Epic Past Lifes - Pictures and Description

[Satyriasys]

9 spell power is fairly useless. If you wanted to make it worthwhile, how about 1/2/3 to spell dc. DC casters could really use some love. Unless you are max DC's you don't stand a chance in current end game (EE Stormhorns), and even then you are really relegated to only being a hold bot. The ability to add 3 points of DC would make them viable.

I agree. There should be DC options for all caster spheres.

[karl_k0ch]

Generally speaking, I think that the design decision to make the bonuses increase with level is a good one. But I'm not sure if the exact numbers are really a good choice.

Doublestrike is a bit underwhelming as a number of ranged abilities (Manyshot, 10k Stars) ignore not only DS, but they impose a penalty after they have been used. I don't see why I should get doubleshot on my AA as I regularly use these two abilities.

The shiradi-like ability from the primal sphere sounds funny, but the proc rate limit to every-now-and-then makes this PL pretty weak. I'd rather see a rainbow (1Dwhatever random damage per hit at 7% proc chance) than a procs-only-twice-a-week-Double Rainbow. Adjust the Dwhatever to fit the damage output, but that once per 30s cap on the double rainbow cap is just too random for my taste (for both my Ranger and my Caster).

[Vellrad]

Also this. Karma should be able to be spent and not have to run in any specific destiny. I should not have to be limited to run in Shiradi only when raiding for loot for 18 million XP because I want 3 arcane past lives. The arcane spheres SUCK for a DPS caster!

Paladin class ssucks.
Therefore, I shouldn't be forced to farm XP with paladin class to qualify for paladin past life.

[Drwaz99]

Here, have +45 AC. No other effect in the game outside of endgame armor itself gives you that in one shot. You can argue about the usefulness of AC and how even with this, EE mobs will still come at you and crush you senseless, but 45 AC all at once without taking up a gear slot or feat is a huge leap over what we can get currently.

It's my opinion. I get that you disagree. I respect that. But a 45 AC boost over toons without epic past lives is a massive boost. Yes it may take a ridiculous amount of time to get, but once you have it, you have it for good. Same thing for the HP boost. We're used to stacking up small bonuses in the range of 20 - 50 hp per effect. This one BAM, you've got 100 or more HP over those with no past lives. Overpowered? Probably not, but it is a significant bump in survivability once you grind it out.

We also have to wonder what content is going to be like when we hit 30 in a year or so. the EPL's aren't going to change, but the effort and amount of XP will. While we may only need 6 million karma we still have to be at level cap. Are giants going to have 750K, A million hit points? It's not unreasonable to think that. The bad thing is we are at a disadvantage since we don't know how they are going to design it, only they do. If we take cues from how they drastically jumped the numbers in the new Expansion pack, I think in general many of the numbers here are going to be less relevant than we are giving them credit for now.

To me, it's effort v reward. Triple completionists now have a huge advantage over second or third life toons, but they have put in months of work. 216 million XP will not come fast, it will be months before we see the first one even emerge and over a year before there's more than 10. Unless your buying 100 otto's boxes. (and to be honest, none of these are worth 50 bucks)

If you just going to look at what the reward is and not consider what might be going on in the game when people might acheive them (and they should be achievements!) and the time and effort it will take to get there, your leaving 3/4 of all the variables out.

[Drwaz99]

Paladin class ssucks.
Therefore, I shouldn't be forced to farm XP with paladin class to qualify for paladin past life.

Heroic Past Lifes and Epic cannot be compared. If your going after a Paladin heroic PL You will level as a Paladin and get all the benefits that Pally (LOH, Smites, Etc..and it's negatives) and you progressively get stronger as you level, equal to the level of content you are running.

Not so for Epic Past Lives. Your going to be a fighter in a Cleric destiny. A caster in a melee destiny. Now if your abilities (ED are the Epic equivalent to enhancements) scaled as you leveled then I could agree. But you main ED will not benefit you, the fighter won't be able to heal other effectively. He's not a divine and never will be. The caster isn't going to be really good at blitzing thru Breaking the Ranks (yes some weird ones might)..it's just not going to work. It's absolutely not the same.

