Should Sorcs and Alcs AoE 1 shot groups of mobs while leveling?

[slarden]

How are you not dominating with a paladin? Holy retribution is the best cleave in the game and especially for heroic leveling. I was one-shotting mobs in reaper at level 15 with a first-life paladin with full free-to-play limits. The main issue was without tomes, past lifes, reaper points surviving was more the challenge esp with many reapers.

The reason there is a spike around 7 and 15 likely has to do more with bank characters being iconic or vet level II than anything else. I am sure there are many level 1-6 bank characters too.

Level cap should be the focus of balance measurements and adjustments for the simple reason power from past lifes and reaper trees is so ridiculously strong that anyone with wings should cruise through level 12-19 solo on mid skulls fast on EVERY class. If they aren't able to do that they need to learn to play the class better or adjust their build. Showing a screen shot of damage in elite for an accomplished character is sort of meaningless as nobody with wings will even run on that difficulty.

You were successful at getting warlock DPS nerfed at 30 with posts like this showing heroic dps and I think ultimately you were proved wrong that those nerfs were even needed. Sorc had better DPS at the time you called for warlock nerfs even before the adjustments. Warlocks were not over-represented at the time and they are highly under-represented now.

I hope the devs look at more data than something as ridiculous as a winged character at level 15 that likely has at least 15 extra AP which is huge at that level. And they should also reverse some of those warlock nerfs.

[ggmarquez]

Level cap should be the focus of balance measurements and adjustments for the simple reason power from past lifes and reaper trees is so ridiculously strong that anyone with wings should cruise through level 12-19 solo on mid skulls fast on EVERY class.

i don't want to step on your toes here slardy... but that doesn't sound right to me at all. balancing end game is certainly important, but balancing class against class, uni tree against other uni trees, starts at level 1, and continues right up to cap. if there is even a single level range where something is not within a certain tolerance, there's a problem. and i have to admit that running my main through heroics on an alchemist, i noticed a few problems. the most obvious is doing about 500% more dps than on any thf platform. starting around level 12, but by level 18 it was so ridiculously pronounced that i kinda sorta never want to run alchemist in heroics again. because those multi crits are over the top. sword of shadows on its best day only gets 25% of that kind of damage out-put.

[FlavoredSoul]

i don't want to step on your toes here slardy... but that doesn't sound right to me at all. balancing end game is certainly important, but balancing class against class, uni tree against other uni trees, starts at level 1, and continues right up to cap. if there is even a single level range where something is not within a certain tolerance, there's a problem. and i have to admit that running my main through heroics on an alchemist, i noticed a few problems. the most obvious is doing about 500% more dps than on any thf platform. starting around level 12, but by level 18 it was so ridiculously pronounced that i kinda sorta never want to run alchemist in heroics again. because those multi crits are over the top. sword of shadows on its best day only gets 25% of that kind of damage out-put.

I think endgame is the most important area for balance, though extreme outliers in leveling need to be adjusted as well, though to a lesser extent.

Alch has an insane 12-20, but how much of that is made up for by it having some of the worst 1-8 leveling? That's a question that needs to be asked, bad leveling ranges can counteract OP leveling ranges, but OP at cap is OP at cap no matter how awful the leveling was.

[Havocthedemon]

So your lvl 15 toon with maximized sharn gear at that level with over 100 reaper points piloted by a skilled player blasts stunned mobs into oblivion? Wow what a surprise. What a pointless thread.

[tinyelvis]

Your image is not demonstrating your point. Looks to me like you held the mob. Then I guess you scorched the mob to remove their resistance. Finally you fired your DB fireball. I am not a genius but that looks like three shots to me. Then you picked an instance where you critical hit (at best you only even do this good a third of the time). Even then, you did not even come close to one shot'n them. So, what exactly are you trying to show us here?

One thing is apparent. Essentially, you are playing like a wizard.

Take your sorc into reaper seven to ten, drop your wizard spells, and let's see you deal with mobs, let alone one shot mobs. One positive note, while everything is hunting you down, the ranger and Melee can get free hits on them.

If you want to discuss which class performs best, you must first choose a level and difficulty. Then do the MATH. Calculate the expected damage per minute, for example, otherwise your comment has no reference, context, or merit. And, it is nothing more than an emotional anecdotal based point of view. Which, can be easily refuted by other people's facts or even cancelled simply with one other person's different emotional anecdotal point of view.

