Thunder-Forged Weapons - a formal introduction

[DrOctothorpe]

Many of you have had a good glimpse at the Thunderholme weapon-smithing system when the forge was made available on the Lamannia server a few weeks back. I'm posting the details of that system here to ask you kind souls for some targeted feedback. What we're looking for, first & foremost, are the small, critical points that would make the difference for you: what's broken, what's missing, what needs a tweak to get over the line. Full disclosure: I can't make promises about what will get into Update 21 - the time to release is growing short - but we will work hard to get this shiny in the end.

Now, to introduce it properly...


Thunder-Forged Weapons
- Use the Dwarven forge within Thunderholme to craft them
- A fast travel NPC in the Thunderholme public area will take you to the forge (no Astral Shard usage required.)
- Forge a "base" weapon then upgrade 3 times
- There are multiple choices for each tier
- The first tier and some options in the second tier can be crafted with ingredients found in the adventure area, without needing to run the Raids. The Raids drop ingredients for crafting all tiers.

Ingredients
Thunderholme Ingots - Found on the landscape & in large numbers in the raids
Dragon Scales (Red & Dark) - Found in raids, common
Phlogiston (Red & Dark) - Found in raids, uncommon
Commendations of Valor - extra Commendations are found in raid chests

Drop rates of all these items increase with difficulty level (Normal, Hard, Elite).


Tiers now come with clearer inherent benefits:

Baseline Tiers
Tier 0 (Initial Item): +9, 3.5[W], Metalline Damage Types, Orange Augment Slot, ML22 - Unbound
Tier 1: +10, 4.0[W], Epic Bane of Dragons (5d6), ML24 - Bound to Character on Acquire
Tier 2: +11, 4.5[W], Greater Epic Bane of Dragons (upgrade from 5d6 to 8d6), ML26 - Bound to Character on Acquire
Tier 3: +12, 4.5[W], Colorless Augment Slot, ML28 - Bound to Character on Acquire

Tier 1 – Ingots Only
Blinding Fear
On hit: 10% Chance Blind 3 sec (DC 55 Will Save vs. Fear), 5 sec cool down

Touch of Shadows
On Hit 8d6 Negative Energy Damage

Dwarvencraft Potency
Universal Spell power +100

Dwarvencraft Combustion, Nullification, Radiance, Devotion, Glaciation, Resonance, Corrosion, Impulse, Magnetism, Reconstruction
+150 Spellpower to Fire, Negative, Light, Positive, Cold, Sonic, Acid, Force, Electric, Repair/Rust Spell Power. (For 2-handed weapons: +1 Unique bonus to Spell DCs)

Touch of Flames
On Hit: 10d6 Fire Damage

1st Degree Burns
5d6 Fire Damage + Stacking 1% Vulnerability 3 sec, max 20 stacks (triggers once/2 seconds) (stacks with other sources of vulnerability)

Tier 2 - Ingots and Scales
Dragon's Blessing
On friend-targeted spell cast: 5% chance AOE Healing Effect (~100HP) centered on target (AOE is size of Mass Cure spells)

2nd Degree Burns
On Hit: 10% chance to slow 50% (No Save) for 10 sec (non-bosses only)

Dwarvencraft Focus
Universal Spell DCs +2 exceptional (Stacks will other sources) (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

Dwarvencraft Spell Penetration
Spell Penetration +7

Paralyzing Fear
On Hit: 10% chance to Paralyze (DC 50 Will Save vs. Fear) for 5 sec

Wrath of Flames
On Hit: 5% Chance AOE 10d20+400 fire damage – DC 50 Reflex Save for half

Wrath of Shadows
On Hit: 5% chance AOE 8d20+220 negative energy damage – DC 50 Fortitude Save for half

Dragon's Edge
Armor-Piercing 35% + On Crit: 8d10+25 Bleeding Damage

Dwarvencraft Abjuration, Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation Focus
+6 Spell DCs in respective Focus area (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

Red Augment Slot

Purple Augment Slot


Tier 3 - Ingots, Scales, and Phlogiston
Eternal Scorching Light
On Light / Fire Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds)

Eternal Chilling Darkness
On Negative / Cold Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds)

Crippling Flames
On Crit: 10d20+125 Fire Damage + On Vorpal: Negative Level (DC 50 Fortitude Save)

Burning Emptiness
On Vorpal: 5d12+50 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Crit: 8d20+100 Negative Energy Damage

Mortal Fear
On Hit: 8d8 Force Damage (DC 45 Will negates) + On Vorpal: Phantasmal Killers (DC 45 Will/Fortitude Save vs. Fear)

Dwarvencraft Fire, Void, Radiance, Healing, Ice, Sonic, Acid, Kinetic, Lightning, Repair Lore
Spell Crit +22% in the respective Lore (For 2-handed weapons: +2 Weapon Enhancement Bonus)

Dwarvencraft Lore
Universal Spell Crit +17%

Body Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Fortitude Save -5, Sunder Attempt

Leg Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Reflex Save -5, Trip Attempt

Mind Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Will Save -5, Hold Monster Attempt

Draconic Reinvigoration
On Damage or Spell Damage: 2% Chance regenerate 1 Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs (triggers once/100 seconds) + Passive: +1 use/rest to Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs

3rd Degree Burns
On Vorpal: 10d12+75 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Hit: 10% Chance Stuns non-bosses 1 sec (DC 45 Fortitude Save)

Fire Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Fire Breath (3/rest)

Ice Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Ice Breath (3/rest)

Acid Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Acid Breath (3/rest)

Lightning Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Lightning Breath (3/rest)



Craftable items list:
Bastard Sword
Battle Axe
Dagger
Dwarven Waraxe
Morningstar
Handwrap
Hand Axe
Heavy Mace
Heavy Pick
Kama
Khopesh
Kukri
Longsword
Rapier
Sceptre
Scimitar
Shortsword
Sickle
Warhammer
Falchion
Greataxe
Greatsword
Maul
Quarterstaff
Great Crossbow
Repeating Heavy Crossbow
Longbow
Orb (it's an implement, not a weapon, but we're putting it here all the same)

[Dandonk]

I cannot haz shuriken?

[Portalcat]

Glad to see that it's been clarified that the tier 2 Wyrmic Focus does stack with everything.

My DC caster stands to gain a lot from this, and will be farming like nuts. My Shiradi caster will get a smaller but still worthwhile boost.



The tier 3 dragon breath clickies are nice, and make it worth farming these out well beyond getting any weapons you actually need. Is the cooldown the same 1 min that it is on dragon breath from Draconic? If not, these are ridiculously good, and if so, then they're still very nice.

[LOOON375]

You should add the different shield types.

[die]

I noticed while down thier, there is no great axe's or great swords.

[Kambuk]

They need increased crit range.

Either give it to the base item or have a tier one effect that incresed the threat range and maybe a tier three effect that increases the multiplier.

If you can make it work as a tier 1/3 effect then you can add it to random loot as a Prefix/Suffix.

Kambuk

[Shorlong]

I noticed while down there, there is no great axe's or great swords.

They're there. I took a look at them last weekend. They are also in the list in the OP here.

[DrawingGuy]

I actually do look forward to these new weapons. Number crunching will go to show DPS profiles of procs vs better damage/crit profiles (which I believe most that have already been done favor damage/crit profiles), and that will ultimately dictate if any are farmed for that purpose.

Utility wise, there is no question that there are some great options here. Casters will eat these up, and you can make some nice Rogue utility weapons... the question is, will there be any more utility consideration for Two Handed weapons? Like how you grant Dwarvencraft unique DC, Crit and enhancement bonuses for two handed weapons, possibly granting giving Dragon's utilities two-handed bonuses as well:

Touch of Flames (closest "dragon" ability I see for Tier 1): 5% effect trigger on glancing blows

Dragon's Edge: 10% glancing blow damage for two-handed weapons

Draconic Reinvigoration: additional +1 use/rest for two-handed weapons


Single handed users can go for a weapon with utility AND one for DPS procs while two-handers have to flat give up an option to get that utility. Do think some slight perks are needed to make up for that.

[die]

They're there. I took a look at them last weekend. They are also in the list in the OP here. hmm thanks I must of over looked them thanks

[count_spicoli]

Man now that stuff looks sweet. I also like the fact that you can get some parts in the wilderness. That will make running in the wilderness worthwhile. Wish that something similar had been done in stormhorns to make running around out there in that beautiful area more appealling. The only thing i can see is maybe the dcs are a liitle on the low side. I mean i have a high 60's stun dc on my fighter barb and landin those is no gaurentee in stromhorns and wheloon EE. So im not sure alot of those will work past EN.But all and all it looks great. Im already eyeing a falchon for my ftr barb.

[moo_cow]

First off very good stuff, and very good job on the items. I do however have a slight problem with two handed weapons for casters.

two handed weapon
- 150 spell power (+1 stacking dc)

- +6 dc of a school or +2 stacking dc's (both have +1% extra crit chance)

- 22% crit chance (+2 weapon enchantment)

two weapons
- 150 spell power (main hand)
- 150 spell power (off hand)

- +6 dc (main hand)
- +2 stacking dc(off hand)

- 22% crit chance (main hand)
- 22% crit chance (off hand)

So basically two handed weapons have an extra 1% crit chance,+2 enchantment, and +1 dc in secondary spell casting school. And two weapons gives you an extra 150 spell power, with another 22% crit chance for your other element. While both give you the same dc.

So there really isn't any incentive to go for a two handed weapon
- you get the same dc's as two weapons (however, your secondary spec will have +1 dc higher)
- you also can only spec in 1 element (which is a bad idea)

I just think there needs to be a boost if people are going to use two handers.

[Grizzt14]

Looks like a lot of the feedback and criticisms from posters in this thread (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/435031-Wyrm-wrought-Crafting-System-Details) from when the crafting system was first available nearly a month ago are still applicable to this version. Not impressed...

[moo_cow]

Looks like a lot of the feedback and comments from posters in this thread (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/435031-Wyrm-wrought-Crafting-System-Details) from when the crafting system was first available nearly a month ago are still applicable to this version. Not impressed...

I agree that there will be a few king 1 handers/two handers and the rest will never get used, that is needed to be fixed for sure. But the people saying these weapons aren't very good and esos is still king don't know how math works I guess.

[Kambuk]

Blinding Fear
On hit: 10% Chance Blind 3 sec (DC 55 Will Save vs. Fear), 5 sec cool down

vs

Radiance
This Weapon is imbued with a brilliant radiant power that deals an additional 4d6 points of light damage and blinds the target on a successful critical hit.
No save against blindness effect

Blinding Fear seems very weak I can't seen anyone ever making this.
Needs to be a much longer duration and/or a much greater chance to be a consideration.


Kambuk

[redspecter23]

Blinding Fear
On hit: 10% Chance Blind 3 sec (DC 55 Will Save vs. Fear), 5 sec cool down

vs

Radiance
This Weapon is imbued with a brilliant radiant power that deals an additional 4d6 points of light damage and blinds the target on a successful critical hit.
No save against blindness effect

Blinding Fear seems very weak I can't seen anyone ever making this.
Needs to be a much longer duration and/or a much greater chance to be a consideration.


Kambuk

I agree it looks extremely weak, especially compared to radiance. Is there any chance that this is a typo and it's meant to be a fear effect instead? Similar to the mummy type fear that locks you in place and makes you vulnerable? That would seem a more suitable debuff considering the name, proc rate, save and duration. Either that or Turbine REALLY values short term blind effects quite highly.

[Portalcat]

First off very good stuff, and very good job on the items. I do however have a slight problem with two handed weapons for casters.

two handed weapon
- 150 spell power (+1 stacking dc)

- +6 dc of a school or +2 stacking dc's (both have +1% extra crit chance)

- 22% crit chance (+2 weapon enchantment)

two weapons
- 150 spell power (main hand)
- 150 spell power (off hand)

- +6 dc (main hand)
- +2 stacking dc(off hand)

- 22% crit chance (main hand)
- 22% crit chance (off hand)

So basically two handed weapons have an extra 1% crit chance,+2 enchantment, and +1 dc in secondary spell casting school. And two weapons gives you an extra 150 spell power, with another 22% crit chance for your other element. While both give you the same dc.

So there really isn't any incentive to go for a two handed weapon
- you get the same dc's as two weapons (however, your secondary spec will have +1 dc higher)
- you also can only spec in 1 element (which is a bad idea)

I just think there needs to be a boost if people are going to use two handers.


While all of this is true, there is a tradeoff in that you have to actually farm out two weapons versus one to do so. I'm guessing that it won't be a trivial number of runs to make a tier 3 weapon.

[Vellrad]

Its a small thing unrelated to items, but (at least for me) very important things needed to be clarified.

You keep to refering to thunderholme area as landscape.

Landscape, in all MMOs I played and heard of, is non instanced area shared by all players at once, where they kill roaming mobs, and complete quests with objectives of: 'kill X mobs of certain type and bring me Y of items they drop, while gathering Z of items lying on the ground'. There is no such thing in DDO, as every place where we fight monsters (except for mabar) is instanced for individuals, parties or raids.

So question is, are we getting private wilderness area we have in DDO right now, or standard shared MMO landscape area?

[Shorlong]

So far, it looks good. My biggest questions are:

Why is it better to take two one handed weapons instead of one two hander for casters? And I don't mean a little better, more like a LOT better...

Why have an orb but no shields? Why an orb at all?

Why no shurikens, hammers, darts, knives, axes, etc?

In the original version I saw, one of the ingredients listed was Commendations of Valor. I have been taking those in every end reward in preparation for this, has that changed? (Not complaining if so, I'll just use them for potions instead. More for clarification)

I have a few dragon souls from the Shadow dragon raid, I assumed that was an ingedient, has this been changed?

You say in the OP that certain options in Tier 2 do not require to run raids...which options are those?

[Shorlong]

Its a small thing unrelated to items, but (at least for me) very important things needed to be clarified.

You keep to refering to thunderholme area as landscape.

Landscape, in all MMOs I played and heard of, is non instanced area shared by all players at once, where they kill roaming mobs, and complete quests with objectives of: 'kill X mobs of certain type and bring me Y of items they drop, while gathering Z of items lying on the ground'. There is no such thing in DDO, as every place where we fight monsters (except for mabar) is instanced for individuals, parties or raids.

So question is, are we getting private wilderness area we have in DDO right now, or standard shared MMO landscape area?

Landscape is the same as wilderness in this instance. It is just like every other wilderness, except you can have a 12 person party as well.

[moo_cow]

While all of this is true, there is a tradeoff in that you have to actually farm out two weapons versus one to do so. I'm guessing that it won't be a trivial number of runs to make a tier 3 weapon.

Fair enough. I don't know how many ingredients these items take so I couldn't say. Currently though these ingredients are unbound(the ingots at least) so it might not take so long with a few characters. But in the meantime you could run 2 dc's lower getting your other weapon while still using a decent off hand weapon. In the end though when the cap is going to 30 and the end game expansion starts to come out a little more, people will have the weapons they already need.

[xTethx]

Fair enough. I don't know how many ingredients these items take so I couldn't say. Currently though these ingredients are unbound(the ingots at least) so it might not take so long with a few characters. But in the meantime you could run 2 dc's lower getting your other weapon while still using a decent off hand weapon. In the end though when the cap is going to 30 and the end game expansion starts to come out a little more, people will have the weapons they already need.

It all depends on how much the higher difficulties actually give. I was able to only run hard once on the shadow raid and it gave the same exact number as normal, wasn't able to get to the end fight of ee as I got stuck with puzzles needing more than 2 people. If the rates aren't anything drastic it will take quite a few runs to complete an item. I did a full ransack and I wasn't even able to get 1/3 of the way to tier 2. Tier 3 is even more. I'm hopeful though that the devs get it right and have good rates for hard and elite.

[Ivan_Milic]

Bump those DCs by at least 10 on weapon effects.

[redspecter23]

Bump those DCs by at least 10 on weapon effects.

I'll do you one better and suggest they just plain drop the DC on weapon effects completely. Lower the damage, up the proc rate. Play with other variables. Putting effort into forging a weapon that has it's power diminish drastically as you go up in difficulty and level is just silly. Shroud lightning strike, disintegration and level drain didn't have DC's and we survived that. I guess my point is, if the DC is high enough to make the weapon useful in EE, they might as well drop the DC anyway.

[Wizza]

1) The two 1-handers look stronger than the QSTAFF build but in the end they are both small upgrades which I kinda like.
2) There is no Arcane Augmentation.
3) The two-handers need a lot more works to make them at least appealing.

Right now, the quartestaff (or any two-hander) is not an option.

[Ivan_Milic]

So we all agree when we say, welcome back to the same old, khopesh and falchions will be the most common weapons again.

[Grizzt14]

Baseline Tiers
Tier 0 (Initial Item): +9, 3.5[W], Metalline Damage Types, Orange Augment Slot, ML22 - Unbound
Tier 1: +10, 4.0[W], Epic Bane of Dragons (5d6), ML24 - Bound to Character on Acquire
Tier 2: +11, 4.5[W], Greater Epic Bane of Dragons (upgrade from 5d6 to 8d6), ML26 - Bound to Character on Acquire
Tier 3: +12, 4.5[W], Colorless Augment Slot, ML28 - Bound to Character on Acquire


While we get an extra 1[W] compared to the last preview of this system, this isn't the clear base damage boost players were looking for when they asked for CiTW-like bonuses (Expanded Crit Threat or Crit Multiplier).






Tier 1 – Ingots Only
Blinding Fear
On hit: 10% Chance Blind 3 sec (DC 55 Will Save vs. Fear), 5 sec cool down

Touch of Shadows
On Hit 8d6 Negative Energy Damage

Dwarvencraft Potency
Universal Spell power +100

Dwarvencraft Combustion, Nullification, Radiance, Devotion, Glaciation, Resonance, Corrosion, Impulse, Magnetism, Reconstruction
+150 Spellpower to Fire, Negative, Light, Positive, Cold, Sonic, Acid, Force, Electric, Repair/Rust Spell Power. (For 2-handed weapons: +1 Unique bonus to Spell DCs)

Touch of Flames
On Hit: 10d6 Fire Damage

1st Degree Burns
5d6 Fire Damage + Stacking 1% Vulnerability 3 sec, max 20 stacks (triggers once/2 seconds) (stacks with other sources of vulnerability)


Blinding Fear DC is still too low.
2-handed caster weapons still aren't worth getting compared to 2 1-handers
The options for Tier 1 are still just as narrow as they were a month ago





Tier 2 - Ingots and Scales
Dragon's Blessing
On friend-targeted spell cast: 5% chance AOE Healing Effect (~100HP) centered on target (AOE is size of Mass Cure spells)

2nd Degree Burns
On Hit: 10% chance to slow 50% (No Save) for 10 sec (non-bosses only)

Dwarvencraft Focus
Universal Spell DCs +2 exceptional (Stacks will other sources) (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

Dwarvencraft Spell Penetration
Spell Penetration +7

Paralyzing Fear
On Hit: 10% chance to Paralyze (DC 50 Will Save vs. Fear) for 5 sec

Wrath of Flames
On Hit: 5% Chance AOE 10d20+400 fire damage – DC 50 Reflex Save for half

Wrath of Shadows
On Hit: 5% chance AOE 8d20+220 negative energy damage – DC 50 Fortitude Save for half

Dragon's Edge
Armor-Piercing 35% + On Crit: 8d10+25 Bleeding Damage

Dwarvencraft Abjuration, Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation Focus
+6 Spell DCs in respective Focus area (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

Red Augment Slot

Purple Augment Slot



Paralyzing Fear, Wrath of Flames and Wrath of Shadows DCs are still too low
Orange Augment Slot downgraded to Red Augment Slot?
2-handed caster weapons still aren't worth getting compared to 2 1-handers
Why is a Purple Slot available in the same tier as a Red Slot? There is zero reason to choose a Red Slot with a Purple available in the same tier.




Tier 3 - Ingots, Scales, and Phlogiston
Eternal Scorching Light
On Light / Fire Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds)

Eternal Chilling Darkness
On Negative / Cold Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds)

Crippling Flames
On Crit: 10d20+125 Fire Damage + On Vorpal: Negative Level (DC 50 Fortitude Save)

Burning Emptiness
On Vorpal: 5d12+50 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Crit: 8d20+100 Negative Energy Damage

Mortal Fear
On Hit: 8d8 Force Damage (DC 45 Will negates) + On Vorpal: Phantasmal Killers (DC 45 Will/Fortitude Save vs. Fear)

Dwarvencraft Fire, Void, Radiance, Healing, Ice, Sonic, Acid, Kinetic, Lightning, Repair Lore
Spell Crit +22% in the respective Lore (For 2-handed weapons: +2 Weapon Enhancement Bonus)

Dwarvencraft Lore
Universal Spell Crit +17%

Body Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Fortitude Save -5, Sunder Attempt

Leg Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Reflex Save -5, Trip Attempt

Mind Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Will Save -5, Hold Monster Attempt

Draconic Reinvigoration
On Damage or Spell Damage: 2% Chance regenerate 1 Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs (triggers once/100 seconds) + Passive: +1 use/rest to Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs

3rd Degree Burns
On Vorpal: 10d12+75 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Hit: 10% Chance Stuns non-bosses 1 sec (DC 45 Fortitude Save)

Fire Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Fire Breath (3/rest)

Ice Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Ice Breath (3/rest)

Acid Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Acid Breath (3/rest)

Lightning Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Lightning Breath (3/rest)


Crippling Flames, Mortal Fear, 3rd Degree Burns DCs are still too low
<Element> Storm -> Still restricted by "Moving will disrupt the action, but the counter will still be used"?
2-handed caster weapons still aren't worth getting compared to 2 1-handers
Tactic attempt effects but no DC boosts for Stun/Trip/Sunder?




Craftable items list:
Bastard Sword
Battle Axe
Dagger
Dwarven Waraxe
Morningstar
Handwrap
Hand Axe
Heavy Mace
Heavy Pick
Kama
Khopesh
Kukri
Longsword
Rapier
Sceptre
Scimitar
Shortsword
Sickle
Warhammer
Falchion
Greataxe
Greatsword
Maul
Quarterstaff
Great Crossbow
Repeating Heavy Crossbow
Longbow
Orb (it's an implement, not a weapon, but we're putting it here all the same)

No Throwing Weapons?
No Shields?
Why are weapons missing from this list? (Shortbow, Light Repeater, etc)
Overall question: Why are weapon damage effects largely restricted to only fire and negative energy but lore can be any element? (Beyond the obvious dragons being only fire and shadow...)


The system doesn't look finished still and even worse doesn't look like it has much changed besides some names from a month ago...

[maddmatt70]

Seems like good for two weapon fighting which I do not really have a problem with. The 2% recharge of boosts has some real potential for tier 3 especially on two weapon characters. Several abilities that no one will choose the % on the procs like people commented on the blinding effect, but others not so hot. You might want to tweak THF weapons a bit.

[Drakcane]

Can we get a T1 effect of or similar to:

4d6 negative energy damage + vampirism

Or

Greater vampirism

Or something along those lines? I personally love a good heal per hit on my weapons.

[sephiroth1084]

Many of you have had a good glimpse at the Thunderholme weapon-smithing system when the forge was made available on the Lamannia server a few weeks back. I'm posting the details of that system here to ask you kind souls for some targeted feedback. What we're looking for, first & foremost, are the small, critical points that would make the difference for you: what's broken, what's missing, what needs a tweak to get over the line. Full disclosure: I can't make promises about what will get into Update 21 - the time to release is growing short - but we will work hard to get this shiny in the end.

Now, to introduce it properly... First, while I'm glad to see that you've taken the overwhelmingly positive feedback regarding greensteel crafting to heart, and have made an attempt at replicating that system, there are a few issues that jump right out at me here:

One problem with greensteel was that it was much too large a jump forward from all other loot available at the time, and overshadowed nearly every weapon released in the game before and after for years.
One of the major drawing points of greensteel crafting was that it wasn't limited to just weapons: characters who already had a preferred weapon didn't find the system unappealing because they had accessories to craft. It also meant that characters weren't done crafting after making 1 or two items, and it also meant that new loot could be better without making the entire system unattractive--many players still make sure that they have at least 1 greensteel accessory worked into their gear somewhere, and many, many players have crafted at least 2 versions of the same item, in different slots at some point. The Thunder-Forged totally forgoes this point.
Greensteel was attractive not just for its DPS benefits (although that was obviously a major factor), but also for its utility. Moving from DPS we had stuff like Mineral II, which was your universal DR breaker for a long time (while also having pretty good DPS), then we had many useful clickies (characters still load up on Displacement and Raise Dead clickies, and at the time, Earth Elemental and Stoneskin clickies were worthwhile. Of course there were also the caster bonus items, although those weren't super-popular (mostly because the same effects were available on random loot and other raid gear in better/easier to acquire combinations), healing amplification (still popular for off-handing on characters that self-heal with scrolls), unique stat and skill bonuses (again, characters still craft themselves exceptional skills items here), unique bonuses to saves, immunity consolidation (fear, poison, disease, and Deathblock all on one slot), unique HP and SP bonuses (still underrepresented across the game's loot), and the other unique stuff (Concordant Opposition, Greater Disruption/Guard, some decent skill bonus consolidation, and uniquely powerful guard effects, like Ash). I see very little of this in the list of available effects, and see more of a variety of DPS options on one side, and caster options on the other.
Another strong point on greensteel was that even if you saw something at a particular tier you wanted, you didn't necessarily have to give up the idea of everything else at that tier--if you wanted to grab a couple immunities at tier 1, you didn't have to entirely give up on, say, Good-aligned damage to bypass DR: you could still pick up Good Burst (not as good as Holy at tier 1, but still worthwhile, and still gets the job done).
Final issue here: greensteel was also popular because it offered multiple effects per tier (for the non-weapon stuff), and special combination bonuses. I would have liked to see some utility effects coupled with the straight DPS stuff.

I'll make comments for each effect in the quotes in this color.


Thunder-Forged Weapons

- Use the Dwarven forge within Thunderholme to craft them
- A fast travel NPC in the Thunderholme public area will take you to the forge (no Astral Shard usage required.)
- Forge a "base" weapon then upgrade 3 times
- There are multiple choices for each tier
- The first tier and some options in the second tier can be crafted with ingredients found in the adventure area, without needing to run the Raids. The Raids drop ingredients for crafting all tiers.

Ingredients
Thunderholme Ingots - Found on the landscape & in large numbers in the raids
Dragon Scales (Red & Dark) - Found in raids, common
Phlogiston (Red & Dark) - Found in raids, uncommon

Drop rates of all these items increase with difficulty level (Normal, Hard, Elite).

Tiers now come with clearer inherent benefits:

Baseline Tiers
Tier 0 (Initial Item): +9, 3.5[W], Metalline Damage Types, Orange Augment Slot, ML22 - Unbound Is that the Metalline property, or indicating that we can craft thee in a variety of metals? Base stats look impressive (a bit too strong for ML 22 in my opinion, especially when comparing this to CitW weaponry), but I also don't see any improvements to crit profile, which may end up holding these back, although the DPS effects are so enormous they may overcome the ESoS anyway.

I'd probably start these at +6, then increase them by +2 per tier...so +6, +8, +10, +12...same endpoint, but they don't start so high. I'd probably also start it at 1.5[W] and increase by 1 per tier, so 2.5 at tier 1, then 3.5 and finally 4.5.
Tier 1: +10, 4.0[W], Epic Bane of Dragons (5d6), ML24 - Bound to Character on Acquire I still maintain that I dislike the change to the Bane property. The old version that added +x enhancement and +xd6 were more interesting (they help with to-hit and gain something on crits). Especially when comparing names--the old Epic Bane is +8 enhancement, +6d6 damage I believe, which leaves this in the dust. Mostly psychological here.Also, this being dragon bane kind of limits the utility these have in other places.
Tier 2: +11, 4.5[W], Greater Epic Bane of Dragons (upgrade from 5d6 to 8d6), ML26 - Bound to Character on Acquire
Tier 3: +12, 4.5[W], Colorless Augment Slot, ML28 - Bound to Character on Acquire These are weapons...I'd rather see a red slot here, though a colorless isn't useless.

Tier 1 – Ingots Only
Blinding Fear
On hit: 10% Chance Blind 3 sec (DC 55 Will Save vs. Fear), 5 sec cool down Significantly worse than the Radiance property (blind on crit, no save, longer duration). Is there a reason for that? The characters that most want this property (those relying on Sneak Attack damage) would want something more reliable.

Touch of Shadows
On Hit 8d6 Negative Energy Damage Kind of a big bonus, but not especially useful otherwise (doesn't help break DR, and very few ways to gain more damage out of negative energy)

Dwarvencraft Potency
Universal Spell power +100 Eh. Why no bonus for 2-handed weapons?

Dwarvencraft Combustion, Nullification, Radiance, Devotion, Glaciation, Resonance, Corrosion, Impulse, Magnetism, Reconstruction
+150 Spellpower to Fire, Negative, Light, Positive, Cold, Sonic, Acid, Force, Electric, Repair/Rust Spell Power. (For 2-handed weapons: +1 Unique bonus to Spell DCs) The two-handed weapon bonus is excessive. It pretty much forces anyone DC casting to use a staff. I don't know exactly how this system works, but if it uses the barter AI, couldn't 2-handed weapons gain a second +150 spellpower?

Touch of Flames
On Hit: 10d6 Fire Damage All the fire damage is underwhelming given that there are a few prominently featured red dragons in this pack. That wouldn't necessarily be a huge deal except that: one of those places is a raid (the reason to build uber weapons), and the weapons are aimed at being used against dragons thanks to the inherent Dragon Bane stuff.

