Suggestion - do something about spell penetration requirements

[rabidfox]

I'm finding the current state of spell penetration annoying. To land most of my non-DPS spells/abilities (instas/CC) on my warlock I have to have both DCs for the school and spell penetration. This means needing to use 2 different lines of feats to boost both DCs & spell penetration, plus needing gear/other building aspects for both. Wiz/FvS past lives account for 9 spell penetration, which is a huge difference; offsetting that on 1st/low life characters is challenging. While martials only need to make 1 DC (no spell pen neded) to achieve similar results via trips, stuns, insta-kills from Ravenger, etc. etc.

Looking at my warlock's current spell list, here's the one (non-buff/utility type) spell that doesn't require spell pen:

Meanwhile, for all of these spells, I have to build for both spell pen + necro/enhancement/etc. DCs.

If I ignore spell pen, I can kiss all of those spells goodbye at cap. One suggestion I made before would be to add in a new destiny feat to help:

Add in a new Destiny feat:
Spell Penetration Specialty that gives +12 Spell Penetration (same as +2 from the base, +4 from Greater, and +6 from Epic); antireqs spell penetration feat. Prereq: Epic Spell Focus

Give Legendary Spell Focus: + 3 spell penetration too. Prereqs become: Epic (Spell Focus or penetration)

And modify prereqs so one can do Spell Focus or penetration lines to unlock stuff later.

So the new table would look like this:

Epic Spell Focus	any Greater Spell Focus (no longer has class requirements)	21	+2 to all spell schools
Spell Focus Specialty	Epic (Spell Focus or penetration)	31	+3 to a single spell school, may not select one you have a spell focus feat for (antireqs fixed!)
Spell Penetration Specialty	Epic Spell Focus	31	+12 Spell Penetration (antireq spell penetration feat)
Legendary Spell Focus	Epic (Spell Focus or penetration)	30	+3 to all spell schools & + 3 spell penetration

These changes allow more freedom for hitting DCs/Spell Pen & reduces the feat tax slightly. As a new destiny feat, one still has to make the choice between DCs/spell pen vs DPS via Epic Spell Power for crit damage; so there's trade-offs involved.

There's probably other ways to make things better. I'm not feeling picky about how it's improved, I'd just love some sort of improvement to increase the fun and reduce the pain of setting up spell pen.


edit: here's another thing SSG could do:
Here's a line graph showing how spell pen advances from leveling in heroic/epics (blue) vs how SSG should change things (red).

(Blue line- how things are right now) In heroics, we gain 1 CL per level and thus 1 spell pen value per level. In epics/legendary, we gain 1 CL every other level (via epic/legendary knowledge), thus we gain half-a-point of spell pen per level. This means epics & legendary level up spell pen progression is at half the rate of heroics, but I don't think monster CR progresses at half the rate starting at level 20; they keep progressing like they always have.

(Red line - how they could be) - if epic/legendary knowledge feats also gave +1 spell pen each time the feat is obtained, it'd keep the same spell pen progression on level up that we see in heroics. It's a little bumpy looking as it's providing the power every other level, but overall it'd be the same general progression.

 

[Honkin]

The monkey's paw curls inwards. The next game update introduces items that give double the normal amount of spell penetration... to a single school.

 

[Baconator]

I have an idea

 

[Blerkington]

Yeah, I have the uncomfortable feeling that this will be 'solved' through adding more spell pen channels on gear, more past life bonuses, or both.

 

[rabidfox]

I have an idea

Modified/new metas wouldn't help me per se. I'm already skipping the DPS metas (max/emp/intensify) to get the DC & spell pen feats. And if they add some new spell pen meta toggle, it'd still be an issue as I'm already feat starved. I can't even squeeze in the new elemental immunity strip feats on my warlock unless I go human for the bonus feat to grab the single target version.

 

[Epicsoul]

My caster has all the relevant past lives and I run in Magus. I can't fit in the feats because I'm already short trying to get the spell focus feats. In the end, I had to allocate a +10 artifact item just to bypass the new mobs spell resistance reliably. I can't imagine what it's like without the +9 from past lives.

I like the idea of a destiny feat, as there already is a lack of options there for a caster.

 

[Kimbere]

I have an idea

It's as if the devs don't realize that pretty much any caster class needs to take two entire lines of caster feats to be effective at endgame these days. DPS casters really need to take three entire lines of feats (Metamagics, DCs, Spell Pen).

Thanks to the constant DC creep and mob power creep, the days when casters could get by with only focusing on a single feat line (i.e. spellpower/metamagics, DCs or spell pen) are long gone.

Fixing a design/itemization/class complexity problem via bandaid feats for an entire archetype (casters) that's already massively feat starved via yet another feat tax isn't a good idea. That's just robbing Peter to pay Paul.

