Trap Options

[Nugaot]

There’s a lot of feats in DDO. Way too many. A significant number of them are so useless that no one should ever take them. They only serve to clutter the feat selection page. I’ve compiled a list of general feats that should be removed from the game or reworked into a smaller number of worthwhile feats.

Resilience - a defensive stance that increases spell cooldowns by 3x for a +4 to saves
Dodge/Mobility - should be combined into one feat
Power Critical - +2 seeker and 2 critical damage, requires Weapon Focus
Weapon Finesse/Bow Strength/Zen Archery/Brutal Throw - it is easy to get stat to hit/damage from a number of enhancement trees. Should be improved to add stat to hit and damage.
Extra Turning/Improved Turning - Clerics and Paladins both get precious few feats, combine the two, perhaps replace the additional charges with recharging Turn uses.
Augment Summoning - I hold out hope that one day summons can be good.
Mobile Spellcasting - This seems like a cool feat but the cost is far too high. Would be neat to see it as an effect on an item or augment like Quick Draw.
Every Single One of those Stupid +2 to Skills or Saves Feats - This includes: Acrobatic, Alertness, Athletic, Combat Casting, Negotiator, Nimble Fingers, Self Sufficient, Skill Focus (All of them!), Stealthy, Bullheaded, Discipline, Great Fortitude, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Luck of Heroes, Resist Poison, and Snakeblood. All of these couple be deleted from the game entirely. Even with their bonuses doubled or tripled it would be a waste of a feat to take any of these.

These are feats which are bad on purpose. The 3.5 Edition of D&D that these feats came from was made that way. It’s called Ivory Tower design, where players are given an abundance of options, but only a small number of them can be used to make powerful characters. While DDO will always have winners and losers when it comes to builds, the Ivory Tower is an outmoded and player hostile model that DDO has taken great efforts already to reduce to impact of. 48.4’s spell pass comes to mind, which brought up a number of spellcasters to be closer to Fire Sorcerer/Alchemist.

Removing these feats does not mean making character building more homogeneous, nor does it make it impossible to make a bad toon, as there’s still plenty of ways to do that across feats, APs, point buy, gearing, etc. It reduces visual clutter, makes character creation less immediately daunting to new players, and could be a potential lag reduction, if having a smaller feat database to load on every level up would reduce the lag spike that happens when the feat page loads.

Getting a friend to play this game with me not too long ago was a disappointing experience for both of us, they ended up taking Luck of Heroes and Skill Focus: Jump on their Paladin. Trying to explain how character builds work in this game, how they’ll end up much worse off without some preplanning, and getting them through the process of feat swapping just ended up turning them off from playing entirely. I’m sure many of us have been there before when we started or tried to introduce others to the game. I can’t exactly blame them for not being into it.

This is only a small and incomplete list. I’ve only gone through the general feats which any character may take here, and there are many more besides those. I’d like to follow up later with a similar list of spells as well. Please feel free to add any others you feel are trap feats. Or let me know why Snake Blood is actually the best heroic feat in the game and get into a 10 page long argument until the thread gets locked.

[rabidfox]

Improved Fortification... nothing like a new warforged who suddenly finds out that none of the divines can heal them and just have to let them die. There's plenty of meh stuff in the game for builds, but I'm entirely behind leaving them all in the game. Making build mistakes and using Fred is part of the game experience.

It'd be nice to see the path options updated for more modern builds so new players can use those as viable ways to learn the game (as most of them are completely dated and not good at this point). It'd be really nifty if the path stuff could be made to use an external builder file so one could put a pre-build into the DDO preference folder and select that at creation. Want to play Strimtom's Acid arrow? No problem, just download the .build of it and put it in your DDO folder, select it at creation, and enjoy the game... But that's probably just a pipe-dream.

[MistaMagic]

Ok lets have a new feat called lvl20. Just take it at lvl1 and hey presto job done

[Nugaot]

Improved Fortification... nothing like a new warforged who suddenly finds out that none of the divines can heal them and just have to let them die. There's plenty of meh stuff in the game for builds, but I'm entirely behind leaving them all in the game. Making build mistakes and using Fred is part of the game experience.

