Lamannia Update 59 Preview 1 - CLOSED

[Vordax]

Any way to also get this pushed into R1-4, with higher emphasis on caster damage nerfs in R1, R2, and R3 so that leveling also isn't dominated by casters?

Maybe reduce damage for hard and elite for casters also, just so the melees will stop whining.

[Tilomere]

Maybe reduce damage for hard and elite for casters also, just so the melees will stop whining.

I forgot those existed, but yea, do that as well.

Also the sustained instead of caster damage burst Primal/Magus summons mantles break when you have both. Primal Avatar dot epic strike also doesn't stack between casters, so as a result everyone is forced into draconic energy burst/burst playstyle. Shiradi Fey Lights also doesn't work properly, and if it did still doesn't really do anything. Maybe fix the caster EDs as well to actually work/do something so a broader caster balance of playstyles is achieved and draconic burst wouldn't be so dominant.

My understanding was that caster damage reduction also included procs like Inquisitive, so this also drives ranged builds back to Hunts End + Sniper shot and ends imbue builds. I could be wrong on that though. If it does would probably need to remove the 20% IPS penalty to swap in this penalty instead.

[Alphabox]

After Update 59: Underdark-themed Mount preview

A preview of an Underdark-themed Mount is available in the Test Dojo for you to check out! We are specifically looking for things like animation bugs as this is a new mount "rig type" compared to a horse or dinosaur. We are not yet announcing where this mount will be available in the future, but it will be after the release of Update 59 and not with it.

I rode the new mount, which was this chubby cat. Maybe it should go on a diet a little bit more?

[magaiti]

There's especially a desperate need for set gear in the 21-28 level range. It's a long, long slog before we can use the current level 29 sets, from heroic Ravenloft or Sharn sets.

There's enough power between heroic Sharn, epic Sands/Fens/Chrono, Borderlands and Rusted Blades to carry you from 21 to 29.
I don't remember using any item in 24-27 range (and only a handful in 22-28 range) for years, and I have no intention to do so, due to storage reasons.

Yeah it's workable, so would you be ok with level 32 gear being the last level of useful gear until level 40 then? Think your missing the point.

I very much hope 29-32 gear will be good enough to level to 40, because I don't want to deal with more gear on my account.

[NightHiker]

[*]Adjustments to reduced damage have been made in Reaper difficulty for spellcasters in general on Skull 7+:

• Skull 7: From 25% damage to 23%
• Skull 8: From 20% damage to 18%
• Skull 9: From 18% damage to 15%
• Skull 10: From 15% damage to 10%

[/LIST]

Blanket nerfs to any playing style when there are several tiers as far as performance goes is always a bad move. It's not even about the amount of nerfing, but that all classes are nerfed the same. Those who like to play caster artis and bards, for example, or warlocks, but still want to perform reasonably well on high reapers, will be hurt most as usual. I'm ok with all casters getting some sort of nerf, but it's the highest performing ones, like sorcs, alchemists and druids that should get the brunt of it. This would increase build options and variety for those who love to play casters instead of further narrowing it. People talked about the prevalence of casters on "r10 solo" videos, but how many of those are alchemists, druids and sorcs (almost all of them), and how many are bards, artis, warlocks or wizads (pretty much none). There are actually more of those r10 videos being published with melee and ranged builds than with those underperforming caster builds.

Not a fan of this as it's currently thought out. Fine tune the worst offenders, guys. Don't punish everyone the same.

Cheers,
NH

[Lotoc]

Cold itemization and dragon breath being massively overtuned in comparison to alternatives are the biggest culprit when it comes to caster dominance in high reaper.
Maybe those should be addressed before nerfing even artis and henshin mystics in the same sweeping nerf.
Take the crit % off frozen wanderer and replace it with crit damage or something, we all know its too strong, you had to do the same to tiefling to resolve the dominance of fire and pidgeonholing into tiefling for casters.
While you're at it reevaluate dragonborn, caster level bonuses in general and how badly all your spell epic strikes are balanced.
It's been 2 years since the ED revamp and I've seen more ki casters than people using storm catcher, nightmare lance, moon lance or gloomspear and the only people taking the pillars in EA are grabbing the heal.

