Hard to Kill --> Haunting

[Forzah]

There is no incentive, under this system. Building for Necro DC's would be idiotic. You'd do it only if you wanted to play a flavor-based gimp.

Pffff, mister myopic.

You can still instakill, but you now can't do it exclusively, you have to vary it with damage spells. It remains a very powerful ability.

[irivan]

Pffff, mister myopic.

You can still instakill, but you now can't do it exclusively, you have to vary it with damage spells. It remains a very powerful ability.

Forzah for you to be calling anyone shortsighted is beyond pathetic. If anyone it is shortsighted, you seem to thing that melee players are hurt by casters insta deathing.

Why? Is it because you cant have fun while that is going on?

No sir, you are short sighted, DDO has risen to its highest ever subscription rates with the system for casting that is now in place, put this in, and it will shrink.

If anyone here is myopic, it is you.

[Forzah]

Forzah for you to be calling anyone shortsighted is beyond pathetic. If anyone it is shortsighted, you seem to thing that melee players are hurt by casters insta deathing.

Why? Is it because you cant have fun while that is going on?

No sir, you are short sighted, DDO has risen to its highest ever subscription rates with the system for casting that is now in place, put this in, and it will shrink.

If anyone here is myopic, it is you.

Even with these changes, casting is still miles ahead of melee, and pale masters will still be good. If you can't see that, then yes, you are myopic .

Also, if you don't see that balance is important in MMORPGs, you are myopic.

You guys are again only looking at your own fun, and not at what is best for the game. There HAS to be balance.

[Viisari]

As to the whole haunting thing itself, I'm just going to say it's a pretty nasty nerf and generally nerfs make things less fun.

Considering we're going epic, just pump up *all* the classes with some ridiculously powerful abilities.

Design the mobs accordingly.

[sephiroth1084]

Okay, Eladrin, before I comment on Haunting, how possible would it be to spawn monsters with random buffs/items that grant bonuses against various effects? For example, monsters could spawn with Dispellable Death Ward, or Disjunctionable Deathblock (this would replace any innate immunity to instakills that wasn't race-specific, such as on undead). That would give some an extra layer of protection, but one that players can address. Higher difficulties would increase the chance for these buffs to be applied.

That, I think, would be the best possible solution, as it would put something of a damper on casters blitzing content, and would require the use of some other spells and possibly some teamwork, without introducing totally new mechanics, and wouldn't discriminate against low-DC casters in any particular way.

As an addendum to this, Death Ward and Deathblock should be set to not grant immunity to Assassinate, Quivering Palm or other non-spell instakills, but instead maybe grant a small bonus to saves. That would complete the puzzle.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If that isn't possible, I think Haunt looks good, but with some tweaks...

• Each stack should only grant a -1 penalty to saves, so that your DCs aren't plummeting too fast.
• Each stack should last for only 6 seconds (low enough for casters to use Finger of Death each time it's off timer without incurring the penalty--this spell isn't the problem).
• There should be a hard cap of either 10 or 15 stacks (-10 to -15 DC for 60 to 90 seconds at max).

• A few tweaks for Haunting:

• Haunting is not triggered by an effect which had no saving throw (PWK).

[Scraap]

• If a creature is below 50% HP, it doesn't add to your Haunting stack.

(not the only, just the latest)

I gotta ask why this keeps coming up in light of the fact that most folks complaints involve kill-stealing. Why create a mechanic to *encourage* stepping on each others toes instead of splitting mobs up if at the core of it it's supposed to be all about folks getting their own kills in?

[irivan]

Even with these changes, casting is still miles ahead of melee, and pale masters will still be good. If you can't see that, then yes, you are myopic .

Also, if you don't see that balance is important in MMORPGs, you are myopic.

You guys are again only looking at your own fun, and not at what is best for the game. There HAS to be balance.

Are you like that guy in the village that everyone laughs at for stating the obvious?

OF COURSE WE ARE ONLY WORRIED ABOUT OUR FUN.

This is a game that I baught to have fun it.

I baught it becuause it is DnD

And in DnD you can instakill monsters, with ease if you are good enough

In fact it has been that way for the last 6 years.

Now all of the sudden, it is this massive game crippling problem that needs to be nerfed into oblivion?

Can you say Buyers remorse.

