tinkerer wrote on Jun 10^th, 2018 at 3:11am:



FvS is the most useful dc caster anyone could possibly be playing in Strahd or Baba. I don't know why it's difficult for you to understand that if you're playing a dc caster, insta killing half the mobs in a quest isn't dick measuring, it's simply (as you put it) the best way that you can contribute to a "smooth completion".

There are situations where you should ignore the mobs and heal people. There are also situations where you should let someone die. Figuring out the correct move (and doing it quickly enough) at any given time is what separates a good player from a bad player with good dcs.

If you choose to play FvS as a healer with a "secondary role" go right ahead, but you can fuck off with your pretentious "if you don't want to gimp your dcs for slightly more survivability, you must never have done difficult content" bullshit.

I considered picking apart the various retarded things you said (the incorrect assumption that you're going to have high enough dcs in US to "throw out [various shit with dcs] when it's optimal to" in high skulls, your moronic comment near the end of your post in regard to FvS being dps casters. Seriously, lol.) but by this point you've made it painfully obvious that FvS isn't your "thing". I can only assume you've been in situations where you died because a FvS felt that healing you was a waste of his time slash effort and that made you really sad.

Did I tell you to go fuck yourself with your "shut up and be a healbot" bullshit? Because you can go fuck yourself with your "shut up and be a healbot" bullshit.

Wipe wrote on Jun 10^th, 2018 at 11:48am:



This.

Wipe wrote on Jun 10^th, 2018 at 11:48am:
because Arcanes cast Sunburst. That's not a spell Favored Souls get, which you might have noticed if you'd ever actually played one.

12 second duration buffs.

What hell is this.

tinkerer wrote on Jun 13^th, 2018 at 12:07am:

I'll freely admit that I'm not current on FvS stuff, but wouldn't twisting Rebuke (tier 4) require you to also twist Blood and Radiance (tier 4)?  Burning two tier 4 twists just for that seems costly.

On top of that, wouldn't being able to maintain 5 stacks of Rebuke for the full 25% damage bonus require you to spam light-based spells to regen stacks of Ardor or is there an easy way to regen ardor??  If you're busy spamming light spells, wouldn't that make it hard to cast heals?

Digimonk wrote on Jun 13^th, 2018 at 4:11pm:

Yes you'd need to double twist tier 4, which is why its not optimal to be doing that. The arcane should definitely be using rebuke foe - AND both warlocks and sorcerers can easily take advantage of it. In fact, warlocks are the best rebukers by a mile due to how the aura functions (you only need to take 1 point to make use of it).

Rebuke takes some micromanagement but honestly its pretty easy to keep up even on a wizard / druid (arguably the 2 casters least suited for it).

My points were that while divines can fulfill other roles, specifically they make  good DC casters (I'm not debating that - well at least not that base statement), a raid group is much better off with them primarily focusing on healing / support than focusing on DC Casting.

There are several reasons for this:
1) DC casting vs healing sometimes puts you in situations where your positioning is precarious, and while having the dc caster down is bad, having the healer down in certain fights can be disastrous (the margin of error is razor thin).

2) Primarily you should focus on what your build does best - in reaper, build specialization is often the optimal way to form a group (you don't have the arcane heal when the divine is that much better at it).

3) IN the highest difficulties available, you probably can't afford to blow sp or casting time on offtier roles. Even though you can cast destruction or sunburst, you are much better off letting the arcane handle those.

4) While mass frog is typically thought of as a divine only thing, the cooldown is long and arcane's with a little bit of effort aren't half bad at it (debuffs help here).

5) FvS aren't suited for offensive dc casting like clerics are (don't get me wrong AoV and enhancement pass might add some nifty slas) but right now FvS is mostly used for the extra stat padding you get to make your toon survive in high reaper where a traditional healer wouldn't or wont.

So yes while I don't mind if the dc caster arcane in the group shoots off spells or eldritch blast to damage mobs every once in a while, I'd much prefer they focus on doing what I brought them for in the first place.

I also think that a lot of people underestimate how much positioning matters in higher difficulties. If you deciding to throw that destruction or worse slay living on something to get your killcount up when the arcane caster was 1 second behind you, and you stepped into a danger zone where you could have been killed - THAT isn't good play or a healthy play pattern.

