Wizard's Ward Spell orb

[Chai]

You are trying to force your theme onto a subject where it doesn't work. Druids are weak, yet p2p. Sorcs & Wizards are strong but f2p. I don't see any relation between class power and its p2p status.

Force "my" theme? No what I am actually doing is pointing out THE theme. Its not a matter of it working, it is a matter of it being REALITY.

The relation to class power is if artys sucked, no one would buy them. Making them choose between rune arm OR crossbow would cut their DPS in half. To give them enough power to make them worth buying they circumvented "game balance" to make them powerful enough that people would want to pay for the class.

Druids are NOT weak. The people saying this are trying to play a druid like its a sorc or wizard and failing miserably. When you play a druid like its a druid, its one of the stronger classes in the game. It has crowd control that does not require spell pen. It has damage spells that do not require saves. Those 2 things alone put druid into the upper tier of classes. Those not playing them correctly are giving them a bad name.

Druids can crowd control EE quests with a spell pen of 20, because pen isnt needed. They can lower fort and reflex saves by 4 for the low cost of 6mp. Their dots only need to be casted once and dont require constant stacking to be effective. They can also keep entire groups alive with single target heal and mass regen, the entire time CCing the quest.

[chrisdinus7]

Force "my" theme? No what I am actually doing is pointing out THE theme. Its not a matter of it working, it is a matter of it being REALITY.

The relation to class power is if artys sucked, no one would buy them. Making them choose between rune arm OR crossbow would cut their DPS in half. To give them enough power to make them worth buying they circumvented "game balance" to make them powerful enough that people would want to pay for the class.

Objectively measuring reality is darned hard, if not impossible (see Descartes). Hence, it is your perception of reality and your theme. Nor does one data point about class power make a trend. And, at least to me, I think arty's are on the weaker side anyway, even with the ability to use a rune-arm and crossbow. And no, I didn't buy them. They are easy to unlock.

[chrisdinus7]

Force "my" theme? No what I am actually doing is pointing out THE theme. Its not a matter of it working, it is a matter of it being REALITY.

The relation to class power is if artys sucked, no one would buy them. Making them choose between rune arm OR crossbow would cut their DPS in half. To give them enough power to make them worth buying they circumvented "game balance" to make them powerful enough that people would want to pay for the class.

Druids are NOT weak. The people saying this are trying to play a druid like its a sorc or wizard and failing miserably. When you play a druid like its a druid, its one of the stronger classes in the game. It has crowd control that does not require spell pen. It has damage spells that do not require saves. Those 2 things alone put druid into the upper tier of classes. Those not playing them correctly are giving them a bad name.

In response to your edit:
Web, Stunning Fist, Stunning Blow, Drifting Lotus, Paralyzers, Freezing Ice, Overwhelming Force are all powers that give CC without spell resistance. I'd place Wizard, Sorc, and Monk above druid in CC (a group of monks is awesome CC and instant-kill). Every class has powers that deal damage without saves. Heck, Wizards & Sorcs have more and better powers to that effect (the DoTs, polar ray, ray of fire, Black Dragon Bolt, magic missile, force missiles, chain missiles, etc) - plus SLAs to conserve sp. Heck, wizards can get the vaulted no spell resistance CC as an SLA.

EDIT:

Hm, you still seem to be working on your argument, as you have changed your post yet again while I was typing this. Maybe I'll check back later to see if you manage to get it worked out.

[walkin_dude]

Only by people who don't play casters. I still walk around with two sticks in my hand a lot of the time, even with an upgraded CiTW staff.

I like a variety of race/class combinations, though I probably do favor fighting types.

However, the smallest amount of observation would indicate that arcanes are the most devastating characters. Hundreds or thousands of forum posts seem to concur with this statement.

So I guess they didn't see a need to make them even more potent than they already are.

If I understand you correctly, a good staff is better than any single sceptre or the like? But you can fine tune your bonuses better by using two sticks instead?

[donfilibuster]

Nobody has brought this up I think either, though if they have my bad, but nobody is mentioning that if we did allow staves and orbs to be dual wielded, we'd have to completely redo the animation and physics engine. That would be a disaster, as we can see from the current animation bugs.

Thats why one of the ideas were to not let you attack with it, thus skipping having to do the 1h animation.
It's still assumed that you have to wield it as a weapon and not just hold it to have it convey the powers.
(except clickies)

And to those discussing monkey grip. If we used 3.5, monkey grip would NOT let you dual wield Two Handed weapons, Monkey Grip would increase the size category of your weapon which would change the dice size. Basically, it would be like the arti's deadly weapons spell as a feat. It's not that powerful in 3.5 as it is in 3.0. So you couldn't dual wield 2 eSoS.

