End of the Week with Major Mal Totally Enhanced Edition

[Produktion_Malphunktion]

Happy end of the week! Next week-ish (depending on build stability exc) we will be rolling out the second look at the Enhancements revamp. There has been a ton of work done--something north of 600 issues addressed.
Some of the general changes:

tier 5 costs less total points to access. the tradeoff is you can only take tier 5's from one tree, but you can take as many as you want in that tree. Choose wisely.
You can now take up to 6 class trees
Clerics have had design work done.
Bard Warchanter has a bunch of design work done


Some examples of bugs fixed:



Amaunator can now be chosen as a deity for Forgotten Realm characters.









Some old religious feats that were exclusive to Favored Soul (such as Child of Vulkoor and Beloved of Lord of Blades) are now available for Clerics and Paladins if they want them for the cost of a feat. They remain freely granted for FvS. The stats have been slightly improved to give more bonuses and give them at earlier levels.









As previously seen on Lamannia, Clerics and Paladins now choose a deity to worship at level 1 as a feat, similar to Favored Souls. Old religious enhancements for Clerics, Paladins and Favored Souls such as Unyielding Sovereignty are now freely granted at level 6 as feats.













Enhancement Pass:






Kensei has gained Haste Boost and Extra Action Boosts.













The non-functional, non-takeable feat version of Ten Thousand Stars is no longer be listed as an option for monks taking their sixth level.









Spell Critical: All Spell Critical Chance enhancement are giving incorrect numbers









Fixed a number of Bard bugs, including:






- Ironskin Chant stacking with itself






- Ironskin Chant not using Bard Songs






- Ironskin Chant being breakable mid-song






- Skaldic Rage not scaling based on song duration






- Bard Action Boost: Sprint being a Bard Song instead of an Action Boost (really?)









Dwarven Iron Stomach has been changed to granting Remove Poison/Remove Disease/Heroism whenever the user drinks anything.









Created the "new" Words of Encouragement, which works like the "Old" Bard Rallying Cry.









The "Old" Bard Rallying Cry is now the new Bard Rallying Cry! It works just like the PDK one.





Busy times here. Please try this stuff out on Lama land when it goes live. We do have a time to fix and adjust even more so the feedback is very helpful. Help us make the game you want to play.
Other random thoughts:

My oldest son is on the verge of winning his 3rd little league championship.

My youngest son is enjoying this (http://www.amazon.com/Wizards-Coast-5511558-Wrath-Ashardalon/dp/0786955708/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1371841331&sr=8-3&keywords=dungeons+and+dragons+board+game) . Never too early for Dungeons and Dragons. Getting ready for the 40th anniversary by helping create the next generation of players.

Bruins in 6. If the Bruins win our sister studio (http://www.netherrealm.com/) in Chicago owes us Deep Dish Pizza. If B's lose, we owe them lobster.

Rough days for a Pats fan. Dumb TE, Broken TE and Tebow all in a week. GAH.

Have a great weekend! Maj.

[Atremus]

Awesome. But we need the character ropy cleared so we can test.

[HatsuharuZ]

Hey Major, thanks for the update! Would it be feasible for a developer to post, in text form, what the enhancements are *supposed* to be? It would make bug reporting a lot easier when we players go try this stuff out on Lammania.

[Teh_Troll]

What about paladin/ranger devotion enchantments?

How has that been worked in?

The tier 5 thingy sounds like a good call, can't wait to see it in action.

[Teh_Troll]

Hey Major, thanks for the update! Would it be feasible for a developer to post, in text form, what the enhancements are *supposed* to be? It would make bug reporting a lot easier when we players go try this stuff out on Lammania.

yes, please. A text listing would be great.

[Produktion_Malphunktion]

Hey Major, thanks for the update! Would it be feasible for a developer to post, in text form, what the enhancements are *supposed* to be? It would make bug reporting a lot easier when we players go try this stuff out on Lammania.

We will work on that. I need to make sure what we have is up to date.

[Darkrok]

tier 5 costs less total points to access. the tradeoff is you can only take tier 5's from one tree, but you can take as many as you want in that tree. Choose wisely.

Great compromise. I got the feeling that was the intention of having them cost over 40 total AP to access. Lowering the cost allows for more character options while creating an explicit '1 tier 5 tree' limitation allows you to put cool stuff into the T5's without worrying about players stacking several trees thanks to the lowered costs.

I'm really surprised about the 6 trees thing and have to say that should definitely address everyone's multi-classing issues.

[Gratch]

Any word/clarification/reasoning on the worst enhancements alpha blemish:

No FVS melee tree... FVS melee enh gone... FVS stuck borrowing a lame (though maybe better now) cleric tree. But still a cleric domain tree.

I mean if we didn't see everything Eladrin talked about in his Divine Avenger post 2 years ago being technically in some form of ED abilities I might go with the "we don't have the tech"... but right now... it just kind of seems FVS have no melee tree because systems is too busy with iconics and keeping two enhancement builds going at once.

If you need more surveys, bugs, forum posts to push this onto design I will whip up and pay-off an FVS bandwagon. I mean... not like a Miami bandwagon... stuck with no hope outside their stadium as their team wins in OT. Unless ofc you're saying the doors are closed on the FVS melee and there's no getting into the first redo release.

Also... go Bruins... and thanks for the post MajMal.... communication always appreciated... even if it's telling me healers shouldn't be swinging until the 2016 update with 3 trees per class.

