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

[Tirisha]

No, I had firewall crit fishing, if I had 5 other casters in the party I had alot of firewall crit fishing.

And (not trying to be rude although I know how it sounds) you must play with some truly abysmal melee players if your 38 DC contributes more than a geared out Barb.

I'd say the same about your casters.

In any event, I would prefer Turbine redo epics to make them a challenge across all classes, you seem to be on the side of keeping them as a joke as long as melees outkill the casters. That's cool, one of those "agree to disagree" things.

But (surprise) yet again, you still have the ability to make groups and play with whom you'd like.
If you don't want to contribute "less" than a caster.
Don't bring one.

Actually I just want a reason to log onto a melee that's all. Not too much to ask. I have many of them, though I still do enjoy playing them, it's not at all what it used to be when they weren't a strain on the party in comparison to my other toons.

[sojen]

I can't be bothered to read every comment in nonsense threads like this but from what i've seen i have this to say.

Stop crying like a little girl.

As a PM with 41 dc's:

1. I can't get into raids usually if there is already a caster or two.

2. I find it much more effective to use mass hold on most content (non casters) and let the melee's kill them.

3. I can't even wail scorpions effectively in eClaw or eOob, never mind tough mobs. scorpions i will get 1 in 4 to 1 in 5, gnolls in wiz king even harder. The only way i can get them is to level drain them, and that means i'm spending 5% sp on 1 mob, even still they don't always die with energy drain + fod, about 60% chance for white named.

4. The vast majority of players consider sorc better than wizzy.

I will make one concession however. If you are a millionaire and can drink unlimited sp pots, wizard is one of the best classes in the game.

Edit:

Sarlona:

Tirisha 20FVS, Aierian 20MNK, Girltank 18FTR/2PALLY Seidra 20SORC, Wikka 20 WIZ, Kylexi 20 PALLY, Stephony 20 Bard

20MNK, 18FTR/2PALLY, 20 PALLY: learn to build dps melee's and maybe your toons won't be such a drain on the party.

[Tirisha]

I can't be bothered to read every comment in nonsense threads like this but from what i've seen i have this to say.

Stop crying like a little girl.

As a PM with 41 dc's:

1. I can't get into raids usually if there is already a caster or two.

2. I find it much more effective to use mass hold on most content (non casters) and let the melee's kill them.

3. I can't even wail scorpions effectively in eClaw or eOob, never mind tough mobs. scorpions i will get 1 in 4 to 1 in 5, gnolls in wiz king even harder. The only way i can get them is to level drain them, and that means i'm spending 5% sp on 1 mob, even still they don't always die with energy drain + fod, about 60% chance for white named.

4. The vast majority of players consider sorc better than wizzy.

I will make one concession however. If you are a millionaire and can drink unlimited sp pots, wizard is one of the best classes in the game.

Edit:

Sarlona:

Tirisha 20FVS, Aierian 20MNK, Girltank 18FTR/2PALLY Seidra 20SORC, Wikka 20 WIZ, Kylexi 20 PALLY, Stephony 20 Bard

20MNK, 18FTR/2PALLY, 20 PALLY: learn to build dps melee's and maybe your toons won't be such a drain on the party.

you should know that those scorpions have amongst the highest fort saves in the game.

[Khurse]

I'd say the same about your casters.

Nah I play with good enough players that my caster will easily outkill them all, but they still kill a bunch of stuff and contribute.
But again, I play for fun with friends, not to prove how uber my melee is by racking up the kill count.

Actually I just want a reason to log onto a melee that's all. Not too much to ask. I have many of them, though I still do enjoy playing them, it's not at all what it used to be when they weren't a strain on the party in comparison to my other toons.

Wow, so enjoying playing your toons is not reason enough to log in on them?

I admit I find that such a... odd claim I have no real idea on what to say.

See I have a Monk, he's not even close to as killy as my Wizard in Epics, but he's fun to play.
Hence I play him in epics.
No I don't usually dominate the kills, or contribute as much to a party as the wiz does, but I have fun playing him.
That's reason enough for me.
Of course my friends enjoy playing with me, (or so they claim..really who knows) so they don't mind me not being on my uber PM.
Maybe it's different for other people. I don't know.

