Nerf PMs and Implosion or just make mobs save better against that

[Junts]

You are so right it is much much easier to get an arcane/divine up to close to the maximum potential of the class from a dps perspective. Melee takes alot more work to get close to the maximum potential.

The thing is its only a 'dps perspective' where this is true: Its certainly a long, long grind (with many past lives) to bring instakills up to the level you talk about, and that DPS is a lot more limited when it isn't supported with baubles, eardwellers, other mana-regen gear, or sp-reduction gear. Since casters don't really do DPS (but rather do a set total of damage with their whole mana pool), endurance extention -is- a huge deal. When I upgraded my savant to an epic cloak of the zephyr and went from running most epic content with a lv 16 ornamental dagger in my hand (for the major lightning lore) to running with the staff of the petitioner (for the sp reduction, since I've also got epic inner sight), the difference in my soloing was gigantic: I now reach shrines I used to reach dry and kill the last mob with a SLA when I've still got 400 mana left, I frequently don't have to use my bauble or other regeneration clickies, and etc.

My character's performance was drastically increased by that item, but not for reasons that have anything to do with its theoretical improvement of my DPS (via the 12% crit chance). The improvement to my instakill, mass hold (to nuke the held stuff) and endurance is what changed, and even that simple upgrade on a character who had pretty much everything else was extremely noticable. It was certainly more noticable than any ravager set I've ever completed, or any claw set, all on its own.

Casters improve in other ways. It takes great play to play a very badly equipped caster and be an effective soloist in content that is any kind of a challenge, and its difficult to play them and beat melees in killcounts since the sp pools are bad and the dcs are not so good.

Its no surprise that extremely equipped instakillers are great at trash mobs. Those characters (palemasters and divines) require a lot of trs and actually aren't that good at dpsing: Even wizards running 2 dots don't eclipse high-end melees, and if they do any other kind of nuking their damage potential dies quickly. Sorcerors can blow melees away, but they don't cart around 45 dc necro spells.

A mix of those is obviously extremely powerful, but so is a mix of one of each, a healing bard and a bunch of great melees.

There have always been classes that were disproportionately better at record-set speedrun situations. Remember how the fastest shroud ever was a group of 11 monks to touch the portals as fast as possible? Paladins have always been very bad at speedrunning because so much of their dps is lost if they skip shrines (2 mana buffs, and divine mights).

If you can do 15m shrouds with all melee groups, it doesnt matter if an all caster group does it in 12 or 13. They're all really, really fast.

[Viisari]

This is certainly the case for trash mobs, but depending on the mobs in question it may or may not be true for bosses, especially raid bosses.

And, depending on the content, it isn't necessarily faster to run multiple casters vs running 1-2 with strong melee support. In some content it is, and in some content the mixed group is stronger.

But the content is sickeningly easy for both.

Well the only raid boss where savants can't get near melee dps is Abbot. Another boss is wizking. And they're both liches There might be others but I don't remember any, or they're too marginal to be of any concern.

And yeah, stunner light monk with align the heavens and a spellsinger bard are awesome support melees, take a few casters, have them use staff of the petitioner and they can have around -45% to spell costs all the time. That means basically infinite mana pool for all quests.

I'm not that picky when running my epics though

<edit> And yeah, epic content doesn't really have the epic part in it.

[Emili]

Interesting. I'll have to run a few quests tonight with quicken off. Been looking for an extra feat-slot.

Is the The dc is 10 + spell level being cast + damage taken ...

so is never a "1" even something like DD you go to disable the trap you roll a 1 (+63) ... trap disabled.

Funny like crit confirmation works the same way : you roll a 1 (+66) critical confirmed.

[xTethx]

Melees are always gonna be faster than casters when it comes to raid bosses. Look at all the raid speed records. Caster rule trash and melees rule bosses. No way could 12 casters/divines run shroud in 10 mins, ToD in 9 mins, or elite vision in 6-7 mins.

