Casters are still ridiculously OP at all levels including epic

[Madryoch]

Well i hope everyone is happy now that Icy Prison is nerfed...

If u wanna talk bout the game remember to talk about end game ... Yeah melee say this and that about our ''superiority'' but hey i am a caster i am supposed to nuke harder where it counts else there's no point in being one ... I do not intend to be anybody's buffbot or anything and i ve been playing for quite a while to have experienced us casters being only that in fights or ur mass hold bots which quite often left sorcs out of party due to the fact that they were not as effective as wizards in most cases unless a sorc had the TOP gear and the correct past lives in order to achieve the same things ...

U want fun ? Then ask of turbine not to nerf casters ... but to add tactics to this stupid game that lacks roles other than ... hate tank , dpsers and healers...

Instead of complaining about our abilities ,complain about the lack of creativity that led to the nerf of intimidate ... or complain about the fact that all who can deal damage can tank successfully or the fact that in order to be effective u need certain splashes so u can achieve it ... or that there's no super attack the bosses have that NEEDS to be stopped by getting frozen or the raid wipes ...

Yes and before anybody who's of the mentality ''go back to wow or rift where you came from'' starts posting these ridiculous arguments think if u are satisfied with the way the game is working atm where i am sick of the end game content even though my char on Orien started on May 2010 and now am so lazy to even bother with raids cause i have everything i could use as top gear...

This is like saying ...''My crystal is bigger than your crystal...''

Wouldn't it be best instead of just argue about such things u tried to put in some nice ideas that turbine MIGHT have tried to implement if people liked em ? Like a unique skill per pre/class whatever u like that would make one essential in a raid ?

Farming scrolls is stupid and alone won't pay off ...

All i see is due to whining posts icy prison got nerfed not for the right reasons ... people would say it takes away skill but then again i ask people who have done end game before ... When did this game require any skill and if it does can u pls describe the skill that was required?Oh and in case melee complain again ... all u guys ever did was attack mobs and hit em ... so Icy prison only added extra damage to everyone including u even freezing the boss so u could deal continuous damage so why were u complaining ? Cause it wasn't u guys who had to endure months/years of being buffbots for people like urselves but once something makes u feel ... inferior to people u used to consider trash suddenly u become vocal about how terrible this new update is...

I am really disappointed by this way u people see things cause it's just making this game not move on to where it should now be but keeping it simple and having to grind ur 5 years in the game to get 1 more stat somewhere that isn't actually helping u at all...I am also disappointed by turbine and the means they do things which would be unthoughtful in most cases and rarely trying to accomodate what the players need ...

This is my personal opinion ofc and u may be enjoying the game or be to old to change ur ways to something that would require more attention or timing or something.

[Teech]

They say trolling is an art form.

Oh? Maybe I'm just late to the 400+ post discussion so I'm asking questions that have been answered before? If so I apologise. I still am in the dark as to the questions that my previous post asked.

I'm not sure. Perhaps I'm the one being trolled here.

[Arctigis]

Oh? Maybe I'm just late to the 400+ post discussion so I'm asking questions that have been answered before? If so I apologise. I still am in the dark as to the questions that my previous post asked.

I'm not sure. Perhaps I'm the one being trolled here.

This thread seems to be about Arcane get all the benefits, Melees are not needed etc. with the prime
example being Epic scroll farming. Make of that what you will. To me, it comes across as thinly veiled
whine because Epic does not have universal deathward and helplessness != auto-crit. The fundamental
problem is that they are trying to have Epic and non-Epic use the same ruleset which doesn't work
IMO.

Melees, can have high HP, high AC and kick out 300 - 500 DPS against almost all targets as long
as they have HP. Whilst this may not facilitate Epic scroll farming, it's certainly useful in the other
95% of the game where the majority of players spend most of their time. I'll agree that casters
are capable of beating that DPS but only whilst they have SP and HP.

I think the utility points are all moot - all classes can take UMD or buy pots.

[Teech]

Ok. So I got neg rep for my questions without anyone attempting to answer them. Cool. Apparently some people are touchy about certain questions and would prefer them not to be asked?

Anyway.

This thread seems to be about Arcane get all the benefits, Melees are not needed etc. with the prime example being Epic scroll farming. Make of that what you will. To me, it comes across as thinly veiled whine because Epic does not have universal deathward and helplessness != auto-crit. The fundamental problem is that they are trying to have Epic and non-Epic use the same ruleset which doesn't work IMO.

