Update 29 Feats: Other Feats

[Lorianus]

I consider this a valid reason to add an extra spell, not counting Chill Touch as one of the spots but rather tossing it in as what amounts to a freebie.

How about Death Aura, Negative Energy Burst, Necrotic Bolt plus Chill Touch as a toss-in.

Fine with me, I just I am still very defensive from all the "bluebar-rage" years.... I still haven't fully adapted to the fact that my Sorc and Pale Master went from “nerf them they steal all the kills” to an endangered species. The Arties and Caster Druids get 4 uncapped spells too. Most sorcs can at least reconstruct to full HP after a touch attack, but I would rather take the water feat because it has a DOT instead of a touch spell.

[maddong]

I think the Master of Element powers are really lopsided.

Some of them are much better overall, I think people pointed out sunbolt.
And what will lightning bolt be doing, 34d6 with a 50% chance at another 34d6 (68d6) if you pimped it out on a sorcerer (I think you can get it higher than that with the right equipment)?
And it is a SLA....

You could instead just grant +2X max caster level to all 1st and 2nd level spells and +X max caster level to all 3+ level spells so that they all essentially gain X damage dice (titrate X to the amount of power gain you want).

That way the feats let people use a much larger spell selection and they are less class limited.

[BigErkyKid]

My problem with the current proposal is that it doesn't really solve the problems of spell casting in epics.

Problem 1: The majority of spells don't scale well.
- Damage spells cap
- Majority of buffs cap
- Epic ward reduce effectiveness of charm spells
- Trap the soul and similar cap on HD.
Proposed solution by Turbine: Raise the cap on SLA type spells.
- This just further reinforces the idea that spell casters are reduced to SLAs
- It only works in a extremely small subset of spells
My solution: Raise the cap on all spells.
- Examine one by one all spells and make them scale well, either by increasing HD, increasing bonuses from buffs.

Problem 2: DCs in top quests can sometimes be simply unachievable.
- Current cap quests have for some trash enchant DC over 90.
- Fort DCs over 100
(I haven't tested all of them)
Proposed solution by turbine: Give school specific big bumps to DC.
- This implies über specialization of spell casters on some schools.
- As the game stands, in top content one can only hope to have one school work, meaning that it restricts immensely the variety of spells available.
My solution: Tone down the DCs.
- Mobs should always have a weak save (with maybe some specific mobs being special) for which someone recently geared and build should have options to land with some reliability.
- Right now this all out DC scenario heavily penalizes casting / melee hybrids: you cannot hope to have any success in casting if you give up DCs and spell penetration (for instance in bards).
- Overall, build diversity is badly hurt unless there is a change in DCs.

Problem 3: Prevalence of red named in raids.
- Raids have a super abundance of red named and immune mobs.
- There are no big roles anymore for most raids for DC based abilities.
Turbine's solution: Give casters raw DPS.
- However this is in conflict with allowing for richer DC based spell selections and it makes the game boring. Dealing damage with a bow or with a magic wand...or a magic sword... (ZZzzzZZZzz).
My solution: Give trash an important role in raids.
- MoD is a good example in higher difficulties.
- You can have trash mobs saving almost always some spells in top difficulties, but yet make them weak to others that wouldn't completely destroy challenge.
- Give raids some more shrines...

Problem 4: Prevalence of immune or extremely SR mobs
- CC, aside from quake and warlock, is at an all time low since in end game most mobs are immune.
- This has resulted in end game being non CC friendly and hurt disproportionately bards and enchanters in general.
Turbine's solution: Moar DPS.
- Moar DPS doesn't change this.
My solution: tone down the SR and have more variety of mobs in all quests.
- Just because it is shavarath, or undead, don't make ALL mobs of one type.
- Doing so decreases build diversity in end game and makes it unfun for those who focus on tactics (raw DPS is usually unaffected, or less).

[Hephaistor]

That some low level spells like Scorch and Electic Loop will outshine what I consider the signature spells of high level spell casting like Meteor Swarm and Black Dragon Bolt seems a bit odd to me.

[Steelstar]

My problem with the current proposal is that it doesn't really solve the problems of spell casting in epics.

Understood. These feats are not meant to completely solve all the problems of spell casting in Epics.

Raising the cap on all spells comes with its own suite of issues, and we are continuing to adjust monster balance and statting in the new content in addition to these changes.

