"Smaller doses" - suggestions

[hit_fido]

After reading player feedback we are moving towards a system where meaningful improvement to specific characters or classes will sometimes be added to the game in smaller doses.

Above is fine with me if it means we get some artificer improvements in the next 2-3 months rather than mid or late 2016, or worse.

What reasonable low hanging fruit might we be able to get done in a smaller dose? Here are a few ideas centered on Battle Engineer, many of which are just ap reductions, merging similar enhancements, or changes of enhancements to be the same as other changes made in other trees. In other words, some stuff that may not take too long to implement:

• Remove the speed penalty for charging a rune arm.
  
  • Other classes have received movement speed improvements - bard/swashbuckler and rogue/thief acrobat got straight up movement buffs; warlock/soul eater got a temporary movement buff based on an attack; rogue/assassin got a major increase in sneak movement; most notable though, fighter and paladin stalwart not only got their movement penalties removed, they were turned into a possible movement buff.
  • Slow movement sucks; the only other class/enhancement specific movement penalty left that comes to mind is dwarf/stand like stone and I suspect it's not a popular enhancement choice. Penalizing an artificer until at least level 12 is really a huge drawback to their primary class feature, rune arm use. Forcing them to use up their tier 5 to negate the penalty compounds the "fun deficit".
  • Rune arms would still lose charge while moving (down to their stable charge tier) - this is a sufficient enough penalty and suffices to ensure artificers can't be mobile and keep a 5 tier charge at the same time.
• In battle engineer, each tier of Crossbow Training adds "Your doubleshot with these weapons increases by +2%" - this makes for a total of 8% doubleshot from the line.
• In battle engineer, Attack Boost cost is reduced to 1 ap per rank.
• In battle engineer, Damage Boost cost is reduced to 1 ap per rank and changed to: "Activate to gain a 10/20/30 Action Boost bonus to Melee Power and Ranged Power for 20 seconds." - this is the same as is available at tier 2 knight of the chalice and assassin.
• In battle engineer, add at tier 2 "SLA: Ablative Armor (10 sp, cooldown 1 minute): Wards an ally against physical damage and force damage. Once this infusion has prevented a total of 5/10/15 damage per caster level (max 100/200/300) it is discharged. costs 1 ap per rank
• In battle engineer, Extra Action Boost cost is reduced to 1 ap per rank - this is the same as is available at lower tier for frenzied berserker.
• In battle engineer, tier 3 and tier 4 Arcane Capacitors are merged into a single two rank slot at tier 3: "for each rank: When moving, your Rune Arm's charge decays 25% slower than normal and your rune arm damage scales by an additional 25% spell power"
• In battle engineer, tier 4 Arcane Capacitors is replaced with "SLA: Conjure Force Bolts (6 sp): Conjures a stack of 1000 bolts for use with a crossbow. These bolts dissolve into nothingness after logout. These bolts begin with a +1 enhancement bonus to attack and damage and +1d4 force damage and scale up with +1 enhancement bonus and +1d4 force damage for every two artificer levels"; costs 2 ap
• In battle engineer, tier 4 and tier 5 Rune Arm Overcharge are merged into a single two rank slot at tier 4, costing 1 ap per rank instead of 2.
• In battle engineer, tier 5 Tactical Mobility is replaced with "Tactical Prowess: when firing your rune arm, each charge tier adds 1 to your melee and ranged power for the next 10 seconds, stacking up to a total of 15; Stacks are reduced one at a time"
• In battle engineer, tier 5 Rune Arm Overcharge is replaced with "Imbuement Mastery: the damage of your rune arm imbue is doubled
• In battle engineer, tier 5, add "Rune Arm Shielding: while charged, your rune arm provides +5 MRR per charge tier

If only for the added fun of playing an artificer, I'd be happy with just dropping the movement penalty even though it would do almost nothing to bring the dps or defenses up on par with revamped classes.

[DrWily]

Hmm... I might set up some enhancement changes as a proposal. Artificer really needs some boosts to the class to go toe to toe with the new changes in other class trees, I really hate seeing the class I love most go down to that level where you need to splash 9 levels of something else in order to do decent with it.

