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

[Raithe]

that quote says it all about you as a player.

Nice selective editing there. IRC that post was mostly about me explaining that DDO is both competitive and cooperative. They are not mutually exclusive.

So which is it? You play to beat everyone around in the kill counts OR you play to contribute to the overall success of the party with a suboptimal build that's not concerned with the kill counts?

I do not play to beat other players in the kill counts. I play to beat the quest in kill counts. I always play to avoid a wipe, regardless. Yes, I still gauge my performance against other players in the group who are doing well. That makes it both competitive and cooperative.

And, I must add, you DO seem to want nerfs consistantly in your posting history. You even state that AAs are almost as OP as Casters!

I never said any such thing. I believe you are referring to a post where I claim that AA's have a chance of holding their own against casters in some quests. It's interesting that you are now ready to admit that casters are "OP."

As to the actual OP..it's been pointed out already that DCs he using as a basis for his, yet again, call of NERF are based on the high end builds, not the average player. And if Matt hasn't figured it out by now, MMOs are based on the LCD rule, you design for the Lowest Common Denominator, your AVERAGE player who spends 2-5 hours a week playing the game.

No, this is completely wrong. You design for the NEW character (not the average) who has excellent, top notch gaming skills. The whole point of a game revolves around the player, not the character. This allows new players to get better at the game and succeed without endless grinding, and allows longterm players to still experience a challenge if they seek it (by running the highest level content their character can open).

[Aaxeyu]

No 40 DC is not enough.

Enough to be more effective than melees? Sure.

[Chai]

I assume this was sarcasm, and as such shows a remarkable lack of understanding of game mechanics. Bards are right there, and no group should be favoring a 6th caster over a spellsinger.

Let's do a little breakdown in spell point sources, shall we? Let's use 2 wizards, 2 sorcs, a favored soul, and a spellsinger:

2 sorcs, 1 favored soul = 3500 spell points each (using bauble, etc), x3 = 10500 spell points.

2 wizards = 2700 spell points each, x2 = 5400 spell points.

1 spellsinger:
1800 spell points
20 songs, 15 used for sp regen: 210 x 15 = 3150 spell points
10% efficiency: 1050 + 540 + 180 + 315 = 2085 spell points

Total: 7035 spell points

The bard is doing more instakilling than anyone in the party. Not to mention he can fascinate very large groups of mobs for easier Wailing/CoDing.

If you are piking your bard, you are nerfing the game worse than anyone is asking for here.

What is a bard instakilling with exactly, other than by proxy through a wizard or sorc? All you outlined is how they can provide more mana than any other member, which is awesome, between tabbing out to watch another webisode, and food / beer runs, swapping out laundry, etc

[Raithe]

What is a bard instkilling with exactly, other than by proxy through a wizard or sorc?

That is the bard mode of operation. They get other members of the group to do their damage for them.

You cannot pike in such a group, btw. I could spend 50% of my time in a typical quest just hitting the other 5 members with songs and buffs. The other 50% of the time could be spent healing, debuffing and fascinating. Bards have both Hypnotism (-3 will save) and Crushing Despair (-2 to all saves, -5 will save on first cast). It all contributes to the final goal of getting that particular mob to vanish/implode in a puff of particle effects.

[gloopygloop]

What is a bard instakilling with exactly, other than by proxy through a wizard or sorc? All you outlined is how they can provide more mana than any other member, which is awesome, between tabbing out to watch another webisode, and food / beer runs, swapping out laundry, etc

How else am I supposed to read the forums during a Shroud run?

Don't tell me how to read mah forums! And get off mah lawn!

(okay, I'll admit that I read the forums while I'm in part 1 of the Shroud on my FvS also.)

[irivan]

Enough to be more effective than melees? Sure.

You are totally full of it, what part of mana drained, and 45 min to an hour of quest left? dont you get.

But since you talk a big game, prove it in a quest worthy of the challenge, use wegame, you can make a video using their stuff there and post it here, wont cost you a dime, wont be the highest quality. But show us all, i would be happy to get schooled.

In the groups that this would be required in, my Kensai multi will not just out kill you, it would embarrass you.

[Emili]

Oh and if the vorpal HP cap goes away, it needs to stop doing bane damage.

Vorpals do not sport bane damage ... it has 100 damage in place of vorpaling (on a roll of 20 when the mob is above 1000hp). Averages out to 5 damage so is below alignment (holy, axio, anarchic...), burst, banishing, ... in damage. As a suffix it is more costly than most for less returns... when it reduces the amount of prefix you may have.

