Give Mobs a Save Against the DOTS

[slimkj]

You'd have to be a pretty poor or lazy player to just hit Niac's/Eladar's and then sit back. What's the point of playing at all if that's all you're doing? They're something I reapply between other things.

I bet the same players who currently do that in a boss battle either did nothing or just spammed Polar Ray prior to the introduction of DOTs.

[Teharahma]

Fortitude save for half damage.

Done.

[Hephaistor]

Fortitude save for half damage.

Done.

Would anyone use them then? No. We have better spells with fort saves.

[Viisari]

Fortitude save for half damage.

Done.

This.

Would anyone use them then? No. We have better spells with fort saves.

Care to name one? If you say disintegrate I'll have to assume you've never tried it against a raid boss, excluding Abbot.

<edit> Also, the changes to improved sunder mean that raid bosses actually wouldn't be saving dots much from your average casters, those who dumped their casting stat are the ones who would suffer from this change. That still won't make disintegrate good though, its SP efficiency is very bad compared to dots.

[Hephaistor]

All the death spells? If it has a low fort save it is dead before I the melees can reach it. Why bother with a dot then? And I don't think spells should be nerfed because of epic or elite raid bosses. Make them challenging somehow else, not by nerfing. I can't even believe that so many people are calling for nerfs. Of cource everybody IS palying the class he/she wants to get nerfed him/herself. But I believe most of the time the favorite toon is from an ohther class and it hurts axeboys epeen to see a caster make OK damage even without an endless grind. Perhaps some casters will start complaining about the monks inherent ability to do damage? Right, that one did get nerfed allready.

I have started my 28 point cleric with "only" 16 wisdom because I wanted some CON, CHA and STR too. I have medicore gear, but I am of some use beside healing with my dots. Most other damage spells have stopped working more or less for me at the higher levels. Yea, I know. That's how it is supposed to be for some of you. Reroll, TR get some greensteel and epic gear or get out of my way. And dare you to kill mobs with dots. I see the point that some pros can missuse those spells, but they are of great value for all the players without 40+ in casting stats and +2 DC items.

[Viisari]

All the death spells? If it has a low fort save it is dead before I the melees can reach it. Why bother with a dot then? And I don't think spells should be nerfed because of epic or elite raid bosses. Make them challenging somehow else, not by nerfing. I can't even believe that so many people are calling for nerfs. Of cource everybody IS palying the class he/she wants to get nerfed him/herself. But I believe most of the time the favorite toon is from an ohther class and it hurts axeboys epeen to see a caster make OK damage even without an endless grind. Perhaps some casters will start complaining about the monks inherent ability to do damage? Right, that one did get nerfed allready.

You seem to think people use DoTs against trash mobs. You are wrong.

<edit> Or perhaps I should put it this way: If you're using dots against trash mobs, you're doing it wrong. There are currently no good damage spells with fortitude save that would work against raid bosses.

Combined with the risen fortification in end game raids and the fact that dots have no fortitude save, I'd estimate that sorcerers are now the best end game dps by far, which is of course silly, because they were already much better in most situations than any melee class.

And before you start whining about how I'm just some angry melee, you can go check out my main toon from MyDDO.

[bennar]

Agree..

The really crazy one is DP tho.. Not only is it no save. But not a single monster in the game has any light resistance.

Flesh Golems do :P
But I dont think that's the issue here...

[gloopygloop]

Tho again as I said about Divine punishment:
No..
Just no.
Divines are not meant to have this kind of UNRESISTALBE DPS. Giving everything to one class just results in unbalance and unfun.

Shade is correct. Only Barbarians should be attempting to do damage during quests and Divine casters should just quietly heal them.

[Chai]

Needs more comments..

When I first saw the dots.. I was all for them. They sounded like a great way to allow arcanes contribute on boss fights.

And indeed that became the case.

Yeap.

But the major issue here is:
Everyone arcane became a clone during boss battles.

Everyone was a clone before U9 as well. Firewall and run in circles until you encounter

Want to boss DPS pre U9: Be an extremely smart well geared player with top gear and use a complex variety of spells based on the bosses weaknesses. It was possible, but oh so difficult.

LOL. You mean rotate through one single element of spells the mob is vulnerable to. Most casters were fire / ice pre U9 for damage, so they just rotated through ice spells mostly.

