Why building a caster (Wizard or Sorc) will be a terrible idea after Enhancement Pass

[Xeno5k]

From what Enhancement pass has shown us Sorcs and Wizards lose their Repair Manipulation enhancements and having them replaced by the repair skill, now for reference I maxed out concentration on my casters and I got it between 50 and 60 so that means maxing out repair will be about the same, how is 60 spell power as good as 100 spell power?

Casters lose their Deadly enhancements (ie. Deadly Acid) and instead gain a skill that boosts their elemental spell power, this skill might help wizards as it is INT based and wizards do have the skill points to spend on it, but sorcs are out of luck because they are not INT based and even if they put some points in it they can only expect about 40 or so from it, for reference lets use Polar Ray (CL:20) the average is 5 x 20 which is 100 base damage assuming 200 spell power it will do 300 damage and on critical it can do 2.65x that damage (Deadly Ice V + Superior Ice Lore) that's 795 damage on the other hand with this new system it will do 340 x 1.5 which is 510 in fact in order for this new system to dps like the old one the skill would have to be 200+.

Finally, I've heard rumors, and it would be great if someone can confirm or deny these, that they are nerfing shriadi making it so that its 7% chance per spell cast not per missile, which means now it will take forever to get double rainbow or nerve venom to proc. The whole reason people went shriadi is because DI's DC is far too low to be viable on EE (at least for first life Sorcs) now the devs, it looks like, want to force people to adopt an inefficient system for dealing with EE. Not to mention with the level cap reise to 28 we're going to start seeing new monsters with higher saves and HP all the while keeping our same old junk DC (maybe augmented by 2 or 3 points which still doesn't mean much) and even worse DPS.

So maybe with all these things in mind it would just be smart to TR our casters now into something that would be useful after the update, such as melees and healbots.

[FestusHood]

I think you might have left out the spell power that you now get just for buying any enhancements for your caster. If you can really get the spellcraft skill up into the 60's, i think you will actually have more spellpower in the new system than you would in the one currently on live.

[ForumAccess]

You should really not base such sensationalistic reactions on entirely false information.

There are a lot of reasons for casters to be concerned about the alpha pass of the Enhancement Trees. But the spell critical chance is the only point made here that is even close to based on anything that was not imaginary.

[nni]

No.

[Peo]

I think you might have left out the spell power that you now get just for buying any enhancements for your caster. If you can really get the spellcraft skill up into the 60's, i think you will actually have more spellpower in the new system than you would in the one currently on live.

I can't say much on Sorcerer/Wizard as I use my 18th level Wizard for farming none-epic challenge ingredients.

However, I am a dedicated Artificer, love the class, love the complexity to it, love how I can use clickies, love how I have obtained several powerful items and can solo EH content. But the class is going to s**t in the preview.

For one thing, if you focus on the Artificer's unique rather than pretending to be a subpar Bard pretending to be a subpar Sorcerer, Spellpower is capped at +48 and no Crit boosts at all. And this +48 only applies when you completely forgo using your Runearm. So you want to talk about 60ish Spellcraft? That's only at the same levels of Spellpower pre-nerf. Except now you you have Skill Tax and no Crits.

And Spellpower/Crits aside, Battle Engineer's +48 Spellpower only applies if your Runearm is fully charged, fire it and you're at 0. So if you want to cast spells or use those massive Epic Destiny abilities, you totally give up using your arm. And that's still not the end of the bad news, the Artificer's ability to enhance the Caster Level on items is gone. So if you're like me and using a Shield clicky to snag a small Shield Bonus to AC or a Expeditious Retreat clicky so you can use something like the Epic Rock Boots whilst not running around like you're hamstruck in a red alert good news for you. You're losing those benefits because f*** you that's why!

I can imagine how Xeno5k feels. How everyone feels. How Turbine feels. I mean, they know U18 is going to flop so bad they refused to post Release Notes on it. I hope they lose the profits their mangers are projecting for dropping the ball so badly. Because yes, they deserve it.