ggg needs to take steps to make spells more approachable

@aellon
you fail to understand anything i said

every attack skill has atleast a physical part so it can leech without gems (except for stormcould there arent any weapons without physical dmg)
so saying attack users can leech without gems will always be true,like it or not
oh i forgot you can convert 100% of physical dmg away with unqiues,but again you are willingly doing this so you decide against leech without gem,spells never had this option

about your argument with WED.... again you fail to see a point...
yes it has to go up against monster resi but its a more multiplier that spells dont have,it still is an attack and has a physical part so it can leech,it can use pen gems and cruses like all spells do so its still superior

you didint read what i said about pain attument and RF
they work yes but when you plan on using them you have to use over 90% to reach the passivs you need for thus limiting the builds to thoses paths and other passivs next to it
if you compare these "more" multipliers to the ones that are available for attacks (which just require a socket) its not fair at all

EE and Ele prof ... another point thats just .....
it works for both spells and attacks
while you dont need any effort at all to alternate weapons (when you DW) for attakcs to proc EE its again much more work (and often anoying) to do that with spells (except certain builds,i.e. a traper which has to alternate traps anyway because of there cd)

i´m at no point saying the spells arent workign at all
all i say is spells need to be looked at since they have to many disadvantages compared to attacks atm

and plz dont start with all caster can dual cruse now (stack EW and fire/cold/lightning cruse...) it sanother heavy investment that you would force on all! caster builsd with your "logic" like RF and pain attument

just threw away all my currency in a 20 ex lotto to try and buy a void battery seeing as thats the only way you can selfcast in this game right now. pretty sad.

People keep saying why don't you use Pain Attunment or RF but fail to take into account how off limits those are for most people.

PA requires Shavs if you want to do anything more than docks/piety farming. That is unattainable for most players. Melee builds do not require Koams to be successful, so why should our builds require a high price rare unique.

As for RF you have the option of life or ES builds, but since it doesn't work with CI, you are once again forced to use Shavs if you want to use ES. A life based RF witch is possible, but why would you go that route when you could go life based maurader like most of the current life RF builds go, due to better access to life nodes?

I love the idea of RF and PA, and I'm currently trying to put together a PA RF witch as proof of concept, but that build will be useless for maps because it is entirely dependent on Shavs which I do not have.

Sorry for any typos I'm on my phone.

They should just make equipment spell mods multiplicative instead of additive with the passive tree. If a caster takes next few or no passives that boosts they'll get no damage increase, on the other hand if they take passives for dps they are giving up passives for defense.

As it stands good mod rolls on a melee weapon can change a 200 dps weapon to a 500 dps weapon and then all their passives and strength bonuses boost the final weapon value. Caster spells and caster items all work off the base excluding righteous fire and pain attunement(my caster build can't use either).

Give casters a choice sacrifice some of their ES nodes for more dps like a melee does life nodes or armor nodes.

I think that casters are a pain in the ass to level and gear,thats why they are not prefered in the new leagues.On standard,on maps that i run daily,i see casters that are rediculously powerfull.If it is a quetion of DPS,i can ensure you,that casters in high level maps and post 90 characters,deal more DPS than 90% of melee users,since 90% of post 90 melee users,are block tankers,most with aegis aurora,and their DPS is pathetic,and all them have a 6L and a legacy soul taker.
Also,i know that power siphon is an attack,but it is usually assosiated with witches.Wanders are some of the best builds around if you have the gear for it.The most powerfull ones,kill almost as fast as i do,but with much more safety.
All this being said,i beleive that casters are fine.They could use a very slight buff overall.The could definetely use a buff on eariler levels,and as far as melee goes,the only thing that makes op past 85,is block(which can be stack by casters,just not as easy).The game currently has absolutely ZERO counters against block,and they should add something like % of block penetration as map affix.Every other build in the game has its counters,only block remains untouched.Also aegis aurora could use a nerf,but this will just result in more legacy items,which is something nobody really wants.My 2 cents

"

Poutsos wrote:

