Variety and crit bonuses

[redoubt]

Many have said that giving crit bonuses is the fast and easy way to bring classes in near balance in terms of DPS. I can't say I disagree with that statement. I would, however, encourage the devs to take a more varied (and thematic) path if that is possible.

For example:

Knife Spec in Assassin is limited to only 2 weapons. Daggers and Kukris fit well with the assassin theme as well. It is a large bonus, but it is applied to weapons that are normally inferior.

Swash is limied to light and thrown weapons. This is fun because it take several weapon types and makes them all even, but only when using one. Like assassin, these bonus are weighted more on inferior weapons and don't overly buff anything.


Both of these classes are high accuracy types so getting more crits for more damage seems to make sense. I can also see where classes like barbarian would get more crits and more damage just based purely on insane strength breaking through defenses. But are crits really the only way we can do this? I think not! When Tempest was being looked at I had high hopes for a speed build. I'll explain what I mean:

1. Not applying the now standard crit buff, but using something more creative.
2. The 4 tiers of whirling blades could be something like this:

Each has three ranks.
--rank 1 (1ap) +1 hit/damage
--rank 2 (1AP) +1 dodge/Max Dex bonus.Max Dodge bonus
--rank 3 (1AP) +2% alacrity / doublestrike

Tier 5 (or exactly the same at 1-4)
--rank 1 (1ap) +3 hit/damage
--rank 2 (1AP) +1 dodge/Max Dex bonus.Max Dodge bonus
--rank 3 (1AP) +2% alacrity / doublestrike

3. Deflect Arrows core could add 5-10% alacrity and double strike instead of crit multiplier

Again, the idea is to raise DPS to a level that people will want to play the class, but not by doing the same thing to every class. Lots of speed and dodge type defense fit with the idea of "tempest". (This is certainly not an exhaustive list of ideas, but rather a few to illustrate an idea.)

[redoubt]

Another form of variety would be letting different builds be really good at different things again. For example:

Rogues could be high dps single target versus mobs that are vulnerable to sneak attack
Rangers could be high dps against their FE. (might require retooling the FE bonuses some)
Paladin KOTC could be high dps versus evil/light fearing.

Builds could be good and then have a niche where they are great instead of being great at everything.

[RD2play]

/signed, I had high hopes during the initial proposals. Now I feel sad the devs yielded to a few forumites and made Ranger yet another crit class...

[Gremmlynn]

Meh, pay for lunch with dollars or dimes, what's the difference?

[DevilYouKnow]

/signed remove this crit nonsense and put something more interesting in its place.

[redoubt]

Meh, pay for lunch with dollars or dimes, what's the difference?

While you are correct in that the end result of removing X hit points from a monster is the same, the point of it is to have multiple ways to do so that are all effective.

High attack speeds would emphasize add on damage where crit profile emphasizes base damage. You build for these things differently and thus end up with characters that have different feels and playstyles. That is my intended point (and the difference). Hope that helps.

[BigErkyKid]

While you are correct in that the end result of removing X hit points from a monster is the same, the point of it is to have multiple ways to do so that are all effective.

High attack speeds would emphasize add on damage where crit profile emphasizes base damage. You build for these things differently and thus end up with characters that have different feels and playstyles. That is my intended point (and the difference). Hope that helps.

Point taken. I d rather see some serious work to give some buffs and tactics a role in boss fights.

Right now all you need to complete all relevant content is dps.

Monks had awesome party buffs that applied nicely to boss fights. I d love some more like that.

Also I don't like passive buffs. Things that increase power but just in the background, no real active component. It is strict power creep.

[Saekee]

Point taken. I d rather see some serious work to give some buffs and tactics a role in boss fights.

Right now all you need to complete all relevant content is dps.

Monks had awesome party buffs that applied nicely to boss fights. I d love some more like that.

Also I don't like passive buffs. Things that increase power but just in the background, no real active component. It is strict power creep.

/signed. As I have insisted elsewhere, I want to see a big buff to mob fortification so that 100% fort bypass is not enough--bring in party tactics to break it via enhancements and cooperative efforts like destruction/improved destruction etc. This is an easy way to reduce crit craziness and emphasize the fort breakers like assassin's trick, swash's destruction or the tempest animal empathy use

[redoubt]

/signed. As I have insisted elsewhere, I want to see a big buff to mob fortification so that 100% fort bypass is not enough--bring in party tactics to break it via enhancements and cooperative efforts like destruction/improved destruction etc. This is an easy way to reduce crit craziness and emphasize the fort breakers like assassin's trick, swash's destruction or the tempest animal empathy use

Sounds good. This sort of thing would provide places where big crits are good and places where fast attacks are good. And at the same time, places where you can do both with some teamwork!!! Good stuff.