 

[Oriathim]

My caster has all the relevant past lives and I run in Magus. I can't fit in the feats because I'm already short trying to get the spell focus feats. In the end, I had to allocate a +10 artifact item just to bypass the new mobs spell resistance reliably. I can't imagine what it's like without the +9 from past lives.

I like the idea of a destiny feat, as there already is a lack of options there for a caster.

I'm at +4 from past lives and +9 from item, and i miss about 60-75% of spell pen checks on my ek wizard in Terror of Demogorgon (controler so, another +4 to spell pen). Extra 5 would go a long way.
Edit. I just realized you meant +10 from solar augment, not base item, lol. Casters are so cooked.

 

[Epicsoul]

Edit. I just realized you meant +10 from solar augment, not base item, lol. Casters are so cooked.

Yep. I have the +10 Equipment bonus from items and slotted a +10 Solar Augment in addition to reliably land spells against drow (I hate seeing those blue shields). I don't have insightful or quality on my gear.

I'm currently on a nuker sorc (I know, I know), so feats just are not an option.

 

[Oriathim]

This is pretty much how I feel after finaly getting around to playing dragonlord (I do understand DL is an outlier, it doesn't change much when you can dip 5 levels into it for 99% of it's power)

https://imgur.com/a/qGWbWEi

 

[rabidfox]

This is pretty much how I feel after finaly getting around to playing dragonlord (I do understand DL is an outlier, it doesn't change much when you can dip 5 levels into it for 99% of it's power)

https://imgur.com/a/qGWbWEi

Yeah, that about sums it up. Other classes beyond dragonlord can do the same. Trip, stuns, go Divine Crusader for Cower Before Me, so many different ways to do CC/other goodies that only need 1 save (vs the double save of school + spell pen on caster).

 

[rabidfox]

Yep. I have the +10 Equipment bonus from items and slotted a +10 Solar Augment in addition to reliably land spells against drow (I hate seeing those blue shields). I don't have insightful or quality on my gear.

I'm currently on a nuker sorc (I know, I know), so feats just are not an option.

I did all 3x spell pen feats, farmed out a Legendary Argonnessen Eye Band for +5 insightful spell pen, plus other gear/filigree/tree stuff, and still end up with enough spell pen checks that fail to find myself annoyed. I originally planned to keep my warlock a 1st lifer forever, but at this point I think I'm just going to knock out Wiz/FvS (and other DC) past lives; I want to have fun with my alt and not feel like I'm constantly struggling to function on it.

 

[Lazuli]

Yes, that's why I said in Lamannia that they weren't helping casters if all the improvements come through bloat (feats, gear). I already said there's no room for spell penetration feats with so many mandatory feats (metamagic, 2 spell focus, piercing feats...). But the spell penetration requirements keep increasing because the SR keeps getting higher, just like spell focus isn't optional anymore because the STs keep getting too big.

It seems like the devs assume ALL casters should be in Magus of the Eclipse. They have some kind of fetish for that ED, since they force everyone to go there for the spell penetration and Time Stop. Even those casters who aren't cold or negative. If that's not bad design, then I don't know what is.

There's also the +10 artifact solar gem, but who has room for that? Casters have between 2 and 3 solar slots because we have to use old sets that don't have an equivalent in the Sun/Moon system. But even if we didn't have to use those sets and we had 5 sun slots, using this gem is a tough call, because only casters have two artifact sets with the same stats. I honestly don't understand how the devs consider it fair that casters have to slot three or four times more stats than martials.

 

[Wrensel]

Spell Resistance in the D&D 3.5 gave +1 Spell Penetration per Epic level (by giving +1 Caster Level per Epic level). I'd be good if they added +1 Spell Penetration per stack of Epic/Legendary Knowledge gained to keep parity.

 

[Monkey_Archer]

I feel like spell pen is in a good spot in regards to gear and feats. With absolutely no build investment any caster can get to a baseline ~61 spell pen:

Spoiler: Breakdown

30​	caster level​
10​	enhancement​
10​	artifact​
5​	insight​
3​	quality​
3​	legendary​
61​	​

Which already gives you a roughly 30% success chance against the highest spell resistance mobs I've found so far (drow in r10 sorcere @ 75). There are numerous options and combinations from there to get close to 100%:
-12 from feats
-9 from past lives
-14 from destinies
-up to 14 from certain enhancement tree combinations
-5 reaper enhancements

I think the enhancement trees are likely the weak link for certain builds. Spending 6 AP for only 3 spell pen seems more expensive to me than choosing between the feats or pastlives. I'd like to see the various racial arcanum enhancements reduced to 1 AP per tier to match duergar, and possibly buff the various class tree spell pen enhancements up to +2 per tier. More gearing options for quality/legendary would also be welcome.

