the REAL resason for spell nerfs

[leadhead]

(Memnir was talking about how Echoes of Power would make my assessment invalid)

How does always having enough mana regen to have at least TWELVE mana make me not want to drink a mana potion? Because I can cast an unmaximized unempowered magic missile at the epic mob?



Do you honestly think that having an extra +1 or +2 to hit is more important than enough hitpoints to survive? You're already 10 base attack bonus behind any pure melee class, before you account for feats, enhancements, the difference in strength, etc. Unheld monsters are a bit tough for a caster to hit; you'd be better off carrying around several divine power clickies to give you a temporary +10 to hit (by raising your BAB) than reducing your con to increase strength.

LOL I was being sarcastic. My point being that perhaps it is not a conspiracy, just that the devs are trying to get casters to a nice equilibrium where they can spec a character to primarily be an offensive spell caster if they want. Instead of a melee swinging buff machine that drops a wall of flame every now and then.

[Elucidus]

It regens 4 SPs every 6 seconds. So it is definitely a decent regen speed.

[fuzzy1guy]

The spell point regen is such a bad joke.. I can't help but think none of you read it. Or understood it. Or have no idea how much of nothing 12 sp is. Even with slas.


Can't even imagine why you're still talking about it like it's useful... Unless your only caster experience stopped at level 4...

[Alcamez]

The spell point regen is such a bad joke.. I can't help but think none of you read it. Or understood it. Or have no idea how much of nothing 12 sp is. Even with slas.


Can't even imagine why you're still talking about it like it's useful... Unless your only caster experience stopped at level 4...

agree with you on that. You can clear out that shrine with four mobs around it in like ten hours casting mm or necrotic touch wont help pour pally cast a divine favor though or will it hmm maybe his first level heal spell every 6 seconds with healing amp. Ohh what am I thinking.

[Elucidus]

Then I guess you can move on and not worry about it. It doesn't mean anything to you anyway.

[wolfy42]

The echos can effectively let you cast maximized, empowered, heightened, quickened tier 1 and 2 SLA's (alternating between them) constantly. It won't quite let you do that with tier 1 and 3...but you can still cast them fairly consistantly (mostly useful for MM and CM for evocation AM's).

It's basically a huge increase in the effectiveness of SLA's, and it allows spellcasters to blow mana big time without worrying so much about not being able to contribute at all. It also helps low level casters (not a ton...but you could probably get through some quests easier now).

Outside of SLA's you can now:

Cast a free CLW every 10 seconds or so and a free CSW every 20 seconds or so (same for repair spells) when out of mana.

Cast a scorching ray every 10 seconds or so for free. Yes, no metemagic feats but this will still do decent damage even without SLA's especially with the increased range/accuracy.

Cast lightning bolts every 8 seconds or so...can hit targets more then once....pretty nice fallback spell for a caster even without SLA's.

Cast free acid rain spells at the start of every combat even when out of mana...then use the regen to cast other spells after that (SLA's for instance).

Keep burning blood going constantly on one enemy even when totally out of mana (4-16+2 per caster level up to 30....per 2 seconds over 12 seconds). DPS isn't that great but it's still 24-96+180 damage per cast over time.....204-276 (before enhancements) damage for free every 12 seconds isn't horrid.

In a strange twist force missiles are now cheaper then chain missiles.....costing only 8 sp a pop. You can cast them every 12 seconds or so, but get out your first and second in 4-6 seconds even when starting with only 12 mana (should be mentioned you don't cap at 12 mana btw...you stop regening once you hit 12 mana...so with careful planning you can actually ensure you always end up with 15 mana after the regen (11+4 sp=15).

To cast spells that cost 15 mana for free you have to have a tier 1 SLA....so you can spend 1 sp after casting a 15 mana spell.

An example.

