Legendary Earthquake DC - what works for you?

[Kwyjibo]

Ok, so after tweaking my Druid and taking everything I possibly could to maximize evocation DC's, I got it to a Standing 81. No boosts or anything, only ship buffs+Gear+Feats. I went into EE To Curse the Sky and went up to the first mob (Abishai and Cat things) and cast Earthquake to see how it would go. Everything saved except 1 Abishai. While in Mantle of the Icy Soul, I threw a sleet storm+ice storm+Ice Flowers to try and do cold damage to the mobs and debuff their reflex even more. Nope, dropped maybe 1-2 more Abishai. I imagine the DC has to be in the 90's for these mobs.

I then went into EE Creeping. Did the same thing to the group of Kobolds. I was able to drop a few, however they immediately saved on the next proc. Did the same debuffing and only kept them on the ground for a few seconds. I imagine their DC's are closer to 88-90ish.

However, I did notice one thing that has changed about my DC.... It says fortitude? Is this correct? I've got previous pictures that show it's a reflex save.

Definitely a reflex save.

My findings are exactly the same as yours and is the reason I've set my druid aside for the moment and brushed the dust off my wizard.

It kind of bothers me that an enchantment wizard with a DC in the low 80's has no trouble catching very nearly everything in a dance ball, and yet an earthquake catches far fewer with a similar DC. Why the seemingly large disparity between a reflex save and a will save...sigh

[Kadrios]

It kind of bothers me that an enchantment wizard with a DC in the low 80's has no trouble catching very nearly everything in a dance ball, and yet an earthquake catches far fewer with a similar DC. Why the seemingly large disparity between a reflex save and a will save...sigh

Simplest answer would be that the monster saves are probably loosely based on the relevant creature types from the MM. Most races have (at least had in 3.5e) two good saves (often Fort and Ref, more rarely Ref and Will). Some types only had 1 good save, and some (Outsiders) had all 3. Of course, individual creatures sometimes had slightly different good saves than would be expected for their creature type.

[PsychoBlonde]

My caster druid has a DC of 86+ tops (that's DC on the tooltip, no debuffs or anything else going on), currently running a 77. I hopped in LE Creeping Death and pulled a "Fiendish Kobold" and a couple of slingers to play with. Here's what I found:

"Fiendish Kobold" saved on my 77 EQ roughly 60% of the time (estimated). It'd land, and it wouldn't always break immediately, but it spent slightly more time standing up than not.
Fiendish Kobold Slingers were not hit at all that I saw by 77 DC EQ.

I then hopped in LE To Curse The Sky and I was landing my 77 DC EQ on Hellcats and the green/black abishai in the first fight roughly 70% of the time.

HOWEVER, something I'd like to point out here:

EQ is NOT the only epic level CC available to druids any more. There's also Burst of Glacial Wrath, which, since it's evocation-based, will have your EQ DC +1, and it is a legit fort save. It was landing approx 60% of the time on ALL the critters listed here, and it works MUCH better on the kobold slingers since they seem to have a lower fort save.

So, my recommendation for epic druid DC casting is:

1. Aim for an 80 EQ DC (on the tooltip, before debuffs)
2. Get Burst of Glacial Wrath.
3. Alternate them.

Voila, you now have excellent LE CC.

I was also trying out Howl of Terror but it has a Spell Penetration check so is basically useless on the current endgame quests unless you want to go all-out on spell penetration, which I don't really recommend given how much druids already have to give up just to get their DC's into functional range. Maybe when they finally get around to re-doing druid enhancements this will become a viable alternative. It's already pretty hard on your DPS because you have to be in winter wolf form so unless you go for a melee/DC mix (ugh, the feats, there are nowhere near enough of them) you're going to be in bad shape.

[Lycurgus]

Definitely a reflex save.

My findings are exactly the same as yours and is the reason I've set my druid aside for the moment and brushed the dust off my wizard.

It kind of bothers me that an enchantment wizard with a DC in the low 80's has no trouble catching very nearly everything in a dance ball, and yet an earthquake catches far fewer with a similar DC. Why the seemingly large disparity between a reflex save and a will save...sigh

Hush, you. Or those dance ball dcs will suddenly stop working in your general vicinity.

[slarden]

Ok, so after tweaking my Druid and taking everything I possibly could to maximize evocation DC's, I got it to a Standing 81. No boosts or anything, only ship buffs+Gear+Feats. I went into EE To Curse the Sky and went up to the first mob (Abishai and Cat things) and cast Earthquake to see how it would go. Everything saved except 1 Abishai. While in Mantle of the Icy Soul, I threw a sleet storm+ice storm+Ice Flowers to try and do cold damage to the mobs and debuff their reflex even more. Nope, dropped maybe 1-2 more Abishai. I imagine the DC has to be in the 90's for these mobs.

I then went into EE Creeping. Did the same thing to the group of Kobolds. I was able to drop a few, however they immediately saved on the next proc. Did the same debuffing and only kept them on the ground for a few seconds. I imagine their DC's are closer to 88-90ish.

However, I did notice one thing that has changed about my DC.... It says fortitude? Is this correct? I've got previous pictures that show it's a reflex save.

Your DC is 4 higher than mine but my effective DC was 6 higher due to evocation augmentation. Would you mind twisting in evocation augmentation to see if it makes a difference?

Since I am depending on debuffs more it's possible the debuffs are working better than intended - if that is the case I have no such knowledge, but 77 with debuffs was working really well for me.

[slarden]

Definitely a reflex save.

My findings are exactly the same as yours and is the reason I've set my druid aside for the moment and brushed the dust off my wizard.

It kind of bothers me that an enchantment wizard with a DC in the low 80's has no trouble catching very nearly everything in a dance ball, and yet an earthquake catches far fewer with a similar DC. Why the seemingly large disparity between a reflex save and a will save...sigh

To be fair this is the first release in a long time where earthquake wasn't by-far better than every other form of cc in the game. Also keep in mind that with the high spell pen requirements for enchantment cc - 3 fvs + 3 wiz past lifes are almost mandatory and on top of that hitting the necessary enchantment DC is no easy task - only wizard has the bonus feats to take both spell pen+ dc feats.

I would say druid gets a very powerful cc spell with the least amount of investment. Enchantment requires a very high investment. Try hitting a 80 enchantment DC and 60 spell pen on a warlock for example - it's going to require some serious gimping to get there.