2019 ED Pass: Arcane Sphere

[HastyPudding]

*hyperventilating*

First I looked at Magister and I was like YES!!! *with two silent middle fingers held up to Exalted Angel*

Then I looked at Fatesinger and I was like OMG I CAN'T DECIDE NOW!!

My only real complaint about Fatesinger was that it offers nothing in the way of enchantment or illusion DC's (just +2 DC's in The Fifth Chord, if I'm reading that right). Enchantments and illusion are the bread and butter (and flavor) of bards. I'd have expected maybe something in the upper tiers to compensate for spellsingers that aren't in Magister. +12 DC's vs +2 DC's (excluding the ability score enhancements) is a bit of a deal breaker.

[IBCrabin]

Is there a possibility of changing "Precise Casting: Conjuration / Evocation: Passive Bonus" to 2 and 4 instead of 1 and 2?


What type of numbers are we suppose to see using draconic? We are getting close to the 100% spell critical chance with all 4 element type, the extra extra 35% spell critical multiplier from the cores on top of the 35% LGS, 25% scion of fire, and 5% from Coalesced is going to create quite a bit of imbalance. This will get amplified when people combine with helpless mobs.

As a sorc in exalted angel, mobs die quickly in R1 to R5 when the toon have the evocation DC to not fail the spell to land. The extra 35% spell critical multiplier will push melee toon out of the party in quests environment.

[Carpone]

Draconic Energy Vortex -- any chance you'll fix the discrepancy between the description and current state? Despite the description which says it ticks every 2 seconds, it actually ticks every 3 seconds, for 15 ticks total.

[pjw]

I like the thought that has gone into these trees, and in light of the suggestion that new stuff is impossible, but simpler changes are, I have a couple of comments. I can also suggest a range of ideas that integrate with Enhancement Trees nicely, but that is a much more complex route to take.

1. Strictly segregating DC/DPS is not a good approach: Each kind of caster needs to be "OK" at the other task (but not as good).

2. Bottom Line: DC casting is about taking out the trash. Nothing more. It is (approximately) useless on red-names. DC casters need something for red names.

3. DPS casters fare apallingly in epics against red names (eg. vs 250k HP). With a full SP bar, 250k damage is entirely possible, but will literally take several minutes. Meanwhile my DPS melee friend will kill a similar enemy in about 20-30 seconds. We have enough Damage-Per-SpellPoint, just not enough Damage-per-Second.

Given the above, I would suggest:

• DPS: each core of magister reduce the cooldown of all spells by 12.5%, for a total of 75% reduction.
• DPS: each core of draconic reduce spell cooldowns by 15%, for a total of 90%.
• DCs: Every second core of Draconinc incxreases spell DCs (they need to have DCs, just not as good as magister)
• The epic moments in both should come with a +500 (or 1000) Spell Power Boost.

I recognize the DPS increase (10x) for draconic may *seem* a little high, especially if on a sorc who is already fast; if so make it the same as magister (roughly a 4x increase in DPS). But is should not be lower than that. My DC Wizzzard sucks at DPS and should not. Sorcerors should excel at DPS, Wizzzards should nevertheless "get by" at DPS, not crawl!

If this is not something that is palatable to the powers that be, then perhaps add an Epic Feat: "Spells with this feat active cost 5 times their usual amount and deal 5 times the damage". This would also help fix caster DPS.

If reducing times as a core is unpalatable, then perhaps add a 75% cooldown to the acrcane sphere thingies. Though that would make them mandatory choices, which is why I think it belongs in the core.

Edit: To clarify; part of my reasoning for arguing for a DPS increse in EDs is that it is exactly the right place for it to go. Casters (DPS and DC) are fine in heroics. They suck for DPS in epics; ED's (or free epic feats) are a natural place to address this. The +25% crit multiplier for draconic sounds good, and as a cost-free boost, it's great. My proposals are about trying to boost Damage-Per-Second, without boosting Damage-per-SpellPoint in order to address this imbalance.

[Whisper1]

+5% spell crit seems like overkill and not too helpful

I'm at 92% fire crit on my sorc right now on live, and it's not even a teifling, or maxed out for spell crits. putting him at 130% doesn't seem helpful.

how about +1 on caster level and max caster level in there

Do calc of your crit. I dont think 92% is possible for non-thiefling (-8% crit).

[Xugx_quetoxi]

I don't know if it's been mentioned before, but PLEASE change Energy Sheath so we can change the energy type without resetting the whole tree every time we switch from one raid to the other.


