Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Aesop]

One major issue there. It will encourage more THF builds, but 95% of them will be 20 barb or 20 fighter due to how the mechanics are set up. Hardly a lot of variety there. It will on the flip side kill a ton of multiclass builds and twf builds for things like bards. Not sure if smite will proc on an offhand hook, if it does some twf pali's will remain for sure though.

Eladrin stated that the Smites could proc on any hit attached to the main strike. Thus if you DS and OH at the same time you could triple Smite... and your head may explode

Aesop

[Aesop]

i've experienced it too, but there has to be something in between. my monk with madstone and wind IV looks like a sugerhigh child in fast forward. at least adjusting the animation time is adjustable and leaves current / adjust current combat intact. when a better server solution appears the can always tweak up the speed.

even making static elemental/allignment damage would help. (ex. holy 7dmg, fire 3, force 5. instead of x rolls)

simple. Nerf Madstone... Its broken anyway

[Aspenor]

simple. Nerf Madstone... Its broken anyway

Um, what? Can you elaborate on that?

[Ollathir]

Eladrin stated that the Smites could proc on any hit attached to the main strike. Thus if you DS and OH at the same time you could triple Smite... and your head may explode

Aesop

shortly thereafter followed by a severe lag spike

[Aesop]

Um, what? Can you elaborate on that?

Unless I missed it... which is completely possible as I don't always pay attention.

Last I heard Madstone was still kicking out 20+% (maybe 25%) RoA increase even after haste was reduced to 15%. Thus Broken (imo).

Its bad enough that the Madstone Rage stacks with other Rage why should it be the superior form of haste as well

Aesop

[Aesop]

shortly thereafter followed by a severe lag spike

nah you only calculate th Collision once for that. its not the DPS itself that causes lag its the Collision Detection. hence the change.


The nerf is to try to bring balance to the force... er system

Aesop

[Angelus_dead]

Um, what? Can you elaborate on that?
The problem with Madstone Rage is that it was originally given a 20% enhancement bonus to attack speed, at a time when Haste was a 25% enhancement bonus to attack speed. That functioned as a minor convenience for times you didn't happen to have Haste, which hardly ever happened during an important fight.

Then there was a combat adjustment and Haste was reduced to a 15% bonus, while all melee attacks were made 10% faster so they'd be the same overall. But Madstone Rage was not changed, so it went from being worse than Haste to being better.

Since Madstone Rage prohibits spellcasting, that indirect Madstone buff was unfair to melee characters that need to cast spells frequently, primarily Paladins and Monks of Harmonious Balance.

[Ollathir]

nah you only calculate th Collision once for that. its not the DPS itself that causes lag its the Collision Detection. hence the change.


The nerf is to try to bring balance to the force... er system

Aesop

Yeah..I know, irony lost

[Drfirewater79]

We're considering modifications to the bonuses the feats grant, and possibly even bringing back STWF.

While i dont want to discourage any feat that will allow me to continue to enjoy my fighter rather then convince everyone in the world to go tempest for dual weilding ...

if everyone takes stwf will that not just make the same lag?

so you take the swing % down but then add a feat to make it even again (feat or enhancement line ... and really its stupid that rangers have higher to hit % then a fighter with melee weapons ... dont care if its a pre or not ... cause if that was the issue then it should be added to kensai too)

once everyone respecs out there stunning blow for superior two weapon wont that just generate the same amount of numbers and calculations leading to roughly the same amount of lag?

i mean fixing shroud and other massive dps lag seems like hard work (and i know it is) but something about all this makes no sense to me ...

I dont know anything about game programing and i wont pretend to .... but if you can just get 100% anyway by taking an extra feat or by following an enhancement line then why have the % at all ... what does it fix?

since you cannot stun a raid boss many will opt out of some feats that are not as useful as others for 100% off hand.....

it seems like there is a big flaw in the thinking that came up with this fix?

and if everyone decides to go tempest then you have bigger issues ... cause the attack speed and exploiter type builds with 100% off hand will swing faster and cause more faster calculations rather then the fighters slower attack speed causing less calculations per round.

Also

I might have missed it but doesnt this really screw over the guy who has two lighting strike II's?

like well .. .me

now my off hand will proc less so i spent all the large ingredients and then you lower my proc rate?

and then you tell me OH BUT YOU COULD HAVE TWO DIFFERENT EFFECTS .... come off it man ... the whole reason someone creates a two weapon fighter is to use two weapons ... the biggest DPS is done by people with two of the same weapon ... two min II's Two Lightning strikes ...

why the hell would i want as a fighter to have a radience weapon ... its not gonna help my dps against raid bosses who cannot be blinded or damaged by fire ... so am i just screwed and too bad or will proc chances stack with eachother on the new double strike (making an effective 3% chance of lighting strike be closer to its double hit chance of 3%+3% chance ---not 6% but very close too ---) other wise its a big kick in the wringllies for us dwarven fighters who dumped a ton of ingredients into weapons that have half there usefulness due to fixing lag?

at least you could let people destroy the weapon and get all the ingredients back (even if you had to make the base weapon again and got stuck with crafted ingredients you could at least then send them to other characters)

I would really like to know how two weapon procing will change for two same type weapons and if they will not stack anymore ... what is being done to allow people to recover after changes you guys forced on us ....

cause it wouldnt be very fair if you allow us to craft something and for reasons that are not gamebreaking remove it at our cost.

[Gercho]

The problem with Madstone Rage is that it was originally given a 20% enhancement bonus to attack speed, at a time when Haste was a 25% enhancement bonus to attack speed. That functioned as a minor convenience for times you didn't happen to have Haste, which hardly ever happened during an important fight.

Then there was a combat adjustment and Haste was reduced to a 15% bonus, while all melee attacks were made 10% faster so they'd be the same overall. But Madstone Rage was not changed, so it went from being worse than Haste to being better.

Since Madstone Rage prohibits spellcasting, that indirect Madstone buff was unfair to melee characters that need to cast spells frequently, primarily Paladins and Monks of Harmonious Balance.

hey, my paladin doesnt complains about madstone rage :P you can allways unequip the boots when you have 2 mins left on zeal and divine favor, recast, and then reequip...
Madstone boots speed boost is nice when you are soloing mostly (in boss fights the con bonus is more important imho), so i dont think its a big deal, maybe drop them to haste levels, but not lower than that...

[Rameses]

So after reading this or at least what I could fathom...
This change to the combat system will be similar to what happened to StarWars Galaxies years ago...

There will be those that scream nerf and there will be those that like the change.
I'm gonna wait and see before I render my final judgement on the change.
However atm without seeing it other than on paper, I'm really not liking it. :(

I am, Rameses!

[Cetus]

With regards to the fighter dps discussion, fighters havent received any love throughout the 4+ years of playing this game until PrE and capstones were released.

Even then since the games inception, when people thought of a massive damage dealer, everyone thought barbs.

I was able to prove that a fighter can at the very least out "burst" dps a barbarian while maintaining defenses at least to or even higher than that of.

Now, its been tested that barbs contain the fighter capstone as a hidden effect in their own, their TOD set bonus grants them dps and even hp up the wazoo, while the fighter one grants +5 to hit. Although useful against epic mobs at first, the installment of the epic sos rendered it unnecessary.

Barbs even get an extra +4str/con from their past life onto their rages now.

If this proposal gets installed, glancing blows while twitching will be eliminated, thus the need for GTHF. Barbs get to increase in their defenses by changing it with a toughness feat, fighters cant get anything.

The alacrity bonus now changes to a doublestrike chance. So fighters get a 10% to doublestrike with every hit right off the bat, barbs should have zero- instead they have it hidden in their capstone as proven by various testing.

And fighter haste boost, granting that 30% speed boost now is translated into a 30% chance to proc a doublestrike. So the benefit now is 40% unique to fighters alone for 20 seconds to hit more than once per hit...this point I have no comment on, I'd have to test it.

I think its about time fighters get some love as THF for a change, instead of this STWF bull****.

[Ollathir]

While i dont want to discourage any feat that will allow me to continue to enjoy my fighter rather then convince everyone in the world to go tempest for dual weilding ...

if everyone takes stwf will that not just make the same lag? Any lag fix from the loss of physics detection check may be minimal and stwf was just a bone.

so you take the swing % down but then add a feat to make it even again (feat or enhancement line ... and really its stupid that rangers have higher to hit % then a fighter with melee weapons ... dont care if its a pre or not ... cause if that was the issue then it should be added to kensai too)

once everyone respecs out there stunning blow for superior two weapon wont that just generate the same amount of numbers and calculations leading to roughly the same amount of lag?

i mean fixing shroud and other massive dps lag seems like hard work (and i know it is) but something about all this makes no sense to me ...

I dont know anything about game programing and i wont pretend to .... but if you can just get 100% anyway by taking an extra feat or by following an enhancement line then why have the % at all ... what does it fix?

since you cannot stun a raid boss many will opt out of some feats that are not as useful as others for 100% off hand.....

it seems like there is a big flaw in the thinking that came up with this fix? It's a TWF nerf.

and if everyone decides to go tempest then you have bigger issues ... cause the attack speed and exploiter type builds with 100% off hand will swing faster and cause more faster calculations rather then the fighters slower attack speed causing less calculations per round.

Also

I might have missed it but doesnt this really screw over the guy who has two lighting strike II's?

like well .. .me

now my off hand will proc less so i spent all the large ingredients and then you lower my proc rate?

and then you tell me OH BUT YOU COULD HAVE TWO DIFFERENT EFFECTS .... come off it man ... the whole reason someone creates a two weapon fighter is to use two weapons ... the biggest DPS is done by people with two of the same weapon ... two min II's Two Lightning strikes ... Yes

why the hell would i want as a fighter to have a radience weapon ... its not gonna help my dps against raid bosses who cannot be blinded or damaged by fire ... so am i just screwed and too bad or will proc chances stack with eachother on the new double strike (making an effective 3% chance of lighting strike be closer to its double hit chance of 3%+3% chance ---not 6% but very close too ---) other wise its a big kick in the wringllies for us dwarven fighters who dumped a ton of ingredients into weapons that have half there usefulness due to fixing lag?

at least you could let people destroy the weapon and get all the ingredients back (even if you had to make the base weapon again and got stuck with crafted ingredients you could at least then send them to other characters)

I would really like to know how two weapon procing will change for two same type weapons and if they will not stack anymore ... what is being done to allow people to recover after changes you guys forced on us .... nothing. Still just feelin the waters I believe, not set in stone.

cause it wouldnt be very fair if you allow us to craft something and for reasons that are not gamebreaking remove it at our cost.

actually

1) Casters used to DPS so they have monsters 100X the hp and made greensteel weapons.
2) People use to run past trash mobs so they gave us DA
3) People used to make AC toons so they gave us Glancing blows
4) People used to love min 2 so they nerfed it
5) Casters use to debuff and finger of death stuff so they gave everything that matters blanket immunities
6) People used to use w/p so they broke it
7) People used to take the 2hf feats so they are breaking them now
8) People used to make 2wf so they are nerfing them

Did I miss anything?

[Ollathir]

/snip

Barb capstone will get fixed... eventually. Not really somethin I'd factor in.

[Cetus]

Barb capstone will get fixed... eventually. Not really somethin I'd factor in.

Oh im not factoring it in, just saying that from the observational standpoint, whether bugs or not, fighters never got any love. Even a dang bug favors the barb. Its just funny :)

[Zistra]

Which is to say ALMOST EVERYTHING. We know nothing (best I can tell) about the sources of lag or what the Devs are considering to address them except for what the OP has mentioned. So how can we intelligently debate whether the proposed change(s) will fix the problem(s)? Here are the things I can think of from the mushroom-like place wherein I dwell.

1. Is lag a math-based problem? If so, the proposed change to the physics check has a decent chance to improve it. Heck, if that check is being made on every swing, clearly that is a programming problem to begin with.. swing frequency increases over time MUCH faster than movement speed does. A target in range and hittable is far less likely to not be by the next swing when the swings are closer together. Tie the physics check to time passage, rather than swings and you will reduce its frequency considerably in higher-level content. Probably more than just by turfing the one for the offhand attack. Determine once per interval which target(s) are hittable and which are not. This leaves open the ability for a TWFer to hit different targets with main and offhand; the OP does not seem to clearly indicate whether removing the 2nd physics check for the offhand will.

2. Is lag a communications problem? Is it about propagating too much information to/from each client? If so, pick a point at which to aggregate said information but potentially allow after-the-fact access to the detailed combat log for those addicted to dissecting the play-by-play post-mortem {hmm.. possible bad choice of term ;) }

3. Is lag a programming issue? Is there some piece of code that requires optimization, and in what respect? Can the worst cause(s) be somehow offloaded to dedicated hardware?

4. Is lag a purely load-based issue? Would throwing more hardware at it make a difference? If so, what kind of hardware? Could you somehow instance the few quests that trigger the issue onto a dedicated server? How many such would be required to make the problem go away? I'd live with a waiting list to start a run cause all the dedicated servers were in use...(within reason, of course).

5. Is lag truly only a problem in certain quests? Can those quests simply be rewritten to avoid it?

************************************************** ********
Strong opinion follows... not all argument provided due to space constraints:

I am categorically opposed to any change that many are willing to state forces over 50% of players (80% maybe?) to reroll or respec their toons completely and invalidates all the effort they put into customizing gear. This is a game-breaker. Our entertainment is not supposed to frustrate us to this extent. I am unlikely to be able to continue to play this game myself, and I hear others with similar opinions. Refunding our VIP monies is the least they should do for those of us driven away by such a sweeping change, forget about allowing free TR's or Greensteel rebuilds for those who stay. This changes the product I bought into something virtually unrecognizable. Not fair to do that to any product AFTER purchase. Nerfing is ALWAYS A BAD IDEA. Maybe power creep is a problem, but the solution is to not release power upgrades until they are completely sure they will never be reconsidered, not to rewrite half the combat system after several years in business.

I vote no to the TWF nerf. If you want our input into how to resolve the lag problem, provide us with more information on that problem, not on your proposed 'solution', which looks far too unrelated from here.

[Halock]

Eladrin stated that the Smites could proc on any hit attached to the main strike. Thus if you DS and OH at the same time you could triple Smite... and your head may explode

Aesop

Now - 100% chance when pressing smite on a TWF build to get a double smite
Changes - 80% chance to get a double smite, 20% chance ( 1 out of every 5 ) to get 1 and something like less than 5% chance to get a triple.


It is the most frustrating ting in the world to hope for procs, especially on limited use items, or items with lengthy cooldowns ( smites etc arnt all that lengthy though ). These changes seem unfun to me.

[Ollathir]

Oh im not factoring it in, just saying that from the observational standpoint, whether bugs or not, fighters never got any love. Even a dang bug favors the barb. Its just funny :)

agreed, though Im so far behind the times with mt TWF Barb, didnt take the capstone.

[Halock]

One major issue there. It will encourage more THF builds, but 95% of them will be 20 barb or 20 fighter due to how the mechanics are set up. Hardly a lot of variety there. It will on the flip side kill a ton of multiclass builds and twf builds for things like bards. Not sure if smite will proc on an offhand hook, if it does some twf pali's will remain for sure though.

++

This change wont make it attractive for people to build THF rogues monks and rangers, it'll just make those classes less effective than they are now, which is already behind THF barbs and fighters.

[Natashaelle]

@Eladrin

First of all, +1 rep for the clarity of your post :)


My comments are also given in the light of my support to increase DPS of S&B and THF vs. TWF. I love the TWF fighting style (hell, even my cleric is getting it :P), but I feel for those wanting to do other fighting styles.

I'm a little surprised that so little is said about the new THF S&B in U5, I think many people still don't realise exactly how much of a boost it will be for S&B in general. Although, OK, the false mantra of "AC is useless in the end game" hasn't been at all helpful towards S&B :(


1) Removal of the Physics check on off-hand attacks

This makes a great deal of sense, and I personally would support tthis change. This change would not affect characters in any significant in my opinion, even if the main hand attack specifies a missed swing and thus the off hand attack is automatically a miss when it could of hit, its given back evenly when in the space of 0.15 seconds an offhand attack could of missed where the main hand attack hit.

This is not exactly true, one deep design issue in the new proposal, which can be taken both pro et contra btw, I'm not just dissing the proposal, is that it seems that the ability of 2WF toons to attack multiple targets simultaneously will be quite significantly diminished, given that off-hand attacks will now be made exclusively against the same target of one's main-hand attacks. The effects of this will be either positive, neutral, or negative -- depending on people's individual fighting styles for their individual toons.

Considered from the binary point of view, one toon/one mob, the changes to physics detection will be of minor incidence ; this is not necessarily the case though, in cases of one toon/multiple mobs.

One mechanical consequence of this change is that combat will inevitably be slower in the new system, because dual-wielding vorps or other insta-kill or similar will mechanically become less effective than previously when fighting against groups of mobs.


2) Implementation of the Double-Strike main-hand attack instead of certain speed increases

I have no problem with this, personally.

ditto


3) Implemetation of the Proc chance for Off-hand attacks.

My gut reaction to this was an emphatic 'No', changing all my pre-determined 'definite' attacks into a percentage based chance to seem my attacks happen... eurrghh...

Then I took off my TWF-Rulez hat and put on my I-Hate-Lag hat and can understand the idea, see the programming behind the idea and see the lightbulb-flashing-in-the-bath moment that happened when you come up with the idea.

With the standard 80% Proc Chance for all classes available (assuming GTWF), a net reduction of 20% of Off-hand DPS output is good for lag.

Personally, I think that this is a perfectly acceptable rebalancing of 2WF versus the other fighting styles.


4) Implementation of the STWF Feat / Tempest 1/2/3 Changes

I see no need for introducing Superior Two Weapon Fighting as seperate, choosable feat. At All. Adding another feat to all everyone to get 100% Off hand chance is playing into the hands of those classes and builds with feats to spare, while those builds that have managed to squeeze in the three TWF feats but have no space for others will be left behind.

I disagree, I think that providing this (v expensive) option to people who absolutely want to be 2WF specialists is a good thing. It will encourage people to think about the level of 2WF that they want, which levels of sacrifices they are willing to make, and it will provide a boost for Fighters and Rangers, including some of the deeper multiclassed toons, in this domain versus people who were just jumping on the Ranger 6 Tempest band wagon as a cheap and easy solution for more DPS.


If (when?) the game moves into Epic levels, then it could be possible to introduce the Perfect Two Weapon fighting feat. This would be as the currently suggested STWF, granting another +20% Proc rate chance.

Keep the playing field level on this one.

*Yoda Voice* For Rangers though, different take, suggest I would.

Change the Ranger Off-hand bonus proc chance for Tempest 1/2/3 to 5/5/10% cumulative, so at Tempest 3 they have a full 100% Off-hand attack rate.

The current 10% improvement at level 6 has always been too huge of a bonus in my opinion, and the prestige enhancement needs balancing out to be top end heavy like some others (KotC 3, for example).

Despite the seeming boost to Rangers, they would still lose that 5th Attack overall compared to a current 18th Level Ranger, and thus contribute to the lessening of DPS lag while still offering something unique over a lvl 20 TWF Kensai Fighter.

Perfect Two Weapon Fighting for a Tempest Ranger would be the same - a 20% bonus to offhand attacks - however, as this would be a total 120%, this could be simply be implemented as a 5th Off-hand attack on the final 4th swing. In this way, the feat stays the same for all classes and non-tempest Rangers, but pushes the Tempest ranger up that one final notch - they are the exemplary Two Weapon Fighters, and this in my opinion would reflect it.

Much of the design work in the D&D Epic Level Handbook is of fairly poor quality, and I'm not at all certain that the devs should do any more than use it as a source of ideas ; instead of trying to adhere religiously to its contents.

In my experience, if you decide to make a push past 18th/20th level in D&D, you need to make some quite fundamental balance decisions concerning the game as you intend to implement it in your house campaign and your house rules.

You mention a level playing field, but there's a need for caution here -- too much of a level playing field leads off in the direction of D&D 4E, where the defining differences between the character classes can be replaced with a very boring homogeneity.

I would far prefer the various fighting styles available, unarmed, single 1H weapon, S&B, 2HF, 2WF each to be defined with some pro et contra characteristics and possibilities that you can choose between, for the purpose of your character concept.

Concerning the Epic levels again, it seems quite clear to me that the proper balance needs to be found between these various styles before the next level cap increase ; balance simply means that no single style must be seen as being inherently superior to any of the others, except insofar as the Turbine devs wish to impart a certain type of design/GM style to DDO :)

[Natashaelle]

One major issue there. It will encourage more THF builds, but 95% of them will be 20 barb or 20 fighter due to how the mechanics are set up. Hardly a lot of variety there. It will on the flip side kill a ton of multiclass builds and twf builds for things like bards. Not sure if smite will proc on an offhand hook, if it does some twf pali's will remain for sure though.

Speaking as someone who is deeply allergic to the idea of playing a single class toon --- I still think that single class should be encouraged (and rewarded) by the game design, and that the more exploitative flavour of the day MC builds should be actively discouraged, whereas people's deeper multiclassing, more respectful of the spirit of the game, should not be hindered in any way.

Multiclassing needs to remain kind of an art form, instead of being a method to subvert the deeper principles of the game.

[Zargarx]

As with all those (excluding rangers) that had to reach 17 dex (without enhancements) and use 2 (ITWF) or 3 (GTWF) feats, doing a TWF build is a major commitment.

After rereading the first post, I realize that it has serious implications for my favorite char and my second.

I think we need more examples of the impact, so I'll share my favorite 2 builds, both at lvl 12.

One is a warchanter bard, the other a battlewizard. Both are directly aimed at twf including race selection of drow in order to get the enhancement lines for rapier/short sword. Both require a high dex (17) to reach ITWF sacrificing other stats to get there.
Both have ITWF. That means the bard with a BAB of 9 hits twice with the main weapon and twice with the off-hand weapon. As strength is somewhat low, both rely of effects (e.g. wounding, cursing, etc.) to be viable as a support melee class.

Unless I'm reading it incorrectly, the proposed change looks like bad for my favorite characters as it will really hurt their already limited melee capabilities. Number of attacks per round drops by 20% from 4 to 3.2.
I'm not clear if the chance of special effects drops even more or if that is only if it the same as the primary weapon?

Feat swaps won't help much for either. A lesser heart (if one magically falls into my lap) could save the warchanter somewhat (despite being drow), but not the wizard without a major play style change.
I feel that this change will finally cement WF as the only real choice for wizard and sorcerers with other races only there for those that want gimped flavor.

These builds, and, like other builds that a significant amount of players have, will be borked by the proposed change. A different solution should be considered without severely crippling dual weapon support melee classes.

p.s. The problem should be broken down further - exactly what & where is it over-powering?
e.g. If Tempest I is a problem, then adjust it (perhaps 5% speed boost and +1 to hit on primary hand when TWF). Yes I also have a Tempest build and agree that they are a bit over powering (but fun to play!).

[avery61]

Great ~ nerfing my favorite class (Ranger) along with the multi-class Ranger/Monk. Not in favor of this at all. Great way to wrap up a wekend, 1st ~ I get downgraded from premium to free, for who know how long, and now this wonderful little announcement.

[rayflo]

I dunno if its been asked but if this happens is there a short window That dungeon alert can be turned off to test and see how the lag is with your intended fix and no da

[walchnigs]

What a polite way to nerf our TWF toons, all wrapped up nicely in a 'reduce lag package'. Do you sell ice to Eskimos?

Since most of my toons are capped and TWF'ers I would be extremely unhappy to see their dps drop.

Most of the lag I hear others complain about, mine is not that bad, could be resolved with better equiped servers.Why not tone down the useless feedback settings from the servers, just like everyone turning off all feedback, unchecking the 'any' box on the who page etc. There are multiple routes to check before changing the way the toon attack and the damage they do.

I think this is going to happen, i think we have no say in the matter and this is just a way for the Dev's to say we gave you a chance to voice your opinion and we went this way. I have spent the better part of 2 years working on my toons, correcting mistakes, adapting to new content etc, i would not want to start over because their simple solution to solve dps lag is to reduce dps.

nailed it right on the head. Upgrade YOUR servers dont downgrade OUR dps pls.

[Alintalkin]

Just a reminder to make sure that feedback is kept in the forum guidelines. (most everyone is doing a great job, and only a few tempers have flared beyond the appropriate point, so keep it up!)

I wanted to take a moment to respond to two comments expressed in the thread. Dungeon Alert, and hardware.

We've already given DDO major upgrades to servers and datacenter, so continued "upgrade your hardware" comments are not contributing to the discussion in a productive manner.

^^ I just want to un-bury this as there are many comments about hardware. Though I get the complaint, (I even mentioned such things before the quoted post) it is not relevant. Hardware was upgraded already and DPS lag still stands. All the posts about hardware are doing is cluttering the thread. Also again, I am commenting on the fact that the nerf to TWF is not related to the lag fix, they wanted to "kill two birds with one stone" as the saying goes.

