Why no Earth end-game?

[Wizza]

You only prove my point with your opinion.

I have been doing many a thing in game without stuff that people go "oh you need it 100% guaranteed".

Pfff.

Cmon, you are telling me you have done EEs without a ton of HP and displacement? Please. If so, make a video and link it to me.

It's like telling people they don't need gear and you can do EEs naked. Nop, you NEED gear too on top of HP and Displacement.

Whatever anyway, can't be bothered to reply anymore on the matter. Keep suggesting people that they are just handy, not my problem.

[Singular]

Oooops. Late night post.



You evidently didn't understand the benefits of the things you quoted in game. Saying to a caster "You don't need displacement" is as bad as saying to a fighter "You don't need a weapon, you can fight with your hands".

Just no.

His post was clearly sarcastic. He was saying "you don't need it, but you had better have it."

It's like saying "you don't need money to own this Ferrari..." or "you don't need a gun to kill a bear..."

[Wizza]

His post was clearly sarcastic. He was saying "you don't need it, but you had better have it."

It's like saying "you don't need money to own this Ferrari..." or "you don't need a gun to kill a bear..."

Yeah and there is a huge difference between "you need" and "you better have". In this case, you need it. "You better have" implies that you can do EEs even without displacement or a ton of hp and it's not happening.

[Soulfurnace]

Yeah and there is a huge difference between "you need" and "you better have". In this case, you need it. "You better have" implies that you can do EEs even without displacement or a ton of hp and it's not happening.

Can't do an EE without displacement?
Well. I'm fairly sure I went life 1-5 without displacement clickies (playing melees) but I guess not - I must've merely confused it with epic hard.

.5*.85*.9*.95 = 36% (chance of being hit.)
.8*.85*.9*.95 = 58% (chance of being hit.)

That's just basic (Displacement or blur), 15% dodge, 10% incorp and base 5% chance to defend at level.
Y'know what? The second one works, albeit not as well. I'm sure you'll refute that as well, however I do not care. I ran life 1-5 with those defences or worse, running EE - wasn't that big a deal, even though most lives didn't have access to insta HJEALZ through reconstruct.

[thesnoman]

BACK ON TOPIC...


There's been several good points about Earth Savant at end game that I'd like to re-iterate. Please keep in mind that Earth Savant is my favorite Sorc to play - it (used to) fit how I like to play and is different from the endless masses of Fire, Air, and (formerly) Ice Savants.

Here's my little journey:

Pre MoTU - Warforged Earth Savant (with air secondary) was about the most survivable and self sufficient savant out there. Low saves and Damage over time made is extremely Damage/Spell point efficient with the combination of Web/Acid Rain/Solid Fog/Ice Storm/Melf's/Niac's not much survived - even on Epic.

MoTU - Earth Savant's could really shine going full Draconic. You could web just about anything in the game and then decimate them with with Burst/Flyby/Breath/Vortex and an occasional Melf's/BDB here and there. It was mass death and a whole lot of fun - even on EE content.

High Road - This release is where things started to go down hill for the Earth Savant. Enemy saves became ridiculous - Web was no longer holding MoBs, and backstabbing baddies could cut through 100% fortification like it was butter. Damage over Time became useless since enemies hit so hard - quick killing became the name of the game in EE just so you could survive. Earth Savant was becoming less viable for end-game content, although in a group it was still viable since the MoBs were so big and Web could still catch a few of them.

Epic Gianthold - The end of Earth Savant. Web became entirely useless on EE. SP Efficiency went down the tubes because you're constantly reconstructing yourself to stay alive. Groups don't want to pick you up because you're tough to keep alive. Shiradi build appears on the forums and is the death knell of most Savants out there. (My beloved Earth Savant included) At this point I TR'd from a Pure Sorc Earth Savant into an 18/2 Sorc/Pally Shiradi Air Savant.

U19/Enhanement Pass - I Had high hopes of resurrecting my Earth Savant, but after playing in Lamania and seeing what went live, I stuck to Air Savant and added some Fire to my arsenal while staying a WF Shiradi Sorc.

The problem now is that Fire and Air got a substantial boost in power Ice is about the same as it was pre-enhancement pass, and Earth got left in the dust.

Add to this that the EE MoBs in Wheloon and the Storm Horns have ridiculous reflex saves and evasion (bye bye acid blast and Draconic burst). Plus since the MoBs hit much harder and come in larger groups, the "kill fast to survive" mentality really kills all of the Earth Savant's viability in a group.


TODAY: Fire Savant is the king of DPS - especially if you take a couple of levels of FvS for the Angel of Vengeance tree to boost fire damage. Adding some Air Savant to Fire to boost up damage with Eldar's boosts the damage output even further.

Shiradi Air Savant with 2 Pally Levels is still my favorite toon, and I think it's still the most survivable of all the "new" shiradi caster builds I've seen cropping up. - He's been tweaked around a few times since the Enhancement Pass and he's taken some work to be able to solo the new content on EE, but I'm really liking what I've come up with.

