Equating Combat Stats: AKA: Why exactly doesn't caster scale as strongly as Physical builds?

Drachmor

Well-known member
Casters need to be re balanced around single versus aoe. The rest of this is good info but it doesn’t matter. You can’t make meteor swarm do the same dps to a single target as single target melee dps. Because obviously.

The other things, r7 nerf and mcls should be revisited at the same time.

But also just remove the r7 nerf, or apply it to everyone.
I'm definitely more in favor of applying it to everyone, just because removing it right now would actually just further the divide between physical and magic groups rn I think (with imbues). Also, R6 is sort of the last skull count before the next threshold of difficulty in general (imo), so. I could definitely see a case for making R7+ harder in general.

That said, I wish I actually had a ton of rxp before those changes are implemented, if they are. One sucky thing about certain balance changes like that (or maybe like, profound xp changes) is that it does create a bigger gap between players who already have power and players who do not, yet.
 

1Th13rteen3

I'm on meds.. Leaf me alone!
I'm of the view that casters shouldn't have the best DPS. They should have the best burst damage.

I'm fine with them having slightly worse dps than Melees. I'm fine with them trailing behind ranged damage.

What casters should be the king of are what many 4th Edition players would call "Daily Powers".

Casters should have options to blow their 1-3/rest abilities to do insane damage. Remember old Arcane Supremacy? That. But Stronger, and not random.

Wellspring of Power is a good start, but turn that into percentage spellpower increase. The issue is that all of the supposed burst damage bonuses casters get are flat, and with so many flat bonuses adding up, none of them really mean anything.

Remember old Offhand Versatility and its autocrit? Make that a 1-3/day ability. Make casters ideal for killing targets fast.

It's absolutely insane that the best burst damage spec in the game is the consistent ranged DPS option, wheras Casters (which actually have limited resources, and don't have luxuries such as the ability to regenerate action boosts) fall behind.

Basically, they need the caster equivalent of NHB, be it through power or through speed. They already have to jump through immunity hoops (yes, I know sorcerers and alchemists and blah blah, but not every caster has bypass!), yet they're punished even beyond that?
Fair points but I am not going to argue semantics, the point is - casters in DnD are supposed to be squishy, rear line major threats. The reasoning for this is they DO A LOT OF DAMAGE IN A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME (Lightning Bolt, Ball Lightning. FIREBALL, etc), this is why they are weak, mages and wizzies is where the term GLASS CANNON came into being in the first place. If we are talking about DnD and this game being based off of that franchise, then we need to accept that these things stay true to the heart of DnD. Melees should NEVER outdps a wizzie/sorc/etc. This is why they are limited to cloth, because of ASF, because spells are supposed to be powerful AF. When melees are outdpsing casters, something is terribly wrong. That's a fact.
 

Smokewolf

Frequently banned member.
I don't know how to fix them entirely, but the first step would be adding an action boost to reduce spell cooldown in caster trees, available early. This would help provide a burst damage window similar to Physical Damage dealers with Haste Boost, while also incentivising a caster to 'nova', and blow all their spellpoints, but run out of resources earlier.

Secondly, perhaps a purchaseable feat that adds a flat amount of damage matching the spell's element, equal to your casting modifier? Something that scales with spellpower, to provide a floor, even for your first level spells.
Point 1) Boosts for casters are not a great way to enhance builds that are already hampered by limited resources such as mana / casting-time. Often these boosts are avoided as timing their usage in coordination with the already existing abilities would become a full time job in an of itself. This shouldn't mean that casters don't use boosts, but the opportunities to use them effectively tends to be very narrow. Even if the CD's of all my spells were cut in half during the boost...(Assuming i was spamming the same spell) That wouldn't necessarily mean a significant increase in overall DPS output, just a burst over that very limited duration. Not enough to significantly change the outcome of a single battle, and likely not worth the costs required to aquire the boost in the first place.

Point 2) Adding a new Ability will only to serve to constrain builds further that are already short on avalible Feats. By forcing caster builds to further specialize to be able to utilize the new "I win" button. Which IMO would be anything but... Not when it would pigeon-hole casters into relying on what is effectively just another Epic Moment. While simultaneously watering down the casters effectiveness outside of the new abilities use.