This is coming from a person who is still looking for a revision of these changes (at least to the extent that pure monks using monk weapons should only be nerfed to the extent other full BAB classes [As monks have full BAB when using monk weapons] when that is not the case as other pure BAB chars can get 110, 100 while monks get 110 80). I just hate the idea of people scapegoating this change with by blaming hardware when it has already been stated that upgrades to servers did not fix DPS lag. This was another solution. One that might actually work (possibly).

Edit: As an aside and a little off topic, I just realized that this thread has more then a tenth of the number of posts in it then the total posts Borr0 has. That is a pretty impressive feat. And it means that Borr0 posts fill over 1000 pages worth of posts of this forum O.o

[Paragon]

nailed it right on the head. Upgrade YOUR servers dont downgrade OUR dps pls.

The servers are not the problem. When devs tried to view instances of this DPS lag through the server they saw everything running normally, no lag. They determined that it was a problem with the client, not the server. That is not to say that everyone else needs to upgrade their machines, it simply means that something needs to be changed in the client code to make it run more efficiently during combat-heavy situations. Now it seems that the devs have identified the problem and are trying to attack it by removing unneeded physics checks.

The deal with DPS is completely different. We have an opportunity here to readdress balance among the classes and the various combat styles in addition to making a lag fix. I personally have come to the view that alterations would be a very good thing. DPS needs to be decreased in several places to make this game more balanced and less dps-centric. Along with that, however, we need a fundamental change to the way that quests and content are designed. A closer balance between the dps outputs of THF, TWF, S&B, and Mages coupled with monster HP decreases and changes to make AC/defenses not only useful but important/necessary would only result in much more diverse character designs and a great increase in the value of DDO's gameplay.

If I have to sacrifice some DPS for that, fine.

However, Turbine's hardware has nothing to do with any of it. Please stay on topic.

[Calebro]

The servers are not the problem. When devs tried to view instances of this DPS lag through the server they saw everything running normally, no lag. They determined that it was a problem with the client, not the server. That is not to say that everyone else needs to upgrade their machines, it simply means that something needs to be changed in the client code to make it run more efficiently during combat-heavy situations. Now it seems that the devs have identified the problem and are trying to attack it by removing unneeded physics checks.

The deal with DPS is completely different. We have an opportunity here to readdress balance among the classes and the various combat styles in addition to making a lag fix. I personally have come to the view that alterations would be a very good thing. DPS needs to be decreased in several places to make this game more balanced and less dps-centric. Along with that, however, we need a fundamental change to the way that quests and content are designed. A closer balance between the dps outputs of THF, TWF, S&B, and Mages coupled with monster HP decreases and changes to make AC/defenses not only useful but important/necessary would only result in much more diverse character designs and a great increase in the value of DDO's gameplay.

If I have to sacrifice some DPS for that, fine.

However, Turbine's hardware has nothing to do with any of it. Please stay on topic.
Yet again someone has managed to vocalize my thoughts much more eloquently than I ever could have.
Well said.

[r3dl4nce]

The deal with DPS is completely different. We have an opportunity here to readdress balance among the classes and the various combat styles in addition to making a lag fix. I personally have come to the view that alterations would be a very good thing. DPS needs to be decreased in several places to make this game more balanced and less dps-centric. Along with that, however, we need a fundamental change to the way that quests and content are designed. A closer balance between the dps outputs of THF, TWF, S&B, and Mages coupled with monster HP decreases and changes to make AC/defenses not only useful but important/necessary would only result in much more diverse character designs and a great increase in the value of DDO's gameplay.

If I have to sacrifice some DPS for that, fine.My fear is they will nerf TWF dps, but mobs will stay the same. Same millions of HP, same ultra high To Hit (making AC useless), same blanket immunities and so on... So longer fights, so more sp needed, so more sp potions bought from store... (especially in the actually low dps parties)

[Coldin]

The servers are not the problem. When devs tried to view instances of this DPS lag through the server they saw everything running normally, no lag. They determined that it was a problem with the client, not the server. That is not to say that everyone else needs to upgrade their machines, it simply means that something needs to be changed in the client code to make it run more efficiently during combat-heavy situations. Now it seems that the devs have identified the problem and are trying to attack it by removing unneeded physics checks.

The deal with DPS is completely different. We have an opportunity here to readdress balance among the classes and the various combat styles in addition to making a lag fix. I personally have come to the view that alterations would be a very good thing. DPS needs to be decreased in several places to make this game more balanced and less dps-centric. Along with that, however, we need a fundamental change to the way that quests and content are designed. A closer balance between the dps outputs of THF, TWF, S&B, and Mages coupled with monster HP decreases and changes to make AC/defenses not only useful but important/necessary would only result in much more diverse character designs and a great increase in the value of DDO's gameplay.

If I have to sacrifice some DPS for that, fine.

However, Turbine's hardware has nothing to do with any of it. Please stay on topic.

I don't think it's even that...though it may be part of the problem.

As Eladrin's post details, it's about communication between server and client. When they test it there, any DPS lag is probably greatly diminished, since the data has a much smaller distance to travel. We see this DPS lag because the data is going back and forth between a dozen clients and the server from all different locations.

[gfunk]

Just wanted to chime in with my thoughts:

1) In general I am against all nerfs because it means we have to re-invent our current characters to re-optimize them. This generally leads to more grind which isn't a good thing in my mind. If we were given some olive branch to help take the sting out of the nerf, that might help: I'm thinking somethihng like green-steel deconstruction, so we can break down our newly gimped weapons.

2) After the last change to attack speeds a few updates ago, I became a bit geneally disenchanted with the combat system. Many players had put alot of effort in here on the forums in order to understand the current state of things, only to have the ground yanked out from under them. For example, Cforces thread concerning attack speed which was a fantastic resource (that has never been completely replaced post attack speed changes).

The lack of clarity about attack mechanisms makes it especially difficult. We had to experimentally determine how various speed buffs stacked, instead of recieving open communication from Turbine. An easy example to illustrate this is the issue with the ranger capstone... Its doesn't seem to function as advertised, but there has been no dev comment concerning this discrepancy. This lack of transparency makes me suspicious of any further changes.

Vague descriptions dont help either, for example the "increased chance" for THF glancing blows. Honestly, how can we be expected to have a valid opinion concerning THF vs TWF vs S&B effectiveness if we have to experimentally deriv all our proc/glancing blow rates (which will then always have a margin of error)? If the devs want good feedback, then they should give us clearer information up front.

3) I am not convinced about "the two weapon fighting style’s extreme dominance over two handed fighting. ". It seems pretty clear that TWF would be better for some classes, like monks, rogues and rangers, but THF is becoming far more dominant for Barbarians and to lesser extent Fighters. The dps seems like it is indeed higher for THF barbs vs TWF barbs, and may be a draw for fighters. Of course, THF has other advantages (which I am sure have been addressed given the length of the thread) but I'll mention attack range and the ability to maximize STR (which leads to more stunning blow success which of course leads to more DPS). Perhaps the Devs could clarify this "extreme dominance"

4) Simplifying TWF mechanics seems to make Combat a bit simpler too, and thus more like WOW or LOTRO. THis kind of takes away the "pulse pounding combat" or whatever their tagline is. Taking the fun out of THF (removin neccesity to move) does a similar thing.. moves us closer to point and click combat... yuck.

[IronClan]

The servers are not the problem. When devs tried to view instances of this DPS lag through the server they saw everything running normally, no lag. They determined that it was a problem with the client, not the server. That is not to say that everyone else needs to upgrade their machines, it simply means that something needs to be changed in the client code to make it run more efficiently during combat-heavy situations. Now it seems that the devs have identified the problem and are trying to attack it by removing unneeded physics checks.

If I have to sacrifice some DPS for that, fine.

However, Turbine's hardware has nothing to do with any of it. Please stay on topic.

Well said, long time multiplayer gamers know that lag is a many headed hydra, the simplistic mantra of "upgrade the servers" or "if this works can we dump DA" tells me that maybe Turbine needs to post a primer on just what lag is and the different kinds of things that can go wrong to cause it.

Maybe that with a corresponding tweak to make the DPS loss closer to 10% than 16% to take a little of the sting off; would help the many players who are having the most violently exaggerated reactions to this proposed nerf calm down a little and look at things a bit more realistically. Instead of posting lots of "the sky is falling" and "they're trying to trick us!" and "They are just doing this to sell hearts" types rants in general discussion.

[Elaril]

4) Simplifying TWF mechanics seems to make Combat a bit simpler too, and thus more like WOW or LOTRO. THis kind of takes away the "pulse pounding combat" or whatever their tagline is. Taking the fun out of THF (removin neccesity to move) does a similar thing.. moves us closer to point and click combat... yuck.

I'd take this a step further and say that the general slowing down of combat that is apparently at least at the dev's table, sucks the fun out of one of the more enjoyable aspects of the game. Couple that with the decreased variety in character builds that will likely occur with the elimination of swing speed enhancers and eliminating the twitch aspect of twf, and combat in this game will be dumbed down to the point that it will indeed resemble a point and punch mmo.

As the combat in this game, in my opinion, is the big differentiator between DDO and all the other MMOs, I'd encourage the devs to think long and hard before going forward with any nerf or change that will fundamentally alter it.

[Ollathir]

/snip.

well said G, +1

I understand the need though to bring TWF more in line with THF, S&B...Turn Undead.

[Emili]

Just wanted to chime in with my thoughts:

1) In general I am against all nerfs because it means we have to re-invent our current characters to re-optimize them. This generally leads to more grind which isn't a good thing in my mind. If we were given some olive branch to help take the sting out of the nerf, that might help: I'm thinking somethihng like green-steel deconstruction, so we can break down our newly gimped weapons.

2) After the last change to attack speeds a few updates ago, I became a bit geneally disenchanted with the combat system. Many players had put alot of effort in here on the forums in order to understand the current state of things, only to have the ground yanked out from under them. For example, Cforces thread concerning attack speed which was a fantastic resource (that has never been completely replaced post attack speed changes).

The lack of clarity about attack mechanisms makes it especially difficult. We had to experimentally determine how various speed buffs stacked, instead of recieving open communication from Turbine. An easy example to illustrate this is the issue with the ranger capstone... Its doesn't seem to function as advertised, but there has been no dev comment concerning this discrepancy. This lack of transparency makes me suspicious of any further changes.

Vague descriptions dont help either, for example the "increased chance" for THF glancing blows. Honestly, how can we be expected to have a valid opinion concerning THF vs TWF vs S&B effectiveness if we have to experimentally deriv all our proc/glancing blow rates (which will then always have a margin of error)? If the devs want good feedback, then they should give us clearer information up front.

3) I am not convinced about "the two weapon fighting style’s extreme dominance over two handed fighting. ". It seems pretty clear that TWF would be better for some classes, like monks, rogues and rangers, but THF is becoming far more dominant for Barbarians and to lesser extent Fighters. The dps seems like it is indeed higher for THF barbs vs TWF barbs, and may be a draw for fighters. Of course, THF has other advantages (which I am sure have been addressed given the length of the thread) but I'll mention attack range and the ability to maximize STR (which leads to more stunning blow success which of course leads to more DPS). Perhaps the Devs could clarify this "extreme dominance"

4) Simplifying TWF mechanics seems to make Combat a bit simpler too, and thus more like WOW or LOTRO. THis kind of takes away the "pulse pounding combat" or whatever their tagline is. Taking the fun out of THF (removin neccesity to move) does a similar thing.. moves us closer to point and click combat... yuck.
Has been my sentiments likewise as I look upon this...

[Veriden]

wow...ok, I can agree to this if by messing up current attack speed you go out of your way and make as many named (with decent enchantments) handwraps as there are named swords.

First you bend the monk players over and then you wrap the sand paper around an insertion device next comes you know what and you won't be seeing many playing monks....

[xxScoobyDooxx]

As anyone that really knows programming will tell you, efficient code makes a huge difference. Much more than any increase in hardware will do.

Anyone who knows networking knows not enough bandwidth causes LAG or Packet Loss depending on the rate limiter setup their ISP uses.

Code may be efficient when 100,000 people are playing but it may not be as efficient when 500,000 people are playing. There is a limit to how efficient code can be made. Once at this limit hardware and bandwidth are your only choices.

Also this is not code efficiency this is recoding taking away functionality. Big difference.

It is most likely not a single problem and this imay be the cheapest way for them to fix it. Recode it once and no more cost.

[Dentali]

I think something important for Turbine to note in general is the fact that there have been many players who have stated they will quit paying for this game if this change is implemented, whereas none of those whom have supported the change have stated they will quit if the change is not implemented. Regardless of what happens, everyone needs to understand that MMOs are a product. How well the product is advertised is just what gets people to play. Upkeep is what makes people want to keep playing instead of leaving for greener pastures. Sony did not listen to their player base in Everquest, so at least half of it left to play WoW. I am neither for or against either side, because I don't play a 2wf or 2hf class. However, I believe Turbine thinks their player base has more faith in them than they actually do.

All in all, it is Turbine's game and ultimately their decision, but when it comes to business, consumers will only take so many irritating actions from their favorite business until they decide to buy a product from someone else. We'll have to wait until tomorrow to see how this thread pans out, but it's hard to say how they'll respond.

[DelverRootnose]

...most when I switch between characters without shutting down the game. Memory size keeps increasing. you should spend some time looking for memory leaks or failures to release unused memory.

[Emili]

Anyone who knows networking knows not enough bandwidth causes LAG or Packet Loss depending on the rate limiter setup their ISP uses.

Code may be efficient when 100,000 people are playing but it may not be as efficient when 500,000 people are playing. There is a limit to how efficient code can be made. Once at this limit hardware and bandwidth are your only choices.

Also this is not code efficiency this is recoding taking away functionality. Big difference.

It is most likely not a single problem and this imay be the cheapest way for them to fix it. Recode it once and no more cost.
I mentioned that before... I do not see why one swinging smite from a pally has to send 12 separate packets back to my client... is one event - toss them all in the same packet.

[Emili]

...most when I switch between characters without shutting down the game. Memory size keeps increasing. you should spend some time looking for memory leaks or failures to release unused memory.
Harbage collection is poor in this respect also...

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

I think something important for Turbine to note in general is the fact that there have been many players who have stated they will quit paying for this game if this change is implemented, whereas none of those whom have supported the change have stated they will quit if the change is not implemented. Regardless of what happens, everyone needs to understand that MMOs are a product.

I know people who have quit over the lag. They might come back if the lag went.

Garth

[Emili]

Just a note... Riftbow done told me he ran a ToD tonight. As such one of the party had bright idea for lag in part two... they intended on only four of seven melee attack the boss during the kiting to keep from lagging... their result in several attempts was failure due to not quite enough dps, the kiter having to deal with four to six shadows and the FvS and two clerics eventually run out of mana. ;)

Yet most the completes I have in ToD were under what people call dps lag... the blind heal and the wing and prayer of the kiter - yet prevails - my suggestion be to most of you, get your ToD's done now as this quest will be a lot different when most kiters will have four or more shadows to deal with.

[Adoyall]

When someone says there is a lag issue I have to wonder why they got rid of servers instead of keeping them and limiting the number of toons per server? ya my buddy just started playing and we want to play together, well if that is the case set something up to allow a player to change servers without paying, could be done with the new person adding a name into a "recommended by" space at sign-up or something.

Limited number of servers is going to cause lag issues, that should be obvious.

[REALb0r3d]

Just piggyback the offhand strike on the first swing.
Do this for all offhand strikes.

No nerf to DPS. 1 less calculation per 2 hits. 3 less calculations to attack chain.

Done.

You're working a nerf in by saying this is less calculation, most of the time.
See this is potentially more swings, but mostly not.
I'm finding it impossible to be eloquent...

And how does the THF barb tank most any raid where someone is looking for a hate tank?
Is it because their DPS is lower than the TWF, where the DPS is king?

[Coldin]

Anyone who knows networking knows not enough bandwidth causes LAG or Packet Loss depending on the rate limiter setup their ISP uses.

Code may be efficient when 100,000 people are playing but it may not be as efficient when 500,000 people are playing. There is a limit to how efficient code can be made. Once at this limit hardware and bandwidth are your only choices.

Also this is not code efficiency this is recoding taking away functionality. Big difference.

It is most likely not a single problem and this imay be the cheapest way for them to fix it. Recode it once and no more cost.

But isn't this a case of useless code functionality?

If Eladrin simply made each TWF feat add 25% change of an off-hand swing, then it would be more or less identical to what we have now, just in percentage form.

We loose some code functionality in that off-hand attacks no longer check for collisions, but as explained, that was a silly check since it was less than a second after the main hand. Losing double assassinates hurts because of that change, but in general, that was more of an ability to show off.

I still hold that simpler code will make it better, be it 100,000, or 500,000 clients reporting in.

And, I think it's important to remember that Eladrin said they were attacking this problem on multiple fronts. So there's a good chance memory leaks and bandwidth issues are getting attention as well. This combat change just happens to be something they can actually get feedback on.

[Swedishchef]

The join date is the same that you started your game account. I made this account in December 2006, so my join date is December 2006 even though I only created my forum account in January 2007. Unless you tell me that is not your only US DDO account or used someone else's account, there is no way you have had the chance to try the slow combat system we've had in mid-September 2009.

True but if i had a account on th European servers that was started in 2006 it wouldn´t show would it.........
So if you think the start date matters you sir are, well, uninformed shall we say.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

wow this thread has really slowed down... hopefully when Eladrin gets in tomorrow it'll heat up again.

http://i45.tinypic.com/20igmlx.jpg

(ticks are Eladrin posts. Less pretty but live feed here (http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tPbSF0CWSV_ZTXzAVZwAMiw&single=true&gid=3&output=html))

Garth

[Bigrtt]

I have to say I'm still now happy with this propsed change. I really don't understand why a whole part of the game has to be changed just because of something that happens in maybe 4 or 5 different areas, and only in the right groups.

Surely there's a better way.

[Asymetric_War]

I have to say I'm still now happy with this propsed change. I really don't understand why a whole part of the game has to be changed just because of something that happens in maybe 4 or 5 different areas, and only in the right groups.

Surely there's a better way.

Exactly. The only places I see lag are on load in, portals in shroud 1, beating harry in shroud 3, and during the shadow kiting in ToD. Other then that no lag no problems. Maybe it's because I invested in good hardware for my gaming rig or maybe I'm just lucky but if the Dev's insist that the only way to fix other people's lag is to nerf my dps,.. well I don't think anyone can blame me for not being terribly excited by this.

let's be honest tho, this isn't about lag, it's about making THF builds even more powerful at the expense of everyone else and especially at the expense of Rogues - the only 2wf class that get's absolutely NOTHING in the proposed changes to compensate them for the 20% cut to offhand attack speed. No double attacks on our main hand. no prestige to bring us back up to full speed. NOTHING. All we get is the chance to agonize over a new extra feat we can't afford.

I had planned to drop another $20 to reincarnate a couple of my toons in anticipation of the new Monk PrE's but I think I'm going to hold onto my money. Turbine isn't getting a single solitary penny more from me until and unless they scrap this nerf.

The good news is there's a new Fallout MMO in the works slated to be released later this year so I won't have to wait long for a new game.

[drow13]

the edited version of the % chart looks like it addressed the tempest class issues that arose in my mind... but theis looks really drastic to the whole TWF ...:eek:

[Meetch1972]

Eladrin stated that the Smites could proc on any hit attached to the main strike. Thus if you DS and OH at the same time you could triple Smite... and your head may explode

Aesop

My L20 pally with 400+point exalted smite III will be happy with that, but only on the condition that the exploding head annihilates all heretics in sight. >:)

So... I'm considering TRing this pally - first reincarnation - in a few weeks, preferably to a DPS build of some kind, and perhaps using the past life. WF unavailable for now, but FVS should be unlocked. Considering the TWF changes proposed, and the chance that perhaps it ain't nerfed due to outcry, what is my best bet for the new build? I'm tossing up TRing as a full/part trap monkey, and then who knows what in the next life - but just how much will the rogue suck in battle? I know PnP rogues are fragile enough, but the mechanics must be different due to the nature of the MMO, and a certain amount of survivability must be possible on all builds. But how non-sucky can this TR be tuned up to without requiring all the rogue uber-gear? Is TRing as a rogue going to be as good a choice as picking pally again, or are they both worse options than FVS? Uncertainty...

This uncertainty is the biggest problem I've got, and I'm sure it impacts on many others much more than I. At most, I'd say put in the DPS lag fix with a 100% proc on the off-hand, then start tuning once the fix is bedded in.

The first rule of system tuning is DO 1 THING AT A TIME. Take a reference benchmark. Put in what you believe to be the fix. Take another benchmark, compare, and quantify the improvement. THEN start the DPS tuning. If you have to roll back for some silly reason then you're rolling back a singular and very core piece, not dragging other DPS changes back with it. If it's too much to do both separately, I'd suggest first change the system to the new method at 100% off-hand proc for everyone who gets it at the moment, so the same fight should take the same time/effort/resources. THEN start tuning the values. Again, if a rollback is required the players should not be guessing at their DPS yoyoing between updates, unless of course the system is fundamentally flawed - but at least you'll know.

As an aside, the only thing I really want fixed is when I CLICK and CLICK and CLICK on a button in one of my shortcut bars, and nothing happens. Then click on another button in there and that works, then back to the original button and that then works - or make sure I've got the right bar selected and hit 0 - that works too. Gives me the %#$^s.

[bobbryan2]

I think it's important to differentiate between DPS lag and instance specific lag.

Everyone knows it lags a lot in ToD 2, Shroud 4, and Shroud 5.

Ok... fine. But most of the time, that "DPS lag" is confined to those instances. Why does the lag mostly go away in ToD 3? It's the same amount of DPS....

The difference is Shadowfiends. Shadowfiends are the cause of "dps lag" in ToD 2.

In Shroud 4, it's the blades.

Shroud 5 has gotten better, but the devs have confirmed it was mostly due to particle effects.

This is why you don't see the same levels of DPS lag in the Abbot, or ToD 3, or the Stormreaver, etc....

DPS lag isn't quite as big of a deal as people think. It only compounds terribly coded instances that have other issues. Everyone wants ToD 2 fixed... but let's start with fixing Shadowfiends and whatever they're doing to our systems.

In short: Let's not completely alter the game to change something that will likely not impact these three areas. Fix the encounters... don't modify the combat system.

[Angelus_dead]

Ok... fine. But most of the time, that "DPS lag" is confined to those instances. Why does the lag mostly go away in ToD 3? It's the same amount of DPS....
It's not the same DPS. Not as many players are attacking as consistently in part 3, because some are hanging back to avoid being hit with spells and banishing, others are chasing Orthons, and some are dealing with Suulomades.

Even among the group fighting Horoth they're not trying to DPS as hard, because it will cause trouble if someone accidently pulls aggro from the tank. Part 3 typically starts with one tank fighting the boss solo for a bit, but in part 2 there's no reason for any non-kiter to do anything except damage the boss as quick as you can (unless they're trying to prevent lag of course!).

Oh, and Boots of Anchoring means players don't keep the high attack speed of Haste and Madstone on as fully as they do other places.


The difference is Shadowfiends. Shadowfiends are the cause of "dps lag" in ToD 2.
Yes, in the sense that players can't productively attack Shadowfiends, so they only draw one player away from the boss, unlike Orthons in part 3 that might be killed by several melee or casters.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

True but if i had a account on th European servers that was started in 2006 it wouldn´t show would it.........
So if you think the start date matters you sir are, well, uninformed shall we say.

I don't believe the EU servers got the super slow attack. We got that with the release of DDO:EU (wow, thats confusing naming) and then it disappeared before "mod 9" was release in Europe...I think.

[FluffyCalico]

Could they pop shroud up on the beta server for a week with no blades?
Just to test if it is the blades compounding the DPS the issue into the problem we see?

Perhaps all those blades doing placement and targeting checks on the players drives the instance nuts.

I mean how hard would it be for them to put up a shroud with no blades to see if it helped. We know DPS and swings are part of it but perhaps the blades are too.

In TOD part 2 the shadows have that aura that has to constantly check all around it for players. Could be the same type of thing. Perhaps it only when you combine DPS with tons of AI enemy targeting checks that you get DPS lag.

[bobbryan2]

It's not the same DPS. Not as many players are attacking as consistently in part 3, because some are hanging back to avoid being hit with spells and banishing, others are chasing Orthons, and some are dealing with Suulomades.

Even among the group fighting Horoth they're not trying to DPS as hard, because it will cause trouble if someone accidently pulls aggro from the tank. Part 3 typically starts with one tank fighting the boss solo for a bit, but in part 2 there's no reason for any non-kiter to do anything except damage the boss as quick as you can (unless they're trying to prevent lag of course!).


Yes, in the sense that players can't productively attack Shadowfiends, so they only draw one player away from the boss, unlike Orthons in part 3 that might be killed by several melee or casters.

Well, in my groups, the EXACT same number of people beating on Horoth in 3 as on the Master in 2. What this tells me is that the two encounters are coded completely different. There is a coding problem with Shadowfiends... they lag people out. It isn't the DPS in that encounter, it's the fiends. Yes... DPS lag magnifies these problems. Extremely high DPS groups have issues with the first spawns of shadowfiends.. lower DPS groups do completely fine until he's half dead.

