Pale masters in U9

[FrozenNova]

It feels like PM's got the short end of the stick in a lot of cases in update nine, which is a shame since they weren't incredibly overpowered to begin with.

Echoes of power: Without any sp based SLA's, this is decisively useless. Unless you adore those tier 1 skeletons.

Light spells: Now incredibly painful to Pm's - while this is how it should be, this will make a big difference to incoming damage at lower levels

Death spells: Low cooldown potent wail and fod were really what made PM worthwhile. While I appreciate that we now have circle of death, this is still a heavy blow.

Shrouds: Arn't different enough with new additions.
Choose between:
Zombie - undead, -1 dc
Vampire - undead, +2 enchantment dc
Wraith - undead, 25% stacking incorp, (move silently and balance)
Lich - undead, +1 dc, +1 necro dc, temp hp.

The three necrotic abilities don't approach the potency of the sla's now available to both archmage and savant since they are not affected by metamagics - notably, they cannot be heightened, and there is no easy way to raise their dc. As such, everything ever past level 16 saves against almost every attempt, made increasingly poor by the cheaper nuke spells in any case.

Some ideas, applicable in whatever mix:

Give each form an individual spellpoint based SLA, usable only in that form. For example,
Zombie: Touch range fort save paralysis, similar to ghoul touch, shortlived - 3/4 seconds - 4 sp - 4s cooldown
Vampire: Single target ranged 'command' effect, will save. - 6 sp, 6 second cooldown
Wraith: Applies single negative level, touch range, deathward protects. - 8 sp, 5 second cooldown
Lich: Touch range fortitude death effect, complementing wail survivors. -10 sp, 15 second cooldown

Give the summons some use by giving them specialized roles. Add these to descriptions.
Add the base skeleton to each line.
Base skeleton: High DC trip, deals useful physical damage. Moderately tough.
Knight: Invisible but potent aura of hate. Almost no physical damage. Tough.
Archer: Applies destruction / improved destruction to targets each hit. Frail.
Mage: Restrict spells to nukes, dealing high elemental damage. Moderately frail. (Tougher than archer, more likely to draw attacks)

Autoheighten the necrotic abilities, letting us actually deal something resembling damage with them. While still not on par with evocation archmage or savant, let them be useful for more than "I have to look like I'm doing something".

I'd be happy with just one or two varients on these themes.

[Cartheron]

Yea, we poor nerfed PMs... Now with potential of reaching highest possible DC in both necro and enchantment, without taking yugo pots into considertion (not at the same time, but still) we are so incredibly gimped.

Probably this is why I have just run elite Sins of Attrition on my PM in about 10 minutes...Just running straight, at orange alert dropping circle+wail and then killing the rest with acid rain (without empower, using ornamental daggers I was able to keep doing great damage for some laughable sp cost).

PM is all about being immortal, high DCs and thanks to low cost of PrE, being able to be specced in something else than necromancy.

In U9 they have finaly fixed death ward bug (ie. they claim they did, havn't tested that ) and changed death aura graphics, 2 great changes for PM. In the same time, nuking was buffed to the completly absurd point, so seriously, claiming that PM are nerfed is pretty funny.

[yawumpus]

Because all those changes meant having the highest DCs isn't important.

Because the new strongest caster is likely a necro. Of course, you can't just LR to elf, but still they changed elf wizards from being gimps to some of the strongest casters out there.

[efreet5]

How in the world did elves get to be some of the strongest??? O.o

+1 spell pen and 20 sps is NOT enough to offset -2 con...

Drow get +1 dc, wf get immunities and superior self healing, dwarves get +4 con, humans get an extra feat and +1 to any 2 stats, and halflings get...the ability to get cheaper clothes from the kids section at Kohl's???

Elves are still not very good imo, unless I missed something, but I don't think I did.

[yawumpus]

It looked to me like +4. If the wizard-specific elf racial bonus does not stack with the wizard-specific wizard enhancement, it will only be +1. Only turbine could manage to make so pointless an enhancement line as three levels of redundant enhancements (I suspect you might be able to take them earlier, to make them less than completely redundant).

Any better explanations?

[FrozenNova]

I believe arcanum stacks with the wizard enhancements, so elven wizards can drop a lot of AP into +4 spell pen alongside their wizard enhancements. I suggested this notion in the elven buffage thread, though admittedly I only extended it to +2. ..Yeah, I'd reckon that'd make them nicer than drow and human by quite a bit considering mass hold now requires a spell pen check. Certainly lovely in amrath, the difference will presumably be less significant against epic trash.