Criticals: Spells don't have a critical-multiplier but a percentage of damage increase. That effectively keeps a casters burst damage lower than that of an equivalent melee. Never mind the fact that melees attack many times faster, double strike, and have signifigant amounts of strike-thru, allowing them to behave as if they're walking AoE's.

Reaper Penalties: The penalty imposed on casters R7+ is unique to them. Thus, removing it is seen as the easiest way to universally boost all casters without changing any of the other aspects of the game.

Max Caster Level: Spells / SLA / Epic abilities are beening held artificially low. Impacting the damage dice per level, and in many cases the DC's / spell-penetration that's possible. Having spells that can be cast at the characters "true" level + bonuses would help signifigantly at Cap, where the mob stat-bloat and DC's are at their greatest. Consequently this is the area where casters and especially DC casters are hurting the most.

Immunities: Too many "trash" mobs have Immunities and often more than one. That the majority of casters using elemental damage have some limited form of stripping to deal with. That being said... DC casters have no such equivalent to removing Immunities, or even being able to temporarily surpress them. Thow in a few champs and orange names that can equal up to a 1/4 of all R10 mobs encountered and DC casting is no longer an attractive option. I mean who needs / wants Hold-Monster or Dancing-Ball for 6 seconds, when a physical DPS can kill a group of mobs in less than the time it takes to get CC active? For me as a Wizard, this is the state of the game currently.
 
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droid327

Hardcore casual soloist
Casters do also have a hits/second scalar of sorts, when it comes to spell cooldown reduction (and casting speed).

And as you mention, yes - caster bases should be higher in general than physical builds (which they often are, but not by enough right now apparently). And maybe they should have more opportunities to invest - like physical builds - in super high damage.

Cooldown reduction isnt really a hits/second scalar, because you always cast at the 1/sec global CD. What CDR does is let you remove filler from your rotation and cast your "good spells" more often, raising your average base damage per cast.

But you still need to have enough options to fill out a rotation. For any given build, there's only maybe one or two "good spells", and they usually have higher cooldowns to begin with. When those are on CD, you still need to lean on filler. For martial builds, there's no such thing as filler - even autoattacks scale well.

If a lot of the endgame-relevant spells and SLAs that are currently on 12, 15, 20 second timers were brought down to 6, 8, 10...then that would eliminate a lot of the filler and let casters raise their base damage by focusing on high-value spells 100% of the time. Or if CDR applied to SLAs as well. Or if CDR was given out more freely, so casters could stack it higher and squeeze out more junk spells.

edit: or if more caster Epic Strikes were like Fatesinger, on 2 sec CDs, but with decent base damage (talking like 1d6+6 aoe, 1d6+8 single target just to get in the door), then you could weave those between spells and have a "filler" ability more comparable to martial autoattacks
 
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JerryM

Member
In recent times, I have seen a increase in 'casters need buffing' type posts.

Two things come to mind:

1. Casters have ranged attacks that can kill mobs from a distance away (is there value in that?)

2. I have literally seen casters their way through heroics and been unable to keep up.
I have also seen casters shred their way through R10s and had double to triple the kill count of anyone else, even the ranged.

Mentioning this because too often the squeaky wheel gets the grease and to express the view that casters seem to be quite strong in their own areas.

In case you want specific examples, I have seen Sorc, Cold druid, Warlock and Sonic bard all perform excellently.
 

Smokewolf

Frequently banned member.
But also just remove the r7 nerf, or apply it to eveveryone.
Applying R7 to everone, you'd see a massive negative reaction. Such that it would be hilarious to see the comments on forums that drop after the fact. Not that the Dev's would do this mind you, as odds are the DDO store would see signifigant losses.

Still thought, it would be nice to see everyone playing with the same handicap I deal with as a DC caster.
 
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Underflow

Well-known member
Point 1) Boosts for casters are not a great way to enhance builds that are already hampered by limited resources such as mana / casting-time. Often these boosts are avoided as timing their usage in coordination with the already existing abilities would become a full time job in an of itself. This shouldn't mean that casters don't use boosts, but the opportunities to use them effectively tends to be very narrow. Even if the CD's of all my spells were cut in half during the boost...(Assuming i was spamming the same spell) That wouldn't necessarily mean a significant increase in overall DPS output, just a burst over that very limited duration. Not enough to significantly change the outcome of a single battle, and likely not worth the costs required to aquire the boost in the first place.