Fuckwit wrote on Jun 10^th, 2018 at 9:18am:


Its an alt build and doesnt stop my healing in high skulls, so why not have some fun? Its a great build for what I need it for - farming tokens for my main

If my 2 FVS posts are overwhelming your intellect, then you can block me and never have to see those 2 post titles ever again ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

tinkerer wrote on Jun 13^th, 2018 at 7:28pm:


You're right, it isn't good for the healer to die. However, I'd argue that "if the healer dies, it's bad" is a better argument for "play smart" than it is for "don't think of yourself as a dc caster". Smart play, as per my earlier post, requires far more nuance than "you should always be doing xyz".

tinkerer wrote on Jun 13^th, 2018 at 7:28pm:


Absolutely, but a case can be made for divines being the best at dc casting for certain content. They have more instas that work on certain types of mobs than arcanes do.

tinkerer wrote on Jun 13^th, 2018 at 7:28pm:


My FvS has roughly 9500 sp at the moment, and I plan on having between 10000 and 10100 when I'm done with gear. Running out of sp isn't typically a concern. As far as the blowing casting time thing goes, that's (again) all about playing smart and choosing the right thing to be doing. Sometimes it makes sense to play primarily as a dc caster, sometimes it makes sense to focus primarily on healing. A good player should know what the correct move is given the situation.

tinkerer wrote on Jun 13^th, 2018 at 7:28pm:


They aren't bad at it, and they should probably take it. That being said, the dc gap between an arcane and divine for mass frog is not insignificant.

tinkerer wrote on Jun 13^th, 2018 at 7:28pm:


You're right that cleric got more love as far as dcs go, but getting (at the bare minimum) +2 dc from the upcoming enh pass will help.

tinkerer wrote on Jun 13^th, 2018 at 7:28pm:


Like I said earlier, the key is being a good player, not boxing yourself into a specific role. Figure out what the correct move is and do it.

I regularly run r8+, and although I'm on a server that doesn't have a massive endgame reaper scene, I do reaper raids when enough useful people are on. I don't think of myself as a dc caster or a healer, I think of myself as a guy playing a FvS who does his best to do whatever helps the group complete. Sometimes that means playing primarily as a dc caster and cc'ing/insta killing shit, sometimes that means playing primarily as a healer. Most of the time I bounce between both of those options multiple times per quest, because that's what you can do if you don't suck.

I'm sure you're part of the endgame reaper scene on your server like I am on mine. I'm sure you contribute to your group too. I don't understand why you seem to be so invested in knocking a style of play that is factually extremely effective. I don't feel the need to get into DDO dick measuring, but I'm pretty confident that literally nobody has ever been in a group with me whether in r10, reaper raids, or anywhere else and started thinking "gosh, I wish that guy was playing in US so he could contribute more".

I think we're just going to have to agree that we play the game differently, but that's fine. Personal preference really is a thing.

Wipe wrote on Jun 14^th, 2018 at 6:15am:


Had a guy a couple of years ago who was playing an evoker FVS tell me to stop putting down blade barriers with my cleric.  He didn't want mine messing with his.  Huh?

Fuckwit wrote on Jun 14^th, 2018 at 12:04am:


Not me then. But I can see you are the type who is easily confused by words on a page, so Ill forgive you

Pseudonym wrote on Jun 14^th, 2018 at 1:01am:


Agree to disagree. I play with the philosophy that on group critical roles (tank, healer, dc caster) you should aim to die the least amount possible; if you can get away with dying than the role isn't really needed imo given that death timers are so long on r10. Additionally this is probably reinforced by my absolute desire to NOT die when I play the game. It is why I played a dex ranger over a str ranger BEFORE scion of ethereal was out, etc.

Also for the record, I never said to "never DC cast / instakill". I merely said that in the vast majority of cases its a dick measuring contest.

Additionally, I don't see how you can say divines are the best dc casters in the current content - in instakills maybe they are on par, but in all other areas of relevancy they fall behind by a mile.

tinkerer wrote on Jun 14^th, 2018 at 5:39pm:


I feel the same way about dying. My original point was simply that in the majority of cases I feel that I can contribute more to the group playing in EA than I can in US by virtue of being able to dc cast in addition to healing. Yes, there are plenty of situations where I focus on healing, but unless I'm doing content where I know my dc casting won't be useful I like having dcs as an option.

tinkerer wrote on Jun 14^th, 2018 at 5:39pm:


On Cannith there aren't more than a handful of people playing good arcanes, so I'm often in situations where I'm the only dc caster. The high skull reaper scene in general is weak enough that people often resort to pugging, which is typically just as much of a shit show as you'd expect. I'm sure that my perspective is heavily influenced by that, and it's very possible that if I played on a server with a larger pool of useful players I'd feel the same way as you. FvS isn't the best dc caster, but it's very probably the best class for carrying a group of (at least some) mediocre players to a high skull completion.

tinkerer wrote on Jun 14^th, 2018 at 5:39pm:


I said that a case could be made for divines being the best dc casters in certain content, which is a statement that I stand by. They have more instas that work on constructs and undead, and although their cc isn't nearly as robust it's certainly effective in most content. Warlock has double finger but a tiny sp pool, sorc has a decent sp pool but only one finger. Circle helps but has a fairly long cd even with the reductions and double saves, so when you factor in the significantly higher mass frog dc divines are at the very least better at instakilling in a lot of content.

If I wanted to play a dc caster and nothing but a dc caster I'd still pick sorc, but I'd argue that FvS is different, less versatile and arguably worse in some ways, but certainly not "behind by a mile".

tinkerer wrote on Jun 10^th, 2018 at 4:45am:


Last Dev that was labeled that way was [i]Feather of the sun[/i]. Go figure.