My sole point is that all other caster varients recieved buffs - savants get some lovely additional dps and both archmagi and savants can use echoes of power to fuel their limitless sla's. Meanwhile PM's recieved +1 situational enchantment dc and a major nerf to one of their offensive aspects - wail. The other primary aspects of the prestige are extremely lackluster at current. My suggestions were aimed at improving these aspects to take advantage of recent caster changes. PM's effectively have no sla's, damage or otherwise, compared to all other casters, and many pm's ignore the summons altogether as, while not terrible by summon standards, they contribute very little.

[incineration]

+1 spell pen and 20 sps is NOT enough to offset -2 con...

actually the elven arcanium enhancements give +20 sp and +1 spell pen per teir (10 AP for +4 spell pen from them vs. 12 AP for +3 spell pen standard, and they can take BOTH), does it offset 20 hp and 1 fortitude? IMO against high spell pen targets such as the drow in OOB, yes that +4 spell pen can be very handy and I can still break 440 hp (and remember that Helf gets some of these tiers as well, with NO con penalty.

[Jacoby]

I LOVED the death aura change.

Shroud of the Zombie? Ok, what purpose does this actually serve? Is it just a joke.

One major drawback I noticed with the new elemental enhancements my toon is severly AP strained. I will have to spend alot of time rethinking my enhancements. OH, my head hurts!!!!!!

[Seliana]

It feels like PM's got the short end of the stick in a lot of cases in update nine, which is a shame since they weren't incredibly overpowered to begin with.

Yeah, I already tried to warn people specifically about this very issue. but those that responded seemed to want Pale Masters to be gimp compared to Archmage and Elemental Savant for some inexplicable reason. They cited reasons like "But clerics can still cast harm on you" or "Deathward is being removed as an issue" to explain why I was wrong.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=308269 explains why the gimp healing and no SLA damage abilities of the Pale Master are really hurting the prestige for balance in U9.

The point is half of the PM abilities are simply lesser versions of what Warforged already gets for free racially, yet the very design intention of the PM prestige was for players to pick races besides Warforged to encourage arcane race variety. Now that all arcane prestige lines have free SLA's for damage except for Pale master and these balance concerns haven't been addressed at all, it is even more one sided then it was before.

The whole situation feels like someone offered a suggestion to try a different model of their product just for the sake of uniqueness compared to what everyone else was using. Then that same dealer turned around and decided that your version of the product wasn't worthy of any aftermarket support or upgrade options to make it still desirable when they decided to update their main products functionality. Leaving you wondering why you even tried to struggle to keep your unique model working in the first place.

In U9 pale masters received a Wail cooldown nerf, FoD cooldown nerf, Dreamspitter + Autocrit hold spells nerf, Charm spells getting an overall duration nerf, Mob saves going up nerf, Extends usefulness was nerfed, and Lich being moved to tier 3 PM for no reason is also a nerf. A few of those nerfs hit all arcane players but PM's don't have a set of damage spells to fall back on to make up the difference like all of the other builds do. PM's dont have the free SLA's to make use of the new helpless mechanic increased spell damage with mass hold. There are no new healing spells that even remotely compare with divine/repair based healing and now we take double or sometimes even quadruple damage from light spells and we got nothing in return for it. The two new shrouds are far less powerful then what we already had and the only thing that got fixed for the class was a deathward preventing self healing bug that isn't even related to class balance and has been a rampant issue for over a year. PM's really are getting the short end of the stick here in U9. Making the single main PM feature we have finally work in end game content is not fixing a prestige balance issue, its getting around to fixing a bug that should have worked that way from day one.

A decent self-heal spell and some SLA negative energy damage spells that everyone else already gets is NOT that much to ask for.

[Trillea]

Yeah, I already tried to warn people specifically about this very issue. but those that responded seemed to want Pale Masters to be gimp compared to Archmage and Elemental Savant for some inexplicable reason. They cited reasons like "But clerics can still cast harm on you" or "Deathward is being removed as an issue" to explain why I was wrong.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=308269 explains why the gimp healing and no SLA damage abilities of the Pale Master are really hurting the prestige for balance in U9.

The point is half of the PM abilities are simply lesser versions of what Warforged already gets for free racially, yet the very design intention of the PM prestige was for players to pick races besides Warforged to encourage arcane race variety. Now that all arcane prestige lines have free SLA's for damage except for Pale master and these balance concerns haven't been addressed at all, it is even more one sided then it was before.

The whole situation feels like someone offered a suggestion to try a different model of their product just for the sake of uniqueness compared to what everyone else was using. Then that same dealer turned around and decided that your version of the product wasn't worthy of any aftermarket support or upgrade options to make it still desirable when they decided to update their main products functionality. Leaving you wondering why you even tried to struggle to keep your unique model working in the first place.

