Tested new Icestorm and Critical Mod

[TechNoFear]

Ok, finally so ppl wont act dumb on me going like huh?! how?! what?! i dont get it.. its the same etc...:

Your math is incorrect (please let me know if you need a more detailed explanation of the correct math).

The first set of numbers has a 10% chance of a crit, the second set 18%.

The way you randomly allocate the crits in the first example increases the number of casts required by 2.

If you use the same 'caster' [100 HP per cast with a 10% chance of crit doing 300 HP == ave 120 HP / cast] both new and current take 13 (12.5) casts to kill.

[Myrdinn]

I tried the changed ice storm spell in TOD, and definitely, I will not cast it now, not worth the sp it cost. Dmg is about 50-60 with max emp and eardweller. Which in my opinion is worthless against orthon with like 3000 hp.

It cost me 4 Ice Storm to kill 1 orthon and 1 devil in ToD Normal. So before the last nerf, the spell was helpful to DPS, now, I wont bother casting it, since melee gonna kill them way faster than me. So we are just back to the start, being that ice storm again is a unuseful spell.

I liked the way it was before doing 150 dmg per tick for 30 seconds while having all enh., it was making us more on par with the DPS, not the same, not more, but a little less and effective in amrath.

And now, even if they make it that extend work, it STILL not gonna be worth it.

And let me say this straight: Caster SHOULD do more DPS than a melee, just that a melee can go on for a while longer when caster need to think on WHEN it is more useful to spend their mana. (that being when there are too many monster for the melees to handle)

[Tobril]

Right, and I love this spell...But in Bastion of Power for example its not working very good, you know

The point is, that the very sp intensive method of killing things (direct aoe nuking) was made even more sp intensive, I get it that most of you dont care, but hey, you cannot deny it happened

It works fine, you're just not trying hard enough.

If it helps, you can put your crit spells on a pile next to my wounding of puncturing rapiers.

[Legendary_Agent]

Your math is incorrect (please let me know if you need a more detailed explanation of the correct math).

The first set of numbers has a 10% chance of a crit, the second set 18%.

The way you randomly allocate the crits in the first example increases the number of casts required by 2.

If you use the same 'caster' [100 HP per cast with a 10% chance of crit doing 300 HP == ave 120 HP / cast] both new and current take 13 (12.5) casts to kill.

not true, the first set is bigger than 10% aswell.
Also ure wrong if u think that ingame you will hit each enemy in a row with a critical hit, the chance of "random" is there for a reason, your calculations are false because you are trying to compare damage ratio to killing ratio which in these 2 critical system differs quite a bit, as one is granted critical to all foes hit by that spell while one is random critical per each monster.

[BurningDownTheHouse]

I'm almost certain that this is not working as intended.
Previously each spell the second it was cast, had all of its attributes calculated and set. Now they are random per each mob. This is the only way to affect the change for the DoT spells crit calculations. What they need to do is seperate the mechanisms and keep the old one for instat spells (this might sound easier than it really is though, they might not have a developed way to set the statistics seperately for each spell).

[shagath]

What they need to do is seperate the mechanisms and keep the old one for instat spells (this might sound easier than it really is though, they might not have a developed way to set the statistics seperately for each spell).

Death Aura currently in live version count crit for each tick and rest of the arcane spells don't.

[BurningDownTheHouse]

Death Aura currently in live version count crit for each tick and rest of the arcane spells don't.

There you go then...
Do it now Turbine!!!

[Legendary_Agent]

Death Aura currently in live version count crit for each tick and rest of the arcane spells don't.

yes that would be a very good decision, it would improve dmg for ppl who dont crit fish and not nerf the ppl who actually want to do damage with single tick aoe spells.

[sirgog]

Please look at the Sorceror class and tell me what its only available capstone does.

Next look at that class and what most of its enhancements are geared towards.

Turbine pretty clearly consider Sorcs to be DPS with some CC/utility/buffing on the side, whereas Wizards are the CC class (with some damage, utility and buffs on the side). If this wasn't the case, there'd be a second capstone by now.

Clerics are not dps
Casters are not dps
Bards are not dps

They can be made to be dps, but they are not inherently dps.