DPS lag is a problem... don't get me wrong. But it's only a big deal because there are other bugs going on.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Could they pop shroud up on the beta server for a week with no blades?
Just to test if it is the blades compounding the DPS the issue into the problem we see?

Perhaps all those blades doing placement and targeting checks on the players drives the instance nuts.

I mean how hard would it be for them to put up a shroud with no blades to see if it helped. We know DPS and swings are part of it but perhaps the blades are too.

As a cleric/fvs almost the only time I have laggy healing in Shroud 4 is when the blades are in. There are exceptions, days when you know even in pt 1 that everything is lagged, but generally its when the blades go in I hit quicken and spam heal because I KNOW what I'm seeing is not people's actual health.

[Veriden]

After reading the OP through four times I finally understand what Turbine is trying to do.

1.) single out monks to blame their attack speed for the lag (which isn't the problem in the slightest)
2.) The devs obviously have never had any love for the monks (the handful of monk items and handwraps proves)
3.) This is the big one: They're trying to make the monk player's rage quit, or at least make them stop playing their monks. Seriously monks are not dps or tanks like other front line fighters they're one shot wonders (once per fifteen seconds for dark monks) and support to make spell casters use a little less sp, and bard buff stackers (light monk fire+light+fire finisher) to ensure your power attacking WF barb can get his dps in...how ever they are over looking one serious thing that makes a monk usable...

WE NEED TO HIT THINGS TO GENERATE KI.

You lower the number of our attacks and you just make it that much harder for us to get into shroud, ToD, and the like. You guys have already screwed up monks enough want to single out a lag cause? FIRE WALL nerf that, after all that is what makes things in ddo that would normally be a challenge a laugh while we dance in the fires leading less than intelligent npcs around in circles...Don't mess with the 'dps lag' from monks.

Nerfing fire wall would be far more beneficial any ways..you'd have far less people exploiting lacking in intelligence npcs. Even mentally handicapped puppies don't jump into a wall of flames willingly even if there is a juicy steak on the other side.

But in the end, monks will be hit the hardest by this and thus we will all be sad face, except for me, time to re-think how to keep monk good stuff. only one ability I haven't found a use for yet, the stupid timeless body. Ooo a 2nd level spell no one ever uses b/c theres no use for it as a 17th level ability...seriously wisen up. Thanks for the neg-reps

[bobbryan2]

As a cleric/fvs almost the only time I have laggy healing in Shroud 4 is when the blades are in. There are exceptions, days when you know even in pt 1 that everything is lagged, but generally its when the blades go in I hit quicken and spam heal because I KNOW what I'm seeing is not people's actual health.

Because, blades have some weird AI/damage calculations that are killing that encounter...

[Dentali]

I know people who have quit over the lag. They might come back if the lag went.

Garth

The thing is with that, Turbine CAN fix the lag without nerfing the DPS, therefore gaining more players while keeping the ones they have now.

[vVAnjilaVv]

I'd just like to step in once again and say chill out everyone.....there is no change yet....this isn't even in testing on Lama yet.....there is no indication of what they still might add or adjust.

I'd have to say that until this is in testing on Lama, a lot of people are just getting angry over nothing. It's good to speak your mind on it, but this still actually has to happen.

[FluffyCalico]

I'd just like to step in once again and say chill out everyone.....there is no change yet....this isn't even in testing on Lama yet.....there is no indication of what they still might add or adjust.

I'd have to say that until this is in testing on Lama, a lot of people are just getting angry over nothing. It's good to speak your mind on it, but this still actually has to happen.

Got it backwards, people are speaking their mind because it does NOT have to happen and that want to make that very clear.

[vVAnjilaVv]

The thing is with that, Turbine CAN fix the lag without nerfing the DPS, therefore gaining more players while keeping the ones they have now.

You have to keep in mind one other thing tho...Turbine is also trying to fix popularity.......this is the beginning of probably a more mainstream MMO player friendly model rather than a niche one.

I'm not saying I am for or against it, but they will probably get a lot more people if complexity of gameplay and character creation is toned down.

I really am not speaking for myself, or the people that were here long before EU...whom I am one of......but thinking about what Turbine and WB probably wants for the future of this game...and one of those things is more customers.

Even if Turbine goes thru with the way this is proposed right now......only a portion of the pre-EU playerbase is going to quit, and they have already opened the door they need to replace them....I don't like saying it, but we are kind of in a boat without any oars, engine, or sail. Not too mention this is only the beginning of changes IMO...there are probably a few more on the horizon.

[Visty]

I dunno if its been asked but if this happens is there a short window That dungeon alert can be turned off to test and see how the lag is with your intended fix and no da

wont happen

[bobbryan2]

I'd just like to step in once again and say chill out everyone.....there is no change yet....this isn't even in testing on Lama yet.....there is no indication of what they still might add or adjust.

I'd have to say that until this is in testing on Lama, a lot of people are just getting angry over nothing. It's good to speak your mind on it, but this still actually has to happen.

It doesn't actually have to happen.

Somehow... I really doubt ToD part 2 is being lagged out by monks...

Probably because I'm told most parties won't accept more than 1 of them.

[Borror0]

Well, in my groups, the EXACT same number of people beating on Horoth in 3 as on the Master in 2.
Even then, the attack rate is 15-20% lower.

[bobbryan2]

Even then, the attack rate is 15-20% lower.

Really? I'd figure it's higher.... because there's no lag slowing them down.

:D

[Auran82]

Because, blades have some weird AI/damage calculations that are killing that encounter...

The only correlation I can see between the 2 heaviest 'DPS lag' parts of the game (Shroud part 4, ToD part 2) is the blades and the shadow fiend auras, obviously I didn't program the game, but if attacking means that every swing does a calculation to see if you hit the enemy, even if the swings are 0.15 seconds apart (which sounds kinda wasteful from a resource point of view and you would think could be optimized a fair bit) who's to say that effects like the blades and auras aren't constantly doing a similar kind of check to see if anyone is in range of their affect to determine whether they do damage. Another spot of lag (that I notice anyway) is in shroud part 3 when the blades are travelling around the map, I know there has been a number of times I get hit a heap of times by blades that I can't see because they don't appear to have caught up to me yet, but obviously to the server they have.

To be honest though, if the issue was that simple and someone at turbine hadn't already thought of that and removed the blades/fiends from those encounters to test, then someone in their Q&A department needs a kick up the backside.

One thing I do have to ask though, if Eladrin is still reading at this point, have the testers been able to actually recreate the DPS lag we experience on test servers or is all the changes and tests you are doing based on our feedback?

[vVAnjilaVv]

Got it backwards, people are speaking their mind because it does NOT have to happen and that want to make that very clear.

I think Turbine can gather that fact from half the number of posts that are here.

Nobody wanted grazing hits or DA niether...oh well, hopefully we will hear something official today.

[bobbryan2]

To be honest though, if the issue was that simple and someone at turbine hadn't already thought of that and removed the blades/fiends from those encounters to test, then someone in their Q&A department needs a kick up the backside.


yes

[Dentali]

You have to keep in mind one other thing tho...Turbine is also trying to fix popularity.......this is the beginning of probably a more mainstream MMO player friendly model rather than a niche one.

I'm not saying I am for or against it, but they will probably get a lot more people if complexity of gameplay and character creation is toned down.

I really am not speaking for myself, or the people that were here long before EU...whom I am one of......but thinking about what Turbine and WB probably wants for the future of this game...and one of those things is more customers.

Even if Turbine goes thru with the way this is proposed right now......only a portion of the pre-EU playerbase is going to quit, and they have already opened the door they need to replace them....I don't like saying it, but we are kind of in a boat without any oars, engine, or sail. Not too mention this is only the beginning of changes IMO...there are probably a few more on the horizon.

That's probably true, and you make a great point. However, there is no guarantee that this change will draw more players. There is no logical reason for a company to cut ties with existing customers in the HOPES that they get more from doing so, because then if they crash and burn in their ideas they have a very tiny player base made up of the few supremely loyal players and a handful of F2Pers that have no intention of ever giving Turbine another dime. I've never seen a TV add for DDO, not even once. How do they expect to draw more players if they don't even advertise the game at all, other than on the site or maybe a few other select websites? To be perfectly honest I don't think they've even thought through the financial aspect of it, which is by far the most important to any company running an MMO.

Like I said, I understand that to any company like Turbine, financial gain is the main reason for any changes over the long run. Whatever makes the most people happy is what they'll have to do, or they'll lose money and be unable to pay employees and have to shut the game down. When it comes down to it, I think they'll be forced to do that in this situation, as they probably only even made a thread because they feared the backlash that numerous people have given in the thread's contents.

DDO is not a mainstream MMO. The fact that they had to cut it to F2P with P2P options is proof of that.

[Torasin]

A few comments.

First, I would point out for all those worried about the rush to test that based on Eladrin's comments, it appears that this is being put on to Lammania along side but not part of Update 5 for testing. Please clarify if I am wrong.

Next, I think that the change to offhand swing percentages is a good change as long as they can be balanced correctly. While this is not PnP, it is (supposedly) based on the d20 3.5 ruleset, in which a character with BAB of +16 and TWF,ITWF,GTWF would get 4 main hand attacks and 3 offhand attacks per round. Translated to this new system, a vanilla full BAB character with all three feats should have a 75% chance to proc an offhand attack, rather than the 55% Eladrin has shown. This could effectively push Tempest III rangers and Wind IV monks to 100% if done correctly, leaving the two groups who should be spinning balls of hurt as spinning balls of hurt.

I also feel it is a bad comparison to pick the acknowledged top end overpowered eSOS as a THF comparison to TWF rather than greensteel as 1)it is not nearly as common as greensteel weapons, and 2)it can only be used at lvl 20 whereas greensteel THF is available at level 12ish(?). In addition, using frenzied berserker as a means to justify the power of THF is also somewhat flawed as it is not available to a large number of THF builds. Arguably, TWF outpaces THF from level 12 to level 19 (18 in the case of FBs) when greensteel weapons are available. So I think a little balancing can be tolerated.



-- Though I would like to see a de-forge for greensteel items, not only as a salve for the nerfed but so we can fix an item made incorrectly - That would be an offering from the DDO store I'd love to see

[Torasin]

Not everyone's going to be happy about this (or any other change) but I have to give Eladrin a good deal of credit as far as being on the forums and answering posts and concerns. The heads-up and discussion is more than some games have given us (cough... sony) where we would have logged in and found things nerfed regardless of feedback or even a heads up

[Auran82]

After reading through quite a bit of this thread, I can only assume the reason we are seeing these sweeping changes suggested (whether liked or not) and tied in with the suggested change to the offhand hit detection is not because they want to nerf TWF and bring it closer to THF (though this might be part of it)

I suspect they are actually trying to pretty much rewrite the system that is responsible for combat tasks like hit detection, damage rolls etc to streamline it to be better suited to the current state of the game. Another forum user mentioned (in another thread) that some time ago they monitored the packets being sent between the server and client and came to the conclusion that when you hit a mob, the server sends a separate packet for each source of damage (so on a greensteel weapon etc, that would be a fair few packets) whether this is correct or it, it does make some sense (like why flaming and flaming burst go through as separate 1d6 fire damage rolls on a non crit instead of being combined) and upon games release, doing it this way would make sense as it would have been rare back at release to have more than prefix, suffix and base damage (including smite, sneak attack etc) going through at each swing (and attacking was somewhat slower, no tempest, alcarity, even GTWF was non-existent)

The game has changed significantly since then though and maybe they want to replace that whole section of the combat system and change/improve/etc at the same time. Am I guessing? Of course. But it would not surprise me with the number of systems that have evolved massively over the last year or so.

[JOTMON]

Currently a single two weapon fighting attack makes a physics detection check with your main hand, followed by a second detection check for your off hand (roughly 0.15 seconds after the first one). Instead of making multiple physics checks, all two weapon fighting attacks (weapons or unarmed) would now make a single check for your main hand attack, and would “piggyback” on that detection check and have a chance to proc (trigger) an off-hand attack based on the number of two weapon fighting feats (or related enhancements) you possess. Off-hand attacks would have a chance to proc on any main hand attack now, instead of being predetermined on certain attacks. Having more TWF feats increases the % chance of proccing an off-hand attack.

We would now assume that if your opponent was within range for your first attack, it will still be in range 0.15 seconds later. We also go about determining whether or not a particular swing gets an off-hand attack in a much cleaner manner than before.


Question/concern...

Current system treats eac hand as a separate attack....
New system makes offhand dependant on mainhand.


1. While spring attacking jumping toward a mob using my ranger, I miss on the first strike, with this mechanic in place i also automatically miss on the offhand regardless of whether or not i come into range.

2. I kill the mob with my mainhand the offhand attack hits the next closest mob or now misses completely because the first mob is now dead.

3. I am behind 2 mobs attacking the tank, main hand is hitting one, offhand is hitting the other.. new system ??..

4. surrounded by a mass of kobolds, i am spinning in place swinging wildly with a paralyzer's, .. new system??


.15 seconds is a lot of time when dual weilding swinging in a mass mob fray, especially when utilizing spring attack.

I would rather see Glancing blows and all the lag resulting from those calculations removed from the game.

Many TWF light weapon and monk attack are dependant on speed, front# damage is typically siginifcantly lower than the THF weapons. It is only made worthwhile by making many more attacks as fast as possible. I am concerned that this will squeeze many 2wf builds into gimpness and leave many of us disgruntled.

[bobbryan2]

After reading through quite a bit of this thread, I can only assume the reason we are seeing these sweeping changes suggested (whether liked or not) and tied in with the suggested change to the offhand hit detection is not because they want to nerf TWF and bring it closer to THF (though this might be part of it)

I suspect they are actually trying to pretty much rewrite the system that is responsible for combat tasks like hit detection, damage rolls etc to streamline it to be better suited to the current state of the game. Another forum user mentioned (in another thread) that some time ago they monitored the packets being sent between the server and client and came to the conclusion that when you hit a mob, the server sends a separate packet for each source of damage (so on a greensteel weapon etc, that would be a fair few packets) whether this is correct or it, it does make some sense (like why flaming and flaming burst go through as separate 1d6 fire damage rolls on a non crit instead of being combined) and upon games release, doing it this way would make sense as it would have been rare back at release to have more than prefix, suffix and base damage (including smite, sneak attack etc) going through at each swing (and attacking was somewhat slower, no tempest, alcarity, even GTWF was non-existent)

The game has changed significantly since then though and maybe they want to replace that whole section of the combat system and change/improve/etc at the same time. Am I guessing? Of course. But it would not surprise me with the number of systems that have evolved massively over the last year or so.

I gotta say... I disagree. I read through the thread and I think they're trying to justify nerfing TWF with lag because it's something they think would be good for balance. Maybe not... but I see this more as a change of opportunity than of necessity.

[FluffyCalico]

I gotta say... I disagree. I read through the thread and I think they're trying to justify nerfing TWF with lag because it's something they think would be good for balance. Maybe not... but I see this more as a change of opportunity than of necessity.

Well don't forget the are nerfing the heck out of 2hf too. Maybe they just want to nerf all melee. Or sell respec tokens to everyone?

[Ollathir]

Question/concern...

Current system treats eac hand as a separate attack....
New system makes offhand dependant on mainhand.


1. While spring attacking jumping toward a mob using my ranger, I miss on the first strike, with this mechanic in place i also automatically miss on the offhand regardless of whether or not i come into range. No. Pysics detection first then roll to hit.

2. I kill the mob with my mainhand the offhand attack hits the next closest mob or now misses completely because the first mob is now dead. Yep

3. I am behind 2 mobs attacking the tank, main hand is hitting one, offhand is hitting the other.. new system ??.. follows the main hand.

4. surrounded by a mass of kobolds, i am spinning in place swinging wildly with a paralyzer's, .. new system?? If para is in offhand you may hit something, might not.


.15 seconds is a lot of time when dual weilding swinging in a mass mob fray, especially when utilizing spring attack.

I would rather see Glancing blows and all the lag resulting from those calculations removed from the game.

Many TWF light weapon and monk attack are dependant on speed, front# damage is typically siginifcantly lower than the THF weapons. It is only made worthwhile by making many more attacks as fast as possible. I am concerned that this will squeeze many 2wf builds into gimpness and leave many of us disgruntled.

As best as I understand

[Emili]

Even then, the attack rate is 15-20% lower.
Except ... with 3 to 4 people on master may lag out the instance as much as 6 to 8 in ToD... so less half the dps. Done so and seen so. Given that would indicate more than 50% cut would have to be done to suffice. I been in ToD with near all THF barbs/fighters - only one single twf in group - and it lagged also.

Shroud part 4? I once run on hard ... In this group 2 melee, a bard, two clerics and the rest arcane (http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=2887036&postcount=4) Only the fighter and my barbarian went in on harry for melee in part four ... and guess what? It lagged and felt exactly the same type of lag as if there were 5 or 6 melee on him... Those particualar quests are questionable to begin with. You can walk in part one and sometimes feel the sluggishness ... the more mob involved and the worse such get.

[Halock]

It doesn't actually have to happen.

Somehow... I really doubt ToD part 2 is being lagged out by monks...

Probably because I'm told most parties won't accept more than 1 of them.

God i hope this gets noticed

Would also like ot mention just how much turning off the combat log helps, i'v been on runs since i did that where everyone else is screaming about lag and i see 0, as a monk i pick up on lag very easy, since it fux my ki strike rotation.

[zealous]

A. No glancing blows while moving.
B. 2H twitch will still have same or higher single target DPS than 2H no twitch with glancing blows, no twitch 2H with GTHF will have the advantage when hitting multiple mobs.

Proxy buff to builds not able to fit GTHF since you can now achieve competitive 2H damage output.

i.e. Even if you're mainly 2wf, caster, intimi, etc. you too can get yourself a eSoS or grind out a "cheap" minII GA and do as good as the 2H specced, limited by build ofc.

This might also open up possibilities for feat starved 2H specced builds such as...hmm...barbarians. If you're willing to sacrifice some AoE dps, you get 3 feats to spend on e.g. past lifes, stunning blow/toughness or an extre imp.crit or two.
---
This opens up the possibility for a lot of build variety, not to mention that it might make balancing easier since 2H being too powerful becomes less of an issue due to it being available to everyone.

It would be quite interesting indeed if similar things were done to 2wf, i.e. main functionality of using two weapons granted to all characters while the feats are remodelled to grant secondary benefits.

[Ollathir]

Just my instinctive thoughts, questions, regarding the lag TWF, THF speed boost adjustments .

Propossed change, remove physics detection for the offhand.

This basically leaves a TWF with having to do a (A) physics detect, main hand,(B) roll % proc offhand, (C)roll to-hit main hand,(D) roll or no roll to-hit offhand, depending on proc success. Then if you do proc, offhand follows up where mainhand went.

TWF penalties, regardless of weapon in the mainhand and offhand don’t seem to be lessened, even though the average (no tempest, wind, zeal, STWF) character with GTWF will not use his off-hand if he doesn’t proc and if he does, he's pretty much performing an attack as a THF or S&B without the B. Why would players want to build a character around this mechanic? Penalty Same= Advantage not same.



Double strike, does it work similar to a spell casters critical % chance enhancement for 1 times damage or is this an independent roll, Ie; (A) rolls to double strike, confirms, then applies main hand damage or (A) rolls to double strike, confirms, (B) rolls to hit.

I'm assuming the first, so without any Warchanter update, you only have a 5%-10% chance to proc. We end up trading a fixed variable, Ie; speed boost, for an random effect.

By taking out the fixed variable, speed boost, character creation for min/maxers becomes more of a guess. You cant possibly factor in DPS on something that may or may not happen. That would be less enjoyable for those that like that aspect of the game.
Speed and fast gameplay for some is just as important. Removing it and replacing it with something that has less of a wow factor might not work out. Sounds great getting the extra damage, but I know a caster can go through 2000 spell points with an 18% crit chance and never crit if you don’t get the roll.

Much like you mentioned your attacking lag from many angles, but with this and with THF no longer being able to move around and recieve glancing blows idea, I get the feeling, many are being forced to conform to a new play style to help improve lag and balance the game by lowering DPS. The play style I've adapted for my melee and casters are in keeping with the content I play. Speed and heavy DPS is a fixed part of that style to combat heavy HP mobs and bosses. If the content doesnt change, this could prove frustrating.

[zealous]

By taking out the fixed variable, speed boost, character creation for min/maxers becomes more of a guess. You cant possibly factor in DPS on something that may or may not happen. That would be less enjoyable for those that like that aspect of the game.
Min/maxing is already based on weighted averages. If something happens 10% of the time it happens 10% of the time, law of large numbers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers) an all.

In fact, doublestrike is more intuitive and easy to estimate than speed boosts. Speed boosts add multiplicatively with overhead so you need to run formulas based on estimations, thus introducing uncertainty in any calcs. Double strike is intuitive and straight forward.

[Natashaelle]

Anyone who knows networking knows not enough bandwidth causes LAG or Packet Loss depending on the rate limiter setup their ISP uses.

Code may be efficient when 100,000 people are playing but it may not be as efficient when 500,000 people are playing. There is a limit to how efficient code can be made. Once at this limit hardware and bandwidth are your only choices.

Also this is not code efficiency this is recoding taking away functionality. Big difference.

It is most likely not a single problem and this imay be the cheapest way for them to fix it. Recode it once and no more cost.

Your comments about code efficiency are worthwhile ; however, the DPS lag issues also occur in Europe, when there may be neither 500,000 nor 100,000 online --- but 50 or 100.

I'm not saying that so many people online won't cause some sort of lag, but the issue being addressed by these changes is NOT a population lag ; but a specific lag appearing in certain scenarios irrespective of how many people may be online at the time.

[Natashaelle]

I don't believe the EU servers got the super slow attack. We got that with the release of DDO:EU (wow, thats confusing naming) and then it disappeared before "mod 9" was release in Europe...I think.

That is correct -- Europe was never subjected to that particular horror.

[sephiroth1084]

Good points, Ollathir.

So, the changes to TWF will result in:


inconsistent DPS, which makes decisions on character build and comparison more difficult
slower combat from a visual perspective
slower combat in general as less DPS will mean longer fights
potential for characters wielding two weapons to get the -2 penalty on attack rolls without actually making an off-hand attack
reduced value for the TWF feat chain, making it a less attractive option
lower ki generation for monks
possible difficulty for some classes/characters to obtain full TWF bonuses (STWF)
loss of the ability to perform certain types of actions that depend upon separate collision checks for the main and off-hand attacks (double Assassinate, for example), which are A) not gamebreaking in the least, and B) something many people enjoy

Am I leaving anything out?

[Angelus_dead]

Another factor I haven't seen mentioned:

This addition of random chances for one or two more attacks as part of your single attack will reduce the feeling of being in control of your character. Even if it doesn't make a difference to the combat outcomes, the player's input actions will have a less direct correspondence to what the character does, loosening the immersiveness. The game will become a bit less visceral.

To have a swing and a miss is one thing, because at least the character did the action (although it failed). But for the character to randomly not do part of the attack makes it seem like he was too lazy to make the attempt. I know the explanation given: "He couldn't find an opening right now". But what it feels like is you're less in control, which starts to dredge up some of the negative recollections of lag experience.

[Dazalarian]

Hi,

ok after reading 120+ pages of tedious rants about "how Turbine broke my build with this latest nerf". (before you start to slag me off for my joindate I can tell you I'm one of the EU refugees which made it over here. Join Date: Mar 2006).

First up, this thread should be split into 2 different ones, one with posts about the lag and what to do about it (about 10 posts in all) and one with concerns about TWF getting nerfed (spiced up with some eSoS rants). 4 out 4 of my melee-characters will be affected btw.

I'm more worried about the lag-situation than any possible nerf of TWF. The small benefit we would get lagwise from the proposed change is nowhere near enough to make this a longterm solution. With more PrE's coming which will add more "hooks" into the combat engine its just a matter of time before things are broken again.

What needs to be done is a serious overhaul of the whole combat-code, it needs to be re-written so it can scale to cope with loads 10 times higher than today (10x at least depending on how you implement this).

I would suggest Eladrin to have a long hard look at glancing blows, we never experienced DPS lag before that was introduced (as far as I can remember anyway). If this code is not absolutely spot-on it needs to be fixed cause it affects all attacks in game, hit, miss, BOTH by mobs and players alike. Do some testing on Lam with glancing blow enabled and then remove it and do the same tests, do some performance monitoring and check the results. I'm pretty sure this is the culprit in all of this.

There were some other nice suggestions about how to speed up arbitrary dice-rolling, have a look into this as well. I can only guess how you have implemented the combat-system but from the looks of it, it has grown beyond its limits.

Cheers,
-Daz

[Meetch1972]

God i hope this gets noticed

Would also like ot mention just how much turning off the combat log helps, i'v been on runs since i did that where everyone else is screaming about lag and i see 0, as a monk i pick up on lag very easy, since it fux my ki strike rotation.

If this is true (and I hope it is!) then I can foresee the chance of combat log events being wrapped in a separate TCP stream to the client, somewhat packetised (maybe 1 packet per round - "Your round begins. You roll x for blah, then y for foo, then z for bar") - so you will NOT see a blow by blow of the rolls as it happens - but I'd rather suffer combat log lag than actual lag. That sort of log could also be pushed over UDP which would allow such packets to be dropped if the connection was dodgy.