[dejafu]

Some of the general changes:

Some examples of bugs fixed:


Liking what I see so far! It probably won't be enough for the "kill the entire enhancement pass with fire" crowd, but this sounds like you're directly addressing some of the biggest concerns most of us had.

If this is done well and done right, it will go a long way towards restoring credibility. Looking forward to testing it out!

[Teh_Troll]

And what's the deal with Racial PREs?

[oradafu]

tier 5 costs less total points to access. the tradeoff is you can only take tier 5's from one tree, but you can take as many as you want in that tree. Choose wisely.
You can now take up to 6 class trees


Since multi-class can access 6 trees now, is there any chance that pure classes will be allowed to purchase tier 5 abilities from multiple trees? Unless alot of boosting of power happened for the level 20 Core abilities for many of the prestige classes, the advantage seems to have swung completely back to multiclass splashes, with these changes.

[dejafu]

Since multi-class can access 6 trees now, is there any chance that pure classes will be allowed to purchase tier 5 abilities from multiple trees? Unless alot of boosting of power happened for the level 20 Core abilities for many of the prestige classes, the advantage seems to have swung completely back to multiclass splashes, with these changes.

Pure classes still have capstones. Not all of the capstones are great and many could definitely use a boost, but from a basic design standpoint I think capstones should still give plenty of incentive to go 20 in a single class.

[dlsidhe]

[TABLE="width: 449"]
[TR]
[TD="align: left"]Happy end of the week! Next week-ish (depending on build stability exc) we will be rolling out the second look at the Enhancements revamp. There has been a ton of work done--something north of 600 issues addressed.
Some of the general changes:

tier 5 costs less total points to access. the tradeoff is you can only take tier 5's from one tree, but you can take as many as you want in that tree. Choose wisely.
You can now take up to 6 class trees
Clerics have had design work done.
Bard Warchanter has a bunch of design work done


Woot, woot, please be functional...don't play bards, but woot anyway?



Some examples of bugs fixed:

Amaunator can now be chosen as a deity for Forgotten Realm characters.

snip a bunch of stuff about enhancements


Looks good. Are kensei seeker and tactics boosts back to live levels? :)

The six tree thing has me excited, except i don't have that many multiclass toons. :( Maybe my barb/rogue/ranger will get brought back out...


Busy times here. Please try this stuff out on Lama land when it goes live. We do have a time to fix and adjust even more so the feedback is very helpful. Help us make the game you want to play.

Yes sir, Major Malphunktion. Any chance you could be promoted to Colonel Malphunktion for bravery in facing the forum?


Other random thoughts:

My oldest son is on the verge of winning his 3rd little league championship.

Congrats!


My youngest son is enjoying this (http://www.amazon.com/Wizards-Coast-5511558-Wrath-Ashardalon/dp/0786955708/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1371841331&sr=8-3&keywords=dungeons+and+dragons+board+game) . Never too early for Dungeons and Dragons. Getting ready for the 40th anniversary by helping create the next generation of players.

My daughter is very proud of her druid character sheet for when we have gaming sessions :). Congrats on being an excellent parent.

[Delacroix21]

Hey a Maj, any word on if inventory space (or lack thereof) is being looked into? Seems like every big update adds more and more components for my bags, and with ED TR the game is becoming more and more TR focused, meaning i need to bank low level gear as well (which allot of which is now BTC!). Not to mention spell components on casters (should really just delete these).


Please help!

[Monkey_Archer]

tier 5 costs less total points to access. the tradeoff is you can only take tier 5's from one tree, but you can take as many as you want in that tree. Choose wisely.
You can now take up to 6 class trees


This is great news. Heres what I'll be looking at when I get around to testing some builds out:


Will it be feasible for deep multiclass builds to make meaningful choices in 5 trees after spending the bare minimums for tier 5 and racial enhancements
Will pure class 'capstones' be worth giving up access to 3 whole trees
Will 1 level splashes be too strong or too weak due to the answers to the above 2 questions
Will racial enhancements costs hurt multiclassing due to AP constraints
And of course, will all this lead to more or less viable build paths


1 more slightly unrelated question: Will there be more dexterity buffs available in game (to compete with rage, rams might, madstone, primal scream, etc...) to make the dex builds viable? It just seems silly that you can put all build and racial points into dexterity, then buff your 12 base strength higher...

[EllisDee37]

The six tree thing is a welcome fix to the three tree limitation. Kudos on that.

Points Spent in Tree is what limits build variety, though, and that appears to still be the central gating mechanism. This is what drives many of the "nuke it from orbit" opinions. (The other main issue is that classes need "core class" trees that aren't prestige specific. Like ranger favored enemy enhancements, for example.)

I'm going to pretend that you didn't forget to give devotion back to rangers, and that paladin devotion isn't limited to the sacred defender tree, because those two issues are so infuriating I can't even comprehend not addressing them.

I look forward to the cleric revamp. Pro tip: If cleric trees still don't have spell penetration and divine might, people will likely still hate them.

[Ironclans_evil_twin]

Pardon me asking again (not sure he's seen my question late in the game as they were in the other thread so I'll try again)

What is the Lore affix going to become? I have 2 parked characters, I don't want to waste a tome of legend on a Skiver if Greater Lore is going to become something weak.

Can you guys please reconsider nerfing spell crits? You're doing that because of high level casters with ED's but everyone below 25 is just getting straight up hobbled by it, making a nuker caster no fun to play.

[oradafu]

UGH! Double Post.

[oradafu]

Pure classes still have capstones. Not all of the capstones are great and many could definitely use a boost, but from a basic design standpoint I think capstones should still give plenty of incentive to go 20 in a single class.

