Hard to Kill --> Haunting

[Tiamas]

A few words again of someone who can accept the haunting system in special cases. First of all, for me its not really a system to enforce teamplay, but one to balance instant kills against raw damage (from casters). A quick example (numbers might be wrong, but i think they help to get the idea):

Assuming trash mobs on epic elite have around 10k HP, an instant kill is the absolute king of anything that can take down such a mob. Lets say we got an acid sorc that uses acid rain, 4 ticks per 500 dmg. He still needs to cast it 5 times (because we want to get down a group of said mobs) to kill his enemies. Thats 20 ticks, 1 per 2 seconds so 40 seconds until everything is down and he spent around 150 SP (+ probably some healing). A wail of a geared arcane would take out this group (we are assuming not too high saves, because it was said they shouldnt get too high to allow other abilities to work) with 50 SP instantly (so probably way less healing required), his wail is on cooldown for 30 seconds, but no enemies left, you can move on to the next encounter, wail is ready till then. In this case the instant killer has a huge advantage over raw damage. So, in such a case a penalty for this instant kill is reasonable. It slows down the instant killer because he is way faster than anything else without directly nerfing the instant kill ability.

As shown above this is only reasonable for high HP. And even if my numbers are completely wrong you should get the point that there is a certain amount of HP where instant kills are just way better than any DPS can be.


BUT (important part here) if enemies are below that amount of HP there is no reason for a massive penalty because other methods are not slower in taking down stuff. So haunting should take into account

• How many HP the target has (like -1DC 5 sec for 8k+ HP, -1DC 10 sec 12k+ HP ...)
• Which spell was used (Single target DPS might be quite a bit higher, so a FoD shouldn't lead to the same penalty like a mob killed by wail. Implosion can only hit 5(?) enemies and has one minute cooldown, again the penalty should be lower than a real kill all (wail) spell)

As already mentioned before casters vs melees abilities in terms of taking down TRASH cant be fully balanced. Thats what casters are for, thinning out enemy lines or take down important enemies fast and leave the rest to melees. So if instant kills are "balanced" then against other magical powers.

TLDR: Read it, lazy slacker!

[Boneshank]

... that uses acid rain, 4 ticks per 500 dmg. He still needs to cast it 5 times (because we want to get down a group of said mobs) to kill his enemies. Thats 20 ticks, 1 per 2 seconds so 40 seconds until everything is down and he spent around 150 SP (+ probably some healing).

Except that this isn't exactly representative of what's really happening.
A more plausible scenario is that as soon as he casts the Acid Rain, he follows it up immediately with a few SLAs, an Otiluke's, etc, pumping out massive amounts of damage in a very short period of time, without a huge increase in SP-cost, leaving the same group of mobs dead in a very similar timeframe to Wail+CoD+FoD+NRay+PK (a typical spell chain for my PM to 'clear an encounter').
Yes, the sorcerer just might spend a few more spell points than the wizard to clear the same encounter, but when the sorcerer has 50% more SP, it becomes a moot point.
The end result is the same: "Caster cleared room quick, leaving nothing for my poor melee! Raaaaaargh!"
Only the method to get there differs.

[Skavenaps]

i like the idea Eladrin.

Dont really think u need a hard cap, just caster will bunch more mobs than actually doing before the first cast of the wail.

So will end the same... simbol of death kiting, then wail of banshee. if they are solo, will just alt-tab and wait for the debuff going. if they are grouping, will just help with other spells.

[alexp80]

In comparison between instakill and raw damage from sorc, the instakill MUST be more efficient.

Because: raw dmg 100% garanteed and works on anything (just in case of evasion mobs there is a lot of nuking with no save) and belongs to a class with better sp pool

Instakill: spell pen + save, usually need preparation spells (cod, energy drain, enervation symbol of death) to be 100% effective.

[Faent]

i like the idea Eladrin. Dont really think u need a hard cap, just caster will bunch more mobs than actually doing before the first cast of the wail. So will end the same... simbol of death kiting, then wail of banshee. if they are solo, will just alt-tab and wait for the debuff going. if they are grouping, will just help with other spells.

