Hard to Kill --> Haunting

[LeLoric]

I don't think Haunting is that penalizing.

Ignoring that, what would you propose as a solution to that imbalance between casters and everyone else then?

Mathematically yes it is that penalizing it's a limiting facter that no matter how hard you try you can't break that average of one instakill per 15 seconds. It's a 1984 esque orwellian mask we all have to wear so one is not more beautiful than the other to make all necro dc's equal. It balances out all instakill casters and lowers them in the tier of things but it doesn't change the caster vs melee dynamic.

If this system does go live my wizard will become a pale master nuker taking all three mental toughness feats and evocation magister or draconic destiny. Keeping the pale master defensive benefits that are so good. I will keep both wail and finger on the bar but they will become secondary options and I will still outkill melees by double in groups and still solo most content.

Maybe there shouldnt be a balance between casters and melees in trash killing. If everything kills trash equally yet in a different method I find that boring. It would probably require rewriting the whole game and making it extreemly wow like. Maybe melees can be balanced out in other ways like being better at non trash.

My wizard can't put out the kind of dps that a melee does in extended raid fights.

Of course I enjoy the current caster melee dynamics and I play more melee than casters I have my pale master and one first life sorc thats just kind of there versus 7 melees which I play much more than either caster. I enjoy the current mechanic much more than pre instakill epics. Mostly because It's a challenge to kill something whereas before it was a beat on something with blue rings and if it broke stun it. I make no assumptions that being a melee I should be as powerful as a caster it has never been the case in this game except for the first 5 levels or so. It still doesnt mean its not fun being a melee and they too can be very powerful and easily dominate content and more challenging.

[LeLoric]

Strictly speaking, you aren't limited to one kill every 15 seconds. You are limited to something like one *instakill* every 15 seconds. The folks stumping like mad for Haunting want to force you to get all your other kills like a sorcerer (or be a hage/hold bot while twiddling your thumbs). Basically, they want to nerf you because they don't like the STYLE in which you get your kills. It's not "melee friendly" enough. It's also a huge nerf, since wizards don't have the SP or nuking power of a sorcerer.

Im aware of all this i dont need you to hold my hand through the discussion pls your quite of mine was clearly implied in my text sorry you missed it.

[jandhaer]

How about we just stop trying to make everything balanced, CRAZY IDEA , nothing is ever truely balanced (life/games etc) , casters are powerful DERPA DERP they are and always have been in every game/book and movie.
Why do casters always get beaten with a nerf bat because someone else CHOSE to be a melee. By that logic I should be able to get all the successful people in life nerfed because I decided to be a hardcore gamer instead of a Dr. or a lawyer -.-

The poor melees dont like it when a arcane has more kills then them, QQ more, you beat things with a stick, the caster on the other hand conjures the elements and destructive forces of the universe to utterly destroy the foes in his path.

Meh just a thought.

[jandhaer]

Maybe there shouldnt be a balance between casters and melees in trash killing. If everything kills trash equally yet in a different method I find that boring. It would probably require rewriting the whole game and making it extreemly wow like. Maybe melees can be balanced out in other ways like being better at non trash.

.

This is what I was saying

[Braegan]

Well, we have to know more about this run. It's anecdotal remarks like this that contribute a lot to the perception that they are. In the first place, at least 15 of his kills were on mobs that the rest of the party never looked at (they pointed to the Orthons, Fire Ellies and Pups and said "You go deal with those.") So that drops him to something like 35 competitive kills. Then, of course, he may have been tanking and killing Shadows. So that's another 12 kills or so, dropping him to 23 competitive kills. See how this is going? Then, of course, we have to ask about the rest of his party composition, etc...

Yeah I can see how posting that might lead to lots of unexplained variables. I didn't kill every fire elle & pup, as I saw a couple pumpkin heads by the divines and some melee did snag a pup or two. I did tank the shadows but didn't kill any. The end fight went extremely fast so it wasn't a whole lot of rounds of orthons. The rest of the group was very solid, decent players from guilds that have had a decent name for quite some time on the server. Well balanced group, 1 arcane, 2 (maybe 3 divine) the rest a bunch of tr'd geared out melee.

