ETA on Caster Pass?

[IronClan]

Your impression that the pass started before DCs inflated and before inflated Hit Point bosses isn't correct.

Some good points, I can't say this without knowing how this sounds... but besides some bellyaching by DC casters about Giants and such which are supposed to be extremely hard to insta kill by design in a tiny handful of quests, people who had a hard time landing spells back then where poorly built or geared FOR THEN, let alone now. Yes it was hard to hit Stormhorns fort saves... so what... that was by design because not every mob in the game needs to be insta-killable on first cast with no debuffing.

And yes I think newer content sets a new standard for red name hit point pools... Whats Bruntsmash have (I honestly can't remember) 127,000? Versus say the Key keeper guy in ToEE Pt1 with 364,000? Neither are big time bosses, just sub bosses.

I'll stand by my point. I am not saying don't buff casting, I am saying we need to see where it is before we start and end up with a big ol nerf a year later that makes casting LESS FUN, like the Nerf to Improved critical feat, made all my Crit oriented Melee builds less fun (and by a LOT)

In fact I'm pretty much done with Melee in DDO due to the changes, the kinds I like to play (S&B and THF big crit oriented builds) are strictly less fun. While the kinds I don't enjoy (High attack speed, affixes and smaller numbers faster the better) are being buffed and railroaded as the officially supported playstyle that the Dev team perfers us all to play.

How else does one explain a game that Leaves Broken Wolf builds un-nerfed while nerfing poor just barely adequate Sword and board?

Casters still need a pass.

Agree but to what extent AFTER they make the above changes in the next update is what I would like to see.

* DC casting isn't functional in epic levels.

Slight exaggeration? That's being more kind than your newest reply deserves. DC casting works everywhere except the newest Level 30 epics which is maybe 0.2% of the available Epic EE content?

And even in that content the problem has been acknowledged to be an UNINTENDED automatic scaling effect that they just removed and hand tweaked lower by their own words: "in some cases dramatically lower"

I know the forum meme is very slow to catch up and some people only play the forum version so they are forever behind the meta. but these things have been posted here and while I am critical of the Dev's I don't think they are unaware that 100 DC's is about 20-25 more than reasonable for Fort, and about 30-35 more than Will and about 40-45 more than Reflex should ideally range to on non special Rogue mobs with evasion. They are clearly not intending for that content to have 100 point DC's.

* Spells are not scaled into epic levels. This includes both damage and non-damage spells.

Agreed heroic damage spells are next to useless even in moderate to high level EE content, the SP costs and the fact of things saving for half damage on what is not even very much damage if it crits is also a problem.

* Some casting classes are still missing prestige trees.

True and I'd like to see tweaks to existing trees as well, but a part of me just groans at the thought of them going through every casting tree like they did for Bard Paladin and barb... I mean that stuff is taking forever and they aren't even close to done! They have more melee's to polish at least half a years worth Fighter, Arty, Monk and hybrids ... we could be looking at some time in early 2017 before the classes are stable again and can anyone imagine waiting over a year before it's safe to make a final build of a character???

I have learned my lesson with melee, committing any resources to a build right now is a bad idea. I wont be buying or using LR's, Boxes, alignment changes, building any T3 TF or ToEE sets and when Epic Shroud hits I will only be stock piling ings until things are stable.

Fool me once...

PS you've made some good points no need to get snotty, FvS being the worst Light Nuker is clearly evidence that work is needed, again my first post was rushed and came out more anti pass than intended, there's no reason to stoop to insults, they wont win you any battles.

[PermaBanned]

...assigning the "blame" for poor choices to uniformed corporate overlords overlooks a very simple life aphorism: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

I highly doubt there's any malice involved here. I highly doubt anyone at WarnTurbine is looking to put the screws to us. I don't at all doubt that considerations of ROI, inflexible timetables, and "what's best for the company" may well be trumping the customer experience when it comes to prioritization and allocation of resources.

The different dev teams make plenty of bad decisions for themselves, the accountants aren't forcing them to into all of them.

Yeah, it's not my intention to claim that the Devs would be making mistakeless, perfect decisions for the game with no possibility of having a bad idea, or poorly implementing a good idea, if it weren't for those darn office monkeys; I'm quite certain they're responsible for their fair share of bad results. However I have seen so many bad ideas pushed forward (and good ideas denied fulfillment) through my years of professional experience (as I'm sure many if not most employed adults reading this have) that I simply can not believe that "the Devs incompetence" is the only source of all the poor decisions that have (and some of the good ideas that haven't) been implemented during the time I've been playing this game.

