So can a dev tell me why to play a savant now?

[Xaxx]

Ok since we're giving up half an element for a small buff and a few *free* long cooldown and most of them are pretty crappy spells.... can i get an official response on what the thought prossess is that will get people to play savants?

Pre's are supposed to make your characters better, not worse. When compared to any other pre, the downsides arent even close. Some pres have a few downsides, but usually not much, and none of them have downsides that make them hamstring a class to the point where the players have to look at it and go, hmm is it even worth it.

You dont run into a barb and go are you a frenzied berzerker, you dont run into a fighter and say do you have a pre, you dont run into a wiz any more and wonder if they're using one of the 2 pres. With sorcs, it'll be pretty obvious what pre they are, and im gonna go out on a limb here and guess that half the sorcs running around wont have one.

So I'm asking for a direct answer, no mumbo jumbo, no double speak... just a direct answer on why the pre is useful, and how they think it stacks against any other pre. I dont believe this is to much to ask for someone whose been playing on and off as long as I have, and who now is sorely tempted to delete every character I have so that I have no temptation to ever return to this game.

[Trillea]

/signed, need explanations!

[Kralael]

Meh, just do like everyone will do and don't get the PrE, thats all.

I mean, they just don't care, or don't seems to.

They're answering to peeps saying : '' OmG!!111!!1 I didn't tests it on Lama but savants are op! Didn't do a raid, but OmGgg They can own Harry! . All this based on the fact that a 5 man ToD was done. So they nerf the spells and, after not being sure if its enough, they nerf the curse.

Bah, time to TR into a wizard: DEv wasted time.

In fact, its just like the ice storm pre nerf: OMG ITS NICE!!!111!1!1eleven!!! *Two days later* Dev Nerf

[HarveyMilk]

Devs could remove the penalty to opposing element, lower the level boost by 2, and we'd have something useful, although less interesting than when first built on lama

[GoldyGopher]

Ok since we're giving up half an element for a small buff and a few *free* long cooldown and most of them are pretty crappy spells.... can i get an official response on what the thought prossess is that will get people to play savants?

Pre's are supposed to make your characters better, not worse. When compared to any other pre, the downsides arent even close. Some pres have a few downsides, but usually not much, and none of them have downsides that make them hamstring a class to the point where the players have to look at it and go, hmm is it even worth it.

Snip

PrE's are supposed to allow you characters to choose amongst options that make them different than other characters of the same class and level if you choose.

The question you should be asking is why play any of the PrEs, not just this grouping. I do agree this set is pretty bad, but lets look at other PrEs currently available:

Barbarian - Frenzied Berserker
Bard - Spellsinger, Virtuoso, Warchanter
Cleric - Radiant Servant
Favored Soul - New PrEs
Fighter - Kensai, Stalwart Defender
Monk - Ninja Spy, Shintao Monk
Paladin - Defender of Siberys, Hunter of the Dead, Knight of the Chalice
Ranger - Arcane Archer, Deepwood Sniper, Tempest
Rogue - Assassin, Mechanic, Acrobat
Sorcerer - Savant (x4)
Wizard - Archmage, Pale Master


In the exisiting PrE one PrE really outshines the other choices in each class in terms of playability and usefulness at the end game. There is an exception but it makes the assumption that something works that currently is problomatic. As a cleric right now why wouldn't you be a Radiant Servant? Why not be a Warchanter. Sure the other PrE's provide interesting choices but I keep scratching my hear why on earth would you consider X for Epic or TOD on Elite.

[Memnir]

So can a dev tell me why to play a savant now?

While I have no doubt they can... I also have no doubt they won't.

[Jaid314]

PrE's are supposed to allow you characters to choose amongst options that make them different than other characters of the same class and level if you choose.