Point 2) Adding a new Ability will only to serve to constrain builds further that are already short on avalible Feats. By forcing caster builds to further specialize to be able to utilize the new "I win" button. Which IMO would be anything but... Not when it would pigeon-hole casters into relying on what is effectively just another Epic Moment. While simultaneously watering down the casters effectiveness outside of the new abilities use.

Criticals: Spells don't have a critical-multiplier but a percentage of damage increase. That effectively keeps a casters burst damage lower than that of an equivalent melee. Never mind the fact that melees attack many times faster, double strike, and have signifigant amounts of strike-thru, allowing them to behave as if they're walking AoE's.

Reaper Penalties: The penalty imposed on casters R7+ is unique to them. Thus, removing it is seen as the easiest way to universally boost all casters without changing any of the other aspects of the game.

Max Caster Level: Spells / SLA / Epic abilities are beening held artificially low. Impacting the damage dice per level, and in many cases the DC's / spell-penetration that's possible. Having spells that can be cast at the characters "true" level + bonuses would help signifigantly at Cap, where the mob stat-bloat and DC's are at their greatest. Consequently this is the area where casters and especially DC casters are hurting the most.

Immunities: Too many "trash" mobs have Immunities and often more than one. That the majority of casters using elemental damage have some limited form of stripping to deal with. That being said... DC casters have no such equivalent to removing Immunities, or even being able to temporarily surpress them. Thow in a few champs and orange names that can equal up to a 1/4 of all R10 mobs encountered and DC casting is no longer an attractive option. I mean who needs / wants Hold-Monster or Dancing-Ball for 6 seconds, when a physical DPS can kill a group of mobs in less than the time it takes to get CC active? For me as a Wizard, this is the state of the game currently.
Aight, gonna handle these 1by1 because these are actually really good points.

1: I view Action Boost: Spellpower as entirely worthless, as +30 Spell Power is not worth casting an Action Boost for. My proposal is a bit weak, but alternatives would be either adding a spell point discount during the boost (so 10/20/30% cooldown reduction + spell cost reduction), or doubling the values. 30 Melee Power is far, far more impactful than a dinky 30 Spell Power. Alternative options include Action Boost: Spell Critical (chance and damage) or Action Boost: Penetrate Immunity.

2: The 'new ability' thing was an initial proposal, my later suggestion was to roll the baseline damage increase into Magical Training instead. I get what you mean though, magic builds get insanely feat-taxed, but at the same time they've got a huge pile of useless feats. I actually have no idea what a pure Wizard would even spend their extra feats on. I also wouldn't mind it if Empower/Maximize/Empower Healing/Intensify scaled with character level, starting at 50/100/50/50 and gaining bonuses as the character levels up. I don't know why they haven't made them scale by now, but god, even extra 3/6/3/3 Spell Power from the Metamagics per Character Level would make a huge difference.

(Slightly worse earlygame, but breakpoint at level 9, and past level 9 the metamagics only get better. 5/10/5/5 is almost even better, making the breakpoint at level 5 and providing 220/440/220/220 spell power at level 34.)

3: I hate the way that they've implemented the Spell Damage Critical system, as they've been so stingy about it that the best spell damage critical class in the game is Warlock. Every Core 5 should be giving at least 10% Spell Critical Damage, and every Capstone on a caster tree should be giving at least 20%. I can't believe that they're so afraid of making the magic version of Seeker.

4: The reaper caster penalty is stupid but I don't consistently run above 4 skulls save for occasional PUGs. I do not feel confident in having an opinion about them. As such, I glossed over it on my writeup.

5: MCL: For the life of me, I don't know why they capped Epic Strikes to 20, when Melee Strikes have increased threat range/crit and percentage damage increases. The only way I could possibly justify that choice is if Dragon Breath had something like "This spell receives 50% increased scaling from Spell Power"... But at that point, just multiply the numbers by 1.5 instead.