In theory, the level 20 Core ability (aka capstone) should be incentive enough to stay pure. But when the upcoming enhancements were revealed, very few were worth stay pure. That's why I mentioned that a major boost to the the Core abilities had better be in the works. As of right now, giving up access to 2 to 4 additional trees and feats (such as Evasion or Divine Grace to name two commonly sought feats when splashing) seems awfully silly for most of the level 20 Core abilities as they were presented last time. If there's little or minor changes to those abilities, having access to all tier 5 abilities should be on the table for pure classes. (Personally, I'd rather have the level 20 core abilities boosted, but I doubt it'll happen after seeing many of them from the last peek we had.

[count_spicoli]

ty for the fix on kensai haste and action boost. that is really good. Is there any word on tactics like trip, sunder and stunning blow being put back in?
They were missing last pass and iam sure it was oversight

Congrats on sons 3rd little league champ. That is really cool and I bet a bunch of fun to watch

[Cetus]

Major question (pun intended)

Have the pre-reqs for the kensei tree been adjusted to stay confluent with players interests? Or are they still designed to utterly suck?

Thank you for the heightened communication!

[Tyrande]

[...]

Amaunator can now be chosen as a deity for Forgotten Realm characters.


Major, Hi. Good to see that you are back again. Care to illustrate what the faith lines do for Amaunator or is that up to us to find out?



As previously seen on Lamannia, Clerics and Paladins now choose a deity to worship at level 1 as a feat, similar to Favored Souls. Old religious enhancements for Clerics, Paladins and Favored Souls such as Unyielding Sovereignty are now freely granted at level 6 as feats.


Cool. I read this as those AP points originally spent for Unyielding Sovereignty can be used somewhere else?




Enhancement Pass:
Spell Critical: All Spell Critical Chance enhancement are giving incorrect numbers



This isn't the band aid that's going live next week; this is the actual fix that's going with Expansion, correct?



Busy times here. Please try this stuff out on Lama land when it goes live. We do have a time to fix and adjust even more so the feedback is very helpful. Help us make the game you want to play.

Certainly.



My youngest son is enjoying this (http://www.amazon.com/Wizards-Coast-5511558-Wrath-Ashardalon/dp/0786955708/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1371841331&sr=8-3&keywords=dungeons+and+dragons+board+game) . Never too early for Dungeons and Dragons. Getting ready for the 40th anniversary by helping create the next generation of players.

Any chance that DDO will have the random element and mechanics ideas coming from this boardgame?



Have a great weekend! Maj.

U 2

[SirValentine]

Pure classes still have capstones. Not all of the capstones are great and many could definitely use a boost, but from a basic design standpoint I think capstones should still give plenty of incentive to go 20 in a single class.

Last look I had at the alpha, that wasn't really true at all.

You couldn't even GET a capstone, as a pure single-classed character, unless you also went crazy hyper-specialized in a single tree. Yes, class capstones had a much higher points-in-tree requirement than even that specific tree's Tier 5 abilities.

Nerfing capstones like that was yet another horrible thing in the alpha. Maybe they fixed it to make being single-classed level 20 the only requirement, and what you say will be true. One can hope.

[SirValentine]

tier 5 costs less total points to access.



Are the requirements identical across all trees? Last look I had, they were not.


And what about capstones? Are they still saddled with extremely high access requirements, far above and beyond being 20 levels of a single class?




Clerics have had design work done.


The devil's in the details. Still in wait-and-see mode here. I hope whoever is doing this design work is more familiar with traditional D&D than trinity MMOs.

[slarden]

Thank you for the update. That's a huge amount of progress in such a short time.

[Galeria]

Very much appreciate the update on what's going on. http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w378/galeriaddo/JC-ThankYou.gif I will take some time to check it out when Lamannia is up.

Glad to hear bards got some love.http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w378/galeriaddo/russian.gif

Best wishes for the Little League championship! Tell your son to go get em. http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w378/galeriaddo/yes2.gif

[BruceTheHoon]

After the cold shower that's been the first enhancement pass alpha (that also decimated my guild...), this raised my interest back up significantly.

[Gratch]

Also hope they did a cross-tree balancing (specifically the differences in spell crits, spell pen, and some att/dam bonuses had very different values to their AP cost and allowed levels) and fixed some of the crazy prereqs (specifically Scroll Mastery and the metamagic prereq trees).

[ka0t1c1sm]

tier 5 costs less total points to access. the tradeoff is you can only take tier 5's from one tree, but you can take as many as you want in that tree. Choose wisely.


There goes my Artificer having both Arcane Empowerment and Tactical Mobility. =( I was really looking forward to that, but I understand tradeoffs must be made for the sake of balance.

Other than that, good stuff Maj and thanks for the update! I'll be there to test it out. And, to echo what some others have said: PLEASE fix Character Copy for this!

[BOgre]

My youngest son is enjoying this (http://www.amazon.com/Wizards-Coast-5511558-Wrath-Ashardalon/dp/0786955708/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1371841331&sr=8-3&keywords=dungeons+and+dragons+board+game).

That looks pretty cool. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a 1 player board game. I'll be checking that out for me 'n the kids for sure.

Perhaps no longer in the top 10 these days, but here's (http://www.amazon.com/Talisman-The-Magical-Quest-Game/dp/1589944623/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371865339&sr=8-1&keywords=talisman)my fav fantasy board game.

[Silverleafeon]

Very much appreciate the update on what's going on. http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w378/galeriaddo/JC-ThankYou.gif I will take some time to check it out when Lamannia is up.

