The State of the Game in My Point of View

[slarden]

Have you tried Eth's build?

can't find it can you please send me a link.

[Vish]

One of the ways to "balance" classes is to include an easy button for noobs.
This is warlock.

Of course it's overpowered. By heroic standards. But it scales well through epic, because it's balanced for epic gameplay.
Heroic is just training ground.
This class because it's op, is excellent for noobs and getting one right into game. It's the easy button to help noobs compete with past lives. So in the "bigger perspective" it's balanced.

Now a lot of the gimp classes need love. They hopefully will eventually get theirs.
Divines are behind the curve, monks are kinda broken, and evrything else is a wash.
Ya, there is a lot of flavor builds. And then there are the min/max builds.
Depends on playstyle and experience.

And realize the forums are where ppl go when pizzed off. So it's mostly a whiner club.

Some experiences I had this morning. Running a first lifer warlock MC on a mule. In the harbor.
Hooked up in korThos witha couple, barb and fighter. Leader type said they were new. But he had movement down, looked like a vet type. We did some quests together, and instead of zerging, I let them roll ahead and do the killing. I had a clw I kept spamming to keep them going. And I invited them to my ship for buffs. They had no buffs. They were so happy. I gave them pointers on where to get pots and stuff and some general advice on quests and things, and had a great time letting them Zerg the quests. Got a level out of it before we were done. Found out leader was from lotro. Because I asked how they knew about ddo.
But I did that because I have a background as a cleric. Used to following and not leading the group. So it was easy to let them have fun. I think I sent a positive message. But that's my usual in the harbor.

So a lot of vets help.
Lfms are mostly been there done that lets get it over with.

My suggestion would be join a populous heroic running guild, and learn to play.

[Wizza]

The present state of the game intensely favors the Wizard and Warlock class, the later published as an easy way to make money, both modeled because the strong voices on the forums to improve these seemingly self-centered classes, self-centered in a way because of the people who play them do not see the bigger picture. For example, the Wizard class was given the opportunity to use the Intelligence modifier for both attack and damage, an opportunity Never offered the Monk class for either Wisdom or Dexterity, completely supporting the notion of short-sightedness. Both the Warlock and the Wizard are given the opportunity to have a full base attack bonus, not offered to Monk, easier to achieve than the Cleric and Favored Soul. How could a pure Sorcerer have much melee dps without changing the computer functions of Charisma ?? I am explaining how I go through the character creation process.

Some classes are so pathetic, their favored weapon is a heavy mace; really, have the developers completely fallen asleep ?? furthermore, the race who has their favored class Cleric can use their Dexterity modifier for damage ?? what? Wisdom a dump stat, Its hilariously stupid. A monk can specialize in force and fire damage, HAHA. A Druid unable to use weapons in epic quests because, to do so, they need to have Wisdom a dump stat, HAHA. The strongest dps Sorcerer builds require Intelligence, rather than Charisma. One race that increases Spell Craft by 20 ? which disables any hope of running any other race to maximize spell damage. You got to be kidding me.

I agree with everything you said. Sorcerers are really awful in this state of the game, which is why I turned mine into a ranged build, using bows and arrows and it's incredibly OP. I can basically dish out loads of damage easily and kite them forever. I think Ranged should be nerfed.

FVS healbots are OP as well. No SP spent and healed without problems. Nerf them and _{Rys too}

[Roberto]

I've been playing this game for a while...but I didn't know kill count meant anything. Is there an exp bonus for kill counts during quests?

[SeveredSteel]

He's likely talking about a shiradi hybrid that likely has a wizard icon. Those things are currently the strongest builds in the game.

The sorc icon that goldie designed and eth updated is by far superior. Also, trees>> everything. No other builds are soloing ee doj, breh.

[nokowi]

I've been playing this game for a while...but I didn't know kill count meant anything. Is there an exp bonus for kill counts during quests?

Nope.

But in a solo-centric game where everyone is playing a single player game, your DPS is all that matters, assuming you can keep yourself alive.

There is not really a problem with Warlocks per-se, there is a problem that the game is a single player game and there is really not much meaningful that those toons with less DPS can contribute.

[BigErkyKid]

I agree with everything you said. Sorcerers are really awful in this state of the game, which is why I turned mine into a ranged build, using bows and arrows and it's incredibly OP. I can basically dish out loads of damage easily and kite them forever. I think Ranged should be nerfed.