1st Degree Burns
5d6 Fire Damage + Stacking 1% Vulnerability 3 sec, max 20 stacks (triggers once/2 seconds) (stacks with other sources of vulnerability) <see above regarding fire> What's the triggering effect? Is it just On Hit? Ensuring a 20 stack after 40 seconds (assuming new stacks refresh the timer)?

Tier 2 - Ingots and Scales
Dragon's Blessing
On friend-targeted spell cast: 5% chance AOE Healing Effect (~100HP) centered on target (AOE is size of Mass Cure spells) This is cool, but I don't know how many characters will take it over the other options offered at this tier. Also, it would be great if there was a version of this for melee characters...like barbarians, who still have no adequate source for self-healing.

2nd Degree Burns
On Hit: 10% chance to slow 50% (No Save) for 10 sec (non-bosses only) If this were bundled with something else, it would be pretty nice, but do you really want to slap this on a weapon aimed at being used on dragons, for which this effect will be useless, and in place of all the other options?

Dwarvencraft Focus
Universal Spell DCs +2 exceptional (Stacks will other sources) (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit) The 2-handed bonus looks kind of weak here, especially when you consider the next effect...

Dwarvencraft Spell Penetration
Spell Penetration +7 ...which really punishes those characters using a staff, because the dual-wielding casters will have both the +2 to DCs and the Spell Pen if they need both, while the staff wielder will have only one of the two.

Paralyzing Fear
On Hit: 10% chance to Paralyze (DC 50 Will Save vs. Fear) for 5 sec % chance of trigger should not be combined with a DC: pick one or the other. There is a fair chunk of the game for which a DC 50 is a "fail on 1 only", which means this becomes a 10% chance of a 5% chance of success, or a 0.005% chance of ever seeing anything get paralyzed. Even a regular lootgen paralyzing weapon has a better success rate (100% chance on-hit, DC 14 Will means it works 5% of the time when they roll a 1). That's pitiful. A 10% chance to trigger for 5 sec is reasonable without including the DC. Also, is there a reason to tack on the Fear portion? So, now it only works against creatures that are both not immune to paralysis and not immune to fear? That restricts the list of possibilities unnecessrily.

Wrath of Flames
On Hit: 5% Chance AOE 10d20+400 fire damage – DC 50 Reflex Save for half Why not just make this On Vorpal? That's the same thing, but we can track it a little better. Otherwise, looks okay, even if it often will be doing 0 damage against mobs with Evasion (including mobs that have no business with Evasion).

Wrath of Shadows
On Hit: 5% chance AOE 8d20+220 negative energy damage – DC 50 Fortitude Save for half Fort saves are the highest saves on average after the very early levels of the game. Evasion doesn't apply, which is good, but it's rarely going to hit for full damage in level 26+ content, even on EH.

Dragon's Edge
Armor-Piercing 35% + On Crit: 8d10+25 Bleeding Damage Very nice.

Dwarvencraft Abjuration, Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation Focus
+6 Spell DCs in respective Focus area (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit) Why is this at the same tier as the universal +2 to DCs? It just means that almost no one will ever take the other ability. Again, the 2-hander bonus is underwhelming. Give them a second school with +6 to the DC. After all, someone holding two caster sticks will be able to have either 2 +6 DC bonuses, or a +6 and the universal +2.

Red Augment Slot

Purple Augment Slot Are these choices, or do they get added automatically? Would anyone take a red slot here in place of anything on the list (including the better purple slot)?


Tier 3 - Ingots, Scales, and Phlogiston
Eternal Scorching Light
On Light / Fire Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds) This looks kind of mediocre, but hard to say.

Eternal Chilling Darkness
On Negative / Cold Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds)

Crippling Flames
On Crit: 10d20+125 Fire Damage + On Vorpal: Negative Level (DC 50 Fortitude Save) <see earlier comments regarding fire damage> Again, no need to tack a DC onto a 5% ability. Heck, we have a new lootgen effect that triggers negative levels without these kinds of restrictions!

Burning Emptiness
On Vorpal: 5d12+50 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Crit: 8d20+100 Negative Energy Damage

Mortal Fear
On Hit: 8d8 Force Damage (DC 45 Will negates) + On Vorpal: Phantasmal Killers (DC 45 Will/Fortitude Save vs. Fear) Never going to see the Force damage, and rarely going to see the PK. People played with the PK weapons because it was on-crit. Then it got nerfed, and people stopped using them.

Dwarvencraft Fire, Void, Radiance, Healing, Ice, Sonic, Acid, Kinetic, Lightning, Repair Lore
Spell Crit +22% in the respective Lore (For 2-handed weapons: +2 Weapon Enhancement Bonus) Nice ability, poor bonus for 2-handers.

Dwarvencraft Lore
Universal Spell Crit +17%

Body Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Fortitude Save -5, Sunder Attempt Weakest of the bunch. What's the DCs on these? Probably weaker than other options at this tier (this includes Leg Breaker and Mind Breaker).

Leg Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Reflex Save -5, Trip Attempt

Mind Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Will Save -5, Hold Monster Attempt

Draconic Reinvigoration
On Damage or Spell Damage: 2% Chance regenerate 1 Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs (triggers once/100 seconds) + Passive: +1 use/rest to Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs This is cool, but add some more things to this list, like Rage (especially since we have a few effects that are fueled by burning Rage uses). I don't think this needs a limiter on how often it can trigger with a 2% proc rate. If we get 2 in a row, that should be an occasional bonus--it's a far cry from being too strong.

3rd Degree Burns
On Vorpal: 10d12+75 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Hit: 10% Chance Stuns non-bosses 1 sec (DC 45 Fortitude Save) This is better than the earlier Slow effect, because it also comes with something that is useful against bosses (although, again, fire damage).

Fire Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Fire Breath (3/rest) Do these allow for a save? If not, then they're kind of nice, but damage clickies are rather poor most of the time--even at 700 damage or so on average, these aren't going to kill anything at level 28, which means burning multiple clickies to kill stuff, which means 3 clickies feels like 1 clicky you have to wait a long time for much of the time.

Ice Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Ice Breath (3/rest)

Acid Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Acid Breath (3/rest)

Lightning Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Lightning Breath (3/rest)



Craftable items list:
Bastard Sword
Battle Axe
Dagger
Dwarven Waraxe
Morningstar
Handwrap
Hand Axe
Heavy Mace
Heavy Pick
Kama
Khopesh
Kukri
Longsword
Rapier
Sceptre
Scimitar
Shortsword
Sickle
Warhammer
Falchion
Greataxe
Greatsword
Maul
Quarterstaff
Great Crossbow
Repeating Heavy Crossbow
Longbow
Orb (it's an implement, not a weapon, but we're putting it here all the same)
Is there any reason to not just include all of the weapons in the game on this list? Does that reason (those reasons) outweigh the downside of annoying people who use something not found here?

[sephiroth1084]

While all of this is true, there is a tradeoff in that you have to actually farm out two weapons versus one to do so. I'm guessing that it won't be a trivial number of runs to make a tier 3 weapon.

That's not much of a balancing factor--the people who really want to be making these things will. This is especially true when we can bank on this making up the bulk of the DDO endgame for half a year or more.

[jalont]

Stop creating epic weapon effects that have a DC. They are useless; the development time a real loss.

[FestusHood]

Stop creating epic weapon effects that have a DC. They are useless; the development time a real loss.

I was just going to mention this myself. No weapon effects should have a dc really. Limiting the power of the effect should be handled entirely by the proc rate, possibly in combination with the cooldown effect that limits how often the effect can proc.

If you add dc's to these effects which already have limited proc rates, you will have a weapon that is overkill in the content it works in, and no kill in the content you would actually want to work this hard to make a weapon for.

[Correlan]

Stop creating epic weapon effects that have a DC. They are useless; the development time a real loss.

I agree, if you are gonna put effects with a DC on epic weapons, there really should be a greater chance of the mob not saving. Otherwise the effects are pretty useless beyond epic normal.

[Stoner81]

Change the colourless slot to a red slot at Tier 3 is the main thing that stands out to me, also you should include new armour somewhere be it in this system or some place else just please add it! By level 28 (and eventually 30) we shouldn't be using level 25 armour.

Stoner81.

[Shorlong]

Change the colourless slot to a red slot at Tier 3 is the main thing that stands out to me, also you should include new armour somewhere be it in this system or some place else just please add it! By level 28 (and eventually 30) we shouldn't be using level 25 armour.

Stoner81.

We have the shadow dragon armor as well, it's craftable in a way similar to this. Originally, it stunk, but DrOcto said today that they are changing it up to where you pick what you want to go on it.

[IronClan]

While all of this is true, there is a tradeoff in that you have to actually farm out two weapons versus one to do so. I'm guessing that it won't be a trivial number of runs to make a tier 3 weapon.

Well there's nothing else to do in the game so i can't really see making two as a tradeoff. Reminds me of the days when everyone acted like TWF wasn't OP because you had to make two GS weapons.

[Takllin]

These are really lackluster. Not nearly enough weapon effects to allow for much creativity.

Can we get some thing in Tier 1 that increases the DC of Combat Feats?? The fact that we still have to use DunRobar rings is pathetic...

Make Blinding Fear into Radiance.

Take DC's off of item affects, they are too low to begin with, that most things will need to roll a 1 on EE for them to fail the save.

Also, no shields or throwing weapons? What the hell? This is an endgame crafting system and we should have ALL weapon types.

Throw out a bunch of different effects and then let us give feedback on what we like/don't like.

It is depressing to see that over the past month that we have been giving feedback to this system, there has been VERY LITTLE change made.

You really are not in touch with the current state of DDO. It is very disheartening...this update is making or breaking the game for many people because there just has not been enough content or excitement to keep people here. And you are driving this game into the ground...

Also, I'd rather see this update delayed to add MORE raid loot, and finish this crafting system. Than to meet your internal schedule and we never see this finished. History tends to repeat itself, far too much in this game.

[SirValentine]

- Why does Tier 2 have 2 choices for Augment slot, and Tier 3 has none? And there is no reason someone would ever want a Red slot instead of a Purple. Move one of those two a to Tier 3 upgrade.

- Scaling upward ML as you upgrade sucks. Do you want us to upgrade these weapons, or use them? Because we can't do both, apparently. Or are we supposed to grind out 4 sets, for levels 22-23, 24-25, 26-27, and 28+? Just make them ML 25 for all tiers.

- It makes me sad that these weapons make Wisdom-based casters fall further behind the arcanes in achievable spell DCs.

- As others have mentioned, though there are some token bonuses to 2-handed versions, a single 2-handed is far, far behind two 1-handers for a caster.

[Desonde]

Baseline Tiers
Tier 0 (Initial Item): +9, 3.5[W], Metalline Damage Types, Orange Augment Slot, ML22 - Unbound
Tier 1: +10, 4.0[W], Epic Bane of Dragons (5d6), ML24 - Bound to Character on Acquire
Tier 2: +11, 4.5[W], Greater Epic Bane of Dragons (upgrade from 5d6 to 8d6), ML26 - Bound to Character on Acquire
Tier 3: +12, 4.5[W], Colorless Augment Slot, ML28 - Bound to Character on Acquire

I like these breakpoints, except Tier 3 doesn't seem to add a lot, maybe the Tier 3 affects will make it worth while.



Tier 1 – Ingots Only
Blinding Fear
On hit: 10% Chance Blind 3 sec (DC 55 Will Save vs. Fear), 5 sec cool down

It's not bad, the DC will not hold up when the item is upgraded to ml26 though.



Touch of Shadows
On Hit 8d6 Negative Energy Damage

Dwarvencraft Potency
Universal Spell power +100

Dwarvencraft Combustion, Nullification, Radiance, Devotion, Glaciation, Resonance, Corrosion, Impulse, Magnetism, Reconstruction
+150 Spellpower to Fire, Negative, Light, Positive, Cold, Sonic, Acid, Force, Electric, Repair/Rust Spell Power. (For 2-handed weapons: +1 Unique bonus to Spell DCs)

Good range of affects.



Touch of Flames
On Hit: 10d6 Fire Damage

Not a fan of fire damage in general, but it may find it's audience.



1st Degree Burns
5d6 Fire Damage + Stacking 1% Vulnerability 3 sec, max 20 stacks (triggers once/2 seconds) (stacks with other sources of vulnerability)

This is the one that I lean towards (so long as the Vulnerability stacks to targets immune to fire damage as well/isn't dependent on the fire doing damage). Does the fire damage trigger on hit or is it limited to once every 2 seconds as well?



Tier 2 - Ingots and Scales
Dragon's Blessing
On friend-targeted spell cast: 5% chance AOE Healing Effect (~100HP) centered on target (AOE is size of Mass Cure spells)

I like it.



2nd Degree Burns
On Hit: 10% chance to slow 50% (No Save) for 10 sec (non-bosses only)

DC is too low and has no affect on bosses. I also hate chance for a chance affects.



Dwarvencraft Focus
Universal Spell DCs +2 exceptional (Stacks will other sources) (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

Dwarvencraft Spell Penetration
Spell Penetration +7

I like them.



Paralyzing Fear
On Hit: 10% chance to Paralyze (DC 50 Will Save vs. Fear) for 5 sec

Wrath of Flames
On Hit: 5% Chance AOE 10d20+400 fire damage – DC 50 Reflex Save for half

Wrath of Shadows
On Hit: 5% chance AOE 8d20+220 negative energy damage – DC 50 Fortitude Save for half

DC's are too low, chance at a chance effects, does evasion allow mobs to evade all damage?



Dragon's Edge
Armor-Piercing 35% + On Crit: 8d10+25 Bleeding Damage

Dwarvencraft Abjuration, Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation Focus
+6 Spell DCs in respective Focus area (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

These would be my picks.



Red Augment Slot

Purple Augment Slot


Tier 3 - Ingots, Scales, and Phlogiston
Eternal Scorching Light
On Light / Fire Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds)

Eternal Chilling Darkness
On Negative / Cold Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds)

I like them, maybe a little long on timer/cooldown but a good start.



Crippling Flames
On Crit: 10d20+125 Fire Damage + On Vorpal: Negative Level (DC 50 Fortitude Save)

Damage is good, Vorpal effect is chance for a chance, DC is way to low for a ml28 item.



Burning Emptiness
On Vorpal: 5d12+50 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Crit: 8d20+100 Negative Energy Damage

I like it.



Mortal Fear
On Hit: 8d8 Force Damage (DC 45 Will negates) + On Vorpal: Phantasmal Killers (DC 45 Will/Fortitude Save vs. Fear)

DC is way too low (anything cr24+ will save almost always if not 95% and it's a ml28 effect), chance for a chance (albeit, this on vorpal affect does deserve a save, just needs a DC of 65 for a ml28).



Dwarvencraft Fire, Void, Radiance, Healing, Ice, Sonic, Acid, Kinetic, Lightning, Repair Lore
Spell Crit +22% in the respective Lore (For 2-handed weapons: +2 Weapon Enhancement Bonus)

Dwarvencraft Lore
Universal Spell Crit +17%

I like them.



Body Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Fortitude Save -5, Sunder Attempt

Leg Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Reflex Save -5, Trip Attempt

Mind Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Will Save -5, Hold Monster Attempt

What's the DC of the attempt? Do both effects proc at the same time (does the -5 apply first or after the attempt?) or two difference effects at 5% chance each? The idea is really interesting, but the DC's need to be decent enough to work against cr30-40+ monsters [and that ignores the cr 70+ that are running around in the highest difficulty levels]. Does the -5 save stack or is it a once off? What's the duration of the debuff, Hold, Sunder?



Draconic Reinvigoration
On Damage or Spell Damage: 2% Chance regenerate 1 Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs (triggers once/100 seconds) + Passive: +1 use/rest to Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs

I like it, 100 seconds might be a little long for Smite Evil though.



3rd Degree Burns
On Vorpal: 10d12+75 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Hit: 10% Chance Stuns non-bosses 1 sec (DC 45 Fortitude Save)

DC is too low, vorpal affect is a little on the light side (kinda like corrosive salt, it's ok on it's own, but when you can apply more than one quickly it looses it's strength [when compared to something like incinerate]).



Fire Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Fire Breath (3/rest)

Ice Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Ice Breath (3/rest)

Acid Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Acid Breath (3/rest)

Lightning Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Lightning Breath (3/rest)

Do they have reflex saves? Without saves these are really nice effects.

Overall, I can see myself working to get the Tier 2, but Tier 3 isn't worth the effort/increased min level item. The DC's really need to improve by 5 points each tier to stay relative (45 at ml22, 50 at ml24, 55 at ml26, and 60 at ml28) otherwise just make them a 1-2% chance to proc as the odds of it going off are much better (5% at 5% chance = 0.25% chance of success).

[IronClan]

This systems problems are multifold

Khopesh, Falchion and Rapier hello 2009 DDO you're back up, now get out there and make sure no one uses any other weapons.

Its overly specific and overly flavor restricted just like Calomel crafting... Honestly wish the PC had had a chance to try and help give input on this system. a few tweaks and a couple more choices would do wonders.

Why do you guys hate throwers so much? I mean seriously why have you ignored repeated requests to put throwers into this system? If you're not going to support flavor and less optimal stuff then just put this system out with only Khopeshes Falchions and Rapiers... that's what it's going to be anyway, because DDO was already like this (perhapos before you worked on DDO I don't know) We've already seen how over emphasis on crit effect that proc more for some weapons than others stratifies the weapon selection massively

I'm sorry but this system contains:

Almost no hard choices
Low variety of choices
Annoying omissions of weapon types
No balancing factors what so ever. The low damage weapons have nothing on the high damage ones, and if that's not enough you have on crit effects that clearly favor high crit range weapons over low crit range weapons.

Easy solution to that one, allow +1 crit multiplier instead of "on crit effect", so a Greataxe or heavy Pick user might choose X4 (or X5) crits on his axe instead of the on crit effect. But a rapier user is probably going to chose the On crit effect .

Why would anyone carry anything put two Thunder Forged caster sticks after this goes live? Answer: no one will.

Why would anyone use anything but the highest crit range weapon from this system when it has "Burst effects" that don't scale up with multiplier?

[moo_cow]

So we all agree when we say, welcome back to the same old, khopesh and falchions will be the most common weapons again.

It looks this way, with the amount of + to damage and str we have now falchions and khopesh's are like 20 + damage a hit more than the next best weapons. Now I didn't look at all the weapons but I believe I looked at the obvious ones. But, the new content looks to be mostly undead so these two weapons probably won't be overly popular.

[IronClan]

OBTW Dwarven crafting and there's no Shields? Somewhere a Nibelung is rolling in his grave... well funeral pyre... whatever!

Seriously you have an Orb in here just disallow one of the caster stick affixes on the shields and your problem is solved (I.e we can tell you omitted Shields because you don't want casters running around with 150 combustion 22% lore Tower shields... Just randomly choose one castery perk and disallow it on shields that will remove them from the equation for most people, and make them sub optimal for the people who will still make one..

I have NO idea why throwers were omitted, throw them a bone guys...

[Coldin]

This looks pretty solid right now, though I do think it could still use a few tweaks here and there.

Pros: Lots of choices. Can craft a weapon and upgrade it once without going into a raid. Fairly powerful in some choices.

Cons: Rapid increase of min level. Some choices much better than others. Weapons with better crit profiles beat out other weapons.

Mainly, I really like that I could go out into the explorer area for a while, and work on crafting up a decent set of weapons before heading into my first raid. That helps put players on a more even footing, though that does depend on how difficult ingots are to obtain.

The choices presented here actually have quite a few tough ones. Do you go for shadow damage and deal less, or go for fire and deal more but risk resistances? Do you go for support effects, or for pure DPS, or a mix of the two? I like that about the system, but I just know whatever I end up picking, I'll quickly be told that this other choice was the correct one. :)

Then, there are a few options which are kind of just poor. Blinding Fear just isn't worth using since it has no added damage, and blindness isn't that useful even to rogues these days. The same goes for 2nd Degree Burns. I simply don't see where a slow is that useful to forgo extra damage. Though maybe people will take options like these as hotswap weapons to use to support the group.

The only part that really bugs me is the Min Level increases. Personally, I think these should just start at Min Level 24, and stay there. I don't really like the idea of being able to craft my weapon past the point where I could even use it. Or crafting up a super T3 weapon, but then Epic Reincarnating and not having access to it till level 28. Maybe this doesn't bother anyone else much, but I'd rather have the min level stay the same through upgrades. After all, the effort is upgrading. That should come with the perk of a slightly lower min level weapon.


Edit: I really hope these have cool looking skins too. Even if they were rehashed skins.

[knightgf]

First of all, THANK YOU for being clear on the effects that can be crafted. I assume you will also be clear on what ingredients are needed to craft, so it's a HUGE, HUGE step in the right direction compared to when GreenSteel came out.

Now onto business: I do like most of the effects I see, and is very comparable to greensteel at heroic levels. One thing I might add is that you should probably replace the DC's on effects with something else. The best way to replace them is to ask yourself, "How effective should these attacks be when they proc?" Right now, as it stands, the effects with various saves are a 5% chance for a 5% chance at elite early-epic level content (I.E.: Epic levels 21-23). And that's jack sheet for a chance if you ask me. Maybe a 5% chance for a 35% chance would be ok, but as it stands, DC's on weapons do not scale up or even down well.

Have you considered making Thunder-Forged shields and possibly armor? Truthfully, even back when dragoncrafted armor might be valuable, I debated whether it was worth the effort, but these days, the only armor I find viable is either good armor obtainable by random loot or named armor in either quests or as collectable turn in's. Weapon crafting is quite covered in DDO, but armor crafting is not.

I think you should really consider redesigning the elemental storm effects. Currently, it is supposed to deal 480-900 points of damage per use, with no save I assume. You get 3 clickies, and if it follows the standard format for most clickie items, has a base cooldown of 6 seconds and takes nearly a second to cast. In the span of ~21 seconds, you could deal 1540-2700 damage. A good epic-level player will do WAY more damage than that. Heck, even some high-level heroic level players could do more damage than that. Sure, you could argue that it's a cone effect and that it has no save, but both of these only come in handy if they do enough DPS. And while you could argue that a player could switch back to a regular weapon while its on cooldown, I doubt that even switching would make a viable difference. I recommend going for something else that doesn't deal damage, damage clickies would be too complex to implement right in-game.

[murf201]

As my main and only focus is a pure ranger AA , I don't know what to think !!

The 20x3 on the bow kills it for me , I mainly play in shiradi which gives me no increases to my crit profiles , Nor do any of my enhancements outside of the improved crit-range feat !!

Yes i can play in fotm even though i find it boring ! And i hate blitz , Im perfectly fine not playing in the most optimal builds if it means i don't have to have my character twerking 24/7 to keep stacks !!

And i played a monkcher for 2 of my monk past lives , Im good on that as well ... Op kinda and boring !

......

So the new bow fully upgraded will net me a few more base dmg points , At the same time i will be losing +4 dmg from planar focus set not to mention 15 prr !! I really don't think giving up crit dmg for some element dmg is worth it !! And even if it turns out to be more dmg over time i don't think it will be that much of an upgrade overall .

Every epic bow or epic weapon with a standard 20x? needs to have a natural improved crit range !!! Especially for someone like me who id kind of a flavor build atm !!

......

And it doesn't seem like i will be gaining ranged alacrity 20% on the new bow at all , Ohh wait the new shadowscale has it on it ..... Only for medium though .... bummer !!! " SUBTRACTION BY SUBTRACTION ? " really ???

Point and case is you just screwed any pure built rangers over !!! Increase the bows crit range ... I don't care if monkchers benefit more since they will always be better ranged dmg " It's the way you guys like it btw "

Anyway if you plan to keep it this way count me out . Look at all the 20x3 epic bows cause we all know there not eating space in my bank right now !!
Any epic bow moving forward needs it's base threat range to be a natural 19-20 to be considered for the most part .
And to make an epic armor that can have an affect for ranged use should be available for the ones most likely to use it as well as medium armor users !!

I don't even know why i get excited to read these threads knowing im only going to be disappointed in the end !!

[Claver]

No greatclub….No dice!

[Havok.cry]

Nothing here interests me.

-The abilities that have a DC for no effect will never be used, ever, by anyone. Not unless they gain a DC high enough to be relevant to EE mobs.
-1 second stuns are a waste of everyone's time. I don't see anyone using that ability.
-Min level 1 augment that give a neg level on vorpal, no save. Min level 28 ability that gives a neg level on vorpal, with a save that EE mobs will always succeed at. High level ability fails spectacularly.
-Two one handers get you higher DC to one type than a two hander can. (8 from two 1h, 7 from a 2h).
-2% chance to proc, but can only proc once ever 100 seconds. Seriously? Such a low proc rate with that limit? My impression is that you want to throw people a bone here, but you don't want it to have any serious improvement.

-Putting in an orb, but no sheild. My response would get this post deleted, so I'm not bothering to write it. What is the justification for this? Decided sword and board needed to be even further behind monks? If it is about casters using sheilds, then you could make certain spell boosts not work on shields. This would of course be like saying that you hate divine casters and druids. But we already knew that anyway.
-No thrown weapons? Those players supposed to be happy with the hammer and bottle from the wilderness? Goodbye all you shiriken wielding monks, it was nice while it lasted. I hope to see you again in another decade.

[Thrudh]

The only part that really bugs me is the Min Level increases. Personally, I think these should just start at Min Level 24, and stay there. I don't really like the idea of being able to craft my weapon past the point where I could even use it. Or crafting up a super T3 weapon, but then Epic Reincarnating and not having access to it till level 28. Maybe this doesn't bother anyone else much, but I'd rather have the min level stay the same through upgrades. After all, the effort is upgrading. That should come with the perk of a slightly lower min level weapon.

Yes, please do not raise the ML... Greensteel's ML didn't go up when you upgraded it... These shouldn't either.

[Satyriasys]

-DrOctothorpe
Regarding inefficiency of caster staves. Give them the highest spellpower/lore/dc for a single school/element. This would give casters the option of dual wielding for greater diversity or using a staff for better specialization.

[Oxarhamar]

It looks this way, with the amount of + to damage and str we have now falchions and khopesh's are like 20 + damage a hit more than the next best weapons. Now I didn't look at all the weapons but I believe I looked at the obvious ones. But, the new content looks to be mostly undead so these two weapons probably won't be overly popular.

With Metaline and 35% armor piercing and the fact that even if the weapons don't bypass DR/fort on undead the added on crit effects will go off I feel like they will still be better than other options

[Oxarhamar]

As my main and only focus is a pure ranger AA , I don't know what to think !!

The 20x3 on the bow kills it for me , I mainly play in shiradi which gives me no increases to my crit profiles , Nor do any of my enhancements outside of the improved crit-range feat !!

Yes i can play in fotm even though i find it boring ! And i hate blitz , Im perfectly fine not playing in the most optimal builds if it means i don't have to have my character twerking 24/7 to keep stacks !!

And i played a monkcher for 2 of my monk past lives , Im good on that as well ... Op kinda and boring !

......

So the new bow fully upgraded will net me a few more base dmg points , At the same time i will be losing +4 dmg from planar focus set not to mention 15 prr !! I really don't think giving up crit dmg for some element dmg is worth it !! And even if it turns out to be more dmg over time i don't think it will be that much of an upgrade overall .

Every epic bow or epic weapon with a standard 20x? needs to have a natural improved crit range !!! Especially for someone like me who id kind of a flavor build atm !!

......

And it doesn't seem like i will be gaining ranged alacrity 20% on the new bow at all , Ohh wait the new shadowscale has it on it ..... Only for medium though .... bummer !!! " SUBTRACTION BY SUBTRACTION ? " really ???

Point and case is you just screwed any pure built rangers over !!! Increase the bows crit range ... I don't care if monkchers benefit more since they will always be better ranged dmg " It's the way you guys like it btw "

Anyway if you plan to keep it this way count me out . Look at all the 20x3 epic bows cause we all know there not eating space in my bank right now !!
Any epic bow moving forward needs it's base threat range to be a natural 19-20 to be considered for the most part .
And to make an epic armor that can have an affect for ranged use should be available for the ones most likely to use it as well as medium armor users !!

I don't even know why i get excited to read these threads knowing im only going to be disappointed in the end !!

First off while I agree the Crit ranges are lacking your making the choose to play in subpar Build/Destiny/etc.. and you want the new weapons to cater to you?

Second I don't think you understand how the Armor will work but, then it is not 100% clear yet either.

[Cyr]

This is a mess and the same mess that existed when people gave their initial feedback on it.

Major problems...

* Limited Weapon choices - No Shurikens as well as other weapon types
* Only weapons (oh and orb/whatever on that one) with sentient weapons coming out makes me pretty sure this will be alchemical weapons all over again
* Large +W factors and on crit damage effects equates to a very small subset of weapons really being the good ones in this design. That is a massive issue with so much specialized weapon stuff in the enhancement pass
* Increasing ML makes upgrading your weapons a downgrade sometimes! No increase in MLs should ever be seen for upgraded items...ever. This was one of the biggest issues with the EN/EH/EE loot.

[Theolin]

2 issues for me

1) the DC on those affects area complete joke, please just remove the DC part & make it 1/3 chance of happening ... or something like that
2) do not raise the ML as you make a better weapon, its annoying for those who like to TR/ETR/ITR

[knightgf]

Yes, please do not raise the ML... Greensteel's ML didn't go up when you upgraded it... These shouldn't either.

I agree with this notion, and in my opinion, it is also a weakness of the Alchemical Crafting system. I don't mind a high ML,, as long as it doesn't get bumped up with each upgrade. Greensteel hit it right on the money with how it doesn't upgrade the ML when you upgrade the item.