Why did you come to play this game if you did not want it to be that way? Maybe you never played it in other venues? I don't know.

But what ever the case, calling people myopic for being unsatisfied with an upcoming change that has nothing to do with the game that we bought to play, is what make you MYOPIC.

[Rodasch]

Eladrin,

I greatly appreciate your willingness to compromise and come up with a solution that is acceptable to everyone (insomuch as that is possible, there will always be folks unhappy with anything you do.) I also applaud your efforts so far to modify the effect.

I have a few suggestions for your consideration:

Haunting Debuff ----

• Please lower the penalty to -1 per debuff application.
• Please change the decline counter to 5 seconds.
• Please cap the debuff stack at 10 or 12. There is no reason that it should ever take more than a full minute of casting no instant death spells to completely clear this. It should also not provide more than -10 to -12 to instakill DC's. Even that much is quite a drastic penalty and approaches very unfun.

This will allow for the use of single target kills like Finger of Death without undue penalty. The single target instant kills were never really the balance issue. What this will do is slow down the AoE instant killing dramatically in the target quests, while not putting undue stress on the single arcanes who get stuck wailing the portals in shroud or other such quests where one or two arcanes are expected to keep trash dead so melees can "do their thing" on other stuff. Failing to consider this will actually be detrimental to the very notion of team-work you guys are seeking to accomodate.

Content Application:

Please restrict this effect to the following content

• Raids
• Level 20+ group content

This will allow level 1-19 group content to remain farmable either solo or short manned since it's very difficult to find full groups who aren't chock full of fail to farm this content over and over to try to get the stuff required to progress crafting or rare gear item plans. It will serve the purpose of keeping casters from running amok over raids and epic content still, which was the goal, if I understand you correctly.

Addendum:

PLEASE test to be sure this debuff does not eat charges from Threnal cloak, silver flame pendant, ioun stones, etc when it applies. Do not release it live until it does not kill charges from those items (whether or not the charge loss blocks the effect's application).

Please be sure there is a clearly visible counter on the debuff so the caster can quickly look at it and know how many times it's applying and how long it will take to go away.

Please allow resting at a shrine to remove the debuff completely.

Please allow death to remove the debuff.

Please test to make sure the debuff does not overwrite, block, or otherwise bug out with other spell DC modifying effects like worn gear or buffs that increase necro DC's etc.

Please make sure the debuff does not increment for killing monsters with regular damage (either from pure nukes or the "on-save" pure damage from instant kill spells) This should only apply when a monster FAILS it's save vs. the instant kill and is susceptible to death spells.

Thank you for your time and consideration

[aerosole]

For ultra maximized DC solo players (I think that's the main concern), this new haunting thing just means "Hey, room number 1. Wail. Alt+Tab for X minutes. Continue to room 2. Repeat."

For a party-based player means "Hey, room 1 is mine. Wail. Rebuff other players. Alt+tab for X minutes. Already in room 4? Fine, room 5 is mine. Repeat.".

We are about to journey into Epic levels, with powers that are no longer "Epicly Powerful", We are going to be level 25 and less powerful than we were before.

Not to mention, no Epic level spells, just a hand full of decent damage clickies with long cool down timers.

The system needs to keep Wail and Circle as useable spells. No high Necro DC caster is ever going to cast these if it gimps their primary investment in Necro for several minutes. They will either be completely dumped spells, or they'll be used as single target instakills for when Finger is on timer (Finger one mob, drop a Wail on the next lonely mob).

There's a common thread here: long cool-downs are not cool. And because wail builds up haunting so fast, and haunting generates dc penalty universally for all death effects, the long cool-down spills into every single death spell. Effectively neutering all death spells after you wail the first few times.

This is especially bad for the moderate dc caster, who can't finish off the remaining stragglers after a wail.

Fod once every couple of seconds is cool. Almost everyone can agree unrestricted high dc wailing is extremely OP. Live version of wail needs to be toned down, but making fod useless in the process is bad.

What if haunting builds up a cumulative counter, with single target effects (fod/PK) suffering regular dc penalties while multi-target effects (wail) gain double the dc penalty? The counter will increase/decrease normally, only the effect on the spells are different.

1) If the caster spams death effects and build a huge stack of haunting, his dc will quickly become useless, wail will go first, fod will work for a little bit longer before being rendered useless.

