Hard to Kill --> Haunting

[Zzevel]

Wail of the Banshee

SP Cost: 50
Cooldown: 60 seconds (50 for Sorcerers)
You emit a terrible scream, creating a deadly area around yourself for 6 seconds. Every 2 seconds, two nearby enemies must make a fortitude save or die. On a successful fortitude save, the target takes 1 to 4 negative levels. You are free to perform other actions while Wail of the Banshee is active.
D&D Dice: Slays multiple living enemies or deals 1d4 negative levels if they save.

It's possible that the "Haunted" concept, instead of being a debuff, will reappear as a positive effect for characters that invest in the Pale Master tree.)

Better.... but 50 cooldown for a SORC? What kind of junk is that? I see where you're saying there COULD be a buff for pale masters but they should be the KINGS of Necromancy spells not some lame SORC! If it has to be a 60 second cooldown a dedicated PM should have better manipulation on the spell than some plain jane random polka dot Sorc Nuker.. I will be intrested in the "PM" line enhancements.

[maddmatt70]

"Who cares if a bunch of caster's get angry enough to quit the game?" That's how I read what you posted.

The proposed change makes Wail much less powerful than its current incarnation, and I suppose that's fine. But stating that making sweeping changes to those three spells that many have collected many past lives to improve is ridiculous. Especially since it wastes our time.

TLDR - I care.

No you do not care about what is for the good of the game. My most true reincarnated character i.e. the character that I have true reincarnated the most is my 5th live cleric who has 3 sorc and 1 wizard past lives. Do you think I speak for my own best interst when I say implosion should be nerfed? This whole situation is not unlike the nerfing of Wounding and Puncturing which made the game better. I can not even believe anyone could argue that a one button mass death spell is a good thing.

The mass insta kill spells has routinely made the game less fun for my melee and made DDO boring and less challenging.

In pen and paper in one campaign I was in it was extremely high powered. The dungeon master in that campaign had no problem with throwing out an insta-kill right off the bat. It was quite concieveable for the dungeon master's bad guys to win the initiative and hit me with a finger of death flatfooted without even a chance to react. So what did I do on my level 18+ cleric is I put the death ward property on my armor (the deathward property automatically casts the deatward spell cl 7 whenever a negative energy effect strikes you, but it is only 1 use per day).

The Devs really do have the deathward property option, but they are limited because of programming. They can not arbitrarly say on some of the mobs there is the deathward property because that requires too much programming; hence, blanket immunites which are not good either. The best option is target and nerf the mass insta kills and leave alone single target insta-kills. For those of you that remember live before mass instakills when the cap in DDO was 16 and below the gameplay was better.

[Beethoven]

No.

But any old 28-point palemaster does exactly the same effect just at a slower speed in the vast majority of epics. I purposely avoid inviting them because they trivilize the game, its not fun.

And I'm not the only one who wants a challenge. Not by a long shot.

You may want to elaborate on this because I am having a hard time following how screenshots showing Favored Souls and Sorcerer leading the kill counts more often than not is clear evidence of how overpowered 28 point Palemasters are.

It proofs anything than how closely matched Sorcerer, Wizards and Favored Souls are and even then someone could still argue that Favored Souls and Sorcerer had the kill count more often than Wizards. The nerf to Wail (or Necromancy) is not going to slow those guys down unless it also goes hand in hand with a nerf to caster dps.

[bbqzor]

Hi everyone!

Thank you for the feedback on the haunted idea.

We've evaluated the Haunted mechanic to be too complex to introduce at this time. As mentioned by several posters in this thread, it's really Wail of the Banshee that is the source of the balance problems that we seek to address, and it's more logical to constrain changes to the spell.

We're planning on removing the death protection from non-boss creatures in Epic difficulty and changing Wail of the Banshee from being a spell that instantaneously kills up to 20 enemies for 10 sp more than Finger of Death, to a kill-over-time model similar to, but still better than, the Clr/FvS spell Implosion.

