U59 Caster Reccomendations, <3

[Monkey_Archer]

The more I think about it, the problem is the CL of Eburst. They could limit it to 20 and fix the R10 issue immediately.

That might "fix" cold sorcs, but its not going to stop druids.

[Mamalian]

That might "fix" cold sorcs, but its not going to stop druids.

How about if "Cold" is the problem nerf Cold and not EVERYTHING!

The spill-over effects of this are just dumb.

[slarden]

Great topic to bring up.

I think many exclusive melee players feel there is a large kill count variance and want to feel they are contributing more.

One of the biggest things boosting aoe caster damage is helplessness damage boosts. In general I think that is what the devs should have addressed with how quickly mobs are dropping in R10s rather than just lowering all magic damage.

I am fairly old school and think since casters have the largest ability to make mobs helpless they shouldn't also get the large helpless damage boosts. In general I think they should lower helpless damage boosts for casters and raise them for melees. It's probably about right for ranged builds. The ability to make mobs helpless, then cast aoe spells with large helpless damage boosts is a large factor for why people consider casters to be overperforming.

After all the important thing to the party is the ability to make mobs helpless which benefits the whole party. Helpless damage boosts primarily just benefit kill count.

As someone that enjoys both melee and casters I don't really have any agenda - just sharing my perspective on why I think casters are able to outkill melees, although I don't see as much disparity in actual r10 questing as people claim on the forums, but I do think there are some issues.

[Blessedwynd]

General nerf across casters is a bad answer to mediocre melee's feeling unwanted at high reaper. As a FVS caster/healer (in that order) my damage is awful at anything above low reaper and my main is ineffective high reaper damage already, especially bosses. I rarely even bother dps on named already as I am practically dps helpless, so the nerf means nothing to my particular gameplay, but I'm also approaching reaper cap with top gear and can cc/insta. At mid reaper it takes me several minutes and half of a very robust spell point bar to take down a red name already. Taking the purples down in IoD wilderness (normal difficulty) takes about 4-5 minutes, and I watch shooters do it in 30 seconds. So why would you ever have to nerf this damage? There are no feats, abilities, gear or any way I can even approach the damage a melee or especially shooter can do.

I feel strongly about divines being typecast into a healer. We don't have enough strong players who stick with divines unless they really love it because we keep getting cast as melee babysitters. A high quality player has no problem with high end reaper on a melee, but they have the experience to build right and gear a well developed character and are great to have along. As a mediocre player with low/mid reaper points on a close range melee you are going to be a liability if you try to hang in close and sooth your ego with a good kill count. Thats why I carry a full stack of rez scrolls, but you need to know your ability level and don't join high reaper if you aren't built for it.

Melee do excellent damage (far, far more than an fvs, 3-5x probably) and shooters do insane damage (10x, witnessed daily). Nobody can stand in and take hits on high reaper, especially if you sacrificed your defense for dps. Why cater to the people complaining about a few highly skilled players who have developed their characters and gear to the point where they can solo or small group high reaper? Especially when you are generalizing all casters, most of which are certainly not OP and a little miffed about how we are being damage nerfed on a playstyle we can't conceivably perform at this time anyhow because our damage sucks. Change the elemental feats and abilities to address the specific issue.