U41 Bug: Negative Energy Burst

[Pilgrim1]

Possible, very yes. Feasible? UUUUUUUGHHHHHH. Please don't make me do that. Please, anything but that. I'll remake Fatesinger again, I'll do anything, anything, but not that :<

Haha, is this why we get new spells so infrequently?

[Pyed-Pyper]

Lynnabel,

1) thank you for looking into this

2) thank you for asking for player input regarding solutions

3) as mentioned previously, I know of no experienced player that takes NEB in order to deal damage to opponents, and have personally never seen anyone do that. The spell is essentially worthless vs monsters. I feel confident is saying the almost exclusive use is self-healing and any changes should be considered with that in mind.

4) while strictly outside the scope of the discussion, I feel it necessary to point out another issue with NEB. Despite the spell description in-game ("A blast of negative energy expands from the caster..."), and the more detailed information on the wiki ("Target: Untargetable, Self centered circlar AOE" [sic]), NEB can be targeted on something besides the caster. I have personally seen the spell effect centered on a monster - visuals and effects - while not affecting the caster (my character). I suspect this is related to code related to targeting, e.g. the spell is coded as 'touch range' instead of specifically 'caster'.

[droid327]

Anything? Can we have more of the old potion-like Bound-to-item cosmetics brought back as BTA glamored cosmetics? Pretty please? I would like to see Lavender Spiral, Violet Beast and the Drow Spider stuff make a comeback.

Or should I make another pitch to add a gong to Devil Assault?

[Propane]

Possible, very yes. Feasible? UUUUUUUGHHHHHH. Please don't make me do that. Please, anything but that. I'll remake Fatesinger again, I'll do anything, anything, but not that :<

Well played - Meatloaf for the win...

[Krell]

It did, HOWEVER (and this is a big however) the portion of the spell that hits players (aka cast by monsters) did not, and when cast by a player on a player it'll use the old numbers. You can verify this by comparing the same spell cast on a monster by a player - it'll follow the new numbers. Our options are:

1. Change the numbers that hit players (monsters who cast this spell will start hitting players harder)
2. Don't do that

Thoughts?

I'd get much more use from a fix over the extra hit from the few mobs that use this.

[btolson]

Targeting flags are also wrong on this now. Should be "self" and nothing else. Currently it's "Foe, Directional, Undead Friend" which means the spell's succeed/fail range detection will be based on what you have targeted (or the ground if nothing targeted). This makes it really difficult to use.

[SpatzAI2]

Lynnabel,

4) while strictly outside the scope of the discussion, I feel it necessary to point out another issue with NEB. Despite the spell description in-game ("A blast of negative energy expands from the caster..."), and the more detailed information on the wiki ("Target: Untargetable, Self centered circlar AOE" [sic]), NEB can be targeted on something besides the caster. I have personally seen the spell effect centered on a monster - visuals and effects - while not affecting the caster (my character). I suspect this is related to code related to targeting, e.g. the spell is coded as 'touch range' instead of specifically 'caster'.

That is not my experience. I just retested and confirmed. The problem with the spell is it is always PBAOE but it allows you to target mobs. Let's say I caster FOD on a mob, it saves and whacks me good. I make a strategic retreat around the corner and try to use NEB to heal myself. It refuses to go off until I realize that I still have a mob targeted, but no line of sight. I either target myself or un-target the mob, then it works. If you have a mob targeted , have line of sight, and cast, it still goes off entered on you. The spell should have targeting options removed

[Grace_ana]

For those saying that players only use it for self-healing so it doesn't matter - that's not what she is saying. She is saying that when the monsters cast this spell, it will also do the same (more) damage to players, including non-undead ones.

That said, players have a lot of ways to mitigate that, and I would vote for changing it.

[Pyed-Pyper]

That is not my experience. I just retested and confirmed. The problem with the spell is it is always PBAOE but it allows you to target mobs. Let's say I caster FOD on a mob, it saves and whacks me good. I make a strategic retreat around the corner and try to use NEB to heal myself. It refuses to go off until I realize that I still have a mob targeted, but no line of sight. I either target myself or un-target the mob, then it works. If you have a mob targeted , have line of sight, and cast, it still goes off entered on you. The spell should have targeting options removed

The situation I described was with the target in LOS, what I would describe as "enlarged touch" range, where my character appeared to be just past the outer edge of the spell's animation. Is that situation recreateable? I don't know. I do know I experienced something at variance with the spell description, so something needs to be changed, whether it be underlying code, description, or something else.

[pjw]

...I'll do anything, anything, but not that :<

In the quixotic hope you are serious, here's a list!

• Small quest instance with a set of DPS Kobolds with dialogs that allow us to turn on/off features such as HP (100-500k), Fort (0-500%), DR (0-1000), DR/something (0-1000), SR etc.
• Stop NEB from consuming spell absorption.
• Give hirelings a "follow at 10 paces" option.
• Make EK useful in epics.
• Add some synergy to EK in Magister. eg. extra crit range/profile when in Knights Transformation, damage adders, boosts etc.
• Allow all DoTs to stack up to 8 times
• Reduce the cooldown on all DoTs

P.S. I would add "fix ladder hitching", but that would actually be a lower priority. It's not DDO without ladder hitching.

