Epic Spells vs Requiem - A Comparison

[Gadwin]

So let's do a direct comparison, right? Epic feat vs Epic feat. Both are magic-class-dependant- Hellball and Requiem.

Hellball does 10d6 of the base 5 elements in an AoE one time per use, with a reflex for half, and going against SR. It friendly fires.

Song of Reqiuem does Bard level (26 to 30) + Perform (40+) of pure sonic damage to one target, savelessly, without checking SR, every round for 10 rounds, or can split its damage among as many as 6 targets with a damage floor of being divided by three. It does not friendly fire.

Hellball can be cast once by default, and 30 ranks in a lore skill will increase the uses by three, as will taking other epics give 1 use per day, and these uses are not gained back on rest according to the wiki.

Song of Requiem can be cast over 30 times a day with little investment. These uses come back on rest. Even if you used something like half of your songs per day on curse songs and heroism songs, that's still 15+ minutes to work with after lingering song.

Hellball has five resistances and immunities to go through.

Song of Reqiuem has one- which is both a good and bad thing, but mostly good because I sure don't remember any PvE mobs immune to sonic from the breezy run-through my bard had of the server a year or two ago. Or at least, none that couldn't be dispelled with a quick flick of a breaching wand.


Under best possible conditions, hellball does its 175 combined elemental damage on a failed save to a group of over six enemies while the party has cleared out to let you cast it. Requiem in comparison is clipping away 70+ saveless sonic damage every round with 50% uptime against one target, or about 24 per target up to 6 targets in group settings. The requiem user's party does not have to play around it. The enemies do not get to save or SR against it- it just works.



With all this laid out as a direct comparison between two epic spell feats that both scale off of skills and other feats, there's a very clear disparity in overall effectiveness.

My question is, instead of giving all the boss mobs obscenely high sonic immunities for no reason to make sonic spells worthless against them while all bards have to do is press the button two or three more times, why haven't we removed those nonsensical sonic immunities and just adjusted the base formula to be something less ridiculous for such a high uptime, high efficiency ability that can also be made to do obscene healing with one extra epic feat investment?

[Blackman D]

well... the staff at the time of SoR/HoR buffing all played bards so... thats how it got the way it is... but yea good luck getting it curbed

not sayin it wont happen, but its been that way for ages now so not sure how it will go over

my bard only has a few levels so i wont care

[Endelyon]

People don't like nerfs. Pointing out the math and having an objective discussion about it is somewhat meaningless if you can't change the community's culture in the first place, as developers generally aren't going to be interested in touching things that will generate controversy.

Also only a couple of epic bosses have big sonic immunity, most are in the range of 0-50% which is pretty well in line with their other elemental resistances. Off the top of my head I know the Balor and the Frost Giant King have high sonic immunity (in the range of 75-100%). Epic bosses in general simply have high elemental immunities across the board and many do have blanket elemental immunities other than sonic.

[DaloLorn]

and these uses are not gained back on rest according to the wiki.

This is not actually the case. Epic spell uses are lost on login due to technical limitations related to the server split (can't accurately track how many you were last supposed to have, unlike regular spells which mostly get tracked correctly), but they're recovered on rest just like any other spells.

[Tekill]

You cant really compare the two- they are not the same.

Requiem is the best SONG and Hellball is the worst of the Epic SPELLs.

Epic spells are usually picked by casters to add to thier already extensive arsenal of destruction.

Requiem and either a few castings of sound burst or thier sword is all a bard has for dps.

If we were to compare all of a bards songs vs all of a wizards spells; even with requiem, songs would lose.

You would be better trying to compare Req with Barbarian Rage, Eldritch blast or sneak/death attack. Its a class specific bread and butter ability a bard utilizes to do damage at high levels.

I feel my bard is pretty tough- and I love SoR/HoR. But when my bard is in a group, the warlocks, sneak attackers and warriors often take out most enemies before I can even get one round of requiem off.

