Armor Up - Developer Diary #1

[Severlin]

Greetings,

To give insight to player about the changes involved with our Armor Up changes, Paladin buffs, and other balance changes we are writing a series of developer diaries to explain upcoming changes we have planned for the game.

In this first offering we will discuss some extensions to our basic systems so players can more easily understand how all of this works together. With this post players should become more familiar with the following:

~ Physical Resist Rating (or PRR), the new formula the increases its power, and the bonuses to PRR that heavier armors will grant.
~ Magical Resist Rating (or MRR), the new rating that will mitigate magical damage, and the bonuses to MRR that heavier armors will grant.
~ Melee Power, the new melee specific attribute similar to Spellpower, and how certain static effects will scale with this new attribute.
~ Ranged Power, the new missile specific attribute similar to Spellpower, and how it might affect future abilities.
~ Improvements to the mitigation of heavier armors.

NOTE: I realize some of this is math heavy designer speak, but we felt that the DDO players interested in these details would benefit from a post about how all of this fits into our greater balancing plan, and how it begins to put pieces into place for future balancing.


We are expanding some of our existing systems to give much needed tools to balance characters in both heroic and epic levels. To understand some of our upcomg changes, players will want to familiarize themselves with four attributes which extend the current system.


Physical Resist Rating
The attribute is used to mitigate physical damage of all types. The game already has Physical Resist Rating. We are changing the mitigation formula of this attribute, effectively buffing its power. The new formula:

100 / (100 + Rating)

This boost will help mitigate the damage of melee enemies in Epic Elite and will help players to build characters that can survive toe to toe with those enemies.


Magical Resist Rating
This new attribute is the magical equivalent of PRR. It can be increased by wearing armor, gearing up Sheltering effects, and picking certain enhancements. This rating works on most magical effects. It will not reduce force, bane and some other special effects. The mitigation this rating provides following a similar formula as PRR.

100 / (100 + Rating)



Melee Power
The new attribute is essentially the melee version of Spellpower. Melee Power will not only increase the damage of straight weapon damage, but certain static effects from enhancements will now scale up with Melee Power allowing them to be more useful in epic levels. Melee Power will be gained from certain enhancements and from some melee epic destinies. Our plan is to have future loot include Melee Power. This rating increases melee attacks by the following formula.

(100 + Rating) / 100

As we rebalance static effects found in enhancements we will make these scale with Melee Power so they increase as you gain power and new loot. As an example, several Paladin damage sources that were previously static will now scale with Melee Power.



Ranged Power
This new attribute is ranged version of Melee Power, or if you prefer the ranged equivalent to Spellpower. This rating increases missile attacks by the following formula.

(100 + Rating) / 100

This rating won't be used much in our first set of chancges but is a future tool for ranged builds.



With the description of these new attributes in mind, we next want to update you to upcoming changes to heavy armor and shields.

Buffing Heavy Armor
We've already talked about our plans for making heavier armors and shields more effective, and we want to update you with the latest design. Wearing armor will now provide bonus mitigation by increasing your Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating. We have updated values below.

Note that the values are changed from previously announced values. This is due to the fact that the Physical Resistance Rating formula has changed to offer more mitigation for each point. With the new PRR formula these new values offer similar mitigation to those previously announced.

Physical and Magical Resist Ratings offered by armor
Robes or Outfits: No PRR, no MRR
Light Armor: 10 PRR, 10 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 2 + (BAB / 2.0) )
Medium Armor: 20 PRR, 20 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 4 + (BAB / 1.5) )
Heavy Armor: 30 PRR, 30 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 6 + BAB )


Shields will give additional PRR and, if enchanted, MRR.

Physical and Magical Resist Ratings offered by sheilds
Buckler: None
Light Shield: 5 PRR, 5 MRR if shield has enchantments.
Heavy Shield: 10 PRR, 10 MRR if shield has enchantments.
Tower Shield: 15 PRR, 15 MRR if shield has enchantments.

In addition, characters who are proficient with shields can also use the larger shields for defense against magical attacks that would normally require a Reflex saving throw. Instead of (or in addition to) using your Reflex saving throw to mitigate the damage you can deflect the damage off your shield. This is represented by increasing your Physical and Magical Resist Ratings against those types of attacks when using a shield. Note that you gain this additional mitigation whether you make your Reflex saving throw or not.

Physical and Magical Resist Rating multiplier against magical attacks that normally allow a Reflex saving throw.
Buckler: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Light Shield: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Heavy Shield: 2.0
Tower Shield: 2.0

This means that characters with heavier armor and/or heavy or tower shields have an alternate mitigation against large area of effect attacks to help them compete in high level content with characters who use Evasion.


Resistance Rating Caps and Evasion
In addition, there are new or changed caps on certain scores based on the armor you are wearing.

Buckler: None
Light Shield: None
Heavy Shield: No Evasion feat
Tower Shield: No Evasion feat

Magical Resistance Rating Cap for armor

Robes or Outfit: 100
Light Armor: 200
Medium Armor: No cap
Heavy Armor: No cap

Note that we have designed this so characters cannot gain both Evasion and the shield bonus coupled with high levels of resistance rating. This is intentional, as a character with both would be too powerful.


Magical Resistance Rating and Loot
Magical Resistance Rating will appear on existing and future items with the Sheltering effect. All items with the Sheltering effect will give an amount of MRR equal to the PRR of that effect. Note that armor type will still limit the amount of MRR you can have. In the future items may offer additional sources of PRR and/or MRR in addition to sheltering effects.


How does all of this work in future balancing?


In the next Armor Up developer's diary we will talk about the following topics:
~ Melee Power and scaling static abilities in epic elite.
~ Updated changes to Paladin to help them be fun and competitive in Heroic and Epic Elite content.

Sev~

[Scrabbler]

~ Melee Power, the new melee specific attribute similar to Spellpower, and how certain static effects will scale with this new attribute.
Oh wow, Melee Power. I was wondering when they were going to get to adding that MMORPG stat... I never wanted to bring it up, so as not to give anybody ideas...


This boost will help mitigate the damage of melee enemies in Epic Elite and will help players to build characters that can survive toe to toe with those enemies.
It looks backwards to start with the stats of EE monsters and base character power on enabling people to survive that. Epic Elite wasn't meant to be manageable. It would make more sense to design the characters, and then maybe adjust EE enemies if they're too high in comparison.

[Nayus]

I need to ask this but will Docents be compatible with this mechanic? When PRR came up Docents were thrown aside with smaller bonuses that desconsider your BAB, even though we have to spend a feat to get a generic weaker layout. There are people in this game getting 32% dodge with a light armor and yet a Mithral Body has a MDB of 5, I can't possibly make 5 become 32.

Excellent changes but I would like to see Warforgeds (and Bladeforgeds) actually making some use of it. A ranger or a fighter can simply equip robes or light armors at will but we have to spend feats on it.

This isn't even a powergaming issue, Zeus and Cetuses are blitzers and will get max dodge.

[Bridge_Dweller]

Interesting. Will our standard bonuses from say Power Attack and Deadly Items be converted to Melee Power or left as is?

[dunklezhan]

Oh wow, Melee Power. I was wondering when they were going to get to adding that MMORPG stat... I never wanted to bring it up, so as not to give anybody ideas...



Well, quite.

[Zzevel]

Our plan is to have future loot include Melee Power.

Dont bother, if you can't go back and add it to old eq then why have it? all you are doing is making all of the eq in the game obsolete. Either update the old eq (because IT NEEDS IT ANYWAY), add it to cannith crafting, or forget it all together... I am sick of constantly re-gearing because of a huge change that the players are not asking for.

[UurlockYgmeov]

+1 communication.
+1 for listening to the player base.
+1 initiative.

still concerned that the PRR and MRR of heavy armor won't scale enough for lv30 EE content coming.

concerned about MP and RP - will have to see how that pans out.

and will existing feats be updated to reflect? Such as defensive fighting stance?

[FranOhmsford]

Hang on a minute...Melee and Ranged POWER?

Are you kidding Devs? Yet another way for Elitists to lord it over casuals and newbies REALLY?

What stat is going to govern this? Strength I suppose? What of Dex, Int, Con Builds?

Are we going to get YET MORE gear we can't fit in?


What happened to the D&D in DDO?!?

[Scrabbler]

Are you kidding Devs? Yet another way for Elitists to lord it over casuals and newbies REALLY?
What stat is going to govern this? Strength I suppose? What of Dex, Int, Con Builds?
How much of a difference do you see in Spell Power between an Intelligence build Wizard and a Charisma build Sorc? Ability scores will probably be no more than a tiny contribution to Melee Power.

[Melli]

Please remember to take into account older mithral armors when you make these changes. Wearers of those armors should be benefiting from them, not having a disadvantage.

[Alternative]

Magical Resistance Rating and Loot
Magical Resistance Rating will appear on existing and future items with the Sheltering effect. All items with the Sheltering effect will give an amount of MRR equal to the PRR of that effect. Note that armor type will still limit the amount of MRR you can have. In the future items may offer additional sources of PRR and/or MRR in addition to sheltering effects.

Is this going to include PDK/divine past lives that currently give +3 PRR, are those also going to include +3 MRR? What about the monk earth stance?

[HatsuharuZ]

Thank you for improving the PRR formula and making armor/shields more useful! However, I have a problem with Ranged/Melee Power....

Wouldn't it be simpler to just lower the damage enemies deal out in epic elites? Or perhaps lower their CRs a bit? I don't like adding yet *another* stacking bonus to the game, atop all of the other things I feel I have to equip to deal optimal damage and have good defense.

For damage, we already have +stat items and "Deadly" items. Furthermore, everyone needs a +constitution item, deathblock item, striding item... the list goes on! Why not just make epic elites a bit easier for melees by decreasing incoming damage a bit?

[Cleanincubus]

Physical and Magical Resist Ratings offered by armor
Robes or Outfits: No PRR, no MRR
Light Armor: 10 PRR, 10 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 2 + (BAB / 2.0) )
Medium Armor: 20 PRR, 20 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 4 + (BAB / 1.5) )
Heavy Armor: 30 PRR, 30 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 4 + BAB )

Sev~
Wow. Lame. I have 2 characters who wear robes/outfits, and neither have Evasion.

These are not simply pieces of cloth that characters wear for decoration, they are magically enchanted items, most of which offer Armor bonuses. Yet they won't even offer Magical Resist Ratings...even when worn by magic users? Two out of the three classes that typically wear robes/outfits, don't have Evasion. So give other armor users benefits, but don't give the robe/outfit users any, because it will benefit 1 single class* too much. Typical development strategy...

*I'm not including Rogues, because they can wear Light Armor without any penalties.

[ComicRelief]

Hang on a minute...Melee and Ranged POWER?

Are you kidding Devs? Yet another way for Elitists to lord it over casuals and newbies REALLY?

What stat is going to govern this? Strength I suppose? What of Dex, Int, Con Builds?

Are we going to get YET MORE gear we can't fit in?


What happened to the D&D in DDO?!?

My *guess* is that Melee Power (MP) would be STR-based, Ranged Power (RP) would be DEX-based. It seems only logical.
;)


Additionally, my question is: are these (MP/RP) going to have new skills, like "spellcraft" for "spell power"? If so, are there going to be any adjustments to skill points? Or are you just going to add another skill (or 2) like last time? You *do* realize fighters are incredible skill-starved as it is, right? If new skills are added without any other changes to skills, this would be *bad* (IMO).

Also, you say there will be feats that grant MP/RP? Again, are these new feats, or will MP/RP be added to some existing feats (or both)? Fighters may have a bunch of feat slots, but rangers/paladins/barbarians do not.

I can see where this could get very messy, very quickly.
;)

[Violentbeginning]

Melee Power
The new attribute is essentially the melee version of Spellpower. Melee Power will not only increase the damage of straight weapon damage, but certain static effects from enhancements will now scale up with Melee Power allowing them to be more useful in epic levels. Melee Power will be gained from certain enhancements and from some melee epic destinies. Our plan is to have future loot include Melee Power. This rating increases melee attacks by the following formula.

(100 + Rating) / 100

As we rebalance static effects found in enhancements we will make these scale with Melee Power so they increase as you gain power and new loot. As an example, several Paladin damage sources that were previously static will now scale with Melee Power.



Ranged Power
This new attribute is ranged version of Melee Power, or if you prefer the ranged equivalent to Spellpower. This rating increases missile attacks by the following formula.

(100 + Rating) / 100

This rating won't be used much in our first set of chancges but is a future tool for ranged builds.


Sev~

So... is it your intention to use this to scale up enhancements that are "+X damage on melee/ranged attacks" and/or "you perform a melee/ranged attack at +X[W]"? What about enhancements that are "you do 1-10 acid/force/whatever damage on successful vorpal/crit/whatever"?

[John_Rove]

Wow. Lame. I have 2 characters who wear robes/outfits, and neither have Evasion.

These are not simply pieces of cloth that characters wear for decoration, they are magically enchanted items, most of which offer Armor bonuses. Yet they won't even offer Magical Resist Ratings...even when worn by magic users? Two out of the three classes that typically wear robes/outfits, don't have Evasion. So give other armor users benefits, but don't give the robe/outfit users any, because it will benefit 1 single class* too much. Typical development strategy...

*I'm not including Rogues, because they can wear Light Armor without any penalties.

You do realize that the system right now works the exact same way, right? They are simply not changing inherent amounts of PRR/MRR on robes/outfits.

[Saekee]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas!


Greetings,. . .
Sev~

Ok but I am not crazy about the ranged and melee power thing. Sounds like another 'deadly' gear thingy that will be needed now. I can't fit anything more on my builds, and my hybrids certainly can't fit two things. But then, I could always just skip it, right? But what melee/ranged skips Deadly items even after all the complaining?


Wow. Lame. I have 2 characters who wear robes/outfits, and neither have Evasion.

These are not simply pieces of cloth that characters wear for decoration, they are magically enchanted items, most of which offer Armor bonuses. Yet they won't even offer Magical Resist Ratings...even when worn by magic users? Two out of the three classes that typically wear robes/outfits, don't have Evasion. So give other armor users benefits, but don't give the robe/outfit users any, because it will benefit 1 single class* too much. Typical development strategy...

*I'm not including Rogues, because they can wear Light Armor without any penalties.

This is the key thing. Why should plate armor be better at resisting magic than cloth? the idea of magic is that it overcomes such things. If anything, I would scale it in the opposite direction--the lighter the armor, the higher the MRR.
There is a triangle in my mind that is probably inaccurate but I will throw it out: magic user defeats tank. Light skirmisher kills magic user. Tank kills light skirmisher. So somehow they should all be vulnerable in this way. Ok, end of bizarre idea.

I like the idea of shield blocking getting a very good MRR.

Will magical resistance therefore be put under MRR? Might make drow less squishy, but then many use them in the light skirmisher builds.

[ChicagoChris]

Greetings,
Physical and Magical Resist Ratings offered by armor
Robes or Outfits: No PRR, no MRR
Light Armor: 10 PRR, 10 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 2 + (BAB / 2.0) )
Medium Armor: 20 PRR, 20 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 4 + (BAB / 1.5) )
Heavy Armor: 30 PRR, 30 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 4 + BAB )

...

Sev~

Please, please get Mithral right this time

[Qhualor]

im more reading than posting in these threads because im too dumb for DDO math formulas. what sticks out is Melee and Ranged Power. sounds awfully like a damage meter ive seen suggested on the forums before. it would be nice to see how much dps I can dish out, but I fear the drama that will ensue.

[Seikojin]

You do realize that the system right now works the exact same way, right? They are simply not changing inherent amounts of PRR/MRR on robes/outfits.

Yeah, and what is to stop them from adding mrr bonuses and prr to robes/clothes? Nothing. So I see nothing wrong with clothes and robes having nothing by default.

[Delacroix21]

Greetings,


Melee Power
The new attribute is essentially the melee version of Spellpower. Melee Power will not only increase the damage of straight weapon damage, but certain static effects from enhancements will now scale up with Melee Power allowing them to be more useful in epic levels. Melee Power will be gained from certain enhancements and from some melee epic destinies. Our plan is to have future loot include Melee Power. This rating increases melee attacks by the following formula.

(100 + Rating) / 100

As we rebalance static effects found in enhancements we will make these scale with Melee Power so they increase as you gain power and new loot. As an example, several Paladin damage sources that were previously static will now scale with Melee Power.


Sev~


Sev, will this also scale weapon enchantments like holy IV, etc? Currently these are all bypassed for weapons that just do better straight damage or have unique enhanced crit profiles, and this change would make them relevant again. If so I LOVE it!

[Seikojin]

im more reading than posting in these threads because im too dumb for DDO math formulas. what sticks out is Melee and Ranged Power. sounds awfully like a damage meter ive seen suggested on the forums before. it would be nice to see how much dps I can dish out, but I fear the drama that will ensue.

The nice thing about melee and ranged power is they can cut down on the tacked on effects, which reduces network packet size and ultimately lag.

[darthhento]

How about you don't implement Melee and Ranged Power. That would be super awesome.

[Thar]

In addition, characters who are proficient with shields can also use the larger shields for defense against magical attacks that would normally require a Reflex saving throw. Instead of (or in addition to) using your Reflex saving throw to mitigate the damage you can deflect the damage off your shield. This is represented by increasing your Physical and Magical Resist Ratings against those types of attacks when using a shield. Note that you gain this additional mitigation whether you make your Reflex saving throw or not.

Physical and Magical Resist Rating multiplier against magical attacks that normally allow a Reflex saving throw.
Buckler: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Light Shield: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Heavy Shield: 2.0
Tower Shield: 2.0

This means that characters with heavier armor and/or heavy or tower shields have an alternate mitigation against large area of effect attacks to help them compete in high level content with characters who use Evasion.


Sev~

Does this mean the previously announced nerf to heavy shield evasion builds that was previously announced is not going into effect?

[Coldin]

How about you don't implement Melee and Ranged Power. That would be super awesome.

Please provide some basis for your request.

[Ebondevil]

I need to ask this but will Docents be compatible with this mechanic? When PRR came up Docents were thrown aside with smaller bonuses that desconsider your BAB, even though we have to spend a feat to get a generic weaker layout. There are people in this game getting 32% dodge with a light armor and yet a Mithral Body has a MDB of 5, I can't possibly make 5 become 32.

I believe they mentioned in a Lamma thread that Docents would benefit

No Body feat = Robe eg no PRR/MRR
Mithril = Light Armour
Adamant = Heavy Armour

Though Really No Body Feat should get Light armour (or it should loose the arcane spell failure for having armour...), and Mithril get Medium armour if they do it right.

[Mercureal]

My immediate reaction to the melee and ranged power mechanics is not extreme enthusiasm, but I'll withhold critical comments until there's more details on the proposals. Hopefully it will involve existing effects and systems being converted wholesale to the new mechanic, and not something completely new that makes current equipment and systems outdated.

[Nayus]

These are not simply pieces of cloth that characters wear for decoration, they are magically enchanted items, most of which offer Armor bonuses.Why can't heavy armor and adamatine docents be enchanted as well?

It's "heavy" because it has more magic in it :D

[Scrabbler]

and Mithril get Medium armour if they do it right.
Mith body should be the defensive benefits of Medium but the limitations of light, just like how a Mith Breastplate should be a Light Armor that's as strong as Med.

[Severlin]

I need to ask this but will Docents be compatible with this mechanic? When PRR came up Docents were thrown aside with smaller bonuses that desconsider your BAB, even though we have to spend a feat to get a generic weaker layout. There are people in this game getting 32% dodge with a light armor and yet a Mithral Body has a MDB of 5, I can't possibly make 5 become 32.

Excellent changes but I would like to see Warforgeds (and Bladeforgeds) actually making some use of it. A ranger or a fighter can simply equip robes or light armors at will but we have to spend feats on it.

This isn't even a powergaming issue, Zeus and Cetuses are blitzers and will get max dodge.

Yes.

Mithral Body will be treated as Light armor and provide 10 PRR.
Adamantine Body will be treated as Heavy Armor and provide 30 PRR.

Sev~

[Ovrad]

I'm really concerned about this melee/ranged power thing.

Numbers are already way out of hand in epic elites, please don't ramp it up even more by adding yet another system that has nothing to do with DnD.

[Hoglum]

Please provide some basis for your request.


There's no need for it & it's not in line with Dungeons and Dragons in any way.

Melee power comes from a combination of skill & strength, both of which are already accounted for.

Why monkey with things and add melee power and ranged power? There's no need for it since both melee and ranged "power" are already in the game.

In addition, with feats, skills and enhancements already spread thin, if "Ranged Power" becomes a large part of ranged damage, how is character not specialized in ranged combat supposed to contribute in ranged combat?

Any fighter should be able to whip out his/her trusty bow and help in such situations. As the numbers get bigger it may get to the point you can't switch between weapons any more (or at least simply not be worth it). Personally, I don't expect to contribute much with a bow or throwing weapon when I'm not specced for it but if the numbers get much larger it may no longer even be worth swapping weapons. That kills another aspect of D&D that's always been great.

[Severlin]

Hang on a minute...Melee and Ranged POWER?

Are you kidding Devs? Yet another way for Elitists to lord it over casuals and newbies REALLY?

What stat is going to govern this? Strength I suppose? What of Dex, Int, Con Builds?

Are we going to get YET MORE gear we can't fit in?


What happened to the D&D in DDO?!?


These statistics do not come from attributes. They come strictly from enhancements, epic levels, and Epic Destinies.

Sev~

[Pandir]

~ Melee Power and scaling static abilities in epic elite.


Allright I'm not sure if I like the Melee and Ranged power thing, but ok I can wait and see there.
Thinking about this it never seemed doing damage is a problem to melee only survivability.
Wouldn't it make sense to only scale the Epic destiny abilities that have flat dice instead of everything ?

This point has me kinda worried though, are you saying you're gonna scale the damage of Monsters in EE too ?
I mean I don't see how the change would be specific to EE otherwise ?

[Scrabbler]

In addition, with feats, skills and enhancements already spread thin, if "Ranged Power" becomes a large part of ranged damage, how is character not specialized in ranged combat supposed to contribute in ranged combat?

Any fighter should be able to whip out his/her trusty bow and help in such situations.
DDO already does not support characters without a ranged focus (build+gear) making a noticeable contribution to a ranged fight. The damage factor is seriously off by 10x or more.

[Pandir]

These statistics do not come from attributes. They come strictly from enhancements, epic levels, and Epic Destinies.

Sev~

Well not based on attributes, you did say you planned on having it on gear in the future though.

[Severlin]

Allright I'm not sure if I like the Melee and Ranged power thing, but ok I can wait and see there.
Thinking about this it never seemed doing damage is a problem to melee only survivability.
Wouldn't it make sense to only scale the Epic destiny abilities that have flat dice instead of everything ?

This point has me kinda worried though, are you saying you're gonna scale the damage of Monsters in EE too ?
I mean I don't see how the change would be specific to EE otherwise ?

This scaling is for player abilities. Monsters won't change.

Sev~

[Severlin]

Well not based on attributes, you did say you planned on having it on gear in the future though.

Yes, it gives us additional effects to put on future gear.

Sev~

[darthhento]

Please provide some basis for your request.

Every new system that comes out breaks the game in more ways than one. We don't need new system for something that works just fine as is, both melee and ranged.

Besides, 90% of the weapon effects still get broken by random buffs, how about fixing those first?

[bbqzor]

Physical Resist Rating
The attribute is used to mitigate physical damage of all types. The game already has Physical Resist Rating. We are changing the mitigation formula of this attribute, effectively buffing its power. The new formula:
100 / (100 + Rating)
This boost will help mitigate the damage of melee enemies in Epic Elite and will help players to build characters that can survive toe to toe with those enemies.
Okay, this is generally a pretty minor boost, but a bumps a bump. This is not going to "help players survive ee"... thats like saying well getting hit for 290 instead of 300 means you can totally survive ee now. Unless you have some other changes in mind, this is kind of false advertising at best and misguided development at worst. What, exactly, is the intent here... just to buff PRR use at the upper values? Or to dramatically change how players interact with EE content?


Magical Resist Rating
This new attribute is the magical equivalent of PRR. It can be increased by wearing armor, gearing up Sheltering effects, and picking certain enhancements. This rating works on most magical effects. It will not reduce force, bane and some other special effects. The mitigation this rating provides following a similar formula as PRR.
100 / (100 + Rating)
Okay... no change from the other thread except now theres stuff it wont block. Meaning a situation where all the "we want it dangerous so it does force" lines for boss design come out. Same thing that happened to traps, poison, fom effects, etc. Its a way to build in a weakness so content can autobeat players. Is there an actual reason behind this, or is it just a way to stop people from actually having meaningful defense against everything. I still feel like its going to be too powerful, only now with obvious things its pointless against as a quick-fix workaround because its too powerful.


