U80 Preview 1 - DC Boost Initiative

[Chacka]

I hope you don’t forget that characters who want to use tactical abilities like Stunning Blow face similar problems when trying to get workable tactical DCs.

 

[Ratman]

Howdy all! With U80 we're going to be adjusting the values on certain loot affixes to significantly boost the rate at which items contribute to Spell DCs. Our goal is to make it easier to build up a DC caster, especially during the legendary levels. Here are the details:

• With U80, the bonuses found on random loot, crafted loot, and named loot that contribute directly to spell DCs will be increased
• This increase includes any item that uses our scaling system, which also includes things like Dinosaur Bone and Viktranium crafting
• This increase is focused on the three main channels for Spell DC boosts - equipment, insightful, and quality
• This increase is retroactive - items currently in circulation will update to the new values automatically
• This increase starts out smaller in the heroic levels but increases significantly after reaching level 30
• Both single-school effects (Such as Necromancy Focus) and all-school effects (Such as Spell Focus Mastery) are being adjusted
• We're also adjusting how these effects compare to one another - after these changes, single-school bonuses will always be higher than or equal to their all-school counterparts, whereas before that was not always the case
• We're also going to change the bonuses on the heroic and legendary ring Argonnessen Eye Band to be Sacred-typed to help cut down on typing complexity

As an example, an item currently statted for level 34 would have Spell Focus Mastery values of a +6 Equipment bonus to all spell DCs. With these changes, that same item will instead provide a +7 Equipment bonus.

As another example, an item currently statted for level 34 would have Necromancy Focus values of +6 Equipment, +3 Insight, and +1 Quality. With these changes, that same item will instead provide +11 Equipment, +5 Insight, and +2 Quality.

We're hoping that these changes make building up a DC caster, particularly at endgame, much easier.

@Tonquin, having set expectations of legendary bonus on this item for a couple of months, it actually reduced the expected rise in DC by 1 because adding 3 sacred (from current 2, means a +1 change) and dropping 2 Legendary means now you’re essentially down 1 from what we have been expecting on items. Ddo planners, etc and all the time taken for that Tetris calculating was essentially for naught. Please consider retaining legendary and scaling sacred where it already is. Thanks.

 

[Shmuel]

@Tonquin — please comsider keeping the Eye Band Legendary and not Sacred. Most/all folks already have sacred and have no need of it on another piece. If we are upping DC and that is the intent, this loss of legendary DC acutally makes this a LOSS of DC for some of us. This would have opened up a lot better piece twtris and now it’s just another redundant piece.

@Tonquin, having set expectations of legendary bonus on this item for a couple of months, it actually reduced the expected rise in DC by 1 because adding 3 sacred (from current 2, means a +1 change) and dropping 2 Legendary means now you’re essentially down 2 from what we have been expecting on items. Ddo planners, etc and all the time taken for that Tetris calculating was essentially for naught. Please consider retaining legendary and scaling sacred where it already is. Thanks.

I hear your point but disagree. There are too many channels already. I think the consensus on that was pretty overwhelming.

 

[EinarMal]

@Tonquin, having set expectations of legendary bonus on this item for a couple of months, it actually reduced the expected rise in DC by 1 because adding 3 sacred (from current 2, means a +1 change) and dropping 2 Legendary means now you’re essentially down 1 from what we have been expecting on items. Ddo planners, etc and all the time taken for that Tetris calculating was essentially for naught. Please consider retaining legendary and scaling sacred where it already is. Thanks.

Hard disagree. The last thing we need is yet another bonus type.

 

[Griglok]

Howdy all! With U80 we're going to be adjusting the values on certain loot affixes to significantly boost the rate at which items contribute to Spell DCs. Our goal is to make it easier to build up a DC caster, especially during the legendary levels. Here are the details:

