Spellcasters need a little more

Imo some of the spells (e.g. Arc, Flameblast, and as singletarget Flamesurge, Glacial Cascade) are in a very good self-casting-spot at the moment. They just feel weak because of the ridiculousness that some attack- or CoC-builds present (see the Gorge Clear Speed Records thread). One player dealing enough damage to easily carry five more just seems bad to me. Where's the challenge? Reflect is no longer a threat, thanks to Atziri's Acuity...
Running behind those type of builds lets you only collect loot, I'd rather play alone. :\

Oh, and I always considered the penetration gems to be a damage-multiplier-type gem for elemental spells. It's not listed on the dps tooltip, but it is.

Sure u can get some very decent numbers with spells (see Arc). However to reach these uber Atziri capable numbers u need some seriously OP gear (like lvl 4 empower, dual doryani's etc).

If you stick with arc + echo + fast cast + LL + light pen, u can do "some" dps. Atziri is doable but nothing amazing.

So what i mean is, there needs to be some middle ground here.

No single support can be added to balance all spells. They need to be balanced individually, one at a time. Arc is in a good place right now and a reasonable benchmark. I would say it's a little on the strong side compared to what I think should be the average, but in no way outrageous. GGG should look at other spells and ask "is this spell significantly better or worse than Arc?" If the answer is yes, rebalance the spell individually. Hell, I'd do this for them for free, but I doubt they're interested in that sort of assistance.

This would, of course, be a slow process and would require some patience from players, but it would be good if GGG did so. In fact, they may be doing so right now. I would remind everyone that Arc was only pulled out of the dumpster less than three months ago. We'll have a better idea how much of a priority this is to GGG when the 1.2 patch notes drop.

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Lord_of_Error wrote:

Oh, and I always considered the penetration gems to be a damage-multiplier-type gem for elemental spells. It's not listed on the dps tooltip, but it is.

The problem with considering pen gems as a multiplier is this:
Let's say an enemy (e.g. Golem) has 75 lightning res and you're using a 35% light pen gem. You're doing 2.4x the DPS (from 25% to 60%). You're still at a loss, though, since phys builds would suffer anywhere from 0% to 10% DPS loss on those guys.

If an enemy has 0 light res, you do 35% more. That's still extremely subpar compared to more melee phys, more projectile phys, more WED, etc.

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Saltygames wrote:

Sure u can get some very decent numbers with spells (see Arc). However to reach these uber Atziri capable numbers u need some seriously OP gear (like lvl 4 empower, dual doryani's etc).

If you stick with arc + echo + fast cast + LL + light pen, u can do "some" dps. Atziri is doable but nothing amazing.

So what i mean is, there needs to be some middle ground here.

This here is one of the problems. Arc isn't out of the dumpster for anyone but people with ridiculously expensive gear, because it takes so much currency to get the additive stats to cascade on a level that mimics the multiplier cascades phys builds can utilize. For most people, it's stuck at 8-10k DPS.

The same amount of currency spent on getting that DPS could get so much more DPS on phys builds, j/s.

up

they need to buff some spell
some of them are complete shit they do no dmg