One problem with greensteel was that it was much too large a jump forward from all other loot available at the time, and overshadowed nearly every weapon released in the game before and after for years.


Really? I thought it was a good jump. In my opinion, too large a jump forward would have meant that these weapons not only would have been the top choice at epic levels, it would have been the top choice period. No other niche or weapons with special mods or perks would have overcome those if that was the case.

[Thrudh]

-DrOctothorpe
Regarding inefficiency of caster staves. Give them the highest spellpower/lore/dc for a single school/element. This would give casters the option of dual wielding for greater diversity or using a staff for better specialization.

Good idea... make them 150% of the max power you can find on a one-handed weapon...

Then it's a hard choice (or you'll have casters grinding out 3 weapons... win/win!)

[yk49]

Are raid ingredients still BtC?
As many other posters pointed out, just drop ML increase per tier and make ingredients unbound/tradable.
Thats what made Greensteel such success and Alchemical such failure.

[HatsuharuZ]

1) Please remove the DC and cooldown from "Blinding Fear". The ability itself only lasts 3 seconds, so I don't believe that the number of hurdles needed to jump through in order to activate it are warranted.

2) Make all weapon types available.

3) Please make all weapon types available.

4) Players dislike DC-based weapon procs on items, since the DCs are fixed, and thus are less likely to do full damage in high-level content. Please do not use DC based weapon procs if at all possible.

5) Please make some, if not all, of the ingredients tradable. Being able to trade ingredients is very useful to players.

[J-mann]

Doc... as others have said the crafting scheme has.... problems.

The BIGGEST problem it has is not balancing out the effects for 1vs2 hand weapons. In all cases, the one handed weapons with the superior crit range will be top of the charts due to the fact that the bulk of the damage/bonuses are based on hit and on crit. Melee abilities need to have 2 hand only stuff added to them AND the base stats of the weapons need to be tinkered with or the high attack speed high crit rate weapons win... and by a lot. This problem is further compounded by the enhancement pass basically mandating certain weapons for certain build. Again for all that is holy BALANCE these weapons with respect to 1h/2h fighting and their crit ranges/damage or else you are leaving a lot of us out in the cold.

The second problem is the dcs on the effects are far too low to even consider. Scrap them, or they will be irrelevant in most pertinent content.

The third problem facing your weapons is the fact that the choices are still very limited.... and WHY only fire and negative damage when the raid will feature fire and negative immune (or worse... HEALED) mobs? Now I get that you want to follow the theme of the raid, but dont you want these new shiny weapons to actually be USEFUL in said raid? In my case a fully upgraded sireth is 3.5 d10 +8+3d6 good+lighting strike+cloudburst+much better crit profile vs 4.5d6+12+whatever the boss is not immune to (which would be overhalf of it depending on the boss) with a terrible crit profile. Im not sure sireth doesnt win out against even a FULLY upgraded item against the wrong boss.

The next problem is the increasing minimum level... scrap it please. As others have said make it ml 24 or 25 (even 26 if you want a little less overlap with citw and fot) and leave it there. The increasing ml is really annoying for etrs and its not good business to annoy your players...

[J-mann]

Good idea... make them 150% of the max power you can find on a one-handed weapon...

Then it's a hard choice (or you'll have casters grinding out 3 weapons... win/win!)

Now what about 1h vs 2h melee weapons... the current system hugely favors 1hers with high crit ranges...... Melee weapon abilities and base stats need a huge looking at.

[EllisDee37]

Maybe they could go nuts with glancing blow damage and glancing blow procs? Would 10% to both do anything to close the gap, or is that just a drop in the ocean?

[Dandonk]

Yes, please do not raise the ML... Greensteel's ML didn't go up when you upgraded it... These shouldn't either.

I agree. Otherwise we're going to have to start grinding for like three weapons of each kind we want, in order to have them for TR. That seems silly, to say the least.

[Seljuck]

First of all I want to apologize for all mistakes, english is my second language. Feel free to submit error reports =D
Now to the point! I see few concerns in Wyrm crafting.

1) Ther's to much fire based weapon efects. Red dragons, devils and lot of high level/end game monsters are immune to fire or have high resistance. Solution to this is add more cold, electric, acid based weapon efects.
2) Missing weapons. There's no shuriken, great club, shields. Artificial selection is not good. Give us variety of weapons to choose from. Enhance freak builds with different play style. Give them new toys.
3) Low diversity of melee/ranged effects. T1 has 4 dmg/melee effects, and two of them are fire based. T2 looks better, 6 melee/ranged effects. T3 has 7 effects (+ 4 clicky but that's not weapon effect, that's clicky). If this suppose to be 'end game' crafting it should give us more diversity. Add there new effects, or old but with higher saves DC.

Few new/old effects solutions to consider:
- Paralysing Poison - On vorpal apply 6s Nerve Venom poison. No save.
- Elemental imbued weapon. - On hit: x% chance to produce greater elemental dmg effect. F.eg. Ice imbued weapon deals standard 2d6 ice dmg and have 5% chance to do double or triple dmg.
- Superior stone prison - This weapon is invested with the power of the earth. On an attack roll of 20 which is confirmed as a critical hit it will attempt to turn the target to stone, as the Flesh to Stone spell. A successful Fortitude save (DC 55) negates the effect.
- Doublestrike/doubleshot - Weapon have 10% chance to doublestrike/doubleshot.
- Fury of The Ancients - This weapon is imbued with ancient fury wrath. On hit: 5% chance to produce Stacking 1% Physical Damage Vulnerability for 5 sec, max 10 stacks.
- Superior Telekinetic - Targets that suffer a critical hit from a Telekinetic weapon must make a DC 55 Strength or Dexterity check or be knocked down. The target will then be forced to make DC 40 Balance checks to recover from this effect. The trip otherwise lasts 30 seconds and allows a recurring balance check to get up every 2 seconds.
- Superior Air Guard - his item stores the incredible, dynamic power of the air deep within. When the weaver of this item is successfully attacked in melee, this power occasionally comes to the surface, knocking enemies over or speeding up the wearer with rushing winds.
>> 5% chance to activate. Knockdown (DC50) or 30 seconds of Haste (Reflex save and AC bonus from Superior Air Guard Haste stack with the Haste spell, Movement and attack speed from Superior Air Guard Haste don't stack)

I will add later new effect proposals. Discuss. :)

[bbqzor]

Feedback Ahoy:


Blinding Fear
On hit: 10% Chance Blind 3 sec (DC 55 Will Save vs. Fear), 5 sec cool down

Touch of Shadows
On Hit 8d6 Negative Energy Damage

Dwarvencraft Potency
Universal Spell power +100

Dwarvencraft Combustion, Nullification, Radiance, Devotion, Glaciation, Resonance, Corrosion, Impulse, Magnetism, Reconstruction
+150 Spellpower to Fire, Negative, Light, Positive, Cold, Sonic, Acid, Force, Electric, Repair/Rust Spell Power. (For 2-handed weapons: +1 Unique bonus to Spell DCs)

Touch of Flames
On Hit: 10d6 Fire Damage

1st Degree Burns
5d6 Fire Damage + Stacking 1% Vulnerability 3 sec, max 20 stacks (triggers once/2 seconds) (stacks with other sources of vulnerability)

- The Universal Spell Power needs the same 2hd +1 DC bonus as the specific spell powers. Theres no reason someone like a wizard who wants to keep their options open should lose out on DC, theyre already losing out on a huge amount of spell power. Let builds looking to go that route keep their DCs competitive same as anyone else... no reason to punish generalists, they already struggle in a lot of other areas. The DC should stay for both choices, same as the crit chance does in the next tier down.

- A Will 55 Fear save is basically something thats great on EH and pointless on EE. Also, a 3s blind every 5s is pretty mediocre. The DC needs to work not only in lv28 content, but in the future otherwise these things will go out of date virtually immediately when anything new drops. And 3s is so short its barely enough time for anyone to react to it and take advantage of it more than perhaps a single ability use. Firstly, the DC should be something like 65, perhaps with it causing shaken on a pass meaning the next check the mob will be at 2 less, since its fear based that seems fitting. Second, make the time something like 10s with a 10s cooldown, so you can blind one mob at a time provided you continually attack it and it passes its saves, otherwise it gets a gap of sight. Weve had much better blinding options since 2009, this isnt going to break the bank. Its functionally the same or similar on EH, but might actually do something on EE. If that claim cant be made, people are just going to use the dps options which work, instead of the utility ones that dont.


Dragon's Blessing
On friend-targeted spell cast: 5% chance AOE Healing Effect (~100HP) centered on target (AOE is size of Mass Cure spells)

2nd Degree Burns
On Hit: 10% chance to slow 50% (No Save) for 10 sec (non-bosses only)

Dwarvencraft Focus
Universal Spell DCs +2 exceptional (Stacks will other sources) (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

Dwarvencraft Spell Penetration
Spell Penetration +7

Paralyzing Fear
On Hit: 10% chance to Paralyze (DC 50 Will Save vs. Fear) for 5 sec

Wrath of Flames
On Hit: 5% Chance AOE 10d20+400 fire damage – DC 50 Reflex Save for half

Wrath of Shadows
On Hit: 5% chance AOE 8d20+220 negative energy damage – DC 50 Fortitude Save for half

Dragon's Edge
Armor-Piercing 35% + On Crit: 8d10+25 Bleeding Damage

Dwarvencraft Abjuration, Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation Focus
+6 Spell DCs in respective Focus area (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

Red Augment Slot

Purple Augment Slot

- Do you mean all choices come with a red and a purple? So all weapons at this tier have an orange (base item), and a red and purple (from this tier)? If those are themselves choices, why would anyone every choose a red over a purple? Assuming they get all 3, thats actually pretty nice and very competitive. Cool. If not... sigh.

- The Blessing is cool but 5% per cast is a bit low. Consider that in the event youre chaining mass beneficial spells youre either a) buffing like after a shrine or on zone in, or b) mass healing. If youre mass healing, it might take something like 2 minutes to land 20 spells and proc this once. A free 100 hp heal every 2 mins isnt all that great relative to other choices here. Id make it 10% chance, so like once a minute. Personally I think it should be even more, but as a new thing I understand you guys not wanting to get too crazy with it. Assuming its affected by the casters spellpower, so that 100 pt heal might "double up" the amount covered by a mass cure, 1 in 10 seems fair.

- Again, dc50 saves arent useful. Bump them to 65 as well. Its basically the same on EH, but might actually do something on EE. Its already been "policed" plenty... a regular lv10 paralyzer has a 5% chance to work for 5 seconds just from the mob rolling a 1. At 50/50 chance of landing this is no better... put the DC where it should be. Same for the others, mobs have evasion, if the Ref save doesnt match the content the procs dmg drops to potentially nothing. And plenty of mobs have deathward or are immune to negative energy, again the game content itself is policing the effect, let the save be something reasonable they may fail.


Eternal Scorching Light
On Light / Fire Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds)

Eternal Chilling Darkness
On Negative / Cold Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds)

Crippling Flames
On Crit: 10d20+125 Fire Damage + On Vorpal: Negative Level (DC 50 Fortitude Save)

Burning Emptiness
On Vorpal: 5d12+50 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Crit: 8d20+100 Negative Energy Damage

Mortal Fear
On Hit: 8d8 Force Damage (DC 45 Will negates) + On Vorpal: Phantasmal Killers (DC 45 Will/Fortitude Save vs. Fear)

Dwarvencraft Fire, Void, Radiance, Healing, Ice, Sonic, Acid, Kinetic, Lightning, Repair Lore
Spell Crit +22% in the respective Lore (For 2-handed weapons: +2 Weapon Enhancement Bonus)

Dwarvencraft Lore
Universal Spell Crit +17%

Body Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Fortitude Save -5, Sunder Attempt

Leg Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Reflex Save -5, Trip Attempt

Mind Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Will Save -5, Hold Monster Attempt

Draconic Reinvigoration
On Damage or Spell Damage: 2% Chance regenerate 1 Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs (triggers once/100 seconds) + Passive: +1 use/rest to Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs

3rd Degree Burns
On Vorpal: 10d12+75 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Hit: 10% Chance Stuns non-bosses 1 sec (DC 45 Fortitude Save)

Fire Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Fire Breath (3/rest)

Ice Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Ice Breath (3/rest)

Acid Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Acid Breath (3/rest)

Lightning Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Lightning Breath (3/rest)

- Again, let the 2hd universal crit chance keep the 2hd Enhancement bonus from the specific spell crit. Same thing as before, no reason to punish the generalist guy, hes already behind everyone no sense not trying to give him a fair shake too.

- Saves... again what is it with you guys. A dc45 on the "raid only" crafting tier... blah. 65 or go home. Dc45 barely lands in like level 22 quests on EH. Its nothing at lv28, even on epic normal. Sorry to sound annoyed but its hard to believe oversights this bad are anything but a bit sloppy.

- I assume the proc'd "sunder" and "trip" attempts are simply executed as if the character had hit their button, using the same dc as the character? So like if my guy has a dc57 trip, and I proc a trip, it goes off using my gear/build/stats/etc at dc57? If so thats kind of cool... though 5% seems pretty rare. Its like saying trip on vorpal, which we already have other places with a more reliable effect. These probably need to be 10% chance.

- The Hold Monster one... what DC? If you say 45...

- Do the clicky effects have a save? Do the recharge over time at all? Are they effected by spellpower? Would they be affected by spellpower when crafted on a Staff due to staff rules? Would they be affected by spellpower and/or caster level when used by an Artificer with the Arcane Empowerment capstone? Because I have to say, even at 900/click max, or 2700/shrine, that seems really weak. I mean take Crippling Flames, thats what say 200/crit? Am I going to get more than 15ish crits between shrines? No question. Maybe these need to be 5/day, or 3/day with recharges, or a lot of "yes" answers about boosting it via other abilities. As is... theyre a trap. I hate traps, they result in people having regrets, feeling like they wasted their time and the time of their friends, and general unhappiness in the game. Dont add trap choices to the crafting please.


Craftable items list:
Bastard Sword
Battle Axe
Dagger
Dwarven Waraxe
Morningstar
Handwrap
Hand Axe
Heavy Mace
Heavy Pick
Kama
Khopesh
Kukri
Longsword
Rapier
Sceptre
Scimitar
Shortsword
Sickle
Warhammer
Falchion
Greataxe
Greatsword
Maul
Quarterstaff
Great Crossbow
Repeating Heavy Crossbow
Longbow
Orb (it's an implement, not a weapon, but we're putting it here all the same)
No throwing weapons, is there a reason? Also, no repeating light crossbow? Shouldnt we get a choice between speed and damage on that? Also I dont see Clubs, though I suppose Scepter (not sceptre!) might stand in depending on the graphic. Otherwise it seems most of the options I can think of a reason to use are there. Which is nice... it allows people to support whatever character they enjoy, and thats good for the game.

......

Overall there are some okay options here, but its not greensteel. By that I mean there isnt something for everyone. Theres some things for some builds, which is not bad for a crafting system and certainly not bad compared to something like Web which catered to very very few things. But if the goal was a universally sought after result, this needs work. It lacks options for some core class builds at different tiers.

Like as one example... at Tier 3, theres no temp sp proc support for anyone using Lightning or Acid spells. Or Force or Sonic for that matter. Its something favored souls and pale masters can use, but sorcs, artificers, some druids, some wizards, most clerics etc all miss out on. And bards, poor bards. Is that major? No... but theres also zero reason it cant be addressed. I realize the event theme may push those combos, so make another catch-all one, like the other universal choices. Something like Eternal Dark Magic, on a force/sonic/acid/electric cast +30 temp sp for 30s (every 45s). Yea, its not as good, but just make anything not in the event specific four types work on this one and give them the option.

I hope a lot of adjustments are yet made. There are gaps and holes in whats there, as well as glaring situations where some choices are just plain terrible and I feel for those not savvy enough to spot them before wasting materials on things which either wont work as advertised, or will lead to people feeling bad about their character underperforming the first time they group up with someone who made a mechanically sounder item. Thats the sort of thing I hope these threads catch, so again heres hoping. Thanks for reading, cheers.

[Wizza]

I agree with the others, we need more choices.

1) Blinding fear should be turned into radiance.
2)I understand why everything is fire dmg but I wish you'd give us a choice of another element for every tier. Electric dmg, cold, acid. Also, one of the new raid has two fire dragons, meaning these weapons will be useless against them. More choices!
3) The weapons need upgraded crit profile. Please, no more khopesh, falchion, rapier trinity. My rogue wants to use daggers.
4) The DC on every weapon should be at least 60.
5) Are Fire/Ice/Acid/Lightning Storm clickies affected by spellpower?
6) ML should be 26
7) Melees need more choices at T2
8) Add some Exceptional doublestrike bonus at T2
9) Add Deception, Unique Tactics DC at T2
10) Again, upgrade the DCs to 60.

[legendkilleroll]

Would like to see some changes to threat range and multipliers but id rather it happen to the lesser used weapons like mauls, battle axes, sickles morningstars maybe few more, just think if there all changed still gonna be so many q-staffers and i know kensai can get you centered but if things like shortswords are improved then just plays into the centered monk splashes more

As for the actual crafting, one problem for me is ive been playing lots of wolf/monk types, stunning has been on grave wraps/randomgen/antipode, with wyrm-wrought your forced to put stunning on dun robar ring as that is only other option

Id like to see some melee options, dont think the current DC effect will be too popular, things like

+10 stunning, 10% doublestrike, +6 combat mastery, +6 exceptional seeker

Even some defensive options, would be better for armor but the new scale armor doesnt have the crafting options :/

15% heal amp, parrying with +6 to saves, 10% dodge

[Vanhooger]

Everything is a Huge fail again. 7 years old sword still better than anything. No throwers weapon, no shields. This game is running around centered build, SOS, cleaver. Boring.

[Urjak]

Since my main is a Shuriken-build and there are no Shurikens in the list of available weapons types:
Not interested ... apart from running the Shadow Dragon raid once or twice to try it out, I probably won't set foot in there ...

Kinda sad that all the player voices clearly asking for more weapon types, especially Shuriken, were ignored :(

[Nadion]

Dwarvencraft Potency[/B]
Universal Spell power +100

Dwarvencraft Combustion, Nullification, Radiance, Devotion, Glaciation, Resonance, Corrosion, Impulse, Magnetism, Reconstruction
+150 Spellpower to Fire, Negative, Light, Positive, Cold, Sonic, Acid, Force, Electric, Repair/Rust Spell Power. (For 2-handed weapons: +1 Unique bonus to Spell DCs)


Dwarvencraft Fire, Void, Radiance, Healing, Ice, Sonic, Acid, Kinetic, Lightning, Repair Lore
Spell Crit +22% in the respective Lore (For 2-handed weapons: +2 Weapon Enhancement Bonus)

Dwarvencraft Lore
Universal Spell Crit +17%



Is this intentional that the generic Potency/Lore don't get the extra perk for being on a 2-hander? I really hope this is just a typo.

[era42]

This game has been gearing towards TR/ER more and more. Even if more and more focus is put to endgame (I hope it is), a lot of people will still be doing the reincing mousewheel. And, if the loot is only available right at the end, there will be no point grinding for it.


Please make it so that the base item is ML22, upgraded item is ML25, no matter which tier.

Current system would require a proper TR toon to make several versions of each weapon: ml24, ml26 and ml28. Multiplied by the different types of weapons, not every reinc will use khopesh. No thanks.

Also, please consider adding a way to change the base type of the weapons. You could have a fully upgraded khopesh, then you create a rapier token with rapier base-item + some ingredient, and then use the rapier token+upgraded khopesh to get an upgraded rapier.

[ishr]

Having these ingredients drop on every difficulty is silly. This creates two problems. First, it becomes very difficult to collect all the ingredients you need because you can't farm out a certain tier of ingredients by running a specific difficulty. Second, it creates NO REASON to run EH or EE since all ingredients can be obtained from your usual EN beatdown. This brings us back to the early shroud days when Hard, Elite was never run because... what's the point. Only after loot tiering was implemented in shroud did we see a resurgence of the raid and renewed interest in running varying difficulties.

While at first glance it may appear that the vocal minority of players who want EE rewards for EN effort is very upset, that is because they have a strong desire for EE loot but are unwilling to invest more TP, time into obtaining it. Turbine stands to gain much from making at least some portion of the loot EE specific (and no, increased droprates of 0.3% is not a significant difference), because they can effectively convert this swath of players into well-paying customers.

Turbine unfortunately has made the mistake of acting against it's own best financial interest before, but if you really want AS (and therefore TP) purchases to take off, you need to encourage people to keep coming back to raids, or sink lots of TP into the game in order to boost themselves up to obtain the loot they otherwise could obtain just by piking EN.

Don't let your raid become obsolete in a matter of weeks because everyone is going to beatdown EN and be done with it.

[ishr]

It all depends on how much the higher difficulties actually give. I was able to only run hard once on the shadow raid and it gave the same exact number as normal, wasn't able to get to the end fight of ee as I got stuck with puzzles needing more than 2 people. If the rates aren't anything drastic it will take quite a few runs to complete an item. I did a full ransack and I wasn't even able to get 1/3 of the way to tier 2. Tier 3 is even more. I'm hopeful though that the devs get it right and have good rates for hard and elite.

it has been quoted elsewhere that the droprates differ by fractions of a percent, which means this is going to be another EN beatdown x8 raid timer resets, which effectively turns a well designed raid into a boring pikefest, if the difficulty of the raid on lamannia is any indication.

[Claver]

first & foremost, critical points that would make the difference for you: what's broken, what's missing, what needs a tweak to get over the line.

ANSWER: First, and Foremost: Add ALL weapons to the full extent possible (Greatclubs, throwing axes, etc.). This is hands down the most critical issue for me.

Here's why I think this is important to the game

A. DDOs strength is character customization allowing diversity
B. Recent weapon crafting systems provide the promise of supporting that diversity
C. Enhancement System and Iconics promote weapon diversity
D. Having more diversity supported at end game is in Turbines financial best interests and otherwise good for the health of the game.

(B) Alchemical Crafting will allow me to make a Greatclub, heavy and light mace, a throwing axe, shuriken, throwing dagger, light repeating crossbow, etc. I can even make shields. Why can't Thunder-Forged crafting do the same? Cormyrian crafting allows all the weapons from Alchemical crafting to be made. Some wonderful throwing weapons can be made. Why can't Thunder-Forged crafting do the same? The fact that Alchemical, and Cormyrian crafting allows all weapons to be crafted sets up the expectation that the full gamut of weapons will be supported at higher levels. Because of this, and the enhancement system, players have reasonable incentive to run a build that uses a more diverse weapon (halfling thrower, kensi great club, endless fusillade deep wood artificer light repeating crossbow user etc.). Opting not to support a full gamut of weapons at end game reduces the available choices of builds and discourages reinvesting in the game with new character slots.

(C )The enhancement system and iconics both promote weapon diversity that are not fully supported by Thunder-Foged Weapons. Here are some examples:
- Morninglord use Maces and the Morninglord Enhancement Grace allows Dex for damage with Maces ~ maces can not be crafted via Thunder-Forged
- I have a Kensi whose uses greatclubs and only greatclubs ~ greatclubs can not be crafted via Thunder Forged
- Halflings gain Master Thrower but can't craft any throwing weapons via Thunder Forged
- Dwarves gain Throw Your Weight Around to use Con for Damage with Throwing Axes or Throwing Hammers but can't craft either via Thunder Forged (come on Turbine!!! At least make the dwarves weapons in the dwarven smithy)
- Rogue Mechanics gain proficiency with Light Repeating Crossbows and can use their intelligence for damage but can't craft this weapon via Thunder Forged
- Ninja Spys can vorpal with shurikens and get an expanded crit range but can't craft a shrunken via Thunder-Forge.

(D) Here's what's in it for Turbine to add more weapon choices - make more money. Just 48 hours ago I was talking to a guildmate about shuriken throwers and seriously considering purchasing another character slot to make the build. Seeing that shurikens will not be supported at end game voids that potential purchase and every ddo store purchases associated with that potential character. Allowing for more diversity extends the life of the game, keeps us rerunning content and spending money.

[LOOON375]

You need to include all weapon types, period. See greensteel weapons.

You need to be able to increase the crit profiles when upgrading.

You need to include shields. Good start with the orbs.

Minimum level requirements shouldn't increase so you can use them during the top couple of levels. See Greensteel weapons.

[Satyriasys]

Meh, this nonsense of new crafting just make me feel they layed off the wrong guys...:(

You would rather have someone who doesn't post details and ask for our feedback?

If you have a criticism about this system leave some feedback as to how you think it could be improved, instead of pointless negative comments.

[Dandonk]

You need to include all weapon types, period. See greensteel weapons.

You need to be able to increase the crit profiles when upgrading.

You need to include shields. Good start with the orbs.

Minimum level requirements shouldn't increase so you can use them during the top couple of levels. See Greensteel weapons.

Good list. As a much-desired optional, I'd love more options on the upgrades.

[Bunker]

You need to include all weapon types, period. See greensteel weapons.

You need to be able to increase the crit profiles when upgrading.

You need to include shields. Good start with the orbs.

Minimum level requirements shouldn't increase so you can use them during the top couple of levels. See Greensteel weapons.

1. Agreed that it would be nice to see ALL weapon types available.

2. Disagree on crit profiles changing with upgrades. If the Enhancement of the weapon increases, and the W[#] increases with upgrades, isn't that enough? With all the other added benefits through upgrades, I don't feel the crit profile also needs to be increased.

3. Shields......why not.

4. Upgraded Greensteel, Upgraded CiTW weapons. They both kept their base level. It would be nice to use these upgraded versions at an earlier lvl. Does it really hurt?

Additional thoughts.....

Nothing wrong with an option of Doublestrike bonus, but if this was to be added, dont' forget about Doubleshot.

-Bunk

[Deamus]

Do not buf khopesh, falchion, rapier.

Buf the crit profiles of the other weapons.

You must do this.

[Nightmanis]

You should add the different shield types.

Echoing this. We need the different shield types. Currently the only crafting shields are Alchemical, and this stands to add a much needed boost to a lot of builds.

[lyrecono]

dear DrOctothorpe, thanks for the info.
i do have a question though,
What incentive do my toons have to run this?
my tank gets no shield (but there is a orb???), the damage from upgrade tiers is well, a tad bit disappointing.
my main get's no 2handed weapon worth carrying around besides a switch around weapon with repair/repair spell power/repair crit% for recon's
dual wielding caster benefit the most, not melee's, something one would expect from, idk, a dwarven forge? i would at least expect a bunch of themed weapons have a larger crit modifier, like axes, picks and hamers.

another big gripe i have is the minimal level on these items., they should not increase with upgrade, if you want to make them popular for the epic tr people in a similar way greensteel still is to regular tr people.
please keep the min lv 22

as for your list, here's my 2 cent's (beside those posted on top)

Thunder-Forged Weapons
- Use the Dwarven forge within Thunderholme to craft them
- A fast travel NPC in the Thunderholme public area will take you to the forge (no Astral Shard usage required.) wel done, you guys have learned from the U19 debacle
- Forge a "base" weapon then upgrade 3 times
- There are multiple choices for each tier
- The first tier and some options in the second tier can be crafted with ingredients found in the adventure area, without needing to run the Raids. The Raids drop ingredients for crafting all tiers.

Ingredients
Thunderholme Ingots - Found on the landscape & in large numbers in the raids
Dragon Scales (Red & Dark) - Found in raids, common
Phlogiston (Red & Dark) - Found in raids, uncommon
no coms of valor? glad to hear, the more for etr-ing
Drop rates of all these items increase with difficulty level (Normal, Hard, Elite).

Tiers now come with clearer inherent benefits:

Baseline Tiers
Tier 0 (Initial Item): +9, 3.5[W], Metalline Damage Types, Orange Augment Slot, ML22 - Unbound lv 22 base, keep it like that after the upgrades, make this as much fun as greensteel
Tier 1: +10, 4.0[W], Epic Bane of Dragons (5d6), ML24 - Bound to Character on Acquire
Tier 2: +11, 4.5[W], Greater Epic Bane of Dragons (upgrade from 5d6 to 8d6), ML26 - Bound to Character on Acquire
Tier 3: +12, 4.5[W], Colorless Augment Slot, ML28 - Bound to Character on Acquire

Tier 1 – Ingots Only
Blinding Fear
On hit: 10% Chance Blind 3 sec (DC 55 Will Save vs. Fear), 5 sec cool down
fearing mobs is dangerous, they run of and activate more mobs

Touch of Shadows
On Hit 8d6 Negative Energy Damage
uhm, raid area is filled with undead...., 1 raid boss is undead, what would make this weapon enhancement useful?

Dwarvencraft Potency
Universal Spell power +100 nice for spellcasters

Dwarvencraft Combustion, Nullification, Radiance, Devotion, Glaciation, Resonance, Corrosion, Impulse, Magnetism, Reconstruction
+150 Spellpower to Fire, Negative, Light, Positive, Cold, Sonic, Acid, Force, Electric, Repair/Rust Spell Power. (For 2-handed weapons: +1 Unique bonus to Spell DCs)
great for spellcasters, the recon is nice for bladeforged

Touch of Flames
On Hit: 10d6 Fire Damage
meh. to much stuff has either immunity or resistance to fire, 30 points of fire damaged is wasted, his is a slap in the face of melee's

1st Degree Burns
5d6 Fire Damage + Stacking 1% Vulnerability 3 sec, max 20 stacks (triggers once/2 seconds) (stacks with other sources of vulnerability)
meh. to much stuff has either immunity or resistance to fire, 15 points of fire damaged is wasted, his is a slap in the face of melee's, we need more info on the Vulnerability

Tier 2 - Ingots and Scales
Dragon's Blessing
On friend-targeted spell cast: 5% chance AOE Healing Effect (~100HP) centered on target (AOE is size of Mass Cure spells)
is it influenced by the usual spellpower stuf, this might be usefull to melee clerics...if people still play clerics

2nd Degree Burns
On Hit: 10% chance to slow 50% (No Save) for 10 sec (non-bosses only) didn't we get a similar effect on a lv 23 great axe?