Melee Power ...
Ranged Power ...
In the next Armor Up developer's diary we will talk about the following topics:
Melee Power and scaling static abilities in epic elite.
I cannot help but feel this is another situation where instead of fixing the problem, you are reinventing the wheel, and it will just result in a period of drastic imbalance followed by a settling into a new situation which is largely the same as the previous one. I will reserve any actual outrage until further details emerge, but I must stress *caution*. This sounds terrible, like its going to be a project which consumes more time than you have to spend, and leaves the game worse off than it is currently. It will literally take rebalancing everything, and history has shown there is just *terrible* follow through on such things. Sigh.


Buffing Heavy Armor
We've already talked about our plans for making heavier armors and shields more effective, and we want to update you with the latest design. Wearing armor will now provide bonus mitigation by increasing your Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating. We have updated values below.
Note that the values are changed from previously announced values. This is due to the fact that the Physical Resistance Rating formula has changed to offer more mitigation for each point. With the new PRR formula these new values offer similar mitigation to those previously announced.
Physical and Magical Resist Ratings offered by armor
Robes or Outfits: No PRR, no MRR
Light Armor: 10 PRR, 10 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 2 + (BAB / 2.0) )
Medium Armor: 20 PRR, 20 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 4 + (BAB / 1.5) )
Heavy Armor: 30 PRR, 30 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 4 + BAB )
Heavy armor is currently 6+bab... is that a typo? Anyhow, this is a good move actually. Its a bit 'heavy' for heavy armor, but honestly, thats probably fine. This is a fair change.


Shields will give additional PRR and, if enchanted, MRR.
Physical and Magical Resist Ratings offered by sheilds
Buckler: None
Light Shield: 5 PRR, 5 MRR if shield has enchantments.
Heavy Shield: 10 PRR, 10 MRR if shield has enchantments.
Tower Shield: 15 PRR, 15 MRR if shield has enchantments.
In addition, characters who are proficient with shields can also use the larger shields for defense against magical attacks that would normally require a Reflex saving throw. Instead of (or in addition to) using your Reflex saving throw to mitigate the damage you can deflect the damage off your shield. This is represented by increasing your Physical and Magical Resist Ratings against those types of attacks when using a shield. Note that you gain this additional mitigation whether you make your Reflex saving throw or not.
Physical and Magical Resist Rating multiplier against magical attacks that normally allow a Reflex saving throw.
Buckler: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Light Shield: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Heavy Shield: 2.0
Tower Shield: 2.0
Okay... so no change to evasion qualifications at all? That is unmentioned here, and critical in evaluating this situation. Assuming evasion works as it does currently, I think heavy shields should probably drop to x1.5, placing them between light and tower. If evasion is nerfed with heavy shields, then it needs to stay as is, and additionally consider some strong words said as the idea is just terrible (again, creating a ton of work by forcing a reitemization of the entire game, which inevitably wont have any follow through and leave huge gaps of fail). I hope you just dont touch the evasion situation, but instead make heavy shields x1.5, providing some nice scaling for those willing to sink a feat in tower shield, or a benefit for fighter which gets it (and hopefully paladin shield pre granting it as they are tight on feats).


In the next Armor Up developer's diary we will talk about the following topics:
~ Updated changes to Paladin to help them be fun and competitive in Heroic and Epic Elite content.
Looking forward to this, if only to rage anyhow... but unlike all the systemic changes above, enhancements have a track record of turning out passable even when they start in a terrible place. So at least here the rage is for a good cause.

Without any concrete details and and exact integration examples, its tough to give an honest answer. But as an overall impression... the armor/shield changes are in the right place, but the prr/mrr changes are still floating in a bad place due to misplaced feelings of what it will do and built in workarounds which can nullify it at will anyhow (undermining the idea of using it to begin with). Color me okay with the armor changes, maybe okay with the shield changes (if evasion works the same and heavy shields are changed to 1.5). And just no on melee/ranged power. Just no. Capital NO.

[HatsuharuZ]

Yes, it gives us additional effects to put on future gear.

Sev~

Why not just decrease EE monster stats/damage/CR/HP/whatever slightly?

[Urjak]

This is the worst new I ever read about DDO. This will take away the last tiny bit that makes this game at feel a bit like D&D. If you are already at it ... why not just remove the d20 altogether? Honestly I really do not understand what Turbine wants to achieve with these kinds of things O_o ... why are you desperately trying to turn this game into just-another-wow-clone??? IMO, the ONLY reason this game lasted so long is because it was DIFFERENT, it had its D&D roots, lots of different character build options and it was pretty darn rough (in comparison to some other games).

To be a bit more specific:
.) When we had EPIC quests, they forced us to group up if we wanted to have realistic chances. We also needed at least somewhat balanced groups. The loot was really hard to get. Did people complain? Of course they did ... that's what people do after all. But we had an active endgame scene! Now that everyone and their grandma can solo epic elites faster than one can fill up an lfm, EE loot drops (mostly) being ridiculously frequent and additionally (mostly) available on the asah for cheap, we have no endgame scene to speak of. Yeah, sure there is a handful of people (like me) still grinding deathwyrm completions ... but on most PUGS I already know half the people joining, which effectively says it all.
.) When enhancement trees weren't so front loaded and overall character power was lower, we even needed to group up on heroic content! I can remember times when we would spend hours to finish an elite harbor quest, with multiple recalls while one was holding the instance and so on. That was fun! You really had to play TOGETHER, not just zerg alongside each other (don't get me wrong, zerging can be fun as well - but all the time???). Really, nowadays the only time I group up is when I want to run a raid - the rest of the time - why bother? Grouping just means spending a lot of time waiting to then zerg some dungeons silently/sleepwalking ...
.) When Turbine announced they would extend the game into epic levels, I was both excited and worried, because they announced they would only go to level 25 and in pen and paper the epic powercurve only starts to really rise at around level 30 - Turbines solution to this "problem" were destinies - which had nothing to do with D&D and will never have - of course I loved them in the beginning, because they were new stuff to try out - now I wished they were never introduced, as some abilities are simply so much more powerful than the rest that the number of viable builds is actually pretty darn short. Additionally Turbine balanced everything around these new abilities (just saying 300k hp for red named quest foes) and now they face the problem that if one does not use one of the few "cookie-cutter" builds, there is no way to even remotely catch up with the players who use them.
.) Then Turbine had the idea of ideas: Our players realized that AC is useless - so lets rework it! To make it simple: Old AC system: AC is useless unless completely maxed out, noone cares about it, but at least it is easy to understand and follows D&D rules. New AC system: AC is still rather useless - yes it is not as completely useless as before, but on the other hand incoming damage rose so high, that just a few hits mean instant death anyhow - in the end: Again noone cares, but the system is far more complex, not D&D and additionally all enhancements and items increasing player to-hit became completely useless (especially since in addition to the AC changes, grazing hits were buffed as well to make sure there really is no boon to having a high to-hit)
.) At the same time a new, again non-D&D, much more readily available source of damage mitigation became available: Dodge - So that now monks not only have improved evasion, awesome saves, dps, CC - na, lets give them the best defense as well -> the 6 monk splash became more or less inevitable for martial characters, as there aren't too many sources of: medium to high AC (around 100 AC no prob for monks), 28% dodge (ninja spy) and almost permanent 20% incorporality (ninja spy).
.) So ... lets add PRR and see if it makes a difference: it doesn't ...
.) We also had a pretty cool loot system ... until someone decided that solar V, deadly, accuracy and so on were a good idea ... I bet a lot of work was put into that system - effect of it? None, vendor trash is still vendor trash, but at least the vendor trash no longer has D&D enchantments on it O_o

So, now comes this new great idea:
Lets add MRR (that one I might - MIGHT - have kinda accepted), MP and RngP (I refuse to abbreviate it as RP O_o)
I mean - really??? This game has a lot of problems currently - these things will help NONE of them

What do I think these will have as effects?
MRR:
Evadable damage is so massive that when you put your character into a situation where you would normally really like to have evasion, MRR would need to be so high that it effectively was as powerful as evasion itself in order to make a real difference. That in turn would just mean that everyone would just TR there monk splashes into some heavy armor build - yay you moved the problem, but in the end its the same - there still is no choice in - do I want to be light and agile and thus very good in evading fireballs but in case some weapon hits me I'm dead vs. do I want to be a moving fortress of steel, impenetrable for weapons, but in case I get too much attention from casters, I m toast - if both systems provide the effectively same protections, you could just remove both system at once and just scale down the damage mobs do - saves on lag as well as there are less computations needed then.

MP and RngP:
"Boss, we got a problem!"
"Yes?"
"We have so many multiplicators for raw weapon damage that players ..."
"Yada, yada ... that's why we gave mobs ridiculous amount of hp, right?"
"... errr ..."
"And casters lots of ways to preserve SP while dealing ridiculous amounts of damage at the same time as well thanks to multiplicators"
"... ya, but ..."
"But? Is this about ability damage? Don't you remember to what THAT one lead? With current attack rates, we'd need to ridiculously inflates monster attributes as well ..."
"... na, not that one ..."
"What is it then? Don't bring up that pvp argument again - no one cares about pvp"
"Well, the players stopped caring about small elemental weapon procs from our enhancements as they are barely noticeable in epic elite content!"
"Hmmm, well then lets just add some multiplicators for weapon procs as well!"
"But, won't that ..."
"Increase the powercurve again? Hmmm, ya - just double all CR20+ foe's hp - that should fix it"
"... what about ..."
"Arcanes and divines? We could give them a way to increase their crit multiplicator - or maybe a new multiplicator? What about Arcane Power? Stacks with SPP multiplicatively ..."
"... wouldn't that be overkill?"
"Ya, let's just wait a bit on that one, so ..."
"But what about the power difference between destinies?"
"Well, haven't we already announced that we will revisit the weaker ones? Let's just give them some damage multiplicators as well - that should fix it - preferably without the annoying 50 charges for blitz"
...
D'OH

In my opinion Turbine should atm focus on:
.) Add incentives for grouping - epic elite SHOULD NOT BE INTENDED TO BE SOLOABLE!
.) Either add a new harder difficulty or make epic hard far harder than it is atm, then make only the hardest two difficulties drop epic loot - and at a far scarcer rate than the last packs (with exception of the raids which actually have a terrible drop rate)
.) Make some of the old packs free-to-play to draw in more players - really - was just in the situation that I gave advice to a returning player and two friends of mine considered starting to play DDO - only then one realizes how terrible the situation has become for FTP - really - when you start playing now, it is incredible demoralizing to see - yay 5% of the game are FTP, I won't be able to reach level cap, can't use epic abilities, can't run Sagas, ... and buying all of the available content and stuff exceeds what I earn in one month ... really? That's how you expect to recruit new players? As new content arrives and old content becomes more and more outdated some of it really should be given away for free!
.) Make loot rarer - yeah for a time it was cool to be able to get the best loot in no time (especially when time is a very limited resource) - but at the same time this means that content becomes more and more once and done - for example e3BC: I think I ran the chain twice (all except the last one on EE) and got all the loot I wanted (1xboots, 2xgloves, 2xrapier) - really, is that how you want to keep people busy? ... You know, only TR'ing all of the time becomes old as well ...
.) More D&D instead of less - be unique - not like the rest, there is no way DDO can hold its own once it looses its unique features
.) Make more builds viable that are actually different, making all builds equal does not increase build variety - it just makes the build irrelevant
.) Sometimes its okay to nerf things ...

Sooo ... spent more time than intended on this ... hope I managed to express my feelings about this proposed change in a somewhat understandable way^^

[PsychoBlonde]

Interesting. Will our standard bonuses from say Power Attack and Deadly Items be converted to Melee Power or left as is?

I was wondering about this. It'd make sense to convert them to the new system instead of having insane gobs of different systems working in conjunction.

I wouldn't mind if they included Blitz and Adrenaline in this change, making them nice but not as spectacular as they are currently.

[Severlin]

Added text about MRR caps and using Evasion with shields that got dropped from the original edit.

Sev~

[Firewall]

I see Melee Power and Ranged Power very sceptical. I expect this to destroy the balance of some great and established existing builds buffing some to uberness and nerfing some to oblivion. Especially leveling or collecting Karma in Off-Destinies you will loose a lot of power. Also what is with out-of the box builds that for example use Divine Crusader for the damage bonus and +1 crit range with a ranged weapon? Will Divine Crusader also give a bonus to ranged damage or will we now have either melee or ranged useful ED's?

And are there any news what you want to change concerning the percieved uselessness of AC?

[Severlin]

So... is it your intention to use this to scale up enhancements that are "+X damage on melee/ranged attacks" and/or "you perform a melee/ranged attack at +X[W]"? What about enhancements that are "you do 1-10 acid/force/whatever damage on successful vorpal/crit/whatever"?

We don't need to scale up +X[W] effects since Melee Power automatically scales all base weapon damage.

We can (and will) add Melee Power scaling to static effects that, as you say, do "1-10 acid/force/whatever damage" as we do passes on specific trees. Making those abilities useful.

Sev~

[OverlordOfRats]

Just trying to figure out if I understand the new PRR system.

On live my ranger(lv25) has chain mail and a PRR of 37 for 20.19 mitigation.
My paladin(lv15) has full plate and tower shield and a PRR of 44 for 23.23 mitigation.

100 points of damage to both. The ranger takes 80 damage and the paladin 77.


With the new system the ranger's PRR would be 47 and the Paladin's PRR would be 89.

100 points of damage to both. The ranger takes 68 damage and the paladin 53.

Is that correct?

[B0ltdrag0n]

We don't need to scale up +X[W] effects since Melee Power automatically scales all base weapon damage.

We can (and will) add Melee Power scaling to static effects that, as you say, do "1-10 acid/force/whatever damage" as we do passes on specific trees. Making those abilities useful.

Sev~

You are not selling the Melee power / ranged power thing very well. Frankly I, and many others here, are skeptical and see it as a end around that wont actually solve any existing issues, while adding complications.

I will say that if you DO add it. It must remain enhancement/Destiny in nature. Absolutely do not put this on loot.

[RedHost]

It seems like once or twice every year lately it becomes necessary to entirely reinvent ddo's core game mechanics and loot system in order to keep it from breaking itself as the game progresses. And every time there are a lot of lingering problems with the transition to the new system such as player crafting being largely left behind, old content becoming ridiculously easy, or certain old attacks becoming much stronger than they were. And the game becomes more and more laggy with each new designer's iteration. Sadly, none of these systems ever manage to unify anything or have enough foresight to be scalable enough to not have to be replaced again.

It almost feels like ddo has become Turbine's "designer training room" where they can learn how to design and implement features that they come up with, which may or may not have anything at all to do with d&d or ddo. Meanwhile, the game starts to look like an excessively laggy frankenstien's monster with a bare facade of d&d tacked to it.

[N-0cturn]

@Armor changes

I like the idea to use larger shields as an alternative to evasion. It fits the build of the knight that uses his shield to deflect the dragon breath or fireball.
However I am not sure if about heavy armor giving more protection against magic damage however. It probably will work but it feels weird. It will probably make Eldritch Knight much more popular and I fear that we will see a lot of turtle spellcasters after these changes.

@ Melee Power / Ranged Power

I honestly don't see why you would add another multiplier to damage, that is already multiplied by the crit rate, attack speed, double-strike, helpless mod and flat damage bonuses. If this bonus will multiply the normal weapon damage it will unbalance the whole system even further.

Currently many effects like the paladin bonus damage (or Frenzy bonus damage) do not scale well because they do not profit from the crit rate and bonus effects like blitzing, which are arguably the most important multipliers. So I am perfectly fine with adding a spell power to those. But it should not affect the normal weapon damage in any way. Also for the Paladin abilities I would simply let it scale with positive Spellpower.

With this is mind it feels silly to make a difference between ranged and melee. Just add the according spellpower to all enhancements (elemental arrows would benefit from fire, ice etc spellpower...) and add a spellpower for the enchantments like frenzy that are not covered.

EDIT: I write to slow...


Yes.

We don't need to scale up +X[W] effects since Melee Power automatically scales all base weapon damage.

This is exactly what I disagree with. Those effects are already nice since they get multiplied by crits and blitzing.


We can (and will) add Melee Power scaling to static effects that, as you say, do "1-10 acid/force/whatever damage" as we do passes on specific trees. Making those abilities useful.

This is what I would like to see. Without that first part that will increase the distance between geared out fotm builds and more casual players. It could also easily lead to a further trivialisation of Heroic content if you don't plan of rebalancing all quests.

[Sebastrd]

Greetings,

Hmmmm

Sev~

I'd like to see these changes in action, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

[Thar]

Added text about MRR caps and using Evasion with shields that got dropped from the original edit.

Sev~

WHY must you insist on nerfing evasion with heavy shields? Didn't i show already why this is a bad idea for light armor tanks. You are destroying that build! Must I repeat that the evasion is not that much of a gain vs the loss of other abilitites, AC, PRR, AND now MRR that it's forcing builds to heavy armor OR to use light shields that don't exist.

WHY MUST YOU MAKE US REGRIND all new shields!

WILL you even make all new named light shields form lvls 1 to 28?

This contant change in mechanics really makes me want to quit this game. Pick a seat and move the car forward.

[Severlin]

Okay, this is generally a pretty minor boost, but a bumps a bump. This is not going to "help players survive ee"... thats like saying well getting hit for 290 instead of 300 means you can totally survive ee now. Unless you have some other changes in mind, this is kind of false advertising at best and misguided development at worst. What, exactly, is the intent here... just to buff PRR use at the upper values? Or to dramatically change how players interact with EE content?


At 100 PRR a hit that did 300 previously would under the new system actually do 250 with the new formula. But remember that heavy armor and shield now gives an additional 45 PRR so that hit would be ~204 for that character wearing heavy armor with a shield.



Okay... no change from the other thread except now theres stuff it wont block. Meaning a situation where all the "we want it dangerous so it does force" lines for boss design come out. Same thing that happened to traps, poison, fom effects, etc. Its a way to build in a weakness so content can autobeat players. Is there an actual reason behind this, or is it just a way to stop people from actually having meaningful defense against everything. I still feel like its going to be too powerful, only now with obvious things its pointless against as a quick-fix workaround because its too powerful.


Our intention is to not release new creatures that negate the mitigation system we put into place.



I cannot help but feel this is another situation where instead of fixing the problem, you are reinventing the wheel, and it will just result in a period of drastic imbalance followed by a settling into a new situation which is largely the same as the previous one. I will reserve any actual outrage until further details emerge, but I must stress *caution*. This sounds terrible, like its going to be a project which consumes more time than you have to spend, and leaves the game worse off than it is currently. It will literally take rebalancing everything, and history has shown there is just *terrible* follow through on such things. Sigh.


PRR is a system that is already in the game, and players are already familiar with it. Armor already gives a built in amount of PRR. That's why we choose to use and extend that existing system.



Heavy armor is currently 6+bab... is that a typo? Anyhow, this is a good move actually. Its a bit 'heavy' for heavy armor, but honestly, thats probably fine. This is a fair change.


That's short hand for 6 + Base Attack Bonus. Heavy armor currently gives that on live.

Sev~

[bbqzor]

Resistance Rating Caps and Evasion
In addition, there are new or changed caps on certain scores based on the armor you are wearing.

Buckler: None
Light Shield: None
Heavy Shield: No Evasion feat
Tower Shield: No Evasion feat

Magical Resistance Rating Cap for armor

Robes or Outfit: 100
Light Armor: 200
Medium Armor: No cap
Heavy Armor: No cap

Note that we have designed this so characters cannot gain both Evasion and the shield bonus coupled with high levels of resistance rating. This is intentional, as a character with both would be too powerful.

Facepalm. You have learned nothing. Evasion with heavy shields is only a problem because youre creating the problem. Just dont make heavy shields so powerful and dont mess with a 8 year game history and an even longer pnp history of function which, literally, has never been a problem until now. You are already biting off more than you can chew with all these other changes, rewriting the whole melee epic dps balance equation, and reviewing literally every type of combat there is, WHILE trying to redo enhancements, and now redoing destinies by proxy. Why would you add an unwanted and unneeded shield alteration, which will do nothing but nerf current builds, put stress on future itemization, and require a rework of existing itemization to that plate? Double facepalm.

As for the armor caps... 100 MR on robes/outfits is too low. There are numerous situations where current builds are already past that point, without even trying for it. It needs to be something like 150 so no one winds up taking OFF prr/mrr after the changes, thats just silly. Similarly, light armor should probably go to 250 (few people are at 200 now, but with the changes to how the armor adds, the promise of future loot helping, and the inclusion of light shields providing more benefits for anyone trying to use a s/b evasion character their values should increase). You dont want to institute a new system promising "room for future growth" with the bulk of the player base utilizing it to almost immediately hit the ceiling.

In short, allow evasion in heavy shields, make heavy shield "multiplier" 1.5, raise cap on unarmed to 150, raise cap on light armor to 250, and maybe we have something. Frankly, Id rather see the whole mrr idea die in a fire but since you obviously wont let it go, the last thing I want to see is having it come out where it just makes heavy armor guys basically invincible. I have more heavy armor guys than evasion toons, so I would definitely benefit from that. But its not good for the game. At all. And will just lead to nerfs down the line as you realize youve over done it. At least set it up so people can all make use of it... if everyone has it, then no one will need nerfing to maintain relative balance. Bleh.

[Thar]

What do I think these will have as effects?
MRR:
Evadable damage is so massive that when you put your character into a situation where you would normally really like to have evasion, MRR would need to be so high that it effectively was as powerful as evasion itself in order to make a real difference. That in turn would just mean that everyone would just TR there monk splashes into some heavy armor build - yay you moved the problem, but in the end its the same - there still is no choice in - do I want to be light and agile and thus very good in evading fireballs but in case some weapon hits me I'm dead vs. do I want to be a moving fortress of steel, impenetrable for weapons, but in case I get too much attention from casters, I m toast - if both systems provide the effectively same protections, you could just remove both system at once and just scale down the damage mobs do - saves on lag as well as there are less computations needed then.

way^^

What he said....

really dev's scale down the damage and this mess won't be needed. things should not hit you for 300 pts of damage on a swing from a trash mob.

[bbqzor]

That's short hand for 6 + Base Attack Bonus. Heavy armor currently gives that on live

Yeah, I know... your OP post said in the new system its 4+bab. 2 less. Yea, its only 2, but wondering if its a typo or an intended change. Thanks for replies.

[Severlin]

This will take away the last tiny bit that makes this game at feel a bit like D&D.

These are systems that are already in place. Yes, we are rounding them out and providing a bit of definition. PRR has been in the game for a long time and armor currently gives PRR on live. MRR is simply an extension of that system.

Melee Power and Ranged Power are just cleaning up and defining a lot of the places in the Epic Destinies that increase damage by a specific percent. The game already does this; we are just cleaning things up a bit and providing the ability for enhancements and feats to scale.

Sev~

[Thar]

Facepalm. You have learned nothing. Evasion with heavy shields is only a problem because youre creating the problem. Just dont make heavy shields so powerful and dont mess with a 8 year game history and an even longer pnp history of function which, literally, has never been a problem until now. You are already biting off more than you can chew with all these other changes, rewriting the whole melee epic dps balance equation, and reviewing literally every type of combat there is, WHILE trying to redo enhancements, and now redoing destinies by proxy. Why would you add an unwanted and unneeded shield alteration, which will do nothing but nerf current builds, put stress on future itemization, and require a rework of existing itemization to that plate? Double facepalm.

As for the armor caps... 100 MR on robes/outfits is too low. There are numerous situations where current builds are already past that point, without even trying for it. It needs to be something like 150 so no one winds up taking OFF prr/mrr after the changes, thats just silly. Similarly, light armor should probably go to 250 (few people are at 200 now, but with the changes to how the armor adds, the promise of future loot helping, and the inclusion of light shields providing more benefits for anyone trying to use a s/b evasion character their values should increase). You dont want to institute a new system promising "room for future growth" with the bulk of the player base utilizing it to almost immediately hit the ceiling.

In short, allow evasion in heavy shields, make heavy shield "multiplier" 1.5, raise cap on unarmed to 150, raise cap on light armor to 250, and maybe we have something. Frankly, Id rather see the whole mrr idea die in a fire but since you obviously wont let it go, the last thing I want to see is having it come out where it just makes heavy armor guys basically invincible. I have more heavy armor guys than evasion toons, so I would definitely benefit from that. But its not good for the game. At all. And will just lead to nerfs down the line as you realize youve over done it. At least set it up so people can all make use of it... if everyone has it, then no one will need nerfing to maintain relative balance. Bleh.

apparently nothing was "learned" in the feedback already given on these topics...

[Severlin]

WHY must you insist on nerfing evasion with heavy shields? Didn't i show already why this is a bad idea for light armor tanks. You are destroying that build! Must I repeat that the evasion is not that much of a gain vs the loss of other abilitites, AC, PRR, AND now MRR that it's forcing builds to heavy armor OR to use light shields that don't exist.

WHY MUST YOU MAKE US REGRIND all new shields!