• With U80, the bonuses found on random loot, crafted loot, and named loot that contribute directly to spell DCs will be increased
• This increase includes any item that uses our scaling system, which also includes things like Dinosaur Bone and Viktranium crafting
• This increase is focused on the three main channels for Spell DC boosts - equipment, insightful, and quality
• This increase is retroactive - items currently in circulation will update to the new values automatically
• This increase starts out smaller in the heroic levels but increases significantly after reaching level 30
• Both single-school effects (Such as Necromancy Focus) and all-school effects (Such as Spell Focus Mastery) are being adjusted
• We're also adjusting how these effects compare to one another - after these changes, single-school bonuses will always be higher than or equal to their all-school counterparts, whereas before that was not always the case
• We're also going to change the bonuses on the heroic and legendary ring Argonnessen Eye Band to be Sacred-typed to help cut down on typing complexity

As an example, an item currently statted for level 34 would have Spell Focus Mastery values of a +6 Equipment bonus to all spell DCs. With these changes, that same item will instead provide a +7 Equipment bonus.

As another example, an item currently statted for level 34 would have Necromancy Focus values of +6 Equipment, +3 Insight, and +1 Quality. With these changes, that same item will instead provide +11 Equipment, +5 Insight, and +2 Quality.

We're hoping that these changes make building up a DC caster, particularly at endgame, much easier.

Appreciate you making this change. Overall I think it's great, but agree with the comment on spell pen receiving a similar update.

Thank you.

 

[Yamura]

Nice to see it's +3 sacred, so it matches the artblade.

I have a question, will this ring be a normal item or a rare one?

 

[Hobgoblin]

I have a question, will this ring be a normal item or a rare one?

its a rare

 

[Blerkington]

Lowering monster saves would make more sense than increasing DCs. This is because there are many other non spell abilities that have to meet the bloated saves in newer content if they are still meant to work. So the approach you've chosen only solves part of the problem SSG has made for us here.

I still think there are way too many effects that casters, particularly generalists, have to meet for gearing not to be a nightmare. It's time you remove school specific DC boosts on gear in favour of boosts for all schools, and the same goes for different types of spell power and spell lore. You should also start consolidating effects so we don't have to stack eight different channels for one effect.

Take a moment to count up all the casting effects you need on a caster, also including spell penetration and SP pool increases, and compare it to what melee and ranged builds need. It's an absurdly lopsided comparison.

This solution of yours seems like an attempt to kick the can down the road for a while without dealing with the core problems of your content and gear design. Much of the feedback is positive because people are happy something at all is finally being done, but you are not solving the problem.

 

[Shmuel]

I just brought my caster over to Lamannia. I love that you guys are looking at casters and overall think this is a good change, but I HATE the way it is being implemented.

I just looked at my current gear. All the +6 spell school focus items I have that are +6 on live are all different based on level on Lamannia. To truly get max DC, which is the focus of a DC caster, I need to get rid of all my level 30, 31, 32, 33 gear, because none of it has +11 dc. spectacles of spirit sight ? nope +8 to each, there goes my desert's biting sands set. Korpru bracers? nope, +9, so no more profane lifeforce. even the band of mental magic and band of manifest magic, which are hard to get items from only 1 expansion ago are only +10 since they are level 33. I need to get only level 34 specific spell school focus items now? So Lamordia only??? Those don't even exist for many important schools. I get there will be a new expansion, but this greatly, greatly reduces the items which are viable for DC casters in the current endgame.

Please consider a standard upgrade from what exists now, for example all +6 become +11 regardless of whether it is ml 30 or ml 34, and scale up with the new level 36 items. Don't make all spell focus items of levels 30-33 obsolete immediately.

I'll also add that no spell school specific insightful or quality spell focus items even exist beyond level 30 currently.

 

[Krishna Devi]

With great respect to my fellow adventurers, I'm happy with the big DC changes being school-specific and not all-schools. I think that will likely lead to more specialized and unique caster builds. Thank you SSG

Regarding the new raid filigree, surprisingly there's nothing useful for me there at all, but I'm happy if these raid filigree suit some builds (strength build melee for example)

Regarding not adding another DC-type: Agreed! Thank you SSG

Regarding caster vs martial in r10: I concur that the -33% caster dps could well be applied to martial dps as well. This would temper the extreme dps we currently see from martial builds; especially ranged arti, inquis, etc. Currently martial dps is so effective in r10 that really casters are not optimal or needed at all. Martial characters even have strong aoe cc, instakill and damage abilities on top of their superior dps, making casters mostly obsolete. Even though I sometimes play ranged, I preferred when dooms and r10 bosses were not deleted in a few seconds by the top tier ranged who have the added benefit of dps'ing at a (safe) distance.

