Enough with the insta kills in epics?

[Vellrad]

I think the best avaible gear should not be requirement to do epics- you can't reqire epic gear avaible from epic quests to do epic quests. This is why epics shouldn't be balanced to highest possible numbers.
However, there should be new lv21+ quests, with N/H/E difficulty and harder than current epics.

But the same problem will appear again a few months later. These new quests would have to drop new gear, which is better than the current epic gear, or nobody would do them much. They would also have to be balanced for people without that gear, because otherwise they would not be completable, except by finding glitches etc which is not the direction any developer wants to take. And when people get all that gear, the cycle will continue, they will whine again about quests being too easy.

Content will always be easy if you overgear it, and eventually you will overgear it if you dedicate time to obtaining gear, not sure why this is not well understood in the DDO community like it is in the WoW community. The only way to really "fix" this is for all end game content to require special player skills, an extraordinary level of teamwork, or something like that to complete. And there will be huge backlash in DDO if this ever happens.

If players are doing quests only for better gear, they will never be satisfacted with quests, they will care only for +1 in something more, and the easiest and fastest way to achieve it.
However if players seek only challenge, this should lure them into harder content. Maybe some some ingredients, consumables and +5 tomes (finally) should be attractive enough for greedy challenge seekers (you know, big chance to get 2 shroud ingredients, mana pots, yugo pots, DDO store items, big number of plats (1d10X10k), all dropping from end chests).

[slimkj]

Find a good necro archmage or palemaster and you'll see how much fun it is to go beat mobs only to see them die when you've just chewed half their hp away by yourself.

I know, I remember PK in GH too. POP was a bore.

[slimkj]

Yesterday we did edq2 with only 3 or 4 melee in a 12 man group, and it went faster than ever. Unfortunately I had to drop for the evon6, but I guess that went alright as well. And those are just bossfights, lol, no insta kills. It kinda hurts to see that melees are completely unneeded in any epic raid, regardless how good they are geared. (For a change, I went on my caster as well:P)

I'm curious about how this worked. More detail? I'm thinking you must mean SLAs, maybe on Water Savants? Given DOTs only stack up to 3x regardless of number of casters. (Oh and also given she's immune to one of the Arcane DOTs.)

[slimkj]

Forum join date sep 2009

Erm. Join date doesn't necessarily reflect anything. I've been playing since launch.

[Viisari]

I'm curious about how this worked. More detail? I'm thinking you must mean SLAs, maybe on Water Savants? Given DOTs only stack up to 3x regardless of number of casters. (Oh and also given she's immune to one of the Arcane DOTs.)

It was as straightforward as it'd be with a melee party, she was basically just nuked down and it went very smoothly, Lailat doesn't have that much hp anyway on epic.

The party wasn't even full of sorcs, probably 3 sorcs, 2 or 3 wizards, few favored souls and rest were melee iirc, didn't pay too much attention to it, maybe someone else remembers better.

[slimkj]

Ok ta. Just curious what the make up of the DPS contribution was, interests me whether it was mainly SLAs or a big, coordinated mana-dump

[steelblueskies]

Erm. Join date doesn't necessarily reflect anything. I've been playing since launch.

exactly. my point was he WAS here during the pass and said nothing. not that he wasn't. ditto for so many others who want to chime in after the fact having remained silent before, and during. has nothing in the world to do with "playing with him and seeing him ingame". he could be god or a worm, still no difference. where and when the efforts to redress an issue existed are the point.

this coming from someone who for several reasons repeatedly stated that i'd like to see some evidence the devs have actually played certain tiers of content with the changes in non godmode and thought everything was fine, way back during the first version of the spellpass on lam. i asked for videos of some specific quests from the devs exemplifying how they expecting things to go.

and yes to those paying attention, changes were occurring while it was on lam. at least two major revisions. even if one thought lam was fixed in stone, the second revision of u9 plastered on lam and the release note indicating as much, etc. should have been a big hint that wasn't so. and from that point there was still more than a month before things went live.

this was a long "preview" cycle, purely because changes were ongoing.

as to the full party to fully test. we were discussing instant death making things windowlicking solo easy weren't we? wasn't that the op's point, and one echoed by many here? no use for a melee?

