The Balance Change post

[Severlin]

Greetings.

We've seen a lot of community feedback, both public and private, about our ongoing plans for balance. These are some changes we are considering to increase game balance.

As with any post that outlines power reductions (aka nerfs) I am sure there will be a lot of players looking for explanations and our thoughts and results on balance that led to these changes. I will be following up this post with more details that talk about why some of these changes are being implemented.

***

Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon.

Blood Strength (Barbarian Ravager)
The portion of this enhancement that heals the user when they kill an opponent now has a 1 second internal cooldown.

Critical Rage (Barbarian Ravager)
The bonus to critical threat range is now a competence bonus.

Two weapon fighting animations have been fixed so there is no longer a weird jump on the fourth animation. This has made the fourth attack slightly quicker.

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.

Doubleshot values over 100% now have a chance of producing a third attack. The chance is equal to the amount the value exceeds 100. A doubleshot value of 130, for example, would always produce one extra shot and have a 30% chance to produce a third shot.

(Doublestrike will still cap at 100 for technical reasons.)

Repeating Crossbows and Doubleshot
Fixed a bug where Doubleshot was not being reduced for repeating crossbows. (Doubleshot chance is divided by 3 for repeating crossbows.)

Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Mechanical Reloader (Rogue Mechanic)
The alacrity for non-repeating crossbows is now 30%. (Was 40%)

Pulverizer (Legendary Dreadnought)
The bonus to critical threat range for bludgeoning weapons is now an Insight bonus.

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)

As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.

Tactical Training
Requires Fighter Level 4
You gain +2 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 8
You gain +4 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Mastery
Requires Fighter Level 12
You gain +6 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Supremacy
Requires Fighter Level 16
You gain +8 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Notes: All tactical feats stack for a total of +20. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Tactical Training and forego the +2 but still have access to Tatical Supremacy.

Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.


Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).

Eldritch Blast and other enhancements (Warlock)
The spellpower scaling for Eldritch Blast and several enhancements has been reduced.

Spellpower scaling of Warlock Abilities


Ability
Old
New


Eldritch Blast
150%
130%


Eldritch Blast Cone
130%
130%


Eldritch Blast Chain
110%
95%


Eldritch Blast Aura
150%
130%


Stricken (Souleater)
150%
125%


Consume (Souleater)
150%
125%


Eldritch Burst (Enlightened Spirit)
120%
100%


Spirit Blast (Enlightened Spirit)
120%
100%



I will be following up this post with some details on our thoughts on balance and design.

Sev~

[Severlin]

(Edited: I apologize as I cut and paste the wrong draft into this post... Sev~)

Balance has been once of the top topics of conversation in the community for a while now, and we've said that we need to implement some balance changes, so I am writing this post to discuss our plans. We have seen feedback that players want more insight into our long-term balancing plans, and hear more about why we've been doing the things we've been doing. I've even had some players poke fun at my "over performing" terminology. Let's start by talking about our plans past and present, and how it fits into our long-term goals for balance and itemization.

Game and class balance is an ongoing process. Our goal is to have a more balanced game, but we understand this is a refining process that involves continual re-evaluation. That means if your favorite class is slightly behind (or in front) after a pass, we are fully capable and willing to tweak more. We expect designs will be fine-tuned based on player testing and observations.


***

Our current measure of melee effectiveness is Swashbuckler. Classes like Bard and Paladin have good spells, and strong class abilities. They can expect, if they build entirely towards melee, to deal out good melee DPS. Barbarian, Rogue and Ranger's basic class abilities aren't quite as strong, so characters built entirely toward melee will do a little more DPS. Fighter has very little basic class utility (their competitive advantage is extra feats, and they run out of strong feats) so we have our work cut out for us to balance fighters.

(Our only complaint about Swashbuckler is that Coup de Grace is too easy to pull off for a Bard, and it makes the ability really good for a class with great magical mitigation and Crowd Control. That's fairly low on our list of concerns, though, and Bard builds aren't dominating the playing field. It's more of a design nitpick.)

Swashbuckler was already finished when I came aboard, and it was very popular. We decided that other than some bugs revolving around Single Weapon Fighting that Swashbuckler would be the default level of power we would strive for with our passes. Part of it was that it gave melee equal footing with the Manyshot ranged builds and casters, and part of it was that players felt at the time that melee was not competitive.

The other things that players communicated to us when we started talking about class updates:



Armored characters were well behind Evasion builds.
Shields didn't offer enough benefits to offset the loss of DPS.
On-hit effects were “useless” at end game because they didn't scale.


There were also some design considerations we had:



There were few important DPS stats except for crit.
There was no good way to give characters an incremental increase in magic damage mitigation. Saving throws offer binary protection (you either make your Saving Throw or you don't), and are subject to bad luck.
Spellpower was an excellent tool for gradual increase in power, and melee and ranged had no equivalent.
There was no good way for abilities to scale into epic levels as a default.
Temporary hit point abilities were considered "terrible".



Our overall design was to introduce some powerful stats that allowed a solid foundation for incremental power increase for both class balance and itemization. We introduced the melee and ranged equivalent to Spell Power since a similar stat already existed in game. We introduced the magic equivalent to Physical Resistance Rating since a similar stat already existed in-game. We tied on-hit damage scaling to these new stats so on-hit effects would scale into epic levels. We used these new stats to provide a gradual level-based scale for epic levels that could be used to scale various abilities.

When we look at the bigger picture, we've tried to pretty much keep to that design when working through character passes.

Here are our current goals and design challenges:



Two Weapon Fighting builds are dealing too much DPS. This is generally because on-hit effects now scale with melee power, and we've relaxed many internal cooldown limits on to-hit effects. We expected Two Weapon Fighting builds to scale quickly when we changed on-hit effects, and balanced the fighting style feats to compensate, but that was a world before Assassin and Tempest were updated, and players largely equated Two Weapon Fighting to those trees. Now that those are updated we can look at re-adjusting the two weapon fighting feats.
We have a problem with 14 Paladin hybrids being better than other options due to Holy Sword, yet a severe nerf to Holy Sword would drag down Two Handed Fighting and Vanguard paladins a little too much.
Ravager barbarians have too much self healing for the DPS they are capable of.
Basic armor offers too much mitigation for its cost. While we are happy that armored characters are relevant again, we want to cut back on it a bit.


Essentially the changes we've posted above are bug fixes and balance changes that not only continue this plan, but also address concerns, both public and private, of the player base about game balance and difficulty.

In the changes above we have also added a number of fighter only feats that will give them some powerful options for both active mitigation through tactical feats and abilities, and passive mitigation through the use of armor. This is not meant to replace the fighter pass.

We look forward to your feedback.

Sev~

[JOTMON]

Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon.


Why.

Seems to me this would benefit 2HF and SWF more than S&B and 2WF builds.
Will twf be able to swap and buff alternate weapons or is this intended to only affect main hand weapons.... or a screw over to twf paladins.

Why not missile weapons.. I am assuming by missile weapons you mean assorted bows/xbows and not throwers. Paladins cant be holy archers?..
and what about throwers?

[CheeseMilk]

What "type" of bonus are Improved Critical and Keen?

[Severlin]

What "type" of bonus are Improved Critical and Keen?

They are unique bonuses, but programmed to not stack with each other.

Sev~

[JOTMON]

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.


Why?
TWF takes multiple feats to advance. and is needed to increase offhand attack proc's.
Why are you not also taking melee power away from 2HF and SWF.. they are just as powerful.

[Severlin]

Why.

Seems to me this would benefit 2HF and SWF more than S&B and 2WF builds.
Will twf be able to swap and buff alternate weapons or is this intended to only affect main hand weapons.... or a screw over to twf paladins.

Why not missile weapons.. I am assuming by missile weapons you mean assorted bows/xbows and not throwers. Paladins cant be holy archers?..
and what about throwers?

The changes are designed to cut back on the power of two weapon fighting Paladins, Vanguards, and fix the fact that Paladin 14 hybrids are by many players' estimation the best missile characters. Throwing weapons are not affected by Holy Sword.

Sev~

[Severlin]

Why?
TWF takes multiple feats to advance. and is needed to increase offhand attack proc's.
Why are you not also taking melee power away from 2HF and SWF.. they are just as powerful.

Two reasons:

~ Two Weapon Fighting is well out pacing the other styles in classes not specifically designed to use that style.
~ The animation change to Two Weapon Fighting that makes it look better also gave it a slight DPS boost.

Sev~

[barecm]

Addressing only the double shot proposed change, I think it is a good thing only if going over 100% is actually obtainable without being pigeon holed into running on Divine Crusader. There will be a need for more stacking sources.

[UurlockYgmeov]

interesting...

seems well thought out, and well communicated.

When can we expect to see these changes on Lamannia? Are these all targeted to be rolled out at once? So, ie when?

Set in stone - or willing to listen to players?

Since update to manyshot / 10KS - can / will artificial ranged alacrity cap be removed?

Most I like - but will have to try on Lamannia to be sure.

[JOTMON]

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.



Why ?

are you intentionally trying to screw over 'other weapons'. like light hammers, maces, maul.. .. the weapons that need more help..
why not just delete these from the game.. if that's the case

you are giving high threat range weapons like falchions a huge improvement of critical threat range for weapons that already have a good threat range and screwing ones that don't

I would rather see this reversed to even up weapons of choice not make them weaker.
* Adds +1 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +3 to all other weapons.

[Hoglum]

~ Two Weapon Fighting is well out pacing the other styles in classes not specifically designed to use that style.


Sev~


Shouldn't we be designing our characters? That's why we get feats. Why should 2wf be limited somehow to a class "specifically designed to use that style"?

Is it going to be like this now:

Rangers; may use 2wf.

Paladins: aren't allowed without being gimped.

Is that where you plan on taking the game?

[dunklezhan]

Interesting. Dialling back on the MRR on armour. I approve, but speaking as someone who runs without a whole lot of that on many characters that I should really try harder with, I was expecting to see a corresponding decrease in monster spellpower (I wasn't expecting a big decrease, but its pretty brutal out there with no MMR)

[Severlin]

interesting...

seems well thought out, and well communicated.

When can we expect to see these changes on Lamannia? Are these all targeted to be rolled out at once? So, ie when?

Set in stone - or willing to listen to players?

Since update to manyshot / 10KS - can / will artificial ranged alacrity cap be removed?

Most I like - but will have to try on Lamannia to be sure.

Soon.
Yes.
Willing to listen.
Ranged Alacrity "cap" is built into the animation system and unlikely to change, at least for this update.

As an aside, we added larger kobold dummies to the basement of Lamannia's test dojo to help players test DPS changes. The new DPS kobolds have five times the hit points of the old ones we dropped into the test dojo so it should help normalize the test and using burst abilities a bit more.

Sev~

[Augon]

Lots to take in and it will affect some of my characters positively, some negatively.

Thank you for a very concise and thorough explanation. I much prefer this over a piecemeal approach to information.

Thanks

[Axeyu]

Why ?

are you intentionally trying to screw over 'other weapons'. like light hammers, maces, maul.. .. the weapons that need more help..
why not just delete these from the game.. if that's the case

you are giving falchions a huge improvement of critical threat range for weapons that already have a good threat range and screwing ones that don't

I would rather see this reversed to even up weapons of choice not make them weaker.
* Adds +1 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +3 to all other weapons.

No weapon type is getting screwed over. It's basically just a rephrasing of the current improved critical feats.
The purpose of the change is (as far as I can see) to stop buffs to crit range from being multiplied.

[dunklezhan]

changes re Keen and imp crit - been a long time coming, and should bring things more under control. I'll probably be highly unpopular for saying that. Ah well.

I take it interactions of Imp Crit [type] with weapons which already have an inherent expanded crit range (e.g. whirlwind) will be unchanged (i.e. they will still stack)?

[Severlin]

Shouldn't we be designing our characters? That's why we get feats. Why should 2wf be limited somehow to a class "specifically designed to use that style"?

Is it going to be like this now:

Rangers; may use 2wf.

Paladins: aren't allowed without being gimped.

Is that where you plan on taking the game?

Two weapon paladins are still doing better DPS than Paladins using two handed weapons or single weapon fighting by a good margin. But by all means, we'd love to see some test numbers from Lamannia! We added some bigger DPS kobolds in the test dojo to help players test.

Sev~

[UurlockYgmeov]

Soon.
Yes.
Willing to listen.
Ranged Alacrity "cap" is built into the animation system and unlikely to change, at least for this update.

As an aside, we added larger kobold dummies to the basement of Lamannia's test dojo to help players test DPS changes. The new DPS kobolds have five times the hit points of the old ones we dropped into the test dojo so it should help normalize the test and using burst abilities a bit more.

Sev~


all good answers. :)

OOOhhh!!! Shiney! Players going to eat fresh rat tonight! :cool:

Wait - why does everyone think of Kobold when they see me post? :p;):D:o:confused::rolleyes::eek::cool:

[slarden]

So you are nerfing alot of warlock abilities but not eldritch wave which is the highest burst dps in all the trees. Everyone will now be running tier 5 souleater - why run anything else.

Not to mention Warlock dps is too high at heroic levels and by level 28 it is simply on par with paladin, barbarian and others. What you are doing is making a global fix to a heroic problem - I don't get it.

The divine grace change is as bad now as it was when originally proposed. You are making it so that being a high level paladin is the only way to get good saves. You are not following through on your previous statement that you were going to offer save bonuses for non-paladins that didn't stack with divine grace so good saves would be possible without being a paladin.

Alot of these change demonstrate a lack of understanding of what makes FOTM builds powerful. For the most part these changes make me want to take a break from the game. The whole balance attempts seem like a game of whack a mole.

[Loromir]

I want to weigh in here before this thread explodes. It is clear that you guys have put a lot of thought into this. I haven't digested this enough to make a judgement if these are good or bad changes...but it is clear that you have put some thought into this.

I applaud you for trying to continue make this game better and keep it relevant.

I know there will be plenty of vile spewed...but realize....there are still plenty of us who appreciate your hard work.

OK masses....Flame on!!!!

[CheeseMilk]

Why ?

are you intentionally trying to screw over 'other weapons'. like light hammers, maces, maul.. .. the weapons that need more help..
why not just delete these from the game.. if that's the case

you are giving high threat range weapons like falchions a huge improvement of critical threat range for weapons that already have a good threat range and screwing ones that don't

I would rather see this reversed to even up weapons of choice not make them weaker.
* Adds +1 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +3 to all other weapons.

Dude. It's the same as it is now.

The crit ranges just won't double from enhancements and EDs into ridiculously large ranges like 7-20 anymore.

[Lonnbeimnech]

Some excellent changes.

I'm a little surprised about the twf nerf, and think that maybe the amount of damage being done by twf might have more to do with the upgrades to tempest and assassin, rather than twf in general. At the same time it's only 6 MP, so whatever.

[Loromir]

Why ?

are you intentionally trying to screw over 'other weapons'. like light hammers, maces, maul.. .. the weapons that need more help..
why not just delete these from the game.. if that's the case

you are giving high threat range weapons like falchions a huge improvement of critical threat range for weapons that already have a good threat range and screwing ones that don't

I would rather see this reversed to even up weapons of choice not make them weaker.
* Adds +1 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +3 to all other weapons.

No....completely flawed logic there.

[Krelar]

Dude. It's the same as it is now.

The crit ranges just won't double from enhancements and EDs into ridiculously large ranges like 7-20 anymore.

It's not quite the same but it's close. Named items with extra-large crit ranges are getting nerfed a bit. ESoS will go from 30% crit chance with just improved critical to 25% crit chance for example.

[JOTMON]

The changes are designed to cut back on the power of two weapon fighting Paladins, Vanguards, and fix the fact that Paladin 14 hybrids are by many players' estimation the best missile characters. Throwing weapons are not affected by Holy Sword.

Sev~

ok, still no holy sword buff for thrower builds.
and you are killing the Paladin archers.. no big loss..

[slarden]

Two weapon paladins are still doing better DPS than Paladins using two handed weapons or single weapon fighting by a good margin. But by all means, we'd love to see some test numbers from Lamannia! We added some bigger DPS kobolds in the test dojo to help players test.

Sev~

Single targets of course - but two weapon fighting is also weaker against mobs by a large margin.

[ValariusK]

While working on TWF, can we adjust the hit box on it? It's pretty annoying, especially when things are lagging even a little bit. It's even annoying when trying to do run-by box smashing.

[Cordovan]

I want to pop into the thread to encourage folks to make a concerted effort to stay on track. Ultimately, we'd much rather hear your feedback and questions to our posts than refutations of other players' suggestions. I want to be as flexible as I can be, but would prefer that this thread not shift over into a long back and forth over someone else's ideas.

It goes without saying that we will not tolerate insults, harassment, or abuse. This is a particularly important topic for us, and we really want to get meaningful feedback from all of you. Thanks!

[morqual]

Struggling with yet another proposed hit on PRR. I have had to reduce my defensive capabilities recently to increase dps in order to effectively tank in an environment where the dps of others is rising. PRR is a key part of those defenses and a previous update or two have both reduced PRR.

I know you have suggesting adding some feats to give the opportunity to mitigate some of this loss. But every feat I have is important to my build and sacrificing one or more to retain my current PRR levels will have impact elsewhere.

It is already hard enough to tank, especially in the more recent Epic Elite raids without this change, making it even harder.

Please reconsider this, or come up with a way for more defense oriented builds to retain the PRR whilst preventing the higher dps builds from taking advantage (Who I am sure are the real reason for the change). A suggestion might be to have a different PRR formula for Stalwart and Sacred Defenders, or beef up the PRR bonus earned from Durable Defense to compensate.

Heres hoping you are listening.

[Sgt_Hart]

Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.
You just typo'd " character level" as " fighter level" a bunch of times.

[hit_fido]

Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.


Seems a bit much to remove MRR from armor completely. That's more or less where we started when it was determined medium and heavy armor needed something to make it attractive vs cloth/leather plus evasion. What has now changed to make some MRR unnecessary again? It was already reduced once, wasn't it? I'd prefer to see it not removed entirely. At least tie it into the enhancement bonus of the armor:

heavy grants (armor enhancement bonus) Magical Resist Rating
medium grants (armor enhancement bonus * 0.5) Magical Resist Rating
light grants nothing extra

I already *****ed about manyshot somewhere else. But nothing else here seems really objectionable to me. Even the divine grace change means a mere 2 paladin splash still gives +8 to all saves. Seems reasonable. I imagine a lot of angst over the holy sword being melee only, for those who built for it recently.

[WiseFreelancer]

snip Sev~

Number of comments about various things:

1) The manyshot/10k changes don't appear to be explained here, although I know the rational has been given in the AA threads for those who've read them.

2) The change to Improved Critical was mentioned in previous posts and seems eminently reasonable to me. HOWEVER, I found it very difficult to understand what was meant by reading this thread first time through. May need more explanation. My reaction was same as another poster - why boost scimitars/rapiers more when they're already better? It only clicked that this is only giving each weapon what they were already supposed to have after a minute or two. Doesn't this also do strange things to the attempted "balance" in the Swashbuckler Core 3?

3) Most of the "nerfs" seem relatively reasonable to me. I'm not sure whether Holy Sword really needs to be cut from bows/crossbows, given the improvements in Mechanics and Deepwood/AAs give similar bonuses to other builds now.

4) Divine Grace changes are more than fair, but does this mean we won't be getting new items with new save bonuses? This was mentioned as an alternative solution when it was discussed last time? Its still hard to get very high saves on lots of multiclass toons without paladin levels, even with appropriate stat investment.

5) I've never built a tactical DC toon, so take this feedback with a pinch of salt, but isn't +20 a bit overkill? My biggest fear is if fighters can get such a huge "up" on DCs then they might end up needing to be raised to justify characters taking these feats, but that will have very, very serious implications for DC-based casting. I'd lean towards too many new fighter feats too. Giving an incentive to get lots of fighter levels is very much needed, but maybe three each with slightly more power in the later tiers to even it out would be better? The idea of a toon with 4 armour feats is just a little boring.

6) Is the MRR going back in anywhere else? I think the current system gives too big an incentive to take Heavy armour unless you had evasion (why should a pure druid build get more out of Heavy Armour Proficiency as a feat than most other choices?), but for paladins its seems a bit tough? Is the view they are getting too much at present? Obviously Fighters can take the feats, but not sure they need that many?

7) Perhaps the strangest impact of these changes is that weapons with naturally improved crit ranges will gain relatively less than they did before. Not a big issue now that most end-game weapons don't have it, but makes a lot of the named Bows less desirable than before.

When are these changes expected? Next update? Are they all at once?

[JOTMON]

No....completely flawed logic there.

How so,
Kukri is 1d4 @ 18-20x2 and goes to 15-20 x2
Dagger is 1d4 @ 19-20 x2 and goes to 17-20 x2
light mace 1d6 @ 20 x2 goes to 19-20 x2

which weapon do you choose



Dude. It's the same as it is now.

The crit ranges just won't double from enhancements and EDs into ridiculously large ranges like 7-20 anymore.


This thread is supposed to be about balance change .. I would have hoped they are addressing the weak end of the spectrum as well... not just the top end.. aka nerf...

[Delacroix21]

Two reasons:

~ Two Weapon Fighting is well out pacing the other styles in classes not specifically designed to use that style.
~ The animation change to Two Weapon Fighting that makes it look better also gave it a slight DPS boost.

Sev~

So as I understand it, monk unarmed dps will be nerfed slightly by this change, Even though it is allready the WORST melee dps in the game? Are we supposed to wait 6 more months for tye monk pass to finally have this addressed?


An easy (and temporary) fix for monk dps is to change the base die from 1d6 to 2d6, as their damage is allready less then half other melee builds.

[DarigTheLost]

please tell me that tactical and armour feats are a line of feats that are chosen. ie not something u must spend a regular feat on.... like say the cleric deity feats..... hmmm my language skills are lacking atm. a better example would be at level 4 u get one or the other, same for level 8 and so on..... if this costs fighters a regular feat, well, we need more feats to spend.

huge question mark here ?

[fangblackhawk]

Soon.
Yes.
Willing to listen.
Ranged Alacrity "cap" is built into the animation system and unlikely to change, at least for this update.

As an aside, we added larger kobold dummies to the basement of Lamannia's test dojo to help players test DPS changes. The new DPS kobolds have five times the hit points of the old ones we dropped into the test dojo so it should help normalize the test and using burst abilities a bit more.

Sev~

can i still one shot them with a mabar neg level aug? with out adding death block to the little rat eaters?

[Siccan]

You guys are going to HAVE to offer +20 HoW if you're changing the game this much.

[Dace]

Just snipping out the bits relevant to me.



Two weapon fighting animations have been fixed so there is no longer a weird jump on the fourth animation. This has made the fourth attack slightly quicker.

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.



If the ranger pass has made it overperform slightly, don't punish anyone else who takes it. Leave the +2 MP in please. Nerf all TWF/SWF/THF feats to +1MP, whatever but keep this consistent with TWF/THF.



Pulverizer (Legendary Dreadnought)
The bonus to critical threat range for bludgeoning weapons is now an Insight bonus.


Great.



Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.


+2 for druidic animal forms please.



Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)

As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.



Fine, but please keep this in mind when you are busy manually balancing content. Necro 4 has already become considerably more difficult on EE, and these changes aren't going to make things any easier ^




Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).



Aha, back again! Seems reasonable.




Eldritch Blast and other enhancements (Warlock)
The spellpower scaling for Eldritch Blast and several enhancements has been reduced.

Spellpower scaling of Warlock Abilities


Ability
Old
New


Eldritch Blast
150%
130%


Eldritch Blast Cone
130%
130%


Eldritch Blast Chain
110%
95%


Eldritch Blast Aura
150%
130%


Stricken (Souleater)
150%
125%


Consume (Souleater)
150%
125%


Eldritch Burst (Enlightened Spirit)
120%
100%


Spirit Blast (Enlightened Spirit)
120%
100%





I can't say I disagree with the Warlock nerf BUT (and its a bloody big BUT) this is a brand new class that you had direct control over and it has been formulated with little to no consideration of its excessive power. So why nerf it now, if you werent willing to listen to feedback about this prior to release?

Some people might infer that you released it in an overpowered state to help sales, and then reduce its power once the initial purchase spike has subsided. Was this your thinking behind the Warlock class or have I misunderstood?

[rfachini]

Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)
Sev~

It may be unavoidable because of the desire to decrease lag, but this change penalizes archer builds where the desire is not to inflict a lot of damage, but to cause effects like paralysis to a large number of opponents. (You no longer get multiple shots, you get more damage per shot.)

[Atremus]

All the more reason to not play monk

[hit_fido]

Actually one more comment on the fighter feats. I really like the tactical additions. They're going to make improved trip obsolete (unless someone really cares about 30 sec max vs 60 sec max, and anyway mobs save to stand up every 2 seconds so why would anyone care). But they give fighter a really compelling capability. +20 sounds extreme but it requires four feats and 16 fighter levels, the latter of which is a pretty miserable platform right now, at least pre fighter pass.

The four armor feats probably don't go far enough - again you're requiring four feats for the max +30/+30 prr/mrr. But that's not a whole lot more that you can attain from some low hanging enhancements. If you're not comfortable with increasing the prr/mrr what about adding a +1 max dex bonus for each feat in addition to the prr/mrr.

[EnziteBob]

Please reconsider the changes on MRR on armor. PLEASE! Yes it may help some fighter only feats, but so many classes and multiclass builds use heavy armor. It's really just going to make everyone splash monk and rogue on everything again. I would say take the time fixing the feats first instead of gimping all other classes but fighter. Now if you were willing to go back and add the loss in MRR to those classes that would be fine, but don't remove the MRR until this is done. Don't want to have to re-role/LR 12 toons because of this.

[JOTMON]

Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).



This has been hanging over our heads for a long time and will be a deviation from the old school core rules.. but can understand why it is necessary.
but..
You need to address the ridiculously high save requirement in all your content.
We were forced into these /2 paladin splashes as the only means of surviving ridiculous save targets.
Removing this from the multi-class realm will mean many classes will no longer be able to obtain a reasonable level of saves for current content.

You are going to address this.. right...

[bracelet]

I have been running three back to back Iconic Bladeforged pure paladin lives, using each of the three fighting styles: single weapon, two-handed, and two-weapon.

The two weapon life used dual deathnips. It was not nearly as easy as it is being made out to be. TWF needs a lot more feats than the other styles to make it work well -and even once I had all the relevant feats, I was still straight up missing a lot of attacks with the second hand. Furthermore, the cleaves with heavy pick seem to have a very tight radius and don't hit nearly as many targets as a THF great sword cleave does. Are these things being taken into account when considering this nerf? Training Kobolds don't move away when you swing at them, and as far as I know AC isn't even a thing for them.

I am currently in the two-handed life and am enjoying it way more then TWF. Every attack hits, and cleaves have a huge area of effect. My DPS under actual quest conditions is noticeably much higher on this build using the current design.

