LAMANNIA FEEDBACK: Balance Pass

[Cordovan]

This is NOT a thread to provide theory or opinion about the balance changes. Feel free to use our non-Lamannia thread (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466433-The-Balance-Change-post) for that. This thread is meant to get direct feedback on these changes after you've tried them on Lamannia. Please get as detailed and numbers-based as you wish/can.

NOTE: We may delete posts that are simply opinions on these changes, rather than direct experiential feedback from Lamannia, in this thread. Thank you for keeping this thread focused!

[Theolin]

I am very sad you made the 2 SLA's in the ES tree subject to ASF

I have 5 issues with this:


This makes this tree very different from all the other trees with SLA's because none of the other SLAs are subject to ASF including Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Favored Soul ... NOT ONE of those is ... so why this one???
The SLAs in both the tainted scholar and soul eater do not have ASF
As near as I can tell these 2 things are the ONLY 2 clickable items in ANY tree that have an ASF associated with them
'You' stated that this tree was for melee
should I even mention all the epic destiny "arcane" things not subject to ASF?


I get the pew pew versions of the blasts being subject to ASF but .... would you care to explain the reasoning behind this change?

[Henky]

Ok, tried 2 of my current characters on live on lamannia:

1. Pure paladin vanguard completionist. Killed the kobold boss in 173 seconds. Epic Demonic slab, TH Khopesh with 1st degree burns, dragon's edge and mortal fear, litany, 10 deadly, 75 str. Divine crusader with zeal of the righteous.
2. Pure Warlock Bladeforged completionist on Fiend Pact. Enlightened spirit and soul eater with consume and stricken. 528 or so in light spell power, 410 in fire spell power. Took 235 seconds to kill kobold boss in exalted angel with energy burst twisted and using Ruin.

And then I tried with a character born on lamannia to test Night Rebels two weeks ago.

3. Pure paladin kotc twf, second life (first one was paladin also). Killed kobold boss in 153 seconds with dual war hammer from thundeforge with 1st degree burns, dragon's edege and mortal fear. In legendary dreagnought with haste boost + damage boost always on.

Vanguard got hit by update, warlocks against single target are really weak with update.

[lifestaker]

Ok, tried 2 of my current characters on live on lamannia:

1. Pure paladin vanguard completionist. Killed the kobold boss in 173 seconds. Epic Demonic slab, TH Khopesh with 1st degree burns, dragon's edge and mortal fear, litany, 10 deadly, 75 str. Divine crusader with zeal of the righteous.
2. Pure Warlock Bladeforged completionist on Fiend Pact. Enlightened spirit and soul eater with consume and stricken. 528 or so in light spell power, 410 in fire spell power. Took 235 seconds to kill kobold boss in exalted angel with energy burst twisted and using Ruin.
*snip*

Vanguard got hit by update, warlocks against single target are really weak with update.

For logical balance can you do a cabal bruntsmash test on live and lama for figures? I personally am having issues with lama, and am running out of time to care about it for the day.

[MrWindupBird]

Tested some movement/hitbox TWF issues. Quoting myself from the balance thread:



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).



Tested a human 20 ranger with scimitars. The 500k redname kobolds are very useful. 2 conditions: stand still and attack, and circle around attacking (staying in range entire time, pressed up against kobold). The latter is how most melee fights in EE go if you actually play the game well- getting repeatedly smashed in the face while standing still is bad. Did three trials of each. Started each trial with 10-stack of blitz, fully boosted for duration, full sneak attack uptime with Exposing strike + Imp deception, etc etc.

Rough results: about 96 secs for stand-still.
About 119 seconds for jittery close movement.

Conclusion: 20-25% reduction in TWF attack speed/DPS while moving, which jibes well with my experience. It feels roughly the same as live- hitboxes remain small, attacks while moving are very noticeably slower. TWF on the move remains clunky and feels bad. 4th animation while still is indeed slightly faster, however no difference from live noted in animations while moving- just the same aggravating scissor-cut motion.

For comparison, on Live I've previously tested THF, SWF, and S+B attack rate with jittery movement/twitching: all receive a 10-20% increase in attack speed under those circumstances.

I hope this answers your questions as to why TWF isnt seen as more powerful among players- it isn't, under actual game circumstances. Players aren't stupid, and choose what works. Good players much prefer to remain constantly mobile- it dramatically reduces damage taken (whenever I TR/ETR into a TWF toon Im shocked at how much damage I take with identical defenses, which is 100% a consequence of being forced to stay closer to mobs), and this is punitive to TWF. Note that hitboxes were pretty irrelevant in the testing presented here since I chose to be constantly as close as possible to the kobold. In practice, the shorter hitboxes of TWF (especially while moving) are further disincentive. I appreciate the improved 4th standing-still TWF animation, but the mobile animations still are lousy and frustrating. If you can adjust these, that would be a huge boon. Throw a small melee power penalty in even, just fix the animations and hitboxes!

More testing later if I can make time (doubtful).

[Theolin]

Testing, red named kobolds, with ship buffs & all that stuff.

my 2 melees 202 & 214 seconds neither of which are one of the power house melee builds

now compare that to the warlock times ...... first one is pew pew type with consume & such, second is the up close one,
spell power 441 light, 367 force, 346 sonic, 40% crits, & 30 extra crit damage .... maximize, empower, quicken

warlock1: pew pew ... 402 seconds
- this one is bad

warlock2: eldritch blast, spirit burst, aura, hell ball, energy burst, pl MMs, divine wrath, avenging wrath & 4 store major MN pots .... 333 seconds
- this isnt awful, but it did cost about 5500-6000 spell points to do this & infinate MMs from the past life regenerating in reality I would never burn that in a fight so it would probably take about 35% longer for reasonable spell usage, so for normal situations it would be more like 400+ seconds


conclusion ... play a melee, forget about warlocks for damage.

[Propane]

How much does lack of ship buffs on L-land affect the "feel" of the updates / changes?

[DANTEIL]

So it's not clear if the Warlock changes have been applied on Lamannia. The tooltips for my Eldritch Blast & Aura values have the same values they do on Live (both say scaling 150% with spell power).

[Henky]

I managed to kill the red boss kobold with my vanguard completionist a bit faster, 166 seconds instead of 173 changing my gear setup a bit.


For logical balance can you do a cabal bruntsmash test on live and lama for figures? I personally am having issues with lama, and am running out of time to care about it for the day.
Well, although it's not precise, on lamiannia I killed the bruntsmash with 10 charges of Zeal of the Righteouss and on live I lost only 7.

Both on Epic Elite and alone, and I had a little better gear setup on Lamannia.

[EllisDee37]

Maybe a real-world test you can do on live and on lama for a truer comparison. Instead of hacking at a stationary single-target, maybe fight the first pack of mobs in ToEE? Or something in the two new packs?

[Cordovan]

So it's not clear if the Warlock changes have been applied on Lamannia. The tooltips for my Eldritch Blast & Aura values have the same values they do on Live (both say scaling 150% with spell power).

Yes, the warlock changes should be there, although it sounds like we have some tooltip work to do.

[HastyPudding]

Yes, the warlock changes should be there, although it sounds like we have some tooltip work to do.

I can't get on lammania at the moment, but has enervating shadow been reduced, as well? It was 150%, like the normal eldritch blast.

[Walking_Ride]

My twf paladins dps dropped by 30% due to holy sword not affecting my off hand weapons.

On my pure ranger the dps was 60% more than with the build above due to holy sword not affecting both weapons while rangers can have it on both weapons through the tier4 core abilities from tempest and deepwood.

Rangers were already better when they were revamped due to having 30% more doublestrike. But now they are totally overpowering paladin builds.

Iam not happy with that. Every melee build including fighters have their off hand weapon affected except paladins. Does that seem fair to you ?

Why won't you admit hating paladins so much to get them rolled back to square 1 ?

[sudzz]

How much does lack of ship buffs on L-land affect the "feel" of the updates / changes?

Lack of ship buffs? Anyone with a few minutes can get enough shards to buy and fully populate a ship with every buff so far released and can level a guild to install them.

[lifestaker]

Yes, the warlock changes should be there, although it sounds like we have some tooltip work to do.

Warlock testing done with GoO level 28 pure warlock with around 600 light spell power, 420 acid, 33% crit chance, 60 crit multiplier. exalted angle with epic moment on main fights (bringing light spell power to 700 ish)

Regarding ES damages:
Cleaves with max and empower are hitting for the same as an aura burst. if not a little bit less. Aura is noted as 150% and cleaves 100%. Damage seems far behind current standings by about 25-40% when just using these attacks when compared to live server.

TS and SE seem to be accurate, for the most part, did not test verses live yet. reductions around 20% from last time i recorded figures for these trees.

Times vs live:
used speed records as more a standard then how fast can I could kill one thing.
Haunted Halls = +2 minutes.
Haunted Halls Extended (dragon egg returned) = +7 minutes.
Cabal = +6 minutes.
ToEE part 1 = +23 minutes. (air priest non champ was problematic, archers still broken, almost always critted with 205% fort)
ToEE part 2 = + 10 minutes. (com paired to my best time, got a fast earth path for this run, unsure of live path sorry)

Amarath MRR testing vs PRR/MRR (lama 125 PRR/113 MRR; 133/133 live)
Was able to complete the quests, little harder, renders being the biggest issues as far as trash mobs. Archers seem to hit a little less then I remember, casters a bit more. All quest times increased to the point that I was insulted. Light damage was a big problem still, along with stun and the renders as stated prior. The ice shards seemed to hit a lot more then i remember but I could just be running a bit of bad luck.

Kobald testing ranged from 280-320 depending on if my potion bugged out the spell power like it has been doing so much as of late.

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

My opinion. Warlock is no longer viable end game for many of the players. Its now weakened state of defense and offence makes it a weak class that has to kite things around while they wait forever and a day to kill named monsters. My testing was done on a character with all his past lives, gear, and everything else. My Gimp that I transferred over is almost unplayable with his almost non existent prr/mrr, and no past lives to increase his spell power. If warlock is to be played in epic, they best party with people or have more twink gear then I do (my gimp is outdated from TF on, with only 8 epic past lives and a handful of heroic non casting past lives.) Found it easier to play the ever fun and exciting sharadi sorc over the warlock with current changes, all times faster on sorc verses low mob or big boss quests.

[Cordovan]

My twf paladins dps dropped by 30% due to holy sword not affecting my off hand weapons.

On my pure ranger the dps was 60% more than with the build above due to holy sword not affecting both weapons while rangers can have it on both weapons through the tier4 core abilities from tempest and deepwood.

Rangers were already better when they were revamped due to having 30% more doublestrike. But now they are totally overpowering paladin builds.

Iam not happy with that. Every melee build including fighters have their off hand weapon affected except paladins. Does that seem fair to you ?

Why won't you admit hating paladins so much to get them rolled back to square 1 ?

Was this your experience on Lamannia, or through mental calculation? If you saw your DPS drop by 30% on Lamannia, please let us know how you did that test.

[Severlin]

Good feedback in this thread. Keeping an eye on it.

Sev~

[Walking_Ride]

Was this your experience on Lamannia, or through mental calculation? If you saw your DPS drop by 30% on Lamannia, please let us know how you did that test.

I did so hitting the 500k hp kobolds on the lower floor.

Builds i used were as follows...

Build 1 : 15 Paladin / 5 Ranger Vs. Build 2 : Pure lvl 20 Ranger



Gear : Used for both builds

- Mythic emerald gaze
- Shroud of ardent
- Epic Mentau's goggles
- Epic Ethereal bracers
- Encrusted ring
- Epic belt of thoughtful rememberance
- Epic boots of innocent
- Sanctified gages
- Shadowscale medium armor
- Mysterious cloak
- Ring of house avithoul.

Weapons :

Main hand : Tier 3 Thunderforged khopesh first degree burns, dragons edge, mortal fear.

Offhand : Touch of flames, wrath of flames, mortal fear.

Feats : Used for both builds

- Power Attack
- Two handed fighting
- Improved two handed fighting
- Greater two handed fighting
- Empower Healing
- Quicken
- Improved critical slashing
- Weapon focus slashing
- Weapon focus piercing
- Weapon focus bludgeoning
- Overwhelming critical
- Perfect two weapon fighting
- Elusive target

Epic Destiny : Legendary dreadnought : Used for both builds

http://i.imgur.com/ZChM5EZ.jpg

Enhancements : 15 Paladin / 5 Ranger :

http://i.imgur.com/1jZv35u.jpg

Enhancements : 20 Ranger

Pretty much the same enhancements in tempest except for including :

Tempest :

Deflect Arrows: You gain the benefits of the Deflect Arrows feat while dual wielding, knocking aside one incoming projectile that would have struck you every 6 seconds. +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier while dual wielding weapons.

Whirlwind: +5% Melee Doublestrike when dual wielding, +5 Incorporeality (stacking), +10% stacking chance to make off-hand attacks when dual wielding.

Dervish: +4 Dexterity. +25% chance to doublestrike with your off-hand while dual wielding. While wearing light or no armor: +10 Melee Power, Physical Resistance Rating, and Magical Resistance Rating.

Deepwood :

Killer: When you kill a target, you gain a 5% Morale bonus to Melee Doublestrike and Extra Shot Chance for 15 seconds. Weak enemies will not always produce this effect. The Killer buff can stack up to 2/3/4 times. Stacks are reduced one at a time. (Repeating Crossbows have a reduced chance to produce Extra Shots.)

Called Shot: Passive: +10 Positive Spell Power. Select a melee or ranged attack that deals extra damage and renders a target vulnerable to sneak attacks.
Icon Enhancement Exposing Strike.png Exposing Strike: Melee Attack: Performs a melee attack with +2[W], a +4 bonus to-hit, +1 to critical threat range, and +1 to Critical Damage Multiplier.
On Damage: The target will become momentarily confused and rendered vulnerable to sneak attacks for four seconds as if affected by the bluff skill. (Cooldown 6 seconds)

advanced Sneak Attack: +1 Sneak Attack Die. +10 Positive Spell Power. You gain a +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Threat Range with your equipped weapons. (This does not apply to Shields or Unarmed). Your attacks now bypass 10% fortification.

Mark of the Hunted: Activate: Expend a use of Animal Empathy. Your currently selected enemy receives -25% Fortification, -10 Armor Class, -10 Spell Resistance, and suffers a -4 penalty to all ability scores for 3 minutes. This effect also works on bosses and Raid bosses.
Passive: Your attacks bypass an additional 10% Fortification. You also gain +2 Damage when attacking Favored Enemies.
Passive: +10 Positive Spell Power

Time it took for my pure ranger to beat down a 500k hp kobold : 98 - 110 secounds.

Time it took for my 15 Paladin / 5 ranger splash to beat down a 500 k hp kobold : 130 - 150 secounds.

In Red : What rangers get additionally compared to paladin builds who only gain light damage core abilities and exalted smite/divine sacrifice from knight of the chalice.


I think holy sword should apply to off hand weapons. It is not fair in comparison to rangers that it should only be limited to your main hand while rangers get the same bonus + affecting their offhand and a huge serious amount of doublestrike including fortification reduction.

They are also getting a good deal of prr/mrr through their core abilities while retaining evasion...

Rangers are at least 40%-60% ahead of paladins in terms of dps. Paladins Vs. Rangers were perfectly fine before you limited holy sword to work on your main hand weapon only.



Please give paladins back their holy sworded off hand weapon :(.

It is my favorite build, and i don't want to be forced to tr into a pure ranger because i enjoy two wepaon fighting...

[Evin_Drake]

I saw a post from Sev last night stating Holy Sword would indeed work with missile weapons. The release notes state Melee weapons only. Has something changed?

[Walking_Ride]

I saw a post from Sev last night stating Holy Sword would indeed work with missile weapons. The release notes state Melee weapons only. Has something changed?

Holy sword should not have been changed at all. Its critical threat range is no longer doubled by improved critical. That is enough of a nerf.

It has to stop !

Rangers, barbarians and rogues have had their passes as well. There is no reason to change holy sword when those melee classes mentioned before have their own special effects putting them on par and even better than paladins with holy sword/zeal.

[lifestaker]

Holy sword should not have been changed at all. Its critical threat range is no longer doubled by improved critical. That is enough of a nerf.
*snip*

I don't think they will go back to off hand and shields, but I have seen an overly large reduction on the pally I tested. He is far from overpowered being only a level 20 pally with starter gear for a bladeforge (test the bank toon dps) numbers with the junk he had in his inventory are very low on lamaland. He is only a bank toon that i never invested in, so hard to give true figures for an actual geared character.

I know someone has been testing it though, will wait for good figures to be posted b4 I say more on it personally. Mostly due to me working on live to be able to test my barb on lama.

[Cordovan]

I did so hitting the 500k hp kobolds on the lower floor.

Builds i used were as follows...

Build 1 : 15 Paladin / 5 Ranger Vs. Build 2 : Pure lvl 20 Ranger



Gear : Used for both builds

- Mythic emerald gaze
- Shroud of ardent
- Epic Mentau's goggles
- Epic Ethereal bracers
- Encrusted ring
- Epic belt of thoughtful rememberance
- Epic boots of innocent
- Sanctified gages
- Shadowscale medium armor
- Mysterious cloak
- Ring of house avithoul.

Weapons :

Main hand : Tier 3 Thunderforged khopesh first degree burns, dragons edge, mortal fear.

Offhand : Touch of flames, wrath of flames, mortal fear.

Feats : Used for both builds

- Power Attack
- Two handed fighting
- Improved two handed fighting
- Greater two handed fighting
- Empower Healing
- Quicken
- Improved critical slashing
- Weapon focus slashing
- Weapon focus piercing
- Weapon focus bludgeoning
- Overwhelming critical
- Perfect two weapon fighting
- Elusive target

Epic Destiny : Legendary dreadnought : Used for both builds

http://i.imgur.com/ZChM5EZ.jpg

Enhancements : 15 Paladin / 5 Ranger :

http://i.imgur.com/1jZv35u.jpg

Enhancements : 20 Ranger

Pretty much the same enhancements in tempest except for including :

Tempest :

Deflect Arrows: You gain the benefits of the Deflect Arrows feat while dual wielding, knocking aside one incoming projectile that would have struck you every 6 seconds. +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier while dual wielding weapons.

Whirlwind: +5% Melee Doublestrike when dual wielding, +5 Incorporeality (stacking), +10% stacking chance to make off-hand attacks when dual wielding.

Dervish: +4 Dexterity. +25% chance to doublestrike with your off-hand while dual wielding. While wearing light or no armor: +10 Melee Power, Physical Resistance Rating, and Magical Resistance Rating.

Deepwood :

Killer: When you kill a target, you gain a 5% Morale bonus to Melee Doublestrike and Extra Shot Chance for 15 seconds. Weak enemies will not always produce this effect. The Killer buff can stack up to 2/3/4 times. Stacks are reduced one at a time. (Repeating Crossbows have a reduced chance to produce Extra Shots.)

Called Shot: Passive: +10 Positive Spell Power. Select a melee or ranged attack that deals extra damage and renders a target vulnerable to sneak attacks.
Icon Enhancement Exposing Strike.png Exposing Strike: Melee Attack: Performs a melee attack with +2[W], a +4 bonus to-hit, +1 to critical threat range, and +1 to Critical Damage Multiplier.
On Damage: The target will become momentarily confused and rendered vulnerable to sneak attacks for four seconds as if affected by the bluff skill. (Cooldown 6 seconds)

advanced Sneak Attack: +1 Sneak Attack Die. +10 Positive Spell Power. You gain a +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Threat Range with your equipped weapons. (This does not apply to Shields or Unarmed). Your attacks now bypass 10% fortification.

Mark of the Hunted: Activate: Expend a use of Animal Empathy. Your currently selected enemy receives -25% Fortification, -10 Armor Class, -10 Spell Resistance, and suffers a -4 penalty to all ability scores for 3 minutes. This effect also works on bosses and Raid bosses.
Passive: Your attacks bypass an additional 10% Fortification. You also gain +2 Damage when attacking Favored Enemies.
Passive: +10 Positive Spell Power

Time it took for my pure ranger to beat down a 500k hp kobold : 98 - 110 secounds.

Time it took for my 15 Paladin / 5 ranger splash to beat down a 500 k hp kobold : 130 - 150 secounds.

In Red : What rangers get additionally compared to paladin builds who only gain light damage core abilities and exalted smite/divine sacrifice from knight of the chalice.


I think holy sword should apply to off hand weapons. It is not fair in comparison to rangers that it should only be limited to your main hand while rangers get the same bonus + affecting their offhand and a huge serious amount of doublestrike including fortification reduction.

They are also getting a good deal of prr/mrr through their core abilities while retaining evasion...

Rangers are at least 40%-60% ahead of paladins in terms of dps. Paladins Vs. Rangers were perfectly fine before you limited holy sword to work on your main hand weapon only.



Please give paladins back their holy sworded off hand weapon :(.

It is my favorite build, and i don't want to be forced to tr into a pure ranger because i enjoy two wepaon fighting...

Thank you, I know it was a pain to write all this most likely, but it was very informative and helpful.

[Walking_Ride]

Thank you, I know it was a pain to write all this most likely, but it was very informative and helpful.

No worry. Even though i feel that i have to abandon my current twf paladin build for a pure ranger being more specialized in said fighting style...

Build diversity was a myth i guess, hehe.

[MrWindupBird]

It would be very helpful if Lamma would stay up a bit longer. I have other things to test (my vanguard on live is over 4k DPS sustained, want to see what it looks like with changes), but won't be able to until later this evening/tomorrow. I am sure there are others in the same boat.

[Walking_Ride]

It would be very helpful if Lamma would stay up a bit longer. I have other things to test (my vanguard on live is over 4k DPS sustained, want to see what it looks like with changes), but won't be able to until later this evening/tomorrow. I am sure there are others in the same boat.

Vanguard dps was never much to begin with... You can expect around 2500-3000 dps with that nerf.

[Basura_Grande]

Vanguard dps was never much to begin with... You can expect around 2500-3000 dps with that nerf.

Good Vanguards were clocking in between 4-5000 DPS on Bruntsmash tests.

[Arkai]

I can't see pulverizer ins. critical at item examination. Is that WAI or a display bug?

[Walking_Ride]

Good Vanguards were clocking in between 4-5000 DPS on Bruntsmash tests.

meh... not much either.

[serthcore]

20 Ranger pure, Khopesh, Half elf, all the tempest dps-specced enhacements, +1 crit range from deepwood and KTA, haste boost + damage boost up all the time
(Weapons were showing 4.5 (1d8)+66 mainhand and +55 offhand)****
Mainhand touch of flames, wrath of flames and crippling flames, offhand is 1st degree, dragons edge and mortal fear
Twists: Symmetric strikes, grim precision, unearthy reactions, cocoon (my raid setup)

Heroic and epic completionism with all the relevant past lives, 62 strength (missing tomes, shipbuffs and consumables).
Ed dreadnouht with all the dps enhancers, starting at full of blitz. 24 Total seeker, +10 deadly. 31% doublestrikes, 35% offhand doublestrikes. Sneak is about 4d6+18. 126 Melee power total


Boss kobold dps standing still 81 secs, 85 secs, 79 secs, 83 secs.


About manyshot: It killed it on melee builds that switch for it for manyshot, can't fill it more than 10 DS without killer running i was barely seeing more than 2 and an ocasional 3rd arrow shoot



*** Not sure why am i getting less damage offhand? I have full damage offhand bonus on offhand weapon. And didnt matter how i switched gear the difference was always 11 points, quite sure you are missing something there.

[Walking_Ride]

20 Ranger pure, Khopesh, Half elf, all the tempest dps-specced enhacements, +1 crit range from deepwood and KTA, haste boost + damage boost up all the time
(Weapons were showing 4.5 (1d8)+66 mainhand and +55 offhand)****
Mainhand touch of flames, wrath of flames and crippling flames, offhand is 1st degree, dragons edge and mortal fear

Heroic and epic completionism with all the relevant past lives, 62 strength (missing tomes, shipbuffs and consumables).
Ed dreadnouht with all the dps enhancers, starting at full of blitz. 24 Total seeker, +10 deadly. 31% doublestrikes. Sneak is about 3d6+18


Boss kobold dps standing still 81 secs, 78 secs, 75 secs, 74 secs.


About manyshot: It killed it on melee builds that switch for it for manyshot, can't fill it more than 10 DS without killer running i was barely seeing more than 2 and an ocasional 3rd arrow shoot



*** Not sure why am i getting less damage offhand? I have full damage offhand bonus on offhand weapon. And didnt matter how i switched gear the difference was always 11 points, quite sure you are missing something there.

Your pure ranger got even a better time than mine O.o ? I guess i will just scrap my paladin now. No point when there is no brainer ranger dps under my nose.

[Basura_Grande]

About manyshot: It killed it on melee builds that switch for it for manyshot, can't fill it more than 10 DS without killer running i was barely seeing more than 2 and an ocasional 3rd arrow shoot



That's what I figured - though it's kinds broken now since Tempest is fantastic melee DPS to have such a good burst ranged option as well.

I predict that no melee builds after this pass will ever build for manyshot again.

[Walking_Ride]

Total gain for rangers compared to paladins :

Fortification bypass : 10(Advanced Sneak Attack) + 10 (Mark of the Hunted) + 25%(Mark of the Hunted) = 45% more than paladins.

Doublestrike : Dervish (25%) offhand + 10% offhand (whirlwind) + 5% mainhand (whirlwind) = 40% - 10 % zeal paladin spell = 30% more than paladins.

Oh yea paladins will loose on exalted smite/divine sacrifice if they choose to take killer from deepwood stalker. While rangers keep exposing strike.

So another +20% doublestrike for a total of 30% + 20 % = 50 % more than pali

+5 Incorporeality (stacking) (whirlwind) + deflect arrows every 2 sec.

Oh, yes especially this too. For rangers off hand weapons are affected by +1 critical threat range and +1 critical multiplier which translates to ~ 26 % dps .

...

Just some informative numbers. If that helps.

[serthcore]

Your pure ranger got even a better time than mine O.o ? I guess i will just scrap my paladin now. No point when there is no brainer ranger dps under my nose.

I edited my main post, times were a bit higher because i misscalculated something, but only for about 5 seconds or so. Also i wasn't even using max dps setup, could have fit more dps twists there, but i wanted to keep it realistic.
And i think i got better times because of my mainhand weapon, which is higher dps than yours

[Walking_Ride]

I edited my main post, times were a bit higher because i misscalculated something, but only for about 5 seconds or so. Also i wasn't even using max dps setup, could have fit more dps twists there, but i wanted to keep it realistic.
And i think i got better times because of my mainhand weapon, which is higher dps than yours

I used the same weapons ^^

[serthcore]

I used the same weapons ^^

Yours:
Weapons :

Main hand : Tier 3 Thunderforged khopesh first degree burns, dragons edge, mortal fear.

Offhand : Touch of flames, wrath of flames, mortal fear.


Mine:
Mainhand touch of flames, wrath of flames and crippling flames, offhand is 1st degree, dragons edge and mortal fear


Having crippling flames over mortal fear as dps setup is a nice dps boost.

[Ultramaetche1]

Well, people with doubleshot based repeater builds can kiss those goodbye.


Doing Bruntsmash on live with the "broken" doubleshot:

102,092 HP in ~26 seconds works out to approximately 3,925 DPS.
Video of Bruntsmash #1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnuJZ5ogfbU

100,562 HP in ~28 seconds works out to approximately 3,590 DPS.
Video of Bruntsmash #2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6g2qFAZaog

Time weighted average of the 2 DPS tests:
[(26 x 3925) + (28 x 3590)] / (26 + 28) works out to be: 3,750 DPS.


Doing DPS Boss Kobold on Lamannia with the fixed doubleshot:

Trial #1: 500,000 HP in 189.403 seconds is: 2,640 DPS.
[Video not Recorded]

Trial #2: 500,000 HP in 195.703 seconds is: 2,555 DPS.
Video of Boss DPS Kobold #1: https://youtu.be/DBi2AC85Coc

Time weighted average of the 2 DPS tests:
[(189.403 x 2640) + (195.703 x 2555)] / (189.403 + 195.703) works out to be: 2,600 DPS.


Total change in DPS:

100% - (2600/3750) = 30.67% DPS loss, just due to the change of how doubleshot works on repeating crossbows.


Build I used for testing:

10/8/2 Wlk/Rng/Art -- the split was essentially just for the past life

Things Relevant to the Doubleshot:
20% DWS T5 (strikes like lightning)
20% Killer (used on the live Bruntsmash, not on the Lama test as the Kobolds are CR1...)
9% Epic Doubleshot Past lives (3 @ 3% each)
2% Ship Buff
10% Celestial Champion's Celestial Fervor @ 10 stacks (does not stack with epic quiver of alacrity's 8%)
3% Shadow Striker (Medium Shadowscale armor)
10% Epic Doubleshot feat
50% Zeal of the Righteous

==

52% Standing Doubleshot

124% Doubleshot with Zeal, Killer, and Celestial Fervor (Celestial champion) all running.


**Disclaimer**
The build I used for testing is not the highest DPS there is for ranged, far from it in fact. The point of my testing was to illustrate the DPS that has been lost with doubleshot based repeater builds, and to show this, the only point of interest is the different doubleshot effectiveness and the relative change from Pre to Post balance change DPS with the same build.
**/Disclaimer**

[FestusHood]

Is the kobold affected by mortal fear procs?

[Ultramaetche1]

Is the kobold affected by mortal fear procs?

Yes, for the NON-Boss DPS Kobolds (yellow named/trash)
No, for the Boss DPS Kobolds (red named)

[FestusHood]

Yes, for the NON-Boss DPS Kobolds (yellow named/trash)
No, for the Boss DPS Kobolds (red named)

Thanks.

I'm not on lammania i didn't even realize there was more than one kobold.

[peng]

Holy sword continues to not apply crit range increase to unarmed. Kotc cleaves still hit twice unarmed, but deal low dmg with no roll (ie they always hit for 8 or some other number) and this number is not affected by str mod, but is affected by other factors (weapon enh, divine favor, power attack, etc).
Know the angles still doesn't add dmg to unarmed, and the harper int to attack and dmg enhancements still don't apply to unarmed.

[Severlin]

Tested some movement/hitbox TWF issues. Quoting myself from the balance thread:




Tested a human 20 ranger with scimitars. The 500k redname kobolds are very useful. 2 conditions: stand still and attack, and circle around attacking (staying in range entire time, pressed up against kobold). The latter is how most melee fights in EE go if you actually play the game well- getting repeatedly smashed in the face while standing still is bad. Did three trials of each. Started each trial with 10-stack of blitz, fully boosted for duration, full sneak attack uptime with Exposing strike + Imp deception, etc etc.

Rough results: about 96 secs for stand-still.
About 119 seconds for jittery close movement.

Conclusion: 20-25% reduction in TWF attack speed/DPS while moving, which jibes well with my experience. It feels roughly the same as live- hitboxes remain small, attacks while moving are very noticeably slower. TWF on the move remains clunky and feels bad. 4th animation while still is indeed slightly faster, however no difference from live noted in animations while moving- just the same aggravating scissor-cut motion.

For comparison, on Live I've previously tested THF, SWF, and S+B attack rate with jittery movement/twitching: all receive a 10-20% increase in attack speed under those circumstances.

I hope this answers your questions as to why TWF isnt seen as more powerful among players- it isn't, under actual game circumstances. Players aren't stupid, and choose what works. Good players much prefer to remain constantly mobile- it dramatically reduces damage taken (whenever I TR/ETR into a TWF toon Im shocked at how much damage I take with identical defenses, which is 100% a consequence of being forced to stay closer to mobs), and this is punitive to TWF. Note that hitboxes were pretty irrelevant in the testing presented here since I chose to be constantly as close as possible to the kobold. In practice, the shorter hitboxes of TWF (especially while moving) are further disincentive. I appreciate the improved 4th standing-still TWF animation, but the mobile animations still are lousy and frustrating. If you can adjust these, that would be a huge boon. Throw a small melee power penalty in even, just fix the animations and hitboxes!

More testing later if I can make time (doubtful).

Great post.

We went in to duplicate your results and found that the difference in still DPS and moving DPS for dual wield was indeed greater than other styles. In other words, the dual wield moving animations were slow enough that the DPS gap was larger than for other styles. We will be tuning them so they are faster for the patch; this should shore up the gap.

We definitely want DPS when standing still to be better, but the gap for dual wield was too high.

Sev~

[Requiro]

Your pure ranger got even a better time than mine O.o ? I guess i will just scrap my paladin now. No point when there is no brainer ranger dps under my nose.

If you have time you can go to any EE quest and see how long you survive with your "no brainer ranger dps". Then compare it to Paladin. I’m very curious about result.

About test. I do not have much time, but I was tested just new Ranger AA Tree. And because there is no other official threat to post I do it here:

Core 18 works fantastic – when score critical I see big numbers
With AA Capstone I see smaller numbers then with DWS Capstone, and overall feels better with DWS Capstone.
Elemental Arrows better look on paper then with tests (Theoretical they seems good, but they feel only ok)
No much time questing to test new CC abilities – no opinion here
AP cost is lower and it’s great
T5 abilities are still very week and need serious work (especially compared to DWS T5)
Multiselector in T5 Elemental Arrow seems odd. Should be combine in one.
Not mention in Release Note improvements are great (lower cost, passive USP)
New manyshoot feels like huge nerf (I know that is not so huge, but it just feels like)
Overall only because Core 18 and Lower AP cost, I see any difference. And that’s surprise me.
I guess AA need some more work to do (T5, Capstone, Passive abilities, 1st Core)

[Seikojin]

Hopped on this morning and tried some ranger stuff. The changes did decrease damage output a bit, but the lack of delayed damage response (star wars movie scrolling) was a definite plus. Overall, I am fine with the MS and 10k changes and the crit decrease.

I did not get to check barb perf or fighter feats yet. And logging on it had a 20 minute broadcast for lamannia coming down. So I dunno if I will get another chance this weekend.

[Walking_Ride]

Great post.

We went in to duplicate your results and found that the difference in still DPS and moving DPS for dual wield was indeed greater than other styles. In other words, the dual wield moving animations were slow enough that the DPS gap was larger than for other styles. We will be tuning them so they are faster for the patch; this should shore up the gap.

We definitely want DPS when standing still to be better, but the gap for dual wield was too high.

Sev~

So this pretty much disagrees with your statement, am i right ?


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~

Can you please then undo the nerf to paladins holy sword not affecting their off hand weapon ?

There are several more reasons in this thread as of why it is a bad idea nerfing this spell.


Come one now, severlin. I am really not in the mood of replacing my current build with a pure ranger because of things like that.

If anything, rangers should be reduced in power not the other way around with paladins being torn apart from their off hand weapon.

This is totally not fair man. Paladins really need some love. All they are getting is nerf nerf and nerf. It has to stop !

[Darsith]

Any rough estimate as to when Lamma will be back up so we can continue testing the balance passes? Was hoping that it was going to be up over the weekend as I get to testing during late night hours when the Dojo is less crazy.

[Propane]

Is Lamannia down for the weekend?

[MrWindupBird]

Great post.

We went in to duplicate your results and found that the difference in still DPS and moving DPS for dual wield was indeed greater than other styles. In other words, the dual wield moving animations were slow enough that the DPS gap was larger than for other styles. We will be tuning them so they are faster for the patch; this should shore up the gap.

We definitely want DPS when standing still to be better, but the gap for dual wield was too high.

