U57 Preview 1: Hit Point Pass

[Torc]

Hey folks! We are doing a pass on hit points. The goals here are to add a little more of a buffer for new players in general to make mistakes, and add a significantly larger buffer for melee builds.

A Quick Overview:


Epic Defensive Fighting is going away. We are replacing it with many other options.
The bulk of hit points EDF once provided is being distributed around the enhancement trees and the combat style feats, with some changes to class hit dice.
SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST



HP PASS:

Part 1 - Grant HP for investing in melee feats magnified by class picks.


This is mostly is about adjusting heroic play because by high level our crazy con mod + reaper flat hit points dilutes it a bit, but it does matter enough that it will result in a buff for most players even after other shifts in the system detailed below.

-Heroic Durability updated:

Heroic Durability - +30 Hit Points. In addition, for every melee combat style feat you take you gain a 25% bonus to the hit points gained from your class levels. Epic and Legendary levels count at half value. This bonus can only stack up to 100%.





-Boosting the Base Hit Die of certain classes:


To keep the delta between a wizard and a barbarian tighter we shift the class dice around a little.


-All Classes with a Hit Die of d4 is increased to D6.

-Bard, Arty and Rogue are increased to D8s

-Ranger increased to D10s


https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1006253242637889539/1006253403833381095/hitpoint_Table.JPG


Part 2 - Melee enhancement trees get broader access to competence hit point bonuses through t5s


This is largely adding to existing enhancements but there are a few reworks. The competence bonus is lower but this should be more than counteracted by the bonuses from Part 1 and or the ability to now cast spells without impairment.

There a few other minors tweaks in here. Mostly AP costs and a little tank tree balance.





Epic Defensive Fighting: Will be removed from the game.

Alchemist
T5 - Chemical Weapon gets multi selector called Chemical Body - grants 15% comp bonus to hit points and 10 melee power.

Artificer
T5 - Battle Engineer - Reconstructed Arms & Edges grant a +20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to their original bonuses.

Barbarians
T5 - Uncanny Balance rank 3 gains +15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
T5 - Accelerated Metabolism grants +15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
Barbs are getting a lower bonus here because their so tough for other reasons (and their HD bonus from styles is larger)

Bards
T5 - Swash Buckler - Second Skin, AP cost reduced to 1. Updated to: +1/2/3 Reflex Saves, +2/4/6 Max Dex Bonus to Armor. Rank 3 grants a +20% competence bonus to hit points.
T4 - On the Mark: AP cost reduced to 1 per rank
T5 - WarChanter - Howl of Winter will now also grant a 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.

Cleric
T5 - Warrior Priest - Divine bastion - Gain 15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
Core 4 - Warrior Priest - Warcasting - Sacred hit point bonus reduced to 5%.
Class Feat - Cleric Animal Domain hit point bonus reduced to 4 hit points per level and 2 hit points per epic/legendary level
Divine Bastion Updated: No longer increases threat but grants a 15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.

Druid
Core 4 - Howl of Winter now grants a passive 5% primal bonus to max hit points in additional to it's previous effects.
Note: Druid wolves get their comp bonus from perfect natural weapon fighting.

Favored Soul
Class Feat - Stout of Heart Changed reduced to : 4 hit points per level and 2 hit points per epic/legendary level.
Divine Champion: Updated: No longer increases threat but grants 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.

Fighter
T5 Kensai- Weapon Master - Grants 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
T5 Thick of Battle replaced with a flat passive 100% threat bonus and now also grants 60 max hit points
T5 Against all Odds: grants 60 max hit points in addition to it's current effects
T5 Vanguard - Brutal Impact - Grants 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.

Monk
new T5 for Henshin Mystic & Ninja Spy - Self Defense - Grants +2% dodge & 20% competence bonus to Hit Points
T5 Shintao - Meditation of War - All stances except earth now grant a 15% competence bonus to hit points in additional to their original bonuses. Earth Stance grants 25% competence bonus to hit points but not longer gives a quality bonus.

Ranger
T5 - Tempest- Dual Perfection grants a 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.

Rogue
T5 Assassin Light Armor Mastery Rank 3 - Grants a 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
T5 - Acrobat- Spinning Staff Wall - Grants 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.

Paladin
T5 - KOTC - Vigor of Life grants 20% competence bonus to hit points
T5 Vanguard - Brutal Impact - Grants 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
T5 Sacred Fist - Divine Strike renamed Divine Striker, grants a 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original effects.

Sorc/Wiz
Had to do a bit here since the "shorten" spell range play style is going away. Reminder any bonus marked passive works for just owning the enhancement.

Knight's Transformation Updated: While this toggle is active your base attack bonus is increased to equal your character level. When you successfully hit with an Eldritch Strike you gain Knight's Strike: +30 universal spell power and +3% Critical Spell Damage for 30 seconds.

Improved Knight's Transformation Updated: While Knight's transformation is active you gain a +1 comp bonus to your weapons crit multipler. When your Eldritch Strike hits you gain the additional bonuses to your Knight's Strike of +3 to Hit, Damage and 3% double strike. Passive Bonus: You gain 15% competence bonus to Max Hit Points (regardless if the toggle is on or not)

Knight's Striker: Knight's Strike gains +2 Evocation and Conjuration DCs and +20 melee power. Passive: You gain mobile spell casting.
Knight's Controller: Knight's Strike gains +2 Enchantment DCs, +2 Illusion DCS, +4 Spell Penetration and +20 Melee Power. Passive: You gain mobile spell casting.

Warlock
(No Updates to enhancement trees. Warlock enlightened spirit already has a comp bonus in their tree).

Falconry
T5- Dangerous- changes and get a multi selector option called Swift. Dangerous: +10 melee power, +20% competence bonus to hit points. Swift: +3 reflex saves, 10 ranged power.

Vistani
New Enhancement called Grudge Bearer, Multi selector off of Vendetta, grants +20% competence bonus to hit points for 2 AP.

Additional Changes coming in Lammania 2:

Unyielding Sentinel:


Strength of Vitality reduced: Gain 2/4/6% insightful bonus to max hit points. Rank 3: Increase this bonus to 10% if the Mantle of the Sentinel is Active.


In here to make tanking less unyielding sent exclusive since this bonus was so large and to offset some of the increases from other sources.


Fury of the Wild:



Lore of the Wilds: reduced to 5% primal bonus bonus to max hit points from 10% (but now no lore feats required)


UPDATE:

After reviewing player feedback we quickly realized we got the top base hit point range wrong on advanced end game melee builds and as a result the Competence HP % modifiers are to low in may of the trees listed above. Thinking the base was smaller mistaken lead us to believe the new style hit point bonus would offset some % mod shrinkages. (when I say base I means your hit points BEFORE % increases)

We will be increasing said modifiers for preview 2 as it wasn't our intention to significant impact these builds, And looking at monk, Master maker and Occult slayer who need some extra attention due to having a quality bonus in the mix. The Destiny changes are probably not happening or at least not going to look the same for preview 2.

In terms of feedback on raw hit point totals this preview will be a little bit of a wash for many elder end game players at least, but please continue to evaluate the location of the comp bonuses, the new combat style class hit point bonus, and other aspects of the pass. Posting builds in detail is very helpful.

On a side note we're looking at squeeze in a little fighter love since they seem splashed but rarely mained anymore.

-T

[mikarddo]

Getting rid of EDF is good. Definitely the best news in the pass.
Major nerf to FvS and Cleric Animal Domain relatively speaking.

As for the rest, looks fine to me but nothing spectacular or game changing.

[Entyri]

Edf going away is probably for the best. It had some serious issues, however, it also had really cool gameplay implications, gain this at the penalty of that, which will be sad to see leave.

Renegade mastermaker is going to be behind battle engineer in hp now? Seems a bit strange.
Same with occult slayer, went from tankiest barb option to not granting as many hit points.
And on that not, why are barbs being punished for innately having more hp? Thats like half of their whole gimmick. Doesnt sit right with me. Especially with other classes getting closer in hit dice to barbs. Same with tying the hp from frenzied into the healing where if you want to go damage you cant get it.

The other thing I would like to see changed is that it looks like classes that already innately get hit points such as war priest, dont get an equal amount of competence. Which in an ideal world means fvs and cleric would be in the same spot, but because things stack or dont stack, leaves cleric behind if they go aasimar for example.
Why not remove other types of hp from the trees and just level out the competence.

The style bonus to hit dice is pretty cool, I like that idea and probably comes out to be about the same amount of hp gained as lost on *most* builds.

Thank you

[voxson5]

So for pewpewpew and ranged spellcasters, you're nerfing us by 10hp?

[nobodynobody1426]

So lots of nerfs being tossed in while trying to gaslight the population that its a "buff".

[C-Dog]

So for pewpewpew and ranged spellcasters, you're nerfing us by 10hp?
Where are you getting this? :confused:

A lot of info up there, but I'm not seeing this end result. All I see are increases (except some Enhancement reductions)



-All Classes with a Hit Die of d4 is increased to D6.

-Bard, Arty and Rogue are increased to D8s

-Ranger increased to D10s

[rabidfox]

Cleric
Class Feat - Cleric Animal Domain hit point bonus reduced to 4 hit points per level and 2 hit points per epic/legendary level

Favored Soul
Class Feat - Stout of Heart Changed reduced to : 4 hit points per level and 2 hit points per epic/legendary level.

Dedicated healers are taking a big hit here on HP; we already trade-off a lot to heal harder raids/content.
How about giving HP % bonus in T5 heal trees for cleric & FvS with these changes too?

[Komradkillingmachine]

Occult slayer needs a Competence bonus as well. Otherwise it's a YUUUGE nerf to Barbarian tanks.

[Hephaestas]

Occult slayer needs a Competence bonus as well. Otherwise it's a YUUUGE nerf to Barbarian tanks.

Yes I quite think that's the point

[Yamani]

Diluting the need for tanks. Buffing caster/ranged hp. I can see how this will go over well.

[Lotoc]

Vistani
New Enhancement called Grudge Bearer, Multi selector off of Vendetta, grants +20% competence bonus to hit points for 2 AP.

Might I suggest this instead be a multiselector with whirling blades rather than with Vendetta; a button melee vistanis actually like pressing? The way it is proposed effectively leaves it as an option mutually costly to melee and thrower builds.

[Infiltraitor]

Hey folks! We are doing a pass on hit points. The goals here are to add a little more of a buffer for new players in general to make mistakes, and add a significantly larger buffer for melee builds.

A Quick Overview:


Epic Defensive Fighting is going away. We are replacing it with many other options.
The bulk of hit points EDF once provided is being distributed around the enhancement trees and the combat style feats, with some changes to class hit dice.
The large majority of Melee builds, in fact most builds, will see a hit point increase. For focused tanks and FVS builds using stout heart this will be more of a neutral change.


Cleric
T5 - Warrior Priest - Divine bastion - Gain 15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
Core 4 - Warrior Priest - Warcasting - Sacred hit point bonus reduced to 5%.
Class Feat - Cleric Animal Domain hit point bonus reduced to 4 hit points per level and 2 hit points per epic/legendary level
Divine Bastion Updated: No longer increases threat but grants a 15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.

Favored Soul
Class Feat - Stout of Heart Changed reduced to : 4 hit points per level and 2 hit points per epic/legendary level.
Divine Champion: Updated: No longer increases threat but grants 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.



This is NOT a neutral change.

A 7000 hp cleric tank will lose 25% Epic Defensive Fighting and 10% sacred hit points and gain 15% competence and 5% sacred. That is -15% hp.
(4117 base with 1.7 hp scalar.)
15% of 4117 is 618.

Animal domain will lose 216 hp from domain and gain 220 hp from combat style feats. That is a +4 hp.

That is a 614 HP net loss.

Between this and the BAB cap at 25, basically has been two updates of back-to-back Warpriest nerfing. That is not a neutral change. That is build killing. Warpriest is no longer competitive as a tank if this goes live. Just delete the entire enhancement tree. 614 hp loss for warpriest tanks.

I'm not sure if the original plan was to completely nerf warpriest into oblivion, but this 614 hp net loss is nuts.

EDIT

Epic Destiny Nerf for Unyielding Sentinel is another 10% hp loss.

4117 * 0.25 = 1029

I'm losing 1024 hp this update. More of a neutral change???

[Mithrielwielder]

So, another nerf for pure melee. Maybe they figure everyone is playing casters, so they trying to keep the casters happy.

Put this in the category, "if it ain't broke, break it."

[Duhboy]

Barbarians
T5 - Uncanny Balance rank 3 gains +15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
T5 - Accelerated Metabolism grants +15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
Barbs are getting a lower bonus here because their so tough for other reasons (and their HD bonus from styles is larger)


Hey Torc, what about Occult Slayer and Frenzied Berserkers that take Raging Blows instead of AM?

[Xgya]

This seems like it leaves actual tanks in the dark. An outright nerf in many cases, especially Barbarians, but Clerics too.

Other melees might see the gap close a little unless they already used a maxed out EDF, in which case the change more likely closer to neutral.

I also think the change to VKF that can (and often does) act as ranged tree is a bit misplaced. I suggest instead making the multiselector Core 4, choosing between the critical improvements to throwing daggers OR critical improvements on melee daggers +20% HP.

[Komradkillingmachine]

Yes I quite think that's the point


For focused tanks and FVS builds using stout heart this will be more of a neutral change.


Not quite the point but thanks for playing.

[Firebreed]

Might I suggest this instead be a multiselector with whirling blades rather than with Vendetta; a button melee vistanis actually like pressing? The way it is proposed effectively leaves it as an option mutually costly to melee and thrower builds.



Renegade mastermaker is going to be behind battle engineer in hp now? Seems a bit strange.
Same with occult slayer, went from tankiest barb option to not granting as many hit points.


Agreed with both of these.

[Komradkillingmachine]

Barbarians
T5 - Uncanny Balance rank 3 gains +15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
T5 - Accelerated Metabolism grants +15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
Barbs are getting a lower bonus here because their so tough for other reasons (and their HD bonus from styles is larger)

Unyielding Sentinel:

Strength of Vitality reduced: Gain 2/4/6% insightful bonus to max hit points. Rank 3: Increase this bonus to 10% if the Mantle of the Sentinel is Active.

In here to make tanking less unyielding sent exclusive since this bonus was so large and to offset some of the increases from other sources.


Fury of the Wild:

Lore of the Wilds: reduced to 5% primal bonus bonus to max hit points from 10% (but now no lore feats required)


Revert Reaper scaling changes (per skull) that were introduced during stat squish update and ALL these changes become reasonable.

[rabidfox]

I was hoping to see where my HP would be at. But my HP is the same as it appears none of the HP stuff is in this lam build (maybe this was mentioned and I just missed reading it). Or maybe some stuff is working and I'm just on a build where it's bugged?

edit:
Fvs 17 / 3 Pal. with stout and using t5 US. So fvs hp and US both seem bugged for me vs the notes.

[Torc]

This is NOT a neutral change.

A 7000 hp cleric tank will lose 25% Epic Defensive Fighting and 10% sacred hit points and gain 15% competence and 5% sacred. That is -15% hp.
(4117 base with 1.7 hp scalar.)
15% of 4117 is 618.

Animal domain will lose 216 hp from domain and gain 220 hp from combat style feats. That is a +4 hp.

That is a 614 HP net loss.

Between this and the BAB cap at 25, basically has been two updates of back-to-back Warpriest nerfing. That is not a neutral change. That is build killing. Warpriest is no longer competitive as a tank if this goes live. Just delete the entire enhancement tree. 614 hp loss for warpriest tanks.

I'm not sure if the original plan was to completely nerf warpriest into oblivion, but this 614 hp net loss is nuts.

EDIT

Epic Destiny Nerf for Unyielding Sentinel is another 10% hp loss.

4117 * 0.25 = 1029

I'm losing 1024 hp this update. More of a neutral change???

Your base hit point score is a good 500 points higher than the top range of what we were expecting after the stat squish. (Congrats?) We were kind of expecting the tip top people to maybe drop 50-100 hit points which in the grand scheme of things probably won't change the time to kill on them on any meaningful difficulty.

This is why we have previews.

Please remember this is preview 1 (of I believe 3) and it's very easy to tweak numbers. Also consider that the EDF casting range limitations will be going away. This may not be something you've cared about on a tank build before, but you have an easier time flexing into caster healing or maybe something else and there has to be trade offs to that even if you have no intention of using them.

I'd love to know more about your build. How you put that total together and what PRR/MRR are you running?

-T

[Tsutti]

Cleric
T5 - Warrior Priest - Divine bastion - Gain 15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
Core 4 - Warrior Priest - Warcasting - Sacred hit point bonus reduced to 5%.
Class Feat - Cleric Animal Domain hit point bonus reduced to 4 hit points per level and 2 hit points per epic/legendary level
Divine Bastion Updated: No longer increases threat but grants a 15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.

Favored Soul
Class Feat - Stout of Heart Changed reduced to : 4 hit points per level and 2 hit points per epic/legendary level.
Divine Champion: Updated: No longer increases threat but grants 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.

This, as mentioned by one other person, is not great for healers. They aren't getting the % bonuses anyway from EDF so all this does is reduce their flat hp bonuses, compounded by the fact that while you can take Shield Mastery feats for tankiness this isn't something healers always do so someone not taking those won't have any of this hp made up for by combat mastery feats.

As also pointed out, the reduction by 10% competence on top of another 5% sacred is a much larger reduction for cleric tanks than for a paladin or fighter, and the 5% lost by those will probably be made up for by the flat hp from combat style feats but 15% is a lot more than will be made up for.


Barbarians
T5 - Uncanny Balance rank 3 gains +15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
T5 - Accelerated Metabolism grants +15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
Barbs are getting a lower bonus here because their so tough for other reasons (and their HD bonus from styles is larger)

Unyielding Sentinel:


Strength of Vitality reduced: Gain 2/4/6% insightful bonus to max hit points. Rank 3: Increase this bonus to 10% if the Mantle of the Sentinel is Active.


In here to make tanking less unyielding sent exclusive since this bonus was so large and to offset some of the increases from other sources.


Fury of the Wild:



Lore of the Wilds: reduced to 5% primal bonus bonus to max hit points from 10% (but now no lore feats required)


I'm sorry, but exactly zero dedicated tanks will use anything other than Unyielding Sentinel regardless; the tree is too important what with an insight % bonus and a possible quality % bonus, 35 hp from cores (next highest is Fury at 20 per), and by far the most useful epic moment to a tank.

Barbarian tanks are also hit quite hard here as like the cleric tank, they are losing more than the 5% pallies and fighters are losing. Occult Slayer tree has 10% quality hp, and will now be the only tree without a competence bonus, so barbarians tanks lose out on at least 10% of their previous competence bonus PLUS 5% quality IF they start taking the Deific Warding feat, or they lose out on the whole 10% quality if they would still rather not take Deific Warding--in other words, they could be mostly pointless now and we'll likely see a much lower diversity of tanks, with the only real options now being fighter and paladin for most cases.



The large majority of Melee builds, in fact most builds, will see a hit point increase. For focused tanks and FVS builds using stout heart this will be more of a neutral change.



This is largely adding to existing enhancements but there are a few reworks. The competence bonus is lower but this should be more than counteracted by the bonuses from Part 1 and or the ability to now cast spells without impairment.

FVS healers using stout heart may see a neutral change if they take shield mastery feats, otherwise it will be a nerf to healing FVS. Focused tanks don't look like they're a neutral change at an eyeball look, gaining twice as much class hp and epic/legendary hp at the cost of a minimum 15% hp, and while that flat hp is a lot I don't think that it will make up 15% hp loss even with your other % bonuses added on. I can't be sure without running some numbers, for paladins and fighters, but it seems slightly suspect.

I am fairly sure, however, that cleric and barbarian tanks will see an unfavorable and not neutral change. The loss of EDF loses each of them 10% competence rather than 5%, and cleric loses an additional 5% from their sacred while barbarian probably loses 5% quality, opting to get the Deific Warding feat for 5% quality in Unyielding Sentinel and mitigate % hp losses.

That is 15% hp for both clerics and minimum 15% for barbarians compared with paladins and fighters, assuming the barb even takes Deific Warding otherwise it's 20-25% (depending on whether they decide it's more worthwhile to get that 15% competence but lose out on other tanky stats or more worthwhile to miss out on yet another 5% to get more tanky stats). Total, this is 25% hp for clerics and 25-35% for barbs depending on build choices.


Sorc/Wiz
Had to do a bit here since the "shorten" spell range play style is going away. Reminder any bonus marked passive works for just owning the enhancement.

Knight's Transformation Updated: While this toggle is active your base attack bonus is increased to equal your character level. When you successfully hit with an Eldritch Strike you gain Knight's Strike: +30 universal spell power and +3% Critical Spell Damage for 30 seconds.

Improved Knight's Transformation Updated: While Knight's transformation is active you gain a +1 comp bonus to your weapons crit multipler. When your Eldritch Strike hits you gain the additional bonuses to your Knight's Strike of +3 to Hit, Damage and 3% double strike. Passive Bonus: You gain 15% competence bonus to Max Hit Points (regardless if the toggle is on or not)

Knight's Striker: Knight's Strike gains +2 Evocation and Conjuration DCs and +20 melee power. Passive: You gain mobile spell casting.
Knight's Controller: Knight's Strike gains +2 Enchantment DCs, +2 Illusion DCS, +4 Spell Penetration and +20 Melee Power. Passive: You gain mobile spell casting.

I don't really get why Eldritch Strike needs to gate those previously permanent bonuses, but if we need a tradeoff beyond -10% competence hp (EDF 25% to 15% in this tree) then I'll take it :)

[Epicsoul]

Removing EDF is a welcomed change. It was terrible for hybrid builds. Making melee beefier is also necessary, though I'm unsure if the part 1 changes compensate enough for the loss of 5% HP for most melee.

The major issue I have is that tanks are being unnecessarily nerfed. As someone who likes to push raid content, we squeeze every HP and defensive stat we can into a build. This is going to be a nerf by losing 5% HP from EDF and 10% from US. Paladins and Fighters should at least get 30% Competence HP bonus from their tanking tree, which might be on parity where they are now with the increase in base HP.

[Yamani]

-Heroic Durability updated:

Heroic Durability - +30 Hit Points. In addition, for every melee combat style feat you take you gain a 25% bonus to the hit points gained from your class levels. Epic and Legendary levels count at half value. This bonus can only stack up to 100%.





Make this to where the % hp bonuses apply only with the melee feats active. Otherwise stuff like a ranged ranger will get free hp for no good reason at all, since they get twf feats for free.

[Duhboy]

Barbarian tanks are also hit quite hard here as like the cleric tank, they are losing more than the 5% pallies and fighters are losing. Occult Slayer tree has 10% quality hp, and will now be the only tree without a competence bonus, so barbarians tanks lose out on at least 10% of their previous competence bonus PLUS 5% quality IF they start taking the Deific Warding feat, or they lose out on the whole 10% quality if they would still rather not take Deific Warding--in other words, they could be mostly pointless now and we'll likely see a much lower diversity of tanks, with the only real options now being fighter and paladin for most cases.



FVS healers using stout heart may see a neutral change if they take shield mastery feats, otherwise it will be a nerf to healing FVS. Focused tanks don't look like they're a neutral change at an eyeball look, gaining twice as much class hp and epic/legendary hp at the cost of a minimum 15% hp, and while that flat hp is a lot I don't think that it will make up 15% hp loss even with your other % bonuses added on. I can't be sure without running some numbers, for paladins and fighters, but it seems slightly suspect.

I am fairly sure, however, that cleric and barbarian tanks will see an unfavorable and not neutral change. The loss of EDF loses each of them 10% competence rather than 5%, and cleric loses an additional 5% from their sacred while barbarian probably loses 5% quality, opting to get the Deific Warding feat for 5% quality in Unyielding Sentinel and mitigate % hp losses.

That is 15% hp for both clerics and minimum 15% for barbarians compared with paladins and fighters, assuming the barb even takes Deific Warding otherwise it's 20-25% (depending on whether they decide it's more worthwhile to get that 15% competence but lose out on other tanky stats or more worthwhile to miss out on yet another 5% to get more tanky stats). Total, this is 25% hp for clerics and 25-35% for barbs depending on build choices.


Frenzied Berzerkers that chooses Raging Blows over Accelerated Metabolism won't gain the competence bonus to HP aswell.

[Zdevor]

I agree with that opinion that the HP bonus in the T5 Enhancements should be lowered to T3 and/or T4 or in the Cores.
I run a hybrid tanky melee Artificer build, using Renegade Mastermaker T5 and went 41p in VKF tree. So it is impossible to get access to any HP bonus at the other T5s.
Also Battle Engineer Tree will be ahead of RMM tree HP wise? That is weird cause RMM is the Defensive tree and BE is the Offensive.
Another POV that a build with 5 levels in a class can get T5 but when someone goes deep like 16+ levels in a class but uses Enhacement Trees which dont have the HP bonus at T5 will be lock out of any possible Competence HP bonuses????????????? 25% loss is HUGE!

P.S.: RMM Paragon Body is a T5 +10% Quality bonus. If the Competence HP bonus is also a T5 (in another tree) those cannot be taken at the same time. Different bonuses stack, but this is an impossibility.
If every Enhancement Core in addition could cover 3-5%, maybe it would more fair.


my build: https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/516431-Vistani-Renagade-Mastermaker-The-Handyman?p=6340556#post6340556

[Duhboy]

-Heroic Durability updated:

Heroic Durability - +30 Hit Points. In addition, for every melee combat style feat you take you gain a 25% bonus to the hit points gained from your class levels. Epic and Legendary levels count at half value. This bonus can only stack up to 100%.



Is this actually working on Lammania? Or is it borked and not working at all?

[Axcarth]

Epic Defensive Fighting: Will be removed from the game.

Weeeeeeeeee!!! Really nice to read this.


Warlock
(No Updates to enhancement trees. Warlock enlightened spirit already has a comp bonus in their tree).

Lol, you really don't have any love for warlocks, do you? xD

I Like what I read so far. Thanks for the work on this. Just curious about if AC-PRR-MRR mechanics is having a pass too on this U57, anytime soon?

[Duhboy]

I agree with that opinion that the HP bonus in the T5 Enhancements should be lowered to T3 and/or T4 or in the Cores.
I run a hybrid tanky melee Artificer build, using Renegade Mastermaker T5 and went 41p in VKF tree. So it is impossible to get access to any HP bonus at the other T5s.
Also Battle Engineer Tree will be ahead of RMM tree HP wise? That is weird cause RMM is the Defensive tree and BE is the Offensive.
Another POV that a build with 5 levels in a class can get T5 but when someone goes deep like 16+ levels in a class but uses Enhacement Trees which dont have the HP bonus at T5 will be lock out of any possible Competence HP bonuses????????????? 25% loss is HUGE!

Completely agree with this. should be in the cores instead of a T5

[Stradivarius]

Torc,

Real quick.

Why the massive nerf to melees? You do realize you need to head the other way, we get one shotted in high skull reapers, we need support not an overall nerf (absolutely bizzarre you guys would think in this direction.) My Frenzy barb is losing a sizeable chunk of HP (~10%) my cleric even more.

I'm mad but I would like your reasoning for this. I think you guys have your reasons, if you can lay them out (maybe future-proofing something?) I think these changes will go over better. Thank you.

[Khurse]

So A number of classes are being raised to have the same base hit die as Monks, Rangers are moving ahead, and these classes all get 20% buffs, while Handwrap Monk (Shintao) is 15%..or 25% if you go earth...but it's no longer a quality bonus..

All things considered (I'm not sure this is a bad change overall for the game), you guys really do hate the Monk class don't you?

[Fubbzy]

Running a ****** 20 wiz pm tank atm, went from 3996 hp with edf to 3694 on lamm (i have all the shield masteries). Would there be any possible solution for meme hybrid tanks such as this? Adding the competence bonus to zombie ascendant shroud on top of the existing 10% profane might be a bit of an ask but you never know.

[Infiltraitor]

Your base hit point score is a good 500 points higher than the top range of what we were expecting after the stat squish. (Congrats?) We were kind of expecting the tip top people to maybe drop 50-100 hit points which in the grand scheme of things probably won't change the time to kill on them on any meaningful difficulty.

This is why we have previews.

Please remember this is preview 1 (of I believe 3) and it's very easy to tweak numbers. Also consider that the EDF casting range limitations will be going away. This may not be something you've cared about on a tank build before, but you have an easier time flexing into caster healing or maybe something else and there has to be trade offs to that even if you have no intention of using them.

I'd love to know more about your build. How you put that total together and what PRR/MRR are you running?

-T







My cleric tank has 7000 hp, 490 PRR, 250 MRR, 240* AC. (Inside Reaper Difficulty, link in references at bottom)

A Paladin tank would be 7000 HP, 525 PRR, 325 MRR, 500 AC.

A Barbarian tank would be 7200 HP, 470 PRR, 290 MRR, 250 AC, and 14% damage reduction.**



My cleric warpriest is pretty much a min-maxed tank build with full gear, 115 reaper points, and all past lives and is at the very bottom of what is considered an acceptable for reaper tanking. This giant hp nerf is the end for all cleric tanks. It used to be BARELY able to keep up with the other 2 main tank classes. Now it will no longer be able to keep up.

There are currently only 3 classes that can tank reliably in reaper difficulty. Barbarian, Paladin/Fighter***, and Cleric. With cleric being the weakest tank of the three lagging defensively behind by about 12.5%. You are simply not going to have any more warpriest tanks after this nerf. The playstyle will simply be too far behind other tank builds.

Yes, we can now cast spells and so on without the limitations of EDF. Except the tank playstyle requires giving up all spellpower and sp and so forth. I COULD cast heal but it would barely heal anything because all my gear slots and all my filligrees and all my feats went into hp and defense. Sacrifices must be made to survive tanking 2 doom reapers at once. And that happens quite often in R10.

Tanking is not a popular playstyle as it is. Cleric tanks are the weakest and least popular among tanks. This nerf will cause every last cleric tank to LR +20 into a Paladin or a Barbarian or Fighter (ew gross). The good news is you will sell a lot of lesser hearts of wood. The bad news is no more cleric tanks.

If you have the internal numbers, you can easily verify how few cleric warpriests there are already. Being 12.5% behind other tanks is barely acceptable. After this nerf, warpriests will be nearly 20% weaker than other tanks. That is a huge margin and beyond what any respectable raid leader will accept.

TLDR: Animal Domain, 10% Sacred HP, and 25% epic defensive fighting HP are the only things keeping warpriests playable.


* the screenshot shows 490 PRR and 320 AC, pre-BAB nerf. Post-nerf I had to sacrifice 100 AC to reach 490 PRR again.

** Max completionist Barbarian tanks will have 8500+ HP and 410 PRR and 230 MRR.
Barbarians are currently #1. After this nerf, they will be #2 and Paladin/Fighter will be #1. Druid will be a distant #3.