[Sephenis]

Casters have some cool stuff coming in Update 29.

~ Casters will see their spellpower bonuses for each epic level (like the melee power and ranged power bonuses) to help make epic levels more relevant.

~ There will be at least one epic metamagic. We are also working on how it will affect Warlock abilities.

~ There will be ways to increase mana efficiency in epic levels, particularly against bosses.

This will be in addition to the Legendary level 30 feats they can choose from.

We are also exploring some other ideas that require tech, like a temporary spell point buff if an enemy makes its saving throw against your spell, but no promises there. We might have to drop the idea for tech or balance reasons.

Sev~

Ok, then I would like to ask a question. Is it a caster pass, or the level 30 update, when every class will be updatated? And if it is a caster pass, what about the DC problem? And first of all, there will be any solution to the issue, that currently there is no such thing as epic casting (no new spells, the old ones become useless, increasing the spellpower and the mana will not change a bit)?

[slarden]

Agree but to what extent AFTER they make the above changes in the next update is what I would like to see.

Ah I see your point. Yes I agree with this actually - they should do the overall caster past first (basically the changes already announced for U29) and see where things end up before working on specific class trees.

Clearly casters are lagging behind currently.

[slarden]

Another way to buff pure/high level caster is by making our forgotten feat, arcane lore, to give 1 DC every 4 levels of it.
For example, +5 DC if you're pure wizard/sorcerer, this could help a lot in epic.
But that's just my idea. :3

yeah and how about Epic spell focus providing +3 DC instead of +1. Epic spell focus is the biggest joke of an epic feat in the game.

[Atremus]

Well you don't mention draconic burst, and you do mention Avenging light which does not do enough DPS to be worth the universal 1 second spell cooldown or hotbar space. Sunbolt is better it misses less than Avenging Light, though my Light nuker can't even fit Sunbolt into the DPS rotation, Avenging light just plain misses due to slowness. You also don't mention Ruin... Though I guess that 100sp comment is directed at Ruin.

Avenging Light Cool down is 3 seconds. Not 1.

Ruin is a great spell, but I can only cast it 20 times on my light based caster. 20x3k = 60K HP Wow, I almost put a dent in a boss.

I don't have access to Sunbolt, Reborn in light is better for a light based player in my opinion for the +100 Light SPP on Red Names.

I can only afford a single SLA in Exalted Angel. My FVS has no other SLA period.

FVS for example is the worse main class to light nuke with. Highest Spell power, crit chance, Spell selection and CC is a Druid base with some FvS and Cleric for access to Divine Disciple and the Fire/Force/Light crit chance from AoV. Cleric with FvS splash is your next best bet though strictly inferior to Druid due to not having Earthquake or as much Fire or Force synergy, it does have access to Sunbeam the best heroic light damage spell but Druids get it natively as well and the Druid SLA WoB is very worthy of hotbar space. Sadly though I have a soft spot for FvS it is third on the food chain.

You yourself just state here that something needs to be done about FvS. This is my favorite class, I don't enjoy cleric or druid as much as everyone else does. So I don't think we disagree here.

Yes I agree nuking needs some buffs, and probably DC casting needs some content balance, don't get me wrong, it's the extent to which they need changes that I think merits caution.

And again I don't want Sev and co. to add some big honkin "500 untyped damage every time you cast a spell" buff and then nerf the cr@p out of spell lore... Which is directly analogous to what happened with Weapon crits.

I don't want untyped damage either. I want SLA's, uncapped MCL's and Mana restoration and (for me specifically) more light spell power.

[Atremus]

Also wanted to add: Energy burst is worthless on a divine that invests in Wisdom. Wisdom being the DC stat and all...

Wisdom based twists should be:
Tsunami
Euphorian Magic
Evo, Cacoon, some other tier1 depending on the raid or quest

[IronClan]

Avenging Light Cool down is 3 seconds. Not 1.

Universal cooldown is 1 second meaning anything you cast that's not a warlocks e-blast triggers a cooldown of everything of 1 second. This means with the spells actual cool downs that there is a very finite number of spells that are worth putting on your hotbar. before you are denying yourself a better spell that just became available by activating the universal cooldown casting an inferior spell.

