2019 ED Pass: Arcane Sphere

[pretendcasualplayer]

Three questions regarding Draconic Incarnation:

1) What are the new DCs for the Draconic Incarnation spells? (Vortex, Energy Burst specifically). The old one was (reflex save DC 20 + 1/2 character level + INT/CHA modifier for half damage)
2) Can wisdom characters get in on the fun here too? I always had issues that Clerics/Druids got left out on this tree.
3) Druid wolf technically has a frost breath weapon that doesn't seem to benefit from anything. Breath Weapon Focus, for example. Any way that can get attention here?

I also have comments and questions that have dragged me out of the woodwork to finally post. Are you keeping the existing calculation and simply adding the spell school to it or are you considering something else?

I understand why you are changing the acid portion of Draconic to Conjuration bonuses for Sorcerers, but as proposed this is also yet another potential nerf to Warlock casters using GOO pact. There are not enough feats to allow both an Evocation and Conjuration focus and still enable a warlock caster to be relevant in high difficulty end game content. Why not make the calculation for nuking abilities in this tree the higher of Evocation or Conjuration bonuses to enable relevance to both Sorcerers and Warlocks? Does Warlock really need another debuff?

Since we are considering leveling out power imbalances let's talk about how under powered Fey pact is relative to the other two with the Ravenloft belts. The argument that not many mobs have resistance to sonic doesn't hold up when many mobs are also not resistant to acid and Tiefling Improved Scorch removes fire immunity. If Fatesinger's Harmonic Resonance proposed "Attacks have a chance of building up Resonance ..." refers to non-spell damage, why don't we change this to something actually relevant for sonic casters? Are we planning on adding equivalent gear for stacking sonic spell power bonuses instead?

As a long time DC caster player I am certainly in favor of the Magister changes. Currently, you have to gimp a non-Shiradi caster wizard to make DC relevant in mid to high reaper and a wizard doesn't contribute much DPS for mobs outside of his or her DC. With all of the death warded mobs and champs, the high DCs of Sharn, the relatively low negative healing available to PMs, and the low hp and armor restrictions, the DC and Arcane Tempest updates will help keep things balanced. Many forum posters have tons of past lives and gear from raids that basically no one runs anymore. From what I see on Ghallanda, a good chunk of these players prefer to group with comparable players and everyone else is left in the dust. While the Magister changes may make these already OP players more so, they do help level the playing field as well.

[deconedi]

Hey Devs.

Would be possible to put the sigils in the core? I know it is a matter of choice to distribute the 24 points in the tree, but I think that the sigils are underutilized as an option in the tiers. It would be a viable and versatile option to help party, since only one sigil remains active at a time.

[Xgya]

I also have comments and questions that have dragged me out of the woodwork to finally post. Are you keeping the existing calculation and simply adding the spell school to it or are you considering something else?

I understand why you are changing the acid portion of Draconic to Conjuration bonuses for Sorcerers, but as proposed this is also yet another potential nerf to Warlock casters using GOO pact. There are not enough feats to allow both an Evocation and Conjuration focus and still enable a warlock caster to be relevant in high difficulty end game content. Why not make the calculation for nuking abilities in this tree the higher of Evocation or Conjuration bonuses to enable relevance to both Sorcerers and Warlocks? Does Warlock really need another debuff?

Another easy option would be to make the GOO damage Conjuration-based. Though that might be considered a buff to GOO Warlocks.

[Strambotica]

There is any chance that the Tier 6 Fatesinger ‘Greater Shout’ could do more damage? After all is a Tier 6 SLA.
I really don’t see me using this ED as a Bard, since as a caster I like DC (AKA EA atm and Magister after the pass). But maybe, only maybe… if I could have something to do some damage.
In the last month I did my last 2 Bards PL on my main character, great DC… but zero damage.
· Spellsinger 44 AP
· Warchanter 24 AP (only for extra charisma and Medium armor)
· Swashbuckler 7 AP for speed :P
· Tiefling Scoundrel 16 AP had fun with Fiendish Arpeggio.

So, you can see this is full caster and zero melee. I would like to see some DPS, at least in the ED.

PD: sorry for my bad English and for some long post, but like to put them in a context :P

[slarden]

Overall I like the changes. Divines definitely have better DC potential from their enhancement trees / domains. This change brings wizards, sorcs, bards, fvs and clerics very close with warlocks just slightly behind if they run in magister. Druid casters lose out on caster levels if they choose EA, magister or draconic and only one of those trees supports wisdom. I would suggest that EA should boost divine and primal caster levels until you address the casting aspects of primal avatar better.

This change also makes choosing cha-based fvs a little more interesting as it will have higher dc potential than wisdom in magister. Charisma casting favored souls are decidedly weaker than wisdom casting clerics/favored souls currently so I don't think this is problematic.

I like giving draconic crit damage boosts in the cores as it helps dps casting scale a little better and differentiates the trees better. Giving dragon's breath a cooldown rather than charges makes the destiny alot more compelling for people running mid skulls and below. I think draconic can be a good destiny for an arcane warrior type artificer or eld knight - both of which are flavor builds today and probably still will be after the change.

