Spell Pass Preview - Chaaannggeee!

[Requiro]

I couldnt disagree with you more....

Which AOE spells are still VERY useful with meta magics?

I don't see all the AOE spells. But we see that for now only AOE damaging spells have the same (or more) SP (WoF, Incendiary Cloud). That why with Matas they will get more power. FoW cost 35 - 100% damage. With Maximize 60 SP - 200% damage. You gain 10 SP. That why metas are useful with AOE spell. And Metas can be still lowered by Enhancements and gear. Also see here: http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...&postcount=157

As to the complaining about it being a new thing.... thats not the problem, you need to go back and read the vast majority of the posts.... Its not that people are complaining about nerfing our "beloved" firewall..... Its we have no other options.

You don’t know that. You see only part of the changes and start to complain. You don't even try this on test server, but you know that you don’t get other option. Try this, and then complain. Something what look bad on paper can be good in game and vice versa.

In U9... if it goes according to whats been suggested then my (and many others) WHOLE char has changed.....
So what? What is wrong with changes? Changes are good Are you not bored doing the same over and over?

This isnt nerfing TWF and ruining your ranger... This is nerfing TWF then making rangers only use clubs.
No. This is powerup TWF in shortswords, nerfing TWF in Khopesh and give ranger option to use one of them

Comments in yellow

Ask yourself why are you using WoF? ...
The answer was given by Torc:

(...)While we got by with this, it didn’t exactly always make for the most diverse spell choices for those people who crunched the numbers to determine what to use. When you looked at the math, folks get very attached to certain spells, namely “wall of fire” for very logical reasons. This is a shame considering the art/dev resources devoted to the creation of so many other spells also floating in the system.(...)

That's why I'm optimistic with the upcoming changes

[sirgog]

I agree with this - and it might be too strong.

What it may likely do is not just "uplift nuking" and instead make "nuking the only time-realistic option" with AM being force spec'd, sorc's being elemental spec'd, PM's being negative and FVS being light with essentially a bunch of stuff that amounts to a single "blast" or "aoe blast" playstyle.

Melees will still have their place. But we might see people happy to take a 1 Wizard, 3 Sorc, 2 Clr, 1 Brd, 2 Bbn, 1 Ftr, 2 Rog group into Tower of Despair or Epic Chronoscope.

[voodoogroves]

I read Torc's post, but I'm curious.... doesn't this seem like a big screw over for pale masters? Our insta death spells are going to be virtually useless seeing as the cooldowns are huge. Leaving us to rely on our free abilites (becuase as I see it, that's pretty much the only thing we have goin for us come U9)

I'm willing to give it a shot, but this is my worry too.

Damage over time spells are getting reduced in effectiveness, except maybe for for stand-and-block types. Direct damage is going to get a boost. Save or die / save or lose will get higher saves and longer cool-downs.


This has the potential to turn a Pale Master into someone who rarely wails/finger/etc. because it is faster and less annoying just to death aura and blast bolt blast bolt blast bolt blast bolt blast bolt. etc.

I really hope it doesn't.

[Jaid314]

has anyone figured out what spells that werent being used are now actually viable?

all i can see is some spells had their sp cost reduced incien cloud got a little bump in dps but got its duration reduced from 2.5 minutes to 30 seconds and firewalls got thier duration reduced by 50 percent and thier spell cost doubled if heighten affects it because it now has a save-- oh yeah and a bunch of debuffs may actualy debuff now but as i dont have them on my sorc this does nothing for me

wail of banshee suposedly does some dmg if they fial save now im guessing it wil now be affected by max and empower agian making it cost soar astronomically in adition to a increas in cooldown from like 5 seconds to 20

so be thankfull u can roll ur mage now lvl easily to lvl 6 then reroll because ur useless after thatinstead of the other way around

how bout a hint if u are going to hange spell descritions increasing the number of dmg dice cap so the sorc pre actualy does something polar ray is only spell other than disintigrate which doesnt cap at lvl 20 and if u have epic staff of arcane pwr and abashai set its already maxxed at lvl 25so cold pre is worthless except for bypassing some dr

