Player Character Balance

[Vargouille]

Dungeons & Dragons: Online isn't perfectly balanced. We're interested in discussing what balance means, and how important balance is to you, the players. We want to know how often you'd like to see balance changes.

For this thread, we're looking particular at character balance, and how characters compare to one another. To some extent this borders on discussion of player characters vs. quest difficulty (and all that entails), but the focus here is player characters compared against other player characters (but not PvP). At some other time we may also look at other balance issues, such as Normal/Hard/Elite, or more specific issues like items, quests, monsters, traps, raids, or boss monsters.

Why does Character Balance matter?

We'd like a variety of roles and styles of play to be supported at a high level of play, without some builds that look like fun feeling bad to play because other characters seem so much more powerful. We've heard some level of concern over these topics and related issues. Perfect balance doesn't need to be achieved, and probably can't be achieved, but most or all playstyles should feel competitive. (We recognize that creating terrible character builds with the vast possibilities offered in DDO is always going to be possible, but we can probably all agree that's not the real issue.)

In short, we want you to be able to play what you want to play, have fun doing it, and feel like you can be a worthwhile contributor to a party (if that's how you choose to play).

Why isn't every character made stronger, to match the strongest characters already out there?

Challenge: We want to be able to provide challenges to those who seek that kind of gameplay. There should be limits to player-character power in order to achieve this, when comparing player characters against monsters, traps, bosses, etc.
Understanding what's already there: Minimizing changes also allows everyone to keep a consistent idea of what exists. If almost everything changes, it's like starting over from scratch, and therefore much harder to get everything right.
Time and resources matter: We can save a great deal of time by only changing a few overpowered abilities, rather than changing all other characters, monsters, traps, and quests to match those few most overpowered abilities or features. If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features.

What are some examples of things that could be better balanced?

We're keenly aware that each player probably has some topics they are concerned about, and we don't like to break characters or take away fun things that are already there. However, we may have been too cautious about balance changes in the past, especially after a new ability or feature has been launched. We'd like to know if you'd prefer changes to come more quickly, or if we should sit back and let you guys show us what can really be done before making changes.

That said, some broad areas that we know perhaps could use some consideration:

Ranged combat vs. Melee Combat vs. Spellcasting, at all character levels. As an example, not so long ago, ranged combat was largely considered inferior to melee combat. We made some conscious decisions to try to improve the viability of ranged combat. That's at least a partial success, but has brought along some issues of its own.
Class & Race Balance: They don't all need to have identical appeal from a power perspective (as there are other reasons to play any class), but we should try to get them close enough that it doesn't feel bad to play any particular race or class, or that you feel forced to take any levels in a particular class to feel powerful.
Epic Destinies: We know some destinies are more popular than others, and also considered more powerful. Sometimes this is a result of unintended bugs. This could include discussions of Twists of Fate, so individual abilities vs. other abilities can still matter, though we don't expect to make every ability equally viable as a Twist of Fate (for its tier). Abilities that can't be twisted (Innate abilities and tier 5 & 6) should be largely considered as a group when comparing entire Destinies.
This does mean potentially looking at things that rhyme with ten-thousand cars, many fought, caster's fritz, chirashi cambrian, the bunk crass, or american overtoad.


We're happy to hear general thoughts on character balance, what you'd like to see, and also why you'd like to see certain changes (or non-changes.) We don't want to change any particular things without good reasons, so convince us!

We'd love to also get feedback from as many of you as possible from this survey!

Character Balance Survey (http://ddobugs.turbine.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=24037&surveyID=332&type=web)

[Cardtrick]

Biggest thought -- be careful if you guys are going to make changes.

Major changes should be brought up well in advance. Run them by the Player's Council. Include them in Release Notes. Include them in Lamma builds. Don't sneak them in at the last minute.

When reading feedback, I hope and assume that you guys have a list of players who you trust a bit more than others. Try to bear in mind that the most vocal people are not necessarily the most knowledgeable or reasonable.

I'll post some actual responses to what you asked for as well, this is just the first thing I wanted to get out there.

[Roland_D'Arabel]

I am not going to get in to the specific details about this destiny, or that OP feat or monk splashing etc. because there are going to be many more people after my post with more to say about how everything OP should be nerfed and all the FotM builds are going to get what they have coming to them. Instead, Varg, I want to point out to you what I feel is the most important issue regarding this topic... all of these things that are overpowered, that people gravitate to are some of THE MOST FUN abilities and play styles in the game.

In my opinion, the devs should be looking at how to make other classes, builds, destiny abilities more powerful, hence more fun. It is not a matter of Turbine looking at how the game is balanced because EE is still a big challenge to 95% of the player base even when they do build a FotM. What you need to do is address the reason why, despite the build diversity the game offers, people are drawn to only a few playstyles, destinies and builds. Fix the lame in the game and you will achieve better balance.

[Teh_Troll]

The first step is acknowledging a problem exists. Let me guess . . . the brokeness of class-balance is affecting the bottom line?

[maddong]

I think baby steps is the best way to nerf. Start with small nerfs instead of big. Eg blitz gives 20% per stack and caps at 200% bonus (10 stacks).

I also think ED balance changes are easier to recover from since you can always change what ED you are in, the point layout, and your twists.

[Vargouille]

Just to draw more attention to this:

Character Balance Survey (http://ddobugs.turbine.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=24037&surveyID=332&type=web)
We love survey answers. Flood us with information, please!

[GoldyGopher]

I don't mind that a specific build is the highest DPS, I do mind that its the highest DPS by 50% to 100% increase to the next build.
I don't mind that every classic build doesn't have a role in every quest/raid; I do mind that only a few builds seem to be catered to when new raids are designed.
I don't mind that certain Epic Destinies benefit specific builds more than generic builds in the class sphere; I do mind that many ED are pigeon holed to only one type of build (cough cough Divine cough cough)

I don't mind that every enhancement line isn't perfect, do mind that many that need more work aren't getting any.

[Natashaelle]

My 1st Edition-inspired 28-point Drow Fighter/Magic-User/Thief is fun to play, but he keeps dying all the time.

Curses !!!

More seriously though, imbalance is IMO a feature, not a bug.

Sure -- some particularly exploitative build possibilities can overpower the game, and they should therefore be targetted with nerfage -- but it seems hard to do so without affecting the enjoyment of those who love to play "variantly optimised" toons just for the fun of it.

But player freedom resides in the possibility of luck, surprise, risk-taking, gaming

Too much homogenisation just kills the pleasure of it.

[redspecter23]

I think the one big thing at the core of the class balance issue is that going up close to melee in EE is infinitely more dangerous than staying at range to fight. Players that want to engage in melee don't have the proper tools to survive, while ranged toons can ignore the issue outright by just not engaging. Add to this the fact that the two new raids both feature dragons (which are a melee nightmare and a ranged dream fight) and you have your problem staring you right in the face.

It's just not worth it to play a melee in the current game/metagame in epic elite. Ranged is safer and potentially much more powerful.

Balance your melee/ranged issue first before going deeper and examining individual classes and abilities. Why is it so hard for a melee to get up close and stay alive for more than a few seconds without looking at specific abilities like bladeforged reconstruct or other built in burst heals? Is it intended that even with over 150+ PRR and an AC over 200 that a "tank" should still need to be burst healed every few seconds when engaged in EE combat? Shouldn't he have the tools to survive more that a second or two compared to another melee with 40 PRR and 0 AC?

[rimble]

The most important aspect to this is providing a real solid means to respec with changes.

This means a REAL respec that fully works for everyone--a LR +20 is insufficient for many tri-class builds to respec with, and doesn't resolve alignment issues (like this poor fellow: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/438918-Alignment-Change-Quesion).

They should also be FULL respecs (classes, alignment, race--pretty much everything except name).

If I have a mechanism to roll with the changes, I'm generally cool.

[Vellrad]

Just to draw more attention to this:

Character Balance Survey (http://ddobugs.turbine.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=24037&surveyID=332&type=web)
We love survey answers. Flood us with information, please!

Asking about classes power without asking questions about multiclassing will provide flawed data.

[Natashaelle]

Just to draw more attention to this:

Character Balance Survey (http://ddobugs.turbine.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=24037&surveyID=332&type=web)
We love survey answers. Flood us with information, please!

Questions 1 & 2 in their current state do not let one answer with "0".

Furthermore, your most powerful/least powerful questions not only fail to address those who avoid the Epic Destinies, but far more importantly they illustrate an overly binary approach to character development.

--

Sorry, I cannot in all honesty respond to this survey

[Cardtrick]

Do not nerf past lives. The level of grind (or money) it takes to achieve a past life is incredible, and there's no way to respec them and recoup that time and effort. Unless there's some obvious bug (like the old, old barbarian past life stacking thing), these should not change.


We'd like a variety of roles and styles of play to be supported at a high level of play, without some builds that look like fun feeling bad to play because other characters seem so much more powerful. We've heard some level of concern over these topics and related issues. Perfect balance doesn't need to be achieved, and probably can't be achieved, but most or all playstyles should feel competitive.

This is the right attitude to have. The point of any rebalance needs to be to increase the number of options players have for character builds that enable them to enjoy difficult content at an appropriate level of challenge. If anyone, at any point in this thread, brings up PvP balance, I strongly encourage you to disregard any further input from them.



Time and resources matter: We can save a great deal of time by only changing a few overpowered abilities, rather than changing all other characters, monsters, traps, and quests to match those few most overpowered abilities or features. If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features.


This is undeniably true, and I'm in favor of reducing power creep. But just don't forget how much people hate having their character made worse. It is certainly more effort to make 90% of characters better than it is to make 10% of them worse, but you don't risk alienating players.

I absolutely know that some nerfs are inevitable, and will be good for the game -- I just encourage you to be as sparing with them as possible.


However, we may have been too cautious about balance changes in the past, especially after a new ability or feature has been launched. We'd like to know if you'd prefer changes to come more quickly, or if we should sit back and let you guys show us what can really be done before making changes.

Quicker is better. Ideally, before anything even goes live. Failing that, then rip the bandage off fast before people get too attached and invest too much work, effort, time, and money into their characters. I repeat what I said above -- past life abilities should not be nerfed, ever. The ship has sailed.

Strongly consider holding character building / DPS contests or solo completion time races for fresh builds on Lammania. Give meaningful rewards on the actual live game server for the best performances, to encourage people to participate, but also record these and look at the data. Make some balance decisions based on this -- what properly encouraged players can do when they're trying to optimize things. Doing this right will require either fixing character copy or significantly improving gearing options on Lamma.



What are some examples of things that could be better balanced?


Adding 2 or 6 monk levels should not improve virtually every build. It's insane that one of the worst things about 2 of the gimpiest classes (bard and barbarian) is that they're unable to splash monk.

Taking 2 levels of monk is just insanely broken -- it gives you evasion, 2 free feats, great saves, along with access to one of the best ranged options in (zen archery/10k stars) and access to incredibly powerful stances (why on earth did you guys make the stance improvements into selectable feats?).

A lot of this has to do with the state of the current endgame. Playing hard content at hard difficulties, it's extremely difficult to do well without some kind of decent ranged option, high saves, and evasion. Monk helps with all of that.

I will have more thoughts later . . .

[Zavier]

Asking about classes power without asking questions about multiclassing will provide flawed data.

Exactly!

There is going to be an overwhelming black mark against monk class (and rightfully so since the enchancement pass(how in the world did you think kensai'ed centered blade wielders was going to be balanced or allow stance progressions freely without regard to monk levels)) but it is the combination of certain class which are even more potent. Having the ability to provide feedback about the multi's is more important imho.

[Uska]

If you start making balance changes to classes to please the whiners please count on me canceling my sub renewel and quitting the game we need less changes from pnp not more I am on the border already but that kind of **** will do it.

[zwiebelring]

Frontloaded enhancement trees + frontloaded class splashes = cherry pick cookiecutter build ftw.

[silinteresting]

this is gonna be a very fun thread so my popcorn is popping, that said

for me just make it so bards can splash 2 monk and paladin and there epic
destiny top tier works on bosses and balance will be achieved.

your friend sil :)

[Livmo]

Please keep in mind you are only sampling from the Forums. I caution using this data as a sample representative of the whole DDO playing population. This would be akin to doing a random sample at a shopping mall and then inferring the data represents a sample of all the people in the world. I did not test to see if I can repeat this survey over and over to skew the results towards my style of play. I would not do that per say, but others might : ) )

You won't make everyone happy and find complete balance, but I admire and salute you for attempting to bring moar balance. I will adapt.

My only really beef at the moment is that too many peeps use the same/similar/flavor type of builds. In PnP DnD penalties discourage too much multiclassing. DDO is the opposite of PnP in that I get heckled for having a pure build.


Dungeons & Dragons: Online isn't perfectly balanced. We're interested in discussing what balance means, and how important balance is to you, the players. We want to know how often you'd like to see balance changes.

For this thread, we're looking particular at character balance, and how characters compare to one another. To some extent this borders on discussion of player characters vs. quest difficulty (and all that entails), but the focus here is player characters compared against other player characters (but not PvP). At some other time we may also look at other balance issues, such as Normal/Hard/Elite, or more specific issues like items, quests, monsters, traps, raids, or boss monsters.

Why does Character Balance matter?

We'd like a variety of roles and styles of play to be supported at a high level of play, without some builds that look like fun feeling bad to play because other characters seem so much more powerful. We've heard some level of concern over these topics and related issues. Perfect balance doesn't need to be achieved, and probably can't be achieved, but most or all playstyles should feel competitive. (We recognize that creating terrible character builds with the vast possibilities offered in DDO is always going to be possible, but we can probably all agree that's not the real issue.)

In short, we want you to be able to play what you want to play, have fun doing it, and feel like you can be a worthwhile contributor to a party (if that's how you choose to play).

Why isn't every character made stronger, to match the strongest characters already out there?

Challenge: We want to be able to provide challenges to those who seek that kind of gameplay. There should be limits to player-character power in order to achieve this, when comparing player characters against monsters, traps, bosses, etc.
Understanding what's already there: Minimizing changes also allows everyone to keep a consistent idea of what exists. If almost everything changes, it's like starting over from scratch, and therefore much harder to get everything right.
Time and resources matter: We can save a great deal of time by only changing a few overpowered abilities, rather than changing all other characters, monsters, traps, and quests to match those few most overpowered abilities or features. If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features.

What are some examples of things that could be better balanced?

We're keenly aware that each player probably has some topics they are concerned about, and we don't like to break characters or take away fun things that are already there. However, we may have been too cautious about balance changes in the past, especially after a new ability or feature has been launched. We'd like to know if you'd prefer changes to come more quickly, or if we should sit back and let you guys show us what can really be done before making changes.

That said, some broad areas that we know perhaps could use some consideration:

Ranged combat vs. Melee Combat vs. Spellcasting, at all character levels. As an example, not so long ago, ranged combat was largely considered inferior to melee combat. We made some conscious decisions to try to improve the viability of ranged combat. That's at least a partial success, but has brought along some issues of its own.
Class & Race Balance: They don't all need to have identical appeal from a power perspective (as there are other reasons to play any class), but we should try to get them close enough that it doesn't feel bad to play any particular race or class, or that you feel forced to take any levels in a particular class to feel powerful.
Epic Destinies: We know some destinies are more popular than others, and also considered more powerful. Sometimes this is a result of unintended bugs. This could include discussions of Twists of Fate, so individual abilities vs. other abilities can still matter, though we don't expect to make every ability equally viable as a Twist of Fate (for its tier). Abilities that can't be twisted (Innate abilities and tier 5 & 6) should be largely considered as a group when comparing entire Destinies.
This does mean potentially looking at things that rhyme with ten-thousand cars, many fought, caster's fritz, chirashi cambrian, the bunk crass, or american overtoad.


We're happy to hear general thoughts on character balance, what you'd like to see, and also why you'd like to see certain changes (or non-changes.) We don't want to change any particular things without good reasons, so convince us!

We'd love to also get feedback from as many of you as possible from this survey!

Character Balance Survey (http://ddobugs.turbine.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=24037&surveyID=332&type=web)

[Panzercat]

I am not in favor of finely tuned balanced classes. Reasonable balance is enough, even if some end up somewhat more stronger than others. You need some limited imbalance because there are all kinds of different players. Some players are not content unless they smack around bosses with their FOTM builds with uber powerful feats, enhancements, and their Keen Vorpal Blade Cuisinart of instant destruction whereas another player will be more satisfied defeating the same boss naked and armed with only a wet noodle and their wits. Tying to satisfied all is road to mediocre game play.

[Vellrad]

Please keep in mind you are only sampling from the Forums. I caution using this data as a sample representative of the whole DDO playing population. This would be akin to doing a random sample at a shopping mall and then inferring the data represents a sample of all the people in the world.

No its not the same.

People that don't post on the forum don't want their opinion to be listened to.
Otherwise, they would speak up.
They're silent, so they don't care.

[Uska]

this is gonna be a very fun thread so my popcorn is popping, that said

for me just make it so bards can splash 2 monk and paladin and there epic
destiny top tier works on bosses and balance will be achieved.

your friend sil :)

changing alignment restrictions will make me quit although I am sure your not serious

[Arcanoid]

Self Healing is something that changes the balance of character in a very dramatic way, all depending on play style.

Playing the Barbarian/Fighter in a group with a healer (or running a heal bot hireling) is very very different than playing one solo chugging pots by the tankful.

Playing a Warforged Sorcerer is very different than playing a fleshie one. (Wizards can go PM for healing)

There are ways to mitigate the complete lack of healing but they would in general take some of the dedicated combat power away.

This just makes the choices more varied for each player, as we each have our own play style, guild options etc.

[Uska]

Self Healing is something that changes the balance of character in a very dramatic way, all depending on play style.

Playing the Barbarian/Fighter in a group with a healer (or running a heal bot hireling) is very very different than playing one solo chugging pots by the tankful.

Playing a Warforged Sorcerer is very different than playing a fleshie one. (Wizards can go PM for healing)

There are ways to mitigate the complete lack of healing but they would in general take some of the dedicated combat power away.

This just makes the choices more varied for each player, as we each have our own play style, guild options etc.


adding 4E style self-healing for all classes is something I am a trillion percent against.

[Livmo]

No its not the same.

People that don't post on the forum don't want their opinion to be listened to.
Otherwise, they would speak up.
They're silent, so they don't care.

Is this an Alexis de Tocqueville moment?

[silinteresting]

changing alignment restrictions will make me quit although I am sure your not serious

your right im not serious, but my point about 2 monk 2 pali is valid

[Quetzacoala]

No its not the same.

People that don't post on the forum don't want their opinion to be listened to.
Otherwise, they would speak up.
They're silent, so they don't care.

I disagree, there are dozens of perfectly valid reasons why a person would not participate in this forum conversation other than not caring.

Choosing to not provide an opinion is different from not having an opinion.

[oradafu]

The questions in the questionnaire are inherently flawed.

Starting at Question 3, players are given a numerical ranking of a personal feelings or taste without given really any place to explain why. So for Question 3, players rank if they are building for personal taste or power, but players aren't given any space to explain why they build one way or another. That missing information is a major component on why a person builds their characters one way or another. For example, I've seen people build for power just to gain past life feats while others build for personal taste since they delete the characters hitting a certain level; not to mention a whole host of others reasons inbetween.

The same lack of player feedback on what are powerful, weak and mediocre EDs. If the Devs are just balancing these things because they are ranked a certain way without players in the surveys explaining why they feel the stuff ranked the way they did, then the Devs are changing things again more for the sake of change instead of concrete reasoning why the changes are being made. It feels an awful lot like the changes to AC that gave players PRR, that originally seemed to be designed to balance out pajamas vs heavy armor for tanking, but the Devs changed the rules so monks gain the same benefits as heavy armor without any of the penalties that heavy armor gets.

Also it appears that the classes are only looked at as being pure instead of multiclassed. The balance isn't one pure class vs another pure class, it's pure classes vs certain mutliclass builds. This is the reason why the upper core abilities stink and the capstones never got close to being equal to evasion, much less evasion plus 2 class levels and 3 more trees.

[Teh_Troll]

Frontloaded enhancement trees + frontloaded class splashes = cherry pick cookiecutter build ftw.

This.

I mean seriously . . . is ANY pure 20 build close to OP?

[Cardtrick]

If you start making balance changes to classes to please the whiners please count on me canceling my sub renewel and quitting the game we need less changes from pnp not more I am on the border already but that kind of **** will do it.


changing alignment restrictions will make me quit although I am sure your not serious


adding 4E style self-healing for all classes is something I am a trillion percent against.

Saying that any balance change will make you quit and then responding to everything individually to say that you're against it and it would make you quit seems like overkill.

Some changes are necessary. Some people will be annoyed enough to quit. I'm sure they understand and accept that.

[Uska]

Saying that any balance change will make you quit and then responding to everything individually to say that you're against it and it would make you quit seems like overkill.

Some changes are necessary. Some people will be annoyed enough to quit. I'm sure they understand and accept that.

You post your way I will post mine but I don't mind changes to epic destines actually but I am against class changes a trillion percent.

[SirValentine]

What are some examples of things that could be better balanced?

That said, some broad areas that we know perhaps could use some consideration:


Ranged combat vs. Melee Combat vs. Spellcasting, at all character levels.
Class & Race Balance
Epic Destinies



I'd like to add another broad area to that list: pure-class versus multi-class.

I feel that not only should every single class be viable and able to contribute, but that every single class when pure-classed should be viable and able to contribute.

For me, that should be the basic starting point for balancing classes, and multi-class measured against that yard-stick.

I don't mind if someone figures out clever, synergistic combinations that are a bit more powerful overall, but there should be trade-offs. Multi-classing should never be a no-brainer, and pure-class should never be an outright bad choice.

Traditionally in D&D, multi-classes, being less specialized, had less raw power, balanced with more versatility. It seems in some cases in DDO, they get more versatility AND more power, making pure-classes strictly inferior.

The enhancement pass contributed a lot to this. I think a hard look at capstones is in order.

And, though I know some people will hate it, perhaps revisiting the class levels needed for each tier of enhancement. Personally, I think 1/3/6/9/12 would be more appropriate than 1/2/3/4/5.

[silinteresting]

ill say this with a little bit of tongue in cheek but capstone should be worth
evasion + pali saves then job done.

your friend sil :)

[Sgt_Hart]

We're happy to hear general thoughts on character balance, what you'd like to see, and also why you'd like to see certain changes (or non-changes.) We don't want to change any particular things without good reasons, so convince us!


Step one: For the love of god, Work from the top down.

Get the overpowered, awesome $#&$ in at tier 5/6 destiny, and 20/18/12 class wise first. One does not simply get to Pittsburgh , by picking a direction, turning a GPS on every 2 hours, and taking a heading from it. You get a map, (or let the GPS do it) and you(it) will work from end goal, to where you presently are. Because randomly turning as you go along, only get's you onto the cast of tacky horror movies.

I cannot possibly stress that enough.


Do not nerf past lives. The level of grind (or money) it takes to achieve a past life is incredible, and there's no way to respec them and recoup that time and effort. Unless there's some obvious bug (like the old, old barbarian past life stacking thing), these should not change.


I'd argue the opposite, or at least I'd argue to do a pass on past lives. Or at least on the heroic ones (http://ddowiki.com/page/Past_Life_Feats). Several of those are point-blank, no-longer-worth-it. Why is AC not in that list? PRR? Dodge? Threat Reduction? Threat Gen? Look at fighter.. To hit is not nearly as important as it was with the AC pass from.. TWO, expansion packs ago. So unless your using tactical feats, AKA: a fighter on this life, it serves no purpose. Fix it. Give it an AC point per stack, and everyone can benefit from it somewhat.

Wizards in the sister ship, and sinking just as fast. Spell Pen, and wand DC.. so, caster or GTFO? Why? 5/10/15% wand & scroll amp. Doesn't have ot play to every build, but the goal with every single past life should be "This can benefit most of the classes." Given, spell pen, and wand DC may be half, or close enough to not matter. I'm sure I'll miss one but Bard, cleric, druid, favored soul, Sorcerer, Wizard, can all effectively cast at things, still 2 spell pen, and wand DC.

Do you see (many) caster's using wands? I never do, but I may be in the minority, its possible.

Also varg, As a personal plea: Please, make Stand Against The Tide Just decline forced player movement. For an ability that ticks up, requisite to you standing still, It's a Righteous pain in the sensitive bit's how many things can/will knockback, or just out and out ignore the knock down immunity. Heck, give it +200 balance while your at it 'eh?

[waryJerry]

In some games every class has some degree of self-healing ability. This, of course, wouldn't be classic D&D, but how many DDO players would like this to be true of our game as well? Just curious...

[bbqzor]

Just to draw more attention to this:

Character Balance Survey (http://ddobugs.turbine.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=24037&surveyID=332&type=web)
We love survey answers. Flood us with information, please!

That survey is terrible. Rate everything in a vacuum? You really think that will amount to useful information?

Look anything can be good in DDO. It depends on how well its built, how well its played, and how demanding the player is on whats an acceptable level of play for them. While anything can make a viable build option (in terms of class/destiny selection, which is what the survey covers), there are some people who have demands which are easier met in some places as opposed to others. Thats impossible to just rate off a list.

Like Grandmaster of Flowers... great for monks, bad for bards. Does that mean it needs nerfs because monks can use it? No. Does that means it needs buffs so bards will find it useful? No. Does that mean I should rate it a 5 because my monk likes it, or a 1 because my bard hates it? Should I rate everything 3 because "It depends on the race/class/destiny combo" means everything is, essentially, even?

You posted, and Im not making this up, literally posted this:


Time and resources matter: We can save a great deal of time by only changing a few overpowered abilities, rather than changing all other characters, monsters, traps, and quests to match those few most overpowered abilities or features. If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features.
So basically, you want everything "even" and because its faster to nerf the top down rather than bring the bottom up, youre going with that approach. Well, and bold for effect, Thats Wrong.

If youre going to start implementing any kind of balance pass, you need to realize four things:

One - Its going to take time and effort, there is no quick fix, and nerfing 1-2-3 whatever "perceived overpowered" things will not accomplish this goal. It will just result in a new set of "flavor of the month" builds. Reactive balance isnt balance... its just pushing chips around.

Two - You need to define balance. YOU need to do that, not us. Is balance in your mind that everything is playable at all difficulties? That we all do similar damage? That we all take similar damage? We, as players, all have our own opinions of "whats fair", but we arent making the decisions which affect those things, YOU are. Thats why your the devs, and you get paid to do it. If you want everyone to do similar dps, over what time frame? Under what conditions? As one example, against undead mobs rogues have a harder time, and the new content is undead heavy. That was your decision. How do we rate that in terms of balance? You have to tell us what the goal is. If the goal is simply make everything "more or less playable", you have to define what playable means. Able to solo EH? Able to solo EN? Able to survive EE? Each individual player has their own metrics, but that doesnt help. For example, having multiple events that require "tanking" and then adding conditions which make evasion just stupidly amounts of useful... what was the design goal there? You just have to tell us plainly.

Three - You do not spend enough time playing. You just dont. You think "epic counters are fixed to not reset" would honestly make the patch notes if a single dev sat down and played 20 quests in Dreadnought? Nope... because its only fixed in like maybe 5 quests. Maybe. Or perhaps 10 if lucky? Its broken almost everywhere. Whatever your testing process is (and Im not trying to imply you dont have one, Im sure you do, and Im sure it catches a lot of things) it is not robust enough, and does not seem to involve simply logging in and PLAYING. Think like a player, when we want test something we log in, load up the ability, and go use it for dozen quests straight and observe. I get the sense you load it up in some sort of test conditions, check to be sure it works in one case, cut/paste that fix all over, and then assume its all working as intended. I am not trying to be insulting, I literally dont know much about professional coding, but how else can something that is immediately apparent in a single play through with 100% reproduction come as a surprise... its the kind of thing a single test would have found without fail, which implies that first test didnt happen. What else is there to say. You will have to invest a lot of hours playing, or actually listening to us when we play. I probably play 10-20 epic quests a day, most days of the week. The number of bugs I cross is astounding, many of them obvious and repeatable. Im happy to post but when we get told "bug every portal not working" well... I could do that at every door and basically stop playing to type all evening, or I could just say "its broken in over half of them, the fix wasnt a fix". You need to either play significantly more, or hire testers who do. Ill offer.

Four - You need to realize that the way youve taken the game, some things are just harder to play than others. This isnt bad or good, its just a fact. And its present in every game, everywhere. Wizards can be hard to play, because its hard to get a good DC. Tanks can be hard to play, because its hard to get a good AC. Monks seem easy to play, because they get a lot of flexible abilities, which make them good in many situations with a low investment. Barbarians are very hard to play, because they have virtually no defense, and by epic the mobs offense is so much that presents a large gap to cross. None of those things (DC, AC, Monks, Barbs) are unplayable. DC Wizards are tough to do, but very viable. I have one, I group with several others regularly, they work fine but require a lot of work. Same with AC Tanks. Its easy to get a lot of Threat, or 200+ AC, but its hard to do both at once. If you do, it works great, but its just a very high investment. Monks can be good on a first life build with common gear, because they can shift roles with stances and destinies to do many things well. Its not that monk is better, its that monk takes less time to realize. Where as Barbarians, even with infinite time to realize a build, come up short because almost nothing you do makes 80 Str/Con cover 30ac and zero PRR. In this (completely arbitrary) example, nothing needs nerfing. Monks are fine, people like them, theyre good at different difficulties, okay great. Perhaps make DC Wizards a bit easier to obtain by adding more passive DC. Perhaps make Tank AC easier to obtain by adding something like "Boots of Solid Earth, +20 AC, counts as heavy armor for evasion" or whatever thing focuses on just the area you want to focus on. The problem isnt the power level of those two, its how hard they are to make work. Where as barbarian needs some defense! Just add 1 PRR per Barbarian Level as an extension of the "barbarian got hit? barbarian doesnt care!" flavor theyre supposed to bring. Just giving them 20 PRR at 20 helps make up for the fact that mobs now hit for 200+ and the DR 7 they get lacks with the combat changes U14 brought.

Anyhow thats a long enough post. Your survey is pointless, I hope you put almost no value on it. Its terribly subjective, and with how interwoven those choices are even subjective answers wont provide clues to any balance causes or effects. You have to just come out and say what your goal is so we arent bandying about unfocused, then you need to actually put in the effort to do it right. It will take a lot of playing by you guys, or actually listening to us instead of just blowing off reports and patching anyhow. It will mean you dont make deadlines. It will mean you have to pause new content to fix old content. And most of all it will take examining not just what different options do, but how and why. If you just nerf rhyming words, you are missing the point of your own post entirely. Instead, take your time-saving to heart and just do nothing. Because taking one or two things down is only going to disgruntle players and result in a new wave of things to take down. Hopefully helpful, even if it just makes you redo that awful survey. Sigh.

[Uska]

ill say this with a little bit of tongue in cheek but capstone should be worth
evasion + pali saves then job done.

your friend sil :)

capstones for pure classes could be better

[Uska]

In some games every class has some degree of self-healing ability. This, of course, wouldn't be classic D&D, but how many DDO players would like this to be true of our game as well? Just curious...

I will give you an idea of how I feel about self-healing for all classes in a dnd game after trying it for 2 years myself and all in my old group of 12 burned all of our 4e books and dance around the blaze true it was mainly just phb's but still. NOT ALL CLASSES SHOULD BE ABLE TO REALLY HEAL THEMSLEVES. I think its already to common.

[Kasiddy]

<snip>We're happy to hear general thoughts on character balance, what you'd like to see, and also why you'd like to see certain changes (or non-changes.) We don't want to change any particular things without good reasons, so convince us!</snip>

Your post has me in two frames of mind.
1. Great, you are interested in our perspective.
and
2. You mean balance seriously wasn't being tossed out the window when you introduced bladeforged?

Really, Bladeforged vs. Vanilla Elf.
And there is balance?

Rather than player's perspective on balance, I'd really rather head more of a dev's.
How do you perceive balance working in the current state of the game?
What does balance mean to you?
What should a "balanced character" be able to do?
What is a "balanced character's" role in a party or raid?

[Cardtrick]

Just to draw more attention to this:

Character Balance Survey (http://ddobugs.turbine.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=24037&surveyID=332&type=web)
We love survey answers. Flood us with information, please!

I filled this out, but I thought seriously about not doing so once I saw it. It seems to reflect an incredibly incorrect understanding of the balance problems in the game.

It is not classes that need to be balanced. For all intents and purposes, DDO is no longer a class-based game.

The combination of the enhancements pass (front-loaded enhancements, few restrictions on investing in multiple trees), the front-loaded class abilities that DDO has always had, and the epic levels and epic destinies that are not dependent on class has brought us to a point where it just doesn't make much sense to talk about a fighter being more or less powerful than a bard.

It is builds and playstyles that need to be balanced.

You should have us ranking things like "How important to you is evasion", "How important is the ability to add CHA to saves", "How important is spell-based divine self-healing", etc. These are the meaningful components of a DDO character, not its specific class makeup.

Consider two of the current premier melee builds -- Cetus (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/433254-Cetus-The-Supreme-Bladeforged-Fighter) and Zeus (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/435435-Zeus-God-of-Thunder-and-Lightning). One of these is mostly fighter, and one is mostly rogue. Does that matter? One gets most of its DPS from the Acrobat enhancement, one gets its from Fighter feats and Kensai enhancements. So what? Both get evasion. Both get monk stances. Both get Divine Grace for saves from Paladin. Both get self healing and immunities from Bladeforged race. There are various other differences, and I know I'd much prefer to play the Zeus build than the Cetus one, whereas others might prefer Cetus. But the point is that the relative abilities of these two builds have very little to do with their primary class.

Classes only matter because they give access to some package of features. It's the features you need to be balancing.

[Hutoth]

Balance is a white whale - you will never ever get it.

Spending resources pursuing it (like Cpt Ahab) is a waste of your limited time.

Nerfs always Always ALWAYS suck.

Using Nerfs (which suck) to get balance (which you can never achieve) is utterly the wrong approach for this game.

[Kadriel]

Ok, I haven't even read the OP yet, I'll go back to it...

But first I have to say: Someone really opened up that can of worms? Really???

Be honest Varg, you lost a bet, didn't you?

[SirValentine]

Balance is a white whale - you will never ever get it.


You'll never get PERFECT balance...but it's not that hard, and is a good idea, to avoid gross imbalance.

[Livmo]

Look anything can be good in DDO. It depends on how well its built, how well its played, and how demanding the player is on whats an acceptable level of play for them. While anything can make a viable build option (in terms of class/destiny selection, which is what the survey covers), there are some people who have demands which are easier met in some places as opposed to others. Thats impossible to just rate off a list.


I did not comment in this thread on power, but was tempted, https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/438995-Rank-pure-classes-by-power

I think and feel all of classes in a pure form can be uber and most powerful depending on the player and their play style.

I played a pure paladin with OK success. A guild mate that plays pure paladin is way better at it than I was for sure and the stuff he does blows me away times, and I wonder why I didn't think of that? I've seen more than a few pure bards and barbarians rock and roll in EE content. Also druids that would give sorcs and wizzies a run for their plat as well. I've seen uber clerics deal damage. Most of you on Sarlona already know I suck as a cleric tho : ) ) For me that was the hardest class to play.

EDIT ~ I'm feel I'm way better at healing with my arty based on how I play. I suck at fighter as well (stuck at L18).

[Cathimon]

My main beef is with most classes getting their best stuff at level 2 or so. Paladin: Aura of Grace. Rangers: Bow feats/2WF, Monks: Evasion + 2 feats, etc.

Also, nerf Fury Shot. And buff virtualy all capstones.

[Cordovan]

Ok, I haven't even read the OP yet, I'll go back to it...

But first I have to say: Someone really opened up that can of worms? Really???

Be honest Varg, you lost a bet, didn't you?

It's an important topic, and one we are interested in getting feedback from the community on. We have our own opinions and ideas, but feel it's good to get opinions and ideas from the community as well. We're well aware that this can be a hot topic. That's fine. Please folks, though, make sure to not insult others or otherwise violate the Community Guidelines. Not saying that you have been at all, just sayin' for future reference. :)

[NytCrawlr]

In some games every class has some degree of self-healing ability. This, of course, wouldn't be classic D&D, but how many DDO players would like this to be true of our game as well? Just curious...

I would say those wanting more of a classic D&D feel should pay more attention to Pathfinder Online.

I think that ship has sailed for DDO a long time ago, but it's not beyond trying to fix on some level.

[Samir_Bennal]

One of the concerns from my standpoint is the byoh factor that now seems to be a requirement for most groups. I have a fighter from when the game very first launched that is built for dps and has no self healing because back then groups wanted a cleric to be around for the healing factor. Now the focus is heal yourself so my fighter sits on the shelf. Not that I am saying it is somebody else's sole responsibility to heal me but that's how groups used to be, dps , crowd control, trapper, healing. I wouldn't mind seeing something that helps promote group diversity again.

[Dawnsfire]

Everyone know that the various Monkcher and Shiradi builds are pretty balanced against each other. I am sure there are a few tweaks that could be made to perfect them but that would be asking too much from the overworked Dev teams. I mean you aren't proposing balancing these against all those other flavor builds are you?

[Hutoth]

You'll never get PERFECT balance...but it's not that hard, and is a good idea, to avoid gross imbalance.

This I grant is true, but the more successful we are at "balancing", the less anyone's build choices will matter. I want my build choices to matter.

Just because in the current U21 set-up, with the current EE end game there are build combos that perform really well compared to others doesn't mean there's a problem. The gradual evolution of DDO has seen "the best" builds come and go as gradual changes are made to systems: most successfully when poor cousins got a boost, and most annoyingly when flavours-of-the-month got nerfed. You're a long-time player, you seen these builds come and go like me.

The dev post almost flat out says "we're laying the groundwork for nerfs on several EDs and at least one class". That's a whole lot of nerfs, and the end result will be a new flavour-of-the-month build achieved through lots of pain. Where's the love for our poor cousins, and why is pursuing balance immediately so important when we know this will change over time anyway.

[patang01]

Honestly, I think you're going about this the wrong way. The issue is not that some classes are so powerful and others are not, it's that you're creating content that require to adopt the most suitable class.

Was heavy dps like fighters and barbarians over powered back in the shroud days when level 20 was max? Or cc casters? Why was Monks and Rangers not the vogue?

I tell you why, you have created a game of HPbags, inflated saves and mechanics where you can avoid lots of damage through evasion or ranged but there are little to mitigate damage in melee. Simply put, critters always hit, spells always takes and there's not enough DR or PRR to make a non evasion heavy dps viable unless they cheese blitz. And if they're not blitzing they better be avoiding damage by stunning, knocking down, evasion and or ranged.

Thus you get Monkchers, Rangers, Shiradi spammers. Because CC is not that viable and useful and unless you can conserve your resources you're going to bleed through your maximized spells in no time. That's again because of HPbag critters.

Look at the current upper end content and ask yourself if it favors melee or evasion and ranged? To 'nerf' the few viable options in order to balance classes will only make everything weaker across the board while the real issue remains. The content have gone off the rails. A EN Giant in a quest with 55k HP? That keep knocking you back? Of course I will use a blitzer or a ranged with manyarrow fury. Or a Shiradi caster or something using all the heavy draconic spell damage. That favor the classes that can put most spell power or ranged or whatever into such a silly idiotic encounter.

Or the red named battle ragers in the Shadow raid. I mean seriously; what kind of absurd encounter is that? Of course I will range with maximum SP and since there's no end to spawns I don't want to be anything but a Shiradi caster because I don't feel to sludge against the flow of trash with a limited SP pool and I'm sure healers don't want to SP sponge a fragile heavy hitter.

You created this; not by making blitzing good or Shiradi resources saving fun. Not by allowing manyarrow to be fueled by adrenaline - but by making lazy encounters using the worst mechanics (lots of HP and no way to use tactics on them). Thus your reaction is now to change the reaction so maybe you can balance the critter imbalance.

Here's a miuch better idea. Start working on mechanics. Make smarter critter encounters and where tactical feats are more useful than brute force. Allow people to think outside DPS and figure out how to reduce the overall effectiveness of Shiradi in all cases. Be smart and don't be afraid of making it fun. Right now it's all DPS.

Think about it; how many red named regular critters do you have right now? Look at haunted hall. TONS. Look at the raids, TONS. Players reactions will therefore always be to find the most effective way to deal with those kind of lazy mechanics. if you increase HP we will go or the most cost effective way to DPS that. If you go for resource wasting encounters we will try to find the most resource saving.

