STOP trying to BALANCE all the classes/trees

[archerforever]

I would like to see dungeons/adventure packs with really strong elite monsters (or even a general rework of mobs and/or champions on standard/Reaper difficulty).
The idea consist to add big elite monsters with the health of x10 classic mobs maybe more to have an utility of necro/assassin builds and single dps builds overall.
Maybe with some specific skills like :
- The monster is immune to physical damages but takes multiplied damage from magic damage
- The monster is immune to magical damages but takes multiplied damage from physical damage
- The monster can only be killed with positive OR negative OR fire OR cold OR electric OR sonic OR Acide Or poison Or force ... spells (no elemental resistance strip avaible)
- Dual champions = x2 mobs that have to be killed TOGETHER (1 or 2sec delay) or revive indefinitly
- ect...

Lot of options to make the game more attractive, challenging and bring back utility for all no AOE builds.

We can imagine that as an option on the quest window, you choose the difficulty (elite/ reaper ect) and this additional option : "add ultra elite monsters" yes or no and if you choose yes, you have +10%/15%/20% chance (or more) to get named items from chests.

[Tyrande]

[...]
- The monster is immune to physical damages but takes multiplied damage from magic damage
- The monster is immune to magical damages but takes multiplied damage from physical damage
- The monster can only be killed with positive OR negative OR fire OR cold OR electric OR sonic OR Acide Or poison Or force ... spells (no elemental resistance strip avaible)
- Dual champions = x2 mobs that have to be killed TOGETHER (1 or 2sec delay) or revive indefinitly
- ect...
[...].

Neat idea. But can the RNG be lucky?

i.e. What if one person is playing a fire sorcerer (pretty popular nowadays), and encounter a monster that is immune to magic damage, worst,
encountering dual champions that are immune to magic damage or must be killed with something else other than fire.

Swap that fire sorc to be a fire warlock, fire alchemist or a cold druid, same deal...

That means the end of soloing...

[archerforever]

Neat idea. But can the RNG be lucky?

i.e. What if one person is playing a fire sorcerer (pretty popular nowadays), and encounter a monster that is immune to magic damage, worst,
encountering dual champions that are immune to magic damage or must be killed with something else other than fire.

Swap that fire sorc to be a fire warlock, fire alchemist or a cold druid, same deal...

That means the end of soloing...

EXACTLY !
To have all builds avaible and have an utility, we need a system that we have to play in group.
BUT it is an OPTION i m suggesting, so you can run without that special elite monster mechanic, it s only to increase % of named stuff in chests so more focuses on end game content or specific items hunt.

We can imagine that new option in reaper difficulty giving named items a 100% chance to have reaper bonus on it.
So a special mode to feed sentient and have reaper shards. (chests can have more chance to have sentient XP aswell)

[mbartol]

EXACTLY !
To have all builds avaible and have an utility, we need a system that we have to play in group.
BUT it is an OPTION i m suggesting, so you can run without that special elite monster mechanic, it s only to increase % of named stuff in chests so more focuses on end game content or specific items hunt.

We can imagine that new option in reaper difficulty giving named items a 100% chance to have reaper bonus on it.
So a special mode to feed sentient and have reaper shards. (chests can have more chance to have sentient XP aswell)

The best (or most effective) way to farm gear is already running in groups to increase the number of pulls. Increasing the % drop rates will trivialize loot, and also penalize solo players.

[Raithe]

What if one person is playing a fire sorcerer (pretty popular nowadays)...

This immunity stripping conversation is a little baffling, so I'm going to interject. The level 9 fire spell for sorcerors is called Meteor Swarm, which is an insanely effective spell in comparison to almost everything else in the game. However, it doesn't rely on fire spellpower alone. A good chunk of the damage is actually physical, so having a good force spellpower is imperative to getting good damage numbers from that particular spell. Meteor swarm will do damage to both mobs that are immune to fire and mobs that have evasion and make their save (though not as much).

Awaken Elemental Weakness is single target, so not particularly good at bypassing the immunity for an entire group of mobs. I get the feeling that this entire conversation is really centered around a built-up frustration about sorcerors using their epic strike against boss mobs and doing multiple tens of thousands of damage, negating any real need for melee classes. I have bad news... the sorc is likely to also have Ruin and/or Greater Ruin that will do similar amounts of damage to a single target, which damage is untyped and typically isn't resisted by anything.

I would agree wholeheartedly with the general complaint that casters should be limited in the amount of damage they can do. I would prefer it be limited by spell points rather than burst DPS, but I am open to either solution.

...dual champions that are immune to magic damage...

Magic is a DR bypass type found on weapons, it is not really a damage type. As I noted, meteor swarm does physical damage, the same as a shuriken throwing expert. It would be quite difficult to rearrange the damage types of the game into neat little baskets that prevented casters from doing damage to certain mobs, but iron golems (used to be) pretty adept at resisting spell damage from arcane classes (divine, not so much). I'm just not sure the developers are really open to the idea of adding obstacles to quests that prevent a particular class from advancing.

Bottom line, I think there needs to be positive reinforcement for bringing a wide variety of classes to a DDO party. That positive reinforcement currently doesn't exist, not even remotely.