We NEED to NERF Casters...

[Dmitrythewizzy]

Often the only advantage melee really have defense wise over casters is Epic Defensive Stance, most every defensive attribute beyond that comes at the cost of DPS, don't look at tanks and claim all melee are unkillable while FVS gets to have as much HP for free and while Sorcs, Druids and undead casters get immunity to a bunch of mechanics.
Because melee need to itemize even more stats than a caster they can often end up lacking in saves, or resistances and gearing a hybrid like an EK can easily end up being truly glass cannon.

Let's be real here casters truly are top of the pack and repeatedly caster players have screamed at every single perceived nerf for the last couple years "Stat squish will kill casters", "ED revamp will kill casters" and all we've seen as a result of these is casters are every bit as dominant as they were before, if not moreso.
I don't think it is actually feasible to nerf casters enough to even the playing field, not without some truly major shifts. It's also not like melee doesn't do enough dps, it just lacks the utility and front loaded damage that nukers have and it probably isn't possible to bring up melee utility to compete outside of making warchanter actually able to dps.

This is just wrong. Casters... particularly the aoe casters level fast and farm fast. Great. That's not a lot of the game. They don't burn bosses. They get wrecked in high reaper and they get wrecked in any of the modern raids. You are complaining about not ruling one of the parts of the game in a melee. It would be the same thing as if I said my Sorceror could not tank raids as well as your pally so you need to be nerfed.

[slarden]

My main characters on Sarlona at cap right now are:

20 Rogue Assassin - Mainly raiding with some push raiding and R10s
18 Paladin / 2 Fighter Dwarf Tank - Mainly R10 tanking, some casual raiding
20 Warlock - Strictly for soloing and short-manning with or without dual boxes
17 Wizard / 3 Paladin - Soloing and R10s for cc and aoe

On hardcore I played the following on hardcore mostly on 28 point build ftp accounts with no xpac or other bonuses. I only ran my main account to 200 favor for points and otherwise didn't even play on my main account.

Account 1 - Full FTP - 18 Paladin / 2 Rogue - Solo to 20 for quick favor and cloak, Ran N/H/E on several quests. Farmed out epic Borderlands Elite, Red Fens, OOB and Wiz King daily to get horseshoes/tokens/gear to transfer to each server.
Account 2 - Full FTP - Warforged 17 Wizard / 3 Paladin - Ran with static group to 20 and earned 10 pt reaper cloak farming 21-23 quests for horseshoes/tokens. It took 10 daily runs of borderlands/red fens/oob/wiz king and first time bonuses on other 21-23s to get the 10 pt cloak. The VIP in the group only took 6 days with his xpac 50% potions and VIP bonus.
Account 3 - Premium - 15 Ranger / 3 Paladin / 2 Rogue Archer - In full static group as primary trapper - got wings

As far as end game characters:

My best single-target dps is assassin by a large margin. That is what makes it so good in raiding.

My casters are better for soloing or 2-manning as they have a better toolkit for soloing with the cc and aoe even though boss fights take longer.

My tank is what it is, I built it specifically for R10 casual questing and not for raiding. I am not the best tank player, but I frequently end up playing it because it's spec'd specifically for R10 groups and past lifes/reaper points help tanks more than most other builds.

My wizard is much more effective in R10s than my warlock. Warlocks are really solid for soloing as they are ok at everything, survivable and don't run out of spell points or run into major immunity problems. They have lower dps, weaker spell selection and lower dcs compared to other casters. Wizard dps is lower dps than sorc and alchemist, but for soloing and R10s I find the feats and spell selection make me more useful to the team in R10s and make me a better generalist for soloing.

Spell points have been brought up, I don't really have any issues with sp because I have epic and legendary ross, capstone in caster reaper tree, past lifes, solid gear, etc. Grind power helps casters cover their biggest weakness quite well.

As far as hardcore where characters lack the grind power:

My wizard played as a hybrid until I got to epic levels, got more ED slas and my eross. I just didn't have the spell points to blast my way to 20 even in a static group that had 2 others and sometimes a third. Soloing on a first-life wizard is kind of sucky actually - I am glad I didn't have to do it. Once I got to 23 with maxed out xp and a nice mix of epic red fens, epic sands, epic borderlands and a few cannith crafted items I felt very powerful. We sometimes 3-manned things on R2 and other times had a full group. I didn't solo on reaper, but felt confident I could solo borderlands and other quests with little to no risk of dying.

Overall I think I felt stronger at 23 running 21-23 quests than I did with the old epic ED system and stronger monsters. I did get low on spell points and have to shrine, but didn't find spell points to be a significant issue like it is at heroic levels. I very rarely lead kill count - it was usually the alchemist I was running with. We had a cleric melee run with us at one point and he was zerging and led the kill count is just about every quest. Various other players joined and led the kill count, typically the player running ahead of the group that wanted to get alot of kills. We would sometimes see those players die at a later point.

