U80 Preview 2 - DC Boost Initiative

[mikarddo]

Seems like SSG has a very good incentive to do exactly that. It requires their players to keep buying new content, running it and spending in order to regear.

Well, as a player I have to admit I like gearing and regearing as long as its done well. So I see nothing wrong with each expansion bringing a desire to regear. I fondly remember Sharn where the gear was absolutely amazing and I wanted to run the quests many times for it - both heroic and epic version. Fast forward to Chill which I have run alot less partly because the gear upgrades didnt really matter.

So, taking the stance that making a game where regearing and playing new quests to do so is a bad and evil thing is not something I can get behind at all.

I *want* to buy new xpacs filled with new quests and new shinies that I desire to go get! Mind - I dont want super rare gear to be absolutely needed and I most certainly do not want to reroll for shards. I dont mind a few super rare items though as long as they are not needed but instead are the icing on the cake.

 

[mikarddo]

Why do you hate melee DPS ? You hate it so much that I don't understand why you even bother keeping it in the game. There is nothing wrong with the power of casters or ranged dps. Proof ? Look at what toons are being played. Try playing a melee dps in mid to high reapers. There are no safe spots. There is no kiting. There is no insta-kill from across the room. There is only in-your-face with the mob. This wouldn;t be a problem if things like dodge/incorporeality/concealment were not nerfed in reaper. What's this you say ? You still have AC, PRR, and MRR ? In order to get any of these things up to a level where you can survive being right in the mobs face, you have to devote everything to that, sacrifice the DPS entirely, and play a tank. I don't want to play a tank. I want to play melee dps. The next time someone whines about casters in reaper, make them play a melee dps monk, fighter, paladin, rogue, ect.... In conclusion....casters don't need anymore love. Just remove all th4e melee dps from the game and get it over with. You know you want to.

I have to disagree. A well build melee dps tears through R10 mobs. Heck, for most packs a single strong melee dps will wipe a pack of mobs solo if they have time before the rest of the group arrives at the scene. Often the main issue for the melee dps is to reach the mobs in time - not the mobs themselves. Bring 3 strong melee dps and there is almost no danger at all.

 

[Monkey_Archer]

I have to disagree. A well build melee dps tears through R10 mobs. Heck, for most packs a single strong melee dps will wipe a pack of mobs solo if they have time before the rest of the group arrives at the scene. Often the main issue for the melee dps is to reach the mobs in time - not the mobs themselves. Bring 3 strong melee dps and there is almost no danger at all.

There is a popular misconception that "melee" means "hit enemies with basic attacks". This being based on the fact that most melee class/trees are designed that way. Being a "well built melee" these days just means a short ranged physical damage caster in a sense... hit dragon roar->quick cutter-> swing chains... everything is dead no basic attacks needed.

If by chance someone does bring a "basic attacker" to r10s, then yeah they are pretty terrible, even worse than casters for the most part...

 

[Bjond]

Why do you hate melee DPS ? You hate it so much that I don't understand why you even bother keeping it in the game. There is nothing wrong with the power of casters or ranged dps. Proof ? Look at what toons are being played.

Thought you were being sarcastic at first. Melee are in a pretty good spot right now. I'd agree, though, that it's definitely not ANY melee. You have to know which ones work and which do not, which is more about knowing which melee skill tool-tips are grossly wrong than anything else.

"basic attacker" to r10s, then yeah they are pretty terrible, even worse than casters for the most part...

Personally, I'm very disappointed there's such a vast difference between raid DPS builds and quest builds.

I would much prefer if quests acted as a training and testing ground for raids. If I were to guess, I'd say a strong quest build does maybe 5% auto while a strong raid might do as much as 50% auto. There's just no time in quests for auto to pile up and no downtime gaps in raids for skill CDs to reset "for free".

There are melee builds I love for questing that I'd never raid with and vice-versa.

