Spell Pass Preview - Chaaannggeee!

[Zachski]

So basically, instead of being masters of AoE. Casters have been relegated to Arcane Archers. Range single target DPS. WoW! <- hint,hint

Because WoW is the only MMO that has mages being high single target DPS.

Oh, wait. Everquest. Dark Age of Camelot. Final Fantasy 11. All of these came before WoW.

[Jaid314]

Hey, don't diss chromatic orb, it's one of my fav spells in Icewind Dale!


Anyway, I actually though that's one of the better implemented spells - a spell that grows in power as your character levels up. A lot of lower level spells lose their functionality as you level, and this is one spell that is still worthy to be slot in whether you're level 5 or lvl 20.

yeah, the problem is that it gets better than the higher level spells.

for comparison, around the time you start getting into the "save or die" effects on chromatic orb, you're looking at phantasmal killer, which allows two saves. by the time you're up to the next level of spells, you're pretty much looking at chromatic orb being no longer "save or you're screwed" and having become "it doesn't matter whether you save or not, you're screwed either way and there's nothing you can do about it". it becomes a better choice than any of the instant kill spells, and is substantially lower level than those instant kill spells.

[sirgog]

Surprised anyone cares at all about the Firewall duration nerf.

Usually in the content where you cast Firewall, everything is dead within 10 seconds of you casting it, often within 6 sec. Only real exception is tougher quest bosses, most of whom casters will use SLAs on; or predictable mob spawns (I'll FW here because every 20 seconds a mob spawns there, and it will die immediately if FW is up; thinking Litany of the Dead mainly here).

I guess the biggest change is that pre-'nerf' you would be four rooms away when your Firewall expired. Post U9, you'll only be two rooms away. This might make a difference if you are in Coalescence Chamber and a party member falls behind and sets off some bats.

[gurth83]

Will bard get mana regen too? Please yes...

[Jaid314]

Will bard get mana regen too? Please yes...

as designed, no.

bards don't get the magical training ability that grants 80 SP at first level.

[Rawel_San]

a well-built melee is a great asset, don't get me wrong. but if you ever see a group of melees running difficult content without a caster of some sort, it's a good bet it's because those melees are geared to the teeth, probably have massive DPS, likely have multiple past lives, most likely have each built specifically around having good crowd-control, and have their banks and inventory so overloaded with assorted raid gear and consumables they don't have room to pick up the vendor trash in the quest they're running. or alternately, it's a good bet that they're going to fail miserably. or possibly they're just monks (which are essentially almost inherently built around CC right from the ground up anyways).

so rather than saying "oh, you only want one arcane in any group" it's more along the lines of "you only *need* one arcane in any group, provided that one arcane is competent".

I can't agree with you. While at the moment a very well geared caster is very powerfull he's not more powerfull then
a very well geared melee. They are pretty much on par almost everywhere with melee pulling ahead in hard epics and
the caster in some of the easy epics and maybe IQ/amrath.

This is for the extremely well geared characters though a first life moderately geared melee will in end game own
a moderately geared wizard hands down. For a caster to pull on par or ahead of melee you need lot's of raid gear.

The difference between a melee with metaline of pure goods and a tier 2 hp shroud item and a melee with
min II's and 1-2 tier3 acessories +tod rings is nowhere near as huge as between a caster who's still missing
petitioners,tod rings,torc,eardweller,baubble and conc opps and one who has them.

The reason is a melee without great gear is losing maybe 10-15 damage per swing (and that's probbably an
overestimation) where as the caster can't get half his spells to land and runs out of mana 5-8 times quicker.

So yes very well geared casters are powerful and can possibly get content done faster then melees of same gear
level but for the hard content they're still behind, and the I remember when I first brought my caster to amrath
he was hardly good for web,haste and displacement.

[Malky]

1) Changes were badly needed
2) Changes are happening
3) ....
4) .... again
5) Profit!

[Aashrym]

Will bard get mana regen too? Please yes...

Sure, as long as you are at least 12th level and as spellsinger.

[DelverRootnose]

...the last time a mele got nerfed. Why always the casters. There is a reason there are so many less casters compaired to meles. Now instead of one wizard per shroud run there will ne zero per shroud since all the buffs can be handles by other characters. As it is there is usually only one wiz/sorc per raid now there will be one sorc at best since the smaller SP pool of a wizard will now be even more apparent.

Why don't you spend time actually making new content, or if that is to boring for you maybe fix some bugs that have been here for over 2 years now. Any other programmers that left bugs unfixed for 2 years would be fired in my business.

[Auran82]

Actually looking at metamagics again, I think the only one that really needs to be changed is heighten.