Then finally it's about fun. Some stuff is just not fun. Others are. Fun is the essence of playing a game. If you nerf everything to a gray mass of sameness you remove fun. You remove incentive to do something and you will make people look for content that allow fun. I don't want to play the equivalent of 'caster'. I want to play a draconic earth sorc.

[Drwaz99]

The survey is horrible. A good majority of characters are mutli-class and that doesn't even mention them. You can't have a survey on balance and leave a majority of the options people use off of it. IE, Pally's suck but pally splashes are very strong on certain characters. There's no way to reflect that on that survey.

Because of the lack of thought put into the survey, I am hesitant to even take this seriously. If you can't be bothered to make a serious survey, how can we be confident you will take our opinions seriously? Or eve implement the changes seriously?

I don't want some report based on that survey to make it to someone who makes decisions desk and you guys start tinkering around after seeing only a small fraction of the issue.

I also don't want this topic to be touched until there are plans to give everyone the ability to change things again. The +20 heart was nice but many, many people got stuck with 3 class problems during LR's (and it cost them money for a forced fix). Fix that before you even think about touching the balance of characters.

[Qhualor]

the one class I know most about, barbarian.

/DR, even maxxed out, does piddly for defense. this needs to translate better in DDO for it to be an effective defense. in epics mobs are hitting for 300+ constantly and a -/7 DR might as well be -500. this makes it so the points are not used in the trees and barbarians must look for other ways to boost defense, such as dodge, blurry and ghostly items. since barbarians cant cast spells while raged (their bread and butter), you have to load up in defensive items taking up slots that could be better benefited to boost dps. Im fine with trade-offs, but its a little nuts when you have to use 3 slots just for a decent defense. maybe at 20th level barbs are auto granted an extra 20 DR? like FVS for example? or maybe barbs gain more DR while raged only?

one of the best things you guys did for barbs (rogues too) was making the change for Uncanny Dodge. it does make for a noticeable difference increasing Dodge, but its such a long cool down. it makes sense to me that a barbarian experienced in battle would be able to sense an enemies movements and dodge from an enemies attacks more quickly. maybe dodge could be tied into barbarians and increased per level? per 3 levels? as an innate ability?

barbarians are in the back of the bus when it comes to self sufficiency. they cant cast spells while raged and they don't have a blue bar for cure/heal spells. they have to rely on pots for self sufficiency and the best in game we have is CSW and SF pots. CSW is fine in heroics. sometimes in high levels its not enough, but that's where skill and character build should prevail. in epics don't bother. better off just grabbing a hire or asking someone to play healer role. SF pots has too big of a penalty. its the best thing barbarians have to be self sufficient, but your ability scores drop up to 10 points (except con), you lose up to 9 points in saves and your run speed is decreased 50% for 30 seconds. nothing else comes close to this kind of penalty for healing and think a change is in order. at one time it was good for balance purposes, but its far easier today to build for self sufficiency with 0 loss in character power through other class/multi classes than it is for barbarians. generally, barbs will have a lot of hp. CSW pots healing for 36 per pot aint gonna cut it. by level 20, barbs would more than likely be about 1000 hp raged up just to get an idea.

fast healing really isn't fast in DDO. in PnP it works fine, but not here. I made a GS regen item a long time ago for my barb and I was only gaining back 6 hp per minute. Fast Healing in FOTW really isn't any better. I wont waste the points because it heals very little per minute. when mobs are hitting for 300+ constantly, im relying on party members, my penalizing SF pots and Healing Spring. Healing Spring is a problem too because its a random number up to per 20 seconds. it can be a good top off saving me pots, but it sucks when you see you were healed for 1 hp than 36 hp than 14 hp than 96 hp... barbarians need a reliable source of healing for when it counts since they are front line melees taking on a number of mobs at a time and generally grabbing agro with such high dps.

I suggest enhancements that boost the amount of hp gained from drinking pots. if balance is a concern with removing the penalty from SF pots as every class would benefit from it, than enhancements would be the next best thing. make the amount at minimum equal to what you can get from SF pots based on heal amp, whatever the math on that would be. right now, my main barbarian can heal from SF pots for 600+, just to give you an idea and that's with Claw set, 3x paladin lives, ship buff and human enhancements.

another suggestion would be some kind of enhancement, maybe better off in FOTW, that drains the life force from enemies and replenishes your hp or gives back a certain per cent. this could work after a mob is dead you gain X hp. I wouldn't suggest only if the barb gets the killing blow because we already have issues with Blitzers. at least some kind of life stealing but worth while.

[danlan]

Dear Vargouille,

People already made extensive comments in another thread named "Let's Talk About Monster Stats!" started by No Dice.

I think it would be worthwhile to refer to the thread of sirgog as below:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/437467-Let-s-Talk-About-Monster-Stats!/page20



I think the problem of balance is only evident in the context of epic elite, which is directly caused by the following features of epic elite (and the issue is worsening):

1. inflated monster hp (especially for orange and red named)

2. inflaged monster saves (literally untouchable)

3. inflated monster damages (renders non-ranged combat styles nonviable)

4. infated monster dc (causes players to overly focus on building up saves at the expense of all other varieties; if you dont build saves, you die instantly from cometfall/evo spells/soundburst etc.)

5. especially from update 19, the number of trashes also increase dramatically. This is very annoying combined with the above 4 points.


All of the above render all classes combinations powerless except for the below:

1. Shiradi casters who can hit from long distance, who are totally unaffected by monster saves, and who can do much more damage than any other casters!

My suggestion would be while making adjustment to Epic elites, it would be necessary to make all procs by shiradi only affected by 50% (or another ratio) of spell powers.


2. Furyshot moncher

I would suggest that adrenaline can only work on the first damage from manyshot/ten thousand star (if techically possible)

The above maybe a bit unfair to pure rangers, an alternative suggestion would be to nerf ten thousand star/manyshot combo, for example using manyshot would disable ten thousand star for say, 100 seconds.


Thank you.

[rest]

I have 1 single "pure" character on my account that is not a mule. It's a wizard. All of the others I play are multiclass. Poorly designed poll.

[Pastor2112]

Balance is overrated and boring. Variety is more interesting and what makes this game so great.

[Uska]

the one class I know most about, barbarian.

/DR, even maxxed out, does piddly for defense. this needs to translate better in DDO for it to be an effective defense. in epics mobs are hitting for 300+ constantly and a -/7 DR might as well be -500. this makes it so the points are not used in the trees and barbarians must look for other ways to boost defense, such as dodge, blurry and ghostly items. since barbarians cant cast spells while raged (their bread and butter), you have to load up in defensive items taking up slots that could be better benefited to boost dps. Im fine with trade-offs, but its a little nuts when you have to use 3 slots just for a decent defense. maybe at 20th level barbs are auto granted an extra 20 DR? like FVS for example? or maybe barbs gain more DR while raged only?

one of the best things you guys did for barbs (rogues too) was making the change for Uncanny Dodge. it does make for a noticeable difference increasing Dodge, but its such a long cool down. it makes sense to me that a barbarian experienced in battle would be able to sense an enemies movements and dodge from an enemies attacks more quickly. maybe dodge could be tied into barbarians and increased per level? per 3 levels? as an innate ability?

barbarians are in the back of the bus when it comes to self sufficiency. they cant cast spells while raged and they don't have a blue bar for cure/heal spells. they have to rely on pots for self sufficiency and the best in game we have is CSW and SF pots. CSW is fine in heroics. sometimes in high levels its not enough, but that's where skill and character build should prevail. in epics don't bother. better off just grabbing a hire or asking someone to play healer role. SF pots has too big of a penalty. its the best thing barbarians have to be self sufficient, but your ability scores drop up to 10 points (except con), you lose up to 9 points in saves and your run speed is decreased 50% for 30 seconds. nothing else comes close to this kind of penalty for healing and think a change is in order. at one time it was good for balance purposes, but its far easier today to build for self sufficiency with 0 loss in character power through other class/multi classes than it is for barbarians. generally, barbs will have a lot of hp. CSW pots healing for 36 per pot aint gonna cut it. by level 20, barbs would more than likely be about 1000 hp raged up just to get an idea.

fast healing really isn't fast in DDO. in PnP it works fine, but not here. I made a GS regen item a long time ago for my barb and I was only gaining back 6 hp per minute. Fast Healing in FOTW really isn't any better. I wont waste the points because it heals very little per minute. when mobs are hitting for 300+ constantly, im relying on party members, my penalizing SF pots and Healing Spring. Healing Spring is a problem too because its a random number up to per 20 seconds. it can be a good top off saving me pots, but it sucks when you see you were healed for 1 hp than 36 hp than 14 hp than 96 hp... barbarians need a reliable source of healing for when it counts since they are front line melees taking on a number of mobs at a time and generally grabbing agro with such high dps.

I suggest enhancements that boost the amount of hp gained from drinking pots. if balance is a concern with removing the penalty from SF pots as every class would benefit from it, than enhancements would be the next best thing. make the amount at minimum equal to what you can get from SF pots based on heal amp, whatever the math on that would be. right now, my main barbarian can heal from SF pots for 600+, just to give you an idea and that's with Claw set, 3x paladin lives, ship buff and human enhancements.

another suggestion would be some kind of enhancement, maybe better off in FOTW, that drains the life force from enemies and replenishes your hp or gives back a certain per cent. this could work after a mob is dead you gain X hp. I wouldn't suggest only if the barb gets the killing blow because we already have issues with Blitzers. at least some kind of life stealing but worth while.

Not all classes or builds should be able to reliably self-heal I will never ever be for that 4E style baloney.

[Livmo]

It's an important topic, and one we are interested in getting feedback from the community on. We have our own opinions and ideas, but feel it's good to get opinions and ideas from the community as well. We're well aware that this can be a hot topic. That's fine. Please folks, though, make sure to not insult others or otherwise violate the Community Guidelines. Not saying that you have been at all, just sayin' for future reference. :)

TY!

We are all in this together. I enjoy a spirited debate as much as anyone else, but it always makes sad when a nifty thread breaks down into this:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nbhFcTK-vgA/Uq_bh4tE1ZI/AAAAAAAANYI/C4mXIo_odL0/s1600/santapocalypse_brawl570.gif

[Qhualor]

Not all classes or builds should be able to reliably self-heal I will never ever be for that 4E style baloney.

I grew up on AD&D and know nothing of 4E.

the game has evolved into "be self sufficient or don't bother joining". if the devs cant make adjustment s to go back to the way DDO was a few years ago with more role players than every class needs to be able to keep up with the changes to the game today.

[Uska]

I grew up on AD&D and know nothing of 4E.

the game has evolved into "be self sufficient or don't bother joining". if the devs cant make adjustment s to go back to the way DDO was a few years ago with more role players than every class needs to be able to keep up with the changes to the game today.

If your an ad&d player than you know barbs don't HEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and I will stand by what I say not all classes should be able to heal themselves its already to easy as it is and should be toned done about 90% for non divine classes or forged casters.

[Systern]

I think striving for equivalence is a fool's errand. What you'll end up with is a game so bland that "balanced party" doesn't matter because anyone is comparable to anyone else.

While the grossly overpowered (monks, monkchers), and the grossly underpowered (pure pally and pure bard) need to be addressed. I'd like to see you guys consciously crafting the meta. I'd like a return to the days of yore when Necro 4 was a divine focused pack, and Secrets of the Artificers elevated arti and thief gear for a quarter. With games like DotA, LoL, and IC; each patch changes the meta and elevates the underpowered and swings the OP to median for a release.

Your current proposal, even addressing Pallies and Bards underpowered perception, will mean that you strive to have them only a step behind the monkchers that have always shined. This won't make us bard players feel good knowing "at least I don't suck as bad anymore". I'd like to see the underdogs have a chance in the limelight before returning to the middle of the pack. If you try to make everything equal, it just means the FotM crowd forever looks for the broken combinations, and the WAI builds are always a step behind.

Intentionally break the underpowered for an Update, and then nerf the OP to mediocrity in the next update. You'll be able to control the lows, the highs, and the median more easily that way.

[Kadriel]

Ok, I've gone through the post


Self Healing is something that changes the balance of character in a very dramatic way, all depending on play style...

True. The problem isn't that everyone should be able to self heal. The problem is that currently you need only two things: kill and survive. You can have 6 of these guys and you are gold. It would be ok to require a healer in a party for some quests if you also REALLY needed a crowd controler, a tank, a trapmonkey - whatever uniqueness you can get - to some quests. Since you don't need ANY of those things having someone who can't self heal in a party turns out to be more of a liability than a help.


If you start making balance changes to classes to please the whiners please count on me canceling my sub renewel and quitting the game we need less changes from pnp not more I am on the border already but that kind of **** will do it.


You post your way I will post mine but I don't mind changes to epic destines actually but I am against class changes a trillion percent.

I think we have stated that you don't like changes (except maybe of games).


It's an important topic, ... :)

Someone with a yellow name quoted me, that is a first :)


Honestly, I think you're going about this the wrong way. The issue is not that some classes are so powerful and others are not, it's that you're creating content that require to adopt the most suitable class....

That goes on par with what I think. Insert in the upcomming content places where you actually need to be good at sneaking, and trap disabling, and non damage spells, and so on. Don't make it MANDATORY, but make having such skills to speed up/make things easier. Your average monkcher shirardi will still be the uberest dps, but if a party of 6 of those can't beat a quest faster then a party with a couple stealth ppl or something, bang - Playing a steath build is now fun AND adds to the party, withtout needing to downgrade anyone.



Now to my personal opinions, I haven't spend much time on Epic, but the OP stated it wanted info on lower levels aswell. I'm on my last life for completionist, 1-20 wise, I went pure every class just to get the feel. On those levels monk was clearly over the top for me - I had never played a monk before, had no idea on what I was doing and still pretty much broke every quest. On the other hand, my barbarian life made me take a 6 months break from ddo - mostly because besides no self healing (can't even umd scrolls because of rage) there was no reliable damage mitigation either.

[Uska]

I think striving for equivalence is a fool's errand. What you'll end up with is a game so bland that "balanced party" doesn't matter because anyone is comparable to anyone else.

While the grossly overpowered (monks, monkchers), and the grossly underpowered (pure pally and pure bard) need to be addressed. I'd like to see you guys consciously crafting the meta. I'd like a return to the days of yore when Necro 4 was a divine focused pack, and Secrets of the Artificers elevated arti and thief gear for a quarter. With games like DotA, LoL, and IC; each patch changes the meta and elevates the underpowered and swings the OP to median for a release.

Your current proposal, even addressing Pallies and Bards underpowered perception, will mean that you strive to have them only a step behind the monkchers that have always shined. This won't make us bard players feel good knowing "at least I don't suck as bad anymore". I'd like to see the underdogs have a chance in the limelight before returning to the middle of the pack. If you try to make everything equal, it just means the FotM crowd forever looks for the broken combinations, and the WAI builds are always a step behind.

Intentionally break the underpowered for an Update, and then nerf the OP to mediocrity in the next update. You'll be able to control the lows, the highs, and the median more easily that way.

I don't think pure monks are over-powered maybe monkchers are and shardi but I think that is really a epic level thing and they need to look more at ed stuff rather than heroic I couldn't care less really about epic I don't really care to play there as even pnp dnd breaks down at that level.

[Systern]

I don't think pure monks are over-powered maybe monkchers are and shardi but I think that is really a epic level thing and they need to look more at ed stuff rather than heroic I couldn't care less really about epic I don't really care to play there as even pnp dnd breaks down at that level.

The biggest issue I'll have with "fixing" shiradi is that they'll break the ONLY destiny that has innate synergy for an Arti.

[Cetus]

Well, here we go...

my nerf bat is in view

[maddmatt70]

There is so many things that need to be balanced in DDO. I think I will just start by posting something that I think is a relatively quicker fix and would not take too many manhours and that is epic destiny balance. The main problem with the epic destinies balance wise is the final epic moments in the varoius epic desitinies have a wide range of effectiveness. The four that I think are currently fine regarding their effectiveness are:

Unbridled Fury
Master's Blitz
Audience with the queen (note hail of arrows could use a little bump).
Everything is Nothing

The ones that I would like to see improved are the following:
Nullmagic Aura (I think that this epic moment should be swapped with the arcane spellsurge auto grant to tier 5 and arcane spellsurge should be every 2-3 minutes).
Avatar of Nature should be significantly ramped up dps wise(almost as good as the old bug which allowed the multiple hits).
Turn the Tide: should have a 3 minute cooldown, last 30 seconds and work on red names as well as trash.
Fearsome Invulnearablity: should have a 3 minute cooldown and the dr should be 100-.
Dark Imbuement: should do about 5 times the damage it currently does and cooldown 3 minutes.
Reborn in Light should have a 6 minute cooldown and the counter should be reduced. Every 6 minutes someone should be able to use this ability for 2 minutes.
Undying Vanguard should have the counter reduced and it should be every 3 minutes on the cooldown.

Yes, this will generally increase the power level of characters, but the point is everyone gets steered into Fury of the Wild and Legendary Dreadnaught if you are a melee/ranged character due to really the powers of the epic moments of those two destinies. I would rather create more options rather then less and hence improve the other epic destinies. Primal Avatar is a great example of a destiny that could use a huge improvement to its epic moment. For spellcasters the situation is a little bit more complicated, but if you can enhance the spellcaster destinies generally you will get some more competitors to Shiradi which currently is the top spellcasting destiny.

[Qhualor]

If your an ad&d player than you know barbs don't HEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and I will stand by what I say not all classes should be able to heal themselves its already to easy as it is and should be toned done about 90% for non divine classes or forged casters.

well, in PnP that's fine and balance is easier to do. in DDO, its completely different. many things don't translate very well over to this game so some things need to be exaggerated to balance things out better. barbs need a way to self heal more reliably than what they currently have. right now its not enough to stay alive and dish out what they are best at, dps.

as the game has changed players have adapted to these changes moving away from classes that aren't very good at self healing and building with classes that do have good self healing. going toe to toe with mobs hitting you for 300+ damage every few seconds with no good reliable source of self healing to keep up with the dps output turns players off from these classes. this is why we have seen a lot more of multi class builds with ranged as a primary focus these days and you see many with 2/9 levels of rogue or monk for evasion.

the biggest reason why I hear people say they don't like playing a barbarian is because of the very limited self healing they can do. people don't like relying on CSW and SF pots when its much easier to build for comparable dps and better self sufficiency in most other classes. people try to build for umd but than complain their dps sucks because they cant cast while raged so they lose out on a ton of dps. like I said, im fine with trade offs but no other build is trading off anything for better self healing.

[-Zephyr-]

I'm playing all kinds of builds, even if the characters I tend to play and gear the most gravitate towards the most powerful builds.
For me, the reason ranged/casting feels so much superior to melee right now is because of all the terrible effects we can get when meleeing. Knockbacks, slow, damaging shields that only work at close range or only for melee attacks... Some of those simply need to be burnt in fire, some reworked to also challenge attacks from range.

[Munkenmo]

Most of the survey questions useless because they're too narrow:

Also If you guys are ever serious about balancing abilities and content, you need to figure out a way to make every ED / enhancement abilities scale to quest difficulty level, otherwise flat numbers will likely win in Low level (n/h) content, % based numbers will rule in High level (e/ee) content.

Classes:
Pure unarmed monks are actually very weak atm, A big driver for this is ED abilities (like many found in Legendary Dreadnaught) not working with handwraps.
However, 2/6/12 monk splashes that use weaponry (bows & centred kensais) are actually very very strong.

Pure paladins are really weak, 2 or 4 splashed paladin levels are very powerful.

Barbarians do top tier melee damage, but thanks to the stupidity of "centred Kensai" they're an incredibly poor choice now.

Fighters : One of two changes needs to happen "centred kensai" should not be possible, or monk stances should not be selectable feats, notice that both of the potential fixes relate to another class.....

The FVS ability Just Reward needs to be dropped to 1/2/4 temporary sp, once this is done, it should not be tied to Scourge.

Bards used to provide unique bonuses to groups via there songs, Items are not the same type as some of these old bard songs. The song buffs haven't scaled with character power creep.

ED
Fury of the Wild
Unbridled Fury should not gain charges with ranged combat. It and Adrenaline should continue to work with bows though, duration changed to 15 seconds.
Adrenaline shold be changed to a smite like ability, Ie. Instant, there's too much potential to stack it with other effects.

Primal Avatar
Avatar of Natures attack speed is rediculously slow, activating the epic moment is a dps loss for any dps orientated character.
The sp cost of Stormrage / Tsunami/ Insidious Spores are too great.

Legenday Dreadnaught
Masters Blitz needs to be nerfed, flat 30 seconds only, +50% damage, +50% dodge
Momentum Swing doesn't work with handwraps or in druid animal forms, it needs to.
Pulverizer doesn't work with handwraps or animal forms, it should.

Fatesinger
Is the perfect example of what ED's should have been, there's little power creep, no huge bursting dps moments, it just provides good small increments. You shouldn't be boosting Fatesinger, you should be nerfing other ed's to this level.

Magister
Every single sigle should be converted to an Aura style buff.
Arcane Adept should stack with spell cost reduction items (atm it doesn't).
The summon has not scaled with Character level / difficulty level increases, it needs a huge buff.

Shadow Dancer
Another example of an ED that is about right

Gmof
It's about right too.

Shiradi
It's actually pretty weak for ranged characters but good for casters. You've kinda missed your intended mark whilst still making a worthwhile ED.
Merge Stand & deliever and Whirling weeds
Replace Stand & Deliver with an ability like Whirling Wrists but for all ranged weapons.
I'd make Fey Power grant full BAB.

Draconic
Another good example of what ED's should have been all along. Though it's overpowered in EN, Ranges from strong to balanced in EH (changes as quests level increases), Weak in EE.

I'm reserving judgement on the Divine ED's for now whilst I get a feel for them.

Making these nerfs is going to require you to drop the hp and damage on all EE mobs too.

[madmaxhunter]

well, in PnP that's fine and balance is easier to do. in DDO, its completely different. many things don't translate very well over to this game so some things need to be exaggerated to balance things out better. barbs need a way to self heal more reliably than what they currently have. right now its not enough to stay alive and dish out what they are best at, dps.

as the game has changed players have adapted to these changes moving away from classes that aren't very good at self healing and building with classes that do have good self healing. going toe to toe with mobs hitting you for 300+ damage every few seconds with no good reliable source of self healing to keep up with the dps output turns players off from these classes. this is why we have seen a lot more of multi class builds with ranged as a primary focus these days and you see many with 2/9 levels of rogue or monk for evasion.

the biggest reason why I hear people say they don't like playing a barbarian is because of the very limited self healing they can do. people don't like relying on CSW and SF pots when its much easier to build for comparable dps and better self sufficiency in most other classes. people try to build for umd but than complain their dps sucks because they cant cast while raged so they lose out on a ton of dps. like I said, im fine with trade offs but no other build is trading off anything for better self healing.

I have to agree with you. Yes, in D&D Barbs are not self healers. In D&D we had a cleric, his name was Eric. He brought the Taco Bell and Mountain Dew every Friday night. This is a game where healers are anonymous puggers who know that they can either spend there time dotting, slaying, dropping BBs or healing the Barb.

I'm not advocating self healing Barbs. I'm saying that the current system is broken. I run with guildies most of the time. I have a great healer who can dual task. When I join a PuG, it's generally filled with self-healing min-maxers and I spend half the raid stunned from SF pots.

[Myrddinman]

The most important aspect to this is providing a real solid means to respec with changes.

This means a REAL respec that fully works for everyone--a LR +20 is insufficient for many tri-class builds to respec with, and doesn't resolve alignment issues (like this poor fellow: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/438918-Alignment-Change-Quesion).

They should also be FULL respecs (classes, alignment, race--pretty much everything except name).

If I have a mechanism to roll with the changes, I'm generally cool.

^ Firstly...absolutely this!

As for the rest that is in this thread, I agree with most of it and implore the devs to take a serious look at the pure vs. multiclass situation. Every time I convince myself to roll a pure character, I talk myself out of it and splash 2/6 monk, or 2/4 Paladin, 6 Ranger, or 2 FVS...which is ridiculous!

[oradafu]

The biggest issue I'll have with "fixing" shiradi is that they'll break the ONLY destiny that has innate synergy for an Arti.

Which means the Devs should be focusing on adding an Arti ED after "fixing" the Divine Sphere.

The map for this year should be fairly easy for the Devs to help balance the game. Before the end of the year, the following should happen:
* increase the power of core abilities at level 18 and 20 for all classes and possibly increasing the core abilities for some classes at level 12
* add an Arti ED so each class has one ED that sort of works with their class before adding more EDs (and yes, more EDs should be added in the future, such as a Divine DC casting ED)
* Sacred Defender and Stalwart Defender need to be restructured
* finish the third tree for all classes, so Artis, Bards, Fighters, FvS and Paladins don't feel incomplete anymore, then decide if Racial trees will be the next focus or if additional class trees will be the next focus
* do something to fix Barbarians
* create a way for Arti and Druid dogs can continue to gain power in Epic levels
* add more class based Epic feats at level 21, such as Great Smiting
* cap PRR against the armor type, much like Dodge is capped against armor type, since there's no reason for robes to gain equal amounts of PRR that Heavy Armor gains when Heavy Armor is penalized from using Evasion AND contains a Dodge cap

These are just some basics that will help balance the game without bringing major nerf hammers that we can see the Devs are pulling out of the shed.

[Pandir]

Honestly, look at the epic normal/hard/elite balance before looking at character balance. As long as the elite numbers stay as insane as they are while you nerf players, it will be all hell breaks lose.
Fix the quests then you have a much better chance of getting class balance in line without too much tears, IMO anyways.

[Grosbeak07]

Well, here we go...

my nerf bat is in view

Put that away, there are children present!

Tread very, very carefully here. There are areas to nerf, others to buff and should never be static.

To me, balance is when builds compliment each other and can encourage grouping to defeat content. To make this happen you not only will have to look at each classes and various multi-class builds, but also in the content you design. The two go hand in hand.

[Ebondevil]

Nearly all my planned builds for the foreseeable future include 2 levels of Rogue, for evasion and trap handling.

[Kanuk]

Multi-classing is a core element of D&D 3rd and 3.5 editions and I completely believe its a must for DDO. However, things like enhancement were not core, so for one thing, increase min level to access each tiers, forcing people to splash further for builds. Beef up pure builds, more enhancement points, really truly good capstones maybe ? Outside of a few DC caster builds, even then for some (clonk for wis stance), there's so little reason to go pure.

In my opinion, the place where you have most need for balance is between pure and multiclassing.

Side note, you should close this thread ASAP and restart a new balance thread on each subjects. We can better follow and discuss each subject in more details.

[Arianka]

I have 1 single "pure" character on my account that is not a mule. It's a wizard. All of the others I play are multiclass. Poorly designed poll.
i have 18 x 28th level toons. 7 of them are pure. they are:

1 x wizzie
2 x monks
1 x fvs
1 x artie
1 x pally
1 x rogue

the rest are multiclass.

i prolly would of made more toons multi then i did but some of the capstones are decent and some of the epic destinys are good enogh so i didnt have to multi.

i agree with one of the other posters that most capstones realy do need to be improvedd. they need to be as good as evasin, cha mod to saves or 2 extra feats. otherwise most peple will be like rest and multiclass to often.

[Theolin]

Before we talk about balance ... especially about nerf type balancing



Look at how the high level quests are designed - for EE level 25+ quests

Mob saves are ridiculous form the most part, its almost impossible to build to bypass them enough
Mob HPs are somewhere around plaid
Mobs will kill you in 1-4 hits
All the save or die saves you need to save against
Traps that will kill you if you don't save


This leads to making a character with the following

A ton of HPs
Very High saves
Not getting hit (meaning range - since you cannot have enough defense)
Evasion
High burst damage



------------------



Old out dated parts of the game that have not been updated since the level cap was 10 (ok, not all from that long ago ... but dang )

Barb DR
Feats that give +1 or +2 to damage, saves, AC, DC, ......
past lives that give +1 damage, +1 to hit ....
ect ....


Honestly this list is sooooo long its not even funny, Just look at the sheer amount of things that are never taken by those who play EE

So you wonder why only 5 feats are chosen & 8 enhancements ...
Once the totally **** is thrown out there really is not much left as far as variety



------------------



Change .....

Rule #1 ... Nobody likes it, especially if it is negative
Rule #2 ... see Rule #1
Rule #3 ... see Rule #1
Rule #4 ... see Rule #1
Rule #5 ... see Rule #1
...
Rule #20 ... see Rule #1
Rule #21 ... People like to improve


Might seem funny, it is not .....


------------------



Trade offs - the depths one will go to

Is it worth trading this for that
What do I gain / loose
Why would I choose one over the other
Where are each useful
Is one not needed or rarely needed
Percent expected to be used / needed for what I want to do / play


See quest design above ....

Apply this to should I take 6-20 levels of this verses 1-10 of that or any other 2/3 class split verses pure
Apply this to feats
Apply this to enhancements & trees
Apply this to destinies



------------------



Path of least resistance

All living things gravitate towards the path of least resistance for what they wish to accomplish
People will try things out and play around till they find what they like
People will try things out and play around till they find what works
People will try things out and play around till they find what does not work
People will share information
Its a game its supposed to be fun not work


No matter what you change the overall trend of the population will be to the easy path

Yes there are exceptions see the infamous bell curve and the moving mean



------------------

Now for the Main points


I would rather see you take a hard look at the really bad things and make them a possible choice first
If you do nerf the top stuff then you need to adjust the quests and encounters so they are not just mind fumblingly boring whittle their HP down game
Decide how many hits it should take to kill us for an average mob - hint it should be more than 5

Apply this to traps, spells, melee, ... ect
scale this appropriately for orange, red, purple mobs


Personal annoyance - I really really hate (cannot stress this enough) save or die situations with no in between

Even a slight change to take all but 20 HPs would be better - at least you have a chance
This applies to spells, traps, melee, ... ect damage
This point right here is why I do not play much EE & some content, its not that I cannot its just annoying

[Thar]

Rule # 1 for changes... improve the bad not downgrade the good. If your making something less powerful... nooooooo. it's gonna tick people off.

that being said... please do something with tanks... we can't do squat in epics. I'd like to tr my tank but the first run to 28 was sooooooooo painful. then look at bards...

and no "NERFS".

don't destroy what brings people back playing every day. If you nerf'd monks, i knew a few guys that would surely leave.

[rcmcneil]

Character Balance has to include the game's other mechanics, otherwise there's not much to compare it to except other classes & class blends. While content has increased, a great deal has been neglected to the point of irrelevance. Give us content where something besides damage output determines quest success. Let us know that certain abilities that were deemed important enough to develop, code, test, & release are still important enough to acquire & use in the game (wilderness lore, social skills, deity feats anyone?).

On Classes:
Some classes are supposed to be unsurpassed in their specific ability.
-Kenseis are supposed to be so acutely in tune with their weapon that they can do amazing things with it.
-Arcane Archers are supposed to be unmatched with a bow.
-Druids are supposed to use Nature and the Elements like no other to damage enemies & assist the party.
-Artificers are supposed to apply the Arcane Arts to a mechanical object.
-Monks should use life energy like no other.
-Not doing all of the classes, you get the point.

Multiclassing these & blending prestiges is our choice to apply the vast combination of abilities to our advantage with whatever the game currently is.

As tempting, easy, & cheap (presumably) as it would be for developers to just take the Nerfhammer to some abilities, please keep this in mind: the game's content has been updated while character abilities have largely stagnated. The Enhancements revamp was good, but nowhere near enough to keep up with the new content. The fact that a truckload of people have migrated to Bladeforged melees should tell you that other classes & other races are lacking while in quests. That doesn't mean you should slam it with ubernerfs, that means ramp up other races & classes to make them useful, playable, & fun enough to swing the pendulum back the other way.

This is also a MMORPG. It seems like lately, either through player exodus or game mechanics (or both), it has moved to become a mainly solo game with occasional team-ups for when you can't actually complete a quest by yourself. When changes do come, make them player relevant & party significant.

To the devs:
You would get far more game input & ideas if upon each update, on a login screen or a special page after zoning in, you would put the full release notes, and perhaps a survey requesting feedback. Relying solely on the forum population means possibly including people who don't even play anymore, while missing out on those who log in to play the game.

[stoopid_cowboy]

Balance is overrated and boring. Variety is more interesting and what makes this game so great.

How can you say variety makes the game so great?
Currently there are only about 4 character types played! And with that, EVERYTHING has a yellow bar!

Join a PUG raid sometime. Count the number of barbarians and Paladins. ZERO! Monk 4-6, Ranger 2-4, Sorc 2-4, Whiz, 2-4, and a cleric or two.
There is NO VARIETY when a 12 man raid consists of only 4 classes!
Before MoTU, when raids were endgame, a typical raid had two hjealors, two or three casters(including bard), a trapper, and the rest were DPS characters. When I say DPS, I am talking about Fighters, Barbs, Monks, Rangers, Pally's (yes we thought of Pally as a DPS class).
When is the last time you saw a Barb in a raid? If you did, he was prolly running at half speed while chugging SF pots like Lindsay Lohan chugs vodka!

How do you fix it?

1. Remove all of the self hjealing easy buttons. Currently the only "balanced" raid group is 12 furyshot AA's with cocoon and hjealing spring twists. (You could also substitute up to 4 WF shiradi casters.) Remove self hjealing and it would promote a traditional "balanced" party. Hjealors now have a purpose again!

2. Why does double rainbow work with spells? When did spells become classified as ranged attacks? Remove spells from Shiradi.

3. Can anyone explain how adrenaline works with bows? In reality, I don't care how furious you become a bow only has a set amount of force! Bows have a set draw distance with a set amount of "pull". Get as mad as you want, it won't shoot any harder. Some will say "you can pull it back farther making it shoot harder". WRONG! Only of you also have longer arrows. Otherwise the arrow gets too short and falls off the perch. Answer, remove adrenaline from bows and crossbows! I won't even go into the ranged adrenaline recharge...

4. Why are characters in pajamas the best "tanks"? Just ponder that one for a few minutes...

more later ;)

[Turbosilk]

I am not in favor of finely tuned balanced classes. Reasonable balance is enough, even if some end up somewhat more stronger than others. You need some limited imbalance because there are all kinds of different players. Some players are not content unless they smack around bosses with their FOTM builds with uber powerful feats, enhancements, and their Keen Vorpal Blade Cuisinart of instant destruction whereas another player will be more satisfied defeating the same boss naked and armed with only a wet noodle and their wits. Tying to satisfied all is road to mediocre game play.

+1

[Turbosilk]

As a general statement please take this seriously - Great players with great gear are going to be great with thoughtful class builds and ED configs. Poor and average players are going to be just that regardless of builds and gear. Poor and average players just think that any class/ED/etc that a great player is using is OP and should be nerfed. Heavily weight the opinions accordingly and as devs you should be able to simulate character balance according to survivability, dps, healing, etc. Don't let perceptions be defined as the reality.

[Drevok]

I think a few simple tweaks can adjust much of the issues. Here a few of my favorite suggestions that have been oft mentioned.
- For some, just make the cool-down timer somewhat longer.
- MS cool-down timer also affects 1K star.
- Bard add level 5 or 6 sonic dot spell (similar or possibly slightly weaker than niacs) or some other means to affect red-names, etc.
- Some very light splashes give way too much. Perhaps require higher level if have multiple selection? For example fighter haste 10% requires level 1 fighter, 20% requires level 2 fighter, 30% requires level 3.
- Monks with non monk weapons should require a larger investment and/or more levels.

Another comment: I don't like having to do destinies that have no use for my character... Suggestion to significantly reduce the impact is to have option to split between two destinies. As maximum 6 tiers, two example is destiny 1: max 1 tier accessible and 1/6 XP, destiny 2: max 5 tier accessible with 5/6 XP. Another example is 2 destinies each with 1/2 XP and each with up to max tier 3 accessible. Fatespinner can adjust ratio (so all in one destiny, 1/6 and 5/6, 2/6 and 4/6 and 3/6 both).

[Turbosilk]

I don't mind that a specific build is the highest DPS, I do mind that its the highest DPS by 50% to 100% increase to the next build.


Great statement in general but how do you back it up with actual data? If people perceive something is doing 50 to 100% more dps than the next build but in reality it is 5% more should perception cause a nerf?

[FranOhmsford]

This Survey is beyond a Joke!

1. You're asking us to rate Playstyles on a 1-5 Scale and only give us 3 Playstyles to rate - Melee, Ranged {incl. Throwing Weapons!!! Seriously???} and Spellcasting!

a) Melee incl. Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins, Rogues, Monks, Wolf form Druids, A large number of Clerics and Tempest Rangers.

b) Ranged incl. Arcane Archers {incl Monkchers!}, Artificers, Arti/Rogue Mechs and Halflings with throwing Daggers!

c) Spellcasting - The Spellcasting capabilities of a Pale Master vs those of a Caster specced Cleric just aren't in the same Ballpark for crying out loud!

Any rating is automatically a complete waste of time!

2. You ignore Multiclassing!
I've given Monks a 5 on your 1-5 Power Scale yet I'd give Pure Monks a 3 at most!
The 5 comes from the Power jump when splashing monk onto OTHER classes!!

3. Worst of all you seem to be under the impression that such a weak and pitiful survey will give you the answers you need!
Answers you should already be well aware of btw!

Look:

Rogues, Clerics, Paladins, Barbarians, Druids and Tempest Rangers are currently underpowered!

-Rogues have been pigeon-holed thanks to the enhancement revamp into specific builds and weapons - They've also had a Nerf to the available Trap Scores from Enhancements {Artis have been hit hard by this too!}.

- Clerics - You seem to be under the mistaken impression that these are OP and insist on keeping them down at every opportunity!

- Paladins - You only need to look at the truly ridiculous requirement of 83 AP to max out Sacred Defender {Not even Possible!} and the squeezing together of HotD & KotC which keeps both at much lower power levels than Kensai for example!

-Barbarians - Putting separate Rage Enhancements in all 3 trees and therefore making it unviable to go all in on a single tree and killing the Racial Trees for said Class!

-Druids - BEAR FORM!!!

-Tempest - Still basically requires Multiclassing - Why won't you let Rangers go Pure?

Pale Masters & Sorcs {Esp WF} are ridiculously OP when compared to Fleshy Archmages and Sorcs {As some people are quick to point out this is a Heroic and early epic issue NOT an End-Game issue!
Archmage needs a serious boost to bring it on par with PM or WF and Making us take Zombie Form is NOT going to do it!
AM and PM should really be mutually exclusive Trees as allowing AM Benefits on a PM is also quite a buff to said PM. Which makes AM an even weaker choice!

The power of the Monk Splash is off the scale!
Pure Monk isn't as OP as people have been making out and has blindsided you away from the Monk Splash!

Monkcher especially is an issue atm.

Bards when played by those who know how to play them are Supreme and really don't need buffing!
However they're also NOT in any need of a Nerf!

Pure Artificers are fantastic up to around Lvl 13-15 then are overtaken by pretty much every other class! {The Juggernaut build cannot be used as a stick to beat Artis with!}.
Way too front loaded BUT any Nerf at Low Levels would be a bad idea - Artis really need buffing at higher levels!



Finally to Favored Souls - As everyone here knows I have an antipathy towards this class however I'll try to stay objective:

1. The Enhancement Pass was a MASSIVE Nerf to FavSouls! {Objective enough for y'all?}

2. Warforged FvS has become much less popular since but is to my mind still the best build for said class - Greatsword Melee and Self Healing is Pretty Safe!
FvS are also in no way expected to Heal by anyone anymore as Clerics and Druids are both far better at this and if you have a FvS and a Bard in your Raid you'd probably be better off asking the Bard if he/she was OK with being Main Healer!

3. The Caster FvS seems to have fallen by the wayside {probably because of a lack of DC and Spell Pen Boosts for Elite content}.

4. Exalted Angel and Unyielding Sentinel are far too focused for a Jack of all trades Class!



Oh I forgot Fighter didn't I - Well this brings me to my final point and the biggest issue in Class Balance in DDO:


Feats

Clerics, FavSouls, Sorcs, Bards, Barbarians, Paladins - These classes are all in desperate need of more Feats!

Nimble Fingers and Skill Focus Disable Device should NOT be laughed at as Rogue or Arti Feats! {Skill Focus Search on the other hand has become almost mandatory thanks to the recent DC Boosts to that requirement!}.

The Absolute Last thing you should do is to Nerf Fighter, Arti, Monk or Wizard - Wizards in fact could maybe do with a slight buff to # of feats!
However:
Everyone else needs Boosting! {Not sure on Druids tbh as I've never counted their feat slots}

And No I don't count feats taken in Epic Levels as a Boost - I still only count up to Lvl 20 when talking about Heroic Feats!


