DC Casting Endgame

[Zafaron]

I've been gone for a while, since prior to the stat reduction getting ready for the new ED system. When I made it back up to cap I started running some quests that I was able to easily run before and my spells were almost never landing while using the same gear that I had prior to the update. Is this deliberate? Is the goal to get people to play something other than DC casters? Or are you still trying to balance for the new changes now? My intelligence on my caster dropped by 30 points from what it was previously, and the DC for spells dropped by about 27.

[Oliphant]

There was a stats squish with U50. All the loot was rebalanced so there is a smoother curve for gear ML 20-30. The devs also scaled down monsters to compensate but its not exactly the same. I think DCs are tad harder now at endgame. I'm not sure what top ability values are now but top is closer to 110 now, was more like 140 or something in that ballpark. I have a feeling you can still make a DC caster work, might need to grind out a few more DC points (there are quite a few avenues). I can't say with specificity as I've been playing ranged since HW came out.

[Iriale]

I've been gone for a while, since prior to the stat reduction getting ready for the new ED system. When I made it back up to cap I started running some quests that I was able to easily run before and my spells were almost never landing while using the same gear that I had prior to the update. Is this deliberate? Is the goal to get people to play something other than DC casters? Or are you still trying to balance for the new changes now? My intelligence on my caster dropped by 30 points from what it was previously, and the DC for spells dropped by about 27.

the stat squish has not affected all characters the same. There has been a nerf in the DC / enemy saves relationship with u50. Characters with many past lives and good equipment may not have noticed, but characters with less investment have indeed noticed a decrease in efficiency.

There are ways to mitigate this with gear, but it requires raid gear. If you can access raid gear, you can probably get your DC up and be effective. Although the truth is that I would refrain from making major changes right now. U51 is coming down, and we're going to have to redo all of our builds in response.

However, in u51 there will be another nerf for the casters, both in DC and in dps. I'm not clear about the future of casters, especially those that are not maximized, to be honest.