New Ice Storm... wow!

[Jaid314]

When you fix the damage, please fix the other bugged aspects of the spell as well.

1) Tooltip says it applies a slow, but apparently it does not.
2) People have reported it does no damage to enemies with Freedom of Movement.
3) Does not work with the Extend Spell metamagic (unless this is intended behavior?).

If those bugs are fixed, I think it would be an interesting and useful spell even doing slightly less damage than firewall. Good against fire-immune mobs, good for the tick speed against mobs that you aren't kiting around, good for the slow against mobs that you are kiting around.

funny... got what may be a similar error trying to use cyclonic blast on the wiz-king. is FoM making people immune to spells that have two effects, one damage and one movement-related perhaps? (not sure if wiz-king even uses FoM mind you)

[Scraap]

I guess I mostly use Firewall for boss damage and single-shot nukes (DBF) or instakills for most trash, except where mob HP is too high to warrant that (elite Vale and onward) or shrines are too scarce in which case group em up and Firewall is the approach instead.

The mobs in those ambushes are quite dangerous - you'd need to find a way to keep them in the Ice Storm and stay alive which isn't easy.

That right there seems to underscore the spell balance issue quite clearly. I mean, really, sustained area of effects being more effective on single targets than explicitly focused single target spells? And ones halfway down the spell advancement chain at that... Something mighty wrong there...

[Khellendros13]

I guess I mostly use Firewall for boss damage and single-shot nukes (DBF) or instakills for most trash, except where mob HP is too high to warrant that (elite Vale and onward) or shrines are too scarce in which case group em up and Firewall is the approach instead.

The mobs in those ambushes are quite dangerous - you'd need to find a way to keep them in the Ice Storm and stay alive which isn't easy.

Displace + Web+Ice Storm and self repairs is how I did Solo Elite Sins of Attrition on Lammy...18 mins. Quite easy actually

Genasi, any word on when Lammy will get updated with the change to Ice Storm?
My basic test will be Elite Sins again.

Halving the bonus dmg per level seems like the best balance to me at this point...+20dmg instead of +40 at lvl 20 (bonus to cold and bludgeon combined).
This would have the side effect of making the Archmage ToD set sought after if Ice Storm scaled up to caster lvl 25 or more.

[Angelz_Fire]

Question ... has anyone tested this with EPIC winters wrath with a major ice lore/sup glac IX scepter and a dweller? curious to see the results

[Burninator]

Question ... has anyone tested this with EPIC winters wrath with a major ice lore/sup glac IX scepter and a dweller? curious to see the results

Tested what? The original Ice Storm? The Ice Storm that appeared on Lama? The Ice Storm that the devs are planning?

Epic Winters does nothing for the first, add +1 for a total of 21 to ice/bludgeon for the second and no idea for the third.
Major Ice Lore gets you to x2.75 crits and an extra 9% (assuming you have all crit enhancements).
Sup Glaciation IX does nothing since it's a level 4 spell and a Superior Freeze IV clicky or pot is 25% better.
Eardweller replaces the the SupGlac IV pot for an additional 25%.
May well add in the Sorc capstone for an extra 20% if you are aiming for max hits.

Base Ice Storm with no scaling averages (Ice / Bludgeon, Crit Ice / Crit Bludgeon)
78 / 98, 215 / 268

Ice Storm with 1 per caster level on both parts.
215 / 234, 590 / 644

[RoelHeeswijk]

You CANNOT balance Ice Storm to be useful at 7 and 20 without caster level scaling. It's either stupidly overpowered at 7 and ok at 20 or ok at 7 and useless at 20.

So on lvl 7 you'd be casting lvl 4 spells most of the time and on lvl20 you'd not be casting lvl4 spells as often? Wow yeah, that is totally unexceptable!

You can talk about individual spells all you want, but what turbine really needs is a general strategy to deal with this. It has always been a flaw in pen and paper and it got worse by using SP instead of spell slots.

My suggestion would be to hire whoever ends up second at http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazin...y/feature/111c and get serious about your game.

[Nyvn]

So on lvl 7 you'd be casting lvl 4 spells most of the time and on lvl20 you'd not be casting lvl4 spells as often? Wow yeah, that is totally unexceptable!