It might help if you merged some feats rather than giving out extra slots though - For example:

Skill Focus Open Lock/Skill Focus Disable Device/Nimble Fingers = ONE Feat for +5 to Open Locks and Disable Device!

Spell Penetration and Spell Focus

Empower and Empower Healing

Improved Turning and Extra Turning


And it would definitely help if Paladins got a few Free Feats at high enough levels so that they don't become an Insta-Splash class - For Example:

Tower Shield Proficiency - Lvl 1
Exotic Wpn Prof: Bastard Sword - Lvl 3
Shield Mastery - Lvl 5
Combat Expertise - Lvl 7
Improved Trip - Lvl 10
Improved Shield Mastery - Lvl 13
Improved Sunder - Lvl 16

Tower Shield and Bastard Sword Profs btw are an absolute must and I really can't see why they weren't given to Paladins back in 2006?

OR

Give us our Horses back!!!!!

[Turbosilk]

No its not the same.

People that don't post on the forum don't want their opinion to be listened to.
Otherwise, they would speak up.
They're silent, so they don't care.

Using that logic means those who whine and post the most should have their whining addressed. Not logical. Mob rule is mob rule. Best to let the smart people make smart decisions based on facts and disseminate to the mobs.

[Veriden]

No its not the same.

People that don't post on the forum don't want their opinion to be listened to.
Otherwise, they would speak up.
They're silent, so they don't care.

Or they merely want to avoid drama and harassment from trolls and a-holes much like yourself.

[MrWindupBird]

Please don't weight the survey results in your analysis. I started filling it out, then quickly gave up and closed it. There's no way to convey useful information in that response. Can't be done.

The issue isn't really class X is powerful, class Y is weak. It's that certain ED abilities/classes/enhancements synergize incredibly well. It's a more complex interaction. IE, as ftdOmen noted above, unarmed monks (especially pure) are pretty weak, but AAs, Shiradi arcanes, and Kensei with monk splashes (12, 2, or 6) are extremely strong. Is that because monk is a strong class? Not by itself it isn't, it's because it fills gaps in those cases and synergizes perfectly. Likewise, Fury is a great ED on an AA and ok on melee, but it's not overpowered at all, except for the fact that it synergizes incredibly well with manyshot. Outside of that, it's a fair power level.

Context matters.

Anyway, best thing I can say is read posts by Sirgog, redspecter23. They are both nearly always spot-on.

Short version: being ranged (particularly with evasion, or excellent twitch skills) allows you to avoid a tremendous amount of damage, in most cases this avoidance can be sustained indefinitely through smart kiting. This is very relevant in EE. The fact that AAs and Shiradi both offer excellent sustained damage just makes the damage-taken discrepancy glaringly obvious. It's worth mentioning the pre-MOTU days when good AAs (there didn't use to be many pre-MOTU but they existed) could similarly use ranged combat and movement to avoid damage and solo old epics well, it just took them quite a while due to comparatively low DPS. Shiradi arcane damage isn't obscene (outside of Joy), but it comes with the luxury of a huge amount of build and gear flexibility to devote to survivability. And it's AOE, which is a big advantage as mob packs grow ever larger. AAs get AOE damage via Improved Precise Shot and good kiting. Outside of blitzing, melee simply cannot do comparable damage to packs.

I don't like to see people nerfed, and historically the Turbine dev staff has grossly overcompensated. I also think that the mobile, tactical nature of DDO combat is really unique and fun. Please think things through, and ask questions about particular mechanics that you might not understand. Alternatively, watch some videos in the achievements sections to get an idea of how different players/builds approach challenges.

[stricq]

Get rid of the spheres in epic destinies. They are discriminatory.

Why do I only get feats in the sphere Turbine thinks my character should be in when it's not the sphere that I play in?

[Brolik]

I think the one big thing at the core of the class balance issue is that going up close to melee in EE is infinitely more dangerous than staying at range to fight. Players that want to engage in melee don't have the proper tools to survive, while ranged toons can ignore the issue outright by just not engaging. Add to this the fact that the two new raids both feature dragons (which are a melee nightmare and a ranged dream fight) and you have your problem staring you right in the face.

It's just not worth it to play a melee in the current game/metagame in epic elite. Ranged is safer and potentially much more powerful.

Balance your melee/ranged issue first before going deeper and examining individual classes and abilities. Why is it so hard for a melee to get up close and stay alive for more than a few seconds without looking at specific abilities like bladeforged reconstruct or other built in burst heals? Is it intended that even with over 150+ PRR and an AC over 200 that a "tank" should still need to be burst healed every few seconds when engaged in EE combat? Shouldn't he have the tools to survive more that a second or two compared to another melee with 40 PRR and 0 AC?


Very well said. I think the balance issues is def in the melee. Anyone can run a sorc or wiz or monk/archer plus many of the other multi/class powerhouse builds. My problem is that not all players wanna do that. Im VIP been playing a while current main is on 6th life. Halve alts of everyclass and most races. I enjoy playing the Dwarf with a big freaking axe. Unfourtunatly weather I go kensei or stalwart im useless in the higher lvls. As stated," a toon with 150+PRR and AC over 200 shouldn't have to be burst healed constantly". problem with that is how to fix it . Cant make the dragons and such do less damage or weaker in any way because that in turn makes the power houses more powerful. Basically I think the melee builds mainly barb and fighter(especially fighter) need some changes in there builds. Right now im running monk and its great but like I said I just wanna run a dwarf with an axe. Fat drunk and Stupid.... :)

[Brolik]

Never really posted on here and I just wrote a reply but not sure it went to right page. Im gunna sum it up one more time. FIX THE FIGHTER. IM A SIMPLE GUY WHO JUST WANTS TO RUN SHORT FAT DRUNK DWARF WITH A BIG AXE.

[FranOhmsford]

I enjoy playing the Dwarf with a big freaking axe. Unfourtunatly weather I go kensei or stalwart im useless in the higher lvls.

I must add here that you're going to be hearing from players of all types and I personally have no idea of whether a Kensai is any good at End-Game {According to Brolik the answer would be no!}.
However when looking at the mid Lvls - 11-21 Kensai {esp when added to Monk} runs rings around the likes of KotC/HotD or Frenzied Berserker!

And Stalwart is far far better than Sacred Defender or Occult Slayer!

The latter simply because of the sheer number of Feats available to the fighter as compared to the Paladin or Barbarian - Neither of who's enhancement Trees make up such a vast difference!

[blerkington]

Hi,

I did your survey just now. It's a very blunt instrument, which I doubt will collect much useful information about balance issues. The reasons for this are as follows:

1. It fails to touch upon the core issue of class/race/ED interactions, which is where most of the heat originates in any discussion about character balance.

2. It also fails to deal with the issue of certain abilities being overpowered within a class, race or ED, with many of the other abilities being poor or medium.

The shiradi ED is a good example. This is an ED which is frequently claimed on the forums to be completely OP, and apparently is in need of a wholesale nerf.

However, if you look at how the ED helps different builds based on its procs per missile model, you may start to see that it's not a strong choice for users with low rates of fire (traditional, non 10k stars archers), but it gets better for 10k stars builds (throwers, zen archers) and repeater users, and becomes very useful to high ROF users like casters combining missile and multi-tick AOE spells.

So the basic model here for the destiny is broken, because it adds so much more to high ROF builds, rather than attempting to equalise proc chances and damage across different ROFs.

Pin and Otto's Whistler are good abilities for dealing with individual (or lined-up) trash mobs. But, and this is a big but, these abilities are extremely sensitive to lag, lateral movement which hard-targetted arrows don't track, and the tendencies for stop-start movement and kiting that many mobs have now.

Double rainbow is plagued by bugs and bad design choices. I won't restart that discussion here, but it's not in a good place right now and hasn't been for quite some time, both in terms of dps and usability.

Apart from what is mentioned above, much of what else is in that destiny is pretty ordinary. Tea with the Queen can be very good but is unreliable, Rain of Arrows is woefully bad and should be replaced by something useful, perhaps which offers a dps increase against bosses, Healing Spring is nice, but the huge range of healing it does means that you can get a very small amount of healing on a tick when you needed much more. It's not a reliable way to stay alive in harder content.

The other abilities are weak too (Stay good and Stay frosty appear to be broken in that they don't make your weapon good, don't add the advertised skill bonuses at the highest tier, and add very little damage on average per missile - less on average than low-level imbues from the AA tree available at heroic levels, which is a bit of a farce for a similar epic level ability).

So in view of things like this, what is the answer to the question, Is shiradi overpowered? The answer consists entirely in what other build choices you've made for your character. For a pure ranger who makes the poor but flavourful choice of using a bow all the time, not even close. For an arcane missile spammer? Arguably, some abilities are, so maybe yes.

Looking at the most favourable interactions between abilities may get you started on the issue of how to handle the degree of variation between dps output between classes. No, not all builds should be doing the same dps, but there is a problem if some combinations offer five, ten, or even more times as much, than other builds whose party role is also to kill things. Similarly, if, as you've done, you allow saving throws, or spell DCs, spell penetration, to stack to the point where some not deliberately gimped builds are ten or twenty points behind others, you have a balancing issue.

Lastly, I wonder where all this is going to lead. What are you going to do when sensible arguments are made to nerf furyshot, shiradi procs on missile/AOE spammers, many monk abilities, bladeforged self healing, divine grace bonuses on saves for a two levels of paladin splash, centred weapon bonuses?

Do you actually have the intestinal fortitude to follow through on the conclusions that this discussion will have, especially when many of the adjustments might have to be made to purchased classes and race? Only time will tell whether this turns out to be another fake or bungled attempt at consultation or it is in fact the real deal.

I appreciate the effort you appear to be making, but with what you've done to the game since MOTU, the pain required to bring the game back to an even keel may be too much.

Thanks.

[Seljuck]

I'll say only: SHIRADI CASTERS...

Who play with them, don't need explanation. Who don't know that build, check YT, plenty of Solo EE video.

Allowing the creation of such a combination of classes and skills really affects the balance of the game. It's not an exploit, but definitely its weak side of game/skill mechanic. It is an makers oversight, which even after the detection has not been repaired at proper time. Do not get me wrong, I have nothing to people who play such a character. But dev admission to the formation of such a combination, should never have happened. This weakens the game. Practically outclasses the other characters and the team game. Destroys the challenge of completing adventures on the toughest level.
There are also other, hopefully unintended by the developers, examples of the use of game mechanics. Shiradi casters in my speech are just an example. An example of a destructive mechanism affecting the balance of the game.

PS. I wonder how much of a negative reputation I'll get for the word of truth...

PS2. I have my own shiradi caster... so I know what I'm talking about. Like others I like big numbers, but I can live without them. Do You too?

[Turbosilk]

The shiradi ED is a good example. This is an ED which is frequently claimed on the forums to be completely OP, and apparently is in need of a wholesale nerf.


Please provide actual real supporting data to back up your claim. Otherwise it looks like perception vs reality and we don't want real changes made based on perception.

[FlaviusMaximus]

10K Stars and Manyshot

10k Stars and Manyshot were not abilities that people complained about before Epic Destinies. When used in conjunction, 10k stars and Manyshot brought archers up to respectability, but they weren't overpowered. The addition of 10k stars showed that the developers were listening to the player base, and the change was positive, in my opinion, because they gave archers a respectable rate of fire, which is something that was a primary concern for pure archers. It really wasn't until later that people started to have complaints about ranged characters as a result of changes from the Enhancement Update and Epic Destinies. Other than taking the doubleshot penalty off Manyshot (to allow people to not have to monk splash their archers), I wouldn't alter Manyshot or 10k stars. They aren't where the problem lies. Fury of the Wild is where the changes need to happen, in my opinion.

Fury of the Wild

Here's the thing about Adrenaline; It's not worth using on just one attack in its current state, which is why non-ranged characters don't touch it once they understand how all of the destinies work. On the other hand, it's too powerful when it works on 3 or 4 (more for certain ranged builds...) attacks like it does for ranged characters.

I believe you can make Fury of the Wild appealing to a wider variety of classes than just the ranged classes that utilize it now, while also bringing Furyshot ranged characters back down from the stratosphere with a couple simple changes.

Proposed Changes

Have adrenaline affect only one projectile in a volley, whether they be shurikens or arrows, but up the amount of damage that it does on that one attack. Instead of adding 400% damage, make it 650% damage. While this may same like a big increase, it reduces the damage of an Adrenalized volley in Manyshot (4 arrows x 400% damage) by about 60%. If a wisdom based monkcher is averaging 2.5 arrows fired while 10k stars is active, this is a 35% decrease in damage. This adds up to a significant decrease in damage for monkchers overall, but it wouldn't completely cripple them, send them all running to another destiny, or force them to TR, in my opinion.

The addition of damage to Adrenaline would also help make Fury of the Wild more appealing to non-ranged classes and add variety to who uses the destiny at the moment. It would make DPS Paladins more attractive for the smite/adrenaline combo, it creates a more appealing synergy for xbow users (those with Sniper Shot and/or Slaying Arrows, especially for Great Xbow), it creates a decent synergy between Deepwood Stalker's Exposing Strike and Adrenaline, and so on and so forth. There is even a benefit for bow users, in that they do not have to wait until Manyshot or 10k stars are off timer to efficiently use Adrenaline.

In summary, I don't think you have to choose between boosting other classes and scaling back the power of monkchers. I believe you can do both with these two simple alterations;

1) Make Adrenaline only affect 1 projectile in a volley, and
2) Up the amount of damage from Adrenaline to 650%

Unbridled Fury

As for the epic moment, do not allow charges for it to be built up while the epic moment is in use or on timer. I do not believe more than that is necessary with the other proposed changes implemented.

Drawbacks To Another Popular Solution For Scaling Back Monkchers

A fairly popular suggestion for scaling back monkchers that I have seen on the forums, is for Adrenaline uses to not regenerate with rolls of 20 while ranged. The problem is that limiting the number of uses of Adrenaline down to 7 total between shrines (for pure ranged characters) is either going to be too extreme or too weak, depending on the quest, since this solution is too dependent on how many shrines are available to characters. In longer quests with fewer shrines like the shadow dragon raid, I think it would completely screw Furyshot ranged characters, while in quests that are very shrine heavy, it wouldn't be enough of a reduction in their power. In other words, the results of this sort of change would be inconsistent at best.


* Side Note: (650% damage was chosen because it would be enough of an increase to appeal to non-ranged classes that have special attacks, but not so high that monkchers would still be overpowered. If these changes seem appealing and new numbers are considered, I wouldn't go below 600% or above 700%.)

[blerkington]

I'll say only: SHIRADI CASTERS...


Please provide actual real supporting data to back up your claim. Otherwise it looks like perception vs reality and we don't want real changes made based on perception.

Hi,

Turbo, I think you may be misreading what I've said here.

All I am saying is that it is frequently claimed on the forums that shiradi casters are overpowered.

If you need evidence of this very mild claim, ie, that people are claiming on the forums that shiradi casters are OP, just take a look at the post right above yours.

Thanks.

[blackzombie_deathson]

Dungeons & Dragons: Online isn't perfectly balanced. We're interested in discussing what balance means, and how important balance is to you, the players. We want to know how often you'd like to see balance changes.

For this thread, we're looking particular at character balance, and how characters compare to one another. To some extent this borders on discussion of player characters vs. quest difficulty (and all that entails), but the focus here is player characters compared against other player characters (but not PvP). At some other time we may also look at other balance issues, such as Normal/Hard/Elite, or more specific issues like items, quests, monsters, traps, raids, or boss monsters.

Why does Character Balance matter?

We'd like a variety of roles and styles of play to be supported at a high level of play, without some builds that look like fun feeling bad to play because other characters seem so much more powerful. We've heard some level of concern over these topics and related issues. Perfect balance doesn't need to be achieved, and probably can't be achieved, but most or all playstyles should feel competitive. (We recognize that creating terrible character builds with the vast possibilities offered in DDO is always going to be possible, but we can probably all agree that's not the real issue.)

In short, we want you to be able to play what you want to play, have fun doing it, and feel like you can be a worthwhile contributor to a party (if that's how you choose to play).

Why isn't every character made stronger, to match the strongest characters already out there?

Challenge: We want to be able to provide challenges to those who seek that kind of gameplay. There should be limits to player-character power in order to achieve this, when comparing player characters against monsters, traps, bosses, etc.
Understanding what's already there: Minimizing changes also allows everyone to keep a consistent idea of what exists. If almost everything changes, it's like starting over from scratch, and therefore much harder to get everything right.
Time and resources matter: We can save a great deal of time by only changing a few overpowered abilities, rather than changing all other characters, monsters, traps, and quests to match those few most overpowered abilities or features. If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features.

What are some examples of things that could be better balanced?

We're keenly aware that each player probably has some topics they are concerned about, and we don't like to break characters or take away fun things that are already there. However, we may have been too cautious about balance changes in the past, especially after a new ability or feature has been launched. We'd like to know if you'd prefer changes to come more quickly, or if we should sit back and let you guys show us what can really be done before making changes.

That said, some broad areas that we know perhaps could use some consideration:

Ranged combat vs. Melee Combat vs. Spellcasting, at all character levels. As an example, not so long ago, ranged combat was largely considered inferior to melee combat. We made some conscious decisions to try to improve the viability of ranged combat. That's at least a partial success, but has brought along some issues of its own.
Class & Race Balance: They don't all need to have identical appeal from a power perspective (as there are other reasons to play any class), but we should try to get them close enough that it doesn't feel bad to play any particular race or class, or that you feel forced to take any levels in a particular class to feel powerful.
Epic Destinies: We know some destinies are more popular than others, and also considered more powerful. Sometimes this is a result of unintended bugs. This could include discussions of Twists of Fate, so individual abilities vs. other abilities can still matter, though we don't expect to make every ability equally viable as a Twist of Fate (for its tier). Abilities that can't be twisted (Innate abilities and tier 5 & 6) should be largely considered as a group when comparing entire Destinies.
This does mean potentially looking at things that rhyme with ten-thousand cars, many fought, caster's fritz, chirashi cambrian, the bunk crass, or american overtoad.


We're happy to hear general thoughts on character balance, what you'd like to see, and also why you'd like to see certain changes (or non-changes.) We don't want to change any particular things without good reasons, so convince us!

We'd love to also get feedback from as many of you as possible from this survey!

Character Balance Survey (http://ddobugs.turbine.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=24037&surveyID=332&type=web)

loved the iniciative, finnally turbine is listening players

to me, the key to balance is team work, thats why i started to play ddo and loved some years ago
lvl cap was 20, and team work was great, a balanced party always had a healer and a cc
it was actually obrigatory if u want a raid completion at that time
but today , cc is not so needed, in ee endgame , dcs r too high or is too hard to get the nunbers high enough
in ehards, ( old epics, and endgame) it is not needed at all, and sometimes we dont need even a healer, just dps and more dps

i dont rly mind with build that can hit overpowered dps, but i think that build cant be able to self heal, cc, buffs, tanks...

so, if u want to balance, you need to see wich goals is needed to a balanced party

that it, sry for some english errors, its not my first languange, im still learning
and thank you for asking, finnally

[EllisDee37]

Great statement in general but how do you back it up with actual data? If people perceive something is doing 50 to 100% more dps than the next build but in reality it is 5% more should perception cause a nerf?Well, I've thrown up my hands in disgust in the Divine Crusader thread because the devs either do not understand or do not care about this clear and obvious imbalance:

Master's Blitz: +250% base damage for the entire quest
Wrath of the Righteous: +50% base damage w/50% doublestrike (+125% base damage net) for 3 seconds, decays 1%/1% every 3 seconds until completely gone, then after the long cooldown ends you get to start over with +50%/+50%

If the cooldown is 150 seconds, meaning you can keep it going 24/7 -- and it's likely to be closer to 300 seconds -- you would average +62.5% damage bonus. That's a QUARTER of the power that blitz brings to the table.

It's hard to argue that away as being a matter of perspective.

[LucasMacKinnon]

One of the things I see for balancing and making different classes viable for one is rogue and arti. Since when should 2 levels of rogue or arti be enough to do traps with a CR of 30? Hell even a cr 10. I think a 2 level splash of rogue or arti should only be able to do up to a cr 5 maybe trap. It doesn't make sense that they can do epic traps. If you think about it from the perspective of how much trapping training would one receive with just 2 levels of that class? Not that much. How could you be competent at something that would take a skilled mechanic rogue or artificer to do?

[arkonas]

Dungeons & Dragons: Online isn't perfectly balanced. We're interested in discussing what balance means, and how important balance is to you, the players. We want to know how often you'd like to see balance changes.

For this thread, we're looking particular at character balance, and how characters compare to one another. To some extent this borders on discussion of player characters vs. quest difficulty (and all that entails), but the focus here is player characters compared against other player characters (but not PvP). At some other time we may also look at other balance issues, such as Normal/Hard/Elite, or more specific issues like items, quests, monsters, traps, raids, or boss monsters.

Why does Character Balance matter?

We'd like a variety of roles and styles of play to be supported at a high level of play, without some builds that look like fun feeling bad to play because other characters seem so much more powerful. We've heard some level of concern over these topics and related issues. Perfect balance doesn't need to be achieved, and probably can't be achieved, but most or all playstyles should feel competitive. (We recognize that creating terrible character builds with the vast possibilities offered in DDO is always going to be possible, but we can probably all agree that's not the real issue.)

In short, we want you to be able to play what you want to play, have fun doing it, and feel like you can be a worthwhile contributor to a party (if that's how you choose to play).

Why isn't every character made stronger, to match the strongest characters already out there?

Challenge: We want to be able to provide challenges to those who seek that kind of gameplay. There should be limits to player-character power in order to achieve this, when comparing player characters against monsters, traps, bosses, etc.
Understanding what's already there: Minimizing changes also allows everyone to keep a consistent idea of what exists. If almost everything changes, it's like starting over from scratch, and therefore much harder to get everything right.
Time and resources matter: We can save a great deal of time by only changing a few overpowered abilities, rather than changing all other characters, monsters, traps, and quests to match those few most overpowered abilities or features. If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features.

What are some examples of things that could be better balanced?

We're keenly aware that each player probably has some topics they are concerned about, and we don't like to break characters or take away fun things that are already there. However, we may have been too cautious about balance changes in the past, especially after a new ability or feature has been launched. We'd like to know if you'd prefer changes to come more quickly, or if we should sit back and let you guys show us what can really be done before making changes.

That said, some broad areas that we know perhaps could use some consideration:

Ranged combat vs. Melee Combat vs. Spellcasting, at all character levels. As an example, not so long ago, ranged combat was largely considered inferior to melee combat. We made some conscious decisions to try to improve the viability of ranged combat. That's at least a partial success, but has brought along some issues of its own.
Class & Race Balance: They don't all need to have identical appeal from a power perspective (as there are other reasons to play any class), but we should try to get them close enough that it doesn't feel bad to play any particular race or class, or that you feel forced to take any levels in a particular class to feel powerful.
Epic Destinies: We know some destinies are more popular than others, and also considered more powerful. Sometimes this is a result of unintended bugs. This could include discussions of Twists of Fate, so individual abilities vs. other abilities can still matter, though we don't expect to make every ability equally viable as a Twist of Fate (for its tier). Abilities that can't be twisted (Innate abilities and tier 5 & 6) should be largely considered as a group when comparing entire Destinies.
This does mean potentially looking at things that rhyme with ten-thousand cars, many fought, caster's fritz, chirashi cambrian, the bunk crass, or american overtoad.


We're happy to hear general thoughts on character balance, what you'd like to see, and also why you'd like to see certain changes (or non-changes.) We don't want to change any particular things without good reasons, so convince us!

We'd love to also get feedback from as many of you as possible from this survey!

Character Balance Survey (http://ddobugs.turbine.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=24037&surveyID=332&type=web)

while i agree heroic is fine the way it is. epics are where you should be looking. a lot of people already gave insight into how to fix this stuff. my thoughts are of course give everyone 3 prestiges like we were suppose to have and give us our racials prestiges. that is just a start. melee is really weak when it compares to shiradi casters and ranged in ee. so why not focus on some of the things to make it better. maybe one way is to give things to 12 18 20 class level toons. this will give people the option to play pure etc and work with some multiclass. make the abilities or whatever useful even in epic.

it really sucks to make a toon that does really good in heroics just to flounder around in epics. some people have complained about running out of sp and all. when was the last time we had items that restored sp of some sort. that could at least help any sp user as well. if you want to buff barbarians give them more abilities that do damage to themselves but you get a great bonus like damage or a bonus etc. i honestly don't want to see ranged get nerfed to where its useless again. that would really suck.

enough with the mass mobs as well. make them stronger or more miniboss type then 50+. i don't want to see ee become a joke either. i want it still to challenge everyone even the best. what would they do if they can steam roll everything?

[Uska]

well, in PnP that's fine and balance is easier to do. in DDO, its completely different. many things don't translate very well over to this game so some things need to be exaggerated to balance things out better. barbs need a way to self heal more reliably than what they currently have. right now its not enough to stay alive and dish out what they are best at, dps.

as the game has changed players have adapted to these changes moving away from classes that aren't very good at self healing and building with classes that do have good self healing. going toe to toe with mobs hitting you for 300+ damage every few seconds with no good reliable source of self healing to keep up with the dps output turns players off from these classes. this is why we have seen a lot more of multi class builds with ranged as a primary focus these days and you see many with 2/9 levels of rogue or monk for evasion.

the biggest reason why I hear people say they don't like playing a barbarian is because of the very limited self healing they can do. people don't like relying on CSW and SF pots when its much easier to build for comparable dps and better self sufficiency in most other classes. people try to build for umd but than complain their dps sucks because they cant cast while raged so they lose out on a ton of dps. like I said, im fine with trade offs but no other build is trading off anything for better self healing.

Barbs aren't suppose to be able to heal PERIOD! ABSOULTE FINAL! and that goes double for casting of

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I'll add more later, but a couple of quick comments.


No one wants to join a party and feel useless.

While I do not approve of min/maxing and one-trick-ponies, they are popular. And no one wants their one trick to be useless.

New content has always been slow from my perspective.
Players perceive the current end game (usually a raid with the best loot) as being the entire game.
This means that if their favorite toon feels useless or underpowered in that quest, they perceive a balance problem.

Melee focused builds are having a tough time lately.
Yet they are still very popular. But that leads to more perceptions of class imbalance.


DoT spells are very powerful.
(I have always thought these need a save per tic)

10K stars should never have worked with arrows.
That said, killing monchers is not the answer (now).
But making Manyshot and 10K stars share a cooldown timer would not kill monchers, but it would make them no longer have a clear advantage as archers. (they would still get many other benefits from their build combo) (although, some other things about monk splashes should be looked at too.... )


All I have time for right now.

[Kaytis]

There are some good points being made in this thread. Here is a live example of the problem you are facing though:

If my human draconic pure water savant, who is devastatingly effective in EH and lower content, steps into EE by herself she will be instantly killed.

You can nerf all those other builds, drive a bunch of players away, and at the end of the day if my human draconic pure water savant steps into EE by herself she will be instantly killed.

There is no amount of power I can wield that will overcome three 200 hp swings per second from two mobs while she is knocked over.

I remember the old epics, before MOTU. Melee could stand against mobs and not perish instantly. Wizards could land hold monster fairly reliably -they couldn't instakill at all, but they could crowd control without eating half their spell points. And yet the quests were considered very tough. I am not sure why they felt tough, but they were doable on pure builds, and that's what you should be aiming for.

I do know that nerfing bunch of builds without addressing stat inflation for the mobs will not end well.

[EllisDee37]

A fairly popular suggestion for scaling back monkchers that I have seen on the forums, is for Adrenaline uses to not regenerate with rolls of 20 while ranged. The problem is that limiting the number of uses of Adrenaline down to 7 total between shrines (for pure ranged characters) is either going to be too extreme or too weak, depending on the quest, since this solution is too dependent on how many shrines are available to characters. In longer quests with fewer shrines like the shadow dragon raid, I think it would completely screw Furyshot ranged characters, while in quests that are very shrine heavy, it wouldn't be enough of a reduction in their power. In other words, the results of this sort of change would be inconsistent at best.The proper balancing for monkchers is to make 10k stars and manyshot share a common cooldown similar to how flasks work. So, for example, if you use manyshot, both manyshot and 10k stars go on cooldown for 120 seconds. If you use 10k stars, both 10k stars and manyshot go on cooldown for 60 seconds.

The other fixes are general balancing fixes for all monk splashes, not just monkchers:

1) Stance feats require 6/12/18 monk levels instead of character levels
2) Move +1 crit multiplier on 19/20 from earth stance to fire stance

[Uska]

The proper balancing for monkchers is to make 10k stars and manyshot share a common cooldown similar to how flasks work. So, for example, if you use manyshot, both manyshot and 10k stars go on cooldown for 120 seconds. If you use 10k stars, both 10k stars and manyshot go on cooldown for 60 seconds.

The other fixes are general balancing fixes for all monk splashes, not just monkchers:

1) Stance feats require 6/12/18 monk levels instead of character levels
2) Move +1 crit multiplier on 19/20 from earth stance to fire stance

I agree on the class vs character levels

[eterna1_drag0n]

Character Balance, lol. Sorry, but this should be PLAY-STYLE balance!

Shiradi casters and fury Monchars are KITING play-styles builds. Other builds do higher dps!

Their dominance is caused by the fact that Melee/CC are not much of an option on EE 25+.

So Devs if you want to bring balance back to the game than by all means nerf what is causing the problem, the CR lvl of the EE mobs!

A CR 60 mob has a +60 to hit or higher so AC<Blur unless your pushing 150+.

That CR 60 also hits for 200+ damage each hit, so you need 1200hp+ and 80+ prr to survive a few hits.

Oh and that CR 60 has 10,000 hp so you better be able to do some serious DPS or it's gonna kill you before you can kill it.

So either let Melee player characters get close to this or nerf the mob!

[arkonas]

This Survey is beyond a Joke!

1. You're asking us to rate Playstyles on a 1-5 Scale and only give us 3 Playstyles to rate - Melee, Ranged {incl. Throwing Weapons!!! Seriously???} and Spellcasting!

a) Melee incl. Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins, Rogues, Monks, Wolf form Druids, A large number of Clerics and Tempest Rangers.

b) Ranged incl. Arcane Archers {incl Monkchers!}, Artificers, Arti/Rogue Mechs and Halflings with throwing Daggers!

c) Spellcasting - The Spellcasting capabilities of a Pale Master vs those of a Caster specced Cleric just aren't in the same Ballpark for crying out loud!

Any rating is automatically a complete waste of time!

2. You ignore Multiclassing!
I've given Monks a 5 on your 1-5 Power Scale yet I'd give Pure Monks a 3 at most!
The 5 comes from the Power jump when splashing monk onto OTHER classes!!

3. Worst of all you seem to be under the impression that such a weak and pitiful survey will give you the answers you need!
Answers you should already be well aware of btw!

Look:

Rogues, Clerics, Paladins, Barbarians, Druids and Tempest Rangers are currently underpowered!

-Rogues have been pigeon-holed thanks to the enhancement revamp into specific builds and weapons - They've also had a Nerf to the available Trap Scores from Enhancements {Artis have been hit hard by this too!}.

- Clerics - You seem to be under the mistaken impression that these are OP and insist on keeping them down at every opportunity!

- Paladins - You only need to look at the truly ridiculous requirement of 83 AP to max out Sacred Defender {Not even Possible!} and the squeezing together of HotD & KotC which keeps both at much lower power levels than Kensai for example!

-Barbarians - Putting separate Rage Enhancements in all 3 trees and therefore making it unviable to go all in on a single tree and killing the Racial Trees for said Class!

-Druids - BEAR FORM!!!

-Tempest - Still basically requires Multiclassing - Why won't you let Rangers go Pure?

Pale Masters & Sorcs {Esp WF} are ridiculously OP when compared to Fleshy Archmages and Sorcs {As some people are quick to point out this is a Heroic and early epic issue NOT an End-Game issue!
Archmage needs a serious boost to bring it on par with PM or WF and Making us take Zombie Form is NOT going to do it!
AM and PM should really be mutually exclusive Trees as allowing AM Benefits on a PM is also quite a buff to said PM. Which makes AM an even weaker choice!

The power of the Monk Splash is off the scale!
Pure Monk isn't as OP as people have been making out and has blindsided you away from the Monk Splash!

Monkcher especially is an issue atm.

Bards when played by those who know how to play them are Supreme and really don't need buffing!
However they're also NOT in any need of a Nerf!

Pure Artificers are fantastic up to around Lvl 13-15 then are overtaken by pretty much every other class! {The Juggernaut build cannot be used as a stick to beat Artis with!}.
Way too front loaded BUT any Nerf at Low Levels would be a bad idea - Artis really need buffing at higher levels!



Finally to Favored Souls - As everyone here knows I have an antipathy towards this class however I'll try to stay objective:

1. The Enhancement Pass was a MASSIVE Nerf to FavSouls! {Objective enough for y'all?}

2. Warforged FvS has become much less popular since but is to my mind still the best build for said class - Greatsword Melee and Self Healing is Pretty Safe!
FvS are also in no way expected to Heal by anyone anymore as Clerics and Druids are both far better at this and if you have a FvS and a Bard in your Raid you'd probably be better off asking the Bard if he/she was OK with being Main Healer!

3. The Caster FvS seems to have fallen by the wayside {probably because of a lack of DC and Spell Pen Boosts for Elite content}.

4. Exalted Angel and Unyielding Sentinel are far too focused for a Jack of all trades Class!



Oh I forgot Fighter didn't I - Well this brings me to my final point and the biggest issue in Class Balance in DDO:


Feats

Clerics, FavSouls, Sorcs, Bards, Barbarians, Paladins - These classes are all in desperate need of more Feats!

Nimble Fingers and Skill Focus Disable Device should NOT be laughed at as Rogue or Arti Feats! {Skill Focus Search on the other hand has become almost mandatory thanks to the recent DC Boosts to that requirement!}.

The Absolute Last thing you should do is to Nerf Fighter, Arti, Monk or Wizard - Wizards in fact could maybe do with a slight buff to # of feats!
However:
Everyone else needs Boosting! {Not sure on Druids tbh as I've never counted their feat slots}

And No I don't count feats taken in Epic Levels as a Boost - I still only count up to Lvl 20 when talking about Heroic Feats!


It might help if you merged some feats rather than giving out extra slots though - For example:

Skill Focus Open Lock/Skill Focus Disable Device/Nimble Fingers = ONE Feat for +5 to Open Locks and Disable Device!

Spell Penetration and Spell Focus

Empower and Empower Healing

Improved Turning and Extra Turning


And it would definitely help if Paladins got a few Free Feats at high enough levels so that they don't become an Insta-Splash class - For Example:

Tower Shield Proficiency - Lvl 1
Exotic Wpn Prof: Bastard Sword - Lvl 3
Shield Mastery - Lvl 5
Combat Expertise - Lvl 7
Improved Trip - Lvl 10
Improved Shield Mastery - Lvl 13
Improved Sunder - Lvl 16

Tower Shield and Bastard Sword Profs btw are an absolute must and I really can't see why they weren't given to Paladins back in 2006?

OR

Give us our Horses back!!!!!


these are actually really good suggestions. i think we have players out there who can really help with those ideas. i honestly don't want to see anyone so nerfed they quit but i would love to see it where other classes can be helpful in some nature.


Or they merely want to avoid drama and harassment from trolls and a-holes much like yourself.

you're not helping either but saying what you did. just saying.

[blerkington]

One of the things I see for balancing and making different classes viable for one is rogue and arti. Since when should 2 levels of rogue or arti be enough to do traps with a CR of 30? Hell even a cr 10. I think a 2 level splash of rogue or arti should only be able to do up to a cr 5 maybe trap. It doesn't make sense that they can do epic traps. If you think about it from the perspective of how much trapping training would one receive with just 2 levels of that class? Not that much. How could you be competent at something that would take a skilled mechanic rogue or artificer to do?

Hi,

The answer to this is skill points.

The splash builds who are trapping as well, or nearly as well as pure builds, have spent enough skill points to be at the same skill rank as each other.

Same skill rank investment = same trapping ability. It's how the game works.

Thanks.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

One of the concerns from my standpoint is the byoh factor that now seems to be a requirement for most groups. I have a fighter from when the game very first launched that is built for dps and has no self healing because back then groups wanted a cleric to be around for the healing factor. Now the focus is heal yourself so my fighter sits on the shelf. Not that I am saying it is somebody else's sole responsibility to heal me but that's how groups used to be, dps , crowd control, trapper, healing. I wouldn't mind seeing something that helps promote group diversity again.

Please don't confuse exclusive LFMs with class balance.

There is no reason why a non-self healing Ftr cannot be a part of any party in any quest.

Anti-social selfish players is not a reason to change the game rules.






Oh... and please don't try to force people into roles either.
Standing around waiting for healers or anything else is not the slightest bit of fun.

[Uska]

Please don't confuse exclusive LFMs with class balance.

There is no reason why a non-self healing Ftr cannot be a part of any party in any quest.

Anti-social selfish players is not a reason to change the game rules.

This

[patang01]

I have to agree with you. Yes, in D&D Barbs are not self healers. In D&D we had a cleric, his name was Eric. He brought the Taco Bell and Mountain Dew every Friday night. This is a game where healers are anonymous puggers who know that they can either spend there time dotting, slaying, dropping BBs or healing the Barb.

I'm not advocating self healing Barbs. I'm saying that the current system is broken. I run with guildies most of the time. I have a great healer who can dual task. When I join a PuG, it's generally filled with self-healing min-maxers and I spend half the raid stunned from SF pots.

What we need is effective damage mitigation. If ranged or Monks have evasion or distance then melee need damage mitigation. One thing that could fix that would be a parry or deflection based o con/str/PRR whatever, giving the big dps guys a reason to invest in something that matters. Make damage mitigation a factor where barbarians can soak damage and fighters deflect damage. And remove the red name spam. It's one thing to have a boss here and there but we see more and more of them like regular critters and that removes any reason to use any other tactic then DPS.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Balance is overrated and boring. Variety is more interesting and what makes this game so great.

This.






But... 12 BladeSworn Monchers is not variety.

[SirValentine]

DoT spells are very powerful.
(I have always thought these need a save per tic)


When the DoT spells first came out, they were very powerful. But now?

When bosses have 400K or more HP, no, the DoT spells are not very powerful. They are horribly weak and horribly expensive.



10K stars should never have worked with arrows.


Agreed. Isn't the "stars" in the very name supposed to refer to THROWING stars?

[Lonnbeimnech]

I think you guys are coming at this from the exact opposite direction than you should be.

Lower mobs melee damage in EE.

Why do enemy archers hit for 30 and enemy melee hit for 300? It is the main reason why everyone uses range builds and caster builds, to stay out of melee range.

It makes it super hard to build an effective melee for EE. They must be self healing, they must have high dodge and shadow fade and a stack of displace clickies and good prr. In other words, 6 monk in earth stance + whatever else.

[Ziindarax]

I agree with all that I've quoted below - Before you start messing with our characters, how about starting with quests and how they're designed? I've had an FVS that I played for nearly two years, which I was forced to TR because he was no longer viable. Why was he no longer viable? Well, when Menace of the Underdark came out, my build was decently powerful running Sentinel. He had trouble with Epic Elites, but that was to be expected as I was viable in EH. Now, he cannot really run EH (and sometimes, not even EN) without dying alot. It's also come to my attention, when I ran the new content, that even the otherwise-uber FotM Builds were struggling to survive in the new content. So... in additon to what has been proposed below (and through out the thread - NO MORE BAGS OF HP, or ridiculous damage/saves), here are my suggestions for balancing the game:

1) You guys talked about making Pure builds have powers that were as good as evasion, which is a bold claim because Evasion has become nearly omnipotent, and even necessary to survive much of the newer content. Without really nerfing any character builds that are out there now, how about increasing the raw power of capstones. Below is a list of what I have in mind:

Barbarian - Barbarians need A LOT of help in this department because I don't really see pure barbarian builds anymore (or even 18/2 barb builds - most barbs have no more than 12 levels, the rest might be 4 fvs, 4 rogue).

a - Let's start with Occult Slayer - Occult slayer had the right idea, but has some problems with weapon bonds not being strong enough (vampiric bond needs to be able to actually heal you, in addition to it's current effect [albeit proccing more] once you have the capstone). Capstone should provide an action boost that creates an anti-magic field that completely "turns off" an enemy caster's ability to cast spells of any kind, either that, OR offer an action boost that offers a number of spell absorption charges equal to 1/3 of your total Constitution score (thus functioning like a spell absorption item).

b - Frenzied Berserker - Entirely too many suicidal and poorly thought out abilities. Let's face it, their capstone works only for getting you killed faster, and for a laughable boost in damage that can be better offered by splashing favored soul. Or taking arcane past lives in Enchant weapons. Frenzied berserkers should not have an HP cost associated to their more powerful abilities once you take the capstone, which should also offer considerably greater offensive prowess than what it does.

c - Ravager isn't as bad as Frenzied, but some of their more useful abilities have too low a chance to proc (I am looking at you Mr. Masochistic "I Like Pain"). These chances need to be based on the player's Constitution score, just like Ninja uses Dexterity to calculate Doubleshot chance [which stacks with shuriken expertise btw, from what I can tell). Capstones for all three enhancement trees should offer double the HP, double the damage, double the saves, and better survivability than if you'd just multi-classed.