I think that casters are a pain in the ass to level and gear,thats why they are not prefered in the new leagues.On standard,on maps that i run daily,i see casters that are rediculously powerfull.If it is a quetion of DPS,i can ensure you,that casters in high level maps and post 90 characters,deal more DPS than 90% of melee users,since 90% of post 90 melee users,are block tankers,most with aegis aurora,and their DPS is pathetic,and all them have a 6L and a legacy soul taker.
Also,i know that power siphon is an attack,but it is usually assosiated with witches.Wanders are some of the best builds around if you have the gear for it.The most powerfull ones,kill almost as fast as i do,but with much more safety.
All this being said,i beleive that casters are fine.They could use a very slight buff overall.The could definetely use a buff on eariler levels,and as far as melee goes,the only thing that makes op past 85,is block(which can be stack by casters,just not as easy).The game currently has absolutely ZERO counters against block,and they should add something like % of block penetration as map affix.Every other build in the game has its counters,only block remains untouched.Also aegis aurora could use a nerf,but this will just result in more legacy items,which is something nobody really wants.My 2 cents

i belive most of the insane dps caster you have met are lodead with are loaded with crazy items like dual void battery and i´m 100% sure they have all there gems at level 20(which means level 85+) + 20 q on them,if needed
anotehr thing is that caster are very glasscannoon like if they go for that much dps so they will have much mroe trouble running solo

the most comments in this thread agree on a few things

-attackbased charrs can leech without gems/casters cant

-there are better/stronger support gems for atatckbased builds (multistrike/WED/melee physical)

-the only more dmg support gem for spells can be used for attacks as well and has a huge drawback (30% less area radius which means 51% less area of effect)

-the manacosts for spells are much higher (except the new skill stormcall) so getting better/more access to manaregen isnt realy a benefit,its simply necessary

-all caster/spell weapons can roll caster and attack mods while there are many weapons that can only roll attack affixes so caster weapons are much harder to get

-physical dmg has a huge advantage over elemental dmg (there is only 1 physical spell EK) because of the amout of resi/cruse immune/cruse resists (bosses have 50% or less effectivness and still can have overcaped resi)

-witch/shadow have horrible access to lifereg (and lifenotes as well for witch)

-the number of enemys where you cant kite/stay at range is increasing very fast so when you are running solo you will come into "melee" situations regardless of beeing ranged/caster

-spells need 5-6 links to be very good,while attackbased charrs can do very well with just 4 (lifeleech and pen gem are pretty much mandatroy for casters just to sustain and get they dmg to atleast 50% of there tooltip against the very common cruse immun/resi monsters)

-getting level 20 gems takes slightly to long

In this game there is no way for attacks to avoid getting their critical strikes evaded(not sure about lioneyes). Spells penetrate evasion, a whole defense mechanic in this game to 100% while attacks can never do that without major drawbacks(resolute no crits etc).
On top of that spells cant be blocken without unique items and i think monsters dont have spellblock anyway.
Regarding physical damage, it has an included defense penetration vs low armour but spells still have their status effects(spells easier access to status effects but harder access to physical dmg).

While i do think spells have some strong advantages over attacks with a very good weapon attackdamage just gets too far ahead to spelldamage. I think spells need something like added basedamage from gear to get the same dps like attacks at the same(very high) gearlvl.

"

ciel289 wrote:

"

Poutsos wrote:

I think that casters are a pain in the ass to level and gear,thats why they are not prefered in the new leagues.On standard,on maps that i run daily,i see casters that are rediculously powerfull.If it is a quetion of DPS,i can ensure you,that casters in high level maps and post 90 characters,deal more DPS than 90% of melee users,since 90% of post 90 melee users,are block tankers,most with aegis aurora,and their DPS is pathetic,and all them have a 6L and a legacy soul taker.
Also,i know that power siphon is an attack,but it is usually assosiated with witches.Wanders are some of the best builds around if you have the gear for it.The most powerfull ones,kill almost as fast as i do,but with much more safety.
All this being said,i beleive that casters are fine.They could use a very slight buff overall.The could definetely use a buff on eariler levels,and as far as melee goes,the only thing that makes op past 85,is block(which can be stack by casters,just not as easy).The game currently has absolutely ZERO counters against block,and they should add something like % of block penetration as map affix.Every other build in the game has its counters,only block remains untouched.Also aegis aurora could use a nerf,but this will just result in more legacy items,which is something nobody really wants.My 2 cents

i belive most of the insane dps caster you have met are lodead with are loaded with crazy items like dual void battery and i´m 100% sure they have all there gems at level 20(which means level 85+) + 20 q on them,if needed
anotehr thing is that caster are very glasscannoon like if they go for that much dps so they will have much mroe trouble running solo

the most comments in this thread agree on a few things

-attackbased charrs can leech without gems/casters cant

-there are better/stronger support gems for atatckbased builds (multistrike/WED/melee physical)

-the only more dmg support gem for spells can be used for attacks as well and has a huge drawback (30% less area radius which means 51% less area of effect)

-the manacosts for spells are much higher (except the new skill stormcall) so getting better/more access to manaregen isnt realy a benefit,its simply necessary

