There's a lot of insecure people out there

[Alpha Tester]

I see. We need to get SSG on board to improve casters, especially for raids. Not sure how though, since there's been radio silence. Maybe more hard damage comparison numbers?

And my forum name "Wizard" is just a nickname that I had on the web for a long time, before DDO. I play all classes in DDO, but sorcerers more often than Wizards in terms of casters.

Otherwise DDO will became a PVP game because of bad game design and the lack of atualization of all classes and races. And DDO got a great playerbase but some design flaws or choices got the worse of the community since ever and it's their job to avoid it. Since looking for the player weapon in shroud, the dragon armor with random bonus and now the rare table. Slave lords used to be a daily farm of 3 months to get an item and this was an unhealthy mechanic.

All quests should be playeable without the barrier to get to it because it is a instance game (restless island for example), all races should be playable and updated from time to time and classes also. Devs can see what is being played and what needs a pass in DDO audit and should also give benefits to Clemeit that created it.

Or from time to time we will see a great player purge due to bad decisions of the company. And the latest lag problem is far from one of the problems that needs solutions, we are years away from a lot of quality of life changes and our tired eyes really need the UI pass and to take out from the game some useless chores like the reincarnation tokens and the list is endless. But ddo is what it is and we wouldn't need to beg for new caster pass if the devs played the game because this nerf came with a lot of missinformation from the old foruns when new players would complain that they couldn't kill any mob because the nukers nuked everything because they could reach. These players couldn't see that this took lots of past lifes, that the toons would die in 3 hits or anything like this, all they could see is that their sword didn't get closer to the mobs and cryied for months in the forum begging for a caster nerf. DDO is a beetle priced as a ferrari and we love this beetle and want to see it be the best beettle ever. But to do so we need the player concyl again so the developers will listen to the playerbase that really see the daily life inside DDO.

 

[J1NG]

I see. We need to get SSG on board to improve casters, especially for raids. Not sure how though, since there's been radio silence. Maybe more hard damage comparison numbers?

This. This is very much needed. (For various reasons)

And not just dps numbers either. Casters using spells to deal noticeable dps such as the one linked earlier to @EinarMal Wizard dealing damage to the R1 Giant was prefaced with effectively throwing out the kitchen sink to fit in everything to improve the times for that test. What was missing from that, is sustainability. How long could they have kept that up for? How much Spell Points did they have? And how much was used for that run?

Why is the Spell Points an important matter? Because if you say you can't last, the Devs 100% can say; that's a "you" problem.

Because the Devs have given sustainability to players, but almost all players have been chasing bigger numbers only to "keep up" with other forms of damage dealing combat instead.

Let us assume Einar Mal's Wizard had 8000 Spell Points, and they only used 1000 Spell Points. Given they were only doing the kill in about half the time my own Wizard was at 2 minutes, we can safely assume they were doing 25k to 30k damage. Going with the upper end of 30k dps, and going for 120 seconds, we can see that's around 3.6 Million Damage per 2 minutes for 1000 Spell Points. Now we give them 8 times that from their Spell Points alone (8000), and this gives us ~29 Million total Damage before they can't sustain this anymore.

Now let's go back to my Wizard, Solo, Threats Old and New on LN. So what? What's so special?

I "never" shrined.

And I don't mean I just potted up and never told you, or used Ring of Spell Storing, etc.

I "never" used any of that.

The total damage needed for the run was in the 50-60 Million range. That's double or more of what Einar Mal's Wizard could possibly have accomplished before needing to resort to potting up, shrining, or resorting to SLA's and Echoes of Power to drive them the remaining 20-30 Million damage they were away from needing to complete the run.

And for those thinking, J1NG, you're just using Ki Bolt. If I was using Ki Bolt, I wouldn't be so smug and sure about this now would I? No Ki Bolt, never swung a weapon, never fired any projectile if it wasn't from spells.

Now, some of you might be thinking, so what? You're just using SLA's...

Right... Any of you, show me, using the absolute best numbers you can bring up, using SLA's and Echoes of Power can drop ~20 Million HP needed on Karliath in less than 60 minutes.

As @DBZ mentioned in a few recent posts; "You won't.". Because the numbers needed to make that possible don't exist in DDO.

Sustainability however, does exist.

---

However, and this is the part that the Devs can't ignore: even by going the sustainability route, as a caster, you are forever limited by the 1 second global cooldown. So even if you were just to cast ONLY the biggest damage spells, you can NEVER exceed the damage cap that is set in place by each spell and 1 per second.

So even at 12k dps "until you get bored", that's a far cry from what other damage dealing combat offers.

Given that the 1 second global cooldown will not be removed, then there can only be adjustments made elsewhere. How that comes about will be down to the Devs, but the Devs realistically needs to consider adjustments here.

Tagging @Cordovan as Community Manager so they can relay this post upwards to the correct Dev who's in charge of this area.

J1NG

 

[EinarMal]

This. This is very much needed. (For various reasons)

And not just dps numbers either. Casters using spells to deal noticeable dps such as the one linked earlier to @EinarMal Wizard dealing damage to the R1 Giant was prefaced with effectively throwing out the kitchen sink to fit in everything to improve the times for that test. What was missing from that, is sustainability. How long could they have kept that up for? How much Spell Points did they have? And how much was used for that run?

Why is the Spell Points an important matter? Because if you say you can't last, the Devs 100% can say; that's a "you" problem.

Because the Devs have given sustainability to players, but almost all players have been chasing bigger numbers only to "keep up" with other forms of damage dealing combat instead.