FVS healbots are OP as well. No SP spent and healed without problems. Nerf them and _{Rys too}

Cmon choose another quest, that animatic has awful ranged capacity. I don't think you did what you think you did there

[Roberto]

Nope. But in a solo-centric game where everyone is playing a single player game, your DPS is all that matters, assuming you can keep yourself alive.

Ok,t hanks. I think I'm playing the game wrong, because I only play solo quests solo. The rest I either duo or guild run.

[nokowi]

Ok,t hanks. I think I'm playing the game wrong, because I only play solo quests solo. The rest I either duo or guild run.

In today's game, you are playing it wrong if you focus on contributing something besides your own personal DPS.

This is by design, and at the expense of the quality of the game. If you have secondary abilities (healing, etc), the no-effort value is sufficient.

A group of players who have max dps and can keep themselves alive is superior to those doing anything else in most of DDO content.

Most players don't understand DDO mechanics and play non-optimally, so "playing the game wrong" should be fine with the lack of challenge in the game.

[Tilomere]

10) Artificer

Buff artificer. May I suggest increasing their spell crit enhancements be increased to 2% like every other class?

Spell Critical: Your Electric, Fire, and Force spells have an additional 1% to critically hit.

[FranOhmsford]

Buff artificer. May I suggest increasing their spell crit enhancements be increased to 2% like every other class?

Spell Critical: Your Electric, Fire, and Force spells have an additional 1% to critically hit.

Casting Spells while firing a X-Bow is pretty annoying - Artis are more a Ranged Class than a Spell Class.

Now I don't mind them getting their Spell DPS and CC buffed BUT the Devs need to accept that the X-Bow needs buffing because Artis are pretty much all going at least 5 Rogue Mech right now!

[jellyfish21]

My character reincarnated over 80 times. Therefore, I can solve an equation without TR being a factor. I attempt to solo every quest on heroic elite, multiple times, to figure out the viability of a build. This is where I get my information regarding the power between classes. I try to create a character with the answer to the equation in units of dps. The variables are race and class. One important dps build is a single target build, created to keep a 'red named' boss from moving. All two weapon fighting builds are similar. I will not get into ranged combat builds because of the natural debate of the benefit of standing still rather than kiting. I do not have enough experience with two handed builds to deliberate it. Any healer build that I made basically can never kill a 'red named' that can heal themselves. All single target arcane build runs out of spell points. Basically, all AoE arcane builds are, by far, the most powerful classes in the game. The CC builds can not dps fast enough to defeat all the enemies which are neutralized unless they have very powerful weapons in their TR cache. I believe there are build types other than these which I compartmentalized.

Several of the above replies to the original post were very interesting. Three of them really hit it home with me: playing as a team member, playing as a noob and playing for fun. It is true that most posts are venting, and I particularly felt good having the emotional support of the forum players. Finally, I used harsh words before; that is because those words are slang. Please treat them as slang. It is a way to vent. I apologize.

The 45 minute discussion was meant in relation to my equation for dps because I try to keep that variable constant.

[icekinslayer]

The only problem I have as a new player right now is, OP many lives characters steamroll zerging content so fast I can literaly never catchup to them.

I basically join a lfg... because I only have 5 min to get the adventure , it takes me 2 min to figure out where the quest entrance is because the quests are so scattered around the maps.

First I have to search for the quest in the adv compendium...
Then I have to search my questlog for the NPC or the location... If I dont have it...
Then I have to beg for a quest share... Which apparently everyone hates to do....
Then I have to get to the quest entrance, and hope that blinking door on my map is the right place.

Then I enter the quest (yay I'm here!), and see an experience award that the quest is finished...

Why even put up a LFM for a quest you can solo in less than 5 min on your 23 lives toon?

and people wonder why I prefer to solo in an mmo....

ddowiki.com is your friend. taking the time to learn where quests are before you join an lfm is good idea. the reason I typically put up an lfm for a quest I can easily solo is to share the easy xp with people, because I like to group with people, usually. It's not that hard to figure out which are the popular quests, open up a map of the area on the wiki and find out the easy way to get to said quest. Unless the quest giver is right outside the quest, I have no problem throwing someone a share. Just don't join the group, immediately demand a share, then be surprised when no one if forthcoming with that share.

