In lieu "Hard to Kill"...

[Judo]

Upon reading the new changes afoot regarding Hard to Kill, I'll admit I was perturbed, and was ready for a nasty letter to some editor.

Instead, I decided to attempt positive criticism with my own suggestions.

1. Dump the deathblock until 50% health.

2. Add 1 or some of the following effects:

1. +5 (or slightly more) spell pen check
2. A slippery mind effect, or the ability to make 2 (or more) additional saves vs spells
3. Exponentially decreasing spell pen
4. Exponentially decreases save
5. 5 point spell absorbtion
6. "leave of senses" effect, where melee hits applied reduce saves exponentially
7. anything...ANYTHING...to make all the TR's I've put into my wizard matter
8. separate instakill spells (FoD) from instakill effects (assassinate)

Reasoning:

1. Mobs melee'd to be reduced to 50% hp can just as easily be melee'd to 0% hp
2. A rogue who is now forced to leave sneak attack to help dps is much less likely to go into sneak attack to attempt an assassinate instead of just finishing said mob off
3. Are we expected as wizards to web/mass hold and pike again?

[decease]

they could just simply boost their fort save.. but no.. they give them death block.... oh well.. atleast my pm still efficient before end game.. sigh..

p.s. guess i better pick up my great spell focus: enchantment XD

[sirgog]

they could just simply boost their fort save.. but no.. they give them death block.... oh well.. atleast my pm still efficient before end game.. sigh..

Increasing the fort saves seriously wrecks a lot of other class abilities that are not at all overpowered.

Disintegrate? Doesn't land unless your DC is in the 50s.
Heat Death? Don't even bother. (Not that you'd take Fire Savant anyway, but still...)
Stunning Blow? Seldom lands.


Why nerf the weaker classes when you can solve the real problem with a change like this?


Edit: Rogue Assassinate should bypass Hard to Kill though.

[Malshier]

Disintegrate? Doesn't land unless your DC is in the 50s.
Heat Death? Don't even bother. (Not that you'd take Fire Savant anyway, but still...)
Stunning Blow? Seldom lands.

I guess you don't run with people who use improved sunder.

[Chette]

Increasing the fort saves seriously wrecks a lot of other class abilities that are not at all overpowered.

Disintegrate? Doesn't land unless your DC is in the 50s.
Heat Death? Don't even bother. (Not that you'd take Fire Savant anyway, but still...)
Stunning Blow? Seldom lands.


Why nerf the weaker classes when you can solve the real problem with a change like this?


Edit: Rogue Assassinate should bypass Hard to Kill though.

So make it specific to insta-death, or make it spell pen instead. There are lots of options that don't rely on blanket immunities and will reward people who have put real investment into their casters.

[Blank_Zero]

I guess you don't run with people who use improved sunder.

He does. Not everyone does though. You can't plan for max efficiency all the time.

[sirgog]

I guess you don't run with people who use improved sunder.

I'm one of them.

I tried to DPS on a melee, I really did, but then I realised I'm much more useful if I put the damaging weapons away, and either pull out an Improved Cursespewer and Imp Sunder everything, or just use Terror.

Imp Sunder is worth using before a Wail but sure as hell isn't worth using before most other Fortitude save effects. So it's mostly an insta-kill buff.

[varusso]

1. The mobs only get this buff on hard/elite -- on norm everything works as usual
2. It *IS* epic -- its SUPPOSED to be harder when you do it on harder difs.
3. It brings caster insta-kills more in line with how melees' insta-kill wpns work -- although it still sucks a bit for melees who still have to beat them down past their immunity -- everyone is on roughly equal footing here.
4. Insta-killing an epic mob that is at 1/2 HP is still faster than DPSing it down the rest of the way.
5. At least they had the foresight to NOt reinstate the DW when the mob heals back up above the 1/2 Hp mark.
6. Its still better than previous iterations where the mobs just had DW on period and you couldnt insta-kill them AT ALL.

[Chette]

1. The mobs only get this buff on hard/elite -- on norm everything works as usual

Who cares about epic normal, certainly not people with max spell pen and DCs due to months farming past lives.

2. It *IS* epic -- its SUPPOSED to be harder when you do it on harder difs.

Great, so make it actually harder by increasing their spell resistance and saves versus death, or add more casters that cast deathward and freedom of movement

3. It brings caster insta-kills more in line with how melees' insta-kill wpns work -- although it still sucks a bit for melees who still have to beat them down past their immunity -- everyone is on roughly equal footing here.

It doesn't at all equate with how insta-kill weapons work because you don't need to max a stat and get 9+ past lives to be able to use a vorpal weapon.

4. Insta-killing an epic mob that is at 1/2 HP is still faster than DPSing it down the rest of the way.

Barely, and what if you misguessed what their hitpoints were and they were actually at 51% health. Are melees, going to stop DPSing the instant their HP hits 50%? No, they're going to grab a target, start hitting on it, and then ***** at the wizard who plucks it out from under you when it gets to 30 or 40% health.

5. At least they had the foresight to NOt reinstate the DW when the mob heals back up above the 1/2 Hp mark.

I can't think of many situations where that's particularly relevant. But I guess it *could* be worse.

6. Its still better than previous iterations where the mobs just had DW on period and you couldnt insta-kill them AT ALL.