[Junts]

Well the only raid boss where savants can't get near melee dps is Abbot. Another boss is wizking. And they're both liches There might be others but I don't remember any, or they're too marginal to be of any concern.

And yeah, stunner light monk with align the heavens and a spellsinger bard are awesome support melees, take a few casters, have them use staff of the petitioner and they can have around -45% to spell costs all the time. That means basically infinite mana pool for all quests.

I'm not that picky when running my epics though

<edit> And yeah, epic content doesn't really have the epic part in it.

This isn't true: casters have long-since out-damaged everyone else in the abbot if they want to: just disintegrate and delayedblast is enough. (since, you know, the guy has 100% fort). add meteor swarm and/or incendiary cloud and it isn't even close.

The thing is that caster dps has rampup time. What Teth says is acutely true. There are probably a few quests where casters are the best way to speedrun it (dq comes to mind, and possibly tower), but in most situations a melee or mixed group will be faster overall.

[Junts]

Is the (die roll) +skill value...

so is never a "1" even something like DD you go to disable the trap you roll a 1 (+63) ... trap disabled.

Funny like crit confirmation works the same way : you roll a 1 (+66) critical confirmed.

Things that can't critically succeed also can't critically fail.

Its not just a question of making a 1 automatically fail: they'd have to make a 20 do something special to counterbalance it.

Since there's no way to critically crit, critically disarm a trap or critically succeed at concentrating, nor can you critically fail at those.

DMs are free to creatively invent ways for a lot of that stuff to critically succeed (drastically extra info on a critical diplo roll, etc), but DDO doesn't have that kind of flexibility.

[insaneuou]

Adapt

[Viisari]

Melees are always gonna be faster than casters when it comes to raid bosses. Look at all the raid speed records. Caster rule trash and melees rule bosses. No way could 12 casters/divines run shroud in 10 mins, ToD in 9 mins, or elite vision in 6-7 mins.

Though I daresay they're not very far behind. The fastest part 4 in shroud I've seen was done by arcane&divine party, or if not, it was a very close tie with some of the runs I've done with some ridiculously well geared melee toons. Took around 17 seconds if I remember right.

If casters have to conserve mana then the dps will drop by quite a lot so maybe shroud part 4 isn't a very good example.

[Scraap]

Yeah... so the minutia there blows that notion out of the water, by and large... pitty, I'd really rather not see more contortions upon contortions if at all avoidable.

[maddmatt70]

My character's performance was drastically increased by that item, but not for reasons that have anything to do with its theoretical improvement of my DPS (via the 12% crit chance). The improvement to my instakill, mass hold (to nuke the held stuff) and endurance is what changed, and even that simple upgrade on a character who had pretty much everything else was extremely noticable. It was certainly more noticable than any ravager set I've ever completed, or any claw set, all on its own.

Casters improve in other ways. It takes great play to play a very badly equipped caster and be an effective soloist in content that is any kind of a challenge, and its difficult to play them and beat melees in killcounts since the sp pools are bad and the dcs are not so good.

Its no surprise that extremely equipped instakillers are great at trash mobs. Those characters (palemasters and divines) require a lot of trs and actually aren't that good at dpsing: Even wizards running 2 dots don't eclipse high-end melees, and if they do any other kind of nuking their damage potential dies quickly. Sorcerors can blow melees away, but they don't cart around 45 dc necro spells.

I would argue that a wizard from an insta-kill perspective only benefits from one wizard tr (unless they go for completionist) otherwise its just to increase their spell penetration.

A mix of those is obviously extremely powerful, but so is a mix of one of each, a healing bard and a bunch of great melees.

Two major flaws to your theory first we spend 80% of non raids killing trash or the like so from a time perspective they own. Second FVS and wizards actually do fairly good damage on the bosses so its not like their a huge liability on bosses or anything.

There have always been classes that were disproportionately better at record-set speedrun situations. Remember how the fastest shroud ever was a group of 11 monks to touch the portals as fast as possible? Paladins have always been very bad at speedrunning because so much of their dps is lost if they skip shrines (2 mana buffs, and divine mights).