I've got a monk friend who suffers badly... we'll see how he goes with the combat log switched off.

[zealous]

Good points, Ollathir.

So, the changes to TWF will result in:


inconsistent DPS, which makes decisions on character build and comparison more difficult No more inconsistent than it is now, with sufficient number of attacks it averages out
slower combat from a visual perspective For some builds, based on the speed effect of the barb capstone going unnoticed for so long it will hardly be significant
slower combat in general as less DPS will mean longer fights Since DPS is scaled down, one could certainly argue that mobs HP should be scaled down too
potential for characters wielding two weapons to get the -2 penalty on attack rolls without actually making an off-hand attack This is no different than it is now for no twf/twf/itwf
reduced value for the TWF feat chain, making it a less attractive option The alternative to 2wf, 2H twitch, will be scaled down more than 2wf, thus 2wf becomes more attractive. Disregarding 2H twitch, 2wf being less attractive is attractive
lower ki generation for monks And lower amounts of attacks requiring ki strikes thus increasing damage/ki
possible difficulty for some classes/characters to obtain full TWF bonuses (STWF) Not to mention increasing the gap between TWF and the rest
loss of the ability to perform certain types of actions that depend upon separate collision checks for the main and off-hand attacks (double Assassinate, for example), which are A) not gamebreaking in the least, and B) something many people enjoy Minor issue, if warranted a exception for such abilities to retain separate collision detections could certainly be made.

Am I leaving anything out?
red n green stuff.


Another factor I haven't seen mentioned:

This addition of random chances for one or two more attacks as part of your single attack will reduce the feeling of being in control of your character. Even if it doesn't make a difference to the combat outcomes, the player's input actions will have a less direct correspondence to what the character does, loosening the immersiveness. The game will become a bit less visceral.

To have a swing and a miss is one thing, because at least the character did the action (although it failed). But for the character to randomly not do part of the attack makes it seem like he was too lazy to make the attempt. I know the explanation given: "He couldn't find an opening right now". But what it feels like is you're less in control, which starts to dredge up some of the negative recollections of lag experience.
Or if you instead look upon the glass as half full, combat will be less dull and monotone in that you will have a more varied visual stimuli. :D

One reason I find fighting e.g. undead more dull is the lack of crits. Getting a couple of crits in a row or a streak of vorpals is fun. Likewise getting a lucky streak of off hand procs could be fun, and being unlucky provide a contrast.

[sephiroth1084]

red n green stuff.

So, the changes to TWF will result in:


inconsistent DPS, which makes decisions on character build and comparison more difficult No more inconsistent than it is now, with sufficient number of attacks it averages out How is the possibility of dealing an off-hand attack on a given animation of ~80% equal to the way TWF functions now, where you know when you're getting your extra attacks?

slower combat from a visual perspective For some builds, based on the speed effect of the barb capstone going unnoticed for so long it will hardly be significant No one thought to look, and the capstone wasn't stacking with Haste or Madstone Rage, from what I've read, which explains why no one was noticing it initially.

slower combat in general as less DPS will mean longer fights Since DPS is scaled down, one could certainly argue that mobs HP should be scaled down too Yes, but there has been no mention of this, and since THF DPS isn't getting reduced in any real way, the argument for reducing monster HP has no teeth.

potential for characters wielding two weapons to get the -2 penalty on attack rolls without actually making an off-hand attack This is no different than it is now for no twf/twf/itwf How do you figure? Right now, you get a -2 penalty (or -4 if using an 1-handed weapon in the off-hand) and gain off-hand attacks. With the change, it is entirely possible for one to be swinging with the penalty, while not getting the additional attacks. And if you were referring to the TWF and ITWF feats, this will be worse than it is currently for them, and has no remedy.

reduced value for the TWF feat chain, making it a less attractive option The alternative to 2wf, 2H twitch, will be scaled down more than 2wf, thus 2wf becomes more attractive. Disregarding 2H twitch, 2wf being less attractive is attractive That's debatable, and, again, twitching is clearly not an intended functionality, and therefore cannot be used to compare or justify the nerf to TWF. TWF being less attractive in the sense that there are other, viable alternatives, is attractive, but actually taking the feats being less attractive is not a good thing.

lower ki generation for monks And lower amounts of attacks requiring ki strikes thus increasing damage/ki That's debatable, and I'm dubious about that ending up as a net gain for monks, rather than a net loss.

possible difficulty for some classes/characters to obtain full TWF bonuses (STWF) Not to mention increasing the gap between TWF and the rest More importantly, increasing the gap between some TWFers and other TWFers much more so than exists currently.

loss of the ability to perform certain types of actions that depend upon separate collision checks for the main and off-hand attacks (double Assassinate, for example), which are A) not gamebreaking in the least, and B) something many people enjoy Minor issue, if warranted a exception for such abilities to retain separate collision detections could certainly be made Again, no mention of this has come up, so we cannot assume that any such exception will be made.

Responses in blue.


Or if you instead look upon the glass as half full, combat will be less dull and monotone in that you will have a more varied visual stimuli. :D How will visual stimuli change at all, other than for combat to be slower as a whole?


One reason I find fighting e.g. undead more dull is the lack of crits. Getting a couple of crits in a row or a streak of vorpals is fun. Likewise getting a lucky streak of off hand procs could be fun, and being unlucky provide a contrast.
I'm fairly certain that most people enjoy lucky streaks of vorpals and crits because they are incidental, in that you aren't really paying anything for them. Plus, there will be the memory of the way in which TWF used to function coloring everyone's impressions of the new system. I sincerely doubt that many people will be overjoyed at a streak of off-hand procs.

[Borror0]

So, the changes to TWF will result in:
I would like to contest a few of those points.

"inconsistent DPS, which makes decisions on character build and comparison more difficult"
The random would be minimal. Considering the proc rates would be fairly high, at least at higher levels. The attack rates, however, would be easier as everyone would be on the same baseline. Once that baseline is measured, you only have to factor in the proc rates and voil�*.

"slower combat from a visual perspective"
While that is technically true, it's dubious to list it in such a way because it would not apply to everyone. Unless the character benefited from the few alacrity bonuses that got changed (Zeal, Fighter Weapon Alacrity, Tempest, Wind Stance and Acrobat), he will attack just just as fast as before. Even if the character did get nerfed, no character will drop below the attack rate many characters already attacked at.

[R0cksteady]

Just going to check in one more time. Has anyone confirmed whether STWF would require higher dex than GTWF?

[Borror0]

Since DPS is scaled down, one could certainly argue that mobs HP should be scaled down too
Unless the developers felt TWF was doing "just enough" damage and THF "not enough damage," there are no good reasons for them to scale monsters' HP down. However, if that was the case, it makes no sense why they would nerf TWF instead of buffing THF. It would certainly make less people angry.

With the change, it is entirely possible for one to be swinging with the penalty, while not getting the additional attacks.[/COLOR][/COLOR]
sephiroth1084, your knowledge of mathematic is good enough to know what an average is.

[Razcar]

Your comments about code efficiency are worthwhile ; however, the DPS lag issues also occur in Europe, when there may be neither 500,000 nor 100,000 online --- but 50 or 100.

I'm not saying that so many people online won't cause some sort of lag, but the issue being addressed by these changes is NOT a population lag ; but a specific lag appearing in certain scenarios irrespective of how many people may be online at the time.I have to disagree Natashaelle. I have never seen anything remotely close to the DPS lag we suffer on the US service on the European. And I've played on both the last six months. And I played the raids with fully greensteeled-out parties on both servers (Thelanis and Devourer), and the same software versions.

On the US servers, in Shroud and ToD it begins with the sound effects starting to synch, to a staccato. Then you stop seeing other melees' animations - it looks like they just stand still. Then the boss stops moving on the screen. You will still see you damage numbers. Sometimes everything freezes, including your own animations.

This is usually when the healers cannot get their heals through. And after a 5-10 second freeze like this, the software catches up, deals you all the damage you should had gotten in those 10 seconds and you're dead. If you haven't played raids on the US servers, in well equipped groups, you cannot imagine what a show-stopper this is really.

We had lag on Devourer for a long time in 2008. Mail and bank transactions didn't go through, rubberbanding when running etc. That was eventually fixed. Other than that EU lag has been negligble. This U.S. lag is just in a totally other league.

[Razcar]

What needs to be done is a serious overhaul of the whole combat-code, it needs to be re-written so it can scale to cope with loads 10 times higher than today (10x at least depending on how you implement this).Yeah, This old souped-up Asheron's Call engine has apparently reached its limits. The game engine cannot cope with the content of the game.
Upgrade the game engine - don't downgrade the content of the game.

[malaquite]

I didn't saw that mentioned, but there are a lot of pages now. Im a paladin, aiming to TWF. One of my reasons was the spell Holy Sword. In the case where twf would be dumbed down, the devs should add more 2HF weapons available for this spell.

[vVAnjilaVv]

Or sell respec tokens to everyone?

This is exactly what I was thinking when I first posted in this thread but got the tinfoil hat ban :p

I mean come on they just happen to announce the release of a new brand of heart of wood and this announcement on the same day :eek::rolleyes:

[garlor]

I have one suggestion which has no need to change game mechanics, put faster cpus and/or increase bandwidth limit per client ( come on, a limit of 20kbps for each client is way too low, even the ancient ultima online has a higher limit )

[maximus123123]

So with TWF nerfed (and ranged dead since Beta) what's the point in making anything other than THF barbs?

So here is party makeup at end game:
4 thf barbs
1 cleric
1 caster

or raids:
9 thf barbs
1 cleric
1 bard
1 caster

Epic is boring (takes minutes to kill a single mob). That's not challenging...that's grinding. And with THF Barbs being officially made kings of DPS there will be no variety in character building either.

I mean what's the point in making say an elven ranger? Ranged combat? Dexterity bonuses?

I've quit and come back many times. Each time with the promise that ranged was finally improved...sorry this is the last straw... I hate THF and this game is no longer for me...

This is not the way DnD is supposed to be...

[vVAnjilaVv]

I have one suggestion which has no need to change game mechanics, put faster cpus and/or increase bandwidth limit per client ( come on, a limit of 20kbps for each client is way too low, even the ancient ultima online has a higher limit )

That's already been suggested numerous times in this thread...unfortunately the main reason they are doing this is to nerf TWF....not fix lag.

[maximus123123]

You do need to fix lag but sneaking a nerf in there to allegedly fix lag isn't convincing.

[Razcar]

This is exactly what I was thinking when I first posted in this thread but got the tinfoil hat ban :p

I mean come on they just happen to announce the release of a new brand of heart of wood and this announcement on the same day :eek::rolleyes:
If they would had announced "Hearts of Wood +6 - The Tempest Eraser Special Edition" I would have also started to become suspicous... but maybe the +5 is just a smokescreen? ;)

[FluffyCalico]

If they would had announced "Hearts of Wood +6 - The Tempest Eraser Special Edition" I would have also started to become suspicous... but maybe the +5 is just a smokescreen? ;)

Why make a +6 when they can sell you 2 +5s !

[vVAnjilaVv]

As someone has stated before, I don't know why they don't just come off it and sell +20's :p

[Natashaelle]

Just going to check in one more time. Has anyone confirmed whether STWF would require higher dex than GTWF?

In D&D, STWF requires the same DEX as GTWF ; 19. GTWF in DDO requires DEX 17.

There has been no confirmation whatsoever that the requirements of STWF would be either 17 or 19 ; although the lower number would feel more internally consistent.

[vVAnjilaVv]

In D&D, STWF requires the same DEX as GTWF ; 19. GTWF in DDO requires DEX 17.

There has been no confirmation whatsoever that the requirements of STWF would be either 17 or 19 ; although the lower number would feel more internally consistent.

I think if they have any prayer of making this work they are going to have to make STWF base DEX 17 and re-work the BaB requirements while they are at it.......possibly changed to
ITWF BaB 5
GTWF BaB 10
STWF BaB 15.

[maximus123123]

This just kills variety of character builds.

Unless you're building a caster, cleric, or bard, there is no reason to make a DPS character anything but a THF Barbarian with an Epic Sword of Shadows (30% chance for 400+dmg and up to 800dmg on a 19 or 20 roll).

But it's TWF that they want to nerf?

[Natashaelle]

I have to disagree Natashaelle. I have never seen anything remotely close to the DPS lag we suffer on the US service on the European. And I've played on both the last six months. And I played the raids with fully greensteeled-out parties on both servers (Thelanis and Devourer), and the same software versions.

On the US servers, in Shroud and ToD it begins with the sound effects starting to synch, to a staccato. Then you stop seeing other melees' animations - it looks like they just stand still. Then the boss stops moving one his screen. You will still see you damage numbers. Sometimes everything freezes, including your animations.

This is usually when the healer cannot get their heals through. And after a 5-10 second freeze like this, the software catches up, deals you all the damage you should had gotten in those 10 seconds and you're dead. If you haven't played raids on the US servers, in well equipped groups, you cannot imagine what a show-stopper this is really.

I have seen all of these in Europe, and DPS lag is a constant companion in the abovementioned raids ; although I will admit that your descriptions appear to show that the problem is worse on the well populated US servers than on the sparsely populated Euro ones.

Thank you for this extra input :)

[FluffyCalico]

In D&D, STWF requires the same DEX as GTWF ; 19. GTWF in DDO requires DEX 17.

There has been no confirmation whatsoever that the requirements of STWF would be either 17 or 19 ; although the lower number would feel more internally consistent.

When DDO first came out and the cap was 10 the ddo site had STWF listed at 19 dex.

[osirisisis]

One of the major issues that we’ve been working on is the dps lag problem in high level content (especially raid content). We’re attacking this problem from many angles, and since some of the changes we’re considering will have significant impact on many characters, we’re interested in your feedback before it goes to Lamannia or live. We're trying to aggressively attack the issues that cause these lag problems and are interested in feedback regarding how aggressively we should be attempting to tackle them.

My post is a bit more technical than I normally write for public consumption, but I want to make the issues and the reasons we’re considering these changes extremely clear.

Some people may have noticed that problems occur most often when there are many monks or two weapon fighting characters that are loaded with many on-hit effects attacking en masse. These characters currently perform many attacks very quickly, and each attack is pretty heavy performance-wise. Rather than attack the problem by changing common heavy-load equipment, we’ve already taken some steps to optimize the way we perform attacks, and are considering the following changes to reduce overall performance loads:

Currently a single two weapon fighting attack makes a physics detection check with your main hand, followed by a second detection check for your off hand (roughly 0.15 seconds after the first one). Instead of making multiple physics checks, all two weapon fighting attacks (weapons or unarmed) would now make a single check for your main hand attack, and would “piggyback” on that detection check and have a chance to proc (trigger) an off-hand attack based on the number of two weapon fighting feats (or related enhancements) you possess. Off-hand attacks would have a chance to proc on any main hand attack now, instead of being predetermined on certain attacks. Having more TWF feats increases the % chance of proccing an off-hand attack.

We would now assume that if your opponent was within range for your first attack, it will still be in range 0.15 seconds later. We also go about determining whether or not a particular swing gets an off-hand attack in a much cleaner manner than before.

We’re also considering introducing a new mechanic to replace some speed bonus effects, called double strike:

A character with a double strike chance has a chance to make an additional attack roll with their main hand weapon any time they make a main hand attack, on the target of the first attack. (Note that two handed weapons count as “in the main hand” for these purposes.)

The Fighter Alacrity capstone, and the Paladin spell Zeal would be changed to a +10% bonuses to double strike.
A TWF Paladin that Smites something under the effect of Zeal would attack with the main hand, have a 10% chance to attack with the main hand again, and would have a chance (based on TWF feats) to attack with the off hand in one sequence. Level 20 Fighters with the capstone would simply always hit twice 10% of the time with their main hands. For a future update, we’re considering revisiting some old items (such as Jorgundal’s Collar, which currently doesn’t stack with Haste) and replacing the effects with a double strike effect.

For those that are interested in the “how does that help? You’re still making 11 attacks in 10 swings” – double strikes, like the proposed off-hand attacks, would bypass the additional physics detects and secondary characteristics of normal attacks such as glancing blows, while still providing an increase to overall damage over time. It would have the advantage over speed boosts of sometimes proccing on special attacks, and opens up a new itemization and enhancement pathway. (Warchanters, for instance, are likely to end up with a double strike song in a future update.)

Proposed Numbers:
A character with no two weapon fighting feats has a base 20% chance to proc off-hand attacks.
The Two Weapon Fighting feat grants a +15% bonus to proc off-hand attacks.
The Improved Two Weapon Fighting feat grants a +10% bonus to proc off-hand attacks.
The Greater Two Weapon Fighting feat grants a +10% bonus to proc off-hand attacks.
Monk Air stances now grant a +5%/+10%/+15%/+20% insight bonus to the chance to proc off-hand attacks instead of an insight bonus to attack speed. (Enhancement bonus to attack speed remains.)
Ranger Tempest now grants a +10%/+20%/+30% bonus to the chance to proc off-hand attacks when dual wielding instead of a bonus to attack speed or granting additional off-hand attacks.
Monk Air Stance and Ranger Tempest now stack with each other for these purposes.
Attacks with two handed weapons while moving no longer perform Glancing Blows.

Fighter Alacrity (capstone) now grants a +10% bonus to double attack with the main hand instead of a 10% speed increase.
The Paladin spell Zeal now grants a +10% Sacred bonus to double attack with the main hand instead of a 10% speed increase.

Things like the Shield Bonus and to-hit penalty reductions that Tempest grants when wielding two weapons, or the enhancement bonuses to speed from Wind Stance remain unchanged.

For example, a Ranger 18 (Tempest III) / Monk 2 in Wind Stance I would have a 90% chance to proc off-hand attacks per swing, while a completely unskilled character would only generate off-hand attacks 20% of the time. A Monk 20 in Wind Stance IV would have a 75% chance to trigger off-hand attack hooks.

I won’t hide that these proposed changes do reduce the effectiveness of off-hand attacks, which reduces the two weapon fighting style’s extreme dominance over two handed fighting. Skipping the extreme outlier of the Epic Sword of Shadows (we got a little carried away there, didn’t we?), estimated damage output over time for the two styles should be extremely close to each other if we go this route. (Which style is superior ends up being heavily dependent on your character's abilities.)

It’s likely that we’ll change Glancing Blows to operate in a similar manner in the future as well (chance to proc based on feats/enhancements rather than guaranteed on swing X), but right now I have to stay pretty focused on TWF and monk unarmed combat.

These are not the only things we’re currently investigating, and will not solve all of the dps lag issues - it’s one of many steps we’re taking to pursue them. I also highly recommend reading this post and thread ( http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=2374594&postcount=5) - especially the part about intra-DAT fragmentation[step 3] if your install is a year or more old - if you’re suffering serious problems, it may help with some client-side issues.

We wanted to get your reactions and comments to this now though, before (and after) it hits Lamannia.

---

Some sample attack percentages with this system (assuming you took all possible available feats and enhancements) would be:

INVALID CHART FOLLOWS:
Build Main-hand Off-hand
20 Ranger (Tempest 3) 100% 85%
20 Monk (Wind Stance 4) 100% 75%
20 Fighter (Alacrity) 110% 55%
20 Paladin (Zeal) 110% 55%
20 [Other] 100% 55%
12 Ftr/6 Rng/2 Mnk 100% 70%
15 Pal/3 Mnk/2 [Any] (unarmed) 110% 60%
14 Pal/6 Rng 110% 65%
18 Rgr/2 Mnk 100% 90%


---

Edit:
Thanks for the massive amount of feedback all.

We're currently thinking of adjusting the numbers to:



Doublestrike Bonus Main hand Off hand
No feats 0 20% 100% 20%
TWF 0 +20% 100% 40%
ITWF 0 +20% 100% 60%
GTWF 0 +20% 100% 80%
STWF 0 +20% 100% 100%
Tempest I 0 +10% 100% 90%
Tempest II 0 +10% 100% 100%
Tempest III +5%* 0 105% 100%
Wind IV +10% 0 110% 80%
Zeal +10% 0 110% 80%
Alacrity +10% 0 110% 80%
* Only when wielding two weapons.

This set switches Wind Stance and Tempest III to doublestrike bonuses, increases the benefits of the TWF feat chain, and adds an additional feat for high BAB characters.

All of the bottom rows assume that the person has GTWF, except for the STWF row.

Why should players have to deal with getting nerfed and stare at more mindless DPS gazing instead turbine spending more money on better hardware that can handle the load? With a 160 million dollar warner bros acquirement of the company, I think they can invest some coin in better hardware, there going to need it in the future anyway.

But that doesn't make cents (no pun intended)

Opinion B

First nerf sword of shadows or you dont even have a imbalance case.
Second even if you did nerf Sword of Shadows I would say the balance issue is not in the DPS in that 2wf cost feats(khopesh and oversized) , dex points, and resources more so then 2hf
3rd if you ask me the imbalance is in the vorpal effect and other power 5 effects in that 2wf can vorpel almost 75% more effectively which is still pretty viable even with all the new death ward thats been added to the game.

So:

1. Slow the game down 15% so the servers can handle it.
2. Lower all mobs across the board hit points by 20% to off set for slowing the game down and the grind burn factor its going to create.
3. Raise the mobs attack damage by 15% to off set the challenge imbalance that lowing there hit points created (15% not 20% to make up for faster reaction with healing challange)
4. Give glanceing blow and cleave a seperate effect dice roll when landed to see if they get an effect proc. Example you cleave 3 mobs and roll a 20 with a vorpel and all 3 lose there heads, or you hit 1 undead with a 2 handed disruptor and glance 2 others now all 3 need to take a DC for disruption.

Severs have less lag, Quest take a tiny less time for a tiny less grind, quest have a tiny bit more challenge to them to make up for less grind, turbine saves money, players dont get there hard work nerfed, and 2hf get a slight boost. See everyone happy.

Only set back:
O ya and green steal gains more ground on its gultanis ADD rules set perversion imbalance over the random loot table vorpel, but why should the trend stop now.

Green steals been imbalance for 2 years but who cares here have an epic S.O.S we can fix magic bloat with bigger and better magic bloat.... but as soon as turbine may have to spend some coin on new severs its 2wf vs 2hf imbalance that needs to be addressed..........come on........

[maximus123123]

Maybe it will solve lag but not the way they intended.

When all those who have invested so heavily in dual greensteel Mineral II's get nerfed and decide to quit, then server stress will be reduced by the reduced player population

[Aesop]

In D&D, STWF requires the same DEX as GTWF ; 19. GTWF in DDO requires DEX 17.

There has been no confirmation whatsoever that the requirements of STWF would be either 17 or 19 ; although the lower number would feel more internally consistent.

you wanna cite your source for that. Considering that to the best of my knowledge the feat doesn't exist or if it does then to quote Mandy Patinkin..."I do not think it means what you think it means"

the Feat for TWF after GTWF is



PERFECT TWO-WEAPON FIGHTING [EPIC]
Prerequisites: Dex 25, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon Fighting.

Benefit: The character can make as many attacks with his or her off-hand weapon as with his or her primary weapon, using the same base attack bonus. The character still takes the normal penalties for fighting with two weapons.

Normal: Without this feat, a character can only get a single attack with an off-hand weapon (or two attacks with an off-hand weapon if he or she has Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, or three attacks with an off-hand weapon if he or she has Greater Two-Weapon Fighting).

and this one has Epic levels as its Prerequisite and a dex of 25.


STWF should not be in the game at all. We're not suppposed to have 100% off hand attacks. Getting there through Tempest is even a little squiggy.

How about having Attack Sequence add a bonus instead.

0/5/10/10 is the attack bonus (I think) based on attack sequence

How about having either a +0/+5/+10/+10% bonus so that later sequence attacks get that much closer to 100%


STWF simply screws certain builds. Either by way of limiting Feat selection that much further or by limiting requirements like BAB or minimum dex requirement. Tempest is a supreme TWF PrE. It should make for a superior TWF not a just as good one. This is not to say that Tempest should blow everyone out of the water completely but if they get 90-100% TWF and Kensai only get 85-95% I can see that as reasonable. There should not be a spread for any group (with the full feat compliment) that is more than 20% and ways that can buff them up external of feat and PrEs should be explored. Additionally Penalties can be explored as well... perhaps Movement penalties that Spring Attack reduces



Aesop

[FluffyCalico]

you wanna cite your source for that. Considering that to the best of my knowledge the feat doesn't exist or if it does then to quote Mandy Patinkin..."I do not think it means what you think it means"

the Feat for TWF after GTWF is

and this one has Epic levels as its Prerequisite and a dex of 25.

STWF should not be in the game at all. We're not suppposed to have 100% off hand attacks. Getting there through Tempest is even a little squiggy.