[Strambotica]

This is a Troll thread right?
As a CC Caster for R10 runs.. Can tell that Melee! instakills break my CC (i mean... i target 1, click the spell... and boomn dead for the Melee and CC goes for nothing.. aka no CC (and dealy on spell)
and... doesnt show for the rest... and then...nothing... happens exactly the same with Alchemist/Sorcerer/Wizard spell waste of Mana... because you cast it and the target isnt there anymore)
and im not whining about it... ufff...
Get over your "poorly gear alt" that cant kill as your main...
You want a example!
1rst life Sorce... not fun you dont have de DC for full Damage... even with the right Feats..
12 PL life Sorcerer do it decent... still get kill for Champs and etc.. so.. yeah can kill but squishy
Uber Completionist... doenst care the Class... you can kill o most everything... no because the class, is for that you KNOW where to put the spell or the DPS etc etc etc...
Ufff. hate this type of thread in here
PS: give the example with Sorcerer because i have done it... but now trying Alchemist with alts.... is exactly the same thing.

AND IF these classes are so OP then why no ALL are running it LOL

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

The problem is, when nukers give Newbies a very strong feeling / impression of "you are not relevant. I can nuke everything without you. Why are you even in my group ?" and make them feel like they are nothing but the 5th or 6th wheel on a car.

This is very likely to make them want to quit. Or go solo.
And then there's the "anti-solo" folks who believe that only group levelling should be there.

[Jaxtan]

The problem is, when nukers give Newbies a very strong feeling / impression of "you are not relevant. I can nuke everything without you. Why are you even in my group ?" and make them feel like they are nothing but the 5th or 6th wheel on a car.

This is very likely to make them want to quit. Or go solo.
And then there's the "anti-solo" folks who believe that only group levelling should be there.

I would add the problem isn't just when a newbie is questing with a nuker, it is when they are questing with any multi-lifer veteran of the game. A THF pally or a DC caster can clear a room as fast as a nuker, just quieter and without all the flash

A multi-lifer in any character build is going to be significantly more effective than a newbie in a low-lifer toon. It probably takes a year+ of playing and building up appropriate prior lives to have an impact when grouping with long-time players in the highest difficulties.

[slarden]

i don't want to step on your toes here slardy... but that doesn't sound right to me at all. balancing end game is certainly important, but balancing class against class, uni tree against other uni trees, starts at level 1, and continues right up to cap. if there is even a single level range where something is not within a certain tolerance, there's a problem. and i have to admit that running my main through heroics on an alchemist, i noticed a few problems. the most obvious is doing about 500% more dps than on any thf platform. starting around level 12, but by level 18 it was so ridiculously pronounced that i kinda sorta never want to run alchemist in heroics again. because those multi crits are over the top. sword of shadows on its best day only gets 25% of that kind of damage out-put.

This level of balance isn't possible because of the vast range of character power and because different builds don't perform consistently across difficulty ranges. Some builds scale better to higher difficulties and others overperform at lower difficulties but don't scale as well.

If you look at the example posted by the OP he is likely using bonus AP to get extra spellpower, caster levels and DC from the race tree plus bonus helpless damage from a stand-alone enhancement tree that wouldn't be possible without a huge # of past lifes. That is adding some significant inflation to those #s that wouldn't be possible for a new ftp sorc with no past lifes. I think that speaks more about power gap than anything else.

Nobody with wings should be struggling to complete heroics on a paladin THF build.

I don't think your goal of wanting to have balance across all level ranges is wrong - it's just not possible. I think balance is most important at level cap because of raiding and there are clearly more opportunities in general for grouping at that level. They should do their best across all level ranges but they shouldn't sweat these over-dramatized heroic nerf posts. If someone has the reaper points and past lifes they should be increasing the skull level. But if they just want to see big #s blowing up helpless mobs - more power to them but with that level of character power they should be able to crush the content on any class.

[ggmarquez]

This level of balance isn't possible because of the vast range of character power and because different builds don't perform consistently across difficulty ranges. Some builds scale better to higher difficulties and others overperform at lower difficulties but don't scale as well.

sure. that is indeed the case. so we are left with a question of identifying outliers and then asking... "is it worth the time/effort to bring what is under-preforming up towards the center, and tone down what is over-preforming so that it is closer to the mean?"

If you look at the example posted by the OP he is likely using bonus AP to get extra spellpower, caster levels and DC from the race tree plus bonus helpless damage from a stand-alone enhancement tree that wouldn't be possible without a huge # of past lifes. That is adding some significant inflation to those #s that wouldn't be possible for a new ftp sorc with no past lifes. I think that speaks more about power gap than anything else.

tilo's example is certainly not a fair representation, i accept this. i also understand what he is trying to say. nuking, in general, is over-preforming at certain level ranges, and by enough of a margin that it may warrant additional scrutiny from both the player-base and game development.

