What's the best way to make arcane casters relevant at end game again?

[Lotoc]

Big things I feel is if we want to give casters reasonably competitive dps there need to be more spells added, especially single target and damage over time spells.
Arcane Pulse especially because by design its entire purpose is sustained single target spell damage but its been a long while since it had relevance and specializing for force casting is in a terrible state between class trees, itemization, epic destinies and how force interracts with debuffing.

Additionally Spirit Blades is a very spammable spell from epic feats but the damage is undertuned and lacks caster level scaling dooming it to further irrelevance as the level caps raise - epic feat spells overall fail to deliver with only ruin/gruin being considerations because Draconic can double their damage.

 

[Smokewolf]

Big things I feel is if we want to give casters reasonably competitive dps there need to be more spells added, especially single target and damage over time spells.
Arcane Pulse especially because by design its entire purpose is sustained single target spell damage but its been a long while since it had relevance and specializing for force casting is in a terrible state between class trees, itemization, epic destinies and how force interracts with debuffing.

Additionally Spirit Blades is a very spammable spell from epic feats but the damage is undertuned and lacks caster level scaling dooming it to further irrelevance as the level caps raise - epic feat spells overall fail to deliver with only ruin/gruin being considerations because Draconic can double their damage.

Would much rather have the spells that already exist be re-engineered to work and scale as players expect them too. Otherwise, to create new systems, will just give the Dev's license to over-complicate and over-monetize everything.

If you don't believe this, look no further that the dozen or so crafting systems already in place, with more on the way. With none of the legacy systems being supported by the new stuff being released. Further compounding the grind and loot fatigue in a game that's supposed to be about players interaction. You know, the "multi" in MMO?

 

[Lotoc]

Would much rather have the spells that already exist be re-engineered to work and scale as players expect them too. Otherwise, to create new systems, will just give the Dev's license to over-complicate and over-monetize everything.

If you don't believe this, look no further that the dozen or so crafting systems already in place, with more on the way. With none of the legacy systems being supported by the new stuff being released. Further compounding the grind and loot fatigue in a game that's supposed to be about players interaction. You know, the "multi" in MMO?

Except divine casters don't have proper light/alignment spell options in higher levels, so the only fix for them is adding spells.
Fire druid basically doesn't exist from 15th level onwards because fire has no real analogue to ice flowers and tsunami.
Artificer caster despite being one of the classes that can strip immunities suffers being capped out at 6th level spells with no real standouts.

There's not really means to make these issues better without adding spells.

And overall boss dps by design needs to come down to specialising into single target, nobody bothers talking about 2hf melee builds when it comes to "melee does so much more dps" because 2hf is awful single target comparatively and built for aoe.
Its funny that magus right now is basically the best caster destiny overall because it is the destiny with the best single target SLAs while cold also has the advantage of frozen wanderer, but casters who can't go cold really could do with decent options right now.

 

[Quartis]

Give the epic caster mantles, the ones that proc by spell casting, a dmg increase in the higher tiers. Either deal more dmg or proc more often. That is less work than reworking spellbooks and gives more single target dps.
Also add force dmg proc or negative heal proc to magus mantle.

 

[Smokewolf]

Except divine casters don't have proper light/alignment spell options in higher levels, so the only fix for them is adding spells.
Fire druid basically doesn't exist from 15th level onwards because fire has no real analogue to ice flowers and tsunami.
Artificer caster despite being one of the classes that can strip immunities suffers being capped out at 6th level spells with no real standouts.

There's not really means to make these issues better without adding spells.

And overall boss dps by design needs to come down to specialising into single target, nobody bothers talking about 2hf melee builds when it comes to "melee does so much more dps" because 2hf is awful single target comparatively and built for aoe.
Its funny that magus right now is basically the best caster destiny overall because it is the destiny with the best single target SLAs while cold also has the advantage of frozen wanderer, but casters who can't go cold really could do with decent options right now.