Edit: Not to mention that TWF requires a much, much higher starting DEX score than the other builds which eats into what you can do in CON and STR.

[stoopid_cowboy]

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.



The "+1 to all other weapons" is a little concerning. What about the "garbage" weapons in game, like Great Clubs? When is the last time you actually saw someone using a great club??? How about throwing us a bone on great clubs and mauls? You could give us a +5 threat range with a +2 crit multiplier and would still rarely see anyone actually using them.

Also, heavy picks could use a little lovin'. The x4 crit on a 20 gives some fun numbers. But they are still waaaaaay behind the DPS curve compared to most other martial weapons. A +2 range would put them closer and a +3 would make them fun again.

[CheeseMilk]

You guys are going to HAVE to offer +20 HoW if you're changing the game this much.

"HAVE to" is pretty strong, but these are pretty wide-ranging changes.

Some sort of +x Lesser Heart would definitely be appreciated.

[rygard]

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.


what about pure monks? Nothing to Trade-off? you are crippling monks again for sake of monkchers.

[Siccan]

Just thought about it... What's the point of balance in a game that has no competitive PvP? Who care if you are OP in this game?

[Severlin]

Struggling with yet another proposed hit on PRR. I have had to reduce my defensive capabilities recently to increase dps in order to effectively tank in an environment where the dps of others is rising. PRR is a key part of those defenses and a previous update or two have both reduced PRR.

I know you have suggesting adding some feats to give the opportunity to mitigate some of this loss. But every feat I have is important to my build and sacrificing one or more to retain my current PRR levels will have impact elsewhere.

It is already hard enough to tank, especially in the more recent Epic Elite raids without this change, making it even harder.

Please reconsider this, or come up with a way for more defense oriented builds to retain the PRR whilst preventing the higher dps builds from taking advantage (Who I am sure are the real reason for the change). A suggestion might be to have a different PRR formula for Stalwart and Sacred Defenders, or beef up the PRR bonus earned from Durable Defense to compensate.

Heres hoping you are listening.

Two thoughts:

We haven't heard that characters built to tank are having a hard time surviving. We will watch for that.

We buffed the power of many threat boosts recently. PM me if your tanks are taking the threat boosting abilities and are still losing agro to DPS. There may be a bug.

Sev~

[Grailhawk]

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Sev~




Two Weapon Fighting builds are dealing too much DPS. This is generally because on-hit effects now scale with melee power, and we've relaxed many internal cooldown limits on to-hit effects. We expected Two Weapon Fighting builds to scale quickly when we changed on-hit effects, and balanced the fighting style feats to compensate, but that was a world before Assassin and Tempest were updated, and players largely equated Two Weapon Fighting to those trees. Now that those are updated we can look at re-adjusting the two weapon fighting feats.

Sev~


Two reasons:

~ Two Weapon Fighting is well out pacing the other styles in classes not specifically designed to use that style.
~ The animation change to Two Weapon Fighting that makes it look better also gave it a slight DPS boost.

Sev~

Per the data (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/275144) we have the issue with TWF animations is that it gets more out of alacrity than any other styles. Is this true is this the DPS boost you are referring to?

If that data is good why not start there for balancing fighting styles would it not be better if there wasn't a style biases from the get go.

TWF gets 1.2% alacrity from every 1%
THF gets 1.03% or 0.96% from every 1%

All styles should just get 1% alacrity from every point of alacrity regardless of style.

[JOTMON]

Tactics.. meh.. whats the point.. worthless on bosses..and a waste of feats overall.

Fighter pass needs their revisitation before this.

[Hobgoblin]

sev? was it a typo on those feats?

are those fighter only feats?

or can anyone take them?

i would prefer fighter only, but want to clarify them


o and to stay on target


rabble rabble rabble

ya breaking ma build gimmme free stuff etc......

just to get in on it.....

[Cordovan]

The "+1 to all other weapons" is a little concerning. What about the "garbage" weapons in game, like Great Clubs? When is the last time you actually saw someone using a great club??? How about throwing us a bone on great clubs and mauls? You could give us a +5 threat range with a +2 crit multiplier and would still rarely see anyone actually using them.

Also, heavy picks could use a little lovin'. The x4 crit on a 20 gives some fun numbers. But they are still waaaaaay behind the DPS curve compared to most other martial weapons. A +2 range would put them closer and a +3 would make them fun again.

Encouraging/revamping the weapons that are not used very often is outside of the scope of the Improved Critical changes, but is certainly something that we would love to do in the future.

[Cordovan]

sev? was it a typo on those feats?

are those fighter only feats?

or can anyone take them?

i would prefer fighter only, but want to clarify them


o and to stay on target


rabble rabble rabble

ya breaking ma build gimmme free stuff etc......

just to get in on it.....

Yes, these are fighter-specific feats, with required levels of fighter as a prerequisite. They can be taken using any feat slot, however, not just the fighter bonus feats.

[jakeelala]

I'm totally ok with frequent and well thought out balance changes, games like Destiny and WoW are generally much better games than DDO at given points in time, because they simply change what must change.

That being said,

Throwing has ALWAYS been the red headed step child of combat styles.
-It has no improved combat style feats (it has SE, but that's weapon specific, not style). There are no Improved Throwing feats, though there are IPS and PS for general ranged.
-Shuriken are now, and from what I can tell into the future, the only remotely viable throwing weapon. And this requires at least 3 levels of monk. A big part of this problem is that passive bonuses to the crit multipliers (the very few that exist) don't work, ie Swashbuckler, and Rogue Mechanic (lvl 18 core). Holy Sword has never worked.

Really, the biggest issue with Throwers (and I bring this up in this thread because it is a BALANCE issue), is that no throwing weapon is compelling outside of Shurikens. And for the most part, an almost perfectly played and geared thrower (TF Tier 3, ToEE set, all the latest raid gear, etc. Like my main), can barely keep up with an above average-ly played 18-20 Rogue mechanic with middle to above average gear. If the very best incarnation of thrower is challenged and occasionally bested by someones xbow Rogue alt, we have a balance problem.

Please explain to me, if you please, why you think that is acceptable for what is arguably one of DDO's more interesting and unique combat styles?
-Do you have a future plan to address any of this? Most specifically, the issue with Throwing weapons not benefitting from increased passive critical multipliers.
-Have you ever played a thrower? Do you know that it's really fun and everyone should be able to try it like the other combat styles?
-Are you totally opposed to just adding a feat to the game called Throwing Expertise that works for all throwing weapons that is not a shuriken, and gives an extra chance for a projectile based on an ability score (Dex or Int)? Just remove Shuriken Expertise, and make it Throwing Expertise. Make it a multi-selector when you take the feat for which stat to use.

I'm am not looking to boost the throwing characters and builds I already have, though that would be nice since they are behind xbows, and may be behind archers depending on final AA and game balance changes.

I am looking for a couple of very small and easy changes that you could make to the game to make throwing, of all sorts, a viable endgame combat style for a number of different builds and classes.

I would really like to hear your (the devs) positions on these current issues, and your positions on fixing or addressing them in the future. I've spent 3 years playing and building throwers, and I want to know if it's just time to give up and go back to bows or not.

[Eldried]

Good changes mostly.
The only thing I dont like is the change to devine grace. Devine grace is an ability which comes directly from Pen and paper Paladins and isnt that overpowered anyway in my book. You lose a lot when you dont get the capstones by being l20 in a class. Its kinda the same as evasion a rogue gets with level 2. Nice splash able levels. With that change a paladin splash becomes irrevelant. Before Most people dont use it as it is.


Otherwise good changes in general for the whole game.

Thumbs up!

[patang01]

Adding all those tactical and armor feats are really a kick in the scrotch to people who love to use tactical features. It seems fully reasonable to add more...but truly; in order to be viable as far as tactically you now have to add as many of those as possible. The result is instead a much weaker character - good at perhaps tripping or stunning stuff but over all DPS will drop like a rock.

There just isn't enough feat slots as is. Your solution of helping DC starved tactical users only deprives them of everything else. Yes, now my fighter can potentially be better at tripping. But on the other hand his DPS will go down even further. This is a one way street build. It gets even worse for Pally's that want to add tactical play - they don't have that flexibility (much fewer feats). And it seems that multi classing in order to even be semi efficient in tactical feats is the way to go.

I applaud your interest in making it more viable. But adding feats will only tilt anyone that want to be 'expert in tripping' to also be useless in making a dent. Maybe the issue really is the ludicrous idea about exploding CR on creatures and not trying to figure out how to inflate player numbers?

[Firewall]

After my first read-through i think those are some well thought-out changes.
At first glance i like what i see but haven't fully absorbed the bottom line of what that changes for all of my characters yet.

Will you also add balance/bug considerations for Wolf and Tree builds?

[hit_fido]

Tactics.. pft.. whats the point.. worthless on bosses..and a waste of feats overall.

Fighter pass needs their revisitation before this.

I enjoy playing with more useful 'buttons' than "attack" and "forward". I'm probably not the only one.

[Basura_Grande]

These nerfs are a good start, now look at the broken tree builds.

[Gurei23]

You just typo'd " character level" as " fighter level" a bunch of times.

Agreed. The PRR/MRR feats should be universal, fighters will be way more inclined to take them because they have more feats, but making these fighter-only takes away the hard decision for other melee classes to take the new feats to sustain prr/mrr they either once carried or need to stay on par with the other classes (i'm looking at monks for helping bring them up, and feat starved classes like barb and pally that will want the extra prr/mrr they just lost anyways but taking a huge hit to reclaim it).
Although, Urthor's concern should definitely be looked into, he's a model tank and good grounds for adjustment. ...Sort of surprised Dwarves don't get more prr/mrr in their tree, given they are all about survivability, and the fact they've historically had better magic and AC defenses than other races since at least 2nd edition, possibly earlier.

I am a little bit confused with the direction of Ravager's healing t5 change, it seems to encourage single target fighting styles (2wf and sfw) but you're remarking on how there is a disproportionate amount of 2wf barbs already. Making an essential healing t5 ability get a 1 sec CD pushes more barbs into 2wf, not less.

Lastly, I think there should be far more thought put into improved crit's adjusted threat range, this is a serious nerf to weapons with appeal focused on their natural increased range. Enormous nerf to quarterstaff builds that are already largely limited to a handful of named items with threat range/crit damage increased enough to compete with other build's basics.

[Darkmits]

Thanks for the heads-up, Sev. A few concerns about issues that haven't been discussed a lot (and possibly the playerbase has no issue as they currently are on live):

- PRR and MRR are percentage based reductions. This causes the issue that they become more effective versus flat DR as damage from enemies increases. It reaches the point where DR isn't noticeable and any choice a player has to do, should it appear, is to go PRR. Have you considered changing PRR to instead being a flat DR bonus or modifying the formula to scale slower? Similarily for MRR with Element Resistances, though the effect here isn't as noticeable both because MRR values are lower, and because Element Resistances are higher than DR.

- There are some UI issues I'd like to see adressed. For one, it'd be nice if Guild Buffs could be consolidated into a single icon. Another is that temporary hit points extend in the red health bar of the party frames, but not in the personal frame (which is the correct way to display of the two). The die changes so quickly that we barely have enough time to check what it says, it'd be more useful if we had an option to make it show only failures (ie when we make a miss or grazing hit, then we fail an enemy DC, or when we fail Disabling a trap etc). We also still have windows scrolling to the top whenever info is changed. During Feat selection it is very hard to navigate the window because the scroll part at the right side is too thin, and page up/down jumps over 1 feat per screen.

- Are there plans to give an incentive to use Cannith Crafting? Outside of the odd Featherfall or Haggle craftable that gets upgraded every 2 levels, the cost to craft something and generally upgrade crafting skill is too high compared to benefits from it and its comparison to random loot.

[patang01]

Seems a bit much to remove MRR from armor completely. That's more or less where we started when it was determined medium and heavy armor needed something to make it attractive vs cloth/leather plus evasion. What has now changed to make some MRR unnecessary again? It was already reduced once, wasn't it? I'd prefer to see it not removed entirely. At least tie it into the enhancement bonus of the armor:

heavy grants (armor enhancement bonus) Magical Resist Rating
medium grants (armor enhancement bonus * 0.5) Magical Resist Rating
light grants nothing extra

I already *****ed about manyshot somewhere else. But nothing else here seems really objectionable to me. Even the divine grace change means a mere 2 paladin splash still gives +8 to all saves. Seems reasonable. I imagine a lot of angst over the holy sword being melee only, for those who built for it recently.

Yes, and back we go. Before MRR there was evasion builds and few heavy armor builds. Now they added a feat. How many can add 4 feats just to add MRR?

If the solution to the issue is to make heavy armor builds where they were before, then the only real result is heavy armor builds dumped for more ranged and evasion, or hybrids that include displacement. And then we're back to to how it was after MOTU and all the armor up changes.

[adrian69]

Seems a bit much to remove MRR from armor completely. That's more or less where we started when it was determined medium and heavy armor needed something to make it attractive vs cloth/leather plus evasion. What has now changed to make some MRR unnecessary again? It was already reduced once, wasn't it? I'd prefer to see it not removed entirely. At least tie it into the enhancement bonus of the armor:

heavy grants (armor enhancement bonus) Magical Resist Rating
medium grants (armor enhancement bonus * 0.5) Magical Resist Rating
light grants nothing extra

I already *****ed about manyshot somewhere else. But nothing else here seems really objectionable to me. Even the divine grace change means a mere 2 paladin splash still gives +8 to all saves. Seems reasonable. I imagine a lot of angst over the holy sword being melee only, for those who built for it recently.

I agree with the logic here on the armor. I think it's about right. Why take away MRR when we just got it, and it's much needed?

[JOTMON]

Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.



is BAB the right way to approach PRR? it puts more PRR to better BAB classes ignoring the armor, class choices, enhancements, feats.
using BAB just seems to be a bad fit for the desired result..

Thinking about non 100% BAB classes like clerics...
~The BAB progression for players is based on their class (for creatures, on their HD), and follows one of the three following progressions:
+1 BAB per level, the best BAB progression, is reserved for the warrior classes (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger).
+.75 BAB per level, the second best BAB progression, is used by the Artificer, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Favored Soul, Monk, Rogue and Warlock.
+.5 BAB per level, the worst BAB progression, is used by the Sorcerer and the Wizard. Epic levels also use this progression.


I would preferred to have seen something applied based on the + value of the armor itself.
Especially considering higher level armor gives a higher + rating and could be used to improve PRR as the player level increase.


Also.. I would have MRR higher on light armor and decrease going to heavy armor... not just remove them all together...

[MonadRebelion]

I'm definitely on board with these changes. If you want fighters to be able to catch up with people using their feats, we need to see more feats. Anyway, nice job folks. The changes look really nice.

[UurlockYgmeov]

OK - so since this is such a sweeping and systematic change - including changes to common feats and the introduction of 6? new feats, kindly include a LR20 or at least a LR for every character when these are introduced.

If it was just changes to enhancements or one or two feats, but this is a big system wide set of changes.

TYIA, and not trying to derail.

also - with fighter, cleric, monk, handwrap, cannith crafted, random loot passes coming - I like where this is heading. Time to finish up Uurlock's Sorc lives (and related epic past lives) and move toward cleric and warlock! Gnome Warlock here I come! :P

[hit_fido]

is BAB the right way to approach PRR? it puts more PRR to better BAB classes ignoring the armor, class choices, enhancements, feats.
using BAB just seems to be a bad fit for the desired result..

I would preferred to have seen something applied based on the + value of the armor itself.
Especially considering higher level armor gives a higher + rating and could be used to improve PRR as the player level increase.

I like BAB for Physical Resist Rating because it:

- scales with level
- scales faster for those classes that should naturally be more adept with armor and mitigating physical damage

For MRR I could see the logic in tying to enhancement value of the armor as I suggested earlier. Then you're tying Magical Resist Rating to a magical property of the armor itself rather than the imagined tactical prowess of the wearer. That will still tend to scale with level (higher level equating to better quality/more magical armor) but not as fast or as high.

To be clear I'd rather they not change the MRR on armor at all, it's been lowered once already. But using some other factor like enhancement value may be a compromise to what we have now.

[UurlockYgmeov]

although I would suggest making the TWF feats each grant +1 MP instead of +2; and give 2HF a slight buff to +3 each.

Kinda makes sense since THF gives 1.5* damage.

[Vargouille]

5) I've never built a tactical DC toon, so take this feedback with a pinch of salt, but isn't +20 a bit overkill? My biggest fear is if fighters can get such a huge "up" on DCs then they might end up needing to be raised to justify characters taking these feats, but that will have very, very serious implications for DC-based casting. I'd lean towards too many new fighter feats too. Giving an incentive to get lots of fighter levels is very much needed, but maybe three each with slightly more power in the later tiers to even it out would be better? The idea of a toon with 4 armour feats is just a little boring.

Actually one more comment on the fighter feats. I really like the tactical additions. They're going to make improved trip obsolete (unless someone really cares about 30 sec max vs 60 sec max, and anyway mobs save to stand up every 2 seconds so why would anyone care). But they give fighter a really compelling capability. +20 sounds extreme but it requires four feats and 16 fighter levels, the latter of which is a pretty miserable platform right now, at least pre fighter pass.

The four armor feats probably don't go far enough - again you're requiring four feats for the max +30/+30 prr/mrr. But that's not a whole lot more that you can attain from some low hanging enhancements. If you're not comfortable with increasing the prr/mrr what about adding a +1 max dex bonus for each feat in addition to the prr/mrr.


sev? was it a typo on those feats?

are those fighter only feats?

or can anyone take them?

i would prefer fighter only, but want to clarify them


Adding all those tactical and armor feats are really a kick in the scrotch to people who love to use tactical features. It seems fully reasonable to add more...but truly; in order to be viable as far as tactically you now have to add as many of those as possible.

Some comments about the fighter feats:


These require fighter levels. They can be taken with fighter bonus feats or regular feats.
We don't expect to rebalance monsters around Fighters with all these feats. Fighters who go all out on tactics are expected to reach 95% chance on most monsters (possibly excluding some rare bosses / raid bosses, who will often be immune to many tactics regardless.)
We don't expect all fighters who want to use tactical feats to take all of these new feats. This is largely why they are not a progression, but rather four distinct feats. Characters with 20 Fighter levels might opt to take just the +8 and that's enough (with other gear, STR, etc.) Characters with fewer Fighter levels won't have access to the best bonuses (as well as fewer feats, of course), so they might struggle to reach the same heights as someone who dedicates more class levels to Fighter.
Similarly, the armor feats can be taken one or some at a time. It's not really an all-or-nothing, and a 20 Fighter might skip the first one or two in favor or other bonuses.


These feats help power up the Fighter class, reward taking more Fighter levels, fit into the theme of "Fighters get more feats!", and help provide some differentiation for builds. It matters a bit more if you want to spend your final 2 levels on Fighter vs. another class, and we don't expect every player to make the same decision. We're happy for Fighter to remain interesting for multiclass builds, while also rewarding purer builds. We feel these eight new feats spread across levels 2-16 helps with many kinds of characters.

[adrian69]

Where are the data? I can estimate too...

I ran EH GH saga last night with a 14 paladin 4 rogue 2 arty and an 18 rogue 2 arty and a 12 ranger 6 monk 2 something. I know all these guys too, they're good players. Kill list looked something like this in MS Crater:

18 rogue/2 arty: 170 kills
12 ranger/ 6 monk: 60 kills
14 pally 4 rogue: 55 kills
16 arty 3 pally 1 wizzy: 24


These values were pretty much the same in every quest. I was farming Seeds more or less with friends to TR back to a ranger, but I left the group last really wanting to play a rogue archer. He's not the first archer I've seen either dominate.

[JOTMON]

I enjoy playing with more useful 'buttons' than "attack" and "forward". I'm probably not the only one.

but would you spend 4 feats to improve tactics for things like trip, sunder, stun,...
besides.. opening up +20 to tactics in 4 fighter only feats is just opening themselves up to have to nerf it so no one else but fighters can hit the benchmarks.
These tactics are too costly and tier too high at the end.
Reduce the overall range and put them in the fighter enhancement tree and also make them available as open feats. most classes cant afford them anyway.

[Henky]

The changes are designed to cut back on the power of two weapon fighting Paladins, Vanguards, and fix the fact that Paladin 14 hybrids are by many players' estimation the best missile characters. Throwing weapons are not affected by Holy Sword.

Sev~
It has been asked already, but what happens with pure monks? They don't get melee power from enhancements.... all monks should be shuriken throwers now or what?

[Kielbasa]

At a cursory glance deepwood stalkers receive a lot of nerfs from these changes. They lose out on some crit range with any weapon with a unique crit range especially named bows. They also lose burst from manyshot and also lose 6 melee power from feats. You may want to toss some more melee and ranged power back into their tier 5 abilities to balance this out. They are already behind tempest and looking at the new arcane archer they will be behind them as well. Don't let them slip through the cracks please.

[ForgettableNPC]

While we're on the subject of changes, can we get Smite Foe and related Enhancements on Warpriest Tree to be able to work with Longbow users for any of those Faith is that of the Silver Flame? It IS their Favored Weapon after all...

[Gleep_Wurp]

11/10/2015 fallout 4 .

[Lonnbeimnech]

is BAB the right way to approach PRR? it puts more PRR to better BAB classes ignoring the armor, class choices, enhancements, feats.
using BAB just seems to be a bad fit for the desired result..

Thinking about non 100% BAB classes like clerics...
~The BAB progression for players is based on their class (for creatures, on their HD), and follows one of the three following progressions:
+1 BAB per level, the best BAB progression, is reserved for the warrior classes (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger).
+.75 BAB per level, the second best BAB progression, is used by the Artificer, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Favored Soul, Monk, Rogue and Warlock.
+.5 BAB per level, the worst BAB progression, is used by the Sorcerer and the Wizard. Epic levels also use this progression.


I would preferred to have seen something applied based on the + value of the armor itself.
Especially considering higher level armor gives a higher + rating and could be used to improve PRR as the player level increase.


Also.. I would have MRR higher on light armor and decrease going to heavy armor... not just remove them all together...

fighters paladins rangers and barbarians get full bab
centered monks get full bab though obviously they don't wear armor
clerics and fvs that invest in the warpriest or cast divine power or are running in divine crusader get full bab
bards that invest in warchanter or run in divine crusader get full bab
wizards and sorcs that invest in eldritch knight or cast tensors transformation get full bab
warlocks that invest in enlightened spirit get full bab
artificers that cast tensors get full bab

that basically leaves druid and rogue that are not in crusader, and caster builds.

[Grailhawk]

that basically leaves druid and rogue that are not in crusader, and caster builds.

Rogues can make a go at Tensors scrolls.

[CaptainPurge]

Go ahead and announce free +20 hearts with the update.
This will help chill the thread before it gets billions of doom replies. (Adds a little DRR (DOOM RESISTANCE RATING)).

[Mojo_d]

Having played paladin hybrid throwers and twf melees,I can agree that they are pretty overpowered.And yes,pure fighters seems to have fallen behind in the last updates,but for way longer than fighters,poor monks havent gotten any love.While these changes will balance things,and maybe help fighters a bit,monks will fall even more behind,making them a class that someone picks only 2 levels of it for that evasion feat and the 2 extra feats,not even considering fighting unarmed.I understand that this would require even more work since unarmed combat has always been buggy,but wouldnt it be better to make some time and work on a monks pass maybe,some balance changes having this class also in mind?All I'm trying to say,instead of just rushing to balance some things,some other matters grow even bigger.I dont want to make monks overpowered or something,but at least be on par with the rest of the melee classes before nerfing them even more than they already are(seeing the changes in twf...)

[JOTMON]

I like BAB for Physical Resist Rating because it:

- scales with level
- scales faster for those classes that should naturally be more adept with armor and mitigating physical damage

For MRR I could see the logic in tying to enhancement value of the armor as I suggested earlier. Then you're tying Magical Resist Rating to a magical property of the armor itself rather than the imagined tactical prowess of the wearer. That will still tend to scale with level (higher level equating to better quality/more magical armor) but not as fast or as high.

To be clear I'd rather they not change the MRR on armor at all, it's been lowered once already. But using some other factor like enhancement value may be a compromise to what we have now.


PRR from armor is the defensive nature of the armor not the character.
Problem is BAB is an attack bonus measure not a defensive measure.

using BAB does not address the nature and PRR of the armor it unfairly balances PRR to Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger and anyone who can reliably cast Tensors.
..and... I foresee everyone running around with stacks of Tensors Scrolls.

[Apollos713]

Overall, the changes look good, and many of them are very necessary.

As a current monk player in epics I'm not worried about the loss of MP from the TWF feats. Monk updates need to come through enhancement tree edits, not through feats. My monk will still be very effective even with the small loss of MP.

[Delacroix21]

It has been asked already, but what happens with pure monks? They don't get melee power from enhancements.... all monks should be shuriken throwers now or what?

I am waiting on this being answered as well. Waiting at least another 3-4 months is absolutely ridiculous! They need to implement a temporary unarmed fix (like making monk base die 2d6 instead of 1d6, so 20 monk becomes 7d6 instead of 3.5d6) to hold us over until a thorough pass can be done.

[CrackedIce]

Greetings.

We've seen a lot of community feedback, both public and private, about our ongoing plans for balance. These are some changes we are considering to increase game balance.

As with any post that outlines power reductions (aka nerfs) I am sure there will be a lot of players looking for explanations and our thoughts and results on balance that led to these changes. I will be following up this post with more details that talk about why some of these changes are being implemented.

***

Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon.

Blood Strength (Barbarian Ravager)
The portion of this enhancement that heals the user when they kill an opponent now has a 1 second internal cooldown.

Critical Rage (Barbarian Ravager)
The bonus to critical threat range is now a competence bonus.

Two weapon fighting animations have been fixed so there is no longer a weird jump on the fourth animation. This has made the fourth attack slightly quicker.

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.

Doubleshot values over 100% now have a chance of producing a third attack. The chance is equal to the amount the value exceeds 100. A doubleshot value of 130, for example, would always produce one extra shot and have a 30% chance to produce a third shot.

(Doublestrike will still cap at 100 for technical reasons.)

Repeating Crossbows and Doubleshot
Fixed a bug where Doubleshot was not being reduced for repeating crossbows. (Doubleshot chance is divided by 3 for repeating crossbows.)

Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Mechanical Reloader (Rogue Mechanic)
The alacrity for non-repeating crossbows is now 30%. (Was 40%)

Pulverizer (Legendary Dreadnought)
The bonus to critical threat range for bludgeoning weapons is now an Insight bonus.

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)

As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.

Tactical Training
Requires Fighter Level 4
You gain +2 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 8
You gain +4 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Mastery
Requires Fighter Level 12
You gain +6 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Supremacy
Requires Fighter Level 16
You gain +8 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Notes: All tactical feats stack for a total of +20. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Tactical Training and forego the +2 but still have access to Tatical Supremacy.

Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.


Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).

Sev~

Excellent changes. No complaints or additional observations at the moment.

I am sad though that I can never see what Pinion will look like with the upcoming changes of +1 crit multiplier in AA and Deepwood threat range to be 15-20 X4 and will
only be 18 - 20 X4. Although, if I go LD, I can still get it to 17 - 20 X4 (which to put into perspective has been the default of Pinion with only the improved crit feat - now I need two more additives to threat to obtain what it was before this pass.

In general, bows will maintain its standard of less often critting especially with the changes to manyshot.

The drow weapons just lost some of their luster - dwarven waraxe will only be 17 - 20 X4 rather than 15 - 20 X4 for my tempest ranger.

In all regard, this really changes the approach to building our characters. Which is a good thing!!

[Hakushi]

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

I'm a little bit concerned about this change. While this will have no effect on all normal weapons, including most of the named weapons, some weapons have a different Natural Crit range. The question is, are these weapons getting nerfed with this change?
As an example, a named Quarterstaff with a natural crit range of 19-20 without the Impact enchantment, will it get only +1, or the +2 it used to get?

[Faltout]

Very good changes.

...except the manyshot/10k star change which I've already argued against in the AA thread (and still see the only reason behind this change as being "lag" which we don't see or understand why it's there)

Maybe now the monster damage and HPs can be nerfed a little.

[JOTMON]

I am waiting on this being answered as well. Waiting at least another 3-4 months is absolutely ridiculous! They need to implement a temporary unarmed fix (like making monk base die 2d6 instead of 1d6, so 20 monk becomes 7d6 instead of 3.5d6) to hold us over until a thorough pass can be done.

Well all the monks I have seen have gone Treeform..so you know whats coming next...

http://i3.cpcache.com/product_zoom/1172602815/make_like_a_tree_and_leave_rectangle_magnet.jpg?he ight=460&width=460&padToSquare=true

[Cordovan]

Having played paladin hybrid throwers and twf melees,I can agree that they are pretty overpowered.And yes,pure fighters seems to have fallen behind in the last updates,but for way longer than fighters,poor monks havent gotten any love.While these changes will balance things,and maybe help fighters a bit,monks will fall even more behind,making them a class that someone picks only 2 levels of it for that evasion feat and the 2 extra feats,not even considering fighting unarmed.I understand that this would require even more work since unarmed combat has always been buggy,but wouldnt it be better to make some time and work on a monks pass maybe,some balance changes having this class also in mind?All I'm trying to say,instead of just rushing to balance some things,some other matters grow even bigger.I dont want to make monks overpowered or something,but at least be on par with the rest of the melee classes before nerfing them even more than they already are(seeing the changes in twf...)


Overall, the changes look good, and many of them are very necessary.

As a current monk player in epics I'm not worried about the loss of MP from the TWF feats. Monk updates need to come through enhancement tree edits, not through feats. My monk will still be very effective even with the small loss of MP.


I am waiting on this being answered as well. Waiting at least another 3-4 months is absolutely ridiculous! They need to implement a temporary unarmed fix (like making monk base die 2d6 instead of 1d6, so 20 monk becomes 7d6 instead of 3.5d6) to hold us over until a thorough pass can be done.

These changes are not meant to replace class improvements, although we appreciate the suggestions that might make sense as a short-term fix. We do plan on working on the monk in the future, although yes, it will most likely be in 2016.

[Cordovan]

I'm a little bit concerned about this change. While this will have no effect on all normal weapons, including most of the named weapons, some weapons have a different Natural Crit range. The question is, are these weapons getting nerfed with this change?
As an example, a named Quarterstaff with a natural crit range of 19-20 without the Impact enchantment, will it get only +1, or the +2 it used to get?

Under the proposal, Improved Critical would offer a +1 to the critical threat range of a quarterstaff. So, a regular quarterstaff that is 20/x2 would become 19-20/x2, and a named quarterstaff with a natural crit range of 19-20 would become 18-20.

[hit_fido]

PRR from armor is the defensive nature of the armor not the character.

In so far as they have class tree enhancements that increase PRR, and even some that specifically increase PRR only when wearing certain kinds of armor, I can accept a game mechanic where BAB also increases the PRR of armor. I can even suspend disbelief around "attack" bonus and chalk it up to having characters with more tactical combat prowess being able to mitigate damage better when on the attack than characters that aren't so adept at combat.

But it doesn't have to be BAB. Any other factor that satisfies these would be fine to me:

- scales with level: it makes sense to me that a level 20 fighter gets more mitigation out of their chain mail than a level 1 fighter.

- scales with combat prowess: it makes sense to me that a level 10 fighter gets more mitigation out of their chain mail than a level 10 wizard (even if the wizard spent a feat for light armor proficiency)

[Thar]

The changes are designed to cut back on the power of two weapon fighting Paladins, Vanguards, and fix the fact that Paladin 14 hybrids are by many players' estimation the best missile characters. Throwing weapons are not affected by Holy Sword.

Sev~

that estimation is pre ranger/AA pass. Not that enough is being added to the core there to make them overall better that can't be obtained with a ranger splash.

[Thar]

I'm a little bit concerned about this change. While this will have no effect on all normal weapons, including most of the named weapons, some weapons have a different Natural Crit range. The question is, are these weapons getting nerfed with this change?
As an example, a named Quarterstaff with a natural crit range of 19-20 without the Impact enchantment, will it get only +1, or the +2 it used to get?

it will change normal weapons. ie those with enhanced crit profiles will not be doubled, they will only get the + as indicated above.

not a huge nerf but makes those expanded crit weapons a bit less good.

[redoubt]

How so,
Kukri is 1d4 @ 18-20x2 and goes to 15-20 x2
Dagger is 1d4 @ 19-20 x2 and goes to 17-20 x2
light mace 1d6 @ 20 x2 goes to 19-20 x2

which weapon do you choose



Agony, same as before. But if you want to spec for slash instead, them EMG probably. Both with TF in the other hand.

Light mace for skellies.

[hit_fido]

Basic armor offers too much mitigation for its cost. While we are happy that armored characters are relevant again, we want to cut back on it a bit.



Maybe this is the disconnect, and I'm perfectly fine if it's on my end, but I thought the primary reason armored characters are relevant again was the added Magic Resist Rating achieved by having a base amount through armor as well as through some select class tree enhancements only available to certain armor wearing characters. And to some other degree, the adoration of the 30DR/60DR shadow plate.

So removing all Magic Resist Rating from armor is going to put a severe dip in that relevance, or so I would think?

[Basura_Grande]

While you're all at it, Nerf Mortal Fear.

[Slasheboy]

I'd like to ask a question: Does manyshot work only on bows, or does it work on other weapons? Specifically, throwers, non-repeating crossbows, repeaters.

The Manyshot Ability currently seems like a little bit of a nerf at lower levels, and a pretty significant nerf at higher levels, especially for sneak attacking archers (deepwood and rogues). How about compensating by either boosting the base attack speed of bows a little, or perhaps providing a subfeat that focuses on archers who prefer sustained DPS.
The subfeat could work something like this: Activated feat: Sustained Barrage: For the next 120 seconds you add your base attack bonus to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 60 second cooldown and Manyshot on a 120 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

I also urge you to relook at improved critical/keen, especially with weapons like daggers, which became viable due to the interaction with IC and assassin's knife specialization. The list goes on, but this doubly goes for quarterstaves, with the base improvement from specific named weapons combined with acrobat's staff specialization. You could look into changing the enhancements instead, but I don't recommend it.

I really like the tactical changes, though I'd ask that you give a second look at the tactical special attack feats themselves as well, and possibly give a subfeat for a ranged version that has a longer CD. Also, updating them for the new combat meta would be nice, such as improved sunder debuffing -10 PRR on enemies, sap debuffing MP/RP/SP on enemies, feint attack being ranged-compatible and being part of the attack sequence (rather than that 1 sec of no attacks) or not needing combat expertise, hamstring being ranged-compatible and getting +[W], slicing blow dealing % of max health and much higher bleed stacks.

I like the armor feat additions as well, but could you change it to simply Armor Training, and let it apply to medium armor? They don't get evasion anyways.

The complete removal of MRR seems a little harsh. Perhaps the earlier suggestion by another poster of MRR bonuses being halved of PRR, with light armor receiving no MRR would be good.

The divine grace nerf has long been coming, and I approve, but do consider lowering the DC on some of the traps by 1 or 2.

In regards to warlocks, is the spellpower scaling of the light damage (from Spiritual retribution) changed?

I know this belongs to the lag thread, but I'd like to tack on a suggestion: code Doubleshot and other additional shot effects as a single packet, working kinda like a twf weapon hit when the projectile object hits

Thanks Sev, and the rest of the devs, for all your hard work. Nerfs are a hard pill to swallow, but its one we must take for the health of the game.

PS:Consider changing the base for manyshot from BAB to character levels, so that pure rangers don't get shafted in favour of tensers/divine might in epic levels

[redoubt]

Two thoughts:

We haven't heard that characters built to tank are having a hard time surviving. We will watch for that.

We buffed the power of many threat boosts recently. PM me if your tanks are taking the threat boosting abilities and are still losing agro to DPS. There may be a bug.

Sev~

Well, you have not implemented this yet. But I can say that tanking in Fire on Thunder Peaks on EH was enough to make my 28 vanguard paladin run out of self healing and need the assistance of a cleric. (I'm not saying that is a bad thing, but I hope you realize that there are many places where current tanks do take pretty big hits and the change to heavy armor is going to make those hits higher.)

[JOTMON]

Under the proposal, Improved Critical would offer a +1 to the critical threat range of a quarterstaff. So, a regular quarterstaff that is 20/x2 would become 19-20/x2, and a named quarterstaff with a natural crit range of 19-20 would become 18-20.

Deathblow for Sireth type acrobats.. threat range get neutered
followed by quarterstaff builds TR'ing to Falchion builds.

[Game_Whino]

So what you're saying is that I picked a great time to cancel my VIP membership. (I kid)

Welp, at-least I got my warlock lives out of the way before the nerfage hit.

[mikarddo]

Where is the fix to Tree form and Wolf form builds? Those are very much top level builds atm and I see no fix/nerf in your balance items.

Where is the nerf to Mortal Feat (simply make it a flat 50% which is never modified by anything)

This needs an answer before you even contemplate going through with this balance pass.

At any rate - I really like the overall idea of nerfing everything thats brokenly good at the same time though I still need to see some actual tests before I believe in the specifics.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tactical Training
Requires Fighter Level 4
You gain +2 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 8
You gain +4 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Mastery
Requires Fighter Level 12
You gain +6 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Supremacy
Requires Fighter Level 16
You gain +8 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Notes: All tactical feats stack for a total of +20. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Tactical Training and forego the +2 but still have access to Tatical Supremacy.

Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.



Sev~


I would think that GTWF WOULD grant melee power, mainly due to the amount of dedication a build must have to attain it.......


As for the armor changes. Once again Mithril is left out. I would think to bring the BEST armor material into play again should be included. And not just a dodge bump as mentioned a year ago, Im talking about giving it the prr & mrr that the normal version would have. eg; full plate.



All in all it looks like some decent changes.

[mikarddo]

Under the proposal, Improved Critical would offer a +1 to the critical threat range of a quarterstaff. So, a regular quarterstaff that is 20/x2 would become 19-20/x2, and a named quarterstaff with a natural crit range of 19-20 would become 18-20.

Do you plan to go back and change the crit range of those named weapons so they are still worthwhile or is the plan really to ruin those weapons? Pinion, Sireth etc. look to become much worse all of the sudden...

[CeltEireson]

Deathblow for Sireth type acrobats.. threat range get neutered
followed by quarterstaff builds TR'ing to Falchion builds.

They're changing the pulveriser epic ability to insight, so it will stack now with the competence bonus from acrobat. So whilst it wont fully offset the change it will help.

[Saekee]

I assume things like assassin's Knife Spec still gives daggers a 15-20/3 crit range? or do they become 16-20/3?

I am glad about TWF fourth attack being faster. Please note that TWF is not so great against multiple mobs and its hit box is small. I suggest it be nerfed after the hit box is adjusted.

I suggested in a thread that Keen and IC could actually stack but that they do so like weapons with Keen 2 or Keen 3, i.e it adds .5w for each keen. So if you have IC: slashing and pick up a lootgen Keen3 kukri, it would become Keen 4. Just a thought. Seems like some of that weapon knowledge should not just disappear.

[Thar]

Two weapon paladins are still doing better DPS than Paladins using two handed weapons or single weapon fighting by a good margin. But by all means, we'd love to see some test numbers from Lamannia! We added some bigger DPS kobolds in the test dojo to help players test.

Sev~

why nerf the holy sword/shield buff? isn't sword and board the style that needs the most dps help? was it coding or we thought the AC bonus compensated? and really think about that if so. AC is the garbage defensive stat nowadays.

[Krelar]

I assume things like assassin's Knife Spec still gives daggers a 15-20/3 crit range? or do they become 16-20/3?


It gives +1 to crit range and crit multiplier so with the new improved crit.

Base dagger crit is 19-20x2
With Knife Spec 18-20x3
With improved crit and knife spec 16-20x3

[phalaeo]

You guys are going to HAVE to offer +20 HoW if you're changing the game this much.

Yes.... yes you are.

[serthcore]

So all the weapons with improved crit range gets nerfed, all the abilities such as holy sword or tier 5 qstaff gets nerfed.
eSoS gets nerfed.
+ extra crit range from crusader gets nerfed.

Uhm devs you sure about it?
At least adjust crusader crit range, make it give +2 now...

[Thar]

Two reasons:

~ Two Weapon Fighting is well out pacing the other styles in classes not specifically designed to use that style.
~ The animation change to Two Weapon Fighting that makes it look better also gave it a slight DPS boost.

Sev~

so the tempest changes are getting an unintended 15% dps reduction? just after they were redone and people felt they were (argueably) up to pally/barb??? remember some of us don't play dual khopesh builds and light weapons need to stay where they are at currently to be competative.

is the hit box changing for TWF because i can't hit much in front of me to get dod working with light weapons.

[CThruTheEgo]

Repeating Crossbows and Doubleshot
Fixed a bug where Doubleshot was not being reduced for repeating crossbows. (Doubleshot chance is divided by 3 for repeating crossbows.)

I never understood why it was supposed to work like this in the first place. See this wiki page for some testing (http://ddowiki.com/page/Talk:Doubleshot). Here is how it works currently:

Fire 100 arrows with a longbow and 20% doubleshot - you end up using 120 arrows.
Fire 100 bolts from a repeater and 20% doubleshot - you end up using 120 bolts.

In other words, both repeaters and bows receive the exact same benefit from doubleshot. Why should it be any different than this? Now if doubleshot on a repeater meant that you fired an extra volley of bolts, then I could understand why it should only benefit from 1/3 doubleshot, but that's not how it works.

Can you please explain why you all want/expect repeaters to receive a much weaker benefit from doubleshot than other bows? I would just appreciate some clarification as to why.


Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

I have to agree with others that removing the benefits of MRR from armor completely seems like a bad decision. I will admit that it is currently "over-performing," but removing it completely seems like too much of a nerf. Just tone it down a bit. There was a reason it was introduced in the first place, which you already mentioned - to make armor competitive with evasion. Removing the MRR benefit of armor altogether will not make armor competitive with evasion.

EDIT: Also, just my 2cp on the crit range changes. It was getting out of hand, so I understand the purpose of the changes and that it needs to be done. I'm not saying I particularly like it, but I get it.

[garynash7070]

So in one fell swoop you guys ruined half the game for the player base.

Why should a ranged Pali not be able to use missile weapons with holy sword?

Taking barbs healing and crits, well bye barbs!

You screwed up 10k stars and manyshot.

Twf feats don't get melee power?

Sev I've played nearly ten years and never have I seen such a "nerf bat" swung so hard. You will lose more and more players. Am I one? Probably not, but I won't play as much now, nor spend as much.

Good luck with all this. I think it's a huge mistake. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe not. Time will tell.

[Saekee]

It gives +1 to crit range and crit multiplier so with the new improved crit.

Base dagger crit is 19-20x2
With Knife Spec 18-20x3
With improved crit and knife spec 16-20x3

that is what I suspected but maybe the enhancement will get adjusted too to make daggers 15-20/3 again. Otherwise all those fancy named daggers are not so exciting anymore.

[Assassination]

Greetings.

We've seen a lot of community feedback, both public and private, about our ongoing plans for balance. These are some changes we are considering to increase game balance.

As with any post that outlines power reductions (aka nerfs) I am sure there will be a lot of players looking for explanations and our thoughts and results on balance that led to these changes. I will be following up this post with more details that talk about why some of these changes are being implemented.

***

Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon.

Blood Strength (Barbarian Ravager)
The portion of this enhancement that heals the user when they kill an opponent now has a 1 second internal cooldown.

Critical Rage (Barbarian Ravager)
The bonus to critical threat range is now a competence bonus.

Two weapon fighting animations have been fixed so there is no longer a weird jump on the fourth animation. This has made the fourth attack slightly quicker.

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.

Doubleshot values over 100% now have a chance of producing a third attack. The chance is equal to the amount the value exceeds 100. A doubleshot value of 130, for example, would always produce one extra shot and have a 30% chance to produce a third shot.

(Doublestrike will still cap at 100 for technical reasons.)

Repeating Crossbows and Doubleshot
Fixed a bug where Doubleshot was not being reduced for repeating crossbows. (Doubleshot chance is divided by 3 for repeating crossbows.)

Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Mechanical Reloader (Rogue Mechanic)
The alacrity for non-repeating crossbows is now 30%. (Was 40%)

Pulverizer (Legendary Dreadnought)
The bonus to critical threat range for bludgeoning weapons is now an Insight bonus.

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)

As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.

Tactical Training
Requires Fighter Level 4
You gain +2 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 8
You gain +4 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Mastery
Requires Fighter Level 12
You gain +6 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Supremacy
Requires Fighter Level 16
You gain +8 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Notes: All tactical feats stack for a total of +20. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Tactical Training and forego the +2 but still have access to Tatical Supremacy.

Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.


Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).

Eldritch Blast and other enhancements (Warlock)
The spellpower scaling for Eldritch Blast and several enhancements has been reduced.

Spellpower scaling of Warlock Abilities


Ability
Old
New


Eldritch Blast
150%
130%


Eldritch Blast Cone
130%
130%


Eldritch Blast Chain
110%
95%


Eldritch Blast Aura
150%
130%


Stricken (Souleater)
150%
125%


Consume (Souleater)
150%
125%


Eldritch Burst (Enlightened Spirit)
120%
100%


Spirit Blast (Enlightened Spirit)
120%
100%



I will be following up this post with some details on our thoughts on balance and design.

Sev~

Did an advanced race of ddo playing aliens implant these ideas?! These are brilliant!

Really like the changes, they seem well thought out. Fighters need the love, would like to see some of the ideas

from D&D 5th edition be applied to the fighter pass. Play On!

[JP457]

Thanks so much for nerfing my toons. My melee monk hasn't been out in over a year. Now my pally/mech will be useless. Maybe you can nerf my cleric (more) next.

I thought this game was about having fun. How is it fun when you continually nerf builds that people actually like to play?

[Lycurgus]

Would really prefer to see a sweeping pass to improve "under-performing" classes prior to a "balancing pass" of this magnitude.

[Thar]

The changes are designed to cut back on the power of two weapon fighting Paladins, Vanguards, and fix the fact that Paladin 14 hybrids are by many players' estimation the best missile characters. Throwing weapons are not affected by Holy Sword.

Sev~

doesn't this killing of pally-ranged build go against the stated design goal to make other options available? you won't touch monkcher which is way op but you'll kill ranged pally? doesn't seem right? pick a seat. twf perhaps, vanguards? no idea why there. non vanguards... well goood luck getting dps from anywhere.

personally i think a ranged pally is silly design concept role playing wise but if some people like it, why not.

[Krell]

Greetings.

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Sev~
I think Dwarven Axe and Bastard Sword should be in the same category. Options for 1 handed weapons with glancing blow are already very limited and they both cost a feat unless you're Dwarf.

[redoubt]

Greetings.

We've seen a lot of community feedback, both public and private, about our ongoing plans for balance. These are some changes we are considering to increase game balance.

As with any post that outlines power reductions (aka nerfs) I am sure there will be a lot of players looking for explanations and our thoughts and results on balance that led to these changes. I will be following up this post with more details that talk about why some of these changes are being implemented.

***

Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon.


Are shields really the problem? When you reduce this and reduce defense you will put paladin tanks in a bind of needing more DPS to hold agro and having less defense at the same time. I disagree with this part of the change.




Two weapon fighting animations have been fixed so there is no longer a weird jump on the fourth animation. This has made the fourth attack slightly quicker.

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.


Is it really TWF or is it the recent changes to tempest?
If it is tempest, then pull tempest back.
If it is paladin, then you hit that already with the holy sword change.
And I doubt its monk, but this hurts them too.
And it also hurts assassin, is assassin a problem?



Doubleshot values over 100% now have a chance of producing a third attack. The chance is equal to the amount the value exceeds 100. A doubleshot value of 130, for example, would always produce one extra shot and have a 30% chance to produce a third shot.


Thank you. I think this was greatly needed. I am not convinced that it covers the gap created by your plans to manyshot, but it will help.



Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)


With this and the DC change and the reduced saves from grace and the loss of heavy armor PRR, I see a resurgence of monchers.

Can you confirm that you will be able to:
Manyshot, wait 10 seconds.
10k stars. Wait 30 seconds.
10k stars.
repeat.
repeat.

As I read the cooldowns, you will have 80 seconds uptime and 40 seconds downtime each 120 seconds. Also no doubleshot penalty during the downtime.. Is this correct?



Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.


Requiring proficiency will already fix builds that dip into medium and heavy armor. This seems punitive to legitimate armor builds.



As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.

Tactical Training
Requires Fighter Level 4
You gain +2 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 8
You gain +4 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Mastery
Requires Fighter Level 12
You gain +6 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Supremacy
Requires Fighter Level 16
You gain +8 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Notes: All tactical feats stack for a total of +20. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Tactical Training and forego the +2 but still have access to Tatical Supremacy.


There is a lot to like in the tactical feats. I like that they don't require the previous version, that they stack and that they are fighter only. (Maybe make the first one available to anyone?)



Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.


These should not be fighter only. In truth, only fighters will be able to take many of them due to not having enough feats, but more builds should get to access these. You have made PRR far too important to only give this to fighters (more so with the nerf to armor.)



Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).


I don't like it, but I get it. But if you do this, you need to address the reason why so many people did it. Paladin Grace is the only reasonable way to get saves high enough. If you put this in, fix our save requirements.



Eldritch Blast and other enhancements (Warlock)
The spellpower scaling for Eldritch Blast and several enhancements has been reduced.

I will be following up this post with some details on our thoughts on balance and design.

Sev~


Yes, warlocks do a lot of damage. I can see them needed some nerf-age in the heroic levels, but as other have also pointed out, at high end warlocks are not the dps monsters that they are in heroic and they are pretty easy to kill if you get sloppy for even a moment.

Better would be to find a way to tone them down in heroic and leave them alone in epic.


Thank you for the communication!

[DagazUlf]

It took me a while to process all of this, but I think they are all at least acceptable given the justifications presented.

The Armor feats seem a bit boring/weak/unattractive, though. I can think of two directions that would jazz them up a bit.

1. include some reduced armor penalties in there (skills, dex, and/or spell failure)
2. have 3 separate lines of armor feats for light, medium, and heavy that provide slightly different bonuses based on that armor type

Thanks.

[Spoonwelder]

I am glad about TWF fourth attack being faster. Please note that TWF is not so great against multiple mobs and its hit box is small. I suggest it be nerfed after the hit box is adjusted.



My main was TWF for all but a few lives (completionist - started in 2009)....I finally gave up on TWF as the hitbox issues are just toooo frustrating. DPS on a single stationery target was fine but any mobile mob or large group of mobs and I would much rather have my casters or THFers. Throw in some tactics or other special attacks (smites or ameliorating strike for example) and you get really frustrated with the small hitbox causing 'misses'.

I haven't played TWF since the Ranger pass went live so I can't say if it is currently 'overperforming' but I would suggest the same as the above poster - promise to fix the hitbox and I would be fine with a dip in DPS.

See my testing from last year....I haven't seen anything change on this topic since then.https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/449743-Regarding-TWFing?p=5446944#post5446944

[Mellkor]

The changes are designed to cut back on the power of two weapon fighting Paladins, Vanguards, and fix the fact that Paladin 14 hybrids are by many players' estimation the best missile characters. Throwing weapons are not affected by Holy Sword.

Sev~

How about keeping holy sword as is, but make it scale with paladin levels, especially say, from levels 15 to cap. Taking away its effect on shields is a BIG mistake and really screws S&B Paladins, IMO.

[alancarp]

Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon.


I like the fact that I don't have to re-buff every time I switch weapons - but that's a minor thing given that I really haven't been concerned about Pally spell points.

The big concern I have is the impact (or lack thereof) on shields. If your goal is to back off on TWF Pallys, then I get that. But with S&B builds, we're already at a disadvantage by having to use an inherently weaker weapon on main hand. Holy Sword overcame this issue, but most shields - not counting end-game loot - are weaker than even longswords... and that counts the named shields up through levels 24-25 or so.

Not sure why you want to drop Holy Sword effect for bows and throwers - frankly, I only use those when ranged is the only option (overhead crystals, or Gnoll archers on high perches... that sort of thing). That's more of a convenience, not a game-breaker.

IDEA: If you are concerned about people abusing HS without being a pure Paladin, then stage the full impact of Holy Sword:
- Level 12: +1 holy bonus to enhancement value of weapons in main hand
- Level 14: +1 Add shield bonuses here
- Level 16: +1 competence bonus to weapon threat range
- Level 18: +1 critical weapon multiplier, plus shield DR
- Level 20: +1 holy bonus to enhancement value of weapons in main hand (total of +2)

[Cordovan]

Do you plan to go back and change the crit range of those named weapons so they are still worthwhile or is the plan really to ruin those weapons? Pinion, Sireth etc. look to become much worse all of the sudden...

The weapons in question will continue to have a wider crit range than their normal counterparts, so while they may have a somewhat more smaller range than before, they will continue to offer a wider crit range than the item type would otherwise.

[Thar]

Thanks so much for nerfing my toons. My melee monk hasn't been out in over a year. Now my pally/mech will be useless. Maybe you can nerf my cleric (more) next.

I thought this game was about having fun. How is it fun when you continually nerf builds that people actually like to play?

this is the sentiment devs that you should be looking to avoid. server populations are low. you see this. let's not disrupt the status quo for some nerf because little johnny is sore that a ranger or barb has more kills than him in a quest. balance is relative to the player, gear etc. so many components go into a character. this continual tweaking of the system and then nerfing those increases only causes irritation.

there should be two questions

does it cause lag - change it so it's comparitable and doesn't cause lag.

is it fun - yes then it's ok. then how to get those who can't access the fun abillity something fun of their own. ie holy sword => barb crit changes, etc.

there is so much broken in the game, from ladders to string table errors to useless spells or feats that most of this is unnecessary and only going to inflame the population. please think hard before making any negative changes.

