Lamannia Update 59 Preview 1 - CLOSED

[Stradivarius]

Some solid alternatives and discourse on mitigating runaway caster power and returning some semblance of inter-class balance.

[rabidfox]

Complete fabrication. You're getting a nerf. But don't worry your caster will still dominate endgame just not as hard.

I still say they need to be nerfed in elite on up; they level at least 1.75x faster than any melee or other playstyle.

You stated on prior occasion your best weapon has all of 5 (or 6) filigree slots, you said you don't run blood feast nor affirmation on a barb, and bunch of other statements indicating a fairly limited level of play. Zek, whom you're saying is fabricating melees being good, plays with some of the top people in the game who've put in the effort to gear up and build amazing melees. Of course you don't feel strong in high skulls, you haven't put in the effort to gear up and build to play well in there.

[Arkat]

You stated on prior occasion your best weapon has all of 5 (or 6) filigree slots, you said you don't run blood feast nor affirmation on a barb, and bunch of other statements indicating a fairly limited level of play. Zek, whom you're saying is fabricating melees being good, plays with some of the top people in the game who've put in the effort to gear up and build amazing melees. Of course you don't feel strong in high skulls, you haven't put in the effort to gear up and build to play well in there.

Not to mention that one of the best (if not THE best) players in DDO is exclusively a melee player.

Strad, Melees are REALLY good for good players.

Casters can be REALLY good for good and not-so-good players alike.

If someone is having a tough time as a melee player, they need to work on their build, work on their gear, and likely work on how they play.

[Stradivarius]

Yet, in terms of the results, I don't see ANY pure Barb, Fighter, Monk, or Rogue soloing R10's on YouTube or anywhere else? Why is that?

Post a melee solo of THTH on Reaper , heck any reaper. Solo.

Post any Sharn quest on R10 SOLO as a pure melee, not eldritch jedi knight, any pure vanilla melee. Do it. Show me.

*If you can do it on Just Business (R10 pure solo, pure melee rogue/monk/fighter/Barb), I will reincarnate all my toons into a caster and never speak of melee deficiencies ever again.

[rabidfox]

Yet, in terms of the results, I don't see ANY pure Barb, Fighter, Monk, or Rogue soloing R10's on YouTube or anywhere else? Why is that?

Post a melee solo of THTH on Reaper , heck any reaper. Solo.

Post any Sharn quest on R10 SOLO as a pure melee, not eldritch jedi knight, any pure vanilla melee. Do it. Show me.

*If you can do it on Just Business (R10 pure solo, pure melee rogue/monk/fighter/Barb), I will reincarnate all my toons into a caster and never speak of melee deficiencies ever again.

There's more monk r10 solo videos out there than one can imagine. But who cares about soloing? It's a MMO and I'm just pointing out that your blanket statements about melee being bad doesn't do anyone any good (especially when they're made by someone who doesn't do the basic gearing up before stepping into higher skulls). There's lots of people who successfully play melee in high skulls who can give specific details about what does and doesn't work well on them; I want to hear what they've got to say without it being drowned out by someone who judges classes based off videos and without experiencing the content on a properly geared/built character.

[Stradivarius]

There's more monk r10 solo videos out there than one can imagine. But who cares about soloing? It's a MMO and I'm just pointing out that your blanket statements about melee being bad doesn't do anyone any good (especially when they're made by someone who doesn't do the basic gearing up before stepping into higher skulls). There's lots of people who successfully play melee in high skulls who can give specific details about what does and doesn't work well on them; I want to hear what they've got to say without it being drowned out by someone who judges classes based off videos and without experiencing the content on a properly geared/built character.

There isn't. At least not melee monk where you're going up to target to kill it. We'll make this even simpler Barb/Fighter/Rogue(melee).

I judge it by vids because everything else is biased double-talk lies and bull*^%#. Show me. Period. Do it. Now.