[BigErkyKid]

Understood. These feats are not meant to completely solve all the problems of spell casting in Epics.

Raising the cap on all spells comes with its own suite of issues, and we are continuing to adjust monster balance and statting in the new content in addition to these changes.

At least expand the set of spells you increase. In addition, as it is this is favoring disproportionately those with +caster level bonuses on enhancements. Sorcs and FVS will completely dominate wizards, clerics and bards.

[slarden]

At least expand the set of spells you increase. In addition, as it is this is favoring disproportionately those with +caster level bonuses on enhancements. Sorcs and FVS will completely dominate wizards, clerics and bards.

Wizards have extra feats and more ability to diversify- the caster level bonuses aren't enough to say sorcs are better. Well yeah fvs wins hands-down over cleric at the moment due to the caster level bonuses, just reward, scourge and shield of condemnation and the clerics big unique ability - turn undead- doesn't work on high level EEs. The best way to make a better cleric is by splashing favored soul.

Bard casters problem more than anything is that enchantment DC and stuns going against fort are hard to land in the hardest EEs compared to earthquake for example. The easiest comparison to caster bard is caster druid and caster druid wins hands-down due to better dps spells and better cc. That is the reason why a bard castrer isn't worth playing since U27. If they could land hold monster consistently they are quite good with that 50% dps boost - without it they are a flavor build for buffing the party.

[BigErkyKid]

Wizards have extra feats and more ability to diversify- the caster level bonuses aren't enough to say sorcs are better. Well yeah fvs wins hands-down over cleric at the moment due to the caster level bonuses, just reward, scourge and shield of condemnation and the clerics big unique ability - turn undead- doesn't work on high level EEs. The best way to make a better cleric is by splashing favored soul.

Bard casters problem more than anything is that enchantment DC and stuns going against fort are hard to land in the hardest EEs compared to earthquake for example. The easiest comparison to caster bard is caster druid and caster druid wins hands-down due to better dps spells and better cc. That is the reason why a bard castrer isn't worth playing since U27. If they could land hold monster consistently they are quite good with that 50% dps boost - without it they are a flavor build for buffing the party.

The combination of useful SLAs of sorcs (now uncapped) and caster level bonuses completely blows out of the water wizards post this update.

The rest we already agree.

[rehakp]

At least expand the set of spells you increase. In addition, as it is this is favoring disproportionately those with +caster level bonuses on enhancements. Sorcs and FVS will completely dominate wizards, clerics and bards.

I would not say "completely" dominate. Hm ok sorcerer can get +6 casterlevels over wizard. Thats how many ? around +20% on fireball when both takes other +caster level options ? Well sorcerers in capstoned fire savant deserves this i believe and wizards have other benefits like more univesal spell selection + 5 feat slots etc.

[maddong]

Understood. These feats are not meant to completely solve all the problems of spell casting in Epics.

Raising the cap on all spells comes with its own suite of issues, and we are continuing to adjust monster balance and statting in the new content in addition to these changes.

I liked them at first but it is kind of dumb that people will be using shocking grasp instead of horrid wilting.

I think automatic maximize and automatic empower (free meta magics) on top of making intensify free would be much more fun. You could spend your 24, 27, 30 feats in that instance to have a very wide casting experience with reasonable mana costs as an alternative to slas or shiradi.

[BigErkyKid]

I would not say "completely" dominate. Hm ok sorcerer can get +6 casterlevels over wizard. Thats how many ? around +20% on fireball when both takes other +caster level options ? Well sorcerers in capstoned fire savant deserves this i believe and wizards have other benefits like more univesal spell selection + 5 feat slots etc.

+6 caster levels on top of the fireball being a SLA for the sorc. This is what is being discussed, that spell cap is only raised for SLA type spells and this favors disproportionately sorcs, who are already benefiting from higher caster levels.

So the sorc casts unlimited metaed SLAs (say the acid splash, not many mobs save that) at +6 caster level vs the wizard who....?

Right.

[EllisDee37]

+6 caster levels on top of the fireball being a SLA for the sorc. This is what is being discussed, that spell cap is only raised for SLA type spells and this favors disproportionately sorcs, who are already benefiting from higher caster levels.

So the sorc casts unlimited metaed SLAs (say the acid splash, not many mobs save that) at +6 caster level vs the wizard who....?