It'd be nice to see the path options updated for more modern builds so new players can use those as viable ways to learn the game (as most of them are completely dated and not good at this point). It'd be really nifty if the path stuff could be made to use an external builder file so one could put a pre-build into the DDO preference folder and select that at creation. Want to play Strimtom's Acid arrow? No problem, just download the .build of it and put it in your DDO folder, select it at creation, and enjoy the game... But that's probably just a pipe-dream.

I have heard “update paths” many times over the years, and I think there was only one time it actually happened, when they updated Enhancements to the new tree system. It would make things a lot easier for new players and provide some insight into how the devs expect new players to be playing. I think if that were an easy thing to do they would have done it. Keeping those builds consistently up to date with radical balance changes coming all the time would take up a lot of hours and people would surely complain about them even still. I love the idea of being able to import builds from the builder and just level up automatically with your choices preselected, but like you say it seems unlikely that will ever happen.


Ok lets have a new feat called lvl20. Just take it at lvl1 and hey presto job done
Thank you for your nuanced feedback and valuable insight. I appreciate you taking the time to read my post and respond in good faith.

[SpartanKiller13]

Dodge/Mobility - should be combined into one feat
Extra Turning/Improved Turning - Clerics and Paladins both get precious few feats, combine the two, perhaps replace the additional charges with recharging Turn uses.
Every Single One of those Stupid +2 to Skills or Saves Feats - All of these couple be deleted from the game entirely. Even with their bonuses doubled or tripled it would be a waste of a feat to take any of these.

These are feats which are bad on purpose. The 3.5 Edition of D&D that these feats came from was made that way. It’s called Ivory Tower design, where players are given an abundance of options, but only a small number of them can be used to make powerful characters.

I'd appreciate if the skill feats were better, but I took three on my tank alt (skill focus, epic skill focus, epic reputation) and am much happier having them than not. Sure, it might not matter to you but for a first life alt an extra 11 Intimidate goes a long ways for keeping aggro :) I definitely think they should be doubled past level 10 and tripled past level 20 though.

Dodge/Mobility are IMO mostly a feat tax for the excellent Spring Attack, but they do add +5 Dodge and +2 MDB (which is usually an effective +2 to your Dodge cap) which is pretty nice. Not that you can't cap Dodge in other ways, but between the feats and Barricade you can often cap without needing to slot anything which is pretty nice QoL IMO.

Extra Turning can be a really decent feat when there's something useful to spend your turns on - mostly when CAF is in a good spot (which it currently isn't). I've happily taken this feat on a few lives.

In PnP, +3 to a save is usually more effective than it is in DDO. In PnP with a reasonable DM, you'll typically have a reasonable chance to make any save thrown at you, so adding +3 to your roll is easily 40% more successes (as a rough estimate). If they were anywhere near as effective in DDO they'd be pretty solid, but with all the powercreep there's plenty of times where I have +40 Reflex vs a DC90 attack - so even if it was +20 to your save it wouldn't matter.

[Enoach]

one of the fallacies that has to be kept in mind is that the feat needs to be useful/optimal to a significant audience. I think it is fine to have niche feats.

I would not argue against improving some feats, such as the skill feats and save feats, but I'm thinking more so in a epic level scaling vs any adjustment in heroic.

[Nugaot]

I'd appreciate if the skill feats were better, but I took three on my tank alt (skill focus, epic skill focus, epic reputation) and am much happier having them than not. Sure, it might not matter to you but for a first life alt an extra 11 Intimidate goes a long ways for keeping aggro :) I definitely think they should be doubled past level 10 and tripled past level 20 though.

Dodge/Mobility are IMO mostly a feat tax for the excellent Spring Attack, but they do add +5 Dodge and +2 MDB (which is usually an effective +2 to your Dodge cap) which is pretty nice. Not that you can't cap Dodge in other ways, but between the feats and Barricade you can often cap without needing to slot anything which is pretty nice QoL IMO.