WILL you even make all new named light shields form lvls 1 to 28?

This contant change in mechanics really makes me want to quit this game. Pick a seat and move the car forward.

There is a post about our plans to fill the Light Shield gap as people level coming down the pipe.

Sev~

[Severlin]

Just trying to figure out if I understand the new PRR system.

On live my ranger(lv25) has chain mail and a PRR of 37 for 20.19 mitigation.
My paladin(lv15) has full plate and tower shield and a PRR of 44 for 23.23 mitigation.

100 points of damage to both. The ranger takes 80 damage and the paladin 77.


With the new system the ranger's PRR would be 47 and the Paladin's PRR would be 89.

100 points of damage to both. The ranger takes 68 damage and the paladin 53.

Is that correct?

Correct.

In addition, the ranger would gain 10 MRR. The Paladin would gain 45 MRR and that would double to 90 MRR against effects that require a Reflex saving throw.

Sev~

[Severlin]

Yeah, I know... your OP post said in the new system its 4+bab. 2 less. Yea, its only 2, but wondering if its a typo or an intended change. Thanks for replies.

Typo, will fix now.

Sev~

[Desonde]

Physical Resist Rating
The attribute is used to mitigate physical damage of all types. The game already has Physical Resist Rating. We are changing the mitigation formula of this attribute, effectively buffing its power. The new formula:

100 / (100 + Rating)

This boost will help mitigate the damage of melee enemies in Epic Elite and will help players to build characters that can survive toe to toe with those enemies.


This will absolutely make PRR much more effective against bosses, but still doesn't do anything for the high damage mobs that spawn in groups large enough to trigger instant Dungeon Alert, and that attacking them causes all nearby foes to try and push the walls over to get to you. Even at 300 PRR (25% reduction) 16-32 mobs surrounding you doing as little as 100dmg (25 after prr) will chew through your 1000+ hp very quickly. (100dmg is low, and 16 is only common without the large aggro area, and it still results in 1200 damage in 3 attack cycles[some creatures attack two-three times in one cycle as well]).



Melee Power
The new attribute is essentially the melee version of Spellpower. Melee Power will not only increase the damage of straight weapon damage, but certain static effects from enhancements will now scale up with Melee Power allowing them to be more useful in epic levels. Melee Power will be gained from certain enhancements and from some melee epic destinies. Our plan is to have future loot include Melee Power. This rating increases melee attacks by the following formula.

(100 + Rating) / 100

As we rebalance static effects found in enhancements we will make these scale with Melee Power so they increase as you gain power and new loot. As an example, several Paladin damage sources that were previously static will now scale with Melee Power.


This scares me because the current issue with the game is the absurd exponential growth in numbers.

We don't need a multiplier to help widdle way monster's deep hit point pools by getting more feats, enhancements, ED's and items, we need the exponential curve smoothed and total pools brought down to be competitive.



Resistance Rating Caps and Evasion
In addition, there are new or changed caps on certain scores based on the armor you are wearing.

Buckler: None
Light Shield: None
Heavy Shield: No Evasion feat
Tower Shield: No Evasion feat

Magical Resistance Rating Cap for armor

Robes or Outfit: 100
Light Armor: 200
Medium Armor: No cap
Heavy Armor: No cap

Note that we have designed this so characters cannot gain both Evasion and the shield bonus coupled with high levels of resistance rating. This is intentional, as a character with both would be too powerful.

MRR and the Shield bonus is all great against single effects, but there are many instances in the game where this makes the character completely useless and unable to do anything but watch. Miior, Lailat when she's standing in the middle after the blades spawn, Druid's Curse Chain, to name a few have instances where reflex saves are constant and in massive quantities.

Sure with 300prr/mrr you'll only take 1/7 of the damage (1/14 if you save), but in the worse case scenario (miior) you'll be taking that damage 20 times a second [Solo, I can give the Doppelganger a full 100 stacks of statue lightning in less than 10 seconds]. You can compare that to light armor with evasion and they will take 1/3 of the damage 5% of the time, or ~1/15 of the damage with fewer items (1/6 and 1/30 if you have improved evasion).

To be truly comparable, large/tower shield users would have to take no damage on a successful save, or things that trigger reflex saves would need to have a cooldown limited that sheer amount of triggers per second.

[N-0cturn]

Melee Power and Ranged Power are just cleaning up and defining a lot of the places in the Epic Destinies that increase damage by a specific percent. The game already does this; we are just cleaning things up a bit and providing the ability for enhancements and feats to scale.

So this means for example Master's Blitz or Adrenaline will provide a bonus to melee and ranged spellpower instead of a flat % increase? If that the case I think it might be a good idea.

I still think it will be a problem to balance this correctly but as long as every flat % boost to damage is changed to spellpower I can see how this could work.

[dunklezhan]

Melee Power and Ranged Power are just cleaning up and defining a lot of the places in the Epic Destinies that increase damage by a specific percent. The game already does this; we are just cleaning things up a bit and providing the ability for enhancements and feats to scale.

Sev~


That makes a lot more sense. You should explain it that way first, next time.

[OverlordOfRats]

Correct.

In addition, the ranger would gain 10 MRR. The Paladin would gain 45 MRR and that would double to 90 MRR against effects that require a Reflex saving throw.

Sev~

Thanks.

I was afraid with the changes that the ranger wearing chainmail would be worse off for physical damage.

I knew from reading the other threads that the paladin in heavy armor and tower shield would be better off.

[Systern]

Yes, it gives us additional effects to put on future gear.

Sev~

Oh god please no. I have several nice doublestrike rings from the time of U14 that are pretty much niche now because they don't incorporate "Doubleshot" in their effect, having been superseded by "Flurry" which only appears on trash random armor and shields (and never on named loot). Y'all have yet to put Flurry on any named loot, so greater depth of itemization when you haven't even saturated what you have to work with is a non-issue.

Leaving Ranged Power for a separate update is also a mistake. As a player, I don't particularly care that melee and ranged are 2 separate combat engines behind the scenes. It's another Doublestrike/doubleshot mechanic that leaves the purely ranged builds (AAs and Artis) in the dust because Monkchers are OP. Just nerf freakin monks already and get it done with. My Pay-to-Win Arti is losing out. Already screwed by a save mechanic that doesn't scale on Rune arms, and now, oops, sorry, you lose in the damage race too. Not a good plan. (Also, I really really hate seeing mobs EVADE my rune arm shot from Lucid Dreams. It's a will save, and not subject to evasion. I don't mind so much when my pure arti or pure druid EVADE (though they don't have evasion) the frost lances from ice eles in Storm horns though, but, yea, I'd rather have the saving throw engine fixed... </Aside>)

Bucklers.... Ummm... Yea, a defensive item that confers no defensive benefit. If you would have them give equal stats to small shields, and then let flavor and availability decide which is used, that would be something. Having them give no defensive benefit (other than pathetic AC, which is so broken that you're performing these changes) is silly. They may look like Flavor Flav's wristwatch, but they really are defensive combat items.... They need to do SOMETHING.

[Sebastrd]

Greetings,

~ Physical Resist Rating (or PRR), the new formula the increases its power, and the bonuses to PRR that heavier armors will grant.
~ Magical Resist Rating (or MRR), the new rating that will mitigate magical damage, and the bonuses to MRR that heavier armors will grant.

Sev~

Is there any plan to convert the currently useless DR system to PRR/MRR?

[Ryethiel]

So, I guess most Warforged and Bladeforged will be sticking with Evasion... Not all builds can sacrifice that 1 Feat. :rolleyes:

[Thar]

There is a post about our plans to fill the Light Shield gap as people level coming down the pipe.

Sev~

Buckler gap too?

Why the insistence on taking evasion away from heavy shield users? You can't use medium or heavy armor so the benefits on your new system are limited and only useful to tanks and druids as no one else in their right mind uses a shield anyway with light armor. Tanks are the ones needing the most help with these changes. Druids "have" heavy shields designed for them in the wall of wood and the new raid one. Taking that away is just wrong.

[AtomicMew]

No! Absolutely not!

Melee power, ranged power and magic resistance rating all need to be thrown out! Turbine has a very poor record for implementing new systems on top of the old systems. You already tried to "fix" the armor and AC system once, what makes you think things will be more successful this time?

The only thing that needs to be done is to add inherent PRR to heavy armors and to buff up the paladin enhancement trees. The whole "magic absorption" idea can be implemented far more easily by adding some absorption enhancements to the paladin cores. Any new system will only introduce additional bugs and class imbalance. Game mechanics are already complicated enough for new players.

TLDR: Do not introduce new systems. Buff paladins, add inherent armor PRR and fix existing bugs before adding more!

[Sethvir]

This is the worst new I ever read about DDO. This will take away the last tiny bit that makes this game at feel a bit like D&D.

UGH. cant stress it enuf, about how strongly i agree with all his points.

DDO was never d&d, but it definately had alot of different uniquenesses. but what u guys did in the past and and continue even heavier with this, is, streamlining the s.hit out of the system of how ddo/d&d works. YOU guys are the GAME MASTER(s), you guys should friggin know that, the things ppl cry for (power, simplification, instant gratification) is NOT what all those ppl came here and stayed until now or at least for a long time. its NOT what they actually want, its not what is good for them.
There is no longer ANY meaning in using diffrent types of weapons, they behave in the end all the same, have in the end all the same possible effects (last most prominent example swashbuckler core2, and i repeat again, i agree that bards did need a buff).
In the end almost all effects are more or less uselss, cos of the powercreep of basedamge/crit and untyped damage rising up like there is no tormorrow and on the other side, there is another enhancement added to warchanter that gives 1d3/4/6 frost damage on hit!????

I personally strongly believe that ddo has entered maintenance mode and i see it backed up by such changes. Why not designing a endboss for a change like, keeping aggro (aka tnking it with one dedicated tank the whole time) would be deadly mistake? Like the boss building up so much hate/rage against this puny hero daring to stand against him, that he would increase damge over time and finally doing one serious heavy attack followed by aoe cleave with high damage and knocking down and back folks arround him?
Or the other way arround, a boss that has mechanics that would prohibit continously switching aggro, by initiating a teleport gate to his new target that does big aoe damage and lingers and finally filling up the available space to fight in?

All theese things would require some serious and honest efforts, which are by now no longer in the realm of possibility. in maintmode there is simply no longer enuf manpower and money there to do it.

I wholeheartly agree with the guy i quoted, in the end things will just get streamlined and simplified, but theese things do not bring real advantages. They are good enuf to keep the attention of at least a portion of the remaining playerbase for a short time and thats it.

[jalont]

UGH. cant stress it enuf, about how strongly i agree with all his points.

DDO was never d&d, but it definately had alot of different uniquenesses. but what u guys did in the past and and continue even heavier with this, is, streamlining the s.hit out of the system of how ddo/d&d works. YOU guys are the GAME MASTER(s), you guys should friggin know that, the things ppl cry for (power, simplification, instant gratification) is NOT what all those ppl came here and stayed until now or at least for a long time. its NOT what they actually want, its not what is good for them.
There is no longer ANY meaning in using diffrent types of weapons, they behave in the end all the same, have in the end all the same possible effects (last most prominent example swashbuckler core2, and i repeat again, i agree that bards did need a buff).
In the end almost all effects are more or less uselss, cos of the powercreep of basedamge/crit and untyped damage rising up like there is no tormorrow and on the other side, there is another enhancement added to warchanter that gives 1d3/4/6 frost damage on hit!????

I personally strongly believe that ddo has entered maintenance mode and i see it backed up by such changes. Why not designing a endboss for a change like, keeping aggro (aka tnking it with one dedicated tank the whole time) would be deadly mistake? Like the boss building up so much hate/rage against this puny hero daring to stand against him, that he would increase damge over time and finally doing one serious heavy attack followed by aoe cleave with high damage and knocking down and back folks arround him?
Or the other way arround, a boss that has mechanics that would prohibit continously switching aggro, by initiating a teleport gate to his new target that does big aoe damage and lingers and finally filling up the available space to fight in?

All theese things would require some serious and honest efforts, which are by now no longer in the realm of possibility. in maintmode there is simply no longer enuf manpower and money there to do it.

I wholeheartly agree with the guy i quoted, in the end things will just get streamlined and simplified, but theese things do not bring real advantages. They are good enuf to keep the attention of at least a portion of the remaining playerbase for a short time and thats it.

If you had read the second diary you would have seen that this moves the power away from FOTM blitz builds and opens up more melee builds, pretty much the opposite of streamling and simplifying, although I do agree that it would have been better to nerf blitz to bring it more inline with the other melee destinies.

[WanderingGrump]

These are systems that are already in place. Yes, we are rounding them out and providing a bit of definition. PRR has been in the game for a long time and armor currently gives PRR on live. MRR is simply an extension of that system.

Melee Power and Ranged Power are just cleaning up and defining a lot of the places in the Epic Destinies that increase damage by a specific percent. The game already does this; we are just cleaning things up a bit and providing the ability for enhancements and feats to scale.

Sev~

The calculates and uses a lot of numbers which often we as players have to manually calculate will the new systems actually be included on the character sheets? Will we see some other stats like say Spell Penetration anytime in the future?

Also will older Spell Resistance Enhancements/Items have any effect on MRR? Or will it be something that essentially works in heroics but is worthless for epic content? Or perhaps the mechanic will translate over.

[gwonbush]

Also will older Spell Resistance Enhancements/Items have any effect on MRR? Or will it be something that essentially works in heroics but is worthless for epic content? Or perhaps the mechanic will translate over.

Unlikely, since in DDO they don't overlap. Spell Resistance affects non-damaging spells and MRR affects damaging spells.

[CaptainSpacePony]

So, I guess most Warforged and Bladeforged will be sticking with Evasion... Not all builds can sacrifice that 1 Feat. :rolleyes:

Agreed. While only somewhat on topic, I'd like to renew my support for a the body type being a free feat at lvl 1 and a 4th WF body type.

[CaptainSpacePony]

No! Absolutely not!

Melee power, ranged power and magic resistance rating all need to be thrown out! Turbine has a very poor record for implementing new systems on top of the old systems. You already tried to "fix" the armor and AC system

On the other hand, I think spell power was a smashing success, and melee and ranged power seems to be an expanded application of that rather than something truly unique.

[Ryethiel]

Agreed. While only somewhat on topic, I'd like to renew my support for a the body type being a free feat at lvl 1 and a 4th WF body type.

Or, if they really wanna make it cost something, how about moving it from a Feat to a Multi-Selector tier 1 Enhancement? (For both races, of course.)

[Delacroix21]

We don't need to scale up +X[W] effects since Melee Power automatically scales all base weapon damage.

We can (and will) add Melee Power scaling to static effects that, as you say, do "1-10 acid/force/whatever damage" as we do passes on specific trees. Making those abilities useful.

Sev~

Will this also scale up elemental procs on randomly generated weapons? So a holy 2d6 weapon could do 3d6 or 4d6?

[rayworks]

Lets just pull back on the damage and power ratings we already have. The only reason people are concerned about the relative weakness of armor/prr/etc is because the devs keep ramping up the mobs' damage.

So just dial it back to sane levels and stop! it with the added complications.


And anyone who can think ahead 5 minutes will see how bad an idea this new stuff is, since the devs will further ramp up mobs' power to compensate, which will simply bring us back to the current status quo.

[jalont]

Lets just pull back on the damage and power ratings we already have. The only reason people are concerned about the relative weakness of armor/prr/etc is because the devs keep ramping up the mobs' damage.

So just dial it back to sane levels and stop! it with the added complications.


And anyone who can think ahead 5 minutes will see how bad an idea this new stuff is, since the devs will further ramp up mobs' power to compensate, which will simply bring us back to the current status quo.

I'd prefer an increase to mob challenge and a decrease in player power so that this game becomes something more than an easy snoozefest, but it doesn't seem that this is going to happen. What these changes DO DO, at least, is to open up more building options and remove some of the build balance problems in the game. If we can't have a challenging game, we can at least have a casual, fun building game, which this helps. Anything like nerfing mob power sounds like a horrible idea, as it would make an overly easy game even more easy.

[HastyPudding]

I'm of mixed feelings about this.

1a. I'm interested in seeing DDO finally mainstreaming with adding physical/ranged 'power'. I've always thought that the often complicated rules of D&D turned away new players due to them not having a pre-understanding of how D&D works. Go into the harbor and you'll most likely see somebody asking if XXX stacks with XXX, etc.

1b. This is a lot of work. The code is already a complete mess as it is, and you're not going to retcon previous items. That's going to make an even bigger mess. If you can't keep it simple, don't do it, or it's going to be a nightmare.

2a. I love the new changes to make heavier armor and shields useful. I simply can't wait to dust off my shield PDK and get him ready to play with his new toys.

2b. Haters gonna hate. The lack of evasion with certain shields is going to greatly irritate a niche group in the game (of which I don't belong). I also wonder about the implications of the PRR/MRR limitations concerning shintao monks, which are essentially tanks. I fear this is going to truly hurt pure monks more than the splashers. The 100 PRR limit is already going to nerf my pure 20 shintao tank because he already has almost 130 PRR.

[rayworks]

So swashbuckler builds get screwed. Thanks devs.

[Sethvir]

If you had read the second diary you would have seen that this moves the power away from FOTM blitz builds and opens up more melee builds, pretty much the opposite of streamling and simplifying, although I do agree that it would have been better to nerf blitz to bring it more inline with the other melee destinies.

I just DID read this now. And its EXACTLY streamlining at its worst. The 7 pararaps about the 7 'melee' EDs can be streamlined to:

ED a,b,c,d,e,f,g will be changed to core1-core6 will give 10 melee power and the abilities ab1-ab9 will give another 10 melee power.

See? perfectly streamlined.


Other problems. Currently we have several things (in EDs and enhancements) that give a multiplicator to damage (blitz, Zeal of the Righteous, sense weakness etcpp). i repeat, they work multiplicative. in the new system they would give melee power (only melee power? or maybe melee and ranged?) which in the end would DECREASE the final damage output. adding 100 melee power to an already having of 200 is less bonus than adding this 100 to an existing 100. while im totally on the side of: the game has way too much powercreep, theese changes have sideeffects most ppl just dont seem to see right now.

Example monkbuild i had some time ago:
rather low base damage and stunner with sense weakness, no mercy, blitz
1.5*1.3*1.3*3.5 = 8.87 * base damage
would change to:
(100+30+30+250)*1.5 OR if they change how stunned helpless damage is calculated - (100+30+30+250+50) = 460 = 4.6 * base damage
(100 base melee + 30 from sense + 30 from mercy + 250 ld/blitz)
---- PLZ dont tell me they wouldnt change no mercy, sense weakness or other things like them, to the melee power system, plz dont. whats the point of introducing it when they then again only pick some stuff they deem 'right' and change it. ---


in this case a viable build that was never fotm, was never uber, is rendered gimp. the build did live from multiplicative stacking damage boni in very certain circumstances. and theese changes wil reduce variability in building.
Im pretty sure there are alot more cases that work like this and would render more buldoption curretnly ok and viable as utter gimps. basically only allowing of builds with lots of base damage.
Just look at rogues which specialize in sneak damage. do they get melee power? do they keep enhancements that will add sneak dice? Think about the one and the other case and its consequences.


The problems that do arise from balancing all the things that affect damage, the amount of work needed to reallow more variance after this variance was cut down by the introduction with this system is just mindnumbing.

I strongly believe, the only outcome theese changes will have are: that base damage of weapons will trump ANY other way of achieving high damage output and thus totally reducing variance in builds.

[gwonbush]

So swashbuckler builds get screwed. Thanks devs.

Are you sure? My swashbuckler is getting +165% damage, 10 PRR (which now does more) and additional energy resistance.

[rayworks]

Are you sure? My swashbuckler is getting +150% damage, 25 PRR (which now does more) and additional energy resistance.

But the buckler you have to wear gets nothing but the base stuff, while larger shields get buffs.

[Atremus]

Couple of questions:

Will Melee Power and Ranged Power be visible on the character sheet?
Will all classes get inherent bonuses?
Will these effects for melee and ranged ruin all current gear like deadly did for the dream visor? How will you address balance with these changes? Another LR20?

[Monkey_Archer]

I don't have much to say considering there hasn't been many changes since the last armor and mitigation thread.

Still no reason to use light armor instead of robes and monk levels. Still no reason to use medium armor at all. Great for heavy armor/shield users. Unnecessary buff for unarmored spell mitigation.

[Nayus]

I don't have much to say considering there hasn't been many changes since the last armor and mitigation thread.

Still no reason to use light armor instead of robes and monk levels. Still no reason to use medium armor at all. Great for heavy armor/shield users. Unnecessary buff for unarmored spell mitigation.

Please read the OP, Light Armor is getting a lot of PRR and MRR that will reduce all physical and MAGICAL damage and now PRR is a lot better than it used to be.
As to "buff to unarmored spell mitigation" then no, if you're unarmored then you're probably evasion based and it would also nullify the worth of evasion if everyone got Improved Evasion for free in a Heavy Armor.

[droid327]

I asked this last time, I still want to know -

How will DR play with the new system? And the magical analog, Elemental Resists, with the new MRR?

If I get hit for 500 raw damage, and I have 100 PRR/MRR, and DR 30/- or 30 Resist, how does that work? Is it [500-30] * (100/200)? Or is it [500 * (100/200)] - 30?

I really hope you consider the latter...making DR reduce your damage by a flat amount AFTER all other reductions have been taken. That'll make DR very useful again, where right now its largely negligible - if damage is low enough for it to matter, you aren't dying anyway. If you're getting killed, DR is a drop in the bucket.

Having DR apply first means your PRR is essentially reducing the efficacy of your DR, in terms of how much damage you'd actually take with/without it:

500-30 * 50% = 235
500 * 50% = 250

....only 15 points of actual mitigation. Having it apply after means the more of one you have, the more useful the other is, its much more synergistic.

[Dagolar]

@ Melee Power / Ranged Power

I honestly don't see why you would add another multiplier to damage, that is already multiplied by the crit rate, attack speed, double-strike, helpless mod and flat damage bonuses. If this bonus will multiply the normal weapon damage it will unbalance the whole system even further.

Currently many effects like the paladin bonus damage (or Frenzy bonus damage) do not scale well because they do not profit from the crit rate and bonus effects like blitzing, which are arguably the most important multipliers. So I am perfectly fine with adding a spell power to those. But it should not affect the normal weapon damage in any way. Also for the Paladin abilities I would simply let it scale with positive Spellpower.

With this is mind it feels silly to make a difference between ranged and melee. Just add the according spellpower to all enhancements (elemental arrows would benefit from fire, ice etc spellpower...) and add a spellpower for the enchantments like frenzy that are not covered.


I agree, at first applying it to base damage seems REALLY, REALLY weird- if the issue is add-on procs, then why is it affecting base damage?
And why such a MASSIVE boost to damage? Aren't the prestiges already giving some measure of additional base DPS?
So even with just +90% (later, 110%) from epic levels alone, you're seeing about, say, 250% the damage of level 19 by level 28- NOT including dps bonuses from improved gear.

I mean, don't get me wrong- I am SICK of fighting training dummy styled bosses, who have more HP than a mountain; and melees could definitely use a leverage against casters, at least to some degree..

But it still seems weird.

So, my guess is, they want to keep the ratios between the contribution granted by add-on procs versus that of base damage the same as it is now.
In other words, that +1d6 elemental damage per hit will scale to about 3d6, but it'll still be X% of your total damage- it's percent contribution will be exactly the same.
That is, the devs don't want to imbalance the game in favor of add-on-proc-spamming builds over those that build up base damage.

So, that seems fine.

But it really makes you worry about EE and boss hit points being scaled even further to compensate..

As to your comments on spellpower in place of new bonus types, it is kinda weird they don't add in, say, Knowledge (Religion) (not as a auto-granted class-type ability) for upping divine non-healing spells.

Ah well.

[Monkey_Archer]

Please read the OP, Light Armor is getting a lot of PRR and MRR that will reduce all physical and MAGICAL damage and now PRR is a lot better than it used to be.
"Light Armor: 10 PRR, 10 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 2 + (BAB / 2.0) )"
Still less PRR than earth stance. Still dodge capped. Still bugged with certain dodge cap increasing abilities like elaborate parry.


As to "buff to unarmored spell mitigation" then no, if you're unarmored then you're probably evasion based and it would also nullify the worth of evasion if everyone got Improved Evasion for free in a Heavy Armor.
On live you can currently evade for 0 damage or improved evade for 50%. You take 100% from everything else. How is adding up to 100 MRR on top of this not a buff?

[Zakharov]

I understand the need to increase physical mitigation for heavier armor & shields but tying magical mitigation to them the same way makes *NO* sense at all. Please disentangle any inherent MRR from armor and shields - magical defense should be a choice players make in what equipment or abilities they choose, not an automatic "gimme" just for equipping heavy armor.

