Feedback: Draconic Incarnation

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Originally Posted by Shade

Just so the devs aren't confused, I've confirmed Energy Burst doesnt do this, just the other abilities.

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I'll edit my post.

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Originally Posted by Shade

Agree with all of this.. They really need to tell us what the DCs are meant to be on our epic abilities. (And add the fact Eburst actaully has one to its description, which currently doesnt say so).

One would hope that its meant to be:
10 + Half character level + Charisma or Int + Evocation bonuses from items/feats/enhc/etc.

But perhaps atm its only accepting int, would explain the fact things save way too often for my 50 charisma sorc..

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Making the save visible with mouse over on Epic abilities/SLAs (like how it works now on live for normal spells) would be a start also.

This destiny at the moment, is doable but it doesn't feel EPIC. Might be for the saves or not, but I think the damage of some abilities can be upgraded to really matter.

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Originally Posted by Spartywinz

The ability in Tier 1( I can't recall the name now) that, among other things, increased fear based spell dcs by +2 does not seem to be adding to the DC of Phantasmal Killer (A fear based illusion spell) as of 6/6/12 late p.m. EST.

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Looking into a solution for this one.

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Originally Posted by Tid12

Every ability (Not Energy Burst as confirmed Shade in the post below) stops you when you try to cast them. Casters not moving = Casters dead. If this goes live, noone will bother to use them.

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This should be addressed now for all the abilities except for Daunting Roar- if not in the build you all currently have access to, then it'll be in a future one. You should be able to move while activating them just as you can when executing Energy Burst, and I'll look into having Daunting Roar do the same.

Speaking of the Roar, I seem to recall a lot of concerns surrounding it in the older threads. I'm considering at least doubling the duration of the Despair since it's indeed a bit tough to take advantage of it when it succeeds.

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Originally Posted by Tid12

Energy Stealth, electric: The graphic is really cool but I can't see whenever I have it on or off. Also, the description says it absorb 50% electrical damage. Shouldn't it be acid? In the same way Fire stops cold damage and Cold stops Fire.

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I'll see if I can make the FX for the electric Sheath more prominent. As for the damage absorption, the Energy Sheath spells are meant to work this way- they're intended to mimic dragon immunities, which correspond to and match the dragon's own type.

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Originally Posted by Tid12

Go out with a bang: Is the DC working here? I could only see saves. Also, the AOE of this Spell is too small. Needs improvements.

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Here's the deal on the saves for these abilities: we've been working on some tech to make them calculate DCs on an appropriate scale, and the current implementation (not present in the build you guys are using now) works as follows. Your DCs for any of the offensive abilities, including the Flyby Attack knockdown and the Daunting Roar Despair effect, will be determined using 20 + half your character level + your Charisma or Intelligence modifier, whichever's higher. The reason for the 20 base is that we can't include school-based DC improvements on these, since they aren't functioning quite the same as normal spells. Either way, they're Epic abilities, so a higher base DC seems appropriate. :)

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Originally Posted by Tid12

This destiny is lacking an ability like the Magister one (Spell School augmentation).

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Actually, did you notice Draconic Spell Augmentation? Works the same way as the Magister school augmentations. Red dragon gets extra light damage on fire spells, blue dragon gets Reflex save decreases on electric spells, and so on.

Besides the feedback in the open beta forums so far, I did also want to address some of the things I didn't have time to respond to from the older threads.

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Originally Posted by Syllph

Dragon Breath after much testing couldn't score much more than 2500 (and that was with Eardweller, a held mob, and using 10% acid weakness). This is sad as it was only 5/rest and rarely hit more than 2-3 at a time, but at least pre-wipe it did 4000+. Now it's a write-off.

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The initial implementation of the Dragon Breath worked off caster levels rather than doing 60d6 base damage, which the original design called for. It was corrected at some point during beta to match the original design, which is why it started doing less damage. However, it's unfortunate that Energy Burst, for instance, does much more damage with 5d6 per caster level at the top tier and isn't limited to a number of uses (and isn't as iconic, for that matter). The breath weapon probably needs a buff now.

