Player Character Balance

[Seljuck]

• Make Prism/Rainbow/Double Rainbow only procs once per second. (This remove multi-procs from magic missiles and such)
• Make Nerve Venom procs only on ranged attacks (you poison your arrows, not your fingertips to fly with your spell)
• Make Adrenaline and Slayer Arrows only affect the first arrow in a Manyshot/10k/Doubleshot hit.
  
  • If the engine can't work out to make it only hit on the first arrow, turn it into bane damage, and NOT multiplied on crits.
• Make Fury Eternal only works on melee vorpals.
• Make Blitz starts at full power, but only lasting 20~60 seconds, to match every other Epic Moment. (What makes Blitz so powerful is not the bonus, but how you can keep it up the whole quest)
• Move the monk extra crit multiplier from Earth Stance to Fire Stance. Earth is supposed to be the tanking stance. Fire is supposed to be the offensive one. Make it so.
• Remove the Reconstruction SLA from Bladeforged tree. Paladin Bladeforgeds can survive having access to only Repair Critical Wounds, just like non-Bladeforged paladins.

I think that properly nerf everything people are afraid of being nerfed. Make it so.

Very well said. +1 rep ;]

I change just one thing: Make Prism/Rainbow/Double Rainbow only procs once per spell.

[blackdoguk]

Very well said. +1 rep ;]

I change just one thing: Make Prism/Rainbow/Double Rainbow only procs once per spell.

If this change were implemented then in a few months once the shiradis have respecced to ench wizards your statement will read

"make energy burst not crit on held mobs"

Really there are more pressing issues in this game that require dev time than colours procs.

[Stoner81]

Time and resources matter: We can save a great deal of time by only changing a few overpowered abilities, rather than changing all other characters, monsters, traps, and quests to match those few most overpowered abilities or features. If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features.

Yes time and resources matter to the company because time = money.

However, nerfing stuff is the bone idle lazy way of doing things and you will not EVER fix the problem in the current game. There is stuff in game that hasn't been looked at/updated/whatever in years and is so far behind it's a joke.

Do NOT nerf anything! Buff/fix stuff that has been broken for months/years and design end game content that doesn't REQUIRE a toon to have Evasion/stupid high saves/crazy self healing/etc! You guys make the content and you made the problem and now want to nerf stuff to try and fix it? Whatever you guys drink/smoke round the office I want some because it sounds like you are all trippin' like a hippy from the 60's.

This does mean potentially looking at things that rhyme with ten-thousand cars, many fought, caster's fritz, chirashi cambrian, the bunk crass, or american overtoad.

So let me get this straight you are "potentially" looking at nerfing Master's Blitz? You want to nerf the one and only thing that makes melee's even remotley viable in EE (and only just assuming you have like 10 Green Steel Displacement clickies), whoever suggested this should be fired on the spot and it just goes to show how little you guys actually seem to understand about how the game works these days.

Now on to Monkchers...

Yes they are powerful but in order to get them to that state what do they have to get? A ton of past lives, +5 tomes on all stats and a metric ton of hard to get gear! Somebody who goes through all that should be able to have an easier time of it because of the MASSIVE investment into that character! All of the end game builds you read about (Zeus/Cestus/Juggernaut/etc) all have this in common, they require past lives galore/gear/stat tomes/player skill! You can give a **** player the most over powered build the game has to offer and they will die every 30 seconds because of a lack of skill, switch it around and give a skilled player a **** build and it can look insanely good because the player knows how to play the toon.

Stoner81.

[Uska]

Lets be straight here, I've been reading your contributions. You offer opinion without logic to support it, you write every post as if you are the authority dictating how the game is to be played. You chase every person offering ways to give other classes options and try to shoot them down, while offering no advice yourself. For crying out loud the last post was a single run-on sentence in 3 different statements. You need to seriously tighten up your posting habits if you want to be taken seriously, and I mean this kindly, you are just being irritating by running around chanting at people. Contribute with a well thought post, and I'll be happy to discuss it.

