You know the game is not balanced properly when...

[Tebaco]

Amazing!

And I agree that casters are in a good spot for the most part.

Told shiridi, who doesnt understand what caster is..

[etotheipi]

As you said your toon is shiridi, you arent not a caster... Shiridi is something like mutants influenced by Fukushima factory.. Grown weird, stronger, unnatural.. But no offence from me, i know that easy build for ppl who didnt like work on PL must exist. But I dont believe you that you have fun with shiridi, noone have..

Shiradi single-target DPS is abysmal. The multi-target DPS (when you can get it) is great. Shiradi casters do well in content like Breaking the Ranks. But they really suck when they're asked for single-target DPS. The only saving grace is that they can sustain the abysmal single-target DPS long enough to kill the target without having to suck down SP potions. A melee, of course, would have left that sad Shiradi long behind. If you're going for easy button auto-complete EE wins, roll as a melee, not as a Shiradi gimp.

[Tebaco]

Eto, I am starting to wonder what if any caster you are playing. As I said before, I challenge any melee dps out there and I am fairly certain that I will out kill them by a decent margin.

Top Barb builds are pushing a little over ~5K dps when they are boosted which is amazing. However, with EE trash mob clocking in over 10k that still means they take a couple of seconds to remove them from the board.

However, my caster can cycle between Wail (54 sec cooldown; 6 mobs), CoD (27 sec cooldown; 4 targets), FoD (7 sec cooldown; 1 target), Consume (2 min cooldown; 5 targets); Mass Hold + Energy Burst/BDF/Hellball (when soloing EE WGU.. everything you mass hold dies to a Energy Burst.. with a full party you will need EB+DBF and maybe Hell ball).. when all of that is on cool down you still have mass hold + ~3k melee dps (on helpless mobs ~2k if not helpless). If you don't bother with Melee you can cycle in Dragon Breath when Energy Burst is on timer. With insta-kills alone I am killing 44 mobs every 2 min (or 1 mob every ~2.5 sec) and that doesn't even count the mass carnage that I can do with Mass Hold + Evocation spells (which is where a majority of my death counts really come from) that in a high mob density quest is another 30-40 mobs every 2 minutes. Meaning that if there was a quest with high enough mob densities (which there isn't) I could be killing a mob every second or so.. and that doesn't even take into consideration my Melee DPS.

The closest any quest gets to that mob density is Breaking the Ranks.. looking at the latest speed run (Set by a [shiradi] caster) that quest is 159 mobs in 7:25 or about 1 mob every ~2.5 sec or so.. which is the same speed as Insta-kills alone, not counting Hold + Evocation or Melee DPS. That shows that as a Wizard I can pretty much kill mobs at will (and I do). Worried about orange named with tens of thousands of HP.. that melee might be beating on it for 8-12 sec.. as a PM it is as simple as PW: Stun + Energy Drain + Enervation (maybe) + Ruin ... I can do that all at range as I am running up and not even break stride.

A well played and built PM only takes their finger off the run key when they hit a red/purple name.. then if they are pure.. your right, they have an issue. They can either wait for the rest of the party to catch up and let them actually do something, or dump their blue bar on it (bad idea.. blue bar is better used for killing trash). If you are a DC-Melee build you can swap over to melee mode and push out ~1.9k-2k dps and melee it down. Sure it is low dps compared to the fully decked out Barb, but that dps is better by far than the what the average pugger is running with and more than enough considering how quickly you ran through the rest of the quest.

Yes, to get a PM to the level I described above takes a lot more work than it does to get a Pally or Barb to that level .. but that is okay. Some classes take more effort than others, the point is Casters are fine.. no they are not and "easy button" class.. but imo that is a good thing. You don't see speed runs with casters due to red-named dps.

If you are playing a DC caster and melee's are out killing you then the issue is with you or your toon.. not casters or DC casters in general.

Casters are fine and well balanced, any change to boost their power would be silly.


P.S. Sev and the Dev team, be very very careful with the DC's needed for ToEE.. while casters are fine now, it wouldn't take much of a mis-calculation on Mob Saves to make them near worthless. Please be very careful there.

How you can be part of Players Council? Prioritizing shiridi over standart FUN caster build is just silly. Forgetting about casters blue bar is also silly. Especialy if dmg output of meelers is probably 3.5x bigger. Effectively maybe 2x because of spikes caused by strong casters sla (burst, breach..).. Lack of blue bar and genetate 2x more dmg is unbalance..