Sev~


Very pleased that you're addressing this. Despite the creaky old engine, the active combat and movement in DDO is astoundingly good and one of its greatest draws: it always felt strange that TWF was penalized for trying to take advantage of this. Very much a feel-thing, in addition to raw DPS- it was just clunky and unpleasant.

While you're going down this rabbit-hole you might want to check out Qstaff animations, which suffer from a similar animation problem (qstaff users are also incentivized to remain rooted. The attack speed bonus from acrobat supposedly does not apply while moving either, but I haven't tested that personally). THF/SWF/S+B all actually benefit DPS-wise from movement, if you do it right- I'm not sure that TWF actually needs to benefit as well, but not being penalized would be huge.

Animations are tricky, good luck.

[Saekee]

Could someone with access to Lammania please test the TWF hit box with visually shorter weapons (daggers, kukris) vs something like longswords or bastard swords? I plan to test this with assassinate soon on live but it might be useful for evaluating knife specialist DPS (assassins).

[Ovrad]

In other words, the dual wield moving animations were slow enough that the DPS gap was larger than for other styles. We will be tuning them so they are faster for the patch; this should shore up the gap.

That's good, but I'm going to assume this only concerns dual wielding of weapons and that unarmed will be ignored as usual?

[Delacroix21]

Great post.

We went in to duplicate your results and found that the difference in still DPS and moving DPS for dual wield was indeed greater than other styles. In other words, the dual wield moving animations were slow enough that the DPS gap was larger than for other styles. We will be tuning them so they are faster for the patch; this should shore up the gap.

We definitely want DPS when standing still to be better, but the gap for dual wield was too high.

Sev~

Ok, but I am seriously ****ed off that Lammania is down right now after only being up for 2 stinking days!


Unarmed is still junk, and no Band-Aid fix will be implemented. So why do you guys even CARE about TWF moving dps being lower when you could care less about unarmed? Unarmed is not "slightly" below other combat styles like TWF while moving, but WAY BELOW. Sev, stating the playerbase would not accept a "temporary fix" to unarmed until the monk pass is absolutely ridiculous! It is such a cop out.


I am really upset because 3 more good players I run with have cancelled their subs over this. Sev seriously I appreciate what you have brought to this game but unarmed has been on your teams back burner for just way dang to long, stupidly ridiculously long. Heck you even created NEW combat styles (SWF) instead of fixing an existing one. Seriously we could use a Dev proposal for a temporary fix for unarmed to hold over the player base until the monk pass nearly 4 months from now.





Sev, do the right thing here man. The state of unarmed is just ridiculous.

[Seikojin]

Ok, but I am seriously ****ed off that Lammania is down right now after only being up for 2 stinking days!


Unarmed is still junk, and no Band-Aid fix will be implemented. So why do you guys even CARE about TWF moving dps being lower when you could care less about unarmed? Unarmed is not "slightly" below other combat styles like TWF while moving, but WAY BELOW. Sev, stating the playerbase would not accept a "temporary fix" to unarmed until the monk pass is absolutely ridiculous! It is such a cop out.


I am really upset because 3 more good players I run with have cancelled their subs over this. Sev seriously I appreciate what you have brought to this game but unarmed has been on your teams back burner for just way dang to long, stupidly ridiculously long. Heck you even created NEW combat styles (SWF) instead of fixing an existing one. Seriously we could use a Dev proposal for a temporary fix for unarmed to hold over the player base until the monk pass nearly 4 months from now.





Sev, do the right thing here man. The state of unarmed is just ridiculous.

Unarmed will most likely be handed when monks and druids get fixed. By fixed I mean tore down and rebuilt so they do not have unique keyframes for combat. Allowing them to gain the same power from alacrity like melee combat does. Oh and wraps becoming something instead of special.

No special source, just makes sense.

[Angharad]

We definitely want DPS when standing still to be better, but the gap for dual wield was too high.

Sev~

Sev, shouldn't the Spring attack feat be what determines this, as opposed to ... i'm not even sure how to put that.

As I understand it (and I may be wrong, life goes on), Two-weapon fighting has never (in D&D history) had any penalty to speed. The WHOLE POINT was that you were fast enough to be able to hit twice/thrice/etc per round. Any Penalty was only imposed on the to-hit (or the BAB, however you want to look at it).

Shouldn't the fact that Spring Attack resolves the penalty be enough? There really isn't a good reason to slow down TWF just because you "want DPS when standing still to be better". That should, very specifically and SOLELY, be addressed by Spring attack.

Anyone else care to weigh in on this? Granted, I'm no EE player, but I can DM like nobody's business. That, and I've also spent a good deal of time doing actual sword & board fighting in the SCA. Trust me when I tell you, our two-sword fighters (we called the style Florentine, due to an archaically stupid misunderstanding) were CRAZY BLEEPING FAST.

[GroundhogDay]

I've only got 30/40 minutes to try my toon on lama before you closed it, my review isn't going to be overly specific but just highlighting something you devs might want to look into:

On ee don't drink the water, tested on lama and then live, my 2nd lifer pally does roughly 25/30% less dmg, takes roughly 25/30% dmg more, smite evil is kind of useless, on live (using a t2 TF b-sword) i crit for 1.4K hp and on lama i didn't get over 800.

Shield doesn't do enough dmg to consider spending point on vanguard, why should i? vanguard let's you use the shield as a weapon, but with this "update" i no longer can cast HS on it, rendering it useless.

Moreover my pally will never kite the FoTP dragon ever again since he can't cast HS on his thunderforged throwing axe.

All in all i'd say job well done, you wanted to kill off paladins and you made it, there's no point in playing one anymore, give yourselves a pat on the shoulder.

On live divine punishment casted by a champion hits me for 25/40 hp, on lama 80/90 hp.

What's the point of nerfing paladins into oblivion to buff other classes when you still have to finish revamping? Your track record would suggest that the next class to be revamped will be immensely OP (you did it with every pass so far) for a while and then it will get nerfed too, in the meantime paladins will be back in the dog house (as most heavy melees).

You did the same thing with the ranger pass, you nerfed everyone else melee power to make rangers more competitive, the realized rengars are now op and nerfed them, meanwhile all the other melees have lost meleepower that will never be given back (as i stated on chat with vargouille some days ago).

Now you're nerfing our ability to resist damage to push fighters, then fighters will be OP and you'll have to nerf them, leaving everyone else in the dirt, yet again.

And still every two bit caster can clear almost every room with 1 chain lightning, 2 tops, before a melee can even reach the target.

I would like you to point where is the balance in that.

[Walking_Ride]

I've only got 30/40 minutes to try my toon on lama before you closed it, my review isn't going to be overly specific but just highlighting something you devs might want to look into:

On ee don't drink the water, tested on lama and then live, my 2nd lifer pally does roughly 25/30% less dmg, takes roughly 25/30% dmg more, smite evil is kind of useless, on live (using a t2 TF b-sword) i crit for 1.4K hp and on lama i didn't get over 800.

Shield doesn't do enough dmg to consider spending point on vanguard, why should i? vanguard let's you use the shield as a weapon, but with this "update" i no longer can cast HS on it, rendering it useless.

Moreover my pally will never kite the FoTP dragon ever again since he can't cast HS on his thunderforged throwing axe.

All in all i'd say job well done, you wanted to kill off paladins and you made it, there's no point in playing one anymore, give yourselves a pat on the shoulder.

On live divine punishment casted by a champion hits me for 25/40 hp, on lama 80/90 hp.

What's the point of nerfing paladins into oblivion to buff other classes when you still have to finish revamping? Your track record would suggest that the next class to be revamped will be immensely OP (you did it with every pass so far) for a while and then it will get nerfed too, in the meantime paladins will be back in the dog house (as most heavy melees).

You did the same thing with the ranger pass, you nerfed everyone else melee power to make rangers more competitive, the realized rengars are now op and nerfed them, meanwhile all the other melees have lost meleepower that will never be given back (as i stated on chat with vargouille some days ago).

Now you're nerfing our ability to resist damage to push fighters, then fighters will be OP and you'll have to nerf them, leaving everyone else in the dirt, yet again.

And still every two bit caster can clear almost every room with 1 chain lightning, 2 tops, before a melee can even reach the target.

I would like you to point where is the balance in that.

So basically, go THF/SWF or get the hell out of here ? This is hilarious...

Paladins can't utilize shields and twf without eating dirt ? Really ?

[HuneyMunster]

On ee don't drink the water, tested on lama and then live, my 2nd lifer pally does roughly 25/30% less dmg, takes roughly 25/30% dmg more, smite evil is kind of useless, on live (using a t2 TF b-sword) i crit for 1.4K hp and on lama i didn't get over 800.

And still every two bit caster can clear almost every room with 1 chain lightning, 2 tops, before a melee can even reach the target.

I would like you to point where is the balance in that.

A 1.4k crit is about the same size as a crit from Chain Lightning with 5-600 spell power. Chain Lightning will not clear an entire room in Dont Drink the Water on EE with one cast and unlikely with 2 casts.

[Walking_Ride]

A 1.4k crit is about the same size as a crit from Chain Lightning with 5-600 spell power. Chain Lightning will not clear an entire room in Dont Drink the Water on EE with one cast and unlikely with 2 casts.

Keep in mind that you are not engaged in close combat, when casting spells.

[dunklezhan]

Sev, shouldn't the Spring attack feat be what determines this, as opposed to ... i'm not even sure how to put that.

As I understand it (and I may be wrong, life goes on), Two-weapon fighting has never (in D&D history) had any penalty to speed. The WHOLE POINT was that you were fast enough to be able to hit twice/thrice/etc per round. Any Penalty was only imposed on the to-hit (or the BAB, however you want to look at it).

Shouldn't the fact that Spring Attack resolves the penalty be enough? There really isn't a good reason to slow down TWF just because you "want DPS when standing still to be better". That should, very specifically and SOLELY, be addressed by Spring attack.

Anyone else care to weigh in on this? Granted, I'm no EE player, but I can DM like nobody's business. That, and I've also spent a good deal of time doing actual sword & board fighting in the SCA. Trust me when I tell you, our two-sword fighters (we called the style Florentine, due to an archaically stupid misunderstanding) were CRAZY BLEEPING FAST.

indeed spring attack is supposed to allow you to move and attack without penalty and requires three feats to get. So you should get much faster scissorhands with this feat at the very least. Fixing the scissorhands to be a normal attack chain would mean animation changes and we know they are hard for Turbine to do - could we not add a doublestrike bonus to the spring attack feat, which only applies when moving (am aware this would also buff THF and SWF which already benefit from twitch, could it be coded to only work when TWFing)?

[AzureDragonas]

As some people mentioned make IC and Keen same as they are and just make all other buffs not to double like competence...

and if enchantment effects weapon from tree like T5 acrobat assasin or cores who really shows person is working on certain type change naming like inherit which still gets doubled and makes some weapons playable at end

Staff Specialization: You gain a +1 Competence bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier and Threat Range with Quarterstaves.

Swashbuckling: Stance: You gain 1% Doublestrike and Doubleshot as well as +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of the weapon in your main hand. Swashbuckling requires wielding a Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand, wielding a Buckler or nothing in your off hand, and wearing Light Armor or no armor. (Druids cannot Swashbuckle while in animal forms.) (For Warforged and Bladeforged, you must be using either the Composite Plating or Mithral Body feats).
Passive: While Swashbuckling, the following weapons receive Competence bonuses to their critical profiles:
Dagger, Shortsword, Throwing Dagger: +1 Threat Range, +1 Multiplier
Light Mace, Light Hammer, Kama, Sickle, Dart, Shuriken, Throwing Axe, Throwing Hammer: +2 Threat Range, +1 Multiplier
Kukri, Rapier: +1 Multiplier
Handaxe: +2 Range
Light Pick: +1 Range

Barbs gets comptentece +2 treat range too from now on

We will keep named items intacted while you get nerfs you want on treat range ppl manage to reach

[Delacroix21]

Unarmed will most likely be handed when monks and druids get fixed. By fixed I mean tore down and rebuilt so they do not have unique keyframes for combat. Allowing them to gain the same power from alacrity like melee combat does. Oh and wraps becoming something instead of special.

No special source, just makes sense.

Seik the issue of my post was not what they were going to do to fix unarmed, but when they were going to do it, and btw you forgot reworking GMoF to have abilities that actually scale. My point was they could implement a minor change that would at least bring unarmed up a bit and make it more playable while we wait for this many months off monk patch, as we have continued to wait for literally YEARS at this point.


I Would like to show the Devs some math of old unarmed vs current balance (since apparently a 27% dps decrease in twf while moving is so important!).


When unarmed was introduced a level 20 monk did 3.5d6. This was an issue for some players as in DnD this SHOULD be 1d20, but the Devs pointed out that 3.5d6 is preety much the same as 1d20, but oh what foresight did they lack! In fact ALL unarmed's issues have been due to lack of foresight, and yet NOTHING done to correct this as each update added MORE things broken with unarmed.


So before in DDO Unarmed was balanced against:
TWF by unarmed having +250% the base damage (3.5d6 vs 1d6) or (unarmed 21 base, twf 6 base)
THF by unarmed having +75% the base damage (3.5d6 vs 2d6) or (unarmed 21 base, thf 12 base)


Now in DDO with 4.5+ weapons unarmed "advantage" dropped like a rock vs TWF, and totally disappeared vs THF:
TWF by unarmed having +55% the base damage (7d6 vs 4.5d6) or (unarmed 42 base, twf 27 base)
THF by unarmed having -23% the base damage (7d6 vs 4.5x2d6) or (unarmed 21 base, thf 54 base)


Now when we add in +4w attacks which there are now many of in ddo, this becomes even worse!
TWF by unarmed having +29% the base damage (11d6 vs 8.5d6) or (unarmed 66 base, twf 51 base)
THF by unarmed having -36% the base damage (11d6 vs 8.5x2d6) or (unarmed 66 base, thf 102 base)


Now lets compare each style to itself to see how much its base damage increased over the updates!
Unarmed went from 3.5d6 to 7d6 (21 to 42) or +100% increase
TWF went from 1d6 to 4.5d6 (6 to 27) or +350% increase (holy cow!)
THF went from 2d6 to 4.5x2d6 (12 to 54) or +350% increase (seeing a pattern now ladies and gents?)



Now even IF we added in every +w effect a monk could get in DDO, they wouldn't get anywhere NEAR that +350% that TWF and THF got. Not to mention those other styles got stacking +crit range and +crit multi abilities that unarmed did not, which is why I didn't include additional monk +w effects.




THAT is the state of unarmed in DDO (aside from the obvious piles of XXXX doesn't work with unarmed junk), which is WHY increasing the BASE unarmed die from 1d6 to a higher number is needed NOW, not months from now. Adding on more +1w's will only keep the problem, the BASE die is the problem!

[Walking_Ride]

As some people mentioned make IC and Keen same as they are and just make all other buffs not to double like competence...

and if enchantment effects weapon from tree like T5 acrobat assasin or cores who really shows person is working on certain type change naming like inherit which still gets doubled and makes some weapons playable at end

Staff Specialization: You gain a +1 Competence bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier and Threat Range with Quarterstaves.

Swashbuckling: Stance: You gain 1% Doublestrike and Doubleshot as well as +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of the weapon in your main hand. Swashbuckling requires wielding a Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand, wielding a Buckler or nothing in your off hand, and wearing Light Armor or no armor. (Druids cannot Swashbuckle while in animal forms.) (For Warforged and Bladeforged, you must be using either the Composite Plating or Mithral Body feats).
Passive: While Swashbuckling, the following weapons receive Competence bonuses to their critical profiles:
Dagger, Shortsword, Throwing Dagger: +1 Threat Range, +1 Multiplier
Light Mace, Light Hammer, Kama, Sickle, Dart, Shuriken, Throwing Axe, Throwing Hammer: +2 Threat Range, +1 Multiplier
Kukri, Rapier: +1 Multiplier
Handaxe: +2 Range
Light Pick: +1 Range

Barbs gets comptentece +2 treat range too from now on

We will keep named items intacted while you get nerfs you want on treat range ppl manage to reach

And everything you have listed works with both weapons, main hand and off hand.

Except holy sword of course...:mad:

[Ellihor]

Great post.

We went in to duplicate your results and found that the difference in still DPS and moving DPS for dual wield was indeed greater than other styles. In other words, the dual wield moving animations were slow enough that the DPS gap was larger than for other styles. We will be tuning them so they are faster for the patch; this should shore up the gap.

We definitely want DPS when standing still to be better, but the gap for dual wield was too high.

Sev~

While you are at it why not make cleave proc off hand attacks? I never got it why in DDO twf is better for single target and THF is better for multiple enemies fighting, while in real world it's completly the opposite.

[Ultramaetche1]

As some people mentioned make IC and Keen same as they are and just make all other buffs not to double like competence...

and if enchantment effects weapon from tree like T5 acrobat assasin or cores who really shows person is working on certain type change naming like inherit which still gets doubled and makes some weapons playable at end

Staff Specialization: You gain a +1 Competence bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier and Threat Range with Quarterstaves.

Swashbuckling: Stance: You gain 1% Doublestrike and Doubleshot as well as +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of the weapon in your main hand. Swashbuckling requires wielding a Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand, wielding a Buckler or nothing in your off hand, and wearing Light Armor or no armor. (Druids cannot Swashbuckle while in animal forms.) (For Warforged and Bladeforged, you must be using either the Composite Plating or Mithral Body feats).
Passive: While Swashbuckling, the following weapons receive Competence bonuses to their critical profiles:
Dagger, Shortsword, Throwing Dagger: +1 Threat Range, +1 Multiplier
Light Mace, Light Hammer, Kama, Sickle, Dart, Shuriken, Throwing Axe, Throwing Hammer: +2 Threat Range, +1 Multiplier
Kukri, Rapier: +1 Multiplier
Handaxe: +2 Range
Light Pick: +1 Range

Barbs gets comptentece +2 treat range too from now on

We will keep named items intacted while you get nerfs you want on treat range ppl manage to reach
And everything you have listed works with both weapons, main hand and off hand.

Except holy sword of course...:mad:


Walking_Ride,

May I point out to you that:
A) Q-staffs are 2-handed thus you can't dual wield, and
B) Swashbuckling requires one of the following (assuming you have the necessary enhancements) in your off-hand
1) Nothing
2) Orb
3) Rune Arm
4) Buckler

Due to this, you can NOT dual wield with them, ever.

Just saying.

[GroundhogDay]

ok, after a day of hiking i've shed enough frustration to be constructive about this:

regarding the mrr problem, here's my proposal, epic past life feats.

eplf of the divine sphere offer a +3 prr per feat, 3 feats stackable for 3 times, for a total of +27 prr

why not make it so that another sphere can give the same in mrr?

i don't have any eplf on any toon, but to get roughly where i am now i'd gladly farm those

this would add an incentive to etr and would take the average player like me almost where we are now, class nonwithstanding.

this would be nice with what sev wrote here


We have read suggestions that some smaller amount of MRR might be added back to armors

to make thing, not quite as they are now, but still better than what you originally proposed to us.


A 1.4k crit is about the same size as a crit from Chain Lightning with 5-600 spell power. Chain Lightning will not clear an entire room in Dont Drink the Water on EE with one cast and unlikely with 2 casts.

You seem to fail to account for one thing, SE hits a single target, CL a group.

[lifestaker]

okay from the testing that I had done on Lama I have found an issue:

Boss kobald testing:

Class / fighting style / 3 test average times of triple completionist the near ideal gear setup - My gimp (effectively the casual gamer with only a handful of past lives) with gear that is below ideal raid heavy gear (lots of BTA epic gear, and raider box weapons or non finished TF). Exception being the ranged build test that only used T1 Thunderforged (not a ranged player but had some floating around for testing to be even on all tests)

Barb / TWF with Warhammers in LD / 93 - 145
Ranger / tempest with Warhammer in LD / 100 - 167
Pally / TWF with Warhammers in LD / 105 - 186

Bard / SFW with handaxe / 105 - Not tested due to lama down

Rogue(2 levels of arti) / repeater build / 245 - 354
Rogue(2 levels of arti) / great Xbow / 232 - 313

*Warlock / aura build w/ gsfw warhammer in EA / 242 - 518
*Warlock / SE wave build w/ Consume and Stricken/ 327 - 487
*Warlock/ Cone build W/ Consume and stricken/ 325 - 460

Additional Testing not finished due to build limitations and server going down

*= spell power potions bugging out from time to time effectively reducing all spell power to 0 (character sheet does not show any change but damage output is lowered from triple digits to single digits at times). Potions used being the greater light, greater acid, and universal (commendations turn in). Bug seems to apply for several seconds after drinking a potion. Seems to happen around 10% of the time if drinking multiple potions.



Other people have tested builds their builds as well:

Warlock/ ES w/ investment into SE / 235 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705192&viewfull=1#post5705192)
Warlock / Pewpew build / 402 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705313&viewfull=1#post5705313)
Warlock / Aura Build / 333 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705313&viewfull=1#post5705313)

Paladin/ S&B vanguard / 173 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705192&viewfull=1#post5705192)
Paladin/ S&B vanguard (regear from one above) / 166 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705466&viewfull=1#post5705466)
Paladin (5 levels ranger) / TWF / 130-150 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705727&viewfull=1#post5705727)

Ranger / tempest / 96 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705192&viewfull=1#post5705192)
Ranger / tempest / 98-110 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705727&viewfull=1#post5705727)
Ranger / Tempest / 82 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705892&viewfull=1#post5705892)

Mutt build (Just looks funny to me) / Repeater focused *double shot test build* / 193 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705941&viewfull=1#post5705941)



Now I understand that warlocks are out killing things on LIVE, but these numbers are a bit much. I fail to see why The warlock has to become such low power so that other builds can get kills. Warlocks being a caster are limited to a wait time for every action. This waiting does not improve and higher levels are reached and the damage output of a warlock is limited to maxing out the burst damage you can do.

Attacking warlock damage output because they are killing trash faster then other characters is painful. Sorry but something has to be done for casting speed or single target dps if you desire the class to still be accepted as a viable build in epic levels.

I understand that they are 'easy to play' in heroics, but so are wizards and sorcs the difference in the warlock is SP usage. Aura burst and spirit burst are hitting for less then the fireball spell when cast by a fire sorc. Eldritch attacks of any form are far behind other castings that can be done in the same amount of time. I just think that weakening warlock will cause for people to ask for more weakening of it later, and other caster classes to be done the same after their update pass as well. It just stands out that warlock is overpowered due to the fact you are comparing it to non casting builds. This thinking is resulting in warlocks getting repeatedly lowered and are now effectively half or less as powerful as many builds.


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

Sorry in advance for the classes I failed to test, I had intention to test barb more for thf but the Lama died. As far as other classes that have not received their pass yet, I failed to count them as even existing due to them already being behind (thus why they are in need of their enhancement passes) and failed to see the logic in comparing them to updated classes due to the information being skewed.

Not sure if I will be testing more on Lama, just working on finishing up some lives on Live server so that i don't have to play the classes in a weaker form.

[Walking_Ride]

okay from the testing that I had done on Lama I have found an issue:

Boss kobald testing:

Class / fighting style / 3 test average times of triple completionist the near ideal gear setup - My gimp (effectively the casual gamer with only a handful of past lives) with gear that is below ideal raid heavy gear (lots of BTA epic gear, and raider box weapons or non finished TF). Exception being the ranged build test that only used T1 Thunderforged (not a ranged player but had some floating around for testing to be even on all tests)

Barb / TWF with Warhammers in LD / 93 - 145
Ranger / tempest with Warhammer in LD / 100 - 167
Pally / TWF with Warhammers in LD / 105 - 186

Bard / SFW with handaxe / 105 - Not tested due to lama down

Rogue(2 levels of arti) / repeater build / 245 - 354
Rogue(2 levels of arti) / great Xbow / 232 - 313

*Warlock / aura build w/ gsfw warhammer in EA / 242 - 518
*Warlock / SE wave build w/ Consume and Stricken/ 327 - 487
*Warlock/ Cone build W/ Consume and stricken/ 325 - 460

Additional Testing not finished due to build limitations and server going down

*= spell power potions bugging out from time to time effectively reducing all spell power to 0 (character sheet does not show any change but damage output is lowered from triple digits to single digits at times). Potions used being the greater light, greater acid, and universal (commendations turn in). Bug seems to apply for 2-10 seconds after drinking a potion. Seems to happen around 10% of the time if drinking multiple potions.



Other people have tested builds their builds as well:

Warlock/ ES w/ investment into SE / 235 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705192&viewfull=1#post5705192)
Warlock / Pewpew build / 402 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705313&viewfull=1#post5705313)
Warlock / Aura Build / 333 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705313&viewfull=1#post5705313)

Paladin/ S&B vanguard / 173 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705192&viewfull=1#post5705192)
Paladin/ S&B vanguard (regear from one above) / 166 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705466&viewfull=1#post5705466)
Paladin (5 levels ranger) / TWF / 130-150 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705727&viewfull=1#post5705727)

Ranger / tempest / 96 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705192&viewfull=1#post5705192)
Ranger / tempest / 98-110 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705727&viewfull=1#post5705727)
Ranger / Tempest / 82 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705892&viewfull=1#post5705892)

Mutt build (Just looks funny to me) / Repeater focused / 193 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705941&viewfull=1#post5705941)



Now I understand that warlocks are out killing things on LIVE, but these numbers are a bit much. I fail to see why The warlock has to become such low power so that other builds can get kills. Warlocks being a caster are limited to a wait time for every action. This waiting does not improve and higher levels are reached and the damage output of a warlock is limited to maxing out the burst damage you can do.

Attacking warlock damage output because they are killing trash faster then other characters is painful. Sorry but something has to be done for casting speed or single target dps if you desire the class to still be accepted as a viable build in epic levels.

I understand that they are 'easy to play' in heroics, but so are wizards and sorcs the difference in the warlock is SP usage. Aura burst and spirit burst are hitting for less then the fireball spell when cast by a fire sorc. Eldritch attacks of any form are far behind other castings that can be done in the same amount of time. I just think that weakening warlock will cause for people to ask for more weakening of it later, and other caster classes to be done the same after their update pass as well. It just stands out that warlock is overpowered due to the fact you are comparing it to non casting builds. This thinking is resulting in warlocks getting repeatedly lowered and are now effectively half or less as powerful as many builds.


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

Sorry in advance for the classes I failed to test, I had intention to test barb more for thf but the Lama died. As far as other classes that have not received their pass yet, I failed to count them as even existing due to them already being behind (thus why they are in need of their enhancement passes) and failed to see the logic in comparing them to updated classes due to the information being skewed.

Not sure if I will be testing more on Lama, just working on finishing up some lives on Live server so that i don't have to play the classes in a weaker form.

Hey severlin. Do you still need more data to convince you that TWF (Ranger/Barbarian) >>> TWF Paladin ?

About time you give paladins back their holy sworded off hand weapons. You got enough data to prove that by now.

[Xario]

Great post.

We went in to duplicate your results and found that the difference in still DPS and moving DPS for dual wield was indeed greater than other styles. In other words, the dual wield moving animations were slow enough that the DPS gap was larger than for other styles. We will be tuning them so they are faster for the patch; this should shore up the gap.

We definitely want DPS when standing still to be better, but the gap for dual wield was too high.

Sev~

What about to add to Spring attack feat a mechanism, that you will have full attack animation even while moving, when you have Spring attack feat feat?

Spring attack feat should do, that you haven't a penalty to attack while moving, but -4 to hit isn't noticable enought to anybody take care about that penalty, but if it will improve moving attack to have full attack animation, it would be nice.

[lifestaker]

Hey severlin. Do you still need more data to convince you that TWF (Ranger/Barbarian) >>> TWF Paladin ?

About time you give paladins back their holy sworded off hand weapons. You got enough data to prove that by now.

My test showed the pally only slightly behind the ranger and the barbarian. The pally also has increased survival ability then either class (the barb 1 second delay in healing is a huge difference). I know the warhammers I used were less then perfect now with the IC nerf, but is what I had to stay consistent.

I am not against it per say, but think it will put pally above barbarian in TWF DPS. Sorry if you disagree with me on this point but I think a barb should be the highest dps for any form of melee combat with very few exceptions. With the highest str, and multiple ways to increase both the W of the weapons and their own MWP they should be leaders in DPS. There are other factors to each class that adds to its value outside of melee dps. Paladins get much more then barbs, and rangers get a little bit more then barbs. This factors into the same standard that barb>ranger>paladin (my personal opinion is that barb is better at out living a ranger, but rangers get their feats for free allowing more range of growth then the barb)

I understand if it sucks but if you need to be the highest dps in the game, does it matter what class you are? You didn't play a pally just for HS. You did it for LoH, Saves, armor and shield proficiency, smites, etc, etc. Thinking that it should be the best just because you think it should be makes for the entire baseline of this game wide 'balancing.' Sorry but for a class with no downside, a slight disadvantage in DPS (effectively 500 dps less then a barb) is completely acceptable.

Granting the off hand to shields for HS is easier for me to get behind. Vanguards took a huge dive in DPS, effectively putting them behind under geared first life rangers. Yes they have more AC and everything else, but a finished character with everything geared out should be above that of a first lifer, and they are not at this moment when you compare the two different fighting styles. This will make holding raid boss aggro from DPS on a vanguard almost impossible.

[Walking_Ride]

My test showed the pally only slightly behind the ranger and the barbarian. The pally also has increased survival ability then either class (the barb 1 second delay in healing is a huge difference). I know the warhammers I used were less then perfect now with the IC nerf, but is what I had to stay consistent.

I am not against it per say, but think it will put pally above barbarian in TWF DPS. Sorry if you disagree with me on this point but I think a barb should be the highest dps for any form of melee combat with very few exceptions. With the highest str, and multiple ways to increase both the W of the weapons and their own MWP they should be leaders in DPS. There are other factors to each class that adds to its value outside of melee dps. Paladins get much more then barbs, and rangers get a little bit more then barbs. This factors into the same standard that barb>ranger>paladin (my personal opinion is that barb is better at out living a ranger, but rangers get their feats for free allowing more range of growth then the barb)

I understand if it sucks but if you need to be the highest dps in the game, does it matter what class you are? You didn't play a pally just for HS. You did it for LoH, Saves, armor and shield proficiency, smites, etc, etc. Thinking that it should be the best just because you think it should be makes for the entire baseline of this game wide 'balancing.' Sorry but for a class with no downside, a slight disadvantage in DPS (effectively 500 dps less then a barb) is completely acceptable.

Granting the off hand to shields for HS is easier for me to get behind. Vanguards took a huge dive in DPS, effectively putting them behind under geared first life rangers. Yes they have more AC and everything else, but a finished character with everything geared out should be above that of a first lifer, and they are not at this moment when you compare the two different fighting styles. This will make holding raid boss aggro from DPS on a vanguard almost impossible.

You are pretty funny. I and many others included saw a 30% dps reduction for every twf paladin on lammania. This isn't just 500 dps.

Also how often do i have to repeat myself on the topic self healing and defensive abilities ?

Rangers gain mrr/prr through tempest core abilities while retaining evasion and 5% incorp.

They gain deflect arrows without being a monk hence can deflect arrows every 2 sec.

They do get spells like cure light/moderate/serious wounds. They do get freedom of movement spell also.

If that is still not enough for you then just splash 3 paladin/3fighter levels for defender stance. Don't worry, you get the +1 crit threat range/+1 multiplier with just 12 ranger lvls.

Here is more :

1. Paladin has divine might but rangers have know the angels from harper enhancement tree which adds half your int mod to damage and tactics.

2. Self healing in ddo is hardly a problem anymore with epic destinies. Also a ranger gets cure light/moderate/serious wounds from ranger spells.
They also get freedom of movement...

3. Paladin get light damage core but rangers get a lot sneack attack dice from deepwood stalker.

Rangers also get the following...

Fortification bypass : 10(Advanced Sneak Attack) + 10 (Mark of the Hunted) + 25%(Mark of the Hunted) = 45% more than paladins.

Doublestrike : Dervish (25%) offhand + 10% offhand (whirlwind) + 5% mainhand (whirlwind) = 40% - 10 % zeal paladin spell = 30% more than paladins.

Oh yea paladins will loose on exalted smite/divine sacrifice if they choose to take killer from deepwood stalker. While rangers keep exposing strike.

So another +20% doublestrike for a total of 30% + 20 % = 50 % more than pali

+5 Incorporeality (stacking) (whirlwind) + deflect arrows every 2 sec.

Oh, yes especially this too. For rangers off hand weapons are affected by +1 critical threat range (Advanced Sneak Attack) and +1 critical multiplier (Deflect Arrows) which translates to ~ 26 % dps .


I dare you show me what makes paladin top dog with all these things taken into consideration.

[lifestaker]

You are pretty funny. I and many others included saw a 30% dps reduction for every twf paladin on lammania. This isn't just 500 dps.


Not to be biased but every build saw a reduction in dps on lama (my barb is reduced by around 35% by itself) . To be even on the % reduction due to HS you would have to take the difference of the build with and without HS. If Lama is up, feel free to test it. You only have to do dps test with and without on live, and compare to with and without on lama. I would be interested to see the results myself. 4 DPS tests to prove a point, and though someone may have already done this, I may have missed it.


Oh, yes especially this too. For rangers off hand weapons are affected by +1 critical threat range (Advanced Sneak Attack) and +1 critical multiplier (Deflect Arrows) which translates to ~ 26 % dps .

I am unsure about +1range/+1damage off hand attacks being = to 26% dps. Sounds a bit off to me personally. Care to explain those figures or just link me to someone who has.


I dare you show me what makes paladin top dog with all these things taken into consideration.

I do not care about paladin being top dog, and do not think they should. They reach higher saves then any class, can reach acceptable ac, get armor feats, defensive stances, smites, cleaves, light damage on hit, and other things that makes them good. The point being is you act as though they need more dps while twf. 500 DPS when compared to a barb, and 240 less then a ranger seems about fair for the things that you get over the other 2 classes.

If you do the DPS tests to figure the variation of HS being cast on live then add that to the non HS lama number if it is more then 240 then you would be as strong as a ranger. more then 400 would be barbarian dps. Do the tests if/when able.

I just fail to see why it is so important for every class to hit for the same damage, so long as they are the same build type. That is half the baseline for all these nerfs, and is illogical to think that way when you are comparing things that are different. Now looking from your stance in fighting the fact of playing something other then a paladin, but desire to be top dps. You desired to be a paladin for a reason, why? If it is to be top end DPS due to HS then your reason is the same as the devs for nerfing it (and alot of the other things). If it contains other reasons then DPS then you your self have explained why paladin is top dog to you (just know objective views are objective).

[CeltEireson]

Rangers gain mrr/prr through tempest core abilities while retaining evasion and 5% incorp.[/quote

Paladin can still get higher levels of both.

[quote]They do get spells like cure light/moderate/serious wounds. They do get freedom of movement spell also.

Yup but paladins still have better self healing and a better range of spells. FOM is available on a number of items. And epic healing usually requires giving up a twist - which paladins don't really need to do.


1. Paladin has divine might but rangers have know the angels from harper enhancement tree which adds half your int mod to damage and tactics.

Seriously? I don't see that many high int rangers running around so generally this is of little benefit - not even taking into account the number of enhancement points they effectively waste in Harper to get access to this.


3. Paladin get light damage core but rangers get a lot sneack attack dice from deepwood stalker.

Sneak attack is situational even if youre wearing a deception item, light damage is not.


Rangers also get the following...

Fortification bypass : 10(Advanced Sneak Attack) + 10 (Mark of the Hunted) + 25%(Mark of the Hunted) = 45% more than paladins.