If you can do 15m shrouds with all melee groups, it doesnt matter if an all caster group does it in 12 or 13. They're all really, really fast.

This just is not the way of the game. People will gravitate toward what is best and what is the fastest. If you recall people made alot of monks when they were overpowered and they made alot of 6 ranger combination builds when they were overpowered and they made alot of barbarians when they were overpowered. Now I am already seeing alot of FVS builds going on and a huge interest in trring for sorc past lives on people's FVS and an increase in wizards.

I am caving and getting 3 sorc lives on my cleric with a wiz past life (I have never been a real big wizard fan, but my cleric is one of my favorite characters). It will take me awhile, but I really have no choice. Whenever you play with the guys that have the high dc wizards and FVS with all of those past lives they basically carry you through the quest so the only thing to do is be one of those guys.

[maddmatt70]

Melees are always gonna be faster than casters when it comes to raid bosses. Look at all the raid speed records. Caster rule trash and melees rule bosses. No way could 12 casters/divines run shroud in 10 mins, ToD in 9 mins, or elite vision in 6-7 mins.

Sorry Teth but not true anymore. We were only 30 seconds from doing a 10 min shroud last night. We had a lousy part 2. The group was 10 FVS 1 monk 1 sorc.. A TOD could be done in 9 minutes as well with FVS.

[~sumptingwong]

Developers in case you were not aware it is tough to get a 45+ dc on your instakills unless you are a palemaster or have wizard/sorcerer past lives on your favored soul or cleric. I guess I am a little selfish in asking this from the standpoint of the vast majority of players have not even heard of past lives or have the capacity to get a +45 dc on their pale master/fvs/cleric, but for those of us that run in those groups it sucks runnning with people that can get a +45 dc on instakills. I would recommend that you figure out a method for allowing pale masters to have their fun but allowing the rest of us to also have our fun. The signal that you are sending is leave the game or roll up a palemaster or have multiple sorc past lives for your FVS or cleric. Honestly I am not joking. This is not a very good signal to send for the end game, because most people will just leave.

You realize by nerfing them it just makes the game harder when you run with them???

/not signed

[Junts]

I would argue that a wizard from an insta-kill perspective only benefits from one wizard tr (unless they go for completionist) otherwise its just to increase their spell penetration.


Two major flaws to your theory first we spend 80% of non raids killing trash or the like so from a time perspective they own. Second FVS and wizards actually do fairly good damage on the bosses so its not like their a huge liability on bosses or anything.



This just is not the way of the game. People will gravitate toward what is best and what is the fastest. If you recall people made alot of monks when they were overpowered and they made alot of 6 ranger combination builds when they were overpowered and they made alot of barbarians when they were overpowered. Now I am already seeing alot of FVS builds going on and a huge interest in trring for sorc past lives on people's FVS and an increase in wizards.

I am caving and getting 3 sorc lives on my cleric with a wiz past life (I have never been a real big wizard fan, but my cleric is one of my favorite characters). It will take me awhile, but I really have no choice. Whenever you play with the guys that have the high dc wizards and FVS with all of those past lives they basically carry you through the quest so the only thing to do is be one of those guys.

There's a lot of spell pen out there, and frequently wizard past lives don't increase your spell pen: they give you feats back to spend on other stuff. Spell resistance isn't uncommon, and you're a pretty bad instakiller if you don't have some decent spell pen. Having so much spell pen from pastlives lets you do things like take further DC feats or drop spell pen enhancements for things that increase your ability elsewhere (more damage enhancements in a 2nd element, or whatever).

I've got a +4 cha tome sitting in the bank on my sorc because I have yet to decide if I want to do another wizard life or two just to drop my spell pen feats: It'd be 3 trs (wiz, wiz, back to sor) to get back a couple feats: I could take a sf: necro and anything else (gsf necro, gsf evoc, etc), all of which you'd probably tr for on their own (if a life gave +1 necro dc, you'd do it, wouldnt you? I thought so). Heck, I could even get extend back if I wanted.