I like the greater shout sla and bound fate improvements. If bound fate still works on red names it might be a bit broken with the high dc and potentially abused. Assuming bound fate doesn't work on red names I think the tree needs more to match magister, EA and draconic. For example since bards only have 6 caster levels adding 3 universal casters levels in the cores makes sense - or alternatively +1 for each core to enchant and evocation only. Alternatively some dps slas associated with the cores. As it stands I would choose EA, Draconic or Magister over fatesinger for a bard. Unless bound fate still works on red names - then a fatesinger bard will be highly desired.

[janave]

I think the fact we discuss EDs as "one for mid skulls and another for highs skulls reaper" - tells the design is fundamentally wrong...

[Steelstar]

I think the fact we discuss EDs as "one for mid skulls and another for highs skulls reaper" - tells the design is fundamentally wrong...

As we've said before, we aren't balancing this around Reaper.

[IlmerSilverhilt]

I like the greater shout sla and bound fate improvements. If bound fate still works on red names it might be a bit broken with the high dc and potentially abused. Assuming bound fate doesn't work on red names I think the tree needs more to match magister, EA and draconic. For example since bards only have 6 caster levels adding 3 universal casters levels in the cores makes sense - or alternatively +1 for each core to enchant and evocation only. Alternatively some dps slas associated with the cores. As it stands I would choose EA, Draconic or Magister over fatesinger for a bard. Unless bound fate still works on red names - then a fatesinger bard will be highly desired.

I hope they make it work on everything and just balance it with the DCs. As it is now I cant get anything in THTH, hope with new formula it will be possible at least sometimes 8)

[Arkat]

As we've said before, we aren't balancing this around Reaper.

I'm sure you'll have to keep saying it over and over and over and over and over...

[slarden]

As we've said before, we aren't balancing this around Reaper.

Can you say with a straight face that epic defensive fighting would exist without reaper? I think it is more accurate to say reaper isn’t always a factor in balancing.

[Zretch]

As we've said before, we aren't balancing this around Reaper.

If Reaper mode were a sentient being, it would have such a complex by now. Reaper is part of your game, and a fun part of your game. You shouldn't be afraid to balance around it, as balance is good for the game. Who knows, it could even be more fun for a wider variety of classes and builds!

[Lynnabel]

Can you say with a straight face that epic defensive fighting would exist without reaper?

Yes.

You shouldn't be afraid to balance around it, as balance is good for the game. Who knows, it could even be more fun for a wider variety of classes and builds!

Reaper is meant to be a challenge, and we avoid releasing things that directly mitigate the challenge of it. For example, an ability that mitigated the self-healing penalty.

[SerPounce]

As we've said before, we aren't balancing this around Reaper.

What does that mean though? Reaper is part of the game. A part that a large portion of the player base uses and enjoys. Surely it's part of the balance conversation? It would be silly if it wasn't.

[Zretch]

Reaper is meant to be a challenge, and we avoid releasing things that directly mitigate the challenge of it. For example, an ability that mitigated the self-healing penalty.

I don't think balancing for reaper requires making reaper easier. I think it simply means assessing the impact of scaling reaper mechanics on particular abilities, classes, or builds. For example, DC casting sees CC durations lessened and DC requirements raised as reaper scales up, but their effectiveness per mana point is largely consistent. On the other hand, evocation caster efficiency craters as reaper scales up. One build remains strong while another build of the same class dramatically decreases in effectiveness. The argument could be made that the same falloff in effectiveness is felt by all DPS classes, but melee and ranged DPS classes don't have a blue bar that, once empty, renders them completely ineffective until the next shrine.

Balancing for reaper doesn't mean that sorcs should be able to one shot kill entire trash packs on R10 the same way they can on R1. It should mean, however, that they can contribute their share of DPS to the same number of encounters between shrines irregardless of reaper level. Their DPS goes down, just like everyone else's and the challenge remains consistently increasing, but the particular mechanics of reaper mode (debuff to outgoing damage with no corresponding increase in mana effeciency and a hard limit to mana pools) don't render a archtypical class (a nuking sorc isn't exactly a non-cannon flavor build) at such a disadvantage compared to other forms of DPS.

The challenge is what makes it fun, but balance doesn't equate to removal of challenge in my mind, simply balancing the relative effectiveness of builds to perform the role for which they are most suited. They can do it in different ways, but one flavor of DPS builds or healing builds or tanking builds shouldn't be rendered ineffective as difficulty scales up with other flavors are allowed to maintain effectiveness. I guess in much the same way you wouldn't allow an ability that mitigates the reaper self healing penalty, you shouldn't introduce a tanking tree whos defenses are mainly predicated on self healing.

[droid327]

If Reaper mode were a sentient being, it would have such a complex by now. Reaper is part of your game, and a fun part of your game. You shouldn't be afraid to balance around it, as balance is good for the game. Who knows, it could even be more fun for a wider variety of classes and builds!

What does that mean though? Reaper is part of the game. A part that a large portion of the player base uses and enjoys. Surely it's part of the balance conversation? It would be silly if it wasn't.