Post U9?
Push button 1 and 2 every 15 seconds. Or just set up macro and go afk. It doesn't matter how poor your stats are, 22 int, 48 int, 18 charima or 46 charisma.. It doesn't matter if you have an epic abishai set, the damage is the same for everyone. It destroys the spirit of progression and reduces a casters role in boss DPS fights to "click 2 buttons, and if your REAL PRO, use 2 clickies as well"
Stats? Dont matter.

No less intelligent than haveing to rotate through ice spells. Push buttons 1 then 2 then 3 then 4 > repeat. /sleep.

So while I don't feel the DPS output of Niacs biting cold + Eladars stacked on most bosses is too much for the highest end of gameplay, I do feel its too much for the basic casual - just hit lvl20 fresh off the boat caster.

Adding a save will help rectify that. I kinda think casters should get another spell like improved sunder does now to help reduce the reflex save of bosses tho:
Maybe a will save type effect like solid fog, but less intrusive, and stackable.. At a high SP cost, high druation and slow cast animation so its mainly effective on bosses.

EG: Ucanny un-dodging: Will save to negate, SR applies, Lasts 6 seconds per caster level, -1 penalty to reflex saves. Stacks up to 10 times. Standard cooldown (couple seconds).
Perhaps lvl6 arcane since there arent many great lvl6 debuffs.
30SP.

Not per-caster like dots, so several good DC casters could stack this up in tandem.

So for 300 SP, along with strong enough DC/Spell pen, you can ensure that your dots lands very reliably for 2 minutes, or another 2min for 30 more sp, as that will reset duration.

Tho again as I said about Divine punishment:
No..
Just no.
Divines are not meant to have this kind of UNRESISTALBE DPS. Giving everything to one class just results in unbalance and unfun.

I dont agree with anything that is said here, because none of it brings up what is really ******** about DOTs.

STACKING.

Stacking is what makes DOTs OP. If a water savant who focused somewhat on lightning has one of each dot sitting on the mob, they still need to rotate through their single target DPS spells to be effective raid boss DPS. Not having a stacking mechanic would have solved every_single_problem regarding fire and forget mechanics being too powerful. There would have been no need to nerf wings as well, because one measly DOT on a raid boss isnt going to kill the boss in any semblance of time where the FvS would still have any mana. Instead they gave us fire and forget and nerfed wings as an excuse.

What did they do instead? Nerf Wings, which took no real power away from FvS, and now players are griping about giving DOTs a save? LOL. Making the DOT not stack makes it so the spells which casters do have to gear for still have to be used to make them effective.

[Lavek]

Tho again as I said about Divine punishment:
No..
Just no.
Divines are not meant to have this kind of UNRESISTALBE DPS. Giving everything to one class just results in unbalance and unfun.

yes..make every fvs and clr no other option but to hjeal the mana sponge!!!


on a serious note
yes to saves on dots - why should some dumped wis/int toon make the same dmg output as some who is heavily specialized in his DCs and spell dmg

[Gordo]

Sorry, out of touch with the acronyms... Thanks

[Ancient]

Fortitude save for half damage.

Done.

I have two issues with this.

1. In the case of boss mobs with ultra high fort saves, we'll be back in the same place of dump stat casters doing the same damage as non-dump stat casters.

2. The save mechanic results in a hard threshold where if you can't hit some number... then don't bother. This makes the mid-level wis builds, or the not-yet-geared wis builds

If there must be a change, I'd rather see the spell adjusted to 1d6+wis modifier. This would result in scaling damage with the pure casters doing the most, and the dump-stat casters somewhere close to where the Fortitude save would place them, with a more even progression for builds in between the two.

The 1d6+wis modifier formula could result in increasing the damage for the really high wis builds. I think they deserve it, but if thats a problem then cap the wis modifier at class level and the spell would cap out at the exact same damage that it did before.

[Lavek]

I have two issues with this.

1. In the case of boss mobs with ultra high fort saves, we'll be back in the same place of dump stat casters doing the same damage as non-dump stat casters.

2. The save mechanic results in a hard threshold where if you can't hit some number... then don't bother. This makes the mid-level wis builds, or the not-yet-geared wis builds

If there must be a change, I'd rather see the spell adjusted to 1d6+wis modifier. This would result in scaling damage with the pure casters doing the most, and the dump-stat casters somewhere close to where the Fortitude save would place them, with a more even progression for builds in between the two.

The 1d6+wis modifier formula could result in increasing the damage for the really high wis builds. I think they deserve it, but if thats a problem then cap the wis modifier at class level and the spell would cap out at the exact same damage that it did before.

