What the Capstones *SHOULD* have been:

[GoldyGopher]

There has been much discussion on the Capstone as presented by Eladrin; to which I, like many of you, have complained about how inconsistent they are.
In my honest opinion these Capstones should have been all based upon a similar model rather than some of this and some of that and hey this would be cool; especially for the first round of capstones.

With that in mind this is more along the lines of what I would have using a Stat increase and some other little bump.

Barbarian: Grants +1 Strength and +1 Constitution, your rages last 10% longer and you gain an additional +1 Strength and +1 Constitution when raged.

Bard: Grants +2 Charisma, two additional uses of Bardic Music, as well as +2 to Spell Penetration checks and the DC's of your Enchantment spells. Your beneficial songs last 20% longer.

Cleric: Grants +2 Wisdom, two addition Turn Dead Attempts and your healing spells cost 2 less spell points to cast.

Fighter: Grants +2 Strength, +2 two all strength related skill checks.

Monk: Grants +2 Wisdom, your centered Ki generation is increased by 1

Paladin: Grants +2 Constitution and +2 Armor Mastery.

Ranger: Grants +1 Strength and +1 Dexterity.

Rogue: Grants +2 Dexterity and +2 on all Rogue Skill Checks.

Sorcerer: Grants +2 Charisma and all spell damaged is increased by 10%

Wizard: Grants +2 Intelligence and all metamagics you possess cost 1 fewer spell point to use.

Now not all of those are equal and in some cases I really didn’t know what decent bonus to add as the secondary function is. If you look at Fighter and Ranger they need work.

Just my 2 CP worth to start conversation.

[esoitl]

I'm not 100% for all of the capstones presented but I do like the fact that they aren't all just vanilla +STAT and something else class related.

Now that will certainly lead to some being weaker than others(Hello Rogue and Monk Capstones) but it adds some sort of flavour to the enhancements related to the class.

[ace_mason]

You should be able to chose yur capstone from a list.
Have a capstone aimed at every type of build and you get to chose which one is best for you.
Have a melee: +2 str +2 to hit and +2 damage
Have a Caster: +2char or wis or int +2 dc spells -2sp for each spell.
Ac build: +2 con +2 ac +3 dr when sheild blocking
Bard +2 to hit songs, songs last longer and +2 dc spells.
there are more builds i am missing but along those lines.

[esoitl]

You should be able to chose yur capstone from a list.
Have a capstone aimed at every type of build and you get to chose which one is best for you.
Have a melee: +2 str +2 to hit and +2 damage
Have a Caster: +2char or wis or int +2 dc spells -2sp for each spell.
Ac build: +2 con +2 ac +3 dr when sheild blocking
Bard +2 to hit songs, songs last longer and +2 dc spells.
there are more builds i am missing but along those lines.

They've already stated that there will be additional capstones in the future but when MOD9 is launched there will only be the 10 previewed ones available. They would be silly to exclude certain builds from having a relevant cpastone enhancement.

[GoldyGopher]

I'm not 100% for all of the capstones presented but I do like the fact that they aren't all just vanilla +STAT and something else class related.

Now that will certainly lead to some being weaker than others(Hello Rogue and Monk Capstones) but it adds some sort of flavour to the enhancements related to the class.

I am not nessecarily saying that 100% of the capstones should be vanilla, especially since Eladrin has already commented there will be more than one for each class. Rather I am suggesting that the first round should be vanilla or at least New York Vanilla nad the later rounds shoud be more diverse.

As an example

Paladin - Choice 1: Grants +2 Constitution and +2 Armor Mastery.
Paladin - Choice 2: Weapons of Good.
Paladin - Choice 3: Grants an additional +1 to all Paladin "X of good" abilities.

What I think this would have done is stopped the "I can't believe how insulted I am over the Cleric/Monk/Rogue Capstone discussions."

[ace_mason]

They would be silly to exclude certain builds from having a relevant cpastone enhancement.

Well that is a relief. I now know for sure we are all set. Turbine has never done anything in the past that would be considered silly.

[ace_mason]

I am not nessecarily saying that 100% of the capstones should be vanilla, especially since Eladrin has already commented there will be more than one for each class. Rather I am suggesting that the first round should be vanilla or at least New York Vanilla nad the later rounds shoud be more diverse.

