Level 31 Feat Suggestion - Elemental Bypass

[EinarMal]

The fundamental problem is that due to all the power creep, the only way to build a functional DPS caster in DDO is to hyperspecialize in one element. This is not how it works in pen and paper D&D (and not how it was in early DDO either). The DPS loss of casting a spell of another element is huge. DDO also has more elemental immunities than pen and paper (in part because so much of the game is played in epics, which is more of a bonus setting in pen and paper). This is a toxic combination, being useless against certain mobs is very frustrating.

Unless they address one of the two core problems above, immunity breaking is here to stay.

Iron Golems are especially the bane of casters existence if you can't strip immunity. I am not even joking on a FVS you have to turn off your Draconic mantle, and then you see something is still procing fire, so you start stripping off gear, and then *maybe* if you dump 5K spell points you can kill them with light spells. I swear I don't know if the mantle was bugged, but I basically had to drop the quest in Von 4, something was fire healing the golem and I could not figure out what it was.

[EinarMal]

The fundamental problem is that due to all the power creep, the only way to build a functional DPS caster in DDO is to hyperspecialize in one element. This is not how it works in pen and paper D&D (and not how it was in early DDO either). The DPS loss of casting a spell of another element is just too high to be viable in most cases. DDO also has more elemental immunities than pen and paper (in part because so much of the game is played in epics, which is more of a bonus setting in pen and paper). This is a toxic combination, being useless against certain mobs is very frustrating.

Unless they address one of the two core problems above, immunity breaking is here to stay. That said, it might have been better to make it more more progressive, i.e. first hit gets 30% damage bypass, second 60%, 90, 100 etc. Now it's: 0%, 100%.

Optionally, enhancements like the Tiefling one that additionally lets you share crit % for another element would be useful as a legendary feat.

If they just made "immunity" lets say 30% damage reduction, and resistance 15% damage reduction it would be a real penalty but workable, and remove monster healing from spells. Then they could remove the immunity bypass and the game would be still playable, you could use your main element at -30% or switch to a secondary spell if that is better.

Or there should be a feat to allow all casters to choose an element to bypass (including negative which already has an enhancement that only works on undead).

[Arjen]

If they just made "immunity" lets say 30% damage reduction, and resistance 15% damage reduction it would be a real penalty but workable, and remove monster healing from spells. Then they could remove the immunity bypass and the game would be still playable, you could use your main element at -30% or switch to a secondary spell if that is better.

Or there should be a feat to allow all casters to choose an element to bypass (including negative which already has an enhancement that only works on undead).

The 30% penalty would honestly be workable if they removed monster healing - could def live with it and still clear content at r10. My take is that is a huge amount of work to revamp the entire system and the feat would be an easy "fix" for the fundamental problem without having to sink a ton of developer hours into the issue.

[Kayze]

You're clearly not playing r10s. You're not going to Blade Barrier and Cometfall redname golems and do anything close to reasonable damage. What if the party comp is 4 divines casters - it's happened to groups I've been and you either swap to another character that can actually do damage or punt. That's not legendary, it just isn't fun.

If you are doing R10s and you aren't geared to do adequate damage in a non-fire capacity, then perhaps you need to get better gear, skip the quest, or do a lower reaper difficulty.

Unfortunately as difficultly scales this does not work. Iron golems in particular especially named ones become impossible to kill. FVS for example if they are running draconic have to drop their mantle, and any fire damage will of course heal them, so any procs etc.. must be removed. Spells like blade barrier were never really upgraded they do pretty low damage. Have you tried those tactics in something like R4? I know on my wizard a fight with a couple of named iron golems on R4 you can dump 5K spell points and have to drink pots to kill them with damage spells which is all that works.

I never said it would be fast. Trying to take a fire cleric through a quest with mandatory iron golems is hammering a square peg through a round hole. If the OP is unwilling to avoid the quest or take group members, using untyped damage spells or whacking them would do just fine. Between cure poison and sla heals, you should be able to attrition kill the golem.

[Arjen]

If you are doing R10s and you aren't geared to do adequate damage in a non-fire capacity, then perhaps you need to get better gear, skip the quest, or do a lower reaper difficulty.

lol... that is not how building elemental casters works in DDO.. you hyperspecialize - enhancements, epic destinies, gear, filigrees, scion, etc. And depending on what mantle you're in you're doing secondary and tertiary damage in the SAME element that may be healing monsters.

But for the sake of argument please bring a fire domain cleric to the last fight of r10 Raven at the Door and show us how that goes using light and force spells only vs. a druid/sorc taking advantage of their entire build and ripping them apart.

[Kayze]

But for the sake of argument please bring a fire domain cleric to the last fight of r10 Raven at the Door and show us how that goes using light and force spells only vs. a druid/sorc taking advantage of their entire build and ripping them apart.

Being not bad at the game, I would not take a fire domain cleric solo to that quest. I would help clear the trash up to the boss and let the melees in the party beat up the iron golems.

