Make new offensive spells a priority.

[Ziindarax]

New elemental damage spells have rapidly become a priority as the design of the savant has unfolded. While we won’t be able to get them in for update 9, we’re aiming for our next patch. I can’t release details yet but we will be hopefully addresses issues that are making some savants less than equal in some situations. Raids/Boss encounters being a particular point of interest.

About some of the recent changes and issues…

The removal of stacking from Savant elemental curses: Raid dps testing had problems with the curses at 75% power. Balance problems.

We have an obligation to try to keep our classes balanced and maintain a certain difficulty in our boss and raid boss encounters. The stacking curse couldn’t really support those goals. As for the current situation we feel that savants can burn very bright right now in the DPS sphere, or opt for a medium to low DPS cycle at superior SP ratio depending on the situation. We like the fact it’s a choice as suppose to, “hell we just kill yonder dragon cause we’re OP”. We are following the folks crunching the numbers right now with much interest.

Acid Savant & Spells: Not where we want them yet….

1. Melf’s acid arrow: had to be nerfed because it was a PRE, and more or less we are sticking with the philosophy level 2 spells really should only be so good. Don’t worry, scorching ray is getting grandfathered in since it was nudged out of PRE land, But as you outgrow level 1 spells, level 2 spells get outgrown too, at least as far as damage is concerned.

2. Acid Rain: was unfortunately propped to Lammania with bugs. First time its numbers were completely out of wack, then it was missing ticks. This spell should now be finally fixed and giving you 4 ticks, admittedly the first with a reflex save. This spell is intended to be a hybrid between wall of fire and delayed blast fire ball. It should do more damage an any instant AOE on average except maybe tying with meteor swarm but at superior mana ratio, and does about half the damage of a wall of fire but twice as fast. I suggest giving it one more spin, particularly since it doesn’t exclude use of other persistent AOEs.

3. Burning Blood: This spell isn’t where we want it to be either, and it’s currently on hold in a diminished state. We’ve had difficulties with it because so many monsters share it and some wacky things would happen with it. Fire and forget DOTs are dangerous. We’ll improve it soon, we just need to be sure about the monster problem so we’re being cautious. Naturally, we are aiming to effect fire savants with this change as well.

4. Acid Fog: While we appreciate the players need for speed, acid fog has a great spell point damage/ratio because of its length and got a no-save armor class debuff added to it. Because it stacks with firewall/incendiary cloud or ice storm we’re not likely to be increasing the damage on this effect. We are very leery of persistent AOE saturation because it makes content trivial when the damage reaches a certain point.

5. But really we need some new elemental damage spells: We’re working on that. Spells like Polar Ray as mentioned in this thread are in our focus right now as their lack of a save and high yield (which punch resistances) make for very reliable delivery.

PRE Cool down adjustments: PRE-spells that take meta magics are very powerful in our design philosophy because they are dirt cheap, and have always had cool downs as an off set, and in theory are meant to be fired in a cycle (all three! 1,2,3). Echoes of power has some influence on this but let’s just say we felt they needed a tune down in general given the cost reductions in other parts of the spell system. Savants got three damage based meta magic enabled spells. We feel that’s very significant tool, and if you don’t you may be one of those people who eats our game for breakfast anyway…

Finger of Death and other death effects not taking Enhancements/Set Bonuses: This is a bug. We’re looking into it.

When you say new spells, do you mean spells like Bigsby's crushing fist?

Will Air savants get an equivalent to Meteor Swarm?

As one suggestion for improving air savant AOE DPS, why not take the fog spell, and upgrade it into a lightning cloud? Those within the cloud take electric damage as they are struck by lightning.

Or maybe introduce unique summoning spells for each of the Savants as well as giving each of the savants a special form to use (For example, the earth savant forms could gain DR and fortification).

[Beldain]

Or maybe introduce unique summoning spells for each of the Savants as well as giving each of the savants a special form to use (For example, the earth savant forms could gain DR and fortification).

Savants should be able to summon some sort of elder elemental as an ability imo... and I'm a wiz, not a sorc =)

[Henrieta]

I tend to use 1-0 for my damage spells, then just mouse over click for buffs. Usually, I keep the most often casted spells around keys 1-5, and/or set keys T,G,Y,H as my other rapid cyclers. This way I can quickly cast while using the movement keys.