The only vorpals worth anything are the epic'd named variety... utilizing a chest loot drop (or craftable if when they add that in) the vorpal effect adds in 5 damage per swing as compared to 6.5 or 10.5 of some other attribute of equal + weight in the weapons value had you used something else. The cost of vorpal on a weapon is higher than it's overall output... i.e. two ml 10 weapons : +4 Holy (4 + 6.5) (ml 10) compared to +1 Vorpal (1 + 5) (ml 10) against an Evil mob... add in the fact that the +4 of the holy is multiplied by the criticals and you may see what is the better overall weapon ... yet they're both ml 10 and value the same. As you start to add more to both weapons going up in level the non-vorpal delivers more bang.

[Beld]

My five favorite characters of all time are: 1. melee/healer bard. 2. dwarven twf axe pure fighter. 3. offensive casting oriented cleric. 4. cc/healing bard. 5. ranged character. Seems like a pretty good mix of casting oriented characters actually.

I have no problems with a multitude of other nerfs and buffs to other classes that I have not previously expressed. Melee have always had an old power creep issue which is well known and leads to overblown mob/boss hit points and distorts the game is one example of potential area of change.

I speak my mind unlike some people on these forums. Yes men does nobody any good. I have asked for three nerfs: 1. remove mana pots/silver flame pots. 2. Nerf DOT Spells. 3. Nerf instakills for those classes that can get the highest instakill dcs.

I fully support the removal of blanket immunities. I like what the devs did with sorc prestige enhancements and buffing of spells like acid blast which was great. I think ray spells should get buffed further to augment a nerf to DOT spells.

This is the time for people to give feedback. The end game is in flux with the lack of release of end game content/epics. We may never get another epic quest so for whatever the devs plan for the future is - well now is the time to speak your mind and make the game better. The devs are very talented and although they do not always listen they might just listen and if they do and think something is a good idea they can make a quality change to the game.

Even tho I don't agree per se with you on this issue, you have maintained a well thought out argument without being drug into the trolling, well done sir, as I have come to expect.

This post in particular is causing me to think about your suggestion in a new light, so again, well done.

[maddmatt70]

Make the game better for who?

Your nerfs don't make the game better for casters.

...

[Emili]

I see from your toons list in your sig why you might be severely biased about this subject.

Considering the times I group with him he seems to play pretty evenenly among classes, fact is I'd say plays a non-melee a tad more often.

...

I take those three dots as meaning toss more dynamic back on "the group."

[Vengenance]

With proper debuffing??? What's that? You can't just hit wail and kill 10 mobs immediately in EPIC?!?!!?

EXACTLY!!!!

Even with high DCs its not as dominating as madd wants us to believe. There is a lot of prep work and skill to gather and debuff the mobs without dying and that doen'st even count the work needed to get your DC where it needs to be.

As others have said, in the time you spend gathering and debuffing so you can do this supposded "insta" kill (which is really a do 3 debuffs and kill spell) the melees could have killed half or more of the mobs. I hardly find the melees useless.

What this guy said. My PM, which has two wiz past lives and a sorc past life has a hard time just insta killing stuff. You have to prep everything first by debuffing it with Symbol of Death, Circle of Death, and then Wail. Even after doing all of that you have monsters save so you have to enervate then FOD them. Believe me, it used to go much faster just holding stuff and having the melee kill it all quickly.

I guess Matt is just mad because he can no longer be the sole hero on a quest. Either that or one two many arcanes Fingered the monster he was trying to kill and now he came to the forums to cry about it to the devs.

[KoboldKiller]

Considering the times I group with him he seems to play pretty evenenly among classes, fact is I'd say plays a non-melee a tad more often.



I take those three dots as meaning toss more resosibility back on "the group."

No it makes it so the melees (because really that's what this is all about) can get those precious little skulls they are concerned about now.

[KoboldKiller]

The simple fact is this, no matter what Turbine does someone is going to claim that "x" is too powerful and ruining my fun.

There is no such thing as parity and if there were then it would be BORING.

[Emili]

No it makes it so the melees (because really that's what this is all about) can get those precious little skulls they are concerned about now.

Actually the impression I get and while I really do not speak for him is he's looking for placing more challenge on the group. To be honest unless you ran with him I do not think people would understand. Among all the high end grouping/raiding on the Khyber server I'd rate his groups as typically "the most fun" no matter what character one brings. In Matt's groups you all contribute. He makes you contribute.