2) If the caster insta-kill at the "right" pace, he can reliably use fod and wail as needed.

3) The difference is, after a wail, he can't wail again immediately due to the huge stacking penalty. But fod will still remain somewhat effective, rather than completely useless. It will be possible to pick off another couple of mobs individually with fod. He will still need enough time to "cool-off" for the next big wail.

[sephiroth1084]

(not the only, just the latest)

I gotta ask why this keeps coming up in light of the fact that most folks complaints involve kill-stealing. Why create a mechanic to *encourage* stepping on each others toes instead of splitting mobs up if at the core of it it's supposed to be all about folks getting their own kills in?

I'm not sure that kill stealing is really that much of a problem for any but the most peevish players (and Legendary Dreadnoughts). Kill-stealing is largely irrelevant, and only bothers me if the monster is almost dead, because I feel like the caster is wasting their SP and my time, but that's because there is nothing gained right now by killing something at 1/10th its HP. The larger complaint that I see on the forums is that melees feel ineffectual around Necromancers because they don't get to do much of anything--they aren't contributing, they're just along for the ride.

In my mind, there is a big difference between my contribution being made irrelevant by an untimely death spell, and feeling like I enabled the caster to kill that creature (or in this case, kill the next one as well) by stacking our efforts. Kill stealing right now is counterproductive, but wouldn't be with the proposed change.

The intent of that part of the suggestion is to both promote the usage of other spells, and to promote teamwork. Rather than a caster running in and Wailing a group of monsters, they would benefit from tossing some CC and having their other party members work on the monsters a bit. With stuff at 2,000 HP, that's not such a big deal, but if we see trash HP get up to 4,000+, this will be more relevant.

[Tid12]

• Make it -1 DC debuff and it lasts 8 seconds (notice: it is the timer of FoD so it won't be affected by Haunting at all)
• Add a hard cap: -10 dc for 10 mobs that last 80 seconds.

Everyone will be (kinda) happy with this, it doesn't affect single target spells and it's not too much big of a nerf.

[romzard1]

This is a joke right? a debuff for casting a spell you have to be kidding. Most casters have spent hours and hours tring etc.. to be able to wail/finger/circle through a quest that is the point of a PALE MASTER! Im so tired of all the cry babies in this game my axe doesn't do this or that the casters are raking up kills. I think the only change to wail should be every time we cast it, it acts like a pumpkin grenade except instead of a pumpkin head all the melee get a pacifier stuck in their mouths. I think melee who build there chars to crit alot should get debuffs every crit landed common people this is stupid to debuff a player for using a spell as intended. Bring on the waves of posts from the children who spend all day on the forums instead of making there characters better

[KillEveryone]

Thinking about this more...

I think single target death spells should be left alone unless used so many times within a certain amount of time. I can work with mass spells having the penalty to my casting and not feel too constrained. Single targets getting that penalty would make me feel like I have to play with a hand tied behind my back. I also don't feel that single target death spells are causing the same angst as the mass death spells.

Bats, rats, dogs, other unintelligent mobs should not cause a penalty to my casting, especially with the amount of bats that get put in.

I'm not saying I totally agree with the notion of haunting, I can work with it because of how I play my wiz and it doesn't really impact my play style much, however I stated I'd rather see other options like mobs buffing more with a wider variety of spells and I'd rather see the buffing option.

[butcheredspirit]

I can't help but think a lot of this has arisen, due to Wail never being properly balanced.
Most people seem to be agreeing that the other insta-kills aren't so much of an issue.

- Phantasmal Killer requires 2 saves, some creatures are immune to this.
- Slay Living, requires you to physically touch the target.
- Circle of (Un)Death...may need more balancing perhaps...however it is rather slow to take effect
- Destruction/finger, 8 second cooldown, relatively high sp cost to kill a single target
- Implosion has a hard cap on the number of enemies affected, it has a 60 second cooldown
- Banishing and turning can give enemies a bonus to their save based on their HD, relative to your caster level


Wail has a 30 (or 25) second cooldown, costs 50sp and can potentially clear a room (although often doesn't).
What feels overpowered to me, is the frequency this can be used.

Wouldn't simply increasing the cooldown, give melee more of an opportunity?
Or what about increasing the cast time, or reducing the area of effect?