1) After Burros post I looked through some old DnD books and PDFs to refresh my memory.
2) PTWF is an epic feat that requires 25 dex on that you are right that grants offhand attacks equal to however many main hand attacks you have
3) STWF is a NON-epic feat that that requires BAB 16 and DEX 19 that grants 1 additional offhand attack. If you gained an extra main hand through other means you would not get yet another offhand through STWF like you would with PTWF.
4) STWF is mainly a feat used in monster manuals, melee supplements and additional race supplements but it does exist and is NOT epic feat.
5) DDO for along time had STWF listed at 16BAB and 19 dex on their page as well and removed it later when they decided not to add it.
6) So STWF had been part of DDO in the beginning, you just could not take it due to the cap being 10, and part of DnD for even longer. So yes it does belong.

[Razcar]

We're not suppposed to have 100% off hand attacks. Getting there through Tempest is even a little squiggy.
Then we shouldn't have THF Glancing Blows either. Or the gazillion other house rules that exists in DDO.

[Natashaelle]

you wanna cite your source for that. Considering that to the best of my knowledge the feat doesn't exist or if it does then to quote Mandy Patinkin..."I do not think it means what you think it means"

Here, for example -- and there are other sources available, if you just google for it...

http://dndvault.ign.com/View.php?view=FeatsDatabase.Detail&id=65

[Pyromaniac]

I believe that better hardware would solve the lag problem. It was downgraded at least once or twice before the recent 'upgrade'. Also I believe we're not going to get better hardware.

Lag showed up once the hardware started getting its downgrades. Coincidence? I think not.

[vVAnjilaVv]

STWF simply screws certain builds. Either by way of limiting Feat selection that much further or by limiting requirements like BAB or minimum dex requirement. Tempest is a supreme TWF PrE. It should make for a superior TWF not a just as good one. This is not to say that Tempest should blow everyone out of the water completely but if they get 90-100% TWF and Kensai only get 85-95% I can see that as reasonable. There should not be a spread for any group (with the full feat compliment) that is more than 20% and ways that can buff them up external of feat and PrEs should be explored. Additionally Penalties can be explored as well... perhaps Movement penalties that Spring Attack reduces



Aesop
STWF would be cool if they changed the first feat...TWF...to maybe an enhancement or even give it free...TWF that is not STWF.

[Aesop]

Here, for example -- and there are other sources available, if you just google for it...

http://dndvault.ign.com/View.php?view=FeatsDatabase.Detail&id=65

That's not a pnp database nor is it even WotC.


The Feat is a completely made up thing

[Natashaelle]

STWF would be cool if they changed the first feat...TWF...to maybe an enhancement or even give it free...TWF that is not STWF.

Ranger 2 gets you TWF for free :)

[vVAnjilaVv]

I believe that better hardware would solve the lag problem. It was downgraded at least once or twice before the recent 'upgrade'. Also I believe we're not going to get better hardware.

Lag showed up once the hardware started getting its downgrades. Coincidence? I think not.

Hardware is not going to stop them from proposing a nerf.....unless you just meant that gesture on a side note...the nerf has very little to do with the lag issue.....in fact if the physical detection is what is causing the lag they don't have to nerf TWF at all...just adjust accordingly with the new combat engine......unfortunately I think the WANT to nerf it.

[vVAnjilaVv]

Ranger 2 gets you TWF for free :)

Evil...just pure evil :p

[FluffyCalico]

The Feat is a completely made up thing

You can say that as often as you want, repeating it won't make it true.
What is true is it's a feat not normally allowed to players on standard races :P

[BurningDownTheHouse]

This just kills variety of character builds.

Unless you're building a caster, cleric, or bard, there is no reason to make a DPS character anything but a THF Barbarian with an Epic Sword of Shadows (30% chance for 400+dmg and up to 800dmg on a 19 or 20 roll).

But it's TWF that they want to nerf?

Unless you are very lucky, getting an Epic SoS is far more grind than getting double greensteels.
A barbarian with Epic SoS is not a template. It's a character that had a lot of work put into them so they can be the best. You can't assume the best weapon in the game as a given. A goal maybe, but not a given.

And according to the calculators here, apparently TWF still comes ahead unless the weapon is Epic SoS.

Stop using Epic SoS as a benchmark.

And chill. :)

EDIT: Don't take this post as me being in favor of the nerf. I'm just tired of people using irrelevant data to support their opinions.

[Aesop]

You can say that as often as you want, repeating it won't make it true.
What is true is it's a feat not normally allowed to players on standard races :P

example?

[Therilith]

Yeah, This old souped-up Asheron's Call engine has apparently reached its limits. The game engine cannot cope with the content of the game.
Upgrade the game engine - don't downgrade the content of the game.

How is decreasing DPS "downgrading content"?

[vVAnjilaVv]

How is decreasing DPS "downgrading content"?

Because there is already enough freakin' grind in this game! :eek::D

[Pyromaniac]

Yes the hardware comment was a side note. The lag = hardware problem imo. The nerf = The nerf which is unrelated. Having them tied together tries to ensure the nerf happens.

[osirisisis]

Maybe it will solve lag but not the way they intended.

When all those who have invested so heavily in dual greensteel Mineral II's get nerfed and decide to quit, then server stress will be reduced by the reduced player population

just like all those that quit when green steal was introduced and all there random loot they had worked for got nerfed due to green steals massive magic bloat effect, or when w/p got nerfed cause players couldnt handle players being 30% effective on trash mobs......
I have 13 tier 3's on 5 toons and I would rejoice if turbine removed all the green steal from the game =)

[maximus123123]

With epic mobs having literally 10,000 hit points, you'd think they'd want to increase everyone's DPS.

[Natashaelle]

That's not a pnp database nor is it even WotC.


The Feat is a completely made up thing

Notwithstanding that STWF is not a core D&D Feat, I can only advise you to listen to what other people, who may know a lot more about 3.5 than I do, have been saying about it -- that yes, the Feat exists, and no it's not a completely made up thing.

Besides which, this would be no reason whatsoever why Turbine should not wish to introduce it for their own design purposes.

[Aesop]

just like all those that quit when green steal was introduced and all there random loot they had worked for got nerfed due to green steals massive magic bloat effect, or when w/p got nerfed cause players couldnt handle players being 30% effective on trash mobs......
I have 13 tier 3's on 5 toons and I would rejoice if turbine removed all the green steal from the game =)

heh... funny. I never seem to agree with you, but this one was a close call. ;) I definately wouldn't mind seeing a rebalancing though... 600 damage lightning strikes and all. Maybe then 10000 hp trash mobs wouldn't need to exist... maybe they'd even be only like 5000 hp trash mobs ;)


Aesop

[Aesop]

Notwithstanding that STWF is not a core D&D Feat, I can only advise you to listen to what other people, who may know a lot more about 3.5 than I do, have been saying about it -- that yes, the Feat exists, and no it's not a completely made up thing.

Besides which, this would be no reason whatsoever why Turbine should not wish to introduce it for their own design purposes.

actually it was made up... in fact it originally was made up for DDO. There may have been some third party suppliment out there that had it, but like I posted before thats not relevant to here. Here the Epic Feat is the one that would technically apply. Then again THF and its line doesn't exist either in pnp.

Understand that I'm not against adding in new feat that do not exist in PnP. While I would like to maintain some integrity of the game I do not feel the PnP is unquestionable. There is potential in this nerf to help the game balance more effectively and actually promote new build ideas. Superior Two Weapon Fighting would not help that in the least. It would lead to more of the same with no regard for the builds it left bleeding on the side of the road.


Anyway I have to actually go to work so.

have fun all I'll come back later and see if there are any flames to put out

Aesop

[Borror0]

3) STWF is a NON-epic feat that that requires BAB 16 and DEX 19 that grants 1 additional offhand attack. If you gained an extra main hand through other means you would not get yet another offhand through STWF like you would with PTWF.
4) STWF is mainly a feat used in monster manuals, melee supplements and additional race supplements but it does exist and is NOT epic feat.
STWF, in the context of DDO, stands for Superior Two Weapon Fighting. The only occurrence of Superior Two Weapon Fighting in any official 3.0 or 3.5 D&D material, that I am aware of, is in regards to ettins (a two-headed monster race) where its description is "An ettin fights with a morningstar or javelin in each hand. Because each of its two heads controls an arm, the ettin does not take a penalty on attack or damage rolls for attacking with two weapons."

In other words, you made false several claims in regard to Superior Two Weapon Fighting:

It does not require 16 BAB.
It does not require 19 Dexterity.
It does not grant an additional attack.
It does not exist in melee supplements.
It requires a second head, which is an important omission.

Perhaps you are mistakenly believing that "STWF" stood for Supreme Two Weapon fighting. If so, you are wrong. The DDO feat has always been called Superior Two Weapon Fighting as can be seen in this post (http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=1697045&postcount=5), which is why Aesop and I are justified in our claim that Superior Two Weapon Fighting is a made up feat.

In fact, Superior Two Weapon Fighting is no where to be seen on Wizards of the Coast's official 3.5 D&D feat list (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/feats).

Before you go on to claim that you meant Supreme Two Weapon Fighting, let me do a little bit of preemptive refutation: the feats is, like Superior Two Weapon Fighting, no where to be seen on Wizards' official 3.5 D&D list which suggests no supplement offers it as a general feat; it is, to the best of my knowledge, only available to master of the Wild's Tempest prestige class so there is no reason for it to be available as a general feat; and it's still not called Superior Two Weapon Fighting so, even if you were to refute the two previous points, the position that Superior Two Weapon Fighting is a made up feat still stands.

[Dendrix]

Limited number of servers is going to cause lag issues, that should be obvious.

No it's not. What you see as a "server" is an "instance of the DD) world" - there are many machines that make up that world

[zealous]

inconsistent DPS, which makes decisions on character build and comparison more difficult No more inconsistent than it is now, with sufficient number of attacks it averages outHow is the possibility of dealing an off-hand attack on a given animation of ~80% equal to the way TWF functions now, where you know when you're getting your extra attacks?

Because any one attack isn't important as far as builds and comparisons go. For one minute swing time you have a 95% probability of getting between 72%-88% off hand procs, for 2 minutes 95% probability of getting between 75%-85%.

2minutes swing time is a minor part of a quest, a negligible part of an evening of playing, a forgettable part of the life of a character.



slower combat from a visual perspective For some builds, based on the speed effect of the barb capstone going unnoticed for so long it will hardly be significant No one thought to look, and the capstone wasn't stacking with Haste or Madstone Rage, from what I've read, which explains why no one was noticing it initially.

Noone has refuted this:


So the barb capstone is providing an attack speed boost that stacks with madstone. Feel free to do your own testing if you think this isn't the case, since my video capturing setup isn't that great.

So as far as we know it does indeed stack with madstone and thus, if a "10%" (8%) difference is noticeable, would have been noticed earlier. ;)



slower combat in general as less DPS will mean longer fights Since DPS is scaled down, one could certainly argue that mobs HP should be scaled down too Yes, but there has been no mention of this, and since THF DPS isn't getting reduced in any real way, the argument for reducing monster HP has no teeth.

The only THF DPS that was in any way close to being comparable to 2wf, intended or not, is getting a 10-20+% reduction.



potential for characters wielding two weapons to get the -2 penalty on attack rolls without actually making an off-hand attack This is no different than it is now for no twf/twf/itwf How do you figure? Right now, you get a -2 penalty (or -4 if using an 1-handed weapon in the off-hand) and gain off-hand attacks. With the change, it is entirely possible for one to be swinging with the penalty, while not getting the additional attacks. And if you were referring to the TWF and ITWF feats, this will be worse than it is currently for them, and has no remedy.

Currently with TWF you don't get off hand attacks on 50% of the animations, and still get penalties without actually making an off-hand attack.



reduced value for the TWF feat chain, making it a less attractive option The alternative to 2wf, 2H twitch, will be scaled down more than 2wf, thus 2wf becomes more attractive. Disregarding 2H twitch, 2wf being less attractive is attractive That's debatable, and, again, twitching is clearly not an intended functionality, and therefore cannot be used to compare or justify the nerf to TWF. TWF being less attractive in the sense that there are other, viable alternatives, is attractive, but actually taking the feats being less attractive is not a good thing.

Twitching, intended or not, is a factual reality. IMO it's a serendipitous bug in that it increases balance between 2H and 2WF and more importantly capitalizes the strengths of the DDO combat system.

The need for the nerf is based on the fact that 2wf is too attractive compared to no twitch 2H.



lower ki generation for monks And lower amounts of attacks requiring ki strikes thus increasing damage/kiThat's debatable, and I'm dubious about that ending up as a net gain for monks, rather than a net loss.

Not really debatable.
Cooldown for strikes/ToD remain the same, how many strikes you can use is dependant on A. ki generation, B. attack speed, A is dependant on B.

Lower tier strikes has worse damage/ki ratio than higher tier strikes.

Scenario A. Sufficient ki generation thanks to stunnable mobs: Smaller number of attacks leads to fewer ki strikes possible to use, stop using lower tier strikes. Loss of damage is proportionally lower than loss of attacks.

Scenario B. Insufficient ki generation: Less available ki leads to fewer ki strikes possible to use, stop using lower tier strikes. Loss of damage is proportionally lower than loss of ki generation.

Net loss relative to pre change monks, relative gain compared to post change "other classes".



possible difficulty for some classes/characters to obtain full TWF bonuses (STWF) Not to mention increasing the gap between TWF and the restMore importantly, increasing the gap between some TWFers and other TWFers much more so than exists currently.

Agreed.



loss of the ability to perform certain types of actions that depend upon separate collision checks for the main and off-hand attacks (double Assassinate, for example), which are A) not gamebreaking in the least, and B) something many people enjoy Minor issue, if warranted a exception for such abilities to retain separate collision detections could certainly be made.Again, no mention of this has come up, so we cannot assume that any such exception will be made.

Agreed.



How will visual stimuli change at all, other than for combat to be slower as a whole?

Pretty little numbers on the screen, sometimes more of them, sometimes less of them.

Like going with a double bursting of maiming weapon just to get that warm cuddly "BOOOM HEADSHOT!" feeling every time you score a crit.



I'm fairly certain that most people enjoy lucky streaks of vorpals and crits because they are incidental, in that you aren't really paying anything for them. Plus, there will be the memory of the way in which TWF used to function coloring everyone's impressions of the new system. I sincerely doubt that many people will be overjoyed at a streak of off-hand procs.
Agreed. However, old farts like us aren't really that important, longevity of the game is though. We'll either embrace the change, grow to accept it or quit.

When DA got introduced I flew into a nerdrage rampage being all up in flames about not being able to run quests the way I want to. I have since grown to appreciate the added challenge, and added fun, it brings to zerging...most of the time...that "sure I can just skip the first shaft, I have plenty of haste pots" coal is not one of my fondest ddo moments.

When glancing blows got introduced I flew into a nerdrage rampage being all up in flames about why they would add a negligeble and forgettable damage income to my invincible AC builds. I have since come to appreciate that despite glancing blows presenting a forgettable danger, I actually notice when I gather up a crowd of 20 or so mobs and become more engaged, have more fun.


Unless the developers felt TWF was doing "just enough" damage and THF "not enough damage," there are no good reasons for them to scale monsters' HP down. However, if that was the case, it makes no sense why they would nerf TWF instead of buffing THF. It would certainly make less people angry.

Well one option would be to keep 2wf as is, i.e. /100%, let tempest keep it's off hand attack at III and get 5% double strike at I/II while scaling up S&B as well as THF.
How one would scale up non-2wf though, that's tricky since the easy fix of upping attack rate would increase collition detection...

[Swedishchef]

I just want to say: You can´t log in to Thelanis right now i writning moment, and you want to fix lag... fix the **** server/s first numptys.

[SquelchHU]

I'm a little surprised that so little is said about the new THF S&B in U5, I think many people still don't realise exactly how much of a boost it will be for S&B in general. Although, OK, the false mantra of "AC is useless in the end game" hasn't been at all helpful towards S&B :(

You mean 'zero'?

You have a 100% chance to main hand attack before and after the nerf.
x% alacrity changes to an equal chance to double strike.
Double strike is FUNCTIONALLY IDENTICAL to alacrity when using a single weapon, which both THF and S&B do.

End result?

You attack slower, making the combat less visually appealing but not reducing your actual effectiveness.
Effects that trigger on a specific hit become slightly better, as before you could not Double Smite Evil with a two handed weapon.

= No change to THF, no change to S&B, nerf to TWF.

Now it was mentioned somewhere else that glancing blows will be removed while moving. I can't find this but that would be a THF nerf. I don't know how much since I don't know the mechanics in depth like I do for TWF.

However Shade does. His response? NONE! Reason? Proper twitching does NOT have you move at the time of attack. Since you aren't moving at the time of the attack, you'll still get full glancing blows.

It was mentioned somewhere else that Bastard Swords and Dwarven Axes will get Glancing Blows with S&B. Of course Glancing Blows do a fraction of your damage, and S&B does very gimpy damage so this is practically a cosmetic feature... and one that only affects dwarf S&B characters, as it doesn't suddenly make the Bastard Sword worth taking. Or the Dwarven Axe, for that matter (but dwarves get it for free).


I disagree, I think that providing this (v expensive) option to people who absolutely want to be 2WF specialists is a good thing. It will encourage people to think about the level of 2WF that they want, which levels of sacrifices they are willing to make, and it will provide a boost for Fighters and Rangers, including some of the deeper multiclassed toons, in this domain versus people who were just jumping on the Ranger 6 Tempest band wagon as a cheap and easy solution for more DPS.

Because we need more Fighters and Barbarians right?

To all these people that claim TWF is unmatched DPS, riddle me this:

Why are Warforged Barbarians the preferred tanks for 'A Vision of Destruction' and 'The Tower of Despair'?

For VoD, you have a no healing curse to worry about. Sully delivers it on his critical hits, even if you are immune to critical hits. It does not affect repair spells, so that's why you're a warforged.

So why Barbarian? Well, the hit points are nice. But the real reason is because if the tank loses aggro, he will turn around and attack the party.

Listen carefully, because this is important.

Barbarians are chosen because they can be relied upon to not lose aggro. To anyone.

And since aggro is a direct measure of DPS, that means the Barbarian is doing the most damage out of anyone in the party.

And guess what? He's a THF. So much for uber TWF DPS.

The only other way of doing it is with an AC tank. You need 75 on normal. Good luck finding a character with an AC of 75 (or higher) that can still hold hate aggro. In fact you won't, so everyone will have to hold back considerably. Yes, even if the high AC guy is Ranger TWF based. He's better off than sword and board in that respect but is by no means 'unmatched DPS'.

(Yes, I know about Intimidate. You really think that's going to work out in all the lag, of the non DPS variety?)

For Tower of Despair, it's the same thing. No healing curse, but a lot more damage coming in so being healable by arcanes and divines makes a big difference. And losing aggro also makes a big difference, because if he shifts from 500 point Disintegrating + 100 point DoTing the WF Tank to doing the same thing to anyone else the run will fail.

Once again, people bank on the THF Barbarian being able to outdps the party.

Now, I am not calling for a THF nerf. And as this happened before, and after the epic SoS I'm not talking about that either. However it is quite clear that if TWF was as uber as is claimed, then these important jobs would at least be entrusted to a TWF Barbarian if not a TWFer of another class.

[SquelchHU]

Well, in my groups, the EXACT same number of people beating on Horoth in 3 as on the Master in 2. What this tells me is that the two encounters are coded completely different. There is a coding problem with Shadowfiends... they lag people out. It isn't the DPS in that encounter, it's the fiends. Yes... DPS lag magnifies these problems. Extremely high DPS groups have issues with the first spawns of shadowfiends.. lower DPS groups do completely fine until he's half dead.

DPS lag is a problem... don't get me wrong. But it's only a big deal because there are other bugs going on.

Part 1: One boss is kited. The other is beat down, but is mobile and blows everyone away. Trash mobs join in periodically. No DPS lag.
Part 3: One boss is tanked and beat down. Again, he can move. Trash mobs join in periodically. Another boss is kited or killed. No DPS lag.
Part 2: One boss is surrounded and beat down. He does not move. One kiter does his thing. Massive lag.

The common thread here is that DPS lag comes from non moving targets.

How else do you explain the encounters with MORE activity having LESS lag?

[maximus123123]

It's not about the lag.
It's about trying to make a nerf to TWF more palatable.
Otherwise they could have made the same changes while scaling TWF to the same DPS as it is currently.

[Natashaelle]

STWF, in the context of DDO, stands for Superior Two Weapon Fighting. The only occurrence of Superior Two Weapon Fighting in any official 3.0 or 3.5 D&D material, that I am aware of, is in regards to ettins (a two-headed monster race) where its description is "An ettin fights with a morningstar or javelin in each hand. Because each of its two heads controls an arm, the ettin does not take a penalty on attack or damage rolls for attacking with two weapons."

I've just been doing a bit of research, and there are several monsters, not just the ettin, that have Superior Two Weapon/Multi Weapon Fighting as an ability, usually justified by the weapons somehow being controlled by different "heads" or other sources of control.

The only unofficial descriptions that I have seen of STWF as a Feat are the one that i linked to earlier (they provide no information of the source(s) they are using), and another *unofficial* description which is completely unlike both the Monster manual version and Turbine's proposed Feat. I cannot lay my hands on a more official D&D website where I have, unless I'm mistaken, also seen it mentioned as a Feat, rather than as a special ability.


Before you go on to claim that you meant Supreme Two Weapon Fighting, let me do a little bit of preemptive refutation: the feats is, like Superior Two Weapon Fighting, no where to be seen on Wizards' official 3.5 D&D list which suggests no supplement offers it as a general feat; it is, to the bets of my knowledge, only available to master of the Wild's Tempest prestige class so there is no reason for it to be available as a general feat; and it's still not called Superior Two Weapon Fighting so, even if you were to refute the two previous points, the position that Superior Two Weapon Fighting is a made up feat still stands.

Thank you for this information -- it does seem to clarify what the Turbine devs may have been aiming for with the Tempest PrE in DDO.

Squabbling about nomenclature seems to ba a little counterproductive nonetheless, compared to the clear design goal on Turbine's part to provide for some 2WF specialists in their MMO.

[error55o]

No it's not. What you see as a "server" is an "instance of the DD) world" - there are many machines that make up that world

your kinda over generalising how servers work a bit there, an instant would be on ONE server but no way is there loads of servers per instance, a server can handle many many many instances of what ever the players are doing on there, be them raids, be them quests, be them public area's, servers can do all the above and prolly a lot more :P

[Natashaelle]

You mean 'zero'?

So, you think that glancing blows and a chance to proc various special attacks on secondary targets while using S&B will have "zero" consequences to S&B ?

... riiiight ....


Because we need more Fighters and Barbarians right?

To all these people that claim TWF is unmatched DPS

I cannot recall making any such claim.


Listen carefully, because this is important.

Barbarians are chosen because they can be relied upon to not lose aggro. To anyone.

Please stop being so patronising ... besides, my battle cleric does occasionally steal aggro from various barbarians in both Shroud and ToD. Sometimes, I simply elect to go duo tanking with the designated tank to avoid Harry in Shroud part 5 and Sally in VoD, in particular, facing anywhere except in the right direction.


And since aggro is a direct measure of DPS, that means the Barbarian is doing the most damage out of anyone in the party.

Apart from all which, it should be crystal clear to anyone with any experience at all of DDO that Barbarians produce more DPS than any other character class in the game.

DPS is the most significant, but not the only, contributor towards Hate generation. Defender PrE and some gear you can wear also contribute towards grabbing aggro. There may be some hidden contributing factors as well, such as your alignment and fighting against a favoured enemy -- but I'm not at all sure about that.

[error55o]

lol, my rogue steals agro a lot, I just thought there was a new random agro thing, you guys saying my rogue is a uber rogue? xD

[geoffhanna]

You have to keep in mind one other thing tho...Turbine is also trying to fix popularity.......this is the beginning of probably a more mainstream MMO player friendly model rather than a niche one.

I'm not saying I am for or against it, but they will probably get a lot more people if complexity of gameplay and character creation is toned down ... <snip> ...

I hope you are wrong. For years now one company after another has tried to make games more WoW-like to attain popularity. Including Turbine. It doesn't work. What does work? Innovation! F2P worked because this is an awesome game and no one else was doing it.

Dumbing down the game to try and appeal to different players is a mistake. A trap.

Vive la differance!

[Angelus_dead]

It requires a second head, which is an important omission.
Sadly, Turbine doesn't have the technical resources to catch up to the competition on that feature (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/races/two-headed-ogre.shtml).

[error55o]

I hope you are wrong. For years now one company after another has tried to make games more WoW-like to attain popularity. Including Turbine. It doesn't work. What does work? Innovation! F2P worked because this is an awesome game and no one else was doing it.

Dumbing down the game to try and appeal to different players is a mistake. A trap.

Vive la differance!

/Agreed

[zealous]

However Shade does. His response? NONE! Reason?

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=2990775&postcount=805
I see him using the words extreme and nerf in close proximity.




Proper twitching does NOT have you move at the time of attack. Since you aren't moving at the time of the attack, you'll still get full glancing blows.

Do you even play this game?
Link to your 2h characters myDDO page immediately or else you're in no position to be posting in this thread!!! ;)

Second animation of standing chain, first animation of moving chain (the one with a glancing blow).

You do not get full glancing blows, you get 1/2 instead of 3/4.



