Reaper/Champion Changes: Recommendation and Reasoning, Jan10-12, Lamma Patch

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Preface. Jan10th played Harambegorilla (my pure necrolock with 2-3 DCs below max) in TOEE skull 10, Skull 10 Tempest's Spine, and Skull 5 Tempest's Spine.
We wiped in ToEE @ the air temple human boss. We wiped after exiting the outdoors in Skull 10 Tempest's Spine. We completed Skull 5 Tempest's Spine.
In all cases I had ~80% of the kills before we wiped or I swapped toons for STR lever.

Recommendation: Saves on mobs should be higher. +2 per skull, rather than +1?
Reasoning: My character has DCs 10 lower than a pure FVS/CLERIC or Wizard. (But DCs comprable with Sorc.) I felt like the instakills were cheesy. This is the problem that old epics had, and I think we as a community just need to raise the DC bar until it becomes more prohibitive. TOEE has the highest saves in the game and is the worst place in the world for a DC caster, and I was dominating compared to my melee, ranged, and shiradi companions.

Recommendation: The CC reduction needs tuning. Add 3 seconds to the minimum duration thingy.
Reasoning: Spells like web which only can "grab" mobs a few seconds after being casted are disproportionately affected by the CC reduction. I cast web and 6-8 seconds later its gone. Web only takes effect after 2-3 seconds and you have to kite mobs into it. Maybe it would be easier to adjust the length of web directly? I haven't tested all the spells but maybe I can get around to that today.

Recommendation: The champion naming should display when mob health bars are displayed.
Reasoning: Is it a bug that they're not currently? Mob health bars are more useful than champion naming. If I have to choose between one and the other then I won't be able to see champions except for crowns, and this project of "types" will be a failure. I know several other people in party felt this way quite strongly. This is the biggest complaint I had about the patch.

Recommendation: Summons, and companions shouldn't receive damage bonuses that scale with skull.
Reasoning: My ooze outkilled everyone in the party in a 10 skull LOD. (I was playing a TWF melee). I know we're over level but I was seeing 6-10k hits from the thing. Seems like a bug or exploit lol. ^^ Not that I don't love my oozes but if their damage stays the same (~600 a hit) they will still be out-dpsing me on 10 skull unfortunately.

Recommendation: Add a lock-out. Disenable cakes. Add a timer to pots and/or add more "magic gems" back in. General cheese reduction tactics.
Reasoning: Re-entering and cakes will become a problem for people trying to brute force a completion. Pot abuse is an issue throughout the game. This could be remedied I think by increasing the magic gem drop rate back up a little. It seemed a lot lower than last patch and last patch it was OP. Somewhere in the middle is what my feelers are tellin meh'.

Recommendation: A lot of us are having a ton of fun and you should remember that!!
Reasoning: You have great QA, and this patch is lookin good with the necro healing. Thank you.

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I hope ya'll take care of some of the cheese I've identified above to make it a more stream-lined gaming experience. Good luck!

[SirValentine]

Preface. Jan10th played Harambegorilla (my pure necrolock with 2-3 DCs below max) in TOEE skull 10
...
Recommendation: Saves on mobs should be higher. +2 per skull, rather than +1?
Reasoning: My character has DCs 10 lower than a pure FVS/CLERIC or Wizard. (But DCs comprable with Sorc.) I felt like the instakills were cheesy. This is the problem that old epics had, and I think we as a community just need to raise the DC bar until it becomes more prohibitive. TOEE has the highest saves in the game and is the worst place in the world for a DC caster, and I was dominating compared to my melee, ranged, and shiradi companions.

I feel we need more data, and more importantly, clarity on goals, before we jump to conclusions.

I thought you were only getting 50% success, and only that much when targeting mob weak saves?

Sure, devs can just inflate mob saving throws, but what's the goal? To make DC casting completely unworkable? What would be a good success rate, against strong saves, versus weak saves? What are the actual DCs of players, and saves of mobs, and in what content?

"What content?" matters. Reaper isn't just level 30s in Legendary content, either; it spans from level 2 quests on up. How does a level 4 Wizard land a Resistible Dance in Reaper Harbor if mobs all have +20 to saves?

[Kebtid]

Ah you did write in devchat that you get 50% of mobs in temple, i recall that.

Good analysis

[BigErkyKid]

I feel we need more data, and more importantly, clarity on goals, before we jump to conclusions.

Here, some shameless promotion of my thread:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...S-self-healing

I believe I have the formulas they used to scale damage and to debuff our DPS.

So now it is just a matter of whether you believe those numbers are "fun".

[Tlorrd]

from this thread and another, it sounds like summons (and hires i suppose) will be back in vogue ... they get the damage boosts applied to reaper ... thus my cleric can just spam some summon monster IX and VIII and sit back with invis scroll and heal them ... muhahaha.

[mikarddo]

I am a bit worried that some are already playing 10 skull decently well even if not completing without any of the benefits thats likely to come from "Reaper XP". It makes me wonder if - incredibly hard as it is - it may not be hard enough even so.

