Caster DPS needs nerfed MORE (or not boosted from current dps), SLAs are enough

[Ziindarax]

So you've never even played a caster and yet you're trying to argue with me.

I have a capped bard, capped wizard, capped fvs, capped fighter.
I have run every single epic quest in the game multiple times.

Irrelevant; I've run with plenty of casters in my time (especially on epics) to know well enough how they function, and your attempt to dismiss my arguments without addressing them only serves to prove my points.

The only place where arcane casters might be truly over-powered is in the PvP Arena.

Rather than blanket-nerfing Arcane Caster DPS, perhaps Turbine should "up" the ante for non-arcane classes instead.

[Emili]

I will take 4 or 5 casters into a shroud, np.



They will tear that up too.

There are plenty of competent casters. There are not enough well informed group leaders, and they think limiting raids to one or two casters is mandatory.

Personally... Is just like melee... I will take 4 to 5 good casters into a shroud and they'll tear it up.

This is a funny thread alright. It definately makes me wonder what level of content those who have contributed are familiar with. Casters can solo farm Epics for scrolls currently. They are making mobs easier to kill in U9, which will make the practice even more lucrative. The power of casters isn't in the raw DPS they can achieve by emptying their blue bars into a mob. It's the fact that they have many ways to incapacitate and neutralize most mobs which they can then kill at their leisure. Or by kiting through AoE spells while not being in any real danger themselves. In U9 they will be able to do what they can do in all pre-Epic content now, which is run around and insta-kill everything once they are geared and have good enough DC's. Mobs will have less HP too and with the changes being make nuking will become viable too. Melee can't effectively do any of that. They don't even have a melee exclusive HP equivalent to Major Mnemonic potions.

Yes, after U9 it will be more commonplace for casters to play epics alone... why? Well shear fact is that they can now... U9 just means they will more often... and just like any quest below armath to this point - they do so more efficently than any other class. I rarely play my "undergeared" witch but she more epic gear than my melee actually... probably because I farm scrolls and seals more on her in the desert, fens, house P and vons. She definately takes less resource and the versitility of spell much more cost effective than any other class you might attempt doing so with.

U9's openning of Armath and epic to arcane's versitility of spell power tines them down closer to play like vale, orchard and giant hold like quests... well played and geared casters will figure out how to streamline them.

The last time I solo'd sins on a melee it cost me like 5 sf pots and 25 heal scrolls? ... If I could run sins on my arcane even remotely like I do thru a vale quest it would be a lot more cost effective...

People miss what's going on in game when they see raid/epic groups with one or two casters in them, it' because the caster makes the quest easier for all the other classes/builds - mana bars are power and the more mana in group the more power actually exists - A viewpoint from the reverse - a group with 4 casters inviting a melee is a convience to the melee - not the group of casters - they are on no need of that melee at all really.

Whenever I need a Vale ingredient and do not feel like spending a few pp on the AH ... I grab the gimpy witch and go run the quest it come from... while inside I may place up an LFM, but all the same I'll be more than half-way done and those who may join are just riding coat tails... they bring no contribution to the quest and sometimes even sometimes slow it down.

It remains to be seen yet but the atmosphere exists with such changes to become like late orchard end-game... where lfm's read arcane/divine and all else need not apply. Which is the premise of the OP ...

... for those of us who play arcane characters let's look at such objectively and answer these – if you could do the quest yourself with less hassle would you carry a melee along and/or if a second arcane in group brought more significance would you chose a melee over such?

[fuzzy1guy]

Sure see a hell of alot of people saying silly stuff like

"Oh yeah i'll take X casters in any group!"

Where the hell are these people on the live server.. Cuz if i'm not the first caster in a group. I aint gettin in unless its a guild run. It's just a given. they take 1. MAYBE 2. after that you are **** out of luck. you can argue with them all day long.. you still aint gettin in most groups as a 2nd or 3rd caster. no freakin way.

The talk here does NOT reflect reality at all.

[Emili]

Sure see a hell of alot of people saying silly stuff like

"Oh yeah i'll take X casters in any group!"

