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

[HAL]

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.

Look what you're saying here: "dominating EPIC content". So you want to nerf these spells for EVERYONE because of something that is only happening in EPIC content? How is that logical?

[Emili]

Look what you're saying here: "dominating EPIC content". So you want to nerf these spells for EVERYONE because of something that is only happening in EPIC content? How is that logical?

, You may consider if such is dominating epic content ... it can possibly dominate all content where it is available.

[Scraap]

, You may consider if such is dominating epic content ... it can possibly dominate all content where it is available.

Well, yes and no... the more inflated the stats get, the more flat out 'You die no matter your HP', or 'You take damage, no matter your AC/DR' speeds things up vs any kind of general damage available. Same with that shroud pic. Much more noticeably faster than most of the shrouds I've been a part of. Some may say ridiculously so. Lower end content, well, we all walk, provided we've sufficient experience/gear (Yes, even those of us that have rolled up horrific gimps. At least, most would call my 8 str mech gimp ). So yeah, I can see where pulling far ahead at extreme-end-game, where the inflation gets ridiculous, would be a bigger concern than mid-to-semi-high level questing in general, and would in turn be the point of concern.

[Recared]

I have not read all the posts, just the first pages, so i don't know if it has been proposed before, but i thought of the following with no changes to sp cost of aoe instakill spells, nor increase the cooldown or change the DCs:

Simply (in line with 3.5 rules) stablish a maximum number of casts for those spells per rest. For example: Wail of Banshee can be casted 10 times per rest. And of course it still costs the usual sp.
If some thought has to be put on "when to cast" my megaspell because i just can't spam it during all the quest, then imo everybody would have an important roll: 3 melees party with arcane, bard and divine and arcane, and then the arcane has an enormous contribution. And if the arcanes party all together they still can use wail through all the quest. But we don't get to a point where a single arcane outperforms a full balanced party without a such arcane.
We all work hard to make our characters the best they can be, and we measure our power in how they can perform "in the quests", not in a party. If we find another build is simply better in all situations while questing (aoe instakill spam + great single target dps (bosses) + selfheal) then we feel there is an important imbalance. That's what i understand from the op.

[Missing_Minds]

/signed on a stamina bar. Melees never lose their DPS unless they DIE.

The problem with a stamina bar. One heal, soveriegn host, or panecea later, or heaven forbid a lesser restoration later, they should tech be good to go.

and i'm not about to try for more weapons and gear breaking because that just is NOT fun.

[Khurse]

Huh, I had no idea that quicken shouldn't work on higher level spells.
I like that idea.

[Invalid_50]

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.

No.

[gloopygloop]

Huh, I had no idea that quicken shouldn't work on higher level spells.
I like that idea.

No metamagics of any kind should work on higher level spells according to PnP rules. And stacking metamagic won't even work on most lower level spells.

Empower: +1
Maximise: +2
Quicken: +4
Extend: +1
Total: +8
That means you can only use those metamagics together on 1st level spells.

And Heighten + any other metamagic will be entirely eliminated.

[KristovK]

, You may consider if such is dominating epic content ... it can possibly dominate all content where it is available.

It does dominate in the high end non-Epic content, and has for a while now, and NO ONE has had any problems with it.

Funny how that works out..non-Epic, Casters rule, no one cares. Suddenly, Casters can do the same thing in Epics they've been doing in high end non-Epics and the game is broken!

[Emili]

Well, yes and no... the more inflated the stats get, the more flat out 'You die no matter your HP', or 'You take damage, no matter your AC/DR' speeds things up vs any kind of general damage available. Same with that shroud pic. Much more noticeably faster than most of the shrouds I've been a part of. Some may say ridiculously so. Lower end content, well, we all walk, provided we've sufficient experience/gear (Yes, even those of us that have rolled up horrific gimps. At least, most would call my 8 str mech gimp ). So yeah, I can see where pulling far ahead at extreme-end-game, where the inflation gets ridiculous, would be a bigger concern than mid-to-semi-high level questing in general, and would in turn be the point of concern.

Why would you build a rogue with only eight strength?