[Arkai]

Your rune arm propposals are just awesome.



For my "small doses" I like those:

- Some kind of returning % for the bolts we are using (slaying and bane bolts would become actually real good).
- Wands/clickies empowerment (Just started a post about that).
- New homunculi enhancements; doggy needs some PRR and MRR in its racial tree (get them from the Arcanotechnician).

[Thoden]

/Signed

Above is fine with me if it means we get some artificer improvements in the next 2-3 months rather than mid or late 2016, or worse.

What reasonable low hanging fruit might we be able to get done in a smaller dose? Here are a few ideas centered on Battle Engineer, many of which are just ap reductions, merging similar enhancements, or changes of enhancements to be the same as other changes made in other trees. In other words, some stuff that may not take too long to implement:

• Remove the speed penalty for charging a rune arm.
  
  • Other classes have received movement speed improvements - bard/swashbuckler and rogue/thief acrobat got straight up movement buffs; warlock/soul eater got a temporary movement buff based on an attack; rogue/assassin got a major increase in sneak movement; most notable though, fighter and paladin stalwart not only got their movement penalties removed, they were turned into a possible movement buff.
  • Slow movement sucks; the only other class/enhancement specific movement penalty left that comes to mind is dwarf/stand like stone and I suspect it's not a popular enhancement choice. Penalizing an artificer until at least level 12 is really a huge drawback to their primary class feature, rune arm use. Forcing them to use up their tier 5 to negate the penalty compounds the "fun deficit".
  • Rune arms would still lose charge while moving (down to their stable charge tier) - this is a sufficient enough penalty and suffices to ensure artificers can't be mobile and keep a 5 tier charge at the same time.
• In battle engineer, each tier of Crossbow Training adds "Your doubleshot with these weapons increases by +2%" - this makes for a total of 8% doubleshot from the line.
• In battle engineer, Attack Boost cost is reduced to 1 ap per rank.
• In battle engineer, Damage Boost cost is reduced to 1 ap per rank and changed to: "Activate to gain a 10/20/30 Action Boost bonus to Melee Power and Ranged Power for 20 seconds." - this is the same as is available at tier 2 knight of the chalice and assassin.
• In battle engineer, add at tier 2 "SLA: Ablative Armor (10 sp, cooldown 1 minute): Wards an ally against physical damage and force damage. Once this infusion has prevented a total of 5/10/15 damage per caster level (max 100/200/300) it is discharged. costs 1 ap per rank
• In battle engineer, Extra Action Boost cost is reduced to 1 ap per rank - this is the same as is available at lower tier for frenzied berserker.
• In battle engineer, tier 3 and tier 4 Arcane Capacitors are merged into a single two rank slot at tier 3: "for each rank: When moving, your Rune Arm's charge decays 25% slower than normal and your rune arm damage scales by an additional 25% spell power"
• In battle engineer, tier 4 Arcane Capacitors is replaced with "SLA: Conjure Force Bolts (6 sp): Conjures a stack of 1000 bolts for use with a crossbow. These bolts dissolve into nothingness after logout. These bolts begin with a +1 enhancement bonus to attack and damage and +1d4 force damage and scale up with +1 enhancement bonus and +1d4 force damage for every two artificer levels"; costs 2 ap
• In battle engineer, tier 4 and tier 5 Rune Arm Overcharge are merged into a single two rank slot at tier 4, costing 1 ap per rank instead of 2.
• In battle engineer, tier 5 Tactical Mobility is replaced with "Tactical Prowess: when firing your rune arm, each charge tier adds 1 to your melee and ranged power for the next 10 seconds, stacking up to a total of 15; Stacks are reduced one at a time"
• In battle engineer, tier 5 Rune Arm Overcharge is replaced with "Imbuement Mastery: the damage of your rune arm imbue is doubled
• In battle engineer, tier 5, add "Rune Arm Shielding: while charged, your rune arm provides +5 MRR per charge tier

If only for the added fun of playing an artificer, I'd be happy with just dropping the movement penalty even though it would do almost nothing to bring the dps or defenses up on par with revamped classes.

[Thoden]

/Signed

Your rune arm propposals are just awesome.