I generally only keep one hand on the keyboard, and the other on mouse.

[sephiroth1084]

3. Burning Blood: This spell isn’t where we want it to be either, and it’s currently on hold in a diminished state. We’ve had difficulties with it because so many monsters share it and some wacky things would happen with it. Fire and forget DOTs are dangerous. We’ll improve it soon, we just need to be sure about the monster problem so we’re being cautious. Naturally, we are aiming to effect fire savants with this change as well.

Torc, in another thread I made a suggestion for Burning Blood (and Negative Energy Burst) to be moved to level 5 as a way of reducing some of the over-saturation of good spells at level 4, reducing the burden level 4 has on Fire and Earth Savants and Pale Masters, and as a way to make level 5 a little more competitive. In addition, it has the neat side effect of leaving level 4 with DoT AoEs for 3 of 4 elements (electric needs a spell here maybe) and Pale Masters, and results in level 5 having a single target DoT for all 4 elements (if we cast Burning Blood as both fire and acid).

A further side effect might be reducing the occurrence of Burning Blood in some content as it would get replaced with a different level 4 spell.

Currently, level 4 is really hard for Earth and Fire Savants and Pale Masters, since Earth gets 3 key spells here (Acid Rain, Burning Blood and Stoneskin), Fire gets 3 or 4 key spells (Wall of Fire, Burning Blood and Fire Shield--though almost everyone is going to want this spell--and to a lesser degree Fire Trap...did that get improved? I forget), and Pale Masters who have to take their only 2 necessary spells (NEB and Death Aura) here, which, unlike for the savants, hedge out other important spells--they're left with 3 choices to pick up some combo of Wall of Fire, Acid Rain, Burning Blood, Stoneskin, Dimension Door, Fire Shield, Solid Fog, Ice Storm, Bestow Curse (necro), Crushing Despair (necro) and Force Missiles. With the spell pass, PMs should probably be looking to use at least Crushing Despair (as should many lower-DC casters).

4. Acid Fog: While we appreciate the players need for speed, acid fog has a great spell point damage/ratio because of its length and got a no-save armor class debuff added to it. Because it stacks with firewall/incendiary cloud or ice storm we’re not likely to be increasing the damage on this effect. We are very leery of persistent AOE saturation because it makes content trivial when the damage reaches a certain point.

The problem with this approach is that Acid Fog does rather poor damage, the same damage when Maximized and Empowered as Cloudkill, for more SP, with the only advantage being that it works vs. monsters immune to acid. When the spell really slowed monsters down, it was a solid spell for use vs. trash because it was lowish damage + crowd control in one package that would occasionally be used against bosses as a stacking damage effect. Without that functionality, it dropped off of most players' spell lists. Now it has to contend with Acid Rain that, while more expensive, does much better damage while being 2 levels lower. Do they stack? If so, I'd rather see Acid Rain's damage drop a little bit and Acid Fog's boosted a bit (I may be in the minority on this one, but not sure).

The AC debuff is kind of a nice addition, but the big places where it would be useful (at end game) are:
-Epic Conjoined Abishai Devastator: already hard to see because of the boss' fogs, and will occasionally be healing the boss without the easy off switch of Ice Storm on a firewall.
-Epic VoN 6 djinni: generally, we'll have crowd controlled creatures right around the djinni that can break on being damaged, which lowers the usefulness of this spell.
-Epic Chains of Flame and Tharaskh Arena high AC bosses and sub-bosses: about half of these move around too much for a stationary, long-cast AoE to be quite as effective, particularly when it is a higher level spell (costs more) and doesn't tick on being entered like Wall of Fire does.


The other points you make are excellent and informative. I LOVE dev feedback, and especially posts like this where we see some of the motivation behind changes. It puts an end to speculation while providing some reassurance that you guys really are paying attention and working toward some larger goal.

[Junts]

The problem with acid fog is that even enhanced a ton of its damage is hammered by even a small acid resistance, and most acid resistances are considerably more than small. Even with bypass, its really difficult for acid fog to cope with acid resist.

