Casters SHOULD do more dps than melees

[game5551]

The only thing I ask before I get flamed is that you read the whole post, I'll keep it short.

I am troubled by reading posts claiming how casters are uber powerful and need to be nerfed.

Casters should be capable of doing more dps, for a short period of time, than melees. For casters it comes down to resource management. They have a finite spell point pool to draw from, and when it runs out they do 0 dps. This is why I have always loved Dungeons and Dragons (long time pnp player, only recently started playing DDO).

The only case when melee dps should equal caster dps is when the blue bar is gotten rid of altogether, and spell cool downs are the only limiting factor over the length of the quest (and to be clear I am not advocating for that).

I would be very interested in seeing some calculations that I think are missing from the arguments in the forums right now. I, unfortunately, do not have the knowledge to do these calculations, though. Hopefully someone can help me out.

I have a few questions:
1) What is the maximum damage a caped sorcerer could do using up their entire blue bar (assuming max theoretical spell points), assuming ever spell hits, and every save fails.

2) What is the maximum theoretical average damage per swing that a melee could do? Note: I dont mean max damage on a critical, I mean the average damage done by a top melee player - I realize this is very situational, if possible how about a 0% fort, 50% fort, 100% fort number? I have seen damage per second numbers, but those dont help in this case, I need damage per swing.

3) How much damage can a melee do in one quest? I realize that this could be infinite on an infinite quest, so this answer might be impossible to give. Knowing the answer to one and two above would allow us to say how many hits the melee would have to make to equal the sorcerer in damage output, though.

What am I driving at? I suspect that a good melee character will do more (I suspect a few times more) damage over the length of the quest than a sorcerer will. If it turns out that the sorcerer can output more damage than the melee over the length of the quest, then I will join the mass of people asking for the spell casters to be nerfed. Until then, leave the spell casters alone.

Oh, and I realize Echoes of Power (or whatever it is called) messes this up a little. Because of the whole resource management thing that I like, I am very much against this new ability. I think that if a spell caster uses up all of their spell points, that is their fault, they should be done, and maybe they will learn to conserve spell points in the future. If you dont want to pay attention to your spell points, you shouldn't pick a spell casting class.

Commence flaming in 3, 2, 1...

[Bodic]

2 things

NOT short.

DEAD HORSE.

[Kinerd]

Casters have two dramatic defensive advantages over melees:

1) Range
2) Especially with the new spells, DoT "fire and forget" effects.

With the first point alone, the real comparison to be made is therefore magical damage output vs. physical ranged damage output. If you are not familiar with the current state of physical ranged, let me assure you that they are woefully underpowered compared to the proposed magical ranged.

[BoolZ]

Casters being about resource management is a joke in DDO, especially if coming from a long time PnP player. Simply put PnP arcanes wouldn't be able to drop 1-2 or 3 Wails on each portal in part one. The SP pool is so huge compared to 4-6 9th level spells a capped Wiz or Sor could dish out.

I have no problem believing that a spell caster should be able to burst out the DPS in such a magnitute that the melees just stand there in awe. But when they can do that to mob after mob after mob, reach a shine and completly replenish their SP, or drink a pot it gets out of hand.

Then again I stopped my only caster at lvl8 because I didn't want to put down the great axe, so what do I know?

[Draccus]

Limit casters to a few spells per level per day and your post may have some merit. Limit the infinite ways that casters have to regain spell points and your post may have merit. Cut the number of shrines in the game by 90% and your post may have merit. Eliminate casters running around at full speed and self healing while their spells do top-tier DPS in the background and your post may have merit.

But with 3400 sp casters wearing epic Torcs, conc opps, a bauble, twisted talismans, and carrying 400 major pots, your post is completely meaningless. Casters have all of the good with none of the bad.

[Sandman_3111]

Limit casters to a few spells per level per day and your post may have some merit. Limit the infinite ways that casters have to regain spell points and your post may have merit. Cut the number of shrines in the game by 90% and your post may have merit. Eliminate casters running around at full speed and self healing while their spells do top-tier DPS in the background and your post may have merit.

But with 3400 sp casters wearing epic Torcs, conc opps, a bauble, twisted talismans, and carrying 400 major pots, your post is completely meaningless. Casters have all of the good with none of the bad.

