Suggestion on Chain Missiles and AoE

[droid327]

Devs said they're looking at reworking this spell to be more useful for AoE, which AT wants badly

I don't want it to just become Force Fireball though. That is boring and not as effective with the Ambush mechanic

Here is my suggestion, and the system engineer on staff can get his butt hole ready to pucker...

Make the chained missiles AoE, not the primary blast. Small circle aoe, not full sized, but enough that firing it into a tight pack will have several overlapping AoE zones on each mob, so you still preserve the multi hit effect.

That'd be a unique mechanic for DDO, a spell that multiplies with mobs hit. Makes it a situational use that rewards skill in shot selection, preserving full utility with Ambush, and potentially a pack deleter on par with other casters if used well.

 

[Torc]

So working on that now.... the two plans I'm eye balling are...

Plan Chain Missile Fire Seed - A version of fire seeds (which I've fixed btw, it's physics were a mess. Like throwing beach balls. Bad.) Up to 3 missiles of Mini AOEs. So you get the 3 ambush procs but it's not really possible to just drag an entire monster pod into it, you'll be smacking like 3 mobs really hard. I think this basically what your suggesting?

Plan Chain Missile Chain Lightning - It'll hit 6 targets once but the AOE will be really big and you don't really need to aim it. The Missile will zip around over a pretty big area. Easy to use but only 1 proc of ambush per target, but it really easy to hit alot of targets.

-T

 

[Svirfneblin]

So working on that now.... the two plans I'm eye balling are...

Plan Chain Missile Fire Seed - A version of fire seeds (which I've fixed btw, it's physics were a mess. Like throwing beach balls. Bad.) Up to 3 missiles of Mini AOEs. So you get the 3 ambush procs but it's not really possible to just drag an entire monster pod into it, you'll be smacking like 3 mobs really hard. I think this basically what your suggesting?

Plan Chain Missile Chain Lightning - It'll hit 6 targets once but the AOE will be really big and you don't really need to aim it. The Missile will zip around over a pretty big area. Easy to use but only 1 proc of ambush per target, but it really easy to hit alot of targets.

-T

Very cool. How about make both of these and the chain lightning type is a brand new additional magic missile spell for us as a gift for the 20th anniversary.

 

[droid327]

Eh neither of those is exciting. The 10x hit is absolutely necessary because mass stacking Ambush is the only way to get viable damage. The spell damage itself is trivial - which is why MM spells have been extinct in the game since the late Cretaceous

So a Chain Lightning effect is DOA unless you give it the same scaling and MCL as Chain Lightning, which I'm guessing no for a low level spell.

Fire seeds is better (and great for druids that you're fixing the physics) but still, three procs is not going to be enough aoe, when the base damage again is trivial. Also that would kind of invalidate the core 5 actual fire seeds, since that would also be trivial damage without full fire spell power support, and AT is already spread thin without trying to be dual element too

What I'm suggesting is a "cluster bomb" ability that procs up to 10 separate small mob centered AOE circles on the "scattered" shots, and mobs in overlapping circles get hit multiple times. So if mobs are by themselves they just get one shot, but if 3 or 4 are nearby, they multiply the total damage they all take

 

[woq]

Eh neither of those is exciting. The 10x hit is absolutely necessary because mass stacking Ambush is the only way to get viable damage. The spell damage itself is trivial - which is why MM spells have been extinct in the game since the late Cretaceous

So a Chain Lightning effect is DOA unless you give it the same scaling and MCL as Chain Lightning, which I'm guessing no for a low level spell.

Fire seeds is better (and great for druids that you're fixing the physics) but still, three procs is not going to be enough aoe, when the base damage again is trivial. Also that would kind of invalidate the core 5 actual fire seeds, since that would also be trivial damage without full fire spell power support, and AT is already spread thin without trying to be dual element too

What I'm suggesting is a "cluster bomb" ability that procs up to 10 separate small mob centered AOE circles on the "scattered" shots, and mobs in overlapping circles get hit multiple times. So if mobs are by themselves they just get one shot, but if 3 or 4 are nearby, they multiply the total damage they all take

While this sounds fun, it also sounds not bueno. Colossal amount of calculations in a dungeon alert fiesta to maximize cluster bomb and not fix the problem of lacking red named damage or ability to kill, say, two strong enemies - which is fairly common in Lamordia as an encounter for example. The AoE fixes to fire seeds and chain missiles should already alleviate the lack of AoE for heroic play.

If they have access to a large cluster bomb, they can't have enough ambush damage to fix lack of damage elsewhere. A couple sneak dice + this fix should already help a bunch.