Now, to your point:
This. Is. Not. Pnp. This game has diverged from that model and it is right that it should do so. DnD was designed for co-operative story telling, this game is a platform for character design and questing. In PnP healing is as satisfying as killing things, from a strictly mechanical point of view, in this game if you do blow up the room full of mobs your kill count is crazy and people applaud, healers aren't flashy outside of raids, but you want them to be strictly necessary all of the time. I thought that once too, but then I realized diverse parties are great, provided you can form one, many cannot and its past time they stopped being on the outs because the IP had this one mechanic we are supposedly holding sacred.

I hear frequently that DDO has no healer class, and I can accept that that is the case, if that is true then let everyone get more diversity.
But as long as Divines get instakills and DPS so they don't need a fighter to do their damage, I don't see why Fighters, Rogues, Sorcs(flesh) and the like have to rely on a divine to do their healing.

Because this game IS STILL BASED ON DND and if they changed that then should change the name of the game to UBER POWER GAMERS ONLINE.

[CeltEireson]

In real Dungeons and Dragons, spell casting classes are the most powerful in the game. They take far longer to level, are much more difficult to acquire power in (because spell scolls are actually RARE), and they have VERY few castings of the few spells they have. The tradeoff is that those few casting are DEVASTATING. A Wizard in Dungeons and Dragons can (if he's lucky, and if he's put half his available slots into one thing) cast 3 or 4 fireballs spells before needing to stop for a rest. The tradeoff, is that those 3 or 4 spells will annihilate a massive area, something a fighter or archer would take many many rounds to accomplish.

I think possibly one of the worst design decisions was to go with spellpoints (well that and the decision to include spellpoint pots) - I know its a lot easier for to code and for people used to other MMOs to understand but in terms of balance it would have been far better if they had put in a limit of spells per level. As it is people just cast a few of their best spells over and over ad nauseam, which is one of the reasons we now have mobs with inflated hitpoints, massive saves and lots of increased resistances and/or immunities. If you only had a very limited number of wails to cast per rest you wouldn't need most mobs to have deathward.

And as you say people might actually start having to use some of the lower level spells on occasion.

[pHo3nix]

Ranged and shiradi casters are not overpowered, as technically casters could (or should do more damage with maxed out spells) and blitzing meele easily out dps ranged monk archers.

Sadly people asking for shiradi and ranged nerf do not understand this. They think that once they nerf shiradi and ranged toons their pure barbarians and fighters will suddenly become EE killing machine and that their healbots will be "useful" once again. If they just nerf shiradi and ranged people will just find the next most efficient things and start using that, while toons that are sucking in EE now will continue to suck in EE.

Oh, and the number of EE viable builds is way higher than the 3-4 builds costantly adressed on the forum.

The reason we see all these builds is not because they are so good, but because others are so BAD!


Players are forced to range as EE monsters hit to hard. They can not be tanked, and this game (and raids!) have become a joke of people running around like idiots ranging and casting as it's the only way to do EE. Casters are FORCED into shiradi as EE mobs save and evade all their spells, in addition they have too many HPs and casters would be out of mana in no time using tradition spells to kill them. How should a non-shiradi cast kill a mob with 100k hp? Tell me how and why you designed that!


The reoccurring theme here is:
1. Nerf monster saves, hp, to-hit, and damage

THEN buff weaker classes, PrEs, and EDs


Then, and only then, should you look at nerfing other abilities, and if it's even needed.

Exactly. Even just tweaking EE overblown stats would make more builds viable. If that's not enough buff a little the weaker stuffs. After all of this is done, if there was still a really big gap between the most efficient builds and the normal ones they should slightly nerf the most powerful things.

[CeltEireson]

Very well said. +1 rep ;]

I change just one thing: Make Prism/Rainbow/Double Rainbow only procs once per spell.

Might be awkward to do depend on how its coded, may be similar to how manyshot works so it may be difficult to differentiate between the 'first' shot or magic missile to hit and the others.