so when i posted my misadventures in selected 6 man epics with my then first life wizard i copied over, and a ranger first lifer wrecking things 2 man with a single cleric hireling, pets being able to tank epic rednames, etc. and everyone chimed it was fine or ignored it, but now they want to complain i kind of see a problem here. doesn't make me right or wrong, but makes for one heck of a comparative leg to stand on.

the whole community feedback thing is there for a reason. good bad or ugly, if you were here and decided it wasn't worth your time, fine. if you didn't even bother to peruse the discussion that went on in the lam forums while it was happening, much less comment -fine. coming back later, when it's been live for two updates now and chipping in erodes your position, just as it should. and much like myddo, one can get a nifty list of posts by x person. all post list their time. wonder what we'd learn about priorities of some of the proponents here if we looked at what they WERE posting about during the pass? moving on from that limited time window to pre u9 lam, if the classes in question were too under/over powered and capable of trivializing things as it was, and this added option simply went a step too far, where are the posts by those who argue that way now, indicating the problem and it potential before u9?

do you see what i'm seeing with this small observation yet?

don't look both ways, step into street, get hit by car. say ow, then cry nerf cars. nevermind the point of ignoring them changing the road in question to a 4 lane highway for the last 6 months.
( i will concur however that the rep system is kind of a broken thing. make a note about a buried, poorly if at all documented, crafting feature and gain mountains of it. shrugs. post an opinion that's unpopular and potentially lose mountains of it. as disabling it only disables it showing, not disables it functioning i'm on the ignore it completely side there.)

[Viisari]

http://koti.mbnet.fi/wink/ddo/herpderp.jpg

So... what do we need melees for again?

And as for that whole Lamannia thing, as you yourself said, it's not my job to balance this game, secondly, as I already said, getting a good general idea about the future game balance takes far too much effort, and thirdly, as I said, I benefit from casters being overpowered, so I'm not exactly the one in tears here.

<edit> Oh, and that eDA run was by far the easiest I've ever done. Trash mobs? What trash mobs?

[Rodasch]

Heh, I AM the arcane, so yes, you do have it very, very wrong.

Here, let me help you: http://my.ddo.com/character/thelanis/haedo/

Also yeah, if you mean eDQ2, it really doesn't count. Now go try to complete eDQ1 or eCoF.

Fair enough.

And yeah, completing eADQ, eCoF, eWizKing, or eOoB solo is pretty rough, but would be much easier with some good teamwork, though by no means a walk in the park. But we're not really talking about the "completing part" here, especially not in those epics. Melees are actually valuable in the end fights on Raiyum, Laillat, CoF, etc, and those are the parts that make the biggest block to completion really. But all that aside, now that I know you're the arcane I take back some of what I said about why I figured you were complaining. My apologies.

It's not about the kill count, it's about general usefulness, and kill count is a good clue about that in a party with just 6 people. Also your comments show that you're in fact the one who does not know of teamwork, but rather thinks he does. If a common goal is running eDQ1 as fast as possible for example, then you'll take 6 players who are capable of soloing one of the six glyphs, and I highly doubt there are any melees in the list that can do it. I don't call beating some monsters with other people "teamwork", teamwork is when you apply strategies and tactics with your team to complete a quest in an efficient fashion.

teamwork means that everyone is contributing to success of the mission in a productive and positive fashion and that they are weaving their abilities and actions together in a way that makes success more likely than not. It also means all team members are working towards common goals and within common parameters (such as speed runs, or "all optionals", or whatever). You are right that IF a common goal is running edq1 as fast as possible that it is teamwork to do everything as quickly as possible and to work together in ways that multiply the force applied towards result (such as splitting up and each soloing an arm)...however that is not always the goal, nor will soloing snake give you as many kills as soloing wolf or monkey, and soloing octo will give you MUCH less kills. Does that make the person who soloed those arms less valuable as a contributor? No. I know of several melees who can solo octo, snake, and probably monkey with relative ease. So there's 3 melee spots in your eDQ1 filled, leaves you room for 1 priest and 2 casters (to handle scorp, bat, and wolf). Or do you seriously think a good rogue, ranger, or monk couldn't easily solo octopus or monkey, or that a barbarian, paladin, or fighter couldn't solo snake? (or hell, even a ranger or monk)

teamwork is about knowing your character's strengths and weaknesses and how to leverage them to the best advantage in each quest. Who better than an evasion melee to do octopus? There's not even any fights except at the glyph, and you can assassinate or pewpew the flayers if you have prot from evil and death block/ward on. They stand there shooting mind beams at you.

