Hard to Kill --> Haunting

[Malshier]

Maximised and Empowered blasting spells are instakills on Normal. For Hard, you may need an Acid Rain/Wall of Fire/Ice Storm as well.

This change doesnt stop you mass killing stuff, it just slows you down a little.

It also makes it much less mana efficient. I'm not a sorc. I'm not built for spell DPS. I have a finite spell pool much smaller than my sorc friends.

[Hokiewa]

this is good stuff...

#2 makes sense - the more life I drain the more it takes out of me

I get your point, and that would make some sense if it was an AM or sorc. A palemaster transmutes form into undead, haunting makes little sense. I'm not completely against it for epic hard/elite with some tweaking but for epic normal/heroic the cure is exponentially worse.

[Masadique]

Hey! Melee have this same debuff, and it's been ok forever. We kill something, fifteen seconds later, we kill something again.

[Kieri]

I'd like to point out that in order to combat this change if it goes live, people are going to rush through quests, pick up a hefty group of monsters and then wail them all down at once. The reason for this is because wail will allow people to kill the most monsters with one spell before the debuff hits them. If the intention was to prevent behavior like this, then I don't think these changes are going to accomplish that.

[Voldomar]

So if you are going to implement this, then I suggest you do it for anyone who successfully kills X number of mobs, in X time. Or you will have accomplished nothing.

Don't forget a stackable -5% to hit rolls. Just to even the playing field....

[eris2323]

Must! Finish! Last! Wiz Life! Before! This! Goes! Live!

I better go play now. I want no part of this after the update.

[irivan]

Don't forget a stackable -5% to hit rolls. Just to even the playing field....

Yes and to further expand it, it should also shave Sorcerer, and Favored soul Damage equally, I mean if you kill 10 mobs with a Blade Barrier, or if you kill 10 mob in 3 seconds with a chain lightning its all the same right? So they should suffer a -5% stacking penalty to damage as well. Barbarians who cleave a whole set of mobs to death should take the same in a damage penalty too.

[voodoogroves]

So, how will this affect (or not) other death/instakill effects

- Quivering Palm?
- Assassinate?
- Smiting / Disrupting / Banishing / etc. ... give them saves again and let them work regardless of HP?
- Trap the soul (not a death effect, so shouldn't be impacted right?)
- Vorpals? Chance to let vorpals work and lift the freaking HP cap (say, give it a save DC of 35 or 40)?
- Nightmares (terror, etc.)
- Nightmare Guard?
- Void 4? (shouldn't, right?)
- Prismatic (shouldn't, right?)
- Single target spells vs multi-target?
- Undeath to death affected? Instead of "haunting" are we "blessed"?
- Any ED abilities (like the flower-show thing)?

[Tid12]

So, how will this affect (or not) other death/instakill effects

- Quivering Palm?
- Assassinate?
- Smiting / Disrupting / Banishing / etc. ... give them saves again and let them work regardless of HP?
- Trap the soul (not a death effect, so shouldn't be impacted right?)
- Vorpals? Chance to let vorpals work and lift the freaking HP cap (say, give it a save DC of 35 or 40)?
- Nightmares (terror, etc.)
- Nightmare Guard?
- Void 4? (shouldn't, right?)
- Prismatic (shouldn't, right?)
- Single target spells vs multi-target?
- Undeath to death affected? Instead of "haunting" are we "blessed"?
- Any ED abilities (like the flower-show thing)?

Not everyone plays a PM and this thread, right now, is just talking about them. The previous Hard to kill affected everyone, what about this one?

Can we have an official answer to these questions? Specially for Assassinate and Quivering Palm?

[janave]

Eladrin you really are opening up a can of worms with all of this. Not only are you essentially punishing an entire class in the game, but you are essentially encouraging people to swap out to Sorcerer.

My question: Will sorcerers who can spam a few Chain Lightnings for thousands of points of damage in a very short period of time, and kill 20, 30, 40 monsters in a row, will they suffer haunting as well?

Just to get some facts right before we go over the roof .

