What with more than 1 caster=100% chance on failed raid mentality?

[NinjaNeed]

Agree for high-level content.

Many mid-range casters refuse to acknowledge the fact that no matter how far you stay away from the boss or how good your CC is, having a decent amount of hp (at least 300s unbuffed) is mandatory for high-level raids and epic content.

It's not very hard to raise a caster's HP to this range, assuming you didn't start with 8 CON for god's sake.

Exactly! I remember an epic ADQ with only one wizard, he died to the spiral blade things, was ressed up, died again, repeat until healers ran out of power ressing him. We wiped. Regrouped without the caster and took the boss down easily with just melee.

Con is NOT a dump stat and Toughness IS needed! When we start seeing casters with over 300 and even better, 400hp then I imagine they will be accepted as dps until then they are a liability.

[sojen]

Mine was my first character and he has 362hp without all the gear i need, will definitely have over 400 soon. 300hp is maybe minimum acceptable but still very low imho.

[goodspeed]

stats to live by. max the spell stat, slap the rest in con. What else ya gonna do with em? STR? DEX? WIS? ok maybe int if you wanted some more skill points.

As far as shroud no way a hot tick like that would go off. Ive come to learn something about raids, usually a 4th has no idea *** is going on. (seriously, stand there and watch em next time. T heir's people just staring blankly at 6 others surrounding a mob.

So I like to play the roll of the help buffer for the heal then go into damage a bit later, then I know hates on so thick an ice pick couldn't get at it. A sorc aint a tank, not mine anyway. However half the time neither are any of the melee.

[Cyr]

Depends on the builds in question. I think this is one of those rogues have a bad name because of all the guys in sneak mode with under 350 hp at cap things. Squishy casters are far too common in end game also. It's all good if the player behind the keys is top notch at their twitch skills and lag free, but without that margin of error being allowed for others it gets into a bit of a danger zone.

With solid casters hands down they beat out melee for a slot now though. The difference in caster power from update 8 to update 9 was truly astonishing.

[MsEricka]

Even before the spell pass, casters were DPS if built properly. And the same still goes honestly but it's a little bit better.

I had no issues taking 4 or 5 arcanes in our guild shroud runs, sure the portals were a bit slow, but parts 4 and 5 were fast. And now I still have no issues with 4 or 5 arcanes.

[Jaid314]

The mentality behind this is survivability.

Yes casters now do great dps and can easily replace a barb/fighter/paladin ect. But there are too many casters with only 200hp. 200hp is NOT enough to take a hit in a high level raid and survive.

I ran a shroud a couple of days ago and being fully aware of the great dps casters can do I decided to just take the first 9 dps guys to apply (9 + me + 2 healers = 12 btw!). I had four casters apply for the group, did a quick "myddo" search and found three of them had below 250hp so rejected them. Before they were "real" dps this lack of hp was not such a big problem as they just had to stay out of the way and haste/rage the melee, but now they can be the target of a fireball hitting for 300 to 400 damage and then be dead.

orly?

when i get hit by a fireball, it's usually reduced down to almost nothing. it's the meteor swarm that can hurt... and even that, if i have fire shield running, is usually not a huge deal. a quick heal scroll and i'm back at full health, usually.

[Therigar]

(except tank Horoth and one or two other bosses).

I'm thinking that built right this isn't going to be true. I've seen a couple of builds that I think might manage now and I'm seeing a lot of ideas on builds meant specifically to accomplish this.

Since most of those quests are run on normal the key elements are evasion and enough HP to live thru to the heals. Getting an holding aggro is the easy part.

[Isharah]

orly?

when i get hit by a fireball, it's usually reduced down to almost nothing. it's the meteor swarm that can hurt... and even that, if i have fire shield running, is usually not a huge deal. a quick heal scroll and i'm back at full health, usually.

I like the many "usually"s there. XD I still remember when I made my first sorc last year. I had something like 232 HP. I would enter part 4 of Shroud knowing that if Harry decides to spit a fireball or meteor swarm at me, i'm off to pikeland. XD

Still, consider the scenario when you run other raids like ToD, eADQ, eVoN, and eChrono with less than 300 HP. You probably wouldn't want to lose your ship buffs in the middle of the raid.

