Hard to Kill --> Haunting

[JOTMON]

This is a much better mechanic over Epic Wards.

Necro Wizzies will have to count to 15 between instakills and this gives the rest of the party time to kill things.
Does not break soloing for Hard core Necro casters, slows the zergers a bit without being overly annoying.

I would look at excluding unintelligent mobs like rats, dogs,oozes etc....

[Jasparion]

Whoa trigger watch who you label powergamers. You think top geared people are gonna worry about how they do tod and shroud anymore?

Given the complaints about the AC change where TOD and Shroud they would get hit more, but LOB hit less... absolutely they are going to worry/whinge.

[Jasparion]

This is funny, and ironic.

It's because of whining that they are taking this action.

Wanting balance is not whining. Wanting to remain so far ahead of the pack it simply isnt funny is.

You dont see the difference?

[LeLoric]

Given the complaints about the AC change where TOD and Shroud they would get hit more, but LOB hit less... absolutely they are going to worry/whinge.

You completely miss my point. Top tier players in this game have little to no need to run either of these raids and when they do it's trivial. Regardless of ac changes.

[BossOfEarth]

Eladrin,

The proposed debuff timer does not live up to the name. Ditch the debuff timer and go back to the awesome concept -- meddle with the dark arts and pay the price!

If you're gonna call it "Haunting" follow through with it! Haunt them with ghosts! Give them something to worry about besides kill-stealing. With enough "haunting" their effectiveness will be divided, but they'll still be playing DDO like crazy (instead of just waiting for a debuff timer to expire).

I'm thinking necromancy-themed equivalents to blindness, Marut thunder punches, HoX bees, telekinetics, etc.... If you do it right, angring the spirits will slow down the necros by making them play harder. To draw an example, Grand Theft Auto has a thing like that where the cooler you are, the harder the game gets.

By way of analogy, when Mabar came around last year a friend of mine was killing time in the graveyard, not really paying attention until he got a notification that he had "angered the spirits of Mabar" or some such. He was so excited by it that he ran around "angring the Mabar" as for over an hour. He wanted something horrible and spooky to happen (cuz hey, it's MABAR!) He was crestfallen when the final doom was a simple "You have been killed by yourself" message, just like when you type /death or fall off of VoN5.

TLDR: Don't settle for a debuff timer. Haunting is a great concept -- please follow through with it!

[Grace_ana]

Heh, yeah my melee get some kills even now with a palemaster in the group... But there has been plenty of times where there is one mob left in the room, with me and another melee beating on it, and the wizard will FoD it. Absolutely unnecessary.

If SP management is a concern (what a great concept! SP management becomes important again! I love it!), us wizards can play smart and not waste SP on mobs when the melees have it under control.

So you're upset and calling for a nerf because a caster helped finish off the last mob instead of standing there watching? Were you upset with any other melee that were helping you beat it down?

That's not team play; that's pettiness of the highest order. You're claiming the melees "never get a chance to do anything" and that "casters are so OP" because of stuff like that? This is why I really question whether the "OP" claim is a real issue. When we start to pick at the reasons people are saying it, it turns out to be a small minority or a perception over stuff like this that is absolutely meaningless.

No more changes to game mechanics until we have solid information about how exactly death spells are "breaking the game."

[Kaldais]

haunting... instead a debuff, how about 50% chance spawn a same CR wraith whenever you use instant kill to kill an epic mob?

[Grace_ana]

haunting... instead a debuff, how about 50% chance spawn a same CR wraith whenever you use instant kill to kill an epic mob?

I want you to go ahead and think that one through.

[Durten]

As I have said before, I want to feel epic in epic content. Epic battles against epic mobs using my epic spells. Turning me into a bad caster via a debuff is not epic. Scaling me down to be mediocre just because I landed my spells like I tried to is very poor. There is no need for so many necro spells and no need to take necro feats, etc because I'll simply get nerfed in the middle of dungeon anyways.

That's not very epic.

I really don't understand why u can't just pump up spell resistance To make it harder. The fact that you think wizards with low DCs should be on even playing field with high DC casters seems odd to me. So we shouldn't bother maxing INT, spread the points out because u want all casters to have the same success rate at endgame regardless of build, gear, etc? I don't get that at all.