It was mentioned somewhere else that Bastard Swords and Dwarven Axes will get Glancing Blows with S&B. Of course Glancing Blows do a fraction of your damage, and S&B does very gimpy damage so this is practically a cosmetic feature... and one that only affects dwarf S&B characters, as it doesn't suddenly make the Bastard Sword worth taking. Or the Dwarven Axe, for that matter (but dwarves get it for free).

Glancing blow provides 0.3*(base damage + 30) and has 100% proc for FB vicious damage as well as KOTC stuff.
10-20% is a fraction of your damage, it is however a quite large fraction.



So why Barbarian? Well, the hit points are nice. But the real reason is because if the tank loses aggro, he will turn around and attack the party.

Listen carefully, because this is important.

Barbarians are chosen because they can be relied upon to not lose aggro. To anyone.

And since aggro is a direct measure of DPS, that means the Barbarian is doing the most damage out of anyone in the party.

You know the strangest thing, I've regularly seen barbs loose aggro to 2wfers with threat reduction. I've even seen a barb loose aggro to a wis built monk lacking ToD rings!

[rezo]

After try to read the pages of pages of pages can anyone tell me if you have spring attack will the THF Glancing blow be effected???

[Imnisc]

Im sure the coding team (well lets be real, the guy sharing desk with the janitor in the basement :D ) has explored this, but just in case:

If you want to reduce work from collision checks on attacks, do them a bunch at a time.
Client knows how many attacks are likely to come in the next round, so instead of asking server
'did this attack connect?'
ask
'there are 5 attacks coming in the next round with so and so collision sphere, do they connect?'.

Player moving or mob moving/dying etc. cause a new query ofcourse.
For running battles the savings are not that great, but could catch the double attacks from twf.
For boss beatdowns the savings are great and thats where theyre most needed.

[Razcar]

How is decreasing DPS "downgrading content"?Killing builds. I see builds as content in DDO, since it is such a fun, complex and important part of this game - especially compared to what they call "builds" in other MMOs.

[maximus123123]

THF should be nerfed and so should Epic Sword of Shadow.

As it is, the easiest thing to do is make a maxed out strength+constitution barb or fighter and then take the THF chain of feats.

Those in combination with glancing attacks and twitching attacks (not to mention the Epic Sword of Shadows) make THF by far the most extreme form of DPS in the game all while allowing the player to maintain maximum Hit Points (as opposed to the stat spread a TWF has to do). And AC is not even a consideration in epic so that the dex doesn't help unlike the ability to place all points in constitution and strength that a THF currently has.

NERF TWITCHING THF. NERF GLANCING BLOWS. AND NERF EPIC SOS.

[Aspenor]

I saw a good point in this thread. Eladrin, have you attempted to discern the source of the memory leaks that were found when switching characters? My theory on this matter was proven, but for some reason I can't seem to find the thread using the forums search.

[Therilith]

Killing builds.

Only if those builds are balanced as it is. The devs don't seem to think so.

[maximus123123]

Only if those builds are balanced as it is. The devs don't seem to think so.

The devs don't play this game...they listen to people like Shade and Borror0 to make it.

That's why THF is king and ranged combat is the weakest.

[Borror0]

I saw a good point in this thread. Eladrin, have you attempted to discern the source of the memory leaks that were found when switching characters? My theory on this matter was proven, but for some reason I can't seem to find the thread using the forums search.
The forum search has been broken since the same day where they had the problem which downgraded several premium users to free.

[vVAnjilaVv]

I hope you are wrong. For years now one company after another has tried to make games more WoW-like to attain popularity. Including Turbine. It doesn't work. What does work? Innovation! F2P worked because this is an awesome game and no one else was doing it.

Dumbing down the game to try and appeal to different players is a mistake. A trap.

Vive la differance!

Well, I certainly hope your right...I personally like the game how it is......but you can't help but to notice how much simple it is now than it used to be.

Solo'ing used to be something only a skilled player with resources could accomplish once u got to a certain level of quest.....now anyone can do it, even a brand new player all the way to cap. No this is not all about solo'ing, I was just using that as an example of how much the game has changed in the last few months.

I don't think DDO will ever simplify to the point of being WoW like, I do think they plan on simplifying to the point of making it more accessible for a broader range of players tho.

[Razcar]

You know the strangest thing, I've regularly seen barbs loose aggro to 2wfers with threat reduction. I've even seen a barb loose aggro to a wis built monk lacking ToD rings!Since the DDO barbarian is a class specifically tailored for mouth-breathing 8 year old boys that likes to constantly squeek over VC about their crit numbers, you'll see this once in a while.

When the barb is played and built by an adult (hey, it happens ;) ) you won't see this.

[SquelchHU]

So, you think that glancing blows and a chance to proc various special attacks on secondary targets while using S&B will have "zero" consequences to S&B ?

... riiiight ....

S&B is way behind. To catch up, they need a MASSIVE boost. Something that does not do this is invalid. They will be irrelevant before, and irrelevant after. The only thing it does is trick those that don't know better into thinking that they're fine now.


I cannot recall making any such claim.

That was a general statement.


Please stop being so patronising ... besides, my battle cleric does occasionally steal aggro from various barbarians in both Shroud and ToD. Sometimes, I simply elect to go duo tanking with the designated tank to avoid Harry in Shroud part 5 and Sally in VoD, in particular, facing anywhere except in the right direction.

Must be some gimpy barbarians.


DPS is the most significant, but not the only, contributor towards Hate generation. Defender PrE and some gear you can wear also contribute towards grabbing aggro. There may be some hidden contributing factors as well, such as your alignment and fighting against a favoured enemy -- but I'm not at all sure about that.

Defender is +200% hate.

Which means you need at least about 220 DPS to be sure of holding aggro. On a S&B character, this is... difficult... Despite the fact that even Monks, who are not exactly regarded as DPS top out at about double this number.


http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=2990775&postcount=805
I see him using the words extreme and nerf in close proximity.

Really? Must have missed that line.


Do you even play this game?
Link to your 2h characters myDDO page immediately or else you're in no position to be posting in this thread!!! ;)

Second animation of standing chain, first animation of moving chain (the one with a glancing blow).

You do not get full glancing blows, you get 1/2 instead of 3/4.

I loled. So you're saying I quoted Shade wrong? Ok, I can buy that.

[r3dl4nce]

You know the strangest thing, I've regularly seen barbs loose aggro to 2wfers with threat reduction. I've even seen a barb loose aggro to a wis built monk lacking ToD rings!
Well, tell to that barbs to reroll or start to equip and learn to play...
A well played well equipped barb can loose aggro only in a single circumstance. When he die.

[Auran82]

I saw a good point in this thread. Eladrin, have you attempted to discern the source of the memory leaks that were found when switching characters? My theory on this matter was proven, but for some reason I can't seem to find the thread using the forums search.

No point speaking to him specifically, its going to take him 2 days to read the rest of the thread.

[BurningDownTheHouse]

THF should be nerfed and so should Epic Sword of Shadow.

As it is, the easiest thing to do is make a maxed out strength+constitution barb or fighter and then take the THF chain of feats.

Those in combination with glancing attacks and twitching attacks (not to mention the Epic Sword of Shadows) make THF by far the most extreme form of DPS in the game all while allowing the player to maintain maximum Hit Points (as opposed to the stat spread a TWF has to do). And AC is not even a consideration in epic so that the dex doesn't help unlike the ability to place all points in constitution and strength that a THF currently has.

NERF TWITCHING THF. NERF GLANCING BLOWS. AND NERF EPIC SOS.

Just no.

http://i433.photobucket.com/albums/qq58/natanmager/mmk.jpg

[Aspenor]

No point speaking to him specifically, its going to take him 2 days to read the rest of the thread.

You underestimate my powers of developer summoning. ;)

[Auran82]

Well, tell to that barbs to reroll or start to equip and learn to play...
A well played well equipped barb can loose aggro only in a single circumstance. When he die.

Or maybe vs a well equipped and played str based rogue who forgets to turn on his aggro reducing abilities.

[r3dl4nce]

Or maybe vs a well equipped and played str based rogue who forgets to turn on his aggro reducing abilities.
Well, you are saying that is a mistake. Even if a barb doesn't activate Power Attack, doesn't go in rage and so on.... but these are mistakes, not common events.

[Natashaelle]

S&B is way behind. To catch up, they need a MASSIVE boost. Something that does not do this is invalid. They will be irrelevant before, and irrelevant after. The only thing it does is trick those that don't know better into thinking that they're fine now.

I never meant to suggest that S&B could or should ever be able to compete with the DPS of either 2HF or 2WF.

The point of S&B is to get more AC than other fighters -- obviously, not every player is going to be convinced that this is a worthwhile goal.

But your suggestion that 2HF S&B will be of "zero" consequence to S&B is quite clearly an exaggeration.

[Artos_Fabril]

STWF, in the context of DDO, stands for Superior Two Weapon Fighting. The only occurrence of Superior Two Weapon Fighting in any official 3.0 or 3.5 D&D material, that I am aware of, is in regards to ettins (a two-headed monster race) where its description is "An ettin fights with a morningstar or javelin in each hand. Because each of its two heads controls an arm, the ettin does not take a penalty on attack or damage rolls for attacking with two weapons."
[...]
In fact, Superior Two Weapon Fighting is no where to be seen on Wizards of the Coast's official 3.5 D&D feat list (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/feats).

Before you go on to claim that you meant Supreme Two Weapon Fighting, let me do a little bit of preemptive refutation: the feats is, like Superior Two Weapon Fighting, no where to be seen on Wizards' official 3.5 D&D list which suggests no supplement offers it as a general feat; it is, to the best of my knowledge, only available to master of the Wild's Tempest prestige class so there is no reason for it to be available as a general feat; and it's still not called Superior Two Weapon Fighting so, even if you were to refute the two previous points, the position that Superior Two Weapon Fighting is a made up feat still stands.
This was the closest thing I could find. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#perfectTwoWeaponFighting) It contains the same wording as the 3.5e Epic Feats List Hosted on the WotC site (http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/v35/EpicFeats.rtf)(.RTF)
It bears little in common with the cited STWF rules, even ignoring the fact that it requires 21st level to select.

As far as the proposed changes go, my initial reaction is not at all positive. However, I certainly hope it works out better than it looks. After my experience playing a monk in EQ, red flags start going up whenever sweeping changes are proposed based on how a small fraction of a percent of characters perform in a small fraction of a percent of content.

Most of all, I'm looking forward to Eladrin's reaction when he comes into work after the long weekend to find out he has to read at least a third of a 135 page thread.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

Double strike is FUNCTIONALLY IDENTICAL to alacrity when using a single weapon, which both THF and S&B do.

Double strike is actually better for monks and S&B because there is a chance of a second proc of a special attack e.g. trip, stunning blow (for S&B) and stunning fist, quivering palm, touch of death (for monks). This means the mob has to save twice.


Killing builds. I see builds as content in DDO, since it is such a fun, complex and important part of this game - especially compared to what they call "builds" in other MMOs.

I wouldn't agree that 10 or 15% less dps is killing builds. Especially when it is putting these overpowered builds on the same footing as THF.



Defender is +200% hate.


I believe the increased hate from stances are still broken.

Garth

[cata]

I dont know how D&D engine works.But from what i understand *Lag* problem comes from *Multiple Dices count on weps (Holy/Acid/Fire/Ice...) . If the *Multiple Dices (Holy/Acid/Fire/Ice...) are counted separately then read next*

To clear some of the Lag one change could be done - instead of multiple checks on every Element on a Wep to be done only 1dice for each Wep (For TWF).

So let me explain a bit - If u have a Scimitar (with Holy2d6,PureGood1d6,Acid1d6) and u roll a dice ToHit (to pass AC of mob) lets say 10 (lets say hit) GameEngine/Client need to dice for Every dice, RandomGeneratedNumber(#RGN) depending on every Dice (if im not right stop reading and ignore this post) so GameEngine/Client needs to #RGN 1d6(Scimitar)+2d6(Holy)+1d6(PureGood)+1d6(Acid)=4# RGNs coz each its a diferent Efect.

Now to do it the New my way - Same Wep,Same ToHitDice 10 - instead of making all those #RGN make just 1#RGN on HitDice number (convert the hit dice 10 to 50%) so a 10ToHitDiceRolled to get 1d6=3(Scimitar)+2d6=6(holy)+1d6=3(PureGood)+1d6(Ac id) == so only 1dice /hit (1#RGN /hit + Reuse of % got from ToHitDice) ***I know its hard to get it coz would be like a Vorpal on 20HitDice everyting hiting full .

Or when u Reuse ToHitDice % lets say 20ToHitDice instead on using on 1d6=1-6 u could use 1d6=6-1 so u get a bit random end DMG. = Same Wep,ToHitDice 20=100% == 1d6=6(Scimitar)+2d6=2(Holy using 2d6=12-2)+1d6=1(PureGood using 1d6=61)+1d6=6(Acid).

I would expet like 5-10%max less lag or less but sounds alot Crazy and maeby better then Nerfing OffHand like that.
Just trying to help dont jump on me to hard ^^. ty and have funn in anyway it comes.
It could be a quick/fast Twick untill DDO team gets some more cash to Upgrade Hardware/Software. :P

[ironmaiden-br]

THF should be nerfed and so should Epic Sword of Shadow.

As it is, the easiest thing to do is make a maxed out strength+constitution barb or fighter and then take the THF chain of feats.

Those in combination with glancing attacks and twitching attacks (not to mention the Epic Sword of Shadows) make THF by far the most extreme form of DPS in the game all while allowing the player to maintain maximum Hit Points (as opposed to the stat spread a TWF has to do). And AC is not even a consideration in epic so that the dex doesn't help unlike the ability to place all points in constitution and strength that a THF currently has.

NERF TWITCHING THF. NERF GLANCING BLOWS. AND NERF EPIC SOS.

NO!

Adn also don't nerf twf

must be better ways to solve performance problems....... like better machines.

[Aspenor]

NERF TWITCHING THF.
Yes.

NERF GLANCING BLOWS.
No.

AND NERF EPIC SOS.
No.

Twitching THF should be fixed. The rest is just overkill. Fixing the twitch THF would be sufficient to obtain the desired goal. This is being said as a player that uses twitch THF on a character (probably my current most favorite, actually).

[Battlehawke]

Interesting "tie in" here.

I played in a shroud group last week that wasn't that much DPS/melee build. We had two rogues, 3 clerics, 1 FvS, 1 sorc, 1 wiz, 2 Barbs, 1 ranger and 1 fighter. We took him down in part 4 in one round. No pets, no dancing...and believe it or not....almost no buffing in the first 3 parts.

I played a few nights ago with some guy in another shroud run that took forever to get into the quest. We waited about 7-8 minutes for him to come after his invite. When he finally got in, he apologized for taking so long. He said that he was playing via his phone lines, because his Cable wasn't working. We had 1 cleric, 1 Fvs, 1 bard, 1 sorc, 1 rogue, 3 fighters, 2 barbs, and 2 rangers. There were pets everywhere and discos. The guy with the phone line seemed to be a step behind everyone. Almost several wipes in Part 2... twice we were down to one person who managed to rez most of the party. There was tons of lag. Then we wiped in part 4 with the boss at about 5%.

It seems odd, but could his playing on the phone line affect lag severely for everyone else? Could pets and disco balls affect it?

If so, is it possible to sort people out by connection speed? Those with better speeds/connections stay with each other, and those with slower .... stay with the slower..?

Seems a bit odd.... but would that work?

[Krag]

It seems odd, but could his playing on the phone line affect lag severely for everyone else? Could pets and disco balls affect it?

Yes to both questions.

[Aspenor]

Interesting "tie in" here.

I played in a shroud group last week that wasn't that much DPS/melee build. We had two rogues, 3 clerics, 1 FvS, 1 sorc, 1 wiz, 2 Barbs, 1 ranger and 1 fighter. We took him down in part 4 in one round. No pets, no dancing...and believe it or not....almost no buffing in the first 3 parts.

I played a few nights ago with some guy in another shroud run that took forever to get into the quest. We waited about 7-8 minutes for him to come after his invite. When he finally got in, he apologized for taking so long. He said that he was playing via his phone lines, because his Cable wasn't working. We had 1 cleric, 1 Fvs, 1 bard, 1 sorc, 1 rogue, 3 fighters, 2 barbs, and 2 rangers. There were pets everywhere and discos. The guy with the phone line seemed to be a step behind everyone. Almost several wipes in Part 2... twice we were down to one person who managed to rez most of the party. There was tons of lag. Then we wiped in part 4 with the boss at about 5%.

It seems odd, but could his playing on the phone line affect lag severely for everyone else? Could pets and disco balls affect it?

If so, is it possible to sort people out by connection speed? Those with better speeds/connections stay with each other, and those with slower .... stay with the slower..?

Seems a bit odd.... but would that work?

I have noticed this too. Sometimes when I'm getting bad lag, I ask the party which one of them using wireless or dial-up to play. Almost every time somebody is.

The program should just forget these people, and not try to keep them up to speed with everybody else.

Whether these selfish idiots should be playing at all with a connection like that is another matter altogether. I don't pay for a 20 MB connection just to have my gaming experience ruined by some idiot using a laptop in a coffee shop.

[Do'Urden]

Could pets and disco balls affect it?

This is a somewhat uneducated observation, but it seems to me that the type of lag associated with those 2 things would be unrelated. Disco balls seem to have impact only on client-related (graphics processing) lag whereas multiple pets introduce AI pathing, DPS, etc. in other words a heavier burden on the server calcs.

[grodon9999]

I have noticed this too. Sometimes when I'm getting bad lag, I ask the party which one of them using wireless or dial-up to play. Almost every time somebody is.

The program should just forget these people, and not try to keep them up to speed with everybody else.

Whether these selfish idiots should be playing at all with a connection like that is another matter altogether. I don't pay for a 20 MB connection just to have my gaming experience ruined by some idiot using a laptop in a coffee shop.


Agreed, if your connection sucks you shouldn't ruin it for people who have decent setups.

[Gercho]

I have noticed this too. Sometimes when I'm getting bad lag, I ask the party which one of them using wireless or dial-up to play. Almost every time somebody is.

The program should just forget these people, and not try to keep them up to speed with everybody else.

Whether these selfish idiots should be playing at all with a connection like that is another matter altogether. I don't pay for a 20 MB connection just to have my gaming experience ruined by some idiot using a laptop in a coffee shop.

Some dev posted (not sure if in this thread or another) that they had fixed this problem already, and a bad connection wont affect the others in the group in the future (area of effect spells were waiting for everyone life signal to take effect, so, the group lag was a case of the worst connection for the group, from now on, area of effect spells will be applied to everyone individually without waiting for the others)

[dunklezhan]

I have noticed this too. Sometimes when I'm getting bad lag, I ask the party which one of them using wireless or dial-up to play. Almost every time somebody is.

The program should just forget these people, and not try to keep them up to speed with everybody else.

Whether these selfish idiots should be playing at all with a connection like that is another matter altogether. I don't pay for a 20 MB connection just to have my gaming experience ruined by some idiot using a laptop in a coffee shop.

Steady on there - some of us cant get a high speed connection where we live. I'm playing wirelessly too because my router is at the far end of the house, where the phone line comes in. Its 'broadband' - 1.5Mbps. My wireless connection to the router is way faster than that. its not the wireless that affects my gameplay speeds, if anything its the ADSL line. I'm not 'some idiot', thank you very much. In fact, I checked with the cable company I was with at my last address before I committed to buying this house because my internet speed was pretty much a deal breaker, they told me cable was available.... and they were wrong. I am (*&^&^ off by that on a daily basis. However, even had I not checked this wouldn't make me an idiot - you work with what you've got, and I can do no better here.

Can't believe my first post in this thread has been for this reason. So, on topic: -

I don't personally see this change as a major deal (though I admit I'm a bit confused why they're making the lag-reducing physics check and bolting on other TWF changes which don't seem to be causing lag in the first place) and I don't see 'end game' being the only criteria for measuring the success or failure of such a change.

With TR in place now an awful lot of people are going to spend an awful lot of time at the lower levels now. And I personally - speaking as someone currently in love with my ranger and rogue - am not worried by this change. Yes I'll be less effective, but this does not worry me. I'll just have to learn to play better to compensate.

[zealous]

Twitching THF should be fixed. The rest is just overkill. Fixing the twitch THF would be sufficient to obtain the desired goal. This is being said as a player that uses twitch THF on a character (probably my current most favorite, actually).
Is it 2h twitch that should be fixed or is it unarmed/single weapon/2wf that should be fixed to be twitchable though?

Trying to maximize twitch and have a dynamic moving combat would be more fun than standing still and holding auto attack, would it not?

After all, it's closer to PnP!

And then...when they move mobs attacks to the end of the animation...again...and sync them to intervals that go hand in hand with the attack cycles of the players...twitch like a butterfly, sting like a pre-nerf WoP rapier ;)

[Gercho]

Is it 2h twitch that should be fixed or is it unarmed/single weapon/2wf that should be fixed to be twitchable though?

Trying to maximize twitch and have a dynamic moving combat would be more fun than standing still and holding auto attack, would it not?

After all, it's closer to PnP!

And then...when they move mobs attacks to the end of the animation...again...and sync them to intervals that go hand in hand with the attack cycles of the players...twitch like a butterfly, sting like a pre-nerf WoP rapier ;)

i think mobility in combat for strategic purposes its ok, now move in combat to increase damage against an static mob that is not even hiting you back, that should not be encouraged...

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

Steady on there - some of us cant get a high speed connection where we live. I'm playing wirelessly too because my router is at the far end of the house, where the phone line comes in. Its 'broadband' - 1.5Mbps. My wireless connection to the router is way faster than that. its not the wireless that affects my gameplay speeds, if anything its the ADSL line. I'm not 'some idiot', thank you very much.

I think the poster is referring to wireless 'broadband' access such as WiMax, not wireless as in 802.11g home systems.

And the change that the dev alluded to about synchronising spells should make a big improvement for these situations. Right now spells such as delayed blast fireball or horrid wilting have to be synced with all clients including those on lower connections. In update 5 this problem won't happen any more.

Garth

[Eladrin]

Still catching up through the thread, but a few comments:

1) I've been convinced that STWF is not a benefit to the game. Instead of opening up new options, its presence instead would close many.
2) The Barbarian Capstone's alacrity bonus is a bug.

[Aspenor]

Is it 2h twitch that should be fixed or is it unarmed/single weapon/2wf that should be fixed to be twitchable though?

Trying to maximize twitch and have a dynamic moving combat would be more fun than standing still and holding auto attack, would it not?

After all, it's closer to PnP!

And then...when they move mobs attacks to the end of the animation...again...and sync them to intervals that go hand in hand with the attack cycles of the players...twitch like a butterfly, sting like a pre-nerf WoP rapier ;)

Actually, twitch is not closer to PnP. I'm not sure who was so misinformed as to say it is.

[Gobbothegreen]

Still catching up through the thread, but a few comments:

1) I've been convinced that STWF is not a benefit to the game. Instead of opening up new options, its presence instead would close many.
2) The Barbarian Capstone's alacrity bonus is a bug.



:D I like :D

[Aspenor]

Still catching up through the thread, but a few comments:

1) I've been convinced that STWF is not a benefit to the game. Instead of opening up new options, its presence instead would close many.
2) The Barbarian Capstone's alacrity bonus is a bug.

Thanks, El.

Have you looked into the causes of memory leaks when switching characters? All experimental evidence points to it absolutely being true. This is a major cause of lag, I think. Not everybody logs out of the game every time they switch characters for a raid, like I do.

[Borror0]

Actually, twitch is not closer to PnP. I'm not sure who was so misinformed as to say it is.
I think he means that it is rare in PnP for melee players to perform full-round actions so it's "closer to PnP" to have a mechanism that discourages standing still and attacking.

[Aspenor]

I think the poster is referring to wireless 'broadband' access such as WiMax, not wireless as in 802.11g home systems.

Yes, I was.

[Aspenor]

I think he means that it is rare in PnP for melee players to perform full-round actions so it's "locser to PnP" to have a mechanism that discourages standing still and attacking.

Well, he is wrong. The standard action for a melee in PnP IS a full-round action. It is one of a few things, depending on build:

1. 5 foot step + full attack sequence = full round action
2. full attack + trip = full round action
3. charge + pounce = full round action

It's actually more rare for melee to not perform full round actions. The 5 foot step is extremely common, but you don't do it to increase rate of attack, you do it to move into flank where you can put another +2 into power attack and squeeze out 4 more damage, or possibly move yourself into position for cleave/great cleave.

[Razcar]

Still catching up through the thread, but a few comments:

1) I've been convinced that STWF is not a benefit to the game. Instead of opening up new options, its presence instead would close many.
2) The Barbarian Capstone's alacrity bonus is a bug.Good news, and thanks for keeping us posted.

[Drfirewater79]

Still catching up through the thread, but a few comments:

1) I've been convinced that STWF is not a benefit to the game. Instead of opening up new options, its presence instead would close many.
2) The Barbarian Capstone's alacrity bonus is a bug.