Glad to hear bards got some love.http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w378/galeriaddo/russian.gif

Best wishes for the Little League championship! Tell your son to go get em. http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w378/galeriaddo/yes2.gif

Ditto, well said...

[Failedlegend]

Six trees seem much more palatable for multiclass builds and is nicely balanced by the need to choose only one set of Tier 5 abilities although for I would like to see total AP spent in tree replaced with total AP spent.

You mentioned something about the ten thousand stars being removed does that mean Monkchers are out of luck or is it a temporary thing.

Can't wait to try out the updated system next week...crossing fingers it will be sooner rather
than later

[Nestroy]

Good to hear from the Major ^^!

Let´s see what new wonders the enchancement pass on Lam will bring!

P.S: Thank you whoever listened for doing away with guild renown.

[SteeleTrueheart]

Happy end of the week! Next week-ish (depending on build stability exc) we will be rolling out the second look at the Enhancements revamp. There has been a ton of work done--something north of 600 issues addressed.
Some of the general changes:

tier 5 costs less total points to access. the tradeoff is you can only take tier 5's from one tree, but you can take as many as you want in that tree. Choose wisely.
You can now take up to 6 class trees
Clerics have had design work done.
Bard Warchanter has a bunch of design work done


Looks promising. lets see if it works in practice.


The "Old" Bard Rallying Cry is now the new Bard Rallying Cry! It works just like the PDK one.

EDIT:
PDK info
- Cormyrian Knight Training: You now use Charisma or Strength (whichever is higher) for Hit and Damage with shortswords, longswords, bastard swords, and greatswords.
- Rallying Cry: Action Boost: You and all allies within your aura gain +20% movement speed, a +(1/2/3) Morale bonus to Saving Throws. This ability can be used while feared, and dispels fear effects.
- “For Cormyr!”: Once per rest, heal completely. If you are below 25% of your maximum hit points when this ability is used, you and all nearby allies gain your CHA modifier to hit and damage.

You could just tell us more about PDKs ... in fact yeah tell us about PDKs PLEASE!? Pretty Please?

[burningwind]

most of these would be pointless if racial enhancement isn't there...i hope you guys do consider finishing that along with the upcoming expansion.

[auntjobiska]

As previously seen on Lamannia, Clerics and Paladins now choose a deity to worship at level 1 as a feat, similar to Favored Souls. Old religious enhancements for Clerics, Paladins and Favored Souls such as Unyielding Sovereignty are now freely granted at level 6 as feats.


Last time when I logged my cleric on and she had no enhancements, I was not able to choose my deity while choosing enhancements. Do I actually have to reincarnate in some way to be able to start everything at Level 1 in order to choose the deity? She used to get proficiency with longswords because of the deity thing but did not get that anymore because there way no way to choose the deity.

AJ

[Deadlock]

Thanks for the update.

Does this mean that the design concept of having a racial prestige tree for every race, basically allowing the option of a class tree to be swapped for a racial tree based on the race (like elves and helves get with Arcane Archer) has been completely dropped?

Did you think that there was no demand for this feature?

The racial prestige option would make an excellent addition to the diversity and versatility of builds. And I can't see how it would be any additional effort as the work has already been done on the trees. Just scrap the 4AP enhancement cost to unlock it, make it freely available and you have a real winner on your hands.


Will the Tree AP cost be recalculated based on the Total AP spent, or the Total AP spent per Class, so for example, any points spent in Kensai or Stalwart Defender count towards the AP cost requirement for either tree?

Looking forward to seeing a number of the nonsensical pre-requisites removed to open the trees up in the same way you offer much greater freedom within the Epic Destiny Enhancements. I'll be doing a face-palm if I still have to take Wand Heightening before I can take Wand and Scroll Mastery.

[Wizza]

No reworking of Sorcerers' trees? The fact that they are the copy-paste of each other will stay like that?

No news of any added PrE? Alcolyte of the Skin? Or will sorcerers be the only one with ONE PrE? (And no, they are not 4, it's just one pre for 4 elements).

No fix to MCL/CL bonuses? And the capstone, along with most of the trees, will still be useless even after all the negative feedback? Is the "same cooldown on every SLAs of every tree" fixed?

I know you couldn't have included all of this in your OP Maj but at least give us something. We are already bugged like hell on live, no word on fixes to their enhancement is just..bad. IMHO, Sorcerers are having the worst time (togheter with CLR, but there are some redesign for them based on your words) and I'd like some words on them.

[Iriale]

six trees? If these six are three general class trees and three prestige trees are very cool. If not it's (yet) a fail. General class enhancements in prestige trees is the major fail of alpha version and a problem for all builds, pure or multiclass.

Are there general class trees?

[Ironclans_evil_twin]

Thanks for the update.

Does this mean that the design concept of having a racial prestige tree for every race, basically allowing the option of a class tree to be swapped for a racial tree based on the race (like elves and helves get with Arcane Archer) has been completely dropped?

Did you think that there was no demand for this feature?

The racial prestige option would make an excellent addition to the diversity and versatility of builds. And I can't see how it would be any additional effort as the work has already been done on the trees. Just scrap the 4AP enhancement cost to unlock it, make it freely available and you have a real winner on your hands.
.

Did I miss where he said race PrE's are no longer on the table? As I understand it from Varg they are simply not in yet, and one might presume they want to see how the AA elf one works within the new tree structure before they put them in.

I to really hope they're not dropping them as they are a major way to give a pure class more than just one class tree/PrE selection. Not to mentions Elves already have one so to call them finished there is a little dodgey.

