Spell Pass Preview - Chaaannggeee!

[Junts]

Dear Torc.

How will heighten spell interact with these new spell costs? Previously, a lightning bolt heightened to level 8 would cost the same SP as a polar ray. Will this still be true? How will the metamagic interact with these costs and recognize what kind of spell its dealing with?

[Kabaon]

I so agree... at least as a caster who likes his cooldowns on insta-death spells.... wof isn't gonna be that bad folks.... most mobs have horrible reflex saves from my experiance.

What I said about the cooldowns to my fiance (who just started a caster to get wail) "I'd rather 2-3 decent insta-death spells than 5 ****** ones"

[Dexxaan]

Awesome.


ROFL


Turbine: Make other spells better...don't make the only decent ones.... Gimped


.

[zorander6]

Glad I only got my wizard to level 9. Wonder how long before they nerf cleric spells. If I could give negative rep I'd give it for this one.

No desire to play a wizard now.

[Philibusta]

Dear Torc.

How will heighten spell interact with these new spell costs? Previously, a lightning bolt heightened to level 8 would cost the same SP as a polar ray. Will this still be true? How will the metamagic interact with these costs and recognize what kind of spell its dealing with?

Doesn't matter, cause no one will be using Lightning Bolt, as they're nerfing the base damage to 1d3 (as opposed to the prior 1d6)

...also....

Fitting pic, but..shouldn't they be brandishing wizard staves instead of torches?

[Vernah]

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.

So we should be using spells other than wall of fire because the devs dedicated so much time in creating them? If so then please fix 3BC, Necro 1-3, etc. so we don't waste all the resources you devoted...

[moops]

If you want players to use the less popular spells. . .why not release new content in which these spells are the best to use?

In fact, instead of making us prob have to LR for our casters to be up to date/useful, why don't you make some End Game content that is not Epic?

This just really seems like a waste of time to fix things that really aren't all that bad. A friend of mine was excited cuz he can now get wings on his Sorc, and I was like, "Really? So you can run the same old stuff over and over with wings? Wouldnt you rather have a new quest?"

[Kabaon]

So we should be using spells other than wall of fire because the devs dedicated so much time in creating them? If so then please fix 3BC, Necro 1-3, etc. so we don't waste all the resources you devoted...

So by "Fix" you mean "gimp the **** out of"

Edit: Sorry.... I mean "Gimp it worse then they are now"

[Vallin]

This is a genuine question, not gonna go on again in this post but i properly curious.... what does sleep give that hypno doesnt?

I'm pretty sure they are essentially the same - except sleep looks cool and has a longer duration assuming they don't make their save.

Vallin.

[KillEveryone]

Would be probably a bit too easy way to kill epic monsters with that short cooldown if you just can beat their sr. Epic monster down every 5secs(FoD cd) no save?

Just not 4 minutes.

4 minutes is way to long, even for a spell with no save. Trash doesn't take that long to deal with. You'll be lucky if you get to use this spell more than twice between shrines.

I could have a better spell in there that will get used more even if that spell isn't a instant death type of spell.

One minute isn't too bad but I think that anything past that is too much.

Reasons are...I've hit my skill boost and activated the cool down but the skill didn't apply. It decreased the number of skill boosts I have available but I didn't get the boost applied(my buffs are not running off screen either.) I've activated a rage, gotten the cool down but didn't get raged. I don't like long cool down timers for this reason. I don't want to spam stuff, I just want to have a chance to use it even when the game has a hic-up.

I can see having a problem with this spell trying to cast it, nothing near you trying to hit you and no archers around but the game has one of it's moments. A spell example...I've been having issues with mass hold. I'm out of range of anything that can hurt me and I cast mass hold but I either don't get the purple ring of the area that it is targeted nor have I had the blue hexagon appear stating that the critter made any type of save yet the spell was activated and I had a cool down and lost SP and the critter isn't held.

Some of the changes I disagree with but I'm still looking forward to having these changes. My wizard has a spell book full of all the spells in the game yet most are not used because of the HD issue or they just cost too much SP to bother with loading. I'd like to see all the spells be used a whole lot more but this spell most likely won't get slotted much just because of the four minute cool down.

[steelblueskies]

The comments here make me /facepalm.

Sorcs go from 3-4 trick ponies - the worst class in DDO, with little other than bad DC Holds, Reconstruct, Haste, Displacement, Resist Energy and Firewall at endgame - to the highest DPS class in the game (by at least 100% when manadumping) and still people scream 'NO! This new thing, it is bad!' all because the one truly overpowered spell on their list gets a nerf it has needed for years.