[Jaid314]

I like the many "usually"s there. XD I still remember when I made my first sorc last year. I had something like 232 HP. I would enter part 4 of Shroud knowing that if Harry decides to spit a fireball or meteor swarm at me, i'm off to pikeland. XD

Still, consider the scenario when you run other raids like ToD, eADQ, eVoN, and eChrono with less than 300 HP. You probably wouldn't want to lose your ship buffs in the middle of the raid.

you should not be running epic *anything* (ok, maybe big top & co) with <300 HP, regardless of class.

~350 HP unbuffed is super-easy to get at level 20. the "hardest" items to farm to reach that point are a minos legens and a con 6/GFL belt. and i guess the +2 tome if you're completely incapable of saving up your plat to buy one.

the problem here is that you built a caster and sacrificed toughness for... what... carrying capacity? more skill points? better will saves? please tell me you didn't dump-stat con and put your points into dex...

build a decent sorcerer, and the rest falls into place. the only two stats you really even need are cha and con, and my first life 28 point human sorcerer easily got up to 352 HP before buffs. the problem here is that you're running a 230 hit point sorcerer, not that a sorcerer can't be decently tough.

the "usually" is because sometimes harry decides he really doesn't like me today and lobs several castings of meteor swarm at me, and sometimes there's too much lag for me to be able to dodge it. apart from the transition to part 5, i'd say my sorcerer has died in maybe 2 out of 50+ shroud runs.

[Isharah]

you should not be running epic *anything* (ok, maybe big top & co) with <300 HP, regardless of class.

I think this has already been established a few posts ago.

Hmmm I think we misunderstood each other.

When NinjaNeed said this,

The mentality behind this is survivability.

Yes casters now do great dps and can easily replace a barb/fighter/paladin ect. But there are too many casters with only 200hp. 200hp is NOT enough to take a hit in a high level raid and survive.

I ran a shroud a couple of days ago and being fully aware of the great dps casters can do I decided to just take the first 9 dps guys to apply (9 + me + 2 healers = 12 btw!). I had four casters apply for the group, did a quick "myddo" search and found three of them had below 250hp so rejected them. Before they were "real" dps this lack of hp was not such a big problem as they just had to stay out of the way and haste/rage the melee, but now they can be the target of a fireball hitting for 300 to 400 damage and then be dead.

...you replied with this

orly?

when i get hit by a fireball, it's usually reduced down to almost nothing. it's the meteor swarm that can hurt... and even that, if i have fire shield running, is usually not a huge deal. a quick heal scroll and i'm back at full health, usually.

Which implied to me that you find low HP acceptable since "when i get hit by a fireball, it's usually reduced down to almost nothing."

And for this,

build a decent sorcerer, and the rest falls into place. the only two stats you really even need are cha and con, and my first life 28 point human sorcerer easily got up to 352 HP before buffs. the problem here is that you're running a 230 hit point sorcerer, not that a sorcerer can't be decently tough.

just to set the records straight, my sorcerer runs around epics with 425 HP completely unbuffed and without the toughness feat, which is quite acceptable IMO.

Cheers.

[TheDjinnFor]

Repost of a response to another thread:

I would take a random melee over a random caster any day. Most random melees can at least stand in a circle around harry and hold down the attack button, but most PuG casters think 'good dps' involves using Arcane Bolt or Necrotic Touch, ever. FYI, casters, it may be mana efficient, but just standing there throwing Arcane Bolt every three seconds at Harry is quite literally the worst end-game DPS in the game. And there are so many other good spells that the time you spend casting it is, quite frankly, wasted. Who cares if its mana efficient when you have over half your sp left? Cast real spells like Niac's Biting Cold, Eladar's Electric Surge, Polar Ray, Cyclonic Blast, and Chain Missiles, so that we finish the round faster.