All the same... much of what is being said is that "epics" are beig played much like the rest of the mid to high end game. i.e. best way to tackle coal chamber ... rush thru on an arcane or divine, sleeping dust? a cleric or arcane... are plenty of quests in the mid/high end follow this... Sins elite? my FvS or PM will rush through it far quicker than my Barb.

Reminds me, years ago a dear friend and guildie asked me as they were once a very game addicted power gamer and with other responsibilities needed to tapper off their playing time. His question was ... which characters do I think he should keep. 'course intitially I told him all of them but he pressed he wished to trim his account down some. So, pondering so... I told him your wizard and cleric, reason being is other aspects of the game change with feating, enhancements ... but spells are the most diverse and versatile aspect of any character. Adding a decent spell to game opens up a whole new route, nerfing a spell and is easily replaced. Unlike flavour of the month melee type builds a max'd casting stat seconded con caster for instance changes with the times and will always be useful, likewise in realm of divine. Easily configurable through the changing scope of the game from mod to mod and update through update... never aging.

To this day... when someone asks me about the game and asks me for recommendation on a first character I tell them ... to learn the game and keep the end result (your character) pick a caster either arcane or divine they will never go - out of style.

It does dominate in the high end non-Epic content, and has for a while now, and NO ONE has had any problems with it.

Funny how that works out..non-Epic, Casters rule, no one cares. Suddenly, Casters can do the same thing in Epics they've been doing in high end non-Epics and the game is broken!

It's quite simple ... no matter what people claim, when they build a character - they build for end-game, many may play these characters at the end-game level for some time due... farming the best gear, character improvement, and is nowhere left to go from there except possibly backwards - a new character or TR ... lower end content is more akin the journey, a path you're just passing through. In end game there is no place left to go except possibly back in which case your goal is to again arrive at "end-game."

Pre-EU we considered end-game as Shroud, VoD, SoS... they added ToD and that in turn became end-game and the venerable shroud slipped a few notches down the ladder, likewise come epic ... I do not consider Shroud, VoD or SoS as being "end-game" anymore and it is looked pretty much that way by every gaming level 20... ToD today is slowly waining and giving up her spark for epic.

[Scraap]

Why would you build a rogue with only eight strength?

Dex tohit, int to-damage, cha to heal-scroll without hotswapping a single gearslot, and con to survive the agro ips draws on you. Throwing out the build points to up str more than the fighter and monk levels allow via APs would gimp it's tohit, damage, or surviveability.

Mainly though, because I could, and knew from previous characters that I could, since I had enough gear to make up the difference (8 is base, after all. Not after buffs and gear for when that's required. Certainly *not* a fresh-to-the game toon recommendation.). Matter of fact, the first toons a wiz/rog in mid TR.

No metamagics of any kind should work on higher level spells according to PnP rules. And stacking metamagic won't even work on most lower level spells.

Empower: +1
Maximise: +2
Quicken: +4
Extend: +1
Total: +8
That means you can only use those metamagics together on 1st level spells.

And Heighten + any other metamagic will be entirely eliminated.

More to the point, what 9th level spell would you give up for a fully heightened web? Honestly, even I'm not sadistic enough to seriously advocate for a full-bore reversion to PnP, but it does demonstrate three tiers of nerf they could apply:

1- full reversion including slots.
2- general removal of metas past certain spell-levels
3- targeted removal of metas on problematic spells on a case-by-case basis. (The original notion, though with all this talk of mass heals, dunno... maybe that is just as problematic as mass deaths.)

[KoboldKiller]

Why would you build a rogue with only eight strength?

All the same... much of what is being said is that "epics" are beig played much like the rest of the mid to high end game. i.e. best way to tackle coal chamber ... rush thru on an arcane or divine, sleeping dust? a cleric or arcane... are plenty of quests in the mid/high end follow this... Sins elite? my FvS or PM will rush through it far quicker than my Barb.

Reminds me, years ago a dear friend and guildie asked me as they were once a very game addicted power gamer and with other responsibilities needed to tapper off their playing time. His question was ... which characters do I think he should keep. 'course intitially I told him all of them but he pressed he wished to trim his account down some. So, pondering so... I told him your wizard and cleric, reason being is other aspects of the game change with feating, enhancements ... but spells are the most diverse and versatile aspect of any character. Adding a decent spell to game opens up a whole new route, nerfing a spell and is easily replaced. Unlike flavour of the month melee type builds a max'd casting stat seconded con caster for instance changes with the times and will always be useful, likewise in realm of divine. Easily configurable through the changing scope of the game from mod to mod and update through update... never aging.

