Discussion: Improving S&B

[Borror0]

Very simplistic compairison between the various combat forms to give an idea of where they stand if you look at just one vanilla character.

I'd add 3d6 to the calculations, that will impact a lot.

[Turial]

I'd add 3d6 to the calculations, that will impact a lot.

2d6 for holy and 1d6 for elemental/pure good I take it.

[Borror0]

2d6 for holy and 1d6 for elemental/pure good I take it.

Aye. Oh, obviously add a +5 if you didn't. My headache is so huge numbers scare me today.

[Turial]

Aye. Quite frequent now with Green Steel.

Just remember that the 3d6 wont apply for all the maul attacks only 152 of them because the rest are glancing blows.

[Naash]

I'd add 3d6 to the calculations, that will impact a lot.

No need,the base calculations were enough to make me vomit in my mouth.

[Borror0]

No need,the base calculations were enough to make me vomit in my mouth.

You don't want to see TWF get more ahead of THF, ranged and S&B?

[Turial]

No need,the base calculations were enough to make me vomit in my mouth.

Yes, well we cant all be good at math.

[Naash]

Yes, well we cant all be good at math.

not a jab at you at all,I'm sure your math is sound.
It was the dps disparity between twf and the rest that made me queasy.

[Mistinarperadnacles]

Strangely in this company, I'm actually more or less happy with the DPS comparisons.

Double the weapons = double the output. I'm fine with that.

What's broken about it is that you can have all that DPS AND the best AC possible AND the best saves AND silly high UMD AND all the other toys that go with uber 2WF builds.

It makes no sense to build anything else except for personal or roleplay reasons. (or solely for VoD runs)

There is zero sacrifice in attaining all that lovely 2WF DPS and far too many sacrifices in choosing any type of S&B or 2HF.



Thinking a little more about this, making Dodge bonuses non-stacking might be an answer (sure, not a popular one)

If you just got your highest bonus, then it would offer a range of benefits:

+ Dodge items become less absolute must haves. Anyone can get +1. You could up that to +2 with an uncommon item, +3 with a rare item or +4 with a build specific very rare item. This hacks ~5 AC off many 2WF builds (it'll spank my ranger, but I don't mind) and brings 2WF AC more into line without completely gimping everybody.

Monk Wisdom bonus to AC was a mistake from the beginning. With the Attribute scores attainable in this game it was way overpowered. Restricting it to centered only won't help much and I'm not sure how to address it without a huge nerf. (except possibly by raising the level it's attained at to negate splashes getting full benefit like Sorcerer double SP works)

[BlackSteel]

PS

Maul
5.5 +5 from enhancement = 10.5
x3 critical x 10.5 = 31.5
Crit chance 10% with IC
Over 2 min 152 +31 Glancing 1 and 46 glancing 2 = 214 Attacks (193 normal, 21 critical)
Damage = 2688 ~22 DPS

.

even for a vanilla character you forgot to include that the maul gets double PA and 1.5 str benefit over the other weapons. and if you looked at greensteel weapons the average weapon dice on the maul/greatsword/greataxe are roughly 4-5 points higher than one handers (excluding the dwarven waraxe)

if you picked just a str number say 38 str for +14 your totals would look like this:

Two Warhammers (tempest)
4.5 damage + 5 from enhancement + 14= 23.5
4.5 damage + 5 + 7 off hand str = 16.5
x3 critical x 23.5 = 70.5 critical hit
x3 crit x 16.5 = 49.5
Crit chance 10% with IC
Over 2 min 365 Attacks (329 normal, 36 critical)(164.5 m/o, 18 crit m/o)
3865.75 + 2714.25 + 1269 + 891 = 8740

Maul
5.5 +5 from enhancement +21= 31.5
x3 critical x 10.5 = 94.5
Crit chance 10% with IC
Over 2 min 214 Attacks (193 normal, 21 critical)
6079 + 1984.5 = 8063 with no glancing blow damage included
((GB's are 40% of base damage so 31.5 = 12.6, with ur GB total 77 x 12.6 = 970)
8063 + 970 = 9033

of course added dice and like holy would help twf more, but higher str and PA would help THF more

[Turial]

even for a vanilla character you forgot to include that the maul gets double PA and 1.5 str benefit over the other weapons. and if you looked at greensteel weapons the average weapon dice on the maul/greatsword/greataxe are roughly 4-5 points higher than one handers (excluding the dwarven waraxe)

....