SoR and HoR might sound good on paper but in action it really only adds some support to the dpsers pumping out the real damage.

[DaloLorn]

It's kind of crappy, IMO, that Requiem is considered a mandatory element of a bard's arsenal. The assertion that it's the only way bards can work is... equally disconcerting, and dubiously accurate. (Though I think my bard is still scheduled to take it if she ever makes it into epic levels, because why the hell not?)

That said, yes, Hellball remains the worst of the epic spells. EDIT: Nope, that'd be the epic summons. I forgot those are a thing. Call Lightning Storm is 40d6 without friendly fire, without backlash damage (admittedly only a 5% chance), and with a +4 DC boost. Electric immunity is less common in PvE than fire/cold/sonic immunities, so the only practical upsides to a Hellball are ignoring Evasion and not requiring the caster to be in the middle of a heated melee. And, of course, any damage spell is by its very nature inferior to a save-or-die (except in high-end PvP, where inflated saves replace inflated HP by a wide margin).

Requiem's main use in a party, by the way, is as a source of mass healing (to put yet another nail in the coffin of attrition gameplay), or a panic button for when things go sour. If you're winning, Requiem generally won't make you win any easier... but if you're losing, it'll save your bacon a lot more easily than any epic spell could hope to. (Except I guess if you're casting an Epic Mass Heal versus undead enemies, the closest an epic spell can ever come to emulating Requiem.)

[whatever123]

Hellball is just not a very good spell in the pve environment here. The mobs here have low AC and offense, but lots of health and very high saves. The encounters also tend to be plentiful but low in intensity. Thus reliable damage over time tends to be superior to bursts. Normal DnD can be somewhat different, as there a Hellball could quickly turn the tide in a desperate situation.

(I am not criticizing anything, just analyzing why Hellball doesn't see much use even though in principle it's a fairly powerful spell)

[izzul]

That said, yes, Hellball remains the worst of the epic spells. EDIT: Nope, that'd be the epic summons. I forgot those are a thing. Call Lightning Storm is 40d6 without friendly fire, without backlash damage (admittedly only a 5% chance), and with a +4 DC boost. Electric immunity is less common in PvE than fire/cold/sonic immunities, so the only practical upsides to a Hellball are ignoring Evasion and not requiring the caster to be in the middle of a heated melee.

firstly, my epic lightning storm only deals around 153 damage max, not 40d6 = 240. so if they can fix it to do 240, i would be so happy, and the DC boost used to be +9 and not +4(after the nerf), and it deals 0 damage to Balor and Dracholich because it is immune to electric. it is not the better option IMO compared to Hellball but i still pick it for fun and weak areas. and Epic Gate is not worst pick either.

[DaloLorn]

firstly, my epic lightning storm only deals around 153 damage max, not 40d6 = 240. so if they can fix it to do 240, i would be so happy

40d6 is 40-240. Statistically, it is almost impossible for all 40 dice to roll sixes, but a statistical improbability is not the same as a hard cap. Hellball has 10 more dice, so it averages about 35 more damage, but chances are that at least 10 of its damage dice are completely negated by damage immunities. (Usually either fire or cold immunities in our content. Usually.)

and the DC boost used to be +9 and not +4(after the nerf)

That just means you need to boost your spell DCs. Grab evocation focus feats, crank up your epic caster levels, etc.

(To clarify, for those not in the know: The default behavior in NWN2 is to set an epic spell DC of 25 + caster stat (+ optional boosts like Lightning Storm's +4 DC). Rhifox changed it to use the same formula as any other spell, but if you've only got 17-22 caster levels and no spell focuses in that spell's school, that will be perceived as a -5 nerf to your epic spell DCs. Vilmar's epic spells only just break even with his CL32 and Transmutation/Conjuration Focus.)