[DagazUlf]

Oh, one other thing... Please get that character transfer to Lammy working?

it's really going to be difficult for a lot of us to figure out how this affects our existing characters if we have to attempt to recreate them instead of just transferring.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

overall i think these are some great changes.

your solution for holy sword seems odd to me, but ok then. i think it is most valuable in balancing fighter vs paladin snbers.

i really like your changes to improved crit. doesnt nerf the base ability but hamstrings the exploitive synergies.

the additional fighter feats will not be taken (by me at least) however until melee power gets added to the kensei tree. given the nature of feat choices for fighters (+mp, +dc, +prr/mrr) it is now more imperative than every that kensei be given new, useful tactical abilities including cc options. also the dc feats you are adding may be just as or more beneficial for wc bards than fighters honestly. stunning blow and trip straight up dont work on half the orange named enemies in doj regardless of dc (dont even proc a save attempt). fighters are still going to need some more help offensively than just a +dc increase (a kind of expensive one at that).

are the heavy armor feats only going to apply to heavy armor? will there be similar versions for medium/light armor? without knowing the answers, i think it would be good to incentivize actually wanting to use heavy armor over stopping at medium, while giving fighter snb characters an actual, meaningful advantage over snb paladins. please do not back down in nerfing everyones survivability, bring the healers back!

good to see you implement the nerf to divine grace finally. i mean, its seriously late to the party and almost doesnt matter anymore, but it cant hurt and overall i think is a good thing.

i dont really agree with taking away the mp from the twf feats (i dont really have a great reason), but i think its excellent to see that you are both giving and taking for the sake of balance.

[redoubt]

so the tempest changes are getting an unintended 15% dps reduction? just after they were redone and people felt they were (argueably) up to pally/barb??? remember some of us don't play dual khopesh builds and light weapons need to stay where they are at currently to be competative.

is the hit box changing for TWF because i can't hit much in front of me to get dod working with light weapons.

I hope they are listening to this, because I'm tired of khopesh blah blah being too powerful and seeing rapiers and daggers get nerfed as a result...

[alancarp]

How about keeping holy sword as is, but make it scale with paladin levels, especially say, from levels 15 to cap. Taking away its effect on shields is a BIG mistake and really screws S&B Paladins, IMO.

Yeah - what you said... much more succinctly than I.

[Arkai]

I am hating that -6 Melee power to TWF users. This game cannot be about paladins all the time: other TWF users need love and this is not fair.

If +6 MP is too much, just let +1 MP per tier, please.

[Delacroix21]

The weapons in question will continue to have a wider crit range than their normal counterparts, so while they may have a somewhat more smaller range than before, they will continue to offer a wider crit range than the item type would otherwise.

But not enough to justify there use.


Also you guys screwed up, great crossbow is base 18-20, yet you lumped it in with the 19-20 weapons saying imp crit will add +2 to it.

[gwonbush]

I noticed that the improved critical changes are a nerf to all Great Crossbows, which are 18-20/x2 weapons, but aren't getting the +3 to threat range like every other weapon with that profile.

I also do question the removal of Paladin's ability to affect bows (though not as much crossbows). If you are a Paladin of the Silver Flame, you now cannot use one of your greatest abilities with your favored weapon. With the coming AA changes, it is not like 14 Paladin provides a bonus that no other build does (+1 Range and Multiplier can now be gotten through ranger trees).

[mikarddo]

The weapons in question will continue to have a wider crit range than their normal counterparts, so while they may have a somewhat more smaller range than before, they will continue to offer a wider crit range than the item type would otherwise.

I understand that - but will it be enough? I rather doubt it. Please make sure to take a close look at named items with extended crit ranges and very easy to get TF weapons up to tier 2. If the TF suddenly outperforms the named weapons with extended crit ranges you have a very serious problem.

At any rate it will certainly make the named loot much less interesting which makes the game so much more dull.

[Qhualor]

I haven't read the whole thread, just the dev responses.

to be honest, this is a whole lot of information to digest. seeing this laid out in the grand scheme of things seems to pretty much affect every build in more ways than 1. its really hard to think how balanced or unbalanced this could make any build until all of this is implemented. I assume this will be done per class pass as it affects them? for example, the ranger passes and Manyshot? I see fighter with some changes that I would expect to see during its class pass, not something in an update prior to the pass?

Holy Sword- better

Blood Strength- I still think the attention is misplaced. I would rather see a reduced % chance or reduction in heal amp.

Critical Rage- I don't like it. Competence Bonus usually is applied to skills. shouldn't it be an Enhancement Bonus? I think I have more issues with this, but its a wait and see how it plays out thing.

TWF/ITWF/GTWF- why no MP? I don't see any changes to Two Handed Fighting in the list. this I have a hard time understanding if its meant to bring them in line with 2HF.

Doubleshot- a chance at a 3rd attack wouldn't really be called a doubleshot. I say leave the 3rd attack out of it and put it somewhere else added to another enhancement or something.

Doubleshot and Repeating Crossbows- ok

Manyshot- I understand the reason for the changes, but lore is being sacrificed here. I will always never like any changes to Manyshot, even if its for the good of the game that helps reduce lag. that's why ive stayed out of that discussion.

Ten Thousand Stars- I personally think it shouldn't work with Manyshot at all.

Mechanical Reloader- sweet! an increased chance of getting to the mobs before they die!

Pulverizer- I never played one and didn't see too many in game so I dunno.

Improved Critical/Keen- no. this is supposed to double the threat range of your weapon. I know this was a discussion that was brought up awhile ago, but this is just totally changing what IC is supposed to be into a new definition.

http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/SRD:Keen

Keen: This ability doubles the threat range of a weapon. Only piercing or slashing weapons can be keen. (If you roll this property randomly for an inappropriate weapon, reroll.) This benefit doesn’t stack with any other effect that expands the threat range of a weapon (such as the keen edge spell or the Improved Critical feat).

I assume "all other weapons" includes bludgeoning like war hammers?

Armor- makes sense. I still think MRR was a bad idea. I still laugh seeing MRR in the ranger trees.

Tacticals- sure, ok.

Heavy Armor- wait. didn't you just say you were removing MRR from all types of armor? so, why do fighters get MRR for wearing heavy armor than? since a Kensei should be wearing light armor talking lore, that means they wouldn't benefit from additional PRR and MRR.

Divine Grace- I see the math based on Paladin levels, but I didn't realize it needed addressing. I know its good, but I didn't think it was a game breaker.

Eldritch Blast/etc- I play a melee Fey warlock, but have played Fiend on 2 other characters. granted its just for past lives and I haven't put a lot of effort in boosting Eldritch damage, but the last round of warlock nerfs have made it so I no longer take Eldritch Burst or Spirit Blast. its ok in heroics, but it sucks in epics. it does minimal damage and a real loss in dps trying to use them. this is something that I feel you need to really take into consideration. the aura is a nice boost in dps while swinging a weapon and nerfing it down is going to make melee warlocks more of a splash class (not that there are too many of us out there). right now, im doing roughly 3k crit damage in epics using an ESOS, but the higher I level the more I see 4-6k. in DC destiny last night I saw 16k running ES 3 chain, but I couldn't confirm where that number came from because the group was zergy and I was falling too far behind looking through my combat log. please do consider this other play style before making more nerfs in a warlock melee tree.

[unbongwah]

Holy Sword (Paladin)
It no longer affects missile weapons.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.
Goodbye, TWF pallies, repeater pallies, and monkcher pallies, I guess. :rolleyes:

Blood Strength (Barbarian Ravager)
The portion of this enhancement that heals the user when they kill an opponent now has a 1 second internal cooldown.
Personally I was hoping Blood Strength got moved to OS tree. I didn't want it nerfed; I just thought it ridiculous that Ravager had the best DPS and the best self-healing T5 abilities.

Pulverizer (Legendary Dreadnought)
The bonus to critical threat range for bludgeoning weapons is now an Insight bonus.
One upside is this makes Pulverizer useful to blunt weapon users who currently already get competence bonuses: Acrobats, pallies, Swashbucklers, Kensei (all two of you! ;)).

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.
This is actually a bigger nerf to Imp Crit than I had anticipated. By providing a static bonus to crit range, it lowers the total crit bonus on weapons with larger-than-average crit range; e.g., eSOS goes from 15-20/x3 to 16-20/x3. And since it no longer doubles competence bonuses, then those with +1/2 crit range bonuses now will lose 5/10% crit chance.

Let's run thru a few scenarios to see if I understand how the new crit bonuses are supposed to work vs the existing mechanics.

Ravager barbarian using mauls or warhammers in Legendary Dreadnought:

Old: 20/x3 base -> 19-20/x3 Pulverizer -> 17-20/x3 IC:Blunt -> 15-20/x3 Crit Rage -> 15-18/x3 19-20/x6 Overwhelming Crit + Devastating Crit + Death Frenzy
New: 20/x3 base -> 18-20/x3 Crit Rage -> 17-20/x3 IC:Blunt -> 16-20/x3 Pulverizer -> 16-18/x3 19-20/x6 (OC+DC+DF)

Net loss of 2 effective hits, which actually puts them on par with barbs using axes (17-18/x3 19-20/x7). Mauls / hammers still pull slightly ahead vs trash mobs thanks to higher proc chance for Anvil of Thunder, but at least axe barbs will feel like less of a mistake after this.

Swashbuckler using Skullsmasher in LD:

Old: 20/x3 base -> 18-20/x4 Swashbuckling -> 15-20/x4 IC:Blunt -> 15-18/x4 19-20/x6 Overwhelming Crit + Devastating Crit
New: 20/x3 base -> 18-20/x4 Swashbuckling -> 17-20/x4 IC:Blunt -> 16-20/x4 Pulverizer -> 16-18/x4 19-20/x6 (OC+DC)

Net loss of 3 effective hits

[I don't see any mention of Celestial Champion; so in my analysis, I'm presuming it will continue to stack with other crit bonuses.]

KotC paladin using eSOS in Divine Crusader:

Old: 18-20/x3 base -> 17-20/x4 Holy Sword -> 16-20/x4 Celestial Champion -> 11-20/x4 IC:Slash -> 11-18/x4 19-20/x5 Overwhelming Crit
New: 18-20/x3 base -> 17-20/x4 Holy Sword -> 15-20/x4 IC:Slash -> 14-20/x4 Celestial Champion -> 14-18/x4 19-20/x5 OC

Net loss of 9 effective hits

Acrobat using Sireth in DC:

Old: 18-20/x2 base -> 17-20/x3 Staff Spec -> 16-20/x3 Celestial Champion -> 11-20/x3 IC:Blunt -> 11-18/x3 19-20/x4 Overwhelming Crit
New: 18-20/x2 base -> 17-20/x3 Staff Spec -> 16-20/x3 IC:Blunt -> 15-20/x3 Celestial Champion -> 15-18/x3 19-20/x4 OC

Net loss of 8 effective hits

I'm not passing judgment on whether this is the "right" amount of DPS nerfage. Just pointing out that the changes will not impact all builds or weapon types equally. It seems to me like DC builds will be the biggest losers, which just further cements LD's status as the One True Melee ED. Ummm...yay? :rolleyes:

[Delacroix21]

The weapons in question will continue to have a wider crit range than their normal counterparts, so while they may have a somewhat more smaller range than before, they will continue to offer a wider crit range than the item type would otherwise.

The crit ranges changes for lack of a better word are just plain stupid and ill concieved. It is a nerf to a lot of builds and really devalues crit range enhancements that are usually top tier (requiring heavy investment to get). By cutting there value by half, you better cut their cost by half, and move them out of tier 5s etc as they are no longer worthy of those slots

[the_one_dwarfforged]

While you're all at it, Nerf Mortal Fear.

this. or just remove it.

so that you can create content without making mobs either ******** or all red names.

[Livmo]

Soon.

As an aside, we added larger kobold dummies to the basement of Lamannia's test dojo to help players test DPS changes. The new DPS kobolds have five times the hit points of the old ones we dropped into the test dojo so it should help normalize the test and using burst abilities a bit more.

Sev~

And TY for changes to Holy Sword.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

also, i would like to see either keen edge become a +2 bonus, or crit rage become a +1. id prefer buffing keen edge at this point.

[Mithis]

They're changing the pulveriser epic ability to insight, so it will stack now with the competence bonus from acrobat. So whilst it wont fully offset the change it will help.

IIRC Pulveriser does not work with quarterstaff so unless that gets changed my staffer is going to take a huge hit.

A couple of other comments:

1. Complete removal of MRR from armor seems a bit much unless it is coupled with additional changes to monster (magic) damage output. Without some consideration to output it seems like we are going back to pre-MRR problems of non-evasion based characters and how to mitigate spell damage.

2.LR+20 should be part of this for all characters. Even if it is not actually needed by most, the comfort of knowing it is there will go a long way to limiting player anger over nerfs (real or perceived). Though I am not as well versed in game mechanics as some, I believe half of my characters will be negatively affected by these changes. Some, like warlock changes, are probably needed but some, like the halo nerf to my quarterstaff build resulting from the IC changes, will cause a significant drop in DPS I believe.

3. Consider opening the lower tier Tactical and Heavy Armor Training feats to Paladins and Clerics as they are natively proficient with Heavy armor.

[Cleanincubus]

Greetings.
Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.
Sev~
The only actual change I see is the Great Crossbow being nerfed by losing a +1 critical threat range. So it will have it's own, very odd, critical threat range of 16-20.

I don't see how this can be considered a "balance" when the rest of the weapons that are still behind those getting the +2 or +3 critical threat range, aren't getting a buff, and the ones staying the same (+2/+3) aren't getting a nerf.

[Severlin]

Great Crossbow is indeed 18-20 and should have been included in the +3 group for Improved Critical. That's a bug that we will correct, though you might not see the fix in the first Lamannia.

Sev~

[Caarb]

Unsubbing

[nibel]

How so,
Kukri is 1d4 @ 18-20x2 and goes to 15-20 x2
Dagger is 1d4 @ 19-20 x2 and goes to 17-20 x2
light mace 1d6 @ 20 x2 goes to 19-20 x2

which weapon do you choose

Kukri is a martial weapon. It is expected to be superior to the simple weapon alternatives. (Light Hammer is an aberration)

Dagger have higher crit range in exchange for a lower weapon damage die. Within the weird mechanic of D&D 3.5 this is supposed to be balanced. It is the same thing between Falchions (2d4, 18-20/x2) and Greatswords (2d6, 19-20/x2).

[WiseFreelancer]

PS:Consider changing the base for manyshot from BAB to character levels, so that pure rangers don't get shafted in favour of tensers/divine might in epic levels

This please. So much this. Or some other measure than BAB. I may be mistaken, but don't ranged attacks already get significant speed bonuses with higher BAB already? It makes Divine Crusader really ridiculous with both a significant boost to manyshot (30-40 doubleshot AND ranged power for 1/6 time) AND the only crit range expansion for ranged in an ED. How is anything supposed to compare? Some LD builds probably will, but LD almost always compares favourably for DPS. I don't see how a nerfed Fury can keep up, and it puts Shiradi/Fatesinger/Shadowdancer even more behind then they were.

[Stoner81]

Removing Melee Power from the combat fighting feats is flat out stupid! It is a nice but small boost which adds up over time as you level and take the feats which is still 3 FEATS!
Removing MRR from all types of armour is again flat out stupid! You do remember the discussions about magical damage in the first place and now you want to put it back the way it was?
TWF is dealing to much DPS? Any data to back that up? TWF was king of the hill for single target until SWF came along. THF is generally the better way to go due the sheer amount of monster spawns in a quest, unless you have the defenses in place to mitigate incoming damage which you are now removing!

There is probably more but I am tired and beyond angry at some of these changes which frankly seem like a waste of Dev time (imho).

Stoner81.

[Vellrad]

Dude. It's the same as it is now.

The crit ranges just won't double from enhancements and EDs into ridiculously large ranges like 7-20 anymore.

And those things were only way to make those 20 x3 weapons usable without beign terrible flavor gimp.

[CheeseMilk]

Within the weird mechanic of D&D 3.5 this is supposed to be balanced.

The other balancing factor in PnP is the gold cost of the item, which is absolutely a non-point in DDO.

[KevinMullins]

+1 BAB per level, the best BAB progression, is reserved for the warrior classes (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger).
Heavy armor 30 6 + BAB

Old prr would be 56 for a heavy armor at level 20 (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger).


* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating

New prr would be 40 for a heavy armor at level 20 (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger).

I am against changes in PRR. If i figure right lose 16 points of PRR with the changes. After a recent change of a loss of 5 PRR notice a huge leap in damage to my paladin. Soon after last nerf of PRR, tomes +1 and +2 was seen in Mysterious rement exchange. With a loss of 16 points of PRR ( if i figured right ) total unacceptable to be able to play paladin. MRR how much are we losing, if all in one fell swoop than that also is totally unacceptable to play a paladin with that much loss.

Very Sad Day

[Vellrad]

Blood Strength (Barbarian Ravager)
The portion of this enhancement that heals the user when they kill an opponent now has a 1 second internal cooldown.


Remove visage of terror (ravager capstone) while you're at it, because it becomes absolutely worthless pile of garbage with blood strength nerf.

[Requiro]

Great communication threat, and great explanations, Sev.
This is what community always need, and always was upset that, they feel like Devs ignore them.

My thoughts below:


Paladin

Acceptable nerf to Holy Sword and Divine Grace
Just one note: With these changes to HS, there is no need for ranged Enhancements Tree (like AA, Mechanic), to put critical profile upgrade on level 18 anymore.


Barbarian
Good changes. I guess lots of Barbarians will be sad...


TWF balance
Good start. But I think that balance to combat styles need a lot more changes.


Doubleshot, Manyshot and 10K stars
Overall good changes. This time I guess that Monkchers will be even more upset then Barbarians.
But I still hope for more improvements to AA Tree (that poor Capstone for example), to compensate lose of Manyshot Burst damage, and overall lose of Total Arrows per 120 second period.


Nerf Rouge Mechanic
I don't know the reason to do so. Are Great Xbow or normal Xbow are better than Repeaters?


Criticals Threat Feat and rest
While I understand, why you guys do this changes, I'm very upset that named weapons with better critical profile get nerf.
Maybe you consider a little revamp for named weapons? They was designed, with old, double effect of Criticals Feat.
Every low level Silver Longbow user will cry with these changes.


Armor Changes
It's logical improvement. But, you guys need add some more way (class depend maybe?) to gain MRR.


New Fighter Feats
Good. Very good. Fighter need some good Feats. This is a good start.


Warlock Nerf
Well... Something is never changed in DDO. And this nerf is just a proof.
Nevertheless that is good start to balance this class.

Additional comment:
I wonder - If you guys already plan changes to Improved Critical Feat and Keen ability, why not change it a little more?
It's a great opportunity to improve garbage weapons and almost useless Keen ability.

One more idea: You can add one more feat line for Fighters, that improve critical profile even further ;)

[Lonnbeimnech]

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

So how will this effect wolf form druids? Wolf has a crit range of 19-20, but if it falls into the all other weapons category (as I suspect natural fighting/unarmed would) it would only get +1 to crit range instead of the +2 it got before this update.

Or will it depend on the weapon equipped, making all druids only use scimitars for the +3?

[Lonnbeimnech]

+1 BAB per level, the best BAB progression, is reserved for the warrior classes (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger).
Heavy armor 30 6 + BAB

Old prr would be 56 for a heavy armor at level 20 (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger).


* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating

New prr would be 40 for a heavy armor at level 20 (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger).

I am against changes in PRR. If i figure right lose 16 points of PRR with the changes. After a recent change of a loss of 5 PRR notice a huge leap in damage to my paladin. Soon after last nerf of PRR, tomes +1 and +2 was seen in Mysterious rement exchange. With a loss of 16 points of PRR ( if i figured right ) total unacceptable to be able to play paladin. MRR how much are we losing, if all in one fell swoop than that also is totally unacceptable to play a paladin with that much loss.

Very Sad Day
and at level 28 your bab would be 28, so *2 it's 56, same as before.

[rezo]

If your going to remove MRR from all armor just remove PRR too then so the game will be going backwards in changes. I can see all tanks going two lvl of monk or rogue for evasion and using a light or buckler shield from now on.

[Wipey]

As with any post that outlines power reductions (aka nerfs) I am sure there will be a lot of players looking for explanations and our thoughts and results on balance that led to these changes. I will be following up this post with more details that talk about why some of these changes are being implemented.

What data do you use as base ? Is it class / build popularity, forum "opinion" or some kind of your own damage testing ?

Let's take monkchers for example :
Forum hate stuck in 2012. Average damage output of Fury monkcher is certainly lower than any blitzing mechanic.
In reality, very few people still play monkcher. 14/6 pally splits that people play and bring to EE raids and such you can probably count on one hand. I really don't know more than one person. Or when you look at whatever other server raid parties. Every ranged character is either pure rogue, 14/6 pally mechanic, 18/2 arty mechanic.

Pulverizer buff is just facepalm worthy. When 95% of "dps" builds are running ( or should be ) in LD for last three years.

Does not compute.

[mikarddo]

Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Sev~

Please reconsider the use of BAB for this. It will make having full BAB incredibly important meaning that anyone without other means of doing so need to scroll Tensors for Manyshot always. Be that pure rangers or monkchers. Thats simply annoying for no good reason. Please change to use character level instead for basically the same effect without the annoyance.

[Saekee]

Great Crossbow is indeed 18-20 and should have been included in the +3 group for Improved Critical. That's a bug that we will correct, though you might not see the fix in the first Lamannia.

Sev~
Could you clarify assassin knife spec and daggers with IC Pierce? Krelar reinforced my suspicion that it will be 16-20/3 instead of 15-20/3, making Kukris the assassin weapon of choice. . .despite all the named assassin daggers that have been added.

[Caprice]

I am impressed with the sweeping change list. I find them generally reasonable, or at least I think I can understand the reasons behind every change offered.

I am sure that lots of us will be unhappy with the combined Holy Sword and Divine Grace nerfs but I think both abilities are too good at present. I think what you have laid out makes sense for your achieving stated goals. I will have to rework some characters but I can live with that.

I don't think the MRR loss will make the Heavy and Medium Armor classes unplayable. All of them except Fighter have some form of self-healing, albeit Barbarian's takes a long time to kick in. But it is a serious change and one bone you could throw would be to share the love on the new Heavy Armor feats somewhat:
1) Smooth out the bonuses to be something more like 6/6/8/10, and
2) Change the requirement to be either the designated Fighter level, or the preceding feat (or Heavy Armor Proficiency for Heavy Armor Training).
I feel that the feat cost itself would be a sufficient balance mechanism for other classes. Fighters still would be able to cherry pick to get the best bonuses but there is enough of a benefit that a few other builds might find room for one or two. I doubt many would but it would be an option at least.

I would not ask for the same for the Tactics DC feats. Thanks to the enhancement passes, Tactics DCs for most class abilities are generally already designed to be somewhat usable outside EEs (or if left low can be considered to be deliberately so) and could become unbalanced with extra bonuses from feats.

One side effect of some of these changes is that it is relatively boosting the value of Past Life passives (e.g. PRR and MRR). Is this a design goal?

[nibel]

Holy Sword (Paladin)

Honest question, with zero sarcasm: It is really hard to code the spell so it only affect the favored weapon of the paladin's deity?

Sure, DDO Paladin is a main Melee class, but the Silver Flame is a deity with Longbow as their favored weapon. There is PnP support to make ranged smite evil attacks and such for Silver Flame devotees. Trying to build a SF paladin that is mainly a ranged character is within lore, and while I agree it should not be the top tier ranged build in the table, it should be within viable.

If that is a technical issue (either because of hours needed of code, or complexity of code, or whatever), then this solution is reasonable.


Doubleshot values over 100% now have a chance of producing a third attack. The chance is equal to the amount the value exceeds 100. A doubleshot value of 130, for example, would always produce one extra shot and have a 30% chance to produce a third shot.

Not the ideal solution in my mind (that would be allowing break 100% only while manyshot/10k is active), but it is ok. I think. I'll learn to live with that.


Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.

I expect a lot of rage on this. I'll get the popcorn.


Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.

I don't like this change at all for three reasons:

1) PRR is a percentual reduction anyway. So if you have 100 PRR at level 1 or 30, it will have the same effect: Reduce damage in 50%. This is equally useful in all content, and thus I don't believe base PRR should vary between the levels. Sure, some bumps for choosing a defensive character archetype are expected above plain heavy armor (Eg, Sentinel ED, Sacred/Stalwart Stance, Shield Mastery feats, etc).
2) MRR was a response to Evasion. It worked. You had to choose between diminish the damage constantly (but be damaged), or have a chance (up to 95%) to avoid the damage completely. I don't see a problem diminishing the MRR value on armors, but please don't take it all away.
3) We have a mechanic that could work wonders to keep damage mitigation scaling up. It is called DR. I asked back in the Barbarian revamp, and I will keep asking every time PRR changes are coming: Make DR counts AFTER PRR reduction and it gets back to be a useful mechanic. I know Shadow Dragon armor have a ton of DR on it because it was designed considering PRR would slash the DR benefit away. But that is just one item that can be rebalanced.


Tactical Training
Tactical Combatant
Tactical Mastery
Tactical Supremacy

Heavy Armor Training
Heavy Armor Combatant
Heavy Armor Master
Heavy Armor Champion

Fighter exclusive feats are never too much. Keep adding more. Fighters need to have a really big ton of options so that they can put their 18 feat slots into use.

[redoubt]

Could you clarify assassin knife spec and daggers with IC Pierce? Krelar reinforced my suspicion that it will be 16-20/3 instead of 15-20/3, making Kukris the assassin weapon of choice. . .despite all the named assassin daggers that have been added.

That would be good to know.

And for the first time I'm suddenly thinking... oh f*** that's a lot of comms I spent on two fully upgraded and now subpar Agony's... and oh... that's a lot of TF materials on my daggers.... dammit!

[Grailhawk]

Could you clarify assassin knife spec and daggers with IC Pierce? Krelar reinforced my suspicion that it will be 16-20/3 instead of 15-20/3, making Kukris the assassin weapon of choice. . .despite all the named assassin daggers that have been added.

This actually does need some attention It did seam that the original intent of Knife Specialization was to make Daggers and Kukris have the same crit profile.

[valarmorghuliis]

Please reconsider the use of BAB for this. It will make having full BAB incredibly important meaning that anyone without other means of doing so need to scroll Tensors for Manyshot always. Be that pure rangers or monkchers. Thats simply annoying for no good reason. Please change to use character level instead for basically the same effect without the annoyance.

