Enough with the insta kills in epics?

[Aaxeyu]

Because I have yet to see an LFM for only one melee.
(and I still see LFMs only taking a single arcane.)

Give it time. It takes the playerbase a long time to adjust to major balance changes.

[Aaxeyu]

For many players, walking to mob, turning on auto attack and pressing tab after minute or 2 is almost like piking.

Piking is when you don't contribute. Even if it's not very challenging to kill held mobs you are still actively contributing to the success, and thusly it's not piking.

[grodon9999]

That would explain it. The game cannot and should not be balanced for elite players, it should be balanced for the average paying customer, and trust me, average paying customer doesn't waltz'n'wail through epics.

This is why the entire concept of "epic" is ********.

The hardest level of content in this game SHOULD be balanced to be a challenge to level -appropriate well-geared elite players. By making anything over level 20 "epic" they had to appeal to the lower common denominator as there is no N/H/E setting.

What would make sense would be for there to be level 21, 22, 23, 24, etc . . . content with N/H/E setting for people of varying play levels. One size does not fit all.

[Vellrad]

Piking is when you don't contribute. Even if it's not very challenging to kill held mobs you are still actively contributing to the success, and thusly it's not piking.

I remember Hordo's guide to piking, and the best way to pike in his opinion is to press 1 button once per couple minutes. Party is thinking you're contributing, even if in the mean time you're watching TV or whatever.

[Galeria]

I think the real issue (as almost always here in the forum) is about the people who have 2-8 past lives, have played all the content, farmed all the gear, learned all the tricks, perches and strategies to "beat the game" as fast as possible vs the average player who's finally able to do epics.

The "it's-too-easy" crowd has already done it a million times. To those of us who don't have multiple past life DC's and every piece of uber gear in the game, it is still a challenge.

I think Turbine is headed the right way with the new Cannith content that is aimed at capped characters, because they need to make everyone happy. I feel sure it will contain content that most of us can't do til we've run at least 3 past lives. I think the game needs to address the needs of longterm players without penalizing newer customers and that seems to be where they are headed with the next release. (Bottom line, the game is a business.)

People don't want to challenge themselves, they want to be presented with challenges that they can then beat and brag about.

FTR, my caster can't automatically instakill in epics, it takes some prepwork which involves time and mana. (Yeh, it's my fault, I'm gimped on a first life toon, blah blah blah. If I was as uber as you, I'd be waltzing through picking up my scrolls and tokens and upgrading all my awesome gear... so I could be bored and whiny too) But I can do finally something other than buff and hold, which is all my caster could do prior to U9.

My level 20 melee has plenty to do as well. If there's an uber wail-everything caster in the party, awesome. We can move quickly to the big battles.

From a non-lifetime player of both types of classes, I think the new epics are massively improved.

[Truga]

Give it time. It takes the playerbase a long time to adjust to major balance changes.

You people have been saying this for months now. Do you really think it takes "the playerbase" months to notice such a big thing? I think by now, even the thickest players would have noticed.

However, "the (level 20 wizard) playerbase" sports on average what, 37-38 necro DC? I think that's about the right number, considering my average pug experience. My crappy first life wizard has 40, and he does fine, but I use energy drain, when I need to FoD things. Wail works about 50/50 on trash, so unless there's at least 5 around I don't even bother hitting the hotkey.

Hell, even in hard+ shavarath, 40 DC wail/fod doesn't work well enough to bother most of the time. I know this is subjective, and melees will say it works too often, but if there's a mob of 20 enemies around me and I hit "kill everything around me" and 5+ are left standing, I call that bad. At least icestorm will kill them in a single or two casts every single time unlike wail which might take several casts (now with 30 second cooldown aww yeah).

Hell, I've seen kobolds in waterworks massively save wails (wow, I wish I threw 20s all the time too). And this didn't happen just once or twice. When you get that kind of bull on your melee you can start complaining. Thank god it at least now does some damage on a save, maybe saving you a cast of firewall/icestorm.

If you're running with people with 46+ DC, and multiple TR, then you *should* nuke everything into the groud. Anything else would be a joke on your account (or the wizards anyway). I fully intend to have 45+ necro DC once I finish my character, but that will take a couple TRs, a +4 tome and a bunch of gear still. With that amount of effort, there's no reason why someone shouldn't be able to destroy trash mobs anywhere. And then I'll TR into a sorc, and nuke everything into the ground, without even as much as a chance to save on a 20.