Where the hell are these people on the live server.. Cuz if i'm not the first caster in a group. I aint gettin in unless its a guild run. It's just a given. they take 1. MAYBE 2. after that you are **** out of luck. you can argue with them all day long.. you still aint gettin in most groups as a 2nd or 3rd caster. no freakin way.

The talk here does NOT reflect reality at all.

Just because perceptions of how we adjust normally to the tasks does not mean - like this shroud run on hard - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...nShot00405.jpg ... sure is just a simple shroud run on hard, actually completed just as easy as most runs and maybe easier than some.

Is not the first time either where was a mostly arcane group nor the last ... just one I found a quick pic of... the premise is though that it's the players - the trust placed within them - which poise the difference here. I will state something important off the top of my head... a good arcane player shines while a bad arcane player is the bloody pits... An arcane in the middle suffices... a bad melee reflects next to nothing - party carries a bad melee more easily...

Oh, was not so long ago ... and as they say history ends to repeat itself.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=129717

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=124603

Am sure I could dig out hundreds more of cry-baby threads but players tend choose what is percieved to work best for them... in the not too distant past if you were not an arcane/divine class... you were a piking type class. The era between end of giant hold beginning of vale - was useless to play anything which relied on melee to remove mob.

[PopeJual]

Casters die when their red bar runs out.
Melees die when their red bar runs out.

Casters' DPS drops off to very low numbers when their blue bar runs out.
Melees' DPS remains consistant because they can't run out of blue bar. They have other resources that can run out, but other than Fighter/Rogue haste boost, most of them are sustainable for quite a while or don't result in massive DPS loss when they run out.

Seems reasonable to me. The OP's complaint seems like someone complaining that a Ftr 20 does more melee DPS than a FvS's melee DPS while ignoring all of the other neat stuff that the FvS can do.

[Emili]

Casters die when their red bar runs out.
Melees die when their red bar runs out.

Casters' DPS drops off to very low numbers when their blue bar runs out.
Melees' DPS remains consistant because they can't run out of blue bar. They have other resources that can run out, but other than Fighter/Rogue haste boost, most of them are sustainable for quite a while or don't result in massive DPS loss when they run out.

Seems reasonable to me. The OP's complaint seems like someone complaining that a Ftr 20 does more melee DPS than a FvS's melee DPS while ignoring all of the other neat stuff that the FvS can do.

It only bears weight as I said if the player perceptions change and a significant number of them start to shun melee based characters within their groupings... i.e.

The typcal 2007 raid group for reaver fate - one caster (no other players in group) ,

The typical 2007 Abbot - 4 or 5 casters the more the merrier...

The 2007 shroud - started out as a "melee" raid - fact is arcane power was nothig but buffing at first. PK did not work, banish did not work and the mob save so high FoD was a 50/50 on a level capped 16 wizard... the arcane community was so pent up on firewall as the solution to all it took some time for them to realize they other spells. People wondering why all the melee on Harry - well was a proven effective strategy for the time... and we do so to this day not because it's the only way - but because we're used to it that way.

The 2009 ToD - the stratgey picked a group of melee works... however that does not in any means suggest an all arcane group could not do it , nor do so better.

All said an done none of this becomes a problem unless players make it an issue by shutting out certain classes from their groups ... or possibly most the melee classes all in end feel they been piking along behind a few arcane playing the quests and give up playing their melee because of feeling insignificant. Either case it then becomes an issue.

[PopeJual]

All said an done none of this becomes an issue unless players make it an issue by sutting out all but arcane from their groups ... or the melee classes all in end feel they been piking along behind a few arcane playing the quests.

I actually agree with you 100%. Player perceptions are more important than reality in many situations.

I was just pointing out that caster burst DPS *should* be higher than melee DPS because it is a consumable resource that is used up in the process of bursting. Saying that casters who are burning their spell points as fast as possible shouldn't have significantly more DPS than a melee character leaves out the fact that they'll be mostly pointless once they finish burning through those spell points.

And that's a good thing.

