Casters are still ridiculously OP at all levels including epic

[voodoogroves]

On the Depths thing ... I run them multiple times on every character. Regardless of build, I can get a 1-2 minute completion pretty consistently. This has NOTHING to do with build/class strengths.

[Rodasch]

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

Don't forget the ranger who soloed shroud to completion.

[Rodasch]

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.

Then you're building your "tricked out" level 5 barbarian/melees wrong dude, I hate to tell you. Because all my level 4 melees completely murder those quests without even bothering to open doors to shrines or slow down.

[Nefariosis]

This may have been mentioned before but I noticed Crazy never complains about divine casters, just the arcane ones that 99% of all self heal like its *gasp* magic. Do you expect a divine that joins your group to just sit in the back and constantly heal you while doing nothing else but staring into space? Do you think arcanes should be nothing but idiots who's sole purpose is to empty their blue bar into your buffs and hold things so you can beat them down? If you answered yes to either of those questions then I think I have found the problem. I'm guessing you dont complain about divines because its one of those things like "dont $h!t where you eat". Cause I know for a fact that my fvs can solo scroll farm any epic just as easily as my wizard. Riddle me this, are you just biased against wiz/sorc?

[Emili]

They do. Haven't you played Framework? Those priest mobs DW and heal themselves and any monsters around them if you don't kill them before they can cast it. There are several monsters who can and do cast dw and heals, and they use them on their allies as well.

It certainly made for interesting times when trying to solo framework. That quest only has 2 shrines total as well, which makes it even more challenging for a caster to solo on difficulties where the shrines can't be reused.

I been here well over 6 or is it 7 years now? Who knows ... does not matter ... over the course added up 59 characters all run to cap, most deleted or rerolled, and of course the baker's dozen of khyber all favour'd out - is a thing with me - I do not feel capped unless that favour is.

and so... 'Course I run those many times since they come out, point is though is that mob seldom do play team-wise is more or less sporatic like a bad pug and the mob which do buff other mob are few and far between. I hop into a quest and I'm prepared for it... the mob in there are not. Even those which do buff some.

I normally solo a high % of what am doing aside from raids or epics and typically at lvls. I normally skip doing norm on lower levels even on a TR... i.e. I never ran that chain on norm ... only elite.

Mob casters are slow ... as are their melee ... which is why they are designed differently with inexhaustable casting and yet less effective spell casting. You can debuff a mob easily enough to remove DW and they will not place it back on for some time... you can also out-dps their healing. Is something they cannot do llikewise.

[KillEveryone]

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.

They could make stunning blows and stunning fists auto crit since it is one target only and there is no variation of stunning blow in a mass sense.

To prevent it being spammed, they could up the cooldown of that maneuver.

More combat maneuvers would also be good but I don't think some people take some of the ones available since the DC, a fighter using trip for example, is going to be met consistently with how high they can have a typical strength so they don't typically take improved trip even if they have combat expertise already, because they don't really need an extra +4 to the attempt.

They should also make trip not look like a disco dance.

[Rodasch]

I been here well over 6 or is it 7 years now? Who knows ... does not matter ... over the course added up 59 characters all run to cap, most deleted or rerolled, and of course the baker's dozen of khyber all favour'd out - is a thing with me - I do not feel capped unless that favour is.

and so... 'Course I run those many times since they come out, point is though is that mob seldom do play team-wise is more or less sporatic like a bad pug and the mob which do buff other mob are few and far between. I hop into a quest and I'm prepared for it... the mob in there are not. Even those which do buff some.

I normally solo a high % of what am doing aside from raids or epics and typically at lvls. I normally skip doing norm on lower levels even on a TR... i.e. I never ran that chain on norm ... only elite.

Mob casters are slow ... as are their melee ... which is why they are designed differently with inexhaustable casting and yet less effective spell casting. You can debuff a mob easily enough to remove DW and they will not place it back on for some time... you can also out-dps their healing. Is something they cannot do llikewise.

It's actually not so easy to debuff a mob when you're trying to control them, kill them, heal yourself with scrolls, wands, or potions, stay out of melee range, and all with very limited spell selection on a sorcerer. If I slot dispels I lose key spells needed for the other jobs...if I scroll dispel, I often simply will not make the cl check to dispel. it's different for a cleric or wizard who has spell versatility and can adapt their spells to the quest on top of getting more spells per level to choose to have in their arsenal going in. It's also easier for a melee FvS who does not need so many spells to maintain their primary effectiveness and can self heal with abandon and little delay.