You can talk about individual spells all you want, but what turbine really needs is a general strategy to deal with this. It has always been a flaw in pen and paper and it got worse by using SP instead of spell slots.

My suggestion would be to hire whoever ends up second at http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazin...y/feature/111c and get serious about your game.

They are supposedly revamping the spell system. HD spells are useless, 4th level spells are among the best for dps, the whole system needs a revamp.

[Burninator]

So on lvl 7 you'd be casting lvl 4 spells most of the time and on lvl20 you'd not be casting lvl4 spells as often? Wow yeah, that is totally unexceptable!

Do you even play DDO?

Hang on, let me drop Ice Storm and Wall of Fire out of my spell book and instead I'll swap in those uber level 9 persistent AoE spells......

In fact lets add in some new spells instead of adding useful scaling.
Level 5 spell: Wall of Hot Fire
Level 6 spell: Wall of Extra Hot Fire
Level 7 spell: Wall of Really Hot Fire
Level 8 spell: Wall of Hottest Fire
Level 9 spell: Wall of Inferno

There, much better. We can then add the same type of new spells for Acid Fog, Ice Storm and even all those single target spells as well while we are at it.

If we had viable high level spells it wouldn't matter but we don't so it's important. Look at it from the dev time viewpoint, is it easier to add some scaling to existing spells so there is viable stuff at high level or is it easier to create brand new spells at high level only?

[jojje_b]

these kind of spells would be awesome, just wonderfull to have as a caster. i can already solo vod using nothing but but my death aura for the trash(go cook some food while waiting) and necrotic blast for sally. this is of course not a very fast method so i usually throw polar ray when its off cooldown too. but imagine if i had this! even if it had only half the damage of firewall it would still deal a fair amount of damage for barely any sp cost. oh and on my favoured soul i can also solo things like tod or epic adq by using the best spell in the game: blade barrier. firewall would have been better than bladebarrier if it wasnt for the slashing damage. but hey, ice storm is dealing bludgeon! and with a damage that rivals firewall! and without the save of bladebarrier! i guess i can finally start soloing anything on my caster then.

of course, this is not what i want this game to end up like. theres so many ways firewall is way too overpowered in this game and if we make a spell that is useable where firewall is not it does not even matter if its only half as powerfull.

oh, death aura is also way to overpowered, especially when stacking with firewall/icestorm. its very sad that turbine has to resort to having most potency/metamagics not work on it (wich, logically, they should.) in order to balance it.

[Genasi]

I think you came closest to what we're trying to go for and keep in mind, Junts:

However, there are tons of situations in which wall of fire would be breaking the game if monsters weren't immune. So the question remains whether ice storm, dealing much less damage but working on all those things (especially many raid bosses) will be a very good spell. My guess is that it will be. It won't be as ubiquitous, but with the present design of casters on DDO, it's nearly impossible for it to be: if a spell was as good as wall of fire but simply not fire, the game would break quickly because the only reason content works from levels 16-20 is fire immunity. If there was a lightning-elemental wall of fire, I'd never cast another damaging spell unless I was bored. So Ice Storm can't be that good. I think it'll take several months of play before we know if the present version does, or does not, provide a solid alternative for situations where wall of fire doesn't work.

The best way to put it, perhaps, is that we want Ice Storm to be able to coexist with Wall of Fire, and by this analysis I think that's what will happen. It's not too far off the mark to say that fire immunity is one of the few things keeping certain quests from being totally dominated by Wall of Fire, so we're not going to be adding any extra scaling to Ice Storm for the time being.

We recognize there's still concerns that Ice Storm won't be worth casting, but right now it sounds like it will still find use in many situations. As Junts said, time will tell if there still needs to be further tweaking, and we appreciate everyone's input.

[bradleyforrest]

I think you came closest to what we're trying to go for and keep in mind, Junts:



The best way to put it, perhaps, is that we want Ice Storm to be able to coexist with Wall of Fire, and by this analysis I think that's what will happen. It's not too far off the mark to say that fire immunity is one of the few things keeping certain quests from being totally dominated by Wall of Fire, so we're not going to be adding any extra scaling to Ice Storm for the time being.