I'll pose a question: would you rather see the Dragon Breath do damage based on caster level again, or should it be a static amount? My thoughts here are that it's not really a spell, it's more along the lines of a supernatural ability, which might suggest avoiding caster level as the basis. If the damage is a static amount, that does also mean non-casters taking this destiny will benefit from it more, which kind of appeals to me: and the 5-charge limitation means it's not in much danger of becoming overpowered in non-caster hands.

If it's going to do caster-level-based damage, I'd probably propose 5d6 per level, much like the top tier of Energy Burst. Yeah, it's limited in ways that Energy Burst isn't (uses per rest), but you do get better range with it, and you can add additional effects to it with the Draconic Breath Augmentation enhancement. If it's a set amount, I'd probably give it a large boost up to 90 or 100d6. Either way, caster gear and spell power enhancements will continue to affect its damage.

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Originally Posted by Syllph

Energy Vortex has been, indeed, nerfed. It was a full minute, making it a great AOE for tier 6. Now it's 16 seconds and completely worthless. This is the most disappointing. I popped this baby during multiple fights and loved it. Now it's garbage.

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Similar thing here: original design called for a short duration, but it was implemented mistakenly with about a minute duration. But now it does seem like it's not worth using given the cast time and long cooldown. Honestly, my goal is for these abilities to function more like occasional "bombs" than stuff that would replace lower-level, shorter-cooldown spells in your spell lists, so I'm inclined to simply increase the duration of the vortex again rather than balancing this by giving it a shorter cooldown. I'll admit, too, that the slow-summon animation used for the casting of this one is pretty prohibitive for the middle of combat, so perhaps I'll switch it over to the same one used for Energy Burst and Go Out With A Bang (a bit longer than the breath animation or Wall of Fire, but certainly nothing compared to the one it uses now). With a shorter cast time and a duration of, say, 45 seconds, I think it could become worth using again.

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Originally Posted by Shade

Draconic spell augmentation (White dragon) - adds a chance to deal 3d6 sonic damage to your spells. Nice and vague like most things here.. But it tested it. The chance in beta 3 was nice and high, maybe ~50% or so. The damages wasnt that great so it was a fair ability. Beta 4: Chance seems to be nerfed to around 5% or less.

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Chance here should be 5/10/15% at each tier, just like the Magister augmentations (I'll update the descriptions). If it really does seem like the payoff isn't worth it here I could consider increasing the damage amounts. What's everyone's thoughts on the save-reducing augmentations (both here and in the Magister tree)? Do they suffer a similar problem or do they seem worth it to you?

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Originally Posted by Shade

Plus if your a water savant, your forced into taking an energy sheath thats worthless to you, as you probably already have fire shield.

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Now, to be fair, at tier 3 the Energy Sheaths do deal more damage than a Fire/Cold Shield, including the chance to hit an enemy with a big blast of the energy type much like a Greensteel guard. :) But I understand the frustration with being forced into one element at the bottom tier if there's, say, a particular Energy Burst you want in order to match your Savant specialty or Dragon heritage, but you don't want or need the corresponding Sheath.

So I think I'll make the far left-hand side of the tree (Energy Sheath/Out With A Bang/Energy Burst/Energy Vortex) no longer require you to get the same element at each tier. There's not much thematic or practical reason to link them together, as there is in the Dragon heritage line.

Genasi, thanks for the update. Can you clear up the whole caster level/max caster level thing please? It's confusing
particularly as it doesn't seem to work on all damage spells it should (e.g. Cone of Cold has *never* worked with this
mechanic).
In playing through this, whilst happy with my overall damage output (on a relatively weak character compared to
some of those posting here), it did strike me that damage did not scale that much between L20 and L25. Caster level
is mostly irrelevant for direct damage spells. To my mind it would be a lot simpler to simply have a caster level
increase only then scale the individual spells past a certain caster level e.g. Fireball would be 1d3 + 3 per caster level
until CL10 then an additional 1d3 + 3 for every 2 or 3 caster levels after that.