If you (or others) are not playing toons you enjoy playing so that your 38 DC toons can dominate epics, maybe you should stop playing?

[Viisari]

I've yet to see a DC caster tank in eChrono... Maybe its been done. Someone do an all arcane eChrono yet?

I've done it on my 44 necro dc fleshie archmage, tank happened to die at some point so my dots grabbed aggro soon after. It's not hard at all if you can keep aggro and I don't even have damage line maxed, fire and cold around halfway.

<edit> Also, I've done echrono where atleast half the group was arcanes, it's a complete joke like that.

[Havok.cry]

So far I have heard many suggestions to create balance without nerfing arcanes, including:

1 Fix vorpal
2 better AI on casters, that then use buff spells on groups of mobs
3 add environmental effects that keep party on its toes, and that melee's can deal with easier
4 add in occasional immunities (but not blanket)

But so far the responses to these have been little more than no arcanes doing nothing more than holding was good enough, they should never have aspired to more (I'm paraphrasing a bit)

the real issue is two fold:
1 1 caster instakilling 200 out of 220 mobs leaves the melees very bored, this is bad
2 1 caster only being able to buff and cast mass hold while everyone one else gets to see gratifying damage numbers is very boring, this is also bad

Honestly, anyone who wants either of those situations to continue is selfish. Please, instead of nerfing casters, give them better options to have a satisfying time in a quest with a party. I would like to see options 1-3 in my first list, along with things like more constructs and undead as instakill doesn't work very well on those.

Do any of you "nerf caster" people have any suggestions that would allow people who have no fun casting mass hold, to actually have fun, or are you entitled to more fun than them so just want them relegated to very boring support?

[KristovK]

lol you could tank that boss with 400 hp and displacement. Though I understand what you are saying and I'd say the few bosses that people typically tank with melees could be done just as well *if not better due to melees not being able to shield block anymore* on a tank focused caster. With enough gear you wouldn't even have to sacrifice DCs. The only boss that would be challenging in my mind would be horoth. Getting into that HP bracket you'd need to do Elite might be a bit gear intensive.

I know you can tank with a well built Forged Caster, especially if you get hold of a Docent of Defiance and a good tower shield, done it myself on my PM when he was lower level using the old FW/block trick when that was still effective. Higher levels and Epics..I'll pass, let someone who's got the HP to take the shots do that stuff. 454 HP fully buffed up on my PM, that ain't enough to stay alive for long trying to tank Epics, not against a boss especially, they just plain hit too hard even with the DR from shield blocking and no good Arcane has the feats to waste on taking the Shield feats to make that DR even close to worthwhile.

Compound that with the fact that Raid bosses and most Devil/Demon/Outsider bosses have a True Seeing thing going on, which totally negates the point of Displacment...yeah..not a good ideal for your Caster types who tend to be under 500hp to be tanking, especially not in Epics. Your own Casters would be dead pretty quick Tirisha, barely breaking 300hp there on that Sorc, that's what..a couple of good hits in Epic? Go on, try it yourself and see. My own PM has a lot more HP then your Sorc and I don't tank unless there's literally no other option in Epics, not against bosses, it's death. Even against the non-bosses it's a bad idea...Epic mobs seem to have a lot higher then 50% chance to hit you while Displaced in my experience.

[chester99]

What's your alternative proposal? That all future content be balanced around Wail and Circle and every group is measured by how many arcanes it has? That melees forevermore be a drain on epic groups?

To be honest, I don't think you actually understand what you're saying and the issues involved. As things stand, epic content and groups are completely dominated by Wail and Circle. I doubt that your intention is that this be the case. But you're not offering an alternative.

As for the larger issues here, I think there are actually two of them.