True story: I took 4 wizards into a shroud and had a newbie cleric solo healing it. We almost wiped the second round of pt 4, with only three left alive after the end of it. Three of them had over 50% of their sp left when they took a meteor swarm to the face a quarter through the second round, partially thanks to the fact that a few of the squishier melees couldn't handle being in the blades when there's only one person throwing heals. The fourth was, thankfully, OOM when he died, but the other three pikers had no excuse.

[Rasczak]

bah, our 20min all caster hard shroud couldn't have happened according to PuG leaders

[stille_nacht]

When I've run The Thirteenth Eclipse recently there is usually multiple casters. One run a week ago had only like four melee in it.

anyone who wouldnt accept more than 1 caster even before sorcs got savant was what i like to term an "elitist noob".

3 casters was perfectly fine for the likes of normal shroud, perhaps even 4. simply put, its not a hard quest, compounded with the fact that non DR breaking, poorly built/geared melees do less damage then spamming casters.... it just doesnt really matter.

really for shroud, all you need for a 1rounder is 6 people doing actual good DPS, the rest are pile ons

[Jaid314]

I think this has already been established a few posts ago.

Hmmm I think we misunderstood each other.

When NinjaNeed said this,



...you replied with this



Which implied to me that you find low HP acceptable since "when i get hit by a fireball, it's usually reduced down to almost nothing."

And for this,



just to set the records straight, my sorcerer runs around epics with 425 HP completely unbuffed and without the toughness feat, which is quite acceptable IMO.

Cheers.

normal shroud is a different critter altogether from epics. apart from the very easiest epics, normal shroud is a cakewalk in comparison.

and yes, you should be fine with even 200 HP (and potentially less) in shroud normal. 1 heal scroll puts me back at full, like i said. that's usually ~130 healing in part 4, or ~120 in part 5. a 200 HP caster will likely be able to take two shots and be fine.

also, it has absolutely nothing to do with casters being good DPS in shroud now. harry's aggro is random. in fact, i've noticed a lot of people who are completely clueless when it comes to that, so let me repeat it: Harry's aggro is random. he does not turn and throw a meteor swarm at your face because you dealt so much damage, he does that because you exist at all and therefore he is going to try to kill you. you could be a 10 cleric/6 wizard spamming scorching ray at harry (and dealing 0 damage) and he would still shoot fireballs and meteor swarms at you.

the only reason 200 HP might be more of a problem is if you don't have enough melee to hold harry in place, or if you don't have enough melee to catch that fireball in the face before it gets to your casters. and then only if he spams those spells at you and you do nothing about it.

would i want a random 200 HP capped caster in my shroud? not particularly. it's not hard to get decent hit points, it's a good investment to have more HP anyways, and the poor build suggests a higher chance of a poor player. do i think it's actually an unsurmountable problem in any way? nope. it would be better to have more, but it's quite doable with less.

[Madryoch]

normal shroud is a different critter altogether from epics. apart from the very easiest epics, normal shroud is a cakewalk in comparison.

and yes, you should be fine with even 200 HP (and potentially less) in shroud normal. 1 heal scroll puts me back at full, like i said. that's usually ~130 healing in part 4, or ~120 in part 5. a 200 HP caster will likely be able to take two shots and be fine.

also, it has absolutely nothing to do with casters being good DPS in shroud now. harry's aggro is random. in fact, i've noticed a lot of people who are completely clueless when it comes to that, so let me repeat it: Harry's aggro is random. he does not turn and throw a meteor swarm at your face because you dealt so much damage, he does that because you exist at all and therefore he is going to try to kill you. you could be a 10 cleric/6 wizard spamming scorching ray at harry (and dealing 0 damage) and he would still shoot fireballs and meteor swarms at you.

the only reason 200 HP might be more of a problem is if you don't have enough melee to hold harry in place, or if you don't have enough melee to catch that fireball in the face before it gets to your casters. and then only if he spams those spells at you and you do nothing about it.

would i want a random 200 HP capped caster in my shroud? not particularly. it's not hard to get decent hit points, it's a good investment to have more HP anyways, and the poor build suggests a higher chance of a poor player. do i think it's actually an unsurmountable problem in any way? nope. it would be better to have more, but it's quite doable with less.

