petition: rework casters

[blade_of_will]

/not signed

I support a reworking/buffing of melee. What you want to do is drastically change the way casting classes work when relative to each other, they are mostly fine (bards could probably use some love). Its important to note that for most of the classes whos dcs you want to boost, they dont really require high dcs for their effective spells, at least not high compared to what is needed for wizards, the 'high dc' class.

Also, as others have said, giving the dots a save would make the damage highly erratic, and would probably still have the same people complaining that casters 'do too much damage' because good casters will get the high dcs needed for them. A change in how the damage is calculated is needed (it is also much simpler and easier to calculate the impact of). Unless ofc if we are going to have a change to melee's to make their damage unreliable, since the classes need to be 'balanced'. And no, please dont tell me thats what AC is for, because there should only be a few cases currently where boss/monster AC is high enough to create a large impact.

[thakorian]

well as a wizard i do get both, without having to invest a single feat into evocation dc's and without having to wear any evocation focus item. and if i wanted, i could get as much as 3 dc's higher in the evocation school than any sorc ever could. isnt this ridiculous?!

Not sure if sarcasm.

[jillie]

/not signed

I'd rather have new content/races/classes and not waste dev time on this. Casters are working fine. Nobody complained until they suddenly became capable of more than hjeals and cc. Buff melee if you must. But stop calling for nerfs to the casters. Really, it's getting old.

Nerf nerfing requests!

[Xenostrata]

Reflex saves are normally lower than fortitude saves so the 1 DC a capstoned wizard has on evocations doesn't have a huge impact in the difference. PrE's might have a better effective save but less common of a build to focus on evocation.

The bonus caster levels a savant more than makes up for 5% (or 10-15% maybe with PrE's) less saves in comparison, especially after we look at enhancements and capstone and feats on top of that caster level. Bonus evocation or conjuration only cost time in past lives too. It's actually pretty easy to get high evocations DC's, just time consuming.


I'll say the same thing I said last time this conversation came up:

Wizards do not get bonus DC's for being a wizard outside of +1 for the capstone. That's it. They don't get bonus DC's from the PrE's either; they get bonus DC's at a big AP cost for additional add-ons to the PrE's after paying for the PrE AP's and those DC's give all of 5-15% better chance to affect trash mobs for the most part.

If other classes want better DC's I want damage boosts and higher caster levels.

This is assuming a Necro/Enchantment specced archmage. A palemaster will end up with +3 (capstone+lich form) to DCs, and an evocation archmage (not entirely useless) will generally end up with +5 (capstone+enhancements+feats). Sorcerors are usually limited to +1 (prereq for Savant line).

Depending on where the monster's saves are, that ~2 DC difference can mean between ~5% (Saves against Wizard on a 20, saves against sorc on 18-20) to 9% (saves against wizard on 4-20, saves against sorc on a 2-20) difference in DPS, but will usually fall in between the two. This difference is surpassed by a Sorcerer's CL bonuses.*

However, Wizards are only mildly behind a Sorcerer when it comes to DPS. Sorcerers are MILES behind wizards when it comes to necromancy/CC. I see no reason not to give sorcerer a leg up on casting evocation spells, especially when in most cases it won't matter (most trash, the wizard can just Wail it. Most bosses, DoTs can be used).

* The uncommon Evocation specced AM should end up with a 10% to 16% advantage, which gets close to being equal to a sorc.

[Vazok1]

mostly just stop giving us more gear to raise our DC's that just puts those without any gear further and further behind.

theres always going to be a gap between those who are geared and those who are not, just now its a bit bigger than normal. as soon as the level cap increase comes along, next year or whenever they said, we'll all spend the following few months feeling very underpowered asking for a buff and when we get one we get loads of new gear and complain about being too powerful.

[Vellrad]

I hate reflex save, because evasion will probably dispell triple stack in 80% of time.

[Aashrym]

This is assuming a Necro/Enchantment specced archmage. A palemaster will end up with +3 (capstone+lich form) to DCs, and an evocation archmage (not entirely useless) will generally end up with +5 (capstone+enhancements+feats). Sorcerors are usually limited to +1 (prereq for Savant line).

Depending on where the monster's saves are, that ~2 DC difference can mean between ~5% (Saves against Wizard on a 20, saves against sorc on 18-20) to 9% (saves against wizard on 4-20, saves against sorc on a 2-20) difference in DPS, but will usually fall in between the two. This difference is surpassed by a Sorcerer's CL bonuses.