Wail of the Banshee
SP Cost: 50
Cooldown: 60 seconds (50 for Sorcerers)
You emit a terrible scream, creating a deadly area around yourself for 6 seconds. Every 2 seconds, two nearby enemies must make a fortitude save or die. On a successful fortitude save, the target takes 1 to 4 negative levels. You are free to perform other actions while Wail of the Banshee is active.
D&D Dice: Slays multiple living enemies or deals 1d4 negative levels if they save.

We're planning on continuing to monitor the effectiveness of instant death effects (and necromancy in general) and will continue to make changes as necessary. (Especially when the enhancements revamp appears. It's possible that the "Haunted" concept, instead of being a debuff, will reappear as a positive effect for characters that invest in the Pale Master tree.)

Okay. So instead of two casts per minute, its now one cast per minute. And instead of 20 mobs per cast, its now 10. So it now has 1/4th the potential, with the tradeoff that mobs who save take negative levels (which heal incredibly fast on epic so is of limited relevance depending on what content you're looking at).

This is (in the current environment) better than both previous incarnations of a "fix" to this "problem", so in that sense I suppose its a good move. But really, 1/4th as effective is quite a hit. I think you went too far. Especially so considering the people with DCs in the 45 range (which is what is largely considered "the problem" range) are in epic content where the addition of negative levels won't really help much of anything, as they are simply healed too fast to matter.

Is there any chance of adjusting the recast? I don't think having it affect more mobs per tick is a good idea, and simply adding more negative levels (so that it matters on epic) starts to infringe on Energy Drain. Likewise, making it last longer isn't really a good solution since the perceived issue Dev-side is that it can clear a whole room (ie, affect too many mobs at once). But a 1 minute recast is rough with the target count also halved. Again, plenty of classes can get 10 kills a minute from a top end ability... and a DC45 Wail from an Epic Geared PM is most definitely a top end ability operating at max capacity.

I like this overall approach the best of all, but I hope a small adjustment can be made to the recast (perhaps 45s wiz / 36s sorc, or 40s wiz / 33s sorc, or something) can be made. It is still much weaker proportionally than it was, but at least it would avoid having people to wait a full minute between using their nerfed abilities... a minute is a long time in DDO land, and I would like to see this closer to an action boost in application where you can get 1 per fight (like haste boost) instead of 1 every few fights (like manyshot).

If you can get the timer down to something palatable, I would be impressed with your treatment of this "issue", which I still contend is build greatly upon peoples perception of a problem and less on any comparable numbers (ie, people feel its too good to see a lot of mobs die at once, instead of looking at averages killed per unit time or per unit mana etc... it looks like a problem more than is a problem). After all, few, if any, people have complained about Assassinate, and I have seen it result in numerous cases where skilled players on well built toons dominate adventures. But thats just it, its not something you "see" as readily as a lot of things falling over next to a wizard.

Thanks for reading the feedback, and I hope it gets polished up before release.

[Dolphious]

Exactly, that's what we need! Outsourced whining! I'm good for a little table pounding once in awhile, but I just don't have the stamina that you guys do to keep it going for hours/days non-stop.

Un-nerf bards, whaaa, whaa. Repeat x1000

will that work?

[alexp80]

No you do not care about what is for the good of the game. My most true reincarnated character i.e. the character that I have true reincarnated the most is my 5th live cleric who has 3 sorc and 1 wizard past lives. Do you think I speak for my own best interst when I say implosion should be nerfed? This whole situation is not unlike the nerfing of Wounding and Puncturing which made the game better. I can not even believe anyone could argue that a one button mass death spell is a good thing.

Melee can simply choose a different weapon. PALE MASTERS HAVE NO OTHER OPTION DID YOU GET THIS?

The mass insta kill spells has routinely made the game less fun for my melee and made DDO boring and less challenging.

Here's the whine part. When wizards were buff/hold bots were fun FOR YOU.