BTW I wouldn't recommend taking Sunbolt either, on a optimally set up Light nuker neither that Sunbolt SLA nor the inferior Avenging Light are worthy of hotbar real estate, I brought Sunbolt up because it's better but it's also not good enough to cast and you shouldn't be wasting time on it.

Does Druid having too many good spells that are worth casting (Sunbeam, Word Of Balance, EQ, Tsunami (when you know how to use it) Energy Burst, Divine Wrath, Ruin among other stuff) clearly indict FvS (and also Cleric) as needing improvements? Of course. My argument is one of degrees, I've pointed this stuff out many a time, that's not changed; my question is overly provocative because I was in a rush, but "how much" and "do we really want them making massive changes" in light of some pretty poor changes recently are still concerns IMO.

Re: the contention that Draconic Energy Burst is useless on a Wisdom based caster: look there's no way to say this without contradicting you, and again this shows the disparity between people running casters that aren't optimally built contributing to the forum meme that casters are worse off than they may actually be after we get these Level 29 and 30 additions.

Yes it's a distinct disadvantage for Wis casters who don't need disadvantages* that they have a lower DC; but useless? Even at half damage on a helpless mob it's still doing very high damage.

* I have argued that it should allow Wisdom and not just CHA and INT many a time and brought it up on the PC multiple times

The DC formula is VERY poor even for native CHA and INT based casters, and Evoc sorc past lives, wizard past life feat, spell focus feats and Focus gear and twists do nothing whatsoever to raise it's DC, CHA and INT based casters get saved on too! but Half of a lot of damage in a AOE is still a lot of damage as it turns out.

At Half damage it's still the best AOE spell in the game that every caster can access. So ignore it if you don't want the best AOE spell in the game because it's only doing better AOE damage than everything else even when saved against (well except some of the buggy mobs that seem to have improved/perfect evasion or don't even show a spell save happening but that's bugs/poor mob design)

(2d6 times 28 for Divine Wrath with no save, versus 1d15+15 times 14, I'm sure you can do the math)

See this is the problem the Dev's face, how do you balance stuff when people bring erroneous off the cuff assertions and viewpoints to the discussion?

Energy burst is Worthless on a Wisdom caster? No it's the best AOE damage spell they can cast even if mobs save 100% of the time (again predicated on not improved evasion/buggy mobs).

[IronClan]

Ah I see your point. Yes I agree with this actually - they should do the overall caster past first (basically the changes already announced for U29) and see where things end up before working on specific class trees.

Clearly casters are lagging behind currently.

We keep agreeing on things... let's stop it's getting awkward

[slarden]

Universal cooldown is 1 second meaning anything you cast that's not a warlocks e-blast triggers a cooldown of everything of 1 second. This means with the spells actual cool downs that there is a very finite number of spells that are worth putting on your hotbar. before you are denying yourself a better spell that just became available by activating the universal cooldown casting an inferior spell.

BTW I wouldn't recommend taking Sunbolt either, on a optimally set up Light nuker neither that Sunbolt SLA nor the inferior Avenging Light are worthy of hotbar real estate, I brought Sunbolt up because it's better but it's also not good enough to cast and you shouldn't be wasting time on it.

Does Druid having too many good spells that are worth casting (Sunbeam, Word Of Balance, EQ, Tsunami (when you know how to use it) Energy Burst, Divine Wrath, Ruin among other stuff) clearly indict FvS (and also Cleric) as needing improvements? Of course. My argument is one of degrees, I've pointed this stuff out many a time, that's not changed; my question is overly provocative because I was in a rush, but "how much" and "do we really want them making massive changes" in light of some pretty poor changes recently are still concerns IMO.

Re: the contention that Draconic Energy Burst is useless on a Wisdom based caster: look there's no way to say this without contradicting you, and again this shows the disparity between people running casters that aren't optimally built contributing to the forum meme that casters are worse off than they may actually be after we get these Level 29 and 30 additions.

Yes it's a distinct disadvantage for Wis casters who don't need disadvantages* that they have a lower DC; but useless? Even at half damage on a helpless mob it's still doing very high DPS.