[Viisari]

This isn't true: casters have long-since out-damaged everyone else in the abbot if they want to: just disintegrate and delayedblast is enough. (since, you know, the guy has 100% fort). add meteor swarm and/or incendiary cloud and it isn't even close.

The thing is that caster dps has rampup time. What Teth says is acutely true. There are probably a few quests where casters are the best way to speedrun it (dq comes to mind, and possibly tower), but in most situations a melee or mixed group will be faster overall.

True, though I usually try to conserve my SP in abbot since the runs I do aren't one rounders all the time (or even often). On epic wizking though, casters are bad dps. Unless you know something I don't.

The reason I think that melees don't have much of place anymore, is that even though they're better as tanks and at bossbeating, those are often a small part in quests (not counting raids). And since casters are so much better at killing trash, and not too far behind at boss fights, why not just take more casters since it'll make trash go down faster?

The smoothest eDA I've ever run was a group full of casters (with one fvs), and I've run it with some **** good melees in several different party compositions. And that quest has two rather nasty boss fights. And our sorc was an acid savant (gimp, get elec or water already ), which is kinda waste considering the fact no other caster had acid spells.

[Junts]

True, though I usually try to conserve my SP in abbot since the runs I do aren't one rounders all the time (or even often). On epic wizking though, casters are bad dps. Unless you know something I don't.

The reason I think that melees don't have much of place anymore, is that even though they're better as tanks and at bossbeating, those are often a small part in quests (not counting raids). And since casters are so much better at killing trash, and not too far behind at boss fights, why not just take more casters since it'll make trash go down faster?

The smoothest eDA I've ever run was a group full of casters (with one fvs), and I've run it with some **** good melees with several different kinds of party compositions. And that quest has two rather nasty boss fights.

The other side of this is that casters are so good at killing trash that you don't really need more than one or two to basically run through the quest without actually stopping ever.

So what point is there in taking casters 3-6?

i've done eda runs like that too: But they were with only 2-3 casters, and they were even faster because, lo and behold, we had melees to kill the bosses too.

Heck, a single really good caster can do that to a lot of epics, but I would be hardpressed to name a quest that you would require more than 2 good casters to get that effect out of. Maybe EADQ, but primarily because that quest lets you split up to 6 ways if you want (so 6 casters all soloing a side is both possible and ideal).

-

Casters used to have massive diminishing returns: The first caster made the quest much, much easier (mass holds, buffs, etc etc), and the later casters were a lot less good than nearly any other class. Sometimes you ran multiple casters, but it was either becuase you didn't care or you wanted to split up and have a caster with each group.

Casters still have a bit more diminishing return than a lot of melee, but they have a lot less. Sure, there are thing they're really incredibly good at. There are quests that will be faster the more casters you add, or sometimes a specific class (IE only fvs really get the shroud result you're discussing, because divine punihsment works on portals and portals are the slowest part of the quest by far, so making them faster is the most important part of a speedrun), and there are definitely quests where adding casters 4,5, 6 and 7 is not better than adding good melees.

But the most important thing is to remember that it just doesn't matter. Look, I like my quests as fast as anyone in this thread: I'm a huge zerger, I'm impatient as heck, I'm aggressively indifferent to party compositions (people switching toons actually makes me angry), and I love racing to the end. I spam run stuff as much as anyone, and probably even more. And there is something I've learned.

Even in that, the difference between a 12m run and a 13-14m run is miniscule. And if you're not having fun doing the 12m run because you're not playing a character you enjoy, its more onerous than the 13 (or probably a 20, but I just cant abide wasting that much time) with a character you do like. The game changes. It will always change. Sometimes those changes are significant and effect every player (like the recent epic changes). Sometimes those tweaks are smaller and only affect a single class or a single set of builds.

I really enjoy my caster. He is far, far more fun than he used to be. I don't really think he's overpowered, but he can do a lot of crazy things. He can certainly do some stuff my other characters can't do.