And of course con opp only works for casters right? And of course casters can just go to a general vendor and buy stacks of 100 spell poitons right and of course casters can grind out silver flame for basically heal in a cups too right?

When those said spells cost 50 or more PER CAST I'd call that limited.

[UniqueToo]

Casters have all of the good with none of the bad.

Tried to multiclass a caster recently?

[Tsuarok]

Casters have two dramatic defensive advantages over melees:

1) Range
2) Especially with the new spells, DoT "fire and forget" effects.

With the first point alone, the real comparison to be made is therefore magical damage output vs. physical ranged damage output. If you are not familiar with the current state of physical ranged, let me assure you that they are woefully underpowered compared to the proposed magical ranged.

Well built melees have a lot more hps than well built casters, as do well built archer builds.

I certainly don't have time to answer them, but I would like to redirect everyone's attention to the questions asked by the OP.

[Soleran]

If all casters could do was dps you might have a point, except when I look in a casters spellbook there is FAR more then just dps happening there.

As it stands casters can solo epics for scrolls with minimal resources and time, lets see a melee replicate that.



Well built melees have a lot more hps than well built casters, as do well built archer builds.<--------- no, no they don't as a matter of fact most casters max their caster stat (int or charisma) then dump the rest to con, alot of melee start with 14 con since they have to focus on more then 1 starting stat.

[Tsuarok]

14 con on a d8 is 10/lvl, on a d10, its 12; 14 for barbs
18 con on a d4 is 6/lvl, 7 if you bump it to 20.
X20=
d4 120/140
d8 200
d10 240
d12 280

still seems like a lot more to me...

Edit: Wait... 18 con on a d4 is 8, not 6... 8/9... 160/180... maybe not that big of a difference after all

[Maegin]

/popcorn

[fuzzy1guy]

You melees are not spending enough money.

Turbine makes alot of money off of store pots.


Casters should do WAY more damage. it makes money.

^^

[testing1234]

is balancing caster vs melee actually relevant? this is after all not a pvp game.
seems more relevant to look at how a group acts in a party with a mix of classes and then balance after that situation in mind.

when in a group it often seems to me you stack melee dps more easily, 1 caster kiting enemies in a wof is high dps but its actually lowers melee dps and does not stack with a second caster doing same.

[cdemeritt]

Tried to multiclass a caster recently?

Another one... Really? Really?...

Yes we get it, you want to multiclass casters... But we don't and don't think it's broken...(at least most of us)

[Kahless_of_Cannith]

is balancing caster vs melee actually relevant? this is after all not a pvp game.
seems more relevant to look at how a group acts in a party with a mix of classes and then balance after that situation in mind.

when in a group it often seems to me you stack melee dps more easily, 1 caster kiting enemies in a wof is high dps but its actually lowers melee dps and does not stack with a second caster doing same.

Balance is essential to prevent turning one path into the easy-button and subjecting all others to ridicule. It allows play-style preferences to dictate your path, rather than the one true path dictating your play-style. Warforged casters are probably the closest we have to an easy-button right now, since they can self heal and pull off crazy dps, and we should do our best to not go any further down the easy-button path.

[Bodic]

Tried to multiclass a caster recently?

Please Please stop

[Mister_Peace]

Casters being about resource management is a joke in DDO, especially if coming from a long time PnP player. Simply put PnP arcanes wouldn't be able to drop 1-2 or 3 Wails on each portal in part one.

Dude, casters in PnP would have access to WAY better spells than DDO has.

[fuzzy1guy]

Balance between melees and casters matter for the same reason most melee characters feel the need to tell the party how much they just crit for. How much damage they are doing. And how many kills they got.

Rarely see that stuff come from a caster... weird aint it.


Yet daily i hear at least one melee say something like "dude i just crit that guy for 123456 damage!".

[BoolZ]

Dude, casters in PnP would have access to WAY better spells than DDO has.

I agree.

But just because they wouldn't have to use Wail of the Banshee doesn't mean they should be able to blast off 20 some odd 9th level spells between shrines.

Of course I'll never complain that Clerics and FVS could use their whole blue bar to spam Heal on my squishy Ranger if they so chose.

[BoolZ]

I should clarify. I'm not calling for any kind of nerf, and instead actually like the way the game is laid out and appears to be laying out post U9.

I didn't like playing a caster so I don't. It matters not to me if you do so you do play casters.