6: Immunities: I hate them too, and feel that by this point, every single caster should have an option to strip immunities at level 34. It doesn't even need to be full stripping, even just 50%, so that they're able to contribute at all would make a huge, huge difference. Unfortunately, they never implemented the ability to remove only 50% of a target's immunity, and that's how we ended up with the all-or-nothing design that Sorcerers started and now is considered mandatory.

I am of the opinion that "Full" stripping being available easily (EG: Tiefling, Chaosmancer) is bad for the game, but "Half Stripping" should be accessible in the equivalent of a 3-piece Filigree set. If you're terrified of somehow making Poison mages viable, then lock it to level 20 and hide it in the Sentient Weapon system.
 

Drachmor

Well-known member
Cooldown reduction isnt really a hits/second scalar, because you always cast at the 1/sec global CD. What CDR does is let you remove filler from your rotation and cast your "good spells" more often, raising your average base damage per cast.

But you still need to have enough options to fill out a rotation. For any given build, there's only maybe one or two "good spells", and they usually have higher cooldowns to begin with. When those are on CD, you still need to lean on filler. For martial builds, there's no such thing as filler - even autoattacks scale well.

If a lot of the endgame-relevant spells and SLAs that are currently on 12, 15, 20 second timers were brought down to 6, 8, 10...then that would eliminate a lot of the filler and let casters raise their base damage by focusing on high-value spells 100% of the time. Or if CDR applied to SLAs as well. Or if CDR was given out more freely, so casters could stack it higher and squeeze out more junk spells.

edit: or if more caster Epic Strikes were like Fatesinger, on 2 sec CDs, but with decent base damage (talking like 1d6+6 aoe, 1d6+8 single target just to get in the door), then you could weave those between spells and have a "filler" ability more comparable to martial autoattacks
Yeah I used to play fire sorc nuker at cap, and I'm aware that spell CD isn't a direct translation to DPS like an attack speed scalar - it is really all about whatever thresholds will get you into an optimal rotation.

I definitely agree that cooldowns need to be looked at, also with others that AOE vs single-target needs to be looked at. When my fire sorc was 👌👌👌, the Draconic epic attack was on a much shorter cooldown. Plus... a huge list of other things that they changed, nerfed, etc., until the build became a husk of what it was \:D
 

Toon Tang

Active member
You never see people picking up mana souls in quests or even bothering to use shrines anymore. Mnemonic pots aren't even valuable like they used to be. SSG sales of mana pots are probably zero too.

I can fix that! The Crimson Demon Magical Studies feat. You have studied with the Crimson Demon Wizards, your eyes glow red and you every spell you cast does 1.5x damage but cost 2x mana. Greater Crimson Demon magical studies your spells cost 3x but do 2x damage. Perfected Crimson Demon Magical Studies your spells cost 4x but do 2.5x damage.

This would fix the problem and boost mana sales, make shrines great again and bring life back to all casters (except those without immunity stripping & AM & PM). Devs can play with the numbers to get where they're comfortable.

At the the beginning of Rift, Elminster one shots a creature with 134,000 HP. We need something like that! Legendary Crimson Demon Explosion spend 2000 mana deal 1 million damage. Caster is paralyzed unable to cast for 3 minutes. We need more Elminster in the game.
 
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Anurakh

Little Nixie
You never see people picking up mana souls in quests or even bothering to use shrines anymore. Mnemonic pots aren't even valuable like they used to be. SSG sales of mana pots are probably zero too.

I can fix that! The Crimson Demon Magical Studies feat. You have studied with the Crimson Demon Wizards, your eyes glow red and you every spell you cast does 1.5x damage but cost 2x mana. Greater Crimson Demon magical studies your spells cost 3x but do 2x damage. Perfected Crimson Demon Magical Studies your spells cost 4x but do 2.5x damage.

This would fix the problem and boost mana sales, make shrines great again and bring life back to all casters (except those without immunity stripping). Devs can play with the numbers to get where they're comfortable.
When weapon users need to buy stamina potions to deal damage, not before.
 

