So if the ranger monk splash is overpowered... what do you do about it?

[noinfo]

...

It causes bad play style, if I had a copper for everytime I saw a monk splash run off because the dont need the rest of the party (sorc too).

lol and don't forget those zerging 600 hp Barberians or that Battle Cleric or the WF Melee wizard or that ...

Get the picture?

[bandyman1]

For you guys who keep insisting on throwing in that a martial artist should be harder to hit than a tin-man;

AC DOES NOT EQUAL NOT BEING HIT!

It represent's ones ability to avoid damage!

That's why armor and shield ADD to AC instead of decreasing it.

Touch AC is the forte of Dex based builds, and is about completely dodging an attack. Unfortuanately; It also doesn't exist in DDO.



A S&B toon sacrifices a boatload of DPS for defense. By that; They should be the highest defensive fighting style in the game. Currently, they're not.


We get that you love your ranger/monk splash. Hell, I love my own.

But there's absolutely no way that I can argue that they are balanced, or that they are not overpowered with a straight face.

[Borror0]

That's why armor and shield ADD to AC instead of decreasing it.

Exactly, if AC meant "not being touched" armor would not benefit AC. And, AC would not be called AC.

[branmakmuffin]

Exactly, if AC meant "not being touched" armor would not benefit AC. And, AC would be called AC.

You must have meant to type something else.

[bobbryan2]

You must have meant to type something else.

I understood it.

As armor doesn't actually help you avoid blows... if armor class meant not getting touched... armor wouldn't help and it wouldn't be called armor class.

[bobbryan2]

1. No this is probably the most overpowered-unbalanced thing in the game. It causes people to who dont play this overpowered class grief. It also makes the game too easy for said classes leading to increased boredom. It causes bad play style, if I had a copper for everytime I saw a monk splash run off because the dont need the rest of the party (sorc too).

It causes good play style you mean.

[Borror0]

As armor doesn't actually help you avoid blows... if armor class meant not getting touched... armor wouldn't help and it wouldn't be called armor class.

Exactly, but also the use of the word 'armor' would make the concept confusing.

Imagine a conversation between a veteran and a new player:

New player: What's AC? I see that on my character sheet...

Veteran: Oh, that's Armor Class.

New player: What does it do?

Veteran: It's the number that defines how hard you are to hit. When someone attacks you, he rolls a d20 and adds his to-hit - that's a number that indicates how good you are at connecting hits - to the result. If the result is equal to or higher than your Armor Class, he will hit you. Otherwise, the hit will miss.

New player: That does not make any sense.

Veteran: Why is that?!

New player: Well, isn't an armor supposed to protect you from damage. You know, if I cannot dodge the hit or cannot deflect it with my shield, my armor would prevent the blow to be lethal. If they meant it to be the chance for me to dodge an hit, why didn't they call it 'avoidance' or something?!

Veteran: Uh, I don't know.

[Borror0]

Why not? I am sure a lot of the rogues get sick of the hybrids. And the most unbalancing thing in the game is UMD. 1 level of rogue or bard unlocks it.

Also how many Pallys take a level of fighter just to unlock intimidate + get tower shield and a bonus feat.

There are multiple reasons to be against that change, the most obvious one is the practicability of that change. You're going to force everyone to revert their skill points? If so, how should they do that? Would it really be worth the effort? Grandfather it? If so, meh, not fixing much, are you?

Then, there's the fact that skills need to be better, not worse. Having skill mattering is a good thing.

If UMD is overpowered in itself, deal with UMD. Don't attack the skills. They, themselves, need love, not hate. UMD powerful, but it's still a trade off.

[branmakmuffin]

I understood it.

Irrelevant. I didn't write I didn't understand it. Read what I wrote, not what you think I wrote.

As armor doesn't actually help you avoid blows... if armor class meant not getting touched... armor wouldn't help and it wouldn't be called armor class.

He didn't write "AC wouldn't be called AC," he wrote "AC would be called AC." Well, AC is called AC.

