Hard to Kill --> Haunting

[Blank_Zero]

I'm loving the doom threads coming from folks who don't think a wizard can do anything but FoD and Wail.

[meathook2012]

Just wanting to understand. This pentalty applies 15sec/mob? Perhaps lower it a bit due to thats pretty excessive. And its only to CoD and wail right?

2nd question, it applys at all levels correct? It wouldnt be as devastating in the early levels, which is a good thing. But I am not 100% sure if its a good thing for it to apply to regular content level quests.


But overall, WAYYYYYYYYYY better than "Hard to Kill", which was killed!

[danotmano1998]

This is all about Epic Hard and Epic Elite difficulties correct. So, why do we care about casters with low to middlin'd DC's?

Aren't the Hardest settings designed for the best toons?

It seems awfully counter intuitive to create difficulty tuning setting for you hardest difficulty quests while aiming to make them viable for low DC Casters. It's like scaling HP for a mob with the assumption the melee is swing a Club of the Silver Flame.

Actually, this is a good question.

But the idea seems solid enough. You only get haunted by those you kill, right?
I think the middling DC casters statement just clouds things. Low or high DC, doesn't matter. If you kill it with one of the death spells, it adds haunting. If you don't, it doesn't.

[Malshier]

I'm loving the doom threads coming from folks who don't think a wizard can do anything but FoD and Wail.

Also circle of death and web. Luckily my web DCs aren't going down....



YET.

[janave]

The previous idea "Hard to Kill" was good enough. With that said, bless you for giving it more thought.

You guys really have to decide at some point though, you cant satisfy all, it wont be over. As you can see from the responses peeps already have compromise for the compromise .

For the criers: would it be so bad if other options than necro became suddenly viable? Read: Spell points and time efficient, if thats what you are into . Any good wizards will be fine without the one-click-flush-army.

[Auralana7214]

Instead of debuffing casters, why aren't melees just made better?

[Ladywolf]

Still lame.

If I manage to take out 6 mobs with 1 wail, my DC drops from 44 (my current on live) to 32. So for 15 seconds, I'd better not try to use FoD or Circle of Death, or risk further degradation of my DC. I guess I can still use PK. And TTS. Wait no. TTS has a CR cap. Nevermind.

I guess this is ok since it won't hurt my implosions.

You say you don't want to hurt casters with low to middling DCs. Well guess what? You just turned everyone into a caster with low to middling DCs.

The way I read it, if you take out six with your wail, your dc goes from 44 to 32. In 15 secs it goes to 34. In another 15 secs it goes to 36. So it will actually be 90 secs before you are back to your old dc

[Malshier]

Wow, a *whole two minutes*!!! you mean the same timer that's on manyshot? And you're not going to kill 8 mobs on epic elite with one manyshot. And a Wizard will still have far better options for killing during that timer than an AA does.

If anything it's too short.

If you're a flowersniffer, and go extra slow, 2 minutes probably seems just fine and dandy.
If you enjoy zerging, and try to run through quests as fast as you can manage, 2 minutes is an absolute eternity.

[Scraap]

I'm loving the doom threads coming from folks who don't think a wizard can do anything but FoD and Wail.

Quiet yous. Don't let em figure out we'll just spam mass AOE damage or single out their casters and turn em against their own parties, or we'll end up with DBF echos too. (Oh, I'm sorry, did I say that out loud? )

[Malshier]

The way I read it, if you take out six with your wail, your dc goes from 44 to 32. In 15 secs it goes to 34. In another 15 secs it goes to 36. So it will actually be 90 secs before you are back to your old dc

Yeah I was giving them too much credit. Several people have pointed that out to me.

[Dolphious]

I'm loving the doom threads coming from folks who don't think a wizard can do anything but FoD and Wail.

Bingo. Even a necro focused PM has plenty they can do when instakill stuff is on a soft timer. If anything the timer should be a bit harsher/longer to really push people to mix up their strategies.

Maybe -1/-2/-3 for 10/20/30 seconds on norm/hard/elite (and nothing on casual for those that really want that god-mode feeling).

[DarkForte]

Third, there is an issue that needs to be addressed: the myth that most PM's or necro-focused AM's can sweep through epic content and lay low virtually all of the content, with little challenge. This is simply not true, and really only applies to the top percentile of necro-focused arcanes.

