Improve Blade Barrier

[h4x0r1f1c]

I don't know what happened to my last thread on this but it disappeared and I didn't get a message from a mod or nothin' so here it is again. I'll try to use paragraphs this time since nobody liked my easy-read sentences. Usually I dislike reading walls of text but here goes:

I believe the Blade Barrier spell should be improved. Arcanes get Wall of Fire which they can stand in because well.. it's a strip of fire. Monsters do not need to move in and out of the WoF, and you can sit and block in one until a mob dies. It's known that with Blade Barrier, you need to kite monsters in-and-out of the circular strip of blades. If a monster is in the middle with you, he's not hurt. I don't think this should be the case because it doesn't make much sense.

If I were to stick my finger in a fan, the blade would hit my finger and keep doing so until I either moved my finger or it turned off. I don't have to pull my finger back-and-forth teasing the blades just to get the fan to hit my finger. Also, I do not find Blade Barrier to be OP. It does make sense (unlike my last suggestion for this) to keep Blade Barriers from being able to stack. If I had 2 fans and pushed the blades together, they would both stop.

Blade Barriers are not OP just because it's slashing damage. It still costs SP and more-so with Metamagics. There are other spells which could be considered OP if Blade Barrier is. Take Necrotic Bolt and Necrotic Blast for instance, though not technically "spells" since they're from the enhancement line and use HP. They could be considered OP because of the fact they use HP and a Death Aura will regen that easily. I've also seen Necrotic Bolt crit for over 1k.

Anyway, I'm not saying Necrotic Bolt is OP. I was just giving a comparison to Blade Barrier and it's functionality. Oh, and for a follow-up on the Blade Barriers not working when overlaying.. why not simply negate one? This could be done by caster level and/or time left. So if you're solo and you lay down 2 Blade Barriers, the second one would override the first. If you're with a lowbie and he uses Blade Barrier and then you cast your higher level one, it overrides his.

Thank you for reading and I hope you consider my changes for Blade Barrier.

[ishunt]

So, just to clarify:

You want blade barrier to stay as it is, but to do constant damage so long as an opponent stands in the blades?

Seems fair.

You want blade barrier to damage in a radial area of effect, not just in a line around a circle?

Unfair.
It is called BLADE BARRIER for 2 reasons.

They are blades. as such they have a small thickness.

It is a barrier, meant to keep things from entering.

I think it would be more fair if blade barrier did huge damage constantly to anything in the ring, so it cant really be crossed by enemies, but does not damage things inside it, so the caster would cast it, then still have things to kill inside the bubble. Seems more fair to me.

[Douglas21]

A monster in the middle quite properly should not get hurt. There aren't any blades there to do the hurting.

A monster at the edge, where the blades are, that stays there in place for an extended period, should get hurt repeatedly just like Wall of Fire. From a logic standpoint, at least. From a game balance perspective, Blade Barrier does quite a lot more damage than Wall of Fire, and making the repeat hits that easy and fast might be an excessive buff.

[Powerhungry]

Your description of a blade barrier can be equated to a bicycle wheel (with the caster as the hub and the spokes radiating outward to the rim- the barrier). However, the spell actually is just the 'rim, no spokes, thus nothing inside will take damage. Using your fan reference, it is like the new bladeless fans (http://electronics.howstuffworks.com...deless-fan.htm) that are on the market (you can stick your finger in them all you want and not get injured.

[SealedInSong]

If I were to stick my finger in a fan, the blade would hit my finger and keep doing so until I either moved my finger or it turned off. I don't have to pull my finger back-and-forth teasing the blades just to get the fan to hit my finger.

I agree with this, except your analogy will get you in trouble. I'd compare blade barrier to something like an oscillating guillotine. It's a line, and not an area, where things are getting shredded.

That said, I agree and think that the monster shouldn't have to walk through the barrier to get damaged; it should get continually damaged, because it's getting continually shredded.

Of course, monster AI should make them generally prefer not to stand in fire or blades, but that's another talk.

Blade Barriers are not OP just because it's slashing damage.

Disagree slightly; I think they're not OP because their damage caps at 15d6 (caster level 15, d6 per caster level). Being slashing damage actually makes it the MORE powerful compared to other persistent area of effect damage spells (compare Wall of Fire, Acid Fog, Storm of Vengeance etc) because almost everything can be damaged by slash damage in full. There are *many* enemies immune to things like fire, acid, and electricity though.

So, slash > all elements.

I don't know of any monsters that are immune to slashing, and only one or two (Bladeforged race/monsters) that are resistant to slashing. Reference: http://ddowiki.com/page/Monster_DR_and_weaknesses

It still costs SP and more-so with Metamagics. There are other spells which could be considered OP if Blade Barrier is. Take Necrotic Bolt and Necrotic Blast for instance, though not technically "spells" since they're from the enhancement line and use HP. They could be considered OP because of the fact they use HP and a Death Aura will regen that easily. I've also seen Necrotic Bolt crit for over 1k.

I think SLAs should be special, and the necrotic line is. However, this is pretty apples and oranges in my opinion. They aren't persistent, and only necrotic blast is AoE. Further, TONS of things are immune to negative energy, whereas blade barrier hits almost every monster in the game with basically no exceptions.

