U57 Preview 2: Imbue Overhaul

[Lynnabel]

Changes from first preview are in this green!

With Update 57 we are embarking on a series of global overhauls that aim to streamline and shake up the game and bring new cohesion across multiple builds. The Imbue system is one such overhaul and aims to drastically change how players approach certain builds, as well as open up a large variety of fun, flavorful, and powerful new ones. But enough talk - let's see the details!

An Imbue is a new type of toggle in DDO that adds extra damage to your attacks. This extra damage can be specific to certain weapon types, certain combat styles, or even be focused on melee or ranged. Imbues can also scale with things, such as Melee or Ranged Power. You can only have one Imbue active at a time, which means turning on a new Imbue while one is already on will turn the old one off.

Imbues scale their damage with bonus Imbue Dice. If an Imbue added, for example, 1d6 Fire damage, gaining 1 bonus Imbue dice will change that to 2d6 Fire damage. 2 bonus dice means 3d6, etc. Bonus Imbue Dice are global and universal - they do not care about which Imbue is active, and will scale each imbue based on the base Imbue's stats. This means that with the earlier example, if the Imbue in question actually did 1d12 Poison damage scaling with Melee Power, having 2 bonus dice means you'll do 3d12 damage. You can check your bonus Imbue Dice on the character sheet's Details+ Tab.

If this sounds familiar, you're right! This is exactly how our current scaling toggles work - such as Eldritch Knight or Arcane Archer! The big difference here is that there are no more "Arcane Archer Dice" or "Eldritch Knight Dice" - they all now scale off of Imbue Dice together. One of the benefits of these dice being shared is that there is relatively little opportunity cost to switching to a different element from a different tree, should you so desire. You can also aim for very specific imbues in some trees and then boost them up elsewhere. It also means that gaining a bonus dice is something that a large variety of builds will want, making trees and feats that add bonus dice highly desirable.

There are a lot of Imbues available - most of which have been adapted from existing procs scattered throughout our enhancement trees. Most of them are also designed to be available very early on in your leveling process. There are also a lot of bonus Imbue Dice available, scattered throughout areas that used to add specific dice types, or just that we thought would make sense. The sheer amount of changes and additions makes creating concise release notes relatively tough, so we've split them into sections based on the source.

Note: Some of the abilities listed here already do the damage type we're talking about - with these pass, they will be changed to imbues and turned into toggles. Furthermore, some of the places we're adding bonus dice already involved increasing the dice of a proc that's been mentioned - basically, in your head, try to remember that all procs are now imbues, and all things that boosted procs are now bonus imbue dice, and it will all make sense.

Alchemist:

(Vile Chemist Core 2) 1d8 Poison Damage, poison spell power
(Vile Chemist Core 2) +1 Dice per 3 Alchemist Levels - max 6 dice
(Vile Chemist Core 4) +1 Dice (replaces dice change)
(Vile Chemist Core 5) +1 Dice (replaces dice change)
(Vile Chemist Core 6) +2 Dice (replaces dice change)


Artificer:

(Battle Engineer Tier 3) 1d6 Electric damage, electric spellpower (fills in missing t3)
(Battle Engineer - Agility Engine t4) +1/2/3 Dice with a runearm equipped
(Battle Engineer - Unlock Potential t5) +1 Dice with a runearm equipped
The spell Elemental Weapons now grants +1 alchemical bonus to Imbue Dice (note this is still exclusive with other weapon enchantment spells)
The spell Greater Elemental Weapons now grants +2 alchemical bonus to Imbue Dice (note this is still exclusive with other weapon enchantment spells)


Barbarian:

(Frenzied Berserker Core 2) 1d8 Bane Damage - Melee Power scaling only
(Frenzied Core 4) +3 dice while Death Frenzy is active


Bard:

(Warchanter Tier 3) 1d6 Cold Damage on hit, cold spellpower
(Swashbuckler Tier 3) 1d6 Sonic Damage on hit, scaling wit Sonic Spellpower (note: this was the sonic on-crit thing)
(Warchanter) Each core beyond the first grants +1 Dice
(Swashbuckler Tier 4) Music Box now grants +1 imbue dice


Cleric:

(Dark Apostate Tier 1) 1d6 Evil damage, evil spellpower
(Warpriest Tier 4) 1d6 Fire damage, fire spellpower - replaces t4 active attack
(Warpriest) Core 2, 4, 5 grant +1 Dice
(Warpriest T5) Wrathful Weapons now grants +3 dice instead of its separate proc, and turns your Fire imbue to Light for the duration
(Dark Apostate) Tiers 2, 3, 4 grant +1 Dice
(Dark Apostate) Tier 5 grants +2 Dice
(Dark Apostate) Core 3, 5, 6 grant +1 Dice


Druid:

(Automatically granted when you choose Fire or Water Elemental Form) 1d6 Fire or Cold, elemental form locked, spellpower scaling
Elemental Forms now grant a flat +3 Dice


Favored Soul:

(Warsoul Tier 4) 1d6 Fire damage, fire spellpower - replaces t4 active attack
(Warsoul) Cores 2, 4, 5 grant +1 Dice
(Warsoul T5) Wrathful Weapons now grants +3 dice instead of its separate proc, and turns your Fire imbue to Light for the duration


Fighter:

n/a


Monk:

(Ninja Spy Tier 3) 1d6 Poison Damage, melee or ranged power, also continues to do its regular Ninja Poison on-crit stuff
(Henshin Mystic Tier 3) 1d6 Fire, plus an additional 1d6 Force on crit, melee or ranged power
(Henshin Mystic) Each core grants +1 Dice


Paladin:

(Kotc Core 1) 1d6 Light Damage on hit, scaling with Melee or Ranged Power
(Sacred Fist Core 1) 1d6 Fire or Light damage, melee power
(Sacred Fist) Each core beyond the first grants +1 Dice
(Sacred Fist) Tier 3, 4 grant +1 Dice each
(Knight of the Chalice) Each core beyond the first grants +1 Dice


Ranger:

(Ranger - Tempest) 1d8 Electric, melee or ranged power
(Ranger - Arcane Archer) 1d8 Fire/Cold/Acid/Electric, appropriate Spell Power
(Ranger - Arcane Archer) 1d8 Force, force spellpower
(Arcane Archer) Tiers 2, 3, 4, and 5 grant +2 Dice each
Note: All other primary Arcane Archer imbues are also now imbues in this system.


Rogue:

(Assassin Tier 1) 1d8 Poison, melee or ranged power (note this swapped places with Toxin Affinity which is now tier 2)
(Assassin - Toxin Affinity) moves to t2 (swaps with imbue), +1/2/3 dice


Sorcerer:

(Eldritch Knight Core 2) 1d8 Fire/Cold/Acid/Electric, appropriate Spell Power (they get all 4 elements)
(EK Core 2) +1 Dice per 3 Sorcerer levels, max 6
(EK Core 4) +1 Dice (replaces dice step change)
(EK Core 5) +1 Dice (replaces dice step change)
(EK Core 6) +2 Dice (replaces dice step change) + the proc for +4 temporary dice


Wizard:

(Eldritch Knight Core 2) 1d8 Fire/Cold/Acid/Electric, appropriate Spell Power (they get all 4 elements)
(EK Core 2) +1 Dice per 3 Wizard levels, max 6
(EK Core 4) +1 Dice (replaces dice step change)
(EK Core 5) +1 Dice (replaces dice step change)
(EK Core 6) +2 Dice (replaces dice step change) + the proc for +4 temporary dice


Warlock:

(Enlightened Spirit Tier 4) 1d6 Light, Light spell power (ALSO APPLIES TO ELDRITCH BLASTS, no other toggle does this)
(Enlightened Spirit Core 5) +3 bonus dice while in Celestial Spirit form


Racial:

(Drow - Racial Tree) 1d8 Poison, melee or ranged power (same as Assassin)
(Drow - Racial Tree) +1 dice in tier 3, 4 (new enhancements, fills in missing space
(Shadar-kai Racial Tree) 1d12 Cold on sneak attacks, melee or ranged power
(Half-Elf - Warlock Dilettante feat) 1d4 Fire damage, fire spellpower, also works on spells!
(Tiefling - Racial Tree) 1d4 Fire Damage on hit, scaling with Fire Spell Power vs enemies below 75%, upgrades to 1d6 below 50% and again to 1d8 below 25%
(Tiefling Scoundrel - Racial Tree) 1d4 Sonic Damage on hit, scaling with Sonic Spell Power vs enemies below 75%, upgrades to 1d6 below 50% and again to 1d8 below 25%


Universal:

(Inquisitive) 1d8 Law Damage on hit vs chaotic, 1d4 against non-chaotic, Melee or Ranged Power. Tier 5 ugprades can make this 1d8 vs everyone. This scales with 200% ranged power. Known issue: The tooltip for the t5s says 1d6!
(Inquisitive) Core 4, 5, 6 grant +1 dice each
(Inquisitive) Tier 2, 4 grant +1 dice each
(Inquisitive) Tier 5 multiselector grants +1 dice each except for 1 grants +2


Feats:

(Embodiment of Law - Destiny Feat) is now: +3 PRR and MRR. if you are lawful, you also gain +2 imbue dice
(Embodiment of Chaos - Destiny Feat) is now: +2% doublestrike and doubleshot. If you are chaotic, you also gain +2 imbue dice
(Enhanced Elemental Dice - Destiny Feat) +1 Dice
(Scion of the Feywild - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Earth - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Fire - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Water - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Air - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of Arborea) +1 dice
(Offhand Versatility) - Orb/Runearm gains +1 Imbue dice


Destinies:

Shiradi Champion mantle gains 1d77 per 7 bonus dice - this is not an imbue toggle BUT gains benefits from your imbue dice!
Draconic Tier 3 now grants +1/2/3 Dice
Crusade! buff in Divine Crusader now grants +1 dice
Ghost Touch in LD is now "Esoteric Touch" and grants both Ghost Touch and +1 Imbue Dice
Shared Mantle in PA now also grants +3 Imbue Dice while within the PA Mantle


Items:

Filigree Set Bonuses that used to give a scaling imbue on-hit now give +1 Dice
Augments from Hunt or Be Hunted Raid now give +1 Enhancement bonus to bonus Dice
Certain Set Bonuses get +1 Dice in heroics, 2 in epics, 3 in legendary (artifact typed):

Profane Experiment
Echoes of the Waking Ancestors
Crypt Raider



Misc Changes:
As a part of this, we're also doing the following small set of changes to facilitate this system's cohesiveness:

Pain Touch 1 and 2 from Ravager lose their small on-hit proc and gain +5 Melee Power each instead (for a total +10)
Death Frenzy now grants +6 str since regular Frenzy is losing its str bonus
Divine Crusader's Law of the Divine still deals 1d6 Law damage on hit per epic/legendary level (unchanged) but the vuln + armor piercing moved over a space into Bring Down Wrath so that enhancement is more usable for people not using shields, and also you can get the debuffs without needing the feat spot. Note that the Embodiment of Chaos upgrade in Fury is unchanged by this pass.
Rather than the upgrade for Tempest's Lightning Stance increasing base damage, the base toggle now is the imbue and the upgrade grants the full +30% absorb
Iced Edges is now just 1 rank and is no longer a prereq of the rest of the ice line, so you can skip the imbue if you want the other stuff.


Bugs Fixed from Preview 1:

barb frenzy now scales correctly
EK stuff now scales correctly with dice and spellpower
artificer imbue now correctly does electric damage
elemental weapon spells now correctly apply their effects
lighting the candle fixed - now deals 1d6 fire all the time, with an additional 1d6 force on crit
dark apostate proc now scales correctly
fixed pal imbue icon on tree
pal imbue now reports with the combat log correctly
Warpriest fire imbue now correctly deals damage
Agility Engine and Unlock Potential have better icons, descriptions, and actually boost their imbue dice now
Wiz, sorc, and alchemist dice from leveling now automatically update without needing you to log in and out again
tiefling cores no longer auto apply imbue
law/chaos feats no longer auto apply imbue
warpriest toggle stays on reliably



So! A pretty huge list of changes, lots to digest. Your thoughts, questions, suggestions are always welcome! :)

[Stravix]

*snip*
(Shadar-kai Racial Tree) 1d12 Cold on sneak attacks, melee or ranged power


This still only scales with 1x MP/RP, right? Seems like a powerhouse if scales at anything else.

[Anurakh]

Universal:

(Inquisitive) 1d8 Law Damage on hit vs chaotic, 1d4 against non-chaotic, Melee or Ranged Power. Tier 5 ugprades can make this 1d8 vs everyone. This scales with 200% ranged power. Known issue: The tooltip for the t5s says 1d6!
(Inquisitive) Core 4, 5, 6 grant +1 dice each
(Inquisitive) Tier 2, 4 grant +1 dice each
(Inquisitive) Tier 5 multiselector grants +1 dice each except for 1 grants +2

jaded unchanged with 1d8 for everyone, yay! Thanks for solving the problem I had with Tier 5 and the new imbue system! Relieved that there won't be another nerf for the inquisitive.

I hope to test it in this preview!

[Anurakh]

Feats:
[LIST]
(Embodiment of Law - Destiny Feat) is now: +3 PRR and MRR. if you are lawful, you also gain +2 imbue dice
(Embodiment of Chaos - Destiny Feat) is now: +2% doublestrike and doubleshot. If you are chaotic, you also gain +2 imbue dice
I don't like this so much. If you don't have that alignment, these feats are now useless. Will we get a free feat change, or a free alignment change?

[Talnar00]

I'd like to suggest a possible change/implementation for the Half-elf's warlock dilettante imbue.
The 2 second cooldown it has makes it rather lackluster, however straight up removing that cooldown would make it very powerful for just a racial feat at the very start.
I'd suggest changing the Half-elf's Improved Warlock Dilettante enhancements to interact with it's imbue.

Example of possibility:
Improved Dilettante Warlock (Tier 1): Reduces Dilettante Imbue cooldown by 0.5 sec (2 Racial AP investment to get, 1 progression, 1 for ability)
Improved Dilettante Warlock (Tier 2): Further reduces Dilettante Imbue cooldown by 0.5 sec (6 Racial AP investment to get)
Improved Dilettante Warlock (Tier 4): Further reduces Dilettante Imbue cooldown by 0.5 sec (16 Racial AP investment to get)

Keeps the imbue at only d4 and no extra dice, but allows it to apply more frequently.

As it stands the 2 second cooldown kind of kills it as an appealing option, however no cooldown at all even with 16 AP investment might be too powerful, since then it would apply to all enemies hit by aoe spells. Decreasing the cooldown with Racial AP investment could make Half-elfs an appealing racial option for fire based casters instead of just Dragonborn or Tieflings.

[Nugaot]

A few small suggestions:


Fighter:

n/a


Consider putting imbue dice in t2 Kensai Ascetic Training as a multi selector. Fighter itself doesn't get an imbue, but they also don't get the ability to generate ki on their own, either. Kensai is a very multiclass friendly tree, why not open it up to imbue builds a little, too?



(Scion of the Feywild - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Earth - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Fire - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Water - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Air - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of Arborea) +1 dice



Can Scion of the Shadowfell also get some bonus dice added to it? Would make Dark Apostate very happy.

[Black_Ninja]

Changes from first preview are in this green!
Ranger:

(Ranger - Tempest) 1d8 Electric, melee or ranged power
(Ranger - Arcane Archer) 1d8 Fire/Cold/Acid/Electric, appropriate Spell Power
(Ranger - Arcane Archer) 1d8 Force, force spellpower
(Arcane Archer) Tiers 2, 3, 4, and 5 grant +2 Dice each
Note: All other primary Arcane Archer imbues are also now imbues in this system.



3 questions, as someone who has always loved AA from pnp to DDO. I am looking forward to future viability of this tree.
1- Is there any change in the cost of the force arrows imbue? 6 points right now is... steep.
2- Will the non-damaging imbues scale or benefit at all from imbue dice?
3- For the non damaging imbues, is there any chance they can scale with wis/int/cha or something so that more builds have that as an option? Would really love to not need wisdom. That drastically reduces what I can run those with.

Especially as, from the days of PNP, elves were the primary Arcane Archers, and they've always been more inclined towards int than wis.

Excited for this uodate! Lots of new and interesting options.

[Axcarth]

Changes from first preview are in this green!
...

Fighter:

n/a

...


Why still nothing for Fighters? I thought imbue feats line or something was on the table. :(
Aside from the hard time fighters go through at end game due to the lack of defenses, now they are being excluded from these sweet changes. There's almost no reason to play fighter anymore.

[Lynnabel]

Why still nothing for Fighters? I thought imbue feats line or something was on the table. :(
Aside from the hard time fighters go through at end game due to the lack of defenses, now they are being excluded from these sweet changes. There's almost no reason to play fighter anymore.

Fighter stuff is actually in the other thread, check it out (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/535274-U57-Preview-2-Hit-Point-Pass)!

[Stravix]

Why still nothing for Fighters? I thought imbue feats line or something was on the table. :(
Aside from the hard time fighters go through at end game due to the lack of defenses, now they are being excluded from these sweet changes. There's almost no reason to play fighter anymore.

Check the HP thread, Fighter got some nice goodies over there.

[elvesunited]

Testing with my enlightened spirit warlock ( level 30 )

Should be getting 4d6 imbue light damage on each melee strike and eldritch aura strike.

The imbue damage is not applying at all.

[Axcarth]

Fighter stuff is actually in the other thread, check it out (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/535274-U57-Preview-2-Hit-Point-Pass)!


Check the HP thread, Fighter got some nice goodies over there.

Yeah, I did. Nice goodies there. Thanks!

[drewollice]

Making toxin affinity for rogue assassin tree locked behind [en]venomed blades makes the user invest in [en]venomed blades to get the imbue dice; but mutually exclusive imbue toggles means they likely will not even use the required [en]venomed blades toggle since an EK/AA/Inquis/shadarkai will use their respective better toggles instead. Could we remove the dependency to avoid wasting those 3 action points?

also could you update venomed to envenomed? :)

[Wdh]

My total bane damage as a barbarian still seems significantly less than what it was pre-update. I'm swinging at the airship training dummy on live hitting for three numbers of bane damage one hits for about 30-70, another for about 20-55 another fluctuates more wildly at 100-200, on the Lammania build I get one bane damage number that hits for 40-70 points, rarely higher. Even just adding up the low end of the bane damages I get on live its about double what I get on Lammania for my high end. Maybe the last core in the tree can grant another +2-3 imbue die or scale higher with melee power or both because you'd just about need to double what damage is dealt now to fix this. I don't have the points to spare to throw around in those universal trees to get more die and toying with my feats with my current build would be annoying, and taking damage from plain barbarians just seems counter intuitive when they are not the best dps in ddo compared to certain caster classes. Especially when that bane damage actually matters a lot in heroics, atleast in my opinion.

[JBadhair]

Good Afternoon all. Embodiment of law and Harbinger of Chaos both seem to be partially broken the are giving the Imbue dice but not the PRR/MRR on Law or the Double Strike/Shot on Chaos.

[Talnar00]

On the filigree set imbue dice. The bonuses used to be 4d6+1d6 per epic/legendary level (total 16d6, admittedly non-scaling), but now are only 1 imbue die. Maybe make the set bonuses be +1 imbue die + 1 die per 5 epic/legendary levels. Keeps the per level component, and doesn't feel as bad losing the 16d6.

Also perhaps change the sets from being worth all the same. Reverb's +imbue die is only two pieces, whereas Wreath of Flame, The Beast Mantle, and Frozen Wanderer is four pieces for +1 die, and Electrocution, The Long Shadow, and Snake Bite is three pieces for +1 die. So maybe make Reverb's only one die, and have one's like Wreath's give more per every few levels since more filigree investment.

Possible Example:
Reverb 2 piece: +1 imbue die
Snake Bite 3 piece: +1 imbue die + 1 additional die per 10 epic/legendary levels (total at +2 die currently)
Wreath of Flame 4 piece: +1 imbue die + 1 additional die per 5 epic/legendary levels (total at +3 die currently)

[Lynnabel]

Good Afternoon all. Embodiment of law and Harbinger of Chaos both seem to be partially broken the are giving the Imbue dice but not the PRR/MRR on Law or the Double Strike/Shot on Chaos.

We have pushed a configuration change to the server that will likely resolve this with a relog.

[Sqrlmonger]

Lynn your updated calculations on the efficacy of the 200% scaling change to inquisitor is apparently not calculated correctly.

You are assuming 200% ranged power is 33% more damage than 150% but this is apparently only true at (literally) infinite ranged power values. If the values presented in the other thread are accurate a 100 range power would be more than 11% less damage than you calculated.

Additionally, I think even if you do not wish to add dice back to cores 4-6 they badly need additional benefits to compensate for the loss of their main attractor (more so 5/6 than 4).

Suggestions like returning bolts, removal of double shot limitation on inquisitors (since doubleshot doesn't boost proc rate anymore), and many others.

I know you have to ration your time replying to people, but a lot of people care a lot about inquisitor and would truly appreciate a response even if it is simply to explain why you don't feel these things are justified. Doing so might allow us to understand your boundaries and give us the chance to offer feedback you can actually work with.

From talking with folks I can tell you that inquisitive players feel ignored on our concerns, you say you want feedback but that has to include engaging with those of us who have a different view or its just farming for agreement.

Thanks.

[JBadhair]

We have pushed a configuration change to the server that will likely resolve this with a relog.

Very cool and thank you! (Just checked both look good)

[rabidfox]

As long as your redoing stuff in the Elf Arcane Archer tree for the imbues, could all the cores be redone to match the progression of every other tree in the game; it's so silly that one has to respec their character in epic levels if they want the later cores on an Elf AA build. The entire level progression of the Elf AA cores that follows some old school design concept feels so out of place with the existence of universal trees.

https://i.imgur.com/jWEPOCI.jpg

[Xezom]

The Jaded change from preview one is definitely a good change. Glad to see that went in.

Still would argue that Pure AA needs something in it's T5 to compensate for it losing it's identity as a top tier imbue tree, and from a CC archer standpoint I'd love to see the Imbue system overhaul give the non-damaging imbues some love as well. I know that those of us that play full CC/Efffect archers are few and far between but we are out here. I wouldn't put any power in the lower tiers of the tree at all so it's not abusable to anyone other than true AAs tho. The idea would be to define and sharpen their identity as king of Imbues for pure AAs. RuneBow would be a prime candidate as far as places to add some spice. Also while we're on the topic, I'd love if the Capstone allowed you to choose between 4 Dex and 4 Wisdom.


As long as your redoing stuff in the Elf Arcane Archer tree for the imbues, could all the cores be redone to match the progression of every other tree in the game; it's so silly that one has to respec their character in epic levels if they want the later cores on an Elf AA build. The entire level progression of the Elf AA cores that follows some old school design concept feels so out of place with the existence of universal trees.

https://i.imgur.com/jWEPOCI.jpg

See this one I disagree with. Part of the drawback of playing a free AA Splash (or off class AA) is that the progression is slower. You get way more firepower with this system overhaul by having access to AA, it should be gated. Granted, those secondary Imbues only work with Bows, it's still a very powerful additional tree for anyone building Imbue dice. I agree that it's sorta goofy to have to respec in your epic levels to adjust your heroic points, but for the extra power you get, I personally feel like it's a fair trade. If Elf/H-Elf AA had no drawbacks, it'd be the undisputed king of Imbues beating even the Default AA given it'll have access to the Imbue dice from other Class trees that True Ranger AA simply will not have without multiclassing. At endgame, E-AA will still be superior to ranger AA when played with any other class with decent Imbue dice (Silver Flame dark Apostate Arcane Archers are going to be kinda gross), so I personally don't feel that it's wrong to make it take some extra time to reach that point.

[Jarlaxis]

Copied a Favored Soul WS build over to test things. Favored weapon is Longbow, tried to turn on the toggle and it said "wrong weapon type" since there are SF levels as well tried handwraps. The toggle acts like an attack and doesn't stay on. Swapped back to longbow and again "wrong weapon type"

[Zeklijan]

Destinies:

Shiradi Champion mantle gains 1d77 per 7 bonus dice - this is not an imbue toggle BUT gains benefits from your imbue dice!
Draconic Tier 3 now grants +1/2/3 Dice
Crusade! buff in Divine Crusader now grants +1 dice
Ghost Touch in LD is now "Esoteric Touch" and grants both Ghost Touch and +1 Imbue Dice
Shared Mantle in PA now also grants +3 Imbue Dice while within the PA Mantle



What type of bonuses are Crusade, Esoteric Touch and Shared Mantle's dice bonus? Do they stack with the draconic extra dice or no?

[Lynnabel]

Copied a Favored Soul WS build over to test things. Favored weapon is Longbow, tried to turn on the toggle and it said "wrong weapon type" since there are SF levels as well tried handwraps. The toggle acts like an attack and doesn't stay on. Swapped back to longbow and again "wrong weapon type"

Great catch, now fixed.


What type of bonuses are Crusade, Esoteric Touch and Shared Mantle's dice bonus? Do they stack with the draconic extra dice or no?

They have no type, so they should stack with everything.

[Cableman]

Testing with my enlightened spirit warlock ( level 30 )

Should be getting 4d6 imbue light damage on each melee strike and eldritch aura strike.

The imbue damage is not applying at all.

I'm only seeing the imbue light damage apply to Eldritch Burst and Spirit Blast. It doesn't work on the aura or your basic blast. It also seemed like spell power wasn't affecting the imbue die, with 10d6, I was sometimes seeing damage in the 20's and 30's on the training dummy.

[ivorycoaster]

Shared Mantle and the tier 3 draconic epic destiny enhancement do not stack. is this WAI?

[Lynnabel]

Shared Mantle and the tier 3 draconic epic destiny enhancement do not stack. is this WAI?

Actually it turns out that the Draconic enhancement is currently nonfuctional - now fixed internally! Great catch, thank you.

[Xezom]

Bugs for DA Warlock Dilly

Bless and Prayer do not proc the Warlock Dilly Imbue for the added fire damage on hit. Doesn't matter if it's SLA Prayer or spell book. Neither work. Tested all of the "offensive" pray for Mercy Spells at level 7 with pray for mercy point taken and Warlock Dilly Imbue active.

[Lynnabel]

I'm only seeing the imbue light damage apply to Eldritch Burst and Spirit Blast. It doesn't work on the aura or your basic blast. It also seemed like spell power wasn't affecting the imbue die, with 10d6, I was sometimes seeing damage in the 20's and 30's on the training dummy.

Investigating!

Update: I think I've gotten this fixed. Thank you!

[rabidfox]

See this one I disagree with. Part of the drawback of playing a free AA Splash (or off class AA) is that the progression is slower. You get way more firepower with this system overhaul by having access to AA, it should be gated. Granted, those secondary Imbues only work with Bows, it's still a very powerful additional tree for anyone building Imbue dice. I agree that it's sorta goofy to have to respec in your epic levels to adjust your heroic points, but for the extra power you get, I personally feel like it's a fair trade. If Elf/H-Elf AA had no drawbacks, it'd be the undisputed king of Imbues beating even the Default AA given it'll have access to the Imbue dice from other Class trees that True Ranger AA simply will not have without multiclassing. At endgame, E-AA will still be superior to ranger AA when played with any other class with decent Imbue dice (Silver Flame dark Apostate Arcane Archers are going to be kinda gross), so I personally don't feel that it's wrong to make it take some extra time to reach that point.

We have universal trees. It just silly that anything related to heroic trees requires epic levels to take. It's an outdate design model.

[Monkey_Archer]

Fighter stuff is actually in the other thread, check it out (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/535274-U57-Preview-2-Hit-Point-Pass)!
Kensei are currently glass cannon dps builds, and nothing more... and they aren't even the top melee dps build...

I don't understand or support nerfing their dps this hard and justifying it with a bit of self healing. lol

[Firebreed]

Glad to see more people bringing up Arcane Archer in this preview, despite the fact that Lynn clearly hasn't been interested in discussing it in either thread (no hard feelings).

In one last attempt to generate discussion around it, I'll quote my post regarding AA from the previous thread:


Arcane Archer has been lacking as a tree for some time now, being strictly inferior to DWS and HW, especially on higher levels. To my surprise, given that it is the de-facto imbue tree along with Eldritch Knight, nothing really changed for it (besides Force Arrows being d8s instead of d6s). Would you consider any of the following:
1) Making its imbues scale with Ranged Power?
2) Adding some dice in the cores (they are considred quite weak as is)?
3) Merging (probably partially) the T5 +2 Imbue Dice/Improved Elemental Arrows multiselector into one option?

For those asking about the non-damage imbues, nothing changed for them either. They currently do not interact with Imbue Dice.

[Xezom]

We have universal trees. It just silly that anything related to heroic trees requires epic levels to take. It's an outdate design model.

I get that. But none of the universal trees are identical copies of a tree you get from a dedicated class either. Elf/H-elf AA is unique in that it poaches a class tree, and with racial completion is essentially free. Given it's unique in doing that, I don't feel it's unreasonable to give it a unique drawback. I agreed in my original post that having to respec in epics for heroic points is wonky but without it, it would need some other gating or drawback.


Glad to see more people bringing up Arcane Archer in this preview, despite the fact that Lynn clearly hasn't been interested in discussing it in either thread (no hard feelings).

In one last attempt to generate discussion around it, I'll quote my post regarding AA from the previous thread:



For those asking about the non-damage imbues, nothing changed for them either. They currently do not interact with Imbue Dice.

Yeah I would love if they would do something for the non-damaging imbues. I, personally, like that the AA damage imbues scale with spell power. Its just unfortunate that in Epics the shiradi Stay Good/Strong/Loud/Toxic (Which is coincidentally a great description for the forums on any given day) only scale with range power if you are using a bow to proc it. Wish it would scale with the better of Melee/Ranged OR Spell power regardless of the source. Would make spell power stacking AA scale better in Epics. As it is, stacking spell power for AA isn't that great in Epics because your procs from EDs are all based on ranged power. Which I suppose is why you're suggesting changing the AA imbues to Ranged power for continuity purposes. Hunt's End and Arrow of Slaying are still the Bread and Butter combo, even after the Multishot neutering of it back with the bow overhaul.

[Lynnabel]

Kensei are currently glass cannon dps builds, and nothing more... and they aren't even the top melee dps build...

I don't understand or support nerfing their dps this hard and justifying it with a bit of self healing. lol

Forgive me, but, just so we're all on the same page, what exactly is nerfing fighter's DPS with this overhaul?

[Monkey_Archer]

Forgive me, but, just so we're all on the same page, what exactly is nerfing fighter's DPS with this overhaul?
Removal of Law/Chaos feats is a direct nerf. Buffing literally everything else with a bare minimum of 100 damage per swing if not higher is a proxy nerf.

I completely understand the even larger proxy nerf to EK builds, they have a lot more going for them and the EDF removal is a big part of that.