I don't know about Arcanes getting all the benefits but it seems quite clear to me that melees are not needed for quite a lot of content. Why else the multiple all caster raids? I don't think there has ever been an all melee raid. *shrug*

I have no knowledge of epics so I won't comment, but my impression is that casters are getting more of the benefits than melees.

I personally think that all those people who mention that 'casters are supposed to be god-like at lvl 20' are basically admitting that they agree.
So obviously, while some casters disagree that casters are better than melees, there are others who do agree that casters are better off and actually think it should be that way. Obviously this muddies the waters for anyone trying to have a discussion.

Melees, can have high HP, high AC and kick out 300 - 500 DPS against almost all targets as long as they have HP. Whilst this may not facilitate Epic scroll farming, it's certainly useful in the other 95% of the game where the majority of players spend most of their time. I'll agree that casters are capable of beating that DPS but only whilst they have SP and HP.

I think the utility points are all moot - all classes can take UMD or buy pots.

Is there any melee build out there that has high HP, high AC (gd enough for epics? really?), and high DPS all at the same time? Again I'm not certain, but I don't have the impression that that is possible. If there are, then I'd also like to suggest that they are the exception rather than the norm. Certainly not enough of them around to fill a whole raid?

If this whole thread is just about scroll farming, then I'll just stop commenting. I do not know enough about that topic to comment. *shrug*

[fluffybunnywilson]

I don't know about Arcanes getting all the benefits but it seems quite clear to me that melees are not needed for quite a lot of content. Why else the multiple all caster raids? I don't think there has ever been an all melee raid. *shrug*

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...rbarian+shroud

[Teech]

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...rbarian+shroud

Thank you. Now I know of one all melee shroud. Yay.
(And knowing is half the battle!)

[fluffybunnywilson]

Thank you. Now I know of one all melee shroud. Yay.
(And knowing is half the battle!)

[Arctigis]

Ok. So I got neg rep for my questions without anyone attempting to answer them. Cool. Apparently some people are touchy about certain questions and would prefer them not to be asked?

Anyway.


I don't know about Arcanes getting all the benefits but it seems quite clear to me that melees are not needed for quite a lot of content. Why else the multiple all caster raids? I don't think there has ever been an all melee raid. *shrug*

I have no knowledge of epics so I won't comment, but my impression is that casters are getting more of the benefits than melees.

I personally think that all those people who mention that 'casters are supposed to be god-like at lvl 20' are basically admitting that they agree.
So obviously, while some casters disagree that casters are better than melees, there are others who do agree that casters are better off and actually think it should be that way. Obviously this muddies the waters for anyone trying to have a discussion.



Is there any melee build out there that has high HP, high AC (gd enough for epics? really?), and high DPS all at the same time? Again I'm not certain, but I don't have the impression that that is possible. If there are, then I'd also like to suggest that they are the exception rather than the norm. Certainly not enough of them around to fill a whole raid?

If this whole thread is just about scroll farming, then I'll just stop commenting. I do not know enough about that topic to comment. *shrug*

This is kind of my point. Using what's achievable in a microcosm to advocate general 'balance' issues is
fundamentally flawed - IMO of course. To use the fact that Arcanes get useful Arcane spells as an example of
them being OP is just plain ridiculous.

[Matuse]

Well i hope everyone is happy now that Icy Prison is nerfed...

If you thought for even a fraction of a second that Icy Prison would be allowed to remain as it was, you're completely delusional.

While technically it was nerfed, I suppose, I would be hard pressed to think of any class ability that deserved it more.

[Krag]

This is kind of my point. Using what's achievable in a microcosm to advocate general 'balance' issues is
fundamentally flawed - IMO of course. To use the fact that Arcanes get useful Arcane spells as an example of
them being OP is just plain ridiculous.

Arcanes and their useful spells are not the issue.
The issue is with melee who can't bring much to the table except /autoattack. Their already limited options are systematically nerfed. Sometimes for a good reason (weighted -> stunning), sometimes pointless or even malicious (U9 special attacks animation).

DPS is no longer the king? Fine. But give melees something else to shine. More combat maneuvers without outrageous drawbacks would be a good start.

[crazydamage]

I cannot explain myself or you cannot read: i wrote: "The tiefling cleric in the first fight in eChrono casts mass DW as soon as she spawns if you are not fast enough to kill her". So yes, you can just web, dance, pwk, fod her, but if you are not fast she casts it, is it clear now?

I cast buffs once inside the quest, casting them before the quest starts would be pretty pointless

So you just want to go back to the blanket immunities..just find a nannybot, a buffbot/mass-holder to come with you in your epic quests, so you can lead the kill count, be happy and stop complaining about casters I can assure you i found more buffbots and healbots than well played casters, so it shouldn't be hard to find them

So you how would you not be fast enough?? Not enough skill? And by the way, dw isnt always the first thing he casts, guess you havent ran the quest on epic much or at all.