To this day... when someone asks me about the game and asks me for recommendation on a first character I tell them ... to learn the game and keep the end result (your character) pick a caster either arcane or divine they will never go - out of style.



It's quite simple ... no matter what people claim, when they build a character - they build for end-game, many may play these characters at the end-game level for some time due... farming the best gear, character improvement, and is nowhere left to go from there except possibly backwards - a new character or TR ... lower end content is more akin the journey, a path you're just passing through. In end game there is no place left to go except possibly back in which case your goal is to again arrive at "end-game."

Sorry I disagree. I don't have end game in mind when I build ANY of my alts. I build what I think will be fun to me and that's it. If they can handle "end game" or not doesn't even cross my mind.

[Emili]

Dex tohit, int to-damage, cha to heal-scroll without hotswapping a single gearslot, and con to survive the agro ips draws on you. Throwing out the build points to up str more than the fighter and monk levels allow via APs would gimp it's tohit, damage, or surviveability.

Mainly though, because I could, and knew from previous characters that I could, since I had enough gear to make up the difference (8 is base, after all. Not after buffs and gear for when that's required. Certainly *not* a fresh-to-the game toon recommendation.). Matter of fact, the first toons a wiz/rog in mid TR.

Yes, I understand is a hard balancing act on a mech. I may make one and play around with such ... just have to buy some more slots.

[Emili]

Sorry I disagree. I don't have end game in mind when I build ANY of my alts. I build what I think will be fun to me and that's it. If they can handle "end game" or not doesn't even cross my mind.

Maybe so, and maybe right, for you. Fact being most my characters aged in time... still I play them and not the epitome of what they once were. However, over the years I've seen such claims over and over - most gone on to something, somewhere different.

[Chai]

Whats sad is that when nerfs are requested we havent seem to have caught onto the fact that the end result will be just as extreme but on the opposite side of the spectrum than what we have now.

Just look at before, when casters were basically built for 40+ CC DC, or didnt get into groups. They had two options. Either be a mass hold bot for everyone else, or be a perching crit fishing scroll farmer.

Yes, I like it better nowdays. Overpowered? Debatable, however, what is not debatable is the number of options casters now have, and the fact that people are looney toons if they dont want them in their groups. Its no longer the "have a 40+ CC DC or GTF0" style hostage situation it used to be.

I still maintain that the biggest overpowering of arcane is self healing. The entire balance the original game gave them lies with the fact that they cannot just toss a scroll or a repair spell on themselves. They have to rely on other classes for that. This is the most overpowering thing about arcanes, but we just accepted it for what it was for the longest time, right up to and until arcane began dominating in DPS, which is what they should have been doing all along.

I feel the amount we get worked up about the two should be the other way around. Casters should have been topping DPS charts the entire time, and the minute they got self healing is when the gripes should have began, because thats when the lack of balance took place. Casters outing everyone elses DPS and insta-killing is normal for D&D, but having 600 HP and self healing at the same time is not.

[Emili]

...
I feel the amount we get worked up about the two should be the other way around. Casters should have been topping DPS charts the entire time, and the minute they got self healing is when the gripes should have began, because thats when the lack of balance took place. Casters outing everyone elses DPS and insta-killing is normal for D&D, but having 600 HP and self healing at the same time is not.

Matt made a suggesting not long ago to remove mana and sf pots in order to shove some air of dependencies back into group efforts. I added likewise maybe one should remove higher healing aspects ... scrolls off the readily available market.

It is not difficult to build a character which cover self-sufficient aspects via umd, and in a game where the prime obstacles are kill things, then even self-sufficiency matters little in group what matters is kill the boss and survive - the reasoning behind the barb/cleric marriage ... as such even if the arcane did not self-heal and sported two-thirds the hp toss a divine behind them and that is the cornerstone of your group.


Funny thing and everyone here actually made me think more about it...

Last night I run Ambyre thru abbot with Matt and company, she run the quest plenty of times before but for some reason, which I never bothered in the past, I decided last min to turn in her SF necklace for some armour for the nightshield clickie.