Reaper exists, but its just not used as a metric when doing balance.

Basically, the game is balanced around Elite. Reaper is then defined BY that balance point. Its meant to simply be "harder than Elite", and it gets harder the more skulls you add.

There's no promise that everyone can do Reaper. There's no promise that R10 is always possible (see: THTH). Its there to be a challenge, when Elite becomes too trivial. If its too hard - then just turn down the skulls. If its too easy, crank them up. But there's no intention that the game will provide a smooth and consistent progression from LE to LR10 for every player. And like Lynn said, there's no intention that you'll ever be able to "nullify" the added difficulty of Reaper to make it closer to Elite, since that defeats its entire raison d'etre.

In other words, Reaper will never adjust itself to you. You have to adjust yourself to Reaper, wherever that leaves you.

[Zretch]

Reaper exists, but its just not used as a metric when doing balance.

Basically, the game is balanced around Elite. Reaper is then defined BY that balance point. Its meant to simply be "harder than Elite", and it gets harder the more skulls you add.

There's no promise that everyone can do Reaper. There's no promise that R10 is always possible (see: THTH). Its there to be a challenge, when Elite becomes too trivial. If its too hard - then just turn down the skulls. If its too easy, crank them up. But there's no intention that the game will provide a smooth and consistent progression from LE to LR10 for every player. And like Lynn said, there's no intention that you'll ever be able to "nullify" the added difficulty of Reaper to make it closer to Elite, since that defeats its entire raison d'etre.

In other words, Reaper will never adjust itself to you. You have to adjust yourself to Reaper, wherever that leaves you.

Reaper difficulty represents 10 out of 14 difficulty levels in the game. Creating 10 extra difficulty levels and then declaring that you don't care whether they are balanced or fun or enjoyable by any or all of your player base is....nonsense. SSG is a professional company selling a product that competes with multiple other games. Abdicating responsibility for balancing any gameplay beyond Elite isn't "a thing", and I seriously doubt that the product manager, item designers, quest designers, etc, etc give 0 consideration to reaper difficulties when designing and developing new content or adjusting and balancing classes. The quality of the content they've been releasing in the last couple years has been too good for it all to be an accident.

And if elite is the balance point, then nuking sorcerers are way, way, way out of balance. As are warlocks, wizards, bards, dog druids, monks, assassin rogues, any class with a 2 level splash of arti using a crossbow, any melee class that can get a good dire charge DC, any class with the wisdom to mass frog, etc, etc, etc. This isn't to mention frankentanks built for R10 who are basically immortal in elite. This game jumped the elite shark pre-Ravenloft.

[slarden]

Yes..

Well I take you at your word that reaper wasn't a factor when adding epic defensive fighting. From a player perspective it does feel like things are balanced around reaper to some extent.

[SerPounce]

Reaper exists, but its just not used as a metric when doing balance.

Basically, the game is balanced around Elite. Reaper is then defined BY that balance point. Its meant to simply be "harder than Elite", and it gets harder the more skulls you add.

There's no promise that everyone can do Reaper. There's no promise that R10 is always possible (see: THTH). Its there to be a challenge, when Elite becomes too trivial. If its too hard - then just turn down the skulls. If its too easy, crank them up. But there's no intention that the game will provide a smooth and consistent progression from LE to LR10 for every player. And like Lynn said, there's no intention that you'll ever be able to "nullify" the added difficulty of Reaper to make it closer to Elite, since that defeats its entire raison d'etre.

In other words, Reaper will never adjust itself to you. You have to adjust yourself to Reaper, wherever that leaves you.

That's fair to an extent, but if 50%+ of the playerbase is playing reaper 50%+ of the time, it really ought to be part of the balance conversation. Why should the most used quest difficulty be an afterthought?

I don't have an agenda here. There's no balance issue that I think they should be taking into account but aren't. And reaper seems generally balanced and fun (though as always there's room for improvement). Which is the case because (in my estimation) they do balance with reaper in mind. I'm just not sure what the rhetorical value is of pretending that they don't.

[janave]

Yes.

Reaper is meant to be a challenge, and we avoid releasing things that directly mitigate the challenge of it. For example, an ability that mitigated the self-healing penalty.

Instant kills mitigate the player damage debuffs, DC boosts mitigate the deflection rate of instant kills.

That means some EDs that do not fuel DCs or provide a means to mitigate the challenges (=other types of defense layers), will be simple progression steps instead of viable build choices.

I kinda like most of the changes you are making here ( selfish me), just not perfectly confident how long these changes will entertain the players neck deep invested in the meta you are buffing.

In the end, it should not matter if we are insta-shotting nameless monsters with a level 9 elemental spell for more spell cost and higher cool downs, in case the bosses were prepared to have some measure of deflection vs that same class of ability. I guess risking that it both works on regular and named targets is too much in some instances. Altho, I think the source of that risk is more about the Boss types disability to trace "clevering" players than the damage numbers effective overpoweredness.

[Kithyx]

Could we have cha to damage added to fatesinger 6th core please? The only other source for eldritch knights is to go purple dragon knight, and everyone hates the model so much that only wolf builds go PDK, thanks.