You should be scrolling tensers anyway as it is +2 base dmg per arrow and a significant increase to ranged alacrity.

[Requiro]

(...) you won't touch monkcher (...)

Well, thay did. With new 10K Stars, Doubleshoot bonus is from Monk levels.


so the tempest changes are getting an unintended 15% dps reduction? just after they were redone and people felt they were (argueably) up to pally/barb??? remember some of us don't play dual khopesh builds and light weapons need to stay where they are at currently to be competative.

is the hit box changing for TWF because i can't hit much in front of me to get dod working with light weapons.

They should add some MORE bonuses to Light Weapons in Tempest Tree IMO.

[esotericist]

Please reconsider the use of BAB for this. It will make having full BAB incredibly important meaning that anyone without other means of doing so need to scroll Tensors for Manyshot always. Be that pure rangers or monkchers. Thats simply annoying for no good reason. Please change to use character level instead for basically the same effect without the annoyance.

... Aren't rangers full BAB anyway?

[patang01]

Some comments about the fighter feats:


These require fighter levels. They can be taken with fighter bonus feats or regular feats.
We don't expect to rebalance monsters around Fighters with all these feats. Fighters who go all out on tactics are expected to reach 95% chance on most monsters (possibly excluding some rare bosses / raid bosses, who will often be immune to many tactics regardless.)
We don't expect all fighters who want to use tactical feats to take all of these new feats. This is largely why they are not a progression, but rather four distinct feats. Characters with 20 Fighter levels might opt to take just the +8 and that's enough (with other gear, STR, etc.) Characters with fewer Fighter levels won't have access to the best bonuses (as well as fewer feats, of course), so they might struggle to reach the same heights as someone who dedicates more class levels to Fighter.
Similarly, the armor feats can be taken one or some at a time. It's not really an all-or-nothing, and a 20 Fighter might skip the first one or two in favor or other bonuses.


These feats help power up the Fighter class, reward taking more Fighter levels, fit into the theme of "Fighters get more feats!", and help provide some differentiation for builds. It matters a bit more if you want to spend your final 2 levels on Fighter vs. another class, and we don't expect every player to make the same decision. We're happy for Fighter to remain interesting for multiclass builds, while also rewarding purer builds. We feel these eight new feats spread across levels 2-16 helps with many kinds of characters.

No. Not really.

A fully invested tactical user today will do fine in heroic. A fully invested tactical user will be increasingly more useless in Epic. 2 things - first. A ludicrous amount of CR on EE where trying to use tactical feats at level is generally worthless and the prolific use of orange and red named makes the whole thing moot anyways.

Second - by forcing people to add feats to close the gap you strike down diversity. A fighter build will generally compensate the generally lower DPS with more feats that add up some melee power but also weapon proficiency. Be it bow, blunt and slashing or say sword and board. By making it a condition to be proficient to invest so heavily in say feats in order to be 95% with upper end content, you kill diversity. Fighters will be single arms type and less overall DPS.

This is almost a fact. I've used tactical feats since 2009 on most of my guys, even when it wasn't in vogue - and it's near stupid to try in EE's at level. Pointless. But doing a basic investment of say improved trip and stunning blow at least add that option for EH. But adding 4 more feats will just make me be the typical stick that tries to find the best DPS weapon in order to compensate for the investment of feat.


Here's what this change will do. Few people are going to play fighters. Their viability comes from tactical diversity but with the removal of MRR people will instead move towards monkcher builds again. Since you now incentive it through this DC builds using Wisdom. This was the case after MOTU when turbine destroyed tanking and now going back on MRR you'll do it again. Fighters are the worst self healers in the game. Bar none. And once the situation stacks up where full investment means maybe useful in tactical feats but dreadful against red named you'll see people just moving away completely.

I see update 29 being another move where most go into arcane casting of some sort (maybe less Warlocks) and more Monkchers again.

Now for a while there you guys made it sound like you wanted to enhance Kensei again to be more tactical. But it seems you picked the worse choice by making high PRR and okay MRR with better tactical use be conditioned on fighter levels and feats. Tying up 8 total feats for anyone to be half okay at tripping and soak some damage but overall useless in a fight against a boss. It the point was to bring us back to how worthless tanks were back in the day outside not being hit - then maybe this will get us there. But it's a build no one wants to play.

I might be wrong of course. But that is what lead us to where we are today. Destruction of tanking through MOTU and eventually better in armor up. Now when we're disarming the armor up and making it feat heavy there's little incentive for anyone to even bother. Yes - you'll see a scant few doing the heavy tank, but all future content points at high HP ludicrous bosses like the one we see in ToEE. And I'm sick of standing and carving HP for 5 minutes out of something I can't effect tactically in any way shape and form.

I'm guessing I'll roll a Monkcher like everyone else.

BTW - destroying the threat range, burst damage of manyshot and taking away melee power from 2wf will make tempest rangers mediocre. Before the recent changes I hadn't played mine for years. And it seems it's time to put him back in the dusty locker again.

I get nerfs but most of these changes seems to remove diversity and favor explicit investments in order to be entirely singular good in something. And that will ALWAYS lead to path of least resistance.

[Lauf]

Greetings.

We've seen a lot of community feedback, both public and private, about our ongoing plans for balance. These are some changes we are considering to increase game balance.



I like the changes, each and every one of them. they are well thought out and (having read all your posts on this thread) I like where you're going with this.

my only concern is that when it comes to warlocks you may not have cut back enough
as it is today, there's no point in building a warlock for DCs instead of spell power, as everything just dies too fast from the eldritch blast. this makes playing them fun initially, but then quite boring. this is the only class I've played to date where on my triple completionist, which has all the gear you could ask for, I find myself running with empty gear slots. that's how dumbed down the class is. a casting class that has no need for casting. a class capable of melee that actually suffers a dps loss from trying to do so. it's a class where you actually get penalized for trying to get more out of it.

and to make matters worse, it also takes the fun out of it for anyone running with them in the party. people who run up to a mob to hit it, and swing away trying to kill it, and then a warlock just walks by and not only that mob but every mob in the area just fall over and die, without the warlock even targeting them.

makes you rethink your life choices... and should make you rethink the power you've given it.

I'll reserve my judgement on your proposed change until I've had a chance to test it, but on paper it doesn't seem like enough.

aside from warlocks though, I'm very impressed with the work you've done on re-balancing the game.

[Blastyswa]

If intimidated by the large amount of text, scroll to the bottom of post and read what it says. That is the most important thing in this post, although everything else is important as well of course.


Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon.

This one is very annoying, in particular the missile weapons part. I would definitely have preferred the adding of more options as opposed to simply completely eliminating a build, since as I understand it the entire purpose of all the class changes has been to open up more build options. In example, Steelstar's signature says "We don't only build for the builds that exist". This confuses me, since this change completely kills any holy archer type builds (As in, there is now no reason to play one outside of flavor) and is a dramatic nerf to S&B players (Who already put out less DPS than other fighting styles, as can be supported by anyone who has ever played a paladin). Paladin bowmen are a valid option, but by no means "14 Paladin hybrids being better than other options due to Holy Sword" (Directly quoted from post #2). If internal DPS tests are showing that 14/5/1 paladin/rogue/artificer or similar cookie cutter builds are performing better than similarly built 18/2 rogue/artificers or 20 rangers, I will be happy to provide whatever evidence I need to in order to prove that as inaccurate.

A possible compromise I could envision on ranged and shield holy swording would be just change it to a multiselector on them, in order to still maintain some power. This is still a horrible idea, because despite the popular belief, Holy Sword is NOT the absolute best option out there. Like I've stated before, if I get a response to this post I will be happy to do a true statistical analysis proving this, however, I'm not going to do it if it just gets lost in the depths of this thread.
(Also, S&B does not require a nerf, but it will still survive despite these changes so that is a lesser matter)
Additionally, as an afterthought; will artificer buffs continue to apply alongside holy sword, or is that being changed? I can not recall whether or not that was ever stated as WAI or not.


Doubleshot values over 100% now have a chance of producing a third attack. The chance is equal to the amount the value exceeds 100. A doubleshot value of 130, for example, would always produce one extra shot and have a 30% chance to produce a third shot.

(Doublestrike will still cap at 100 for technical reasons.)

Thank you very much for this one. Otherwise, the manyshot changes would have likely turned out to be a nerf the better a build's doubleshot is. My only question is, over 200%, will there be a chance to fire 4 arrows? I ask because on my current build when I'm going for burst damage, I will have 112 (Manyshot) +20 (Killer) +10 (Feat) + 10 (Celestial Champ) + 9 (EPL) + 50 (Zeal) Doubleshot temporarily, which translates to 211%. Since that will only be sustainable for 20 seconds, it does not actually matter much to the build either way, but out of curiosity as a pure ranger could get more doubleshot than this with investment.
Doublestrike not changing is fine, as I can not imagine many builds sustaining very high doublestrike anyways (The most I can think of off the top of my head is 15/4/1 Paladin/Ranger/Anything, using a shield and US twist with Fellblade or First Blood for (10% zeal +20% killer + 9% EPL +5% TWF +15% Imp Shield Mastery/Leg Shield Mastery +15% weapon +3% Draconic Feriocity +3% Hail of Blows) 80% sustained, 130% with zeal. That would be a horrible build, so no complaints on doublestrike capping.


Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)


This should be a minor buff to most builds I believe, especially if the build already has doubleshot (In my above build, this is a massive buff). Looks good.



Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.


Did not bother including the Keen section in my quote as it looks like it is basically the same information. I question the logic behind this distribution, since this will push the +3's quite ahead of +1's, and to some degree +2's.
For example, in the current model, a Divine Crusader Paladin with a falchion is looking at 11-20x3. Using a greataxe, that number is 15-20x4. Counting each doubling of damage as 1, falchions have 10 opportunities of 2 each, or 20, while greataxe has 6 chances of 3 each, or 18. Under the new model, the falchion will have 13-20x3, 8 * 2 for 16, while a greataxe will have 17-20x4, 4 * 3 for 12. That means that before falchions, just looking at crit ranges, had an ~11.11% increase in damage on greataxes, while under the new model they will have ~33%. Based on this data, I would say changing +1's to +2 would make more sense, making a falchion now have 13-20x3 (16) vs. greataxe having 16-20x4 (15). The Falchion-Greataxe DPS comparison would change to a ~10.67% (Both sides would round to 11%) which means that while both weapons are still getting nerfed, neither one is pulling out very far ahead of the other.
If I could change one thing from these notes, this would be it, because it statistically makes sense unless the goal is to make weapon choices less even.



Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)

As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.

...

Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.

So as I am seeing it, this is a nerf to all heavy armor wearers while shifting the defense over to fighters. I am actually completely fine with this if the plan is to make fighters valid tanks. Switching all defense to fighters will merely give us a palimpsest of pre-Armor Up! however, as so much defense now is tied in with the PRR/MRR mechanics. Consequently, this would be better saved for until after some defense is added to casters, due to the fact that wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers (oh my) running around in heavy armor wielding Skyvault Shields is not just because it looks cool. It is because defense is otherwise lacking quite a bit on casters, who do not have access to (much) tank type defenses (PRR/MRR) after this change, or flighty type defenses (Evasion/Dodge, without investment) like monks rogues or rangers, while thanks to Greensteel every class has access to Displacement, one of the most potent defensive tools in a casters arsenal. (I'm mainly talking about arcanes, because although divine's could use some defense, they get by as is just fine).


Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).

Long overdue. I am happy to see this finally come into play, as I must admit this was too much power loaded into the front of a class. However, I would also like to see buffs, in gear or feats or wherever it feels right, to saves for all classes. Keep in mind that people aren't going 18/2 Warlock/Paladin for the feeling of having too high of saves, it is because casters (along with fighters, and many other classes) can not reach no-fail saves against difficult content without this splash (Barring any strange completely all out saves builds that I might be missing, although these sacrifice other options).



Eldritch Blast and other enhancements (Warlock)
The spellpower scaling for Eldritch Blast and several enhancements has been reduced.

Spellpower scaling of Warlock Abilities


Ability
Old
New


Eldritch Blast
150%
130%


Eldritch Blast Cone
130%
130%


Eldritch Blast Chain
110%
95%


Eldritch Blast Aura
150%
130%


Stricken (Souleater)
150%
125%


Consume (Souleater)
150%
125%


Eldritch Burst (Enlightened Spirit)
120%
100%


Spirit Blast (Enlightened Spirit)
120%
100%



Thank you.


(Summary) Assuming everything posted to this thread is being read by a developer, if nothing else in my post is viewed, at least read my section on the Improved Critical changes. If I need to provide any additional statistical evidence on why it should be my proposed version, and not the currently proposed one, I will be happy to respond as needed.

[Thar]

Honest question, with zero sarcasm: It is really hard to code the spell so it only affect the favored weapon of the paladin's deity?

Sure, DDO Paladin is a main Melee class, but the Silver Flame is a deity with Longbow as their favored weapon. There is PnP support to make ranged smite evil attacks and such for Silver Flame devotees. Trying to build a SF paladin that is mainly a ranged character is within lore, and while I agree it should not be the top tier ranged build in the table, it should be within viable.

If that is a technical issue (either because of hours needed of code, or complexity of code, or whatever), then this solution is reasonable.



so then there should be additional dieties added so that you can select what weapon you want. why isn't dwarven waraxe a dwarven diety weapon? or hammer? elf rapier?

how many FR dieties are there?

[Theolin]

Things I see as a theme

1) you must have full BAB
2) smart / flavor builds do to much damage
3) smart / flavor builds need to take more damage
4) oh and we want everyone to be EXACTLY the same - regardless of build or planning or skill or .....

did I miss something?

[Ykt]

Any changes to increase player population?

You can nerf all you want but I'm not spending any more money on the game until the population increases significantly. I'm forced to solo 90% of the time because: either people don't join my LFMs (they're not weird LFMs, just standard "EBB") or there are no LFMs to join. I'd rather not have to send tells to random people asking if I can join them in their quest, hoping they're playing elite and not too far in. That seems a bit intrusive.

I used to play almost every day, now I play once a week and likely to play even less. I see no reason to play a MMORPG that forces me to solo most of the time.

[patang01]

Under the proposal, Improved Critical would offer a +1 to the critical threat range of a quarterstaff. So, a regular quarterstaff that is 20/x2 would become 19-20/x2, and a named quarterstaff with a natural crit range of 19-20 would become 18-20.

That's no different from how improved critical works anyways for q-staffs. Well except for with +1 the threat range on staffs with expanded threat ranges will be worse than before.

[Saekee]

Goodbye, TWF pallies, repeater pallies, and monkcher pallies, I guess. :rolleyes:

Personally I was hoping Blood Strength got moved to OS tree. I didn't want it nerfed; I just thought it ridiculous that Ravager had the best DPS and the best self-healing T5 abilities.

One upside is this makes Pulverizer useful to blunt weapon users who currently already get competence bonuses: Acrobats, pallies, Swashbucklers, Kensei (all two of you! ;)).

This is actually a bigger nerf to Imp Crit than I had anticipated. By providing a static bonus to crit range, it lowers the total crit bonus on weapons with larger-than-average crit range; e.g., eSOS goes from 15-20/x3 to 16-20/x3. And since it no longer doubles competence bonuses, then those with +1/2 crit range bonuses now will lose 5/10% crit chance.

Let's run thru a few scenarios to see if I understand how the new crit bonuses are supposed to work vs the existing mechanics.

Ravager barbarian using mauls or warhammers in Legendary Dreadnought:

Old: 20/x3 base -> 19-20/x3 Pulverizer -> 17-20/x3 IC:Blunt -> 15-20/x3 Crit Rage -> 15-18/x3 19-20/x6 Overwhelming Crit + Devastating Crit + Death Frenzy
New: 20/x3 base -> 18-20/x3 Crit Rage -> 17-20/x3 IC:Blunt -> 16-20/x3 Pulverizer -> 16-18/x3 19-20/x6 (OC+DC+DF)

Net loss of 2 effective hits, which actually puts them on par with barbs using axes (17-18/x3 19-20/x7). Mauls / hammers still pull slightly ahead vs trash mobs thanks to higher proc chance for Anvil of Thunder, but at least axe barbs will feel like less of a mistake after this.

Swashbuckler using Skullsmasher in LD:

Old: 20/x3 base -> 18-20/x4 Swashbuckling -> 15-20/x4 IC:Blunt -> 15-18/x4 19-20/x6 Overwhelming Crit + Devastating Crit
New: 20/x3 base -> 18-20/x4 Swashbuckling -> 17-20/x4 IC:Blunt -> 16-20/x4 Pulverizer -> 16-18/x4 19-20/x6 (OC+DC)

Net loss of 3 effective hits

[I don't see any mention of Celestial Champion; so in my analysis, I'm presuming it will continue to stack with other crit bonuses.]

KotC paladin using eSOS in Divine Crusader:

Old: 18-20/x3 base -> 17-20/x4 Holy Sword -> 16-20/x4 Celestial Champion -> 11-20/x4 IC:Slash -> 11-18/x4 19-20/x5 Overwhelming Crit
New: 18-20/x3 base -> 17-20/x4 Holy Sword -> 15-20/x4 IC:Slash -> 14-20/x4 Celestial Champion -> 14-18/x4 19-20/x5 OC

Net loss of 9 effective hits

Acrobat using Sireth in DC:

Old: 18-20/x2 base -> 17-20/x3 Staff Spec -> 16-20/x3 Celestial Champion -> 11-20/x3 IC:Blunt -> 11-18/x3 19-20/x4 Overwhelming Crit
New: 18-20/x2 base -> 17-20/x3 Staff Spec -> 16-20/x3 IC:Blunt -> 15-20/x3 Celestial Champion -> 15-18/x3 19-20/x4 OC

Net loss of 8 effective hits

I'm not passing judgment on whether this is the "right" amount of DPS nerfage. Just pointing out that the changes will not impact all builds or weapon types equally. It seems to me like DC builds will be the biggest losers, which just further cements LD's status as the One True Melee ED. Ummm...yay? :rolleyes:


That would be good to know.

And for the first time I'm suddenly thinking... oh f*** that's a lot of comms I spent on two fully upgraded and now subpar Agony's... and oh... that's a lot of TF materials on my daggers.... dammit!


This actually does need some attention It did seam that the original intent of Knife Specialization was to make Daggers and Kukris have the same crit profile.

a solution might be to make knife spec add 2 to dagger's crit range. Remember that assassins just lost 6 melee power with the TWF nerf.

[valarmorghuliis]

IIRC Pulveriser does not work with quarterstaff so unless that gets changed my staffer is going to take a huge hit.
.
Pulverizer just checks damage type rather than weapon type so it didn't work with sireth but it would with other quarterstaves. Although they will wind up behind what they currently are since the tier 5 will no longer double putting them at 17-20x3 for thunderforged and 16-20x3 for sireth instead of 17-20x3 for thunderforged and 13-20x3 for sireth.

[mikarddo]

... Aren't rangers full BAB anyway?

20 rng is only 20 BAB not 28 soon to be 30.

[Wongar]

First off - I like most of the changes and think they will be good long term for the game. Like others, I also greatly appreciate the this thread and the view it gives us into the devs plans.

A full BAB class such as Ranger has a BAB of 24 cap.
When using an ability that increases BAB to level (Divine Crusader, Tensors) the BAB raises to level = 28

This will mean that running in DC will give Manyshot an extra 16 Ranged Power and and 16 DoubleShot. When the level cap goes to 30 this will jump to 20 Ranged Power and 20 DoubleShot. I'm afraid that this will make getting full BAB viewed almost mandatory for using Manyshot.

I understand that BAB progression in Epics is set to the lowest possible, but this seems to put full BAB builds at a disadvantage. Non full BAB builds often have ways to increase their BAB (Divine Power, Tensors, Warchanter, Enlightened Spirit) but full BAB builds do not - mainly because they should have full BAB.

Given the increased importance of BAB with Manyshot, Is there a possibility of changing Epic BAB progression to reflect the BAB progression of the build?

A suggestion to change Epic BAB progression would be to use an Epic progressions scaled from Heroic BAB. The simplest scale would be to use Heroic BAB/20.
So Epic BAB = Heroic BAB + (Epic Level * (Heroic BAB/20))

Examples:
Epic BAB = Heroic BAB + (Epic Level * (Heroic BAB/20))
pure Fighter 20 + (8 * (20/20)) = 28
pure Rouge: 15 + (8 * (15/20)) = 21
pure Wizard: 10 + (8 * (10/20)) = 14
10 Wiz / 10 Fighter = 15 + (8 * (15/20)) = 21

[AbyssalMage]

Greetings.

We've seen a lot of community feedback, both public and private, about our ongoing plans for balance. These are some changes we are considering to increase game balance.

As with any post that outlines power reductions (aka nerfs) I am sure there will be a lot of players looking for explanations and our thoughts and results on balance that led to these changes. I will be following up this post with more details that talk about why some of these changes are being implemented.
The problem with "power reductions" is that you have designed content for the last 2 years with the current "power" in mind. You stated you are willing to listen to players so you need to be willing to undo 2 years worth of content also. Otherwise many of your suggestions, although are filled with good intentions, are very dangerous.

***


Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon.

The problem is players consider 14 Paladin a splash and you have bought into it, hook, line, and sinker. Along with your other proposed changes, this is too much. I've grouped with 14(15)/X ranged Paladin builds, and compared to equivalent redesigned classes, are not Over Performing unlike what forumites say. I see more 20 (or 18/2) Mechanics than 14/6 Paladin splits so please look at your servers. Maybe all the 14/X Paladin's come out once I log off. Otherwise, this is truly an overreaction.



Blood Strength (Barbarian Ravager)
The portion of this enhancement that heals the user when they kill an opponent now has a 1 second internal cooldown.
Amazingly I still die. Guess I will just die more often after this change. A better change would be all of the HAmp or auto-granted HP's in the cores.



Critical Rage (Barbarian Ravager)
The bonus to critical threat range is now a competence bonus.
:(
Actually can't argue this change but I can be sad.


Two weapon fighting animations have been fixed so there is no longer a weird jump on the fourth animation. This has made the fourth attack slightly quicker.

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Yeah, this needs to be scrapped. This adversely effects too many builds. Build diversity should be your goal and this does the exact opposite. TWF already has the disadvantage of not working well with cleaves (AoE attacks). You also need 2x the ingredients to craft weapons which is a TWF deterrent. Rogue's, Monk's, and Ranger's are hurt the most by this change yet anyone who doesn't want to go SWF + Orb or THF have now been given a greater incentive to do so. And it was just recently that TWF had a resurgence (since Barbarian Update to be precise).



Doubleshot values over 100% now have a chance of producing a third attack. The chance is equal to the amount the value exceeds 100. A doubleshot value of 130, for example, would always produce one extra shot and have a 30% chance to produce a third shot.

(Doublestrike will still cap at 100 for technical reasons.)

Repeating Crossbows and Doubleshot
Fixed a bug where Doubleshot was not being reduced for repeating crossbows. (Doubleshot chance is divided by 3 for repeating crossbows.)
With impending HS and 10K nerf, you may be destroying Ranged for everyone but the hardcore player. In theory I like this change, in theory.


Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)
Yeah, you don't like Monkchers (or ranged), and neither does the melee forumites, yet the game has existed just fine since U15. That is all I am going to say about this because everything, but mechanic, has given me a negative feeling.



Mechanical Reloader (Rogue Mechanic)
The alacrity for non-repeating crossbows is now 30%. (Was 40%)
And here I was saying Mechanic was your one bright spot on otherwise a dismal ranged design stance.



Pulverizer (Legendary Dreadnought)
The bonus to critical threat range for bludgeoning weapons is now an Insight bonus.
:(



Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.
Way to nerf IC. So instead of changing the formula to make it P&P, you do the exact opposite. Now I know why keep the quote in my "sig."



Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.
Read above



Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)

As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.

Tactical Training
Requires Fighter Level 4
You gain +2 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 8
You gain +4 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Mastery
Requires Fighter Level 12
You gain +6 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Supremacy
Requires Fighter Level 16
You gain +8 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Notes: All tactical feats stack for a total of +20. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Tactical Training and forego the +2 but still have access to Tatical Supremacy.

Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.

Yeah, you still haven't figured out your changes during U15 are still reverberating all of these years later and continue to make the game worse. Please scrap this. No one here believes you will re-code U15 through U29/U30 to take into account the lower PRR/MRR values most players will now have. Fighters are not the only class that wear Heave Armor. It's bad enough that the game has been reduced to cloth/light or Heavy Armor. Focus on buffing Medium Armor and scrap this pile of mess.



Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).
Yeah, this has been coming for awhile. Still haven't addressed the reason why people feel compelled to splash 2 Paladin levels. Maybe your time would be better spent implementing gear or augments that mimic Paladin Divine Grace (which would not stack with DG) and leave this ability alone.



Eldritch Blast and other enhancements (Warlock)
The spellpower scaling for Eldritch Blast and several enhancements has been reduced.

Spellpower scaling of Warlock Abilities


Ability
Old
New


Eldritch Blast
150%
130%


Eldritch Blast Cone
130%
130%


Eldritch Blast Chain
110%
95%


Eldritch Blast Aura
150%
130%


Stricken (Souleater)
150%
125%


Consume (Souleater)
150%
125%


Eldritch Burst (Enlightened Spirit)
120%
100%


Spirit Blast (Enlightened Spirit)
120%
100%



I will be following up this post with some details on our thoughts on balance and design.

Sev~
Thanks for explaining why you feel you have to do these changes. The problem is you are doing these changes without addressing the "elephant in the room" so these changes overall don't change anything. NPC's damage is designed against a certain AC/PRR/MRR/Saves/Resists.

Once you implement your proposed changes, NPC's will be doing more damage while players have no new ways to counter this increased damage. Think about EE ToEE after you beefed up Rangers. Now you are planning on further reducing player DPS and survivablity. Worse, you publicly stated that you are "hand crafting" the difficulty for CR 30 content which means changes are even slower to fix as you have to individually fix each adventure/NPC.

I know the elitists will welcome this change. The problem is, they will leave this game and find the next MMO regardless of the changes you make today or in the next 2 years. Those of us who have enjoyed the game will have to adapt or quit in frustration. I've adapted just fine so far but players have a breaking point where the fun of the game is lost because of the screams of the 1%.

[Merlocke]

Blood Strength (Barbarian Ravager)
The portion of this enhancement that heals the user when they kill an opponent now has a 1 second internal cooldown.


More changes need to made in the healing arena. This game is far too easy and teamwork/roles are not needed at endgame. No one needs a healer. Healing classes are a lost art in this game since everyone can faceroll everything and selfheal.

I hope Mythic brings back tactics, challenge, & incentive to run endgame. It will be your last chance to save DDO.

[Enoach]

Greetings.

We've seen a lot of community feedback, both public and private, about our ongoing plans for balance. These are some changes we are considering to increase game balance.