If you're already adding enchantment options to increase MRR (from sheltering etc) there is no need for anything inherent. If we are fighting the ice dragon we should seek out equipment specifically to defend against its attacks, not "any heavy armor or whatever, it will halve the damage the same either way". That's just boring.

You could also try some variety in your encounters – evasion is only an issue if reflex is the only save anyone has to make.. why not some other forms of attack instead?


Most importantly: Regardless of which way you go please make sure all enemies have the exact same attack & defense rules we end up with. I'm ok with power creep as long as it applies to everyone (players & monsters) equally. They still need their enhancements & destinies!

[maddmatt70]

I am not a fan of Melee Power and Ranged Power - they are just too out of the D&D loop. There has to be a cheap dev time solution that is going to solve the weapon/enhancement/class/destiny scaling. Perhaps if you made these level and tier base. For example any tier 1 enhancement that adds damage adds a certain % + adds to the base of that damage type like slashing or acid or etc. Yes the concept is similar to melee power, but it revolves around the particular damage which I think is more inline with D&D. Let's say for thief acrobats enhancement tree they do the following for the Q-staff enhancement
tier 1: +1 Qstaff damage +1% bludgeon.
tier 2: +2 Qstaff damage +2% bludgeon.
tier 3: +3 Qstaff damage +3% bludgeon
tier 4: +4 Qstaff damage +4% bludgeon
tier 5: +5 Qstaff damage +5% bludgeon
An epic Destiny basically would basically do double the damage per tier as an enhancement.
This may be a little too much power gain overall, but I wanted to illustrate the concept. I do not like melee power, but rather bludgeon power, acid power, etc. Melee power is too removed.

[Minrothad]

This is quite interesting, I like it.

Although, I am surprised to see the ED balancing seems to be applied almost entirely to melee/ranged and not to the caster world.

Good work.

Edit: Wrong diary entry, whatever.

[Severlin]

But the buckler you have to wear gets nothing but the base stuff, while larger shields get buffs.

And swashbuckler builds are pretty awesome and fun already.

Sev~

[Cetus]

I really dislike this entire melee power thing. It is unnecessary, adds complexity, and seems to be invented for the sole purpose of curtailing blitzes power.

[Severlin]

This doesn't seem much like a diary.

It "feels" more like a statement of what has been decided/no longer requires adjustment/will be implemented.

I am not hearing anything about the ideas/calculations/discussions/feedback consideration of the dev(s) involved.

Naturally, none of us need to know what you had for breakfast or your favorite TV show, and there should be no need to explain your personal philosophy on any subject.

The players probably don't have high enough search/spot/listen to discern the "process" on our own or the divination abilities sufficient to now what will/won't actually be introduced/modified to deal with the inevitable adjustment difficulties we all face.

I guess i.m just saying the obvious. I'll stop now.

Pseudograph

I am not sure what you are asking.

If you have concerns or suggestions you are best off just asking or voicing them so we can discuss them.

Sev~

[Zakharov]

This scaling is for player abilities. Monsters won't change.

Sev~

I disagree with this philosophy. Power increase/decrease and tweaking should apply equally to players and monsters. They still need enhancements & destinies.

[Severlin]

I really dislike this entire melee power thing. It is unnecessary, adds complexity, and seems to be invented for the sole purpose of curtailing blitzes power.

The main purpose of the design is actually to help scale static damage abilities from heroic like the Paladin's light damage. As an example, when we do a pass for the Assassin tree both Venomed Blades and Shadow Dagger can be made to scale with Melee Power and then these become more useful in later levels.

Sev~

[Zakharov]

These are systems that are already in place. Yes, we are rounding them out and providing a bit of definition. PRR has been in the game for a long time and armor currently gives PRR on live. MRR is simply an extension of that system.

Melee Power and Ranged Power are just cleaning up and defining a lot of the places in the Epic Destinies that increase damage by a specific percent. The game already does this; we are just cleaning things up a bit and providing the ability for enhancements and feats to scale.

Sev~

The point was that many people hate those systems. I personally am not a fan of many changes over the years taking us away from core rules. I would rather pay more money for a pure d&d online experience but sadly this is still the best option we have and I'm in the minority anyway.

[Cetus]

The main purpose of the design is actually to help scale static damage abilities from heroic like the Paladin's light damage. As an example, when we do a pass for the Assassin tree both Venomed Blades and Shadow Dagger can be made to scale with Melee Power and then these become more useful in later levels.

Sev~

Well, as far as the static damage abilities are concerned - I support the intention completely. However, I think that melee power should then be removed from the level 20-28, keep the 60 melee power in designated innates, and make blitz give 190 melee power rather than 100 - and keep the on-kill effect. I see why removing the charging portion was decided, it was kinda stupid - but the on-kill effect is a proper opportunity cost to receive the power it gives.

If people don't like it, they can play a different tree and they have now gained an additional 60 melee power as a result of this change.

[Severlin]

Well, as far as the static damage abilities are concerned - I support the intention completely. However, I think that melee power should then be removed from the level 20-28, keep the 60 melee power in designated innates, and make blitz give 190 melee power rather than 100 - and keep the on-kill effect. I see why removing the charging portion was decided, it was kinda stupid - but the on-kill effect is a proper opportunity cost to receive the power it gives.

If people don't like it, they can play a different tree and they have now gained an additional 60 melee power as a result of this change.

I see where you are coming from, but I don't think that would make the other ED trees competitive for melees. In addition, those other trees would see far less ability scaling for static abilities.

Sev~

[mrunlimited]

Honestly I feel like every one complaining about this just doesn't know how to read or comprehend. For ages people have asked for explanations of formulas for enhancements and where numbers for abilities come from. What I gather is Sev is just giving us the formula they are wanting to use that will make their lives as developers easier to balance classes around which is another thing people have been asking for.

With melee/ ranged power stat, they create a way to tweak specific classes, eds, and enhancements so that more options become viable at any given level. Take Artificer for example, they shine at early levels but in epics they have trouble competeing with damage versus other classes. Slight tweaks of abilities that can now scale with level suddenly makes them more balanced not only in heroics, but in epics too. Its a lot easier to figure out how to balance classes at all levels if they have a consistant formula they can scale.

For the people complaining about the armor changes, do you really want to see everyone running around in pajamas forever? I personally dont, nor do I want every character I play to need evaison. I will agree with one post that I read that a little mitigation against a ton of mobs is like a drop in a bucket, however CC does still exist... Maybe playing smarter is the way to go. It seems like it would be near impossible to balance mitigation on armor for large groups of mobs and keep it balanced against bosses.

If all of you guys are worried about power creep with all these changes, maybe its time to build a fun character rather than a min/maxer. The devs have a job to make the game fun and possible for the majority of players, not balance the game for fotm builds that squeeze every ounce of power they can from the current state of the game. Most people dont like to do this, they do it because in some way they feel it necessary too just to play something similar to what they really want to play. For example, Cetus really just wants his pure fighter to be able to hold his own in the current content. But this isnt possible right now so he does his bf centered kensai. These changes to the game are a push towards getting Cetus his pure fighter, as well as other players closer to their goals of enjoying a greater variety of game play. I tip my hat to the devs for doing something about the cookie cutter state that ddo is in right now.

[Severlin]

The point was that many people hate those systems. I personally am not a fan of many changes over the years taking us away from core rules. I would rather pay more money for a pure d&d online experience but sadly this is still the best option we have and I'm in the minority anyway.

I hear you. It's one of the reasons we redesigned the direction of the Paladin changes; we decided to keep those systems away from the core class design based on player feedback.

The systems we did add are just extensions of successful systems already in place; PRR and spellpower.

Sev~

[Qhualor]

The main purpose of the design is actually to help scale static damage abilities from heroic like the Paladin's light damage. As an example, when we do a pass for the Assassin tree both Venomed Blades and Shadow Dagger can be made to scale with Melee Power and then these become more useful in later levels.

Sev~

ok now I understand the purpose of melee power. are you saying this is the best way to scale heroic damage abilities? honest question. just trying to wrap my head around it.

its funny the other day I gave my opinion on the Ravager tree with Silver and said how I thought some of the damage abilities in the tree doesn't scale well into epics. than ta-da! melee power.

[btolson]

Any word on material types, e.g., mithral? Currently mithral heavy armor has approximately the same low max dex/dodge bonus as heavy armor, and the same PRR as medium armor -- i.e., the worst of both worlds. Please fix them to use the PRR of their original category (e.g., mithral full plate should use the PRR of heavy armor).

It would also be exceptionally great and long overdue if you introduced some new medium armor types into random lootgen that druids can wear without breaking their oath (hide armor, wooden armor, dragonscale armor, whatever). More named loot along these lines is needed too, but I expect that is asking for too much in the near future.

[Cetus]

I see where you are coming from, but I don't think that would make the other ED trees competitive for melees. In addition, those other trees would see far less ability scaling for static abilities.

Sev~

So, I'm getting kinda turned around on this melee power thing. I'm starting to like it, but there are a few comments here:

1. You'd have to incorporate pretty much all of our damage bonuses either into this language or into some character sheet real estate. I'd like to see my entire melee power visible in my character sheet somewhere.

2. To piggy back on point 1 - wouldn't all % based bonuses to damage that exist right now be simply converted to melee power? This should be exhaustive, because having % bonuses and melee power bonuses would be kinda confusing.

3. What about items that add direct damage, such as deadly affixes or claw set bonuses, or litany damage bonus, etc? Would those be simply converted to melee power, or can we finally get a character sheet that spells out that damage too?

4. How will helpless be treated? Currently, helpless enemies take x% (as dictated by your investments + the base 50) of your front number damage, which has already been amplified by your melee power. Will this function in any fundamentally different way?

[EllisDee37]

2. To piggy back on point 1 - wouldn't all % based bonuses to damage that exist right now be simply converted to melee power? This should be exhaustive, because having % bonuses and melee power bonuses would be kinda confusing. I can't imagine they would leave any melee bonuses as-is. Much like spell power, all melee bonuses will almost certainly change to melee power. (Blitz, zeal, adrenaline, damage boost, etc...)

Your question about helpless is a good one, though. That one will probably stay as a flat multiplier instead of becoming a melee power bonus if only because ALL damage is multiplied, not just melee but also spell damage. And also because it doesn't actually buff your attacks, but nerfs their defense. If I cleave two mobs, and one is held, how would a melee power bonus work for me via helpless?

[AtomicMew]

The main purpose of the design is actually to help scale static damage abilities from heroic like the Paladin's light damage. As an example, when we do a pass for the Assassin tree both Venomed Blades and Shadow Dagger can be made to scale with Melee Power and then these become more useful in later levels.

Sev~

Have you already forgotten there are mechanisms to scale damage? It's called damage dice. You know, from D&D?

[Monkey_Archer]

2. To piggy back on point 1 - wouldn't all % based bonuses to damage that exist right now be simply converted to melee power? This should be exhaustive, because having % bonuses and melee power bonuses would be kinda confusing.

It appears this is/has already been done. From the paladin thread:


• Action Boost: Damage: Activate to gain a (+10/+20/+30)% Action Boost bonus to Melee Power for 20 seconds. (Cooldown: 30 Seconds)


Also a bit odd that there is no mention of ranged power there... Is damage boost being nerfed for ranged?

[Bridge_Dweller]

Is damage boost being nerfed for ranged?

It should be.

[Monkey_Archer]

It should be.
If the intention is to nerf ranged, I'd rather it be done properly instead of changing damage boost (of all things), which is in no way problematic.

[Alistina]

Do the armor changes (PRR/MRR) apply to monsters as well?
I'm basically worried about my casters relying on elemental damages rather than DC based/PM builds if every second mob gains MRR and my damage becomes useless/gets heavily nerfed.

I would also like to add my voice against making heavy shields negate evasion. This is outrageous, and seems to target a single build which isn't even OP to start with, that is druids. I have spent time & astral shards to get a decent collection of h-shields for my druid based lives such as those from tome pages turn in and epic wall of wood, you know, because they were the only decent option available!!

If your aim here is to not single target nerf druid builds then at least give us a toggle where you allow the heavy shields to be used with evasion but they give same PRR/MRR as a light shield/ vs/ what you have proposed.

[dunklezhan]

Thematically, heavy shields just should NOT work with Evasion. They just shouldn't. They're HEAVY and cumbersome. Evasion is all about being LIGHT on your feet. I'm not saying there aren't then balance issues for folks if heavy shields prevent evasion and they should be addressed, but evasion really should have some sacrifices to get, given how powerful it is.

[Rull]

In a way we already have melee power.
When you adrenaline you get +300% damage, not x4. Same for blitz. With almost no other source of +% damage this is almost never relevant, you only notice it in Challenges where you Quad Damage doesn't result in x16 but x7 (+600%)

So if all you are doing is rewording blitz to give +250 melee and ranged power instead of +250% dmg, the outrage is for nothing.

If you include things like Rogue Damage Boost to +30 power (and Consecration), that's kinda annoying since it wouldn't stack multiplicatively anymore (i guess thats the point but i don't agree with it). but no big deal.

If you are systematically going to add +10 melee power items and feats, that would be equivalent to adding an item that says "you deal 10% more base damage"... except some rare claw-set like set bonus that would give 10% more damage sounds awesome while +10 competence bonus to yet another stat does not.
I would say keep them rare + keep them stack multiplicatively.

[Kalevor]

I'm excited with this new changes... I don't know if would be successfull or not but the changes are gonna come... Still learning the bases of the changes before make a judgement but i have some comments...


Yeah, and what is to stop them from adding mrr bonuses and prr to robes/clothes? Nothing. So I see nothing wrong with clothes and robes having nothing by default.

Exactly my thoughts


Sev, will this also scale weapon enchantments like holy IV, etc? Currently these are all bypassed for weapons that just do better straight damage or have unique enhanced crit profiles, and this change would make them relevant again. If so I LOVE it!

Again, i was hopping this. An augment with high min lvl and only does 1d10 dmg seems wrong... melee power have the opportunity to fix it...


So this means for example Master's Blitz or Adrenaline will provide a bonus to melee and ranged spellpower instead of a flat % increase? If that the case I think it might be a good idea.

I still think it will be a problem to balance this correctly but as long as every flat % boost to damage is changed to spellpower I can see how this could work.

Interesting


So swashbuckler builds get screwed. Thanks devs.

Right now swashbuckler is the better shield in game... nonsense. I think still would be very good in proper hands but not as OP as it is...


I asked this last time, I still want to know -

How will DR play with the new system? And the magical analog, Elemental Resists, with the new MRR?

If I get hit for 500 raw damage, and I have 100 PRR/MRR, and DR 30/- or 30 Resist, how does that work? Is it [500-30] * (100/200)? Or is it [500 * (100/200)] - 30?

I really hope you consider the latter...making DR reduce your damage by a flat amount AFTER all other reductions have been taken. That'll make DR very useful again, where right now its largely negligible - if damage is low enough for it to matter, you aren't dying anyway. If you're getting killed, DR is a drop in the bucket.

Having DR apply first means your PRR is essentially reducing the efficacy of your DR, in terms of how much damage you'd actually take with/without it:

500-30 * 50% = 235
500 * 50% = 250

....only 15 points of actual mitigation. Having it apply after means the more of one you have, the more useful the other is, its much more synergistic.

Those are very interesting questions... I want to know the answers too.




1. You'd have to incorporate pretty much all of our damage bonuses either into this language or into some character sheet real estate. I'd like to see my entire melee power visible in my character sheet somewhere.

2. To piggy back on point 1 - wouldn't all % based bonuses to damage that exist right now be simply converted to melee power? This should be exhaustive, because having % bonuses and melee power bonuses would be kinda confusing.

3. What about items that add direct damage, such as deadly affixes or claw set bonuses, or litany damage bonus, etc? Would those be simply converted to melee power, or can we finally get a character sheet that spells out that damage too?

4. How will helpless be treated? Currently, helpless enemies take x% (as dictated by your investments + the base 50) of your front number damage, which has already been amplified by your melee power. Will this function in any fundamentally different way?

Good questions too. Number 3 seems a difficult one.

[Kalevor]

Thematically, heavy shields just should NOT work with Evasion. They just shouldn't. They're HEAVY and cumbersome. Evasion is all about being LIGHT on your feet. I'm not saying there aren't then balance issues for folks if heavy shields prevent evasion and they should be addressed, but evasion really should have some sacrifices to get, given how powerful it is.

Agreed

[Bingobong]

Physical and Magical Resist Rating multiplier against magical attacks that normally allow a Reflex saving throw.
Buckler: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Light Shield: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Heavy Shield: 2.0
Tower Shield: 2.0

This means that characters with heavier armor and/or heavy or tower shields have an alternate mitigation against large area of effect attacks to help them compete in high level content with characters who use Evasion.


Right now all additional mitigation is weighted on the shield with no additional mitigation coming from heavier armor in spite of the stated objective "heavier armor and/or heavy or tower shields have an alternate mitigation". I suggest splitting it so that armor also gets part of the bonus :

Buckler: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Light Shield: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Heavy Shield: 1.5
Tower Shield: 1.5

Robes or Outfits: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Light Armor: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Medium Armor: 1.5
Heavy Armor: 1.5

(Unless of course the "heavier armor and/or" part of the objective was a typo.)

[rayworks]

And swashbuckler builds are pretty awesome and fun already.

Sev~

And will be less fun and awesome if the buckler they are forced to carry does nothing beyond its base while people with other shields get bennies. Bards don't get evasion unless they splash and it seems to me that your changes actually encourage people to take monk or rogue levels rather than stay pure. Seems contradictory.

[Alistina]

Thematically, heavy shields just should NOT work with Evasion. They just shouldn't. They're HEAVY and cumbersome. Evasion is all about being LIGHT on your feet. I'm not saying there aren't then balance issues for folks if heavy shields prevent evasion and they should be addressed, but evasion really should have some sacrifices to get, given how powerful it is.

I understand what you mean. My concern here is that whether they should or shouldn't work with evasion, the truth is that they always have. Also, given the unavailability of good options of bucklers/light shields in the existing game, people have spent time and/or money on getting those.

Give me an option to convert my existing heavy shields to light shields (through stone of change or whatever) and I won't care any more if evasion doesn't work with heavy shields.

Or like I posted earlier, a toggle where they would allow evasion on existing heavy shields but will grant PRR/MRR/AC etc bonuses of a light shield, effectively acting as light shields...without them having to design and release new bucklers/light shields for all levels, and saving those of us who dislike farming for stuff see our existing gear go to waste n saving the trouble to again spend endless boring hours getting gear rather than levelling and questing!

[GeoffWatson]

The main purpose of the design is actually to help scale static damage abilities from heroic like the Paladin's light damage. As an example, when we do a pass for the Assassin tree both Venomed Blades and Shadow Dagger can be made to scale with Melee Power and then these become more useful in later levels.

Sev~

Could you fix Sting of the Ninja at some point? It is now completely useless, not working with named weapons.

Geoff.

[Eth]

Guess with a TWF toon that uses melee and ranged abilities I can reroll.
Doesn't sound to me like you intend to implement ways to get both melee and ranged power on the same scale in the same destiny.

[spindeldorf]

These are systems that are already in place. Yes, we are rounding them out and providing a bit of definition. PRR has been in the game for a long time and armor currently gives PRR on live. MRR is simply an extension of that system.

Melee Power and Ranged Power are just cleaning up and defining a lot of the places in the Epic Destinies that increase damage by a specific percent. The game already does this; we are just cleaning things up a bit and providing the ability for enhancements and feats to scale.



Good point.

Go on Severling you are doing quite a good job.

DDO is a real time computer game and needs adeguate mechanics for scaling.

Introducing MRR, Meele Power and Ranged Power makes the enhancement system (heroic and epic) clear and consistent (i.e. Adrenaline I will give +300 Meele/Ranged Power, right?).

Of course imho.

[Indianwiz]

Greetings,

Physical and Magical Resist Ratings offered by armor
Robes or Outfits: No PRR, no MRR
Sev~

So, my wizard who will be soon level 30 (that is demi-god in PnP right?!) has absolutely no way to reduce incoming ridiculous amount of Physical and Magical damage?

[CaptainSpacePony]

So, my wizard who will be soon level 30 (that is demi-god in PnP right?!) has absolutely no way to reduce incoming ridiculous amount of Physical and Magical damage?

Not via their armor, unless they go eldritch night and leave the pajamas at home.

[Ayseifn]

So, my wizard who will be soon level 30 (that is demi-god in PnP right?!) has absolutely no way to reduce incoming ridiculous amount of Physical and Magical damage?

Wizards can still take the insightful reflexes feat.
Wraith form still gives 25-35% incorp.
Wizards can still cast displacement.
Eldritch Knight still gives armour and shield proficiencies.
Eldritch Knight still gives PRR and lowers ASF.
Wizards can still wear dodge items.
Pale Masters still get 10 PRR or 3 dodge, as well as other benefits from being undead.

They might not be the best but saying they get no way at all to reduce incoming damage is hyperbole.

[Slasheboy]

On the topic of free feats and stances,

How about giving Sacred Defender Combat Expertise for its Core 3. More importantly, make sure that it does not have the spell cooldown drawback so that the poor Pallies don't have to suffer.

How about giving Assassins or Thief Acrobats Improved Feint?


But its rather true that Power Attack is the must have feat currently.... it would be good if it not only scales into late game (like +5 damage while providing +1 or +0.5 melee power per epic level), but also make the other stances more competitive and scale into late game.

Something like Combat Expertise providing some PRR/MRR and/or gaining a subfeat that provides additional hate, while gaining an additional 2% AC or PRR or Max Hp per epic level.

Precision stand to gain more fortification bypass and some dodge bypass, and some other interesting things that scale into epic.

Manyshot and Improved Precise shot should start removing volleys and replacing it with Ranged Power and other stuff because of how OP they are together. So on and so forth.

[Stoner81]

The main purpose of the design is actually to help scale static damage abilities from heroic like the Paladin's light damage. As an example, when we do a pass for the Assassin tree both Venomed Blades and Shadow Dagger can be made to scale with Melee Power and then these become more useful in later levels.

Sev~

You sir have just given me a nerdgasm! I had been toying with TR'ing my assassin in to a hybrid (Rogue/Monk/Druid) so as to boost survivability and stuff but after seeing this new stuff I am going to keep her and see how everything works.

Stoner81.

[Uska]

Hang on a minute...Melee and Ranged POWER?

Are you kidding Devs? Yet another way for Elitists to lord it over casuals and newbies REALLY?

What stat is going to govern this? Strength I suppose? What of Dex, Int, Con Builds?

Are we going to get YET MORE gear we can't fit in?


What happened to the D&D in DDO?!?

It died just like it did in pnp

[geoffhanna]

Three questions, apologies if these have already been answered but I missed the answers amidst the sudden MessageStorm:

1. Isn't giving every ED 90 melee power, and 150 to every Melee ED, a huge power creep? Huge? Why not just give Master's Blitz 100 melee power and everyone else none

2. Shouldn't two-handed weapons earn more melee power than sword & shield? Otherwise, why sacrifice defense and a magic item slot for ... nothing?

3. If EE bosses are going to have less hitpoints while all the players are going to it harder, it seems that making EE content more accessible is a design goal. Is it?

[Aelonwy]

And will be less fun and awesome if the buckler they are forced to carry does nothing beyond its base while people with other shields get bennies. Bards don't get evasion unless they splash and it seems to me that your changes actually encourage people to take monk or rogue levels rather than stay pure. Seems contradictory.

A pure bard can acquire evasion from the swashbuckler capstone but only while swashbuckling. So pure 20 bard, in swashbuckler stance.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

Wow. Lame. I have 2 characters who wear robes/outfits, and neither have Evasion.

These are not simply pieces of cloth that characters wear for decoration, they are magically enchanted items, most of which offer Armor bonuses. Yet they won't even offer Magical Resist Ratings...even when worn by magic users? Two out of the three classes that typically wear robes/outfits, don't have Evasion. So give other armor users benefits, but don't give the robe/outfit users any, because it will benefit 1 single class* too much. Typical development strategy...

*I'm not including Rogues, because they can wear Light Armor without any penalties.

the future of casters is not robes, its heavy armor.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

Melee Power
The new attribute is essentially the melee version of Spellpower. Melee Power will not only increase the damage of straight weapon damage, but certain static effects from enhancements will now scale up with Melee Power allowing them to be more useful in epic levels. Melee Power will be gained from certain enhancements and from some melee epic destinies. Our plan is to have future loot include Melee Power. This rating increases melee attacks by the following formula.

(100 + Rating) / 100

As we rebalance static effects found in enhancements we will make these scale with Melee Power so they increase as you gain power and new loot. As an example, several Paladin damage sources that were previously static will now scale with Melee Power.

please dont add loot with melee power for a long time...

[Ebondevil]

I am worried we already have far too many bonuses and abilities which aren't included on the character sheet so it's difficult to reference what they are easily, I feel that is a problem that needs to be fixed before, or at the same time as adding more stuff to the sheet.

