New Ice Storm... wow!

[Jaid314]

Statements like this makes me wonder why I should purchase Turbine points in the future, or even why I play a caster when Turbine clearly wants their endgame dps to be completely meaningless.

for what it's worth, i'm of the opinion that we get the last laugh for the vast majority of the game. i mean, ultimately... killing that red/purple named boss? what, that's like, under a minute in most quests. in raids, it's a bit worse, but still.

dealing with all the trash between the start of the quest and the end? well, guess what... that's what i do as a caster. just you go ahead and find the dps who can make the run up to the end boss as smooth as a good CC-spec caster. which means that when you finally do reach that end boss, hopefully your healers have plenty of mana, the melees haven't burned any major resources, and your caster is the one they have to thank for it. so what if you're not uber leet dps on the main boss? you could probably have solo'd the entire quest right up until that fight if you had to, the only reason they even came along was to make it faster and to deal with the boss. in some quests, it's entirely possible the only reason they even *saw* the end boss is because you got them there. your time in the limelight has probably been way longer than theirs anyways.

[PopeJual]

Edit: it also shows it breaking DR since devils have DR good or silver, and the bludgeoning portion of the spell is doing full damage.

I'd say that 561 HP is pretty good damage, so of course it's going to break DR/Good.

[Khellendros13]

I'd say that 561 HP is pretty good damage, so of course it's going to break DR/Good.

Yea crits are very nice with Ice Storm You get a lot, as each tick has 2x chance to crit (cold and bludgeon).

Any news as to when Lammy will be updated?

[Myrdinn]

The spell Ice Storm as of now on lammania shouldn't be change for the following reason:

- It is the only spell that IS useful on all these orthon, bearded devil, demon, and all the lvl 18+ dungeon right now. In which except for hold monster, we just dont spend any mana since its not gonna do any good dmg.

- Its gonna make our dmg a little more GOOD against harry, horoth and all these raid boss. A caster is SUPPOSED to do more dmg than a melee, but for a shorter period of time due to mana, but right now, a melee deal far more dmg than a caster throwing all he have (except probably the sorcerer with good geared and having multiple ice spell)

- The actual dmg is good, making caster on par with melee (until caster run out of mana) for raid boss. Making them a replaceable solution in most raid (shroud for exemple). This would make the maximum limit of 2 casters dissapear (for most leader), making it even easier for caster to get into shroud group.

- And also finally a spell that can kill 3-4 golem without costing me half my mana bar

- I will use the new ice storm spell, unless it get nerfed to less than it is right now.

[Khellendros13]

Tested out the new Ice Storm.

WOW! It is ****ing useless!

Looking at less than half the dmg per tick, and in some cases 0-5 cold dmg on fire immune mobs with cold resist.
I had to go back to melee just to kill the first named spawn at the table in Sins Elite. Had to use a pot to keep going, vs 0 the whole quest prior to the nerf.

I don't think extend working on it would make a lot of difference at this point.

No scaling at all with caster level is pretty rude.

I was using: Major Ice Lore Sceptor, Full Fire/Cold enhancements (9% crit, 2.25crit dmg, +%40dmg) and Telvi's Sash clicky.

[Kralael]

I'd be interested in hearing how people will feel about the spell's viability once the damage is reduced. We still want it to be a competitive option when compared to Wall of Fire.

I'd like to say something worthy and contribute to the thread, bring something thats gonna prove you were right, or even just post statistics that would support your idea.

But i'm lazy.

I'll just say this: ''Lies''.

[Seliana]

Tested out the new Ice Storm.

WOW! It is ****ing useless!

Looking at less than half the dmg per tick, and in some cases 0-5 cold dmg on fire immune mobs with cold resist.
I had to go back to melee just to kill the first named spawn at the table in Sins Elite. Had to use a pot to keep going, vs 0 the whole quest prior to the nerf.

I don't think extend working on it would make a lot of difference at this point.

No scaling at all with caster level is pretty rude.

I was using: Major Ice Lore Sceptor, Full Fire/Cold enhancements (9% crit, 2.25crit dmg, +%40dmg) and Telvi's Sash clicky.

Back when I first wrote the post below, It designed to be a sarcastic look at Turbines game design choices regarding casters and archers. It was meant to get across the idea that they we're doing things wrong. Written in the hopes that they would read it and come to their senses.

Given our latest spell nerfs, I'm thinking they missed the sarcasm part of it: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=226280

[Cartheron]

Tested out the new Ice Storm.

WOW! It is ****ing useless!

Looking at less than half the dmg per tick, and in some cases 0-5 cold dmg on fire immune mobs with cold resist.
I had to go back to melee just to kill the first named spawn at the table in Sins Elite. Had to use a pot to keep going, vs 0 the whole quest prior to the nerf.

I don't think extend working on it would make a lot of difference at this point.