Nobody with wings should be struggling to complete heroics on a paladin THF build.

i mean... that's a bit too general to be useful. i've got a completionist buddy who doesn't play the meta, isn't a power gamer, and dislikes melee. i sold him on a pdk pure pally life some months ago... and he didn't really enjoy it much at all. took him quite a while to slog through it, he went straight back to sorc when it was finally over.

I don't think your goal of wanting to have balance across all level ranges is wrong - it's just not possible. I think balance is most important at level cap because of raiding and there are clearly more opportunities in general for grouping at that level. They should do their best across all level ranges but they shouldn't sweat these over-dramatized heroic nerf posts. If someone has the reaper points and past lifes they should be increasing the skull level. But if they just want to see big #s blowing up helpless mobs - more power to them but with that level of character power they should be able to crush the content on any class.

yes and no. it's about tolerance levels. if one build can kill the things in one hit, another build can kill the same things in 3 or 4 hits, and yet another build takes 10-20 hits to kill the same things (all else equal) there's room to nudge the first build down and the last build up. who draws that line is known (and it isn't us)... but where that line is drawn does seem to be decided, at least in part, from player feedback.

and my feedback stands... alchemist is over-tuned from levels 12-20.

[MrChipinator]

What's the point of levels 1-29?

If the point is to flower sniff, enjoy the garden, immerse yourself in the quests available to you (nothing wrong with this btw) then you aren't going to be grouping with speed clearers or particularly interested in the various viability of the classes' power creep checkpoints.

If the point is to burn through the 200+ past lives available to a single character, then you will be glad to have the best classes at each level to obliterate content and push forward to victory.

If the point is to stay at level...12 for instance and just repeat quests over and over without leveling for no apparent reason...uh...good for you I guess? The reality is that level 4 lasts for a few hours for flower sniffers, and 10 minutes of Ringleader farming for uber guys.

Level 30 lasts an indefinite amount of time, thousands of hours or 30 minutes to empty the TR cache, but nobody stays at level 12 as a metagame pick. So it doesn't matter how good something is at a non-meta level because R1 is conquerable at full breakneck speed with no pauses on any character in any quest.

Is Alchemist overpowered in heroics at R1 after level 10ish? Of course it is, it's absurd how good the class becomes and without pause you just multivial everything until 20 without even thinking about it. You do the same thing with Barbarian, Paladin, Sorc, Lich-Wizard, Druid, Bard even, list continues. Is it fair that Alchemist can solo r6+ from level 12 onwards and remain equally viable for most content? Eh, maybe not, though how many groups are using heroic Alchemist past life farms for Reaper EXP?

[Tilomere]

Caster vs. melee vs. ranged DPS is a relevant question but you are cherry picking your numbers, so this won't lead anywhere.

First, damage != DPS, melee/ranged have higher attack speed + double shot, and I don't think that 200 number is on held mobs.

Second, calling at cap performance irrelevant is absurd.

I'm comparing all 3 at level 15, right in the middle of level spread. The numbers are actually with the melee and ranged with reaper tree benefits fully buffed vs. a totally unbuffed caster, so in reality they are even more skewed in favor of casters.

Damage isn't dps, but I'm not talking about dps. I'm talking about sorcs and alcs deleting entire groups while leveling with a single dps spell. Not just meteor vs. multivial. I'm talking about fireball, ball lightning, cone of cold, molotov, delayed blast fireball as pictured, etc.

I said it is mostly irrelevant, since the majority of players are not playing there. That is a graph of dungeon activity, with spikes at 7 and 15 for people trying out builds and making mules with house k/coin lord favor, and farming those same favors every iconic life.

I don't want to play a game in which my standardized pixelated widget does the same DPS as everyone else's standardized pixelated widget, you just mash a key and off they go, woo-hoo!

Do you want to play a game where your widget hits for <200, to 2 mobs, and someone else's widget htis for 3k to 8?

My first life Iconic Paladin in starter gear 1-shots groups of mobs while leveling (on Elite). Why is "Enemies in Heroic quests die too fast" a complaint that anyone would level at just one class?

I'm not leveling it at one class. I picked 2, feel free to pick more!

If you let them keep their sustain and nerf their per-hit dps, then you're just making them the same as martial

If you let them keep their per-hit dps, then they are going to just AoE 1 shot things, and won't need sustain.