*** A Paladin and a Fighter share the same Defender enhancement. It's functionally the same.

References

My current Cleric tank
https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/533609-U55-The-Septic-Tank

Paladin tank
https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/531053-U53-Paladin-Tank

Barbarian tank
https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/530975-U53-Endgame-Tank-Build

This barbarian tank has 10k hp. He's going to lose like 1200 hp from this nerf.
https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/533924-Skeletons-in-the-Closet-Reaper-6-Argo

[Nickodeamous]

So A number of classes are being raised to have the same base hit die as Monks, Rangers are moving ahead, and these classes all get 20% buffs, while Handwrap Monk (Shintao) is 15%..or 25% if you go earth...but it's no longer a quality bonus..

All things considered (I'm not sure this is a bad change overall for the game), you guys really do hate the Monk class don't you?


Dear Devs,

Here I am again, defending monks. Why are you essentially punishing monks here. I am going from a 20% bonus from EDF to a 15% bonus. Lets be upfront here...a monk literally has to jump INTO the mobs, and yet, here we are taking hit points away. Please correct me if I am wrong here, but this doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Please let me know if I am reading this wrong.

thanks,
Nico

[TPICKRELL]

Back of the napkin math says that my DPS barb is losing a few hundred hit points, and gets the privilege of swapping Raging Blows ( A solid DPS enhancement ) for Accelerated Metabolism ( a really crappy healing enhancement ) to avoid losing several hundred more.

My Barb Tank is getting an even shorter end of the stick.

Gotta love it when you see those big smiley Titles on SSG posts now days.

[TitusOvid]

I'd like to add to the tank feedback:
Even FvS (splashes) will lose a noticeably amount of HP and even threat. You need to work hard to build a viable tank. Taking 1 or 2 classes out of the equation will narrow the possibilities considerably.

Please take another look.

EDF: Just get rid of touch range.

Cheers,
Titus.

[Memnir]

Starting to get a real The Producers vibe.

[Tanky]

Removing EDF is a welcomed change. It was terrible for hybrid builds. Making melee beefier is also necessary, though I'm unsure if the part 1 changes compensate enough for the loss of 5% HP for most melee.

The major issue I have is that tanks are being unnecessarily nerfed. As someone who likes to push raid content, we squeeze every HP and defensive stat we can into a build. This is going to be a nerf by losing 5% HP from EDF and 10% from US. Paladins and Fighters should at least get 30% Competence HP bonus from their tanking tree, which might be on parity where they are now with the increase in base HP.
On-point summary and agree with both points.

[Duhboy]

I don't really see much of a point in putting the competence bonus to HP in Tier 5 as it's not that OP let alone that your supposed goal is to help melee toons. How is this so when your pigeonholing certain melee builds in choosing a tier 5 for a HP boost? I think it would be better and more entuned to what you are trying to do if you add the bonus to HP into the cores such as the 4th cores (Character level 12) across the board. Seeing that the bonus would be a competence bonus multiple cores wouldn't stack because of same bonus. But if you took a core that gives 20% competence bonus from a different tree you'd only see an extra 5% because of higher same bonus which comparably speaking isn't much of an increase.

[BigSlugger]

Hey Torc, what about Occult Slayer and Frenzied Berserkers that take Raging Blows instead of AM?

This. And also Renegade Mastermaker.

[LightBear]

Just to shed some light on the HP pool, 4000 hp is considered a low score for a tank.
There are wizards and sorcs running around with that score.

I don't know how you want us to complete some raids out there when you expect the chew toy to have 3k hp.

[LilacDragon6]

What else are you planning since melee still need more defense.

[Duhboy]

What else are you planning since melee still need more defense.

By removing PRR and AC probably or nerfing that into oblivion atleast lol xD

[ivorycoaster]

I am not sure if you guys noticed, but Torc actually responded to this thread, stating "this is only preview 1 of 3."

First and foremost, I would like to say that we rarely see responses this quickly if at all these days. As a secondary comment, I think you guys all need to really tighten up with the bad attitude doom and gloom jargon. I don't know if any of you have ever worked in the service industry, but as a bartender, if you guys talked to me the way you talk to these devs, I would short pour you or flat out kick you out because you're probably a bad tipper anyway and I don't tolerate that ****. Have some respect. These are other human beings and they're not making changes just to "ruin your builds."

If you have a criticism, post your anecdotes, your reasons why, and leave it at that. This should be the standard for the forums these days and yet most of you are just disrespectful and childish, throwing tantrums and not even practicing enough patience to see if these things work. Give these devs a grateful community to work for and MAYBE they will work harder to actually appease your concerns instead of just looking at every single response and thinking, holy ****, what a bunch of babies. Refer to Zvdegor's post, where he concisely makes his point, suggests why his point is relevant, and ends his statement. BE LIKE THAT.

Thank you devs for all your hard work. This will take some tweaking, but I think you are on the right track here with removing EDF.

[Dandonk]

Back of the napkin math says that my DPS barb is losing a few hundred hit points, and gets the privilege of swapping Raging Blows ( A solid DPS enhancement ) for Accelerated Metabolism ( a really crappy healing enhancement ) to avoid losing several hundred more.

My Barb Tank is getting an even shorter end of the stick.

Gotta love it when you see those big smiley Titles on SSG posts now days.

Yeah, this'll hurt my main, when he gets back to doing endgame after getting done with the archetypes. Annoying.

Removing EDF is a good choice. But this is not a neutral or buff change for some pretty normal builds.

[Paisheng]

So A number of classes are being raised to have the same base hit die as Monks, Rangers are moving ahead, and these classes all get 20% buffs, while Handwrap Monk (Shintao) is 15%..or 25% if you go earth...but it's no longer a quality bonus..

All things considered (I'm not sure this is a bad change overall for the game), you guys really do hate the Monk class don't you?

I noticed a nerf to monks also not just watching everyone else get 20% but monks only 15% unless you limit them to the earth stance (I don't use), but also watching ranger go from D8 to D10 but monks staying at D8 -- Hey monks are supposed to be a melee class -- they shouldn't be held back to the specialist D6 of rogues, casters, etc. It's not much but they should get the D10 like all other melees get (or they get d12).

[Stradivarius]

By removing PRR and AC probably or nerfing that into oblivion atleast lol xD

https://i.imgflip.com/6wp1uq.gif

[Alcides]

As a player, I would like to see the percentile hit point bonuses completely removed from gear including the Winter set and Legendary Green steel Opposition set. I feel that this is an anachronistic design that is insurmountable for a majority of players in the game since this raid is not ran as often and people who have already farmed it out no longer wish to help others get this gear. Also, the choices for these gear sets are very limiting, narrow in focus and lack luster to what should be an engaging game play experience for tanking characters. I would prefer that these came from feat investment tied to melee combat altogether, and not granted from any other thing.

[Wizard1406]

Some extra HP for former d4/d6 classes are nice and the removal of EDF is great! Now you can buff, rez and heal people without having to stand on top of them! MUCH better for grouping. :-D

However I agree with the other posts, no class / build should have LESS HP than before the changes.

So please don't nerf any tanks. And don't nerf barbarian. In every D&D game they have much more HP than other classes. Don't take that speciality away. Also occult slayer needs full hp bonus too.

FVS already had too many nerfs, Stout of Heart was fine.

[ZER0DIVISION]

I haven't noticed this on other the other trees, but why do henshin mystics have to spend 2 extra AP now to get that competence hp back? It should just be rolled into an existing enhancement.

Getting rid of EDF is a nice direction, but the fact that existing pure melee builds now have to rework their enhancements around this change is a bit silly.

Also, why does the tanky barbarian tree not get competence hp bonus in the T5s? Since the bonus is so significant, it essentially means you'd want to spec out of it and go for T5s in another barb tree to get it back. It doesn't make sense.

[badm0f0]

https://i.imgflip.com/6wp1uq.gif

once again my poor barb is going to suffer ....

[SpartanKiller13]

So uh lemme see if I can do the numbers on this one on a Barb 20 off-tank I threw a build together for reasons. I'm certain it's not optimal but hey it's fun so why not.

Currently:
Ravager Capstone (Visage is fun!) + OS T5 (HP duh). Has KT, IC:S, and alright damage with a longsword. T5 Fury, SD Mantle (with Displace clickies), US C3 for HP.
HP: 3906 base, with 55% bonus = 6054 (25% EDF + 10% OS T5 + 10% FotW T5 + 10% Winter)

Afterwards:
Class HP +300 (per Torc's chart)
No enhancement changes = -25% competence via EDF as an entire loss. -5% Fury of the Wild.
Base = 4206 base, with 25% bonus = 5275.

This is a 15% HP loss.

I could go capstone Ravager and T5 VKF/Falconry for the 20% competence HP, maybe swap to daggers using VKF or something? Falconry would get 5% Quality HP but terrible DPS and no dodge clicky; Dwarf would get 5% Quality HP if I had more Racial AP.
This costs me 210 HP (Core 1-5 + One Spirit), 94 temps/3s (given 186 MP), 60 Hamp, ~4 Con, and 23 MRR but I do get another defensive clicky and Deflect Arrows.
3906+300-210-60 = 3936, with 35% bonus = 5313 HP (20% T5 VKF + 5% FotW T5 + 10% Winter)

This is a 14% HP loss. Also VKF is the best Barbarian tanking tree?!? Falconry gives the most HP as a Barb tree?!?

-----

How about a Barb pure tank? I also threw one of these together b/c some guildies of mine were just discussing it. Also certainly not optimal lol, but it's a fast baseline.

Currently:
OS Capstone +T5, Ravager C5, Harper+Dwarf for a lil more HP.
HP: 4723 base, with 65% bonus = 7794 HP (25% EDF + 10% OS T5 + 20% US T5 + 10% Winter)

No changes:
+300 Base HP (per Torc's chart)
HP: 5023 base, with 30% bonus = 6530 HP (10% OS T5 + 10% US T5 + 10% Winter)

Yikes, that's a 19% HP loss.

Capstone OS + T5 Falconry
Loss of 210 HP (Core 1-5 Ravager, One Spirit), 3 Con, 3 PRR, 32 MRR, 45 Hamp but I get sprint boosts! And Fort debuff if nobody else has it, so IG that's nice.
HP: 5023 -210 -45 = 4768 base, with 45% bonus = 6913 HP (20% Falconry + 5% Falconry + 10% US T5 + 10% Winter)

Yay only 13% HP loss! And I get sprint boosts! Falconry is truly the best Barbarian HP tree. Although VKF is probably a better tank tree.

-----

Why are the best Barbarian tanking trees not Barbarian trees? Why does OS not have any source of Competence HP?

*Edit: fixed numbers per Infiltraitor, I had 20% US for the last build.

[LilacDragon6]

The barbarian changes are dumb.

[Denfeniks]

I think u really bullied the barb players if you going life with that changes.

Why don't you make every player have the same hitpoints, yea that would be fair... (that's what it sounds to me, and yea i get the idiocy in it)

[Duhboy]

With the proposed changes that the devs want to do to help EK, ranged, melee, etc why go through the trouble of gutting something and spreading it here and there for players when all that you really need to do is not get rid of EDF but to remove the drawbacks from it? That seems like a MUCH easier way to go about this change and reach the same goal.

[QuantumFX]

Paladin
T5 - KOTC - Vigor of Life grants 20% competence bonus to hit points

4AP to unlock the bonus on a KotC?!? Are you effing kidding?

[SpartanKiller13]

Alright and a 2nd look at my existing LN/LH tank, which is an older build but has worked fine since Ravenloft days. Revamped with the ED pass to run T5 Pally instead of ES.
It doesn't use EDF but does use US, so we'll see! I used to be Animal Domain too, but luckily I'm out of that already lol.

9/6/5 Cleric/Warlock/Pally

Currently:
HP: 2307 base, with 50% multiplier = 3460 (20% US + 20% SaD + 10% Winter)

Afterwards:
I only have 3 style feats, so 7/8 x 9/20 x 220 = 87 Cleric HP, 47 Warlock HP, and 57 Paladin HP = 191 HP gained.
HP: 2307 + 191 = 2498 base, with 40% multiplier = 3497 (10% US 20% SaD + 10% Winter)

Hey, I get a 1.1% HP increase! Good thing that build started at such a low base HP lmao.

------

What about my last life as a Kensei/Falconry Wis-max Fighter 20 with hilarious tactics DC's? It's a pure Fighter with like no tank trees, should be easy math.

Currently:
2424 base, with 30% multiplier = 3152 (25% EDF, 5% Falconry Conditioning)

Afterwards:
2424 + 260 = 2684, with 25% multiplier = 3355 (20% Weapon Master, 5% Conditioning)

Sweet, 6.4% HP gain. Small buffs, we take those :D

------

I guess I'm mostly seeing nerfs to some tank builds, other tank builds ~breaking even, and at best slight buffs to DPS melee; particularly those with lower starting numbers where the flat bonus matters more and % loss matters less.

Getting +260 HP onto a 800 HP endgame toon would probably be pretty good though? Which I guess is the point?

I'm not sure why some trees are so much favored over others though. Like Fighter/Pally offensive trees give almost as much HP as their tank trees, which just feelsbad for those.

[Wizard1406]

4AP to unlock the bonus on a KotC?!? Are you effing kidding?

Yeah the unlocks for competence hitpoints should probably not be in optional or multi-selector enhancements. So nobody needs to spend extra AP or forgo a better choice .Rather in "mandatory" enhancements, that every melee takes anyway, so rather holy retriubtion in KOTC.

[Infiltraitor]

How about a Barb pure tank? I also threw one of these together b/c some guildies of mine were just discussing it. Also certainly not optimal lol, but it's a fast baseline.

Currently:
OS Capstone +T5, Ravager C5, Harper+Dwarf for a lil more HP.
HP: 4723 base, with 65% bonus = 7794 HP (25% EDF + 10% OS T5 + 20% US T5 + 10% Winter)

No changes:
+300 Base HP (per Torc's chart)
HP: 5023 base, with 30% bonus = 6530 HP (10% OS T5 + 10% US T5 + 10% Winter)

Yikes, that's a 19% HP loss.

Capstone OS + T5 Falconry
Loss of 210 HP (Core 1-5 Ravager, One Spirit), 3 Con, 3 PRR, 32 MRR, 45 Hamp but I get sprint boosts! And Fort debuff if nobody else has it, so IG that's nice.
HP: 5023 -210 -45 = 4768 base, with 55% bonus = 7390 HP (20% Falconry + 5% Falconry + 20% US T5 + 10% Winter)

Hey, that's only a 5% HP loss! And I get sprint boosts! Falconry is truly the best Barbarian HP tree. Although VKF is probably a better tank tree.

-----

Why are the best Barbarian tanking trees not Barbarian trees? Why does OS not have any source of Competence HP?

20 Falconry + 5 Falconry + 10 US T5 + 10 Winter = 45% scalar, not 55%.

4768 * 1.45 = 6913. That's a 12% loss.

The good news is Defender will be #1 tank tree again. Occult Slayer nerfed to 2nd place. Warpriests nerfed out of existence.

[QuantumFX]

Yeah the unlocks for competence hitpoints should probably not be in optional or multi-selector enhancements. So nobody needs to spend extra AP or forgo a better choice .Rather in "mandatory" enhancements, that every melee takes anyway, so rather holy retriubtion in KOTC.

I'd be fine with removing the tier 4 as a prereq for the tier 5.

[ivorycoaster]

I don't hate the idea of making people make small decisions for either A) small dps increase or B) big hp buff..

But making people choose either a BIG dps increase, or a big hp buff, that one might not go over well with a lot of players who are losing something that was autogranted.

Also, my guild and a guild we are closely related to, like to push reaper raids. Generally we do rely on barb tanks for said raid pushing. Those barbarians do rely heavily on their HP for tanking purposes, so it might be a big deal to take a look at occult slayer and add some competence bonus in there as well. Same goes for the renegade mastermaker tree, it should definitely have a competence bonus mixed in as that is for sure the tanky tree for artificers.

Overall, my EK has what I think is a slight net gain in HP and is no longer going to be touch range caster. sooooo I am STOKED.

[helpfulguy1234]

And I thought stuff in my TR cache was the only thing vanishing.

POOF.......there go your hit points!

[Monkey_Archer]

Overall good changes.

Fighter buffs are welcome. The slight nerf/playstyle change in EK makes sense. Cleric/FVS hp nerf is reasonable.

While the barbarian nerf may be justified, it seems hacky... I'd rather see all 3 barb trees get the standard 20% competence bonus given to other melee classes and remove some flat hp from the cores instead. FB doesn't need any flat hp bonuses, OC/Ravager could lose 100 each or so.

The other confusing thing is why does fvs warsoul get 20% competence, while cleric warpriest only gets 15% in addition to losing 5% sacred?
Cleric needs to take animal domain to only get the same hp as fvs has now, but also needs to take war domain to get the same weapon crit profile, which isn't possible. Not sure why the massive nerf to melee clerics...

[zappy]

Your base hit point score is a good 500 points higher than the top range of what we were expecting after the stat squish -T


uhh torc, have you seen my pally full blooded tank build in bio, still running the pre dino gear, add legendary toughness at level 31 and swap completionist for quicken, is running around with 7800 hp in reaper on live (8.2k in a raid with everything going, with 500 prr 400 mrrr, 422 AC 18% dodge) and barb tanks getting to 10,000 HP in reaper? what is the top end you are expecting here?

me being the OG wiztank guy, from pre-stat squish, a sun elf pure wizard, d4 class, with 150 necro DC in one set of gear and destiny, and 6500 HP with 437PRR 258MRR with another set of gear and destiny swap.

all i know, Is with these changes, "Timmy the Timestop Tank" is definitely gonna happen

as another note, with US nerf to HP, can it be dropped to t4?

[Zretch]

Unyielding Sentinel:


Strength of Vitality reduced: Gain 2/4/6% insightful bonus to max hit points. Rank 3: Increase this bonus to 10% if the Mantle of the Sentinel is Active.


In here to make tanking less unyielding sent exclusive since this bonus was so large and to offset some of the increases from other sources.



Tanking isn't exclusive to US because of insightful hps, it's exclusive to US because of ranged AoE taunt on an independent timer and 10,000 Hitpoints every 5 minutes.

Pretending any other tree is reasonable for a tank is just wishful thinking. Withholding final judgement to see where final hitpoints land, though. There's a lot of moving parts.

[garynash7070]

Hey folks! We are doing a pass on hit points. The goals here are to add a little more of a buffer for new players in general to make mistakes, and add a significantly larger buffer for melee builds.

A Quick Overview:


Epic Defensive Fighting is going away. We are replacing it with many other options.
The bulk of hit points EDF once provided is being distributed around the enhancement trees and the combat style feats, with some changes to class hit dice.
The large majority of Melee builds, in fact most builds, will see a hit point increase. For focused tanks and FVS builds using stout heart this will be more of a neutral change, HOWEVER if you are very high up the hit point curve you will start to see a significant nerf (Base HP 3500-4000). As it has been pointed out to me the Stout Heart/Animal Domain folks seem to be getting up there.



HP PASS:

Part 1 - Grant HP for investing in melee feats magnified by class picks.


This is mostly is about adjusting heroic play because by high level our crazy con mod + reaper flat hit points dilutes it a bit, but it does matter enough that it will result in a buff for most players even after other shifts in the system detailed below.

-Heroic Durability updated:

Heroic Durability - +30 Hit Points. In addition, for every melee combat style feat you take you gain a 25% bonus to the hit points gained from your class levels. Epic and Legendary levels count at half value. This bonus can only stack up to 100%.





-Boosting the Base Hit Die of certain classes:


To keep the delta between a wizard and a barbarian tighter we shift the class dice around a little.


-All Classes with a Hit Die of d4 is increased to D6.

-Bard, Arty and Rogue are increased to D8s

-Ranger increased to D10s


https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1006253242637889539/1006253403833381095/hitpoint_Table.JPG


Part 2 - Melee enhancement trees get broader access to competence hit point bonuses through t5s


This is largely adding to existing enhancements but there are a few reworks. The competence bonus is lower but this should be more than counteracted by the bonuses from Part 1 and or the ability to now cast spells without impairment.

There a few other minors tweaks in here. Mostly AP costs and a little tank tree balance.





Epic Defensive Fighting: Will be removed from the game.

Alchemist
T5 - Chemical Weapon gets multi selector called Chemical Body - grants 15% comp bonus to hit points and 10 melee power.

Artificer
T5 - Battle Engineer - Reconstructed Arms & Edges grant a +20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to their original bonuses.

Barbarians
T5 - Uncanny Balance rank 3 gains +15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
T5 - Accelerated Metabolism grants +15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
Barbs are getting a lower bonus here because their so tough for other reasons (and their HD bonus from styles is larger)

Bards
T5 - Swash Buckler - Second Skin, AP cost reduced to 1. Updated to: +1/2/3 Reflex Saves, +2/4/6 Max Dex Bonus to Armor. Rank 3 grants a +20% competence bonus to hit points.
T4 - On the Mark: AP cost reduced to 1 per rank
T5 - WarChanter - Howl of Winter will now also grant a 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.

Cleric
T5 - Warrior Priest - Divine bastion - Gain 15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
Core 4 - Warrior Priest - Warcasting - Sacred hit point bonus reduced to 5%.
Class Feat - Cleric Animal Domain hit point bonus reduced to 4 hit points per level and 2 hit points per epic/legendary level
Divine Bastion Updated: No longer increases threat but grants a 15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.

Druid
Core 4 - Howl of Winter now grants a passive 5% primal bonus to max hit points in additional to it's previous effects.
Note: Druid wolves get their comp bonus from perfect natural weapon fighting.

Favored Soul
Class Feat - Stout of Heart Changed reduced to : 4 hit points per level and 2 hit points per epic/legendary level.
Divine Champion: Updated: No longer increases threat but grants 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.

Fighter
T5 Kensai- Weapon Master - Grants 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
T5 Thick of Battle replaced with a flat passive 100% threat bonus and now also grants 60 max hit points
T5 Against all Odds: grants 60 max hit points in addition to it's current effects
T5 Vanguard - Brutal Impact - Grants 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.

Monk
new T5 for Henshin Mystic & Ninja Spy - Self Defense - Grants +2% dodge & 20% competence bonus to Hit Points
T5 Shintao - Meditation of War - All stances except earth now grant a 15% competence bonus to hit points in additional to their original bonuses. Earth Stance grants 25% competence bonus to hit points but not longer gives a quality bonus.

Ranger
T5 - Tempest- Dual Perfection grants a 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.

Rogue
T5 Assassin Light Armor Mastery Rank 3 - Grants a 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
T5 - Acrobat- Spinning Staff Wall - Grants 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.

Paladin
T5 - KOTC - Vigor of Life grants 20% competence bonus to hit points
T5 Vanguard - Brutal Impact - Grants 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
T5 Sacred Fist - Divine Strike renamed Divine Striker, grants a 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original effects.

Sorc/Wiz
Had to do a bit here since the "shorten" spell range play style is going away. Reminder any bonus marked passive works for just owning the enhancement.

Knight's Transformation Updated: While this toggle is active your base attack bonus is increased to equal your character level. When you successfully hit with an Eldritch Strike you gain Knight's Strike: +30 universal spell power and +3% Critical Spell Damage for 30 seconds.

Improved Knight's Transformation Updated: While Knight's transformation is active you gain a +1 comp bonus to your weapons crit multipler. When your Eldritch Strike hits you gain the additional bonuses to your Knight's Strike of +3 to Hit, Damage and 3% double strike. Passive Bonus: You gain 15% competence bonus to Max Hit Points (regardless if the toggle is on or not)

Knight's Striker: Knight's Strike gains +2 Evocation and Conjuration DCs and +20 melee power. Passive: You gain mobile spell casting.
Knight's Controller: Knight's Strike gains +2 Enchantment DCs, +2 Illusion DCS, +4 Spell Penetration and +20 Melee Power. Passive: You gain mobile spell casting.

Warlock
(No Updates to enhancement trees. Warlock enlightened spirit already has a comp bonus in their tree).

Falconry
T5- Dangerous- changes and get a multi selector option called Swift. Dangerous: +10 melee power, +20% competence bonus to hit points. Swift: +3 reflex saves, 10 ranged power.

Vistani
New Enhancement called Grudge Bearer, Multi selector off of Vendetta, grants +20% competence bonus to hit points for 2 AP.

Additional Changes coming in Lammania 2:

Unyielding Sentinel:


Strength of Vitality reduced: Gain 2/4/6% insightful bonus to max hit points. Rank 3: Increase this bonus to 10% if the Mantle of the Sentinel is Active.


In here to make tanking less unyielding sent exclusive since this bonus was so large and to offset some of the increases from other sources.


Fury of the Wild:



Lore of the Wilds: reduced to 5% primal bonus bonus to max hit points from 10% (but now no lore feats required)


Last update you nerfed my caster cleric that I spent a ton of time acquiring all the IOD materials and gear to make her build strong. Nobody asked for those nerfs or if they did it was a very small % in the grand scheme of things. Now healing/melee clerics taking animal domain to stay alive while healing/melee are taking a great hit along with other tank builds, barbarians especially.

I already play way less and spend even less due to quality control, nerfs, and SSG’s inability to listen to more than a few favorites in game/on the forums. It seems, no it is the fact that you all base these nerfs/changes on UBER players. What you don’t realize is that doing it that way you really hurt everyone that isn’t UBER. It barely affects them.

Well I only play now because of the friends I’ve made the last 16 years. It’s definitely not due to the game getting better as a whole. Sorry SSG, but this is all you!

[garynash7070]

I am not sure if you guys noticed, but Torc actually responded to this thread, stating "this is only preview 1 of 3."

First and foremost, I would like to say that we rarely see responses this quickly if at all these days. As a secondary comment, I think you guys all need to really tighten up with the bad attitude doom and gloom jargon. I don't know if any of you have ever worked in the service industry, but as a bartender, if you guys talked to me the way you talk to these devs, I would short pour you or flat out kick you out because you're probably a bad tipper anyway and I don't tolerate that ****. Have some respect. These are other human beings and they're not making changes just to "ruin your builds."

If you have a criticism, post your anecdotes, your reasons why, and leave it at that. This should be the standard for the forums these days and yet most of you are just disrespectful and childish, throwing tantrums and not even practicing enough patience to see if these things work. Give these devs a grateful community to work for and MAYBE they will work harder to actually appease your concerns instead of just looking at every single response and thinking, holy ****, what a bunch of babies. Refer to Zvdegor's post, where he concisely makes his point, suggests why his point is relevant, and ends his statement. BE LIKE THAT.

Thank you devs for all your hard work. This will take some tweaking, but I think you are on the right track here with removing EDF.

So by recent history with SSG they will go with what is written in Lamannia. They make a few tweaks, but overall they stick at around 95+% to the outline.

Now the bartender reference: really? So if said bartender kept changing your favorite drink by adding in and removing this and that to a degree it became something else completely you’d just sit back and take it time after time? If so, well that’s on you, but in 16 years I’ve hardly posted n the forums, but occasionally I’ve had enough sipping swill and I must. I’m sure by the responses I’m not the only one.

[Tilomere]

So if I have this right:

https://i.postimg.cc/9mH9grVT/Screen-Shot-2021-12-05-125618-0.jpg

2864 hp swash with 55% hp bonus on live has 1848 non-reaper hp,

US Barb/Bard/Rogue is losing 10% US HP, and 10% hp from EDF to T5 Barb, and gaining 28 base class hp from d8s, and 184 base hp from weapon feats, and losing 50 epic hp.

So after change would have 1848 + 28 + 184 hp - 50 * 1.35 = 2714, or - 150 hp

In Reaper trees are 916HP, so -20% of 916 is -183 additional hp in reaper.

So net loss of 333 hp in reaper mode on melee.

20 Sorc (and most other casters) are gaining 40 hp base losing 50 epic, and 20% of 2700 reaper mode base hp (so 530 net gain total) from swapping their worthless T5s with EK/Vkf/Falconry. So melee nerf 333 hp, caster buff 530 hp :) That's exactly what people were asking for, and I'm sure this will go over swell.

[Denfeniks]

barbs loose:

10% competence hp's (25% from EDF becomes 15% if y get the right enhancements)
10% insightfull hp's (20% unyielding, becomes 10%)


I really can't grasp your logic peeps. I think this update is ridiculous to say the least

[Tsutti]

It seems, no it is the fact that you all base these nerfs/changes on UBER players. What you don’t realize is that doing it that way you really hurt everyone that isn’t UBER. It barely affects them.
This change hurts uber players more than less uber players because we're losing % hp and gaining base hp, the more uber you are the more base hp you will have so the % loss is more important and the flat gain is less impactful. If you aren't uber, you don't have as much hp to begin with so the % loss doesn't actually lose you as much hp but the flat hp gives you the same amount, which results in a net higher % increase to your hp as a non-uber player than it does as an uber player. This is a nerf to uber players and a buff to less uber players, not the other way around.


So by recent history with SSG they will go with what is written in Lamannia. They make a few tweaks, but overall they stick at around 95+% to the outline.
Honestly I haven't kept up with Lamannia changes much recently, the last time I paid as much attention as I am now was when they reworked bows. I'll say, though, that when they reworked bows they actually changed an insane number of things based on player feedback, certainly more than 5% of their outline. Obviously when they've put months of work into something they're not going to scrap the entire idea, so the general gist will always stay, but they DID change a massive amount of the stuff they were specifically doing to bows based on feedback and they announced the level cap increase I think nearly 2 years ago now, announcing it would be soon, but based on player feedback they've instead only just released it very recently (they postponed it for more than a year because of feedback).

They listen, they just want to hear rational feedback and ideas rather than angry "why are you murdering the game this is the dumbest idea you've had yet" without actually commenting at all on what specifically is wrong with their proposed idea. Obviously they aren't going to change anything based on feedback that gives no information about what they might change.

[SpartanKiller13]

barbs loose:

10% competence hp's (25% from EDF becomes 15% if y get the right enhancements)
10% insightfull hp's (20% unyielding, becomes 10%)

I really can't grasp your logic peeps. I think this update is ridiculous to say the least

Overall 12-17% on my barb tank examples, run the numbers on yours.


20 Falconry + 5 Falconry + 10 US T5 + 10 Winter = 45% scalar, not 55%.

4768 * 1.45 = 6913. That's a 12% loss.

The good news is Defender will be #1 tank tree again. Occult Slayer nerfed to 2nd place. Warpriests nerfed out of existence.

Uhh, Ravager is better than OS now aside from capstone giving SR - 15% in t5 and option to get 5% quality from another tree (US, Dwarf, etc).

Run the numbers on your Warpriest, what's it losing?

Your initial numbers had 7k HP on all 3 tank types which seems pretty off AFAIK, but I'm curious lol.

[Infiltraitor]

Overall 12-17% on my barb tank examples, run the numbers on yours.



Uhh, Ravager is better than OS now aside from capstone giving SR - 15% in t5 and option to get 5% quality from another tree (US, Dwarf, etc).

Run the numbers on your Warpriest, what's it losing?