Imho Skull 10 completions should not happen at all for a long while - think AoW hard in EQ1 for those familiar with that.

[Mr_Helmet]

I am a bit worried that some are already playing 10 skull decently well even if not completing without any of the benefits thats likely to come from "Reaper XP". It makes me wonder if - incredibly hard as it is - it may not be hard enough even so.

Imho Skull 10 completions should not happen at all for a long while - think AoW hard in EQ1 for those familiar with that.

They're doing 10 skull SIGNIFICANTLY over-level without the healing debuff. Nobody is completely 10 skull at level content.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Imho Skull 10 completions should not happen at all for a long while - think AoW hard in EQ1 for those familiar with that.

+1

They're doing 10 skull SIGNIFICANTLY over-level without the healing debuff. Nobody is completely 10 skull at level content.

I'm talking about TOEE and Legendary Tempest's Spine.

"What content?" matters. Reaper isn't just level 30s in Legendary content, either; it spans from level 2 quests on up. How does a level 4 Wizard land a Resistible Dance in Reaper Harbor if mobs all have +20 to saves?

No one should be completing 10 skulls right now. If the DCs are too easy then that's a major problem. If they increase the DCs by 10 then max Wizards will feel like I felt that day.
If melee need 10s to kill a mob then 2 energy drains and a necro to kill something is reasonable.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Recommendation: Fix the display bug when someone enters on Reaper after someone else
Reasoning: yarrrrr

[Tlorrd]

No one should be completing 10 skulls right now. If the DCs are too easy then that's a major problem. If they increase the DCs by 10 then max Wizards will feel like I felt that day.
If melee need 10s to kill a mob then 2 energy drains and a necro to kill something is reasonable.

2 energy drains and a FOD ... 140 spell poiints a pop to kill a mob ... even with spell point gems ... that seems an unlikely balance b/t cost of killing a mob and how many mobs are in TOEE. And I'm talking about in a group. On average - Wiz at cap has 4500sp ... Sorc maybe 6k. That is 32 mobs or 43 mobs respectively. Plus by the time you recast energy drain ... the save debuff portion has already worn off, you'd only benefit from the save debuff from reduced hps with epic ward. And cap spell point pool is much greater than at heroic levels or early epic levels, but the spell point cost of these spells remain the same. So levels 1-25, you're using an even greater chunk of spell points since your pool is much smaller.

[Mr_Helmet]

If melee need 10s to kill a mob then 2 energy drains and a necro to kill something is reasonable.

"150ish SP a kill" and "reasonable" should never be used in the same statement.

[EllisDee37]

No one should be completing 10 skulls right now. If the DCs are too easy then that's a major problem. If they increase the DCs by 10 then max Wizards will feel like I felt that day.
If melee need 10s to kill a mob then 2 energy drains and a necro to kill something is reasonable.

But surely the mob save scaling based on skulls should be different for a level 2 harbor quest on 10 skulls compared to legendary Tempest's Spine on 10 skulls, right?

Adding +20 to their saves in legendary tempest spine makes it harder at level. Adding +20 to their saves in durk's got a secret makes it impossible at level.

[Mr_Helmet]

Adding +20 to their saves in legendary tempest spine makes it harder at level. Adding +20 to their saves in durk's got a secret makes it impossible at level.

People use DC spells at level 5?

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Recommendation: Running out of breath is an insta-kill.
Reasoning: Why? God is unforgiving.

[EllisDee37]

People use DC spells at level 5?

I do, for sure: Niac's Cold Ray and Scorch, for example. Web is also a go-to spell for low levels. And Charm Person was always a favorite of mine for low levels. Even moreso with champions. Who better to charm than the champ?

[EllisDee37]

Recommendation: Running out of breath is an insta-kill.
Reasoning: Why? God is unforgiving.

I strongly want this to be the case for the whole game, not just reaper. Further, in every quest where you can use underwater moss for breath, instead of casting waterbreathing on you (lame, unfun) it should simply reset your breath bar.

I really, really want this change. I did an entire life without underwater action, and I was greatly looking forward to the added fun that would bring to the swimming quests. When I found out that it was trivial to run out of breath, and that using those moss removed the breath bar entirely? Super disappointed. All my anticipation dashed.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

I strongly want this to be the case for the whole game, not just reaper. Further, in every quest where you can use underwater moss for breath, instead of casting waterbreathing on you (lame, unfun) it should simply reset your breath bar.

I really, really want this change. I did an entire life without underwater action, and I was greatly looking forward to the added fun that would bring to the swimming quests. When I found out that it was trivial to run out of breath, and that using those moss removed the breath bar entirely? Super disappointed. All my anticipation dashed.

+1

[Jasparion]

People use DC spells at level 5?

Web. Soundblast / Sonic Blast. Acid Spray. Etc...

Plenty of DC spells at low level.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

[Sam-u-r-eye]