Extra Turning can be a really decent feat when there's something useful to spend your turns on - mostly when CAF is in a good spot (which it currently isn't). I've happily taken this feat on a few lives.

In PnP, +3 to a save is usually more effective than it is in DDO. In PnP with a reasonable DM, you'll typically have a reasonable chance to make any save thrown at you, so adding +3 to your roll is easily 40% more successes (as a rough estimate). If they were anywhere near as effective in DDO they'd be pretty solid, but with all the powercreep there's plenty of times where I have +40 Reflex vs a DC90 attack - so even if it was +20 to your save it wouldn't matter.

I hadn’t considered the social skills as far as skill focus, that is a good point! Intimidate is especially important for tanks. I wonder if there could be a feat or three focused on improving social skills that is better than a small +3 bonus. A feat bonus version of the % scaling linguistics effect from some named items could be an idea.

Dodge and Mobility together are actually pretty good on first or few life toons, I agree. But rarely if ever would one take just Dodge and not Mobility, and likely they’d only take them to access Spring Attack or Shot on the Run, both of which got buffs not too long ago. Spring Attack like you mentioned is great, I’m not too sure about SOTR, but at the cost of three feats it ends up being something that I’d like to have but just can’t fit in to most builds. Also would mention Whirlwind Attack which also requires Dodge and Mobility and ALSO Combat Expertise which is just too much. I’m fine with the “Feat Tax” but combining the two into one opens up three interesting special attack moves to a variety of builds by reducing the feat tax from 3 to 2 for SA and SOTR or 4 to 3 for WWA.

I don’t think the CAF exploit is coming back, so I don’t see any harm in beefing up Improved Turning a bit and giving it 4 charges and 4 effective levels. Granting regenerating charges may be a bit much actually.

I agree that the biggest reason so many feats aren’t very good is powercreep. At this point they’re relics from an entirely different game. I’m not really sure how these feats could be made relevant. The epic level save feats where you no longer fail on a 1 are great.


one of the fallacies that has to be kept in mind is that the feat needs to be useful/optimal to a significant audience. I think it is fine to have niche feats..

No argument from me there. When I was going through the feats list I didn’t include anything that I thought could be cool in a more niche circumstance or could be improved without actually touching the feats themselves. Some that I deliberately didn’t mention were Shield Absorption and the melee special attacks Like Sap and Hamstring. Rarely taken feats, sure but with unique and interesting effects that would be a shame to remove just because they aren’t used much.

[boredGamer]

one of the fallacies that has to be kept in mind is that the feat needs to be useful/optimal to a significant audience. I think it is fine to have niche feats.

I would not argue against improving some feats, such as the skill feats and save feats, but I'm thinking more so in a epic level scaling vs any adjustment in heroic.

This seems like a commonly agreed and easy improvement.

Skill feats something like +2, +1 every 2?3?4? levels. Feel free to leave out UMD as the game is so wont to do.

Saves +1 every 4?5?10? levels?

I like my skills, rarely dump int super low, and something like this could be enticing.

Basically things that don't scale well, at this point, don't scale well.

[droid327]

Consolidate all the skill feats to just a single +2 all skills...I don't see where that would be game breaking. Anyone who takes it is probably only interested in one set of skills anyway, and won't really benefit much from the rest.

Likewise just make all the save feats into a single +2 all saves, that might be worth taking as a filler feat.

Maybe even spell focuses too - though I can see more arguments for forcing a specialization there, but honestly +2 DC for 2 feats is a small part of your overall opportunity choices for specialization. Likewise, maybe we only need IC: Ranged and IC: Melee.

Merging dodge into mob isn't bad either. It's really just one feat worth of value anyway.

Great Cleave should just modify Cleave with +2W and -2 sec CD or something. Average out their combined dps and save you a button.