* I have argued that it should allow Wisdom and not just CHA and INT many a time and brought it up on the PC multiple times

The DC formula is VERY poor even for native CHA and INT based casters, and Evoc sorc past lives, wizard past life feat, spell focus feats and Focus gear and twists do nothing whatsoever to raise it's DC, CHA and INT based casters get saved on too! but Half of a lot of damage in a AOE is still a lot of damage as it turns out.

At Half damage it's still the best AOE spell in the game that every caster can access. So ignore it if you don't want the best AOE spell in the game because it's only doing better AOE damage than everything else even when saved against (well except some of the buggy mobs that seem to have improved/perfect evasion or don't even show a spell save happening but that's bugs/poor mob design)

(2d6 times 28 for Divine Wrath with no save, versus 1d15+15 times 14, I'm sure you can do the math)

See this is the problem the Dev's face, how do you balance stuff when people bring erroneous off the cuff assertions and viewpoints to the discussion?

Energy burst is Worthless on a Wisdom caster? No it's the best AOE DPS spell they can cast even if mobs save 100% of the time (again predicated on not improved evasion/buggy mobs).

I think you are underestimating the value of fully meta'd avenging light spell that only costs 3 sp and triggers just reward, empyeran magic and scourge. It's nice to have some fort save options that aren't subject to evasion and the damage is actually quite nice. I used it on almost every Exalted Angel build I've run.

As for Energy Burst, I think we can all agree that Empyrean Magic is a must as a tier 3 twist and more important than energy burst. I prefer to take Evocation Augmentation over Energy Burst on my wisdom builds as my experience has been that the -10 reflex save helps DPS on all my other spells and if using cc - it helps there as well. I don't think Energy Burst is an awful alternative, but I've had better results with evocation augmentation myself. Just watch how much that blade barrier damage goes up with it twisted in.

[Atremus]

Universal cooldown is 1 second meaning anything you cast that's not a warlocks e-blast triggers a cooldown of everything of 1 second. This means with the spells actual cool downs that there is a very finite number of spells that are worth putting on your hotbar. before you are denying yourself a better spell that just became available by activating the universal cooldown casting an inferior spell.

I am unfamiliar with this. Some warlock thing?

BTW I wouldn't recommend taking Sunbolt either, on a optimally set up Light nuker neither that Sunbolt SLA nor the inferior Avenging Light are worthy of hotbar real estate, I brought Sunbolt up because it's better but it's also not good enough to cast and you shouldn't be wasting time on it.

What are your go to spells on a FVS then? What is your max Light spell power?

Does Druid having too many good spells that are worth casting (Sunbeam, Word Of Balance, EQ, Tsunami (when you know how to use it) Energy Burst, Divine Wrath, Ruin among other stuff) clearly indict FvS (and also Cleric) as needing improvements? Of course. My argument is one of degrees, I've pointed this stuff out many a time, that's not changed; my question is overly provocative because I was in a rush, but "how much" and "do we really want them making massive changes" in light of some pretty poor changes recently are still concerns IMO.

So melee balance means leave casters in the dust? Massive changes have not been proposed yet. We are only getting a new metamagic feat and some spell power boost as far as I know. All the stuff we proposed in this thread is just talk, ideas and dreams. I also don't want to see lots of changes. There is too much room for errors in the code.

Re: the contention that Draconic Energy Burst is useless on a Wisdom based caster: look there's no way to say this without contradicting you, and again this shows the disparity between people running casters that aren't optimally built contributing to the forum meme that casters are worse off than they may actually be after we get these Level 29 and 30 additions.

Lets do some contradicting then:

EB is 30s cool down, 20SP. Metamagic: Quicken
DC is: 20 + half char level + CHA mod (for me). Which works to 20+14+16=50 (reflex)
Power calc= 1d15+15 x28 + spell power. 630 + 425= 1055 every 30 seconds

DW is 20sec cool down, 40sp. Meta's: Quicken, Max, Emp
DC: 10+ character level + mod so: 10+28+23=61 (will save)
Power calc: 2d6x28 (6x28) + 75 + 150 + 700 light power = 1093 every 20 seconds
W/O Angel form, that number drops 100 points.

Those are my numbers from a screenshot i have the day I broke 700 light power. 425 fire is a direct pull from the screen shot or similar one where I was near my goal for 700.

My DC calc ignores the school PL wiz bouns to DC since both are school-less.