Decent Nuker sorcs hardly used Firewall outside of undead quests anyway, except in conjunction with Discoball at endgame, or on the odd regenerating boss like Taeron Rimond or the Shroud lieutenants. Quicker to throw a DBF/Chain Lightning or two to wipe out a room, then run run run until dungeon alert, then repeat the process.


Previously Sorcs had to be held down because their ability to cast Firewall was so overpowering that they couldn't be given other nice toys. Now they have versatility, power, the ability to turn 15 SP into 286 damage every three seconds (Polar Ray, no metamagics, Superior Glaciation 8 only, not counting crits which add another 31.5% on average to that) AND the ability to burn mana to do damage more quickly.


Max-Empped Polar Ray spam is now over 320 DPS (and 20 damage per mana) even on Elite Horoth with his 80 cold resist. A Sorc that does nothing other than spam Polar Ray on cooldown on Horoth till Suulo spawns, then switches to Suulo and repeats, and drinks one mana potion then pikes the rest of the raid has pulled their weight as a DPS party member. If they add Cloudkill (for concealment), Icestorm and emergency Reconstructs on players at risk of death, they are probably the raid MVP.

becuase this isn't just affecting sorcerors. helloo wizards, and as has yet to be addressed by a dev, favored souls, and clerics, rangers, bards, anyone who umd's scrolls and wands or otherwise has an sp bar.
12 sp worth of perpetual regen. well that covers a human fvs free clw i guess making that moot...

commensurately, think about the impact on caster mobs in game! if their spells change too...

so sorcs get a win, and the rest of us all get.. erm bent over? no save kill spell in scroll form whee. failed saves vs mobs still apply a carrier save debuff on us too yay. sp efficiency who knows. more variety with same slot limitations<confusion> . its simple. someone in development doesn't get there will always be a min/max best, and or most reliable in varying conditions approach to everything. its also easier to mod a spell then add two checks to mob ai. path to player has firewall/other nasty effect? yes = range attack, no = beeline. standing in firewall/other nasty effect? yes= move, no =do whatever.

if each added check can be achieved with a single conditional test in its own function you should not be adding more then 12 clock cycles per ai loop at most including the function call. granted that adds up when dealing with thousands of copies on one machine of the ai code loop, it still fixes the bs without revamping everything and borking it into a weak, pew pew fest.

and of course using say an evocation archmage as an example, 1-3 sp sla bolt effects with saves are really competitive right?

what i see here is not being competitive with a ranger with returning ammunition. we can burst but we cannot sustain, and if we are the wrong class we cannot burst either worth a cows last lunch, especially in longer content and mid levels.

see as to melee having a second wind as someone mentioned, you have it. its called unconscious regeneration. you even have feats to boost it, and regen effects on items speed it along too. everyone gets it, even warforged(though they have to wait nearly a minute for it to kick in). the closest you come to a caster endurance wise is equipment damage which you cannot potion away. imagine each swing on a mob reduced weapon durablity by say 1. how long would you last in a quest even if it repaired to full on shrining? how many spares would you need? would you trade a poor dps weapon that was comparatively shipwreck shore noobie gear weak if it lasted 5 times as many swings? would you bring it along just in case even if you hated it?

maybe i missed something in all the news along the way but the savants are sorceror, not wizard. and frankly if wail worked pretty much all the time but took 20 seconds to cast, or wall of fire took a full 6 seconds to toss out there, that too would change up the game to about the same extent. and in many cases be just as broken, and render much just as useless.

we now have base spells in the same cost bracket as sla's without the prerequisites. spamming more also means more time spent CASTING, with the zerg minded non tactics the servers have moved to, one finds oneself responsible for survival more then the party . frequently one gets tossed a kiting role. are we to take combat casting , etc for better casting move speed now too?

and as to ornamental dagger free maximize- okay so in two weeks you bring a friend into the game: what do they do?

the reason the sense of doom is upon us isn't due to wof getting changed. its due to asically being saddled with not just a spell revamp, but mechanics, tactics, viability, competitiveness, enhancement, spec, and more all rolled into one, and that what we DO know already adds up to quite a bit of a mess given what we have seen, and more.

bb has a reflex save. mobs standing in it don't always trigger a resave. how about wof requiring one to kite through it to deal damage. should make melee players happy to stand in it damage free i guess.

and then there's pvp to consider too. you gonna save on flesh to stone vs a lvl 26 fts?

it's like i said earlier. i absolutely want to see a party of devs playtest at least four different quests at four different content levels, with at level characters, and no dm/godmode and these changes in place and say they were happy with it. if the design for the system has no workable strategies in mind when implemented then it may have no viable strategies at all, and modifying all of this without considering that side of things is blind revisionism.