And if you acknowledge that casters are, and have indeed always for as long as I remember been, vastly superior to any melee, why don't you acknowledge that there is a problem with the game? If you do, what are we even arguing about?

Oh I acknowledge that casters are and have always been for as long as I can remember, vastly superior to melee in adaptability, utility, and burst power. My problem with your complaint is that you've been acting like epics is the only place it happens and like it's a new thing. I'm just trying to point out that epics are now more like the other 95% of the game, which they always should have been. They shouldn't be a totally different game with different rules...they should be the same game, only harder.

Now, if you want to discuss ways to make epics harder without unfairly favoring one set of classes over another, or unfairly gimping or obsoleting a class or set of classes, I'm all ears and fully supportive...but as long as the conversation line pushes in the direction of "oh god, casters are so overpowered, instakill is the badz and makes melees feel like pocket lint"; which practically screams the implication "please nerf casters back to hold/haste bots so melee can feel uber again", whether that's what you intend or not, I will fight against it.

If we want to be productive, I'm all for it....we can begin with suggestions such as:
-----------------------------------------------
How to balance epic quests so melees feel as useful as casters and casters aren't relegated to haste/hold bots again

1.) Increase monster fortitude saves to be challenging for DC 40-42 necromancers (give monsters 50-55 fort saves - maybe higher?) - This allows first life sorcerers and wizards with 35-36 DC's to still use instakill and FtS with 10-25% success rate, and reduces upper end sorcs and wizards to 45-60% success rate. This also does not push monster fort saves out of the acceptable range for melee stunning DC's. This also encourages more use of debuffing spells.

2.) Make a few more (not all of them and not most of them) epic trash monsters with death ward or very high SR so that melee are practically required to kill them faster, or at least force the casters to actually DPS them, which lets the melees contribute more to the killing.

These are two suggestions I've seen proposed that sound pretty well thought out, and I could get behind these. What do you think of them?

[Rodasch]

Yesterday we did edq2 with only 3 or 4 melee in a 12 man group, and it went faster than ever. Unfortunately I had to drop for the evon6, but I guess that went alright as well. And those are just bossfights, lol, no insta kills. It kinda hurts to see that melees are completely unneeded in any epic raid, regardless how good they are geared. (For a change, I went on my caster as well:P)

You can't use edq2 as a measure, since every form of dq2 is easier and faster with nothing but casters. It's just the nature of that raid itself and the mechanics of it. Casters and AA's are the kings of that raid's damage output because she spends enough time out of melee range to make it so. Any ranged dps makes that fight a joke, not just casters.

[steelblueskies]

http://koti.mbnet.fi/wink/ddo/herpderp.jpg

So... what do we need melees for again?

And as for that whole Lamannia thing, as you yourself said, it's not my job to balance this game, secondly, as I already said, getting a good general idea about the future game balance takes far too much effort, and thirdly, as I said, I benefit from casters being overpowered, so I'm not exactly the one in tears here.

<edit> Oh, and that eDA run was by far the easiest I've ever done. Trash mobs? What trash mobs?

Hugs(serious). I know. I said people arguing against it would use those excuses, not that they were true btw.
When trying vainly to open eyes it's easier to point to a case where if they look the backlog is only 100 items as compared to tens of thousands as was the case of some of the far more vociferous and vehement nerf posters.

Also note i was commenting During the preview/pass based on both written documentation and experience, that things were borked. I predominantly run classes/toons that have a bar other than just hp.

I can say my paladins feel like weak versions of my melée fvs's.
Still feels like he can contribute in instakill heavy parties simply thanks to being able to buff, heal, res, and some other tricks, and isn't any worse then how things went for some of my arcanes in parties in the past. Not having any options other than dpsing, I can see that leading to feeling pretty useless
Dev's changed some thing the community sliced and diced for them, but the dots and instakill in epic mechanic went through. That alone speaks volumes to me about their intent, at least insofar as was covered in what they were focused on at that time.