A) Wail, Circle, and to a lesser extent Implosion are dominating epic content to the point where melees can rightly feel like they simply aren't necessary or desirable in epic groups. The fix for this is simply to nerf these spells until they are no longer such dominant factors.
and

B) Saves on epic mobs are totally out of control, to the point that only TR'd characters with stacked DC have a chance of landing spells against them. Given the fact that the DC bonuses of TR'd characters are, as a practical matter, out of reach for new players, I really think Turbine needs to look into this subsystem with an eye towards evening out the disparity between a multiple TR pale master on the one hand and a relatively new, non TR'd human archmage on the other.

Of course, the same could be said for AC. DDO's core game systems haven't scaled well. It's a known problem.

I know this is going to shock you, as I've only been playing this game since before it started, but I know couple of things about both the mechanics and game design of ddo as it has progressed over the yeras. all of which is to say, every nerf we have had to endure has cost us more than a few players along the way. every single time. if you are calling for nerfs, you are calling for a smaller game. and I gotta tell you: we've lost enough already.

If you can't figure out some way to design around good builds existing, I (a) feel sorry for you and (b) am glad that you're not designing games.

sigh.

[Viisari]

38 DC Necro spells and you'll do just fine on Epics according to some of you.

Have you folks DONE Epics with an Arcane who uses Necro spells? As already mentioned, my PM has a standing unbuffed 38 Necro DC and without using the right combination of spells to lower the levels, stats and saves of the TRASH in Epic, I ain't instakilling anything in Epics unless it rolls a 1. Enervation, Solid Fog, Circle of Death, Symbol of Death, Curse..then, IF I'm lucky, I'll toss out a Wail and kill 2 of the 8 mobs trying to kill me, toss off a FoD and maybe pop another of the remaining 6, leaving 5 mobs that need to be dealt with while my CoD and WoB are on cooldown. And that all depends on me NOT getting hit hard enough to have my concentration broken, and guess what, Epic mobs hit that hard without trying. I just blew a lot of SP in the process and might have killed 2 to 3 mobs.

And, about my PM with his 38 Necro DC. He's not used a single Int tome, doesn't use ship buffs(stat/DC boost, LOVE the Resistance buffs!), nor does he use Yugo pots, and I never can seem to find a Spellsinger to run Epics with, just Warchanters. First lifer, just look at MyDDO, Fleshmelter is my PM. Add 4 Con, 2 Int/Wis/Chr for Lich form(always in that in quests) and remove that silly scepter he's holding atm Couple of TRs as a Wiz and I could easily pop a 46-48 Necro DC. I am at heart a Powergamer and I do make some of my builds accordingly, I just don't bother to grind out that gear...sue me.

So let's see, 38 base dc? +1 ship buff, +1 tome +1 yugo pot, hey, guess what? That's 41 dc on a first life toon, and as if 38 wasn't enough with proper playing, with 41 you're going to destroy everything.

And heh, no, you won't easily pop 46-48 necro dc on any toon, not even on completionist. Human completionist (pale master or archmage, doesn't matter) with max gear, +4 int tome, wiz past life, yugo pot and ship buff will have necro dc 46. With abishai cookies and store pots you can boost it further, but I doubt you'll be running with them all the time.

With dc 40 you will absolutely destroy almost any epic quest with proper debuffing, and as said, it is not hard to get dc 40, and 38 is not much different from it. My standing necro dc is 42. I can buff it to 44 with yugo pot and ship buff but don't always bother simply because 42 quite enough for all content and the increase is rather small in practice.

If you're not destroying epics on your first life palemaster, then you're doing it wrong and should learn to play.

<edit> And unless you go for completionist, YOU WILL BENEFIT ONLY FROM ONE TR (unless you want spell penetration) as far as necro dc goes. What's up with all these clueless people thinking multiple TR's somehow boost your dc to heavens (yeah sure you can get +3 conju and evocation, but that helps mainly with web and implosion which are not discussed here)...