I'm not really a fan of Melee power and Ranged power, I think the problem is the Epic ward on monsters making many abilities and effects practically useless, the ridiculous amounts of health on monsters at epic levels, as well as the rules changes not being populated through the monsters fully (Like Poison Damage).

I can see the need for it, but It might be simpler just to have the +1[w] apply to the effects as well

So if you have a 2[1d6] weapon, and Venomed Blades tier 3 active (normally 1d8) it would give 2[1d8] poison, instant scaling for weapon effects to keep them in line with the weapons base damage scaling.

[Seikojin]

We don't need to scale up +X[W] effects since Melee Power automatically scales all base weapon damage.

We can (and will) add Melee Power scaling to static effects that, as you say, do "1-10 acid/force/whatever damage" as we do passes on specific trees. Making those abilities useful.

Sev~


You are not selling the Melee power / ranged power thing very well. Frankly I, and many others here, are skeptical and see it as a end around that wont actually solve any existing issues, while adding complications.

I will say that if you DO add it. It must remain enhancement/Destiny in nature. Absolutely do not put this on loot.

What I am thinking (and hoping) is that something currently live:
http://ddowiki.com/page/Epic_Cruel_Nobility
This has a lot of ability stacks on it. So when you swing with this, each swing has Base weapon die + enchantment + your stat + Ability 1 + Ability 2 + Ability 3 + Ability 4 = total damage output.

They can now change all those keywords to add to melee power, making it become Base weapon die + your stat + melee weapon power.

The amount of lag this could fix would be pretty good.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Why not just decrease EE monster stats/damage/CR/HP/whatever slightly?

I do not grind; my characters' DPS is horrible; basically, my toons are gimps is almost all ways.

Yet, I think EE monsters stats are exactly where they should be.




You have a choice for EE: grind for gear, take build advice from the uber number crunchers; or slow down and use some tactics.
EEs are not that difficult. Most PUGs blast their way through them with no effort and barely slow down.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Is there any plan to convert the currently useless DR system to PRR/MRR?


This bears repeating.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

And swashbuckler builds are pretty awesome and fun already.

Sev~

I agree, but the new changes really make Bucklers (in general) really lame, in comparison to other shields.

Would it really be a big deal to add "5" (or something) to "all" shields.

I have also always thought that Tower Shields need a "major" buff. These things were designed to hide behind, which seems to me that they should offer almost total protection.... when actively blocking anyway.

[lammbo]

Since all of these numbers will now be part of our builds moving forward, can we please get an updated Character Sheet that includes currently missing stats that must be manually calculated, such as:
Threat Gen
Riposte/shield bash %
Energy absorption values
Heal Amp (Positive/Repair)
Whatever else I am missing in my haste to get my $.02 into this discussion

Also, agree with previous posts about the now useless DR system. Something should be done with this because as it stands now, it is meaningless.

[Exiledtyrant]

Are sorcerer savant elemental forms going to be getting a defense boost too?

[9001]

About DR, as far as I recall (sorry I'm not too up on stats, having just come back to the game after sporadically playing it, and I was never too educated on balance to begin with) applies BEFORE prr, does it not? I'm assuming elemental resists do too. I figure it'd be better to have them apply after, as that would make them at least a little more useful.


Additionally, I wanted to ask if the people who are against melee and ranged power are also against spell power. I personally think it'd be nice to see a non-flat source of physical damage that works for BOTH melee and ranged (probably better to REPLACE deadly stuff) and it might help physicals compete with casters for damage (casters still do a lot of damage over melees, right?)

People can argue one way or another about whether staying true to pen and paper or changing things, but my PERSONAL opinion is that the health of the game is more important than sticking exactly to pen and paper, though it should still be recognisable as dungeons and dragons, ie dice, class and level structure, etc. Some compromise would be best imo, we don't need systems added for no reason but if it actually serves to help game balance and there's no better pen and paper option then there might have to be that compromise.

Lastly, the melee power thing seems to be in some cases a way of scaling normally static damage (like the proposed paladin light damage), perhaps the real issue is the prevalence of a lot of crit multiplier and range bonuses? Between overwhelming critical, class bonuses, and some epic destiny bonuses, crits can get ridiculously high (ie a light pick swash bard could get 19-20 x4, plus if they take tier 5 in warchanter, and go legendary dreadnought, plus overwhelming crit you get 6x multiplier on 19-20)

aaand sorry for being long-winded but the last thing I wanted to say was I'm not too happy about the flat cap because it still makes evasion almost necessary. I dislike evasion being almost a must, rather than a nice bonus that the classes that get it have, plus the fact that warforged have to pick between light armor and limited prr, or heavy armor and limited dodge bonus turns me off from warforged (unfortunately because they are my favourite race).



tl;dr version do people hate both melee/ranged power AND spellpower or just the new one; pnp purists vs non-purists should try to compromise if it helps the health of the game, crits are too buffed, needing evasion sucks and warforged need medium armor

EDIT: sorry for the personal plug, but is there any way that, if you're looking at damage mitigation, that pale master zombie stance can be made into a proper (semi?) damage mitigation/melee stance without only being worthwhile if you literally stand there and take damage? It'd be a nice to see in general some cleanup of less than useful core abilties and tree enhancements, and I'm glad to see the buffs you've been throwing to some of the underloved classes

[Ebondevil]

tl;dr version do people hate both melee/ranged power AND spellpower or just the new one; pnp purists vs non-purists should try to compromise if it helps the health of the game, crits are too buffed, needing evasion sucks and warforged need medium armor

MIthrol Body is the Warforged Medium Armour, but the Dev's seem to be stuck on considering it as Light even though it is virtually identicle to a Mithril Breastplate (medium armour stats, reduced to light armour thanks to Mithril).

[Thar]

For the people complaining about the armor changes, do you really want to see everyone running around in pajamas forever? I personally dont, nor do I want every character I play to need evaison. I will agree with one post that I read that a little mitigation against a ton of mobs is like a drop in a bucket, however CC does still exist... Maybe playing smarter is the way to go. It seems like it would be near impossible to balance mitigation on armor for large groups of mobs and keep it balanced against bosses.


The problem i have it the take away. It could easily be modified to keep heavy shields with evasion as they are today and reduce the shield bonus to 1.5. There is no reason to take heavy shields away from this group.

Will we see light shields in the game... probably, but really what is the point. Why spread the development even farther? do we have 28 lvls of good bucklers? Do we even get an decent light/med/hvy armor and tower/hvy/buckler shield update each update? do we even have a thunderforged crafting option for shields? So now we want to spread the update loot between 4 shields when before it was only heavy and tower? We will hardly ever see another good light shield afterwards in the future once a pass is done or the others will be put on the backburner. You really don't expect 4 new shields, 4 new armors, and x number of new weapons + wearable equipment each update? Last update we got what 10 new pieces of loot for 3bc?

The gain/loss benefit is too much. Anyone that can use light shields is either useing buckler (bard) or heavy (everyone else). mothball the light shields and spend the time where more people can benefit.

This is beyond my arguements that evasion tanks already give up PRR, AC, and capstones (which are improving now) to get evasion and some increased dodge cap with light armor. WHY must Sev be further nerfing this setup? What is the point/purpose? Monks can't use heavy shields. WHY? What is the point of this change? IF there is no point then it is a useless negative to an otherwise positive change for epics with the mrr.

The sole point would be to move the population to heavy armor/tower/heavy shield as the only good way of negating magic damage. You don't want evasion any more. BUY a heart and TR...

or go to another game...

[Thar]

For those evasion builds that you are hurting, will we be receiving LR20 stones to redo our characters???

[BananaHat]

The main purpose of the design is actually to help scale static damage abilities from heroic like the Paladin's light damage. As an example, when we do a pass for the Assassin tree both Venomed Blades and Shadow Dagger can be made to scale with Melee Power and then these become more useful in later levels.

Sev~

Can you also make abilities like say... the Monk's Healing curse scale as well with either positive spellpower or melee power? 1d2 healing in the epic levels, even with healing amp, is still fairly lackluster. Say the average melee guy (non-monk) has upward of 150-200% healing amp from various sources. He gets healed by the curse for maybe 2-4. Add melee power and now he is getting healed for 4-8, still not great but double the piddly healing it was doing before. It almost keeps up with the bard's regeneration song for a TWF.

Adding melee power to the Monk's strikes and finishers would be awesome by the way and let them scale like this new Paladin light damage thing.

[maddong]

Are warforged going to get their BAB added into the PRR calculation or still get less PRR than fleshies?

[HatsuharuZ]

Are warforged going to get their BAB added into the PRR calculation or still get less PRR than fleshies?

I think that Sev answered that question somewhere else... can't remember where, but I think he said yes, and had no idea why that change was made.

[LordTigerDawn]

It really sounds like another new system that will be poorly implemented. Exact same method that has been used to get to this point in the game. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Based on the length of time this has progressed, this is obviously systematic within Turbine.

I do not expect any different, but I do not think this will actually fix anything.

We could list the mistakes that have happened in the past, but that is kinda moot. The real problem is there is no real direction from the top, and no ability to say "No" to all the new ideas. People (in general) might see the new ideas as great, but really it is usually a "Shortcut" response to learning what is actually going on in the game to and a sign of laziness.

For example,

MRR - Okay, so this is basically a formula example of Energy Absorbtion. Energy Absorbtion was the answer to living through fireballs not long ago (then they made that not stack anymore), but now MRR is. Before Energy Absorbtion was Protection from fire and Resistances (which can get into the 100's now). I mean really a solution would be to be able to enchant large/tower shields with Protection from fire/Energy (caster lvl by shield type) every 3 seconds in epic (mechanics already exist, see ek tree for temp hp). That is a Dnd solution that has existed forever. But new systems are continually created, just because "New" seems like a good idea. Special Note: Spell Resistance, totally ignored also did much the same thing but for spells with saves.

Prr - Damage Reduction and Temporary Hitpoints. Make AC matter.

Melee/Ranged Percent - This is just a bandage for the poor decision made in epic destinies. Destinies that should have been tied to tiers per lvl in the destiny, aka. Tier 1 abilites at lvl 21, tier 2 at lvl 22 etc. If you needed to sell them in 2 groups, epic destiny 1 21-25 then epic destiny 2 26-30 so be it.

----

Sorry this has been more of a rant, but I enjoy this game, but I am tired of having to use a university lvl of math in order to play it.

----

I have a simple question: What is DDO Unique Selling Proposition? Increasingly from a players standpoint it is, Dnd wants to be a Wow clone. If that is the goal, then really you need to stop paying the Dnd license fee and rebrand it to "Kobolds, Orcs and Humans Oh My!!!". There are 10 Wow clones popping up a week, where does that lead...

Thanks for reading if you made it this far, I would just prefer a solution within the already defined game, instead of exploring yet another new system that is continually done right now.

[Alavatar]

Yes.

Mithral Body will be treated as Light armor and provide 10 PRR.
Adamantine Body will be treated as Heavy Armor and provide 30 PRR.

Sev~

What about Max Dex Bonus for Body feats? Currently, they are capped and do not scale with level like normal armor types do.

[Seljuck]

I see that DDO increasingly moving away from the standard D&D system..
Is there really no other way to balance game without changing game mechanics and adding 'WoW like' parameters??
I thought this supposed to be D&D game?
When these changes come into force, this game will look like all other MMOs :(

[BigErkyKid]

Please do not neglect the AC system.

While non armor users get to miss chances (dodge, incorp.) AC is currently a very heavy investment with little returns.

The fact that there is PRR and MRR will help close the gap, but I still think that without AC, armor will be a bit behind.

The current problem with AC is that it gives you defense at level, but the CR of mobs has been changed in epics so that it has become meaningless.

Perhaps a simple adjustment of the CR role in the to miss function by AC would do the trick.

[Nascoe]

I was just playing around a bit with a sorc during my lunch brake today, and looked at his enhancements and think this needs answering.

When you add MRR for armor and shields, is the plan to add that to spells and SLAs like (Improved) Shield - this already should give some magic protection, would feel strange if it doesn't offer MRR and Mage armor. Much the same would go for shield of faith too really. I guess Nightshield already offers force (well, MM, but could easily be enhanced a bit to ALL force)

IMO if you have a MAGIC armor / shield then really that should be a way to block especially magic damage, no? And it would make the spell a bit more desirable to have on robe wearers like Wizards and Sorcerers (see complaints above that these have neither evasion nor PRR from their outfit/robe).

Surely it should not be too much, but it should help at least a bit and maybe make these spells/SLAs more than just spell list/AP fillers for higher lvls

[Monkey_Archer]

Please do not neglect the AC system.

While non armor users get to miss chances (dodge, incorp.) AC is currently a very heavy investment with little returns.

The fact that there is PRR and MRR will help close the gap, but I still think that without AC, armor will be a bit behind.

The current problem with AC is that it gives you defense at level, but the CR of mobs has been changed in epics so that it has become meaningless.

Perhaps a simple adjustment of the CR role in the to miss function by AC would do the trick.
The AC system is functioning extremely well atm. The problem isn't the system, but rather the very limited builds that can take advantage of it. S&B defenders and monk builds can easily hit viable ac numbers, but pretty much anything else needs to stack martial past lives to get even remotely useful ac.
The obvious and easy fix would be to just nerf defender, monks, and past lives, then reduce monster attack bonuses accordingly... but thats obviously not happening.

[BigErkyKid]

The AC system is functioning extremely well atm. The problem isn't the system, but rather the very limited builds that can take advantage of it. S&B defenders and monk builds can easily hit viable ac numbers, but pretty much anything else needs to stack martial past lives to get even remotely useful ac.
The obvious and easy fix would be to just nerf defender, monks, and past lives, then reduce monster attack bonuses accordingly... but thats obviously not happening.

The amount of APs you got to put into AC and from other DPS options to get "viable" AC is much larger than the APs others have to put to say get shadow veil. Or to pile up dodge from low hanging AP options plus items (9% dodge from item and then many cheap options for say monks and bards to get close to 20 dodge).

And shadow veil gives 25% incorp regardless of the level (same for dodge), whereas AC needs to keep growing to remain competitive at higher levels. To the point that in end game you need a very large number to even notice it.

Add that it seems that some classes (monks) need to spend far less in getting their AC than others (Defenders) and you get a system that I think is far from functioning extremely well.

I think AC should be brought to something closer to how it works in heroics. It is only fair, given how much it costs.

[slarden]

With the upcoming changes and the new MRR rating, would it make sense for epic arcane past lifes to have an MRR rating bonus rather than 1% energy absorb for the passive past life benefit?

[Severlin]

Some responses:

~ Energy Absorption is multiplicative and expressed as a percentage. That makes it a poor choice for adding bits of protection to many different enhancements. MRR is an additive rating.

~ Additionally, players are used to having resistance rating on armor and we wanted to follow the existing system.

~ The reason we don't revamp the armor class system (again) instead of using this PRR and MRR system is that Armor Class is, by its very nature, a binary defense and binary defenses create spikey damage. Evasion, displacement and dodge already offer that playstyle. We wanted a more predictable (for the player) damage mitigation for armor.

Sev~

[Battlehawke]

Makes sense.






Some responses:
~ Energy Absorption is multiplicative and expressed as a percentage. That makes it a poor choice for adding bits of protection to many different enhancements. MRR is an additive rating.

~ Additionally, players are used to having resistance rating on armor and we wanted to follow the existing system.

~ The reason we don't revamp the armor class system (again) instead of using this PRR and MRR system is that Armor Class is, by its very nature, a binary defense and binary defenses create spikey damage. Evasion, displacement and dodge already offer that playstyle. We wanted a more predictable (for the player) damage mitigation for armor.

Sev~

[Exiledtyrant]

Some responses:

~ Energy Absorption is multiplicative and expressed as a percentage. That makes it a poor choice for adding bits of protection to many different enhancements. MRR is an additive rating.

~ Additionally, players are used to having resistance rating on armor and we wanted to follow the existing system.

~ The reason we don't revamp the armor class system (again) instead of using this PRR and MRR system is that Armor Class is, by its very nature, a binary defense and binary defenses create spikey damage. Evasion, displacement and dodge already offer that playstyle. We wanted a more predictable (for the player) damage mitigation for armor.

Sev~


So AC and flat elemental resist/absorb for Heroic leveling and PRR and MRR/absorb for epic leveling then?

[Thumbed_Servant]

Kudos Severlin.

You have well thought out reasoning behind these changes, AND you express your answers in very concise and understandable language.

[Dagolar]

So AC and flat elemental resist/absorb for Heroic leveling and PRR and MRR/absorb for epic leveling then?

No. AC, Absorb, Dodge, Incorp, Evasion for chance at nil damage;
PRR, MRR, DR, and Resist for damage reduction.

The best way to view it is to treat PRR and MRR as updated versions of DR, and dodge as a variant overlap of Incorp and AC.

In other words, it's basically the core D&D system, just expanded into more forms, and adjusted to react to a system with far, far higher hit point and damage expressions.


[Assuming MRR/PRR values stay the same as current PRR values, and noting that Resist/DR always acts before any other reductions-
Even a 30 resist energy would still be worth about 15 points less elemental damage, assuming 50% damage reduction from MRR.]

[BigErkyKid]

Some responses:



~ The reason we don't revamp the armor class system (again) instead of using this PRR and MRR system is that Armor Class is, by its very nature, a binary defense and binary defenses create spikey damage. Evasion, displacement and dodge already offer that playstyle. We wanted a more predictable (for the player) damage mitigation for armor.

Sev~

Thanks for the answer.

Please do note that for armor wearers AC is what substitutes dodge and incorporeality.

The difference is that dodge caps fairly low with heavy armor (4-6% vs 20-25%) and incorporeality can only be on the low end (10% vs 25%), so the majority of the to miss chance has to come from AC for armor clad lads.

Just for the sake of the example, lets see what the AC to miss would have to be for an armored player if it was to cover the difference in dodge and incorporeality.

Assume 20% dodge, 25% incorporeality for the monk splash and 5% dodge, 10% incorporeality for the armored. Both have displacement.

The to miss chance of the monk splash is: 1-0.3= 0.7

> .8*.5*.75
[1] 0.3

And for the guy in heavy armor: 1-0.42= 0.58

> .95*.5*.90
[1] 0.4275

So armor would have to make up for that difference. I guess it is complicated to balance since there is PRR and now MRR involved. But please do keep in mind that in order to get a working AC that at least covers up that difference, the guy with armor has to invest a lot more in terms of AP that the monk splash (or saw swash).

1% dodge works with bosses and regardless of the level of the mob, but 1 AC ( or 10 AC, whatever) does not. In order to get AC to work, you need to invest in the defender trees. A simple armor is not going to cut it even for epic hard. You need to boost it with fairly heavy AP investments (up enough in the tree for it to be 50% or whatever to the original base).

Defender trees offer mostly defensive abilities, so locking 20-30 APs into them is a very big drawback. This only to get an AC that offers a bit of defense as opposed to being completely ignored. Compare that to the low hanging fruit of shadow veil or wearing a dodge item. Furthermore, AC is particularly bad against bosses, whereas dodge and incorp. work wonders on them.

Given that bosses in end game hit like trucks, if your to miss is bad odds are that PRR cannot save you for very long. Specially for those builds that wear heavy armor but are not necessarily fully invested in shield and what not.

So to sum it up, the way I see it AC is what armored guys get instead of dodge and incorporeality. However, AC costs a lot more in AP and is not as useful in all situations (bosses). I therefore ask that at least you guys consider giving it a slight boost or at least bring it closer to the heroic baseline (which is, I suspect, the one that has been trully calibrated).

PS - Important!! For bosses with true seeing, this difference magnifies! Up to .25 in the to miss is huge.

> .95*.90
[1] 0.855
> .8*.75
[1] 0.6

[droid327]

No. AC, Absorb, Dodge, Incorp, Evasion for chance at nil damage;
PRR, MRR, DR, and Resist for damage reduction.

The best way to view it is to treat PRR and MRR as updated versions of DR, and dodge as a variant overlap of Incorp and AC.



Ultimately it doesn't matter. % chance to avoid an attack and % damage reduction work out the same, in the long run. You can stack them with each other...people will do the math, figure out the opportunity costs, and maximize their net damage reduction with some optimal combination of RRs and Avoidances. A mix is likely to be far superior to maximizing one at the expense of the other.

The only wildcard is flat DR/elemental resists, since their usefulness depends on the size of incoming hits, not just the total amount of incoming damage.

[Firewall]

(...)~ The reason we don't revamp the armor class system (again) instead of using this PRR and MRR system is that Armor Class is, by its very nature, a binary defense and binary defenses create spikey damage. Evasion, displacement and dodge already offer that playstyle. We wanted a more predictable (for the player) damage mitigation for armor.

Sev~

So that means that AC is intended to be next to useless for most builds in Epic Elite content and will continue to give next to no mitigation for the heavy investment that needs to be made to be competitive with increasingly higher CR monsters with insane attack values? You don't even want to try to make it at least a tiny bit competitive with Dodge, Ghostly, Blur and Displacement in EE?

[Thar]

Right now all additional mitigation is weighted on the shield with no additional mitigation coming from heavier armor in spite of the stated objective "heavier armor and/or heavy or tower shields have an alternate mitigation". I suggest splitting it so that armor also gets part of the bonus :

Buckler: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Light Shield: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Heavy Shield: 1.5
Tower Shield: 1.5

Robes or Outfits: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Light Armor: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Medium Armor: 1.5
Heavy Armor: 1.5

(Unless of course the "heavier armor and/or" part of the objective was a typo.)

and give evasion back to heavy shield users. There is NO GOOD REASON to make that change after 8 years of the game. As a paying member, I want a producer to give us the reason why what I bought is being changed.

[Thar]

Why are light armor evasion users getting nerf'd more? We already give up a ton to get evasion and now losing heavy shields for light. *yes no good named light shields in the game at any level...

What does a 28 fighter give up for evasion, small increase in dex bonus and increase in dodge cap that is hard to max on tank with no inate dodge in the class?

Alacrity: * +2 Strength

+15% Doublestrike
+15% Doubleshot
+2 Action Boost uses
+2 to the DCs of all Tactical Feats

or

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.)

+ 15 heavy armor ac bonus * ac buffs from class
+ 1/2 base attack bonus + 4 prr = 15 reduction prr
+ tower shield ac 3
+ tower shield prr 10 (shield master feats)


What does a 28 pally give up for evasion?

You gain +2 Charisma, and increase the bonuses granted by Courage of Heaven by an additional +2. Any weapon you wield is considered Good aligned for purposes of bypassing damage reduction, deal 1d6 additional holy damage against evil opponents and an additional 2d6 light damage against evil undead or evil outsiders.

or

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.

+ 15 heavy armor ac bonus
+ 1/2 base attack bonus ( + 4 prr difference) = 15 prr loss



Dev suggestion to limit shields to light or less for evasion causes the further hit for more AC and more PRR. Yes it's not a lot but really... stop changing things for the worse. It's hard enough to keep up with the heavy armor tanks now and giving them 73% mrr magic damage mitigation will make us all but useless to start.

further decrease in prr (shield mastery feats of 7prr) + less 3 AC and 1 DR blocking for heavy and more AC and 5 prr for fighters with tower shield use.

At this point in the game we should not be further changing the base game rules that have existed for years. only add benefits to those classes/abilities that need a boost.

[CaptainSpacePony]

For those evasion builds that you are hurting, will we be receiving LR20 stones to redo our characters???

Which--the large shield evasion builds? Not a lot of those running around, since they tend to be... less strong.

Buffing non-evasion builds is NOT an evasion nerf, of did I misunderstand your point?

[Vaidan]

I have a few things that could be considered for further implementation

Players have long lamented about how mithral and adamantine have been nerfed into uselessness by previous updates.


For mithral and adamantine, why not divide it into a few ranks, each having better ac and bonuses, similar to skirmish, battle and magecraft type progression.

This way, they are still craftable and competitive armors.

Each would then have bonuses based on traditional flavor attributes.


For instance, mithral flavor-wise has been associated with spellcasters. Why not make mithral have additional magic dr compared to other equivalent armors.

And for adamantine, physical resistance due to its association with durability and strength.





Over all, I love this new system. It adds a depth of flavor to the game, while still adding a very playable and workable feature.

The only thing I would suggest out of concern is to add some magic resist to orbs, as to show caster ability to use them as a sort of "counterspell" device. Else it is much more viable just to go eldritch knight and pick up a shield, thus taking away some of the diversity of the game.


Once again, keep up the great work :D

[lyrecono]

Physical and Magical Resist Ratings offered by armor
Robes or Outfits: No PRR, no MRR
Light Armor: 10 PRR, 10 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 2 + (BAB / 2.0) )
Medium Armor: 20 PRR, 20 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 4 + (BAB / 1.5) )
Heavy Armor: 30 PRR, 30 MRR if armor has enchantments. (This is in addtion to the current PRR bonus of 6 + BAB )



Sev~


Yes.

Mithral Body will be treated as Light armor and provide 10 PRR.
Adamantine Body will be treated as Heavy Armor and provide 30 PRR.