 

[Phaedra]

I just wanted to point out that I've never had any issues with DCs sub-cap. Those seem pretty nicely set to me; pick the right attribute, add some DC gear, and everything works.

That's not always the case for non-completionists, especially if they also don't have all the relevant DC PLs.
Quest knowledge and always playing at +2 to +4 overlevel will carry you through an HC season, particularly in a group, but vets doing HC shouldn't be the only ones heroic is balanced for.

 

[Lazuli]

Why do you hate melee DPS ? You hate it so much that I don't understand why you even bother keeping it in the game. There is nothing wrong with the power of casters or ranged dps. Proof ? Look at what toons are being played. Try playing a melee dps in mid to high reapers. There are no safe spots. There is no kiting. There is no insta-kill from across the room. There is only in-your-face with the mob. This wouldn;t be a problem if things like dodge/incorporeality/concealment were not nerfed in reaper. What's this you say ? You still have AC, PRR, and MRR ? In order to get any of these things up to a level where you can survive being right in the mobs face, you have to devote everything to that, sacrifice the DPS entirely, and play a tank. I don't want to play a tank. I want to play melee dps. The next time someone whines about casters in reaper, make them play a melee dps monk, fighter, paladin, rogue, ect.... In conclusion....casters don't need anymore love. Just remove all th4e melee dps from the game and get it over with. You know you want to.

Big lol. Nowadays almost none play casters on high reaper. Groups are full of melees and rangeds. Melees melt the NPCs with atonishing speed, the same than rangeds.

 

[voenixa121]

There is a popular misconception that "melee" means "hit enemies with basic attacks". This being based on the fact that most melee class/trees are designed that way. Being a "well built melee" these days just means a short ranged physical damage caster in a sense... hit dragon roar->quick cutter-> swing chains... everything is dead no basic attacks needed.

If by chance someone does bring a "basic attacker" to r10s, then yeah they are pretty terrible, even worse than casters for the most part...

This is why I don't play r10. It's a badly designed gamemode.
But r10 is also not the issue here.

Well, as a player I have to admit I like gearing and regearing as long as its done well. So I see nothing wrong with each expansion bringing a desire to regear. I fondly remember Sharn where the gear was absolutely amazing and I wanted to run the quests many times for it - both heroic and epic version. Fast forward to Chill which I have run alot less partly because the gear upgrades didnt really matter.

So, taking the stance that making a game where regearing and playing new quests to do so is a bad and evil thing is not something I can get behind at all.

Unfortunately this part of gameplay has been badly tainted by rare loot. I am almost sure that the items that "solve" this problem in the next expansion will be rare. That is the entire problem of solving this through gear.
If the next expansion doesn't have rare loot and important sun/moon augments are made regular instead of rare then everything will be fine.

 

[Wizard]

Breaking spell DCs off of the d20 is definitely something that would require a larger discussion!

I think it should be strongly considered. The D20 system doesn't support players having stat differences of 50 (!) or higher. It only supports a few points of difference, since every point is a 5% (!) difference in success chance.

Maybe martials remember how frustrating it was before the to-hit change to hit certain mobs? Unless you had certain min-max builds, you could only hit on a 20.

That's how it is for casual and semi casual caster players once they hit lvl 30+ quests. In legendary content, mob saves are too high and the DC difference of players are too much (DC 90 vs 140 for example).

 

[Phaedra]

I think it should be strongly considered. The D20 system doesn't support players having stat differences of 50 (!) or higher. It only supports a few points of difference, since every point is a 5% (!) difference in success chance.

No one complaining about not being able to get no-fail DCs in every school is going to be happy moving to a system where no-fail DCs don't exist.

 

[Wizard]

Obviously it needs to be balanced right.

Ex. D100 system: "No fail" should still attainable just like now (fails only on a mob save roll of 95-100, 5% chance, like a 20 under the D20 system).