Part of armor class means "not getting touched," i.e., the character's touch AC (does DDO have a touch AC?). One of the biggest flaws in D&D is abstracting "armor class" as a combination of armor protection, shield protection and dodging ability (discounting for the moment magical other exotic additions to armor class).

[Chaos000]

Then, there's the fact that skills need to be better, not worse. Having skill mattering is a good thing.

If UMD is overpowered in itself, deal with UMD. Don't attack the skills. They, themselves, need love, not hate. UMD powerful, but it's still a trade off.

UMD underwent a change in how it worked since beta. Remember using wands without failure with only cross-class ranks into UMD?

[Borror0]

UMD underwent a change in how it worked since beta. Remember using wands without failure with only cross-class ranks into UMD?

I remember DD, Firewall and BB scrolls.

[Deadz]

I think that after moving so far away in terms of enhancements and stats in DDO, perhaps the armor itself should be reworked.

The 'Best' base heavy armor is full plate, 8 AC, 1 dex
The 'Best' base light armor is padded, 1 AC, 8 Dex

Of course there are things like mithril and enhancements to allow more AC to be gained from this gear, but this is the core gear, and it's based around PnP rules where most content is not extremely far from the 20-30 AC mark.

Maybe there needs to be something better than full plate introduced for heavy armor wearers. In theory, plate wearers trained in combat should be the most surviveable.



I do think there are plenty of other good suggestions in the thread, but this is mine. Rather than nerfing a build, bring the other classes up to par, and design content appropriately.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner... well sort of...

The answer to "fixing" all the AC issues. is introducting a real non / light / medium / heavy armor system.. leave the actual builds alone..

As in full plate might be, oh say, 20 base ac, but need a requirement of lvl 10 to wield (just an example off the top of my head) and make all the different armors diverse and meaning full instead of the only a few used, like full or none ..

If you not going to play by PnP rules for mobs and characters with this crazy loot, why are we trying to stick to PnP armor for characters? There in lies the issue with DDo.

[Aesop]

1. Nothing.

2. Let turbine raise the to-hit and hit points of mobs even more.

3. Reduce the ability to use monk AC in some maner.

4. Reduce the tempest bonus in some maner.

5. ???

1. Personally I have nothing against Monk Splash overall. The problem that exists stems from much more than just that. Monk Splash is just easy to see the effect.

2. Would be counter productive making Monk Splash Maximum AC the only AC that matters.

3. I could see this as having potential but again I don't really like this method of "fixing" things. However if you really want to have nightmares about Monk Splash... think about what happens when Druids come in... Suddenly you have A Bear with a 100 AC TWF Claw attacks in its own Firewall with self Cast Barkskin and Stone Skin throwing its own heals... gonna be funny

4. Already done... but I think its done wrong. I would perfer it to be an untyped AC Bonus but at half potency. It should be +1 at first tier +2 at second and +3 at third.

5. Give other combat styles effective tools and abilities that help them be effective. They already started with THF and the Glancing Blow improvements. I'd also add letting Bucklers be equiped with Two Handed Weapons. Improve S&B and Ranged as well http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...ighlight=aesop

Aesop

[noinfo]

For you guys who keep insisting on throwing in that a martial artist should be harder to hit than a tin-man;

AC DOES NOT EQUAL NOT BEING HIT!

It represent's ones ability to avoid damage!

That's why armor and shield ADD to AC instead of decreasing it.

Touch AC is the forte of Dex based builds, and is about completely dodging an attack. Unfortuanately; It also doesn't exist in DDO.



A S&B toon sacrifices a boatload of DPS for defense. By that; They should be the highest defensive fighting style in the game. Currently, they're not.


We get that you love your ranger/monk splash. Hell, I love my own.

But there's absolutely no way that I can argue that they are balanced, or that they are not overpowered with a straight face.