[SpartanKiller13]

I hadn’t considered the social skills as far as skill focus, that is a good point! Intimidate is especially important for tanks. I wonder if there could be a feat or three focused on improving social skills that is better than a small +3 bonus. A feat bonus version of the % scaling linguistics effect from some named items could be an idea.

I don’t think the CAF exploit is coming back, so I don’t see any harm in beefing up Improved Turning a bit and giving it 4 charges and 4 effective levels. Granting regenerating charges may be a bit much actually.

I agree that the biggest reason so many feats aren’t very good is powercreep. At this point they’re relics from an entirely different game. I’m not really sure how these feats could be made relevant. The epic level save feats where you no longer fail on a 1 are great.

I'd rather a bigger number or have secondary benefits be additive instead of replacing the existing skill bonus. Higher Intimidate allows me more freedom with my stats while still hitting DC's for bosses etc. I have enough now, but like there was a reason I took 3 feats :p I'd be very happy with a Linguistics-style CD boost.

CAF was still very good post-exploit. Even with a 2s CD it was a 3-hit cleave that could fully Doublestrike, making it amazing for clearing trash (and still a noticeable DPS increase for bosses). I'm totally fine with beefing Improved Turning etc, but just wanted to mention that those feats have been good until fairly recently.


Skill feats something like +2, +1 every 2?3?4? levels. Feel free to leave out UMD as the game is so wont to do.

Saves +1 every 4?5?10? levels?

Yeah, all skill feats are pretty meh later on so I'd greatly enjoy boosts to them. Would also boost my Intimidate a bit on my tank :D


Consolidate all the skill feats to just a single +2 all skills...I don't see where that would be game breaking. Anyone who takes it is probably only interested in one set of skills anyway, and won't really benefit much from the rest.

Likewise just make all the save feats into a single +2 all saves, that might be worth taking as a filler feat.

Maybe even spell focuses too - though I can see more arguments for forcing a specialization there, but honestly +2 DC for 2 feats is a small part of your overall opportunity choices for specialization. Likewise, maybe we only need IC: Ranged and IC: Melee.

Merging dodge into mob isn't bad either. It's really just one feat worth of value anyway.

Making skill feats into a generic +2 to all skills seems awkward to me. All the times I've seen Skill Focus taken were to max a single skill (Intimitanks, Swimcleric, SF:UMD back in the day), and losing SF for a generic +2 would actually be a decrease to said skill. Also extremist builds that take SF and a double-skill feat for +5 total would be losing a bunch to a generic skill focus. Maybe if you were allowed to take it multiple times?

Combining save feats I'm on board with, I can't remember seeing a build that takes one of those in a long time.

I'd vote more for Greater Spell Focus giving +2 instead of +1? The whole theme there is specialization, no?

IC: Melee & Ranged would be an enormous QoL benefit to a lot of builds - and would promote swap-weapons a bit. I'm down :)

Dodge & Mobility is I think literally for the feat tax. I'd definitely pick up Spring Attack on casters more often if it was only 2 feats instead of 3.

[boredGamer]

I'd be very happy with a Linguistics-style CD boost.


So to clarify, at a minimum I would like boring math type scaling like I suggested, so at least things scaled.

But I would LOVE actual interesting twists on abilities.

I dunno:
Swim, UWA
Spot, TS
Linguistics Cooldowns
Heal, %heal casting improvements
tumble, phase tumbling

I've clearly gone too far:
balance, slippery surface immunity
jump, abundant step
repair, create a robo dog

[OfElectricMen]

No.

Don't take them if you don't like them.

You're not proposing any actual improvements.

[boredGamer]

No.

Don't take them if you don't like them.

You're not proposing any actual improvements.

Great feedback.

So *all* proposed changes in this thread are either negative or neutral ? Care to elaborate?

Do you think they are useful as is? Does anyone take some of them ? You just don't think it matters there are a bunch of useless feats?

Your feedback must be really appreciated where you work.

[Strider1963]

Ok lets have a new feat called lvl20. Just take it at lvl1 and hey presto job done

Bingo! , sounds like a winner to me :-)