[Xgya]

If you're still taking votes, #1 gets mine, totally gets mine.

[Arty_Farty]

No one, no one... uses this for dmg to mobs. So clearly what we as players care about is the self healing portion, so I would say change the numbers that hit players.

Untrue - some people do use it for dmg to mobs.

Since Sharn release i have worked on my negative spellpower and been using Negative Energy Burst in combination with Necrotic Ray and Arcane Pulse as my regular boss damage rotation on my wizard, and a finisher while running through groups of damaged/cc'd mobs with great effect. It simply destroys on Elite/low skull reaper, nice on mid-skull, and still has a little utility even on high reaper (but id tend not to get close enough to use it often there).

I have also dusted off an old parked cleric in heroics and been running round in death domain using negative energy burst as one of the primary sources of mob damage.


As for the healing output from it, i think if you put some effort into it then it is already over-powered at cap and not needing further boosted as to how it hits players. Experimenting a few days ago i was hitting 5-6K heals on a friend from neg burst, and find it an adequate and reasonably scaled way of self-healing right up to high level reapers.

Please don't make things any easier by boosting this further. I and many other players appreciate having to put in the effort to build and gear our toons, and see the rewards for our efforts. Not wanting to be handed even more power on a plate for no effort.

Sartorin.

[Iriale]

Possible, very yes. Feasible? UUUUUUUGHHHHHH. Please don't make me do that. Please, anything but that. I'll remake Fatesinger again, I'll do anything, anything, but not that :<

lol poor. I am content with to avoid NEB from consuming spell absorption and that it can be casted in public areas again

Anything? Can we have more of the old potion-like Bound-to-item cosmetics brought back as BTA glamored cosmetics? Pretty please? I would like to see Lavender Spiral, Violet Beast and the Drow Spider stuff make a comeback.

See how Aelonwy takes advantage :-)

[apocaladle]

Possible, very yes. Feasible? UUUUUUUGHHHHHH. Please don't make me do that. Please, anything but that. I'll remake Fatesinger again, I'll do anything, anything, but not that :<

Thanks for fatesinger rework by the way, it went from trash to a tree that has some cool and interesting stuff.

[Vorachtin]

Untrue - some people do use it for dmg to mobs.

Since Sharn release i have worked on my negative spellpower and been using Negative Energy Burst in combination with Necrotic Ray and Arcane Pulse as my regular boss damage rotation on my wizard, and a finisher while running through groups of damaged/cc'd mobs with great effect. It simply destroys on Elite/low skull reaper, nice on mid-skull, and still has a little utility even on high reaper (but id tend not to get close enough to use it often there).

I have also dusted off an old parked cleric in heroics and been running round in death domain using negative energy burst as one of the primary sources of mob damage.


As for the healing output from it, i think if you put some effort into it then it is already over-powered at cap and not needing further boosted as to how it hits players. Experimenting a few days ago i was hitting 5-6K heals on a friend from neg burst, and find it an adequate and reasonably scaled way of self-healing right up to high level reapers.

Please don't make things any easier by boosting this further. I and many other players appreciate having to put in the effort to build and gear our toons, and see the rewards for our efforts. Not wanting to be handed even more power on a plate for no effort.

Sartorin.

I guess there is one guy in ddo that uses it for damage.

And apparently fixing a broken spell that is bugged invalidates his "hard work"

[Lynnabel]

No one, no one... uses this for dmg to mobs. So clearly what we as players care about is the self healing portion, so I would say change the numbers that hit players.

This will not affect damage to mobs. This will only affect damage to players. This change will make monsters with this spell stronger.

[Vorachtin]

This will not affect damage to mobs. This will only affect damage to players. This change will make monsters with this spell stronger.

Awesome, let's do it!

[Xgya]

This will not affect damage to mobs. This will only affect damage to players. This change will make monsters with this spell stronger.

That's how I understood it, and the reason why it got my vote.

Do it.
Dooo ittt.
Dew eeeeet.

[Jerevth]

This will not affect damage to mobs. This will only affect damage to players. This change will make monsters with this spell stronger.

Make it so.

Also... can you make it possible for dead toons to emote? Maybe unlock a third dance form that's somewhat creepy, like the twitchy movements from the Grudge and so many other horror flicks?

[ahpook]

This will not affect damage to mobs. This will only affect damage to players. This change will make monsters with this spell stronger.

I would caution against using the feedback here to "DO IT" as any kind of player consensus. This thread is a self selected discussion that is relevant to people in undead forms. A lot of players do not care about how this heals player characters but will see mobs in dungeons suddenly hit a lot harder with their neg spells. Those people are likely not reading this thread.

If this goes ahead, make sure that there is a lot of warning to players if the change is significant because those mitigation techniques that have been stated are not always used currently because people can currently play fine without them.