Overall I'm very happy with the spell school-specific DC increase, but imo tempering the current martial dps would also help bring casters back and balance the current state of the game.

 

[Lazuli]

Howdy all! With U80 we're going to be adjusting the values on certain loot affixes to significantly boost the rate at which items contribute to Spell DCs. Our goal is to make it easier to build up a DC caster, especially during the legendary levels. Here are the details:

• With U80, the bonuses found on random loot, crafted loot, and named loot that contribute directly to spell DCs will be increased
• This increase includes any item that uses our scaling system, which also includes things like Dinosaur Bone and Viktranium crafting
• This increase is focused on the three main channels for Spell DC boosts - equipment, insightful, and quality
• This increase is retroactive - items currently in circulation will update to the new values automatically
• This increase starts out smaller in the heroic levels but increases significantly after reaching level 30
• Both single-school effects (Such as Necromancy Focus) and all-school effects (Such as Spell Focus Mastery) are being adjusted
• We're also adjusting how these effects compare to one another - after these changes, single-school bonuses will always be higher than or equal to their all-school counterparts, whereas before that was not always the case
• We're also going to change the bonuses on the heroic and legendary ring Argonnessen Eye Band to be Sacred-typed to help cut down on typing complexity

As an example, an item currently statted for level 34 would have Spell Focus Mastery values of a +6 Equipment bonus to all spell DCs. With these changes, that same item will instead provide a +7 Equipment bonus.

As another example, an item currently statted for level 34 would have Necromancy Focus values of +6 Equipment, +3 Insight, and +1 Quality. With these changes, that same item will instead provide +11 Equipment, +5 Insight, and +2 Quality.

We're hoping that these changes make building up a DC caster, particularly at endgame, much easier.

I confess I hadn't read your post properly due to lack of time, and it wasn't until I downloaded Lammania that I realized how bad skimming is. I thought you were increasing the spell mastery DC, and now I see you're only increasing the school DC (the mastery DC increase es ridiculous). Seriously... that's a huge mistake.

No, honestly, this doesn't help building DC in the endgame. It makes it worse, a lot. You've been away for a few years, but you've played casters. Perhaps you're the only dev who has, from what I've seen. So, tell me which caster uses only one school of magic? Because you know the answer is none.

The one who uses the fewest schools is the Alchemist: Transmutation, Conjuration, and, realistically, Illusion should be used as well. And this is the caster who uses the fewest schools.

All the other casters use more schools, and often one school is for only one or two spells. Let's take an example with my sorcerer: Evocation (obvious reasons), Conjuration (trap the soul), Enchantment (hold monster mass... and I'd say Disco, but on r10 it is awful because of its short duration plus the casting time), Transmutation (Flesh to Stone... not optional thanks to all those champions who are immune to enchantments, plus all the enemies like ghouls who are immune by type), Illusion (GCS-- yes only for this), and Necromancy (two IKs - and don't tell me I shouldn't have IKs when martials have now usurped all the functions of casters). And look, your job mates designed the Dragonlord, and give it CC that works on EVERYTHING. Well, caster spells are NOT like that. Each school works on a limited range of enemies. WE NEED to use multiple schools.

Now put yourself in the shoes of a wizard. My wizard uses all the schools except Abjuration (whose only two spells have been bugged for 18 years. Wow, an 18-year-old bug).

Okay, Tonquin, these days the only thing that's minimally saving casters' sanity while juggling Tetris gear is that most of the DC channels are general, not school-specific. How do you think it simplifies caster gear if you are multiplying the channels we have to equip, because now all the individual DC channels will be better than the general DC?

For goodness sake, Tonquin, we've been begging you devs for ages to simplify caster gear, and that means stopping the division of everything into schools and elements. We don't have room to equip so many schools and elements. Besides, there are a ton of channels for DC and spell damage.

Tonquin, these changes WORSEN the situation for casters. Go back to the drawing board and find ways to REDUCE the number of channels. Start by reducing the division in schools and elements. There's NO room to equip so much stuff.