Spell you need for eDA for example: (symbol of death, optional), crushing despair, circle of death, wail. In that order. Nothing much will be standing after that, and if you want even further boost get a fvs to pike in the middle, their aura gives -2 to saves. Oh, and the fvs should naturally make liberal use of destruction and implosion so that the melees will feel even more useless. After that, most of the stuff in the middle are dead and you can proceed to annoy the melees by fingering all the mobs they're running to (they're archers and casters, they have crappy fort saves and with 40 dc it should be landing atleast half the time with no debuffing)

[kitsune_ko]

I do not think anyone is crying for casters to be turned into buff-bots for the party pleasure. However it is a legitmate complaint that when they can range insta-kill/ range mass insta-kill, and perform at range high end DPS that is equal or greater then melee-types can contribute, it leaves anyone in the party that is not the caster(s) with little useful to contribute in a run but pull switches and/or solve puzzles.

This detracts from everyone else running a different builds fun when one class dominates game content so entirely to the point where there is nothing for anyone else to do but spectate.

I am sure there can be some middle ground found, there have been several good ideas tossed about in the post that I have seen.

And it is not always about who has the higest kill count (though for some it is, I will admit) but simply being able to add something useful to a party is what makes it fun. And that is sore lacking as of late for some of us.

[Auran82]

The spells and DCs are not the problem.

The D20 system is the problem, it gets next to impossible to balance anything when you consider that for every point in DC you get increases the chance of landing the spell by 5%.

There is a reason that pretty much any other MMO has things increase hit chance, block chance, damage, parry, damage reduction by fractions of a percent at a time, it allows more grandular fine tuning.

Of course, the D20 *is* D&D 3.5 so its not going anywhere any time soon.

[KristovK]

So let's see, 38 base dc? +1 ship buff, +1 tome +1 yugo pot, hey, guess what? That's 41 dc on a first life toon, and as if 38 wasn't enough with proper playing, with 41 you're going to destroy everything.

And heh, no, you won't easily pop 46-48 necro dc on any toon, not even on completionist. Human completionist (pale master or archmage, doesn't matter) with max gear, +4 int tome, wiz past life, yugo pot and ship buff will have necro dc 46. With abishai cookies and store pots you can boost it further, but I doubt you'll be running with them all the time.

With dc 40 you will absolutely destroy almost any epic quest with proper debuffing, and as said, it is not hard to get dc 40, and 38 is not much different from it. My standing necro dc is 42. I can buff it to 44 with yugo pot and ship buff but don't always bother simply because 42 quite enough for all content and the increase is rather small in practice.

If you're not destroying epics on your first life palemaster, then you're doing it wrong and should learn to play.

<edit> And unless you go for completionist, YOU WILL BENEFIT ONLY FROM ONE TR (unless you want spell penetration) as far as necro dc goes. What's up with all these clueless people thinking multiple TR's somehow boost your dc to heavens...

Spellsinger, adds +1, +4 Tome another +1(come on, PGer builds always go for the highest possible tomes), at a 43 on this first lifer right there. Add in another +1 to +2 with a House D pot(+2 or +3 stacking Int) and we're at 44/45 for a first lifer. And you are correct, I was thinking of the wrong past life stacker. So 46-47 with a Wiz past life, of which I'd take 3 anyway for that stacking spell pen, 47-48 with Completionist..thanks for pointing out my mistake, it's actually better then I realized on the low end.

And a 38 doesn't get the mobs on the first shot usually, hence me listing exactly what I do to make it work, which costs MORE SP and time for the debuffs, not to mention waiting on the cd's for CoD, Symbol of Death and WoB.

So...what exactly was it I was supposed to learn?

[Trillea]

I will agree that casters should be nerfed - when the melee to-hit progression gets set correctly from +5 on swings after the first to the PnP -5.

Failure to do this on the game's inception has been and continues to be the root of the vast majority of DDO balance issues.

[Khurse]

I am sure there can be some middle ground found, there have been several good ideas tossed about in the post that I have seen.

Yes, if you don't have fun running epics with casters because you feel like you're not contributing, don't run epics with casters.

It's really a very simple solution.