I'll admit that I was on a very good streak and not every run do I stomp the yard like that. But anytime I am playing agressively against the zone that character always stomps the yard. And a large part of that is due to the current mechanic of Wail. So I can agree it could use some bringing in line, I just don't agree with the current proposals by devs thusfar.

[Stanley_Nicholas]

Death Magic, the exact term eladrin used is what deathblock stops. So if deathblock stops it it's affected here. The spells I listed including banishment in DDO are all stopped by deathblock. Not sure why we need dev clarification here that's what it's always been in DDO. The only concern was spell ike abilities like the shadowdancers consume which is just a recoded implosion.

Funny how deathblock doesn't stop players from being banished though... In terms of what the spell actually does, banishment is actually less of an instakill than trap the soul. I think it would make sense if deathblock stopped blocking banishment.

[slimkj]

The level 25 max-geared PaleMaster has many other ways to kill mass numbers of kobolds in Kobold Assault than just wail.

The level 25 max-geared PaleMaster has many other ways to kill mass numbers of mobs in epic quests too.

Wail is not the only spell you get.

Yes, thank you, I do know that. Not least you could also swing something at them. However, it does seem a bit silly, doesn't it? Being massively overlevel and doing favour runs... I can't see why you'd want to punish something flinging Wail about in there when, as you say, there are many other ways to do it. (I wouldn't want to punish them anywhere outside of eH/eE but there you go.)

You know why? Mainly because the graphics and sound are pretty cool and I like watching everything fall over dead, even poor little kobbies I could've hit with a necro blast.

[sephiroth1084]

I suppose the big wild card is how many stacks of store mana pots you buy...

Regular pots are prolific enough that one rarely needs store pots. The Torc and Conc-Opp make this even more true.

In any case, if spell points are not an effective limiter, we should simply remove the spell point bar from the game and give everyone unlimited spell points. Of course, this won't happen simply because store mana pot sales tell Turbine that what you are saying is just inaccurate. Any player can validate that spell points are a limiting factor by checking the prices of major mana pots at the AH. They are selling for quite a bit more than 100 plat...

I'd like to see actual spell points become more of a limiting factor, in several ways, one of which is reducing the frequency of shrines in quests (making quests longer, or offering fewer shrines) and by putting limits on the consumption of mana pots. That's a separate issue.

Right now, though, mana isn't much of a limiting factor. And again, how expensive does Wail need to be for it to no longer be considered too strong by the devs? How much mana can it cost before we (the players) deem it too weak to bother with?

Clearly, if we are going to balance the game, melee toons need a limiting factor akin to spell points. If it can be replenished by an item purchased from the DDO store, that simply increases funding for the game.

Stupid derailment.

Mathematically yes it is that penalizing it's a limiting facter that no matter how hard you try you can't break that average of one instakill per 15 seconds.

I don't understand this assertion. Are you telling me that you couldn't kill something with a -2 to your DCs reliably? Or -4? That a -8 would prevent you from killing anything at all, or from making the attempt?

Remember when Amrath first went live, and no one could Finger anything with any regularity? The norm was to fire off an Energy Drain (average of -5 to saves) and then toss Finger. Now, negative levels impose a -2 penalty to saves. If you were holding a Haunting penalty of -10 on a caster with a high rate of success for their spells to kill something, and hit it with Energy Drain, you would, on average, have the same chance to kill that target as you did without the Haunting penalty. Symbol of Death can rack up negative levels to prep stuff for this.

Really not seeing where the "limited to 1 kill/15 seconds" comes from. if you don't ever want a penalty, sure, but the penalties can be dealt with to some degree.

Maybe there shouldnt be a balance between casters and melees in trash killing. If everything kills trash equally yet in a different method I find that boring. It would probably require rewriting the whole game and making it extreemly wow like. Maybe melees can be balanced out in other ways like being better at non trash.

Again, it's not just players calling for nerfs/changes to these mechanics...the devs have had problems with our ability to insta-kill stuff for a long time, and all of their own accord. Do you think they'd just drop the issue? I don't. And while I don't think there should be parity between melee ability to deal with trash and caster ability to deal with trash, the gulf could stand to be narrowed somewhat.