Additionally, do you really think it's a good idea to create even more differences between schools? Here's another real example from my characters. My (full completionist, full reaper points, bis geared) wizard has 138 DC in Necromancy and 124-125 in the other schools. The difference is already too large and exceeds the parameters of the d20, which is poor D&D design. Do you really think it's a good idea to widen the gap even further? Please think about it.

Caster players have been frustrated for years. We've endured one unfair nerf after another. We've received raid after raid that excludes us (nobody wants casters in raids; they're a nuisance who don't provide any DPS, because DPS is the only thing your raids ask for). We've received races that offer nothing to casters (Dhampir, Eladrin—two races that have a reputation for being good magic users, and the basic races give nothing to casters). We received our essential stats like spell crit as rare loot. We received more and more stat splits under the guise of helping us (no, you're not helping).

Please, help us once and for all, because casters are in a very bad shape, and we players are very frustrated and fed up.

I trust you, Tonquin. You're the only dev who seems to have played a caster. Please, take the time to create a caster at the cap and equip it with all the stats needed for the endgame: DC for its full spell repertoire, spell damage for the damage spells it uses, accessory spellcasting stats (spell penetration, spell points, etc.), and defensive stats. Only then will you understand why we consider designing our caster gear a nightmare.

 

[Lazuli]

With great respect to my fellow adventurers, I'm happy with the big DC changes being school-specific and not all-schools. I think that will likely lead to more specialized and unique caster builds. Thank you SSG

Regarding the new raid filigree, surprisingly there's nothing useful for me there at all, but I'm happy if these raid filigree suit some builds (strength build melee for example)

Regarding not adding another DC-type: Agreed! Thank you SSG

Regarding caster vs martial in r10: I concur that the -33% caster dps could well be applied to martial dps as well. This would temper the extreme dps we currently see from martial builds; especially ranged arti, inquis, etc. Currently martial dps is so effective in r10 that really casters are not optimal or needed at all. Martial characters even have strong aoe cc, instakill and damage abilities on top of their superior dps, making casters mostly obsolete. Even though I sometimes play ranged, I preferred when dooms and r10 bosses were not deleted in a few seconds by the top tier ranged who have the added benefit of dps'ing at a (safe) distance.

Overall I'm very happy with the spell school-specific DC increase, but imo tempering the current martial dps would also help bring casters back and balance the current state of the game.

More specialization is the last thing casters need. We're drowning in hyper-specialization.

Meanwhile, martials are enjoying more and more versatility and variety in their skills. There was a time when only casters had crowd control, area-of-effect damage and IKs. Now, martials have everything, and some of them even have IKs equivalent to 9th-level spells with better DC and half the cooldown of casters' spells. They have better defenses than our spells, and they have often been given our spells but converted into permanents.

And you still want to limit casters even more?

Enough is enough.

 

[Lazuli]

The Elemental Avatar is still really good with just +2 wis and being elemental avatar, the mrr cap stuff is just extra fluff. Not ideal, but it's still an upgrade for any wis based dc caster and not terrible for dragon disciples and druids.

The Technomage/Dread one will be interesting for threat tanks and the "im a meatball, and i have teeth" -type build that isn't really common with super minmaxers, but is quite potent for generic soloing or carrying lower difficulty raids and mid/high reaper.

But yeah, overall weird combinations. At this moment I'll not use any of these on my current builds - but I can see some that I could make use of on different ones.

I'm sorry, but no. Just because we're supposed to be happy about a +2 Wisdom and one of the sets being for casters, because everything we casters have now is worse, doesn't mean this is good.

Casters are FED UP with receiving bad stats and with the fact that every time the devs design something that seems to be for us, it ends up benefiting martial players more.

We've been in a terrible situation for years. It's time they designed to help us and not just throw us a meager crumb while martials get the full cake.

 

[Phaedra]

Spell crit paired with monk stuff? Seriously??? Devs, please! Caster stuff with caster stuff. Don't scam casters again!

Lunar magic and serpent together. Meh.

Shadowstrike/Bend fate? What build can use that 2 sets together?

Can we get double filigrees with sense, please? Think in the builds that can use them!

