Hard to Kill --> Haunting

[moops]

I just feel like this, all of this, is punishing people who are successful with their toons, and spent time building them that way.

Does everyone who rolls a palemaster go out and solo epics the second they hit 20? No, they don't. The people who spend time getting the good gear, the past lives, the best stat tomes, they are the ones who shine. They are the ones who go in and wail a room full of epic mobs. I don't do that. I'm not exceptionally well built. I throw a symbol of death down, let em take negs. I cast hypno+crushing despair. Or I'll lay down a mind fog, kite some suckers into it and then hit em with crushing despair. I can't just walk up to a pack of epic mobs and take them out instantly.

But I haven't spent all that much time making my PM uber either. And I don't begrudge ANYONE who spends that kind of time on their toon. I have 2 friends in guild who ground out 3x wiz and 3x fvs lives so they could be an elf with max spell pen. They DESERVE that spell pen. They shouldn't be punished because my second life human wizard only passes epic drow spell pen on a roll of 10+. They spent the time and effort to max out spell pen so they would seldom fail. The same can be said about someone who goes for max DC on their necro spells. They spent the time, effort and energy to be BADASS! Let them be badass.

I agree with this.

FYI I just played my first PM, it was my 3rd wiz life, 2 cleric past lives--I am a very experienced player and well geared--but it was not that easy for me to play the PM, despite having great Spell Pen and DCs while leveling I was not walking into rooms and killing everything...AND I ran low on SP alot, despite having bauble and clickies. People who rock at PM--took a lot of time to do it right.

Also, want to point out that I had a harder time because I was running in Full elite groups.. . .If you really want to encourage more grouping, make Elite just has hard on solo or for shortman groups as it is for 6 man groups.

[Dolphious]

And all this in that way makes reference to the istantkill? did u FoD Queen?

That did get pretty OT, sorry. I'll stop taking the bait.

[Eillyss]

The point was it's not an achievement, easy-peasy. Of course on a non caster, soloing adq2 at levels is either very gear intensive (AC) or very technically challenging, on a caster it's a cakewalk, even on one as gimpy as mine.

Now, the point I'm trying to find is... what does DC comes in handy to solo DQ2?? I always thought Lailat was a purple name... ****! now imma try to FOD her!!! :O


/not signed to haunting or any nerf related to casters.

[undeadted]

Ok wizzies, we can't have any wailing in there. It is OP, and makes the "me"lees upset.


Seriously though, what am I supposed to use to kill things? Harsh language? If this goes live I will have plenty of that.


My main character right now is a PM and I am on my 4th life with decent gear. I can tell you I am not steamrolling epic dungeons with a 43 DC and never really even came close to soloing them.

Why the overly complex "solution"? It amounts to a cooldown, just done in an asinine way. I don't see AI radically improving so what is wrong with simply increasing the AoE cooldowns. With this absurd "haunting" nonsense it punishes me for getting a good wail off. With this system my FoD would be rendered useless in the mean time because of my AoE's. This is even worse than the the ward. At least I could avoid playing hard and elite epics, as lame as that is.

The prophets of doom may be right... roll a sorc if you want to be useful. It's not like PM's could instakill the important mobs to begin with.

And really, why would I be weakend by the souls of the dead? The screams of their tortured souls is music to my ears. It should boost my DC's if anything.

[Dolphious]

Now, the point I'm trying to find is... what does DC comes in handy to solo DQ2??

Wow, really? Correct, no they don't.... thank you for helping me make my point.

[Syllph]

Seriously though, what am I supposed to use to kill things? Harsh language? If this goes live I will have plenty of that.

I agree here. If a PM get's even a few DCs dropped they lack the ability to be killers and are relegated to hold + buff bots. Their DPS just isn't even close to a sorc which won't be affected by this.

I love both sorcs and wizzys for different reasons but if this goes through I can't see ever playing a Pm again. All that wonderful DC goes to the same as everyone else. Whether I start with a 50 or a 40 it just means one wail and now I have to hold and wait. hold and wait. hold and wait. oh now i can finger one guy!

[Masadique]

This is for everyone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV4vH...eature=related

You are, of course, free to deny that this applies to you. I know no one in this thread would actually be acting in their own self interest.

Also, melee are stupid now? Glad we took the gauntlets off and saw just how mature some forumites really are.

