Clerical Dilemma

[kgb]

Apologies there LinuxPup I did not infer only players - i was also talking planar mobs along with the undispellable cap (in my previous post)

[Wolfarus]

As ive said before, i doubt any other major changes or additions will be made to ns4, given that the vast majority of resources are now concentrated on NS5. (so maybe this can be addressed in ns5, once it gets done)

Give wiz / sorcs / clerics a "pure" class bonus. If not as an all out pure thing (like fighters), then as an addition.

For every 2 lvls after 20, a +1 to dc is added to a spell school that the caster has invested fully into (so all 3 spell focus feats). This would add in a total of +10 to the dc. This, added to a thinning out of all the +death save items (if your char wasnt made with at least some fort. save enhancement in mind, then you shouldnt deserve the capability to shrug off a properly made sorc or wiz's death magic) would even out the playing field for casters, and get them off of the time stop / empowered igms tactic that they are forced to resort to constantly.

Or to make the wiz / sorc work even harder (and thus deserve the reward) to enhance their death magic, add in an additional +5 to their necromancy dc if, and ONLY IF they dont have any other spell focus above greater. (so if you want to have that feared and respected wail thruout the server community, you cant take any other epic spell focus except necromancy)

[BlkMamba]

If a cleric with 49 DC can't kill someone, then maybe he shouldn't have spent so much time making a one trick pony.

Hats off to Gary for Being a lvl40 pure cleric and haveing the Fortitude to take into PvP, He's about the only 1 i've ever seen, depending on my toon sometimes he can get me with it sometimes not, but at least he makes the best of it and his implosion isnt alway's what will kill ya.

[P. Fricebottle]

implosion is a death spell..its just that it bypasses normal death immunity sometimes.

Thanks for clearing that up Mask.

Keep in mind that he's a wizard, and a wizard's high int helps boost their spell saves from spellcraft even more. Also, add in the spell "Protection from Spells" and a Wizard is surprisingly resiliant in resisting spells.

To be honest I've never actually built a wizard before, to epic levels anyway. My main thing is rogues and the like, until -BB- switched to RK and I couldn't do halflings anymore.

ok im a huge cleric advocate but clerics are one of the best classes in game. Especially if you multiclass em with ither classes.

Yeah I had mentioned that in my other post, they're up there with Bards and Pale Masters.

A DC 49 implosion would not be sub par on NS4 as it is now... Gary's DC 45 regularly kills higher level characters already.

If a cleric with 49 DC can't kill someone, then maybe he shouldn't have spent so much time making a one trick pony.

Regularly is an overstatement. Chubbs was one of the few I could implode but Chubbs specifically built SDH to counter Gary and uses that on me, can get the mages in PvP, but as Ebenezer said, when hes buffed (which is most of the time) I can't. I can't implode any of your characters, so please name a few you've seen me implode. And people from TC and NC don't count, besides KST they're horrible PvPers. No offense meant but they're RPers more than anything.

Very true on the second statement though, which is why Gary is a 5 trick pony. Implode, Burn, Dispel, Run (lol), and Heal.

Hats off to Gary for Being a lvl40 pure cleric and haveing the Fortitude to take into PvP, He's about the only 1 i've ever seen, depending on my toon sometimes he can get me with it sometimes not, but at least he makes the best of it and his implosion isnt alway's what will kill ya.

I've seen a few pure clerics go to level 34 but none that had the determination to go all the way. You're the only 1 I've ever seen to build an effective Dire Mace build as well. Hats off to you for that.

Thinking back on it, with all the Fire Storms I cast maybe I should have named my cleric Trogdor.

[-BannyD-]

party with a pure bard

[Celorn]

party with a pure bard

Even a bard with 32 levels can lower someone's implode saves by 5 or 6, a pure is only going to take off 2 or 3 beyond that.

as for gary, he's tried to implode my pvp toons many times, like countless hecuvas.... they always fail to kill -- but I built them to have the highest base fortitude possible to counter the annoying stunning fists.

[P. Fricebottle]

I have absolutely no problem not being able to implode your characters Celorn. Most of your characters are built around strong implodes. I understand the concept, in a sort of rock, paper, scissors sort of way. Fighters and other Fortitude Characters make absolute sense to succeed the save. But when Wizards and Mages, which by definition, are supposed to be physically weak constantly succeed in a Fortitude Save, it just makes no sense.

party with a pure bard

I party with Ramius often, but the other team often has their own bard as well so the effects are generally cancelled.

[LinuxPup]

But when Wizards and Mages, which by definition, are supposed to be physically weak constantly succeed in a Fortitude Save, it just makes no sense.

Sure it does, they're mages... wizards especially get good saves vs. spells. They do generally have bad saves vs. non-spell saving throws like stunning fist.

And I just tested it... I took off my helm and had a cleric try to implode me.... then I put on a helm with +4 vs. Death and had him cast it on me again.... same fort save both times. Implosion is not affected by death bonuses.

EDIT: This also seems to be true with Destruction. You'll notice with these cleric spells it just says "Fortitude Save vs. Spells". Nothing about a save vs. death which I think might be the case with wail.

[disastro]

fyi protection from spells will add another +8 to save vs implosion. and as far as i know only ranks invested in spellcraft will get you a + to save vs spells, gear or int will not improve that. recall that in addition to your +save value you get a d20 roll on top of it, so a toon with a 40 fort rolling a 10 or 15 would account for the 50-60 range saves you're seeing on scrollback.

from what i've seen an implode based cleric will do pretty well against a certain range of enemies... lower level folks, people who are unbuffed and the wrong class, ungeared folks etc. on reflections natasha did VERY well with a dc 45 implode, until we started building characters to counter that.

in general DCs for ALL casters could use help, this is not a cleric specific issue. however as other people have pointed out this is not likely to get traction any time soon because clerics are already very powerful, and a wizard is also close to the "universal counterbuild".

the main thing a dc boost would achieve is some diversity in tactics and spells (there are tons of spells and schools of magic that are utterly unusable at high levels due to saves.)

edit: the other thing i wanted to add was that mords will auto strip certain buffs without a caster level check. ava is one of these auto-strip buffs. the spell breaches also auto strip a certain list, not sure if ava is on the lesser breachs list.

not sure why 'zon bards or dwarf elites cast mords, but there you have it

[LinuxPup]

Unlike tumble, bonuses vs. spells from spellcraft works on modified ranks... so a +5 spellcraft ring effectivelly gives you a +1 to all saves. This is of course only if you have 1 or more base rank in spellcraft.