In pen and paper in one campaign I was in it was extremely high powered. The dungeon master in that campaign had no problem with throwing out an insta-kill right off the bat. It was quite concieveable for the dungeon master's bad guys to win the initiative and hit me with a finger of death flatfooted without even a chance to react. So what did I do on my level 18+ cleric is I put the death ward property on my armor (the deathward property automatically casts the deatward spell cl 7 whenever a negative energy effect strikes you, but it is only 1 use per day).

Pnp encounters are designed on group, master have to balance only the party and arrange the game around them. It's quite different. A pale master without instakills is FAR WORSE than any other arcane.

The Devs really do have the deathward property option, but they are limited because of programming. They can not arbitrarly say on some of the mobs there is the deathward property because that requires too much programming; hence, blanket immunites which are not good either. The best option is target and nerf the mass insta kills and leave alone single target insta-kills. For those of you that remember live before mass instakills when the cap in DDO was 16 and below the gameplay was better.

Dling dlong, first mass instakill is before lvl 16, did you know?

[quijenoth]

Coming into this discussion a little late and havent read everything here...

I like the changes proposed as the thought of going back to blanket deathward on epics scares the hell out of me.

I wonder though if, now that all death spells have a limit, that making them more effective againts deathward is required? I think someone mentioned in here the idea of making deathward work like the poison/disease revamp. Is that still something that could be considered with regards to the haunting mechanic?
I.E. deathward grants a +10 bonus to your saves vs death effects (with no autofail on a 1) but allows really high DC casters to still get through the buff?

It would help ease the "try to kill the same immune mobs" problem people are highlighting and of cause this would have a high detriment on players vs high level casters of death spells. At least it allows pale masters a chance to deal with cleric mobs that cast deathward before their even targetable!

[MadFloyd]

LOL, is it wrong if I like the Wail nerf even more if this is true?

Fernando has yet to even suggest a nerf of anything.

All these systems changes come from the actual devs who care deeply about game balance and providing an appropriate challenging and entertaining experience for you. They have to lobby fairly hard to get these changes in, and even then the changes are monitored closely and then altered as necessary.

Many of these changes come as requests from these forums, some come from our own play experience, but most come as a result of both.

It isn't easy "nerfing" anyone's character abilities, regardless of how justified it might seem. It is especially difficult given that we created the situation that now warrants the change. If only making everything over powered was the route to success our jobs would be much easier.

We have been making every effort to share the changes with you and solicit feedback, often resulting in an improved solution. This itself is tricky because it's natural for many of us to react negatively to any type of change.

To those of you who have responded constructively one way or the other, we thank you.

Oh and by the way (referring to your sig), we aren't nerfing the Torc.

[tinyelvis]

You know its funny but I think an easy solution to this lies in an old John Goodman Saturday Night Live Skit.

Scene: A cave somewhere deep in the sulferous mines of MT. Reysalon. A battered group of kobolds stumble into a meeting room. At the front of the room stands a pudgy kobold mini boss with a yard stick in hand and a scowl on his face. Next to him is a large chalk board with strategy notes and symbols scribbled on it.

Mini Boss: Ok settle down settle down. Well, that did not go well.

Kobold Masses: Grumble, grumble, grumble....

Mini Boss (pointing to the chalk board with stick): How did we agree we were going to attack the adventurers?

Kobold Masses (in one monotone grumbling voice): One at a time!

Mini Boss : And how did we do it?

Kobold Masses (again in one voice like school children): All at once in a big group

Mini Boss : Guys, we can't keep doing this. The PM just gets us all with one spell.....

[FrozenNova]

Okay. So instead of two casts per minute, its now one cast per minute. And instead of 20 mobs per cast, its now 10.

Am I missing something here?
2 monsters per 2 seconds for 6 seconds = 1 monster per second for 6 seconds = 6 monsters.

Also, can the two randomly selected monsters be the same monster? I.e. if I'm standing next to one enemy can I inflict 6d4 negs?