I ran draconic, magus, unyielding sentinel. I ran to 400 on a warlock first to unlock warforged which is how I was able to run warforged on a ftp account.

Of all my characters my paladin was probably my strongest leveling character. I was human paladin with mark of passage as I had a character die early to a bugged hound and didn't trust everything to work properly and wanted ddoor/teleport. I also bought feydark illusionist at 30% off when it was on sale over the summer so I could get greater color spray. It might be a while before I purchase feywild pack on that account.

I was a bit behind on thf feats at various levels due to taking magical training and 2 rogue splash but it didn't seem to matter. At 23 the character felt very strong against level 21-23 content. I was soloing so only ran elite. I took fury of the wild, legendary dreadnaught and unyielding sentinel. Adrenaline + Boulder's Might made the hounds super easy. I tended to use adrenaline against single targets and dire charge against mobs. They are on the same timer, but it seemed fine as I would just use whatever was best for the situation. Between dire charge and greater color spray I felt I had great cc. The paladin cleaves from KOTC gave me great aoe. I had solid self-healing with lay on hands and eventually renewal. I didn't have the 20% hp bonus, but was still in defense stance for the prr/mrr.

The ranger I just took to 20 and only did a few cleanup quests after transferring the character to Argonessen. Nobody in the static group died. We had a tank, healer, 2 melees, 1 caster, 1 ranged. Early on with aoe soundburst the bard led kill count almost every quest. At later level we had every single person lead kill count at point or another - even the bear tank which had solid dps at heroic levels.

My ranger had really great single-target damage, literally one-shotting most mobs frequently when using special attacks. Ranger works alot better for splashing trapping vs. paladin as they get ample skill points and 2 of 4 key trapping skills are class skills for ranger.

I did run my ranger at 20 after transferring him to Argo a few days ago. It does very well, but lacks the cc/aoe that I get from paladin and wizard

Overall I would give the following grades to the builds for first-life leveling on hardcore

Paladin: Heroic Leveling A+, Epic Leveling A
Wizard - Heroic Leveling C, Epic Leveling A+
Ranger - Heroic Leveling A, Epic Leveling B

Balance is a tough job for the devs. Posts that call for nerfing or buffing an entire playstyle without specifics, examples, reasonable proposed solutions get to be kind of annoying.

Joining a full group for a festival which is normal difficulty or even low Rs isn't a good measure of playstyle power. Even with a playstyle different builds/classes have different strengths and weaknesses.

Enlarge is going to give casters a kill count advantage in easy content. In general reviewing which spell can have enlarge could help with that if the devs find it a problem. I think enlarge on cc is a good thing for the whole party. On the other hand perhaps some people don't feel the same about meteor swarm.

In general casters benefit more from grind power than dps melees in the sense it mitigates key weaknesses very well. I never viewed this as a good thing or bad thing - I just accepted it for what it is.

[mr420247]

I could waste time on hc for no reason at all or i could

make 3 r10 alts for the only grind that matters reaper frags n mythic gear sets

7 x 12 x u get it

[slarden]

I could waste time on hc for no reason at all or i could

make 3 r10 alts for the only grind that matters reaper frags n mythic gear sets

7 x 12 x u get it

I excel at wasting time.

I tend to focus on what I enjoy most or what I find the most interesting. Sometimes that lines up with DDO rewards, but sometimes it doesn't.

[ChaosBuddha]

dont think all caster need to be nerfed but those howl druids 2 shot mobs on r10 is a bit much. i dont even have a problem with those sorc/wiz one shot mods with weird because they still need dps, but i dont think ssg planed for shifter be used like this when they made it.

[draven1]

dont think all caster need to be nerfed but those howl druids 2 shoot mobs on r10 is a bit much. i dont even have a problem with those sorc/wiz one shoot mods with weird because they still need dps, but i dont think ssg planed for shifter be used like this when they made it.

Fire based FVS and Sorc also do one or two shot mobs on R10.

1. The problem is at "Dragon Breath / Energy Burst" with AOE 8~9 level spells(Methor swarm, Tsunami, Ice Flowers, Divine Wraith, Celestial Bombardment).

2. Caster and divines have many helpless spells, too. So, They can boost DPS more easily.

3. There are no fortification against spell damages, and spells have far higher crit range, crit damage boost.

[ChaosBuddha]

Fire based FVS and Sorc also do one or two shot mobs on R10.

1. The problem is at "Dragon Breath / Energy Burst" with AOE 8~9 level spells(Methor swarm, Tsunami, Ice Flowers, Divine Wraith, Celestial Bombardment).