[blackdoguk]

I think possibly one of the worst design decisions was to go with spellpoints (well that and the decision to include spellpoint pots) - I know its a lot easier for to code and for people used to other MMOs to understand but in terms of balance it would have been far better if they had put in a limit of spells per level. As it is people just cast a few of their best spells over and over ad nauseam, which is one of the reasons we now have mobs with inflated hitpoints, massive saves and lots of increased resistances and/or immunities. If you only had a very limited number of wails to cast per rest you wouldn't need most mobs to have deathward.

And as you say people might actually start having to use some of the lower level spells on occasion.

Remember in pen and paper that a "round" of combat will take a group of switched on players about 15-20 minutes. That's one action each:six seconds of game time. Most serious combats in my groups last about an hour or so. In DDO we have scores of actions per minute so 6 spells would go awfully quickly.

Ever tried making a sorc in pen and paper with twinned quickened empowered scorching rays? That's OP.

[Sebastrd]

There's a running theme among some of the posts here that I think needs to be addressed:

• There is nothing inherently wrong with splashing classes. Too many folks in here act like it's a crime to play anything that isn't pure.
• If you don't understand why a playstyle, destiny, or build is powerful, you really ought to refrain from calling for nerfs. Bringing down the big boys won't make other builds better and won't fix what makes the top builds necessary in the first place.

[Turbosilk]

1. Boost the armor bonuses from medium/heavy armor so it is functional in EE with smart builds and proper gear
2. Give medium/heavy armor larger PRR bonuses so it is functional in EE with smart builds and proper gear
3. Builds with perceived OP damage isn't the issue it's that you can splash 2 levels of monk/pally and then you are god-mode unkillable. Just require 4 levels of monk or pally to get the current benefits of 2 levels.

PS and make EEs hard. Don't think we don't notice the stealth nerfs to EE which make them easy and take strategy and proper gearing out. The blue dragon room is a prime example. Electric dmg was nerfed so it does barely any damage to my character and I don't have evasion. That room should hurt the hell out of me unless I have a ton of elec mitigation. AND traps on EE should one shot anyone without evasion or really high HP.

[Uska]

Bolded for emphasis.

I cannot state firmly enough how backwards this game has gotten from the Dungeons & Dragons roots. Multiclassed archer specialists are BY FAR the most powerful builds in the game and single classed arcane spellcasters are among the weakest. This is simply incorrect.

Spellcasting as a whole, and ESPECIALLY spell casting at post Lvl15-thru-Endgame content needs to be completely beefed up.

Casting a spell is far slower than any other form of attack,
Is able to be interrupted unlike any other form of attack,
Drains a reserve of Mana, the most limited resource in the game,
Is entirely reliant on metamagic Feats to even FUNCTION properly,
And stops at level 17 (now mid-level). Full Stop. No more Spells.

In real Dungeons and Dragons, spell casting classes are the most powerful in the game. They take far longer to level, are much more difficult to acquire power in (because spell scolls are actually RARE), and they have VERY few castings of the few spells they have. The tradeoff is that those few casting are DEVASTATING. A Wizard in Dungeons and Dragons can (if he's lucky, and if he's put half his available slots into one thing) cast 3 or 4 fireballs spells before needing to stop for a rest. The tradeoff, is that those 3 or 4 spells will annihilate a massive area, something a fighter or archer would take many many rounds to accomplish.

In DDO casters sling spells nearly constantly, and they do very little to nothing at all. Most of the spells in the spellbook are now filler. Seriously, when was the last time you saw someone use Stinking Cloud ?

In Paper & Dice D&D, if used well it's one of the best spells in the game. In DDO, it's garbage.

Fix it by beefing up the casters at their base . Make spells BETTER. Fewer saves on spells, lower monster save levels, and (god forbid) better monster A.I.

Partially incorrect in 1st and 2nd ed it may have taken more for casters to level but in 3.x it takes exactly the same out of xp

[Beethoven]

Balance never existed in DDO and people who speak of a game history were classes lived in perfect harmony are basically referring to an idealized version of the past that never really happened.

