Make new offensive spells a priority.

[Beldain]

I wouldn't go to Amrath to test any DC for any of my casters, not if I wanted to see how they would function in general. I can run through Sins solo on my wizard and with 2 or 3 Wails usually clear an entire group of devils and orthons, whereas in the explorer zone solo, I'm typically casting 1 or 2 Wails and 1-4 FoD to clear a smaller group of supposedly weaker creatures. The stuff out there has their saves jacked up by more than 4 points. It's a poor testing ground.

Actually... if you're trying to test effect-on-save spells, on things like the new FoD/Wail, its the perfect place to go.. =)

[Junts]

First of all, comparing Will Saves in U8 to Reflex Saves in U9. Apples, meet orange. Real classy.

Second, PL:Arcane Initiate and PL:Wizard - you do realize that the two of these are equivalent to 9 feats, right? 8x Spell Focus and Spell Penetration?
Even with the best gear, a Sorcerer without a Wizard TR will not be seeing the competitive DCs to combine spells from multiple schools, as well as appropriate amount of Spell Penetration for mobs currently in game, to make Savant and their related SLAs "worth it".
Don't get me started on how difficult sustaining a 44 Charisma on a non-Drow would be - really, start it like at a 38. Even that's 18 +5 Levelup +4 Enhancement +2 Tome +6 Item = 35 Charisma, so still three higher than someone will likely see *prior* to Epic Content. Epic Content should be difficult, yes - it should not create such a gap that it is literally impossible for a specific class/PrE to contribute.

Solid Fog is a 4th level spell - good luck for any Sorc fitting that in.

Besides, all you're showing by tossing out all these spells (Solid Fog, Mass Hold, WoE Web, Single-Target Dance, etc.) is that to compensate for the weakness of these "cheap" SLAs, we have to use spells from our SP pool in order to make them actually.. work. You're making the cheap SLAs not cheap to see results.

Your words may convince forumites that haven't been there to playtest it. But I have: and 1st Life Sorcs/TR Sorcs without Past Lives in Wizard/FvS are going to be weak at their only PrEs.

Considering reflex saves are almost invariably lower than will saves (outside evasion monsters, which aren't that common and are usually not very threatening) and that things that debuff reflex saves do so by much larger numbers than will save debuffs, yeah, I wouldn't be too worried.

The SLAs -are- cheap. They're nearly free. Whether you crit for 1100 (failed save, like i was with bolt) or 500, it still cost 8 spell points. The dcs are the same as your more expensive spells. If you're having problems with the sla saves, you will have problems with all saves, and you will need to design your spell selection to give yourself access to some method of reducing saving throws until you get better gear. Maybe you live without dimension door for a while or the like.

If you're geared poorly, you should expect poorer results than well-geared characters. And you should expect to be well-geared to land on the highest-saving throw monstesr around, which are orange-named mobs in epic, and the amrath explorer zone (no joke here, totally serious). Testing on mobs in that explorer area is like using Bazdor in chrono as your test subject.

Even if you do 200 damage with your sla, it costs next to nothing, which is the whole point. When it does anything resembling good damage, it's great.

Mob hp are down 50% in epic vs live. It only takes a few shots of your expensive spells to obliterate large numbers of mobs. Otto's sphere + otilukes+ball+chain was, for me, often capable of killing 12-15 monsters in a single go, with SLAs or an ice storm around for mopup duty.

Caster dps is outrageously effective on trash mobs, even without using the SLAs much at all.

I'm sorry that reliably killing with your caster requires you to care about your dcs, carry a greater evocation focus item, and may work better for better-geared characters, but the problem with casters on live is that killing monsters with spells actually requires none of those things, because it's done with saveless spells and the only not-readily-available bonus to doing so is 3% more crit chance from the epic dragonscale robe.

Better casters now kill faster than lesser-geared ones. That's actually a good thing.