Your initial numbers had 7k HP on all 3 tank types which seems pretty off AFAIK, but I'm curious lol.

Your maxed-out barbarian tanks will get 9000 hp and 400 PRR and 200 MRR. But that gives us more variables to consider.

I chose tank builds at 7k hp so I can make easy comparisons between PRR, MRR. Here we can see the builds using with similar gear setups. It is much harder to compare if we used a max greensteel barbarian tank to compare to a max AC Paladin. Easier if we tried to control for HP and then compare the remaining stats. I'm considerate like that.


Bro, I'm losing 1024 hp. And I'm not even full reaper points yet. I know a 8k hp pale master cleric tank that will be losing 1200 hp this next update.

[Denfeniks]

How the hell are we supposed to get tanks if this goes live?

i know you'll be destroying my barb occult slayer tank completely:

no EDF
no Competence replacement at all as occult slayer
-10% insight from unyielding.

= -35% hp's....
and nothing to replace it with, at least nothing that all other builds get also...

and to me it looks like your again trying to weaken melee and for sure the tanks.
Which is quite the opposite of what the game needs...


Can you guys stop inventing the hot water please...

[btolson]

The nerf to Animal Domain/Stout of Heart is too much. They just become bad options compared to the rest, no reason to take them after this goes live. Our Con Mods are still huge, even post-squish, and they now become worth less than 4 conmod.

If a toon with Animal Domain/Stout of Heart ends up with a few % more HP than any other class - so what? It has an opportunity cost.

I would almost suggest giving them some PRR or other damage resistance to make up for the lost HP so these options are competitive again... but that's actually stronger than the HP they're losing so... just put some of the HP back.

[Tilomere]

Simpler Idea:

Scrap all the feat/enhancement complexity.

Your level 1 Heroic Durability feat also gains:

Upon completing an adventure, if you killed equal or more mobs with melee attacks than casting or ranged, gain Hearty Adventurer until you next complete an adventure. Tag US abilities as "melee" attacks.

Hearty Adventurer: Gain a % bonus to max health equal to your BaB.

After the Grotto tutorial, this will kick in, and balance both tanks and melee in dungeons, as well as bump casters/ranged up in high difficulty raids where they lack as high sustain damage to at least die less if they want to do a haverdasher first.

-----------------
Or if you really want simplicity:
Add 10/20/30/40/50/50 hp per core in melee trees, half in hybrid trees (kensai/dws/vkf/falconry/EK) and if choices in tree allow specialization in ranged or melee (kensai/falconry) let those choices also bump up the amount per core (back to full if you take all 3 melee kensai or falconry abilities locking out all ranged kensai/falconry attacks). These hp stack between trees, but cap at 10xclass level (200 at cap).

[karatemack]

My cleric tank has 7000 hp, 490 PRR, 250 MRR, 240* AC. (Inside Reaper Difficulty, link in references at bottom)

A Paladin tank would be 7000 HP, 525 PRR, 325 MRR, 500 AC.

A Barbarian tank would be 7200 HP, 470 PRR, 290 MRR, 250 AC, and 14% damage reduction.**



snip


+1 - hopefully they re-think these changes.

[karatemack]

I am not sure if you guys noticed, but Torc actually responded to this thread, stating "this is only preview 1 of 3."

If there were things in preview 2 and 3 that would make preview 1 more palatable, then you would think it would be better to present the changes to the players wholeistically so we could give informed feedback instead of piecemeal based on the limited data we have. As it is, the feedback in this thread is valid based on what's been presented. If they wanted us to wait to give feedback until they showed us the whole picture, then why post a forum for feedback at all? Not everything has to be a mystery.

[Emergencies]

So for high end tanks there are some things that should be addressed on how they are affected. I am not addressing how dps is affected, just the tanks even though I would say that the dps changes have a major problem. Removing EDF was a great change but it is very important that everything else was balanced properly.

Pure fighter is my main tank and it's what I transferred over to Lamm. Rearranging some of the enhancements to what I would probably run I gained about ~80hp outside reaper and lost ~100 inside reaper (~6.6k in town, ~8.3k reaper). This is assuming I turn off the US stance to adjust for the 10% loss that will be coming in the future from US. I was going to complain about the 10% loss however with it on I was standing at 7.1k in town and was able to hit 9.5k solo in reaper (15k with last stand) which is very overkill. Taking off all LGS and all enhancements that affect %hp (0% scaling in the character + tab) I was standing a tad above 4k hp (which I could increase to 4.5k+) in town which is mostly accurate in the original post. However, I would only say this is a minor nerf compared to what I have on live. 100hp in reaper is not significant on my tank, at least with how I make my characters.

I wasn't able to actually test it but I believe pure pally is going to be losing HP, but not much. They don't get the 120 hp like fighter is but I think that's fine, they get more sustained PRR and MRR and quite a bit of healing power with lay on hands. In my opinion pally shouldn't be as tanky as fighter because of their utility. I still think they are going to be S tier tanks, just not as crazy as they were.

Barbarian tank was hard nerfed from what I've tested, the hp it used to get over other tanks is now minimal. My barb used to run around 9.6-10.3k hp, now its running at about 8.5-9k. Also, you can't go tier 5 occult slayer for that quality hp bonus since you're forced to go ravager or frenzied for the 15% competence which is a poor design choice. "It’s not a neutral change if you have to give up something (enhancements) to get back what you already had before." I would now say that barb is now a very bad tank compared to other options. In my opinion, barb should be reaching the highest standing hp of all the tanks (which it is but not by much), literally just a walking meat shield getting close to 10k hp at the high end. It's balanced as they get low AC, lower prr, and very low utility otherwise. I think an easy solve for this would be occult slayer tier 5 having a competence % hp bonus as well as the quality hp. It doesn't make sense that the previously "tank" tree is now getting less hp than the other trees. If their goal was to hard nerf barb tanks they did it, however I don't think it is justified. Side note: Barbarian % damage reduction doesn't scale in reaper.

Bear tank I believe is just getting buffed overall, which I think is a good thing. Same with Warlock. I've never played them myself as that was always due to them not being as tanky as other options.

Cleric and Fvs tank or healer/tanks getting nerfed I think is fine although I'm sure many will disagree. I believe them getting as high hp as they were didn't make sense. Having anywhere between 11-17 levels of clr/fvs gave them great utility to heal very well, whether they chose to build for it or not. I believe they should be made as "tanky healers" rather than "tank healers." Although I'm sure characters with many past lives and reaper points can still tank very well.

Pure artificer tank is very unusual but I think it should be addressed that renegade mastermaker doesn't get any competence hp in the tier 5 compared to battle engineer getting 20%. Making the "tank" tree not really the "tank" tree anymore. Pretty much the same problem with barb tank. Having to go tier 5 battle engineer for that hp pretty much kills the main reason make an Arti tank.

Weird monk/sacred fist/rouge dodge tanks I think are just getting buffed from hit die which is fine, I don't have much input as they are rarely ran.

Overall, I do think some of these changes are good, but some are very bad. If this goes through as is, the variety of possible tank options and tank splits are just going to be more limited which is what the opposite of what DDO should be. There should be a lot of creativity when making builds, and this just removes some of the previous options.

[ivorycoaster]

If there were things in preview 2 and 3 that would make preview 1 more palatable, then you would think it would be better to present the changes to the players wholeistically so we could give informed feedback instead of piecemeal based on the limited data we have. As it is, the feedback in this thread is valid based on what's been presented. If they wanted us to wait to give feedback until they showed us the whole picture, then why post a forum for feedback at all? Not everything has to be a mystery.

My point is that people are acting out of line and part of that tends to come from a general feeling of being ignored. However, the idea that we are seeing valid responses in both this and the imbues forum post, is a plus, and thus people need to forgive and forget and treat these staff members with respect, treat them like they are also people, because they are.

I am not by any means saying that these changes are perfect for everyone, and in fact I see some glaring issues. So we need to focus on sharing that, be loud but respectful in sharing these glaring issues.


I will just take this opportunity to reiterate a common sentiment here- please don't nerf tanks. They are basically bored already, and the less tanks we have, the less raids get run, the less fun the game is for everyone, while the game is also ruined for those tanks. Players who put a ton of effort into getting their toon to high HP values at the expense of literally anything else of any value should not be punished while everyone else gets an hp boost for nothing. The game is so caster heavy at cap in high reaps and raids already, we can't afford to lose any more integrity at that level of gameplay...

[Lumins]

So for high end tanks there are some things that should be addressed on how they are affected. I am not addressing how dps is affected, just the tanks even though I would say that the dps changes have a major problem. Removing EDF was a great change but it is very important that everything else was balanced properly.

Pure fighter is my main tank and it's what I transferred over to Lamm. Rearranging some of the enhancements to what I would probably run I gained about ~80hp outside reaper and lost ~100 inside reaper (~6.6k in town, ~8.3k reaper). This is assuming I turn off the US stance to adjust for the 10% loss that will be coming in the future from US. I was going to complain about the 10% loss however with it on I was standing at 7.1k in town and was able to hit 9.5k solo in reaper (15k with last stand) which is very overkill. Taking off all LGS and all enhancements that affect %hp (0% scaling in the character + tab) I was standing a tad above 4k hp (which I could increase to 4.5k+) in town which is mostly accurate in the original post. However, I would only say this is a minor nerf compared to what I have on live. 100hp in reaper is not significant on my tank, at least with how I make my characters.

I wasn't able to actually test it but I believe pure pally is going to be losing HP, but not much. They don't get the 120 hp like fighter is but I think that's fine, they get more sustained PRR and MRR and quite a bit of healing power with lay on hands. In my opinion pally shouldn't be as tanky as fighter because of their utility. I still think they are going to be S tier tanks, just not as crazy as they were.

Barbarian tank was hard nerfed from what I've tested, the hp it used to get over other tanks is now minimal. My barb used to run around 9.6-10.3k hp, now its running at about 8.5-9k. Also, you can't go tier 5 occult slayer for that quality hp bonus since you're forced to go ravager or frenzied for the 15% competence which is a poor design choice. "It’s not a neutral change if you have to give up something (enhancements) to get back what you already had before." I would now say that barb is now a very bad tank compared to other options. In my opinion, barb should be reaching the highest standing hp of all the tanks (which it is but not by much), literally just a walking meat shield getting close to 10k hp at the high end. It's balanced as they get low AC, lower prr, and very low utility otherwise. I think an easy solve for this would be occult slayer tier 5 having a competence % hp bonus as well as the quality hp. It doesn't make sense that the previously "tank" tree is now getting less hp than the other trees. If their goal was to hard nerf barb tanks they did it, however I don't think it is justified. Side note: Barbarian % damage reduction doesn't scale in reaper.

Bear tank I believe is just getting buffed overall, which I think is a good thing. Same with Warlock. I've never played them myself as that was always due to them not being as tanky as other options.

Cleric and Fvs tank or healer/tanks getting nerfed I think is fine although I'm sure many will disagree. I believe them getting as high hp as they were didn't make sense. Having anywhere between 11-17 levels of clr/fvs gave them great utility to heal very well, whether they chose to build for it or not. I believe they should be made as "tanky healers" rather than "tank healers." Although I'm sure characters with many past lives and reaper points can still tank very well.

Pure artificer tank is very unusual but I think it should be addressed that renegade mastermaker doesn't get any competence hp in the tier 5 compared to battle engineer getting 20%. Making the "tank" tree not really the "tank" tree anymore. Pretty much the same problem with barb tank. Having to go tier 5 battle engineer for that hp pretty much kills the main reason make an Arti tank.

Weird monk/sacred fist/rouge dodge tanks I think are just getting buffed from hit die which is fine, I don't have much input as they are rarely ran.

Overall, I do think some of these changes are good, but some are very bad. If this goes through as is, the variety of possible tank options and tank splits are just going to be more limited which is what the opposite of what DDO should be. There should be a lot of creativity when making builds, and this just removes some of the previous options.

This is such a well thought out post. I would love to see some replies on this.

As someone who literally only gets enjoyment out of playing tanks, none of this for my field of play looks great. Obviously more in depth discussions can help me understand the thought processes involved. Ill keep my bank closed to lending to ssg till I see better understanding for sure.

[voxson5]

Where are you getting this? :confused:

A lot of info up there, but I'm not seeing this end result. All I see are increases (except some Enhancement reductions)

d4->d6 = +40 hp
epic hp/level: 10>5 = -50 hp

= net change: -10 hp


Now, although Torc explicitly stated EPIC levels were changing, the table in the OP also appears to identify that LEGENDARY levels are also being changed from +10 to +5 per level. Assuming the levels 21-32 are all going to be +5hp/level, this means -60hp vs currently on live.

So it's actually a -20 hp nerf

[Tsutti]

d4->d6 = +40 hp
epic hp/level: 10>5 = -50 hp

= net change: -10 hp


Now, although Torc explicitly stated EPIC levels were changing, the table in the OP also appears to identify that LEGENDARY levels are also being changed from +10 to +5 per level. Assuming the levels 21-32 are all going to be +5hp/level, this means -60hp vs currently on live.

So it's actually a -20 hp nerf

It was a bit confusing the way that image puts it but that's not what epic levels are changing to, that's how much extra hp you'll get from epic levels with the full 100% increase to level up hp with combat style feats. Combat styles will now grant 25% more hp from level ups per feat, up to 100%, with epic levels scaling at half. So all of those hp values are being added flat to what we already have in game so that -50 is a +50, and we also get +(anywhere from 120 to 240 hp depending on class's hit die size).

[voxson5]

It was a bit confusing the way that image puts it but that's not what epic levels are changing to

Read Torc's table and the example again. It is very clear that epic (and legendary) levels are changed to +5hp/level.

He even notes "12 epic levels - 60 hp" in the breakdown example. 60 divided by 12 is... 5, which is what is stated in the table for the hp gain for each level above 20.

[dgtgtd]

I am not sure if you guys noticed, but Torc actually responded to this thread, stating "this is only preview 1 of 3."

First and foremost, I would like to say that we rarely see responses this quickly if at all these days. As a secondary comment, I think you guys all need to really tighten up with the bad attitude doom and gloom jargon. I don't know if any of you have ever worked in the service industry, but as a bartender, if you guys talked to me the way you talk to these devs, I would short pour you or flat out kick you out because you're probably a bad tipper anyway and I don't tolerate that ****. Have some respect. These are other human beings and they're not making changes just to "ruin your builds."

If you have a criticism, post your anecdotes, your reasons why, and leave it at that. This should be the standard for the forums these days and yet most of you are just disrespectful and childish, throwing tantrums and not even practicing enough patience to see if these things work. Give these devs a grateful community to work for and MAYBE they will work harder to actually appease your concerns instead of just looking at every single response and thinking, holy ****, what a bunch of babies. Refer to Zvdegor's post, where he concisely makes his point, suggests why his point is relevant, and ends his statement. BE LIKE THAT.

Thank you devs for all your hard work. This will take some tweaking, but I think you are on the right track here with removing EDF.

The problem with this is look at u56. There was tons of feedback, and all they did was fix bugs. They hardly seemed to listen to any actual feedback about the balance changes they made. This is why people are so doom and gloom.

[donblas]

Currently:
Ravager Capstone (Visage is fun!) + OS T5 (HP duh). Has KT, IC:S, and alright damage with a longsword. T5 Fury, SD Mantle (with Displace clickies), US C3 for HP.
HP: 3906 base, with 55% bonus = 6054 (25% EDF + 10% OS T5 + 10% FotW T5 + 10% Winter)

Afterwards:
Class HP +300 (per Torc's chart)
No enhancement changes = -25% competence via EDF as an entire loss. -5% Fury of the Wild.
Base = 4206 base, with 25% bonus = 5275.

This is a 15% HP loss.

779HP loss from 6054 is less than 13%. Still a loss, but not as big a % loss as you thought.




I could go capstone Ravager and T5 VKF/Falconry for the 20% competence HP, maybe swap to daggers using VKF or something? Falconry would get 5% Quality HP but terrible DPS and no dodge clicky; Dwarf would get 5% Quality HP if I had more Racial AP.
This costs me 210 HP (Core 1-5 + One Spirit), 94 temps/3s (given 186 MP), 60 Hamp, ~4 Con, and 23 MRR but I do get another defensive clicky and Deflect Arrows.
3906+300-210-60 = 3936, with 35% bonus = 5313 HP (20% T5 VKF + 5% FotW T5 + 10% Winter)

This is a 14% HP loss. Also VKF is the best Barbarian tanking tree?!? Falconry gives the most HP as a Barb tree?!?

That 741HP loss is actually 12% of 6054.



How about a Barb pure tank? I also threw one of these together b/c some guildies of mine were just discussing it. Also certainly not optimal lol, but it's a fast baseline.

Currently:
OS Capstone +T5, Ravager C5, Harper+Dwarf for a lil more HP.
HP: 4723 base, with 65% bonus = 7794 HP (25% EDF + 10% OS T5 + 20% US T5 + 10% Winter)

No changes:
+300 Base HP (per Torc's chart)
HP: 5023 base, with 30% bonus = 6530 HP (10% OS T5 + 10% US T5 + 10% Winter)

Yikes, that's a 19% HP loss.

That 1264HP loss from 7794 to 6530 is 16%, not 19%. As I said before, still a significant loss but not as big as you thought in % terms.

[mikarddo]

My alt level 21 iconic aasimar 11 rng, 9 rog Inquisitiv with 99 reaper points and a good deal of past lives gained ~150 hp in reaper. From 1678 to 1828.

Quite a surprise to be honest but I wont complain even if I dont really see why from the changes presented here.

[MaeveTuohy]

"Sorc/Wiz

Had to do a bit here since the "shorten" spell range play style is going away. "

Anyone know what this is supposed to mean?

[Monkey_Archer]

"Sorc/Wiz

Had to do a bit here since the "shorten" spell range play style is going away. "

Anyone know what this is supposed to mean?

Knight's transformation no longer limits spells to melee range. EDF no longer exists.

In exchange EK lost some dps and hp.

[SpartanKiller13]

779HP loss from 6054 is less than 13%. Still a loss, but not as big a % loss as you thought.

That 741HP loss is actually 12% of 6054.

That 1264HP loss from 7794 to 6530 is 16%, not 19%. As I said before, still a significant loss but not as big as you thought in % terms.

Please, open the calculator app and put in the following: 6054/5275 and tell me what you see.

You'll find out that it's 1.147677, which when translated to percentage is 14.7677% which I'm rounding to 15%. You can round it to 14% if you want but that's still >13%.

I could certainly have done the other math wrong (like where I listed US as still giving 20%) but I can at least use the division feature correctly lmao.

Is it 3 vs 4 a 33% difference or a 25% difference? Well that's philosophy/interpretation for you, but the math goes based on what numbers you put in.

Regardless of how ya look at it though, 12/16/16/19% or 741/1264 HP loss = pretty big hit.

Unless you're specifically arguing that Barbs should not be tanks - which should be part of a Barb balance pass not a HP pass even if it is decided by the devs.

For certain Barb tanks are the outlier HP-wise, but they have less of other features (like PRR/MRR or healing) which has so far ~balanced them (although obviously specific builds perform better in specific content). If that was not the case you'd see a lot more Barb tanks than you do. Anecdotally I mostly see Paladin or Paladin multiclass tanks, then Wizards, Warlocks, and Fighters - and after that FvS/Cleric mixes, and only then do I see Barb tanks. I'm not saying that's the overall case, just that I've personally seen very few dedicated Barb tanks. Clearly IMO that indicates it's not all about big HP bar.

Personally for my multiclass tank alt I'm estimating a 1% HP gain = it's totally whatever to me. I'm not even using EDF currently (so I can rez/heal at range) so it's not even a QoL buff for me.

[MaeveTuohy]

Knight's transformation no longer limits spells to melee range. EDF no longer exists.

In exchange EK lost some dps and hp.

Cheers

[mikarddo]

Please, open the calculator app and put in the following: 6054/5275 and tell me what you see.

You'll find out that it's 1.147677, which when translated to percentage is 14.7677% which I'm rounding to 15%. You can round it to 14% if you want but that's still >13%.


You are doing it wrong. What you are calculating is that 6054 is 14.8% more than 5275.

If you want to calculate how much less 5275 is than 6054 (the reduction we are looking for) you need to do (6054-5275)/6054 which is 12.9%.
You can also do 5275/6054 = 87.1% which translated to a deduction of 12.9% as well as it is 12.9% less than 100%.

Your mistake is a very classic mistake which I often see from my students as well as from others.

You always devide by the number you are coming from when you calculate percentages not by the number you are going to :)

[SpartanKiller13]

Your base hit point score is a good 500 points higher than the top range of what we were expecting after the stat squish. (Congrats?) We were kind of expecting the tip top people to maybe drop 50-100 hit points which in the grand scheme of things probably won't change the time to kill on them on any meaningful difficulty.

This is why we have previews.

Please remember this is preview 1 (of I believe 3) and it's very easy to tweak numbers. Also consider that the EDF casting range limitations will be going away. This may not be something you've cared about on a tank build before, but you have an easier time flexing into caster healing or maybe something else and there has to be trade offs to that even if you have no intention of using them.

I'd love to know more about your build. How you put that total together and what PRR/MRR are you running?

-T

Is there somewhere easy to share builds? I'm using Maetrim's so the files are easy to share then you can look at all the lil parts :)

Here's a non-optimized Barb tank with 7736 HP (with 72 Reaper points and like 50 PL's, whatever my main has). Note that Blood Feast is listing as 1k HP when it's really temp HP so I don't count it (also it's 1200 lol). Just while uploading these images I've found like 4 changes I'd make were I to actually try to optimize it, but you get the point.

It's not using LGS HP, it's really easy to build, and all the breakdowns are listed. It has 2 Legendary upgraded items, 3 raid items (different raids so not even competing for runes), and a Isle of Dread weapon which I don't own yet = I could get all the items aside from the sword within the week. Has like 8 augments, the only hard ones to get being Globe and a +14 Con Diamond. Has a 10-slot Sentient Weapon, but if you remove that it's still apparently higher than the top range of what you were expecting? And I'm pretty far from tip-top lmao.

I'm expecting to lose ~1200 HP depending on how the math shakes out. I could respec for Falconry T5 and only lose ~800 HP, but to me it seems pretty stupid that Falconry T5 is the best HP tree for Barbarians.

I care about EDF casting range limitations on my Cleric/Warlock/Pally tank - that's why I went Pally, so I don't need to use EDF. I'll bring that one for the LH runs. I don't care about EDF limitations on a Barb, because I can't afford Draconic T3 to be able to cast anyway.

https://i.imgur.com/x9UecoN.png

https://i.imgur.com/YzMHy2m.png

https://i.imgur.com/suVc8Bf.png

https://i.imgur.com/UH7o1ia.png

https://i.imgur.com/YSvp2wf.png

[SpartanKiller13]

You are doing it wrong. What you are calculating is that 6054 is 14.8% more than 5275.

If you want to calculate how much less 5275 is than 6054 (the reduction we are looking for) you need to do (6054-5275)/6054 which is 12.9%.
You can also do 5275/6054 = 87.1% which translated to a deduction of 12.9% as well as it is 12.9% less than 100%.

Your mistake is a very classic mistake which I often see from my students as well as from others.

You always divide by the number you are coming from when you calculate percentages not by the number you are going to :)

You know what, fair enough. What I'm really calculating is that it'd take a 15% gain to get it back, which isn't really what we're looking at.

I'll accept that it's only a 13% loss. Still, -700/1200 doesn't line up with this:


We were kind of expecting the tip top people to maybe drop 50-100 hit points which in the grand scheme of things probably won't change the time to kill on them on any meaningful difficulty.

[songswrath]

you devs really show you dont play at all or have any understanding of the game you work for this is a huge nerf to melee's and will only buff ranged and casters. please stop trying to reinvent the game every update. just leave hps alone they are just fine. what's needed is other ways around damage mitigation. be it adjust the prr/ mrr curve to more benefit smaller amounts. < this will benefit newer players more than anything.

[Wizard1406]

We were kind of expecting the tip top people to maybe drop 50-100 hit points which in the grand scheme of things probably won't change the time to kill on them on any meaningful difficulty.

This is why we have previews.

Please remember this is preview 1 (of I believe 3) and it's very easy to tweak numbers.


This is right here is the most important part IMHO.

Please keep tweaking the numbers until the top HP builds lose no more than 50-100 hit points and all the low hp characters get signifcantly more (new players, lower hit dice melee etc.)

Thank you.

[BlueLiger]

1) Please place a % HP booster in Occult Slayer for Barbarian Tanks to use.

2) Consider adding a larger HP bonus to Barbs when raging based on Levels of Barbarian taken. This way the HP shouldn't change (hopefully actually improve lime many others) but is 'distributed' as it's been put in a different way other than the old just take EDF.

3) If HP are going to be adjusted and be lower in several cases perhaps adding PRR and AC or Dodge bonuses into the weapons style selectors for Melee builds could be added e.g. taking Single Weapon Fighting adds 1% dodge and +5 PRR, where as Two Handed Fighting adds + 5 PRR and +5 AC, with Greater and Improved and Perfect feats selection adding more to these bonuses

4) Consideration needs to be taken into account for Melee classes survivability in mid-high Reaper long term. Whilst these changes may not make a difference in Casual - Elite/R1 difficulty of play, the fact that Melee classes need to be in combat to actually do what it's class suggests it does, yet don't survive is the biggest problem the game has.

Maybe a reaper pass it what the game really needs before all this...


Finally on Barbarians in regards to this update- Whilst more HP for other classes is welcome remember what makes each class it's own class. In terms of Barbarian this is HP and Attack so removing a large chunk of HP from said class isn't a great move.

[Arlathen]

Love the changes they are making. REALLY HAPPY that EDF is going away, especially on my Ranger where he makes use of Tempest Melee and some Horizon Ranged in a Hybrid playstyle. And of course, getting the Competence bonus in Tempest is great news.

Suggestions:

1) Add some (10%? 15%?) Competence bonus to both Radiant Servant and Beacon of Hope. If Clerics and FvS are giving away there casting tree to be dedicated Healers then I think its fair they get some extra HP to survive too next to the Melee's.

2) Add some (10%? 15%?) Competence bonus to Deepwood Stalker, as this is a hybrid Melee/Ranged tree.

3) Does Tensers warrant changing too as Knights Transformation is also losing the range limit and functionally operates as a 'always on' Tensers (kinda...)?

REALLY looking forward to playing my Ranger in U57!

[Infiltraitor]

Cleric and Fvs tank or healer/tanks getting nerfed I think is fine although I'm sure many will disagree. I believe them getting as high hp as they were didn't make sense. Having anywhere between 11-17 levels of clr/fvs gave them great utility to heal very well, whether they chose to build for it or not. I believe they should be made as "tanky healers" rather than "tank healers." Although I'm sure characters with many past lives and reaper points can still tank very well.
.

Only 3 classes in DDO get heavy armor proficiency. They are Paladin, Fighter, and Cleric.

As a design choice, clerics are clearly meant as tanks and favored souls meant as DPS. The ability to heal is great in epic hard difficulty, but everything gets one-shot in epic hard. Tanking has no purpose outside raiding and Reaper difficulty as context.

There can’t be tanky healers. Healers are back line positions to minimize enemy exposure. Front line positions are exposed to constant enemy dps. A healer on the front line gains nothing but exposes himself to enemy aoe. In reaper, you then need a back line healer to heal the frontline healer since he can’t heal himself.

Are we okay with one of the only 3 heavy armor classes being unable to fulfill its role in Reaper difficulty?

Warpriests get no effective AC bonuses. No MRR bonuses. The lowest PRR bonuses of any tank class. No healing amp. No dodge.

Animal domain, 10% sacred, and EDF were the only thing keeping Warpriests able to do the job they were intended to do.

IF we want cleric war priest to be able to continue its intended role as a front line tank, you are going to need to add in 75 PRR and 37 MRR just to balance out the 15% hp loss. (Gain back 15% of 500 PRR and 250 MRR to balance out the 15% hp loss)

We CAN just say F it all and not care about the unintended effect of completely removing cleric war priest from doing its intended role but that’s a major MAJOR design decision that should not occur as an unintended effect.

[Bolo_Grubb]

I copied the 4 toons that I play on live to Lamannia to see how the Hitpoint changes would affect them. Below are the results, standing in the market place with ship buffs and their normal gear.

Level 20 multiclass inquisitive build not using EDF. (12 rogue, 6 ranger, 2 arti). Hitpoints: Live: 766 Lamannia: 868 Net change: +102
Level 30 Barbarian using EDF. Hitpoints: Live: 3,084 Lamannia: 3,143 Net change: +59
Level 32 Multiclass Tank build not using EDF. (12 pali, 4 arti, 4 fighter). Hitpoints: Live: 4,654 Lamannia: 5,057 Net change: +403
Level 32 Pure rogue Assassin using EDF. Hitpoints: Live: 2,203 Lamannia: 2,379 Net change: +176

[helpfulguy1234]

So I transferred a couple capped characters over. A 16/4 cleric/pally beefy healer gained about 350ish hp to around 3700. Ranger/arti inquis also gained some. Those were only 2 I could check.

Seems FVS and barbs are the ones taking it. And animal domain healers.

[Torc]

UPDATE:

After reviewing player feedback we quickly realized we got the top base hit point range wrong on advanced end game melee builds and as a result the Competence HP % modifiers are to low in may of the trees listed above. Thinking the base was smaller mistaken lead us to believe the new style hit point bonus would offset some % mod shrinkages. (when I say base I means your hit points BEFORE % increases)

We will be increasing said Competence modifiers for preview 2 as it wasn't our intention to significant impact these builds, And looking at monk, Master maker and Occult slayer who need some extra attention due to having a quality bonus in the mix. The Destiny changes are probably not happening or at least not going to look the same for preview 2.

In terms of feedback on raw hit point totals this preview will be a little bit of a wash for many elder end game players at least, but please continue to evaluate the location of the comp bonuses, the new combat style class hit point bonus, and other aspects of the pass. Posting builds in detail is very helpful.

On a side note we're looking at squeeze in a little fighter love since they seem splashed but rarely mained anymore.

-T

[lronEnema]

Unyielding Sentinel:


Strength of Vitality reduced: Gain 2/4/6% insightful bonus to max hit points. Rank 3: Increase this bonus to 10% if the Mantle of the Sentinel is Active.


In here to make tanking less unyielding sent exclusive since this bonus was so large and to offset some of the increases from other sources.


[/INDENT]

This change makes no sense.

Unyielding Sentinel is the Epic Destiny for tanks: 'Unyielding offers great durability, a new taunt mechanic and some powerful healing tools. The playstyle has become more active rewarding attacking with only intermitted blocking. Useful for pure tanks or anyone looking to increase their survivability.' - your words.

Now you want there to be other tanking options.......... and you are going to achieve that nerfing Unyielding Sentinel. So where does that leave the balance for Unyielding. It has nothing else going for it. Nobody is in that destiny for healing believe me. The only characters who get the tier 5 enhancements from it are dedicated tanks (If anyone feels like chiming in with.....'well my nuker sorc runs T5 in US' - I'll put my 'You're doing it wrong response' right here, in advance).