Your fighting a group of undead and want to use fire spells on them but not get close (door is blocked by tank types. Your out of mana all together because you have blasted the heck out of a ton of undead already (with fireballs not firewalls). You cast a fireball at the large group of undead (unmaximized/empowered...but with full enhancements and equipment bonuses) and then 2 seconds later you cast MM SLA at an undead (after turning max/empower in that time). Then you can either pound on them with burning hands or wait for enough mana regen to cast fireball again. In most battles the fireball alone is going to kill plenty of enemies or at least weaken then drastically for other players to kill. The MM will probably finish something off and then you can just MM after that constantly (every 2 seconds). A max/empowered MM will take down the undead just fine after they were pummeled with a nice fireball.

Point is there are tons of damage options now (or non damage options) for spellcasters and echo's will allow for alot of versatility even when totally out of mana (which means spellcasters don't need to be so careful spending mana as they are not worthless without it)

The real effect though is making SLA's pretty insane. Look at an Earth Savant's damage potential when out of mana, starting with 15 spell points and casting melf's acid arrow on each enemy. Maximized/empowered/quickened. You can shoot one out every 4.5 seconds almost indefinately (costs 3sp, you regen 2.5 or so in that time). You can cast up to 15 points of other SLA's while keeping this going on a monster (tier 1 or 3). That means 2 tier 3 acid blasts as well for instance....all max/empowered etc.

So yeah, those 12-15 spell points can go a very long way. With SLA's you could do this for instance:

Fighting a group of enemies including 1 red named and 5 trash monsters in a fairly close bunch...solo...with 15 spell points (max from 0...after wasting 1 sp earlier on acid spray to get up to 15).

Max/Empower is going, target red named and cast acid blast (hitting everyone), then cast Melf's acid on the red named and as the enemies are getting close to use cast another Acid blast (takes 6 seconds before you can cast it again. Total time since combat started......6 seconds. Total spell points used 15 (6+6+3). In that time you have regenned enough to cast melf's again on the red named (if he's still alive), or if more then just 1 enemy is alive you will have enough to cast acid blast again by the time the 6 second timer is up. After your 3rd acid blast you'll have to wait for an extra 3-4 seconds (8 seconds or so between them)...but if enemies are right in front of you and almost dead you could use acid sprays as emergency damage right away.

SLAs with echos = very powerful spellcasters even when OOM.

[Memnir]

The spell point regen is such a bad joke.. I can't help but think none of you read it. Or understood it. Or have no idea how much of nothing 12 sp is. Even with slas.


Can't even imagine why you're still talking about it like it's useful... Unless your only caster experience stopped at level 4...

You just may be the kind of person I was talking about when I mentioned budgets. If you don't like the Echoes ability - feel free to spend money on pots. Simple as that.

However, I have tried it out on the test server to gauge it's effectiveness and practical use. Have you?

[Chai]

The entertaining aspect to all this of course is that the collective forumites still havent figured out what happens every time we rant and moan about something for a long period of time. Let me provide you a few examples to illustrate this point. There are many more examples of course, but I will provide a few to illustrate what I am talking about here.

2006-2007 There were ALOT of people complaining about perminent debuffs, neg levels, harsh death penalty, the fact that this game cant be soloed and is not new player friendly etc. Turbines response of course was to make the game so easy to play, that a single celled organism can roll up a toon and proclaim itself the saviour of Stormreach. We can still opt to play the game on elite, but this isnt the point. The fact that players can end up with multiple level 20 toons and not have a clue because theres no learning experience playing the game in easy mode is the point. I see this cried about on the forums alot nowdays and its the same people doing the complaining now who complained then that the game was too hard.

The lag. Yes ladies and gentleorcs, we peed and moaned about the lag to no end. Every time we ranted about something else that had nothing to do with lag, we even tossed a "oh yeah, and fix the **** lag!!!" in there to make sure Turbine knew the score on the lag issue. Turbines response of course was to introduce a lovely, and completely arbitrary game mechanic called Dungeon Alert, as well as to gank the EQ combat system complete with its offhand procs and double attacks, and install it into this game. The result of course is no more moaning about lag right? We now moan about dungeon alert and combat nerfs instead. Its the equivilent of punching someone in the nose because they said their stomach hurts.