V

[McFlay]

It's partly about teamwork. A lot of players who are complaining want to feel like they are contributing more to the team, and the DEV's have apparently heard and internalized this. Eladrin has basically said as much in the initial post in this thread, and IIRC, he said it elsewhere as well. I don't have all the old hidden thread hardlinks saved, however.

The problem here is that most melees play stupid. Sorry, I said it. A well-played caster plays very smart. In a good group of well-played melees and well-played casters, the melees are going to focus on the mobs they know will give the instakill caster trouble. If you have a well-played caster and some clueless melees, the melees are going to run for the mob with the low FORT save and then watch it die in front of their eyes. And that's going to really annoy them when it happens over and over. And after all, they've learned to go for casters first, since those pose a danger to them. So they're just doing what they learned to do.

Instead, if they were smart, they'd know what kind of caster they have in their group, and they'd go for the stuff he's going to go for LAST. You have someone who can eliminate the most dangerous mobs faster than any melees can, and so he's going to do it and should be doing it, just as the Arcane Archer needs to be eliminating casters before melees can get to them.

But since there are so many melees who don't know anything about the mechanics of the game, don't understand saves, don't know how casters operate, and so on, they're going to continue to feel like they are denied kills constantly when they are really playing in a very substandard way. (And honestly, most melees aren't max-DPS melees anyway. If you aren't building for max DPS, and you're running with an endgame geared caster built for max DPS, you are really in no position to get upset when you are outclassed. Multiply so if you are not playing smart.)

If Turbine wants to change the game so that gimped melees can feel like they are keeping up with endgame casters, well, it'll be a very sad day. That's not the goal they should be aiming for, though if they did it, it would certainly make a lot of bad players happier.

If there were more mobs in more of the high level content that gave a good insta kill casters trouble I don't think this thread would exist.

Whats a max dps caster build anyhow, the gear set up EVERY caster uses? It must be nice when the ai is so stupid you can just endlessly kite **** if you can't outright insta kill it. Meanwhile if your a tard dps build on a melee you end up with crappy saves and a useless level of ac, you know, one of those builds that makes all the healers complain about being healers and having to keep idiots alive.

I love people like you that makes it an us vs them argument. Its not about melee players vs caster players, because the fact of the matter is nobody signed a contract to play all melees or all casters. People can TR a toon at any time, or simply make a new one. Most vets can level a first lifer in a fairly short amount of time, its not like having a capped pm is a special achievement.

I don't care if I'm playing on a melee and a pm wails a group of mobs and the one I had half beaten to death happens to drop. That's not a balance concern to me. What is a balance concern is when as a melee, you have to run up and pound on an epic mob for 20-30 seconds to kill it, meanwhile a caster can run by and insta kill 4 of them with one click. I mean, I'd be ok with that if the caster had some serious drawback filling some other role in the party, but they don't. On a single character you can insta kill groups, drop aoes and kite **** through them if you cant insta kill it, cc if need be, and self heal. Then to top it off turbine adds dots into the game so if you happen to be doing a quest with some big beefy boss mobs its not even like you stop and think man, I was probably the most useful guy in this group for every mob other then this boss mob shows up and now I'm a second tier character like all the melees were for the rest of the quest...nope, you just drop out your dots and dps.

Even then, I'd be ok with casters doing EVERYTHING if it was more limited. I don't know how many times I have been running in groups, and get into a situation where I'm beating on a mob, trip or stun it, have it 3/4 of the way dead, its the last mob in sight, and a caster insta kills it. If this game ran off the old x casts per level system you would NEVER see that happen, unless the caster wanted to get added to peoples list of idiots not to group with.

If turbine wants to let casters be such versatile, powerful characters in comparison to the roles that melees are capable of performing, then maybe its time turbine takes a serious look at sp costs of spells. It wouldn't be nearly as bad watching a caster instakill a group of guys...then instakill another group of guys, then heal himself up, then instakill another group of guys, if you actually hit a point where you said oh **** I'm out of sp, maybe I shouldn't have been instakilling all those half dead kobolds the melees had tripped and stunned. Maybe I've just been spoiled and got used to running with people who know the game well, have decent gear, and even in epics don't need sp pots, or even all the shrines in most quests for that matter, but it seems like these last few months that I've been playing, the only time I've seen sp be an issue(with the exception of clueless players who somehow manage to burn through an entire blue bar 3 minutes into a quest) is on raid bosses.