It is pointless to ADD spells without first FIXING the underlying issues that casters have. Otherwise to add more spells creates further layers of overlapping inter-dependencies, that the Dev's would be unwilling / unable to walk back in the future. No matter how well meaning the intent, to add spells now, would lock us into a path more convoluted than what we are currently in. Further pushing the game into a pure physical DPS Meta, largely devoid of spell-casters at cap.

Side note: Part of reason the Forums is periodically redone is so that people forget and thus lack prior knowledge to compare against the future updates. The Dev's are not naive to this, and use it to good effect, by quite often by deleting and / or censoring posts. Unfortunately for SSG, the veteran players still remember a time when casting kinda worked. While also remembering what SSG did to break it.

 

[Lotoc]

It is pointless to ADD spells without first FIXING the underlying issues that casters have. Otherwise to add more spells creates further layers of overlapping inter-dependencies, that the Dev's would be unwilling / unable to walk back in the future. No matter how well meaning the intent, to add spells now, would lock us into a path more convoluted than what we are currently in. Further pushing the game into a pure physical DPS Meta, largely devoid of spell-casters at cap.

Side note: Part of reason the Forums is periodically redone is so that people forget and thus lack prior knowledge to compare against the future updates. The Dev's are not naive to this, and use it to good effect, by quite often by deleting and / or censoring posts. Unfortunately for SSG, the veteran players still remember a time when casting kinda worked.

A lack of consistency between the elements is a fundamental issue with casters that existed when casters were the meta and is just as much an issue of balance between casters as things stand now.
Now many of the issues that were making cold druids so severely ahead of other casters did get adressed but at the same time we got the r7+ spell damage nerfs.

If balance between the casters and elements doesn't get resolved and casting gets bumped up to meta defining levels again all that really happens is 2 or 3 builds define casting again while the majority of casters are actually underperforming and then another blanket nerf happens down the line that leaves all casters worse off than they are now

 

[Smokewolf]

A lack of consistency between the elements is a fundamental issue with casters that existed when casters were the meta and is just as much an issue of balance between casters as things stand now.
Now many of the issues that were making cold druids so severely ahead of other casters did get adressed but at the same time we got the r7+ spell damage nerfs.

If balance between the casters and elements doesn't get resolved and casting gets bumped up to meta defining levels again all that really happens is 2 or 3 builds define casting again while the majority of casters are actually underperforming and then another blanket nerf happens down the line that leaves all casters worse off than they are now

So for you... one element is better than another just because one class doesn't have a spell?

You do realize that many of the caster-wide nerfs we have in place came about because of one class being overpowered. With the trickle down effects being devastating to everyone else. What I'd like to avoid is a repeat of this as its pretty obvious to most of the veteran players that the Dev's don't have a clue how to proceed. But hell.... Lets give your your spells, never mind the fallout for everyone else right?

 

[Lotoc]

So for you... one element is better than another just because one class doesn't have a spell?

You do realize that many of the caster-wide nerfs we have in place came about because of one class being overpowered. With the trickle down effects being devastating to everyone else. What I'd like to avoid is a repeat of this as its pretty obvious to most of the veteran players that the Dev's don't have a clue how to proceed. But hell.... Lets give your your spells, never mind the fallout for everyone else right?

As thing stand in general casters don't really have the option to specialize into single target damage because they don't have the spellbook options to do so.
If you can't even specialize a build for the purpose of single target dps how do you assess where caster single target dps should actually be?

 

[Smokewolf]

As thing stand in general casters don't really have the option to specialize into single target damage because they don't have the spellbook options to do so.
If you can't even specialize a build for the purpose of single target dps how do you assess where caster single target dps should actually be?

Remove the heavy handed nerfs that have been put in place over the years, and single target DPS will be possible. More to the point the system will finally be able to scale in predictable ways.

 

[Bjond]

My Wizard uses the INQuisitive tree for DPS. EK+PM+INQ works quite nicely and INQ is a universal tree available to all casters.