18 months ago - present people who play casters complain alot about how they are sick of being a mass hold bot in epics, as their sole function was to prop the melee DPS up using mass hold to put mobs into autocrit. Never mind the fact that these same casters could solo many epics using one spell, running fast, and turning left. Turbines response of course is to nerf the one spell that could be used to solo most epics, raise spell damage on one shot spells, take auto crit out of the game, and cut mob HP roughly in half. Many of the people who complained that they wanted to be able to nuke effectively in the past are now calling this a nerf.

I could provide MANY more examples here but I think most readers will see the pattern. According to the majority of forumites opinions, the fixes for many of these long groaned about issues is worse than the issue itself. Something about being careful what we wish for comes to mind. I have to wonder if there is actually something Turbine could do to make us happy at this point, because when I analyze the entire situation, I see a huge catch 22. If Turbine found a way to allow us to have our cake and eat it too, we would find a way to complain about the flavor of the cake, and how it was late on delivery.

I also have to wonder if many of the complainers are actually as unhappy about certain issues as they say they are. How many rants over the years have been typed up, complete with ultimatums and threats to leave, followed by the poster logging into DDO right afterward? How many of us are equally as vocal and passionate about the positive changes as we are about the negative? Most other spells are going to be better after the update, and one or two will not be. We cry NEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRFFF!!!!! ZOMG!! its all a scam to sell more mana pots at the store!!! Never mind the fact that your chain lightning crits will now one shot kill entire hallways of epic trash - thats simply not good complaining material.

[leadhead]

The entertaining aspect to all this of course is that the collective forumites still havent figured out what happens every time we rant and moan about something for a long period of time. Let me provide you a few examples to illustrate this point. There are many more examples of course, but I will provide a few to illustrate what I am talking about here.

2006-2007 There were ALOT of people complaining about perminent debuffs, neg levels, harsh death penalty, the fact that this game cant be soloed and is not new player friendly etc. Turbines response of course was to make the game so easy to play, that a single celled organism can roll up a toon and proclaim itself the saviour of Stormreach. We can still opt to play the game on elite, but this isnt the point. The fact that players can end up with multiple level 20 toons and not have a clue because theres no learning experience playing the game in easy mode is the point. I see this cried about on the forums alot nowdays and its the same people doing the complaining now who complained then that the game was too hard.

The lag. Yes ladies and gentleorcs, we peed and moaned about the lag to no end. Every time we ranted about something else that had nothing to do with lag, we even tossed a "oh yeah, and fix the **** lag!!!" in there to make sure Turbine knew the score on the lag issue. Turbines response of course was to introduce a lovely, and completely arbitrary game mechanic called Dungeon Alert, as well as to gank the EQ combat system complete with its offhand procs and double attacks, and install it into this game. The result of course is no more moaning about lag right? We now moan about dungeon alert and combat nerfs instead. Its the equivilent of punching someone in the nose because they said their stomach hurts.

18 months ago - present people who play casters complain alot about how they are sick of being a mass hold bot in epics, as their sole function was to prop the melee DPS up using mass hold to put mobs into autocrit. Never mind the fact that these same casters could solo many epics using one spell, running fast, and turning left. Turbines response of course is to nerf the one spell that could be used to solo most epics, raise spell damage on one shot spells, take auto crit out of the game, and cut mob HP roughly in half. Many of the people who complained that they wanted to be able to nuke effectively in the past are now calling this a nerf.