Fighter has nothing going for them other than dps, so putting them down to B+ tier dps makes no sense to me. Rogues, barbs, likely now paladins, and probably still EK are all going to be higher dps then kensei now in my estimation.

Of course you can splash 1 paladin level or be drow I guess...

[jackatthekilns]

I have noticed that Artificer Elemental Weapons does not seem to add the imbue dice. I was playing a male warforged artificer using the Inquisitive tree. Law on your side was active. While Elemental weapons was active, I never did more than 4 law damage and often did 1 point of damage which would indicate only one die was being rolled

[Lynnabel]

Removal of Law/Chaos feats is a direct nerf. Buffing literally everything else with a bare minimum of 100 damage per swing if not higher is a proxy nerf.

I completely understand the even larger proxy nerf to EK builds, they have a lot more going for them and the EDF removal is a big part of that.

Fighter has nothing going for them other than dps, so putting them down to B+ tier dps makes no sense to me. Rogues, barbs, likely now paladins, and probably still EK are all going to be higher dps then kensei now in my estimation.

Of course you can splash 1 paladin level or be drow I guess...

The law/chaos stuff is interesting, lets get into it.

Chaos one is pretty easy for us to math out - the 2d20 chaos damage scaling with melee power (and 1d20 bane damage, also scaling) is pretty unlikely to be less DPS than 2% doublestrike or doubleshot. Well, I suppose if you were capped on Doublestrike, then yes, the feat will do nothing for you, so if that's the case then yes you're losing that DPS.

The law one is more complex at first blush but in practice it does end up being a buff. Given that the 12d6 Law damage is staying right where it was before in Divine Crusader (and from my understanding, players tended to take this feat specifically for that synergy) then you are in fact not losing any DPS since the proc is the same as before. You will gain some PRR and MRR though which is fun.

I bring all this up because our intention was absolutely not to make these feats (or by proxy Fighters) worse in any way. So if there's anything you can think of that could make things more equitable let me know.

[Monkey_Archer]

The law/chaos stuff is interesting, lets get into it.

Chaos one is pretty easy for us to math out - the 2d20 chaos damage scaling with melee power (and 1d20 bane damage, also scaling) is pretty unlikely to be less DPS than 2% doublestrike or doubleshot. Well, I suppose if you were capped on Doublestrike, then yes, the feat will do nothing for you, so if that's the case then yes you're losing that DPS.

The law one is more complex at first blush but in practice it does end up being a buff. Given that the 12d6 Law damage is staying right where it was before in Divine Crusader (and from my understanding, players tended to take this feat specifically for that synergy) then you are in fact not losing any DPS since the proc is the same as before. You will gain some PRR and MRR though which is fun.

Well, this issue really is just pure fighters. 18/1/1 can still splash for an imbue and abuse vistani.

I'd say the real issue is actually the kensei capstone. While its nice to be able to easily cap doublestrike, its not enough actual dps to justify a pure build (which yes, goes against the new chaos feat as well). Perhaps if you don't want to give fighters and imbue at lower levels, the capstone would be a good place for one? or something else

[Tanky]

The Embodiment of Law and Harbinger of Chaos are great changes and flavor.


(Enhanced Elemental Dice - Destiny Feat) +1 Dice
In comparison, the mechanics with this feat are a bit lacking. I understand the tradeoff with choosing a Lawful or Chaotic alignment, as you're now affected by things you weren't affected by before. But this ED feat is also only available at level 31. Maybe add a little something something to it.

Also, what did you decide with splitting out Alignment damage into Light/Good and Negative/Evil? I thought that was a great flavor change, though it does have some downstream effects. Namely, Utterdark Blast in Tainted Scholar. If you do go ahead with splitting out that damage, consider adding a multiselector for a Good version of Utterdark Blast.

[Lynnabel]

I have noticed that Artificer Elemental Weapons does not seem to add the imbue dice. I was playing a male warforged artificer using the Inquisitive tree. Law on your side was active. While Elemental weapons was active, I never did more than 4 law damage and often did 1 point of damage which would indicate only one die was being rolled

These spells appear to be granting the bonus dice to your weapon :P whoopsie! Should be fixed, thank you.

[Stradivarius]

@Lynnabel

My barb on live is actually doing a bit more damage than on Lam. Perhaps a bit more dice possibly in regular frenzy (and not all in death frenzy). Thank you. Love all the other stuff (especially inquisitive).

[jskinner937]

I do not know what happened between u56 and the u57 preview, but clearly feedback was recognized.

Even though not everything made it in preview 2, I just wanted to say thank you for listening and this is a move in a positive direction.

[vyvy3369]

The law/chaos stuff is interesting, lets get into it.

Chaos one is pretty easy for us to math out - the 2d20 chaos damage scaling with melee power (and 1d20 bane damage, also scaling) is pretty unlikely to be less DPS than 2% doublestrike or doubleshot. Well, I suppose if you were capped on Doublestrike, then yes, the feat will do nothing for you, so if that's the case then yes you're losing that DPS.

The law one is more complex at first blush but in practice it does end up being a buff. Given that the 12d6 Law damage is staying right where it was before in Divine Crusader (and from my understanding, players tended to take this feat specifically for that synergy) then you are in fact not losing any DPS since the proc is the same as before. You will gain some PRR and MRR though which is fun.

I bring all this up because our intention was absolutely not to make these feats (or by proxy Fighters) worse in any way. So if there's anything you can think of that could make things more equitable let me know.

Giving Kensei an imbue seems like a good way to do it. 4 of their 6 cores deal with making their chosen weapon group more powerful, it seems very appropriate for them to be able to imbue their weapons.

[Monkey_Archer]

Giving Kensei an imbue seems like a good way to do it. 4 of their 6 cores deal with making their chosen weapon group more powerful, it seems very appropriate for them to be able to imbue their weapons.
A seeker imbue would be fun. 2 seeker per imbue dice would be weaker than a d6 on hit, but scale better with Deadly Strike, etc..

[Nothingtoseehere]

Warlock:

(Enlightened Spirit Tier 4) 1d6 Light, Light spell power (ALSO APPLIES TO ELDRITCH BLASTS, no other toggle does this)
(Enlightened Spirit Core 5) +3 bonus dice while in Celestial Spirit form



The bonus dice for Enlightened Spirit requiring the use of Celestial Spirit remains a glaring issue from preview 1 for 2 major reasons.
1. Celestial Spirit is a Major form, which clashes even on a pure Warlock if you went Abyss Warlock, outright excluding some Warlocks from ever being allowed to use this ability. :(
2. Even if not playing an Abyss Warlock, Celestial Spirit still contains Featherfall, making it an undesirable stance to toggle on in almost all circumstances (and yes I know I can block to cancel Featherfall. That is not a useful solution in any way, shape or form.)

Simply making the bonus dice passive adresses the concerns regarding the Imbue overhaul, if not the underpinning issues with Celestial Spirit. It is a 31 ap investment and at elast 18 Warlock levels. putting it in a stance with a debuff and mutually exclusiveness with another cornerstone Warlock stance is just salt on the wound.

Please change this.

[Baahb3]

Testing Greater Bloodsong from Tiefling Scoundrel on test kobolds does not show any sonic damage to target between 75% and 25%. Once you get lower than 25%, sonic damage starts showing up.

If I train just Bloodsong, I get sonic damage at 75%. If I then train Improved Bloodsong, sonic damage goes away until I get below 50%. Then when training Greater Bloodsong, again sonic damage goes away until I get below 25%.

It does not work this way on live. You do 1d4 at 75%, then 1d4+1d6 at 50% and then 1d4+1d6+1d8 at 25%.

@Lynnabel, can you clarify how this is going to work with the Imbue changes. Are we only going to get damage at the lowest % based on trained Bloodsong enhancements?

I would bug report this but the in game Help screen is blank for me and no in the dark clicking gets me anywhere.

[songswrath]

The law/chaos stuff is interesting, lets get into it.

Chaos one is pretty easy for us to math out - the 2d20 chaos damage scaling with melee power (and 1d20 bane damage, also scaling) is pretty unlikely to be less DPS than 2% doublestrike or doubleshot. Well, I suppose if you were capped on Doublestrike, then yes, the feat will do nothing for you, so if that's the case then yes you're losing that DPS.

The law one is more complex at first blush but in practice it does end up being a buff. Given that the 12d6 Law damage is staying right where it was before in Divine Crusader (and from my understanding, players tended to take this feat specifically for that synergy) then you are in fact not losing any DPS since the proc is the same as before. You will gain some PRR and MRR though which is fun.

I bring all this up because our intention was absolutely not to make these feats (or by proxy Fighters) worse in any way. So if there's anything you can think of that could make things more equitable let me know.

not exactly true here. as it stands right now. if you do a pally kotc or sf this is a huge nerf .leave them alone there enough melee nerfs in this update. dont kill the major dps part of DC e.d.

[Komradkillingmachine]

Questions about "Hunt or be Hunted" dice augments. Are all 3 types have been converted to generic imbue dice and therefore not stacking? If they're all the same now (after conversion) they should at least stack in inventory and in the augment bags.

[Bagel99]

Hey Lyn, real fast since i noticed some folks above wanting some love for AA CC and utility toggles. Why not allow one of them to be applied with normal shots but cause a -20% Damage penalty similar to IPS ? OR simply allow imbue dice to apply to the DC of things like Para Arrows as a T5 ? I think that would be a nice way to allow in some extra DC potential!

On a side note, i miss old old old Melfs Acid Arrow imbue for AA which applied stacking copies of the spell. Is there any way to get this into the game again somehow? Maybe a Filigree set in the future that applied some acid damage over time on crit? I know burning arrows does something similar at the top of AA but its not the same :)

Love the updates and i think fighter should have some type of Imbue still, i know Second wind will help survivability but it would be cool if Fighters imbue wasn't like a normal guaranteed one but similar to Barbarians FB core that has a % chance to deal a good chunk of scaling damage, why not allow fighters a toggle that on Vorpal or a random 5%-10% chance to deal 1d20 Damage per imbue dice scaling with Melee power on a 3 second cooldown ?

[Kielbasa]

The law/chaos stuff is interesting, lets get into it.

Chaos one is pretty easy for us to math out - the 2d20 chaos damage scaling with melee power (and 1d20 bane damage, also scaling) is pretty unlikely to be less DPS than 2% doublestrike or doubleshot. Well, I suppose if you were capped on Doublestrike, then yes, the feat will do nothing for you, so if that's the case then yes you're losing that DPS.

The law one is more complex at first blush but in practice it does end up being a buff. Given that the 12d6 Law damage is staying right where it was before in Divine Crusader (and from my understanding, players tended to take this feat specifically for that synergy) then you are in fact not losing any DPS since the proc is the same as before. You will gain some PRR and MRR though which is fun.

I bring all this up because our intention was absolutely not to make these feats (or by proxy Fighters) worse in any way. So if there's anything you can think of that could make things more equitable let me know.

Fighters have a quasi imbue already with spiritual bond the second core in kensei through meditative focus and its +1 enhancement bonus per stack of meditative focus. Just scale it creatively with imbue dice. For example every imbue dice the fighter has will grant them +1 to hit +2 damage +2 melee power or ranged power depending on their weapon focus. Maybe double their effective imbue dice when at max stacks of meditative focus to incentivize the people who keep keep their dps uptime high.

[Talnar00]

not exactly true here. as it stands right now. if you do a pally kotc or sf this is a huge nerf .leave them alone there enough melee nerfs in this update. dont kill the major dps part of DC e.d.

How is this a huge nerf for KotC? They lose a single die from their cores, but get 2 back at 28 with embodiment of law, and 1 back at 30 if going arborea. They still get the scaling 12d6 if they go T5 Divine Crusader and have taken embodiment of law as a feat.

[SWCarter]

1. Celestial Spirit is a Major form, which clashes even on a pure Warlock if you went Abyss Warlock, outright excluding some Warlocks from ever being allowed to use this ability.


+1 to this. Please make sure that going the Abyss route does not carry even more detriments than it does today due to the inability to use the Celestial Spirit toggle. In fact, can we just get rid of Celestial Spirit as a toggle entirely, and just build its bonuses into the core?

[Xezom]

Hey Lyn, real fast since i noticed some folks above wanting some love for AA CC and utility toggles. Why not allow one of them to be applied with normal shots but cause a -20% Damage penalty similar to IPS ? OR simply allow imbue dice to apply to the DC of things like Para Arrows as a T5 ? I think that would be a nice way to allow in some extra DC potential!

On a side note, i miss old old old Melfs Acid Arrow imbue for AA which applied stacking copies of the spell. Is there any way to get this into the game again somehow? Maybe a Filigree set in the future that applied some acid damage over time on crit? I know burning arrows does something similar at the top of AA but its not the same :)


It was suggested in Preview one to add 1 DC to the CC Imbues per imbue dice. I think that might be a bit much considering the number of dice you can get, but even at 50% (1 dc per 2 imbue dice) that'd be a nice benefit. Rangers can't take Epic spell focus, which I know is only 1 DC, but every point counts so having the imbues add to DC for CC archers would definitely help late and higher difficulty.

I really like this AA idea. I'd be happy to give up 20% damage for the ability to use BOTH an Elemental Imbue and a Utility Imbue. Still keeps with the switching toggle nature of the AA as well, which is to switch your toggle/Imbue based on what you are facing. You'd just simply drop your CC imbue against single target bosses to not suffer the 20% penalty since most aren't effected by them anyway. I would love to see some bows introduced that support AA theme better. The Elemental Bow of Elements (Air) is fairly close since it can support the electric AA (Although that's not used a ton). I'd love more bows like Tortured Livewood Bow, but with enough oomph to make them useful late game. A Wisdom scaling enchantment bow would knock it out of the park.

[Sqrlmonger]

How is this a huge nerf for KotC? They lose a single die from their cores, but get 2 back at 28 with embodiment of law, and 1 back at 30 if going arborea. They still get the scaling 12d6 if they go T5 Divine Crusader and have taken embodiment of law as a feat.

KoTC doesn't grant Embodiment of Law or Arborea.

So KoTC doesn't "get" anything by giving up what it used to have to other feats, a particular build that takes those feats might, but KoTC is still worse for the exchange.

Small adjustments like this don't make a big difference on their own, but over time they can create build paths that are objectively the best and reduce build diversity rather than increasing it.

[peng]

As it is, not all builds have access to, or can easily fit, an imbue. I'd recommend having the law/chaos feats add an imbue (1d6 or 1d8 law/chaos damage, scaling with melee/ranged power, no matter your alignment) along with the extra dice if your alignment matches. Or maybe a feat that gives a 1d6 imbue that scales with the highest of melee/ranged/half spellpower. That way any build has access to an imbue, but most builds won't have to spend a feat on it.

[Firebreed]

Just wanted to voice that I like this build's implementation of the Chaos/Law feats.

[Mindos]

The law/chaos stuff is interesting, lets get into it.

Chaos one is pretty easy for us to math out - the 2d20 chaos damage scaling with melee power (and 1d20 bane damage, also scaling) is pretty unlikely to be less DPS than 2% doublestrike or doubleshot. Well, I suppose if you were capped on Doublestrike, then yes, the feat will do nothing for you, so if that's the case then yes you're losing that DPS

Maybe bring back the chaos/bane damage, but much smaller, on crit/vorpal maybe, does 1d5 chaos, 1d2 bane, scaling etc. Score two vorpals in a row, do X damage, etc. IDK Or on vorpal, get random duration 3-20 seconds chaos/bane buff, 1d7 something something scales with blah blah.

Thematic ish. Random ish. Does "some" damage but not "too much". Can't really be counted on, but is still there. Now you can keep the 2 percent double/ss and there's something for those capped on doublestrike.

And if anyone complains it's not enough or not dependable enough or not enough to rely on, then I would ask them: "Why are you taking a Chaotic thing and wanting rock solid stuff?" :p

[Shedrakzo]

It looks like the majority of the changes in this preview are bug fixes from the initial implementation.

Is there still a chance that the Tiefling Bloodhunt /Iconic Bloodsong can be changed or at least modified? As they both stand, the only class that would benefit using either imbue is Fighter that doesn’t innately gain an imbue.

Can we please change it so that the scaling progression changes so that at the first rank you get all versions of the effect: 1d4 at 75%, 1d6 at 50%, 1d8 at 25%, etc. And that the subsequent ranks at level 7 and 16 grant +1 imbue dice.

This still doesn’t make either imbue very attractive, but it at least gives tieflings a bit of a value that was lost when they went from spell critical chance to fire critical damage.

It also means we’ll have two races that directly gain access to Imbue Dice bonuses with Drow and Tieflings. Elf, Wood Elf, and Half-Elf will then be additional options via the Elven Arcane Archer.

More importantly, this means that the Scoundrel gets a more reinforced identity as the bard iconic in the sense that it gains additional imbue dice for either Warchanter or Swashbuckler.

The other point of concern for me is “(Enlightened Spirit Core 5) +3 bonus dice while in Celestial Spirit form” I hate feeling like we’re beating on a dead horse every time Enlightened Spirit gets touched, but what about Abyssal Warlocks playing auralocks? Would this be able to be changed to just being a +3 dice bonus tied to the level 18 core? We already divorced the competence HP bonus from Celestial Spirit and tied it to the capstone. Please give our poor Abyssal Warlock friends another consideration.

[Artrea]

Is there any way to give pets an imbue?
Greater elemental weapon buff I guess from an Artificer?
I was hoping Shared Mantle would do something like this.
Not a complaint, but just a fun concept for my Druid :)

[draven1]

Imbues using spell power have significant advantage over imbues using melee/range power.

Because spell power can reach 1200~1600 range, but, melee/range power can't.
Spell power have 3x~4x more than melee/range power.

[drewollice]

"(Warchanter) Each core beyond the first grants +1 Dice"

it looks like they all do with exception of lvl 12 core for warchanter.

confirmed its not merely a text issue. per the general combat in (+) on character sheet, the core indeed isnot granting the imbue die.

[thomascoolone64]

Or is that just locked to S.F's Sacred flame imbue?

[Bjond]

Feats:

(Embodiment of Law - Destiny Feat) is now: +3 PRR and MRR. if you are lawful, you also gain +2 imbue dice
(Embodiment of Chaos - Destiny Feat) is now: +2% doublestrike and doubleshot. If you are chaotic, you also gain +2 imbue dice


The alignment restrictions are not viable for current builds. They're in use across the full spectrum right now and become pointless if you keep these changes. They're fine for future builds.

Overall, even if the imbue change greatly buffs or nerfs procs, I don't see the imbue change as much of an issue. Procs as they are on live are pure fluff. The few times I've tried proc builds, I had to punt them for ultra-low dps. You'd have to buff them a lot (like x10 or more) to make them viable. That's plenty of space for tuning.

[dkyle]

Tiefling imbues are still blatantly terrible, especially compared to SK getting one of the best, for less investment. Dice should start at d8 at least, and be a single enhancement. Then at least it wouldn't be almost strictly worse than every other imbue.

Even then, not sure I'd use it over the Bard ones on a Scoundrel.

[SpardaX]

I asked before in the preview of Sacred Fist, and I'll ask again here since it seems like it's just becoming more and more required.

Can we please remove the -1 Ki on hit of Lighting the Candle? In a world where multiple other classes get toggles that are as strong as, or in many cases, stronger than, lighting the candle (Especially now that it only does 1d6 fire regardless of weapon type (with the 1d6 force on crit), do we still really need the -1 Ki? Lower the +2 Ki on Quarterstaff hit in Henshin Core 3 to only +1 if you have to in compensation, but having a toggle that functionally makes anyone not using a quarterstaff almost entirely unable to even build ki, seems not good.

Or, since I'm about 95% sure Lyn will read this, can I just ask why you feel it should stay?

It's really disappointing and confusing to me making a Monk / SF, seeing the SF toggle do x3 or x4 the Lighting the Candle toggle, and still the game thinks the Lighting the Candle toggle is the one that deserves the penalty.

[Rilok]

Do these imbues apply only once per attack or do doublestrike/shot apply to each additional ?

[grudgebear]

(Swashbuckler Tier 3) 1d6 Sonic Damage on hit, scaling wit Sonic Spellpower (note: this was the sonic on-crit thing)


Swash had an useful proc on crits with 6d6 sonic damage, it even procced when your fort bypass failed on the enemy.

Why there is no room given for Swashbuckler to grow it's proc in that tree? Warchanter got it. Others too.

Also does this toggle still require Swashbuckling stance?

[Tilomere]

[COLOR="#00FF00"]
So! A pretty huge list of changes, lots to digest. Your thoughts, questions, suggestions are always welcome! :)

Nerf warlock?

[TueNictGut]

Reposting my suggestions for the Harper tree here, as i posted them very late in the last thread:

Harper is a popular split for int to hit and dmg and the int trance
Apart from eschew materials in t4 its rarely to nearly never used beyond this. Simply as its too wide spread and outdated in terms of power.

I have the following suggestions to change this with the imbue changes:

- The t5 enchant weapon is quite outdated and thematically cries for improvements with imbue dice or bonus dmg to imbuedice in my opinion.

- while yo are at it Improve the numbers on versatile adept IV to modern standards (you could basicaly improve the whole line I to IV)and reduce the 3 ap needed and t5 harper might become a viable option, thats interesting to build around for some characktersplits

- As t4 is really lacking too, you could add some dice here and give enchant weapon in t5 a bonus on every dice
- you could also add a harper imbue of some kind here, maybe force to give melee an option for an force imbue.

- Maybe change throat dagger to eye dagger that blinds and induces helplessness, which would make it much more worth some investment
Thx for reading and considering, would be very happy to hear some feedback on this :)

[Arlathen]

An Imbue is a new type of toggle in DDO that adds extra damage to your attacks. This extra damage can be specific to certain weapon types, certain combat styles, or even be focused on melee or ranged. Imbues can also scale with things, such as Melee or Ranged Power. You can only have one Imbue active at a time, which means turning on a new Imbue while one is already on will turn the old one off.

Ranger:

(Ranger - Tempest) 1d8 Electric, melee or ranged power
(Ranger - Arcane Archer) 1d8 Fire/Cold/Acid/Electric, appropriate Spell Power
(Ranger - Arcane Archer) 1d8 Force, force spellpower
(Arcane Archer) Tiers 2, 3, 4, and 5 grant +2 Dice each
Note: All other primary Arcane Archer imbues are also now imbues in this system.



Ok, this might need some core coding alterations, but can changes be made so that an Imbue can remain active for each type of fighting style? I appreciate that the system was design with an inherent limitation of "one Imbue active at a time", but I feel this is for damage stacking reasons rather than limiting gameplay?

I call out Ranger specifically here as I want to be able to access a Melee Imbue from Tempest and a Ranged Imbue from Arcane Archer. I tested on Lammania and if I try to flip between styles of fighting, then I have to manually change Imbue and with the activation animation being slow and clunky for this kind of faced-paced style swapping, it's not really viable with the way the system works at present.

Ideally, I should be able to flow through styles as quickly as Quickdraw allows me too. I can currently swap between Melee and Ranged, with current fighting stances such as Power Attack and Improved Precise Shot still being enabled in both modes. It would be a boon to the system if we could do this here.

Alternatively, is it worth just allowing the Tempest Imbue to function for both Melee and Ranged Combat? Especially since the Tempest tree doesn't have bonus Imbue dice natively?




Feats:

(Scion of the Feywild - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Earth - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Fire - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Water - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Air - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice



I'd really like to see keeping an Imbue toggle for these feats, that affects our melee and ranged attacks simultaneously. I did whinge incessantly about this in Preview 1, but I'm beginning to suspect that Imbues are limited to specific fighting styles and with the cross-style nature of these feats they've just been turned into Imbue dice for simplicity.

Any chance we can see these toggles/imbues return on the Elemental Scion feats?

[jackatthekilns]

I am testing an AA/Inquis build and I have noticed that the Corrosive Arrows imbue has +1 bonus die in its tooltip. I also took elemental damage (+2 bonus dice) with Law on Your Side active (and no other bonus dice from Inquis) My character sheet is listing 2 bonus dice. My understanding was the Imbues themselves did not grant bonus dice (LOYS does not) I just want to make sure the tooltip matches the in game reality. So I don't know if the tooltip needs to be changed or the number of bonus dice. I confirmed that Elemental Damage was granting the 2 bonus dice as described in its tooltip, so Corrosive Arrows (and presumably Elemental Dice in general) is the problem.

[songswrath]

Questions about "Hunt or be Hunted" dice augments. Are all 3 types have been converted to generic imbue dice and therefore not stacking? If they're all the same now (after conversion) they should at least stack in inventory and in the augment bags.

one would think so since this is just a huge nerf and ppl dont see it yet. what people fail to understand is all the imbues was separate procs .by getting rid of the many to give a small boost to one general damage type is a huge blow to over all dps for melee not as bad for casters as they can by pass damage immunity. i just really wish the dev team stop messing with stuff that is not broken.

[songswrath]

Swash had an useful proc on crits with 6d6 sonic damage, it even procced when your fort bypass failed on the enemy.

Why there is no room given for Swashbuckler to grow it's proc in that tree? Warchanter got it. Others too.

Also does this toggle still require Swashbuckling stance?

that's the whole point of this it's a quasi nerf. every test i done so far over all dps is much lower. many smaller and med size procs are better than one big one. even more so when your damage type heals or does zero damage to mobs. please stop trying to reinvent the game every update

[Kortar]

Giving Kensei an imbue seems like a good way to do it. 4 of their 6 cores deal with making their chosen weapon group more powerful, it seems very appropriate for them to be able to imbue their weapons.

Kensei Imbue : Have the imbue dices applied directly to your focus weapon.

+X[W] per imbue dice, replacing X by whatever constant is deemed appropriate for game balance.

[SpardaX]

I am testing an AA/Inquis build and I have noticed that the Corrosive Arrows imbue has +1 bonus die in its tooltip. I also took elemental damage (+2 bonus dice) with Law on Your Side active (and no other bonus dice from Inquis) My character sheet is listing 2 bonus dice. My understanding was the Imbues themselves did not grant bonus dice (LOYS does not) I just want to make sure the tooltip matches the in game reality. So I don't know if the tooltip needs to be changed or the number of bonus dice. I confirmed that Elemental Damage was granting the 2 bonus dice as described in its tooltip, so Corrosive Arrows (and presumably Elemental Dice in general) is the problem.

I think if you copied said character to Lam with AA already taken, you should respec AA. I did a character that had that, and it said +1 Imbue dice in AA Tier 1, but then after I respec-ed it and learned AA again it stopped saying that.

[Stravix]

Kensei Imbue : Have the imbue dices applied directly to your focus weapon.

+X[W] per imbue dice, replacing X by whatever constant is deemed appropriate for game balance.

That doesn't sound too bad, but I would say X has to be less than one. 0.5 might be pushing it, but 0.25 doesn't seem impactful enough at first blush (would love to see some math on this) and how it would compare on a per dice basis to a MP/RPx2 imbue.

At low/no scaling, it would be around 1.25 base damage, but by 32 it would be a base damage of 2.75 base damage before crit profile per dice. Looking back, that might not be too bad at 0.25, but might actually be a bit too strong, if anything.

I'm sure there is a number for X that works well, and this is an idea i could get behind. Just lock it in a higher core of Kensei and you are good.

[jackatthekilns]

I think if you copied said character to Lam with AA already taken, you should respec AA. I did a character that had that, and it said +1 Imbue dice in AA Tier 1, but then after I respec-ed it and learned AA again it stopped saying that.

It was a brand new character on Lam

[Abilbo]

Not sure if this goes in the imbue chat thread, but as I was trying to build a new imbue character, and this is where I found this issue, here I post.

My character, 3Xcompletionist, has 21% ranged attack speed at level 32 not wearing any gear, not having any enhancements, reaper enhancements, or destiny's filled in.

I put on the goggles from the profane experiment set, which is the 30% movement speed buff, and a 15% attack speed buff and my character goes to 36% ranged attack speed bonus.

NOTHING else increases this. No enhancements, no buffs, no spells, no destinys. Nothing increases the buff above 36%. If this is WAI and the way its supposed to be, i am happy to shut up and move along, but as my shooters seem to get well over 50% with no issues, this seems to be off.

Help, advice, angry replies would be welcome, anything to acknowledge this.

[FatBudScream]

As far as I could I tried to read every comment, but I failed after a wide headache due to excessive complaining from the thread, I still look for simple answers, maybe I skipped them because too many replies before, but here is my question :

WHERE will I see every information about imbue choice ? I agree I'll choose one by a key toggle, but how about description, update in detailed recap of the character secondary stats ?
Is there a menu showing every possible imbue choice my build gives right now - so no possible confusion ? with a list of non-available or existing amongst all ?
Is this some new type of option 'IMBUE & DICE' ? in the main character screen ? in the detailed section ( + key)?
Will it give the specific number of actual imbue dice + others due to enhancements (feat, ED, filis ,whatever).. access to the calucation ?
What about the elements, will any recap show me what specific type of Imbue I selected ?
Will it be constantly refreshed at every change or need the character to check again in dungeon ?

Moreover, this imbue seems to follow the generic rules of proc, will it get any chance to appear in a different way on the overhead damage on target ? Possible display in separate way ? Color change due to elemental source chosen (or non-elemental) ? Option to show it or not in the overhead display in game pannel ? Total damage calculation or split damage?
And what about the combat log? It is already difficult to navigate inside and find back your numbers information, will it beneficiate from new line of dispay in the log we can activate or not ? Any new line of damage added to the others (XXX get hit by XdX type damage - like)?

Is there a way to see a fast recap by just looking at my weapon ? Will this disappear when I unequip ?
Is this new Imbue just a standard rework with nothing on the UI to help being sure or just easily remembering your choice? like simple colored key toggle activation ?
Does this Imbue toggle has specific overhead character animation so we can rely on it during and outside fight encounter ? (pretty much like swapping Archer focus or social skills ?)

I'd love to hear if this will lead to any UI and or active display addition.

(my aplogies for the baby english, tried my best to translate my expectations and worries)

[Abilbo]

Not sure if this goes in the imbue chat thread, but as I was trying to build a new imbue character, and this is where I found this issue, here I post.

My character, 3Xcompletionist, has 21% ranged attack speed at level 32 not wearing any gear, not having any enhancements, reaper enhancements, or destiny's filled in.

I put on the goggles from the profane experiment set, which is the 30% movement speed buff, and a 15% attack speed buff and my character goes to 36% ranged attack speed bonus.

NOTHING else increases this. No enhancements, no buffs, no spells, no destinys. Nothing increases the buff above 36%. If this is WAI and the way its supposed to be, i am happy to shut up and move along, but as my shooters seem to get well over 50% with no issues, this seems to be off.

Help, advice, angry replies would be welcome, anything to acknowledge this.