[crazydamage]

And pre update 9 I could do the exact same thing on an arcane. Again, your platform regarding your argument is very weak. The only difference between update 9 and pre update 9 lies in the amount of times I would need to stop and shrine.

You are running your TR in a two man group with another caster (divine). Your choice of grouping has you in the advantageous position of not having to select spells you wouldn't normally use; nor expending up to 5 times the spell points you normally would in a quest. You have no one with you that requires buffing. You are running instances with minimal scaling. You are using a trinket that gives you additional sp as well as increased dc's in two different schools of magic.

All in all this argument you have is very weak. By way of your own description you have taken the easiest route you can think of to succeed. This is not what the average caster has to deal with in this game. These changes were implemented with the average caster in mind.

Melee are not the same as Casters, nor is it the other way around. They function differently. You seem to have issues with this. For the life of me, despite your posts I fail to see why. A skilled player behind any class will dominate content. How many 400+ comment threads exist taking issue with stacking sources of stregnth and damage for melee? Because last I checked, the high mark for casting was 52. Compare that with 103+ str on a melee, even if it is limited by clicky/consumable timers.

Actually I zerged the whole thing with him trailing behind. So if anythign I had a handicap vs soloing cause of 2 man HP scaling.

And I"m giving examples like these only to point out to the ignorant just how powerful arcanes are EVEN WITHOUT instant death spells.

And no, no other class can dominate like arcanes can. I can take out a fully tricked out lvl 5 barbarian / melee with Carnifex and a full chrono set or Icyburst/flaming/pure good risia falchion and he will NOT perform even 50% as well as my naked wizard did.

And what didfference does the trinket make LOL +1 to enchant/necro. Did I cast a single enchant or necro spell? No. SP was never an issue either.
I cast about 2 evocation spells per quest and that was enough to complete.

[crazydamage]

This is just an observation that I've made as I read through this forum. Crazy, whenever I see someone make a valid counter argument you tell them they have no idea what they are talking about. Honestly casters are supposed to be better then melees at some things. In fact at lvl 20 casters are supposed to be considered as powerful as a lesser god. And to address your achievement of soloing the depths chain, well done you can maximize spells. Bet you cant keep it up for very long though(also account for the fact that you are a TR and have superior knowledge of the quest whereas a new player would find this quest most likely difficult and interesting.) Your arguments are very one sided IMHO

Who says that casters are supposed to be lesser gods. Who says that a level 20 melee isn't supposed to be a lesser god?

[crazydamage]

Yes, but not in the way you are suggesting. My experiences post update 9 on my melee toons are not filled with the type of desparity and unbalance that are described in these forums. In fact, I've still had quite a bit of fun. The exception being having to figure out how to get my stun dc to a more acceptable level. I feel the need to mention here that since casters are different a 103+ casting stat wouldn't translate to more damage. It would create a dc to end all spell dc's though on related spells.

I really think that people who play primarily melee toons need to reevaluate and consider the steep amount of advantages in game content that favor only those classes. The amount of backlash present due to casters being able to instakill stuff is staggering really.

Consider as well that in order to achieve a 52 casting stat it requires far more in terms of time and investment than it does for a melee to achieve a 103+str. Strength directly impacts the amount of damage melee does. Gear as well. However, any melee has a variety of choices of stacking enhancements, gear, weapons, etc to achieve the high damage they do. And they are far more common than a 3+TR sporting high spell pen and dc. The major majority of caster gear doesn't even stack.

LOL achieving 52 INT requires more investment than 103 now does it?
Please post your Screenshot of your 100 Strength character.
Im betting you dont' even have a character exceeding 70 str.

[krackythehoodedone]

Come on children..Things will change.

I started when 350 hp, heal scroll umd, high AC and a pair of WOP rapiers ruled the game

Ive seen the decline of Rangers

And the rise of DPS/Hit points

Now the Arcanes are top of the pile i dont begrudge them their time one little bit.

I really hate the ''nerf them cos they're too powerful'' attitude

Ok i do see the ''what on earth are we going to do now '' point. I spent over a year equipping my melee with the best Epic gear around..I did an EDQ1 last week and 2 casters and a FVS wiped out the run in 12 minutes.

I didnt even vandalise the paintwork let alone damage anything.

So it does appear that Turbine have created an inbalance which hopefully they can fix without nerfing anyone.I have no problem with the stellar damage but the ability to instakill every Epic Mob in a puff of logic ?