Maxamise and empower are not something you should have on all the time, they should be there for when something really needs to die fast, and you don't mind using some extra sp to make it happen (or just before a shrine)

At the moment though, unless something has really high saves, there is no point in heightening a (regular) fireball or lightning bolt, you can cast 3 for the same cost. Maybe some kind of sliding scale depending on how many levels heightened?

[Jaid314]

I can't agree with you. While at the moment a very well geared caster is very powerfull he's not more powerfull then
a very well geared melee. They are pretty much on par almost everywhere with melee pulling ahead in hard epics and
the caster in some of the easy epics and maybe IQ/amrath.

This is for the extremely well geared characters though a first life moderately geared melee will in end game own
a moderately geared wizard hands down. For a caster to pull on par or ahead of melee you need lot's of raid gear.

The difference between a melee with metaline of pure goods and a tier 2 hp shroud item and a melee with
min II's and 1-2 tier3 acessories +tod rings is nowhere near as huge as between a caster who's still missing
petitioners,tod rings,torc,eardweller,baubble and conc opps and one who has them.

The reason is a melee without great gear is losing maybe 10-15 damage per swing (and that's probbably an
overestimation) where as the caster can't get half his spells to land and runs out of mana 5-8 times quicker.

So yes very well geared casters are powerful and can possibly get content done faster then melees of same gear
level but for the hard content they're still behind, and the I remember when I first brought my caster to amrath
he was hardly good for web,haste and displacement.

no, there's definitely a power discrepancy. in any content where my save DC is high enough (and blanket immunities are not present), i can pretty danged near end the encounter with a single spell, taking less than a second to cast. you show me the melee that can do that.

in most content where total blanket immunities are not present, with a single spell (again, taking less than a second to cast) i can trivialise the entire fight, and the only reason i wasn't able to end the fight pretty much instantly is because of blanket immunities.

against trash, melees have absolutely nothing that competes with wail of the banshee, web, mass hold monster, finger of death, dancing sphere, etc.

the only reason a melee ever competes against those spells is because of either blanket immunities, or because the caster's DCs are not high enough (and truthfully, most of the gear is not so much hard to get as it is simply a matter of time. if you go looking for it, you will get it). there are some really high DPS melees out there. they probably contribute more to beating down harry or sully than casters (though, if some of the figures we've seen for elemental savant DPS are accurate, that may change). but against trash, the caster will chew things up and spit them out before the melee even gets to finish DPSing one mob.

[mournbladereigns]

Joining the game and the forum join date are completely different things. I was here when DDO went Beta. Back then it was loyal to D&D's source material and groundbreaking in what you could do in the dungeons. I've watched it drift slowly away from what it once was, until it's arrived to the state it is in now.

I ask you, are you defending D&D or Turbine? Because Turbine's marred what D&D stands for, so thinking that your trying to defend the game system we've all grown up with might have your loyalties in the wrong place.

At least with SWTOR, it's by LucasArts and Bioware, the same studio that came out with Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate. They have a track record for staying loyal to the core material, while introducing groundbreaking mechanics and technology. If you were at PAX 2011, you'd see that the real star at the convention was SWTOR.

Umm, yeah, but it is based on WEG's D6 star wars? lol

[Rawel_San]

no, there's definitely a power discrepancy. in any content where my save DC is high enough (and blanket immunities are not present), i can pretty danged near end the encounter with a single spell, taking less than a second to cast. you show me the melee that can do that.

in most content where total blanket immunities are not present, with a single spell (again, taking less than a second to cast) i can trivialise the entire fight, and the only reason i wasn't able to end the fight pretty much instantly is because of blanket immunities.

against trash, melees have absolutely nothing that competes with wail of the banshee, web, mass hold monster, finger of death, dancing sphere, etc.

the only reason a melee ever competes against those spells is because of either blanket immunities, or because the caster's DCs are not high enough (and truthfully, most of the gear is not so much hard to get as it is simply a matter of time. if you go looking for it, you will get it). there are some really high DPS melees out there. they probably contribute more to beating down harry or sully than casters (though, if some of the figures we've seen for elemental savant DPS are accurate, that may change). but against trash, the caster will chew things up and spit them out before the melee even gets to finish DPSing one mob.

Hmm ok so you kill easy stuff faster than melees assuming you have spent lots of time grinding for gear. Yeah I
agree with that I usually end up with 70 out of 80 kills in elite mindsunder on my caster and I will probably run it
faster then most melees would when soloing but the fact that I can clear trash in easy content while nice is hardly
domination. In elite amrath with a 45 wail dc I take at least as long to solo most quests as melees do and for
most of the quests I will be slower since there is no way my mana will hold up so I end up having to regen.

Most importantly in the places where it really counts, i.e. any red named, melee has the upper hand by a lot unless
you're willing to drink 30+ pots per raid. As far as I can see most of the changes will only reinforce that while
taking away the two places where casters shined cc+instadeath. At the very least for the less then perfectly geared
casters.