[icekinslayer]

Artis are pretty much all going at least 5 Rogue Mech right now!

that's called 'synergy', you may not have heard of it before...it comes and goes in waves...remember when the solar phoenix was the fotm? remember when tukaw became fotm? this isn't just coincidence, it's because the game mechanics of the time favored certain aspects of these classes...you can't stop synergy, nor should you want to, it's what makes multiclassing fun, always has. And fwiw, saying something like 'pretty much all arties' is disingenuous, because it's not true.

[Taimasan]

P.s. Sev just recently announced that some allocated funding and manpower has returned to them due to other projects ending.

Source?

[TPICKRELL]

Source?

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...es#post5848829

[KoobTheProud]

Nope.

But in a solo-centric game where everyone is playing a single player game, your DPS is all that matters, assuming you can keep yourself alive.

There is not really a problem with Warlocks per-se, there is a problem that the game is a single player game and there is really not much meaningful that those toons with less DPS can contribute.

This is really the main issue.

Declining player population led to a push to make the game more solo friendly, which in turn attracted more players who like solo friendly games, which led to further declines in player population as the social aspects of an MMO were de-priorititized, etc, in a vicious never-ending circle since 2012 or so.

Perversely the incentives to be more social, mainly in the form of better guild buffs, actually help characters solo more efficiently as well and so they feed into the cycle instead of retarding it.

All of this is said from the perspective of a player who came back to DDO primarily because soloing got a lot easier, with many more builds solo capable in heroic levels than had been capable in 2007 when I left. I haven't even thought about grouping since I returned in 2009.

The current game does not encourage grouping, and the player base has always been subpar for grouping since launch. Early on this was because DDO did not easily lend itself to effective grouping due to casters and healers specifically being so gimped in terms of spell points at low levels and with such a high learning curve as to what was effective in that scarcity driven environment compared to most MMO's. Later on it was because the players who stuck around had developed ways (and been given ways by enhancements to the class roles) to be self-sufficient and so grouping was often just soloing in a crowd in a BYOH paradigm anyway.

Basically if healers specifically had been given the tools to heal effectively right off the bat in the original iteration of DDO most of the population decline would never have occurred in the first place. Instead you got healers getting beat on in groups when the groups failed, often due to play errors by other players and it became hard to find a healer and then people began playing builds that did not require one.

I healed in EQ, DAoC, EQ2 and WoW prior to 2006. No problems, because each of those games recognized that healers needed to be effective from level 1 onwards if you were going to make content that encouraged grouping from level 1 onward.

I tried a Cleric for a brief period in 2006 and early 2007 and it drove me out of the game because PUG's were unable to play in the effective ways required to make group content fun. A lot of this was the game system in play with limited spell points and leveling much slower than the typical MMO at the time. We all spent more time in the early levels with DDO than we had with any title since EQ, but even EQ recognized that constant regeneration of health and mana at places of the player's choosing was more conducive to good group play than having to get to the next shrine before the rogue got in trouble again and you had to sink all your spell points into keeping him alive instead of just healing the tank who was a better cost/benefit analysis in terms of spell points expended.

I know this all sounds like a rant, but DDO is the only game I have ever played where healing was a dishonored profession and basically little fun to do. Not surprisingly a decade down the road healers are largely ignored and most classes have self-healing options and the main healing classes haven't even been updated to the current state of the game.

[Stormraiser]

I still don't understand how exactly Shiradi works to make these particular builds so strong but OK so Shiradi Sorc or Shiradi Wiz will be amongst the top builds once they're in Epics with Shiradi maxed and with the right twists of fate.
But in Heroics they SUCK!
Because they're always behind the Pure and close to Pure Builds as Casters!

Shiradi like Tree is a Build specifically for END-GAME! It's not a Build I'd count or classify against standard Classes or Multiclasses - It's an advanced build for Epics alone!



I missed Bard in that list you quoted - I've gone back in and put it =5th with Fighter and Ranger.

If the Devs can just get Monk and FavSoul up to the same level they've got Bard, Ftr and Ranger to that will be pretty good BUT I still think those 3 Classes need a bit more {I'm not happy with Tempest at all and could probably put Bard and Fighter slightly ahead of Ranger!}. None of them compare with Paladin or Barbarian never mind with Warlock!

Wolf Druids are still basically an Exploit Build so any Update to Druids will probably reduce the effectiveness of Wolf.

Cleric is going to require a lot more work as is Wizard {We really need the Devs to do a full Spell Update!}.

Not to sound mean, but if you don't understand how something works "I still don't understand how exactly Shiradi works to make these particular builds so strong" why are you posting a build ranking?