Then I'll get bored and go find another game. Maybe you should too!

[svinja]

This is why the entire concept of "epic" is ********.

The hardest level of content in this game SHOULD be balanced to be a challenge to level -appropriate well-geared elite players. By making anything over level 20 "epic" they had to appeal to the lower common denominator as there is no N/H/E setting.

What would make sense would be for there to be level 21, 22, 23, 24, etc . . . content with N/H/E setting for people of varying play levels. One size does not fit all.

How about this, instead of just making the mobs hit harder and have more HP/saves, what epics could do is test the player, not just the build. For example, instead of a healer needing to heal more because the fight takes longer and incoming damage is higher, make him have to dodge, run, jump around avoiding something or whatever while still healing the entire time. Stuff like that. Good decision making, agile movement, fast reactions, awareness of your surroundings, instead of just build/gear/knowledge of the quest itself. More chaotic, fast paced and random (not random in the "roll a 1 and die" sense) fights. Less memorization, routine, and being able to focus on doing only 1 thing, be it healing, dps, or whatever.

[Beethoven]

Give it time. It takes the playerbase a long time to adjust to major balance changes.

Adjust - in this case - would mean people suddenly get so concerned about completing epics they will not accept anything but the best possible party make-up though. And that's assuming sorcerer are highest possible dps and Wizards generally have the DCs to land their insta-death spells. I don't see either happen on general basis. You don't even need to look into epics. It starts far earlier in, say, Shroud. I pugged my fair share of them and the sorcerer getting one-shotted in part 4 by a single Meteor Swarm is not necessarily a rare sight. The same sorcerer isn't likely to fare any better in epics. They not going to do a lot of dps once the cleric/fvs gets tired of raising them after every spell they cast. Similarly, your DC 38 Necro specced caster will likely need to put down a Symbol of Death, get aggro, pull mobs in it, control them with Web or such, debuff their will with Hypno, debuff their general saves with Crushing Despair/Fear, potentially lower their saves further with Circle of Death and then use Wail to finish the job. A well built melee should really have managed to kill a few things by then too.

Barbarians and Kensai always will have one thing going for them as far as the pug scene is concerned: group leaders know what they get. The FB III glass cannon is a rare build. They usually have dps and the ability to survive getting aggro. The same is not a given with the (random) caster. They may have dps, but lack any means to deal with aggro whatsoever. I find it far more likely for the trend to continue and people just get less and less concerned about who or what they take simply because now Arcanes can fill dps spots too and epics generally got easier as long as you have at least one or two decent players with decent builds in there. Way I see it, the change is going to have more an effect on purely elite groups when the goal is to beat someone's speed record.

[testing1234]

im just pulling numbers out of thin air based on people ive meet ingame

out of people who have many characters
8 out of 10 players have 4 melee 1 caster 1 cleric
1 out of 10 players have 4casters 1melee 1 cleric/fvs
1 out of 10 players have 4cleric/fvs 1melee 1 caster

these numbers are very very wrong as the situation is much more complicated with some people having 25 characters others having 2. but the average of melee Vs caster i feel is valid even if it fluctates wildly over time its been my impression that casters have always been in the minority same with clerics. there is always more melee in this game then casters/clerics.

this does speak for the OP as its more important to keep the melee happy then any other.
as for myself if i get a caster with crazy dc and it goes fast im grateful im a team player even when im on my barb if its faster my barb take out 1 enemy while caster takes out 9 thats fine with me gotto roll with the gamechanges its all temporary.

[Unreliable]

My sorc's dps is still more overwhelming then most wizards ability to instakill

I dont think the problem is instakills, its player skills. Any good player whether melee or caster will be able to tear through epic quests without any problem. I see it in all my guild members, barbarians and rogues in my guilds getting 50+ kills in eDA.

Just because you might group with these good players dosent mean they need to be nerfed because you aren't at the level YOU want to be yet.

Just keep working on ur melee and through work you will have just as much power as a good caster.

