Hard to Kill --> Haunting

[NytCrawlr]

Wail of the Banshee
SP Cost: 50
Cooldown: 60 seconds (50 for Sorcerers)
You emit a terrible scream, creating a deadly area around yourself for 6 seconds. Every 2 seconds, two nearby enemies must make a fortitude save or die. On a successful fortitude save, the target takes 1 to 4 negative levels. You are free to perform other actions while Wail of the Banshee is active.
D&D Dice: Slays multiple living enemies or deals 1d4 negative levels if they save.

Better nerf for sure, but at this point I think extending the cool down is the best option since I don't think we need two implosions.

[Faent]

Why spread the kills out over time, why not just kill 6 right away? I like the "everything near me falls over dead" thing, over 6 seconds it just not going to feel the same.

Probably to attempt to up the danger to casters ever so slightly. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. It is a bit annoying to target something and start trying to kill it when it suddenly Implodes. One very nice feature of Old Wail over Implosion is that as soon as it's cast, melees know exactly where to go.

[pSINNa]

Hi everyone!

Thank you for the feedback on the haunted idea.

We've evaluated the Haunted mechanic to be too complex to introduce at this time. As mentioned by several posters in this thread, it's really Wail of the Banshee that is the source of the balance problems that we seek to address, and it's more logical to constrain changes to the spell.

We're planning on removing the death protection from non-boss creatures in Epic difficulty and changing Wail of the Banshee from being a spell that instantaneously kills up to 20 enemies for 10 sp more than Finger of Death, to a kill-over-time model similar to, but still better than, the Clr/FvS spell Implosion.

Wail of the Banshee
SP Cost: 50
Cooldown: 60 seconds (50 for Sorcerers)
You emit a terrible scream, creating a deadly area around yourself for 6 seconds. Every 2 seconds, two nearby enemies must make a fortitude save or die. On a successful fortitude save, the target takes 1 to 4 negative levels. You are free to perform other actions while Wail of the Banshee is active.
D&D Dice: Slays multiple living enemies or deals 1d4 negative levels if they save.

We're planning on continuing to monitor the effectiveness of instant death effects (and necromancy in general) and will continue to make changes as necessary. (Especially when the enhancements revamp appears. It's possible that the "Haunted" concept, instead of being a debuff, will reappear as a positive effect for characters that invest in the Pale Master tree.)

This i can live with, a modified wail used strategically. My divine casters don't suffer, my arcane casters don't really suffer much, they'll just use a little more variety (and lets face it, i like my wizard because he has all the spells, and i like to use them all), and maybe everyone will be a little happier.

Mow i only have my misgivings on the to-hit and ac system being proposed and the need to examine all items and gearing to bring my characters in line with spell power and modified meta's xD

But, thankyou for listening and reacting with something i think we all agree is much more reasonable then the previous proposals.

Coit out~

[alexp80]

I tell you a story.

I'm currently finishing the sixth life of my planned palemaster.

I'm actually 3xWiz, 2xFvs, Fvs ongoing.

At lvl 17 i decided to try Into the Flesh elite solo.

Was a great fun. Even now that I'm a seasoned player with a maxed out toon (max necro dc possible for the lvl) my spells weren't landing always on all kinds of mobs.

I had to be smart, choose when to use bladebarrier, destruction / slay living, cometfall;
I had to fight my way through antimagic, and even with about 2200 sp, torc+concordant, twisted talisman, spell storing and archivist I had to manage carefully the sp.

For example, for the optional undead beholder, I managed to get him aggroed by shard of xoriat evocations while dotting him with brilliance clickies on taking cover for the antimagic.

I finally win the quest, and was a GREAT fun doing it.

But was efficient? not at all, took me 35 minutes (and the risk of wipe was high, at the final boss mostly for the beholders + boss psionic blast / dominate and constant charisma drain)

I think a little % of palyers can do that quest as I've done. Should I be nerfed for that? It's my toons stats that are overpowered or is Alexp80 a veteran player that can bring the best out of his toon?

[Kabaon]

So I have to basically wait to kill mobs (like implosion) AND it's cooldown is increased..... really... REALLY!

I'm glad haunting is dead (for now) but come on, Wail is supposed to be powerful.

The spell in the PHB doesn't have a cap, nor does it have a 60 second cooldown or anything....and it's instant.




Just leave it alone, buff melees, add in some way for AI to cast different spells, or something.... but leave a functionally useful spell alone....

[Khimberlhyte]

Everyone who is playing an endgame necromage has expected some kind of nerf to Wail for a long, long time. We just wanted a reasonable one. This one is perfectly reasonable.

I don't think it needs both a longer cooldown and the implosion-like ticking - the longer cooldown alone would suffice. I don't really enjoy using implosion because of the ticking and the lengthy timer.

