Enough with the insta kills in epics?

[Viisari]

get over it your not leader of the kill count anymore just reroll
into a half orc esos wielding sorc and join the fun.

Heh, why do you think that'd help him any?

His dwarf was actually closest in kills to the wizard in eDA today. Something like wiz had 80 and dworf had 40 or something. And there was a TR horc barb there.

[~STERLIN1]

I see what the problem is here...Epic to you equals munch and crunch grind grind grind and wizards cant be epic. Now on to the actual.. An EPIC Wizard can slay beasts with one mighty spell..if he cannot he is not epic is he? HE is the toady who must follow the EPIC fighter around to help him be more EPIC. Epic wizards one shot, it happens and it should happen. If you disagree you are unfamiliar with Elminster, Merlin, and well basically the entire genre.

[gavijal]

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)

So why you don't play arcane then? I tell you why. Because arcanes are not easy button (my bad 3 buttons) like barbs, we kite, buff, CC, kill ,have special roles in some raids and you are doing what? Standing still waiting to some1 buff you, heal u and push Cleave now and then? If I could give you 50 neg points I would.

[Kmnh]

Hey, a thread necro! Pale masters are way overpowered these days

I complained a lot about the instakills already. It cheapens the socal aspects of the game - A good enough caster doesn't need to play with other people, and with the way the scroll mechanics work, it's usually the right play to be alone or only bring friends.

Playing some of the newer content, I see that the problem with the epic quests isn't the fact that the casters can instakill mobs. It is possible to design quests in a way that's balanced against death effects. None of the epic quests were balanced for that - It's old content, many mobs didn't have a high fort save, as the threat of being flesh-to-stoned wasn't a balance issue.

Fixing that content would require a mojor rework of every single encounter, or at least the important ones. And even if the devs do put in the time to fix that, many people won't bother doing these quests: they have the loot already, and playing for fun is an alien concept to them.

[JOTMON]

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.

You want to waste your time beating down trash mobs while a healer keeps you cured and a caster holds all the mobs still for you and the rogue sneaks off to search/disable traps..

2 hours later you finally complete the quest with a screen capture of all the kills you had...
Healers are complaining about the pots they had to drink keeping you alive. Caster went afk and fell asleep somewhere because he got bored, Rogue went home because there were no traps.

Not wanting casters to instakill, rogues to assasinate, clerics to implode....
Is like having the barbarian throw away his SOS and start hitting things with a kama..

If you are not contributing in epic quests on a geared barbarian you are doing something wrong.

[Kmnh]

If you are not contributing in epic quests on a geared barbarian you are doing something wrong.

Only if grouping with the good casters is considered wrong.

[wax_on_wax_off]

I honestly thing this entire issue would go away if the AI was improved slightly so that divine mobs would cast deathward occasionally. You could even give some mobs deathward clickies/consumables that would have a lowish CL so could be dispelled but would at least be a little trip up on the wailers.

In general though, balancing a game for the elite players without negatively affecting the average consumer is a hell of a trick and I don't see any suggestions that would facilitate that so far (though I haven't read through all 12 pages actually).

[Kmnh]

I honestly thing this entire issue would go away if the AI was improved slightly so that divine mobs would cast deathward occasionally. You could even give some mobs deathward clickies/consumables that would have a lowish CL so could be dispelled but would at least be a little trip up on the wailers.

In general though, balancing a game for the elite players without negatively affecting the average consumer is a hell of a trick and I don't see any suggestions that would facilitate that so far (though I haven't read through all 12 pages actually).

I don't think the issue is "balancing for elite players". Most epics were easy before u9 and are still easy now. Sands ones and devil assault were quite a bit harder, but they will still beat you pretty hard if you are not ready or don't know what you are doing.

From the caster's standpoint, not much has changed: The quests complete or fail depending on how well you handle the crowds of mobs. It doesn't matter if you do it with hold or wail.

It DID change for the melees. Before u9, high DPS melees and good utility ones (stunning monks are a good example) were highly sought after, and people rejoiced when they joined the groups. Now any melee is effectively piking, be it the 8ranger/6rogue/6cleric abomination or the crit-rage barb with the old 4x crit eSOS.