[Algulcz]

I don't like this one any more than HardtoKill. It basically only slows down players. Wail, wait, move to the next group, repeat.
But I think reversed mechanic could work. When casting wail, every mob that is killed will add +x to saves to remaining mobs in medium radius. So wail on group of 10mobs, first one failed save->die, remaining 9 get +x to saves, 2nd mob dies, remaining 8 get another +x to saves... Mobs outside wail radius would be unaffected.

And I believe that best way to go is mobs special attacks applying caster specific debuffs. Special = occasional, not spammed. Chance to apply debuff increase with difficulty and it can even be linked to dungeon alert. Red DA on elite epic=very high chance.
Those debuffs can look like:
Broken Yaw: You suffered terrible blow to your face braking your yaw, you can't speak and cast spells with verbal component
Tremor: Your body is shaking uncontrollably, you can't cast spells with somatic component
Center of attention: Your actions made you prime target, many eyes are staring at you with burning hate, you loose any benefits from incorporeality

Debuff like this would increase risk of casting wail, especially on large groups.

Even simple morale bonus to saves based on how many comrades are near would work better. Large group-big bonus, lone mob-no bonus.

[eris2323]

Heh, yeah my melee get some kills even now with a palemaster in the group... But there has been plenty of times where there is one mob left in the room, with me and another melee beating on it, and the wizard will FoD it. Absolutely unnecessary.

If SP management is a concern (what a great concept! SP management becomes important again! I love it!), us wizards can play smart and not waste SP on mobs when the melees have it under control.

You know, I'm sorry if wizards are kill stealing from you, but in the end; it's probably quicker and more efficient for them to use the finger.

Rather than wait for you to beat it down.

Why should *I* hold back, to give you a chance at a kill? I'm competitive, I like to play. Get your own kills. Steal mine. Use a vorpal. You might roll that 20 quicker.

If it really matters to you, be a pale master. And then compete with me in party. But I'm not going to hold myself back so 'a melee can get a kill'.

Just stop trying to ruin the game for everyone by insisting things get nerfed because they bother melees.

FIX MELEES

[fco-karatekid]

haunting... instead a debuff, how about 50% chance spawn a same CR wraith whenever you use instant kill to kill an epic mob?

Not same CR, but that deserves consideration... Where this mechanic will get triggered (raids, highest level quests) the melees likely won't want to switch to ghost touch, leaving the caster to deal with the wraith himself.

Edit: spawn jibbers, LOL.

[Masadique]

Set the wraiths agro to just the caster. This would actually be a hilarious change.

[Scraap]

You know, I'm sorry if wizards are kill stealing from you, but in the end; it's probably quicker and more efficient for them to use the finger.

Rather than wait for you to beat it down.

Why should *I* hold back, to give you a chance at a kill? I'm competitive, I like to play. Get your own kills. Steal mine. Use a vorpal. You might roll that 20 quicker.

If it really matters to you, be a pale master. And then compete with me in party. But I'm not going to hold myself back so 'a melee can get a kill'.

Just stop trying to ruin the game for everyone by insisting things get nerfed because they bother melees.

FIX MELEES

Course, I come at it from the other direction:

Half dead?
Not worth the SP.

Not a caster that'd chew up the low save folks, or keep healing up the other mobs?
Not worth the SP.

Less than 5?
Not worth the SP.

So supposedly this new system would appeal to me.
After deliberation... It doesn't. Largely because there's no real reason to stay focused, and quite a few reasons to just get your DC to middling-passable levels, and put your real focus elsewhere, instead of augmenting the school with other things.

Try again.

[dubyprime]

I thought for quite a while on how to comment in this thread without repeating someone else. Its a long thread so I hope I didn't miss this.

How will this effect Turn undead?

=)

I dislike both haunting and Hard-To-Kill. Adding either to heroic content is an awful idea.

[aerosole]

Just ran cabal on elite on a level 15 PM, was alternating between PK and FoD with plenty of mobs left for the melee to kill. Won't be able to do that any more in 2 weeks. I guess it was fun while it lasted. Looks like the whining nerf insta-kill people won this battle.

Funny thing is, if I was on a fire specced sorc, the melees would have been standing around doing nothing in that quest. They would have all died to fire balls.