If STWF isnt going to be put into the game ... then fighters with gtwf need to have 100% off hand ...

it doesnt make any sense if a kensai especially cannot dual weild at the same rate as a ranger who has lower bab ....

fighters when specialized should (based on the number of feats and abilities) be a SPECIALIST in there melee field ...

its the only reason to be a fighter ..

if rangers have faster attack speed (tempest) and have better off hand attacks you eliminate the usefulness of dual wielding fighters ...

With Capstone fighters should have 100/100% dual wielding if they have all the feats available ...

or at least make it part of the kensai line.

same goes for monks ... we already have the lowest dps in the game and now in order to hit at a regular rate we have to be in wind stance ... well personally i dont even use wind stance anymore once you hit lvl 20 the difference isnt much and you dont gain ki as fast so as a healing monk wind stance is almost never used ....

so now you force wind stance to hit often enough to build ki anyway .. so in fire stance i wont generate ki as fast and in wind stance i dont generate enough ki to buff and attack ...

so .... now we have to rely on the PRE's and windstance to even be useful.

thanks ... doesn't seem like this is gonna be ready anytime soon ....

is update 5 coming out this year .... cause it seems like you guys haven't worked this stuff out to make any sense on the player end at all.

[Aspenor]

ranger who has lower bab ....

Rangers have the same BAB as a fighter.

[Borror0]

it doesnt make any sense if a kensai especially cannot dual weild at the same rate as a ranger who has lower bab ....
It makes sense. So much sense, in fact, that it's already that way. Eladrin's proposed change won't change that, nor should it.

Rangers have the same BAB as a fighter.
I read that to mean he is upset that Tempest I makes a ranger attack faster than a fighter who is several levels higher. I'm not sure why he takes issue with that now, when it's been that way since January 30th 2008, the day Tempest I was added to the game.

[The_Phenx]

If STWF isnt going to be put into the game ... then fighters with gtwf need to have 100% off hand ...

it doesnt make any sense if a kensai especially cannot dual weild at the same rate as a ranger who has lower bab ....

fighters when specialized should (based on the number of feats and abilities) be a SPECIALIST in there melee field ...

its the only reason to be a fighter ..

if rangers have faster attack speed (tempest) and have better off hand attacks you eliminate the usefulness of dual wielding fighters ...

With Capstone fighters should have 100/100% dual wielding if they have all the feats available ...

or at least make it part of the kensai line.

+1

A kensai III Fighter should not be a lesser mele combatant than a ranger... perhaps only with his chosen weapon... but the thoughts still stand.

[Gobbothegreen]

If STWF isnt going to be put into the game ... then fighters with gtwf need to have 100% off hand ...

it doesnt make any sense if a kensai especially cannot dual weild at the same rate as a ranger who has lower bab ....

fighters when specialized should (based on the number of feats and abilities) be a SPECIALIST in there melee field ...

its the only reason to be a fighter ..

if rangers have faster attack speed (tempest) and have better off hand attacks you eliminate the usefulness of dual wielding fighters ...

With Capstone fighters should have 100/100% dual wielding if they have all the feats available ...

or at least make it part of the kensai line.

Why exactly? Fighters are already the hardest hitting melee in the game and they already have less offhand hits than rangers. Why change that blaance and make rangers even crappier than they will already become (they still loose way to much from this nerf compared to any other class).

[Borror0]

A kensai III Fighter should not be a lesser mele combatant than a ranger
Eladrin's proposed change, now without STWF, nerfs rangers more than fighters.

EDIT: By that I mean that rangers get nerfed while fighters don't nerfed, other than the global -10% DPS every TWF build lost.

[DethTrip]

There needs to be a good reason to spend a bunch of feats on twf, spending points to have high dex, and to build a second weapon and making twf do LESS damage than thf def does not give a person a good reason to build one. You devs better test this and make it so there IS a benefit to twf or a lot of people are going to be extremely ****ed. It will NOT make the game more enjoyable for a large number of people in this game.

I agree with a lot of other people's suggestions. Don't nerf twf and call it a change to make less dps lag. If you really want to lessen lag, get better equipment and change how dice are rolled. keep the combat system as close to the same as it is as possible. Monks are already tough enough to get good dps out of. Now you will make them an almost obsolete class. I do not agree with this proposal from what I have read.

[The_Phenx]

Wind Stance not being optimal for every fighting style isn't bad. We're considering doing something with Water Stance to make it a preferable staff stance, though Sun Stance's strength boost could also be appealing.

Any more details on this Eladrin?

Of course I am always curious about the fate of acrobats, as is well documented...

[Shade]

2) The Barbarian Capstone's alacrity bonus is a bug.
...
You acknowledge this bug..

Yet the fact (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=201343) that the capstone is bugged in another major way - it never increased glancing blow damage.. You never comment on, and leave out.

Fix the broken aspects making it worse before worrying about the broken aspects making it better.

[Keridan]

Still catching up through the thread, but a few comments:

1) I've been convinced that STWF is not a benefit to the game. Instead of opening up new options, its presence instead would close many.
2) The Barbarian Capstone's alacrity bonus is a bug.

I like this post for the simple fact that it proves you are listening to the feedback :) I personally don't have a directly vested interest in the actual changes implemented (I play healers and arcanes), but I fear when devs seem to be deaf to points that counter their own. Glad to see you are taking debate still.

[Therilith]

fighters when specialized should (based on the number of feats and abilities) be a SPECIALIST in there melee field ...

Why can you select "Kensei [two handed weapon] Mastery" if it's a TWF PrE?


Don't nerf twf and call it a change to make less dps lag.

Why are you posting in this thread if you haven't read the OP?

[The_Phenx]

Eladrin's proposed change, now without STWF, nerfs rangers more than fighters.

The way I read it is that STWF was being considered for general release as a trainable feat to all classes again, (like it was 4 years ago). And that Eladrin has said that that will NOT be happening now.

Not that he was taking STWF away from rangers.

Hence my comment.

I dont care if fighters get STWF I just think its silly that a fully trained and specalized (kensai III) would be less skilled at dual weilding his weapon of choice.

Before it made more sense... because the ranger was just a little faster, could sneak in an extra hit or two, not better, and certainly not better with every weapon, which if they are 100% 100% then they are more skilled with every available weapon than a guy who spends his whole life just training with one.

[Borror0]

Why can you select "Kensei [two handed weapon] Mastery" if it's a TWF PrE?
He never claimed it was a TWF specialty. It's a specialty that focus on mastering a weapon.

[jarlaxle_dourden]

I am a little concerned over this thread ... I apologize if this has already been discussed but how will this affect builds that have relied on stunning (weighted) weapons/feats?

I read it as ... less attacks = less chances to land ... = nerf

Will double strike have individual roles to see if the mob is stunned?

I would be pleased if anyone could comment.

[grodon9999]

Still catching up through the thread, but a few comments:

1) I've been convinced that STWF is not a benefit to the game. Instead of opening up new options, its presence instead would close many.
2) The Barbarian Capstone's alacrity bonus is a bug.

Will Mob HP be lowered to make up for the loss of DPS?

Bottom line, what will this do to my Tempest III's damage output? How will it effect vorpalling and stat-damaging? What are the latest number?

[Cashiry]

Eladrin, in your first posting of numbers you didn't have double strike.

Now that you do I have a question pertaining to monks. (Please forgive me if it's been asked, I don't have the time to read all 1400 posts.)

In the first sentence I quoted it says that monks wind stance will get 5%/10%/15%/20% to off hand proc rate.

Now you have changed it to double strike %. But wind 4 says it would give a 10% chance for double strike proc. Does that mean that each level of wind stance will give a 2.5% chance, or is wind 4 the ONLY level of that stance that will give double strike proc %?

Also, has there been any thought to Ki generation? With monks taking a big hit to the amount of times they will hit with their off hand they will not be generating as much ki, perhaps on double strikes they should get a percentage of extra ki than a normal hit? Ideas on this?

Good questions Towrn.....

[Therilith]

He never claimed it was a TWF specialty. It's a specialty that focus on mastering a weapon.

I know. What I meant was that just because fighters can specialize in a particular weapon type, and that weapon can be dual wielded doesn't mean that they specialize in dual wielding that weapon.

[Borror0]

The way I read it is that STWF was being considered for general release as a trainable feat to all classes again, (like it was 4 years ago). And that Eladrin has said that that will NOT be happening now.

Not that he was taking STWF away from rangers.
Exactly, so here is what happens:

Both rangers and fighters lose -20% on their offhand, which result in a ~10% DPS loss.
Fighter Weapon Alacrity gets changed to a 10% double strike bonus, which is a ~5% DPS loss.
Tempest I gets changed into a +10% bonus to their offhand, which is a ~5% DPS loss.
Tempest II is given a +10% bonus to their offhand, which is a ~5% DPS gain.
Tempest III gets its extra attack removed and wins a +5% double strike bonus, which is a ~7.5% loss.

Total loss:
Fighters: approximatively -15% DPS
Rangers: approximatively -17.5% DPS

Note: I'm aware I'm oversimplifying, but it gets the point across which is all that matters.
EDIT: Applied double strike properly.

Before it made more sense... because the ranger was just a little faster, could sneak in an extra hit or two, not better, and certainly not better with every weapon, which if they are 100% 100% then they are more skilled with every available weapon than a guy who spends his whole life just training with one.
Currently, rangers have more offhand attacks per round than fighters and so will they after the change. Nothing will change, in that aspect.

[Cyr]

Still catching up through the thread, but a few comments:

1) I've been convinced that STWF is not a benefit to the game. Instead of opening up new options, its presence instead would close many.
2) The Barbarian Capstone's alacrity bonus is a bug.

Well this at least means that anyone who bothers going TWF under then new numbers would not be gimping their toon by going 20 ranger. On the flip side, it also means that fighters and barbs have even less reason to go twf. The numbers are just as bad for multi-class builds now, just comparitively to other twf builds they are not so bad with STWF removed from consideration.

There is still a huge problem with the design idea that THF should be doing ~ the same damge as TWF. If this idea holds sway anyone who understands builds in DDO will have a huge number of their builds trashed and new melee builds will almost always be THF builds.

Why TWF requires more sacrifice then THF.

* Dex requirements. These are basic build points that in many builds would not go towards dex otherwise.

* To hit penalties. TWF has signifigant to hit penalties. These dominate at low to mid levels. They also matter at higher levels. To get around them you have to either use OTWF or be a tempest ranger. So that is either a feat or 3 feats depending on the route.

* Large dps drop off with less feats. TWF dps drops off much faster then THF does if less then the full feat lines are purchased. This matters for builds that are not 100% melee builds and have other useful feat options.

* Double the weapons. This is a big one actually. It's way harder to get 2 holy silver khopeshs of greater evil outsider bane then 1 GS of the same. It also takes twice the raid grinding to make GS for TWF and twice the epic grinding (if there was actually one handed epic weapons worth grinding for). This means that you spend signifigantly more time gearing a twf then a thf. So game time to optimium case is much longer.

* Finally, to actually be an optimium TWF (and we are assuming optimium cases are the ones being considered here and not some strange middling dps case which has no real bearing on end game) you need one extra feat...khopesh.

So added up TWF has 2-5 (worst case is tempest 1/2 splash, oversize, khopesh) more feats needed, more ability points put into dex, longer time to gear up the toon, a lower to hit (if you want another feat to use), and less flexibility when it comes to dropping feats for partial melee builds (bards for example).

[grodon9999]

Total loss:
Fighters: approximatively -10% DPS
Rangers: approximatively -15% DPS

.

That'll **** me off but won't make me rage-quit. If mob HP were reduced it might not even **** me off that badly.

You're smarter than I am with numbers, how will this effect vorpal-swings?

[Cyr]

That'll **** me off but won't make me rage-quit. If mob HP were reduced it might not even **** me off that badly.

You're smarter than I am with numbers, how will this effect vorpal-swings?

It is a nerf to vorpals and such also.

If the change was ONLY a physics check reduction with proc percentages made to create equal dps as before it would still be a minor nerf to vorpals. This is because if you vorpal one target and another is within range for your second attack it swings against that target now. This is a direct consequence of having this delayed physics check for off hand hooks and a very good reason for it. In other words, it spreads out your damage into smaller spikes making your dps more effective (or insta-kills).

However, the numbers currently listed are reductions in the number of attacks per round for all twfs also. So vorpal effectiveness is cut in this regard also.

[Lithic]

So while you are at it, how about admitting that your "momentary insanity" will be corrected and the eSOS brought into line with epic one handers? With this nerf to 2wf, loads of people are going to start respecing into a eSOS style of fighting. You should give those people a heads up so they don't waste their time.

[grodon9999]

However, the numbers currently listed are reductions in the number of attacks per round for all twfs also. So vorpal effectiveness is cut in this regard also.


I know it'll be cut, what I'm concerned about is by how much. 10% fewer swings? 20?

[Arctigis]

Well this at least means that anyone who bothers going TWF under then new numbers would not be gimping their toon by going 20 ranger. On the flip side, it also means that fighters and barbs have even less reason to go twf. The numbers are just as bad for multi-class builds now, just comparitively to other twf builds they are not so bad with STWF removed from consideration.

There is still a huge problem with the design idea that THF should be doing ~ the same damge as TWF. If this idea holds sway anyone who understands builds in DDO will have a huge number of their builds trashed and new melee builds will almost always be THF builds.

Why TWF requires more sacrifice then THF.

* Dex requirements. These are basic build points that in many builds would not go towards dex otherwise.

* To hit penalties. TWF has signifigant to hit penalties. These dominate at low to mid levels. They also matter at higher levels. To get around them you have to either use OTWF or be a tempest ranger. So that is either a feat or 3 feats depending on the route.

* Large dps drop off with less feats. TWF dps drops off much faster then THF does if less then the full feat lines are purchased. This matters for builds that are not 100% melee builds and have other useful feat options.

* Double the weapons. This is a big one actually. It's way harder to get 2 holy silver khopeshs of greater evil outsider bane then 1 GS of the same. It also takes twice the raid grinding to make GS for TWF and twice the epic grinding (if there was actually one handed epic weapons worth grinding for). This means that you spend signifigantly more time gearing a twf then a thf. So game time to optimium case is much longer.

* Finally, to actually be an optimium TWF (and we are assuming optimium cases are the ones being considered here and not some strange middling dps case which has no real bearing on end game) you need one extra feat...khopesh.

So added up TWF has 2-5 (worst case is tempest 1/2 splash, oversize, khopesh) more feats needed, more ability points put into dex, longer time to gear up the toon, a lower to hit (if you want another feat to use), and less flexibility when it comes to dropping feats for partial melee builds (bards for example).

I also was wondering what the need was to equalise TWF and THF given the disparity of their comparitive
requirements. Your excellent post covers everything I think ;)

[Cyr]

So while you are at it, how about admitting that your "momentary insanity" will be corrected and the eSOS brought into line with epic one handers? With this nerf to 2wf, loads of people are going to start respecing into a eSOS style of fighting. You should give those people a heads up so they don't waste their time.

Egats no!

If ESoS was nerfed into epic one hander power then why would anyone want it? Epic one handers are horrible.

[Borror0]

You're smarter than I am with numbers, how will this effect vorpal-swings?
Ranger:

Currently: 9*1.1*1.15=11.4 attacks per unit of time
After change: 8*1.05*1.15= 9.7 attacks per unit of time
Loss: 14.9%

Fighter:

Currently: 8*1.1*1.15=10.1 attacks per unit of time
After change: (4*1.10+4*0.90)*1.15= 9.2 attacks per unit of time
Loss: 8.9%


EDIT: As Cyr later points out, these calculations are wrong. I applied double strike to both hands, when it's only the main hand. I remade the calculations here (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=2999621&posted=1#post2999621), with the proper values.

[SquelchHU]

I never meant to suggest that S&B could or should ever be able to compete with the DPS of either 2HF or 2WF.

The point of S&B is to get more AC than other fighters -- obviously, not every player is going to be convinced that this is a worthwhile goal.

But your suggestion that 2HF S&B will be of "zero" consequence to S&B is quite clearly an exaggeration.

AC is not a worthwhile goal. The game design makes this so. Players will always do what the mechanics encourage them to. Always.

Enemies have high to hits: This makes the difference between low and high AC hit on a 2 or hit on a 2... no difference. But the low AC guy has more HP, DPS etc and is therefore superior in every way.

Many attacks bypass AC entirely: Horoth is the main offender here. No amount of AC will stop Disintegrate, or his other spells. At which point only HP matters.

Certain mechanics encourage disabling the mobs entirely: No one is going to AC tank epic mobs. Even if you actually can. Why? You need to stun and auto crit em to kill them some time today. That means lots of Fighters and Barbarians using Stunning Blow. It also means the mobs aren't fighting back at all.

Most characters with worthwhile ACs in the areas it actually works in have gimp DPS: You may be taking less damage over time, but it will also take you longer to kill the mob and therefore the mob will get more swings at you. This is particularly true with ROLL A BARB Blows, which can actually result in the Barbarian taking LESS damage than a defensive specialist to do the same thing. While also killing the mobs some time today. Check the Sins Elite thread. No mitigation Barbarian, and he's taking less damage over the course of the quest than someone's S&B tank.


Double strike is actually better for monks and S&B because there is a chance of a second proc of a special attack e.g. trip, stunning blow (for S&B) and stunning fist, quivering palm, touch of death (for monks). This means the mob has to save twice.

I mentioned attacks that trigger on a specific proc already. Just because I only used Smite Evil as an example and did not give the full list does not mean I am not aware of that.

And since it's only 10% they end up being very minor. For example Touch of Death is +33.3 DPS if you spam it as often as you can... 10% double strike adds 3.3 to that number. Sounds good until you remember you're down by more than the total 36.6 Touch of Death is getting you by the loss of offhand attacks, which also impact your ki generation, which in turn further reduces your damage output...


I wouldn't agree that 10 or 15% less dps is killing builds. Especially when it is putting these overpowered builds on the same footing as THF.

Overpowered says who?

And let's say you're right. In that case, TWF is completely and utterly worthless, because you do not pay 30 dollars for a 10 dollar item. You pay 10, and save your 20.


I believe the increased hate from stances are still broken.

Garth

If it doesn't even work then S&B is more screwed. But really, it's already below the minimum threshhold, and has been for a very long time. Being 'less screwed' only matters if it pushes it up to the minimum bounds of viability.


I think he means that it is rare in PnP for melee players to perform full-round actions so it's "closer to PnP" to have a mechanism that discourages standing still and attacking.

Um, what?

About the only thing 'closer to PnP' about it is an attack penalty instead of a bonus. Other than that, you really did want to stand still and auto attack in PnP, because you'd lose up to 80% DPS if you didn't. And then everyone knows that, so they move more than 5 feet away from you and do something worthwhile as a Standard action, screwing you utterly. And then you know that anyone and everyone except other melee can casually negate your DPS, so you get an ability that lets you move more than 5 feet and still full attack. Like Pounce.

And none of that has anything to do with twitching.

As for the topic itself, I said earlier that one of the following was true:

1: STWF is available. Tempest is dead, because STWF is 4 times cheaper and offers almost as much benefit by itself.
2: STWF is not available. At which point it is Rangers as a whole who are dead, since Rangers do two things and one of those things has been invalid since beta.

Well, now I have my answer. Thanks a whole lot.

[talyor]

If the physics check is now only checks main hand, will this change my rouge assassins ability to sneak up behind two mobs and assassinate both with one strike?

[Ricter]

The adjusted table seems better, but still concerns me... STWF is available to high BAB classes, which makes it more available to Fighter/Ranger.

Other TWF are pretty much going to take a DPS hit, which again, means that DPS that were already struggling to find a group spot (Bard, Monk, Rogue) are taking another hit.

I saw a post of a Rogue who had crafted the epic Sword of Shadows for himself, and posted ss of its use. At first I laughed, thinking how ridiculous that was. Now I realize he's just ahead of the game.

[Drfirewater79]

I am interested in how this change will effect s&b and two handed fighters if it was implemented into there attack patterns

if sword and board had an offhand attack added to attack with sheild at same rate as two weapon fighters assuming they took a feat chain to increase like Shield fighting I II and III ...it could increase there dps and usefulness especially with a carry over from main hand weapon to shield for effects.

and if you added an unexplained through game mechanics swing miss to two handed fighters (cause lets be honest here this is completely unexplained through DnD Rule set)

so maybe they should change thf to require the feats ...

thf you get 75% chance to hit after confirming hit from weapon
ITHF you get 80% chance
GTHF you get 90%
frenzi you get 100%
kensai you get 95%

yeah screw it why not just make casters do it too

yeah automatic spell fail even if you have no spell failure chance.

you know just to keep it balanced and fair.

[Beethoven]

I just think its silly that a fully trained and specalized (kensai III) would be less skilled at dual weilding his weapon of choice.

Kensai: master of a specific weapon.
Tempest: master in dual-wielding weapons

How is that silly?
They already throwing the fighter class a bone by translating the 10% Fighter Weapon Alacrity to 10% Doublestrike, whereas the Tempest 10% Dual Wielding Alacrity is translated to 5% Doublestrike and still limited to dual wielding only.

Nothing changed. All other things being equal (ie: build, gear, etc.)

Tempest still (statistically) gets one more off-hand hook. Kensai still does more damage per swing (which more than makes up for the one less off-hand attack per attack chain, not even counting Powersurge).
The only other thing that changed (in regards to fighter vs ranger comparison) is that the fighter capstone has become more useful (in relation to the changes).
Personally I believe they put that in there not because rangers are so much more uber than fighters but to make going 20 fighter more worth it.

[Therilith]

Overpowered says who?

Eladrin

[Cyr]

If the physics check is now only checks main hand, will this change my rouge assassins ability to sneak up behind two mobs and assassinate both with one strike?

Yes, it should prevent your makeup from killing two targets with a single assassinate.

[The_Phenx]

Ranger:

Currently: 9*1.1*1.15=11.4 attacks per unit of time
After change: 8*1.05*1.15= 9.7 attacks per unit of time
Loss: 14.9%

Fighter:

Currently: 8*1.1*1.15=10.1 attacks per unit of time
After change: (4*1.10+4*0.90)*1.15= 9.2 attacks per unit of time
Loss: 8.9%


Understood... FIghters loose less than rangers... hopefully they re-adjust hp levels to compensate, and then we "shouldn't" notice much of a difference.

Sad that my acrobat is being slowed down a bit :(

[Borror0]

if sword and board had an offhand attack added to attack with sheild
While you're clearly being sarcastic, that comment actually is a good suggestion.

Improved Shield Bashing, as currently implemented, is a wasted feat slot. If the design team feel like S&B could use a bit of a DPS boost, the proposed change would help in (hopefully) making it easier for S&B to add shield bashing procs to your attacks.

hopefully they re-adjust hp levels to compensate, and then we "shouldn't" notice much of a difference.
Why would they lower mobs' HP? If they felt THF were not doing enough damage, they wouldn't have nerfed TWF characters.

[Cyr]

Ranger:

Currently: 9*1.1*1.15=11.4 attacks per unit of time
After change: 8*1.05*1.15= 9.7 attacks per unit of time
Loss: 14.9%
Fighter:

Currently: 8*1.1*1.15=10.1 attacks per unit of time
After change: (4*1.10+4*0.90)*1.15= 9.2 attacks per unit of time
Loss: 8.9%


Note this does not reflect madstone, haste boosts, or both going at the same time. Let me add the madstone case since it is substainable for ranger (fighter is the same idea of course). Oh and I think the new ranger number is incorrect as it uses 1.05*8 and my understanding is that double strike will only apply to the main hand attack so it should be (1.05*4+1.00*4)*hasted speed boost. I guess the fighter one would be then too after looking at it further. Yup just checked Eladrins last post with fighter alacrity. It is 10% on the main hand only.

Ranger:
* Currently: 9*1.1*1.25 = 12.375 attacks per unit time
* After change: (4*1.05+4*1.00)*1.25 = 10.25 attacks per unit time
* Percentage reduction ~17.17%

[gemineye]

...
You Acknowledge This Bug..

Yet The fact (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=201343) That The Capstone Is Bugged In Another Major Way - It Never Increased Glancing Blow Damage.. You Never Comment On, And Leave Out.

Fix The Broken Aspects Making It Worse Before Worrying About The Broken Aspects Making It Better.

This^^

[The_Phenx]

Kensai: master of a specific weapon.
Tempest: master in dual-wielding weapons

How is that silly?
They already throwing the fighter class a bone by translating the 10% Fighter Weapon Alacrity to 10% Doublestrike, whereas the Tempest 10% Dual Wielding Alacrity is translated to 5% Doublestrike and still limited to dual wielding only.

Nothing changed. All other things being equal (ie: build, gear, etc.)

Tempest still (statistically) gets one more off-hand hook. Kensai still does more damage per swing (which more than makes up for the one less off-hand attack per attack chain, not even counting Powersurge).
The only other thing that changed (in regards to fighter vs ranger comparison) is that the fighter capstone has become more useful (in relation to the changes).
Personally I believe they put that in there not because rangers are so much more uber than fighters but to make going 20 fighter more worth it.