Sev~

Good news for adam body users (the both of them), but the other part of it is still broken (the 6+BAB part), it currently only gives your BAB (no +6) to your prr, is this going to fixed too?
More info here: prr on ddo wiki (http://ddowiki.com/page/PRR)

[bbqzor]

Why are light armor evasion users getting nerf'd more? We already give up a ton to get evasion and now losing heavy shields for light..

Look, you need to total up the maths of what the changes do. Evasion is not getting nerfed, it is getting buffed. Changing from Heavy to Light shields isnt getting nerfed, its getting buffed (with the caveat that you have to trust they will add worthwhile light shields... Ill come back to that).

Right now, if you want to do a light armor, s/b, evasion guy (assuming BAB of 28 via divine power or divine crusader or whatever) you get 16 PRR for your armor. And (if you take both shield mastery feats) you get 10 PRR for your shield.

Post changes, doing the same exact guy, you will get 26 PRR for your light armor. And, with the same feats, you will get 10 PRR for your shield. The passive prr shield bonus covers the loss on the feats, and youre still up the PRR from the armor changes.

If you did not take any of the shield feats, then you GAIN the 5 passive shield PRR for light shield. Meaning you are up 15 PRR total.

Then, you still get your exact same evasion chance now, but you have 36 MRR (from the 36 prr above) which also applies (or 31 if no shield mastery). Plus, of course, whatever other PRR/MRR you have which adds here as well. So it makes survivability better there too.

There is no single thing that goes down from this change. Nothing. Its 100% all gain all the time....

... except the shield itemization issue. The fact that you are basically forced to gamble the light shields they add will directly and fairly compared to what heavy shields offer stat wise is a risk. It is. But its not one thats much different over time than anything else. Whatever shields are good now wont be good forever. Same for any item. Over time, everyone makes that gamble. Its not something anyone should be happy about, but its also not anything un-ordinary. Here its just heavily forced, with no other option, and no precedent of even a fallback item... its literally whatever they add, hope its good enough, because theres no alternative light shield out there you can hang onto in the interim.

So I wont say theres no risk. But thats independent of the mechanics changes. Mechanically, there is no s/b evasion nerf. There isnt. Everything else got better, okay fine. But so did this. As for the itemization devs, well... just have to hope they make good. EVERYONE is in that same boat. We dont even have enough bucklers yet, and almost no one would say the two they added are even all that appealing let alone remotely adequate. Hopefully there are quite a few new shields, for everyone and all shield kinds, that go in as a result of this. Otherwise theres gonna be a lot of people using the same 1 decent shield of each type....

[sirgog]

Some responses:

~ Energy Absorption is multiplicative and expressed as a percentage. That makes it a poor choice for adding bits of protection to many different enhancements. MRR is an additive rating.

~ Additionally, players are used to having resistance rating on armor and we wanted to follow the existing system.

~ The reason we don't revamp the armor class system (again) instead of using this PRR and MRR system is that Armor Class is, by its very nature, a binary defense and binary defenses create spikey damage. Evasion, displacement and dodge already offer that playstyle. We wanted a more predictable (for the player) damage mitigation for armor.

Sev~


I think you should overhaul the resists/absorb system for elements.

Resists work OK in pen and paper D&D until about level 14 when they start to break down. 20 points off an 8d6 fireball is relevant. 30 points off a 16d6 DBF is less relevant.

In DDO, with spell power on both players and mobs, it doesn't work well at all. 30 resist is almost godmode on epic normal, but almost meaningless on epic elite (except against hostile archers or DOTs). It becomes a case of 'Resists are nice to have but not worth effort; otherwise % mitigation is essential'. A resist spell should feel relevant against a Delayed Blast Fireball.

Proposed fix:

Note that this would break some heroic elite traps. All heroic elite traps of note (Waterworks acid tunnel and STK fire room especially) would need rebalancing by hand, as those traps are currently balanced under the assumption that the players have guild resists on elite.

Add eight resistance ratings. Fire, acid, elec, cold, sonic, positive, negative, other. Each works like the proposed MRR (except positive and negative which might need a different look).

Then, change all existing 'resist' effects to give enhancement bonuses to the relevant resistance. All absorb effects give exceptional bonuses to resistance. Ablative effects (Protection from Elements) remains as-is, but is applied *last*. Resist Elements could simply become '+50 resist fire rating' independent of caster level, and low level gear might provide 30 resist fire rating while high level might grant 50.

The benefit here is that you reduce complexity. Once you understand physical mitigation, you get to understand elemental mitigation for free, rather than them having totally different systems. Currently elemental mitigation is a confusing mess - only a small minority of players could tell you what happens correctly if you are hit by a 600 damage DBF, make your save, have Fireshield Cold, 33% fire absorb, 15% fire absorb, a 40 resist fire item and Protection from Elements: Fire active.

[Terebinthia]

The two main comments are have are as follows

1. Where is the love for casters using robes? Does seem silly that they need to armour up.

2. Please for the love of Pete don't make any lootgen items with these - I play caster / melee hybrids and slotting what I have to slot already is getting ridiculous. Plus it dilutes the loot tables even further and we have enough issues with that as it is.

[Thar]

Which--the large shield evasion builds? Not a lot of those running around, since they tend to be... less strong.

Buffing non-evasion builds is NOT an evasion nerf, of did I misunderstand your point?

he's making large sheild not work with evasion so any evasion monks, pally, fighter splashes will lose their abillity to use the shields that so far in the game have been designed for them and throw away characters that have had this ability for 8 years. nothing in the game should be changed in a negative way after 8 years.

yes those builds are less strong dps wise, but they give it up to do what they do tanking. so why make them worse? why make them throw away equipment and raid items to keep them at a level less good ac and prr wise as today. For what purpose does this accomplish to limit heavy shields as if you wear heavy armor you already aren't able to use evasion so it's blocked for the primary focus of this change. the only gain for this build would be x2 on mrr for failed reflex saves which you either are failing on a 1 if you have good saves without the feats that prevent fails on a 1 or your so/so on evasion and hoping for a good roll anyway. So the x2 would help those build and it's this what it's all about to help the dps/tanks?

[Thar]

The two main comments are have are as follows

1. Where is the love for casters using robes? Does seem silly that they need to armour up.


Casters will continue to be one shotted by the massive damage... That really needs to be scaled down, not giving 2x mrr to compensate.

[Thar]

Look, you need to total up the maths of what the changes do. Evasion is not getting nerfed, it is getting buffed. Changing from Heavy to Light shields isnt getting nerfed, its getting buffed (with the caveat that you have to trust they will add worthwhile light shields... Ill come back to that).

Right now, if you want to do a light armor, s/b, evasion guy (assuming BAB of 28 via divine power or divine crusader or whatever) you get 16 PRR for your armor. And (if you take both shield mastery feats) you get 10 PRR for your shield.

Post changes, doing the same exact guy, you will get 26 PRR for your light armor. And, with the same feats, you will get 10 PRR for your shield. The passive prr shield bonus covers the loss on the feats, and youre still up the PRR from the armor changes.

If you did not take any of the shield feats, then you GAIN the 5 passive shield PRR for light shield. Meaning you are up 15 PRR total.

Then, you still get your exact same evasion chance now, but you have 36 MRR (from the 36 prr above) which also applies (or 31 if no shield mastery). Plus, of course, whatever other PRR/MRR you have which adds here as well. So it makes survivability better there too.

There is no single thing that goes down from this change. Nothing. Its 100% all gain all the time....

... except the shield itemization issue. The fact that you are basically forced to gamble the light shields they add will directly and fairly compared to what heavy shields offer stat wise is a risk. It is. But its not one thats much different over time than anything else. Whatever shields are good now wont be good forever. Same for any item. Over time, everyone makes that gamble. Its not something anyone should be happy about, but its also not anything un-ordinary. Here its just heavily forced, with no other option, and no precedent of even a fallback item... its literally whatever they add, hope its good enough, because theres no alternative light shield out there you can hang onto in the interim.

So I wont say theres no risk. But thats independent of the mechanics changes. Mechanically, there is no s/b evasion nerf. There isnt. Everything else got better, okay fine. But so did this. As for the itemization devs, well... just have to hope they make good. EVERYONE is in that same boat. We dont even have enough bucklers yet, and almost no one would say the two they added are even all that appealing let alone remotely adequate. Hopefully there are quite a few new shields, for everyone and all shield kinds, that go in as a result of this. Otherwise theres gonna be a lot of people using the same 1 decent shield of each type....

you are assuming that the new items will be easily available and continue to be provided in future updates. how often do we get new shields in the game? one out of 4 updates? how you divide that by 2 as you now have to add new named bucklers and light sheilds to the mix. If at the same rate, we will see a new buckler or light shield once every 4 years for end game content. Did bucklers get updated for 1-28 in the last pass? do you really believe it will be a mass influx of new equipment for 28 (30) levels? There shouldn't be a mass change in development at this stage of the game that causes any nerfs to characters. And the nerf is the loss of further prr and AC to a build that already gave up a lot to get the protection that will be minimized in the update with the MRR changes so that evasion is almost not as useful as equipable items. Feats and character build choices shouldn't be minimized by equipment. It's not like this build is crazy op... it's weak dps as it is and needs help.

[Free2Pay]

Can a heavily armored fighter without destiny survive Subterrance explorer with this change?

Can a heavily armored fighter without destiny survive Elite Enter the Kobold without healing with this change?

Can a heavily armored fighter without destiny survive Elite A New Invasion without healing with this change?

Mind you, most caster/range type can. I'll only comment once this 3 minimum benchmarks are passed.

[Scrabbler]

he's making large sheild not work with evasion so any evasion monks, pally, fighter splashes will lose their abillity to use the shields that so far in the game have been designed for them and throw away characters that have had this ability for 8 years. nothing in the game should be changed in a negative way after 8 years.
They should create some crafting ingredient that'll turn any interesting named Heavy Shield into a Light Shield, and vice-versa. Put it in some chests, and also gift them to players when the update launches.

[Loromir]

After reading up on all of this, it just feels like they are giving steroids to everybody now. All Melees are going to be "Hulks" now, even the elves. I know no one likes nerfs, but it just seems they are going at this all backwards.

Epic Destinies and the Enhancement pass really added a ton of power to the masses, now everyone will be even stronger.


I'm not sure what the solution is, but I fear we are going down a slippery path here, and one we can't possibly return from.

[Seikojin]

I think you should overhaul the resists/absorb system for elements.

Resists work OK in pen and paper D&D until about level 14 when they start to break down. 20 points off an 8d6 fireball is relevant. 30 points off a 16d6 DBF is less relevant.

In DDO, with spell power on both players and mobs, it doesn't work well at all. 30 resist is almost godmode on epic normal, but almost meaningless on epic elite (except against hostile archers or DOTs). It becomes a case of 'Resists are nice to have but not worth effort; otherwise % mitigation is essential'. A resist spell should feel relevant against a Delayed Blast Fireball.

Proposed fix:

Note that this would break some heroic elite traps. All heroic elite traps of note (Waterworks acid tunnel and STK fire room especially) would need rebalancing by hand, as those traps are currently balanced under the assumption that the players have guild resists on elite.

Add eight resistance ratings. Fire, acid, elec, cold, sonic, positive, negative, other. Each works like the proposed MRR (except positive and negative which might need a different look).

Then, change all existing 'resist' effects to give enhancement bonuses to the relevant resistance. All absorb effects give exceptional bonuses to resistance. Ablative effects (Protection from Elements) remains as-is, but is applied *last*. Resist Elements could simply become '+50 resist fire rating' independent of caster level, and low level gear might provide 30 resist fire rating while high level might grant 50.

The benefit here is that you reduce complexity. Once you understand physical mitigation, you get to understand elemental mitigation for free, rather than them having totally different systems. Currently elemental mitigation is a confusing mess - only a small minority of players could tell you what happens correctly if you are hit by a 600 damage DBF, make your save, have Fireshield Cold, 33% fire absorb, 15% fire absorb, a 40 resist fire item and Protection from Elements: Fire active.

Hi hais Sirgog! I haven't seen a post from you in a while. LOL

I think it should be this way too. Why not remove complexity and therefore reduce lag.

Also, I think it is time for a lam build.

[Scrabbler]

Notice that (with the same items and EDs) a pure Wizard28 will be better at melee than a pure Barbarian21? That's funny eh.

[bbqzor]

you are assuming that the new items will be easily available and continue to be provided in future updates
Again, this is true of all items. I do not think they will do a great job at this, they never do. But over time, all items are in this position. They need to do a better job here, and they seem to be aware of that, and thats the best the situation can be. Not sure what else to say... no item support is an issue which plagues many items, and I wish it was better, but it is what it is. Whos to say heavy shields dont get left out with all the focus on adding light shields and bucklers? Its a roll of the dice either way, and a whole issue to itself. It doesnt hinge on any of the mechanics proposed in the OP.


the nerf is the loss of further prr and AC
There was no loss of PRR, you gained PRR. Likewise, there was no AC loss directly... we would need to see the new items for that. In any event, losing a few points (light and heavy shields tend to be very close AC wise, unless the new items are a dramatic departure from this model) will not invalidate an entire build. Again, thats an issue with the items when they come up, and has nothing to do with any mechanics here.


a build that already gave up a lot to get the protection that will be minimized in the update with the MRR changes so that evasion is almost not as useful as equipable items
That could be said of a lot of builds. It is not specific to evasion s/b, clerics with heavy shields (as an example) gain tremendously. But not improving as much as someone else is not the same as being nerfed. If you want to make a case and outline some things that should be improved more, okay, but thats different from trying to say like evasion s/b lost any stats.. it didnt. It gained them. Not as much as someone else maybe but they went up.


Feats and character build choices shouldn't be minimized by equipment
It happens sometimes. As a design rule, its true, but in a game this varied it happens. Invisibility scrolls minimize the assistance of the hide skill, and those anyone can buy on a vendor. It doesnt mean hide is bad, just that you only take it for certain things. This is like that. Evasion s/b might look less good by comparison, but MRR does nothing against traps, and doesnt wholly prevent damage. Evasion s/b still has a use when raiding (chance for total avoidance) and questing (ability to work around traps while in party) both of which can be very useful at times. Against things like Miior, its even more critical, no amount of MRR is going to change that fight. Its not getting any worse mechanically, even if other people are seeming to gain a bit in some areas its helpful.


It's not like this build is crazy op... it's weak dps as it is and needs help.
It does gain DPS. Proposed 20 Melee Power (in the other thread) for using shield mastery feats. A direct DPS gain for this exact build.

Again, not seeing any nerfs. Maybe you think it doesnt gain enough ground relative to something else, but its not getting any nerfs anywhere. The item issue isnt a nerf until we see the items and can compare, and thats a risk everyone shares on every item in game, every update. Not sure what else to say. Obviously youre not happy with it, maybe you can find some specific things to suggest. The shield changeover doesnt make sense to me (its more work to do more shields, why do more work) but theyre set on doing it, said they will add the shields, and made sure that no one loses any ground stat wise, as shown in the posts here. What else can be done except wait for the shields to show up and feedback the stats?

[RKP]

As what was brought up by others, I hope you don't go the spellcraft route with melee power. We don't need another unwelcome skill mucking up our current builds. The simple way to do it is that melee power (and ranged power) should be based off BAB. Easy to do and it is a stat in the game. Pretty good idea since at epic level 28 your former BAB means little to nothing. The melee classes fighters, rangers, paladins, and barbarians have the best BAB so they would also have the best melee power rating. And it serves the further benefit of slightly moderating the power of caster and evasion builds/:cool:multiclasses which seems to be the point of where this is all going. Monks would get full bonuses when centered.


THINK ABOUT IT. IT MAKES SENSE.

[MisterTee01]

WHY must you insist on nerfing evasion with heavy shields? Didn't i show already why this is a bad idea for light armor tanks. You are destroying that build! Must I repeat that the evasion is not that much of a gain vs the loss of other abilitites, AC, PRR, AND now MRR that it's forcing builds to heavy armor OR to use light shields that don't exist.

WHY MUST YOU MAKE US REGRIND all new shields!

WILL you even make all new named light shields form lvls 1 to 28?

This contant change in mechanics really makes me want to quit this game. Pick a seat and move the car forward.

-This-

my tank is on his third "build" and equip set-up attempting to stay semi relevant. Nerfing the heavy shield + evasion combo will ruin his viability, yet again forcing another redesign. not fun

[Ayseifn]

As what was brought up by others, I hope you don't go the spellcraft route with melee power. We don't need another unwelcome skill mucking up our current builds. The simple way to do it is that melee power (and ranged power) should be based off BAB. Easy to do and it is a stat in the game. Pretty good idea since at epic level 28 your former BAB means little to nothing. The melee classes fighters, rangers, paladins, and barbarians have the best BAB so they would also have the best melee power rating. And it serves the further benefit of slightly moderating the power of caster and evasion builds/:cool:multiclasses which seems to be the point of where this is all going. Monks would get full bonuses when centered.


THINK ABOUT IT. IT MAKES SENSE.

Casters get tensors or divine power to make BAB=level, both of those spells can be made permanent on them too. BAB from epic levels is only 1 every two levels, so a 28 fighter only has 24 BAB while a 28 cleric has 28. BAB also continues to scale and give benefits after 20 so is far from worthless, unless you're a caster because you can just cast divine power and ignore it.

[Thar]

Some responses:

~ Energy Absorption is multiplicative and expressed as a percentage. That makes it a poor choice for adding bits of protection to many different enhancements. MRR is an additive rating.

~ Additionally, players are used to having resistance rating on armor and we wanted to follow the existing system.

~ The reason we don't revamp the armor class system (again) instead of using this PRR and MRR system is that Armor Class is, by its very nature, a binary defense and binary defenses create spikey damage. Evasion, displacement and dodge already offer that playstyle. We wanted a more predictable (for the player) damage mitigation for armor.

Sev~

Will energy absorption stack with mrr?

73% MRR with shield + 33% absorb item +30% absorb item +28% absorb item....+50% resis +50% energy shieth + ship buffs. What will you take from a 2000 hp dragon blast... 76 pts of damage?

IS that REALLY what you want every heavy armor /heavy shield class capable of?

[Thar]

-This-

my tank is on his third "build" and equip set-up attempting to stay semi relevant. Nerfing the heavy shield + evasion combo will ruin his viability, yet again forcing another redesign. not fun

/signed

[Ayseifn]

Will energy absorption stack with mrr?

73% MRR with shield + 33% absorb item +30% absorb item +28% absorb item....+50% resis +50% energy shieth + ship buffs. What will you take from a 2000 hp dragon blast... 76 pts of damage?

IS that REALLY what you want every heavy armor /heavy shield class capable of?

Well with all those items and buffs sans any MRR at all you'd take what, 137 points of damage?

Maybe you're right though and MRR needs to be better.

[Thar]

Well with all those items and buffs sans any MRR at all you'd take what, 137 points of damage?

Maybe you're right though and MRR needs to be better.

Better? you can heal that with cocoon. That will cause everyone in the game to slap on heavy armor whether proficient or not to get the damage reduction when needed. Casters can do eldrich knight, everyone else takes a penalty to skills... oh my... like you use skills all that often. I see what they are trying to do with the x2 shield thing and give you a reason to have a shield on but it's too much and will break the game and make magic damage an afterthought for most people who build for it.

73% if it stacks with absorption/energy sheath needs to be knocked down to max 40%

[geoffhanna]

I've written a whole article on this but it is long and couched in blogspeak (http://www.gamergeoff.com/melee-power-is-a-bad-idea-and-this-is-why/). I want to have actual input on this that is read by a dev, so I am summarizing here too. Apologies if this is redundant.


Please consider removing Melee Power from epic leveling altogether. This does not enhance the leveling process and is just power creep. Add it to Masters Blitz only.
Please implement Melee Power all at once. Change all of the static enhancements that will use of Melee Power, now, all at once, not gradually during the normal tree rework process which will take years. This was how Spell Power was done too.
Please promise us now - and I mean pinky swear, for reals - that Thunder-Forged weapons will get Melee Power added to them before you create any new weapons with Melee Power attributes. Or simultaneously.



There, that wasn't so bad. And it didn't take me 1100 words this time. :)

[Krelar]

That will cause everyone in the game to slap on heavy armor whether proficient or not to get the damage reduction when needed.

You don't get PRR from armor if you're not proficient in it. I imagine it will be the same with MRR.

[Free2Pay]

Yet again, casters in robe demanding to have the same damage mitigation as heavily armored fighters. Light armored evasion tank wants damage mitigation on par with heavily armored fighters.

Fine, the solution: allow evasion in any armor. Gives fighters mass AOE instant death abilities that caster currently enjoys. Expand Shiradi to twf, swf and THF. Gives fighter 30% incorporeal. Gives fighter a fury/multi-throw ability. Gives fighter some knockback/earthquake abilities. Create a new feat call Insightful strength that add strength modifier to saves similar to how caster have Insightful reflexes and Force of Personality to use their main damage stats for saves. A new stance that adds con modifier to AC while uncentered.

[9001]

For everyone talking about shields and evasion, ac, etc. Don't forget that this change isn't happening in a vacuum. They've stated that they want to add some new light shields (and they should, and more orbs too while they're at it) and I'm pretty sure they said they're looking at AC levels too.

[Indianwiz]

Yet again, casters in robe demanding to have the same damage mitigation as heavily armored fighters.

Yes because the damage of EE mobs are too high, each and every mob in EE is a HP bloat, which makes casters' damage pitiful. Without evasion, AC, horrible PRR the only way to avoid death is to jump like a monkey all around the map. D&D provides some awesome abjuration and illusion spells for defense but of course no idea when we will get even the basic one (Mirror Image), forget epic spells.

So yes, this PRR, MRR changes will be useless for casters and we will be whining till devs do something about it.

[9001]

Yes because the damage of EE mobs are too high, each and every mob in EE is a HP bloat, which makes casters' damage pitiful. Without evasion, AC, horrible PRR the only way to avoid death is to jump like a monkey all around the map. D&D provides some awesome abjuration and illusion spells for defense but of course no idea when we will get even the basic one (Mirror Image), forget epic spells.

So yes, this PRR, MRR changes will be useless for casters and we will be whining till devs do something about it.

Was thinking about this, and I got to thinking, why is it that casters should be taking as many hits as melees? Maybe there's a way to have casters just not being attacked AS much? I'm certain it would at least mitigate the problem, but I can't really speak for high level content at the moment as I haven't played much of it. Any clarification on that would be appreciated.

[Hoglum]

~ The reason we don't revamp the armor class system (again) instead of using this PRR and MRR system is that Armor Class is, by its very nature, a binary defense and binary defenses create spikey damage. Evasion, displacement and dodge already offer that playstyle. We wanted a more predictable (for the player) damage mitigation for armor.

Sev~

Damage should always have some risk of spikeyness. There should always be some chance of a big shot or series of shots that drop you fairly fast. Combat shouldn't be predictable and smooth. That's what makes it exciting. I don't understand how this is considered a "playstyle".

Why would you make the results of getting attacked by a vicious demon from the pits of hades "predictable"?

Let's go to Gianthold Tor and having a pillowfight.

[Qhualor]

Yes because the damage of EE mobs are too high, each and every mob in EE is a HP bloat, which makes casters' damage pitiful. Without evasion, AC, horrible PRR the only way to avoid death is to jump like a monkey all around the map. D&D provides some awesome abjuration and illusion spells for defense but of course no idea when we will get even the basic one (Mirror Image), forget epic spells.

So yes, this PRR, MRR changes will be useless for casters and we will be whining till devs do something about it.

Sounds WAI to me. There's very little trade off left in this game.

[Ayseifn]

Yes because the damage of EE mobs are too high, each and every mob in EE is a HP bloat, which makes casters' damage pitiful. Without evasion, AC, horrible PRR the only way to avoid death is to jump like a monkey all around the map. D&D provides some awesome abjuration and illusion spells for defense but of course no idea when we will get even the basic one (Mirror Image), forget epic spells.

So yes, this PRR, MRR changes will be useless for casters and we will be whining till devs do something about it.

If this change is so strong arcanes can invest into the EK tree for med armour and heavy shields, if not skip it. Don't see why you're complaining about being left out, there's options available.

[Nascoe]

If this change is so strong arcanes can invest into the EK tree for med armour and heavy shields, if not skip it. Don't see why you're complaining about being left out, there's options available.

If anything, I would say that adding mrr (do they offer PRR?) to spells and SLA like Mage Armor and Shield (maybe shield of faith etc too?) might be a good one to give these a bit of a bonus for their use and be an incentive to keep spellcasters in robes.

But otherwise, I agree that the whole idea here is to make melee a bit less behind spellcasters and getting close to being as viable as ranged.

[Ladislaio]

Will Pulverizer be updated to stack with competence bonuses, such as most heroic crit improvement abilities?