For my "small doses" I like those:

- Some kind of returning % for the bolts we are using (slaying and bane bolts would become actually real good).
- Wands/clickies empowerment (Just started a post about that).
- New homunculi enhancements; doggy needs some PRR and MRR in its racial tree (get them from the Arcanotechnician).

[Sehenry03]

/signed

This is a very well thought out improvement. DDO could easily implement these and not have to spend time designing it.

[Arkai]

Another crazy ideas for an possible pass:

- Rune arm's Elemental imbues scaling with spell power.
- Deadly weapons changed to +1 critical range (+1 W seems SO weak those days). Maybe you can only target yourself.
- Elemental weapons scaling with ranged power. So, party can choose between more crits or more plain damage. Kinda similar to the ranger elemental imbues.

[DrWily]

Another crazy ideas for an possible pass:

- Rune arm's Elemental imbues scaling with spell power.
- Deadly weapons changed to +1 critical range (+1 W seems SO weak those days). Maybe you can only target yourself.
- Elemental weapons scaling with ranged power. So, party can choose between more crits or more plain damage. Kinda similar to the ranger elemental imbues.

Sign me up for that. The runearms really need a damage boost cause 2d10 extra pierce damage on-hit isn't really worth it when it's just 2d10 pierce damage.

[hit_fido]

- Rune arm's Elemental imbues scaling with spell power.
- Elemental weapons scaling with ranged power. So, party can choose between more crits or more plain damage. Kinda similar to the ranger elemental imbues.

I like either of those ideas a lot. I tried to be mindful of level of effort as well as maintaining unique or "rare" enhancements that differentiate artificers from other classes but also other classes from artificers. I doubt we'll see a change to the spell elemental weapons such as you propose because it's changing a (working) spell but also that it kind of duplicates the way the enhancement line from updated Arcane Archer works with spell power scaled imbues. However, spell power scaling rune arm imbues is perfect for artificer. I tried to account for that with In battle engineer, tier 5 Rune Arm Overcharge is replaced with "Imbuement Mastery: the damage of your rune arm imbue is doubled" but of course spell power scaling would be more effective than just doubling. I'd prefer to see such a feature just be built in to rune arms but if it costed some low hanging enhancement, fine.

I also tried to imagine a useful "Conjure Bolts" sla that went toward the same goal as the arcane archer line but again, not duplicating it to completely. I wrote it up there as scaling with artificer level but again, scaling with force spell power would be sensible. Arcane Archer remains different (choices of elemental imbues) while artificer still gets a bump in damage output that's logical for its other class characteristics (namely, the conjure bolt spell).

Anyway I think scaling some aspect of artificer ranged damage with spell power makes sense in light of other class revamps. It should be much more limited vs Arcane Archer's many tactical imbue options, say, just force via something like Conjure Bolts sla, or dependent on rune arm choice as you suggest.

On the other hand, some of this assumes they decide to remove the awful speed penalty from charged rune arms. If they decide to leave the penalty then I think rune arm related damage needs to be ramped up much higher to compensate for the penalty and the AP cost of removing the penalty. Scaling imbue damage or shot damage by 200% spell power or possibly more, or other improvements.

[Arkai]

Hey, guys!

What are your thoughts on this new arty stuff we are having with u30?

I loved the last "construct essence" feats, but those new shinies (lightning bolts and spell power, among others) dont fit with my actual vision of the build after some Lammania test with top gear.

Do you like them? Are you planning any builds with this?

[DrWily]

Well I'm not gonna be taking the new construct feats, not yet anyway. Not until I decide I want to run a primary Artificer again, since they are the only ones that can turn into T-3000s. Having Scion of Mechanus (U29) is a godsend for those using Arti splashes since you get a 400+ point heal, unfortunately you only get it at the level cap so...

Uh, anyway, the new Archanotech tree does look great IMO.

[Arkai]

Uh, anyway, the new Archanotech tree does look great IMO.

Yeah, didn't try yet but I love the new changes to spell power and all that stuff.

The thing is.. is that a tree pass? Is more to come? Why is Battle Ingenier behind any other melee tree (excepto Eldritch Knight perhaps)? Will the charging sound of the rune arm return some day? Will our dogs be smarter and avoid the ladder-bug?

