Capstone : Elemental Apotheosis - my gripe

[Pehtis]

Playing a nuker caster at higher levels is problematic due to the very high saves on pretty much everything. That's perfectly fine by me as I no longer carry too many instant AOE spells anymore anyhow. What really bugs me, and I only realise this when I bother to dust off my toaster sorc is the capstone. I just never use it. The cost outweighs the benefit by some margin in my opinion. When I am getting pummelled from pillar to post in epics, being able to self heal is paramount.


My suggested solution is a simple one.

While in Elemental Form, you take NO DAMAGE from your element and are instead HEALED by your element. However you take double damage from your opposite element. Think the way pale masters work with negative spell damage, vs light spell damage.

If the heal portion is too much (due to nuke power), then make it a useful percentage of the damage value. Worse case, maybe even consider making it scale with your heal skill, and boosted by heal amp. At least that is something rather than nothing.

There you go. Even fleshies benefit from something like this. Also and extra reason to stay PURE.

[Eth]

How excactly do you mean that? Getting healed by your own spells or just spells from mobs?
Palemasters only have a very narrow selection of spells that even can be used for selfhealing.
Not sure how this could even work for sorcs with the spells we have, unless you wanted stuff like splash damage from DBF count.

While the concept would be interesting I don't think it would work well with the spells that we have.
Air savants for example would barely have any spells you can hit yourself with in theory (ball lightning?).
And if you make stuff like energy vortex count it would become to much of an easy button.

Also, Fire Sorcs tanking while standing in Wall of Fire

[Blackheartox]

How excactly do you mean that? Getting healed by your own spells or just spells from mobs?
Palemasters only have a very narrow selection of spells that even can be used for selfhealing.
Not sure how this could even work for sorcs with the spells we have, unless you wanted stuff like splash damage from DBF count.

While the concept would be interesting I don't think it would work well with the spells that we have.
Air savants for example would barely have any spells you can hit yourself with in theory (ball lightning?).
And if you make stuff like energy vortex count it would become to much of an easy button.

Also, Fire Sorcs tanking while standing in Wall of Fire

Friendly fire, i like it


Opener, sorry to say this, it might seem rude but if you think capstone is not worth it and that you need selfhealing while using it, and saying your aoe spells that are dc based arent worth it for it, then you need to gear, play and learn the sorc class a bit better.
I mean, not trying to sound rude, but sorc is extremely powerful currently if played right, and only reason to skip on capstone is if you play shiradi giberish or abuse some kind hybrid builds (like i did with build in sig)

Really the only issue i see with capstone is 10% more sp cost

[Pehtis]

Friendly fire, i like it


Opener, sorry to say this, it might seem rude but if you think capstone is not worth it and that you need selfhealing while using it, and saying your aoe spells that are dc based arent worth it for it, then you need to gear, play and learn the sorc class a bit better.
I mean, not trying to sound rude, but sorc is extremely powerful currently if played right, and only reason to skip on capstone is if you play shiradi giberish or abuse some kind hybrid builds (like i did with build in sig)

Really the only issue i see with capstone is 10% more sp cost

Look the capstone elemental form active of +20 power & some crit is definitely useful, but every spell now costs 10% more, you lose levels on all other elements, which fine by me. You lose WF race status because you are now Elemental, but do not have their immunities (just a +10 resist).

It does not sit well, that say as a fire elemental I am not immune to fire attacks/spells. Yet I lose my race heal ability. I believe actual fire elementals heal when in fire. That is what gave me the idea of some healing options when being damaged by own element. How much you heal (I suggest it is a small but useful %), or perhaps narrow what spells are eligible, can be discussed if want.

Or just maybe forget the heal all together, and just give us blanket immunity to that element.










P.S
FYI - It is true, my toons are only first lifers with only +2 tomes, and have the best equipment items for level outside of crafting. I suspect that makes them gimp to many. One is an ice wf toaster at 27, while the other is a non UMD (long story) fire fleshy which I don't play so much anymore (just getting tired of the blanket immunities). I tend to CC a lot, and focus on my SLA's with no save nuke spells thrown in where I can. Heck I even FOD mobs on EH. Anything that needs a reflex save is usually an SP sink so I don't bother (I waste enough sp as it is). I am still working through destinies and have yet to get to Primal spheres to see what the fuss is about. So yeah, since I'm not using my caster destinies makes some epics tricky. But I definitely hold my own, but only because by being a toaster I can be self sufficient. I can imagine non UMD fleshies don't fare as well.

