"Damage over time dice?"

[Jiipster]

And?

Your crit rate is the same for both spells which means that the average increase in spell damage is the same for both spells. Twice as many crits for half the damage works out to the same amount of added damage. Unless you have some kind of effect that produces a bonus whenever you crit with a spell, there is absolutely no advantage for Icestorm to produce more crits.

Non-epic trash will die faster, since your damage output will be more frontloaded.

[QuantumFX]

I believe you guys over-reacted and gave it the old triple swing with the nerf-bat when you only needed to smack it once.

Actually it was 100% main hand, 80% off-hand and 10% double-strike.

[gk_zone]

I'd just like to echo the other sentiments about the reduction to damage going to far the other way. I think it was a bit overpowered, but now it isn't on par with Wall of Fire. I don't know if that was the intention or not.

As far as not allowing the spell to be extended; that just makes zero sense. I can't think of a legitimate reason not to allow it to be extended. With the bludgeon damage it can help beat down a portal. It was about the only viable means to do so without spending all of your spell points. Now if my sorc runs into a portal it will take around 200 more sp to do what a couple of extends would have cost.

[Stanley_Nicholas]

Non-epic trash will die faster, since your damage output will be more frontloaded.

Not really, because ice storm still deals much less average damage per tick. Both spells get an equal percentage augment due to crits, but the more-frequent crits from icestorm will be offset by the fact that they will also be smaller crits. Wall of fire will remain the better choice in every case where it's usable, even against non-epic trash.

[LunaCee]

Given the near unanimous vocal outcry from actual casters that this so called new and improved icestorm is anything but... can a Dev please stop in and say whether or not they are able to nudge the powers that be to at least bring this within shouting distance of Firewall? (Which in my opinion would be 80-85% average output of firewall) Otherwise this spell is pretty much doomed to be effectively a waste. Not quite as bad as Deep Slumber, but close enough.

Melee complain when the effectiveness of one style is a mere 10% behind another. We casters are complaining when the spell that is supposed to be competition for another is a full 50% behind. That large an effectiveness gap and we cannot help but look at it and pretty much write off the spell as not worth slotting in.

[Arlith]

O well, my next toon shall be named Mr Magoo.

Been done. Forced rename for copyright reasons.

[ChaosEmperorDragon]

Unweighted dice.

Lingering damage over time effects in DDO generally use actual d6's (or whatever the die size is) rather than ones that skew high.

I'm noob and stumbled across this post. Excuse me for asking but does this mean that normal dice in DDO are weighted to roll higher than expected?

[Depravity]

I'm noob and stumbled across this post. Excuse me for asking but does this mean that normal dice in DDO are weighted to roll higher than expected?

Yes, in the case of magical damage. Those dice usually do half their damage, plus a random amount of the rest. So a 6 sided die (d6 from here on out), would do 3 points, plus another 1-3, for an actual range of 4-6 damage. A d8 would be 4+(1-4) for 5-8 damage. It pushes the average up and the variance down, so magic damage is a bit more reliable and rewarding.

Most other dice are the full range, so a d6 from sneak attack would be 1-6 damage, or the d10 on a weapon would be 1-10, etc.

[kyebosh]

Unweighted dice.

Wait... There are weighted dice implemented live?
Seriously?
No, you're kidding right?

[toughguyjoe]

Wait... There are weighted dice implemented live?
Seriously?
No, you're kidding right?

Please read the thread before posting.

Magical Damage that is not DOT normally operates on Weighted Dice.

Example: Fireball does Xd6 based on caster level. In DDO it does Xd3+x(3). For a tenth level caster this figures out to 10d3+30. This is largely to make up for the limited number of castings spell casters have between shrines. More bang for their buck, since a physical damage dealer never runs out of bang.

[Myrdinn]

The IS spell is not even worth slotting now. That is all there is to say about it.

5 slot for a wizard (ddoor, fireshield, death aura, neg energy burst, fw for my PM)
4 slot for a sorc (ddoor, fireshield, fw, stoneskin or solid fog)

The only caster that COULD slot the spell would be an archmage wizard.

So the question is not that it is situational (which is now VERY VERY situational), but that its not worth casting anymore. With max, emp, eardweller (which give 100% boost), I do 50-60 on orthon per tick on bludgeon part and 0 on ice part. Why would I cast it on them when melee down them in 10 seconds... By the time the storm appear, they are dead...

Against Harry, I will just polar ray and use all my neg energy spell on him... still no use

Portal... I do more dmg with a gs greataxe as a 20 wiz and 10 str than with this spell...

Let it like that, no one gonna use it.

Double the dmg and its gonna become interesting.

[Torebro]

Right now there is only one situation where this spell is probably the best choice: Epic Golems (when you have to kill them)

In all other situation, other spells SLAs are a lot better:

Non-Epic Golems:
(Web +) Smiting Weapon is faster better and more cost efficient than Ice Storm

Fire Resistant Mobs:
Firewall is still better than Ice Storm (even when it only deals halve the normal damage, due to the X-over)

Enemies who get extra damage from Cold:
Cone of Cold and Freezing Sphere are better (direct damage, loaded dice, faster)

Fire Immune Mobs:
Beside CC Spells, InstaKill Spells and SLAs, Cone of Cold is still better than this one, because you kill them in a few Shots, rather than watching them for the next minutes, slowly getting killed and having to re-cast Haste/Displacement after each fight (might be worth it against blackbones).

Portals:
PM chain Spamming the Necro SLAs (Portals aren't immune anymore)
AM Any weapon with (greater) construct bane

Bosses (Harry, etc):
PM: see portals
AM: Casting one more haste (because 1 mediocre DPS didn't get the first one) is 10 times more efficient, SLA's if you have them

[gurgar78]

Portals:
PM chain Spamming the Necro SLAs (Portals aren't immune anymore)
AM Any weapon with (greater) construct bane

Bosses (Harry, etc):
PM: see portals
AM: Casting one more haste (because 1 mediocre DPS didn't get the first one) is 10 times more efficient, SLA's if you have them

FWIW, these two situations have fights lasting long enough that you could throw an Ice Storm in addition to the actions you suggest. It doesn't have to be one or the other.