It's apples and watermelons.

[sirgog]

Since AC has significantly diminishing returns, an additional 45 AC on top of 120+ really isn't going to make a significant difference in the number of times that the tank gets hit in meaningful content.

AC does not have diminishing returns, the returns are exactly linear.

If a monster takes 30 swings to kill you on average at 180 AC, it will take 40 swings to kill you on average at 240 AC. 50 to kill you at 300 AC, etc. It is


Dodge% has escalating returns (but never gets out of control like AC used to), HP has linear returns, and PRR has diminishing returns.

[sirgog]

I agree. There should be DC options for all caster spheres.

It appears they learned their lesson from the heroic ones.

It's not possible to make DC casting viable for first life characters without making it stupidly overpowered for multi-TRs. So now we have DC casting in its present state, where completionist characters (with all +DC lives tripled) with all available gear are just above mediocre, and characters without heavily stacked PLs are a total waste of a party spot.

The heroic PL debacle is the sole reason that monster saves are so ridiculously inflated now.

[Oxarhamar]

It appears they learned their lesson from the heroic ones.

It's not possible to make DC casting viable for first life characters without making it stupidly overpowered for multi-TRs. So now we have DC casting in its present state, where completionist characters (with all +DC lives tripled) with all available gear are just above mediocre, and characters without heavily stacked PLs are a total waste of a party spot.

The heroic PL debacle is the sole reason that monster saves are so ridiculously inflated now.

and also the reason the Epic PL are so Mediocre

[myliftkk_v2]

When you Epic Reincarnate is says how much Karma you need.

6M Karma to ER. 1 ED XP = 1 Karma.

Fully maxed Sphere = 2M + 2M + 2M = 6M EXP = 6M Karma Points.

Except one sphere is 2M + 2M = 4M

It's seem someone copied 6M Karma from 6M XP because they were too tired to think up a fair ratio. Why should I have to "re-level" the entire sphere 9 more times? Maybe leveling every destiny in a sphere the first time just open the door to ED TR in that sphere makes sense, but the equivalent of re-leveling the entire thing?

Assuming minmax and just use 10m XP from 20-30 because it's easier to calculate (assuming no previous ED xp converted to Karma):

1st ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (4m)
2nd ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (2m)
3rd ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (6m)
4th ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (6m) | Sphere 4 (4m)
5th ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (6m) | Sphere 4 (6m) <-- 2m Karma lost because you can't put it anywhere?
6th ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (6m) | Sphere 4 (6m) <-- 4m Karma lost because you can't put it anywhere?
7th ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (6m) | Sphere 4 (6m) <-- 4m Karma lost because you can't put it anywhere?
8th ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (6m) | Sphere 4 (6m) <-- 4m Karma lost because you can't put it anywhere?
9th ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (6m) | Sphere 4 (6m) <-- 4m Karma lost because you can't put it anywhere?

So just completely maxing one ED sphere, even perfectly allocating your Karma across spheres (now it just shifts slightly if you add a 5th sphere), you're going to generate 10m Karma that might not be bankable beyond the 6m Karma limit?

Question one, does Karma bank beyond 6m? And if so, how much?

Question two, if it does, do they realize we're going to earn Karma to EPLs much faster than we earn ED TRs on our way to cap? At it's most efficient it would be 1 ED TR = 1.4 EPL, until either you can't bank anyone Karma or you've maxed the amount of Karma you would ever need.

Eventually you'd have essentially banked EPLs, but you'd need to race to cap to take advantage of them (or buy stones out the wazoo, maybe the Turbine plan?). This seems nonsensical, and sort of disconnected from the actual leveling process in a way PLs are not. It's like carrying over that fact that you had some cleric levels in your last fighter life, that next life you could just add those to your current cleric level count and get a cleric PL even if you weren't mainly a cleric build.

[Oxarhamar]

I agree. There should be DC options for all caster spheres.