Wail should be just that - mass instakill. What's next? Mass hold hits two mobs every two seconds? Enthrall?

Turbine should rename the spell to Warble of the Banshee if they're going to do this.

[stainer]

Wail should be just that - mass instakill. What's next? Mass hold hits two mobs every two seconds? Enthrall?

This just went on the to do list. Awesome.

[Cyr]

It's possible that the "Haunted" concept, instead of being a debuff, will reappear as a positive effect for characters that invest in the Pale Master tree.)

I like haunted as a positive side effect mechanic.

Some kind of random suggestions along this path...not meant to be an all or nothing type list by any means...

• Each time you kill a mob you gain a 'haunted' counter. These counters decay away one at a time every 30 seconds.
• Any negative energy spell you cast gains +10 spell power per haunted counter you possess.
• +2 Intimidate per haunted counter.
• +1 Diplomacy per haunted counter.
• +1 to any fear based DC per three haunted counters (effects include fear spell, cause fear spell, and Phantasmal Killer).
• Five counters or more gives whatever that power on the DQ belt grants...can't remember the name offhand.
• Ten counters or more grant fearsome.
• Fifty counters or more grant Despair: DC = Haunted Counters/2.
• PM's gain some modifiers to haunted counters
  
  • Line to increase decay counter time.
  • Line to increase death spell DCs based upon haunted counters.
  • Line to increase hp based upon haunted counters.
  • Line to increase saves based upon haunted counters.
  • Line to increase ac based upon haunted counters.
  • Line to increase dodge % based upon haunted counters.
• Shadow Dancers gain some modifiers to haunted counters.
  
  • Haunted counters add to shadow charges somehow...
  • Line to gain extra damage per attack based upon haunted counters.
  • Line to increase dodge % based upon haunted counters.
• Mobs can and do spawn with their own haunted counters (never decay, but can build based upon player deaths). Undead and evil outsiders tend to have much more of these counters.
• New Destiny Line "Stealer of Souls"
  
  • Destiny based upon haunted counters with tons of effects and lines manipulating these counters for bigger benefits.
  • Reliable method to gain counters with a "Marked for Death" clicky which grants a haunted counter when the target dies (from anyone).
  • Line which prevents counters from decaying below a certain number depending upon investment...or regenerating at a certain rate if below a certain counter number.
  • Ways to use up haunted counters quickly for big bang type effects.
  • Method to drain haunted counters from enemy mobs.
  • Target-able buff which siphons kills from one ally to you for purposes of haunted counters.
  • Lots of negative energy clickies.
• Change various destiny effects that basically use death counters to use haunted counters...proper balance would need to be considered of course, but the idea would be to get rid of some of these unique mechanics in favor of a more universal one.

[Schmoe]

Why spread the kills out over time, why not just kill 6 right away? I like the "everything near me falls over dead" thing, over 6 seconds it just not going to feel the same.

Wasn't it capped at some point long ago? Even if not, CoD is capped, so I could reasonably see a cap on the number of affected per Wail. I agree that the instant "everything dies" feels a lot better.

Still, a nerf to Wail of the Banshee is far, far more preferable to a nerf to death effects in general.

[dubyprime]

Hi everyone!

Thank you for the feedback on the haunted idea.

We've evaluated the Haunted mechanic to be too complex to introduce at this time. As mentioned by several posters in this thread, it's really Wail of the Banshee that is the source of the balance problems that we seek to address, and it's more logical to constrain changes to the spell.

We're planning on removing the death protection from non-boss creatures in Epic difficulty and changing Wail of the Banshee from being a spell that instantaneously kills up to 20 enemies for 10 sp more than Finger of Death, to a kill-over-time model similar to, but still better than, the Clr/FvS spell Implosion.

Wail of the Banshee
SP Cost: 50
Cooldown: 60 seconds (50 for Sorcerers)
You emit a terrible scream, creating a deadly area around yourself for 6 seconds. Every 2 seconds, two nearby enemies must make a fortitude save or die. On a successful fortitude save, the target takes 1 to 4 negative levels. You are free to perform other actions while Wail of the Banshee is active.
D&D Dice: Slays multiple living enemies or deals 1d4 negative levels if they save.

We're planning on continuing to monitor the effectiveness of instant death effects (and necromancy in general) and will continue to make changes as necessary. (Especially when the enhancements revamp appears. It's possible that the "Haunted" concept, instead of being a debuff, will reappear as a positive effect for characters that invest in the Pale Master tree.)

Thank you for listening.
I would like to point out: 2kills every 2 seconds for 6 seconds is 6 kills. 8 kills if it ticks at zero.
8 kills is better than 6, I feel 6 is a bit too few. These are still all chances,

[Faent]

I don't think it needs both a longer cooldown and the implosion-like ticking - the longer cooldown alone would suffice. I don't really enjoy using implosion because of the ticking and the lengthy timer.