I could provide MANY more examples here but I think most readers will see the pattern. According to the majority of forumites opinions, the fixes for many of these long groaned about issues is worse than the issue itself. Something about being careful what we wish for comes to mind. I have to wonder if there is actually something Turbine could do to make us happy at this point, because when I analyze the entire situation, I see a huge catch 22. If Turbine found a way to allow us to have our cake and eat it too, we would find a way to complain about the flavor of the cake, and how it was late on delivery.

I also have to wonder if many of the complainers are actually as unhappy about certain issues as they say they are. How many rants over the years have been typed up, complete with ultimatums and threats to leave, followed by the poster logging into DDO right afterward? How many of us are equally as vocal and passionate about the positive changes as we are about the negative? Most other spells are going to be better after the update, and one or two will not be. We cry NEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRFFF!!!!! ZOMG!! its all a scam to sell more mana pots at the store!!! Never mind the fact that your chain lightning crits will now one shot kill entire hallways of epic trash - thats simply not good complaining material.

I came on to this game once it was FTP and decided it was one of the best games I have ever played. From that point forward, there is probably only one other game that listens to community members and pushes major updates this regularly like DDO and that would be EVE Online..which is my other favorite. Each successive update has been a massive improvement in my opinion. This game is so going in the right direction.

[Absolute-Omniscience]

Alright, read the OP and decided to post here:
Here's some numbers of what a sorc will be able to do, post "nerf".

3 different spell cycles, calculated over 100 seconds, using eardweller and the rest is max dps. Cold savant.

Spell cycle 1: Polar ray*33, Frost lance *10 Niacs biting cold (10 casts, 50 tics), Cone of cold *25, Freezing sphere *20

Total Damage: 181,399
Total SP Cost: 3077
DPS: 1813
DMG/SP: 58,95

Spell cycle 2: Polar ray*33, Frost lance *16 Niacs *33 biting cold (10 casts, 50 tics), Snowball swarm *8
Total Damage: 155, 458
Total SP Cost: 1493
DPS: 1554
DMG/SP: 104

Spell cycle 3: Frost lance *16 Niacs *33 biting cold (10 casts, 50 tics), Snowball swarm *22
Total Damage: 97,518
Total SP Cost: 545
DPS: 975
DMG/SP: 178

So assuming 3k SP, you'll have three top DPS cycles. One that is all out, one that is slightly conservative, and one that is really damage per sp efficient.

If you use cycle 3, you'll have 50% more dps than the top dps build fighting in a perfect scenario. And you'll be able to keep that DPS up for well over 500 seconds. And you'll deal a total over 540,000 damage, that's more than arraetrikos part 5 on elite, on one sorceror alone.

Assuming cycle 1, you'll solo kill arraetrikos in part 4 before he jumps out. That is, one rounder with one person. (Assuming you've stacked your debuff already).

Now tell me, does this look like a nerf to you?

PS: I can post all my calculations, but it will be a LONG post, and my bet is that you wouldn't even read it. Either way, just let me know if you want it posted.

[erikbozelie]

I came on to this game once it was FTP and decided it was one of the best games I have ever played. From that point forward, there is probably only one other game that listens to community members and pushes major updates this regularly like DDO and that would be EVE Online..which is my other favorite. Each successive update has been a massive improvement in my opinion. This game is so going in the right direction.

the right direction can be found here.
duel wielding crossbows.
2 handing an longsword.
replace unarmed strikes with shuriken throws(same attacks / round).

no broken epic content.
no fricing epic rats with death ward
no fricin ants / kobolds / rats with saves into 30+.
no almost auto hit (ac broken in epic) .

dungeons and dragons online is missing a flavor from dnd 3.5 ebberon.
paladins do not have mounts.
no druids(of yet).
no gnomes(of yet).

ranged combat is broken aswell. it sux beyond reason. (yeah monk + shuriken in u9... right =,=).

no fly spells? no overland flight. elemental orbs for casters. or level 10 spells.

i could go on.. but that will take forever.

while some of you will probally say: you cant make this the same as in D&D 3.5, that would make this game unbalanced.
then dont call this game D&D!.