Dwarvencraft Focus
Universal Spell DCs +2 exceptional (Stacks will other sources) (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

Dwarvencraft Spell Penetration
Spell Penetration +7

Paralyzing Fear
On Hit: 10% chance to Paralyze (DC 50 Will Save vs. Fear) for 5 sec
dc too low, duration too short for melee's, i recommend playing a pure fighter or barb in EE quests and see how little damage they really do, maybe see why they need better stuff on weapons

Wrath of Flames
On Hit: 5% Chance AOE 10d20+400 fire damage – DC 50 Reflex Save for half
so that's a consistant 250 damage (200 after resists) or none at all (immune), on a crit! doesn't sound great.

Wrath of Shadows
On Hit: 5% chance AOE 8d20+220 negative energy damage – DC 50 Fortitude Save for half
so that's a consistant 250 damage (200 after resists) or none at all (immune), on a crit! doesn't sound stellar.

Dragon's Edge
Armor-Piercing 35% + On Crit: 8d10+25 Bleeding Damage
This strangely makes sense in terms of mechanics and theme, well done!

Dwarvencraft Abjuration, Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation Focus
+6 Spell DCs in respective Focus area (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

Red Augment Slot

Purple Augment Slot if only this system had shields...


Tier 3 - Ingots, Scales, and Phlogiston
Eternal Scorching Light
On Light / Fire Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds)

Eternal Chilling Darkness
On Negative / Cold Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds)

Crippling Flames
On Crit: 10d20+125 Fire Damage + On Vorpal: Negative Level (DC 50 Fortitude Save)

Burning Emptiness
On Vorpal: 5d12+50 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Crit: 8d20+100 Negative Energy Damage

Mortal Fear
On Hit: 8d8 Force Damage (DC 45 Will negates) + On Vorpal: Phantasmal Killers (DC 45 Will/Fortitude Save vs. Fear)

Dwarvencraft Fire, Void, Radiance, Healing, Ice, Sonic, Acid, Kinetic, Lightning, Repair Lore
Spell Crit +22% in the respective Lore (For 2-handed weapons: +2 Weapon Enhancement Bonus)
my main will make a recon weapon with 22% recon crit, it's prob the best use for a weapon out of this system

Dwarvencraft Lore
Universal Spell Crit +17%

Body Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Fortitude Save -5, Sunder Attempt meh

Leg Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Reflex Save -5, Trip Attempt meh

Mind Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Will Save -5, Hold Monster Attempt meh

Draconic Reinvigoration
On Damage or Spell Damage: 2% Chance regenerate 1 Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs (triggers once/100 seconds) + Passive: +1 use/rest to Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs have you guys forgotten that barbarians exist?

3rd Degree Burns
On Vorpal: 10d12+75 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Hit: 10% Chance Stuns non-bosses 1 sec (DC 45 Fortitude Save)
meh

Fire Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Fire Breath (3/rest)

Ice Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Ice Breath (3/rest)

Acid Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Acid Breath (3/rest)

Lightning Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Lightning Breath (3/rest)

675 damage on a clicky? meh

Craftable items list:
needs a few more, nice start though

edit: i'm sorry but they only reason why i might consider buying the pack is to build a recon boosting weapon to switch to in times of need, the raid items and crafting system haven't convinced me

[Satyriasys]

2. Disagree on crit profiles changing with upgrades. If the Enhancement of the weapon increases, and the W[#] increases with upgrades, isn't that enough? With all the other added benefits through upgrades, I don't feel the crit profile also needs to be increased.


The problem is with all the crit specific procs the weapons with higher crit profiles will be far superior than the others. I would like to use daggers on my rogue but as it is now I will have to choose rapiers or be left with useless effects on my weapons.

[Yalinaa]

You would rather have someone who doesn't post details and ask for our feedback?

If you have a criticism about this system leave some feedback as to how you think it could be improved, instead of pointless negative comments.

They are already trying to dodge the bullet with "we are short on time" excuse, so it doesn't look like our feedback matters at all.

Anyway, if I do an endgame raid, it would have badassss loot for sure. What we will get is unimpressing, and really lacks of creativity.

And yes, I would make the weapons from a lvl 30-32 raids to be ridiculously overpowered for sure, but I would put some work there as well.

All weapon type would be unique. Some examples for tier 1 weapons, just out of my mind in this minute:

- kukri: +10, 4.0[W], Sudden Death (+2 stacking assassinate), Natural Bane VI, 17-20 crit range
- shortsword: +10, 4.0[W], lesser displacement, +10% stacking armor piercing, 18-20 crit range
- maul: +10, 4.0[W], Bodycruncher (on crit +10% vulnerability vs. bludgeoning dmg, stacking 5 times), unbalancing, 19-20 crit range
- heavy pick: +10, 4.0[W], Superior Vorpal, greater heartseeker, 19-20 crit range
- etc. (and this would be only the tier 1!)

Yeah, I would make them so owerpowered that all people would run those raids. Then, I will make the drop rate on normal / hard abysmal of course, to get players involved in a lot of runs there. And I would multiple the drop rate by 5 for EE.:)

[Nightmanis]

Give the tier 3 effects Mercurial. Granted, it won't be the one from PnP, but it would add a bit of tabletop flavour to the list.

Mercurial: +1 to crit range, and +1 to crit modifier on 19-20.

I suggest this, because if you just give us an outright +1 to both, you're going to see Kensei's rocking a Falchion with 11-18/x3 19-20/x5 or, even worse, dual Khopeshes with a 13-18/x4 19-20/x6. That's far too powerful.

[Firewall]

What definately is missing is all the throwing weapons! Especially shuriken which are the most searched after throwing weapons in the upcoming thrower builds. Please consider adding them to the system.

[mikarddo]

Does "On hit" only imply melee hits or are spell hits included? I assume the former.

[soloist12]

You should add the different shield types.

I second this. Shields are really lagging behind. Orbs/2h are for arcanes, so all divines get out of this is either a 1h or a 2h when they're proficient with shields. :(

[Ungood]

Many of you have had a good glimpse at the Thunderholme weapon-smithing system when the forge was made available on the Lamannia server a few weeks back. I'm posting the details of that system here to ask you kind souls for some targeted feedback. What we're looking for, first & foremost, are the small, critical points that would make the difference for you: what's broken, what's missing, what needs a tweak to get over the line. Full disclosure: I can't make promises about what will get into Update 21 - the time to release is growing short - but we will work hard to get this shiny in the end.

Now, to introduce it properly...

What a great list of stuff here. I just have a few minor suggestions.




Thunder-Forged Weapons
- Use the Dwarven forge within Thunderholme to craft them
- A fast travel NPC in the Thunderholme public area will take you to the forge (no Astral Shard usage required.)
- Forge a "base" weapon then upgrade 3 times
- There are multiple choices for each tier
- The first tier and some options in the second tier can be crafted with ingredients found in the adventure area, without needing to run the Raids. The Raids drop ingredients for crafting all tiers.

Ingredients
Thunderholme Ingots - Found on the landscape & in large numbers in the raids
Dragon Scales (Red & Dark) - Found in raids, common
Phlogiston (Red & Dark) - Found in raids, uncommon

Drop rates of all these items increase with difficulty level (Normal, Hard, Elite).

Tiers now come with clearer inherent benefits:

Baseline Tiers
Tier 0 (Initial Item): +9, 3.5[W], Metalline Damage Types, Orange Augment Slot, ML22 - Unbound
Tier 1: +10, 4.0[W], Epic Bane of Dragons (5d6), ML24 - Bound to Character on Acquire
Tier 2: +11, 4.5[W], Greater Epic Bane of Dragons (upgrade from 5d6 to 8d6), ML26 - Bound to Character on Acquire
Tier 3: +12, 4.5[W], Colorless Augment Slot, ML28 - Bound to Character on Acquire

This looks good, but, I would suggest that the ML does not go up. It's a 28th level raid, which means, for the most part, end game toons will be using this raid to get gear, however, with the eTR process that has been put in keeping the ML very low will be a strong sale point in this raids attraction.

I would suggest that they start and end at ML 25, and not start at 22, and move up, as CitW weapons ML23 and Drow Weapon master weapons ML21, should be kept more attractive for the prospective player to use during an eTR. Dropping the ML of the first tier makes an older raid even less attractive, which is not what we want to make happen, but at the same time, and making the end tier ML 28 removes the thrill of a eTR player pulling out their "Thunder-dome" weapons and knowing they will finish off their eTR with them.




Tier 1 – Ingots Only
Blinding Fear
On hit: 10% Chance Blind 3 sec (DC 55 Will Save vs. Fear), 5 sec cool down

Touch of Shadows
On Hit 8d6 Negative Energy Damage

Dwarvencraft Potency
Universal Spell power +100

Dwarvencraft Combustion, Nullification, Radiance, Devotion, Glaciation, Resonance, Corrosion, Impulse, Magnetism, Reconstruction
+150 Spellpower to Fire, Negative, Light, Positive, Cold, Sonic, Acid, Force, Electric, Repair/Rust Spell Power. (For 2-handed weapons: +1 Unique bonus to Spell DCs)

Touch of Flames
On Hit: 10d6 Fire Damage

1st Degree Burns
5d6 Fire Damage + Stacking 1% Vulnerability 3 sec, max 20 stacks (triggers once/2 seconds) (stacks with other sources of vulnerability)

Tier 2 - Ingots and Scales
Dragon's Blessing
On friend-targeted spell cast: 5% chance AOE Healing Effect (~100HP) centered on target (AOE is size of Mass Cure spells)

2nd Degree Burns
On Hit: 10% chance to slow 50% (No Save) for 10 sec (non-bosses only)

Dwarvencraft Focus
Universal Spell DCs +2 exceptional (Stacks will other sources) (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

Dwarvencraft Spell Penetration
Spell Penetration +7

Paralyzing Fear
On Hit: 10% chance to Paralyze (DC 50 Will Save vs. Fear) for 5 sec

Wrath of Flames
On Hit: 5% Chance AOE 10d20+400 fire damage – DC 50 Reflex Save for half

Wrath of Shadows
On Hit: 5% chance AOE 8d20+220 negative energy damage – DC 50 Fortitude Save for half

Dragon's Edge
Armor-Piercing 35% + On Crit: 8d10+25 Bleeding Damage

Dwarvencraft Abjuration, Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation Focus
+6 Spell DCs in respective Focus area (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

Red Augment Slot

Purple Augment Slot

Tier 3 - Ingots, Scales, and Phlogiston
Eternal Scorching Light
On Light / Fire Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds)

Eternal Chilling Darkness
On Negative / Cold Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds)

Crippling Flames
On Crit: 10d20+125 Fire Damage + On Vorpal: Negative Level (DC 50 Fortitude Save)

Burning Emptiness
On Vorpal: 5d12+50 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Crit: 8d20+100 Negative Energy Damage

Mortal Fear
On Hit: 8d8 Force Damage (DC 45 Will negates) + On Vorpal: Phantasmal Killers (DC 45 Will/Fortitude Save vs. Fear)

Dwarvencraft Fire, Void, Radiance, Healing, Ice, Sonic, Acid, Kinetic, Lightning, Repair Lore
Spell Crit +22% in the respective Lore (For 2-handed weapons: +2 Weapon Enhancement Bonus)

Dwarvencraft Lore
Universal Spell Crit +17%

Body Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Fortitude Save -5, Sunder Attempt

Leg Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Reflex Save -5, Trip Attempt

Mind Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Will Save -5, Hold Monster Attempt

Draconic Reinvigoration
On Damage or Spell Damage: 2% Chance regenerate 1 Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs (triggers once/100 seconds) + Passive: +1 use/rest to Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs

3rd Degree Burns
On Vorpal: 10d12+75 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Hit: 10% Chance Stuns non-bosses 1 sec (DC 45 Fortitude Save)

Fire Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Fire Breath (3/rest)

Ice Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Ice Breath (3/rest)

Acid Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Acid Breath (3/rest)

Lightning Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Lightning Breath (3/rest)



Craftable items list:
Bastard Sword
Battle Axe
Dagger
Dwarven Waraxe
Morningstar
Handwrap
Hand Axe
Heavy Mace
Heavy Pick
Kama
Khopesh
Kukri
Longsword
Rapier
Sceptre
Scimitar
Shortsword
Sickle
Warhammer
Falchion
Greataxe
Greatsword
Maul
Quarterstaff
Great Crossbow
Repeating Heavy Crossbow
Longbow
Orb (it's an implement, not a weapon, but we're putting it here all the same)

This looks good.

Some minor suggestions:

Your fear effects, like "Blinding Fear" and the like, should have some kind of Deception/back-stab modifiers to them, as the blind/fear effects cater well to the players looking to take attacks of opportunity.

One thing I noticed there is no kind of vamperic like effect. And I personally believe that an Epic Level, Vamperic type effect is long overdue for this game. While it would need to be restricted to just melee weapons, some form of life recovery should be put in, and not just some token means that everyone will overlook either.

Anyway, overall, looks like fun, can't wait to see how this pans out.

[Oxarhamar]

I am 100% with the fixed 25 ML.

This will make these weapons great for level cap and for ETR.

The raids will be run much more if the weapons are handy for ETR.

[Correlan]

You need to include all weapon types, period. See greensteel weapons.

You need to be able to increase the crit profiles when upgrading.

You need to include shields. Good start with the orbs.

Minimum level requirements shouldn't increase so you can use them during the top couple of levels. See Greensteel weapons.

Actually, I wouldn't hold them to the greensteel weapons list...

Handwraps weren't on that list...

Just sayin' :p

[Indianwiz]

two handed weapon
- 150 spell power (+1 stacking dc)

- +6 dc of a school or +2 stacking dc's (both have +1% extra crit chance)


two weapons

- +6 dc (main hand)
- +2 stacking dc(off hand)



If I make a quarterstaff, I get +1 unique Universal Spell DC at T1 then +6 of a school (lets say necro) for a total of 7 necro DC.
If I make 2 weapons, I take +6 necro on main hand, and +2 exceptional Universal Spell DC (which stacks with everything) for a total of 8 necro DC ?

I am confused !!

[Indianwiz]

double post

[lyrecono]

what surprises me most is that the Dwarven crafting system has pathetic weapons and decent caster gear.
I still rather have a Esos that would work for me in lv 20-27 content(tr-ing at 28), then the new weapons, there is no reason to stay at cap at the moment.
there is nothing there worth it (judging by this loot) to stay there.

sad face :(

[Satyriasys]

If I make a quarterstaff, I get +1 unique Universal Spell DC at T1 then +6 of a school (lets say necro) for a total of 7 necro DC.
If I make 2 weapons, I take +6 necro on main hand, and +2 exceptional Universal Spell DC (which stacks with everything) for a total of 8 necro DC ?

I am confused !!

Yeah it's silly. I think they need to make the effects more like this... otherwise staves will never be used so why even include them?

Dwarvencraft Spellpower
+150 Spellpower to **** (For 2-handed weapons: +170 Spellpower to ****)

Dwarvencraft Universal Focus
Universal Spell DCs +2 exceptional (For 2-handed weapons: +3 exceptional)

Dwarvencraft Focus
+6 Spell DCs in respective Focus area (For 2-handed weapons: +7 Spell DCs in respective Focus area)

Dwarvencraft Spell Penetration
Spell Penetration +7 (For 2-handed weapons: Spell Penetration +8)

Dwarvencraft Lore
Spell Crit +22% in the respective Lore (For 2-handed weapons: +27% in the respective Lore)

[DrOctothorpe]

Once again, thanks all for all your feedback. We're reading, digesting, and discussing it now.

One big correction: I forgot to list Commendations of Valor to the ingredient list. The numbers required will not be exorbitant - you'll spend under a thousand total for a tier 3 Thunder-Forged Item. We will also be dropping additional Commendations in the Shadow Dracolich raid chests... larger numbers on Hard and Elite.

I'll see if I can wrangle some answers to the clarification questions posted here in the next day or so. The big one I can answer now is: the augment slots at Tier 2 are purchased. These are the ones that only require Thunderholme Ingots. We initially had Purple and Orange slots here, but swapped the orange to a free option at the base tier, to so that the named orange augment raid item doesn't require a sacrifice to be used. But I agree that a red + a purple slot don't make a lot of sense. Either we'll charge much less for the red, get rid of it, or turn it to a yellow or green.

[ishr]

Once again, thanks all for all your feedback. We're reading, digesting, and discussing it now.

One big correction: I forgot to list Commendations of Valor to the ingredient list. The numbers required will not be exorbitant - you'll spend under a thousand total for a tier 3 Thunder-Forged Item. We will also be dropping additional Commendations in the raid chests... larger numbers on Hard and Elite.

I'll see if I can wrangle some answers to the clarification questions posted here in the next day or so. The big one I can answer now is: the augment slots at Tier 2 are purchased. These are the ones that only require Thunderholme Ingots. We initially had Purple and Orange slots here, but swapped the orange to a free option at the base tier, to so that the named orange augment raid item doesn't require a sacrifice to be used. But I agree that a red + a purple slot don't make a lot of sense. Either we'll charge much less for the red, get rid of it, or turn it to a yellow or green.

Still no word on game mechanics that would encourage EE/EH play? Or is this going to be another EN beatdown festival for 2 weeks before the whole raid becomes obsolete.

[murf201]

The upgraded pinion defecates on the upgraded wyrmcrafts bow in terms of base dmg !!

I'm trying to theory craft a full 3 tier wyrmcraft longbow and put it up against a fully upgraded pinion , Just have to remember that using wyrmcraft bow you will also lose 15 prr and 4 dmg from planar set !!

If anyone is good with this stuff please beat me to the punch !!

While the crafting system seems fine certain weapons base dmg doesn't help them much !!

[murf201]

The upgraded pinion defecates on the upgraded wyrmcrafts bow in terms of base dmg !!

I'm trying to theory craft a full 3 tier wyrmcraft longbow and put it up against a fully upgraded pinion , Just have to remember that using wyrmcraft bow you will also lose 15 prr and 4 dmg from planar set !!

If anyone is good with this stuff please beat me to the punch !!

Without the increased threat range i just don't see this beating out the pinion even with it's elemental dmg , Also allot of the 2nd and 3rd tier dmg comes form crits where not having the good threat range really hurts on this one !!

DrOcto please rethink certain weapons crit ranges for the love of all that's shnarflee . I know i ain't the only one who's choice weapon comes with a horrible crit range !!

[murf201]

Every weapon that has a better crit profile becomes far superior in terms of dps !!! Please take this into consideration !

[Xaxx]

Once again, thanks all for all your feedback. We're reading, digesting, and discussing it now.

One big correction: I forgot to list Commendations of Valor to the ingredient list. The numbers required will not be exorbitant - you'll spend under a thousand total for a tier 3 Thunder-Forged Item. We will also be dropping additional Commendations in the raid chests... larger numbers on Hard and Elite.

I'll see if I can wrangle some answers to the clarification questions posted here in the next day or so. The big one I can answer now is: the augment slots at Tier 2 are purchased. These are the ones that only require Thunderholme Ingots. We initially had Purple and Orange slots here, but swapped the orange to a free option at the base tier, to so that the named orange augment raid item doesn't require a sacrifice to be used. But I agree that a red + a purple slot don't make a lot of sense. Either we'll charge much less for the red, get rid of it, or turn it to a yellow or green.

Any slot outside of colorless that goes on a weapon MUST be able to equip a red augment... since those are designed specifically for weapons....I cant apply a 138 element aug to anything but a weapon, unless you wanna start adding red and such aug slots that can equip red augs to stuff outside of weapons, you really should not change the red to a green or yellow. If someone doenst wanna use two damage augs on their weapon, well that's their choice... personally I want my guy to be able to use both for damage augs or my caster be able to have two 138 augs.. red gives that option and purple lets you put whatever you want in the 2nd slot... that seems completely appropriate.

[lyrecono]

Once again, thanks all for all your feedback. We're reading, digesting, and discussing it now.

One big correction: I forgot to list Commendations of Valor to the ingredient list. The numbers required will not be exorbitant - you'll spend under a thousand total for a tier 3 Thunder-Forged Item. We will also be dropping additional Commendations in the raid chests... larger numbers on Hard and Elite.

I'll see if I can wrangle some answers to the clarification questions posted here in the next day or so. The big one I can answer now is: the augment slots at Tier 2 are purchased. These are the ones that only require Thunderholme Ingots. We initially had Purple and Orange slots here, but swapped the orange to a free option at the base tier, to so that the named orange augment raid item doesn't require a sacrifice to be used. But I agree that a red + a purple slot don't make a lot of sense. Either we'll charge much less for the red, get rid of it, or turn it to a yellow or green.

thank you for the update,
Now that you're here, can we get a response to these 4 points:

1, Crit multipliers, especially on mauls/great axes/picks/dwarven axes/war hammers, can you enlarge them to make a significant increase to that 5 year old raid weapon, the ESoS? Duergar were able to do that in the first expansion. (hint: Duergar and drow weapon master items)

2, The minimum level. Can you keep it low for it to be useful for people who Epic TR a lot? 20 or 22 will do nicely.

3, The choice on the limited amount of items is very strange from a lore viewpoint, shield's are definitely missing here, i assume that would be to much work, with this type of deadline, can they be edited in in a future update?

4, The choice of elemental&negative damage over the many caster options seems very strange coming from a dwarven crafting station in a dwarven hall. Do you see a way for melee's to come out with anything worthwhille out of there?

[Propane]

Agree with most of earlier posts...

Need all weapons and SHEILDS!

Base material needs to be druid friendly (Shields)-

Disappointed there is not an option for stacking STAT (like alchemical) or SKILLS (like GreenSteel)

There is a lack of Defense (+8 parry, + 25 PRR, Greater Vamperism, etc)...

Besides the +W - I don't see a lot better than a fully updated Alchemical (esp you can use it starting at LV 20).

[dejafu]

Here's an idea about these weapons and crits: give every weapon the same (high) crit stats, say x3 (18-20). Or if you like a bit more variety, something like this:

Light weapons: x3 (18-20)
Heavy Weapons: x4 (19-20)
Two-handed Weapons: x4 (18-20)
Ranged Weapons: x3 (18-20)

Let people get endgame weapon types based more on flavor than stats, and let them all be awesome. These are endgame weapons forged in epic combat. Forged in THUNDER (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AC41dglnM) AND FLAME! Even the heavy maces should be awesome.

[Aerinsma]

Please add short bow. There are tons of named long bows already.

[FestusHood]

The problem is with all the crit specific procs the weapons with higher crit profiles will be far superior than the others. I would like to use daggers on my rogue but as it is now I will have to choose rapiers or be left with useless effects on my weapons.

Don't rogues have an enhancement at tier 5 that changes the crit profile of a dagger to 18-20/x3? I assume if you are using daggers you would take that, and it would make your dagger better than a rapier, or a khopesh for that matter.

[Scraap]

On the shield bit: *Would* it be too much hassle to see about perhaps cribbing some effects from the runearm implementation in terms of a lesser weapon augmentation for a main hand? Seems that'd be the most straightforward method there in terms of looking up a mechanic that already exists with several examples.

[FestusHood]

Many people are concerned that the design of these weapons will be more favorable to two weapon fighters than those that use two handed weapons. This may not be such a bad thing, given that the 2 main melee destinies are hugely more advantageous to two handed weapons.

Crit profiles. It may be that they feel they have already done that with the Caught in the Web weapons, and the drow weapons, not to mention Sword of Shadows. The way these weapon effects are set up, many of them would seem to work better with higher threat ranges, that's true. That might not be so bad to counter the current trend of trying to increase multipliers more than threat range.

It's interesting to me that 2 of the most popular CITW weapons have completely normal crit profiles, Celestia and Cleaver. Some have said that these new crafting effects will cause people to go back to using falchions. Maybe, but that doesn't seem so bad, since nobody is using them now.

I remember the threads surrounding the raiders boxes, where everybody was excited about getting a cleaver. That's a straight up normal. 20/x3 greataxe. If crit profile really is the only thing that matters, why isn't a drow greataxe considered better than a cleaver? That's just something that seems curious to me.

Minimum levels. It makes sense that in the highest state, these weapons will have high minimum levels. Unless you want to make every other weapon in the game completely obsolete. People complain that certain weapons are only useful as twink weapons until you get the good stuff. If you allow these new weapons to be fully tiered and available at a low level, the other weapons won't even have the twink niche.

[Coldin]

Don't rogues have an enhancement at tier 5 that changes the crit profile of a dagger to 18-20/x3? I assume if you are using daggers you would take that, and it would make your dagger better than a rapier, or a khopesh for that matter.

Yeah. Daggers/Kukris with the rogue Knife Mastery enhancement get bumped up to 18-30/x3. It's pretty crazy really.

[count_spicoli]

No mention of the dc of the effects Dr. O. This seems to be a unanimous issue. If they are to stay the same could you give a reason as to why you think they should. If they stay as they are now they will be essentially useless I believe. I believe these weapons should be highest content EE worthy since this will be crafted raid gear. simply making them for En which for most toons already cake walk doesn't seem beneficial.

[Franghasea]

How about a Tier 4 that costs an exorbitant amount of rare ingredients/commendations AND requires the Epic Completionist Feat to equip that reduces the ML to 20?

[maddong]

I would say you can't make them all like khopeshes because of knife/staff spec. And it probably isn't fair to just nerf those two weapons.

[Standal]

Blinding Fear is a joke. How can an epic weapon have an effect that is so grossly inferior to Radiance?

Please reconsider all of the x% to hit effects with a save. Why would I want a 10% chance to see the mob save (which it will)? Just make it x% on hit and be done with it.

The ML of the weapons needs to be fixed. If you want to keep CITW and FOT stuff viable, lock it at ML26. We need to be able to play with these weapons. Right now, I'm not sure why I have any ML28 gear on my main. All he does is run to 28 and ITR or ETR.

[Nightmanis]

Blinding Fear is a joke. How can an epic weapon have an effect that is so grossly inferior to Radiance?

Please reconsider all of the x% to hit effects with a save. Why would I want a 10% chance to see the mob save (which it will)? Just make it x% on hit and be done with it.

The ML of the weapons needs to be fixed. If you want to keep CITW and FOT stuff viable, lock it at ML26. We need to be able to play with these weapons. Right now, I'm not sure why I have any ML28 gear on my main. All he does is run to 28 and ITR or ETR.

I could see locking this all at 26. Gives 3 levels for CITW (don't let the powergamer elitists fool you, these aren't as quick as it seems) and about 5 levels for Drow weapons. Plus when the level cap goes to 30, it's a good little ways before they would be inevitably replaced at endgame.

[Coldin]

I could see locking this all at 26. Gives 3 levels for CITW (don't let the powergamer elitists fool you, these aren't as quick as it seems) and about 5 levels for Drow weapons. Plus when the level cap goes to 30, it's a good little ways before they would be inevitably replaced at endgame.

26 would work fine.

Maybe keep the ML 22 or 24 at base weapon, then the first Tier 1 upgrade moves it to 26 where it stays. Gives an option to using these for early levels.

[Grosbeak07]

How about a Tier 4 that costs an exorbitant amount of rare ingredients/commendations AND requires the Epic Completionist Feat to equip that reduces the ML to 20?

No.

[Ungood]

what surprises me most is that the Dwarven crafting system has pathetic weapons and decent caster gear.

I wouldn't call them "pathetic" but I get what you are saying.

[LeoLionxxx]

Once again, thanks all for all your feedback. We're reading, digesting, and discussing it now.

One big correction: I forgot to list Commendations of Valor to the ingredient list. The numbers required will not be exorbitant - you'll spend under a thousand total for a tier 3 Thunder-Forged Item. We will also be dropping additional Commendations in the raid chests... larger numbers on Hard and Elite.

*snip*


Are there any plans to make the commendation drop in other epic chests as well? As many have voiced, and as I myself am finding, we're not getting enough of those fast enough, AND it's practically deriving us of any other goodies in our end reward lists.

I do like the idea of using those to upgrade items, though a tad too akin to using Commendations of Heroism for Gianthold or Spinner items...

[slarden]

Agree with most of earlier posts...

Need all weapons and SHEILDS!

Base material needs to be druid friendly (Shields)-

Disappointed there is not an option for stacking STAT (like alchemical) or SKILLS (like GreenSteel)

There is a lack of Defense (+8 parry, + 25 PRR, Greater Vamperism, etc)...

Besides the +W - I don't see a lot better than a fully updated Alchemical (esp you can use it starting at LV 20).

Agree., would like shield option for my cleric instead of a weapon.

[slarden]

Still no word on game mechanics that would encourage EE/EH play? Or is this going to be another EN beatdown festival for 2 weeks before the whole raid becomes obsolete.

One of the recent posts states you have a better chance for drops on higher difficulties - just like shroud which many people think is the best loot system in the game.

I am all for rewarding higher difficulties - but we need to allow casual and newer players to acquire items at their own pace rather than being forced into running a difficulty they aren't comfortable with just to get an item.