Thanx for pointing these wise things ... captain Obvious *rolls eyes*

LoL don't turn this thread into another why do casters start with 8 con or look how 1337 i am i pwn with fireshield ...

On top of that i bet meteor swarms with 200 hp on failed save u can survive .... suuuure ... it's not like lots of that damage is physical non fire thus unaffected...

[Isharah]

... it would be better to have more, but it's quite doable with less.

Anything is "doable" per se. It's just the matter of how you look at it.

You can have 200 HP, die n times in a Shroud run, successfully complete, and say that it is "doable" with your build. Or Harry can decide you're too insignificant to bother with and not even decide to touch you, and end up surviving with 1/1 HP, and you can claim that it is "doable" with 1 HP. (/exaggeration)

Being able to survive in a handful of Shroud runs with such a toon will not have any impact on the viability of his build. "Succeeding most times" is not enough; it is more like "failing only on special occasions".. Consistency plays a big role, and with 200 HP I doubt that one could be consistent in terms of survival, unless it's consistently NOT surviving. And this is something that people are trying to avoid by rejecting toons with low HP from Shroud parties.

I don't know about Harry in the server you play in, or what hax you are using on your 200 HP toon. But in Orien, Harry can easily kill a 200 HP toon with a stare and a poke.


EDIT: Oh, and this.

On top of that i bet meteor swarms with 200 hp on failed save u can survive .... suuuure ... it's not like lots of that damage is physical non fire thus unaffected...

Cause we all know, all casters have high int and insightful reflexes, especially sorcerers!!

[Jaid314]

perhaps you should try moving. barring extreme lag, you should never take full direct-hit damage from a meteor swarm, nor should you take *any* of the untyped damage. that leaves you only needing to worry about the fire splash damage, which is quite easy to reduce to very low amounts because you should have 2 buffs running (resist energy:fire and fire shield).

as for shroud, well, you picked it out, not me. 250 HP (or even 200 HP) on a caster is certainly not great, but neither is it an instant guaranteed fail. personally, like i said, mine have more than that, but they don't have more than that because they need it for shroud; they have more than that because it's needed elsewhere (and hey, it doesn't exactly hurt in shroud either).

if you don't want shroud to be your example end-game raid, you shouldn't have picked it. it's a good raid, has awesome loot, still gets run a lot... and is a joke. if your success in the shroud hinges on the caster having enough HP to withstand repeated meteor swarms without healing in between, your raid has probably already failed anyways. when it first came out, maybe then it was challenging and you needed to be geared like crazy to do it. nowadays, well... there's a reason you hear about people wanting to try crazy ideas like "all barbarian shrouds", and that's because people are bored of it but still want the loot, so they try crazy things in order to try to make it less of a cakewalk.

[DDOisFree]

My problem with this issue is that I have a caster. He is far from the best, but is a very good caster and I play him very well.

For normal content and raids, I dont mind taking up to 3 casters in my group, providing that they have a good amount of HP like mine, and know how to play their class well. Some things like EXP farming I can even take full caster groups and dont mind doing so.

However I refuse to accept any caster that has fewer than 200 HP at level 12 and up, and fewer than 350 (preferably 400) at level 20, because mine has a lot more than this and it isnt very hard to do.

Also in a lot of 6 man epic groups, there is rarely any space for me to take another caster, as I always like to have my Wizard or someone at least equal to him if I am playing on an alt, one bard and one healer, plus 3 melee DPS characters, or 4 melee DPS if there is no bard available. This is because in epics, I like to cast extended rage, haste, and mass holds / iressistable dance, and having a team of melees to kill stuff while I CC and buff is my favorite approach. Caster damage is useless in epics, other than DoTs on bosses, CCs and some FoD (on enemy casters), Symbol of Death and Circle of Death is what works the best on epic mobs, plus dots on bosses.