Good point. Haunting slows down the pace at which a caster can sweep through content vs other playstyles, and that's very much needed in current epic content.

For heroic play though, it penalizes the necro caster unnecessarily so, since other classes can kill so much faster. Mostly, it'll affect level ranges from GH to vale the most, since that's where fod comes into play and kill counts are still racked up at a very fast pace. Rarely though, it'll impact other areas. Imagine taking your PM for a house K favor run. Other spells can be used, of course, but its just such fun to wail a bunch of low level mobs

Maybe a hard cap to the penalty as many have suggested would work for heroic levels? If your dc is good enough, haunting will not slow you down much even at max penalty. Or a more complicated solution, such as the penalty decaying at a faster rate as the mob CR drops below caster level.

Ideal case scenario: the penalty at cap should be big enough to tone down the PM to be more in line with other classes at epic, maybe provide some extra challenge at high level heroic quests (e.g. amrath), and still allow casters to wail with impunity through almost anything below GH/vale.

[GermanicusMaximus]

Every heal you cast should give a -40 spell power penalty on your healing spells.

I can't help quoting these "interesting" suggestions, simply because it helps to illustrate how many people who play this game simply do it for their own self interest.

Believe it or not, when a divine caster casts a heal on someone in the party, he is doing it to aid someone else, not to stroke his own ego.

This entire topic has spawned because melee toons didn't feel like their egos were being sufficiently stroked under existing game play. All the pushback from arcanes is based upon the fact that they feel like their egos won't be sufficiently stroked under the proposed changes.

Eladrin, if you are still reading this far into the thread, I'll simply offer up this assessment. If your agenda truly is to enhance team play in this game, it should be apparent to you by now that the ingredients for that team play does not exist in either the melee or arcane camps.

On a day to day basis, the people playing divine casters are the force that mold these squabbling camps into cohesive parties, at least long enough for them to zerg a quest and bolt off into their separate directions. In a very substantial way, the people playing divine casters are the core of this game.

The next time you consider nerfing/buffing divine casters, I'd suggest you keep that in mind. The people playing divine casters in this game are a rare commodity. If they decide to walk away, they won't be easily replaced.

[Grace_ana]

I can't help quoting these "interesting" suggestions, simply because it helps to illustrate how many people who play this game simply do it for their own self interest.

Believe it or not, when a divine caster casts a heal on someone in the party, he is doing it to aid someone else, not to stroke his own ego.

This entire topic has spawned because melee toons didn't feel like their egos were being sufficiently stroked under existing game play. All the pushback from arcanes is based upon the fact that they feel like their egos won't be sufficiently stroked under the proposed changes.

Eladrin, if you are still reading this far into the thread, I'll simply offer up this assessment. If your agenda truly is to enhance team play in this game, it should be apparent to you by now that the ingredients for that team play does not exist in either the melee or arcane camps.

On a day to day basis, the people playing divine casters are the force that mold these squabbling camps into cohesive parties, at least long enough for them to zerg a quest and bolt off into their separate directions. In a very substantial way, the people playing divine casters are the core of this game.

The next time you consider nerfing/buffing divine casters, I'd suggest you keep that in mind. The people playing divine casters in this game are a rare commodity. If they decide to walk away, they won't be easily replaced.

What are you talking about?

You don't think that when an arcane kills mobs in a party, s/he is helping the party? I recall a number of times that I got myself (as a melee) into a tough spot and got my butt saved by an arcane.

This does nothing but tell us your attitude towards arcanes, not the other way around.

[DarkForte]

I can't help quoting these "interesting" suggestions, simply because it helps to illustrate how many people who play this game simply do it for their own self interest.

I really should have put sarcasm quotes around that. I was "suggesting" ridiculous things so that, by comparing those ridiculous suggestions with the ridiculous suggestion that is haunting, one could see its inadequacy better. Sorry if I didn't get my point across.

[eris2323]

Ideal case scenario: the penalty at cap should be big enough to tone down the PM to be more in line with other classes at epic, maybe provide some extra challenge at high level heroic quests (e.g. amrath), and still allow casters to wail with impunity through almost anything below GH/vale.

I do not agree this is ideal.

We don't even get wail until level 17, if we stay pure.

So why cut us out of the very few levels we can enjoy, the payoff after surviving so long?