2. Caster and divines have many helpless spells, too. So, They can boost DPS more easily.

3. There are no fortification against spell damages, and spells have far higher crit range, crit damage boost.

they can one or two shot mods sometime when it crits but howl druid pretty much does it every time because it crits every time . no other caster come close to howl dmg right now

[Vellrad]

We need to add stamina bars for melees and ranged classes then we'll have balanace

Will we also add mysterious stamina bauble, ring of stamina storing, epic ring of stamina storing and legendary ring of stamina storing for an extra 1,020-5,475 stamina between rests?
And eveningstar stamina beers for ~180 extra once per 3 minutes?

[draven1]

they can one or two shot mods sometime when it crits but howl druid pretty much does it every time because it crits every time . no other caster come close to howl dmg right now

So, Howl of winter nerfed already.

- U56
The Winter Hunt buff from Nature's Warrior core 5 now grants +5 Cold Spell Crit Chance and +15% Cold Spell Crit Damage.

Even without that buff, AOE casters are so OP now.

[elkorm]

My main characters on Sarlona at cap right now are:
17 Wizard / 3 Paladin - Soloing and R10s for cc and aoe

As an enthusiastic Wiz player, that got me interested.
Could you share some details? (even on PM )

cheers
Elk

[jskinner937]

My caster melees in Night Revels.....

And in low Reapers.

I have never made any character that can take a hit in R10 or from those legendary red-named Orthons.


While I do think casters are more powerful than melee or ranged, I'd rather see the others get boosted.

Nerfs are the worst thing ever.

Stop the nerfs!

Stop them stop them stop them!!!!!!!!!

Melee lives matter....Caster Lives Matter....Ranged Lives Matter.

Stop the hate.

[Karthunk]

This entire thread is a step by step guide on how to kill a game with nerfs.

[jskinner937]

As an enthusiastic Wiz player, that got me interested.
Could you share some details? (even on PM )

cheers
Elk

I am guessing Bladeforged zombie EK with Sacred Defender, just by the level split.

[Bagel99]

Casters do need a nerf. But not to damage....to spell points

We need to get back to the original paradigm of "casters do huge damage but cant sustain it forever". If they had more of an enforced tradeoff between their huge AOE nukes and weaker, cheaper spells, then it would bring more of a skill element back in, as well as providing melee more of a rolespace in party play. Once power creep essentially let them go a whole quest without ever running out of SP, that tradeoff broke, and they kept all the upside while mitigating all the downside.

I remember when SP pots were high dollar AH items, even the small ones. Senior casters would have half an inventory of them and empty pockets! Platinum was blue back in the day! I agree, spell costs havent gone up much to their damage ratio. I don't even shrine when i play an arti anymore and its still a weaker caster class. I do enjoy my melee builds though and 2HF is a nice median between AOE and sustained damage. SWF being just damage. People need to be willing to take the trade though, and i fear so many SLAs are in the game that no amount of base spell cost is going to fix it. Not only that warlocks and Acid/Fire Sorcs would show up in droves again rotating un meta'd acid splash and fireball with meteor swarm. CC would also become even more of a focus which isnt bad tbh.

Either way cant support ya enough

[Yamani]

This entire thread is a step by step guide on how to kill a game with nerfs.

Game was killed when they consistently continued to buff players. Reaper mode was introduced to bring challenge back, too which then player buffs continued to happen. Any semblance of challenge gets cried about and people want more buffs for that. As for the state of casters, people play them cause its literally ez mode, and it makes them think they are good.

[AbyssalMage]

It's blatant and I can't stand it anymore. As a melee I am allowed this one time rant card, deal with it.

No! You deal with the fact the developers can't balance the game.

[]Anecdotal w/ 99% of being true: I was running through Night Revels with 1st life caster guildies for the past 20 hours+ and it's become nauseatingly obvious that they are magnitudes far beyond any melee in terms of AoE DPS or even single-target DPS. I am almost "optimized" on my 6th PL. These casters after posting their inventory are fresh capped forst lifers. And no, it's not "skill" as I've exclusively played melees in my 7 years here.

All challenges are ruled by casters. At least in Epics.

[]Fact: In mid to high skull reapers, the best defence is distance from you and the target. Not only do casters have this as their natural "attack state" but because of their ridiculous firepower from "back there" nothing really gets to them.

Yeah, and if there is a lag spike or tight angles they can also die in a single hit.

[]Fact: They have the most utility versus any class especially with a pure build melee.

Fighter, Rogue, and Barbarian
Yeah, only Rogue is viable. Fighter is splashed heavily. And Barbarian is a "unicorn" in end game.

[]Fact: They level the fastest (gee I wonder why)

Or you can group and finish at the same time.

[]Fact: Lowest gear thresholds.