So many questions

[Arkai]

[*] Remove the speed penalty for charging a rune arm.

Seriously, this is in my wishlist, at #1

[kmoustakas]

I would hope they removed the SLA dependancy on each other. I would want lightning sphere or lightning rod but I'm not spending my points on the tier1 SLA to get it.

Make it similar to the other trees like divine disciple and spellsinger where each sla is independant of the others.

Fixing the tier 5 arcanotechnitian runearm enhancement which is currently bugged and does nothing should also be easy.

Changing the battle engineer crossbow enhancement line to match that of mechanic should also have been automatic! Not the cores mind you, the +/+ to att/dmg with xbows.

[hit_fido]

A year and a day later...

We're well into worse than I imagined territory now ("mid or late 2016, or worse"). It sounds like Favored Soul is next up. I grant that some improvements were made to Arcanotechnician, watching Tilo's build, I guess it's great that someone can play their pure/majority artificer just like a warlock or sorcerer now!

But what about the low hanging fruit for battle engineer? The gap looks only wider since original post. What is a crossbow/rune arm using artificer supposed to excel at? I would have guessed that is ranged damage: repeating crossbow, supplemented by rune arm, supplemented by whatever spells are available to the extent you level up in artificer. It doesn't appear to me that artificers are competitive with arcane archers, shuriken throwers of any variety, rogue mechanics, or even a mere crossbow focused kensai. It's that last one that really grinds my gears.

I'm fine when arcane archers are the top bow users; mechanics are the top great crossbow users; monk splashes excel with shurikens. Can't battle engineers be the absolute best with repeating crossbows? Let me attempt to illustrate. Here's what I add up from six (6) levels of Kensai and 32 AP spent:

kensai, 32 ap: +1 crit multipler; +1 crit threat; +24 ranged power (4 from feats); improved destruction; haste boost 30%; +3 tactics DC; +5 to hit; +6 damage (feats included)

Assume we spend the other two fighter feats on rapid reload and heavy repeating crossbows for parity with the artificer. Spend 12 more points on Harper for:

harper, 12 ap: +1 weapon enhancement; +2 ranged power; know the angles; +int bonus to hit; +int bonus to damage

That's six (6) fighter levels and 44 AP spent to be a far better repeating crossbow user than you'll ever get from six levels of artificer and a comparable 42 AP spend:

battle engineer, 34 AP: +4 to hit; +2 damage; +1 weapon enhancement; +5 prr; damage boost 10%; +2 INT; endless fusillade; a usable rune arm (15 AP just for that)

harper, 8 ap:+1 weapon enhancement; know the angles; +int bonus to hit (assume we use insightful damage spell for the damage portion)

What am I missing? I'm no expert player, but this looks so lopsided toward the kensai baseline. A rune arm imbue and rune arm blasts, of course, since it costs your tier five row just to discard the god forsaken 25% run speed penalty that makes using a rune arm with anything less an exercise in frustration. Rune arm damage is lackluster, and rune arm damage on a splash (say six artificer levels) is diminished/capped in ways that aren't comparable in the fighter splash - they still get the full benefit of, for example +26 ranged power at level 20 or 30. Imbues don't scale, and they don't multiply from crits, so that's nothing more than maybe 10 damage, or 30 per volley, on average. There's that extra artificer feat at level four we can spend on anything. And trapping.

I try to keep this in perspective. I'm fine with mechanics dominating great crossbows. I'm fine with kensai being able to specialize in a single weapon class and be very good with that. I'm not fine with having battle engineers be really tepid repeating crossbow users compared to other classes using the same weapon, and generally being so far behind any specialized ranged class/build. Rune arm damage doesn't make up for it the way things are implemented today. Now I suppose the obvious "answer" is just combine six levels of battle engineer with six level of kensai then whatever else and fire away. But **** it, the point is the return on investment for 30-40 AP going the artificer route first is so poor relative to other baselines or templates.