[tandyfw]

Please fix Alchemist SLA's to be aim and not just throw at front of him or at a specific enemy, I really loved that I could use multivial SLA at my foot.

[Talakos]

Please fix Alchemist SLA's to be aim and not just throw at front of him or at a specific enemy, I really loved that I could use multivial SLA at my foot.

Agree, much better! Stay stuck is worst...

[DarkSkysz]

Maybe reduce damage for hard and elite for casters also, just so the melees will stop whining.

Ah give meless a yellow bar called stamina. Each weapon swing should reduce it by a bit and to restore that bar they need to rest or pay DDO point for yellow pots.

Lets make the game more balanced for meless and casters.

Be honest, the longer the fight, the weaker casters get, while melees/ranged can still use their weapons with no problem.

Nerfng 'casters' in general is a dumb idea. Not every caster is a sorc or blightcaster.

[Orikan]

[*]Adjustments to reduced damage have been made in Reaper difficulty for spellcasters in general on Skull 7+:

• Skull 7: From 25% damage to 23%
• Skull 8: From 20% damage to 18%
• Skull 9: From 18% damage to 15%
• Skull 10: From 15% damage to 10%

This seems to be a very large nerf to many classes that are not currently "overperforming" at cap. Many of those classes that are overperforming, I would beg to say that is a select few players that have very fine-tuned gearsets and playstyles that may skew the outlook on how much better casters are. Affecting nuker Arti, Warlock, FvS, Cleric and Wizard in this manner will just make those classes less played as nuker and will push people towards classes that are doing better, such as Sorc, Druid etc. A better move would be to buff melee across the board since they appear to be underperforming comparatively to these few classes and builds that are doing so well. I am a consistent r10 player and still see many, many casters not able to hit the DC requirements that is required, and making these people do less damage will not help them at all.

This nerf would also push more casters away from high reaper raid pushing which already has very few casters as is.

[mikarddo]

This seems to be a very large nerf to many classes that are not currently "overperforming" at cap. Many of those classes that are overperforming, I would beg to say that is a select few players that have very fine-tuned gearsets and playstyles that may skew the outlook on how much better casters are. Affecting nuker Arti, Warlock, FvS, Cleric and Wizard in this manner will just make those classes less played as nuker and will push people towards classes that are doing better, such as Sorc, Druid etc. A better move would be to buff melee across the board since they appear to be underperforming comparatively to these few classes and builds that are doing so well. I am a consistent r10 player and still see many, many casters not able to hit the DC requirements that is required, and making these people do less damage will not help them at all.

This nerf would also push more casters away from high reaper raid pushing which already has very few casters as is.

I agree that the nerf is badly handled. I dont agree that the solution is to buff anyone. DDO is already too easy so buffing isnt the answer. Nerfing the actual culprits rather than blanket nerfing is.

[Lotoc]

Adjustments to reduced damage have been made in Reaper difficulty for spellcasters in general on Skull 7+:
Skull 7: From 25% damage to 23%
Skull 8: From 20% damage to 18%
Skull 9: From 18% damage to 15%
Skull 10: From 15% damage to 10%

Thinking on this some more, player damage in general is too high in reaper compared to enemy health pools.
Nevermind just spellcasters it may well be fitting to reduce everyone's damage to these levels in r7-10.
Truth is we are by far stronger relative to content now than we were 3 years ago, back when the stat squish happened the health pools of endgame enemies were shrunk trying not to make the game too difficult at cap but now even with that stat squish we're stronger than ever and the content drastically weaker relative to us.
That's why endgame reapers are too easy right now and it isn't just a caster problem.
Casters are just dominant because they excel at wiping out low health trash mobs and now most everything is a low health trash mob.

[mikarddo]

Thinking on this some more, player damage in general is too high in reaper compared to enemy health pools.
Nevermind just spellcasters it may well be fitting to reduce everyone's damage to these levels in r7-10.
Truth is we are by far stronger relative to content now than we were 3 years ago, back when the stat squish happened the health pools of endgame enemies were shrunk trying not to make the game too difficult at cap but now even with that stat squish we're stronger than ever and the content drastically weaker relative to us.
That's why endgame reapers are too easy right now and it isn't just a caster problem.
Casters are just dominant because they excel at wiping out low health trash mobs and now most everything is a low health trash mob.