As an example

Paladin - Choice 1: Grants +2 Constitution and +2 Armor Mastery.
Paladin - Choice 2: Weapons of Good.
Paladin - Choice 3: Grants an additional +1 to all Paladin "X of good" abilities.

What I think this would have done is stopped the "I can't believe how insulted I am over the Cleric/Monk/Rogue Capstone discussions."

Paladins need much more love than that.
Paladin - choice 1: +2 str +2 con +2 ac
Paladin - choice 2: smite cooldown 0
Paladin - choice 3: smite gets extra x 1 crit.

[GoldyGopher]

Paladins need much more love than that.

/Rant On

I see statements like this and after checking out the Paladin section of the forums I no longer wonder why people think Paladins are "gimped".

There are gimped Paladins out there, too many, just like there are too many gimped Monks. But that doesn't mean the class itself is gimped and needs "much more love."

Paladins need to make more choices in thier build than many of the cookie cutter builds out there. The problem is too many people rather than say yes and no when making choices choose maybe. These builds, and there are way too many of them, end up trying to do too much of everything and in the end can't do enough of anything to help the party. You can't have almost high enough AC, almost high enough DPS, almost high enough Chr to matter, you either do or you don't. Paladins need to pick a path and go down that path.

Paladins are tough to play, they are clickie, spell and equipment oriented class. Click this, click that, this mode, ths stance, this and that, and ... All of that makes it tough to play in comparison to a Passive Function build character like a Ranger.

I have Two Paladins:
Thorsaxejr whos is one of the original bastion builds from pre-mod 4. If it weren't for a night of playing DDO under the influence of my friend Mr. Barcardi and making a dumb decision on a level point progression he'd be very well off and a solid tank. Yes that one level up caused me to put a second level up point in the same stat rather than putting both in Str, where they belonged. However he has an unbuffed AC in teh upper 50's currently and when I get the correct runes on my DT armor that will go up a couple more points, and with Defender of Siberys and so on and so forth my buffed AC in the TANK roll will be over 80. 83 I think as the game currently sits. My roll in the party is not a damage dealer but rather as the Main Tank. I get aggro hold aggro and let four rednamed Elite Orthons and two Bearded Devils attempt to scratch and dent my armor. A decent puller can than pull off the mobs one at a time to beath them down with little or no damage to the party. My character will never lead the kill count and it took sixty completions of the Shroud to get my first "You Killed Ar.." message. But I am fine with that. The key to this build is I am able to get and hold agrro.
Brynhildr is a multi-class Paladin Build 11 Pal/3 Rog/2 Monk. She has an okay AC but is designed specifically to deal damage, especially from the flank or rear. There are characters out there that do more damage, but not many. I have to be careful with her in VoD because she has a tendancy to pull agrro away from the Main Tank. It is bad when Sully decides to hit the group rather than the tank. To put it bluntly I have a set of W/P that usually stay in the bank because I can take down most mobs faster DPS than with W/P. Yes there are mobs that W/P work better on, no denying that but they are few.

Now if Turbine decides to Nerf my multi-class Pally and NOT allow some sort of respect I have a plan for a pure TWF pally to take her place.
Now I have a third pally in the work, he is a copy of my AC build except hopefully I won't get drunk and make a stupid choice on Level up points. Or even better Turbine allows me to reroll those two levels and I can apply the Level up points correctly on Thorsaxejr.

/Rant off

[VirieSquichie]

There has been much discussion on the Capstone as presented by Eladrin; to which I, like many of you, have complained about how inconsistent they are.
In my honest opinion these Capstones should have been all based upon a similar model rather than some of this and some of that and hey this would be cool; especially for the first round of capstones.

With that in mind this is more along the lines of what I would have using a Stat increase and some other little bump.

Barbarian: Grants +1 Strength and +1 Constitution, your rages last 10% longer and you gain an additional +1 Strength and +1 Constitution when raged.

Bard: Grants +2 Charisma, two additional uses of Bardic Music, as well as +2 to Spell Penetration checks and the DC's of your Enchantment spells. Your beneficial songs last 20% longer.