Proper chaining of chain missiles and AoE cc (from soundburst or flash freeze or splash options) should be fine if they get a bit more support for force damage and sneak dice.

 

[Arkat]

So working on that now.... the two plans I'm eye balling are...

Plan Chain Missile Fire Seed - A version of fire seeds (which I've fixed btw, it's physics were a mess. Like throwing beach balls. Bad.) Up to 3 missiles of Mini AOEs. So you get the 3 ambush procs but it's not really possible to just drag an entire monster pod into it, you'll be smacking like 3 mobs really hard. I think this basically what your suggesting?

Plan Chain Missile Chain Lightning - It'll hit 6 targets once but the AOE will be really big and you don't really need to aim it. The Missile will zip around over a pretty big area. Easy to use but only 1 proc of ambush per target, but it really easy to hit alot of targets.

-T

For me, regarding Arcane Trickster, as someone has already suggested elsewhere, a real force-based AoE spell would be cool. Chain Missiles doesn't apply to enough targets, and the targets to which they do apply really don't take that much damage. If I really wanted to do what I would consider enough damage to larger groups of monsters, I'd just make a Fire Sorc and blast away with Delayed Blast Fireball.

You could bump up the damage of Arcane Tempest to DBF levels (20d6+140 at caster level 20) which should be fine considering it's a level 8 spell instead of DBF's level 7 status.

The actual area that the Arcane Tempest spell covers should also be bumped up to DBF's area.

The biggest problem with Arcane Trickster that I see is their top end level of spells - 4th. I suggest raising it to 6th. I could see reducing Arcane Tempest's spell level down to 6th for Arcane Trickster.

 

[rabidfox]

So working on that now.... the two plans I'm eye balling are...

Plan Chain Missile Fire Seed - A version of fire seeds (which I've fixed btw, it's physics were a mess. Like throwing beach balls. Bad.) Up to 3 missiles of Mini AOEs. So you get the 3 ambush procs but it's not really possible to just drag an entire monster pod into it, you'll be smacking like 3 mobs really hard. I think this basically what your suggesting?

Plan Chain Missile Chain Lightning - It'll hit 6 targets once but the AOE will be really big and you don't really need to aim it. The Missile will zip around over a pretty big area. Easy to use but only 1 proc of ambush per target, but it really easy to hit alot of targets.

-T

Doing that as dual selector option for the spell? Where you can drag out both versions?

 

[droid327]

While this sounds fun, it also sounds not bueno. Colossal amount of calculations

Yeah hence the 'system engineer pucker' comment. I was hoping with the 64bit servers now and a lot of the junk calculations fixed, there would be a little more leeway for a few more processing-heavy abilities

in a dungeon alert fiesta to maximize cluster bomb

With a small AOE, you'd probably practically max out at 4-5 mobs. That's the most that could overlap. Thats why I suggested a smaller AOE per proc.

and not fix the problem of lacking red named damage or ability to kill, say, two strong enemies - which is fairly common in Lamordia as an encounter for example.

Magic Missile was an adequate single-target rotational spell in my playtesting. Chunked down mobs similar to Ruin. And that was at 50% spellpower scaling. I'm less worried about AT's champ/quest boss damage than about their trash mob kill speed.

The AoE fixes to fire seeds and chain missiles should already alleviate the lack of AoE for heroic play.

Again, not if its only proccing one Ambush on each target, with trivial base damage.

For me, regarding Arcane Trickster, as someone has already suggested elsewhere, a real force-based AoE spell would be cool. Chain Missiles doesn't apply to enough targets, and the targets to which they do apply really don't take that much damage.

Exactly. The multi-missile aspect is what scales the whole spell. One Ambush proc is trivial, you need a bunch per target to matter. And that's with a serious number of sneak dice just to get in the door of being viable.

Unless they boost the Ambush damage in Core 5/Capstone to 1d6 +2 and +4, and make the 100% scaling with Force power a T5. That'd be a much better way to boost its progression but keep it from being a power splash for every caster. Also maybe move basic Ambush down to L3 then, so ATs can make use of it as soon as they get actual spells.

You could bump up the damage of Arcane Tempest to DBF levels (20d6+140 at caster level 20) which should be fine considering it's a level 8 spell instead of DBF's level 7 status.

The actual area that the Arcane Tempest spell covers should also be bumped up to DBF's area.

Problem with that is the cooldown on Tempest, if that's going to be your primary late-game AOE ability

 

[Arkat]

Problem with that is the cooldown on Tempest, if that's going to be your primary late-game AOE ability

It does have a long cooldown, doesn't it?

Yeah, reduce the cooldown of Arcane Tempest for Arcane Tricksters, too.