[etotheipi]

How you can be part of Players Council? Prioritizing shiridi over standart FUN caster build is just silly. Forgetting about casters blue bar is also silly. Especialy if dmg output of meelers is probably 3.5x bigger. Effectively maybe 2x because of spikes caused by strong casters sla (burst, breach..).. Lack of blue bar and genetate 2x more dmg is unbalance..

Everything is fine. Casters suck unless they have three bazillion past lives and roll as melees. Take the full SWF line. Use Heavy Armor! Otherwise, rely on "minions" to make up for your pathetic gimpiness. And that's how it should be! There's your Andoris.

[Postumus]

Is this the thread where we all post "you know the game is unblanced when..." anecdotes and jokes?

Ok here's mine:

You know the game is not balanced when barbarians have more healing amp than paladins.
You know the game is not balanced when bards out DPS rogues and the dev excuse is that rogues can do out of combat "things".
You know the game is not balanced when barbs have better healing, twice the HP and 2-3x the PRR of a rogue, and more DPS too.
You know the game is not balanced when an assassin puts everything into intelligence for assassinate and is still worse than a bard.
You know the game is not balanced when a monk is better off taking 8 fighter levels to use a sword.
You know the game is not balanced when a ranger is better off taking monk levels to be better with a bow.
You know the game is not balanced when a TWF ranger is better off taking 15 levels of paladin.
You know the game is not balanced when a wizard is better off in heavy armour.

Could do plenty more just getting the ball rolling.

Nice summary!

[Ancient]

But I dont believe you that you have fun with shiridi, noone have..

So your position is that I've written numerous guides on a build I don't have fun with....

[Postumus]

Titles, that would be visible to everyone. Or cloaks. Something that lets everyone see - oh my, this is someone who pwns the Killer Mode

Or a pecial cosmetic helm or armor.

[Chai]

As you said your toon is shiridi, you arent not a caster... Shiridi is something like mutants influenced by Fukushima factory.. Grown weird, stronger, unnatural.. But no offence from me, i know that easy build for ppl who didnt like work on PL must exist. But I dont believe you that you have fun with shiridi, noone have..

Yep it does, and that's a good thing. If the only possible way to keep a caster relevant was to grind out PLs until our eyeballs bleed, then people who would rather do single life characters or only a few TRs per character wouldn't play casters at all, or might stop playing because time (or money to bypass time) becomes a gating mechanism for fun.

DC casters are the last bastion of examples where 90% of the power cant be had in 2-3 lives. Every other class/build can, and that's why this game is still fun for people who don't have large amounts of time grinding for 5% increments in effectiveness.

Im cool with people who do grind that out all on one character having an advantage wiping out living trash. When actual DPS is needed, bring in the heavy beaters.

[Monkey-Boy]

DC casters are the last bastion of examples where 90% of the power cant be had in 2-3 lives

Wrong.

[Postumus]

There is something the numbers do show. There is only 1 class in the game that can achieve Mythic/Killer saving throws. Combine that with 1 race for reconstruct SLA, and Mythic/Killer incoming damage levels, and we will end up with a dungeon that has the unwritten requirement of being a ranged BF paladin or ranged BF paladin multi-class.

It'll be like a time warp back in time 2 years.

Exactly.

[MadCookieQueen]

DC casters are the last bastion of examples where 90% of the power cant be had in 2-3 lives. Every other class/build can, and that's why this game is still fun for people who don't have large amounts of time grinding for 5% increments in effectiveness.

Wrong and as an example:

Let's go with Ash's Pure 20 Wizard Pale Master

After all of his lives (TRs and eTRs):
Int: 80 -- (20 base +6 tome +7 level ups +2 completionist +2 PM tree +2 Sun Elf tree +2 Archmage Tree +1 Harper tree +2 capstone + 11 item +3 Insight +1 GoTIB +2 litany + 6 destinies +2 Twist +4 lich +2 yugo +2 ship +1 Epic feat +2 lasting)
Generic to all: +60 (10 base +9 lvl +35 Int +1 wiz +2 augment +1 Unique +1 Profane +1 Guild)
Necromancy – 77; (+59 Generic +3 feats +1 Lich +1 PM +1 AM +3 ED +6 Item +2 Deific Focus II) Enchantment – 68; (+59 Generic +2 feats +1 Bard PL +5 Item)


I can come pretty close to that in 3 lives:

First Life Wizard, Second Life Bard...then play as a Wizard.

