Enough with the insta kills in epics?

[Forzah]

I don't want to revert to the mindless stunfest. I want casters to be able to DPS a target properly, without instakilling them, so that everyone can do some damage to the mob: everyone contributes = more fun.

What's wrong with blanket immunities btw? We players get deathblock and heavy fort too. Why do hardly any of the mobs have that?

[grgurius]

I'm with the bring back some form of eward back. Not like before tho. Something like random effects, or chance to resist spells. Epics were easy for casters before, now they are ridiculous.

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.

No, portion of the game should be balanced for casual players, portion for powergamers. So far we have only the casual side.

[Urjak]

I can only speak for my 1st life sorc (not being perfectly equipped either). The average caster (especially sorcs) cant wail/fod most of the epic content. I even have to rely on ottos irresistable for crowd control because of the rediculous monster saves. So reintroducing epic ward wouldnt change much for the average caster at all (though assassins would probably suffer from it a lot). But with SLAs sorcs can do damage again! Especially on the easier epics casters can now contribute to party dps with them a real lot ... which is very good imo. epic ward would only affect multi-tr-perfectly equipped (completionists with +4 tomes, litany, +3 exceptional humans who can afford spending 4 feats on necrofocus+wiz pl feat+completitionst (thus only affecting wizards and no sorcs since sorcs cant afford to spend so many feats on non damaging stuff)).

lol maybe make a epic quest or chain with a ton of stuff with super high sr and other stuff that makes it hard to take them down with offensive spellcasting, make the loot super sexy for arcane/divine casters, but make it so that its difficult for them to complete without melee dps or something. So we can have lfms up where divines and arcanes are begging physical damage classes to come? , its more of a sick twisted thought than a serious suggestion.

There is already such a raid. It is called epic Chronoscope ... just try to get into a eChrono raid PUG with a sorc. Then we will talk again

[AMDarkwolf]

Just to be honest here, I only read the first 10ish or so posts then replied(Was just a bunch of back and forth going on no real discussion up to that point)

Anyways, I would like to say that I do agree with the OP to a degree. No I DO NOT want that old cc+beatdown epic mode back. Never. What we have is defiantly an improvement to that.

But I do think that too many mobs are too easily killed. I'm not sure how i'd fix it, but i'd adjust it somehow so that a mob MAY be killed (After dc's passed) but if NOT, gets HUGE debuffs to the point the melees can have a easy go at it(Basically u bring it so close to death that its at half or 1/4 its total fighting power, or something similar) - This being said, the mob would still have to fail its save, so those DC's would not be usless in the least. As it is now I see way too many instakillin going on and it just brings me back to the old mindsunder runs; IE: melee's follow the caster to the boss then kill the crystal for him.

And the other comment (Not sure who said it) who wanted PM's turned into 'flavor' pres... sorry.. No.. fing.. way. NO pre should just be 'flavor' EVERY single one of those pres out there, even the non released ones, should have a definite and clear (And USEFUL) role. Nobody should feel like they are a buffbot and nothing more, nobody should feel they are only accepted into a group because 'it didn't matter who the 6th/12th person was'

AA's should feel like they were the star player in some quests, as should stalwarts (READ: Fix intimitanks please) No sorc should feel like hes standing in the shadow of the ice sorc's since they do everything 10x better for 1/4th the work.

Basically no one who builds a 'decent' toon based on a pre of THEIR choice, should feel behind the masses.

As a disclaimer: I never have, never will, play a sorc, a wiz, a archer, a dedicated intimitank, or a healer... but this does not mean i feel that 'MY' role should supersede anyone else.

(God I hope i don't get -1k rep for this post since I don't post enough anymore to gain it back lol)

[Joseph]

I actually stopped playing and deleted in favor of rolling a melee my capped sorc (right after the whole F2P thing) because, seriously, all I did was buff people and then, right at the end of the quest, mana dump on the boss. Woo me.

Utterly unexciting and completely devoid of any pleasure in playing. Once in a blue moon I got to cast another spell - otherwise it was solo time because I was not following the godly melee cadre.

As the game stands now:
My arcanes can solo
My divine can solo
My melee can solo
My specialists can solo

The system is far more balanced than it ever was before (it is still not balanced - but neither is it ready to fall over).

Melee use to be the only way to beat anything. Now it isn't, and melee's are upset that they are no longer kings.

The irony of it all is that rogues are really the ones who should be complaining, but no one is. The single most difficult (at lower levels especially) class to solo is a rogue. Likewise, in a group, draw aggro and see who cares while your massive rogue sneak damage disappears and you get beat down (specifically aimed at dex build rogues - which is perfectly viable for them - though non-optimal, as strength is most optimal for pretty much anything that isn't arcane).

