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

[droid327]

Firing two longbows at a time literally makes as much sense as firing two crossbows at the same time.

I didnt say make the dual shooter stance work with bows

Though maybe we just do the opposite and make dual xbows work fully with any ranged attack/aoe. That way its not just Inquisitives anymore, its dual xbows for everyone!

 

[Synalon]

So you want a "balanced party", or the holy trinity of tank-heals-damage as it's known in similar online games.

Every reaper XP group has a healer of some sorts, whether that's EA Mass Cure, Primal Avatar Reborn in Fire, or someone with conventional healer class levels like Cleric or FvS. How much healing needed is personal calculus on collectively how smart the group plays. R10 VOD was completed in 55 minutes a couple of months ago where the "dedicated healer" had 2 levels of FvS, because if anyone besides the tank took damage they were one-shot. If a group is being careless, even a conventional healer with 20 levels of Cleric/FvS can't keep people from dying.

As for tanks (or tankability), you're not accounting for how often people die in reaper content without a dedicated tank. You can brute force any R10 quest in the game regardless of group composition if you have enough patience and resources for it. Most people don't like dying multiple times because being a soulstone is not engaging gameplay. I don't know what level of content you play at, but a tank is always welcome and appreciated in R10 quests I run. But it's not required, and that's ok.

Well, these things admit of degrees. The point is not that we absolutely must have a tank, a healer, a cc and some dps in every party. I don't think that's ever been true. But what was true was that non-dps roles were more desirable in parties than they are now. That's the direction of development I'm advocating for, and reducing dps is the obvious way to do it. When enemies die slower to dps, there is more need for other roles.

This thread is about arcane casters. Compared to tanks, a DC caster is less welcome and appreciated in r10 and raids because there is often just no need of them. Increasing difficulty, reducing dps, any of these measures would make 'balanced parties' more desirable, and would therefore help to make casters more relevant at end game.

 

[Quartis]

random ideas to make caster stronger mostly only on level 30+
reduce proc cooldown for epic mantles when one reaches highes tier in epic destiny, that would mostly buff dps not aoe dmg. it also would only affect level 30+.

Add cool debuffs on epic caster mantles that only proc by spell casts.

Make enemies absorb 90% dmg. Damage from a player with Arcane, Wilderness or Religious Lore reduces that absorb amount by 10% +1% per lore-Level for 20s, all Lores would stop this absorb.

increase mrr cap for robes/cloth.
Increase spellschool DC on items for lvl 29+

 

[danzig138]

Deflate the absurd hit points of bad guys.

 

[Reifee - Orien]

Recent discussions on the higher reaper spell dps and the necessary roles in raids has made me start thinking again about the sad state of arcane casters in the current end game.

To frame the discussion, I would define end game as R10 quests and R3+ raids. Right now, arcane are unnecessary at best in R10 quests. There are limited uses for them in raids (sometimes they can help, but often other classes can handle the same tasks while offering something extra to the raid).

Note that an excellent player is always useful...but just because an excellent player is useful on an arcane doesn't mean the same player would not have even more value on a different character.

So...do we need

1) the high reaper spell nerf removed?
2) better quest/raid design?
3) something else?

I wish I had the answer, but I just know the game is worse for not having a role for arcane at cap...

Use an inqusitive tree!

(kidding) The caster side of things is really weak compared to the melee. By a large margin.

 

[Ying]

This thread is about arcane casters. Compared to tanks, a DC caster is less welcome and appreciated in r10 and raids because there is often just no need of them. Increasing difficulty, reducing dps, any of these measures would make 'balanced parties' more desirable, and would therefore help to make casters more relevant at end game.

If you've never explored the tanky DC Sorc (T5 Falconry), then I recommend giving it a try. Instakill a pile of mobs, and the ones you can't you tank. Having that combined roll does make them desirable.

 

[Smokewolf]

1) Raise the Max Caster Level (MCL) to match the true character level.
2) Re-scale the basic players spells / SLA's to be able to scale more naturally into Epics, with less of a damage fall off.
3) Epic level spells and SLA's should not hit MCL until the player does.
4) Roll back the Reaper penalties against casters running R7 and higher.
5) Limit mob immunities to mobs that can actually cast the spell to provide said immunities. While allowing for casters to be able to dispel the same mobs. (This should apply to Champions as well) For non-caster mobs, sucks to be them i guess.

 

[BiggerTrolls]

These are getting good. Less spice, but a bit more grit.

 

[Bjond]

If you've never explored the tanky DC Sorc (T5 Falconry), then I recommend giving it a try. Instakill a pile of mobs, and the ones you can't you tank.

Caster tanks are a lot of fun and VERY effective and fun to group with, but they are hard to build without a fair chunk of useful PLs.