As with any post that outlines power reductions (aka nerfs) I am sure there will be a lot of players looking for explanations and our thoughts and results on balance that led to these changes. I will be following up this post with more details that talk about why some of these changes are being implemented.

***

I like that not only are you looking at these items that you are putting them out to us the Players to make some comments.



Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon.

I play a S&B Paladin (41 in Defender, rest in Vanguard). I play a Tank that uses its shield. Now to that end I enjoyed the fact that Holy Sword gave not only an AC bonus but also enhanced my shield bashes. While I'll be sad to see this go I can understand why.

The idea that it is now a buff that only needs to be cast once and transfers as you switch weapons means less SP for buffing a weapon as I change them out to have the best tool for the job.

Now while Range is not my primary, I will be sad to see this go away as it help me get more out of my Pinion since I have zero invested. And sometimes even a tank needs a good range damage dealer.




Doubleshot values over 100% now have a chance of producing a third attack. The chance is equal to the amount the value exceeds 100. A doubleshot value of 130, for example, would always produce one extra shot and have a 30% chance to produce a third shot.

(Doublestrike will still cap at 100 for technical reasons.)

This is a nice change. Especially the part listed with the Manyshot and 10K no longer having the Doubleshot debuff





Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

I run an AA/EK Elf Fighter/Wizard. I don't have full BaB naturally, but can buff for it. I am interested to see how this plays out. But wouldn't it be better if both of these abilities had the same Cooldown? One working off BaB and the other working off Wisdom or Monk Levels?




Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

This now means that named weapons with enhanced threat range won't be more "special" because of the enhanced range. This change has been coming for a long time.




Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)

As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.

I have to admit MRR didn't make sense on Armor. It did on the Shield and I'm glad you are keeping it there. This will be a decrease in PRR on my Heavy Armor Tank. I'll wait to see how this effects my current build that has 200+ PRR with the current system.




Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).


This is a change I was expecting. My only issue is that you are limiting pure paladins to 134 Charisma anything above that won't help with saves :). This still gives 10 Levels of Paladin enough to get full benefit of charisma mod. Even at 5 Levels you get up to +17 Modifier (44 Charisma)

It still gives 2 Levels of paladin +8 saves. Charisma builds like Sorcerer/Warlock with 2 Levels of Paladin will most likely feel the sting on saves, but even +8 to saves is a significant boost.


I'm looking forward to see how everything shakes out.

[nibel]

so then there should be additional dieties added so that you can select what weapon you want. why isn't dwarven waraxe a dwarven diety weapon? or hammer? elf rapier?

how many FR dieties are there?

I asked for that as well (http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/459754), but that is another line of discussion.

[patang01]

Yes, warlocks do a lot of damage. I can see them needed some nerf-age in the heroic levels, but as other have also pointed out, at high end warlocks are not the dps monsters that they are in heroic and they are pretty easy to kill if you get sloppy for even a moment.

Better would be to find a way to tone them down in heroic and leave them alone in epic.


Thank you for the communication!

I see in heroic. They're pretty player friendly.

Epics? Not a DPS leader. My savant threw out thousands of points of damage with magic missiles. Incredible ROF.

Warlocks - slow to start firing, slow firing doing at the most 600+ crits. Sure. It's cheap. But not really a big leader in DPS. Plus lack of diversity in spells. Your pact will more or less determine the type of spells that suits your build.

It takes my Warlock forever to destroy red named compared to when he was a savant. I get readjustments But chained for example got a massive haircut and with the speed of switching target it'll be super boring to stand there and autofire for so much longer.

[Thar]

Two weapon fighting animations have been fixed so there is no longer a weird jump on the fourth animation. This has made the fourth attack slightly quicker.

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.



Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)



Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.


Sev~

wasn't twf mp just added when it was determined statistically that they were not up to the level of the other styles due to the hit box? tempest isn't the only twf build and isn't that awesome.

how about fixing whirlwind attack feat so it doesn't spin twice for no reason (only hits once)

wasn't prr just adjusted? I don't see why you'd remove the 10/20/30 and nerf the overall effectiveness again. you should remove the BAB and boost the base amount instead. make non proficiency negate prr so you have to have the feat? total loss of mrr is like... what... did you guys get possessed and taken over by pre armor up versions of the devs? adjusting it downward is one thing. removing it after this was the saving grace of armored characters. i'm speechless... (but i can still type).

why do fighters get all the prr buffs? how does that help the rest of the classes? lower everyone down and then give fighers 30prr/mrr?? makes no sense. is this the fighter "pass"?

this doesn't seem about balance or wizards would be getting boosts, clerics would get some dps. it is just built up nerfs half of which are not even op anymore.

whatever.. probably my last sub.

[Wipey]

No. Not really.

A fully invested tactical user today will do fine in heroic. A fully invested tactical user will be increasingly more useless in Epic. 2 things - first. A ludicrous amount of CR on EE where trying to use tactical feats at level is generally worthless and the prolific use of orange and red named makes the whole thing moot anyways.

Tactics are good at level EE with proper gear. Except Stormhorns really underlevel and Demon Assault/Archon Trial.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5673/21525554814_5df79f8e97_z.jpg



I'm guessing I'll roll a Monkcher like everyone else.

Almost noone plays monk archers anymore.

[Caprice]

[....]
This is actually a bigger nerf to Imp Crit than I had anticipated. By providing a static bonus to crit range, it lowers the total crit bonus on weapons with larger-than-average crit range; e.g., eSOS goes from 15-20/x3 to 16-20/x3. And since it no longer doubles competence bonuses, then those with +1/2 crit range bonuses now will lose 5/10% crit chance.

Let's run thru a few scenarios to see if I understand how the new crit bonuses are supposed to work vs the existing mechanics.
[...lots of specifics snipped for brevity...]
Interesting. You are mostly choosing weapons which had unusual critical profiles though, and not always easily achievable ones (e.g. eSoS), which does skew the numbers, but I think the percentage changes are a bit stark. Assuming a 0% Fort target and only missing on a 1, those scenarios translates as follows:

Ravager Barbarian w/Maul or Warhammer in LD: 37 effective hits now -> 35 effective hits after changes = -5.4%
Swashbuckler w/Skullsmasher in LD: 41 -> 38 = - 7.3%
KotC Paladin w/eSoS in DC: 51 -> 42 = -17.8%
Acrobat w/Sireth in DC: 41 -> 33 = -19.5%

Those numbers don't translate directly into a DPS change but will be somewhat indicative, and show a rather big disparity across styles for some of the more interesting weapon choices. I haven't played Acrobat post enhancement pass; I hope they got a big enough buff to make up for that kind of loss on what had been one of their few competitive DPS weapon choices.

[Thuldorn]

Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.

Sev~

Shouldn't this include Paladin along with Fighter. I don't think Paladin's should have all the tactical feats that fighters have but they should be able to use heavy armor as well as if not better than fighters.

[CrackedIce]

I think Dwarven Axe and Bastard Sword should be in the same category. Options for 1 handed weapons with glancing blow are already very limited and they both cost a feat unless you're Dwarf.

I think this a good idea. Dwarven axe will start at 20 and move to 18-20 while bastard will be 17 - 20 with improved crit feat.

[vyvy3369]

Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon.
I don't care too much about most of the proposed changes, but this is essentially removing archery as an effective combat style for Paladins despite there being an entire faith line that favors Longbows. As an alternative suggestion, tie it into the deity favored weapon and add a different version of the Holy Sword spell to the Paladin spell list based on deity choice at level 14. It's supposed to be a "holy" sword, it seems appropriate that the bonus should apply to weapon(s) that the deity would approve of. A single specific weapon might be a bit restrictive, but perhaps something like Lord of Blades -> THF, Silver Flame -> Ranged/Thrown, Undying Court/Vulkoor -> SWF/TWF, Amaunator -> S&B. Edit: forgot about Sovereign Host, seems like a good fit for S&B too.

[Zistra]

Modify named items to have one of the Keen effects, rather than an inherent wider crit range.

Imp. Crit then need not be changed (doubles the BASE crit range BUT make it stack with Keen)

Possibly modify Keen I to Keen IV:

Keen I: Adds +1 to crit range
Keen II: Adds +.5[W] and +1 to crit range
Keen III: Adds +.5[W] +2 to crit range
Keen IV: Adds +1[W] and +2 to crit range

Random lootgen weapons with Keen effects then benefit from Imp crit, rather than being a useless effect if you have it.

Since named items often also have a higher-than-normal for the type [W], the loss of crit range is somewhat offset.

FWIW, it seems logical that the property of the weapon making it sharper (Keen) should stack with whatever ability it is that you have to get more out of it (Imp Crit)

[Morroiel]

Greetings.

We've seen a lot of community feedback, both public and private, about our ongoing plans for balance. These are some changes we are considering to increase game balance.

As with any post that outlines power reductions (aka nerfs) I am sure there will be a lot of players looking for explanations and our thoughts and results on balance that led to these changes. I will be following up this post with more details that talk about why some of these changes are being implemented.

***



Thank you for taking into consideration community feedback - we all want the same thing: the game to continually improve. Also fine-tuning abilities is incredibly important for a game as complex as this - I hope that this won't just be a once in a while thing. If you look at a lot of successful games today - you'll see a trend these large patches filled with small incremental changes are important. It will also prevent you guys from having to reinvent the wheel a year or two down the road by having to revamp the same classes again. I encourage you guys to do balance changes like this in the future with nerfs and buffs both being represented.



Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon.


Holy Sword definitely needs some changes - I like this direction with one exception. Missile weapons should not be effected imo. In fact you've almost seemed to go out of your way to nerf niche thrower builds here. I disagree with that since from my point of view throwers aren't even top tier. Also if they become a problem in the future you can always nerf several other things. Interested to see how this iteration of holy sword pans out - paladins aren't my area of expertise.



Blood Strength (Barbarian Ravager)
The portion of this enhancement that heals the user when they kill an opponent now has a 1 second internal cooldown.

Critical Rage (Barbarian Ravager)
The bonus to critical threat range is now a competence bonus.



Interested to see how this pans out - I would caution that nerfing blood strength too much in combination with the armor changes might make barbarians much weaker than anticipated: be wary of compounding too many nerfs in the same area (i.e. defense)



Two weapon fighting animations have been fixed so there is no longer a weird jump on the fourth animation. This has made the fourth attack slightly quicker.

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.



I have no idea how this change will affect the game - if your analysis shows that twf dps is too high then perhaps this is the right move. However I would caution you to keep an open mind to go back and revert some of the melee power if needed. Please keep an eye on the dps output of common twf builds / keep an ear open to people's feedback on this.



Doubleshot values over 100% now have a chance of producing a third attack. The chance is equal to the amount the value exceeds 100. A doubleshot value of 130, for example, would always produce one extra shot and have a 30% chance to produce a third shot.

(Doublestrike will still cap at 100 for technical reasons.)

Repeating Crossbows and Doubleshot
Fixed a bug where Doubleshot was not being reduced for repeating crossbows. (Doubleshot chance is divided by 3 for repeating crossbows.)

Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Mechanical Reloader (Rogue Mechanic)
The alacrity for non-repeating crossbows is now 30%. (Was 40%)


The only way I can stomach all of these changes is if it truly brings about a finite/tangible difference in lag experienced in the game. That's the rationale I've been led to believe for the changes to manyshot / 10k stars / doubleshot. This will drastically reduce burst dps of ranged builds - yes even with the increased ranged power from 10k stars / manyshot. I will be expecting results in terms of lag otherwise I fully expect I won't be the only one complaining. I would also caution you to watch the mechanics dps - just keep an eye open / ear listening. You are changing multiple levers for them.



Pulverizer (Legendary Dreadnought)
The bonus to critical threat range for bludgeoning weapons is now an Insight bonus.

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.


RIP acrobats that's all I can say. I'll have to do some tests but I expect that any Qstaff build is now dead. Please consider bumping them to +2 instead of +1.


Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)



Great changes - I never like MRR or really how easy it was to get a good MRR. Players are going to be mad at you for removing it completely - I hope you don't cave into their demands. MRR is important but it shouldn't be as readily available as it is right now.




As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.

Tactical Training
Requires Fighter Level 4
You gain +2 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 8
You gain +4 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Mastery
Requires Fighter Level 12
You gain +6 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Supremacy
Requires Fighter Level 16
You gain +8 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Notes: All tactical feats stack for a total of +20. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Tactical Training and forego the +2 but still have access to Tatical Supremacy.

Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.



I'll assume this is the first step in the upcoming fighter pass? If so looks okay for a start to me except +20 to tactical feats might be too high. I have no other comments.


Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).

This isn't really a balance change in my mind. It has been on the known issues list, I believe (or at least was mentioned as a known issue by a dev at one point), for a LONG time. This is absolutely needed in my mind. Maybe you can finally lower the saves for traps/spells in higher content to a low enough level that non pally builds have a fighting chance. For most of us DC 10000 bombardment none of us stand a chance of making it. THANK YOU FOR THIS CHANGE!!


Eldritch Blast and other enhancements (Warlock)
The spellpower scaling for Eldritch Blast and several enhancements has been reduced.

Spellpower scaling of Warlock Abilities


Ability
Old
New


Eldritch Blast
150%
130%


Eldritch Blast Cone
130%
130%


Eldritch Blast Chain
110%
95%


Eldritch Blast Aura
150%
130%


Stricken (Souleater)
150%
125%


Consume (Souleater)
150%
125%


Eldritch Burst (Enlightened Spirit)
120%
100%


Spirit Blast (Enlightened Spirit)
120%
100%



I will be following up this post with some details on our thoughts on balance and design.

Sev~

Before I comment on the changes I'm going to put my comments into context for you because like all players I am biased. I play a wide variety of spellcasters (in fact I enjoy all variations except shiradi and tanklock). Right now the only true spellcasters that are viable for end game content are Warlock, FvS, and possibly Sorc (if you have a **** ton of sp pots). However the only spellcaster that is actually in good standing right now is warlock. I have switched over to mainly playing a warlock due to this reason. I see it as the saving grace for casters (since we have to wait more than a year till we see our class revamps). Its a buffer - a placeholder in a way till that revamp happens for w/e caster class you want to play (personally I'm waiting for a druid pass or sorc pass).

Warlock's are strong right now there is no debating that even in epics they are strong. They are strong because they are what casters are supposed to be like in epics - able to consistently aoe trash, and nuke bosses. They are even stronger in heroics - in fact I'd say they are flat out broken in heroics. But this is the problem with casters - scaling from heroics to epics is bad - if you want casters to be viable in epics under the current mechanics they have to be broken in heroics. Some people care about balance in heroics - most do not. The game is about epics at this point - heroics have long since become trivial.

Warlock's need a nerf in epics but I caution you to do so appropriately and with precision - most players who are crying out that warlocks are broken are talking about heroics NOT epics. AND MOST CERTAINLY THEY DO NOT NEED A NERF TO THEIR SINGLE TARGET DPS.

My suggestions: remove the nerf to eldritch blast - make it scale at 150% as it does currently. Nerf eldritch wave - it is TOO STRONG at the moment. I'd prefer a cd nerf (double cd) but a scaling nerf (-> 120%) would also be appropriate. Revert the nerf to spirit blast to 120% but keep eldritch blast at 100%. Either revert the nerfs to consume / stricken or keep the nerfs and make their casting not interrupt eldritch blast attack chain. The nerfs to consume alone account for nearly a 300 dps drop on a standard souleater T5 build. Souleater is designed to be a single target dps / debuffing tree - please do not outright nerf the bread and butter parts of that.

Warlock's areas of power that need to be toned down in epics are: 1) their aoe damage/clear and 2) their tankiness. I would suggest removing small bits of power from ES to reduce their tankiness - though to be honest that might be unnecessary with the changes to armor above.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO REMOVE ANY SINGLE TARGET DPS POWER FROM THE WARLOCK!


Thank you for listening to my feedback - I appreciate all the hard work you guys are doing.

[valarmorghuliis]

I think Dwarven Axe and Bastard Sword should be in the same category. Options for 1 handed weapons with glancing blow are already very limited and they both cost a feat unless you're Dwarf.

From looking at it it seemed like they just set up the categories so that if you had standard weapons of each type and no competence or other type of bonus to crit range other than keen/icrit you would see no difference. I don't quite understand what all of the discussion about individual weapons moving around is for.

Personally I would rather have them leave all of the crit stuff alone and just up mob fortification to achieve the effect they want.
Make debuffs a thing again.

[Hawkwier]

Looking at these proposals, whilst I have reservations on some aspects, principally not wanting evasion to become an imperative again, and some of them will directly affect my main toon adversely, I applaud the bold and wide ranging nature of thought they represent.

I've thought for a while the nerf bat had to be de-closeted to address the inexorable power creep we have seen over the past few years.

I'll be happy to try these out, but would ask that some form of Heart of Wood be provided so as to avoid folk being locked into classes they no longer want to play.

Could be fun re-exploring class combinations! :)

The other thing I'd say is that this should be a standard for an ongoing review process, implemented regularly, and that it needs to include nerfs to mobs and bosses too, where appropriate.

After all, the nature of balance implies two or more forces to be balanced, and whilst inter-build balance is laudable, the main game changer is surely to be found in balancing player power with the environment?

So good stuff. Much still to be done! :)

[Mellkor]

The more I think about this, the more I dislike almost all of these nerfs. I think it will be bad for the game in so many ways.


May as well not have any diversity at all. Just have all toons all have the same DPS, the same abilities, and the same survivability/defensivness.

Everyone gets the same weapon, the same armor, and all stats are equal.

This sure seems to be the direction you guys are headed.

This is looking to be the single worst thing I have seen in the history of MMO's.

Previously the worst thing ever, IMO, was dungeon alert.

Kudos for trumping THAT abomination!

-JR

[blerkington]

Hi,

As some other people have observed, you've missed some quite significant things in this rebalance. I hope you don't think you're anywhere near done.

While I think it's good that you're attempting to deal with some of the bigger easy buttons in the game, this exercise looks like it's being driven largely by community perceptions rather than any sort of detailed comparison of build strengths.

From a communications point of view, the way you're handling this is a DISASTER. The scope is huge and there are so many items it will be impossible to have any sort of focus in the discussion. It'll just blow out to hundreds of pages as people comment on and debate the merits of your changes.

If I didn't know better, it almost seems like you're not that interested in receiving feedback from the community in a usable form and then acting on it to revise your initial ideas about how to make changes. But that couldn't be right ... could it?

Thanks.

[Vellrad]

Interesting. You are mostly choosing weapons which had unusual critical profiles though, and not always easily achievable ones (e.g. eSoS), which does skew the numbers, but I think the percentage changes are a bit stark. Assuming a 0% Fort target and only missing on a 1, those scenarios translates as follows:

Ravager Barbarian w/Maul or Warhammer in LD: 37 effective hits now -> 35 effective hits after changes = -5.4%
Swashbuckler w/Skullsmasher in LD: 41 -> 38 = - 7.3%
KotC Paladin w/eSoS in DC: 51 -> 42 = -17.8%
Acrobat w/Sireth in DC: 41 -> 33 = -19.5%

Those numbers don't translate directly into a DPS change but will be somewhat indicative, and show a rather big disparity across styles for some of the more interesting weapon choices. I haven't played Acrobat post enhancement pass; I hope they got a big enough buff to make up for that kind of loss on what had been one of their few competitive DPS weapon choices.

Its sad it nerfs OP builds more that flavor builds that are decent but not good into utter grimps.
No more TYWA ravagers because VoT nerf (called blood str. nerf by devs), no more warhammer builds, no more hand axe swashbucklers, and those were just flavor builds that managed to work somehow, now they are all heavily gimped, while OP khopeshes are still OP.

[Sc00byuk]

Please don't remove all the MRR from heavy (and I guess medium) armor. Make it 1/2 the PRR or something. Don't tie PRR to BAB, it's a percentage reduction. I need it just as much at level 5 when I'm being clobbered by extra damage dealing Champions as I do at level 28.
I really don't think that PRR and MRR are too far off at the moment. I'm a long term daily casual player. I die in EE content due to massive incoming damage on occasion, but can solo most EH.
My gut feel is that you are trying balance classes that have had a pass against classes that haven't and it's not going to work. You've also, as other have said, designed content round the current power level and people (or at least I) will die a lot after these changes if the power level isn't mended too.

Have you run ToEE on elite at level 9? It's brutal. (and the XP reward is junk for the effort required btw).

Also I'd be sad to see the MP go from the TWF feats, I don't think you need to do this, just look at the 2? trees that are broken and tweak those. My TWF Rogue does not feel over powered...

Fighters don't need special tactics feats. You can't trip or stun red names in any case and obscene DPS works better against trash and bosses. I ran a tactics based 20 Fighter for years and it was painful. Mobs come at you in packs and you can only trip one. Yay! Meanwhile the other 4 are eating your face... Stunning only works if you are a Monk, otherwise the cool down is too long. If those feats also allowed cleaving trips and dropped the cool downs they might be useful. As they are, they really aren't.

/2p

[Erik_Loki]

Barbarian, Rogue and Ranger's basic class abilities aren't quite as strong, so characters built entirely toward melee will do a little more DPS.

Sev~

Then we decided to nerf them. Seems legit,

[CrackedIce]

The more I think about this, the more I dislike almost all of these nerfs. I think it will be bad for the game in so many ways.


May as well not have any diversity at all. Just have all toons all have the same DPS, the same abilities, and the same survivability/defensivness.

Everyone gets the same weapon, the same armor, and all stats are equal.

This sure seems to be the direction you guys are headed.

This is looking to be the single worst thing I have seen in the history of MMO's.

Previously the worst thing ever, IMO, was dungeon alert.

Kudos for trumping THAT abomination!

-JR

I am a bit confused about your post. What diversity are we missing? More options for Palidons? What else? Where do see all characters will be the same? The enhancement trees are not the same nor are the classes...how are these changes making this to be so?

Thanks.

[MrWindupBird]

Point One: I think you overestimate how good TWF is, and I suspect this is because of how you test/play the game (hint: it is not how we do). Standing still and swinging in front of an immobile opponent, TWF is indeed quite good, as your tests probably show you. However, that is not how combat works in DDO. Movement and positioning really are everything, and the very active combat is the one of the best parts of the game. If you learn how, you can avoid a great percentage of melee attacks, particularly in clumps of enemies, by strafing around the perimeter swinging. Some styles benefit from this herky-jerky style: THF, SWF, and S+B all have higher DPS from constant movement via twitching. TWF by contrast does not: not only are the TWF animations while moving noticeably slower, they have a really tiny hitbox, and often miss enemies all together. I highly encourage you to please try a much more movement-based combat style with TWF vs either THF or SWF if you don't know what I'm talking about: it's a very real phenomenon and it isnt subtle. The result is that the on-paper TWF dps is often much higher than the in-game DPS, where movement is constant (at least on EE, if you don't want to go splat), and the wedge between TWF and SWF/THF either disappears or goes negative. If you really want to adjust TWF down, you need to address the moving animations/hitbox issues. Otherwise leave it as is: TWF is somewhat better standing still and substantially worse while moving (ie vast majority of time).

Point Two: Warlocks are hilariously OP in heroics, and quite good in low-epics, but I'm not sure they need to be nerfed. As I mentioned in the warlock Lamma thread, warlocks suffer from the epic-caster problem, that DPS between lvl 20 and lvl 28 is probably only a factor of two difference (likely less), versus more like a factor of 5 for melee. The explanation for this observation is that casters essentially only benefit from increased spellpower from lvl 20 to 28: their caster levels are already maxed, and lore items are close to maxed. Further, they might have 250 spellpower at level 20 and 500 at lvl 28, but metamagics make that effectively 475 vs 725- a roughly 70% difference. Melee conversely benefit from going from 6 melee power to about 150 (already a factor of two there), destiny abilities increasing crit profiles, and vastly superior weaponry (TF tier3 vs Greensteel). The result is that you can balance caster-classes at level 20 or at level 28 versus melee, but not both: they have different power progressions as implemented. Warlocks are relatively on-par with strong melees at lvl 28, and stupidly strong in heroics. C'est la vie.





From looking at it it seemed like they just set up the categories so that if you had standard weapons of each type and no competence or other type of bonus to crit range other than keen/icrit you would see no difference. I don't quite understand what all of the discussion about individual weapons moving around is for.

Personally I would rather have them leave all of the crit stuff alone and just up mob fortification to achieve the effect they want.
Make debuffs a thing again.

This is a good post too.

[FuryFlash]

As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.


Oh, ok. I like buffs to fighters - lets take a look here...



Tactical Training
Requires Fighter Level 4
You gain +2 to the DC of all tactical feats.


Oh, nice! Is this is a free feat?



Tactical Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 8
You gain +4 to the DC of all tactical feats.


Wow... I like where this is going.



Tactical Mastery
Requires Fighter Level 12
You gain +6 to the DC of all tactical feats.


I'm sensing a pattern... if these are free, then I'm impressed... even if they aren't, really.



Tactical Supremacy
Requires Fighter Level 16
You gain +8 to the DC of all tactical feats.


Ok, so, maybe this is going a bit over the top, I mean, +8? Tell me these aren't auto-granted...



Notes: All tactical feats stack for a total of +20.

Sev~


(Our commentary will be temporarily interrupted while our host goes and gets a new keyboard and wipes the milk from his screen. We'll be right back, folks, stay tuned!)

[Seikojin]

Under the proposal, Improved Critical would offer a +1 to the critical threat range of a quarterstaff. So, a regular quarterstaff that is 20/x2 would become 19-20/x2, and a named quarterstaff with a natural crit range of 19-20 would become 18-20.

Thanks for providing these direct answers. It will definitely help.

[Seikojin]

Oh, ok. I like buffs to fighters - lets take a look here...



Oh, nice! Is this is a free feat?



Wow... I like where this is going.



I'm sensing a pattern... if these are free, then I'm impressed... even if they aren't, really.



Ok, so, maybe this is going a bit over the top, I mean, +8? Tell me these aren't auto-granted...



(Our commentary will be temporarily interrupted while our host goes and gets a new keyboard and wipes the milk from his screen. We'll be right back, folks, stay tuned!)

LOL, you know the point is you have more options when making a fighter, right?

[Zistra]

Fighters don't need special tactics feats. You can't trip or stun red names in any case and obscene DPS works better against trash and bosses. I ran a tactics based 20 Fighter for years and it was painful. Mobs come at you in packs and you can only trip one. Yay! Meanwhile the other 4 are eating your face... Stunning only works if you are a Monk, otherwise the cool down is too long. If those feats also allowed cleaving trips and dropped the cool downs they might be useful. As they are, they really aren't.

/2p

Good point on trip vs packs.

Just a thought: If you are surrounded by enemies and successfully trip one, you should get an attempt to trip the next one in range with a -2 (or whatever) to your chance. Continue until you fail. Whirling trip!