[Nugaot]

There isn't. At least not melee monk where you're going up to target to kill it. We'll make this even simpler Barb/Fighter/Rogue(melee).

I judge it by vids because everything else is biased double-talk lies and bull*^%#. Show me. Period. Do it. Now.

Hey Jinx, check out this video from the first results on youtube searching for "ddo r10 monk". Although I'm sure you'll just find some contrivance that doesn't meet your arbitrary standards.

https://youtu.be/InnuiE_6YM0

Did you get tired of ban evading on Discord and now you've gotta come do your routine over on the forums?

[Stradivarius]

Hey Jinx, check out this video from the first results on youtube searching for "ddo r10 monk". Although I'm sure you'll just find some contrivance that doesn't meet your arbitrary standards.

https://youtu.be/InnuiE_6YM0

Did you get tired of ban evading on Discord and now you've gotta come do your routine over on the forums?

Sharn, Sharn, Sharn

I can teach my cat how to do that fey quest.

[Stradivarius]

Also for those of you saying but but but in Raids melees can be useful. Useful: Yes. Mandatory: Not for the vast majority of raids (can't recall even one off the top) Casters in Raids: Very Useful Mandatory: Yes, in some raids they can't be done without them especially in higher difficulties.

Q: If I had to choose to do all the raids with melee only or caster only,which would you pick?

A: I would 1,000,000% pick caster-only.

[Mindartis01]

SSG never ceases to amaze how little they care about end game players. Casters are better for going through r10 quests, other dps are better for going through high skull raids (that seems pretty balanced to me...?)

now its going to be dps casters are not better for anything. why are you guys literally braindead to how your game works? just stop nerfing people lol...whats the point? because 2% of the population is crying? they can not run with nukers if they dont like them. why does 98% of the population have to pay for what 2% people dont like? i just spent 150 reaper fragments, and over $1500 to catch my toon up after coming back from a break, and now im getting nerfed? very appealing to keep playing this game and spending time/money on it. *slow clap*

Its far more than two percent, your saying the game should be run on the lfm class specific? Everyone already knows casters are very overpowered right now. The damage nerf is to light. It should start at skull 5 and continue up in percentages from there.

[Mindartis01]

Some solid alternatives and discourse on mitigating runaway caster power and returning some semblance of inter-class balance.

An honest statement, I love it. The others disagreeing with you are people who don't want to lose their position of power in a game.

[VinoeWhines]

Facts are facts and this game has become unbalanced.

Melees are not happy with the state of this game in Reapers(R8's - R10's)
Casters aren't all the same as there are AOE nukers and DPS/Healers, so to blanket nerf them, isn't very viable as they focus on different aspects of their build.
Though the way it's going they(Sorc/Alch/Druid) can do both. (Four second cooldown on Turn to Frog and other instakill cooldowns)

The rules in R10 are off balance.

Kill a mob get free mana but not HP, it should be both or none, actually it should be none, it's Reaper.
The heal debuff should be removed when your healing by a rest shrine(the AOE Rest Shrine aura protects you from the debuff) that way you can heal normally but have to run back if you want that unbuff heal.

Deathward is magic protection against magical death effects, physical damage death affects shouldn't apply to magical affects.
Deathward shouldn't/doesn't protect against a cleave/pierce/slash/bludgeon/elemental damage but can have some(25-50%?) resistance against.

Reaper the way it's set up is bad. You shouldn't get nerfed, you should increase the mobs HP and abilities and not weaken the players, you don't truly get a sense of your build honestly by making it weaker.(Give the mobs more HP and/or elemental-DR protection)
We are stepping into a harder world, not entering a nerf world.
Just like in sports...the pro leagues don't require you to be weaker when entering from the amateur/college/minor league, you keep your abilities but are up against stronger opponents.

My character build is a shell of what it use to be as a level 20 same Class build, they just kept making it weaker and taking away abilities that were inherent to the class, giving away abilities from class and giving it to other classes or removing it completely.