The feat was mostly brought up as one way to hold a 2h in the main hand, not to dual wield two staves, let alone SoS.
In PnP you'll just find a small size staff and be done with it, but DDO lacks weapon sizes entirely.
Wield oversized weapons does it, and lame as it is that it is for an epic feat it gets the job done.

That's the best link I could find on Monkey Grip, and it doesn't account for offhand.

That's correct, the orb is what goes in the offhand.

If I understand you correctly, a good staff is better than any single sceptre or the like? But you can fine tune your bonuses better by using two sticks instead?

That was in part one of the points of the OP, that staves need love and the orb is not helping.
We only got the thaumaturgy staves recently and some good named staves but still lacking over swapping sticks around.

[Chai]

Objectively measuring reality is darned hard, if not impossible (see Descartes). Hence, it is your perception of reality and your theme. Nor does one data point about class power make a trend. And, at least to me, I think arty's are on the weaker side anyway, even with the ability to use a rune-arm and crossbow. And no, I didn't buy them. They are easy to unlock.

But the FACT here certainly is that Turbine is talking about "balance" as a reason not to allow a 2 hander and a 1 hander to be used at the same time, yet we have a clear cut example in the game where this already happens.

I dont object to that clear cut example, because artys would suck if they disallowed this. As to how that relates to the thread topic, what people here are saying is they could have coded the mage shields to be similar to rune arms.

If we get into "balance" for an excuse, then my THF weapons should have 2x more effects on them, because 2x one handers have more effects. Another clear cut example where the "balance" excuse doesnt apply.

[FranOhmsford]

Nobody has brought this up I think either, though if they have my bad, but nobody is mentioning that if we did allow staves and orbs to be dual wielded, we'd have to completely redo the animation and physics engine. That would be a disaster, as we can see from the current animation bugs.

Sorry but Orbs are supposed to work like Shields!

What makes you think the Devs would go for Dual Wield with them?

In fact: Making them Dual Wield would be silly as it would still leave Casters with massive To Hit penalties on their melee attacks even though they're not wielding two weapons!

[Hendrik]

Sure. It was a generalization to make a point about comparing class power and their p2p status. Any class can be played badly. I was simply pointing out that I have seen lots of folks complain that druids are weak, and hence arguing that all p2p classes are strong is not a good argument.

Neither would saying XYZ class is weak because you heard it was.

[SisAmethyst]

Now I didn't read the whole thread because most of the posts are exceptionally useless even for this place.

but

Why do you guys think its worth having turbine rebalance EVERY SINGLE QUARTERSTAFF in the game just so you can dual wield it with an orb? You are all making arguements like oh a qstaff isnt as heavy as a greatsword so its ok and totally mising the entire point that quarterstaffs are ALL "stat balanced" to take both hands. It is not a matter of just flipping a bit and saying they are one handed in some situations.

There is probably already a difficulty in the way that wielding a quarterstaff locks the off-hand, so a technical limitation. If they would fiddle with this code it may be likely to create bugs where you suddenly can wield any off-hand object together with a q-staff. Further it would mean - as you said re balancing all Q-staffs - or in other words they would need to tag all existing items and in this process again have the chance to break something.

However while there may be some balancing concerns I don't see the issue if Turbine would provide some specific sets. I mean there is already a mechanic somewhere in place that enable set bonuses (like abishai). Maybe this flag could also be used to enable certain q-staff/orb combinations to be wield at the same time which come along with a non-melee attack or movement penalty. This way you only need to tag the new set items and all other items that not have this specific flag can't be dual wielded?

just an idea

[Virella]

monkey grip is actually 3 different feats depending where you take it from, the homebrew allowed two weapons to be wielded as a one handed weapon as long as they were the same size the description posted earlier, the most recent from an official book specifically states no two handed weapons allowed.

from ( Complete Warrior, p. 103)
You can use melee weapons one size category larger than you are with a -2 penalty on the attack roll, but the amount of effort it takes you to use the weapon does not change. For instance, a Large longsword (a one-handed weapon for a Large creature) is considered a two-handed weapon for a Medium creature that does not have this feat. For a Medium creature that has this feat, it is still considered a one-handed weapon. You can wield a larger light weapon as a light weapon, or a larger two-handed weapon in two hands. You cannot wield a larger weapon in your off hand, and you cannot use this feat with a double weapon.