A decent bard, healer and 4 melee work perfectly fine for epics.
(unless it's a raid, might want a few more players then )

[Tirisha]

Yes, if you don't have fun running epics with casters because you feel like you're not contributing, don't run epics with casters.

It's really a very simple solution.

A decent bard, healer and 4 melee work perfectly fine for epics.
(unless it's a raid, might want a few more players then )

It's sad how many people actually think of this as their solution O.o.

[sirgog]

38 DC Necro spells and you'll do just fine on Epics according to some of you.

Have you folks DONE Epics with an Arcane who uses Necro spells? As already mentioned, my PM has a standing unbuffed 38 Necro DC and without using the right combination of spells to lower the levels, stats and saves of the TRASH in Epic, I ain't instakilling anything in Epics unless it rolls a 1. Enervation, Solid Fog, Circle of Death, Symbol of Death, Curse..then, IF I'm lucky, I'll toss out a Wail and kill 2 of the 8 mobs trying to kill me, toss off a FoD and maybe pop another of the remaining 6, leaving 5 mobs that need to be dealt with while my CoD and WoB are on cooldown. And that all depends on me NOT getting hit hard enough to have my concentration broken, and guess what, Epic mobs hit that hard without trying. I just blew a lot of SP in the process and might have killed 2 to 3 mobs.

Hey, you totally worthless, useless and unwanted Melee, I THINK you might not be so worthless, useless and unwanted!

In the SAME time it takes me to cast the proper combination of spells and wait for cooldowns, 2 Melee have killed all 8 of the mobs.

Unlike the statements of Sirgog and Tirisha, this isn't a guess, this isn't a theory, this is first hand HARD data gathered in Epic quests. Is my PM a GOD in Epics..no, but he CAN instakill things now in Epics, with some luck and proper spell usage. 6 spells and I can't kill as many mobs as 2 decently geared Melee in Epics in the same time frame though.

Now, outside of Epics, short of a few Elite Amrath quests, my DC 38 is more then enough to ensure the death of anything not a boss. But this IS a dedicated Necro build with everything geared for just that purpose. My Air Savant, with her MASSIVE 32 Necro DCs..yeah..please, even in Shroud trash ignores her FoD and Wails half the time, I don't even bother with them in Epics, total waste of SP. My Savant employs the tried and true method of NUKE EM FROM ORBIT! Meaning she hides behind the totally useless and unwanted Melee, uses both Diplo and the HElf Diplo, pops some Solid Fogs and tosses the largest most powerful AoEs she has on trash, since her Enchant DCs are less then her Necro, along with Surge on occasion..but that is mainly used for bosses, even in Epics, since even in Epics, trash mobs just don't survive the Melee long enough to stack that Surge.

Ya'll are just funny with your talk of how you ONLY want Casters in your groups and how effective that is compared to wasting slots with a few Melee..and then telling us that a 38 DC is going to work in Epics. Go on, take 6 Casters who top out at 38 DCs into an Epic and let us know just how well that goes for ya. And I thought beating out mob deaths with player deaths in Undermine was fun...

And, about my PM with his 38 Necro DC. He's not used a single Int tome, doesn't use ship buffs(stat/DC boost, LOVE the Resistance buffs!), nor does he use Yugo pots, and I never can seem to find a Spellsinger to run Epics with, just Warchanters. First lifer, just look at MyDDO, Fleshmelter is my PM. Add 4 Con, 2 Int/Wis/Chr for Lich form(always in that in quests) and remove that silly scepter he's holding atm Couple of TRs as a Wiz and I could easily pop a 46-48 Necro DC. I am at heart a Powergamer and I do make some of my builds accordingly, I just don't bother to grind out that gear...sue me.

I was running a 39 DC when I first LRed into a Pale Master. (No Yugo pots at the time, and I usually did not bother with ship buffs because I was learning the Pale Master playstyle and so died a lot).

I'd run into a pack of 6 mobs, Wail, and three drop dead. That's ~9000hp worth of mobs killed with one spell. 300 DPS if I do it every 30 seconds; in a bardless group, that's more DPS than an epic-ready melee. That's 300 DPS from taking two actions per minute.