Mind you, I only have 1 Pale Master (who is tied for being my second favorite character, and is 2nd in line for gearing and completions), one other caster who has been sitting at level 15 or so for over a year, an archer and a bunch of melees. I don't mind running with amazing casters when I'm on my melees. I like kicking the **** out of content on my PM. That has little to do with this discussion.

[HarveyMilk]

I'm going to weigh in here again, and just say that the mechanic of Haunting is not fun, and that's why there's so much opposition.

A simple answer: Remove the timer, and just make the Haunting counters -1DC, and apply only to AoE instakill. Single target should REMOVE the Haunting counters, by "Stealing Souls." And there should be a necro enhancement where you can get +1-2DC above your base DC by "Stealing Souls" with single target instakills. So, wail would still be used, you'd just have to gauge how many mobs in your wail you want to kill, then use single target instakills to power up your wail again.

That would be a nerf, shrouded in a buff, wrapped in a much more fun mechanic.

[Elaril]

I think we should just stop trying to pretend that haunting is a salvagable idea. It is such a bad idea, that we should just discount it totally. At this point, I'm sure they know, or will find out on Monday, how wretched a concept we believe haunting to be. If we stop talking about it as if it is real, maybe it will just go away. There is no scenario where it is ok to so significantly decrease a character's DC's, when it is know that players grind out past lives for a +1 increase.

While I appreciate the effort from the developers, I wish they would stop trying to re-invent the wheel, forsaking much simpler solutions.

[Saravis]

I like the idea.
It's hard to say how much of an impact this will have on PMs, how much it'll slow them down, but the intent behind it works out much better than the "hard to kill" mechanic.
Its also a mechanic that would be very easy to adjust, just in case the PMs feel too restricted or are not restricted enough.

With that said I'm still much more in favor of implementing clerics that cast DW in epic h/e.

[Khurse]

Will work fine, (and I assume it's been suggested) but change the cooldown to the same timer as a Wizards FOD- 8 seconds.
Will not penalize players for single kill castings.

I don't have an issue if you want to knock down my Wail/Circle a peg or two, but a stacking 15 second debuff every time I instakill a single mob with a spell that has an 8 second cooldown is stupid.

[Elaril]

The more I think about it, the more that I think that neither HTK or Haunting are seriously under consideration by the developers. The whole situation reeks of a bait and switch. Give us one proposition that they know we'll hate because we hated it the first time, follow that up with a proposition that seems better at first glance, but is in fact much worse.

I'd expect their next move will be "after reviewing and considering player feedback on HTK and Haunting, we have decided to just nerf Wail instead." They will then be hailed as geniouses and heroes by the forum community.

[LeLoric]

I don't understand this assertion. Are you telling me that you couldn't kill something with a -2 to your DCs reliably? Or -4? That a -8 would prevent you from killing anything at all, or from making the attempt?

Remember when Amrath first went live, and no one could Finger anything with any regularity? The norm was to fire off an Energy Drain (average of -5 to saves) and then toss Finger. Now, negative levels impose a -2 penalty to saves. If you were holding a Haunting penalty of -10 on a caster with a high rate of success for their spells to kill something, and hit it with Energy Drain, you would, on average, have the same chance to kill that target as you did without the Haunting penalty. Symbol of Death can rack up negative levels to prep stuff for this.

Really not seeing where the "limited to 1 kill/15 seconds" comes from. if you don't ever want a penalty, sure, but the penalties can be dealt with to some degree.

It's an on average thing here or in more discrete mathematical terms a limit. Sure for a short time you can break that 1 per 15 kill rate but it eventually evens out to 1 per 15 and theres no way getting around it. The speed at which you aproach that 1 in 15 is slightly different but it all approaches that amount in the end.

I can kill something with a -2 to its save. But that then resets the counter and puts it at -4 to dc. If you don't let the counter reset ever you are going to eventually hit your breaking point where you cant kill things. And at that time you have to wait out the debuff untill you can kill again. And each debuff at that point is a 15 second wait.