For the less effort type of caster tank, I have a Frost Druid that uses Salt's no-DC feature to CC and can tank+heal. It's not Arcane, but the build should be fairly adaptable into a Salty Sorcerer Tank if you can't swing the DCs for insta-kills. The big difference is that Sorcerer is more DC-dependent than Druid; arcanes have a rough time with DCs.

 

[Pano]

I would make for example a Wizard build for raids and R10 like this:

Tier5 vistani, Tier4 EK, tier3 harper. Get dual kukris. Don't cast spells

 

[Balvix]

What i hear in this thread: Casters used to be the ultimate mega killers in game, now they aren't the top of the heap anymore, please bring back my ability to be number 1.

Melee was in a really bad spot for a very long time, now that they are useful for more than taking a hit to keep it off the caster so that it can kill everything, people that favor casters aren't happy. There are shrines, clickys, and pots for your spell points. I run casters fairly often, and I don't mind sharing the spotlight on the kill count with other people. I do fine with my spell point management, even on R10. I know the quests well enough to know where the shrines are, and make use of them if I'm going a bit overboard with casting. I'm not saying that changes can't be made, I am however saying that I don't see a major issue with damage output currently. If you're running R10, then consider putting in a group effort.

 

[mikarddo]

Melee was in a really bad spot for a very long time, now that they are useful for more than taking a hit to keep it off the caster so that it can kill everything, people that favor casters aren't happy. There are shrines, clickys, and pots for your spell points. I run casters fairly often, and I don't mind sharing the spotlight on the kill count with other people. I do fine with my spell point management, even on R10. I know the quests well enough to know where the shrines are, and make use of them if I'm going a bit overboard with casting. I'm not saying that changes can't be made, I am however saying that I don't see a major issue with damage output currently. If you're running R10, then consider putting in a group effort.

You seems to be getting things mixed up.

Mana isnt an issue in R10 groups. Casters have plenty mana - but martial dps kills faster and more efficient. Insta kills and cc are rather pointless because martial dps (good ones) kill mobs very, very fast, and caster dps is significantly lower than martial dps. Nothing that cannot be fixed by equalizing the R7+ reduction numbers so martial dps get the same reductions that spell dps enjoy already.

Its in raids - which you dont mention - that casters run oom AND do less dps than martials. How does your caster dps handle himself in reaper raids - say Skelly?

As for "In many years" - two wrongs dont make one right. And before that you had 4 melee + 1 healer + 1 caster just for haste. So there have been ups and down for everyone - but isnt it better to actually strive for a balance?

 

[Wizard]

What i hear in this thread: Casters used to be the ultimate mega killers in game, now they aren't the top of the heap anymore, please bring back my ability to be number 1.

Melee was in a really bad spot for a very long time, now that they are useful for more than taking a hit to keep it off the caster so that it can kill everything, people that favor casters aren't happy. There are shrines, clickys, and pots for your spell points. I run casters fairly often, and I don't mind sharing the spotlight on the kill count with other people. I do fine with my spell point management, even on R10. I know the quests well enough to know where the shrines are, and make use of them if I'm going a bit overboard with casting. I'm not saying that changes can't be made, I am however saying that I don't see a major issue with damage output currently. If you're running R10, then consider putting in a group effort.

No, we just want the game to be better balanced, all archetypes to be playable and caster damage to be competitive. The damage difference is much too big.

And personally I'm happy for melee to deal more damage now than before. I play them sometimes too, but prefer to also be able to play caster dps as well without being gimped.

Like you said it's a group effort so in a group I'm happy when melees join, so we can kill faster. But, at the same time I don't want any spec to be signficantly worse, so people don't want them in groups and raids.

Caster dps is already starting to be turned down in raids. If you have many casters in a group it becomes harder and longer to complete raids.

 

[Igognito]

I haven't read all the posts but I think my idea will be relevant here.

Casters (any type) when have a spell prepared/available to cast and use an item that has that spell as a clicky, the should use the stats of the spell they cast but no mana cost (the clicky charge is expended of course).
The same should be achievable with wands/scrolls too through the enchantments.

This will give significant added fire power to casters.

 

[Alpha Tester]

There is no reason to break what is working just for other class / role shine. This is not balance, this is SSG choosing for the players what and how they will play the game and versatility used to be the best thing about DDO. No game have as much versatility to create builds but one day from a bad decision of a teen "game designer" they let go the way to finish parties as a rogue and this was very important for lots of players, DDO had rogue guilds dedicated to sneak trough quests. And every time they take out one way to play DDO they make DDO less D&D and this is the reason most people play it, we don't want to play the way cordovan or strimtom play the game and they must listen to the playerbase because there is no DDO without it.