[Aaxeyu]

I remember Hordo's guide to piking, and the best way to pike in his opinion is to press 1 button once per couple minutes. Party is thinking you're contributing, even if in the mean time you're watching TV or whatever.

Yea, obviously there are exceptions, but that really doesn't change anything.

[Urjak]

It's a tough situation to balance because D&D Classes at level 20 (and above, for REAL epic fights) are very, VERY unbalanced! It's why PnP Epic campaigns have almost completely different rules to follow than the normal 1-20 range. I mean, when every player is immune to everything but physical damage and every mob has the same stuff, you get the old epic paradigm with mass hold and melee beatdown. If they DON'T have those things, but the players still do, then you get this situation, where Epics have become a boring grind for mats that drop far too rarely (especially scrolls) where no real challenge is presented usually. But where is the middle ground?

Well i dont know if you have ever played epics in PnP, but we once played a campaign up to level 60 (we skipped a few levels in order to get to dramatic epic showdown instead of "xp-farming"^^) ... So let me tell you now PnP-really high level content (level 40+) is nothing like mass hold/beat down ... why? everyone is either immune to mind-affecting spells and abilities or has ridiculous high saves. Nukes? no way, a ring of evasion costs 20k gold so no issue for an epic npc. instakill? doesnt work due to insane saves.
So what is PnP-epics all about?
For casters: Damage spells without saves (Polar ray, Scorching ray, ...)
For melees: Sunder every piece of the mobs equipment (in PnP you can actually destroy every item your opponent is wearing except for his/her/its armor). Once this is finished beat him up (without destroying the opponents equipment its nearly impossible to hit them since there are a lot more defensive items than offensive => on lvl 60 we had around 110 - 140 AC, ~80-90 AB)
Was this epic showdown at level 60 fun? Yes ... for doing it once it was fun ... doing it regularly NO => DDOs epic system is a lot more versatile and fun^^

[Aaxeyu]

You people have been saying this for months now. Do you really think it takes "the playerbase" months to notice such a big thing? I think by now, even the thickest players would have noticed.

Notice is one thing, act on it is another.
And yes, it really does take a long time. This is not the first time something change.

Then I'll get bored and go find another game. Maybe you should too!

I did.

[krackythehoodedone]

I dont think ive ever read so many differing points about the same topic and agreed with so many of them.

Yes i play a melee in Epic and was slightly browned off when a bunch of ''Supercasters'' destroyed EDQ1 in 10 mins without me so much as breaking a flowerpot.Then did EDA (but i at least went out of my way to break a flowerpot) without me killing anything . My Ego was seriously bruised,bloody cheek.

Yes it takes serious time and singlemindedness to get a caster to that level

Yes for 95% of the players it isnt relevant anyway.

I think however the main point is why do we have to knock any toons when they are having fun.

When Rangers ruled the world with their Wops ..guess what all the posts decried, nerf the dirty cheat....

I think we should worry about our own toons and stop the ''Boo Hoo it's not fair he does more Dps than me stuff''

What goes around comes around.

Put your feet up, rest your Epic Axe in the corner by the chest and wait for everything to die..

[slimkj]

Give it time. It takes the playerbase a long time to adjust to major balance changes.

Do you believe now is more imbalanced than WoF & others around L14 cap time then? It doesn't feel significantly different to me, just that it spans more, but back then I don't remember all caster parties either.

I don't think adjusting again now for what might happen in a few months when the player base theoretically wises up is a good idea. Nor do I think as many people as some believe play only for efficiency.

[Shade]

Play with weaker casters..

heh.. Imo the loss of deathblock is fine. What was done wrong was the increase to saves - was far too little. The minion debuff shouldn't of been just reduce,d it should of been done away with entirely, then saves increased further. Casters were effective in the INSANELY far more difficult orignal epic implementation.. Now there just insane.

Epic is meant to challenge the "best of the best".. but instead due to the rather low saves many epic mobs have, they are a joke for the best of the best.. And a minor challenge for average players.

The other big issue with install kills is theres too much of a difference between the absolutley best geared/max tr casters and the decently geared ones. DC38 vs most epics is fine.. Insta kils will work ,but get lots of resists. DC44 is night and day.. Everything lands.. Even versus the hardest targets you get around 50% chance, so just cast twice and it always dies.