Maybe it would be a better solution to increase sp cost of insta kills in higher difficulty content. All dps spells essentially become more expensive as you have to cast more spells per kill, yet insta kills don't scale at all. That way insta kills would still be totally uber, but insta killing anything that moves in more difficult content would be as poor a playstyle as the melees who pick bad targets. Well that is unless you had an endless supply of sp pots, in which case it would require melee groupies passing some to you, tons of pp, or a credit card(which I'm sure turbine has no objection to).

[irivan]

uhhh, no.

Not now, not ever.

They need to walk back any proposed changes, and leave it alone.

It is not needed.

And it is a terrible mechanic

[Faent]

Also, melee are stupid now? Glad we took the gauntlets off and saw just how mature some forumites really are.

That's not quite what I said, and I'd like it if you paid attention to the context. If you're playing a melee, and you don't know anything about how DC casters operate, then you're going to be playing in a radically sub par manner when you're playing your melee with them. Them's the facts, Jack. Melees (and especially the people who prefer to play only melees) are likely know less about how DC casters operate than casters (or people who prefer to play casters).

Even melees who know a little or a lot about how high-DC casters operate tend to play in a subpar fashion far too frequently, in my experience. This is partly because they are conditioned to play in other ways (they are taught to go for casters first, always).

It is also partly because there are a lot of people who just aren't group players and don't or can't play to the strengths and weaknesses of other's in their group. A lot of casters fall in this group too, but we weren't talking about them. If you don't know the strengths and weaknesses of your groupmates, or won't play to them, for whatever reason, you are playing in a subpar fashion. A caster in a group of high-DPS melees who is capable of tossing out Mass Holds, but isn't, is often a caster that it playing like a moron. A caster that Fingers a mob that a melees is working on and has down to 5% health is playing like a moron. There are lots of moronic casters out there that do this. We're not talking about them right now, however. So lose the sanctimonious tone and get off your high horse.

[alexp80]

Maybe it would be a better solution to increase sp cost of insta kills in higher difficulty content. All dps spells essentially become more expensive as you have to cast more spells per kill, yet insta kills don't scale at all.

LOL!!!!

Higher the difficult, higher the saves/spell resistance -> more failed cast, more need of energy drain. Here's your scaling. If you don't know the mechanichcs, don't talk about them.

Btw in pnp ALL dps spells have spell pen check, why not in ddo?

[Masadique]

LOL!!!!

Higher the difficult, higher the saves/spell resistance -> more failed cast, more need of energy drain. Here's your scaling. If you don't know the mechanichcs, don't talk about them.

Btw in pnp ALL dps spells have spell pen check, why not in ddo?

PnP again! OK, you wanna bring it up? You should only get 6 wails per rest. That's PnP. Kinda sucks doesn't it...

Faent, you make me want this nerf more and more every time I see you post just on the off chance that it makes you quit. I realize that you are used to insta killing everything, assuming you've never played a melee with the way you talk and yes I have played everything but a bard, barb, and ranger to cap, but calling other people bad because they couldn't insta kill is silly. What would be up to par for you?

V

[mons]

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?

This is what my concerns were, the folks who put in countless months to atttain completionist and maximize their caster builds, whats the purpose in doing this anymore? Would raising the mobs dc's be a more viable solution?

[Faent]

If there were more mobs in more of the high level content that gave a good insta kill casters trouble I don't think this thread would exist.

Probably not. This is Turbine's quest design team failing.

Whats a max dps caster build anyhow, the gear set up EVERY caster uses? It must be nice when the ai is so stupid you can just endlessly kite **** if you can't outright insta kill it.

No. It's not nice that the AI is so freaking pathetic.

Meanwhile if your a tard dps build on a melee you end up with crappy saves and a useless level of ac, you know, one of those builds that makes all the healers complain about being healers and having to keep idiots alive.

You're going to get a useful level of AC (or at least far better than full ****** DPS has ever seen) in the update. And any full-****** DPS build that is playing in a competent fashion is going to work in some healing amplification or provide their own source of healing. If you are a healer-drain and cause healer-hate, you are not playing in a competent fashion. Never have been, and never will be.