[Viisari]

So why you don't play arcane then? I tell you why. Because arcanes are not easy button (my bad 3 buttons) like barbs, we kite, buff, CC, kill ,have special roles in some raids and you are doing what? Standing still waiting to some1 buff you, heal u and push Cleave now and then? If I could give you 50 neg points I would.

Huh? Wizards, sorcs and favored souls are the easy buttons of this game, pure and simple.

And this is coming from a wizard. It's the truth, deal with it.

[JOTMON]

Only if grouping with the good casters is considered wrong.

A good caster will let you beat down the trash you started on.

A nice caster will dance the mob you are beating on

A mean caster will kill it before you get there.

A cruel caster will let you beat it down to 5% of its life then insta kill it.

Its's all relative...

[Viisari]

A good caster will let you beat down the trash you started on.

Why? He'll save time by just killing it.

A nice caster will dance the mob you are beating on

Why would he waste SP for that when he can just kill it?

A mean caster will kill it before you get there.

Yeah it's called "playing a class to its fullest potential"

A cruel caster will let you beat it down to 5% of its life then insta kill it.

Happens, though usually it just means that I was busy killing other mobs somewhere else and didn't see your mob before. And now that I did see it I killed it too.

Its's all relative...

Indeed.

[Astraghal]

big quote

I think the answer to the balance issue is to give melee's devastating combat and tactical abilities, appropriate to their heroic status. There has to be a raft of effective abilities that are exclusive to melee only. That means having prerequisites that stop players from splashing melee just for that, while retaining their corny AI exploiting AoE kiting or insta-kills. There needs to be a compelling reason to run a full BAB, 100%, pure 20 DPS melee class. I won't even suggest buffing tactics like Stunning Blow, because while nice, it just doesn't cut it when compared to the mob dominating abilities of the other classes.

[Astraghal]

Roll yourself a PM and stop trying to spoil the fun for others.

Got a chuckle out of this one. Casters are going to get nerfed. Melee's are going to become more powerful. Just give it some more time.

Edit - Oops double post

[vittordevittor]

This would be a valid issue if you were seeing epic LFMs that don't take barbs, or only allow one barb and arcanes/rogues for the rest of the party. This is not the case, so there's no need to rebalance anything. Casters are now more fun to play, while barbs got even more boring, that's your problem. Roll yourself a PM and stop trying to spoil the fun for others.

Stop trying to nerf people out.

[grandeibra]

Why? He'll save time by just killing it.

Agreed, PROVIDED it is the ONLY mob still alive. Lots of casters focus on instakillin the mob that melees are beating on before instakilling other mobs. that does not save time

If you are not contributing in epic quests on a geared barbarian you are doing something wrong.

I would almost say "If you are contributing in epic quests [until bossfight] on a geared barbarian your group is doing something wrong"

Personally my main is a high int assassin and the instakillin post u9 is utterly boring to me. Sure it should exist, but not as the ez button it is now for many rogues/casters. My two cents

[gavijal]

Huh? Wizards, sorcs and favored souls are the easy buttons of this game, pure and simple.

And this is coming from a wizard. It's the truth, deal with it.

As wizzy u have special roles in raid likein VON 6 solo base 1, in TOD etc.., like fvs u need to heal so no piking, what is hard in playing barb.. or even in which quest you are doing anything else then 2 button fighting?

And btw.. thanx for neg rep

[Astraghal]

I see what the problem is here...Epic to you equals munch and crunch grind grind grind and wizards cant be epic. Now on to the actual.. An EPIC Wizard can slay beasts with one mighty spell..if he cannot he is not epic is he? HE is the toady who must follow the EPIC fighter around to help him be more EPIC. Epic wizards one shot, it happens and it should happen. If you disagree you are unfamiliar with Elminster, Merlin, and well basically the entire genre.

If you want to talk genre..

You've obviously never heard of Achilles, Conan, Cuchullain or Feanor.