firewall base sp cost now 35 what will it be heightened 70? plus 40 for max and empower same with incindiary cloud so almost dbl spell pt cost and half duration makes it 4x less eficient

i jsut want to thank whoever thought it would be good to make sorcs useless raise dcs so we cant hold anythig even with max gear unless we use a ugo pot and a store pot and have a new fvs aura and a bard song-- nerf our main dmging spells and fgive us a pre that does little to nothing and while ur at it break up the elemental dmg enhancvments so they cost more aps 18 to max out one element instead of 22 to max out 2 and big whup to the enhancment going form 40 percent max to 50 percent that makes ur total spell dmg go from 3.6 to 3.7 times base dmg u might not even notice the change on most spells so now my sorc gets a pre instead of having 4 elements maxxed out imay be able to max out 2 elements and take the pre to tier 3
my now useful dc for cc will be nerfed and my firewalls will be much less cost effective but i will get a reduced mana cost for spells that dont do diddley on high end content and which i dont have anyways

i keep wondering why turbine cycles making casters fun to play then nerfing them to uselessness then makin them fun to play thne nerfing them again

i didnt play my caster for about a year and a half till i got into epics and really enjoyed playin it agian i guess that is over

please stop arguing in our favor. you don't appear to actually know what you're talking about, it's making us look bad.

- the savant prestiges increase the MAXIMUM caster level also. giving you potentially a 28d6 polar ray, 18d6 cone of cold, etc. if you had been paying any attention whatsoever, you should know this.

- wall of fire is a level 4 spell. heightening it costs an extra 30 spell points, not 35. and honestly, for most of the game you don't need extend on it because it should be killing things fast enough without extend (and in epics, everything lost 50% of their hit points... meaning you still need the same amount of wall of fire, which costs the same amount as you used to pay, since nothing about it's costs changed.)

- you won't be paying 25 for maximise and 15 for empower, because you are required to invest in feats that reduce those costs.

- wall of fire actually just got it's duration set to the current 20 level duration. the loss is in extending it, which actually costs more SP anyways.

- you not choosing to use debuffs has no bearing on the usefulness of those debuffs, nor on the usefulness of the CC those debuffs allow.

- 7 plus 6 plus 6 is 19, not 18. it costs 19 AP to max out the new elemental lines. basic math ftl i guess.

- you can change spells. go ahead and try it, you'll find that by changing spells to have other useful ones, you will still have useful spells.

- you don't need 4 elements. i get by just fine right now with only fire and ice. after U9 hits, i expect to get by just fine with force and one other. quite possibly only even putting a couple of points into force.

seriously, try some research. some of the savant lines actually improve spells that aren't even elemental damage, like water boosts horrid wilting and air boosts cyclonic blasts, and air even provides 2 elements to work with (sonic and electric). once you know what you're talking about, *then* come back and complain.

rabidly attacking things with clueless rants isn't going to help anything.

[Aurora1979]

Comments in yellow

Ask yourself why are you using WoF? ...
The answer was given by Torc:



That's why I'm optimistic with the upcoming changes

hmmm, cant quote your yellow comments properly....

"I don't see all the AOE spells. But we see that for now only AOE damaging spells have the same (or more) SP (WoF, Incendiary Cloud). That why with Matas they will get more power. FoW cost 35 - 100% damage. With Maximize 60 SP - 200% damage. You gain 10 SP. That why metas are useful with AOE spell. And Metas can be still lowered by Enhancements and gear. Also see here"

yes you gain 10sp.... but with the loss of damage by the reflex save and duration of firewall I doubt its a net gain, but ill leave one up to the number crunchers. my maths isnt great.

"You don’t know that. You see only part of the changes and start to complain. You don't even try this on test server, but you know that you don’t get other option. Try this, and then complain. Something what look bad on paper can be good in game and vice versa."

I can only comment on the information given to me.

using your theory then no one should comment on any update notifications. You are correct we are working on assumptions at the moment but I have said a few times tonight, Using the information we have been given..... I dont like etc...


"So what? What is wrong with changes? Changes are good Are you not bored doing the same over and over?"