Casters:

Remember the old game before Epics were changed? Remember when casters were considered the most powerful when they remained pure (or at worst, sacrificed only two levels for evasion and trap skills)?

The same needs to be true here - Casters should get special at-will abilities like Favored Souls (Necromancers should get a greater death aura sla), double spell power per point invested, and more DC's for their spells. Benefits need to be such that you would have to think LOOONG and hard about what your character should be. Again, no nerfs, let's just make pure's offer something truly tantalizing first.

Leaving bards out of this one because I have never played one, but by now, you must be understanding where I'm going here.

Paladin Sacred Defenders and Fighter Stalwart Defenders:

Both of the above builds suffer from magic as a glaring weakness. Spell absorption items help, but, as has been pointed out, they generally need to roll in Legendary Dreadnought to be viable in a fight due to their much weaker DPS. The solutions for both are a bit different given the cavernous differences between the two classes:

Paladin SD - At capstone, like the casters, they need double Spell power, and the double HP per action point spent like the barbs. As well as a stacking boost of 10% boost to damage while wearing heavy armor (and 20% stacking boost to doublestrike).

Fighter SD- More HP on capstone being taken, and martial bonus to healing amp. 20% damage boost while wearing heavy armor, and 20% chance of shield bashing. Same damage boost as when wearing armor.

The AC and PRR bonuses should be doubled on taking the level cap. Maybe even have a clicky that gives a boost to defenses from magic.


Conclusion:

Before I become too monotonous and ranty, the point I am trying to get accross is that pure builds need to have their power levels adjusted considerably to make them competitive with existing benefits (without nerfing them either).

I also thought it would be a good idea to offer "synergy points" that effectively allow you to take enhancements that synergize with the tree you've most invested in (without spending too many extra action points, maybe even allow one to take a t5 enhancement from another tree if you've gotten the capstone).




Before we talk about balance ... especially about nerf type balancing



Look at how the high level quests are designed - for EE level 25+ quests

Mob saves are ridiculous form the most part, its almost impossible to build to bypass them enough
Mob HPs are somewhere around plaid
Mobs will kill you in 1-4 hits
All the save or die saves you need to save against
Traps that will kill you if you don't save


This leads to making a character with the following

A ton of HPs
Very High saves
Not getting hit (meaning range - since you cannot have enough defense)
Evasion
High burst damage



------------------



Old out dated parts of the game that have not been updated since the level cap was 10 (ok, not all from that long ago ... but dang )

Barb DR
Feats that give +1 or +2 to damage, saves, AC, DC, ......
past lives that give +1 damage, +1 to hit ....
ect ....


Honestly this list is sooooo long its not even funny, Just look at the sheer amount of things that are never taken by those who play EE

So you wonder why only 5 feats are chosen & 8 enhancements ...
Once the totally **** is thrown out there really is not much left as far as variety



------------------



Change .....

Rule #1 ... Nobody likes it, especially if it is negative
Rule #2 ... see Rule #1
Rule #3 ... see Rule #1
Rule #4 ... see Rule #1
Rule #5 ... see Rule #1
...
Rule #20 ... see Rule #1
Rule #21 ... People like to improve


Might seem funny, it is not .....


------------------



Trade offs - the depths one will go to

Is it worth trading this for that
What do I gain / loose
Why would I choose one over the other
Where are each useful
Is one not needed or rarely needed
Percent expected to be used / needed for what I want to do / play


See quest design above ....

Apply this to should I take 6-20 levels of this verses 1-10 of that or any other 2/3 class split verses pure
Apply this to feats
Apply this to enhancements & trees
Apply this to destinies



------------------



Path of least resistance

All living things gravitate towards the path of least resistance for what they wish to accomplish
People will try things out and play around till they find what they like
People will try things out and play around till they find what works
People will try things out and play around till they find what does not work
People will share information
Its a game its supposed to be fun not work


No matter what you change the overall trend of the population will be to the easy path

Yes there are exceptions see the infamous bell curve and the moving mean



------------------

Now for the Main points


I would rather see you take a hard look at the really bad things and make them a possible choice first
If you do nerf the top stuff then you need to adjust the quests and encounters so they are not just mind fumblingly boring whittle their HP down game
Decide how many hits it should take to kill us for an average mob - hint it should be more than 5

Apply this to traps, spells, melee, ... ect
scale this appropriately for orange, red, purple mobs


Personal annoyance - I really really hate (cannot stress this enough) save or die situations with no in between

Even a slight change to take all but 20 HPs would be better - at least you have a chance
This applies to spells, traps, melee, ... ect damage
This point right here is why I do not play much EE & some content, its not that I cannot its just annoying




Character Balance has to include the game's other mechanics, otherwise there's not much to compare it to except other classes & class blends. While content has increased, a great deal has been neglected to the point of irrelevance. Give us content where something besides damage output determines quest success. Let us know that certain abilities that were deemed important enough to develop, code, test, & release are still important enough to acquire & use in the game (wilderness lore, social skills, deity feats anyone?).

On Classes:
Some classes are supposed to be unsurpassed in their specific ability.
-Kenseis are supposed to be so acutely in tune with their weapon that they can do amazing things with it.
-Arcane Archers are supposed to be unmatched with a bow.
-Druids are supposed to use Nature and the Elements like no other to damage enemies & assist the party.
-Artificers are supposed to apply the Arcane Arts to a mechanical object.
-Monks should use life energy like no other.
-Not doing all of the classes, you get the point.

Multiclassing these & blending prestiges is our choice to apply the vast combination of abilities to our advantage with whatever the game currently is.

As tempting, easy, & cheap (presumably) as it would be for developers to just take the Nerfhammer to some abilities, please keep this in mind: the game's content has been updated while character abilities have largely stagnated. The Enhancements revamp was good, but nowhere near enough to keep up with the new content. The fact that a truckload of people have migrated to Bladeforged melees should tell you that other classes & other races are lacking while in quests. That doesn't mean you should slam it with ubernerfs, that means ramp up other races & classes to make them useful, playable, & fun enough to swing the pendulum back the other way.

This is also a MMORPG. It seems like lately, either through player exodus or game mechanics (or both), it has moved to become a mainly solo game with occasional team-ups for when you can't actually complete a quest by yourself. When changes do come, make them player relevant & party significant.

To the devs:
You would get far more game input & ideas if upon each update, on a login screen or a special page after zoning in, you would put the full release notes, and perhaps a survey requesting feedback. Relying solely on the forum population means possibly including people who don't even play anymore, while missing out on those who log in to play the game.

[FlaviusMaximus]

The proper balancing for monkchers is to make 10k stars and manyshot share a common cooldown similar to how flasks work. So, for example, if you use manyshot, both manyshot and 10k stars go on cooldown for 120 seconds. If you use 10k stars, both 10k stars and manyshot go on cooldown for 60 seconds.

My preference would be a solution that does not force monkchers to TR into different builds.

[JOTMON]

Dungeons & Dragons: Online isn't perfectly balanced. We're interested in discussing what balance means, and how important balance is to you, the players. We want to know how often you'd like to see balance changes.

For this thread, we're looking particular at character balance, and how characters compare to one another. To some extent this borders on discussion of player characters vs. quest difficulty (and all that entails), but the focus here is player characters compared against other player characters (but not PvP). At some other time we may also look at other balance issues, such as Normal/Hard/Elite, or more specific issues like items, quests, monsters, traps, raids, or boss monsters.

Why does Character Balance matter?

We'd like a variety of roles and styles of play to be supported at a high level of play, without some builds that look like fun feeling bad to play because other characters seem so much more powerful. We've heard some level of concern over these topics and related issues. Perfect balance doesn't need to be achieved, and probably can't be achieved, but most or all playstyles should feel competitive. (We recognize that creating terrible character builds with the vast possibilities offered in DDO is always going to be possible, but we can probably all agree that's not the real issue.)

In short, we want you to be able to play what you want to play, have fun doing it, and feel like you can be a worthwhile contributor to a party (if that's how you choose to play).

Why isn't every character made stronger, to match the strongest characters already out there?

Challenge: We want to be able to provide challenges to those who seek that kind of gameplay. There should be limits to player-character power in order to achieve this, when comparing player characters against monsters, traps, bosses, etc.
Understanding what's already there: Minimizing changes also allows everyone to keep a consistent idea of what exists. If almost everything changes, it's like starting over from scratch, and therefore much harder to get everything right.
Time and resources matter: We can save a great deal of time by only changing a few overpowered abilities, rather than changing all other characters, monsters, traps, and quests to match those few most overpowered abilities or features. If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features.

What are some examples of things that could be better balanced?

We're keenly aware that each player probably has some topics they are concerned about, and we don't like to break characters or take away fun things that are already there. However, we may have been too cautious about balance changes in the past, especially after a new ability or feature has been launched. We'd like to know if you'd prefer changes to come more quickly, or if we should sit back and let you guys show us what can really be done before making changes.

That said, some broad areas that we know perhaps could use some consideration:

Ranged combat vs. Melee Combat vs. Spellcasting, at all character levels. As an example, not so long ago, ranged combat was largely considered inferior to melee combat. We made some conscious decisions to try to improve the viability of ranged combat. That's at least a partial success, but has brought along some issues of its own.
Class & Race Balance: They don't all need to have identical appeal from a power perspective (as there are other reasons to play any class), but we should try to get them close enough that it doesn't feel bad to play any particular race or class, or that you feel forced to take any levels in a particular class to feel powerful.
Epic Destinies: We know some destinies are more popular than others, and also considered more powerful. Sometimes this is a result of unintended bugs. This could include discussions of Twists of Fate, so individual abilities vs. other abilities can still matter, though we don't expect to make every ability equally viable as a Twist of Fate (for its tier). Abilities that can't be twisted (Innate abilities and tier 5 & 6) should be largely considered as a group when comparing entire Destinies.
This does mean potentially looking at things that rhyme with ten-thousand cars, many fought, caster's fritz, chirashi cambrian, the bunk crass, or american overtoad.


We're happy to hear general thoughts on character balance, what you'd like to see, and also why you'd like to see certain changes (or non-changes.) We don't want to change any particular things without good reasons, so convince us!

We'd love to also get feedback from as many of you as possible from this survey!

Character Balance Survey (http://ddobugs.turbine.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=24037&surveyID=332&type=web)

This is a loaded topic, it appears you are looking for a single solution to a multi-faceted problem and thus you will fail.
DDo has a habit of tweaking with a sludgehammer instead of a precision wrench.
you cant just nerf top builds because some nuance works better than others, all you are going to do is pizz people off more than they already are because You will not fix the system you will screw it.

Your survey is targeted at screwing the system.. it is not a balanced objective survey it is a subjective nerf targeting one.
a simple 1-5 scale doesn't catch anything. this is a complicated game with multiple diverse variables.

DDO is based on DnD, DnD which was never balanced, it was meant to be played by a mixed party, every class needs to bring something worthwhile to the mix.
As players get closer to endgame each class should become more powerful and less reliant on other classes for support, but a group should always be a compliment not a detriment..

Dungeon scaling=detriment ...Dungeon alert=Detriment

other stuff such as....
There is no sweet spot AC that can be attained with difficulty make a "tank" worth having in the party to hold aggro.
You broke AC with PRR/AC.. now no one cares about paladin aura/saves/AC, Ranger Barkskin....
Sword & board is inferior damage to 2HGF and 2WF and does not mitigate damage enough to make it useful. bosses with resetting aggro mechanics don't stay on a hate tank

Bards take too long to sing short duration songs - no compilations, spellsong is barely worthwhile.

No one wants to play babysitter healer that has to chug pots to keep a party alive through massive boss damage.
Cleric turn undead is worthless in epic levels.
Control spells are worthless in epic levels unless mobs die quickly.
Paladin spells suck
Barbarians are not the beefy max damage monsters they should be. any fighter can do the same DPS have similar HP and is more survivable.
10k stars and manyshot should be mutually exclusive.
monks and barbarians are polar opposites..... Fury and monk should = broken stance.


There are soo many more problems...read the forums...

Epic Destinies are not balanced, fix the weak and tweak the strong.
shadowdancer sucks, cleric ones suck.. fury rocks, shirardi is boringly stupid powerful.


you didn't get into this mess in a day or a week, so how do you expect to fix it in that timeframe?

Take your time to fix it right.
I would suggest making many small fixes over a long period of time instead of trying to justify blanket nerfs.

[Seljuck]

Character Balance, lol. Sorry, but this should be PLAY-STYLE balance!

Shiradi casters and fury Monchars are KITING play-styles builds. Other builds do higher dps!




KITTING? lol... What u want KITE when ur 10k hp mob dies with 1-3 MM ??? I play recently with shiradi casters on my melee with docent dps to even solo play on ee. With them I don't have even chance to come closer to my target. Everything was killed to faster by shiradi.

On the other hand I'll agree with other part of your post. Problem with monster CR and insane DC must be solved.

[Deathdefy]

I've sent in a survey, but I want to clarify (despite that survey being anonymous and unclarifiable).

1)

Players should not need to 'see' or 'prove' every change is OP, nor should they always be changed immediately; it depends on how obvious the problems are.

- Quivering Palm gaining Sunder DC benefits was obvious insanity and complained about in the first thread when it was even mentioned as being in contemplation. I don't think that should have gone to Lammania, much less live.

- The potential of Epic Destinies was hard to know. It is only years later that I think the community can be comfortable saying the combination of Adrenaline + Manyshot is a bit much.


2)

Re: how powerful are 'Ranged' or 'Melee' or 'Casters':

- This question is silly. 'Ranged' is either the most powerful (Monkchers), reasonable (Shuricannons), or a terrible thing done for flavour (non-shuriken throwing weapons and repeaters).

- Casters are either: 'Shiradi'-specced being again, among the most powerful, reasonable when played well (Draconic), or a terrible thing totally inappropriate in current end-game (DC Casters).

- Melee also have a pretty big range, but I'm less offended and think they're usually somewhere in generally able to contribute - quite good (assuming they're not a Paladin).


Point being, it's about specs within each of the 3 categories. I don't think you need another 'Ranged' pass or 'Spell' pass (though Illusion could use more spells and Hypnotic Pattern to not affect PCs with the negative visual effect if cast by a friendly player) or 'Melee' pass.

The inability to provide feedback on 2-6 Monk splashes, 2-4 FvS splashes, 2 Paladin splashes, 1 Cleric splashes, 1 Druid splashes etc. Is a problem. Ranking 'FvS' without knowing how many levels is off. The idea the 'dominant' class (i.e. icon) determines what 'class' a character is for purposes of the survey is also a bit flawed. In future I'd consider a section literally addressing those common splashes (and ranking them 1-5 on power or something).

Okay, enough critique. Despite the above complaints I'm hopeful you'll get some useful data.


EDIT: Oh, and two races need help. H-Elves and Shadar-kai are both trashbags.

I'd boost Shadar-kai assassinate DC by 2 so they're on par with Drow and Sun Elves since they're supposed to be assassins. I'd also do something better with the chain (not more damage; a real CC effect that isn't insta-death to attempt on EE would be ideal. Or maybe a debuff and you don't have to stand there for 30 seconds; just like a single whirl and everything hit gets 'barbed' debuff which gives -2 saves and crippled or something).

H-Elves take about 4 trillion AP to do anything in their core tree, and even then it's not very good. I'd make their Dilettantes just 'more accessible'.

Put in the other racial PREs please! Would make such a huge difference to build versatility and fun.


FINAL EDIT: Pure 20 Repeater Rogues are literally the only ranged character in the game without a source of perma-ammunition. Please fix 'Conjure Bolts' scrolls, or give them an SLA within the Mechanic tree to make bolts mid-quest. Maybe even fancy bolts like flaming or anti-construct specific like smiting or with a unique sunder effect that removes some fort! That would make me think about not taking Assassin's T5 too. Not saying I would, but I'd think about it.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

One of the things I see for balancing and making different classes viable for one is rogue and arti. Since when should 2 levels of rogue or arti be enough to do traps with a CR of 30? Hell even a cr 10. I think a 2 level splash of rogue or arti should only be able to do up to a cr 5 maybe trap. It doesn't make sense that they can do epic traps. If you think about it from the perspective of how much trapping training would one receive with just 2 levels of that class? Not that much. How could you be competent at something that would take a skilled mechanic rogue or artificer to do?

This argument has been brought up many times.

It's like telling me my Cleric should not be able to have a useful Move Silently score at end game... because I am a Cleric.
Yet, I point extra points into Int and Dex and put all of my skill points into MS.... equipped gear and buff items/spells/potions/etc.

But because I do not choose to play a Rogue like you do, I should not be allowed to sneak past epic monsters...


No... that kind of thinking will ruin fun for many people.





(and BTW, your trap monkey is very much wanted in EE Halls right now)

[Ivan_Milic]

I think you guys are coming at this from the exact opposite direction than you should be.

Lower mobs melee damage in EE.

Why do enemy archers hit for 30 and enemy melee hit for 300? It is the main reason why everyone uses range builds and caster builds, to stay out of melee range.

It makes it super hard to build an effective melee for EE. They must be self healing, they must have high dodge and shadow fade and a stack of displace clickies and good prr. In other words, 6 monk in earth stance + whatever else.

Whats funny is that those archers that hit for 30 with their primary weapon(bow) will hit for 200 melee, same deal with casters.
I would like to know how do the devs build mob casters that good that they can hit for 200 per hit?

[HungarianRhapsody]

We'd love to also get feedback from as many of you as possible from this survey!


Character Balance Survey (http://ddobugs.turbine.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=24037&surveyID=332&type=web)



Seriously, you drop this on the forums on a Friday afternoon, 10 minutes before the moderators leave for the weekend?

Just how much do you hate Cordovan, anyway?

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I think you need to (massively) beef up PRR for armor and DR for Barbs (and maybe others).

Also capstones.


PRR first IMO. It's easier, and less likely to suddenly become OP IMO.

Keep EE monster damage the same, but give armor wearers a way to melee and reduce incoming damage to tolerable levels.





I would also suggest a long look at monks.
With an eye toward Monk multiclasses.

I have no problem with a Monk 20 being Superman.
But I have a big problem with a guy slapping on his white belt from his single Karate lesson and being Superman.

[EllisDee37]

My preference would be a solution that does not force monkchers to TR into different builds.I'm genuinely curious: If manyshot and 10k stars were made to share a common cooldown similar to how flasks work, what would you TR your monkcher into?

[Lonnbeimnech]

I'm genuinely curious: If manyshot and 10k stars were made to share a common cooldown similar to how flasks work, what would you TR your monkcher into?

They would all become pure monk halfling shuriken throwers.

[Uska]

I think you need to (massively) beef up PRR for armor and DR for Barbs (and maybe others).

Also capstones.


PRR first IMO. It's easier, and less likely to suddenly become OP IMO.

Keep EE monster damage the same, but give armor wearers a way to melee and reduce incoming damage to tolerabl

I would also suggest a long look at monks.
With an eye toward Monk multiclasses.

I have no problem with a Monk 20 being Superman.
But I have a big problem with a guy slapping on his white belt from his single Karate lesson and being Superman.

I don't think pure monks are the problem its the splashes they need to make the stances take more lvls of monk that's for sure you can see that by how common monks splashes are.

[HatsuharuZ]

"Balance" isn't the issue. The issue is that some options, meaning multiclass + ED options are enherently more useful than others in the most difficult content. These are often called Flavor of the Month builds, but unless something changes they'll become Flavor of the Year builds.

Let me offer some suggestions, observations and examples that don't end up with "Nerf Monks!"...

1) The most damaging and dangerous hazards that players are spells with reflex saves. This is why evasion is so important.

2) In Epic Elite content, physical damage done by mobs is much greater than the ability of armor-wearing melee characters to mitigate that damage. Much greater.

3) Armor-wearers, monks and spellcasters all have the same AC cap. When approaching this cap, equipping more AC-increasing items or abilities becomes useless. The same goes for PRR. On the other hand, self-healing options and a high Jump skill do not have the same limits. Please give armor-wearers a more favorable formula for both AC and PRR.

4) Not all class enhancement trees are created equal. I can tell that different trees were created by different developers, and not all the trees were made by a dev who had extensive knowledge of the class (this is just a guess on my part). For example: the Pale Master tree gained several improvements, such as a skeletal minion to take agro for the wizard, and negative energy healing amplification. On the other hand, most of the enhancements in the paladin's Knight of the Chalice tree were copied and pasted directly from the old enhancement system, with few if any improvements.

I'll write up another post later on enhancements. That deserves it's own post.

[Winter_storm]

well you balanced (nerfed) the caster and people left. You balanced the cleric radiant servant and people left. You took the fun out of earning xp and people left. Soo balance of what you do is not balance its boring. I should be OP on a character been playing for a long time, not praying for a drop sometime this year or next so maybe one day I can enjoy elite for a casual player. Eveningstar fixed some of this with weapons connected to favor which is awesome but game balance has already proven not to work....

You guys need to get out of the box and look at it a different angle because nerfing is just frustration and not enjoyable or fun.

And need a solo waiting area for a when you guild or group slow to come on activity that you can jump out easily. Too bad ESO already thought of the walk in with "whoever is in there" dungeon. where you help people as your going through and they help you but there is no party, its a shared dungeon.

DDO has good thing going but seems so detached from players who like it here. Can't say to much about support either, but granted they was very nice last time asked for help. it was the first time for me to experience this....

[FlaviusMaximus]

I'm genuinely curious: If manyshot and 10k stars were made to share a common cooldown similar to how flasks work, what would you TR your monkcher into?

Something that doesn't utilize both 10k stars and Manyshot since there would no longer be a point having both. Possibly a Ranger/Rogue if they take the doubleshot penalty off Manyshot or a Monk that doesn't have Ranger splashed into it. Either way, "fixes" that cause characters to TR and rebuild are a touch inconvenient for people who utilize such builds.

[Turbosilk]

Hi,

Turbo, I think you may be misreading what I've said here.

All I am saying is that it is frequently claimed on the forums that shiradi casters are overpowered.

If you need evidence of this very mild claim, ie, that people are claiming on the forums that shiradi casters are OP, just take a look at the post right above yours.

Thanks.

This is my point. Claims are nothing more than claims. Perception lacking facts.

[Turbosilk]

Well, I've thrown up my hands in disgust in the Divine Crusader thread because the devs either do not understand or do not care about this clear and obvious imbalance:

Master's Blitz: +250% base damage for the entire quest
Wrath of the Righteous: +50% base damage w/50% doublestrike (+125% base damage net) for 3 seconds, decays 1%/1% every 3 seconds until completely gone, then after the long cooldown ends you get to start over with +50%/+50%

If the cooldown is 150 seconds, meaning you can keep it going 24/7 -- and it's likely to be closer to 300 seconds -- you would average +62.5% damage bonus. That's a QUARTER of the power that blitz brings to the table.

It's hard to argue that away as being a matter of perspective.

It is still perspective. If you take two characters each with the two builds you are describing above with equal and appropriate gear and the DPS for case #1 is 300dps and the DPS for case #2 is 325 DPS then there is no real basis for calling it an imbalance.

[Snowstar81]

It is nice to see that you asked the players about a possible problem you see. But I believe this is a slightly more multi-faceted issue. The game was originally built upon the 3.5 system and the core of the classes basically adhere to this philosophy. However, the AP system has greatly changed and has now included the concept of prestige classes within the AP system and the Epic Destiny system. Ok, I can probably give here since the systems are already here, but the thing is, these prestige classes that show up in the AP system and Epic Destiny system had draw backs. You had to stop progressing in the core class, you had to meet feat requirements, level requirements, skill requirements, and sometimes other unique requirements. This lead to you choice that prestige knowing that you are giving up something to get it and you are not just constantly gain abilities. This leads more to the question of why do people need these abilities....sure some will want them to be awesomeness to the awesome power, but the content has practically demanded that this happens. Players become powerful, smack baddies down quickly, baddies become powerful, no longer as easily smacked by players, players learn what works best and make that and down goes baddies again, baddies become equivalent to a party of players and now you have extreme optimized builds to play in content and that isn't always what people want. Me personally, I have given up seeing one of my favorite prestige classes because I do not see it being possible in this game. That is ok, I went to a second one kinda, but when I do that the character becomes unplayable. Why? Because of everything being inflated, a wizard must up those DCs or they fail, so no AA elven wizard.

[EllisDee37]

Something that doesn't utilize both 10k stars and Manyshot since there would no longer be a point having both. Possibly a Ranger/RogueWhat I was getting at is that I suspect he would TR out of a range build altogether, possibly into a shirardi sorc or bladeforged centered kensei. My question was implying that the only reason people play monkchers in the first place is solely because they can spam both 10k stars and manyshot essentially nonstop. They don't play monkchers because they particularly like or are invested in range builds.

If that's the case, then making those people TR is fine and dandy. If, on the other hand, they'd be trying to TR into some kind of pure ranger or maybe even a thrower build, then yeah, saying they shouldn't be forced to TR has some merit.

[shawnvw]

Just to draw more attention to this:

Character Balance Survey (http://ddobugs.turbine.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=24037&surveyID=332&type=web)
We love survey answers. Flood us with information, please!

Here's some information for you: I've been playing this game from the beginning, but of the 26 "Please rate the overall power" questions of the survey, I would have to answer "N/A (I have no experience)" to 15 of them. Unfortunately, the survey doesn't permit that option.

Similarly, it's already been mentioned that there's no way to answer "0" to the first two questions ("How many different classes have you played for at least 12 levels?" and "How many different Epic Destinies have you 'capped out'?"). If you Devs feel that only players with that experience can give you meaningful answers, I think you should say that up front.


But if you do want the rest of us to join in the survey, how should we answer those questions?

[EllisDee37]

It is still perspective. If you take two characters each with the two builds you are describing above with equal and appropriate gear and the DPS for case #1 is 300dps and the DPS for case #2 is 325 DPS then there is no real basis for calling it an imbalance.I'm not sure you understood what I wrote. There is no possible way for the same character design to get 300 from one and 325 from the other. Not remotely close. One gives +250% damage per swing, the other gives roughly (on average) +50% damage per swing. That's not even in the same ballpark.

[LucasMacKinnon]

I knew the moment i brought up changing the ability for 2 lvls of rogue or arti being able to do all traps i knew i there would be those justifying it. I'm just saying mainly pure rogue, or mechanic rogue with lvls of arti for the conjure bolts and fusilage are still 20 levels of trapping. or vice versa 18 lvls of arti and 2 lvls of rogue. yes you spend skill points in those skills. I acknowledge that. Just as others have brought up already if you look pre epic lvls, mainly the only splash of rogue you would see would be wiz/rogue. Now however people are doing it with all types of builds. I would love to see something like a perception check. or spot check. If you can't spot you can't search and therefore can't disable. It would make spot even more viable of a skill. I already know people will complain about the idea, but hey it would be a way to help keep things balanced and not just have a couple levels splashed in so you can do everything

[Deathdefy]

What I was getting at is that I suspect he would TR out of a range build altogether, possibly into a shirardi sorc or bladeforged centered kensei. My question was implying that the only reason people play monkchers in the first place is solely because they can spam both 10k stars and manyshot essentially nonstop. They don't play monkchers because they particularly like or are invested in range builds.

If that's the case, then making those people TR is fine and dandy. If, on the other hand, they'd be trying to TR into some kind of pure ranger or maybe even a thrower build, then yeah, saying they shouldn't be forced to TR has some merit.

Agreed.


This argument - "Don't nerf Monkchers because they exist" is not compelling to me.


I'll happily clamor for LR +20 hearts, but I don't think the prevalence of an OP spec is a reason to not address it.

[Grizzt14]

The issue I see with this topic outright is this: Will the Devs do the sloppy and dirty fix of nerfing a few abilities and classes, or the complete and well-implemented fix of bringing less popular classes back into the spotlight? The pro-nerf attitude of Turbine (and it's raving forumite population) leads me to believe nerfs are coming instead of needed buffs to lacking classes, but I'll put in my opinion here nonetheless.

Monks, Rangers, Fighters, Wizards, Sorcerors, Rogues are probably the most well-rounded and complete of the group. This group is largely well-designed (they have issues, but I'm going to spare details for this post since it's irrelevant to my point.)

Druids, Clerics, Favored Souls are functional, but could be improved for sure. They're necessary for most groups, which has stemmed off most of their popularity from dropping off. They have definite room for improvement.

Artificers, Paladins, Bards and Barbarians are the bottom of the barrel. I rarely seem them ingame, and their enhancement trees and/or class design has left them as the least popular classes in DDO. This group needs an improvement more than any other.

EDs are a completely different animal and frankly I have a group waiting for me at the moment, I'll save that for another post.

[EllisDee37]

If you can't spot you can't search and therefore can't disable. It would make spot even more viable of a skill.That's not a terrible idea.

I'm currently leveling up a rogue-splashed paladin with full search and disable skills dumping spot entirely. Since I know by memory where most traps in the game are I don't need spot at all. And if I'm being honest, this makes it feel kind of cheesy.

[FlaviusMaximus]

What I was getting at is that I suspect he would TR out of a range build altogether, possibly into a shirardi sorc or bladeforged centered kensei. My question was implying that the only reason people play monkchers in the first place is solely because they can spam both 10k stars and manyshot essentially nonstop. They don't play monkchers because they particularly like or are invested in range builds.

If that's the case, then making those people TR is fine and dandy. If, on the other hand, they'd be trying to TR into some kind of pure ranger or maybe even a thrower build, then yeah, saying they shouldn't be forced to TR has some merit.

If people's primary complaints about monkchers were that they could continually spam 10k Stars and Manyshot then I think that yes, they would need to be nerfed. The thing is that monkchers could spam these abilities before epic destinies and the enhancement update and they weren't considered overpowered. This leads me to believe that the problem occurred later - specifically with destiny and enhancement synergies.

As for TR'ing into a thrower with no other changes being made except for 10K Stars and Manyshot sharing a cooldown - there are those who speak of being able to throw 5-6 adrenalized (slaying arrow) ninja stars at a time while 10K stars is active (Shuriken Expertise, Advanced Nina Training). If I TR'ed my monkcher into a thrower I would lose out on the damage from my 3 Ranger past lives, but I might not necessarily lose out on any ranged damage, and I think that would be problematic. I hate to be calling for a broader nerf to Adrenaline with ranged attacks than just affecting monkchers specifically, but I think that is what is necessary. It's not the popularity of a build or "FOTM" description that I think is problematic. It is the power of having multiple ranged attacks work with Adrenaline that is problematic.


Move +1 crit multiplier on 19/20 from earth stance to fire stance

I am in favor of this proposed change. The best defensive stance (arguably - you could make a case for water as well) and the best offensive stance shouldn't be one and the same.

[Satyriasys]

The proper balancing for monkchers is to make 10k stars and manyshot share a common cooldown similar to how flasks work. So, for example, if you use manyshot, both manyshot and 10k stars go on cooldown for 120 seconds. If you use 10k stars, both 10k stars and manyshot go on cooldown for 60 seconds.

The other fixes are general balancing fixes for all monk splashes, not just monkchers:

1) Stance feats require 6/12/18 monk levels instead of character levels
2) Move +1 crit multiplier on 19/20 from earth stance to fire stance

This is probably the main balance concern I see in DDO right now. Followed by too much self healing and WF clearly being the only option for sorcs.

I don't think the balance problems are really with classes, just synergies. But some classes do feel far behind others. Artificers are very strong in early levels but scale very poorly. Bards have not scaled well into the current end game.

[Uska]

This is probably the main balance concern I see in DDO right now. Followed by too much self healing and WF clearly being the only option for sorcs.

I don't think the balance problems are really with classes, just synergies. But some classes do feel far behind others. Artificers are very strong in early levels but scale very poorly. Bards have not scaled well into the current end game.

There is way to much self-healing but saying that will upset the solo player fans. One other thing to help this so called balance thing is to dump hirelings as they do give some builds a huge boost by shoring pig up some of their weaknesses

[blerkington]

This is my point. Claims are nothing more than claims. Perception lacking facts.

Hi,

Shiradi casters are strong, no doubt, but I'm still not convinced that they are too strong.

Much of what makes them strong isn't just from shiradi, it's from synergies between the destiny, class and best choice for race, and the advantages of a mobile and ranged playstyle. They are simply a response to the methods the company has used to make EE content difficult, ie, inflated mob HP, high saves, and heavy melee damage output.

One thing I quite like about shiradi casters is they play well in group with other builds. They are far less damaging to other people's enjoyment of the game than instakillers are. In my view instakillers are by far too strong at almost all levels of the game, and this is another area where balance needs to be examined, not so much with DCs, but rather by extending cooldowns on instakill spells and SLAs.

Besides, soloing epic elite is not only the province of FOTM builds; the Gianthold walkups and below are well with the range of a diverse number of builds, including some flavour ones, provided you can play intelligently. I know this from my own experience of the game, playing on my main, and I'm only a competent player, not one of the game's rockstars by any means.

These next things are unfortunate and unpopular to say, but it will be difficult to have a sensible discussion of what is and isn't overpowered with a community consisting of many players who are not particularly competent, and/or have little direct experience of what the different builds can do. [Edit: Or of what the EE endgame is like.]

Some of the loudest howling for nerfs is coming from people who are just not very good, and simply appear to resent the fact that they are having trouble completing content which in fact is largely just not that difficult, or who have a desire for a game where people are forced to group together because they think our characters should be narrowly specialised.

I think there are some things that need to be rebalanced, but this shouldn't become a free for all based on people's personal prejudices and desire to avenge their in-game experiences when good players made them feel inadequate.

Thanks.

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

To me, the biggest part of balance problems is the lack of build options for Melee artificers, simply a runearm that grants Tenser's Tranformation, Dream Vision 9, speed X, and Exceptional Fortification +50%

As a nerfing measure, it should curse you with 5 negative levels for the next five minutes when you switch to using a ranged weapon (Regardless of resistances).

Force Imbue

Force type blast

Nightshade Venom!

Colorless Augment Slot

Blue Augment Slot

[Cyr]

If you can not balance it right then do not do it at all.

Balancing it easy by nerfing just makes people leave. That has always been true and you guys have driven so many players over the years away that I have played with it is just silly.

You guys do not get what is really good and what is not. Example, the recent colors of the queen change. Double Rainbow/Colors IS NOT what makes the builds in shiradi great nor would a foolish change that makes the ability not only worse, but downright griefing to use in parties the way to address it if it was.

That is why you need to buff not nerf. You buff something no one uses and you get someone to use it maybe. It is much less dangerous and much easier to slowly increase the power of and see the results. (For nerfs they are too often binary like the colors change...you use it and you are now griefing your party/playing a bad build/just plain destroys build)

Suggestions for BUFFS to help the game overall...

* Paladin class needs more DPS. It is behind the 8-ball. Not just pure pali, but through the level range.
* Real self healing outside of twists should be reasonable for any build which invests. Barb rage if it prevents these needs to be WAY MORE POWERFUL then it is now.
* Pile of hit point toons should have that option OR dps. Now they often have only that option. Look into that wherever it comes up (US/comparative trees for classes/cost of these things in build resources)..I am talking the well over a 1000 HP toons not the well built dps plus decent HP toons.
* Less mobs who kill clerics who do not gain agro otherwise. Seriously, this is a critical issue for people who USED TO play these types of toons and those who wanted them around.
* Restore the forum settings to a state where people are not typing black on a grey background...seriously.
* Stop wasting time on marginal abilities like boulder toss and double rainbow and addressing them like they are OP. Buff the STUPID GIMPED ABILIITES that are everywhere in destinies and enhancements.
* MORE DPS for melee outside of the top 2 destinies for melee DPS.
* More DPS for ranged outside of shiradi and Fury.
* More DPS for casters outside of shiradi and draconic.
* More nasty attacks for mobs to use on enemies which gain their agro in EE. Stuff like feeblemind really really hurts in the new content when you are hit with it. That is a good example of a nasty attack for a mob to use. Always attach things which have to overcome for these attacks to land...no more no save no nothing abilities. Something like a magical net that some EE sahagin throw in AoE and grants a reflex save/to hit roll to land. There should be mobs which are better at taking on casters (like the feeblemind guys mentioned before), mobs which are better at taking out ranged (tendon slice really does suck on a ranged toon when it hits you, but more creative less no save garbage is better), and mobs which are better at taking on melee (lots of mobs in game like that now). So really more focus on the first two is needed. What is NOT needed is more mobs who take out people who have no agro. They are not really as big of a threat or help in current DDO play...this is not shroud release time after all.
* Make more abilities work on all types of combat (ranged/melee/unarmed/thrown) and work equally. It is easier to balance without having to put in so many speciality abilities to get players to play really bad options (like ranged used to be and STILL IS if you are not built right and in the right destiny).

[Turbosilk]

Hi,
Some of the loudest howling for nerfs is coming from people who are just not very good, and simply appear to resent the fact that they are having trouble completing content which in fact is largely just not that difficult, or who have a desire for a game where people are forced to group together because they think our characters should be narrowly specialised.


Pure gold.

[eleroin]

The customisation and imbalance are what makes DDO different from other games.

Adapt or die.

Each class/build/destiny get's its turn eventually. If you don't make the changes you get left in the dust. It's just the way it is.

[BlueSilence]

Seeking balance is a daunting task. What we have here is a game that doesn't only offer only classes but also multiclassing and we got Epic Destinies on top of that, these are supposed to bring us nearer our goal of making DDO the best game when it comes to character options. However, when the trend is to splah the same one or two classes over and over again we are actually stepping further from such goal. What I recommend to look up is not only how the different classes stand by themselves but what the class is offering at different level intervals, specially the lower levels and higher levels. Least popular classes could get attractive options at lower levels to incentivize more multiclassing variety and / or getting better capstones to incentivize remaining pure. Hint: Pay close attention to alignment restrictions.

When players build their characters they have goals in mind:

People who like to customize and multiclass should have more options when building, this process should never end in "I am being forced take this class to achieve my build goals", in my opinion there should be more "I can take X to achive this set goals or I can take Y or Z to achieve this other set of goals (e.g. Do I want more survivability in exchange for offensive power or do I want the oppositte?). Here the players will take decisions on how to approach their character's effectivness, they will balance their own strenghts and weaknesses.

Please do not mistake this as making whatever you do effective. This is not what I mean, what I am saying is that, like cooking, you can experiment and try different recipes to create different kind of dishes, some will taste better than others and most will be just edible. Burning your own bowl of cereals will never taste good let alone nutritious.

On the other hand we have players who prefer pure classes and being welcomed by a depressing capstone takes a lot of the motivation to go pure away. While multiclassing gives you options and versability, capstones should make your character outstanding at what they do. Think of it from a roleplaying perspective: Adventurers train for years, even decades to be better and competitive at what they do, a muticlass character follow a holistic approach and excel at different skills while pure class adventurers dedicate themselves to master their only trade and they should be masters at that particular skill.

I should emphatize that I am not recommending to bring the game into a state where no matter what you do you will rock althought messing up should still be possible for experimentation, educative or even comedic purposes. The way I would approach balance is to allow for more options, more customization, more creativity, more fun rather than locking everyone into Flavor of the Month builds or the highway.

I leave the numbers to you.

Thanks.

[PsychoBlonde]

I think foodling around with the numbers is beside the point. You want to know what the hardest things in the game are to complete? I'll tell you.

Kobold Island Challenges.

