We NEED to NERF Casters...

[Stradivarius]

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

[]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.

[]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.

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

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

[]Fact: Lowest gear thresholds.

[]Fact: Highest Max Power Potential.


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.

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.

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

[mr420247]

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

Night revels on an es warlock in melee ranged are about as ez as it gets on a first life iconic and there def not about the dps

Pretty sure barbs can still level pretty fast

[Tyrande]

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

[]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 [...]

You're comparing to casters in their favorite content with fire.
Most casters are fire based and undead are vulnerable to fire.

If you say, let's go fight some devils like Amrath Archons chain with no immunity stripping at level on Reaper, you'll see the difference.

Yeah, to make this fair, let's make stamina bars for melees and ranged chars.

[mr420247]

See how they like doing nothing on a raid for an hour but auto attack cuz no shrines n stuff

[droid327]

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.

[Tyrande]

See how they like doing nothing on a raid for an hour but auto attack cuz no shrines n stuff

Yup yup. Try Legendary Lord of Blades on reaper or project nemesis on reaper... no shrines. Melees and ranged shines here.

[Alternative]

They'll nerf casters by giving mobs more dodge.

[rabidfox]

[]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.

Hehehehe, challenges from the event are basically normal difficulty. They're a joke that are easy to do. A poorly geared 1st lifer won't have any issues anymore than a geared to the teeth total completionist. It's just about having attacks that can hit the most number of them at a time. Should totally nerf casters so some players can feel special on casual/normal difficulties...

[Steeme]

What melee are you using? Lvl 20 straight up THF paladin in template gear with a decent amount of past lives is quite strong right now.

I will agree that a "caster" has more utility and can clear trash mobs more quickly and with less button clicking, but the solution to that is not to nerf casters.

Nerfing casters will basically just be a nerf to players in general, for example leveling speed, past life progression, etc. And nerfing casters will not make your melee character stronger.

[Axcarth]

I've said this before. I play both styles (melee and caster) at end game high reaper with two mains, casters are indeed OP if compare to melees. I like both, mainly melee since it gives more of a challenge to succeed on that environment. Some others may not like that. I do not ask for a nerf on casters nor think I will. There are other ways to balance the game.

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 totally agree. This may be a good element to consider without really "nerfing" casters.

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

If this stamina bar works like spell point bars do for caster, then it worth nothing... it will never run dry, just like spell points.

They'll nerf casters by giving mobs more dodge.

Rofl.

[Monkey_Archer]

I've said this before. I play both styles (melee and caster) at end game high reaper with two mains, casters are indeed OP if compare to melees. I like both, mainly melee since it gives more of a challenge to succeed on that environment. Some others may not like that. I do not ask for a nerf on casters nor think I will. There are other ways to balance the game.

The main problem with discussions like this is that DDO is many different games at once. The endgame r10 zerg crowd is different from the r1-4 speed leveling crowd which is different from raiders, then there's the no reaper at all crowd, etc, etc...

I don't think its possible to fully grasp DDO balance unless you can and do solo 1-30 on reaper on any class (to actually experience the real differences), as well as zerg endgame r10s, but everyone will have an opinion anyway

Casters dominate leveling because they just do more damage all the time. period. Solving this can only involve nerfs, if it even needs to be solved at all. (I lean towards "who cares", nobody levels TWF melees anyway)

Casters are starting to dominate endgame r10s for completely different reasons. They aren't doing much more damage than many melee or ranged builds, its just that monsters have so little hp they die too fast. Which is a power creep problem. When monsters die so fast, the actual limiting factor of casters (their cooldowns, not spell points) don't matter because you can just recharge between groups of mobs. (and effectively do double or triple your "real" damage output by bypassing the cooldown part)

Double or triple endgame monster hp and the caster "problem" likely goes away.

[Lotoc]

Double or Triple endgame monster hp and the caster "problem" likely goes away.

It doesn't solve the fact that casters get superior CC options with much lower cooldowns and champions are mechanically far more skewed against melee/ranged than they are against casters.
There's also the fact that casters can build to be able to heal themselves sporadically even on r10 because of how overtuned reborn in fire is while none casters can't, in group play this often leads to caster FVS/Clerics just leaving melee or even tanks to die in the mindset that if someone needs healing they should just heal their self in r10.

[Yamani]

Lol pretty much. They will eventually result to: You just want to ruin others fun. Despite them being the ones killing the fun for everyone else that has to deal with them.

For questing I pretty much stopped grouping altogether except for with people I like, even less so with casters. Cut that down to effectively 2 people. 1 of which play's a CC/insta/debuffer/healing warlock. So we completely forgo tank/healer roles with him even on r10s.

[drathdragon]

quick and dirty:

nerf the casters and the game is immediately dead.

devs will never do that, they can't do that.

and they know it.

[SpeakerForTheDead]

quick and dirty:

nerf the casters and the game is immediately dead.

devs will never do that, they can't do that.

and they know it.

agreed. people often hate being nerfed and will leave due to it. sure, nerf the totally overpowered ones that are broken, like cold druid atm. but u cant just nerf all casters. you gotta come up with ways to make melee better if they're struggling so that players have more fun, not just make all other chars worse. personally i think that the stamina bar is a great start to some good ideas for melee and maybe even other non-casters.

[PedXing20]

For questing I pretty much stopped grouping altogether except for with people I like, even less so with casters.

Really wish more people would just play with other like minded people instead of crying that someone else is having more fun than me so their fun must be stopped!!!

[PedXing20]

i am almost "optimized" on my 6th pl.... As i've exclusively played melees in my 7 years here.

lol

[krimsonrane]

I play a caster and you're right. But the answer isn't to nerf casters. it's to beef up melee. Give them new powers and abilities that make them more comparable. Let S&B fighters use a hammer slam which is equivalent to earthquake. Allow THW users to periodically double their range in a great cleave. Kind of like how they did for rogues. Let TWF's shoot out slicing attacks at range. Like Zoro from one piece. Give ranged toons explosive arrows. Not every arrow. A special move with a cooldown. Those are just a few examples.

[Dmitrythewizzy]

Nerf casters when you nerf the unkillability of melee in Raids. Casters are so glass cannon in raids compared to melee that we need to nerf all those melee players in raids. Then also, nerf those bow dude and those stupid dagger pew pew pewer for all that single target damage. They can burn a boss down super fast! I think everyone should get nerfs! That's just what player bases love... having their years old character nerfed Yeah excellent idea.

[Tyrande]

I play a caster and you're right. But the answer isn't to nerf casters. it's to beef up melee. [...] hammer slam which is equivalent to earthquake.

You mean like Thor? I don't recall Thor uses a shield though? I don't mind if they add this ability to the LD tree though.

periodically double their range in a great cleave. Kind of like how they did for rogues.

But that's an epic destiny ability giving to THF at heroic?!? That'll be beyond broken...
But they already got Strikethrough which is not D&D at all and barbarians are fine at the moment...

Let TWF's shoot out slicing attacks at range. Like Zoro from one piece.

Not sure about this one, I haven't seen the Zoro series episodes.

Give ranged toons explosive arrows. Not every arrow. A special move with a cooldown. Those are just a few examples.

Explosive arrows ability yes, this is available in D&D; but other abilities probably no.

This is an official Wizards of the Coast licensed project, I doubt they are going to something that's so drastically not D&D.
However, we got PRR and MRR,... and you never know...