Possibly... I was just saying a fighter shouldn't be gimped with his ONE weapon of choice... using anything else he should be nuked. But that one weapon that he has always trained with he should be pretty proficient. If that's two kopeshs, he should be able to keep up with a ranger, but if he grabs two maces he would fall apart.

Which looking at the numbers now seems that is kinda how its working out to be. I realize the nerf bat is swinging, but it does bring things somewhat more in line.

And don't forget power surge is more than offset by favored enemies.

[moorewr]

To me the thinking should go like this:

* How many swings, at level, do you get from the TWF feat progression as opposed to THF/SnB in PnP?
* What is the most efficient technical means to render that same approximate result in DDO?

Everything else is of secondary importance. Even ignoring the various ways to increase your swing rate in DDO, TWF was generating too many off-hand hits in DDO vis a vis PnP. So, from that standpoint, Eladrin is right.


I quote Vhlad here, hope he doesn't mind...



d20 numbers current numbers proposed numbers
no feats 25% 25% 20%
TWF 25% 50% 40%
ITWF 50% 75% 60%
GTWF 75% 100% 80%


We're going from: 25% difference from the SRD in TWF, ITWF, GTWF. Total cumulative difference = 75%
to: 5% difference in no feats, 15% difference in TWF, 10% difference in ITWF, 5% difference in GTWF. Total cumulative difference = 35%

[geoffhanna]

Ranger:

Currently: 9*1.1*1.15=11.4 attacks per unit of time
After change: 8*1.05*1.15= 9.7 attacks per unit of time
Loss: 14.9%

Fighter:

Currently: 8*1.1*1.15=10.1 attacks per unit of time
After change: (4*1.10+4*0.90)*1.15= 9.2 attacks per unit of time
Loss: 8.9%


This does not include the chance of killing on the first blow and thereby completely negating the offhand attack which previously would apply against a different opponent.

Would that apply to double strikes too?

[Cyr]

This does not include the chance of killing on the first blow and thereby completely negating the offhand attack which previously would apply against a different opponent.

Would that apply to double strikes too?

Yes. For overkill damage this is a big change. For vorpals less so because they only proc less then 1 time out of 20 already so a double vorpal is a pretty rare occurance.

[Blade420]

If the DPS attacks are only causing problems on high end quests and raids would it not be simpler to just move larger quests and raids to another server? I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed but to my addled mind at least it seems a lot less complicated to do that than it is to completely rework coding for a characters attack. Also bear in mind many people may have already used their TR allocations and if the change does come around they are kind of stuck in a rut due to no fault of their own so they will be stuck with a character that is "gimped" for want of a better word

[Borror0]

I think the new ranger number is incorrect as it uses 1.05*8 and my understanding is that double strike will only apply to the main hand attack
You're right. I didn't remember correctly. Double strike only applies to the main hand.

With double strike applied properly...

Ranger:

Currently: 9*1.1*1.15=11.4 attacks per unit of time
After change: (4*1.05+4)*1.15= 9.4 attacks per unit of time
Loss: 17.5%

Fighter:

Currently: 8*1.1*1.15=10.1 attacks per unit of time
After change: (4*1.10+4*0.80)*1.15= 8.7 attacks per unit of time
Loss: 14.3%

[Gercho]

Ranger:

Currently: 9*1.1*1.15=11.4 attacks per unit of time
After change: 8*1.05*1.15= 9.7 attacks per unit of time
Loss: 14.9%

Fighter:

Currently: 8*1.1*1.15=10.1 attacks per unit of time
After change: (4*1.10+4*0.90)*1.15= 9.2 attacks per unit of time
Loss: 8.9%


the "after change" number for fighter is wrong,
edit, nevermind he corrected it in the previous post

[Deathseeker]

The more Im reading about this, the more Im warming up to the overall set of changes coming in U5. I don't think you can look at the TWF nerf in a vacuum.

For THF, glancing blows while moving being removed (thus eliminating twitching) and eliminating the barb capstone bug will reduce dps (i guess the latter isnt exclusive to THF).

For TWF, it appears that all the classes are fairly relatively getting a 10% to 15% hit on dps. Im not clear on monks from reading through this though.

In exchange, we are getting saves reduced in Epic, and mob to-hits reduced in Epic. Additionally new PrE's are being added/modified for Rogue, Monk and Cleric. Bastard swords and Dwarven axes will also produce glancing blows.

So what is the overall effect of all of this? Seems like it brings S&B closer in relation to other styles in terms of dps. Also brings ranged dps closer. Not sure its enough for S&B but goes in the right direction.

If you look at both the dps nerf and the mob nerfs in epic, appears to me epic will still be easier not harder. But it will open up Epic to more styles of play than are currently used if AC and casting become more useful.

So where does the dps reduction really matter? If not epic, then where? Maybe it will take a minute or two longer to run shroud and VOD. Those arent exactly difficult at this point. The only place I see the dps reduction really affecting play is Elite Amrath, as those mobs aren't being nerfed yet those are still challenging quests at end game. Other than that, what's the problem, as on balance it seems like the game is opening up to more variety of builds/playstyles?

Im looking for comments to the above as I still may not be grasping the weight of the change or something Ive said is mistaken. Not pretending to fully grasp all this yet, these are just initial impressions.

[Magusrex777]

I am all for eliminating lag, I also believe game balance is very important. My wife and I play a Ranger Tempest X/Rogue 1/Monk and a TWF KotC Paladin, maybe we are overpowered, maybe not, much of our ability to Duo most of the game comes from having Imp curse in one hand and para in the other. A lot of time and resources have been spent on gearing and building these toons. I have been trying to follow this thread to see how the proposed changes will affect us. If we are no longer able to duo content effectively after these changes(we duo elite now) due to procs we would be very unhappy. We just do not have the time to reroll and we are happy to be doing high level content now, we would hate to go redo the beginning before we see the end. If you make changes such as this I hope you grant a free respec, I have played other games and when such a thing is done they have always offered free respecs, I feel it would it would be unfair to force people pay for them.

I know I give away any leverage I have by saying that we would not quit even if you completely nerfed our characters into uselessness and I do not believe that to be even close to the case here. You would lose some goodwill if the only way to change our characters would be for us to pay for it. The lag doesn’t bother us, if at all but I do place the needs of many over the needs of the two of us. I hope the proposed changes will fix the issue at such a drastic cost. In building our character, it sure feels like we have had to sacrifice a great deal in stat placement(dex) and feats(rigid builds) to be able to produce high DPS, in light of that I feel like TWF should do more DPS than THF or other build with more flexibility. I dunno, I will wait to see what actually happens before I get too bothered by anything. Asking for feedback is a great way to start, thanks.

[Natashaelle]

AC is not a worthwhile goal. The game design makes this so.

Like I said, "obviously, not every player is going to be convinced that this is a worthwhile goal". I'm glad we can agree on that, at least :)


Players will always do what the mechanics encourage them to. Always.

Except that this has little to do with the mechanics per se, but rather with the loot that's available in the game. The loot that is provided in DDO is VERY heavily weighted in favour of easy access to DPS, and away from easy access to high AC -- although it is true that the introduction of grazing hits has somewhat significantly reduced the value of high AC, especially in the Epics, the core function of Armour Class has not been simply vanished away by it.

It's also clear that the devs seem to be encouraging the high DPS game, because it provides the quicker and easier means of providing gaming satisfaction.


Enemies have high to hits: This makes the difference between low and high AC hit on a 2 or hit on a 2... no difference. But the low AC guy has more HP, DPS etc and is therefore superior in every way.

I would agree with you somewhat concerning DEX-based high AC, I mean that it requires sacrificing HP, STR, etc ... but when I talk about high AC I don't mean AC that has a larger number but affords no extra protection against mobs, but AC which is high enough to make a difference. I would have thought that was obvious.


Many attacks bypass AC entirely: Horoth is the main offender here. No amount of AC will stop Disintegrate, or his other spells. At which point only HP matters.

I've yet to tank Horoth, because my battle cleric tank needs to be wary about going into full mêlée in that encounter, and especially about getting aggro in case any emergency healing services are suddenly required ; so I can't comment on tanking that particular boss, because all that I've ever done against him involved a combination of DPS and Healing ;)

Having said that, obviously making a heavily armoured wilting flower is not necessarily one of the greatest character concepts around ... :D


Certain mechanics encourage disabling the mobs entirely: No one is going to AC tank epic mobs. Even if you actually can. Why? You need to stun and auto crit em to kill them some time today. That means lots of Fighters and Barbarians using Stunning Blow. It also means the mobs aren't fighting back at all.

Personally, I find that it can be situationally useful to do so, but I would certainly not rely on it to get me through every epic mob fight. Situationally though -- yes, useful.


Most characters with worthwhile ACs in the areas it actually works in have gimp DPS:

I do agree with you here though, it takes a LOT of effort to accrue AC *without* also completely gimping up your DPS. I can justify the effort for my main, because she's a battle cleric and a backup healer, so that any means to increase my own survivability and decrease the amount of self-healing I need, increases the amount of healing I can provide to the rest of the party, and helps to prevent wipe. AC can also be quite worthwhile on an intimitank. AC can also be very useful on a toon that does a lot of soloing.

But I would agree with your position to the extent that AC can be a luxury that most fighters just can't afford ; and that the benefit/expenditure ratio of focusing on DPS exclusively versus also attempting to build up AC is quite massively in favour of DPS.


You may be taking less damage over time, but it will also take you longer to kill the mob and therefore the mob will get more swings at you. This is particularly true with ROLL A BARB Blows, which can actually result in the Barbarian taking LESS damage than a defensive specialist to do the same thing. While also killing the mobs some time today. Check the Sins Elite thread. No mitigation Barbarian, and he's taking less damage over the course of the quest than someone's S&B tank.

I'm certainly not going to be arguing against you on the merits of a well-made and well-played Barb, they are well-known to one and all.

[Drfirewater79]

Eladrin's proposed change, now without STWF, nerfs rangers more than fighters.

EDIT: By that I mean that rangers get nerfed while fighters don't nerfed, other than the global -10% DPS every TWF build lost.

fighters have a 100-80% off hand .... how is that not a nerf?

i understand you did some weird number play which makes no sense to me cause i dont program and i sure as hell dont program this game ...

but when i see rangers hit 100%-100% while only needing tempest II it makes me think why should i be a fighter at all ...

in fact using that set up .. i could take 12 ranger tempest II and 8 barbarian frenzy that would give me higher attack speed more hit points ... a ranged option though i wouldn't use it much .. and more dps through raging and attack speed then any pure fighter build even with fighter capstone and kensai powersurge.....

cause then i could hit a 40+ str higher ac self healing and buffing faster attack and 100% offhand attacks ....

right now pure fighters have only one major advantage attack speed boost from capstone which draws them pretty damd close to tempest (if i am not mistaken tempest is a 15% speed increase and fighter capstone takes it to 10% leaving a 5% difference which is not a heck of a lot of difference at end game)

with this change even when you would have hit normally you will miss 20% of the time with your off hand weapon as a fighter and wont miss as a ranger ... so even by them taking out one attack per combo from ranger tempest which would only equal them out to fighter with capstone .... they still hit 20% more often with off hand ..

seems to me based on what is said in the OP fighters get it worse off then anyone ... cept maybe monks who get royally screwed by this ...

cause wind stance is not the only stance for monks and if you like to support heal or buff or like to have enough ki to use the 500 point attack if dark monk.

then you need to be in fire stance .... which currently puts attack speed around that of a fighter with twf ...

after the new changes its likely that fire stance water stance and earth stance are going to be quite useless cause wind stance will hit with a higher probability

but already much lower the currently cause even in wind stance 4 we lose 20% of our to hit for no reason explainable through PnP rules.

...

i simply wonder what your calculations come up with the loss for monks in wind stance and monks in non windstance due to changes

bad enough monks are already lower dps then they should be ... now its going to be forced into wind stance and just pray that somehow even with the twf nerf our dps will be fixed with pre's ... but now that wind stance is only way to get close to as many hits thus reducing the ki generation rate meaning the ki requirements for dark fist attack (500 pointer requires 50 ki) and the potential future exalted smite for light fist (prolly also going to require 50 ki) all the while attempting to buff the party at 1 min at a time ... (the worst buffs in the game to date) ... and mass healing at 30-100 points of healing per hit ....

however now ki generation becomes a major factor in monk dps and that loss can be seriously bad for monks too.

[Solmage]

Dear Eladrin,

I am very much against changing the combat system to a "chance" of doing an offhand attack. The more we deviate our attacks from the actual animation, the more of the combat feel we loose. So far we've only added 1 or so hooks outside of it, which we were able to overlook.

But I really firmly believe that changing combat to this system fundamentally changes the feel of melee combat for dual wielders. Anything from smite evils, to how we've come to expect certain attacks to happen when we do X and Y, etc.

I think your goals are too ambitious in this regard, and I think that simply eliminating the physics check for the off-hand should be enough, without sacrificing the way combat feels.

I would also leave bonuses like tempest, zeal and capstones alone. Instead I submit that having 6-9 people suddenly swing at a 45% swing rate for the first 20 seconds of every round/minute vs a raid boss has a significantly higher impact on performance.

I would also submit that changing the way green-steel weapons operate could help. For example, currently a mineral II, the most popular choice, does holy, acid, acidburst, acid blast, and acid blast, slicing, and often force burst (1d4). That's a lot of effects. What's even worse, against the enemies you most want to use this for, most of those are wasted effort because they don't penetrate the acid resistance.

If instead greensteel tiers kept upgrading one or two effects, it would reduce the number of individual effects being calculated and sent to all the other people meleeing. Acid burst could be changed into "greater acid burst" or holy could be changed into "greater holy" (ok so the names need help, sue me). The gist is that the number of effects would remain low, just their magnitude would increase.

DPS Lag as I'm sure you know is significantly and most often caused by the clients, not by the server, (ie client-side lag) which is why different people in the same fight have such varying degrees of lag.

I don't know if optimizing the client to take better advantage of multiple CPU cores (multi-threading) would have an effect on this problem at all or not, since the problem may be hardware related - I personally suspect the motherboard chipsets which are in charge of networking on 95% of computers are creating a bottleneck in which the rest of the system halts while it handles thousands of packets per second with not a lot of info in them. Ie the chipset may be designed to handle a certain bandwith load, but this is more like a DoS attack, thousands of packets with very little info in them.

As evidence to this, I'd like to point out how Spyderwolf on Sarlona generally has MUCH lower lag than even reasonably low lag people like myself in the same raid, and he installed on his system a dedicated network card that does not use his motherboard's chipset (or the CPU for that matter) to handle traffic.

--

Because this post is too long, I'll try to summarize my point: DDO's Combat **Feel** is perhaps it's most important feature. Stuff like Balanace, and even Lag are secondary to this. DPS Lag is bad, sure, but we manage. We've been managing for years, and even without content. That was because of said combat. We need to find solutions that do not change said combat's feel.

[SquelchHU]

If the physics check is now only checks main hand, will this change my rouge assassins ability to sneak up behind two mobs and assassinate both with one strike?

Yup.

[grodon9999]

You're right. I didn't remember correctly. Double strike only applies to the main hand.

With double strike applied properly...

Ranger:

Currently: 9*1.1*1.15=11.4 attacks per unit of time
After change: (4*1.05+4)*1.15= 9.4 attacks per unit of time
Loss: 17.5%

Fighter:

Currently: 8*1.1*1.15=10.1 attacks per unit of time
After change: (4*1.10+4*0.80)*1.15= 8.7 attacks per unit of time
Loss: 14.3%


Sorry Turbine, if these numbers are right this is NOT acceptable. Rangers do NOT swing as hard as fighters and barbs, we absolutely need our swing-speed to not be a waste of a party-slot. An 18% reduction kills our class.

[Borror0]

fighters have a 100-80% off hand .... how is that not a nerf?
It is a nerf, and the post you quoted does acknowledge that.

but when i see rangers hit 100%-100% while only needing tempest II it makes me think why should i be a fighter at all ...
Currently, Tempest I gives a +10 alacrity bonus and Tempest III gives an extra offhand attack. In Eladrin's proposed change, rangers lose both of these benefits and are given +20% procs to their offhand and a +5% double strike bonus. The new bonuses are much weaker than what they previously had, so rangers end up losing more DPS than fighters do. While rangers do get more attack in than fighters, that is not new. Tempest I and II already made this a reality.

If you don't believe me, take out your calculator.

[Tamerlane]

two things that i have mentioned earlier that keep coming up that i want to comment on.

first, there is a lot of confusion about what will happen to an offhand attack if the target dies on the mainhand attack. we dont know what is involved in a "collision detection" but I do know for a fact that i can target one mob and still hit a different mob if my target is too far away (out of my attack arc). there is no evidence to suggest that a "collision detection" only tracks one mob. maybe the reason it is so intense on computation overhead is that it tracks all mobs that are close to create an attack grid: if that is the case, then offhand weapons would still be able to hit secondary mobs if the first one dies. it is actually suggested by the way things like cleave and glancing blows work.

secondly- haste being translated to doublestike(for fighters and paladins) or offhand attacks (for rangers or monks) assumes that the first group will THF and the second group will TWF. anyone to maintain the same increase in attack rate the bonus would have to be applied to both doublestrike AND offhand. this has two immediate benefits. it helps non-mainstream builds maintain their current "haste" benefits (like quarterstaff monk/acrobats using wind stance) and also helps TWF characters get closer to their current number off offhand attacks.

[Hydro]

An epic geared TWF fighter currently can keep up with a ESos weilding barbarian so I can understand somewhat why their dps might need to be slightly lowered. When we eventually get some really nice epic 1 handers the fighter at that point would blow anything away for dps. Still I am not one for nerfs and we are talking about the top 1% of fighters.

Monks on the other hand is my main concern.

Will monks keep the faster base unarmed speed?

Will ki generation be increased to compensate for the slower attack speed and less offhand attacks?

Monk Dps has finially gotten to a decent place and this nerf is going to not only lower their dps drastically, it is also going to seriously hurt their utiliy (weighted procs, finishers that require ki).

Please make sure no class is left in the dust after these changes.

[Delacroix21]

Still catching up through the thread, but a few comments:

1) I've been convinced that STWF is not a benefit to the game. Instead of opening up new options, its presence instead would close many.
2) The Barbarian Capstone's alacrity bonus is a bug.


I believe STWF is of benefit to the game, but as an Epic feat, for when epic levels (if ever) are added. Simply throwing out an Epic feat early will disrupt game balance through medium BaB classes not being able to aquire it even though they would have with the proper epic levels.


Back to monks...


This change will actually hit monks harder then other meele as their off-hand attacks have always had a full strength bonus (and were merely all double attacks to begin with). The reason this will "nerf" monks is that with their allready higher attacks per minute then other classes, they will have more attacks to LOSE with this change.


Being that monks are allready the lowest dps class in DDO, and that at end game their supposed "advantage" of high AC (through MAJOR farming and str/con sacrifice) is rendered useless, this will put them in an even worse posistion for raids looking for another DPS spot.

[Elaril]

We need to find solutions that do not change said combat's feel.

/agree. This, in my opinion, is paramount.

[Drfirewater79]

The more Im reading about this, the more Im warming up to the overall set of changes coming in U5. I don't think you can look at the TWF nerf in a vacuum.

For THF, glancing blows while moving being removed (thus eliminating twitching) and eliminating the barb capstone bug will reduce dps (i guess the latter isnt exclusive to THF).

For TWF, it appears that all the classes are fairly relatively getting a 10% to 15% hit on dps. Im not clear on monks from reading through this though.

In exchange, we are getting saves reduced in Epic, and mob to-hits reduced in Epic. Additionally new PrE's are being added/modified for Rogue, Monk and Cleric. Bastard swords and Dwarven axes will also produce glancing blows.

So what is the overall effect of all of this? Seems like it brings S&B closer in relation to other styles in terms of dps. Also brings ranged dps closer. Not sure its enough for S&B but goes in the right direction.

If you look at both the dps nerf and the mob nerfs in epic, appears to me epic will still be easier not harder. But it will open up Epic to more styles of play than are currently used if AC and casting become more useful.

So where does the dps reduction really matter? If not epic, then where? Maybe it will take a minute or two longer to run shroud and VOD. Those arent exactly difficult at this point. The only place I see the dps reduction really affecting play is Elite Amrath, as those mobs aren't being nerfed yet those are still challenging quests at end game. Other than that, what's the problem, as on balance it seems like the game is opening up to more variety of builds/playstyles?

Im looking for comments to the above as I still may not be grasping the weight of the change or something Ive said is mistaken. Not pretending to fully grasp all this yet, these are just initial impressions.

its likely if you look at it as a 10-15% difference in DPS that it would make sense that it would be 10-15% longer ... if it took 60 mins it would take 9 mins longer ...

of course that also depends on the shear number of mobs in a mission ... the more mobs required to be killed per mission will increase the time it takes based on dps difference especially when it comes to glancing blows ...

also the new dwarven and bastard glancings only take place if you have a shield equipt... .so that doesnt help twf at all ...

to balance the game out they would still have to adjust the mob hps by min 5% ...

then the difference wouldn't be that noticeable in TIME spent ... which already is the reason for many groups breaking up after one mission .. and the cause of more time being spent waiting for groups then actually in them ... especially when raids are considered.

monks i feel are getting even a shorter end of the stick then rangers cause lowering the to hit rate effects them in many ways .... the biggest being ki generation which is vital to the effectiveness of a monk.

[SquelchHU]

To me the thinking should go like this:

* How many swings, at level, do you get from the TWF feat progression as opposed to THF/SnB in PnP?
* What is the most efficient technical means to render that same approximate result in DDO?

Everything else is of secondary importance. Even ignoring the various ways to increase your swing rate in DDO, TWF was generating too many off-hand hits in DDO vis a vis PnP. So, from that standpoint, Eladrin is right.


I quote Vhlad here, hope he doesn't mind...

So you want TWF nerfed more to the tune of... nearly 30%? Enough to punt it right out of the game entirely?

PnP mechanics for TWF can die in a fire, as it is the absolute worst thing you can draw from if you are at all concerned about balance, or making more than a very narrow subset of things valid.


Like I said, "obviously, not every player is going to be convinced that this is a worthwhile goal". I'm glad we can agree on that, at least :)

Bit of a difference between 'not every' and 'can't convince anyone who thinks about it'. The former implies AC still has some merit.


Except that this has little to do with the mechanics per se, but rather with the loot that's available in the game. The loot that is provided in DDO is VERY heavily weighted in favour of easy access to DPS, and away from easy access to high AC -- although it is true that the introduction of grazing hits has somewhat significantly reduced the value of high AC, especially in the Epics, the core function of Armour Class has not been simply vanished away by it.

It's also clear that the devs seem to be encouraging the high DPS game, because it provides the quicker and easier means of providing gaming satisfaction.

Fail. Higher loot availability means higher offense and defense. This is why AC becomes pointless after level 5 in D&D, but lasts till about 12-16 in DDO.

The reason why there is such a big focus on DPS is because there's a big pile of HP, RIGHT THERE and it needs to die SOMETIME TODAY.

Even if your defenses are helping, making a long encounter even longer means more grind, and likely the same or higher damage over the encounter anyways. And if they aren't, you're just low DPS. Either way lots of damage is the way to go.


I would agree with you somewhat concerning DEX-based high AC, I mean that it requires sacrificing HP, STR, etc ... but when I talk about high AC I don't mean AC that has a larger number but affords no extra protection against mobs, but AC which is high enough to make a difference. I would have thought that was obvious.

Yeah, that thing you were responding to? What was it again? Oh yeah...

'Enemies have high to hits.' And that means that what you just said is irrelevant.


Personally, I find that it can be situationally useful to do so, but I would certainly not rely on it to get me through every epic mob fight. Situationally though -- yes, useful.

To do what? Stun the mobs? Unless your cleric feels like throwing away 50 pots while the group scratches themselves for 4 hours, you'll stun the mobs.

[Drfirewater79]

Why can you select "Kensei [two handed weapon] Mastery" if it's a TWF PrE?



Why are you posting in this thread if you haven't read the OP?

you quoted the line but didnt read it ..

i never said kensai was a twf only line .. where do you get that from?

what i said is with the appropriate feats a fighter should be the hands down best at melee combat for the sake of hitting and taking advantage of melee styles ... its why fighters get all the feats they do ...

if that is two handed or two weapon that doesnt matter

what does matter is that rangers are better at two weapon fighting then a spec'd fighter which makes no sense at all in DnD.

[bobbryan2]

Part 1: One boss is kited. The other is beat down, but is mobile and blows everyone away. Trash mobs join in periodically. No DPS lag.
Part 3: One boss is tanked and beat down. Again, he can move. Trash mobs join in periodically. Another boss is kited or killed. No DPS lag.
Part 2: One boss is surrounded and beat down. He does not move. One kiter does his thing. Massive lag.

The common thread here is that DPS lag comes from non moving targets.

How else do you explain the encounters with MORE activity having LESS lag?

I already answered that... Specific problems.

For instance... the problem in part 2 isn't the fact that the boss is surrounded. It isn't whether 8 people are attacking or only 7. It's the shadowfiends, pure and simple.

Look at the specifics.