What are you going to give to Unyielding Sentinel in exchange for the nerf to hit points. The tree has little going for it as it is. Why would anyone go to T5 other than for the hit points - 20% buff to hitpoins, plus the 5 quality in Deific Vengeance plus the 10,000 hit point clicky. taking away 10% percentage points of the 25% base hp buff bonus is a huge nerf to an underpowered destiny.

If US is not the tanking destiny, nobody is going ot take more than a splash in it as it stands

[Seph1roth5]

I like the idea of revamping EDF, because that touch range sucked, but I hate the idea of locking the HP to specific enhancement trees.

Why not just add in HP% to combat style feats? The whole POINT of EDF was to help melee from getting slapped down too fast in more difficult content. Not to help out certain builds. It's especially insulting to tie them to multiselectors so it's not only possibly wasting AP, but making you lose other (presumably good) enhancements as well.

[LeoLionxxx]

On a side note we're looking at squeeze in a little fighter love since they seem splashed but rarely mained anymore.



I suggest adapting the Second Wind (https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Fighter#toc_11) ability to finally give Fighters a bit of self healing :)

Maybe something like a 50% heal, with a 1 min cooldown.

Upgrades apply extra stuff like breaking out of CC.

[superevbully]

[QUOTE=Torc;6547765]
This is why we have previews.

Please remember this is preview 1 (of I believe 3)




lololololololololol sry this is joke right lolol jeez

[kpak01]

So, I took a long break from the game after your shared bank bug cost me Over 9000! Threads of Fate and Customer "Service" refused to do anything about it, but a new ticket a year later actually got a response, so I'm around again.



A Quick Overview:


Epic Defensive Fighting is going away. We are replacing it with many other options.



So EDF's goal was to shore up HP for melee. However, it's implementation was not good, leading to multiple perverse, play-distorting side-effects. I celebrate its coming demise. No more giving selfish players a valid excuse to not bother helping their teammates. No more people taking feats that give them no direct benefit. just to get EDF HP.




-Boosting the Base Hit Die of certain classes:
To keep the delta between a wizard and a barbarian tighter we shift the class dice around a little.

-All Classes with a Hit Die of d4 is increased to D6.

-Bard, Arty and Rogue are increased to D8s

-Ranger increased to D10s


Really, this is what I come back for? To see you removing even more Dungeons & Dragon from so-called "Dungeons & Dragons Online"? Every balance consideration aside, to me this is the single worst change proposed, for that reason alone. Scrap this immediately.

As for the balance aspect of it, it fails that, too. Did you learn nothing from EDF? Did you forget that the main point to create it was specifically to increase the delta? Why would you even want to tighten the delta? There's a reason we even have classes. Wizards are supposed to be way squishier than barbarians. Scrap this, and if you feel some class/role combo needs help, do it in their enhancements.

I have no particular comment, for or against, the Heroic enhancement changes.



Unyielding Sentinel:
Strength of Vitality reduced: Gain 2/4/6% insightful bonus to max hit points. Rank 3: Increase this bonus to 10% if the Mantle of the Sentinel is Active.

In here to make tanking less unyielding sent exclusive since this bonus was so large and to offset some of the increases from other sources.



Sentinel isn't just a "tank" tree. It's also a defensive and healing tree. I don't know how this Sentinel nerf affects overall game balance, but this makes me sad for my poor, 1st-life, definitely-not-a-tank dedicated healer. He's probably going to have to just be shelved, because he was barely durable enough for Reaper raids as-is. An immediate loss of 10% HP, and probably simply losing 20%, because the opportunity cost on other only 4% and only 6% will be a lot less competitive versus other Mantles and other T5s, respectively.

[karatemack]

UPDATE:

After reviewing player feedback we quickly realized we got the top base hit point range wrong on advanced end game melee builds and as a result the Competence HP % modifiers are to low in may of the trees listed above. Thinking the base was smaller mistaken lead us to believe the new style hit point bonus would offset some % mod shrinkages. (when I say base I means your hit points BEFORE % increases)

We will be increasing said Competence modifiers for preview 2 as it wasn't our intention to significant impact these builds, And looking at monk, Master maker and Occult slayer who need some extra attention due to having a quality bonus in the mix. The Destiny changes are probably not happening or at least not going to look the same for preview 2.

In terms of feedback on raw hit point totals this preview will be a little bit of a wash for many elder end game players at least, but please continue to evaluate the location of the comp bonuses, the new combat style class hit point bonus, and other aspects of the pass. Posting builds in detail is very helpful.

On a side note we're looking at squeeze in a little fighter love since they seem splashed but rarely mained anymore.

-T

More of this type of communication. Thank you for being open to honest and detailed discussion about how these changes would impact the game.

[Stravix]

Really, this is what I come back for? To see you removing even more Dungeons & Dragon from so-called "Dungeons & Dragons Online"? Every balance consideration aside, to me this is the single worst change proposed, for that reason alone. Scrap this immediately.

This is 5e DnD numbers, they are wholeheartedly still DnD.


As for the balance aspect of it, it fails that, too. Did you learn nothing from EDF? Did you forget that the main point to create it was specifically to increase the delta? Why would you even want to tighten the delta? There's a reason we even have classes. Wizards are supposed to be way squishier than barbarians. Scrap this, and if you feel some class/role combo needs help, do it in their enhancements.

Did you not notice the fact that if you have those combat feats, you basically get double hit die? This effectively have barbs at 2d12 per level, whereas a caster is at 1d6. Considering HP is maximized in DDO, a Barb's base HP is now 4x a caster wizards, instead of 3x. This just allows a melee wizard to still be able to exist (at half barb baseHP) if they devout 4 feats (and the associated stats) to it.

[Zdevor]

UPDATE:

After reviewing player feedback we quickly realized we got the top base hit point range wrong on advanced end game melee builds and as a result the Competence HP % modifiers are to low in may of the trees listed above. Thinking the base was smaller mistaken lead us to believe the new style hit point bonus would offset some % mod shrinkages. (when I say base I means your hit points BEFORE % increases)

We will be increasing said Competence modifiers for preview 2 as it wasn't our intention to significant impact these builds, And looking at monk, Master maker and Occult slayer who need some extra attention due to having a quality bonus in the mix. The Destiny changes are probably not happening or at least not going to look the same for preview 2.

In terms of feedback on raw hit point totals this preview will be a little bit of a wash for many elder end game players at least, but please continue to evaluate the location of the comp bonuses, the new combat style class hit point bonus, and other aspects of the pass. Posting builds in detail is very helpful.

On a side note we're looking at squeeze in a little fighter love since they seem splashed but rarely mained anymore.

-T

More of this type of communication. Thank you for being open to honest and detailed discussion about how these changes would impact the game.

Me also transferred my 1st lifer Vistani Renegade Mastermaker on Lamaland. Here are the details live vs Lama

live server: 2061 HP (after login)
Lama: 1963 HP (after login)

-98 HP
Breakdown:
live/Lama
Base:246/282
Con Bonus: 768/768
Feat Bonus: 415/415
Enchanted Bonus: 20/242
Fate Point Bonus: 78/78
Percentage Boost: 534/178

Total: 2061/1963

As you see I got +36 at Base, +222 at Enchanted and - 356 at Percentage Boost.
Difference is -98 HP

This is a 1st lifer toon so probably on my main, who is 1 time completionist and got a couple of more PLs, Epic completionist, Reaper completionist (156+ points) and got some racial lifes too could be much worse.

It is a proof that RMM tree needs a Competence Bonus Boost

Many Thanks!!!

[kpak01]

This is 5e


Don't care.

[Stravix]

Don't care.

Ahh yes, the good ole #NotMyDnD.

Like it or not, 5e is still DnD, and besides, these changes do exactly as you asked, increasing the delta between low hit die and large hit die classes, based on if they are melee.

[Aelonwy]

More of this type of communication. Thank you for being open to honest and detailed discussion about how these changes would impact the game.

So much this^! Thank you for listening to feedback Torc.

[Tilomere]

My cleric tank has 7000 hp, 490 PRR, 250 MRR, 240* AC. (Inside Reaper Difficulty, link in references at bottom)

A Paladin tank would be 7000 HP, 525 PRR, 325 MRR, 500 AC.

A Barbarian tank would be 7200 HP, 470 PRR, 290 MRR, 250 AC, and 14% damage reduction.**




Amusingly, this is exactly why melee can't survive. Super tanks require super mobs, which makes melee unviable. You do need to nerf US, and you also need to nerf super mobs and reverse the stat squish additional reaper scaling with them. For example, dual wield and multistrike mobs should deal half damage on offhand and additional attacks, and all mobs should deal less damage in higher reaper.

You are also making melee even less viable by buffing tank tree HP again, just like you did to maintain tank stats during stat squish while melee got nerfed, which contributed to this mess in the first place. Every tank tree buff has to correspond to a mob buff to compensate, which makes melee less viable. If you want to make melee more viable, you have to nerf tank tree survivability which allow mob nerfs, not buff them. Trade in some of that survivability for damage. You are breaking mechanics by allow super levels of specialization the d20 system is simply not designed to handle.

[WarDestroyer]

Two pieces of feedback:

1. Multiselectors such as Frenzied Berserker and Vistani aren't really a choice for melees, they must take the HP. This means that currently there is a soft, perhaps unintended damage nerf to those builds (resp. -5 MP -1[W] and -1/-1 crit toggle).

2. There is no source of competence % for dps bears, who will stand behind wolves in terms of HP.

Since your goal is not to shrink build diversity, I hope to see these addressed in the preview 2.

[Lotoc]

UPDATE:

After reviewing player feedback we quickly realized we got the top base hit point range wrong on advanced end game melee builds and as a result the Competence HP % modifiers are to low in may of the trees listed above. Thinking the base was smaller mistaken lead us to believe the new style hit point bonus would offset some % mod shrinkages. (when I say base I means your hit points BEFORE % increases)

We will be increasing said Competence modifiers for preview 2 as it wasn't our intention to significant impact these builds, And looking at monk, Master maker and Occult slayer who need some extra attention due to having a quality bonus in the mix. The Destiny changes are probably not happening or at least not going to look the same for preview 2.

In terms of feedback on raw hit point totals this preview will be a little bit of a wash for many elder end game players at least, but please continue to evaluate the location of the comp bonuses, the new combat style class hit point bonus, and other aspects of the pass. Posting builds in detail is very helpful.

On a side note we're looking at squeeze in a little fighter love since they seem splashed but rarely mained anymore.

-T

Having a quality bonus is not an excuse not to receive a competence bonus honestly, quality bonuses have alternative sources (falconry, dwarf, bladeforged, Unyielding Sentinel), in fact you went and gave Falconry a 20% competence bonus in t5 while it's the most used tree to get a quality bonus.
Please reassess such rationale, also do so for Warpriest, sure they get 5% sacred (down from 10%) but it also exists in Aasimar racial enhancements. It doesn't warrant Warpriest getting 15% vs Warsouls 20% when a warsoul having stout of heart is a given while a warpriest is practically required to go war domain, there's enough advantages to FVS especially in the war trees alone, please stop giving FVS even more over cleric.

[Infiltraitor]

Amusingly, this is exactly why melee can't survive. Super tanks require super mobs, which makes melee unviable. You do need to nerf US, and you also need to nerf super mobs and reverse the stat squish additional reaper scaling with them. For example, dual wield and multistrike mobs should deal half damage on offhand and additional attacks, and all mobs should deal less damage in higher reaper.

You are also making melee even less viable by buffing tank tree HP again, just like you did to maintain tank stats during stat squish while melee got nerfed, which contributed to this mess in the first place. Every tank tree buff has to correspond to a mob buff to compensate, which makes melee less viable. If you want to make melee more viable, you have to nerf tank tree survivability which allow mob nerfs, not buff them. Trade in some of that survivability for damage. You are breaking mechanics by allow super levels of specialization the d20 system is simply not designed to handle.

I think the real problem is that a raid boss than can reliably hit a 500 AC paladin will always 100% hit anyone else. The fact is that your armor is worthless as a melee. Dodge is almost impossible to get for many builds. You literally have no defensive options as a melee.

D20 works when your +8 dex bonus actually mattered.

[Abilbo]

So I tried out the new lamania quests, and wrote reviews on my experiance, and then went to TR to look at the changes to the artificer.

My bank is showing 87 oi 100 spaces uses. I emptied the bank out, and its now showing 76 of 100 items used, even though the bank is empty. I tried adding in items, but got to 100 of 100 spaces, and it would not allow me to add more. I then made sure that there were not any "tabs" in the shared bank.

This is an issue, The only way i can do a full TR now, is to delete a bunch of gear, because I don't have bank space to put it in. Not really an issue on lamania, but it would be if this patch went live.

[Sarandra]

In what world should my Wizard go up in hitpoints, while my Barbarian could lose HPs? I think you can read in many threads on the forums that a lot of melee have some issues playing end-game (R10s, push-raids, etc). This because the damage output of mobs is so high. This leads to situations where reasonable play can only be:

* Either mass-hold (or freeze, or stun) everything where no mob does anything at all, just stands in place, or
* Have a tank with intimidate that does not get hit or has such high defenses that the hits hardly register, take all the aggro

Both are the same: regular DPS melee shouldn't get hit at all, or they die in 1 or 2 hits.

I think there can not be a world in which *any* melee can go down in HPs. For instance, flat out reducing Lore of the Wilds in Fury of the Wild ED from 10% to 5% for my 20 barbarian will hurt, you can't simply claim "oh but Barbarians have enough HPs already, let's take them down a notch". And having barbarians spend APs in things to get their HPs back to the same level will hurt their DPS output (or tankability as I read from other people, I'm just trying to highlight my case here).

Look, I cannot easily calculate the difference in HPs for my barbarians, that's not something I typically do. I don't also know how to test this out on Lammania (I've only ever heard people mention this server here and there). But since yesterday when this news about the HP-review broke out, I've been worrying that this will reduce my barbarians' HPs. I've worked dang hard to get at least one of my barbarians to R10 viability, and it's still only borderline in my opinion (not DPS-wise, but HPs + defenses-wise).

Can you write out for us exactly what you are trying to solve? EDF may have been an ugly fix to a certain problem, but at least it helped every melee in the same way. Every melee got a bonus to better cope with close combat. If what you are trying to solve is remove EDF because it's an ugly fix, you can't replace it with something that is better in most cases, but loses HPs for some cases.

What I read now is: well, all rangers and arcanes, they'll gain HPs. Some melee like barbarians could lose HPs. Try match that with the explanation you gave to the answer to the question I asked in the previous paragraph.

[Dendrix]

Fighter Love: 1% Quality bonus HP per fighter level.

[Caarb]

On a side note we're looking at squeeze in a little fighter love since they seem splashed but rarely mained anymore.

-T
Please remove the focus weapon requirement from Kensai abilities - the class thats meant to be the most versatile actually ends up being the most restrictive - could even consider making the focus choice a stance so they can be changed on the fly.

[LilacDragon6]

Speaking of Fighter love, a Knight archetype would be pretty nice.

[Arlathen]

Fighter Love: 1% Quality bonus HP per fighter level.

"A chance for Faramir, Captain of Gondor, to show his quality..."

[Caarb]

Competance Bonus should be standardised otherwise you are just kicking the can down the road as every class will scale differently

Alchemist
Chemical Weapon - Ok

Artificer
Battle Engineer - Reconstructed Arms & Edges ok

BarbariansT5 -
Uncanny Balance meh its suboptimal as this enhancement is good but not an auto-take
Accelerated Metabolism - Bad dont make us choose between losing HPs or losing DPS with U57

Bards
Second Skin meh its suboptimal as this enhancement is good but not an auto-take
Howl of Winter ok

Cleric
meh its suboptimal as this enhancement is not an auto-take


Druid
Need to remove shield requirement from Ursa's heart otherwise DPS Bears will be losing out


Favored Soul
Divine Champion: ok

Fighter
T5 Kensai- Weapon Master ok
T5 Vanguard - ok

Monk
new T5 for Henshin Mystic & Ninja Spy - not happy with this - AP tax

Ranger
T5 - Tempest- Dual Perfection - ok

Rogue
T5 Assassin Light Armor Mastery Rank 3 - hate this one AP tax means giving up other T5s - please reduce cost of T5s in this tree
T5 - Acrobat- Spinning Staff Wall - meh its suboptimal as this enhancement is good but not an auto-take

Paladin
T5 - KOTC - Vigor of Life meh its suboptimal as this enhancement is good but not an auto-take
T5 Vanguard - Brutal Impact - ok
T5 Sacred Fist - Divine Strike meh its suboptimal as this enhancement is not an auto-take

Falconry
T5- Dangerous- ok

Vistani
New Enhancement called Grudge Bearer Bad dont make us choose between losing HPs or losing DPS with U57

[Emergencies]

Only 3 classes in DDO get heavy armor proficiency. They are Paladin, Fighter, and Cleric.

As a design choice, clerics are clearly meant as tanks and favored souls meant as DPS. The ability to heal is great in epic hard difficulty, but everything gets one-shot in epic hard. Tanking has no purpose outside raiding and Reaper difficulty as context.

There can’t be tanky healers. Healers are back line positions to minimize enemy exposure. Front line positions are exposed to constant enemy dps. A healer on the front line gains nothing but exposes himself to enemy aoe. In reaper, you then need a back line healer to heal the frontline healer since he can’t heal himself.

Are we okay with one of the only 3 heavy armor classes being unable to fulfill its role in Reaper difficulty?

Warpriests get no effective AC bonuses. No MRR bonuses. The lowest PRR bonuses of any tank class. No healing amp. No dodge.

Animal domain, 10% sacred, and EDF were the only thing keeping Warpriests able to do the job they were intended to do.

IF we want cleric war priest to be able to continue its intended role as a front line tank, you are going to need to add in 75 PRR and 37 MRR just to balance out the 15% hp loss. (Gain back 15% of 500 PRR and 250 MRR to balance out the 15% hp loss)

We CAN just say F it all and not care about the unintended effect of completely removing cleric war priest from doing its intended role but that’s a major MAJOR design decision that should not occur as an unintended effect.

This made my head hurt, but okay.

Well made healers in difficult content shouldn't be forced to tank, but be able to take a hit. Even if you have the best positioning, there are going to be times there is nothing you can do but take that hit. That is my definition of a tanky healer. A tank healer on the front line shouldn't work as well as they do currently. R10 can be sketchy at times but a tank healer up to R8 with good movement and decent stats can survive very well.

I don't think I've met anyone who considered warpriest a tank tree. It is a MELEE tree with defensive options. The main S tier tank heavily utilizing warpriest is the 12clr/5wiz/3ftr PM build going only 21 points for the 10% sacred.

But let's say warpriest is a tank tree and they put it on par with ftr/pally. There would then be no reason to run anything other than a clr/fvs tank just due to their ability to heal. Even on a lower life toon, it would be a breeze to survive in LH raids. Add a few past lives and reaper points and R1 raids are a joke. Even a few months ago (U50), I made a 17fvs/3pal that could self heal through Kor-Kaza on R6. If you don't consider that broken I don't know what to say.

Additionally, if you want to run quests on r10 and push raids on higher reaper, it is straight up your fault for trying to utilize a weaker class split. If you are trying to push the game to its hardest difficulties you should be trying to adapt to the game rather than making the game adapt to you.

[Claver]

UPDATE:
And looking at monk, Master maker and Occult slayer who need some extra attention due to having a quality bonus in the mix. The Destiny changes are probably not happening or at least not going to look the same for preview 2.


Glad to see Renegade Master maker will be getting some love

Are any improvements on the horizon for Bear HP bonus (Natures Protector), which now compares less favorably, to other class enhancement options that don't require that you be in Bear Form with a shield equipped?

[kpak01]

Like it or not, 5e is still DnD


Yeah, and gridiron and association are both "football". You're playing a pointless word game. 5e is a different game than the one on which DDO was based. You trying to tell me I should think otherwise is like if you were trying to tell a soccer fan that they should support having tackling added to soccer because American football has it; after all, they are both football! While there is some shared history and terminology, they are. Two. Different. Games.

I don't care about 5e, and it is not what DDO was based on. This would remove even more of that game, and I think that is A Very Bad Thing.



these changes do exactly as you asked, increasing the delta between low hit die and large hit die classes, based on if they are melee.


A) they don't do that, and B) I did not ask for that, merely pointed out that was the idea behind EDF. What I asked for was sticking with the D&D rules we have instead of removing even more of them. (If I thought it would help, I'd ask that we add back in more of the D&D that has been removed in the past.)

[TueNictGut]

Ambitious project i apreciate this idea to buff melee a little.

Regarding the case of melee Ninja:
Ninja for melee is already the baddest t5 in the game, so dont tax them with another 2 ap but integrate the hp like in assassintree

Integrate hp into deadly striker which is an autotake and while you are at it, change it to give +1crit multiplyer with onehanded melee weapons, you are centered with, to make melee ninja a bit more versatile and ninja t5 a bit less bad.

Thx for considering this

[Kivandel]

Barbarians
T5 - Accelerated Metabolism grants +15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.
-T

Add some % to Raging Blows, trade-off is too big. Or add %HP bonus into cores instead of T5, as some people suggested.

[Stravix]

Add some % to Raging Blows, trade-off is too big. Or add %HP bonus into cores instead of T5, as some people suggested.

Honestly, both halves should have the %HP. If the point if for all melees to get it, you shouldn't have to choose recovery or damage.

[Firebreed]

Don't have a horse in this race, but all I wanna say is:

It's OK for all Tanks to use Unyielding Sentinel.

No, really. It is.

[Dandonk]

Honestly, both halves should have the %HP. If the point if for all melees to get it, you shouldn't have to choose recovery or damage.

Completely agree, this is awful design.

If Metabolism is not used enough, it should be buffed in some other way.

Edit: if everyone is getting it, why not just give it to everyone? Tack it on to Heroic Durability, and hey, works for everyone. Then no one has to be nerfed in the name of getting casters more hp (why is this needed? they weren't OP enough already?)

[Zuldar]

If you're going to nerf cleric this hard could you at least rework the rest of warpriest to actually be usable? At the very least rework divine vessel to actually be useful.

[nobodynobody1426]

Honestly, both halves should have the %HP. If the point if for all melees to get it, you shouldn't have to choose recovery or damage.

There is a super simple and super easy solution to give the HP back to all melee's without EDF. Remember EDF does not grant 25% competence bonus to HP, it grants 5% + 5% for each combat style feat to a cap of 25%. Just attach the bonus to the feats directly since only the highest source counts anyway.



Base Combat Style Feat = 5% competence bonus
Improved Combat Style = 10% competence bonus
Greater Combat Style = 15% competence bonus
Perfect Combat Style = 25% competence bonus

There all builds are in exactly the same place they started, only no EDF requirement. Then they could adjust individual tree's as needed.

The only reason I could see them not wanting to do this, is if they had an ulterior motive of restricting potential HP growth going forward as the levels rise, since percentile HP bonus's scale better then static ones.

[Stravix]

There is a super simple and super easy solution to give the HP back to all melee's without EDF. Remember EDF does not grant 25% competence bonus to HP, it grants 5% + 5% for each combat style feat to a cap of 25%. Just attach the bonus to the feats directly since only the highest source counts anyway.



There all builds are in exactly the same place they started, only no EDF requirement. Then they could adjust individual tree's as needed.

The only reason I could see them not wanting to do this, is if they had an ulterior motive of restricting potential HP growth going forward as the levels rise, since percentile HP bonus's scale better then static ones.

Honestly, I like the mentality behind the changes. Giving more base HP from the fighting style feats seems to be a good idea, but obviously some %health needs to be added in to compensate for the fact that it doesn't make up the entirety of it (while also increasing the relative value of other sources of %hp). The numbers just need some tweaks.

[Infiltraitor]

This made my head hurt, but okay.

Well made healers in difficult content shouldn't be forced to tank, but be able to take a hit. Even if you have the best positioning, there are going to be times there is nothing you can do but take that hit. That is my definition of a tanky healer. A tank healer on the front line shouldn't work as well as they do currently. R10 can be sketchy at times but a tank healer up to R8 with good movement and decent stats can survive very well.

I don't think I've met anyone who considered warpriest a tank tree. It is a MELEE tree with defensive options. The main S tier tank heavily utilizing warpriest is the 12clr/5wiz/3ftr PM build going only 21 points for the 10% sacred.

But let's say warpriest is a tank tree and they put it on par with ftr/pally. There would then be no reason to run anything other than a clr/fvs tank just due to their ability to heal. Even on a lower life toon, it would be a breeze to survive in LH raids. Add a few past lives and reaper points and R1 raids are a joke. Even a few months ago (U50), I made a 17fvs/3pal that could self heal through Kor-Kaza on R6. If you don't consider that broken I don't know what to say.

Additionally, if you want to run quests on r10 and push raids on higher reaper, it is straight up your fault for trying to utilize a weaker class split. If you are trying to push the game to its hardest difficulties you should be trying to adapt to the game rather than making the game adapt to you.

I think war soul is the melee dps with defensive options. Medium armor, critical threat and multiplier, doublestrike.

War priest is the melee tank with offensive options. Heavy armor, 10% sacred hit points, and THREAT GENERATION.

Heavy Armor and Threat Generation are clear indicators of what the devs intended. They clearly wanted Warpriest to be the tank counterpart to war soul.

You are correct that nobody considers warpriest to be a tank tree, but every indication shows what the devs intended. It just happened that warpriest design was so weak that nobody considered that a possibility.

As for being on par with Sacred defender, different tank types fulfill different niches. Paladin AC tanks are the undisputed champion for tanking high volume of attacks due to having top tier armor class and PRR. Barbarian meat shields are the undisputed champions vs raid bosses with a single very high damage attack.

What we have is a third tank, that was clearly intended to be a tank, being inferior to both other tanks in all possible areas. Nobody else seems to be speaking up for Warpriest to fulfill its intended role. I shall.

[Zess-wolf]

Is the HP bonus a passive effect or only when meditation is toggled on?

Because meditation has some drawbacks that i usually avoid till cap IF im pure monk, otherwise i dont even take it.

I mean, 10% less dps is a huge hit(water stance), or even 10% more damage, are some huge blows

Either change the debuffs, or make the HP bonus passive, or (wouldnt preffer this one since shintao is already an expensive tree) add a new enhancement for that

[Duhboy]

Add some % to Raging Blows, trade-off is too big. Or add %HP bonus into cores instead of T5, as some people suggested.

Completely agree with this.

+1

[Cashiry]

Additional Changes coming in Lammania 2:

Unyielding Sentinel:
Strength of Vitality reduced: Gain 2/4/6% insightful bonus to max hit points. Rank 3: Increase this bonus to 10% if the Mantle of the Sentinel is Active.

In here to make tanking less unyielding sent exclusive since this bonus was so large and to offset some of the increases from other sources.



This should not happen... leave Strength of Vitality as is..

There is not one melee DPS build that goes T5 Unyielding Sentinel as there are better destiny's to be in for DPS melee builds. Tanks are the only build that go T5 in Unyielding Sentinel. Why penalize tanks by removing dropping 10% hps while in the mantle.

Remember you can only have 1 Destiny with T5 skills.

Leave it alone.

[helpfulguy1234]

This should not happen... leave Strength of Vitality as is..

There is not one melee DPS build that goes T5 Unyielding Sentinel as there are better destiny's to be in for DPS melee builds. Tanks are the only build that go T5 in Unyielding Sentinel. Why penalize tanks by removing dropping 10% hps while in the mantle.

Remember you can only have 1 Destiny with T5 skills.

Leave it alone.

Healers do to!

But aside from that, you're 100% correct. Tanks don't need a nerf. I would leave the mantle bonus as is. Want to drop the non-mantle, ok, can live with it.

[slarden]

Just taking a look at my assassin I currently get a 25% hp bonus from epic defensive fighting.

Instead my hit die goes from 6 to 8 and with twf, itwf, gtwf, ptwf I get 100% bonus to that so it goes to 16. Plus I gain a 20% hp for light armor mastery.

I keep hearing this is a nerf but it seems like my net hp goes up and I no longer need to drop epic defensive fighting to heal others and use res scrolls.

It seems like my hp go up and I lose the major disadvantage of epic defensive fighting. What I am missing that people think this is a nerf and I am thinking it's a buff? I haven't looked at every build so maybe assassins are just making out better than other builds.

[Cashiry]

Just taking a look at my assassin I currently get a 25% hp bonus from epic defensive fighting.

Instead my hit die goes from 6 to 8 and with twf, itwf, gtwf, ptwf I get 100% bonus to that so it goes to 16. Plus I gain a 20% hp for light armor mastery.

I keep hearing this is a nerf but it seems like my net hp goes up and I no longer need to drop epic defensive fighting to heal others and use res scrolls.

It seems like my hp go up and I lose the major disadvantage of epic defensive fighting. What I am missing that people think this is a nerf and I am thinking it's a buff? I haven't looked at every build so maybe assassins are just making out better than other builds.

tank specific builds are getting nerfed.

[Stravix]

Just taking a look at my assassin I currently get a 25% hp bonus from epic defensive fighting.

Instead my hit die goes from 6 to 8 and with twf, itwf, gtwf, ptwf I get 100% bonus to that so it goes to 16. Plus I gain a 20% hp for light armor mastery.

I keep hearing this is a nerf but it seems like my net hp goes up and I no longer need to drop epic defensive fighting to heal others and use res scrolls.

It seems like my hp go up and I lose the major disadvantage of epic defensive fighting. What I am missing that people think this is a nerf and I am thinking it's a buff? I haven't looked at every build so maybe assassins are just making out better than other builds.

It is a buff for most melee DPSs, but it turns closer to a breakeven (and even into a nerf) depending on how much base HP you received before from Con, items and reaper. (Aka, tanks are likely to lose HP, despite it all.)

That said, that can be mitigated with some number tweaks, which need to happen, and judging from dev comments here, is likely to happen.

[Zretch]

There is a super simple and super easy solution to give the HP back to all melee's without EDF. Remember EDF does not grant 25% competence bonus to HP, it grants 5% + 5% for each combat style feat to a cap of 25%. Just attach the bonus to the feats directly since only the highest source counts anyway.



There all builds are in exactly the same place they started, only no EDF requirement. Then they could adjust individual tree's as needed.

The only reason I could see them not wanting to do this, is if they had an ulterior motive of restricting potential HP growth going forward as the levels rise, since percentile HP bonus's scale better then static ones.

Obviously for any solution, someone is going to try to think of a way to exploit it.