I love people like you that makes it an us vs them argument.

I realize that was sarcasm. I wasn't making any such kind of argument.

What is a balance concern is when as a melee, you have to run up and pound on an epic mob for 20-30 seconds to kill it, meanwhile a caster can run by and insta kill 4 of them with one click.

What if they can do it with two clicks? Or one click and a little kiting? Does that make you mad too? Do you also want to see Clerics, Favored Souls and Sorcerers reduced to the level of a melee? Or do you want to see melees buffed? Frankly, I prefer the latter.

I mean, I'd be ok with that if the caster had some serious drawback filling some other role in the party, but they don't. On a single character you can insta kill groups, drop aoes and kite **** through them if you cant insta kill it, cc if need be, and self heal. Then to top it off turbine adds dots into the game so if you happen to be doing a quest with some big beefy boss mobs its not even like you stop and think man, I was probably the most useful guy in this group for every mob other then this boss mob shows up and now I'm a second tier character like all the melees were for the rest of the quest...nope, you just drop out your dots and dps.

In most quests, no caster can CC like crazy, instakill like crazy, and do boss DPS like crazy. If they're doing that, they're almost surely drinking SP pots like water. You pick what you're going to do in most content. In most content, if you want to boss-DPS like crazy you're going to hold off on the instakills or CC to preserve SP.

Even then, I'd be ok with casters doing EVERYTHING if it was more limited. I don't know how many times I have been running in groups, and get into a situation where I'm beating on a mob, trip or stun it, have it 3/4 of the way dead, its the last mob in sight, and a caster insta kills it.

This isn't relevant. That's a stupid caster. The melee who comes over to help you out with that mob, when he could have tripped another mob and worked on it, and then winds up stealing your kill, is just as bad as the caster who Fingers your almost dead tripped or stunned mob. I don't see the relevance of this point.

oh **** I'm out of sp, maybe I shouldn't have been instakilling all those half dead kobolds the melees had tripped and stunned.

Perhaps Turbine could introduce a mechanic to make it harder to instakill mobs that are low on HP? I'm not sure how to implement this, and I don't want to think about it right now, but I wouldn't mind seeing a serious disincentive for casters who play like morons and Finger stuff a melee has almost killed. And that wouldn't cripple casters either, since a low HP mob can be killed easily with a non-instakill spell. I'd be willing to bet such a mechanic would banish a significant percentage of the complaints.

[Faent]

Faent, you make me want this nerf more and more every time I see you post just on the off chance that it makes you quit. I realize that you are used to insta killing everything, assuming you've never played a melee with the way you talk and yes I have played everything but a bard, barb, and ranger to cap, but calling other people bad because they couldn't insta kill is silly. What would be up to par for you?

Well, you seem like a very reasonable person. By the way, who did I call "bad because they couldn't instakill"? Or did I misunderstand you?

[MeliCat]

That's not quite what I said, and I'd like it if you paid attention to the context. If you're playing a melee, and you don't know anything about how DC casters operate, then you're going to be playing in a radically sub par manner when you're playing your melee with them. Them's the facts, Jack. Melees (and especially the people who prefer to play only melees) are likely know less about how DC casters operate than casters (or people who prefer to play casters).

Even melees who know a little or a lot about how high-DC casters operate tend to play in a subpar fashion far too frequently, in my experience. This is partly because they are conditioned to play in other ways (they are taught to go for casters first, always).

It is also partly because there are a lot of people who just aren't group players and don't or can't play to the strengths and weaknesses of other's in their group. A lot of casters fall in this group too, but we weren't talking about them. If you don't know the strengths and weaknesses of your groupmates, or won't play to them, for whatever reason, you are playing in a subpar fashion. A caster in a group of high-DPS melees who is capable of tossing out Mass Holds, but isn't, is often a caster that it playing like a moron. A caster that Fingers a mob that a melees is working on and has down to 5% health is playing like a moron. There are lots of moronic casters out there that do this. We're not talking about them right now, however. So lose the sanctimonious tone and get off your high horse.

Good summary.

Again if Eladrin is doing this to "in an attempt to promote teamwork between casters and the rest of the party" then his basic premise for this this is faulty. If people are not working in a group now it's not like they are going to with this change.

