I don't understand the nerfing paradigm

[Lotoc]

You also have to take into account that all of those spells deal zero damage against things of the incorrect alignment, and again, scaling issues. Most level 4 spells scale up to level 15, not level 10. I'd be fine with the nerfs if they at least extended out the scaling of it.

Fourth level has barely any damage spells.
Shout is for some reason d6+3 (below standard) but MCL 15
NEB is MCL 10 d6+4, Ice Storm is MCL 10 d6(+1 per cl) +2d6 per tick, Flame Strike is a fourth level druid spell but 5th level cleric/fvs doing 2d6+6 split between fire and untyped.
Fourth level spells in general are a mess of things that aren't typical nuking spells so it's not really a consistent comparison - but most spells like Acid Rain, Ice Storm, NEB, Lightning motes and so on are MCL 10

 

[Smokewolf]

If that were true than r10 raid composition wouldn't be 95% ranged...your math aint mathing.

It's not math but almost 20 years of observation.

 

[cocopufff]

Fourth level has barely any damage spells.
Shout is for some reason d6+3 (below standard) but MCL 15
NEB is MCL 10 d6+4, Ice Storm is MCL 10 d6(+1 per cl) +2d6 per tick, Flame Strike is a fourth level druid spell but 5th level cleric/fvs doing 2d6+6 split between fire and untyped.
Fourth level spells in general are a mess of things that aren't typical nuking spells so it's not really a consistent comparison - but most spells like Acid Rain, Ice Storm, NEB, Lightning motes and so on are MCL 10

Acid rain is 15, not ten, so is firewall (though firewall's scaling sucks bad enough to make it not super relevant.) Neb is in general the exception, since Shout, Acid Rain, Fire Wall, and Flame Strike are all 15 not 10. Fire trap is 20, and force missiles are 12.

So we can be pedantic about something being "in line" in terms of damage, but the fact is, these spells drop off like a rock at levels past 10, and options like Flame Strike are vastly superior, and if the goal was to make Clerics more appealing, then nerfing their enhancement tree's main SLA which already wasn't great to begin with wasn't the move. If the spells had a higher caster level, it wouldn't be out of line with other spells, and would allow for better scaling into later periods of the game, if the damage was too problematic around level 10.

 

[Alpha Tester]

Game was nerfed at the first time with the ravenloft belt and the playerbase didn't complain.


So they did again and again and now the player don't choose what he will play, the game designer does. "Sneak" is even more dead than nuking because it was a 19 year old boy who didn't understand AD&D and laughed online of the bad design of the original developers and he didn't get fired after this.


First they nerfed the players saying it would fix the lag. Then they raised the cap level with a huge amount of xp in between levels while they sell us back the power they took. Soon they will add one more rat race but not a single new mechanic or spells, just moar numbers.

 

[Shear-buckler]

Game was nerfed at the first time with the ravenloft belt and the playerbase didn't complain.


So they did again and again and now the player don't choose what he will play, the game designer does. "Sneak" is even more dead than nuking because it was a 19 year old boy who didn't understand AD&D and laughed online of the bad design of the original developers and he didn't get fired after this.


First they nerfed the players saying it would fix the lag. Then they raised the cap level with a huge amount of xp in between levels while they sell us back the power they took. Soon they will add one more rat race but not a single new mechanic or spells, just moar numbers.

So much wrong...

 

[Lotoc]

Game was nerfed at the first time with the ravenloft belt and the playerbase didn't complain.


So they did again and again and now the player don't choose what he will play, the game designer does. "Sneak" is even more dead than nuking because it was a 19 year old boy who didn't understand AD&D and laughed online of the bad design of the original developers and he didn't get fired after this.


First they nerfed the players saying it would fix the lag. Then they raised the cap level with a huge amount of xp in between levels while they sell us back the power they took. Soon they will add one more rat race but not a single new mechanic or spells, just moar numbers.

People absolutely freaked the hell out about the ravenloft belt nerfs, perhaps more than people complained about the EA mantle losing the passive healing or about dragon breath being nerfed. What are you on about?

 

[CherryBomb]

Little Cherry's take on nerfs: The devs make things they think will work. Some people use the things. Other people ***** and moan about the things. The devs make changes to make the squeaky wheel go away. The Cycle repeats...

 

[Marshal_Lannes]

All of this was argued about years ago.

 

[An den]

The buff to arcane archer is basically that arcane archer is now okay for like a ~10 sp dip, which doesn't feel like a buff to the playstyle at all.

The draconic strike nerf was insane, they cut the damage by like 70% and added a maximum caster level nerf on top of that. It feels similarly to the FVS nerf, where they nerfed one of their main leveling spells and then also nerfed the tree itself. And what gamebreaking problem was found in bards have an early level AOE?

Like, it feels like the effort here isn't to balance, it's to kill.