Anyway - a lot to be said on the issue, but in short - melee still rocks the house - but now casters also have a shot at doing some real damage too instead of buffing the sails of the Melee Ship of Greatness.

[Zerkul]

Go try a couple Epic Devil Assault with rogues and casters then re-write your post. lol.

I don't think you'll have any problem's killing mobs in there, or to say it otherwise the monsters will have no problem killing you.

lol

I'll answer you with a quote.

Devil assault epic, A tribe called zerg + ryumajin, 6/21/11, 30 min

Ah anyway if your melees feels underpowered then you probably didn't build/equip them the right way. To be honest i still give a challenge to most of the casters in yummy killing contests with my ubbah melee and it's fun.

[Viisari]

Go try a couple Epic Devil Assault with rogues and casters then re-write your post. lol.

I don't think you'll have any problem's killing mobs in there, or to say it otherwise the monsters will have no problem killing you.

lol

Really now? Forzah has a barb with pretty much all the gear you can have, yet my wizard (though he's also geared to the max) will have around 10 times more kills than he does while also doing some buffing and all the cc. When the caster is good, all the melee has to do is beat the boss and maybe some oranges, otherwise he can go sit in the corner. How is that balanced?

<edit> A good way to deal with this imo would be adding more divines to quests that cast deathward randomly, nothing annoys me more in epic quests now than a divine mob casting deatward on everything, and with epic mob caster levels you're not going to dispell them. Take soloing ehcrono first fight for example. As a caster your priority is to take down the divine there ASAP or it'll start spamming deathward on everything. Sure you can still take them down, but now it takes a little more than wail of the banshee, a circle of death and maybe a fod or two.

[Picus]

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)

When you were playing a class wich is mostly melee, you used to get all of the fun with the epic ward, because I' ve played a wizard and I can say that casting debuffs like mass hold monster after playing 20 lvls where I blasted enemies with fireballs and burned them with firewalls, well the change is a bit traumatic, don't you think? :-) So why not let the casters have some fun too?

[nolaureltree000]

Heh, I have a caster with 44 necro dc, there are exactly two places in the game that don't turn into a complete joke because of it, though if you take a party that's made of purely casters even those places will be a joke. The only problem here though is finding casters that are good enough.

i think that this is a big issue that people are overlooking. it is not easy to get these high DCs. they run with an arcane with several TRs that can mow through content and without the context of first life toons that arent well geared, the conclusion becomes that casters are OP. it isnt indicative of casters being OP per say, its more indicative of TRs being OP.

[Truga]

Maybe I should change the OP; I nowhere said that I want the old system (mass hold, kill) to come back. But I do want every class to be able to contribute significantly when killing epic trash, not just arcanes/assassins. And well.. maybe you like piking, but I certainly want to contribute something...

I don't like current epics much either, but why is this apparently a problem only in epic? I don't see people whining about insta-kills in non-epic content. And even in non-epic content, I still make my minio... err party work for their loot.

[altrocks]

I think the main problem is that they combined the removal of many immunities with the reduction in HP. If they DID put the old Epic Ward back and left the HP totals where they are now, arcanes could still do a fair amount of DPS, mass hold would not be the uber spell again and melees would have more time to swing their weapons. Only problem there is that Assassins and Pale Masters would be left a little out in the cold with deathward back on so many things. Maybe make it an extremely high CL deathward that can be dispelled just to please them? I dunno.

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?

I've stated it before, but this is the problem. The damage-on-save for instakill spells was a cool idea, but the damage is trivial at best, especially for the SP costs. So that leaves us with a binary situation. Either it works and they die, or it doesn't work and they're still attacking you. It's not like HP totals or Saves really matter in that situation because HP is not a factor when it dies on a success and saves aren't a factor when it lives, basically unharmed, on a failure. Blanket immunities didn't work. Removing them didn't work. So where's the middle ground?

Sad fact is, there isn't any middle ground for Epics as they currently exist. There's the current Easy Mode epics and the old style Meat Grinder epics and a gaping chasm in between. Sure, you can tweak spells and saves and HP all you want, but it's not going to change the on-off/binary nature of high level instakill spells/effects (FoD, Wail, Destruction, Implosion Aura, Assassinate, Vorpal/Smiting/Banishing/Disrupting). The recent changes to spells, weapon effects, immunities and saves in epics just switched around the roles of the party members, and that's it. Now arcanes, divines and rogues can instakill, melee/ranged toons do DPS on bosses since Vorpal effects were pretty much changed into banes and the machines rolls on as it always did.