Hmm. I have a hint of a slight suspicion that this isn't the solution you're seeking.

 

[torkz]

All DPS casters maximise DCs within reason. (except maybe some druids). Dps casters ARE dc casters for the most part. You may drop a couple filigree or staff DC, but otherwise the is no trade off.

I kinda disagree. I have done a fair bit of work to maximize spell power in a single element (1100+ outside reaper, not counting metas), get to about 900-1000 in a second element, while also seeking high crit chance,multi. Next comes defenses. Finally try to work on DCs. Evo can be decent (mid 120s), but necro and enchant are only low 110s. (DC numbers in reaper). These numbers could probably be as bit better, but they are not great. In much of the newer content, the necro/enchant DCs are functional, but not fun...lots of saves seen.

Almost any improvement in DCs is going to come directly at the cost of spell DPS. If I make the changes to push necro,enchant up to high 120s, the spell power is likely going to drop below 1000.

I play melee and ranged too. They absolutely have trades to make when optimizing, but generally seem much less painful.

But all of this is pointless anyway. Even if I push spell DPS even higher (there is room for improvement), my arcane caster DPS will be far less than my melee or ranged characters. Really sad when I consider the caster has about 100 more past lives than the other two.

 

[mikarddo]

Fvs clock in at 8 minutes well built melee or inquis 30 seconds

Only a factor of 16 x worse

Do you have a video showing a 30s kill? My Inq seems somewhat slower so I am looking to learn and improve.

With 131 DS, 360 ranged power, 13d6 SA and 21 imbue dice and an Undying xbow I am signifantly slower - so clearly I need to get better

The Worm had 3mill hp in case that matters. I didnt test for variance in hp.

 

[Bjond]

Do you have a video showing a 30s kill? My Inq seems somewhat slower so I am looking to learn and improve.

With 131 DS, 360 ranged power, 13d6 SA and 21 imbue dice and an Undying xbow I am signifantly slower - so clearly I need to get better

The Worm had 3mill hp in case that matters. I didnt test for variance in hp.

There's huge variance in HP on the worm -- sub 3m on up to 5m. Supposedly party size influences it, but it could just be RNG. I've seen it vary that much with 2 in party back when I'd hit it regularly. I haven't done worm in a while, but 30s sounds about right for a DPS. I wouldn't use worm as a benchmark after seeing the way HP fluctuates.

What does it take for a caster? Patience.

---

BTW, why don't we have useful target dummies? FFXIV comes out with a new set of practice targets every raid and the targets match the raid's stats. How hard can it be to whip up some target dummies?

 

[DBZ]

Do you have a video showing a 30s kill? My Inq seems somewhat slower so I am looking to learn and improve.

With 131 DS, 360 ranged power, 13d6 SA and 21 imbue dice and an Undying xbow I am signifantly slower - so clearly I need to get better

The Worm had 3mill hp in case that matters. I didnt test for variance in hp.

There were other threads going over the times different builds and players posted them have to go back and google those

or you might find som videos too card quest testing would work better i would think jump in r1 test that time then try and beat it

 

[J1NG]

Given you can now see all enemy HP, it's probably better to just dive into the Giant quest at Sharn top (Illithid Controller) and use that. It's got enough HP where you can go ham, up the difficulty if you think you can do better, etc.

:: edit ::
And most importantly, accessible to all.

J1NG

 

[mikarddo]

There were other threads going over the times different builds and players posted them have to go back and google those

or you might find som videos too card quest testing would work better i would think jump in r1 test that time then try and beat it

My search-fu seems to fail me but maybe someone can post a link or make a video

I just tried a few more times. Lowest hp on worm solo was around 2.6 mill. Took me 1:20 - 1:30 to keep (tried twice).
So, if others are killing that in 30s I have alot to learn.

 

[DBZ]

I do remember shuri monks were surprisingly good and maybe under ssgs radar if they do bring that hammer down