More craziness for throwers. I have a multiclass alchemist, using throwing daggers. When I use an electric imbue from EK, all of my attacks have an electric proc from the imbue die. When I swtich to the poisoned coating from the VC tre, 1 of every 5-7 attacks actually registers a poison proc. It should be every hit. Not sure why its not.

[Abilbo]

More craziness for throwers. I have a multiclass alchemist, using throwing daggers. When I use an electric imbue from EK, all of my attacks have an electric proc from the imbue die. When I swtich to the poisoned coating from the VC tre, 1 of every 5-7 attacks actually registers a poison proc. It should be every hit. Not sure why its not.

Confirmed that this issue is with throwing daggers, as I switched to a DXbow, and every attack gets the poison imbue.

[Stravix]

As far as I could I tried to read every comment, but I failed after a wide headache due to excessive complaining from the thread, I still look for simple answers, maybe I skipped them because too many replies before, but here is my question :

WHERE will I see every information about imbue choice ? I agree I'll choose one by a key toggle, but how about description, update in detailed recap of the character secondary stats ?
Is there a menu showing every possible imbue choice my build gives right now - so no possible confusion ? with a list of non-available or existing amongst all ?
Is this some new type of option 'IMBUE & DICE' ? in the main character screen ? in the detailed section ( + key)?
Will it give the specific number of actual imbue dice + others due to enhancements (feat, ED, filis ,whatever).. access to the calucation ?
What about the elements, will any recap show me what specific type of Imbue I selected ?
Will it be constantly refreshed at every change or need the character to check again in dungeon ?

Moreover, this imbue seems to follow the generic rules of proc, will it get any chance to appear in a different way on the overhead damage on target ? Possible display in separate way ? Color change due to elemental source chosen (or non-elemental) ? Option to show it or not in the overhead display in game pannel ? Total damage calculation or split damage?
And what about the combat log? It is already difficult to navigate inside and find back your numbers information, will it beneficiate from new line of dispay in the log we can activate or not ? Any new line of damage added to the others (XXX get hit by XdX type damage - like)?

Is there a way to see a fast recap by just looking at my weapon ? Will this disappear when I unequip ?
Is this new Imbue just a standard rework with nothing on the UI to help being sure or just easily remembering your choice? like simple colored key toggle activation ?
Does this Imbue toggle has specific overhead character animation so we can rely on it during and outside fight encounter ? (pretty much like swapping Archer focus or social skills ?)

I'd love to hear if this will lead to any UI and or active display addition.

(my aplogies for the baby english, tried my best to translate my expectations and worries)

As far as UI goes, I believe that imbue dice will be listed in the "+" section of the character sheet, but I do not believe that there will be special breakout consideration for above-head damage.

(Also, don't fret on the English, I've met plenty of people who had English as a first language and were unable to communicate that well. A little bit of extra formatting would be nice, but beyond that it's all right)

[TueNictGut]

I have posted suggestions to improve outdated underperforming trees like melee Ninja and Harper in these Threads.
The Imbuechanges seemed to be a good opportunity to do this with a low amount of effort and create more buildvariety in this way.

I would very much like a short feedback of you Lynn, if this goes beyond the scope of the imbue changes or might be a valuable piece of suggestion at this place.

Thank you very much for your dedication and great work :)
Im looking forward for a short reply maybe

[Arkai]

Hello! Got a question about rune arms! :D Are they still getting a small unique imbue to our melee/ranged weapons or just add imbue dices to our existent procs? Thanks!

[FatBudScream]

As far as UI goes, I believe that imbue dice will be listed in the "+" section of the character sheet, but I do not believe that there will be special breakout consideration for above-head damage.

(Also, don't fret on the English, I've met plenty of people who had English as a first language and were unable to communicate that well. A little bit of extra formatting would be nice, but beyond that it's all right)

Thx Stravix, will try to work on both.

So after, all, just a standard bonus shown on weapon built-in window and a fast recap on the ' + ' full list of secondary ? Seems like the minimum service required for a rework..
I'll keep hope for at least something to see over character head on toggle or combat log easy reading.

Else it might just become common change and mundane bonus changes, not deserving all that fuss at all.

[misterski]

Hello! Got a question about rune arms! :D Are they still getting a small unique imbue to our melee/ranged weapons or just add imbue dices to our existent procs? Thanks!

The imbues on runearms are still there and still work alongside the imbue toggles.

[Epicsoul]

Adding a +1 Imbue Dice to an existing guild buff would be a good idea. Perhaps the Tactical Training Room or Grandmaster's Dojo.

[yfernbottom]

WHERE will I see every information about imbue choice ? I agree I'll choose one by a key toggle, but how about description, update in detailed recap of the character secondary stats ?
Is there a menu showing every possible imbue choice my build gives right now - so no possible confusion ? with a list of non-available or existing amongst all ?
Is this some new type of option 'IMBUE & DICE' ? in the main character screen ? in the detailed section ( + key)?
Will it give the specific number of actual imbue dice + others due to enhancements (feat, ED, filis ,whatever).. access to the calucation ?
What about the elements, will any recap show me what specific type of Imbue I selected ?


Is there a way to see a fast recap by just looking at my weapon ? Will this disappear when I unequip ?
Is this new Imbue just a standard rework with nothing on the UI to help being sure or just easily remembering your choice? like simple colored key toggle activation ?

I'd love to hear if this will lead to any UI and or active display addition.

(my aplogies for the baby english, tried my best to translate my expectations and worries)

This is actually a really good point. I hope this isn't going to be another complicated system where we have to try and guess from digging through combat logs how much we are benefitting from it. Somewhere in the UI it needs to show us how many, what type, and what element of dice we currently have running.

[Lynnabel]

This is actually a really good point. I hope this isn't going to be another complicated system where we have to try and guess from digging through combat logs how much we are benefitting from it. Somewhere in the UI it needs to show us how many, what type, and what element of dice we currently have running.

Great news, as per the first post in this thread:


You can check your bonus Imbue Dice on the character sheet's Details+ Tab.

[Lynnabel]

Or is that just locked to S.F's Sacred flame imbue?

The spell gives bonus imbue dice, so you can use them with any imbue.


I asked before in the preview of Sacred Fist, and I'll ask again here since it seems like it's just becoming more and more required.

Can we please remove the -1 Ki on hit of Lighting the Candle? In a world where multiple other classes get toggles that are as strong as, or in many cases, stronger than, lighting the candle (Especially now that it only does 1d6 fire regardless of weapon type (with the 1d6 force on crit), do we still really need the -1 Ki? Lower the +2 Ki on Quarterstaff hit in Henshin Core 3 to only +1 if you have to in compensation, but having a toggle that functionally makes anyone not using a quarterstaff almost entirely unable to even build ki, seems not good.

Or, since I'm about 95% sure Lyn will read this, can I just ask why you feel it should stay?

It's really disappointing and confusing to me making a Monk / SF, seeing the SF toggle do x3 or x4 the Lighting the Candle toggle, and still the game thinks the Lighting the Candle toggle is the one that deserves the penalty.

This toggle gives -1 Ki on hit because that's what it did before AND because its got an additional force component on crit that other imbues do not.


Swash had an useful proc on crits with 6d6 sonic damage, it even procced when your fort bypass failed on the enemy.

Why there is no room given for Swashbuckler to grow it's proc in that tree? Warchanter got it. Others too.

Also does this toggle still require Swashbuckling stance?

The Swashbuckler imbue does not require you to be Swashbuckling.

[Lynnabel]

"(Warchanter) Each core beyond the first grants +1 Dice"

it looks like they all do with exception of lvl 12 core for warchanter.

confirmed its not merely a text issue. per the general combat in (+) on character sheet, the core indeed isnot granting the imbue die.

Great catch, thank you.


I am testing an AA/Inquis build and I have noticed that the Corrosive Arrows imbue has +1 bonus die in its tooltip. I also took elemental damage (+2 bonus dice) with Law on Your Side active (and no other bonus dice from Inquis) My character sheet is listing 2 bonus dice. My understanding was the Imbues themselves did not grant bonus dice (LOYS does not) I just want to make sure the tooltip matches the in game reality. So I don't know if the tooltip needs to be changed or the number of bonus dice. I confirmed that Elemental Damage was granting the 2 bonus dice as described in its tooltip, so Corrosive Arrows (and presumably Elemental Dice in general) is the problem.

Arcane Archer actually is meant to grant +1 bonus imbue dice if you take a second elemental toggle - before it would grant +1 Arcane Archer Dice, so that's been changed to +1 imbue dice with this overhaul.

I have just stepped into client and tried to reproduce the bug you are speaking of but I'm able to properly get +1 bonus dice from the AA toggles beyond the first in both the Elf and ranger AA tree. I'd love more details if you're still experiencing this issue.

[grudgebear]

The Swashbuckler imbue does not require you to be Swashbuckling.

This is good news. Some new splash builds opens up, with 3 bard levels. Also warchanter might benefit from it.


Still wondering why Swashbuckler itself cannot buff it's toggles damage. (Except the runearm part.)

[Black_Ninja]

The spell gives bonus imbue dice, so you can use them with any imbue.

This toggle gives -1 Ki on hit because that's what it did before AND because its got an additional force component on crit that other imbues do not.


With Lighting the candle scaling at 1x Melee Power (or so it seems) It really doesn't feel punchy. Yea, it has the force, but that means on crit you would have near the same effect as SF with it's 2x scaling. Except sacred fist has many more dice it can get. All considered, the HeM imbue is really unsatisfying. 1x scaling with MP just hurts. SF gets spells to add force on crit in addition to many more dice and 2x scaling. They don't need to be the same by any stretch, but having played around with it, I just don't see myself using Lighting the Candle... ever. And I say that as someone with monk in all my favorite builds.

[QuantumFX]

Did you complete the changes to Elemental Weapons/Greater Elemental? If so, I hate it. Not every class will have an imbue, and for the the ones that don't, the Artificer class just got robbed of it's one contribution to the group.

[FatBudScream]

Great news, as per the first post in this thread:

Excellent, so whenever I apply my imbue with toggle, I can just simply refresh the character detailed sheet and see it change ?
It would just be the number of Imbue dices ? Not the element, which would appear on weapon?

At least I can figure out where to find the base I applied.

Now, what about the combat log ? Any changes or additional line of damage we could spot/read to be sure it is coming from the applied imbue damage and check its results?

Looking forward to learn about it, thx !

[yfernbottom]

Great news, as per the first post in this thread:

Missed that point, thanks for clarifying :-)

[Lynnabel]

Excellent, so whenever I apply my imbue with toggle, I can just simply refresh the character detailed sheet and see it change ?
It would just be the number of Imbue dices ? Not the element, which would appear on weapon?

At least I can figure out where to find the base I applied.

Now, what about the combat log ? Any changes or additional line of damage we could spot/read to be sure it is coming from the applied imbue damage and check its results?

Looking forward to learn about it, thx !

All of the damage should appear on the combat log, yes. And there's no need to refresh the character sheet, the value should change before your very eyes.

So, in short:

To figure out which imbue you are using: check to see which toggle is on
To figure out how many bonus dice you have: check the character sheet Details+ tab
To see it deal damage: deal damage! You'll see the damage in the floaty text and in the combat log.

[Stravix]

@Lynn

Any chance we could receive a list of which sets will be updated to include that artifact bonus to imbue die? Just wanna know if this will be a common thing, or something that appears infrequently.

EDIT: NVM saw OP has them now. Is that all of them? That seems very restrictive.

[FatBudScream]

All of the damage should appear on the combat log, yes. And there's no need to refresh the character sheet, the value should change before your very eyes.

So, in short:

To figure out which imbue you are using: check to see which toggle is on
To figure out how many bonus dice you have: check the character sheet Details+ tab
To see it deal damage: deal damage! You'll see the damage in the floaty text and in the combat log.


Alright, I'll check it to be sure I won't miss the info and learn the proc(ess).
This will help decide if the chosen Imbue is efficient on the target or not, and be sure to learn where to change it fast in case I need, or build another way.

It might not be an awesome source of damage addition (at start), but the possibility to activate / de-activate / switch during dungeon is good to know, so the player can decide and adjust without rebuilding it or getting out of the place - a very crucial option, because it helps being sure of its choice and how to test it, to master the possibility of uses.

[cru212]

The Swashbuckler imbue does not require you to be Swashbuckling.

No.

Text says something else.

https://i.postimg.cc/fLLLYbGj/resonant-arms.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

And effect does not work.

https://i.postimg.cc/G36Fh0DS/swash-imbue.png (https://postimages.org/)

[Lynnabel]

No.

Text says something else.

https://i.postimg.cc/fLLLYbGj/resonant-arms.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

And effect does not work.

https://i.postimg.cc/G36Fh0DS/swash-imbue.png (https://postimages.org/)

Whoops, you're right.

[Talnar00]

KoTC doesn't grant Embodiment of Law or Arborea.

So KoTC doesn't "get" anything by giving up what it used to have to other feats, a particular build that takes those feats might, but KoTC is still worse for the exchange.

Small adjustments like this don't make a big difference on their own, but over time they can create build paths that are objectively the best and reduce build diversity rather than increasing it.

Fair the trees themselves don't grant those, but I still don't see how the change to embodiment of law that the person I quoted was talking about is a massive nerf to KoTC and Sacred Fist.
Sacred Fist is keeping the same amount of dice in their tree, KoTC loses a single d6. Even with the change to embodiment of law to not have the flat bane and law damage, both these classes get +2 imbue dice to their imbues if they either take the feat, or go T5 in Divine Crusader (like the original person I quoted seemed to imply), since they are forced lawful.

[droid327]

I'm able to have both Law on your Side and Spellsword active at the same time, and both seem to be working and benefiting from my 14 imbue die

[Monkey_Archer]

Perhaps beyond the scope of this update, but I feel like monk elemental ki strikes should also scale with imbue dice.

[Aelonwy]

I don't have time to read the whole thread or test much but I brought several characters, including my artificier, over to check out Imbue on her and when I cast Greater Elemental weapons the spell text says +2 imbue die but the buff on the main screen said I cast regular elemental weapons +1 imbue die (i don't even have regular elemental weapons prepared) AND it doesn't change anything on the + tab of the character screen so I'm not sure what is going on.

[GelatinousCubist]

Sorcerer:

(Eldritch Knight Core 2) 1d8 Fire/Cold/Acid/Electric, appropriate Spell Power (they get all 4 elements)
(EK Core 2) +1 Dice per 3 Sorcerer levels, max 6
(EK Core 4) +1 Dice (replaces dice step change)
(EK Core 5) +1 Dice (replaces dice step change)
(EK Core 6) +2 Dice (replaces dice step change) + the proc for +4 temporary dice


Wizard:

(Eldritch Knight Core 2) 1d8 Fire/Cold/Acid/Electric, appropriate Spell Power (they get all 4 elements)
(EK Core 2) +1 Dice per 3 Wizard levels, max 6
(EK Core 4) +1 Dice (replaces dice step change)
(EK Core 5) +1 Dice (replaces dice step change)
(EK Core 6) +2 Dice (replaces dice step change) + the proc for +4 temporary dice



Apologies if this was addressed in the U57,P1 thread...but shouldn't the EK Core 6 proc for +4 temporary dice be upped to +6 for parity? Previously it was +4 d12, now according to my read it is going to be +4 d8. +6 temporary dice would seem to be appropriate and an easy tweak.

[Abilbo]

I don't have time to read the whole thread or test much but I brought several characters, including my artificier, over to check out Imbue on her and when I cast Greater Elemental weapons the spell text says +2 imbue die but the buff on the main screen said I cast regular elemental weapons +1 imbue die (i don't even have regular elemental weapons prepared) AND it doesn't change anything on the + tab of the character screen so I'm not sure what is going on.

Thats bugged, and Lynnabel has acknowledged it.

[Lynnabel]

I don't have time to read the whole thread or test much but I brought several characters, including my artificier, over to check out Imbue on her and when I cast Greater Elemental weapons the spell text says +2 imbue die but the buff on the main screen said I cast regular elemental weapons +1 imbue die (i don't even have regular elemental weapons prepared) AND it doesn't change anything on the + tab of the character screen so I'm not sure what is going on.

The spell is actually granting those dice to your weapon - classic DDO :P This and the other text inconsistencies have been fixed up internally, thank you!

[Indubitably]

What is the current state of Offhand Versatility now?
Is it the original spell crit on vorpal AND +1 imbue dice for both orb and runearm?
Or is it just +1 imbue dice now? which would feel like a terrible nerf and the removal of a fairly cool playstyle that promotes hybrid play.

Secondly,
The HP changes feel like they disadvantage some classes that already had bonuses.
Not a nerf, but everyone else increases by comparison (which is fine if your intent is to bring them down a little) - but effectively removing something that was a feature of the build and is now, if anything, a disadvantage.
Druids and ES warlocks are good example of this.

Anyways, the imbue changes feel sort of similar.
AA, EK, Poison Alch are already average (if even that) builds compared to their caster or melee/ranged counterparts, but are fun in their own way and have some versatility,
Their trees are very dedicated around the imbue that they bring, its there to bridge the gap (so to speak), even if it doesn't crit.
Having a global imbue system seems great, but some classes got a fairly potent boost to their attacks, in some cases going from 'nothing at all' to 'half the damage one of the classic imbue classes' - whilst still maintaining a tree that brings everything else it did without overly focusing on it.

An issue that exacerbates this is the amount of dice lying around. There is a lot of new imbue dice to invest in all around, and a small splash can get you a better imbue toggle if so inclined.
The standard d8 that alch/sorc/wiz have is no where near the 1d12 they could get to, and the +1 dice instead scales poorly compared to that. Maybe its been balanced around the game now, but later on - with more dice...

Below is (pathetic) napkin math average damage.
I know scaling, and when they might get dice, and splashing, yadda yadda yadda - take it with a grain of salt.
But it kinda shows the power gains some classes for "offhandedly" when other classes that dedicate a tree and their core mechanic to, aren't impressively different.
These other classes will have MUCH stronger base attacks that scale well later in game, especially with crits, and will have access to all the same extra dice - shortening the gap.
The future imbue system will likely be balanced around these dedicated melee classes and the caster imbue classes will find it hard to stay relevant.

Primary Imbue classes:
Alch, wiz, sorc: 11d8: 50 dam
AA 9d8: 40 dam
Inquis 7d8 / 8d8: 30-34 dam

A newishish possible imbue class:
Cleric 4d6-7d6 / 9d6 (can be somewhat combined into 12d6): 14-42 dam

Class that had some imbue damage:
Paladin 6d6-8d6: 25 dam +-3.5

Classes that had imbue damage, but it was negligible:
Henshin 7d6: 25 dam
Warchanter 6d6: 21 dam
Rogue 4d8: 17 dam

Classes that had NO imbue damage whatsoever before:
Arti 7d6: 25 dam - well, i guess that had elemental weapon, but that didnt scale and was exclusive with better enchants
Druid 4d6 (only for weird builds): 14 dam

I can't be bothered with predicting average imbue investment from feats and EDs and such, but the damage could easily be doubled or more without heavy investment with almost the same damage difference.

Is there any chance that AA, Poison Alch, and EK trees can get looked over to help keep them viable compared to actual melee classes that also play the imbue system?
Even if it's not damage, I feel these trees need something to make investing in them more appealing. Especially Poison Alch - which feels underwhleming.

For AA, allowing a damage imbue and an enchant imbue would go someway to fixing that and wouldn't make the tree feel mutually exclusive with half of it'self.
Currently, you invest in the elemental arrow line, or the 4 enchant arrows... but getting both feels wasteful.

For poison alch, I don't even know where to begin. The wave SLAs are terrible damage, the weapon upgrades are average, the spell power upgrades are average, not much defense, ranged vulnerability is single target only (which the tree seems to lean towards being ranged)... the only real thing is the imbue. Compare it's cores that give imbue dice to other tree's cores that give imbue dice + what they also give... its no contest.
That being said, I don't feel the poison alch is terrible. A lot of its power is found in class features. Along with how it gets its dice. So I'm picturing a lot of poison alchs not actually going deep into their own tree much, and instead going inq, cleric, AA, or something.

Ek/Sorc... I like the direction of weapon versatility, and the choice of shield or orb.
The temp HP from using a shield could do with a noticeable boost, and the orb choice could definitely do with a unique feature to entice blocking with it.
Adding some kind of proc based buff that allows you to apply free metamagics to the next spell cast could be cool to, another way to be interactive between melee and casting. (Just an example).
wiz/sorc/alch already ahve the lowest hp, and their melee tree gives the lowest competency bonus on top of that. They are going to feel even more fragile after this pass comparatively.
Having some kinda of defensed gained after casting spells might be an idea?

Anyways, just food for thought. I feel down the track the classic imbue classes are going to feel very underwhelming after this change. And their mechanics will be balanced around what other classes can do.

[misterski]

What is the current state of Offhand Versatility now?
Is it the original spell crit on vorpal AND +1 imbue dice for both orb and runearm?
Or is it just +1 imbue dice now? which would feel like a terrible nerf and the removal of a fairly cool playstyle that promotes hybrid play.


The spell crit on vorpal for orbs and runearms have been replaced by +1 imbue dice in Offhand Versatility in Preview 2. In Preview 1 only orbs had the +1 imbue dice and runearms still had the spell crit on vorpal. Looks like it's gone for good :/

[Aelonwy]

Thats bugged, and Lynnabel has acknowledged it.


The spell is actually granting those dice to your weapon - classic DDO :P This and the other text inconsistencies have been fixed up internally, thank you!

Thank you. That was all the time I had for testing and taking a peek.

Looks like my two ranged characters have 7 bonus imbue die at cap as-is. I can completely alter one by respec -ing her enhancements and completely twisting her character to get an additional 7 imbue die giving up stuff I had but I was happy with her prior to these changes. So these changes if I don't completely change her enhancements are still a nerf. The whole trade off thing is very annoying when I was happy with the trade-offs I had already chosen for my character to achieve the damage and defense I had... so along comes this update completely upheaving my choices forcing me to make different ones just to bring my dps back to where I had it but loosing defense if i do... and that only at cap, heroic Inquisitive is going to be painful now because heroic ranged power isn't going to do jack for scaling. So hooray for the people that just love rerolling and respec-ing and min-maxing but I'm getting tired of it.

I hope at least the quests are awesome.

[TueNictGut]

With Lighting the candle scaling at 1x Melee Power (or so it seems) It really doesn't feel punchy. Yea, it has the force, but that means on crit you would have near the same effect as SF with it's 2x scaling. Except sacred fist has many more dice it can get. All considered, the HeM imbue is really unsatisfying. 1x scaling with MP just hurts. SF gets spells to add force on crit in addition to many more dice and 2x scaling. They don't need to be the same by any stretch, but having played around with it, I just don't see myself using Lighting the Candle... ever. And I say that as someone with monk in all my favorite builds.

The quote is giving an example of different scaling of 2 imbues with Mp.
Would be interested, if this is intended?
And if so a list of all imbues and their scaling would be very helpful.
Iam in a clinic atm. So cant provide it.

Thx in Advance

[Stravix]

The quote is giving an example of different scaling of 2 imbues with Mp.
Would be interested, if this is intended?
And if so a list of all imbues and their scaling would be very helpful.
Iam in a clinic atm. So cant provide it.

Thx in Advance

Agreed. I would think that a standard baseline of imbue scaling should exist as well. If MP or RP scaling, it should be 2x MP/RP, to match sneak attacks.

Spellpower can be a straight scaling. Maybe some imbues could have more scaling, but a baseline along those lines would be nice as a starting point.

[ivorycoaster]

I think it would be nice to see a few other sets add imbue dice.. Most notably, Beacons of Magic, Esoteric Initiate. I think it is quite obvious that the imbue specialists are AA, EK (sorc/wiz), and Vile Alch, even Dark Apostate. These 5 trees would all net benefit from more build options by adding dice to both of these sets.
Another really neat option would be the TOEE sets. They are a bit of a novelty for most builds at this point but could become more relevant by adding imbue dice to certain sets.
Perhaps some gem of many facets relevant sets? Draconic prophecy? Desert's sets?


Also, just to kind of bring back one idea brought up in the preview 1 forum, it would be really nice to see something brought into Shintao. They are the forgotten children of DDO these days, and could use some form of benefit from this new system.
-perhaps 1d6 imbue from each elemental feat tree, separate from the stance, scaling with melee power?
-+1 dice each for adept, master, grandmaster autogrant feats? some synergy provided by henshin cores.

I get the idea that not every class needs an imbue, but I think when an opportunity arises to give shintao monk a little bit of love, it ought to be considered :)
By the way, thank you for all the hard work!

[Stravix]

I think it would be nice to see a few other sets add imbue dice.. Most notably, Beacons of Magic, Esoteric Initiate. I think it is quite obvious that the imbue specialists are AA, EK (sorc/wiz), and Vile Alch, even Dark Apostate. These 5 trees would all net benefit from more build options by adding dice to both of these sets.
Another really neat option would be the TOEE sets. They are a bit of a novelty for most builds at this point but could become more relevant by adding imbue dice to certain sets.
Perhaps some gem of many facets relevant sets? Draconic prophecy? Desert's sets?

100% this.

If only 3 sets get the dice, that is nowhere near available enough given the number of build styles which would now want them. Considering Abashai is now back to profane for all of it's bonuses, it could use some love as well, and considering the set seems to lend towards elemental martial builds, it would be the perfect spot for these to be added.

[Abilbo]

So I have spent much of the last two days trying to work out builds on Lamania that will use the imbue system, and it all boils down to one major flaw in it. IMBUES DON" CRIT. The builds I was playing with had some decent base numbers. I was using the EK tree, and getting over 28 Die added on, and using boosts and self buffs, could get hits for over 8K on every hit. To get that, you sacrifice Ranged Power, and there is no easy way to say it, but a Ranged Power build at end game, will do more DPS than an imbue build, because of things like crits, and because of abilities that bump your next attack.

I based my "non-crit" info on the fact that I never saw one, and the fact that on preview one, it was asked if they would, and that question went unanswered. The imbue system seemed like it was going to be very fun to play, and I was looking forward to trying out different builds, but I'm sorry to say, that I can't see me playing this at end game at all.

Change the imbue system so that when your weapon crits, your imbue crits, and these have the the potential to be very solid builds, as well as being very fun to play.

[Lotoc]

100% this.

If only 3 sets get the dice, that is nowhere near available enough given the number of build styles which would now want them. Considering Abashai is now back to profane for all of it's bonuses, it could use some love as well, and considering the set seems to lend towards elemental martial builds, it would be the perfect spot for these to be added.


I hope we see an augment set for artifact imbue dice either on u57 release or soon after.
I'd suggest bloodrage chrism being the item used to make the augment as it is one of the raid items in the crypt raider set which is gaining dice.

[Lotoc]

So I have spent much of the last two days trying to work out builds on Lamania that will use the imbue system, and it all boils down to one major flaw in it. IMBUES DON" CRIT. The builds I was playing with had some decent base numbers. I was using the EK tree, and getting over 28 Die added on, and using boosts and self buffs, could get hits for over 8K on every hit. To get that, you sacrifice Ranged Power, and there is no easy way to say it, but a Ranged Power build at end game, will do more DPS than an imbue build, because of things like crits, and because of abilities that bump your next attack.

I based my "non-crit" info on the fact that I never saw one, and the fact that on preview one, it was asked if they would, and that question went unanswered. The imbue system seemed like it was going to be very fun to play, and I was looking forward to trying out different builds, but I'm sorry to say, that I can't see me playing this at end game at all.

Change the imbue system so that when your weapon crits, your imbue crits, and these have the the potential to be very solid builds, as well as being very fun to play.


Imbues being able to crit kind of breaks them.
On live Assassin Rogues and EKs are like, two of the top 5 dps builds without sneak attack dice or imbues critting.
The game does not need damage creep that severe.

[Zites]

Fighter stuff is actually in the other thread, check it out (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/535274-U57-Preview-2-Hit-Point-Pass)!

How about this Fighter stuff, you extend Imbue duration to any class that heals Fighter. :cool:

[archerforever]

Ranger:

(Ranger - Tempest) 1d8 Electric, melee or ranged power
(Ranger - Arcane Archer) 1d8 Fire/Cold/Acid/Electric, appropriate Spell Power
(Ranger - Arcane Archer) 1d8 Force, force spellpower
(Arcane Archer) Tiers 2, 3, 4, and 5 grant +2 Dice each
Note: All other primary Arcane Archer imbues are also now imbues in this system.


Sorcerer:

(Eldritch Knight Core 2) 1d8 Fire/Cold/Acid/Electric, appropriate Spell Power (they get all 4 elements)


Wizard:

(Eldritch Knight Core 2) 1d8 Fire/Cold/Acid/Electric, appropriate Spell Power (they get all 4 elements)


Feats:

(Embodiment of Law - Destiny Feat) is now: +3 PRR and MRR. if you are lawful, you also gain +2 imbue dice
(Embodiment of Chaos - Destiny Feat) is now: +2% doublestrike and doubleshot. If you are chaotic, you also gain +2 imbue dice
(Enhanced Elemental Dice - Destiny Feat) +1 Dice


Destinies:

Shiradi Champion mantle gains 1d77 per 7 bonus dice - this is not an imbue toggle BUT gains benefits from your imbue dice!
Draconic Tier 3 now grants +1/2/3 Dice
Crusade! buff in Divine Crusader now grants +1 dice
Ghost Touch in LD is now "Esoteric Touch" and grants both Ghost Touch and +1 Imbue Dice
Shared Mantle in PA now also grants +3 Imbue Dice while within the PA Mantle


Items:

Filigree Set Bonuses that used to give a scaling imbue on-hit now give +1 Dice
Augments from Hunt or Be Hunted Raid now give +1 Enhancement bonus to bonus Dice
Certain Set Bonuses get +1 Dice in heroics, 2 in epics, 3 in legendary (artifact typed):
[LIST]
Profane Experiment
Echoes of the Waking Ancestors
Crypt Raider



Arcane Archer have to get all 4 elementals arrow tier 1 as Eldritch Knights gets all with core 2(maybe it s the case as you say that AA get +2 Dice tier 2/3/4/5)
Arcane archer tier 5 Improved elemental arrows multiselector has to be only 1 enhancement that gives both bonuses : +2 dice AND the bonus effect on critical

Enhanced Elemental Dice - Destiny Feat +1 Dice is NOT enough and balanced for a lvl 31 feat when a lvl 28 feat is giving +2 dice. Enhanced Elemental Dice - Destiny Feat should be +3 Dice

Draconic Tier 3 now grants +1/2/3 Dice
Shared Mantle tier 3 in PA now also grants +3 Imbue Dice while within the PA Mantle
SO Shiradi champion tier 3 Pierce Deception should give +3 Imbue Dice also to scale with other destinies (or maybe somewhere else but shiradi champion need that damage dice)

With that new mechanic I think that MORE set effects should give imbue damage dice as a standard. Only 3 sets giving Imbue Dice is really NOT enough.
Arcane Archer set from gilvaenor s ring & Givaenor s necklace from tower of despair should be reworked and give +3 Imbue Dice !!! :D

Additionnaly I wish to know what is the scaling for imbues.
For exemple is the spell power scaling for Arcane archer imbue is the same as the spell power scaling for an eldritch knight imbues ? and for all other classes ?