call it everon©, an world of teck, flying airships & animatons(wf) / toasters and such, which resembles ebberon just by a bit.
if you want to copy wow( or any other mmo ) don't label it D&D.

now i can imagine why the designers made some changes to the game as it stands.
spell points instead of daily spells? meh ok, i can live with that, because the total ammount of sp is 10 for level 1, 15 for 2 etc ( which is broken next update ) which, if counted up should end in the same number of dailly spells.

no mounts? no room to charge on the back of .. wait an min.. where are all our simple 2 handed weapons(with exception of quarterstaff)? spears etc? lances? scythes?

and okay with the change of dropping an enemy and gaining an additional attack they changed cleave and great cleave to grand an AOA.

okay so the classic spells such as web(2) hold more power in epic then almost any of the level 9 spells?

they are trying to change allot to this game and make it more balanced, but by changing rules. they go furder away from D&D 3.5.

i think they are trying to fix epic content by blocking certain effective spells such as mass hold or firewall / blade barrier. and allowing us to use other spells effectively in there. such as symbols or instakills.

but i think they are doing it the wrong way. they shouldnt have to nerf our good spells in order for us to change to new ones. but i predict this is only temporary to make us try them out.

[kernal42]

I felt dirty doing it, but I finally succeeded in thinking like a marketing person, which allowed me to figure out the real reason for spells being nerfed so badly. After update 9, they want casters to have to nuke continuously to contribute to the group like they used to, run out of mana, and go shopping in the DDO store for a stack of 100 majors. 1500 turbine points, darn, I don't have that much, guess I better spend another $20 this week to buy them, then do the same again next week!

The way things are now, I'm glad that we got the change that everyone had the equivalent of a rest shrine after leaving a completed quest; I doubt that would make it in these days.

This kind of comment comes up every few days.

It's ridiculous every single time.

[sigtrent]

Too cynical. Yes turbine is in a business and yes they need to make money. Do you like to make money in your job?

Do they make game changes like this to drive potion sales? No. They made nearly all spells cheaper and they gave us mana regen at the bottom of the pool, and they continue to add items in game that give you mana, and they keep making the game a bit easier overall.

They make money on pots by putting pots up for sale. They don't need to do anything else to drive mana pot sales. They practically sell themselves.

The spell balance is doing what they say they want to do with it, make more of the spells worth casting. In a few rare cases they did that by weakening existing super-spells but in most they strengthened existing ones. Having tested it out my wizard feels no weaker than he was.

I do feel for sorcerers and I think Tubine would be well advised to remove the timer and possibly cost for changing sorc, bard and FVs spells for a while after the update.

[leadhead]

the right direction can be found here.
duel wielding crossbows.
2 handing an longsword.
replace unarmed strikes with shuriken throws(same attacks / round).

no broken epic content.
no fricing epic rats with death ward(which is ********).
no fricin ants / kobolds / rats with saves into 30+(which is ********).
no almost auto hit (ac broken in epic) (which is ********).

dungeons and dragons online is missing a flavor from dnd 3.5 ebberon.
paladins do not have mounts.
no druids(of yet).
no gnomes(of yet).

ranged combat is broken aswell. it sux beyond reason. (yeah monk + shuriken in u9... right =,=).

no fly spells? no overland flight. elemental orbs for casters. or level 10 spells.

i could go on.. but that will take forever.

while some of you will probally say: you cant make this the same as in D&D 3.5, that would make this game unbalanced.
then dont call this game D&D!.

call it everon©, an world of teck, flying airships & animatons(wf) / toasters and such, which resembles ebberon just by a bit.
if you want to copy wow( or any other mmo ) don't label it D&D.

now i can imagine why the designers made some changes to the game as it stands.
spell points instead of daily spells? meh ok, i can live with that, because the total ammount of sp is 10 for level 1, 15 for 2 etc ( which is broken next update ) which, if counted up should end in the same number of dailly spells.