 

[peng]

how about something like:
You fire a magic missile (1d2+3, like standard magic missile) at your target, plus an additional missile per caster lvl up to caster lvl 15. Each missile after the 1st has a 50% chance to hit your original target, 50% to hit another random nearby target (if no other targets, all hit primary).

 

[Svirfneblin]

Eh neither of those is exciting. The 10x hit is absolutely necessary because mass stacking Ambush is the only way to get viable damage. The spell damage itself is trivial - which is why MM spells have been extinct in the game since the late Cretaceous

Oh, if the new ideas don’t get the 10x hits then I would not want those as a replacement. Add them as new spells ?

 

[droid327]

Oh, if the new ideas don’t get the 10x hits then I would not want those as a replacement. Add them as new spells ?

Chain Lightning with 10x Ambush hits would be AOK with me

 

[canicus]

So working on that now.... the two plans I'm eye balling are...

Plan Chain Missile Fire Seed - A version of fire seeds (which I've fixed btw, it's physics were a mess. Like throwing beach balls. Bad.) Up to 3 missiles of Mini AOEs. So you get the 3 ambush procs but it's not really possible to just drag an entire monster pod into it, you'll be smacking like 3 mobs really hard. I think this basically what your suggesting?

Plan Chain Missile Chain Lightning - It'll hit 6 targets once but the AOE will be really big and you don't really need to aim it. The Missile will zip around over a pretty big area. Easy to use but only 1 proc of ambush per target, but it really easy to hit alot of targets.

-T

I would love both! But repeating crossbow to my head, I would say the chain lightning model.

 

[rabidfox]

My inner geek wants a magic missle attack like this.

https://imgur.com/8PZVx9Y

 

[Dragxon]

So working on that now.... the two plans I'm eye balling are...

Plan Chain Missile Fire Seed - A version of fire seeds (which I've fixed btw, it's physics were a mess. Like throwing beach balls. Bad.) Up to 3 missiles of Mini AOEs. So you get the 3 ambush procs but it's not really possible to just drag an entire monster pod into it, you'll be smacking like 3 mobs really hard. I think this basically what your suggesting?

Plan Chain Missile Chain Lightning - It'll hit 6 targets once but the AOE will be really big and you don't really need to aim it. The Missile will zip around over a pretty big area. Easy to use but only 1 proc of ambush per target, but it really easy to hit alot of targets.

-T

If chain missile can't hit multiple mobs for multiple procs it will be bad.

The chain lightning version just sounds very bad unless you give it ridiculous base damage and wont fulfill the need that chain missile is supposed to fill for ambush.

I like fire seeds and am happy that you fixed it but the aoe hits from them are way too small to consider the spell aoe. When I use fire seeds its just for single target damage. You would need to make the aoe the size of fireball before it would be okay.

Chain missiles in the old shiradi spammer build allowed a lot of skill expression because you would target swap to the least important target for chain missiles because it shot missiles at everything else and then you would have to swap back to the main target for magic missile. But the options you are talking about here are just not good. If you want to improve it then just make it so that the targeted mob of chain missile can be hit by the secondary missiles.

 

[droid327]

If you want to improve it then just make it so that the targeted mob of chain missile can be hit by the secondary missiles.

They did already fix CM so the first target gets hit with them all, before they bounce off to secondary targets. Having them all circle back and hit again would probably be too much to ask...

 

[Rull]

So working on that now.... the two plans I'm eye balling are...

Plan Chain Missile Fire Seed - A version of fire seeds (which I've fixed btw, it's physics were a mess. Like throwing beach balls. Bad.) Up to 3 missiles of Mini AOEs. So you get the 3 ambush procs but it's not really possible to just drag an entire monster pod into it, you'll be smacking like 3 mobs really hard. I think this basically what your suggesting?

Plan Chain Missile Chain Lightning - It'll hit 6 targets once but the AOE will be really big and you don't really need to aim it. The Missile will zip around over a pretty big area. Easy to use but only 1 proc of ambush per target, but it really easy to hit alot of targets.

-T

About the "Plan Chain Missile Fire Seed": but... that AoE shape (and number of hits) is already available. It'd be silly to have the same option at core3 as at core5, just a different damage type. Yeah they wouldn't share a cooldown, so people would take it, but it'd be boring during play. It would be *much* more interesting to have a different spell. So I wouldn't do this (unless you are planning to remove the option for Fire Seeds to be stolen).