Again, I guess it could be worse, but saying something isn't the worst it could possibly be isn't really an argument for it being good.

[Judo]

1. The mobs only get this buff on hard/elite -- on norm everything works as usual
2. It *IS* epic -- its SUPPOSED to be harder when you do it on harder difs. How is this "harder" instead of simply "more time consuming and tedious"
3. It brings caster insta-kills more in line with how melees' insta-kill wpns work -- although it still sucks a bit for melees who still have to beat them down past their immunity -- everyone is on roughly equal footing here. "Insta-kills", how do you not see the irony??
4. Insta-killing an epic mob that is at 1/2 HP is still faster than DPSing it down the rest of the way. Please stop saying insta-killing, at 50% health it's simply thievery
5. At least they had the foresight to NOt reinstate the DW when the mob heals back up above the 1/2 Hp mark. *blows the kazoo*
6. Its still better than previous iterations where the mobs just had DW on period and you couldnt insta-kill them AT ALL. Incorrect, because then every wizard in the game wouldn't have wasted their time on focusing necro and obtaining spell pen past life feats, now we can ALL be conjuration focused haste slinging web-botz

responses in red, like my burning rage!!1

[Scraap]

1. A slippery mind effect, or the ability to make 2 (or more) additional saves vs spells

Second chance to make their SR save (do they get auto-save on 20? I forget), second chance for them to pass a fort save. Heck, throw in no-fail on a 1 if you absolutely have to. Odds are, large groups = leftovers.

[Alavatar]

Speaking of instakill weapons ... when will Vorpal be useful again?

[Xyfiel]

At least you can buff the party with displacement.

I miss my old mod3-5 webbot, he could web anything.

[Malshier]

He does. Not everyone does though. You can't plan for max efficiency all the time.

It still blows my mind that everyone doesn't take this, and use it, on their melee. It's so **** useful. Pally maybe I can see not having it because they have **** for feats. Otherwise... even on a fail, you still get a stacking debuff. I spam it on all my melees as soon as it's off timer. I think everyone should.

[threefeetunder]

Obviously they don't want to have people running around killing everything in one go, but blanket immunity is a very sucky way to do it.
How about instead of immune till 50% health, instakills on mobs with hard to kill buff get half their hp (total, not current) taken away when instakilled (yes i get the irony in that)?
keeps instakills relevent (thats a lot of hp) and makes the mobs harder to kill, which is apparently what the devs want.

[Scraap]

Here's another blast from the past: HD limits.

Say, 1d20 HD/CL max 20.
So 20-400 levels total, average 210.
6 CR 35s, 10 CR 21s, ect.

[Xyfiel]

It should be...

Hard to kill:
All epic mobs now have a % chance based on their CR to have any of the following multiple buffs: Heavy Fort, Deathblock, Resist 30(rolled individually), Freedom of Movement. These are item effects, as such Disjunction works on them.

Each one is rolled individually. So a Epic casual CR25 has a 25% chance for each one where a Epic Elite CR 45 has a 45% chance for each one. They could and should end with multiple, especially the higher the CR. Orange named by having higher CR would have higher chances. We can remove the stupid red named panthers and bears and just let them have a higher CR if needed. It is more balanced to different builds and different difficulties. It doesn't invalidate any gear, builds, or past life bonuses. It is logical that Epic monsters would have some common mid level defenses. It creates randomness because you don't know if the Drow necromancer around the corner is going to spawn with deathblock and make what is now a Finger from afar then run in and wail, into a big mess of a fight because he rolled deathblock and freedom.

[Forzah]

Obviously they don't want to have people running around killing everything in one go, but blanket immunity is a very sucky way to do it.
How about instead of immune till 50% health, instakills on mobs with hard to kill buff get half their hp (total, not current) taken away when instakilled (yes i get the irony in that)?
keeps instakills relevent (thats a lot of hp) and makes the mobs harder to kill, which is apparently what the devs want.

I think the proposed change is exactly right. You can't expect a fully healthy mob to die in one shot. Instead, it has to be hurt before it can die instantly; seems to make sense! This change is perfectly balanced, since it gives all party members the opportunity to contribute to killing a mob.

[Vellrad]

It should be...

Hard to kill:
All epic mobs now have a % chance based on their CR to have any of the following multiple buffs: Heavy Fort, Deathblock, Resist 30(rolled individually), Freedom of Movement. These are item effects, as such Disjunction works on them.

Each one is rolled individually. So a Epic casual CR25 has a 25% chance for each one where a Epic Elite CR 45 has a 45% chance for each one. They could and should end with multiple, especially the higher the CR. Orange named by having higher CR would have higher chances. We can remove the stupid red named panthers and bears and just let them have a higher CR if needed. It is more balanced to different builds and different difficulties. It doesn't invalidate any gear, builds, or past life bonuses. It is logical that Epic monsters would have some common mid level defenses. It creates randomness because you don't know if the Drow necromancer around the corner is going to spawn with deathblock and make what is now a Finger from afar then run in and wail, into a big mess of a fight because he rolled deathblock and freedom.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=376829

[Voldomar]

Edit: Rogue Assassinate should bypass Hard to Kill though.

Yeah. Exception based design... It's doing wonders for this game.
Can we have a bit of consistency, please? ( and yes, Hard to kill is lame )