With my 39 DC, I could solo the entry hall of Chronoscope (10 epic mobs, estimated combined 40-50k HP, one of them selfhealing with a lot of healing amp) in 60-90 seconds. (It takes longer post 9.1 if I bother with Bazdor, usually I don't). 45k HP in a minute is 750 DPS - about what you'd get with a barbarian, melee bard and a healbot FvS all working together.


Now please excuse me while I get back to pressing the easy button of Wail over and over until my loot drops.

[Trillea]

It's sad how many people actually think of this as their solution O.o.

Why not? It's how it should be. You don't like something, stay away from it, but leave it for those that enjoy it.

The balance as it is now is there is a large grind with a big payoff, which is how it should be.

[Viisari]

Yes, if you don't have fun running epics with casters because you feel like you're not contributing, don't run epics with casters.

It's really a very simple solution.

A decent bard, healer and 4 melee work perfectly fine for epics.
(unless it's a raid, might want a few more players then )

Yeah sure it might work, but 5 arcanes and a favored soul works just so much better. It's ridiculous how much easier it is with a pure caster party. This is the reason I say melees are useless.

And a 38 doesn't get the mobs on the first shot usually, hence me listing exactly what I do to make it work, which costs MORE SP and time for the debuffs, not to mention waiting on the cd's for CoD, Symbol of Death and WoB.

But think what happens when you take more than one caster? You can distribute the debuffing evenly and when mobs spawn (still in eDA) you can just have 2 or 3 casters hit wail and pretty much everything is dead. Saves SP and is much, much faster than having some melees there to beat the mobs who didn't die.

Sure if you're not geared well and don't use all avalaible buffs you're not going to destroy epics AS HARD as a well geared caster, but you're still going to destroy them. This leads to the fact that it's almost always better to take more casters than it is to take more melees.

[Khellendros13]

I've yet to see a DC caster tank in eChrono... Maybe its been done. Someone do an all arcane eChrono yet?

(Though i did see a WF DPS sorc do it once... but his DCs were not great, so that's not relevant to this thread.)

My WF AM has tanked more than once: Bosses in Snitch (Yawn) and Sulu on ToD. The CAD when we were learning EChrono and multiple melee tank deaths, and last night I was 3rd on the aggro list and just tanked the last %10. I was out of SP so just got my cold shield up, only took about 200dmg from fire breath.

I would tank Echrono on my Wiz but may take a couple of pots...maybe just do it once or twice. It's more about being prepared to mitigate damage and hold aggro.

Maybe a 1 minute cooldown on SP pots is needed, I can knock those back like a cold one when doing shortman runs for fun.

[Tirisha]

Nah I play with good enough players that my caster will easily outkill them all, but they still kill a bunch of stuff and contribute.
But again, I play for fun with friends, not to prove how uber my melee is by racking up the kill count.

So what are you saying? That casters are dramatically better than Non-casters but you just don't care?

It's not just the kill count that throws this mess out of whack. If the kill count was the one thing a single caster could do really well, then there would be no problem. When a Caster can CC better than any non-caster can ever hope to, Kill most the mobs better than any non-caster class could do *in most quests*, Self heal better than any non-caster class can do all while maintaining the same if not better sustainable DPS than the Class that can only do one thing really well at a time *which is sustainable DPS or tanking* then there is a problem. That is what we have here.

And don't act like you need perfect gear or the perfect amount of TRs to do these things. The truth is you barely need anything at all. The non-caster needs a lot more to be competitive in the one function he can do really well *DPS or tanking*.

Wow, so enjoying playing your toons is not reason enough to log in on them?

I admit I find that such a... odd claim I have no real idea on what to say.

It's a mixed bag for me. I love my non-casters have spent a lot of time playing and gearing most of them. However they don't really fit into any roles well enough to justify the sacrifices I've made in their builds to fill those roles, now that my casters can fill so many roles at once. I'd love to have a good reason to play them again *other than playing for playing sake*.