Each group requires the following to succeed:
The ability to survive damage
The ability to inflict damage

If your group cannot inflict damage you cannot win
If your group cannot survive damage... you may still win.

Taking the mentality "casters suffer because of the crit nerfs so they cannot deal damage boo hoo" is bad.

Haste, Hold, Blur, Wail, Summon Monster etc are all designed to enhance a groups capabilities to survive.

Imagine if a caster could deal as much damage as a barb.. why would you EVER bring a barb?

Seriously... a lot of games make melee suffer but DDO has actually got it right, casters deal enough damage when need be but realistically it's their other benefits that are there to give them meaning.

I feel sorry for you doing epics and then realising casters are not dps... too much world of warcraft perhaps... but don't feel casters are getting the short straw.

Crits are fun, but balancing around crits is not. The "nerf" is irrelevant.

Btw, I levelled a dex-based Rogue first before realising this game overvalues strength and undervales dex due to damage and ac... you are correct balance in this game is kinda bad. Just gotta get on and roll str-based barbs if you wanna dps!

[Trillea]

Please look at the Sorceror class and tell me what its only available capstone does.

Next look at that class and what most of its enhancements are geared towards.

Turbine pretty clearly consider Sorcs to be DPS with some CC/utility/buffing on the side, whereas Wizards are the CC class (with some damage, utility and buffs on the side). If this wasn't the case, there'd be a second capstone by now.

Not to mention that the PrE upcoming 1st for sorcs is damage-based (elemental savant)

[MrWizard]

you would know wheres the problem if u read my post or had a caster. Criticaling 1 mob out of 10 means nothing u kill that 1 monster but 9 still remain, youll eventually drain their health uneven making the combat taking alot more time, wasting more mana to kill that group and eventually dying because u did not kill all on time.

Your calculations are just to simplified to show how it actually works ingame.

Critical were a big deal to save ur mana and spell casting time, and kill enemies faster, now youre just as good as u had no critical chance in AOE.
In normal 1 target spell this is left unchanged, thats the only thing that remains a viable option with critical but frankly, it doesnt appeal me as it costs alot of AP to add that +9% critical chance just so i can use it in 1 target spells, if the critical system is so poorly concepted now i would suggest at least make the normal AP Critical Chance automatically implemented into the level system as free.

you could always use hypno and let the party beat them one at a time still..or charm a couple.

[TechNoFear]

not true, the first set is bigger than 10% aswell.

15 crits in 15 casts on 10 mobs each time == 10% crit chance. Except if you are mob #4, which for some unexplained reason takes 3 crits in 9 casts (33.3% crit).

You appear to be manipulating the numbers to support your cause (or are unable to grasp the finer points of statistical analysis to create a reasonable scenario).

your calculations are false because you are trying to compare damage ratio to killing ratio which in these 2 critical system differs quite a bit, as one is granted critical to all foes hit by that spell while one is random critical per each monster.

Please explain where I have made an error in the math.
[using you example of 100 HP damage + 18% crit for 300 HP cast at 10 mobs with 1,500 HP]

Current system:
Each cast has 18% of a critical [== 1.8 crits + 8.2 normal]

(0.18 x 300 + 0.82 x 100) == 132 average damage

1,500 / 132 == 12 (11.36) cast required to kill the 10 mobs (on average)

New system:
Each mob has 18% of taking a critical, 10 mobs.
(0.18 x 300 x 10) + (0.82 x 100 x 10) / 10 == 132 average damage.

1,500 / 132 == 12 (11.36) cast required to kill the 10 mobs (on average)

[Thorzian]

Please look at the Sorceror class and tell me what its only available capstone does.

Next look at that class and what most of its enhancements are geared towards.

Turbine pretty clearly consider Sorcs to be DPS with some CC/utility/buffing on the side, whereas Wizards are the CC class (with some damage, utility and buffs on the side). If this wasn't the case, there'd be a second capstone by now.

sorcs are dps. but why are all of your examples in this thread instant aoe spells. DOT is the key to spellpoint managing dps. proplerly kited mobs in dot aoe spells will drop by the dozens, much more damage AND surviveability then any melee is capable of dishing out. the new spell, while not on par with firewall, fills the gap that firewall left. if turbine ever adds prismatic wall then sorcerors will be god-like in their power.. with the change to crits only helping.

we all have been arguing the same thing. the change helps dot and hurts insta-aoe. the argument seems to be what is more valueable. i have already been neg repped for saying i favor dot. i dont care. whatever helps you sleep at night. of course with 20 times the posts and a year less game time perhaps some people are on the forums too much and in game not enough.

