Spell Pass Preview - Chaaannggeee!

[NorthwindFusilier]

Nope, Maximize still has its place.

Need high damage per mana? Turn the metas off.

Need high damage per second? Turn the metas on.

Also, don't forget that there are enhancements available (albeit expensive ones) that dramatically improve the SP efficiency of Maximize Spell, as well as items. You may not be able to fit Tier 3 Improved Maximizing into your build, but Tier 2 and Gloves of the Glacier drop the cost of Maximize down to 15SP (IIRC), and 12 if you can cough up all the AP for Tier 3.

Similar enhancements are available for Empower as well, but aren't very good value for AP, IIRC, except for the first tier.

Might be rough fitting those enhancements in, though. Iirc, it will cost more AP to get in your damage enhancements after the update.

[TheIvanovFamily]

Meh.

I don't mind trying out new changes to improve the game, but it is a bad idea to horribly nerf every used and popular spell in the arcane list at the same time you toss new changes in. At least try the spell improvements by themselves first, and if it goes well then nerf the other spells horribly. Then you will at least know if it is an improvement or just a laughable attempt at turning everything into a dps meter.

p.s.
Can we add in u9 a mod that will change arcane caster icons into sad faces?

[moorewr]

Nope, Maximize still has its place.

Especially given how easy it is to get free Maximizes now (Epic Ornamental Dagger, Noxious Embers, etc). My wizard gets more than two minutes of free maximizes per rest with his current equipment.

[voodoogroves]

I'm keeping an open mind too, but I think Torc, you and the other devs may be missing the component of playing-time and how that factors in.



Wall of Fire changes ... meh, ok. Duration is even ok, with the exception of what to do on super-boss-HP-stacks. Normal mobs don't last 30 seconds, but bosses and epic trash needs a long time to burn

SP cost changes ... meh, ok. I'm not sure they will have that much of an impact given the metamagics folks tend to run with, the discounts won't be that much.

How this balances with the splitting out and effective increase in AP lines ... I can wait and see.





The areas you need to pay attention to involve TIME as the most constrained resource.

Increasing cooldowns may look like it will apply a specific damage curve and the math works, but if it creates an annoying player mechanic where you have to kite, run, do whatever then it simply will not get used.

This is similar to the problem with Anthem (when it works). The song regen is too slow to be meaningful.

They same may end up applying to the SP regen if it isn't balanced right.




You see, the thing isn't whether or not you can plink away forever. I carry a returning throwing weapon for that, and I can set that to auto-fire ... I don't need a regenerating low-damage spell effect for that. It's about finishing in a fun, effective and time-valued manner. If there are no good time-valuable CC spells, if there are no recurringly-useful save/die or save/suck spells, they won't get used. Wizards and Sorcerers will turn into 3.5 Warlocks.

That's an extreme case, but that is my worry.


I trust you guys ... but I do see you changing a ton of things at the same time. This isn't an "epic reboot", this is a complete game change ... new AP costs, different SP costs, changes to lots of spells, changes to fundamental to DDO game states (helpless, stun, etc.). That's a ton of balls to keep juggling in the air at the same time. From a spreadhseet view, the new numbers may balance given EXISTING playing styles ... but if your new system creates too much player-wait and delays on items then the impact to playing style could throw all your algorithms out the window.


The Archmage and Pale Master both can be effective CC (conjurations, enchantments, etc.), save-or-die/lose and both have useful long-term DPS options. What was missing was the complete removal of some of those during epic quests. My worry is that in changing all of these things we may find that Pale Masters think of Wail and Finger NOT as valid instant-kill spells, but DPS-spikes like Touch of Death or monk finishers. That kind of play-style change will remove more spells from the "used and useful" list than any of your single adjustments.

[Lifespawn]

Especially given how easy it is to get free Maximizes now (Epic Ornamental Dagger, Noxious Embers, etc). My wizard gets more than two minutes of free maximizes per rest with his current equipment.

new players won't have them and lol at noxious embers being easy to get don't know about your server but i know maybe 10 guilds including my own that run abbot legit.

