 8 and 9) as I'm just returning from a long break and there may have been some changes during that time that altered effectiveness of spells I haven't been using since I've been back. Also, it will be a general catch-all rating as cost is a factor in determing a spell's effectiveness. If you do less damage with more sps then its obviously less effective. Finally, these ratings will not be based on effectiveness at end game solely, but rather weighted more towards how effective they are for their level in comparison to other spells of that level as well as how effective they are when you first get them, and, of course, their longevity of use.

Notation shall be as follows

Level ? spell
Random spell (rating at level) (longevity rating)

I will give...
1's to spells that are, "extremely ineffective,"
2's to "have some use but much better options are available,"
3's to, "situationally effective," or, "useful depending on playstyle,"
4's to, "solid tactical spell,"
5's to, "you'd be stupid not to use this spell,"

with an additional rating of
0's to, "has absolutely no use whatsoever," or, "you'd be stupid to use this spell"

Note that some spells change drastically.

*Disclaimer: these ratings are in regards to wizards. Sorcerers have much fewer options available and so many ratings are, and should be, very different between the two.

*Disclaimer 2: I will try to be impartial as to my own personal playstyle when making these judgements and will accord any small possible use to a spell that may be given it.

Level 1 spells
Acid Spray (4) (1)
Burning Hnds (4) (1)
Cause Fear (3) (1)
Charm Person (4) (3)
Chill Touch (3) (3)
Detect Secret Doors (3) (3)
Expeditious Retreat (4) (4)
Feather Fall (3) (3)
Grease (3) (3)
Hypnotism (4) (3)
Jump (2) (5)
Mage Armor (3) (0)
Magic Missile (4) (3)
Master's Touch (3) (3)
Merfolk's Blessing (3) (3)
Niac's Cold Ray (4) (1)
Nightshield (5) (5)
Obscurring Mist (3) (2)
Ray of Enfeeblement (3) (4)
Repair Light (3) (1)
Shield (5) (2)
Shocking Grasp (4) (1)
Sleep (3) (0)
Sonic Blast (3) (1)
Summon Monster 1 (3) (3)
Tumble (3) (3)
Level 2 spells
Bear's Endurance (4) (3)
Blindness (4) (2)
Blur (3) (4)
Bull's Strength (4) (3)
Cat's Grace (3) (3)
Command Undead (3) (3)
Daze Monster (2) (0)
Eagle's Splendor (3) (1)
Electric Loop (4) (1)
False Life (3) (3)
Flaming Sphere (3) (1)
Fog Cloud (3) (2)
Fox's Cunning (4) (2)
Ghoul Touch (4) (1)
Glitterdust (4) (4)
Hypnotic Pattern (4) (2)
Invisibility (5) (5)
Knock (3) (3)
Lesser Death Aura (3) (2)
Melf's Acid Arrow (4) (4)
Ooze Puppet (3) (4)
Otto's Resistable Dance (3) (2)
Owl's Wisdom (4) (1)
Repair Moderate (3) (1)
Resist Energy (3) (5)
Scare (3) (2)
Scorching Ray (4) (4)
See Invisibility (3) (1)
Snowball Swarm (4) (2)
Spawn Screen (3) (3)
Summon Monster 2 (3) (3)
Touch of Idiocy (3) (3)
Web (4) (5)
Level 3 spells
Acid Blast (4) (3)
Chain Missiles (4) (3)
Deep Slumber (3) (0)
Dispel Magic (3) (2)
Displacement (4) (5)
Fireball (4) (3)
Flame Arrow (2) (2)
Frost Lance (4) (4)
Halt Undead (3) (3)
Haste (4) (5)
Heroism (3) (1)
Hold Person (4) (2)
Lightning Bolt (4) (3)
Magic Circle (3) (3)
Protection from Energy (3) (2)
Rage (when not broken) (4) (4)
Rage (when broken) (3) (3)
Ray of Exhaustion (3) (3)
Repair Serious (3) (2)
Sleet Storm (3) (4)
Slow (3) (3)
Stinking Cloud (3) (3)
Suggestion (4) (3)
Summon Monster 3 (3) (3)
Water Breathing (3) (3)
Level 4 spells
Acid Rain (2) (1)
Bestow Curse (3) (3)
Burning Blood (1) (1)
Charm Monster (4) (4)
Contagion (4) (3)
Crushing Despair (3) (3)
Death Aura (3) (3)
Dimension Door (4) (4)
Enervation (4) (4)
Fear (4) (3)
Fire Shield (4) (4)
Fire Trap (1) (1)
Fire Trap if Maximize and Empower affected it (4) (3)
Force Missiles (3) (3)
Ice Storm (4) (3)
Lesser Globe of Invulnerability (3) (3)
Negative Energy Burst (3) (3)
Phantasmal Killer (4) (2)
Remove Curse (2) (2)
Repair Critical Damage (4) (3)
Shout (3) (1)
Solid Fog (when not broken) (4) (5)
Solid Fog (broken) (1) (1)
Stoneskin (3) (3)
Summon Monster 4 (2) (2)
Symbol of Flame (2) (0)
Wall of Fire (5) (5)
Level 5 spells
Ball Lightning (4) (3)
Break Enchantment (4) (4)
Cloudkill (4) (4)
Cone of Cold (4) (4)
Dismissal (3) (1)
Dominate Person (4) (2)
Feeblemind (4) (4)
Hold Monster (4) (2)
Mind Fog (3) (3)
Prismatic Ray (4) (4)
Protection from Elements (4) (4)
Repair Light Mass (3) (2)
Summon Monster 5 (4) (3)
Symbol of Pain (4) (3)
Teleport (3) (3)
Waves of Fatigue (4) (2)
Level 6 spells
Acid Fog (when not broken) (4) (4)
Acid Fog (broken) (3) (3)
Bear's Endurance Mass (3) (3)
Bull's Strength Mass (3) (3)
Cat's Grace Mass (3) (3)
Chain Lightning (4) (4)
Circle of Death (1) (1)
Create Undead (3) (3)
Disintegrate (4) (5)
Eagle's Splendor Mass (2) (2)
Flesh to Stone (4) (4)
Fox's Cunning Mass (2) (2)
Globe of Invulnerability (4) (4)
Greater Dispel (4) (4)
Greater Heroism (5) (5)
Mass Suggestion (4) (4)
Necrotic (4) (4)
Otiluke's Freezing Sphere (4) (4)
Owl's Wisdom Mass (3) (3)
Reconstruct (if are, or often play with, warforged) (5) (5)
Reconstruct (if not above) (2) (2)
Repair Moderate Mass - as reconstruct
Shadow Walk (4) (4)
Stone to Flesh (3) (3)
Summon Monster 6 (3) (3)
Symbol of Fear (3) (3)
Symbol of Persuasion (3) (3)
Tenser's Transformation (1) (1)
Undeath to Death (1) (1)
Level 7 spells
Banishment (4) (4)
Control Undead (3) (3)
Finger of Death (5) (4)
Greater Teleport (3) (3)
Hold Person Mass (4) (4)
Invisibility Mass (4) (4)
Power Word Blind (2) (0)
Prismatic Spray (4) (4)
Summon Monster 7 (3) (3)
Symbol of Stunning (4) (4)
Waves of Exhaustion (4) (4)
Level 8 spells
Horrid Wilting (3) (3)
Otto's Irresistable Dance (4) (4)
Polar Ray (4) (4)
Sunburst (3) (3)
Trap the Soul (3) (3)
Level 9 spells
Energy Drain (4) (4)
Wail of the Banshee (5) (5)

