U58 Preview 1 Overview

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Originally Posted by TheMaxpower

While you are updating Warlock, please greatly speed up the basic blaster animation for the regular warlock. It is way too slow, clunky, and anti-fun. Thank you for your consideration.

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i have to 2nd this. the wind up before the pitch. mobs tend to be dead from other players before your blast even leaves your hands. even if you got to make and add a quicken type feat for this. it doesn't matter if you dlb their damage if stuff dead before you can cast it no fun to play

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Originally Posted by Stravix

Just make absorb bypass a stat like how fort bypass exists now, and make immune people simply have at least 100% absorb. Let there be gear for it, and available on respective enhancement trees.

Don't make it binary, make it so you need good investment.

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I've suggested this previously and got no response. I agree make it an absorb stat. Personally I would make current immune mobs be something like 50% absorption of x element(s). You could change the current immunity stripping enhancements to add 5,10,15% reduction.

Or they could add gear/feats/enhancements to bypass it and start at 100% I guess.

They also need to remove mob healing from damage to make this work so I don't have to turn off mantle, switch gear etc... to avoid healing the mob.

Doubt it will happen.

If they don't do that they should fix enhancements like Unholy Avatar to bypass negative damage for everything rather than just screw Wizards.

There is 0 justification for Alchemists, Druids, Sorcs to get it and Wizards, Warlocks, FVS, Clerics to not.

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Originally Posted by Axcarth

Yap, it does not have to be binary and fort bypass it's a good example. Make it be accomplished through different souces, a feat option (like Precision), some enhancements and, of course, gear. Maybe allowing crits from some % up...
... or, again, just dismiss immunity bypass from the game and **** the whiners!

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It's not whining. IF you don't have bypass you lose draconic breath against any immune mobs, your mantle damage doesn't work, and ruin intensified. So basically in some content you can't really contribute at least at cap in mid skull reaper or higher.

The game design forces you to pick an element at least in epics if you want to do decent nuke damage.

God forbid the boss mob or a red name heals from your main element. Then you have to turn off your mantle, and can't case Ruin/GRuin or you will heal the mob.

The entire cap reaper end game needs re-designed if they remove immunity stripping for nukers.

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Originally Posted by EinarMal

The game design forces you to pick an element at least in epics if you want to do decent nuke damage.

God forbid the boss mob or a red name heals from your main element. Then you have to turn off your mantle, and can't case Ruin/GRuin or you will heal the mob.

The entire cap reaper end game needs re-designed if they remove immunity stripping for nukers.

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Completely incorrect.

Single element nukers are absurdly powerful right now and can easily solo r10s. Being forced to slot a secondary spell power and do 60% damage to a small number of immune mobs wouldn't stop you from soloing r10s, it just may take a bit longer.

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Originally Posted by Baahb3

Not sure where you are getting 6 feats for Melee/Ranged. 3 Heroic and one Destiny is all I see, at least for melee.

But regardless, warlocks are casters. The other casters get their primary class features, i.e. spells, to improve by just leveling up with the auto granted Epic Knowledge feat.

Getting +1 Caster and Max Caster Level every other level is pretty much the same as what the epic and destiny feats for EBs do. So, the question remains, why add more feats to increase EB efficacy when other casters get better just by leveling up? EB cannot make use of Metemagic feats, so making them available for EB seems like a more streamlined option then adding more feats. If they are worried about too much power for EB, then limit it to certain ones, they can do the math to get to the desired damage output.

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Weapon style x3, Perfect weapon style, Improved Crit, Overwhelming Crit, Power Attack/Precision, Doublestrike. I'm just saying there's a lot of "forced" feat choices across the game (like SLA casters getting Max/Quicken/Empower/Intensify), doesn't strike me as wrong to add a few more of them?

Any casting where DC is important is 3-6 feats for that (Spell Focus x2, Embolden - optional Epic Spell Focus, Heighten, PL:Wizzy), ranged builds are usually "forced" into PBS, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, and Combat Archery at a minimum (used to be IPS as well but I see builds skipping that these days?).

I mean it's like when Intensify got added. Previously it didn't exist, but nobody complained that there was now another way to get more power by spending a feat? Would you not be happy if "Awesomize: spend 40 spell points to add 225 spellpower to a given spell" was added? It'd cost you another feat, but I'd love to see that (would be very unbalanced in current DDO but I'm making a point).

Having more options isn't bad. Either you don't use them and it's no loss, or you can benefit which is neato!

As for why? EB isn't something other caster classes have. You can focus on the casting part and just not take feats, or you can focus on becoming more of a DPS character and less of a caster - essentially you're taking combat style feats but for blasting.

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Originally Posted by Stravix

Just make absorb bypass a stat like how fort bypass exists now, and make immune people simply have at least 100% absorb. Let there be gear for it, and available on respective enhancement trees.