However, Wizards are only mildly behind a Sorcerer when it comes to DPS. Sorcerers are MILES behind wizards when it comes to necromancy/CC. I see no reason not to give sorcerer a leg up on casting evocation spells, especially when in most cases it won't matter (most trash, the wizard can just Wail it. Most bosses, DoTs can be used).

Lichform is +2 INT (+1 DC), capstone is +2 INT (+1 DC), and plus 1 DC to necromantic spells. At best this is +2 DC's on a sorc for evocation. Archmage spell mastery gives 2 DC's and 1 for the capstone for +3 DC's. This isn't 5 DC's behind because sorcs can take both feats.

In reality palemasters don't take evocation feats and savants have similar DC's. Archmages are not taking necro and enchantment and evocation. They take one or two schools and if evocation is the other it's normally at minimum requirements.

Archmage evoker has an edge on evocation DC's but that gets back to reflex typically being a weaker save, spells with no save, and the bonuses savants get; which does not leave a wizard mildly behind a sorc. It leave a wizard behind a sorc in an end of story kind of way. +6 caster levels is a potential +30% damage on something like polar ray. Even just looking at +3 levels against a cap of 20 dice that's a 15% bonus on top of the capstone on top of the casting speed on top of the curse if applicable.

I'm not saying 1-3 DC's isn't a nice little benefit for wizzies, but wanting those same benefits for a sorc or fvs is silly given the benefits both sorc and fvs have.

Clerics might need some attention but not necessarily in the DC dept (or could be - debatable; rather see an expanded spell list) and bards have some reasonable enchantment DC's already with some nice fascinate DC's but are in the same boat as clerics - could use some attention particularly in the spell list.

That leaves me back on a /not signed on the OP. They seem pretty well balanced to me. And looking at the SP cost / cool downs on spells that use the higher DC's nuking can be more reliable. Good as is. If you want better DC's on sorc ask for a PrE that provides it because that's where a wizard gets his DC's.

[licho]

Woot 1st time i see someone arguing that wizards has better dps than sorc, that really something fresh.
It even go quite well as long as you look from DC poit of view, but if you have wide view of:
- spell pool size
- capstone
- PrE
- cooldowns
Then you know who is the nuker.
Anyway nice try.

[mute_mayhem]

while this is true wizards would still have a dc of 47 with similar gear and past lives, and im assuming you are using up to 5 of your 7 feats to achieve this and therefore you are missing lots of feats most favoured souls would have taken. however i think its fine that wizards get a higher dc than favoured souls in most schools but i also think that favoured souls should have their own niche where thay can at least reach the same dc! using 5 of your 7 feats to reach a dc that would be 3 lower than a wizards who has no less than 5(!) more feats than the favoured soul is unreasonable to me.
also i never said that it should not require work to achieve. i said we should balance mobs saves in the most end game epics according to the MAX POSSIBLE dc, which is QUITE a challenge to achieve and if we did your 44 wouldnt be very reliable anymore

Might I ask what 5 feats you're assuming I MUST have in order to achieve such a DC on my FvS?

The ones I'm factoring in (that raise my DC) are: spell focus necro, greater spell focus necro, wiz past life and heighten.

That's HALF of my available feats as a human, and I'll still be able to fit in: toughness, maximize, empower and quicken.

Pray tell, which important feats am I missing out on that are required for a FvS?

I'll answer you:
Extend- used on exactly 2 spells, recitation and holy aura. I'm fine with recasting them every two minutes.
Spell Pen- With the amount of spell pen I'll have from wizard and FvS past lives, I really don't need the feat.

[likuei]

There is absolutely no need to touch the classes right now, especially casters.
/not signed

[Xaxx]

How about we remove all instadeath and crowd control ability from all casters, we then tripple the damage that they're capable of. We then remove virtually all damage abilities from mele, we we boost their trip/sunder/etc dcs. Add more feats like whirlwind, up the dcs on paralyzing weapons and such. That way every mele focused toon gets to be crowd control and not damage.... and casters get to be damage instead of the meles buffbots/cc people.

What you dont like this idea?

Really?

I think its just as feasible as the ops idea, or even any of the nerf the casters threads that are put up by the same 10 people 15 times a day.