Not because the mobs are super-strong or hit super-hard or have super-high saves or super-high spell DC's or super-massive SR. Nope, none of that. It's because even getting CLOSE to five-starring these requires 6 people who can split up and solo AND pay attention AND coordinate what they're doing. Imagine how freaking insane people would go if there was some massively awesome gear that REQUIRED you to 6-star Kobold Island challenges to get the parts to make it. People would be SCREAMING that the game is TOO FREAKIN HARD ZOMG. Yet no individual aspect of this challenge is difficult. It's the fact that you have to do ALL OF THEM AT ONCE IN A TIME LIMIT that makes it so hard.

I'm not saying "make quests that require 5 people to all pull levers within a 3 second window so people have to group up". I'm not saying "MOAR TIME LIMITS PLZTHX!" By all means, let people solo at their own pace if that's how they want to play. But the most challenging aspects of this game are building a character that can function alone WHILE WITH A GROUP and arranging coordination between people. THAT'S where the challenge should originate, not "how can I stack up 3 more points of DC" or "where's the safe spot so I can turn on auto attack and go get a drink while my character plinks the boss down".

Haunted Halls actually does a fairly awesome job at being interesting and complicated, but pretty much every pack in the game has some version of "stand in this room and fight the spawning mobs until they're all gone". That's not a quest. That's friggin Missile Defense.

[hale99]

OK, monks do not need nerfed! If you play P&P then you would know monks are OP, always have been, because its how they are specked. They are powerful hand to hand combatants. They do not need nerfed, it would be stupid and unnecessary.

For the person that said Monk should be splashed with Barbs and Bards... LOOK AT THE ALIGNMENTS! They can't, always will and should be that way. Also monk splashes aren't bad, some like my builds utilizes the stances to help improved my survivability as a character, some for 10k some for other reasons, but its what makes the builds special and thats what DDO is about...multiclassing.

Nothing really needs nerfed, instead how about just finding a way to up melee's damage and improved them, theres a thought. This could solve so much with out stepping on players feet.

My survey is done, just wanted to point out some issue I saw.

[Ancient]

This.

I mean seriously . . . is ANY pure 20 build close to OP?

This won't be popular but pure Sorc and pure wiz are getting close.

[FlaviusMaximus]

There are a lot of aspects of the new raids that actually make things pretty tough on ranged characters and are well designed, from the archers, to the spell casters, to the long range dragon attacks, but shock and awe by itself makes things pretty tough on melees, in my opinion. If we are taking about the viability of melee VS ranged in the new stuff, that's one enemy ability that I think should be looked at.

Others may disagree. I must admit that my experience is the new raids is fairly limited. Just throwing it out there for discussion.

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

I think the one big thing at the core of the class balance issue is that going up close to melee in EE is infinitely more dangerous than staying at range to fight. Players that want to engage in melee don't have the proper tools to survive, while ranged toons can ignore the issue outright by just not engaging. Add to this the fact that the two new raids both feature dragons (which are a melee nightmare and a ranged dream fight) and you have your problem staring you right in the face.

It's just not worth it to play a melee in the current game/metagame in epic elite. Ranged is safer and potentially much more powerful.

Balance your melee/ranged issue first before going deeper and examining individual classes and abilities. Why is it so hard for a melee to get up close and stay alive for more than a few seconds without looking at specific abilities like bladeforged reconstruct or other built in burst heals? Is it intended that even with over 150+ PRR and an AC over 200 that a "tank" should still need to be burst healed every few seconds when engaged in EE combat? Shouldn't he have the tools to survive more that a second or two compared to another melee with 40 PRR and 0 AC?

Yeah, and me favoring the Melee artificer build concept makes me want to hug you XD

[MangLord]

In my opinion, nerfing will only continue to make epic content even more of a drag. I could not imagine enjoying Thunderholme the way it stands without quickened/empowered cocoon and adrenaline boosts. Smashing each skeleton forever with 20 more to follow would bore me to death and I'd find another game to occupy my time if that's what end game becomes. Maybe other people like it, but I find the amount of enemy HP extremely boring if you're not putting out 1000's of points of damage. 2000 damage at level 25 feels like 20 damage did at level 15.

If you nerf ranged power, that would certainly make monkcher look less interesting, but would render a pure ranger pretty useless.

Making capstones really, really great as a reward for a pure build might not solve all your problems, but it might help. +2 dex and +20% doublestrike as an AA capstone, for example, is hardly worth it when you take into account all that you get with even just two monk levels. I feel like you guys are afraid to give us anything really nice in an effort to maintain game balance, but overlook the elephant in the room of multiclassing. There are no real penalties for multiclassing, and hardly a benefit to sticking with one class and specializing.

I feel like the ED system sucks, to be brutally honest. Grinding through off destinies is terrible. If we could buy an item that allows us to gain xp in a destiny or overall sphere while staying in our primary destiny, I would buy those like candy. My melee in an off destiny is basically a level 20 character again.

Monk is horribly overpowered, and somehow the change in enhancement trees a while back made them even better. The first time I made a monk, as a life I needed to TR through, I felt like I was cheating. I didn't multiclass and stuck to the spirit and flavor of the class, and still had an answer for every situation beside locked chests. I never had much interest in them, and don't want to feel like I need monk levels to make all my characters 1000% better. That class needs a huge nerf, or you need to make evasion a feat any class can take and give other classes the same incredible saves and DCs. I hate nerfing when the game is hard enough as it is, but there should be no reason for everyone to feel like every class needs some monk levels to be viable. The fact that you keep adding new OPness like vorpal strikes as a monk specific feat makes me think it's entirely intentional.

I really like playing pure classes, especially melee and specialists. The way that multiclassing can exponentially increase power is a tough hurdle to deal with when thinking about balance. Everything you guys do will be analyzed by a highly motivated player and combined to create an overpowered character, no matter what. I feel like the fact that so many people feel the need to do so points to a larger issue in the overall difficulty of the game.

As game designers, are you OK with the fact that 95% of your players will utterly fail every time on EE? As a company, why are you catering to powergamers and the top 5%? That seems like an odd business plan.

Whatever you take away will certainly be replaced by whatever else is the least bad, and the powerbuilding FotM cycle continues. Juggernauts, monkchers, toasters, whatever it is now. As you continue to nerf, the quests stay just as hard to do as they are now, and non-powergamers, first lifers, etc are left with even less tools to work with. The only real way to assure that someone cannot come up with an insanely overpowered character is to eliminate multiclassing. My high school DM wouldn't allow it because we had two min/maxers willing to come up with overpowered characters. I wouldn't want that limitation here, but obviously some people are breaking your game.

[TheDr0wRanger]

I've got a few things, kinda scatter brained, but I figure something is better than nothing.

1. Synergy as pointed out above, is causing more problem than any particular overpower. Fury isn't crazy, FurySHOT is. Monks aren't crazy, Monk SPLASHES are. Sorcs are not crazy, Shiradi-Monk-Bladeforges are. Consider trying to modify the way these abilities work laterally, it will technically nerf the FOTM, but I think thats inevitable, any change nerfs something.

2. Realize that some things can't be done without in the current game, you must either provide a way to get them or an alternative to them. Evasion, PRR, Dodge chance and Crit Range stand out as the things no melee can live without, although I could be blind to some. My point is that as long as AC doesn't really equal the damage reduction of PRR(It in no way does), then only builds that can have PRR will really happen. As long as I can have no fail reflex saves for Evasion and the prr for 45%+ damage reduction on the same toon, its a no brainer. There shouldn't be a no brainer, if it can be avoided.

3. A personal plea. I see that sorcs are hard to balance, I have played with Bladeforged Shiradi-Monk splashes. They get evasion, excellent self healing, no-save high damage with CC implications for very little sp. Options for PRR and immunities from race. This is essentially everything except traps. Please stop balancing Sorcerer as a class on the basis of this combination. Flesh sorcs, even in Apotheosis form(which grants several great immunities) cannot hold a candle to the warforged combo, and Savants playing in Draconic get embarrassed on every level by the Shiradi build. Since we obviously can't ratchet up the damage on Savants and Draconic, what is to be done? There's no advantages to the Draconic build and that's the one You guys gave us. Really seriously consider how you want to balance the class, because one race-splash-ED combo is dominating the field, but the pure class build is actually fairly well balanced. Also Draconic Invulnerability is no fun, I don't take it and I know no-one who does, consider making something more like Drac. Fury only more so. Imagine ratcheting all of your dcs to 100 and doubling spell damage for 30s(LONG cooldown), or give us a Draconic form, perhaps some Tensers-esque melee tradeoff that would make the Eldritch Knight consider Draconic again. Imagine transforming into a dragon like the FoT disciples,unarmed claw damage, halve the cooldown on all draconic(Not Energy Burst/Sheathe/Tempest) abilities during form, regenerate breath attack 1per minute and regenerate 2d6 hp/sec. The whole thing is 5 minutes.

4. Some abilities that could potentially be competitive just aren't available in the numbers needed. I get that rogues are the sneak attack masters, but the die available to a Deepwood needs to be better or its not worth capping the tree, theres nothing on offer in a ranged sneak attack that competes with Slayer Arrows. Archmages don't have an ability in their tree to compete with Lich form, Rangers have no counter-offer to 10kStars at all. Barbs are so one-dimensional they are falling right off the map, if they can't get some sort of passive heal, an on-hit heal or something, then they need to ignore 25% of every kind of damage, FLAT. And that is to stack with the rest of the available systems.

5. Moar Notez
CC casting needs to be unhinged from Instakill casting. It is well and truly crazy to imagine that it takes the same amount of work to build a character whose primary skill is holding things still for other players to kill, and to build one who waltzes around instantly voiding everyone's life force. If you make DC casting as a whole viable again, it will wrench the balance back out because suddenly all the Wizards will bypass the 50k HP mobs and drop them with a no-fail spell. If you don't make some DC casting viable again you'll alienate a huge portion of the game as well as continue to make DPS the only way to play.
Self healing doesn't need to be universal, but if it's not going to be, healing/party support needs to be viable, interesting and fun. Offering the ability to self heal to some toons and not others, while offering comparable dps and defense to both is asking for trouble. As long as WF can heal well enough to tank, Flesh sorcs are going to feel painful. As long as fighters can scroll and take Cocoon, Barbs will be on the outs.
Do not just kill cocoon, going back to the days where pure-class flesh non-divines only had UMD is not the solution.

Traps skills need to be necessary in more quests, but getting around traps(albeit with penalty of some sort) also needs to be an option. Quests you can't pass without a rogue are bad, so are entire expansions with nothing for a trapper apply their hard-earned skills to.
Melee DPS should be higher in the long run(especially single target), casters in the short run vs groups, ranged should hold its own(better than pre-pass) against all but not rule the roost. Casters expend a limited resource to do damage, they should get good value for the investment. Melee take great risks being in close, they should get the damage advantage as time goes on(sooner than they do currently). Ranged is making the choice to stand off and avoid damage, they should certainly do good damage, arrows aren't marshmallows, but they shouldn't be top of the pile, its not reasonable.
Finally, Fixing AC would be great in this case. Right now getting competent to-hit takes no brains, and getting AC to try and avoid hits is a dead-end. We should seriously seek to make both AC and To-Hit a significant factor in damage-dealing viability. The bonuses and skills to drive that system still exist, lets leverage them and make meaningful choices about more damage vs more ability to hit evasive enemies or more chance to avoid hits vs other bonuses.

[blerkington]

Pure gold.

Hi,

Thanks, but what I've said needs to be read in the context of my other remarks. I'm not an elitist and don't want to be presented as such.

[MangLord]

Giving melee extra [w] boosts would be a good start. Maybe an extra .5 at levels 15, 20, and 25, with an extra 2[w] at level cap?

The problem is not being able to kill the 5-6 enemies standing in front of you quickly enough. Back in heroic elites, you got a good crit on a trash enemy, and they were almost done. In turn, you had less stuff hitting you over time, and the cleric didn't have to blow all her SP on you in one encounter. High PRR, AC and DR are pretty hopeless and seem like a bad investment of resources when you're still getting hit for 100's of damage from multiple sources. My epic Cloak of Night gives me what, 10/good? When a stupid hobgoblin can hit me for 200 damage, what difference does 10 points make?

I feel like the stats, damage hp, etc has gotten so inflated at epic levels to be almost comical. My friends and I were in Thunderholme last night and we all started laughing when our artificer, who is usually pretty quiet, casually said "these are some really healthy bats".

[Alfhild]

You are going to get a lot of flawed data from this poll by virtue of the fact that you essentially ignore the currently realities of perceived OP character builds., specifically that they are multi-classed and not pure. Monks are OP because of Monkchers? No, Monks are not OP. Monkchers may be because of the synergies between 6 levels of Monk, 6 levels of Ranger, access to all of the AA tree and FotW.
Also you will have people rating class with which they are really not knowledgable about. For instance:

Taking 2 levels of monk is just insanely broken -- it gives you evasion, 2 free feats, great saves, along with access to one of the best ranged options in (zen archery/10k stars).
Evasion and 2 feats: yes
Getting monks saves for 2 levels are great? Decent yes, but give me a 2 pally splash for great saves.
Zen Archery and 10K starts best ranged options?
Zen archery allows you to stay centred and use WIS to hit. Hardly game breaking.
10K Stars allows for about an average of 2 arrows per Volley for every 1 minute out of every 2 assuming you have about 40 WIS. While better sustained DPS than the 4 arrows provided by Manyshot which can be used 17% of the time, Manyshot has the better burst value with Furyshot. But more importantly, 10K stars requires 6, NOT 2 levels of Monk.
You poll is going to reflect popular opinion which is not necessarily informed opinion.
Right now people multi-class because a) some classes are front loaded b) some classes synergize extremely well and c) MOST L20 CAPSTONES ARE NOT WORTH IT.
Rather than nerf the strong, I would suggest buffing the weak.
Strengthen L20 Capstone Cores and (in some cases) make the L5 required abilities more desirable. I mean who wants to invest 41 pts in Tempest when the top abilities are so terrible?

[Ancient]

Hi,

Shiradi casters are strong, no doubt, but I'm still not convinced that they are too strong.

Much of what makes them strong isn't just from shiradi, it's from synergies between the destiny, class and best choice for race, and the advantages of a mobile and ranged playstyle. They are simply a response to the methods the company has used to make EE content difficult, ie, inflated mob HP, high saves, and heavy melee damage output.

One thing I quite like about shiradi casters is they play well in group with other builds. They are far less damaging to other people's enjoyment of the game than instakillers are. In my view instakillers are by far too strong at almost all levels of the game, and this is another area where balance needs to be examined, not so much with DCs, but rather by extending cooldowns on instakill spells and SLAs.

Besides, soloing epic elite is not only the province of FOTM builds; the Gianthold walkups and below are well with the range of a diverse number of builds, including some flavour ones, provided you can play intelligently. I know this from my own experience of the game, playing on my main, and I'm only a competent player, not one of the game's rockstars by any means.

These next things are unfortunate and unpopular to say, but it will be difficult to have a sensible discussion of what is and isn't overpowered with a community consisting of many players who are not particularly competent, and/or have little direct experience of what the different builds can do.

Some of the loudest howling for nerfs is coming from people who are just not very good, and simply appear to resent the fact that they are having trouble completing content which in fact is largely just not that difficult, or who have a desire for a game where people are forced to group together because they think our characters should be narrowly specialised.

I think there are some things that need to be rebalanced, but this shouldn't become a free for all based on people's personal prejudices and desire to avenge their in-game experiences when good players made them feel inadequate.

Thanks.

I agree with all of this.

DCs are back into the make the group not fun for the rest of the group levels. People tend to clamor behind nerfing what was powerful rather than what is the cutting edge. Dial back EE melee mob dmg, raise the ranged damage, make PRR and AC higher from heavy/medium/armor and shields.

[Scraap]

Balance can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different folks. I can say the surveys weren't helpful from my perspective as a tool to highlight balance issues largely because they ignore a few points:

(Full disclaimer: I've always looked at classes as packages of grouped aspects, not a particular role. So this may very well not make sense to folks that insist on the notion of one class = one and only one role. example case: Fighter with hefty feat count vs paladin with fewer feats but innate spellcasting vs barb with barred spellcasting capacity.)

1) Does a given class have an aspect that when focused on make it shine in that area?
2) Is that situation common enough to warrant focusing on it for the entire amount of time it takes to roll up, level, and gear a character?
3) Is an aspect of a given class equivalent, inferior, or superior to that of a similar class with the same aspect?
4) Of the aspects shared across classes, do they synergize, and if so, are the costs of doing so commensurate with the benefits?
5) Of the aspects shared across classes which do not synergize, are the rewards for focusing on that aspect commensurate with the opportunity cost of forgoing other benefits?
6) How sensitive is a given aspect to dungeon numeric inflation (be that mob count, HPs, or mob/trap DCs).

[Thrudh]

I don't think we need a lot of changes.

(1) AC and PRR need to be buffed immensely to give heavy and medium armor wearers protection equal to dodge, incorp players...
(2) Move crit multiplier from Earth stance to fire stance for monks.
(3) Put manyshot and 10k stars on the same timer so you can't use both, and get rid of the doubleshot penalty

Maybe (this is more work)
(4) Buff epic moments for EDs that are lacking.

[GeoffWatson]

Multi-classing is the main balance issue. There are enough front-loaded class abilities and enhancements that make multi-classing really powerful.
The capstones are really weak for 20th level, so there is not much incentive to stay pure.

Geoff.

[Livmo]

Lokeal has posted some nice rune arms to address some arty wants, needs, and desires on the forums. Good stuff.

To help arties address the spell power drop from the changes to arty enhancments it would be nice to see rune arms that can slot spell power. For instance, orange augment slots.


To me, the biggest part of balance problems is the lack of build options for Melee artificers, simply a runearm that grants Tenser's Tranformation, Dream Vision 9, speed X, and Exceptional Fortification +50%

As a nerfing measure, it should curse you with 5 negative levels for the next five minutes when you switch to using a ranged weapon (Regardless of resistances).

Force Imbue

Force type blast

Nightshade Venom!

Colorless Augment Slot

Blue Augment Slot

[lostgunman]

Ranged combat vs. Melee Combat vs. Spellcasting - I believe (In My Experience) That spellcasting is definitely the most powerful of the 3, melee is second and Ranged is third. It would better balance out the types with more varied use of the "crappy" weapons (IE Warhammers, Crossbows and ALL throwing weapons.) So many types are missing "Named" versions spread across the levels. So many characters are stuck with just a few weapon types at higher levels. Certain classes are completely stuck with a weapon type and there are few named versions (Artificer/Repeaters). GEAR could be a great way to balance out the classes without massively changing the classes themselves.

Class & Race Balance: Finishing out the Eberron races would be a great start. Dragonborn, Kalashtar, Shifter, Tiefling and Genasi are all easily added. We are still missing some AWESOME classes...Hexblade!

Epic Destinies....my only comment....there should be a destiny for every class....ARTIFICER!

[Zakharov]

In my fantasy world we would never have had any enhancements or destinies.. it would be straight 3.5 edition + epic lvl handbook all the way. Since that is not an option I'll offer my surely unpopular opinion: NERF EVERYTHING

The power curve since MotU is just ridiculous - I would much rather it continue in a more linear fashion all the way to 30 rather than wild multipliers generating the massive numbers we are seeing now. I would nerf every ability - both enhancements and destinies - that are more powerful than what would be considered the equivalent of 1 feat appropriate for that level. (Heroic feats for enhancements and epic feats for destinies)

Feats should be the standard against which everything is balanced. Currently enhancements vary wildly but many easily outweigh the power of feats, even ones costing just 1 AP. I would suggest an approximate exchange of 4 AP = 1 feat. This would grant you the equivalent of 1 extra feat per lvl instead of currently granting .5~4 times that amount which makes feat selection less important. Epic Destiny points should probably exchange at something closer to 2 EDP = 1 epic feat assuming they stay as is, or 4 EDP = 1 epic feat if destinies are expanded to 10 levels.

This would make choices much more important but would only work if we could choose abilities more freely, like feats. Lowering or removing the "AP spent in tree" requirements would solve that problem, allowing us flexibility but forcing us to make hard choices rather than just choosing everything good in multiple trees like we do now. You could also create new feats based on many of these abilities for additional customization.

Some might consider shifting more of a character power to enhancements and destinies is a positive, I feel the opposite. Enhancements and destinies should augment and enhance your current character, not overpower it so heavily. Base build should matter as much if not more than enhancement or destiny choice.

Epic destinies need to be toned down across the board and I think the entire destiny system should tie more closely with character lvl. The mechanic of switching destinies feels completely awkward, forced, and unnatural. We now max out destinies so early in our epic career we are forced to switch to the "wrong" destinies to continue "advancing". I would expand each destiny and flesh them out to 10 levels in the long run. The XP curve should more closely follow 21~30 whatever that ends up being.


Aside from all that dreaming that will never happen - class balance is less about the classes and more about content and well designed encounters. If you actually revamp the AI as was wished for in your monster stat thread the class balance issue will be easier to deal with. All you have to do is give enemies the same abilities we have and make them smart enough to use them all.

[Uska]

OK, monks do not need nerfed! If you play P&P then you would know monks are OP, always have been, because its how they are specked. They are powerful hand to hand combatants. They do not need nerfed, it would be stupid and unnecessary.

For the person that said Monk should be splashed with Barbs and Bards... LOOK AT THE ALIGNMENTS! They can't, always will and should be that way. Also monk splashes aren't bad, some like my builds utilizes the stances to help improved my survivability as a character, some for 10k some for other reasons, but its what makes the builds special and thats what DDO is about...multiclassing.

Nothing really needs nerfed, instead how about just finding a way to up melee's damage and improved them, theres a thought. This could solve so much with out stepping on players feet.

My survey is done, just wanted to point out some issue I saw.

he wasn't serious about them crossing with bards and barbs and monks aren't overpowered really in pnp they are really underpowered in both ad&d, 3.x, and pathfinder and yes I play them here and in pnp and no they don't need a nerf but the splashing of monks does need looking at because of the enhancement system allows people to get more out of monks then there should be. In pnp there are strict rules on multiclassing monks and paladins to try and prevent people casually splashing those classes for an advantage so that needs looking at here. ED's do need looking at some are rather overpowered and others are pitifully weak its in epic that the unbalancing really becomes apparent.

[MangLord]

I agree that artificer needs some help. It starts out so strong, but completely falls off a cliff the second you get to epic levels.

The most annoying thing is that in Thunderholme, the halls are so tight that with the most effective runearm i have (Archaic Device), 3-4 of the 5 bolts just hit the walls and never reach the target. They just evade the glass cannon outright, which I was expecting to be half decent given the amount of kobolds I had to lead around to make it. I'm not much help in that place, aside from traps that everyone jumps over anyways. I can imagine rogue is even more useless.

[Uska]

If you can not balance it right then do not do it at all.

Balancing it easy by nerfing just makes people leave. That has always been true and you guys have driven so many players over the years away that I have played with it is just silly.

You guys do not get what is really good and what is not. Example, the recent colors of the queen change. Double Rainbow/Colors IS NOT what makes the builds in shiradi great nor would a foolish change that makes the ability not only worse, but downright griefing to use in parties the way to address it if it was.

That is why you need to buff not nerf. You buff something no one uses and you get someone to use it maybe. It is much less dangerous and much easier to slowly increase the power of and see the results. (For nerfs they are too often binary like the colors change...you use it and you are now griefing your party/playing a bad build/just plain destroys build)

Suggestions for BUFFS to help the game overall...

* Paladin class needs more DPS. It is behind the 8-ball. Not just pure pali, but through the level range.
* Real self healing outside of twists should be reasonable for any build which invests. Barb rage if it prevents these needs to be WAY MORE POWERFUL then it is now.
* Pile of hit point toons should have that option OR dps. Now they often have only that option. Look into that wherever it comes up (US/comparative trees for classes/cost of these things in build resources)..I am talking the well over a 1000 HP toons not the well built dps plus decent HP toons.
* Less mobs who kill clerics who do not gain agro otherwise. Seriously, this is a critical issue for people who USED TO play these types of toons and those who wanted them around.
* Restore the forum settings to a state where people are not typing black on a grey background...seriously.
* Stop wasting time on marginal abilities like boulder toss and double rainbow and addressing them like they are OP. Buff the STUPID GIMPED ABILIITES that are everywhere in destinies and enhancements.
* MORE DPS for melee outside of the top 2 destinies for melee DPS.
* More DPS for ranged outside of shiradi and Fury.
* More DPS for casters outside of shiradi and draconic.
* More nasty attacks for mobs to use on enemies which gain their agro in EE. Stuff like feeblemind really really hurts in the new content when you are hit with it. That is a good example of a nasty attack for a mob to use. Always attach things which have to overcome for these attacks to land...no more no save no nothing abilities. Something like a magical net that some EE sahagin throw in AoE and grants a reflex save/to hit roll to land. There should be mobs which are better at taking on casters (like the feeblemind guys mentioned before), mobs which are better at taking out ranged (tendon slice really does suck on a ranged toon when it hits you, but more creative less no save garbage is better), and mobs which are better at taking on melee (lots of mobs in game like that now). So really more focus on the first two is needed. What is NOT needed is more mobs who take out people who have no agro. They are not really as big of a threat or help in current DDO play...this is not shroud release time after all.
* Make more abilities work on all types of combat (ranged/melee/unarmed/thrown) and work equally. It is easier to balance without having to put in so many speciality abilities to get players to play really bad options (like ranged used to be and STILL IS if you are not built right and in the right destiny).


NO self healing outside the classes that aren't healers needs to be decreased across the board not increased.

1. Clerics
2.Favored souls
3. Druids
those are the healers
1. Atrificers
2. warforged casters
3. Palemastrs
4. Bards
5. Rogues
6. Rangers
7. Paladins
8. monks

Those classes can be back up healers at reduced effectiveness in general or healers for themselves

Fighters and barbs shouldn't be given some kind of healing ability just because! self-healing is already to easy for to many classes as it is adding more wont help the "balance issue" It just makes it worse.

























Figh

[MangLord]

I think it would work wonders for you as developers to roll up some well geared characters, make a balanced party of pure, core classes (fighter, wizard, cleric and rogue. Throw in a ranger and druid to fill out the party), and try to complete some epic elite wheloon or stormhorns. I think you would get a lot of insight from that experience, both as a group and the limitations of your individual characters. You'd be able to make a lot of informed decisions regarding balance with that perspective.

If your intention was to make epic elite so hard that only a small percentage of the player base will even try it, then you have succeeded. I don't like to play it, and none of my friends do. Seems odd to cater to such a small portion of your paying customers. I feel like a fairly knowledgeable, competent player, but I get sick of dying over and over really quickly because I happen to like playing dwarves with axes.

[Kmnh]

I don't think the balance is being affected by combat stats, with once class or build doing too much damage or anything like that. Different classes do damage in different ways but I don't think there is any class that cannot solo EE quests if built and played properly. If anything, the game is too easy.

There are two things that stick out as broken: The no-save helplessness procs from shiradi champion and adrenaline multiplying all arrows during manyshot. That's the sort of stuff that's so broken that it warps quest design - All the anti-burst boss invulnerability stuff and the hordes of undead in the new raids look like they were meant to mitigate that. I would prefer to have crowd control be tied to DCs and the damage to be more consistent instead of 20s bursts of insanity.

The AIs inability to fight back while being ranged feels bad. The trash on the new raids is more stupid than the kobolds on the harbor: The kobolds will at least stop chasing and throw stuff at you. Maybe add some snare effects that let people keep fighting but not run away, or give the mobs some sticks to throw at flying monks.

[Toro12]

I read the first 4 or so pages of responses.
Many say 'everyone needs a self healing option'

I couldn't disagree more. If everyone has a self healing option it would throw the game further out of wack IMO.

Probably going to get burned at the stake for this but what DDO really needs is fewer self healing options.
Why?
1. Means fewer LFMs that say BYOH
2. Means a greater need to bring trapper to save healing resources
3. Means easier time designing new and balancing existing content and or abilities

How toro do you suggest going about this you say?
Here you go (this is the part I get strung up for)

Remove the ability to self target with cure/repair spells. You can still drop masses with AoEs with their associated costs but no more quick easy cheap self heal/repairs.

I know , I know it would make a whole lot of current content tremendously difficult, if not impossible.

Yes many, many tweaks would have to be made to balance the content by both the devs and the players to adjust. But adapt the players would (after about 99thousand I'm quitting nerf rage threads)

Besides making healers more desirable trappers and tanks would also gain a little more love from the playerbase. As I suspect would Cc casters and bards. What you would see less of is BYOH.

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Before the hate starts flowing in copious amounts, take a deep breath count to 10 and truly consider this suggestion.
.
..
...

Ok now you may furiously slam your keyboards with all caps responses and break your left click buttons in your rush to neg rep me.

[maddmatt70]

For classes I would say do the following - this is a gradual type of improvement that hopefully would not be too taxing on dev resources:
-I like the divine destiny addition, but make sure that is pretty solid and that cleric/FVS have some options for this patch. I would also like about 3 offensive spells added to cleric/divine in the following two updates after this patch.
-The addition of swashbuckler next update is good for bards, but also add about 5 spells to bards, combine some of their songs, and buff up the tier 5 enhancements/last 2 core abilities of warchanter enhancment. That should help the class immensely.
-Paladin the update after this next one should be buffed. Add a third enhancement like you are doing with bards and fix up the paladin. Add a handful of paladin spells and some paladin feats centered around their turns.

Those are the three current worst character types in my opinion from a power game standpoint: paladin, bard, and cleric/fvs (non nuker build).

I would say after the Paladin update look at Barbarians and Fighters. Barbarians should get a dps bump in my opinion and some other defensive options. Fighters could use their third enhancement. It would be interesting if the third enhancement forced a fighter to be chaotic.

The other thing that you need to do is go over every single level 20 core ability enhancement and buff it and at least look at the level 18 abilities while you are at it. Try to get this done in about a year's time so every update look at three classe's core enhancement abilities and try to improve them every update

Finally, look at monk stances which do not make much sense. Resolve this whole 10k stars mess - if you want really bump up doubleshot somehow. Another thing is the weird FVS splash builds figure out a way to fix that because a wiz or sorc splashing 2 level of FVS should not be encouraged.

[Uska]

I read the first 4 or so pages of responses.
Many say 'everyone needs a self healing option'

I couldn't disagree more. If everyone has a self healing option it would throw the game further out of wack IMO.

Probably going to get burned at the stake for this but what DDO really needs is fewer self healing options.
Why?
1. Means fewer LFMs that say BYOH
2. Means a greater need to bring trapper to save healing resources
3. Means easier time designing new and balancing existing content and or abilities

How toro do you suggest going about this you say?
Here you go (this is the part I get strung up for)

Remove the ability to self target with cure/repair spells. You can still drop masses with AoEs with their associated costs but no more quick easy cheap self heal/repairs.

I know , I know it would make a whole lot of current content tremendously difficult, if not impossible.

Yes many, many tweaks would have to be made to balance the content by both the devs and the players to adjust. But adapt the players would (after about 99thousand I'm quitting nerf rage threads)

Besides making healers more desirable trappers and tanks would also gain a little more love from the playerbase. As I suspect would Cc casters and bards. What you would see less of is BYOH.

---------
Before the hate starts flowing in copious amounts, take a deep breath count to 10 and truly consider this suggestion.
.
..
...

Ok now you may furiously slam your keyboards with all caps responses and break your left click buttons in your rush to neg rep me.

There is no more neg rep so your safe there :)

I agree with less self-healing options but not with the no self-targeting clerics and such don't need to be nerfed

[Thumbed_Servant]

I am not going to get in to the specific details about this destiny, or that OP feat or monk splashing etc. because there are going to be many more people after my post with more to say about how everything OP should be nerfed and all the FotM builds are going to get what they have coming to them. Instead, Varg, I want to point out to you what I feel is the most important issue regarding this topic... all of these things that are overpowered, that people gravitate to are some of THE MOST FUN abilities and play styles in the game.

In my opinion, the devs should be looking at how to make other classes, builds, destiny abilities more powerful, hence more fun. It is not a matter of Turbine looking at how the game is balanced because EE is still a big challenge to 95% of the player base even when they do build a FotM. What you need to do is address the reason why, despite the build diversity the game offers, people are drawn to only a few playstyles, destinies and builds. Fix the lame in the game and you will achieve better balance.

POWER CREEP! It is anathema to the longevity and enjoyability of a game, and DDO has gone past Power Creep into full blown Power EXPLOSION. Do NOT raise the power of other classes/powers/destinies to balance with the most powerful, lower the most powerful!
WHY are ranged toons the most prolific at end game? Because the game was made TOO damaging/too powerful for melee toons! Why are pure healer toons scoffed at in upper levels? Because epic destiny self healing abilities were made too powerful. Why are monk splashes everywhere? Because Monk defensive abilities were made too powerful. When the enhancement pass was made, the game didn't simply change the enhancements over to tree form, it rewrote many of them and made many MUCH more powerful. Epic Destinies are 10 fold what the new enhancements are.

If you want Balance, you MUST reign in the desire at each update to UP the power of classes/spells/abilities/enhancements/destinies. Sure, we will continue to have change, but the changes that UP power considerably must be stopped. When you give the players more power, you must then give the monsters more power to challenge the more powerful players who then migrate to a few builds with the maximized potential to defeat the now over powered monsters, and it's a nasty upward spiral.

We as a community WILL complain when you take something away that we've enjoyed..but when it's something that is breaking the game you must make that tough call, suffer the complaints of those that were using the most powerful builds, and bring the game power back down so that you don't have to make insanely stupid...and I say STUPID....monster damage/hit points/saves that you now have to challenge the meta-gamers using min/maxed builds. I still remember standing on a building in first-released-Epic VoN 3, letting firewalls get aggro, then having the melees drop down to beat on the mobs who wouldn't hit them as they were now aggroed on the arcane who cast the firewall; It was a not too fun style of play necessitated by the decisions to make the mobs stupidly high in hit points and immune to many things. We'll cry and scream when you take away the ubber powerful toys..but in the end we'll enjoy the game more if we have challenging combat without insane numbers. You can't give us that if you don't take away the ubber powerful toys.

STOP trying to make every class an ubber combat class, re-balancing by upping the weakest to match the most powerful. Bards should not be potent melees, clerics should not be powerful combat casters, mages should not be able to self heal as though they were clerics. DDO is built on D&D, and the premise of D&D was that a group of differing classes with different and often distinct abilities would come together to make a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. Blending abilities between classes to satisfy the desire of every solo player to be able to solo with any class at any difficulty has weakened the need for group play and different classes to defeat content. If I want to play a solo game I can pull out the x-box...this is a Mass MULTI Online Game. The LFM's aren't vacant because there aren't players playing...they are vacant because players don't need each other as much because they've got *solo* capable characters of almost every class. I play cleric healers, I love to heal...if I can't walk through a quest and kill everything by spell I won't complain...clerics are NOT combat casters. If I play a bard and can't melee my way through a quest, I'm ok with that..bards are support and enchanter characters, using spell and song to buff and mesmerize...let my bard charm them and let the guy with the barbarian (whom I've buffed with spells and more song) kill them. If I'm playing a mage, I'll LOVE killing/holding/debuffing the mobs...and expect that the nice healer player will heal me when I need it and not expect that I should be able to heal myself as well as a cleric could.

I say this because it's been on my mind...most of this is the cat already out of the bag and past being put back in.

My speculation is that some of this is brought on by the latest-newest hires coming in and saying, *Hmm, I don't like that, won't it be cool if we change this to....*. Leave the game systems alone, stop bringing in a new system with each new hire...work on the systems we have, improve and build upon and COMPLETE them.

My two cents.

[sephiroth1084]

First thing off the bat: yes, I think changes need to be made, but please allow the time to do them RIGHT!! No offense, but Turbine has a history (in DDO at least) of applying a band-aid to a bullet wound, on the one end, and seriously overdoing it on the other. Specifically, there are numerous cases where the right change would require a lot of time and effort coding, and was therefore eschewed for a quicker, easier solution, that, more often than not, doesn't really solve the problem, and can lead to more issues down the line.

That said, I appreciate that you're starting this thread Vargouille, and it seems to me like you guys at Turbine have been trying to get ahead of that rep, and really start dealing with some of the issues the game has had in the past, and are seeking input from the community more than we've seen in a long time. These are good things. Hopefully this trend will continue, and good things will happen!



Why isn't every character made stronger, to match the strongest characters already out there?


Challenge: We want to be able to provide challenges to those who seek that kind of gameplay. There should be limits to player-character power in order to achieve this, when comparing player characters against monsters, traps, bosses, etc.
Understanding what's already there: Minimizing changes also allows everyone to keep a consistent idea of what exists. If almost everything changes, it's like starting over from scratch, and therefore much harder to get everything right.
Time and resources matter: We can save a great deal of time by only changing a few overpowered abilities, rather than changing all other characters, monsters, traps, and quests to match those few most overpowered abilities or features. If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features.

I mostly agree with this: you can't just elevate all the weak options to be on par with the strong ones, because that just leads to an arms' race of ever more powerful stuff, which is part of what led us to our current state of affairs. That said, simply nerfing the strongest abilities is going to leave a lot of problems unresolved.

For example, even if you nerf Blitz into the ground, Unyielding Sentinel (pre-update, because I haven't played with the new version on Lama) would still be utterly worthless. Some changes are going to require more than a simple fix, and while that may conflict with time and resources, devoting those resources is going to be necessary if you want certain facets of the game to improve/stop being worthless/stop being a joke. On this point, I'm thinking specifically of a few things, including the paladin class enhancements, AC, and PRR as they relate to light/no armor builds, Dodge, and endgame content (mostly Epic Elite, but not exclusively so). You made some rather large changes to the combat mechanics (to-hit and AC) over a year ago, which I presume was kind of a big undertaking, but only did it halfway--now we've got tons of +1 and +2 effects floating around that are almost entirely worthless (certain worth less than they were before the changes in most cases), and AC is just as useless in EE now as it was in Epics back then; characters not devoted to AC are no more encouraged to invest a bit than they were before, and heavy armored, shielded characters are worse off than they were before. With the system of diminishing returns (and the ease with which on can hit a fairly ideal point on PRR), it's simply not effective to invest heavily in AC or PRR, which, along with the over-emphasis on Dodge and Evasion, makes some builds incredibly weak. Fixing this isn't going to be a small change, but it's something that really needs to be done.


What are some examples of things that could be better balanced?

We're keenly aware that each player probably has some topics they are concerned about, and we don't like to break characters or take away fun things that are already there. However, we may have been too cautious about balance changes in the past, especially after a new ability or feature has been launched. We'd like to know if you'd prefer changes to come more quickly, or if we should sit back and let you guys show us what can really be done before making changes.

That said, some broad areas that we know perhaps could use some consideration:


Ranged combat vs. Melee Combat vs. Spellcasting, at all character levels. As an example, not so long ago, ranged combat was largely considered inferior to melee combat. We made some conscious decisions to try to improve the viability of ranged combat. That's at least a partial success, but has brought along some issues of its own.



Ranged combat (archery and casting) is stronger than melee by a longshot (bdum-chh) once you get into epic destinies. In heroic content, that's not really the case for a couple of reasons:



Archery's ability to burst DPS doesn't dramatically outpace melee DPS (or burst DPS) without adding in things like Adrenaline and Unbridled Fury.
Foes aren't so dangerous that standing toe-to-toe with most heroic monsters isn't the death sentence that it is in higher level EH, and most EE content, so the advantage of distance that ranged combat has (counting both archers and casters here) isn't as significant. Archery killing power in EE isn't much stronger than that of melee for the most part, but it's just so much more survivable than melee, because it stays out of reach of those suped-up EE monsters.


Personally, the changes I think should be made, as a starting point would be:


Change Manyshot so that big proc effects (like Adrenaline) only affect one arrow in a volley.
Change Improved Precise shot so that big proc effects only affect the first target hit in a line.
Maybe impose a speed debuff on characters while Manyshot and 10K Stars are active), and while casting a spell even when jumping. I'm not too sure on this one, since I, and many others, enjoy the caster playstyle of jumping around and casting spells, but it does cause problems to be able to do so.






Class & Race Balance: They don't all need to have identical appeal from a power perspective (as there are other reasons to play any class), but we should try to get them close enough that it doesn't feel bad to play any particular race or class, or that you feel forced to take any levels in a particular class to feel powerful.

Paladin is too weak, and has basically always been too weak. It's offensive potential is abysmal, and doesn't make up for it enough with survivability. It's feat starved, pulled in multiple directions--a fighter doesn't have to concern themselves with Empower Healing and Quicken or spell power items, and if you ignore these on a paladin, you're really just playing a terrible fighter with good saves and a few OH S**T! buttons per rest--but cannot adequately support the disparate focuses of DPS, survivability, and tanking.