Part of the reason EDF floored ranged power and made casting self range only is because they didn't want ranged and casters just getting free hitpoints when they already had mobility and range advantages over melee. They wanted a melee only benefit. Attaching free hitpoints to combat styles will likely just see ranged builds picking up fighter levels just for bonus feats so they can have the free hitpoints as well. Casters would be a little more restricted as capstones and caster levels are more impactful for them than for ranged characters, but certainly wizards would be picking up the single weapon fighting line, even if they were going pure caster as dead players do no DPS. :)

Putting the bonuses in T5 forces casters and ranged to either commit to a melee based tree and lock out T5 from any other tree (with the exception of Battle Engineer, queue the rise of 4 bolt repeater shooters with huge hitpoints and exploiting the living daylights out of the new imbue system), while still allowing for some multi-classing build diversity.

I'm still not entirely sure that hitpoints are the fix for melee DPS in reaper. Getting nuked by an AoE Horrid Wilting for 2,400 is going to sting whether you have 2,600 hps or 3,400 hps. The MRR cap and cleaving mobs seem like a better opportunity for improvement. If I get agro as melee DPS, let me die and die quickly. If I don't, then don't just kill me anyway by a stray swing or an AoE nuke centered on the tank.

[slarden]

tank specific builds are getting nerfed.

Thank you - I'll have to math it out. At least on my paladin 18/fighter 2 gains 260 hp @ 32 which gets multiplied by all my other bonuses, but then I lose the 10% bonus from unyielding sentinel. I already don't use EDF because I need to be able to throw quick heals to the healer and other party members so it's not worth the 5% extra bonus.

I am not sure what other mantle I would take with a tank as staying alive is job 1 - so not sure about the whole premise of more ED mantle diversity for tanks. I can see tanky solo builds, etc. benefiting from this.

[Kivandel]

Free idea:
Keep the changes.
Cut down EDF to 20% Competence max (saving the feat related progression as it was) and keep it as an option.

[helpfulguy1234]

Thank you - I'll have to math it out. At least on my paladin 18/fighter 2 I gains 260 hp @ 32 which gets multiplied by all my other bonuses, but then I lose the 10% bonus from unyielding sentinel. I already don't use EDF because I need to be able to throw quick heals to the healer and other party members so it's not worth the 5% extra bonus.

I am not sure what other mantle I would take with a tank as staying alive is job 1 - so not sure about the whole premise of more ED mantle diversity for tanks. I can see tanky solo builds, etc. benefiting from this.

The problem with mantle "diversity" is that in general, trees that try to do 2 things well, do zero things well enough at the highest difficulties. That's why US is such a great tree. It says (in a new york accent) "HEY!! Watch out! I'm tanking here!".

I think they should leave the mantle bonus alone, and if they feel like they need to reduce the bonus for people who take it without the mantle active (like I do on my healer, who uses EA mantle but t5 in US), the reduce the bonus there instead.

[Komradkillingmachine]

% Competence HP bonuses for all trees and classes should be placed in T3 or T4 enhancements instead of T5 to match current Sacred Defender and Stalwart Defender trees.

All of the melee classes should receive no less than 20% competence HP regardless of what class and hit dice they are.

Barbarian's HP is the MAIN selling point.

[helpfulguy1234]

%Competence HP bonuses for all trees and classes should be placed in T4 enhancements instead of T5 to match current Sacred Defender and Stalwart Defender trees.

All of the melee classes should receive no less than 20% competence HP regardless of what class and hit dice they are.

Barbarian's HP is the MAIN selling point.

Those are t3.

Other than that you're 100% right about the rest of what you said. I think t4 would be ablout right since Sacred/Stalwart are purely defensive trees.

[slarden]

The problem with mantle "diversity" is that in general, trees that try to do 2 things well, do zero things well enough at the highest difficulties. That's why US is such a great tree. It says (in a new york accent) "HEY!! Watch out! I'm tanking here!".

I think they should leave the mantle bonus alone, and if they feel like they need to reduce the bonus for people who take it without the mantle active (like I do on my healer, who uses EA mantle but t5 in US), the reduce the bonus there instead.

It's a fair point.

I just did the math and my tank gains 64 hp with the change as is.

I am not using epic defensive fighting because I value the ability to heal party members higher, but if I was using epic defensive fighting I would instead being losing 112 hp.

This is for a not-maxed-out but reasonably accomplished tank with total hp around 6k today.

[dkyle]

Bards
T5 - Swash Buckler - Second Skin, AP cost reduced to 1. Updated to: +1/2/3 Reflex Saves, +2/4/6 Max Dex Bonus to Armor. Rank 3 grants a +20% competence bonus to hit points.
T4 - On the Mark: AP cost reduced to 1 per rank
T5 - WarChanter - Howl of Winter will now also grant a 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.


While you're at it, could we get Northwind reduced to 1 per rank as well? It's very overcosted for how little it actually does, and that would help compensate for Howl of Winter becoming an absolute must take (not that it wasn't already good).

[mikarddo]

Amusingly, this is exactly why melee can't survive. Super tanks require super mobs, which makes melee unviable. You do need to nerf US, and you also need to nerf super mobs and reverse the stat squish additional reaper scaling with them. For example, dual wield and multistrike mobs should deal half damage on offhand and additional attacks, and all mobs should deal less damage in higher reaper.

You are also making melee even less viable by buffing tank tree HP again, just like you did to maintain tank stats during stat squish while melee got nerfed, which contributed to this mess in the first place. Every tank tree buff has to correspond to a mob buff to compensate, which makes melee less viable. If you want to make melee more viable, you have to nerf tank tree survivability which allow mob nerfs, not buff them. Trade in some of that survivability for damage. You are breaking mechanics by allow super levels of specialization the d20 system is simply not designed to handle.

A very good point. It is a very tight balance though with tanks in DDO. Unless they are absolutely needed you are often better off without them. That does make striking the right balance very difficult.

[GramercyRiff]

Will melee dps be worth playing? That's the problem you need solve SSG.

[Monkey_Archer]

A very good point. It is a very tight balance though with tanks in DDO. Unless they are absolutely needed you are often better off without them. That does make striking the right balance very difficult.
Back in the day, tanks in ddo were just the melee dps barbarian with the most hp.

If the goal of nerfing Sentinel is so that 'other trees can tank too', it would make sense to start adding more damage to tank trees so they can 'dps too'

[LurkingVeteran]

So basically, T5 EK's now get +2 Evo DC, Comp hp and no downside? Nice. This seems better than all the other trees T5, at least for Sorc. This is of course mainly because Sorc trees are bad, but I digress. I guess some may still go falconry instead for the held damage increase.

[karatemack]

After more reflection, I'd like to throw another thought out there... EDF going away is actually a huge positive. Being able to boost HP without giving up the ability to effectively toss a rez scroll or even spells for Clerics/FVS is going to be really nice.

Now that they are increasing the competence bonus, and re-evaluating how to adjust for pass 2- I think it is very likely that we will end up in a better place than where we started. EDF was a bandaid fix that I'm happy to see get addressed in a more comprehensive way. I think more feedback that includes build-specific breakdowns from folks who are barb-tank experts would help inform the discussion.

[jskinner937]

Back in the day, tanks in ddo were just the melee dps barbarian with the most hp.

If the goal of nerfing Sentinel is so that 'other trees can tank too', it would make sense to start adding more damage to tank trees so they can 'dps too'

Back in the day it was who could hold aggro, which usually meant the highest threat/intim. Healers kept the tanks alive. I remember when you could tank in pajamas on a monk in earth stance. But that’s also when AC mattered as well.

[Emergencies]

I think war soul is the melee dps with defensive options. Medium armor, critical threat and multiplier, doublestrike.

War priest is the melee tank with offensive options. Heavy armor, 10% sacred hit points, and THREAT GENERATION.

Heavy Armor and Threat Generation are clear indicators of what the devs intended. They clearly wanted Warpriest to be the tank counterpart to war soul.

You are correct that nobody considers warpriest to be a tank tree, but every indication shows what the devs intended. It just happened that warpriest design was so weak that nobody considered that a possibility.

As for being on par with Sacred defender, different tank types fulfill different niches. Paladin AC tanks are the undisputed champion for tanking high volume of attacks due to having top tier armor class and PRR. Barbarian meat shields are the undisputed champions vs raid bosses with a single very high damage attack.

What we have is a third tank, that was clearly intended to be a tank, being inferior to both other tanks in all possible areas. Nobody else seems to be speaking up for Warpriest to fulfill its intended role. I shall.

I don't know if you've ever looked at war soul and warpriest side by side. They are literally identical other than the one ability in tier 5 and one core getting 10% hp. I believe Fvs didn't get the %hp due to easy access from the feat and that would be too strong. If cleric wanted that same hp with the 10% bonus they are forced to go animal domain, giving up other very good defensive or offensive choices. Also heavy armor is a really bad argument, barbs are top tier tanks yet should be played with medium armor for most raid scenarios. Your only decent argument is the 50% threat gen, however 50% is almost nothing compared to ftr and pally getting over 900% just from the class trees.

Also you are incorrect about paladin and barb. As of current stats on live, pally doesn't get the highest AC and barb is not the best against raid bosses. Both those titles currently go to fighter. Pally and ftr built in an optimal way have an AC difference of a flat 17 from the tree, 5% scaling, and the +3 enhancement bonus on both the armor and shield. Fighters also get much higher hp due to how many toughness feats they can take compared to paladin which accounts for the little prr they lose in the enhancement trees. Against raid bosses on high reaper fighter wins over barb. Assuming you build and play it right, you can hold over 9k hp and well over 600 prr (63,000 EHP), not even including how strong last stand is. Barbarians if built right can hold a bit over 10k but have a hard time holding over 500 prr without boosts (60,000 EHP) and that's also not even including the many problems a barb tank has. If barb damage reduction worked properly in reaper, barb would probably win however it doesn't. Check your math (if you even do any) before making a claim like that.

[Tilomere]

Hey folks! We are doing a pass on hit points. The goals here are to add a little more of a buffer for new players in general to make mistakes, and add a significantly larger buffer for melee builds.


Then you have to nerf the super tanks, as well as AoE CC spam such as Mass Hold/Color Spray/BoGW, all of which force mobs to be tuned too high for melee to survive. Then you can tune mobs lower.

If a caster can reliably lockdown 80% of the mobs, the remaining 20% have to deal 5x as much damage.

If a super tank has 63,000 EHP, and you want a mob to take it down in 10 hits of 6.3k EHP each, then it will 1 shot a 2k hp 200 PRR new player.

Zero out US and FoTW % HP. Eliminate EDF and defensive stance % hp, and replace it with raw hp in melee tree cores or per each melee feat and not just a few that a caster or ranged will pick up. Do not simply transfer your % mistake to other locations and expect a different result. That's the very definition of insanity. Plus you demonstrated already you don't have the resources to do it the way you are doing it the first several times (original EDs required EDF, second ED pass now requires a third ED pass).

Revamp LGS, but by giving it more spell crit damage/execute % and flat instead of % hp and so it is still meaningful as legendary raid loot and make it BTA so people can move it from tanks to alts.

Eliminate every single % hp source in the game, and convert it to flat hp.

Cap mass-helpless/instakill CC spells to 4 mobs. Cap mass-helpless tactical attacks to 5 mobs (assume a missed attack).

Lower mob damage.

[zappy]

UPDATE: After reviewing player feedback we quickly realized we got the top base hit point range wrong on advanced end game melee builds -T

this is incredibly concerning to me that what I consider to be the best public facing Dev in the game that creates the best raids in the game (torc) has no idea what the best players are playing for builds. I really hope that this will be a moment that gets big consideration from the dev team, that maybe they need to play the game that they work on. with the players that they are affecting on the servers that they own! And interact with the players of the game that they are responsible for, even if its in a fully anon way! Actually it would be best if it was in a fully anon way and you got into an endgame guild all on your own, into an endgame guilds discord to their private channels to view the best builds for yourself! and play r10s with good players and reaper raids with good players with builds that maybe you have never thought of.

i am quite glad that after consideration of the people in this thread using real actual math with real actual in game numbers were listened to. Too often the builds we love are nerfed into the ground with no consideration from the players at all! The general consensus for this thread is that EDF is the worst and everyone is glad its going away. Other then that, nobody really wants anything else to change.

did the devs really not know that barb tanks are even a thing? ohhh man. i dont like them, they are a sack of HP with little utility, and thats the trade for having the most HP, but they are the ONLY builds that work to tank high reaper raids. very niche.

one thing that i really hope for is that full heavy tanks like pure pally and fighter with 41+ points in Defender get around 60% of the DPS of a real DPS toon. this is the way that nearly every other MMO works, and in dnd specifically, there is no such build as just a tank, where ddo is an mmo that follows the holy trinity of heals dps and tanks, but the tanks you want for r1 raids dont really have any dps at all.


also. the way that the very best tanks in the game get the most HP is by using old as snot LGS opp items. All of us tanks truly wish for a new tank set with artifact %HP like the 4 peice winter set from feywild, but with more % or equal % to a 5 piece LGS set, and with items that are better than LGS, they are horrible, with no augment slots or even that good of effects when maxing on the HP LGS set augments. on my tank i am loosing 5 peices of gear to get %HP. 5. 5 peices with no augment slots. ouch. LGS came out with update 29. all the way back in 2015. tanks have not gotten new best in slot gear since 2015. 7 years. wow.

[Lotoc]

I don't know if you've ever looked at war soul and warpriest side by side. They are literally identical other than the one ability in tier 5 and one core getting 10% hp. I believe Fvs didn't get the %hp due to easy access from the feat and that would be too strong. If cleric wanted that same hp with the 10% bonus they are forced to go animal domain, giving up other very good defensive or offensive choices.

Just chiming in on this, fvs gets a much bigger degree of flexibility in warsoul, having capstone multi-selector options for strength, charisma or wisdom vs just Wisdom or Strength for Cleric. Meanwhile trancewise FVS has a selection of either Wisdom or Charisma while Cleric being a wisdom based class can only take a Charisma trance (which hey, doesn't actually benefit from their capstone options.) and lacks crit modifier in tree pigeonholing melee clerics into going War Domain or some other tree to get it, on top of this a fvs gets to use either wis or cha to hit as a default while cleric has to go 7 points into feydark or 12 into falconry (and if you want to go wis based 22 into falconry for an actually relevant trance.)

Don't get me wrong, both trees are pretty awful but Cleric's tree is rife with the opportunity cost of domains screwing it over and is very incohesive not only within but also with melee cleric itself wait, if I go animal domain cleric I get a charge attack that trips with a DC based off wisdom but my trance is for charisma and to hit it in the first place I need strength?
The only thing Cleric has going for it vs fvs is the sacred HP and now with the proposed changes taking it down to 5% an Aasimar FVS just gets more HP by default over a cleric... yet again.

[jskinner937]

Then you have to nerf the super tanks, as well as AoE CC spam such as Mass Hold/Color Spray/BoGW, all of which force mobs to be tuned too high for melee to survive. Then you can tune mobs lower.

If a caster can reliably lockdown 80% of the mobs, the remaining 20% have to deal 5x as much damage.

If a super tank has 63,000 EHP, and you want a mob to take it down in 10 hits of 6.3k EHP each, then it will 1 shot a 2k hp 200 PRR new player.

Zero out US and FoTW % HP. Eliminate EDF and defensive stance % hp, and replace it with raw hp in melee tree cores. Do not simply transfer your % mistake to other locations and expect a different result. That's the very definition of insanity. Plus you demonstrated already you don't have the resources to do it the way you are doing it the first several times (original EDs required EDF, second ED pass now requires a third ED pass).

Cap mass-helpless CC spells to 4 mobs.

Lower mob damage.

Effective logic Tilo. Far more effective than what the devs have demonstrated this far.

But I would also suggest all AoE including damage reduce to target max 4 mobs per cast. This would put spell cast AoE more in line with whirlwind and similar melee attacks, since the melee range is more limited than AoE spellcast.

[Thar]

This seems like it leaves actual tanks in the dark. An outright nerf in many cases, especially Barbarians, but Clerics too.

Other melees might see the gap close a little unless they already used a maxed out EDF, in which case the change more likely closer to neutral.

I also think the change to VKF that can (and often does) act as ranged tree is a bit misplaced. I suggest instead making the multiselector Core 4, choosing between the critical improvements to throwing daggers OR critical improvements on melee daggers +20% HP.

Agree my tank loses EDF and doesn't have a tier 5 that compensates. Being that R1 tanks need 8000-10,000 hps in raids so the healers can keep them up, this will impact raiding.

[Thar]

How about some Tank build love? so the boss doesn't swing around and take those extra hps away in 1/2 a swing.

[Deivonte]

Agree my tank loses EDF and doesn't have a tier 5 that compensates. Being that R1 tanks need 8000-10,000 hps in raids so the healers can keep them up, this will impact raiding.

I'm curious, what build do you have that doesn't get the 20% competence bonus from a defensive stance already? I feel that this was a net buff, especially since most tank builds I know take shield feat line and get the double base hit dice HP. I don't understand how it's a nerf and could very much just be my lack of knowledge.

[Infiltraitor]

I don't know if you've ever looked at war soul and warpriest side by side. They are literally identical other than the one ability in tier 5 and one core getting 10% hp. I believe Fvs didn't get the %hp due to easy access from the feat and that would be too strong. If cleric wanted that same hp with the 10% bonus they are forced to go animal domain, giving up other very good defensive or offensive choices. Also heavy armor is a really bad argument, barbs are top tier tanks yet should be played with medium armor for most raid scenarios. Your only decent argument is the 50% threat gen, however 50% is almost nothing compared to ftr and pally getting over 900% just from the class trees.

I'll concede to being wrong about fighters. I'm not afraid to admit that you've certainly seen better fighter tanks than I have, so my opinion of them may be inaccurate.


I don't know if you've ever looked at war soul and warpriest side by side.

I literally cited the 10% hp and threat gen as being the key difference between the two. Thanks for citing the exact same thing back to me and pretending it is anything that wasn't just mentioned BY ME in the very post you are responding to. I get that you being so upset may hinder the conversation, but that isn't my concern. Unless you meant that statement as some kind of negative insinuation or insult. Then sure, I have literally never seen the two enhancement trees. ever. This is my first time seeing either one. Those citation of build features was obviously someone else using my account.


Also heavy armor is a really bad argument, barbs are top tier tanks yet should be played with medium armor for most raid scenarios.

Threat generation, regardless of the amount of it, is a clear indication that the enhancement tree was meant for holding aggro AKA tanking. The design intent was to tank. Combine this with heavy armor as a PnP class feature which also is a clear indication of tanking, along with a number of self-buffing spells which is also a clear indication of tanking, this is all pretty conclusive evidence that TANKING WAS THE DESIGN INTENT by both DDO devs and Pen and Paper devs.

We're having two different conversations.


"You are correct that nobody considers warpriest to be a tank tree, but every indication shows what the devs intended. It just happened that warpriest design was so weak that nobody considered that a possibility."

I've been arguing design intent of both the DDO devs and PnP Wizards of the Coast devs. Warpriest IS a tank tree because the devs intended for it to be a tank tree. It's an incredibly weak tank tree but it is one nonetheless. I'm not sure how to explain that to someone in the middle of a real life barbarian rage, but once the exhaustion wears off, you'll realize that we're having two completely different conversations. The next time we meet on Argo server, I will totally relish reminding you of how you went full autistic on an innocent person.

[Nandos]

Torc,

When you are working on Fighters, can you please replace the Tier 4 enhancement Counterattack from Stalwart Defender with something cool? It is super weak and clumsy to use.
Thanks!

[SpartanKiller13]

Just taking a look at my assassin I currently get a 25% hp bonus from epic defensive fighting.

Instead my hit die goes from 6 to 8 and with twf, itwf, gtwf, ptwf I get 100% bonus to that so it goes to 16. Plus I gain a 20% hp for light armor mastery.

I keep hearing this is a nerf but it seems like my net hp goes up and I no longer need to drop epic defensive fighting to heal others and use res scrolls.

It seems like my hp go up and I lose the major disadvantage of epic defensive fighting. What I am missing that people think this is a nerf and I am thinking it's a buff? I haven't looked at every build so maybe assassins are just making out better than other builds.

Builds that didn't get a good number in their T5 are usually losing out, tanks are (in P1) losing out but otherwise it's a good change and the devs are looking to help fix out some trees.


Thank you - I'll have to math it out. At least on my paladin 18/fighter 2 gains 260 hp @ 32 which gets multiplied by all my other bonuses, but then I lose the 10% bonus from unyielding sentinel. I already don't use EDF because I need to be able to throw quick heals to the healer and other party members so it's not worth the 5% extra bonus.

I am not sure what other mantle I would take with a tank as staying alive is job 1 - so not sure about the whole premise of more ED mantle diversity for tanks. I can see tanky solo builds, etc. benefiting from this.

And yes - tanks not using EDF already are a lot closer; but tanks that rely heavily on EDF - like Barb tanks - got hit a lot harder. My tank alt doesn't use EDF so I'm gaining ~1% HP even with the US loss.


It's a fair point.

I just did the math and my tank gains 64 hp with the change as is.

I am not using epic defensive fighting because I value the ability to heal party members higher, but if I was using epic defensive fighting I would instead being losing 112 hp.

This is for a not-maxed-out but reasonably accomplished tank with total hp around 6k today.

VS a not-maxed-out barb tank like the one I threw up on page 5 losing 1200 HP.


this is incredibly concerning to me that what I consider to be the best public facing Dev in the game that creates the best raids in the game (torc) has no idea what the best players are playing for builds. I really hope that this will be a moment that gets big consideration from the dev team, that maybe they need to play the game that they work on. with the players that they are affecting on the servers that they own! And interact with the players of the game that they are responsible for, even if its in a fully anon way! Actually it would be best if it was in a fully anon way and you got into an endgame guild all on your own, into an endgame guilds discord to their private channels to view the best builds for yourself! and play r10s with good players and reaper raids with good players with builds that maybe you have never thought of.

i am quite glad that after consideration of the people in this thread using real actual math with real actual in game numbers were listened to. Too often the builds we love are nerfed into the ground with no consideration from the players at all! The general consensus for this thread is that EDF is the worst and everyone is glad its going away. Other then that, nobody really wants anything else to change.

Yeah, it seems odd to me that the devs were expecting max HP around 6500 lol. A few looks at screenshots of tanks pushing raid completions will pretty easily show that one out the door. Don't even have to be a Barb to hit that lol.


Agree my tank loses EDF and doesn't have a tier 5 that compensates. Being that R1 tanks need 8000-10,000 hps in raids so the healers can keep them up, this will impact raiding.

R1 tanks needing 8-10k does not match my experience at all, I've seen like 4k tanks do just fine in R1 raids? Maybe depends on the content lol.

[jskinner937]

I'm curious, what build do you have that doesn't get the 20% competence bonus from a defensive stance already? I feel that this was a net buff, especially since most tank builds I know take shield feat line and get the double base hit dice HP. I don't understand how it's a nerf and could very much just be my lack of knowledge.

He is saying he had +20% comp and EDF...now EDF goes away but gets no further buff like other melees do, so it is a net loss. Maybe SD stance should get further buffed to compensate.

[Oliphant]

I skimmed but I saw making 'game more forgiving on new players' and 'no more EDF'. Godspeed.

[Azoyhn]

None of this post is targeted towards either party, this is constructive criticism and should not be removed by a moderator of the forums.




I'll concede to being wrong about fighters. I'm not afraid to admit that you've certainly seen better fighter tanks than I have, so my opinion of them may be inaccurate.
I'm not going to comment any further on this topic. Never forget about the Fighters. I did that and this guy proved me wrong. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbBSVPkId8Qg3-pvZd216TA


I literally cited the 10% hp and threat gen as being the key difference between the two. Thanks for citing the exact same thing back to me and pretending it is anything that wasn't just mentioned BY ME in the very post you are responding to. I get that you being so upset may hinder the conversation, but that isn't my concern. Unless you meant that statement as some kind of negative insinuation or insult. Then sure, I have literally never seen the two enhancement trees. ever. This is my first time seeing either one. Those citation of build features was obviously someone else using my account.
I'm not sure where he was the aggressor here. 10% hp and threat generation aren't any key difference, and sure as heck isn't 50% to make the substantial difference. He's not in the wrong here, you are in the wrong here for thinking 10% hp and threat generation are the key differences.


Threat generation, regardless of the amount of it, is a clear indication that the enhancement tree was meant for holding aggro AKA tanking. The design intent was to tank. Combine this with heavy armor as a PnP class feature which also is a clear indication of tanking, along with a number of self-buffing spells which is also a clear indication of tanking, this is all pretty conclusive evidence that TANKING WAS THE DESIGN INTENT by both DDO devs and Pen and Paper devs.
This just isn't it. If I have Vulkoor's Might which is +20% threat generation towards melee damage. Does this mean i'm now a tank that's also a dps based class? no. You're wrong by the fact Threat Generation automatically assumes the position of the player as a tank. Sure, you can make it work-i've seen people do it-but it's not going to be as tanky or dps as a main style would. I'm not sure where Haste would qualify as a self buffing spell for tankiness, when it improves attack speed, but sure-go on, somehow.



We're having two different conversations.
This seems to be one-sided as you're talking to yourself and convincing yourself Warpriest tree is a tanky tree.


I've been arguing design intent of both the DDO devs and PnP Wizards of the Coast devs. Warpriest IS a tank tree because the devs intended for it to be a tank tree. It's an incredibly weak tank tree but it is one nonetheless. I'm not sure how to explain that to someone in the middle of a real life barbarian rage, but once the exhaustion wears off, you'll realize that we're having two completely different conversations. The next time we meet on Argo server, I will totally relish reminding you of how you went full autistic on an innocent person.
You really just called the most sweet hearted, innocent person who's attempting to help a person such as yourself, as an "full autistic?". That is highly inappropriate and unacceptable, especially in today's standard. I don't have the energy to report you for that kind of comment. I don't really want to go into and argue further, but we're also going to pull previous comments from your paragraph and argue those points too. :).

P.S Let's not forget the amount of reaper raids this person has tanked as different splits compared to your attempted/runs?


Only 3 classes in DDO get heavy armor proficiency. They are Paladin, Fighter, and Cleric.
This doesn't prove or provide information on anything.


As a design choice, clerics are clearly meant as tanks and favored souls meant as DPS.
Once again, you're wrong here. Favored Souls can be tanks, maybe not in this update because they're basically nullifying the 17/3 split, but don't exclude Favored Souls from tanking. They can both do DPS and tank.


There can’t be tanky healers.
?. I'm not going to even link my cleric, or any other cleric or favored soul on Argonnessen except my cleric can get 550 PRR with 6,5k hp and 1,100 positive spell power. :)


Healers are back line positions to minimize enemy exposure.
Or, idk, build a 5k hp cleric or favored soul to take a few hits, like healers are supposed to be?


Front line positions are exposed to constant enemy dps. A healer on the front line gains nothing but exposes himself to enemy aoe. In reaper, you then need a back line healer to heal the frontline healer since he can’t heal himself.
:thinking:


Are we okay with one of the only 3 heavy armor classes being unable to fulfill its role in Reaper difficulty?
What?


Warpriests get no effective AC bonuses. No MRR bonuses. The lowest PRR bonuses of any tank class. No healing amp. No dodge.
Uh, possibly because they're not tanks? It's not a tank tree? It gives bonuses to damage through favored weapons, inflame, and even the capstone giving 10% damage to the whole party, and not protection?


Animal domain, 10% sacred, and EDF were the only thing keeping Warpriests able to do the job they were intended to do.
Animal Domain and Aasimar is all you need, the 5% is good enough, but if you really want, you can expend points into that tree, but once again, IT'S NOT A TANK TREE.


IF we want cleric war priest to be able to continue its intended role as a front line tank, you are going to need to add in 75 PRR and 37 MRR just to balance out the 15% hp loss. (Gain back 15% of 500 PRR and 250 MRR to balance out the 15% hp loss)
DPS not Tank, but ok.


We CAN just say F it all and not care about the unintended effect of completely removing cleric war priest from doing its intended role but that’s a major MAJOR design decision that should not occur as an unintended effect.
I think Warpriest is nice. No reason to remove it, it's uh, NOT a TANK TREE?

Anyways, if you want to have a civil discussion, then we can talk about your build and it's flaws, and some improvements because this is all constructive criticism :)

[Shedrakzo]

-Boosting the Base Hit Die of certain classes:
To keep the delta between a wizard and a barbarian tighter we shift the class dice around a little.




-All Classes with a Hit Die of d4 is increased to D6.

-Bard, Arty and Rogue are increased to D8s

-Ranger increased to D10s



So would this mean that Warlocks are intentionally being left out from the D6 classes being increased to D8s? Warlocks could use some boosts and a base HP increase might be nice.

[garynash7070]

This change hurts uber players more than less uber players because we're losing % hp and gaining base hp, the more uber you are the more base hp you will have so the % loss is more important and the flat gain is less impactful. If you aren't uber, you don't have as much hp to begin with so the % loss doesn't actually lose you as much hp but the flat hp gives you the same amount, which results in a net higher % increase to your hp as a non-uber player than it does as an uber player. This is a nerf to uber players and a buff to less uber players, not the other way around.


Honestly I haven't kept up with Lamannia changes much recently, the last time I paid as much attention as I am now was when they reworked bows. I'll say, though, that when they reworked bows they actually changed an insane number of things based on player feedback, certainly more than 5% of their outline. Obviously when they've put months of work into something they're not going to scrap the entire idea, so the general gist will always stay, but they DID change a massive amount of the stuff they were specifically doing to bows based on feedback and they announced the level cap increase I think nearly 2 years ago now, announcing it would be soon, but based on player feedback they've instead only just released it very recently (they postponed it for more than a year because of feedback).

They listen, they just want to hear rational feedback and ideas rather than angry "why are you murdering the game this is the dumbest idea you've had yet" without actually commenting at all on what specifically is wrong with their proposed idea. Obviously they aren't going to change anything based on feedback that gives no information about what they might change.

Many many people have given them statistically accurate examples of what would happen or how it was truly working with no change.

They change things based off “over performing” reports. Those truly hitting those insane numbers are statistically UBER players for the most parts. I wouldn’t consider myself UBER, but a very good player with very good toons. At one time years ago I might have touched UBER. No time to invest like I have in the past. So being a “good to very good” player that’s played 16+ years I’ve Seen tons of the same old tuning and how they do it.

Losing 400-600 hp on a tank for an Uber player whom normally only runs with UBER to a higher level player IS less of a loss than to say me or those at levels reaching my abilities. I do agree that in some cases HP is gained for non-UBER category. The hp loss to my cleric, along with the nerfs to cleric casters WAS retuned due to UBER builds or “over performing”. For me and those like me that worked hard just like the UBER’s were hit the hardest. Just my opinion.

[Thar]

Class Feat - Cleric Animal Domain hit point bonus reduced to 4 hit points per level and 2 hit points per epic/legendary level

what else is good in animal domain... this was the only reason to consider it.

[Thar]

Builds that didn't get a good number in their T5 are usually losing out, tanks are (in P1) losing out but otherwise it's a good change and the devs are looking to help fix out some trees.



And yes - tanks not using EDF already are a lot closer; but tanks that rely heavily on EDF - like Barb tanks - got hit a lot harder. My tank alt doesn't use EDF so I'm gaining ~1% HP even with the US loss.