Doublestrike : Dervish (25%) offhand + 10% offhand (whirlwind) + 5% mainhand (whirlwind) = 40% - 10 % zeal paladin spell = 30% more than paladins.

Oh yea paladins will loose on exalted smite/divine sacrifice if they choose to take killer from deepwood stalker. While rangers keep exposing strike.

So another +20% doublestrike for a total of 30% + 20 % = 50 % more than pali

+5 Incorporeality (stacking) (whirlwind) + deflect arrows every 2 sec.

Oh, yes especially this too. For rangers off hand weapons are affected by +1 critical threat range (Advanced Sneak Attack) and +1 critical multiplier (Deflect Arrows) which translates to ~ 26 % dps .

And paladins also get , depending on enhancements, better cleaves without spending feats, best saves in the game, healing amp, smite evil, +6 to con and str, more base hitpoints, etc etc

Your quote for doublestrike is a 30% improvement on the offhand only. Exalted smite has a +2 crit multiplier and +2 crit range, compared to only 1 in exposing strike, and if theyre multiclased they have the choice to take killer if they want - same as any build, you cant have everything and are forced to weigh up the alternatives. And for most ordinary mobs fortification tends to be irrelevant.

If youre going to quote everything you think tempest has you might want to be a bit more balanced rather than forgetting or minimising all the positives of the paladin because you're making your arguments look weak.

[Walking_Ride]

[QUOTE=Walking_Ride;5706506]
Rangers gain mrr/prr through tempest core abilities while retaining evasion and 5% incorp.[/quote

Paladin can still get higher levels of both.



Yup but paladins still have better self healing and a better range of spells. FOM is available on a number of items. And epic healing usually requires giving up a twist - which paladins don't really need to do.



Seriously? I don't see that many high int rangers running around so generally this is of little benefit - not even taking into account the number of enhancement points they effectively waste in Harper to get access to this.



Sneak attack is situational even if youre wearing a deception item, light damage is not.



And paladins also get , depending on enhancements, better cleaves without spending feats, best saves in the game, healing amp, smite evil, +6 to con and str, more base hitpoints, etc etc

Your quote for doublestrike is a 30% improvement on the offhand only. Exalted smite has a +2 crit multiplier and +2 crit range, compared to only 1 in exposing strike, and if theyre multiclased they have the choice to take killer if they want - same as any build, you cant have everything and are forced to weigh up the alternatives. And for most ordinary mobs fortification tends to be irrelevant.

If youre going to quote everything you think tempest has you might want to be a bit more balanced rather than forgetting or minimising all the positives of the paladin because you're making your arguments look weak.

1. Paladin can still get higher levels of both : Wrong, because ranger can splash 3 paladin or 3 fighter level for defender stance.

2. Paladin still have better self healing and blabla loh : Loh is limited and unreliable, rangers get the same healing spells paladins and can yet get loh by splashing paladin.

3. Know the angels instead of divine might for rangers : Yes, i am serious. Only a gimp would pass on know the angels which is easy to get with little investment into int.

4. Sneack attack isn't situational if you are able to constantly render your enemies vulnerable to sneack attacks by using deceptions items which every melee class should have.

Also lets not forget : Exposing Strike: Melee Attack: Performs a melee attack with +2[W], a +4 bonus to-hit, +1 to critical threat range, and +1 to Critical Damage Multiplier. On Damage: The target will become momentarily confused and rendered vulnerable to sneak attacks for four seconds as if affected by the bluff skill. (Cooldown 6 seconds)

Requires: Sneak Attack, Ranger level 6

Also sneack attack scales with 150% melee power which is better than light damage from kotc core abilities.

5.

Paladins get smite evil yet rangers can splash paladin levels for smite evil or/and keep exposing strike.

Paladins get free (not really since it costs ap) and better cleaves but cleaves are worthless on twf builds.

Fortification bypass : 10(Advanced Sneak Attack) + 10 (Mark of the Hunted) + 25%(Mark of the Hunted) = 45% more than paladins.

Doublestrike : Dervish (25%) offhand + 10% offhand (whirlwind) + 5% mainhand (whirlwind) = 40% - 10 % zeal paladin spell = 30% more than paladins.

Oh yea paladins will loose on exalted smite/divine sacrifice if they choose to take killer from deepwood stalker. While rangers keep exposing strike.

So another +20% doublestrike for a total of 30% + 20 % = 50 % more than pali

+5 Incorporeality (stacking) (whirlwind) + deflect arrows every 2 sec.

For rangers off hand weapons are affected by +1 critical threat range (Advanced Sneak Attack) and +1 critical multiplier (Deflect Arrows) which translates to ~ 26 % dps .

Advanced sneack attack and deflect arrows are both available at lvl 12.


Pretty cute how you try to undermine rangers by pretending that paladins are more powerful. Too bad you failed miserabley.

Math is not hard and pretty **** clear here.

[lifestaker]

*snip*
If youre going to quote everything you think tempest has you might want to be a bit more balanced rather than forgetting or minimising all the positives of the paladin because you're making your arguments look weak.

This is the baseline for many arguments with any class.

I think it is best to wait to see if we can get the information from HS live vs lama on the twf (again the variation of hs itself on lama when compared to live server to see the % increase to dps). If people are motivated to get the information, when able to do so, then it would give grounds for the fight. If the gain form it is within reason then the devs might just be okay with it.

Personally I don't care, not because I am not effected by it on characters I care about, but because if the goal was to balance things by gimping many classes, then they are all balanced gimps when compared to their live versions by around 30%. Non-targeted classes being hit by some of these 'balance changes' bringing them 15-45% behind there live versions (Think some bard builds got hit the worse), thus making them behind the targeted builds, resulting in more balancing needed so every build can hit the same dps.

I know my barb got a 35% reduction in dps. Me fighting that is not going to change things, because he is still good dps. In addition to that his healing has been reduced to the point that it no longer keeps him alive without me chugging Silver Flame pots (lowering my dps while I do so).

My warlock got hit with a 30-45% reduction (some due to the potions acting up more on lama then on live) depending on what build I run as. Nothing said about how bad they are against single target dps has been commented on as of yet (I posted the last bit today, so not expecting to get anything said regarding that till Monday, if then, by a dev.) The loss of the MRR also proved to be noticeable and though not deadly on the completed character, was very painful on my gimp.

My test paladin was just under my tempest and barb. If that is showing a 30% reduction then seems on par for the tests on live where my barb out did my paladin by more then a little bit. I just would like to see how much of that 30% is from HS itself not applying to off hand and not all the other nerfs being in place at the same time.

[CeltEireson]

Pretty cute how you try to undermine rangers by pretending that paladins are more powerful. Too bad you failed miserabley.

Math is not hard and pretty **** clear here.

Oh for goodness sake at least learn to read things properly before you start getting all defensive. Nowhere in that post did I say anything about paladins being more powerful than rangers, certainly not with regards to twf. What I was pointing out is your tendency in every single innumerable post on the subject in this thread and everywhere else as if paladins were now totally useless and gimp - which I don't believe they are. Yes we've seen your posts, how could we possibly miss them all, most of which are nothing more than a variation of 'my character isn't top DPS anymore and it should be".

And if youre going to refute arguments you might at least want to check your facts:

Sneak attack is situational - things are immune to sneak attack and whilst the abilities to reduce fortification may help to some degree, that does mean its still situational.
Lay on hands is based on paladin level - so unless you have a lot of paladin levels its useless. Same applies to Smite evil.
Assuming an int of 30 know the angles provides all of 5 damage per hit - which isn't bad but given that theres a hell of a lot of other abilities in tempest and DWS not entirely sure its worth it. But the loss of 5 damage is hardly going to 'gimp' a character - and is another example of you exaggerating to make your point.
Yes paladins do have better PRR even against a ranger with pally splash - paladins tend to wear heavy armour vs light armour for rangers so at level 28 they get an additional 13-14 PRR from that.

[CeltEireson]

This is the baseline for many arguments with any class.

I think it is best to wait to see if we can get the information from HS live vs lama on the twf (again the variation of hs itself on lama when compared to live server to see the % increase to dps). If people are motivated to get the information, when able to do so, then it would give grounds for the fight. If the gain form it is within reason then the devs might just be okay with it.

Personally I don't care, not because I am not effected by it on characters I care about, but because if the goal was to balance things by gimping many classes, then they are all balanced gimps when compared to their live versions by around 30%. Non-targeted classes being hit by some of these 'balance changes' bringing them 15-45% behind there live versions (Think some bard builds got hit the worse), thus making them behind the targeted builds, resulting in more balancing needed so every build can hit the same dps.

I know my barb got a 35% reduction in dps. Me fighting that is not going to change things, because he is still good dps. In addition to that his healing has been reduced to the point that it no longer keeps him alive without me chugging Silver Flame pots (lowering my dps while I do so).

My warlock got hit with a 30-45% reduction (some due to the potions acting up more on lama then on live) depending on what build I run as. Nothing said about how bad they are against single target dps has been commented on as of yet (I posted the last bit today, so not expecting to get anything said regarding that till Monday, if then, by a dev.) The loss of the MRR also proved to be noticeable and though not deadly on the completed character, was very painful on my gimp.

My test paladin was just under my tempest and barb. If that is showing a 30% reduction then seems on par for the tests on live where my barb out did my paladin by more then a little bit. I just would like to see how much of that 30% is from HS itself not applying to off hand and not all the other nerfs being in place at the same time.

Which is the kind of reasoned and reasonable response I like to see ;) Paladins may well have been nerfed too much and need the holy sword on off hand weapon, the same with other changes like MRR reduction etc and the effect on other classes or builds. As someone else has pointed out I just hope that the devs leave lammania open long enough for decent testing and that those who are against changes test them out and report their findings. Whether the devs agree with their interpretation of those findings is another matter!

[lifestaker]

Pretty cute how you try to undermine rangers by pretending that paladins are more powerful. Too bad you failed miserabley.

Math is not hard and pretty **** clear here.

I can not speak for Celt, but I for one know rangers are better two weapon fighters and should be IMO. They are almost 'specialized' in it. Not very common to see THF rangers, and I can not recall seeing a S&B ranger. Mostly due to them not being specialized in it and not having good enhancements for it. Yes they can get the enhancements from multi-classing, but so can your pally.

A class that specializes in something will normally have multiple enhancements around what they are specialized in. Classes that are less specialized have more general enhancements. The ranger may have ones that are better then the paladin ones, but the ranger has 3 trees dedicated to dps, primarily ranged and TWF focused. The paladin has 1 general dps tree, 1 S&B focused tree, and 1 defensive tree.

I will say though that you put up a huge fight of why rangers are better then paladins. But, you base everything off TWF dps for this argument, when that is just one part of a build. DPS is a deciding vote on many builds, but there are other things as well. I am sorry but IF you only played a build because it was the highest dps build there is then you had to know you would have to redo the character some time to be the highest dps there is.

[HuneyMunster]

Keep in mind that you are not engaged in close combat, when casting spells.

Also need to keep in mind that on live a Paladin takes less than 50% dmg of a caster and at the same time at least twice the saves. Its a question of balance and casters are usually glass cannons and cannot withstand close quarter combat and should be able to deal more than those that can sustain dmg. I was quoting that Chain Lightning doesn't clear a room with one cast which was quoted as usually happening, because if that was the case Holy Retribution clears and entire room before a fighter can reach can reach the target as the death effect seems to proc twice before and after the dmg was taken and so mobs would most probably be under 1k hp and fail the save with decent cha score.

[slarden]

All I have to say about this release is lololololololololol.

You are making thrower builds amazing which will be fun for a release or two until you nerf it. Not sure how you can't do quick math on the numbers and understand that yourself.

I still want to know if you are going to allow a twf paladin to exchange their thunderforged single-handed weapon for a great axe or great sword. I don't hold my breath that you care about the lost progress or player time spent, but I will keep bringing it up until I leave the game or it's addressed somehow. You've said nothing about free respecs and thunderforged exchange. I am not holding my breath, but it only reinforces that you don't understand the players well.

I am not about to spend any time documenting dps, but I am astounded you can't do that with any reasonableness yourself and expect players to do that for you. In fact, I think you will just believe any BS thrown your way if it has a pretty chart.

You should have just adjusted warlock dps down about 5% instead of 15-17% and you still haven't addressed the real and only issue - HEROICS - not level 28 running high level EEs. You found a way to make your beloved soul eater tree the top dog - gratz - killing build diversity in the process.

My confidence in the dev team and Turbine is at an all-time low, and I've been called a fan-boi before.

My best guess for player attrition between now and Februrary: about 15% downward - not due to the changes, but rather the way it's being handled and your lack of concern about player time/progress loss.

[slarden]

[QUOTE=CeltEireson;5706564]

1. Paladin can still get higher levels of both : Wrong, because ranger can splash 3 paladin or 3 fighter level for defender stance.

2. Paladin still have better self healing and blabla loh : Loh is limited and unreliable, rangers get the same healing spells paladins and can yet get loh by splashing paladin.

3. Know the angels instead of divine might for rangers : Yes, i am serious. Only a gimp would pass on know the angels which is easy to get with little investment into int.

4. Sneack attack isn't situational if you are able to constantly render your enemies vulnerable to sneack attacks by using deceptions items which every melee class should have.

Also lets not forget : Exposing Strike: Melee Attack: Performs a melee attack with +2[W], a +4 bonus to-hit, +1 to critical threat range, and +1 to Critical Damage Multiplier. On Damage: The target will become momentarily confused and rendered vulnerable to sneak attacks for four seconds as if affected by the bluff skill. (Cooldown 6 seconds)

Requires: Sneak Attack, Ranger level 6

Also sneack attack scales with 150% melee power which is better than light damage from kotc core abilities.

5.

Paladins get smite evil yet rangers can splash paladin levels for smite evil or/and keep exposing strike.

Paladins get free (not really since it costs ap) and better cleaves but cleaves are worthless on twf builds.

Fortification bypass : 10(Advanced Sneak Attack) + 10 (Mark of the Hunted) + 25%(Mark of the Hunted) = 45% more than paladins.

Doublestrike : Dervish (25%) offhand + 10% offhand (whirlwind) + 5% mainhand (whirlwind) = 40% - 10 % zeal paladin spell = 30% more than paladins.

Oh yea paladins will loose on exalted smite/divine sacrifice if they choose to take killer from deepwood stalker. While rangers keep exposing strike.

So another +20% doublestrike for a total of 30% + 20 % = 50 % more than pali

+5 Incorporeality (stacking) (whirlwind) + deflect arrows every 2 sec.

For rangers off hand weapons are affected by +1 critical threat range (Advanced Sneak Attack) and +1 critical multiplier (Deflect Arrows) which translates to ~ 26 % dps .

Advanced sneack attack and deflect arrows are both available at lvl 12.


Pretty cute how you try to undermine rangers by pretending that paladins are more powerful. Too bad you failed miserabley.

Math is not hard and pretty **** clear here.

I am playing a pure 20 tempest and a 15 Paladin / 5 Ranger. A paladin can take both divine might and know the angles and still have enough points for defense stance and dance with death. This is because holy sword and zeal are auto-granted.

I do not agree with what they are doing here at all. Although I agree 20 tempest probably has better dps, I hardly notice the dps difference at all between the two. Both can solo the new chain on EE with relative ease. Where I do notice the difference is defenses. Paladin will have much better PRR, shadow guardian and of course fabulous saves. A strength based ranger has to invest to get a workable reflex save, but evasion isn't what it used to be. My paladin saves are really good with no investment at all.

I would think someone with all the past lifes would probably prefer 20 tempest, but most would do better with 15 paladin / 5 ranger as it stands today. After the nerf, paladin twf is dead. Gear investment is wasted, etc.

I am not disagreeing with your frustration with the change - but I do think paladin twf are solid which is why people are so frustrated it is going away. If ranger was better people would just switch to ranger but people don't want to give up the defenses and saves.

[sjbb87]

I am not disagreeing with your frustration with the change - but I do think paladin twf are solid which is why people are so frustrated it is going away. If ranger was better people would just switch to ranger but people don't want to give up the defenses and saves.

This...
Ranger melee dps >Paladin DPS
Ranger ranged DPS>Paladin Ranged DPS
Paladin Saves > Ranger saves
Paladin > AC > Ranger AC
Paladin PRR > Ranger PRR
Paladin HP>Ranger HP


If you If anyone really think the dps Paladin must be matched to the ranger should review your points.
If you want to talk about evasion ...
Just get 2 or rogue or monk levels

[jakeelala]

All I have to say about this release is lololololololololol.

You are making thrower builds amazing which will be fun for a release or two until you nerf it. Not sure how you can't do quick math on the numbers and understand that yourself.

I still want to know if you are going to allow a twf paladin to exchange their thunderforged single-handed weapon for a great axe or great sword. I don't hold my breath that you care about the lost progress or player time spent, but I will keep bringing it up until I leave the game or it's addressed somehow. You've said nothing about free respecs and thunderforged exchange. I am not holding my breath, but it only reinforces that you don't understand the players well.

I am not about to spend any time documenting dps, but I am astounded you can't do that with any reasonableness yourself and expect players to do that for you. In fact, I think you will just believe any BS thrown your way if it has a pretty chart.

You should have just adjusted warlock dps down about 5% instead of 15-17% and you still haven't addressed the real and only issue - HEROICS - not level 28 running high level EEs. You found a way to make your beloved soul eater tree the top dog - gratz - killing build diversity in the process.

My confidence in the dev team and Turbine is at an all-time low, and I've been called a fan-boi before.

My best guess for player attrition between now and Februrary: about 15% downward - not due to the changes, but rather the way it's being handled and your lack of concern about player time/progress loss.

Pure 20 Monk throwers are getting a slight buff from having more doubleshot between 10k's. While its a buff for throwers, they have been behind repeaters with bugged doubleshot for some time. The fix for repeaters and doubleshot plus the buff to 10k will make 20 Monk throwers (and only those builds largely) pretty much on par with Mechanics using xbows.

[GroundhogDay]

If you want to talk about evasion ... Just get 2 or rogue or monk levels

This is the most useless comment i've heard do far, yeah, why not? let's make all builds the same. since we're heading down that road why don't we forget about prr/mrr entirely and get back to pre amor up when you HAD to have evasion or you're a gimp?

People arguing about pally's dps being too high are funny because they are perfectly ok with casters doing 5 figures dmg.


Not to be biased but every build saw a reduction in dps on lama (my barb is reduced by around 35% by itself) .

Really? cause my barb hits for 4k dmg on lama, you know, as opposed to my paladin (1.4, 1.5 k dmg reduced to 800, 900 dmg)

are you people testing thing or are you running around wide eyed with a yes sir on your lips?


Seriously? I don't see that many high int rangers running around

Funny again, in the last days, while my friends are pushing for me not to quit the game, i've been tinkering with a very obnoxious build, some kind of "do everything by yourself and zerg, zerg, zerg" build, and 18rgr/1rog/1ftr int based elven aa-hrpr was exactly my first choice.

[patang01]

Barb / TWF with Warhammers in LD / 93 - 145
Ranger / tempest with Warhammer in LD / 100 - 167
Pally / TWF with Warhammers in LD / 105 - 186

Bard / SFW with handaxe / 105 - Not tested due to lama down

Rogue(2 levels of arti) / repeater build / 245 - 354
Rogue(2 levels of arti) / great Xbow / 232 - 313

*Warlock / aura build w/ gsfw warhammer in EA / 242 - 518
*Warlock / SE wave build w/ Consume and Stricken/ 327 - 487
*Warlock/ Cone build W/ Consume and stricken/ 325 - 460


I had similar numbers using my Warlock. Below 200 for a good melee, 300-400+ with Warlock. I have no idea why they keep lowering the output on the Warlock. It's getting more and more tedious to play. If it's to balance heroic it's pure fail. Anything can beat heroic. I don't get it. I wonder who's giving them the advice to keep nerfing the Warlock.

[Walking_Ride]

This...
Ranger melee dps >Paladin DPS
Ranger ranged DPS>Paladin Ranged DPS
Paladin Saves > Ranger saves
Paladin > AC > Ranger AC
Paladin PRR > Ranger PRR
Paladin HP>Ranger HP


If you If anyone really think the dps Paladin must be matched to the ranger should review your points.
If you want to talk about evasion ...
Just get 2 or rogue or monk levels

This is the most useless comment from someone who is desperately trying to make rangers seem less op.

I sorry to disappoint you, but paladins do not have better defense and survivability than rangers. And her is why.


Ranger melee dps >Paladin DPS :
This is obviously true.
--->Whirlwind: +5% Melee Doublestrike when dual wielding, +5 Incorporeality (stacking), +10% stacking chance to make off-hand attacks when dual wielding.
--->Dervish: +4 Dexterity. +25% chance to doublestrike with your off-hand while dual wielding. While wearing light or no armor: +10 Melee Power, Physical Resistance Rating, and Magical Resistance Rating.
--->Deflect Arrows: ... +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier while dual wielding weapons.Requires: Graceful Death, Ranger level 12
--->Advanced Sneak Attack: ...You gain a +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Threat Range with your equipped weapons. (This does not apply to Shields or Unarmed)...Requires: Called Shot, Ranger level 12

Ranger ranged DPS>Paladin Ranged DPS :
This is also obviously true.

Ranger fortification bypass>Paladin fortification bypass :
This is also true.
--->Advanced Sneak Attack: ...Your attacks now bypass 10% fortification.
--->Mark of the Hunted: Activate: Expend a use of Animal Empathy. Your currently selected enemy receives -25% Fortification, -10 Armor Class, -10 Spell Resistance, and suffers a -4 penalty to all ability scores for 3 minutes. This effect also works on bosses and Raid bosses.
Passive: Your attacks bypass an additional 10% Fortification. You also gain +2 Damage when attacking Favored Enemies.

Paladin Saves = Ranger saves :
Rangers can splash paladin levels for saves because they only require 12 ranger levels to get the following
--->Deflect Arrows: ... +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier while dual wielding weapons.Requires: Graceful Death, Ranger level 12
--->Advanced Sneak Attack: ...You gain a +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Threat Range with your equipped weapons. (This does not apply to Shields or Unarmed)...Requires: Called Shot, Ranger level 12

Paladin = AC = Ranger AC :
Who the heck cares about ac ? But here as well you can splash for sacred defender/stalwart defender to pull off more ac.

Paladin PRR = Ranger PRR :
Wrong again. Rangers can splash 3 paladin levels/3 fighter levels for sacred defender while keeping the above things.

-->Sacred Defence: Defensive Combat Stance:
+10 Physical and Magical Resistance
+50% bonus to threat generation
Cannot become raged while Sacred Defence is active
Requires: Holy Bastion, Paladin Level 3

-->Stalwart Defense: Defensive Stance: You gain 10 Physical and Magical Resistance and a 50% bonus to melee threat generation. Cannot be used while Raged. (Cooldown: 6 seconds) Requires: Fighter Level 3, Toughness

Paladin HP>Ranger HP :
Wrong too. Rangers can splash 3 paladin/3 fighter levels for the following while keeping the above effects.
...Tenacious Defense: While wearing medium armor, heavy armor, or wielding a shield and in Stalwart Defense, you gain a +10%/+15%/+20% Competence bonus to maximum hit points. Requires Paladin level 3

Rangers also get deflect arrows at lvl 12 without being a monk and with the enhancement :

Improved Defense: Your Shield of Whirling Steel Grants +1/2/3 additional Armor Class, Physical Resistance, and Magical Resistance. If you possess Deflect Arrows it can trigger once every 4/3/2 seconds. They can deflect arrows every 2 sec.

Rangers also have 5% Incorporeality (stacking) through the tempest core ability Whirlwind.

Plus they already get a lot prr/mrr through their core abilities and capstone dervish as noted above while retaining evasion. They don't even have to splash.

Can you people stop saying that paladin have better defenser and survivability ?

First we live in 2015.
secoundly this is a lie as noted above.

[CeltEireson]

Paladin PRR = Ranger PRR :
Wrong again. Rangers can splash 3 paladin levels/3 fighter levels for sacred defender while keeping the above things.
Paladin HP>Ranger HP :
Wrong too. Rangers can splash 3 paladin/3 fighter levels for the following while keeping the above effects.
...Tenacious Defense: While wearing medium armor, heavy armor, or wielding a shield and in Stalwart Defense, you gain a +10%/+15%/+20% Competence bonus to maximum hit points. Requires Paladin level 3


At least be consistent in your approach - if a ranger takes 3 levels of paladin they do get some benefits, but as usual you forget to point out that in doing so they lose the capstone and the level 18 core of tempest - which includes that 5% incorporeality, 10 MRR/PRR, 5% doublestrike, 10% offhand chance, and 25% offhand doublestrike that you've been complaining about. So fancy that - in order to have better marginal extra survivability rangers would have to give up something. Aside from the fact that why would a ranger use heavy armour when doing so would lose them a lot of benefits as many of the tempest/DWS enhancements only work in light armour.

If you want to argue that removal of holy sword from offhand reduces paladins DPS too much that's fine, you may actually have a point. But the rest of your arguments are frankly over the top and not at all well though through.

[Walking_Ride]

At least be consistent in your approach - if a ranger takes 3 levels of paladin they do get some benefits, but as usual you forget to point out that in doing so they lose the capstone and the level 18 core of tempest - which includes that 5% incorporeality, 10 MRR/PRR, 5% doublestrike, 10% offhand chance, and 25% offhand doublestrike that you've been complaining about. So fancy that - in order to have better marginal extra survivability rangers would have to give up something. Aside from the fact that why would a ranger use heavy armour when doing so would lose them a lot of benefits as many of the tempest/DWS enhancements only work in light armour.

If you want to argue that removal of holy sword from offhand reduces paladins DPS too much that's fine, you may actually have a point. But the rest of your arguments are frankly over the top and not at all well though through.

Dudde, it doesn't matter what they splash. Rangers get to keep their +1 threat range and +1 multiplier working with both weapons at lvl 12.

And why would they even splash ? They get enough prr/mrr while retaining evasion and other things you listed. They also got self healing through spells and destiny.

If you can't handle ee even with that, then the problem exists between the keyboard and chair.

[CeltEireson]

Funny again, in the last days, while my friends are pushing for me not to quit the game, i've been tinkering with a very obnoxious build, some kind of "do everything by yourself and zerg, zerg, zerg" build, and 18rgr/1rog/1ftr int based elven aa-hrpr was exactly my first choice.

Actually was considering a very traditional PNP mix - fighter/wizard/rogue elven AA and Harper. Ranger levels might be better for it, but its more a nostalgia thing from my 2nd edition days.

[CeltEireson]

Dudde, it doesn't matter what they splash. Rangers get to keep their +1 threat range and +1 multiplier working with both weapons at lvl 12.

And why would they even splash ? They get enough prr/mrr while retaining evasion and other things you listed. They also got self healing through spells and destiny.

If you can't handle ee even with that, then the problem exists between the keyboard and chair.

You're the one that keeps bringing up the splash levels of paladin as an argument, not me, you do realise that? Possibly you might want to go back and read some of your previous posts!

[GeoffWatson]

Pure 20 Monk throwers are getting a slight buff from having more doubleshot between 10k's. While its a buff for throwers, they have been behind repeaters with bugged doubleshot for some time. The fix for repeaters and doubleshot plus the buff to 10k will make 20 Monk throwers (and only those builds largely) pretty much on par with Mechanics using xbows.

The Critical changes will reduce pure Monk thrower DPS a lot, as Ninja Master bonuses aren't doubled. Xbows don't lose as much from the critical changes.

[lifestaker]

*snip*

Really? cause my barb hits for 4k dmg on lama, you know, as opposed to my paladin (1.4, 1.5 k dmg reduced to 800, 900 dmg)

are you people testing thing or are you running around wide eyed with a yes sir on your lips?
*snip*

Okay you would be the first person ever to make me out to be a yes man. I ran all my builds on lama, testing things repeatedly to get figures, tweaked things to test variations from what I was running, and then built a build I think would be good in theory. Did you read much of this thread (it is only 4 pages long, my test results on page 3 to save you a bit of work.)

Now I must ask, your numbers there of 4k and the 8-900, Are they your DPS numbers or just random numbers you saw while hitting something? I do not mean to sound rude in asking but if you are saying those as your dps numbers (125 seconds and 589 second kill times on boss test kobald) then you are missing something on your paladin to begin with and your barb falling between my completed character and my gimp so would be on par for my figures.

*edited out for, as celt pointed out, is not needed in this thread*

[lifestaker]

Dudde, it doesn't matter what they splash. Rangers get to keep their +1 threat range and +1 multiplier working with both weapons at lvl 12.


So rangers getting these enhancements last minute so that they were on par with all other updated classes is now what is making them overpowered?

If taking 12 ranger is the new 14 paladin then is that not better? Just redo the character as 12 ranger, unless there are things keeping you paladin....

Feel free to provide some feedback regarding the tests you have done on your build on live and see how they hold up on lama when/if it reopens. But it is hard to do with it down and being on a weekend forum account.

[CeltEireson]

And with that I'll stop this discussion - its getting pointless and this thread is about actual experience on Lammania not theoretical discussions.

[Walking_Ride]

And with that I'll stop this discussion - its getting pointless and this thread is about actual experience on Lammania not theoretical discussions.

The developers don't care eitherway.

[Walking_Ride]

So rangers getting these enhancements last minute so that they were on par with all other updated classes is now what is making them overpowered?

If taking 12 ranger is the new 14 paladin then is that not better? Just redo the character as 12 ranger, unless there are things keeping you paladin....

Yep, great solution. Being forced into another class because of dumb changes.

[Qhualor]

Yep, great solution. Being forced into another class because of dumb changes.

its hilarious when I read "forced into playing another class" because of changes to the game. if you min/max for what you believe to be top build than you have to expect that some other build will eventually be the top build. I see these complaints every single update for years. just like many people in these threads, people seem to not grasp that these balance changes affect every melee build in some form.

[Walking_Ride]

its hilarious when I read "forced into playing another class" because of changes to the game. if you min/max for what you believe to be top build than you have to expect that some other build will eventually be the top build. I see these complaints every single update for years. just like many people in these threads, people seem to not grasp that these balance changes affect every melee build in some form.

Look.

I have wasted a lot of time and efforts into this build, especially money and what not to get the gear and all the other things like thunderforged weapons and toee sets.

Not happy how they tell me to **** off and play something else instead.

[Qhualor]

Look.

I have wasted a lot of time and efforts into this build, especially money and what not to get the gear and all the other things like thunderforged weapons and toee sets.

Not happy how they tell me to **** off and play something else instead.

its only wasted because you want to play whatever you perceive to be the next top build. that has been a never ending cycle for years, so nothing new there. who hasn't spend time and/or money on their builds? there will not be special snowflakes that dont get affected by this balance pass.

[Walking_Ride]

its only wasted because you want to play whatever you perceive to be the next top build. that has been a never ending cycle for years, so nothing new there. who hasn't spend time and/or money on their builds? there will not be special snowflakes that dont get affected by this balance pass.

You can say that because your barbarian will be the least nerfed by these changes dps wise. As usual.

[Qhualor]

You can say that because your barbarian will be the least nerfed by these changes dps wise. As usual.

all of these changes affect my barb. like I said, no special snowflakes in this pass.


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

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

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

Sev~

[IronClan]

scissorhands

LOL perfect name for that animation, that is all...

[Walking_Ride]

all of these changes affect my barb. like I said, no special snowflakes in this pass.

Read again.

I said *least nerfed*. Paladins are not only affected by these changes, they also loose holy sword on off hand weapons. Barbarian crit rage works on both weapons.

Apparently everyone is a special snowflake, except of paladins. Seems ****ing legit.

[Henky]

Paladin/ S&B vanguard / 173 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705192&viewfull=1#post5705192)
Paladin/ S&B vanguard (regear from one above) / 166 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705466&viewfull=1#post5705466)
Paladin (5 levels ranger) / TWF / 130-150 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466542-LAMANNIA-FEEDBACK-Balance-Pass?p=5705727&viewfull=1#post5705727)
I TR'ed my Vanguard Paladin into a TWF Pure paladin build in KoTC and managed to take down the Kobold Boss in 129 seconds, legendary dreadnought with master blitz and haste boost + damage boost always active, starting the beatdown with 5 charges of Blitz. Same Gear as paladin Vanguard, except for the shield ofc, equiped a second thunderforged khopesh.

Even if TWF paladin are nerfed, is a no brainer that vanguards are nerfed too much. Defenses aren't the same, dps now is really bad, no point in being Vanguard now. I guess I will TR my vanguard into something when I get my Fellblade from Defiler.

And warlocks... even if my plan is to go back to being a pale master when the casting pass is done, Warlocks offensive damage is really low now. If you are that worried about heroic damage, the solution it's easy. Upgrade the damage through epic feats. Just a single +2D6 damage is not enough, change the scaling spell power on both epic feats.

[IronClan]

A 1.4k crit is about the same size as a crit from Chain Lightning with 5-600 spell power. Chain Lightning will not clear an entire room in Dont Drink the Water on EE with one cast and unlikely with 2 casts.

Don't recall the HP's in their but most EE trash mobs have from 6000 to 9000hps clearing a room of them 700-1400 damage per cast is not exactly going to get you into achievement thread speed run contention.

Um not to mention that IF you crit for 1400 with a 3 second cooldown that's 466 damage per second, and it only cost you 65 spell points. With universal spell casting cooldown of 1 second, Lets see 65 spell points per second from say a 3000 spell point pool = 46 seconds of sustained DPS

Of course you're probably going to cast something else instead of waiting 3 seconds, and you're not going to crit but half the time at best, and there's a 1 second universal spell cooldown again, so we're talking about maybe casting heroic damage spells once per second averaging 800 or 900 damage in an AOE per cast... DPS is defendant on how many mobs are alive and in your AOE when you cast on each time with party members killing some of them inevitably your DPS and efficiency of SP per damage goes down massively... Suffice to say not great DPS by any means.

[IronClan]

I TR'ed my Vanguard Paladin into a TWF Pure paladin build in KoTC and managed to take down the Kobold Boss in 129 seconds, legendary dreadnought with master blitz and haste boost + damage boost always active, starting the beatdown with 5 charges of Blitz. Same Gear as paladin Vanguard, except for the shield ofc, equiped a second thunderforged khopesh.

Even if TWF paladin are nerfed, is a no brainer that vanguards are nerfed too much. Defenses aren't the same, dps now is really bad, no point in being Vanguard now. I guess I will TR my vanguard into something when I get my Fellblade from Defiler.

And warlocks... even if my plan is to go back to being a pale master when the casting pass is done, Warlocks offensive damage is really low now. If you are that worried about heroic damage, the solution it's easy. Upgrade the damage through epic feats. Just a single +2D6 damage is not enough, change the scaling spell power on both epic feats.


Vanguard just plays too slow with these changes and no where remotely enough mitigation to compensate for the DPS loss of equipping a shield.

Vanguard is losing double the MRR lost off heavy Armor... solution? Increase the MRR a shield gives by exactly what armor loses.

Vanguard feels the off hand HS nerf really hard... IC didn't work on shields so the only way to improve the very occasional shield crits was to improve the profile with HS. Solution: allow HS to work on shields.

I hope Sev is listening my Sub is in the balance, I wont pretend I matter to them, but I'm quite sure I'm not the only one that will stop monetarily supporting the game over these clunky ill considered and uneven changes. Vanguard wasn't OP but it is being nerfed harder than any melee in this debacle even TWF Paladin doesn't lose as much... Story of DDO: nerfing the weak play styles with collateral damage in an attempt to balance the powerful ones.