Back whenn I started playing in 2008 there also was only a handful of "viable" builds:
Arcane dps = sorcerer. They could do everything a Wizard could just better (same DCs, cover all useful spells.
CC = Dancing Ball or Web (for mobs immune to mental compulsions)
Best mob dps = Dexterity based TWF.
Best boss dps = Strength based TWF.
Best trapper = Arcane Trickster (18 Wiz / 2 Rog); fully Int specc'ed gave higher trap skills and (with Insightful Reflexes) better Evasion than Rogue's could ever hope achieve.

Things haven't really changed over the years, fixes usually only achieved to replace one class combination with another (ie: replacing the supremacy of Tempest builds with Frenzied Berserker after the twf fix/nerf).

It is my opinion that there are only two things that actually unbalance the game worse than it used to be:

Ranged (including spell dps) vs melee
===========================
We are pitted against a script based AI and it is the nature of /any/ script based AI the more variables it has to deal with the less well it performs. Simply put, the further away we stand the dumber the AI gets. That allows ranged toons to already start out with an advantage.

It is a misconception that ranged out-dps melee, but the gap is not large. So they do almost as decent damage while being able to use distance, evasion, twitch skills to mitigate incoming damage.

Melee, on the other hand, are pitted against a more effective AI (it is simply easier for the AI to figure out how to hit the thing the physics engine says is right next to it) with no way of mitigating the damage. Now an an arena where it only takes 3-4 hit to fell even the mot sturdy toon melee toons can no longer deliver persistent dps and are at constant risk. Ranged are at little risk while still being able to deliver persistent dps.

Easiest way to fix this would be either lower mob damage in EE again or provide melee with better ways to mitigate the damage (ie: drastically increase PRR)

Unarmored (Pajama) vs heavy armor builds
===============================
Currently the comparison looks like this:

* Unarmored (Pajama): decent PRR, vastly superior dodge, superior concealment (incorporeal), superior mobility, superior crit range and superior dps (centered Kensai, Earth Stance), superior spell defense (Evasion)
* heavy armor: superior PRR (but only marginally better damage mitigation due to diminishing returns), vastly inferior dodge, inferior concealment, limitations to mobility, less dps (doubly so even using S&B), highly vulnerable to spell damage (no evasion and often low reflex saves)

It used to be that going heavy armor meant giving up dps for a superior defense and higher survivability (which already was only useful in a couple boss fights in a handful of raids). Now heavy armor means giving up dps to an inferior defense and lower survivability.

I think the best solution here would be to drastically increase the (defensive) benefit of armors and shields:

* increase the PRR of all types of armor significantly.
* increase the PRR benefit of holding a shield significantly
* increase the PRR benefit of defensive stances (Stalwart and Syberis)
* make Shield Deflecting a passive feat that does /not/ require blocking and stacks with all other sources of energy absorption.
* include generous sources of healing amplification into the higher tiers of the defensive trees (Stalwart and Syberis)
* personally I also would change barbarian DR into a PRR bonus. DR 3/- simply does not cut it in current endgame anymore. You'd translate each point of DR into five PRR it could become useful again.

Generally I do not see a problem with EE mobs being able to 3 or 4 shot an unarmored combatant (who already has dodge, incorporeal and evasion to mitigate damage) or a magic user (who can easily displace himself and operate at a safer distance), but a heavy armor type should not share the same fate. There is no point in wearing heavy armor (or armor at all) if it does not provide with significant enough protection against (mundane) damage.

[Zillee]

Time and resources matter: We can save a great deal of time by only changing a few overpowered abilities, rather than changing all other characters, monsters, traps, and quests to match those few most overpowered abilities or features. If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features.

Understood, but really I'm fine with waiting for weak classes/destinies to be boosted, rather than pulling back on the others. I don't mind waiting for months, as long as as I know that it's being addressed. New features are great, agreed. But getting the Fundamentals right, also matters.

Strong foundation = strong, lasting game with happy players

Edit: I think race should have been on the Survey too.

[Schadrach]

Asking about classes power without asking questions about multiclassing will provide flawed data.

THIS.

The trick is going to be to backload classes a little more. A 2 level monk splash is really powerful for virtually anyone, for example. The only counter is to make classes that can splash 2 levels of monk have something sufficiently nice at the top that is at least equal to splashing 2 levels of monk, so that that splash becomes an actual difficult choice.