VS a not-maxed-out barb tank like the one I threw up on page 5 losing 1200 HP.



Yeah, it seems odd to me that the devs were expecting max HP around 6500 lol. A few looks at screenshots of tanks pushing raid completions will pretty easily show that one out the door. Don't even have to be a Barb to hit that lol.



R1 tanks needing 8-10k does not match my experience at all, I've seen like 4k tanks do just fine in R1 raids? Maybe depends on the content lol.

R1 on old raid yes. R1 on LOB or any newer raid need more HP. The barbarian tanks at 8-10k hp took over as an AC tank at 4k can't survive between heals even with 400 prr as most of the damage isn't by weapons. So AC is useless, bosses will hit you 99% of the time. PRR is mostly useless in the newer raids (ie steleton is does more spell damage). The skelton hp debuffs make any 4k tank a soul stone. LOB debuffs requires 5k min to be reaper worthy. So it seems the direction is to make tanks less useful. I don't have the problem with melee's getting hp as 3k for melee is a hit or 2 in reapers and not enough for healers to react to multiple party members, but a tank with no dps should have double the survivability which in current content is 90% hp, nothing else matters in a raid.

[Thar]

I'm curious, what build do you have that doesn't get the 20% competence bonus from a defensive stance already? I feel that this was a net buff, especially since most tank builds I know take shield feat line and get the double base hit dice HP. I don't understand how it's a nerf and could very much just be my lack of knowledge.

pally, fighter arti AC tank. i can pick up competence in the tree now but it wasn't worth putting the points in it as you'd use EDK instead. so i'll lose the 6 con instead that replaced it.

probably need to rebuild as AC is more and more useless with end game raiding. you don't ever get missed.

[jetster11]

I am not sure if you guys noticed, but Torc actually responded to this thread, stating "this is only preview 1 of 3."

First and foremost, I would like to say that we rarely see responses this quickly if at all these days. As a secondary comment, I think you guys all need to really tighten up with the bad attitude doom and gloom jargon. I don't know if any of you have ever worked in the service industry, but as a bartender, if you guys talked to me the way you talk to these devs, I would short pour you or flat out kick you out because you're probably a bad tipper anyway and I don't tolerate that ****. Have some respect. These are other human beings and they're not making changes just to "ruin your builds."

If you have a criticism, post your anecdotes, your reasons why, and leave it at that. This should be the standard for the forums these days and yet most of you are just disrespectful and childish, throwing tantrums and not even practicing enough patience to see if these things work. Give these devs a grateful community to work for and MAYBE they will work harder to actually appease your concerns instead of just looking at every single response and thinking, holy ****, what a bunch of babies. Refer to Zvdegor's post, where he concisely makes his point, suggests why his point is relevant, and ends his statement. BE LIKE THAT.

Thank you devs for all your hard work. This will take some tweaking, but I think you are on the right track here with removing EDF.



Actually I think most posters have been Quite reasonable in their responses. Only a few have been Hyperbolic with their responses. Most have been quite reasonable stating their expected impacts to their builds and specific classes and often with potential solutions and even some with specific buiids and impacts. There is obviously a lot of things the devs had not considered that these posts are highlighting and that suggests that this type of update should be taken quite slowly and not necessarily shoehorned into the Update 57 timeline. Lets get this one ironed out more completely before introducing. Recently the updates being sent out have been seriously not ready for prime time. Lets get it right this time.

[Emergencies]

I'll concede to being wrong about fighters. I'm not afraid to admit that you've certainly seen better fighter tanks than I have, so my opinion of them may be inaccurate.



I literally cited the 10% hp and threat gen as being the key difference between the two. Thanks for citing the exact same thing back to me and pretending it is anything that wasn't just mentioned BY ME in the very post you are responding to. I get that you being so upset may hinder the conversation, but that isn't my concern. Unless you meant that statement as some kind of negative insinuation or insult. Then sure, I have literally never seen the two enhancement trees. ever. This is my first time seeing either one. Those citation of build features was obviously someone else using my account.



Threat generation, regardless of the amount of it, is a clear indication that the enhancement tree was meant for holding aggro AKA tanking. The design intent was to tank. Combine this with heavy armor as a PnP class feature which also is a clear indication of tanking, along with a number of self-buffing spells which is also a clear indication of tanking, this is all pretty conclusive evidence that TANKING WAS THE DESIGN INTENT by both DDO devs and Pen and Paper devs.

We're having two different conversations.



I've been arguing design intent of both the DDO devs and PnP Wizards of the Coast devs. Warpriest IS a tank tree because the devs intended for it to be a tank tree. It's an incredibly weak tank tree but it is one nonetheless. I'm not sure how to explain that to someone in the middle of a real life barbarian rage, but once the exhaustion wears off, you'll realize that we're having two completely different conversations. The next time we meet on Argo server, I will totally relish reminding you of how you went full autistic on an innocent person.

50% Threat gen and a little more defensives does NOT justify warpriest as a tank tree. That is the only difference between Warpriest and War Soul, which you stated as a melee dps with defensive options. 50% melee threat is not nearly enough to help hold aggro in pugs raids. It doesn't even have any function unless you are doing damage because tanks should be blocking. For regular questing, you can't even pull aggro from the first person that presses intim. Everything either dies too fast or you run high enough reaper to where you don't do enough damage fast enough to pull aggro.

Looking at the enhancement trees, sacred defender enhancements has 1 offensive option and Stalwart Defender has 3 offensive options. There are almost no damage options in either of those trees. Compare that to Warpriest which has 22 enhancements than can increase damage, which is over half of the tree. If you still think it's more of a tank tree than a dps tree I don't what to say.

Keep in mind, you started this discussion because I said Clr/Fvs tanks should be nerfed in my original post. If you splash 3-5 pally or ftr, they are almost in line with pure tanks if not better. They can heal themselves effectively and the entire raid party if they want. You also ignored that I made a 17fvs/3pal that could self heal through Kor-Kaza in R6. That was in U50, and it's easier now at level cap 32. Even for a fully completed toon, maxed out gear and stats (which it wasn't), that is beyond broken. Tank healers are heavily over-performing at the highest level which should be addressed. If you are still trying to make warpriest a tank tree as viable as Sacred Defender or Stalwart, you are just looking to buff your character and not worry about the actual balance of the game.

[elvesunited]

My tally so far ......

---- Winner ----
Characters whose classes got increased hit dice
Epic Melee Characters who couldn't take epic defensive fighting because they needed to cast spells and now gain access to competence hp bonuses.
Epic Ranged characters who now get access to comp hp bonus as their enhancment tree was a distance or melee tree.
Heroic melee ( and some ranged ) characters getting comp hp bonuses at level 12. ( unless I missed the part where the comp hp bonuses from Tier 5 enhancments don't work until epic levels )

---- Loser -----
Favored souls or Clerics in animal domain
Epic Melee Characters whose main enhancement tree fell through the cracks and no longer get a comp hp bonus
Dedicated Tank characters who were maximizing hp bonuses.
Druid wolves who don't get their comp bonus to hp until level 22 when almost every other class get theirs by level 12

[SpartanKiller13]

Class Feat - Cleric Animal Domain hit point bonus reduced to 4 hit points per level and 2 hit points per epic/legendary level

what else is good in animal domain... this was the only reason to consider it.

The Bear dash :D also the fort bypass is nice, and the AoE Con on-turn isn't bad.

I had a lot of fun on a 14/6 Cleric/Fighter Silvanus build a while ago. The HP was definitely a factor for me, but yeah on tanky toons I'd expect to see more Protection domain etc.

[Emergencies]

R1 on old raid yes. R1 on LOB or any newer raid need more HP. The barbarian tanks at 8-10k hp took over as an AC tank at 4k can't survive between heals even with 400 prr as most of the damage isn't by weapons. So AC is useless, bosses will hit you 99% of the time. PRR is mostly useless in the newer raids (ie steleton is does more spell damage). The skelton hp debuffs make any 4k tank a soul stone. LOB debuffs requires 5k min to be reaper worthy. So it seems the direction is to make tanks less useful. I don't have the problem with melee's getting hp as 3k for melee is a hit or 2 in reapers and not enough for healers to react to multiple party members, but a tank with no dps should have double the survivability which in current content is 90% hp, nothing else matters in a raid.

Raids are a lot more of a tactics check rather than a stat check. For example, I'm sure I could bring in a first life tank with 4-5k into R1 LoB and do just fine. Just wear spell absorb to avoid the HP debuff or just swap tanks more often. Knowing the raid in its entirety is a lot easier than just trying to brute force it with stats. Granted the 2 newest raids Hunt and Skelly are an exception. They are heavily overtuned compared to other R1 raids. However, I can still take a 5-6k hp tank in there and be able to do my job just using the right tactics and movement. Also PRR being useless is very inaccurate. In the skelly raid, managing the dino's physical damage is the scariest part of the raid for the tanks. That also applies to most of the raid bosses in the game. Btw, AC tanks do not get 4k hp in r1 unless they were built for more than just tanking, even for a first lifer. It's not hard to at least hit 5k on a first life.

[Wdh]

T5 - Accelerated Metabolism grants +15% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses.


If only accelerated metabolism gives the HP barbs will be forced to take mediocre health regen instead of damage because it'll now come with the HP thats been ripped away from them. Either both give HP or you force a player to pick an enhancement . accelerated metabolism always needed to be buffed but this isn't the way to do it, you've just made the other one irrelevant instead now. Raging blows needs the HP too, or it needs to be given more damage.

[noinfo]

Hey folks! We are doing a pass on hit points. The goals here are to add a little more of a buffer for new players in general to make mistakes, and add a significantly larger buffer for melee builds.

A Quick Overview:



Additional Changes coming in Lammania 2:

Unyielding Sentinel:


Strength of Vitality reduced: Gain 2/4/6% insightful bonus to max hit points. Rank 3: Increase this bonus to 10% if the Mantle of the Sentinel is Active.


In here to make tanking less unyielding sent exclusive since this bonus was so large and to offset some of the increases from other sources.


Fury of the Wild:



Lore of the Wilds: reduced to 5% primal bonus bonus to max hit points from 10% (but now no lore feats required)


UPDATE:

After reviewing player feedback we quickly realized we got the top base hit point range wrong on advanced end game melee builds and as a result the Competence HP % modifiers are to low in may of the trees listed above. Thinking the base was smaller mistaken lead us to believe the new style hit point bonus would offset some % mod shrinkages. (when I say base I means your hit points BEFORE % increases)

We will be increasing said modifiers for preview 2 as it wasn't our intention to significant impact these builds, And looking at monk, Master maker and Occult slayer who need some extra attention due to having a quality bonus in the mix. The Destiny changes are probably not happening or at least not going to look the same for preview 2.

In terms of feedback on raw hit point totals this preview will be a little bit of a wash for many elder end game players at least, but please continue to evaluate the location of the comp bonuses, the new combat style class hit point bonus, and other aspects of the pass. Posting builds in detail is very helpful.

On a side note we're looking at squeeze in a little fighter love since they seem splashed but rarely mained anymore.

-T

Shafting Barbs still who run in FB tree by requiring them to switch to a particular enhancement from a multi selector is not particulary fair in design, move it to another or make it part of all. They are getting a second nerf from the Fury tree being dropped to 5%.

Reducing Strength of Vitality to make it less a required tanking tree? This is a straight up nerf to tanks not a neurtal one. Other trees don't offer any other bonuses to them for straight up tanking. If your worried about it actually add bonuses to the other trees. What is the design goal of US again? Which tree do you think could be an alternative one? -Give this one some thought.

[Stradivarius]

-Torc

I think the idea of these changes is to shore up hit points in the low-end especially those who may be starting out and legitimately need a boost. I think this is a great idea. I see a lot of starter melees and potential tanks shy away from elite or even low reaper content because the game is absolutely stingy in doling out basic HP and general survivability early on. They eventually get discouraged and think the game is too difficult and ultimately quit.

That being said, I think fighters (the newbie class/playstyle of choice) should recieve something more especially in the front-end and throughout heroic leveling. I also think Barbs (that other newbie class/playstyle of choice) should have more sustain in HP and general survivability toward mid-parts to early endgame. Thanks for your hardwork Torc, I've kinda changed my mind especially since I think (probably wrong) I know where you guys are heading with all this in the future.

[Infiltraitor]

50% Threat gen and a little more defensives does NOT justify warpriest as a tank tree. That is the only difference between Warpriest and War Soul, which you stated as a melee dps with defensive options. 50% melee threat is not nearly enough to help hold aggro in pugs raids. It doesn't even have any function unless you are doing damage because tanks should be blocking. For regular questing, you can't even pull aggro from the first person that presses intim. Everything either dies too fast or you run high enough reaper to where you don't do enough damage fast enough to pull aggro.

Looking at the enhancement trees, sacred defender enhancements has 1 offensive option and Stalwart Defender has 3 offensive options. There are almost no damage options in either of those trees. Compare that to Warpriest which has 22 enhancements than can increase damage, which is over half of the tree. If you still think it's more of a tank tree than a dps tree I don't what to say.

Keep in mind, you started this discussion because I said Clr/Fvs tanks should be nerfed in my original post. If you splash 3-5 pally or ftr, they are almost in line with pure tanks if not better. They can heal themselves effectively and the entire raid party if they want. You also ignored that I made a 17fvs/3pal that could self heal through Kor-Kaza in R6. That was in U50, and it's easier now at level cap 32. Even for a fully completed toon, maxed out gear and stats (which it wasn't), that is beyond broken. Tank healers are heavily over-performing at the highest level which should be addressed. If you are still trying to make warpriest a tank tree as viable as Sacred Defender or Stalwart, you are just looking to buff your character and not worry about the actual balance of the game.

Bro.

This is me: Developer intent based on class features is X.

This is you: The current player meta is Y.

We are not talking about the same topic. You’ve made some good points and I’ve admitted that you are more knowledgeable about those points. However, we are talking about two different things. Heavy Armor is a pen and paper feature. It is a context clue to what the original pnp devs of dungeons and dragons intended for clerics to be. The fact that DDO devs gave threat generation to war priest is an acknowledgment of that role. The fact that it does not work in the existing player meta is a completely different conversation.

I am not trying to buff my cleric. I am preventing a nerf. In fact, partially thanks to my efforts, I saved your barbarian from losing 1200 hp in the next update. You are welcome btw.

Clerics have heavy armor and shield proficiency as class features. In pen and paper, they have comparable AC to fighters and Paladins. This pen and paper tank role carried over into warpriest. Warpriest was able to carry out its intended role poorly due to being weak but having access to epic defensive fighting and animal domain mitigated this.

The animal domain changes and loss of 10% sacred hp completely eliminated warpriest from being a viable tank. That is a major design decision that should not happen as a result of an unintended nerf. Booting warpriest out of its intended role is a design decision and not a balance decision. In that regard, understanding developer intent is the only argument that matters to the topic that I am talking about.

From the very beginning, I’ve been talking about cleric’s intended role that they have had since pen and paper. These changes prevent warpriest from its intended role, which makes these hit point balance changes an unintended design decision. That is an unintended effect that should not be made lightly. The surgeon is performing the wrong surgery. The existing player meta of a class split that can tank r6 kor Kazan is a completely different conversation.

Not noticing that I’m talking about something completely different even after 5 posts about developer intent is beyond full autistic. Developer intent. Developer intent. Developer intent. Developer intent. De.vel.op.er. In.tent.

They did not intend to make an accidental design decision during a balance update. Developer Intent. We are having two completely different conversations. Yes? Do you have anything to say about developer intent?

[Aredharr]

Hi All,

I love this pass and where all the discussions are going. I feel this is coming from a nice place and aimed at really creating something coherent/coesive. Since I'm a monk fan and play them a lot, I'd like to bring back a couple points flagged earlier and provide some suggestions.

For NS or HM, the extra 2 AP tax for self-defense is tough to swallow, especially in comparison to other classes in which the competence HP bonus is integrated in tree's must-have. I don't think this is off-set by the +2 dodge that the new enhancement provides. For example, Rogue TA get its HP competence bonus weaved in spinning staff wall, which also passively provides 5 dodge, 5 dodge cap, 5 MDB to light armor AND a 50PRR clickie for 20 seconds. This looks a lot like self defense to me!

Maybe this could serve as the inspiration for the new NS and HM self-defense enhancement and bring it more in line with meditation of war in Shintao while keeping the respective tree's flavour. Imagine this:

HM Self defense wall: Competence bonus to HP; 10 MRR cap and a 25 MRR clicky (that ignores cap) for 20 seconds (90 sec c/d)
That would be a nice flavour to have as a mystic and a much needed MRR mitigation system that would pair well with the cauldron's PRR

NS Self defense veil: Competence bonus to HP; 10 stacking incorporality and a stacking 25% incorporality clicky for 20 seconds (90 sec c/d)
Nice flavour, builds of Shadow Veil and would offset the fact that the enhancement doesn't provide bonus to light armor MDB

For Shintao, I agree that being integrated into meditation of war might not be the best option and somehow feels a bit contradictory with an objective of the pass, which wishes to provide HP earlier on in the game (given the downside associated with those HPs until cap). While I don't know the perfect solution here, I would rather have it integrated into rise of the phoenix. If the spirit of the phoenix burns within Shintao monks, maybe that can grant them some HP too.

What do you guys think?

[Triaxx2]

I've had two thoughts: First is the more important one, which is shield feats should give additional HP bonuses over the offensive feat lines, since those are most likely going to be the lines tanks are running down anyway. Doesn't have to be much, 110%-120% total, just to make sure that they can stand up to the very hard blows dished out by raid bosses/high-skull champs and reapers.

The second thought, specifically for barbs and the like, is when you create multi-selectors, one should be a high defense low/no damage option, and the other probably needs to be offensive/low defense option. So If you're taking Accelerated Metabolism you're getting 15% bonus HP, while if you take Raging blows, you'd get none. Instead, give AM 15% bonus HP and then 5% on Raging Blows. Now it's a less obvious choice. I can be tankier, or I can be less tanky and hit harder, but have an easier time surviving.

[Marshal_Lannes]

I understand the intention behind this idea but the execution of it should be approached with great care otherwise it will make changes to the meta exactly the opposite of the original intent, namely buffing ranged builds who don't engage in melee combat while having a net neutral or in some cases nerf effect on actual melee characters. Which characters? Well, leaving a competence bonus out of the Occult Slayer tree effectively dooms that tree. Players are going to build for trees that have competence bonus marks, these will be "must-haves" and any tree that doesn't have one falls out of use dramatically. Further, if high-end melee builds are losing HPs or breaking even then all this does is nerf them in relation to the HP gains that ranged characters will be getting. Barbarian, the hardiest class in the D&D lexicon seems to be the most affected here and the changes to HPs are not keeping up with them. They should become even more robust, not stuck treading water. Multi-class Druid (bear and wolf) combat builds also look to be taking it on the snout. Finally, there is no reason to nerf the Epic Destinies. Fury reduction by 5% is huge and there is no need to remove the wilderness lore requirement - that is the whole thematic nature of the tree! Hitting tanks in US, the class that most needs HPs, goes against the entire idea of increasing HPs. Can't we just remove the touch range of Epic Defensive Fighting and leave things be? And if not, then serious looks should be made at the many issues pointed out in this thread.

[Deivonte]

He is saying he had +20% comp and EDF...now EDF goes away but gets no further buff like other melees do, so it is a net loss. Maybe SD stance should get further buffed to compensate.


Ok, so maybe im really out of the loop, but isnt EDF a competence bonus and thus not stacking with defensive stances anyways?

[enkka1]

No idea what is the point with this too. HP is the least of the worries if its abit up or down. This game is in a group about min / maxing. Dps / defenses (dodge, prr, mrr, even ac) and cc. If that cc fails , tank doesnt intimi mobs the melee will just die in higher reaper if you dont something like double the hit points.

In solo play reaper is annoying nowdays with lots of melee builds. Aasimars lof nerf wasnt even funny. And ranged isnt what it used to be.

So i guess this u57 is to buff the casters even more and widen the gap to melees and ranged like they couldnt solo r10s already. Check Kyrrs vids with his caster druid if don't believe or understand how its done. Easily. But whatever we all remember Axer and the days when barbarians ruled the game ... :)

[Ordinary]

So, with my updated builder for U57 (which is released tonight) I compared my pre and post U57 hitpoint (with whats posted in this thread) totals which are:

Pre U57

· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Hitpoints · · · · · · · 3221· · · · · · ·
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Breakdown source ·Stacks · · ·Value· ·Bonus Type
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Epic Levels · · ·10 · · · ·100· · · · Class
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Legendary Levels · · · 2 · · · · 20· · · · Class
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Monk Levels · · ·20 · · · ·160· · · · Class
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Fate Points bonus · · ·56 · · · ·112· · · Special
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Constitution bonus · · ·32 · · · 1120· · · Ability
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·False Life · · · 1 · · · · 50· · FalseLife
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Past Life: Barbarian · · · 3 · · · · 30· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · Past Life: Primal Sphere: Colors of the Queen · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · Past Life: Primal Sphere: Colors of the Queen · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · Past Life: Primal Sphere: Colors of the Queen · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · ·Past Life: Primal Sphere: Doubleshot · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · ·Past Life: Primal Sphere: Doubleshot · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · ·Past Life: Primal Sphere: Doubleshot · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · ·Past Life: Primal Sphere: Fast Healing · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · ·Past Life: Primal Sphere: Fast Healing · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · ·Past Life: Primal Sphere: Fast Healing · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · ·Agents of Argonnesson: Draconic Vitality · · · 3 · · · · 10· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Gatekeepers: Hit Point Bonus · · · 3 · · · · ·5· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · ·House Deneith: Hit Point Bonus · · · 2 · · · · ·5· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · ·House Jorasco: Hit Point Bonus · · · 2 · · · · ·5· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · ·Purple Dragon Knights: Hit Point Bonus · · · 4 · · · · ·5· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Harpers: Hit Point Bonus · · · 3 · · · · ·5· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · Past Life: Primal Sphere: Ancient Power · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · Past Life: Primal Sphere: Ancient Power · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · Past Life: Primal Sphere: Ancient Power · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · Sharn City Council: Hit Point Bonus · · · 3 · · · · ·5· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · · Summer Court: Hit Point Bonus · · · 3 · · · · ·5· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Heroic Durability · · · 1 · · · · 30· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Improved Heroic Durability · · · 3 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Legendary Toughness · · · 1 · · · ·100· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Shintao: Conditioning · · · 3 · · · · 15· Enhancement
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Reaper's Defense II · · · 1 · · · · 20· · · ·Reaper
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Reaper's Defense IV · · · 1 · · · ·100· · · ·Reaper
· · · · · · · · · · Grandmaster of Flowers: Inner Focus · · · 1 · · · · 15· · · Destiny
· Grandmaster of Flowers: Disciple of Material: Crystal · · · 1 · · · · 15· · · Destiny
· Grandmaster of Flowers: Disciple of Morality: Chaotic · · · 1 · · · · 15· · · Destiny
· · · · · · · Grandmaster of Flowers: Strength of Stone · · · 3 · · · · 15· · · Destiny
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Fury of the Wild: Die Hard · · · 1 · · · · 20· · · Destiny
· · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Fury of the Wild: Die Harder · · · 1 · · · · 20· · · Destiny
· · · · · · · · · · · · · Fury of the Wild: Die Hardest · · · 1 · · · · 20· · · Destiny
· · · · · · · · · · ·Fury of the Wild: Be the Whirlwind · · · 1 · · · · 20· · · Destiny
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · Legendary Skin-tight Gloves · · · 1 · · · · 44· · ·Vitality
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Hag Apothecary · · · 1 · · · · 20· · · · Guild
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Epic Defensive Fighting · · · 5 ·575 (25%)· ·Competence
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Falconry: Conditioning · · · 1 · 115 (5%)· · · Quality
· · · · · · ·Eminence of Winter: +10% Maximum Hitpoints · · · 4 ·230 (10%)· · Legendary
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Inactive Items · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
· · · · · · · · · ·Dread Adversary: HP per action point · · ·41 · · · ·164· · · ·Reaper
· · · · · · · · · · Grim Barricade: HP per action point · · ·43 · · · ·344· · · ·Reaper
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Reaper's Defense I · · · 1 · · · · 10· · · ·Reaper
· · · · · · · · · Dire Thaumaturge: HP per action point · · ·12 · · · · 48· · · ·Reaper
· · · · · · · · · · Strength of Stone + Mountain Stance · · · 3 · · · · 15· · · Destiny
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Shintao: Meditation of War · · · 1 · · · · 10· · · Quality


Post U57 (as per this thread)

· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Hitpoints · · · · · · · 3199· · · · · · ·
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Breakdown source ·Stacks · · ·Value· ·Bonus Type
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Epic Levels · · ·10 · · · · 50· · · · Class
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Legendary Levels · · · 2 · · · · 10· · · · Class
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Monk Levels · · ·20 · · · ·160· · · · Class
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Fate Points bonus · · ·56 · · · ·112· · · Special
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Constitution bonus · · ·32 · · · 1120· · · Ability
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Style Bonus · · · 1 · · · ·220· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·False Life · · · 1 · · · · 50· · FalseLife
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Past Life: Barbarian · · · 3 · · · · 30· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · Past Life: Primal Sphere: Colors of the Queen · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · Past Life: Primal Sphere: Colors of the Queen · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · Past Life: Primal Sphere: Colors of the Queen · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · ·Past Life: Primal Sphere: Doubleshot · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · ·Past Life: Primal Sphere: Doubleshot · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · ·Past Life: Primal Sphere: Doubleshot · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · ·Past Life: Primal Sphere: Fast Healing · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · ·Past Life: Primal Sphere: Fast Healing · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · ·Past Life: Primal Sphere: Fast Healing · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · ·Agents of Argonnesson: Draconic Vitality · · · 3 · · · · 10· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Gatekeepers: Hit Point Bonus · · · 3 · · · · ·5· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · ·House Deneith: Hit Point Bonus · · · 2 · · · · ·5· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · ·House Jorasco: Hit Point Bonus · · · 2 · · · · ·5· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · ·Purple Dragon Knights: Hit Point Bonus · · · 4 · · · · ·5· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Harpers: Hit Point Bonus · · · 3 · · · · ·5· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · Past Life: Primal Sphere: Ancient Power · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · Past Life: Primal Sphere: Ancient Power · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · Past Life: Primal Sphere: Ancient Power · · ·32 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · Sharn City Council: Hit Point Bonus · · · 3 · · · · ·5· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · · Summer Court: Hit Point Bonus · · · 3 · · · · ·5· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Heroic Durability · · · 1 · · · · 30· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Improved Heroic Durability · · · 3 · · · · 15· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Legendary Toughness · · · 1 · · · ·100· · · · ·Feat
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Shintao: Conditioning · · · 3 · · · · 15· Enhancement
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Reaper's Defense II · · · 1 · · · · 20· · · ·Reaper
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Reaper's Defense IV · · · 1 · · · ·100· · · ·Reaper
· · · · · · · · · · Grandmaster of Flowers: Inner Focus · · · 1 · · · · 15· · · Destiny
· Grandmaster of Flowers: Disciple of Material: Crystal · · · 1 · · · · 15· · · Destiny
· Grandmaster of Flowers: Disciple of Morality: Chaotic · · · 1 · · · · 15· · · Destiny
· · · · · · · Grandmaster of Flowers: Strength of Stone · · · 3 · · · · 15· · · Destiny
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Fury of the Wild: Die Hard · · · 1 · · · · 20· · · Destiny
· · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Fury of the Wild: Die Harder · · · 1 · · · · 20· · · Destiny
· · · · · · · · · · · · · Fury of the Wild: Die Hardest · · · 1 · · · · 20· · · Destiny
· · · · · · · · · · ·Fury of the Wild: Be the Whirlwind · · · 1 · · · · 20· · · Destiny
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · Legendary Skin-tight Gloves · · · 1 · · · · 44· · ·Vitality
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Hag Apothecary · · · 1 · · · · 20· · · · Guild
· · · · · · · · · · · · Meditation of War: Ocean Stance · · · 1 ·369 (15%)· ·Competence
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Falconry: Conditioning · · · 1 · 123 (5%)· · · Quality
· · · · · · ·Eminence of Winter: +10% Maximum Hitpoints · · · 4 ·246 (10%)· · Legendary
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Inactive Items · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
· · · · · · · · · · · · ·Meditation of War: Wind Stance · · · 1 · · · · 15· ·Competence
· · · · · · · · · · · · · Meditation of War: Sun Stance · · · 1 · · · · 15· ·Competence
· · · · · · · · · · ·Meditation of War: Mountain Stance · · · 1 · · · · 25· ·Competence
· · · · · · · · · ·Dread Adversary: HP per action point · · ·41 · · · ·164· · · ·Reaper
· · · · · · · · · · Grim Barricade: HP per action point · · ·43 · · · ·344· · · ·Reaper
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Reaper's Defense I · · · 1 · · · · 10· · · ·Reaper
· · · · · · · · · Dire Thaumaturge: HP per action point · · ·12 · · · · 48· · · ·Reaper
· · · · · · · · · · Strength of Stone + Mountain Stance · · · 3 · · · · 15· · · Destiny
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·Shintao: Meditation of War · · · 1 · · · · 10· · · Quality


Which gives us Pre of: 3221 and post of 3199 (22 hp lost)

Not a huge loss assuming I have not messed up any of the changes

[Azoyhn]

Bro.

This is me: Developer intent based on class features is X.

This is you: The current player meta is Y.

We are not talking about the same topic. You’ve made some good points and I’ve admitted that you are more knowledgeable about those points. However, we are talking about two different things. Heavy Armor is a pen and paper feature. It is a context clue to what the original pnp devs of dungeons and dragons intended for clerics to be. The fact that DDO devs gave threat generation to war priest is an acknowledgment of that role. The fact that it does not work in the existing player meta is a completely different conversation.

I am not trying to buff my cleric. I am preventing a nerf. In fact, partially thanks to my efforts, I saved your barbarian from losing 1200 hp in the next update. You are welcome btw.

Clerics have heavy armor and shield proficiency as class features. In pen and paper, they have comparable AC to fighters and Paladins. This pen and paper tank role carried over into warpriest. Warpriest was able to carry out its intended role poorly due to being weak but having access to epic defensive fighting and animal domain mitigated this.

The animal domain changes and loss of 10% sacred hp completely eliminated warpriest from being a viable tank. That is a major design decision that should not happen as a result of an unintended nerf. Booting warpriest out of its intended role is a design decision and not a balance decision. In that regard, understanding developer intent is the only argument that matters to the topic that I am talking about.

From the very beginning, I’ve been talking about cleric’s intended role that they have had since pen and paper. These changes prevent warpriest from its intended role, which makes these hit point balance changes an unintended design decision. That is an unintended effect that should not be made lightly. The surgeon is performing the wrong surgery. The existing player meta of a class split that can tank r6 kor Kazan is a completely different conversation.