But the main difference would be that a caster with lower DC would still have a decent chance of succeeding. Each point lower than the "no fail" caster would lower their success chance by 1%. So it doesn't drop to "always fail" nearly as fast.

 

[voenixa121]

No one complaining about not being able to get no-fail DCs in every school is going to be happy moving to a system where no-fail DCs don't exist.

No-fail DCs shouldn't exist.

 

[Necrodancer]

There is a popular misconception that "melee" means "hit enemies with basic attacks". This being based on the fact that most melee class/trees are designed that way. Being a "well built melee" these days just means a short ranged physical damage caster in a sense... hit dragon roar->quick cutter-> swing chains... everything is dead no basic attacks needed.

If by chance someone does bring a "basic attacker" to r10s, then yeah they are pretty terrible, even worse than casters for the most part...

So a better version of mass hold + a better version of energy burst but when casters did it that was BAAAAAAAD. I know it's not the point you were arguing but this is exactly one of the reasons casters are so far behind with too many of their abilities bleeding into classes that have absolutely no business with.

Weird with better cooldown and DC, perma displacement, improved mass hold (all of this available to dragon lord btw), perma true sight and more.

What have casters got in return exactly? Should EK be able to use force spellpower instead of meleepower?

I agree with your post though btw. Mine was a simple comment on how that happens, carry on please.

 

[Lazuli]

@Tonquin:

I see you're not going to budge from your proposal, even though it's a proposal that will widen the already enormous gap between schools and make caster gear even more complicated (and I repeat, currently caster gear complexity is infernal, much higher than that of martial classes).

But since you don't want to change your approach, could you at least merge some schools? Instead of buffing a single school per enchantement in the gear, buff several. The same goes for elements. I repeat, there's no room in caster gear for so much stat division. At least consolidate by grouping several schools or several elements for each enchantment. Please. I'm really asking you to make a fully capped caster equipped with everything a caster needs, and to do so taking into account the grind that many of those options entail (which excludes many players). Please, at least consolidate schools and elements since you don't want to unify them all. Eg, create a enhancement "Power of the mind" that buffs enchant and illusion at once, another that buffs evocation and conjuration, anither transmutation and necromancy, etc. Please. Same for elements, use the already existent (but almots not used) enchantaments such as Frozen Storm, Power of the Firestorm, Power of the Flames of Purity, Power of the Sacred Ground, Power of the Frozen Depths, etc, and extend them to crit damage too.

Generalists haven't received a single design consideration in years. For God's sake, throw them a measly bone. It's not surprising that Wizard is considered one of the worst classes in the game. Because you're constantly designing against generalist archetypes like this one.



I also want to point out that this update won't help those who aren't already reaching DC on elite/r1. It's an accessibility issue for DC in the gear, so adding a few DC points won't help them. I'll list the points again so you can pass them on to the rest of the dev team and see if you can address some of them:

1- Excessive reliance on sentience for DC. A martial with little or no sentience isn't suitable for R10, but it works well on R1 because martials can afford to dedicate all their sentience to DPS. When a caster needs these 16-18 DC points from sentience, they're on their way to being useless on R1 as well.

2- The new sun/moon system makes it mandatory to use raid augment sets, including the +3 artifact DC set, which comes from a rarely played raid, Killing Time. Martials can still use Vecna sets to evade using too many of these augment sets, but for casters, there's no room for older spell DC sets (since we already have two artifact sets for spell crit chance and damage), and anyway, the DC items on older sets aren't competitive with the new content. This is a problem. Because the people saying they can't reach the R1 DC are the ones who can't get raid set augments. Gearing up a caster is very expensive. In fact, I raid a lot, and right now I wouldn't even consider expanding my alt stable with another caster. It's not sustainable in terms of the time required.

3- Channels blocked after more raid items or long grinds on Reaper: Sacred (+2 now, soon +3), exceptional DC (direct or ability-based), Reaper Shards (a +3 DC costing 225 shards!). People having trouble reaching DC on lower difficulties don't have these. And this is a 6 or 8 point difference. That's significant.