So on my light based build, DW is only slightly ahead in a single burst for two minutes while I am in form for +100 light. The shorter CD on DW also means more damage over time versus Burst for those 2 minutes in a boss fight which is where DPS matters. Since I can only sustain 700 while in angel form, burst would be good at clearing trash getting to the boss. However, not twisting Energy Burst allows for more spell power with two tier3 twists. Tsunami and Euphorian Magic.

Yes it's a distinct disadvantage for Wis casters who don't need disadvantages* that they have a lower DC; but useless? Even at half damage on a helpless mob it's still doing very high DPS.

I cannot stun in EE latest content level 32. There is no helpless/immobilized monsters for bigger numbers.

* I have argued that it should allow Wisdom and not just CHA and INT many a time and brought it up on the PC multiple times

But it isn't and will likely never be changed. It has been years now since MoTU

The DC formula is VERY poor even for native CHA and INT based casters, and Evoc sorc past lives, wizard past life feat, spell focus feats and Focus gear and twists do nothing whatsoever to raise it's DC, CHA and INT based casters get saved on too! but Half of a lot of damage in a AOE is still a lot of damage as it turns out.

At Half damage it's still the best AOE spell in the game that every caster can access. So ignore it if you don't want the best AOE spell in the game because it's only doing better AOE damage than everything else even when saved against (well except some of the buggy mobs that seem to have improved/perfect evasion or don't even show a spell save happening but that's bugs/poor mob design)

(2d6 times 28 for Divine Wrath with no save, versus 1d15+15 times 14, I'm sure you can do the math)

I did the math above. I know what I am talking about here when I say a FvS based caster is lacking in SLA's, DPS and mana regen. They are in a sad place and have been sad for a long time.

See this is the problem the Dev's face, how do you balance stuff when people bring erroneous off the cuff assertions and viewpoints to the discussion?

Energy burst is Worthless on a Wisdom caster? No it's the best AOE DPS spell they can cast even if mobs save 100% of the time (again predicated on not improved evasion/buggy mobs).

No, you just don't understand a Wisdom based toon. Energy burst on a INT build or CHA build, sure you have the DC to not fail the save check and do full damage, but for me, it is assumed auto fail. Why are you even talking about burst. This issue is sustained DPS. Do you run up and burst mobs on EE? I don't.

Edit: so for 2 minutes of a boss fight I am as good as a sorc. The rest of the time, I am behind everything in terms of damage. So yeah, buffs are OK.

Shoot after all this math, the dev's could buff the epic moment in EA to give me 100 light spell power all the time and then possible more power while in angel form.

[eachna_gislin]

I am unfamiliar with this [Universal Cooldown]. Some warlock thing?

The universal cooldown is the cooldown that triggers when you try to do multiple things at the same time. It's why you can't simply click two buttons and have both effects go off instantly or chain spells/effects together.

It's the reason why when you want to alternate between throwing searing light/nimbus of light/avenging light, you have to pause slightly (about 1 second) between clicking each button.

As for why it exists, it's a little bit lag control, a little bit anti-botting (bot software can of course send multiple commands at once), a little bit balance (you shouldn't be able to cast implosion, draconic burst, *and* divine wrath in the same second a melee can only swing once).

[eachna_gislin]

Some good points, I can't say this without knowing how this sounds... but besides some bellyaching by DC casters about Giants and such which are supposed to be extremely hard to insta kill by design in a tiny handful of quests, people who had a hard time landing spells back then where poorly built or geared FOR THEN, let alone now.

It wasn't just Giants, and it wasn't just Stormhorns fort saves, and every person who says DC casting needs to be fixed isn't just a bellyaching forumite.

Each new pack, even *before* Gianthold has been *hard* on DC casters. There's been a rotating mix of undead, high spell pen mobs, saving throws spiraling out of control on all mobs, red-alert causing waves of mobs, excessive use of red & orange names and champions, ever since Menace of the Underdark. Each new pack is "hard" on DC casting. It's been three years of this now, it's exhausting.

Yes it was hard to hit Stormhorns fort saves... so what... that was by design because not every mob in the game needs to be insta-killable on first cast with no debuffing.

I agree with the statement that not 'everything' needs to be insta-killable without debuffing, but there's more to DC casting than killing.

DC casting includes crowd control, and being able to target/pull/lock down specific mobs, and debuffing mobs. DC casting is not just necromancy (or necromancy by way of evocation like Implosion and Mass Frog).