[jkm]

It only bears weight as I said if the player perceptions change and a significant number of them start to shun melee based characters within their groupings... i.e.

The typcal 2007 raid group for reaver fate - one caster (no other players in group) ,

The typical 2007 Abbot - 4 or 5 casters the more the merrier...

The 2007 shroud - started out as a "melee" raid - fact is arcane power was nothig but buffing at first. PK did not work, banish did not work and the mob save so high FoD was a 50/50 on a level capped 16 wizard... the arcane community was so pent up on firewall as the solution to all it took some time for them to realize they other spells. People wondering why all the melee on Harry - well was a proven effective strategy for the time... and we do so to this day not because it's the only way - but because we're used to it that way.

The 2009 ToD - the stratgey picked a group of melee works... however that does not in any means suggest an all arcane group could not do it , nor do so better.

All said an done none of this becomes an issue unless players make it an issue by sutting out all but arcane from their groups ... or the melee classes all in end feel they been piking along behind a few arcane playing the quests.

the problem with the 2007 shroud were the portals and the part 2 penalty box, not the saves. too many casters = long as **** run. the fact that the portals STILL have fort saves in the 40's means that casters are limited in their impact in part 1.

[Antheal]

Solution: Make Ranged combat on par with caster DPS.

[crazydamage]

Actually, I don't fail at reading comprehension. I just disagree with you. I understand that you think that "doesn't agree with Crazydamage" = "doesn't understand DDO", but that isn't always the case.



I agree with this part for the most part. Except that 6 competant and well geared *anything* can accomplish for more than 95% of the entire player base, regardless of class.

Except you KNOW this isnt the case, and I've stated time and time again.

Can your max geared RGR, ROG, BARD SOLO epic wiz king or epic fens or epic chrono.

Can your 120 Str MAX GEARED BARb solo chrono fens wiz king.

The answer is NO.

What is the class that can easily solo epics FAST and without spending consumables (pots).??

Its ARCANES.

[Sandman_3111]

Except you KNOW this isnt the case, and I've stated time and time again.

Can your max geared RGR, ROG, BARD SOLO epic wiz king or epic fens or epic chrono.

Can your 120 Str MAX GEARED BARb solo chrono fens wiz king.

The answer is NO.

What is the class that can easily solo epics FAST and without spending consumables (pots).??

Its ARCANES.

It's also very good geared favored souls, and very good geared multibuild clerics as well.

Ask yourself this. Can your 120 str Barb use a hireling and finish wiz king without any other help. If he/she can't, then craft yourself a good maul and retry.

[crazydamage]

in short, we don't. the sorceror curses in and of themselves are even reuses of monster effects. mephits cast them, water elementals had one. and so on. they aren't new, except being in player hands. it is the dev's goal of improving the first lifers, and the gimps with much of what is going on. a secondary goal was removing one trick pony show appearances. for some reason in the rebalance, rather then exclusively playing about with sp costs, cooldowns and cast times, we got buffs to spells, and echoes and other oddball things. this unfortunately overpowered the new prestige line for one class through the moon, and also had a secondary effect of making monster casters potentially instadeath on two legs, especially if any packs happened to occur using the buffed spells.

as to sustained or not, this has always been a tradeoff. and you are quite right when you say some of the changes only really help the new and the "gimpy". it isn't balanced at all at present. where we start running into real rocky waters is that sustained needs to exist sufficient for viable soloing on lower difficulties with poor gear, without exploding in effectiveness with good gear. exceptional gear is another matter entirely.

breaking that down for a dps perspective. good gear is anything that ups the sp pool significantly or reduces meta cost slightly (improved max/emp/extend 1) and potency up to 50% increase. excellent gear in dps would be much rarer, as in things that regen sp, reduce total sp cost a great deal( staff of petitioner -10% cost),reduced meta cost a larger amount(improved max/emp/extend 2, and or clickies for making it free for a bit, ie embers, ornamental dagger) or big increases(eardweller 100%).
so differentially you have minus 1-2 sp cost per meta sustained with spikes of -25 in difference, possibly -10% overall cost, and 50% burst damage increase in difference there from a pure dps perspective.

