Please Reconsider the Meteor Swarm Cooldown Nerf

[Amoneth]

Dear SSG

Fire sorcs have already had 2 nerfs again recently, the belt and the Max Level, please reconsider the cooldown nerf. It's not so much the DPS loss, it's the fact that it's completely messed with the spell rotation. If you want to spam DPS, you could go Meteor Swarm, Delayed Blast Fireball, Fireball, maybe Scorch depending on how fast you can spam keys, then back to Meteor Swarm, etc. Now there's still a good 2 seconds on MS and there are no other viable fire spells to put into the rotation without SLAs which will cost you 9 APs. Pretty please reconsider, it's painful having to twiddle your thumbs in between spell rotations. I accept having to do that on my wizzy's neg spells but this really shouldn't be a thing on a DPS caster

[MaeveTuohy]

Pretty please reconsider, it's painful having to twiddle your thumbs in between spell rotations. I accept having to do that on my wizzy's neg spells but this really shouldn't be a thing on a DPS caster

Could you explain why you think this shouldn't be a thing? Please don't include any version of "because I want to do more damage" or "because I get bored" in your answer. Cheers.

[Amoneth]

Could you explain why you think this shouldn't be a thing? Please don't include any version of "because I want to do more damage" or "because I get bored" in your answer. Cheers.

Tell me something, if you were on a melee DPS, thrower or bow/crossbow user and your attack animation suddenly had you standing still for 2-3s out of every 6s rotation would you be OK with that? I don't think so, so why should spell DPSers be OK with it?

[Targal]

Long time ago, SSG took away Sorcerer's MCL +1 from lvl-6 core and lvl-12 core. the nurf was done to make Meteor MCL lower.
Now we realised Meteor Swarm's MCL was actually 30. the nurf was intentionally 25 to 23 MCL, but it was actually 35 to 33 MCL.

What was the point of this nurf at this moment? hmm.
I know it was aimed for Iceberg as well, but they nurfed the staff as well... I see the staff nurf is legit, but why the MCL nurf at the moment?

[SirValentine]

Fire sorcs have already had 2 nerfs again recently, the belt and the Max Level

The belts were nothing to do with fire sorcs in particular.

It's not so much the DPS loss, it's the fact that it's completely messed with the spell rotation. If you want to spam DPS, you could go Meteor Swarm, Delayed Blast Fireball, Fireball, maybe Scorch depending on how fast you can spam keys, then back to Meteor Swarm, etc. Now there's still a good 2 seconds on MS and there are no other viable fire spells to put into the rotation without SLAs which will cost you 9 APs. Pretty please reconsider, it's painful having to twiddle your thumbs in between spell rotations.

It sounds likes I could paraphrase that reason as, "I can't figure out a spell to add to my rotation." Are you looking for spell selection advice? Or a link to the spell list on the wiki?

...if you were on a melee DPS, thrower or bow/crossbow user and your attack animation suddenly had you standing still for 2-3s out of every 6s rotation would you be OK with that? I don't think so, so why should spell DPSers be OK with it?

Why are you standing still and twiddling your thumbs? It sounds like by your own choice.

[redoubt]

Could you explain why you think this shouldn't be a thing? Please don't include any version of "because I want to do more damage" or "because I get bored" in your answer. Cheers.

Why is "because I get bored" not a valid answer?

After the 48.4 nuke from orbit, I played fire alchy. It was painfully SLOW. SLOW was the problem. The dps was bad of course as well, but the sluggish play was simply not fun. I respected my character into negative and poison. It was mildly interesting as a different option, but again, with the long cooldowns it was just SLOW and boring. I TR'd into a melee as a result. (And I also lost a friend to play with; she disliked the nerfs enough she quit and went to play other things.)

So I ask again, why is that not a valid answer?

[Steeme]

I assume you're having issues because you don't build your Sorc incorrectly like I do (I take the Scorch + Fireball SLAs along with the Master of Fire feat, and I put 11 in Feydark for GCS).

Aside from physically adapting to the new rotation (which will take a while), I found that DBF needs to be hit twice in between each Meteor Swarm.


Example:

Meteor -> DBF -> Fireball SLA -> Fireball -> DBF -> Meteor -> Scorch SLA -> DBF ...


Of course the rotations change dynamically based on the scenario. For example on non-boss fights I'll start launching stuff to pull everything towards me then throw various CC into the mix (Mass Hold, Color Spray, BoGW, sometimes Prismatic Spray). On boss fights there's usually some jumping around and cocooning which can fill the cooldown wait time.

[Lonnbeimnech]

you should add acid well into the rotation

[TekkenDevil]

Why do you need to spam DPS?
Why not just nuke a bit, then walk up and melee?
Or just stand back and wait a bit.

Hardcore side of DDO sounds so lame, I cringe every time I read about it on these forums.
"Help, I can't send nukes on my caster every single second of every minute!"
Well, how incredibly sad to hear that, my goodness! Poor you!

[mikarddo]

you should add acid well into the rotation

That was my ideas as well but using a 4 pcs LGS set I found it hard to get a meaningful acid spell power. As it happens I had around 3 times as high fire spell power compered to acid. Playing a Tiefling could fix that I guess but the alt I am using as a sorc is doing racial + epic lives so thats not an real solution.