[Sgt_Hart]

Yes, these are fighter-specific feats, with required levels of fighter as a prerequisite. They can be taken using any feat slot, however, not just the fighter bonus feats.

Negative Ghostrider, the Pattern is full.




Tactical Training
Requires Fighter Level 4
You gain +2 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 8
You gain +4 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Mastery
Requires Fighter Level 12
You gain +6 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Supremacy
Requires Fighter Level 16
You gain +8 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Notes: All tactical feats stack for a total of +20. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Tactical Training and forego the +2 but still have access to Tatical Supremacy.

Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.


I'm still saying "Fighter Level" in there is a Typo'd instance of "Character Level" And you're not going to convince me otherwise until you actually go ahead and make the mistake of implementing it as such.

The composite picture here results in something troubling. You are getting the spirit of Fighter wrong. It is "Options by way of feats." not "Exclusive feats to make it a specialist."

If I want to take 4 heavy armor combatant feat's on a pure paladin, Why in the blue hell can't I?

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#fighterBonusFeats

Take special notice of:


Any feat designated as a fighter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/fighter.htm) feat can be selected as a fighter’s bonus feat. This designation does not restrict characters of other classes from selecting these feats, assuming that they meet any prerequisites.

The text string "Fighter Level" show's up three times on that document. Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Specialization.
Now it may be a mighty slim list of characters who'd take.. Trample (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#trample) for example, But if the halfling rogue has taken Mounted Combat and a rank into riding, and really wants to do it...

You want to put Half values into the feats, and then have Fighter enhancements that double the effectiveness? Fine. That's Where DDO has already truly, and thoroughly divorced itself from DnD, and that's almost always in a good way. Arbitrarily inventing new fighter only feats, for the stated intent of "Fighter get's better" Is (at best) a sketchy way to do it.


We feel these eight new feats spread across levels 2-16 helps with many kinds of characters.

It will, once that Typo get's corrected.




Two weapon fighting animations have been fixed so there is no longer a weird jump on the fourth animation. This has made the fourth attack slightly quicker.

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.


This troubles me. Let me begin with saying: I've never one made a TWF, or run a TR life that way, nor do I find myself inclined to do so. With that out of the way.. Feat's are global changes, that strip power away from a TWF Half-orc bard, just as much as a min maxed Elven tempest ranger.

Or concisely: This is shutting off the water main for the block, to attempt to stop a leaky faucet in your kitchen.

Be Damned Well Sure, that you want to cut the effectiveness of the fighting style, rather than a few specific cases who use that style.

[Mellkor]

I am a bit confused about your post. What diversity are we missing? More options for Palidons? What else? Where do see all characters will be the same? The enhancement trees are not the same nor are the classes...how are these changes making this to be so?

Thanks.

Rolled a 1 on your sarcasm check :D

The point is, really, is that whenever a build that works well pops up, the nerf bat comes out. This is easily the biggest nerf I have seen in this game, and I have seen many.

And almost EVERY time this kind of thing could have been avoided if concerns from Llamma folks had been addressed before things went to the live servers.

I guess I am getting tired of building effective characters, putting a lot of time and effort collecting gear and learning how to play that particular toon well, only to have it nerfed to uselessness. This has happened to myself and a lot people I know many times over the years of playing this game. It just doesn't make any sense to me to punish the players over and over again.

[Grailhawk]

Point One: I think you overestimate how good TWF is, and I suspect this is because of how you test/play the game (hint: it is not how we do). Standing still and swinging in front of an immobile opponent, TWF is indeed quite good, as your tests probably show you. However, that is not how combat works in DDO. Movement and positioning really are everything, and the very active combat is the one of the best parts of the game. If you learn how, you can avoid a great percentage of melee attacks, particularly in clumps of enemies, by strafing around the perimeter swinging. Some styles benefit from this herky-jerky style: THF, SWF, and S+B all have higher DPS from constant movement via twitching. TWF by contrast does not: not only are the TWF animations while moving noticeably slower, they have a really tiny hitbox, and often miss enemies all together. I highly encourage you to please try a much more movement-based combat style with TWF vs either THF or SWF if you don't know what I'm talking about: it's a very real phenomenon and it isnt subtle. The result is that the on-paper TWF dps is often much higher than the in-game DPS, where movement is constant (at least on EE, if you don't want to go splat), and the wedge between TWF and SWF/THF either disappears or goes negative. If you really want to adjust TWF down, you need to address the moving animations/hitbox issues. Otherwise leave it as is: TWF is somewhat better standing still and substantially worse while moving (ie vast majority of time).


What you have said is true TWF does better on paper then in practice because of movement and hit box issues. Put people are missing that they did touch the TWF animation it will be interesting to see what that change means.




Two weapon fighting animations have been fixed so there is no longer a weird jump on the fourth animation. This has made the fourth attack slightly quicker.

Sev~

[JP457]

Am I missing something with Divine Grace? I get +62 to saves?

2 + (pal lvl x 3)

2 + (20 x 3)

2 + 60

62

[KevinMullins]

No don't think they will not make effective characters useless. Soon after the nerf , I think they will add PRR and MRR tomes or augments you get to buy. Like last time the nerf PRR , they very shortly came out with +1 and +2 tomes for remnant exchange. Hope it doesn't happen, after building a character up only to grind back to where I was before nerf.

[Henky]

I HAVE A BIG QUESTION.

You are toning down damage output from players.
You are toning down damage mitigation from players.

Will you tune down EE level 30 quests that are overperforming? I'm looking at Necro IV and ToEE archers/cultists/end fight...

I took a break from the game, came back two months ago and even went vip again. Redoing (3) characters and getting items took me two month, I haven't even finished and now you are changing everything again.

Your changes to weapons are asking for a deconstruction on thunderforge crafting options. Let the people get back full ingredients used the first two months after this changes go live. You are asking some people to farm, once more, 30 phlogiston to make a weapon because you just nerfed his build/weapon. Players don't have to pay for your power creep errors.

Also a +20 Heart is mostly needed on some builds.

[CrackedIce]

Rolled a 1 on your sarcasm check :D

The point is, really, is that whenever a build that works well pops up, the nerf bat comes out. This is easily the biggest nerf I have seen in this game, and I have seen many.

And almost EVERY time this kind of thing could have been avoided if concerns from Llamma folks had been addressed before things went to the live servers.

I guess I am getting tired of building effective characters, putting a lot of time and effort collecting gear and learning how to play that particular toon well, only to have it nerfed to uselessness. This has happened to myself and a lot people I know many times over the years of playing this game. It just doesn't make any sense to me to punish the players over and over again.

Honestly, these type of changes hurt casual and power gamers. Without +20 heart, many build ideas have been affected with each enhancement pass and general direction of game. In my mind, this constant restructuring is driving away players than anything else because of the time of money it takes to get back to your vision of what you wanted from your build.

I honestly like many of these changes. But over the years fixes have broken many characters and I am one to not TR and never will be. Luckily I have never banked on any one specific synergy that completely wiped all my toons. I still have cleaves on my tempest ranger before DOD existed from the requirement for epic feat OC. And I used my free heart to put them there when those were a requirement for it...I am sure I am not the only one running around with characters half built because of changes over the years.

Again I am fine with these changes, I just feel +20 hears need to be given out every two to three years or so.

[Zistra]

Am I missing something with Divine Grace? I get +62 to saves?

2 + (pal lvl x 3)

2 + (20 x 3)

2 + 60

62

That's the cap, not the bonus. As a pure pally, you can't have more than +62 to your saves from cha bonus.

[Henky]

Am I missing something with Divine Grace? I get +62 to saves?

2 + (pal lvl x 3)

2 + (20 x 3)

2 + 60

62
18 warlock/sorc 2 paladin with 60 cha

At the moment they are getting +25 to saves thanks to Divine Grace. With this update they will get 2 + 6. Pure paladins will be the same.

[MrWindupBird]

What you have said is true TWF does better on paper then in practice because of movement and hit box issues. Put people are missing that they did touch the TWF animation it will be interesting to see what that change means.

I will be delighted if TWF animations/hitboxes are fixed to be comparable to other styles, and would happily trade 6 melee power for that.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

I'm still saying "Fighter Level" in there is a Typo'd instance of "Character Level" And you're not going to convince me otherwise until you actually go ahead and make the mistake of implementing it as such.

you may disagree with a change like this on principle, but i have to ask you, have you played a fighter lately? they could be worse, but the bottom line is that they kind of blow.

if a pure fighter were to take all of the new +dc feats and all of the new +prr/mrr, suddenly you have less than 0 dps again. id call that balanced.

will a pure fighter be that much tankier than another character with 30 more prr paid for with 4 feats (which is actually a lot more significant even on a pure fighter than the people who dont play them but ***** and moan about how many feats they have realize)? i have my doubts that it will make fighters better tanks than paladins, but at least with these new feats and the holy sword nerf fighter tanks may at least be viable and not the utterly idiotic choice that they currently are.

i dont think most fighters will even take all four of these either, tbh.

currently there is not much incentive to splash fighter levels. pure pally is better. pure barb is better. pure ranger is better. the builds with 6 fighter (such as the old swash build) are pretty much nonexistent these days. adding these feats in a scaling fashion and requiring fighter levels is, i think, a great implementation to actually give fighter some appeal and just a tad of exclusivity (which they are pretty lacking these days. their flavor is basically their distinct lack of any).

removing the fighter level requirement of these feats would pretty much invalidate the purpose of adding them. at that point i think it would be better to just roll with the nerfs to armor and not include these feats.

[rezo]

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.



Sev~

Wouldn't removing Versatile Adept from the Harper enhancement tree be a good fix over this???

[Dreppo]

I ran EH GH saga last night with a 14 paladin 4 rogue 2 arty and an 18 rogue 2 arty and a 12 ranger 6 monk 2 something. I know all these guys too, they're good players. Kill list looked something like this in MS Crater:

18 rogue/2 arty: 170 kills
12 ranger/ 6 monk: 60 kills
14 pally 4 rogue: 55 kills
16 arty 3 pally 1 wizzy: 24


These values were pretty much the same in every quest. I was farming Seeds more or less with friends to TR back to a ranger, but I left the group last really wanting to play a rogue archer. He's not the first archer I've seen either dominate.

The rogue wasn't an archer, he was either a great crossbow user or a repeating crossbow user. Archers are in a much worse place than crossbow users. Some of the proposed changes in this thread dial down rogue mechanic crossbow users, which is good because they are overpowered currently. They do way more DPS currently than dual-wielding assassins or stick-wielding acrobats, all the while be ranged therefore taking a lot less incoming damage. In fact they may need more dialing back than this. I know one of the mechanic T5 abilities was granting more benefit than intended, not sure if that's fixed yet or not.

[sollor]

Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon.

Deflect Arrows {Deepwood Stalker}
Advanced Sneak Attack {Tempest}
Keen Edge {Kensei}
Ninja Master {Ninja Spy}
Critical Rage {Ravager}
all will work with off hand weapons. will these be neft to.
all the have restriction to weapons or fighting styli and so will Holy Sword now{It no longer affects missile weapons}

[patang01]

Oh, ok. I like buffs to fighters - lets take a look here...



Oh, nice! Is this is a free feat?



Wow... I like where this is going.



I'm sensing a pattern... if these are free, then I'm impressed... even if they aren't, really.

Ok, so, maybe this is going a bit over the top, I mean, +8? Tell me these aren't auto-granted...



(Our commentary will be temporarily interrupted while our host goes and gets a new keyboard and wipes the milk from his screen. We'll be right back, folks, stay tuned!)

These are not autogranted

[Snarglefrump]

If you want to emphasize "Fighters get lots of feats!", add more decent feats that are available to all classes. Make non-fighters squirm trying to choose between multiple good feat options, while fighters get much more breathing room. Adding fighter-only feats makes those feats feel like some fighter special ability, rather creating contrast between with other classes that have to make tough choices.

Adding fighter-only feats makes fighters' choices harder, when they should be easier than other classes. It's counterproductive.

[rcmcneil]

"Balance Change" is the wrong title for this thread. If this was actually about "balance", it would have included unarmed, shields, casting, & dungeon scaling changes as well.

Best that any caster can supply: 95% success rate of killing something not red- or purple-named from 100% health.

Best that any melee can supply: 5% chance of 50% hp loss on anything not red- or purple-named, only after rolling against AC, concealment.

So long as this remains intact, it is pointless to have any true discussion about general game balance. Rename it "Combat Balance" and it'd be much closer to the thread content.

Yes, monks were mentioned by Cordovan as "SOON". I choose to believe it when I see it.

Shields are actively neglected for offensive purposes, Vanguard included.
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/448380-Update-23-Fourth-Look?p=5427295#post5427295

No Imp Crit, no no greater/perfect Shield Mastery, once-per-second hard limiter on bashing (I don't buy "animation issues" as an excuse because the Knight of the Chalice cleaves don't animate when activated closely together, but the damage output shows up just fine). Maybe with the MRR removal from armor you give Evasion back to shield users. Will try not to mention a dual shield option. Or a Captain America option.....



We buffed the power of many threat boosts recently. PM me if your tanks are taking the threat boosting abilities and are still losing agro to DPS. There may be a bug.
Sev~

It seems to not much matter how much threat gen you have, one halfway decent cast can grab just about anything off of a tank. Also, 100 base Intimidate is a near constant failure in EE Necro, ToEE, & Trials, even on non-bosses.

I am a firm believer that most of the complaints of "overpoweredness" from the community stem from the fact that Bards, Paladins, & Barbarians had, for years, been flat out neglected as far as damage output is concerned. Something suddenly being on par with other melee builds might have made them seem suddenly very powerful. This should not be seen as overpowered. Additionally, do not view a sudden spike in the quantity of these classes as them being overpowered; but rather as classes now finally being viable in the game as playable, and not just a class to suffer through until you can TR into something actually useful and fun.

Most of the listed changes seem to be to try to make changes without trying to fix some underlying bug that exists currently. I'd rather the current combat system have its bugs hunted down & fixed.

PRR boost revamp was nice, but chipping away at it every other update......see my previous paragraph on perceived versus actual overpoweredness. I foresee pajama builds being dominant again in 6 months at this rate.

Stuff that is truly out of balance:
-casting/melee
-heroic/epic dungeon scaling
-heroic/epic xp curves
-randomgen/named items
-monster CR
-dps vs flavor (plot, traps, humor)
-used spells vs unused spells (they're unused for a reason)
-Heroic vs Epic past lives

Please zone into a live server & look for some of the older players & ask them advice & opinion. Asking only forumites is intentionally blocking out an entire paying, playing, knowledgeable demographic that would likely point out blind spots in development, & therefore results when it comes to your bottom line. The Player's Council & the surveys were good ideas, but transparency & follow-up is necessary to see if you're actually improving your product.

~Cuyar of Orien, non-paying player since 2012 because of changes like this.

[TheDr0wRanger]

I’m not going to comment on things I have no experience with, here’s what I get from it.


Greetings.
Critical Rage (Barbarian Ravager)
The bonus to critical threat range is now a competence bonus.

Is this wise when you are making significant changes to the way IC etc. work as it is? Is this ability so out of proportion that it needs urgent changes? Dropping the doubling effect on IC is going to lower the effective value of crit bonuses across the board.



Two weapon fighting animations have been fixed so there is no longer a weird jump on the fourth animation. This has made the fourth attack slightly quicker.

Great, little bugs like this throw off everything that comes downstream.



Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.

I can’t comment on the general effectiveness of TWF in all cases or on all toons, but my experience, even back when Blitz was insanely powerful and the centered cleaver was supreme, is that TWF is a pain in the rear. Unlike THF you can’t get basic effect from it without the feats, the second weapon needs the feats to come into play correctly. Then you have a tiny hitbox as mentioned elsewhere. Cleave (the only worthwhile melee feat that has no DC) is less effective since no 1 hand weapon is as good with the multiplier as a greatsword. Cleave is also slower than your attack speed on a TWF and thus doesn’t greatly increase the damage on attack cycles where it is used. TWF is twice as expensive in many regards, requiring users to seek out two hard-to-get weapons to every one on everyone else’s part.

I get that there’s a DPS discrepancy, but I think it’s also a very expensive playstyle that requires a lot of work and in many respects is harder to do with other considerations in play. Consider that.


Doubleshot values over 100% now have a chance of producing a third attack. The chance is equal to the amount the value exceeds 100. A doubleshot value of 130, for example, would always produce one extra shot and have a 30% chance to produce a third shot.

(Doublestrike will still cap at 100 for technical reasons.)

Please call it Multishot, Plurality of Arrows, Spaghettishot, anything but Doubleshot if it’s going to give more than 2 arrows. I and every other pedant on the forums will thank you.



Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

I like it, I thought the way Manyshot works now was too bursty, but not wildly so, this can be adjusted more readily than the current fashion as well. BAB is encouraging, as it will limit its effectiveness with Monkchers slightly, but not so much that the feat isn’t worth it.

Have you considered some sort of effect on the part of the Ranger class that touches Manyshot, rather than having Manyshot check for Ranger? I understand not wanting to cripple Manyshot when used by non-Rangers, but I definitely think you want to incentivize Manyshot users to be Rangers, at least to the point of selecting it over Monk some portion of the time.



Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)


Hmm, Yes, I like this too. Any chance we could look at incentivizing its use with stars? It’s the only option for Shuriken users and it’s got Stars in the name, maybe bump the Monk*5 to Monk*7 when using Shuriken? At least, can you comment on why you might be loath to do such a thing?



Pulverizer (Legendary Dreadnought)
The bonus to critical threat range for bludgeoning weapons is now an Insight bonus.

Yes, this is especially good for the builds that were relying on massive crit ranges to offset terrible base damage(Henshin). Might be too little too late. Never been sure why this hates blades so much though.




Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

This seems good in the sense that I recognize there has to be a scaling back of the achievable crit ranges in the game. Something hitting over 15-20x3 is seriously beginning to stretch the idea, as well as make rare and exciting spikes in damage too predictable. Crit bonuses are also far too effective or valuable when every 1 can be expected to expand the range by 2 on any build that takes melee seriously.

On the other hand, this is going to be a crippling blow to a lot of builds that have their stock and trade in crits because nothing else exists. I have a Staff Henshin build right now that is going to get kicked in the guts by this, he’s not an odd build based on exploitating screwy interactions, hes a pure-monk half-orc Henshin. And he’s going to get mangled by this. Really, Im not saying this because of the build, I want to use him as an example of how this change can have more effect on things that don’t need any sort of nerf.

Have you considered that by cutting out the doubling mechanic, every enhancement tree’s crit bonuses become half as effective? They aren’t less necessary, everyone will feel compelled to take them, but they will be getting half as much effect for a Tier 5 ability. That means Kensei, Henshin, Ninja Spy, Deepwood, Ravager, Swashbuckler, Assassin and Thief Acrobat are all going to take a hit in their Tier 5 or worse, in the late cores.

Are you prepared to go chasing back after this patch adding 2+ crit range bonuses to things like Thief Acrobat because once you cut their crits out from under them they can’t make it up? More than one build that proceeds from the options you guys have provided in the trees is going to be crippled.

Are you prepared, that is do you have the manpower and time, to rebalance a game that has proceeded on double-crit bonus for as long as I’ve been playing? This is going to affect the relative value of Melee Power, Hit-And-Damage bonus, Crit Multiplier and more.

This is a bigger undertaking than you have let on, and I suspect you know that. Can you try and convince us that you aren’t going to just watch crit-centric characters fall to bits?




Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)

Don’t like it, you haven’t really expanded on how things like Fighters and non-dex builds of any stripe are to survive magical attack. Let me see that and I may actually be on your side.

The BAB thing I understand, but I will say this makes taking Eldritch Knight’s armor proficiency basically pointless until you get to Tensers. I was pondering taking up medium armor on my caster, at no small cost, in order to make him tougher. But now there’s no real way to do that while remaining a caster primarily. Perhaps that fine, but I don’t like it, it feels like placing armor on should still have a decent effect regardless of combat-readiness.



As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.

Tactical Training
Requires Fighter Level 4
You gain +2 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 8
You gain +4 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Mastery
Requires Fighter Level 12
You gain +6 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Supremacy
Requires Fighter Level 16
You gain +8 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Notes: All tactical feats stack for a total of +20. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Tactical Training and forego the +2 but still have access to Tatical Supremacy.

I like the option but I question the sameyness of them. 4 semi-identical feats leans to close to the “4 feats 4 times a piece” school of fighters, which tremendously shortsells their strength as a class.
I recommend, if you can come up with enough of them, to make 5-7 really nice melee feats, possibly in chains like Whirlwind. Fighters could afford them with their massive feat list, other classes could get them but at greater proportional cost. So Monkey Grip to allow SWF with a greatsword, costs 3-4 marginally useful feats to get. A new fighting style, almost exclusively the domain of dedicated fighters. This has potential, think about it.




Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.


Same as above but double my complains about it being samey, this is the worst kind of thing to make us take multiple times. Instead of just getting saves from a stat as a paladin, we get to take 4 consecutive feats for the same effect. This is not how you make classes more exciting. It makes them more variable, but not if you tie up essential class features in it. You should not take MRR off of our armor to feed scraps of it back in feats.




Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).

This is in an important vein, making 2 Paladin levels not a solution to everything. Still, screwing a lot of builds in this.

[UurlockYgmeov]

/offtopic

any one noticing the extreme range of forumites commenting on this thread? Many a name I haven't seen in a dragon's age. There can't have been that many lurkers? So many must be returning!

/on topic

Must remember that different builds need to have different strengths and weaknesses. Simplest is TWF vs THF vs SWF vs S+B

THF should have the greatest DPS --- slow but deadly. Weakness: attack speed and defense. (there is a quote, wish I could remember from what, 'beware anyone who wields a two handed sword, because either they are just that good or just that crazy or both")

TWF should be next in DPS --- getting more attacks but less damage per attack with some defense coming from the second weapon.

S+B and SWF should be next in DPS getting crowd control from specialized attacks and shield bashes. Someone with Improved Shield who is actively blocking with a tower shield should have insane PRR and MRR and be considered 'rooted'. DPS and defense come from how far one specializes with this tactic (example swashbuckler). Anyone can pull out a big giant huge arse shield, but only the dwarven defender knows how to plug a door with it and hold it. :P

just my 2 coppers.

[jeremyt]

I read every response completely. No joke, I really did. What this crusty old DDO player keeps getting hung up on is the changes are effecting different builds to wildly different degrees and often time in multiple ways.

The crit change hurts sirith users most. I have had my staff slinger since around the time cap moved to 20. I have enjoyed him very much, he went from full flavor gimp to fully functional toon with the acrobat pass and introduction of sirith (even though my toon didnt maximize the uberness because he has heavy monk levels to fit with code better pre-acro pass)..Now it looks like my particular build not only is getting hit the worst out of all the weapon types my particular multiclass build setup is getting hit exponentially harder than a 18/2 or pure acrobat would. Yeouch. Can't help but wonder why, I've now played the new barbarian, bard and paladin classes a few times each to 28 and I can state easily that they are all better/MUCH better than my acrobat. So in the interest of balance I see the numbers effecting flavor/off color builds harder than common meta builds in this case, my question is why? I have seen acrobats do well, my acrobat does well, but its harder to keep alive. Getting trap skills up is more difficult without sacrificing DPS yadda yadda, ddo char gen is complicated and I don't think your changes are adding to balance or diversity, instead you are narrowing the meta game and killing some builds that are decently relevant.

Your changes to holy sword are concerning as well. I currently do not have a ranged paladin in my stable, I have grouped with quite a few though. They do seem capable generally. Rogue mechanics spank them completely for overall group contribution though, so why would you make a change to kill a very specific build. I am very specifically saying KILLING not adjusting. You are taking a critical piece of somebody's build and you just say 'nope'. Why? Do you not want ranged paladins at all? Why are you limiting build diversity? If you want to adjust ranged paladin DPS down, do it. Dont kill it completely, that makes zero sense. You will jilt players who leveled and geared up a ranged paladin toon and given them no option but to TR, delete or shelf it until new changes come along that make them playable again. This doesn't feel like a healthy maneuver to play with your playerbase.

Barbarian ravager changes: Saw it coming. The change looks large yet well thought out. Nerfing this instead of their granted monster heal amp makes it a play skill heal instead of a constant heal. This is good and will frustrate some, but it is good.

Warlock: as someone else mentioned. ***? Did you not listen to anyone that play tested them before they went live? Creating a class that is so easily played and at same time overpowered completely shifted group mechanics in the game. For the worse. Warlocks burned so many folks, it was seriously a bad bad implementation. Now rolling out your 2nd set of nerfs. Did you purposely introduce them grossly overpowered to improve sales with the plans to nerf them once people had bought something? That creates bad feelings among everyone involved. The dudes that didn't buy are regulated to support the warlock roles and think they suck (don't laugh, I've seen this repeatedly) and the dudes that bought warlock are now 'suffering' repeated nerfs as you bring them down into the realm of somewhat balanced utility. Other than that, I agree with nerfs: the aura burst should have even lower scaling IMO.

The TWF pass sounds like you based it off of single target DPS. As others have clearly stated twf builds lack much of the friendly playability that THF build variants do, and SWF users are what I view as the absolute highest meta (swashy/swashy ravagers/ravagers ive all played SWF and found it superior). TWF takes more feats, its hitbox is buggy and inconsistent and there is always the detriment for having to craft twice as many weapons. 6 melee power isn't a massive nerf, probably will not even be noticed actually, but I think its the wrong direction. In my humble opinion the current pecking order as far as attractive overall gameplay is SWF > THF > TWF. With monks needing their pass ASAP.

The armor pass I completely disagree with, it was implemented to get people to play heavy armor users instead of splashing for evasion. It worked. If you need to adjust some numbers slightly to balance things out that is great. But implementing the original armor pass change to get folks excited on some build diversity then saying 'nope' and putting them at full magic damage with no evasion again will really REALLY aggravate people who spent long hours building and gearing up heavy armor toons. I think the balance needs to come from slight MRR adjustments not complete scraping.

[alceste007]

Point One: I think you overestimate how good TWF is, and I suspect this is because of how you test/play the game (hint: it is not how we do). Standing still and swinging in front of an immobile opponent, TWF is indeed quite good, as your tests probably show you. However, that is not how combat works in DDO. Movement and positioning really are everything, and the very active combat is the one of the best parts of the game. If you learn how, you can avoid a great percentage of melee attacks, particularly in clumps of enemies, by strafing around the perimeter swinging. Some styles benefit from this herky-jerky style: THF, SWF, and S+B all have higher DPS from constant movement via twitching. TWF by contrast does not: not only are the TWF animations while moving noticeably slower, they have a really tiny hitbox, and often miss enemies all together. I highly encourage you to please try a much more movement-based combat style with TWF vs either THF or SWF if you don't know what I'm talking about: it's a very real phenomenon and it isnt subtle. The result is that the on-paper TWF dps is often much higher than the in-game DPS, where movement is constant (at least on EE, if you don't want to go splat), and the wedge between TWF and SWF/THF either disappears or goes negative. If you really want to adjust TWF down, you need to address the moving animations/hitbox issues. Otherwise leave it as is: TWF is somewhat better standing still and substantially worse while moving (ie vast majority of time).