[Aurora1979]

For the most part – yes / maybe? We don’t see the big picture.

But what we know for sure that for most AOE spells empower and maximize metamagic will be still very useful. Maybe this is Turbine goal? AOE+Metas grown in power and single target spells will be just better without metas?

I'm worry more about Extended. After changes casters will be used it mostly for buffs…

But - we must test it first and then complain With complete new caster system there is no way that we can see all advantage now.

Most of this complains now are because This is just new thing

I couldnt disagree with you more....

Which AOE spells are still VERY useful with meta magics?

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.

All chars have certain templates they have to fit into....

A DPS melee needs to have the right weapon in his hands, or his DPS drops off significantly....

An arcane needs efficent spells to last till the shrine.

All they are proposing is to nerfbat the spells we currently use to make ourselves efficent and not replacing it with anything.

As posted by someone else above (sorry for not quoting properly, im tired) but wheres the wall of electricity, acid etc... wheres our damage OVER TIME coming from?

Melees can sustain damage over time. What is being proposed here COULD result in the following:

Me on my Wiz, zone into quest...

Buff all party memebers.....

follow them around watching them kill things not using my single shot spells as I dont have enough mana to kill more then a dozen or so mobs between shrines....

Keep following until we get to a miniboss. Unload all my sp.

Go to shrine.

buff party memebers.....

Follow them around until next boss......

etc

if we have no Sp EFFICENT way to deal with trash mobs, then we cant deal with trash mobs. end of.

Thats means now we join a quest for fun during 10% of it while beating on a boss......


EDIT:

I dont know how to retroactivly quote this so will have to make do but.....



"
I don't mind trying out new changes to improve the game, but it is a bad idea to horribly nerf every used and popular spell in the arcane list at the same time you toss new changes in. At least try the spell improvements by themselves first, and if it goes well then nerf the other spells horribly. Then you will at least know if it is an improvement or just a laughable attempt at turning everything into a dps meter."

This is my point. Im not whining about the loss of firewall, alone.... just.... ease it in.

In U9... if it goes according to whats been suggested then my (and many others) WHOLE char has changed.....

This isnt nerfing TWF and ruining your ranger... This is nerfing TWF then making rangers only use clubs.

[Requiro]

I'm not complaining. I like the changes coming for the most part.
But metamagics concern me. We'll see how it turns out when we have all the info.

I know, I know... I wrote this rather for posts like this: ...

This update sounds absolutely insane. The changes in FW is rather stupid as it wasnt even good enough to compete with a decent melees dps to begin with and you can have 5 melees on a mob at any one time but only 1 firewall. Either way the cooldowns are what really gets me down, this is gonna reduse arcanes into something I have no interest in playing.

... then yours

BTW: I'm so happy that they at last see the caster problem With so many un-wise changes lately, they give me hope for this game again

[voodoogroves]

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.

Example: Lightning Bolt: 12 SP, or you can choose to double that damage which MORE than triples the cost of the spell.
Or instead you can choose to add 50% to the damage, which MORE than doubles the cost of the spell.
Or you can choose to do both at for a total of 250%, which exceeds 430% of the original cost.

I really hope metamagics also got an overhaul, because otherwise they just became utterly useless.

And if you're not using Maximize, you're swapping a SP/DPS metrics for time.

I really want to zap Lailat 3.6 billion times instead of cooking her in a wall because my SP lasts longer that way. Sure it only takes 2 hours now to run DQ, but my SP/DPS ratios are great!



This is my worry. Too many of these changes are individually ok, but systematically they won't matter because they make the game more tedious; people will gravitate towards the fastest / easiest / whatever method. Much of these changes may be effectively pointless if they make the various spells and abilities not simply "less useful" or "less efficient" but rather "not used".


When changing so much at once, that is a very real risk.

[moorewr]

new players won't have them and lol at noxious embers being easy to get don't know about your server but i know maybe 10 guilds including my own that run abbot legit.

OK, Noxious Embers was straining the point.