Let us assume Einar Mal's Wizard had 8000 Spell Points, and they only used 1000 Spell Points. Given they were only doing the kill in about half the time my own Wizard was at 2 minutes, we can safely assume they were doing 25k to 30k damage. Going with the upper end of 30k dps, and going for 120 seconds, we can see that's around 3.6 Million Damage per 2 minutes for 1000 Spell Points. Now we give them 8 times that from their Spell Points alone (8000), and this gives us ~29 Million total Damage before they can't sustain this anymore.

Now let's go back to my Wizard, Solo, Threats Old and New on LN. So what? What's so special?

I "never" shrined.

And I don't mean I just potted up and never told you, or used Ring of Spell Storing, etc.

I "never" used any of that.

The total damage needed for the run was in the 50-60 Million range. That's double or more of what Einar Mal's Wizard could possibly have accomplished before needing to resort to potting up, shrining, or resorting to SLA's and Echoes of Power to drive them the remaining 20-30 Million damage they were away from needing to complete the run.

And for those thinking, J1NG, you're just using Ki Bolt. If I was using Ki Bolt, I wouldn't be so smug and sure about this now would I? No Ki Bolt, never swung a weapon, never fired any projectile if it wasn't from spells.

Now, some of you might be thinking, so what? You're just using SLA's...

Right... Any of you, show me, using the absolute best numbers you can bring up, using SLA's and Echoes of Power can drop ~20 Million HP needed on Karliath in less than 60 minutes.

As @DBZ mentioned in a few recent posts; "You won't.". Because the numbers needed to make that possible don't exist in DDO.

Sustainability however, does exist.

---

However, and this is the part that the Devs can't ignore: even by going the sustainability route, as a caster, you are forever limited by the 1 second global cooldown. So even if you were just to cast ONLY the biggest damage spells, you can NEVER exceed the damage cap that is set in place by each spell and 1 per second.

So even at 12k dps "until you get bored", that's a far cry from what other damage dealing combat offers.

Given that the 1 second global cooldown will not be removed, then there can only be adjustments made elsewhere. How that comes about will be down to the Devs, but the Devs realistically needs to consider adjustments here.

Tagging @Cordovan as Community Manager so they can relay this post upwards to the correct Dev who's in charge of this area.

J1NG

No offense, but who cares about sustaining crappy DPS? You could just be a Warlock if you wanted to do that. I also have no interest in soloing a raid so I have never built or cared about that either.

Any well-built melee/ranged is going to sustain way more damage than your Wizard.

This build is way better DPS and sustainablity than my Wizard. Peak of about 50K DPS, sustainable is probably 40K DPS for 10 minutes or so.

https://forums.ddo.com/index.php?threads/chaosmancer-stormsinger-build.18247/

Still lackluster compared to top end martial builds.

 

[Smokewolf]

So what's the caster build that can do comparable single target damage to melee and ranged? So maybe we can prove the raid leaders "no casters / 1-2 casters only" wrong.

At this point in Questing and Raiding, Casters have become the "Token" players everyone has to be nice to. Even with super optimized and geared veteran players, Casters are effectively 2nd string party members compaired to an "average" Physical DPS.

IMHO, the death of the DnD Holy Trinity is the causality for the current state of the game. The continuous Gas-lighting by many here, fails to hold the Dev's accountable, and thus perpetuates the problem further.

 

[J1NG]

No offense but who cares about sustaining crappy DPS? You could just be a Warlock if you wanted to do that.

You'll need to speak to the other players about not being able to sustain on their casters, not me.

Any well-built melee/ranged is going to sustain way more damage than your Wizard.

Indeed, and that's that's the crux of it all; even should the Devs want to say that sustainability was ignored, the damage numbers at that point are below what is seen by other forms of damage dealing.

J1NG

 

[EinarMal]

You'll need to speak to the other players about not being able to sustain on their casters, not me.



Indeed, and that's that's the crux of it all; even should the Devs want to say that sustainability was ignored, the damage numbers at that point are below what is seen by other forms of damage dealing.

J1NG

I mean to me its very easy to address this if they wanted to.

1. Get rid of the high reaper penalty on spells
2. Make shrines faster ~3s to shrine
3. Make shrines reusable in all difficulties every 10 mins
4. Make sure each raid has at least one shrine

Still rewards being able to sustain damage for 10mins or so, but you can cast your best spells at least. Spell DPS would still be behind other martial styles, but far more balanced than what we have right now.

I can pretty much maintain 20-30K DPS forever on my Stormsinger because of the cheap epic strike, lightning procs, and sonic procs. Issue is at that point I am falling into crappy DPS land.

 

[vik]

Evergreen + FS strike & Meteor/MV is a ton of procs

Sorry to ask, but what is MV?

 

[Marshal_Lannes]

Multivial, the major DPS alchemist spell.

 

[J1NG]

Multivial, the major DPS alchemist spell.

For Evergreen, you don't need a multi-attack spell. It's simply on a cooldown of around 25 or 30 seconds, I forget which one at the moment. You can't trigger it earlier than that, and once the cooldown timer is up, it triggers on the next one.

J1NG

 

[EinarMal]

I mean, if you just want to be able to sustain spell points, things like sinister chill, artblade/lgs, and evergreen mantle make a huge difference.

If you can build for sonic, the sonic epic strike and echoes are very cheap filler. It won't be great DPS by any means, but if you get enough procs added, it can ok DPS, and you can cast forever basically.

Because of the 1s cast limit, procs are really critical, but I guess often just get overwritten by others in raids. So it is hard to judge how much that really adds in that context.

Ultimately, I am not sure I agree that the main issue is sustainability; you can work around that pretty well up to a point. There is no way to have competitive DPS in R10, and even below that, without procs all working and stacking, DPS is lackluster at lower difficulties as well.