No scaling at all with caster level is pretty rude.

I was using: Major Ice Lore Sceptor, Full Fire/Cold enhancements (9% crit, 2.25crit dmg, +%40dmg) and Telvi's Sash clicky.

Im not sure if I understand correctly - you soloed elite sins of attrition using mostly Ice Storm, you needed only 1 sp pot and you call this spell useless? I havnt yet opportunity to test new IS, but it doesnt look so bad as I thought.

[Khellendros13]

Im not sure if I understand correctly - you soloed elite sins of attrition using mostly Ice Storm, you needed only 1 sp pot and you call this spell useless? I havnt yet opportunity to test new IS, but it doesnt look so bad as I thought.

No, I used 1 sp pot after the fight at the table. I didn't bother trying to complete as I knew then and there the differences with pre nerf and post nerf Ice Storm on Lammania.

It was taking 3-4 Ice Storm's to kill a pack of Devils vs 1 before the new nerf.

It is only competitive with firewall on mobs that are fire immune, simply because some dmg is better than none.

If it works on raid bosses it might be a source of dmg, but I doubt it will end up being better DPS than Polar Ray, averaged over 6 casts.

I don't need to solo Amrath on my wizard, so for me it is just about testing and providing feedback.

They should really have made a small adjustment, like halving the extra dmg per caster level. Right now, it doesn't scale.

This will make it to live though, just like the new TR bug probably will. Colour me surprised if both do not.

[Krag]

This will make it to live though, just like the new TR bug probably will. Colour me surprised if both do not.

/off-topic
What TR bug?

[Scraap]

This newest nerf does beg the question more than a bit:

If the sole scope of discussion and tweaking is to be Ice Storm and it's competitiveness with wall, what level range is it intended to be competitive in, exactly? 7-13 being made obsolete by something else being implemented later, or 7-17+? Just what is the end-goal here?

It's tough to tell how closely this meets the eventual intent in order to make anything resembling a considered suggestion at this point without some sort of context that isn't focused solely on next week, not next month+.

[Mindspat]

So...

Wall of Fire was already borderline OP, and Ice Storm is even better?

Add to that the fact that fire resistance is more common than cold resistance and that IS is half physical...

No. Just... no.

The problem is not about the "power" but instead with the game's inability to mitigate it without using blanket immunities. If mobs are to use spells that disipate the effects (ie, gust's of wind type of effects or break enchantment) then this could work nicely.

I think the greatest imbalance from Wall of Fire is due to AI not using Break Enchantment. If magic using mobs were to cast Break Enchantment (some raid bosses already do) it would improve upon the gameplay by coming closer to the theme, setting, and rules that are present in the pen and paper game while reinfocing tactics and inter-player cooperation.

Another nice way to balance this out would be to have AI casters using Mass Elemental Protection; and Haste.

[Attropos]

What was the use and purpose of this tweak? After this nerf, I know I will not be dropping any of my level 4 spells for ice storm. Why was any change implemented if it ends up being terrible against most end game mobs (Lots of things have cold resistance)?

It will be good at level and for a few levels afterwards... but honestly, did casters need any help there? I don't know this just seems like a slap in the face for sorcerers (the 20% damage capstone would have been great with a spell like this) who got passed over for prestige classes last update and were tempted with a useful spell. 2d6+3d6 is significantly less damage than 2d6+20, especially when you factor in cold resistance that much endgame has.

I do a lot of epics: the only time that I use firewall, I either need to critfish or use it on creatures weak to fire or undead otherwise it just does not do enough damage. Critfishing is gone via this update, so I doubt I will be using fwall for anything except to pick up aggro and kite. This spell will be useless for end end game because any time you would be laying down this spell, a firewall would be better (longer duration=better for kites, the double damage versus undead and double damage for mummy's mean it will be much better in any quest that deals with undead). Actually, what kills ANY remaining usefulness is the fact that more than half of it's damage is bludgeoning, meaning even on cold weak creatures, this spell will not have respectable damage.

Not going to ragequit this game over not getting a spell next update, but it was a bit hyped up. As far as I see it, wasted man hours have gone into this still useless spell.

[Trillea]

The problem is not about the "power" but instead with the game's inability to mitigate it without using blanket immunities. If mobs are to use spells that disipate the effects (ie, gust's of wind type of effects or break enchantment) then this could work nicely.

I think the greatest imbalance from Wall of Fire is due to AI not using Break Enchantment. If magic using mobs were to cast Break Enchantment (some raid bosses already do) it would improve upon the gameplay by coming closer to the theme, setting, and rules that are present in the pen and paper game while reinfocing tactics and inter-player cooperation.

Another nice way to balance this out would be to have AI casters using Mass Elemental Protection; and Haste.