Race Drow and got lucky to trade for a +3 INT tome...figure got a few quest packs and Menance of the Underdark -- investment around $50.00 which is less than an XBox game ^^ and lots of loot farming...have only done like 2 eTRs

Int: 74 -- (20 base +3 tome +7 level ups +2 PM tree +2 Drow tree +2 Archmage Tree +2 capstone + 11 item +3 Insight +1 GoTIB +2 litany + 6 destinies +2 Twist +4 lich +2 yugo +2 ship +1 Epic feat +2 lasting)
Generic to all: +57 (10 base +9 lvl +32 Int +1 wiz +2 augment +1 Unique +1 Profane +1 Guild)
Necromancy – 74; (+57 Generic +3 feats +1 Lich +1 PM +1 AM +3 ED +6 Item +2 Deific Focus II) Enchantment – 65; (+57 Generic +2 feats +1 Bard PL +5 Item)


So how did I do...my little 3rd life Wizard who I traded and loot farmed like crazy for...

INT: 92.5%
Generic DC: 95%
Necro DC: 96%
Enchantment DC: 95%

(also to note...the Tome...I only listed a modest +3 (easily tradeable or can be found in the wilds)...if you have a bigger one...well...you're just that much more closer to Ash's)

It still stakes lots of patience and gear collecting (like just about any toon) but I don't need all the past lives to be over 90% as effective as the Pale Master Master

[etotheipi]

So how did I do...my little 3rd life Wizard who I traded and loot farmed like crazy for...

INT: 92.5%
Generic DC: 95%
Necro DC: 96%
Enchantment DC: 95%

It still stakes lots of patience and gear collecting (like just about any toon) but I don't need all the past lives to be over 90% as effective as the Pale Master Master

Your percentages demonstrate that you don't understand how DC's work.

[BigErkyKid]

Your percentages demonstrate that you don't understand how DC's work.

Are you saying that 74 necro and 64 enchant are not good?

I agree that sometimes DCs cannot be seen as relative amounts because there is a treshold of works / does not work.

But in her case she reaches DCs for almost no fail everywhere. So are you contending that an uber grinder 3rd life cannot be almost as good in terms of effectiveness as a PM?

I think her numbers clearly show that.

[MadCookieQueen]

Your percentages demonstrate that you don't understand how DC's work.

Actually the percentages were in relation to each other. Showing that yes I can come within 90% or more of a completionist, uber multi life caster with only 2 past lives.


Because Chai said it couldn't be done...well...it can.

[BigErkyKid]

Actually the percentages were in relation to each other. Showing that yes I can come within 90% or more of a completionist, uber multi life caster with only 2 past lives.


Because Chai said it couldn't be done...well...it can.

He understands, he is just saying that if someone where to tell you that they have 75% of Andoris' DCs it could seem pretty good, but it is the nextt 10-20% that turns a toon from unplayable to good.

So phrasing it in terms of relative amounts is not good here. Your rebuttal should be that in this case you already reach very high DCs, enough to make it viable and that Andoris' can be overkill.

[Sehenry03]

Actually the percentages were in relation to each other. Showing that yes I can come within 90% or more of a completionist, uber multi life caster with only 2 past lives.


Because Chai said it couldn't be done...well...it can.

This. I hate the argument that you need to be completionist to compete at high lvl. Lots of first life toons do ok and LOTS and LOTS of 2-3 life toons can solo a lot of EE content.

People need to get off this "you need 20 lives to be viable" ****. How about this...

If you NEED more then 3 lives to be a viable player you might want to reroll and read some forum build ideas and try again.

[etotheipi]

He understands, he is just saying that if someone where to tell you that they have 75% of Andoris' DCs it could seem pretty good, but it is the nextt 10-20% that turns a toon from unplayable to good. So phrasing it in terms of relative amounts is not good here. Your rebuttal should be that in this case you already reach very high DCs, enough to make it viable and that Andoris' can be overkill.