So's... run a couple more raids and then I decide well best get her SF necklace back, log onto her (she an AA btw) and realize opps I cheated and run her thru cursed crypt before via proxie (openned with another toon and brought her in there through groupping originally)... She was missing "tomb of forbidden" - not previously completed on her. (yes is one where you need at least two people to swap gears - why they do not let hirelings do this I'm clueless).

So I run into "forbidden" on elite - may as well grab the favour on her while am at it as never plan on comming back personally. So I clear to the first wet of switches, ask around in guild chat, channels etc... no bites so place up an LFM.

Now to show you how guilty I am (though do not like to admit it). I sat there for bout fifteen minutes when I get a Sorc apply ...cool pick him up without hesitation, then as we're running down the hall, seven others apply, a pally, a monk, a barb, two wizard and two fighters (not in that order). So guess who I take?

- The two wiz, the monk and the pally... I hate to say such but first thing cross my mind was - even though anyone can do this quest, I did not wish to have to baby-sit should something go awry for anyof them ... the arcane are self-sufficient especially in such environment, the monk most likely and the pally quite likely. Also key note is the arcane I could have let them loose and piked if I really wanted - Didn'r I kept ahead and pressed on ... I did have to res the sorc at one point when he was not paying attention and walked into a trap... and the pally bit off a little much at some point and I had to heal him thru my mana (as I forgot she out of scrolls)... but overall my goal was get in and get out.

- people speak of bias, fact is we're all bias, I'm bias towards friends am quick to join them, and when comes to the game I take names am aquainted with... then outside that I'd likely look at the class applying (where I do not know the name) and chances are I'll take a caster or divine over any other build to fill it out.

[Junts]

Wow . . . that's hardcore. never thought of it but that's EVIL. No more EDQ ball-method!

That definitely would make the game harder.

My sorc casts through dq melee in the ball: remember, conc check is equal to the single highest damage number you took + spell level + 10.

Lailat hits a lot: each individual hit doesn't hit that hard, especially with stoneskin or some other kind of dr. It would be fairly easy for a cleric to use quicken and still nofail their heals vs Lailat: the only danger would be efreeti fireballs if they weren't killed.

It doesn't matter that Lailat deals 47+12+7+6 to you with a melee hit, the concentration check will still use 47 as the damage for the purpose of the dc (meaning dc 63 concentration check, which is achievable with a +15 item and your shroud hp item being earth or positive primarily). Keep in mind how much casters pump constitution.

All this would do is make sorcerors even better, because sorcs already have every benefit of quicken except the concentration benefit, are already incredibly good (my sorc packing dc 40 instakills can keep killcount pace with dc 45 palemasters, and beat them in many quests), and wouldn't even have to spend a feat on it.

Most wizards have to run quicken permanently not for the concentration but because their spells just dont -happen- fast enough without it.

This would just make wizards weaker, and honestly they're not dramatically better than sorcerors already. Depending on quest, they're anywhere from a little better to a bit worse, with that being purely dependent on the mobs in the quest and the best way to kill them. I can solo a number of quests much, much faster than any wizard because nuking is the fastest way to kill the mobs inside (claw is an excellent example: Some of those mobs die in one hit.) In other quests, wizards kill faster than me either because the mob fort saves are high enough that they resist me but still don't really resist a 44-45, or because their ability to load other spells enables them to kill mobs quickly that I cannot kill fast (for example, a wizard gets a much better scroll run out of fathom the depths than I do because he can undeath to death al lthe zombies with basically zero failure for a ton of fast, free kills).

In most quests, you don't -need- a 45+ dc in order for your instakill spells to be reliable. In those quests, the effective mana difference between a sorceror and a wizard is massive (remember, not only does the sorc have ~600+ more sp, but they frequently pay 10 sp less per spell as well), the cooldown difference remains a factor (both the difference in the instakills themselves, and the ability to cast other spells with a much, much faster cooldown, like energy drain or power word: x), and the sorceror is much faster at the other forms of killing (nuking bosses in whichever fashion you choose to use).