The devs should put out max power guidelines for endgame power and work from there, like others mentioned in regards to Max Caster Level and dice rolls, they started to correct that with giving all the elements a close to same amount of damage and not favoring Fire elemental damage.

Don't give crutches to some classes and not others.
Mana opportunity increase/sustainability is very/too easy now if characters add items or add low cost abilities to get.

Character classes are not classes anymore in this game as it use to be.
Should there be a base line restructure, like the devs where formatting HP to melees, be revamped to all classes in the game.

Melees = Class that should be able to take the biggest amount of Physical damage but only a few times, maybe 4 or 5 hits(weaker to Magical Damage, 2 or 3 hits). Be able to hit hard but less often then casters?

Casters/Range = Class that should be able to incapacitate or CC mobs but be vulnerable to physical attacks 2 or 3 hits(but have better protection from Spell attacks then Melees, maybe 4 or 5 hits if properly built). Be able to cast often but not hit as hard as melees?


Damage output at the end game should equal the same?
Completing R10's solo in under 15 minutes?

[feelnofear]

solo grim and barret R10 in 7 min !! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ojhoyJCPwk Well done Caster !!!

[Hawkwier]

There needs to be a rebalance regarding risk/reward between melee and others.

Whilst the caster nerf may not be perfect, and again looks like the usual sledgehammer approach, it is at least tapered towards higher R.

I'm pretty sure this isn't the perfect end point, but it is a start in acknowledging the status quo isn't right, and for that, at least, I am thankful.

[VinoeWhines]

solo grim and barret R10 in 7 min !! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ojhoyJCPwk Well done Caster !!!

That be great if as a Rogue I could sneak in a room Mass Hold everything and then AOE Freeze everything then, AOE sneak attack everything all from a distance in 7 minutes? I'd take double that or triple that to 21 minutes, imagine that.

R10's take about forty-five minutes to an hour for now give or take 10 minutes.
I put up an LFM as a In Progress and am running it in that difficulty to hope and get a Reaper bonus to item as end reward, while hoping a few join quest while in progress to speed it up.

[VinoeWhines]

Stealth aggro still sucks(ddooring still have mobs, seek-missle you from any area in stealth as well as Reapers), Traps use to be nice but are just about useless in high reaper(a Disable Device DC as the same as a caster should be able to Mass Hold, Dance, Web mobs as Casters are able to but instead just fail), throwing flasks should scale close to what alchemists have, maybe not in total variety but in power of multi-vial levels(adding sneak dice and Melee/Range Power.)

[slarden]

@Devs

As someone who mains casters let me recommend the following:

0) Lowering damage on Draconic mantle to bring it in line with the Primal mantle.
1) Lowering the damage on Ruin and Gruin
2) Lowering Eburst scaling as well as scaling on AOE spells.
3) The reduction of crit chance bonuses. (E.x., from Pomura's augment, the exceptional bonuses, etc)
4) The reduction of crit damage bonuses. (E.x., from Dino Bone)
5) Nerfing the crit chance on frozen wanderer filigree bonus. Ice is already the best element for sorcs and druids, no need to help it even more.

The floor for damage casters is already too high. By trimming the top you aren't going to change much. The whole archetype is overperforming; however, it is mostly overperforming on Sorc and Druid. Warlock, Wizard, Artificer, and Bard are all not overperforming in the damage department.

Sorc could use a 30% nerf, but not in a way that affects other casters.
Druid about 20%.
Alchemist damage is really not that impressive IMO. Blightcaster is also not overperforming so it getting hit with a nerf is not good.

There are actually two separate problems:
1) AOE trash clear on r1 is too good.
2) Single target damage at cap is too much.

I think aoe damage on R10 is too good pre-U59, but helpless damage boosts is part of that. Addressing individual aoe spells or helpless damage boosts for casters only would be a more elegant way to fix this, but based on my testing this fix wasn't too bad and I tested on a warlock which is a lower dps build.