My illustration re: chronoscope is that any reasonably equipped character (which my guildmate is not, he's an atrociously equipped one who should by all rights suck ass in epic) will get about the same results that he did. His results at dc 32 = future results at dc 36. And his results at dc 36 were that he could easily land the appropriate spells (fort vs arcanes, will vs warriors, reflex vs warriors and clerics) on the assorted tieflings in chrono and similar quests. No, he didn't hold green devils, but they're supposed to be hard. Maybe you do need specialists to deal with them, or simply otto's irresistable the bastards and kill them. Outside the abishai and assorted drow, spell resistance isn't so high that even people w/o past lives giving passive spell pen can't handle them. I carry both feats etc because I like never, ever being spell resisted, but completely ignoring spel lresistance isn't a requisite to use spells that go through it. You're a sorceror, you have 3000 spell points for a reason.

[Missing_Minds]

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.

So you want us to spend twice the SP to do the same amount of damage as WoF even though one is an AoE that mobs CONSTANTLY run away from being hit while WoF you can guide them back into it.

I say "twice" as they are the same spell level, but I honestly forget the new SP costs. If Acid Rain is half the cost of WoF, consider this post mute.

[Junts]

So you want us to spend twice the SP to do the same amount of damage as WoF even though one is an AoE that mobs CONSTANTLY run away from being hit while WoF you can guide them back into it.

I say "twice" as they are the same spell level, but I honestly forget the new SP costs. If Acid Rain is half the cost of WoF, consider this post mute.

You misread. The idea is that acid rain would do, for example, ticks of 300 damage for 10 seconds, whereas wall would tick for 150 damage for 20 seconds, so the net total damage:mana is the same, but the damage:time is different.

[Angelus_dead]

The idea is that acid rain would do, for example, ticks of 300 damage for 10 seconds, whereas wall would tick for 150 damage for 20 seconds, so the net total damage:mana is the same, but the damage:time is different.

That is simply not what the developer's text says, either in the specific statement or as a consequence of the rationales given.

The description is very clear that the intention is:
DBF: high DPS throughput, low DPM efficiency
Wall of Fire: low DPS, good DPM
Acid Rain: intermediate DPS and DPM

The idea is that damage now is better than damage later, so spells that frontload all their damage immediately after casting should make up for it by being worse either in mana efficiency or total damage output. The less time you have to wait for the damage to come out, the better the spell is.

[Missing_Minds]

You misread. The idea is that acid rain would do, for example, ticks of 300 damage for 10 seconds, whereas wall would tick for 150 damage for 20 seconds, so the net total damage:mana is the same, but the damage:time is different.

Junts, you just said the opposite of what Torc stated.

does about half the damage of a wall of fire but twice as fast

Acid rain is supposed to have 5 ticks, and last checked, it was 1 tick per 2 seconds.

WoF is supposed to last 30 seconds, and it ticks once ever... what 6 seconds? So 5 ticks again.

So really, just to make numbers simple, lets say a base is 10 pts per tick which means acid rain should do 5 pts a tick.

5*5 = 25 per 8 seconds.
10*5 = 50 per 30 seconds.

We have to spend two casts of acid rain. Which (I just went to go look it up) is 15 sp a cast, so a total of 30 sp to equal damage of WoF.

Wall of fire is now 25 sp a cast. So we have to spend 5 sp more to equal the damage, let alone mobs constantly run out of the AoE because of the slow casting time.
Casting time = character animation + spell animation + effect hitting.

spell animation is what kills the targeting/hitting of mobs because they just run out of the region before the effect hits.

This is the real irritation because if they aren't there for the hit, NOTHING happens to them at all. It is a spell points WASTED. Where as with WoF has next to no spell animation time, let alone of the mobs aren't there when it is cast, you can drag them back in, same with Ice Storm
Ice Storm has a faster spell animation as well, but also it slows creatures down let alone does blunt damage.

WoF = 2d4 + lvl (15) (relfex save on enter/leaving, none for standing in it)
Ice storm = 1d6 + lvl (15) + 2d6 (no changes stated... auto hit? Ice and force enhancements needed.)
Acid Rain = 1d4 + lvl (15) (reflex save for inital only.)