I warn everyone who continues to even think about these posts.... you really think that if they decide to swing the nerf bat at casters that they wont in turn swing that nerf bat just as heavily at fighters/barbs/rogues??? Careful what you wish for boys.... because I'm pretty sure that most of the people on here moaning for caster nerfs would be the same people to run howling at the moon if str mods were to go to say.... +1 every 6 str/dex instead of every 2... you know something like what would have to be done to mele if you neuter casters to the degree that most of you wish. I mean casters do so much damage.. so do meles... how about we raise the average ac in epic to... 80?... 90?... meles hit WAY to much in epic or even elite.... they should only hit and epic mob very rarley.. i mean its epic....Right?

Careful where you guys want that bat swung lest it be swung back the other way, or a new crusade of nerf the str guys starts until those people who whine enough about meles now being to powerful get their way to? I'm gonna guess alot of ya wouldnt like that.

Now its simply fair warning you might wanna think twice before you moan and complain least it get turned back on ya.

[Xenostrata]

Woot 1st time i see someone arguing that wizards has better dps than sorc, that really something fresh.
It even go quite well as long as you look from DC poit of view, but if you have wide view of:
- spell pool size
Negligible, especially since potions are so prolific. Also, wizards get a significant advantage here with much more sp-reducing effects (capstone, for instance).
- capstone
Wizard - +1 to all DCs, huge discount on all spell costs. Allows for more casts of more effective spells.
Sorcerer - Advertised as +20% damage, actually closer to +8% since it doesn't stack multiplicitavely with Empower Spell metamagic. Could use a boost.
- PrE
Sorcerer - 0 bonus to DCs, straight damage bonus to spells. Not used to full effect for most spells, since MCL is the main limiting factor on all but a few. A few tasty side bonuses.
Wizard - Evocation archmage - +5 to evocation DCs, +4 over the average sorc (most are NOT taking gsf:evoc)
Lich PM - Self healing, +1 to DCs, +2 to necro DCs, +40 hp, sp-free SLAs that do more or less unresistable damage and heal the caster when s/he is in the AoE.
If I could take PM on my sorc, I would.
- cooldowns
IIRC, the universal cooldown (cooldown activated on all hotkeys when one is used) is identical between wizards and sorcerers, 1 second. So long as the wizard has enough spells to cycle through, they will be churning out pretty much the same number of spells per minute as a sorcerer. Also note that since the main nuking spell is currently DoT, cooldown matters much less.
Then you know who is the nuker.
Despite all this, sorcerer still. And you will know who is the CC/instakill/tank compared between the two. With such a large gap on these things, asking for the nuking gap to be lengthened really isn't too much.
Anyway nice try.

I'm not saying wizards are better dps than sorc, I'm saying that as a class that has a total monopoly on necromany and enchantment, and the access to feats and hp (+4 con and a slot for shield mastery) to reliably hate tank that wizards aren't nearly behind enough to justify having the dps they do now compared to a sorcerer.

[bigolbear]

no no no.

your simply pigeonholing classes here. Spells with no save need to be in the game for various reasons.

Its also unrealistic to expect all classes to get the same DC's Sorcs have twice the casting speed and a 50% more mana than a wiz - for the loss of what - 3 dc. seems fair to me. Bards get songs as an offset.

Im very concerned your only looking at this from the perspective of single classing. There are many reasons why a magic system needs spells with no save or atleast spells with a guarenteed effect on a passed save.

Now to get away from the pingeon holing.

how about a capstone for sorcs that mirrors the wizard one, and a wizard one that mirrors the sorc one. and hell clerics/FVS should probly get access to both. Capstones are probably the biggest issue here - allowing the variance in DC's between the classes to differ as much as they do.

When it comes to comparing a multi TR to a first lifer too there can be an issue. Multiple past lives that effect DC's are frankly too much - id limit it to 1 but hey that pigeon flew its hole a while back.

The DOT's are a tad too nice in raid boss situations, especialy divine punishment - Id think the solution would be to slightly reduce their damage output tho, not put a save on them or were going to end up in a situation where a multi TR is ruling the roost with 'dump statting their casting stat' and still getting sufficient DCs.

Personaly id rather raid bosses periodicly dispelled them selves of any debufs (with apropriate caster checks).

[budalic]

/Not signed

Casters are almost perfect currently (Cleric needs some love, though). Melees aren't. Melees need something else to do besides DPS.