We recognize there's still concerns that Ice Storm won't be worth casting, but right now it sounds like it will still find use in many situations. As Junts said, time will tell if there still needs to be further tweaking, and we appreciate everyone's input.

Can you comment on the lack of Extend of IS? If you're not going to allow scaling, can you at least allow us to double the duration? I don't think that's too much to ask in making this spell a little bit better than it will be without damage scaling.

[Junts]

I think you came closest to what we're trying to go for and keep in mind, Junts:



The best way to put it, perhaps, is that we want Ice Storm to be able to coexist with Wall of Fire, and by this analysis I think that's what will happen. It's not too far off the mark to say that fire immunity is one of the few things keeping certain quests from being totally dominated by Wall of Fire, so we're not going to be adding any extra scaling to Ice Storm for the time being.

We recognize there's still concerns that Ice Storm won't be worth casting, but right now it sounds like it will still find use in many situations. As Junts said, time will tell if there still needs to be further tweaking, and we appreciate everyone's input.

If you do scale it, I suggest a less-potent scaling than wall, and only on the cold damage portion which has to fight resistance (1 per 2 levels, possibly with a reduction in the cold base damage, eg 2d6 + 1 per 2 instead of 3d6, which would increase the cold average from 10.5 to 17). Incidently, the extend point is well taken and there's a history of tweaked spells not getting their available metamagics tweaked (for example, cloudkilll would be a useful aoe damage spell if maximize or empower worked on it, but they still do not so it's used exclusively for its concealment benefit: it even has level-based damage scaling that acid fog lacks!)

While you're in this thread, though, a tangential question:

When Radiant Servant came out, you guys went through and adjusted a bunch of clerical spells (healing spells) in terms of their scaling effects to allow them to scale past level 20 casting, and for lower level spells to scale better (eg mass cures went from the same scaling as the single-target to scaling to +25, +30, +35 and +40 max caster level).

There's a bunch of +caster level effects in the game for arcane casters, and a bunch of loot has been designed in ways that give them these benefits (epic helm of the red dragon, epic winter's wrath, epic staff of arcane power, archmage tower set bonus, etc). However, if you're a pure caster, the only spell on DDO that benefits in any way but a duration extension is Polar Ray.

Are there any plans to address spells generally not regarded as too powerful by increasing their maximum allowed caster level to permit them to benefit from this? In particular, delayed-blast fireball and chain lightning (the best single-shot lightning and cold spells) shouldn't cap at 20d6 to allow them to compete with polar ray's savelessness. Whether scaling lv 5 spells that cap at 15d6 (cone of cold, ball lightning) would be wise or not is probably a little trickier, as for most casters they'd lose a lot of distinguishing characteristics between them and their better versions. On the other hand, those spells aren't so powerful even at 20d6 that their increased use would be a balance danger, and single-shot damage effects, even AoE ones, need a serious buff to compete with duration-based aoe damage.

It feels kind of silly to have a set bonus in the game that gives +3 evocation caster level and know that it's exclusive benefit is improving a single-target nuking spell. Its a great improvement, and it might even be worth it for a few boss fights for that purpose, but it's extremely narrow, and the universal +2 caster level (staff of arcane power) is primarily used for +2 stacking spell penetration and 24 extra seconds of haste and displacement!

[gurgar78]

Perhaps modify it so that while spells retain their individual level caps, +spell level items/buffs aren't subject to level caps and will always increase a given spell by the appropriate amount.

In your example of a caster with +3 spell level to evocation spells, they would have:

13d6 fireball
18d6 cone of cold
26d6 disintegrates

etc

Basically, +spell level items/effects will "break" level cap on any spell.

[Trillea]

Perhaps modify it so that while spells retain their individual level caps, +spell level items/buffs aren't subject to level caps and will always increase a given spell by the appropriate amount.

In your example of a caster with +3 spell level to evocation spells, they would have:

13d6 fireball
18d6 cone of cold
26d6 disintegrates

etc

Basically, +spell level items/effects will "break" level cap on any spell.

Good idea, but may be hard to code.