Thank you for listening and your consideration

[Whisper1]

Can developers clarify on this?

Magister destiny gives extra +6 spell DC (from core), also extra +3 spell DC (from Master of school) and click to get +5 from Spellsurge (20 sec duration/1 min cd).
So we are looking at extra 14 to spell DC's. Was this thought out?

I play blasting caster (evocation spec, yeah we exist) but this is crazy.


On other hand you give +30% crit damage for Draconic, but thing as blasting sorc Magister would be much better. No really choice. Why? I have 90 DC to save evocation spells + twist to lower 10 reflex saves but still a lot of mobs save often even on R1.

So i would take Magister over Draconic any time.
+30% crit dmg is only nice IF i stop seeing "saves" a lot of time even with high evocation DC
Extra +14 spell DC >>> +30% crit dmg and 50 spell power

p.s. I do welcome increase to spell DCs. But this makes every evocation sorc go to Magister. And will over-buff cheese insta-kill builds (they already can solo high reaper with insta-kills/charms), while evocation sorcs (already weak) will have to abandon our Draconic sphere.

[Whisper1]

"Fearsome Invulnerability no longer needs to be charged.
It no longer says it does an Intimidate effect, on account of that functionality never being implemented ever.
It now also adds +30 PRR, MRR, and MRR Cap for the duration
It now has a 4 minute cooldown."

+30 PRR and MRR?... I have 120 PRR and 100 MRR, this will buff my resistance vs physical and spell like what, extra 6-7% for short duration? Compared to +10.000 hp for 30 seconds or immunity to hostile magic for full party?

What?

[Varr]

This is great! My Lich-Monk is now going to have a Necro DC of One Million!!!

About time!

[pjw]

Arcane Tempest is there for those who want to drop big damage on stuff part-time.

I am not sure it achieves this. First, DC casters can already take out the trash effectively, but AOE DPS always adds colour, but by my sums it is (very optimistically) going to do:

- 2d6 PCL is, say, 52d6 (assumining arcane aug 1) = 182 base
- assume 1000 spell power (assuming all metas apply, and very good gear) = 2000pts
- 10 seconds, once per 2 sec = 10,000 pts.

On the face of it, that's pretty nice, it's basically a DoT version of Energy Burst, perhaps slightly more damage.

But, against a single target it's 300DPS since it's only usable once every 30 seconds. It might be big damage, it's not big DPS. In a party, most in the area will be dead from melee before the third tick...or have moved away.

Can it be remade as single-target, and 5 times the damage? DC casters don't need help clearing the trash.

Edit: also, if it is intended as a DPS option for people to have fun, they should just twist Energy Burst IMO.

[pjw]

...Why? I have 90 DC to save evocation spells + twist to lower 10 reflex saves but still a lot of mobs save often even on R1.

So i would take Magister over Draconic any time.
+30% crit dmg is only nice IF i stop seeing "saves" a lot of time even with high evocation DC
Extra +14 spell DC >>> +30% crit dmg and 50 spell power
...

This is why strictly demarking draconinc and magister as DPS and DC is a flaw. DPS casters need DCs, and DC casters need DPS. They just should not be equally good at both. eg. magister should have 2/3 the DPS of draconic, and draconic, a slightly lower DC (perhaps a total of 3 or 4 less).

[pjw]

...
[B]Draconic Incarnation[*]Go Out with A Bang, Energy Burst, and Energy Vortex now use their spell schools' (Evocation/Conjuration) bonuses as part of their DC calculation.

Daunting Roar needs to have necro (fear) or enchant (mind affecting) or some other DC added to it; it does not scale well.

[Grace_ana]

*hyperventilating*

First I looked at Magister and I was like YES!!! *with two silent middle fingers held up to Exalted Angel*

Then I looked at Fatesinger and I was like OMG I CAN'T DECIDE NOW!!

My only real complaint about Fatesinger was that it offers nothing in the way of enchantment or illusion DC's (just +2 DC's in The Fifth Chord, if I'm reading that right). Enchantments and illusion are the bread and butter (and flavor) of bards. I'd have expected maybe something in the upper tiers to compensate for spellsingers that aren't in Magister. +12 DC's vs +2 DC's (excluding the ability score enhancements) is a bit of a deal breaker.

I would agree with this. Fatesinger is tough because bards can do so many different things. I would like to see some DC options in there for them as well, and perhaps a spell pen option too like in magister and draconic. Bards typically use enchantment, illusion, and/or evocation, and it would be great to have boosts for those.