[Singular]

Ok, so I'm a bit worried about making these new melee power and ranged power abilities like spellpower - are you also going to be increasing the number of ability points or are we just going to lose out now?

Second, I think casters should get some kind of MRR simply b/c they're casters. Sorcs should get it w/in their element and Wizards as perhaps a more universal MRR.

[Free2Pay]

I think Barbarians should be able to squeeze heads like watermelons (no saving throw) b/c they are barbarians too.

Giving caster MRR is just icing on top of cake. It will just make making decision at Character Creation much much easier.

[Scraap]

~ The reason we don't revamp the armor class system (again) instead of using this PRR and MRR system is that Armor Class is, by its very nature, a binary defense and binary defenses create spikey damage. Evasion, displacement and dodge already offer that playstyle. We wanted a more predictable (for the player) damage mitigation for armor.
Sev~

As it stands at present, you can trade spike-strength damage from spells for spike-strength damage from physical hits by going one extreme or the other armor-wise, or have moderate spikes from both by mixing the two. Except in the case of monk in earth stance, which gains near the top end of both due to both improved evasion, and the diminishing returns caused by over-itemization of the last 'make every point count' notion implemented. Would you mind further elaborating on the intent behind the methodology?

[Thar]

As it stands at present, you can trade spike-strength damage from spells for spike-strength damage from physical hits by going one extreme or the other armor-wise, or have moderate spikes from both by mixing the two. Except in the case of monk in earth stance, which gains near the top end of both due to both improved evasion, and the diminishing returns caused by over-itemization of the last 'make every point count' notion implemented. Would you mind further elaborating on the intent behind the methodology?

I'd like to know their intent between balancing evasion builds and improved evasion builds vs the new armor changes. Do we want rangers yelling foul in a month when evasion is behind the others with save DC's being beyond what one can realistically obtain on some builds?

[Thar]

For everyone talking about shields and evasion, ac, etc. Don't forget that this change isn't happening in a vacuum. They've stated that they want to add some new light shields (and they should, and more orbs too while they're at it) and I'm pretty sure they said they're looking at AC levels too.

It will happen but what happens after?

Will we get 4 new shields every update? When the cap hits 30? You realistically see maybe one tower shield or heavy every 2-4 updates now. At that rate you will not get enough light shield for 2-4 years? What is the point? Make them heavy and get rid of the light shield category. Just like medium armor will be a lost cause soon and you hardly ever see a good med armor. Heavy will get you more prr and mrr and thunderforged has better effects on heavy. Spend a feat and use that instead. It's better than the epic dr feat.

Orbs? good idea, bad implementation. blocking to get bonus... who's idea was that. i get the point, you get more ac when blocking so keep it similar but it seems counter productive... fireball coming. i can run away from it and hopefully it will miss me or i can grab this orb and brace for impact....

improved evasion builds don't get heavy shields if i recall (rogues and monks) What is the harm with letting the other builds keep evasion with the changes? MRR boost? well you can look at it one of two ways. Either they are really high reflex builds where it wouldn't matter, they are making the save anyway, or on the rare chance they roll a 1 they take reduced damage. so 5% of the time it's not as bad as it would be but since not in heavy armor the prr isn't that high so it's still a decent boom (if they don't have the don't miss save on 1 feats) OR they have a so so reflex as their build isn't focused on it and evasion is just a side benefit that sometimes helps. IE str fighter with evasion vs dex fighter. So they are probably using a shield as a oops need to tank a boss or jack of all trades role. They are probably missing the save frequently and this melee is the type we need to help with the changes. So the impact of regular evasion is minimal with the shield changes.

improved evasion could be different as it's an added level of protection beyond evasion on a missed roll but how many lvl 12 monks or rogues run around with a shield. none... that i can ever recall.

does anyone else wish mithral and adamantine was still in the game? too bad those extra effects were taken out.

The other changes won't necessarily impact non fighters/pally's so it is really a vaccuum? it seems to be. The shield change is all about nerfing evasion (not improved evasion).

[Synthetic]

improved evasion could be different as it's an added level of protection beyond evasion on a missed roll but how many lvl 12 monks or rogues run around with a shield. none... that i can ever recall.



Would having evasion, and a large shield be the same as having improved evasion? By not allowing evasion plus a large shield they maybe protecting improved evasion as a valid choice, which requires a deep investment in certain classes or a T5 ranger enhancement.

[Bannith]

I don't quite understand why force bane etc bypass mrr that makes no sense consider MRR is specifically designed to block some of the damage magic does and help tanks withstand more punishment. Seems like its just giving a bypass for some of the more common and potent spells that u actually want to reduce such as those magic missile spams that mobs sometimes do and the occasional failed save on a disintegration.

Basically what I'm trying to say here is make MRR block ALL types of magic damage but maybe add something to Spell penetration for player casters (assuming monsters are going to receive MRR as well) I think a fair rate to this for players would be a % reduction to the effectiveness of MRR gained from spell penetration feats/enhancements and maybe an inate factor based on level. In any case it should cap out in the range of 25-40% so as not to break the purpose of MRR in the first place.

For monsters I'd say a factor of .5% per CR sounds fair it goes up to a healthy 35% at CR 70 which is rather common in EE.

To me this makes a little more sense than THESE SPELL TYPES IGNORE WHATS SUPPOSED TO MAKE YOU RESIST THEM and allows the caster player or otherwise to "break" a little of that invisible magic barrier that tank worked so hard to make without completely negating its purpose. Forgive me if I'm outta line but I'd rather my MRR work than be bypassed cause some kobold keeps spamming magic missiles. -Bannith

Edit: I believe i should clarify on how this % should work the so for an example lets say a caster has 50% MRR penetration they wouldn't simply negate 50% of it they'd reduce the overall by 50% so 50% reduction becomes 25% etc.

[Ladislaio]

It doesn't seem that this has been brought up yet, but mayhap it would be a good idea to release a set of thunderholme shields - buckler, small, large, and tower - which have good AC values and can be crafted on just like normal thunderforged items. I imagine some tanks would *really* enjoy having the options of a DPS shield in their preferred shield weight, esp if the shield bashing chances go up at all(maybe even add a t1 that gives 20% bash chance to a shield? wouldn't really need that tho).

[9001]

It will happen but what happens after?

Will we get 4 new shields every update? When the cap hits 30? You realistically see maybe one tower shield or heavy every 2-4 updates now. At that rate you will not get enough light shield for 2-4 years? What is the point? Make them heavy and get rid of the light shield category. Just like medium armor will be a lost cause soon and you hardly ever see a good med armor. Heavy will get you more prr and mrr and thunderforged has better effects on heavy. Spend a feat and use that instead. It's better than the epic dr feat.

Orbs? good idea, bad implementation. blocking to get bonus... who's idea was that. i get the point, you get more ac when blocking so keep it similar but it seems counter productive... fireball coming. i can run away from it and hopefully it will miss me or i can grab this orb and brace for impact....

improved evasion builds don't get heavy shields if i recall (rogues and monks) What is the harm with letting the other builds keep evasion with the changes? MRR boost? well you can look at it one of two ways. Either they are really high reflex builds where it wouldn't matter, they are making the save anyway, or on the rare chance they roll a 1 they take reduced damage. so 5% of the time it's not as bad as it would be but since not in heavy armor the prr isn't that high so it's still a decent boom (if they don't have the don't miss save on 1 feats) OR they have a so so reflex as their build isn't focused on it and evasion is just a side benefit that sometimes helps. IE str fighter with evasion vs dex fighter. So they are probably using a shield as a oops need to tank a boss or jack of all trades role. They are probably missing the save frequently and this melee is the type we need to help with the changes. So the impact of regular evasion is minimal with the shield changes.

improved evasion could be different as it's an added level of protection beyond evasion on a missed roll but how many lvl 12 monks or rogues run around with a shield. none... that i can ever recall.

does anyone else wish mithral and adamantine was still in the game? too bad those extra effects were taken out.

The other changes won't necessarily impact non fighters/pally's so it is really a vaccuum? it seems to be. The shield change is all about nerfing evasion (not improved evasion).

I'd personally like to see more shield options for all levels and all kinds of shields, and orbs could use some changes (like partial bonuses without blocking, bleh blocking) and I guess heavy shields wouldn't help too much on evasion builds as to be game breaker, but I'd like to see what they can come up with for light shields at least. Hopefully they'll be open to changes on the armor system once it hits lamma. Maybe they could have light shields fill a niche (or maybe not if they're short on ideas...) but hopefully they'll work something out.

[Bhaub]

Just want to chime in here, please let heavy shields still work alongside evasion. You can make tower shields more effective at multiplying PRR/MRR (say, a multiplier of 2.25 or 2.5) and heavy shields less so (say, a multiplier of 1.5 or so), but I wouldn't be too concerned about shields breaking the game since many players ignore them in favor of, say, dual-wielding or using bows or spells. I can drop down to light shields *if you make me* but my build is not one that needs nerfing. What's the harm in having a light tank who has given up some DPS in order to use a heavy shield while still being evasive? Evasion characters might be good enough anyway, but they aren't using shields and even if you allow some benefit on heavy shields I predict that most players will continue to avoid using shields on evasive builds. Unless you are seeking to punish quirky creative player builds, I don't understand who the restriction is supposed to affect, or what you are afraid will happen. Trust me, I'm not going to get anywhere close to the PRR/MRR of a heavy armor tank even if you let me use heavy shields, so whatever multiplier I might benefit from will be affecting a much smaller initial number.

[Zurrander]

I have to agree with Bhaud that Tower Shields should be made more powerful (2.5x is fine) and that Heavy Shields should continue to allow Evasion. Evasion Characters already have to give up the best (Physical) defense in the game "Tower Shield/Heavy Armor" and in light of the fact that a cap to PRR/MRR has already been proposed for Light Armor i can't see any reason to deprive Evasion Tanks of Heavy Shields (which have the best effects in the game). The Intent of this Update is to make True Tanks "Tower Shield/Heavy Armor" viable in Epic Elite content (Which is Great), while also insuring that Evasion Tanks can't take advantage of this system to make True Tanks less Viable by comparison (also a great thing). What i don't understand is how Nerfing Evasion Tanks serves this, the Light Armor cap already stops them form achieving an unreasonable amount of PRR/MRR. I'm willing to wager that the majority of the player base would be fine with dropping Heavy Shields down to 1.5x if it allowed them to be used with Evasion, and that would also serve to set Tower Shields apart form Heavy as the Superior Defensive Option (with makes since considering the size and weight difference of the two "5x", as well as the Tower Shield penalties). But if this Evasion Nerf is already set in stone, then could we at least hold of on it until after some better Light Shields are introduced (maybe one that mimics "Wall of Wood")? Lastly, for those of you that think Heavy shields are to big/heavy to be used with evasion... Notice that they not only weigh a whopping 10 pounds, but they allow Full dodge! Why would a 10 pound shield that lets me dodge physical attacks to my hearts content stop me form "evading" magic? Sev - Please address the evasion nerf & be sure to keep up the good work!

[Karma]

I'm just wondering when this can be expected to be implemented?

[legendkilleroll]

While its nice that non evasion chars will be better against things like fireball, still one thing im wondering, not so much casters who use the larger shields but melee's

Yes, a tank can be nice in some situations, like the thunderholme raids, although characters without shields easily tank stuff, having a melee with a shield the damage is horrible, i had a CHA based paladin, great defenses but his melee dps was bad,luckily had energy burst, with the amount of damage people are doing these days, is sword and board even a good idea?

I have a SWF Bard atm who has the shield feats for the buckler, i know this apparently will be getting changed, which im not a big fan of, still costing you two feats and a Twist and what your gaining isnt game breaking but the problem with the larger shields is

You cant SWF, maybe that could be added to new vanguard tree, or stalwart/sacred tree, IDK if that would be too much, getting those benefits while wielding a heavy/tower shield, even as a tier5, not sure what others would think of this

THF line limits you to two weapons types, which cost a feat, well unless you go dwarf for the dwarven axe but even then they cost up to 3 more feats and people are not standing still all the time, especially EE

Ofc im not expecting sword and shield users to be up there with the top melee's, i just want them to be viable, especially with these changes were you wont have to have an evasion build

[Mahalko128]

This will probably arrive sometime in October (Halloween and all that nonsense) to coincide with the release of the epic version of Necropolis 4.

[jakeelala]

I think Barbarians should be able to squeeze heads like watermelons (no saving throw) b/c they are barbarians too.


You just Won DDO.

[autochthon]

While its nice that non evasion chars will be better against things like fireball, still one thing im wondering, not so much casters who use the larger shields but melee's

Yes, a tank can be nice in some situations, like the thunderholme raids, although characters without shields easily tank stuff, having a melee with a shield the damage is horrible, i had a CHA based paladin, great defenses but his melee dps was bad,luckily had energy burst, with the amount of damage people are doing these days, is sword and board even a good idea?

I have a SWF Bard atm who has the shield feats for the buckler, i know this apparently will be getting changed, which im not a big fan of, still costing you two feats and a Twist and what your gaining isnt game breaking but the problem with the larger shields is

You cant SWF, maybe that could be added to new vanguard tree, or stalwart/sacred tree, IDK if that would be too much, getting those benefits while wielding a heavy/tower shield, even as a tier5, not sure what others would think of this

THF line limits you to two weapons types, which cost a feat, well unless you go dwarf for the dwarven axe but even then they cost up to 3 more feats and people are not standing still all the time, especially EE

Ofc im not expecting sword and shield users to be up there with the top melee's, i just want them to be viable, especially with these changes were you wont have to have an evasion build
Most effective way to make S&B builds viable: Make having defenses on a character matter.

[PermaBanned]

Sorry if this has already been raised/addressed, I haven't this thread in it's entirety in a while. But...


This rating works on most magical effects. It will not reduce force, bane and some other special effects. Why is Force (among other things) excluded? Mitigation of Disintigrate and all other non-reflex based sources of Magical Damage would give Magical Resistance {and the higher values achievable by Heavy armor & Lrg/Twr shields} some serious value vs Evasion.

[Exiledtyrant]

Sorry if this has already been raised/addressed, I haven't this thread in it's entirety in a while. But...

Why is Force (among other things) excluded? Mitigation of Disintigrate and all other non-reflex based sources of Magical Damage would give Magical Resistance {and the higher values achievable by Heavy armor & Lrg/Twr shields} some serious value vs Evasion.

I think because untyped damage in general is supposed to be other wordly so there is no defense against it. That and most force spells are nullified by the shield spell.

[Eldradn]

This is the worst new I ever read about DDO. This will take away the last tiny bit that makes this game at feel a bit like D&D. If you are already at it ... why not just remove the d20 altogether? Honestly I really do not understand what Turbine wants to achieve with these kinds of things O_o ... why are you desperately trying to turn this game into just-another-wow-clone??? IMO, the ONLY reason this game lasted so long is because it was DIFFERENT, it had its D&D roots, lots of different character build options and it was pretty darn rough (in comparison to some other games).

To be a bit more specific:
.) When we had EPIC quests, they forced us to group up if we wanted to have realistic chances. We also needed at least somewhat balanced groups. The loot was really hard to get. Did people complain? Of course they did ... that's what people do after all. But we had an active endgame scene! Now that everyone and their grandma can solo epic elites faster than one can fill up an lfm, EE loot drops (mostly) being ridiculously frequent and additionally (mostly) available on the asah for cheap, we have no endgame scene to speak of. Yeah, sure there is a handful of people (like me) still grinding deathwyrm completions ... but on most PUGS I already know half the people joining, which effectively says it all.
.) When enhancement trees weren't so front loaded and overall character power was lower, we even needed to group up on heroic content! I can remember times when we would spend hours to finish an elite harbor quest, with multiple recalls while one was holding the instance and so on. That was fun! You really had to play TOGETHER, not just zerg alongside each other (don't get me wrong, zerging can be fun as well - but all the time???). Really, nowadays the only time I group up is when I want to run a raid - the rest of the time - why bother? Grouping just means spending a lot of time waiting to then zerg some dungeons silently/sleepwalking ...
.) When Turbine announced they would extend the game into epic levels, I was both excited and worried, because they announced they would only go to level 25 and in pen and paper the epic powercurve only starts to really rise at around level 30 - Turbines solution to this "problem" were destinies - which had nothing to do with D&D and will never have - of course I loved them in the beginning, because they were new stuff to try out - now I wished they were never introduced, as some abilities are simply so much more powerful than the rest that the number of viable builds is actually pretty darn short. Additionally Turbine balanced everything around these new abilities (just saying 300k hp for red named quest foes) and now they face the problem that if one does not use one of the few "cookie-cutter" builds, there is no way to even remotely catch up with the players who use them.
.) Then Turbine had the idea of ideas: Our players realized that AC is useless - so lets rework it! To make it simple: Old AC system: AC is useless unless completely maxed out, noone cares about it, but at least it is easy to understand and follows D&D rules. New AC system: AC is still rather useless - yes it is not as completely useless as before, but on the other hand incoming damage rose so high, that just a few hits mean instant death anyhow - in the end: Again noone cares, but the system is far more complex, not D&D and additionally all enhancements and items increasing player to-hit became completely useless (especially since in addition to the AC changes, grazing hits were buffed as well to make sure there really is no boon to having a high to-hit)
.) At the same time a new, again non-D&D, much more readily available source of damage mitigation became available: Dodge - So that now monks not only have improved evasion, awesome saves, dps, CC - na, lets give them the best defense as well -> the 6 monk splash became more or less inevitable for martial characters, as there aren't too many sources of: medium to high AC (around 100 AC no prob for monks), 28% dodge (ninja spy) and almost permanent 20% incorporality (ninja spy).
.) So ... lets add PRR and see if it makes a difference: it doesn't ...
.) We also had a pretty cool loot system ... until someone decided that solar V, deadly, accuracy and so on were a good idea ... I bet a lot of work was put into that system - effect of it? None, vendor trash is still vendor trash, but at least the vendor trash no longer has D&D enchantments on it O_o

So, now comes this new great idea:
Lets add MRR (that one I might - MIGHT - have kinda accepted), MP and RngP (I refuse to abbreviate it as RP O_o)
I mean - really??? This game has a lot of problems currently - these things will help NONE of them

What do I think these will have as effects?
MRR:
Evadable damage is so massive that when you put your character into a situation where you would normally really like to have evasion, MRR would need to be so high that it effectively was as powerful as evasion itself in order to make a real difference. That in turn would just mean that everyone would just TR there monk splashes into some heavy armor build - yay you moved the problem, but in the end its the same - there still is no choice in - do I want to be light and agile and thus very good in evading fireballs but in case some weapon hits me I'm dead vs. do I want to be a moving fortress of steel, impenetrable for weapons, but in case I get too much attention from casters, I m toast - if both systems provide the effectively same protections, you could just remove both system at once and just scale down the damage mobs do - saves on lag as well as there are less computations needed then.

MP and RngP:
"Boss, we got a problem!"
"Yes?"
"We have so many multiplicators for raw weapon damage that players ..."
"Yada, yada ... that's why we gave mobs ridiculous amount of hp, right?"
"... errr ..."
"And casters lots of ways to preserve SP while dealing ridiculous amounts of damage at the same time as well thanks to multiplicators"
"... ya, but ..."
"But? Is this about ability damage? Don't you remember to what THAT one lead? With current attack rates, we'd need to ridiculously inflates monster attributes as well ..."
"... na, not that one ..."
"What is it then? Don't bring up that pvp argument again - no one cares about pvp"
"Well, the players stopped caring about small elemental weapon procs from our enhancements as they are barely noticeable in epic elite content!"
"Hmmm, well then lets just add some multiplicators for weapon procs as well!"
"But, won't that ..."
"Increase the powercurve again? Hmmm, ya - just double all CR20+ foe's hp - that should fix it"
"... what about ..."
"Arcanes and divines? We could give them a way to increase their crit multiplicator - or maybe a new multiplicator? What about Arcane Power? Stacks with SPP multiplicatively ..."
"... wouldn't that be overkill?"
"Ya, let's just wait a bit on that one, so ..."
"But what about the power difference between destinies?"
"Well, haven't we already announced that we will revisit the weaker ones? Let's just give them some damage multiplicators as well - that should fix it - preferably without the annoying 50 charges for blitz"
...
D'OH

In my opinion Turbine should atm focus on:
.) Add incentives for grouping - epic elite SHOULD NOT BE INTENDED TO BE SOLOABLE!
.) Either add a new harder difficulty or make epic hard far harder than it is atm, then make only the hardest two difficulties drop epic loot - and at a far scarcer rate than the last packs (with exception of the raids which actually have a terrible drop rate)
.) Make some of the old packs free-to-play to draw in more players - really - was just in the situation that I gave advice to a returning player and two friends of mine considered starting to play DDO - only then one realizes how terrible the situation has become for FTP - really - when you start playing now, it is incredible demoralizing to see - yay 5% of the game are FTP, I won't be able to reach level cap, can't use epic abilities, can't run Sagas, ... and buying all of the available content and stuff exceeds what I earn in one month ... really? That's how you expect to recruit new players? As new content arrives and old content becomes more and more outdated some of it really should be given away for free!
.) Make loot rarer - yeah for a time it was cool to be able to get the best loot in no time (especially when time is a very limited resource) - but at the same time this means that content becomes more and more once and done - for example e3BC: I think I ran the chain twice (all except the last one on EE) and got all the loot I wanted (1xboots, 2xgloves, 2xrapier) - really, is that how you want to keep people busy? ... You know, only TR'ing all of the time becomes old as well ...
.) More D&D instead of less - be unique - not like the rest, there is no way DDO can hold its own once it looses its unique features
.) Make more builds viable that are actually different, making all builds equal does not increase build variety - it just makes the build irrelevant
.) Sometimes its okay to nerf things ...

Sooo ... spent more time than intended on this ... hope I managed to express my feelings about this proposed change in a somewhat understandable way^^

Some good ideas here some bad -- to begin DDO IS NOT PEN AND PAPER D&D IT HAS NEVER BEEN PEN AND PAPER D&D AND NEVER WILL BE -- THERE IS NO ACTIVE GM TO CONTROL PLAYERS ACTIONS AND BUILDS, AND THERE IS NO SOCIAL/UTILITARIAN ENCOUNTERS -- YOU DON'T OUTSMART TRAPS YOU JUST OPEN A BOX, YOU DON'T TALK TO IN GAME CHARACTERS YOU JUST CLICK ON FIXED OPTIONS -- SO THIS IS NOT PEN AND PAPER. PLEASE STOP CALLING FOR THIS GAME TO BE MORE LIKE SOMETHING IT HAS NEVER BEEN AND CAN NEVER BE.

That said, some ideas from pen and paper are good ideas (ON THEIR OWN MERITS, NOT BECAUSE THE COME FROM P&P). I agree that we need a more group oriented game -- EE should require a well built party and a great deal of effort, and EH should be MUCH harder than it is now (3BC content is a good start) -- but solo players should also have a path to the same gear -- consider something like what we have in Fall of Truth, except harder to level the gear up -- tier 1 drops on EN or EC difficulties along with items which are needed to upgrade/customize the gear -- players can run EN a LOT and level their gear up to tier 2 and finally tier 3, then customize it (I would add this to FOT and raid loot in general) or they can challenge themselves/put together a small or non-specialized party and run EH which would drop the gear at tier 2 and a larger amount of the items for customization, and EE which would be effectively impossible without a tank to soak up damage, a healer to keep the party alive, a caster to CC and buff and some mix of dps characters (melee or ranged or caster) would drop Tier 3 and even more upgrade ingredients -- so a few (say 10ish) EE runs would give you your perfect piece of gear out of the quest (all customization done), while for EH it might take 5 runs or so to get the item to tier 3, then another 20-25 runs to get all the customization done (so 25-30 EH runs = 10 EE runs) and it might take 5 EN runs to get the item to tier 2 and another 8 to get it to tier 3 plus another 40-50 EN runs for full customization (so 50-60 EN runs = 10 EE runs) -- now soloists can run EN or EH (and not have to wait for a party) while others put together a party (and maybe even run a few quests together) and run EH or EE and are compensated for difficulty of the quest and time spent forming the party with a much lower average number of runs to get the gear they want -- maybe even make characters gather items from multiple quests for certain customizations -- options are good, and devices which encourage players to play large amounts of content are good also -- low percentage random drops are bad (the guy who gets lucky on his first run gets to be uber, while everyone else runs the thing 50 times and doesn't get it -- instead make items guaranteed after a certain number of runs on the quest (choice of items after 5, 10, or 20 completions -- like the sagas, quality of the items depends on completion types), then give people a small number of ingredients to upgrade the items from each completion. Make more stuff BtA or BtC on acquire (that encourages partying with other people) -- duping has already destroyed the shard AH so making more items unbound will just reward dupers.

Making some of the old (and not to be epic) stuff, or the mostly ignored epics (like carnival) free is a great idea (for example IQ and Isle of Dreams would be GREAT) -- I own all content, but I know many players get scared away from the game around level 14 or 15 when the Free to Play content begins to run out, the falls off all together .

