This is something we are considering doing - under the new scalars, the level 16 version would grant +2 Insightful bonus to a particular school's DCs, and the level 24 version would grant +3. Thoughts?
The more I think about this, the more I feel the change isn't entirely appropriate. Not because I don't want to see these augments deprecated (honestly, I do), nor because it's a decrease in DC (let's assume you move those two DCs somewhere else), but because we still have the problem that if you increase the DC of individual schools, we'll still have the same problem of insufficient slots, and worse. A +3 insightful to ONE school? This is useless. We already have insightful spell mastery in our gear, and if now we have to equip insightful spell focus for each school (plus spell focus gear, plus quality spell focus gear)... we're WORSE OFF than before.
By the time we reach endgame gear, casters are already specialized in DC and damage due to our enhancements, EDs, and feats. This means there's *already* a substantial difference between our specialized schools and the others (and most casters don't have bonus feats, mind you). The gear shouldn't significantly increase an already large difference. The same applies to elements in the spell damage department.
And then there's the fact that we don't have enough slots to equip so many different schools and elements. Casters have an excessive number of slot requirements compared to weapons. Look, for weapons to have the same requirements as spells, it would have to be like this:
Weapons only work on a specific range of enemies (like spells). So, they would need to use several weapons, and for each one, they would have to equip:
- Accuracy for each weapon type (yes, different spell focus, each in its different channels)
- Melee/Ranged power for each weapon type (aka, different spell powers, each in its different channels)
- Doublestrike/Doubleshot for each weapon type (equivalent to our spell lores)
- Damage for each weapon type (equivalent to each of our spell crit damage).
That's just to meet the essentials. Because in addition to that, casters have to equip spell penetration, spell points, damage procs, etc. (I'm not counting defensive stats, which everyone needs).
Do you realize the discrepancy? We have to equip each stat for several schools and elements. Martials don't. The difference is staggering. The total number of stats is roughly the same for weapons and spells. But they don't have that division into schools and elements. You don't ask them to equip different stats for each monster type. That's what you're asking of casters.
In recent years, you've introduced a huge number of new stats for casters, all divided into schools and elements. Spell critical damage has introduced enormous complexity to caster equipment because it's PER ELEMENT. And with Lamordia, the complexity of caster equipment multiplied again because your fellow developers wanted to improve caster DPS, which is currently very poor, with procs. Which means we not only have to equip those procs on our gear, but we also have to equip them with lores and critical damage for them to do decent damage. And on top of that, they've introduced an item that grants +1 MCL. This last addition is fair and not excessive; it's just a single stat not divided into elements. But it adds to such a bloat that we no longer know how to fit everything in.
Now, let's add to the problem of gear bloat the fact that there are two artifact bonuses for spell critical damage and spell critical chance: True Universal and Potency-Style. This is like requiring martials to equip MP/RP and DS/DS twice. It makes no sense. To make matters worse for casters, True Universal isn't represented in the new xpacks, which means we're using old sets like Elder's Knowledge, which are mandatory. Currently, casters have 2 or 3 free solar slots; for the others, we have to use old sets. And then your teammates go and put a gem like Arcane Endurance in a solar slot instead of a lunar one. Brilliant, so we can't use it because there's no space. And to add insult to injury, the solar spell crit chance is rare. Yes. An essential stat for casters within rare loot.
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Oh yes, and then Lamordia adds artifact (solar) spell scholl DC gems. LOL. Because that is we need slot in our 2 or 3 solar slots. Sure.
This is the current state of casters, Tonquin. That's why we're drowning. I'll leave aside the spell damage problem, since I understand you want to address it separately. But I want to emphasize that a major problem for casters right now is the bloated state of legendary gear. This huge division by schools and elements can't continue. It can't. It's insane. Magic has a huge handicap in terms of equipment (in addition to the other handicaps) regarding weapons.
Focusing on spell DC right now, the problems are:
- Completely bloated gear. Already explained.
-Those who aren't completionists/full Reaper Points/full Ed Points are behind in DC. Gear should help them become competent. It doesn't. Many spell DC channels are locked behind:
* Significant grinds (e.g., 3 points behind Reaper Bonus, each costing 75 Reaper Shards; or, for example, due to the scarcity of solar slots, we need to put the Artifact Spell DC in the raid set augments, which is also from a raid that isn't played much).
* Rare loot or hard-to-find channels: Insightful DC and Quality DC aren't very represented, but channels like Sacred DC are very difficult to equip.
* Completely random bonuses: curses. These are also bonuses to individual schools, so the probability of getting the one you actually want is almost zero.
* Filigrees, some from raids, others not. Obviously, Sentience is required to equip them, but in addition to that, casters have to dedicate all their Sentience to Spell DC, which means spell damage is neglected. This doesn't happen with martial builds; they are full DPS. And this hurts hybrid builds a lot because a lot of weapon damage comes from filigrees. And a lot of spell DC (like 16 points) comes from filigrees. Hybrids can't be competitive in this scenario.
That's why I said before that these new filigrees aren't filigrees for hybrids. What a hybrid needs in the current game is for filigrees to give them the spell DC they need without having to sacrifice so much weapon damage. These new filigrees aren't doing that. They aren't filigrees for hybrids.
This is where we are. People who aren't fully focused on the endgame are denied a good portion of the spell DC that gear provides, and many of those people aren't completionists either. Which means they're far behind in spell DC. Gear shouldn't be hard to find. Gear should provide functional spell DC even if you don't have full past lives. You're killing the game with this greed so we spend astral shards, raid bypass, and so on. More and more people are getting discouraged and leaving.
These are the problems with spell DC. As Mnemor said, spell damage is another Pandora's box, and worse than this one. Hang in there, Tonquin. Fixing this won't be easy without some drastic changes.