[sephiroth1084]

The problem with acid fog is that even enhanced a ton of its damage is hammered by even a small acid resistance, and most acid resistances are considerably more than small. Even with bypass, its really difficult for acid fog to cope with acid resist.

Right. I meant to mention this explicitly above.

A long duration DoT doesn't get balanced well by having low damage, because below a certain threshold it's just not doing anything due to either resistance (which is common among bosses) or because monsters are dead long before the spell has paid for itself, which is commonish among minions, and that will be more common in epic.

[steelblueskies]

so no one else saw the comment on "watching the number crunchers closely" and experienced a moment of dread thinking they(or in this case torc) mean(t) the players on the forum, instead of someone in their office?

in turn this left me with "i think we just learned where some of the problems came from."

i sincerely hope they tell me i am wrong.

[Rodasch]

so no one else saw the comment on "watching the number crunchers closely" and experienced a moment of dread thinking they(or in this case torc) mean(t) the players on the forum, instead of someone in their office?

in turn this left me with "i think we just learned where some of the problems came from."

i sincerely hope they tell me i am wrong.

I sincerely hope they're crunching numbers with actual play-testing and observation of scientific methodologies of real application rather than lots of erroneous and unrealistic spreadsheets propagated by jealous or simply spiteful people who are also not doing any real testing or observation of realistic scenarios simply so they can hype an exaggerated and next to impossible "maximum" dps.

Spreadsheets are great and all, but unless you get your end results from actual "field testing" the theory-craft you wind up causing a wreck of epic proportions when it turns out you forgot to factor in perpendicular wind force and resonance into that suspension bridge and it vibrates it self apart on the first semi-windy day.

[Alexander_Illusioni]

so no one else saw the comment on "watching the number crunchers closely" and experienced a moment of dread thinking they(or in this case torc) mean(t) the players on the forum, instead of someone in their office?

in turn this left me with "i think we just learned where some of the problems came from."

i sincerely hope they tell me i am wrong.

Especially since many of the numbers being crunched are just theoretical maximums, not something actually tested. Junts comments about trying to get the optimum rotation of spells hotkeyed nails part of the problem. When the game becomes either program macros to do your key punching, or be a power gamer with mad keyboard skills (alla AMP [actions per minute] as in Starcraft), I think many casual players will loose interest.

[TheDearLeader]

PRE Cool down adjustments: PRE-spells that take meta magics are very powerful in our design philosophy because they are dirt cheap, and have always had cool downs as an off set, and in theory are meant to be fired in a cycle (all three! 1,2,3). Echoes of power has some influence on this but let’s just say we felt they needed a tune down in general given the cost reductions in other parts of the spell system. Savants got three damage based meta magic enabled spells. We feel that’s very significant tool, and if you don’t you may be one of those people who eats our game for breakfast anyway…

I'ma work from a Water Savant's perspective, because that's what I've playtested on Lammania:

DCs for these were : DC 35 Conjuration, DC 37 Evocation

1. Niac's Cold Ray: Conjuration Based Reflex Save, No Damage on successful save.

Let me go ahead and say, this may be useful @ level 6 when you first get it. But @ level 18, when we could theoretically "cycle all three", it is useless. It is worse than useless, because it takes time to cast that I could have spent casting something that actually dealt damage. I'm serious - 9/10 times even the Tiefling Casters in Amrath were saving. Casters classes save on this - Melee/Rogue/Ranger classes naturally always saved. It was incredibly difficult to even determine what kindof damage output this would have on a failed save, because it was that difficult to get a failed save to occur.

2. Snowball Swarm: Evocation Based Reflex Save, Half damage on successful save. Small AoE

I've never used this before trying it on Lammania, except for Risia Cakes. So I didn't really know what to expect. What I noticed is that it was low damage, and the time difference in casting animation - spell effect was so long that mobs would move outside of its small AoE prior to the spell landing. The only mobs that would stay still long enough to use it on them were Archers, which naturally evaded damage altogether. Again, useless because its too difficult to keep mobs in the limited AoE for a short window of time, when I could instead be casting something more useful/powerful

3. Frost Lance: Evocation Based Fortitude Save, Half damage on successful save.

The good thing is that its a Fort Save, so there's no "Evasion" chance - save or fail, there is some damage component. The bad thing is that its a Fort Save, and most mobs have ridiculous Fort Saves. So it is almost always half damage. Targeting/Collision of Lances was iffy - would not always fire/register three Lances, especially if the mob, or myself, were moving laterally to one another.