Should Sorcs and Alcs AoE 1 shot groups of mobs while leveling? Answer: Of course! If a melee can AOE 1 shot a group of mobs, why not a caster?

I appreciate your honesty. So as long as one can do it, then the other should be able to do it as well then. So if melee stops being able to AoE 1 shot by level 2 when they leave Korthos, then casters should also stop being able to AoE 1 shot by level 2?

I'm with this. I'm playing an Alchemist currently (my first time, with terrible gear etc) and recently hit level 12. Prior to level 12, I could choose between super-cheap stuff (Bo's T1 SLA is 1 SP for like 200 damage), pretty cheap junk AoE (low-level splash) or expensive meta'd obliteration. I could demolish packs of mobs in a few spells, but it ate my SP bar like nobody's business. I had to play conservatively and choose my moment which made for more balanced gameplay.

Level 12 I got Multivial. Now I can oneshot most entire packs for 20 SP (and I have like 1100) so I don't need to worry about conservation.

Yea, a lot of people don't seem to get that the pictures are one relative to the other, and that at lower levels of gear in lower difficulties, casters still AoE 1 shot.

Fighters with CLEAVE can wipe a mob in 1 shot[
Warlocks with chain can wipe a mob in 1 shot
A cleric or FS can wipe a mob in one shot with flame strike
a BARD....yes a BARD can cast charm on a champion and that Champ will wipe the mob for him

Show me a level 15 fighter cleaving for 3k non-crit and I'll believe you. Or a level 15 warlock using chain hitting for 3k non-crit, or a cleric or FvS hitting for 3k non-crit with flame strike, or a level 15 bard doing anything that seems equally powerful.

But for sure it's a pretty bad group game dynamic a lot of the time.

I think the real problem with alchs is just where you are on their power curve. If you're:
- below their d20 window, they are mostly garbage.
- within their d20 window, they can be fun in a party.
- over their d20 window? No reason to have any other party member.

So maybe some AC adjustment to mob saves to put casters on the curve?

Not really.
But if you cast mass hold first, is it really one shotting the mobs? You are still running a rotation. (And don't forget Alch can't cast mass hold or anything that gives helpless from range.)

If I cast displacement & cure light sla to spike green, then glue bomb, then single vial sla to drop green and prep orange, then drop flash freeze to apply helpless damage and spike orange, then drop multivial, obliteration and molotav for cleanup... that's a rotation (and probably not the best one). Its not one shotting, but people see the group go boom, but don't understand how you made it happen and then scream OP!

It is when level 15 mobs don't have enough hp you don't even have to cast mass hold, and alcs hit so much harder then that non-crit casting color spray or freezing is a waste of time. If you did all of that I would be impressed, but no, it is still a 1 shot.

Level cap should be the focus of balance measurements and adjustments for the simple reason power from past lifes and reaper trees is so ridiculously strong that anyone with wings should cruise through level 12-19 solo on mid skulls fast on EVERY class.

Warlocks were not over-represented at the time and they are highly under-represented now.

I hope the devs look at more data than something as ridiculous as a winged character at level 15 that likely has at least 15 extra AP which is huge at that level. And they should also reverse some of those warlock nerfs.

So I appreciate your opinion, but I disagree, and think the game should be balanced where people are playing, which is dominated by people leveling.

Warlocks are highly represented for a pay class, especially considering its higher cost, and probably could use additional heroic power shifted to epics. All of the characters presented are roughly equal in progression. Characters less powerful will be less powerful, but that just increases the gap between melee/ranged and caster since a caster has a bunch of base spell damage and spell power from metamagics.

[SpartanKiller13]

Yea, a lot of people don't seem to get that the pictures are one relative to the other, and that at lower levels of gear in lower difficulties, casters still AoE 1 shot.

Yeah I just came from a THF melee life that was pretty strong (solid build, full gearing, and most of my PL's focused towards) that wasn't in the same league of blowing up packs as this Alchemist past 12 lol.

My biggest complaint is multivial; combined with immunity stripping that happens from the first 1/4 of the spell, it's incredibly powerful for a low price. I don't even have to consider using other spells for trash-blasting.

[acemonkey]

So you guys think SSG should just refund the class and give everyone with alchemist levels a +20 lr or something? Or are you advocating fraud?

[MaeveTuohy]

Yeah I just came from a THF melee life that was pretty strong (solid build, full gearing, and most of my PL's focused towards) that wasn't in the same league of blowing up packs as this Alchemist past 12 lol.