This average amount is the same no matter what your dc is and high dc has little to no benefit here and thats what makes this just a horrid design decision.

[LeLoric]

Will work fine, (and I assume it's been suggested) but change the cooldown to the same timer as a Wizards FOD- 8 seconds.
Will not penalize players for single kill castings.

I don't have an issue if you want to knock down my Wail/Circle a peg or two, but a stacking 15 second debuff every time I instakill a single mob with a spell that has an 8 second cooldown is stupid.

I thought so at first too but in reality theres more to consider than just the necro dc wizard. Illusion archmages with much shorter cooldown pk's and dual ones still get hurt. Divines with their two single targets get hurt more too.

[Krell]

I guess I just don't agree with the original problem statement with instakill. Consider a Sorc and a PM that spent equal time aquiring past lives and gear. At what rate could the Sorc "clear rooms" with AoEs? How long could the Sorc continue to "clear rooms" before running out of resources? Unless there are plans to nerf Sorcs that have spent an equal amount of time to reach their potential, then that is the bar that any balancing shoud be set at, and only if there is evidence that the instakill play style is far ahead of the well geared Sorc.

I don't think either proposal so far comes close. I think very little tweaking is needed to achieve balance between these playstyles. I also think Turbine developers are very good and can hit the mark as long as they have the right goal in mind.

[Scraap]

The more I think about it, the more that I think that neither HTK or Haunting are seriously under consideration by the developers. The whole situation reeks of a bait and switch. Give us one proposition that they know we'll hate because we hated it the first time, follow that up with a proposition that seems better at first glance, but is in fact much worse.

I'd expect their next move will be "after reviewing and considering player feedback on HTK and Haunting, we have decided to just nerf Wail instead." They will then be hailed as geniouses and heroes by the forum community.

At which point, of course, the whining will begin about straight damage AoEs until they go to their go-to solution that they've thrown in time and again: bigger meatsacks. The more I look at the issue from different perspectives, the more convinced I am, that's the real problem, and forcing them to balance vs Full to 0 spells are about the only thing keeping that type of thing in check.

[Sarnind]

My suggestion is change all istant kill melee and spell (except vorpal)in 1000 damage, saves negate.

[krogyy]

It's an on average thing here or in more discrete mathematical terms a limit. Sure for a short time you can break that 1 per 15 kill rate but it eventually evens out to 1 per 15 and theres no way getting around it. The speed at which you aproach that 1 in 15 is slightly different but it all approaches that amount in the end.

I can kill something with a -2 to its save. But that then resets the counter and puts it at -4 to dc. If you don't let the counter reset ever you are going to eventually hit your breaking point where you cant kill things. And at that time you have to wait out the debuff untill you can kill again. And each debuff at that point is a 15 second wait.

This average amount is the same no matter what your dc is and high dc has little to no benefit here and thats what makes this just a horrid design decision.

by the same line of logic it doesn't matter how big one's mana pool is, eventually it dries out so one can cast spells only with mana from torc/con opp/echoes.

or, using a melee analogy, the number of haste and damage boosts matter even less since they are a limited amount and after a while they are gone. why does anybody even spend ap to get those anyway?

fact is that quests have limited duration so speaking of limits is absurd.

edit: oh i got one that is even better.

by your logic all melees should end up punching mobs. after all, their weapons have finite durability and they can carry a finite amount of them.

[Vordax]

With haunting using finger of death and PK only, assumption of 1 kill every 10 seconds:

Time	Kills	DC
0	1	-2
5		-2
10	2	-4
15		-2
20	3	-4
25		-4
30	4	-4
35		-4
40	5	-6
45		-4
50	6	-6
55		-6
60	7	-6
65		-6
70	8	-8
75		-6
80	9	-8
85		-8
90	10	-8
95		-8
100	11	-10
105		-8
110	12	-10
115		-10
120	13	-10
125		-10
130	14	-12
135		-10
140	15	-12
145		-12
150	16	-12

Now throw a wail in there, after 1 minute you are pretty ineffective especially in heroic content where your DC's won't be anywhere near as high as one with epic destinies.