Short Lists
5.0's Wail of the Banshee, Wall of Fire, Greater Heroism, Reconstruct, Nightshield, Invisibility
4.5's Finger of Death, Disintegrate, Unbroken Solid Fog, Haste, Displacement
0's-1.0's Circle of Death, Undeath to Death, Power Word Blind, Fire Trap, Symbol of Flame, Burning Blood, Daze Monster, Broken Solid Fog

Further comment: Some people complain about some spells being too powerful (WoF and Haste especially), but I don't think the problem lies therein. I think the problem lies in the great wealth of spells that are just honestly a waste of casting. If we had fewer (ideally no) spells that were so useless then we would have more options available to us.

One of the main problems lies in your (Turbine's) inflation of enemy HD without in turn inflating our HD affecting spells. You inflated our damage to handle their inflated HPs - why have you still not taken account of the vast disparity between the HD our spells can handle and how much you inflated the enemy HD?

[Chaosprism]

I was just going to start a thread on this myself.

So I'm encouraging participation in this thread!

Personally, I'd like to see something like:

- spell name
- 1-5 rating on spell cost (1 being bad, 5 being appropriate)
- 1-5 rating on spell effectiveness
- comments

Yeah I know i've piped up on spells before it's one of my pet peeves how some spells got amplified from pnp when going to ddo, and others just got forgotten.


Sleep, Deep Slumber
cost rating: 3
Effectiveness: 1
Comments:
Only works on things that can be affected by mind affecting spells, elves are immune though and other things that dont know how to sleep.
Hypnotism got buffed from it's 2d4 limit, sleep and deep slumber should too.
Make it affect way more hd, and to balance it, slow it's casting time down a lot so it's not always better than hypnotism. Also increase sleeps/deep slumber area of effect.



Cause Fear, Daze Monster, Scare:
rating: 4
effectiveness: 2
Comments:
These 3 spells are HD limited, and become useless very quickly like sleep, you cant even heighten them to make them useful.
I suggest to fix them, make them have some sort of effect when they're beyond their hd limit. Scare and cause fear could cause a SHAKEN effect (like doom does) when they cant cause outright fear. Daze could stun for a very short time like the side effect of sonic blast does when you're aiming at a creature beyond the 7hd limit.


Power word : Anything
Rating 2
effectiveness: 2

To use these spells you need to reduce the targets hitpoints first for them to even work, and if you're doing that effectively why not just kill them? Hitpoints on creatures in DDO is insanely over the limit, especially on hard and elite.



Undeath to Death, Circle of Death
Rating: 3
Effectiveness :1

comment:
HD limited spells again, wont affect anything over 9 hd, Needs to be improved on both spells. To balance it maybe make each casting roll 5d4 to see how many hd max the spell will work on instead of 9. That way you can SPAM the spell to get the effect you want.
Death is a fickle thing after all. rolling for the effective spell power seems right to me.


Those are the most ineffective spells in the game atm.

[Chaosprism]

While we're on the subject of spells in general, i'd really like to see WIDEN metamagic added. Should cost the same base extra mana as MAXIMIZE does. (25)

To double the area of effect of a spell . Clouds are twice the area, fireballs are double etc., cone of cold is bigger etc.