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Originally Posted by Genasi

Your DCs for any of the offensive abilities, including the Flyby Attack knockdown and the Daunting Roar Despair effect, will be determined using 20 + half your character level + your Charisma or Intelligence modifier, whichever's higher. The reason for the 20 base is that we can't include school-based DC improvements on these, since they aren't functioning quite the same as normal spells. Either way, they're Epic abilities, so a higher base DC seems appropriate. :)

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Wait a second there. Will this be true for any other EDs? AFAIK, exalted angel for example currently uses charisma based saves, although no divine caster has this a primary casting stat. Shadowdancer uses intelligence for some of it's attack although it is only a relevant stat for rogues, and then not equally important compared to dex for some rogue builds. There are probably more, but the suggestion to have ED dc being determined by the higher one of the stats they can increase seams feasible to me, and this seems to be where this is heading.

Love the response.

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Originally Posted by Genasi

This should be addressed now for all the abilities except for Daunting Roar- if not in the build you all currently have access to, then it'll be in a future one. You should be able to move while activating them just as you can when executing Energy Burst, and I'll look into having Daunting Roar do the same.

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Awesome news.

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Originally Posted by Genasi

I'll see if I can make the FX for the electric Sheath more prominent. As for the damage absorption, the Energy Sheath spells are meant to work this way- they're intended to mimic dragon immunities, which correspond to and match the dragon's own type.

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Sweet, can't wait to see the better graphics for this. And thanks for the clarification.

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Originally Posted by Genasi

Here's the deal on the saves for these abilities: we've been working on some tech to make them calculate DCs on an appropriate scale, and the current implementation (not present in the build you guys are using now) works as follows. Your DCs for any of the offensive abilities, including the Flyby Attack knockdown and the Daunting Roar Despair effect, will be determined using 20 + half your character level + your Charisma or Intelligence modifier, whichever's higher. The reason for the 20 base is that we can't include school-based DC improvements on these, since they aren't functioning quite the same as normal spells. Either way, they're Epic abilities, so a higher base DC seems appropriate. :)

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20 + Half of my char level + my charisma modifier. I have a questions:

1) Does the +1 CL (Arcane augmentation IX, autogrants, etc) affect this DC?

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Originally Posted by Genasi

Actually, did you notice Draconic Spell Augmentation? Works the same way as the Magister school augmentations. Red dragon gets extra light damage on fire spells, blue dragon gets Reflex save decreases on electric spells, and so on.

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My bad here, thanks for the heads up. I didn't notice that in the tree.

If someone can post the augmentation for the 4 types of spells I'd be very happy!

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Originally Posted by Genasi

The initial implementation of the Dragon Breath worked off caster levels rather than doing 60d6 base damage, which the original design called for. It was corrected at some point during beta to match the original design, which is why it started doing less damage. However, it's unfortunate that Energy Burst, for instance, does much more damage with 5d6 per caster level at the top tier and isn't limited to a number of uses (and isn't as iconic, for that matter). The breath weapon probably needs a buff now.

I'll pose a question: would you rather see the Dragon Breath do damage based on caster level again, or should it be a static amount? My thoughts here are that it's not really a spell, it's more along the lines of a supernatural ability, which might suggest avoiding caster level as the basis. If the damage is a static amount, that does also mean non-casters taking this destiny will benefit from it more, which kind of appeals to me: and the 5-charge limitation means it's not in much danger of becoming overpowered in non-caster hands.

If it's going to do caster-level-based damage, I'd probably propose 5d6 per level, much like the top tier of Energy Burst. Yeah, it's limited in ways that Energy Burst isn't (uses per rest), but you do get better range with it, and you can add additional effects to it with the Draconic Breath Augmentation enhancement. If it's a set amount, I'd probably give it a large boost up to 90 or 100d6. Either way, caster gear and spell power enhancements will continue to affect its damage.

