Weekly Developer Activities: 3/24/08

[dragonoffrost]

This WDA is a double early bday present to me as I definitely see my paladin and my rogue (both 28 point original build) getting more play after mod 7. Not that my pally has been neglected, she's just going to be oh so much more fun to play I bet.

Flintheart takes of his armor and says "where's them reavers in invaders?" Oh wait, I don't wear armor anymore and i'll be hurting them a lot more!!!

Elyanna shakes her elven booty. Undying call costing less, auras costing less, plus adding divine sacrifice. SHOW ME THE LOVE!

[binnsr]

Couple of interesting new Paly and Rogue Enhancements, however I still fear the Paladin one will suffer the same PITA issues Smite Has. With Real Time combat and movement, WAY TOO often the target is dead or moved JUST TO FAR before you get the swing off that you not only miss, you could not hit at all due to it being out of range. The CLEAVE like cooldown is good however.

With the added annoyance of not only did you not get an attack roll, but now you're down hp and sp..

now to see smite evil get moved to a cleave-like cooldown ..

[Illuminati]

Good point. They really need to fix that no roll bs or that pally ability will stink.

[Wire_Paladin]

NEW Paladin Divine Sacrifice I

* Prereq: Paladin level 4, Paladin Extra Smiting I, 11 Action Points spent
* Cost: 1 Action Point
* Benefit: Giving up some of your life force to win the battle, you empower your next blow against your foe. This attack deals an additional 5d6 Good damage to evil opponents and increases the critical multiplier of your weapon by 1, but costs you 10 hp and 1 sp, whether or not the attack is successful.". (6 second cooldown.)

Cool.... Can we smite at the same time?

NEW There are now 20 shortcut bars available, for those who carry too many clickies/weapons/spells to fit on 10. Those of you who had previously used the unsupported methods of accessing bars 11-20 will be happy to know that they now will remember where you put them on the screen.

YAY!.... I was getting tired of arranging my bars every time I logged in.

[Zenako]

Good point. They really need to fix that no roll bs or that pally ability will stink.

About the only mobs I even bother with Smiting these days are bosses who have so many HP they are going no where anytime soon. Smiting Teleporting Devils, you have got to be kidding me...would be lucky if 1 in 4 even got to swing at a target before it left the location. (Now devils are a special case and do not really annoy me that much, part of what makes them a challenging mob to melee..)

[szalkerous]

Weekly Development Activities

The following are items which are in development or QA testing for release in Module 7.

...

• NEW A new click and hold to attack option has been added to the game and is defaulted to on.

"And let it be known that mouse buttons everywhere breathed a collective sigh of relief, and promptly informed their jointed finger friends that the struggle will soon be over."

[moorewr]

?? paladin faith? are we talking about the Dwarven Faith enhancement line?.

Follower of the Lord of Blades, Unyielding Sovereignty.. that stuff.

[Impaqt]

constructs cannot be sneak attacked, and from what it sounds like this is not sneak attack damage this is on every hit

Then why does it have a Cooldown?

[honkuimushi]

?? paladin faith? are we talking about the Dwarven Faith enhancement line?

I think these are the enhancements like Unyeilding Soverenity. Clerics get them at level 6. Until now, Paladins got them at level 9.

[Syrin]

[*]NEW Paladin Divine Sacrifice I

• Prereq: Paladin level 4, Paladin Extra Smiting I, 11 Action Points spent
• Cost: 1 Action Point
• Benefit: Giving up some of your life force to win the battle, you empower your next blow against your foe. This attack deals an additional 5d6 Good damage to evil opponents and increases the critical multiplier of your weapon by 1, but costs you 10 hp and 1 sp, whether or not the attack is successful.". (6 second cooldown.)

I like that paladin's are getting some love, but I think the community has been crying out for a reason to go pure paladin, or at least go beyond level 11. Only needing 4 levs of paladin means that people will be splashing 4 levels now, but does little to help the plight of the pure paladins out there.


I hope either you have more paladin love in store, or you raise the min lev for this enhancement some.

[honkuimushi]

Good point. They really need to fix that no roll bs or that pally ability will stink.

I agree. Maybe they could change it so that it only deducts HP and SP if the dice are rolled? Making it automatically use a smite as well if there are any remaining also strikes me as a good idea. I can't think of many times you wouldn't want to use both at the same time, unless you're out of smites.

[Dungnmaster001]

Then why does it have a Cooldown?

it's likely an activated ability, like cleave/great cleave etc, or perhaps a boost type with a short duration and limited uses per day

[RavenStormclaw]

That was I not just Divine Sacrafice implying there may be a 2 or even 3. If they scale like wrack the construct did then we are talking 7d6 extrac damage and +3 to crit multiplier. On a Khopesh that is +6. Holy cow that can rake in the numbers especially if you happend to have a bloodstone. If this works well enough to hit often (something I am afraid may not be true but we will see) This could rack up some serous numbers.