Don't make it binary, make it so you need good investment.

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Please! If immunity stripping was (say) -50% it'd make everything smoother; immune enemies wouldn't be entirely vulnerable (which seems reasonable given they were immune) and absorb mobs would be ~down to normal vulnerability (which seems more reasonable than currently where they're tankier than mobs that start immune).

Im assuming the new archetypes are not going to be free (because OP would have said so) so can we get an idea what these will be selling for (assuming any price on Lamm was a placeholder)?

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Originally Posted by SpartanKiller13

As for why? EB isn't something other caster classes have. You can focus on the casting part and just not take feats, or you can focus on becoming more of a DPS character and less of a caster - essentially you're taking combat style feats but for blasting.

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I guess I will have to respectfully disagree. Which is fine.

I equate EB for warlocks with damaging spells of other casters. Spells for other casters improve with epic levels, where EB needs feats to do the same thing. Then instead of making metamagic feats apply to EB, so those feats could be useful to both EB and spells, they add more feats to make EB better. Just seems out of whack to me. If they were to make Epic Knowledge also improve EB and get rid of the existing two Epic Feats. Fine, I would be less argumentative towards the new EB feats.

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Originally Posted by Caarb

Im assuming the new archetypes are not going to be free (because OP would have said so) so can we get an idea what these will be selling for (assuming any price on Lamm was a placeholder)?

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the previous archetypes were free so I'm assuming that these will be free too

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Originally Posted by Monkey_Archer

Completely incorrect.

Single element nukers are absurdly powerful right now and can easily solo r10s. Being forced to slot a secondary spell power and do 60% damage to a small number of immune mobs wouldn't stop you from soloing r10s, it just may take a bit longer.

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Completely disagree

In the mucking with warlocks theme, can you please make EB break vines? It breaks boxes and doors, not sure why vines are immune to it.

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Originally Posted by Baahb3

I equate EB for warlocks with damaging spells of other casters. Spells for other casters improve with epic levels, where EB needs feats to do the same thing. Then instead of making metamagic feats apply to EB, so those feats could be useful to both EB and spells, they add more feats to make EB better. Just seems out of whack to me. If they were to make Epic Knowledge also improve EB and get rid of the existing two Epic Feats. Fine, I would be less argumentative towards the new EB feats.

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Making Metamagic apply to EB would just be a free massive buff to Warlock, no? EB doesn't cost spell points so there'd be literally no downside (and if it cost spell points per EB I don't think that'd be reasonable either lol would you pay 25 spell points per shot to Maximize your EB?). +225 spellpower by level 3 is like >100% damage earlygame? +300 by cap is still like +30%? I don't see how that'd be reasonable at all. Warlock earlygame isn't where they struggle in my experience, and while I'd like to see lategame Warlock buffs I don't think metamagic is a good way to get it.

If Epic Knowledge applied equally to Warlock (which I'd be fine with, for the record) it'd be +1d6 damage (at Warlock 24 - every 4 levels) and +2d4 pact damage (Warlock 22 & 24 - every 2 levels) right? That'd be nice but I don't think that's a buff if they lose the 2 feats, seems more like a huge nerf to me. You'd lose +7d6 from Epic Eldritch Blast and +7d4 pact dice from Epic Pact Dice for +2 feats? Seems like a terrible tradeoff (likely a buff for tanks & instakill Warlocks who don't take the EB feats but huge nerf for every other Warlock).

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Originally Posted by SpartanKiller13

If Epic Knowledge applied equally to Warlock (which I'd be fine with, for the record) it'd be +1d6 damage (at Warlock 24 - every 4 levels) and +2d4 pact damage (Warlock 22 & 24 - every 2 levels) right? That'd be nice but I don't think that's a buff if they lose the 2 feats, seems more like a huge nerf to me. You'd lose +7d6 from Epic Eldritch Blast and +7d4 pact dice from Epic Pact Dice for +2 feats? Seems like a terrible tradeoff (likely a buff for tanks & instakill Warlocks who don't take the EB feats but huge nerf for every other Warlock).

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Too bad that the producer letter didn't say something about, y'know... a warlock Epic Destiny, which would have a lot of design space to add to specific warlock needs. Seriously, devs, get that going!

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Originally Posted by Pandjed

Too bad that the producer letter didn't say something about, y'know... a warlock Epic Destiny, which would have a lot of design space to add to specific warlock needs. Seriously, devs, get that going!

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the Q&A said they're aiming for a new ED tree and a universal tree to be released this year.
Thing is the producer's letter lays out what is set in stone for the year, it doesn't cover every single release they're hoping to make in the year because with how the playerbase is making a formal statement of "We're trying to X" gets taken as a promise, much like how nothing about VIP improvements is in the letter because they're trying to build a rewards system and aren't certain they can get it to work yet.