No, im not bored. I only capped this char a month ago or so, as i said before. Im throughly enjoying my arcane atm. And Ive had.... maybe 6-8 arcanes before. Ive enjoyed all of them too. I dont just cast firewall and bunnyhop around, again, like i said earlier.... Not all changes are good. thats just a silly remark.

Your last comment, and quote by dev actually support what I, and others are saying 100% you have missed the irony.

You both admit the only reason we have become dependant on certain spells is becaus ethey are the ones most efficent.

ACCORDING TO THE PLANNED CHANGES...... all of these spells that we use regular are being changed.... with no replacment.

Im not against change, AGAIn as i said before, but there has to be a substitute.

[Velexia]

I'm interested in hearing how ToD part 2 is getting changed, to keep it from becoming even harder, with this super firewall nerf.

Devs, have you tried running ToD Part 2 with your new spell system?

[Tolath]

i cant say if changes are good or bad.we will see them online.
just we have to remove dungeons and dragons from the name of the game.

[Angelus_dead]

I think the main thing is that with the SP cost changes to damaging spells based on their usefulness, metamagics definitely need to be looked at again.
When Maximizing a spell costs more than simply casting the spells again, Maximize becomes a useless SP sink. It's even worse for Empower.
....
I really hope metamagics also got an overhaul, because otherwise they just became utterly useless.

Yes metamagics definitely need a revamp, but it's not accurate to say they became "useless". They did become bad game design, though.

The previous situation is that Maximize + Empower were almost always helpful for both the metric of throughput (damage per second) and efficiency (damage per mana). But now that DPS spells are having their costs lowered to below that of Maximize, the metamagics will often reduce efficiency while still raising throughput. (Efficiency is often the dominant concern in many quests). That's a fine change in concept... it's nice if players have some more choices to make, instead of simply leaving the metamagics active practically 100% of the time.

But there are two problems it creates:

• Some spells still have a high base sp cost, like Wall of Fire and Incendiary Cloud. Those ones continue to gain efficiency from Maximize, while Scorching Ray loses efficiency.
• The DDO user interface for toggling metamagics on and off is bad, so making metamagics need to be toggled more means players have to do more struggling against a bad UI.

[satanofmetal]

Well, now i can say: If that ever comes live:

DooooooOOOOOOOOoooooooooOOOOOOommmmm²!

[Zachski]

Too many people are complaining about Wall of Fire nerf.

The whole point of this update is to introduce strategies OTHER than Wall of Fire. As soon as Lam hits, maybe you could spend less time crying and more time figuring out a new strategy BEFORE crying that the sky is falling?

Even if the update turns out not to be as much of a success as it could have been, you guys will figure out another strategy. I know it.

I, too, second that Echoes of Power should increase its cap as you level up.

Also, to the purists. This is not D&D 3.5E. This is an MMO that is based off of D&D. This is not a table top RPG that has been made massively available over the internet. MMOs have much different dynamics than TTRPG's do.

[Missing_Minds]

I don't see it. It didn't change casters who can keep the guys burning inside a wall... it just narrowed the amount of space you have to kite.

The big change here seems to be metamagic efficiency.

The casters that were doing that were only casting Wall of Fire. 1 trick pony.

metamagics were not touched to my knowledge.

And lets face it, how often did you fight in a Wall of Fire in PnP? Around it? Use the spell in every day encounters?

[KillEveryone]

I couldn't read the whole thread but I'm adding in my 2cp even though it is way back here and I don't think Dev's read this far back.

I'm glad to see changes to spells to make many more useful.

I'd still like to see a electric version of firewall or at least some kind of DoT for that element.

Not keen on extend being removed from some of the spells. Now the question is, should we take it just for haste and displacement. At least when it worked on firewall, there was other uses beyond haste and displacement. Any other buff spell lasts long enough that it doesn't really matter much beyond a few quests where you do need to extend blur...VoD for example. I just don't want to see another feat become useless.

My biggest concern with extend is that the metamagics will be applied correctly. I don't want my firewall(or any DOT) to get charged SP when it shouldn't from extend because of a bug that needs fixed and doesn't get fixed for a long time.

