DD damage - Re-examined perhaps

[SiSiX]

Respectfully removed

[Hoodrat]

A lot of new LG weapons and pets have increased the DPS/Max damage of many, many builds tremendously. Also, DoTs get a huge bonus from quite a bit of LG armor.

Right now, you say DD damage has kind of hit a glass ceiling of sorts while others surpass it.

I can see from a PvP point of view how giving some love to DDs might make it somewhat one-sided, but maybe something should be done PvE wise to help out DDs or caster in general...

From what I hear, Resists are the biggest complaint in PvE... maybe Glitchless can start from there?

Melees/BMs have so many hit% gears and assurance rune which helps with consistant DPS... It seems DDers don't have that? This might be something to look at.

Anywho, good luck. It seems time for DDs to get some love PvE wise, but making sure AoEs (and DoTs) don't dominate arena more than they already do.

[marzus]

I`m 100% sure that all the hit % gears and assurance affects dds as well. To be honest, there are other build weak than a DD caster. This happens probably cuz you (DD casters) were once the best build in the game and now you wish to take back the first place.

[zenga]

Originally Posted by SiSiX

...and cast as fast as we can draw for the entire fight. In all areas. All of them. From the North Lake up, there really isn't any purpose to play a DD cast in PvE as a capped toon.

Our penalty for having effectively the most expensive build (skills, and at least 29 epic r19 & r20 gems) plus the loss of tempers from the lack of a bow set was our kill speed. And being glass canons. (Well, maybe not quite such glass canons if built properly )

When I came back to the game 14 days ago, I was excited to pick up my caster again. Back in the day at lvl 60 and 70 I was to my knowledge the first to experiment around with a white DD caster who could also heal, and be successful in pvp with it, i.e. putting a lot of effort and gold into it. Picking up my other toons was really easy: I just continued where I left and stuff dies at an acceptable speed. Not so much my caster: as soon I was into the lvl 75 range, he was so outdated. I had to spend twice the amount of time needed to kill, and 10x the amount of micromanaging needed.

When I grouped him up with my archer and melee in Nlake, my DD didn't contribute at all to the fight. Either he would be totally out of energy, or I had to invest tons of gold to buy lvl 80ish gems who would become obsolete quite fast. I went regen as 2nd class for energy regen. But still it became quite clear that continuing with my DD caster was going to hold me back to an extend it was simply not fun.

I obviously can't comment on endgame nowadays, but I basically ran into the same problems as described above, just to level what was once one of the best casters in game at his level to the cap, something that should be trivial nowadays.

My solution for now was simple: spending 200k to redistribute stats, buying some cheap 89 bowset, spend a days worth of trophies into archery skills and turn my DD caster into an archer. It gets really silly that my new archer had 89 archery, and lvl 20 to 40 into other skills outdps's his former caster counterpart, by a massive margin, and only need to click autoshoot.

My plan is now to slowly max him out in gear and skills, while being an archer, and once up there transform him once again in a caster. But what a shame that it's near impossible for me to play a caster at this level, provided I don't want to kill myself seeing how much gold/xp I need to spend to only do what the most basic archer can do (using archer here because that's what I did, but fairly sure the same is true for bm/melee).

[Oneangel]

I also have all dd skills 100, full epic pouch, lg armour, staff and pets...with just over 500 int and nearly 800 cnc my staff and pets both miss less than my dds and actually contribute over 1/3 of my damage output, dispite my staff and pets only having 220 str and no dex for the staff. I've tried to make dd work, but am gradually switching to bm to farm as its much faster with far less effort. Dds had their time, for farming at least though, it's time to move on.

[terrorbladestorm]

Agreed,

I sold all my DD gems to support heal during arena with the mindset of buying them back later. But now that I am trying out BM, I don't think I will go back to DD. I guess all these 94-99 DD skills will be used for the next reroll.

Oh yes, 99 tigers and 92 whips with 89 BM skills = kills almost as fast as a full epic/uncommon DISEASE pouch DOT and 94+ dot skills. Not to mention my bm build currently has alot of pre, cnc, mst, pst which could all be converted into like str dex for more whip damage.