As for caster monsters...they often cast it before I can get them targetted even when I get them in Line of Sight before they actually become "active". This, in my opinion is fine. They are alerted to danger and should, in fact, be preparing themselves and their allies for the fight. I work around it. But having run framework a great many times on all 3 difficulties, through several iterations of the spawn patterns...I can say that there are times you simply will not kill all the aggroed mini-named shamen or even trash shamen before they buff themselves and others around them when you are going for the "kill all the minotaurs" extra chest, and often they will spawn in groups, one will toss death ward on itself and the others, then they commence healing eachother between casting level drains and cometfalls and what-not on me, while I try to line them up for damage spells in the hopes of killing them faster than they can heal, all while preserving my spell points since there are only 2 shrines in that quest and it's going to be a lot of dead cow-men before that chest will spawn.

That is easier now, after u9, but prior to u9, it was virtually impossible on a fleshy sorc without using potions or dragging hireling clerics to park at entrance to DV me.

Framework is just an example of what I consider to be actually some of the best quest design to date, balance wise, for challenging casters. The geometry of the quest's map even works towards that end, and promotes strategy use among any class or combination of classes that attempts it.

[KillEveryone]

Last time I checked 99% + of AM were WF, meaning 99% of fleshie wizards are PM.
Sorcs can run around with a heal scroll in their hand and still function at near 100% capability.

A barbarian cannot run around with a heal scroll in his hand. Silver flame pots are not an effective source of continuous healing.

These points have all been stated multiple time and you are choosing to ignore them.

Prove these numbers.

Let's see some real compiled data to back up your statement.

Otherwise you are basing your argument on what you want and not what is reality.

Barbarians can us heal scrolls if they build for it, it just isn't effective.

Silver flame pots are not good for a boss fight but you can use them for healing.

What you really want is just to have a healer class and they do nothing more than keep you alive.

[crazydamage]

what's Your Point With This? My First Life Characters All Solo These Quests At Level 4...melee, Caster, Or Priest...doesn't Matter. This Quest Arc Is Rediculously Easy. My Rogue, My Cleric, My Ranger, My Sorc, My Monk, My Fighter....even Several Toons I Deleted After Playing Them Through 1 Level And Deciding I Wanted A Different Build.

Anyone With Any Skill Can Solo Those Quests With Minimal Issues At Level 4 With "veteran Status" Starter Gear (not Even A Full Set Of Korthos Gear, And Mostly +1 Stuff)

Speed + Efficiency

[crazydamage]

This may have been mentioned before but I noticed Crazy never complains about divine casters, just the arcane ones that 99% of all self heal like its *gasp* magic. Do you expect a divine that joins your group to just sit in the back and constantly heal you while doing nothing else but staring into space? Do you think arcanes should be nothing but idiots who's sole purpose is to empty their blue bar into your buffs and hold things so you can beat them down? If you answered yes to either of those questions then I think I have found the problem. I'm guessing you dont complain about divines because its one of those things like "dont $h!t where you eat". Cause I know for a fact that my fvs can solo scroll farm any epic just as easily as my wizard. Riddle me this, are you just biased against wiz/sorc?

If you had read this thread, you would notice, in may of my posts I put "to a lesser extent" FVS.

FVS dont have nearly the same nuking/instant death capability that arcanes have.

BB Kiting can only get you so far.

[steelblueskies]

If you had read this thread, you would notice, in may of my posts I put "to a lesser extent" FVS.

FVS dont have nearly the same nuking/instant death capability that arcanes have.

BB Kiting can only get you so far.

destruction. implosion. hell dot wise theres divine punishment. the copy paste job equivalent of niac's biting cold/eladars surge.

have a healer fvs's in guild doing some tr's to try to up their dc on these(destruction/implosion dc).. wizard for wiz plf bought feat... sigh.

what they lack is a no save death spell equal to pwk. thanks to the way things are now with orange name mobs, it's back to being an oh no my other death is on cooldown and it must die now spell anyway.

which is in and of itself now again only terribly handy in selected easy epics(fens,carnival,parts of von) and pre epic content.

[ProdigalGuru]

Is this thread still alive? Why?

Can't we just shrug it off and /facepalm and move on?

There are so many absurd assumptions, fallacies, elitisms, and deceptive statements in this thread, if it were on my desktop, I would put it in the recycle bin and then shred it.

The guy had a rant about casters, to each their own, right?

Please let this thread die.

[steelblueskies]

Is this thread still alive? Why?

Can't we just shrug it off and /facepalm and move on?

There are so many absurd assumptions, fallacies, elitisms, and deceptive statements in this thread, if it were on my desktop, I would put it in the recycle bin and then shred it.