I agree with you as that it represents the ability to avoid damage (this is one of the poorest design decisions in all the dnd incarnations) what I try and put accross is that their is a limit to how much a suit of armour can do this. It is represented by the fp +5 and towershield +5. If they increase this further no problem. The capacity to avoid damage by dexterity etc is less limited exceptin circumstances that should make you lose that bonus. S&B sacrifices a boatload of DPS for defense I agree and that is the only thing they sacrifice. It is not the ac that is the issue here is that a high dex ranger can not only have a great ac as they should but that they can do this with out true loss in killing power. FE and stat damaging weapons (best of which are finessable) are the cause if this. The situation is that if you have sacrificed your str and other stats for your ac you should suffer a reduced killing power.

[noinfo]

Exactly, if AC meant "not being touched" armor would not benefit AC. And, AC would not be called AC.

I agree that it is a combination of both (as I have stated that this is one of the poorest design decisions in all incarnations of the game but its what we have)

The fact of the matter is that armour has its limits and is a gear dependant solution. Give the people a benefit to using a shield, such as an enhancment line that improves ac so that it can be justified with people being better trained at using a shield in actual combat. Someithing that requires actual investment for the ac rather than just gear.

[noinfo]

A S&B toon sacrifices a boatload of DPS for defense. By that; They should be the highest defensive fighting style in the game. Currently, they're not.
.

Rubish, the problem is that high dex rangers are not made to sacrifice enough dps or killing power because of fe and the current most effective way of killing things.

[noinfo]

There are multiple reasons to be against that change, the most obvious one is the practicability of that change. You're going to force everyone to revert their skill points? If so, how should they do that? Would it really be worth the effort? Grandfather it? If so, meh, not fixing much, are you?

Then, there's the fact that skills need to be better, not worse. Having skill mattering is a good thing.

If UMD is overpowered in itself, deal with UMD. Don't attack the skills. They, themselves, need love, not hate. UMD powerful, but it's still a trade off.

Of course having skills matter is a good thing (nor do have issues with how they are gained unless you start talking about prorataing other class abilities), my issue is that you don't understand the hypocrytical nature of your argument. You want to restrict 1 or 2 areas of your percieved imballance (I believe the issue lies elsewhere), but reject the concept that if such a change is implemented that it should not be applied to all things consistantly.
Why should a Pally who takes 1 level of fighter be as good at intimidate as a full fighter? Pro rata it too. UMD same thing. I am not arguing practicality of change here, I am arguing consistancy.

If I see someone do something in game that I can't do, I think cool, not how can I undercut what they have done. UMD etc is very powerful, evasion as well... If people have designed their characters and planned their developement to use them great and good on them. Having a fighter with a high umd use a res scroll to bring back a cleric to save the day can be the stuff that makes things interesting. The real issues is that for rangers currently there is no real draw back and that the S/B really has had no love and no real way to expand on themselves design wise.

[branmakmuffin]

FE and stat damaging weapons (best of which are finessable) are the cause if this. The situation is that if you have sacrificed your str and other stats for your ac you should suffer a reduced killing power.

As you point out, part of that is from finesseable stat-damaging weapons (just go ahead and say wounding rapiers of puncturing). But that's not anything directly related to Rangers, so tinkering with Rangers, Ranger/Monks or Ranger/Rogue/Monks is not going to do anything about that.

Is this another "nerf wounding of puncturing?"

[noinfo]

UMD powerful, but it's still a trade off.

I'm just curious as to how it is a trade off? 2 skill points per level and a char item? Loss of a single BAB point to get all those rogue skill points?

[noinfo]

As you point out, part of that is from finesseable stat-damaging weapons (just go ahead and say wounding rapiers of puncturing). But that's not anything directly related to Rangers, so tinkering with Rangers, Ranger/Monks or Ranger/Rogue/Monks is not going to do anything about that.

Is this another "nerf wounding of puncturing?"

Sorry, no I really don't want to nerf wounding of punturing, I was simply pointing out that the fact that stat damage is "currently" the best way of killing mobs makes a finesse build probably a better killer than a dps build in many situations. I would prefer to see DPS become king of killing again to tell the truth, with vorpals and stat damage being a viable option but not necessarily the best. (Mob hp reduction, maybe increase of ac of mobs, more mobs rather than just lots of hp)