[slarden]

First off very good stuff, and very good job on the items. I do however have a slight problem with two handed weapons for casters.

two handed weapon
- 150 spell power (+1 stacking dc)

- +6 dc of a school or +2 stacking dc's (both have +1% extra crit chance)

- 22% crit chance (+2 weapon enchantment)

two weapons
- 150 spell power (main hand)
- 150 spell power (off hand)

- +6 dc (main hand)
- +2 stacking dc(off hand)

- 22% crit chance (main hand)
- 22% crit chance (off hand)

So basically two handed weapons have an extra 1% crit chance,+2 enchantment, and +1 dc in secondary spell casting school. And two weapons gives you an extra 150 spell power, with another 22% crit chance for your other element. While both give you the same dc.

So there really isn't any incentive to go for a two handed weapon
- you get the same dc's as two weapons (however, your secondary spec will have +1 dc higher)
- you also can only spec in 1 element (which is a bad idea)

I just think there needs to be a boost if people are going to use two handers.

This is my thinking as well, two weapons wins - although if there are non-weapons with some of these things than it might make sense to go with a two-handed weapon. The 17% universal spell crit may not be so bad for the off-hand for some builds.

[lyrecono]

I wouldn't call them "pathetic" but I get what you are saying.

that's what i'm trying to get at, if i compare the usefulness of caster options vs the melee's options it seems out of balance.
For what is supposed to be a dwarven crafting hall, i'm surprised to see so many caster options and not so many typical dwarven related options.
Dwarves seem to focus on defense, martial&magical, usually, but not exclusively associated with axes/picks/spears/shields/heavy armor etc.
With the current upgrade options i would assume Dwarves were nuckers instead.
i'm sad to see that melee's aren't getting much of a benefit out of this new "Dwarven" crafting system.

[Qhualor]

One of the recent posts states you have a better chance for drops on higher difficulties - just like shroud which many people think is the best loot system in the game.

I am all for rewarding higher difficulties - but we need to allow casual and newer players to acquire items at their own pace rather than being forced into running a difficulty they aren't comfortable with just to get an item.

this argument is awfully familiar. if players are not playing higher difficulties or have difficulties playing in higher difficulties than there should be no need to be uncomfortable or forced into playing higher difficulties for better gear. if they aren't ready for a higher difficulty than the gear that is better suited for their own comfortable difficulty should be fine for them. of course, that wont stop people from running higher difficulties and feel the need for better than what they have gear, but that's a player problem.

Shroud system is a very good system, but the incentive to run a higher difficulty is not there other than extra chests for an extra chance at ingredients and a slight increase in drop rate. its been a common thing in this game that players want minimal challenge for the most rewards with as less chance of failure as possible. even with a full group of epic level players, people are still running Shroud on hard. we ask all the time for incentives, but apparently there needs to be something more than a boost in drop rate. making it so you need to run elite to be able to fully upgrade gear is a good incentive, but than you have players who cant handle elite complaining.

[Ungood]

we ask all the time for incentives, but apparently there needs to be something more than a boost in drop rate.

Why?

Here is the painful truth, I am not trying to be rude, but it's about time we face the facts: To the players that are crying for incentives for elite (which make up pretty much the Power Gamer Population) Turbine does not need to throw you a bone, or anything else for that matter. All they need to do is put in some item into the raid that is highly coveted with a ridiculously low drop rate, and you all will grind the raid on every difficulty till your eyes bleed to get it, and you will do elite till you puke even if all it means is a +1% chance to get it faster.

Go ahead, try to tell me I am wrong.

[Indianwiz]

Once again, thanks all for all your feedback. We're reading, digesting, and discussing it now.

One big correction: I forgot to list Commendations of Valor to the ingredient list. The numbers required will not be exorbitant - you'll spend under a thousand total for a tier 3 Thunder-Forged Item. We will also be dropping additional Commendations in the raid chests... larger numbers on Hard and Elite.

I'll see if I can wrangle some answers to the clarification questions posted here in the next day or so. The big one I can answer now is: the augment slots at Tier 2 are purchased. These are the ones that only require Thunderholme Ingots. We initially had Purple and Orange slots here, but swapped the orange to a free option at the base tier, to so that the named orange augment raid item doesn't require a sacrifice to be used. But I agree that a red + a purple slot don't make a lot of sense. Either we'll charge much less for the red, get rid of it, or turn it to a yellow or green.

DrOcto you still havent answered my question: Wielding 2 weapons instead of a staff will net a higher DC AND extra spell power for another element in this current system. Is this WAI??

[jalont]

this argument is awfully familiar. if players are not playing higher difficulties or have difficulties playing in higher difficulties than there should be no need to be uncomfortable or forced into playing higher difficulties for better gear. if they aren't ready for a higher difficulty than the gear that is better suited for their own comfortable difficulty should be fine for them. of course, that wont stop people from running higher difficulties and feel the need for better than what they have gear, but that's a player problem.

Shroud system is a very good system, but the incentive to run a higher difficulty is not there other than extra chests for an extra chance at ingredients and a slight increase in drop rate. its been a common thing in this game that players want minimal challenge for the most rewards with as less chance of failure as possible. even with a full group of epic level players, people are still running Shroud on hard. we ask all the time for incentives, but apparently there needs to be something more than a boost in drop rate. making it so you need to run elite to be able to fully upgrade gear is a good incentive, but than you have players who cant handle elite complaining.

Having to "farm" the hardest raid in the game on the hardest difficulty for your "endgame" weapon is such a ridiculous idea. Sigh. How about we make the hardest raid on the hardest difficulty only beatable once we get our endgame weapon. You know, so there's a reason to actually grind for it.

[Satyriasys]

that's what i'm trying to get at, if i compare the usefulness of caster options vs the melee's options it seems out of balance.
For what is supposed to be a dwarven crafting hall, i'm surprised to see so many caster options and not so many typical dwarven related options.
Dwarves seem to focus on defense, martial&magical, usually, but not exclusively associated with axes/picks/spears/shields/heavy armor etc.
With the current upgrade options i would assume Dwarves were nuckers instead.
i'm sad to see that melee's aren't getting much of a benefit out of this new "Dwarven" crafting system.

The Dwarves all died out years ago. It seems as though the Salamanders man the forge now. Hence the negative and fire enchantments in honor of their Draconic overlords.

[fmalfeas]

I keep hearing people demanding a 'must run elite' thing. Seriously? You know, if it was heroic elite, I could almost understand it. But it's not. It's Epic Elite. The difficulty setting that introduced the playerbase to CR 60 wolves. The setting that spawned the Monkcher and Shiradi Sorc.

No, forcing people to run EE is never the right option. It's firmly in the camp of 'if you don't play my way, you should be punished for it'.

Let EE drop more mats, more comms, give more XP. There's your incentive. If it's not enough incentive for you, then I guess you don't /really/ want to run EE anyway, do you?

[Nascoe]

The Dwarves all died out years ago. It seems as though the Salamanders man the forge now. Hence the negative and fire enchantments in honor of their Draconic overlords.

Yes, that is exactly what the backstory suggests - the shadow dragon converted the dwarves to admire it and made them go undead. Still, it would make an awful lot of sense if there were other things to craft on the items (I guess light and good damage does not fit though), with element damage, and all weapons available in the game

[slarden]

this argument is awfully familiar. if players are not playing higher difficulties or have difficulties playing in higher difficulties than there should be no need to be uncomfortable or forced into playing higher difficulties for better gear. if they aren't ready for a higher difficulty than the gear that is better suited for their own comfortable difficulty should be fine for them. of course, that wont stop people from running higher difficulties and feel the need for better than what they have gear, but that's a player problem.

Shroud system is a very good system, but the incentive to run a higher difficulty is not there other than extra chests for an extra chance at ingredients and a slight increase in drop rate. its been a common thing in this game that players want minimal challenge for the most rewards with as less chance of failure as possible. even with a full group of epic level players, people are still running Shroud on hard. we ask all the time for incentives, but apparently there needs to be something more than a boost in drop rate. making it so you need to run elite to be able to fully upgrade gear is a good incentive, but than you have players who cant handle elite complaining.

Shroud had plenty of incentive for people to run at the highest difficulty level. Prior to U14 guilds and static groups did it all the time and PUG groups usually didn't because if they lacked the DPS it would take the healer drinking a bunch of pots to make it successful. The extra larges was more than enough incentive. PUG EH were not uncommon at all prior to U14 because everyone wanted more larges.

The great thing about shroud is it that gave people at all levels a chance to get the same gear at different paces because it took longer running on normal. There were also constantly LFMs for shroud and many more people playing the game.

Raids like shroud and festivals (when the gear is up to date) keeps casual players in the game because it's easy to find groups for those and it's something that they can make progress on rather than requiring grinding and/or a lucky drop. Turbine killed festivals by not keeping the gear up-to-date and the game is going the direction of EE or don't bother.

To be blunt, the biggest problem with raids isn't the difficulty - it is some of the people - and you experience more problematic people on higher difficulties. While I do run EE raids, I usually prefer the environment of EN/EH raid groups because they tend not to have (or have as many) jerks that troll people and harass new/casual players. Why would Turbine want to encourage new and casual players to run at higher difficulties and encounter those people.

On top of that the game is polluted with so many exploits and broken builds that EE completion doesn't mean anything to me. No I don't think the gear should be exclusive to EE- not because I don't run EE raids - I just don't think it's healthy for the game.

[Henky]

Phlogiston (Red & Dark) - Found in raids, uncommon
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. I said no?

Pretty please, the reason (or one of them) of Shroud being popular and Lord of Blades no was the sensation of PROGRESSION. You progress at a slow pace until you get to your target weapon/item. Please, don't make it like the spirits drops on LoB. Yes, if you are lucky you will get the item in one run, but if you are not lucky you can grow bored of the raid and never bother with it anymore.

Can you explain how much ingredientes we need for each tier?

[SirValentine]

Shroud had plenty of incentive for people to run at the highest difficulty level. Prior to U14 guilds and static groups did it all the time and PUG groups usually didn't because if they lacked the DPS it would take the healer drinking a bunch of pots to make it successful. The extra larges was more than enough incentive. PUG EH were not uncommon at all prior to U14 because everyone wanted more larges.


Plenty of incentive? More larges? Prior to U14?

I thought the extra end chests were added to the Shroud in U14. I know for certain that some time in the past, Elite had no extra end chests; once you did an Elite for favor, there was NO incentive to ever do Elite again.

[Oxarhamar]

Shroud had plenty of incentive for people to run at the highest difficulty level. Prior to U14 guilds and static groups did it all the time and PUG groups usually didn't because if they lacked the DPS it would take the healer drinking a bunch of pots to make it successful. The extra larges was more than enough incentive. PUG EH were not uncommon at all prior to U14 because everyone wanted more larges.

The great thing about shroud is it that gave people at all levels a chance to get the same gear at different paces because it took longer running on normal. There were also constantly LFMs for shroud and many more people playing the game.

Raids like shroud and festivals (when the gear is up to date) keeps casual players in the game because it's easy to find groups for those and it's something that they can make progress on rather than requiring grinding and/or a lucky drop. Turbine killed festivals by not keeping the gear up-to-date and the game is going the direction of EE or don't bother.

To be blunt, the biggest problem with raids isn't the difficulty - it is some of the people - and you experience more problematic people on higher difficulties. While I do run EE raids, I usually prefer the environment of EN/EH raid groups because they tend not to have (or have as many) jerks that troll people and harass new/casual players. Why would Turbine want to encourage new and casual players to run at higher difficulties and encounter those people.

On top of that the game is polluted with so many exploits and broken builds that EE completion doesn't mean anything to me. No I don't think the gear should be exclusive to EE- not because I don't run EE raids - I just don't think it's healthy for the game.

Except that the Extra chests in Shroud only started with U12 so the incentive to run shroud on higher difficulties prior to U14 was short lived and prior to U12 NONEXSISTANT

[slarden]

Plenty of incentive? More larges? Prior to U14?

I thought the extra end chests were added to the Shroud in U14. I know for certain that some time in the past, Elite had no extra end chests; once you did an Elite for favor, there was NO incentive to ever do Elite again.

Yes this is exactly what I said. WITH the extra chests there was plenty of incentive to run above normal.

I don't remember when they added the extra chests but I thought it was U12 ish at the same time they sharpened the blades. The reason I mentioned U14 is because the extra power from 5 levels and ED made elite completions much more trivial.

[Njohrd]

just 2 quick suggestions:

1- Add some crit range increase for the weapons.
2- Min level should be decreased. 24 for all the tiers is a better solution in my opinion. This game is all about REUSABILITY, think of the great success of shroud crafting (min level 12 in a level 17 raid) and make thunderforge similar to it in the epic contest. Personally i will grind days for a min level 24 item, and just give a quick try at the raids for a min level 28. Min level 24 and the raids will live forever... trust in the shroud

[whereispowderedsilve]

Some very good points/posts by all -- ML24/25/26 MAX IMO!(the weapons should be) Be very careful on the mats progression as well.

You want to find just the right balance! I'd say closer to shroud though, cos your always getting something at least for sure!

More coherent post perhaps tomorrow. Cheers & keep up the great work!

P.S. KEEP UP THE COMMUNICATION/POSTING/FEEDBACK/DIALOGUE WITH US PLEASE! :P!

[ishr]

Why?

Here is the painful truth, I am not trying to be rude, but it's about time we face the facts: To the players that are crying for incentives for elite (which make up pretty much the Power Gamer Population) Turbine does not need to throw you a bone, or anything else for that matter. All they need to do is put in some item into the raid that is highly coveted with a ridiculously low drop rate, and you all will grind the raid on every difficulty till your eyes bleed to get it, and you will do elite till you puke even if all it means is a +1% chance to get it faster.

Go ahead, try to tell me I am wrong.

i am not opposed to this idea... but we don't even have this to chase after.


Having to "farm" the hardest raid in the game on the hardest difficulty for your "endgame" weapon is such a ridiculous idea.

That's not what people are asking for, we are asking for some SMALL incentive to run EE/EH. A few named augments, a subset of unique loot drops. All turbine needs to do is implement some tiny prize and you're right, they will grind away, and in the process pour in LOADS of TP more than a hundred casual players would.


I keep hearing people demanding a 'must run elite' thing. Seriously? You know, if it was heroic elite, I could almost understand it. But it's not. It's Epic Elite. The difficulty setting that introduced the playerbase to CR 60 wolves. The setting that spawned the Monkcher and Shiradi Sorc.

No, forcing people to run EE is never the right option. It's firmly in the camp of 'if you don't play my way, you should be punished for it'.

Isn't this what you're advocating? It goes both ways. We are advocating for MORE options. I still fail to see how this forces anyone to do anything. Don't exaggerate. The monkcher and shiradi caster are nerf-needy problems, but they're not relevant to the conversation here. Just because you don't like someone else's build doesn't mean we shouldn't encourage elite to be run... two different issues.


Let EE drop more mats, more comms, give more XP. There's your incentive. If it's not enough incentive for you, then I guess you don't /really/ want to run EE anyway, do you?

People ran normal because it was the fastest way to accumulate loot. The incentive for Elite/Hard was absent because you were actually PUNISHED for running those (time & difficulty incurred made it HARDER to acquire loot). Just because a chest gives 5 times more loot, if it takes 10x more time to complete it's NOT rewarding Elite, it is PUNISHING IT. Hence why shroud was and still is most commonly run on normal/hard. It's about the RATE, not the AMOUNT. Math, people.


Shroud had plenty of incentive for people to run at the highest difficulty level. Prior to U14 guilds and static groups did it all the time and PUG groups usually didn't because if they lacked the DPS it would take the healer drinking a bunch of pots to make it successful. The extra larges was more than enough incentive.

This statement is factually inaccurate.


To be blunt, the biggest problem with raids isn't the difficulty - it is some of the people - and you experience more problematic people on higher difficulties. While I do run EE raids, I usually prefer the environment of EN/EH raid groups because they tend not to have (or have as many) jerks that troll people and harass new/casual players. Why would Turbine want to encourage new and casual players to run at higher difficulties and encounter those people.

This is a silly argument. If anything this means you should favor stratification, because then all these EE players you hate so much would leave your beloved EN/EH. Also, if there's no change to your EN run then why the heck do you care?

[lyrecono]

back to the topic please, the op wanted to know if his work was ok, give m feedback on that.

please.

[ishr]

back to the topic please, the op wanted to know if his work was ok, give m feedback on that.

please.

This is what we are responding to:


The Raids drop ingredients for crafting all tiers.

Drop rates of all these items increase with difficulty level (Normal, Hard, Elite).

[SirValentine]

You know, if it was heroic elite, I could almost understand it. But it's not. It's Epic Elite.


It's the same thing; both are Elite. The devs have told us that "Epic" versus "Heroic" are merely tags for "above 20" and "up to 20".

The days when "Epic" was a difficulty that was way above most everything else are gone. Now, it's just a level range.

So, really, saying "Epic Elite" is doesn't tell you anything more than "Elite", unless you need to distinguish for the quests that have versions in both tiers. And even then, they are both just "Elite" for that level range.

[patang01]

Once again, thanks all for all your feedback. We're reading, digesting, and discussing it now.

One big correction: I forgot to list Commendations of Valor to the ingredient list. The numbers required will not be exorbitant - you'll spend under a thousand total for a tier 3 Thunder-Forged Item. We will also be dropping additional Commendations in the raid chests... larger numbers on Hard and Elite.

I'll see if I can wrangle some answers to the clarification questions posted here in the next day or so. The big one I can answer now is: the augment slots at Tier 2 are purchased. These are the ones that only require Thunderholme Ingots. We initially had Purple and Orange slots here, but swapped the orange to a free option at the base tier, to so that the named orange augment raid item doesn't require a sacrifice to be used. But I agree that a red + a purple slot don't make a lot of sense. Either we'll charge much less for the red, get rid of it, or turn it to a yellow or green.

Please consider increased crit range as an upgrade tier. I know you're close to launch but this should be the best weapon to offer and currently there are several items with increased threat range that will still be the desired loot. Why run for something if certain things is still better or with similar effect.

Also, where's the rune arm?

Third, try to keep the ML lower. I know, this is high end stuff, but seriously, people like to TR between releases and the thing about GS was the usefulness from 11 and 12 all the way to 20.

[Loromir]

While we get an extra 1[W] compared to the last preview of this system, this isn't the clear base damage boost players were looking for when they asked for CiTW-like bonuses (Expanded Crit Threat or Crit Multiplier).



It seems that turbine has chosen to go a different route with these weapons. For the past 8 years...DPS has been all about Base damage and Crit Profile. With this set of weapons, its more about the procs. I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. Some of the effects look pretty big to me.

One arguement I have seen is that "most mobs are immune to fire and since fire damage seems to be a major theme on these wepaons, they are useless". 2 years ago, I would agree with you, but today, Fire is very viable.

I think once you do the math (figuring in the various procs available), you will see that these weapons indeed are very nice. You just have to think outside the box for a change.

[Havok.cry]

It seems that turbine has chosen to go a different route with these weapons. For the past 8 years...DPS has been all about Base damage and Crit Profile. With this set of weapons, its more about the procs. I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. Some of the effects look pretty big to me.

One arguement I have seen is that "most mobs are immune to fire and since fire damage seems to be a major theme on these wepaons, they are useless". 2 years ago, I would agree with you, but today, Fire is very viable.

I think once you do the math (figuring in the various procs available), you will see that these weapons indeed are very nice. You just have to think outside the box for a change.

Fire will be immeasurably useful in the double red dragon raid.

[Ungood]

Fire will be immeasurably useful in the double red dragon raid.

LOL, Double Dragon Raid. Gotta love the hidden tributes to the oldies...

[lyrecono]

Fire will be immeasurably useful in the double red dragon raid.

and von, fot, and oh nm, worthless? nop, use impaired? yes

[slarden]

A bunch of ridiculous stuff....

You just counter any argument with a non-point - discounting what was said. Your opinion is fact and everyone else's is not factual and ridiculous. Sorry 300% reward is more than enough - possibly too much. We don't need to kill the PUG raids by making the reward even higher on EE.

I was there between U12 and U14 and the extra chests were plenty of motivation to run Shroud above Norma. If Turbine has the data they should check it out to see what a good balance was there. I don't count post-U14 because the power level increase was big there was no reason to run below hard.

[ishr]

You just counter any argument with a non-point - discounting what was said. Your opinion is fact and everyone else's is not factual and ridiculous. Sorry 300% reward is more than enough - possibly too much. We don't need to kill the PUG raids by making the reward even higher on EE.

I was there between U12 and U14 and the extra chests were plenty of motivation to run Shroud above Norma. If Turbine has the data they should check it out to see what a good balance was there. I don't count post-U14 because the power level increase was big there was no reason to run below hard.

ironic that the guy accusing someone else of countering an argument with a non-point is also the guy redacting my post. if you continue to redact my posts then i don't see the point of carrying on the discussion. reply to the topic or come up with a counter-argument, don't turn this into something personal. just because i have empiric evidence to support my point and you have nothing to support yours doesn't mean this conversation needs to devolve into a shouting match.

[RedOrm]

One big correction: I forgot to list Commendations of Valor to the ingredient list. The numbers required will not be exorbitant - you'll spend under a thousand total for a tier 3 Thunder-Forged Item. We will also be dropping additional Commendations in the raid chests... larger numbers on Hard and Elite.

At first I was reading commendations of heroism here, but VALOR?? The stuff people already and pretty unanimously are complaining there are not enough in the game of?!
And you're saying under 1000 covs is "not exorbitant... I really hope it's a slip of the pen and you meant heroism (possible, as those drop in chests and covs currently do not), or that you are planning to drop BIG numbers of them in chests, big meaning hundreds, and IF that happens please remove them from endreward list and move ALL cov's to (end) chests?

Greetz,
Red Orm

[Impaqt]

At first I was reading commendations of heroism here, but VALOR?? The stuff people already and pretty unanimously are complaining there are not enough in the game of?!
And you're saying under 1000 covs is "not exorbitant... I really hope it's a slip of the pen and you meant heroism (possible, as those drop in chests and covs currently do not), or that you are planning to drop BIG numbers of them in chests, big meaning hundreds, and IF that happens please remove them from endreward list and move ALL cov's to (end) chests?

Greetz,
Red Orm

Pretty sure he means Valor and this is yet another glaring example of how out of touch the Devs are with out complaints in regards to this.

[slarden]

ironic that the guy accusing someone else of countering an argument with a non-point is also the guy redacting my post. if you continue to redact my posts then i don't see the point of carrying on the discussion. reply to the topic or come up with a counter-argument, don't turn this into something personal. just because i have empiric evidence to support my point and you have nothing to support yours doesn't mean this conversation needs to devolve into a shouting match.

I am neither shouting nor taking anything personal. I am stating my experience as vet player who runs raids at all difficulties, in PUGS, short-man, solo in some cases, in static groups, etc. I haven't seen any empiric evidence but feel free to present it. What I've seen so far is opinions presented as facts.

Any emotion or shouting from my posts exists solely in your head. I just want to express my opinion just as you are expressing yours. My personal experiences and observations are what they are. Just as yours are.

I want to see a healthy LFM raiding scene. I think it's good for the game. Allowing people to acquire the gear on EN and EH helps with that alot because vets are more willing to join LFM raids at lower difficulties even if they still run higher difficulties other times. The use of bypasses makes this more likely for me because the static group may be on timer, but I would like to get in another completion so I use a timer and join an LFM raid.

[brian14]

deleted

[Qhualor]

You just counter any argument with a non-point - discounting what was said. Your opinion is fact and everyone else's is not factual and ridiculous. Sorry 300% reward is more than enough - possibly too much. We don't need to kill the PUG raids by making the reward even higher on EE.

I was there between U12 and U14 and the extra chests were plenty of motivation to run Shroud above Norma. If Turbine has the data they should check it out to see what a good balance was there. I don't count post-U14 because the power level increase was big there was no reason to run below hard.

Most groups stepped it up to hard, even after all the ranting of Shroud blades and getting used to them. Norm was still run a lot. Elite wasn't run much other than guild groups and some that had been craving challenge. Running elite didn't appear a common thing to me. Wipes happened pretty consistently. People really wanted those dopants as much as they wanted an increased chance of larges, but as the norm, low risk of fail for maximum rewards still made running Shroud on hard as the usual.

A high risk of fail that challenges a player and group using real tactics and relying on teamwork, is a real problem in this game because everyone has been pushing each other to build a certain way and play a certain way. The difference between hard and elite has to be big to get players to run it, work together and accept a chance at fail. If the reward is big enough, it could spike raid timer bypass sales. If bribery is needed to get players to challenge themselves instead always auto complete and easy rewards, than I can be OK with it.

[brian14]

Landscape is the same as wilderness in this instance. It is just like every other wilderness, except you can have a 12 person party as well.
Does Thunderholme scale with party size? Or is it like (supposedly level 16) Subterrane -- fixed mobs designed for a group of twelve level 16's?

[Aviya]

To DrOctothorpe

How to make Thunder-Forged Weapons valuable loot and a great success among players:

1) Each kind of weapon has the critical multiplier increased by +1 when rolling 19-20. Examples:

Falchions: 18 x2 19-20 x3
Daggers: 19-20 x3
Greataxes: 20 x4
Longbows: 20 x4


2) Base damage needs to be modified from your 4,5 (W) to 3 (2xW) Examples:

Kopesh: 3 [2d8]
Maul: 3 [2d10]
Quarterstaff: 3 [2d6]


This change is very important to reward the use of active abilities or class abilities like Eldritch Strike, Bleed Them Out, Sly Flourish, Smite Foe, Slaughter etc...

3) Minimum level 26 for the base Item and no minimum level increase with upgrades

4) Remove DC from weapon procs. Make it a 10% proc chance on each successful hit. Copy the mechanism from your 2nd Degree Burns and reduce the duration of the most powerful effects like paralize:

2nd Degree Burns - On Hit: 10% chance to slow 50% (No Save) for 10 sec (non-bosses only)
Paralyzing Fear - On Hit: 10% chance to Paralyze (No Save) for 2 sec (non-bosses only)

5) Each tier should give a slot for free:
T1 Green
T2 Red
T3 Orange

6) Unbound crafting materials but with a lower drop rate

[Impaqt]

Does Thunderholme scale with party size? Or is it like (supposedly level 16) Subterrane -- fixed mobs designed for a group of twelve level 16's?

blech. the thought of an end game landscape that doesnt scale is disturbing.....

Hopefully this will be like the Manufactury where it can scale for Solo/Group/Raids.

[Satyriasys]

Does Thunderholme scale with party size? Or is it like (supposedly level 16) Subterrane -- fixed mobs designed for a group of twelve level 16's?

When we did these raids on Lammania the spawn was so high it locked everyone down and caused a wipe. It was a breeze to solo. Yup it's been scaling.

[Henky]

blech. the thought of an end game landscape that doesnt scale is disturbing.....

Hopefully this will be like the Manufactury where it can scale for Solo/Group/Raids.
The scaling was out of the scale when i tried on lama. From solo to 7 man party.... too much scaling, the ones suffering here are the melees. Of course your slayer count goes up really really fast.

[barecm]

A dwarven crafting system that cannot produce a dwarven thrower?

[lyrecono]

yeah, isn't it fun? XD


the ones suffering here are the melees.

yep, yet again

[Xaxx]

yeah, isn't it fun? XD



yep, yet again

would you please tell me where the caster love was last riad?

or citw??

citw was all about MELE love... and you wanna say *yet again*......

and would you please tell me where casters got off better than meles in egh?????

[EllisDee37]

For those who want epic elite buffed with unique loot instead of more chests, consider this example:

When I run Shroud it's normally on elite. My cleric can solo heal shortman elite shroud with his eyes closed. But sometime the group I'm running with would rather run hard. Usually this is during a guild run when 6-8 people in the raid group are levels 16-18.

Because elite shroud doesn't give unique loot, just more of it, I'm free to run that hard shroud with them without worry or concern that my run is wasted. If epic elite gives unique loot, that reduces flexibility for endgame players who will not so easily be able to justify running epic hard or epic normal with underpowered buddies or the occasional pug. It will reduce their choices, and make filling lower difficulties more time consuming.

Go with the extra chest mechanic, not unique loot, please.

[Portalcat]

Tangential: now that exceptional spell focus boosts to DCs are a thing, are there any plans to update older spell focus items like Stormreaver's Tablecloth and Cloak of the Dragon to also have this exceptional bonus instead of the essentially meaningless non-stacking bonus they offer now?

[Qhualor]

For those who want epic elite buffed with unique loot instead of more chests, consider this example:

When I run Shroud it's normally on elite. My cleric can solo heal shortman elite shroud with his eyes closed. But sometime the group I'm running with would rather run hard. Usually this is during a guild run when 6-8 people in the raid group are levels 16-18.

Because elite shroud doesn't give unique loot, just more of it, I'm free to run that hard shroud with them without worry or concern that my run is wasted. If epic elite gives unique loot, that reduces flexibility for endgame players who will not so easily be able to justify running epic hard or epic normal with underpowered buddies or the occasional pug. It will reduce their choices, and make filling lower difficulties more time consuming.

Go with the extra chest mechanic, not unique loot, please.

you might be running elite Shroud, but the majority of lfms I see and what I have come across from players is that they run Shroud on hard. no clue why a bunch of level 28s wont run elite when they should be able to roflstomp it, but the incentive of extra chests is not enough reason. same reason why most other raids aren't run normally on elite either, but instead hard. the increased drop rate isn't enough reason. LOB came close if it weren't for the wonky drop rates and that players needed to run hard for specific ingredients, while others needed to run elite. add in all the other reasons why LOB slowly became less run and you have a bunch of reasons why it eventually became a ghost town.

extra chests on elite in this new raid wont cause people to try and run it on elite overall. some will and maybe at first a lot of groups will try, but if the fail rate dips too low than most groups will just stick to hard. having to run elite to tier out your gear would cause people to run elite, but it could also cause people to be more selective. I common thing to happen with elite LOB. I hate when groups are unnecessarily selective, but if you are skilled enough to run elite than you should be deserving of the loot.

theres pros and cons to both sides of this, so I think there needs to be something in the middle or a different suggestion than extra chests or must run elite for a fully tiered out gear.