However, it seems to me that anyone with a level 20 character who really wanted an ornamental dagger has one by now.

[sirgog]

Sooooo if I am understanding this correctly

You are trying to make arcanes into DPS ... ok lets see a melee is 200(bad)-600(awesome) dps err call it 350 as a nice average sustainable dps on most mobs ... so
...

The very best melee DPS players stand around 350-400. Check Shade's 'DPS challenge, part 2' thread where he invites people to solo a 69000hp orange-named giant (with a cleric hireling) in Epic Claw of Vulkoor.

Epic SoS in Epic Marilith Chain, dual epic Ancient Vulkoorim Daggers (against a giant), dual Lit 2 khopeshs - noone has been able to backup a claim of 500 DPS on this guy with a video at all.


Against foes vulnerable to curses, however, however, my calculations indicate that after an 80 second rampup, Sorcs should be able to 'mana dump' and do over 1000 damage per second for a short period in boss fights. Against curse-immune foes, DPS is still able to 'burst' to over 600, or sustainable at the ~300 mark.

[joeuhuh]

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

[Ganak]

I am eager to see how this plays on Llama. When will we see Llama go up?



Nerf mass camo please.

[GotSomeQuestions]

My wizard gets more than two minutes of free maximizes per rest with his current equipment.

My Sorcerer gets five minutes, because I haven't given in and made a full Ornamented Dagger hotbar yet. But I might. It's not like they're exclusive.

[voodoogroves]

The very best melee DPS players stand around 350-400. Check Shade's 'DPS challenge, part 2' thread where he invites people to solo a 69000hp orange-named giant (with a cleric hireling) in Epic Claw of Vulkoor.

Epic SoS in Epic Marilith Chain, dual epic Ancient Vulkoorim Daggers (against a giant), dual Lit 2 khopeshs - noone has been able to backup a claim of 500 DPS on this guy with a video at all.


Against foes vulnerable to curses, however, however, my calculations indicate that after an 80 second rampup, Sorcs should be able to 'mana dump' and do over 1000 damage per second for a short period in boss fights. Against curse-immune foes, DPS is still able to 'burst' to over 600, or sustainable at the ~300 mark.

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.

[moorewr]

My Sorcerer gets five minutes, because I haven't given in and made a full Ornamented Dagger hotbar yet. But I might. It's not like they're exclusive.

Heh, I only carry one ornamented dagger.

[Angelus_dead]

So.. are metamagics getting changed?

Cuz changing spell base cost without changing metamagics seems to be a lesson in futility.

Yeah, metamagics really shouldn't have an additive +X cost. Since they give a multiplicative benefit, the cost should be a multiplicative Y% of the spell's base.

Hey! You know what? That's how DDO metamagic used to work, until Module 5 screwed it up... what a coincidence.

[voodoogroves]

Yeah, metamagics really shouldn't have an additive +X cost. Since they give a multiplicative benefit, the cost should be a multiplicative Y% of the spell's base.

Hey! You know what? That's how DDO metamagic used to work, until Module 5 screwed it up... what a coincidence.

Amen.

[PopeJual]

I'd rather stay with this change to wall of fire. Make it 20n/40e so you don't also have to nerf a feat.

On a side note I predict a lot more of insta damage, punctuated by AOE effects. Think that on slower encounters it will work itself out. Don't think it will be good on fast encounters with tons of mobs spawning. Will have to wait for Lamania to see if I'm correct, tough.

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.

[Trillea]

No, what they should do with metamagics is bring them in line - not with the extra damage dealt, but with how many spell levels they are supposed to add. Maximize is supposed to add an extra 3 levels to the spell. You want to maximize lightning bolt? The devs should figure out what a bolt-like level 6 spell would cost in SP, subtract the current lightning bolt cost, and there is how much it costs. Repeat for every metamagic for every spell in the game. Yes this takes some time, but shouldn't too much. Eschew Materials should add 0 sp, it's useless anyway. Extend should work for any non-instantaneous spell in the game as well.

[Kabaon]

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)