Evening out the caster trees

[Lifespawn]

The reason shiradi is so popular is because it's the only effective way to kill things without chugging massive pots.


Why don't we get some synergy across the board on caster trees.

Every tree in the sorc tree should be geared to a specific element and also have a universal


fire tree .75 fire for each point spent and .50 universal

ice tree .75 cold for each point spent and .50 universal

Ek tree .75 force for each point spent and .50 universal

and so on

The wiz trees are good as is


am getting 1 universal and 2 sp per point is great allowing them the best of both worlds

and pm getting .75 neg and .75 uni is also good tho to even out maybe drop them to .50 uni or up the rest to .75 uni and give am 1.25


Granted this doesn't fix the sp issue but it starts to help.

Enhancments that drop the cost of spells should be buffed and just put a hard cap of being able to lower a spell cost no lower than the base cost of the spell if you put 18 ap(2 per tierx3 emp max heighten) in your tree into lowering the cost of spells it should make a significant difference.

capstones for the sorc trees need a rework they penalize wf without giving much of a benefit to fleshies how about you get healed by aoe spells of your chosen element and opposite elements you have -5% resist twords.

Ek top tier eldrich tempest needs sp cost toned down and cooldown lowered as well all other caster trees get low cost damage spell sla's lower it to 10 sp 6 sec cooldown and up the knockdown to at least 3 seconds 1 second doesn't do anything they bounce back up and cast spells as if they were never down.


eldrich strike tier 1 core should be 6 sp 6 seconds and upped to a 2w the spell damage on weapons should be -10% max sp while active with no continuous cost per hit.


Thoughts?

[HastyPudding]

No, the reason Shiradi Casters are so popular is because it's the only way to deal magic/elemental damage as a caster without ridiculous investment in past lives, overpriced equipment, and over-the-top builds, and even then only being marginally successful. Sorcerers deal great damage already, it's just end-game (I'm talking about level 26+ EE quests) has enemies with saves well beyond what would be considered fair to spellcasters and such high HP that casters will run out of SP quickly even if they had reliable DC's.

More related to the topic, I've never had trouble with SP as a sorcerer. Or a wizard. It's these 2, 4, and 6 splash builds that lower your SP, reduce your DC's, and generally harm your spellcasting ability that are the problem.

[Ivan_Milic]

Im seeing more people going with DI each day.
I think people go for shiradi because its the easiest thing to do, dont have to invest anything in it.

[Lifespawn]

No, the reason Shiradi Casters are so popular is because it's the only way to deal magic/elemental damage as a caster without ridiculous investment in past lives, overpriced equipment, and over-the-top builds, and even then only being marginally successful. Sorcerers deal great damage already, it's just end-game (I'm talking about level 26+ EE quests) has enemies with saves well beyond what would be considered fair to spellcasters and such high HP that casters will run out of SP quickly even if they had reliable DC's.

More related to the topic, I've never had trouble with SP as a sorcerer. Or a wizard. It's these 2, 4, and 6 splash builds that lower your SP, reduce your DC's, and generally harm your spellcasting ability that are the problem.

there are other spells without saves and lowering the cost would make them useable if a polar ray max emp and heightened after some investment could cost only 25 sp and do 2-4k damage it would be worth throwing an ottilukes costing 25 sp would be worth throwing even if 1/2 the mobs made the save.

[HastyPudding]

there are other spells without saves and lowering the cost would make them useable if a polar ray max emp and heightened after some investment could cost only 25 sp and do 2-4k damage it would be worth throwing an ottilukes costing 25 sp would be worth throwing even if 1/2 the mobs made the save.

You only trade one problem for another with having more no-save spells or lower their costs. You eliminate the need for DC-casting, which is what the abomination of shiradi is. I highly doubt the cost of spells like polar ray will be lowered.

[Cyr]

Problem with EDs is not the design of caster enhancement trees.

Magister does not do enough for a generalist caster (DCs, spell power, max caster level...) to be justified.

Draconic is super focused on one element and one of it's best selling points is twistable. It is still good enough that it is used sometimes unlike magister at least.

Shiradi is a cheap use nuker. Nothing wrong with that premise, but the other two trees just do not offer enough to really matter. DC casters need massive boosts from magister to make it compelling for them and generalist casters would be tempted by a high DC boosting tree with decent (but clearly lower then draconic level) general boosts to universal spell power and max caster level. Draconic on the other hand needs another big SLA that is not twistable and some respectable boosts to a second element (when main element will not work versus mobs).

Having caster enhancement trees offer more universal spell power just ups shiradis stock (they gain the most from universal spell power since they are random damage proc based). Lowering cost of spells would defacto lower the stock of shiradi I agree, but I think the problem is not iimproved by just increasing all casters power level including shiridi.

[HastyPudding]

Problem with EDs is not the design of caster enhancement trees.

Magister does not do enough for a generalist caster (DCs, spell power, max caster level...) to be justified.

Draconic is super focused on one element and one of it's best selling points is twistable. It is still good enough that it is used sometimes unlike magister at least.

Shiradi is a cheap use nuker. Nothing wrong with that premise, but the other two trees just do not offer enough to really matter. DC casters need massive boosts from magister to make it compelling for them and generalist casters would be tempted by a high DC boosting tree with decent (but clearly lower then draconic level) general boosts to universal spell power and max caster level. Draconic on the other hand needs another big SLA that is not twistable and some respectable boosts to a second element (when main element will not work versus mobs).