The question you should be asking is why play any of the PrEs, not just this grouping. I do agree this set is pretty bad, but lets look at other PrEs currently available:

Barbarian - Frenzied Berserker always worth taking, even with a bad feat prereq
Bard - Spellsinger, Virtuoso, Warchanter all of them add to bards, and have their place (virt mostly no feat prereq)
Cleric - Radiant Servant always worth taking, doesn't even have any unpleasant prereqs afaict
Favored Soul - New PrEs worth taking regardless of whether you want melee or caster or even healing/buffing/piking FvS
Fighter - Kensai, Stalwart Defender kensei is only benefits, SD is situationally worthwhile; so long as you're making a tank, it's always good.
Monk - Ninja Spy, Shintao Monk the only 'disadvantage' to either of these is that it doesn't let you take the opposite PrE easily, and which is available is based on a class feat at level 3. both are strong PrEs.
Paladin - Defender of Siberys, Hunter of the Dead, Knight of the Chalice all have their place. DoS is always good if you're taking, HotD is amazing for heal amp builds and provides some nice utility, KotC adds to the most common enemy in the end game. all are good, though not quite as universally good as some other PrEs.
Ranger - Arcane Archer, Deepwood Sniper, Tempest AA is always good for a ranged ranger, DwS is admittedly garbage (but only has first part), tempest is always worthwhile for a melee ranger.
Rogue - Assassin, Mechanic, Acrobat assassin is highest DPS in game and is pretty much always good unless you only fight zombies or something like that, mechanic is not that great but is also pretty near the only way to make an even remotely effective ranged rogue, acrobat has some great abilities that even TWF builds are tempted by over assassin.
Sorcerer - Savant (x4) and here we have the disconnect. see below.
Wizard - Archmage, Pale Master both provide strong choices that add a lot to a wizard.


In the exisiting PrE one PrE really outshines the other choices in each class in terms of playability and usefulness at the end game. There is an exception but it makes the assumption that something works that currently is problomatic. As a cleric right now why wouldn't you be a Radiant Servant? Why not be a Warchanter. Sure the other PrE's provide interesting choices but I keep scratching my hear why on earth would you consider X for Epic or TOD on Elite.

comments in red.

none of the other PrEs are nearly so restricting to the character. when you choose a kensei and choose khopesh, you don't get assigned penalties to using scimtars, rapiers, heavy picks, etc. when you choose an assassin and get bonuses to sneak attacks and some death effects, you don't take a penalty to non-sneak attacks. when you choose pale master and gain necromancy abilities and summons, you don't lose your normal summon ability or the ability to use spells from other schools effectively. when you make a KoTC, you don't take any penalties when fighting things other than evil outsiders.

heck, most PrEs go out of their way to give you some more generic bonuses.

what does savant get? low-level damaging SLAs, which i never needed before because until U9 my regular spells worked anyways. a tiny bit of stacking elemental resistance. a tiny improvement to DPS on one enemy every 20 seconds, while still not having the stamina to actually last a full boss fight with meaningful DPS anyways so who cares. oh, right... i almost forgot about the brutal nerfing of opposing element spells, costing you in pretty much every case loss of access to some very nice spells.

about the only savant that doesn't lose out majorly is earth savant (with the exception of losing out on the cyclonic blast spell, which is not nearly as powerful or common to use and can be replaced elsewhere anyways).

assuming i stay sorcerer, my new plan is to ignore the savant PrE entirely. i guess i'm going to have to retire my sorcerer entirely from the harder epics as well, and frankly i probably just won't play the character much in general. i'll probably take the force damage enhancements to whatever point i can work myself up to caring about, and leave all the other elements at zero. oh, and i'll wait for a day when sorcerers get a PrE that isn't an overpriced, worthless pile of suck. maybe some day i'll even be able to apply to challenging epics without getting laughed at... who knows what the future may bring? all i have to do is wait for turbine to take away all the useful abilities of other PrEs and add huge drawbacks to them instead. at the rate things are going, i doubt i'll even have to wait very long.

[Havok.cry]

I was looking forward to acolyte of the skin pre anyway. looks like i still am.

[Quarterling]

and who now is sorely tempted to delete every character I have so that I have no temptation to ever return to this game.

You can always get them back via character un-delete.

[Drfirewater79]

/signed, need explanations!