The game breaking problem found in bards to have an early level AOE was in fact: Strimtom backed up by people like Shear-buckler. Truth. It turned sorceror into the mainstay for grinding racial past lives and killed a playstyle. This right here describes so much about why DDO is where it is and why it has lost so many players.

 

[The Narc2]

The game breaking problem found in bards to have an early level AOE was in fact: Strimtom backed up by people like Shear-buckler. Truth. It turned sorceror into the mainstay for grinding racial past lives and killed a playstyle. This right here describes so much about why DDO is where it is and why it has lost so many players.

Great insight, sorceror is definitely used by many now for past lives.

 

[Gruben]

The game breaking problem found in bards to have an early level AOE was in fact: Strimtom backed up by people like Shear-buckler. Truth. It turned sorceror into the mainstay for grinding racial past lives and killed a playstyle. This right here describes so much about why DDO is where it is and why it has lost so many players.

you get shout SLA at level 3. but sure the playstyle is "dead"

 

[FVSHasBeenEvenMoreGutted]

- Sonic blast was basically the strongest first level spell in the game and a major reason why famine reapers were so dangerous at low levels - because the damage on it has no save (just the daze) and the area was massive, as far as the source material goes it was never an AoE spell

yup and force missiles/chain missiles were AoE spells and did more damage (relative to mob health). this argument thus carries lots of weight, about as much as an atom

and as an AOE CC damage spell it was in a weird position that caster bards felt significantly better than other casters at low levels.

yeah and sorcs/wiz who also got sonic blast (but better tree support at low level with crit/CL) were not oferperforming at all

still suck it was nerfed cuz now bard is so bad until like level 13

 

[Lotoc]

yup and force missiles/chain missiles were AoE spells and did more damage (relative to mob health). this argument thus carries lots of weight, about as much as an atom

yeah and sorcs/wiz who also got sonic blast (but better tree support at low level with crit/CL) were not oferperforming at all

still suck it was nerfed cuz now bard is so bad until like level 13

as far as really low level (1-3) having an SLA you can put metas on and spam at 4SP cost was the big impact it had vs sorc/wiz, but in my opinion the biggest issue was really famine reapers having it and it being an unavoidably huge area nuke at low levels where it'd oneshot you if you didn't have multiple PLs

 

[pirotessa]

So they did again and again and now the player don't choose what he will play, the game designer does. "Sneak" is even more dead than nuking because it was a 19 year old boy who didn't understand AD&D and laughed online of the bad design of the original developers and he didn't get fired after this.

Just played a rogue, sneak is as awesome as ever.

 

[cocopufff]

as far as really low level (1-3) having an SLA you can put metas on and spam at 4SP cost was the big impact it had vs sorc/wiz, but in my opinion the biggest issue was really famine reapers having it and it being an unavoidably huge area nuke at low levels where it'd oneshot you if you didn't have multiple PLs

Idk what having it not be AOE fixes. Most people solo low levels anyways, and it's still the same damage, unavoidable, and locks on.

 

[Lotoc]

Idk what having it not be AOE fixes. Most people solo low levels anyways, and it's still the same damage, unavoidable, and locks on.

you can actually move enough to avoid sonic blast, and enemies do so quite often. Issue with it being aoe is if it hits the environment it hits everything nearby (the old method of using sonic blast most effectively was to never hard target and just jump over enemies blasting the floor)

 

[Jasparius]

Just played a rogue, sneak is as awesome as ever.

That is just trolling people who used to love sneak. Very cruel of you.

as far as really low level (1-3) having an SLA you can put metas on and spam at 4SP cost was the big impact it had vs sorc/wiz, but in my opinion the biggest issue was really famine reapers having it and it being an unavoidably huge area nuke at low levels where it'd oneshot you if you didn't have multiple PLs

So in reaper content you need multiple PLs to survive?

Isnt that what you would expect from the hardest difficulty option?

 

[Lotoc]

That is just trolling people who used to love sneak. Very cruel of you.



So in reaper content you need multiple PLs to survive?

Isnt that what you would expect from the hardest difficulty option?

there's a difference between dying because mobs wear you down and being oneshot by a mob in a level 1 quest doing 130 sonic damage to an entire room because you don't have enough deep gnome, warlock and primal past lives for the MRR and health pool to survive.

 

[Synalon]

I was having a break during Sonic Blast's now legendary era of dominance. An AoE damage spell on a non-resisted element that also dazes sounds insanely OP for level one. It sounds like it needed a nerd.

 

[Jasparius]

there's a difference between dying because mobs wear you down and being oneshot by a mob in a level 1 quest doing 130 sonic damage to an entire room because you don't have enough deep gnome, warlock and primal past lives for the MRR and health pool to survive.

I have a feeling there will be plenty of people who actually like this idea.