I was not for instadeath in the epics at that time. Dev's decisions stood. Now I accept it and work with it, while awaiting what they will add or change for the other classes in the upcoming passes.

-------
more people for upping saves.
No.

Take a look at the fellow discussing backloading the rolls for spells, and comparing it to melée natural 20 strikes.

One guy can swing away fishing for it with zero opportunity cost until he dies, the monster dies, or the weapon breaks.
Spellcaster loses 1/50th to 1/70th of their total opportunities until next shrine.

Gear requirement and tr requirement becomes more implicit.
Affects other effects than instant death if it's not a buff to saves vs spells.
If it is just saves vs spells you are back to burning the fellow not fishing for max dc.

The people who are should have it work. The people who aren't fishing for dc should be seeing a crapshoot with failure common. Shoving saves to the point of significant unreliability at above 40dc means pushing even closer to the maximum only attainable via consumablesand store items for reliability.

Same problem with sr.

Shade got a toon to 100str+, therefore we should up ac and dr and the like to compensate for players attaining high bonuses to one area they focus on right?
And I will be told I'm using a silly example, when really, it's not.
Many have had no need or reason to pursue the silly high numbers in many areas relative to absolute maximums because it's just not necessary, while at the same time being potentially boh time consuming and expensive.

Some will say that instant death dc's don't compare with tohit and range from str bonuses into lunar orbit.
Well, to a degree they're right. One works over and over in time, the other is a land or lose affair.

So let's try some creative convoluted mechanics to propose on a temporary basis.
Instant death from spells will only work on mobs above the melée vorpal threshhold in hp.
You rush out and beat it down, noone will steal your precious kill with an instant kill spell.
Conversely you better make sure you can finish what you started and choose wisely when to wail on a big pack, as the deathcaster may not be able to wander over and save your bacon.

Gives you something to do back in the land of suboptimal efficiency as well.
Doesn't remove the capacity for things to work flat out, Or muck up the inherent saves, just creates special cases.
And penalizes repeated failures with instant death spells on the same target as those failures cause hp damage.

[Viisari]

Fair enough.

And yeah, completing eADQ, eCoF, eWizKing, or eOoB solo is pretty rough, but would be much easier with some good teamwork, though by no means a walk in the park. But we're not really talking about the "completing part" here, especially not in those epics. Melees are actually valuable in the end fights on Raiyum, Laillat, CoF, etc, and those are the parts that make the biggest block to completion really. But all that aside, now that I know you're the arcane I take back some of what I said about why I figured you were complaining. My apologies.

But that's exactly what I'm talking about, completing epic sands quests. I rarely bother farming them, because I find farming boring and rarely get any good scroll drops anyway, seals are the easiest part in any given desert item so I find farming them rather pointless. I've done ecof for example quite a few times. I like the quest, it is one of the very few epics that's actually challenging even with a good group, and with >300 kills it has a fair change to drop scrolls. Shard drop rates are **** though, so getting one is a pain and requires lots of grinding, but then again, that's true for all desert shards.

Only one of these examples has a fight where melees are truly valuable, the fight gainst Raiyum in wizking. And that's only because Raiyum is immune to pretty much all good damage spells, has mantle and sports a cold shield at all times, so fire spells aren't that good either, for others, taking a melee is a waste of spot, and in wizking they'd only be there for the fight with king itself, which is a very short part of the quest, a very important part though, I give it that. Though divine punishment works on him, so you could always just take more favored souls who run around with implosion in the rest of the quest.

teamwork means that everyone is contributing to success of the mission in a productive and positive fashion and that they are weaving their abilities and actions together in a way that makes success more likely than not. It also means all team members are working towards common goals and within common parameters (such as speed runs, or "all optionals", or whatever). You are right that IF a common goal is running edq1 as fast as possible that it is teamwork to do everything as quickly as possible and to work together in ways that multiply the force applied towards result (such as splitting up and each soloing an arm)...however that is not always the goal, nor will soloing snake give you as many kills as soloing wolf or monkey, and soloing octo will give you MUCH less kills. Does that make the person who soloed those arms less valuable as a contributor? No. I know of several melees who can solo octo, snake, and probably monkey with relative ease. So there's 3 melee spots in your eDQ1 filled, leaves you room for 1 priest and 2 casters (to handle scorp, bat, and wolf). Or do you seriously think a good rogue, ranger, or monk couldn't easily solo octopus or monkey, or that a barbarian, paladin, or fighter couldn't solo snake? (or hell, even a ranger or monk)