Where as melee.. 5-15% more damage = 5-15% faster kills, rather then.. Kill everything vs run out of sp before getting much kills at all... Melee and damage in general is just inherant easier to balance for.

As such my recommendation to fix it would be just to make landing insta kills extremely hard versus most targets, and near-impossible for targets intended to be very challenge, (ones with lots of hp/high dmg output)

EG: Your DC38 caster should get at best a 15% chance versus mobs mean to be easy.. And a 5% versus hard ones.
Your DC44 caster would then have 45% chance versus easy ones.. But still a 5% versus hard ones - but only just barely. IE: Give them 43 fort save. So insta kills are still well within the realm of possbility.. But just might require advanced tactics like energy drain, curse, etc first before the attempt.

Tho I think fort save spell that dont kill the target should still be easier to land.> Like flesh to stone/stuns/etc.

So if it was done more like:
Weak:
29 fort save. +5 fort save versus death effects
Strong:
38 fort save, +5 fort save versus death effects
That would be more balanced, more challenging, and more fun.

Epics these days just aren't challenging for max geared players. Melee nor caster. Thats the issue.

Far as feeling useless all the time. I dunno, you either run with insanely skilled/geared casters.. Or just aren't as good you think imo.

Because I run with decent casters, often drow double tr palemasters, , even completionists ones.. And to this day none have outkilled me in anything I put up a seriously effort on my barb. Insta kills are fast, but sprint boost, stunning blow and 1300+ crits are faster,, Tho actaully I tend to run a lot of epic devils assault, and unlike most epics, saves in there are decently high enough to slow down all but the most 100% maxxed casters.

And im dead serious on this. I've not been playing much ,but i've done some 30+ epics since U9 and no casters has topped my performance. And thats at least 20+ different casters.
I know a few on khyber that I think probably would in certain quests, just havent ran with them lately and tend to stick to the harder epics anyways.

[Chronis]

Well just from what I read and see on videos proves something needs to change. Not a revert to mass hold/haste bots or the current wail bots. What I dont understand is why dont mobs have A extremely high save. I mean what happened to using spells on certain targets to attack the weak save? You shouldn't be able to wail everything cause you may as well be holding everything. Same outcomes different buttons. Learning your enemies should be a requirement. I mean look at early game. If your first character(so no funding) was a wizard or sorcerer you learn who to Niacs, who to Charm and even when beholders show you learn that flesh to stone is great against them for the weak Fort save. Things would be much funnier if you had to use a full assortment of spells to complete not just spam one or two mindlessly. Just my 2 cents.

[Elaril]

Contributing less than someone else and not contributing at all are two very different things.

That's correct, a point that I'm not sure you seem to fully comprehend. Melees still can and do contribute, arguably the same amount as they used to, it's just not as apparent in the kill count anymore. If you're not happy with helping your group succeed, then that's a you problem.

Epics were dumb before, they are better now. Are they perfect? No, but they have taken a major step in the right direction.

[Aaxeyu]

Do you believe now is more imbalanced than WoF & others around L14 cap time then? It doesn't feel significantly different to me, just that it spans more, but back then I don't remember all caster parties either.

I don't think adjusting again now for what might happen in a few months when the player base theoretically wises up is a good idea. Nor do I think as many people as some believe play only for efficiency.

I remember plenty of all caster/cleric parties back then.

You are looking at it the wrong way, that the playerbase gravitates to a certain class is not the problem, it's a symptom.
It doesn't matter if you don't "only play for efficiency", balance is still important.

[krackythehoodedone]

Theirs half a dozen casters (that i know of and so do you i think) running about on Khyber with Dc's at 50 odd which is enough to drop the lot in EDA. Poor ole Zexxi never even shot a rat.

Made for a quick completion though. It was impressive and i for one don't begrudge them their moment in the sun.

Obviously the whole question of Epics and ''best of the best'' is a different thing.The ''best of the best'' can now make a cup of tea, do the washing, argue with ''mommy'' , hand out an ''axer'' package and still complete the hardest Epic with one hand tied behind their backs.

The problem being these Toons are on a different planet to the one they were when this started. These Toons have raised the bar and Turbine will have to do likewise if they wish to keep them keen.

Which they may or may not do considering the tiny (if informed and vocal) minirity they represent