For instance, undead are one of the most numerous monster types in the game, and your necrotic line won't hurt them...it will heal them! Not so with blade barrier.

Anyway, I'm not saying Necrotic Bolt is OP. I was just giving a comparison to Blade Barrier and it's functionality. Oh, and for a follow-up on the Blade Barriers not working when overlaying.. why not simply negate one? This could be done by caster level and/or time left. So if you're solo and you lay down 2 Blade Barriers, the second one would override the first. If you're with a lowbie and he uses Blade Barrier and then you cast your higher level one, it overrides his.

Slightly disagree here. The purpose of laying down multiple persistent aoes is to get a bigger aoe, and if you do it right (have them not touch, in the case of firewall and blade barrier), you can monsters more frequently damaged by.

Since blade barrier and wall of fire (to my understanding, and from some tests a few years back) that merge/touch/overlay simply do the same damage but in a bigger area, if you were to "negate" previously cast persistent aoes when you cast another one on it, you'd have wasted your SP on the old persistent AoE as well as reduced the potential area of effect. That sounds like an unnecessary nerf.

I'd suggest just adding a description to AoEs that says, "multiple instances of this spell in the same area do not increase damage, but may increase the area of effect." That'd be more transparent and not a nerf.

Cheers!

[Bloodskittle]

I don't know what happened to my last thread on this but it disappeared and I didn't get a message from a mod or nothin' so here it is again. I'll try to use paragraphs this time since nobody liked my easy-read sentences. Usually I dislike reading walls of text but here goes:

I believe the Blade Barrier spell should be improved. Arcanes get Wall of Fire which they can stand in because well.. it's a strip of fire. Monsters do not need to move in and out of the WoF, and you can sit and block in one until a mob dies. It's known that with Blade Barrier, you need to kite monsters in-and-out of the circular strip of blades. If a monster is in the middle with you, he's not hurt. I don't think this should be the case because it doesn't make much sense.

If I were to stick my finger in a fan, the blade would hit my finger and keep doing so until I either moved my finger or it turned off. I don't have to pull my finger back-and-forth teasing the blades just to get the fan to hit my finger. Also, I do not find Blade Barrier to be OP. It does make sense (unlike my last suggestion for this) to keep Blade Barriers from being able to stack. If I had 2 fans and pushed the blades together, they would both stop.

Blade Barriers are not OP just because it's slashing damage. It still costs SP and more-so with Metamagics. There are other spells which could be considered OP if Blade Barrier is. Take Necrotic Bolt and Necrotic Blast for instance, though not technically "spells" since they're from the enhancement line and use HP. They could be considered OP because of the fact they use HP and a Death Aura will regen that easily. I've also seen Necrotic Bolt crit for over 1k.

Anyway, I'm not saying Necrotic Bolt is OP. I was just giving a comparison to Blade Barrier and it's functionality. Oh, and for a follow-up on the Blade Barriers not working when overlaying.. why not simply negate one? This could be done by caster level and/or time left. So if you're solo and you lay down 2 Blade Barriers, the second one would override the first. If you're with a lowbie and he uses Blade Barrier and then you cast your higher level one, it overrides his.

Thank you for reading and I hope you consider my changes for Blade Barrier.

The only way to actually IMPROVE blade barrier without making it completely OP would be to increase the maximum caster level damage so that instead of being 15d6 it could end up as some 30d6 this way making it relevant in Epics, that being said, such an update would probably make it OP...

[Thalone]

If I remember my forum lore properly, you're all responding to/quoting someone who was banned four years ago...

[Enderoc]

they will do the exact same thing to you as well if they change it...keep that in mind. I do like the idea of having your school of choice having no maximum caster level though. Sounds like trees they could add in higher level content if it ever gets to that.

[doubledge]

If I remember my forum lore properly, you're all responding to/quoting someone who was banned four years ago...

You are correct. It appears someone necroed a 4 year old post to make a point without value.

Also: He came back. If I remember correctly, he came back and was a contributing member of the community for a good part of a year before he quit.

[PsychoBlonde]

This would not actually improve blade barrier at all--as it is, if you kite enemies along the outside edge of the bb, you can get a TON of ticks in a very short time. Replacing this with a slow tick as firewall or ice storm would not actually yield more damage.

One of the great things about this game is learning how to use abilities and spells effectively. If they all work exactly the same way then this aspect goes away and the game becomes boring in the extreme. Blade barrier has a lot going for it already. It does not need any "improvements" of this kind. :P

[cave_diver]

Awesome necro

[psykopeta]

If I remember my forum lore properly, you're all responding to/quoting someone who was banned four years ago...

sorry, couldn't avoid giving you +1 rep

after loling for 5 mins, must say i've been "***'ing" for a while cause couldn't understand what's the point of making blade barrier a wall of blades, because well, it's called blade barrier (iirc in pnp you could cast it on a mob, so it would get hurt when stepping in and out, never heard of some dumb mob staying in a wall of fire, til i started playing ddo)

[Cordovan]

/necro