My original post was a welcome acknowledgement of Severlin's direction with regards to making some needed tweaks sooner than later, as stop gap measures before full class passes. Artificer stands with Favored Soul and Druid as the last two classes with only two enhancement trees. While its "magical" tree can now be used to effectively mimic the already popular sorcerer and warlock play styles, the crossbow/rune arm combination is a unique play style that only artificers and artificer splashes can use. It widens the variety of play style rather than just deepening it. It therefore merits some increased attention from Turbine.

It's way past due to get a few useful low hanging fruit tweaks to battle engineers and rune arm tactics in general. May I suggest we start with dispensing with the abominable 25% run speed penalty, what must surely be a code *reduction* rather than expansion? And then make a few simple adjustments to ap costs, damage bonuses, and perhaps a scales-with-spell-power adjustment to rune arm imbues? Can we not get this much done before the end of 2017, because I am not seeing high probability of a third tree and serious revamp to artificers anytime next year given the (not unreasonable!) prioritization of Favored Soul and Druid wolf/bear form revamps.

[Arkai]

battle engineer, 34 AP: +4 to hit; +2 damage; +1 weapon enhancement; +5 prr; damage boost 10%; +2 INT; endless fusillade; a usable rune arm (15 AP just for that)

Yes, Artificer class need a revamp in the Battle Engineer tree, the speed while using a rune arm and the third lost tree, indeed. Archanotecnician is ok but the capstone is a poor one... empower clickies? We could have the rogue DC's at traps for the players who want to remain pure, but oh well.

Also, a dog that can walk into a ladder and do not become absolutely bugged and a returning rune arm sound, there's a lot of people asking for that (and many other who don't like, to be honest).

Maybe we will see an arti pass this new year under the new Standing Stone work hope so

[hit_fido]

I posted a thank you note to the devs but I just wanted to state the same thing here since I whined and complained twice, not unreasonably in my opinion, but I have to say based on the release notes I only now saw the devs came through pretty **** good on some of this stuff.

Run speed penalty? Gone! That's awesome.

There's even an enhancement at tier 5 for a 10% run speed increase like some other classes get? Awesome!

Rune arm imbues now scale with melee or ranged power - great.

Rune arm shots scale with 100% spell power? Great.

There's an enhancement to improve crit threat now? Great.

Not sure I can think of anything to be disappointed with. Now maybe Artificers still wont ever be a "power" class but I think this will make it more fun to play. The elimination of the run sped penalty by itself, this really makes me want to find time to play more again.

I consider this thread resolved and my wish list essentially fulfilled. Thanks!

[Nodoze]

I posted a thank you note to the devs but I just wanted to state the same thing here since I whined and complained twice, not unreasonably in my opinion, but I have to say based on the release notes I only now saw the devs came through pretty **** good on some of this stuff.

Run speed penalty? Gone! That's awesome.

There's even an enhancement at tier 5 for a 10% run speed increase like some other classes get? Awesome!

Rune arm imbues now scale with melee or ranged power - great.

Rune arm shots scale with 100% spell power? Great.

There's an enhancement to improve crit threat now? Great.

Not sure I can think of anything to be disappointed with. Now maybe Artificers still wont ever be a "power" class but I think this will make it more fun to play. The elimination of the run sped penalty by itself, this really makes me want to find time to play more again.

I consider this thread resolved and my wish list essentially fulfilled. Thanks!

Nice to see people circle back and commend.

Kudos to you as well for taking the time to do this.

[Tlorrd]

I posted a thank you note to the devs but I just wanted to state the same thing here since I whined and complained twice, not unreasonably in my opinion, but I have to say based on the release notes I only now saw the devs came through pretty **** good on some of this stuff.

Run speed penalty? Gone! That's awesome.

There's even an enhancement at tier 5 for a 10% run speed increase like some other classes get? Awesome!

Rune arm imbues now scale with melee or ranged power - great.

Rune arm shots scale with 100% spell power? Great.

There's an enhancement to improve crit threat now? Great.

Not sure I can think of anything to be disappointed with. Now maybe Artificers still wont ever be a "power" class but I think this will make it more fun to play. The elimination of the run sped penalty by itself, this really makes me want to find time to play more again.

I consider this thread resolved and my wish list essentially fulfilled. Thanks!

From your OP ... 2 years wait time ... I think you should be commended more for you patience than the actual fact that arty got buffed.