So, we see the problem. Of the three, Frost Lance is the most likely to cause a damage number at all. The other two are so unlikely to register 1 point of cold damage that they are not worth the Hotbar Real Estate.

Let us go ahead and lay something out there. Wizard DCs > Sorc DCs. This allows them to use save-based spells with more enjoyment, because these spells produce an effect. So, unless SLAs become no-save, or Sorcerers get a way to boost their Evocation and Conjuration DCs (by quite a large amount, it seems), then these SLAs are.. useless.

So, *four* constructive suggestions.

1. The SLA version of these spells do not have saves.
2. The SLA version of these spells use the same DC calculation as the Tier III abilities, such as Icy Prison. This *should* be higher for the majority of casters.
3. Savants also gain +1 to Conjuration and Evocation DCs per tier of Savant taken.
4. Change the Sorcerer capstone to include +2 Charisma, +2 to Evocation/Conjucation DCs, or all three.

The "intent" of Update 9's spell changes, and Savant, was to introduce some spell variety, yes? Instead of Mass Hold, Firewall, and call it a day? To make a large variety of spells viable, and to also give Sorcerers a PrE competitive with that of Wizards?

Well, here is my view: If a spell doesn't do what I want it to do (Hint: I don't want to see the words "Evade" more often than I see a numeric value), then I simply won't use it. I assume most other casters like to use spells in their arsenal that actually have an effect. Really, all U9 has given us is a lackluster curse, and two new useful single-target DoT spells, and made Action Points that much tighter.

Please, please take this into consideration : No one's going to use SLAs that do not work, more less "cycle" them.

[TechNoFear]

The removal of stacking from Savant elemental curses: Raid dps testing had problems with the curses at 75% power. Balance problems.

Now that the curse does not stack, could the cooldown be decreased or make it an AoE?

20 seconds between casts limits the curse's use to only bosses, as against non epic trash, spending the time to individually curse them will probably be a DPS loss.

3. Frost Lance: Evocation Based Fortitude Save, Half damage on successful save.
<snip>
Targeting/Collision of Lances was iffy - would not always fire/register three Lances, especially if the mob, or myself, were moving laterally to one another.

There is also no range check for ray spells so you can waste time and SP if the mob is moving away from you.

[sephiroth1084]

so no one else saw the comment on "watching the number crunchers closely" and experienced a moment of dread thinking they(or in this case torc) mean(t) the players on the forum, instead of someone in their office?

in turn this left me with "i think we just learned where some of the problems came from."

i sincerely hope they tell me i am wrong.

I read it as they were looking at what the math guys on the forums were posting. Not so much as a reason to deliver a nerf, but in fine tuning the numbers, such as Monkey Archer's post that showed the DPS for cycling Savant SLAs and such.

I'm fairly certain that the devs actually do much less raw number crunching than we do, and that at least some of the issues we've had (with spell damage being too low or high, broken weapons that are too weak or the ESoS, etc...) stem from this. I feel like much of Turbine's testing has boiled down to throwing things at us and watching to see how well we handle content: if it looks too easy, remove stuff or make something harder; if it looks too hard, wait a bit longer. If people complain it's too hard, lower the difficulty, often too much. Continue adjusting through semi-casual observation.

Torc's comment seemed to indicate that the devs are starting to realize that they're running a game based fairly solidly on numbers and that they can't just tune things with their gut feeling or limited anecdotal testing, and that they're going to have to get into the nitty gritty a bit.

However, if that isn't a refined skillset of theirs presently, why waste the valuable and finely honed resource available to them? The forumites who are good at that stuff and who already do all of that number crunching, run those comparisons, build those spreadsheets and charts?

[sephiroth1084]

Tiefling Casters in Amrath were saving. .