It's other folks in the party that will be penalized by the ticking, really. Not the caster so much. I suppose we're supposed to be screaming for six seconds, eh? Every caster should come with a Bag of Holding filled with throat lozenges. =)

[LeoLionxxx]

Wail of the Banshee
SP Cost: 50
Cooldown: 60 seconds (50 for Sorcerers)
You emit a terrible scream, creating a deadly area around yourself for 6 seconds. Every 2 seconds, two nearby enemies must make a fortitude save or die. On a successful fortitude save, the target takes 1 to 4 negative levels. You are free to perform other actions while Wail of the Banshee is active.
D&D Dice: Slays multiple living enemies or deals 1d4 negative levels if they save.

I think i'll enjoy this more than the live one. Can the wail try to kill the same enemie(s) more than once? also, do the neg lvs stack?

[Saravis]

Why spread the kills out over time, why not just kill 6 right away? I like the "everything near me falls over dead" thing, over 6 seconds it just not going to feel the same.

I'm thinking it might just be that they are unable to set a restriction on the number of kills for the current wail, so they have to change it to be a mechanic similar implosion.

[DeafeningWhisper]

So I have to basically wait to kill mobs (like implosion) AND it's cooldown is increased..... really... REALLY!

I'm glad haunting is dead (for now) but come on, Wail is supposed to be powerful.

The spell in the PHB doesn't have a cap, nor does it have a 60 second cooldown or anything....and it's instant.




Just leave it alone, buff melees, add in some way for AI to cast different spells, or something.... but leave a functionally useful spell alone....

I think of it as a half blessing, in epics high fort mobs makes a bad roll on Wail fail quite a bit, now on a failed Wail I can more easely finger anything hit that survives.

[Alavatar]

I'm thinking it might just be that they are unable to set a restriction on the number of kills for the current wail, so they have to change it to be a mechanic similar implosion.

I think this is likely.

[alexp80]

Hi everyone!

Thank you for the feedback on the haunted idea.

We've evaluated the Haunted mechanic to be too complex to introduce at this time. As mentioned by several posters in this thread, it's really Wail of the Banshee that is the source of the balance problems that we seek to address, and it's more logical to constrain changes to the spell.

We're planning on removing the death protection from non-boss creatures in Epic difficulty and changing Wail of the Banshee from being a spell that instantaneously kills up to 20 enemies for 10 sp more than Finger of Death, to a kill-over-time model similar to, but still better than, the Clr/FvS spell Implosion.

Wail of the Banshee
SP Cost: 50
Cooldown: 60 seconds (50 for Sorcerers)
You emit a terrible scream, creating a deadly area around yourself for 6 seconds. Every 2 seconds, two nearby enemies must make a fortitude save or die. On a successful fortitude save, the target takes 1 to 4 negative levels. You are free to perform other actions while Wail of the Banshee is active.
D&D Dice: Slays multiple living enemies or deals 1d4 negative levels if they save.

We're planning on continuing to monitor the effectiveness of instant death effects (and necromancy in general) and will continue to make changes as necessary. (Especially when the enhancements revamp appears. It's possible that the "Haunted" concept, instead of being a debuff, will reappear as a positive effect for characters that invest in the Pale Master tree.)

Hi Eladrin, nice to read on this...

A question, how it's supposed to affect up t o20 targets if it has 3-4 ticks for 2 kills each? I count 8 in the best case.

[Schmoe]

I don't think it needs both a longer cooldown and the implosion-like ticking - the longer cooldown alone would suffice. I don't really enjoy using implosion because of the ticking and the lengthy timer.

Wail should be just that - mass instakill. What's next? Mass hold hits two mobs every two seconds? Enthrall?

Turbine should rename the spell to Warble of the Banshee if they're going to do this.

Timid Whimper of the Banshee?

I agree that the longer cooldown is completely unnecessary if it is limited to a 6-second tick. Pick one or the other, please.

[Alavatar]

I think of it as a half blessing, in epics high fort mobs makes a bad roll on Wail fail quite a bit, now on a failed Wail I can more easely finger anything hit that survives.

Or Enervate/Energy Drain while Wail is tic'ing.

[Scraap]

Hi Eladrin, nice to read on this...

A question, how it's supposed to affect up t o20 targets if it has 3-4 ticks for 2 kills each? I count 8 in the best case.

He's saying they think 20 kills is OP.

[Vordax]

Thank you for listening.
I would like to point out: 2kills every 2 seconds for 6 seconds is 6 kills. 8 kills if it ticks at zero.
8 kills is better than 6, I feel 6 is a bit too few. These are still all chances,

They are doubling the cool down, and halving the effectiveness (mobs tend to move/teleport in 6 seconds). It should be more than 6 potential kills.