[Walking_Ride]

Vanguard just plays too slow with these changes and no where remotely enough mitigation to compensate for the DPS loss of equipping a shield.

Vanguard is losing double the MRR lost off heavy Armor... solution? Increase the MRR a shield gives by exactly what armor loses.

Vanguard feels the off hand nerf really hard... IC didn't work on shields so the only way to improve the very occasional shield crits was to improve the profile with HS. Solution: allow HS to work on shields.

I hope Sev is listening my Sub is in the balance, I wont pretend I matter to them, but I'm quite sure I'm not the only one that will stop monetarily supporting the game over these clunky ill considered and uneven changes. Vanguard wasn't OP but it is being nerfed harder than any melee in this debacle even TWF Paladin doesn't lose as much... Story of DDO: nerfing the weak plystyles in an attempt to balance the powerful ones. The last time they did this same basic thing nerfing S&B Paladins when they were already gimpy flavor choices I left for a year.

This. But don't leave out twf please. I feel the nerf pretty had on lammania when killing stuff. Was getting very slowly on my twf pali compared to live.

[Xaxx]

This is the most useless comment from someone who is desperately trying to make rangers seem less op.

I sorry to disappoint you, but paladins do not have better defense and survivability than rangers. And her is why.


Ranger melee dps >Paladin DPS :
This is obviously true.
--->Whirlwind: +5% Melee Doublestrike when dual wielding, +5 Incorporeality (stacking), +10% stacking chance to make off-hand attacks when dual wielding.
--->Dervish: +4 Dexterity. +25% chance to doublestrike with your off-hand while dual wielding. While wearing light or no armor: +10 Melee Power, Physical Resistance Rating, and Magical Resistance Rating.
--->Deflect Arrows: ... +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier while dual wielding weapons.Requires: Graceful Death, Ranger level 12
--->Advanced Sneak Attack: ...You gain a +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Threat Range with your equipped weapons. (This does not apply to Shields or Unarmed)...Requires: Called Shot, Ranger level 12

Ranger ranged DPS>Paladin Ranged DPS :
This is also obviously true.

Ranger fortification bypass>Paladin fortification bypass :
This is also true.
--->Advanced Sneak Attack: ...Your attacks now bypass 10% fortification.
--->Mark of the Hunted: Activate: Expend a use of Animal Empathy. Your currently selected enemy receives -25% Fortification, -10 Armor Class, -10 Spell Resistance, and suffers a -4 penalty to all ability scores for 3 minutes. This effect also works on bosses and Raid bosses.
Passive: Your attacks bypass an additional 10% Fortification. You also gain +2 Damage when attacking Favored Enemies.

Paladin Saves = Ranger saves :
Rangers can splash paladin levels for saves because they only require 12 ranger levels to get the following
--->Deflect Arrows: ... +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier while dual wielding weapons.Requires: Graceful Death, Ranger level 12
--->Advanced Sneak Attack: ...You gain a +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Threat Range with your equipped weapons. (This does not apply to Shields or Unarmed)...Requires: Called Shot, Ranger level 12

Paladin = AC = Ranger AC :
Who the heck cares about ac ? But here as well you can splash for sacred defender/stalwart defender to pull off more ac.

Paladin PRR = Ranger PRR :
Wrong again. Rangers can splash 3 paladin levels/3 fighter levels for sacred defender while keeping the above things.

-->Sacred Defence: Defensive Combat Stance:
+10 Physical and Magical Resistance
+50% bonus to threat generation
Cannot become raged while Sacred Defence is active
Requires: Holy Bastion, Paladin Level 3

-->Stalwart Defense: Defensive Stance: You gain 10 Physical and Magical Resistance and a 50% bonus to melee threat generation. Cannot be used while Raged. (Cooldown: 6 seconds) Requires: Fighter Level 3, Toughness

Paladin HP>Ranger HP :
Wrong too. Rangers can splash 3 paladin/3 fighter levels for the following while keeping the above effects.
...Tenacious Defense: While wearing medium armor, heavy armor, or wielding a shield and in Stalwart Defense, you gain a +10%/+15%/+20% Competence bonus to maximum hit points. Requires Paladin level 3

Rangers also get deflect arrows at lvl 12 without being a monk and with the enhancement :

Improved Defense: Your Shield of Whirling Steel Grants +1/2/3 additional Armor Class, Physical Resistance, and Magical Resistance. If you possess Deflect Arrows it can trigger once every 4/3/2 seconds. They can deflect arrows every 2 sec.

Rangers also have 5% Incorporeality (stacking) through the tempest core ability Whirlwind.

Plus they already get a lot prr/mrr through their core abilities and capstone dervish as noted above while retaining evasion. They don't even have to splash.

Can you people stop saying that paladin have better defenser and survivability ?

First we live in 2015.
secoundly this is a lie as noted above.


Ok looking through this stuff and while i find the entire knee jerk reaction of turbine and the saying the baseline is the swashbuckler and then nerfing it and evasion prr now back to evasion yada yada... alot of thats just typical turbine as in no idea how to actually balance their own game after a decade.. i keep seeing this guy pop up with pally versus ranger... and well... time to chime in on this one hes so annoying...

Ok so lets get this strait your arguments involve 25% off hand double strike as a major thing and the 5% double strike from 18/20 cores of tempest... you keep on about that in every post with double strike...

then when people point out the defense and hp of paladins you go on about oh the ranger can splash 2 or 3 fighter or paladin levels to get defender stance and saves....

So let me get this right... your argumented ranger has

18/20 ranger cores 41 ap min
3 levels of paladin for saves and most of defender stance 23 ap if you go 2 our of the 3 big ones (20% hp 6 con 6 str)
he has killer and the other cores 23 ap min
he also has int to damage which is umm what 6ap min more likely 8

so your ranger has 23 levels and 93 ap minimum..... wow that is ONE HECK OF A CHARACTER....

and sorry dude but you cant get out of this one because this is WHAT YOUVE ARGUED A RANGER HAS TO COMPARE AGAINST YOUR PALADIN

other people have already pointed out the other faults in your logic in light damage versus sneak attack (light always sneak only on you know sneak attacks) more self healing more defense more hp more healing amp etc....

i wont even get into how twf works and the 35% off hand double strike and 5% double strike versus the pally 10%... suffice to say IT IS NOT A 30% DIFFERENCE IF YOU DO ANY KIND OF MATH.... and +1 on the crits being 26 or 30% of your sustained dps from the off hand weapon... loosing 10% of crits (assuming the loss of holy sword and its double affect) on one weapon could be 30% of dps but it isnt possible for it to be a 30% loss of dps on two weapons... now holy sword and improved crit change together on both weapons yes... but the improved crit change is going to account for the vast majority of that on your front hand weapon on a paladin.

you go on and on about ranger critical enhancements

Deflect Arrows: You gain the benefits of the Deflect Arrows feat while dual wielding, knocking aside one incoming projectile that would have struck you every 6 seconds. +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier while dual wielding weapons.

you missed the part in bold for this one.... this ONLY affects two weapons.... not one... dont get this swf... or thf... or sword and board... holy sword... oh wait you get that for front hand of twf or swf or thf or the sword of a sword and board under the new ****....

I DO NOT AGREE WITH THE HOLY SWORD CHANGE let me be strait up about that I think its dumb change... but I am tired of seeing this guy spout **** that only comes from his one side of everything where it seems if paladins arent god nothing should be useful....

So by all means rail about this if you want.... but do it with INFORMATION THAT IS USEFUL AND TRUE NOT WITH NUMBERS PULLED OUT OF A WELL LUBED DONKEYS REAR END OR MADE UP BUILDS THAT CANT POSSIBLY EXISTS... its people like you who give people like me who like to be able to complain about things a bad name.

[mikarddo]

Its really a shame that Lama isnt up during the weekend. It means no testing and no meaningful new posts in thread. Only some bickering that is not based on actual tests as requested.

Why of why did you take Lama down during the weekend?!?

[slarden]

Pure 20 Monk throwers are getting a slight buff from having more doubleshot between 10k's. While its a buff for throwers, they have been behind repeaters with bugged doubleshot for some time. The fix for repeaters and doubleshot plus the buff to 10k will make 20 Monk throwers (and only those builds largely) pretty much on par with Mechanics using xbows.

My thrower build is better but it's not a main character so I don't have optimal gear or any significant # of past lifes.

[mole7777]

Oh for goodness sake at least learn to read things properly before you start getting all defensive. Nowhere in that post did I say anything about paladins being more powerful than rangers, certainly not with regards to twf.
Yes paladins do have better PRR even against a ranger with pally splash - paladins tend to wear heavy armour vs light armour for rangers so at level 28 they get an additional 13-14 PRR from that.

I doubt the better PRR will make up for the 5% corp and the big difference in dodge, not forgetting the ranger will have the same MRR but will have evasion on top. These changes devalue armour too much and are a step back to the bad old days.

Both classes are melee both need to get in the thick of the action.

These changes effect different classes and builds by different amounts. This seems rather a strange thing to do given you have just spent months 'balancing' some of the classes, now you have to start all over again. I presume they must think these changes are badly needed.

[ghtzxc]

Total gain for rangers compared to paladins :

Fortification bypass : 10(Advanced Sneak Attack) + 10 (Mark of the Hunted) + 25%(Mark of the Hunted) = 45% more than paladins.

Doublestrike : Dervish (25%) offhand + 10% offhand (whirlwind) + 5% mainhand (whirlwind) = 40% - 10 % zeal paladin spell = 30% more than paladins.

Oh yea paladins will loose on exalted smite/divine sacrifice if they choose to take killer from deepwood stalker. While rangers keep exposing strike.

So another +20% doublestrike for a total of 30% + 20 % = 50 % more than pali

+5 Incorporeality (stacking) (whirlwind) + deflect arrows every 2 sec.

Oh, yes especially this too. For rangers off hand weapons are affected by +1 critical threat range and +1 critical multiplier which translates to ~ 26 % dps .

...

Just some informative numbers. If that helps.

"Fortification Bypass"

True yes, but I don't see how the balance update nerfs or affects this other than empowering those with less fortification bypass (paladins) slightly due to the less crits everyone will be getting post-balance.

"Double Strike"

Right again, but none of this is changed by the balance update. (Technically, Whirlwind gives +10% offhand proc chance, not +10% offhand doublestrike, though effectively I see your point.) It's still not any different post-balance update though.

"Oh yea paladins will loose on exalted smite/divine sacrifice if they choose to take killer from deepwood stalker. While rangers keep exposing strike."

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Killer is a t4 enhancement from DWS and so if you're talking about multiclassing I don't see why you couldn't get both Exalted Smite + Divine Sacrifice as well as Killer. If you were a multiclass with 6 ranger you could get Exposing Strike as well. Since we were talking about capstones earlier, how about we stick with the pure class for discussion's sake?

"+5 Incorporeality (stacking) (whirlwind) + deflect arrows every 2 sec"

These are both available already and not affected directly by the balance update either.

"For rangers off hand weapons are affected by +1 critical threat range and +1 critical multiplier which translates to ~ 26 % dps"

While I might agree that HS nerf to not affect the offhand might be excessive, I find it hard to believe that over a quarter of your DPS comes from a +1 critical multiplier and +1 critical threat range from roughly half your attacks due to it being only on your offhand. (Actually even less that half since double strike applies to main hand and sources of *offhand* double strike are significantly rarer for paladins (only 10% from Perfect TWF)).

Perhaps we could have a look at how you calculated that +1 crit multiplier threat on just the offhand is responsible for 26% of your dps? I'm getting more like ~9.5% TOTAL dps loss from the IC nerf and the HS offhand nerf, with the IC nerf being responsible for about ~6.5% of that dps loss and the +1 crit range and multiplier on the offhand only responsible for ~3% of that dps loss. This is in LD. 3% is no where near 26%.

It seems more like you're just comparing paladins vs rangers in general and I certainly don't have a problem with it but I really do think you'll be happier with paladin if you took a more comprehensive and apples-to-apples comparison. You're highlighting many advantages of ranger such as double strike but I think it's unfair to leave out the advantages of paladin when you're making your DPS conclusions, Divine Sacrifice/Exalted Smite, free Cleaves that are more powerful than the feats, superior healing amplification, and scaling light damage procs.

I'm not sure why you're so fixated on rangers but I think "this other class has this, I want it too" is a rather poor argument given that almost everything you mentioned about rangers vs paladins was not even changed in the Balance Update (the ranger cores you mentioned weren't touched in the release notes). The ONLY thing that nerfs paladins specifically from this update is the holy sword off hand nerf which you claim is 26% of your DPS. Do you have any calculations/tests to back this up?

I appreciate the testing on lammania. However that doesn't show HS on offhand = 26% of DPS. It only shows the difference between Ranger and Paladin dps on the kobolds. You still need to normalize it against paladin dps pre-balance update for it to show the 26% DPS from HS on offhand.

Also, did you do it on the Red Name kobolds? because if not, a slightly increased # of procs or earlier procs would significantly skew the resulting times.
You might want to put in khopesh proficiency too in your feats.

As well, you say ranger can have the same thing as paladin in saves, PRR, AC and HP through splashing.
Therefore ranger's would take a hit in DPS from not getting their capstone and level 18 cores beyond a 2-level splash.

So the correct conclusion is that: yes, rangers can get this too, but by trading off their DPS for it. NOT: rangers can get this too, and they can still maintain the same DPS. No if you splash, then you aren't getting your capstones or lvl 18 cores beyond a 2-lvl splash.

You have to compare the same thing and be consistent. Can't say rangers have all this by splashing and just ignore whatever trade off has to be made because you think twf paladin should be more powerful. I'm not saying your wrong in that respect, just that a fair approach should be taken.

[Spekdah_NZ]

Can we please leave out the Ranger vs Paladin comments, or could a mod just remove the posts, they are polluting the feedback discussion. Especially trying to catch up with a coffee and a sneaky peek at work.
Please please post build summaries with DPS differences on live and lammy land, or bugs, or inconsistencies, you know the useful feedback stuff.

I am not bothered about who has the shinier paint on their Tonka toy.

Keep up the good work :-)

[erdson]

Just a quick post about what I saw in the few minutes I got to test my Arcane Archer Monkcher on Lam before it was shut down Friday night. What I saw from Multishot seemed to be about 3 Arrows worth of damage, as opposed to the 4 she'd currently get. The damage from the 10K stars part of it actually seemed a little bit better, but not as much as Multishot went down. The build has very little doubleshot in it normally so all in all it was a loss. I'm seriously looking at making it a tier 5 DWS build (it always had some DWS, but the tier 5s went to AA) to get the 20% doubleshot continuously rather than the extra occasional slayer arrow damage. Maybe that's considered a good thing that I actually have to look at it closely now.

[Severlin]

Thoughts:

~ Vanguard is currently outperforming Swashbuckler builds and other Paladin builds in both LD and DC according to our tests. It's DPS is fine.

~ Our Tainted Scholar/Souleater builds are doing much more damage than anything reported here for Warlock so I am not sure where the disconnect here is. I'd like to see some more information about the Warlock builds posting these bad DPS numbers because that's not what we are seeing. Our Warlock builds in Shiradi and in Draconic are out performing most melee.

~ Enlightened Spirit is a tank/mitigation tree. If you invest heavily in the tree you won't see top DPS numbers. This is by design.

~ We are retesting Ranger numbers. Some of these times for Rangers look very low so we are rechecking our own numbers before I comment.

~ I will comment on two weapon Paladins after we finish some retesting.

***

Lamannia will likely be back up tonight.

Sev~

[Jetrule]

Thoughts:



~ Our Tainted Scholar/Souleater builds are doing much more damage than anything reported here for Warlock so I am not sure where the disconnect here is. I'd like to see some more information about the Warlock builds posting these bad DPS numbers because that's not what we are seeing. Our Warlock builds in Shiradi and in Draconic are out performing most melee.

~ Enlightened Spirit is a tank/mitigation tree. If you invest heavily in the tree you won't see top DPS numbers. This is by design.

Sev~

Tier 5 enlightened spirit enhancement "spirit blast" is being reported to do less damage than a standard aura shape blast this with empower and maximize turned on, on lamania. I am sure this is not by design if true. Any chance this can be checked?

[lifestaker]

~ Vanguard is currently outperforming Swashbuckler builds and other Paladin builds in both LD and DC according to our tests. It's DPS is fine.

I Do not have a vanguard to test but will see what I can get done later tonight. Can you clarify what build you are doing the testing on? Being if it is pure, and key gear.


~ Our Tainted Scholar/Souleater builds are doing much more damage than anything reported here for Warlock so I am not sure where the disconnect here is. I'd like to see some more information about the Warlock builds posting these bad DPS numbers because that's not what we are seeing. Our Warlock builds in Shiradi and in Draconic are out performing most melee.
I would like to see your warlock build, I have yet to see these outperforming numbers. From my testing SE is better then ES on single target, but still far behind that of the melees I had tested.

Any word on the spell power potion issue I had happen repeatedly? Seemed to happen regularly, so should not be hard to reproduce.


~ Enlightened Spirit is a tank/mitigation tree. If you invest heavily in the tree you won't see top DPS numbers. This is by design.

If it is designed for tanking/mitigation should it not have some form of power applied to weapons? Works fine as a weak splash on some builds I have tested but as a pure warlock tank the numbers are very weak, putting this tree far behind any form of usefulness when the levels of warlock start to dip in order to get more by multi-classing.

If the goal was to be tanking, it's comparable build would be based off what? would like a bit of clearifaction of your expectations of the tree if able to do so.


~ We are retesting Ranger numbers. Some of these times for Rangers look very low so we are rechecking our own numbers before I comment.
My ranger test seemed fair, but as noted was with warhammers (str based ranger), and if I recall the goal was to make a dex based ranger be able to supersede the build I tested.


~ I will comment on two weapon Paladins after we finish some retesting.

Again I ask, if able, to share the builds and figures you get. Seeing what you think is an exceptionable DPS for the build would be appreciated.


Lamannia will likely be back up tonight.

Sev~

Good, may be able to test more myself to see if I can get the figures you think are achievable. Would really like to see this overpowering difference in dps that you seem to think is there for a SE build.

***added in***
Will the effects of HS being on range be active when it comes back up? Was unclear on it prior so did not test ranged paladin build.

[Severlin]

~ We don't necessarily want Dex based Rangers to vastly outperform Strength based Rangers. There should be some choice there.

~ We don't share build and gear specifics because that is a rat hole that will derail threads into build specifics. Our strategy is to have players give us their builds instead, as that is a much more compelling test for us and it also gives us information on how the players are building characters.

In other words I don't mind communicating when there is a DPS test difference, but the solution is to get player builds or even to go as far as to have players PM us character name so we can copy that character and use it.

Sev~

[lifestaker]

~ We don't necessarily want Dex based Rangers to vastly outperform Strength based Rangers. There should be some choice there.

~ We don't share build and gear specifics because that is a rat hole that will derail threads into build specifics. Our strategy is to have players give us their builds instead, as that is a much more compelling test for us and it also gives us information on how the players are building characters.

In other words I don't mind communicating when there is a DPS test difference, but the solution is to get player builds or even to go as far as to have players PM us character name so we can copy that character and use it.

Sev~

Sounds fair...ish. Will try to test my warlock and other builds later, results posted when I have the time.

I would like to test:
THF barb vs paladin
S&B paladin vs comparable tanking build (think fighter would be a bit behind due to needing their pass still)
Warlock tree focused builds (full investment into each tree, nothing into others)
Warlock DPS vs Tanking builds
....(not sure what else but I feel like this may be a long night regardless of being on the game or not so gonna try to fill the time, make suggestions, link builds)


If my builds are pulling low numbers, I will humor the idea that I messed up the build. That said lets see If i can find some of these top build on the forums (If i am humoring the idea that I could have built it wrong, then will build off the 'best' one I can find, or that is linked). Will see if I can see the numbers I failed to see last time.

[DANTEIL]

~ Our Tainted Scholar/Souleater builds are doing much more damage than anything reported here for Warlock so I am not sure where the disconnect here is. I'd like to see some more information about the Warlock builds posting these bad DPS numbers because that's not what we are seeing. Our Warlock builds in Shiradi and in Draconic are out performing most melee.

Caveat, I am not a build-creator or build-tester, so this may be a naive question:

When there is mention of testing Warlock builds in conjunction with specific EDs, does that mean that Warlocks are also being tested in Heroic content, or in Epic without EDs or with other less synergistic EDs? Or is the goal of these tests to try to evaluate the most super powerful build possible to see if those particular builds are 'overpowered', and then allowing any potential nerfs to trickle down from there?

[Severlin]

Caveat, I am not a build-creator or build-tester, so this may be a naive question:

When there is mention of testing Warlock builds in conjunction with specific EDs, does that mean that Warlocks are also being tested in Heroic content, or in Epic without EDs or with other less synergistic EDs? Or is the goal of these tests to try to evaluate the most super powerful build possible to see if those particular builds are 'overpowered', and then allowing any potential nerfs to trickle down from there?

We also test in heroic. It's just that many of the players who number crunch DPS tend to do so in top end builds, so we tend to answer a lot of questions about that area.

Sev~

[Severlin]

Some followup.

We've done some follow up testing and it looks like Two Weapon Paladins are somewhat behind where we want them to be for DPS. They are running equal with Two Handed builds and Vanguard builds, but they are obviously behind the AoE of two handed fighting and the extra mitigation of a shield. We will be adding Holy Sword back to non-shield off hand builds. With the fix to improved critical the DPS difference that provides should put them where we want them for DPS.

Sev~

[Grailhawk]

Some followup.

We've done some follow up testing and it looks like Two Weapon Paladins are somewhat behind where we want them to be for DPS. They are running equal with Two Handed builds and Vanguard builds, but they are obviously behind the AoE of two handed fighting and the extra mitigation of a shield. We will be adding Holy Sword back to non-shield off hand builds. With the fix to improved critical the DPS difference that provides should put them where we want them for DPS.

Sev~

So in general when its comes to TWF v THF v SWF v S&B what are the DPS differences you expect to see.

e.g.
Single Target: TWF +20% of THF, TWF +10% of SWF and TWF +30% of S&B?
AoE: THF +20% of TWF, THF +10% of SWF and THF +10% of S&B?

Just wondering what the ranges are, where are you guys looking to have thing sit relatively speaking?

[slarden]

~ Our Tainted Scholar/Souleater builds are doing much more damage than anything reported here for Warlock so I am not sure where the disconnect here is. I'd like to see some more information about the Warlock builds posting these bad DPS numbers because that's not what we are seeing. Our Warlock builds in Shiradi and in Draconic are out performing most melee.

Sev~

I agree Souleater Tier 5 Tainted Scholar capstone is the best dps build with the changes, but that would be the case even with a more gentle nerf of ES - in fact it was the case now on live. ES Tankiness still isn't approaching paladin levels - most of the ways to make a warlock strong defensively have nothing to do with ES - shield feats and a light tower shield for example. Those are available to all trees.

Remember you already nerfed ES once - this is a 2nd nerf and I've seen no indication that ES was out-dps'ing souleater/tainted scholar before the 2nd nerf. Since the recent changes to Eldritch Wave it's been getting much more use and was already the top burst DPS available to a warlock.

There are big difference between a warlock at 28 and a warlock at heroic levels. I don't see a warlock is going to out dps a paladin, barbarian, tempest at 28 with mortal fear weapons. It just doesn't seem right and I've played extensively with all 3 trees and multiple destinies.

Everyone is going to gravitate to souleater tier 5 with either ES or TS capstones. ES / TS will be very subpar to either of the options with souleater tier 5 due to eldritch wave being the best burst dps before this big change and now being significantly better.

I think you should do some testing with ES/TS combos and see how that works.

[Qhualor]

~ Enlightened Spirit is a tank/mitigation tree. If you invest heavily in the tree you won't see top DPS numbers. This is by design.

Lamannia will likely be back up tonight.

Sev~




~ We don't share build and gear specifics because that is a rat hole that will derail threads into build specifics. Our strategy is to have players give us their builds instead, as that is a much more compelling test for us and it also gives us information on how the players are building characters.

In other words I don't mind communicating when there is a DPS test difference, but the solution is to get player builds or even to go as far as to have players PM us character name so we can copy that character and use it.

Sev~

I just submitted a ticket because I can't do a character copy on one of my toons. I would be more than happy to PM you a video of my current melee warlock in Enlightened Spirit at level 18 with and without Spirit Blast and Eldritch Burst. Again in epic levels in DC destiny with typical gear set up. You can take what you want from the videos.

[Ghoulstorm]

Some followup.

We've done some follow up testing and it looks like Two Weapon Paladins are somewhat behind where we want them to be for DPS. They are running equal with Two Handed builds and Vanguard builds, but they are obviously behind the AoE of two handed fighting and the extra mitigation of a shield. We will be adding Holy Sword back to non-shield off hand builds. With the fix to improved critical the DPS difference that provides should put them where we want them for DPS.

Sev~

So holy sword for everybody, unless you are a Vanguard? Nice. At this point, I'm not sure whether to use the lube(token +5 heart)to spec into whatever build it is that you guys finally decide you want me to play or just call it a day.

[Theolin]

Thoughts:

~ Vanguard is currently outperforming Swashbuckler builds and other Paladin builds in both LD and DC according to our tests. It's DPS is fine.

~ Our Tainted Scholar/Souleater builds are doing much more damage than anything reported here for Warlock so I am not sure where the disconnect here is. I'd like to see some more information about the Warlock builds posting these bad DPS numbers because that's not what we are seeing. Our Warlock builds in Shiradi and in Draconic are out performing most melee.

~ Enlightened Spirit is a tank/mitigation tree. If you invest heavily in the tree you won't see top DPS numbers. This is by design.

~ We are retesting Ranger numbers. Some of these times for Rangers look very low so we are rechecking our own numbers before I comment.

~ I will comment on two weapon Paladins after we finish some retesting.

***

Lamannia will likely be back up tonight.

Sev~


If Enlightened Spirit is a tank/mitigation tree then why are the Spirit Blast & Eldritch Burst subject to ASF ?????

[Severlin]

If Enlightened Spirit is a tank/mitigation tree then why are the Spirit Blast & Eldritch Burst subject to ASF ?????

Because the tree is designed to get its mitigation from its medium armor and its ability to generate temporary hit points.

Sev~

[Severlin]

Vanguard is really strong right now. Its synergy with tanking trees coupled with its active mitigation is strong. It wouldn't be balanced if that build did better DPS than the other fighting styles. Our test times show it slightly ahead of two handed fighting and two weapon fighting on Paladin tests for DPS. Even when Holy Sword is changed to work with two weapon fighting the DPS of Vanguard will still be competitive.

If Vanguard did more DPS there would be no reason to even play other styles.

Sev~

[Seikojin]

Vanguard is really strong right now. Its synergy with tanking trees coupled with its active mitigation is strong. It wouldn't be balanced if that build did better DPS than the other fighting styles. Our test times show it slightly ahead of two handed fighting and two weapon fighting on Paladin tests for DPS. Even when Holy Sword is changed to work with two weapon fighting the DPS of Vanguard will still be competitive.

If Vanguard did more DPS there would be no reason to even play other styles.

Sev~

I was actually thinking about some disparity today between twf and vanguard. In favor of vanguard. Because you can get attack speed boosting, shield damage and crit boosting, and bash proc boosting, so as a vanguard, you are very close to twf in proc chance, but you have the advantage of attack speed increasers. And that is before using any action boosts to do the same. Which makes me feel tempest would be behind in dps compared to a vanguard. Will check when Lam is up.

[ThomasHunter]

Because the tree is designed to get its mitigation from its medium armor and its ability to generate temporary hit points.

Sev~

Hey Sev!

Love all that you and the team are doing. I love my two warlocks for sure!

One thing however made me quite sad last week. I was in a full guild group and we decided to run the first set in the King's Forest on EE at level. Now, I usually dislike EE (and this gave me more love for it), although I do have a single toon that I feel quite confident with.

I was really hoping and expecting that my ES warlock would be the second toon that I could take into EE content from time to time.

What happened really took my by surprise. I died multiple times and definitely more than anyone. I felt awful. My toon just felt over matched trying to melee. As I tried to analyze more of WHY this was happening, it simply seemed to be that he was soaking up too much damage with no way to get the HP back quickly.

So, he sits at close to 1200 HP with Shining Through running. He would take one or two hits (it seemed to me) and be down to 500-600. That led to quickly dying. I simply couldn't stand toe to toe with the bad guys and swing away. I had to play him more like my other warlock and throw out Consumes and Strickens. This made me quite bummed.

While I am sure that my own bad play was part of it, the total mitigation from medium armor and the cooldown on Shining Through wasn't enough for me and it didn't work.

I saw your comment and felt that I could give you my example of where this simply wasn't enough. But, maybe it is designed that way as well (and believe me, no complaints at running at EH all of the time - that is my favorite way to play).

Toon was Azlan on Thelanis if you were curious.

Thanks again for all of the hard work!

[mikarddo]

Thoughts:

~ Vanguard is currently outperforming Swashbuckler builds and other Paladin builds in both LD and DC according to our tests. It's DPS is fine.

~ Our Tainted Scholar/Souleater builds are doing much more damage than anything reported here for Warlock so I am not sure where the disconnect here is. I'd like to see some more information about the Warlock builds posting these bad DPS numbers because that's not what we are seeing. Our Warlock builds in Shiradi and in Draconic are out performing most melee.

~ Enlightened Spirit is a tank/mitigation tree. If you invest heavily in the tree you won't see top DPS numbers. This is by design.

~ We are retesting Ranger numbers. Some of these times for Rangers look very low so we are rechecking our own numbers before I comment.

~ I will comment on two weapon Paladins after we finish some retesting.

***

Lamannia will likely be back up tonight.

Sev~

Sev,

I understand why you dont want to post the builds you are testing - but could you post the relative target you have in mind wrt. single target dps for various classes/builds in terms of the number of seconds you expect them to use killing the kobold?

Say, compared to twf rangers, where should a monkcher going full burst be? Much faster, faster, same, slower or much slower?

Without even such a relative reference its not possible to assist in balancing because we simply dont know what the target for that balance is!

[mikarddo]

I finally had a chance to try the Lama test boss kobold.

My anything but optimized monkcher halfling playing badly killed it in 119 sec.
But - and thats one huge but - that number is absolutely meaningless because Adrenalines recharge "on their own and very fast" in the Dojo (as does action boosts etc but I can keep count of those myself). So, I could chain use Adrenalines with no way to know when I was actually out of those!

Is there some way to avoid this issue so I can have a real test?

[mole7777]

Vanguard is really strong right now. Its synergy with tanking trees coupled with its active mitigation is strong. It wouldn't be balanced if that build did better DPS than the other fighting styles. Our test times show it slightly ahead of two handed fighting and two weapon fighting on Paladin tests for DPS. Even when Holy Sword is changed to work with two weapon fighting the DPS of Vanguard will still be competitive.

If Vanguard did more DPS there would be no reason to even play other styles.

Sev~

So if vanguard did less dps than tempest and less mitigation that would not be ok ?

[Delacroix21]

I don't know why you are brushing off the recommendation to put in a temporary fix to unarmed Sev. At least make it somewhat viable until the months from now pass, don't leave it unplayable

[Holymunchkin]

So in general when its comes to TWF v THF v SWF v S&B what are the DPS differences you expect to see.

e.g.
Single Target: TWF +20% of THF, TWF +10% of SWF and TWF +30% of S&B?
AoE: THF +20% of TWF, THF +10% of SWF and THF +10% of S&B?

Just wondering what the ranges are, where are you guys looking to have thing sit relatively speaking?

+1

[Basura_Grande]

Thoughts:


~ We are retesting Ranger numbers. Some of these times for Rangers look very low so we are rechecking our own numbers before I comment.



Sev~

Ranged or melee rangers?

Does this mean the DPS was too good or too bad?

[Seikojin]

Ranged or melee rangers?

Does this mean the DPS was too good or too bad?

Ranged and it looks bad. The dps kobolds have 500k hp and report how long it took to kill them.

In ranged only, speccing for doubleshot, using Divine Crusader, Tensers Transformation, and Manyshot to have a sustained doubleshot over 200 for a bit and over 100 for the bulk of the cooldown for DC's moment (like 145-155 doubleshot due to Manyshot providing the bulk of it near the end of the DC cooldown). The times with a t2 TF longbow were in the 375-400 second range.

I think some throwers were getting under 200 seconds for the same path, but using throwns.

Melee outperforms ranged by leaps and bounds. My low end melee was getting 275 seconds for scimitars, twf, LD with blitz on. My best twf melee without utilizing mortal fear was a tempest, and would get 75 seconds to 90 seconds with the same weapons and build. Doing in fighter, it would be 175-200 seconds with the same setup, just no tempest enhancements.

The best melee was vanguard builds however. And ironically, fighter ones instead of paladin. It may be the other way around if the pali was doing DC instead of LD, since their non destiny doublestrike was 26%. 76% would be a lot of doublestrikes. However fighter was getting 30-40 seconds in vanguard, using a scimi tf tier 2 and the epic demon slab shield. The times were better with crit range kensai than t5 vanguards (by 10 seconds or so).

Thf did not do so well in single target dps either in this case. They were averaging 100 seconds best. But that may be fair since they do aoe all the time.

The big disparities were ranger ranged versus everything else. Do we want ranged to do half damage at all times due to threat elimination? Since damage = threat, more threat reducers should exist in AA.

However, if things are bugged, then the ranged results would be wrong (crit profiles?).

[Seikojin]

I don't know why you are brushing off the recommendation to put in a temporary fix to unarmed Sev. At least make it somewhat viable until the months from now pass, don't leave it unplayable

Because everyone loves band aid fixes :) Because the real solutions are much deeper and complex than just adding a die or half die to weapon.

[Morroiel]

~ Our Tainted Scholar/Souleater builds are doing much more damage than anything reported here for Warlock so I am not sure where the disconnect here is. I'd like to see some more information about the Warlock builds posting these bad DPS numbers because that's not what we are seeing. Our Warlock builds in Shiradi and in Draconic are out performing most melee.

Sev~

Okay I just got done doing extensive testing (~half the day) on all things warlock. All testing was done using this template as a build and on a character that has several past lives but is not a completionist:

20 Warlock Drow
Starting Stats:
str = 8
dex = 10
con = 16
int = 10
wis = 8
cha = 20

Tomes: +6 to int/cha, +5 to spellcraft

Skills: Max spellcraft

Relevant Past Lives: Sorc (x3), Sun Elf (x1), Energy Criticals (x1), COTQ(x2),

Level Ups: ALL into Charisma

Pact: GOO

Feats:
1) max
3) empower
6) heighten
9) spell focus: conj
12) spell focus, greater: conj
15) wiz pl
18) quicken
21) epic eldritch blast
24) epic charisma
26) arcane eldritch blast
27) epic charisma
28) epic light spell power

Items:
Weapon: TF Scepter (radiance, conj focus, radiance lore)
Orb: TF Orb (corrosion, ench focus, corrosion lore)
Armor: Shadow Caster Light Armor
Trinket: Epic Litany
Necklace: Epic Shroud of Ardent
Bracers: blank
Gloves: DOJ arcane gloves
Cloak: Countenance
Boots: DOJ boots
Belt: epic thoughtful rememberence necro iv
ring1: demon assault enchant ring
ring2: lantern ring (fully unlocked)
Goggles: blank
Helmet: MOD diadem

*This wasn't the most optimal gear - but I was missing 3 pieces of gear that I can't get from DOJO (DOJ acid bracers, orb of death, intricate field optics). However, its only mathematically 1-3% behind in dps so my numbers are still relevant.