4- Insightful and quality spell mastery aren't easy to fit into gear. There aren't many items, and you have to juggle many stats. I predict it will be even worse when you have to find these values per school.

5- And curses are the final straw, further crippling people with low DC. This wouldn't be important if they were an isolated source of hard-to-obtain DC, but in the current landscape, adding even more unattainable DC only further cripples these builds.

If you don't address the issue of so many hard-to-obtain DC channels, these people will continue to face the same problems. They're dreaming that changing the DC system to one not based on d20 would solve their problems, when it won't. If you don't make most of the DC available to them, they'll always be stuck with inefficient or completely useless results. It's not that the ceiling of numbers they can achieve with their gear is insufficient. The problem is that they can't reach that ceiling because it requires a grind that's beyond the reach of them.

 

[Lazuli]

I think it should be strongly considered. The D20 system doesn't support players having stat differences of 50 (!) or higher. It only supports a few points of difference, since every point is a 5% (!) difference in success chance.

Maybe martials remember how frustrating it was before the to-hit change to hit certain mobs? Unless you had certain min-max builds, you could only hit on a 20.

That's how it is for casual and semi casual caster players once they hit lvl 30+ quests. In legendary content, mob saves are too high and the DC difference of players are too much (DC 90 vs 140 for example).

You don't get a 50-point difference in past lives. It's more like a 6-point difference (+1 for racial stats, +2 for two completionist feats, +3 to specific schools). Not 50. The problem is that they've put too many DC points into ridiculously long gear grinds (like Sentience, Augment Raid Sets, or Reaper stats) or harder-to-obtain channels (like Exceptional, Sacred, or Reaper), and some of those channels even fall into both categories.

There's no need to change the system. What's unacceptable is putting like 25 DC points into hard-to-obtain gear channels. And yes, I'm saying like 25 points, I'm not exaggerating. And while players like you won't be missing those 25, you're very likely missing around 15-20.

This can't be right. There can't be so many DC points locked behind such extensive grind and, in many cases, difficult-to-obtain channels. It's not a problem with the d20 itself; it's a problem with the gear design and how to obtain it.

 

[Wizard]

There's no need to change the system. What's unacceptable is putting like 25 DC points into hard-to-obtain gear channels.

Yeah and that's already greater than the difference between "no fail" and "always fail" (that would be 19).

So if we don't want lesser geared, lower PL characters completely useless in legendary, we must either move from D20 system, greatly increase DC floor and make DC boosts way more attainable or maybe even do a radical change in DC outcomes.

Somebody had the radical idea to change spells effectiveness by DC roll instead of being binary - fail / no fail. So spells would always "land" but have a better effect the higher your DC is vs the monster's save roll.

 

[NikiWonka]

Why do you hate melee DPS ? You hate it so much that I don't understand why you even bother keeping it in the game. There is nothing wrong with the power of casters or ranged dps. Proof ? Look at what toons are being played. Try playing a melee dps in mid to high reapers. There are no safe spots. There is no kiting. There is no insta-kill from across the room. There is only in-your-face with the mob. This wouldn;t be a problem if things like dodge/incorporeality/concealment were not nerfed in reaper. What's this you say ? You still have AC, PRR, and MRR ? In order to get any of these things up to a level where you can survive being right in the mobs face, you have to devote everything to that, sacrifice the DPS entirely, and play a tank. I don't want to play a tank. I want to play melee dps. The next time someone whines about casters in reaper, make them play a melee dps monk, fighter, paladin, rogue, ect.... In conclusion....casters don't need anymore love. Just remove all th4e melee dps from the game and get it over with. You know you want to.

I'm sorry my man but that's 90% a skill issue

First off im going to pretend that dragon lord doesn't exist and that 90% of melee aren't running it. Because the roar makes you basically immortal against regular mobs.