In U9 pale masters received a Wail cooldown nerf, FoD cooldown nerf, Dreamspitter + Autocrit hold spells nerf, Charm spells getting an overall duration nerf, Mob saves going up nerf, Extends usefulness was nerfed, and Lich being moved to tier 3 PM for no reason is also a nerf. A few of those nerfs hit all arcane players but PM's don't have a set of damage spells to fall back on to make up the difference like all of the other builds do. PM's dont have the free SLA's to make use of the new helpless mechanic increased spell damage with mass hold. There are no new healing spells that even remotely compare with divine/repair based healing and now we take double or sometimes even quadruple damage from light spells and we got nothing in return for it. The two new shrouds are far less powerful then what we already had and the only thing that got fixed for the class was a deathward preventing self healing bug that isn't even related to class balance and has been a rampant issue for over a year. PM's really are getting the short end of the stick here in U9. Making the single main PM feature we have finally work in end game content is not fixing a prestige balance issue, its getting around to fixing a bug that should have worked that way from day one.

A decent self-heal spell and some SLA negative energy damage spells that everyone else already gets is NOT that much to ask for.

And with all this said and done, I was still able to solo A New Invasion for the first time on my PM ever on Lamannia last night. PMs got some new toys, you just gotta try them out - circle of death is a ranged multi-instakill/deleveler and lands with consistency in amrath. Symbol of death is an awesome multi-debuff - gives neg lvls to all it hits (great job here). The HP reduction to high level monsters makes it so you can do just fine if you use the tools available to you.

[Aaxeyu]

They can now insta kill epic mobs, what a nerf!

[Kabaon]

Yeah, I already tried to warn people specifically about this very issue. but those that responded seemed to want Pale Masters to be gimp compared to Archmage and Elemental Savant for some inexplicable reason. They cited reasons like "But clerics can still cast harm on you" or "Deathward is being removed as an issue" to explain why I was wrong.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=308269 explains why the gimp healing and no SLA damage abilities of the Pale Master are really hurting the prestige for balance in U9.

The point is half of the PM abilities are simply lesser versions of what Warforged already gets for free racially, yet the very design intention of the PM prestige was for players to pick races besides Warforged to encourage arcane race variety. Now that all arcane prestige lines have free SLA's for damage except for Pale master and these balance concerns haven't been addressed at all, it is even more one sided then it was before.

The whole situation feels like someone offered a suggestion to try a different model of their product just for the sake of uniqueness compared to what everyone else was using. Then that same dealer turned around and decided that your version of the product wasn't worthy of any aftermarket support or upgrade options to make it still desirable when they decided to update their main products functionality. Leaving you wondering why you even tried to struggle to keep your unique model working in the first place.

In U9 pale masters received a Wail cooldown nerf, FoD cooldown nerf, Dreamspitter + Autocrit hold spells nerf, Charm spells getting an overall duration nerf, Mob saves going up nerf, Extends usefulness was nerfed, and Lich being moved to tier 3 PM for no reason is also a nerf. A few of those nerfs hit all arcane players but PM's don't have a set of damage spells to fall back on to make up the difference like all of the other builds do. PM's dont have the free SLA's to make use of the new helpless mechanic increased spell damage with mass hold. There are no new healing spells that even remotely compare with divine/repair based healing and now we take double or sometimes even quadruple damage from light spells and we got nothing in return for it. The two new shrouds are far less powerful then what we already had and the only thing that got fixed for the class was a deathward preventing self healing bug that isn't even related to class balance and has been a rampant issue for over a year. PM's really are getting the short end of the stick here in U9. Making the single main PM feature we have finally work in end game content is not fixing a prestige balance issue, its getting around to fixing a bug that should have worked that way from day one.

A decent self-heal spell and some SLA negative energy damage spells that everyone else already gets is NOT that much to ask for.

I'm gonna call this and say your wrong.

I play a pm and tested it on Lam. First off, we do have SL-a's. Necrotic Bolt, Touch and Blast. for Hitpoints we regen anyway....not a Lam thig, had it for some time now.

Second, yeah the Cooldowns kinda suck, but with Circle of Death (Ranged Instakill AoE) and Wail you can actually turn a 30 second cooldown to 15 seconds if you time it right. FoD has a slight cooldown change, but mostly not much changed.

Third, we have a healing aura, and a way to heal ourselves. Negative Energy Burst. If you built your character right it'll heal for 150 to 300 dmg, and is useful with aura on at the same time. If you can't heal yourself theres two possible problems. You a) have too few hp or b)you can't physically cast it fast enough.

