Deep Gnome PK DC

[5chinoble]

so has anyone gotten to the bottom of this ?

Since the combat log is now broken and doesnt give DC, Spell Pen and caster level anymore

any ideas ?

it seems weeker than the archmage PK SLA, should they not be the same on a pure wizard with all meta's active ?

[5chinoble]

I would do a search on the forums for this as a good citizen would.... but the search fascility is busted.....

and normally i test these things... but the combat log is also broketed...

[KoobTheProud]

How do you measure weakness? It's going to take a lot of attempts to categorically define one PK as weaker than the other. If all your attempts are failing on one mob with DG and a few are succeeding with AM then maybe we can make that determination with a smaller sample size.

The other question is: how are AM PK attempts with the DG Illusion DC enhancement factored in? There's a lot of ground to explore here.

[5chinoble]

How do you measure weakness? It's going to take a lot of attempts to categorically define one PK as weaker than the other. If all your attempts are failing on one mob with DG and a few are succeeding with AM then maybe we can make that determination with a smaller sample size.

The other question is: how are AM PK attempts with the DG Illusion DC enhancement factored in? There's a lot of ground to explore here.

thats why i am asking for advice, through playing experiance the Deep Gnome SLA seems to fail more than the AM one

I hotbar them, 1 and 2, a fair number of times the Deep Gnome failed and subsequently the AM killed

I cant test further as the combat log doesnt work anymore

[Enoach]

I know there was some initial testing to determine if it was INT based or based on any other Attribute such as Wisdom. It appeared to be INT based.

That being said using the Gnome SLA and then Archmage SLA can be a flawed test, the reason is that there is a de-buff at epic levels as mobs loose health so firing one at full health and one at less will have a difference in effectiveness especially when your DCs are right on the edge.

I do think more testing is needed.

[unbongwah]

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...nome-sla-tests

Definitely appears to be based on INT; if you use Heighten, it appears to be based on whatever's your max spell level, rather than your max arcane spell level. Interesting, although in practice I don't know why you would use gnome SLAs on anything besides wiz or maybe arty.

[And until Turbine fixes forum search, just use the "site:ddo.com" parameter on Google.]

[01000010]

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...nome-sla-tests

Definitely appears to be based on INT; if you use Heighten, it appears to be based on whatever's your max spell level, rather than your max arcane spell level. Interesting, although in practice I don't know why you would use gnome SLAs on anything besides wiz or maybe arty.

[And until Turbine fixes forum search, just use the "site:ddo.com" parameter on Google.]

Any int build that gets heighten is fairly effective, so rogues if you take a few caster level for hieghten and illusion focii(for pk), any int based melee(harper) or swashbuckler.

Ill reiterate those tests i did were very basic, but yeah, at least seems evident they are int based and not class based for dc, likely character level instead.

Im using them on a bunch of characters, tho i havent max leveled them yet since ive been focusing on some other stuff lately.

[01000010]

I know there was some initial testing to determine if it was INT based or based on any other Attribute such as Wisdom. It appeared to be INT based.

That being said using the Gnome SLA and then Archmage SLA can be a flawed test, the reason is that there is a de-buff at epic levels as mobs loose health so firing one at full health and one at less will have a difference in effectiveness especially when your DCs are right on the edge.

I do think more testing is needed.

I did my tests at heroic levels, but i agree 100% more testing is needed. Ill do some more tests eventually i imagine, but not for a month probably.

[5chinoble]

I did my tests at heroic levels, but i agree 100% more testing is needed. Ill do some more tests eventually i imagine, but not for a month probably.

thats the problem i'm finding without the combat log properly showing everything now its all a bit off, or almost a shot in the dark

on the release there is one thing I can note with heighten only on both the archmage SLA and the deep gnome SLA for PK there was a difference in caster level of the spell by about 3-4 levels, the archamge was cast at a higher level

but one would think with heighten on, and than using the twilight (arcane augmentation) both would be cast at the same level, but that wasnt the case

what was the resoning behind killing the combat log anyway ?

[KoobTheProud]

thats the problem i'm finding without the combat log properly showing everything now its all a bit off, or almost a shot in the dark

on the release there is one thing I can note with heighten only on both the archmage SLA and the deep gnome SLA for PK there was a difference in caster level of the spell by about 3-4 levels, the archamge was cast at a higher level

but one would think with heighten on, and than using the twilight (arcane augmentation) both would be cast at the same level, but that wasnt the case

what was the resoning behind killing the combat log anyway ?

What destiny were you in? This could be a bug with the Deep Gnome SLA's not recognizing caster levels from destinies and the AM SLA's counting them since the AM SLA's have been around for a long time and have been fixed if they were not seeing them.

[01000010]

What destiny were you in? This could be a bug with the Deep Gnome SLA's not recognizing caster levels from destinies and the AM SLA's counting them since the AM SLA's have been around for a long time and have been fixed if they were not seeing them.

Thats the problem with slas, so many things dont work that should and do work that shouldnt, the more sla testing you do the more amazd youll be at the randomness of how each works, lol.

[walkin_dude]

Thats the problem with slas, so many things dont work that should and do work that shouldnt, the more sla testing you do the more amazd youll be at the randomness of how each works, lol.

I guess that's why they're spell "like" abilities.

[01000010]

I guess that's why they're spell "like" abilities.

Im pretty sure(and hope) youre joking, lol. There is no reason for these things to be so willy nilly on what works with them, an SLA that specifiacally says its evocation but doesnt get any bonuses from evocation gear? Feats may or may not work with them, has spell pen check but no spell pen increasing stuff works(making them useless in a lot of content)?