Not noticing that I’m talking about something completely different even after 5 posts about developer intent is beyond full autistic. Developer intent. Developer intent. Developer intent. Developer intent. De.vel.op.er. In.tent.

They did not intend to make an accidental design decision during a balance update. Developer Intent. We are having two completely different conversations. Yes? Do you have anything to say about developer intent?
I'll place a big bet of 3 heroic otto boxes that Warpriest is not a tank based tree. It has tank qualities and tank features but isn't the main attraction. I don't know why you're arguing two people who have mained and played clerics on this subject. It is a beefy dps tree at best, haste and critical comp to weapons isn't a tank feature, or tier 5 giving doublestrike, heck the t5 intervention isn't even a tank ability, it's a support ability to prevent someone from dying, not a tank itself. I suggest you stop calling people autistic because that's frankly offensive and you're borderlining being a problem. I'm trying to be nice but I'm telling you THAT WAS NOT RHE DEVELOPERS INTENT.

[Emergencies]

Bro.

This is me: Developer intent based on class features is X.

This is you: The current player meta is Y.

We are not talking about the same topic. You’ve made some good points and I’ve admitted that you are more knowledgeable about those points. However, we are talking about two different things. Heavy Armor is a pen and paper feature. It is a context clue to what the original pnp devs of dungeons and dragons intended for clerics to be. The fact that DDO devs gave threat generation to war priest is an acknowledgment of that role. The fact that it does not work in the existing player meta is a completely different conversation.

I am not trying to buff my cleric. I am preventing a nerf. In fact, partially thanks to my efforts, I saved your barbarian from losing 1200 hp in the next update. You are welcome btw.

Clerics have heavy armor and shield proficiency as class features. In pen and paper, they have comparable AC to fighters and Paladins. This pen and paper tank role carried over into warpriest. Warpriest was able to carry out its intended role poorly due to being weak but having access to epic defensive fighting and animal domain mitigated this.

The animal domain changes and loss of 10% sacred hp completely eliminated warpriest from being a viable tank. That is a major design decision that should not happen as a result of an unintended nerf. Booting warpriest out of its intended role is a design decision and not a balance decision. In that regard, understanding developer intent is the only argument that matters to the topic that I am talking about.

From the very beginning, I’ve been talking about cleric’s intended role that they have had since pen and paper. These changes prevent warpriest from its intended role, which makes these hit point balance changes an unintended design decision. That is an unintended effect that should not be made lightly. The surgeon is performing the wrong surgery. The existing player meta of a class split that can tank r6 kor Kazan is a completely different conversation.

Not noticing that I’m talking about something completely different even after 5 posts about developer intent is beyond full autistic. Developer intent. Developer intent. Developer intent. Developer intent. De.vel.op.er. In.tent.

They did not intend to make an accidental design decision during a balance update. Developer Intent. We are having two completely different conversations. Yes? Do you have anything to say about developer intent?

Almost this entire time I've been talking about developer intention when talking about Warpriest. Those stats do not justify the developers making it as a tank tree. Maybe you never realized that just because I never used the word intention, but I felt like it should've been obvious. As for pen and paper, there are many things that don't transfer accurately into DDO and I don't think there should be. The balance and enjoyment of the online game is more important than just making it accurate to its original source. Warpriest should not be considered a tank tree, through any numbers or any type of intention from the developers.

On the topic of balance, you did not "save my barb". The only thing you mentioned was it losing 1.2k HP, but provided no evidence on how it specifically was getting nerfed. There was no shown math or accurate testing on Lamm for my barbarian on your part (and as far as I know there are only couple people in the entire game that can build/play a barb tank like I do, you are not one of them). All the math and testing for a barb tank was done by myself and other players. As for tank healers, they should be nerfed. Fvs and Cleric tanks are too strong currently on live. They can get up to 6/7k hp with good gear and some past lives. That is more than a lot of the pure tank players in the entire game. Even with lesser stats, tank healers can still carry parties and entire raid groups without outside support. R6 Kor Kaza is not a completely different conversation, the fact that it can be tanked is already impressive to most players. But the fact it can be done with a tank healer SOLO is a major issue. I'm sure there are quite a few people that could pull that off on live, more than just myself. The HP changes the did to animal domain and stout of heart should just be pushed straight to live in my opinion (that is not including any other changes). Those builds will still be strong from their utility to heal and survive, but it is going to be a lot more demanding of past lives and reaper points to be considered a tank healer rather than a tanky healer.

[Sarandra]

Just logged into my DPS barbarian on Lammania to check the changes... Going down from 2831 HP to 2659 HP (non-rage, non-reaper).

What, am I going to have to fight next to rogues and rangers that have more hitpoints than me now? Are you fricking serious?

Let me make this clear, as I posted already on a thread in DDO general discussion: If my barbarian's hitpoints go down, I am out of this game. No more €'s spent from me. I hope I am making myself clear here, this hitpoint change is badly thought out joke. Delete, and start over!

[Stravix]

Just logged into my DPS barbarian on Lammania to check the changes... Going down from 2831 HP to 2659 HP (non-rage, non-reaper).

What, am I going to have to fight next to rogues and rangers that have more hitpoints than me now? Are you fricking serious?

Let me make this clear, as I posted already on a thread in DDO general discussion: If my barbarian's hitpoints go down, I am out of this game. No more €'s spent from me. I hope I am making myself clear here, this hitpoint change is badly thought out joke. Delete, and start over!

This right here is something of note: because of where and how the competence HP bonuses are now placed, there will be a notable number of builds which will receive the opposite impact from these changes that what is intended. Make the comp bonuses in T5 trees more accessible, as FB barbs will not want to give up +1[W] and 5 MP to simply keep their HP when other trees don't have to make that sacrifice.

EDIT: Spelling

[nobodynobody1426]

I wouldn't put any competence bonus's inside any enhancement tree's, it's asinine and makes winners and losers almost randomly. Put them directly inside the combat style feats, only the highest one works anyway and it will accomplish the exact same thing without needing EDF.

Posted this before, it solves everything without breaking anything and gives newer players a bonus to their HP rather then getting it all at level 21.

Base Combat Style Feat = 5% competence bonus
Improved Combat Style = 10% competence bonus
Greater Combat Style = 15% competence bonus
Perfect Combat Style = 25% competence bonus

If a caster wants to spend feat slots for 5% competence bonus, let them.

[Stravix]

I wouldn't put any competence bonus's inside any enhancement tree's, it's asinine and makes winners and losers almost randomly. Put them directly inside the combat style feats, only the highest one works anyway and it will accomplish the exact same thing without needing EDF.

Posted this before, it solves everything without breaking anything and gives newer players a bonus to their HP rather then getting it all at level 21.

Base Combat Style Feat = 5% competence bonus
Improved Combat Style = 10% competence bonus
Greater Combat Style = 15% competence bonus
Perfect Combat Style = 25% competence bonus

If a caster wants to spend feat slots for 5% competence bonus, let them.

Personally, I disagree.

A combination of flat HP bonuses from combat style feats and % HP bonuses from melee enhancement trees is the best route, as it:

1: Gives other %HP sources more relative value.
2: Equalizes out sources of flat HP from (mostly) just reaper points
3: Helps squish the expected HP for melee combatants, allowing easier balancing.

[Taranthiel]

Reducing Strength of Vitality to make it less a required tanking tree? This is a straight up nerf to tanks not a neurtal one. Other trees don't offer any other bonuses to them for straight up tanking. If your worried about it actually add bonuses to the other trees. What is the design goal of US again? Which tree do you think could be an alternative one? -Give this one some thought.

I would be ok with the 2/4/6% while not in mantle if they left the 20% for having the mantle activated.

[axel15810]

As noted, pretty big nerf for healbots who are getting animal domain nerfed and never used EDF anyway. By my calculation 300hp animal domain bonus will be reduced down to 104hp.

Adding some kind of tier 5 radiant servant competence HP bonus would be cool. Especially since Cleric healers lag behind FVS healers already in the meta. Maybe not the 15% that tier 5 warpriest is getting per the original post, but something to offset the animal domain loss. Yeah tier 5 RS users not using animal domain like the war domain melee cleric I play or cleric caster/healers using tier 5 radiant servant or healing domain clerics will see a further buff but I don't think that's much of a balance concern.

[Cashiry]

As noted, pretty big nerf for healbots who are getting animal domain nerfed and never used EDF anyway. By my calculation 300hp animal domain bonus will be reduced down to 104hp.

Adding some kind of tier 5 radiant servant competence HP bonus would be cool. Especially since Cleric healers lag behind FVS healers already in the meta. Maybe not the 15% that tier 5 warpriest is getting per the original post, but something to offset the animal domain loss. Yeah tier 5 RS users not using animal domain like the war domain melee cleric I play or cleric caster/healers using tier 5 radiant servant or healing domain clerics will see a further buff but I don't think that's much of a balance concern.

I would agree with your thoughts....

[Azarak]

Cleric

Class Feat - Cleric Animal Domain hit point bonus reduced to 4 hit points per level and 2 hit points per epic/legendary level



The cleric domains are generally not very good but animal domain's hp is one of the few that you can generally use for most builds, nerfing it just seems like unnecessary injury to something that is lacking to begin with.

[Thar]

Ok, so maybe im really out of the loop, but isnt EDF a competence bonus and thus not stacking with defensive stances anyways?

if you were a tank you would take EDF for free instead of putting points into competence stances as it's the same bonus and use the enhancement points for other hp/con enhancements instead.

[Thar]

Raids are a lot more of a tactics check rather than a stat check. For example, I'm sure I could bring in a first life tank with 4-5k into R1 LoB and do just fine. Just wear spell absorb to avoid the HP debuff or just swap tanks more often. Knowing the raid in its entirety is a lot easier than just trying to brute force it with stats. Granted the 2 newest raids Hunt and Skelly are an exception. They are heavily overtuned compared to other R1 raids. However, I can still take a 5-6k hp tank in there and be able to do my job just using the right tactics and movement. Also PRR being useless is very inaccurate. In the skelly raid, managing the dino's physical damage is the scariest part of the raid for the tanks. That also applies to most of the raid bosses in the game. Btw, AC tanks do not get 4k hp in r1 unless they were built for more than just tanking, even for a first lifer. It's not hard to at least hit 5k on a first life.

if you think you can survive lob with 4k on a first life tank, look me up on sarlona, i'd be happy to get the guild together to run that with you to prove otherwise. switching tanks helps but most pugs can barely get one decent tank. Try skeletons or thth or Dryad not as undead on R1. My guild leader has a racial completionist, heroic completionist, epic completionist tank that was only at 5500 hp and lost 600 hp with these changes. Yes builds will change but if you my point is all other defenses are mute so either devs need to make AC or PRR relevant or HP are the only valid method of R1 tanking. If you can get close to the same with DPS build then why build a tank at all.

[TueNictGut]

The current changes favors ranged builds with 12 ranger lvls, as they will get access to 3 x twf automatically.
I dont see an easy way out of it, so maybe its just to be accepted...
Or do you happen to have a solution for this?

Having seen, that you combined the hp bonus for falconry with the autotake t5 dangerous and made it a multiselector gave me the idea to suggest the same for the ninjatree:

The tree is so bad especially for melee it doesnt need an additional 2ap tax.
Combine it with deadly striker and make it a multiselector between a ranged and melee version. If i understood right your aim is to to boost melee hp and not ranged, respectivly give them something else here or a smaller bonus.

This is also a great opportunity to give the deadly strike melee multiselector +1 crit multiplyer for singlehanded meleeweapons yor are centered with to make the melee ninja more playable and free it from the senseless restriction to go pure monk.
This would make the melee ninja much more versatile allowing it multiclassing to get an useful attackboost, disarm traps from rogue and ofc. more imbue dice.
(as I also suggested in the imbue overhaul thread.)

This alone should allow a fun and playable ninja melee template using ninja poison and add to the games buildvariety
Prove me wrong but atm ninja melee is most likely the lessest played character in the game.

Thx for considering this

[Emergencies]

if you think you can survive lob with 4k on a first life tank, look me up on sarlona, i'd be happy to get the guild together to run that with you to prove otherwise. switching tanks helps but most pugs can barely get one decent tank. Try skeletons or thth or Dryad not as undead on R1. My guild leader has a racial completionist, heroic completionist, epic completionist tank that was only at 5500 hp and lost 600 hp with these changes. Yes builds will change but if you my point is all other defenses are mute so either devs need to make AC or PRR relevant or HP are the only valid method of R1 tanking. If you can get close to the same with DPS build then why build a tank at all.

My main character is fully completed. All relevant past lives, all 156 reaper points. My fighter tank lost 100 hp in reaper mode, I went from 8,4k to 8,3k, that is not even a 2% difference in HP. The only reason your guild leader lost that much hp is either if they are clr/fvs tank or didn't properly respec their trees. Also, I have tanked both Lob and Dryad on R10 and Skeletons on R6, all without any cheese. We had a run of R8 LoB where I ended up with 17 stacks of the hp debuff and was the only tank able to stay on the boss. I had 4k HP in R8 and I lived while face tanking the boss with no debuffs. PRR has a direct impact on how effective your HP is when taking physical damage and is a big reason why I lived. I am more than confident I could make that work in R1. AC is also relevant in R1 tanking, the orthons in R1 VoD are a problem for my 10k hp barb. However, my AC paladin could hold all 4 of them in R7. If I didn't have the AC I did, I never would have lived through that. I also spent like 10 minutes in the builder to come up with a first life pally tank. It was extremely basic, no raid gear or tomes but assuming I could have 21 RP it had over 5k HP in reaper. If you're making a tank with 4k hp you are just building it poorly.

[nobodynobody1426]

Personally, I disagree.

A combination of flat HP bonuses from combat style feats and % HP bonuses from melee enhancement trees is the best route, as it:

1: Gives other %HP sources more relative value.
2: Equalizes out sources of flat HP from (mostly) just reaper points
3: Helps squish the expected HP for melee combatants, allowing easier balancing.

This is the exact opposite of what they are going for, and the entire purpose of EDF.

EDF was created to give melee's a boost in survivability as ranged and casters get the massive defensive benefit of not being near the monsters.

They were trying to remove EDF, as it proves to have issues with melee's and tanks assisting friends, while also raising the HP floor.

The simplest way to go about this is to treat them as two separate issues. Attaching competence bonus to combat feats is exactly what EDF does now, only this would remove the penalty to helping friends out. Then separately look at adding flat bonus to classes that might need it. Them trying to solve both resulted in this dumpster fire. And under no circumstance should the +HP percentage be attached to multi-selector T5's, that's just very bad design and recreates the EDF problem.

[LuisIre]

Can you guys like... NOT try to fix something that isn't broken? Just once? You're literally making work for no reason.

[Stravix]

This is the exact opposite of what they are going for, and the entire purpose of EDF.

EDF was created to give melee's a boost in survivability as ranged and casters get the massive defensive benefit of not being near the monsters.

They were trying to remove EDF, as it proves to have issues with melee's and tanks assisting friends, while also raising the HP floor.

The simplest way to go about this is to treat them as two separate issues. Attaching competence bonus to combat feats is exactly what EDF does now, only this would remove the penalty to helping friends out. Then separately look at adding flat bonus to classes that might need it. Them trying to solve both resulted in this dumpster fire. And under no circumstance should the +HP percentage be attached to multi-selector T5's, that's just very bad design and recreates the EDF problem.

EDF was designed to boost melees up in durability, but a blanket buff of the magnitude needed was explicitly not applied to the fighting style feats, due to the ease of access of other styles taking them, look at a ranged ranger, for instance. Under your suggestion, they would receive a significant amount of competence %HP, simply for being a ranger, whereas now it is limited to just base HP, with that juicy %HP tucked away into the exclusive section of a melee tree.

I agree that the HP should not be tied to multiselectors where melees have to choose between HP or damage, but %HP as a baseline for all combat feats is a terrible idea, and one the devs specifically avoided in the past when the band-aid that was EDF was introduced.

[SpartanKiller13]

I wouldn't put any competence bonus's inside any enhancement tree's, it's asinine and makes winners and losers almost randomly. Put them directly inside the combat style feats, only the highest one works anyway and it will accomplish the exact same thing without needing EDF.
*snip*
Perfect Combat Style = 25% competence bonus

If a caster wants to spend feat slots for 5% competence bonus, let them.

I see you haven't encountered healbots or wizards? Both of which would generally be happy to spend 4 feats for +25% HP lol. Any Fighter-split ranged build (like Inquis) also gets +25% HP for basically free.


On the topic of balance, you did not "save my barb". The only thing you mentioned was it losing 1.2k HP, but provided no evidence on how it specifically was getting nerfed. There was no shown math or accurate testing on Lamm for my barbarian on your part (and as far as I know there are only couple people in the entire game that can build/play a barb tank like I do, you are not one of them). All the math and testing for a barb tank was done by myself and other players.

The 1.2k HP loss is from the barb tank I threw in the build on page 5 (link (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/535072-U57-Preview-1-Hit-Point-Pass?p=6548004&viewfull=1#post6548004)). It's far from optimized but is the build behind the breakdown of lost HP shown earlier (link (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/535072-U57-Preview-1-Hit-Point-Pass?p=6547870&viewfull=1#post6547870)). I have no clue what your tank is and I wouldn't build/play that barb tank as written, but nobody else was posting math so I did. It's at least part of why the devs are reconsidering for Preview 2.


Just logged into my DPS barbarian on Lammania to check the changes... Going down from 2831 HP to 2659 HP (non-rage, non-reaper).

You'll be interested to read the dev comments (found here: link (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/535072-U57-Preview-1-Hit-Point-Pass?p=6548041&viewfull=1#post6548041)) that they're looking to help out at least OS a bit and in general rebalance for the 2nd preview.


As noted, pretty big nerf for healbots who are getting animal domain nerfed and never used EDF anyway. By my calculation 300hp animal domain bonus will be reduced down to 104hp.

Adding some kind of tier 5 radiant servant competence HP bonus would be cool. Especially since Cleric healers lag behind FVS healers already in the meta. Maybe not the 15% that tier 5 warpriest is getting per the original post, but something to offset the animal domain loss. Yeah tier 5 RS users not using animal domain like the war domain melee cleric I play or cleric caster/healers using tier 5 radiant servant or healing domain clerics will see a further buff but I don't think that's much of a balance concern.

Are you not planning on running T5 Warpriest on your healbot? Seems like the obvious choice to me lmao. Also probably time to consider like Protection domain? Or like ask for a Healing domain buff? Seems odd that Animal is the #1 pick for Cleric healbots lol.

[axel15810]

Are you not planning on running T5 Warpriest on your healbot? Seems like the obvious choice to me lmao. Also probably time to consider like Protection domain? Or like ask for a Healing domain buff? Seems odd that Animal is the #1 pick for Cleric healbots lol.

I don't run healbots - I'm a melee DPS cleric guy myself, but if I were to, no, definitely not. Cleric healbots are always going tier 5 radiant servant for no max caster level on cures/other healing goodies, aura, radiant servant capstone. Warpriest is a really weak tree for a lot of reasons which I could and have talked about a lot on youtube in the past. Though the proposed 15% competence bonus to hitpoints being added to tier 5, even with the -5% sacred HP nerf in tier 4 makes the tree a little more compelling as a primary tree for cleric tanks and cleric melee DPS. Though it still needs lots of love. I'm not all that in the know on the cleric tank meta but I'd assume you'd go with pally splashes and use sacred defender combined with animal domain or protection domain. But these changes make the animal route far less compelling obviously. As far as DPS melee cleric builds go, warpriest is way behind falconry as a primary tree.

Right now animal domain is the best domain easily for healbots because of the 300 hitpoints which is just better than what's offered in luck, protection and healing (really the only other 3 options for healbots). Not really sure why animal is being touched in the first place, and why the HP there is being cut by ~2/3rds.

My guess is the thinking by the devs is that they want to lower the upper end build HP totals on cleric tanks? Not that cleric tanks are very high meta anyway in my experience (someone tell me if I'm wrong, I could be). Maybe the devs could clarify their design intention with animal domain changes? I don't know if they realized that animal domain is also the #1 domain for healbots so nerfing the cleric tank builds has a side effect of hitting the cleric healbot builds too.

But yeah with the big nerf to animal, I agree buffing some of the other domains like healing domain could be a good solution to this if the devs insist on the animal domain nerf - so that healbots aren't falling through the cracks here. I really don't think the devs intend to nerf healbots really hard. I could be wrong but my guess is they didn't think about animal domain being such a popular domain for healbots when coming up with these changes.

[Shedrakzo]

-Boosting the Base Hit Die of certain classes:

To keep the delta between a wizard and a barbarian tighter we shift the class dice around a little.

-All Classes with a Hit Die of d4 is increased to D6.

-Bard, Arty and Rogue are increased to D8s

-Ranger increased to D10s



On second viewing, I realize that these changes also coincide with most of the 5e HP dice standards. I would like to suggest deviating slightly from those standards to mirror the reality of playing DDO vs Tabletop.

If it were up to me I'd change the list to:

D12: Barbarian, and Fighter. (Fighters could use a pick-me-up given they have no self-sustain, unlike most classes. Barbarians will still retain the highest HP due to their enhancement trees. This deviates from the 5e hit die that I assume these changes are based on.)

D10: Ranger, Paladin, and Monk. (Monks are predominantly melee builds and frontliners. If Rangers, who are more often played as ranged instead of Tempests, are getting the HP increase, then so should monks. This also changes from the 5e die where monks are still a D8, but let's be honest, if Rangers are getting the advancement, we might as well give it to monks at this stage in the game.)

D8: Cleric, Druid, Rogue, FVS, Arty, Bard, and Warlock. (Warlocks have always been a more 'healthier' arcane since 3.5e. And since these changes are updating the classes to fit 5e standards, then Warlocks should similarly have their D8 like 5e rather than keeping the same HP standard as the new floor for arcane casters.)

D6: Wiz, Sorc, and Alch. (This is their 5e standards. So good for courting new players and overall making these classes feel a little less squishy.)

[Vellrad]

So, you are adding (at level cap) 45 to 75 HP to DPS feats, while the sole feat which purposie is to actually increase HP still remains at +35?

Seriously, do something to toughness...

[Infiltraitor]

Almost this entire time I've been talking about developer intention when talking about Warpriest.

Aggro is a zero sum game. You either have aggro or you don't. There is no middle ground. This binary nature thus means that all class enhancement trees can be categorized into two groups. Those that seek to grab aggro and those that do not.

This is all the more important since the threat generation mechanism is a tier 5 ability, thus locking the player out from all other enhancement tree tier 5s. It is thus a core mechanic that warpriest puts the player into an aggro seeking build and locks out other build possibilities. The fact that it is too small compared to other enhancement trees is irrelevant. It is an aggro seeking ability that locks out other enhancement trees. If you take it, you can not take tier 5 from other enhancement trees. You are purposely locked out. You are locked INTO seeking aggro and prevented from any other role.

Yes, it is an insufficient amount of threat generation to overcome player DPS, but that is a player meta argument. It is a condition resulting from player actions and we all know that the devs are very far removed from trying to understand what the player meta actually is. So making inferences based on player meta actually has ZERO correlation to developer intent. It doesn't matter what the players actually do because the devs devote very little time to understanding what the players actually do anyway. Any real dps can out dps a 50% threat bonus. Obviously the devs didn't have the time to find that out 8 years ago when they made warpriest. They probably still don't have the time to find out now.

I'm not sure how I can make that ANY simpler. The core mechanism and binary nature of aggro and tier 5 abilities locking players into a specific role. That's pretty much conclusive evidence for developer intent. Warpriest is a tank. If you still don't understand the implications of that, I give up. You win. So go on and brag about how correct you are and how I'm an idiot who has never seen a warpriest enhancement tree before. There's no need to feel a shred of embarassment over attacking an innocent person. A win's a win.

[TueNictGut]

EDF was designed to boost melees up in durability, but a blanket buff of the magnitude needed was explicitly not applied to the fighting style feats, due to the ease of access of other styles taking them, look at a ranged ranger, for instance. Under your suggestion, they would receive a significant amount of competence %HP, simply for being a ranger, whereas now it is limited to just base HP, with that juicy %HP tucked away into the exclusive section of a melee tree.

I agree that the HP should not be tied to multiselectors where melees have to choose between HP or damage, but %HP as a baseline for all combat feats is a terrible idea, and one the devs specifically avoided in the past when the band-aid that was EDF was introduced.

A multiselector to divide melee from ranged and give the first the hp bonus, which was intended to boost melees is most likely the most efficient way to apply the bonus in trees that allow both rangeed and melee builds like falconer and ninja and vistani.

I dont see why a multiselector per se should be bad design?

Thats why the vistani hp bonus in t5 should definetly be a multiselector to whirling wrists and not vendetta.

[SpartanKiller13]

I don't run healbots - I'm a melee DPS cleric guy myself, but if I were to, no, definitely not. Cleric healbots are always going tier 5 radiant servant for no max caster level on cures/other healing goodies, aura, radiant servant capstone. Warpriest is a really weak tree for a lot of reasons which I could and have talked about a lot on youtube in the past. Though the proposed 15% competence bonus to hitpoints being added to tier 5, even with the -5% sacred HP nerf in tier 4 makes the tree a little more compelling as a primary tree for cleric tanks and cleric melee DPS. Though it still needs lots of love. I'm not all that in the know on the cleric tank meta but I'd assume you'd go with pally splashes and use sacred defender combined with animal domain or protection domain. But these changes make the animal route far less compelling obviously. As far as DPS melee cleric builds go, warpriest is way behind falconry as a primary tree.

Right now animal domain is the best domain easily for healbots because of the 300 hitpoints which is just better than what's offered in luck, protection and healing (really the only other 3 options for healbots). Not really sure why animal is being touched in the first place, and why the HP there is being cut by ~2/3rds.

My guess is the thinking by the devs is that they want to lower the upper end build HP totals on cleric tanks? Not that cleric tanks are very high meta anyway in my experience (someone tell me if I'm wrong, I could be). Maybe the devs could clarify their design intention with animal domain changes? I don't know if they realized that animal domain is also the #1 domain for healbots so nerfing the cleric tank builds has a side effect of hitting the cleric healbot builds too.

But yeah with the big nerf to animal, I agree buffing some of the other domains like healing domain could be a good solution to this if the devs insist on the animal domain nerf - so that healbots aren't falling through the cracks here. I really don't think the devs intend to nerf healbots really hard. I could be wrong but my guess is they didn't think about animal domain being such a popular domain for healbots when coming up with these changes.

Idk, I have a Bard heal/buffbot and for it I'm just maxing out survivability - I have enough heals around that I'm in US mantle/T5 for instance, and I find it really nice for being able to grab an Orthon or just to survive dumb mishaps (if I'm dead I can't heal lol). If I was on a Cleric I feel like it'd be an easy argument of "15% more HP vs even more healing of which I already have tons"? Like I'm pretty sure FvS can do the AoE healing thing better than a T5 RS, but maybe that's not true. I don't have a full cleric to judge from.

I have a 9/6/5 Cleric/Warlock/Paladin tank that I wouldn't call a cleric tank - originally it was Cleric 11 with Animal Domain to be able to natively quickened rez at range (made well before EDF) but around the ED rework I rebuilt it into Protection Domain. I can't see 190 HP (or 300 HP and a dash for a full Cleric) as being better than RF clicky and 20 PRR/MRR (or 65 PRR & 45 MRR for a full Cleric) esp with the AoE buff, but YMMV.

TBH I think Animal Domain and FvS HP is being nerfed directly towards healers - Animal Domain tank Clerics are ~even from Animal Domain losing 216 and gaining 220 from base HP (Competence % aside as that's under review). Non-Animal Domain Cleric tanks would gain base HP.

Healers gaining a ton of free HP at low opportunity cost I think is the issue they're aiming for? For a DC caster or a nuker, there's something lost in going Animal Domain, but for a healer there's basically no price - it's just ~300 free base HP. Why wouldn't you? I don't think I've ever seen a Healing Domain build lol. I would expect Protection Domain to take over and like then you're just pushing more buttons which I guess is good? Turning for +40 PRR/MRR in an AoE seems hilariously good to me.

[Stravix]

A multiselector to divide melee from ranged and give the first the hp bonus, which was intended to boost melees is most likely the most efficient way to apply the bonus in trees that allow both rangeed and melee builds like falconer and ninja and vistani.

I dont see why a multiselector per se should be bad design?

Thats why the vistani hp bonus in t5 should definetly be a multiselector to whirling wrists and not vendetta.

I guess I should clarify. A multiselector for a hybrid tree to bundle it with melee goodies is fine. Multiselectors where someone has to choose their %HP or a notable damage upgrade is less so, like in the case of Barbs in FB.

It was less the multiselectors themselves that are the problem, simply the way they were used in this preview.

[ChristopHilljr]

I think the HP pass is fine. I just don't think this is the biggest issue with Melee right now. AC is useless in game as it is implemented at this moment. Please consider an AC update in the future that would make AC useful again. Doesn't matter how much HP you have if you can never stop things from hitting you. Just my two cents on the matter.

[TueNictGut]

I guess I should clarify. A multiselector for a hybrid tree to bundle it with melee goodies is fine. Multiselectors where someone has to choose their %HP or a notable damage upgrade is less so, like in the case of Barbs in FB.

It was less the multiselectors themselves that are the problem, simply the way they were used in this preview.



Thx for clarifying
I absolutly share your opinion on this
Making multiselectors for some trees that force to choose between damage and hp is no general buff in melee but a nerf compared to the other classes, that at least needs a a very good reason.
This is the case for fb and also vistani

[rabidfox]

I'm not sure how I can make that ANY simpler. The core mechanism and binary nature of aggro and tier 5 abilities locking players into a specific role. That's pretty much conclusive evidence for developer intent. Warpriest is a tank. If you still don't understand the implications of that, I give up. You win. So go on and brag about how correct you are and how I'm an idiot who has never seen a warpriest enhancement tree before. There's no need to feel a shred of embarassment over attacking an innocent person. A win's a win.

At the end of the day, intent or not (I assume having threat in a tree = intent myself), the reduction of stats on some tank setups hurts the endgame community in general. PUG raids (and likely smaller guild raids) will have less quality choices for tank stuff if the HP pass makes those build less or non-viable for the content being run. At the end of the day, it's a game and while one can be elite and say "Oh XYZ shouldn't be a tank, only my ABC class should be a tank", it doesn't help the overall gameplay when we have population issues at times and sometimes you just want to fill in the roles needed in your group and play the game without being picky.

[Yamani]

At the end of the day, intent or not (I assume having threat in a tree = intent myself), the reduction of stats on some tank setups hurts the endgame community in general. PUG raids (and likely smaller guild raids) will have less quality choices for tank stuff if the HP pass makes those build less or non-viable for the content being run. At the end of the day, it's a game and while one can be elite and say "Oh XYZ shouldn't be a tank, only my ABC class should be a tank", it doesn't help the overall gameplay when we have population issues at times and sometimes you just want to fill in the roles needed in your group and play the game without being picky.