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While I love if you could improve it, the main concern about the static damage is that: It's static. There is no room for improvements at all. And I'm not sure I like it. With the 5d6 per caster level, with a caster level of 30 if it is affected by every CL bonus we have, we would be looking at 150d6 damage per cast. And trust me I love it.
It's a panic button, 5 uses per rest, can be augmented even more and if we will ever have more bonuses (like i dunno, epic caster level bonus +2), we have room for improvements.

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Originally Posted by Genasi

Similar thing here: original design called for a short duration, but it was implemented mistakenly with about a minute duration. But now it does seem like it's not worth using given the cast time and long cooldown. Honestly, my goal is for these abilities to function more like occasional "bombs" than stuff that would replace lower-level, shorter-cooldown spells in your spell lists, so I'm inclined to simply increase the duration of the vortex again rather than balancing this by giving it a shorter cooldown. I'll admit, too, that the slow-summon animation used for the casting of this one is pretty prohibitive for the middle of combat, so perhaps I'll switch it over to the same one used for Energy Burst and Go Out With A Bang (a bit longer than the breath animation or Wall of Fire, but certainly nothing compared to the one it uses now). With a shorter cast time and a duration of, say, 45 seconds, I think it could become worth using again.

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Faster spellcasting is what this destiny should have imho, so I'd like a faster animation but a bit longer CD.

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Originally Posted by Genasi

Chance here should be 5/10/15% at each tier, just like the Magister augmentations (I'll update the descriptions). If it really does seem like the payoff isn't worth it here I could consider increasing the damage amounts. What's everyone's thoughts on the save-reducing augmentations (both here and in the Magister tree)? Do they suffer a similar problem or do they seem worth it to you?

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Couldn't test them personally.

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Originally Posted by Genasi

Now, to be fair, at tier 3 the Energy Sheaths do deal more damage than a Fire/Cold Shield, including the chance to hit an enemy with a big blast of the energy type much like a Greensteel guard. :) But I understand the frustration with being forced into one element at the bottom tier if there's, say, a particular Energy Burst you want in order to match your Savant specialty or Dragon heritage, but you don't want or need the corresponding Sheath.

So I think I'll make the far left-hand side of the tree (Energy Sheath/Out With A Bang/Energy Burst/Energy Vortex) no longer require you to get the same element at each tier. There's not much thematic or practical reason to link them together, as there is in the Dragon heritage line.

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Lovely also.

Short on time to a do a full write up on latest patch testing, but ill get it soon. Just some quick comments on your latest info Genasi (and thanks for being so very detailed btw)

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Originally Posted by Genasi

Speaking of the Roar, I seem to recall a lot of concerns surrounding it in the older threads. I'm considering at least doubling the duration of the Despair since it's indeed a bit tough to take advantage of it when it succeeds.

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Aye the duration is way too short consider it's incredibly long cooldown. A longer duration and no recurring save could make up for the rather long cooldown, lack of range and other issues.

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Here's the deal on the saves for these abilities: we've been working on some tech to make them calculate DCs on an appropriate scale, and the current implementation (not present in the build you guys are using now) works as follows. Your DCs for any of the offensive abilities, including the Flyby Attack knockdown and the Daunting Roar Despair effect, will be determined using 20 + half your character level + your Charisma or Intelligence modifier, whichever's higher. The reason for the 20 base is that we can't include school-based DC improvements on these, since they aren't functioning quite the same as normal spells. Either way, they're Epic abilities, so a higher base DC seems appropriate. :)

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ok thanks for letting us know.. Energy burst = Refex for half, as this DC too I assume? (lacks any info on its save in the decript)

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Actually, did you notice Draconic Spell Augmentation? Works the same way as the Magister school augmentations. Red dragon gets extra light damage on fire spells, blue dragon gets Reflex save decreases on electric spells, and so on.