Its just dumb.

[Enoach]

Im pretty sure(and hope) youre joking, lol. There is no reason for these things to be so willy nilly on what works with them, an SLA that specifiacally says its evocation but doesnt get any bonuses from evocation gear? Feats may or may not work with them, has spell pen check but no spell pen increasing stuff works(making them useless in a lot of content)?

Its just dumb.

I'm ok with a {enter school here} DC not working with gear/enhancements etc. as long as the formula is knows, such as determining DCs based off Character Levels for example.

Same for Spell Pen if spells level is known or is calculated at a higher level.

I agree it is the Unknown formulas that make this hard for players to adjust to how/when a SLA is useful.

[Jetrule]

I will add further anecdotal evidence of the Deep Gnome Sla not being as effective as the heightened spell. I have not tried it with the sla from Archmage. However the heightened spell is noticeably more likely to land for me. This is heroic elite content tested with a d.c. of 43 being shown for the "always heightened" spell and no dc showing up on the "always heightened" D.G. sla. this is on a lvl 17 pure wizard.

[IronClan]

Likely they made it a specific DC formula like Destiny SLA's and Epic spell feats. something like 10+ half character level + INT mod.

the problem of course is that this means the DC's totally outstripped at later levels

No focus item -6
No focus feats -3
No focus augment -2
No insightful spell DC -1 or 2
No Draconic presence twist -3
No Magister Illusion twist -3
No Heighten -5

that's a potential minus 23 or more deficit in DC.

Of course the Dev's have designed late level monsters to NEED all these to be able to land spells with DC's reliably. You're going to have to hit something like a 95 DC to get past the fort save of many mobs in LE. making things with special hard coded DC formula's "traps" to build for things like:

Soundburst SLA (tops out around 25 DC below useful level)
Mass frog (tops out around 40 DC below useful level)
Forced Escape (same as mass frog about 40 DC below but at least gets half damage on a save)
Tsunami (at least has viable force component)
The list goes on and many tacticals of course and a LOT of enhancement abilities that have a DC are build traps due to this.

[IronClan]

I'm ok with a {enter school here} DC not working with gear/enhancements etc. as long as the formula is knows, such as determining DCs based off Character Levels for example.

Same for Spell Pen if spells level is known or is calculated at a higher level.

I agree it is the Unknown formulas that make this hard for players to adjust to how/when a SLA is useful.

My testing shows that anything that can be resisted by mob SR that doesn't use the normal spell penn forumla, simply uses character level. Meaning that it's going to have a 5% chance to get past SR in almost any Epic content with mobs that have SR.

Soundburst SLA is a good example, last I tested it had 28 spell penn at level 28 (now 30) and nothing boosts it. it's completely useless against mobs with SR, and now that they've added a gross block of +20 to most mobs reflex saves from ToEE up, the DC formula is non viable even though it targets reflex instead of fort unlike it's heroic counterpart spell.

Sadly I have the impression reinforced by their own statements of design intentions on the PC that the Dev's intend it to be this way from a philosophical standpoint . In other words they have stated more than a few times that they are okay with powers being good at some levels and no longer good at later levels. Unfortunately as I've tried to point out many times, DDO's complex character building and $20 respec system is not a good fit with abilities that are only useful in a range of levels. because to make them work you have to invest permanent character build choices, that cost a lot of money t respec out of when they've surpassed their designed in "3 levels of utility" so in essence we simply avoid using those abilities

er go Dev time spent on those abilities was a waste of manhours.

At best these poorly designed abilities represent proof that the Dev staff is not on the same page as the pragmatic reality of the game, at worst they represent a money grab in an attempt to leverage expensive real money respecs.

[IronClan]

Thats the problem with slas, so many things dont work that should and do work that shouldnt, the more sla testing you do the more amazd youll be at the randomness of how each works, lol.

It's also a problem of them not being 100% consistent and always insisting on getting the DC to display in the spell/SLA's tool tip.

If this worked on every spell there would be less misunderstandings of what works, and I wouldn't have spent weeks in 2014 on the PC going back and forth about how great mass frog works with someone because someone used it in a EN explorer zone and nothing much saved. The person would have been able to see that their focus items and DC gear was not raising the DC and that the 40-ish Fort DC's of eOrchard were not an indication of it being a good feat to take.

Instead they argued against me and the Dev's probably said "oh well someone likes it so it must be good enough" meanwhile here we are with 95 fort DC's and Mass Frog still tops out at 50 ish.

[cpw_acc]

I asked basically the same question in the Races forum about the Color Spray SLA (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...stion-for-devs). All the same questions apply.

And its not the first time this has been asked about SLAs.

At this stage, I'm not even asking for a software change to put this info in the descriptions or tooltips or anything (though that would obviously be the ideal), just for someone to tell us the answer!

Surely somebody in dev must know the answer to this and could just tell us the formula so we can plan?

(Unless they used some kind of double-blind/random-code generation to produce SLA DC values

[LightBear]

Yeah, if only we could open up a formulas tab on the character info with things like these.
Or what about a tooltip with the formula if you mouse over the feat/spell/SLA in the character info screen?
The formula alone would be enough at that place tho it would seriously help if the numbers where filled in if you mouse over (thus at the hotbar) the feat/spell/SLA once dragged down to the hotbar.

Btw, the combat log should only provide pass/save/damage done info if your monster manual is up to par.

All this imho ofc.