[Eth]

I believe actual fire elementals heal when in fire..

Not quite.
- Fire elementals in DDO are immune to fire, but don't get healed by fire spells. They also take twice the damage from cold spells.
- Air, Earth and Water elementals don't have any elemental immunities, but also don't take extra damage from any other element
...there may or may not be some named elementals with exceptions to that.

What we really need though is the knockback effect when in air elemental form

[Blackheartox]

Not quite.
- Fire elementals in DDO are immune to fire, but don't get healed by fire spells. They also take twice the damage from cold spells.
- Air, Earth and Water elementals don't have any elemental immunities, but also don't take extra damage from any other element
...there may or may not be some named elementals with exceptions to that.

What we really need though is the knockback effect when in air elemental form

Based on charisma i hope

Another thing, while druid ice ele form gets freezing spray, sorc doesnt, always wonderd why.
Who is the real elemental master?
I mean, earth gets useless earth grab, that was like the only elemental themed ability translated correctly.
While i like wings, air eles dont have wings, fires heat thing is horrible and what does cold have?
A useless sure fail ability as well for harder content.

I always assumed it should be sorc and thus sorc cap should give some unique stuff and spells.
I mean caster levels do push sorcs ahead, but imo its not to unreasoble to ask for caster buffs in current ddo.

Just roll a barb or palie and laugh at your caster mains /:

[Iaga]

...but sorc is extremely powerful currently if played right...

You need to keep in mind that the number of people who "play a sorc right" is very, very small when compared to ... pallies, barbs, wolves, monkchers, etc etc etc ... It's a much harder class to play effectively in end game. I would love to see the devs find a way to make DCs more attainable for a larger percentage of players. So much of sorc DPS is all or nothing. For high end players who are already at the top of the ladder, making changes wouldn't make them more powerful but it would be a HUGE help to people who haven't reached max DCs.

Really the only issue i see with capstone is 10% more sp cost

But that 10% increase is HUGE as one of the biggest issues for sorcs is the ratio of SP to damage in end game with the bloated HP so many mobs have. Especially if you don' t have top notch DCs because you'll need to lay down a TON of save lower prep spells before you cast any DPS.

IMO, if they were to add some DCs [3-4 points of evoc DC] to the capstone and lower the cost of spells, it would make them far more viable [RP wise you could argue that you have developed mastery of your element or something along those lines ...]

FOOT NOTE: I am making an assumption that end game = epic elite. On epic hard and any heroic, sorcs are truly an easy button. They do not scale into end game well...

[Kriogen]

My toaster Wizard would also like to get +4 INT and a couple of nice things from Lich. Very annoying. Better DC or better heal (I find quick Recon is still better then what PM has).

OK, if I'd be a nice dev, I'd change Fire Shield:Fire/Cold/Elec/Acid to act as regeneration (like Aura for Pale Master).

[Iaga]

While in Elemental Form, you take NO DAMAGE from your element and are instead HEALED by your element. However you take double damage from your opposite element. Think the way pale masters work with negative spell damage, vs light spell damage.

Not every class needs self healing - sorcs have always worked well enough with mobility and UMD.

[Bloodskittle]

It would be nice if the capstone forms were more in line with DDO's version of elementals;

Air: Knockback and Knockdown effect and a free gust of wind SLA.
Earth: Some meaningful DR and earth grab SLA buffed to having a meaningful DC
Water: Freedom of Movement, and freezing spray.
Fire: Honestly I don't know what for fire its super badass as it is with the twists from Divine crusader for +50 spell power.

[xaxaeb]

Not every class needs self healing - sorcs have always worked well enough with mobility and UMD.

Yup. Expeditious retreat, jump, haste, blur, displacement. Add to that good are cc and burst. And you don't need that much healing

[Zerkul]

I've dusted off my sorcerer recently. I feel very underpowered with it: nuke power is nearly decent and is not sustainable for long time without necessarly lowering the damage output.

Capstone has nice bonuses though the spellcost of the elemental form makes it an occasional use only for certain situations. Very circumstantial.

Right now majority of melees/ranged can achieve similar/higher DPS/damage outputs and can sustain them for longer. Playing damage casters right now is suboptimal.