Melfs Acid arrow is overtuned (Spawn of Whisperdoom)

[Konsumer]

I was running 3 out of 4 of those and the acid dots were still tearing thru things. Just one melf dot is nasty, but they'll sometimes stack 2 or 3 of them and it goes beyond excessive. The recent acid damage changes made it pretty extreme (same way belly of beast was out of control from those changes); the quest doesn't play like it did before those changes. Compared to all the other sources of damage the party was taking in there, the acid damage isn't on par with anything else damage-wise from those mobs.

Try spell absorption items.

 

[rabidfox]

Try spell absorption items.

The excessive damage is being fixed ... I was on an alt that I brought in for the event because they were in the level range. Farming out spell absorb for a one off alt for an event wasn't on my to-do list.

 

[l_remmie]

When doing epics i break boxes as usual but i also take a second to look for resist30 potions. You cant but those in a shop.
Its really nice to have a stack of those on any toon that cant cast elemental resistance. And these pots are more reliable than Wands and phiarlan buffs when you run into trouble.

 

[rabidfox]

Tonquin, if you could check monster damage on black dragon bolt and arcane blast too that'd be good. People on discord have mentioned both of those being particularly nasty at times since various recent updates (could be design or could be some kind of halo effect of changes).

On topic for the melfs change buffing monsters...
Arcane Blast's buff to 1d6+4 per CL vs the old 1d6 per CL seems to have buffed every single enemy that uses it, from those spherical constructs whose shadows are floating eyes, to the medusas in the lordsmarch quests to the Ghost Flame they're all on average doing just over double with arcane blast.
This is especially noticeable because force damage is a problematic damage type vs players

edit:
quote off discord:
bdb in r1 schin
hitting for 400-600 a tick
death undone if it matters

 

[haagmaar123]

Tonquin, if you could check monster damage on black dragon bolt and arcane blast too that'd be good. People on discord have mentioned both of those being particularly nasty at times since various recent updates (could be design or could be some kind of halo effect of changes).



edit:
quote off discord:
bdb in r1 schin
hitting for 400-600 a tick
death undone if it matters

monsters should get the same spells as we do if we are going to tone it down then the player version should also be tuned down.

 

[Zvdegor]

monsters should get the same spells as we do if we are going to tone it down then the player version should also be tuned down.

So also the HP of the monsters should be toned down to player levels? Monsters got way more HP than players.

 

[Lotoc]

monsters should get the same spells as we do if we are going to tone it down then the player version should also be tuned down.

this is a bad idea when you consider player damage vs player durability and that untyped/force spells completely bypass things like MRR (which outside of hardcore season 8, psionic thralls and Vrocks/Balor in Fire over morgraive monsters simply don't have).
Spells for us are often balanced for damage dealt to enemies with 100k+ health in endgame quests and tens of millions in raids, ghost flame just casually doing 1k to people who make their reflex save (but lack evasion) with arcane blast on hard mode is a problem but that isn't a problem that justifies regimping archmage.

Additionally player spells are limited by caster levels correlating to class levels, monster spells aren't. That spell you're casting at CL 26 at best in the hands of a monster could be casting as high as CL 70

 

[Lotoc]

Another layer to this is monsters typically aren't given the strongest spells more often than not they're given underperforming spells and then become a problem when those spells are buffed to on par with existing options, like BDB and Melf's acid arrow being the current example.
Enervation largely became a problem when it got buffed to contain a dot but until then we didn't even know how many enemies actually used it, until then player characters basically never cast it.
Until Black Dragon Bolt got buffed it was so negligible that players never used it over other options and it was so weak we hardly noticed enemies used it except for when we were trying to open doors after the caster was dead.

Undertuned spells being made viable for us and overpowered in the hands of monsters is a recurring problem. In fact I recognise that I myself complain Sunburst is undertuned for its level and Light as a spell category suffers for it but at the same time I dread it being buffed because it's so bad it has constantly been given to monsters and traps.