Cleric: Grants +2 Wisdom, two addition Turn Dead Attempts and your healing spells cost 2 less spell points to cast.

Fighter: Grants +2 Strength, +2 two all strength related skill checks.

Monk: Grants +2 Wisdom, your centered Ki generation is increased by 1

Paladin: Grants +2 Constitution and +2 Armor Mastery.

Ranger: Grants +1 Strength and +1 Dexterity.

Rogue: Grants +2 Dexterity and +2 on all Rogue Skill Checks.

Sorcerer: Grants +2 Charisma and all spell damaged is increased by 10%

Wizard: Grants +2 Intelligence and all metamagics you possess cost 1 fewer spell point to use.

Now not all of those are equal and in some cases I really didn’t know what decent bonus to add as the secondary function is. If you look at Fighter and Ranger they need work.

Just my 2 CP worth to start conversation.

The cleric and sorceror capstones are typecast, but overall the list is pretty good.

I'd suggest having the capstone be a selectable +2 to any one stat and a separate selectable +2 to a list of skills and abilities that relate to the class. i.e. Paladins could choose from a passive AC bonus, a passive resist bonus, a passive to-hit bonus, a bonus to the AC granted by their shield, a bonus Lay on Hands, or a synergy thing that applies a bonus to intimidate based on something else (diplo, perhaps?) These could all be implemented through enhancements, so if someone decided to they could choose to not spend the points on capstones at all but "normal" enhancements instead. The mechanic in the enhancements for only allowing one of a set already exists in the cleric/paladin Faith enhancements.

[Pyromaniac]

/not signed. Cleric is heavily overpowered, sorc is heavily underpowered.

[shores11]

They've already stated that there will be additional capstones in the future but when MOD9 is launched there will only be the 10 previewed ones available. They would be silly to exclude certain builds from having a relevant cpastone enhancement.

By choosing to multi-class your character you are gaining something a pure class can never have, some of the feats, abilities & enhancments enherent to each class seperately. In the name of balance when you choose to do this you also forgo some of the same features that a pure class build gains.

I see no reason to grant capstones to players that multi-class as you already are gaining something you perceived was missing from having a pure class.

I have said my piece and counted to 3...

[shores11]

There has been much discussion on the Capstone as presented by Eladrin; to which I, like many of you, have complained about how inconsistent they are.
In my honest opinion these Capstones should have been all based upon a similar model rather than some of this and some of that and hey this would be cool; especially for the first round of capstones.

With that in mind this is more along the lines of what I would have using a Stat increase and some other little bump.

Barbarian: Grants +1 Strength and +1 Constitution, your rages last 10% longer and you gain an additional +1 Strength and +1 Constitution when raged.

Bard: Grants +2 Charisma, two additional uses of Bardic Music, as well as +2 to Spell Penetration checks and the DC's of your Enchantment spells. Your beneficial songs last 20% longer.

Cleric: Grants +2 Wisdom, two addition Turn Dead Attempts and your healing spells cost 2 less spell points to cast.

Fighter: Grants +2 Strength, +2 two all strength related skill checks.

Monk: Grants +2 Wisdom, your centered Ki generation is increased by 1

Paladin: Grants +2 Constitution and +2 Armor Mastery.

Ranger: Grants +1 Strength and +1 Dexterity.

Rogue: Grants +2 Dexterity and +2 on all Rogue Skill Checks.

Sorcerer: Grants +2 Charisma and all spell damaged is increased by 10%

Wizard: Grants +2 Intelligence and all metamagics you possess cost 1 fewer spell point to use.

Now not all of those are equal and in some cases I really didn’t know what decent bonus to add as the secondary function is. If you look at Fighter and Ranger they need work.

Just my 2 CP worth to start conversation.

These ideas are very vanilla and not very original. I disagree the capstone's DDO has upcoming are very good.

[darkrhavyn]

I was saying to husband that I thought the initial capstones should be more like what you suggested....sorta vanilla and alike so that no class got the short end of the initial capstones released, which alot of people seem to think is happening with what we have seen thus far.


Yes, they are bland and very similar...but sometimes the initial trial of something should be that way, IMO.