I also see that Epics maybe need a bit of looking at. The characters are so much more powerful now with all the new items and abilities. They are no longer even close to a test for the ''best of the best''

[steelblueskies]

Stabby types moaning over the unfairness of magic and mages, a dnd tradition. they're all just role playing.

From Ed greenwoods elminster making of a Mage:
“Magic!” Dlartarnan spat, crouching down on a balcony and leaning on his drawn broadsword. “Always magic! Why don’t the gods smile on a swung sword and a simple plan?”

he dies moments later, by the way.

you boys all bemoaned epic hold and beat festivals.
how many of you succeeded without the cc? how many deliberately went in without it? if so why?

answers are pretty self evident.

i see a push to up saves.
Save dc's need a once over. For first lifers still gearing out it can be quite the problem.
For fully raid geared less so, although upping saves means even more high handed expectations for dc, and given much of the requisite hardware is in fact an upgraded epic bit, that is a nasty little tangle.
furthermore given the top theoretical dc's require cash money potions with 10-15 minute durations..

The problem really isn't about arcanes, or divines being over the top.
No, the problem is everyone wants to have a place and role that doesn't leave them feeling useless.or being completely excluded from party formation.
Melée runs up to a mob gets close or maybe even gets a swing in, arcanes spell lands, mob is dead or charmed. Melée is agitated. Repeat enough and they feel useless.

Arcane tries to do enough damage to feel they're contributing, applies dots, melée kill before they can tick twice, arcane feels useless.
Arcane tries tries holds and mons die before the graphics fully draw on the mobs. Useless.

poor encounter design providing a specific role with mass hold/web/halt undead as a requisite for efficiency and speed? you moan it''s boring. so how do you provide a comparative role that is desirable and required for epics to the arcanists?
end of the day cc doesn't get the mobs dead, and thus completion cannot be won by pure stealth or cc.
i see monks and rogues complaining epics were too easy now when u9 hit. it was actually less effective to have a 1 arcane 4 melee 1 healer setup through many of them, compared to 5 melee, or 5 arcanes. synergy between classes in a party, especially pugging went down. why? because the need to specialize to be fast and efficient went down with mob health, and arcanes were most efficient at one cast one kill mechanics, rogues at sneak and assassinate, and full melee at swarmkill tactics. mixing them made for getting in one anothers way.

continuing, sands epics were still rough. those complaining of the easy u9 was, still avoided epic sands quests.

other points of discussion.epic in general.
Either it's meant to be started with around half your raid gearing done, or it is pure min max land.
Consider just how much there is to do once nearly favor capped waiting out raid timers.
Work another toon, or try to start working epics toward end gear, or tr.
Most won't have anything out of abbot due to pug difficulty.(have been trying to find a successful pug for this for almost half a year now, no dice)
On khyber Von6 and dq can also be a pain to roll a group for.
Pretty sure you already know this.
Predominance of arcane raid gear to push beyond that 38-40 range on dc, comes from sands and abbot.
For enchant this got eased somewhat by reavers and now the new pack.
Also 56+ level crafts split between two schools(greater abjurations missing for some reason though). of course enchant is now pretty weak.
Greensteel and even dragontouch are accessible but boost survivability not effectiveness dc/dps wise for arcane.
Hound offers pretty much nothing.
Vods got a couple bits, but again more efficiency than dc or dps.
Compare to options and enticements for melée.
no wonder some raids are more common and easier to pug. they are melee friendly and offer more desirable melee gear mutations on loot.

Other thoughts. Iron golem immune to magic but with only 139 hp. Sure that'd be fine.

Blanket magic immunities?
Okay, next add some melée immunities/dr that cannot be broken that are way up there. After all this is about fairness and challenge commingled right?(but make sure to add some melee specific vulnerabilities, like skellies taking double damage from blunt. not simply a dr bypass but a vulnerability. fairs fair)
Granted the vastly outdated game manual indicates a sorceror is "the best ranged attacker".
Guess rangers should forever give up hope of ranged superiority.
By that note half the melée classes are indicated as either cc and defensive, pure offensive dps or mix.
Pure dps from multirole game balance perspective is always overabundant and imminently replaceable.
Too one trick pony, and always better to replace with any equivalent tossing bigger numbers.
This is another core issue.
You want to roll up pure damage dealing bring a min max heavy mindset and then pull information from everywhere possible to justify why your preference should be the way to go for min max purposes.
if you want to say epics are for fully geared out high end players, then epics are for min/max only, and if a fighter or barbarian are not dealing top dps, and aren't providing something more then dps, you should not be in epics with them, right?