How did you get meaningful acid spell power / spell crit to make Acid Well worth casting without gimping spell crit percent/mult?

[Amoneth]

Every time I post on this forum I am reminded of why I rarely post on this forum, there are always those people who feel the need to respond with unsolicited "advice" (snark) in order to attempt to make themselves look better by putting down others.

The belts were nothing to do with fire sorcs in particular.

If you insist on offering "advice" that was not asked for, may I suggest that you actually properly read the post you are responding to. At no point did I say the belt nerf was specific to fire sorcs, I said they were affected by it. My primary and secondary toons, both clerics, were also affected by it but they were only nerfed once and it was an acceptable loss, as opposed to the triple nerf bat (a.k.a. "Lucille" to me now) swing that fire sorcs got this time around.

It sounds likes I could paraphrase that reason as, "I can't figure out a spell to add to my rotation." Are you looking for spell selection advice? Or a link to the spell list on the wiki?

To me, it sounds more like another comprehension fail on your part, I said "there are no viable fire spells to put into the rotation without SLAs", which implies that I have already checked, not "Please help me learn how to read the wiki, I am lost without you SirValentine".

Why are you standing still and twiddling your thumbs? It sounds like by your own choice.

Since the CC is already done at that point and more is generally not needed, I guess I could file my nails, check my ceilings for cracks, clean my keyboard perhaps?

[Amoneth]

Why not just nuke a bit, then walk up and melee?

Erm, because I would be instantly dead. You may not want to do high reapers to get your RPs, and that's fine, but many of us do.

Hardcore side of DDO sounds so lame, I cringe every time I read about it on these forums.
"Help, I can't send nukes on my caster every single second of every minute!"
Well, how incredibly sad to hear that, my goodness! Poor you!

Some of us have been playing for 15 years so reapers are pretty much it for us. Just because you don't / can't play that way, doesn't mean it's wrong for others.

[MaeveTuohy]

Why is "because I get bored" not a valid answer?

After the 48.4 nuke from orbit, I played fire alchy. It was painfully SLOW. SLOW was the problem. The dps was bad of course as well, but the sluggish play was simply not fun. I respected my character into negative and poison. It was mildly interesting as a different option, but again, with the long cooldowns it was just SLOW and boring. I TR'd into a melee as a result. (And I also lost a friend to play with; she disliked the nerfs enough she quit and went to play other things.)

So I ask again, why is that not a valid answer?

It isn't a valid answer to me, (1)because it doesn't interest me; and (2) it's very personal rather than sorc-specific.

There is always something you can be doing, solo or in a party. If the only thing a player is interested by is a 4-spell rotation, I don't think the devs should cater to that. Go do something else.

[TekkenDevil]

LMAO you think this game has to be balanced for Reapers?
HIGH REAPERS AT THAT???

HAHAHAA

No seriously that's disgusting. I laugh to mask my disgust.

[Amoneth]

It isn't a valid answer to me, (1)because it doesn't interest me; and (2) it's very personal rather than sorc-specific.

There is always something you can be doing, solo or in a party. If the only thing a player is interested by is a 4-spell rotation, I don't think the devs should cater to that. Go do something else.

Luckily for us, you are not responsible for keeping DDO going. We've already lost many people to the lag issues, there's just no need to lose them to this when there are other ways to further nerf DPS, assuming that's even necessary after the other nerfs that came with the cooldown ones.

As I've already said, you wouldn't accept a 2-3s halt in any other DPS attack chain animation, why would you accept it on a DPS caster?

[MaeveTuohy]

Tell me something, if you were on a melee DPS, thrower or bow/crossbow user and your attack animation suddenly had you standing still for 2-3s out of every 6s rotation would you be OK with that? I don't think so, so why should spell DPSers be OK with it?

I have played all those builds. Every build has premium attack aspects that go on cool down or have numeric limitations. You have other spells that do less damage, just as melees have standard attacks that hit for much lower numbers than their various clickie specials. You don't personally have to be okay with it, I'm not here to counsel you. But the game does not need a sorc to be able to cast just 4 spells essentially without interruption.

[Amoneth]

LMAO you think this game has to be balanced for Reapers?
HIGH REAPERS AT THAT???

HAHAHAA

No seriously that's disgusting. I laugh to mask my disgust.

Nobody said anything about balance in high reapers. You brought up the suggestion of meleeing, I responded that it was not an option in the content a lot of people run.

[MaeveTuohy]

Luckily for us, you are not responsible for keeping DDO going.

SSG lengthened the cool down, and they are responsible for keeping DDO going, and have done so successfully for 15 years now. Looks like I am in good company.

[Amoneth]

SSG lengthened the cool down, and they are responsible for keeping DDO going, and have done so successfully for 15 years now. Looks like I am in good company.

SSG are not omniscient, they generally welcome constructive feedback

[MasterDragonan]

I have played all those builds. Every build has premium attack aspects that go on cool down or have numeric limitations. You have other spells that do less damage, just as melees have standard attacks that hit for much lower numbers than their various clickie specials. You don't personally have to be okay with it, I'm not here to counsel you. But the game does not need a sorc to be able to cast just 4 spells essentially without interruption.

That is exactly what Sorc is designed to do cost a few spells without interruptions, their whole kit is about it.