You guys are overly fixated on instakill spells. Those spells are particularly nonsynergistic with melee (since melee instakill really sucks now), and I'd agree that for a wide variety of reasons, playing a caster is no longer automatically about playing the best synergistically. It requires skill and forethrough for a caster player to determine when it is faster for them to dispose of trash mobs by focusing on their 'normal' tactic (instakilling, nuking, etc) or by playing synergistically (IE by using things that are not their most effective use of SP strictly speaking, but end up being faster because they play to the strengths of other players). I'll give you an example: My sorceror still carries mass hold monster. Most frequently, I use this spell for myself. I hold mobs to guarantee they fail their reflex saves and take 50% more damage from my nuking in an aoe. If I want to 'cc' and stop damage, I use something like dancing sphere or web. Mass hold is a like a debuff to increase the strength of my damage-dealing spells.

However, in some situations/groups, its better for me to use mass hold the old way. The old way, I mass hold a group and then turn away to other mobs and kill them (IE I hold some melee trash, then go finger/circle/etc the caster mobs). This is synergistic with the melee. On the other hand, at other times its better for me to follow up every mass hold with 2 big aoe nuke spells. In those situations, people frequently complain that I'm "not holding anything", which isn't true: I'm holding stuff, but only to make it die in 2 spells instead of 4 spells, and they never really see the stuff held (because it vaporizes in 3 seconds after the hold lands).

Depending on the quest, mobs in question and party members I've got, either of those could be the right decision. Previously, holding them and then turning away was -always- the right decision.

Many casters haven't yet realized that -sometimes- they are better off enabling the melee to be more effective, and -sometimes- they're better off letting the melee take care of their own problems and using their spells in their ideal offensive pattern. Prior to update 9, it was basically always better off enabling the melee. Now, many casters play as though they're -always- better off ignoring the melee. However, those casters are wrong.

However, in pug situations where you do not know the capacity of the rest of your group members, not enabling the melee is the safer choice. The caster knows he can kill these mobs in x time if he simply does his thing. A strong melee group backing him up and spells chosen to assist them as well as kill fast might cause him do do the quests in x-y time. However, if the melee sucks, he's just wasting mana (and thereby slowing himself significantly in many situations) and time.

The developers had the option of making casters not continue to be DDO's strongest soloers when they made these changes. They had been before primarily due to firewalls and dreamspitters, and they've been for years and years - since the metamagic change, I'd say.

They overhauled so many spells that they definitely had the option of making casters not these kind of unique, especially soloable characters. They rather deliberately not only gave casters the ability be effective at things they used to be terrible at (IE boss dpsing) but maintained the caster's extremely powerful AOE trash capability. Casters can often kill trash mobs more effectively with burst damage spells like otilukes, chainlightning and delayedblast fireball than they previously were with wall of fire, to say nothing of introducing instant kills to that. They had the option of nerfing wall and simply improving casters as boss dpsers. By improving caster AOEs so substantially to fill in the gap for wall, I think it's clear they're ok with casters 'special perk' of being far, far more independent than most classes are. The fact is that casters aren't overwhelmingly better than other dpsers at the things they both do well: You can link me extremely fast shrouds, and I can create a group of all dps in my guild that could do the same thing without a caster (and without the significant downside of sucking really bad at dps after about 2m of a fight, the way that casters do if they both dot and nuke as hard as they can).

Casters don't do damage per second on DDO. Casters do 'x total damage per mana bar', and after that is dealt they do extremely limited (slas+echos of power) damage per second. Exactly how much damage is dealt with the whole bar depends how quickly they expend it (whether they cast only their most dpm efficient spells, or also cast other spells to deal damage more quickly) and their enhancements, spell choices, class, etc, but its a pretty set amount.

It so happens that, at the moment, DDO has very few fights where the monsters have so many hit points that that "X" isn't a significant chunk, but there -are- situations where relying on a lot of casters as your primary DPS doesn't work well, if at all, and the more boss hp scale, the worst caster dps becomes because they will always do X chunk: they have no innate endurance. Melee dps doesn't spike as high as someone doing 2 dots and 4 other spells every 10s, but it also doesn't decline as much when stuff like haste boosts or the like are expended. Even in a elite tod pt 3 that lasts 10+ minutes because of bad luck deaths healing Horoth, a melee who's expended his short term buffs can chug along and do very well. In that same situation, the caster dps is either drinking a lot of mana pots (1 every 10-25s depending how many spells they're trying to use) or stops dealing meaningful damage entirely.