[Hambo]

I'll be there to test on Lamannia with bells on.

I only hope that the "Dojo" that was present on the last Lam build is still present... I find I learn more by trying a build out in a couple of actual quests at each level before advancing to the next to be very informative, as opposed to just building a maxxed Alt to check the final outcome. Also, since I play with Artys exclusively right now it's the only way I can get runearms. Will they be added to that gear room any time soon?

Last time on Lam I took an enhancement on an Arty I built that gave me a chance to detect traps/doors automatically... This sped up my questing quite a bit. Is there a similar enhancement planned to speed up disabling commensurate with experience as well? That might be an answer to some of the "To trap or not to trap" threads I've seen lately...

Thanks for the data, can't wait to test.

[Hoiii]

Some examples of bugs fixed:

Spell Critical: All Spell Critical Chance enhancement are giving incorrect numbers


On Lamannia if its not a display bug or the build will be different, Spell Critical Chance enhancement are still giving incorrect numbers for both "Cleric and FVS Prayer of Smiting". They are still giving just 1% per rank for a max of 3% for 6 action points, nut the other are fixed. The others are fixed.

[Silverleafeon]

There has been a ton of work done--something north of 600 issues addressed.
Looking forward to seeing this.

[EllisDee37]

There goes my Artificer having both Arcane Empowerment and Tactical Mobility. =( I was really looking forward to that, but I understand tradeoffs must be made for the sake of balance.This was never possible. The original design limited us to a single tree's tier 5s by requiring 40 AP spent in tree to unlock tier 5, making it mathematically impossible to take enhancements from more than one of them.

[Steelstar]

There goes my Artificer having both Arcane Empowerment and Tactical Mobility. =( I was really looking forward to that, but I understand tradeoffs must be made for the sake of balance.


This is indeed possible in the version coming to Lamannia!

Tactical Mobility is a Tier 5 ability in the (Art)Battle Engineer tree. Arcane Empowerment is the final Core ability in the (Art)Arcanotechnician tree. Assuming your character has 20 levels of Artificer, you can reach both of those abilities.

Long story short, you can only take Tier 5 abilities from one tree, but you can still take all the Core abilities for any tree you have access to, assuming you meet the class level and point-spend requirements. Compared to the original Lamannia preview, it's now easier to make a character that does this, as reaching Tier 5 in a tree requires fewer points spent in that tree.

[Silverleafeon]

This is indeed possible in the version coming to Lamannia!

Woot!

[Delacroix21]

This is indeed possible in the version coming to Lamannia!

Tactical Mobility is a Tier 5 ability in the (Art)Battle Engineer tree. Arcane Empowerment is the final Core ability in the (Art)Arcanotechnician tree. Assuming your character has 20 levels of Artificer, you can reach both of those abilities.

Long story short, you can only take Tier 5 abilities from one tree, but you can still take all the Core abilities for any tree you have access to, assuming you meet the class level and point-spend requirements. Compared to the original Lamannia preview, it's now easier to make a character that does this, as reaching Tier 5 in a tree requires fewer points spent in that tree.

That's great news! That being said i think tactical mobility is in the wrong tree. I am afraid most "battle" artificers use two handed weapons while "caster" Artie's use repeaters. Plus all the crossbow enhancements don't add damage to repeaters which is what Artie's use.


Nerfing repeaters does NOT make greatcross bows etc. more desirable. If you want to make those more desirable have the enhancements add 1 damage per tier to repeaters and 4 damage per tier to other crossbows, even then i don't think people will use them.

[Game_Whino]

Nerfing repeaters does NOT make greatcross bows etc. more desirable. If you want to make those more desirable have the enhancements add 1 damage per tier to repeaters and 4 damage per tier to other crossbows, even then i don't think people will use them.

Yeah, the problem with great crossbows (and non-repeating crossbows) is the rate of fire as opposed to the damage per hit. You want people to use great crossbows? Give us an enhancement line that will make them shoot more than one bolt at a time or one that will make their dps somewhat competitive with how repeaters are now. I think you'd pretty much have to halve the reload time on a great crossbow while doubling its damage to make it worth using outside of endless fusillade.

[droid327]

Yeah, the problem with great crossbows (and non-repeating crossbows) is the rate of fire as opposed to the damage per hit. You want people to use great crossbows? Give us an enhancement line that will make them shoot more than one bolt at a time or one that will make their dps somewhat competitive with how repeaters are now. I think you'd pretty much have to halve the reload time on a great crossbow while doubling its damage to make it worth using outside of endless fusillade.

Someone recently posted that GXBs have about 1/2 the firing rate, bolt-for-bolt, as RXBs. I think it might be slightly less than that (cursory testing showed about 2.25 RXB bolts for every 1 GXB bolt). So GXBs are going to have to do at least double damage compared to RXBs, shot-for-shot, before anyone will use them.

They do have a better crit profile, so that counts for something...but they don't triple all your affixes and buffs and chance-on-hit rolls like RXBs do, and that counts for something too. The KD on vorpal does not count for much at all...but simply giving them a couple extra bonus damage with enhancments does not come close to bridging the gap.

Maybe turn GXBs into an AOE weapon - ie, give them ranged glancing blows around the target, and a chance for a glancing blow on the main target as well, just like with THF. And 1.5x effect from Insightful Damage. The disparity between RXBs and GXBs is very much parallel to the disparity between TWF and THF, in terms of attacks per second etc.