[Legendary_Agent]

15 crits in 15 casts on 10 mobs each time == 10% crit chance. Except if you are mob #4, which for some unexplained reason takes 3 crits in 9 casts (33.3% crit).

You appear to be manipulating the numbers to support your cause (or are unable to grasp the finer points of statistical analysis to create a reasonable scenario).



Please explain where I have made an error in the math.
[using you example of 100 HP damage + 18% crit for 300 HP cast at 10 mobs with 1,500 HP]

Current system:
Each cast has 18% of a critical [== 1.8 crits + 8.2 normal]

(0.18 x 300 + 0.82 x 100) == 132 average damage

1,500 / 132 == 12 (11.36) cast required to kill the 10 mobs (on average)

New system:
Each mob has 18% of taking a critical, 10 mobs.
(0.18 x 300 x 10) + (0.82 x 100 x 10) / 10 == 132 average damage.

1,500 / 132 == 12 (11.36) cast required to kill the 10 mobs (on average)

your maths are inaccurate as in cast number 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 there are less than 10 monsters, thx for playing.

U should consider yourself rly lucky i actually still put some critical up in each of them, ingame it wont be so positive result.

[zealous]

Please explain where I have made an error in the math.

You don't 1.32 kill a mob, you either kill it or you don't.

To keep it simple, let's assume that you kill on two regular casts or on one crit.
So in other words 18% to need one cast, 82% to need two casts.

Old System:
0.18*1+0.82*2=1.82 casts on average
this is not the same as 2/(0.18*3+0.82)=1.47, you never get full bang for your crits.

New System:
For two mobs you'd have:
0.18*0.18=0.0324, both crit on first cast, 1 cast to kill both
1-0.0324=0.9676, 2 casts to kill both
0.0324*1+0.9676*2=1.9676 casts on average, as you add more mobs the expected number of casts will approach 2. ~8-10% increase in mana needed.

Using the previous scenario it gets somewhat more complicated.

Cutting some corners we arrive at probability distributions like this:

casts\”hp”	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
1	0.18	0.18	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2	0.82	0.1476	0.3276	0.0324	0.0324	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
3		0.6724	0.121	0.4162	0.0531	0.0855	0.0058	0.0058	0	0	0	0	0	0
4			0.5514	0.0992	0.4623	0.0654	0.1451	0.0143	0.0202	0.001	0.001	0	0	0
5				0.4521	0.0814	0.4784	0.0715	0.2022	0.0235	0.0427	0.0034	0.0045	0.0002	0.0002
6					0.3707	0.0667	0.4736	0.0732	0.2519	0.0322	0.0714	0.0071	0.0114	0.0008
7						0.304	0.0547	0.4551	0.0721	0.2918	0.0396	0.1039	0.0116	0.0222
8							0.2493	0.0449	0.4279	0.0689	0.3212	0.0454	0.1377	0.0166
9								0.2044	0.0368	0.3958	0.0646	0.3404	0.0496	0.1707
10									0.1676	0.0302	0.3613	0.0596	0.3504	0.0523
11										0.1374	0.0247	0.3265	0.0543	0.3523
12											0.1127	0.0203	0.2924	0.049
13												0.0924	0.0166	0.2601
14													0.0758	0.0136
15														0.0621

for a mob requiring 2-15 non-crits to kill, rows represent number of casts, columns number of non-crits needed, cells probabilities.