Overall I really love that change, great job devs.

[Pandjed]

Overall, this change (together with the HP revamp) will have a huge avalanche effect on the META. Well, not really the META, as I really doubt that it will dethrone casters (though Half-Elf casters may now run rampant, if their imbue is easy enough to make count), but there are several things now in motion.

Eldritch Knights will be built entirely different, not only because of the imbue change, more so for the fact that they can use spells at distance again. Means, that especially sorcerers will become DPS EK, as they have easier access to spellpower and most will use the elemental capstone for immunity strip. Wizard EK will either join (due to more metamagic feats) or stay the same with Mass Hold Monster at cap, which they throw first, dive in, do their cleaves and ticking their auras and then picking up the rest.

Melee artis may finally be played as intended, as they not only get to be hybrid characters, but also get a decent boost in damage.

AA will become a more interesting tree, but I won't count for miracles, as they are point sinks, many lesser effects, all bow related, not easy to pick up imbue dice, if you waste many points on stuff you can barely use.
Inquisitive is a better way to go, as it has more enhancements that work outside from the pure double-x-bow style. Inquis itself gets some downgrade on the imbue, which makes their leveling slower, but I was never a fan of that tree to begin with, as it was too easy to get much damage.

Shadar-kai's imbue doesn't scale with any power and only works on sneak, so probably not as much of a powerhouse ppl expect it to become.

The filigrees do hurt, I used them for lower epic weapons for leveling purposes, but I guess they could be useful for endgame instead.

Yeah, the fighter sticks out like a sour thumb. Fighter is (as always) hindered by the fact, that it shares one tree with paladin, the other is almost a copy, and the DPS one is less powerful than the paladin (in most cases). Having no imbue does hurt here, especially given that this may become the next big thing and to make the mechanic general for real.
Ideas for Fighter imbues:

Endurant Soul: Gain on hit 1d8 temp hit points (doesn't stack with itself). 1d8 per additional imbue die. Plays into the mechanic, that fighters are supposed to be very tough, training their bodies with nothing but ability. No rage, no magic, no gods, nothing else. Just determination.
Foeslayer: The boring additional damage, maybe d4 bane damage to make it damage all kinds of stuff? Scaling with 200% MP or RP of course.
Gladiator's Might: All tactical feats gets +1 DC per 4 dice. Tactical feats do 1d10 bane damage per die, scaling with 200% MP.
Strikeback: Enemy that hits you in melee combat, gets 1d6 damage per die, scaling with X% amount of PRR. (may make tanks too good for damage, but MP seems a bit boring here, and guard damage effects are now rare).

I guess, these imbues could be feats, and higher forms of weapon focus and specialication could give more dice, to make multiclassing less attractive for supposedly pure fighters.

EDIT: Giving more dice per 3 fighter levels or so like VC or EK may also bring more people to play pure.

[droid327]

Enhanced Elemental Dice - Destiny Feat +1 Dice is NOT enough and balanced for a lvl 31 feat when a lvl 28 feat is giving +2 dice. Enhanced Elemental Dice - Destiny Feat should be +3 Dice

With that new mechanic I think that MORE set effects should give imbue damage dice as a standard. Only 3 sets giving Imbue Dice is really NOT enough.
Arcane Archer set from gilvaenor s ring & Givaenor s necklace from tower of despair should be reworked and give +3 Imbue Dice !!! :D

Additionnaly I wish to know what is the scaling for imbues.
For exemple is the spell power scaling for Arcane archer imbue is the same as the spell power scaling for an eldritch knight imbues ? and for all other classes ?



I thought the same thing - I can't imagine a build where +1 imbue die would make the cut for feats. There are better options for pretty much every build archetype. Even Toughness would be more competitive, and that's basically just the "if there isn't anything actually useful" feat

I'm worried that if imbue die become TOO ubiquitous then there's no point in having them anymore...they're just damage that everyone gets from a million different places without making deliberate tradeoffs for it. Or, conversely, they become de facto required, where anything that doesn't include imbue die is never chosen - like non-set armor right now. Both cases are bad for the game.

Imbues scale 100% on either spell power or mp/rp, unless it says otherwise, like inqui imbue is 200% rp

[Ereshkigal]

+1 to this. Please make sure that going the Abyss route does not carry even more detriments than it does today due to the inability to use the Celestial Spirit toggle. In fact, can we just get rid of Celestial Spirit as a toggle entirely, and just build its bonuses into the core?

^This

[Bagel99]

So I have spent much of the last two days trying to work out builds on Lamania that will use the imbue system, and it all boils down to one major flaw in it. IMBUES DON" CRIT. The builds I was playing with had some decent base numbers. I was using the EK tree, and getting over 28 Die added on, and using boosts and self buffs, could get hits for over 8K on every hit. To get that, you sacrifice Ranged Power, and there is no easy way to say it, but a Ranged Power build at end game, will do more DPS than an imbue build, because of things like crits, and because of abilities that bump your next attack.

I based my "non-crit" info on the fact that I never saw one, and the fact that on preview one, it was asked if they would, and that question went unanswered. The imbue system seemed like it was going to be very fun to play, and I was looking forward to trying out different builds, but I'm sorry to say, that I can't see me playing this at end game at all.

Change the imbue system so that when your weapon crits, your imbue crits, and these have the the potential to be very solid builds, as well as being very fun to play.

I don't believe crits are the answer BUT i proposed in the previous forum for Update 57.1 an idea for a feat line called mystical attunement which had varying feats to take at 1,9,18,21 and possibly 30 which would replace your critical hit staple feats and apply + Imbue dice to varying degrees.
Lesser Mystical attunement (level 1, Magical training) - +1 Imbue Dice
Mystical Attunement (level 9, Magical Training and LMA) - +2 Imbue Dice - you can no longer critically hit
Greater Mystical Attunement (level 18, Magical Training, previous stuff) - +3 Imbue Dice
~~~~So as of level 18 you now have 6 additional imbue dice or 6d6 at the worst, thats about a x2 crit multi on an endgame wep~~~~
Epic Mystical Attunement (This would replace Overwhelming Crit) - +4 Imbue dice, bringing the total total to 10d6.
Legendary Mystical Attunement 30 (or 31, however that system will work) - +5 Imbue dice for a total of 15d6.

Now 15d6 is a hefty hefty sustained dps gain to have, BUT not crits, no on crit effects, no weapon damage scaling anymore and your fighting Resists and immunities. I think this would be cool for flavor, and 100% spellpower, 200% MP, 150%RP should be standard.

Dont forget a nice solid, 5 feats for this one, and could be used as generic feats BUT given to Arti/Alch/Wiz as bonus feat options, as you would also have some tradeoffs between dcs and raw powah.

Why 150% ranged power .... your feats grant it for BAB, melee has no such luxury. It can be argued there are more sources etc possibly but your at a distance and should deal substantial damage but you trade some for being safer.

Anyhow excited for the changes and wishing for something along these lines, maybe in the future.

[Ereshkigal]

Changes from first preview are in this green!

Feats:

(Embodiment of Law - Destiny Feat) is now: +3 PRR and MRR. if you are lawful, you also gain +2 imbue dice
(Embodiment of Chaos - Destiny Feat) is now: +2% doublestrike and doubleshot. If you are chaotic, you also gain +2 imbue dice
(Enhanced Elemental Dice - Destiny Feat) +1 Dice
(Scion of the Feywild - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Earth - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Fire - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Water - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of the Plane of Air - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
(Scion of Arborea) +1 dice
(Offhand Versatility) - Orb/Runearm gains +1 Imbue dice



I'm curious -- why exclude Scion of Celestia (& Scion of the Shadowfell?) Seems like Dark Apostate could certainly use the extra dice.

[Ereshkigal]

I don't believe crits are the answer BUT i proposed in the previous forum for Update 57.1 an idea for a feat line called mystical attunement which had varying feats to take at 1,9,18,21 and possibly 30 which would replace your critical hit staple feats and apply + Imbue dice to varying degrees.
Lesser Mystical attunement (level 1, Magical training) - +1 Imbue Dice
Mystical Attunement (level 9, Magical Training and LMA) - +2 Imbue Dice - you can no longer critically hit
Greater Mystical Attunement (level 18, Magical Training, previous stuff) - +3 Imbue Dice
~~~~So as of level 18 you now have 6 additional imbue dice or 6d6 at the worst, thats about a x2 crit multi on an endgame wep~~~~
Epic Mystical Attunement (This would replace Overwhelming Crit) - +4 Imbue dice, bringing the total total to 10d6.
Legendary Mystical Attunement 30 (or 31, however that system will work) - +5 Imbue dice for a total of 15d6.

Now 15d6 is a hefty hefty sustained dps gain to have, BUT not crits, no on crit effects, no weapon damage scaling anymore and your fighting Resists and immunities. I think this would be cool for flavor, and 100% spellpower, 200% MP, 150%RP should be standard.

Dont forget a nice solid, 5 feats for this one, and could be used as generic feats BUT given to Arti/Alch/Wiz as bonus feat options, as you would also have some tradeoffs between dcs and raw powah.

Why 150% ranged power .... your feats grant it for BAB, melee has no such luxury. It can be argued there are more sources etc possibly but your at a distance and should deal substantial damage but you trade some for being safer.

Anyhow excited for the changes and wishing for something along these lines, maybe in the future.

Do Imbue dice from different sources all stack?

Example:

For Dark Apostate, am I missing something or is this going to be possible for Apostate's Curse dice?

9d6 - DA Tree
2d6 - Warpriest Tree
2d6 - Drow Tree
2d6 - Embodiment of Chaos Feat
1d6 - Ehanced Elemental Dice Feat
3d6 - Scion of the Plane of Fire Feat
3d6 - Draconic Epic Destiny Tree
3d6 - Primal Avatar Tree - Mantle

25d6 for Dark Apostate's Curse - Imbue dice?

If yes, then I can see why it isn't going to crit.

[cmecu]

I really dislike this entire imbue thing.. You guys are really gutting this mechanics of this game way too much , too fast.. Sure change is fine, but not like every update.
There are so many things in the game we need fixed. I dont recall people asking for Archtypes, Epic Destiny redone, Level cap increase, Imbues, bank being changed, other than us needing more space for all these items your pumping into the game... What else.. oh competence hitpoints in tier 5 trees and such.. Its just way too much change..
Your not even giving us a chance to see what one thing is before hitting us with something else. These imbues are horrible. They completely destroy some builds, and in one case, a racial tree like the Tiefling Scoundrel.. which btw its broken as of right now. I left a post about it on the lammania discussion forum. Its like to the point, I dont even know what I am playing any more. Or how to play it.. all these augments, and turning gear into augments, and making dino gear crafting, and epic crafting, legendary crafting.. It was a relaxing game to play, now its like how do I play this game now? Do I even want to any more...? Also the more things you all keep adding, the more stuff that becomes broken. And it becomes too much stuff to fix. Please slow down, and let the game slowly evolve, not be turned upside in such a short period of time.

[MrWindupBird]

Few thoughts on proposed imbue changes:

On the one hand, adding imbues to things like bard and artificer is definitely cool, and thematic. On the other hand, making imbues nearly-ubiquitous is going to feel really really bad for those who do not have access: right now it looks like handwraps monks, fighters, animal-form melees (unless barb) don't have a reasonable way to get access outside of race. Imbues used to be pretty class-specific, but if they move to nearly-universal, the absence is going to be a significant proxy nerf. Wolf/bear is pretty strong, but wraps monk and fighter- not so much. As a preemptive retort to those who say Henshin and Ninja Spy have imbues for wraps monk- wis wraps monk simply does not have the AP to go into those trees, its not really possible with Shintao and Falconry.

I think if we're making imbues this common, all melee/ranged dps types should really have a reasonable option to pick up an imbue- the choice then becomes how much to invest in extra dice to make it useful: theres lots of interesting decisions and opportunity cost there with gear, feats, and EDs. Some classes obviously will get much more support for extra dice in the trees, which is fine. My objection is just being locked out of an imbue entirely. Otherwise you're going to have to balance certain classes up around the absence, which will inevitably cause problems in the future if everyone else is doing 20+d6 scaling proc damage, or force them into races like drow.

For monk, I think rather than tying it to the trees you could put the base imbue in the 6 or 12 (adept/master) stance feats, maybe with +1 dice at 18. Itd make thematic sense, and as previously noted, the elemental ki-strikes are straight atrocious and not worth using.

For druid a bleed dot might be cool if tech allows, but those bleed procs have never been valuable for more than the on-hit damage.

Dont really have any good idea for fighter- the +d3 seeker idea is neat, but I dont know if that would work.

TL;DR
imbues are neat and the decision on whether or not to scale them vs front number is interesting, but making them this common and locking out some classes/styles is not going to go well

[Lominal]

1. alchemist VC imbue doesnt deal any damage with (simple) ranged weaps (darts, throwing daggers)
2. damage doesnt appear to scale off anything for the dice (~ 700 posion power, 22 dice and hitting 40-50)

[Wdh]

On lammania the barbarian bane damage is significantly lower then on live. It does about half as much damage on lammania. I think the damage should be increased, more melee power scaling.

[Azarak]

How about adding a Cleric domain for imbue dice builds?

[Indubitably]

The spell crit on vorpal for orbs and runearms have been replaced by +1 imbue dice in Offhand Versatility in Preview 2. In Preview 1 only orbs had the +1 imbue dice and runearms still had the spell crit on vorpal. Looks like it's gone for good :/

This is a really lame change.
The crit after vorpal was a really flavourful and engaging mechanic that really promoted a hybrid playstyle.
And it felt like an impactful choice. +1 imbue dice is hardly worth the feat considering it's not too hard to get 20+ dice.
I'm not sure anyone was running around claiming offhand versatility was over powered or anything.

And agree with others - The new imbue system will create 2 issues, especially down the road:
Builds with no access will find they can't utilise a mechanic found all over the place now. (maybe add a low hanging ED option for an imbue?)
Builds that specailised in it before will be less unique and find their trees bring less to the table now as before.

AA having to 'GIVE UP' the whole imbue system to use an enchant arrow is now absurd.
Other trees can get close to the level of an AA for imbue damage, effectively for free with trees not designed around imbue damage at all.
Whilst the AA has to give up its (expensive) core line of damage + any imbue investment found in epic/feats/splashes/etc in a tree centered around it's use (unlike artificer, monk, paladin, etc) and can only use it with ranged weapons that doesn't AoE.
These other classes get the imbue damage plus all their other features, whatever it may be.

This system will almost make AA's feel like an anti-imbue class or a splash purely to try gain dice (with no intent to use AA imbues).


Off-handed note.
It feels off that the vile chemist Alch - with it's focus on poison, has no stacking poison dots?
The first thing when i think a specialist in poison, is stacking poison damage over time. (Waves don't count, don't stack, and hardly any damage - utterly insignificant once you hit epic).
Since the VC tree brings very little to the table except poison dice, and its not that special anymore - perhaps using the imbue dice for poison wave or creating some minor stacking dot with a cap could be an idea?

[SpardaX]

With Lighting the candle scaling at 1x Melee Power (or so it seems) It really doesn't feel punchy. Yea, it has the force, but that means on crit you would have near the same effect as SF with it's 2x scaling. Except sacred fist has many more dice it can get. All considered, the HeM imbue is really unsatisfying. 1x scaling with MP just hurts. SF gets spells to add force on crit in addition to many more dice and 2x scaling. They don't need to be the same by any stretch, but having played around with it, I just don't see myself using Lighting the Candle... ever. And I say that as someone with monk in all my favorite builds.

This basically. The crit is an added benefit, sure, but when the dice are d6 and the scaling is just 1x, other imbues that don't have a penalty still get higher easier and quicker.

So I think if you feel like the crit dice is worth the -1 Ki gen Lyn, then at least up the scaling to be on par with other imbues?

[droid327]

I really dislike this entire imbue thing.. You guys are really gutting this mechanics of this game way too much , too fast.

I kinda tend to agree. The whole imbue thing feels like something that started off as a good idea, but then the devs got too excited about it and ran with it way too far, and now its encompassing a far greater swath of changes than it needs to. And it also feels like the kind of thing that they'll forget about once they get excited about their next cool idea and fixate on that...and then it'll languish in whatever form its in after a week of being Live.

Unifying all the existing imbues under one streamlined system was the good idea. Expanding it with all these bonus die sources, adding a whole bunch of novel imbues, talking about scaling other things on imbue die...that's mission creep, and its how you get power creep too.

[Azarak]

I think Tiefling scoundrel should just add imbue dice rather than having it's own toggle that is limited by HP %. The damage is not good enough to warrant the limitation of HP% and it doesn't stack with resonant arms from swashbuckler meaning if your a swashbuckler it's useless.

I also think Pale Masters vampire and negative damage melee cores should scale with imbue dice, as the damage output and healing is fairly terrible.

I think you should be able to use Shadar-kai's Winter Favored with rogue Venomed Blades or Winter Favored should give some imbue dice or something. Currently since you can't uses both there's really no point in taking Winter Favored ever because it takes less points to get to venomed blade and venom blade is simply better in every way...

[Synthetic]

Changes from first preview are in this green!


Iced Edges is now just 1 rank and is no longer a prereq of the rest of the ice line, so you can skip the imbue if you want the other stuff.




Any chance you could change the cost of Northwind while you're working in that area? An on vorpal proc with 3 tiers and 2 ap a tier costs too much, and since it's a prerequisite for T5 spinning ice you are going to be paying all 6 points.

[Duckology]

Changes from first preview are in this green!


Ranger:

(Ranger - Tempest) 1d8 Electric, melee or ranged power
(Ranger - Arcane Archer) 1d8 Fire/Cold/Acid/Electric, appropriate Spell Power
(Ranger - Arcane Archer) 1d8 Force, force spellpower
(Arcane Archer) Tiers 2, 3, 4, and 5 grant +2 Dice each
Note: All other primary Arcane Archer imbues are also now imbues in this system.




As this change stands after testing on Lamania and even optimizing for imbue dice,.... Running a Ranger 18/ Arti 2.... my DPS is dropping about 25%.... Law damage on Cannith is 450-1100 on Lamania it's 180-800

Deepwood stalker has zero imbue die... so with half points in it and the other in Inquisitive , even tried splashing arcane archer to get an extra 4d to get those numbers... giving up 20% temp morale bonus to doubleshot and the extra damage from killer....

I understood the initial nerf, a bit heavy handed, but I could live with a character that was at the bottom of the DPS tree, but lowering the gap even more after spending over 1000 additional hours and MONEY, to get back 10% of what was taken in the first nerf this feels like the final straw to me. Some of us want to build a character and have spent literally thousands of hours getting all of the tetris gear and raid filigrees for that particular build, to have all of those gains wiped out in one update and then set back a few more pegs is really not my idea of fun. Grinding for progression is something I will do, grinding for regression is something I won't.

[SpartanKiller13]

The spell crit on vorpal for orbs and runearms have been replaced by +1 imbue dice in Offhand Versatility in Preview 2. In Preview 1 only orbs had the +1 imbue dice and runearms still had the spell crit on vorpal. Looks like it's gone for good :/

So uh any build that relied on Offhand Versatility + Spellcasting is just dead?

Lmao I just got my OV Gruin build to 32 lol. It's a lot easier to get good crits on a low-investment toon if you have 100% crit rate XD

Time to make an imbue build out of them IG.

[oraness]

Glad to see more people bringing up Arcane Archer in this preview, despite the fact that Lynn clearly hasn't been interested in discussing it in either thread (no hard feelings).

In one last attempt to generate discussion around it, I'll quote my post regarding AA from the previous thread:



For those asking about the non-damage imbues, nothing changed for them either. They currently do not interact with Imbue Dice.

The non-damage imbues definitely need some love. 1:1 imbue dice to DC is for sure too much, but what about 1/2 Imbue dice to DC and then getting rid of the +1 enchantment bonus on each of them. Could even spice it up and make each of the imbues draw from the correct DC for the effect (Phantasmal Killer arrows being an Illusion effect, for example)

AA is THE Imbue tree. That's their entire identity. It's a shame that it's been playing second fiddle these past 2 previews

[Anurakh]

Well, I have tried my two inquisitives, a pure arti and a ranger/arti, and I have to say that I don't like this update. The dps is significantly lower. For example, with the pure arti, before I had two imbues, the one for the feat of Air plane and the one for law of the inquisitive. The numbers were much higher than they are now, significantly more, than they are now with a single imbue. Also, it is impossible for the numbers to be comparable, because one of them used to scale with spellpower.

It's not bad that some imbues are consolidated into one, but I think you have gone too far by unifying imbues. Some are fine to unify, but it's better to have multiple imbues at once, especially when some are from such different sources and scale differently (range/melee power vs spellpower). I don't like so much unification, I have lost too much dps.

I guess it's useless to ask you to moderate with that update, and don't create such a big unification. When you expose your ideas in Lammania it is usually already an irreversible process. But I really think you should at least keep two different imbues, that don't stack: the energetic ones based on spellpower and the rest (alignment, bane, etc) based on range/melee power. If you don't do this, people are going to be very upset when they see all the dps they've lost.

Also, consider the idea of renaming the elemental weapons spells (and the feat elemental weapon), as with the new system they no longer deal any elemental damage (which should refer only to cold, fire, acid, electricity) and don't even increase elemental imbues, instead they increase all types of imbues, not just elemental energy ones. Don't create any more confusing discrepancies with D&D terminology, devs. Remember that this is still a D&D game, not one you made up.

[Azarak]

Every imbue toggle you invest points into should give one imbue dice. The reason being that many trees require that you invest in the imbue toggle before you invest in the imbue dice in the tree. When you are multi-classing this means you are forced to waste points in the initial imbue toggle because it will not stack with the toggles you have already taken elsewhere.

[Anurakh]

As this change stands after testing on Lamania and even optimizing for imbue dice,.... Running a Ranger 18/ Arti 2.... my DPS is dropping about 25%.... Law damage on Cannith is 450-1100 on Lamania it's 180-800

Deepwood stalker has zero imbue die... so with half points in it and the other in Inquisitive , even tried splashing arcane archer to get an extra 4d to get those numbers... giving up 20% temp morale bonus to doubleshot and the extra damage from killer....

I understood the initial nerf, a bit heavy handed, but I could live with a character that was at the bottom of the DPS tree, but lowering the gap even more after spending over 1000 additional hours and MONEY, to get back 10% of what was taken in the first nerf this feels like the final straw to me. Some of us want to build a character and have spent literally thousands of hours getting all of the tetris gear and raid filigrees for that particular build, to have all of those gains wiped out in one update and then set back a few more pegs is really not my idea of fun. Grinding for progression is something I will do, grinding for regression is something I won't.
yes, it is a problem that I pointed out in the first preview with the inquisitive nerf. To compensate for the number of dice lost in many builds, we have to invest in other trees where we didn't have points before, and since the number of APs we have is the same as before, we have to give up other benefits to recover what we lost. Some inquisitive builds aren't affected much, but for others it's a huge nerf. I have the same problem as you with my ranger/arti inquisitive; investing in arcane archer means I have to change my enhancements, and it's a very big nerf because I lose a lot of things to gain only the imbue damage that I already had before. And if I don't change anything, obviously the imbue law is much lower.

But I will tell you that even my pure arti inquisitive has suffered a nerf. In his case not because of the dice reduction of the imbue law, but because a single imbue does less damage than the two he had before. A disaster, another nerf for inquisitive builds. As if they weren't overnerfed anymore...

[Anurakh]

Lynnabel: Currently law/chaos feats don't have an alignment requirement, and your change makes them directly useless for neutral characters. While due the feat background the change doesn't seem bad to me, the truth is that the change is a direct nerf to our builds, and one that we have to pay for. Please give us a free alignment or feat change. Don't add to the annoyance of the nerf on top of the affront of making us pay for your nerf, please.

[Lotoc]

Lynnabel: Currently law/chaos feats don't have an alignment requirement, and your change makes them directly useless for neutral characters. While due the feat background the change doesn't seem bad to me, the truth is that the change is a direct nerf to our builds, and one that we have to pay for. Please give us a free alignment or feat change. Don't add to the annoyance of the nerf on top of the affront of making us pay for your nerf, please.


Chaos is basically a dps buff even if you don't get an imbue dice as long as you aren't doublestrike capped.
Embodiment of law is a damage loss if you aren't t5 divine crusader, aren't lawful or aren't using an imbue...
The thing is the amount of damage the feats alone give right now is pretty paltry.

[Anurakh]

Chaos is basically a dps buff even if you don't get an imbue dice as long as you aren't doublestrike capped.
Embodiment of law is a damage loss if you aren't t5 divine crusader, aren't lawful or aren't using an imbue...
The thing is the amount of damage the feats alone give right now is pretty paltry.
Feats now give a buff to neutral characters, big or small it doesn't matter, they give a buff. After this change, they will not give it. I'm not opposing the change, however. All I'm saying is if they're going to nerf them, don't make us pay for it.

I'm tired of re-specializing my toons because of the constant changes in the game, and even more tired of having to pay for it.

Also, if they want to add an alignment condition for the background of the feats, don't introduce a background mismatch by keeping the name "elemental weapons" spell or feat. They no longer increase elemental damage, so the name needs to change. Don't be hypocritical enough to sneak a nerf into a feat by background reasons and then ignore the background of other spells and feats.

[Lotoc]

Feats now give a buff to neutral characters, big or small it doesn't matter, they give a buff. After this change, they will not give it. I'm not opposing the change, however. All I'm saying is if they're going to nerf them, don't make us pay for it.

I'm tired of re-specializing my toons because of the constant changes in the game, and even more tired of having to pay for it.


Reread the feats.
Embodiment of chaos is doublestrike and doubleshot to all characters, and an extra +2 imbue dice to to chaotic
Embodiment of law is prr and mrr to all characters and an extra 2 imbue dice if lawful
It is not "nothing"

[Anurakh]

Reread the feats.
Embodiment of chaos is doublestrike and doubleshot to all characters, and an extra +2 imbue dice to to chaotic
Embodiment of law is prr and mrr to all characters and an extra 2 imbue dice if lawful
It is not "nothing"
I have read them. I have the law one, and the PRR/MRR it gives is ridiculous (+3. seriously? LOL). I don't spend a feat on it. It's a nerf, and I don't want to pay for a nerf.

[clagor]

Changes from first preview are in this green!

Feats:

(Embodiment of Law - Destiny Feat) is now: +3 PRR and MRR. if you are lawful, you also gain +2 imbue dice
(Embodiment of Chaos - Destiny Feat) is now: +2% doublestrike and doubleshot. If you are chaotic, you also gain +2 imbue dice




So if you like to be neutral, you get no dice at all.
These two level 28 destiny feats are in general very disappointing!

How about the following:

(Embodiment of Law - Destiny Feat) is now: +5 PRR and MRR. You also gain +1 imbue dice, if you are lawful double the dice.
(Embodiment of Chaos - Destiny Feat) is now: +3% doublestrike and doubleshot. You also gain +1 imbue dice, if you are chaotic double the dice.

[Anurakh]

So if you like to be neutral, you get no dice at all.
These two level 28 destiny feats are in general very disappointing!

How about the following:

(Embodiment of Law - Destiny Feat) is now: +5 PRR and MRR. You also gain +1 imbue dice, if you are lawful double the dice.
(Embodiment of Chaos - Destiny Feat) is now: +3% doublestrike and doubleshot. You also gain +1 imbue dice, if you are chaotic double the dice.
This would be acceptable. The nerf that they want to introduce is not acceptable, unless they give us the means to respecialize for free.

[tapster]

The spell crit on vorpal for orbs and runearms have been replaced by +1 imbue dice in Offhand Versatility in Preview 2. In Preview 1 only orbs had the +1 imbue dice and runearms still had the spell crit on vorpal. Looks like it's gone for good :/

So this sucks. Free's up a feat slot I suppose. Relegated to pointless feat now unless you have an empty offhand.

Way to kill another playstyle. I mean the opportunity risk is high as you need to be in melee range for it to proc (for SWF) and you need to spellcast in the couple of seconds it's up. If snapshotting death aura is the intent then just fix snapshotting of death aura.

Not happy. At all.

[Aelonwy]

yes, it is a problem that I pointed out in the first preview with the inquisitive nerf. To compensate for the number of dice lost in many builds, we have to invest in other trees where we didn't have points before, and since the number of APs we have is the same as before, we have to give up other benefits to recover what we lost. Some inquisitive builds aren't affected much, but for others it's a huge nerf. I have the same problem as you with my ranger/arti inquisitive; investing in arcane archer means I have to change my enhancements, and it's a very big nerf because I lose a lot of things to gain only the imbue damage that I already had before. And if I don't change anything, obviously the imbue law is much lower.

But I will tell you that even my pure arti inquisitive has suffered a nerf. In his case not because of the dice reduction of the imbue law, but because a single imbue does less damage than the two he had before. A disaster, another nerf for inquisitive builds. As if they weren't overnerfed anymore...

This^! Absolutely agreed and its absolutely sucking the fun out of the game trying to salvage characters ruined by their constant changes.

[cmecu]

I think Tiefling scoundrel should just add imbue dice rather than having it's own toggle that is limited by HP %. The damage is not good enough to warrant the limitation of HP% and it doesn't stack with resonant arms from swashbuckler meaning if your a swashbuckler it's useless.

I also think Pale Masters vampire and negative damage melee cores should scale with imbue dice, as the damage output and healing is fairly terrible.

I think you should be able to use Shadar-kai's Winter Favored with rogue Venomed Blades or Winter Favored should give some imbue dice or something. Currently since you can't uses both there's really no point in taking Winter Favored ever because it takes less points to get to venomed blade and venom blade is simply better in every way...


Its broke right now anyway. The core of Tiefling Scoundrel.. I didnt try regular teifling yet, but scoundrel doesnt do sonic damage at the appropriate time. Damage should start at 75% , but if you have bloodsong II , damage doesnt start until 50%, and if you have bloodsong III you wont see damage appear until 25% ..

I hate they even messed with Tieflings core.. It was better to have additional damage appear at 75 50 25 , 3 different numbers appear, and also they nerfed bloodsong III from 200% spell power to 100% ... playing a tiefling and also being a swashbuckler using resonart arms doing 6d6 sonic with hits, and taking fey legenary feat which added more sonic damage to hit.. I just hate it when they make changes so drastic it utterly destroys builds you enjoy playing.. turns me off to the game.

[Duckology]

The numbers were much higher than they are now, significantly more, than they are now with a single imbue. .