now we can look at live and see it being workable. the death effects are a huge issue in places, as are control, but leaving those off the table the pure dps is workable, in trade for some of the deficits. should damage output go up, no. i agree there. should it be more even across spells, yes. if the content doesn't to minimize the benefit of one element over another, that would be rendered largely moot in the eyes of the general playerbase.
should the spells be modified for everyone to suit the new pre- no, this would break monsters and the other class.
which gets me back to the point i was making before and repeatedly. take your poor to mid geared wizard, and throw hi his force sla's. how does that stack up compared to melee. but that line is getting shot in the head for the sake of the new echoes. if the naked sorceror with the new enhancement line can flat out deal more damage than a wizard that is geared out in the same situations seems good. the wizard has other abilities right? but if the other abilities do not get things dead, it's a moot point. a fighter or barbarian can trip a mob over and over, but if that is all they can do, the quest isn't getting done.so now we have a situation where one class needs to be able to carry the day, and if your goal is to make the other class twice as effective as a point of differentiation, then that class suddenly has twice the output needed to get through the content. this breaks things.

so as i was saying before the base model is inherently set up in this way, arcanes capable of more damage output then melee, but losing much of it in overkill, comparative losses due to scaling with more people, and so on. it seems they assume a more diversified party, and if we skew the party we skew the results obtained. you could in theory muck about with the items, while reducing the curse from the new pre's and actually have a hope of fixing the extreme overpower that we saw in lam preview build 1 on sorcerors. but you cannot eliminate sustainability as compared to mob quantities and health without breaking a class.

you find content balanced in the old releases for a near naked caster. add primo gear and your scenario becomes true. but simple reduction of damage output, or reduction of sustainability isn't going to work.
and that is what you headed the thread with. maybe a scaling cap on damage outright. similar to the cap on jump skill at 40, so the designers knew what they could build around.

certain other titles out there used something of that nature to limit the overpower of aoe's. but there are flaws with that as well.

which leaves me where i was before. come up with some reasoned solutions. ones that account for widely variable gearing, the necessities in design on new arcanes, finds a good distinctive split between two classes without overpowering either or both, accounts for dungeon scaling given how it applies to all difficulties including epic, the number of player slots available in content, etc etc. that or state what you did, that you feel this way, and hope the dev's strike a good balance soon, without forgetting human behaviour in the past.on that much i can agree.

ps. that thought you had on how spelldamage can affect mobs for double, but there is no melee equivalent( just the equivalency of dr to resistances, not a flat buff to output from vulnerability) is really worth asking them to look at really closely. in fairness sake removing double damage from elementals, or adding physical type vulnerabilities for double damage is worth exploring.
and that i am trying to agree with you, but noting the absolute overpower is coming in predominantly with one of the classes, and the developers stated goals. if they reduce epic mob hp, this is a huge dps boost for casters, if the do not reduce it everywhere else and reduce player hp, then reduce spell damage things get broken. its a nasty little problem, not answered simply by the either or you present in the current situation.

So you want the class with the highest short term nuking DPS output and the highest versatility.
Not to mention the highest instant death, and crowd control ability.
Along with the highest shortcuts (TELEPORT, greater teleport, haste, jump, invis, featherfall).

To also have equal sustained dps to melee.

IMO SLAs and electric/acid DOTS and force dmg are ALREADY more than enough.
We don't need curses or extra dps boosts.
In fact if you want my opinion, casters are ALREADY OVERPOWERED pre u9. They dont even need any boost.


Sustained DPS is the ONLY reason to play melee.

Do you think it's fun to have to run up to every mob and slash them over and over? I'd much rather bunny hop and gather up 20 guys and wail / fw/ cone of cold/ AOE them to death.

[crazydamage]

It's also very good geared favored souls, and very good geared multibuild clerics as well.

Ask yourself this. Can your 120 str Barb use a hireling and finish wiz king without any other help. If he/she can't, then craft yourself a good maul and retry.