Essentially the last spell pass, acid rain got nerfed hugely over compared to the other elements of the same level. Heck, just look at it. Ice storm rules over all of them, and its SP cost never got adjusted, it is still 25 sp according to the notes.

[Junts]

Junts, you just said the opposite of what Torc stated.



Acid rain is supposed to have 5 ticks, and last checked, it was 1 tick per 2 seconds.

WoF is supposed to last 30 seconds, and it ticks once ever... what 6 seconds? So 5 ticks again.

So really, just to make numbers simple, lets say a base is 10 pts per tick which means acid rain should do 5 pts a tick.

5*5 = 25 per 8 seconds.
10*5 = 50 per 30 seconds.

We have to spend two casts of acid rain. Which (I just went to go look it up) is 15 sp a cast, so a total of 30 sp to equal damage of WoF.

Wall of fire is now 25 sp a cast. So we have to spend 5 sp more to equal the damage, let alone mobs constantly run out of the AoE because of the slow casting time.
Casting time = character animation + spell animation + effect hitting.

spell animation is what kills the targeting/hitting of mobs because they just run out of the region before the effect hits.

This is the real irritation because if they aren't there for the hit, NOTHING happens to them at all. It is a spell points WASTED. Where as with WoF has next to no spell animation time, let alone of the mobs aren't there when it is cast, you can drag them back in, same with Ice Storm
Ice Storm has a faster spell animation as well, but also it slows creatures down let alone does blunt damage.

WoF = 2d4 + lvl (15) (relfex save on enter/leaving, none for standing in it)
Ice storm = 1d6 + lvl (15) + 2d6 (no changes stated... auto hit? Ice and force enhancements needed.)
Acid Rain = 1d4 + lvl (15) (reflex save for inital only.)

Essentially the last spell pass, acid rain got nerfed hugely over compared to the other elements of the same level. Heck, just look at it. Ice storm rules over all of them, and its SP cost never got adjusted, it is still 25 sp according to the notes.

Wall also ticks every 2 seconds. All persistent damage effects on DDO tick at exactly the same time every 2 seconds.


Ice storm was changed. It scales on a 1 per 2 levels scale now, though that still actually makes it slightly more than firewall on average by a point or two.

Prior to the change, acid rain was doing 4x cone of cold for the price of one spell w/o a save.

[Missing_Minds]

Wall also ticks every 2 seconds. All persistent damage effects on DDO tick at exactly the same time every 2 seconds.

Ticking time of Wall on live is not 2 seconds, nor have I seen release notes stating that. Acid Rain has a faster tick than WoF on live, and I think CK has a faster tick as well. AF does have the same tick as a WoF. I want to say that Ice Storm has a slower tick than Wof, but that could be a perception with animation.

If they truly made everything tick the same at 2 spt....

Acid rain has a duration of 8 sec, so 5 hits.
WoF has a duration of 30 sec, so 16 hits.

*looks at that dice damage again* Emm... yeah. Two casts for 10 hits, vs WoF one cast for 16. Right. V formation and door blocking just made WoF stronger by far. But the kiting took a major hit to where it acts more like a BB.

"Ice Storm: The spell now deals 1d6 cold damage + 1 per level, up to 10 levels, with an additional 2d6 of blunt damage. Force enhancement lines now work on this spell. The spell uses the highest enhancement line to determine additional damage, and does not allow multiple enhancement lines to affect the spell."

So it isn't half, just caps at 10, rather than 15 like the others. I got that part wrong unless the release notes are not correct either.

[budalic]

Acid Rain = 1d4 + lvl (15) (reflex save for inital only.)

Actually, it's 1d4 damage per level, up to 15d4, with ref save on first tick. I still think that lowering it's damage dice and adding ref save on first tick was overnerf - one of those two should be removed, or spell should get a tick or two extra to compensate. I think it should deal a bit more overall damage to be comparable with more sp effective choices, like firewall/ice storm.

I also think that multitarget nukes are still off. Not much reason to cast them over multitarget DoTs. Perhaps they should be buffed in damage department somehow...