-------------------------------------------------------
Build 1: 39 points into Souleater {tier 5, lvl 18 core, take all things debuff/damage related} \ 41 Points into Tainted Scholar {Capstone, taking all things damage related}
Exalted - 245,235,205,260,243,234,280, 253
Draconic - 195, 267, 234, 289, 265, 284, 305, 214
Shiradi - 280, 295, 248, 267, 249

Build 2: 39 points into Souleater {tier 5, lvl 18 core, take all debuffs/damage}\ 9 points into Tainted Scholar {lvl 3 core, utterdark} \ 32 points into Eldritch Spirit {take lvl 18 core, take everything damage oriented}
Exalted - 302, 304, 308, 310, 305, 304
Draconic - 304, 340, 321, 348
Shiradi - 435, 467, 432, 451, 377

Build 3: 39 points into Souleater {tier 5, lvl 18 core, take all debuffs/damage}\ 41 points into Eldritch Spirit {capstone, take everything damage oriented}
Exalted - 332, 338, 334, 333, 350

Build 4: 8 points into Souleater {consume, stricken, etc} \ 41 points into Tainted Scholar {capstone, tier 5} \ 31 points into Eldritch Spirit {lvl 18 core}
Exalted - 401, 408, 419, 417, 415, 431
Draconic - 352, 380, 461, 432, 441, 409
-------------------------------------------------------
If you'd like to see exactly how I spent enhancement points for a specific build let me know.

When I was in destinies, I picked everything damage related to warlock that I could. (shiradi i used double rainbow and I had tea active on zero of my runs).
If you'd like to see exactly how I spent points in destinies I'd be happy to oblige but I think for the most part its pretty straight forward.

--------------------------------------------------------
Notes:

How does warlock feel after the nerfs?
It feels like my character does significantly less damage. The math tells me I've only lost ~15-20% dps depending on various factors. However, it feels like I lost 30-40%. While my characters power feels worse, the core abilities don't feel any better to use either - GOO "create thrall" is still broken, switching between casting/blasting still feels awkward and clunky, and animations/sounds for strong abilities feel just as lackluster as before. What I mean to say is - while I don't want to lose ANY single target dps on this character - I'm willing to in exchange for quality of life improvements in other areas. You'd make a LOT more people happy if you polished off parts of warlock before you nuked it from orbit.

Is warlock still viable?
Overall I'd say no - I ran a few ee amrath quests solo. While its possible to get through them, its tremendously more difficult to survive. The combination of losing all points in ES on top of the armor changes is brutal for survivability - especially so when you consider that eldritch wave/ cone requires an upfront and personal playstyle. However, viable is really just a word and has many different definitions. A warlock can still complete these quests so in that case it is viable - the risk is just far greater than on most builds. HOWEVER, it is STILL the most viable caster build (excluding shiradi).

Is this going to be enough to satisfy the warlock haters
No. They will still complain. The people who are hating on the warlock are mostly non-casters who don't know much about the state of casters in this game. They aren't used to seeing wizards/sorcerers/clerics/fvs/druids/spellsingers destroy content with as much ease as they are accustomed to on their pally/mechanic/acrobat/barb/wolf/tree/etc. Because of this they are taken aback and assume that the warlock is overpowered when it comes to damage. This is despite mounds and mounds of data supporting the opposite conclusion. And while I might remind everyone of this one simple fact: while archers trade dps for range, casters trade survivability for range/damage.



*Also, I hope your internal tests aren't making the same mistakes that several of us did when we ran our initial tests. The DOJO respawns your charges on things like adrenaline / dragon breathe / spell points. This can easily mislead your results.

[sjbb87]

Tested on lamannia and I would like to make some comments

1-Did a build 16 Fighter/4 monk
with Stunning Fist,Stunning Blow and Improved Trip

Save=85 or more for the three
this with a character created in directly on Lamannia
That's what you guys want?
I believe that this very strong ...

2-Classes must get a balance to get right again.
Some examples:

Rogue:
Daggers and Staff gain a +2 Competence bonus to Critical Threat Range

Bards
Dagger, Shortsword, Throwing Dagger, Light Pick: +2 Range Threat

Rangers
+2 Competence bonus to Critical Threat Range

Fighter
+2 Competence bonus to Critical Threat Range

How is alive
Paladin has 1 Threat Range, +1 Multiplier
to any weapon, I believe that can use a middle way
Continues working to all weapons and shield, but earns only 1 Threat Range and not two like the other classes


3-missing, spooky Bonus to str / dex / con / cha on the diamond


4- I will test the manyshot calmly, and then I will review what I'm thinking.

[GroundhogDay]

Some followup.

We've done some follow up testing and it looks like Two Weapon Paladins are somewhat behind where we want them to be for DPS. They are running equal with Two Handed builds and Vanguard builds, but they are obviously behind the AoE of two handed fighting and the extra mitigation of a shield. We will be adding Holy Sword back to non-shield off hand builds. With the fix to improved critical the DPS difference that provides should put them where we want them for DPS.

Sev~

This is a joke, right? Why are you people so obsessed with killing vanguards?

[GroundhogDay]

Okay you would be the first person ever to make me out to be a yes man. I ran all my builds on lama, testing things repeatedly to get figures, tweaked things to test variations from what I was running, and then built a build I think would be good in theory. Did you read much of this thread (it is only 4 pages long, my test results on page 3 to save you a bit of work.)

Now I must ask, your numbers there of 4k and the 8-900, Are they your DPS numbers or just random numbers you saw while hitting something? I do not mean to sound rude in asking but if you are saying those as your dps numbers (125 seconds and 589 second kill times on boss test kobald) then you are missing something on your paladin to begin with and your barb falling between my completed character and my gimp so would be on par for my figures.

*edited out for, as celt pointed out, is not needed in this thread*

Those are dps numbers (sorry for the wait but i've been w/o internet for the last 3 days).

My pally had a crit for 1.9 k but that was on a stunned mob and really doesn't count.

My pally is all but cookiecutter-min/max or whatever, i was just pointing out that, for non uber players, that's the dps output for a normal pally without t3 tf and such.

I could care less about your finished or your gimp, maybe you are one of those uber completionists with top notch gear and thousands of timer bypasses, fact remains that my dps will be falling into the dirt and still casters will be dealing 5 figures dmg on a single spell.

But it seems like the dev team is ignoring me, will proceed with other changes i don't really understand, and for my toons will be utter fertilizer, doesn't matter if all my 4 corrently top toons will be nerfed into oblivion, devs seems to care little about breaking builds.

It's all pointless anyway.

I'll wait till the changes are implemented then i'll see what i'll do, wheter i'll leave the game or...

[Aletys]

Thoughts:

~snip~

~ Enlightened Spirit is a tank/mitigation tree. If you invest heavily in the tree you won't see top DPS numbers. This is by design.

Sev~

Forgive my ignorance, but I'm not sure what you mean by "a tank/mitigation tree". Are you saying it is not supposed to be a viable stand-alone tree, but rather a splash tree for the other warlock trees or for multiclassers?

My concern is that if it is supposed to be a viable stand-alone tree, with the reductions players are reporting it's not going to be viable. To be effective, an ES warlock needs to get into the middle of the mobs, and frankly, without decent dps, the medium armor & temporary hit points are not going to be enough to allow an ES warlock to stay alive long enough to do any kind of tanking, let alone kill anything.

If I can get my warlock transferred over, I'll attempt some testing tomorrow (the transfer has failed twice so far today ... I was away this weekend, so am just getting started).

[Thar]

Some followup.

We've done some follow up testing and it looks like Two Weapon Paladins are somewhat behind where we want them to be for DPS. They are running equal with Two Handed builds and Vanguard builds, but they are obviously behind the AoE of two handed fighting and the extra mitigation of a shield. We will be adding Holy Sword back to non-shield off hand builds. With the fix to improved critical the DPS difference that provides should put them where we want them for DPS.

Sev~

What about a non vanguard shield build. Some of us build for defense in DOS???

[Henky]

Vanguard is really strong right now. Its synergy with tanking trees coupled with its active mitigation is strong. It wouldn't be balanced if that build did better DPS than the other fighting styles. Our test times show it slightly ahead of two handed fighting and two weapon fighting on Paladin tests for DPS. Even when Holy Sword is changed to work with two weapon fighting the DPS of Vanguard will still be competitive.

If Vanguard did more DPS there would be no reason to even play other styles.

Sev~
So.... first was TWF overperforming, then it wasn't, after that it was Holy Sword overperforming, then it wasn't and now it's Vanguard overperforming? Even with a one max shield bash per second? What will be next?

[Arkai]

Some followup.

We've done some follow up testing and it looks like Two Weapon Paladins are somewhat behind where we want them to be for DPS. They are running equal with Two Handed builds and Vanguard builds, but they are obviously behind the AoE of two handed fighting and the extra mitigation of a shield. We will be adding Holy Sword back to non-shield off hand builds. With the fix to improved critical the DPS difference that provides should put them where we want them for DPS.

Sev~

Hi. I'm happy you care so much about balance and I love all this hard work.

As you are making changes and adjusting yet, I have a question about that: are mechanics using a great x-Bow (regular, not that thunder forge thing) in their "right place" after the 10% alacrity loss?

Just curious, I tried the lammania kobolds and the killing time was not as impressive as i thought.

Thanks and keep up the good work.

[Seikojin]

I finally had a chance to try the Lama test boss kobold.

My anything but optimized monkcher halfling playing badly killed it in 119 sec.
But - and thats one huge but - that number is absolutely meaningless because Adrenalines recharge "on their own and very fast" in the Dojo (as does action boosts etc but I can keep count of those myself). So, I could chain use Adrenalines with no way to know when I was actually out of those!

Is there some way to avoid this issue so I can have a real test?

Draconic reinvigoration as a t3 for your thunderforged would be similar to dojo on live in haste testing.

[Kuunkukka]

This little bit may already have been discussed, but didn't notice any responses on the Dev Tracker.

I checked today the behaviour of Druid Winter Wolf interactions with current Lamma version, and the results were both predictable and... not so predictable.

The build was the not-working-as-intended one;
- TWF feats up to GTWF with Shield Mastery+Improved Shield mastery buffed with a twist of Legendary Shield Mastery.
- Level split 5 Barbarian and 15 Druid.
- Enhancements were mainly in Ravager, target of this to get Critical Rage (and test new Blood Strength), Frenzied Berserker to grab Supreme Cleaves, some Natures Warrior (up to Essence of Shrike)

Not a powergaming build, and definitely not one to use in live (twf+shield mastery exploit). Still, for the purpose of checking the new Improved Critical feat with previously working interaction of Barbarian Enhancements, this build was sufficient.

The Crit range Numbers:
1) Naked, no enhancements Druid in Winter Wolf: 19-20/x3
2) Naked, no enhancements Druid in Winter Wolf, with Improved Critical:Bludgeoning Feat: 18-20/x3
3) Wielding a lvl2 Warhammer, no enhancements Druid in Winter Wolf Form, with IC:B Feat: 19-20/x3 (display bug, weapon profile overwrites natural attack)
4) Wielding a lvl2 Warhammer, no enhancements, Divine Crusader (Celestial Champion) Druid in Winter Wolf Form, With IC:B Feat: 18-20/x3 (still a display bug)
5) Naked, no enhancements, Divine Crusader (+Celestial Champion) Druid in Winter Wolf Form, With IC:B Feat: 18-20/x3
6) Naked, no enhancements, Legendary Dreadnought (+Pulverizer) Druid in Winter Wolf Form, With IC:B Feat: 18-20/x3
7) Wielding a lvl2 Warhammer, no enhancements, Legendary Dreadnought (+Pulverizer) Druid in Winter Wolf Form, With IC:B Feat: 18-20/x3 (still a display bug)
8) Naked, Raging, Critical rage enhancement, Legendary Dreadnought (+Pulverizer) Druid in Winter Wolf Form, With IC:B Feat: 18-20/x3
9) Wielding a lvl2 Warhammer, Raging, Critical rage enhancement, Legendary Dreadnought (+Pulverizer) Druid in Winter Wolf Form, With IC:B Feat: 18-20/x3 (still a display bug)

Numbers from 1 to 7 are expected, and give a net "loss" of one in critical threat range compared to live. However numbers 8 and 9 are not expected. Critical Rage enhancement (competence modifier) has previously been working fine with Druid Animal forms, and in current live build (U28) they end up giving 15-20/x3 critical threat range. All findings on displayed critical threat ranges were verified by beating kobolds in the Basement and were found accurate.

TL;DR:

Either Critical Rage enhancement was broken in the latest Lamma build, or it is not playing nice with druid animal forms (anymore).

Edited for a typo..

[Lycurgus]

Thoughts:
~ Enlightened Spirit is a tank/mitigation tree. If you invest heavily in the tree you won't see top DPS numbers. This is by design.

Sev~

By that same reasoning, shouldn't you be nerfing the hell out of exalted cleave and avenging cleave from KotC? The bursts are designed to be equivalent to cleaves, no? And what's tankier than a paladin?

[barecm]

Ok, so I got a chance to do a little dojo testing this AM. What I found with the new AA revamp is that you have a few choices to make. Do you want Ranged Power or do you want Double Shot?

The first time through I went double shot. I took the AA capstone and Tier 5 DWS. So, that take out Arrow of Slaying (kind of a big deal), but gives you heavy draw (which needs help still), the +10 to archers focus stack and the double shot bonus. The ONLY way I could get over 100 double shot is by going into Divine Crusader and using Zeal of the Righteous. Not exactly how I envisioned it. I have just about everything I can think of for double shot except the elf enhancement of 3% (I am not spending 18 APs for that) . My standing double shot is 74%. When the DC boosts kick in, it sits at 120%, which is noticeable for the third hit. My suggestion here is come up with a way to have a more sustainable method of reaching 100% double shot. If you are willing to sacrifice in building towards double shot, 100% should be obtainable as a standing %. You give up quite a lot to get 74% as it is.

***A weird side effect I noticed. When using Celestial favor, you can boost up to 76%, but then if fades down to 68%, when the timer hits zero, it pops back up to 74%. Not sure if this is WAI, but I am not sure how it would be.***


The ranged power build is a little more forgiving. You can still take shadow arrows in the AA tree, but take the DWS capstone. This also lets you choose between going tier 5 DWS or AA. You do not give up that much double shot if you take tier 5 DWS, only 20%, but you do lose the Arrow of Slaying and the other tier 5 AA.

Personally, as it is, the build I will be using is the tier 5 AA, DWS capstone way. I simply cannot see giving up all that ranged power and Arrow of Slaying to go any other way. Until there is a way to have a 100%+ standing double shot, the double shot build is lacking in dps too much to invest in. Also, you get the tier 5 elemental imbue which is really nice.

---Edit More Testing

I further tested with the elemental arrows and Tier 5 AA. While I could not decide for sure which one to take, I went with the 2 hit dice option. I took my ToEE acid bow and slotted a corrosion ruby 138. The damage was pretty significant. I was doing an additional 150- 325 (not exact numbers) of acid damage in the dojo. Pretty sweet. The limitation is that bows (which take two hands to use) do not get the dual red slots that melee two handed weapons get. That to me really needs to be addressed. However, the damage in general is really nice.

My build assumption at this point will be pure ranger. I know the elf AA accomplishes a lot, but you still need to invest quite a bit into elf to unlock AA, and my build is starved for APs. So, I am not willing to give up the 20 RP 20 SP that the DWS capstone provides and will build a RP pure ranger using the elemental arrow damage. Tier 5 AA and capstone DWS.

The bug with Celestial Favor and the overall lack of a way to have sustained, standing 100%+ double shot is what is keeping me off that build. Too much dps tp lose if there is no third arrow proc of significant %.

[Krelar]

By that same reasoning, shouldn't you be nerfing the hell out of exalted cleave and avenging cleave from KotC? The bursts are designed to be equivalent to cleaves, no? And what's tankier than a paladin?

Except that Sacred Defender is the paladin tank/mitigation tree for paladins. See how much DPS your pally does if you invest as many points as possible in sacred defender instead of KoTC or Vangaurd.

[Seikojin]

Ok, so I got a chance to do a little dojo testing this AM. What I found with the new AA revamp is that you have a few choices to make. Do you want Ranged Power or do you want Double Shot?

The first time through I went double shot. I took the AA capstone and Tier 5 DWS. So, that take out Arrow of Slaying (kind of a big deal), but gives you heavy draw (which needs help still), the +10 to archers focus stack and the double shot bonus. The ONLY way I could get over 100 double shot is by going into Divine Crusader and using Zeal of the Righteous. Not exactly how I envisioned it. I have just about everything I can think of for double shot except the elf enhancement of 3% (I am not spending 18 APs for that) . My standing double shot is 74%. When the DC boosts kick in, it sits at 120%, which is noticeable for the third hit. My suggestion here is come up with a way to have a more sustainable method of reaching 100% double shot. If you are willing to sacrifice in building towards double shot, 100% should be obtainable as a standing %. You give up quite a lot to get 74% as it is.

***A weird side effect I noticed. When using Celestial favor, you can boost up to 76%, but then if fades down to 68%, when the timer hits zero, it pops back up to 74%. Not sure if this is WAI, but I am not sure how it would be.***


The ranged power build is a little more forgiving. You can still take shadow arrows in the AA tree, but take the DWS capstone. This also lets you choose between going tier 5 DWS or AA. You do not give up that much double shot if you take tier 5 DWS, only 20%, but you do lose the Arrow of Slaying and the other tier 5 AA.

Personally, as it is, the build I will be using is the tier 5 AA, DWS capstone way. I simply cannot see giving up all that ranged power and Arrow of Slaying to go any other way. Until there is a way to have a 100%+ standing double shot, the double shot build is lacking in dps too much to invest in. Also, you get the tier 5 elemental imbue which is really nice.

I did not have time to test everything, but that is my findings. Particularly, the bug with Celestial Favor and the overall lack of a way to have sustained 100%+ double shot.

In this build your standing is 74. Hit tensers and manyshot will give you 112 more (28*4) and with DC running, you will get 50 more. This will be doubleshot of 236 for 3 seconds, and over lose down to 232 when manyshot expires. Leaving you at 120. You will lose some but be close to 100 when MS is ready again. Then after MS expires again, a minute or two for DC to be ready again.

However the ranged kill times were double or more than any melee build on lam.

[Thar]

Vanguard is really strong right now. Its synergy with tanking trees coupled with its active mitigation is strong. It wouldn't be balanced if that build did better DPS than the other fighting styles. Our test times show it slightly ahead of two handed fighting and two weapon fighting on Paladin tests for DPS. Even when Holy Sword is changed to work with two weapon fighting the DPS of Vanguard will still be competitive.

If Vanguard did more DPS there would be no reason to even play other styles.

Sev~

Why are you adjusting Sword and board style by making holy sword not work on shields? instead of adjusting the vanguard tree where the problem is? DOS tree users needs all the dps help it can get. Most will splash some vanguard but not enough to make a huge difference.

[Atremus]

I know that Wraps/Monk are not included in this balance pass but I offered to do some testing on the boss Kobolds to compare or show how far behind a Pure Monk is presently:

Lammy Toon (i.e. No TR's, ITR's or ETR's)
Human Male L28
Feats: Stunning Blow, Cleave, PA, TWF, Zen, 10k, ITWF, IC-blunt GTWF, Deflect Arrows, OC, Vorpal, Blinding Speed, PTWF and Guardian Angel
Gear: Dojo provided L28. +11 STATS, +4 Insight Str, Litany. All the necro stuff really.
Stance: Earth
Tier 5 Shintao - Meditation, Die Step
Wraps: TF 1st degree, Bleeding edge, Mortal Feels (pun?)
ED: LD
Twists: Sense Weakness, Dance of Flowers and Hail of Blows

Base build:
Max wis (levels into WIS)
14 STR
14 CON
Enough dex to qualify for TWF

I did eat a supreme 6 tome.

Boss Kobold Time: 303seconds with wraps, no 10k stars. [stationary number]

I will do more tests tonight, no tome and with cacoon to better simulate live. No fleshy monk would leave home w/o cacoon so that twist setup isnt realistic.

[barecm]

In this build your standing is 74. Hit tensers and manyshot will give you 112 more (28*4) and with DC running, you will get 50 more. This will be doubleshot of 236 for 3 seconds, and over lose down to 232 when manyshot expires. Leaving you at 120. You will lose some but be close to 100 when MS is ready again. Then after MS expires again, a minute or two for DC to be ready again.

However the ranged kill times were double or more than any melee build on lam.

I was trying not to build towards timers and clickies.

[Aletys]

I was able to transfer my AA ranger over, and did some testing with the boss kobolds in the lower level of the test dojo. My numbers were pretty sad. It took 10 mins 57 seconds (657 seconds) to get one boss kobold down. I did a 2nd test, but had interference from a dwarf fighter for part of it, so the number is not accurate (it looked as if it was going to be similar to the 1st no. prior to the fighter's interference). Testing details below.

Level 28 pure arcane ranger, elf. 41 AP & Capstone in AA, 18 AP in Elf tree (to get Dex to damage & +4 to hit & damage), 12 AP in DWS (to get Sniper Shot), 7 AP in Harper (to get Know the Angles - yes, it's INT based, but it helps). Ran in Fury of the Wild and in Archer's Focus using Precision mode. Used Manyshot, Slaying Arrow, Sniper Shot, Inferno Shot and all available action boosts (Know the Angles, Action Boost Ranged/Melee Power, Adrenaline Overload) every time they came up. Used Fury Shot every time it came off timer, making sure everything else was up first. Used Thunderforged Tier 2 bow (dragon's edge & 1st degree burns) with meteoric star ruby. She has Epic Quiver of Alacrity equipped.


1st test (forgot to put elemental arrows on): 10 mins 57 seconds (657 seconds)
2nd test (with Flaming Arrows/Improved Elemental Arrows) on, but had a level 28 dwarf fighter start beating on my kobold for about 25 seconds till I got a tell off for him to stop, so time is shorter than it should be: 8 mins 33 seconds (513 seconds). Based on the rate I was dropping the boss kobold before the fighter interfered, it should probably be closer to 10 mins (600 seconds)


Observations:

arrow damage when not using all the action boosts & fury shot is about the same as before, around 190 per arrow base damage once the improved elemental arrow & TF vulnerability kick in, but not significantly better, even ignoring the nerf to Manyshot. The elemental portion doesn't increase enough to make a significant difference.
Manyshot damage is far, far worse, and with far fewer procs on meteoric star ruby than prior to changes to manyshot, which means far fewer knockdowns. This is her main CC since at this point I can't count on paralyzing arrows, so this is a pretty nasty nerf.
Ranged power is far inferior to that of my mechanic rogue, with the base at only 32 in Fury . The highest I saw in Fury was 87, and that was not sustained (she's pure ranged, with all the ranged feats, but her base melee power (48) is higher than her base ranged).
The +4 hit to damage which I get from the elf tree should be in the AA's cores. I should not have to go to a racial tree to get it. The mechanic doesn't. It's in her tree, and she can get +7 to hit & damage out of it.


I then ran the same test with a level 28 mechanic rogue, using both a TF great XBow & a TF heavy repeater, both with same properties as my AA ranger's TF longbow. Parameters were similar as for my ranger, in that she ran in Fury of the Wild and used all available action boosts and Fury shots as frequently as possible. She also has Epic Quiver of Alacrity equipped. FYI, she is missing the capstone, as she was an experiment and has one level of Arty, so her damage is not as good as it would be with a pure mechanic.

-1st test - TF great XBow: 5 mins 20 seconds (320 seconds)

Meteoric star ruby procs were about same rate as for my AA ranger, despite AA ranger's use of Manyshot, and despite the slower fire rate of the great Xbow
Rogue's ranged power baseline is 50 in Fury, but with action boosts ranged from 95 to 125 during run

-2nd test - TF heavy repeater: 8 mins 2 seconds (482 seconds) - not great, but still better than AA ranger

Meteoric star ruby proc'd far more frequently than on either AA ranger with manyshot or with great Xbow, which I would expect, since repeater throws out 3x arrows, and ranger's manyshot no longer gives multiple arrows. This gives significant crowd control since it's an AOE knockdown effect
Rogue's ranged power was same as with great Xbow, 95-125 during test
per arrow damage was somewhat higher than for AA ranger's (average 220 vs 190 for ranger)
Rogue was frequently getting 500 to 1200 additional damage per arrow with sneak attacks, up to 4000 at times, and this proc'd alot, far more frequently than anything else.


Based on the testing, the nerf to Manyshot is way too severe, and is not overcome by the minor damage improvements, which are frankly not enough to make me want to continue playing her as an AA ranger. The meterioic star ruby procs no more often when manyshot is on than when it is not. This applies to anything that is based "on hit", so it's a very serious nerf.

Further, the new capstone is a joke, compared to the capstones for other recently done classes, her overall damage is no better, and is actually worse when the MS nerf is taken into account.

I have not tried paralyzing arrows, etc., as her wisdom is not high enough to make me think it will work, and I can't get it any higher as the +6 upgrade tome I bought in the store was not delivered to her. It will require an LR, so will need to wait till later.

Please provide a +20 LR heart to each and every ranger toon when this goes live, as frankly based on what I've seen today, I will not want to continue playing her as an AA ranger with these changes, even though I have loved playing her until now, even in her current under-powered state. I doubt very many others will want to stay as AA rangers.

If you wish to test them, the AA ranger is Bryhana and the mechanic rogue with arty splash is Ahdelya. Both are on Lamannia.

[Severlin]

I was able to transfer my AA ranger over, and did some testing with the boss kobolds in the lower level of the test dojo. My numbers were pretty sad. It took 10 mins 57 seconds (657 seconds) to get one boss kobold down. I did a 2nd test, but had interference from a dwarf fighter for part of it, so the number is not accurate (it looked as if it was going to be similar to the 1st no. prior to the fighter's interference). Testing details below.

Level 28 pure arcane ranger, elf. 41 AP & Capstone in AA, 18 AP in Elf tree (to get Dex to damage & +4 to hit & damage), 12 AP in DWS (to get Sniper Shot), 7 AP in Harper (to get Know the Angles - yes, it's INT based, but it helps). Ran in Fury of the Wild and in Archer's Focus using Precision mode. Used Manyshot, Slaying Arrow, Sniper Shot, Inferno Shot and all available action boosts (Know the Angles, Action Boost Ranged/Melee Power, Adrenaline Overload) every time they came up. Used Fury Shot every time it came off timer, making sure everything else was up first. Used Thunderforged Tier 2 bow (dragon's edge & 1st degree burns) with meteoric star ruby. She has Epic Quiver of Alacrity equipped.


1st test (forgot to put elemental arrows on): 10 mins 57 seconds (657 seconds)
2nd test (with Flaming Arrows/Improved Elemental Arrows) on, but had a level 28 dwarf fighter start beating on my kobold for about 25 seconds till I got a tell off for him to stop, so time is shorter than it should be: 8 mins 33 seconds (513 seconds). Based on the rate I was dropping the boss kobold before the fighter interfered, it should probably be closer to 10 mins (600 seconds)


Observations:

arrow damage when not using all the action boosts & fury shot is about the same as before, around 190 per arrow base damage once the improved elemental arrow & TF vulnerability kick in, but not significantly better, even ignoring the nerf to Manyshot. The elemental portion doesn't increase enough to make a significant difference.
Manyshot damage is far, far worse, and with far fewer procs on meteoric star ruby than prior to changes to manyshot, which means far fewer knockdowns. This is her main CC since at this point I can't count on paralyzing arrows, so this is a pretty nasty nerf.
Ranged power is far inferior to that of my mechanic rogue, with the base at only 32 in Fury . The highest I saw in Fury was 87, and that was not sustained (she's pure ranged, with all the ranged feats, but her base melee power (48) is higher than her base ranged).
The +4 hit to damage which I get from the elf tree should be in the AA's cores. I should not have to go to a racial tree to get it. The mechanic doesn't. It's in her tree, and she can get +7 to hit & damage out of it.


I then ran the same test with a level 28 mechanic rogue, using both a TF great XBow & a TF heavy repeater, both with same properties as my AA ranger's TF longbow. Parameters were similar as for my ranger, in that she ran in Fury of the Wild and used all available action boosts and Fury shots as frequently as possible. She also has Epic Quiver of Alacrity equipped. FYI, she is missing the capstone, as she was an experiment and has one level of Arty, so her damage is not as good as it would be with a pure mechanic.

-1st test - TF great XBow: 5 mins 20 seconds (320 seconds)

Meteoric star ruby procs were about same rate as for my AA ranger, despite AA ranger's use of Manyshot, and despite the slower fire rate of the great Xbow
Rogue's ranged power baseline is 50 in Fury, but with action boosts ranged from 95 to 125 during run

-2nd test - TF heavy repeater: 8 mins 2 seconds (482 seconds) - not great, but still better than AA ranger

Meteoric star ruby proc'd far more frequently than on either AA ranger with manyshot or with great Xbow, which I would expect, since repeater throws out 3x arrows, and ranger's manyshot no longer gives multiple arrows. This gives significant crowd control since it's an AOE knockdown effect
Rogue's ranged power was same as with great Xbow, 95-125 during test
per arrow damage was somewhat higher than for AA ranger's (average 220 vs 190 for ranger)
Rogue was frequently getting 500 to 1200 additional damage per arrow with sneak attacks, up to 4000 at times, and this proc'd alot, far more frequently than anything else.


Based on the testing, the nerf to Manyshot is way too severe, and is not overcome by the minor damage improvements, which are frankly not enough to make me want to continue playing her as an AA ranger. The meterioic star ruby procs no more often when manyshot is on than when it is not. This applies to anything that is based "on hit", so it's a very serious nerf.

Further, the new capstone is a joke, compared to the capstones for other recently done classes, her overall damage is no better, and is actually worse when the MS nerf is taken into account.

I have not tried paralyzing arrows, etc., as her wisdom is not high enough to make me think it will work, and I can't get it any higher as the +6 upgrade tome I bought in the store was not delivered to her. It will require an LR, so will need to wait till later.

Please provide a +20 LR heart to each and every ranger toon when this goes live, as frankly based on what I've seen today, I will not want to continue playing her as an AA ranger with these changes, even though I have loved playing her until now, even in her current under-powered state. I doubt very many others will want to stay as AA rangers.

If you wish to test them, the AA ranger is Bryhana and the mechanic rogue with arty splash is Ahdelya. Both are on Lamannia.

First of all, great post.

How does this build compare to a similar live set up in actual content?

We are seeing numbers in the 210 - 300 range (depending on ED) with end game gear. I will ask our Q/A people to take a look at this post and see what might be going on.

Sev~

[Blaze-Of-Glory]

Fatesinger Shiradi Tier 4 enhancement effects don't appear on character sheet - ranged attack speed
I had to take bow proficiency as it's not auto granted at any tier of AA which is really annoying - who wants to wear wind howler bracers at level 28 (i have nothing else in the way of gear for these feats).
I maxxed out my wisdom - point blank shot, rapid shot, manyshot, precise shot, improved precise shot, completionist, improved critical ranged, overwhelming critical, zen archery and some other stuff not relevant (dodge for instance) - I used (half) Elven AA and GMoF

DPS - Attacked the dummy for 10 minutes - I had no gear apart from a guardkiller bow (couldn't find enough time search through all that stuff in the dojo to find something better it takes too long and I got annoyed again with TR cache nonsense so chucked everything away for expediency on lamannia) - my average DPS is better than it was before - estimating around double what it was on live, comparing the numbers on the screen but without factoring in using manyshot/10k stars - just shadow arrows, elemental arrows and archer's focus. I'm lazy so I turned on auto attack. On live I simply resort to using my bow until I had charged up EIN - melee monk for EE content usually ends in death for me - now I may actually be able to kill some things with my bow before the rest of the party rip into them if I'm running in a destiny other than FoTW

I invested zero points in Spell Power and would not want to do this on live which may make me decide to TR a character I really don't want to TR, yet again (I have already everything done - epic, heroic, iconic all x3 or many more)

So Hoping for some more help with the final passes (not necessarily DPS wise) because I find it's frustrating that AA is still, IMO, too expensive: spending so many points in my racial tree locks me out of taking tier 4 enhancements in more than 1 class tree. Added to that I invested all my feats in ranged abilities which pretty much locks me into being an archer - unless you are a wizard or similar with plenty of free feats this really hurts.

I don't really care if everyone else gets all the kills and/or do better dps so long I feel like I'm making some contribution - if I can make the DCs for paralyse for instance.

[Severlin]

I know that Wraps/Monk are not included in this balance pass but I offered to do some testing on the boss Kobolds to compare or show how far behind a Pure Monk is presently:

Lammy Toon (i.e. No TR's, ITR's or ETR's)
Human Male L28
Feats: Stunning Blow, Cleave, PA, TWF, Zen, 10k, ITWF, IC-blunt GTWF, Deflect Arrows, OC, Vorpal, Blinding Speed, PTWF and Guardian Angel
Gear: Dojo provided L28. +11 STATS, +4 Insight Str, Litany. All the necro stuff really.
Stance: Earth
Tier 5 Shintao - Meditation, Die Step
Wraps: TF 1st degree, Bleeding edge, Mortal Feels (pun?)
ED: LD
Twists: Sense Weakness, Dance of Flowers and Hail of Blows

Base build:
Max wis (levels into WIS)
14 STR
14 CON
Enough dex to qualify for TWF

I did eat a supreme 6 tome.

Boss Kobold Time: 303seconds with wraps, no 10k stars. [stationary number]

I will do more tests tonight, no tome and with cacoon to better simulate live. No fleshy monk would leave home w/o cacoon so that twist setup isnt realistic.

Thanks for the numbers.

Sev~

[Delacroix21]

Thanks for the numbers.

Sev~

Those numbers are not accurate, you can't run dps tests with mortal fear

[Steve_Howe]

Those numbers are not accurate, you can't run dps tests with mortal fear

Yep.

[Atremus]

Those numbers are not accurate, you can't run dps tests with mortal fear

The first weapon somone makes for TF used to be that combo / might still be. It represents what most people would craft or have crafted after running the raid long enogh to get the phlogs.

I already stated I would do more testing. I was already planning to craft another set of TF wraps and compare.

[Aletys]

First of all, great post.

How does this build compare to a similar live set up in actual content?

We are seeing numbers in the 210 - 300 range (depending on ED) with end game gear. I will ask our Q/A people to take a look at this post and see what might be going on.

Sev~

I forgot to mention two very important qualifiers:


Even the rather poor numbers that I saw in the dojo will be better than in an actual quest or raid, because in an actual quest or raid the action boost clickies, etc. will not regenerate. In the dojo they do. So except for short periods, those numbers can not be sustained, and the clickies will eventually run out, leaving the AA ranger numbers even worse.


The numbers I quoted for average base damage (190) is after an extended period of shooting (minimum 10-30 seconds - I'll have to get back in game to give you a more accurate no.). That only works for bosses. The numbers actually start in the low 100s (115-130 range), and gradually increase as the weapon vulnerabilities & clickies take effect. That means at the start you're doing a heck of a lot less damage, and for trash mobs, an AA archer will likely never get to the best numbers I was able to attain after standing there shooting at a single boss target and not moving for an extended period of time.

Edit: The numbers in the second bullet are not as bad as I remembered. They start in the 110-120 range, but in less than 10 seconds are up to the 140-150 range, and by about 20 seconds are approaching 160-170.

[N-0cturn]

I did a bit of Lamannia testing today. No Shipbuffs and not 100% optimal gear on all toons.