Melee have an insane amount of cc available besides roar too. Just putting salt on your weapon is crazy strong on its own

230-40 prr is easily achievable for a melee without giving up basically any damage. You might miss out on +4 artifact deadly and stuff but you can get 90% of the damage channels. Not to the amount of hp you get for being melee.

Add 30% standing dodge (with 34-5 being acessible for most) and temp source of dodge which is included for free with your epic strike and you'll be dodging 40% of attacks. Then you have defensive clickies on top. And then your 1-2 extra tumble charges.

And melee actually does damage, unlike casters. Yeah a caster can instakill some **** a melee can cleave down whole packs.


Casters can stay at a safer range, sure and they can instakill a bunch of stuff. But they do no damage. A caster is relegated to a cc bot or a heal bot and is for the most part pointless in high skulls compared to melee and ranged.


As far as ranged you are completely correct. The best damage in the game, gearing easy enough to permit plenty of defenses and the safest position. Coupled with how the AI just some kiting will make you untouchable against melee mobs. That is if you even need to kite since you can hit for full damage at any range. Add the decent amount of CC you get from shiradi and procs and there you are. The best of both worlds with literally no downsides besides somewhat lower hp depending on class split.

 

[Lazuli]

Yeah and that's already greater than the difference between "no fail" and "always fail" (that would be 19).

So if we don't want lesser geared, lower PL characters completely useless in legendary, we must either move from D20 system, greatly increase DC floor and make DC boosts way more attainable or maybe even do a radical change in DC outcomes.

Somebody had the radical idea to change spells effectiveness by DC roll instead of being binary - fail / no fail. So spells would always "land" but have a better effect the higher your DC is vs the monster's save roll.

No, we don't need to change the system because the gearing is poorly designed. What we need is to fix the gearing.

If you get a flat tire, you don't scrap your whole car; you change or fix the tire.

 

[Blerkington]

No-fail DCs shouldn't exist.

The good news is they don't. Monsters get saving throws and will pass at least on a 20 all the time. So even under optimal circumstances there's only a 95% success rate.

Some saves are very high in Lamordia, to the point where making spells land even most of the time is difficult. Some of the discussion in this thread has been about that.

I see no problem with maxed out casters achieving a 95% success rate. One implication of your comment seems to be spells shouldn't work nearly all the time even in much lower level content, which makes even less sense to me.

 

[Lazuli]

@Tonquin

A point for the developers regarding equipment—I've already spoken at length about how, numerically and due to the difficulty of acquiring it, gear isn't good these days. But now, speaking of lore... don't you find the use of profane and sacred bonuses very incongruous?

So, a good-aligned character who equips an evil/profane weapon or old item (e.g., Litany of the Dead) receives negative levels. The same happens to a lawful character who picks up an anarchic weapon or a chaotic character who picks up an axiomatic weapon. But then paladins (supposed champions of the goodness!) go around loaded with sets and stats that grant profane bonuses?

In D&D, sacred and profane bonuses are antithetical and cancel each other out. Here in DDO, casters have to use both types of bonuses.

It's so anti-D&D—I know DDO isn't D&D, but it has D&D in the name. Can we please respect some D&D lore? When you change the gear design, which is long overdue, please consider this as well. Change the name of the profane sets to something different, please. Anything unrelated to alignment.

 

[Wizard]

No, we don't need to change the system because the gearing is poorly designed. What we need is to fix the gearing.

If you get a flat tire, you don't scrap your whole car; you change or fix the tire.

Yes, that was my idea #2, greatly increase DC floor.

IMHO it should be similar to martials, who don't need to full focus all their gear, feats, enhancements, EDs on +hit to be able to connect weapon hits at all.

Caster DC should be high enough so you can at least hit the saves of mobs without too much gear grinding and sentience grinding needed, and no PL of course. Min maxing and super long gearing process should be for extra damage, not to be able to do anything at all and pass DCs at all.