That is a good point.

[Monkey_Archer]

Thinking on this some more, player damage in general is too high in reaper compared to enemy health pools.
Nevermind just spellcasters it may well be fitting to reduce everyone's damage to these levels in r7-10.
Truth is we are by far stronger relative to content now than we were 3 years ago, back when the stat squish happened the health pools of endgame enemies were shrunk trying not to make the game too difficult at cap but now even with that stat squish we're stronger than ever and the content drastically weaker relative to us.
That's why endgame reapers are too easy right now and it isn't just a caster problem.
Casters are just dominant because they excel at wiping out low health trash mobs and now most everything is a low health trash mob.

Correct. R11+ would solve many issues without or with fewer nerfs necessary.

It would be nice if one of the devs made a statement such as:

"Hey guys, this nerf is just a temporary fix to an ongoing issue with casters over-performing until we can properly address this issue in an upcoming update (date not set in stone) soon(tm) on reaper difficulty and/or another balance pass."

... but who knows, leaving players in the dark to brood about these things seems to be standard practice ...

[o2t4f]

Not a fan of the caster damage changes. Why are casters singled out like that? It would be nice to know the reasoning behind the change.

Also, casters were already a bad pick as DPS in high reaper raids, now they're even worse.

I hope that is not their way to counter some exploit that I've noticed some players doing recently where magic damage somehow becomes 100x higher. r10 dooms and bosses get one shot, but with some luck you can hit that boss before it dies and notice your unusually high damage.

[Stradivarius]

OK idea.

How about we don't touch caster damage at all.

BUT, we add in "spell fizzle"; for every mob in the room or near beyond (spell targettable range) here is a flat 3% chance per mob for the spell to fail after it's been cast.

[nateusmaximus]

Adjustments to reduced damage have been made in Reaper difficulty for spellcasters in general on Skull 7+:

• Skull 7: From 25% damage to 23%
• Skull 8: From 20% damage to 18%
• Skull 9: From 18% damage to 15%
• Skull 10: From 15% damage to 10%
  
  

The R7-R9 changes are moderate and justifiable (even if I don't personally like them), but the R10 change... cutting damage to 66% of what it was... Holy ****! That's total over-kill. 15% to 13% would be better, at least until you find out how that change ripples through the player base.

This is emblematic of a repeated problem I see with "balance" changes that get made in DDO. It seems like the balance philosophy can be summed up as, "nerf infrequently but HARD." I think the approach should be the exact opposite, i.e. "frequent but very gentle adjustments." This avoids the problem of "over-steering". We saw this problem with monk changes, warlock changes, sorc changes, and bow-user changes in the past, and every time it took a loooong time for those over-corrections to get addressed (sometimes years). In the meantime I've seen several people, who distinctly preferred one class or gameplay style, leave the game entirely because their build/class/style got nerfed into the ground. This is bad for business, bad for retaining players, and just plain unkind. Please think about the (implicit maybe?) balance philosophy and how it can be adjusted to better serve both DDO and the player base.

[nateusmaximus]

2 additional points:

Just because Strimtom complains about something doesn't mean most players see it as a problem and doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be "fixed", and

If you think casters are the top DPS in the game... well, that's just demonstrably incorrect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-zR...b_channel=Kyrr

[DaviMOC]

2 additional points:

Just because Strimtom complains about something doesn't mean most players see it as a problem and doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be "fixed", and

If you think casters are the top DPS in the game... well, that's just demonstrably incorrect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-zR...b_channel=Kyrr

Yeah.... Using standing dummy dps as a ref is what got us where we are at.

[tapster]

U58.0.1 applied a stealth nerf to VC poisoned coating and changed the text to state it applied to simple weapons only. Previously it applied to all weapons.

However it's not applying on ANY weapons, including simple ones. (Tested here https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showth...-after-U58-0-1)

Any chance we can get this at least as WAI for simple weapons as it's borked my VC melee completely?