Because it makes fire casters useless ... the only reason for this change is to nerf fire wall which is stupid because right now end game has no place for fire wall anyway.

Anyone who goes fire sorc is gimped for most of the high level content.

But dispite how horrible the small cost spells are .... the spell pass if it works against raid bosses makes lighting spec and cold spec casters stupidly over powered.

And force spec'd pale masters are gods. I can do a 1280 point disintegrate on lama... and chain missile and magic missile are ******** could have sworn i saw a crit the other day for over 600. The wind spells are also often untyped ...
now if they would only add neg energy to the force manipulation line and there would be no reason to play anything but a pale master wizard ever.

Originally Posted by Xaxx View Post
and who now is sorely tempted to delete every character I have so that I have no temptation to ever return to this game.

I feel you brother ... i used to play 3-6 hours every night ... since my last stunt on lama last weekend ... i have played a total of 2 hours all week. Already looking for a new game to play ... its sad when i hate playing my favorite game so much that i am more willing to play champions online then DDO.

its a sad day for this game. Of course when they drop to the brink of bankrupt again ... they can always turn the game free to play .. .oh wait they already did that .... ??? what are they gonna do this time to bring the game back from the dead?

[Darkrok]

Because it makes fire casters useless ... the only reason for this change is to nerf fire wall which is stupid because right now end game has no place for fire wall anyway.

Anyone who goes fire sorc is gimped for most of the high level content.

But dispite how horrible the small cost spells are .... the spell pass if it works against raid bosses makes lighting spec and cold spec casters stupidly over powered.

And force spec'd pale masters are gods. I can do a 1280 point disintegrate on lama... and chain missile and magic missile are ******** could have sworn i saw a crit the other day for over 600. The wind spells are also often untyped ...
now if they would only add neg energy to the force manipulation line and there would be no reason to play anything but a pale master wizard ever.



I feel you brother ... i used to play 3-6 hours every night ... since my last stunt on lama last weekend ... i have played a total of 2 hours all week. Already looking for a new game to play ... its sad when i hate playing my favorite game so much that i am more willing to play champions online then DDO.

its a sad day for this game. Of course when they drop to the brink of bankrupt again ... they can always turn the game free to play .. .oh wait they already did that .... ??? what are they gonna do this time to bring the game back from the dead?

I'm actually toying with the idea of looking at Everquest 1 again just for old time's sake.

[Xaxx]

While I have no doubt they can... I also have no doubt they won't.

Oh i highly doubt I'm to receive an answer either, but i feal I'm owed one, along with the rest of us.

You can always get them back via character un-delete.

I've spent the last 5 years on and off forkin over money to turbine, I dont think I'll be doin that if I decide to go

PrE's are supposed to allow you characters to choose amongst options that make them different than other characters of the same class and level if you choose.

The question you should be asking is why play any of the PrEs, not just this grouping. I do agree this set is pretty bad, but lets look at other PrEs currently available:

In the exisiting PrE one PrE really outshines the other choices in each class in terms of playability and usefulness at the end game. There is an exception but it makes the assumption that something works that currently is problomatic. As a cleric right now why wouldn't you be a Radiant Servant? Why not be a Warchanter. Sure the other PrE's provide interesting choices but I keep scratching my hear why on earth would you consider X for Epic or TOD on Elite.

The thing is all those pre's make their classes better (except perhaps deepwood, and even deepwood makes them slightly better), they all have a good upside and a slight downside be it feat cost, ap cost. There really isnt any of them that take away from a character (the am sla's do, but you have a choice about taking them).

Savants all but eliminate an entire element choice for you. Now this was just fine with the decent and fast slas and the ramping up curses, but now... Yes the curse is powerful, but it takes a while to ramp up by yourself... and lets not forget MASSIVE DOWNSIDE in the opsite element, combine that with high ap cost and a feat cost on a sorc...

The posatives barley cover the negatives, and thats not what the pre's have been about, so why is this done to the sorc, and lets not forget the hit that the AM sla's took. I'm not even getting into the spell changes, thats not what I'm talking about here. I simply think we deserve to know why the devs think that this pre is good for the class. Why we should take it, stacked up to the other pres its worthless.