As we get more new content (remember, we're getting a new raid and we'll start getting new epics again someday), the number of situations where that limitation is significant will rise.

The ability of casters to 'frontload' their damage by making it less efficient makes it look really distorted in places like the shroud. Outside of shroud 4, shroud 5, and dq, there isn't another significant fight in DDO where its a good idea to blow your bar as hard as possible as fast as possible. In tower 1 and 3, you'll run out of mana and deal less total damage if you do it that way (you're better off just using your dots and slas and improving your DPM, and in elite tod pt 3 you'll still run out of mana before both bosses are dead), in tower pt 2 using all your nukes can kill the party (because many are aoes that will tag shadowfiends), and even Velah has enough hp that you can run yourself dry and stop dealing damage to her (though Velah is so insignificantly easy she doesn't really bear mentioning). VOD is very long, SLAs don't work at all, and trying to dot Suulo doesn't work very effectively for a wide variety of reasons (teleport aggro resets, length of fight, etc). Even with non-normal shroud, spamnuking is less effective because of extremely high saves and evasion (I've got an evocation dc above 42, and even with exhaustion and solid fog arraetrikos evades about 30% of my reflex spells), which is mitigated only by the fact that the content is too easy for playing smart to matter.

When you put 12 casters in a group together, they win fights very quickly. I'll point out that 11 barbarians and a healing melee bard also win fights extremely quickly. If your only interest is doing nonchallenging content as fast as you can, sure, you might really want to do all or nearly-all caster groups, but the time difference is inconsequential. Even the question of whether Arraetrikos dies in 20s or in a more typical 35-40s doesn't matter. I like fast runs as much as the next guy, but 20 seconds is irrelevant.

The content is easy for everyone. Its easy for good characters no matter what class. Its easy for bad builds as long as they are well geared. Its easy.

The things people are having a problem with are a junction of 3 things

1: Casters no longer have a strong incentive to play as a team: ignoring the rest of the party can be as fast, or even faster, or only marginally slower depending on group, making it easy for a lazy caster to just do whatever he thinks is best in all situations with marginal loss.

2: Many people are extremely excited to play their casters again and play them in a way that is different from the years they felt like CC+buff bots. In many cases, these people do what isn't the best or most effective just because they have the option to do it: for a long time, they did not have that option at all.

3: The content is no longer geared, outside a very limited few situations, to come close to challenging extremely well-prepared characters. When you're blowing through things without a whole lot of effort, your priorities get distorted: Speed matters more, resource conservation matters less (things rarely go wrong to re quire you to have extra resources available), and tactics become less varied and differences in abilities matter less because they don't get a chance to come up.

If the content was set up in a way where parts of it challenged players, especially in #s 1 and 3, this wouldn't be a huge problem. There are limitations and dfiferences and weaknesses to casters, but the way we're playing DDO innately minimizes these problems while maximizing the caster's innate strengths.

[voodoogroves]

Huh, I had no idea that quicken shouldn't work on higher level spells.
I like that idea.

That's incorrect. 3.5 also comes with a host of ways to reduce metamagics; some of them are more restrictive than others. You can absolutely quicken 9th level spells.

[haclya]

My monk can't one shot any in hard or epic 17-20 lvl uses robes

monks stunning fist is useless in epic.

Monks trip abilty is worst then normal trip.

Got lowest crits in game.

low hp class.


a wizard can one shot, mass hold self heal tank and do good melee damage and tank and crit very well many feats
to use and tweek. + pm = win

[voodoogroves]

No metamagics of any kind should work on higher level spells according to PnP rules. And stacking metamagic won't even work on most lower level spells.

Empower: +1
Maximise: +2
Quicken: +4
Extend: +1
Total: +8
That means you can only use those metamagics together on 1st level spells.

And Heighten + any other metamagic will be entirely eliminated.

This is pretty much incorrect. It is valid when you only consider just the SRD as there are no metamagic reduction possibilities there.

Use any of the other books and there are plenty of ways to work metamagics with little or no cost.