[Masadique]

Well, you seem like a very reasonable person. By the way, who did I call "bad because they couldn't instakill"? Or did I misunderstand you?

Originally Posted by Faent
The problem here is that most melees play stupid. Sorry, I said it.

Hi. I don't know where the exact post is, I saw it quoted by someone else, but the meaning is there. I was asking what you require from melee to be on par or, I doubt this exists in your eyes, above par.

I assumed, sorry, that you were mad at melee because they can't kill things in one click like you can. Earlier I mentioned you leaving, would you quit if this goes through?

V

[pSINNa]

I think everyone agrees that if death spells get nerfed then high dc casters will re-spec to hold/dance machines again right?

Except the high dc divine casters - who will be gutted.

Isn't that what we had a year ago that everyone complained about as well?

If you have a monk with the hound wraps and a barbarian with a terror screaming through the dungeon insta-killing everything in sight is it not a similar situation to a fod/wail master doing the same thing (except for the bit everyone kind of forgets - they run out of spell points eventually, unless they use some knowledge and skill to be strategic with it, or brute force it with sp pots from the store eh?)

And if there were more in game npc clerics that you would have to take out before they deathward their little entourage wouldn't that add a little more strategic skill? Wouldn't that make it a little harder to drag half the dungeon before insta-klling a massive mob just pre-red alert?

I don't know, we'll all adapt to the change as usual, and i won't bleat to much about it, but really, i think htk and haunting are pretty silly ideas.

Coit out~

[LeLoric]

I think everyone agrees that if death spells get nerfed then high dc casters will re-spec to hold/dance machines again right?

If by CC'ing you mean cast hold right before a big dbf or otilukes then yes.

Nuking will be king if instakills go down.

[Faent]

I was asking what you require from melee to be on par or, I doubt this exists in your eyes, above par.

No well-geared and well-played melee is on par with a well-geared well-played caster when it comes to handling trash. In DDO, well-geared and well-played casters are, and always have been, far better than well-geared and well-played melees when it comes to handling trash. If Haunting were to go live, Sorcerers would still utterly dominate all melees when it comes to handling trash. Want them nerfed to?

Part of the problem melees have with instakill casters is caused by melees who play poorly with instakill casters. Not all of it, to be sure, but a significant part of it. When a melee groups with an instakill caster, and that melee runs straight towards the enemy wizard to kill it, and then watches that enemy wizard die, the melee frequently gets mildly annoyed.

Then they see the cleric, and run to the cleric. As soon as they arrive at the enemy cleric, the enemy cleric is Fingered. And so they find themselves running around in circles, trying to kill the mobs they have been trained to kill first, while all those mobs die as soon as they get to them or after their first swing. That's darn depressing, and if that happened to me on my melees, I might well be be ticked off.

Thing is, it doesn't happen to me on my melees. Why? Because if I'm running with high DC casters, I know which mobs they're going to Finger first, second and third. I know which mobs will probably survive their Wails. And I pick THOSE mobs to attack. This is smart play. Most melees don't play this smart. That's a fact. There are a lot of reasons why they don't, but honestly, most don't. My heart sinks every time I see a melee running for the caster I'm about to Finger.

What do you want me to do? Not Finger it when I've already got it targeted and let the melee who doesn't understand the mechanics of the game, the saves of mobs, or how classes interact behave in a foolish fashion? Sorry. I'm going to kill that caster, and the melee who doesn't know what's going on, or who doesn't know how to play to the strengths and weaknesses of his party can run around like a chicken which his head cut off and then come to the forums and whinge about how casters ruin the game for him. Who is playing in a subpar fashion here? Obviously the melee who doesn't have the knowledge or ability to play at a high level.

I assumed, sorry, that you were mad at melee because they can't kill things in one click like you can. Earlier I mentioned you leaving, would you quit if this goes through?

I think melees should be able to instakill things a lot better. I think the vorpal nerf was idiotic. I think melees need more CC tactics. I think the current CC tactics melees have need to be radically buffed. It's sort of a joke how pathetic Trip is. If you don't have the feat Improved Trip, well, you basically might as well not try to trip anything. And I think all melees should have access to stuff that allows them to do AoE damage, such as a the old Supreme Cleave.

I won't dignify your last question with a response.