You are joking correct? You can make a viable melee/range with less gear compared to a caster. Although the gear nerf closed the gap A LOT!

[]Fact: Highest Max Power Potential.

Always has been. Always should be. Have you played D&D before DDO (honest question)?

Please, developers. I know you know. I know you know. And yes, it affects my gameplay and enjoyment, because if one set of classes are just leaps & bounds OP over another set (aka melees) it drags my fun down.

This is the whole reason I replied. It is responses like this why the game has deteriorated so profusely over the last 3 years. The answer isn't to reduce casters but to boost melee/range.

Once I was even asked by guildmates/raiders to "just ditch melee and join the *winners*"... the absolute demeaning nature of what this comment implied made me quit DDO for a couple of months.

I effectively quit for 9 months. Yet I quit because of the upcoming nerfs (that have now passed) and previous nerfs to melee and ranged. Guess if you have been around then you are currently dealing with those nerfs to melee from previous updates.

How did that make you feel? And now you want to upset others in the community so they can feel bad like you? That is what I personally call selfish.

We NEED to nerf casters. Just pull the bandaid off now and let them take the sting now.

We don't need to nerf casters. We need to buff melee/ranged! We need to raise everyone up. Not destroy people. I empathize with you. But clubbing others because you feel bad isn't the correct answer.

[Arguile]

Casters actually do need a nerf to there aoe damage. There are very few instances where they run out of mana, and if they do, well there's potions for that. This game is wonky compared to many other games in that casters aoe spells at end game are actually their strongest spells. Casters dominate questing. There are very few times that casters don't dominate content compared to melee. This game is horribly balanced in casters favor right now.

[carsonfball]

And yes, it affects my gameplay and enjoyment, because if one set of classes are just leaps & bounds OP over another set (aka melees) it drags my fun down.

We NEED to nerf casters. Just pull the bandaid off now and let them take the sting now.

I prefer casters and a nerf would affect my enjoyment. Why not advocate for making melees more powerful rather than nerfing casters? Then we can both enjoy the game.

[carsonfball]

The answer isn't to reduce casters but to boost melee/range.

+1

I mostly play caster (also what I mostly play in paper-and-pencil D&D) because that's what I like. Making casters as bad as melee would likely cause me to look into other games. Conversely, if melees were made stronger, I might branch out and play more of them.

I mostly solo (tracked it one life and 85.65% of the time I was soloing). Making quest completions excruciatingly slow is going to make me not want to play.

[slarden]

At the moment melees have higher single-target dps and casters have higher aoe and this is by design and thematic with the pen and paper game.

As someone playing both melee and casters at cap and on hardcore (builds and results below) it is my belief that melee need defensive adjustments at cap for higher difficulty content. The game was knocked out of balance by the changes to meld, dire charge and to a lesser extent a few other things. Those things were tools to help with melee survivability and although also used by ranged and casters, were much more critical for melee in high end content.

I also think some encounters are poorly designed for melee survivability, e.g., high damage aoe cleaves where a tank can't mitigate damage for melees and other close-range combat, high aoe force or other damage centered on the boss. etc. Aoe damage should not be one-shotting well-built high hp melee when there is a tank that has the aggro. The single-target damage should be higher and aoe lower in those situations.

There are also a few encounters where the boss swaps aggro seemingly automatically and in those cases kills whatever it aggros on high difficulties. Those encounters impact all builds equally so aren't as bad - and generally a group should be able to survive this type of encounter.

My assassin has much higher single-target dps than my casters. It's less solo-friendly than caster because I lack cc - shadowdancer doesn't really have any and I lost both meld and dire charge on the build. I am able to solo R4 but would not consider pushing skulls for fun as I would do on a few other caster and THF builds.

High single-target dps builds are great for raiding and grouping, but not as great for soloing at least in my opinion. In R10 quests high single-target dps builds aren't really as necessary any more because in general groups bring down mobs fast. At one point the devs reduced the player dps penalty in R10s and perhaps that needs to be revisited or perhaps the devs are ok with groups beating R10s, but having to work harder for high skull raids.

I love my assassin for raiding - it's very effective there. I will be gaining some hp with U57, but it's not likely to change the calculus for soloing. I am ok with that because I build different characters for different purposes.

I don't think AOE dps needs to be reduced - it's doing what it is supposed to do. If people are salty about casters killing from long range they could revisit which spells support enlarge and perhaps remove enlarge from dps aoe spells and keep it on cc and single target spells.

I am not one that really cares that much about kill count as it's mostly about who wants the kills the most and who gets to enemies first. When not soloing I usually just play whatever the group needs whether that is tank, cc, heals or dps. I am able to contribute well with whatever I am playing, but I don't measure that based on just kill counts - it's a poor measure of contribution.