Back when we first got out PrEs, paladin Defender of Siberys and fighter Stalwart Defender, the two tanking PrEs were built almost identically, except the fighters got DR, more Intimidate, and as much AC as the paladin, which meant that when they were standing next to the paladin, they had higher AC, meaning that, if you had two otherwise identical tanks in your party, one a paladin, the other a fighter, the fighter was almost always the better choice for main tank. When we got the enhancement pass, of which one stated goal was to address the problem paladins had with their PrEs being too limited--KotC was useless if you weren't facing evil outsiders, and Hunter of the Dead was similarly weak when not facing undead--yet we're basically stuck with the same problem, where we only get one or the other, and in content with neither evil outsiders nor undead (there's quite a lot of that these days), half the tree is worthless.

Let's look at some big differences between the fighter and paladin version of their Defender trees:
Fighter gets: Last Stand (http://ddowiki.com/page/Action_Boost): Passive: You gain +2 Constitution and +2 to the DCs of all Tactical Feats. Shield Action Boost: Your gain +100% Maximum hit points, +50 Physical Resistance Rating, and On Attacked: You are healed for 1d10 positive energy healing. This Action Boost does not share a cooldown with other Action Boost abilities, and can be used while helpless. (Cooldown: 3 minutes.).

Threatening Countenance (http://ddowiki.com/page/...): +1/+2/+3 Haggle, Intimidate, and +5%/+10%/+15% melee threat generation


Shield Melee Attack: Performs a melee attack with your main hand weapon that deals +1/+2/+3[W]. On Damage: You gain a 10%/15%/25% Morale bonus to melee doublestrike for 10 seconds. (Requires an equipped shield and melee weapon.) (Cooldown: 20 seconds.)

While Paladin gets: Eternal Defender (http://ddowiki.com/page/...): Passive: You gain +2 Charisma, and your range of unconsciousness extends by 40 hitpoints.Toggle: While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points but are not killed, two uses of Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for 250 points of Positive Energy healing.

Harbored by Light (http://ddowiki.com/page/...): You gain +10/+15/+25 Physical Resistance²
In addition, while you are actively blocking with a shield, enemies that attack you will take 3d4/4d4/5d4 Light Damage.

Harbored is the only offensive ability in Sacred Defender. Now, sure, fighters are supposed to be more offensively focused





than paladins, but they're also getting more threat (note: paladins get Divine Righteousness, but it doesn't stack with some other sources of threat generation, due to being typed Sacred), Intimidate, HP, tactics, a (admittedly weak) healing guard effect, and ultimately more PRR while their boost is running. They've got paladin beat on all fronts: HP, DPS, threat, PRR, and feats (which puts them even further ahead in those categories, because they can afford all the shield feats, Exotic Weapon Proficiency, the THF feats, and the additional feats needed to have a strong offensive mode without a shield if they want). Paladins meanwhile have...Lay On Hands, Cure spells, immunity to disease, and in their Defender tree, a discount on having to spend money on Raise Dead and Resurrection scrolls (even fighters invest in UMD). It's just not enough. They don't need to be as strong as a fighter or barbarian, but paladins need to have some offense, and they can't be giving up all of their Defender territory to fighters--they need something to make them worth playing in their intended role(s).
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For the two defenders in general, all that you accomplish by tying half the tree to holding a shield is punish players who want to build and play a tanking character. Tanking in DDO has always been a fairly niche devotion, which was solved, in part, by building your character to be able to swap to a reasonable DPS set-up. My paladin, for instance, has the one Epic Sword of Shadows I've been able to make, rather than my barbarian, just so that he can contribute when a shield is not useful (against spell casters, beholders, portals, DPS-dependent situations such as self-healing bosses, places where AC is meaningless, and places where AC without a shield is sufficient), but with the change to the Defender lines, my DPS swap actually weakens my character significantly, by reducing his Str, Con, AC, PRR, saves, and HP. It becomes a fairly bad idea to swap to DPS, even when holding onto the shield isn't helping.

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Moving on...

Barbarians are currently the weakest class in DDO by far thanks to their total inability to heal themselves. Every other character can invest in UMD for Heal scrolls, or twist in Rejuvenation Cocoon, but barbarians can't use either effectively due to their entire class being built around their being raged, and rage prohibiting the usage of all healing options of any value. Silver Flame potions are still popular, almost exclusively with barbarians these days, because they are the only effective way for barbs to heal themselves, and they tack on a -10 penalty to all saves! (plus, they take up a ton of inventory space thanks to only stacking to 10). Something needs to be done here.

There are options: remove the restriction on being able to use scrolls, or SLAs, while raged, or add some form of healing into one of the barbarian trees low enough to be accessible to any dedicated barbarian (maybe, upon killing an enemy, gain a Heal effect; or Heal when you save against a spell in Occult Slayer), or some ability that improves potions by a large amount for barbs (Chug! Chug! Barbarians can consume 3/6/10 Cure potions at one time). Or, give us some potions available for purchase in game that stand up to the sort of punishment we're taking in tough epic quests. They should be healing at least close to a pumped-up Heal scroll (you can make UMD still worthwhile by not including all of the additional benefits of Heal in the potion).
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Monks currently gain too much:


Thanks to Ten Thousand Stars (I don't consider this to be the problem), the double-strike lock-out from Manyshot, the best parts of Ranger being available with a dip/from being an Elf (Arcane Archer), and not enough high-level non-monk abilities, monks are the best archers in the game (at least a 6+ monk/whatever is).
They're more survivable than basically any other melee thanks to having Evasion, Improved Evasion, 3 good saves, enough PRR to get to the point at which investing more is just wasteful (around 80, which is easily achievable with some combination of enhancements, Earth Stance, items, augments, Destiny abilities, past lives, etc...), fairly easily maxed Dodge (and the ability to exceed the 25% cap), healing amp, 25% Incorporeality, an AoE healing ability, a buff that can grant immunity to Stun, very fast movement, and Abundant Step. They basically get everything you'd want for a character's defense.
They gain, over all, probably more offense than almost any class: double-strike, off-hand strikes, something like 8d8 base damage for their unarmed strikes, sneak attack, fastest attack speed, some strong triggered attacks, and a decent improvement to their crit profile.
They had the strongest insta-kill in the game. Now, I suspect that Quivering Palm is fairly useless at endgame. You missed the mark here, I believe.

Then, with Epic Destinies and feats figured in, they also gain Vorpal on all of their attacks, and one of the strongest DPS boosting twists available requires monk levels (A Dance Of Flowers), some AoE crowd control (Drifting Lotus, although the DC kind of sucks) and a strong Epic Moment (not too strong, just icing on top in my opinion).

I don't they need to be heavily nerfed, but they definitely need some scaling back in a couple of areas. There should be some penalty to running around without armor, and right now they have none thanks to their easily achievable PRR and competitive AC (in content where that matters). I think one step in the right direction would be taking the +1 crit multiplier out of Earth Stance and sticking it in Fire. Earth is currently the flat-out best monk stance, since it gives a significant DPS boost, PRR, HP, and AC. Ocean is useful for running through traps, and if you really need to bump your DCs by a little, but it's not something to run around in. Wind is a decent DPS boost, but may not be as much as Earth, and doesn't give any other benefit. Fire is fairly useless, partly because a small bonus to Str just doesn't stack up offensively against +1 crit multiplier or +10% double-strike, but also because so many of our Ki abilities are worthless in post-20 content that we aren't all that pressed for Ki (due to DCs not scaling well into epic levels, and Ki Strike damage effects scaling terribly into tough epics), and because the penalty to Wis works against the few abilities you'd want to be using that would starve you for Ki.
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Warforged used to be a fairly powerful race, but their strengths have been eroded over time, even with the nice buffs they got with the enhancement pass (this absolutely excludes Bladeforged...they are a separate issue).


A penalty to healing hurts a lot when you're in a situation where group healing is going to be your primary lifeline.
A lack of docents, especially a lack of docents replicating the best non-docent armors for each role hurts them a lot.
Their innate DR and enhancements just don't mean anything when you're getting hit for so much damage.
Sources for repair amplification are much rarer than those for healing amp, which means warforged will be harder to self-heal with than most other characters.
Between Pale Master becoming more accessible, 39 UMD being easily within reach for epic level characters, and Rejuvenation Cocoon, the classes that previously turned to WF for their self-healing needs have (for the most part) better options.
Now, the top-end armor of the game requires a WF Body feat to use if you want the abilities that can be found on the non-WF versions.


There need to be more docent version of armors introduced, or competitive with them. Remember: if you stick a light armor, a medium armor, a heavy armor, and a caster-focused armor into a pack's loot list, you REALLY need to also stick in 4 different docents, or provide some way for the docents to be keyed to one of those armors...or just cram all of the stuff onto one docent.


There needs to be more repair amp available.

WF should probably get a free bonus feat at first level that allows them to select a body feat, or some other feat in place of the body feat (maybe Toughness, or a new feat that stacks up well and is attractive to those people disinterested in the body feats).

More needs doing here, but I'm not sure what--I stopped playing my WF characters a long time ago.
----------------------------------------------
Most classes seriously need revised capstones and new abilities from level 15-20 to make multi-classing a choice. Right now, the question isn't whether or not to multi-class, it's what to multi-class with, because going pure simply does not compete. The new Mechanic and Acrobat capstones are a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done.

Rangers, for instance, need much better abilities in their tier 5 Deepwood Stalker enhancements, and in both DWS' and Tempest's level 18 and 20 core abilities. Rangers also are desperately in need of new spells, particularly at level 3 and 4.

Right now, rangers are a 6-11 level dip for some archers and some melee builds. Paladins are a 2-6 level dip for basically everything. Fighter draws you up to 12, but doesn't do much to push you to invest further.

Monk is a 2-12 level multi-class, depending on what you're looking for, but the /2 monk is stupidly popular. +4% dodge, 2 feats, Evasion, +3 to all saves, access to monk stances...I know that a lot of that is just core monk from D&D 3.5, but we need stuff in the last 2 levels of other classes that competes with all that in some way. I would also strongly recommend spreading out the monk's Dodge bonuses...6% in 6 levels is a bit much, and far out-paces every other class. 1% per 3 levels would probably be fine.

Casters are still the most likely characters to go pure, although there are still strong incentives to splash 2 monk or rogue or paladin on them.
--------------------------------------------------------
As far as balance goes, casters still out-pace everyone else in EN and most EH content, and some EE, though for EE I believe that's just mostly Shiradi casters. This is due to the confluence of their being able to self-heal and attack from range, while also having better crowd control and insta-kill abilities than anyone else...which is basically what casters do in 3.5 as well. I'll admit that they are better balanced in DDO than in pen and paper, but that's largely due to DDO's insistence on DPS being the only solution to solving most problems. Other than slowing casters down a bit (jump casting specifically), I don't think there's much that could, or should, be done here.



Epic Destinies: We know some destinies are more popular than others, and also considered more powerful. Sometimes this is a result of unintended bugs. This could include discussions of Twists of Fate, so individual abilities vs. other abilities can still matter, though we don't expect to make every ability equally viable as a Twist of Fate (for its tier). Abilities that can't be twisted (Innate abilities and tier 5 & 6) should be largely considered as a group when comparing entire Destinies.

This does mean potentially looking at things that rhyme with ten-thousand cars, many fought, caster's fritz, chirashi cambrian, the bunk crass, or american overtoad.

Blitz needs to be weakened a bit, though I'm not sure how.

Shiradi needs to be weakened a bit for casters (not sure how), while Magister, Exalted Angel, and Draconic Incarnation are buffed enough to be viable alternatives in EE content. Part of that means addressing the issues with over-inflated HP and saves on monsters.

Personally, I'd also like to see a de-emphasis on having to spend Action Points and Destiny points on casting stat increases. I'd like to see the destinies all have the +1 <stat> enhancements knocked down to just 2 available per tree (lower DCs across the board by 2 as well to make up for taking away +4 <stat> from everyone). It kind of sucks that you really only have 12 points to play with if you're a DC caster, because you need to spend the other 12 in Int/Cha/Wis in order to be effective in tough content (this also goes for monks and Assassins, and to a lesser degree fighters and barbarians who use tactics feats).

Magister is very weak, partly because it's too expensive to get the stuff you want, largely due to the stuff you want being dependent upon stuff you don't want. All the worthwhile stuff in the Magister tree is rank-linked and vertically linked, which precludes spending points on any of the other abilities in the destiny (though, the Sigils are largely unimpressive anyway; and the summon ability is ATROCIOUS).

Draconic Incarnation is possibly overpowered in EN and some EH content, and kind of weak in some EH and most EE, thanks to monster HP being too **** high, and so many things gaining Evasion.

Unyielding Sentinel looks better than it did, but I haven't had a chance to play with it yet (not logging onto DDO til the Akamai business gets taken care of), but it still looks weak--you still need some DPS on a tank to hold aggro, especially when in the field with Blitzers and Adrenaline junkies, and Manyshotters. Plus, tanking has been thoroughly ruined in DDO by having monsters against which AC is irrelevant, and PRR is too minor a defense to matter. As such, things like +15 AC in US are just a waste of points.

Dreadnought, without Blitz is a pretty cool destiny...if you can use the abilities in it /coughunarmedcougharcherycough.
Fury of the Wild is a cool destiny, even without Unbridled Fury...if you can use the abilities in it /coughunarmedcougharcherycough. Adrenaline could probably use a little dialing back. Really, +400% damage and auto-crit is too much, and necessitates an endgame where trash mobs have 10s of thousands of HP.

I think Shadowdancer is awesome! My only complaints about this are that there's too much emphasis placed on having to raise Int as much as possible, which severely cuts down on what you can do with the destiny, and that I've spent most of my rogue's career in other destinies due to the ****ing awful destiny, twist, and karma mechanics. Well, okay, my other complaint is that it doesn't offer enough to non-rogue characters with poor Int.

Grandmaster of Flowers is pretty cool, but the DCs for the abilities on the left side are too low to really be effective in EE content unless you go all-in on Wis (and even then may be too low), and the destiny is a real chore to work through on a character that wears armor/uses non-centered weapons.

As far as twists go...there are some ubiquitous ones: A Dance of Flowers and Cocoon being the biggies. The former is probably too strong, and places too much additional incentive on working monk into your melee build, while the latter is probably fine, except that it excludes barbarians, and has no real competition. I would have liked to see Light the Dark be able to compete with this, or Endless Lay On Hands at least, but with ELOH and LtD being dependent on Healing Hands, it's just too expensive to bother. If Healing Hands and ELOH were rolled into one, that would make for a decent twist (weaker than Cocoon in the long run, but stronger when a lot of heavy healing is needed).

It's not a balance issue, rather a fun issue, but the whole ED system, and the insane grind through off destinies to unlock twists, gain fate, get to the destiny you want, needs to be looked at. It's a chore, and the reason I stopped playing DDO 2 months after MotU came out for almost a year despite enjoying most of the new stuff--I spent a few days in the destiny I liked on my characters, and then spent weeks in destinies that were not at all enjoyable to be slogging through.

[MangLord]

barbarians are in the back of the bus when it comes to self sufficiency. they cant cast spells while raged and they don't have a blue bar for cure/heal spells. they have to rely on pots for self sufficiency and the best in game we have is CSW and SF pots. CSW is fine in heroics. sometimes in high levels its not enough, but that's where skill and character build should prevail. in epics don't bother. better off just grabbing a hire or asking someone to play healer role. SF pots has too big of a penalty. its the best thing barbarians have to be self sufficient, but your ability scores drop up to 10 points (except con), you lose up to 9 points in saves and your run speed is decreased 50% for 30 seconds. nothing else comes close to this kind of penalty for healing and think a change is in order. at one time it was good for balance purposes, but its far easier today to build for self sufficiency with 0 loss in character power through other class/multi classes than it is for barbarians. generally, barbs will have a lot of hp. CSW pots healing for 36 per pot aint gonna cut it. by level 20, barbs would more than likely be about 1000 hp raged up just to get an idea.

fast healing really isn't fast in DDO. in PnP it works fine, but not here. I made a GS regen item a long time ago for my barb and I was only gaining back 6 hp per minute. Fast Healing in FOTW really isn't any better. I wont waste the points because it heals very little per minute. when mobs are hitting for 300+ constantly, im relying on party members, my penalizing SF pots and Healing Spring. Healing Spring is a problem too because its a random number up to per 20 seconds. it can be a good top off saving me pots, but it sucks when you see you were healed for 1 hp than 36 hp than 14 hp than 96 hp... barbarians need a reliable source of healing for when it counts since they are front line melees taking on a number of mobs at a time and generally grabbing agro with such high dps.

I suggest enhancements that boost the amount of hp gained from drinking pots. if balance is a concern with removing the penalty from SF pots as every class would benefit from it, than enhancements would be the next best thing. make the amount at minimum equal to what you can get from SF pots based on heal amp, whatever the math on that would be. right now, my main barbarian can heal from SF pots for 600+, just to give you an idea and that's with Claw set, 3x paladin lives, ship buff and human enhancements.

Good points. My main epic character is a dwarven tempest, so I feel a lot of your pain. I stay alive mostly by twisting in cocoon and I could not imagine not having it. Fast healing looks good on paper, but it does no good when one encounter can cut through your 1000hp in a matter of seconds. Twisting in Healing Spring won't keep you alive, either. Even a quickened and empowered CSW doesn't feel like enough.

My problem with Silver Flame pots is that if I have to chug one, I'm almost guaranteed to be chased down and die shortly after by whatever necessitated its use in the first place, since I'm now moving in slow motion. Even worse is if I've died already and lost my ship buffs, my CHA will be low enough to render me unable to do anything to help myself after drinking another. My gear is carefully planned out and I have no space for a CHA item.

Everyone knows that a hireling can't be counted on in a mob situation, even set to defensive, and I have little time to manage their actions when I'm in need of their services. Mine always seem to think they're helping more by obsessively attacking some random enemy.

My suggestion would be to put a ML20 on the pots and remove the negative effects and/or give barbarians, paladins, fighters and rogues a destiny or enhancement option to ignore the ill effects. Realistically, there needs to be a better option than the hopeless CSW pots for epic levels. They were great up to level 10, but pretty worthless after that. I've wondered why epic level potions are needlessly hard to obtain. Who is going to grind Kings Forest to build up a usable stack of cider pots, or has the time to do so? It would take days and they're not that great. Especially for melees, it would be a really big boon to set up a potion stand in Eveningstar where we could just buy pots of heal and get on with our questing. Even if they healed for a set 200hp, it would be enough to get out of a pinch until the cleric notices.

[sephiroth1084]

Part of the problem in the game right now is that dodge, concealment, and incorporeality are almost always effective, and their effectiveness scales with difficulty: getting missed on a hit that would have done 50 damage isn't a big deal, but getting missed on one that would have dealt 500 is a big deal. Meanwhile, AC becomes entirely useless, and while PRR also scales, it doesn't account for the same level of survivability, particularly when you look at the typical figures of a character with 20-25% dodge and 60-90 PRR vs. a character with 150 PRR and 3-6% dodge.

When you (the Turbine devs) implemented the combat changes (moving away from the d20), you stated that some of your goals were:

to make AC relevant for more characters, because you felt that it was poor design for a small subset of characters with excellent AC (then an AC in the 90s) to have use for an AC buff or item (or debuff), while the rest of the populace wouldn't care even if they received a big boost to AC (going from 40-60 is meaningless if the guy in the 90s is getting hit).
to make AC relevant again for endgame use, since AC had become worthless in epic content.
to pull the value of AC a little closer to the middle of the bell curve, where it would be useful most of the time without being the nigh-perfect defense it was if you were maxed out, and totally worthless defense it was if you weren't.

However, you basically failed on all of these goals. AC is worthless in end game content when you're maxed out, and no one else would even care. Now, instead of +1 AC meaning +5% defense for some people, it usually means +0% defense for everyone. Even +4 AC can be 0% depending on where your starting AC is. Now, sure, part of a meaningful AC was always about stacking bonuses, but once you were getting missed, under the old system, adding a small boost to AC (from an item or enhancement or buff) was meaningful and sought after. Now, even if you are getting missed, you need to be adding 2 or more items/buffs/enhancements before you're seeing any kind of difference at all.

At least one part of the problem here is that, for some reason, you like to boost monster to-hit values much too high on higher/harder content. That doesn't improve anyone's experience, and doesn't really challenge us more if you move from Hard to Elite and go from getting missed thanks to your armor 50% of the time to getting missed 0% of the time. All it does is marginalize certain builds and abilities, and send a lot of loot to the vendor.

Ideally, there would be a stepping down from normal, to hard, to elite in effectiveness of AC, but not so much so that AC becomes worthless, while there's also some impact on other defensive abilities, like dodge. Additionally, a much wider range of ACs need to be useful than we had on the base d20, while also not making bonuses to AC largely worthless for everyone due to the nature of the diminishing returns system. There have been numerous suggestions made on how to address these concerns over the years, to which I've added my own, but I'll not make this post much longer by including that here. I can PM you, Varg, if you like, or link you to some of the threads with these ideas (mine and those of others).

PRR also needs to become more meaningful for characters investing in it, and less meaningful for those characters running around in no armor and rocking 25% dodge. Right now the pajamas crowd are getting the best of everything.

[MangLord]

There are two things that stick out as broken: The no-save helplessness procs from shiradi champion and adrenaline multiplying all arrows during manyshot. That's the sort of stuff that's so broken that it warps quest design - All the anti-burst boss invulnerability stuff and the hordes of undead in the new raids look like they were meant to mitigate that. I would prefer to have crowd control be tied to DCs and the damage to be more consistent instead of 20s bursts of insanity.

Thunderholme was obviously designed without a care towards several classes. Rogues and artificers in particular. Not that there's much point in either class at epic levels, but whatever.

If you're playing a ranger in (gasp!) shiradi and you can't count on Pin and Whistler working for you every time, you're going to have a short night. Nerve Venom is terrific for keeping me alive. If it had a save, there is no way it would be high enough to surpass the saves of anything on EE.

Am I the only person that thinks the fact that the best destines for casters was designed for archers, and the best destiny for archers was designed for barbarians is evidence of a completely broken system overall? People sounded perplexed when I would tell them that I liked shiradi better than fury for my ranger because of all the no save CC abilities and how they worked with the ability to shoot through a line of enemies.

The solution is simple to me. Shiradi abilities no longer work with spells. Fury adrenaline is changed to melee only. At the very least, it would force people to squeeze more out of other destinies, or perhaps prefer the destiny that was intended for their class, instead of phoning it in with the standard stuff. The archer might shift focus to more of a crowd controller, which wouldn't be a bad thing.

[grimthanos]

I personally don't think certain things should be limited by weapon types like rogue poison can not be used for ranged weapons.
or how lacking throwing builds are no master thrower or hulking hurler or Halfling slinger.
barbarian is limited to melee and lacks throwing or ranged as well as healing.
certain weapons properties scale to high with level min.
make crafting canneth a lil better by not limiting to one pre and one sufx.
cause melee and ranged always suffer to casting and range suffer to melee.
also create warfronts for pvp purposes like rift and other games if players choose to pvp to gain ex as well as random questing that takes random players of balanced level to balanced quests with no wait time waiting for players to get to dungeon

[Scraap]

PRR also needs to become more meaningful for characters investing in it, and less meaningful for those characters running around in no armor and rocking 25% dodge. Right now the pajamas crowd are getting the best of everything.

I do find myself wondering if perhaps there might be something that could be done there related to, say... the flanked condition, assuming they haven't just gone and optimized that out entirely at this point (Really, could we even tell if they had?). At least when it comes to the situational utility of dodge vs PRR.

[sephiroth1084]

Either remove the extended lockout timer for doubleshot on Manyshot outright, or give high level rangers a way to remove it (in the DWS core at 18 or 20, or as a granted class feature at level 15+); that will help close the gap between archers relying on doubleshot and those relying on 10K Stars. Also consider giving high level rangers either an extended Manyshot, or a reduced Manyshot cooldown.

Give rangers some new spells at 3rd and 4th levels that affect their combat abilities. The Spell Compendium has a lot of options there for both TWFing and archery. I'd like to see rangers not eclipse monkchers for archery rate of fire, but have some unique apples to oranges abilities, like AoE shots or crowd control. Leg Shot in DWS is nice, but there's too little in the tree to make it worth investing that far, and is eclipsed in epic levels by Pin and Otto's Whistler.

Give fighters an ability to use tactics feats (Stunning Blow, Improved/Trip, Improved/Sunder) at range to differentiate them from monkchers and rangers.

Provide a ranged version of Assassinate for rogues.

The problem with Ten Thousand Stars isn't that it's too good, it's that there really isn't any alternative that's worth considering. Simply upping doubleshot a bunch won't really help, because if it's made truly competitive with 10K Stars, you just relegate 10K Stars to the dung heap, since the DS will free up build decisions rather than forcing monk 6.

Look at Paizo's Pathfinder...compare the Zen Archer monk archetype to the Archer fighter archetype, and the various ranger archetypes. The ranger, despite its name, doesn't need to be the best archer--it just needs to be competitive while also offering some strong additional abilities. The switch-hitting set-up in DDO is one of the bigger draws of the ranger, but it's kind of rough essentially dumping a lot of your focus when you swap to melee, especially since there are so few places in DDO where we're strongly encouraged to put away our melee weapon(s) and pull out a ranged weapon to do anything besides hit a switch.

[sephiroth1084]

I do find myself wondering if perhaps there might be something that could be done there related to, say... the flanked condition, assuming they haven't just gone and optimized that out entirely at this point (Really, could we even tell if they had?). At least when it comes to the situational utility of dodge vs PRR.
/shrug

I'd like to see more emphasis placed on tactical positioning and movement: flanking is important in DDO for avoiding being hit (if the creature doesn't have an AoE attack, and isn't aggroed on you), but doesn't do much else at this point.

We can't really tumble or block to avoid most attacks while we're in melee range.

DDO hasn't ever employed flat-footed AC (which contributes to the ongoing issues with AC, and AC balance across the different classes/armor types).

[Fhauvial]

*snip* clerics should not be powerful combat casters *snip*

While I agree the power creep in DDO has gotten out of control, I don't have time to write a proper response to this and just wanted to say: Please don't advocate that Cleric's shouldn't be respectable casters based on PnP rules. This is simply not true.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spellLists/clericSpells.htm
http://dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Cleric_Domains

[BigJobbs]

Look at the current upper end content and ask yourself if it favors melee or evasion and ranged? To 'nerf' the few viable options in order to balance classes will only make everything weaker across the board while the real issue remains. The content have gone off the rails. A EN Giant in a quest with 55k HP? That keep knocking you back? Of course I will use a blitzer or a ranged with manyarrow fury. Or a Shiradi caster or something using all the heavy draconic spell damage. That favor the classes that can put most spell power or ranged or whatever into such a silly idiotic encounter.

Or the red named battle ragers in the Shadow raid. I mean seriously; what kind of absurd encounter is that? Of course I will range with maximum SP and since there's no end to spawns I don't want to be anything but a Shiradi caster because I don't feel to sludge against the flow of trash with a limited SP pool and I'm sure healers don't want to SP sponge a fragile heavy hitter.

You created this; not by making blitzing good or Shiradi resources saving fun. Not by allowing manyarrow to be fueled by adrenaline - but by making lazy encounters using the worst mechanics (lots of HP and no way to use tactics on them). Thus your reaction is now to change the reaction so maybe you can balance the critter imbalance.

Here's a miuch better idea. Start working on mechanics. Make smarter critter encounters and where tactical feats are more useful than brute force. Allow people to think outside DPS and figure out how to reduce the overall effectiveness of Shiradi in all cases. Be smart and don't be afraid of making it fun. Right now it's all DPS.

Think about it; how many red named regular critters do you have right now? Look at haunted hall. TONS. Look at the raids, TONS. Players reactions will therefore always be to find the most effective way to deal with those kind of lazy mechanics. if you increase HP we will go or the most cost effective way to DPS that. If you go for resource wasting encounters we will try to find the most resource saving.

Then finally it's about fun. Some stuff is just not fun. Others are. Fun is the essence of playing a game. If you nerf everything to a gray mass of sameness you remove fun. You remove incentive to do something and you will make people look for content that allow fun. I don't want to play the equivalent of 'caster'. I want to play a draconic earth sorc.

This. A thousand times.

If you design content that is designed to smash melees into a greasy puddle in a heartbeat, then expect people to stop making melees. We're not idiots. I'm not aware of many players who enjoy playing a soulstone lying in a pool of fail.
I have a BF 2WF tempest ranger who I love playing in EH content. In EE, he gets out a bow and pretends to be a monkcher. In EE melee, the first time a quickened reconstruct fails to fire for reasons of lag or he takes more than 800 damage in 6 seconds, he dies. In ranged combat, he runs around doing low-budget damage, but he stays alive to do it.

EE Trackers Trap. Red Named Giant. Mandatory encounter, cannot be bypassed. 370,000 hit points.
Your options:
Ranged Toon: Kite from Point A to Point B and back. Bow goes pew pew pew. Occasional manyshot/furyshot goes Pew Pew Pew. Giant dies after several minutes of tedium. Challenge Rating = yawn.
Shiradi Sorc: Kite from Point A to Point B and back. MM goes pew pew pew with some interesting shiradi procs giving the odd Pew Pew. Giant dies after a few minutes of tedium. Challenge Rating = yawn.
BF Melee: Run in, swing, get knocked back, reconstruct, run in, swing, get knocked back, reconstruct fails to proc. Dead. Challenge rating = get a ranged toon or caster to fight him for you.
Non-BF Melee: As above, replacing reconstruct with 'drink pot'.

How did someone 'design' the above encounter, and decide that 370,000 was the CORRECT amount of HP and 350 the CORRECT amount of damage per hit to make this a balanced encounter for a group of players, and decide that the giant should be a mandatory encounter? The mobs are bad enough, with saves high enough to basically turn most tactical abilities and combat effects into a 'fail on a 1' scenario, 6000+ hp and they hit like trucks. So people invis past them if at all possible.

In short - if you want to start hitting things with the nerfbat, sure - fury/blitz/shiradi are places to start looking - but not without looking at mob hp + damage AT THE SAME TIME.

[oradafu]

They're more survivable than basically any other melee thanks to having Evasion, Improved Evasion, 3 good saves, enough PRR to get to the point at which investing more is just wasteful (around 80, which is easily achievable with some combination of enhancements, Earth Stance, items, augments, Destiny abilities, past lives, etc...), fairly easily maxed Dodge (and the ability to exceed the 25% cap), healing amp, 25% Incorporeality, an AoE healing ability, a buff that can grant immunity to Stun, very fast movement, and Abundant Step. They basically get everything you'd want for a character's defense.


And pure monks gain DR 10/Epic also.


Part of the problem in the game right now is that dodge, concealment, and incorporeality are almost always effective, and their effectiveness scales with difficulty: getting missed on a hit that would have done 50 damage isn't a big deal, but getting missed on one that would have dealt 500 is a big deal. Meanwhile, AC becomes entirely useless, and while PRR also scales, it doesn't account for the same level of survivability, particularly when you look at the typical figures of a character with 20-25% dodge and 60-90 PRR vs. a character with 150 PRR and 3-6% dodge.

<snip>

PRR also needs to become more meaningful for characters investing in it, and less meaningful for those characters running around in no armor and rocking 25% dodge. Right now the pajamas crowd are getting the best of everything.

This is why there needs to be some sort of PRR cap based on armor, similar to Dodge. My gut says that Heavy Armor should probably be getting double the PRR that it currently gets, while Medium Armor should be capped in the 150-200 PRR (50-57% reduction) range and Light Armor capped at 100 PRR (40% reduction) and no armor capped at 50 PRR (25% reduction).

*edit: Also Epic levels needs to include full BAB. It's silly that 5 levels of Wizard or Sorc can gain full benefits of BAB, such as more PRR from armor than pure Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins and Rangers.

[Ancient]

The solution is simple to me. Shiradi abilities no longer work with spells. Fury adrenaline is changed to melee only. At the very least, it would force people to squeeze more out of other destinies, or perhaps prefer the destiny that was intended for their class, instead of phoning it in with the standard stuff.

Then instead of 4 builds we could drop back to 2?

[maddmatt70]

Not much needs to be done to races with one notable exception and that is bladeforged. Bladeforged self reconstruct ability is game breaking and should be removed.

Melee vs. Ranged vs. Tanks vs. Spellcasters is much more complicated. There is something wrong with the damage melee take and the damage that they do vs. what ranged and spellcasters do. I would love it if the devs improved mob AI to concentrate more on ranged and spellcasters, but that is likely more expensive. Easier solution is improving melee dps or reducing the damage that they take and decreasing the damage range and spellcasters do. You could decrease ranged attack speed by 10% and increase melee by 10% and remove the shiradi procs from the spellcasters. I am not sure what you do with the damage mobs do it without making the game easier.

[MangLord]

It's not a balance issue, rather a fun issue, but the whole ED system, and the insane grind through off destinies to unlock twists, gain fate, get to the destiny you want, needs to be looked at. It's a chore, and the reason I stopped playing DDO 2 months after MotU came out for almost a year despite enjoying most of the new stuff--I spent a few days in the destiny I liked on my characters, and then spent weeks in destinies that were not at all enjoyable to be slogging through.

I couldn't agree more. My dwarf is pretty fun in Fury or Dreadnaught, but his damage goes to hell when I'm not in those. I actually get depressed running my daily VON3 to grind out some more destiny xp, particularly now that the XP has dropped. Like a never ending chore.

[Cardtrick]

The proper balancing for monkchers is to make 10k stars and manyshot share a common cooldown similar to how flasks work. So, for example, if you use manyshot, both manyshot and 10k stars go on cooldown for 120 seconds. If you use 10k stars, both 10k stars and manyshot go on cooldown for 60 seconds.

The other fixes are general balancing fixes for all monk splashes, not just monkchers:

1) Stance feats require 6/12/18 monk levels instead of character levels
2) Move +1 crit multiplier on 19/20 from earth stance to fire stance

Since this has gotten lost a bit in the thread at this point, I just want to highlight it again.

These are all excellent simple suggestions, and are among the few nerfs that I think really need to be made to actual class abilities (as opposed to destinies). Additionally, I would say that the crit multiplier should be split between master and grandmaster (currently, it's +1 on 19-20 at master level; I think it should be +1 on 20 at master level and +1 on 19-20 at grandmaster).

[MangLord]

Then instead of 4 builds we could drop back to 2?

Haha. I think it's a solution to work in addition with the most common overall adjustments people are suggesting.

The overall trend towards jumping around with no armor says a lot about the over the top nature of end game. People are playing those 4 builds because that's the easiest path to solving what the designers have thrown at us. I'm not willing to build a cookie cutter character, so I just stick to epic hard and that's tough enough for me on my melee and artificer.

The other solution, which I think would actually benefit the vast majority of the DDO population, would be to dial back the difficulty a bit. All the people claiming the game would be too easy might want to try it on a pure barbarian if they need a challenge.

I also agree with the above post.

[blerkington]

I don't think the balance is being affected by combat stats, with once class or build doing too much damage or anything like that. Different classes do damage in different ways but I don't think there is any class that cannot solo EE quests if built and played properly. If anything, the game is too easy.

There are two things that stick out as broken: The no-save helplessness procs from shiradi champion and adrenaline multiplying all arrows during manyshot. That's the sort of stuff that's so broken that it warps quest design - All the anti-burst boss invulnerability stuff and the hordes of undead in the new raids look like they were meant to mitigate that. I would prefer to have crowd control be tied to DCs and the damage to be more consistent instead of 20s bursts of insanity.

The AIs inability to fight back while being ranged feels bad. The trash on the new raids is more stupid than the kobolds on the harbor: The kobolds will at least stop chasing and throw stuff at you. Maybe add some snare effects that let people keep fighting but not run away, or give the mobs some sticks to throw at flying monks.

Hi,

I agree with you on furyshot being broken in its current implementation, and that the mobs' AI generally doesn't handle ranged combat well. Although we are starting to see some improvements in the mobs' abilities to handle ranged attacks in the newest content, by giving them abilities like impede movement to prevent kiting.

Regarding your comments about nerve venom procs from shiradi champion, just remember that a 7% chance of a proc occurring for a no save effect is equivalent to a DC based ability which has a save where the mobs only fail if they roll a one.

So even if you changed that ability to be DC-based, it's likely the only effect would be that it would go off more often in lower level content, where saves are lower, and only slightly less in endgame. Changing those abilities to be DC based won't really affect anything in upper difficulty content.

If any adjustment needs to be made to that ability, it needs to account for the difference between high and low rates of fire. In a way that makes the ability equally useful to a pure, non 10k stars archery build as it is to 10k stars users, repeater users, and missile/AOE spammers.

So maybe there should be only one proc chance per missile set instead. Or if each missile is to retain a proc chance, maybe a single missile should have a higher chance of generating a proc than individual missiles in volleys. The same solution could be applied to other shiradi on-hit proc effects too.

Regarding Pin and Otto's Whistler, which are also no-save, there is a long list of other things which can make them fail and put you back on cooldown. These include: lag, mobs moving unexpectedly, sideways movement of the target relative to the archer, and some monster immunities to those abilities. In particular, there are a lot of non-boss monsters which aren't affected by Otto's Whistler. Pin is somewhat better.

I said it earlier, and I'll say it again; the problem of balancing even something like an ED requires consideration of what else it interacts with. Shiradi may seem too strong for certain caster builds, but if anything it's too weak for low rate of fire archers, like pure rangers. So looking at evening out how some of these abilities work with various builds is part of the solution to getting a more balanced game.

Thanks.

[Bosco]

Nerfing one class to make another class feel more powerful is definitely a step in the wrong direction. First off there is no pvp. Not real mmo style pvp at least. Pvp in ddo is a novelty nothing more. Usually when there is a need to make classes more equal has pvp more of an in game focus.

The adjustments over the years really has things out of whack from where they used to be. I remember the decision to make everyones attack speed go up to make the game feel more exciting. Then the need to make the spell haste nerfed due to the increase in attack speed made months earlier.

The decision to give everyone vorpal weapons during the crystal cove event. Then the need to nerf vorpal weapons because everyone had one.

These are just a few examples but hundreds of these changes then post changes to correct the previous changes took place. Turbine please get a grip on your game. And quit listening to the few that come in here begging for x class to get nerfed because they messed up some build they made on a whim.

[Nuryam]

I added this to the comments when taking the survey:

I think it is hard to say what class is least powerful. With all the multiclass options these days. Also available equipment and level range matters for which class is more powerful than others. So questions about one's playstyle and preferred levelrange might put this survey's result in a different perspective.
Also, please do not change the classes away from D&D setup too much. Some are frontloaded and others are not, but not all classes have to be liked equally!

[sephiroth1084]

The proper balancing for monkchers is to make 10k stars and manyshot share a common cooldown similar to how flasks work. So, for example, if you use manyshot, both manyshot and 10k stars go on cooldown for 120 seconds. If you use 10k stars, both 10k stars and manyshot go on cooldown for 60 seconds.

I think this is overly punitive (basically, you get to use 10K Stars once a minute or you get to use Manyshot once every two minutes, why bother with 10K Stars then, since doubleshot + Manyshot would be better DPS, particularly if 10K still has the extra DS cooldown), and I don't think it addresses the real problem.

It's not that 10K Stars is too good, it's that it has no competition, no significant draw to stay out of 6 monk. If ranger 15+ received some better abilities that were good, and useful, but not simply +Rate of Fire, there could be a decision to make. If fighter gained some at 15+. If Assassinate were usable at range...

[blerkington]

I think this is overly punitive (basically, you get to use 10K Stars once a minute or you get to use Manyshot once every two minutes, why bother with 10K Stars then, since doubleshot + Manyshot would be better DPS, particularly if 10K still has the extra DS cooldown), and I don't think it addresses the real problem.

It's not that 10K Stars is too good, it's that it has no competition, no significant draw to stay out of 6 monk. If ranger 15+ received some better abilities that were good, and useful, but not simply +Rate of Fire, there could be a decision to make. If fighter gained some at 15+. If Assassinate were usable at range...

Hi,

I think the solution to this is to make doubleshot useful. It should be possible to build for useful doubleshot both as a ranger and as a non ranger archery build too. Both at heroic and epic levels.

At the moment the very low doubleshot numbers achievable taken together with the preposterous penalty after manyshot mean, as you said, you need to be a 10k stars build to be optimal as full-time archer.

The level of sacrifice, in gearing, selecting APs, and feats, for doubleshot far exceeds the sacrifice required to be a 10k stars build. In fact, by taking a deep monk splash, or having monk as your main class as an archer means you get access to a lot of other very nice abilities too.