Boss Kobold times:

TWF Khopesh Ranger: 105s in Dreadnought and 150s in Divine Crusader. With less Crit damage the Sneak attack damage has a bigger impact and Dreadnought was clearly better from a DPS perspective. DC is still nice for the healing but definitely lost some merit.

Rogue Acrobat: Was a very quick build with no past lives. 124s with Thunderforged and 160s with Sireth. Both in Dreadnought. So I guess even after the Crit Range from Sireth is buffed again it should be lower than TF.

Then I tried to make an Archer work. The toon has 3 Rgr Past lifes but no epic Past Lives:
First was pure Rgr, Dex based: 269s with DWS T5 + Dreadnought, 220s with AA T5 and Fury and 316s with AA T5 and Dreadnought
Next was 14 Monk, 6 Rgr using 10k and Manyshot and Adrenaline with Sniper Shot and Arrow of Slaying. Times were between 182 and 196s.

Overall I think thats a bit too low. Especially because its more complicated to keep the Buffs up and Hit the Adrenaline Combos correctly, which means DPS would be lower when not hitting a stationary target.

I have to say that I am not that experienced with building ranged toons, so others might get better numbers. If not I think Bow damage needs some help.

EDIT:
I just saw that your QA got similar numbers for a pure Ranger.

Please take note that right now a Monkcher would be the Superior Arcane Archer as far as I see it. 20% Run Speed and Abundant Step are really nice on a ranged toon, The DPS was about 16% better and I have a better Wis Score for CC. They lack the self healing but on a Ranged char Cocoon should be enough in most situations and they got some other perks like improved evasion.

Considering where Arcane Archer are standing compared to melee, I think there should be a buff to non-Ki Archers instead of a nerf to 10k.

EDIT 2:
As some pointed out Adrenaline recharges in the Dojo. And I spammed it quit a bit, so the numbers in quests would definitely be lower.

[Yamato-San]

Just some numbers from beating the boss kobolds for ranged toons.
All toons were fresh, no past lifes (and not the best building skills from a casual player, most experienced with repeater builds).
Dojo lvl 28 Gear without item augments; no ship buffs.

All test were done blitzing with no special attacks used, only long lasting damage buffs like KtA.
So look foremost at the differences since my tests were done similarly.

Int based Rogue, mech T5 & Harper
Rog18/Art2 TF3 Repeater 245sec
Rog18/Art2 TF3 GXBow 260sec
Rog20 TF3 Repeater 230sec
Rog20 TF3 GXBow 230sec
Rog20 U28 Repeater 258sec

Dex based Monk TF3 shuriken & celestia, Ninja Spy
Mon20 with using 10k stars 272sec
Mon20 without using 10k 336sec

Dex based ranger, Deepwood Stalker T5 & AA, multishot used as much as possible.
Ran20 TF3 Bow 318sec

The ranger felt terrible. The rate of fire is simply to slow compared to the other toons, like under a slow spell.
Furthermore there must be a ranger bug present, since i got around 200 sneak damage per arrow but don't no why and how.

[mikarddo]

First of all, great post.

How does this build compare to a similar live set up in actual content?

We are seeing numbers in the 210 - 300 range (depending on ED) with end game gear. I will ask our Q/A people to take a look at this post and see what might be going on.

Sev~

Do you consider 210-300 to be acceptable compared to twf rangers or barbs doing below 120 and other melee doing below 200?
I certainly find the gap pretty large - even more so as those builds are excellent AoE damage as well.

Also, how do you control not using more Adrenalines than you should have - seeing that they regen unnaturally fast in the Dojo?

Finally, which bow do you suggest using for the test? I assume a TF tier 3 with Mortal Fear is out as MF procs make the test invalid.

[Morroiel]

@Sev

The testing data provided by everyone on lamannia has been consistent: warlocks are FAR behind melees and either slightly behind ranged or significantly behind ranged. This echoes other players' and mine thoughts on the changes presented in the original balance pass in the main forums. You are nerfing warlocks in the only area that will kill the class: single target dps.

Warlocks need all the help they can get when it comes to end game single target dps.

It's really a simple matter of survivability vs dps in end game content.

Survivability Tiers:
1) Melee, Ranged
2) Caster (heavy)
3) Caster (light)
4) Caster (trad)

Dps Tiers:
1) Tempest, Twf Pally, Barb, Acrobat, Shuriken
2) AA, Vanguard, Mechanic, Bard
3) Warlock, Shiradi,
4) Flavor Builds (all other casters included).

Who gets the raw end every time: casters.

In my 8+ years of playing this game, I can think of only one time when casters got outright buffed and that was the original spell pass. Instead you slowly take away power from casters (mostly in the areas that actually scale into epics):
1) removal of spell crit multiplier items / enhancements {this would be like removing all effects and items that allow a weapon to have a multiplier greater than x2 - it was the most understated nerf in the game}
2) massive amplification of hit points and saving throws on monsters/bosses (this drastically altered the dps/sp needed to complete a quest - also note that this undid one of the most important changes of the spell pass by increasing hp)
3) Champions / Orange Named Buffs (reducing the effectiveness of cc/instakill)
4) Addition of high spell resistant mobs (reducing effectiveness of cc/instakill)
5) reduction of shiradi (reducing procs/types of procs/etc - moving shiradi from an A+ build to a solid B)
...
The list can go on and on but these are the most monumental. I can honestly say that casters as a whole are in a worse spot NOW then they were before the original spell pass. Before when every end game quest/raid only allowed 1 or 2 arcanes and 2-3 healers - before when epics consisted of casters kiting/ccing/etc. Now its worse because divines aren't even needed/wanted to heal. And while yes EN raids and EE quests are easy enough to complete short manned means that casters are still welcome (its hard enough to fill anyways), the true end game EE raids (DOJ/MOD) do not want casters (except to cc in MOD and then only 1-2). Nobody and I repeat nobody honestly believes that casters are great damage dealers. The one shining light was the recent addition of warlock - we finally thought that this was the bone you were going to throw us after so long a wait. It had decent dps and great survivability (I would have preferred the other way around but w/e). Then the first batch of nerfs hit - I wasn't going to complain too much as long as we got to keep what we still had because I could play my beloved caster again and not feel like a tier F/D build.

DO NOT DO THIS PLEASE! I don't want to reroll into an acrobat/tempest but its looking like I might have to - this will cause me to play less and likely spend less money on your game.

[EllisDee37]

Finally, which bow do you suggest using for the test? I assume a TF tier 3 with Mortal Fear is out as MF procs make the test invalid.I'm wondering if some of the disconnect between dev tests and player tests might be because the devs were using mortal fear weapons.

Mortal fear weapons would inflate the dps results of anything with lots of procs. (TWF or attack styles with increased alacrity.) The major disconnects so far seem to be paladin TWF, vanguards, and staff builds.

[AzureDragonas]

1. Dps lines should be unique to stop exploiting druid/ranger builds with single duals lines active at same times
2. As tests shows bows are already behind other ranged weapons and you planning on lowering dps on them even more. Better remove doubleshoot penalty and leave ability same, probably best would be to fix fury itself than destoy entire bow class lane, could reduce chance on getting fury while using ranged weapons. Would limit burst fury archers can make.
3. As mentioned before MF is unneded we have already enough exploited players running with dozen mats and using them to create each life new MF TF3 weapons. Remake ability so monsters at least would have chance to make save.
4. Maybe people are right and should we let warlocks be as they are now. But it makes no sense to let exist caster who uses no mp and have constant no save burst, try imagine if sorc SLA lightning bolt had no save and always would hit at full power. Maybe make a fair solution with keeping power level but making warlocks work for it as other casters have to.
5. There is a lot of talking but most broken builds still lives and gets even more desired by players becouse they are easy way to avoid this nerf. Fix wolfs and other druid dps forms, stop making primal avatar get charges from healing aura etc. We already have players using crusaders aura and healing aura and standing 90% of quest in tree form doing minimum each hit 1-2k damage aoe.



P.S. for 3rd point. Level cap gonna be increased, you even maybe release new items and weapons, and then comes moment what will be next? Game already have end game items at lvl 28 which makes any higher content pointless, increase hp, damage, saves of monsters it won't make difference MF works same way all the time. Maybe in future all weapons just to be viable should have MF or there would be new end items with double mortal fear, or better make new effect similiar to vorpal which kills anyone just becouse you rolled 20, after lvl 30? Easiest fix up making MF not so op could be simple add save let's say 40-50 fortitude making MF on higher level content work same as paralyzing arrows now, and still being end game item for lower quests what are now. They can procede but its not 100% they will make effect each time it's activate. Lit2 back in days was strong with its 2% chance to trigger and still it was only damage up to 600 to 7k+ hp mobs, now we have this ability, which makes no sense in game and at this point is killing any interest in game where you can solo ee just by using your special weapon and attack speed/cleaves to activate it. 5% chance half hp shreed is reason why players stopped playing casters and prefer to play dps couse even if u invest time efforts as casters have to increase spell power dc to do damage, you still will stay behind to any mortal fear vielding dps.

Waiting for response to there ideas :)

[N-0cturn]

Mortal Fear would make no difference on the Boss Kobolds since those are red named.

Sure the normal Kobolds just need a stun and a Mortal Fear proc to die, regardless of the HP.

[Requiro]

Done some more test with Ranger. My new created toon: 28 Pure Ranger, in DC destiny, T3 Forged bow, Rainbow Fated. All Ranged feats. No very good gear (collected at Dojo). My observation:

- Mostly AA (Capstone and T5 abilities, 42 AP in AA, 31 DWS and 7 in Tempest for Haste Boost)
Results (in seconds): 330, 270 , 290

- Mostly DWS (Capstone and T5 abilities, 42 AP in DWS, 31 AA and 7 in Tempest for Haste Boost)
Results (in seconds): 245, 215, 235.

I guess that AA Tree still need some improvements. Capstone and T5 are no competitive with DWS. Some of my ideas are in older post around.
Also there is no great abilities for take if you have spare AP points. I take +1 dex only because to fill anyhow AA tree to get 30 point. I do not take any CC abilities, because that was DPS testing.

[mikarddo]

I just tested my hafling monkcher AA 12 monk, 6 ranger, 2 pally with Furyshot (29% DS which is max for this build, 40ish RP, completionist, epic completionist, max tomes etc) using a TF tier 3 bow on a boss kobold. I used Archery Focus, Tensors for max BAB, Rams Might, KTA and Primal Scream for buffs and had max imbues with a 138 spell power aug slottet. I dont claim to be optimal but I wasnt that far behind.

Even using the broken unlimited Arenalines in the Dojo I was not able to go below 100s - and that was chain using Adrenaline + Slayer Arrow and Arenaline + Sniper Shot whenever they come off timer which is far, far, far more often than should have been possible as well as using Ranged Power action boost constantly. Now consider that this build is claimed to be major burst dps - but even with unlimited Adrenaline its no faster than a twf ranger or barbarian!

Sev - do you consider this balanced?

Could you atleast acknowledge that Slaying Arrow needs no reduction and ranged recharging Adrenalineenaline isnt an issue seeing these numbers?

[Morroiel]

/thread

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466731-Downtime-Notice-7-00-AM-3-00-PM-Eastern-(-4-GMT)-Thursday-October-22nd

2 days of real testing and then this.

I guess the devs don't want to hear anymore (definitely don't want back and forth communication).

I hate to be the guy to say this but it looks like you're going to screw casters over once again (like always). While melees escape with barely a scratch, this is horrendous. If you wanted to nerf mechanics and warlocks only, you could have come out and said it.

I'm getting real sick and tired of the lack of transparency and open communication - my trust in the developers is at an ALL TIME LOW.

[Livmo]

I'm wondering if some of the disconnect between dev tests and player tests might be because the devs were using mortal fear weapons.

Mortal fear weapons would inflate the dps results of anything with lots of procs. (TWF or attack styles with increased alacrity.) The major disconnects so far seem to be paladin TWF, vanguards, and staff builds.

The average player will have T2 at best, eek.

[serthcore]

20 pure ranger AA Fury of the wild 75ish seconds, description on the vid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0QDlFHNYlA&feature=youtu.be


Currently LR'ing him, will post a moncher comparision in a few hours

[serthcore]

I'm wondering if some of the disconnect between dev tests and player tests might be because the devs were using mortal fear weapons.

Mortal fear weapons would inflate the dps results of anything with lots of procs. (TWF or attack styles with increased alacrity.) The major disconnects so far seem to be paladin TWF, vanguards, and staff builds.

Mortal fear wont proc on kobold DPS, they are inmune to 50%hp proc, any instakill, neg level, etc.

[Duhboy]

I just tested my hafling monkcher AA 12 monk, 6 ranger, 2 pally with Furyshot (29% DS which is max for this build, 40ish RP, completionist, epic completionist, max tomes etc) using a TF tier 3 bow on a boss kobold. I used Archery Focus, Tensors for max BAB, Rams Might, KTA and Primal Scream for buffs and had max imbues with a 138 spell power aug slottet. I dont claim to be optimal but I wasnt that far behind.

Even using the broken unlimited Arenalines in the Dojo I was not able to go below 100s - and that was chain using Adrenaline + Slayer Arrow and Arenaline + Sniper Shot whenever they come off timer which is far, far, far more often than should have been possible as well as using Ranged Power action boost constantly. Now consider that this build is claimed to be major burst dps - but even with unlimited Adrenaline its no faster than a twf ranger or barbarian!

Sev - do you consider this balanced?

Could you atleast acknowledge that Slaying Arrow needs no reduction and ranged recharging Adrenalineenaline isnt an issue seeing these numbers?

And let's not forget that they are removing MRR from armor and nerfing PRR on top of it.

[Grace_ana]

I'd like to see real conditions testing as well as kobold testing. It might look like a build can do fantastic DPS in the lab. But in the wild, where a toon has to move around and heal to survive, plus have a race against who can kill whom first, that kobold DPS number can look very different. Acrobat builds come to mind, in particular, but so do ranged toons (since they have less mitigation typically and take so long to kill something, a lot of the time mobs will kill them first, especially in dungeons that don't have places to stay far enough away).

[Qhualor]

I'd like to see real conditions testing as well as kobold testing. It might look like a build can do fantastic DPS in the lab. But in the wild, where a toon has to move around and heal to survive, plus have a race against who can kill whom first, that kobold DPS number can look very different. Acrobat builds come to mind, in particular, but so do ranged toons (since they have less mitigation typically and take so long to kill something, a lot of the time mobs will kill them first, especially in dungeons that don't have places to stay far enough away).

yeah, im seeing too much kobold testing and really nothing on environment testing. usually someone at least posts a video. its one thing to do standing dps and running around circles of a kobold hitting it, but its a whole other thing in a quest environment and with other party members.

[serthcore]

I'd like to see real conditions testing as well as kobold testing. It might look like a build can do fantastic DPS in the lab. But in the wild, where a toon has to move around and heal to survive, plus have a race against who can kill whom first, that kobold DPS number can look very different. Acrobat builds come to mind, in particular, but so do ranged toons (since they have less mitigation typically and take so long to kill something, a lot of the time mobs will kill them first, especially in dungeons that don't have places to stay far enough away).

Yes, for a furyshooter, self healing while doing epic moment + manyshot is a way bigger dps lost than when any other build has to selfheal, for example, or lose archer focus while moving, etc.
Maybe they should actually switch to testing in real quests

[Atremus]

I'm wondering if some of the disconnect between dev tests and player tests might be because the devs were using mortal fear weapons.

Mortal fear weapons would inflate the dps results of anything with lots of procs. (TWF or attack styles with increased alacrity.) The major disconnects so far seem to be paladin TWF, vanguards, and staff builds.

In the dojo there are Red-Named Kobold's that negate the Mortal Feels effect/proc. Unless that has changed or is bugged again. The number I posted was based on the Red Named Boss, not the regular Kobold.

I don't disagree with you about the lack of complete TF gear on live though, my monk testing will include a Tier2 TF time as well. [adding it to my list]

[serthcore]

20 pure ranger AA Fury of the wild 75ish seconds, description on the vid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0QDlFHNYlA&feature=youtu.be


Currently LR'ing him, will post a moncher comparision in a few hours

18 Monk 1 fighter 1 Ranger AA fury of the wild 130ish seconds

https://youtu.be/Iu81ZfU0DGs

Edit: For some reason lvl 18 RACIAL core (+1 crit multiplier) doesn't seem to be applying at all?
That would explain the huge gap between both builds

[jakeelala]

I'm wondering if some of the disconnect between dev tests and player tests might be because the devs were using mortal fear weapons.

Mortal fear weapons would inflate the dps results of anything with lots of procs. (TWF or attack styles with increased alacrity.) The major disconnects so far seem to be paladin TWF, vanguards, and staff builds.

Mortal Fear doesn't proc on red names, just the 8-64 Force damage part does.

[Aletys]

Well, it appears I won't be bothering to test anything else. I was going to go thru warlock, but have been unable to get my character transferred over, and had to roll up a new toon & get her geared as closely as possible so I could compare.

However, since the changes are scheduled for Thursday, I know darn well that nothing we have said or can say at this point will make any difference whatsoever. They're just going to ram it down our throats, no matter what data/info we provide. I'm not sure why we bothered. I personally am done. Also completely disgusted & frustrated, but definitely done.

And I'm not sure how they have rationalized that 2 +5 hearts of wood are going to be sufficient to clean up the mess they're creating for us. I may just TR both my AA ranger & my warlock into something else, as soon as I have someone else to replace them in the epics. I don't see either of them getting much play time after this.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466731-Downtime-Notice-7-00-AM-3-00-PM-Eastern-%28-4-GMT%29-Thursday-October-22nd

[mikarddo]

18 Monk 1 fighter 1 Ranger AA fury of the wild 130ish seconds

https://youtu.be/Iu81ZfU0DGs

Edit: For some reason lvl 18 RACIAL core (+1 crit multiplier) doesn't seem to be applying at all?
That would explain the huge gap between both builds

Thanks for posting. Could you estimate for both runs if you used more Adrenalines than you should have had due to unduly high regen?
Also, if you have the time a plonkcher would be interresting for comparison.

The racial bug would need to be confirmed and fixed.

[lifestaker]

Tested on level 28 human

Pure warlock.
Great old one pact.
Shiradi ED (investment into double rainbow). All ES tests done twice for SWF and S&B.
Only used the universal spell power pot due to multiple potions 'bugging out' last time I tested things.

Action points only spent in tree, using only said abilities from tree:
TS - 329.31 - 1,528 DPS
SE - 298.8 - 1,673 DPS
ES (swf) - 401.4 - 1,245.6 DPS
ES (S&B) - 437.4 - 1,143 DPS

41 points spent in TS for capstone/39 points spent in second tree:
TS/SE - 173.1 - 2,889 DPS
TS/ES (S&B) - 319.1 - 1,567 DPS
TS/ES (SWF) - 251.8 - 1,986 DPS

TS dropped to core 12 (24 points), for 30% crit damage/rest spent in other trees:

ES tier 5 (S&B)39 points /SE 16 points - 341.2 - 1,465 DPS
ES tier 5 (SWF)39 points /SE 16 points - 320.3 - 1,561 DPS
SE tier 5/ ES point in light spell power - 264.8 - 1,888 DPS

DPS focused melee builds.
Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger Tests.
Assume gear at 90% optimal. Less gear in some regards due to general gear layout, not fully twinking each builid.
Forgot to grab ship buffs for tests, so kept same baseline for all tests in not grabbing ship buffs.
Did not use any buffing potions for any melee test, and only self buffed.
If argument of defense over dps was reached in feat or enhancement, then DPS was taken. Said actions in many builds will make their ability to stay alive questionable.
Khopesh, warhammer, and scimitar one handers for one handed tests. exception being dex based ranger that tested rapiers and scimitars.
Maul, greataxe, and falchion tests for two handers.


Pure Barbarian
Tested Warhammer, Khopeshes, Greataxe, Falchion, and Maul.
Redsonja (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/458525-Redsonja-3-0-U25-TWF-Pure-Barb?highlight=redsonjahttps://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/458525-Redsonja-3-0-U25-TWF-Pure-Barb?highlight=redsonja) build as baseline for twf, modified for khopesh, and again for thf.

TWF
Warhammer - 119.6 - 4,181 DPS
Khopesh - 109.1 - 4,582 DPS
THF
Greataxe - 139.2 - 3,592 DPS
Falchion - 148.3 - 3,372 DPS
Maul - 143.2 - 3,491.6 DPS

Pure Ranger
Tempest tests only. Nothing against ranged toons, but I personally hate them and could not bring myself to test their numbers. Luckly have seen a good amount of times posted.
Used The Divine Cuisinart (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/465697-The-Divine-Cuisinart-A-dual-khopesh-wielding-pure-tempest-ranger-in-divine-crusader) build due to good breakdown on forums. Modified for str based and dex based tests, blunt and slashing focuses.

Tempest Str based
Warhammer - 101.5 - 4,926 DPS
khopesh - 100.3 - 4,985 DPS
Scimitar - 97.4 - 5,133 DPS


Tempest Dex based
Rapier - 90.8 - 5,507 DPS
Scimitar - 96.8 - 5,165 DPS


Pure Fighter
Not many pure fighter builds that I could get behind while looking for builds on the forums.
Did standard builds for each type.

S&B Vanguard
Khopesh - 173.6 - 2,880 DPS
Scimitar - 184.3 - 2,713 DPS
Warhammer - 195.3 - 2,560 DPS

TWF Kensi
Khopesh - 122.2 - 4,092 DPS
Scimitar - 132.8 - 3,765 DPS
Warhammer - 137.2 - 3,644 DPS

THF Kensi
Greataxe - 177.3 - 2,820 DPS
Falchion - 182.5 - 2,740 DPS
Maul - 176 - 2,841 DPS


Pure Paladin
Far to many builds of each type posted on forums, most multi-classed.
Standard builds built for each type again.

S&B Vanguard
Khopesh - 149 - 3,356 DPS
Scimitar - 164.3 - 3,043 DPS
Warhammer - 186.7 - 2,678 DSP

TWF
Khopesh - 121.1 - 4,129 DPS
Scimitar - 117.7 - 4,248 DSP
Warhammer - 139.4 - 3,587 DPS

THF
Greataxe - 151.7 - 3,296 DPS
Falchion - 142.5 - 3,509
Maul - 174.1 - 2,872


Feel a lot more comfortable with these numbers. Ran each build again 3 times for an average, some needing to be run more then 3 due to people 'helping' or significant variations in test results. Again these are at what I think is about 90% of the gear that the builds should have for endgame setup, missing minor things that are not key for the build (augments being the big one), so fully geared characters with buffs should be able to exceed these melee times. The warlock times were buffed, just to clarify. Much smaller variations in those times are expected.

Put a few hours into testing these, but started getting burnt out on it so figured to stop for now. Pardon the large amount of information at once, but figured to just make one post rather then one for warlock and again for dps tests.

*Mind any typos I have made, bit out of it after spending an entire day testing this, then read the forums for news regarding its release. Just have hopes that some things are reconsidered last minute.

[Kieriyn]

This is somewhat off topic, but you should consider making the boss kobolds available as ship amenities for those that like to test DPS on the live server.

[Rilok]

Because the tree is designed to get its mitigation from its medium armor and its ability to generate temporary hit points.

Sev~

Well there goes the mitigation from medium armor as AC doesnt mean much of anything and PRR is getting further nerfed. You seem to admit that the ES tree is for tanking/mitigation but now all you seem to leave viable is range dps and that is getting nerfed across the board as well. Warlock was not the OP DPS powerhouse I was led to believe so I decided to build him as a tank and though he had some issues with holding agro I managed, still took quite a few big hits despite having apx 100 PRR. and no I dont wear heavy armor or Tower shield. I can send you info on the gear and build Im using if you are interested for numbers sake.

[Morroiel]

Did some more testing: this time in EE demon assault.

Warlock (T5 SE / Capstone TS ; GOO Pact) LVL 20 Drow:

Without the PRR/MRR and HP from ES, warlock has a MUCH harder time surviving. This is okay. I expect that when I play a caster my survivability goes down. However, now my aoe dps isn't sufficient to clear the spawning waves in the time that my cc is being used (evards). This isn't necessarily an issue either in of itself. There has to be meaningful counterplay for the mobs otherwise the quest would be trivial. I actually felt the nerf more on my aoe than single target dps - though that discrepency is due to using SE/TS on lam vs ES/TS on live. It was harsh. I think in groups (depending on the quest) I will largely play in the back using lackluster chain on the trash, avoiding the higher dps cone all together for the extra safety that the range provides (god knows this build needs it now). I'm still not happy with the single target dps - I feel at the very least the scaling on blasts should go back to 150% (maybe only in epics).

Thoughts:
1) Single Target DPS is low, especially considering the sacrifice needed to go SE/TS.
2) Survivability is really low - combo of armor changes with losing ES compounds together to make a VERY drastic change. Anybody playing warlock pre patch will be shocked at the change in survivability. Plays like an entirely different character because of that (This can be either GOOD or BAD depending on what you see as the role for Warlock).
3) Debuffer role (as has been suggested by devs, etc) seems very underwhelming for the warlock. While there are several debuffs (and almost every meaningful stat is touched), it just feels lackluster. I could stomach the sub par dps if this was a legitimate role (the devs went all the way).
4) Annoyance: I'm profoundly annoyed that the devs are only shoveling nerfs warlocks way - there are several serious quality of life changes that could be made to polish the class (they don't even have to be implemented this patch just let us know you are going to get to them).

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

QOL (Quality of Life) Changes:
1) SLAs in the warlock trees are still really clunky to use (except maybe ES's slas). There is a notable "lag" or pause in animations where the character does nothing. Also its incredibly probable to cancel things like eldritch wave while auto-attacking - THIS should have the same feel as using "lay waste", "cleave", etc on a pally, ranger, etc.
2) Create Thrall is broken. The listed DC is broken (the actual formula is 15 + Warlock Level + Cha Mod; the displayed formula is 10 + Warlock Level + Cha Mod but its listed as an enchant spell and should benefit from things like enchantment focus feats, etc). The actual effect on a save seems to be true BUT the confusion icon above its head is missing. The actual effect on a failed save is broken - the dominate person/monster icon appears overhead and the spell is listed as a current effect. However, after 15 seconds (always 15 seconds) the monster breaks free - its supposed to last 60 seconds. I have a feeling this is some weird interaction with how you implemented the effect - either with epic ward, dominate monster, charm monster, or a combination of the above. This should not be happening for both game balance reasons and lore reasons. Right now this ability isn't even worth slotting on a hotbar. That is how broken it is.
3) This ties into 1 - interactions between casting spells and autoattacking with blast are inefficient / sluggish, creating a weird dynamic where one feels compelled to choose blasting or spellcasting not both. A large part of this is the starting animation sequence of the blast - this should be evened out and smoothed. The whole flavor behind a warlock is to be able to switch seamlessly between resource based spellcasting and unconstrained eldritch blast.
4) This ties into 2 - finish/polish the animations/sounds for various abilities: Hurl Through Hell is decidedly undramatic for an ability that thematically could be awesome, create thrall is not even visually noticeable when you cast it, eldritch wave / spirit blast / eldritch ball/ consume / stricken / tainted spellcasting all fit this same pattern.
5) Chain still is visually broken - the initial blast is green/grey/red dependent on your pact choice but the secondary bolts are purple like the unmodified pact.
6) Fix Evard's Tooltip - currently the dc is unlisted.
7) Change the icon for confusion to something more distinct - you guys reused the hypnotized icon, which is horrible awkward for a lot of players who are used to not hitting things with that icon. Alter the color - you could use a purple filter or something, just anything to make it visually distinct so that I don't have to manually examine the creature.

NON-QOL Suggestions:
1) Allow cooldown reduction on evocation spells to increase eldritch blast attack speed (this just gives you and us another lever to control warlock power)
2) Allow items (possibly in future packs) to modulate warlock power. They don't have to be warlock specific either (though additional blast die on epic greensteel would be nice): if you allowed the above suggestion then adding cooldown reduction to items would function to buff warlock blasts, as well as, other casters.
3) Allow enlarge to be used to extend the range of eldritch blast - doesn't necessarily have to be double but would like to see some incentive to take this feat. Also, extra range will be sorely needed after this patch. Maybe only allow it to function on certain blast shapes (vanilla and enervating shadow). {A lot of players I know are asking for this one in particular}

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

I know I'm likely wasting my time as the fact that a release date is already set says as much. However, I'm holding out hope that you see this post and maybe 1 of the things I've said you actually read. I don't think I've had any impact on these changes, despite a significant portion of my valuable time being spent on providing feedback (both theoretical and empirical). I guess the one thing I'd like to hear from you guys is your opinion on casters (warlock included) and what the role of each should be. That way I can understand what my character should be good at and build toward that - right now I, and a lot of the community agrees, feel that casters aren't good at anything besides cc (but cc isn't needed anywhere in endgame besides MOD). If casters are meant to be behind everyone else in all the categories that matter (dps and survivability) then let us know, so that we can stop playing casters with the hope that one day they'll be good. I'll probably tr my character into an acrobat or twf tempest or a swf bard after these changes; I hope I learn to enjoy the game on a melee and if I don't there's always taking a break from the game and/or quitting.

This will be my last post on this issue. If anyone wishes to get in touch with me shoot me a pm as I will no longer be reading this or any other forum posts about these changes. I feel likes its a waste of my time as everything apparently was set in stone before lamannia was even up (Monday - Thursday lamannia testing window is not sufficient to get actual player feedback and act on it in any meaningful way).

Still thanks to the devs for at least pretending to care. It might not seem like it but I'm being sincere - this game would likely die if you didn't at least pretend to care. And I like this game. So thank you for pretending.

Cheers

Aside:Honestly I'm not surprised you guys don't even know about create thrall being broken as the ability itself is lackluster (frankly buffing it to be permanent {only 1 thrall allowed}, barring remove charm/dispel, would make the ability a lot more tasteful), which means hardly anybody uses it.

[mikarddo]

Tested on level 28 human

Pure warlock.
Great old one pact.
Shiradi ED (investment into double rainbow). All ES tests done twice for SWF and S&B.
Only used the universal spell power pot due to multiple potions 'bugging out' last time I tested things.

Action points only spent in tree, using only said abilities from tree:
TS - 329.31 - 1,528 DPS
SE - 298.8 - 1,673 DPS
ES (swf) - 401.4 - 1,245.6 DPS
ES (S&B) - 437.4 - 1,143 DPS

41 points spent in TS for capstone/39 points spent in second tree:
TS/SE - 173.1 - 2,889 DPS
TS/ES (S&B) - 319.1 - 1,567 DPS
TS/ES (SWF) - 251.8 - 1,986 DPS

TS dropped to core 12 (24 points), for 30% crit damage/rest spent in other trees:

ES tier 5 (S&B)39 points /SE 16 points - 341.2 - 1,465 DPS
ES tier 5 (SWF)39 points /SE 16 points - 320.3 - 1,561 DPS
SE tier 5/ ES point in light spell power - 264.8 - 1,888 DPS

DPS focused melee builds.
Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger Tests.
Assume gear at 90% optimal. Less gear in some regards due to general gear layout, not fully twinking each builid.
Forgot to grab ship buffs for tests, so kept same baseline for all tests in not grabbing ship buffs.
Did not use any buffing potions for any melee test, and only self buffed.
If argument of defense over dps was reached in feat or enhancement, then DPS was taken. Said actions in many builds will make their ability to stay alive questionable.
Khopesh, warhammer, and scimitar one handers for one handed tests. exception being dex based ranger that tested rapiers and scimitars.
Maul, greataxe, and falchion tests for two handers.


Pure Barbarian
Tested Warhammer, Khopeshes, Greataxe, Falchion, and Maul.
Redsonja (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/458525-Redsonja-3-0-U25-TWF-Pure-Barb?highlight=redsonjahttps://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/458525-Redsonja-3-0-U25-TWF-Pure-Barb?highlight=redsonja) build as baseline for twf, modified for khopesh, and again for thf.

TWF
Warhammer - 119.6 - 4,181 DPS
Khopesh - 109.1 - 4,582 DPS
THF
Greataxe - 139.2 - 3,592 DPS
Falchion - 148.3 - 3,372 DPS
Maul - 143.2 - 3,491.6 DPS

Pure Ranger
Tempest tests only. Nothing against ranged toons, but I personally hate them and could not bring myself to test their numbers. Luckly have seen a good amount of times posted.
Used The Divine Cuisinart (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/465697-The-Divine-Cuisinart-A-dual-khopesh-wielding-pure-tempest-ranger-in-divine-crusader) build due to good breakdown on forums. Modified for str based and dex based tests, blunt and slashing focuses.

Tempest Str based
Warhammer - 101.5 - 4,926 DPS
khopesh - 100.3 - 4,985 DPS
Scimitar - 97.4 - 5,133 DPS


Tempest Dex based
Rapier - 90.8 - 5,507 DPS
Scimitar - 96.8 - 5,165 DPS


Pure Fighter
Not many pure fighter builds that I could get behind while looking for builds on the forums.
Did standard builds for each type.

S&B Vanguard
Khopesh - 173.6 - 2,880 DPS
Scimitar - 184.3 - 2,713 DPS
Warhammer - 195.3 - 2,560 DPS

TWF Kensi
Khopesh - 122.2 - 4,092 DPS
Scimitar - 132.8 - 3,765 DPS
Warhammer - 137.2 - 3,644 DPS

THF Kensi
Greataxe - 177.3 - 2,820 DPS
Falchion - 182.5 - 2,740 DPS
Maul - 176 - 2,841 DPS


Pure Paladin
Far to many builds of each type posted on forums, most multi-classed.
Standard builds built for each type again.

S&B Vanguard
Khopesh - 149 - 3,356 DPS
Scimitar - 164.3 - 3,043 DPS
Warhammer - 186.7 - 2,678 DSP

TWF
Khopesh - 121.1 - 4,129 DPS
Scimitar - 117.7 - 4,248 DSP
Warhammer - 139.4 - 3,587 DPS

THF
Greataxe - 151.7 - 3,296 DPS
Falchion - 142.5 - 3,509
Maul - 174.1 - 2,872


Feel a lot more comfortable with these numbers. Ran each build again 3 times for an average, some needing to be run more then 3 due to people 'helping' or significant variations in test results. Again these are at what I think is about 90% of the gear that the builds should have for endgame setup, missing minor things that are not key for the build (augments being the big one), so fully geared characters with buffs should be able to exceed these melee times. The warlock times were buffed, just to clarify. Much smaller variations in those times are expected.

Put a few hours into testing these, but started getting burnt out on it so figured to stop for now. Pardon the large amount of information at once, but figured to just make one post rather then one for warlock and again for dps tests.

*Mind any typos I have made, bit out of it after spending an entire day testing this, then read the forums for news regarding its release. Just have hopes that some things are reconsidered last minute.

Thats some very excellent testing, thank you very much for doing so.
You show that Warlocks can at best go just below 200 sec (with being optimized)
You show that melee of many classes can kill in 90-120 sec (without being optimized)

You dont post ranged but Sev posted that they see ranged builds kill in 210-300 sec.
We have seen below 100 sec ranged kills but in all likelihood thats simply because Adrenaline regen is far too high in the Dojo and that makes a huge difference.

In summary. Melee can kill in 90-120 sec while warlocks and archers need 200ish or more sec to kill.
Is that really a kind of balance to strive for?

Sev, kindly confirm or deny if your internal testing confirms these number and let us know either a) if you intend to reduce the difference or b) explain why you might think the difference is warrented.