However, that will change. New content will come out that my tactics or spells don't work in, or casters will get nerfed somehow, or melee will get buffed somehow, or probably all of those things. I will continue to play my other characters, equip them to the highest level, and enjoy them because, in no particular order

1: They're fun to play
2: I want them to be fun to play when they get new toys in the future
3: I want to be able to be adaptable when the best tactic now stops working so well
4: I want to be able to identify and play the new best tactic before anyone else does.
5: I know, know from personal experience that if I do nothing but repeat the same characters and tactics I will get burnt out on my repetitions faster and hate the quests more. When you know you have to run something 200+ times the way that I did to make all my claw sets, you had better be prepared to protect yourself from burnout. I do that by varying which character I play, even if it makes a few runs less than ideal. A couple 25m instead of 20m runs, even a 30 once a week, is a price worth the cost of not thinking "Into the deep?" and having a powerful urge to log out. There are quests I repeated and burnt myself out on so badly that, 2 years later, I still hate them and will not run them (Stealer of Souls, Vision). And I know that's becasue I ran those quests 50-100 times when I was already annoyed with doing them and bored of it. Varying tactics protects me from that. It is worth it.

Should you tr your fvs a bunch, matt? Sure. You haven't yet. Its probably been one of your under-loved toons. You should get it tr'd a bit and get some past lives in the mix that will make it stronger. But you don't want to do that just because you want to save 30s off of a last stand run. You want to do it so that your character has past lives and feat flexibility to adapt when the game changes again. Because the game will change again.

I don't care about people who made exploiter builds when ac was great or who made no-wis monks when they were awesome or any of that. If those people had fun doing it, more power to them.

You know what I don't like? I don't like when those people don't recognize they've put all their eggs in a single basket that will inevitably be changed and continue to play their crappy exploiter with rapiers in epic content or run around playing a monk that both doesn't dps and can't stun anything for itself.

Those characters age badly. You guys are free to make every quest about all your clerics, fvs, and arcanes, but you know what? When they (inevitably) produce content where that doesn't work so well (and they probably are already building it) and you guys go 'aw shucks all ive done for 3 updates is run arcanes and divines for everything', my melees will not only have the best gear available, but they will be in-practice and ready to go.

If you guys want to each have a character to do that kind of thing for each other (I caster this run, you do the next?), that makes sense: we do that all the time, and most people have a character for each niche.

But if you really want to make your whole game about those 3-4 things, you both limit your own ability to have fun (you're already moping about playing characters you dont enjoy) and you limit your ability to play at a high level going forward.

The extra 30s off of everyone setting themselves up so all the shrouds are all caster and divine isn't worth that. If you are good at DDO the speed differences are negligible. When you are doing something 100-200-300 times, like we do raids, you have to protect yourself by having fun while you do it. Play characters and builds you like. They will still do fine.

[HAL]

One could say to me, if you like pre U9 tactics so much, why not just use them? They still work! And it's true, Pre U9 tactics do work, and as I mentioned we employ them when running the same epic quest multiple times since, well, we don't all have multiple capped casters. Frankly however, I find it irrational and crazy to purposely make a quest longer and more difficult for the same reward...

As someone already said, its like you complainers are overweight and have a bag of cookies in the pantry and can't stop yourselves from eating them. So instead you have to remove the cookies from the house which means that even the people with no weight issue can't have them.

If you want to make the game more challenging, go ahead! People who want to get more exercise bicycle to work instead of using the more convenient car. No one is forcing you to hit the easy button. And don't propose making the game the way YOU want without regard for us who don't want it that way.

[Emili]

You realize by nerfing them it just makes the game harder when you run with them???

/not signed

Are you saying you may actually have to play your character if they nerf the arcane?

[maddmatt70]

Should you tr your fvs a bunch, matt? Sure. You haven't yet. Its probably been one of your under-loved toons. You should get it tr'd a bit and get some past lives in the mix that will make it stronger. But you don't want to do that just because you want to save 30s off of a last stand run. You want to do it so that your character has past lives and feat flexibility to adapt when the game changes again. Because the game will change again.