[Xaxx]

Tangential: now that exceptional spell focus boosts to DCs are a thing, are there any plans to update older spell focus items like Stormreaver's Tablecloth and Cloak of the Dragon to also have this exceptional bonus instead of the essentially meaningless non-stacking bonus they offer now?

and if they did wouldn't that make the new raid items pretty well meaningless to dc casters??? So why would they do that?

[lyrecono]

would you please tell me where the caster love was last riad?

or citw??

citw was all about MELE love... and you wanna say *yet again*......

and would you please tell me where casters got off better than meles in egh?????

yet again as in:
1, the raid crafting system really tends to 2 caster sticks/weapons wielding casters over melee's dps weapons (dc's on the weapons is to low to be functional)
2, the yet again was pointing at:Quote Originally Posted by Henky "the ones suffering here are the melees." meaning that the raid loot is bad for melee's, due to bad crit profiles, no shields etc. with the adventuring area favoring ranged/casters types, there is even less incentive to run it. and less to buy it.
3, CitW was a bore fest for casters and melee's alike. casters and melee's equally got something to do in epic Gianthold, the loot supported both those sides (other sides too btw)

The "caster love" lies in the fact that you don't need to go in a mobs melee range to have fun, not having to emulate magic to make your toon somewhat passable in EE's.
constant jumping and 1 minute clickie activation to self buff non stop, just to ok-ish?
remember the good old time where a melee and his trustworthy greataxe made a positive impact on a quest? Remember the time that you picked up your Carnifex and noticed that the trade of for mote dps payed up?
Today that trade of is gone

[EllisDee37]

you might be running elite Shroud, but the majority of lfms I see and what I have come across from players is that they run Shroud on hard.That's not what I see on argo. Any shroud LFM is almost always for elite.

[Qhualor]

yet again as in:
1, the raid crafting system really tends to 2 caster sticks/weapons wielding casters over melee's dps weapons (dc's on the weapons is to low to be functional)
2, the yet again was pointing at:Quote Originally Posted by Henky "the ones suffering here are the melees." meaning that the raid loot is bad for melee's, due to bad crit profiles, no shields etc. with the adventuring area favoring ranged/casters types, there is even less incentive to run it. and less to buy it.
3, CitW was a bore fest for casters and melee's alike. casters and melee's equally got something to do in epic Gianthold, the loot supported both those sides (other sides too btw)

The "caster love" lies in the fact that you don't need to go in a mobs melee range to have fun, not having to emulate magic to make your toon somewhat passable in EE's.
constant jumping and 1 minute clickie activation to self buff non stop, just to ok-ish?
remember the good old time where a melee and his trustworthy greataxe made a positive impact on a quest? Remember the time that you picked up your Carnifex and noticed that the trade of for mote dps payed up?
Today that trade of is gone

well actually, melee dps never vanished or became less optimal. its still just as good, imo better, as it used to be. its just that staying out of EE melee mob range is "safer" and "easier to complete". self sufficiency and high defense is a must, which is tough for certain classes, but not too hard for certain mixed builds. caster dps should be higher than any melee dps, but melee dps is really not that far behind. the edge that certain builds have over front line melees is the ranged dps that can compare to any melee, push button self healing, usually better saves, better CC and usually better defense.

if the devs are favoring the "caster love" over melees than that's just the wrong way to go. it will only promote more of these caster/ranged builds and those of us still holding on to our melees, pure or not, will continue to go downhill.

[Qhualor]

That's not what I see on argo. Any shroud LFM is almost always for elite.

not what I see on Khyber. theres where the difference lies.

[Violith]

I dont think I like the ML increase with upgrading on a BTC item, granted I can see why it does since the t3 would tear through stuff at lower lvls, but... It'd if that is indeed why then it would be better to have the item have a AML of 22, and have its effects based on tier check the character lvl to see if they can be used. So, while we can use the weapon we made at 22, the t1 effects wouldnt be activated until 24, t2 at 26, and t3 at 28.

not sure how hard it'd be to code, but we do have a weapon in the game that does something similiar, the divine vengence sword from vision of destruction. It checks the equipped characters level, alignment and class to determine which effects are allowed.

[Portalcat]

and if they did wouldn't that make the new raid items pretty well meaningless to dc casters??? So why would they do that?

Absolutely not. You'd still farm out 2 caster sticks, but you'd put enchantment focus 6 on one instead of the universal focus. There'd be a net gain of 1 enchantment DC and more stuff out of the cloak slot for the build. It would make the gearing more flexible, would make FoT relevant for the build which it currently isn't, and still leave the incentives to run the new raids in place.

I ask this question because spell focus as previously implemented doesn't make a lot of sense, but this solution here which has the same name does. The stars align really well for this change both because it makes sense in the abstract and in practice given current gearing and incentive concerns.

[Wipey]

I doubt that considering recent augment stacking change.
Depending on what saves in new content, they should make up their mind, amount of different sources are becoming little ridiculous.
Mastery ( and FoT cloak ) now serves no purpose of course though.

[Zakharov]

I am heavily in favor of loot incentive to run harder difficulties - I think EH/EE quests and raids should drop better loot, period. Not just higher chance of the same loot. Before you complain hear me out.

I play for fun, not necessarily loot. Running the hardest difficulty is fun for me, running anything lower is not fun. I only want to play for fun. I would run everything on EE even if there were zero incentive - no loot, xp, comms, anything. I just want there to be a chance of failure or I'm bored out of my mind.

Most people don't feel this way, most will take whatever path leads to quickest & easiest loot/xp/whatever. This means there needs to be incentive for most people to run higher difficulties or they wont, which means I will have no one to play with. This is exactly what happened with u14.

Before u14 "Epic" was run constantly, there were pugs everywhere. After u14 everything was EN/EH with almost no one running EE. Most of those same people who had no problem running the hardest difficulty before now had no incentive to run the hardest difficulty now. People follow the path of least resistance. If there is no loot incentive they just won't bother, why would you when you get the same thing on EN/EH? Acquiring the same loot faster on harder difficulties is also not much of an incentive. Hardly anyone ran EE FoT or CitW but many people run all the quests from u15 and onward on EE because the loot is better, even if only slightly.

For people who say this would force everyone to run EE.. that's just not true. Whats really happened is the opposite - I can't play EE at all because no one will bother without incentive. If I want to raid I have no choice but to run it on lower difficulties or I'll just never get a group together. Surely there can be a happy middle ground where nobody is forced to play on a difficulty they don't want?

[fmalfeas]

I'm completely fine with the current system of EE providing a slightly stronger version of the items, and/or a better droprate.

What I'm not fine with is locking off 'meat and potatoes' kind of stuff behind EE. Not everyone's got a bunch of stacked PLs, and awesome gear, and full +4 or better tomes to support those EE builds.

Really, I think the solution to wanting to get people running EE stuff would be something like triple CoVs for EE. As in, triple that of EH. That way, if you want your hearts or heart seeds quickly, you run EE. Otherwise, you wait a long, long time.

[Xaxx]

yet again as in:
1, the raid crafting system really tends to 2 caster sticks/weapons wielding casters over melee's dps weapons (dc's on the weapons is to low to be functional)
2, the yet again was pointing at:Quote Originally Posted by Henky "the ones suffering here are the melees." meaning that the raid loot is bad for melee's, due to bad crit profiles, no shields etc. with the adventuring area favoring ranged/casters types, there is even less incentive to run it. and less to buy it.
3, CitW was a bore fest for casters and melee's alike. casters and melee's equally got something to do in epic Gianthold, the loot supported both those sides (other sides too btw)

The "caster love" lies in the fact that you don't need to go in a mobs melee range to have fun, not having to emulate magic to make your toon somewhat passable in EE's.
constant jumping and 1 minute clickie activation to self buff non stop, just to ok-ish?
remember the good old time where a melee and his trustworthy greataxe made a positive impact on a quest? Remember the time that you picked up your Carnifex and noticed that the trade of for mote dps payed up?
Today that trade of is gone


I hate to say this bur start running the numbers now that teir 3s go to 4.5 weapon and +12.... they come out ahead of pretty much everything except for pinion ( and sireth/mohrn for specific builds) and you complaining that meles got shafted..... are the dcs bs... yes I wont disagree there, but even with the crappy dcs of a few of the damage abilities you still have good weapons to be made there... run some numbers and then get back to me.....

As for meles.... I don't know what game you play but it must not be the same as me because my meles still perform just fine in ee. Do plenty of damage and etc.

You know I see people say casters are gimped because of this, or meles are gimped because of that.... every thread about dc casting not being viable I really just laugh at. Every thread about meles not being good enough any more or that meles are second class to casters and archers or anything like that I laugh at. As far as mele at one time had an advantage... over the years of this game the advantage has swung back and forth many times from mele to caster. I can remember a time in the first year of the game that the best group you could have was a healer and 5 fighters..... and all a caster was there for was to hastebot the meles, a year later well things were different. You really wanna continue down the remember when I was more uber road?......

The long and short of it currently is, dc casters get the biggest bost, meles get new top end weaponry and even damage based casters get a bump, but sorry to say that meles get a bigger bump than damage casters ... 150 is already available on random gen loot, and 22% crit chance over 19 or 20 crit chance isn't a big boost... do the weapons consolidate for a damage caster... yes.... but a big boost... not so much. So your average mele comes our much father ahead on this crafting system than shiradi or evo casters by a mile and a half.

Don't argue with me go run the numbers or look at the numbers people have ran, at the current stats with the most advantageous damage procs they're ahead of most everything..... as for the waaaaah its fire damage everythings immune to fire.... 2 years ago yeah... now not much is immune to fire.. and yeah the red dragons are, but the dang weapons have an inborn high end dragon bane..... so they will still work (maybe not quite as well) on the mob people are complaining bout the most......

Are they oood weapons.... yes..... could they be better... yes..... would I like to see a bit more options for the crafting.. yes.... would I like to see a crit enhancement option of some kind at teir 3.... yes... does any of this mean meles got shafted in this system.... not one monkey flipping iota

complain about mele strength all you want and casters not having to engage mobs.... yeah I really don't think we play the same game.....either way it doesn't matter, you will post that , and someone will post withing the next 36 hours about how gimed their caster is compared to meles or something else....my meles and casters run just fine in ee's, most of the people I run withs meles and casters run just fine in ee's...... .. maybe oh maybe oh sultan of swat the problem isn't within the game sometimes... just sayin.

[Nadion]

I think there really needs to a rethink of the balance between 1 and 2 handed weapons, as well as different crit profiles.

For melee effects I'd suggest making them +50% stronger and increasing the proc rate for two handers would be fair. (i.e. boost Touch of Shadows from 8d6 to 12d6, 2nd degree burns proccing 15% instead of 10%).

On crit effects should be scaled to the weapons crit multiplier.

4.5[W] base damage whilst impressive, is reaching a point of seriously degrading the value of deadly weapons and feats/enhancements that boost dice. Making it top out at say 2.5[2W] might be a better concept.

At least with caster effects there has been some attempt (albeit inadequate) to redress the imbalance. I'd suggest instead of the piddly little benefits on offer now, do the following.

1. Remove the option to directly add Potency/Spell Lore/Universal DC to Two Handers.
2. Set it do adding the specific Spellpower/Lore/DC boosts adds the corresponding generic boost.

i.e. Putting Combustion, Fire Lore, and Evocation +6 on a QStaff will also give it Potency, Spell, Lore, and +2 universal DC.

It still wouldn't be quite as good as a pair of one handers (would have less slots and flexibility) but thats reasonable considering you'd only heed half as many mats to make it.

[Hadesborne]

SHIELDS SHIELDS SHIELDS!!! Why is my sword and board Paladin getting further and further behind? Please add shields and add some cool effects on them like say +15% doublestrike for shields only. This isn't unbalancing at all, currently sword and boards players do about 1/10 the dps of TWF and THF builds. That's on a good day. I will beat on a mob for 1 to 2 minutes on EE for a kill and yes, I will mitigate a ton of DMG directed at me. But compare this with a TWF or THF , they will kill the mob in about 10 - 15 seconds. The mob isn't doing any dmg to them because it's dead. That's ALOT of mitigation.

Here are some ideas. Keep in mind they probably need tweaking and some balancing.

Defensive Double-striking - +15% stacking double-strike to main hand weapon(shields only)

Defensive Vampirism - On main hand weapon hit - deal 1d3 un-typed dmg and heal character for 1d3 positive energy (stacking)(shields only) - imho I don't think vampirism belongs anywhere near a pure dps class, it screams tanks.

Incredible Bashing - +40% shield bash - why not, most shields don't have attractive dps profiles anyway. I can tell you my 20% shield bash on my EE bastion is pathetic.

Ramming Bulwark - On main hand vorpal strike, shield bash and knockdown target for 1d4 seconds(no red names)(shields only)

Flaming Phalanx - On being hit - return 5% of incoming dmg to attacker as Fire dmg

Striking Phalanx - On being hit - return 5% of incoming dmg to attacker as Bleeding dmg

Elemental Shielding - Inherent 20% resistance to all elemental dmg

Bastion of Spell Blasting +150 Spell power to one type(Elemental, Positive, Force) - (shield only)(Clerics, Favored Souls, Druids, Paladins only)

Defensive Spell Enhancing +6 DC to one spell school (shield only) (Clerics, Favored Souls, Druids, Paladins only)

Guarded Spell Penetration +7 Spell Penetration (shield only )(Clerics, Favored Souls, Druids, Paladins only)

Just some thoughts - let me know what you think
Please add shields to the list and add shield effects that work for your main hand weapon that will bring us alittle closer to other classes in terms of dmg as well as abilities for healing builds.

Palantin
28 Paladin of Khyber
The Dragon Order of Arcanix

[Oxarhamar]

I think there really needs to a rethink of the balance between 1 and 2 handed weapons, as well as different crit profiles.

For melee effects I'd suggest making them +50% stronger and increasing the proc rate for two handers would be fair. (i.e. boost Touch of Shadows from 8d6 to 12d6, 2nd degree burns proccing 15% instead of 10%).

On crit effects should be scaled to the weapons crit multiplier.

4.5[W] base damage whilst impressive, is reaching a point of seriously degrading the value of deadly weapons and feats/enhancements that boost dice. Making it top out at say 2.5[2W] might be a better concept.

At least with caster effects there has been some attempt (albeit inadequate) to redress the imbalance. I'd suggest instead of the piddly little benefits on offer now, do the following.

1. Remove the option to directly add Potency/Spell Lore/Universal DC to Two Handers.
2. Set it do adding the specific Spellpower/Lore/DC boosts adds the corresponding generic boost.

i.e. Putting Combustion, Fire Lore, and Evocation +6 on a QStaff will also give it Potency, Spell, Lore, and +2 universal DC.

It still wouldn't be quite as good as a pair of one handers (would have less slots and flexibility) but thats reasonable considering you'd only heed half as many mats to make it.

I agree

[Skavenaps]

(Clerics, Favored Souls, Druids, Paladins only)


Sure, now add to ALL weapon effects (all classes but Clerics, Favored Souls, Druids, Paladins) and im pretty sure that you will understand how i feel about that idea.

...

[Henky]

2, the yet again was pointing at:Quote Originally Posted by Henky "the ones suffering here are the melees." meaning that the raid loot is bad for melee's, due to bad crit profiles, no shields etc. with the adventuring area favoring ranged/casters types, there is even less incentive to run it. and less to buy it.
My comment was only to the scaling on the wilderness area. As a melee if you want to farm ingredients there you should go alone and blitzing, or let the Energy Bursters/AOE do the kills in a party. You can easly be sorrounded by 20+ undead in a second.

Btw, yes, melee tactics (and i don't mean paladin splashes with high charisma or stunning monks) need a lot of love, a +15 tactic of your choice is needed on that weapons.

Not going to comment about crit profiles or shield, enough has been said.

[Henky]

For melee effects I'd suggest making them +50% stronger and increasing the proc rate for two handers would be fair. (i.e. boost Touch of Shadows from 8d6 to 12d6, 2nd degree burns proccing 15% instead of 10%).
When they fix off-hand proc on cleave/gcleave/lay waste AND fix the animation of the Momentum Swing with TWF we can talk about balance on THF vs TWF.

And remember, a TWF need at least 2 weapons, that means 2xingredients and covs, if they make THF stronger, they should reduce the ingredients needed for crafting on a TWF, or increase it on a THF.

[Nadion]

When they fix off-hand proc on cleave/gcleave/lay waste AND fix the animation of the Momentum Swing with TWF we can talk about balance on THF vs TWF.

And remember, a TWF need at least 2 weapons, that means 2xingredients and covs, if they make THF stronger, they should reduce the ingredients needed for crafting on a TWF, or increase it on a THF.

AFAIK off hand not working with cleave is both logical and WAI.

Increasing effects on THF by 50% would still result in TWF having an edge (would need at 80% boost to fully compensate for the off hand procs), but it would be close enough that THF would remain viable. That TWF would require more mats is fair given that they would still be getting extra capability.

[harry-pancreas]

Dwarvencraft Fire, Void, Radiance, Healing, Ice, Sonic, Acid, Kinetic, Lightning, Repair Lore
Spell Crit +22% in the respective Lore (For 2-handed weapons: +2 Weapon Enhancement Bonus)



this is stupid, and i don't use to whine about loot (i'm a caster, i don't hit much with my 2 handed stick. I give a **** about +2 bonus really...).

why make 2-handers and 1 handers different at all ?

2 one-handers will always be better if you know watcha doing, but 2 handers should be appealing too

trying to make people use orbs ? Most will just make 2 1 handed sticks.

[Wizza]

Dwarvencraft Fire, Void, Radiance, Healing, Ice, Sonic, Acid, Kinetic, Lightning, Repair Lore
Spell Crit +22% in the respective Lore (For 2-handed weapons: +2 Weapon Enhancement Bonus)



this is stupid, and i don't use to whine about loot (i'm a caster, i don't hit much with my 2 handed stick. I give a **** about +2 bonus really...).

why make 2-handers and 1 handers different at all ?

2 one-handers will always be better if you know watcha doing, but 2 handers should be appealing too

trying to make people use orbs ? Most will just make 2 1 handed sticks.

+2 Enhancement bonus means +6 Implement Spellpower.

[harry-pancreas]

+2 Enhancement bonus means +6 Implement Spellpower.

yeah... was that sarcarsm ? :)

+6 XD
also there are a few 2 handed divine casters but...it's just stupid IMO.

[danotmano1998]

Appreciate the adjustments for the ML's of these, it's a step in the right direction (IMO).

Except you are discouraging upgrading them by raising their ML's.
Please consider removing this restriction. Thank you.

[Henky]

AFAIK off hand not working with cleave is both logical and WAI.

Increasing effects on THF by 50% would still result in TWF having an edge (would need at 80% boost to fully compensate for the off hand procs), but it would be close enough that THF would remain viable. That TWF would require more mats is fair given that they would still be getting extra capability.
If it's logical and WAI they should change the animation for TWF, you are loosing a lot of DPS if you use it.

[Oxarhamar]

If it's logical and WAI they should change the animation for TWF, you are loosing a lot of DPS if you use it.

what they should do is change Perfect TWF which benefits THF to this:

Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting:
Prereq: Greater Two-Weapon fighting
Benefit: You have a chance to produce an offhand attack along with your main hand attack while using the Cleave type attacks chance is equal to half your normal offhand chance.

[Hathorian]

wow, these look awesome! Great work Dr O and the rest of the Dev team!

Question...what is the binding status of ingots, scales and Plogiston? BTA?

[dunklezhan]

A suggestion in general, for Tiered loot and how this might work for that whole 'reward elite play', rather than having straight normal/hard/elite loot, or a tiering system using ingredients only available at certain tiers. The idea is that this is a hybrid between the two systems. I will point out now that I am not an 'elite' player, I am casual. And I firmly believe elite players should at the very least get the best loot faster than other players. I have no particular issue with Elite players getting the BEST loot, but that appears to be the point of conflict here, so this suggestion is based on everyone getting there, but elite players getting there way ahead of the rest:

1. allow appropriate tiers of the item to drop straight from each difficulty tier but with a very low drop rate, (so nothing on casual, potential for T1 on normal, T2 hard, T3 elite). These could be the equivalent differences between current norm/hard/elite gear, or could be more similar to the Tiers of raid loot. Whatever. Power balance of items from quests vs raids is a very fine balance and I don't pretend to be able to get that right. The important thing is that the levels effectively represent upgradeable tiers and that it be rare for them to drop at the relevant tier for that difficulty level.

2. Allow lower tiers of preupgraded tiers of item to drop at those higher difficulties at a higher rate than the 'max tier' for that same difficulty level, and very slightly higher than the max tier of the previous difficulty (e.g. on elite you should have next to no chance of a T3 on elite, but still have a slightly better chance of a T2 dropping than if you were just running the quest on hard).

3. The drop for ANY tiered item at ANY level would have to still be (very) low, but endless grind can be prevented by adding an escalating % chance per completion (a SMALL percentage, less then 1% certainly. Just enough to make it more likely each time). To me, that keeps the feel of 'get a better item for running at different levels... but still keeps those items in eventual reach for players who are willing to take longer to get there

4. have recipes for each weapon and tier, but have them all use different combinations of the same number of ingredient flavours (say there's, I dunno, 5 different ingredients types total, each recipe uses all five types at all tiers but in different proportions and quantities). I mean this to be a bit like GS but without the different 'levels' of ingredient. This is "dumbed down" in comparison but easy to grasp and follow and maintains that same 'recipe' feel as GS

5. Include a Tier 4 for each item which cannot drop and must be crafted (so even the elite players have something to work towards if they get lucky and get a T3 item). This could entail 'significant' grind. I guess. If you really must. I'd rather it didn't, especially if you continue to run on elite at level for your ingredients.

6. Allow tiering up from T1 all the way to T4.

7. Allow crafting of blanks (i.e. T0 items) using just those ingredients which can then be tiered to T1, and up to T4. Eventually, even if you are the unluckiest looter in the world and NEVER get an actual item drop, you can still have a T4 item.

8. Make ingredients BTA or unbound but certainly not BTC, for the love of mike.



I might run on Hard and get very, very lucky with a pre-upgraded T2 item in one Hard run! I might get slightly less lucky and got a T1 item after ten Hard runs, but all the while I'm getting ingredients too. Once the tier I want drops, I could choose to run elite to more quickly get the ingredients I need to get it to T4 (or get lucky and get a T3 item, and I can vendor my T2), or I could go run normal, and get a small but steady amount of the various ingredients needed, but eventually achieve the same thing as running elite a much fewer number of times. Either way, it should be quicker to run on elite and get a T2 or T3 to drop and then get it to T4 than running normal until you get get a T1 and upgrading that.

Not sure whether the items should be BTC, BTCoE, BTA, unbound or what. I wouldn't care if they were BTC if they were worth clearly more plat than a random lootgen of similar ML so there was clear reward for the drop even if you can't really use it. Or if you could break them down for ingredients.



Would that work?


A last minute thought, and I'm just putting this out there really: how about lowering the drop rate of everything (base items, tiers of items, ingredients) once the player is 2 levels over the quest difficulty. When at cap running cap content, this will never happen. When not at cap and presumably acquiring levelling gear, this discourages farming and gives TRing/eTRing a bit of a purpose beyond the past lives, slowing down the loot acquisition and therefore slowing down the power creep, as well as encouraging more grouping/play through at level.

I'm also more or less - more or less - fine with store pots of some kind to increase the ingredient drop rate (in fact, lets have those for cannith crafting anyway as well as the crafting XP boosters and wilderness slayer count boosters), provided the basic "drop rate:numbers required" isn't stupid in the first place (CoVs would be what I would describe as a stupid "drop rate: numbers required"). I'd prefer not to add anything to the store I can't loot in game reasonably often though.

[Hathorian]

Please make all ingredients unbound, similar to shroud (although shroud does have shards of power so maybe one ingredient could be bound).

These weapons already seem quite powerful. A few more options per tier would be good (as would a system for non-weapons) but I think adding crit range/mult would be overpowered at this point. I think if you had tiering for weapon effects, similar to bursts, where higher crit mults give bigger weapon effects that would help even things out a bit between weapons.

Also, if you could move the +7 spell pen to tier 1 or 3 that would be nice for DC casters as the three best options are all currently in tier 2.

[Hathorian]

would you please tell me where the caster love was last riad?

or citw??

citw was all about MELE love... and you wanna say *yet again*......

and would you please tell me where casters got off better than meles in egh?????

lol. apparently lyrecono is the 'nerf caster all the time no matter what' type. I posed in another thread...monster saves have gone up at roughly twice the rate that caster DCs have gone up since just before the start of the new epic system. there has been no DC caster love for a long, long time.

[Kamode_Corebasher]

I have yet to read this whole thread, but I agree with bbqzor's whole post, especially this:


Feedback Ahoy:
I hope a lot of adjustments are yet (to be) made. There are gaps and holes in whats there, as well as glaring situations where some choices are just plain terrible and I feel for those not savvy enough to spot them before wasting materials on things which either wont work as advertised, or will lead to people feeling bad about their character underperforming the first time they group up with someone who made a mechanically sounder item. Thats the sort of thing I hope these threads catch, so again heres hoping. Thanks for reading, cheers.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/436424-Thunder-Forged-Weapons-a-formal-introduction?p=5256606#post5256606

[Hathorian]

Skybreaker is a nice weapon but these absolutely blow it out of the water. That said...I think having double base weapon damage and reducing the number before the brackets would be pretty awesome (epic even!). i.e. 2[4d6] rather than 4[2d6].

I'm re-reading the original post....please don't make the scales a common drop and the Phlogiston an uncommon drop. They should both drop every raid similar to how hcomms drop in FoT. You can always adjust the # required to upgrade the loot. I prefer guaranteed drops and a sense of progress rather than commonly getting skunked.

[Hathorian]

One other thing.....thanks for putting an orange slot on the base item!!! I think it is outstanding that you made this change. The base item would be totally useless to casters otherwise.

One other recommendation/suggestion...change the tier 3 slot to red instead of colorless and get rid of the option to take a red slot in tier 2. Melees are getting something for baselines tiers 1 and 2 and casters are getting almost nothing....but I think that is ok....

[Nightmanis]

One other thing.....thanks for putting an orange slot on the base item!!! I think it is outstanding that you made this change. The base item would be totally useless to casters otherwise.

One other recommendation/suggestion...change the tier 3 slot to red instead of colorless and get rid of the option to take a red slot in tier 2. Melees are getting something for baselines tiers 1 and 2 and casters are getting almost nothing....but I think that is ok....

That slot idea isn't bad. Just get rid if the red slot at tier 2 outright, and change the colorless to red.

Also, just a suggestion to lessen the power of my suggestion, just give everything elasticity or the like for melee weapons. Don't increase the crit range at all, just increase the multiplier on 19-20. The last thing we need is for a falchion to rule everything with a 10-20.

[lyrecono]

lol. apparently lyrecono is the 'nerf caster all the time no matter what' type. I posed in another thread...monster saves have gone up at roughly twice the rate that caster DCs have gone up since just before the start of the new epic system. there has been no DC caster love for a long, long time.

not realy, my casters still hate the EE mob saves, but atleast my necro and shiradi sorc are thriving (my dc caster cleric is still screwed, never bothered to play him enough to get decent dc back on him)

mob's saves might have doubled, mob hp has more then doubled. so melee's have to stay in range longer, increasing the risk. i don't want casters to be nerfed, i want melee's handed better tools for the job they were designed to do, not a bunch of whet noodles we get now.

[DrOctothorpe]

Hi everyone. Thank you again for your feedback. I can’t repeat enough how valuable it is to us as Update 21 moves toward release. I wanted to take a moment to address some of the topics that have come up in this and the other U21 Treasure Lamannia threads.

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.

Extra Commendations of Valor in Thunderholme
Speaking of which, we have put extra Commendations of Valor in a) chests in the Temple of the Deathwyrm raid, in amounts that scale to difficulty, and b) chests in the Thunderholme adventure area.

DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.

Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.


Thanks again,
Dr#

[sirgog]

Hi everyone. Thank you again for your feedback. I can’t repeat enough how valuable it is to us as Update 21 moves toward release. I wanted to take a moment to address some of the topics that have come up in this and the other U21 Treasure Lamannia threads.

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.


Why not just delete the Epic Elite difficulty then?

You know that, regardless of player skill, EH always offers more loot drops per hour than EE. We all know that too. Any group capable of completing EE can do EH in less than half the time, unless the limiting factor on speedrunning a quest is covering distance.

And finally, you know that the vast majority of the playerbase capable of completing content on EE is focused on optimization, meaning that running EH twice will be done in preference to running EE once.

My suggestion (same combat stats on all difficulties, lower ML on EE than EH and lower on EH than EN) was generally well received, will create an incentive to run EE that caters to the majority of people capable of doing so, and will address any concerns you have about increasing maximum character power too high.

[sirgog]

Hi everyone. Thank you again for your feedback. I can’t repeat enough how valuable it is to us as Update 21 moves toward release. I wanted to take a moment to address some of the topics that have come up in this and the other U21 Treasure Lamannia threads.


DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.

Because of the way you generate mob stats, anything with a save-or-incap effect that is balanced in EE will be obscenely overpowered in EH, and anything balanced in EH will be utterly worthless in EE.

An EH-ready player (first life, well chosen but not super rare gear, and a solid but not optimized build) will be ~5-8 DCs behind an EE-ready player (multiple useful past lives, well chosen and rare gear, fairly minmaxxed build). So saves on mobs should differ by ~8 points between the difficulties, not the ~20 points they do now.



Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.



Critical profiles stack multiplicatively with everything else in game. The only other thing that does this is doublestrike or attack speed (attack speed increases that exceed Haste). The latter causes lag, the former is bland but workable.

It can't be stated enough that the present system already renders almost every Thunderforged weapon obsolete.

If you want to balance around crit profiles that are lower than the Khopesh that is fine - but make the Thunderforged Khopesh have a weaker crit profile so that it isn't obsoleting all the other Thunderforged weapons and de-facto deleting them after you spend so much work on the art for them.

Or, have the Thunderforged weapons with weaker critical profiles get a bonus to doublestrike natively that the Khopesh does not receive.

[Satyriasys]

Why not just delete the Epic Elite difficulty then?

You know that, regardless of player skill, EH always offers more loot drops per hour than EE. We all know that too. Any group capable of completing EE can do EH in less than half the time, unless the limiting factor on speedrunning a quest is covering distance.

And finally, you know that the vast majority of the playerbase capable of completing content on EE is focused on optimization, meaning that running EH twice will be done in preference to running EE once.

My suggestion (same combat stats on all difficulties, lower ML on EE than EH and lower on EH than EN) was generally well received, will create an incentive to run EE that caters to the majority of people capable of doing so, and will address any concerns you have about increasing maximum character power too high.

He just said they will be adjusting the rates to make higher difficulties worth it. If the drop rate for a rare item on EE were twice as much as EH would that not be worth it? With the level cap increasing to 30 running EE is going to be much faster than currently as our power increases.


we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed.

[nibel]

DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.

Just an opinion directly related about this point, from someone that DO NOT play EE, unless I'm allowed to pike.

The traditional consensus in the forums about anything DC-related is that it must work 95% of the time or it is useless. You "need" high 70s in your Finger of Death DC because the EE mobs have ~50 Fortitude save, thus this is the mark where your spell land all the time, unless they roll a 20.

Everything DC related when put in discussion on the forums boils down if you can either rise the DC enough for it to be as effective as a no-save thing (as discussed above), or if you can spam it fast enough that the DC doesn't matter (as the old Cursespewing).

The main problem it that the gap on mob saves between Epic Hard and Epic Elite is so vast that something that auto-land on EH might have problems landing on EE. No matter how you thinker around with the DC. If you turn it to be "effective" on EH, it will never land on EE. If you turn it to be "effective" on EE, it will land on EH all the time.

I can see only two ways to avoid this pitfall: Plain percentage proc chance (like most Tier 3 Greensteel stuff), or crit-based proc chance (that have the problem of benefiting rapier-like crit weapons over axe-like crit weapons). But one thing is certain: If you have one, you should not have the other.

IE: Your effect should only proc X% of the time, or only proc on a crit. NOT Proccing X% of the time you crit.

[Ungood]

Hi everyone. Thank you again for your feedback. I can’t repeat enough how valuable it is to us as Update 21 moves toward release. I wanted to take a moment to address some of the topics that have come up in this and the other U21 Treasure Lamannia threads.

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.

Extra Commendations of Valor in Thunderholme
Speaking of which, we have put extra Commendations of Valor in a) chests in the Temple of the Deathwyrm raid, in amounts that scale to difficulty, and b) chests in the Thunderholme adventure area.

DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.

Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.


Thanks again,
Dr#

Thank you for the response.

Personally I think this system works better overall, and will hopefully address one of the main faultings of the LoB quest.

The way the Loot works right now, is:

Normal = Tier 1
Hard = Tier 1 & Tier 2
Elite = Tier 1, Tier 2, & Tier 3


This is a positively brilliant idea, as that way, people can run whatever difficulty they feel the most comfortable with, and get their weapon to the highest possible upgrade they have the skill and means to acquire.

It is sorta like scaling loot, without the need to make 3 variants of the same thing, Which is a great plan IMHO.

I did notice that the gear seemed very build dependent, but if it is meant to be an End-Game item, then this is a pretty good plan to be "Build Dependent" as the Heroic Build does not change any at the end game, only the ED that is backing it up, so there is not as much a need to for a "generic Skull-Buster" that a TR might want to invest in because they will need across several classes, and thus they can focus on an item that synergies with their build and play-style better.

Anyway, overall, this is looking to be a great system, and a new fun style of gear. Can't wait to see what becomes of it.

[Ungood]

Because of the way you generate mob stats, anything with a save-or-incap effect that is balanced in EE will be obscenely overpowered in EH, and anything balanced in EH will be utterly worthless in EE.

Not really, it just means that EH mobs won't make their save, they are not going to get "More Incapacitated" then an EE mob that failed it save will.

No different then a HH mob always failing at the Radiance Guard, and a HE Mob saves some of the time.

[sirgog]

He just said they will be adjusting the rates to make higher difficulties worth it. If the drop rate for a rare item on EE were twice as much as EH would that not be worth it? With the level cap increasing to 30 running EE is going to be much faster than currently as our power increases.

Look at Caught in the Web. (Not getting run much now but leave that aside).

A 6 chest EH run takes a PUG 60-75 minutes.
A 2 chest EE run takes a VERY well coordinated group 60-75 minutes. A 6 chest EE run takes ~240-330 minutes.

Drop rates for items are believed to be 24% (EH 6 chest), 10% (EE 2 chest), 30% (EE 5 chest). Commendations are not that relevant now as FoT is better for them, but they are known to be 0.6/2/2. Add in 20th rewards (0.05 items total per run, but for a player that just wants one specific item, the selection is probably 5 times as good as having an item drop in chest, so we will call this 0.25 items per run) and you have:

EH 6 chest: 0.49 items/run
EE 2 chest: 0.35 items/run
EE 6 chest: 0.55 items/run

In fact, even if there was a GUARANTEED item per EE 6 chest completion, the efficiency-minded player would run EH.

Now I hate that efficiency mindset and don't partake in it myself, but the fact that it is real stops me finding groups for a good deal of otherwise fun quests.

[redspecter23]

DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.



Unfortunately, whenever a DC on a weapon is involved it's either so high it might as well not be there or it's potentially underpowered in at least some content. Let's look at a best case scenario and say that all these weapons are 95% success against current mobs. Even in that situation, we as players still have no clue what the next update might bring as far as mob saves are concerned. One update could invalidate a weapon that was amazing just a few days earlier.

I really hope you look at the reasons for including DC's to begin with on what will be endgame gear for years to come (if the 30 level cap stays in place as long as predicted). If this is truly endgame gear, then why bother with a DC at all? What are you balancing it against in the future? If you only want it to hit 50% of the time in EE, then scale back the effect to 50% and remove the DC. DC's scare players as we have no idea exactly how useful the item might be in the future. Combining a % chance to proc with a DC means that even if we see our weapon proc, there is still a chance of failure. "chance for a chance" isn't fun at all.

I'd imagine you are trying to find a balance on these weapons such that one with a reflex DC will effect casters and heavy melee a good portion of the time while it's essentially ineffective against evasive mobs. For better or worse, I'm going to say players HATE seeing that evasion message pop up from a weapon proc. It produces negative responses from someone that has put a lot of grind into the weapon. We don't want to see complete failure. We don't want to see "save, save, save". We do want to see the full effect of the weapon each time it procs. I'll go out on a limb and say that many players would rather see an effect always hit but for slightly less damage than a weapon that rocks in EN and EH but looks poor by comparison in EE. We want to see our weapons have the same effectiveness across difficulties. Just ask the artificer players how much they like any runearm with a reflex save. The answer is that they don't. losing a proc completely to evasion really bites.

[Lencrennis]

I understand that you want to include augment slots as tier options so your crafting system stacks with the established augment system. It's a fun and easy way to balloon the number of possibilities, but I do see that augment slots are generally much less powerful than the (non-broken) tier 2 abilities in Thunderforged, but provide a way to justify the grind two or three years from now when these items are largely obsolete and only niche flavor builds that want lots of newer and better augments really use them.

I suggest the following.

T3 innate: red

T2 buy options:
blue + colorless
yellow + colorless

[Drwaz99]

Hi everyone. Thank you again for your feedback. I can’t repeat enough how valuable it is to us as Update 21 moves toward release. I wanted to take a moment to address some of the topics that have come up in this and the other U21 Treasure Lamannia threads.

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.

Extra Commendations of Valor in Thunderholme
Speaking of which, we have put extra Commendations of Valor in a) chests in the Temple of the Deathwyrm raid, in amounts that scale to difficulty, and b) chests in the Thunderholme adventure area.

DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.

Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.


Thanks again,
Dr#

Increased drop rates have to be very significant (more than we see on live right now) to make up for loot tier-ing being dissolved. As sirgog mentioned, if you can run EE's, you can usually run EH 3-4x as fast. It will be the preferred difficulty for farming items. The drop rates need to refelect that and not be minutely different (as it is on live now, it's hardly noticeable).

The fact that you say your just listening and looking at the numbers (in the is case for item DC's) historically means you aren't going to do anything anytime soon to adjust it. It's the same answer we got back for Vcoms rates. If the DC's aren't even viable in EE's, it's another reason the loot will be massively devalued and/or another reason many will see as to not run EE's.

If you don't want to mess with Crit Profiles, many of the weapons will not be nearly as good as CiTW weapons. You can shift it all you want later, but the lack of it now, on release date will create a large majority of the crafting incredibly inferior to weapons available to almost everyone via Raiders boxes. Basically just flavor weapons. We need much better than flavor to keep us busy at the endgame.

So with all of that, there won't be much to do once you play the raids a few times. A month, maybe 2 and we are back to where we are now, with little incentive to do much other than ER our brains out.

Disappointing but not all that surprising.

[Satyriasys]

Look at Caught in the Web.

I agree. That raid needs some serious attention (especially after everyone getting free citw weapons) Not to mention FoT which is way faster for Commendations.

All I can say is judging by Docs comments it sounds as though he will be looking into incentives and hopefully getting them right.

-DrOctothorpe

With the shift to difficulty=droprates please have a look at the other raids (especially CitW) and adjust them accordingly.

[rest]

Items effects that have a DC you might as well just scrap.

[Havok.cry]

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference. Personally I have always hated, with a passion, the n/h/e treasure. I think it was one of the worst changes to the game in my entire time playing (a few changes trump it, but not many.). I really really like the setup the shroud has with extra raid chests on harder difficulties, and would like to see more of this. The n/h/e treasure only serves to place divisions within the player base, and while some people like those divisions, I think the game and the community are worse off for them. Others are free to disagree, but that is what I believe. So, thank you for this, it is a serious improvement in my book.


Extra Commendations of Valor in Thunderholme
Speaking of which, we have put extra Commendations of Valor in a) chests in the Temple of the Deathwyrm raid, in amounts that scale to difficulty, and b) chests in the Thunderholme adventure area. Nice idea, I hope it works out well for us all. My first question about this is, "Why not the second raid's chests also?"


DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.
I'll be honest with you, past experience will not let me believe this statement, until something actually changes. I do hope it does, but my faith in turbine is not up to trusting this yet. I am not so concerned about the half damage on a save effects as I am about the save for no effect abilities, especially the fear effects. They look very interesting, but those saves put them in a position that will see me never use them despite my interest. Here is a question: Can you scale the DC based on the teir of the weapon, rather than the teir of the ability? That could be interesting.

On a side note, are you planning on adding in more raids/quests that drop ingredients that could add further recipies to this crafting system? Examples would be blue/green/black/white dragons that add in recepies for the other elements, sort of completing the system over time? I ask this because, to be frank, with only neg/fire, this system feels incomplete to me, and I am hoping it will not stay that way.

[Andoris]

DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.

Dr#

Instead of using DC's how about auto success on proc, and then adjust the proc rate to fit the effect you want

That way as new content comes out and you adjust mobs saves, this gear stays somewhat relevant.

Basing weapon effects on a DC is very short-sighted thinking.

[Andoris]

Just an opinion directly related about this point, from someone that DO NOT play EE, unless I'm allowed to pike.

The traditional consensus in the forums about anything DC-related is that it must work 95% of the time or it is useless. You "need" high 70s in your Finger of Death DC because the EE mobs have ~50 Fortitude save, thus this is the mark where your spell land all the time, unless they roll a 20.

Everything DC related when put in discussion on the forums boils down if you can either rise the DC enough for it to be as effective as a no-save thing (as discussed above), or if you can spam it fast enough that the DC doesn't matter (as the old Cursespewing).

The main problem it that the gap on mob saves between Epic Hard and Epic Elite is so vast that something that auto-land on EH might have problems landing on EE. No matter how you thinker around with the DC. If you turn it to be "effective" on EH, it will never land on EE. If you turn it to be "effective" on EE, it will land on EH all the time.

I can see only two ways to avoid this pitfall: Plain percentage proc chance (like most Tier 3 Greensteel stuff), or crit-based proc chance (that have the problem of benefiting rapier-like crit weapons over axe-like crit weapons). But one thing is certain: If you have one, you should not have the other.

IE: Your effect should only proc X% of the time, or only proc on a crit. NOT Proccing X% of the time you crit.

I agree with your final statement -- but you would have been better not posting anything but the last line. High 70's FoD is not even possible, and personally I am okay with that.. Caster DC's on EE are finally balanced correctly -- we can use necro on low fort mobs and enchant on high fort mobs -- and some mobs.. well we just hope that the rest of the party takes care of that.

So.. agree with thesis.. but don't ruin your credibility by stating things that make no sense (with regards to DCs)

[Portalcat]

The traditional consensus in the forums about anything DC-related is that it must work 95% of the time or it is useless. You "need" high 70s in your Finger of Death DC because the EE mobs have ~50 Fortitude save, thus this is the mark where your spell land all the time, unless they roll a 20.

The max sustainable buffed necro DC for a maxed completionist pale master running in Magister right now is 69



Having actual no-fail gets silly really quickly. In EH, a pale master runs away with most of the kills before other characters even get to swing at them. It's not challenging in the least and while it's a bit of fun for the character in godmode, it's no fun at all for the rest of the party.

[Seikojin]

Hi everyone. Thank you again for your feedback. I can’t repeat enough how valuable it is to us as Update 21 moves toward release. I wanted to take a moment to address some of the topics that have come up in this and the other U21 Treasure Lamannia threads.

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.

Extra Commendations of Valor in Thunderholme
Speaking of which, we have put extra Commendations of Valor in a) chests in the Temple of the Deathwyrm raid, in amounts that scale to difficulty, and b) chests in the Thunderholme adventure area.

DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.

Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.


Thanks again,
Dr#

Thanks for the info and working soo much with us.

[sirgog]

Instead of using DC's how about auto success on proc, and then adjust the proc rate to fit the effect you want

That way as new content comes out and you adjust mobs saves, this gear stays somewhat relevant.

Basing weapon effects on a DC is very short-sighted thinking.


This. People still like Shroud damage effects.

Had Lightning Strike been designed as "3%, Reflex DC 35 negates, 200+20d20 damage" it would have been as powerful at release as the actual version was, but would have been rubbish once you got to Amrath elites (much less old epics).

A temporary incap proc should look like this:

One handed version:
"Epic Paralyzing: This weapon has a chance to paralyze foes on hit. Proc rate 3%, duration 3 seconds, monster is unable to move or act but not helpless, against monsters of CR 40 or lower, this effect is extended to 6 seconds".

Two handed version:
"Epic Paralyzing: This weapon has a chance to paralyze foes on hit. Proc rate 5%, duration 3 seconds, monster is unable to move or act but not helpless, against monsters of CR 40 or lower, this effect is extended to 6 seconds".

Note the proc rate difference, to account for two handers getting in less attacks per second.




Personally I have always hated, with a passion, the n/h/e treasure. I think it was one of the worst changes to the game in my entire time playing (a few changes trump it, but not many.). I really really like the setup the shroud has with extra raid chests on harder difficulties, and would like to see more of this. The n/h/e treasure only serves to place divisions within the player base, and while some people like those divisions, I think the game and the community are worse off for them. Others are free to disagree, but that is what I believe. So, thank you for this, it is a serious improvement in my book.


There are almost no items where the EE version is much better than the EH or EN one, or does something the EH/EN versions can not achieve. Really the only one that comes to mind is the 150% Fort armor that is 125% on EN (Leaves of the Forest) and some of the augment slot changes in Gianthold gear - other than that, it's a couple of percent more DPS here or there as a 5d4 mutation becomes 6d4, or +7 becomes +8.

The difference between a set of all EE gear and all EH gear is usually two or three past lives or less. Massively stacked past lives place much bigger differences between players than minor gear gradation ever will, and epic past lives exacerbate that further.

[maddong]

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.

You probably need to have EH be only twice the drop rate of EN but have EE be 10x the drop rate of EN then....

[slarden]

Hi everyone. Thank you again for your feedback. I can’t repeat enough how valuable it is to us as Update 21 moves toward release. I wanted to take a moment to address some of the topics that have come up in this and the other U21 Treasure Lamannia threads.

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.

Extra Commendations of Valor in Thunderholme
Speaking of which, we have put extra Commendations of Valor in a) chests in the Temple of the Deathwyrm raid, in amounts that scale to difficulty, and b) chests in the Thunderholme adventure area.

DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.

Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.


Thanks again,
Dr#

Thank you very much for the feedback. As someone that runs raids on all difficulties I think this is a great approach. There needs to be some rewards for running EE but it shouldn't be so big that people are complaining that there is nothing to do a month after the release. It will also ensure that EN raids get filled with some vets.

I like the 100% 200% 300% loot for the last chest in Shroud on the final chest only as a template. Getting triple the drop rate is a nice incentive to run on EE while not being so amazing that it kills raiding at the lower levels.

Com rates in chest should be scaled higher for higher difficulties also.

[Oxarhamar]

*snip
Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.


Thanks again,
Dr#

Crit profiles are not tapped out the are pigeon holed to very few build or weapons & will still most likely benefit from using weapons with increased range and multipliers than using these weapon

[Ungood]

This. People still like Shroud damage effects.

Had Lightning Strike been designed as "3%, Reflex DC 35 negates, 200+20d20 damage" it would have been as powerful at release as the actual version was, but would have been rubbish once you got to Amrath elites (much less old epics).

A temporary incap proc should look like this:

One handed version:
"Epic Paralyzing: This weapon has a chance to paralyze foes on hit. Proc rate 3%, duration 3 seconds, monster is unable to move or act but not helpless, against monsters of CR 40 or lower, this effect is extended to 6 seconds".

Two handed version:
"Epic Paralyzing: This weapon has a chance to paralyze foes on hit. Proc rate 5%, duration 3 seconds, monster is unable to move or act but not helpless, against monsters of CR 40 or lower, this effect is extended to 6 seconds".

Note the proc rate difference, to account for two handers getting in less attacks per second.


Eh, nah.

Mobs these are "Epic Mobs" and thus really should get the chance to resist or have some means to stop such an effect from just outright owning them all the time.

Personally, I think Elite Mobs should have a 50% resist chance, with Hard Mobs having a 25% chance, with Normal Mobs having their 5% (1 in 20) to save.

Otherwise, it's just auto-hold effects, and that's just not a challenge.

[J-mann]

Hi everyone. Thank you again for your feedback. I can’t repeat enough how valuable it is to us as Update 21 moves toward release. I wanted to take a moment to address some of the topics that have come up in this and the other U21 Treasure Lamannia threads.

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.

Extra Commendations of Valor in Thunderholme
Speaking of which, we have put extra Commendations of Valor in a) chests in the Temple of the Deathwyrm raid, in amounts that scale to difficulty, and b) chests in the Thunderholme adventure area.

DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.

Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.


Thanks again,
Dr#

Doc a few things,

If you dont mess with crit/damage profiles you might as well have certain weapons not exist. Due to making on crit effects, and making them not scale to crit multipliers, flachions, kopeshes, and rapiers will reign supreme. Either scale the procs or modify the profiles either way I dont see certain TF items being better than their CitW weapons (examples being sireth and Pinion) at current unless you modify the profiles as was done for CitW items.

On the same note, you REALLY need to do something to bring 2h and 1hers closer to parody. Currently 2wf is MUCH further ahead with the current scheme of building the dps into the procs due to the higher rate of attack for 2wf. You need to make adjustments for 2h vs 1h, such as a hire damage proc on a 2her, or higher proc percents on 2hers, or make the new weapons VASTLY increase glancing blow damage and procs.

Basically customization is one of the biggest strengths of ddo, and the enhancement system is NOT going to overcome the imbalance you have in these weapons. You need to modify the base stats of these items to balance them or you will find that certain setups (specifically 2wf with either kopeshes or rapiers) will be superior to all other combos, and for a large number of them VASTLY so.

[Cetus]

Hi everyone. Thank you again for your feedback. I can’t repeat enough how valuable it is to us as Update 21 moves toward release. I wanted to take a moment to address some of the topics that have come up in this and the other U21 Treasure Lamannia threads.

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.

Thank you very much for providing consistent updates on your work and thought process

Treasure Scaling:

I very much disagree with this philosophy because of the rather low replay value it generates. Caught in the web is a good starting example, where the only incentive to pursue higher difficulties was only an additional comm and (I think?) higher weapon drop rates.

The incentive to run norm/hard for casual folks is already there. The items and the upgrade ingredients are all attainable on norm/hard. With the existence of raid timer bypasses, it would still be more efficient to ransack the chests on say, hard, than run your ostensibly "worthwhile" EE difficulty for the higher drop rate incentive.

The only real incentive to run EE, in my view, is further weapon upgrades that are only attainable by EE capable players or rare item drops that may or may not be unbound (draconic soul gem is a good example).

This will provide incentive for both player groups, it will add replay value, and it will keep the players who maximize their characters to feel like their efforts were worthwhile.



Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.


Thanks again,
Dr#

Several issues here as well:

1. If your goal is to provide on-hit/on-crit effects instead of tinkering with the weapon profiles, then this will almost always benefit high doublestrike TWF players and monchers who have both 10k stars/manyshot in order to get as many hits in as possible. A solution to this would be to allow these weapon effects to proc on glancing blows, with SUBSTANTIAL improvements to special effect proc chances on glances.

2. I don't necessarily think the current weapon profiles are "tapped out". You can easily create weapons that are in-between, such as 19-20 x3 greatswords (sos is 18-20 x3) but with a few nifty effects. You can give us a regular greatsword, that adopts the esos weapon profile against a subset of creatures, say against dragons - and it can have some dragon-specific ability that makes it situationally more useful than esos.

3. A large amount of your weapon freedom will depend on the creativity of our encounters. Thats something to keep in mind - for things like DR, fortification, elemental resistance, etc.

[murf201]

Hi everyone. Thank you again for your feedback. I can’t repeat enough how valuable it is to us as Update 21 moves toward release. I wanted to take a moment to address some of the topics that have come up in this and the other U21 Treasure Lamannia threads.

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.

Extra Commendations of Valor in Thunderholme
Speaking of which, we have put extra Commendations of Valor in a) chests in the Temple of the Deathwyrm raid, in amounts that scale to difficulty, and b) chests in the Thunderholme adventure area.

DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.

Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.


Thanks again,
Dr#



As ive said before i play a pure ranger AA , So outside of multiclassing i have absolutelyno way of increasing my crit profile besides the same feat everyone else is using .

What freaking incentive is there to make a new bow from thunderholme ? What to trade out raw crit dmg for proc dmg ? I think ill keep the crit range and completely pass on these new raid weapons !!!

[murf201]

As ive said before i play a pure ranger AA , So outside of multiclassing i have absolutelyno way of increasing my crit profile besides the same feat everyone else is using .

What freaking incentive is there to make a new bow from thunderholme ? What to trade out raw crit dmg for proc dmg ? I think ill keep the crit range and completely pass on these new raid weapons !!!

Rangers get nothing in terms of increasing there crit range , Thereis no enhancements for us .

Drocto , can you tell me how i can increase my bows threat range on a pure ranger AA ?

[bbqzor]

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.

I am okay with this, provided EE has a realistic difference. In MoTU for example, the drop rates might be something like 2%/4%/6% for n/h/e. As others have mentioned, with EH taking ballpark half the time of EE (if not less), the math doesnt make ee worthwhile as a source of loot. Which, since it will never compete XP wise, is its main purpose: you run EE to get the best items, or so goes the thinking. In that respect, EE should be perhaps twice as common, or a bit more, than EH. And, 2% is just too low, the game revolves around 20th lists, or at least used to, and you could be pretty certain that in 1-2 20ths youd see an item. For years thats what players were used to. From those perspectives, you might set drop rates at something like 3%/6%/14%. After 40 runs you might see an item on normal, hard is a safer bet after 20 runs, with elite offering a chance to get it within one period of ransack timers. I am confident in those numbers, though Im sure thats something everyone has their own opinion on. I think knowing ransacking EE generates a drop is often enough people would run it for a better chance.

Additionally, I dont like the EN/EH/EE version-ing of loot because it devaules anything but EE drops, and because as developers theres a history of managing it VERY poorly. Take prison break... a non-ee prison break is basically just a random gen 2 affix axe. I know it generates some of those affixes at a lower level, but its still a disappointing and generally pointless "named" item, until EE. Or Glorious Dawn... from the lv16 version to the EE version, the guard damage goes up ~10? Im pretty sure EE mobs taking 10 more damage than what happened at lv16 is not an example of matched scaling. I welcome a step away from those until the itemization designers get their sea-legs so to speak.

Also, I will say, I do not like the suggestion of EE loot being lower ML. I know many do, and thats fine. But I dont want to see a game where EE items start to compete against other lower level items, it wont create a sustainable itemization pattern for the future. Youve stated you want to cap the game out at 30, meaning theres only so many levels to work with on scaling backwards, and eventually advanced level 30 items could start competing with level 24 or 25 things we have now, and I just dont think thats a good long term strategy. I realize I might be the minority here, which is okay everyone has their own opinions. But I wanted to voice mine on that topic.


Extra Commendations of Valor in Thunderholme
Speaking of which, we have put extra Commendations of Valor in a) chests in the Temple of the Deathwyrm raid, in amounts that scale to difficulty, and b) chests in the Thunderholme adventure area.
Good... if the crafting uses them, there needs to be an additional way to get them which doesnt interfere with the already starved rate epic TR requires. Hopefully this will be in scale to how many are needed.. to avoid putting additional undue strain on a system which a majority of players already feel is strained too far.


DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.
Well, a better idea might be to use %-chance then. Like, if you want a weapon to stun a mob once every 40 swings, theres two approaches. One, make it proc every other swing with a save the mob fails 5% of the time (40 swings = 1 success), or you can just make it proc 2.5% of the time with no save (40 swings = 1 success). This also takes the pressure off rapiers generating more profile based procs than a greataxe since its the same rate between weaponry.... allowing players to choose weapons which work with their race/class/build (dwarves using axes or rogues using daggers etc), rather than trying to game the system by using weapons with the most favorable proc rates. Theres a reason greensteel moved in that direction. And, as others have mentioned, where dc55 lands on EH, you need dc75 for EE (as one example). Just moving to % chance maintains an equal effect over all content without weapons that "are too good" on EH or "never work" on EE, and that seems to be a design concern.


Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.
This is disappointing. I hope you also realize that the reason these are popular is because A) its fun, B) its one of the only things which scales meaningfully with character growth by adding up, ie nothing makes your 1d6 fire damage cooler, but critical effects can work together in concert, C) not all builds have access to those enhancements or can be in those destinies all the time and its a poor choice to force people into the few combos which allow it, D) its one of the only things scaling with content, ie nothing makes your 1d6 fire damage worth anything on EE, but you can work to make crits worth something, E) its historically been a large part of the game, all the way back to kopeshes and sos back in the day, F) it is, in and of itself, a balancing factor between weapon choices which should be preserved.

Or, in other words, I can understand not wanting this to spiral out of control with 11-20 x4 weapons replacing 13-20 x3 ones etc. But some items should have better crit profiles, thats part of the game now, its part of the game historically, its a part the community likes, and items are the only source which all builds effectively have access to equally. Its also one of the few things you can build around, and start to see progress as you piece together the puzzle. If you neglect this, you are taking away peoples fun... this is the same exact reason no one cares about pulling a lootgen Fire VI with 6d4 fire dmg... its boring, its the same for everyone all the time, and its lame. Nothing you do changes what it does, might as well hit autoattack and tab out.

You have some kind of plan, thats fine, but recognize its about more than raw dps numbers, its about people having meaningful avenues to approach gameplay with, and taking this out is like deleting that path for fun. The ghostbane debacle is a prime example, Im not just making this up. More or less dps wasnt an issue, but more or less fun certainly was. Sure we like to do more dmg, but having that dmg mean something through player effort is as important if not more so. And just 6d4 dmg and a +10 deadly item doesnt hit the mark. Dont repeat these mistakes all over again. Ensure people are offered a loot-based way to affect critical profiles which is meaningful/comparable to ones which exist now.

Thanks for the continued feedback, and I hope this helps. Cheers.

[nibel]

The max sustainable buffed necro DC for a maxed completionist pale master running in Magister right now is 69

As stated on the first line, I don't play EE, and I have no idea about the exact numbers. I was just throwing a random number around to explain the 95% efficiency that bloates any DC-related stuff on forums.