Having 700 quests means nothing if 200 are never used. 26 races means nothing if a lot are unused or outdated, take Dwarf for example: expensive tree, outdated, no con to damage, people will use it to grab the past life and never play it again. At the same time players beg for a kobold race and we get furry races. And then they launch the new super thing and pretend that the older content doesn't exist, many of the recent changes in DDO were meant to update lots of heroic content to epic but where is it? we still don't see since Delera's I guess.
The player should be able to choose what they play because of his own passions, not because some class don't work anymore at a certain part of the game. Warlock is a good example: it can rule heroics but when reach lvl 30 it only works in 1 of 3 trees.

Players came back to DDO's 64 bits but they won't stay for long if the servers doesn't work and if SSG don't make the game playable as it was designed. Paying lots of money and being unable to play "The Stone Crypt Chronicle" is another example: lots of packs after it and it was never fixed. People love DDO but will take their time and money elsewhere due to bad and bad decisions.

 

[Anurakh]

That is a distinction without a difference.

It's a distinction that makes all the difference. It's not a problem with ranged players, but with raid design, which grotesquely favors certain builds. The same thing happens to casters in raids. Casters are at a clear disadvantage in raids compared to weapon users, not because casters need the DPS to take down those HP-heavy bosses, but because the raid shouldn't be solely focused on bosses and should have a variety of challenges that make sure all builds have a place in the raid.

DDO raids are terribly designed. And that's why melee players have so many survivability issues in push raiding, and why casters basically have no place in raids, beyond a pathetic slot for one CCer on high difficulty (because on low they're completely superfluous), when casters make up half the classes in the game.

Bad raid design. Terribly bad design. And especially the raids created by SSG. They weren't exactly great back in the day, but they were better.

 

[Anurakh]

Help casters:

First of all, hire a dev who understands casters' needs. There's no one on the current team who understands them, nor do they seem to want to.

Next:

-Remove the nerf to R7+ or apply it to all playstyles.

-Improve epic strikes.

-Create decent gear. What the devs are doing is shameful. Honestly, a greataxe with cold nuker stats? Come on, devs! All this absurd item splitting (we even have to dedicate an entire item per element for damage crit LOL) and magic schools. We need gear that has a more global impact on spells, not this absurd splitting.

-Help generalist casters and warlocks. They swallowed the nerf when these casters in particular were underperforming before. And helping generalists, devs, is starting to design for them!!! But what are you doing in Lammania now? They want to add sun/moon boosts for each school LOL. Devs, where are the slots to use them?

 

[torkz]

I am mildly amused, but not at all surprised, that a significant portion of the comments in this thread are discussing melee vs ranged. Thank you to those that offered on-topic suggestions!

 

[torkz]

What i hear in this thread: Casters used to be the ultimate mega killers in game, now they aren't the top of the heap anymore, please bring back my ability to be number 1.

Melee was in a really bad spot for a very long time, now that they are useful for more than taking a hit to keep it off the caster so that it can kill everything, people that favor casters aren't happy. There are shrines, clickys, and pots for your spell points. I run casters fairly often, and I don't mind sharing the spotlight on the kill count with other people. I do fine with my spell point management, even on R10. I know the quests well enough to know where the shrines are, and make use of them if I'm going a bit overboard with casting. I'm not saying that changes can't be made, I am however saying that I don't see a major issue with damage output currently. If you're running R10, then consider putting in a group effort.

I think you are hearing what you want to hear, because you seem to be missing the point. The problem is not that casters are not the #1 killers (arguably they still are in R1 content, but the margin is now razor thin if it exists at all). A competent caster can always get some trash kills even in R10, but whatever you do could be often done better by martial (ranged or melee) dps...in good part because when you get to the boss, the caster contribution is only a fraction of the what martial DPS is contributing.

And SP management, while worth discussing, is NOT the problem. If it meant being useful, one can always use SP clickies or even SP pots.

The problem is that casters are nearly irrelevant now in harder endgame content. It is an absolute fact that in hard (high reaper) raids, casters are often unnecessary and a drag on the raid if there is more than one.

I don't particularly care what the specific role is...I just want there to be *some* reason to have a caster at cap (other than as an R4 farmer). I would be happy if end game raids actually required a CCer. Unfortunately, that is often just a "nice to have" rather than a "need to have".

That is the issue I hoped we could address in this thread.

 

[Tyrande]

I would make for example a Wizard build for raids and R10 like this:

Tier5 vistani, Tier4 EK, tier3 harper. Get dual kukris. Don't cast spells

"Don't cast spells" How do you call that a wizard LOL? Might as well play a rogue or dark hunter that dual kukris (MD TON Maw) and that the T5 Vistani, T3 Harper and backup with rogue trees/ranged weapon and can disarm traps (utility) too and has improved evasion and more DPS (sneak attacks) and dodge LOL.