Favored souls SLAs totally overpowered

[SpartanKiller13]

a cleric can get this spell as sla in lvl 6 because the enhancement only need: Requires Cleric Level 4, 20 APs spent on tree) - so from lv6 on a cleric will feel like a demigod.

This spell does more damage per lvl then the lv12 sla necrotic blast from palemaster and even blinds enemies (of course depending on alignment but necrotic blast is also ineffective vs. undead). Light can also boosted more in spellpower then any other source of energy.

So why aren't you running a Cleric? If it's so obviously OP, try it!

I will say from my PM lives I felt like a demigod because of my death aura lol. Immortality comes cheap to PM's.

[Zretch]

After getting to lvl 12 as Palemaster, I also feel the great boost of power to have a 1d6+5/Lvl area attack as sla (necrotic blast). Group of Elite mobs are one shotted. So my feeling was right:

The might of a spellcasting class in lower heroics depend on when the class gets his first spell attack with double d6 lvl damage and again when he gets his first area spell attack with double d6 lvl damage and how many mana the class has or these attacks are needing to cast.

holy smite (lvl 4 spell): Smites targets with holy power, evil targets take 9 to 14 (1d6+8) holy damage per caster level (up to a max of caster level 10) and are blinded...

a cleric can get this spell as sla in lvl 6 because the enhancement only need: Requires Cleric Level 4, 20 APs spent on tree) - so from lv6 on a cleric will feel like a demigod.

This spell does more damage per lvl then the lv12 sla necrotic blast from palemaster and even blinds enemies (of course depending on alignment but necrotic blast is also ineffective vs. undead). Light can also boosted more in spellpower then any other source of energy.

A wizard's core competency isn't pushing one AoE spell button until everything is dead. That's what sorcs do. Wizards have far more tools than that. Phantasmal Killer (up to 3 versions on independent cooldowns), Finger of Death, Circle of Death, Undeath to Death, and Wail of the Banshee (gonna leave out Banishment and Dismissal as redundant to FoD in an odd spell school) will all kill things faster than a nuke, and scale up to Reaper 10 all the way to cap. For those mobs that are death warded or immune to death effects, you have holds. For things immune to holds you have greater shout (AoE stun), Otto's Sphere of Dancing (persistent AoE hard control), Otto's Irresistable (Single Target hard control), Flesh to Stone (ST hard control hitting a fort save), Halt Undead (AoE hard control), Sunburst (AoE blind + insta-kill for some mobs), Incendiary Cloud / Glitterdust (persistent AoE blinds), combos that stack slow effects (ice storm / cloud spells / waves of fatigue / etc), all hitting different saves and useful against different mobs.

It seems like you're ignoring what's good about the class to focus on an aspect that other classes are designed to do better. Wizards aren't the supreme class, they just do a lot of things well. Some classes start more slowly than others. If you think PM starts slow, don't play an Alchemist. Play them both at 20+ and it's a completely different experience than you had from 1 to 12.

Honestly, if you want to faceroll to 12, don't play any kind of caster. Throw 15 points into STR, take power attack and two handed fighting, wield a keen falchion, and just shred low level content.

[Marshal_Lannes]

So why aren't you running a Cleric? If it's so obviously OP, try it!

I will say from my PM lives I felt like a demigod because of my death aura lol. Immortality comes cheap to PM's.

(nods) - I can't believe this is a 3-page thread because someone got out-killed in ToEE at L7. Since it takes about 3 hours to level up to 7 on a first-life character the OP could have his own Cleric with the time he's spent lamenting PMs (who are extremely powerful in heroic content)

[Zennez]

PM is more powerful as an eldritch knight THF at low levels, imo, until you have AOE SLA's which i think you only get at level 12.
Its easy now to get Int to damage with the Harper tree. Splash 2 Rogue to the Wiz and you get Quarterstaff feats to increase your attack speed from Thief Acrobat.

not to mention PMs unlimited underwater time, immunity to poison, disease, death and drains beginning at low levels. Light damage vulnerability used to be a problem, but not any more unless you choose not to mitigate it with the proper enhancement.

OP is always a matter of perspective and relativity.

[Seph1roth5]

I saw a fighter that was proficient with EVERY MARTIAL WEAPON in the game, please fix.

[Ausdoerrt]

FVS are a very front-loaded class. So while they dominate early, many other classes catch up later. I actually think they are pretty well balanced and offer that initial rush of power which is appropriate for a premium class.

I sort of disagree: it's not just FvS, a LOT of DDO is frontloaded in heroics because of 1) the way enhancements work since U19-ish and 2) balancing aroung epic content. It seems that the devs don't care too much about heroic balance and want you to get to epics as quickly and easily as possible. A valid approach, to be honest.

A spellpower-focused Arcane Archer can also one-shot low to middle heroic mobs, and with IPS at 11 you can mow through them. Any race or class that gets SLAs via non-core enhancements usually gets them too early, making it completely unbalanced in heroics. For example, Spellsinger Bard gets Shout at level 3; with maximize / empower on, this makes much of the early heroics a complete joke.