I'll just point out that Amrath is an awful testing ground for anything with a save DC, as a lot of the stuff out there has higher saves than most epic minions do. Test the spell DCs in IQ quests on hard or elite, or in the lower echelon epic quests.

Also, with how ridiculously powerful Water Savants are in general, having crappy SLAs isn't such a bad thing.

[sephiroth1084]

Now that the curse does not stack, could the cooldown be decreased or make it an AoE?

20 seconds between casts limits the curse's use to only bosses, as against non epic trash, spending the time to individually curse them will probably be a DPS loss.

Maybe give them two stacking curses? One that they can apply as they do currently, and one that works like the Angel of Vengeance curse does, on being hit. Give the latter a higher proc chance than the one the AoV has, but make it not stack with itself, just with the intentional curse effect.

[Junts]

I read it as they were looking at what the math guys on the forums were posting. Not so much as a reason to deliver a nerf, but in fine tuning the numbers, such as Monkey Archer's post that showed the DPS for cycling Savant SLAs and such.

I'm fairly certain that the devs actually do much less raw number crunching than we do, and that at least some of the issues we've had (with spell damage being too low or high, broken weapons that are too weak or the ESoS, etc...) stem from this. I feel like much of Turbine's testing has boiled down to throwing things at us and watching to see how well we handle content: if it looks too easy, remove stuff or make something harder; if it looks too hard, wait a bit longer. If people complain it's too hard, lower the difficulty, often too much. Continue adjusting through semi-casual observation.

Torc's comment seemed to indicate that the devs are starting to realize that they're running a game based fairly solidly on numbers and that they can't just tune things with their gut feeling or limited anecdotal testing, and that they're going to have to get into the nitty gritty a bit.

However, if that isn't a refined skillset of theirs presently, why waste the valuable and finely honed resource available to them? The forumites who are good at that stuff and who already do all of that number crunching, run those comparisons, build those spreadsheets and charts?

Partly because the criticism that a lot of overly optimistic assumptions is extremely true. Any dps calculator that assumes 100% uptime for sneak attacks and haste boosts is completely unrealistic.

[TheDearLeader]

I'll just point out that Amrath is an awful testing ground for anything with a save DC, as a lot of the stuff out there has higher saves than most epic minions do. Test the spell DCs in IQ quests on hard or elite, or in the lower echelon epic quests.

Also, with how ridiculously powerful Water Savants are in general, having crappy SLAs isn't such a bad thing.

Edit: Please don't triple-post. That said, original content below:

A Caster with Greater Heroism is still a Caster. That boosts it's Reflex save by Four, not by Fourteen.
I also went and tested the same SLAs in EV1, including the bugbears just past Angog the Champion, which are by far some of the weakest mobs in Epics (a Crit Polar Ray 1-Shotted one of them). They were equally ineffective against them, or any other mobs in that quest.

I will contend that Amrath is not an awful testing ground - it is a good testing ground, because it is what we do. It is content we play at level 18, when we'd have all three spells to cycle through. I expect it to land less - not to never land. Especially on a toon that has more Charisma/Gear than a starting Sorcerer would.

I used Water Savant as my example because it is the only I've playtested - I can, however, read the Release Notes.

SLAs
Air
Shocking Grasp, Electric Loop, Lightning Bolt
Earth
Acid Spray, Melf's, Acid Blast
Fire
Burning Hands, Scorch, Fireball

Including Water Savant, 10/12 of the SLAs have saves, 9/12 of them Reflex Saves, and therefore are Evade-able. 1 of the 2 No-save SLAs is Touch only.

So, while you may think that Water Savant is most powerful, and therefore should have worst SLAs, I see four different Savant types, and *1* spell of any use, Melf's Acid Arrow. Because regardless of element, the fact remains that when using DC-based Casting, a Wizard wins out.

[Junts]

Edit: Please don't triple-post. That said, original content below:

A Caster with Greater Heroism is still a Caster. That boosts it's Reflex save by Four, not by Fourteen.
I also went and tested the same SLAs in EV1, including the bugbears just past Angog the Champion, which are by far some of the weakest mobs in Epics (a Crit Polar Ray 1-Shotted one of them). They were equally ineffective against them, or any other mobs in that quest.