but all this started again from complaints of one tr melee underperforming a tr sorceror with a level disparity, in an at level normal quest, purely on the basis of damage output.

u9.1 i'm filling in favor and gathering crafting materials. run elite misery's peak, on a 20 wizard. 30% fire enhancement, 50% potency, maximize, empower, no crit enhancement lines, but arcane lore from cove dagger.
how many ticks, from a level 20 with that setup, of wall of fire should it take to kill zombies, or anything else in elite misery's peak?

answer:2-3.
tell me that isn't effed up?

better spells to use, oh yes. point being of course, if a 20 geared with the above takes multiple ticks to kill in an elite level 3 quest, how's that balance out exactly for the level 3-5?

the scale issue is uneven in that fashion across the games content, and it makes zero sense.

should melee be capable of dealing more damage if going pure dps, yes, on the order of 20% max.
should they be encouraged to do much more than dps in a tactical sense, yes.
should arcanes do less damage across the board, no. should arcanes have uneven damage output ranging from rediculous to petty with commensurate cost(not necessarily in sp alone, but also as a cooldown or time to cast function) yes.
is buffbot a required party role? manual says yes if you are a bard, no to others.
is the manual right?

no simple answers and all the make sweeping change that primarily affects class x and y, but not a,b,c,d,e,f really aren't helping anyone.

we could make the damage stay the same, and keep the instant death. change from sp to uses per day per spell level, and allow slotting a spell at any level if the appropriate feats are owned. would make casting work like action boosts. i slot web at ninth level it uses a ninth level slot and casts of the ninth level slotted web use ninth level uses. can have it slotted at third and it uses third level uses, can have it in both places.

expand spell slots as per srd rules, and work out an appropriate uses per level per day.

means that no matter what you want you are limited in how many wails or fingers you can throw per rest, while still being able to do other things. in fact forcing use of more things, lest you run out. of things to throw. heightened to ninth level low level spells or wail, choose!

only tricky bit should be getting action boost enhancement tech working properly so spellpower boosting items and potions restore uses/day or expand them. well that and only eating uses if the spell actually has a chance to apply to a target.

that would be a real fix, ending one trick pony shows, spamming the same spell over and over.

downside is, the changes required, and party formation. oh well.

[grodon9999]

Who says that a level 20 melee isn't supposed to be a lesser god?

Turbine

[grodon9999]

. . .
So it does appear that Turbine have created an inbalance which hopefully they can fix without nerfing anyone. . . .

That made me spit coffee on my keyboard, thanks!

[crazydamage]

Ok. So I got neg rep for my questions without anyone attempting to answer them. Cool. Apparently some people are touchy about certain questions and would prefer them not to be asked?

Anyway.


I don't know about Arcanes getting all the benefits but it seems quite clear to me that melees are not needed for quite a lot of content. Why else the multiple all caster raids? I don't think there has ever been an all melee raid. *shrug*

I have no knowledge of epics so I won't comment, but my impression is that casters are getting more of the benefits than melees.

I personally think that all those people who mention that 'casters are supposed to be god-like at lvl 20' are basically admitting that they agree.
So obviously, while some casters disagree that casters are better than melees, there are others who do agree that casters are better off and actually think it should be that way. Obviously this muddies the waters for anyone trying to have a discussion.



Is there any melee build out there that has high HP, high AC (gd enough for epics? really?), and high DPS all at the same time? Again I'm not certain, but I don't have the impression that that is possible. If there are, then I'd also like to suggest that they are the exception rather than the norm. Certainly not enough of them around to fill a whole raid?

If this whole thread is just about scroll farming, then I'll just stop commenting. I do not know enough about that topic to comment. *shrug*

The issue is you have 1 Arcane class that not only has the best buffs + utility.
But can also kill 15 monsters at once (whether by Instant death or AOE Nuking) without ever running out of SP (except in rare quests / circumstances).
Arcanes can also self heal and fight at the same time losing nothing, or next to nothing.
These arguments apply to a lesser extent to FVS as well.


You have another class (melees) that can only strike a SINGLE Target a time. Has extremely poor self healing ability, and has no ability to buff aside from clickies.

So you would think that the class that can do nothing aside from strike a single target would excel at it?

Nope, along came u9 and eladars/niacs / SLAS/ reduced sp on polar ray / etc etc.

[fluffybunnywilson]

So you how would you not be fast enough?? Not enough skill? And by the way, dw isnt always the first thing he casts, guess you havent ran the quest on epic much or at all.

You seem to be working very hard to make people not want to agree with you.