True, there are melees that could handle octopus Now I haven't actually tried it on my melee, but I'd think clearing the glyph room in monkey for example would be very difficult, there are quite a few wildmen and atleast one caster there, so even *if* it can be done, you're probably chucking silver flame pots like a drunkard. And then comes the fight with the prince.

So yes, while it *might* be possible, it'll be much, much slower with melees, arcane can clear half the room with one click and just dd to start when the glyph is used, there is no need to kill the prince in any of the rooms.

The whole point has been that what a melee can do, caster can do better, which makes melees pointless.

Oh I acknowledge that casters are and have always been for as long as I can remember, vastly superior to melee in adaptability, utility, and burst power. My problem with your complaint is that you've been acting like epics is the only place it happens and like it's a new thing. I'm just trying to point out that epics are now more like the other 95% of the game, which they always should have been. They shouldn't be a totally different game with different rules...they should be the same game, only harder.

Now, if you want to discuss ways to make epics harder without unfairly favoring one set of classes over another, or unfairly gimping or obsoleting a class or set of classes, I'm all ears and fully supportive...but as long as the conversation line pushes in the direction of "oh god, casters are so overpowered, instakill is the badz and makes melees feel like pocket lint"; which practically screams the implication "please nerf casters back to hold/haste bots so melee can feel uber again", whether that's what you intend or not, I will fight against it.

I haven't really touched this subject, though I'd say there's a rather good reason for that. It's way I've played the game for a now, that is, I've only been running endgame raids and epics, so I've half forgotten there even is a another part to the game

And now that I'm doing TR's again, I don't really concern myself with the fact casters are overpowered, simply because the content I'm playing is just a grind for me to get to level 20 ASAP and I want to be done with it quick, and if caster can make it go quicker, cool.

That might sound a little hypocritical in the light of my previous arguments I guess, but that's because of the way I view most non-epic and non-raid content, I don't really care much for them, and when I run them, I just want to be done with them and be capped again. (Now this isn't always true, some quests are rather interesting, but it holds true when grinding for xp)

Also, I still don't understand this talk about being a haste bot, heck, in ecof I rarely even cast haste because sp conservation can be an issue there and I always go for no-pot runs. I just tell people to use clickies if the quest warrants it. I have never been a hastebot in any epic quest, maybe a holdbot sometimes, but there was more to casting than just spamming hold everywhere, and even if it would work well with just spamming hold, there was still much more you could do to make the quest go faster.

So, I dunno, IMO if you were a just a hastebot&holdbot pre-U9 you were doing it wrong, but that's just my opinion, I was never called one or spoken to like one, and pre-U9, I didn't do much else than run epics on my caster.

<edit> And anyway, the difference in power doesn't show as much at lower levels imo, it's still there, but not as extreme as it is in good epic groups.

If we want to be productive, I'm all for it....we can begin with suggestions such as:
-----------------------------------------------
How to balance epic quests so melees feel as useful as casters and casters aren't relegated to haste/hold bots again

1.) Increase monster fortitude saves to be challenging for DC 40-42 necromancers (give monsters 50-55 fort saves - maybe higher?) - This allows first life sorcerers and wizards with 35-36 DC's to still use instakill and FtS with 10-25% success rate, and reduces upper end sorcs and wizards to 45-60% success rate. This also does not push monster fort saves out of the acceptable range for melee stunning DC's. This also encourages more use of debuffing spells.

2.) Make a few more (not all of them and not most of them) epic trash monsters with death ward or very high SR so that melee are practically required to kill them faster, or at least force the casters to actually DPS them, which lets the melees contribute more to the killing.

These are two suggestions I've seen proposed that sound pretty well thought out, and I could get behind these. What do you think of them?