Downside is, this approach has a lot of newbie traps, as the same builds / approaches usually don't work in epics.

You'll have to play that FVS character yourself to experience the drawbacks to that character.

Agree completely! FvS is definitely not a flexible class, you need to have a clear idea of what you're doing, and you're very dependent on your choice of playstyle as well as long cooldowns.

Alot of these nerf requests historically are "someone else kills things faster than me so their class/build needs a nerf" with the exaggeration turned up to 11.

Yea I don't get this. My reaction would be usually "hey that's a cool build maybe I should try it".

(gonna leave out Banishment and Dismissal as redundant to FoD in an odd spell school)

Dismissal is redundant, sure, especially once you get Banishment and because it's in a cluttered spell level with lots of other great spells.

BUT. I wouldn't overlook Banishment, and it's definitely not like FoD. First, Banishment is AOE, more akin to Circle of Death. Second, I feel like it's more powerful / easier to land on specific mobs. Lastly, I believe they've upped the damage it does in the recent update, so you get to hit the mobs for a good chunk of HP even if they save. The only downside to Banishment is that a lot of mobs, especially in recent packs, are not coded correctly and are unaffected even though they should be (e.g. dretches and hezrous in Borderlands).

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

Hi Guys,

I already stated my opinion about giving every class and spell nearly the same damage potential (1d6+x/L) in relation to original D&D rules.
On Hardcore server I am playing a pure palemaster really maxed for damage with nullification.

I ran around with Favoured souls and lighning bolt/sunbolt and was really awed how they could oneshot whole group of mobs or even bosses- the negative damage from palemaster was not nearly similar. Needed two shots or more.
In addition light/alignment damage is best maxed in game and damage every monster the same-

on the other side you have problems in most quests as palemaster with undeads (1/3 in the game?), because the first shot from palemaster heals and the first shot from now every
other spellcasting class kills them or damages them so that the fighters can easily finish them. I don´t use my slas in these quest at all because of this detrimental effect.
But you have not enough mana to do anything else because palemasters has only negative damage as slas. I think that should be balanced somehow.

But with the area attack holy smite it was absolutely owerpowered. We yesterday runned through temple of elemental evil (lvl 7 quest) and one slas/holy smite kills one complete group on elite.
That is absolute not something I like- having the most spell points, the highest heal potential and now also the best slas. Why the devs don´t think about giving high lvl spells as slas to classes in lower lvls and then increasing the damage potential dramatically?

thanks
Tarinia

Right - so you are underperforming not because you are expecting your DC necro that are not meant to aoe mass dmg like a sorc to aoe like a sorc and compete with fvs and clr aoe. Necro wizards have access to very powerful insta-kill spells - the SLAs are fillers in a rotation.

But instead of taking the time to learn you just come here to whine and QQ because what ? Someone beat you in a kill count? Um epeen much? You decided to play a necro and rely on your SLAs which are situational at best. As a wiz you have access to fireball and scorch @ lvl 7 - they are wrecking ball spells - you decided to do your necro thing. Do not start spamming for nerfs because you do not know how to play a caster.

The latest spell caster changes finally brought Clr, FvS, Druid, in line with arcane Sorc and Wiz - necro has always been a niche - and you do DC casting as a necro - finger, banshee, circle of dead - with your slas as fillers - a good DC necro can pwn. @ lvl 7 you do not have the power in the necro tree yet - so you need your arcane spells (that are all in line with Clr, FvS, Druid etc) like I said - scorch is your bread and butter till fireball, then fireball is your wrecking ball till you get more higher level - but I do not think you wish to take the time to learn your build, you just came here to QQ. You just doing necro wrong is the problem.

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

not to mention PMs unlimited underwater time, immunity to poison, disease, death and drains beginning at low levels. Light damage vulnerability used to be a problem, but not any more unless you choose not to mitigate it with the proper enhancement.

OP is always a matter of perspective and relativity.

Exactly - the author of this post does not know how to play a wizard PM period and felt like QQ was the way to go rather than ddo wiki, youtube, twitch, or asking for PM advice.

[LurkingVeteran]

Right - so you are underperforming not because you are expecting your DC necro that are not meant to aoe mass dmg like a sorc to aoe like a sorc and compete with fvs and clr aoe. Necro wizards have access to very powerful insta-kill spells - the SLAs are fillers in a rotation.

But instead of taking the time to learn you just come here to whine and QQ because what ? Someone beat you in a kill count? Um epeen much? You decided to play a necro and rely on your SLAs which are situational at best. As a wiz you have access to fireball and scorch @ lvl 7 - they are wrecking ball spells - you decided to do your necro thing. Do not start spamming for nerfs because you do not know how to play a caster.