[Ebonta]

No you do not care about what is for the good of the game. My most true reincarnated character i.e. the character that I have true reincarnated the most is my 5th live cleric who has 3 sorc and 1 wizard past lives. Do you think I speak for my own best interst when I say implosion should be nerfed? This whole situation is not unlike the nerfing of Wounding and Puncturing which made the game better. I can not even believe anyone could argue that a one button mass death spell is a good thing.

Thank you for making wild assumptions and telling me what I care about. I do care about balance, just not a fan of the nerfing. Oh, and Implosion is fine in my opinion.

The mass insta kill spells has routinely made the game less fun for my melee and made DDO boring and less challenging.

Mass Holding and buffboting made DDO boring to me.

In pen and paper in one campaign I was in it was extremely high powered. The dungeon master in that campaign had no problem with throwing out an insta-kill right off the bat. It was quite concieveable for the dungeon master's bad guys to win the initiative and hit me with a finger of death flatfooted without even a chance to react. So what did I do on my level 18+ cleric is I put the death ward property on my armor (the deathward property automatically casts the deatward spell cl 7 whenever a negative energy effect strikes you, but it is only 1 use per day).

I could live with that.

The Devs really do have the deathward property option, but they are limited because of programming. They can not arbitrarly say on some of the mobs there is the deathward property because that requires too much programming; hence, blanket immunites which are not good either. The best option is target and nerf the mass insta kills and leave alone single target insta-kills. For those of you that remember live before mass instakills when the cap in DDO was 16 and below the gameplay was better.

They could just start throwing in some Cleric's with Mass Death Ward into groups. They normally cast that right off the bat. I agree that Wail needs to be nerfed, but the proposed one still needs tweaking.

[DeafeningWhisper]

Fernando has yet to even suggest a nerf of anything.

All these systems changes come from the actual devs who care deeply about game balance and providing an appropriate challenging and entertaining experience for you. They have to lobby fairly hard to get these changes in, and even then the changes are monitored closely and then altered as necessary.

Many of these changes come as requests from these forums, some come from our own play experience, but most come as a result of both.

It isn't easy "nerfing" anyone's character abilities, regardless of how justified it might seem. It is especially difficult given that we created the situation that now warrants the change. If only making everything over powered was the route to success our jobs would be much easier.

We have been making every effort to share the changes with you and solicit feedback, often resulting in an improved solution. This itself is tricky because it's natural for many of us to react negatively to any type of change.

To those of you who have responded constructively one way or the other, we thank you.

Oh and by the way (referring to your sig), we aren't nerfing the Torc.

LMFAO! Nice, I guess I can remove it then, it was more of a joke with Stillwaters anyway.

Sorry to bother you, but it seems that it's still unclear if we are getting lesser hearts of wood with MoTU, are you able to comment on this? I ask because you where the dev involved in said discussion during the Beta.

[Scraap]

Fernando has yet to even suggest a nerf of anything.

All these systems changes come from the actual devs who care deeply about game balance and providing an appropriate challenging and entertaining experience for you. They have to lobby fairly hard to get these changes in, and even then the changes are monitored closely and then altered as necessary.

Many of these changes come as requests from these forums, some come from our own play experience, but most come as a result of both.

It isn't easy "nerfing" anyone's character abilities, regardless of how justified it might seem. It is especially difficult given that we created the situation that now warrants the change. If only making everything over powered was the route to success our jobs would be much easier.

We have been making every effort to share the changes with you and solicit feedback, often resulting in an improved solution. This itself is tricky because it's natural for many of us to react negatively to any type of change.

To those of you who have responded constructively one way or the other, we thank you.

Oh and by the way (referring to your sig), we aren't nerfing the Torc.

Thinkin at this point, we're mostly down to matters of degree, and balancing the numbers for side-effects, really. It is a step forwards compared to the last 2 notions' effects on party-play and caster-class vs caster-class balance. That last is mostly the sticking point, at this point, belike.

[Malshier]

Nah, I'm a wizard flexibility is my true power, necromancy is just my calling card.

I wish I could give you +5,000 internets for this. This PERFECTLY sums it up for me.