Think its more like this: Warpriest is a support tree. It's not a dps, tank, or healer tree. But assists in all 3 roles. Claiming its primary intent is to be 1 of the 3 is just nonsensical, that ignores the primary intent of it being a support to the class itself: Cleric. But anyways what's this got to do with HP changes?

[rabidfox]

But anyways what's this got to do with HP changes?

I just assumed they were getting hit hard given all the other people talking about them and some talking about "are they a tank tree or not" so I was commenting on that (I didn't read thru all 11 pages to see where/what the full extent some setups are getting nerf'd or not). I have no clue how hard the animal/stout/EDF stuff is hitting the war priest/soul trees personally, just had an opinion on more things that can fill in roles the better for filling raids and if we get caught up on "X isn't a tank" it doesn't really help the game play aspect of things.

[elvesunited]

Think its more like this: Warpriest is a support tree. It's not a dps, tank, or healer tree. But assists in all 3 roles. Claiming its primary intent is to be 1 of the 3 is just nonsensical, that ignores the primary intent of it being a support to the class itself: Cleric. But anyways what's this got to do with HP changes?

In high diff content, you are very role defined. You tank, you DPS, you crowd control, or you heal. If you can't do any of those, you aren't support, you're nothing. Besides primary intent doesn't matter. Some people figured out a way to make warpriest tanks. To go now and say "warpriests weren't meant to be tanks, be healer support, and know your place!" is a slap to the face which leads to 3 options:

1) Stick with lower diff content they can still tank.
2) Change their playstyle to healer support and leave tanking to other characters
3) Reincarnate into something else.

[jskinner937]

Congratulations on topping u56. This HP Pass (aka Tank/Barb Nerf) and Imbue Pass (aka Inquistor/AA Nerf) may just top the debacle that was u56. Removing EDF, good thing. But other than this, this like slated update is complete garbage and will cause even more to quit.

I hate loving this game, but you know what, changing everything about it for no reason, other than change, makes an even better argument to just stop playing. Especially when there are many outdated enhancement trees and combat styles (TWF). Do you really think this is going to help melees? If anything it will kill melees.

Making barbarian hate tanks or intim tanks to hold aggro less common and viable.

Making healers less popular by nerfing animal domain at the same time.

Nerfing Assimar Healing Hands since it didnt play right with EDF (forward thinking huh).

You could give DPS melees a 50% HP buff and it will not matter due to the affect above.

Oh wait, why not implement that dodge bypass mechanic while you are at it.

I mean its clear you want everyone playing casters or throwers. I like playing casters (throwers are boring), but melee is fun as well, and I personally want to see it elevated, not deflated. This is really going to further push PuG raiding out of reach for most.

[SpartanKiller13]

Congratulations on topping u56. This HP Pass (aka Tank/Barb Nerf) and Imbue Pass (aka Inquistor/AA Nerf) may just top the debacle that was u56. Removing EDF, good thing. But other than this, this like slated update is complete garbage and will cause even more to quit.
*snip*
This is really going to further push PuG raiding out of reach for most.

I mean if you check the first post or later dev posts they've already stated they're going to re-balance for preview 2 lol. They apparently didn't expect the numbers that have been demonstrated and as such are going to change their end a bit :) We'll see for pass 2, and updating numbers should be pretty easy on their end (more time spent deciding what to change them to probs).

Even if the update hit as shown here I don't think it'd stop PuG raiding lmao, you don't need much of a toon to complete LH which is about where most pugs I see are. It'd certainly hurt mid-skull+ raiding but that's an entirely different boat. Or LN if shortman or doing teaching runs, you can complete with a full party of first-life toons so I don't see how that's going to kill pugs.

[slarden]

All 3 Barbarian trees should have a 20% competence bonus in tier 5. This is not because they sometimes act as tanks, but rather barbarians are intended to have higher hp and all melee dps should have the same 20%. In other words the % shouldn't change the relative strengths of melee builds, but rather buff them all.

The paladin and fighter tank trees should have in tier 5: The 20% competence bonus from defender stance is increased to 30% which would offset the loss of bonuses from EDF and Unyielding Sentinel. Dedicated tanks should have higher percentages than other trees, but the extra % should only come from tier 5.

As others have stated barbarians are used as damage sponge tanks in raids because they can get higher hp. If a full dps class is being used as a tank, the answer isn't necessarily fully supporting barbarian tanks, but rather buffing builds that are intended to be tanks but can't in some high end content due to hp and damage reduction differential.

15% is fine for wizards and sorcs in EK. The archmage tree is so bad you could potentially see some dc casters going tier 5 in EK. This is more a sign of how bad archmage is - not an abuse. Put some useful slas and abilities in tier 5 archmage and pure casters would never choose the 15% hp.

[SpartanKiller13]

15% is fine for wizards and sorcs in EK. The archmage tree is so bad you could potentially see some dc casters going tier 5 in EK. This is more a sign of how bad archmage is - not an abuse. Put some useful slas and abilities in tier 5 archmage and pure casters would never choose the 15% hp.

I also worry about Sorcs, like there seems little opportunity cost for most Savant builds to go T5 EK then no? Given you need capstone for immunity stripping. Only Air for Wind Dance even seems like an option, and in epics can just go EA for a dash instead and take 15% HP. Same with Wizards as you said though lol. Archmage is also a pretty low-tier enhancement tree...

[Yamani]

In high diff content, you are very role defined. You tank, you DPS, you crowd control, or you heal. If you can't do any of those, you aren't support, you're nothing. Besides primary intent doesn't matter. Some people figured out a way to make warpriest tanks. To go now and say "warpriests weren't meant to be tanks, be healer support, and know your place!" is a slap to the face which leads to 3 options:

1) Stick with lower diff content they can still tank.
2) Change their playstyle to healer support and leave tanking to other characters
3) Reincarnate into something else.

Didn't say they had to be healers, pretty much said they could fill in for any but not full on handle the role. In terms of current warpriest tanks. Quests are a literal joke even up to r10. Raids you could get by, but actually pushing the difficulty. A semi tank won't do and that's what I consider a "warpriest tank". I should note pushing difficulty on raids is more like r6+ for me, as well as higher than tier 2. With a few exceptions based on raid.

This is just my perspective though.

[Lotoc]

Just a suggestion for pale master.
Could Zombie Ascendant Shroud get a competence HP bonus added? I believe the form is mostly used by melee/tank pale masters as it really has no caster bonuses so it'd be a shame for PMs to lose the comp hp option of EDF.
Though it may be a bit messy to have +10% profane and +15/20%? comp in one enhancement, the 10% profane could be moved to the Deathly Tough core selection replacing the 25 HP?

[Verlok_the_Red]

I'm just going to make it as simple as possible..


Hey folks! We are doing a pass on hit points. The goals here are to add a little more of a buffer for new players in general to make mistakes, and add a significantly larger buffer for melee builds.

and a few lines later...


After reviewing player feedback we quickly realized we got the top base hit point range wrong on advanced end game melee builds and as a result the Competence HP % modifiers are to low in may of the trees listed above. Thinking the base was smaller mistaken lead us to believe the new style hit point bonus would offset some % mod shrinkages. (when I say base I means your hit points BEFORE % increases)

?!?!?!? are you kidding me?!? your ready to overall the entire hit point system and you don't even have a basic understanding of the impact?

I seem to recall... U51.. "stat squish" will fix everything...

lol... please..

Perhaps...

* try ADDING hit points to help people enjoy the game
* don't punish the player base becasue SSG has broken the game so badly that your only option is COPY/PASTE or DELETE existing code
* maybe FIX THE HEALING/SPHERES?!?!?! is that really so hard?!
* rather than nurffing the heck out of animal sphere DOUBLE THE BONUS!
* do something USEFULL with your time like double or TRIPPLE the range of auras and buffs! (you know make it easier to heal people) simple concept.
* log in to the game one day and try healing a raid full of people who were already nurffed to death in u51 and see how fun it is healing 12 people with 1 hit worth of HP
* see how much fun it is dien every time a monster sneezes on you because hit scaling from U51 is STILL broken a year and a half later. I mean sometimes its great to get a drink mid fight.. but really?
* why silently remove things like divine vitality... perhaps if you actually played a cleric in the last 15 years you would know its been a round a long time and people may actually use it..

this post is just another example of how disjoined SSG is from the game, the player base and the general lack of caring about the player experience .. I hope one day WoTC revokes your license to destroy their brand any further. I'm sure they cant find anyone worse than SSG to take over...


as far as I'm concerned ...

Don't let the door hit you where the Lord of Blades split you!

[Seph1roth5]

Both sound completely at odds with each other. If you want to help new people with HP, what does it matter what the endgame meta HP is? Sounds more like they're just hacking off the players at the knees and giving excuses.

Reminds me of playing pathfinder with a GM who thinks everyone's character is too strong.

[Oliphant]

Spent about 50 minutes with a group waiting to fill a Hunt raid yesterday but no healer and tank ever showed up. Think about if this update makes it more or less desirable to play healer and tank. If it is equally desirable to play a healer and tank after these changes maybe go back to the drawing board. You wouldn't possibly make it less desirable to play a healer and tank so I won't go into that.

Wait, you wouldn't make it less desirable to play healer and tank would you?

Would you??

[SpartanKiller13]

Both sound completely at odds with each other. If you want to help new people with HP, what does it matter what the endgame meta HP is? Sounds more like they're just hacking off the players at the knees and giving excuses.

Reminds me of playing pathfinder with a GM who thinks everyone's character is too strong.

Well, generally game balance changes (like this one) affect both playstyles :) and the devs are not trying to nerf or massively shift the endgame meta (at least that they've mentioned) so they're trying to get a buff for new players without it being a nerf for endgame. Preview 1 did not do that but they've recognized this and are changing before P2 lol.

How are they hacking players off at the knees? Getting a bunch of HP on newer toons is a free buff, and losing 50-100 hp (the stated design goal for endgame HP toons) is pretty far from being hacked at the knees IMO.

Also removing EDF is a great change for everyone - now you can heal/rez etc at range which is amazing.


Spent about 50 minutes with a group waiting to fill a Hunt raid yesterday but no healer and tank ever showed up. Think about if this update makes it more or less desirable to play healer and tank. If it is equally desirable to play a healer and tank after these changes maybe go back to the drawing board.

Sounds like it's time to make yourself a tank & a healer alt :D

First-life tank will get ya through LH easily, and with a bit more work you can get a low-life R1 tank without too much difficulty. First-life healer is good for most content :)

[jskinner937]

I mean if you check the first post or later dev posts they've already stated they're going to re-balance for preview 2 lol. They apparently didn't expect the numbers that have been demonstrated and as such are going to change their end a bit :) We'll see for pass 2, and updating numbers should be pretty easy on their end (more time spent deciding what to change them to probs).

Even if the update hit as shown here I don't think it'd stop PuG raiding lmao, you don't need much of a toon to complete LH which is about where most pugs I see are. It'd certainly hurt mid-skull+ raiding but that's an entirely different boat. Or LN if shortman or doing teaching runs, you can complete with a full party of first-life toons so I don't see how that's going to kill pugs.

Thank you for pointing out they are reconsidering the impact. As others have mentioned after my post, I do hope they understand that melee help is more than HP grant. To me, make playing a healer or Tank easier, not harder is a first step.

In an ideal world, a durable melee DPS could pick up 2 mantles and switch mantles between tanking and DPS with a proper healer in most quest and many raids. And a dedicated Tank could DPS if tanking isn’t needed.

And probably a bigger stretch would be a healer could switch mantles and be a DPS or melee if healing isn’t required.

Healing and melee need the love. This whole pass and the imbue pass seem to be missing the mark where game balance is needed. Liking a particular playstyle or making alts to compliment another playstyle and bring more role utility to the game should be the focus, along with making the game more new player friendly.

One of the easiest ways to get into end game content is playing a tank or healer as a new player.

[jskinner937]

Well, generally game balance changes (like this one) affect both playstyles :) and the devs are not trying to nerf or massively shift the endgame meta (at least that they've mentioned) so they're trying to get a buff for new players without it being a nerf for endgame. Preview 1 did not do that but they've recognized this and are changing before P2 lol.

How are they hacking players off at the knees? Getting a bunch of HP on newer toons is a free buff, and losing 50-100 hp (the stated design goal for endgame HP toons) is pretty far from being hacked at the knees IMO.

Also removing EDF is a great change for everyone - now you can heal/rez etc at range which is amazing.



Sounds like it's time to make yourself a tank & a healer alt :D

First-life tank will get ya through LH easily, and with a bit more work you can get a low-life R1 tank without too much difficulty. First-life healer is good for most content :)

The original proposed pass made neither of these 1st life friendly even in LH. Hopefully the devs are considering this in preview 2 now. I am not sure you understood the impact according your post. Removing EDF and adding competence bonus helped melees but most Tank builds lost HPs. Animal domain and FVS HP bonuses nerfed hurt healers. Babrbarian HP bags nerfed. Don’t rely on the initial dev comment that said most would get a HP boost, that’s been clearly pointed out several times not the case, even on a first lifer. The very roles that keep a raid party alive were the unintended targets.

And removing EDF did not help healers rez/heal in raids, as a healer, you would never use EDF, unless you are the Tank as well. But yeah removing the feature overall is a good thing. Too bad Aasimar had to get nerfed with EDF being the reason. Maybe the cores should get reinstated. Or at least add a tier 4 enhancement to get the regen ability back. Even if the spend was 20 AP to take full advantage of healing hands as before, this would at least still be an option for many with limited healing otherwise.

[TheAlicornSage]

Frankly, I don't agree with increasing low level hit points. Even back in the elder days when the game was harder I thought we got too much of a boost to initial HP. Further, the majority of time players spend at low levels will not be as new players but as additional lives which really don't need even more boosting over everything else such reincarnated characters get.

If you still really want to make things easier for first timers anyway, I suggest granting a first life bonus intstead that would disappear after reincarnation.

Now, I have played a ton at low level since the game came out and feel I'm qualified to comment there, however I've only got one epic level character and am not an optimizer, so take the following with a healthy dose of salt.

I find HP becomes an issue at higher level in two ways, it's growth goes beyond exponential into quadratic. My skelky, a thoeretical fighter, has nearly three times my wizard's HP even after I spend AP and occasionally gear on increasing my con and HP (since I'm a sllo EK). That is a massive disparity, far larger than d4s vs d10s. Even so, my wiz has far beyond reasonable lrvels of HP.

Maybe it's just because I'm an old grognard that still prefers 3.5 and even 2e over more modern rpgs, but I personally think a lot of the numbers at high levels have gotten way out of hand. My skelly has over 1100 HP at an effective fighter level of 22. The baseline 3.5 rules would grant merely 440HP even including the +20 con it gets from all the boosts I give it. My wiz gets around 400 all by herself and the 3.5 rule baseline there is 280 with my +10/lvl from con. 280 vs 440 is much less a ridiculous disparity than 400 vs 1100.

And yes, ddo has long left 3.5 behind, but 3.5 is still the foundation the game is built on, and even in 3.5 the HP disparity at high levels was regarded as a problem, and now in ddo, the problem is even bigger. I'm not really seeing how these new hp rules do anything to make that high level disparity anything but worse.

The other line of issue is damage. Making enemies deal damage that is a threat to my skelly overwhelms my wizard, but something devestating to my wizard is a fleabite to my skelly. As the disparity between high and low hp characters grows larger, it only becones more difficult to balance enemy dmg output, as you lose the ability to challange one end of the spectrum without being either one-shot-kill or negligible on the other.

[jskinner937]

Frankly, I don't agree with increasing low level hit points. Even back in the elder days when the game was harder I thought we got too much of a boost to initial HP. Further, the majority of time players spend at low levels will not be as new players but as additional lives which really don't need even more boosting over everything else such reincarnated characters get.

If you still really want to make things easier for first timers anyway, I suggest granting a first life bonus intstead that would disappear after reincarnation.

Now, I have played a ton at low level since the game came out and feel I'm qualified to comment there, however I've only got one epic level character and am not an optimizer, so take the following with a healthy dose of salt.

I find HP becomes an issue at higher level in two ways, it's growth goes beyond exponential into quadratic. My skelky, a thoeretical fighter, has nearly three times my wizard's HP even after I spend AP and occasionally gear on increasing my con and HP (since I'm a sllo EK). That is a massive disparity, far larger than d4s vs d10s. Even so, my wiz has far beyond reasonable lrvels of HP.

Maybe it's just because I'm an old grognard that still prefers 3.5 and even 2e over more modern rpgs, but I personally think a lot of the numbers at high levels have gotten way out of hand. My skelly has over 1100 HP at an effective fighter level of 22. The baseline 3.5 rules would grant merely 440HP even including the +20 con it gets from all the boosts I give it. My wiz gets around 400 all by herself and the 3.5 rule baseline there is 280 with my +10/lvl from con. 280 vs 440 is much less a ridiculous disparity than 400 vs 1100.

And yes, ddo has long left 3.5 behind, but 3.5 is still the foundation the game is built on, and even in 3.5 the HP disparity at high levels was regarded as a problem, and now in ddo, the problem is even bigger. I'm not really seeing how these new hp rules do anything to make that high level disparity anything but worse.

The other line of issue is damage. Making enemies deal damage that is a threat to my skelly overwhelms my wizard, but something devestating to my wizard is a fleabite to my skelly. As the disparity between high and low hp characters grows larger, it only becones more difficult to balance enemy dmg output, as you lose the ability to challange one end of the spectrum without being either one-shot-kill or negligible on the other.

Epic destinies and epic past lifes changed this game from what it was (heroic adventures) to what it is today (epic/legendary). Comparing epics/legendary it to 3.5e is a bit of an overreach. I never saw anything in the OP that said this was to help low levels at all. The statement was to help new players and I think the design goal was intended to balance 20+, not heroics. So your logic is misapplied, but the sentiment is felt based on your own personal experience.

[Silverleafeon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRmMyYXhtR0

[jskinner937]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRmMyYXhtR0

Funny stuff and oddly true.

[SpartanKiller13]

Thank you for pointing out they are reconsidering the impact. As others have mentioned after my post, I do hope they understand that melee help is more than HP grant. To me, make playing a healer or Tank easier, not harder is a first step.

In an ideal world, a durable melee DPS could pick up 2 mantles and switch mantles between tanking and DPS with a proper healer in most quest and many raids. And a dedicated Tank could DPS if tanking isn’t needed.

And probably a bigger stretch would be a healer could switch mantles and be a DPS or melee if healing isn’t required.

Healing and melee need the love. This whole pass and the imbue pass seem to be missing the mark where game balance is needed. Liking a particular playstyle or making alts to compliment another playstyle and bring more role utility to the game should be the focus, along with making the game more new player friendly.

One of the easiest ways to get into end game content is playing a tank or healer as a new player.

Off-tanking on chunky melees works pretty well at lower difficulty too, but yeah swapping mantles would be a nicer ideal. I have a guildy that does exactly that, swaps mantles and gear to a more DPS-focus if there's no need for a tank - but for me it's hard to justify the opportunity cost on an alt (and I'm usually TRing my main = can't really play tanks for leveling). Most tanks are going T5 US (for good reason) and that's a lot of EDP to spend in a weak tree for a DPS build :( FotW T5 tanks might be a thing for some content if the T5 %HP changes from Preview 1 go through, but those would be just straight up inferior in terms of their tanking ability which is kinda hard to justify on a toon that needs to be able to tank primarily.

For my healer I have multiple epic strikes so I can throw a little DPS if bored and I run a debuffer thrower; but it's definitely not near where you're talking about. I would also like to see more interesting buffs and more HoT effects to reduce times where the best healer action is "select the tank and just rotate through a hotbar worth of heals on them" or "pick some melee toon and apply your AoE heals on cooldown" lol. I like the direction they went with BoH but there isn't very much of that yet (both healing wall and active buffs).

I agree on general principle with where you're at, but I do quite like the EDF removal and HP buff for newer players & lower-investment characters lol. I don't want to see tanks nerfed, and I'd like the healer playstyle to be more rewarding but I'm not sure the current meta where healers are the 2nd tankiest build style is where it should be? Like my healer is T5 US and usually one of the tougher people in any given raid because why not? There's low opportunity cost and the benefits are pretty nice. EA mantle is IMO too slow for raids and dying on a healer is bad soooo....


The original proposed pass made neither of these 1st life friendly even in LH. Hopefully the devs are considering this in preview 2 now. I am not sure you understood the impact according your post. Removing EDF and adding competence bonus helped melees but most Tank builds lost HPs. Animal domain and FVS HP bonuses nerfed hurt healers. Barbarian HP bags nerfed. Don’t rely on the initial dev comment that said most would get a HP boost, that’s been clearly pointed out several times not the case, even on a first lifer. The very roles that keep a raid party alive were the unintended targets.

And removing EDF did not help healers rez/heal in raids, as a healer, you would never use EDF, unless you are the Tank as well. But yeah removing the feature overall is a good thing. Too bad Aasimar had to get nerfed with EDF being the reason. Maybe the cores should get reinstated. Or at least add a tier 4 enhancement to get the regen ability back. Even if the spend was 20 AP to take full advantage of healing hands as before, this would at least still be an option for many with limited healing otherwise.

I posted numbers on like 4 different builds in this thread lol. I have a Barb tank build on page 5 that would lose 1200 HP from this change, and I'd like to think it's part of why the devs are changing from preview 1 to 2.

My tank alt was previously Animal domain, but I already swapped to Protection domain and I think it's likely superior? I'd like to promote it as an option for others too. I think Animal Domain is too big of a nerf, but at the same time base HP for Clerics with 4 combat feats is rising by 220 which is roughly equivalent which gives an option for healers to stay fairly tanky while swapping domains. Currently I don't run EDF on my tank either, because I run a lot of teaching raids and having more range for healing/rezzing is really nice. That tank breaks even with these changes (~1% difference) but that doesn't mean the initial pass is good lol. Making tanks more accessible is a good thing, I'd like to see buffs at the low end for certain. I'm not sure the top end of tanks need buffing though, as tougher tanks cause more damaging enemies = harder for everyone else to survive.

Removing EDF didn't directly change anything for anyone not using EDF lol - but it changes a lot for people using EDF. T5 US has a rez SLA. A lot of melee builds can easily fit Renewal and plenty have a few spells as well. Every level 32 toon can at scroll-cast at least Raise Dead, which is really helpful if a bunch of people die or in PUGs or for shortman or general questing etc. Even just being able to throw CSW as a Ranger can be enough to keep someone alive while a healer is busy/stunned/etc.

Personally I still think Aasimar is really strong, but for certain that nerf was pretty heavy-handed. It's just more of an emergency heal now instead of "yeah might as well throw you one I have like 7".

[ThomasHunter]

Good afternoon dev team! I'm excited to see this change in action as it looks good.

My main toon (best toon?) is a 18/2 Vistani (43 points) FvS/Monk. I am a little bummed that to get the 20% HP is a multi-selector with Vendetta. Vendetta is an attack that I use often and is pretty fun (although a long cooldown!). As a full melee toon, taking that away to get the extra HP is necessary as I can't do without the extra HP. Losing Vendetta would be sad.

I think the HP buff would make more sense (arguably) at the top of the middle column which is much more defensive minded. I believe it would make the most sense to just include the 20% HP in the top tier (Mist Stalker V) as a passive effect. Now, currently, I don't take the top tier there, but if this was changed, it would have to be something that I would have to consider.

tl;dr - Vendetta seems like a bad place to put the 20% HP.

Thanks for reading!
Taleisin

[Duhboy]

Also removing EDF is a great change for everyone - now you can heal/rez etc at range which is amazing.


I disagree with the removal of EDF in general. Instead of them deleting EDF and struggling figuring out how to sprinkle HP competence bonuses to heroic trees because of said removal of passive feat despite the fact that heroics are a joke to begin with why not take the easier route and simply remove the negative drawbacks of EDF? LOL

[SpartanKiller13]

I disagree with the removal of EDF in general. Instead of them deleting EDF and struggling figuring out how to sprinkle HP competence bonuses to heroic trees because of said removal of passive feat despite the fact that heroics are a joke to begin with why not take the easier route and simply remove the negative drawbacks of EDF? LOL

Because then everyone gets to use it and there's no longer any survivability buff for melees?

I'd be very happy to stuff 4 combat feats into a DC casting Wizard build for +25% HP lmao.

[SWCarter]

I am a little bummed that to get the 20% HP is a multi-selector with Vendetta. Vendetta is an attack that I use often and is pretty fun (although a long cooldown!). As a full melee toon, taking that away to get the extra HP is necessary as I can't do without the extra HP. Losing Vendetta would be sad.

I think the HP buff would make more sense (arguably) at the top of the middle column which is much more defensive minded.

I agree that it shouldn't be a multi-select with Vendetta, but please don't force us into Mist Stalker unless "+25% negative energy absorption" is also adjusted to be negative healing-friendly. I commonly play a negative healing VKF build, and the entire line of Mist Stalker bonuses are unusable because of this "benefit".

[Baahb3]

Correct me if I am wrong.

FvS healer using stout of heart and Beacon of Hope 41. Couldn't care less about combat feats. The only thing I swing my weapon at is a box.

-120hp from heroic (6*20 levels)
-96hp from Epic (8*12)

Multiply that loss by 10% from Falconry and Aasimar HP boosts nets me a -237hps.

Am I just supposed to take this kick in the ass with a smile and ask if I can have another?

*Edit: Took out the line for Epic HP reduction per Torc's explanation below

[elvesunited]

Correct me if I am wrong.

FvS healer using stout of heart and Beacon of Hope 41. Couldn't care less about combat feats. The only thing I swing my weapon at is a box.

-120hp from heroic (6*20 levels)
-96hp from Epic (8*12)

Add on top of that another -60hp in epics going from 10hp per to 5hp per

Multiply that loss by 10% from Falconry and Aasimar HP boosts nets me a -303hps.

Am I just supposed to take this kick in the ass with a smile and ask if I can have another?

Hey at least your favored soul is Beacon of Hope. Mine is Angel of Vengeance and this is the second straight nerf in a row.
The rumor I heard is that favored soul casters overperformed in the hardcore previous to this one.

[Baahb3]

Hey at least your favored soul is Beacon of Hope. Mine is Angel of Vengeance and this is the second straight nerf in a row.
The rumor I heard is that favored soul casters overperformed in the hardcore previous to this one.

I feel ya. I have an AoV too. Still scratching my head on what to do with her.

[Duhboy]

Because then everyone gets to use it and there's no longer any survivability buff for melees?
Melees get a survivability buff right now anyways, it's EDF.


I'd be very happy to stuff 4 combat feats into a DC casting Wizard build for +25% HP lmao.
You and every other caster/ ranged toon would and I wouldn't blame you for it lol. If you want to take combat feats on a DC caster then I think you should be able to as this game was built on customization.

[Duhboy]

I agree that it shouldn't be a multi-select with Vendetta, but please don't force us into Mist Stalker unless "+25% negative energy absorption" is also adjusted to be negative healing-friendly. I commonly play a negative healing VKF build, and the entire line of Mist Stalker bonuses are unusable because of this "benefit".

Rogue Assassins don't get a HP buff in their tier 5. Perhaps an oversight.

[tsotate]

EDF was designed to boost melees up in durability, but a blanket buff of the magnitude needed was explicitly not applied to the fighting style feats, due to the ease of access of other styles taking them, look at a ranged ranger, for instance. Under your suggestion, they would receive a significant amount of competence %HP, simply for being a ranger, whereas now it is limited to just base HP, with that juicy %HP tucked away into the exclusive section of a melee tree.

I agree that the HP should not be tied to multiselectors where melees have to choose between HP or damage, but %HP as a baseline for all combat feats is a terrible idea, and one the devs specifically avoided in the past when the band-aid that was EDF was introduced.

Tie it to the combat feat being active, which only happens when the relevant weapon is equipped. We know that that's the case, because the buff pops up over your head/on your bar when swapping weapons. If a ranger wants to have the style feat hp bonus, that's fine; they just need to hold two weapons.

[Lotoc]

I agree that it shouldn't be a multi-select with Vendetta, but please don't force us into Mist Stalker unless "+25% negative energy absorption" is also adjusted to be negative healing-friendly. I commonly play a negative healing VKF build, and the entire line of Mist Stalker bonuses are unusable because of this "benefit".

It really should be a multiselection vs whirling wrists, the idea with the competence HP bonuses is predominantly that they are for melee builds so it absolutely should be exclusive with the thing specifically only useful for ranged damage, not the thing both ranged and melee have use for.


Rogue Assassins don't get a HP buff in their tier 5. Perhaps an oversight.

It does "Rogue
T5 Assassin Light Armor Mastery Rank 3 - Grants a 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses."

[TheAlicornSage]

Epic destinies and epic past lifes changed this game from what it was (heroic adventures) to what it is today (epic/legendary). Comparing epics/legendary it to 3.5e is a bit of an overreach. I never saw anything in the OP that said this was to help low levels at all. The statement was to help new players and I think the design goal was intended to balance 20+, not heroics. So your logic is misapplied, but the sentiment is felt based on your own personal experience.

20+ is not for new players. There is no new player option to just start at epic level. By the time someone gets to epic level they are not new, maybe not yet an old veteran but definitely not new.

The "new player experience" starts at level 1, without past lives, previously collected best gear for level, etc.

[jskinner937]

20+ is not for new players. There is no new player option to just start at epic level. By the time someone gets to epic level they are not new, maybe not yet an old veteran but definitely not new.

The "new player experience" starts at level 1, without past lives, previously collected best gear for level, etc.

How old is "new" to you, or to the dev? I think the multiple posts on the forums when people just started and after 1 month have a fully capped toon. Even from level 1, it doesnt take long to get to 20 on a first life character, even for a casual player. To me this is still new. If you are talking semantics and saying brand new, then that is still incorrect due to the fact that iconics and veterans status are all options for new characters.

Semantics aside, clearly EDF was intended to compete with the inflated numbers for melees in 20+ content, not really heroics. Veteran players have Divine PLs, Barbarian Lives and Reaper Points to make up the difference, while a newly rolled character in 20+ does not.

I have played the evolution from beta, to F2P, pre and post MotU. When epic quests were first introduced, the mechanics were the same as heroics, just everything did 10x the damage and had 10x the HPS. But the mechanics were kind of cheesy as mass hold, IKs, Auto Crits were all tactics used. Only the elites lead/played Epic quests inititally. The post MotU introduced epic levels and new quests, along with new epic difficulties. Much of the mob HPs and damage scaling was reduced, but around the time GH went Epic, this scaling in EE, etc got crazy high again and mob saves went through the ceiling. This trend continued and eventually around the time WPM was introduced, we got EDF. But reaper bonuses werent all maxed out either. So yes EDF was created to help newer melees to not get one shot. Shortly after WPM, reaper bonus came and now EDF is not needed for vets with all their HP bonuses compared to newer players.