Plus of course, a good 10k stars build can generate two or three additional arrows per shot, whereas doubleshot is restricted to one at most. Apart from the dps mismatch, anyone firing more arrows gets more chances of per-hit special effects from other abilities, so the inequality continues.

This is a balancing failure clearly, when there is one choice which is clearly strongest, and all others are well behind. It's not the most unbalanced thing in the game, but it's pretty ridiculous.

Thanks.

[MangLord]

enough with the mass mobs as well. make them stronger or more miniboss type then 50+. i don't want to see ee become a joke either. i want it still to challenge everyone even the best. what would they do if they can steam roll everything?

Yes. I hate mobs. My computer hates mobs. I'd much rather struggle with one or two big, tough ogres than 20 skeletons bogging down everything. When they each have 1000's of HP, it becomes a gigantic chore to thin them down enough so the lag settles down.

I don't want to see EE be a joke, either, but I equally dislike the ivory tower that it is right now.

I can't imagine how difficult it is to create content that provides a challenge to the very best players that put a lot of time into the game, but still accessible enough to keep players with jobs and families from being completely excluded. My friends and I are pretty good players, but finishing an EE quest at level is such a challenge that I just feel disgruntled after the experience. It's fine if I die a couple times, but not being able to engage a boss because he'll demolish me in a couple hits just sucks. If named items and drop rates weren't so much better at EE, I would have no problem just leaving EE to the pros.

I don't have an archer or caster currently at epic levels, so this comes mainly from the perspective of a melee guy.

[Kydrou]

Something sadly important when nerfing "small things" like abilities, skills, or feats, is that it does NOT nerf a single class, or a single Mix. It nerfes EVERYONE who uses such skill, whether it's a Overpowered Class Mixture or a Useless Multiclass, but the damage the nerf does only hurts players.

Why is it that OP is always seeked:
-Powercreep: New weapon does ALWAYS does more damage. And unless you're the strongest, you're dead.
-Damage: The glorious battle of whoever does the biggest numbers or the most steady outputs when armor class or damage reduction are meaningless.
-Ranged vs Melee: The sad moment when a single 800hp baloon has to fight a group of 20k hp needles means that the one that is not in harm's way is the sole survivor.
-Uselessness X Feat/Skill/Ability: Who cares about a static small bonus when you can have a big cumulative bonus laying around? Flexibility long ago turned into weakness.
-LAG: 1 second delay can make the difference between a bad moment and a bad wipe.

There are too many variables to count but I strongly believe those are the most damaging to the game.

There are also small issues:
-Flawed feats and skills with bugs.
-Unintended Delays: Monk's Cleave/Great Cleave takes too much animation time to very little damage. Improved Feint takes forever.

There are too many things in DDO, be it equipment pieces, or mostly feats, that end up being niche or pure flavor.
-Wolf's Whistle, or Sonic Damage Spells.
-Light versions of Heavy weaponry. Xbows or picks.

These are just personal picks, and I can be hideously wrong.

The True Nerf should start on mobs. If they could fail a save on an "everyone achievable high number" instead of a "5% chance in the roll of a d20" it would make every caster take hold, every melee take trip or stun, and every ranged take a paralysis weapon.

If i could, i would vorpal everything for ol' times sake....And not for a flimsy 100 or so damage...

[Theolin]

Before I can really answer balance questions I need some more info .....




Who you are trying to make EE for - the top 1%, 10%, 30%, or ?? of the population

I would like to think 25% but feel it is more like 5%
The top 1% will stomp all over anything you make no matter what you do



How big of a jump is wanted between EN to EH to EE

I think a 1:3:5 ratio is good but I feel it is more like 1:2:15

[Delacroix21]

Some changes that could be made:

1. Make tanks relevant in EE (EE mobs hit so hard ranged/spell builds are required)
2. Buff weak trees and weak epic moments (tree form useless now, fate singer, etc.)
3. Decrease EE monster saves (this is why people use no save things like shiradi)


There will always be powerful builds compared to others, but this is what you get from customization. Building uber toons is DDOs BEST feature! This builds change with each new addition to the game, and I believe there are enough variants to be balanced.


There isn't one build to rule them all in ddo ATM, but rather a bunch of builds that can dominate EE. LD, FoW, Shiradi are good trees (tree form was good, now useless). Other destiny so just need some love!

[nibel]

Have not read the topic beyond the first page. I don't play Epic Elite. I prefer Eberron over Forgotten Realms, which makes me TR more than I would like to, since there is no Eberron content beyond level 24.

Said that, there is my pinch on balance:

Artificer

Artificer is the most powerful soloing class in the game right now. The dog is helpful to take off the heat and pull levers, you frontload a lot of crossbow feats to make it useful from level 1, and most things die quickly under your shooting volley (or blade barrier). With self-healing, UMD and trap skills, the only thing keeping it to be a perfect class is the lack of evasion (and that can be fixed with Shadowdancer).

Besides that, I think artificer class is actually in a good balanced spot. Yes, it is a powerful solo class, but it does not dominate the field when grouping. The buffs are welcome in any party, and the class is not multiclass-friendly because of their best spells being on their highest level acessible.

Barbarian

Barbarians are in a sad state for a few years now. Rage prevents you from doing MANY things, including some that shouldn't, like quaffing potions. Their DR used to be decent when the level cap was lower, but now any level 3 cleric/fvs can get the same DR as a level 14 barbarian (5/-). They have innate dodge, but have a low dodge cap for being medium-armor users. And don't get meaningful AC because of all the sub-buffs that lower AC under what a wizard can attain.

Supposedly, the trade off for all those weakness were massive melee damage. That they simply do not have.

Barbarians should have a HUGE increase on melee DPS. Link them to the 5th and 6th core enhancements to incentive pure classing (Maybe changing Storm's Eye to be Blitz-like?). Give them some easy way to recharge temporary hit points (let's say, 5 per character level when an enemy dies), so what it is not "true" self-healing, it should be enough to keep him alive between heals, or while soloing lower difficulties.

And we need a way to recharge Rage uses.

Bard

I have zero experience with bards after the enhancement pass, so I'll not give any outdated info.

Cleric

Clerics are supposed to be to Favored Souls like Wizards are to Sorcerers: You have a lower SP pool in exchange to access to a larger spell set to cast. That is not a real benefit currently for the simple lack of high level divine spells. A Cleric 20 can slot all level 9 divine spells that exists. Where are the options? We need more divine spells. Specially high level ones.

Turn Undead got some nice buffs in the previous updates and are working at-level as it should be. The Enhancement Pass was also nice to clerics, allowing them to go full melee, full casting, or full support. Or a mix at your desire. Their trees are well distributed (I miss every cleric having a Healing Aura, but that is ok), and you can give good uses for all their abilities.

I think clerics are ok-ish as they are now. The only balance pass necessary for them are better capstones (it is hard to not splash 2 monk for +2 Wis, 9% dodge and Evasion) and more level 7-9 spells.

Druid

I have zero personal experience with druids. Pre or post-EP. I'll skip them.

Favored Soul

As said previously, they are suppoed to be the sorcerer of cleric's Wizard. However, while wizards get more spell slots and feats to play with, fvs get more toys to play than their divine brothers: three innate elemental resists, and wings.

Wings, by itself, is a game-changer. I think you guys know this well, considering how many wing-like abilities you added to the game recently (Exalted Angel, Air Savant, Thief-Acrobat, Shadar-kai, Cannith Boots of Propulsion, druid's wolf form spells...). The problem that make FvS such an easy choice when going for your divine class is that it does not have any significant drawbacks when compared to a cleric. Sure, you lose Turn Undead, but your Warpriest Divine Might is powered by spell points. So, you basically do not lose anything.

FvS need to be a harder choice between it and clerics. Adding good high level spells is a way to do this. The other is making Divine Might turn-required regardless of class (So FvS should multiclass for it, or twist turns from Exalted Angel). The third option is giving Cleric extra feats, like Wizards have.

Strengthening the capstones will also make them miss the easy and cheap monk/pal splash for god-like saves.

Fighter

Fighters have the same basic innate problem of Barbarian: Absolutely no way to self-heal. However, you can raise UMD, use clickies, and still retain your full capability. You are not crippled out of your battle mode if you want to whip a wand, like barbarians are.

Currently, there are three types of fighter archetypes that vastly differs on power and balance solutions.

The first one is the tank archetype. This one goes deep on the Stalwart tree, and dons heavy armor and shield, to lock down the most powerful threat in the room, while your group deal with it. There are two inherent problems with this character: 1) There is almost no tanking required nowadays (and on EE, intimidating a full room of monsters is a death sentence), and 2) most of your tree abilities relies on a shield (I think it should rely on heavy armor).

The second one is the Monk splashed Kensai. Using One With the Blade to harness the benefits of monk stances with any weapon is dangerous (I'll say more about it on the monk entry below), and it should require an AMAZING capstone to avoid every non-tank fighter to just splash 2 monk and be done with it. Fighters have enough feats to waste all the way to the Grandmaster Stance.

The third one is more rare, and is the non-monk Kensai. This one in the current game is just justified if, for any reason, you don't have access to monk. Otherwise, the access to monk stances just make it a poor choice.

So, basically, boost the Kensai capstone, and make heavy armor an requirement for Stalwart stance, and work on it knowing it will have a low dodge cap and no evasion.

Monk

Monks have a ton of balance issues. The only drawback is that you can't wear armor if you want the stances, and can't go over light armor if you want Evasion. Considering all the buffs you get from Earth stance, it is a non-issue.

Monk 2 is VERY frontloaded. For two levels of monk you get the elemental stances, Evasion, +3 to all saves, 4% dodge, two feats, and access to Fists of Iron. There is no other 2-level class splash that give so many benefits.

Monk 6 gives you a third feat, Shadow Veil, 2% extra dodge, Adept of Forms, and access to 10k-Stars. If you want to be a decent archer, you requires 10k stars, so it makes that funny situation where the class with a bow icon is worse at ranged attacks than the class with a fist icon.

There is also the problem that the elemental stances are very unbalanced currently. Earth giving out PRR on par with heavy armor is what makes the no-armor requirements so trivial. And as a bonus, Earth is also the best melee stance to be anyway because of the bonus it gives to weapon critical multiplier. And that is funny, because Earth is supposed to be a defensive stance. Why is it giving out offensive benefits?

Backload some of Monk dodge bonus to the levels of rogues and barbarians, move the critical multiplier form Earth stance to Fire stance, and make 10k-stars either only work with shuriken, or not requiring monk levels at all.

Paladin

I haven't played a paladin post-Enhancement Pass, so I'll skip deep commentaries. I will just say that everything I said about Stalwart Defender is valid for Sacred Defender, and that paladins need a lot of more spells for all levels. Ah, and that Holy Sword should be an imbue spell (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/386642-Change-Holy-Sword-to-a-weapon-imbue).

Ranger

Ranger is another great solo class, with 9 free feats up to level 11, decent melee and ranged damage, and good enhancement trees. But since the enhancement pass, it is hard to keep up both melee and ranged damage on par with each other. Either you specialize in one of them, or you end up not using half of your tricks while you are on each mode. But other than that, I think the class is on a balanced spot.

On top of that, they only need more spells. The only worthwhile level 4 spells they have is Cure Serious Wounds and Freedom of Movement.

Rogue

Since the changes on U21 to Mechanic and Acrobat capstones, I think the class is on a nice place as well. The three trees are vastly different from each other, but all of them have generic stuff that makes them important for the others.

However, there is an issue, not with the class, but with a specific attack: Assassinate. Currently, there is only two items that allow us to raise its DC (and a third one that is Shadar-kai exclusive). Give us a bone and make at least generic Tactics bonus add up for it as well.

Sorcerer

Currently, it is considered the most powerful class in the game (unlike monk, which is just an amazingly good splash class). Can we list out the reasons?

It attacks from far away, so you can stay mobile while dealing your full damage potential.
If you are War/Bladeforged, you can self-heal reliably.
Full Casters requires less gearing than melee classes (Fortification, Ghostly, spell power, spell crit, Constitution/False Life, and Charisma, and you are at 90% of your gear power).
Double Rainbow and multi-hit spells means you have tons of chances to proc an effect.
Lots of SP.


Sure, a MM-caster deals much less damage than almost any other character. But the constant procs of Rainbow and Nerve Venom make them efficient. I think it is more a Shiradi issue than a Sorcerer issue. By themselves, using only spells, they are basically the magic barbarian. Excepot this time, they DO deal double damage over everyone else.

Wizard

There are seven spell schools in the game. We basically only use three (Necromancy, Enchantment, Evocation). Give the other schools more spells.

Other than that, almost everything I said about the sorcerer also apply here: Most of the cheesiness of the class is based on EDs, not the class itself.

=============

I might take the time to write about the EDs in a future post. Maybe not.

[BOgre]

I ardently hope that you are taking to heart the excellent anti-nerf posts here. There have been some VERY good posts.

I sincerely feel your survey is fundamentally flawed and should be discarded out of hand. Whatever data you could glean from that will not lead you to meaningful changes. I did not get to the end, I did not hit submit.

Here are my thoughts on balance:

1st, I do not believe that balance is attainable in DDO. I don't even think it is DESIRABLE, and here's why. Each class is designed differently. Some are more front-loaded, others achieve their power in metered doses, and still others are heavily end-loaded. Because we are able to multi-class more or less at-will, this means we will ALWAYS be able to create powerful builds based on heavily invested end-load classes, with shallow splash front-load classes. This should be self evident and require no further explanation. That being said, this is the one area where you CAN achieve some balance, in the form of multi-class v. pure balance; and that is of course to drastically improve capstone abilities. And by drastically, I mean take your wildest dream and triple it. Any other form of cross class balancing act you envision is a wild goose chase.

2nd, you don't need to have been here very long to know that every class and every new ability and every new level cap raise has resulted in a slew of forum posts crying OP. Nothing will ever stop that. There will always be unhappy people wanting to have what others have, wanting to take away what others have, not willing to put in the effort on their own builds, gear, imagination, etc. Your original post tries very hard not name names and quote threads, but it seems obvious that you are reacting to the current complaints about "evasion required" and "nerf BF reconstruct". For the love of all that's holy, please make it SOP to ignore those types of threads. I mean, unless you intend to either a) make all classes play exactly the same, or b) play an endless game of catchup as you rotate nerfs around every class, chasing everyone who feels their neighbour has better shinies.

3rd, take your cue from Magic: The Gathering. No, seriously. Why is M:tG so successful? Why is it so strategically deep? Because there are tens of thousands (100's of 1000's?) of cards in play. Yes, they regularly obsolete some cards that are deemed to be game-breakingly OP as the environment evolves and grows. BUT it's only because they constantly are adding new spells and abilities that their players are able to come up with fantastic, strategic, winning decks. As far as DDO is concerned, sure, many players gravitate to FotM builds (just like the M:tG community tries to replicate or at least base their decks around champion players ideas), but the vanguard players, the theory-crafters, the flavour build experimenters, ... these players will be constantly finding new and interesting ways to build for power. Have faith in those people, and feed them what they need. MORE choices, in the form of more gear, more abilities, more PrEs, more EDs, and yes, MORE challenging quests. The LAST thing you need to be trying to do is remove abilities, nerf abilities, pigeon hole classes, restrict build options. Expansion, not Restriction should be your mantra.

And finally, I have to pick on one phrase in your OP: "remain competitive." Or more simply: "competitive." Besides the few places here where bragging rights are valued (1st completions, solo raid, highest DC/HP/etc.), there IS no real competition in DDO. Or if there is, it's not something you should have on your radar at all. Every class here is viable. Even complete gimp builds have a place here. If there is a competition, you can bet that for every "winner" in the DPS, or DC, or Saves, or whatever, race, there will be two new builds nipping at their heels to be the next big thing.

So, in conclusion, please abandon your quest for balance, and particularly your quest for balance-based nerfage. Spend your time instead on building new things, adding new things, confuse us utterly with an avalanche of new spells, abilities, tactics, mechanics, gear, and weapons.

[Delacroix21]

I forgot!


PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE allow barbarians and bards to be lawful. It will open SO MANY build options for them, and they really suffer from being locked out of paladin and monk.


I also agree with the anti-nerf con census, don't listen to a few whiners about another build be stronger than their own. This only holds water if there is one build that rules all, and there has never been such a build. There have always been equally competitive builds out there.

[mikarddo]

Thanks for caring, I believe this is a very important issue but also one to approach very carefully.

In my humble opinion I believe you should start carefully with a few well placed buffs and some minor nerfs to the worst offenders - but never in such a way as to completely invalidate anything.

I would like to suggest the following changes initially (which will hurt my own characters somewhat but be good for the game). The first two are buffs while the rest are nerfs - but nerfs that reduce rather than remove completely and hence still offer a choice.

1) Make medium and heavy armor better
Add an extra level*2 PRR innate for wearing medium armor and level*3 PRR innate for wearing heavy heavy (thats 60 prr at level 30 for medium and 90 prr at level 30 for heavy)
Add level*1.5 PRR to Mithral Body and level*3 PRR to Adamantine Body.

2) Make going pure more appealing.
Add 5 ap for having 20 levels of the same class.

3) Make evasion less all-or-nothing
Change evasion on non-trap damage from "a success negates all damage" to "a success makes you randomly take 0-25% of the damage". Improved Evasion continues to remove all damage on a success and so does normal evasion for trap damage so evasion classes with more than just a splash and trappers dont suffer from this.

4) Make Divine Grace capped.
Cap Divine Grace so it adds at most (paladin levels) * 3 to saves. Thus a /2 Pal splash adds no more than +6 to saves while a /4 Pal may get up to +12. With stat inflating getting uncapped +saves from cha even with just a small splash of paladin is far too good.

5) Lessen the effect of displacement
Lower displacement from 50% to 40%. This is still good but slightly less so and makes either having the spell or farming clickies less all-important while still very worthwhile.

6) Lower the effect of Blitz.
Change Blitz from +25% damage per stack to +20% damage per stack for melee damage and +15% damage per stack for ranged damage. This is still very competitive but without the extreme edge it enjoys right now.

7) Change Adrenaline to not affect multiple arrows
Change Adrenaline so it only affects the first arrow in a volley. Getting 4 arrows worth of major damage is over the top.

8) Change Just Rewards to not allow low level spells
Change Just Rewards so it does not work with spells that are spell level 1 or 2. (MM and Scorcing Ray, I am looking at you). The effect is still very worthwhile but the worst offenders are gone.

9) Increase the cooldown on Reconstruct
Change the cooldown on Reconstruct (spell) from 5 sec to 8 sec. Change the cooldown on Reconstruct (SLA) from 30/15/6 sec to 30/20/12 sec. Reconstruct, in particular the SLA, is simply too good compared to other forms of healing. With a longer cd it will still be very good but now comes with slightly more risk.

10) Monk chances
Reverse the change so monk stance feats no longer can be taken but only granted with monk levels.
Make the +1 crit part of Earth stance only apply to melee damage.

Thats it as far as I am concerned. None of these changes should completely invalidate any builds - but medium/heavy melee and pure builds get a boost, while certain other builds get a slight nerf so they are still playable just less powerful.

Once thats done start looking for the weakest classes/enchancements/EDs and buff those carefully.

In case anyone is wondering I currently play a Shiradi Wizards/FvS/Mnk and a Monkcher, so I will be taking the full nerf of these changes without a buff - yet I still think its reasonable and to the best for the game.

[Jurgi]

Master Blitz is the only thing that keeps Mele around, if MB will get nerf, mele will be completly useless.

[Desonde]

Time and resources matter: We can save a great deal of time by only changing a few overpowered abilities, rather than changing all other characters, monsters, traps, and quests to match those few most overpowered abilities or features. If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features. [/list]


Be careful with this notion, in order to maintain balance you're going to need at least one person making minor tweeks here and there (making some enhancements 2ap instead of 1, and some 1 instead of 2) every month or two. And the largest reason for the prominence of certain class combinations/must have abilities/combat styles isn't because they are over powered, it's because the meta game requires them (If you want cr 28 mobs to hit lvl 28 characters for 90-140 a hit, give them the ability to hit 3 times a attack, and spawn them in groups of 3-8, all melee are going to have to have a source of concealment, incorp, dodge, AC, and PRR if they want to stand up for longer than 1-5 seconds).



What are some examples of things that could be better balanced?

Ranged combat vs. Melee Combat vs. Spellcasting, at all character levels. As an example, not so long ago, ranged combat was largely considered inferior to melee combat. We made some conscious decisions to try to improve the viability of ranged combat. That's at least a partial success, but has brought along some issues of its own.


You can't group things entirely like this, Ranged needs to be broken down into 5 groups, Bows, Throwing Weapons, Shurikens, Crossbows, and Repeating Crossbows. Repeating Crossbows are fine, they don't need an adjustment at this time.
Shurikens are fine as well, but closer to the edge of unbalanced (not quite).
Throwing Weapons (other than shurikens due to feat/enhancements options) fire too slowly to compete with the other ranged weapons.
Crossbows Fire even slower than throwing weapons.
And Bows are in Limbo because without the special feats they would be in the same group as Throwing Weapons at being too slow to be useful in higher end content, but with the special feats they become the most powerful physical weapon for a short time.

Bows are also further skewed by being the only enhancement tree to be accessible by a race, granting the strongest ranged combat enhancements with the ability to earn a capstone ability on a multiclassed toon.

Melee has started to balance itself out (from the days where eSoS rained supreme), unfortunately, the game no longer allows them to be viable (requiring a huge investment into AC so that high damage mobs don't kill you nearly instantly, but sacrificing damage so you can't quickly take down their high hp pools). Monks are emerging as being extremely OP, but that's not because they are, it's because they are the only melee class with the tools to survive the content [if the critters turn other melee toons into rag dolls and the monks are the only ones standing it looks like they are imbalanced, but if you take away their survivability, then what, clerics, arcane, and ranged are too strong?].

Arcane is another one of those, it's complicated, things. Death magic seems OP, but no one wants to spend hours beating up different shaped meat bags all night, it's balanced out in that Death Magic doesn't work on bosses so it can't be the only trick in the parties/players composition.

Sorcs. are probably over powered, they fall into the all or none damage category, but being able to 1-3 spell kill entire mobs, and hit bosses for 1000's of damage a hit, a well built sorc can clean up. However, due to scaling, it's almost required in high level content to have one to help bring the mob's massive hp back into manageable ranges.

CC magic is suffering due to the influx of DC's to resist death magic that casters must put everything into making them land resulting in the inability to kill or damage.




Class & Race Balance: They don't all need to have identical appeal from a power perspective (as there are other reasons to play any class), but we should try to get them close enough that it doesn't feel bad to play any particular race or class, or that you feel forced to take any levels in a particular class to feel powerful.


Races aren't imbalanced, they suffer from requiring too many AP to become useful, and having high pre-reqs resulting in massive saturation [this is the largest flaw with the current enhancement system as it's built on the premise that you put 41 points into your main enhancement, 16-18 into your race, and the remaining 20ish into a splash. The problem being that many trees are back heavy so you spend 20-40 points into multiple trees that you don't have points to build up your racial tree, and it's more efficient to splash in the trees that have decent front loaded abilities so as not to burn points to get that extra +1d6 sneak attack].

Classes aren't inherently overpowered, it's that many are underpowered. 6 of the 13 classes only have 2 trees to choose from, and don't fully support the character they are built for.

Artificer and Druid, though limited in their choices have one enhancement tree that makes them viable (Arcanotechnician doesn't support epic game builds, can't comment on Druid trees yet).

Barbarians have fallen into the group of hard to tell, being damage magnets that reduce their defenses to increase their damage and being melee focused, they just can't survive long enough in higher end content (dr /20 is a drop in the bucket against 100+ dmg [not to mention it's effectiveness is reduced by PRR (50% dmg reduction from PRR makes the dr/20 a dr/10 equivalent)]. They maybe balanced, but they die too quickly to tell.

Bards are the jack of all trades class, problem is when everything requires a focus in one area to be effective a class that lacks focus falls short.

Fighter is a special case, they don't have a tree that supports their class. Kensai is built specifically to support monk abilities (and if you try and work away from it you don't have very useful abilities), and Stalwart forces a very niche build that doesn't play well with others (very ap heavy, requires shields and heavy armor).

Monk has a lot of front loaded abilities, but it doesn't lack in back end abilities either, the reason why this is so prevalent is that it's one of the best sources of melee defense, and doesn't force you into burning points to get that one ability that ties the class together. The other classes need this flexibility. [Granted Henshin Mystic is very flat, it does have it's special qualities].

Paladin has a near Stalwart Defender clone with the same flaws and lack of strong draw, but it does have a class specific tree, unfortunately it doesn't support DDO's gameplay [They almost have to re-spec every night to get full benefit from that tree, and are stuck only playing content that involves undead, demons, or devils].

Ranger is hard to call because AA is extremely powerful, but in itself no imbalanced [it's actually both OP and underpowered at different moments]. The DWS has too much flavor not enough substance, and Tempest falls flat in the back end.

Rogue is another that's fairly well designed, it favors splashing withing itself with decent flexibility, and it has decent front end abilities as well. TA is a little flat and expensive, but it can still mix fairly well with assassin.

Sorc and wiz are pretty much summerized above in the combat styles, the EK also suffers from the concerns with melee.



Epic Destinies: We know some destinies are more popular than others, and also considered more powerful. Sometimes this is a result of unintended bugs. This could include discussions of Twists of Fate, so individual abilities vs. other abilities can still matter, though we don't expect to make every ability equally viable as a Twist of Fate (for its tier). Abilities that can't be twisted (Innate abilities and tier 5 & 6) should be largely considered as a group when comparing entire Destinies.[/list]
This does mean potentially looking at things that rhyme with ten-thousand cars, many fought, caster's fritz, chirashi cambrian, the bunk crass, or american overtoad.


Apart from the abilities you've hinted at, you have to understand as well that these are the major source of improvement on a character between levels 20 and 28, the level of the dungeon has very little relevance to the level of the character and is entirely dependent on the level of the ED. Each ED must make the character viable in the higher level content because leveling up doesn't.

That said, there is no reason why my ranger should be able to do 100,000dmg in a one second window [Build a 30% Archer's Focus, Adrenaline, 30% Damage Boost, Manyshot, Arrow of Slaying, Adrenaline, Called Shot].



We're happy to hear general thoughts on character balance, what you'd like to see, and also why you'd like to see certain changes (or non-changes.) We don't want to change any particular things without good reasons, so convince us!

The most important thing I would like to see is to bring the entire system in check, once you start to see game play start to balance you will know what is over powered and what to lower.

Most of the imbalanced sections of the game are a result of the old process of increasing the difficulty to match what has become overpowered and common, instead of adjusting the balance to be within acceptable levels. This resulted in things that weren't part of that curve getting left behind and becoming further and further away from the rest of the game.

[Vanhooger]

1- Capstone and lvl 18 core ench rework, atm going pure is not worth it at all in any class, spalshing is way more powerful.
2- Dc casting is somewhere achievable but require the grind of many past life that could be ok, but the shiradi just make me so disappointed that I grinded out all those pl for nothing.
3- Shiradi caster, yes they need a nerf:

Remove those unlimited temp spell point, or at least make the proc once every few sec not on spell cast
Remove the possibility to take metamagic discount on two tree at same time (or put them on higher tier lke 4-5) as well for critical line.
Make more high level mob caster and all red named runnning with shield...they have dw..why not a lvl 1 spell like shield?
Force dmg is affecting nearly everything, too many mob have immunity to other element or strong elmental resistance.

4- Monkcher they're fine like that, all you need to do is just make adrenaline work with the first arrow with manyshot.

5- Paladin is just a splash class for save.

6- Monk too overpowered on splashing build. Remove all the feat stance and the 1.5[w]from gmof, they should be just for monk or staff build

7- Bard and Barbarian, they dont need to be commented

8- Sorcerer/Wizard,Cleric/Fvs (non shiradi), increase on dc/sr and make pure viable.

9- Primal avatar and shadowdancer not worth using them, the only useful thing is cocoon

10- Do not nerf self healing or I will stop play, I can't wait half a day to get a cleric or fvs to do one quest, all you need to nerf is repair spell, remove it. Self healing just with cocoon and or scroll on EE is not that easy when they hit for 300 x hit and you have a 12 sec cooldown. It's not acceptable that a 1 click repair give you full health like if you was an healr type lol.

I could list many more but just don't have time....

[EllisDee37]

Either remove the extended lockout timer for doubleshot on Manyshot outright, or give high level rangers a way to remove it (in the DWS core at 18 or 20, or as a granted class feature at level 15+);That's a solid idea. Maybe have the AA 18 core reduce the manyshot cooldown by x%, and the AA capstone reduce it by an additional 2x%. What "x" should be I can't say with any insight.


I also agree with the anti-nerf con census, don't listen to a few whiners about another build be stronger than their own. This only holds water if there is one build that rules all, and there has never been such a build. There have always been equally competitive builds out there.In today's game, there are pretty much four builds that rule them all, right? In no particular order:

Monkcher
Bladeforged Centered Kensei
Shirardi arcane
Pale Master (pure 20 sun elf completionist)

There's no justification to roll up a pure arcane archer instead of a monkcher. There's no justification to roll up any front line melee other than a bladeforged centered kensei. For first life arcanes trying to play EE content, it's shirardi or bust. The least dominant is the pale master, who has the darkside cleric nipping at its heels as a slightly weaker but viable alternative. The first three are head and shoulders above the alternatives.

[blerkington]

That's a solid idea. Maybe have the AA 18 core reduce the manyshot cooldown by x%, and the AA capstone reduce it by an additional 2x%. What "x" should be I can't say with any insight.

In today's game, there are pretty much four builds that rule them all, right? In no particular order:

Monkcher
Bladeforged Centered Kensei
Shirardi arcane
Pale Master (pure 20 sun elf completionist)

There's no justification to roll up a pure arcane archer instead of a monkcher. There's no justification to roll up any front line melee other than a bladeforged centered kensei. For first life arcanes trying to play EE content, it's shirardi or bust. The least dominant is the pale master, who has the darkside cleric nipping at its heels as a slightly weaker but viable alternative. The first three are head and shoulders above the alternatives.

Hi,

This is an interesting post because it highlights the extent to which the focus of this discussion has turned to be about endgame EE content.

The balance between classes/races/builds is quite different at different points in the game, both level wise and difficulty wise. It's even quite different in EH upper level quests compared to EE endgame.


Thanks.

[danlan]

Hi,

This is an interesting post because it highlights the extent to which the focus of this discussion has turned to be about endgame EE content.

The balance between classes/races/builds is quite different at different points in the game, both level wise and difficulty wise. It's even quite different in EH upper level quests compared to EE endgame.


Thanks.

I think the problem of balance is only evident in the context of epic elite, which is directly caused by the following features of epic elite (and the issue is worsening):

1. inflated monster hp (especially for orange and red named)

2. inflaged monster saves (literally untouchable)

3. inflated monster damages (renders non-ranged combat styles nonviable)

4. infated monster dc (causes players to overly focus on building up saves at the expense of all other varieties; if you dont build saves, you die instantly from cometfall/evo spells/soundburst etc.)

5. especially from update 19, the number of trashes also increase dramatically. This is very annoying combined with the above 4 points.


All of the above render almost all classes combinations powerless except for the below:

1. Shiradi casters who can hit from long distance, who are totally unaffected by monster saves, and who can do much more damage than any other casters!

My suggestion would be while making adjustment to Epic elites, it would be necessary to make all procs by shiradi not magnified by of spell powers (0%).

Alternatively, maximum one proc for each spell cast.


2. Furyshot moncher

I would suggest that adrenaline can only work on the first damage from manyshot/ten thousand star (if techically possible)

If the above is not possible, then maybe make adrenline not regenerating from ranged attacks.

At the very least, maybe change ten thousand star to not work on bows.

[knockcocker]

The approach here seems bass ackwards. Are you really going to propose nerfs based on surveying player's
perceptions?

There's a context for all of this so called power balance:

Certain race/class/ED combos have much better synergy and utility than others. This is one of the
few things that makes DDO stand out. Lose that and you're done.

Builds adapt to suit circumstance. At the moment certain combos are more effective for the content
being ran than others. Many other intelligent posters have explained this previously in this thread.

Surely you have a vast amount of metrics to support whatever changes you are proposing? I seriously
hope you aren't basing this off anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is useless in this context as
players are not balanced. If you're suggesting that some special little snow flake should be as effective
as a very good player with all the past lives, gear and skill then I'm going to have to disagree.

Honestly, I think you should look at buffing certain EDs and classes - particularly so called epic
moments. Nerfs are always bad, particularly if you're taking away the only thing that works to make
the content you've created bearable. The game is fun, not work.

[Flavilandile]

First I stopped reading after the first page ( 100 posts )... Because honestly it's a can of worm better left to rot IMHO.


Dungeons & Dragons: Online isn't perfectly balanced. We're interested in discussing what balance means, and how important balance is to you, the players. We want to know how often you'd like to see balance changes.

You can't Balance classes in DDO, D&D Classes are inherently unbalanced.

At low level in D&D the melee rule the playing field and the higher you go the more powerful spellcasters become. At high level they are the decisive factors. Melee ( and ranged ) are just faire valoir. ( at least until the magic users expand all their daily spells, then it's back to the good old melee )
So don't even try to balance anything.... And that's not even starting with Multiclass characters.



For this thread, we're looking particular at character balance, and how characters compare to one another. To some extent this borders on discussion of player characters vs. quest difficulty (and all that entails), but the focus here is player characters compared against other player characters (but not PvP). At some other time we may also look at other balance issues, such as Normal/Hard/Elite, or more specific issues like items, quests, monsters, traps, raids, or boss monsters.


Well then you have two main problems : ( and several other... not always related to characters, so I'll avoid them for now. )
- The first one there's Classes and Prestige Classes. and you mixed it in the Enhancement Trees.
The result is that we only have Prestige Classes Enhancements but no Class Enhancement Trees.
To Fix that would mean yet another full enhancement revamp. ( As there's some Basic class things that are spread over all the Prestige Class enhancement trees )

- The Second one is the whole mess that has been created by the Epic Destinies and the way they work....
The result is that we just spend our time in destinies we do not need or want, because we have to develop them to be able to develop the destiny we want a twist from.
One of the fix for that would be to bring back the Shears and let them work as unintended ( with a check so that you can't twist more than once ), that way we could level these off destinies we hate to level while benefiting of the powers from a destiny we like.




Why does Character Balance matter?

We'd like a variety of roles and styles of play to be supported at a high level of play, without some builds that look like fun feeling bad to play because other characters seem so much more powerful. We've heard some level of concern over these topics and related issues. Perfect balance doesn't need to be achieved, and probably can't be achieved, but most or all playstyles should feel competitive. (We recognize that creating terrible character builds with the vast possibilities offered in DDO is always going to be possible, but we can probably all agree that's not the real issue.)


There's the Build du moment... If you nerf one of it's power it will be replaced by something else, but that's not the only way to deal with a supposedly overpowered build.
Yes everybody and the dog is making Monkcher because they are supposedly ( too ) powerful. Except that they are Monkcher... If they end up in melee they are mana sponges for the clerics.
( unless they have enough past life and other things to make them really resilient )
Use quest mechanisms to force them to become entangled in melee instead of nerfing them.

Just remember : whatever you do, in two month a new build, supposedly more powerful ( read : more adapted to the current tactic in end game raids ) will replace this one.
It's been that way since the beginning... At first we had the plain classes, then people discovered the power of multiclassing and we ended up with Power Rangers, then we had Drow Sorcs, then Light Monks, then...
The list is long.



In short, we want you to be able to play what you want to play, have fun doing it, and feel like you can be a worthwhile contributor to a party (if that's how you choose to play).

Why isn't every character made stronger, to match the strongest characters already out there?

Challenge: We want to be able to provide challenges to those who seek that kind of gameplay. There should be limits to player-character power in order to achieve this, when comparing player characters against monsters, traps, bosses, etc.
Understanding what's already there: Minimizing changes also allows everyone to keep a consistent idea of what exists. If almost everything changes, it's like starting over from scratch, and therefore much harder to get everything right.
Time and resources matter: We can save a great deal of time by only changing a few overpowered abilities, rather than changing all other characters, monsters, traps, and quests to match those few most overpowered abilities or features. If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features.



As I said above, D&D ( and by extension DDO ) is inherently unbalanced when it comes to Player Classes.
If you want to spend time on a class that needs love : I'd say that the Bards are the ones that need the most love.



What are some examples of things that could be better balanced?

We're keenly aware that each player probably has some topics they are concerned about, and we don't like to break characters or take away fun things that are already there. However, we may have been too cautious about balance changes in the past, especially after a new ability or feature has been launched. We'd like to know if you'd prefer changes to come more quickly, or if we should sit back and let you guys show us what can really be done before making changes.

That said, some broad areas that we know perhaps could use some consideration:

Ranged combat vs. Melee Combat vs. Spellcasting, at all character levels. As an example, not so long ago, ranged combat was largely considered inferior to melee combat. We made some conscious decisions to try to improve the viability of ranged combat. That's at least a partial success, but has brought along some issues of its own.
Class & Race Balance: They don't all need to have identical appeal from a power perspective (as there are other reasons to play any class), but we should try to get them close enough that it doesn't feel bad to play any particular race or class, or that you feel forced to take any levels in a particular class to feel powerful.
Epic Destinies: We know some destinies are more popular than others, and also considered more powerful. Sometimes this is a result of unintended bugs. This could include discussions of Twists of Fate, so individual abilities vs. other abilities can still matter, though we don't expect to make every ability equally viable as a Twist of Fate (for its tier). Abilities that can't be twisted (Innate abilities and tier 5 & 6) should be largely considered as a group when comparing entire Destinies.


Ranged/Melee : I'm with Teh Troll here : Nerf the Monks ! :D
( only if there's no other option though )

Class/Race : why bother, the system is inherently unbalanced, don't try to balance there.
The only thing you could do is create Class Enhancement Trees. ( but as I said it would been to be yet another complete enhancement overhaul )

Destinies : See above, bring back Shears and let us level an off destiny while being able to use the powers of our main destiny ( or of an interesting one )

Just one important thing :

Frontloaded enhancement trees + frontloaded class splashes = cherry pick cookiecutter build ftw.

We really don't need a WoW/SWTOR Clone here where there's only 1 or 2 typical tree use for a given class...

What makes DDO so great is that there is not a single way to achieve the same result in character build.
Well you killed that a bit with the Enhancement Trees, before the Trees it was really true, after the trees, we have partial cookie cutter builds....
We still have some liberties in builds, but they have been restricted by the trees compared to what we had before.

[luvirini]

Comment on epic level balance as there is a huge problem:

The epic levels give fairly low benefit and a level 20 in right destiny is normally(not always for all builds and destinies, but normally) much more powerful than a 28 in wrong destiny.

Thus unless we get actual class levels instead of the commoner levels in epics all balancing and what content you can enter in epic levels should not be based on epic level, like the new raids should be enterable with a level 20 character that has level 5 destiny and not a level 28 in level 1 destiny as the epic level just does not matter as much.

[Seljuck]

Main point of view all players here is: 'Don't nerf MY character!! Buff others.' We all fear it, but we understand it. Someone wrote here Adopt or Die. Why no one can adopt the changes, known as nerf? I mean changes that are clearly thought out and do not lead to fall into extremes.

The question is:

If I have the biggest weapon why others can't buy bigger or the same us mine??

This leads to a loop. Now I'm the strongest, but for a while, after the changes someone else will be stronger, so then I will need strengthen. This point of view leads to endless power ****.

Besides, Vargouille wrote:


Time and resources matter: We can save a great deal of time by only changing a few overpowered abilities, rather than changing all other characters, monsters, traps, and quests to match those few most overpowered abilities or features. If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features.

[knockcocker]

Main point of view all players here is: 'Don't nerf MY character!! Buff others.' We all fear it, but we understand it. Someone wrote here Adopt or Die. Why no one can adopt the changes, known as nerf? I mean changes that are clearly thought out and do not lead to fall into extremes.

The question is:

If I have the biggest weapon why others can't buy bigger or the same us mine??

This leads to a loop. Now I'm the strongest, but for a while, after the changes someone else will be stronger, so then I will need strengthen. This point of view leads to endless power ****.

Besides, Vargouille wrote:

This is always true, even with nerfs. All you've done is removed the most efficient (and usually) fun ways
to play their content. Why play at all?

If the 'classes' were wildly imbalanced I'd agree, but they are not. Does any build feel OP
in the new content or it simply a case of do what works?