I will contend that Amrath is not an awful testing ground - it is a good testing ground, because it is what we do. It is content we play at level 18, when we'd have all three spells to cycle through. I expect it to land less - not to never land. Especially on a toon that has more Charisma/Gear than a starting Sorcerer would.

I used Water Savant as my example because it is the only I've playtested - I can, however, read the Release Notes.

SLAs
Air
Shocking Grasp, Electric Loop, Lightning Bolt
Earth
Acid Spray, Melf's, Acid Blast
Fire
Burning Hands, Scorch, Fireball

Including Water Savant, 10/12 of the SLAs have saves, 9/12 of them Reflex Saves, and therefore are Evade-able. 1 of the 2 No-save SLAs is Touch only.

So, while you may think that Water Savant is most powerful, and therefore should have worst SLAs, I see four different Savant types, and *1* spell of any use, Melf's Acid Arrow. Because regardless of element, the fact remains that when using DC-based Casting, a Wizard wins out.

Feel free to cast al lyou want in Amrath; it doesnt change the fact that saves there are notoriously high, especially in the explorer zone, and that when the pack came out, casters with dcs like yours felt the area was completely impossible to land in.

I had little issue with only a 38 evoc dc throwing sla lightning bolts for substantial damage on Lam.

[TheDearLeader]

Feel free to cast al lyou want in Amrath; it doesnt change the fact that saves there are notoriously high, especially in the explorer zone, and that when the pack came out, casters with dcs like yours felt the area was completely impossible to land in.

I had little issue with only a 38 evoc dc throwing sla lightning bolts for substantial damage on Lam.

In... Kobold Assault? At least I gave a locational reference for my testing, two in fact, where were you?

And "Casters with DCs like mine"? Is that a jab? Because last I checked, that was with Max Charisma, Levelups, Enhancements, a +3 Tome, +2 Exceptional, and +2 Yugo, not to mention SF:Evo and GSF:Evo. This is a toon with some miles on it that couldn't land jack. A Sorc with less mileage on it isn't going to fare any better, rather worse. I don't profess to be anywhere near the best in the game, but the SLAs shouldn't be cooked up with the 0.005% of the DDO population that does 3x all Caster TRs in mind.

I also like how you focus on the Amrath part, and not the part where I make mention that I also tried in EV1 with like results.

[Arctigis]

so no one else saw the comment on "watching the number crunchers closely" and experienced a moment of dread thinking they(or in this case torc) mean(t) the players on the forum, instead of someone in their office?

in turn this left me with "i think we just learned where some of the problems came from."

i sincerely hope they tell me i am wrong.

Thanks. Saved me a more detailed post. All the 'number crunchers' are assuming no aggro, perfect timing
and basing their numbers off incorrect spell descriptions which do not match reality.

[Mjesko]

Acid Savant & Spells: Not where we want them yet….

1. Melf’s acid arrow: had to be nerfed because it was a PRE, and more or less we are sticking with the philosophy level 2 spells really should only be so good. Don’t worry, scorching ray is getting grandfathered in since it was nudged out of PRE land, But as you outgrow level 1 spells, level 2 spells get outgrown too, at least as far as damage is concerned.

PRE Cool down adjustments: PRE-spells that take meta magics are very powerful in our design philosophy because they are dirt cheap, and have always had cool downs as an off set, and in theory are meant to be fired in a cycle (all three! 1,2,3). Echoes of power has some influence on this but let’s just say we felt they needed a tune down in general given the cost reductions in other parts of the spell system. Savants got three damage based meta magic enabled spells. We feel that’s very significant tool, and if you don’t you may be one of those people who eats our game for breakfast anyway…

Thank you very much for the information. I think it is very good, that you outgrow the low level spells, BUT the high level spells should be useful. Currently DDO needs permanent Greater and Superior Potency 7 - 9 items to make high level spells useful.

The cooldown adjustments went too far in my opinion. It would be better to have a cooldown of 3 seconds (tier 1), 4 seconds (tier 2) and 5 seconds (tier 3) and the curse should be an AOE spell with a duration of 30 seconds and a cooldown of 10 seconds to make it useful.