Point Two: Warlocks are hilariously OP in heroics, and quite good in low-epics, but I'm not sure they need to be nerfed. As I mentioned in the warlock Lamma thread, warlocks suffer from the epic-caster problem, that DPS between lvl 20 and lvl 28 is probably only a factor of two difference (likely less), versus more like a factor of 5 for melee. The explanation for this observation is that casters essentially only benefit from increased spellpower from lvl 20 to 28: their caster levels are already maxed, and lore items are close to maxed. Further, they might have 250 spellpower at level 20 and 500 at lvl 28, but metamagics make that effectively 475 vs 725- a roughly 70% difference. Melee conversely benefit from going from 6 melee power to about 150 (already a factor of two there), destiny abilities increasing crit profiles, and vastly superior weaponry (TF tier3 vs Greensteel). The result is that you can balance caster-classes at level 20 or at level 28 versus melee, but not both: they have different power progressions as implemented. Warlocks are relatively on-par with strong melees at lvl 28, and stupidly strong in heroics. C'est la vie.

I just could not agree more. Two weapon fighting while moving and dealing with tiny hitboxes is much worse than other styles 90% of the time. How often can you just stand still and beat on stuff? I have not seen any complaints about warlocks dominating in epics either to be truthful. This set of nerfs really demolishes a lot of two weapon fight builds. I am very, very disappointed atm. I even do not have the motivation to login atm.

[patang01]

Tactics are good at level EE with proper gear. Except Stormhorns really underlevel and Demon Assault/Archon Trial.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5673/21525554814_5df79f8e97_z.jpg

Almost noone plays monk archers anymore.

At level no. Overlevel yes. I use fully geared tactical builds from Vanguards to fighters will everything from stunning blow, stunning shield and stunning blow. At upper level EEs only stunning shield works semi usefully because of it's particular properties. Trips are increasingly worthless and stunning blow as well. Yes. Adding all these feats will change that but the cost will be DPS. And considering that it's one target at the time it's almost debilitating to concentrate so much ability to focus on so few targets.

[HastyPudding]

- Holy Sword changes
About dang time. It's holy SWORD, not holy BOW (for a basic example of it). I, for one, am sick of seeing half of every party and raid be a 14/15 paladin / 4/5 xxx build. If something is THAT good and there are so many people playing it, something must be fundamentally wrong with said build.

- Two-Weapon Fighting changes
I see nothing else here but a monk nerf. I'll reserve my judgement for the monk pass when I get to dust off my shintao stunbot.

- Improved Critical / Keen changes
This needs some clarification and rewording. I'm with JOTMON on this one; when I first read it it looked like you were literally giving +3 crit range to the 'strongest' weapons in the game. After it was explained I understood it but my first thought when seeing it was 'holy **** what are they doing!?'

- Armor changes
I can see why this is going to change, I don't like it because I enjoy my vanguard/defender character, but I understand why it's happening.

- New Fighter Feats
LOVE IT!! Fighters should be the epitome of a tactical class with that so-called 95% success rate. That's kind of their thing; more and more feats, hyper-specialization, and tactical prowess. I love making pure fighter vanguards, and these feats are going to make stunning shield awesome.

- Divine Grace changes
This should have been done a while ago.

- Eldritch Blast changes
These were a long time coming. Just for clarification, is the Enervating Shadow shape going to be reduced from 150% to 130% to be the same as the standard eldritch blast? I use enervating shadow in place of the standard blast (the neg levels are handy and it's so much better against moving targets). Contrary to a lot of people with these changes, I'll be playing my warlock a lot more because I won't feel like I'm part of a meat-packing plant and just another one of the bunch. VIVA LA DC WARLOCKS!

[jeremyt]

Another important point I forgot to mention in my first wall of text:

The largest balance issues in-game today are based off of buggy combat and buggy feat stacking (tree form and wolf form respectively).

And while I do appreciate rebalancing and what it does for the long term health of the game I will absolutely state without blinking an eye that it is a massive waste of time with the current state of the game. Dev time would be better spent killing bugs, the memory leak fiasco, ladders and 'balancing' builds that take advantage of broken mechanics (tree and wolf form).

[Grailhawk]

THF should have the greatest DPS --- slow but deadly. Weakness: attack speed and defense. (there is a quote, wish I could remember from what, 'beware anyone who wield a two handed sword, because either they are just that good or just that crazy or both")

TWF should be next in DPS --- getting more attacks but less damage per attack with some defense coming from the second weapon.

S+B and SWF should be next in DPS getting crowd control from specialized attacks and shield bashes. Someone with Improved Shield who is actively blocking with a tower shield should have insane PRR and DRR and be considered 'rooted'. DPS and defense come from how far one specializes with this tactic (example swashbuckler). Anyone can pull out a big giant huge arse shield, but only the dwarven defender knows how to plug a door with it and hold it. :P

just my 2 coppers.

Combat styles should be balance so that they have the same DPS potential but do it differently.

THF - slow but hard hitting
TWF - fast attacks but not as that hard
SWF - some where in the middle not as fast as TWF but faster then THF; not as hard as THF but harder then TWF.
S&B - this one can be less DPS but should make up for it by having more defense.

Another way to have differences is the AoE vs Single Target difference that exists today
AoE: THF > SWF = S&B > TWF
ST: TWF > SWF > THF = S&B

But under no circumstance should one style clearly be better DPS than any other.

[Nubom70]

Notes: All fighter tactical feats stack for a total of +20.
....Awesome, now a fighter with stunning blow will replace monks even more, since they already took a crippling hit with the AC > PRR change.

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
....Nice. The one thing lightly-armored finesse/unarmed characters could get an edge on, gone..... *watches more monks jump off a cliff*.

Armored characters were well behind Evasion builds.
....That made me laugh out loud. Evasion builds are great, until you get hit.... and you will get hit.
....The average end tank, on top of all the armor PRR (and DR 30/epic), can still get conceal, and incorporeal.
Puts them ahead of any evasion build mathmatically, and they have more health and require less healing.

[Sgt_Hart]

you may disagree with a change like this on principle, but i have to ask you, have you played a fighter lately? they could be worse, but the bottom line is that they kind of blow.

Nope, but I kinda knew that already.


if a pure fighter were to take all of the new +dc feats and all of the new +prr/mrr, suddenly you have less than 0 dps again. id call that balanced. Negative DPS.. this is why I'm gonna have a hard time treating you like an intelligent, serious person.



will a pure fighter be that much tankier than another character with 30 more prr paid for with 4 feats (which is actually a lot more significant even on a pure fighter than the people who dont play them but ***** and moan about how many feats they have realize)? i have my doubts that it will make fighters better tanks than paladins, but at least with these new feats and the holy sword nerf fighter tanks may at least be viable and not the utterly idiotic choice that they currently are.

I think you're confusing my point of "These shouldn't be fighter specific feats." with "Don't give fighters Shinies!" Hint: I linked to a page of fighter bonus feats, the tech already exists to do similiar things in some enhancement tree's. Such things really should be implemented as general feat's(Which they are) and as fighter bonus feats(which they are).


i dont think most fighters will even take all four of these either, tbh. I don't think they will either, but that remains an absolutely atrocious justification to say "Fighter only".


currently there is not much incentive to splash fighter levels. pure pally is better. pure barb is better. pure ranger is better. the builds with 6 fighter (such as the old swash build) are pretty much nonexistent these days. adding these feats in a scaling fashion and requiring fighter levels is, i think, a great implementation to actually give fighter some appeal and just a tad of exclusivity (which they are pretty lacking these days. their flavor is basically their distinct lack of any). We'll disagree there. What I'd like is more overall feats that are missing, but DDO presently does as enhancements. Perhaps the best analogy I can give is that fighters are vanilla ice cream, but have full access to the selection of toppings. Every other class is a flavor of ice cream like rocky road, or peanut butter ripple, or Neapolitan, and allowed a topping, or two.


removing the fighter level requirement of these feats would pretty much invalidate the purpose of adding them. at that point i think it would be better to just roll with the nerfs to armor and not include these feats.
I disagree.

[barecm]

While you're all at it, Nerf Mortal Fear.

and make some of the other the other tier three upgrades worth taking, like mind breaker for instance. That is currently useless. Unless that happens, don't touch mortal fear since it is the only one that actually does anything useful.

[daniel7]

Greetings.

We've seen a lot of community feedback, both public and private, about our ongoing plans for balance. These are some changes we are considering to increase game balance.

As with any post that outlines power reductions (aka nerfs) I am sure there will be a lot of players looking for explanations and our thoughts and results on balance that led to these changes. I will be following up this post with more details that talk about why some of these changes are being implemented.

***

Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand. I don't like this but maybe its too early to complain.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons. I think most people were surprised when it worked on bows when it was first changed anyways, good call.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.Again. Not a fan of the off hand nerf and no one really cares either way for shields I bet.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon. Good.

Blood Strength (Barbarian Ravager)
The portion of this enhancement that heals the user when they kill an opponent now has a 1 second internal cooldown.

Critical Rage (Barbarian Ravager)
The bonus to critical threat range is now a competence bonus.

Two weapon fighting animations have been fixed so there is no longer a weird jump on the fourth animation. This has made the fourth attack slightly quicker.

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power. I think this might make people swap from from TWF to SWF and for some classes. I would suggest that instead you buff how Power Attack works with THF.

Doubleshot values over 100% now have a chance of producing a third attack. The chance is equal to the amount the value exceeds 100. A doubleshot value of 130, for example, would always produce one extra shot and have a 30% chance to produce a third shot.

(Doublestrike will still cap at 100 for technical reasons.)

Repeating Crossbows and Doubleshot
Fixed a bug where Doubleshot was not being reduced for repeating crossbows. (Doubleshot chance is divided by 3 for repeating crossbows.)

Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Mechanical Reloader (Rogue Mechanic)
The alacrity for non-repeating crossbows is now 30%. (Was 40%)

Pulverizer (Legendary Dreadnought)
The bonus to critical threat range for bludgeoning weapons is now an Insight bonus.

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.
I'd like to see more of the unpopular weapons buffed via Enhancements or by Racial Feats (more Iconic Races?).

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.
Seems like the heavier the armor the PRR it should give but the lighter the armor the more MRR it should give, though I realize its the evasion guys that need MRR the least.
(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)

As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.

Tactical Training
Requires Fighter Level 4
You gain +2 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 8
You gain +4 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Mastery
Requires Fighter Level 12
You gain +6 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Supremacy
Requires Fighter Level 16
You gain +8 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Notes: All tactical feats stack for a total of +20. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Tactical Training and forego the +2 but still have access to Tatical Supremacy.

Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.


Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3). This isn't that big of a shock and some type of nerf was needed. Good job.


Sev~

Overall I think you guys did a good job, just needs testing.

[Blivit]

Two Weapon Fighting builds are dealing too much DPS ... but that was a world before Assassin and Tempest were updated, and players largely equated Two Weapon Fighting to those trees. Now that those are updated we can look at re-adjusting the two weapon fighting feats.


Two Weapon Fighting builds are dealing too much DPS. This is generally because on-hit effects now scale with melee power, and we've relaxed many internal cooldown limits on to-hit effects. We expected Two Weapon Fighting builds to scale quickly when we changed on-hit effects, and balanced the fighting style feats to compensate, but that was a world before Assassin and Tempest were updated, and players largely equated Two Weapon Fighting to those trees. Now that those are updated we can look at re-adjusting the two weapon fighting feats.

I would like to see unarmed Monk also addressed before any further nerfing is performed to TWF. Unarmed Monks are hurting enough as it is :-(


We have a problem with 14 Paladin hybrids being better than other options due to Holy Sword, yet a severe nerf to Holy Sword would drag down Two Handed Fighting and Vanguard paladins a little too much.

Since paladins are so feat starved compared to a fighter, I am thinking that the nerfing of armor, such that additional fighter feats are required for MRR and additional PRR, will only lead to more reason to play a 14 Paladin / 4-6 Fighter hybrid. With the new method, 14 Paladin may still be better than pure Paladin, just for a different balance of reasons.

[daniel7]

Combat styles should be balance so that they have the same DPS potential but do it differently.

THF - slow but hard hitting
TWF - fast attacks but not as that hard
SWF - some where in the middle not as fast as TWF but faster then THF; not as hard as THF but harder then TWF.
S&B - this one can be less DPS but should make up for it by having more defense.

Another way to have differences is the AoE vs Single Target difference that exists today
AoE: THF > SWF = S&B > TWF
ST: TWF > SWF > THF = S&B

But under no circumstance should one style clearly be better DPS than any other.

Agreed.

Pretty much every THF takes Power Attack. Just have Power Attack buff THF weapons a bit more than it does now. I think we will see some people swap from TWF to SWF. I think this might being an overreaction to Paladins be almost always TWFers. Now you will see a lot SWF Paladins and that is just weird.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

...So Monkey Grip to allow SWF with a greatsword...

never.


At level no. Overlevel yes. I use fully geared tactical builds from Vanguards to fighters will everything from stunning blow, stunning shield and stunning blow. At upper level EEs only stunning shield works semi usefully because of it's particular properties. Trips are increasingly worthless and stunning blow as well. Yes. Adding all these feats will change that but the cost will be DPS. And considering that it's one target at the time it's almost debilitating to concentrate so much ability to focus on so few targets.

how can you say you use "fully geared tactical builds" and not have very reliable stunning blow? outside of a handful of situations you should be at 95% success rate without the new +dc feats easily.


Combat styles should be balance so that they have the same DPS potential but do it differently.

THF - slow but hard hitting
TWF - fast attacks but not as that hard
SWF - some where in the middle not as fast as TWF but faster then THF; not as hard as THF but harder then TWF.
S&B - this one can be less DPS but should make up for it by having more defense.

Another way to have differences is the AoE vs Single Target difference that exists today
AoE: THF > SWF = S&B > TWF
ST: TWF > SWF > THF = S&B

But under no circumstance should one style clearly be better DPS than any other.

i think its debatable whether thf or twf is best for aoe. dod is kind of uber.

[HazyOne]

But instead of just making holy sword not work on missle weapons, why not require x amount of Pali lvls to apply holy sword to any weapon. As the changes stand I really hope they send out +20's!

HazyOne

[Fengsuede]

There are some class skills - e.g. trapping that undermine whole classes where people just take a "slight" splashes of multiclass.

e.g. people running around with a mere one or two levels of rogue or arti being able to trap incredibly complex locks (locks many levels higher than the pertinent class).

Alternately... A warlock running around meleeing in a bathrobe without being cut into the thousand squishy pieces of pink flesh that they are.


This is a long time gripe of mine and nothing more than an exploit and something that removes the benefit of long term dedication to study (the sword, the lockpick etc). Seasoned (or in game parlance, epic) professional over gifted amateur.

Everyone would scream blue murder if this was the case, but it is akin to a rogue with one level of magic use having disintegrate/otto's spells in their spellbook (not using scroll) - and the dc for near automatic monsters saving throw fails. Magic use is more properly regulated with scrolls for the gifted amateur, spellbook the seasoned professional - so please fix the ease with which gifted amateurs can do cross class stuff such as lockpicking (or using a sword with great skill).

[Nubom70]

[QUOTE=Blivit;5703564]I would like to see unarmed Monk also addressed before any further nerfing is performed to TWF. Unarmed Monks are hurting enough as it is :-(

Agree. Monks took it so hard over the last few years, and never got addressed, now they're getting another DPS nerf. Lowering DPS,
no innate PRR (since they lost any real AC benefit), wraps are still broken (yay augments), and still no greensteel. Way to go, dev team.

[Vellrad]

There are some class skills - e.g. trapping that undermine whole classes where people just take a "slight" splashes of multiclass.

e.g. people running around with a mere one or two levels of rogue or arti being able to trap incredibly complex locks (locks many levels higher than the pertinent class).

Alternately... A warlock running around meleeing in a bathrobe without being cut into the thousand squishy pieces of pink flesh that they are.


This is a long time gripe of mine and nothing more than an exploit and something that removes the benefit of long term dedication to study (the sword, the lockpick etc). Seasoned (or in game parlance, epic) professional over gifted amateur.

Everyone would scream blue murder if this was the case, but it is akin to a rogue with one level of magic use having disintegrate/otto's spells in their spellbook (not using scroll) - and the dc for near automatic monsters saving throw fails. Magic use is more properly regulated with scrolls for the gifted amateur, spellbook the seasoned professional - so please fix the ease with which gifted amateurs can do cross class stuff such as lockpicking (or using a sword with great skill).

You know that rogue got more class abilities than just disabling traps?

[CorinBrightbane]

The changes are designed to cut back on the power of two weapon fighting Paladins, Vanguards, and fix the fact that Paladin 14 hybrids are by many players' estimation the best missile characters. Throwing weapons are not affected by Holy Sword.

Sev~

I guess I don't understand why you need to "fix the fact that paladin 14 hybrids...". I have been running one for a long time and did a demo test for the Dev team with mine. If that fed into this happening, then I can think of no reason to help the Dev team in the future. It is a different style of play that the 12 monk 6 ranger 2 whatever, or pure Ranger. Yes the damage is slightly higher. But as with any ranged toon, there are lots of variables that go into damage what happens if your adrenaline charges are slow to charge for example, you lined up poorly on an improved precise shot, etc. With going on cool down you suddenly do much less DPS than other toons for a period of time and make up that difference when you go off cooldown. I enjoy playing my ranged toon. But how many pally archers are on the servers that are played compared to other classes. Why ruin the diversity of toons on a server in destroying a build simply because it wasn't "as intended".

I get the balance thing. But it has also been one of my biggest frustrations over the years. Classes should do DIFFERENT damage. Otherwise they all become the same and it doesn't matter what you play. I love this game despite all the complaints people make, but the one thing that gets me frustrated, is when I put a lot of time into building and tweaking a build, and the entire build gets squashed by the Dev team in the interest of Balance.

So my question stands. Why is the fact the 14 pally hybrid ranged toon exists a problem There are a TON less on the server I play on than there ever were the tradition 12/6/2 monitor. Bring up the classes that lag, don't tear down the ones that exist.

[Ellihor]

I like this kinds of threads, they show an intresting reality: most poeple here have no idea about what's going on the real game.

Really, crying about 16 points in PRR is very lame. I laigh when people say "tone down the defenses", as if it was a tone less. When you alreadt have over a hundred PRR, 16 PRR is extremly marginal. You can't feel it. You wouldn't notice if it was not on your sheet.

GO CRY TO YOUR MOM.

MRR claims are legit, it shouldn't have been completly removed from armors, but reduced.

Now the 2 things I don't like here is the TWF not getting the mlee power, and holy sword not affecting off-hand and shields. TWF is already the worse mlee style. Go try it out in real game, not on a kolbold or bruntsmash.Fix the hit box, as everyone is saying here.

Tanks are having real problems in current game. Nerfing theyr DPS even more is bad. Also, you may look at the damage at Thunder Peaks and tone them down. It's ridiculous that we need tanks only in 3 situations in current endgame (ok only 2, since in MoD the deathknigths don't need a real tank) and one of them (FoTP), well, you just can't tank and the best tank is a kitter. This sucks.

[pjw]

...

It all looks promising except the Warlock stuff, which seems more like tinkering than actually balancing. It seems likely to be about as effective as the last Warlock nerf.

[Grailhawk]

i think its debatable whether thf or twf is best for aoe. dod is kind of uber.

Its debatable. THF has 100% one glancing blows and does much better with Cleave Type attacks by default its better at AoE then TWF.

DoD means you are a Tempest if one TWF build type become equally good or better at AoE DPS that's ok so long as its total DPS isn't out of balance. The important part when looking at combat style balance is:


THF - slow but hard hitting
TWF - fast attacks but not as that hard
SWF - some where in the middle not as fast as TWF but faster then THF; not as hard as THF but harder then TWF.
S&B - this one can be less DPS but should make up for it by having more defense.


But under no circumstance should one style clearly be better DPS than any other.

If Tempest is the best TWF AoE build and the best TWF single target (might not even be though given Rogue Sneak Attack) build that's ok as long as there is an equally built THF build that deals out equal DPS in both AoE and Single Target. What would be bad is if there is no other build in any other style that can do that. But that would be a Tempest/DoD problem not a combat style problem.

[situationalWizzy]

hi Sev,
I'm no expert in crunching the numbers but i do wanna share with you it looks a bit silly if a lightarmor evasion build is just around 15prr lesser then a heavy armor build. then suddenly we are back to they days when evasion build is clearly much superior.
i do not mean anything to nerf lightarmor but such narrow gap does seems to be a bit funny where evasion builds is quite clearly a better choice again like the older days.

Also why take away 6melee power from the twf style feat? doesn't seems fair for ppl that like twf style but other fighting style benefit from their fighting style feats.

regards

[RTN]

The changes are designed to cut back on the power of two weapon fighting Paladins, Vanguards, and fix the fact that Paladin 14 hybrids are by many players' estimation the best missile characters.
Sev~

What about S&B Vanguards? Do they need their DPS cut at the same time that you're reducing their survivability through PRR nerfs?

As for survivability, if a tank tries to intim in midst of an endgame mob spawn, they do have difficulty surviving. Maybe if they're not intim'ing, but if they're actually trying to tank, this nerf will have a large effect on survivability. (in response to an early post/response you made)

[Jetrule]

Just a few things that jump out at me from the original post. Sorry if I am echoing other posts I haven't read all the opinions.

Some mrr from armor is a good thing perhaps 5/10/15% I think dropping all mrr from armor is to regressive, especially to clerics fvs and arti who have nothing in their trees to help out. The prr reduction in armor, what is this nerf armor up round 3? It feels like a over nerf but I can't argue my high prr characters are unafraid in most combat especially with good layered defence. I doubt this will make them too squishy. The problem lies more in my borderline viable defence characters becoming suddenly to vulnerable. Once again I am thinking of my two handed fighting cleric. But I see this extending to fvs arti and bard especially warchanter too. My poor rogue assassin will be terrified of being hit once again.



I see the warlock basic focused blast takes a hit. It is single target only and a bit buggy when it comes to switching targets. I think it should remain 150% scale. Other wise warlock will remain very strong. Some more players may try cone shaped/wave blasters instead of 90% being aura blasters.

Great crossbow is taking a hit to crit range is this on purpose or a mistake? It is the only 18-20 crit range weapon not getting +3 range boost from Improved Crit.

There are some named weapons that have enhanced crit ranges. Can we make improved crit and keen simply double the weapon's base crit range as it is written? I agree with not making it double other bonuses.

Most of the other changes I am on board with or neutral about.

I would suggest a important change or two not covered.

Nerfing Mortal fear is key to balancing topend content without making every mob immune to everything by making them red named. Put it on a timer 5-10 seconds.

On the same note The tactical feats have to have a chance of working against red named. Let it only affect them half as long as a standard mob or make sure their saves will require a 1 to be rolled but just using tactical feats on standard enemies makes them very unattractive.

[Boneshank]

The tears in this thread are delicious.

I think the devs could go even further on some things.

Many warlock players, while throwing their tantrums and waving their torches & pitchforks about, are probably secretly relieved that their one silly T5 damage-dealing ability remains untouched.

For another example, great crossbows. I play a gxbow mechanic a lot, and I readily admit that they (on top of the alacrity drop from 40% to 30%) could at least have their multiplier toned down a bit. Keep the x4 for rolls of 15-20, and only x3 otherwise. This wouldn't have any effect during normal firing, but in the auto-crit world of Adrenalines/UF, it would tone down some of the stupidity. Getting a near-guaranteed 8K to 17K damage on a line of mobs with IPS (and very often doubleshotted) is a bit ridiculous.


All in all, I like the proposed changes. A few will need to be tested, obviously (in a vacuum, and against the other changes).

[Mellkor]

The tears in this thread are delicious.

I think the devs could go even further on some things.

Many warlock players, while throwing their tantrums and waving their torches & pitchforks about, are probably secretly relieved that their one silly T5 damage-dealing ability remains untouched.

For another example, great crossbows. I play a gxbow mechanic a lot, and I readily admit that they (on top of the alacrity drop from 40% to 30%) could at least have their multiplier toned down a bit. Keep the x4 for rolls of 15-20, and only x3 otherwise. This wouldn't have any effect during normal firing, but in the auto-crit world of Adrenalines/UF, it would tone down some of the stupidity. Getting a near-guaranteed 8K to 17K damage on a line of mobs with IPS (and very often doubleshotted) is a bit ridiculous.


All in all, I like the proposed changes. A few will need to be tested, obviously (in a vacuum, and against the other changes).

Fury of the Wild is the issue here, not crit range.

[Gloomfall]

Willing to listen.

Sev~

Hey Sev, just want to make sure the team is on their game about making these changes. I don't mind what you do to the overall DPS of characters with dual wield but please try to keep Tempest and Assassin performing top tier damage.

One of the other things that I wanted to bring up is that Tempest far outclasses Assassin right now in terms of defense and utility (spells).

Are there any plans, or can there be plans to bring defenses and survival back up on pure Assassins?

Also, would there be a possibility of adding Light Mace to the list of weapons that gain Dex to Attack and Damage along with Kukri and Dagger?

Thanks!

[Mryal]

Power beign reduced.Im all for it.Nice touch on the 10k star changes and extra fighter feats.

100% agreed with everything, however i will second the motion for at least some of those tactical feats to be moved out of fighter only or be included on fighter enhancements only.
I do believe the higher tiers should be fighter only, but a +4 tactical DC feat for all would really be something good for the game.

Also, the removal of MRR on the armors will not fix the current balance issues.The real issue is MRR is just better than doing evasionists since it a) works on all types of spells, fort save included and b) provides returns regardless of value, while evasion is a min/max system where if you dont reach a certain value for the content, it is useless.Dont ask me how to fix this one, i dont know either.But what youre doing will not fix.

[Krell]

~SNIP~

The armor pass I completely disagree with, it was implemented to get people to play heavy armor users instead of splashing for evasion. It worked. If you need to adjust some numbers slightly to balance things out that is great. But implementing the original armor pass change to get folks excited on some build diversity then saying 'nope' and putting them at full magic damage with no evasion again will really REALLY aggravate people who spent long hours building and gearing up heavy armor toons. I think the balance needs to come from slight MRR adjustments not complete scraping.

I agree another hit to PRR/MRR seems over the top. Mobs in upper level EE quests still do plenty of damage at the current levels and the MRR is a needed alternative to evasion builds. Champions in these quests seem to commonly have the PRR/Fort bypass and are hitting for 600+ regardless. I do agree with proficiency being required for the benefits.

[DarthDektus]

My 2cp:

How about bringing the old D&D system?
Y'know... as per the game title...

"Dungeons and Dragons Online"

Just a suggestion.