Wizards in heroics work like this : They start out slow, and then they get a spell that kills groups of enemies in one or two casts, then they get another spell that kills enemies in one cast. Then they get more spells that kill groups of enemies in one cast. They aren't the best at red name DPS, but heroic red names aren't really bloated until about IQ.

[Stormraiser]

Quote Originally Posted by FranOhmsford View Post
Current Situation and Class Order of Power:

1) Warlock & Wolf Druid
2) Rogue {Mechanic Only}
3=) Paladin
3=) Barbarian
5=) Bard
5=) Fighter
5=) Ranger
8) Rogue Assassin
9) Sorcerer
10) Artificer
11) Monk & Rogue Acrobat
12) Wizard & Caster Druid
13) FavSoul
14) Cleric
15) Bear Druid



QUOTE=Marshal_Lannes;5852049]Good breakdown. I don't think it is any secret that some classes are better than others because some are 'modern' classes who have revamped trees and others don't. There really isn't much to complain about here and I agree with what others have pointed out that this seems to be a venting post. I would actually point out that the Devs have done a pretty darn good job balancing classes. Yes, Warlock and Mechanic are clearly the best classes but I see these as a bridge the Devs have provided for those with alts or new players - basically anyone who doesn't have 50 past lives. Warlock and Mechanic neutralize a ton of past lives. Paladin/Barbarian/Ranger/Bard are all about equal. I can't speak to fighters having never tried them or been that impressed by them. Assassins are a league of their own due to a different play style - they can be better than some of the classes above them or worse depending on the player. Assassin might be the perfect class. And yes, then you have the non-revamped classes. Some people have claimed sorcerers are better than Warlocks though so keep that in mind.[/QUOTE]

No, this is an absolute terrible breakdown for heroics. Here is what is important for heroic DPS in a nutshell :

1) I move from enemy to enemy using melee to kill.
2) I use ranged damage to kill enemies one at a time, prior to IPS
3) I cast single target spells to kill enemies one at a time
4) I move to groups of enemies using melee to kill - cleaves
5) I use ranged damage to kill enemies multiple at a time with IPS
6) I use multi target spells to kill groups
7) I cast one spell with a large AOE that kills groups of enemies
8) I cast spells without targetting groups of enemies and they still die, I worry about red alert
9) I cast spells without targetting groups of enemies and they still die, red alert never happens
10) I never stop moving forward, I always run forward while doing #9
11) I never stop moving forward, I always run forward while doing #9 AND I have fast movement from a barb level.

[Stormraiser]

One of the ways to "balance" classes is to include an easy button for noobs.
This is warlock.

Of course it's overpowered. By heroic standards. But it scales well through epic, because it's balanced for epic gameplay.
Heroic is just training ground.
This class because it's op, is excellent for noobs and getting one right into game. It's the easy button to help noobs compete with past lives. So in the "bigger perspective" it's balanced.

Now a lot of the gimp classes need love. They hopefully will eventually get theirs.
Divines are behind the curve, monks are kinda broken, and evrything else is a wash.
Ya, there is a lot of flavor builds. And then there are the min/max builds.
Depends on playstyle and experience.

And realize the forums are where ppl go when pizzed off. So it's mostly a whiner club.

Some experiences I had this morning. Running a first lifer warlock MC on a mule. In the harbor.
Hooked up in korThos witha couple, barb and fighter. Leader type said they were new. But he had movement down, looked like a vet type. We did some quests together, and instead of zerging, I let them roll ahead and do the killing. I had a clw I kept spamming to keep them going. And I invited them to my ship for buffs. They had no buffs. They were so happy. I gave them pointers on where to get pots and stuff and some general advice on quests and things, and had a great time letting them Zerg the quests. Got a level out of it before we were done. Found out leader was from lotro. Because I asked how they knew about ddo.
But I did that because I have a background as a cleric. Used to following and not leading the group. So it was easy to let them have fun. I think I sent a positive message. But that's my usual in the harbor.

So a lot of vets help.
Lfms are mostly been there done that lets get it over with.

My suggestion would be join a populous heroic running guild, and learn to play.

But I did that because I have a background as a cleric. Used to following and not leading the group

There is no where in the cleric class which says follow people. There is no where in the other classes which say lead the way and have clerics follow.
Nothing wrong with healing others, but if you only do that, that's the same as a bard who only buffs and doens't fight, an arcane who buffs /debuffs and nothing else or a rogue who only does traps and nothing else. You're taking one ability of the class.