I feel like some are not paying attention to the threads on these that have been going for the longest

there was a large outcry for NO DC INCREASES due to the already OP DC's of multi TRs compared to first lifers.

[LadyKoneko]

Specific suggestions welcome, as always.

As I remember, there was a long list in a previous tread... on lama, when it was asked for LAST time...

I really don't see anything in this 'proposition' that was listed there... or at least a lot weaker/watered down and crappier versions to say the best..

But I'm probably misremembering...

[Trillea]

It appears they learned their lesson from the heroic ones.

It's not possible to make DC casting viable for first life characters without making it stupidly overpowered for multi-TRs. So now we have DC casting in its present state, where completionist characters (with all +DC lives tripled) with all available gear are just above mediocre, and characters without heavily stacked PLs are a total waste of a party spot.

The heroic PL debacle is the sole reason that monster saves are so ridiculously inflated now.

It should be stupidly easy to balance DCs. A wizard with completionist and full focuses/bonuses with the most powerful equipment in the game should be just enough to Wail and kill the most powerful orange-named if they roll a 19 on their save on EE. Adjust other monsters' saves downward from there. Anything short of this is not acceptable.

[Drwaz99]

Except one sphere is 2M + 2M = 4M

It's seem someone copied 6M Karma from 6M XP because they were too tired to think up a fair ratio. Why should I have to "re-level" the entire sphere 9 more times? Maybe leveling every destiny in a sphere the first time just open the door to ED TR in that sphere makes sense, but the equivalent of re-leveling the entire thing?

Assuming minmax and just use 10m XP from 20-30 because it's easier to calculate (assuming no previous ED xp converted to Karma):

1st ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (4m)
2nd ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (2m)
3rd ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (6m)
4th ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (6m) | Sphere 4 (4m)
5th ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (6m) | Sphere 4 (6m) <-- 2m Karma lost because you can't put it anywhere?
6th ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (6m) | Sphere 4 (6m) <-- 4m Karma lost because you can't put it anywhere?
7th ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (6m) | Sphere 4 (6m) <-- 4m Karma lost because you can't put it anywhere?
8th ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (6m) | Sphere 4 (6m) <-- 4m Karma lost because you can't put it anywhere?
9th ED TR to ED Cap - Sphere 1 (6m) | Sphere 2 (6m) | Sphere 3 (6m) | Sphere 4 (6m) <-- 4m Karma lost because you can't put it anywhere?

So just completely maxing one ED sphere, even perfectly allocating your Karma across spheres (now it just shifts slightly if you add a 5th sphere), you're going to generate 10m Karma that if not bankable beyond the 6m Karma limit?

Question one, does Karma bank beyond 6m? And if so, how much?

Question two, if it does, do they realize we're going to earn Karma to EPLs much faster than we earn ED TRs on our way to cap? At it's most efficient it would be 1 ED TR = 1.4 EPL, until either you can't bank anyone Karma or you've maxed the amount of Karma you would ever need.

Eventually you'd have essentially banked EPLs, but you'd need to race to cap to take advantage of them (or buy stones out the wazoo, maybe the Turbine plan?). This seems nonsensical, and sort of disconnected from the actual leveling process in a way PLs are not. It's like carrying over that fact that you had some cleric levels in your last fighter life, that next life you could just add those to your current cleric level count and get a cleric PL even if you weren't mainly a cleric build.

Um each sphere has 3 Past Lives to choose from. So at 2m Each = 6m. Maybe? I dunno. But who knows why they came up with 6. There's nothing unfair and it's not tied to the number of Destinies in the sphere. It's tied to XP earned while in any destiny in that sphere.

[Archangel_666]

Question: Does the Fast Healing from the Primal Sphere stack with Fast Healing from FotW? (What? I love regen).

[Teh_Troll]

It should be stupidly easy to balance DCs. A wizard with completionist and full focuses/bonuses with the most powerful equipment in the game should be just enough to Wail and kill the most powerful orange-named if they roll a 19 on their save on EE. Adjust other monsters' saves downward from there. Anything short of this is not acceptable.