lets see what they had in mind and if it works out for them in practice. when we get that then its time for us to start seeing if there's anything better. if the guys who made the changes won't even try it or wind up hating, or can't come up with workable strategies with the new changes, then it has no place going live even in a test form.

edit: and if you want us to use the junk, give us appropriate trash. enter the kobold is an example of this with the cr .5 mobs at the beginning. unfortunately its easier to eternal wand those, assuming they don't die if a melee looks at them crossly, and additionally that would mean picking up low level spells for damage in those limited slots. still feeling its taking something broken, and breaking it more to meet an artificial goal without serious consideration and testing/strategizing on the way to use whats left post change.

[Monkey_Archer]

Dear Torc.

How will heighten spell interact with these new spell costs? Previously, a lightning bolt heightened to level 8 would cost the same SP as a polar ray. Will this still be true? How will the metamagic interact with these costs and recognize what kind of spell its dealing with?

This is the most concerning thing for me with regards to the sp cost changes, especially for wizards.
Spending 25 sp to maximize a 15 sp spell like polar ray is entirely fair. You trade a bit of efficiency for more dps, not to mention there are easy ways to reduce maximize's sp cost with enhancements and items.

For spells like lightning bolt or fireball, or other low level damage spells, heighten could increase sp cost by 5 times, with potentially 0 increase in effectiveness (if your DC is already high enough)

[Auran82]

As I'm sure it has been mentioned before in this thread, I hope metamagics are being changed at some point soon as well. Perhaps back to the old +100% sp cost for maxamise, +50% sp cost for empower etc.

And as someone said, who is gonna use lightning bolt when a heightened one is going to cost 42sp vs polar ray for 15sp.

And boo to changing the cooldown on Wail to 35/25 seconds.

[PopeJual]

I think this will all be fine because they'll also break cooldown timers again like when we could do unlimited manyshot and Unyielding Sovereignty without the cooldown.

[MaJiK_13]

This is such Bullcrap!!! How often are they going to change casters? OMG you get used to one way then they change it up again and again. I understand there trying to attract new players but c'mon!!!! Do it one way and freakin keep it. I'm so tired of all these stupid changes. They say change is good but not in this game. If the game was real life situations you wouldn't be able to change things on a whim like they are doing now so W-T-F??? And yes I know it's a GAME but make it at least lifelike as possible. Isn't that what DND was originally based on. Un-changeable magic. DUH DUMMIES.

[Elaril]

Fitting Pic, But..shouldn't They Be Brandishing a Hodge Podge Of Various Counterintuitive Dual Wielded Weapons Because Wizard Staves Only, Generally, Have One Desirable Attribute On Them Instead Of Torches?

ftfy :d

[PopeJual]

Since so very many spells are going to be changed, has any thought been given to offering a temporary spell respec vendor for a couple of weeks after the release of U9?

Wizards have to deal with lots of changes and learn how to play their new class once U9 is released, but Sorcerers have to wait 3 days for each spell reset and they have a LOT of spells to reset once U9 rolls out.

[voodoogroves]

If hypnotize, for instance, has a long cooldown requiring someone to prep both hyp and sleep ... well people just WONT or they will only hyper specialize.

Worried about the multiple changes at once...

[Missing_Minds]

How often did you cast a Fireball into a melee in PnP?

In PnP, you have to worry about hurting your party members with your area spells. Additionally, spells did pretty terrible damage compared to the save-or-die and save-or-lose spells that were available.

Honestly, quite often. First strike team was... me. fireball.
2nd part were the evasions, then I see the setup and lob a fireball in the least worrisome region.

Caster willing to throw fireballs, and his own team mates aren't afraid? Got to get that caster. So they would charge and heavy hitters take over.

At the higher levels, via spat boots, take the feat to shape charge it. So I never had issues.
But fireball was hardly my only spell I used also. This was also the last group I was in.

So my own experiences over years... fireball used quite often. Wall of Fire... from scroll once?

[Elaril]

This is the most concerning thing for me with regards to the sp cost changes, especially for wizards.
Spending 25 sp to maximize a 15 sp spell like polar ray is entirely fair. You trade a bit of efficiency for more dps, not to mention there are easy ways to reduce maximize's sp cost with enhancements and items.

For spells like lightning bolt or fireball, or other low level damage spells, heighten could increase sp cost by 5 times, with potentially 0 increase in effectiveness (if your DC is already high enough)

Agreed, would be nice to have the option set meta's to be active on a per spell basis.