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My limited testing showed the reduced reflex saves weren't showing up, possibly bugged.. Ill investigate further.

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I'll pose a question: would you rather see the Dragon Breath do damage based on caster level again, or should it be a static amount? My thoughts here are that it's not really a spell, it's more along the lines of a supernatural ability, which might suggest avoiding caster level as the basis. If the damage is a static amount, that does also mean non-casters taking this destiny will benefit from it more, which kind of appeals to me: and the 5-charge limitation means it's not in much danger of becoming overpowered in non-caster hands.

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Caster level please. Things that dont scale with our PrES or equipments aren't much fun. Same issue as Eladrin mentioned on the haunting-hard to kill thread - Top geared players see no benefit for their work if its a fixed value/mechanic. So please have it fully scale with CL, and please try hard to have it count as evocation so it counts things like the Epic Abishai sets +3 CL too.

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If it's going to do caster-level-based damage, I'd probably propose 5d6 per level, much like the top tier of Energy Burst. Yeah, it's limited in ways that Energy Burst isn't (uses per rest), but you do get better range with it, and you can add additional effects to it with the Draconic Breath Augmentation enhancement. If it's a set amount, I'd probably give it a large boost up to 90 or 100d6. Either way, caster gear and spell power enhancements will continue to affect its damage.

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Well no.. The range is NOT better. It's infact HORRIBLY worse. I cannot hit anything with it at all ever unless its
A) Standing Perfectly still
b) I spend several seconds lining up my shot
C) Not a small enemy
Hitting multiple targets is neigh impossible. Please consider updating the animation to match cone of cold, which is a nice large AOE much like a dragons breath should be. It currently is very poor.

Given the poor range, poor cooldown limited uses per breath, id suggest a slightly higher damage on it. Maybe 6d6 per CL, or maybe 100 + 5d6 per CL.

Also last I tested the augmentation didnt seem to work either, tho I only tried a few times due to its very long cooldown.

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Similar thing here: original design called for a short duration, but it was implemented mistakenly with about a minute duration. But now it does seem like it's not worth using given the cast time and long cooldown. Honestly, my goal is for these abilities to function more like occasional "bombs" than stuff that would replace lower-level, shorter-cooldown spells in your spell lists, so I'm inclined to simply increase the duration of the vortex again rather than balancing this by giving it a shorter cooldown. I'll admit, too, that the slow-summon animation used for the casting of this one is pretty prohibitive for the middle of combat, so perhaps I'll switch it over to the same one used for Energy Burst and Go Out With A Bang (a bit longer than the breath animation or Wall of Fire, but certainly nothing compared to the one it uses now). With a shorter cast time and a duration of, say, 45 seconds, I think it could become worth using again.

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Aye the incredibly long cast animation is the major drawback here. So the EBurst anim would be much perferably and may actaully get some players to get it (imo its simply far too expensive since its so high up in the tree so i currently dont take it, but i may readjust if you do these changes).

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Chance here should be 5/10/15% at each tier, just like the Magister augmentations (I'll update the descriptions). If it really does seem like the payoff isn't worth it here I could consider increasing the damage amounts. What's everyone's thoughts on the save-reducing augmentations (both here and in the Magister tree)? Do they suffer a similar problem or do they seem worth it to you?

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Damage amounts aren't so bad as they do take into account your spell power, its just the low procrates make them too unreliable to be of much use, sorcs are used to having mob die in either 1, 2 or 3 casts.. Without any reliabilty on the procs, the amount of casts per kill never really changes except in in tthe rare maybe 1 out of 20 battle. So i'd prefer an increased procrate over increased damage.
15%/20%/25% would probably be fair.

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Now, to be fair, at tier 3 the Energy Sheaths do deal more damage than a Fire/Cold Shield, including the chance to hit an enemy with a big blast of the energy type much like a Greensteel guard. :) But I understand the frustration with being forced into one element at the bottom tier if there's, say, a particular Energy Burst you want in order to match your Savant specialty or Dragon heritage, but you don't want or need the corresponding Sheath.