Clearly you didn't follow this discussion. If you had, you wouldn't have said that there will be Symbol of Death kiting followed by a Wail of the Banshee.

[Khthonic]

There is already balance, anyone who treasures their melees ability to take down a group of rats should just be playing on casual by themselves. Honestly as a PM I'm usually on autopilot. There is nothing fun about trash mobs, they are mindless, inane, boring, whatever. They are part of any game.

If this nerf goes through not only do melee get to join in the mindless, inane "fun" that the PM does, but its going to take that much longer for everyone involved.

Weren't people *complaining* that this games idea of challenge was just to give mobs bloated HP so it becomes a drawn out beat down. How is this *not* moving in that direction? Every quest is going to turn into this. "Sorry guys I used my wail, can't do anything for 5 minutes, let me web these epic mobs and stand around while you take a 1 minute or two to kill them..."

Everyone is acting like PM's are having a blast wailing groups of rats and weak trash. The most fun I have is with true challenges, but I also enjoy being able to use my abilities and spells without penalty.

[luvirini]

You annihilate most of mobs leading up to harry, if all of the melees die, the caster by himself with a healer in attendance cant solo harry down, just cant, a well played and put together melee can.

A well geared sorcerer likely could do that atleast phase 4 on normal as harry has only about 100k? hitpoints.

My ,first life, 450 hp, fairly badly geared, sorcerer got harry down from about 20-25% in part 5 normal after everyone else wiped and he has like 1.5 times the hp in part 5 and I had low spellpoints to begin(<1/3) with. I used one major mnemonic and a stack of reconstruct scrolls.

Method of: Cast+dot then few times: SLA lightning bolt, SLA electric loop , Reconstruct scroll until next dot refresh

That method would likely work even better with a fleshy sorcerer and heal scrolls as you can get really nice healing amplification if you work at it.

My much better geared 600+ hp point third life palemaster would really have no hope to do anything like that as the sustained DPS is simply not there and heals are so limited. (Mainly that there are no harm scrolls for sale to do the same as reconstruct/heals scrolls do)

[irivan]

A well geared sorcerer likely could do that atleast phase 4 on normal as harry has only about 100k? hitpoints.

My ,first life, 450 hp, fairly badly geared, sorcerer got harry down from about 20-25% in part 5 normal after everyone else wiped and he has like 1.5 times the hp in part 5 and I had low spellpoints to begin(<1/3) with. I used one major mnemonic and a stack of reconstruct scrolls.

Method of: Cast+dot then few times: SLA lightning bolt, SLA electric loop , Reconstruct scroll until next dot refresh

That method would likely work even better with a fleshy sorcerer and heal scrolls as you can get really nice healing amplification if you work at it.

My much better geared 600+ hp point third life palemaster would really have no hope to do anything like that as the sustained DPS is simply not there and heals are so limited. (Mainly that there are no harm scrolls for sale to do the same as reconstruct/heals scrolls do)

More importantly we are not even talking about Normal...We are talking about hard/elite, and eHard and eElite

Harry's HP scales significantly on higher difficulty.

Additionally this is not about Sorc, it is only about PM, which I am glad to see that you are supporting my synopsis about these kinds off bosses.

The fact is that Melee is the most important set of classes in the game, and for primary melee characters to be complaining about Pale Master is a joke, they want everything for themselves. They wish to reduce Wizards to Buff/hold bots, that is their central desire, and if Turbine goes along with them, they going to find all kinds of Wizards quiting the game, deleting characters, TR'ing into Druid, Sorc or Artificer, there wont be any Wizards left, and buffing/holding will fall to Bards, and trust me, there just aren't enough of them to go around.

You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

[Forzah]

The point is totally another.

What makes better a caster then a melee overall? The instakills? not really. Every class has it's own way to deal with mobs.

What makes the caster so powerful is the ability to self heal.
Really, that's it.

Not just that; it's also the ability to kill something from range without being hit, be it with instakills or AoE attacks. And there is also the almost endless supply of mana, because there are many shrines in the game and many other means to regenerate mana. On a caster you can heal while killing, but on a melee you can't do these two things at the same time.