The Shrouds are actually useful the new way. For example, you want to be doing enchantments? Vampire shroud is your best ticket. Want extra HP and necro dc's? Lich it up. Both have places to use and not use them.

The only issue I have is our sl-a's don't max and empower, but for something we can get back easily, which is HP, I understand why they would do that.

Edit: Trillea, I didn't even think to consider Symbol of Death.... I may take it based off your recommendation

[Shade]

They basically take away the best thing archmage had going for it endgame: Highest enchant DC, and give the same DC to palemaster...

And fix the aura. And let them insta kill every trash mob in the game, evne epic..

And theres still people wanting more.

It's never enough.

Palemasters are by far one of the most powerful characters in the game right now. They don't need more.

[Kabaon]

Shade, I'm happy with the changes, I was happy with Pale Master before the changes, personally, as a PM, I don't want more.. I'm content.

[CaptGrim]

Shade, I'm happy with the changes, I was happy with Pale Master before the changes, personally, as a PM, I don't want more.. I'm content.

Agreed, my PM is bordering OP on live, and the cooldown changes are the only thing that keeps it from being OP now...still very strong and no complaints here.

Even the few little thing we could complain about were fixed, Death aura, DW bug, being stranded in incap(many FvS don't take harm, and if someone doesn't have the abbot ring you could get stuck in incap for a while).

Great class, nothing wrong, if you want other PrE/classes features LR or TR to sorc.

[FrozenNova]

The lack of max/empower doesn't bother me as much as their permenant low level dc's - with no heighten effect enemies save every time, so the damage isn't even in the comparable range of the evocation archmagi or savants. I'm a fan of the aura / burst healing - burst is very expensive and generally a panic button, so the idea is to alter your playstyle to ensure that the aura can keep up with incoming damage. It makes a nice change from 'red bar low, hit button, continue'.
I also managed to overlook symbol of death - will definitely be trying that, will be fun to see how many negs you can get off in the duration. I doubt I'll see myself using vampire much - +1 to enchant over lich, though lich still maintains its +1 to everything else and +2 to necromancy.
Nevertheless, a wf archmage will still maintain more potent, cheaper self healing and fatigue and energy drain immunity, alongside a host of potent and useful sla's. PM is the only caster without functional SLA's.

[mournbladereigns]

It feels like PM's got the short end of the stick in a lot of cases in update nine, which is a shame since they weren't incredibly overpowered to begin with.

Echoes of power: Without any sp based SLA's, this is decisively useless. Unless you adore those tier 1 skeletons.

Light spells: Now incredibly painful to Pm's - while this is how it should be, this will make a big difference to incoming damage at lower levels

Death spells: Low cooldown potent wail and fod were really what made PM worthwhile. While I appreciate that we now have circle of death, this is still a heavy blow.

Shrouds: Arn't different enough with new additions.
Choose between:
Zombie - undead, -1 dc
Vampire - undead, +2 enchantment dc
Wraith - undead, 25% stacking incorp, (move silently and balance)
Lich - undead, +1 dc, +1 necro dc, temp hp.

The three necrotic abilities don't approach the potency of the sla's now available to both archmage and savant since they are not affected by metamagics - notably, they cannot be heightened, and there is no easy way to raise their dc. As such, everything ever past level 16 saves against almost every attempt, made increasingly poor by the cheaper nuke spells in any case.

Some ideas, applicable in whatever mix:

Give each form an individual spellpoint based SLA, usable only in that form. For example,
Zombie: Touch range fort save paralysis, similar to ghoul touch, shortlived - 3/4 seconds - 4 sp - 4s cooldown
Vampire: Single target ranged 'command' effect, will save. - 6 sp, 6 second cooldown
Wraith: Applies single negative level, touch range, deathward protects. - 8 sp, 5 second cooldown
Lich: Touch range fortitude death effect, complementing wail survivors. -10 sp, 15 second cooldown

Give the summons some use by giving them specialized roles. Add these to descriptions.
Add the base skeleton to each line.
Base skeleton: High DC trip, deals useful physical damage. Moderately tough.
Knight: Invisible but potent aura of hate. Almost no physical damage. Tough.
Archer: Applies destruction / improved destruction to targets each hit. Frail.
Mage: Restrict spells to nukes, dealing high elemental damage. Moderately frail. (Tougher than archer, more likely to draw attacks)

Autoheighten the necrotic abilities, letting us actually deal something resembling damage with them. While still not on par with evocation archmage or savant, let them be useful for more than "I have to look like I'm doing something".