which was an update from
( Sword and Fist: A Guidebook to Monks and Fighters, p. 7)
Prerequisite
Base attack bonus +3, Str 13+, Weapon Focus with the appropriate weapon,
Benefit
You can use one melee weapon that is one size larger than you in one hand. For example, a halfling with the Monkey Grip feat can use a longsword in one hand. You suffer a -2 penalty on your attack roll when using this feat. This feat can be taken multiple times, each time with a different weapon.

so if you take the one from complete warrior which is 3.5 you would only be able to use a larger sized weapon as if it was one size smaller version of the item. if you take the one from sword and fist which is 3rd edition you would need a feat str of 13 and would only apply to one handed weapons.
so even if the feat is brought in it would likely be one of the two official variations of it not the homebrew version.

links to the associated page
http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-wa...ey-grip--1978/
there is a link to the sword and fist one on that page as well

[countfitz]

Sorry but Orbs are supposed to work like Shields!

What makes you think the Devs would go for Dual Wield with them?

In fact: Making them Dual Wield would be silly as it would still leave Casters with massive To Hit penalties on their melee attacks even though they're not wielding two weapons!

Well, as I've stated twice now, this is kind of wrong, because you are using 3.5 rules, and orbs are not in 3.5 rules. They are in 4E rules, so it's literally apples to oranges.

Now, I do admit, to an above point, what people are really asking for is to simply CARRY them both, and not be able to attack with either, and in that case I agree, not the worst plan. But it's still overpowering a class/group of classes that are already overpowered AND the bugs that could be introduced by NOT allowing people to attack depending on the items they carry 'could' be gamebreaking, so for both those reasons still not the best idea.

[TheOldCodger]

I'd say for a Wizard only: treat the orb+quarterstaff combo similarly to Artis w/repeaters & rune arms.

And by that, I don't mean break the game mechanics for quarterstaves.

[Chai]

In response to your edit:
Web, Stunning Fist, Stunning Blow, Drifting Lotus, Paralyzers, Freezing Ice, Overwhelming Force are all powers that give CC without spell resistance. I'd place Wizard, Sorc, and Monk above druid in CC (a group of monks is awesome CC and instant-kill). Every class has powers that deal damage without saves. Heck, Wizards & Sorcs have more and better powers to that effect (the DoTs, polar ray, ray of fire, Black Dragon Bolt, magic missile, force missiles, chain missiles, etc) - plus SLAs to conserve sp. Heck, wizards can get the vaulted no spell resistance CC as an SLA.

EDIT:

Hm, you still seem to be working on your argument, as you have changed your post yet again while I was typing this. Maybe I'll check back later to see if you manage to get it worked out.

Wiz and sorc and monk hommm. lets look into that.

Wiz and sorc. Web. Smaller AOE. Mobs break out of it more quickly. Can be burned away with fireshield firewall fireball, DBF etc.

Monk. single target CC that cycles quickly.

Druid. Much larger AOE than web. Only way to get rid of it is break enchantment or gust of wind style spells so shorter list of ways to counter it. The save the mobs need to make to counter it can be lowered by 4 by having the mantle of the icy soul buff on then casting 1x ice storm. Mobs also lose 50% movement speed so even if they do roll a 20 once and try to get out of the AOE zone, they usually dont get out before they fail the next save.

Id say druid wins the CC sans spell pen battle by far. Im not basing this on "i heard people say druid is weak." Im basing this on having played every class in the game to max level and trying to find ways to CC sans having to have buku spell pen - which requires stars aligned gear + being an elf, or multiple wiz + FvS TRs.

As far as paralyzers? LOL

People who are saying druid is weak are playing it wrong. Its that simple. Ive read many threads where people tried to compare its damage to sorcs, total CC to wizards, and total healing to clerics and call it weak. You mean you need 3 people in the same group to do everything better than a druid? Doesnt sound so weak to me. Every one of those classes can do one thing A+ style, then the rest of their abilities are lower or they have to swap gear. Druid can do all of them as a solid B+ while in the same gear set.

[Ebondevil]

monkey grip is actually 3 different feats depending where you take it from, the homebrew allowed two weapons to be wielded as a one handed weapon as long as they were the same size the description posted earlier, the most recent from an official book specifically states no two handed weapons allowed.

Actually it says no Double Weapons (Orc Double Axe, Two-Bladed Sword), not Two-Handed weapons. Also if you check the weapon equivalences in the 3.5 DMG (pg 27) you will see that a Greatsword is the equivalent of a Large Longsword.