[alexp80]

Not just that; it's also the ability to kill something from range without being hit, be it with instakills or AoE attacks.

I can really turtle up and let mob beating me as long as I can self heal. It's a nice to have but not the most important point.

And there is also the almost endless supply of mana, because there are many shrines in the game and many other means to regenerate mana. On a caster you can heal while killing, but on a melee you can't do these two things at the same time.

this is not true at all. Sp management is the bread and butter of any good caster.

[Rodasch]

On a caster you can heal while killing, but on a melee you can't do these two things at the same time.

Technically, yes you can. It's called vampirism, and it's even craftable.

Heck, if you build with enough heal amp, you can even self-heal while meleeing better than a pale master can in form. I know what you're going to say "but it's only a couple of hit points per swing!"...times your healing amp, times the number of swings (which is a lot for a well built melee).

Just pointing out an unpopular truth.

[DeafeningWhisper]

In this case if they get it, no one will play wizard any more, and who is going to CC their missions?

Bards! This has been our plan from the begining, we sing the victories and feats of magic of wizards and all casters, not to praise them, but to have them brought down a peg or twelve.

Soon we shall be the only casters left!

We started an anti-healer campaign long ago which has been doing rather well as well.

[Voldomar]

Devs, can you please scrap this and wait till the enhancement revamp?
Let's see how "balanced" the game is AFTER the enhancement pass and then make some tweaks if needed.

[Sarnind]

ssssssssssssoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonnnn nnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!

[Voldomar]

ssssssssssssoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonnnn nnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!

Truth is, the enhancement and combat pass should have been done way before the x-pac. The expansion should offer tweaks and improvements on a system that's been already tested. On top of that, not before.
Look at the epic destinies: they offer bonuses to prr, dodge, spell casting DC, but the base mechanics they are supposed to be built on are not even fully fleshed out!
It looks like they are trying to build a house from the rooftop.

Right now we are talking about thin air. No one knows how the game will look like in 2-3 months.

[drowrogue]

So insta-killing trash reduces the melee to a mere bystander....but if I mass hold or immobilize everything so the melee can beat it down without getting hit back - that's better?
Melee would rather beat on helpless held mobs than to run past a bunch of worthless dead trash?
How gratifying is it for a melee to beat on held or helpless trash anyway? What do you feel like you have accomplished?

This whole idea is stupid and is a slap in the face of everyone that has spent months of time and tons of $$$ grinding out Past Lives for some more spell pen or DC's just to have the rug pulled out from under them here in the 11th hour.

Go through with this change and see how many long-time players with multiple TR'd toon's rage quit the game...

[DeafeningWhisper]

Truth is, the enhancement and combat pass should have been done way before the x-pac. The expansion should offer tweaks and improvements on a system that's been already tested. On top of that, not before.
Look at the epic destinies: they offer bonuses to prr, dodge, spell casting DC, but the base mechanics they are supposed to be built on are not even fully fleshed out!
It looks like they are trying to build a house from the rooftop.

Right now we are talking about thin air. No one knows how the game will look like in 2-3 months.

All we really know is that in 5 months, with the enhancement pass, it will be a brand new game, again.

The sad part is that they probably fleshed out every new mechanic around these new enhancements, another poster said it best it's a "Break now, fix later policy" Turbine seems to have adopted.

[rtgr10]

It's ridiculous. The only class that could compete with the barbarians was nerfed to the extreme now. First, the spell reduction, now this.
My 10 toons will be turned to barbarians.

[Skavenaps]

Clearly you didn't follow this discussion. If you had, you wouldn't have said that there will be Symbol of Death kiting followed by a Wail of the Banshee.

/care

im giving my opinion about what Eladrin said, not to yours. i dont want to read lots of pages of nonsense to be able to post.

[Sarnind]

It's ridiculous. The only class that could compete with the barbarians was nerfed to the extreme now. First, the spell reduction, now this.
My 10 toons will be turned to barbarians.

you have no idea how much damage does a barbarian with the ED fury of the wild with twisted abilities momentum swing and lay waste. It's crazy