There's a running theme among some of the posts here that I think needs to be addressed:

• There is nothing inherently wrong with splashing classes. Too many folks in here act like it's a crime to play anything that isn't pure.
• If you don't understand why a playstyle, destiny, or build is powerful, you really ought to refrain from calling for nerfs. Bringing down the big boys won't make other builds better and won't fix what makes the top builds necessary in the first place.

There's nothing inherently wrong with splashing classes. There *is* a problem when splashing classes is almost always significantly better than not doing so.

[era42]

Balancing it easy by nerfing just makes people leave. That has always been true and you guys have driven so many players over the years away that I have played with it is just silly.

I strongly disagree. Sure, strong nerfs every 2 years might make people leave, especially those that already were about to, or were effectively gone already.

But, constant monitoring and tweaking will keep much more people in than the small percentage who leave.

Sure, all powergamers have monkchers right now, but powergamers really have no problem using a TR to change the toon to something that's good today. But, not everybody wants to be a monkcher. It's nice to have a viable ranged option for those who like it, but everybody who wants to be good at top tier ee quests/raids shouldn't be forced into one.

Combination of 10k and manyshot isn't the problem. It's the combination of adrenaline, IPS and 10k/manyshot.

[SirValentine]

Ever tried making a sorc in pen and paper with twinned quickened empowered scorching rays? That's OP.

Never played that high into Epic levels in pen-and-paper. And I don't care how much damage it does, it still doesn't compare to the lower-level spells like Wish or Time Stop.

[Recared]

From Beta to Devourer (Europe server) to Khyber to Thelanis, I have been playing extensively all classes and building different successful multiclasses (pure builds there are only as many as the number of classes; multiclasses, well, sooo many good ones of course).

INITIAL THOUGHTS

Our game is unique. Because of the D&D special characteristics (Combat mechanics, tactics, game changing abilities (mass death spells, mass CC), d20). I love this game and its complexity.

The only way you could achieve perfect balance accross classes WOULD BE by making this a BORING game by (excuse the capital letters please):

a) Each class has exactly the same damage output, defense and healing potential, just change the names and animations of attacks, etc. -> shooter game.

b) Enforce the so called perfect (boring) trinomium of DPS-Tank-Healer by changing the way classes work (not allowing multiclass or forcing extreme level requirements, clerics and fvs deal 25% damage, cocoon tier 5 ED ability with 1 min cooldown, Paladin mitigates automatically 80% of the incoming damage, etc.. You get the idea, absolutely crazy....) to be successful at challenging quests/raids.

The beauty of this game, in my opinion, lies in its D&D foundations, that allows one to make special build combinations, that mix power from different classes. The balance of these possible combinations have been studied for decades. It works.

MULTICLASS NEVERENDING DEBATE

Of course some combinations are more "powerful" than others in some scenarios. Well that is the idea behind multiclassing, to become more versatile to be more successful. I have always disliked the complain of "give us a reason to stay pure". Why should they? Why should there be a specific reason to stay pure? You get from, for instance, the last 2 levels of fighter what you know from the rules: 1 feat, the capstone (a gift), etc. Nobody is forcing you to take those last 2 levels of fighter, you have so many options to customize your character, but you have to take the straight line within the same class? Same goes with all classes. Divine grace too powerful? Well go ahead take it for yourself. But only can multiclass with 3 classes with compatible alignments. I will get to barbarian later (and I believe they should be allowed alignment change). This debate has been going on since always... This is chess, not checkers.