Outside of DC spells, casters are "supposed" to be able to use their spells to avoid damage, and buff their skill checks, and boost their saves, and all the rest of the stuff that combat characters use their weapons/armor/feats for. Most of those spells are useless now. On the other hand, no-save/half-save nuking is broken because it's actually _too_ important. It has become the only way to reliably play a caster in epic elite content. It's not just that DC casting is broken for epic play, *ALL* casting is broken for epic play. Writing that is not hyperbole, and it's not just bellyaching, and it's not people unwilling to put time/effort into learning the game or grinding gear/lives, or forgetting their place and venturing out of EN/EH content into EE.

And yes I think newer content sets a new standard for red name hit point pools... Whats Bruntsmash have (I honestly can't remember) 127,000? Versus say the Key keeper guy in ToEE Pt1 with 364,000? Neither are big time bosses, just sub bosses.

New content has even more obscene hit point/damage totals for trash and (sub)bosses than older content, but it's not like last year's content has 100 hit point bosses. Or that any old content was "easy" when it came out.

Depending on where in the gear/past-life/guild & personal resources/tome pecking order players are, old content can still be quite hard.

I'll stand by my point. I am not saying don't buff casting, I am saying we need to see where it is before we start and end up with a big ol nerf a year later that makes casting LESS FUN, like the Nerf to Improved critical feat, made all my Crit oriented Melee builds less fun (and by a LOT)

That's not the point you started out making, but at least you've adjusted slightly. But you're just not getting it, this discussion isn't about *buffing* casting, it's about *fixing* casting and that's not a semantics point.

We need the devs to do a first pass on casting as a whole (which is what this thread is about). The dev team knows how much time they have and will allocate their resources however they like, but there are many things for them to consider like: MCLs, and fixing DC casting, and to decide whether or not to create full-on epic spells, or create 'epic' options for heroic spells, and deal with spellpoint regen, and how metamagic feats will work in the future, and updating spells to work with the new power systems (PRR/MRR melee/ranged power on buff spells, possibly adding stacking dodge for layered defenses, etc.)

I think I wrote this once already, but in case I didn't I'll say it here: no one expects the devs to fix all these things, but we're here to discuss the issues we each think are problematic in hopes that maybe they'll fix some of them.

* DC casting isn't functional in epic levels.

Slight exaggeration? That's being more kind than your newest reply deserves. DC casting works everywhere except the newest Level 30 epics which is maybe 0.2% of the available Epic EE content?

I know the forum meme is very slow to catch up and some people only play the forum version so they are forever behind the meta. but these things have been posted here and while I am critical of the Dev's I don't think they are unaware that 100 DC's is about 20-25 more than reasonable for Fort, and about 30-35 more than Will and about 40-45 more than Reflex should ideally range to on non special Rogue mobs with evasion. They are clearly not intending for that content to have 100 point DC's.

Dude, I don't play "the forum version" of anything except some of EllisDee's builds for TRs and I don't just repeat memes because I can't think for myself.

DC casting isn't functional in epic levels because *at level for epic quests* ...

On first life toons grinding out their destinies and little to no decent gear (comm gear, cheap AH lootgen or basic end reward items), maybe even a few heroic items filling in some gear slots, and a couple +2 stat tomes you found in heroics or just a 1750 +2 tome, EN content can be be difficult (although thankfully there are no champions with inflated saves).

On toons with varying mixes of just a couple lives (but not the full 6 spell pen lives + 3 evocation lives/+3 Conjuration/3 enchantment lives + active wizard past life feat) and some amount of destinies done but not complete/all optimal twists not unlocked, and some nice gear but not full "raid" gear/slightly too old lootgen, and only +2 or +3 stat tomes, EH is quite difficult, including the warded Champions.

On toons with some mix of past lives and fully unlocked destinies/full twists and better gear than my previous example but still not the best gear, EE is a nightmare (even slightly older stuff, although really old stuff is fine).