Having caster enhancement trees offer more universal spell power just ups shiradis stock (they gain the most from universal spell power since they are random damage proc based). Lowering cost of spells would defacto lower the stock of shiradi I agree, but I think the problem is not iimproved by just increasing all casters power level including shiridi.

I agree in that Magister does need a boost. +3 dc's to your spell school and a short term +5 boost with a lengthy cooldown doesn't cut it. Any DC caster worth their salt is going to max out the intelligence/charisma in Magister first before taking any extras, meaning they won't have the points available for the higher tier debuff effects on their spells.

The only perceivable way to fix the DC issues right now is to make some items stack for increasing DC's (like give spell focus, insightful spell focus, exceptional spell focus, etc) or to lower the saves of EE monsters.

[goodspeed]

No, the reason Shiradi Casters are so popular is because it's the only way to deal magic/elemental damage as a caster without ridiculous investment in past lives, overpriced equipment, and over-the-top builds, and even then only being marginally successful. Sorcerers deal great damage already, it's just end-game (I'm talking about level 26+ EE quests) has enemies with saves well beyond what would be considered fair to spellcasters and such high HP that casters will run out of SP quickly even if they had reliable DC's.

More related to the topic, I've never had trouble with SP as a sorcerer. Or a wizard. It's these 2, 4, and 6 splash builds that lower your SP, reduce your DC's, and generally harm your spellcasting ability that are the problem.

pretty much this. You want pure sorc's around? How about taking a 4th off of an epic monsters reflex save. Or better yet how about we get rid of this **** evasion.

So heres the senario. Endlessly spam hundereds of cheap missles of every kind that have no dc to overcome on an epic elite monster, or lanch a ball of elemental power that costs around 80sp or more and watch the monster flip you the bird as the word evade appears above him. Or some some sadass half number that makes you envy the reject full ****** HJEAL MEH barb that can barly stay alive swinging his axe.

[Lifespawn]

Problem with EDs is not the design of caster enhancement trees.

Magister does not do enough for a generalist caster (DCs, spell power, max caster level...) to be justified.

Draconic is super focused on one element and one of it's best selling points is twistable. It is still good enough that it is used sometimes unlike magister at least.

Shiradi is a cheap use nuker. Nothing wrong with that premise, but the other two trees just do not offer enough to really matter. DC casters need massive boosts from magister to make it compelling for them and generalist casters would be tempted by a high DC boosting tree with decent (but clearly lower then draconic level) general boosts to universal spell power and max caster level. Draconic on the other hand needs another big SLA that is not twistable and some respectable boosts to a second element (when main element will not work versus mobs).

Having caster enhancement trees offer more universal spell power just ups shiradis stock (they gain the most from universal spell power since they are random damage proc based). Lowering cost of spells would defacto lower the stock of shiradi I agree, but I think the problem is not iimproved by just increasing all casters power level including shiridi.

not upping the universal atall actually lowering it to .50 vs the .75 it currently is

[bsquishwizzy]

You know, it tells you something that the most popular arcane build has to use an ED that is not in the arcane sphere. It tells you that the EDs in the arcane sphere generally suck. They do not provider the most bang for the buck.

Just sorta pointing out the obvious here…

[redspecter23]

Speaking about Eldritch Tempest specifically, I think it might have been better as a straight up enhancement to Eldritch Strike instead of it's own ability with a separate, very long cooldown and extremely high cost. If it reduced the cooldown on Eldritch Strike by 10%/20%/20% and gave 1/1/2 seconds of knockdown that also made the mobs vulnerable like Fury Adrenaline knockown, it could have been a very nice ability. You could use it as a no save primer move for Energy Burst or some other AOE spell. As it is now, it's far too costly for what you get from it and even with max spellpower added, it only makes it "almost good". I'm not quite sure what they think we're going to do with one second of knockdown except maybe mess up a pile of chain swinging shadar kai

[Egeus]

I'm not quite sure what they think we're going to do with one second of knockdown except maybe mess up a pile of chain swinging shadar kai

So true. I'm playing an EK this ETR, and I swear the knockdown is even LESS than 1s. It's definitely not long enough to throw an Energy Burst or Eldritch Strike and have the "helpless" bonus damage land.

I'd heard there was a Knockdown/Balance bug on mobs that caused them to recover instantly -- same reason that the Titan raid is bugged. Maybe it'd be an OK action if that wasn't a (potential) problem?

fwiw, I'm finding EK marginally fun but not worth it without hyper-specialized gear. Looking forward to going back to toggling between full-****** electric DI nuker and fire/elec Shiradi.

To address the original problem: Shiradi's no-save CC is still best-in-class for sorcs, by a year. I don't know how you get around that since there's just not enough feats for us to get both Evo and Enchant/SpellPen up to a level where we can land Danceball or Hold Monster reliably in at-level EE. Sonic Blast, Greater Shout, and Electric Loop are fun at all, but they don't last through attacks, and they cost real SP instead of landing with regular damaging attacks. Maybe buffing the Draconic Spell Augmentation so that the Reflex/Fort debuffs land more often and come with all flavors by default, and then each flavor gets its own slow/hold/trip/I dunno?

[slarden]

Paper is good as is

Rock needs a nerf

Scissors needs a buff

completely unbiased suggestion