There already are some quests with epic drow for the spell res part, namely evon3, eoob, etides and ebob. You still don't have much need for melees though, simply because even though the spell res makes them pretty much immune to instakills and other spells that check for spell res, drow often have low hp so nuking can be viable.

The first suggestion might work, but it could also lead to a situation where instakills are viewed as useless again because they don't work well enough for most casters.

I still think a good, atleast partial, solution would be to add more divines to epic quests. There's nothing I hate more than a divine mob in any epic quest, they always spam deathward on themselves and around them so everything becomes immune to instakills AND energy drain, which means you basically have to nuke them or have a melee beat them down. But as it is, situations like this are very rare in epics.

But imo the best solution would perhaps be if the devs were to start looking at giving more (class) abilities for melees that cc and/or debuff mobs. As it is, only monks have multiple options for these at any given time and others are reduce to using stunning blow (trip doesn't count, I've never seen it work in an epic quest unless the mob rolls a 1) every 15 seconds, if they happen to have enough feats for it.

For example we could give barbarians a "Roar" ability which stuns all mobs around him on a failed their fort save (save would be something like 10+class level+1/2 con mod+any tactical enhancements or past lives like the fighter one) for a short duration. Maybe an ability for fighter that has a short cast time that can be interrupted, but when "cast" succesfully it deals critical hits, with maybe a +1 or +2 to your weapons crit multiplier, to everything around him, so like a critcleave. Some of these abilities could be granted as class feats, some of them would have prerequisites and would have to be taken as feats if powerful enough. Stuff like that.

Obviously these wouldn't change much as long as instakills are as good as they are, but no single solution is going to fix the situation imo. The fact that casters are overpowered is unlikely to be fixed by any changes to mob saves (unless they go way too far over the top and make all save or x -abilities useless) and the best way to fix it would be to start buffing melees, making mobs that are truly difficult for casters to counter and making enemy arcanes (have them use mass buffs and more high level spells, have them cast haste, HA!) and divines (mass deathward, have divines spam fom more often) considerably more dangerous, heck, give them quicken randomly and make them spam more spells with it on. If you want to get really nasty you could start adding casters who have quicken and their priority is to buff themselves with deathward (give them clickies ), displacement and spell immunity: divination and/or enchantment. Or maybe some stealthy mobs that try to target solely casters and require a very high spot for you to see them? Oh, and they also have true seeing items and adamantine weapons. And opportunist (let's tweak it a bit so it gives them 20% doublestrike and bypasses 50% fort) feat.

Hmm, I think I've played too much BG2..

But as it is, melees are rather useless compared to any non-clueless caster.

<edit> I also seem to remember some feats like massive criticals and some kind of deathblows but I think those were only on epic levels.
<edit2> Devastating critical was the one I was thinking about. Would make a scimitar kensai rather imba if it were implemented as per description though, heh.

[irivan]

There are some serious concerns with endgame play in my view. I have a barbarian with full epic gear, but can hardly contribute in epic quests because of the instant kills. Casters and assassin rogues kill trash mobs so fast, that I only have a chance of landing two or three hits before the mob goes down. It is kinda depressing that regular melee can only contribute when there are red or orange named mobs. This was less of an issue before the change in epics, and I feel we should (partially) revert back to that system.

Previously it was the case that any class had a contribution during the greater part of a quest. The largest part of epic quests consists of killing trashmobs. Arcanes had the task of controlling the crowd properly. Melees beat down the mobs that posed the biggest threat. Divines focussed on healing (and some dps). Boss fights were mainly a melee thing, where the arcanes focussed on debuffing the boss and the divines on healing. Every class had a thankful task.

With the addition of instant kills in epics I feel that the balance has tipped too much towards arcanes (and to some extent, assassins). Once arcanes get the relevant spell DC's, they can simply kill everything in one or two shots. They get a major part of the fun in clearing the trashmobs, while melee hope to get a shot at killing some mobs. Then there's the assassin rogue, that can kill 2-3 epic trash mobs with the push of a button. Other melee can only contribute well when the mobs can't be insta killed. For divines, I think the changes have led to a bit more fun.