[Grailhawk]

Pure Ranger
Tempest tests only. Nothing against ranged toons, but I personally hate them and could not bring myself to test their numbers. Luckly have seen a good amount of times posted.
Used The Divine Cuisinart (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/465697-The-Divine-Cuisinart-A-dual-khopesh-wielding-pure-tempest-ranger-in-divine-crusader) build due to good breakdown on forums. Modified for str based and dex based tests, blunt and slashing focuses.

Tempest Str based
Warhammer - 101.5 - 4,926 DPS
khopesh - 100.3 - 4,985 DPS
Scimitar - 97.4 - 5,133 DPS


Tempest Dex based
Rapier - 90.8 - 5,507 DPS
Scimitar - 96.8 - 5,165 DPS


What weapons where you using for this test. Crippling Flame TF?

[Seikojin]

What weapons where you using for this test. Crippling Flame TF?

I was getting similar values in my tests and I did first degree burns and dragons edge. I figured t3 was too infrequent of a level to include due to the mats required for it. Also most go for MF, but personally, I would go for reinvig to keep spamming haste :)

[N-0cturn]

20 pure ranger AA Fury of the wild 75ish seconds, description on the vid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0QDlFHNYlA&feature=youtu.be


Currently LR'ing him, will post a moncher comparision in a few hours

Thank you for posting this. Seems like I need to work on my timing.

I am still a bit concerned since you did most of the Damage in the first 20s of Furyshot, and It will be very hard to pull off similar numbers in a quest while moving and doing other stuff.

[dunklezhan]

In summary. Melee can kill in 90-120 sec while warlocks and archers need 200ish or more sec to kill.
Is that really a kind of balance to strive for?



Thanks for boiling that down. Makes it easier to answer your question (with my opinion): if we're talking ranged DPS then... well you can argue about how big the gap should be (I think the gaps shown are in fact too large), but there should definitely be a gap and a significant one at that - when it comes to sustained damage output over time. You're fighting from range.

[jakeelala]

Thanks for boiling that down. Makes it easier to answer your question (with my opinion): if we're talking ranged DPS then... well you can argue about how big the gap should be (I think the gaps shown are in fact too large), but there should definitely be a gap and a significant one at that - when it comes to sustained damage output over time. You're fighting from range.

have you played a ranged character on EE lately?

We are getting hit just as hard by ranged mobs as melee characters are. Regularly.

Things have changed, ranged mobs are no longer a useless nuisance, they are deadly.

[mikarddo]

Thanks for boiling that down. Makes it easier to answer your question (with my opinion): if we're talking ranged DPS then... well you can argue about how big the gap should be (I think the gaps shown are in fact too large), but there should definitely be a gap and a significant one at that - when it comes to sustained damage output over time. You're fighting from range.

I am fine with a reasonable gap. I want to hear from Sev if he finds a gap where melee kills the kobold (more than) twice as fast as reasonable though.

[lifestaker]

What weapons where you using for this test. Crippling Flame TF?

Actually used 3 different ones for main hand while testing, with off hand being standard.
For off hand I kept first degree burns, and dragons edge, reinvigoration as a standard off hand for all twf tests.
For the main hand though I averaged the tests of touch of flames, wrath of flames, with tier 3 being mortal fear, Crippling flames, and burning emptiness. I picked these mostly due to people saying that each of them is the best, and would give a good assessment when averaged.

[Basura_Grande]

have you played a ranged character on EE lately?

We are getting hit just as hard by ranged mobs as melee characters are. Regularly.

Things have changed, ranged mobs are no longer a useless nuisance, they are deadly.

In 2 or 3 quests maybe, and it's not like melee toons don't get shot either.

Simply put, range should do about half the damage of melee if this game is to have any kind of balance.

[mikarddo]

In 2 or 3 quests maybe, and it's not like melee toons don't get shot either.

Simply put, range should do about half the damage of melee if this game is to have any kind of balance.

I respectfully have to disagree. Half damage is far too large a difference. At any rate Sev has commented on melee vs melee differences several times but sofar not once on melee vs ranged.

Sev, kindly let us know if melee killing the kobold more than twice as fast is what you aim for?

[jakeelala]

In 2 or 3 quests maybe, and it's not like melee toons don't get shot either.

Simply put, range should do about half the damage of melee if this game is to have any kind of balance.

This is complete rubbish.

its not 2 or 3 quests, its all new EEs. Moreover, kiting doesnt mean you dont take damage or dont have to heal, and it also significantly reduces DPS because running away from mons and firing is not the same thing as lining them up perfectly to maximize IPS and activated attacks.

thirdly, mobs move so fast in most quests that without a strong attention to run speed they catch you pretty quickly anyway.

it seems like your argument is grounded in ignorance, have you played both melee and ranged characters at cap in the last month on EE? I dont want to make assumptions but I think I can guess the answer.

[sjbb87]

Commenting about manyshot now,
It's a buff to ranged and a big nerf to tempest

Compared to the top classes in dps:
Rogue / kukri, remains similar, with the damage slightly decreased in relation to live.
Rogue staff, it became much weaker.

Barbarian. It continues like that to live.

Ranger tempest, lost a little more dps the Assassin.

And lost what he had to principal that is its versatility.


Assassin still can kill direct ...
Barbarians, continue with a high dps, and very survival.
Ranger .... Tempest lost the ability to use well the bow in difficult situations.

Rogues and rangers continue glass cannon.
But the ranger was much worse than the other classes with top dps.

[mole7777]

Commenting about manyshot now,
It's a buff to ranged and a big nerf to tempest

Compared to the top classes in dps:
Rogue / kukri, remains similar, with the damage slightly decreased in relation to live.
Rogue staff, it became much weaker.

Barbarian. It continues like that to live.

Ranger tempest, lost a little more dps the Assassin.

And lost what he had to principal that is its versatility.


Assassin still can kill direct ...
Barbarians, continue with a high dps, and very survival.
Ranger .... Tempest lost the ability to use well the bow in difficult situations.

Rogues and rangers continue glass cannon.
But the ranger was much worse than the other classes with top dps.

I must be missing something, with a dodge 15 or greater than a paladin and improved evasion (effectively) and stacking corp. How are you managing to take more damage than a paladin or do you mean that you don't class paladin as top dps anymore ?

[Severlin]

Good data in this thread.

For those melee times, are people burning action boosts or consumables?

Sev~

[Severlin]

I know I'm likely wasting my time as the fact that a release date is already set says as much.


This patch won't be the end of this balance discussion. Yes, these changes will come to live but there will be follow up patches (as we have often done) if we need to incorporate additional feedback. We already will need to fix the Elf version of Arcane Archer in a follow up patch as an example.

In determining release schedules we have to take into account the new store; there are schedule demands involved there.

Sev~

[Delacroix21]

Sev, I understand you won't be giving any temporary boost to unarmed despite the horrendous dps comparison to other melee, which is unfortunate.


However can you please look at increasing base unarmed damage with monk levels to PnP dnd standards? That is where the main dps issue lies, as all the +w effects have greatly increased other combat styles dps while having very little impact on unarmed due to the base die.

[sjbb87]

I must be missing something, with a dodge 15 or greater than a paladin and improved evasion (effectively) and stacking corp. How are you managing to take more damage than a paladin or do you mean that you don't class paladin as top dps anymore ?
The top class dps now are Rogue/ranger/Barbarian.
Paladin immediately follows.
Even more have returned behind with holysword to off hand.
But I wanted to compare the top 3 as it is as the turbine want to identify.


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

Sev~

If this is true, Ranger and monks, need to improve a little more than I see in Lamannia.
probably that monks will stay in the same fighter style ...
A dps / cc
And ranger tempest lost what he had to principal that is its versatility.

[Severlin]

After looking at the excellent data:

A lot of the melee numbers are somewhat exaggerated by Divine Crusader. Sure, they can get more impressive bursts using that ED that look impressive when isolated to one test, but really the sustained DPS over time won't be as high. The warlock numbers, on the other hand, are fairly consistent so they catch up while the Divine Crusader buffs are on cool down, or when the melee runs out of action boosts.

One thing people should be doing is also comparing these DPS numbers against LD with blitz, or do a double kobold test there you are required to kill two kobolds in succession to help reduce the Divine Crusader exaggeration.

I bring this up because it is easy to say melee and/or TWF are overperforming here, but this performance is really a short burst of time so I wouldn't want to dial things back unless I was seeing sustained damage at these levels.

This data is great - I am not trying to say it is invalid. Burst damage has to be considered in all of this as danger often comes in DDO at specific key moments. I appreciate these data points and will bring them back to the team to look at where we want Warlock.

Sev~

[Livmo]

This patch won't be the end of this balance discussion. Yes, these changes will come to live but there will be follow up patches (as we have often done) if we need to incorporate additional feedback. We already will need to fix the Elf version of Arcane Archer in a follow up patch as an example.

In determining release schedules we have to take into account the new store; there are schedule demands involved there.

Sev~

Yay TY for addressing and looking into Elf AA!

Also, I figured the new DDO Store had to go live on schedule.

TY for doing more tuning after 28.1.

[Theolin]

After looking at the excellent data:

A lot of the melee numbers are somewhat exaggerated by Divine Crusader. Sure, they can get more impressive bursts using that ED that look impressive when isolated to one test, but really the sustained DPS over time won't be as high. The warlock numbers, on the other hand, are fairly consistent so they catch up while the Divine Crusader buffs are on cool down, or when the melee runs out of action boosts.

One thing people should be doing is also comparing these DPS numbers against LD with blitz, or do a double kobold test there you are required to kill two kobolds in succession to help reduce the Divine Crusader exaggeration.

I bring this up because it is easy to say melee and/or TWF are overperforming here, but this performance is really a short burst of time so I wouldn't want to dial things back unless I was seeing sustained damage at these levels.

This data is great - I am not trying to say it is invalid. Burst damage has to be considered in all of this as danger often comes in DDO at specific key moments. I appreciate these data points and will bring them back to the team to look at where we want Warlock.

Sev~


so what do you think a nice average average DPS is for melee & caster? Obviously it is not what I think & obviously you think they should be different.

[lifestaker]

After looking at the excellent data:

A lot of the melee numbers are somewhat exaggerated by Divine Crusader. Sure, they can get more impressive bursts using that ED that look impressive when isolated to one test, but really the sustained DPS over time won't be as high. The warlock numbers, on the other hand, are fairly consistent so they catch up while the Divine Crusader buffs are on cool down, or when the melee runs out of action boosts.

One thing people should be doing is also comparing these DPS numbers against LD with blitz, or do a double kobold test there you are required to kill two kobolds in succession to help reduce the Divine Crusader exaggeration.

I bring this up because it is easy to say melee and/or TWF are overperforming here, but this performance is really a short burst of time so I wouldn't want to dial things back unless I was seeing sustained damage at these levels.

This data is great - I am not trying to say it is invalid. Burst damage has to be considered in all of this as danger often comes in DDO at specific key moments. I appreciate these data points and will bring them back to the team to look at where we want Warlock.

Sev~

I would agree with you regarding long term damage testing. But, With how things are on Lamaland that is not an option.

1. Kobalds are too close together being effected by burst effects starting (and if bursts are far between restarting) times.

2. 4 boss kobalds in one small room must be used by everyone that is testing. This caused things like chain builds or burst heavy builds to effect other peoples times.

3. Open public instance allows for random actions of others to effect times.

4. high volume of people wanting to test builds caused for people to grow impatient waiting for low dps build that test on boss kobald.

5. Seldom there seemed to be pet issues (skeletons and dogs) randomly coming from out of no where to fight boss kobald.

6. For some builds the dps times = the buff in question, so multiple kobalds hold no value.

7. Use of smites, action boosts, adrenaline, and other limited use abilities are hard to control due to the limited use abilities resetting.

8. Warlocks have 'burst damage' with universal spell power action boosts, and TS's tainted spellcasting. These limited use actions do add damage, but for the duration of the boost the % increase is much lower then the % added from almost any attack effecting action boost (+20 MWP > 20 USP).


By your other comment you assume that tests were strictly done in DC, where I know that some (most) times are better in LD just due to being able to keep full blitz up all the time for the test, regardless of the number of kobalds. Damage over time will still show the warlock far behind much of any melee build at end game, mainly due to builds that use boosts heavily normally having some way to regain those boosts. Even if 20 second boost is regenerated a 1 every 100 seconds, it is still there for people to have for long term battles or quests without shrines (defiler takes around 20 minutes for most parties, that is a regeneration of 12 actions boosts, 13 smites not counting endless smiting or Holy retribution, limitless adrenaline with fury eternal, and 0 spell points).

I will not be going back to lama to run the numbers again for variations in all the builds that I ran for time without use of any action boost, and my melee times are without potions or buffs outside of the ones that the build could cast on itself. I think these are respectful of the higher end one should expect.

The failure on my part was not testing an non-buffed warlock, or one playing in a less then ideal destiny. Not running in Shiradi would effect numbers, though it is questionable as to what destiny would be better (you reference Draconic, though I find running in EA to be profitable, more so when you are not running other forms of vulnerability). If you are referencing my numbers as good warlock numbers you must also take into account that those are buffed numbers, on a character that has all his past lives and gear. His AC/PRR/MRR in medium armor is about as effective in epic as him being in a robe (mostly due to other gear and past lives making up for the variation), his temp HP from ST proved to not last the time it now took to kill a small mob in many quests, but did result in me having to stop between each mob to wait till I could rebuff said temp HP.

I am not demanding changes to warlock to make them like they were, I just think that there may be a bit of ill-placed logic in the decision to carpet nerf them as had happened, now for the second time. This being the only up to date caster build in game right now is effectively setting the bar for how much of a change is required for any other caster class. What is being said is that all other casters need some form of enhancement to gain lower spell point cost, and everything else is 100% fine with them. I say that due to sorcs being able to get more spells for higher damage over time then a warlock and a wizard getting higher dcs and self healing (via undead). If the bar for a caster is set to where Warlocks are then you are saying that casters all should be nerfed to some degree, rather then buffed when their enhancement pass comes into play.

[sjbb87]

Unfortunately with manyshot tests ... I can say that for the tempest is this ....


https://scontent-gru1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xta1/v/t1.0-9/12141707_1066335746712051_4993473115855875913_n.jp g?oh=87138e6e020a5f1d877cb6f2b36390af&oe=5689C284

[lifestaker]

Unfortunately with manyshot tests ... I can say that for the tempest is this ....


https://scontent-gru1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xta1/v/t1.0-9/12141707_1066335746712051_4993473115855875913_n.jp g?oh=87138e6e020a5f1d877cb6f2b36390af&oe=5689C284

The failure on that aspect being that Legolas could still kill 14 things with those 2 arrows.

[fangblackhawk]

Sev, I understand you won't be giving any temporary boost to unarmed despite the horrendous dps comparison to other melee, which is unfortunate.


However can you please look at increasing base unarmed damage with monk levels to PnP dnd standards? That is where the main dps issue lies, as all the +w effects have greatly increased other combat styles dps while having very little impact on unarmed due to the base die.

.... or just UN-nerf reinforced fists items that were nerfed b4 all the +w that use to make green steel special, a;ways thought it funny this version of dungeons and dragons went with mutiple wepon (w) in a single hit over the traditional +9000 enhanment (magic) bonus .... i do see how they would be leary of (w) and reinforced fifst stacking and then needing nerfs later though when the ychange wraps to work like every other weapon ....... but is a very valid point that they took the same damg away from monks they then turned around and gave every one else more than they took from monks... even if they scal back on it some now

[slarden]

I appreciate these data points and will bring them back to the team to look at where we want Warlock.

Sev~

You can't be considering more nerfs lol.

[fangblackhawk]

After looking at the excellent data:

A lot of the melee numbers are somewhat exaggerated by Divine Crusader. Sure, they can get more impressive bursts using that ED that look impressive when isolated to one test, but really the sustained DPS over time won't be as high. The warlock numbers, on the other hand, are fairly consistent so they catch up while the Divine Crusader buffs are on cool down, or when the melee runs out of action boosts.

One thing people should be doing is also comparing these DPS numbers against LD with blitz, or do a double kobold test there you are required to kill two kobolds in succession to help reduce the Divine Crusader exaggeration.

I bring this up because it is easy to say melee and/or TWF are overperforming here, but this performance is really a short burst of time so I wouldn't want to dial things back unless I was seeing sustained damage at these levels.

This data is great - I am not trying to say it is invalid. Burst damage has to be considered in all of this as danger often comes in DDO at specific key moments. I appreciate these data points and will bring them back to the team to look at where we want Warlock.

Sev~

in recent times on live i can attest to LD being the most by far sustainable dmg over a long run, i will use my recent 2 rouge/ 18 barb shardiki , ravager mainly with heavy investment in occult slayer enough mechanic for skills boost (was "ok" trapper till just into epics) and just one ap in race tree ( die harder thingy) using great axes, the example was in fury ed i had ok dps through out a quest building up the epic moment and saving most of my adrenaline for a the boss fight, and then hitting all my rages, action boosts, epic moment primal screams, and trying to time the Adrenalins in between bursts from the epic moment i was often decimating the boss b4 guildys even got to the boss to hit it..... (often glitching melicia in under the big top), as a crusader you get "bursty" but sustainable dps (as it rolls around every so often) and the whole concentrated ground thing... ( cant use raged lol).... and then in end game content it hasn't left unyielding sentinel as the spread on builds stats the evasion only works so well :)

the only testing i had time on lama to do was run 2 of the new mabar challenges with my lvl 28 swashbuckling pure bard..... and for unknow content it still seemed to do ok..... but all most lama toons are also not what they are on live atm even if they havent trd.... they have been in the dojo testing last couple sets of gear and quests,,,,, and or have actually tred.... and all have gotten new gear on live as well....

are the new dojo kobold syour testing on still level one with many hp..... cuz that lowers there saves and they isbta kill with a neg level..... i cleaved then clear b4 with a tf neg dmg neg burst mabar aug,,,,, it wasnt the pretty t2 tf wepon ml 26 that did it ..... they all neg leveled i think ther was one kobold left standing...... the dps testing needs to be in reallity run every pure class and classcombo at every level vs same level elite mobs in actual game enviorment...... way to much work un less you data mine live and the entire player base lol that is still alot o F'n work ....good luck :)

[mikarddo]

After looking at the excellent data:

A lot of the melee numbers are somewhat exaggerated by Divine Crusader. Sure, they can get more impressive bursts using that ED that look impressive when isolated to one test, but really the sustained DPS over time won't be as high. The warlock numbers, on the other hand, are fairly consistent so they catch up while the Divine Crusader buffs are on cool down, or when the melee runs out of action boosts.

One thing people should be doing is also comparing these DPS numbers against LD with blitz, or do a double kobold test there you are required to kill two kobolds in succession to help reduce the Divine Crusader exaggeration.

I bring this up because it is easy to say melee and/or TWF are overperforming here, but this performance is really a short burst of time so I wouldn't want to dial things back unless I was seeing sustained damage at these levels.

This data is great - I am not trying to say it is invalid. Burst damage has to be considered in all of this as danger often comes in DDO at specific key moments. I appreciate these data points and will bring them back to the team to look at where we want Warlock.

Sev~

Thank you for the reply. However, you do not mention ranged archery, crossbow or throwers at all. Is there any particular reason for that? Do you feel its reasonable for those builds to kill half as fast as top melee builds?

[mikarddo]

I would agree with you regarding long term damage testing. But, With how things are on Lamaland that is not an option.

1. Kobalds are too close together being effected by burst effects starting (and if bursts are far between restarting) times.

2. 4 boss kobalds in one small room must be used by everyone that is testing. This caused things like chain builds or burst heavy builds to effect other peoples times.

3. Open public instance allows for random actions of others to effect times.

4. high volume of people wanting to test builds caused for people to grow impatient waiting for low dps build that test on boss kobald.

5. Seldom there seemed to be pet issues (skeletons and dogs) randomly coming from out of no where to fight boss kobald.

6. For some builds the dps times = the buff in question, so multiple kobalds hold no value.

7. Use of smites, action boosts, adrenaline, and other limited use abilities are hard to control due to the limited use abilities resetting.

8. Warlocks have 'burst damage' with universal spell power action boosts, and TS's tainted spellcasting. These limited use actions do add damage, but for the duration of the boost the % increase is much lower then the % added from almost any attack effecting action boost (+20 MWP > 20 USP).


By your other comment you assume that tests were strictly done in DC, where I know that some (most) times are better in LD just due to being able to keep full blitz up all the time for the test, regardless of the number of kobalds. Damage over time will still show the warlock far behind much of any melee build at end game, mainly due to builds that use boosts heavily normally having some way to regain those boosts. Even if 20 second boost is regenerated a 1 every 100 seconds, it is still there for people to have for long term battles or quests without shrines (defiler takes around 20 minutes for most parties, that is a regeneration of 12 actions boosts, 13 smites not counting endless smiting or Holy retribution, limitless adrenaline with fury eternal, and 0 spell points). .

I fully agree. We need to be able to test in an instanced combat zone for the tests to function properly.

[Walking_Ride]

Some follow up news from the Lamannia thread:

~ Two Weapon Fighting Paladins are slightly behind where we want them in our Lamannia tests and in the player testing we've seen. We plan to boost them by allowing Holy Sword to work with non-shield off hand attacks. With the Improved Critical bug fixed this extra off hand damage will no longer increase the DPS of those builds too far.

Sev~

Will that be included in todays update 28 patch 1 ? Or do i have to wait for the next update, so that i can properly play my twf paladin again ?

[Requiro]

After looking at the excellent data:

A lot of the melee numbers (...)

What about ranged and AA changes?

BTW: if you want more tests, bring more Boss Kobolts, 4 are not enough (people often stand in line to get one chance to kill one boss)
Also some reworked quest from challenges (range 1-30 CR) with Kobolt DPS and Kobolt Boss will be great :)

[Seikojin]

Good data in this thread.

For those melee times, are people burning action boosts or consumables?

Sev~

For all my testing, I used everything I could for combat. So damage boost (racial or class), haste boost (racial or class, to be not tied to damage boosts timers and cooldown), and draconic reinvigoration for boost refilling.

[Seikojin]

After looking at the excellent data:

A lot of the melee numbers are somewhat exaggerated by Divine Crusader. Sure, they can get more impressive bursts using that ED that look impressive when isolated to one test, but really the sustained DPS over time won't be as high. The warlock numbers, on the other hand, are fairly consistent so they catch up while the Divine Crusader buffs are on cool down, or when the melee runs out of action boosts.

One thing people should be doing is also comparing these DPS numbers against LD with blitz, or do a double kobold test there you are required to kill two kobolds in succession to help reduce the Divine Crusader exaggeration.

I bring this up because it is easy to say melee and/or TWF are overperforming here, but this performance is really a short burst of time so I wouldn't want to dial things back unless I was seeing sustained damage at these levels.

This data is great - I am not trying to say it is invalid. Burst damage has to be considered in all of this as danger often comes in DDO at specific key moments. I appreciate these data points and will bring them back to the team to look at where we want Warlock.

Sev~

Done and done :)

I did all my runs in both DC and LD and because I used reinvigoration, my haste, damage, and surge boosts refilled frequently enough to continue using them until the mob died. Mind you 13 action boosts is 300 seconds for the two that matter and a single use of something else. Which is more than enough me to kill the kobolds. Which may have more than 500k hp. First swing proc of MF did 426,000 damage. Which would put them closer to a million hp.

So that would mean all tests are doing double the work in terms of dps.

I saw others doing multiple mobs and trying aoe times.

I will say casters (non-warlocks) were getting about half the kobolds bar or a little more down before running out of SP. Spell spamming modes. Conserving sp, they can drop them with the full bars and room for casting. So a million hp is a good goal for seeing endurance.

When comparing, I did the following destinies: DC for doublestrike, LD for sustained MP, and Fatesinger for procs.

[Atremus]

Good data in this thread.

For those melee times, are people burning action boosts or consumables?

Sev~


Sev,

My unarmed boss test was without ship buffs, no consumables, no clickies. The only boost used was Haste from LD and I only used it 5x to simulate running out. Blitz was active of course.


I do think it would be incredibly helpful to spread out the rednamed kobolds. AoE can easily hit somone elses test on accident. Would it be possible to put more bosses in the Dojo like upstairs or out in the pit area? Last night there were about 6 people trying to run tests, I just logged out with plans to test later.

[JOTMON]

I would agree with you regarding long term damage testing. But, With how things are on Lamaland that is not an option.

1. Kobalds are too close together being effected by burst effects starting (and if bursts are far between restarting) times.

2. 4 boss kobalds in one small room must be used by everyone that is testing. This caused things like chain builds or burst heavy builds to effect other peoples times.

3. Open public instance allows for random actions of others to effect times.

4. high volume of people wanting to test builds caused for people to grow impatient waiting for low dps build that test on boss kobald.

5. Seldom there seemed to be pet issues (skeletons and dogs) randomly coming from out of no where to fight boss kobald.

6. For some builds the dps times = the buff in question, so multiple kobalds hold no value.

7. Use of smites, action boosts, adrenaline, and other limited use abilities are hard to control due to the limited use abilities resetting.

8. Warlocks have 'burst damage' with universal spell power action boosts, and TS's tainted spellcasting. These limited use actions do add damage, but for the duration of the boost the % increase is much lower then the % added from almost any attack effecting action boost (+20 MWP > 20 USP).


By your other comment you assume that tests were strictly done in DC, where I know that some (most) times are better in LD just due to being able to keep full blitz up all the time for the test, regardless of the number of kobalds. Damage over time will still show the warlock far behind much of any melee build at end game, mainly due to builds that use boosts heavily normally having some way to regain those boosts. Even if 20 second boost is regenerated a 1 every 100 seconds, it is still there for people to have for long term battles or quests without shrines (defiler takes around 20 minutes for most parties, that is a regeneration of 12 actions boosts, 13 smites not counting endless smiting or Holy retribution, limitless adrenaline with fury eternal, and 0 spell points).

I will not be going back to lama to run the numbers again for variations in all the builds that I ran for time without use of any action boost, and my melee times are without potions or buffs outside of the ones that the build could cast on itself. I think these are respectful of the higher end one should expect.

The failure on my part was not testing an non-buffed warlock, or one playing in a less then ideal destiny. Not running in Shiradi would effect numbers, though it is questionable as to what destiny would be better (you reference Draconic, though I find running in EA to be profitable, more so when you are not running other forms of vulnerability). If you are referencing my numbers as good warlock numbers you must also take into account that those are buffed numbers, on a character that has all his past lives and gear. His AC/PRR/MRR in medium armor is about as effective in epic as him being in a robe (mostly due to other gear and past lives making up for the variation), his temp HP from ST proved to not last the time it now took to kill a small mob in many quests, but did result in me having to stop between each mob to wait till I could rebuff said temp HP.

I am not demanding changes to warlock to make them like they were, I just think that there may be a bit of ill-placed logic in the decision to carpet nerf them as had happened, now for the second time. This being the only up to date caster build in game right now is effectively setting the bar for how much of a change is required for any other caster class. What is being said is that all other casters need some form of enhancement to gain lower spell point cost, and everything else is 100% fine with them. I say that due to sorcs being able to get more spells for higher damage over time then a warlock and a wizard getting higher dcs and self healing (via undead). If the bar for a caster is set to where Warlocks are then you are saying that casters all should be nerfed to some degree, rather then buffed when their enhancement pass comes into play.

These are all valid points.

Without containing combat into instance rooms with different aspect scenario's the testing is fairly limited and subject to outside contamination.

-Issues-
the standing Kobold is a pure max dps beatdown comparison with no other consideration but optimizing damage.
Characters can spec to optimize damage on the kobold specifically. which does not provide a clean comparison.
A ranger with kobold favored enemy is going to perform better, but is that a realistic build choice or just optimized for the test dojo.
Kobold doesn't fight back, so no need to adjust self healing gear or stop to self heal, get heals, deal with attack aoe's move around...
its just a glorified training dummy.

Dojo should have portals to endfight private instances much like Devil Assault scaled up for Epic testing(or level selectable 1-32 like challenges) with a range of endgame bosses per wave.
Something with bell ringer timers like breaking the ranks or ring of fire, have the completion xp screen show times between bell ringing.
a series of half a dozen bosses that does not allow for spec changing between fights, just shrine changes..
bosses like...
~Scaled up Devils assault with waves.
~Zeligat at the end of WGU with wandering assassins and archers while he teleports around and spams his spell compliment.
~Rhi'enne the Planetar <Champion of the Archons> and her crew- endfight in Archon's Trial.
and more...
There needs to be a range of focussed mob challenges to show where some melee are baseline op or if they are just niche advantaged with the opportunity to swap Epic destinies between tests for unrealistic advantages.
~like audience of the queen spamming then switch to LD for kobold dummy beatdown.

[lifestaker]

*snip*

A ranger with kobold favored enemy is going to perform better, but is that a realistic build choice or just optimized for the test dojo.
*snip*


As far as rangers numbers, it is logical to build a testing build to have fair numbers. This would say for testing to have favored enemy reptile, because most rangers do have the favored enemy of whatever boss they are fighting. It may not be realistic to take said feat on a build, only because there are no boss kobalds. If they made it a devil rather then a kobald, the builds would still have the favored enemy, but it would not be looked at as odd.

[Severlin]

Some answers:

~ If I haven't mentioned specific builds it's simply because it simply isn't efficient to talk about all builds at the same time.

~ Melee cannot sustain the burst of Divine Crusader and all the other stacking DPS increases that the aforementioned Ranger build uses. If ranged and casting builds could sustain that kind of DPS we'd have bigger issues.

~ We want to be careful that we don't nerf melee classes because the EDs are unbalanced. We'd rather (eventually) address the ED situation directly.

~ Players have no way of knowing that new epic metamagics and new epic feats are coming in Update 29 to further address caster DPS and mana efficiency in Epics. These buffs are not something we want to drag into heroic character options.

Sev~

[Severlin]

First swing proc of MF did 426,000 damage. Which would put them closer to a million hp.


Wait, I assume you are testing against the boss kobolds that should be immune to MF? BEcause we definitely aren't using MF in our tests.

Sev~

[sjbb87]

With this update the manyshot.

1-Should rename for someshots
2-Tempest were with a big nerf.
3-Please test tempest with manyshot
For me it was totally useless, now more than ever I believe it is a good time to do more like ranger with the book, and let people choose their fighting styles and gain your pet.

[UurlockYgmeov]

First swing proc of MF did 426,000 damage. Which would put them closer to a million hp.

Kobold scream in pain - cower in front of almighty Seikojin! Worship almighty Seikojin!

http://img.bhs4.com/70/4/70493dc7f912634cb4741c815922bf766cc168f0_large.jpg

:eek::p:cool:

[lifestaker]

Some answers:

~ Players have no way of knowing that new epic metamagics and new epic feats are coming in Update 29 to further address caster DPS and mana efficiency in Epics. These buffs are not something we want to drag into heroic character options.

Sev~

Indeed we could not know that, there has been no information regarding any sort of adjustment for casters that I have seen at least. This in my eyes should have been addressed even this loosely around the same time as the news of the second reduction to warlock dps. Doing so would have been confirmation that you are aware of the gap in caster dps, and would allow people to have hopes to play their casters again.

I agree that epic feats for casters would be something great that 'could' make casters in epic feel better about their dps, and should be for epics only. Caster passes that have not been done will give the light heroic bump that some feel they need.

Upcoming plans like this should be commented on in threads that spell 'doom' to caster classes. The fact that many of these threads have never been commented in give off the impression that 'all is well', or that people are blowing things out of proportion. A simple line like that can let people know that those interested in casters should keep their eyes out for more information coming closer to whatever update.

Me personally, will enjoy going over to test more things with casters then with melee builds. Mostly due to me liking far to many of my caster lives, but always hated them in epic (save the shiradi builds and old warlocks). This in my eyes should be addressed a bit more formally being far out from the release. Mostly due to the potential of getting good ideas from people that may be outside of your focus groups or personal way of thinking. Though you would have to deal with people like me that say things in a way that could be abrasive to sensitive people though at times giving good information.

[Qhualor]

Some answers:

~ We want to be careful that we don't nerf melee classes because the EDs are unbalanced. We'd rather (eventually) address the ED situation directly.

Sev~

18 Fey warlock/2 BF paladin primarily using ES, BF and Harper tree as a melee. she is built taking feats and enhancements just like you would for any straight up dps class (barb, fighter) and with decent gear mixed with a little named. at level 22 in DC destiny noticed approximately ~300 points less crit damage than the day before. regular damage just seems way low seeing base of ~100. it seems auras are doing better damage than swinging a weapon. just want to know if this sounds right to you. when warlocks were first released I thought they were pretty decent melee on par with maybe fighters. now I just cant justify going pure or mostly pure. right now I would say they are a splash class if you were looking for an interesting multi class build because decreasing spell power and the other changes are affecting melee warlocks.

[Basura_Grande]

~ Players have no way of knowing that new epic metamagics and new epic feats are coming in Update 29 to further address caster DPS and mana efficiency in Epics. These buffs are not something we want to drag into heroic character options.

Sev~

A feat tax is not acceptable, put the powers in the EDs.

[RS-Makk]

Lifestaker - thanks so much for all the analysis. That's great test data.

Would you happen to have some data for a bard swashbuckler or war chanter? I'm interested to see how they compare to the tempest ranger.

Thanks

[lifestaker]

Lifestaker - thanks so much for all the analysis. That's great test data.

Would you happen to have some data for a bard swashbuckler or war chanter? I'm interested to see how they compare to the tempest ranger.

Thanks

I did some tests with bards, but I think it was prior to them adding the fix for IC and swashbuckler. Swashbuckler numbers were a bit behind that of the twf tests and warchanter was just around fighter in thf. Personally I felt the numbers could provide wrong information and refused to include them. Not to mention I really didn't want to test everything for SWF to give accurate figures. But, thanks for seeing my figures as helpful. Maybe next time they open it up I will have the time to test other things and provide figures again. That is unless they allow for things to change on live.

As someone else suggested (and I think it is a good idea) that they add kobalds onto the airship. I know with the largest ship you have an extra large room that is not used, even when you have everything. Not sure how involved it would be to have that room tied to a testing area with kobalds (a multiple difficulty quest with difficulty = kobald hp would be easy to make in my eyes). Could even go a step more and have a reoccurring character allow admission to an arena where you can test kobalds based off x hp, or enter some type of private pvp pit for those that like that. Just this time no talking him into having people fight naked.

Not only would that please the pvp people and maybe allow for special arena choices (may be to much to say decorate your arena, but set the theme should be easy), but would allow people a standard to test their builds against other people's builds and when needed, be able to provide feedback with figures when potential issues come up. There are many positive things that could come from it, but hard to say if it is possible without knowing the limitations of the code around the airship, pvp private party arenas (have not jumped in one in so long I don't even know if they are still around, though I know you can still assign teams in a raid so want to say they are), or even around the kobald's stand around and do nothing AI.

[BigErkyKid]

Vanguard is really strong right now. Its synergy with tanking trees coupled with its active mitigation is strong. It wouldn't be balanced if that build did better DPS than the other fighting styles. Our test times show it slightly ahead of two handed fighting and two weapon fighting on Paladin tests for DPS. Even when Holy Sword is changed to work with two weapon fighting the DPS of Vanguard will still be competitive.

If Vanguard did more DPS there would be no reason to even play other styles.

Sev~

Well, have you guys taken a vanguard into a quest with high mob density? I know that vanguards hit hard against kobolds, but they are simply really bad at AOE damage.

The reason of course is that you have to consider the source of their DPS. A vanguard gets a lot of DPS from bashes, double strike, and attack speed. That combined with helpless damage.