[whatever123]

firstly, my epic lightning storm only deals around 153 damage max, not 40d6 = 240. so if they can fix it to do 240, i would be so happy

40d6 is 40-240. Statistically, it is almost impossible for all 40 dice to roll sixes, but a statistical improbability is not the same as a hard cap. Hellball has 10 more dice, so it averages about 35 more damage, but chances are that at least 10 of its damage dice are completely negated by damage immunities. (Usually either fire or cold immunities in our content. Usually.)

and the DC boost used to be +9 and not +4(after the nerf)

That just means you need to boost your spell DCs. Grab evocation focus feats, crank up your epic caster levels, etc.

(To clarify, for those not in the know: The default behavior in NWN2 is to set an epic spell DC of 25 + caster stat (+ optional boosts like Lightning Storm's +4 DC). Rhifox changed it to use the same formula as any other spell, but if you've only got 17-22 caster levels and no spell focuses in that spell's school, that will be perceived as a -5 nerf to your epic spell DCs. Vilmar's epic spells only just break even with his CL32 and Transmutation/Conjuration Focus.)

Does Epic Call Lightning storm work with master of elements?

[DaloLorn]

It should, I think, but the various Mastery feats and Piercing Cold are implemented in such a convoluted way that the only way to be absolutely sure is to try using it.

Unfortunately, my only archmage doesn't have the feats to spare for a fourth epic spell at the moment (nor would Epic Lightning Storm be his preferred fourth pick!), so I can't test it.

[Gadwin]

People don't like nerfs. Pointing out the math and having an objective discussion about it is somewhat meaningless if you can't change the community's culture in the first place, as developers generally aren't going to be interested in touching things that will generate controversy.

My primary concern with this is that it comes off as being unwilling to address powergaps in builds for fear of minority outcry when making a higher quality product for all users to enjoy. Putting aside whoever or whatever the top builds are for a moment, if there are 3 or 4 overperformers in a sea of hundreds of classes then it makes more sense to deal with the three or four rather than buff all others, no? Nobody has the kind of manpower necessary for the latter, not even AAA companies. And doing nothing makes for stagnant content; e.g "why would I play fighter when I could just play (OP Martial Class) instead?".

What people decide to contribute on the dev team is obviously their business, and we will more likely than not be happy to receive it alongside the other cool additions you guys have made, but I do think that being afeared of nerfs entirely brings another set of problems that are in my opinion worse than some emotionally immature people getting upset that their PCs are not better than everyone else's anymore. Skewed game balance affects everyone. Complaints about deserved nerfs do not.

[DaloLorn]

I wonder if it might be more interesting to make a handful of different epic songs, maybe something like this:

• Hymn of Requiem: Deals PBAoE sonic damage over time, as current Song of Requiem. (I like the name better. ) Maybe also a Will or Fortitude save to stun affected targets.
• Melody of Rejuvenation: PBAoE healing over time, as current Hymn of Requiem. Maybe also some lesser restorative effects, and/or some immunities (like poison or ability loss) for the duration.
• Sheltering Song: PBAoE Greater Invisibility for a duration scaling with Perform ranks. Maybe some mirror images too, or Freedom of Movement?

The idea being to make each individual song weaker, but open up a greater variety of song types to choose from and make burning an epic feat or two on Requiem a bit less of a no-brainer.

[Gadwin]

[Suggestion to split songs]

...The idea being to make each individual song weaker, but open up a greater variety of song types to choose from and make burning an epic feat or two on Requiem a bit less of a no-brainer.

The core issue with requiem is that it is a two-for-one special that has no real fail states where pve content is concerned, and both of the things it does are done better than similar methods of doing it. Splitting off songs so that bards have to manage their resources better would be a good start.

[edmaster]

This would probably go down as well as the change to Divine Power did all those years ago!

The only real way to get Those Epic Bard song Feats is by going All the way into bard since bard song progression is kind of hard coded above 24+ uses cause of black box hard codedness.

Bard is NWN2's strongest class in terms of how versatile it is and one of their arguably signature feat allows them to sing/heal others ears off, or combine group abilities.

They are a no brainer and don't require much mechanical tinkering to get wrong.