So once again, I've come and gone from this game over the years, 6 months here, 3 months away, 4 months here, 5 months away, 6 months back... etc. I've kept comming back for one reason, I've always enjoyed the basics of the game. While I've railed at some of the changes over the years.. many of the changes over the years, and I've left the game for a time over these changes in the past this just seems different. The way the games been going recently just doesnt seem right to me. I still enjoy the ACS (active combat system), and ease of loot restrictions. I dont mind raiding but replacing gear every 4 months can get anoying. I'm really on the verge of just up and going, and never retruning, and I know for a fact I'm far from alone in these thoughts with the way this has gone on lamania.

I want to know why they think this is a good addition to the class. I think that we're owed that. I also want to see if the devs are still on a track that will continue to evolve this game or if its headed off down these new tracks it seems to be on.

I highly doubt that this will receive any answer, and even if it does it will be something along the lines of *read by a dev* which doesnt help in the slightest. This is simpy a question that needs asked and answered. If they cant answer it, I think we know where the pre stands then.

[Ironforge_Clan]

and lets not forget MASSIVE DOWNSIDE in the opsite element, combine that with high ap cost and a feat cost on a sorc....

Xaxx on your sorc now on live what spells do you have/use? I only ask this because I don't see a massive downside in the opposite element being that big of a deal. I don't know too many sorcs that dable in all 4 elements. Especially with the way the spells are now.

I can definitely see not taking fire because it is basically worthless at end game where water is much better. On the flip side I don't see too many people taking water and gimping the few fire spells they do use...but you never know.

That leaves air and earth. Taking one to gimp the other and still being able to do decent damage in fire/cold doesn't seem to be a big deal. How many sorcs or even wizards are there on live that truly use acid or electric spells? Maybe there will be more now that the spells have had some overall but then again I highly doubt it.

IMHO we are going to see air/earth savants (mostly air for the abundant step) and they are going to just continue to use their fire/cold spells similar to what sorcs do now.

[Linenoise2]

It is truly remarkable how badly they mucked up, what was originally, a great addition. The Savants were creating a rich diversity of Sorcs. I was just bragging to a friend the other day how awesome it would be to have three different Sorcs in a group and they all could of been totally different. When have we every been able to say that about a class in DDO? Yes, there were a few spells that needed balancing but to utterly obliterate the Savant was not the solution. It was obvious that some spells were overpowered but to nerf an entire line obsolete is just poor game management.

The first mistake was the total overhaul of the arcane spell system while also adding new arcane PREs. It is hard to find balance and synergy when you are mucking up both ends of the balance beam at the same time. Amateur move! Given how long Turbine has been doing this they should have known better. **** poor planning by someone. Tsk tsk!

Now that they have made a huge mess of everything they are trying to overcompensate. Acid spells a little too powerful? Let's nerf the entire lot! Reduce damage, increase spell cost, AND increase cooldowns! It is a sad statement that the only comments about these updates that the devs listen to are Youtube videos of a few power gamers displaying their impressive aptitude for playing DDO.

**Note to Devs: Just because a few people are able to do something does not mean everyone can. Just because a few people are able to BRIEFLY stack spell buffs (that should and have been fixed) does not mean everyone can or will. It would be far wiser to model and balance a game that fits the play style of the majority of players. If a few elite players wish to ruin their experience thru meta-gaming and power playing, LET THEM! And I say this not to disparage those power gamers; More power to them! I only say it because if the devs always try to find balance with extremes they will find that most everyone has been knocked down in the constant shuffles.

[B0ltdrag0n]

Im not a dev but I have a reason why you should take the PRE.

Everyone says they want more of a challenge and less easy buttons right? Well here you go. Fire Savant is the "Hard" button for endgame. DOOO EEEEET!!!!! Take the challenge!

[Matuse]

The savant rage in this thread is hilarious. Seems like some people have spent too much time quintuple stacking curses onto those crystals for 6 figure damage, and think it should apply to the rest of the game too.

omg, my opposite element is DESTROYED!