Still, as the majority of all classes consists of melees, I think the game has to partially revert to what it was like before the change. Reintroduce deathblock on all epic mobs, so that mobs can still be energy drained, but no longer instantly killed. The decrease in mob hit-points and increase in saves was an alright choice. The addition of DoT spells for casters, that allowed them to do solid dps on raid bosses, was a good change as well. But the removal of the epic ward has made epic quests way too easy for casters and simply boring for (non-rogue) melee characters.

Do you share this view? If yes, what changes would you propose? If no, why do you think the game is good as is now?

Feel free to discuss.



(Yes, this is a bit late; at first I didn't find it very problematic, but now it's getting to me)

Forzah=Make this game do only what i want, and undo all of the great changes that happened a few updates ago so that i can feel powerful and look at all of the silly arcanes as my minions.

Me=Nerf barbarians more, take away tireless rage its not right that barbarians should rage without getting tired, give all epic mobs dr 300 so that only max emp untyped spec critical disintigrations get through, while you are at it make sure that every hit on a mob has the chance to fire off a lightning strike guard.

Oh wait maybe now you see the ridiculous nature of your argument.

[Viisari]

Forzah=Make this game do only what i want, and undo all of the great changes that happened a few updates ago so that i can feel powerful and look at all of the silly arcanes as my minions.

Me=Nerf barbarians more, take away tireless rage its not right that barbarians should rage without getting tired, give all epic mobs dr 300 so that only max emp untyped spec critical disintigrations get through, while you are at it make sure that every hit on a mob has the chance to fire off a lightning strike guard.

Oh wait maybe now you see the ridiculous nature of your argument.

Stop being stupid, many of his complaints are valid, even if adding deathblock as it was back isn't the right fix for them.

[Arctigis]

http://koti.mbnet.fi/wink/ddo/herpderp.jpg

So... what do we need melees for again?

And as for that whole Lamannia thing, as you yourself said, it's not my job to balance this game, secondly, as I already said, getting a good general idea about the future game balance takes far too much effort, and thirdly, as I said, I benefit from casters being overpowered, so I'm not exactly the one in tears here.

<edit> Oh, and that eDA run was by far the easiest I've ever done. Trash mobs? What trash mobs?

I think your perspective may be skewed looking at the gearout and stats on that character. As I've said before,
we need more granularity in selecting challenge (and commensurately, reward). That caster probably does feel
OP in the content that is available.

Not all casters are good players, not all casters have sufficient gear and guild status hence not all casters are OP.

[Viisari]

I think your perspective may be skewed looking at the gearout and stats on that character. As I've said before,
we need more granularity in selecting challenge (and commensurately, reward). That caster probably does feel
OP in the content that is available.

Not all casters are good players, not all casters have sufficient gear and guild status hence not all casters are OP.

Why are these casters playing epic content if they're good at nothing?

My perspective might be slightly skewed (since it's been a while since I've played a gimpy caster in epics), but the point is, that if you have a party composition like in that picture, you DON'T NEED UBER CASTERS (gimp doesn't work though...), because if just 3 of them cast wail of the banshee, stuff is dead. You can't do that with a group full of melee.

Go try running eDA with an average pug group composition and then try a party like in that picture and watch the results, or have you ever even ran the quest?

[grgurius]

After reading this and some similar threads, why do i have a feeling that there is a big **** nerf bat hanging over my sorcs head.

[-Satureon-]

My perspective might be slightly skewed (since it's been a while since I've played a gimpy caster in epics), but the point is, that if you have a party composition like in that picture, you DON'T NEED UBER CASTERS (gimp doesn't work though...), because if just 3 of them cast wail of the banshee, stuff is dead. You can't do that with a group full of melee.

M8, why are you invited me then if no needed uber caster?;D *joking*

Hail for a big nerf bat!
Don't care.
Except the record times... a nerf will totally mess up everything in some quest.

[Viisari]

M8, why are you invited me then if no needed uber caster?;D *joking*

Why, I want to pike of course

[grgurius]

M8, why are you invited me then if no needed uber caster?;D *joking*

Hail for a big nerf bat!
Don't care.
Except the record times... a nerf will totally mess up everything in some quest.

Heh, record times problem is easy, we'll just start from scratch again.