[IronClan]

/signed. As I have insisted elsewhere, I want to see a big buff to mob fortification so that 100% fort bypass is not enough--bring in party tactics to break it via enhancements and cooperative efforts like destruction/improved destruction etc. This is an easy way to reduce crit craziness and emphasize the fort breakers like assassin's trick, swash's destruction or the tempest animal empathy use

The problem is people in MMO's invariably take the path of least resistance, and that means people would just double down on Shuricannon, Wolf, SWF, TWF and other high attack speed builds because procs and affixes aren't resisted with fortification. There are already a lot of people building for this because it tends to be the best DPS possible in the game.

Trying to punish people who build for big crits over speed is just as pointless and nonsensical as trying to punish people who build for DC's or CC or Nuking or Cleaving, or Tacticals... or any other design space.

Right now DDO emphasizes attack rate and affixes and procs more than anything else it's why TWF is top DPS, it's why Wolf builds are so powerful, it's why Orb + SWF (with 30% increase in attack speed over THF but the same 1.5 damage mod bonus as THF) are popular.

Essentially your idea would punish THF and other slower combat, and encourage those players to move towards the already dominant design space of high attack speed and extreme double strike, and increased number of attacks instead of building for the already weaker design space of "big spike damage". Honestly right now in DDO it's almost impossible to make a character that is totally specialized in big crits... Vanguard for example even contains 25% attack speed in its cores, and the other obvious pathway (Frenzied barb) has little to offer "big crits" besides the melee power and the core/T5 19-20 crit range bonuses or Storms eye when it's up.

It's already a weak and unpopular design space and you would Fortify it the rest of the way to its grave.

[Saekee]

The problem is people in MMO's invariably take the path of least resistance, and that means people would just double down on Shuricannon, Wolf, SWF, TWF and other high attack speed builds because procs and affixes aren't resisted with fortification. There are already a lot of people building for this because it tends to be the best DPS possible in the game.

Trying to punish people who build for big crits over speed is just as pointless and nonsensical as trying to punish people who build for DC's or CC or Nuking or Cleaving, or Tacticals... or any other design space.

Right now DDO emphasizes attack rate and affixes and procs more than anything else it's why TWF is top DPS, it's why Wolf builds are so powerful, it's why Orb + SWF (with 30% increase in attack speed over THF but the same 1.5 damage mod bonus as THF) are popular.

Essentially your idea would punish THF and other slower combat, and encourage those players to move towards the already dominant design space of high attack speed and extreme double strike, and increased number of attacks instead of building for the already weaker design space of "big spike damage". Honestly right now in DDO it's almost impossible to make a character that is totally specialized in big crits... Vanguard for example even contains 25% attack speed in its cores, and the other obvious pathway (Frenzied barb) has little to offer "big crits" besides the melee power and the core/T5 19-20 crit range bonuses or Storms eye when it's up.

It's already a weak and unpopular design space and you would Fortify it the rest of the way to its grave.

I am not sure if there is a contradiction here. Big crits over speed--the bard is built around crits (wolf--not sure what to make of something that is not remotely WAI) and throwers outside bard rely on low DR given the lower base damage of shurikens for example. If anything, some of the newer throwers are leveraging the rogue tree and sneak attacks which would also be weakened by high fortification. Rogue mechanics rely on sneak and big crits and do not have an excessively high rate of fire with great xbows (despite buff in tier 5).

However, you make a great point. I wonder how fortification could be buffed without punishing the heavy slow hitters. Perhaps an increase in mob DR as well which would severly punish high rate of fire weapons. What do you think? DR was introduced back in the archon quests although I have not bought the pack yet.

[redoubt]

I am not sure if there is a contradiction here. Big crits over speed--the bard is built around crits (wolf--not sure what to make of something that is not remotely WAI) and throwers outside bard rely on low DR given the lower base damage of shurikens for example. If anything, some of the newer throwers are leveraging the rogue tree and sneak attacks which would also be weakened by high fortification. Rogue mechanics rely on sneak and big crits and do not have an excessively high rate of fire with great xbows (despite buff in tier 5).

However, you make a great point. I wonder how fortification could be buffed without punishing the heavy slow hitters. Perhaps an increase in mob DR as well which would severly punish high rate of fire weapons. What do you think? DR was introduced back in the archon quests although I have not bought the pack yet.

I think fort can be buffed, but not everywhere across the board. Pick some places where it makes sense.

Take some healing out of barbarian and replace it with fort bypass when wielding a TH weapon?
Bring fighters with improved sunder?
Put a destruction weapon in the off hand of your TWFr and be a team player to help out the big crit guys against high fort mobs?

I certainly don't want to reduce the number and type of good builds. But I'm okay with doing things that require thought and teamwork.