How many of those opposite elements do you actually have on your spelllist, ignoring Fire Wall and Polar Ray?

Hmm, whatever element you are using most is getting a substantial upgrade.
Your ToD sets are giving an actual bonus.
The requirements are things that you probably already have, aside from redoing enhancements because of the new layout.
Maybe you even get to branch out into some new spells that you hadn't tried before.
The curse can't be stacked! You'll just have to muddle through somehow while inflicting 15% more damage than before.

Every sorc has firewall. Every sorc has polar ray. How boring. With Savants, maybe we'll finally see some variety.

[Trillea]

How many of those opposite elements do you actually have on your spelllist, ignoring Fire Wall and Polar Ray?

Hmm, whatever element you are using most is getting a substantial upgrade.
Your ToD sets are giving an actual bonus.
The requirements are things that you probably already have, aside from redoing enhancements because of the new layout.
Maybe you even get to branch out into some new spells that you hadn't tried before.
The curse can't be stacked! You'll just have to muddle through somehow while inflicting 15% more damage than before.

Every sorc has firewall. Every sorc has polar ray. How boring. With Savants, maybe we'll finally see some variety.

I have(had before I TR'd into wiz to specifically get ready for this PrE) a LOT:

Polar Ray and Firewall notwithstanding, I have:

Scorching Ray and Frost Lance
Cone of Cold and Delayed Blast Fireball
I also carried Incindiary Cloud though I considered myself ice-specced.

As for the curse not stacking, it should, otherwise it is a waste of time and SP. The 15% extra damage that it provides is heavily outweighed by other spells that you could throw into the rotation - as it is, it is a wasted possibility.

Add into this that the ToD sets are apparently NOT working as intended, this is a complete FAIL of an update for those that were heavily looking forward to this PrE such as myself.

[Postumus]

PrE's are supposed to allow you characters to choose amongst options that make them different than other characters of the same class and level if you choose.

The question you should be asking is why play any of the PrEs, not just this grouping.


In the exisiting PrE one PrE really outshines the other choices in each class in terms of playability and usefulness at the end game.

Sure the other PrE's provide interesting choices but I keep scratching my hear why on earth would you consider X for Epic or TOD on Elite.

Not everyone is focused on running epic level content. Newer folks like to have different choices and builds that just won't be effective for epics as they currently are, but are a lot of fun to play levels 1-19.


One of our newest static group members was excited to make his paladin a Hunter of the Dead. At first I thought "What??? But EVERYONE on the forums thinks that pre either stinks or is much worse than KotC!" I bit my tongue and said nothing. And now that we have been running more than half of our quests in Necropolis and none involving devils or demons, he's loving his decision and really enjoying his character.

[azrael4h]

Not everyone is focused on running epic level content. Newer folks like to have different choices and builds that just won't be effective for epics as they currently are, but are a lot of fun to play levels 1-19.


One of our newest static group members was excited to make his paladin a Hunter of the Dead. At first I thought "What??? But EVERYONE on the forums thinks that pre either stinks or is much worse than KotC!" I bit my tongue and said nothing. And now that we have been running more than half of our quests in Necropolis and none involving devils or demons, he's loving his decision and really enjoying his character.

I used HotD because I liked have 20% healing amp from being human (first two enhancements), and another 10-20% healing amp from HotD (10% per tier). I also liked being immune to energy drain and having an sp-free Restoration that I could toss out to conserve the Cleric's blue bar a tiny bit (pre-RS). I switched to KotC as I got into the later levels, and started farming Shroud.

[Thrudh]

who now is sorely tempted to delete every character I have so that I have no temptation to ever return to this game.

Heh, after five years.... THIS is the change that's going to make you quit?

Let's offer some feedback to the devs without going crazy...

They probably swung the pendulum too far in one direction... Let's see if we can get them to swing it back a little...

They've been pretty responsive to feedback for the last couple of weeks on Update 9... let's offer some more without going ape-**** crazy