I'd be happy with just one or two varients on these themes.

Hmmm, while the form 'nerf' addition is kind of blow. I see PM as being better with new spell changes.

The Death spells have had HP/HD caps removed, they do significant damage on a failed save. Which means you never 'waste' a casting, so the Cooldown is less painful. Enervation/Energy Drain now do -2 to saves per level. With CoD/Wail/FoD seems like you can clear a room plenty easy now. They also reduced the cooldowns closer to Sorc speeds. They had all their major death spells buffed increasing their nukeing potential. I don't see that as a nerf.

# Circle of Death: Now effects all targets regardless of hit dice. Cooldown is 30 seconds for wizards, 25 seconds for sorcerers. The description has been updated as follows:

* "Rains dark energy into an area. Living Creatures are subject to a death effect; getting a reflex save and then a fortitute save to avoid death. Targets who succeed against the reflex save suffer no ill effect, but creatures who succeed against the fortitute save will still lose 1d4 energy levels."

Undeath to Death: The hit dice cap has been removed. Undead in the area of effect must make a will save to negate the effect. The cooldown for wizards,clerics, and favored souls is now 30 seconds, 25 seconds for sorcerers.

# Finger of Death: The spell now deals 8 to 12 negative energy damage per caster level on a successful save. Cooldown is now 8 seconds, 6 for sorcerers.

Symbol of Death: The spell's hit point cap has been removed. The spell now does energy drain damage, instead of requiring creatures to make a saving throw versus death. The cooldown is now 80 seconds for wizards, 60 seconds for sorcerers.

Wail of the Banshee: The spell now does 4 to 6 damage per caster level in negative energy damage on successful save. The cooldown is now 30 seconds, 25 seconds for sorcerers.

[Scraap]

Hmmm, while the form 'nerf' addition is kind of blow. I see PM as being better with new spell changes.

The Death spells have had HP/HD caps removed, they do significant damage on a failed save. Which means you never 'waste' a casting, so the Cooldown is less painful. Enervation/Energy Drain now do -2 to saves per level. With CoD/Wail/FoD seems like you can clear a room plenty easy now. They also reduced the cooldowns closer to Sorc speeds. They had all their major death spells buffed increasing their nukeing potential. I don't see that as a nerf.

# Circle of Death: Now effects all targets regardless of hit dice. Cooldown is 30 seconds for wizards, 25 seconds for sorcerers. The description has been updated as follows:

* "Rains dark energy into an area. Living Creatures are subject to a death effect; getting a reflex save and then a fortitute save to avoid death. Targets who succeed against the reflex save suffer no ill effect, but creatures who succeed against the fortitute save will still lose 1d4 energy levels."

Undeath to Death: The hit dice cap has been removed. Undead in the area of effect must make a will save to negate the effect. The cooldown for wizards,clerics, and favored souls is now 30 seconds, 25 seconds for sorcerers.

# Finger of Death: The spell now deals 8 to 12 negative energy damage per caster level on a successful save. Cooldown is now 8 seconds, 6 for sorcerers.

Symbol of Death: The spell's hit point cap has been removed. The spell now does energy drain damage, instead of requiring creatures to make a saving throw versus death. The cooldown is now 80 seconds for wizards, 60 seconds for sorcerers.

Wail of the Banshee: The spell now does 4 to 6 damage per caster level in negative energy damage on successful save. The cooldown is now 30 seconds, 25 seconds for sorcerers.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but successful save = your DC is too low. Meaning casters without the PM enhancements got a boost to utility there, not the pre that emphasizes higher DC's.

It's the blanket immunity removal that's the buff. The rest are in fact nerfs to the pre's utility for those that don't use the full set of capabilities.

[Rambin]

I'm not really sure why you think pale masters were underpowered before, or why they would be underpowerd now. I have been playing a pale master for a long time, and have even do a 7 man evon6 with nothing but pale masters (as well as many other all pale master raids and epics). I have been playing the same pale master on lamannia for the past couple of days testing out the new content, and the spell casting changes, and my pale master is still a very potent caster.

Contrary to what has been stated above, Fod and other death spells are not the best asset of a pale master. While they are nice, the heavy bonus to negative energy spells as well as the negative energy spell-like abilities that we get (that cost hp instead of sp) make a pale master a fairly high dps caster that can continue to cast long after all other casters would be out of sp. Also, a pale master with the right gear equipped and a couple of potions can easily boost their enchantment up to 38 (40 with a wiz past life and a bard song) which is more than high enough to hold epic mobs (with the possible exception to a few mobs in chronoscope that have had their resists boosted in this new update).