[Scraap]

Just to expand a bit on the posts from bradley and junts, from my perspective, at least, it seems reasonable that of the three persistent aoe spells granted at level 4, wall of fire, reflecting the "flash in the pan" philosophy would reflect the highest base, lowest persistence damage, while ice storm would reflect "glacial" properties, ie: slow but sure, giving it, say, 25% duration above a comparable firewall (or whatever the % works out to so that the damage dealt from first tick to last tick equals out vs non-imunes).

Thinking longer term, just so it's not completely overlooked for the future however, given the distinct lack of ability to draw mobs into an Acid Rain, I'd like to propose once it's time to take a look at that one, following the philosophy of 'once contaminated, difficult to recover' and extending that quite a bit beyond either of the two without necessarily adding scaling damage. Say a full 50-100% beyond firewall.

It would seem at that point, that the 3 level 4s would run the gamut from immediacy to patience.

[bradleyforrest]

Good idea, but may be hard to code.

"Hard to code" is the worst reason not to program something. It basically means that you are too lazy to do code it correctly.

[ArkoHighStar]

"Hard to code" is the worst reason not to program something. It basically means that you are too lazy to do code it correctly.

or lack the bandwidth required

[Trillea]

Here is an idea Genasi, although it also may be hard.

Instead of having ice storm have a fixed damage per tick, and instead of having it scale directly with caster level which may be overpowering, how about this:

Every tick (approx every 2 seconds) along with the damage, a debuff is applied to the monster hit that lasts 3 seconds. This debuff adds a stacking 5% cold vulnerability (maybe not bludgeoning vulnerability). It would stack up to maybe 5 or 6 times, but if the monster steps out of the AOE, it would quickly lose the debuff. This would also help it get used in other content as the extra buff it would give to cone of cold and polar ray would be nice, but still not overpowering.

Just my 2cp.

[Junts]

Just to expand a bit on the posts from bradley and junts, from my perspective, at least, it seems reasonable that of the three persistent aoe spells granted at level 4, wall of fire, reflecting the "flash in the pan" philosophy would reflect the highest base, lowest persistence damage, while ice storm would reflect "glacial" properties, ie: slow but sure, giving it, say, 25% duration above a comparable firewall (or whatever the % works out to so that the damage dealt from first tick to last tick equals out vs non-imunes).

Thinking longer term, just so it's not completely overlooked for the future however, given the distinct lack of ability to draw mobs into an Acid Rain, I'd like to propose once it's time to take a look at that one, following the philosophy of 'once contaminated, difficult to recover' and extending that quite a bit beyond either of the two without necessarily adding scaling damage. Say a full 50-100% beyond firewall.

It would seem at that point, that the 3 level 4s would run the gamut from immediacy to patience.

Keep in mind that lower ticks for longer will just make ice storm suck in most of the situations that Genasi has indicated he'd like it to be effective, because most of those mobs have some kind of cold resistance, and ticking for less for longer will mean more damage lost to said cold resistance.

Acid rain is just so bad and so worthless that, until its completely overhauled, it's not even fair to compare it. A acid damage spell of psuedo-comparable quality to the fire/cold spells we're discussing is cloudkill: A level higher, with a couple extra benefits and a couple extra drawbacks. If metamagics worked on ck, it'd fit right into this equation in an effective fashion. Spells don't have to be of equivalent level to be roughly similar in role or in balance, and having a selection that complicates the process by involving other spell levels is good. Cloudkill has the negation by poison immunity issue, but also provides another considerable benefit (concealment), a tradeoff which in sum is worth an increase of a spell level.

[Scraap]

Acid rain is just so bad and so worthless that, until its completely overhauled, it's not even fair to compare it. A acid damage spell of psuedo-comparable quality to the fire/cold spells we're discussing is cloudkill: A level higher, with a couple extra benefits and a couple extra drawbacks. If metamagics worked on ck, it'd fit right into this equation in an effective fashion. Spells don't have to be of equivalent level to be roughly similar in role or in balance, and having a selection that complicates the process by involving other spell levels is good. Cloudkill has the negation by poison immunity issue, but also provides another considerable benefit (concealment), a tradeoff which in sum is worth an increase of a spell level.

I suppose I can see the point there, but the old-school 2.5E player in me can't help but keep hoping necromancy specced casters get their lingering AoE back (which would mean swapping that new tack-on of acid over to negative, I'd presume.)