no mounts? no room to charge on the back of .. wait an min.. where are all our simple 2 handed weapons(with exception of quarterstaff)? spears etc? lances? scythes?

and okay with the change of dropping an enemy and gaining an additional attack they changed cleave and great cleave to grand an AOA.

okay so the classic spells such as web(2) hold more power in epic then almost any of the level 9 spells? (which is ********).

they are trying to change allot to this game and make it more balanced, but by changing rules. they go furder away from D&D 3.5.

i think they are trying to fix epic content by blocking certain effective spells such as mass hold or firewall / blade barrier. and allowing us to use other spells effectively in there. such as symbols or instakills.

but i think they are doing it the wrong way. they shouldnt have to nerf our good spells in order for us to change to new ones. but i predict this is only temporary to make us try them out.

Yeah and pet pathing is atrocious and cant we get a simple command toolbar for commanded/summoned npcs...

I have a wishlist too. There has never (and I have been playing these things since ultima online) been a complete mmorpg, not even close.

As far as 3.5 rules, that is of course the slippery slope and I think the community does a good job to hold to that standard when they can....However D&D is a turn based strategy/fantasy game while ddo is realtime this difference right there means that you must make ALOT of adjustments to combat. People that have never played d&d probably play ddo and wonder why this stupid useless grease spell is even in the game not to mention several others...this is an imediate indicator that you cant follow 3.5 rules to the letter.

But you can when talking about how damage is applied and rolling characters...Turbine hasnt really messed with that all that much and look how fantastically it transitioned to the online game. I mean think about EQ, EQ2...especially any soe epic pile of junk mmo.. conan, lineage 2, wow... the 3.5 mechanics have completely smashed the old "tank does no damage" "healer only heals" "glass cannons" "rogue = dps" mindset and I am extremely thankfull for that. But even further character building in this game is so wide open I can make 7 bards and they all play differently. But most importantly, the game is just fun!


As far as firewall/bladebarrier...I am just getting into casters, I have a wizard that has firewall. After using here for a bit....I mean cmon now doesn't it deserve some limitation there? I mean the Mobs have to have at lease some sort of defense against it...if you maximise it with a clicky, it just bbqs everything without much effort. It is like a DOT that does nuke damage every tick! LOL! I think the changes were made for logical reasons. But when taken into the context that the spell system looks to be getting overhauled some spells are getting buffed with less mana usage, I think this brings wall of fire in line with still useful, but now other spells will be usefull as well and should make the caster classes much more dynamic and versatile.

Not to mention Gary Gygax (I cant remember which manual it was in, the players handbook or dungeon masters guide) always said that the rules were just a "guide" that you should make the game how you want.

Ok, so it is not verbatim, that was twenty someodd years ago

[Skeptisaurus]

Some spells got nerfed hard because there's more to casters than playing one trick ponies.

I agree - if BB and FW remain the best DPS return for spell points everyone will continue to use them as primary: would be foolish not to - why be a dead rebel?

Now, if the other 80% of the spells that hit like spitballs were actually ramped up to be meaningful, now THAT would make things far more interesting, and even more fun.

[hu-flung-pu]

Some spells got nerfed hard because there's more to casters than playing one trick ponies.

Thank you.

Firewall was a crutch for casters.

[mystafyi]

They make money on pots by putting pots up for sale. They don't need to do anything else to drive mana pot sales. They practically sell themselves.

IIRC turbine claimed that spell pots, hearts of wood and xp pots were their major source of income. I cant see turbine making even more sales from spell pots with u9 'nerfs' to spell costs I can see how they would see an increase in sales of hearts/xp pots. I just hope turbine doesnt change the name to hello kitty online by U10/11. ofc if f2p/premium players want this, it will happen.

[andreascott89]

...but Doom Is Having Its Sp Cost Reduced!

+1