[Havok.cry]

There are almost no items where the EE version is much better than the EH or EN one, or does something the EH/EN versions can not achieve. Really the only one that comes to mind is the 150% Fort armor that is 125% on EN (Leaves of the Forest) and some of the augment slot changes in Gianthold gear - other than that, it's a couple of percent more DPS here or there as a 5d4 mutation becomes 6d4, or +7 becomes +8.

The difference between a set of all EE gear and all EH gear is usually two or three past lives or less. Massively stacked past lives place much bigger differences between players than minor gear gradation ever will, and epic past lives exacerbate that further.

Yes. What you say here has even been pointed out a bajillion times, by a bajillion different players. It does not change my opinion, nor stance, nor feedback in the slightest. If it makes so little difference, then not having it any more should not make much difference to you at all. My post, however was not to get into any argument about it. My post's sole purpose was to ensure that the devs knew that not everyone liked or wanted the n/h/e loot scheme that is so loudly being cried for. I could go on for pages about why I don't want it, and if a Dev asks me I will, in a PM, happily go on for pages. I both know and understand the counter arguments, I do not agree with them, and further restating of it will not change that.

Alternate schemes that reward elite play I am all for, just not that particular one. I liked things in the past like the eardweller hunt, extra shroud loot chests, and VoD/Hox elite only loot. I would be happy to see such things, or even new things. Just as happy, in fact, as I am to see the n/h/e loot scheme go away.

[lyrecono]

Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.


Thanks again,
Dr#

Thanks for the update,

Still very disappointed about the lack of crit range&multiplier increments. A toons power comes from 3 sources, the player in control, the build and the equipment, and the last one is lacking punch for EE's
Also disappointed that there was no good news on the minimum level, since there is not much to do at cap, most will return to epic tr-ing or other games after checking the pack out. a low min level would have made it more worthwhile. See shroud items to understand why
With the issues on the static raid loot not being fixed and these two points, i have no incentive to buy this or to recommend it.

[GeoffWatson]

Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.

Dr#

A problem with crit boosts in enhancements and destinies is that a lot of them don't work.
My monk uses mainly unarmed or shuriken, and none of the crit bonus stuff works with either: Kensai Keen Edge, Ninja Spy capstone, Fury of the Wild Adrenaline, Halfling Master Thrower.

Any chance of getting these fixed?

Geoff.

[Scraap]

DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.


Might help with longevity if you tied in relevant-save debuff effects. (And killed epic ward with fire. How that hasn't raised flag after flag with folks in terms of tying hands all around for both content and build variation is beyond me.)

[fmalfeas]

And killed epic ward with fire. How that hasn't raised flag after flag with folks in terms of tying hands all around for both content and build variation is beyond me.

Yes! Seriously, 90% resistance to stat damage, 3 second duration of negative levels, /and/ massive HP and saves? The days of WoP reigning supreme are long over, and from a caster perspective, applying sufficient negative levels to debuff saves is so expensive that it's generally cheaper to nuke them down rather than attempt any instakill other than PWK if you need to debuff first. Having the debuffing vanish so quickly is a bit excessive.

[Njohrd]

...
My suggestion (same combat stats on all difficulties, lower ML on EE than EH and lower on EH than EN) was generally well received, will create an incentive to run EE that caters to the majority of people capable of doing so, and will address any concerns you have about increasing maximum character power too high.

This suggetion is really good, it solves 2 problems. The high ML of thunderforge weapons that make the items less appetible, and give us a valid reason ti run an hard raid on EE.

[Wizza]

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.

This is a bad move imho. If you are doing this, the actual endgamers, the ones who enjoy doing EE for the phat lootz will no more. Hard will soon become (and it already is) an auto-complete boring fest that will give us the exact same loot.

I'm talking about normal questing here for a moment. If there is no more EE Loot, EE will just give more chests. More chests = more random loot. But unless you plan to invalidate, ONCE AGAIN, all the Raid and Named items we got so far, this will be useless. We will have no reason to do EE if not for challenge. And yes, challenge might be a reason to go in EE but just once, twice and that's it.

The main reason we all do EE is for the loot. Loot is our BIG carrot in this game. To either sell it, equip it, equip our alts or just because. If EE Named loot = EN Named loot, then there is no reason for powergamers.



The only real incentive to run EE, in my view, is further weapon upgrades that are only attainable by EE capable players or rare item drops that may or may not be unbound (draconic soul gem is a good example).

This will provide incentive for both player groups, it will add replay value, and it will keep the players who maximize their characters to feel like their efforts were worthwhile.

This exactly.

[FlaviusMaximus]

On the same note, you REALLY need to do something to bring 2h and 1hers closer to parody. Currently 2wf is MUCH further ahead with the current scheme of building the dps into the procs due to the higher rate of attack for 2wf.

Two handed fighters shouldn't get equally rewarded for doing half the work. If someone goes through the trouble of forging two weapons instead of one, it's only fair that they do more dps. There are already ways to stack up glancing blows proc damage chances to help balance things out. No more than that is needed.

[Whispurr]

Tier 0 (Initial Item): +9, 3.5[W], Metalline Damage Types, Orange Augment Slot, ML22 - Unbound


Making this unbound with such a low ML will be very bad for the low epic level weapons market. These base weapons are not at all like the greensteel base weapons because they are very powerful for their level even at tier 0. And unlike the greensteel base weapons, these are very easy/cheap to make. In addition, these are already basically all-purpose DR breakers. The market place will be flooded with tons of these base weapons for very low prices and there will be very little demand for other weapons at that level.

I think you should either make them BTA or give them much higher ML if they are unbound.

Or perhaps offer 2 different versions, a BTA version with low ML and an unbound version with high ML and high material cost.

[Oxarhamar]

Making this unbound with such a low ML will be very bad for the low epic level weapons market. These base weapons are not at all like the greensteel base weapons because they are very powerful for their level even at tier 0. And unlike the greensteel base weapons, these are very easy/cheap to make. In addition, these are already basically all-purpose DR breakers. The market place will be flooded with tons of these base weapons for very low prices and there will be very little demand for other weapons at that level.

I think you should either make them BTA or give them much higher ML if they are unbound.

Or perhaps offer 2 different versions, a BTA version with low ML and an unbound version with high ML and high material cost.

Or just make the ML 26 for all tiers and be done with it.

[ishr]

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.

thank you for finally responding to this issue. after weeks of discussion, numerous PMs, it took spill-over into the general forums and a now-locked thread before you finally said anything on this topic.

[Loromir]

Why not just delete the Epic Elite difficulty then?

You know that, regardless of player skill, EH always offers more loot drops per hour than EE. We all know that too. Any group capable of completing EE can do EH in less than half the time, unless the limiting factor on speedrunning a quest is covering distance.

And finally, you know that the vast majority of the playerbase capable of completing content on EE is focused on optimization, meaning that running EH twice will be done in preference to running EE once.

My suggestion (same combat stats on all difficulties, lower ML on EE than EH and lower on EH than EN) was generally well received, will create an incentive to run EE that caters to the majority of people capable of doing so, and will address any concerns you have about increasing maximum character power too high.


I'm assuming there will be raid timers...so unless you want to spend RL $ to run EH twice, my guess is you will be running EE.

[Xaxx]

Doc a few things,

If you dont mess with crit/damage profiles you might as well have certain weapons not exist. Due to making on crit effects, and making them not scale to crit multipliers, flachions, kopeshes, and rapiers will reign supreme. Either scale the procs or modify the profiles either way I dont see certain TF items being better than their CitW weapons (examples being sireth and Pinion) at current unless you modify the profiles as was done for CitW items.

On the same note, you REALLY need to do something to bring 2h and 1hers closer to parody. Currently 2wf is MUCH further ahead with the current scheme of building the dps into the procs due to the higher rate of attack for 2wf. You need to make adjustments for 2h vs 1h, such as a hire damage proc on a 2her, or higher proc percents on 2hers, or make the new weapons VASTLY increase glancing blow damage and procs.

Basically customization is one of the biggest strengths of ddo, and the enhancement system is NOT going to overcome the imbalance you have in these weapons. You need to modify the base stats of these items to balance them or you will find that certain setups (specifically 2wf with either kopeshes or rapiers) will be superior to all other combos, and for a large number of them VASTLY so.

So the fact that to make two of these weapons its double the cost of one two hander, not to mention three feats to be effective versus two handers increasing effectiveness with three feats but not competly needed.... shall I keep going about enhancements and two handers versus twf....

I love these posts that seem to forget the ingame difference in cost/investment between twf and thf. That said... is twf ahead of 2hf righ tnow within these weapons? Yes... but how many people for years put the esos ahead of any twf combination? You know what, people still used twf all the time, just like caster versus mele argument and every other your shinny's better than mine waaaah post, people almost always wanna forget about certain aspects of things.... like the cost involved with two weapons versus one.

Do me a favor, go run the damage calcs of a gs or filch of the new stuff against esos and come back to me with the numbers, and unless esos is so monsterously far ahead of the ne stuff then you really cant complain much..... then again I'll be looking at your past post history for posts on complaining about the esos being so monsterously op before, and if I see none I will dismiss anything you say out of hand. Chop chop you got some real numbers to run.

[Xaxx]

Two handed fighters shouldn't get equally rewarded for doing half the work. If someone goes through the trouble of forging two weapons instead of one, it's only fair that they do more dps. There are already ways to stack up glancing blows proc damage chances to help balance things out. No more than that is needed.

hear hear

[Xaxx]

Hi everyone. Thank you again for your feedback. I can’t repeat enough how valuable it is to us as Update 21 moves toward release. I wanted to take a moment to address some of the topics that have come up in this and the other U21 Treasure Lamannia threads.

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.


Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.


#

I really thought this argument had been hashed out after motu but here we are again. Its quite simple, having things that are only ee available gives power gamers something to strive for. The concept of I play the game a little bit so I deserve the same loot that everyone else can get has no business in the mmo genre ever. This was argued after the way motu loot was handed out with a few babies first epics and then having no real incentives to run the higher difficulty content, even motu's design of more comms on ee wasn't a huge mitigating facto for most people. Then they moved to the en eh and ee loot set, and people went ooh and started to run ees more lookin for the loot. Fot comes around eh en ee loot variations but with an upgrade ability for en to go to ee levels... and nobody ran ee....They put the draconic soul gem in ee fot... but its not a dynamic enough item for people to run for it much. If it was 60 resist to all elements youd have seen a lot more ees run in the last year.

As it stands returning to the base loot with a slightly higher percentage chance for the en/eh/ee loot scheme will put things back to where they were with motu and citw/fot raiding. Cov's seem to be the big selling point for en/eh/ee right now, and for normal questing that may work, its still bs but that will keep people running ees. For raiding... not a chance in the ever blue of blue hecks will that keep people ee raiding. It didn't before, it hasn't now, it wont in the future.... this is a proven track record in this game which you guys just seem to think you can change or out and out ignore. The simple breakdown is this, rat maze and the food at the end. Rat wants the food, shortest distance to food is the best. Making the maze out of paper and letting the rat chew through the paper walls is gonna get it there fastest. It might be the most happily fed well adjusted rat of the group, but its still gonna take the shortest route to the food even if the rat was lookin for a bit of good exercise. That's in general your playerbase. We enjoy a challenge, b ut when you go oh yeaht hats just for who, here you can get your loot a much easier way... pretty much everyones gonna tak the easier way, since in the end we're retty much all on the wheel to make our characters better and develop our own personal epeens (we all have em, we might not swing em to and fro like other people but if you play an mmo you have one.)

If you wish to go back to this syste, there needs to be something ONLY available in ee that will have people hopping after it. Somewhere someone proposed some unique named augments, and that is probably the way to go. Healing 30 aug, seeker aug, deadly aug, some stacking aug, stat 10 or 11 aug... one or two good unique augs will have people running ees and shut everyone up.

As for crit ranges, it would be nice to have a crti expansion ability for either side on teir 3,. AS for the dcs of things.... that pretty much has to go, make em % no save based so that they work just as well on en as they will n eh or ee. Once again a concept that has been fought over the years on these forums with turbine finally saying ok we get it.... and here it is popping up again.... for the love of all that's holy... don't you even know the history of the game your working on? If not study up then get back to us. Heres the general idea though DCS ON WEAPON EFFECTS ARE UNIVERSALY A DUMB IDEA..... please whatever desk you SIT at.... print that statement out in big bold letters and hang it up, then look at it any time you wanna make new loot.

[harry-pancreas]

I'm assuming there will be raid timers...so unless you want to spend RL $ to run EH twice, my guess is you will be running EE.

or just around 200k plat, meaningless amount

[danotmano1998]

If the drop rate for a rare item on EE were twice as much as EH would that not be worth it?

Only if you can't complete 2 on EH in the same time it takes to run one EE.
Otherwise.... No. Simple comparison of time spent versus reward gained.

[lyrecono]

rant.

i totaly agree on some points, especialy the EE named augments.
We could use some worthwhile raid gear with actual slots though..... (looking at the non weapons here)

[merridyan]

I'm assuming there will be raid timers...so unless you want to spend RL $ to run EH twice, my guess is you will be running EE.

I get to the plat cap on my current character 1-2 times a week. When I hit the plat cap, I buy a raid bypass timer (or jewelers toolkit). I currently have about 50 bypasses, no need to spend real money on them. If there is no real incentive to run EE, I will be running EH.

[JOTMON]

Hi everyone. Thank you again for your feedback. I can’t repeat enough how valuable it is to us as Update 21 moves toward release. I wanted to take a moment to address some of the topics that have come up in this and the other U21 Treasure Lamannia threads.

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.

Extra Commendations of Valor in Thunderholme
Speaking of which, we have put extra Commendations of Valor in a) chests in the Temple of the Deathwyrm raid, in amounts that scale to difficulty, and b) chests in the Thunderholme adventure area.

DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.

Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.


Thanks again,
Dr#

I would suggest adding an Orange Augment that only drops on Epic Elite that adds keen & +1x critical multiplier.

Things like this would encourage more EE difficult content for access to these pretty eye candies...
Restricting it to Orange slots limits the weapons it can be used on .. only the new crafting, specific named items and some possibly some random future high level weapons will have access to Orange Slots
This also removes eSOS from the upgrade pool since it does not have an orange slot.

You have an augment system, take full advantage of incorporating great desirable augments into the system.

[count_spicoli]

Thanks for the update,

Still very disappointed about the lack of crit range&multiplier increments. A toons power comes from 3 sources, the player in control, the build and the equipment, and the last one is lacking punch for EE's
Also disappointed that there was no good news on the minimum level, since there is not much to do at cap, most will return to epic tr-ing or other games after checking the pack out. a low min level would have made it more worthwhile. See shroud items to understand why
With the issues on the static raid loot not being fixed and these two points, i have no incentive to buy this or to recommend it.

Disagree with this whole heartexly. There is already citw items that are excellent from 23-27. Don't need this loot to completely invalidate them. Not to mention every one in the game already has these so why not just use them 23-27. Give us something to look forward at 27 thru 30. I personally would not make a version below 27.

[Cyr]

Hi everyone. Thank you again for your feedback. I can’t repeat enough how valuable it is to us as Update 21 moves toward release. I wanted to take a moment to address some of the topics that have come up in this and the other U21 Treasure Lamannia threads.

Scaling Treasure (Normal/Hard/Elite differences)
For Update 21, items will not be different based on the difficulty of the content run. You can consider this to be the default status for this year’s coming releases, but we are constantly reviewing the incentives for running different difficulties, and we’ll adjust our approach as needed. The difficulty incentives in U21 content rely on drop rates, and we are attempting to scale those so there is a real, worthwhile difference.

Extra Commendations of Valor in Thunderholme
Speaking of which, we have put extra Commendations of Valor in a) chests in the Temple of the Deathwyrm raid, in amounts that scale to difficulty, and b) chests in the Thunderholme adventure area.

DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.

Critical Profiles
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve been shifting Critical Range and Multiplier bonuses away from equipment and into Enhancements and Epic Destinies. It’s our view, for a variety of reasons (some of which are “under the hood”), that these critical stats are “tapped out.” That said, we think we grok the appeal underlying altered critical profiles (damage spikes, synergies, creative build strategies), and part of our goal for Level 28 and above is to find new avenues to get that kind of goodness in - but from new or different sources.


Thanks again,
Dr#

Point by point...

A) No more better loot for EE. With the design of this current loot that is a really poor idea. Essentially it is all about time to get what you want. The new no EE loot will offer nothing for players once they get the item they want (and for many it is a singular with the limitations of this loot). EE offered trading opportunities because there was a more limited supply. This loot will not have that as an issue...at all. That kept a certain portion of the player base busy. That is a big deal. In the old days, no big deal, everyone had ten alts. The current game design strongly encouraged less toons with a lot more grind put in and alts no longer hold as much appeal as they once did. There is no returning to those days. Game systems are in place for years with these incentives in the TR system. EE needs to offer unique loot or a lot more of tradable crafting ingredients to be run and to keep players busy longer (EE takes way longer for most players).

B) Comm drops. Make this change epic wide. Chests should drop comms in the first place not as a bonus reward in specific content.

C) DC effects on items are always a poor idea. They do not scale with difficulty or level making them either worthless all the time or great in easy content and junk in hard content. Item effects which are really good where the game is already easy and bad where the game is hard ARE BAD! Change these to be proc rate based with no saves and you are done. Alternatively, make them based upon character metrics which scale...like they are spell DCs or tactic DCs.

D)Sorry, but that is just nonsense. The current design of the new raid weapons makes it very clear that Turbine development AGAIN has a lose grasp on crit mechanics and how they interact to make weapons junk or good. No more special crit ranges for weapons...whatever, but then you can not just turn right around and make an entire system which depends upon the innate completely unbalanced normal cirt ranges of weapons.

[RobbinB]

.

DC’s
The goal for DC’s on these craftable raid items is not that they be underpowered! We’re listening and we’re looking hard at all the relevant numbers.



Do devs get it? Do they play/understand the game? Can player suggestions really make a difference? Are we listened to?

There has been reply after reply in this post about why DC-related effects simply don't work well. I can't find a single opinion to the contrary, ie "keep the DC's on the weapon procs". Many of the responses are very clearly laid out - there's no way you could fail to see the obvious logic in what has been clearly stated and unanimously (by forumites) agreed upon.

But....in the past there were similar posts about loot where shortcomings were pointed out (sometimes in painstaking obvious detail) and yet when the new loot went live the suggestions had been blatantly ignored.

Needless to say...I'll be very interested in seeing the version of this released on live.

[TheDr0wRanger]

I just want to add my agreement to the few who have asked for Shuriken added to the list, with such a small list of named stars and the lack of the really sweet procs, it'd be a miracle to make stars with these effects, even if the stars damage was still tripe.

[LightBear]

Many of you have had a good glimpse at the Thunderholme weapon-smithing system when the forge was made available on the Lamannia server a few weeks back. I'm posting the details of that system here to ask you kind souls for some targeted feedback. What we're looking for, first & foremost, are the small, critical points that would make the difference for you: what's broken, what's missing, what needs a tweak to get over the line. Full disclosure: I can't make promises about what will get into Update 21 - the time to release is growing short - but we will work hard to get this shiny in the end.

Now, to introduce it properly...


Thunder-Forged Weapons
- Use the Dwarven forge within Thunderholme to craft them
- A fast travel NPC in the Thunderholme public area will take you to the forge (no Astral Shard usage required.)
- Forge a "base" weapon then upgrade 3 times
- There are multiple choices for each tier
- The first tier and some options in the second tier can be crafted with ingredients found in the adventure area, without needing to run the Raids. The Raids drop ingredients for crafting all tiers.

Ingredients
Thunderholme Ingots - Found on the landscape & in large numbers in the raids
Dragon Scales (Red & Dark) - Found in raids, common
Phlogiston (Red & Dark) - Found in raids, uncommon
Commendations of Valor - extra Commendations are found in raid chests

Drop rates of all these items increase with difficulty level (Normal, Hard, Elite).


Tiers now come with clearer inherent benefits:

Baseline Tiers
Tier 0 (Initial Item): +9, 3.5[W], Metalline Damage Types, Orange Augment Slot, ML22 - Unbound
Tier 1: +10, 4.0[W], Epic Bane of non-Dragons (5d6), ML24 - Bound to Character on Acquire
Tier 2: +11, 4.5[W], Greater Epic Bane of non-Dragons (upgrade from 5d6 to 8d6), ML26 - Bound to Character on Acquire
Tier 3: +12, 4.5[W], Red Augment Slot, ML28 - Bound to Character on Acquire

Tier 1 – Ingots Only
Blinding Fear
On hit: 10% Chance Blind 9 sec (DC 65 Will Save vs. Fear), 3 sec cool down

Touch of Shadows
On Hit 8d6 Negative Energy Damage

Dwarvencraft Potency
Universal Spell power +120

Dwarvencraft Combustion, Nullification, Radiance, Devotion, Glaciation, Resonance, Corrosion, Impulse, Magnetism, Reconstruction
+175 Spellpower to Fire, Negative, Light, Positive, Cold, Sonic, Acid, Force, Electric, Repair/Rust Spell Power. (For 2-handed weapons: +3 Unique bonus to Spell DCs)

Touch of Flames
On Hit: 10d6 Fire Damage

1st Degree Burns
5d6 Fire Damage + Stacking 1% Vulnerability 6 sec, max 20 stacks (triggers on damage) (stacks with other sources of vulnerability)

Tier 2 - Ingots and Scales
Dragon's Blessing
On friend-targeted spell cast: 100% chance AOE Healing Effect (~100HP) centered on target (AOE is size of Mass Cure spells)
Realy, this is a spell cast on a friend... who ever takes a clicky that has a small percentage chance to do something?

2nd Degree Burns
On Hit: 10% chance to slow 100% (No Save) for 10 sec (non-bosses only)
or
On Hit: 5% chance to slow 25% (No Save) for 5 sec

Dwarvencraft Focus
Universal Spell DCs +4 exceptional (Stacks will other sources) (For 2-handed weapons: +3% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

Dwarvencraft Spell Penetration
exceptional Spell Penetration +7

Paralyzing Fear
On Hit: 10% chance to Paralyze (DC 70 Will Save vs. Fear) for 6 sec, target is considered helpless

Wrath of Flames
On Hit: 5% Chance AOE 10d20+400 fire damage – DC 70 Reflex Save for half

Wrath of Shadows
On Hit: 5% chance AOE 8d20+220 negative energy damage – DC 70 Fortitude Save for half

Dragon's Edge
Armor-Piercing 35% + On Crit: 8d10+25 Bleeding Damage

Dwarvencraft Abjuration, Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation Focus
+12 Spell DCs in respective Focus area (For 2-handed weapons: +3% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)
or
+6 Stacking Spell DCs in respective Focus area (For 2-handed weapons: +3% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

Red Augment Slot

Purple Augment Slot


Tier 3 - Ingots, Scales, and Phlogiston
Eternal Scorching Light
On Light / Fire Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/15 seconds)

Eternal Chilling Darkness
On Negative / Cold Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/15 seconds)

Crippling Flames
On Crit: 10d20+125 Fire Damage and 3d2 Negative Level (DC 70 Fortitude Save)

Burning Emptiness
On Vorpal: 5d12+50 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Crit: 8d20+100 Negative Energy Damage

Mortal Fear
On Hit: 8d8 Force Damage (DC 45 Will negates) + On Crit: Phantasmal Killers (DC 70 Will/Fortitude Save vs. Fear)

Dwarvencraft Fire, Void, Radiance, Healing, Ice, Sonic, Acid, Kinetic, Lightning, Repair Lore
Spell Crit +22% in the respective Lore (For 2-handed weapons: +2 Weapon Enhancement Bonus)

Dwarvencraft Lore
Universal Spell Crit +17%

Body Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Fortitude Save -5, Sunder Attempt

Leg Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Reflex Save -5, Trip Attempt

Mind Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Will Save -5, Hold Monster Attempt

Draconic Reinvigoration
On Damage or Spell Damage: 2% Chance regenerate 1 Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs (triggers once/50 seconds) + Passive: +1 use/rest to Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs

3rd Degree Burns
On Crit: 10d12+75 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Hit: 25% Chance Stuns non-bosses 6 sec (No Save)

Fire Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Fire Breath (3/rest)

Ice Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Ice Breath (3/rest)

Acid Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Acid Breath (3/rest)

Lightning Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Lightning Breath (3/rest)



Craftable items list:
Bastard Sword
Battle Axe
Dagger
Dwarven Waraxe
Morningstar
Handwrap
Hand Axe
Heavy Mace
Heavy Pick
Kama
Khopesh
Kukri
Longsword
Rapier
Sceptre
Scimitar
Shortsword
Sickle
Warhammer
Falchion
Greataxe
Greatsword
Maul
Quarterstaff
Great Crossbow
Repeating Heavy Crossbow
Longbow
Orb (it's an implement, not a weapon, but we're putting it here all the same)

Two Arcane one handers might take longer to aquire but seems more worth then a two hander.
(And seem logical as it would slurp up twice as many ingredients.)

I'm totally confused about Dragon's Blessing, is this a clicky or not?
If not, how are the friends determined and what makes it go off?
Tho, it has a lot of potential to be something good.

My personal favorets if no changes are made:
1st Degree Burns
Dragon's Edge
Burning Emptiness

Best Suplemental weapon:
Is missing something in Tier-1
Dragon's Blessing
Draconic Reinvigoration

[Hathorian]

I would suggest adding an Orange Augment that only drops on Epic Elite that adds keen & +1x critical multiplier.

Things like this would encourage more EE difficult content for access to these pretty eye candies...
Restricting it to Orange slots limits the weapons it can be used on .. only the new crafting, specific named items and some possibly some random future high level weapons will have access to Orange Slots
This also removes eSOS from the upgrade pool since it does not have an orange slot.

You have an augment system, take full advantage of incorporating great desirable augments into the system.

LOL! An orange aug that increases crit range or mult. OP much? I don't think it is in everyone's best interest to segment the player base so dramatically with a small group running the raid on EE 5 times a day and getting incredible loot and normal people trying to herd up enough players to run it once every 3 days on EN or EH and getting nowhere fast.

[J-mann]

Two handed fighters shouldn't get equally rewarded for doing half the work. If someone goes through the trouble of forging two weapons instead of one, it's only fair that they do more dps. There are already ways to stack up glancing blows proc damage chances to help balance things out. No more than that is needed.

This is nonsense, you do know it is NOT possible for them to do extra work for them to get that "equal" reward? So 2hf should be relegated to second (really third) class citizens because 2wfs work SO much harder? ludicrous, balance the costs, the benefits and the rewards, Im all for it. BTW you would need close to a 100% effect proc (probably would need to be 100%) on glancing blows to come close to even, which is not even possible, not even close. Now I do think that the material costs should be higher on a 2her, but not quite twice due to the reasoning below (unless the REALLY buff 2h effects and procs to make up for the lower flexibility see below for example).


So the fact that to make two of these weapons its double the cost of one two hander, not to mention three feats to be effective versus two handers increasing effectiveness with three feats but not competly needed.... shall I keep going about enhancements and two handers versus twf....

I love these posts that seem to forget the ingame difference in cost/investment between twf and thf. That said... is twf ahead of 2hf righ tnow within these weapons? Yes... but how many people for years put the esos ahead of any twf combination? You know what, people still used twf all the time, just like caster versus mele argument and every other your shinny's better than mine waaaah post, people almost always wanna forget about certain aspects of things.... like the cost involved with two weapons versus one.

Do me a favor, go run the damage calcs of a gs or filch of the new stuff against esos and come back to me with the numbers, and unless esos is so monsterously far ahead of the ne stuff then you really cant complain much..... then again I'll be looking at your past post history for posts on complaining about the esos being so monsterously op before, and if I see none I will dismiss anything you say out of hand. Chop chop you got some real numbers to run.

Wait wait wait.... firstly I dont have an ESoS, probably never will... and yes the weapon was/is monstrously op, but NONE of that matters to the current discussion. Your argument of WAH WAH ONE item in the past that was so op for 2hers overshadowed us for a while.... so we deserve to be the absolute best by a large margine now? Thats nonsense and you know it (also 2wf reigned supreme during the kopesh era.. and it was a hell of a lot easier to get them over ESoS). You also know that the feat investment for 2hf and 2wf is exactly the same and you wish to complain that 2wf is more expensive? You do realize that you do need those feats to compete with 2wf right?

As for material cost... I can agree that the price for a 2her should be higher (not quite twice, unless they let me choose 6 affixes like you will get) than that of a 1her, provided that 2hers get some love. Additionally you do realize the advantage of 2wf is that you can have 2 different utility choices if you so wish where as a 2her cannot right (for example you can choose dragons edge and a high damage proc in the off hand and benefit from the fort reduction full time as well as the high damage proc 50% of it)? If they wish to shift the dps focus from weapon damage to proc based (especially with such ridiculously big procs) then they need to make sure the weapons are balance for as many play styles as possible, currently only strikes per minute and crit threat range are the deciding factors, which so heavily favors 2wf kopeshes and rapiers that its hysterical.

In the end I want different playstyles to be as balanced as possible, and to do that one must balance the weapons to be as equally effective as well.

P.S. I agree that ESoS was a mistake and turbine probably admits it too off the record....

[Stanley_Nicholas]

Why do the weapons automatically get dragon bane attributes added to them? If you want these to be weapons people will want to craft a lot of, then let us select the bane type we want added to the weapon. Then people will want to make a weapon for dragons, another for undead, another for constructs, another for elementals, etc. This would greatly extend the shelf life of the content, at least for anyone who melees.