Enlarge as a feat might as well be removed from the game if there are a larger portion of spells that won't be able to use that feat. I'm figuring that there will be a good portion of spells that feat won't work for now going by what is currently listed. There were a few situations that it seemed like it would be fun to have and I had thought about using it for quite a bit more but it really doesn't seem worth bothering with now.

I'm glad to see the HD removed for those HD dependent spells. Getting them when we did made them pretty useless since the critter HD was past what the spell allowed for and any lower ones were just out leveled real quickly.

The cool down on Power Word Kill is a bit long. Nice that it only has to bypass SR but that cool down is just too long to bother with loading it. I could see it having a cooldown twice as long as Otto's Irresistable or FoD, but not 4 minutes.

[Jaid314]

I'm interested in hearing how ToD part 2 is getting changed, to keep it from becoming even harder, with this super firewall nerf.

Devs, have you tried running ToD Part 2 with your new spell system?

why would they change it?

nobody cares if the caster *kills* the shadows. all people care about is that you drag them away from the stairs and kite them.

if there was a level 1 spell that dealt 1 point of damage to a mob that went through it, that spell would be perfectly acceptable to use in tower of despair. people use wall of fire right now because that's what every arcane *has*, not because it's a requirement for the success of the raid.

[Angelus_dead]

Extend will still be good for Haste and Displacement and, um...

Okay, I can't think of anything else. I'll probably take it as a level 1 feat just so I can extend my buffs until level 5-ish. Then a flawed or imperfect Syberis dragonshard and a trip to Fred will get me a swap.

Yes, that looks a lot like what'll happen.

In a way that seems good... pretty much freeing up a feat slot on many Sorc, Cleric, and similar builds, because they'll no longer need Extend to double the damage output of WOF / BB for a tiny +10 sp. But there are downsides to discouraging Extend feats too.

[varusso]

5. Wall of fire ( up to 35 SP – targets now get a reflex save when they first enter the effect, but no saves against the flames if they remain in the wall. Now only does an additional 2d6 against undead instead of double. Duration is now locked to 30 seconds regardless of level. Can no longer be extended)

So in other words, in order to FORCE us to use other spells, you nerf the hell out of the one spell in the game that you KNOW is the bread and butter of every mage, making it MORE expensive AND less effective? NO. Just NO. How about you leave this spell alone and make whatever changes you plan to make to the other spells. If you truly think you are improving the rest of the spell system so much, then you dont need to club us over the head by borking this spell.

Seriously, just leave it alone. Yo umay make some non-mages happy to see the arcanes getting smacked with the nerf bat, but all you are REALLy going to do is tick off a bunch of arcane players needlessly. If the intent is to make the system better and to make it 'more enjoyable' as you said, then DONT mess with the things we LIKE and just fix the ones we DONT like.

I am all for a rebalancing pass that improves the overall system, but that doesnt mean that you need to nerf one of the signature spells of the class.

NOT signed.

[Angelus_dead]

why would they change it?

nobody cares if the caster *kills* the shadows. all people care about is that you drag them away from the stairs and kite them.

Shorter duration on Wall of Fire = fires end earlier = maybe some Shadowfiend slips through without being aggroed.

[Jaid314]

Shorter duration on Wall of Fire = fires end earlier = maybe some Shadowfiend slips through without being aggroed.

is it really taking you 30 seconds to run around the room? it's not *that* big...

[bobbryan2]

I'm interested in hearing how ToD part 2 is getting changed, to keep it from becoming even harder, with this super firewall nerf.

Devs, have you tried running ToD Part 2 with your new spell system?

There are plenty of other spells you can use. Hell, even fireball will probably work in a pinch

[shadow_419]

Shorter duration on Wall of Fire = fires end earlier = maybe some Shadowfiend slips through without being aggroed.

Hmm, good thing I stopped kiting shadows a while ago and switched to tanking them instead.

[Kourier]

Shorter duration on Wall of Fire = fires end earlier = maybe some Shadowfiend slips through without being aggroed.

Cloudkill or acid fog?