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Actaully they do not do more damage. In all my testing they always suffered the exact same bugs as regular fireshield in regards to damage: Not affected by spell power, not affected by cl, damage is always 3-13. The chanceo f a big burst never went off for me either.
Various bugs related to fireshield are documented here:
http://ddowiki.com/page/Fire%20Shield

Being fireshields dmg has been bugged for 6 years, i have a feeling this wont be easy to fix, so i dont agree. I think you should allow us to select any shield regardlss of our desired Eburst type, or dragon selection.

All it does is limit sorcs who actaully want this line, people who will twist this still get the freedom of choice.

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So I think I'll make the far left-hand side of the tree (Energy Sheath/Out With A Bang/Energy Burst/Energy Vortex) no longer require you to get the same element at each tier. There's not much thematic or practical reason to link them together, as there is in the Dragon heritage line.

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That would be perfect. Thankyou.

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Originally Posted by Ertay

Wait a second there. Will this be true for any other EDs? AFAIK, exalted angel for example currently uses charisma based saves, although no divine caster has this a primary casting stat. Shadowdancer uses intelligence for some of it's attack although it is only a relevant stat for rogues, and then not equally important compared to dex for some rogue builds. There are probably more, but the suggestion to have ED dc being determined by the higher one of the stats they can increase seams feasible to me, and this seems to be where this is heading.

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this sounds like a good idea

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Originally Posted by Shade

Well no.. The range is NOT better. It's infact HORRIBLY worse. I cannot hit anything with it at all ever unless its
A) Standing Perfectly still
b) I spend several seconds lining up my shot
C) Not a small enemy
Hitting multiple targets is neigh impossible. Please consider updating the animation to match cone of cold, which is a nice large AOE much like a dragons breath should be. It currently is very poor.

Given the poor range, poor cooldown limited uses per breath, id suggest a slightly higher damage on it. Maybe 6d6 per CL, or maybe 100 + 5d6 per CL.

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I'd prefer the better AOE. Why up the damage if you can't hit anything with it? 5d6 with a better AOE and it would be fine imho.

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Originally Posted by knockcocker

Genasi, thanks for the update. Can you clear up the whole caster level/max caster level thing please? It's confusing particularly as it doesn't seem to work on all damage spells it should (e.g. Cone of Cold has *never* worked with this mechanic).

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The way I understand it is as follows: in the case of, for instance, Fireball, it's a spell that normally hits for 10d6 (okay, 10d3 + 30 technically) damage at maximum. If you get +1 to just your caster level with Evocation spells, Fireball isn't going to do any more damage. If you get a +1 to just your maximum caster level with Evocation spells, the damage still won't change because you're only getting a potential cap of 11d6. If you, however, get a +1 to both, then you should see Fireball doing 11d6 damage instead of 10d6 because both your maximum and your functional caster level have increased. I'm testing this now as I describe it (with the Magister tree), and it seems to be working as I've stated.

If there's spells like Cone of Cold that aren't working with this, I'm unaware of it and haven't seen it. Is there a list of all the spells that are suspected to be not gaining maximum caster level bonuses properly?

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Originally Posted by Ertay

Wait a second there. Will this be true for any other EDs? AFAIK, exalted angel for example currently uses charisma based saves, although no divine caster has this a primary casting stat.

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I think it's going to vary between Destinies depending on what we think is best for each one, but it's certainly possible we'll re-evaluate some of the existing abilities based on the fact that we can now use one of several ability scores for DCs.

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Originally Posted by Tid12

20 + Half of my char level + my charisma modifier. I have a questions:

1) Does the +1 CL (Arcane augmentation IX, autogrants, etc) affect this DC?

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No, it's calculating the DC separately from the spell system, unfortunately. But I think the higher base will help make up for that.