I also use a 3 piece epic chrono set, plus an infused chaos robe and eardweller click when casting DoTs on bosses. This gives me a caster level of 24 and double damage which works really well on bosses, and for everything else I have 42 necro, 41 enchant, and 40 conjuration DC. I can handle all of the CC, Death Spells, and caster DPS roles in any epic, I know how to do so and am good at rapidly changing my strategy and approach based on what would work best in any situaton.

The first thing I ask wizards / sorcs that want to join me on my other level 20 character is 'Hi, what is your HP and Enchant DC'. If either is too low, or they try to evade the question with someting like 'I am an Archmage (defense for low HP)', or 'I am a pale master (defense for low enchant DC), I decline them because they are not specced well enough compared to my Wizard.

Probably 90% of wizards / sorcs in this game are complete gimps and built terribly. I refuse to have those in my group, and only want casters from the other 10%.

[Jaid314]

My problem with this issue is that I have a caster. He is far from the best, but is a very good caster and I play him very well.

For normal content and raids, I dont mind taking up to 3 casters in my group, providing that they have a good amount of HP like mine, and know how to play their class well. Some things like EXP farming I can even take full caster groups and dont mind doing so.

However I refuse to accept any caster that has fewer than 200 HP at level 12 and up, and fewer than 350 (preferably 400) at level 20, because mine has a lot more than this and it isnt very hard to do.

Also in a lot of 6 man epic groups, there is rarely any space for me to take another caster, as I always like to have my Wizard or someone at least equal to him if I am playing on an alt, one bard and one healer, plus 3 melee DPS characters, or 4 melee DPS if there is no bard available. This is because in epics, I like to cast extended rage, haste, and mass holds / iressistable dance, and having a team of melees to kill stuff while I CC and buff is my favorite approach. Caster damage is useless in epics, other than DoTs on bosses, CCs and some FoD (on enemy casters), Symbol of Death and Circle of Death is what works the best on epic mobs, plus dots on bosses.

I also use a 3 piece epic chrono set, plus an infused chaos robe and eardweller click when casting DoTs on bosses. This gives me a caster level of 24 and double damage which works really well on bosses, and for everything else I have 42 necro, 41 enchant, and 40 conjuration DC. I can handle all of the CC, Death Spells, and caster DPS roles in any epic, I know how to do so and am good at rapidly changing my strategy and approach based on what would work best in any situaton.

The first thing I ask wizards / sorcs that want to join me on my other level 20 character is 'Hi, what is your HP and Enchant DC'. If either is too low, or they try to evade the question with someting like 'I am an Archmage (defense for low HP)', or 'I am a pale master (defense for low enchant DC), I decline them because they are not specced well enough compared to my Wizard.

Probably 90% of wizards / sorcs in this game are complete gimps and built terribly. I refuse to have those in my group, and only want casters from the other 10%.

you know what i hate? people who try to have fun in a way i don't approve of. You! You over there! With the chain lightnings that are nearly one-shotting half a dozen enemies at a time! Stop doing useless damage and change your build to be exactly like mine, you're having BadWrongFun! Get back into that cookie cutter and spam mass hold!

seriously. crowd control still works, no question. it's quite effective. in fact, my sorcerer (and all my casters) are built to be quite good at it. but i'm not dumb enough to think that it's the only way to build a character. the pale master with sky-high necromancy DC (and comparatively low enchant DC) is still going to be useful. the sorcerer who spams elemental damage in an area hitting each mob for 90% of what a barbarian deals is still quite useful too.

in fact, if i was able to throw DC 42 will saves around, about the last thing i would bother looking for is someone else who is specialised fully in mass hold; you don't need two people mass holding everything. a given monster can only be affected by one mass hold at a time anyways, so who cares if there are two mass holds on it? nothing more than a waste of SP.

[killerzee25]

Just logged in and checked LFMs. (not to make a point here - was going to play)

One shroud up.



Maybe people should and can just take the first 11 but they often don't.

(at least rogue isn't blocked out ...also note EVON6 on bottom Old habits die hard I guess.)

To be honest id say that is one of the better lfm's i often see shrouds looking for dps with just a barbarian fighter and pally selected in the classes needed panel.