Earth Savant in end game is pretty much dead. Unless you've got enough past lives and twists to boost your Conjuration high enough to overcome the reflex and fort saves of the new EE content, Earth Savant is no longer viable in group or solo play.

If you're a completionist - more power to you - Earth Savant could be fun, but for those of us that haven't ground out past lives - Earth Savant is dead for end game/EE content.

[Wizza]

Earth Savant in end game is pretty much dead. Unless you've got enough past lives and twists to boost your Conjuration high enough to overcome the reflex and fort saves of the new EE content, Earth Savant is no longer viable in group or solo play.

If you're a completionist - more power to you - Earth Savant could be fun, but for those of us that haven't ground out past lives - Earth Savant is dead for end game/EE content.

IMHO, what an Earth Savant needs is a powerful AoE DoT Spell. As stated everywhere, Earth savant is a slow no-save killer. Let's keep it this way. They should add something like Storm of Vengeance but full acid damage. Or just up the damage of Acid Fog: not anymore 2d6 every 2 second but 4d6 with an initial tic so you can kite through it.

[Asmodeus451]

IMHO, what an Earth Savant needs is a powerful AoE DoT Spell. As stated everywhere, Earth savant is a slow no-save killer. Let's keep it this way. They should add something like Storm of Vengeance but full acid damage. Or just up the damage of Acid Fog: not anymore 2d6 every 2 second but 4d6 with an initial tic so you can kite through it.

umm, you mean Acid Rain?

[Exiledtyrant]

acid rain is amazing but earth could use 1 more aoe that can't be blown away. Acid blast starts to dwindle halfway through and is a reflex save which is against earth's theme entirely. The hardest fights I had while leveling either had khyber fire reavers or large groups of air mephites in them. Servants of the overlord where the fire reavers constantly blow away acid aoes and heavy mephite fights like the von arena quests come to mind. Cloud kill and acid fog take forever to cast unless you quicken them and have poor scaling.

acid aoes are also terrible for moving fights. needs to be a way to aoe dot for less damage than acid rain since it's concentrated damage is justified by it's weaknesses, but enough damage to put it on the hot bar. Maybe something like a buffed contagion. It has a disease that does 6d6 acid and can spread to others but it only ticks every minute and has fort saves. Making a buffed version of that would really help out. They could even put it in the earth savant line to help diversify the generic savants trees that only have like 4 things that aren't same.

[Wizza]

umm, you mean Acid Rain?

I said powerful, not medriocre. 1d4 dmg, max 15d4 damage and only lasts 8 sec = avg 37.5 dmg (per tic) * 4 tics = 150 avg damage per cast.

What I have in mind is something much more powerful. 1d4 per CL, UNCAPPED AND WORKING PROPERLY so 30d4 at CL30, lasts 12 seconds. 75 avg damage * 6 tics = 420 avg damage.

Of couse Fire, Elec and Ice should have a similar but less powerful spell. Say capped at 25.

[era42]

I said powerful, not medriocre. 1d4 dmg, max 15d4 damage and only lasts 8 sec = avg 37.5 dmg (per tic) * 4 tics = 150 avg damage per cast.

What I have in mind is something much more powerful. 1d4 per CL, UNCAPPED AND WORKING PROPERLY so 30d4 at CL30, lasts 12 seconds. 75 avg damage * 6 tics = 420 avg damage.

Of couse Fire, Elec and Ice should have a similar but less powerful spell. Say capped at 25.

Acid rain 15d4 (ddo: 15 * (2+1d2) = 52.5) , Firewall 2d6 + 15 (ddo: 2d3+6+15 = 25). So, double the damage of firewall in 2 second intervalls, instead of the longer ticks (6s) of wall of fire. First tick is evaded, the others are no-save, so after first 6 seconds firewall is evaded once, acid rain is evaded once and does damage twice. After 8 seconds rain does the third and last hit, 4 seconds before firewalls first non-evaded damage. So, say 12 seconds, within that time firewall does 25 basedamage and acid rain does 150.

Sure, delayed blast fireball (level 20) will do 100 points instantly, but that can be evaded, making the acid rains 150 unevaded and 50 evaded damage nice in comparison. Nothing beats acid rain when killing mephits on an average-DC arcane.

That said, I wouldn't mind an aoe dot. At heroic levels, just straight blast spells are kings, and at higher difficulty epics blasts / persistent aoe:s just don't cut it with the high hps, saves and damage. It's much harder to get the full 8 seconds of acid rain without wasting too much mana on healing, not to mention the miniscule effect the aoe damage does on inflated EE mob hit points. This doesn't make acid rain bad in comparison to other damage spells, it makes all damage spells bad in comparison to monsters. Your suggested dot-damage die is too much compared to other spells. That would make it better than pretty much any other spell around. The fact that max caster levels are tuned from the times of max level 12 is another story and another discussion.