-all caster/spell weapons can roll caster and attack mods while there are many weapons that can only roll attack affixes so caster weapons are much harder to get

-physical dmg has a huge advantage over elemental dmg (there is only 1 physical spell EK) because of the amout of resi/cruse immune/cruse resists (bosses have 50% or less effectivness and still can have overcaped resi)

-witch/shadow have horrible access to lifereg (and lifenotes as well for witch)

-the number of enemys where you cant kite/stay at range is increasing very fast so when you are running solo you will come into "melee" situations regardless of beeing ranged/caster

-spells need 5-6 links to be very good,while attackbased charrs can do very well with just 4 (lifeleech and pen gem are pretty much mandatroy for casters just to sustain and get they dmg to atleast 50% of there tooltip against the very common cruse immun/resi monsters)

-getting level 20 gems takes slightly to long

don't forget about the spell damage passives

spell damage passives suck donkeys

you need to get a lot of es nodes, and when you get ci you get stunned a lot, freeze longer and as you don't have evasion and armour gear you will take damage much more, so you have to get lot's of es nodes

but simultaneously you need to get crit nodes so you are not pathetic, and most of the crit nodes are +15% bonuses which suck, with major crit nodes you will need crit chance gem with your freezing pulse/fireball/spark (or arc) for it to have around 30-35% crit chance, and even THEN they don't deal enough damage and you also can't tank because of the reasons i mentioned before, you need to waste another socket for a life leech gem so you don't have to run around every damn time like a headless chicken for your es to regen

and still you don't deal as much damage as melee builds -.- and you will also have mana problem most likely, this can be a major or minor problem but seriously, WHY do you need to waste another socket for mana leech if you have over 300 int as a squishy little witch? it is not like you are going to be op when you can spam your weaksauce spell

thaaaan comes the gear problems...man, es gear is god damn expensive, without good es gear you will have around 2.5-4k es with discipline and this won't be enough to get away when you get chainstunned or take a lot of damage in a short period of time, like from titty monsters in lunaris or kole's or brutus's 2.5-3k damage tsunami attack

don't forget that sometimes you get cursed over and over by the whipping bdsm ladies in lunaris too, which is hot but painful

FOR SLAANESH!

well if your cast speed is high and if you had vaal pact, then than might change things but vp is 16 points away

don't get me started on leveling part, witches in early game is just HORRIBBLE!

well these are coming from a guy who tried to make decend non-squishy witch, only one succeeded and that was the incinerate witch as you could leech life FAST, so you were tanky, but that was with a 500 es 5L chest, 400+ es shield my friend lend me, 250 es circlet again my friend lend me

there was also a summoner but i gave up playing it, summoners are boring :/ i know they can become very powerful but god damn early game there are a PAIN to play

"

Saltychipmunk wrote:

spells scale horribly in the early - mid game. from level 1 - 48 there will never be a time where spells will come even close to the dps of ranged / melee weapons. at best they will do 50% of the damage of item characters for that 1 - 50 area. At worst they will do a quarter of the damage.

that simply is not fun. It not fun to know that for the first 50 levels of the game that any party you are in , YOU will be the one slowing everyone down. ALWAYS.

spells simply do not have the base damage in the early game.

I find that just finding some items that have + level to gems is the best way to level with spells.

Obviously it won't be close to leveling with a geoffrie's ground slammer, but dps is boosted pretty well I believe. Maybe not well enough to breeze through and one-hit everything, but at least well enough that you can kill mobs in 2-3 hits.

I'm playing a FP Crit Witch. It's fun but I don't feel like I have any real options.

AURAS: For attackers, every aura is amazing. Casters don't have great aura choices. Discipline is OK or straight up bad if you're not CI. Haste is meh when other auras give things that can't be picked up with passive points. Clarity is good but it's not a 'bonus' like auras should be because it's mandatory. Grace and Determination are obviously incredible, but they are much more so for melee characters who basically all get IR and are already stacking those defenses. For half of caster builds IR is just not going to happen, and that brings me to my next point.

I SHOULD HAVE ROLLED SCION: The current trend is Scions getting MoM, IR, enough mana regen to run AA better than any class, %life, life regen... That's a lot of good defense that Templars and Witches, the original spell casters, are pretty much not going to get. And I'd feel a lot better about it if we could get Dual Curse a little easier at the top of the tree (maybe move it top-left so it wouldn't be a given with any CI build). 5-7+ points is a lot and it'd be a real defensive boon without losing the -resist that feels necessary.