The problem with this is now firewall/IS become broken in other ways - if we spam FW and IS and they spam break enchantment/gust of wind/cyclonic blast, they are not swinging at the melees and are not causing any damage to the 8-9 other people beating on them.

[Seliana]

What was the use and purpose of this tweak?

I can tell you that.

It's pretty clear now that the tweak was done so as to not add any meaningful damage to casters in game, We know now that there is no niche this spell fills because it's useless at level as well as endgame thanks to firewalls prevalence and lack of damage scaling.

My guess is this change was done only to allow enemy casters to hit players much much harder then they could before. We know that we have substantially less hp then the monsters especially in endgame content, and due to the fact that they have an infinite sp bar and simple AI script on these mobs, the enemy casters will spam the same 3-4 spells over and over by default. The real purpose behind this change to Ice Storm was to get larger amounts of damage past player defenses. They want to beat us around with the unresistible blunt damage without giving players a new advantage to fight back with. Probably to force healers to spend more sp in order to gain more cash flow from sp-pots bought from the DDO store.

Call it cynical if you want but I am beginning to see a pattern behind Turbines random decision making lately.

For those that don't see the pattern it goes like this:

1: Show the players some new ability that begins to finally balance player classes or make a new build idea work.
2: Let players tinker with it and talk about it for a while.
3: Wait for the players to buy store items/change their build/use resources in preparation to make use of this new ability
4: Quickly scale it back to useless levels, call it balance or unintended on the forums.
5: If possible find a way to make it more of a hindrance then a benefit to the players.
6: Introduce a new element of hindrance with the patch as well (TWF Attack speed nerf, Dungeon Alert nerf, Heroic Surges nerf, Transmuting to Metaline nerf, Two handed fighting nerfs, Haste attack speed nerf, Pale Master nerfs, Spell duration nerfs, Glancing Blow nerf, Weighted nerf, Sword of Shadows nerf, Summoned Air elementals Gust-of-wind destroying firewalls nerf, Masters Touch nerf, Spell crits nerf, Level draining bosses nerf, Charm spells repeated saves nerf, Tendon slice on bosses nerf, Touch of Despair nerf, Ice storm nerf).
6: Watch the money roll in as people adapt to the new hindrances with store bought items.
7: Profit.

[Zerkul]

Call it cynical if you want but I am beginning to see a pattern behind Turbines random decision making lately.

For those that don't see the pattern it goes like this:

1: Show the players some new ability that begins to finally balance player classes or make a new build idea work.
2: Let players tinker with it and talk about it for a while.
3: Wait for the players to buy store items/change their build/use resources in preparation to make use of this new ability
4: Quickly scale it back to useless levels, call it balance or unintended on the forums.
5: If possible find a way to make it more of a hindrance then a benefit to the players.
6: Introduce a new element of hindrance with the patch as well (TWF Attack speed nerf, Dungeon Alert nerf, Heroic Surges nerf, Transmuting to Metaline nerf, Two handed fighting nerfs, Haste attack speed nerf, Pale Master nerfs, Spell duration nerfs, Glancing Blow nerf, Weighted nerf, Sword of Shadows nerf, Summoned Air elementals Gust-of-wind destroying firewalls nerf, Masters Touch nerf, Spell crits nerf, Level draining bosses nerf, Charm spells repeated saves nerf, Tendon slice on bosses nerf, Touch of Despair nerf, Ice storm nerf).
6: Watch the money roll in as people adapt to the new hindrances with store bought items.
7: Profit.

You said it in too much negative way, but in my opinion it is mostly true.

[Legendary_Agent]

You said it in too much negative way, but in my opinion it is mostly true.

well imo i agree with most of it aswell.

[Xaxx]

wow the devs gave us a new ability to play with and then nerfed it when it was useful, what a susprise.

I guess this is the *spell pass* we can expect for all spells then, make every useless spell SEMI useful so that you can then make all actually useful spells SEMI useful to. Yeah i see what path this is headed down. Oh well, I'm goin to play cataclysm for a while.

Oh and btw anyone think we can petition to get the thread title changed by a moderator to WOW icestorm still sucks.

I mean they changed the title of the thread Touch of Death NERF to Touch of Death Change..... so come on, a mod needs to change the title now please.

[yodino]

So my decision to go Melee archmage with a 40 Enchant DC still pays off even after all this? Glad to know.

But I do see your point. It feels weird that the most effective caster in high end content/epics is a toon that sporadically uses their spells then goes into melee combat with a Dreamspitter, rather than someone who relies on their spells all the time because that's what they specialize in. Raistlin and Ellminster must be turning in their graves right now.

Yeah, there's definitely something wrong with that picture.

[Nyvn]

So we have a currently useless spell, that was made a bit overpowered and then changed to be slightly more useful than the completely useless original version of the spell.

I'm not sure what role the devs see this spell filling.