[Delacroix21]

Someone recently posted that GXBs have about 1/2 the firing rate, bolt-for-bolt, as RXBs. I think it might be slightly less than that (cursory testing showed about 2.25 RXB bolts for every 1 GXB bolt). So GXBs are going to have to do at least double damage compared to RXBs, shot-for-shot, before anyone will use them.

They do have a better crit profile, so that counts for something...but they don't triple all your affixes and buffs and chance-on-hit rolls like RXBs do, and that counts for something too. The KD on vorpal does not count for much at all...but simply giving them a couple extra bonus damage with enhancments does not come close to bridging the gap.

Maybe turn GXBs into an AOE weapon - ie, give them ranged glancing blows around the target, and a chance for a glancing blow on the main target as well, just like with THF. And 1.5x effect from Insightful Damage. The disparity between RXBs and GXBs is very much parallel to the disparity between TWF and THF, in terms of attacks per second etc.

I know it is a stretch from PnP, but greatcross bows could have their crit multiplier increased to x3. And/or make the knockdown on crit rather than on 20, that alone might make them viable not as a dps tool but more for crowd control.


Overall ranged combat in ddo are at the two extremes, very weak (normal), or overpowered (many shot). To be honest repeaters are the most balanced of all the ranged weapons doing consistent decent damage.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Some old religious feats that were exclusive to Favored Soul (such as Child of Vulkoor and Beloved of Lord of Blades) are now available for Clerics and Paladins if they want them for the cost of a feat. They remain freely granted for FvS. The stats have been slightly improved to give more bonuses and give them at earlier levels.









As previously seen on Lamannia, Clerics and Paladins now choose a deity to worship at level 1 as a feat, similar to Favored Souls. Old religious enhancements for Clerics, Paladins and Favored Souls such as Unyielding Sovereignty are now freely granted at level 6 as feats.


































































I like the changes that you've listed. I think that they show a lot of potential and I'm *very* glad that Clerics got another look since the Alpha enhancements for Clerics were pretty bad. The bit that I left in quotes here is something that I think could use a tweak. I'd like to see both Clerics and FvS (and Paladins) all choose a diety and both Clerics and Paladins are pretty well feat starved. Giving the religion feat to Clerics and Paladins for free would be good flavor and wouldn't be unbalancing as far as I'm concerned since both of those classes could use a little love.


Hopefully, this quote works better than it looks on the WYSIWYG editor's display. The new forums are... actually, I'll just refrain from describing the forums accurately since I don't want an infraction.

[Targal]

This is indeed possible in the version coming to Lamannia!

Tactical Mobility is a Tier 5 ability in the (Art)Battle Engineer tree. Arcane Empowerment is the final Core ability in the (Art)Arcanotechnician tree. Assuming your character has 20 levels of Artificer, you can reach both of those abilities.

Long story short, you can only take Tier 5 abilities from one tree, but you can still take all the Core abilities for any tree you have access to, assuming you meet the class level and point-spend requirements. Compared to the original Lamannia preview, it's now easier to make a character that does this, as reaching Tier 5 in a tree requires fewer points spent in that tree.

Ehh, can you answer this also? I have my complaint on rogue mechanic that insightful benefit for crossbows(Rogue Mechanic I, level 6) has been moved up to level 12(fourth core-ability of Mechanic). My rogue 6 build for insightful would have a critical problem unless changed.


edited: I confused proficiency with insightful at mechanic.

[barecm]

Well, without seeing if abilities have had their positions changed, I do not like not being able to choose tier 5s from different paths. This does not favor multiclasses at all and further pigeon holes people into certain builds. For instance, my archer would have taken heavy draw from Deepwoodk sniper and maybe a couple of the tier 5 from AA. Other builds I had imagined were ninja spy and rogue assassin builds utilizing tier 5s from both. There were so many cool build options my friends and I were discussing. This is just HORRIBLE and yet again, for whatever reason, more limiting. I am so surprised with such a robust system that Turbine has developed that they choose to limit us. The limit should be in the action points, NOT in the being able to use things simply because the devs want to limit us. I don't get the decision making at Turbine these days, but it really just started to become more irritating than it is worth. Lately, every time they have the choice to either do something the cool and free choice way, they change it to dumb it down so that the causal or new player won't be confused. I just don't get into that method and really cant understand how someone can not understand. Let's go back to the complexity that made this game more fun and more interesting and if people cannot understand, they need to start asking experienced players for help. There are PLENTY of folks who help on a daily basis and I am sure many, many online references to help. I don't want cookie cutter builds and forced paths to 1 of 6 paths to choose top tier abilities. This absolute stinks and not sure why more are not raising their voices.

[maddmatt70]

Well, without seeing if abilities have had their positions changed, I do not like not being able to choose tier 5s from different paths. This does not favor multiclasses at all and further pigeon holes people into certain builds. For instance, my archer would have taken heavy draw from Deepwoodk sniper and maybe a couple of the tier 5 from AA. Other builds I had imagined were ninja spy and rogue assassin builds utilizing tier 5s from both. There were so many cool build options my friends and I were discussing. This is just HORRIBLE and yet again, for whatever reason, more limiting. I am so surprised with such a robust system that Turbine has developed that they choose to limit us. The limit should be in the action points, NOT in the being able to use things simply because the devs want to limit us. I don't get the decision making at Turbine these days, but it really just started to become more irritating than it is worth. Lately, every time they have the choice to either do something the cool and free choice way, they change it to dumb it down so that the causal or new player won't be confused. I just don't get into that method and really cant understand how someone can not understand. Let's go back to the complexity that made this game more fun and more interesting and if people cannot understand, they need to start asking experienced players for help. There are PLENTY of folks who help on a daily basis and I am sure many, many online references to help. I don't want cookie cutter builds and forced paths to 1 of 6 paths to choose top tier abilities. This absolute stinks and not sure why more are not raising their voices.