[shadowhop]

I think its all about balancing.

The old way it was not fun for the casters, but now with high dc casters its not much fun for the melee classes. There should be made a balance between them so both classes can have fun playing.

And also in some late game quest(vale for example) it is strange that as a melee you are mostly walking behind a caster who is killing everyone with instakill spells. I still think it is strange they took out the vorpals for the melee in the same update.

[taurean430]

I don't want to revert to the mindless stunfest. I want casters to be able to DPS a target properly, without instakilling them, so that everyone can do some damage to the mob: everyone contributes = more fun.

What's wrong with blanket immunities btw? We players get deathblock and heavy fort too. Why do hardly any of the mobs have that?

Some mobs have the ability to cast it, just as they have the ability to be dispelled. What they don't have is 100% fort melee, or dr worth anything to modestly geared characters.

On topic, I played my caster for a couple of years now and put up with some outrageous expectations. Literally being told not to attack anything, just hold it so we can beat it down is no fun. Being turned down for 'lack of dps' and told that your only job is to buff us and hold mobs for us is asinine. You say you understand this, yet I don't think that you do...

Unitl I clearly see that melee are being turned down in a similar manner to what casters have dealt with for years I'm not liable to support your argument.

[Beethoven]

If they DID put the old Epic Ward back and left the HP totals where they are now, arcanes could still do a fair amount of DPS, mass hold would not be the uber spell again and melees would have more time to swing their weapons.

What exactly would be the point of a wizard in epic then? All it'd achieve is make Sorcerer the new flavor class. Arcanes always were the superior choice in controlling and/or disposing a large amount of weak mobs. The issue I see with immunities and/or raising saves is that it does not actually fix anything. It just shifts things from where now Arcane nukers (Sorcerer/Savants) and DC specced casters (Wizards) have a way to effectively engage epic mobs to DC specced casters getting shafted in favor of Arcane nukers. So, insta-kill no longer works (or will be extremely hard to ever get your DC high enough). You are back to Wizards throwing CC only. It doesn't actually make the quest/raid harder. Melees just get to beat on a helpless target a while longer. I don't know about everyone else but I get my fill of it in Shroud part 1. I don't need every epic quest feel the same way as that part of this raid.

Add immunities/heightened DCs for CC and people going to switch to Savants. We are talking elite players with all the gear and TR options they probably won't have a problem getting their damage numbers high enough to nuke their way through epic quests as fast and effectively as Necro specced wizards (for reference check the screenshot Zerkul provided).

Thing is, Turbine could easily have adjusted things like Saves, AC and perhaps even elemental immunities and DR to a level where epics become challenging for the elite crowd. However, it would have made epic completions nigh unachievable for newer and more casual players. They decided to make epics something where even the general player can hit the necessary benchmarks. They sort of even said as much when one of the things they wanted to "fix" with epics is that mere 10% of their playerbase uses the option.

Now you have a situation where for most /average/ players things aren't too broken. Sorcerer do incredible DPs but lots of average players lack either skill, gear or both to easily manage their SP to nuke everything thus arcane DPs remains reserved for particularly tough and boss fights. Melee dps remains more universal useful (for trash and bosses). The average Wizard is not going to run around with a 44+ DC either. It's probably closer to the 38-41 range. What means they have to debuff. They cannot afford to insta-kill everything since between debuffs and DC-base spells their SP is never going to last. CC is slightly easier on DCs since most trash has lower will saves and there are more (cheap/SLA) debuffs. So, here again you have useful but not to the exclusion of everything else.

It's really only broken on the upper end of the scale - once you look at elite players who - between gear, TRs, experience and skill - turn a limited resource (SP) into a virtually unlimited resource and who hit benchmarks so much higher than the average that they can virtually solo anything the game throws at them (and yes, it's easier and faster to do that on a caster than melee).

Personally, my hopes are on whenever they switch from "epic" to allow select a level range similar to Crystal Cove where "epic" basically becomes level 21 to level 25, hopefully with at least 25 having benchmarks high enough it becomes something for the elite to enjoy. The less elite (and likely most pugs) still can enjoy that content but likely would be looking more at the level 21-23 range.

the real fix to balance the epic quests? add a few more orange and red named to every quest. make those mobs have a much higher chance of dropping scrolls.

+1. That'd be another excellent solution.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

The game is better now because there is no longer any valid reason to only take one arcane in a group.