It' pretty clear they want to encourage hybrid builds (And that they're bad at doing so) Everyone else just gets one good bonus on their +2-stat filligree.

This isn't a mistake. It's a design decision. Not a good one, but the intention is obvious.

Even the Technomage/Dreadbringer combo is meant to encourage shooty artificers to use their rune arms more.

 

[woq]

I'm sorry, but no. Just because we're supposed to be happy about a +2 Wisdom and one of the sets being for casters, because everything we casters have now is worse, doesn't mean this is good.

Casters are FED UP with receiving bad stats and with the fact that every time the devs design something that seems to be for us, it ends up benefiting martial players more.

We've been in a terrible situation for years. It's time they designed to help us and not just throw us a meager crumb while martials get the full cake.

Like I said, not ideal. None of these are "wow, I'm so happy to get x". But it's still a raid aug, with one good set. *shrug*

Hope they'd make em better, but the intent is obviously not to make prime double filigree sets for whatever reason - if they made em all like this, there's approx. 0% chance they'd go back and make what players would love to have.

 

[Lazuli]

It' pretty clear they want to encourage hybrid builds (And that they're bad at doing so) Everyone else just gets one good bonus on their +2-stat filligree.

This isn't a mistake. It's a design decision. Not a good one, but the intention is obvious.

Even the Technomage/Dreadbringer combo is meant to encourage shooty artificers to use their rune arms more.

I have no problem with them designing filigrees for hybrids. I've actually asked for them. I stopped playing EK because it was impossible to maintain spellcasting DC and weapon stats.

But these aren't filigrees for hybrids.

Okay, I like the idea that artificers can have spellcasting DCs and not be all multiclass for maximum DPS, but damn it, they're the characters with the highest DPS right now. They're not the first ones who should receive help. No. Help those who are struggling first. And if they want artificers to use runearms, they should start by undoing the nerf they gave runearms a few years ago, which makes them horrible and useless now. Runearms being useless is the reason why they're not used today except as a stat booster.

 

[Mindos]

This seems like a great time for Archmage changes!

 

[Monkey_Archer]

While you are at it, any chance we could get the gianthold stacking +2 dc topazes removed/depricated?

 

[Ratman]

I hear your point but disagree. There are too many channels already. I think the consensus on that was pretty overwhelming.

What consensus? 3 people? lol. All I’ve heard from any people i know is “they can’t make legendary work so scrapped it” and I don’t really want to take that tack. I am not buying into that knee-jerk commentary of frustration. I think the devs are acknowledging an issue with casters (hopefully more to come) and as far as DC, Legendary affixes are seemingly good in other spaces, so why not this space? Does melee DPS have to get EVERYTHING good?? If they’re trying to adjust the DC’s to make casters competitive again then this is a good idea. This is additionally so because Melee DPS dominates and — under NO circumstances — should EVER be able to beat Magic DPS in D&D at endgame (OD&D guy here and I mean OD&D) overall…. yet, it can, and does so in an overwhelming manner.

I think this speaks to another caster problem — that it is a patently unfair situation for Melee types to continue to dominate high reaper and raids with both DPS AND increased protections over casters like HP, AC, MRR, PRR and the like.

At the very least every caster should have an MRR cap adjusted upward by level, in addition to all sources. Who should know more about magical defenses than casters??

Lastly, if you really want casters to be able to keep up in DPS, add CL back at even half the rate. 1/2 levels and make them unlimited. Change dragon breath dice to be better than after that draconian beat down in DPS we took or add crit damage % or more crit chance.

I appreciate the effort by devs here and I’d like to see casters be much more competitive with melee. I literally had to change to melee dps because I couldn’t get in raids and high reaper with fire sorc any more, and the Melee’s just rip through like You don’t even exist. This is with a triple complete 110 RP character.

 

[Dielzen]

The one who uses the fewest schools is the Alchemist: Transmutation, Conjuration, and, realistically, Illusion should be used as well. And this is the caster who uses the fewest schools.

Not sure why you think Bards are using more. Even the most spread out Bard isn't using more than Enchant/Evoc and a splash of Illusion (only for GCS for CC).

(Although I *have* always wanted to try a Necro bard since they get Wail at Capstone, but just sounds bad)