Have you ever even played EPIC WIZ KING or any epic at all for that matter?

A fvs could possibly solo epic wiz king but it would be many many times slower than for arcane.

[wiglin]

Casters can solo some epics yes. They are not done easily, it takes gear and player skill. A new player with no gear is not walking into epic wiz king and soloing it on any caster. Just because a handful of players can do so does not = overpowered as a class. Their are also several glitches in the AI that would be considered exploits that I know get used in some of these solo epics.

I have played with several pug casters that could not even stay alive in a group of 6 doing epic bargain of blood, so no, soloing epics is not easy or everyone could do it. I also see lfm started by monks who can solo some epics up to the boss and the lfm is just for coming to the boss (claw doesn't count), so it is not just casters who can solo epics.

Arcanes have a little way to go until they become the power house glass cannons of dnd, where a level 20 caster is truly a force to be reckoned with.

[Sandman_3111]

So you want the class with the highest short term nuking DPS output and the highest versatility.
Not to mention the highest instant death, and crowd control ability.
Along with the highest shortcuts (TELEPORT, greater teleport, haste, jump, invis, featherfall).

To also have equal sustained dps to melee.

IMO SLAs and electric/acid DOTS and force dmg are ALREADY more than enough.
We don't need curses or extra dps boosts.
In fact if you want my opinion, casters are ALREADY OVERPOWERED pre u9. They dont even need any boost.


Sustained DPS is the ONLY reason to play melee.

Do you think it's fun to have to run up to every mob and slash them over and over? I'd much rather bunny hop and gather up 20 guys and wail / fw/ cone of cold/ AOE them to death.

In this update wizards who gear for extreme over necro, will have very good epeen numbers on trash mobs as well. And if you try that on a savant it's going to be damage spells you are using sorry to tell you because there will be no way I would put sf gsf on a savant. Secondly that wizard that's using all those spells on 20 mobs will still have to contend with the other 40 before a shrine. I'd like to see a wizard with 12k spell points to do that.

[PopeJual]

Have you ever even played EPIC WIZ KING or any epic at all for that matter?

A fvs could possibly solo epic wiz king but it would be many many times slower than for arcane.

The guy saying that something can't be done usually loses the argument against the guy saying that he's already done it.

[crazydamage]

The guy saying that something can't be done usually loses the argument against the guy saying that he's already done it.

He's full of BS>
A single cometfall
A single knockdown
A single lightning
A single hireling mis teleport
A healing curse at the wrong time.
4 red named wraiths prior to wiz king.

I'm sure there are numerous other things that can go wrong with using a hireling.

[Sandman_3111]

He's full of BS>
A single cometfall
A single knockdown
A single lightning
A single hireling mis teleport
A healing curse at the wrong time.
4 red named wraiths prior to wiz king.

I'm sure there are numerous other things that can go wrong with using a hireling.

You are correct in saying there are countless ways to go wrong. Again SNEAK for that last remark. Learn that it is not a WASTED skill. And I will tell you no more of how to accomplish wiz king. You need to keep playing. And as for any other epic quest, go in and learn it. If your monk isn't capable of accomplishing wk then all I can say to you is, first play more, then, learn more.

I'll also input this. All of your remarks can and will happen to a caster as well. Your arguement does not float. Let me guess you think displace stops a comet fall? There are MUCH better ways around getting cf'd to death. None of them require a caster.

[UniqueToo]

If there is a problem then I think it is with the content, not the classes.

At least melee builds can multi and still run level content.

[Musouka]

I'm sure there are numerous other things that can go wrong with using a hireling.

You kind of just stated the biggest word in your argument, after saying someone is full of BS. I made it bold and green in the quote, if you didn't notice.

Plus, I would like to see your video of you, meaning you and not someone else, soloing Epic Wizard King. I want to know if you have any epic items that come from demon sands quests before actually attempting to solo a demon sands epic. I mean it still takes a LOT of grind just to even get the best epic gear for a single class, but do you grind for them solo, or do you solo after the grind and crafted them?