Also 45 dc is not representative of most players. Almost all casual players will cap at around 40 and that's assuming they are
caped for some time. I run at 42-43 most of the time 45 assumes yugo pot, ship shrine, and ddo pot along with having a wiz past
life, litany and a +7 int item on a drow (missing +3 tome).

With a 40 dc your spells land a lot less often and the average lvl 20 wizard will probably be closer to 38-39.

[Zachski]

...the last time a mele got nerfed.

The TWF "Nerf".

Which, by the way, had outrage almost comparable to this and I imagine the actual nerfing that will be done will amount to the same... maybe even less.

[herzkos]

The players have been asking for a spell pass/review for a long time.

Many of these changes are along the lines of what I've seen players asking for. Especially regarding the SP costs being changed.

Basically, all of the ray spells, in exchange for no longer being able to Enlarged, have Enlarge built in.

Wall of Fire now has Extend built In. Free Extend, Free Enlarge for all of these spells.

Seriously, what is the problem with that?

the problem with that:
having just had a big sale on points,
they are making a massive change in how casters operate.
this change may or may not drive many people away from the game but
it is extremely shady to have a large sale right before a massive change.

I have seen calls for a spell review, many calls for a nerf to wall of fire.
I haven't seen many- if any requests- for a fundamental change of this sort.

Frankly, I would prefer to see greensteel removed from the game before a change this sweeping.

like others have said, we have to wait and see how it works. And I'll be waiting
and hoping I didn't blow my 100 bucks.

[Zachski]

I'm not really seeing how it's shady. It sounds like you're trying to accuse Turbine of scamming you out of money.

Every odd numbered update changes the game drastically in some form, whether it's by adding races and classes or changing game mechanics. You knew an odd numbered update was coming. It's not anyone's fault but your own :P

[Seliana]

If you set Heighten's cost to zero and balance Maximize and Empower with sp scaling then players will consider these changes balanced. Currently casters suffer more then benefit from these proposed changes.

Either that or put in a new system where you can pick individual Metamagics per spell. Expecting players to click Metamagics on and off for every spell is unrealistic and you will find players leaving arcane based classes in droves instead of putting up with that expectation.

There is no point in dropping base SP costs when a 70 sp spell only goes down to 60 sp. It doesn't change anything significantly and pretending you are doing it to make non-persistent spells into a viable dps alternative is a lie.

[Kielbasa]

Good job getting this thread out of the way before people actually get a chance to play test the changes on Lamania All the speculation and number charts don't mean jack until you've actually seen the changes in a live environment. Reading most of the posts here makes me feel like I just got a new puppy. It cries and cries and cries for the first few nights and then realizes hey maybe it actually might like its new home. Its going to be very nice to see all of the spells that people mostly ignored become useful. The versatility of a wizard will finally shine. Sorcerers look like they're going to be cannons with their chosen element. Can't wait till this hits live. About the only thing that could make me more excited for this update would be Bard love and a ranged combat overhaul.

[herzkos]

I'm not really seeing how it's shady. It sounds like you're trying to accuse Turbine of scamming you out of money.

Every odd numbered update changes the game drastically in some form, whether it's by adding races and classes or changing game mechanics. You knew an odd numbered update was coming. It's not anyone's fault but your own :P

Never said it was a scam. please restrict yourself to making your arguements not
accusing me of accusing turbine.
What it is is a poor decision from them. I'll NEVER make a large scale
"micro-transaction" with turbine again.

As I-and others- have said, it's wait and see at this point.

as to the odd numbered update, when was the last time the spell system was revamped? mod 5? or was that 3. oh dear, it might even have been an even
number mod. you remember I'm sure, the change to meta-magic feats?

[Rawel_San]

Good job getting this thread out of the way before people actually get a chance to play test the changes on Lamania All the speculation and number charts don't mean jack until you've actually seen the changes in a live environment. Reading most of the posts here makes me feel like I just got a new puppy. It cries and cries and cries for the first few nights and then realizes hey maybe it actually might like its new home. Its going to be very nice to see all of the spells that people mostly ignored become useful. The versatility of a wizard will finally shine. Sorcerers look like they're going to be cannons with their chosen element. Can't wait till this hits live. About the only thing that could make me more excited for this update would be Bard love and a ranged combat overhaul.

The reason why people are as you say "whining like puppies" now instead of when the change hits live is that
it is very very hard to get any kind of changes made after that happens. We assume (probbably wrongly but one
must keep hope) that the developers actually want to hear some player feedback on what they intend to do. I'm not
so delusional that I would hope for any drastic changes at this point but even small tweaks might be nice before this
hits live. I don't think this will break the game or mak casters unplayable, but I do think some of the things are a
step in th wrong direction and that is why I voice my opinion. What will really happen we will see in a few weeks
probabbly.