The plan single-hitting Chain Missile Chain Lightning, on the other hand... if you make it 1d2+3 dmg per level, it could work.
This Chain Lightning-like Missiles wouldn't exactly be competing with fireball and acid ball for sorcerers/wizards. For them, the damage would be pitiful, 9d6+27=58.5 is just a lot more than 6d2+18=27... not counting the difference in spellpower (and crit) yet. Still, at a third of the damage of their main element, it could still be an interesting backup for immune enemies maybe.
For wizards, especially archmage that get it for free, it would be decent to cast when they have nothing better to do. (at 1d2+3 vs 1d6+4 it's half the damage of Arcane Blast, and we all know that's nothing spectacular, so that goes to show it's certainly not too strong. but it would be better than it's current form and not completely useless).

Back to AT. Once a rogue gets Magical Ambush at level8, a rogue would deal 8d2+30+4d3=44 with it. Magic Missile at that point does 4d2+12+16d3=50dmg, but being single target, that sounds fair enough.

At 20 however, Magic Missile will have scaled to 5d2+15+70d6 = 267. Chain Lightning-like Missiles will be stuck at 20(?)d2+60+14d6=139 dmg.
That is acceptable. An SLA that you get at level 6 or 12 will usually not be relevant at cap (even if 'free', because it's an SLA).

I kinda like it. You could even buff it to 1d6+3 per level like a fireball without the balance completely breaking, but I like the 1d2+3 (pen and paper's 1d4+1 with ddo's cheater dice) pattern and I think you can balance around that.

However, it's true that AT also need a true multi-hitting AoE for epic and cap play. The current option fire seeds in core5 already fills this purpose halfway decent (60d6 fire + 42d6 = 357 dmg at 20, for comparison), but the small AoE-size limits it's use.
I'd take Force Missile, remove it from the SLA-options, but keep it in the spell list, and buff the hell out of it. AoE (normal sized), 3 or 4 hits, but all hitting for just 1d2 per level or something, so that wizard/sorcs don't default to it. For AT however... once they get level 14, they'll have a nice delivery system for Magical Ambush (it would be kinda like the bludgeoning-portion only of meteor swarm. you could even use that animation, it's also an AoE multihitter).
The nice thing about this is that Fire Seeds at level18 isn't a strictly worse either; at 3d6 per level it's theoretically better, just a smaller AoE and fire-based. For those using their Stolen Spell that way, it's a nice extra option (doubling as small AoE, and another single target triple-hit). But in practice, Force Missiles will be better for an AT, and that's why it has a real spellpoint cost.
I'd put Dimension Door as lvl4 wiz/sorc theft option. Fits a trickster. Yes I know 99% of the tricksters will be in Shadowdancer destiny, but there are 5 more options to respec to then, it does make lvl12~22 more convenient, and it's just fitting. Alternative would be phantasmal killer, I guess.

 

[droid327]

(unless you are planning to remove the option for Fire Seeds to be stolen).

Swapping it for Ice Flowers would definitely make it more interesting...a double tap aoe but super short cd and half the damage is force power

That might make it worth actually speccing for Cold+Force...meh, maybe... Probably still need stolen L9 spells in the capstone. Meteor Swarm (arcane)/Tsunami (primal)/Tac Det (artifice)/Wail (divine)/Multivial (alchemy)/Mass Hold (music). All of those deliver multiple damage packets or would benefit from DD DC, and all but MV also have a Force/Phys component

 

[Zaszgul]

Ultimately all existing missile spells need to have their damage increased, since they were untouched during the prior spell pass and have woefully inadequate damage in the modern era as a result.

And for high-level missile build to be viable, it will also need a brand new high level spell added. Hopefully a straight up copy/paste of an existing spell (either Chain Missiles or Force Missiles or I guess Chain Lightning with force damage type) with some tweaks to damage numbers will be cheap enough to implement in time; we don't need new graphics or anything else fancy. Just copy/paste everything please.

As far as Chain Missiles itself goes - I like it the way it is. It's unique and lends itself to certain tactics that will cease to exist if changed in either of the suggested ways. Use a brand new spell for any ideas like that, please, and in that case you could potentially do both.

 

[Rull]

Swapping it for Ice Flowers would definitely make it more interesting...a double tap aoe but super short cd and half the damage is force power

It needs to be a level6 spell, doesn't it?

I think Fire Seeds is just fine, it's pretty perfect for a stolen spell in the way it synergizes with AT (multihit).

The fact that it doesn't fit in every way (the 'wrong' spellpower) just adds to the charm, a trickster stealing a spell will have to make do with what they get.

And in this case they can make do quite well, either by considering the seeds as a pure rider that deal virtually 3x0 damage, just to proc Ambush three times on an AoE... OR by equipping some fire spellpower and making *that* work