We don't need STWF

[krud]

You're not getting it.

Their DPS would be HURT by gaining BAB. That is not a trade off. That's stupid design.

please explain how their dps would get hurt? If they do something like slow down the attack rate, as was the case at bab15, then it might.

[bobbryan2]

Point taken, but that's more an argument against an additional swing at 20 BAB rather for STWF.

It's the nature of the beast. In DDO, TWF fighters lose DPS by gaining BAB 'unless' they take the TWF feats.

In otherwords, the TWF feats are required to simply keep the status quo DPS that you had earlier.

------

Now that being said. The Tempest Prestige class is centered around getting more attacks than most any other class. They gain STWF in PnP... and there's no reason they shouldn't get the extra attack in DDO.

The fact that any class can get more DPS out of TWF than THF is sort of irrelevant to the Tempest/STWF debate.

[bobbryan2]

Ok then everyone seems to agree that the 6th animation at bab 20 is not needed. If that's true them there is no need for STWF since it's already implemented as GTWF plus bab15.

In which case Tempest Rangers would have the exact same attacks per minute that Paladins and any 6 ranger splash characters do.

Tempest Rangers are supposed to get one extra attack per round than any other TWF class.

Hell, take it away if you want and add another 5-10% attack speed bonus at tier 3. It doesn't really matter.

[Aesop]

Why would that be bad? They obviously get some other benefits by splashing. It's called a trade off. One more attack, versus +4 to 7 AC from monk splash, full umd or rogue skills. I'd call it a fair trade.

That matches your name. MCs aren't meant to be punished to such a degree in DnD 3.5. A Fair trade is having options not having fewer and fewer.

In PnP the Attack Progression maxes out at BAB 16 and it allows MC characters that want to build for it to actually achieve a full combat progression. By this fair trade as its called you would reduce the Attacks of some characters by not 1 attack but 2 or more if the STWF was introduced as many in this thread requests.

Aesop

[krud]

Ok then everyone seems to agree that the 6th animation at bab 20 is not needed. If that's true them there is no need for STWF since it's already implemented as GTWF plus bab15.

[krud]

In which case Tempest Rangers would have the exact same attacks per minute that Paladins and any 6 ranger splash characters do.

Tempest Rangers are supposed to get one extra attack per round than any other TWF class.

Hell, take it away if you want and add another 5-10% attack speed bonus at tier 3. It doesn't really matter.

There is no feat in PnP that gives you more offhand attacks than main hand attacks. Maximum is 4 main/4 offhand. Anything that would give more than that would be beyond epic.

[bobbryan2]

There is no feat in PnP that gives you more offhand attacks than main hand attacks. Maximum is 4 main/4 offhand. Anything that would give more than that would be beyond epic.

There is no feat in PnP that allows you to attack 10% faster either.

It's really not that big of a deal. Hell, Paladins have pretty much caught up for DPS purposes against a lot of evil outsiders and undead.

Now we just need to let Rogues backstab undead, and give Fighters some major loving and we'll be looking at some halfway balanced classes.

And a ring of evasion.

[Angelus_dead]

It's the nature of the beast. In DDO, TWF fighters lose DPS by gaining BAB 'unless' they take the TWF feats.
In otherwords, the TWF feats are required to simply keep the status quo DPS that you had earlier.

Yes, the central problem is that DDO's design greatly changed the normal effects of BAB and attack rate, but didn't correspondingly change the TWF family feats. That means there's a degree of insane inconsistency between normal and TWF fighting styles.

In D&D, BAB obeys the simple constraint that an increase in BAB has a positive or neutral effect on damage output. In DDO it sometimes has a negative effect.

For gaining BAB to be a bad thing is no better than reducing DPS for increasing strength or dexterity. At minimum, they should allow character to explicitly reduce their BAB, if they can't guarantee it's monotonically beneficial.

[krud]

There is no feat in PnP that allows you to attack 10% faster either.

It's really not that big of a deal. Hell, Paladins have pretty much caught up for DPS purposes against a lot of evil outsiders and undead.

Now we just need to let Rogues backstab undead, and give Fighters some major loving and we'll be looking at some halfway balanced classes.

And a ring of evasion.

Typical of no long term plan. Turbine screwed up and gave TWF too much, too soon in order to make up for the earlier gimpiness. Now, they have to concoct something like this because "we must give them more".

[bobbryan2]

Typical of no long term plan. Turbine screwed up and gave TWF too much, too soon in order to make up for the earlier gimpiness. Now, they have to concoct something like this because "we must give them more".