[dOWNer]

i couldnt agree more, reroll and sell me your stuff

[solopixy]

as hood says there is lg gears that boost magic dmg, (like spellbound, regulus bp) or that allow to double cast DD gems (dragontamer) but.....

most of legend weapons that give any add to magic dmg are not avaliable for pure DD casters, they are on slash/pierce/crush weapons.
so i guess i take my caster to be decently speed farmer in gob/vd3 or trash his gems and make pure healer to support teams on farming over abyss2

not to mention that in PvP any decent tank with shield make me deal more dmg back to me with they reflective shiled than i can do to them , and
seeing 2H melee that hits my caster with 10k+ in arena make me to think about pure DD caster are extinct (or near ir)

[solopixy]

Originally Posted by krimlinger

daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang, 10k+ hits in arena? is that WITH arena damage bonus, cuz if not you need to boost some defense bro

rub the salt on the wound

[SiSiX]

Respectfully removed

[Hoodrat]

omg why not make that flame on aura be a % based like all the other auras instead of a set amount :O O: :O

[Darkdingus]

Originally Posted by Hoodrat

omg why not make that flame on aura be a % based like all the other auras instead of a set amount :O O: :O

^^ This.

Say it again.

Though I'd support releasing a different aura that does the % boost in addition to Flamecall, as long as it would be making the loss of draw speed from Deft actually worth it (hinthint - it currently ISN'T)

[Ripple]

I dont think it's a damage issue as much as a landing your attack issue. Pet %chance to hit is what makes Beast masters so desirable also they just attack no mana or energy required. DD is not under powered, just for the end game content it's chance to hit is lower than pets so it takes longer and it requires figuring out how to manage resource pools to continue casting.

[Glitchless]

Originally Posted by Ripple

I dont think it's a damage issue as much as a landing your attack issue. Pet %chance to hit is what makes Beast masters so desirable also they just attack no mana or energy required. DD is not under powered, just for the end game content it's chance to hit is lower than pets so it takes longer and it requires figuring out how to manage resource pools to continue casting.

This is essentially correct. The hardest creature that has been group killed to date was done so with a DDer as the DPS. Not all builds are going to do equally well in solitaire, nor do we have any intention of trying to make them do so.

[Hoodrat]

Originally Posted by Glitchless

This is essentially correct. The hardest creature that has been group killed to date was done so with a DDer as the DPS. Not all builds are going to do equally well in solitaire, nor do we have any intention of trying to make them do so.

You talking the 127 heroic or the 132 boss? A BM also killed the 132 as the main sorce of DPS.

Also, I think sisix is talking more along the lines of solo capabilities and not needing to hide behind a tank and a healer to pew pew endlessly. I think he is trying to make it so that DDs are not confined to farming around Ustenar for decent kill speeds and can go into deeper black areas without the insane downtime of chain resists that are so demoralizing.

Casters in general invest so much more into their characters because of their gems, and they get resisted so much... and yet I can run around nearly every zone in Nodiatis as a BM and kill everything in my path... something is not even here.

When I can kill a 128 monster solo in 10 minutes, and no one else can match that excect other BMs, something is wrong. Hell, if I ever get dream stalkers I could probably solo ancient rocklands monsters. Don't you think there is a big gap opening up between classes?

I think some type of fix to resists PvE wise would help a lot of the issue, farming wise for both DDs and DoTs.

[Lightdrinker]

The 130 boss has now been killed by a full mellee team .Wont be long till they dial it in and do the 132 .
DDs are becoming very obsoulete .
I liked sisix idea of a skill to increase minimum damage this could go a long way .
Crits for 10 with max skills and Lg gear kinda sucks lol .

[terrorbladestorm]

I have said this in posts long time ago. DD casters farm faster but the downside is the amount of clicking. Its not even resource management, it is the CLICKING.

Back then, everything was fair because a DD has super fast farm speeds but the result was your hands hurt, your brain became numb. like 1 hour of straight DD farming and I was tired (I don't know about you guys but I can farm all day as a bm)

Now, a low BM could farm just as fast if not faster with 1 click. So my philosophy now is that everything is still fair in this game, but just not worth hurting my hand farming in dd or casting. The tradeoff between physical pain and farm speed is just not worth it as it was worth it before

[Lightdrinker]

archer/ bm builds can insta kill slake boss ... there is no need to be a caster to farm fast anymore not evne in nlake type areas .

Aoes are only thing that make any dd damage remotely feasible in arena ... there is no way you can kill any of the top tanks with single target dds anymore .

[terrorbladestorm]

The problem is that with LG, other classes are now far-outstripping DD.

This just points to a possible DD update in the near future. Maybe the first set of LG gems

[Lightdrinker]

Doubt will ever see lg gems .
? why the dd hate on that new staff ?
That could have included % less resistances chances from dds .