My biggest complaint is multivial; combined with immunity stripping that happens from the first 1/4 of the spell, it's incredibly powerful for a low price. I don't even have to consider using other spells for trash-blasting.

Dropping it from 4 vials to 3 seems like a predictable balance adjustment.

(Playing an alchemist atm.)

[DerpDerply]

So you guys think SSG should just refund the class and give everyone with alchemist levels a +20 lr or something? Or are you advocating fraud?

Naw, nothing like that lol!

However, it would be nice if they actually added new races/classes/Universal Trees that weren’t OP, completely broken messes. It took open revolt from the players council for devs to revisit their original OP plans for the iconic shifter, which they then reworked into an underpowered joke. The devs apparently don’t have balance factored into anything they do.

I’m guessing that’s because they’re only here to sell solutions to problems they intentionally engineer into this game.

[janave]

2011 calling back i see.

The answer to the title is: 100% YES, like it or not, this is exactly the intended role as per the game rules DDO is based on.



Sure now D&D implements the throttling part a lot better than DDO does, it implements the number of casts of spell level a lot better, also the statting of enemies and enemy types tend to be better. It does allow less bypasses and there is no such thing as progress, ehr, grinds, that let you overcome enemy defenses to the point they dont matter.

This problem was attempted to be fixed by introducing spellpower; before that we had a % based system, as well as crit multipliers on gear, fun times, but when a Fighter was swinging at 50 melee damage plus maybe a 2d6 of [type] damage on the side, casting 1200pts elemental aoe crits was a little out of tune.

We needed too much spell damage scaling due to d6s dont go far enough to offset the RT+DIFF scaled monsters. Now that we have okay base damage to make up for at least either RT or DIFF scaling, we have a little too much spell power on the side. Sorcerer could see a little cut back from enhancements, but the main issue is from level 10 we get several gear pieces adding up to over +150 spell power that content designers could not even dream of 5-10 years ago when most content in that level range was constructed. In epics, replace that spell power with LGS multipliers, and Scion of Fire, similar deal.

There is a lot of nonsense here, DPS in reaper is relatively better for martial classes, defense is a lot worse where staying at a distance is crazy better, self healing pen. is exponentially worse for melee that cant self heal well enough.

Grinds greatly adding to DC are a bigger issue, rolling up a new Alchemist or Sorcerer ( other than a few possibly outlier options like Dragonborn, +5 DCs over say Elf) will see about 30-35% throttling from DCs alone, in late heroic that is a lot, or more like good job on that, tho it would be better to use other than HP and saves to throttle spell damage like the several other variables from the ruleset .

There is way too much abstraction in 1 hit damage vs 1 hit damage, most THF martial characters can already beat the fastest spells with a full attack sequence, and can squeeze in maybe another if using one of the DS+attack speed speed builds.

Ignoring cost, setup time, circumstance ( saves, immunity, etc), does nothing good, just a few among the many ignored vars.


For the Devs who may read it: I dont mind losing spell DPS, but losing unique class features because 17 players on a server plays with a full LGS set is super not cool.

[Tobril]

So the majority of players are leveling in DDO, and cap play and gear are largely irrelevant:

I think it's probably fair to mentally adjust a bit...

Bank characters at:
4 - Veteran
7 - Veteran II
15 - Iconic

Also it feels like there's a lot of old 20s from the pre-underdark cap, "epic explorer density" alts, or otherwise abandoned characters.


It's also hard to tell how many people have raiding/reaper alts that stay capped and for how long.

I know several people with a some "good enough" alts that only raid. Having some combination of slots for a healer, tank, and DPS is common among many raiders, though not universal.

Generally I tried to keep my main TR'd, but made sure to be back at 30 for raids and a legendary reaper loop.




As to the question of the thread...if monsters didn't want to be fire-balled they shouldn't have stood in a 20' radius.

[SpartanKiller13]

So you guys think SSG should just refund the class and give everyone with alchemist levels a +20 lr or something? Or are you advocating fraud?

What? No, just balance changes lol.

Dropping it from 4 vials to 3 seems like a predictable balance adjustment.

(Playing an alchemist atm.)

Yeah, this would help a lot.

[Miahoo]

- being restricted by mana
- falling hard at epic levels
- useless in some content (especially vs evasion)
- very fragile (aka gimpy with low survivability)
and more...

I'd say yes. they should.
and say thank you for ssg for helping us with the endless tr grind they created.

and you know me - I play melee rog, cleric, tank (in a break currently) and a sorc.

while my sorc is so much fun to play, my rog easily beats it end game and high reaper.