[KoboldKiller]

Actually the impression I get and while I really do not speak for him is he's looking for placing more challenge on the group. To be honest unless you ran with him I do not think people would understand. Among all the high end grouping/raiding on the Khyber server I'd rate his groups as typically "the most fun" no matter what character one brings. In Matt's groups you all contribute, he makes you contribute, and those who do not contribute eventually fall off the scope.

So in group play you want the players to contribute to the highest level of their ability in order to ensure a smooth quest and completion correct? Yet somehow a caster who has done everything they need to do in order to efficiently destroy MOBs as quickly as possible which makes the quest smoother and less resource intensive for everyone is counter productive the group and it's goals and is not contributing?

[Emili]

So in group play you want the players to contribute to the highest level of their ability in order to ensure a smooth quest and completion correct? Yet somehow a caster who has done everything they need to do in order to efficiently destroy MOBs as quickly as possible which makes the quest smoother and less resource intensive for everyone is counter productive the group and it's goals and is not contributing?

Catch 22 isn't it? The other non-caster players are no longer contributiing to their "highest" level now are they? Becoming less of a "group" effort and more attune the limits of the the caster who is pushing his ... but the other players are not pushing theirs. You label the scope of the "fun" as "completing" ... now ask yourself is the "completing" the "fun" or is it the route getting the "complete."

Typically in epics I ask people what class I should bring ... usually am on a bard or a melee or my cleric. Scope though is what's fun is actually utilizing the class you bring, the more trivial (easy) the quest the less you feel like being there. There are points where things become so simple they're no longer fun.

I am not for any nerf's btw... instead I am entirely for the gutting of dungeons at all levels - including those below end game - the revamping of encounters and making each and every encounter exciting rather than trivial. People speak about trash mob and tell non-bosses should be trash or a speed bump... to me they do not even appear a speed bump any more, they appear in a dungeon and have little contribution save possibly DA if you ignore them. I would like to see trash mob on par of a challenge at all levels, after all they are the journey to the boss. They should be buffing up, DW, FoM, Resisting, etc...they should be poising some resistance to our advancing through the dungeon - at all levels - otherwise why not place the boss at the front door.

Does not matte to me though as I think my days are numbered... I solo everything outside of epics and the raids, basically just for the favour and the fun of doing it. The best quests are actually more fun on a less sufficient - limited character - rather than something more sufficient- i.e. elite acute delerium ... walk in the park on my FvS or PM but exciting on a fighter or pally.

[kailiea]

That is the bard mode of operation. They get other members of the group to do their damage for them.

You cannot pike in such a group, btw. I could spend 50% of my time in a typical quest just hitting the other 5 members with songs and buffs. The other 50% of the time could be spent healing, debuffing and fascinating. Bards have both Hypnotism (-3 will save) and Crushing Despair (-2 to all saves, -5 will save on first cast). It all contributes to the final goal of getting that particular mob to vanish/implode in a puff of particle effects.

That may be the new way, but the old way allowed them to solo....My old bard had a 44 ench dc buffed and 600 hps and soloed epics because I could actually extend my crowd control! Now I can extend my buffs click 2 songs and eat a sandwich. I can't wait for the suggested nerfs to neuter caster/divines and turn them into the bard!

[Emili]

That may be the new way, but the old way allowed them to solo....My old bard had a 44 ench dc buffed and 600 hps and soloed epics because I could actually extend my crowd control! Now I can extend my buffs click 2 songs and eat a sandwich. I can't wait for the suggested nerfs to neuter caster/divines and turn them into the bard!

Spell pass is funny... it reduced effectiveness of CC, buffing, debuffing and utility spells, added a slight reduction to cost of healing, attrition and enhanced direct mob removal spells.

[Raithe]

Now I can extend my buffs click 2 songs and eat a sandwich. I can't wait for the suggested nerfs to neuter caster/divines and turn them into the bard!

Oh for pete's sake, run ahead of the casters, fascinate a group, hit one with OID (it can't possibly save) and mow it down.

Bards are not the underdogs here. Neither really are monks or assassins.

Tell me what a mechanic is supposed to be doing in epics.

[voodoogroves]

Oh for pete's sake, run ahead of the casters, fascinate a group, hit one with OID (it can't possibly save) and mow it down.

Bards are not the underdogs here. Neither really are monks or assassins.

Tell me what a mechanic is supposed to be doing in epics.

Laugh at the Deepwood Snipers?