[Shedrakzo]

As another suggestion regarding Fatesinger, perhaps Bladesong could be split into two separate enhancements: The "2d6 Sonic damage on hit scaling with spell power" portion becomes a Tier 4 ability, while the rest stays Tier 5 so that the former can be twisted. And perhaps the altered Tier 5 version could grant the ability to include longswords to weapons usable by swashbucklers. Without buffs, if that's considered too overpowered.

If that cannot be done, perhaps the damage portion of Bladesong could be increased just a bit to 6d6 or something higher, as 2d6 even with very high spell power doesn't seem to be very much. For instance, a friend has 600 sonic spell power when fully buffed and the 2d20 die from Feywild only deals about 200-300 a swing, even with the harmonic resonance debuff applied.

[Targal]

the most problemetic issue on Draconic Incarnation is that nuker casters will still use Magister due to lack of DCs. higher contents needs us to have higher DC.

I'll put simple comparison. Let's think there is 10,000 damage.

* Both: 10,000 damage / 5,000 damage on save

and when it critically hits.

* Draconic(30% crit damage): 23,000 damage / 11,500 damage on save
* Magister(6+ DC): 20,000 damage / 10,000 damage on save

30% crit damage isn't attractive than having +6 DC. You lose +6 DC which can keep full damage, to gain 30% bonus damage which procs only when you critically hit.
My suggestion is that Draconic core should have Evocation/Conjuration DC bonuses. I'm a sorc user, but I'll not choose Draconic unless I can get DCs very well.



...or this can be a solution. Reduce DC failure penalty. then It'll be like this:

* Draconic: every core, your DC failure damage penalty is decreased by 10%
* when it is decreased by 50% and you failed to DC, 10,000 damage becomes 7,500 damage on save(penalty 5,000 * 50%)
* with full core, it is 60%. 10,000 damage will become 8,000 on save.
(5,000 * 60% = 3,000 away => base damage 5,000 + penalty away 3,000 = 8,000)
* It only applies caster's elemental spells.


---

Nuker casters have critical problems that they can't make any dps at Higher Reapers. I'm not sure if you can solve this via Destiny abilities... but I hope you know the issue.

[noinfo]

Can you make energy sheath a selector type spell, so we dont have to reset it over and over.

This please.

[ElweSulk]

Fatesinger

• Turn of the Tide: Clean up what it actually gives you, make sure it's actually working as intended

Improved Turn of the Tide:
- No longer a Bard Song
- 3 minute cooldown
- Sonic and Light Damage now applies to bosses

Suggested changes in addition to what above:
- Make the Sonic and Light damage scale with greater of: Sonic spellpower, Light Spellpower, Melee power (200%), Ranged power (200%), (or maybe also greater of all spellpowers; this would make it more available and interesting for different builds)
- Increase duration to 30 seconds
- 2 min cooldown (compared to increased dmg ouput from legendary dreadnought & Fury of the wild; a short cooldown is needed here)
- I think current version locks you out of using anything except normal attack during it's duration. Please make it so that it doesn't lock anything out.

[janave]

Can developers clarify on this?

I play blasting caster (evocation spec, yeah we exist) but this is crazy.

Same boat, my Wizard AM (Magister) will get a major freebie he didn't even work for, and is already out DPSing my Sorcerer (EA) elemental savant. Now, If my Sorc wants to catch up with the DC creep, will need to give up basic survivability and go to Magister, ya know they dont get any from class like Wizard(PM), (or reroll into Aasimar).

My Sorc is failing DC 113 Thunderstrokes on some Sharn mobs, failing DC104 holds on Gnolls all the time, while my Magister can wait to trigger Arcane Supremacy + hit WellSpring, and just kill stuff by the half of splash damage. Wo hoo now I will be hitting them for full damage.

Thanks for the freebie I guess, but this wont make the game more balanced or offer more play choices, it will become more cookie cuttered than ever

All what he said too

Evokers will still need to land holds to efficiently and safely DPS. DC > measily spell damage increases.

[ElweSulk]

I don't know if it's been mentioned before, but PLEASE change Energy Sheath so we can change the energy type without resetting the whole tree every time we switch from one raid to the other.


Thank you for listening and your consideration

YES! This one please.

[Lynnabel]

- I think current version locks you out of using anything except normal attack during it's duration. Please make it so that it doesn't lock anything out.

This was fixed with U41 :)