Right.

It makes sense, though.

Sorcerers spam 6sp SLAs with full metamagics and additional caster levels while wizards spam 75sp spells with full metamagics and no additional caster levels to offset the fact that wizards have so many more spell points than sorcerers.

Perfectly reasonable design.

[Ebondevil]

Any chances Nimbus of Light could make it onto the light list?

As far as I know Nimbus of Light doesn't have a caster level cap, it just deals 1d4 damage +1 per caster level so it scales up very slowly.

I would however very much like to see Divine Punishment on the list somewhere, as other people have said, to match up to the Niac's and Eledar's equivalents

[Vanhooger]

PLEASE remove +10% sp cost on sorcerer capstone.

[LiquidZombie]

I consider this a valid reason to add an extra spell, not counting Chill Touch as one of the spots but rather tossing it in as what amounts to a freebie.

How about Death Aura, Negative Energy Burst, Necrotic Bolt plus Chill Touch as a toss-in.

Even as a PM I'm thinking I'll probably take the electric line rather than the death line. Shocking Grasp does similar damage to Chill Touch but is usable against a larger variety of enemies (including undead), Electric Loop is currently overpriced for its damage but will become a lot more viable at CL24 or 26, and a Lightning Bolt which does 125 base damage with a 50% chance at another 125 seems pretty awesome.

Necrotic Ray on the other hand already scales to CL25 (AFAIK), so doesn't benefit from this at all, and I rarely use NEB anyway (although I appreciate others do, particularly on higher difficulties).

[LiquidZombie]

I liked them at first but it is kind of dumb that people will be using shocking grasp instead of horrid wilting.

Horrid Wilting can be cast at a distance and does AoE damage, whereas Shocking Grasp will remain a touch-range single target spell.

They should probably raise the CL cap on HW to 25 though given its cost, and fix the auto-targeting problems which make it a PITA to use.

[Hobgoblin]

PLEASE remove +10% sp cost on sorcerer capstone.

please?

and also make it either that you lose the elemental form if you die, or that you keep all the benefits of the form and no the penalty when you die

[Mryal]

Added the DC of Burst of Glacial Wrath: (20 + Highest of your INT/WIS/CHA modifiers)

Im assuming this belongs to a spell school and youre just forgetting to mention this? Evocation hopefully.
This feat is great, specialy for Druid, while i'd much rather have my fire based druid beign usefull again, i know they will be shelved to flavor builds again just like every other fire based caster was when vale/shavarath was the top end content.
But having this is a good possibility to make Water druid a lot more attractive, water has always been missing a straight damage spell since Ice Flowers is Transmutation school for no good reason.
More information is needed on this thought? Whats the cooldown? Is it a SLA or a regular spell? Wich school it belongs to? You might be expecting feedback about this, so:

Either
A) SLA for 15 sp, 24 seconds cooldown, Evocation spell - best option in my opinion.
or
B) A regular spell for 20 sp (before metamagics),Evocation spell and 12 seconds cooldown.

Yes, that ability does key close to Divine Disciple. Somewhat intentionally. If you have thoughts on a separate "Master of..." feat in the same vein that would lean toward Favored Souls, we're all ears. In the meantime, offensive Clerics can definitely use the bump here. If you have suggestions of what to replace Sunburst with, we'd like to hear that too.

After discussing with my girlfriend that has been playing FVS for over 5 years, we came into an agreement that a "Master of..." feat for FVS would have to contain the following spells:
Cometfall,Holy Smite,Flame Strike.

FVS is a class that has no damagin SLA other than the capstone, however they have a high sp pool, this selection of spells would fit them perfectly because it would allow them to maximize the SP usage by using boosted AOE spells, the feat would also be attractive to clerics, and also has no duplicate spell when compared to the other alredy existing Master of feat.

[Mryal]

PLEASE remove +10% sp cost on sorcerer capstone.

Agreed.And take time to design the earth and air forms for druid and respective spells.
Its ridiculous that a sorcerer can use elemental forms of all elements and a druid cannot.

[Hobgoblin]

After discussing with my girlfriend that has been playing FVS for over 5 years, we came into an agreement that a "Master of..." feat for FVS would have to contain the following spells:
Cometfall,Holy Smite,Flame Strike.

call it master of larafey?