Can I rollstomp new EE content on my few fully geared raid toons? Sure. But I'm not short sighted enough to pretend that everything before the latest EE release doesn't exist and, and everyone has unlimited xp pots & bag mats/+7 tomes across the board/phat lootz in the bank/triple epic heroic iconic completionists. I don't think 100% of the game is about new EE flagging/raiding

When I play DDO, I run on different servers (I'm trying to unlock Favored Soul on every server and I still play those toons after I unlock each one). I have two servers where I have really good gear reserves and guild/raid connections, and the rest are guildless and making the best of whatever gear I loot as I go starting as level 4 on 32-point builds. Nothing makes you so aware of the disconnect in character power levels between new players and established players like scratching around in the Harbor quests for enough plat to buy a stack of cure pots, and then jumping servers to go run in EE raids.

I don't think first life/undergeared toons should be able to run EE. But I do think their players should be able to have a fun, non-frustrating experience in EN and EH and have their spells/kewl powerz function.

EE endgame is about .2% of the total game content. The other 99.8% is other stuff/older content. At least half the game is heroic content. Even if people who don't live entirely in EE endgame are all filthy pariahs who don't deserve to sully EE, they should at least be able to play in EN and EH on their epic toons, and casters still have to be balanced/fixed for _all that content_.

Slight exaggeration? Not at all. My statement "DC casting isn't functional in epic levels" is spot on.

PS you've made some good points no need to get snotty, FvS being the worst Light Nuker is clearly evidence that work is needed, again my first post was rushed and came out more anti pass than intended, there's no reason to stoop to insults, they wont win you any battles.

You got snotty to Atremus who was talking about their light nuker after making comments about how all the melee buffing happened to balance against casters (which wasn't correct) and questioning whether we even need a caster pass or not. I couldn't tell if you were just messing with us or just hiding your head in the sand, which is why I asked. Because I can't read your mind. I'm sorry for how I phrased my question, I could have been more polite in my wording. OTOH, if you don't want people to wonder if you're being a jerk, maybe you should put in the effort to not act like one.

Also, while you say "again, my first post was rushed and came out more anti pass than intended" ... this response is actually the first time I'm reading that (checking previous posts in the thread I didn't miss any). You only properly explained what you meant in this post and then ones after.

You going to step up now and apologize for your snotty attitude?

[Kuttamia]

Fix palemaster and archmage sla!

[slarden]

Fix palemaster and archmage sla!

Absolutely! Yeah if those slas did more damage and worked with metamagic - wizard is fixed.

The archmage slas in the cores are fine, it's the first column dps SLAs that need fixing.

Forget pass - just fix those and wizard is done.

[Sephenis]

Absolutely! Yeah if those slas did more damage and worked with metamagic - wizard is fixed.

The archmage slas in the cores are fine, it's the first column dps SLAs that need fixing.

Forget pass - just fix those and wizard is done.

Far from fixed. Wizard is an arcane spellcaster whose strong side is to cast a large variety of spells. On epic levels you have two choices now: CC and necromancy (plus ruin), to achieve some kind of success. This is very far from what it supposed to be. The other problem, currently there is no such thing as epic casting. From the beginning of epic levels, the devs never done this. Of course these little issues will never be fixed (how?).

[Sephenis]

And the real question is this: it will be really a caster pass, or (and my bet is on this version) with the level cap raising, casters will get some feats (AT level 30) with those few minor upgrades Severlin mentioned, AND by the way every other classes get their new stuff without balancing the OP melee-useless caster problem? And with that, caster pass is done for another 5 years. I'm just asking, my theories based on the past few years.

[Severlin]

Thats a good start, but the trees really need some work. I changed the end build on one of my characters from sorc to druid, because the sorc couldn't keep up with dps, and once it ran out of sp, was useless. At least I could CC mobs with eathquake as a druid. The trees need their ap cost dropped, so we can go deep into EK for extra defense. More DPS in EK tree would be nice while you are at it.

None of these changes are meant to replace class passes.

Sev~

[Sephenis]

None of these changes are meant to replace class passes.

Sev~

So if I'm understand correctly, in U29 with the level cap raise there will be some new stuffs for the casters and at some point later in the future there will be a caster pass?

[Severlin]

So if I'm understand correctly, in U29 with the level cap raise there will be some new stuffs for the casters and at some point later in the future there will be a caster pass?

Yes.

After reading player feedback we are moving towards a system where meaningful improvement to specific characters or classes will sometimes be added to the game in smaller doses. While we realize everyone wants a complete and full class pass for the remaining classes, we are changing direction slightly and bring some balance relief in meaningful but smaller doses so players won't have to wait as long while their favorite class lingers behind.

Sev~