POWER BETWEEN CLASSES, PLAYSTILES

Shiradi caster missconception. There seems to be a missconception from part of the population regarding this being so powerful. What is powerful? What do we mean with powerful: damage output or survivability or easyness of success? I know very well the damage output potentials of the shiradi caster and that of some classical melee high dps builds. No, shiradi caster damage is not that impressive at all. It is maybe about similar if not inferior to the high end melee dps non blitzing non adrenalined. "But casters do AOE damage". Yes, so do good melees. And there are means of dealing massive AOE damage with melees, like with 'confront any foe', etc. I am not going into that now. As a melee you can even plan for ranged abilities like Manyshot. Yes, most of the times that implies multiclass. So what? Plan for that. This is precisely the beauty of it all. Actually, for me, this is where Fun lies. "Multiclass is the bread and butter of DDO". Also, you can build very powerful melees clr12/etc./etc. (there was a day when clr6 bursts used character level... that was amazing! -> Nerf) that when grouped together become nearly immortal even meleeing EE: max auras and heal amp and see your health getting 600-1000 hp back each 2-3 seconds doing nothing. Get your Esos and be prepared to deal massive dps while not worrying about hp. And melee is practically always effective against everything. But people do not want to try this crazy combinations, although they work.
Pure melee is possible EE. I built an extremely survivable melee few months ago that even performed well in EE solo, which I myself called "Zelezny, supreme master of the spear" (never posted it, I am not active in forums, but read there a lot), Rogue12/monk6/pal2, Sireth user, Ref. save 100, which virtually diminished damage taken automatically by 50% when under 50% health, Bladeforged selfreconstructer. Was fabulous to play and yes I could blitz even with a party full of ranged (including there shiradi casters) dps, and actually led kill count many times, as irrelevant as that is. Did it take more effort to build? Oh yes, a lot more, 3 divine epls for saves, careful item planification, etc.
Back to shiradi casters: the real advantage here is that you can range that dps, meaning you don't get hurt like the melee dps character, and that is where the problem arises. So yes, it is easier to play that way. Is that surprising? No.

PROBLEM

This has been pointed out by many in this thread: melee are taking excessive damage in EE. To the point they need constant heals in some cases. I don't really know if a healing specced cleric can handle that or no, I have to say lately I see less and less clerics in parties. Well, as I said, there are melee possibilities to get almost free massive constant healing. But that is not probably going to happen, so we have a situation that could use some help. Again, it is possible to build very viable melee EE characters (even Barbarians (Madmatt had that raged variant that uses the warpriest ability to selfheal)), but that takes quiet a lot of effort and many people want to succeed easily...

PROPOSALS

* Buff/improve heavy armor users. They already are out of evasion, and heavy armor is supposed to feel protective. Ideas for implementation:
- Simply flatly add a % damage mitigation or % miss chance for the fact of wearing heavy armor.
- Change the PRR formula to be more usfeul when getting to very high amounts. Let it increase to 75% damage mitigation, with a different curve (not so easy at low amount (that will hurt my present builds, but it's ok)).
- Allow DR items to apply AFTER PRR not before (this has a lot of potential).
- Allow Energy resistance to apply AFTER energy absorption.
- Make AC somehow worthwile at all levels. 100 AC should do something at EE (for example, "for every point of AC, you get an extra 1/1000 chance of avoiding an incoming attack" (that is an extra to the actual rules of AC)). Let heavy armor add even more to AC than now, because stats have been seeing a constant increase in potential (Dex/wis sinergy of monks).
- Barbarians deserve some consideration... Make their DR higher and stack with other DR/- sources (like that new shadowscale DR60 armor): for example 2 per 3 levels or even 3 per 3 levels (that must stack, otherwise 7DR per 3 levels or even 8 or 9). Otherwise let them change alignment at a certain point of progression (stoping their progression as Barbarians from that moment) to be able to have monk/pally splits, for example.

SPECIFIC CC ON EE PROBLEM SOLUTION PROPOSAL

* CC: reduce monster saves by 20 and increase the saving throw to d40+relevant save? This way maximum potential for save for a mob is the same as now but minimum is -19 than from now, making CC a bit more manageable for non supreme DC casters.

Gygaxotron, Thelanis

[blackdoguk]

Never played that high into Epic levels in pen-and-paper. And I don't care how much damage it does, it still doesn't compare to the lower-level spells like Wish or Time Stop.

Hehe true. I've broken the games of novice DMs with Wish. Good times.

In actual fact the most game breaking mechanic I came across was the process of whale-bombing.