 

[rabidfox]

Which already gives you a roughly 30% success chance against the highest spell resistance mobs I've found so far (drow in r10 sorcere @ 75).

From what I've seen, on elite/r1 you need 71 spell pen to land on a bunch of mobs in the new content. I'm not even talking r10 at this point. It's jumping thru a ton of hoops to get spell pen where it's need, plus needing actual school DCs, plus making a character still do some damage just for elite/r1.

10​

artifact​

Taking that is painful, it's a solar slot that's needed for so many things; there's limited solar slots and I need them for a ton of things. Being trapped on older gear like elder's set (for artifact universal spell crit) limits available solar slots too.

-12 from feats
-9 from past lives

IMO it's a reasonable trade-off between the two of these. I'd even go so far to say it should be 3 way trade-off between feats, past lives, and artifact spell pen.

-14 from destinies
-up to 14 from certain enhancement tree combinations

Those choices means only certain builds are functional at cap. I can level up without being locked to certain trees & EDs and then it goes badly at cap. I could ditch my current build and go magus to bump my EDs a bunch; but then why I don't just ditch my build entirely and go martial where I can gear/build easier instead to land CC/instas. Pretty much all casters need/want spell pen, it doesn't feel good to be locked into limited choices for a required stat.

On paper, the numbers can be hit; in-game however it requires a level of trade-offs that aren't fun for me. I can accept that I might not hit DCs for every spell school (evoc, necro, enhancement, etc.). That I might have to pick and choose a couple schools that I will be able to land and not the others. But they get double-tapped by being paired with also needing spell pen DCs to land; and that makes my build choices and fun very thin.

 

[Alternative]

Reduce saves, reduce spell resistance. In fact, scrap spell resistance entirely.

 

[Contessor]

Reduce saves, reduce spell resistance. In fact, scrap spell resistance entirely.

SR of 30 should be capped. Isn't what we were normally given at most as players way back when? Bring that cap back for players and monsters. Then 51 Spell Penn would be a bypass for all.

 

[Monkey_Archer]

From what I've seen, on elite/r1 you need 71 spell pen to land on a bunch of mobs in the new content. I'm not even talking r10 at this point. It's jumping thru a ton of hoops to get spell pen where it's need, plus needing actual school DCs, plus making a character still do some damage just for elite/r1.

Taking that is painful, it's a solar slot that's needed for so many things; there's limited solar slots and I need them for a ton of things. Being trapped on older gear like elder's set (for artifact universal spell crit) limits available solar slots too.

IMO it's a reasonable trade-off between the two of these. I'd even go so far to say it should be 3 way trade-off between feats, past lives, and artifact spell pen.

Those choices means only certain builds are functional at cap. I can level up without being locked to certain trees & EDs and then it goes badly at cap. I could ditch my current build and go magus to bump my EDs a bunch; but then why I don't just ditch my build entirely and go martial where I can gear/build easier instead to land CC/instas. Pretty much all casters need/want spell pen, it doesn't feel good to be locked into limited choices for a required stat.

On paper, the numbers can be hit; in-game however it requires a level of trade-offs that aren't fun for me. I can accept that I might not hit DCs for every spell school (evoc, necro, enhancement, etc.). That I might have to pick and choose a couple schools that I will be able to land and not the others. But they get double-tapped by being paired with also needing spell pen DCs to land; and that makes my build choices and fun very thin.

It just seems to me that all the issues here have nothing to do with the availability of spell pen, and are more about other things...

-Elite and r10 use the same spell resistance values. That is definitely one area that could be adjusted.
-The elder's set unique stacking bonus should be sent to the chopping block.
-Trade-offs are a good thing; otherwise every build just does everything. The fact that warlocks and other casters feel forced to min/max literally every available damage source just to still be mediocre is a caster damage problem.

I feel like if SSG fixed these issues first, the spell pen problem would magically disappear.

 

[rabidfox]

I feel like if SSG fixed these issues first, the spell pen problem would magically disappear.

That would help on some stuff.

And it's not just my warlock. Doing spell pen on my alch generally isn't worth squeeze to me. I'm better off just using the spells that don't require spell pen or popping stuff like draconic's dragonbreath to paralize mobs. The curve for player spell pen vs mob SR isn't good. One can level with a basic spell pen item + either feats (or past lives and/or tree stuff) and have no real issues, then you hit cap and you need multiple pieces of gear stacked together, feats/past lives, trees, EDs, etc. It goes from "don't ignore it, do some basic spell pen stuff, and you'll be okay" to "have to spend a bunch of effort or X spells will do nothing".

I'm sure there's people that like it. Or find the gearing/build aspects for spell pen fun. I just personally find it's reached a point where I no longer find it fun to try to get alongside all the other stuff I need in my setups. I find it so unfun that I'll TR my character 6x times just to have the passive +9 spell pen off past lives.