Br4d

Well-known member
I believe it is largely accidental that melee are so OP at endgame now. The players will always find builds that blow away the engine and there are still many more players than devs/testers.
 

woq

Well-known member
Why are people even talking about Melee being the op ones, when ranged are even better? xd

And it's not any broken or unintentional mechanics that make either of them "op" either. If you don't play the endgame content and don't have experience with said op builds, you probably shouldn't chime in on the mechanics of those builds.
 

Toon Tang

Active member
Low effort fix: when a caster tries to enter a raid or a quest above r7, a banner pops up that recommends them to hire others to do the damage for them before entering and offering a map to Hall of Heroes reincarnation grov

This adventure is designed for experienced and skilled parties whose damage abilities scale past level 20. Click here for map to Hall of Heroes reincarnation grove.
 

waysider

Well-known member
In recent times, I have seen a increase in 'casters need buffing' type posts.

Two things come to mind:

1. Casters have ranged attacks that can kill mobs from a distance away (is there value in that?)

2. I have literally seen casters their way through heroics and been unable to keep up.
I have also seen casters shred their way through R10s and had double to triple the kill count of anyone else, even the ranged.

Mentioning this because too often the squeaky wheel gets the grease and to express the view that casters seem to be quite strong in their own areas.

In case you want specific examples, I have seen Sorc, Cold druid, Warlock and Sonic bard all perform excellently.
As the OP posted, this isn't really a mid-heroics problem. Maximized fireball is great when you first get it.

It's a doing-your-share-of-LH.Karliath's-hp-is-2-million problem.
 
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Lotoc

Well-known member
it could well be due time that Maximize, Empower and Intensify be changed to caster level/maximum caster level increases, but that'd end up causing issues for warlock SLAs and other spells which don't benefit from caster levels (ruin, spirit blades, arcane pulse etc.)
As of right now metas give a lot of power in heroics but don't really scale with other increases very well.
 

woq

Well-known member
it could well be due time that Maximize, Empower and Intensify be changed to caster level/maximum caster level increases, but that'd end up causing issues for warlock SLAs and other spells which don't benefit from caster levels (ruin, spirit blades, arcane pulse etc.)
Or a new metamagic feat or metamagic adjusting feat that can't be stacked with the power increases, but enabling choice for CL/MCL instead. You'd get to pick and choose, depending on where your character is at progression wise and on what it intends to do.

Effectively adding CL+MCL metamagic feats already forces choice due to feat scarcity.
 

woq

Well-known member
In recent times, I have seen a increase in 'casters need buffing' type posts.

Two things come to mind:

1. Casters have ranged attacks that can kill mobs from a distance away (is there value in that?)

2. I have literally seen casters their way through heroics and been unable to keep up.
I have also seen casters shred their way through R10s and had double to triple the kill count of anyone else, even the ranged.

Mentioning this because too often the squeaky wheel gets the grease and to express the view that casters seem to be quite strong in their own areas.

In case you want specific examples, I have seen Sorc, Cold druid, Warlock and Sonic bard all perform excellently.
It comes down to standards and ease of execution. Full completionist characters with minmaxed gear and a good build in capable hands can absolutely shred regular R10 questing even solo on any class, at least non-MD/Lamordia/Illithid chains - that is because reaper quests are too easy compared to the height of power characters can reach these days.

Meanwhile, a character with less past lives and not fully minmaxed gear will see a lot different results depending on what they are playing. A ranged character or a healer requires much less in terms of gear and past lives compared to melee/casters - and at full completionist character tier you'll always bring a melee or ranged over a caster for the purpose of dealing damage in every scenario. Every scenario - there is no scenario where for the purposes of damage you would ever bring a caster over a martial ranged character. You can bring some for flavor, but it is never the mathematically right choice to make.

Additionally much of the utility casters can theoretically bring (Off-Healing, Time Stop, CC, Instakilling, Turn the Tide, Turning debuffs, Salting, etc) comes at the cost of sacrificing potentially good damage numbers on a caster. So to do your unique job (utility, control, flexibility, mobility via various wings type abilities from EA tree / sorc wings / dragonborn and the like), you are unable to bring good damage numbers and to bring dps, you sac your utility => for good dps, you're always worse than martials or dc caster in the group because even if you bring the best amount of damage, you're simply inferior. You should be bringing utility instead.