Re doing heroic past lives to make them more globally beneficial (NOT nerfing -- adding additional effects, preferably which scale with level).

Make self healing effects harder/more costly to attain -- move cocoon to tier 5, and make reconstruct a level 4 paladin spell for bladeforged (instead of a SLA) -- if not removing it altogether is is MASSIVELY op, and killing the need for party healers.

[autochthon]

Having a powerful racial self heal doesn't kill need for party healers. Having powerful heals available to every class and stacking together is killing party healers.

That being said: D20 system (roll 20 add value) simply doesn't work in like 99% of games. Especially so in an MMO. Because you just go into whatever ocntent you want and ignore levels etc. Exacerbated by the fact that 3.5 has several broken classes of actions (save or die being one of the biggest offenders).

[XodousRoC]

Having a powerful racial self heal doesn't kill need for party healers. Having powerful heals available to every class and stacking together is killing party healers.

That being said: D20 system (roll 20 add value) simply doesn't work in like 99% of games. Especially so in an MMO. Because you just go into whatever ocntent you want and ignore levels etc. Exacerbated by the fact that 3.5 has several broken classes of actions (save or die being one of the biggest offenders).

None of these things killed healers; we did. How many of us have a healer gathering dust? I almost never pug my FVS. Why? All the toons that lacked self-sufficiency held it against the healer everytime they got themselves killed by pulling more agro than they could manage and/or breaking the distance/line-of-sight metric that a healer has to conform to in order to give heals in the first place. People stopped running healers because it was no longer rewarding, and nobody likes being blamed for a wipe. Self-healing and self sufficiency is a direct result of people wanting to play and not being able to because no healers felt like running their quests or just lost interest in healing. They HAD to become self sufficient in order to run quests. Nerfing/removing the ability to self heal doesn't bring healers back to the pug scene...it kills it. I LOVE having a healer in any group in which I run, but there are frequently none available. They all do the same thing I do; run with guildies or friends and rarely pug due to the unrewarding experience a pug is. As a side note, I also enjoy running with self sufficient toons while playing my healer. It makes my job easier and makes the quests go much smoother. Taking away that self sufficiency in no way provides incentive for me to jump on my FVS and pug...it just removes the odd time that I currently do.

[Scraap]

So just to throw it out there... what exactly is stopping yall from simply adjusting armor and shield types themselves to being a PRR multiplier so that the heavy side is stellar vs physical and the light/robes end is stonger vs the magic end. (Maybe with a side of, as others have pointed out, fort or no-save spells having the MRR to further expand that niche on out. If you can call it a niche when the lions share of encounters we face contains more melee than casters.)

[lyrecono]

It doesn't seem that this has been brought up yet, but mayhap it would be a good idea to release a set of thunderholme shields - buckler, small, large, and tower - which have good AC values and can be crafted on just like normal thunderforged items. I imagine some tanks would *really* enjoy having the options of a DPS shield in their preferred shield weight, esp if the shield bashing chances go up at all(maybe even add a t1 that gives 20% bash chance to a shield? wouldn't really need that tho).

i agree, though the Thunderholme crafting system could use a few dps and defensive shield enhancement options.
I think for most heavy tanks in "end game" the pdk shield and the wall of wood are being used? that realy limits the choice of shields.

@Sev, can you add or have added this to the Thunderholme crafting?

[Thar]

i agree, though the Thunderholme crafting system could use a few dps and defensive shield enhancement options.
I think for most heavy tanks in "end game" the pdk shield and the wall of wood are being used? that realy limits the choice of shields.

@Sev, can you add or have added this to the Thunderholme crafting?

This is what worries me. We can't get good shield options now except maybe once a year. now multiple the need by 4 different types (no one cared about bucker before bard..., and light shields are barely used).

another is that basic game rules are getting changed since the beginining (heavy shields and evasion). I'm not against changing the game but don't make something NOT work after years of development. And then don't give any reason why this is even necessary. When the heavy armor was changed to not work with evasion that made sense as that was PNP rules and they wanted light armor to only have that benefit to make up for the lack of AC (when AC mattered). Now it is because... we want to put in light shields in the game...

if the plan for the new shields is only the 5 orchard shields available in any size combination... no that is not acceptible. Like when runearms were mandatory for artificers, all chains had a runearm added along with other named ones added from low to end game content. This should have occured with bucklers but didn't. That does not lead me to have any confidence that the evasion change is only another negative to having evasion (and not improved evasion since those classes don't use sheilds). It's a huge nerf to tanky type pally/fighter/druids that use evasion to maximize their spell damage protection and giving up ac, prr and capstones. They are alreay making evasion less desireable with the heavy armor change, why cause actual changes to it to make it worse... No reasons communicated as there probably aren't any... don't change for the sake of change. use that development time to fix bugs. if you need a list of bugs to work on, we would be happy to help provide a list since the in game option still doesn't work for bugs or now even the help feature..

[Zurrander]

Sev- it would help if you could explain the reasoning behind the evasion nerf. As well as what the loss of Heavy shields accomplishes that the PRR/MRR cape on light armor doesn't.

[Thar]

Would having evasion, and a large shield be the same as having improved evasion? By not allowing evasion plus a large shield they maybe protecting improved evasion as a valid choice, which requires a deep investment in certain classes or a T5 ranger enhancement.

improved evasion would be save = no damage failed save = half damage - mrr protection
sheild evasion would be save = no damage failed save = full damage - 2*mrr protection.

improved evasion would still be better imo, but heavy shield evasion makes some ground. mrr wouldnt be that high with light armor so it wouldn't be that much of a reduction to make it as good as improved, but i see your point. Is that a bad thing with heavy armor getting up to 73% damage reduction for mrr? gets the non monks out of robes at least. These builds are tanking pally/fighter/druids so giving up dps why not give them a bump in protection? The pally dps will still be subpar if the pally changes continue as listed and druid/fighter in stalwart aren't far behind.

Edit: upon rethinking this, they are making no evasion closer to evasion with the mrr additional protection, why not make evasion closer to improved evasion. seems fair. otherwise evasion seems to get squeezed out that either armor or improved is better.

As a side note: i'm totally against 2x being the heavy/tower shield modifier. 1.5 x is more than enough to make it helpful but not overpowered.

[Thar]

It doesn't seem that this has been brought up yet, but mayhap it would be a good idea to release a set of thunderholme shields - buckler, small, large, and tower - which have good AC values and can be crafted on just like normal thunderforged items. I imagine some tanks would *really* enjoy having the options of a DPS shield in their preferred shield weight, esp if the shield bashing chances go up at all(maybe even add a t1 that gives 20% bash chance to a shield? wouldn't really need that tho).

Great idea if the drop rates of ingrediants go up. people can barely make two items in 120 raids from a post i read? that's a little crazy. After 40 shrouds you usually had a wearable and weapon.

[HastyPudding]

While I see why robes/outfits don't have PRR/MRR (way too easy to be abused via monk splashes), I kind of want to see caster-specific robes with mrr on them. Maybe it's just the nerd in me thinking, but why can't a wizard or sorcerer defend against magic and take less damage from it? By all rights, a master of the arcane should have built up a tolerance for it. From all these changes, it's the casters that are getting nerfed the most, not the monk splashers.

- Maybe add MRR bonuses to robes that no monk splash would wear (like the diabolist robe and the war wizard robes, to name a couple).

- Add small amounts of MRR to certain caster specific feats, like the mental toughness line or spell focus feats?

- Perhaps finally adding the spell mantle spells for arcanes, but instead of blocking certain spells they add MRR based on caster level.

Just throwing some ideas around. Casters should have weak constitutions and defense against physical attacks, but magic is an entirely different subject, and casters should know how to protect themselves from it.

[Zurrander]

If the Evasion-Heavy Shield Nerf cannot be stopped then can we at least get some assurance that Decent Small Shields will be added in the next update (from levels 10-28). Maybe we could be shown some of these new small shields, or told by a Dev that some of the current Large shields will be getting a Smaller Equivalent (I.E. wall of wood/shield of morning ect...)

[Severlin]

Sev- it would help if you could explain the reasoning behind the evasion nerf. As well as what the loss of Heavy shields accomplishes that the PRR/MRR cape on light armor doesn't.

With the next update the game has a reason, even if it is a niche build, for every shield type to be useful.

Bucklers are useful to Swashbuckler bards.
Small Shields are useful to Evasion tanks.
Heavy shields are useful to tanks looking to save a feat.
Tower shields are useful to heavy tanks.

For the next update we have changed all the incarnations of Shield of Morning to small shields and boosted their stats. Between the other named small shields we've looked at and the changes to Shield of Morning evasion based tanks that want to use shields will have a named shield every few levels from 6th up to end game. Since existing Shield of Morning items will be changed in place, players can even go get them now to prepare for the update. We also looked at a boost to Weathering Targe but it isn't actually that bad and we might not be able to squeeze it in.

We have endeavored to add good end game small shields to the new Orchard content.

Sev~

[Zurrander]

Shield of Morning it is!!!!!! not a grade A shield or anything, but its better than zip (Weathering Targe is Ok, but it doesn't compare to wall of wood)

[B0ltdrag0n]

With the next update the game has a reason, even if it is a niche build, for every shield type to be useful.

Bucklers are useful to Swashbuckler bards.
Small Shields are useful to Evasion tanks.
Heavy shields are useful to tanks looking to save a feat.
Tower shields are useful to heavy tanks.

Sev~

Fighters get Towershield proficiency. Paladins do not. By far the best paladin themed sheild is in Haunted Halls...and is a tower shield.

[btolson]

Heavy shields are useful to tanks looking to save a feat.
Sev~

To Paladin tanks looking to save a feat? Fighter level 1 grants tower shield proficiency automatically, so they will apparently never need to use heavies.

[losian2]

With the next update the game has a reason, even if it is a niche build, for every shield type to be useful.

Bucklers are useful to Swashbuckler bards.
Small Shields are useful to Evasion tanks.
Heavy shields are useful to tanks looking to save a feat.
Tower shields are useful to heavy tanks.

For the next update we have changed all the incarnations of Shield of Morning to small shields and boosted their stats. Between the other named small shields we've looked at and the changes to Shield of Morning evasion based tanks that want to use shields will have a named shield every few levels from 6th up to end game. Since existing Shield of Morning items will be changed in place, players can even go get them now to prepare for the update. We also looked at a boost to Weathering Targe but it isn't actually that bad and we might not be able to squeeze it in.

We have endeavored to add good end game small shields to the new Orchard content.

Sev~

These changes have been long time coming.. Evasion has, for far too long, been way too accessible for how unbelievably amazing and game-changing it is. Those who milked evasion for their builds should have seen itcoming - D&D, much less DDO, was obviously never intended for every single person to run around in pajamas and splash random classes into nonsense builds just for that one single thing.. :)

[bbqzor]

With the next update the game has a reason, even if it is a niche build, for every shield type to be useful.

Bucklers are useful to Swashbuckler bards.
Small Shields are useful to Evasion tanks.
Heavy shields are useful to tanks looking to save a feat.
Tower shields are useful to heavy tanks.

For the next update we have changed all the incarnations of Shield of Morning to small shields and boosted their stats. Between the other named small shields we've looked at and the changes to Shield of Morning evasion based tanks that want to use shields will have a named shield every few levels from 6th up to end game. Since existing Shield of Morning items will be changed in place, players can even go get them now to prepare for the update. We also looked at a boost to Weathering Targe but it isn't actually that bad and we might not be able to squeeze it in.

We have endeavored to add good end game small shields to the new Orchard content.

Wait what.... seriously?

Are you fixing shield of morning to have an enhancement bonus which scales past +3? Because right now on live, theyre all +3, even EE. (for reference, on lama, they scaled to +9, but that never went live and never got fixed after going live broken).

Also, are you seriously suggesting that shield of morning is just as useful as say, dethek runeshield? Or wall of wood? Because thats what people forced to move to small are likely to be coming from. And man... no contest, they got owned.

Can you guarantee that the orchard shields will be more comparable, and easy enough to obtain that there is not a huge amount of grind involved for people to adapt to this change? Right now, you kind of just boned them all.

And also, will the Vanguard tree have a way for paladins to get tower shield proficiency without sinking a feat? Because, what the poster above said about PDK shield... yea true that. Or is this shield change going to equate to a feat tax on paladin tanks.

[ArcaneArcher52689]

Fighters get Towershield proficiency. Paladins do not. By far the best paladin themed sheild is in Haunted Halls...and is a tower shield.

It's also named for the iconic class that starts off as a fighter lvl 1

[Severlin]

Wait what.... seriously?

Are you fixing shield of morning to have an enhancement bonus which scales past +3? Because right now on live, theyre all +3, even EE. (for reference, on lama, they scaled to +9, but that never went live and never got fixed after going live broken).

Also, are you seriously suggesting that shield of morning is just as useful as say, dethek runeshield? Or wall of wood? Because thats what people forced to move to small are likely to be coming from. And man... no contest, they got owned.

Can you guarantee that the orchard shields will be more comparable, and easy enough to obtain that there is not a huge amount of grind involved for people to adapt to this change? Right now, you kind of just boned them all.

And also, will the Vanguard tree have a way for paladins to get tower shield proficiency without sinking a feat? Because, what the poster above said about PDK shield... yea true that. Or is this shield change going to equate to a feat tax on paladin tanks.

The various incarnations of Shield of Morning have been increased in stats as part of the changes. (I am traveling at the moment and don't have access to the precise changes.)

Sev~

[CaptainSpacePony]

Can a heavily armored fighter without destiny survive Subterrance explorer with this change?

Can a heavily armored fighter without destiny survive Elite Enter the Kobold without healing with this change?

Can a heavily armored fighter without destiny survive Elite A New Invasion without healing with this change?

Mind you, most caster/range type can. I'll only comment once this 3 minimum benchmarks are passed.

I find these unclear. Do you mean solo or in a full party? If the later--ofc the ftr can meet all 3 easily. If you mean solo, then I find your benchmark unreasonable unless you're saying that if it meets these benchmarks then this is OP.

The sub is raid area intended to be faced by a LOT of toons at a time. Elite ETK and New Invasion are meant to be challenging content. Just because one type of character has an easier time of it, doesn't mean they all should. Just like some quests are easier with a trapper, while in other quests, thieves tools are dead weight.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Shield of Morning it is!!!!!! not a grade A shield or anything, but its better than zip (Weathering Targe is Ok, but it doesn't compare to wall of wood)

but wall of wood wouldn't be a wall of wood if it wasn't at least a large shield. :D

[Takllin]

Why is it that people feel the need to have things handed to them on a silver platter?? Seriously...do you just want everyone to have all the best items in the game with no work done to actually loot or create them? Please do not make the uber/best Orchard loot easy to get...leave something for us to grind for...

As for Paladins having to spend a feat to get Tower Shields...booo whooooo. We just got three free feats by the removal of Great Cleave from OC, and two new cleave attacks added into KotC. Yes it is three, no reason to take power attack as it is minimal boost on it's own as SnB. Stop trying to make Paladins the same as Fighters...

[bbqzor]

The various incarnations of Shield of Morning have been increased in stats as part of the changes. (I am traveling at the moment and don't have access to the precise changes.)

Okay, good to hear in part. Will hold further feedback until we can see the actual item changes on Lama. I understand this is a "band aid" style fix, and depending on the actual adjustments it could well be completely fine.

It does kind of push players into having one of the paid (even for vip) packs, which is somewhat unfortunate. Not in that it encourages people to contribute to paying turbine, only that it forces one build to rather heavily rely on a purchase-only option. I just dont like to see anyone who wants to make a fairly broad reaching build (evasion tank, its been around since 2006 in one flavor or another) be told "well, do to that, you have to buy this, no other real choices". Hopefully the orchard shields will also do well at filling this niche, and maybe some of the old ones can get brought up to date as well (theyre not that out of line, but they could use some "modernization" for sure).

Thanks for the clarification, without a stat boost that would have been a terrible band aid.

[oradafu]

As for Paladins having to spend a feat to get Tower Shields...booo whooooo. We just got three free feats by the removal of Great Cleave from OC, and two new cleave attacks added into KotC. Yes it is three, no reason to take power attack as it is minimal boost on it's own as SnB. Stop trying to make Paladins the same as Fighters...

Although Paladins "got" 3 free feats, how many free feats do Fighters get again? Yet they get a free Tower Shield feat?

Also, I've asked a few times and I have never received an answer about the Paladin's new cleaves (one of which is a Tier 5 ability so it locks out the other trees) working with Momentum Swing and Lay Waste and Legendary Dreadnaught still needing Power Attack to work. If nothing changed in that ED, then Paladins still need to pick up those three feats for that ED or else it becomes another unfun ED, like Grandmaster is for Armor wearers.

[Thar]

With the next update the game has a reason, even if it is a niche build, for every shield type to be useful.

Bucklers are useful to Swashbuckler bards.
Small Shields are useful to Evasion tanks.
Heavy shields are useful to tanks looking to save a feat.
Tower shields are useful to heavy tanks.

For the next update we have changed all the incarnations of Shield of Morning to small shields and boosted their stats. Between the other named small shields we've looked at and the changes to Shield of Morning evasion based tanks that want to use shields will have a named shield every few levels from 6th up to end game. Since existing Shield of Morning items will be changed in place, players can even go get them now to prepare for the update. We also looked at a boost to Weathering Targe but it isn't actually that bad and we might not be able to squeeze it in.

We have endeavored to add good end game small shields to the new Orchard content.

Sev~

Are you serious? The shield of morning is garbage for pre epic, much less end game epic. +9 AC? loot gen is better by like an additional +7, solar guard? not enough damage to make it worthwhile, one blue slot - doesn't compare to GH shield with 2, the only random effect not commonly duplicated by other tank gear is bashing (tanks don't shield bash... and the automatic abillity is a waste of effect vs other better options.) and rispote which gives some AC bonus. Evasion tanks need dex to work so aren't max str so tactics probably are not used often. Axeblock, hammerblock, spearblock are better duplicated with dr protection for all 3 types, vitality is useful, but easier to obtain more in lvl 24 3bc gear. Almost every armor/weapon from wheloon/stormhorns is subpar as per numerous posts since beta for that update. The targe is desert which if anyone has read feedback for the last 4+ years is that desert items are insanely hard to get since seals and shards are split between 1/50 ish items. Second point is that these items are 5+ years old and unless getting a serious update are barely adequate for lvl 20 compared to lootgen. You promised options. These are not options.

GH shield for comparison which is easy to obtain in comparison
+16 AC
Sheltering 15
insightful con 3
blue slot
purple slot
lvl 25 (lower than above)

Shield of Mourning
+9AC
light guard effect (seriously, point of tank is to get your ac to a point of NOT getting hit often).
Random effect
Blue slot
lvl 27

you need a load of AC added, another good tank effect (or 2) and a purple slot to make this even comparable to something 2 levels lower.

Raid shield.
+19 ac (9 enhancement)
+ spell power
+ devotion
+10 natural armor
DR (druid form)
runic revitalization
purple slot

add more AC for lvl equivent shield, 4 effects vs 2 and purple slot vs blue.
IF your changing evasion to require small shields, we need something equivent to the new raid shield, the GH shield, heroic IQ shield, wall of wood, etc etc. Items that give good AC, slots, and relevant effects for tanks/protection.

The above is unacceptable without major changes to those items. Ask the population, we'd be happy to help you guys make appropriate items.

[Qhualor]

Although Paladins "got" 3 free feats, how many free feats do Fighters get again? Yet they get a free Tower Shield feat?

Fighters in PnP get free Tower Shield feat.

http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/SRD:Fighter

Paladins in PnP are not proficient with Tower Shields and would have to spend a feat to get it.

http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/SRD:Paladin

I realize DDO is not PnP, but I like how Sev tries to carryover the rules.

[Thar]

The various incarnations of Shield of Morning have been increased in stats as part of the changes. (I am traveling at the moment and don't have access to the precise changes.)

Sev~

if they are not doubled in AC and additional effects/slots, please move to the vendor (trash bin) where the current incantations are sitting. There is a reason those items are sold to vendor and not even auctioned like most of the stuff from that update. There was a good item pass prior to that update and then all the lootgen rules changed causing lootgen items to be better than 80%-90% of every named item in the game to that point. Additionally most of the items in that update were only comparable to lootgen items (and usually bad lootgen items) It really killed a lot of guilds as people quit.

You'd have to upgrade this a lot and then it's random effects which people hate to farm.

very disappointing.

[Thar]

Sev- it would help if you could explain the reasoning behind the evasion nerf.

we don't want to make light shields relevant. make them go away just like light hammers. there isn't part of the melee changes making light hammers relevent for barbarians...

again more reasoning needed why this is even a discussion point or needed. Now that we saw what the plan is for "new" light shields, this needs to be scrapped even more so.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Fighters in PnP get free Tower Shield feat.

http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/SRD:Fighter

Paladins in PnP are not proficient with Tower Shields and would have to spend a feat to get it.

http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/SRD:Paladin

I realize DDO is not PnP, but I like how Sev tries to carryover the rules.

In my distant DnD memories, I recall paladins as being resilient characters with more DPS than fighters. Fighters excelled through the versatility of their feats.

I would not be supportive of tower shields for paladins If for the last 2 years at least, the game system has tried to make paladins (not pal2 splashes) tank. They are suboptimal in virtually every other role. I don't see that fundamentally changing anytime soon (based on the current discussions). Now if they got really serious and made KotC a true undead and outsider demolisher, or otherwise changed the focus of paladins, I'd back off on this. Until then--let them Tower.

[CaptainSpacePony]

we don't want to make light shields relevant. make them go away just like light hammers. there isn't part of the melee changes making light hammers relevent for barbarians...

again more reasoning needed why this is even a discussion point or needed. Now that we saw what the plan is for "new" light shields, this needs to be scrapped even more so.

I don't find your argument convincing. There are 4 types of shields. There are many types of weapons. There are several classes.

Besides, light hammers are relevant for 2WF hammer-wielding barbarians who want a light hammer in the off hand to avoid oversized weapon penalties.

[Qhualor]

In my distant DnD memories, I recall paladins as being resilient characters with more DPS than fighters. Fighters excelled through the versatility of their feats.

I would not be supportive of tower shields for paladins If for the last 2 years at least, the game system has tried to make paladins (not pal2 splashes) tank. They are suboptimal in virtually every other role. I don't see that fundamentally changing anytime soon (based on the current discussions). Now if they got really serious and made KotC a true undead and outsider demolisher, or otherwise changed the focus of paladins, I'd back off on this. Until then--let them Tower.

it seems to me that Sev is trying to accomplish that. KOTC is under discussion right now for improvement as a dps tree and Sacred Defender looks to be an improvement as a tank tree with dps.

[Thar]

I don't find your argument convincing. There are 4 types of shields. There are many types of weapons. There are several classes.

Besides, light hammers are relevant for 2WF hammer-wielding barbarians who want a light hammer in the off hand to avoid oversized weapon penalties.

Why spend the development time to make new shields. if they aren't then we lose.

making us change to light sheilds adds grind to refarm all new shields - we lose.

for what point is this change being made? the only comment so far has been to make light shields relevant. Who cares. We don't care about light hammers. no one is asking for either to be relevant. splitting what little new items we get into yet another option is bad for everyone. Say they spend the time to make a awesome light shield. Then heavy shield users lose out as they don't get that option (yes they could downgrade to it and lose the benefits of heavy shields). Bards lose as they can't use it and swashbuckler. Towershield users don't want to drop that much AC. splitting it between 3 types of used shields today gives us what we use and only 2/3 of the users don't get a new item instead of 1/4.

so my point is like light hammers, light shields are irrelevant to the game today. changing the existing base game rules for playstyle for the sole point of making an item type relevant isn't good for the game. We don't do it for weapons. why do it for this? There is no good reason posted for the change to evasion that any evasion user could agree with yet. We just want to know why...

[ThomasHunter]

Sev, please don't forget druids in animal form. Seems like there is a general lack of (named) WOOD shields. I think U21 has one that is cool enough and Wall of Wood is good too. I'd still like to see a bit more. :cool:

[Takllin]

Although Paladins "got" 3 free feats, how many free feats do Fighters get again? Yet they get a free Tower Shield feat?

Also, I've asked a few times and I have never received an answer about the Paladin's new cleaves (one of which is a Tier 5 ability so it locks out the other trees) working with Momentum Swing and Lay Waste and Legendary Dreadnaught still needing Power Attack to work. If nothing changed in that ED, then Paladins still need to pick up those three feats for that ED or else it becomes another unfun ED, like Grandmaster is for Armor wearers.

Which is a staple of the Fighter class...there are pros and cons to every class, trying to take the pros from one and add them to take away the cons from another is not balance. That makes Paladins significantly better than Fighters.

I've asked the same question and yet to receive a response. I am hoping that they add in the new Paladin cleave attacks as another pre requisite for Momentum Swing and Lay Waste.