The latest spell caster changes finally brought Clr, FvS, Druid, in line with arcane Sorc and Wiz - necro has always been a niche - and you do DC casting as a necro - finger, banshee, circle of dead - with your slas as fillers - a good DC necro can pwn. @ lvl 7 you do not have the power in the necro tree yet - so you need your arcane spells (that are all in line with Clr, FvS, Druid etc) like I said - scorch is your bread and butter till fireball, then fireball is your wrecking ball till you get more higher level - but I do not think you wish to take the time to learn your build, you just came here to QQ. You just doing necro wrong is the problem.

In his defense, Necro Clerics also get better negative SLAs (and can pick up both death domain insta kills and light DD holy smite SLA if they want a bit of both). The immunities in PM are amazing though, although deathward + FoM is pretty decent.

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

I could make a deep gnome PK monster that could by the time I run lvl 7 quests on HCL (I'd be wiz lvl 11) have 3 quickened heightened PKs and insta-kill everything in there. Granted ToEE is one of the hardest heroic quests @ lvl for the sheer number of mobs, but with color spray locking things down, web, I could wreck - and as I said, I too have scorch and fireball. Honestly posts like this drive me crazy. Players do not know how to play a build, then whine and cry that other players who do know how to play their builds, are better than they are.

On HCL I have a Druid bear that literally can zerg every heroic dungeon solo - I run with a friend who is also a bear and we decimate - literally - everything - and we zerg so fast that no Clr, FvS, Wiz, Sorc, or whatever has time to kill anything - people complain about the zerging but my point is - I know how to play the zerg bear. If I did a necro wiz you can be sure I would not be here complaining, I'd be optimizing my gear for a finger of death, circle of death, and pk - not trying to max my one craptacular AOE SLA. Has this poster tried Neg En burst? Have they tried circle of death? have they tried PK? I don't think so, i think all they've been doing is spamming the forums to nerf everything ...

SMH

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

In his defense, Necro Clerics also get better negative SLAs (and can pick up both death domain insta kills and light DD holy smite SLA if they want a bit of both). The immunities in PM are amazing though, although deathward + FoM is pretty decent.

I am just all set with the 'I can't compete, therefore nerf it' culture.
PMs are extremely strong if the player knows how to play it and it is a different style than a DPS nuker like a sorc or fvs - especially for HCL where no one has gear.
Wiz needs the archmage tree redone - then we will likely see some great things. The PM with the SLAs are a niche - not good for all circumstances. Wizzy's are not
Nukers. They are DC casters, CC, and support. They have stellar immunities and unrivaled self-healing. The Cleric now is very strong - if only you could turn into
an undead on a Clr - makes me feel we finally need that undead universal tree that people have been asking for

[darkniteyogi]

FvS has the option to be a Cha-caster instead of Wis, if UMD is a concern. Given HC you're not planning gearsets so you don't even have to worry about Wis vs Cha being more optimal lol.

Yup You could go Cha, or Wis for higher Will saves. (One soundburst stun or CC on you can be deadly), and higher Spot. I play an FVS/Rogue and getting the skill points for trapping is tight, and going Wis helps save points on Spot.

I don't think UMD would that big a deal as another poster has said at level 20. But just highlighting the differences and the advantages that the Wizard has over Fvs that may be overlooked

[Redtalktree]

DUUDE, quite please!!!!!!!!

TOOOOOO late its fixed in the update 2moro

[o2t4f]

A wizard's core competency isn't pushing one AoE spell button until everything is dead. That's what sorcs do. Wizards have far more tools than that. Phantasmal Killer (up to 3 versions on independent cooldowns), Finger of Death, Circle of Death, Undeath to Death, and Wail of the Banshee (gonna leave out Banishment and Dismissal as redundant to FoD in an odd spell school) will all kill things faster than a nuke, and scale up to Reaper 10 all the way to cap. For those mobs that are death warded or immune to death effects, you have holds. For things immune to holds you have greater shout (AoE stun), Otto's Sphere of Dancing (persistent AoE hard control), Otto's Irresistable (Single Target hard control), Flesh to Stone (ST hard control hitting a fort save), Halt Undead (AoE hard control), Sunburst (AoE blind + insta-kill for some mobs), Incendiary Cloud / Glitterdust (persistent AoE blinds), combos that stack slow effects (ice storm / cloud spells / waves of fatigue / etc), all hitting different saves and useful against different mobs.

It seems like you're ignoring what's good about the class to focus on an aspect that other classes are designed to do better. Wizards aren't the supreme class, they just do a lot of things well. Some classes start more slowly than others. If you think PM starts slow, don't play an Alchemist. Play them both at 20+ and it's a completely different experience than you had from 1 to 12.

Honestly, if you want to faceroll to 12, don't play any kind of caster. Throw 15 points into STR, take power attack and two handed fighting, wield a keen falchion, and just shred low level content.

Against deathwarded stuff, you could play with globe of invulnerability.