Basic math fails him, he doesn't understand that the max DC potential between a completionist and a first life caster is 2 DCs.

[Ebondevil]

The arcane spheres SUCK for a DPS caster!

I think you mean to say: The Arcane Spheres Suck!

Seriously, they do, compared to any other Epic Destiny the Arcane ones just suck and it seems every arcane caster can't wait to get out of them.

And don't get me started on Artificers...

It's not possible to make DC casting viable for first life characters without making it stupidly overpowered for multi-TRs.

I think you mean to say: It's not possible to make DC casting viable for players.

Mobs Saves get so out of proportion to the Save DC's players can get that you may as well assume the mobs are going to save, as far as I'm concerned the DC's are there to give the players a chance to avoid the effects, not the mobs.

[Teh_Troll]

i think you mean to say: It's not possible to make dc casting viable for players.

this is complete nonsense.

[Raoull]

Basic math fails him, he doesn't understand that the max DC potential between a completionist and a first life caster is 2 DCs.

Eh.... for Necro, yes. Not so for Conjuration or Evocation. There the difference is 5 DC. A 5DC difference basically breaks the game, and it is only kept in check since Divines are a bit behind Wizards in DC to begin with, and Arcanes have no instakill in those schools.

But 9 Spell Pen though..... that's an insane difference.

And +4DC for a monk can get a bit out of hand too, although at least he has to be in reach of being hit for the most part.

That initial +2 DC is also very different since each takes a feat slot. I don't think the +2DC is overpowered at all, and feels just right. I wouldn't say that about the other DC/SP buffs, although I'm not calling for nerfs either (and am perfectly willing to use them to my advantage).

(Random reminder: the 2/5 DC difference is not between the ultimate power gamer caster and some noob. It is between the ultimate power gamer caster and a guy with the exact same gear and skill set just without any past lives. It isn't actually very likely that they'd get perfectly geared out without any past lives....)

[Cyr]

That 9 spell power isn't competing for anything else. We're extremely willing to hear balance and power feedback and consider changes, but something taking up a feat slot is not the same thing as something that's free all the time and stacks with everything.

They give up whatever they would have done in the time it takes to get it....it is a fundamental aspect of design that time is an important criteria for a benefit.

Things to change..

* Toggles are just not good now. Way more power their self limit is that they can not stack with other sphere toggles.
* No dups on passives. That is bad design. Your stacking concerns are worse when there are more stacks possible! You can have more powerful individual passives by removing the dups making time more equal to reward.
* Each passive and toggle should be about the same power to each other.

Things to keep for sure

* Increasing benefit as you level...Vastly important concept for increases in character power which the original passive TR feats did not account for making them very good at low level and fairly unimportant as the level cap increased...Decide on a % increase to a particular stat (resistance/saves/whatever) and make the scale fit the available levels appropriately so it retains it power throughout the level range.

[Teh_Troll]

Eh.... for Necro, yes. Not so for Conjuration or Evocation. There the difference is 5 DC. A 5DC difference basically breaks the game, and it is only kept in check since Divines are a bit behind Wizards in DC to begin with, and Arcanes have no instakill in those schools.

But 9 Spell Pen though..... that's an insane difference.

And +4DC for a monk can get a bit out of hand too, although at least he has to be in reach of being hit for the most part.

That initial +2 DC is also very different since each takes a feat slot. I don't think the +2DC is overpowered at all, and feels just right. I wouldn't say that about the other DC/SP buffs, although I'm not calling for nerfs either (and am perfectly willing to use them to my advantage).

(Random reminder: the 2/5 DC difference is not between the ultimate power gamer caster and some noob. It is between the ultimate power gamer caster and a guy with the exact same gear and skill set just without any past lives. It isn't actually very likely that they'd get perfectly geared out without any past lives....)

Necro and Enchant are really the only ones that matter.

The Spell pen just ain't needed.

A second life wizard is fine.