Too much tall poppy syndrome on this thread and too many confusing OP with effective.

[pHo3nix]

The real problems aren't characters builds, the real problem is how EE is implemented. Most things people are complaining about aren't OP in a vacuum, they are just the most efficient way to deal with EE quests now, so they look OP.

Ranged vs Melee: as you said in the OP, ranged has been considered suboptimal for a long time, except when you could manyshot. Why? Cause meleeing was way more dps and you could actually melee. Melee in current EE requires a lot of skill, a lot of gear and even if you are pretty good player it's still the hardest way to do things, cause mobs hit so **** hard that you are required to have great self-healing, 25% dodge, 10%+ incorporeality, a decent PRR, a way to make mobs helpless, a hotbar of displacement clickies or 100s of scrolls and you basically need to be blitzing(FotW is fine too, but blitzing is way better :D ). Anything less and you are going to be a soulstone more often than not, unless you are piking. When mobs hit so hard that you can be killed in 3-4 hits even with 1k hp the smartest solution is to not get hit at all: that's why ranged toons (both archers and shiradi) are so popular.

Saves: when you need a 65+ to save in EE you are basically forcing people to splash 2 pally lvls. Yes, there are some builds that can achieve good saves even without pally splash, but it's far from the norm. Saves are the new AC: you either go full ****** on them or you could as well not bother and use immunities and twicthing skills. The easiest way to fix this is to lower the saves required in EE: pally splashes are going to save on a 1 anyway, but at least they won't be "required" anymore to have decent saves.

Evasion: when the main threats for our toons are reflex-based spells or traps(see above ranged vs melee, if you are a ranged toon melee mobs aren't a real threat), evasion becomes that good. Is it required? No. But it's amazing. Couple it with the other benefits you get from splashing 2 lvls of monk or rogue and it's really hard to justify not having it. To make it less desiderable just proxy nerf it by making capstones better and by making threats different form reflex-based ones. Currently evasion is really useful in 100% of the game; if it was useful in 30-40% of the game and there were better capstones you will see a lot less people splashing 2 monk or 2 rogue for it.

Monk: 2 or 6 lvls of monk are really good cause they give really nice perks. Do not nerf what these splashes give, just proxy nerf them by making what they give less desiderable and/or by making other options more valid.

I'm surely missing something, but that's enough for now :)

Do not focus on characters, you should first change how EE work and then with minor tweaks you can make the game a little more "balanced" ;)

[knockcocker]

That's a solid idea. Maybe have the AA 18 core reduce the manyshot cooldown by x%, and the AA capstone reduce it by an additional 2x%. What "x" should be I can't say with any insight.

In today's game, there are pretty much four builds that rule them all, right? In no particular order:

Monkcher
Bladeforged Centered Kensei
Shirardi arcane
Pale Master (pure 20 sun elf completionist)

There's no justification to roll up a pure arcane archer instead of a monkcher. There's no justification to roll up any front line melee other than a bladeforged centered kensei. For first life arcanes trying to play EE content, it's shirardi or bust. The least dominant is the pale master, who has the darkside cleric nipping at its heels as a slightly weaker but viable alternative. The first three are head and shoulders above the alternatives.

My biggest problem really is that your 'four builds' - with which I don't disagree much (Zeus?) - is
actually mostly only relevant to EE. In fact, what a lot of this discussion has boiled down to,
materially, is what builds work on EE. This is a different subject to the OP - but one which is mainly
more relevant?

Most things work just fine on EH- so I'm struggling to see what the fuss is about.

[knockcocker]

The real problems aren't characters builds, the real problem is how EE is implemented. Most things people are complaining about aren't OP in a vacuum, they are just the most efficient way to deal with EE quests now, so they look OP.

Ranged vs Melee: as you said in the OP, ranged has been considered suboptimal for a long time, except when you could manyshot. Why? Cause meleeing was way more dps and you could actually melee. Melee in current EE requires a lot of skill, a lot of gear and even if you are pretty good player it's still the hardest way to do things, cause mobs hit so **** hard that you are required to have great self-healing, 25% dodge, 10%+ incorporeality, a decent PRR, a way to make mobs helpless, a hotbar of displacement clickies or 100s of scrolls and you basically need to be blitzing(FotW is fine too, but blitzing is way better :D ). Anything less and you are going to be a soulstone more often than not, unless you are piking. When mobs hit so hard that you can be killed in 3-4 hits even with 1k hp the smartest solution is to not get hit at all: that's why ranged toons (both archers and shiradi) are so popular.

Saves: when you need a 65+ to save in EE you are basically forcing people to splash 2 pally lvls. Yes, there are some builds that can achieve good saves even without pally splash, but it's far from the norm. Saves are the new AC: you either go full ****** on them or you could as well not bother and use immunities and twicthing skills. The easiest way to fix this is to lower the saves required in EE: pally splashes are going to save on a 1 anyway, but at least they won't be "required" anymore to have decent saves.

Evasion: when the main threats for our toons are reflex-based spells or traps(see above ranged vs melee, if you are a ranged toon melee mobs aren't a real threat), evasion becomes that good. Is it required? No. But it's amazing. Couple it with the other benefits you get from splashing 2 lvls of monk or rogue and it's really hard to justify not having it. To make it less desiderable just proxy nerf it by making capstones better and by making threats different form reflex-based ones. Currently evasion is really useful in 100% of the game; if it was useful in 30-40% of the game and there were better capstones you will see a lot less people splashing 2 monk or 2 rogue for it.

Monk: 2 or 6 lvls of monk are really good cause they give really nice perks. Do not nerf what these splashes give, just proxy nerf them by making what they give less desiderable and/or by making other options more valid.

I'm surely missing something, but that's enough for now :)

Do not focus on characters, you should first change how EE work and then with minor tweaks you can make the game a little more "balanced" ;)

HA! well said!

[SirValentine]

POWER CREEP! It is anathema to the longevity and enjoyability of a game, and DDO has gone past Power Creep into full blown Power EXPLOSION.


I think power creep is inevitable, and, in very small doses over a very long time, good for the game.

But, yes, it has gotten way out of proportion. Shadowfell was a particularly pernicious example of this. Between the enhancement pass, and the really dumb things done with loot, player power level went up a lot very quickly.



Leave the game systems alone, stop bringing in a new system with each new hire...work on the systems we have, improve and build upon and COMPLETE them.


Agreed. Lots of half-finished things that would be cool to see done.

[oradafu]

6- Monk too overpowered on splashing build. Remove all the feat stance and the 1.5[w]from gmof, they should be just for monk or staff build



I disagree with the GMOF part. Grandmaster of Flowers absolutely sucks if you aren't a robe wearer. Instead of making A Dance of Flowers even more restrictive, I'd rather see it open for all builds by removing the "while centered" criteria and move it to a tier 2 or 3 ability. Instead, I'd make it something like:

A Dance of Flowers -- Passive Bonus: +[0.5/1.0/1.5][W] to attacks. While Centered, attacks gain an additional +[4/6/8] damage.

[BoBoDaClown]

Characters should have to make tradeoffs.

At the moment this isn't happening; some classes are able to have top notch dps and defense.

Additionally, game-play needs to make a wider variety of game styles effective; i.e. making tanks useful sometimes would be great.

[SirValentine]

The balance between classes/races/builds is quite different at different points in the game, both level wise and difficulty wise. It's even quite different in EH upper level quests compared to EE endgame.


Yes, that difference is real.

The most over-powered I ever felt compared to other characters of the same level was as an Artificer at very low levels. And yet by the teen levels, Artificer no longer felt over-powered.

But every level takes more XP than the one below it, so you spend more and more time at the higher and higher levels. And every quest level becomes more and more challenging. So, honestly, why should anyone care if build X is 10 times as powerful as build Y, in level 1 content, when class Y can still complete that content easily? If build X is 3 times as powerful as build Y in end-game content, to the point that X can contribute/complete that content, and Y simply can't, that becomes a balance problem.

TLDR: Balance isn't as important in content so easy everyone can complete anyway.

[Sethvir]

Soome ppl might remember how multiclassing was ballanced in d&d? it took more and more xp to lvl additional classes. While i see why this does not work in ddo, tzhe concept still works!

most of the power a character aquires (of real powerfull multiclass builds, not the fluffy ones), he gets from enhancements and the fact, that enhancements are friggin frontloaded. there is a simple solution. for each additional class a character selects, he needs to specify a secondary/tertiary class. for ALL enhancements of secondary/tertiary classes, the minimum level requirements (not class level, but maybe even this could be affected) will go up by 2/3 levels (INCLUDING CORE ABILITIES).

And suddenly ppl have to think about what they do, and frontloading is taken care off. the tier 3 and tier 4 stuff in enhancement trees are out of reach for tripple multiclass builds. would solve alot of problems and cut back things a bit. it still allows devs to put in powerfull and fun stuff in enhancement trees, without the threat of pushing out all balance means out of window.

it has one more apeal (at least in my mind), it would allow to bring the race -> favoured class thing to ddo from d&d. for each favoured class of the race of a character, this class is not treated as secondary/tertiary. aka no min level requirement adjustment upwards, or the increase could be reduced by 1, allowing a second class enhancement tree, without penalties.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

delete monks, take divine might away from fighters, lower mob physical damage dealt, balance achieved. or something along those lines.

[EllisDee37]

My biggest problem really is that your 'four builds' - with which I don't disagree much (Zeus?)Zeus is a very good build. I'm guessing Cetus is ahead in dps, but yeah, Zeus is close enough to be a legitimate alternative. Especially if you don't have an eSoS but did get a raider's box. heh.


is actually mostly only relevant to EE.Balance itself is only relevant in EEs. Most builds are on fairly equal footing in the easier difficulties. Any gimp melee can blitz through EH just about as well as Cetus and Zeus, for example. Step into EE and those gimp blitzers are toast while Cetus and Zeus just start to perform to their potential.

Think of EH and under as like comparing a ferrari versus a pinto in a school zone. They're both going 25 mph. EE is the autobahn.

[Grimborn]

No its not the same.

People that don't post on the forum don't want their opinion to be listened to.
Otherwise, they would speak up.
They're silent, so they don't care.
In your opinion of course. Not all players are into being so articulate as some people in these forums. :)

[Glad]

So many good posts about current situation :




For me, the reason ranged/casting feels so much superior to melee right now is because of all the terrible effects we can get when meleeing. Knockbacks, slow, damaging shields that only work at close range or only for melee attacks... Some of those simply need to be burnt in fire, some reworked to also challenge attacks from range.




Balance is overrated and boring. Variety is more interesting and what makes this game so great.





No one wants to join a party and feel useless.




The biggest issue I'll have with "fixing" shiradi is that they'll break the ONLY destiny that has innate synergy for an Arti.

Balance is a white whale - you will never ever get it.

Spending resources pursuing it (like Cpt Ahab) is a waste of your limited time.

Nerfs always Always ALWAYS suck.

Using Nerfs (which suck) to get balance (which you can never achieve) is utterly the wrong approach for this game.

And be aware DDO population is on decline and decisions you make now will affect future or our game and your jobs.

[Ancient]

We'd like a variety of roles and styles of play to be supported at a high level of play, without some builds that look like fun feeling bad to play because other characters seem so much more powerful. We've heard some level of concern over these topics and related issues. Perfect balance doesn't need to be achieved, and probably can't be achieved, but most or all playstyles should feel competitive. (We recognize that creating terrible character builds with the vast possibilities offered in DDO is always going to be possible, but we can probably all agree that's not the real issue.)
If you have to chose between feeling equal v.s. freedom and fun, please chose freedom and fun. Part of why you see an uptick during each expansion is the new possibilities. Nerfs are the exact opposite of that.

DDO is always evolving, but in some ways that can be a strength rather than a weakness. The approach you took with divine crusader had a lot of promise. Lots of people were looking forward to the results. If you cycled through classes and destinies with that type of focus driven by player feedback, you could have people excited to play some of the currently underpowered areas.

Between the shiradi force field proc, toss boulder and this thread... It has taken just a few weeks for me to go from being excited about the game enough write a guide and give back to the community... to wondering if I should give ESO another chance.

[blerkington]

I think the problem of balance is only evident in the context of epic elite, which is directly caused by the following features of epic elite (and the issue is worsening):

1. inflated monster hp (especially for orange and red named)

2. inflaged monster saves (literally untouchable)

3. inflated monster damages (renders non-ranged combat styles nonviable)

4. infated monster dc (causes players to overly focus on building up saves at the expense of all other varieties; if you dont build saves, you die instantly from cometfall/evo spells/soundburst etc.)

5. especially from update 19, the number of trashes also increase dramatically. This is very annoying combined with the above 4 points.


All of the above render almost all classes combinations powerless except for the below:

1. Shiradi casters who can hit from long distance, who are totally unaffected by monster saves, and who can do much more damage than any other casters!

My suggestion would be while making adjustment to Epic elites, it would be necessary to make all procs by shiradi only affected by 40% (or another ratio) of spell powers.


2. Furyshot moncher

I would suggest that adrenaline can only work on the first damage from manyshot/ten thousand star (if techically possible)

If the above is not possible, then maybe make adrenline not regenerating from ranged attacks.

At the very least, maybe change ten thousand star to not work on bows.

Hi,

There's some stuff I don't agree with here.

Balance is an issue in lower difficulties and other parts of the game. While I try to spend as much time in EE groups as I can, a very significant proportion are just running EH. This is evident on my server from the lfms I see every day.

The loss of perspective here is that not everyone plays EE all the time, and the whole game shouldn't be balanced around it.

If you are serious about balance, you need to look at the game from the lower heroic levels and easier difficulty levels all the way up to endgame EE content. A counter-example to your claim that balance isn't an issue at lower difficulty levels is the completely dominance a good instakill caster enjoys in everything but the most difficult content.

How the game is balanced at various points is important to novice players and causals, and no doubt affects their enjoyment of the game and how well they can be retained. Unless the people who only complete EE endgame content are largely paying for the game to run, these other things do actually need to be taken into account.

Thanks.

[blerkington]

Yes, that difference is real.

The most over-powered I ever felt compared to other characters of the same level was as an Artificer at very low levels. And yet by the teen levels, Artificer no longer felt over-powered.

But every level takes more XP than the one below it, so you spend more and more time at the higher and higher levels. And every quest level becomes more and more challenging. So, honestly, why should anyone care if build X is 10 times as powerful as build Y, in level 1 content, when class Y can still complete that content easily? If build X is 3 times as powerful as build Y in end-game content, to the point that X can contribute/complete that content, and Y simply can't, that becomes a balance problem.

TLDR: Balance isn't as important in content so easy everyone can complete anyway.

Hi,

I see your point, but I think you are still suffering from a fairly exclusive, high difficulty endgame point of view.

There are people who play lots of alts and never make it to cap. There are people who don't have the time to build up characters to perform in EE endgame. I still pug enough to meet a steady supply of people who struggle with EH content, especially if something goes a bit wrong, or they get isolated from their group.

There are also some extremely experienced players posting in this very thread who are fully capable of playing EE, but have rejected it because they find it silly and unenjoyable. And in many ways EE is quite silly. It's not so much about player skill as finding something that works (like an overpowered build, or a single ability, or even just safe perching spots, and milking that for all it is worth).

I suspect that the number of people whose main diet is EE endgame content is a significant (especially by dollars spent) but fairly small proportion of the population. But people coming up through the game, as well as veterans, are important customers too and also need to be catered for.

So I'm going to stick to my line that balance in the wider game is important too. Perhaps not so much to you or to me, depending on how rarified the air we breathe is, but there are many others for whom it is, especially new customers and cashed-up but time-poor casuals.

Thanks.

[UurlockYgmeov]

I rather see time devoted to delivering a complete / finished / polished GUILD SYSTEM and updating / finishing / revamping CANNITH CRAFTING.

[vengfarga]

Shiradi is OP ... but only for casters. For the ranged toons it was designed for (Rangers, Artis, Mechs, Bow Kensai) it's very under-powered.
FotW is OP ... for Monkchers. For the melees it was designed for (Barbs, Fighters, Pallys, other idiots with big weapons) it's a poor 2nd to LD.

Any nerfs to these destinies to 'rein in' the power of already highly effective classes like Wiz, Sorc & Monk, is going to hit the less powerful builds using them as intended twice as hard, making them even less desirable and less balanced.

[Singular]

With the changes to Boulder Toss, you guys are pretending to make a label for an ability - Boulder Toss - more "realistic" by taking away the benefits of spell power, despite the fact that:

1. environment based boulders have nothing to do with the ability - you can toss it in the nothing phylactery prisons of the new raid, wher there aren't even floors

2. anyone, even those with 6 strength can toss a boulder for the same amount of damage, making it the least realistic stone throwing possible

3. and, moreover, you're ripping apart balance by destroying an integral damage proc from artificers. After the change, artificers will not be able to keep up with good EE damage output. So you're reducing variety of end game builds and increasing the gap between the over powered "cheat" builds and the rest.

It's not a welcome change.

[zwiebelring]

Fury ED should be restricted to melee.

But since there is no unite ED creation, some EDs work with more than their archtype player character in mind. I am to that point where I want all the classes be restricted according to their destiny spheres. Specialists may choose there sphere and stick tp it. That eliminated Karma farm brain vaporization as well as overpowered twist of fates.

EDs are no EDs just very simplified new classes. You should not be able to choose inbetween them. 1 per life at maximum*. Because, you know, ->destiny<-. Yes, I know, all super fast grinders,k powergamers, munchkins and elitists will curse me to death but that is, what created real balance. Everything else is DDO charts top ten wish list.

So cool, if people actually had to make a real decision being either Legendary Dreadnought or Fury of The Wild or Flower Boy. And with that in mind, EDs could be real powerful so your toon feels unique again. Nerf cherry picking.

*For clarification, I mean being in one, not leveling one.

[parowan]

I took this screenshot months ago. It was old news then. Nothing has changed since. The thing that sticks out at me is that you can have such a homogeneous party without making any requirements. Simply post an LFM for EEs, with no more stipulation than main ED, and there's a decent chance you'll get a group of what are essentially identical builds. Or maybe a group with all characters being one of two possible builds. A sure sign that the balance ship has sailed.


http://i.imgur.com/ssXl7Ct.jpg


While I agree with those who say that you can go too far in pursuit of balance, and that PnP isn't always balanced, this is the crux:

DDO's greatest differentiating strength is the depth and robustness of character creation and development. The current situation effectively renders that moot, leaving DDO without a competitive advantage.

Solutions? I'll admit I haven't read the whole thread, but if tampering with people's builds is so problematic, and if you don't want to revisit the idea of putting 10k stars and manyshot on shared timer, or counting magic missile as one shiradi proc instead of many, or making multiclassing less frontloaded, etc., then how about this idea: give high level mobs viable ranged attacks. That sorc or monkcher is going to be a bit more hesitant if an EE ogre himself has manyshot and can hit at range for as much dmg as he hits in melee.

The problem may not be that ranged characters are more powerful than other characters. The problem may be that ranged characters are too safe from mobs. Or the problem may be both things. But I simply don't feel like I'm playing DnD if my character is just the same as everyone else's.

[Cardtrick]

Shiradi is OP ... but only for casters. For the ranged toons it was designed for (Rangers, Artis, Mechs, Bow Kensai) it's very under-powered.
FotW is OP ... for Monkchers. For the melees it was designed for (Barbs, Fighters, Pallys, other idiots with big weapons) it's a poor 2nd to LD.

Any nerfs to these destinies to 'rein in' the power of already highly effective classes like Wiz, Sorc & Monk, is going to hit the less powerful builds using them as intended twice as hard, making them even less desirable and less balanced.

Honestly, I don't even think Shiradi qualifies as overpowered anymore, even for casters. It's already been sufficiently nerfed. It's actually a pretty good example of something that's fun to play, participates well in groups without making everyone else feel useless, does well in high end content when built properly and played well, and feels genuinely different than the other options out there.

Now, some of the splash options that give a Shiradi caster insane saves (2 pali for divine grace) or evasion/defenses/saves (2 monk in ocean stance with free defensive feats) without really having to sacrifice anything of importance -- those are overpowered. Arguably the 2 FvS splash for Just Rewards is a bit overpowered as well, but I feel like the opportunity cost there is about right, especially since it doesn't let someone do anything they couldn't otherwise -- it just lets them do it without using as many pots/shrines.

The benefit to saves from Divine Grace should be capped by one's paladin level. Monk splashes are harder to balance, but I wouldn't be opposed to having evasion moved back to level 9, like it is for ranger.

[zwiebelring]

The problem may not be that ranged characters are more powerful than other characters. The problem may be that ranged characters are too safe from mobs. Or the problem may be both things. But I simply don't feel like I'm playing DnD if my character is just the same as everyone else's.
Sorry, no. Too safe from death is exactly, why you go ranged. But when a dedicated, geared up melee cannot go into melee everytime he faces ''trash'' mobs then these mobs are on steroids and imbalanced. I don't care if ranged caracters do fancy pewpew in safe distance. That is their contribution and strength. That is okay. As long as my melee toons can show their strength.

[Cardtrick]

3. and, moreover, you're ripping apart balance by destroying an integral damage proc from artificers. After the change, artificers will not be able to keep up with good EE damage output. So you're reducing variety of end game builds and increasing the gap between the over powered "cheat" builds and the rest.

Artificers need a significant boost in the endgame. They are awesome up until about level 17 or 18. Probably overpowered. But then their damage output stops scaling, and they're downright weak by the endgame.

However, there's really no reason that that boost should be boulder toss. It really was a bit weird. I don't care about the flavor/lore aspect at all, I just mean it was weird/broken that artis were forced to use a physical damage ability from a melee destiny because they lacked any decent scaling force damage option of their own.

(I still think boulder toss's damage should scale with strength and have a Knockdown chance with a DC based on strength -- it should be a situational ranged damage option for melee builds that doesn't require going monkcher/manyshot.)

[gk_zone]

I'd like to add another broad area to that list: pure-class versus multi-class.

I feel that not only should every single class be viable and able to contribute, but that every single class when pure-classed should be viable and able to contribute.

For me, that should be the basic starting point for balancing classes, and multi-class measured against that yard-stick.

I don't mind if someone figures out clever, synergistic combinations that are a bit more powerful overall, but there should be trade-offs. Multi-classing should never be a no-brainer, and pure-class should never be an outright bad choice.

Traditionally in D&D, multi-classes, being less specialized, had less raw power, balanced with more versatility. It seems in some cases in DDO, they get more versatility AND more power, making pure-classes strictly inferior.

The enhancement pass contributed a lot to this. I think a hard look at capstones is in order.

And, though I know some people will hate it, perhaps revisiting the class levels needed for each tier of enhancement. Personally, I think 1/3/6/9/12 would be more appropriate than 1/2/3/4/5.

There is a lot of wisdom in this post.

[zwiebelring]

Multiclassing was the oldschool way to actually choose a PrC for one aspect to specialize but leave all other oarts for good as a trade-off.

If a Rog splashed 2 Ftr levels, for example, then in order to take a more martial PrC and in a faster way compared to staying pure. Rog is a very attractice class in pnp to stay pure, even in DDO I think it is. So multiclassing has to grant a big advantage for that reason and the trade-off. The common 10 levels of PrC granted such a power, usually.

But in DDO it seems that with multiclassing you get only stronger generalists in everything without big trade-offs. That is not multiclassing's fault, it might rather be a flaw in design of some classes.

[Sebastrd]

we don't like to break characters or take away fun things that are already there. However, we may have been too cautious about balance changes in the past, especially after a new ability or feature has been launched. We'd like to know if you'd prefer changes to come more quickly, or if we should sit back and let you guys show us what can really be done before making changes.

I think that such issues should be dealt with immediately. If you allow unbalanced abilities or unintended interactions to persist, players get used to them, and it becomes harder to give them up. It's much better to take the toys away before we get attached to them.

[droid327]

There isn't necessarily a problem with the classes, per se....the classes are designed to fill roles. Its those ROLES that are out of balance. And, hence, the classes that best fill the roles that actually work, of course, are the ones that are most popular. To wit:

Tanking: AC is famously pointless due to insane high to-hits on endgame mobs. Dodge is the best way to avoid since its non-mitigatable by enemies. PRR also helps, but comes with a much higher opportunity cost (compared to Dodge) in order to get really high levels, and conversely is somewhat front-loaded, so most builds can just splash a little without building exclusively for it and stack it with Dodge.

Casting: DC casting, like AC, suffers from statflation in endgame; monster saves are too high to warrant the opportunity cost for getting your DCs even in the ballpark...and "reliable" in endgame is basically impossible. Nuking is the only viable form of casting.

CC: Again, unreasonable DCs gate the effectiveness of CCs. Primary CCers (ie Bards), even when they have no-save CCs, have to sacrifice so much DPS for it that they cant really manage the huge statflated HPs they encounter by endgame. The only way to incorporate CC without sacrificing DPS is to build a DPS char and then "backdoor" in some instant no-save CC that doesn't greatly affect your DPS: Shiradi casters.

Melee DPS: Would be viable, except for survivability issues, primarily because both player DPS and monster DPS continued to power-creep while player defenses did not, and monsters just tacked on tens of thousands of HP. So monsters just meatbag-tank, while players have to kite, leading to...

Ranged DPS: The only build besides nukers that can consistently output enough DPS to make a difference to huge meatbag HP levels, while avoiding insane high incoming melee damage. The king by default, but especially when you introduce the multiplicative synergy that is Monkcher (10KS+MS+Adrenaline+Slayer).

---------------------

Broad-scale suggestions to fix this:

-Reduce monster HP curves, and nerf some of the hugest burst-DPS abilities, the ones that are completely disproportionate to other DPS builds.
-Reduce monster saves/CRs in Epic a little, especially EE, so that an Epically-geared DC caster is *reliable* in EE while a well-equipped one is *passable*.
-Reduce monster to-hits in Epic so that reasonably achievable ACs are still reasonably effective, and high-end achievable ACs are very effective. It shouldn't be a "heavy armor or pajamas" situation. Reduce Monk's AC bonus accordingly, considering their Dodge is already impressive.

The root of most of these problems, basically, lies in the product of power creep and statflation, that has made many roles essentially inviable by endgame - defense became impossible (the only answer was to avoid being hit at all), beating their saves became impossible, and the only currency that mattered was DPS, to be able to get through insane-HP meatbag enemies.

If you rebalance the monsters, then you rebalance the ways you can effectively attack those monsters, which means you've rebalanced the roles, and currently useless classes will find their use again.

[Singular]

Artificers need a significant boost in the endgame. They are awesome up until about level 17 or 18. Probably overpowered. But then their damage output stops scaling, and they're downright weak by the endgame.

However, there's really no reason that that boost should be boulder toss. It really was a bit weird. I don't care about the flavor/lore aspect at all, I just mean it was weird/broken that artis were forced to use a physical damage ability from a melee destiny because they lacked any decent scaling force damage option of their own.

(I still think boulder toss's damage should scale with strength and have a Knockdown chance with a DC based on strength -- it should be a situational ranged damage option for melee builds that doesn't require going monkcher/manyshot.)

I can agree with what you're saying above. I can see BT being str dependent, for sure. I have these issues:

1. EDs are supposed to have a little for every class. W/out BT, casters only have Primal Scream.

2. There's nothing being put into the game to replace BT for arties. Artificers have no epic destiny - we basically cling to the coattails of other classes and I cannot imagine that a good ED will be made that can produce as much dps as Fury. Out of all the EDs, we have, what, 2 ones that are good for end game? Possibly 3 b/c some people can run in Draconic in EE. Not so many, but some can.

3. These kinds of changes aren't about realism. That's a ridiculous notion - this is a fantasy game. So what's their point for nerfing BT? They don't like Shiradi casters using it? Then they should address that issue. They just want BT to be like someone throwing a boulder? Then make it str based - and they should have cleaned it up 2 years ago, when EDs came out.

[silinteresting]

well,

after a night of thinking about this from different angles, no mater
how many times i was thinking of nerfing something i always came back
to the same answer. why nerf when all we need to do is boost.

i feel that if certain epic destinies and certain capstones get boosted
then nerfing is redundant and a better balance will be achieved WITHOUT
****ing the player base off and would actualy make people happy so a WIN WIN
all the way.

your friend sil :)

[KingKoz]

If you start making balance changes to classes to please the whiners please count on me canceling my sub renewel and quitting the game we need less changes from pnp not more I am on the border already but that kind of **** will do it.

Should we say goodbye to you now then? DDO IS NOT Dungeons & Dragons pnp. Change in mmorpgs are inevitable. If there was no change, they'd lose subscribers faster imho.

Koz

[merentha]

My boss was having a conversation with me not all that long ago and was asking how to increase the performance of the entire team. After all it affects his performance evaluation. I commented that if what he wants is an overall improvement then he needs to empower the weaker performers and reward them for greater efforts. I cautioned that in turn he does not want to discourage those who are performing or he'd just flip the table and stay where he is.

What amuses me is that in the opening comments there is an implied suggestion to bring the top performers down to the level of the lower performers.

Why not ask for the weak prestige trees and why we do not play a pure class. What we would improve and why? This would increase options positively and would more likely increase the diversified play in the game.

Is the player culture Turbine wants to foster one that pulls the "strong and exceptional" down to mediocrity or to build up the "weak and mediocre" to become exceptional?

This is a fantasy game, I log on to feel awesome.

[sephiroth1084]

It's fine if I die a couple times, but not being able to engage a boss because he'll demolish me in a couple hits just sucks. If named items and drop rates weren't so much better at EE, I would have no problem just leaving EE to the pros.

I don't have an archer or caster currently at epic levels, so this comes mainly from the perspective of a melee guy.
Sounds to me like you shouldn't be running EE. Mind you, I think EE needs some work, but it shouldn't be openly accessible to everyone. Besides, if you're struggling that much with EE, drop rates aren't going to be that much better for you, since you could probably run EH 2 or 3 times in the same amount of time it takes you to hit EE once, and the drop rates on EE aren't 100-200% better than on EH. Now, EE-only items are a different story, of course, but if you aren't running the toughest content, do you need the absolutely best gear? Sure, people want it, because it's there, but is it necessary?

That's a solid idea. Maybe have the AA 18 core reduce the manyshot cooldown by x%, and the AA capstone reduce it by an additional 2x%. What "x" should be I can't say with any insight. Absolutely NOT AA. Right now AA is far and away the best enhancement tree for an archer, dramatically overshadowing DWS, and is accessible without dipping a toe in ranger. It doesn't need more. Hence, my suggestion to either stick in the high level DWS cores, or as an innate ranger ability at level 15+, that is, something monkchers cannot get.



In today's game, there are pretty much four builds that rule them all, right? In no particular order:

Monkcher
Bladeforged Centered Kensei
Shirardi arcane
Pale Master (pure 20 sun elf completionist)

There's no justification to roll up a pure arcane archer instead of a monkcher. There's no justification to roll up any front line melee other than a bladeforged centered kensei. For first life arcanes trying to play EE content, it's shirardi or bust. The least dominant is the pale master, who has the darkside cleric nipping at its heels as a slightly weaker but viable alternative. The first three are head and shoulders above the alternatives.
Which are largely due to:

EE mobs (even trash) hitting too hard for melees to reasonably fight them, even for tanking builds whose role is to be able to stand toe-to-toe with the biggest, baddest brutes in the game
EE mobs having too much HP for casters to nuke them, even with the powerful Draconic Incarnation abilities
EE mobs' saves are so inflated that a character has to go all-in on their DC-stat in order to have any chance at succeeding in landing their spells/abilities, and even then, success may be out of reach (this hurts nuking, crowd control, insta-kills, tactical feats, debuffs)
most self-healing options for non-casters are far too weak, so something like the Bladeforged stands head and shoulders above everyone else with their Reconstruct SLA
the synergy of some epic destiny abilities with archery or spellcasting ends up putting more power in their hands than was probably intended
there are no reasonable alternatives available to Ten Thousand Stars
Pale Master's save DCs are so far ahead of everyone else's that it's tough to balance content for PMs and other casters at the same time

[SirValentine]

As others have mentioned, some balancing issues should be addressed more through quest design, monster stats, etc., rather than through character changes. But I'm sure character changes will be required as well.

I would like to request that, whatever changes you make, as much as possible try to keep them to confined as much as possible to the things that are already unique to DDO: the enhancement system, the Epic Destiny system, etc.. I would prefer that you NOT change base class features as defined in the base game rules of D&D.

I am not a typical MMO player. I have never played any other MMO, and don't foresee doing so. I only started playing due to 2 factors both being present: first, I didn't need a subscription (though I've payed plenty of money to Turbine over the years since); and, second, it was DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS! But I suspect that some fair portion of your player base over the years and continuing to this day, come to DDO because of the D&D, not because of whatever unique innovative set of enhancements or fancy gear or even balance or whatever. The game has evolved, of course, and the difference between an on-line game and pen-and-paer imposes their own sets of circumstances. But, please, as much as you reasonably can, stay true to your roots.

[Aelonwy]

Balance Issues

The biggest problem with balance issues seems to be that in Epic (EE at least) you the devs have designed everything to come down to two factors DPS and DAMAGE AVOIDANCE. Because our opponents have become insane HPbags with commensurately enormous saves (meaning DC casting and tactical feats are all but useless) dealing an amount of damage that could be a player character’s entire hp bar (certainly not always but there are some monsters that can one shot a character) our choices have devolved into “how do I craft a character that can deal as much sustained and burst DPS as possible? And how do I avoid their DPS best?” Self healing is a secondary question since most classes can achieve this one way or another now although Barbarians seem to have the hardest time achieving this.

The answer to the question of DAMAGE AVOIDANCE amounts to fight from a distance, dodge, displacement and evasion. These four abilities for damage avoidance are the best and it just so happens that the two favourite builds for Epic Elite, namely Shiradi Caster, and Monkcher take advantage of several of these in either build. Both also do very good if not the best DPS.

If you want to balance these builds with the rest of us you really should answer the fundamental problems:

1. Fighting from a distance is not just better its almost necessary for some builds to survive a single encounter. This isn’t about our DPS but the Mobs’ DPS.

2. Dodge, dodge is more important than any AC. Mobs just don’t miss. AC means almost nothing. PRR has value but the value just isn’t enough for the incoming damage most times. And Damage Reduction is a joke. A sad joke.

3. Displacement. Displacement can equal survival in some situations, but… but once again you have given the mobs so many tools to overcome our defenses, i.e. a lot of our opponents now all seem to have True Seeing thus blur and displacement become useless for some of the toughest encounters.

4. Evasion. Oh mighty evasion and even mighter Improved Evasion. With a single save avoid half or (Improved Evasion) all damage. Only three classes and one ? Epic Destiny grant evasion. These are Rogue 2 levels, Monk 2 levels, Ranger 9 levels, and Shadow Dancer final innate. And evasion isn’t just King versus mobs its awesome versus traps as well. Traps that on Epic Elite can one-shot kill. Yes evasion depends on getting a reliable reflex save but it can be done on most classes. However, the two poorest classes in terms of damage avoidance namely Barbarian and Bard cannot splash paladin one of the easier go to ways of getting good saves for Epic Elite. I would suggest making evasion (NOT improved evasion) more available somehow.

While you may need to make some nerfs in my humble opinion it would be better if you adjusted the underpowered epic destinies and classes.




Classes that need some adjustment:

Bard: Perhaps an enhancement that will give charisma to all saves like Paladin, or perhaps a choseable feat that does the same. Certainly there should have been an enhancement in Warchanter that allowed for Charisma to hit and damage. Warchanter tree doesn’t add enough benefits or damage to compare with splashing a few melee levels. So if you really want that playstyle ignore the Warchanter tree and add 2-6 of your favored melee class. A sonic DOT spell or SLA would be very appropriate for Bard either as a class spell to choose at 5th or 6th level or as an enhancement.

Barbarian: Either add PRR to each level of Barbarian and a capstone that gives an additional 20 for 40 at cap in one tree or add damage reduction at each level with a capstone that gives an additional 10 for a total 30 DR at cap in one tree. The way PRR works and the amount of damage a front line DPS takes this is actually barely a drop in the bucket.

Paladin: Currently only desired for splashing two levels. ? I have no idea what it would take to improve this class, it was too dull for me. Possibly some free feats at higher levels.

Monks should not be the best archers. Ten Thousand Stars and Multishot. There should be some increased penalty or cooldown to using both of these abilities. Pure rangers should have a way to slightly reduce the cooldown for multishot if only by 15-20 seconds.




Epic Destinies:

Primal Avatar: Very weak. Avatar of Nature either needs to do far more damage or its attack speed needs to increase some. The spells are awful expensive. Just can’t seem to justify using them consistently enough to spend points in them.

Shadowdancer: Almost right. Dark Imbue ment should do at least 50% more damage.

Fatesinger: Epic Moment isn’t useable on bosses. Not really EPIC then is it?! This destiny could use an evasion like ability even if it has a limited duration and/or limited number of charges. A fatesinger in PnP is about changing ones fate via altering a single roll or rerolling a one, having bonuses on saves and checks, etc. This could definitely translate into avoiding some ill-fate by having an evasion-like ability even temporarily.
A dodge type bonus or ability would also make sense.

Magister: Summons don’t scale well with higher level content, Sigils need to be stances or auras. This destiny feels weak but I am unsure what else could be done to make it competitive.

Shiradi Champion: Might need some kind of nerf for casters while at the same time giving it a bump for ranged fighting. Remember its not just monkchers and shiradi casters that use this destiny but pure AA, Deepwood Snipers, some rogue Mechanics and Artificiers.

PS if you nerf Fury of the Wild for ranged fighting that will leave only Shiradi and possibly Shadowdancer as viable options for that play style. As it is, it feels like a balanced choice for that playstyle for me but others strongly disagree. (BTW I have only a pure AA) Remember that in that tree there is virtually nothing that works for ranged except for Adrenaline and Unbridled Fury. Take one away and it will just be a chore to get through for fate points and nothing more for ranged. However, if or when you create an Artificier destiny should this be decent for ranged then nerfing FOTW will be less of an issue.

You might also want to look at the fact that through your design decisions monks that primarily use handwraps have almost no destiny options other than GMOF because so many destinies do not work with unarmed fighting. This means Kensai Monks have incredibly more options.

I’ll have to reserve my opinions on the Divine Destinies they are already undergoing a set of changes.




Summary
Less nerfs. Improve the underpowered classes/destinies. Rebalance your over-inflated hpbag mobs with saves that even the Pnp Gods would envy.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Let's look at this in a different scope devs.

Roll back the clock to April 2007 with Mod 4 "Reaver's Bane"

Content was designed to challenge ALL classes.
At that time level cap was raised to 14.
Vorpals, smiters etc worked on a crit roll not 20.
Casters were more aware of mana usage.
Intim-tanks were just that, and no other class could do their job.
In fact all classes main attributes were unique unto themselves.

What does this have to do with the OP?
We had decent, not great balance between classes AND content.

This whole solo-ability on EE, (hard in 2007) was unheard of, or very rare.

We can all debate what class needs what, or taken away, but it pointless if the content doesn't match, challenge or "require" certain attributes from the classes as a whole.

When casters are better trap-monkeys than rogues, monks better at intim & threat generation than traditional intim-tanks, etc... the point is VERY PLAIN to see.

Devs, you messed with game mechanics, and totally deflated the value of AC, PRR in favor of evasion & dodge.
You messed with character development so much (with the long awaited enhancement pass) that true builds are passe, and pretty much bottle-necked us all with a splash of monk to be on a competitive with the min/max scenario. The new raids bosses, almost require a ranged attack.

You also screwed up the balance with loot when Faerun content was released. It made ToD sets almost worthless. DT armor went in the bank, and Greensteel took a back seat to all the new weps.

You FAILED to design content/ gear & characters in harmony with each other. Plain & simple.

It's a simple fix (lol) make AC, Intim, PRR, count again. Take away the NEED for evasion & dodge and reward those that focus in their chosen fields. Revamp the rewards for true builds (because what we have now is less than viable)

You all have done amazing things with this game, but continually shoot yourselves in the foot with lack of insight and planning in regards to content, gear & characters on the same page.

Roll back the special weapon attributes (vorpal on a crit, not a natural 20)
Put restrictions on multi-classing to accommodate older and/or true builds.
Take away some of the monk's "power", ability to "master" everything, and the new nonsense of "requiring" a splash to be competitive.
Take a look at how armor & ac/prr work (again)

As for content, why spend time and money to design stuff we only run once.

Another point to consider, create a quest setting that requires a balanced party. What the heck, we have a solo setting SO...........