Just to clarify before the update if you had multiple imbues you were getting multiple sets of dice rolls so the minimum damage number was at least double for some builds triple.. what the new imbue system is going to give you. While the maximum damage may only take about a 25% hit to dps..the average dps loss is going to be more severe, looks like about 40% less dps on average base attacks.... so when the update goes live a ranger/inquisitive will lose more than I previously calculated. Even if I spend another 2000 hours and 10k shards on rerolls for mythic/reaper bonus on ranged damage increases in gear, I won't be able to get even close to the almost viable end game dps I was doing before the update.

Just an FYI for the devs, the subreddit for D&D on Reddit has 3M active users, compared to 8000 for DDO. It would be financially prudent to attract and retain a large portion of that demographic. The one constant for D&D is that the rules are very clear for character generation and development, they have not changed in the last 30 years.

[cmecu]

Every imbue toggle you invest points into should give one imbue dice. The reason being that many trees require that you invest in the imbue toggle before you invest in the imbue dice in the tree. When you are multi-classing this means you are forced to waste points in the initial imbue toggle because it will not stack with the toggles you have already taken elsewhere.

I agree. Example, Barbarian in the blood frenzy is now an imbue. I dont want to blood frenzy because of an Imbue I use else where.. but I should benefit from the imbue dice.. it should be +1 passive for all imbues.

[Ereshkigal]

Imbues homogenize the mechanics - good for the software maybe - but removes the differentiation between abilities.

Moving things to Tier 5 drastically reduces viable character build options.

Are we looking at the popularity of 5e & the excitement over dAnDdOnE and thinking about going the same path of simplification or is this all about optimizing game performance?

It seems like the devs might be considering the complexity of character building in DDO as a barrier to entry instead of a retention tool to keep the same players for decades.

I spend as much time playing with build combinations as I do playing DDO. It's what keeps me interested in the game since 2006. It feels like this is another step towards nuking variety? Meh, it's just a first impression and with transfer broken I'm not on Lamannia yet for this phase 2.

If you're reducing some of these lower tier options that can be combined during multiclassing because you know you're going to be adding more variety down the road, please let us know that intention.

Also, while I'm here, I'd like to ask again for some more Illusion spells to be added to the game. I feel like some of these spells could re-use existing mechanics for other spells, and make playing an illusionist more viable.





Lvl 2 Silence (Bard 2, Cleric 2)
Lvl 2 Mirror Image (Bard 2, Sorcerer 2, Wizard 2)
Lvl 4 Rainbow Pattern (Sorcerer 4, Wizard 4)
Lvl 4 Zone of Silence (Bard 4)
Lvl 4 Shadow Conjuration (Sorcerer 4, Wizard 4, Bard 4)
Lvl 5 Shadow Evocation (Sorcerer 5, Wizard 5, Bard 5)
Lvl 5 Greater Shadow Conjuration (Sorcerer 5, Wizard 5)
Lvl 6 Greater Shadow Evocation (Sorcerer 6, Wizard 6)
Lvl 7 Invisibility, Mass (Sorcerer 7, Wizard 7)
Lvl 8 Scintillating Pattern (Sorcerer 8, Wizard 8)
Lvl 9 Weird (Sorcerer 9, Wizard 9)




Lvl 2 Shadow Blade (Sorcerer 5, Warlock 5, Wizard 5)
Lvl 3 Phantom Steed (Wizard 3) {Yes, illusionists should have fantastical illusory mount options}
Lvl 5 Creation (Artificer 5, Sorcerer 5, Wizard 5){for stuff like spell components, or ammo, etc.}
Lvl 6 Mental Prison (Sorcerer 6, Warlock 6, Wizard 6)
Lvl 8 Illusory Dragon (Wizard 8) {sort of like a summon}

[ivorycoaster]

Its broke right now anyway. The core of Tiefling Scoundrel.. I didnt try regular teifling yet, but scoundrel doesnt do sonic damage at the appropriate time. Damage should start at 75% , but if you have bloodsong II , damage doesnt start until 50%, and if you have bloodsong III you wont see damage appear until 25% ..

I hate they even messed with Tieflings core.. It was better to have additional damage appear at 75 50 25 , 3 different numbers appear, and also they nerfed bloodsong III from 200% spell power to 100% ... playing a tiefling and also being a swashbuckler using resonart arms doing 6d6 sonic with hits, and taking fey legenary feat which added more sonic damage to hit.. I just hate it when they make changes so drastic it utterly destroys builds you enjoy playing.. turns me off to the game.

I think the best way to fix this is to return the damage to scion feats and make the tiefling/scoundrel imbues core 1, no HP dilemma (or at the very least 1d4, 1d6 at 75%, 1d8 at 50%) and add 1 dice at core 3 and core 5. As mentioned in preview 1 thread, the current change renders the cores almost useless aside from adding spellpower, making it basically another caster only buff.

The scion feats in and of themselves are losing about 40% of their damage and all the potential of adding damage versatility, making immunity an even bigger problem for anyone who can't strip. Bit of a bummer there, as immunity stripping casters already dominate the end game content. They get to just ignore a major mechanic of the game while everyone else has to deal with mobs who either don't take damage from said element, or worse, heal from it..

[Thuranel]

I've already reported these bugs and most of those already have been reported in this thread, but I figured I would repost to give more visibility to other testers:

Artificer - Battle Engineer - Thundershock Imbue - Deals 1d8/imbue dice. Tooltip says 1d6.
Ranger - Arcane Archer - Elemental Arrows tier 1 - Does not provide a bonus imbue die.
Alchemist - Vile Chemist - Poisoned Coating - Can be used at the same time as other imbues.
Wizard - Eldritch Knight - Spellsword - Can be used at the same time as other imbues.
Draconic Incarnation - Arcane spellsword - Does not appear to give its bonus imbue dice
Spell - Greater elemental weapon - Does not appear to give its bonus imbue dice
Spell - Elemental weapon - Does not appear to give its bonus dice

[misterski]

I've already reported these bugs and most of those already have been reported in this thread, but I figured I would repost to give more visibility to other testers:

Artificer - Battle Engineer - Thundershock Imbue - Deals 1d8/imbue dice. Tooltip says 1d6.
Ranger - Arcane Archer - Elemental Arrows tier 1 - Does not provide a bonus imbue die.
Alchemist - Vile Chemist - Poisoned Coating - Can be used at the same time as other imbues.
Wizard - Eldritch Knight - Spellsword - Can be used at the same time as other imbues.
Draconic Incarnation - Arcane spellsword - Does not appear to give its bonus imbue dice
Spell - Greater elemental weapon - Does not appear to give its bonus imbue dice
Spell - Elemental weapon - Does not appear to give its bonus dice

The (greater) elemental weapon bugs are display bugs according to Lynnabel. They still give the correct dice.

[Lynnabel]

I've already reported these bugs and most of those already have been reported in this thread, but I figured I would repost to give more visibility to other testers:

Artificer - Battle Engineer - Thundershock Imbue - Deals 1d8/imbue dice. Tooltip says 1d6.
Ranger - Arcane Archer - Elemental Arrows tier 1 - Does not provide a bonus imbue die.
Alchemist - Vile Chemist - Poisoned Coating - Can be used at the same time as other imbues.
Wizard - Eldritch Knight - Spellsword - Can be used at the same time as other imbues.
Draconic Incarnation - Arcane spellsword - Does not appear to give its bonus imbue dice
Spell - Greater elemental weapon - Does not appear to give its bonus imbue dice
Spell - Elemental weapon - Does not appear to give its bonus dice

All of these have been fixed! Except for the AA Tier 1, which is not meant to give any bonus Imbue Dice. Those tooltips have instead been corrected.


1. alchemist VC imbue doesnt deal any damage with (simple) ranged weaps (darts, throwing daggers)
2. damage doesnt appear to scale off anything for the dice (~ 700 posion power, 22 dice and hitting 40-50)

Both of these have been fixed as well!


yes, it is a problem that I pointed out in the first preview with the inquisitive nerf. To compensate for the number of dice lost in many builds, we have to invest in other trees where we didn't have points before, and since the number of APs we have is the same as before, we have to give up other benefits to recover what we lost. Some inquisitive builds aren't affected much, but for others it's a huge nerf. I have the same problem as you with my ranger/arti inquisitive; investing in arcane archer means I have to change my enhancements, and it's a very big nerf because I lose a lot of things to gain only the imbue damage that I already had before. And if I don't change anything, obviously the imbue law is much lower.

But I will tell you that even my pure arti inquisitive has suffered a nerf. In his case not because of the dice reduction of the imbue law, but because a single imbue does less damage than the two he had before. A disaster, another nerf for inquisitive builds. As if they weren't overnerfed anymore...

With inquisitive, even though we are adjusting the ranged power scaling of the base imbue to 200% scaling (up from 150%), I feel like I should clarify that with the Inq tree (or any other tree for that matter) we are specifically not trying to recreate the current exact numbers as they stand today. The intention is for multiple parts of your character's build to be able to group together and build each other up. That's why we're worried about setting Inq to the exact same numbers as they were before - because now, a ton of other stuff can feed into that particular section. For an overhaul that ties a bunch of disparate stuff together we need to be extra sure that individual parts are not too strong since it all interacts together. This is kind of compounded by the ranged power increase - no matter what your current ranged power is, ranged power matters 33% more than it did before by changing the scaling from 1.5 to 2.0, so gaining bonus dice means more than it did before this change.

One other thing I should mention that was brought to my attention here but I can't find a post about to quote is that certain Filigree sets are getting a slight boost - set bonuses that gave an on-hit proc and just that proc (so not the ones that also give 50 spellpower) will be raised to +2 imbue dice from +1. For notation's sake, these set bonuses are the ones that are affected: Electrocution 3, Long Shadow 3, Snake Bite 3, Beast Mantle 4, and Reverberation 2.

[droid327]

With inquisitive, even though we are adjusting the ranged power scaling of the base imbue to 200% scaling (up from 150%), I feel like I should clarify that using the Inq tree alone we are specifically not trying to recreate the current exact numbers as they stand today. The intention is for multiple parts of your character's build to be able to group together and build each other up. That's why we're worried about setting Inq to the exact same numbers as they were before - because now, a ton of other stuff can feed into that particular section.

This is bad logic. Right now, you already CAN combine Inqui synergistically with other class trees. E.g., I have an Inqui/EK right now and I get full benefit of Law on your Side alongside full benefit of Spellsword, for the AP I have invested in each.

Now that I can either run Law or Spellsword, there's no reason that the individual contributions from those two trees need to be less. Every tree should more or less contribute the same after the patch as it did before.

Yes, Spellpower scaling is better than Ranged Power scaling, even at 200%, so those Inqui die are worth more as Spellsword bonus die than they are as Law die. But you cant design Inqui with the intention that someone just uses it to boost another tree's Imbue - it has to stand alone at the same level it is now, or its a straight and undeniable nerf to Inqui, which is what everyone's been saying.

If you cant balance all the imbues relative to each other AND without nerfing them individually...then maybe you shouldn't be trying to unify all the imbues like this, maybe you just unify some of them and leave others as-is

(btw: I worry the system you're creating does over-favor Spellpower scaling imbues)

[Lynnabel]

This is bad logic. Right now, you already CAN combine Inqui synergistically with other class trees. E.g., I have an Inqui/EK right now and I get full benefit of Law on your Side alongside full benefit of Spellsword, for the AP I have invested in each.

Now that I can either run Law or Spellsword, there's no reason that the individual contributions from those two trees need to be less. Every tree should more or less contribute the same after the patch as it did before.

Yes, Spellpower scaling is better than Ranged Power scaling, even at 200%, so those Inqui die are worth more as Spellsword bonus die than they are as Law die. But you cant design Inqui with the intention that someone just uses it to boost another tree's Imbue - it has to stand alone at the same level it is now, or its a straight and undeniable nerf to Inqui, which is what everyone's been saying.

If you cant balance all the imbues relative to each other AND without nerfing them individually...then maybe you shouldn't be trying to unify all the imbues like this, maybe you just unify some of them and leave others as-is

The big difference here is that we're not just combining the imbues as they currently stand - we're putting a ton of dice out there in a huge variety of new places. If we weren't supporting the system at all with set, filigree, augments, destinies, new character abilities, spells, etc, then sure, we can aim for each tree to generally arrive at the same location. But we're not doing that, we're building an ecosystem where a player can build a strong proc from many disparate parts (the same way that players build the rest of their DPS from many disparate parts across many sources) which means that each part needs to be a small proportion of the whole.

[Stravix]

This is bad logic. Right now, you already CAN combine Inqui synergistically with other class trees. E.g., I have an Inqui/EK right now and I get full benefit of Law on your Side alongside full benefit of Spellsword, for the AP I have invested in each.

Now that I can either run Law or Spellsword, there's no reason that the individual contributions from those two trees need to be less. Every tree should more or less contribute the same after the patch as it did before.

Yes, Spellpower scaling is better than Ranged Power scaling, even at 200%, so those Inqui die are worth more as Spellsword bonus die than they are as Law die. But you cant design Inqui with the intention that someone just uses it to boost another tree's Imbue - it has to stand alone at the same level it is now, or its a straight and undeniable nerf to Inqui, which is what everyone's been saying.

If you cant balance all the imbues relative to each other AND without nerfing them individually...then maybe you shouldn't be trying to unify all the imbues like this, maybe you just unify some of them and leave others as-is

Without easy set bonus access to imbue die, I will agree with Droid here.

From the Preview 1 description of multiple legendary sets adding 3 artifact bonus imbue die, I was under the impression that with a unified system the dice would become more readily available on gear as well. 3 sets (and rarely used ones at that) is not sufficient for that goal, and the sets which have these die in them need to be expanded if these die are going to be as universal as they are.

Caster Warlocks, might want these die as you have added a way to add it to your EBs. Archers and crossbow users will want these dice, as they are in AA and inquisitive. Monks, Barbs and Pallys will want these die as well. Since most players will want these, and have had power stripped from them due to the availability of these scaling options, these options need to be readily available, not tucked away in a couple sets.

EDIT: When it comes to filigrees and feats, I will say those are nowhere close to making up that gap by themselves, as they are losing bonuses on them innately as well. The scion feats for instance, are going to be nerfed no matter the build under this new system, as 2d20 scaling with SP will always be more than +3 imbue dice, and the filigree ones require a ton of scaling to beat their current form.

Overall, I see that if you are going down this road, you really need to open up that set availability to reach a breakeven point.

[droid327]

The big difference here is that we're not just combining the imbues as they currently stand - we're putting a ton of dice out there in a huge variety of new places. If we weren't supporting the system at all with set, filigree, augments, destinies, new character abilities, spells, etc, then sure, we can aim for each tree to generally arrive at the same location. But we're not doing that, we're building an ecosystem where a player can build a strong proc from many disparate parts (the same way that players build the rest of their DPS from many disparate parts across many sources) which means that each part needs to be a small proportion of the whole.

Each one of those new sources comes with an opportunity cost, though. That's what justifies their added benefit...you arent just throwing out free imbue die anywhere (or just attaching die mostly to things people already use). Yes, you can get more Imbue die than currently, but you have to change your set, or some filigree slots, or an epic feat, or change your Destiny loadout....and that all comes with tradeoffs.

The trees themselves merely need to reflect the same value for the opportunity cost that we already have invested in them.

If you balance the trees downward, assuming that people will make up the difference with the new sources, then you're pigeonholing them and forcing them to pay a higher opportunity cost to maintain the same level of efficacy. That's a nerf, no two ways about it

[Mindos]

which means that each part needs to be a small proportion of the whole.

we need something in the fifth core or so of universal trees: The more AP you spend in this tree the greater the damage/dice/power or something.

[Abilbo]

Imbues being able to crit kind of breaks them.
On live Assassin Rogues and EKs are like, two of the top 5 dps builds without sneak attack dice or imbues critting.
The game does not need damage creep that severe.

The reason why Crits are important to the imbues is that without them, in higher reaper, your damage becomes insignificant.

People build characters for the most part 3 different ways.

1) to level and gain a past life. Normally optimized for speed.
2) for end game. can often make leveling in heroic a bit slower, but it's a build that will be great at end game.
3) for flavor. Maybe you want to play a small shield build, go for it, have fun.

Currently, I have an alchemist shooter on live, using Inquis and VC to add supplemental damage. This is not an end game character, doesn't have completionist in anything, its just a character I got to 30 and he stays there, if my main is off leveling, and I want to participate in casual raids with the guild there he sits, ready to go. I recently ran into a R10 quest with some guild people who wanted to play, and this was the only capped character that i could play. This character, even not fully maximized can hit 7-8K crits in R10 using his big damage clicks. His poison imbue become almost insignificant.

My main character on Lamania, with the gear set that i built in just a few hours, was over 900 SP and boosting to over 1100 in reaper, was able to get 8K hits in town, while using bosots. In reaper, those numbers were in the low 100 range. Because i focued on imbues, and not RP, my crits for my base damage never got very high, i think the highest I saw was about 2K.

This isn't the definition of power creep.

There will always be those players, you can call them the elitist or the min maxers, it doesnt matter, there will always be that group of people who find a way to tweak the system just enough, to be able to pull off amazing things, hooray for them. For the average player, which I am probably one of, losing DPS is bad. I don't know what crits are now for spells/melee/ranged, by which i mean that I dont know what multiplier is used, but with a multiplier of 0 imbue damage in higher reaper is bad.

With all that being said, I don't have to agree with the changes, or even like the changes. I like the game, and I will find a way to adapt, and keep playing. I just don't see myself playing a build that relies upon imbues for end game content.

[Fisto_Mk_I]

One other thing I should mention that was brought to my attention here but I can't find a post about to quote is that certain Filigree sets are getting a slight boost - set bonuses that gave an on-hit proc and just that proc (so not the ones that also give 50 spellpower) will be raised to +2 imbue dice from +1. For notation's sake, these set bonuses are the ones that are affected: Electrocution 3, Long Shadow 3, Snake Bite 3, Beast Mantle 4, and Reverberation 2.

Other (not so misty as yours) words, all these filigree set just be nerfed at 16d6 appropriate damage. For me, it's seems as huge unnecessary irreplaceable loss, it's all.

[sunseeker]

"Fire of Fury" is still using the old attack and effect of "Silence the Wicked". It is currently not a toggle.
The Tiefling "Bloodhunt, improved/greater now do less as the enhancement progresses.

Bloodhunt is 1d4 fire at 75%
Improved is 1d6 at 50%
Greater is 1d8 at 25%

In the current lama preview if you have Greater Bloodhunt you do not see any damage until a target has reached 25% HP.

[droid327]

Other (not so misty as yours) words, all these filigree set just be nerfed at 16d6 appropriate damage. For me, it's seems as huge unnecessary irreplaceable loss, it's all.

4d6 at 20 to 2d8, you need 55 spell power to break even. So it'slikely a buff there

16d6 at 32, you need 522 spell power...which is a tougher mark to hit if you aren't a caster class

[Lynnabel]

"Fire of Fury" is still using the old attack and effect of "Silence the Wicked". It is currently not a toggle.
The Tiefling "Bloodhunt, improved/greater now do less as the enhancement progresses.

Bloodhunt is 1d4 fire at 75%
Improved is 1d6 at 50%
Greater is 1d8 at 25%

In the current lama preview if you have Greater Bloodhunt you do not see any damage until a target has reached 25% HP.

Both of these have been fixed!

[Stravix]

One other thing I should mention that was brought to my attention here but I can't find a post about to quote is that certain Filigree sets are getting a slight boost - set bonuses that gave an on-hit proc and just that proc (so not the ones that also give 50 spellpower) will be raised to +2 imbue dice from +1. For notation's sake, these set bonuses are the ones that are affected: Electrocution 3, Long Shadow 3, Snake Bite 3, Beast Mantle 4, and Reverberation 2.

Ooh, hadn't noticed this. This is a great change! Any chance we could have additional sets get the dice as well though? Right now, inquisitive needs around 3 bonus die added without tradeoff to breakeven with live, and set bonuses seem perfect for that. They are, however, too restricted in which sets get them atm.

[droid327]

Ooh, hadn't noticed this. This is a great change! Any chance we could have additional sets get the dice as well though? Right now, inquisitive needs around 3 bonus die added without tradeoff to breakeven with live, and set bonuses seem perfect for that. They are, however, too restricted in which sets get them atm.

Which, for inqui, pretty much means wallwatch or go home :)

[Stravix]

Which, for inqui, pretty much means wallwatch or go home :)

Yeah, exactly.


Like what is a Henshin Mystic and Sacred Fist supposed to wear, Walking Ancestor with all those spell bonuses and wizardry and no melee power? Profane Set with it's bonuses to INT, USP and also no melee power?

How about a paladin or Dark Apostate? What heavy armor options with imbue dice are available?

Are all inquisitive supposed to have medium armor proficiency for Crypt raider (barring all the other issues with forcing that set)?

Right now it is far too restrictive considering how many builds will need to have some to break even as of current.

It's ok to reduce the overall base power level when you introduce scaling, but you need that scaling to be accessible if you do, otherwise it is a notable nerf.

[Duckology]

we're building an ecosystem where a player can build a strong proc from many disparate parts (the same way that players build the rest of their DPS from many disparate parts across many sources) which means that each part needs to be a small proportion of the whole.

This ignores entirely that many of the ranged enhancements doubleshot/fort bypass in particular are only available in the tier 4/5 and core 5 sections. To get to those you can't splash a little in many different trees. Adding extra imbue die to the tier 5 inquisitive core would solve the issue that this update is going to impose.

As the update stands I will go from being able to cautiously play on reaper 4 looking and rerolling for mythic/reaper bonus upgrades to gear... to not being able to do that unless I'm lucky enough to find a group of sorcerers/warlocks who are zerging reaper 8 that I can follow around lowering my arms for 3 seconds while they clear the room so I can then loot the chest....

[Aelonwy]

Each one of those new sources comes with an opportunity cost, though. That's what justifies their added benefit...you arent just throwing out free imbue die anywhere (or just attaching die mostly to things people already use). Yes, you can get more Imbue die than currently, but you have to change your set, or some filigree slots, or an epic feat, or change your Destiny loadout....and that all comes with tradeoffs.

The trees themselves merely need to reflect the same value for the opportunity cost that we already have invested in them.

If you balance the trees downward, assuming that people will make up the difference with the new sources, then you're pigeonholing them and forcing them to pay a higher opportunity cost to maintain the same level of efficacy. That's a nerf, no two ways about it

this^!

And you are ignoring how much you are affecting HEROICS especially where we do NOT have massive amounts of ranged power, access to filigree or epic feats with extra dice. Look, bringing up my paladin10/rog10 Inq again, the one I mentioned in the first preview. I had already spent her AP to get the most I could from Inq, and KotC so she had law damage and extra light damage. Now? the light damage is lost and those dice may or may not just barely make up for the losses to Inq with the RP scaling change but doubtful in heroic. The trade-offs for spending the AP in Inq & Kotc had already been chosen... now? now what? look at turning my ranged Law and Order paladin in to some quasi-multi-mutt eating the cost of a heart to make up for your nerfs? Even if I just respec my enhancements to attempt to make up dice elsewhere I WOULD ABSOLUTELY HAVE to give up enhancements I liked and enjoyed to get back lost damage. This isn't about min-maxing to improve my character...I like her just the way she is on live, this is about being forced to change my character to get her back to this stage while you nerf Inq AGAIN.

[Xezom]

this^!

And you are ignoring how much you are affecting HEROICS especially where we do NOT have massive amounts of ranged power, access to filigree or epic feats with extra dice. Look, bringing up my paladin10/rog10 Inq again, the one I mentioned in the first preview. I had already spent her AP to get the most I could from Inq, and KotC so she had law damage and extra light damage. Now? the light damage is lost and those dice may or may not just barely make up for the losses to Inq with the RP scaling change but doubtful in heroic. The trade-offs for spending the AP in Inq & Kotc had already been chosen... now? now what? look at turning my ranged Law and Order paladin in to some quasi-multi-mutt eating the cost of a heart to make up for your nerfs? Even if I just respec my enhancements to attempt to make up dice elsewhere I WOULD ABSOLUTELY HAVE to give up enhancements I liked and enjoyed to get back lost damage. This isn't about min-maxing to improve my character...I like her just the way she is on live, this is about being forced to change my character to get her back to this stage while you nerf Inq AGAIN.

I'm going to echo in here.

Creating a system with more opportunity to build upon imbues by adding power from other sources you WOULDN"T normally have considered: GOOD CHANGE. Increases potential build options and diversity
Making said system with the expectation that you MUST use those sources to gain the same amount of power as you are currently able to acquire on live: BAD CHANGE. Directly nerfs live builds that are already min/maxed based on the current iteration, which Lynn has specifically said is weaker as a stand alone



With inquisitive, even though we are adjusting the ranged power scaling of the base imbue to 200% scaling (up from 150%), I feel like I should clarify that with the Inq tree (or any other tree for that matter) we are specifically not trying to recreate the current exact numbers as they stand today. The intention is for multiple parts of your character's build to be able to group together and build each other up. That's why we're worried about setting Inq to the exact same numbers as they were before - because now, a ton of other stuff can feed into that particular section. For an overhaul that ties a bunch of disparate stuff together we need to be extra sure that individual parts are not too strong since it all interacts together.

The problem with this line of thought is that it assumes that current live builds are not using multiple parts of their character builds to group together and build each other up, and suggests that this Imbue overhaul fixes that. This is simply not true. Speed Chip procs especially with multi hit weapons (Inquis Double shooter and Arty repeaters) are a fully flushed out and well planned way of playing those builds. These overhaul changes pigeonhole those characters into using fewer of those chip options. Additionally, in the case of inquisitive, it ALSO requires you to take one of two options:

1) Either build the same as you currently are on live and take a loss. There is no arguing that they will be of equal strength with Law on Your Side. Even with the other sources becoming imbue dice, it will take 2-3 of those to get the same power out of LOYS as you currently have on live. This means that IF you are taking a chip course from another place that with this overhaul is becoming imbue dice, the first 2-3 of those are being eaten by the inquis nerf. No matter how you slice it, it is weaker since those dice are now lost to simply recover the power from LOYS, not to mention that they no long also apply their additional effects. Even if you get LOYS back to where it is on live, you are still losing out on something that you already have on live with this overhaul, and that is WRONG. Period. Overhauls should not nerf existing builds in the off chance that it over tunes new ones. This is a case of the new shiny getting the advantage over the old established, and it's hyper frustrating for longstanding and existing players with established builds.

2) Second option is that you have to alter your build to to try to force in enough dice to compensate for the loss of power in LOYS by picking up enough imbue dice that you are not currently getting (including that skills you are already taking that are being converted to imbue since 2-3 of those are considered just break evens). This both raises the AP cost AND the opportunity cost of a build to get back up to the power levels they were before. This results in a loss of other interesting choices that players are already using simply because this overhaul FORCES certain builds (inquis specifically) to invest more heavily into the new imbue overhaul than other classes/set-ups.

Either way route you take, Inquis is getting nerfed. You can avoid saying the word all you want, but saying that you're afraid to give them the exact same numbers in favor of lower numbers is a nerf. Don't do that. Players hate it when overhauls like this cost them the fun that they are currently having for the "opportunity" to build something else that may be potentially fun. This rule applies to ALL overhauls not just this one. An overhaul should not hurt existing characters. Overhauls should at the very minimum result in a 1 to 1 power exchange for existing builds, and encourage new set-ups that might even be stronger albeit different than existing one.

Even with the addition of augments, sets, filigrees, etc. that may increase imbue dice, there is still an opportunity cost for exisiting characters. If the balance is now around picking up those new shinies, characters will have to alter their existing builds to acquire the same power. A lot of people put a lot of time and careful planning into their characters, planning out everything down to the last augment slot. If those additions and new Imbue sources do not allow a character to retain their current set up while also picking up those dice that are needed to overcome the power down built in to compensate for their addition, they are taking a loss. There is no two ways about it.

As my running buddy has said from our testing on Lamannia, this feels like another one of those change for change sake overhauls that messes with existing builds. I try not to be too much of a downer or overly negative. I try to give balanced feedback with legitimately thought out suggestions on how I'd adjust something. But I'm going to say that these changes fell like a if-it's-not-broke-we'll-fix-that kind of change. I'm not saying that the overhaul won't benefit ANY character. Far from. Elf AA-DA silver flame Archer is going to be stupid strong with this overhaul, but that's a new build (only one major patch cycle old), and it's coming at the expense of an old build (inquis).

[Phoenicis]

8<SNIP>8

Either way route you take, Inquis is getting nerfed. You can avoid saying the word all you want, but saying that you're afraid to give them the exact same numbers in favor of lower numbers is a nerf. Don't do that. Players hate it when overhauls like this cost them the fun that they are currently having for the "opportunity" to build something else that may be potentially fun. This rule applies to ALL overhauls not just this one. An overhaul should not hurt existing characters. Overhauls should at the very minimum result in a 1 to 1 power exchange for existing builds, and encourage new set-ups that might even be stronger albeit different than existing one.

As my running buddy has said from our testing on Lamannia, this feels like another one of those change for change sake overhauls that messes with existing builds. I try not to be too much of a downer or overly negative. I try to give balanced feedback with legitimately thought out suggestions on how I'd adjust something. But I'm going to say that these changes fell like a if-it's-not-broke-we'll-fix-that kind of change. I'm not saying that the overhaul won't benefit ANY character. Far from. Elf AA-DA silver flame Archer is going to be stupid strong with this overhaul, but that's a new build (only one major patch cycle old), and it's coming at the expense of an old build (inquis).

This is the point I tried, and failed, to make in the first thread. If I don't rebuild my character I am weaker than I was. That's a straight nerf. It doesn't matter if the opportunity to make different choices exists to end up with more DPS. Making those choices requires that I lose something I currently have. Still a nerf. Even if I end up with more DPS, I've had to lose something I currently have. That is a nerf.

When you add that nearly all the additional dice come in epics (filagrees, sets, epic/destiny feats) heroics are getting nerfed hard.

[Xgya]

This is kind of compounded by the ranged power increase - no matter what your current ranged power is, ranged power matters 33% more than it did before by changing the scaling from 1.5 to 2.0, so gaining bonus dice means more than it did before this change.


For level 18 Heroic Inquis, that as a baseline gain 20 Ranged power, that 20 is now worth 33% more.

So, a bit over 5% more damage per die. At the cost of 30% of its dice.

There ARE other sources of standing Ranged Power in heroics (Mythic and set bonuses - that's almost the totality of available ranged power to a T5 Inqui). None of them ever compensate for the loss.