I don't think nerfing single-target damage spells such as ruin/gruin is needed as most caster don't even take those and just focus on aoe. With ruin/gruin and draconic boosts warlock single target dps is around 20k compared to 50k+ on my assassin which is lower than some ranged builds are able to get. Here is the single-target math on acoltye of the skin which would be slightly lower than the old school SE T5/TS Capstone build. That build would be right at 20k dps excluding debuffing.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Ruin/Gruin aren't the problems. At least for me those spells help me contribute in R10s when the party is dealing with multiple fears, multiple dooms and maybe a few despairs in some wave fight and fear dots can kill us in seconds. It's the only useful single-target dps spell I have for reapers as a warlock. They don't make R10s too easy.

I don't have a problem with mobs in general on a caster build and with this change I still don't have problems with mobs even if I my kill count is going down a bit which I could care less about. I really don't want my single-target damage lowered as it's not even approaching top-tier.

Mob damage is more than just spell damage. Helpless damage boosts are also a large factor. For a kill-count focused caster this is a big factor and if they really want to look at casters killing mobs too quick they should definitely look at individual aoe spells, but also the multipliers that make that damage much bigger.

solo grim and barret R10 in 7 min !! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ojhoyJCPwk Well done Caster !!!

Grim and Barrett has been solo'd R10 by casters, ranged and melee- and several years ago even.

Kill a mob get free mana but not HP, it should be both or none, actually it should be none, it's Reaper.

The reason for the mana drops has to do with reaper dps nerfs and casters having a unique constraint of spell points. For martial builds only action boosts are limited so the equivalent thing for a martial build would be an action boost drop to restore action boosts. I think they should do this.

Stealth aggro still sucks(ddooring still have mobs, seek-missle you from any area in stealth as well as Reapers), Traps use to be nice but are just about useless in high reaper(a Disable Device DC as the same as a caster should be able to Mass Hold, Dance, Web mobs as Casters are able to but instead just fail), throwing flasks should scale close to what alchemists have, maybe not in total variety but in power of multi-vial levels(adding sneak dice and Melee/Range Power.)

It's time consuming and most groups simply don't want to wait, but if you bluff the reapers away from the mobs and kill them first - you can then sneak through most mobs. I agree though, it's unfortunately stealth play isn't what it used to be.

[rabidfox]

solo grim and barret R10 in 7 min !! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ojhoyJCPwk Well done Caster !!!

Courtney is a top tier player; you could hand most people that exact character and they wouldn't be able to do a fraction of what he can.

Grim and Barrett has been solo'd R10 by casters, ranged and melee- and several years ago even.

Pretty much. Videos are also don't show the dozens if not hundreds of failed attempts that can go into getting a completion/fast time. The great players die (and die a lot) and grind to master things and make them look easy.

[Zites]

Courtney is a top tier player; you could hand most people that exact character and they wouldn't be able to do a fraction of what he can.

Courtneys ok, pikeING his reaper pugs was a relaxing way to get RXP, just kidding maybe ;D, also it helps to have inside info

Pretty much. Videos are also don't show the dozens if not hundreds of failed attempts that can go into getting a completion/fast time. The great players die (and die a lot) and grind to master things and make them look easy.

Grim is a cake walk, this was the first take.

As to caster nerfs no comment at this time, because I want new REAPERS!!!

PS. failed teleporting is stupid. Unless they remove ff and increases falling damage 500%

[Cordovan]

Stop fighting. If someone is clearly pushing a ridiculous agenda or set of claims, we have the capability of ignoring those posts ourselves without needing people to counter it. At some point this kind of behavior turns into actionable moderation, but we want to give people the opportunity to express themselves how they see fit (within the rules, of course.) I've now deleted a bunch of argumentative, insulting, and profanity-laced posts. Further posting along these lines from anyone will be met with swift and permanent moderation.