That is not to say that casters are useless. I'd wager that one or maybe two good casters is a good addition to any questing or raid group. They have better access to utility and have mobility advantages especially compared to martial ranged builds and have nice sustain options for some challenge runs. The problem with them is more that they are both harder to pull off (DC's, Spell points and Spell power maxing) and have a lesser ceiling when it comes to dealing with hp sponge and dps check encounters, they struggle with DOT -type ability stacking issues and overall this leads to a big problem with the modern design of harder content in DDO (Den of Vipers is a dps check, Threats is a dmg sponge, there are some incredibly HP heavy encounters in Lamordia that are a lot to chew through) - and most raid encounters in DDO are easier the more damage you have, enabling you in quite a few cases to completely ignore dealing with their intended mechanics by opting for more damage instead.

This is also completely ignoring the fact that more damage = more raids/quests in shorter time = more progress for everyone.
 

waysider

Well-known member
Aight, gonna handle these 1by1 because these are actually really good points.

1: I view Action Boost: Spellpower as entirely worthless, as +30 Spell Power is not worth casting an Action Boost for. My proposal is a bit weak, but alternatives would be either adding a spell point discount during the boost (so 10/20/30% cooldown reduction + spell cost reduction), or doubling the values. 30 Melee Power is far, far more impactful than a dinky 30 Spell Power. Alternative options include Action Boost: Spell Critical (chance and damage) or Action Boost: Penetrate Immunity.

2: The 'new ability' thing was an initial proposal, my later suggestion was to roll the baseline damage increase into Magical Training instead. I get what you mean though, magic builds get insanely feat-taxed, but at the same time they've got a huge pile of useless feats. I actually have no idea what a pure Wizard would even spend their extra feats on. I also wouldn't mind it if Empower/Maximize/Empower Healing/Intensify scaled with character level, starting at 50/100/50/50 and gaining bonuses as the character levels up. I don't know why they haven't made them scale by now, but god, even extra 3/6/3/3 Spell Power from the Metamagics per Character Level would make a huge difference.

(Slightly worse earlygame, but breakpoint at level 9, and past level 9 the metamagics only get better. 5/10/5/5 is almost even better, making the breakpoint at level 5 and providing 220/440/220/220 spell power at level 34.)

3: I hate the way that they've implemented the Spell Damage Critical system, as they've been so stingy about it that the best spell damage critical class in the game is Warlock. Every Core 5 should be giving at least 10% Spell Critical Damage, and every Capstone on a caster tree should be giving at least 20%. I can't believe that they're so afraid of making the magic version of Seeker.

4: The reaper caster penalty is stupid but I don't consistently run above 4 skulls save for occasional PUGs. I do not feel confident in having an opinion about them. As such, I glossed over it on my writeup.

5: MCL: For the life of me, I don't know why they capped Epic Strikes to 20, when Melee Strikes have increased threat range/crit and percentage damage increases. The only way I could possibly justify that choice is if Dragon Breath had something like "This spell receives 50% increased scaling from Spell Power"... But at that point, just multiply the numbers by 1.5 instead.

6: Immunities: I hate them too, and feel that by this point, every single caster should have an option to strip immunities at level 34. It doesn't even need to be full stripping, even just 50%, so that they're able to contribute at all would make a huge, huge difference. Unfortunately, they never implemented the ability to remove only 50% of a target's immunity, and that's how we ended up with the all-or-nothing design that Sorcerers started and now is considered mandatory.

I am of the opinion that "Full" stripping being available easily (EG: Tiefling, Chaosmancer) is bad for the game, but "Half Stripping" should be accessible in the equivalent of a 3-piece Filigree set. If you're terrified of somehow making Poison mages viable, then lock it to level 20 and hide it in the Sentient Weapon system.
I'm a big fan of some version of #2. I don't care all that much between 3/6/3/3 or 5/10/5/5, but something in that line. 150 Spell Power from Maximize is maybe doubling you damage at lvl 7 when you're casting fireballs in Delera's, but it's maybe 15% at endgame. Maybe slightly different numbers per epic level? Some sort of scaling would be much better than what we have now.

And very yes on #5; it's very silly that Epic Strikes are capped when you get them and advancing through legendary levels doesn't make the slightest difference.
 
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