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Originally Posted by Shade

Energy burst = Refex for half, as this DC too I assume? (lacks any info on its save in the decript)

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Yeah, all the offensive actives have Reflex for half and use this formula. I updated their text descriptions to be clearer about it.

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Originally Posted by Shade

Well no.. The range is NOT better. It's infact HORRIBLY worse. I cannot hit anything with it at all ever unless its
A) Standing Perfectly still
b) I spend several seconds lining up my shot
C) Not a small enemy
Hitting multiple targets is neigh impossible. Please consider updating the animation to match cone of cold, which is a nice large AOE much like a dragons breath should be.

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Whoa. This doesn't sound like what I experienced while testing it, but I'll look into it. Yes, at minimum it should probably have the same area of effect as something like Cone of Cold.

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Originally Posted by Shade

Actaully they do not do more damage. In all my testing they always suffered the exact same bugs as regular fireshield in regards to damage: Not affected by spell power, not affected by cl, damage is always 3-13. The chanceo f a big burst never went off for me either.

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Have another look- it should be doing more damage at each tier now, which I do know it wasn't doing for most or possibly all of the previous beta cycle. I don't know if there's anything we can do about the spell power issue, but certainly it should be hitting for a bit more at each rank now. And the big burst should have a proc rate similar to the Greensteel guards, but I'll give that another check too to make sure nothing broke.

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Originally Posted by Genasi

The way I understand it is as follows: in the case of, for instance, Fireball, it's a spell that normally hits for 10d6 (okay, 10d3 + 30 technically) damage at maximum. If you get +1 to just your caster level with Evocation spells, Fireball isn't going to do any more damage. If you get a +1 to just your maximum caster level with Evocation spells, the damage still won't change because you're only getting a potential cap of 11d6.

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Why would that be? I have caster level 20, and fireball has a max caster level of 10. Adding an effect which boosts the max CL of Fireball by +1 would bring it to 11, which is still way below my own CL and I can get 11d6 immediately.

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Originally Posted by Angelus_dead

Why would that be? I have caster level 20, and fireball has a max caster level of 10. Adding an effect which boosts the max CL of Fireball by +1 would bring it to 11, which is still way below my own CL and I can get 11d6 immediately.

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fireball was probably not the best choice since it has a CL cap below the current player CL cap.


polar ray is a better example
if your caster level is 25, it'll do 25d3+60.
if you get a just a CL boost(personal CL now 26), it does 25d3+75 because its capped
if you get just a max CL boost(personal CL still 25), it does 25d3+75 because you haven't increased your caster level, just the max you CAN have.

if you get both, it does 26d3+78 because your max CL is now 26, AND your personal CL is 26

basically increasing the cap doesn't necessarily increase the damage,
increasing CL doesn't necessarily increase damage,
but getting BOTH will ALWAYS increase damage.

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Originally Posted by Redicular

fireball was probably not the best choice since it has a CL cap below the current player CL cap.


polar ray is a better example
if your caster level is 25, it'll do 25d3+60.
if you get a just a CL boost(personal CL now 26), it does 25d3+75 because its capped
if you get just a max CL boost(personal CL still 25), it does 25d3+75 because you haven't increased your caster level, just the max you CAN have.

if you get both, it does 26d3+78 because your max CL is now 26, AND your personal CL is 26

basically increasing the cap doesn't necessarily increase the damage,
increasing CL doesn't necessarily increase damage,
but getting BOTH will ALWAYS increase damage.

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Yep, my bad, Redicular here has it spot-on. If a spell is below your caster level, yeah, it shouldn't require an increase of caster level to fill the new cap on a spell.

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Originally Posted by Genasi

Yep, my bad, Redicular here has it spot-on. If a spell is below your caster level, yeah, it shouldn't require an increase of caster level to fill the new cap on a spell.

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So for almost all spells caster lvl increase is near worthless and max caster lvl increase is the one that will increase damage.