The guy had a rant about casters, to each their own, right?

Please let this thread die.

when i first saw it posted i thought that. and then, *some* of the responses actually tried to address the issues that lead to this sort of feeling, its merits, demerits, and ways to fix some of the issues not all centered on casters, that lead to this sense of feeling. at this point crazy's input is less useful to the discussion others are having here, but serves to bump the thread and get some replies to the irrational statements, usually with some other thoughts thrown in. it won't die until the cube comes, purely because it's tagline is hot button emotional appeal.

[Madryoch]

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.

Well in my opinion melee should have different abilities as well ... for example a fighter is a good class to get tactical things done like buying time for casters to unleash a devastating move or barbarians to be the zergers that charge ahead of the rest collecting enemy fires or divines passing around their awesome buffs and mend people who need it or if they are that kind of divines to charge to the front and attack things ... Arcanes offering their buffs as well as rogues to do their sneaky stuff and stun enemies ...

I know this requires a whole new design on the quests from that momment on but that way everyone feels useful and all have something about they can say wow dude i love this thing i did ...


Now to Matuse was it? who said that i was delusional for thinking that they would ever keep icy prison the way it was i said some things in my previous post that he didn't comment on :P On top of that out of curiosity how many sorcs have over 41-42 dc on icy prison ... buffed ofc ... i have 44 and all i am lacking is a +4 constitution tome (i used +2) ... Now consider that it's reflex based ... elite horoth has +36 (means he gets at least 38 on a roll of 2) and gets to reroll save every 3-6 seconds i can't tell for sure how it used to be ... on top of that for some reason when u used waveds of exhaustion and waves of fatigue the spell lasted less ...

and let me agree with u that 30 seconds was too much ... would it have been too much if it lasted 6 seconds ?
no save though...

Atm all we got is an ability that deals 500 damage every 60 seconds when my polar ray HITS for 1100+


So yeah thanx for the input there :P it was really helpful ...

Also consider what i said a bit before replying to u ... what if they made fights designed around this ability like as i mentioned before boss having a devastating attack that u HAVE to stop no matter what ... ofc i am also asking of them to make MORE tactical fights oriented around OTHER abilities as well that OTHER classes would get as well ...


I really can't see how could that be bad for anybody...

[pHo3nix]

This may have been mentioned before but I noticed Crazy never complains about divine casters, just the arcane ones that 99% of all self heal like its *gasp* magic. Do you expect a divine that joins your group to just sit in the back and constantly heal you while doing nothing else but staring into space? Do you think arcanes should be nothing but idiots who's sole purpose is to empty their blue bar into your buffs and hold things so you can beat them down? If you answered yes to either of those questions then I think I have found the problem. I'm guessing you dont complain about divines because its one of those things like "dont $h!t where you eat". Cause I know for a fact that my fvs can solo scroll farm any epic just as easily as my wizard. Riddle me this, are you just biased against wiz/sorc?

Yes, Crazy is sad cause his melee is no more at the top of the kill count cause casters and divines are having some fun killing things by themselves instead of buffing, holding mobs for him and healing him.

As i said many other times, out there it's full of nannybots and buffbots, just play with them and be happy, leave the others have fun in their own way

[arch0njw]

I don't know what all this OP'ing wailing is. I am playing a L7 Wizard right now and I certainly don't feel OP'd. If I don't party, I die. If my party doesn't play smart, I die. I have to watch my SP or, yep, I die. Only on quests I know backward/forward/up/down can I be a little more reckless and spent more SP. Even then, I'm measuring it carefully.

Perhaps I'm not playing "right". Perhaps it's because I don't have a 2x TR'd character. But I don't get these OP gripes. I feel challenged, and occasionally die. If that is over-powered... ***, dude.

[slimkj]

If you had read this thread, you would notice, in may of my posts I put "to a lesser extent" FVS.

FVS dont have nearly the same nuking/instant death capability that arcanes have.

BB Kiting can only get you so far.

You should check out the Achievements section sometime and see how powerful the FVS really is. My WF FVS will rue the day the devs twig how crazy good they are.

[Thesoulgazer]

If you had read this thread, you would notice, in may of my posts I put "to a lesser extent" FVS.

FVS dont have nearly the same nuking/instant death capability that arcanes have.

BB Kiting can only get you so far.

Favored souls are the only class, I believe, to completely do a TOD with only that class.

[mystafyi]

Favored souls are the only class, I believe, to completely do a TOD with only that class.

necro's have also done tod pretty much /afk with aura's running

[Rodasch]

Speed + Efficiency

Yes, those two things describe my melees running those quests perfectly. What's your point?