[boredGamer]

lol... that is not how building elemental casters works in DDO.. you hyperspecialize - enhancements, epic destinies, gear, filigrees, scion, etc. And depending on what mantle you're in you're doing secondary and tertiary damage in the SAME element that may be healing monsters.

But for the sake of argument please bring a fire domain cleric to the last fight of r10 Raven at the Door and show us how that goes using light and force spells only vs. a druid/sorc taking advantage of their entire build and ripping them apart.

Well, some builds certainly should be better at some things.

But also , if we’re giving everyone immunity stripping , let’s just strip the immunities themselves. I’m ok with higher mrr or resists or whatever- but the blanket immunity not immunity is pretty stupid at this point.

[Arjen]

I never said it would be fast. Trying to take a fire cleric through a quest with mandatory iron golems is hammering a square peg through a round hole. If the OP is unwilling to avoid the quest or take group members, using untyped damage spells or whacking them would do just fine. Between cure poison and sla heals, you should be able to attrition kill the golem.

All this is saying is that three classes (Druid, Alch, Sorc) get to play with optimal set ups and the rest don't. The answer is real simple - I'm playing mostly as an ice druid on my caster focused character and it's excellent. Does it all - fantastic damage, heals, etc. What I would *like* to do is play as a fire cleric because they are an absolute blast but in r10s at cap there is a large subset of quests that are just not viable/fun. Is that good design?

[LittleLexi]

It's necessary because without you're functionally useless in content that has monsters/bosses that are immune. I run a lot of r10 content and as a fire cleric (for example) DOJ Flag, any dungeons with Golems (Raven at the door, etc) you literally can't do anything. Tiefling is fine for that particular use case, but I think when we're getting to "legendary" status it makes a lot of sense to stop worrying about that restriction and let us play the builds that we like. Why should sorcs and druids have all the fun?

So you want the game to become easier because of Reaper mode :P And how about those Legendary monsters? Maybe they should get Legendary Uber Super Double No-Take-Backsies Immunity!

Jesting aside – I understand where you are coming from. Should it not be the expectation, though, that at R10, of all difficulties– that players might encounter some stumbling blocks? And that this, of all places, is where party composition should come into the equation, in order to cover all the bases?

I get that some classes already do this. But I'm not of the mind that every build should be able to do everything. That is dull. I doubt they will remove immunities from the game though, so I'm fine with a compromise such as having abilities that strip this where it fits. Specializations like the Elemental Savants, or Primal Avatar(with investment) are suitable, in this regard. But I agree with another poster that it should not be automatic, and that it should take some work to achieve. Something like a monk finisher that did this, would suffice. Or– for spellcasters: having to "prep" the mob first with spells or debuffs– even if they did take a feat or enhancement that enables the possibility.

[Wongar]

Every build has weaknesses and have ways to deal with them. You have other non-fire damage spells that you should also be using even without focusing on them from the high base damage. Iron golems are strong against elemental damage. Deal with them with physical attacks or spells that deal physical damage. The advantage of cleric is that unlike a fvs, you can (and should) modify your spell list for threats.

Blade barrier does slashing damage. Cometfall does bludgeoning. Destruction does bane damage. DoT spells work just fine (divine punishment), albeit at 50% reduced effectiveness. At legendary levels you also have the option to take ruin/great ruin. Or pull out a weapon (ideally with construct bane) and hit them (divine power). Or let party members deal with them.

I play fire Cleric. While I agree with this position in principle and think it holds in heroic and to some extend in epic, it becomes an idealistic response in legendary content and not one taken from game experience. This is my experience:

- Blade barrier is very low damage and near useless at this level
- Cometfall is low damage and near useless at this level, you will see many FVS builds posted that don't even take the Tier 5 SLA from the tree
- The only DOT a cleric gets is divine punishment and even fully stacked it barley does any damage
- I don't take ruin/great ruin, I'm not built for them so they don't really do great damage and I don't have the SP pool to use them. Try using them on an Iron Golem with Fire Ruin Intensified
- Pull out a weapon? I take Scion of the Plane of Fire and have no melee enhancements so hitting them heals them for more than it hurts them - weapon damage is completely out ( construct bane is meaningless in legendary content)

The reality of DDO is that unless you build for damage of any type - it is near useless at legendary levels.

This is why Melee and Ranged have multiple ways to address immunity with feats, gear, and augments.
Some chosen spell casters have a way to deal with immunity while others do not.
The really frustrating part of the current level 31 feats is they help the caster classes that don't really need it while leaving casters that have real problems with some mobs to continue suffering.

All that said - the real problem in my view is mobs being healed by damage coupled with the trend to "bundle" damage types -- Iron Golems in Epic/Legendary and a fire caster being the perfect example:
- All weapon strikes heal with Scion of the Plane of Fire
- The mantels proc fire damage so you have to turn off your mantel
- The Tier Five damage spells are coupled to fire so you can't use them (Holy Fireball, Ruin Intensified, Primal Ally)
- The core 4s continue this trend of coupling fire damage
- Mob healing is not scaled in Reaper like damage so using multiple damage type spells ensure you will heal for more than the damage
- Muscle memory kicks in and you hit the wrong key - you just healed a mob for more damage than you can do in 5 minutes

[Arjen]

Being not bad at the game, I would not take a fire domain cleric solo to that quest. I would help clear the trash up to the boss and let the melees in the party beat up the iron golems.