First, of all I think that multiclass had a huge advantage for most builds (non spellcasters) in the previous incarnation so some advantages had to be given to pure builds and this core concept is a great start although it does favor classes which have 3 enhancement trees vs. ones that have two but it is a start nevertheless. I disagree with your analysis and still think multi-class will be very strong and builds can be very complex. You have options for 6 trees now and it cost less to spend on enhancements in those trees. A build with 3 classes in it where all three of those classes have 4 or more levels is very intriguing I would guess in this version.

[dejafu]

This is indeed possible in the version coming to Lamannia!

Tactical Mobility is a Tier 5 ability in the (Art)Battle Engineer tree. Arcane Empowerment is the final Core ability in the (Art)Arcanotechnician tree. Assuming your character has 20 levels of Artificer, you can reach both of those abilities.

Long story short, you can only take Tier 5 abilities from one tree, but you can still take all the Core abilities for any tree you have access to, assuming you meet the class level and point-spend requirements. Compared to the original Lamannia preview, it's now easier to make a character that does this, as reaching Tier 5 in a tree requires fewer points spent in that tree.

There you have it, folks: They managed to give a significant boost to both multiclass builds (six trees to choose from) and singe class builds (multiple Core capstones).

I don't think it's remotely possible for there to be an approach that will completely satisfy both multiclassers and purists, but this strikes me as an excellent compromise overall.

Oh, and I'm THRILLED my arti will be able to keep Arcane Empowerment while gaining Tactical Mobility. I was willing to give up the former for the latter, but it was going to be a not-fun sacrifice to make.

[barecm]

First, of all I think that multiclass had a huge advantage for most builds (non spellcasters) in the previous incarnation so some advantages had to be given to pure builds and this core concept is a great start although it does favor classes which have 3 enhancement trees vs. ones that have two but it is a start nevertheless. I disagree with your analysis and still think multi-class will be very strong and builds can be very complex. You have options for 6 trees now and it cost less to spend on enhancements in those trees. A build with 3 classes in it where all three of those classes have 4 or more levels is very intriguing I would guess in this version.Six trees to choose from yes, but only the mediocre stuff for 5. It is lame and limiting at best. I am not sure why there always have to be a caveat with something productive that they do. Just say 6 trees and 80 points to pick from. Why does there have to be a constraint attached?

[BananaHat]

That's great news! That being said i think tactical mobility is in the wrong tree. I am afraid most "battle" artificers use two handed weapons while "caster" Artie's use repeaters. Plus all the crossbow enhancements don't add damage to repeaters which is what Artie's use.


Wait... what? I don't think I've ever seen an actual melee artificer, let alone one using a two-handed weapon (d-axe/b-sword would be the way to go). The crossbow enhancements do add to repeaters, just at a lesser rate due to their higher rate of fire.

Run and gun with repeaters, that is the battle artificer way! I'm actually super psyched about the speed penalty reduction with rune arms as I always have to turn off the auto-charge when mobility is needed which is basically any harder content. I do not cast much with mine in that harder content as I cannot get my DC's high enough to be worthwhile, but I certainly like the buffs/damage/defense through being at range/reconstructing myself/UMD for everything else. I will certainly be glad that it sounds like I will have the option to both not lose the current capstone (it makes clickies so much more useful, go go divine power/favor) and the new ability to not be slowed with my rune arm.

[EllisDee37]

Wait... what? I don't think I've ever seen an actual melee artificer, let alone one using a two-handed weapon (d-axe/b-sword would be the way to go).THF melee artificers are quite popular, particularly for endgame. They are either 16/2/2 artie/monk/ranger or 16/2/2 artie/monk/paladin, and they are called juggernauts (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/404822-The-Juggernaut-Prime-of-the-Warforged).

To further blow your mind, juggernauts use longbows, not crossbows.

[donblas]

Rough days for a Pats fan. Dumb TE, Broken TE and Tebow all in a week. GAH.

Have a great weekend! Maj.

At least you will always have dependable Wes :)

Oh, wait.....

[Khelelothe]

Six trees to choose from yes, but only the mediocre stuff for 5. It is lame and limiting at best. I am not sure why there always have to be a caveat with something productive that they do. Just say 6 trees and 80 points to pick from. Why does there have to be a constraint attached?

I personally do not mind that there are constraints. I actually do like that you might have to give up something as a cost to get something else... it's all about the decision-making of character building, which I do enjoy.

Not to mention, it is probably a balancing act as well. Sometimes, having constraints do the very opposite of making cookie-cutter builds.

[Aussir]

Only one tier 5 tree?

I'd better see the STAT ENHANCEMENTS on tiers 1-4 or I'm going to be ****ed. :mad:
Not to mention that I don't know why there needs to be a limit to tier 5 trees when you only have 80 points to throw in 6 trees...