I don't care about people who made exploiter builds when ac was great or who made no-wis monks when they were awesome or any of that. If those people had fun doing it, more power to them.

You know what I don't like? I don't like when those people don't recognize they've put all their eggs in a single basket that will inevitably be changed and continue to play their crappy exploiter with rapiers in epic content or run around playing a monk that both doesn't dps and can't stun anything for itself.

Those characters age badly. You guys are free to make every quest about all your clerics, fvs, and arcanes, but you know what? When they (inevitably) produce content where that doesn't work so well (and they probably are already building it) and you guys go 'aw shucks all ive done for 3 updates is run arcanes and divines for everything', my melees will not only have the best gear available, but they will be in-practice and ready to go.

If you guys want to each have a character to do that kind of thing for each other (I caster this run, you do the next?), that makes sense: we do that all the time, and most people have a character for each niche.

But if you really want to make your whole game about those 3-4 things, you both limit your own ability to have fun (you're already moping about playing characters you dont enjoy) and you limit your ability to play at a high level going forward.

The extra 30s off of everyone setting themselves up so all the shrouds are all caster and divine isn't worth that. If you are good at DDO the speed differences are negligible. When you are doing something 100-200-300 times, like we do raids, you have to protect yourself by having fun while you do it. Play characters and builds you like. They will still do fine.

I played my fighter when he was a gimp like all fighters compared to barbarians and 6 level ranger melee for 2 years prior to update 1. I did roll up a ranger melee myself, but I kept playing my fighter as well. The thing was even though my fighter did about 10% less dps then barbs at that time he could still compete with them. The difference between having an ultra insta-kill character and not having one is something outlandish which is why I am asking for this nerf AND also why I am making an insta-kill specced character myself. I am choosing my cleric for the trrs instead of my fvs because for whatever irrational reason I like clerics better then FVS even though I think FVS are better or at least their prestige enhancement is better.

[Emili]

I played my fighter when he was a gimp like all fighters compared to barbarians and 6 level ranger melee for 2 years prior to update 1. I did roll up a ranger melee myself, but I kept playing my fighter as well. The thing was even though my fighter did about 10% less dps then barbs at that time he could still compete with them. The difference between having an ultra insta-kill character and not having one is something outlandish which is why I am asking for this nerf AND also why I am making an insta-kill specced character myself. I am choosing my cleric for the trrs instead of my fvs because for whatever irrational reason I like clerics better then FVS even though I think FVS are better or at least their prestige enhancement is better.

I tend to prefer my cleric over FvS too for some reason... and am not sure why? Obviously the FvS has more bells and whistles.

[KristovK]

Please don't speak for other people. Savant and instakill domination of non-Epic content is why I'm involved in these debates. From personal experience I also believe that there is a very large segment of new customers that are becoming disenchanted with gameplay due to savant abilities, which often trump even instakill in non-Epic content.

Take a couple of sorcs into Stealer of Souls who have both savant DPS and instakill. Any other class you take will feel inferior.

You actually are EXACTLY the type I'm talking to and about here Raithe. You did NOT complain over the past..2 years or more is it now, while the Casters were ruling the non-Epic end game content with their instakills. Hate to break it to you Raithe, but that is NOT something that just suddenly happened with U9, it's been here since the cap hit 20(18 really, when we first got WoB). And Savants are only since U9, that's what..a little over two months ago?

Prior to U9 and the removal of the Epic Ward, no one gave a **** about Casters, especially the Necro AMs and PMs, being able to instakill their way through anything non-Epic. There's more threads about the weakness of Rogues, Ranged builds and Paladins then there is about the overpowered Necro AMs and PMs, and they aren't listed as the reason those others feel weak..Barbarians and Kensai are, the masters of Melee DPS.

Stop and think about that for a bit folks...2 years of instakilling our way through Vale, Amrath, and IQ, and the complaints were about how bad Barbs and Kensai made the other classes look, not about how bad Casters made them look.