Hence Two Handed weapons are permissible by the 3.5ed version of the Feat.

Also in 3.5 you could wield a quarterstaff in one hand (PHB 120) if you so desired, you just couldn't use it as a double weapon like that. Hence wielding an Orb with a Casters Quaterstaff should be quite reasonable.

Personally I think it would be nice if you could disable off hand weapon attacks while still wielding something in that hand, so you could use a longsword in one hand, hold a Caster Rod in the other hand and not suffer penalties or attack with the rod.

[chrisdinus7]

Wiz and sorc and monk hommm. lets look into that.

Wiz and sorc. Web. Smaller AOE. Mobs break out of it more quickly. Can be burned away with fireshield firewall fireball, DBF etc.

Monk. single target CC that cycles quickly.

Druid. Much larger AOE than web. Only way to get rid of it is break enchantment or gust of wind style spells so shorter list of ways to counter it. The save the mobs need to make to counter it can be lowered by 4 by having the mantle of the icy soul buff on then casting 1x ice storm. Mobs also lose 50% movement speed so even if they do roll a 20 once and try to get out of the AOE zone, they usually dont get out before they fail the next save.

Id say druid wins the CC sans spell pen battle by far. Im not basing this on "i heard people say druid is weak." Im basing this on having played every class in the game to max level and trying to find ways to CC sans having to have buku spell pen - which requires stars aligned gear + being an elf, or multiple wiz + FvS TRs.

As far as paralyzers? LOL

People who are saying druid is weak are playing it wrong. Its that simple. Ive read many threads where people tried to compare its damage to sorcs, total CC to wizards, and total healing to clerics and call it weak. You mean you need 3 people in the same group to do everything better than a druid? Doesnt sound so weak to me. Every one of those classes can do one thing A+ style, then the rest of their abilities are lower or they have to swap gear. Druid can do all of them as a solid B+ while in the same gear set.

If you use the phrase "But the FACT is" or "Its that simple" after being told to See Descartes - then you have entirely missed the point. Take it easy, its just a game in an imaginary world. And if the double meaning there eludes you, See Descartes,

[Anihsod]

You get a Caster Shield .... and you complain ??????? Honestly? .. Really??? you are complaining about getting a caster shield???????????????? 0_o

And the Dev's response was .. not quite .. perfect. The Dev should have asked " Why can't you use a Great Axe and a Tower shield at the same time? "

a STAFF is a TWO HANDED weapon .. a Scepter is a short staff/walking stick( that someone brought up )

But I digress. You get a CASTER SHIELD and you complain??????????????

It's thinking like the OP that brought us the derp that was Unearthed Arcana

[Missing_Minds]

Personally I think it would be nice if you could disable off hand weapon attacks while still wielding something in that hand, so you could use a longsword in one hand, hold a Caster Rod in the other hand and not suffer penalties or attack with the rod.

Actually, I've been advocating the ability to "stance" select of TWF vs 1WF for one or two years now.

[Anihsod]

fencing with one hand vs fencing with something in the off hand are two completely different animals. Miyamoto Musashi didn't just one day use a short sword in his left hand and voila mastered the technique. Likewise had he just put the short sword in his off hand for decoration his one handed fencing would have suffered.

[Sgt_Hart]

I mean I understand that they are 2 handed weapons technically, but in all d&d pnp rules the staff (for a caster) is classified one handed because it is used in aid of walking/casting spells not to be swung. which from my experience in ddo very few casters swing the weapon anyway. So why not implement as an exception to casters with the spell orb ONLY to be equipped with the staff?

Explain to me how a caster holding a stick in one hand.. and a snow globe in the other can make Any finger gestures to cast? Admittedly.. dual scepter's are the same issue. Maybe a better solution is to make stave's 1 handed(As has been requested here), and just require casters to have 1 hand free, or take 100% arcane spell failure while both hands are filled. That'd work with dual scepters, and Staff/orb combo and any variations there of right?

Admittedly, I'm perhaps being silly here, but the major logical fallacy of "Look ma, I'm holding 2 items, watch me wiggle my fingers in strange, precise, and intricate patterns!" Does sort of nag me a bit.

[Artos_Fabril]

Admittedly, I'm perhaps being silly here, but the major logical fallacy of "Look ma, I'm holding 2 items, watch me wiggle my fingers in strange, precise, and intricate patterns!" Does sort of nag me a bit.

Especially silly when the Somatic Component of most (offensive) spells is "point at the thing you want to blow up."
But maybe all casters in DDO get the Still Casting feat for free to go with Magical Training.