[arkonas]

Well, without seeing if abilities have had their positions changed, I do not like not being able to choose tier 5s from different paths. This does not favor multiclasses at all and further pigeon holes people into certain builds. For instance, my archer would have taken heavy draw from Deepwoodk sniper and maybe a couple of the tier 5 from AA. Other builds I had imagined were ninja spy and rogue assassin builds utilizing tier 5s from both. There were so many cool build options my friends and I were discussing. This is just HORRIBLE and yet again, for whatever reason, more limiting. I am so surprised with such a robust system that Turbine has developed that they choose to limit us. The limit should be in the action points, NOT in the being able to use things simply because the devs want to limit us. I don't get the decision making at Turbine these days, but it really just started to become more irritating than it is worth. Lately, every time they have the choice to either do something the cool and free choice way, they change it to dumb it down so that the causal or new player won't be confused. I just don't get into that method and really cant understand how someone can not understand. Let's go back to the complexity that made this game more fun and more interesting and if people cannot understand, they need to start asking experienced players for help. There are PLENTY of folks who help on a daily basis and I am sure many, many online references to help. I don't want cookie cutter builds and forced paths to 1 of 6 paths to choose top tier abilities. This absolute stinks and not sure why more are not raising their voices.

im going to have to say no to this. I'm not sure why you feel you're entitled to get really nice abilities from a lot of trees compared to a pure who will have access to the full tree. what you're saying is multiclass should be able to get the best abilities from more then one tree. That really kicks pure class in the nuts. So yeah im saying no again to this. this didnt happen before the overhaul i dont see why it should happen now. we have fun multiclassing before this even came in.

[the613]

Bruins in 6. If the Bruins win our sister studio (http://www.netherrealm.com/) in Chicago owes us Deep Dish Pizza. If B's lose, we owe them lobster.

Based off of what I'm hearing, would I be correct in saying you owe them a lobster? Don't really know much about sports, but the joyous posts on facebook about the hawks seem to suggest they won something big. Well, just to show my pride as a chicagoan...


https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/11466_10151617844301245_1718779506_n.jpg

[Scraap]

Well, without seeing if abilities have had their positions changed, I do not like not being able to choose tier 5s from different paths. This does not favor multiclasses at all and further pigeon holes people into certain builds. For instance, my archer would have taken heavy draw from Deepwoodk sniper and maybe a couple of the tier 5 from AA. Other builds I had imagined were ninja spy and rogue assassin builds utilizing tier 5s from both. There were so many cool build options my friends and I were discussing. This is just HORRIBLE and yet again, for whatever reason, more limiting. I am so surprised with such a robust system that Turbine has developed that they choose to limit us. The limit should be in the action points, NOT in the being able to use things simply because the devs want to limit us. I don't get the decision making at Turbine these days, but it really just started to become more irritating than it is worth. Lately, every time they have the choice to either do something the cool and free choice way, they change it to dumb it down so that the causal or new player won't be confused. I just don't get into that method and really cant understand how someone can not understand. Let's go back to the complexity that made this game more fun and more interesting and if people cannot understand, they need to start asking experienced players for help. There are PLENTY of folks who help on a daily basis and I am sure many, many online references to help. I don't want cookie cutter builds and forced paths to 1 of 6 paths to choose top tier abilities. This absolute stinks and not sure why more are not raising their voices.

Agree to a point. What I'd like to see is more of a smooth incentive structure though, since one of the bigger flaws is lack of incentive for taking a second class past 4 under the new enhancement proposals. Say 5 levels gets you 1 T5 in a given class, 10 2, 15 3, 20 racial. (I throw in a racial 'capstone-lite' to balance vs a 10/10 or 15/5 that'd end up with 4 possibilities. 6 level splits already get tiers, so not as much of a concern there.)

[BananaHat]

THF melee artificers are quite popular, particularly for endgame. They are either 16/2/2 artie/monk/ranger or 16/2/2 artie/monk/paladin, and they are called juggernauts (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/404822-The-Juggernaut-Prime-of-the-Warforged).

To further blow your mind, juggernauts use longbows, not crossbows.

Yes, I've read about the build, but nobody I have run with seems to use it. Yes, I know it abuses manyshot. Different experiences for different players, I imagine builds become popular in social circles and so certain groups see specific builds as popular and others don't. When I made a WF FvS before they were popular, lots of guildies made them as well because they saw how effective and fun they were.

I would prefer a caster tree, a crossbow/rune arm tree, and a pet tree personally, but I'm not a developer. Even better would be to add a fourth melee tree for those that prefer that method. Those odd multiclass builds will be able to borrow trees from other classes. It is my opinion (for what that is worth) that trying to turn the battle tree into a melee as suggested goes against the flavor and spirit of the class. It is great that it is versatile, but you don't add a casting tree to fighters because some enjoy making arcane warrior type builds. Focus the trees on the class as is and let the multiclass builds shake out.

[FalseFlag]

Wait... what? I don't think I've ever seen an actual melee artificer, let alone one using a two-handed weapon (d-axe/b-sword would be the way to go).
I have. THF one at that. Ran a shroud with him the other day. I also personally have one on a couple of the servers.

[Silverleafeon]

I have...Me too, lol they want to me to roll a new toon and level up to 25 with em...

[Singular]

This is indeed possible in the version coming to Lamannia!

Tactical Mobility is a Tier 5 ability in the (Art)Battle Engineer tree. Arcane Empowerment is the final Core ability in the (Art)Arcanotechnician tree. Assuming your character has 20 levels of Artificer, you can reach both of those abilities.

Long story short, you can only take Tier 5 abilities from one tree, but you can still take all the Core abilities for any tree you have access to, assuming you meet the class level and point-spend requirements. Compared to the original Lamannia preview, it's now easier to make a character that does this, as reaching Tier 5 in a tree requires fewer points spent in that tree.

Woohoo! So we can build an artie like what we have on live - that's quite nice.

Uhm, does this mean a lvl 20 pure class toon can have two core abilities, just by taking points in tree?