I like this..even better than saves...good idea

[danotmano1998]

Sorry, out of touch with the acronyms... Thanks

Damage
Over
Time

If there must be a change, I'd rather see the spell adjusted to 1d6+wis modifier.

Great idea!
I'm not in favor of changing it at all, but if I was, this is probably the most palatable choice, IMO.

[justagame]

Tho again as I said about Divine punishment:
No..
Just no.
Divines are not meant to have this kind of UNRESISTALBE DPS. Giving everything to one class just results in unbalance and unfun.

Says who? Before WOW and clones, divines were never meant to be heal-mashers. They certainly never were in pen & paper -- they always had fewer damaging spells than arcanes, but the ones they had were powerful (that's straight out of the phb). Now, as we all know, DDO has deviated from DnD in far too many ways to count, that's still not a justification to strip away a meaningful source of dps from them at the same time that arcanes are being boosted through the roof.

And as to no class being able to do everything? Well, then let's get rid of WF arcanes while we're at it, and every other build that's been able to roll dps, survivability, and healing (including umd) all into one.

[danotmano1998]

Originally Posted by Shade
Tho again as I said about Divine punishment:
No..
Just no.
Divines are not meant to have this kind of UNRESISTALBE DPS. Giving everything to one class just results in unbalance and unfun.

Bosses aren't meant to have 50 thousand hit points either...
Just saying...

[licho]

I have two issues with this.

1. In the case of boss mobs with ultra high fort saves, we'll be back in the same place of dump stat casters doing the same damage as non-dump stat casters.

2. The save mechanic results in a hard threshold where if you can't hit some number... then don't bother. This makes the mid-level wis builds, or the not-yet-geared wis builds

The current Saves values are not given, in the same way as hitpoints, its just a number which could be switched with every update. So its perfect possible to adjust them so:
- well geared caster will hit without save in 50% on normal at level.
- Doing raid on elite will demand toon geared for cap to hit this 50%.
- Every bit of extra dc will translate into extra 5% of dmg probability.

The only problem is that programist should know the actual values of DC achievable by toons. (hehe)

The only drawback is that:
- Dump wis FvS will have 50% of effect all the time.
- Toon at level joining raid on elite willl have less to contribute.

[EvilI]

Shade is correct. Only Barbarians should be attempting to do damage during quests and Divine casters should just quietly heal them.

Kudos for saying what I was only thiniking.

[alexp80]

A) You math is ultra wrong and purposely biased - it supports your position and purposely leaves out factors to make your arguement look good, while including every factor on the other end.
Your math is purposely missing common geared favored souls have, yet you compared it to an absolutely 100% maxxed out barbarian.

B) Hugest one: DoTs are absolute (and unresistable). They are easy to maintain. Melee DPS is ULTRA VARIABLE and can be reduced by thousands of factors, very rarely will you maintain your absolute maximum as you might in the DPS challenge where you get as many attempts as you want.

Lord of Blades is a great example:
DoTs can be applied 100% of the time - even when he leaves the arena, he happens to be gone exactly just under the duration of the dot, so it keeps ticking. Melee is only possible for limited bursts.

And I could post some screenshots of my favored soul doing 2000 damage light tics to proove your math is wrong, but its so incredibly wrong that I don't care too. All i can say is, let someone else more qualfied do it, or work harder and be more careful in your calculations next time. Here is a hint of some major factors ignored tho: Lore set. PrE.

I think, Shade, to have a deeper understanding of what you are talking about, that you have to roll a fvs and try it yourself.

It seems to me that you really don't know what the divines do during a boss fight, the dangers, the troubles, the difficulties they have to overcome to grant the success to the group.

I play regulary a barb, a fvs and a wiz, all epic geared and with a lot of fun. I know that each role has to fullfill and I can assure you that a divine can't sustain the dot like you think, even in relaxing raids.

A trip by Velah in the wrong moment? you loose the stack. Unexpected danger to any party member? you loose the stack... and so on. Divines are not auto attack barbs. They have no time to waste, they keep healing, scroll healing, using clickies, spamming dots, some also doing melee, and so on.

[Viisari]

- Dump wis FvS will have 50% of effect all the time.

How is this a bad thing? Why should a dumb casting stat melee divine be as effective with spells a multi-TR evoker with all gear and +4 tome for his casting stat? In fact, this is one of the reasons dots are broken atm, because that's how the situation is right now.