That there might be ways they can choose to change the way they spent their AP to gain back some of the power lost doesn't make it not a nerf. It just *might* not make it an outright damage nerf. (it probably will, just not an outright nerf to Law)
Say, if an Inquisitive's extra APs went towards getting more Sneak Attack dice. (that's where my extra APs as an Inquisitive used to go) Now they go towards Imbue dice.
Or if an Inquisitive's extra APs went towards survivability, say, extra PRR/MRR/Dodge? Now they go towards Imbue dice.
And both of those happen ONLY to keep Law up to par with what it was before. Heck, with a few adjustments, it might even make Law stronger than it was. But it won't give them that Dodge back. Or that nice set of Sneak Attack dice.

Saying that you can potentially get back what was lost isn't false.
You can get it back BY LOSING OUT SOMEWHERE ELSE.
There just isn't a way to look at this that doesn't look like a nerf to Inquisitives.

[Lynnabel]

This is the point I tried, and failed, to make in the first thread. If I don't rebuild my character I am weaker than I was. That's a straight nerf. It doesn't matter if the opportunity to make different choices exists to end up with more DPS. Making those choices requires that I lose something I currently have. Still a nerf. Even if I end up with more DPS, I've had to lose something I currently have. That is a nerf.

When you add that nearly all the additional dice come in epics (filagrees, sets, epic/destiny feats) heroics are getting nerfed hard.

2 quick points:

point 1 is that the dice that are being adjusted for Inq are concentrated in cores 18 and 20 so saying this is about heroics isn't quite accurate. You are indeed down 1 dice from levels 12 to 17 but that's more than made up for with the ranged power scaling and point 2, which is as follows:

point 2 is that due in part to the passionate feedback in this thread we're going to nudge the dice scaling for Inq a bit (moving up from 1d8 to 1d10) so you'll actually be a little stronger in heroics.

Should be a nice boost :) As a reminder plz keep feedback civil or we can't really have a fun discussion :P

[Phoenicis]

8<SNIP>8
As a reminder plz keep feedback civil or we can't really have a fun discussion :P

If I came across as rude/uncivil I apologize. It wasn't my intention.

[Lynnabel]

If I came across as rude/uncivil I apologize. It wasn't my intention.

Not to worry, it was just a general reminder :)

[Stravix]

2 quick points:

point 1 is that the dice that are being adjusted for Inq are concentrated in cores 18 and 20 so saying this is about heroics isn't quite accurate. You are indeed down 1 dice from levels 12 to 17 but that's more than made up for with the ranged power scaling and point 2, which is as follows:

point 2 is that due in part to the passionate feedback in this thread we're going to nudge the dice scaling for Inq a bit (moving up from 1d8 to 1d10) so you'll actually be a little stronger in heroics.

Should be a nice boost :) As a reminder plz keep feedback civil or we can't really have a fun discussion :P

Great, now I get to update the math thread with that. JK, that is fantastic news, and hopefully eases quite a bit of concern.

Thank you, as always, for the constant communication!

EDIT: Thinking about it, Lynn, if the damage dice is a d10 now, is the unaligned damage still a d4, or has it been bumped up to a d6 to match?

[Duckology]

I'm going to echo in here.


1) Either build the same as you currently are on live and take a loss.

The more I crunch the numbers here the bigger the loss gets. The only double filigree that works for a ranger/inquis is the wreath of flame/manticore. Pre-update I have 16d6 from the proc alone but because that filigree set gives spellpower (does nothing for me) it isn't getting additional imbue dice, so I just get to eat that loss of 16d6... Max imbue dice I can get with deepwood/inquis/arcane archer is 14 imbue dice... so damage drops to 14d8 total from imbues and to get that 14d8 I have to give up 20% doubleshot....

So Pre update I have 27d8 imbue damage....
Post update I will have 14d8 but the imbue is scaled up to 2.0 instead of 1.5.....

If you didn't take into account that minimum damage is reduced 50% because of a single roll vs a double roll...it might make sense. As is, it is delete account and move on to a new game update for me...

[Xgya]

2 quick points:

point 1 is that the dice that are being adjusted for Inq are concentrated in cores 18 and 20 so saying this is about heroics isn't quite accurate. You are indeed down 1 dice from levels 12 to 17 but that's more than made up for with the ranged power scaling and point 2, which is as follows:

point 2 is that due in part to the passionate feedback in this thread we're going to nudge the dice scaling for Inq a bit (moving up from 1d8 to 1d10) so you'll actually be a little stronger in heroics.

Should be a nice boost :) As a reminder plz keep feedback civil or we can't really have a fun discussion :P

Second part is interesting.

I'll just repost my initial math using generous Ranged Power numbers.

At level 12, I expect a character will have 30 ranged power or less (not counting temporary boosts)

Currently, they get to deal 7d8.
31.5x(1+0.3x1.5)=45.675
Now, they do 6d10 with better scaling.
33x(1+0.3x2)=52.8

That's certainly better than it was before, but it does require a very generous ranged power total.
Without any scaling, we'd have 7d8 (31.5) vs 6d10 (33). So even with low amounts of ranged power, this is actually a buff for level 12 Inquis. Interesting.

Level 18 now:
Again, using a VERY high 45 ranged power.

Before, at 10d8:
45x(1+0.45x1.5) = 75.735
Now, at 7d10:
38.5x(1+0.45x2) = 73.15

So, at levels 18-20, still a slight nerf, but nowhere near what it was before, and within the acceptable range given there's a buff for 6 levels before it.
Now, the baseline would be 45 vs 38.5 is notable, but that's a level where Inquis get a bit more ranged power to compensate for the loss.

The actual loss should be greater than the one I displayed above, but so would the actual gains for levels 12-17. So long as those appear to even out, I'll be a lot more satisfied than I was minutes ago.

To add, I like that now trying to get extra Imbue dice isn't an attempt at getting back what was lost, but an option you have to change your build to something different.

[Lynnabel]

The actual loss should be greater than the one I displayed above, but so would the actual gains for levels 12-17. So long as those appear to even out, I'll be a lot more satisfied than I was minutes ago.

This entire situation is compounded severely by the actual splits people are using for Inq. For example, if they have Battle Engineer as a secondary tree, they've gotten 3 imbue dice from their doubleshot enhancement in t4, so are way ahead from then on. So we're trying to account for a huge various range of bonus dice... its tricky stuff :P

Glad you're feeling a little more satisfied :P You and everyone here are of course more than welcome to continue to provide feedback :)

[Xgya]

This entire situation is compounded severely by the actual splits people are using for Inq. For example, if they have Battle Engineer as a secondary tree, they've gotten 3 imbue dice from their doubleshot enhancement in t4, so are way ahead from then on. So we're trying to account for a huge various range of bonus dice... its tricky stuff :P

Glad you're feeling a little more satisfied :P You and everyone here are of course more than welcome to continue to provide feedback :)

My favorite Inqui build to date was one with a deep Deepwood splash.
Because the ranged damage sets all gave sneak attack bonuses, I mostly solo, and Sniper's Shot solves part of that puzzle.

Having to switch over or try to take points away from Sniper towards Arcane Archer which would have been the only readily-available source of Imbue Dice my build had would have lost me a lot of the defensive benefits I gained by going up Deepwood Sniper, as well as the sheer amount of FUN Sniper's Shot just is to me, even though the build is AP-starved to the point of not gaining it until level 15.

[Sqrlmonger]

That's why we're worried about setting Inq to the exact same numbers as they were before - because now, a ton of other stuff can feed into that particular section. For an overhaul that ties a bunch of disparate stuff together we need to be extra sure that individual parts are not too strong since it all interacts together. This is kind of compounded by the ranged power increase - no matter what your current ranged power is, ranged power matters 33% more than it did before by changing the scaling from 1.5 to 2.0, so gaining bonus dice means more than it did before this change.

Two quick things

1) Can you confirm the 33% assertion with 100% certainty? Posts put forth from other devs in the past (linked in the Imbue Pass #1 thread) indicate this is not the case and that for ranged powers between 0 RP and 200 RP we should see 0% to 25% increase in damage switching from 150% scaling to 200% scaling.

2) Can you give an idea of the scenario where you would be concerned about this being overpowered? Back of the envelope we are talking about ~28d of imbue damage that I can see. At 200 Ranged power my calculations show that should be averaging around 630 damage per hit. Increasing that to 32d of imbue damage this only increases by 90 damage to 720 average damage. Granted this would be on top of weapon damage, but I simply do not see this damage scaling at anything remotely approaching a game-breaking rate. I see sorcs spamming AE's for 15-20k, bow builds crit'ing without hunt's end for 40-50k, and melee builds doing similar amounts of damage. Meanwhile my Inquisitor at cap is lucky to hunt's end for 20-30k. Put simply, I think your fears are completely and totally unwarranted. I'm open to see where I'm wrong on that but I don't see it right now even a little.

edit: NOTE: I went ahead and tested this in post #200 (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/535266-U57-Preview-2-Imbue-Overhaul?p=6550963&viewfull=1#post6550963) and confirmed that the formula Lynn and others are using is not correct.

[DonTheGreatOne]

Nevermind

[Stravix]

I have to be honest I am not seeing how this works the way you say it does.
I presently play a 2arti/18 wizard build.
I have both law on your side and spellsword with the following dice
law on side 13d8 scaled at 150% of ranged power (177) 13*4.5*2.65 = 155
Spellsword 6d10 scaled on spellpower (503 electric) 6*5.5*5 165
combuined average = 320

After this change I will have 14d8 of damage basically 1d8 of damage higher than I had from law on your side before the change.
average damage before ranged or spell power adjustment 14*4.5 = 67.5

law on you side 63 * 3.54 = 223
spellsword 63 * 5 = 315

So no matter which toggle I turn on I lose average damage.

Your math is slightly off
Law(Old) = 13*4.5*(1+1.5*1.77) = 213.82
SpellSword(Old) = 6*5.5*(1+5.03) = 198.99

Total(Old) = 412.81

Law(New) = 14*5.5*(1+2*1.77) = 349.58
Spellsowrd(new) = 14*4.5*(1+5.03) = 379.89

Better(New) = 379.89

Relative Imbue Damage (New/Old) = 92%, aka an 8% nerf to your overall imbue damage, but the option to scale via sets (very limited), filigrees (new neutral, for the most part), feats, etc.

Overall, not a terrible showing, but def a decrease, and some low hanging fruit should be available to builds like yours to make that a breakeven.

[Duckology]

Two quick things

for ranged powers between 0 RP and 200 RP we should see 0% to 25% increase in damage switching from 150% scaling to 200% scaling.


Maybe the imbue dice from AA aren't working with the inquisitor law dice on lamania all I can say is my minimum damage from imbues was 50% less than on Live. That is with range power of 277......

[ivorycoaster]

this^!

And you are ignoring how much you are affecting HEROICS especially where we do NOT have massive amounts of ranged power, access to filigree or epic feats with extra dice. Look, bringing up my paladin10/rog10 Inq again, the one I mentioned in the first preview. I had already spent her AP to get the most I could from Inq, and KotC so she had law damage and extra light damage. Now? the light damage is lost and those dice may or may not just barely make up for the losses to Inq with the RP scaling change but doubtful in heroic. The trade-offs for spending the AP in Inq & Kotc had already been chosen... now? now what? look at turning my ranged Law and Order paladin in to some quasi-multi-mutt eating the cost of a heart to make up for your nerfs? Even if I just respec my enhancements to attempt to make up dice elsewhere I WOULD ABSOLUTELY HAVE to give up enhancements I liked and enjoyed to get back lost damage. This isn't about min-maxing to improve my character...I like her just the way she is on live, this is about being forced to change my character to get her back to this stage while you nerf Inq AGAIN.

This is a perfect example of what I have been continuously saying here. In heroics, you would end up with more dice, just use the +3 from the assassin tree for 8ap. Think about how much more powerful your build could be at level 4, with 2 rogue levels. It might change the way you distribute your points while leveling but would provide far more potential. KOTC will give you more dice too. The builds that used to rely on multiple small procs to deal damage in easy content like Elite are getting a huge buff in this update because those small procs used to get rendered useless in any somewhat difficult content. Now, they will scale higher and be forced into relative viability for low to mid reaper content. The reason these changes have to be made the way they are being made is, as was said before, due to the opportunistic potential of having them be far too powerful.

[sunseeker]

Both of these have been fixed!

Would it possible to get "Radiant flourish" to work with spell power instead of Melee/Ranged Power. Now that "Fires of Fury" is spell power based it would be nice if the cores helped this one as well.

[Stravix]

Lynn, quick question.

What are your thought on Dark Apostate at the moment? I know most people find it a little lacking, with one major flaw being (what most would consider) it's signature ability, the Dark Apostate Imbue, being on the weaker side when compared to the other two major spellpower imbues in arcane archer and EK due to the die sizing being smaller (among other things).

Would it be possible to test Dark Apostate at a d8 to mirror EK and AA as a tree defining imbue?

[Fisto_Mk_I]

4d6 at 20 to 2d8, you need 55 spell power to break even. So it'slikely a buff there

16d6 at 32, you need 522 spell power...which is a tougher mark to hit if you aren't a caster class

2d8, mmm? And where does it come from? Currently, at lvl20 my pure fighter have 4d6 almost universal sonic damage from reverberation 2pc set, upgraded to 16d6 at lvl32. After U57, my fighter just lose 4d6-16d6 damage. So, where i can take this 2d8 imbue and how i can gain 522 spell power... as pure fighter? Or as pure shuri-Monk (and don't say about useless poison imbue, please)?

[Xezom]

2 quick points:

point 1 is that the dice that are being adjusted for Inq are concentrated in cores 18 and 20 so saying this is about heroics isn't quite accurate. You are indeed down 1 dice from levels 12 to 17 but that's more than made up for with the ranged power scaling and point 2, which is as follows:

point 2 is that due in part to the passionate feedback in this thread we're going to nudge the dice scaling for Inq a bit (moving up from 1d8 to 1d10) so you'll actually be a little stronger in heroics.

Should be a nice boost :) As a reminder plz keep feedback civil or we can't really have a fun discussion :P

I personally like that method of upscaling the inquis. It doesn't allow for poaching for other toggles (which adding more imbue dice would), while still giving some extra oomph to the dedicated Inquis.



(Math time snipped for cleanness)

To add, I like that now trying to get extra Imbue dice isn't an attempt at getting back what was lost, but an option you have to change your build to something different.

I'm on board with you here too. I think that this (and the supporting math) are the sentiment I was shooting for too. The overhaul shouldn't feel like you need to invest to get back what was lost, but give you options and trade offs should you want to double down. I think having a higher imbue at 1d10 vs d8 will definitely help as it's less of a penalty to existing builds.


I hope my response didn't come off as uncivilized or rude. It's well documented that I hold Lynn in high regards for being willing to engage, listen to, respond to, and implement forum feedback. I meant no disrespect, just voicing my opinion on what I feel an overhaul should and shouldn't do. I'm definitely with Xyga in that after hearing that the dice size will be increased I'm far less bothered by the potential hit to inquis than I was a few moments ago. I think we're pretty close to where it should be with those adjustments. Not exactly the same, but close enough I don't think it'll be THAT impactful.

[Xgya]

Think about how much more powerful your build could be at level 4, with 2 rogue levels.

To have a stat to damage at level 4, you have to have 1 Universal AP to manage to get a stat to damage, dual crossbows AND Law.
And that's how much AP you have. That's where it stops.

Can it be a decent way to spend 8 AP later on? Definitely. In fact, you make a good point for that specific Enhancement being TOO good for what it does, given how low in the tree it is.

That point is made so strongly I'd suggest changing the wording of Venomed Blades to say "Gain +1 Imbue Die for each Poison Strike you know" instead of altering Toxin Affinity. (just please make those only cost 1 AP per strike. That cost was already prohibitive)
Both require you to put points into seldom-used Enhancements, but my suggestion requires you to use 11 points into the Assassin tree, which is more in line with the other sources of extra dice.
Tying the extra die to Venomed Blades ensures nobody just places 2 points into Assassin to gain 1 die and calls it a day.

Still, early on, crossbow users in general are AP-starved, mostly because of their lack of a stat to damage.

[ivorycoaster]

2d8, mmm? And where does it come from? Currently, at lvl20 my pure fighter have 4d6 almost universal sonic damage from reverberation 2pc set, upgraded to 16d6 at lvl32. After U57, my fighter just lose 4d6-16d6 damage. So, where i can take this 2d8 imbue and how i can gain 522 spell power... as pure fighter? Or as pure shuri-Monk (and don't say about useless poison imbue, please)?

Fighter is not a good example. 16d6 is 16-96 non scaling damage.
I've seen fighters hit for 200k. Your imbues and procs are not and never will be a major source of dps. Fighter has the highest potential melee power, as far as I know. These little tiny procs are pretty much nothing. You would get so much more damage from 15 melee power or if you don't have rares, 11 melee power from a huge variety of 2 piece filigree sets.. Maybe it's a little less pretty on the numbers, but WAY more powerful..

[ivorycoaster]

To have a stat to damage at level 4, you have to have 1 Universal AP to manage to get a stat to damage, dual crossbows AND Law.
And that's how much AP you have. That's where it stops.

Can it be a decent way to spend 8 AP later on? Definitely. In fact, you make a good point for that specific Enhancement being TOO good for what it does, given how low in the tree it is.

That point is made so strongly I'd suggest changing the wording of Venomed Blades to say "Gain +1 Imbue Die for each Poison Strike you know" instead of altering Toxin Affinity. (just please make those only cost 1 AP per strike. That cost was already prohibitive)
Both require you to put points into seldom-used Enhancements, but my suggestion requires you to use 11 points into the Assassin tree, which is more in line with the other sources of extra dice.
Tying the extra die to Venomed Blades ensures nobody just places 2 points into Assassin to gain 1 die and calls it a day.

Still, early on, crossbow users in general are AP-starved, mostly because of their lack of a stat to damage.

Well, it requires 8 points, or 9 if you want to get it along with tier 1 sneak dice. So you can't spend 2 in assassin and get 1 die, as far as I know.. But at any rate, don't ask for a nerf for such an easy way for an inquis to get more dice. They're already taking over the thread :)

[Aelonwy]

This is a perfect example of what I have been continuously saying here. In heroics, you would end up with more dice, just use the +3 from the assassin tree for 8ap. Think about how much more powerful your build could be at level 4, with 2 rogue levels. It might change the way you distribute your points while leveling but would provide far more potential. KOTC will give you more dice too. The builds that used to rely on multiple small procs to deal damage in easy content like Elite are getting a huge buff in this update because those small procs used to get rendered useless in any somewhat difficult content. Now, they will scale higher and be forced into relative viability for low to mid reaper content. The reason these changes have to be made the way they are being made is, as was said before, due to the opportunistic potential of having them be far too powerful.

Dude.

I already spend in KotC to have 2d6 extra light damage on top of my 14die of law damage currently from Inq.

In the new paradigm I LOOSE those light damage die to regain some of the law die LOST from the Inq nerf.

YOU are telling me I NEED to respec 8 AP, not free AP, 8 AP from something I was ALREADY using and enjoying to recoup MORE of what I LOST. Either way I have lost something due to these nerfs. And I don't run reaper so I personally do NOT give a capybara butt about content above elite. So do we balance for Reaper or NOT? because your argument would suggest yes.

[ivorycoaster]

Dude.

I already spend in KotC to have 2d6 extra light damage on top of my 14die of law damage currently from Inq.

In the new paradigm I LOOSE those light damage die to regain some of the law die LOST from the Inq nerf.

YOU are telling me I NEED to respec 8 AP, not free AP, 8 AP from something I was ALREADY using and enjoying to recoup MORE of what I LOST. Either way I have lost something due to these nerfs. And I don't run reaper so I personally do NOT give a capybara butt about content above elite. So do we balance for Reaper or NOT? because your argument would suggest yes.

Well, balance has to take all game modes and builds into consideration. I was pretty upset when RDA got nerfed to proc 1/4 as often, because my main was a handwraps monk. Broke my heart that a class that already has bottom tier DPS got a nerf because other builds stood to gain more from that item. But it is what it is. Still the best game ever. Some people will just never want their exact set up to change. But the silent majority will relish in the new improved potential that the universal enhancement tree will gain from these changes.

[Sqrlmonger]

OK I went ahead and did some testing.

Test Procedure:
1) I used Khyber's Fury which adds 1d4 Fire (200% Scaling with the better of RP and MP) added to melee/ranged attacks (this gives us only 4 possible rolled base damage values) and ensured I had no other fire damage on the attack.
2) Fire at Magefire Cannon on ship with EDF on and with EDF off (Cannon damage report did not indicate any resistances possessed by the cannon) while confirming shots recorded DO NOT proc doubleshot.
3) Compare results to 2 formulas put forth.

Test Setup:
Melee Power: 49
Ranged Power: 116

Formulas To Test
https://i.imgur.com/gXd2BAl.png

According to Formula 1 we should see:
EDF OFF: 4.32, 8.64, 12.96, & 17.28 as predicted damage values
EDF ON: 2.96, 5.92, 8.88, & 11.84 as predicted damage values

According to Formula 2 we should see:
EDF OFF: 3.32, 6.64, 9.96, & 13.28 as predicted damage values
EDF ON: 1.96, 3.92, 5.88, & 7.84 as predicted damage values

Actual In-Game Reported Values
With EDF OFF: Reported Damage values were 3, 6, 9, and 13
With EDF ON: Reported Damage values were 1, 3, 5, 7

Conclusion
Formula 1 is soundly rejected by testing, formula 2 we can only say is consistent with the data gathered if rounding is always down. But we can also say that such rounding occurs after doubleshot (and presumably doublestrike as well) because we saw doubleshot fire damage values of 15 which would only be possible if rounding occurred after doubleshot rather than before.

[Fisto_Mk_I]

bla-bla-bla

Pal, so many empty words to disguise simple fact - pure nerf to filigree sets damage... ;)

You don't like fighter example? Well, how about pure shuri-monk? Currently, i have 16d6 fire damage from 4pc The Wreath of Flame and +50 RP full best output from 6 filigree slot (2 Spines of the Manticore/The Wreath of Flame (rare) +2 Spines of the Manticore RP (rare)+ 2 The Wreath of Flame RP (rare)). After U57 i just lose 16d6 fire damage for... nothing, because RP already best from this sets? So?

[Stoner81]

2 quick points:

point 1 is that the dice that are being adjusted for Inq are concentrated in cores 18 and 20 so saying this is about heroics isn't quite accurate. You are indeed down 1 dice from levels 12 to 17 but that's more than made up for with the ranged power scaling and point 2, which is as follows:

point 2 is that due in part to the passionate feedback in this thread we're going to nudge the dice scaling for Inq a bit (moving up from 1d8 to 1d10) so you'll actually be a little stronger in heroics.

Should be a nice boost :) As a reminder plz keep feedback civil or we can't really have a fun discussion :P

I think that will help for sure so thank you for that...

While on the topic of Inquisitive can we have the Doubleshot penalty removed now? Since all of Doubleshot and Doublestrike got changed it seems very heavy handed (more so than it was already). I'm not asking for 100% Doubleshot to be applied, as amazing as that would be, but at least give us something similar to TWF at 65% or something?

---> https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/535110-Math-for-Inquisitive-per-latest-(200-RP)-change?p=6549038&viewfull=1#post6549038

Thank you.

Stoner81.

[Xgya]

So, at levels 18-20, still a slight nerf, but nowhere near what it was before, and within the acceptable range given there's a buff for 6 levels before it.
Now, the baseline would be 45 vs 38.5 is notable, but that's a level where Inquis get a bit more ranged power to compensate for the loss.

To add, I like that now trying to get extra Imbue dice isn't an attempt at getting back what was lost, but an option you have to change your build to something different.

As a small addendum, I'd say level 18 is a reasonable level to try and nudge a few APs around and get back whatever difference might still lurk in there.
It'll probably still require a few adjustments, and might lose on a few points somewhere, but that's a level where adjustments are a lot more affordable than levels 12 for sure.

I already said it, but I'll say it again, that kind of change is made a lot more palatable.
I was half-expecting some kind of ranged power boost in heroics instead of the outright die change, but your solution is more elegant than mine could have been, and evaluating the benefits of all-encompassing Ranged Power over the primary concern that is the actual Imbue might have caused far more headaches than I could envision.

I totally get your concerns though. Especially that someone might use/abuse a spellpower scaling Imbue by using extra die you might have tried granting to a Melee/Ranged Power scaling one.
Both systems aren't meant to be parallels, but for consolidation's sake we're adding a parallel scaling method.

If we COULD make both systems parallel, it would entirely remove the issue, but that's probably a story for another big update.

[Baahb3]

I have seen a lot of fixed on several imbue bugs but nothing on this. Can you please let me know if this is working as seen on Lamania or do we have a problem here?

For Reference:
Testing Greater Bloodsong from Tiefling Scoundrel on test kobolds does not show any sonic damage to target between 75% and 25%. Once you get lower than 25%, sonic damage starts showing up.

If I train just Bloodsong, I get sonic damage at 75%. If I then train Improved Bloodsong, sonic damage goes away until I get below 50%. Then when training Greater Bloodsong, again sonic damage goes away until I get below 25%.

It does not work this way on live. You do 1d4 at 75%, then 1d4+1d6 at 50% and then 1d4+1d6+1d8 at 25%.

@Lynnabel, can you clarify how this is going to work with the Imbue changes. Are we only going to get damage at the lowest % based on trained Bloodsong enhancements?

I have bug reported this as well.

[Xgya]

I have seen a lot of fixed on several imbue bugs but nothing on this. Can you please let me know if this is working as seen on Lamania or do we have a problem here?


Already mentioned as fixed

[SpartanKiller13]

2d8, mmm? And where does it come from? Currently, at lvl20 my pure fighter have 4d6 almost universal sonic damage from reverberation 2pc set, upgraded to 16d6 at lvl32. After U57, my fighter just lose 4d6-16d6 damage. So, where i can take this 2d8 imbue and how i can gain 522 spell power... as pure fighter? Or as pure shuri-Monk (and don't say about useless poison imbue, please)?

Drow or Tiefling seems the easiest method.

1d8 Base imbue
+2 Imbue Racial (Drow T3/4)
+1 Imbue augment (any of the three)
+2 Imbue Filigree (Reverb 2-piece)
+1 Imbue Legendary (given Arborea)
+1 Imbue Epic Destiny (LD T2)

8d8 scaling with MP, with 200 MP = 108 average, vs 16d6 = 56 average. You've basically doubled your imbue damage, congratulations! This is pretty close to 0 investment aside from racial AP.

If you don't have many racial AP and are on a very tight split, go Tiefling instead. 4 AP gets you 1d4-1d8 imbue depending on how low your enemy HP is. With aug/fili/Arborea/LD giving you 6d6 average = 21 base, to compare to your current 56 damage you only need 167 Fire Spellpower.

At level 32, you absolute minimum have:
72 Epic + Legendary Power
20 Arborea
12 Spellcraft (10 Epic skills, 3 airship, -1 Int)
15 Airship

= 119 Fire Spellpower, which means you only need to find 38 more before you come out ahead. I believe in you, good luck! Comm spellpower pots for +25, ranks in Spellcraft, Reaper tree accidental spending, +4 from Greater Heroism, any Int you get by accident, tomes, or heaven forbid a spellpower augment.

Also like if losing 56 damage/hit is a big part of your expected DPS, just throw on any spellpower item and you'll be getting a massive DPS buff this patch! Congratulations!


Pal, so many empty words to disguise simple fact - pure nerf to filigree sets damage... ;)

You don't like fighter example? Well, how about pure shuri-monk? Currently, i have 16d6 fire damage from 4pc The Wreath of Flame and +50 RP full best output from 6 filigree slot (2 Spines of the Manticore/The Wreath of Flame (rare) +2 Spines of the Manticore RP (rare)+ 2 The Wreath of Flame RP (rare)). After U57 i just lose 16d6 fire damage for... nothing, because RP already best from this sets? So?

Henshin Mystic, using Lighting the Candle? Or Ninja Spy, using Sting of the Ninja? They're both native Monk trees, so you can pick up an imbue from one of them and your filigree will add onto that.

Shuricannon has some of the wildest potential for Imbue abuse that I can see lol. I haven't looked at pure Monk yet, but the multiclass one I threw together is expecting like 5k imbue damage per attack without buffs going. Seems like a lot but idk if it's even worth bothering considering the tradeoffs.

[SpartanKiller13]

I'm really concerned how much better spellpower scaling is than MP/RP scaling. Aside from Inquis, which has a variety of other balance issues involved everything scales at 100% AFAIK.

Let's look at some ballpark numbers given a reasonably-geared toon (good gear, not 12 mythic/reaper items and a MP/RP pot). Obviously could go a lot further but it's an example :rolleyes:

At level 5, a melee is probably around:
10 Crown of Butterflies
2 Combat style
4 Remnant Tome
10 mythic/reaper random stuff
3 Dread Adversary

29 MP

Level 5 caster:
59 ML5 spellpower item
14 Spellcraft (3 airship, 8 ranks, 2 tome, +1 Int)
8 Exceptional (Autumn Winds)
4 Remnant Tome
10 mythic/reaper random stuff
6 Dire Thaumaturge

101 spellpower

2.01/1.29 = 56% more imbue damage for a spellpower-scaled imbue.

------

By level 32 I'm expecting a reasonable melee to have 2-300 MP (depending on investment) and a reasonable spellpower build to have 5-900 (again depending on investment, as well as class/ED choice). These are of course ballpark numbers, but spellpower imbues then would be 2-2.5x as effective as MP scaling builds. At no point between 1 and 32 do I expect a melee/ranged build to have more MP/RP than they could easily get spellpower (given some gearing effort for sure).

Ranged builds getting up to 125 RP from stacked Archer's Focus can close the gap somewhat, but just eyeballing a U53 pure Monk Shuri build (because I have it open) it's 369 RP vs 650+ spellpower. That's a very optimized build for RP, and it would get 60% more damage by using a spellpower-scaling imbue vs a MP/RP one.

For a Tiefling Paladin, given 250 MP and 600 spellpower it's an easy choice to use the Tiefling imbue any time the enemy isn't immune to Fire damage. Flat double damage?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding a bit of this, but it seems whack to me that getting a spellpower-scaling imbue is the best option for ~every build that wants imbue damage. Like a Henshin Mystic (with one of the cooler-looking imbues) will do more imbue damage by dipping Dark Apostate 1 to get the evil imbue that scales with spellpower. Obviously this would cost you your capstone etc vs a pure build, but there are a variety of multiclass builds already and it seems weird that for many melee/ranged builds they should focus on spellpower and not MP/RP in order to increase their melee/ranged imbue damage.

------

I'm not looking to get spellpower scaling nerfed (rip EK?) or MP/RP scaling buffed (seems like a massive DPS buff?) I'm trying to understand the design here. Has this been considered and is it intentional?

[Fisto_Mk_I]

Drow or Tiefling seems the easiest method.
Well, let's check it! :cool:

1d8 Base imbue

Drow, yea?


don't say about useless poison imbue, please

I can't consider imbue to which 75% game monster have immunity/high resist as viable, sorry.