Too much too soon? You'll have to define that rather than just putting whimsical thoughts out there.

TWF sucked for a long time. And it wasn't until Mod 5+ that it became the golden child of weapon styles.

S&B owned levels 1-12. THF had a brief period of dominance in Gianthold, and TWF came into its own shortly after that.

Too much too soon? It took GTWF to even out the disparity in DPS styles.

[krud]

Too much too soon? You'll have to define that rather than just putting whimsical thoughts out there.

TWF sucked for a long time. And it wasn't until Mod 5+ that it became the golden child of weapon styles.

S&B owned levels 1-12. THF had a brief period of dominance in Gianthold, and TWF came into its own shortly after that.

Too much too soon? It took GTWF to even out the disparity in DPS styles.

The extra attack at bab15 was the equivalent of STWF. Without it they'd be right were they should be and the all this talk of balancing THF and S&B wouldn't exist. They then would have had room to implement STWF as it should exist.

[Angelus_dead]

Too much too soon? You'll have to define that rather than just putting whimsical thoughts out there.

By "too much", he means attacks per second, and "too soon" means low level.

See, in D&D the TWF feats each increase your attacks per round*. Starting to TWF gives you +1 APR, ITWF gives another +1 APR, and then GTWF is another +1 APR. That's on top of gaining +1 APR from BAB6, BAB11, and BAB16.

But in DDO there isn't a continual APR improvement with additional TWF feats. Instead, you gain approximately a full +100% APS with TWF. The further ITWF and GTWF feats don't increase your APS... instead, they prevent it from decreasing.

In D&D a BAB16 character can viably dual-wield with any number of TWF, ITWF, and GTWF feats. Having more feats gives him more attacks, but in all cases he has more attacks than if he was using only 1 weapon, or if his BAB were lower than it is.

* As a simplification, I am using the viewpoint that the attack penalties make untrained TWF unfeasible. In reality, it's possible to get a higher attack rate by dual-wielding without the TWF feat, but it's easier to discuss it as if the TWF feat were a requirement to start dual-wielding.

[bobbryan2]

By "too much", he means attacks per second, and "too soon" means low level.

See, in D&D the TWF feats each increase your attacks per round*. Starting to TWF gives you +1 APR, ITWF gives another +1 APR, and then GTWF is another +1 APR. That's on top of gaining +1 APR from BAB6, BAB11, and BAB16.

But in DDO there isn't a continual APR improvement with additional TWF feats. Instead, you gain approximately a full +100% APS with TWF. The further ITWF and GTWF feats don't increase your APS... instead, they prevent it from decreasing.

In D&D a BAB16 character can viably dual-wield with any number of TWF, ITWF, and GTWF feats. Having more feats gives him more attacks, but in all cases he has more attacks than if he was using only 1 weapon, or if his BAB were lower than it is.

* As a simplification, I am using the viewpoint that the attack penalties make untrained TWF unfeasible. In reality, it's possible to get a higher attack rate by dual-wielding without the TWF feat, but it's easier to discuss it as if the TWF feat were a requirement to start dual-wielding.

No, I get that. But in DDO, Using an offhand weapon without the feats decreases your rate of attack.

That's beyond silly, really.

And seeing as how if you DO take the feats, you're winding up, more or less, where you would be in PnP.... I'm not seeing how it's too much too soon.

Especially seeing that it takes 11-12 (sometimes 15) levels to achieve double the attacks that S&B has.

[bobbryan2]

The extra attack at bab15 was the equivalent of STWF. Without it they'd be right were they should be and the all this talk of balancing THF and S&B wouldn't exist. They then would have had room to implement STWF as it should exist.

And every class without STWF would lose DPS by increasing BAB, which, as I said before is the #1 thing to prevent.

All this 4 main/4 offhand is irrelevant. The point is that your rate of attacks should ALWAYS increase if you put something in your offhand. That's not the case in DDO.

Could they have implemented it differently? Sure. Should they have? Maybe. But it's really neither here nor there.

[Borror0]

But in DDO, Using an offhand weapon without the feats decreases your rate of attack.

Since when?