This is basically the point I'm making. Anyone who knows how DC's work isn't going to phrase things in that manner. Saying that you have 90% of someone's DC's is not a good reason to think you're 90% as effective. But saying that because you have 90% of the Necro and Enchant DC's is an even poorer argument, and demonstrates further misunderstanding of how DC casters play. MadCookieQueen's focus was also only on Necromancy and Enchantment DC's, and that's a mistake. Conjuration and Evocation DC's are each down by +3. And Spell Penetration is down by +7 from what it could be. This matters. It matters from both a feat and gearing perspective, and it also matters even more if you're going to build your PM with a melee option so it doesn't need to be carried by a group of "minions". Even if her build is 90% as effective when it comes to Necro and Enchant as Andoris's (and it is not), it still wouldn't be 90% as effective. Not by a long shot. And since the most optimal way to do a PM now is by giving it a melee option, it's going to fall much, much further behind there. I really hope the DEV's are not paying attention to her arguments.

I'm not saying you can't do well on a DC caster with just two past lives. You don't need to be optimized to be doing well. But it's just bollocks that MadCookieQueen has anywhere near 90% of the effectiveness of Andoris's Pale Master. And nobody who has a firm grip on how DC casters play would have argued that it does by giving two DC's calcs in percentage format.

A very small percentage of the playerbase has invested a massive, mind-boggling amount of work in putting together optimized DC casters. As has been stated in this thread by others, these types of characters (moreso than any other) benefit insanely from Past Lives. They are the last bastion of an incredible grind for power, and given numerous recent changes, they're certainly not seeing the comparative power of first life melees. They do play fine in a group of people who can make up for their weaknesses. I'm not objecting to that. When you have a bunch of melees to handle the stuff you suck against, you can pike that encounter. Melees don't need to pike any encounters, however.

[Thrudh]

DC casters are the last bastion of examples where 90% of the power cant be had in 2-3 lives. Every other class/build can, and that's why this game is still fun for people who don't have large amounts of time grinding for 5% increments in effectiveness.

Wrong...

Scary... I agree with Monkey-boy...

My wizard has 4 past lives (3 wiz and 1 bard), and has a good enough DC to manage 90% of epic elite...

If fighting critters with no spell pen, I'd could do it with 1 wiz and 1 bard past life...

[Monkey-Boy]

This is basically the point I'm making. Anyone who knows how DC's work isn't going to phrase things in that manner. Saying that you have 90% of someone's DC's is not a good reason to think you're 90% as effective. But saying that because you have 90% of the Necro and Enchant DC's is an even poorer argument, and demonstrates further misunderstanding of how DC casters play. MadCookieQueen's focus was also only on Necromancy and Enchantment DC's, and that's a mistake. Conjuration and Evocation DC's are each down by +3. And Spell Penetration is down by +7 from what it could be. This matters. It matters from both a feat and gearing perspective, and it also matters even more if you're going to build your PM with a melee option so it doesn't need to be carried by a group of "minions". Even if her build is 90% as effective when it comes to Necro and Enchant as Andoris's (and it is not), it still wouldn't be 90% as effective. Not by a long shot. And since the most optimal way to do a PM now is by giving it a melee option, it's going to fall much, much further behind there. I really hope the DEV's are not paying attention to her arguments.

I'm not saying you can't do well on a DC caster with just two past lives. You don't need to be optimized to be doing well. But it's just bollocks that MadCookieQueen has anywhere near 90% of the effectiveness of Andoris's Pale Master. And nobody who has a firm grip on how DC casters play would have argued that it does by giving two DC's calcs in percentage format.

A very small percentage of the playerbase has invested a massive, mind-boggling amount of work in putting together optimized DC casters. As has been stated in this thread by others, these types of characters (moreso than any other) benefit insanely from Past Lives. They are the last bastion of an incredible grind for power, and given numerous recent changes, they're certainly not seeing the comparative power of first life melees. They do play fine in a group of people who can make up for their weaknesses. I'm not objecting to that. When you have a bunch of melees to handle the stuff you suck against, you can pike that encounter. Melees don't need to pike any encounters, however.

Nonsense.

[janave]

You know the game is not balanced properly when...
-

..It uses turn based systems, which runs in ultra fast paced real time, using deviant mechanics like *spell pool* essentially letting you decide how many times you can cast ANY spell you have. -vs- having to memorize n use per shrine and save the big guns for the big fights.

Thats where they broke the hopes for game balance, additionally feat dcs vs spell dcs, seriously whoever decided FoD has 8s vs Stunning Blow's 15?s shouldnt be doing any game design...

The last few updates probably brought so much balance breaking stats thats not even funny.