Caster early levelling woes
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Started a new character to test the new gems.
at lvl14, unoptimazed (could have another +32% WED if i cared) i am doing 455dps along with pretty decent aoe damage using infernal blow... ofc all this is due to low lvl crap uniques (shiversting, fairgraves, sadima's, etc) just wanted to point out that the levelling speed cannot even compare to a caster. Everything i hit dies in 1 hit, all packs die in 3 (due to explosions), mana cost after mana leech comes ~9-10mana/attack... how is this fair compared to leveling with a caster? at which point would a caster have 455dps? we had 1-2 low level caster uniques introduced those last patches, but nothing comes close to low level uniques for attacks that exist already, why can't we have a proper leveling unique for casters? like a wand that has something like "spells do an extra 20-40 damage" it will help in the start, and due to it being static bonus it wont be broken after lvl 40ish i guess :( |
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Leveling as caster isn't hard. Check the 100minute race streams/ladder, Witches place very decent due to their great AoE.
"I accept Nujabes as my Savior."
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Balancing around twink gear would not be the right approach imo. Compare the leveling process in fresh leagues.
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" that's why i asked for caster lvling uniques and not a straight buff. you can easily twink attacks but not spells. after some time in a league i always end up levelling all my characters with stuff like shiversting+ST even if i have full spell damage passives and such, because it is always more efficient, safe, and fast. if they introduce proper caster levelling uniques the story will be different, we will be able to level up as the type of character we want to play. tl;dr : we can twink attacks to such ridiculous degree that even in full spellcasting passives it is better to level up with attacks, so give us some PROPER (triple/quadraple/etc) low level uniques to be able to twink casters as well. edit: imagine a corrupted staff (3s max) with "spells in this item are supported by lvl10 added cold and lvl 10 added lighting). given that it would require both hands, would have 0 % spell damage, and only 3s, it would never be good for end game, but it would rock for low levels. Last edited by shroudb#3225 on Feb 2, 2014, 7:03:50 PM
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I don't think racing is a particularly reasonable ground for saying "Nope, they're fine". If you look at them from the perspective of someone leveling up their second character on a more permanent league (some experience and cash, but not too much), they lag behind considerably, for various reasons. I level up both melee and caster characters fairly regularly. here's some of my thoughts on this:
- Melee builds have an considerably easier time leveling, at least from about 10-30. I would partially blame this on the fact that one of the most crucial support gems for casters, faster casting, is a level 31 gem. Most important/build-defining melee support gems are available lower - multi-strike and melee splash are both available at 19. - To add onto that, faster casting is significantly harder to get than melee support gems. Most melee classes can get almost every gem they need from normal quests. This is compared to faster casting, which isn't available till act 2 cruel, screwing over inexperienced (or poor) players in the lower levels. - Cast speed versus attack speed; the amount of cast speed you can get from the tree is absolutely pitiful, and considerably outclassed by the amount of cast speed you can get from the faster casting gem + gear. This is compared to physical characters, who can get considerable attack speed boosts from basically anything, with a much lower skill-point commitment due to high-efficiency nodes. - Builds that deal physical damage have tons of uniques that make them highly effective, and a few that are viable the entire game - facebreakers, quill rain(linked), staff of the caged god, etc. The closest casters have is the Searing Touch staff, and that requires you to deal fire damage. It's also pretty damn expensive for a newer player, at least when set against something like quill rain. Lifesprig is the only "universal" low-level caster weapon, and it's surprisingly hard to get your hands on, since people either vendor it, or try to sell it for 20c. - Several core mechanics don't efficiently work with casters - to use life leech effectively you've got to use the life leech gem, and (probably) ghost reaver. This is compared to physical characters that can find "leech 2% of damage as life" on basically anything, meaning they don't have to sacrifice a gem slot and several skill points to get some degree of functionality from a core mechanic. - A lot of nodes are kind of poorly designed. Zealot's Oath springs to mind; While it should encourage a life/es hybrid character/caster, it instead promotes pure ES use, because of how the regen is calculated. This would be fine if it were remotely accessible, but you've got to either be using maces, or sacrifice 2-4 points to inching along some strength nodes. While it's a notable passive and should require some degree of commitment, something like Resolute Technique is nowhere near as hard to build for - it's stuck on a path you'll probably be using anyway, easy to incorporate at no cost. Even something like Mind Over Matter has less limitations regarding the type of character you can effectively use it with. - Dual-wielding wands is garbage. Even builds that do it (somewhat) effectively could usually be improved by a decent shield. - Totems limit the power of casters, which is exceptionally frustrating. There's often very little reason to manually cast, since the power-boost totems provide (when adequately supported) so considerably boosts your damage. I'd even just love to have a good reason to manually summon skeletons, but the flexibility of manually summoning them is ridiculously outweighed by the power of a skele totem. I'm not actually saying casters are particularly UP or anything, they've just got a ton of design issues that make playing and leveling them much trickier and more expensive than playing and leveling a melee character. |
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in my opinion, this isn't limited to the early levels, but well into the lategame where a standard ground slam / heavy strike / leap slam marauder sh*ts on piety in 5 minutes with mediocre gear, a freeze pulse / ice spear / lightning warp witch needs either very good gear and sockets to do it safely or takes way longer for the piety run because of a lack of damage and survivability.
This only changes in high end maps with high end gear when the range aspect comes into play and the damage outscales the tankyness of characters in general. Until that point, in terms of passive tree and spell effectiveness, physical outclasses spells. At least in my experience. example with no links: Q10 Ice spear level 19: 175 damage per spear with projctile speed and higher crit chance. 100% spell damage wand: 350 damage. Q10 Heavy Strike level 19 with a 400 dps no link weapon (~2c in shops): ~1000 damage with 7.5% att speed. Yes, I know, ice spears crit a lot and you can get some crit damage. Melees just get strength for survibability AND damage. |
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casters are junk so don't worry about it... they're just as bad at high levels as at low levels, excluding maybe some discharge builds
The 352nd character to hit Level 100 in Standard
The 82nd character to hit Delve 1000 in Standard |
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" thats because in normal the element resist of mobs isn't that great. in cruel and merciless the resist start rising quickly and you have to add more links and use curse/s to keep up. even then high mana cost and curse immune will dent your clear speed. and the only decent levelling gear for caster is searing touch. now compare to the sheer amount of uniques physical builds get |
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" I got a burning Flameblast build that is already one shotting entire screens, and I haven't even started using RF yet. I think its moreso that phys builds take very little planning, I had help from Invelasco to plan a RF + Flameblast build and so far has more survivability than my 2H stunner did. I am going to put the build up in the forum at the end of domination. My favorite so far. |
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" Love to see it if it can get good solo clear times on rare 73+ maps, but I'll believe it when I see it. The 352nd character to hit Level 100 in Standard
The 82nd character to hit Delve 1000 in Standard |
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