No one is doing that because we're all playing as Druids/Sorcs/Alch. But sure, let's disparage people and not the point of leveling the caster playing field.

[Kayze]

Jesting aside – I understand where you are coming from. Should it not be the expectation, though, that at R10, of all difficulties– that players might encounter some stumbling blocks? And that this, of all places, is where party composition should come into the equation, in order to cover all the bases?

I get that some classes already do this. But I'm not of the mind that every build should be able to do everything.

^This is my point exactly. Not everyone should be able to do every single quest solo. Get help. Every character has something they do well.

This is why Melee and Ranged have multiple ways to address immunity with feats, gear, and augments.
Some chosen spell casters have a way to deal with immunity while others do not.

I think you're missing the point. DDO was designed to be a game that took advantage of a party system. While some people have managed to solo quests at a high difficulty (there are tons of R10 solo videos on youtube for example), the game isn't balanced around that. Just because a quest is a stumbling block for a character does not mean that said character will not absolutely dominate another quest.

[Arjen]

So you want the game to become easier because of Reaper mode :P And how about those Legendary monsters? Maybe they should get Legendary Uber Super Double No-Take-Backsies Immunity!

Jesting aside – I understand where you are coming from. Should it not be the expectation, though, that at R10, of all difficulties– that players might encounter some stumbling blocks? And that this, of all places, is where party composition should come into the equation, in order to cover all the bases?

I get that some classes already do this. But I'm not of the mind that every build should be able to do everything. That is dull. I doubt they will remove immunities from the game though, so I'm fine with a compromise such as having abilities that strip this where it fits. Specializations like the Elemental Savants, or Primal Avatar(with investment) are suitable, in this regard. But I agree with another poster that it should not be automatic, and that it should take some work to achieve. Something like a monk finisher that did this, would suffice. Or– for spellcasters: having to "prep" the mob first with spells or debuffs– even if they did take a feat or enhancement that enables the possibility.

Not easier at all - just more diversity of options. Right now that option for me is ice druid and it's really, really good. I'd *love* to be able to have that same experience on a fire/negative cleric at cap.

To your point - immunity stripping is "prepping" the mobs as you have to hit them with a spell of that type before they are debuffed. That's what I'm asking for as a feat.

[Kayze]

Not easier at all - just more diversity of options. Right now that option for me is ice druid and it's really, really good. I'd *love* to be able to have that same experience on a fire/negative cleric at cap.

To your point - immunity stripping is "prepping" the mobs as you have to hit them with a spell of that type before they are debuffed. That's what I'm asking for as a feat.

The option to strip fire immunity on a fire cleric already exists: tiefling.

[Arjen]

The option to strip fire immunity on a fire cleric already exists: tiefling.

Cool, now do Death and Air domain.

[Wongar]

I never said it would be fast. Trying to take a fire cleric through a quest with mandatory iron golems is hammering a square peg through a round hole. If the OP is unwilling to avoid the quest or take group members, using untyped damage spells or whacking them would do just fine. Between cure poison and sla heals, you should be able to attrition kill the golem.

Being not bad at the game, I would not take a fire domain cleric solo to that quest. I would help clear the trash up to the boss and let the melees in the party beat up the iron golems.

So what is a fire cleric that is unable to find a group supposed to do? You can't just skip bad quests as often the rest of the Saga is gated behind quest completion. Should I just ignore the rest of the saga (and the saga rewards)?

Do you really think having some content that is almost unplayable by some classes is a good design?

[Wongar]

The option to strip fire immunity on a fire cleric already exists: tiefling.

You should not be forced into playing a single race, and as others have said it does not really work that well in legendary content.

[Kayze]

Cool, now do Death and Air domain.

Bring along a party member who can handle those immunities? Why are you so focused on the ability to deal with every obstacle in the game on one pure character?

Certain classes have the unique ability to bypass immunities, just like how only a limited number of classes can trap or heal from negative energy. That's how the classes are differentiated. If you refuse to use spells from other elements, then perhaps you should play a class that lets you break immunity.

Do you really think having some content that is almost unplayable by some classes is a good design?

Yes. This encourages party play or diversity of build options if that content must be played.

[EinarMal]

The option to strip fire immunity on a fire cleric already exists: tiefling.

Have you actually tried this on a FVS/Cleric in legendary content? It will not work on named mobs. Before you can kill them the immunity stripping drops and your mantle will heal them back to full.

[Arjen]

Certain classes have the unique ability to bypass immunities, just like how only a limited number of classes can trap or heal from negative energy. That's how the classes are differentiated. If you refuse to use spells from other elements, then perhaps you should play a class that lets you break immunity.

Here is where this goes - everyone who is playing r10 content as a damage dealing caster is using one of three classes.

There is your build diversity.

You know what's fun? Having more options!