+2 Imbue Racial (Drow T3/4)

20 AP to get mostly useless poison imbue 1d8 and + 2 dice. Sorry, no way. Just no way.


+1 Imbue augment (any of the three)

Lol. It's pure damage loss vs. any elemental 9d6 damage augment/10d6 new evil augment/Feareater.


+2 Imbue Filigree (Reverb 2-piece)

2 dice vs. 12% MP and some minor beneficial effect... Let me think... uhmmm... no.


+1 Imbue Legendary (given Arborea)

Not sure, but may be. Ok.


+1 Imbue Epic Destiny (LD T2)

It's good.


8d8 scaling with MP, with 200 MP = 108 average, vs 16d6 = 56 average. You've basically doubled your imbue damage, congratulations! This is pretty close to 0 investment aside from racial AP.

Well, consider if i take absolutely non-viable imbue and don't take obviously suboptimal choices/options, i have 5d8 for 20 precious AP, scaling with 200 MP... 67.5 average... slightly better in paper, much worse in live because damage type and too heavy cost.


If you don't have many racial AP and are on a very tight split, go Tiefling instead. 4 AP gets you 1d4-1d8 imbue depending on how low your enemy HP is. With aug/fili/Arborea/LD giving you 6d6 average = 21 base, to compare to your current 56 damage you only need 167 Fire Spellpower.

Same issue as example above: +3 dice vs. better damage augment +12 MP + minor benefit from 2pc other filigree set. No way. So, we have here not 6d6 but only 3d6, = 10.5 base, and now i need not 167 SP, but 334. Not so easy gain, yea?


At level 32, you absolute minimum have:
72 Epic + Legendary Power
20 Arborea
12 Spellcraft (10 Epic skills, 3 airship, -1 Int)
15 Airship

= 119 Fire Spellpower, which means you only need to find 38 more before you come out ahead. I believe in you, good luck! Comm spellpower pots for +25, ranks in Spellcraft, Reaper tree accidental spending, +4 from Greater Heroism, any Int you get by accident, tomes, or heaven forbid a spellpower augment.

No-no-no, David Blain! Say me where i can gain 334 Fire SP. Ok, ok, I'll make it easier for you: i anyway have +151 from Legendary Red Dragonhide armor, with all your bonuses +119 it's be 270. Now i need find another 64 only to be compare to my old 16d6. ;)


Also like if losing 56 damage/hit is a big part of your expected DPS, just throw on any spellpower item and you'll be getting a massive DPS buff this patch! Congratulations!

Already have 151, not enough. Try again! :)


Henshin Mystic, using Lighting the Candle?

Already use now, need check how many dice i can take after.


Or Ninja Spy, using Sting of the Ninja?


don't say about useless poison imbue, please
;)

They're both native Monk trees, so you can pick up an imbue from one of them and your filigree will add onto that.

4d6 Fire +4d6 Force on crit from Henshin, if i count correctly. +1 dice from current filigree set... vs. +15 RP if i throw 2 filigree from current set away...

Well, may be i pessimistic, but i not see where bust here, really.


Shuricannon has some of the wildest potential for Imbue abuse that I can see lol. I haven't looked at pure Monk yet, but the multiclass one I threw together is expecting like 5k imbue damage per attack without buffs going. Seems like a lot but idk if it's even worth bothering considering the tradeoffs.

Wanna see breakdown. But, i think, if you go to heavy imbue spec, you lose much more sneak attack damage. Anyway, need see first. ;)

[SpartanKiller13]

imbue augmentLol. It's pure damage loss vs. any elemental 9d6 damage augment/10d6 new evil augment/Feareater.

Can't slot feareater in your ring though lol. No need for a weapon slot :) Emeralds don't go in red slots anyway! Here's a wiki link for ya: Emerald of Eldritch Empowerment (https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Emerald_of_Eldritch_Empowerment)



Reverb 2-piece

2 dice vs. 12% MP and some minor beneficial effect... Let me think... uhmmm... no.

Are you or are you not running Reverb 2-piece right now? Let me reference you from earlier:


Currently, at lvl20 my pure fighter have 4d6 almost universal sonic damage from reverberation 2pc set

Ok so you clearly value Reverb over 12 MP, so my comparison is assuming you're still using those same reverberation 2-piece :)



ArboreaNot sure, but may be. Ok.

I mean I could say "go Earth and get 20 PRR and +3 imbue die" but that seemed excessive lol. Arborea is pretty fine for most pure fighters.


Well, consider if i take absolutely non-viable imbue and don't take obviously suboptimal choices/options, i have 5d8 for 20 precious AP, scaling with 200 MP... 67.5 average... slightly better in paper, much worse in live because damage type and too heavy cost.

And that's why I provided a split for if you have less racial AP lmao. But you do have an option for higher damage, esp since you can totally fit an emerald in all likelihood. If you're already at the top of the Drow tree you might as well get the +2 Dice, so I factored them.


Same issue as example above: +3 dice vs. better damage augment +12 MP + minor benefit from 2pc other filigree set. No way. So, we have here not 6d6 but only 3d6, = 10.5 base, and now i need not 167 SP, but 334. Not so easy gain, yea?

Same thing, doesn't compete with augments and you're already using 2 filigree so you've already chosen 16d6 over 12 MP. If the MP is better you wouldn't be running Reverb currently. Also 334 is pretty doable lol.


No-no-no, David Blain! Say me where i can gain 334 Fire SP. Ok, ok, I'll make it easier for you: i anyway have +151 from Legendary Red Dragonhide armor, with all your bonuses +119 it's be 270. Now i need find another 64 only to be compare to my old 16d6. ;)

72 Epic/Legendary Power
151 LRD
72 Spellcraft (11 ranks, 10 epic skills, 15 Int, 20 augment, 4 GH, 3 airship, 5 tome, 3 arti, 1 dragonborn)
4 spellpower tome
48 Thaumaturge
35 Tiefling (Core 1/3/5)
20 Arborea
25 Comm pot (lasts 10 minutes lmao)

There ya go 427, took me like 3 minutes. Remove what you can't afford lol. Except once again you can totally get +1ID more from augment and +2ID from the same filigree you're running currently, at least according to you. If you're not running Reverb 2piece currently then it's competing against 0d6 = win :)


Wanna see breakdown. But, i think, if you go to heavy imbue spec, you lose much more sneak attack damage. Anyway, need see first. ;)

Exactly, but then you scale back and see where you end up. I tried a bunch of variants and ended up about where Tilo was on P1, aside from less racial AP so I didn't go Inquis.

15/3/2 Wiz/Monk/Rogue only has 7d6 SA, but gets 38d8 imbue. Dropping to Wizard 3 costs you 4 of those in favor of +6d6 SA, but you'll see why I didn't later lol.

82 Dex self-buffs so with 74% DS it's 3.38 throws/click. 935 Cold or so. Only 5 RAP+UAP so I can't afford the extras lol.

38d8 = 171 x 10.35 = 1770 x 3.38 = 5982 Imbue damage per attack, with nothing going. Stacked Arcane Warrior, Reaper DS boost, Wellspring, and AB:Spellpower 2 = 171 x 12.45 = 2129 x 3.68 = 7834 Imbue damage per attack.

Sneak Attack die even with 300 RP (which I at least don't have) are 19.25 average each, Imbue d8 with 935 are 46.6 average each.

Can pick up IPS and Combat Archery (costs 1 Imbue Dice for both) if not raiding but that's what I built it for lol (and cold b/c we have a lot of Ice Druids rn = can get another +25% over other damage types and always have bypass).

Can also certainly get higher of all sorts of things, that split doesn't even account for the new Imbue filigree changes, etc etc.

Have fun!

[droid327]

I'm not asking for 100% Doubleshot to be applied

I am.

There's no longer any justification to treat weapons different. Dshot is just a straight multiplier to base dps. Base dps is balanced for all weapons relative to their attack speeds, so they all should have 100% dshot to get equal benefit from it and be able to scale the same through endgame.

Bows and throwers have higher potential dshot already, xbows don't need to also benefit less from the dshot they do get.

Reducing the penalty to like 65% isn't a compromise, because there's no rationale to having a penalty to balance against not having one


I'm really concerned how much better spellpower scaling is than MP/RP scaling. Aside from Inquis, which has a variety of other balance issues involved everything scales at 100% AFAIK.


Agreed, even pure melee is going to be better off with a spell power imbue

But I think every mp/rp imbue other than inqui is either new or converted from a non scaling imbue, so they don't necessarily need to be equal to spell power imbues. It was mostly just inqui that needed to be more competitive.

1d8 @600 spell power 100% = 1d10 @237 RP 200% so that seems like it's about equivalent for a non caster focused inqui at endgame

[Tilomere]

nvm

[Stoner81]

I am.

There's no longer any justification to treat weapons different. Dshot is just a straight multiplier to base dps. Base dps is balanced for all weapons relative to their attack speeds, so they all should have 100% dshot to get equal benefit from it and be able to scale the same through endgame.

Bows and throwers have higher potential dshot already, xbows don't need to also benefit less from the dshot they do get.

Reducing the penalty to like 65% isn't a compromise, because there's no rationale to having a penalty to balance against not having one

Fair point!

Stoner81.

[Fisto_Mk_I]

Can't slot feareater in your ring though lol. No need for a weapon slot :) Emeralds don't go in red slots anyway! Here's a wiki link for ya: Emerald of Eldritch Empowerment (https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Emerald_of_Eldritch_Empowerment)

Nice thing - it not waste weapon slot so not compete with weapon augs. Good.
Bad thing - it mandatory needed Fey expansion pack, which I don't have. Bad.

Therefore, for me it anyway -1 ID.


Are you or are you not running Reverb 2-piece right now?

Yes. :)


Ok so you clearly value Reverb over 12 MP, so my comparison is assuming you're still using those same reverberation 2-piece :)

But here you are just mistaken. ;)
I value Reverberation 2 pc set over 12 MP exactly until they provided universal sonic 16d6 damage. If sonic damage becomes useless in 75% cases poison or useless in 50% fire i prefer 12 MP any time day or night.


And that's why I provided a split for if you have less racial AP lmao. But you do have an option for higher damage, esp since you can totally fit an emerald in all likelihood. If you're already at the top of the Drow tree you might as well get the +2 Dice, so I factored them.

And i already say why it's non-viable. :)


Same thing, doesn't compete with augments and you're already using 2 filigree so you've already chosen 16d6 over 12 MP. If the MP is better you wouldn't be running Reverb currently. Also 334 is pretty doable lol.

Same answer as above. ;)



72 Epic/Legendary Power
151 LRD
72 Spellcraft (11 ranks, 10 epic skills, 15 Int, 20 augment, 4 GH, 3 airship, 5 tome, 3 arti, 1 dragonborn)
4 spellpower tome
48 Thaumaturge
35 Tiefling (Core 1/3/5)
20 Arborea
25 Comm pot (lasts 10 minutes lmao)

So many expensive things need here... 11 ranks... for Fighter with low Int... sorry, no, not have enough skill point. 20 augment... need find where place it, already have all slot filled, so highly unlikely. 5 Tome... unrealistic to obtain with current application scheme or needed real mone spending, so no. 3 Arty, 1 Dragonborn... Past life? Lol, pal, my most advanced toon have only 2 EPL/HPL, so clearly no. So, -40?

4 spellpower tome. Tons remnants and Threads of Fate. Not have.

48 Thaumaturge... Oh, pal, i need 3rd Reapers tree for Fighter? For Reaper completionist in reaper mode - sure. My most advanced toon have bare 25, may be 26 RP, so no, sorry.

35 from Tiefling... same problems, need too many AP. Viable for Racial completionist, non-viavle for me.


There ya go 427, took me like 3 minutes. Remove what you can't afford lol. Except once again you can totally get +1ID more from augment and +2ID from the same filigree you're running currently, at least according to you. If you're not running Reverb 2piece currently then it's competing against 0d6 = win :)

427 - 127 = 300. Still lose 34 to be just equal what i lost with filigree dice nerf, and that's apart from the fact that Fire damage much worse than Sonic. ;)

[archerforever]

I see that everyone is worried about numbers and damage.
I just have 2 points to say:
-1 : Without imbues we are able to have builds doing 50k to 150k damage with melee, ranged and caster builds
-2 : As NO IMBUE BUILDS are viable, I just hope that imbue focused builds can be viable and competitive in U57
**Do sneak attacks (with rogue levels and enhancements) should be considered as imbue and work with that mechanic ?**

Dear DDO players, dont be too much worry about numbers and damage... Imbue is not a must have to do 100k damage, it is just another option to make builds and have fun in the game, just hope to have it balanced by devs.

Here are some suggestions I have to help (in my opinion) with imbues balance:
**This is a more detailed version of my previous post on page 6 of this thread**

Arcane Archer tier 1 - elementals arrow - might have all 4 elements as Eldritch Knights gets all elements with the core 2 (maybe it s already the case as you say that AA get +2 Dice tier 2/3/4/5).
This will give more adaptivity for AA builds in low levels as a tier 1 and more imbue damage dice on higher levels to scale with other classes options (instead of loosing 3 imbue dice if u want to have all 4 elements).

Arcane archer tier 5 Improved elemental arrows multiselector should be only 1 enhancement that gives both bonuses : +2 dice AND the bonus effect on critical (even for a higher cost in AP if needed).

Enhanced Elemental Dice - Destiny Feat - +1 imbue Dice is really not enough and balanced for a lvl 31 feat.
Lvl 28 feats are giving +2 imbue dice. Enhanced Elemental Dice - Destiny Feat - might be +3 Dice.
**Can we have more/new heroic/epic/destiny/legendary feats focused on imbue ?**

Actually Draconic Tier 3 now grants +1/2/3 Dice.
Primal Avatar is going to have +3 Imbue Dice while within the PA Mantle with tier 3 - Shared Mantle.
In U57 Shiradi Champion mantle gains 1d77 per 7 bonus dice - this is not an imbue toggle BUT gains benefits from your imbue dice!
So in my opinion, Shiradi champion needs to get somewhere a +3 Imbue Dice too in a tier 3 as it is something requiered in this new game mechanic to increase the efficiency of his shiradi mantle.
Maybe the tier 3 - Pierce Deception - might give that +3 Imbue Dice, or maybe somewhere else but shiradi champion definitly needs that damage dice for imbues especially as it is the ED dedicated for AA even if Shiradi champion mantles elemental damage - sadly - don't match with AA elemental imbues, but this is another point...
**Maybe all/some EDs Core could give +1 imbue dice (same as +1 spell DC for each core) ???**

With that new mechanic I think that MORE set effects should give imbue damage dice as a standard.
Only 3 sets giving Imbue Dice is a good start, thank you, but it is in my opinion not enough for this game changing mechanic.
Maybe some - sets/augments sets/named items/ filigrees- could be changed to be imbue focused, and/or have new effects to boost imbue builds.
exemples : - Arcane Archer set from gilvaenor s ring & Givaenor s necklace from tower of despair which could give +2 Imbue Dice.
- TOEE sets/items : giving imbue dice based on the elemental set and imbue.

[dkyle]

Both of these have been fixed!

Glad it's working as described, at least. Hopefully this applies to the Scoundrel version too.

Any plan to address them being the absolute worst Imbues, by far, at the highest cost? d8 starting die would at least make it worth considering.

[yfernbottom]

2 quick points:

point 2 is that due in part to the passionate feedback in this thread we're going to nudge the dice scaling for Inq a bit (moving up from 1d8 to 1d10) so you'll actually be a little stronger in heroics.

Should be a nice boost :) As a reminder plz keep feedback civil or we can't really have a fun discussion :P

This has definitely moved me from the "Wow this sounds terrible" to the "Ok, I'll give it a shot and see how it falls out" camp. Much appreciated.

[cmecu]

"Fire of Fury" is still using the old attack and effect of "Silence the Wicked". It is currently not a toggle.
The Tiefling "Bloodhunt, improved/greater now do less as the enhancement progresses.

Bloodhunt is 1d4 fire at 75%
Improved is 1d6 at 50%
Greater is 1d8 at 25%

In the current lama preview if you have Greater Bloodhunt you do not see any damage until a target has reached 25% HP.

They should never touched this core. With this change, and making it an imbue, it no longer allows taking Resonant arms from Swashbuckling tree to add another sonic damage .. I hurried and TR'ed into my build for the last time it seems on live. I will record the dps it does now, and then after the change whenever that will be and compare.

[TueNictGut]

Pls consider to scale it with 200% Mp/RP like Assassins imbue.
Otherwise it will be more bad even if u manage to stack 20 ninja poison on an opponent.
Its a fun unique ability make it shine and competitive to other imbues.
Thx for considering

In fact i see no reason to scale any imbues from only 100mp/rp while every spellpower imbue is the same 100% which is mostly superior anyway

[ivorycoaster]

Pal, so many empty words to disguise simple fact - pure nerf to filigree sets damage... ;)

You don't like fighter example? Well, how about pure shuri-monk? Currently, i have 16d6 fire damage from 4pc The Wreath of Flame and +50 RP full best output from 6 filigree slot (2 Spines of the Manticore/The Wreath of Flame (rare) +2 Spines of the Manticore RP (rare)+ 2 The Wreath of Flame RP (rare)). After U57 i just lose 16d6 fire damage for... nothing, because RP already best from this sets? So?

As is true with having multiple imbues active from different trees, these procs are almost completely ineffective at any mid difficulty content. On the same token, even in that build you would see more damage from more ranged power or more doubleshot. Especially if you are maxing out your SCALING +to damage stats such as dex, deadly. It is VERY easy to get 8 or 9 filigree slots. 4 slot artifacts are abundant now and 5 slots in a sent weapon is like 20k. If you were to have 7, you could run 2 raid ranged power, 2 spines RP rare, 2 crackshot ranged power rare and 1 crackshot attack and damage. That's +65 ranged power. You would see a more increase in your overall DPS. They aren't making these changes just to screw over someone who has 6k sent xp on their weapon and 3k on an artifact.

Yeah, sure, maybe it's a slight nerf to that filigree function. It's a nerf to a barely viable damage option is my point and that is exactly why I said those "Empty words." I guess I'll just keep my mouth shut, because every time I offer someone a solution that would give them more damage post update than they had pre update, they just continue to complain..

[ivorycoaster]

I see that everyone is worried about numbers and damage.
I just have 2 points to say:
-1 : Without imbues we are able to have builds doing 50k to 150k damage with melee, ranged and caster builds
-2 : As NO IMBUE BUILDS are viable, I just hope that imbue focused builds can be viable and competitive in U57
**Do sneak attacks (with rogue levels and enhancements) should be considered as imbue and work with that mechanic ?**

Dear DDO players, dont be too much worry about numbers and damage... Imbue is not a must have to do 100k damage, it is just another option to make builds and have fun in the game, just hope to have it balanced by devs.

Here are some suggestions I have to help (in my opinion) with imbues balance:
**This is a more detailed version of my previous post on page 6 of this thread**

Arcane Archer tier 1 - elementals arrow - might have all 4 elements as Eldritch Knights gets all elements with the core 2 (maybe it s already the case as you say that AA get +2 Dice tier 2/3/4/5).
This will give more adaptivity for AA builds in low levels as a tier 1 and more imbue damage dice on higher levels to scale with other classes options (instead of loosing 3 imbue dice if u want to have all 4 elements).

Arcane archer tier 5 Improved elemental arrows multiselector should be only 1 enhancement that gives both bonuses : +2 dice AND the bonus effect on critical (even for a higher cost in AP if needed).

Enhanced Elemental Dice - Destiny Feat - +1 imbue Dice is really not enough and balanced for a lvl 31 feat.
Lvl 28 feats are giving +2 imbue dice. Enhanced Elemental Dice - Destiny Feat - might be +3 Dice.
**Can we have more/new heroic/epic/destiny/legendary feats focused on imbue ?**

Actually Draconic Tier 3 now grants +1/2/3 Dice.
Primal Avatar is going to have +3 Imbue Dice while within the PA Mantle with tier 3 - Shared Mantle.
In U57 Shiradi Champion mantle gains 1d77 per 7 bonus dice - this is not an imbue toggle BUT gains benefits from your imbue dice!
So in my opinion, Shiradi champion needs to get somewhere a +3 Imbue Dice too in a tier 3 as it is something requiered in this new game mechanic to increase the efficiency of his shiradi mantle.
Maybe the tier 3 - Pierce Deception - might give that +3 Imbue Dice, or maybe somewhere else but shiradi champion definitly needs that damage dice for imbues especially as it is the ED dedicated for AA even if Shiradi champion mantles elemental damage - sadly - don't match with AA elemental imbues, but this is another point...
**Maybe all/some EDs Core could give +1 imbue dice (same as +1 spell DC for each core) ???**

With that new mechanic I think that MORE set effects should give imbue damage dice as a standard.
Only 3 sets giving Imbue Dice is a good start, thank you, but it is in my opinion not enough for this game changing mechanic.
Maybe some - sets/augments sets/named items/ filigrees- could be changed to be imbue focused, and/or have new effects to boost imbue builds.
exemples : - Arcane Archer set from gilvaenor s ring & Givaenor s necklace from tower of despair which could give +2 Imbue Dice.
- TOEE sets/items : giving imbue dice based on the elemental set and imbue.


This echoes a request I've made and Stravix has also been championing. The sets given imbue bonus dice are not fantastic options for most builds. I would really love to see the TOEE stuff gain imbue dice, as it's somewhat lackluster right now. That would push it into relevance. Some of the magic user sets would be nice too. I think most of the melee/ranged physical dps sets should be left alone as imbues should not be mentioned as a focal point for dps of any of these builds in the first place. They rely mostly on melee/ranged power and sneak dice for all viable damage and that won't change here regardless..

[Stravix]

This echoes a request I've made and Stravix has also been championing. The sets given imbue bonus dice are not fantastic options for most builds. I would really love to see the TOEE stuff gain imbue dice, as it's somewhat lackluster right now. That would push it into relevance. Some of the magic user sets would be nice too. I think most of the melee/ranged physical dps sets should be left alone as imbues should not be mentioned as a focal point for dps of any of these builds in the first place. They rely mostly on melee/ranged power and sneak dice for all viable damage and that won't change here regardless..

I think ToEE, Abashai (statwise, is basically made for sorc ek), and maybe a dedicated melee/ranged set should get it (each).

Right now DA and SF are both kinda stranded from these, without good heavy armor/cloth armor sets with melee stats, despite being focused entirely on imbues.

[Talnar00]

2 quick points:

point 1 is that the dice that are being adjusted for Inq are concentrated in cores 18 and 20 so saying this is about heroics isn't quite accurate. You are indeed down 1 dice from levels 12 to 17 but that's more than made up for with the ranged power scaling and point 2, which is as follows:

point 2 is that due in part to the passionate feedback in this thread we're going to nudge the dice scaling for Inq a bit (moving up from 1d8 to 1d10) so you'll actually be a little stronger in heroics.

Should be a nice boost :) As a reminder plz keep feedback civil or we can't really have a fun discussion :P

Here's some math comparing live inqui to proposed d10 200% scaling inqui throughout the leveling process.
Only taking into account standard ranged feats and the inqui tree itself, or else the math gets a bit exhaustive to keep up:

Level 1:

Live:
1d8 law die (1d4 vs lawful)

Proposed:
1d10 law die (1d4 vs lawful)

Level 2-3:
Level 3 can get access to Precise Shot, thus total 75 ranged power from archer's focus is possible.

Live:
2d8 law dice (2d4 vs lawful)
Average damage at 0 RP: 2*4.5*(1+0*1.5) = 9 average law damage per hit (5 vs lawful)
Average damage at 75 RP: 2*4.5*(1+0.75*1.5) = 19.125 average law damage per hit (10.625 vs lawful)

Proposed:
2d10 law dice (2d4 vs lawful)
Average damage at 0 RP: 2*5.5*(1+0*2) = 11 average law damage per hit (5 vs lawful)
Average damage at 75 RP: 2*5.5*(1+0.75*2) = 27.5 average law damage per hit (12.5 vs lawful)

Level 4-11:

Live:
3d8 law dice (3d4 vs lawful)
Average damage at 0 RP: 3*4.5*(1+0*1.5) = 13.5 average law damage per hit (7.5 vs lawful)
Average damage at 75 RP: 3*4.5*(1+0.75*1.5) = 28.6875 average law damage per hit (15.9375 vs lawful)

Proposed:
3d10 law dice (3d4 vs lawful)
Average damage at 0 RP: 3*5.5*(1+0*2) = 16.5 average law damage per hit (7.5 vs lawful)
Average damage at 75 RP: 3*5.5*(1+0.75*2) = 41.25 average law damage per hit (18.75 vs lawful)

Level 12-17:
+15 ranged power from No Holds Barred and the T5 Multi-selector (which are guaranteed takes on inquisitive builds).

Live:
Jaded:
5d8 law dice
Average damage at 15 RP: 5*4.5*(1+0.15*1.5) = 27.5625 average law damage per hit
Average damage at 90 RP: 5*4.5*(1+0.9*1.5) = 52.875 average law damage per hit

Optimistic:
7d8 law dice (7d4 vs lawful)
Average damage at 15 RP: 7*4.5*(1+0.15*1.5) = 38.5675 average law damage per hit (21.4375 vs lawful)
Average damage at 90 RP: 7*4.5*(1+0.9*1.5) = 74.025 average law damage per hit (41.125 vs lawful)

Vigilante:
6d8 chaotic dice (6d4 vs chaotic)
Average damage at 15 RP: 6*4.5*(1+0.15*1.5) = 33.075 average chaotic damage per hit (18.375 vs chaotic)
Average damage at 90 RP: 6*4.5*(1+0.9*1.5) = 63.45 average chaotic damage per hit (35.25 vs chaotic)

Proposed:
Jaded:
5d10 law dice
Average damage at 15 RP: 5*5.5*(1+0.15*2) = 35.75 average law damage per hit
Average damage at 90 RP: 5*5.5*(1+0.9*2) = 77 average law damage per hit

Optimistic:
6d10 law dice (6d4 vs lawful)
Average damage at 15 RP: 6*5.5*(1+0.15*2) = 42.9 average law damage per hit (19.5 vs lawful)
Average damage at 90 RP: 6*5.5*(1+0.9*2) = 92.4 average law damage per hit (42 vs lawful)

Vigilante:
5d10 chaotic dice (5d4 vs chaotic)
Average damage at 15 RP: 5*5.5*(1+0.15*2) = 35.75 average chaotic damage per hit (16.25 vs chaotic)
Average damage at 90 RP: 5*5.5*(1+0.9*2) = 77 average chaotic damage per hit (35 vs chaotic)

Level 18-19:
+10 ranged power from 5th core.

Live:
Jaded:
8d8 law dice
Average damage at 25 RP: 8*4.5*(1+0.25*1.5) = 49.5 average law damage per hit
Average damage at 100 RP: 8*4.5*(1+1*1.5) = 90 average law damage per hit

Optimistic:
10d8 law dice (10d4 vs lawful)
Average damage at 25 RP: 10*4.5*(1+0.25*1.5) = 61.875 average law damage per hit (34.375 vs lawful)
Average damage at 100 RP: 10*4.5*(1+1*1.5) = 112.5 average law damage per hit (62.5 vs lawful)

Vigilante:
9d8 chaotic dice (9d4 vs chaotic)
Average damage at 25 RP: 9*4.5*(1+0.25*1.5) = 55.6875 average chaotic damage per hit (30.9375 vs chaotic)
Average damage at 100 RP: 9*4.5*(1+1*1.5) = 101.25 average chaotic damage per hit (56.25 vs chaotic)

Proposed:
Jaded:
6d10 law dice
Average damage at 25 RP: 6*5.5*(1+0.25*2) = 49.5 average law damage per hit
Average damage at 100 RP: 6*5.5*(1+1*2) = 99 average law damage per hit

Optimistic:
7d10 law dice (7d4 vs lawful)
Average damage at 25 RP: 7*5.5*(1+0.25*2) = 57.75 average law damage per hit (26.25 vs lawful)
Average damage at 100 RP: 7*5.5*(1+1*2) = 115.5 average law damage per hit (52.5 vs lawful)

Vigilante:
6d10 chaotic dice (6d4 vs chaotic)
Average damage at 25 RP: 6*5.5*(1+0.25*2) = 49.5 average chaotic damage per hit (22.5 vs chaotic)
Average damage at 100 RP: 6*5.5*(1+1*2) = 99 average chaotic damage per hit (45 vs chaotic)

Level 20:
+10 ranged power from capstone.

Live:
Jaded:
12d8 law dice
Average damage at 35 RP: 12*4.5*(1+0.35*1.5) = 82.35 average law damage per hit
Average damage at 110 RP: 12*4.5*(1+1.1*1.5) = 143.1 average law damage per hit

Optimistic:
14d8 law dice (14d4 vs lawful)
Average damage at 35 RP: 14*4.5*(1+0.35*1.5) = 96.075 average law damage per hit (53.375 vs lawful)
Average damage at 110 RP: 14*4.5*(1+1.1*1.5) = 166.95 average law damage per hit (92.75 vs lawful)

Vigilante:
13d8 chaotic dice (13d4 vs chaotic)
Average damage at 35 RP: 13*4.5*(1+0.35*1.5) = 89.2125 average chaotic damage per hit (49.5625 vs chaotic)
Average damage at 110 RP: 13*4.5*(1+1.1*1.5) = 155.025 average chaotic damage per hit (86.125 vs chaotic)

Proposed:
Jaded:
7d10 law dice
Average damage at 35 RP: 7*5.5*(1+0.35*2) = 65.45 average law damage per hit
Average damage at 110 RP: 7*5.5*(1+1.1*2) = 123.2 average law damage per hit

Optimistic:
8d10 law dice (8d4 vs lawful)
Average damage at 35 RP: 8*5.5*(1+0.35*2) = 74.8 average law damage per hit (34 vs lawful)
Average damage at 110 RP: 8*5.5*(1+1.1*2) = 140.8 average law damage per hit (64 vs lawful)

Vigilante:
7d10 chaotic dice (7d4 vs chaotic)
Average damage at 35 RP: 7*5.5*(1+0.35*2) = 65.45 average chaotic damage per hit (29.75 vs chaotic)
Average damage at 110 RP: 7*5.5*(1+1.1*2) = 123.2 average chaotic damage per hit (56 vs chaotic)


Essentially a slight buff in heroics up to level 17 for all styles, roughly similar for Jaded and Optimistic in 18-19, slight nerf for Vigilante in 18-19, and at 20 nerf for all styles when ONLY looking at standard ranged feats and the inqui tree itself.

Math above doesn't take into account ranged power and/or imbue die you can get from some non-standard feats (shot on the run, weapon focus), other enhancement trees, and items.