There are more melee chars out there, because melee was top dog. And the most fun to play. And had no troulbe getting into a group.



But one problem is epics are poorly designed.

Taking a low lvl quest and trying to turn it into a challenge for lvl 20s is a bad approach IMO.

Design new lvl 20 quests, with currently player abilities in mind.

Variety, variety, VARIETY!
Is the way to make every class have fun.

go into one rooom, and be faced with a hoarde of insta-killable monsters. Walk around the next corener and face something with rediculouly high saves that require most classes to just get lucky to take out.

Then a boss who casts deathward on his minions.

Follow up with low HP trash for the party to slaughter.

Etc. etc.

Design epics to let players use their super powers sometimes, and have to overcome Kryptonite at other times.
That is how to make a fun high lvl dungeon.

Hordes of low lvl minions followed by beefier encounters the force chars to adapat their tactics.

(I'm still eagerly awaiting monster that are imune to metal weapons. )

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Blanket things are bad. Instead of giving everyone the same "ward" ...

I still want to see epic mobs adjusted somewhat; like raise their highest save by another 3 or so. Make their strengths and weaknesses variable, but still bypassable. Give SOME of them actual deathblock, others actual FOM. Maybe base this on monster type and/or the quest(s) involved. Give a great many of them resists, some even elemental protection or absorption.

Not all of them the same accross the board - variety.

That should keep the single-tactic boring stuff minimized.

+1 for variety.

[Aaxeyu]

The game is better now because there is no longer any valid reason to only take one arcane in a group.

In the same sense there is now no valid reason to take ANY melee in a group. Why is that better?

[Iaga]

... and AI is already rather smart:...

Hardly.

Imagine if the monsters played the game the same way a player would? None of this would be an issue.

[Arctigis]

What exactly would be the point of a wizard in epic then? All it'd achieve is make Sorcerer the new flavor class. Arcanes always were the superior choice in controlling and/or disposing a large amount of weak mobs. The issue I see with immunities and/or raising saves is that it does not actually fix anything. It just shifts things from where now Arcane nukers (Sorcerer/Savants) and DC specced casters (Wizards) have a way to effectively engage epic mobs to DC specced casters getting shafted in favor of Arcane nukers. So, insta-kill no longer works (or will be extremely hard to ever get your DC high enough). You are back to Wizards throwing CC only. It doesn't actually make the quest/raid harder. Melees just get to beat on a helpless target a while longer. I don't know about everyone else but I get my fill of it in Shroud part 1. I don't need every epic quest feel the same way as that part of this raid.

Add immunities/heightened DCs for CC and people going to switch to Savants. We are talking elite players with all the gear and TR options they probably won't have a problem getting their damage numbers high enough to nuke their way through epic quests as fast and effectively as Necro specced wizards (for reference check the screenshot Zerkul provided).

Thing is, Turbine could easily have adjusted things like Saves, AC and perhaps even elemental immunities and DR to a level where epics become challenging for the elite crowd. However, it would have made epic completions nigh unachievable for newer and more casual players. They decided to make epics something where even the general player can hit the necessary benchmarks. They sort of even said as much when one of the things they wanted to "fix" with epics is that mere 10% of their playerbase uses the option.

Now you have a situation where for most /average/ players things aren't too broken. Sorcerer do incredible DPs but lots of average players lack either skill, gear or both to easily manage their SP to nuke everything thus arcane DPs remains reserved for particularly tough and boss fights. Melee dps remains more universal useful (for trash and bosses). The average Wizard is not going to run around with a 44+ DC either. It's probably closer to the 38-41 range. What means they have to debuff. They cannot afford to insta-kill everything since between debuffs and DC-base spells their SP is never going to last. CC is slightly easier on DCs since most trash has lower will saves and there are more (cheap/SLA) debuffs. So, here again you have useful but not to the exclusion of everything else.

It's really only broken on the upper end of the scale - once you look at elite players who - between gear, TRs, experience and skill - turn a limited resource (SP) into a virtually unlimited resource and who hit benchmarks so much higher than the average that they can virtually solo anything the game throws at them (and yes, it's easier and faster to do that on a caster than melee).

Personally, my hopes are on whenever they switch from "epic" to allow select a level range similar to Crystal Cove where "epic" basically becomes level 21 to level 25, hopefully with at least 25 having benchmarks high enough it becomes something for the elite to enjoy. The less elite (and likely most pugs) still can enjoy that content but likely would be looking more at the level 21-23 range.



+1. That'd be another excellent solution.

Very nice post. +1.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

In the same sense there is now no valid reason to take ANY melee in a group. Why is that better?

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