Vanilla characters were chosen as they do not have PA or str bonuses. I was just looking at raw damage between the styles. I also chose warhammers because they are standard across the combat styles in damage and critical profiles. If you change to other weapons and add in feats there will be a dramatic change to the damage numbers which I will admit my calculations did not take into account. If you wanted to add in PA and higher str please feel free to adjust all of the totals.

[BlackSteel]

Vanilla characters were chosen as they do not have PA or str bonuses. I was just looking at raw damage between the styles. I also chose warhammers because they are standard across the combat styles in damage and critical profiles. If you change to other weapons and add in feats there will be a dramatic change to the damage numbers which I will admit my calculations did not take into account. If you wanted to add in PA and higher str please feel free to adjust all of the totals.

too much work with a calculator for me to do all of them ^^, just thought I would grab two to show the difference adding in str does. not including the 1.5 str for the two hander would be like not adding in the offhand damage for the twf. True its completely dependent on what the str score is, but you cant leave the number blank, otherwise you're just comparing what appears on the examine page for the weapon; and while this may prove useful for comparing on the same character with the same stats, as the benefits are the same, when you go across fighting styles it's very important. numbers posted for the +5 maul vs +5 tempest warhammers would be for a 38 str character with either the twf feats or the thf feats, no PA, no SA, no FE, no weapon spec, just the fighting styles

obviously a ranger would receive far larger benefits with twf than thf as the FE damage doesnt scale, same with rogue SA. A high str char would recieve more with THF than TWF, altho whether the benefits out wiegh the extra dice available and damage bonuses that can be attained thru equipment or cross classing is something you'd have to examine in a less generelized setting.

[akiraproject24]

Maybe people would be happy if turbine made all the enhancements available to every race/class.. then nobody would have anything to whine about?

[Nevthial]

Maybe people would be happy if turbine made all the enhancements available to every race/class.. then nobody would have anything to whine about?

It would be the most fair system. That would bring the game closer to d20 lic. material. Truly, in a rapid AI controlled environment, it would result in a more balanced game. If the classes are balanced, feat & enhancements should be balanced as well. Others have suggested this (or something along similar lines) before. It makes logical sense.

[Dexxaan]

Maybe people would be happy if turbine made all the enhancements available to every race/class.. then nobody would have anything to whine about?

/disagree

DDO and D&D have a class system, each with it´s own abilities and each race has perks and costs. What is being sought is a balance within these enhancements, feats, skills and game mechanics.


If you truly want to see a "Fair" system I suggest the 100 Pt Starting character in a GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System) It´s based on a d100 system, all "Feats" "Quirks" and Skill Augmentation has a point cost and the limitations of accesibility are few if any.

Lets keep our eye on the ball......DDO needs to balance S&B big time, it appears Nerfs are out of the question, so the only way to compensate is enhancing S&B´rs so that some "Common Fantasy Sense" exists and there´s a reason to tote the Tower shield around.

[Borror0]

it appears Nerfs are out of the question.

That's false...

[creithne]

That's false...

Did I miss something? Has a dev said they'll go ahead and swing the nerf bat?

[Turial]

Did I miss something? Has a dev said they'll go ahead and swing the nerf bat?

They never explicitly said that nerfs were off the table. They said they would work hard to do anything other then nerf but that does not eliminate the possibility.

[Cold_Stele]

That's false...

Meh, I gotta say I agree with Dex on this.

It would appear from the available evidence that Turbine have a clear no nerf policy - unless you consider unfavourable mob makeup in new content a nerf.

I'm sure someone will correct me but I can only remember ONE actual character design nerf in DDO, which was to Aura of Good a looooong time ago.

Since then we've had enhancements in the game for over a year which devs have openly stated are overpowered, but nothing's been done about them.

Instead we've had a situation where -

- Rangers got a boost
- Halflings got a boost
- Casters got a boost
- Fighters are due several boosts
- Monks are due a boost
- THF is due a boost

I'd state that from this we can draw a clear inference on the devs attitudes to nerfs.

btw - I'm not saying powercreep's good or bad, but I am saying it's going to continue to be the future.

[Aspenor]

I'm sure someone will correct me but I can only remember ONE actual character design nerf in DDO, which was to Aura of Good a looooong time ago.

I'd argue the evasion fix was a nerf.

Human Versatility was undoubtedly a nerf.

PK was nerfed as well, it was given the second save.

I could go on but hey, I'm just bored and coming up with nerfs