Obviously NON of the major sources of DPS of a vanguard work with cleaves. You could build a VG with a b-sword, but it usually isn't very functional. A paladin has trouble getting the feats for glancing blows and a b-sword in the hands of a fighter is a bad weapon in general.

Not to say that VGs aren't powerful. They are, but I seriously doubt they are ahead in questing time and general trash killing capacity. Certainly non of my over 7 VG builds (splashed, fighters, paladins...) has show much promise in AOE damage.

This you will not learn beating kobolds and comparing the times.

[Vulkoorex]

My Vanguard build is squishy with the reduction of PRR and MRR. It can survive EE party of six. But kill count was still far behind the Uber builds.

Before I was doing decent damage, tanking, and the odd heals. Now, it's tanking and healing while everyone else kills the mob for me. Not quite as fun.

[Jappy]

Can we get lamannia open for a weekend please dev or cordovan

[RS-Makk]

I did some tests with bards, but I think it was prior to them adding the fix for IC and swashbuckler. Swashbuckler numbers were a bit behind that of the twf tests and warchanter was just around fighter in thf. Personally I felt the numbers could provide wrong information and refused to include them. Not to mention I really didn't want to test everything for SWF to give accurate figures. But, thanks for seeing my figures as helpful. Maybe next time they open it up I will have the time to test other things and provide figures again. That is unless they allow for things to change on live.

As someone else suggested (and I think it is a good idea) that they add kobalds onto the airship. I know with the largest ship you have an extra large room that is not used, even when you have everything. Not sure how involved it would be to have that room tied to a testing area with kobalds (a multiple difficulty quest with difficulty = kobald hp would be easy to make in my eyes). Could even go a step more and have a reoccurring character allow admission to an arena where you can test kobalds based off x hp, or enter some type of private pvp pit for those that like that. Just this time no talking him into having people fight naked.

Not only would that please the pvp people and maybe allow for special arena choices (may be to much to say decorate your arena, but set the theme should be easy), but would allow people a standard to test their builds against other people's builds and when needed, be able to provide feedback with figures when potential issues come up. There are many positive things that could come from it, but hard to say if it is possible without knowing the limitations of the code around the airship, pvp private party arenas (have not jumped in one in so long I don't even know if they are still around, though I know you can still assign teams in a raid so want to say they are), or even around the kobald's stand around and do nothing AI.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm ready to TR my melee.. he's been TWF all his past lives and trying to decide whether to switch it up and go bard, or stick with TWF given that the world is finally good again for TWF. This data is helpful to help me determine what to do.

A question. When you tested the Dex based version(s) of the Divine Cuisinart.. what did you change up from the template?

[lifestaker]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm ready to TR my melee.. he's been TWF all his past lives and trying to decide whether to switch it up and go bard, or stick with TWF given that the world is finally good again for TWF. This data is helpful to help me determine what to do.

A question. When you tested the Dex based version(s) of the Divine Cuisinart.. what did you change up from the template?

Just switched dex and str scores. Nothing to special regarding enhancements save taking DWS improved weapon finesse for dex to damage, lowing the stealth enhancement to do so. Not taking khopesh makes the build work with almost the same feats by switching dodge to level 1 and completionist at level 3, or going non human and retaining the same feats. I personally dropped IC: Ranged due to not testing that and took completionist there, and still took khopesh at level 1 without thinking.

From testing on live bard did not get hit all to bard. Did not take the time to figure dps numbers on mine, but all in all they seem to be better then when I tested on Lama at least on first glace. If you intend on doing something different then TWF, it is still a viable option IMO.

[JOTMON]

As far as rangers numbers, it is logical to build a testing build to have fair numbers. This would say for testing to have favored enemy reptile, because most rangers do have the favored enemy of whatever boss they are fighting. It may not be realistic to take said feat on a build, only because there are no boss kobalds. If they made it a devil rather then a kobald, the builds would still have the favored enemy, but it would not be looked at as odd.

The testing kobold is just a means to test pure stars aligned DPS with no consequences.
dump defensive, self healing, heal amps, destinies, stats, saves, anything that is not pure DPS for damage purposes..

problem is it becomes a failure for balance testing, Stars aligned DPS is not the same as balancing.
Stars aligned DPS builds are like max CON builds.. they show what is possible but only for demonstration purposes, they are not realistic builds for gaming purposes.

hence the suggestion for a series of battles against the spectrum of mobs that fight back with timed completions between battles.
~could have an energy circle with mob inside so stepping away to self heal behind the energy barrier, to self heal/shrine/hireling like healer...
..either side cant attack through barrier... so ranged cannot be fired from a protected zone against the test mob..moving in and out of the barrier adds time to the clock..

Each class should have niche damage against certain types of mobs.
Paladins should excel vs Evil and undead.. but against natural mobs.. not so much.
Barbarians burst DPS, but poorer sustained DPS.
Rangers.. favoured enemies..
Rogues.. sneak damage..
Monks.. nvm.. maybe monks will get fixed some day..
Fighters are your middle of the road good against everything and have tactics (even though boss tactics are lacking In the game), etc..


In a circuit test I would expect to see different time completion numbers against mob groups dependant on class.
Testing all these aspects against all melee types is a more useful test comparison.
This measure can then show where class dps tweaking can be addressed for over and under performers.
Recognize and adjust the balancing point for defensive measures like PRR and Dodge.

The ultimate goal should still be to balance the classes so they are stronger as a diversified team, not make the classes equal.. each class should be better oriented to a subset of challenges or their niche..
as a result each melee type is strong in their focussed area, weaker when out of their niche, but augmented as a group.




Also.. casters...

Testing rooms for Caster battles with no pot usage active to better balance SLA's and spells without infinite pot access.
Pot sales may have been good for DDO store sales, but the backlash (like raids with no shrines.. a fu to blue bars..) and mob changes damaged the caster class.

Cleric healing rooms.. keep the kobolds alive challenge... to test healing costs and recognize the expensive cost associated to playing the cleric class as a healer and how to address why no one wants to play a healer anymore.
There was a reason Clerics went on strike on 2010... Devs ignored the issues and many players quit playing clerics... especially in pug groups.

No one wants to play a mana-pot chugging class, which also drives a lot of players to warlock.. a low sp caster class.. other caster classes hate them..
..their jealousy may not be misplaced... for those that play casters.. who doesn't want a caster class that does have to spew sp....

[RS-Makk]

Tested on level 28 human


Pure Ranger
Tempest tests only. Nothing against ranged toons, but I personally hate them and could not bring myself to test their numbers. Luckly have seen a good amount of times posted.
Used The Divine Cuisinart (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/465697-The-Divine-Cuisinart-A-dual-khopesh-wielding-pure-tempest-ranger-in-divine-crusader) build due to good breakdown on forums. Modified for str based and dex based tests, blunt and slashing focuses.

Tempest Str based
Warhammer - 101.5 - 4,926 DPS
khopesh - 100.3 - 4,985 DPS
Scimitar - 97.4 - 5,133 DPS


Tempest Dex based
Rapier - 90.8 - 5,507 DPS
Scimitar - 96.8 - 5,165 DPS



Regarding the pure ranger results, I've been wondering why:

- the rapier came out ahead of the scimitar on the dex based
- the dex based came ahead of str based (although scimi is pretty much the same on both..)
- why the khopesh didn't come out on top (which would have been expected?)

[Grailhawk]

Regarding the pure ranger results, I've been wondering why:

- the rapier came out ahead of the scimitar on the dex based
- the dex based came ahead of str based (although scimi is pretty much the same on both..)
- why the khopesh didn't come out on top (which would have been expected?)

He used weapons that favor extended crit range over multiple for most his tests 2/3. Crippling Flame and Burning Emptiness favor scimitars and rapiers over Khopesh and war hammer.

There's also just luck/randomness and his sample size is really small (not trying be little what he did it's good data points but it's not a large enough sample to start getting the expected value)

[thomascoolone64]

My twf paladins dps dropped by 30% due to holy sword not affecting my off hand weapons.

On my pure ranger the dps was 60% more than with the build above due to holy sword not affecting both weapons while rangers can have it on both weapons through the tier4 core abilities from tempest and deepwood.

Rangers were already better when they were revamped due to having 30% more doublestrike. But now they are totally overpowering paladin builds.

Iam not happy with that. Every melee build including fighters have their off hand weapon affected except paladins. Does that seem fair to you ?

Why won't you admit hating paladins so much to get them rolled back to square 1 ?

What i hear is a lot of "Waaaaaah! Waaaaaaaaahhh! Why you do dis?! Waaahhhh !!! "

[IronClan]

What i hear is a lot of "Waaaaaah! Waaaaaaaaahhh! Why you do dis?! Waaahhhh !!! "

The thing you're quoting someone complaining about did not end up happening (HS still effects Off hand weapons and also missile weapons) so what you "heard" was effective lobbying against a change that many players didn't want.

You on the other hand are mocking someone because they didn't want their character nerfed, which is petty and sad... it is made quite amusing by the fact that you clearly have no idea that the person got their way. The irony is rich.

[AzureDragonas]

We still have issues in game you not adressing as priority to take care of, and new update gonna carry same death weight again. I think you should make even rounds up for some stuff so i wanna give simple suggestions how till u fix properly solve some issues.

1. AA imbues, slay arrows paralyzing etc works on any ranged weapon. as long as you activate and equip bow effect stays intact.
Solution:
make effects to recognise bows only, any other ranged effect equip silence effect entirely thus making impossible for shurikens, crossbows etc use stuff which should be available on bows only. And y i can use Slay arrows on any ranged, if u made restrictions on special attacks to work only on qstaff i think you cna do same for bows too.

2. wolfs exploit itself is based on that ranger gives you duals regardless if u took single or not making something like wolf 30% attack speed +30% single speed +4 attacks from duals possible.
Solution:
Force feats Not Apply or make them disabled if person already have single line thus "Cerberus" builds with 2 heads couse of duals wont work and only single line applies.

3. swashbucler shield encahntment. I guess it was intention to let swashbuclers to use buclers in first place while swasbucling i dont know if it adressed and you know this or fixed already havent tested. Issue anyone can pick that enchantment and use single+(any shield) without being in swashbucling stance. Yes, wolf can use single attack speed +Tower shield and benefit frmo both with 3 bard lvl splash tested myself couple months ago.
Solution:
Make that enchant work only on buclers or light shields. and only during swasbuckling

4. Treefolks how they are broken? (infinitive charge regen while not casting, cleves bypassing attack speed animation)
Solution:
1) Remove free charges treefolk should be something what is viable 1/10 quest time not 9/10. It says itself while casting, healing aura, warlocks eldrict blasts, Arcon etc they are casted just once. So make them stop generating free charges on treefolks.
2) cleeve animation, you can't adjust animation with speed? then solve other way, if cleve makes attack in second while my normal attack couse of speed would take 3 seconds to perform, add extra cd on cleves, making them those 2 seconds instead of using other 2 cleaves they will be forced either back off or use normal attacks. Some can say it's bul**** couse cleves get useless i can say this, if you dont have penalty they will work same, but i dont see reason why somone who should suffer penalty lets say from silver pot or treefolk still attack normaly with this bug. And to be able to cleave clean EH DoJ reinforcment group alone as treefolk in less than 20 seconds is broken too.

5. In same sense it goes for shiradi, make them cast spells to get charges why something what was cast once gives multiple charges? If i summon arcon on my shoulder not i but he cast spells, same goes for cleric aura for warlock its shape of cone (protective aura) which he dont cast at all, same way as any blast should not trigger any charges couse it's same as attacking, same should be with any warlock eldricht blast
Solution:
any type of charges only from spell cast during spell cast number of projectiles dont count.

6. Best warlock fix add saves to blasts, you made massive burst spellcaster who ignores saves, do same to sorc and game will be broken too (Sorc OP).
Solution:
Fix this making them in same boat as any other caster, and then won't be issues with damage could even increase to make it work better, couse now Having 6 base cha and having 60 to blasts makes no difference they always do max damage.

[Morroiel]

5. In same sense it goes for shiradi, make them cast spells to get charges why something what was cast once gives multiple charges? If i summon arcon on my shoulder not i but he cast spells, same goes for cleric aura for warlock its shape of cone (protective aura) which he dont cast at all, same way as any blast should not trigger any charges couse it's same as attacking, same should be with any warlock eldricht blast
Solution:
any type of charges only from spell cast during spell cast number of projectiles dont count.

6. Best warlock fix add saves to blasts, you made massive burst spellcaster who ignores saves, do same to sorc and game will be broken too (Sorc OP).
Solution:
Fix this making them in same boat as any other caster, and then won't be issues with damage could even increase to make it work better, couse now Having 6 base cha and having 60 to blasts makes no difference they always do max damage.

Shiradi's already have received numerous amounts of nerfs (atm they aren't very strong in comparison to mechs/barbs/pallys/rangers/bard variants). Also if eldritch blast is treated as a ranged attack like an arrow - it would have no effect on the proc rate of all shiradi effects besides "fey favor", which is completely useless to warlocks anyways. The whole point of the aura is a way to passively trigger eldritch blast but at a severe loss to attack speed. I hate shiradi by design but I recognize that others enjoy the playstyle and while I wouldn't mind the complete revision or removal of it, others would. It is no longer broken or even top tier by any dps accounts (it has been publicly and stealthily nerfed many times over).

Warlock blasts already have saves attached to them - saves, which in high end content are often at 50% or less success depending on mob / type. Not to mention that some mobs are completely immune to 1/3 of the damage from blasts or worse heal from the damage (this is much more impactful for a warlock than a non-caster's weapon choice as they can easily switch to a different damage type). It is true that 2/3 of the damage is no-fail BUT even at full damage ALL dps tests published to date have indicated that warlock is far behind mechs/barbs/pallys/rangers in terms of single target dps. Also, warlock's are not burst spellcasters - they are by design a sustained constant damage spellcaster. Sorcerers actually have better burst dps (though it can't be sustained). The greatest tragedy with warlocks is that they are casters but they aren't casters: they are hybrid - they lack the traditional defensive weaknesses that casters have, the resource management casters have, and the varied playstyle by spell diversity casters should have (right now casters lack this as well).

You make very obviously incorrect statements about both shiradi and warlock in your post - it follows that you have not played either of them. You should not be giving feedback on things you are obviously ignorant and biased against, or at the very least should put an indicator of such on your post.

[AzureDragonas]

Shiradi's already have received numerous amounts of nerfs (atm they aren't very strong in comparison to mechs/barbs/pallys/rangers/bard variants). Also if eldritch blast is treated as a ranged attack like an arrow - it would have no effect on the proc rate of all shiradi effects besides "fey favor", which is completely useless to warlocks anyways. The whole point of the aura is a way to passively trigger eldritch blast but at a severe loss to attack speed. I hate shiradi by design but I recognize that others enjoy the playstyle and while I wouldn't mind the complete revision or removal of it, others would. It is no longer broken or even top tier by any dps accounts (it has been publicly and stealthily nerfed many times over).

Warlock blasts already have saves attached to them - saves, which in high end content are often at 50% or less success depending on mob / type. Not to mention that some mobs are completely immune to 1/3 of the damage from blasts or worse heal from the damage (this is much more impactful for a warlock than a non-caster's weapon choice as they can easily switch to a different damage type). It is true that 2/3 of the damage is no-fail BUT even at full damage ALL dps tests published to date have indicated that warlock is far behind mechs/barbs/pallys/rangers in terms of single target dps. Also, warlock's are not burst spellcasters - they are by design a sustained constant damage spellcaster. Sorcerers actually have better burst dps (though it can't be sustained). The greatest tragedy with warlocks is that they are casters but they aren't casters: they are hybrid - they lack the traditional defensive weaknesses that casters have, the resource management casters have, and the varied playstyle by spell diversity casters should have (right now casters lack this as well).

You make very obviously incorrect statements about both shiradi and warlock in your post - it follows that you have not played either of them. You should not be giving feedback on things you are obviously ignorant and biased against, or at the very least should put an indicator of such on your post.

Shiradi casters got numerous nerfs and still more viable than sorc and wiz, for simple reason they dont need almost any gear to work they dont require any dc and first lifer can make from suggested builds viable shiradi, who just spams mm for 2sp to clear dungeons so you first sentence makes no sense when you compare them to melees and not other casters while only another type of caster is as broken as shiradi only warlock and i will tell reason later what i mean. But first about this nerfed shiradi:

I think you are the one who is mistaken here becouse i played both warlcoks and shiradi myself to try out. What i told about shiradi is right this moment as example, just picked 1 random video on shiradi to show what i mean by that:
Scourge: Whenever you cast a Fire, Force, Light, or Physical damage spell, you gain +3 to your Fire, Force, Light, or Physical Spell Power for 6 seconds. This stacks up to 3/6/10 times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0gJ4TbrH8M#t=20

time 00:24-00:26 you can see exactly how casting 1 force spell he suddenly gets 10x scourge stacks thats my point and there are dozen other effects like this who triggers exactly like this, if effect says itself that whenever you cast, he casted 1 spell which should give 1x stack not 10x. So mechanics on some stuff still not WAI i think, and reason why many goes 12 fvs is also for that lancturn on shoulder which shoots his lasers and gives you charges for free, again i doubt that something you summed and while he castss spells (HE CASTS) you should get charges for it, there are more examples like hellball. scorch rayds etc what gives more charges while its a singleton spell and helps somehow reach maximum stacks in very short time and keep them there, but lets go to warlock issue now...



BUT even at full damage ALL dps tests published to date have indicated that warlock is far behind mechs/barbs/pallys/rangers in terms of single target dps


Sorry but it sounds as joke, he beats any of these in multitarget dps for certain issue i mentioned and u to prove i am wrong compare that he have low single DPS compared to others? Somehow in quests i dont see warlocks attacking 1 monster at a time like offen sorcs have to do or wiz with they sla.


Issue is neither chains neither aura have any kind of chance to fail? Even enchantment description states there is no save:

Eldritch Burst: Fire your Eldritch Blast in an AOE centered on you. All enemies caught in the burst take 3d6 Light Damage, plus any other effects and damage your Eldritch Blasts produce. This ability shares a cooldown with Cleave, and the damage scales with 100% spell power. (Cooldown: 8/6/5 seconds. Metamagic: Empower, Maximize, Quicken. Spell Resistance: No).

Eldritch Blast Shape: Cone: Eldritch Blast Shape Stance: toggle on to turn your automatic attack into a ranged magical cone dealing 1d6 force damage. While active you have -1 Pact damage die, and this spell scales with 130% Spell power. This cone attack has standard range for cone spells.

Eldritch Blast Shape: Chain: Eldritch Blast Shape: Toggle on to turn your automatic attack into a ranged magical bolt dealing Eldritch Blast damage, which then jumps to two more nearby enemies. While active you have -1 Eldritch Blast Pact damage die, and this spell scales with 95% Spell power.

ETC...

While melee can miss, ranged can miss, casters can fail to cast, monsters can make saves or dodge its only shows that mechanics behind all cones and forms is issue, somehow warlocks are the only ones who CAN'T fail in any way, even 5 level warlock splash with low cha can do always full damage from aura in end content quests. (let's ignore its low damage for obvious reasons). And thats how existance of effects which costs 0 sp can be spammed and can't be avoided for a simple reason there is no drawback how to counter or protect against them, as many warlcoks do just go all way con bladeforged get from paladin some saves, pick
Shining Through: Gain a Sacred bonus to Temporary Hitpoints equal to 12x your Constitution Score that lasts for up to 10 minutes. For 20 seconds, you gain +25 Sacred bonus to Healing Amplification. (Cooldown: 30 sec. SP Cost: 8), and just zerg content having double temporary hp than your real (reconstruct in case) and spamming bunch of bursts who have no save or drawback. Isn't thats most known warlock build we hate?

So i end i think you are the one whos mistaken :)

edit:
You might think it's just simple benefit to get charges while not casting exactly spells but this leads to broken mechanics from which 1 is well know Treefolk builds who uses
*Healing aura
*warlocks aura
*palemaster aura
*fvs lanctern
etc to get charges for free allowing to be viable 9/10 quest duration instead or 1/10 what prob was intention at start i think. About another part of issue with cleaves i wrote already.

Also there is another strange mechanic warlock aura shape is not even cast, i aggree projectiles they use in some condition can be accepted as casting (but defenitly with speed etc to trigger effects it's not suited (like shiradi colors)), aura which works as free action effect shouldn't do anything more than just damage (any other type of interaction makes no sense while you do absolutely nothing to get something as charges or effects to trigger), like if i stand and take no actions how it's counted as "casting"

[Morroiel]

Shiradi casters got numerous nerfs and still more viable than sorc and wiz, for simple reason they dont need almost any gear to work they dont require any dc and first lifer can make from suggested builds viable shiradi, who just spams mm for 2sp to clear dungeons so you first sentence makes no sense when you compare them to melees and not other casters while only another type of caster is as broken as shiradi only warlock and i will tell reason later what i mean. But first about this nerfed shiradi:

I think you are the one who is mistaken here becouse i played both warlcoks and shiradi myself to try out. What i told about shiradi is right this moment as example, just picked 1 random video on shiradi to show what i mean by that:
Scourge: Whenever you cast a Fire, Force, Light, or Physical damage spell, you gain +3 to your Fire, Force, Light, or Physical Spell Power for 6 seconds. This stacks up to 3/6/10 times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0gJ4TbrH8M#t=20

time 00:24-00:26 you can see exactly how casting 1 force spell he suddenly gets 10x scourge stacks thats my point and there are dozen other effects like this who triggers exactly like this, if effect says itself that whenever you cast, he casted 1 spell which should give 1x stack not 10x. So mechanics on some stuff still not WAI i think, and reason why many goes 12 fvs is also for that lancturn on shoulder which shoots his lasers and gives you charges for free, again i doubt that something you summed and while he castss spells (HE CASTS) you should get charges for it, there are more examples like hellball. scorch rayds etc what gives more charges while its a singleton spell and helps somehow reach maximum stacks in very short time and keep them there, but lets go to warlock issue now...



Sorry but it sounds as joke, he beats any of these in multitarget dps for certain issue i mentioned and u to prove i am wrong compare that he have low single DPS compared to others? Somehow in quests i dont see warlocks attacking 1 monster at a time like offen sorcs have to do or wiz with they sla.


Issue is neither chains neither aura have any kind of chance to fail? Even enchantment description states there is no save:

Eldritch Burst: Fire your Eldritch Blast in an AOE centered on you. All enemies caught in the burst take 3d6 Light Damage, plus any other effects and damage your Eldritch Blasts produce. This ability shares a cooldown with Cleave, and the damage scales with 100% spell power. (Cooldown: 8/6/5 seconds. Metamagic: Empower, Maximize, Quicken. Spell Resistance: No).

Eldritch Blast Shape: Cone: Eldritch Blast Shape Stance: toggle on to turn your automatic attack into a ranged magical cone dealing 1d6 force damage. While active you have -1 Pact damage die, and this spell scales with 130% Spell power. This cone attack has standard range for cone spells.

Eldritch Blast Shape: Chain: Eldritch Blast Shape: Toggle on to turn your automatic attack into a ranged magical bolt dealing Eldritch Blast damage, which then jumps to two more nearby enemies. While active you have -1 Eldritch Blast Pact damage die, and this spell scales with 95% Spell power.

ETC...

While melee can miss, ranged can miss, casters can fail to cast, monsters can make saves or dodge its only shows that mechanics behind all cones and forms is issue, somehow warlocks are the only ones who CAN'T fail in any way, even 5 level warlock splash with low cha can do always full damage from aura in end content quests. (let's ignore its low damage for obvious reasons). And thats how existance of effects which costs 0 sp can be spammed and can't be avoided for a simple reason there is no drawback how to counter or protect against them, as many warlcoks do just go all way con bladeforged get from paladin some saves, pick
Shining Through: Gain a Sacred bonus to Temporary Hitpoints equal to 12x your Constitution Score that lasts for up to 10 minutes. For 20 seconds, you gain +25 Sacred bonus to Healing Amplification. (Cooldown: 30 sec. SP Cost: 8), and just zerg content having double temporary hp than your real (reconstruct in case) and spamming bunch of bursts who have no save or drawback. Isn't thats most known warlock build we hate?

So i end i think you are the one whos mistaken :)

edit:
You might think it's just simple benefit to get charges while not casting exactly spells but this leads to broken mechanics from which 1 is well know Treefolk builds who uses
*Healing aura
*warlocks aura
*palemaster aura
*fvs lanctern
etc to get charges for free allowing to be viable 9/10 quest duration instead or 1/10 what prob was intention at start i think. About another part of issue with cleaves i wrote already.

Also there is another strange mechanic warlock aura shape is not even cast, i aggree projectiles they use in some condition can be accepted as casting (but defenitly with speed etc to trigger effects it's not suited (like shiradi colors)), aura which works as free action effect shouldn't do anything more than just damage (any other type of interaction makes no sense while you do absolutely nothing to get something as charges or effects to trigger), like if i stand and take no actions how it's counted as "casting"

You might not like shiradi's - neither do I. But the fact remains: none of the issues you mention are not WAI (for reference refer to dev / release notes). Still it is a fact, their dps is lower than the revamped classes by far. Even among casters, shiradi produces less burst dps than sorcerers (though greater sustained dps by far due to spell point restrictions). Saying the shiradi is more viable than sorc/wiz doesn't really contribute anything - anyone who plays this game knows that traditional casters (wiz/sorc included) fall at the very bottom of the totem pole (pale masters being at the extreme bottom).

Nerfs to shiradi I'm aware of:
*metamagics no longer apply (this was mentioned on the forums, after testing this myself I am sufficiently convinced this stealth nerf is in effect - in fact my testing revealed scaling of spell power to be additionally nerfed on shiradi procs at around 80% instead of 100% - when lamannia returns I'll be retesting this)
*double rainbow procs have been changed / nerfed (there is hardly anything useful anymore - best is spider venom which hardly comes up)
*tea/audience %s and associated effects have been altered (the good proc +10 stats, hardly ever procs anymore - in 453 past uses I haven't seen it once, though I did get indulgence).
*changes to colors of the queen past life feat (though this is extremely hard to test/measure)

At this point, shiradi's are a balanced playstyle by any definition of game balance (they behave very similar to ranged non-casters | though mechanics / shuriken builds will outclass them anyday of the week). Even the best shiradi builds don't put up times sub 150 on the boss kobolds in lamannia.

Keep in mind - I hate shiradi but i understand that lots of people really enjoy the build play style and I respect that.

As for warlock: you make two claims:
1) Multitarget dps is better and thats what matters because warlocks aoe
2) Warlock dps is not gated by any type of failure (such as to-hit, DC, etc).

Mechanic (which you yourself agree has better single target dps) has better multi target dps if used correctly (full damage on infinite mobs in a line).
THF cleaves have effectively the same aoe dps as a warlock though its a little more bursty due to relying on crit damage.

However, in every end game quest/raid atm single target dps is what matters. DOJ (from beating down executioners to beating done the boss). MOD (beating done death knight / Abbot). TOEE (beating done boss / miniboss). And if you concede they are weaker in single target dps (which by any definition they are), then its okay for them to be stronger in another area (though strictly in end-game - I'd disagree that they have an advantage over that thf barb/pally even on aoe). Weak in single target, good for multi target. Trade-offs are good for game balance.

As for your second claim: again warlock blasts do have saves:

Warlock Eldritch blast consists of two parts: base damage + pact damage. The base damage has no save but represents only 2/3 of the total damage of the blast. The pact damage has a save and damage type associated with the pact you have chosen: fey (sonic and reflex, with evasion - if the monster makes its save no pact damage is applied), fiend (fire and fortitude, if monster makes its save half pact damage is applied), GOO (acid and will, if monster makes its save half pact damage is applied.

The chain shapes and warlock sla's all are subject to this: base damage + pact damage. Note that some monsters are immune or heal from these damage types (devils immune to fire).

At this point in time, warlock is about just right for epics and a little too strong in heroics (but who cares about heroics they are easy with any build that isn't a first life toon).

[AzureDragonas]

You might not like shiradi's - neither do I. But the fact remains: none of the issues you mention are not WAI (for reference refer to dev / release notes). Still it is a fact, their dps is lower than the revamped classes by far. Even among casters, shiradi produces less burst dps than sorcerers (though greater sustained dps by far due to spell point restrictions). Saying the shiradi is more viable than sorc/wiz doesn't really contribute anything - anyone who plays this game knows that traditional casters (wiz/sorc included) fall at the very bottom of the totem pole (pale masters being at the extreme bottom).

Nerfs to shiradi I'm aware of:
*metamagics no longer apply (this was mentioned on the forums, after testing this myself I am sufficiently convinced this stealth nerf is in effect - in fact my testing revealed scaling of spell power to be additionally nerfed on shiradi procs at around 80% instead of 100% - when lamannia returns I'll be retesting this)
*double rainbow procs have been changed / nerfed (there is hardly anything useful anymore - best is spider venom which hardly comes up)
*tea/audience %s and associated effects have been altered (the good proc +10 stats, hardly ever procs anymore - in 453 past uses I haven't seen it once, though I did get indulgence).
*changes to colors of the queen past life feat (though this is extremely hard to test/measure)

At this point, shiradi's are a balanced playstyle by any definition of game balance (they behave very similar to ranged non-casters | though mechanics / shuriken builds will outclass them anyday of the week). Even the best shiradi builds don't put up times sub 150 on the boss kobolds in lamannia.

Keep in mind - I hate shiradi but i understand that lots of people really enjoy the build play style and I respect that.

As for warlock: you make two claims:
1) Multitarget dps is better and thats what matters because warlocks aoe
2) Warlock dps is not gated by any type of failure (such as to-hit, DC, etc).

Mechanic (which you yourself agree has better single target dps) has better multi target dps if used correctly (full damage on infinite mobs in a line).
THF cleaves have effectively the same aoe dps as a warlock though its a little more bursty due to relying on crit damage.

However, in every end game quest/raid atm single target dps is what matters. DOJ (from beating down executioners to beating done the boss). MOD (beating done death knight / Abbot). TOEE (beating done boss / miniboss). And if you concede they are weaker in single target dps (which by any definition they are), then its okay for them to be stronger in another area (though strictly in end-game - I'd disagree that they have an advantage over that thf barb/pally even on aoe). Weak in single target, good for multi target. Trade-offs are good for game balance.

As for your second claim: again warlock blasts do have saves:

Warlock Eldritch blast consists of two parts: base damage + pact damage. The base damage has no save but represents only 2/3 of the total damage of the blast. The pact damage has a save and damage type associated with the pact you have chosen: fey (sonic and reflex, with evasion - if the monster makes its save no pact damage is applied), fiend (fire and fortitude, if monster makes its save half pact damage is applied), GOO (acid and will, if monster makes its save half pact damage is applied.

The chain shapes and warlock sla's all are subject to this: base damage + pact damage. Note that some monsters are immune or heal from these damage types (devils immune to fire).

At this point in time, warlock is about just right for epics and a little too strong in heroics (but who cares about heroics they are easy with any build that isn't a first life toon).

You made some points clear, but there are still unanswered questions

1.st i didn't asked to fix shiradi like nerfing it but to fix issue when it gets more charges from effects than it should, i think it's a bug which connects to same issue with treefolks and others who gets charges for nothing or more than 1 from spell trigger, like same mm in video giving 10x stacks instanly instead of 1 as effects says.

2.nd pacts mayeb have saves thats true but you again forget that exactly ES tree gives

Spiritual Retribution: Your Eldritch Blasts, Melee Attacks, and Ranged Attacks gain 1d6/2d6/3d6 Light damage that scales with Spell Power.
- 4th effect scaling with no saves which as light spell power can go up lot more than some sort of acid/fire/sonic while even es trees buffs it and

Spirit Blast: Fire your Eldritch Blast in an AOE centered on you. All enemies caught in the burst take 10d6 Light Damage, plus any other effects and damage your Eldritch Blasts produce. This ability shares a cooldown with Great Cleave, and the damage scales with 100% spell power. (Cooldown 8/6/5 seconds. Metamagic: Empower, Maximize, Quicken. Spell Resistance: No).
- I am lazy to check all encahnts and count exactly how many pact dices pure warlcok can get, but 10d4 is base pact dices warlcoks will have without enchantments, so blasts gives again gives 5th property. making blasts to have 4 properties for damage with no save, while you tryed to dump me explain warlcosk have only 3, and 2/3 of them have no save, if you ched ES tree you should have seend there are 3/4 on any blasts and 4/5 on bursts type of damage which haves NO SAVE

:)

[Morroiel]

You made some points clear, but there are still unanswered questions

1.st i didn't asked to fix shiradi like nerfing it but to fix issue when it gets more charges from effects than it should, i think it's a bug which connects to same issue with treefolks and others who gets charges for nothing or more than 1 from spell trigger, like same mm in video giving 10x stacks instanly instead of 1 as effects says.

2.nd pacts mayeb have saves thats true but you again forget that exactly ES tree gives

Spiritual Retribution: Your Eldritch Blasts, Melee Attacks, and Ranged Attacks gain 1d6/2d6/3d6 Light damage that scales with Spell Power.
- 4th effect scaling with no saves which as light spell power can go up lot more than some sort of acid/fire/sonic while even es trees buffs it and

Spirit Blast: Fire your Eldritch Blast in an AOE centered on you. All enemies caught in the burst take 10d6 Light Damage, plus any other effects and damage your Eldritch Blasts produce. This ability shares a cooldown with Great Cleave, and the damage scales with 100% spell power. (Cooldown 8/6/5 seconds. Metamagic: Empower, Maximize, Quicken. Spell Resistance: No).
- I am lazy to check all encahnts and count exactly how many pact dices pure warlcok can get, but 10d4 is base pact dices warlcoks will have without enchantments, so blasts gives again gives 5th property. making blasts to have 4 properties for damage with no save, while you tryed to dump me explain warlcosk have only 3, and 2/3 of them have no save, if you ched ES tree you should have seend there are 3/4 on any blasts and 4/5 on bursts type of damage which haves NO SAVE

:)

There is a big difference between tree build and shiradi stacks. The devs have clearly stated tree builds are not working as intended (specifically the work around on cleaves). They have said no such thing for shiradi. QED.

The total damage output (by doing full calculations or doing empirical numbers): pact damage on eldritch blasts accounts for 1/3 of the damage. Thats not: there are 6 numbers coming up and pact is 2 of them... Its pact damage accounts for 1/3 of total damage from blasts. Ex. 1000 (from other sources) 500 (from pact). It doesn't matter if there are 12 or 2 numbers coming up - the total % of damage is 1/3rd contribution from pact on eldritch blast.

[Taimasan]

Ok, but I am seriously ****ed off that Lammania is down right now after only being up for 2 stinking days!


Unarmed is still junk, and no Band-Aid fix will be implemented. So why do you guys even CARE about TWF moving dps being lower when you could care less about unarmed? Unarmed is not "slightly" below other combat styles like TWF while moving, but WAY BELOW. Sev, stating the playerbase would not accept a "temporary fix" to unarmed until the monk pass is absolutely ridiculous! It is such a cop out.


I am really upset because 3 more good players I run with have cancelled their subs over this. Sev seriously I appreciate what you have brought to this game but unarmed has been on your teams back burner for just way dang to long, stupidly ridiculously long. Heck you even created NEW combat styles (SWF) instead of fixing an existing one. Seriously we could use a Dev proposal for a temporary fix for unarmed to hold over the player base until the monk pass nearly 4 months from now.





Sev, do the right thing here man. The state of unarmed is just ridiculous.


+1 Please give us atleast a band-aid until you fix unarmed.