Also at 20 you also get access to things like filigrees which can give a lot more RP and some imbue die. For instance just two Reverberation filigrees can give you +2 imbue die (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showth...e8#post6550824), which makes Jaded better than before at base RP from inqui, and makes Optimistic and Vigilante very close to before at low RP, better at higher RP (at least for targets that aren't taking the d4's).

Personally I think the proposed is good, only change I would suggest is maybe making Vigilante give +2 die instead of +1, since it still suffers from dealing d4's to some enemies, otherwise Jaded is just the better option (same dice, same damage die, no decrease to any enemy type).

[Artos_Fabril]

Here's some math comparing live inqui to proposed d10 200% scaling inqui throughout the leveling process.
Only taking into account standard ranged feats and the inqui tree itself, or else the math gets a bit exhaustive to keep up:

Level 2-3:
Level 3 can get access to Precise Shot, thus total 75 ranged power from archer's focus is possible.
Some Inq builds get Prceise Shot at level 1, but more importantly...

It is disingenuous at best the claim 75 RP at all times from Archer's Focus, as most of the time it will be granting 0-10 RP. There just aren't a lot of spots in the game you can plant your feet for 3 seconds and then fire off 15 shots without having to run forward to catch up with the group or run backwards to kite. Yet moreso if you aren't using perch spots.

[SWCarter]

Is there a reason why Scion of the Shadowfell is not also receiving the +3 imbue dice bonus? This is yet another hit to Abyss warlocks, in addition to the loss of +3 dice since Celestial Spirit form is not compatible with their undead form.

[Talnar00]

Some Inq builds get Prceise Shot at level 1, but more importantly...

It is disingenuous at best the claim 75 RP at all times from Archer's Focus, as most of the time it will be granting 0-10 RP. There just aren't a lot of spots in the game you can plant your feet for 3 seconds and then fire off 15 shots without having to run forward to catch up with the group or run backwards to kite. Yet moreso if you aren't using perch spots.

There's a reason I did the math for 0 RP/whatever the lowest standing RP for just inqui tree instead of just math on AF RP levels. I'm not claiming that you'll have 75 RP from AF all the time, just showing what the range from lowest standing to full AF.

And honestly for most of heroics, even with 0 RP, the proposed changes are a buff.

[Lotoc]

Really hope u57 gets a third pass and a week or two more to sort stuff out.
Cause right now we're at a point that law on your side/inquisitive has hijacked the entire imbue overhaul, become the defacto best imbue build and a bunch of other imbues as of this moment are going to be left undertuned and broken on release because they didn't have players complaining incessantly enough
Like every imbue with melee/ranged power scaling needs to be at 200%
Vile chemist isn't scaling with spellpower at all.
Henshin Mystic is being underserved by its own imbue because its being rebalanced for two weapon fighting
Sets granting imbue dice are unwieldly.
And myriad other issues.

I really don't feel right about a universal tree getting a stronger imbue than AA, EK and VC and the wednesday stream implying a release next week.
It has been bad enough having khyber players calling you mentally invalid for playing an EK as anything but tiefling but we're en route for "why isn't your EK using crossbows, stop trolling and play a real build." "Imbues are worthless for melee its for inquis only" and other such gems.

[ivorycoaster]

Really hope u57 gets a third pass and a week or two more to sort stuff out.
Cause right now we're at a point that law on your side/inquisitive has hijacked the entire imbue overhaul, become the defacto best imbue build and a bunch of other imbues as of this moment are going to be left undertuned and broken on release because they didn't have players complaining incessantly enough
Like every imbue with melee/ranged power scaling needs to be at 200%
Vile chemist isn't scaling with spellpower at all.
Henshin Mystic is being underserved by its own imbue because its being rebalanced for two weapon fighting
Sets granting imbue dice are unwieldly.
And myriad other issues.

I really don't feel right about a universal tree getting a stronger imbue than AA, EK and VC and the wednesday stream implying a release next week.
It has been bad enough having khyber players calling you mentally invalid for playing an EK as anything but tiefling but we're en route for "why isn't your EK using crossbows, stop trolling and play a real build." "Imbues are worthless for melee its for inquis only" and other such gems.

I think since you mentioned henshin mystic it's worth noting that this was a great opportunity to bump up shintao monk's oppressively low DPS. while henshin got an iconic and BARB got an iconic handwraps build, shintao monk has really been the forgotten child and the tree has gone long stagnant. I think adding an elemental imbue to the elemental trees that are separate from the stances, and adding dice to the tree and the form upgrades could have really helped that, while light the candle still functioned properly with 2 handed fighting.

At any rate, I hope we have another week and a half or so to talk about these things. Definitely hope that the elite running inquisitives have been appeased enough to not completely hijack the conversation further.. the build optimizers are already going to have a field day with that.

[Fisto_Mk_I]

As is true with having multiple imbues active from different trees, these procs are almost completely ineffective at any mid difficulty content.

Pal, you just don't know about you say. They so "ineffective" that all top-builder like Jing, Carpone or Epicsoul include it in they top-damage high-reaper and raid builds. Why? Because they just BiS.


On the same token, even in that build you would see more damage from more ranged power or more doubleshot.

You totally missed point here. I already have max possible RP/Doubleshot here (from 14 filigree slot) AND additional +16d6 flat damage. After U57 with current implementation this damage just missed.


Especially if you are maxing out your SCALING +to damage stats such as dex, deadly. It is VERY easy to get 8 or 9 filigree slots. 4 slot artifacts are abundant now and 5 slots in a sent weapon is like 20k. If you were to have 7, you could run 2 raid ranged power, 2 spines RP rare, 2 crackshot ranged power rare and 1 crackshot attack and damage. That's +65 ranged power. You would see a more increase in your overall DPS. They aren't making these changes just to screw over someone who has 6k sent xp on their weapon and 3k on an artifact.

Yea, yea, i have 14 filigree slot, and my setup for 8 Perfect Artifact/Weapon slot include 2 Crackshot Negotiator RP (rare) +2 more Negotiator filigree on weapon for same 65 RP you mention and 5 DS you missed. But currently, as i say before, i have 56 average flat damage from 2 filigree slot. After, i have only 2 DI, for Monk it's mean 2d6 (2d8 for Drow) Poison or 2d6 fire +2d6 force on crit, scaled with 100% RP/MP. Take the best - 2d8 dice, average 9 damage.

56/9 = 6.33, so i need have 633 RP only to gain what i lose with this nerf. Max available RP for highly optimized Carpone's ranged builds, irc, about 369 (include reaper tree).

Am I expounding? ;)

For me it means that all non-casters imbue must scaled at least 150-200% MP/RP, not 100%, just to previously worked filigree set was not (so heavily) nerfed.


Yeah, sure, maybe it's a slight nerf to that filigree function. It's a nerf to a barely viable damage option is my point and that is exactly why I said those "Empty words." I guess I'll just keep my mouth shut, because every time I offer someone a solution that would give them more damage post update than they had pre update, they just continue to complain..

Slight? Oh, pal... you just try play white knight here, it's obviously for all who really use this filigree set. Just re-read Droid327 answer (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/535266-U57-Preview-2-Imbue-Overhaul?p=6550852&viewfull=1#post6550852) to me - he already nailed problem with this 2pc set nerf. Later, SpartanKiller13 say almost same thing (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/535266-U57-Preview-2-Imbue-Overhaul?p=6551002&viewfull=1#post6551002)... ;)

And sorry, pal, you not offer any solution, you just offer play to absolutely other builds. Good for any who ready change they current build to something absolutely different, not good for any who want keep play with builds they love.

[TueNictGut]

Really hope u57 gets a third pass and a week or two more to sort stuff out.
Cause right now we're at a point that law on your side/inquisitive has hijacked the entire imbue overhaul, become the defacto best imbue build.


Signed
Pls give some love to melee builds,
atm. the proposed imbue changes are most valuable for ranged builds (inquis, starthrowers) and Ek and Da which are essentialy casters.
Maybe Tuning up mp scaling across the board would help

Furthermore i want to pronounce, that chartago must be destroyed and melee ninja and harper t5 could be improved greatly by imbue changes ;)

[Tilomere]

So I have spent much of the last two days trying to work out builds on Lamania that will use the imbue system, and it all boils down to one major flaw in it. IMBUES DON" CRIT. The builds I was playing with had some decent base numbers. I was using the EK tree, and getting over 28 Die added on, and using boosts and self buffs, could get hits for over 8K on every hit. To get that, you sacrifice Ranged Power, and there is no easy way to say it, but a Ranged Power build at end game, will do more DPS than an imbue build, because of things like crits, and because of abilities that bump your next attack.

I based my "non-crit" info on the fact that I never saw one, and the fact that on preview one, it was asked if they would, and that question went unanswered. The imbue system seemed like it was going to be very fun to play, and I was looking forward to trying out different builds, but I'm sorry to say, that I can't see me playing this at end game at all.

Change the imbue system so that when your weapon crits, your imbue crits, and these have the the potential to be very solid builds, as well as being very fun to play.

Ahh so still not enough for weapon imbues. That's unfortunate. The warlock imbue can crit on eldritch blast. Why don't you try that at same +28 die?

[ivorycoaster]

Pal, you just don't know about you say. They so "ineffective" that all top-builder like Jing, Carpone or Epicsoul include it in they top-damage high-reaper and raid builds. Why? Because they just BiS.



You totally missed point here. I already have max possible RP/Doubleshot here (from 14 filigree slot) AND additional +16d6 flat damage. After U57 with current implementation this damage just missed.



Yea, yea, i have 14 filigree slot, and my setup for 8 Perfect Artifact/Weapon slot include 2 Crackshot Negotiator RP (rare) +2 more Negotiator filigree on weapon for same 65 RP you mention and 5 DS you missed. But currently, as i say before, i have 56 average flat damage from 2 filigree slot. After, i have only 2 DI, for Monk it's mean 2d6 (2d8 for Drow) Poison or 2d6 fire +2d6 force on crit, scaled with 100% RP/MP. Take the best - 2d8 dice, average 9 damage.

56/9 = 6.33, so i need have 633 RP only to gain what i lose with this nerf. Max available RP for highly optimized Carpone's ranged builds, irc, about 369 (include reaper tree).

Am I expounding? ;)

For me it means that all non-casters imbue must scaled at least 150-200% MP/RP, not 100%, just to previously worked filigree set was not (so heavily) nerfed.



Slight? Oh, pal... you just try play white knight here, it's obviously for all who really use this filigree set. Just re-read Droid327 answer (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/535266-U57-Preview-2-Imbue-Overhaul?p=6550852&viewfull=1#post6550852) to me - he already nailed problem with this 2pc set nerf. Later, SpartanKiller13 say almost same thing (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/535266-U57-Preview-2-Imbue-Overhaul?p=6551002&viewfull=1#post6551002)... ;)

And sorry, pal, you not offer any solution, you just offer play to absolutely other builds. Good for any who ready change they current build to something absolutely different, not good for any who want keep play with builds they love.

I seriously wonder if you talk to people like this face to face. it's the keyboard equivelant of poking your finger in someone's chest and is extremely condescending and disrespectful. maybe I misread your post, but regardless; i stand by what I said earlier, that it's a pretty insignificant damage source. I don't think losing that non scaling damage is going to hurt either you or carpone's build by even .5% of your dps. i'm done responding to anyone on here unless its "yes i agree."

[LurkingVeteran]

Most in this thread seem to argue over balance details in heroics. The main problem with Imbues is that imbues still do not scale as well into epic content.

The reasons for this are:
1) Elemental/Poison damage get reduced reaper scaling and monster resistances subtracted before MP/SP scaling is applied (unless this was changed recently, Lynnabel said it was being looked into). This means that a mere 30pt elemental resistance that e.g. some demons have will already on low reaper turn into an effective 90pt, resulting in e.g. 25 D6 imbue die turning into 0 damage.

2) A large part of epic damage comes from special attacks like Hunt's End that scale crit profile. Since Imbue do not crit they do not benefit from this. I am not sure if imbues even benefit from the +200% scaling of "damage" scaling on Hunt's End. I think a better system would be to reduce MP/SP scaling of imbues and make them use the crit multiplier of the attack like other damage.

3) The elemental/poison ones additionally suffer from immunity.

The way things are going I expect the imbue pass to result in power creep in heroics, but still nearly useless end game.

[LurkingVeteran]

The post below I think touches upon these problems, although does not explain why crits are so important.

The reason why Crits are important to the imbues is that without them, in higher reaper, your damage becomes insignificant.

People build characters for the most part 3 different ways.

1) to level and gain a past life. Normally optimized for speed.
2) for end game. can often make leveling in heroic a bit slower, but it's a build that will be great at end game.
3) for flavor. Maybe you want to play a small shield build, go for it, have fun.

Currently, I have an alchemist shooter on live, using Inquis and VC to add supplemental damage. This is not an end game character, doesn't have completionist in anything, its just a character I got to 30 and he stays there, if my main is off leveling, and I want to participate in casual raids with the guild there he sits, ready to go. I recently ran into a R10 quest with some guild people who wanted to play, and this was the only capped character that i could play. This character, even not fully maximized can hit 7-8K crits in R10 using his big damage clicks. His poison imbue become almost insignificant.

My main character on Lamania, with the gear set that i built in just a few hours, was over 900 SP and boosting to over 1100 in reaper, was able to get 8K hits in town, while using bosots. In reaper, those numbers were in the low 100 range. Because i focued on imbues, and not RP, my crits for my base damage never got very high, i think the highest I saw was about 2K.

This isn't the definition of power creep.

There will always be those players, you can call them the elitist or the min maxers, it doesnt matter, there will always be that group of people who find a way to tweak the system just enough, to be able to pull off amazing things, hooray for them. For the average player, which I am probably one of, losing DPS is bad. I don't know what crits are now for spells/melee/ranged, by which i mean that I dont know what multiplier is used, but with a multiplier of 0 imbue damage in higher reaper is bad.

With all that being said, I don't have to agree with the changes, or even like the changes. I like the game, and I will find a way to adapt, and keep playing. I just don't see myself playing a build that relies upon imbues for end game content.
Not sure if this is referring to issue 1) mobs with poison resistance? or 2) special attack damage scaling, but could be both.

[LurkingVeteran]

Besides that, since no melee/ranged or spell power scaling multipliers were divulged, it is impossible to predict how OP these things will be in Heroics. The only thing I know from reading this is that paladin is still 200%, and inq is now 200%. I have no idea what the scaling of the other MP/RP ones are (new monk, bard, barb imbues etc), or what weapon restrictions are in place on using the imbue toggles (e.g. Bow for AA Force Arrow?).

The only valid data is from those that actually test the builds on Lam.

Generally, it would make sense if all MP/RP imbues were 200% since that compares better to spell power. Spell power still has an edge (at least in heroics), but with MP/RP you get to scale physical weapon damage as well, so that is probably reasonable.

[macubrae]

I seriously wonder if you talk to people like this face to face. it's the keyboard equivelant of poking your finger in someone's chest and is extremely condescending and disrespectful. maybe I misread your post, but regardless; i stand by what I said earlier, that it's a pretty insignificant damage source. I don't think losing that non scaling damage is going to hurt either you or carpone's build by even .5% of your dps. i'm done responding to anyone on here unless its "yes i agree."

So you are looking for a "yes man" instead of a discussion, what a Dev thing to say.

[Lotoc]

Most in this thread seem to argue over balance details in heroics. The main problem with Imbues is that imbues still do not scale as well into epic content.

The reasons for this are:
1) Elemental/Poison damage get reduced reaper scaling and monster resistances subtracted before MP/SP scaling is applied (unless this was changed recently, Lynnabel said it was being looked into). This means that a mere 30pt elemental resistance that e.g. some demons have will already on low reaper turn into an effective 90pt, resulting in e.g. 25 D6 imbue die turning into 0 damage.

2) A large part of epic damage comes from special attacks like Hunt's End that scale crit profile. Since Imbue do not crit they do not benefit from this. I am not sure if imbues even benefit from the +200% scaling of "damage" scaling on Hunt's End. I think a better system would be to reduce MP/SP scaling of imbues and make them use the crit multiplier of the attack like other damage.

3) The elemental/poison ones additionally suffer from immunity.

The way things are going I expect the imbue pass to result in power creep in heroics, but still nearly useless end game.

Except again, Eldritch Knight right this moment on live is one of like the top 5 melee DPS builds entirely off of scaling their imbue damage and Assassin rogue which scales heavily with sneak attack dice (which don't crit either) is notoriously the highest single target dps build in the game.

[Fisto_Mk_I]

Generally, it would make sense if all MP/RP imbues were 200% since that compares better to spell power.

Seems correct for me.

[ivorycoaster]

Most in this thread seem to argue over balance details in heroics. The main problem with Imbues is that imbues still do not scale as well into epic content.

The reasons for this are:
1) Elemental/Poison damage get reduced reaper scaling and monster resistances subtracted before MP/SP scaling is applied (unless this was changed recently, Lynnabel said it was being looked into). This means that a mere 30pt elemental resistance that e.g. some demons have will already on low reaper turn into an effective 90pt, resulting in e.g. 25 D6 imbue die turning into 0 damage.

2) A large part of epic damage comes from special attacks like Hunt's End that scale crit profile. Since Imbue do not crit they do not benefit from this. I am not sure if imbues even benefit from the +200% scaling of "damage" scaling on Hunt's End. I think a better system would be to reduce MP/SP scaling of imbues and make them use the crit multiplier of the attack like other damage.

3) The elemental/poison ones additionally suffer from immunity.

The way things are going I expect the imbue pass to result in power creep in heroics, but still nearly useless end game.

I would argue that immunity is the bigger issue, because as someone else said, a well built EK is a top tier single target dps build (although, that is in raids and not r10..) I run EK on my main almost exclusively now that I have racial comp, and the only thing that gives me a little bit of immunity workaround is really the sonic scion, which we are losing, and fatesinger epic strike. All 3 of the top burst AOE caster builds just have built in immunity bypass. It would be really nice to see AA and EK get at least a single target immunity bypass. VC gets it in tier 2 of their tree. It's long overdue. Core 18, tier 5 to require high investment is a reasonable place (tier 2 is a bit early IMO.) Core 18 for EK, tier 5 for AA.
The ability to grab a multiselector that bypasses one type of elemental immunity would MUCH change the approachability of the playstyle and also give wizard a high investment option for immune bypass, which they currently don't have.

I did hear in the facebook stream- Severlin mentioned something that I can only assume was about looking at this scaling in reaper, hopefully that is true because it has always been a problem for EK in high reaper content. Our damage gets relegated to proportionately very little.. It's almost sad to have 1100+spellpower and be hitting for ~200 a swing.

At any rate, I would also love if they did something to allow crits on elemental based imbues, although it might be more balanced based on spell crit/multiplier. This might be SUPER complicated coding though, defeating the whole purpose of reducing back end lag that this update represents.


So you are looking for a "yes man" instead of a discussion, what a Dev thing to say.

No, rather just common decency. People tend to get really passive aggressive, or resort to name calling very quickly in these forums. It is very easy to respond with opinions or points without being disrespectful. Even your response implies something negative. I have been a bartender for 15 years, people do not resort to this kind of behavior face to face in a regular conversation unless they are drunk or they know someone really well. And if those kinds of responses are made to people they don't know, in person, they tend to escalate. I also don't see a majority of people act this way in game nearly as often; the in game community is very respectful and polite a majority of the time in my experience.

[Lotoc]

It may be appropriate to add a four set bonus to the voltaic experiment filigree set for imbue dice, the filigree set itself is kind of built around AAs/EKs/magical imbues being a set centered around spellpower and doublestrike/shot so it'd be pretty fitting to solidify Voltaic Experiment for the role it already is trying to fit.

[VinoeWhines]

Changes from first preview are in this green!

With Update 57 we are embarking on a series of global overhauls that aim to streamline and shake up the game and bring new cohesion across multiple builds. The Imbue system is one such overhaul and aims to drastically change how players approach certain builds, as well as open up a large variety of fun, flavorful, and powerful new ones. But enough talk - let's see the details!



Rogue:

(Assassin Tier 1) 1d8 Poison, melee or ranged power (note this swapped places with Toxin Affinity which is now tier 2)
(Assassin - Toxin Affinity) moves to t2 (swaps with imbue), +1/2/3 dice


Your thoughts, questions, suggestions are always welcome! :)

Instead of 1d8 Poison, it would match better(1d8 Untyped/Force) with Dark Imbuement's Untyped Damage, since Poison is often resisted in game.

Dark Imbuement: Your Epic Strike now imbues your weapons with Evil energies for 10s: You deal 1d6 per Sneak Attack Dice in Untyped damage on hit (scaling with Melee or Ranged Power, or Force Spell Power if its higher).

(This is not working either)Heart Seeker Poison Strikes: Fort DC 10 + half Rogue level + INT modifier negates(half Rogue level? too low)
I would think a DC: 10/15/20 + Rogue level + INT modifier negates, +1/2/3/ dice


Does someone have an example of what the proposed imbue "Toxin Affinity" +3 dice does?
Class being level 20/+12 Rogue?

Scion of the Astral/Ethereal Plane should also get the Imbue Untyped damage dice as well, like the other Legendary Feats that get it(+3 dice).

[VinoeWhines]

point 2 is that due in part to the passionate feedback in this thread we're going to nudge the dice scaling for Inq a bit (moving up from 1d8 to 1d10) so you'll actually be a little stronger in heroics.

Should be a nice boost :) As a reminder plz keep feedback civil or we can't really have a fun discussion :P

As civil as ever, wish this was a true statement with all the passionate feedback given in regards to nudging Rogues back to what they once were, Stealthy and Assassin's(in multiple ways).

What else can I express, as well as others, to get a response from a dev in regards to the state of this class and all that was taken from it, especially in the Shadow Dancer Tree.

Just put the Caster side of the Tree back into it's true destination - Magus of the Eclipse Tree: The Force/Illusionist split, slots in perfectly(and add the +5 Force Spell Power, is all that it needs to add, since it has the same cores).

Many passionate feedback would agree(though) I secretly would of liked to have been able to cast "Weird" as well in the tree[locked out of it], it's just that we(20 viable Assassin Rogue levels) couldn't use the Tree to tier V as a Melee/Range character, in it's current state.
Unless we get back Executioner's Strike/Shot, Consume, Shadow Manipulation.....Tumble through enemies

[Nammmmmmm]

Why overcomplicating things? If they're adding dps to all playstyles thats just a horizontal shift, may as well just decrease the mobs hp by the same percentage that is guestimated to be the average percent damage increase.

Streamlining this game is not part of its fundamentals because we're able to customize so many parts of it.

This change is equivalent to reading a book without any conviction because its full of fluff.

[MrChipinator]

Lighting the Candle simply backloads the imbue damage until you reach level 20. Even then, the change of 6d10 force on crit into 6d6 (even with the + from fire) basically doesn't do anything...because fire is meh and force is great

If you never crit it's slightly better, but since Fire is an oft resisted damage element it really doesn't do anything.
Lighting the Candle will be 50% worse from level 6 (and lets be honest people you're using Elemental Bloom + Plowshares at level 7 anyway until 20 so you would be getting crits and often), where it will only see it return to average damage pre-changes

Now if Henshin Mystic had say, +dice in the T5 or each of the elemental strikes gave an additional die OR if we could be so bold, the capstone/a T5 for Henshin made all the damage Void that'd be much nicer

While I'm here I'd also like to posit that changing Incinerating Wave/Ki Bolt/Cauldron to all Void damage would also make them considerably better, but I can say confidently I won't be taking Lighting the Candle until at least level 12, as the Ki penalty removing my extra monk strikes won't make up for the reduced damage on hit from the Imbue system

Hopefully this could get changed, it's mildly annoying that this is just a straight line in damage and doesn't offer up any exciting boosts for qstaff monks
I can't even imagine how worthless this change would be on a handwraps monk who doesn't get sounding staff for the +2 ki on it at level 6 to balance it

[Artrea]

Why doesn't Scion of Elysium give my pets Imbue dice?! ????

[TueNictGut]

I like to take up the cudgels on behalf of a more balanced scaling of the Mp/Rp Imbues and especially the monk ones once more:

Monks imbues already have suboptimal damage types. And while they provide some nice flavor with ninja poison and crit dmg. they are just bad dmgwise in comparison to say assassin or Sf scaling with 200% Mp not to mention the spellpower scaling ones.
In my opinion they will at most be a nice to have sideffect but not an option to create a build around if not changed and that really is a pity.

I dont see the reasoning behind keeping the old limiting attributes of the enhancements while applying a completly different mechanic on them, which results in a much higher impact on build possibilities and class balance.
In my opinion you create a totally new context of layout design for them, in which the limiting attributes loose their sense.

Suggestions:

- all Mp/Rp imbues should scale 200% to be more comparable to spellpower imbues

- I absolutely would love the ninja posion on crit proc. to stay passive and separate fron the imbue toggle
This would allow for some very fun poison centered buildoptions with assassin or alchemist imbue.

- Either get rid of the restricting ki cost of henshin imbue or make it stronger in some way to make it worth the cost in heroics.

- The Shin tao and especially the baldly aged ninja build could use some imbue dices.
To add them to some or all of the form feats would be a nice option too ofc.


I really think that the imbue changes would have been a great opportunity to pimp up some of the aged trees like melee ninja or t5 harper and have posted some suggestions on that theme multiple times.
But i can totally understand if that is beyond the scope of this update.

All in all iam really looking forward to try some of the new buildpossibilities of the new imbue mechanic, especially in hardcore.

Thx for reading and hopefuly considering ;)

[Shall]

I like to take up the cudgels on behalf of a more balanced scaling of the Mp/Rp Imbues and especially the monk ones once more:

Monks imbues already have suboptimal damage types. And while they provide some nice flavor with ninja poison and crit dmg. they are just bad dmgwise in comparison to say assassin or Sf scaling with 200% Mp not to mention the spellpower scaling ones.
In my opinion they will at most be a nice to have sideffect but not an option to create a build around if not changed and that really is a pity.

I dont see the reasoning behind keeping the old limiting attributes of the enhancements while applying a completly different mechanic on them, which results in a much higher impact on build possibilities and class balance.
In my opinion you create a totally new context of layout design for them, in which the limiting attributes loose their sense.

Suggestions:

- all Mp/Rp imbues should scale 200% to be more comparable to spellpower imbues

- I absolutely would love the ninja posion on crit proc. to stay passive and separate fron the imbue toggle
This would allow for some very fun poison centered buildoptions with assassin or alchemist imbue.

- Either get rid of the restricting ki cost of henshin imbue or make it stronger in some way to make it worth the cost in heroics.

- The Shin tao and especially the baldly aged ninja build could use some imbue dices.
To add them to some or all of the form feats would be a nice option too ofc.


I really think that the imbue changes would have been a great opportunity to pimp up some of the aged trees like melee ninja or t5 harper and have posted some suggestions on that theme multiple times.
But i can totally understand if that is beyond the scope of this update.

All in all iam really looking forward to try some of the new buildpossibilities of the new imbue mechanic, especially in hardcore.

Thx for reading and hopefuly considering ;)

Agreed, I'd make the on crit ninja poison an always on passive part of the enhancement so it's compatible with the alchemist poison imbues that use spellpower. Also, I'd add a poison immunity strip to the poison darts level 12 core, if not to the ninja poison damage over time in general (so shurikens have a way to strip immunity at range when they get a crit). I realize people are hesitant about adding more bypasses, but poison damage is of such limited use without it with how much is immune to i.

I'd change lighting the candle by making it force damage on every hit, removing the ki cost, and making the elemental words line temporarily add on crit damage of their respective element so the ki cost is from maintaining that buff, kind of like sacred fist empowerment's on crit bane damage imbue has a ki cost instead of reducing ki gain

Really it seems like a lot of vital enhancements were by design spread out among the monk trees so you need to invest a little in both of your non dominant trees and restricting the wis to damage and wis trance to so high up in falconry compared to other trances sorta wrecked that. Oh well, maybe they can just add an imbue and some dice to falconry for shintaos to use (piercing damage from falcon claws?) since the tree seems close to mandatory for melee monks anyway.

[VinoeWhines]

I'd add a poison immunity strip to the poison

I third this, having poison also in Rogue is really not doing much, and with the Imbue changes it's going to be "more" of not doing much.
Point of Interest we're talking about is in end game higher difficulty.

[TueNictGut]

I third this, having poison also in Rogue is really not doing much, and with the Imbue changes it's going to be "more" of not doing much.
Point of Interest we're talking about is in end game higher difficulty.


Poison immunity strip is only in alchemist atm, but ofc d8 scaling 200% with mp is far better than ninja spys d6 with 100%

In another post i suggested to change ninja spy t5 useless crippling strike or outdated touch of detah into a poisonstrip but it got no resonance as the discussion was mainly focused around inquisistive and ninja spy is not intersting enough to the most i guess...

Edit:
I would really like the poison immunity strip on the sting of the ninja imbue itself on a vorpal or crit. al lot
Adding the steip to c4 would give a use to this useless core.

[Tilomere]

Let's look at some ballpark numbers given a reasonably-geared toon (good gear, not 12 mythic/reaper items and a MP/RP pot). Obviously could go a lot further but it's an example :rolleyes:

At level 5, a melee is probably around:
10 Crown of Butterflies
2 Combat style
4 Remnant Tome
10 mythic/reaper random stuff
3 Dread Adversary

29 MP

Level 5 caster:
59 ML5 spellpower item
14 Spellcraft (3 airship, 8 ranks, 2 tome, +1 Int)
8 Exceptional (Autumn Winds)
4 Remnant Tome
10 mythic/reaper random stuff
6 Dire Thaumaturge

101 spellpower

2.01/1.29 = 56% more imbue damage for a spellpower-scaled imbue.


If you are talking about well geared/built mythic reaper/crowned melee, then for comparison that's lvl 1 spell power:
https://i.postimg.cc/hjhm0Rcf/Screen-Shot-2022-10-29-191642-0.jpg (https://postimg.cc/xJDq07k2)

A level 5 caster has ~180 spell power, and let's be honest, if you are building for an imbue instead of straight AoE nuking the group for 3x their max hp non-crit in reaper mode you are doing it wrong. Sorc Fist OP.
https://i.postimg.cc/13Rgy124/Screen-Shot-2022-10-30-093432-0.jpg (https://postimg.cc/gn5cKQYP)
https://i.postimg.cc/Pqz12Qg8/Screen-Shot-2022-10-30-164206-0.jpg (https://postimg.cc/f3y3bmTw)

It's a fairly safe bet that there is no imbue build in the game that will ever match AoE 1 shotting groups. The least of the balance concerns should be a sorc fist running around whacking things with a stick.

[VinoeWhines]

Another option for Rogue/Ranger/Monk would be that if you go with Poison and Immune on Crit damage, would be to, on Crit, the Poison should be more virulent and add a stack of "Bleed" poison damage.