Also if it goes to Divine Sacrafice III would at least be mininum level 11 so gives good reason to go to 11 pure at least. I would really like to see this go to Divine Sac 4 +8d6 damage and +4 crit multiplie. Min 15 level. Makes the pure Pali's happy and makes this a great end boss killer.

[Coldin]

• NEW Rogue Wrack Construct I
  • Prereq: Rogue level 3, Rogue Disable Device I, 7 Action Points Spent
  • Cost: 1 Action Point
  • Benefit: You can activate this ability to use your understanding of mechanical objects and their vulnerabilities to strike at critical points in a construct's anatomy, dealing an extra 1d6 damage to constructs or living constructs. (8 second cooldown.)
• NEW Rogue Wrack Construct II
  • Prereq: Rogue level 7, Rogue Disable Device II, Rogue Wrack Construct I, 22 Action Points Spent
  • Cost: 2 Action Points
  • Benefit: You can activate this ability to use your understanding of mechanical objects and their vulnerabilities to strike at critical points in a construct's anatomy, dealing an extra 3d6 damage to constructs or living constructs.
• NEW Rogue Wrack Construct III
  • Prereq: Rogue level 11, Rogue Disable Device III, Rogue Wrack Construct II, 37 Action Points Spent
  • Cost: 3 Action Points
  • Benefit: You can activate this ability to use your understanding of mechanical objects and their vulnerabilities to strike at critical points in a construct's anatomy, dealing an extra 5d6 damage to constructs or living constructs.

Very interesting. I assume from the way this is worded, that this enhancement gives you an attack that deals damage to constructs that you can activate every 8 seconds.

[Aodh]

"A new click and hold to attack option has been added to the game and is defaulted to on."


BEST NEWS EVAH!

Thank you DEV's!!!!

That's actually why I stopped playing melee's. My hand was killing me from right clicking over and over again, lol.

[Impaqt]

it's likely an activated ability, like cleave/great cleave etc, or perhaps a boost type with a short duration and limited uses per day

Which is Of course, Significantly different than "Always there" like our Standard Sneak Attack damage.

I would MUCH rather see an Enhancment line that would apply a Portion of our sneak attack against mobs that are natrually Immune...

First Tier your Sneak attacks do 25% damage to COnstructs/Undead
Second Tier Your Sneak ATtack do 50% Damage to COnstruct/Undead
Third Tier Yoru sneak attacks to 75% Damage tro Construct/Undead and you get a 20 Second Clicky that Reduces Enemy Fortification by 25%

2,4,6 Cost line so its not too easy to get. Way of the XXX Prereq.

[DasLurch]

I like the extra hotbars, and the new enhancements sound interesting... Thanks

[ArkoHighStar]

Then why does it have a Cooldown?

your right I was looking at wrack construct 3, well this ability is severly limited, especially when comparing it to the bardic fascinate construct ability

[binnsr]

Which is Of course, Significantly different than "Always there" like our Standard Sneak Attack damage.

I would MUCH rather see an Enhancment line that would apply a Portion of our sneak attack against mobs that are natrually Immune...

First Tier your Sneak attacks do 25% damage to COnstructs/Undead
Second Tier Your Sneak ATtack do 50% Damage to COnstruct/Undead
Third Tier Yoru sneak attacks to 75% Damage tro Construct/Undead and you get a 20 Second Clicky that Reduces Enemy Fortification by 25%

2,4,6 Cost line so its not too easy to get. Way of the XXX Prereq.

While I like that progression, Impaqt, I have to disagree with you on having Way of the XXXX as a prereq. I dumped Mechanic because I always get the traps and there were useless (to me) prereqs for it .. then I dumped Assassin because, again, useless prereqs and the poisons are subpar. Acrobat never entered my equations so who knows or cares about its useless prereqs..

If we add a (agreed on this) very nice enhancement that makes me take a useless Way of, that requires even more useless enhancements, I'll be somewhat unhappy .. and just continue to do brute (lack of) force smites and disruptions of constructs and undead.

Having to spend 9 APs on disable in order to be a better damage dealer is already out of whack -- i get every trap in the game with the my current setup (and DD I) .. adding in all the prereqs for WotX would more than double the required prereqs .. yuck, I say! yuck!

[jakeelala]

Very interesting. I assume from the way this is worded, that this enhancement gives you an attack that deals damage to constructs that you can activate every 8 seconds.

Yeah can we get some clarification on this? If it's just a "click to get 5d6 damage every 8 seconds" its like big whoop. What mob lasts more than 8 seconds in this game? Using averages that's 3.5x5 = 17.5 extra damage to a construct that probably has 1000-3000 HP. It's probably less than a 1.3rd of the damage a single tank/ranger/barb is doing in one attack.

Now if it's a stance that is letting us basically do a portion of our sneak attack damage to the construct like has been suggested, that might actually be useful.