[Missing_Minds]

Actually, it's 1d4 damage per level, up to 15d4, with ref save on first tick. I still think that lowering it's damage dice and adding ref save on first tick was overnerf - one of those two should be removed, or spell should get a tick or two extra to compensate. I think it should deal a bit more overall damage to be comparable with more sp effective choices, like firewall/ice storm.

I also think that multitarget nukes are still off. Not much reason to cast them over multitarget DoTs. Perhaps they should be buffed in damage department somehow...

*goes back to re read again* You are correct. *sigh* thank you. Yet again why I flipping hate their game notation ****. Having to hunt for "dice notation" constantly screws me up.

That would make it more comparative indeed.

Now if they have taken care of the spell animation issue allow mobs to run away, I'm set.

[Cyr]

We are following the folks crunching the numbers right now with much interest.

This is the most disturbing developer quote I have read in some time.

This should be a primary responsibility, early in the design process, of the developers making changes. The recent analysis of dps of stacked savants was extremly flawed by players, because they don't have access to the base code. Waiting for players to do your math for you and assuming they are doing it right is no way to balance a game.

Do your own math developers and keep it up to date with each change. Only that way can you ever hope to have accurate numbers.

Torc, you say savants were burning too bright... So tell us what the desired dps numbers for them actually are and the sp/damage ratios.

[Angelus_dead]

This should be a primary responsibility, early in the design process, of the developers making changes. The recent analysis of dps of stacked savants was extremly flawed by players, because they don't have access to the base code. Waiting for players to do your math for you and assuming they are doing it right is no way to balance a game.

Well, it's fine for developers to pay close attention to player analysis, so they can see if players are coming to the same conclusions they did. That can help verify that the version that was released is the same as what they intended to put out (both in terms of announced changelog and executable software). Sometimes a developer will do an excellent design on paper or in sim, but then not notice that some bugs are preventing the game from actually following the design completely. The evaluation of a 3rd party who didn't have preconceptions about the design can help catch such errors.

But if you interpret it as them not having done the math previously, then of course that totally is bad. And the DDO team has been caught having skipped out on some obligatory damage balance math before. A few examples (probably reaching back to different personnel) include the unequal greataxe/falchion attack rates, the twitching attack rate, additive metamagic costs, and the superiority of Monk kama over handwrap.

That last one was particularly clear cut: when they originally released the Monk class to the public, for a Monk to use handwrap combat past about level 6-9 or something was simply a mistake, because TWF kama provided about +70-90% attack rate, special rate, and Ki income. They actually thought it was fine that handwraps were incompatible with TWF feats. That huge flaw was analytically discovered by two separate players within 2-3 hours of Monks being released on a public test server; so how had the class gotten past so many dev and QA staff to make it that far?

[Cyr]

Well, it's fine for developers to pay close attention to player analysis, so they can see if players are coming to the same conclusions they did. That can help verify that the version that was released is the same as what they intended to put out (both in terms of announced changelog and executable software). Sometimes a developer will do an excellent design on paper or in sim, but then not notice that some bugs are preventing the game from actually following the design completely. The evaluation of a 3rd party who didn't have preconceptions about the design can help catch such errors.

Of course there is value in players catching bugs with their math that the developers did not catch themselves.

This is not the case here. It is painfully obvious that the math was not done here...as was the case in the examples you cited also. I find it telling that whenver 'balance' is cited by the developers I have never seen them demonstrate that they have done the math. Heck, I've never seen them state a benchmark that is math based for the 'sweet spot' they are trying to reach for any particular change.

[Egeus]

Just to post this again....

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x...041105a&page=3

"Vitriolic Sphere: Potent acid deals 1d4/level damage (max 15d4) plus possible damage in following two rounds." -- Level 5

"Earthquake: Intense tremor shakes 80-ft. radius." -- Level 7 (8 for Wu Jen). No damage listed, but I'm sure we can think of SOMETHING. Or perhaps a mass stun vs Reflex/Fort, a la Web? That's make him a nice epic partier. Maybe both!