I understand long cooldowns can make things harder on low dc casters (like my sorc),
but at least i would feel like every point of necro dc I gain is important.

The haunting effect makes me feel like I'm kinda wasting my time putting effort into necro on any build.
To me it seems haunting penalises every spell which already has balancing factors in place.

[mutilador]

Can you sell wail wands on DDOstore? Like with 60 necro dc bypassing 100sr.....pls

[azmodeus1]

honestly i think h2k may have been better. with the new gear and destinys we may still see casters focusing on max dc able to trivialise content with a surplus dc + debuffs...though that seems to be how ppl want it.

im ok with whatever they decide to do.

[bloodnose13]

first of all i think it would be nice to have some new "insta-kill" spells that are based on other schools, not only necromancy, that would give a bit of power to all other school builds and not force everyone to wail like banshee and show a finger, im pretty sure there are such spells in pnp. such spells would fix the problem of lower necro dc players not being able to "kill stuff". i mean powerword kill is nice and all but its long cooldown makes it only effective as opening or finishing attack.

[tinyelvis]

I have read your proposal over a number of times and one sentence sticks out and seems to represent the overall theme,

Thank you...........
We realized that the key was to let you use your death effects, but apply restrictions only when they're used successfully.
........

I thought and thought, trying to come up with a solution based on this sentence that didn't result in a penalty for success, but alas I could not. Has it really come to this. Is the situation so bad that success has to be penalized. I mean think about this. If this rule goes into play then the guys who spent sometimes years making and specializing their toon will be penalized more (and potentially perform worse) than the fellow who rolled theirs up a couple days ago. After one cast, essentially, the better caster can end up performing poorer than a weaker caster so long as both stay actively engaged. What's more, the better the caster, the poorer his performance is liable to be wrt others.

Is this really good MMO design? Can it really be a successful long term strategy to punish folks for playing the game and grinding out a hyper successful toon? If it really has come to a point where a certain class(s) when played hyper effectively causes the game to malfunction, then perhaps it is time to get rid of that class. I personally dont see the malfunction, but it appears the folks in charge do. I have never heard of anyone playing an MMO that penalizes you by making your toon perform worse the more you play and advance.

[BruceTheHoon]

This is a joke right? a debuff for casting a spell you have to be kidding. Most casters have spent hours and hours tring etc.. to be able to wail/finger/circle through a quest that is the point of a PALE MASTER! Im so tired of all the cry babies in this game my axe doesn't do this or that the casters are raking up kills. I think the only change to wail should be every time we cast it, it acts like a pumpkin grenade except instead of a pumpkin head all the melee get a pacifier stuck in their mouths. I think melee who build there chars to crit alot should get debuffs every crit landed common people this is stupid to debuff a player for using a spell as intended. Bring on the waves of posts from the children who spend all day on the forums instead of making there characters better

Oh, we have that. It' called fortification, which we do have to deal with by, for instance, switching to destruction weapons, or investing feats, action points and gear into our sunder attacks. Not to mention all the 'nerfs' hitting mostly melees in form of removing blanket immunities to poison and disease (when was the last time your caster got mummy rot or got poisoned by Arraetrikos?).

I think Eladrin explained the purpose and intentions of this change pretty clearly (no, it's not to remove wizards from the game or similar nonsensical exaggeration , that can be read int his thread) and they've come up with a good mechanics to do so. Mostly because it leaves them much room for maneuvering.

Having said that, devs, please be careful when balancing the timers on this debuff.
If manyshot is deemed to be so overpowered to warrant 2 minutes of a hard cooldown, then why should the arcane's most powerful weapon have a meaningless one?
Also, a hard cap sounds like a really good idea.

EDIT:
Adding some other necro spells, like nukes, would also help players who somehow feel like there's absolutely nothing for them to do, if they can't push the wail button.

[Dhalgren]

Massive changes like this, so close to the xPack release, make me nervous.

Something needs to be done, I grant that. But, given the amount of time left and the amount of work left to do, perhaps more time and resources should be devoted to getting the solidified parts of the xPack out the door, and changes like this should be discussed with the playerbase for a while yet and not rushed just to make it into U14.

It just feels a bit close to release time (please note the understatement here) to be hashing out such game-changing issues.