We can thus see that for a mob requiring 3 non-crits to kill we expect to kill with:
0.18*1+0.1476*2+0.6724*3~2.5 casts. For the old system this is the amount of casts expected for any number of mobs.
For 2-15 non-crits needed we get:

2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
1.82	2.49	3.22	3.97	4.7	5.44	6.17	6.91	7.64	8.38	9.12	9.85	10.59	11.32

For the new system we expect to kill x mobs with
p1, 1 cast: 0.18^x
p2, 2 casts: (0.18+0.1476)^x-p1
p3, 3 casts:1-p1-p2

This gives us:

mobs\”hp”	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
1	1.82	2.49	3.22	3.97	4.7	5.44	6.17	6.91	7.64	8.38	9.12	9.85	10.59	11.32
2	1.97	2.86	3.69	4.5	5.3	6.09	6.88	7.67	8.45	9.23	10.01	10.78	11.56	12.33
3	1.99	2.96	3.87	4.75	5.59	6.41	7.23	8.04	8.84	9.65	10.45	11.25	12.04	12.83
4	2	2.99	3.95	4.87	5.75	6.61	7.44	8.27	9.09	9.91	10.73	11.54	12.35	13.15
5	2	3	3.98	4.93	5.85	6.74	7.6	8.44	9.27	10.1	10.93	11.75	12.57	13.38
6	2	3	3.99	4.96	5.91	6.82	7.71	8.57	9.41	10.25	11.08	11.91	12.73	13.56
7	2	3	4	4.98	5.95	6.88	7.79	8.66	9.52	10.36	11.2	12.03	12.87	13.7
8	2	3	4	4.99	5.97	6.92	7.84	8.74	9.61	10.46	11.3	12.14	12.98	13.81
9	2	3	4	4.99	5.98	6.95	7.89	8.8	9.68	10.54	11.39	12.23	13.07	13.91
10	2	3	4	5	5.99	6.96	7.92	8.84	9.74	10.61	11.47	12.31	13.16	13.99

with rows corresponding to number of mobs and columns corresponding to non-crits needed to kill and cells corresponding to average number of casts needed.

tl;dr: Approx 20% decrease in efficiency

[Cartheron]

Great post Zealous, it could not be explained better.

+1

[JayDubya]

This is a nerf, and a significant one to what is probably the weakest class in the game (the sorceror).

Oh my how the times have changed!

[JayDubya]

You don't 1.32 kill a mob, you either kill it or you don't.

Agreed, but casts don't kill mobs, ticks kill mobs.

Your math is solid, but I feel that focusing on the cast is potentially misleading. So I thought to myself "how would I model this on ticks, instead of casts".

So I built this spreadsheet:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?...thkey=CKzT1K0O

and plugged in some numbers that seemed reasonable, and used some random simulation to model 10 encounters with a mob or set of mobs.

What it told me is that, other than crit-fishing, it is very rare that a mob would die faster in the U7 system than in the U8.

For bosses, etc, the ability to crit-fish is nice, and for those situations, I think the U7 system would be superior. But for trash, etc, I think I like U8 better. Which is not what I was expecting.

Note that I cheated a bit - setting up the per-tick damage for all 10 scenarios for the U8 system would have been very tedious, so I just averaged the damage.

[Cartheron]

Agreed, but casts don't kill mobs, ticks kill mobs.

Your math is solid, but I feel that focusing on the cast is potentially misleading. So I thought to myself "how would I model this on ticks, instead of casts".

So I built this spreadsheet:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?...thkey=CKzT1K0O

and plugged in some numbers that seemed reasonable, and used some random simulation to model 10 encounters with a mob or set of mobs.

What it told me is that, other than crit-fishing, it is very rare that a mob would die faster in the U7 system than in the U8.

For bosses, etc, the ability to crit-fish is nice, and for those situations, I think the U7 system would be superior. But for trash, etc, I think I like U8 better. Which is not what I was expecting.

Note that I cheated a bit - setting up the per-tick damage for all 10 scenarios for the U8 system would have been very tedious, so I just averaged the damage.

Since we are speaking about spells like chain lighting or dbf, not firewall here, I'm afraid that speaking about ticks is rather pointless

Worst part of this change is that it made whole crit lines for acid/lighting completly useless - they are not helping in anything now, since acid/ligthing spells are not usually used for single target nuking (since they all have saving throw) and there is no usefull acid/lighting DoT (ok, cloudkill, but its low damage and con damage is more important usually).

[kingfisher]

The way they show their love and attention hurts.

twss