[Masadique]

Well, I have 3 elemental lines in 7/1/1 (damage, crit chance, crit multiplier), I don't like clearing mobs on the way to the boss then going afk while the rest of the party takes him down.

Plus undead/drow/constructs and so on can't be insta-killed, what am I supposed to use? Harsh language? Nah, I'm a wizard flexibility is my true power, necromancy is just my calling card.

You, sir, sound like you've properly used that massive main stat of yours. You've restored a bit of my faith in casters.

V

[slimkj]

It is especially difficult given that we created the situation that now warrants the change.

[...]

We have been making every effort to share the changes with you and solicit feedback, often resulting in an improved solution. This itself is tricky because it's natural for many of us to react negatively to any type of change.

Yes, people react negatively who have sunk time and money into attaining what you refer to there; a situation of your creation. Just like with the forthcoming enhancement pass, time to react and adjust being built in is very important, as this has proved.

Still, though. You did create the circumstance in which people worked for some considerable time and let them put money and time into this. In future, if something OP is released into game it needs to be changed very, very quickly. Preferably whilst in beta, of course. If only Wail had, had thorough testing back in the day...

But I still think the best solution is in taking time to create appropriately challenging and varied content, not in impairing or negating the abilities that people have felt "safe" in acquiring.

(Thanks as ever for the honest post)

Edit: The collective "you", not "you you".

[Cadveen]

Better.... but 50 cooldown for a SORC? What kind of junk is that? I see where you're saying there COULD be a buff for pale masters but they should be the KINGS of Necromancy spells not some lame SORC! If it has to be a 60 second cooldown a dedicated PM should have better manipulation on the spell than some plain jane random polka dot Sorc Nuker.. I will be intrested in the "PM" line enhancements.

I don't want to burst your bubble, and I solely play a pale master so I am on your side, but sorcs have faster cool downs on all spells. That is part of the power that is the sorceror.

[danotmano1998]

I love how when turbine makes a change and asks for input we give it.

If they change, then it's because people cried and whined.
If they don't, it's because they're evil and don't care or listen.

Nice!
Either way they can't win.

[Bowser_Koopa]

So if we are ok with Phantasmal Killer because it has 2 saves, and we are not ok with Wail of the Banshee because it has one save. Why not replace Wail of the Banshee with Weird? Or in better news just add Weird into the game anyways we need more illusion spells.

Weird Illusion (Phantasm) [Fear, Mind-Affecting]
Level: Sor/Wiz 9, Madness 9, Mind 9
Components: V, S
Casting time: 1 standard action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Targets: Any number of creatures, no two of which can be more than 30 ft. apart
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will disbelief (if interacted with), then Fortitude partial; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes


You create a phantasmal image of the most fearsome creature imaginable to the subject simply by forming the fears of the subject’s subconscious mind into something that its conscious mind can visualize: this most horrible beast. Only the affected creatures see the phantasmal creatures attacking them, though you see the attackers as shadowy shapes. The target first gets a Will save to recognize the image as unreal. If that save fails, the phantasm touches the subject, and the subject must succeed on a Fortitude save or die from fear. If a subject’s Fortitude save succeeds, it still takes 3d6 points of damage and is stunned for 1 round. The subject also takes 1d4 points of temporary Strength damage.

If the subject of a weird attack succeeds in disbelieving and is wearing a helm of telepathy, the beast can be turned upon you. You must then disbelieve it or become subject to its deadly fear attack.

[Corion]

Any chance of just getting this changed to a hard target cap instead? Implosion can frequently just do nothing at all even when you're surrounded by mobs, so unless that's fixed this is an even more significant change than it first appears.

Seems like the perfect answer. No one is too fussed by CoD b/c it can only kill 4 targets. Just make Wail so it only affacts a certain number of targets. Better yet, make it dependent on caster level so there would be another good reason to wear gear that raises your caster level. Would require yet more interesting equipment choices, which is always good. Say 1 target / 3 caster levels or something to that effect. Most good PM could get into the 8-10 range, which not totally out of line with what has been proposed, but it would still have that awesome "instant" feel to it.