[chrisdinus7]

You have to nerf things much faster if you are going to do it all. At this point, what is being suggested is the nerfing of abilities and combinations that have been around for two years. Many of which have been seen by the devs and at least tacitly accepted as working as intended. For example, back in the update 15 era, the idea of disabling fury shot was tested out and then restored. That tells the players that it is WAI. So, then we spend a lot of time building characters with that in mind, gathering past lives, gear, and etc. Changing it a few months after its introduction is one thing, and much easier for players to accept. Two years later is a much bigger changes for players. What changed in the last 18 months that make fury shot OP compared to 2012? What have you learned about it now that you didn't know then?

Secondly, nerfs generally reduce fun, not increase it. They also tend to reduce build variety, not increase it. Sure, nerf a single over powered ability is fine (if it is actually over powered). But in this case, it looks to be that the suggestion is to nerf: Shiradi Champion, Legendary Dreadnaught, and Fury of the Wild. That is a quarter of the destinies, and the most popular ones. It across feeling like, "We see you guys like these builds, lets nerf them." This is not a case of, "Wow, that one combination is much stronger on release than we thought, lets tone it back."

As to the build diversity, look at Shiradi casters. Draconic is largely more powerful. And come U21.1, Exalted Angel will probably be the most powerful destiny for a Sorcerer (Wizards will miss out on the new, higher DCs). Nerf Shiradi will just reduce variety - all arcanes will be DC based. This will also make it harder for people to start new arcanes, given the sheer gear and past life requirements to be a DC based arcane. Nerfs to 10k stars + manyshot + fury will just mean that all monks go the melee quivering palm route. The same thing will happen with U21.1 and boulder toss. With the spell power (or ability to critical) and only doubling its base damage, it'll do perhaps 40% of what it does now. It will go from sometimes twisted to ignored. All it does is remove an ability from consideration.

Also, look at what happened when Primal Avatar was nerfed by removing twitching. Now Primal Avatar exists only to provide fates points and twists. No one uses it. I haven't seen anyone in Wood Woad form since the change. No one even running the destiny (except to cap it). No new builds were created to replace the lost Primal Avatar melee divines. They just started using Fury or LD, like everyone else. Was it OP? Perhaps. But at most, it needed mildly toned down, not heavily nerfed.

Instead of nerf the 25% of good destinys people are enjoying, start going through them, slowly if needed, and make the others better. Just like you are with U21.1. Exalted Angel is moving towards being a top tier destiny. That is good. Make it a hard choice because they are all good. Don't make it a hard choice because they are all weak. That isn't a hard choice, because the answer doesn't matter. Sure, nerf them all down to the levels of fate singer / unyielding and people will play a greater diversity of epic destinies. But only because their epic destiny will stop mattering.

[CeltEireson]

Remember in pen and paper that a "round" of combat will take a group of switched on players about 15-20 minutes. That's one action each:six seconds of game time. Most serious combats in my groups last about an hour or so. In DDO we have scores of actions per minute so 6 spells would go awfully quickly.

Ever tried making a sorc in pen and paper with twinned quickened empowered scorching rays? That's OP.

Oh wasn't suggesting that we stick to the PnP spell limit per level we'd run out of spells rather quickly. You'd obviously have to multiply up the number of spells per day per level by 3 or 4 times - but still the limit would mean you couldn't just FOD everything or firewall everything etc etc.

Plus it would put a natural limit on the power of some spells - for instance from memory empower adds 2 levels to a spell and maximise 3. Therefore you couldn't maximise and empower any spell over level 4 - though will freely admit im very rusty on my PnP rules, and of course doing so would eat into your limited number of level 9 spells, so forcing people to make difficult decisions re what they cast and when. Which is very much in the spirit of PnP.

They'd probably have to change wizard spells to work more like sorcerors in PnP, as it would probably be too much to expect the whole memorisation process. And then give sorcerors other benefits such as the faster casting they get in the game today and possibly something else.

And this is somewhat derailing the conversation as it will never happen - way too much of a major change, and I'm sure that sales of mnemonic potions are a good little earner for them