At 16 BAB:

• One-handed weapon: 89 attack/minute
• TWF (without feats): 116 attack/minute

[krud]

to add to what angelus said

TWF
D&D # of attacks/round
bab - main/offhand
1 - 1/1
6 - 2/2 with ITWF
11 - 3/3 with GTWF
16 - 4/3
20+ - 4/4 with STWF

DDO # of attacks/round
1 - 2/1
6 - 3/2 with ITWF
11 - 4/4 with GTWF
16 - 5/5
20+ - 5/6 with STWF

You were correct that TWF was gimp at lower levels, and it was GTWF that evened the field, as I also mentioned. However, in PnP at level 16 - 20 everyone else gains an extra main hand attack, while offhand remains the same. The other styles pull ahead in the number of attacks. The extra offhand attack at bab 15 gave TWFrs a boost that wasn't supposed to be available until level 19 or 20. There was no need to implement that extra attack if they were planning on implementing STWF. They could have left it out, the balance between THF/S&B and TWF would have been better, and they would have room to add the final attack as a tempest enhancement.

[krud]

And every class without STWF would lose DPS by increasing BAB, which, as I said before is the #1 thing to prevent.

All this 4 main/4 offhand is irrelevant. The point is that your rate of attacks should ALWAYS increase if you put something in your offhand. That's not the case in DDO.

Could they have implemented it differently? Sure. Should they have? Maybe. But it's really neither here nor there.

That is a problem with the animations that should be remedied ASAP. Speed them up or redesign them. We are arguing two different things here. Apparently turbine has ignored the PnP #of attacks per round and adjusts our attack rates thru animation speeds. It is a bad idea. We should always get an increase in the number of attacks per round according to the increase in bab. I find it very odd that our attack rates plateau at level 4 for 1HF, and level 11 for TWF and never increase further. It is especially disconcerting that it actually decreases at bab 15. However, that is a separate issue.

[bobbryan2]

That is a problem with the animations that should be remedied ASAP. Speed them up or redesign them. We are arguing two different things here. Apparently turbine has ignored the PnP #of attacks per round and adjusts our attack rates thru animation speeds. It is a bad idea. We should always get an increase in the number of attacks per round according to the increase in bab. I find it very odd that our attack rates plateau at level 4 for 1HF, and level 11 for TWF and never increase further. It is especially disconcerting that it actually decreases at bab 15. However, that is a separate issue.

But that's the very issue here.

BAB increases aren't giving extra attacks per round to... ANYONE. TWF feats are merely keeping DPS in line with what they should be and preventing you from losing DPS.

Is it really so out of line to give a TWF that actually DOES give an extra attack? Especially to a prestige class that is centered around being a whirling tempest of steel?

[krud]

But that's the very issue here.

BAB increases aren't giving extra attacks per round to... ANYONE. TWF feats are merely keeping DPS in line with what they should be and preventing you from losing DPS.

Is it really so out of line to give a TWF that actually DOES give an extra attack? Especially to a prestige class that is centered around being a whirling tempest of steel?

I understand your reasoning; just give them the feat/enhancement and do all the real balancing thru the animation speeds. I guess it works in that people will feel they are getting something when they take STWF or the equivalent, even if the reality is that nothing changes. It may work, but seeing how the extra animation at bab15 slowed things down, why would you think adding another for STWF will make it any better?

Since we will arrive at level 20, it may be a good idea to use the PnP progression, as Aesop suggested, of an attack at each bab of 1/6/11/16 with a maximum of 4 attacks/round, and then use the PnP progression for TWF feats of one extra offhand attack for each ITWF, GTWF and STWF. It's clear that the attack rates are easier to maintain with only 4 animations, and then balanced attack rates can be achieved thru adjusting animation speeds as you suggest.

[Gratch]

Maybe if we're nice, Codog/Eladrin will come tell us again what is up and what plans they have for #attacks/time and how that fits with the weapon styles. At the debut of BAB16, there's some good comments on TWF/THF and being sort of hamstrung by animation resources to redo EVERYTHING that was animated back at the start of the game design. Just too many total animations and some description of Codog's trials to respeeedsync the current animations to better align and make more sense. Can't find that thread.

I've seen 0 dev talk/hints of an extra attack with BAB20. Given rangers are getting STWF at L18, I don't know why it's discussed as part of a BAB20 attack. If they are giving STWF, they may also be adding STHF. Codog originally listed how each of those would work. STWF was an added off-hand attack on the BAB15 animation. STHF was yet another glancing blow on the BAB15 animation (plus a bump to all glancing blow damage).

Here's the original STWF feat reqs.

As currently implemented, the feat requires DEX 19, BAB 15, and Greater Two Weapon Fighting. I will follow up if any subsequent changes happen to it before we push module 6 out.