Quite frankly, if a player has invested enough lives into an arcane to have +9 spell pen (3 x wizard and 3 x favoured soul past lives), the maximum possible intelligence (i.e. completionist) and farmed out the best possible gear (+4 intelligence tome, tier 3 alchemicals...) then they had better be dominating content, for two reasons.

This. Just because LeLoric's PM can solo all the content in the game, it shouldn't mean my arcane that needs a party backing him up should become a one-trick pony relegated casting dancing balls and haging the party (ok, a TWO-trick pony).

Devs should understand that after reducing full-meta'ed damage on arcanes, they are already much less effective at soloing than before. This will make it so that any party with more than one arcane is an auto-fail.

[voodoogroves]

I'm not clear - is haunting going to trigger off of single-target spells / abilities? I would prefer not.

The problem isn't casters fingering everyone to death - its wail / circle ... right?

[Dolphious]

If you're a flowersniffer, and go extra slow, 2 minutes probably seems just fine and dandy.
If you enjoy zerging, and try to run through quests as fast as you can manage, 2 minutes is an absolute eternity.

Then if you want to zerg, mix up your strategy in each fight...

[Cyndrome]

Instead of debuffing casters, why aren't melees just made better?

Pfft. Just nerf them more so people will stop playing them altogether and we can stop hearing all this nonsense about nerfing casters.

[stockwizard5]

Much better - thank you!

I 2nd that Implosion, PWK, TtS, and PK are not "death effects" so should not count.

Well I guess PWK is but since no save and HUGE cooldown - leave it out.

[hiryuu42]

Frankly, these broad sweeping solutions don't work because the approach is fundamentally flawed. DnD has a solution for this, and DDO would too if the devs stopped breaking it.

Melee classes have good Fort, Casters not so much. Archers have good Reflex. Monks, Paladins, and dexer Clerics are very annoying. Leaders are higher level, with stronger saves. Good, balanced campaigns play to that layout.

So...
Undergeared casters can kill many archers, most arcane, and maybe a cleric that's slow on Deathward.
Good casters will take out most archers and arcane, probably a couple melees.
Great casters will take out most stuff, except leaders, Paladins, Monks, and Clerics.

Likewise...
Undergeared casters can hold some melee and archers, Web casters.
Good casters will hold most/all melee and archers.
Great casters will hold all but leaders and casters.

See, not complicated! Very DnD. Middling casters get something, great casters get more, and they still need the party to beat down more troublesome enemies.

[Voldomar]

I think this is a very interesting idea, and I like how it works, where you can still use your insta-death spells, but not constantly.

But I think the Haunting effect is way too strong...

On wail where you hit 10 mobs means -20 to DCs for 150 seconds?

I think it should be -1 DC for every mob you kill with a 10 second stacking timer BUT (and this is important) cap out at -5 DC and 50 seconds, decreasing by 1 DC every 10 seconds. Or maybe -10 DC and 100 seconds (since our DCs are going way up with EDs)

It definitely needs some kind of hard cap I think.

Yes. A hard cap is needed

[Grace_ana]

Wow, a *whole two minutes*!!! you mean the same timer that's on manyshot? And you're not going to kill 8 mobs on epic elite with one manyshot. And a Wizard will still have far better options for killing during that timer than an AA does.

If anything it's too short.

Two minutes is an eternity in a fight. Call me crazy, but I prefer that my party members be able to contribute to the best of their abilities. If that means they kill more than me, fine, but I'll take that over getting beat down while the wizard waits for a two minute cooldown while trying to spam suboptimal aoe spells. Sometimes in a quest, things go wrong, and anyone that can save us from a wipe is welcome. Death spells are excellent for those "oh ****" moments. I'm not so convinced that it's best for everyone to not be able to use them effectively.

[Grimlock]

Thanks Turbine!

I spent like 15 minutes typing out a reply to this thread commenting about MotU, this caster gimp change, constructive advice on how to handle it, and this expansion. I go to hit Submit Reply and I was booted from the forums and lost my entire post.

Ahhh, now I remember why I only have ~67 replies since February 2006.

Carry on with the nails in the coffin.