Chain Lightning:
- Relatively short AOE range.
- 1+4 targets on a perfect arc. Terrain can really mess it up.
- With maxamp heighten quicken it costs = 25b+25m+15e+15h+10q = 90sp / cast

On a well geared Sorcerer you need about 2,5 spell crit hits on them to take out the average hp monsters. Monsters with evasion may completely negate it. To my experience it takes several casts to turn all the average epic mobs into ash.

Additionally it needs a lot more kiting, more risk taking, more damage mitigating from incoming hits.

[lugoman]

How about just giving a random number of trash mobs the hard to kill buff? Say 10% on norm epic, 30% hard and 60% elite?

This way the quest will play somewhat differently each time you play it.

[Lithic]

So, how will this affect (or not) other death/instakill effects

- Quivering Palm?
- Assassinate?
- Smiting / Disrupting / Banishing / etc. ... give them saves again and let them work regardless of HP?
- Trap the soul (not a death effect, so shouldn't be impacted right?)
- Vorpals? Chance to let vorpals work and lift the freaking HP cap (say, give it a save DC of 35 or 40)?
- Nightmares (terror, etc.)
- Nightmare Guard?
- Void 4? (shouldn't, right?)
- Prismatic (shouldn't, right?)
- Single target spells vs multi-target?
- Undeath to death affected? Instead of "haunting" are we "blessed"?
- Any ED abilities (like the flower-show thing)?

Almost your entire list has severe limits already. Smiting and such don't work over 1khp, the rest require either a build up of some resource, or special circumstances, or have long enough cooldowns that you aren't likely to instakill a mob more than once every 15 seconds anyway. The exception is terror, which is brokenly overpowered and a nerf to it is likely incoming.

[mutilador]

Congrats casters, who said that cry like a baby dont work?

I will try it.

[Nysrock]

Sounds like a great compromise to me. Still lets people insta-kill and yet will let the whole party do something too.

And from what I see this only affects the DCs of the insta-kill so they should should be able to cast Mass Hold and let the melees beat them down.

[Tid12]

Almost your entire list has severe limits already. Smiting and such don't work over 1khp, the rest require either a build up of some resource, or special circumstances, or have long enough cooldowns that you aren't likely to instakill a mob more than once every 15 seconds anyway. The exception is terror, which is brokenly overpowered and a nerf to it is likely incoming.

Still need answers. Assassinate? Is this affected or not? I seriously hope not.

[Alcedes]

First, it's refreshing to see that when hot issue such as this rears it's head, the dev-team has the resources to focus and respond.

Second, it is a step in the right direction, although as presented it requires a reduction in both the amount of the penalty and the duration of the debuff.

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.

First, it is consistent with the lore that comprises the foundation of the game - that at the highest levels, spell casters are indeed the most powerful.

Second, if there is no tangible benefit to investing countless hours TR'ing and raiding and farming gear, then where is the underlying motivation to continue?

With the epic destinies, It is true. Sorry. Think about it. 60 DC Wail of the banshee. That is almost NO fail. The expansion changes the playing field so much.

[danotmano1998]

How about just some good monster design?

Throw a couple of immune skeletal casters in there now and then on epics. Maybe a few more minibosses.

Good encounter designs > Poor mechanic changes. every. single. time.

[DeafeningWhisper]

With the epic destinies, It is true. Sorry. Think about it. 60 DC Wail of the banshee. That is almost NO fail. The expansion changes the playing field so much.

I would agree if it only affected Epics hard/elite like Hard to Kill, but I won't have 60 dc on my Wail in heroic lvls...

[Lithic]

Still need answers. Assassinate? Is this affected or not? I seriously hope not.

I'm saying it won't matter because how often do you get the chance to hit assassinate twice within 15 seconds before the counter reverts to zero?

[Tid12]

I'm saying it won't matter because how often do you get the chance to hit assassinate twice within 15 seconds before the counter reverts to zero?

That's true but still needs an answer :P I think Assassinate's DC is 15 secs exactly? Can't remember now, too tired.

And if you kill 2 mobs, you get -4 DC for 30 secs, so it does matter.