Glasscannon has made the point many times that capstones should only be available to pure classes....Im not sure I agree in total, but in effect that is what is going to happen as it stands with the level 20 requirement....It has taken the game three years to get to level 16....being generous we should be at level 20 soon, but does anyone REALLY think that we will be +20 level anytime in the next year?


In general I tend to think GCs suggestions for capstones are a bit much...I would be quite happy with something similar to what the OP has posted.

[Strykersz]

Ideally, capstones *should* have been a way to smooth the power progression curve for every class. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out that way(one of the weakest capstones is paired with one of the weakest level 20's).

[Borror0]

Fighter: Grants +2 Strength, +2 two all strength related skill checks.

Paladin: Grants +2 Constitution and +2 Armor Mastery.

Ranger: Grants +1 Strength and +1 Dexterity.

Rogue: Grants +2 Dexterity and +2 on all Rogue Skill Checks.

I don't like the above capstones.

The ranger one is a good compromise between ranged and melee. It could probably use something else to go along, like +1 to FE. The paladin one doesn't make any sense. Total rework needed. As you said, the fighter one needs some work. The rogue is... not right. Just doesn't fit rogues, at all. At best, it is highly uninteresting.

I like the others though.

Paladins need much more love than that.

Eh, no. Why would paladins need more love?

[GoldyGopher]

Ideally, capstones *should* have been a way to smooth the power progression curve for every class. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out that way(one of the weakest capstones is paired with one of the weakest level 20's).

I don’t agree with what you are suggesting and here is why.

Your suggestion infers that all character designs are not equal and further that they should be equal.

As a paladin player I am going to pick on that class. With the exception of 28 or 32 point build we all have the same opportunity to build characters of equal ability. However many characters are gimped by their design at level 1. If your Drow Paladin only has an 8 starting Constitution regardless of how much time and effort you put into the game there is no way to make up that loss of HP. Now the reality of the problem with Paladins is too many Paladins have too low of a Strength score. Thus are one of the few melee types in the current game that have difficulty hitting some end mobs on a regular basis. So you built a HIGH AC HIGH HP paladin who can’t hit anything. Okay so you don’t get hit often why do you need 600 HP?

Needless to say not all character designs are equal, some are superior to others. In addition some are easier to play. A Paladin class requires a lot of clickies and active participation to play well (Smites, Divine Power, Righteousness and so on) while a TWF Ranger can do more damage without a single clickies.

You will never with the use of a capstone bring all those into line.

[GoldyGopher]

I don't like the above capstones.

The ranger one is a good compromise between ranged and melee. It could probably use something else to go along, like +1 to FE. The paladin one doesn't make any sense. Total rework needed. As you said, the fighter one needs some work. The rogue is... not right. Just doesn't fit rogues, at all. At best, it is highly uninteresting.

I like the others though.

If you throw in Sorc you hit the ones I really struggled with in coming up with base line basic capstones, that one provide a benefit to go pure and not being overpowered.

The paladin was tough because i play paladins and *I* could easily put something too powered in there so I want on the light side. I had Two extra Smites and additional threat (hate) bonus orginally, but cut it out after I posted ten seconds later because I thought it was too powerful in comparison to the other ones.

Fighters, Rangers, and Rogue were really a struggle because unlike the Barbarian which makes perfect sense nothing was cookie cutter enough to support a large number of the builds.

The Sorc, like the pally, can easily become over powered or underpowered depending on how the next module works out.

[daniel7]

I think that one of the main reasons we have a capstone is for turbine to try to balance the game. Every mod turbine tries to balance the classes and races. For mod9 they are going to try to balance the game a little more with enchancements and capstones. I am sure that they already have some capstone ideas for mod 10 but they will surely change before mod 10 because of the currently unforseen need to once again balance a class. This is why some capstones seem to be better then others right now. Why doesn't the ranger capstone help the tempest ranger?.....because the tempest ranger doesn't need a boost in power.

[daniel7]

I don’t agree with what you are suggesting and here is why.

Your suggestion infers that all character designs are not equal and further that they should be equal.

As a paladin player I am going to pick on that class. With the exception of 28 or 32 point build we all have the same opportunity to build characters of equal ability. However many characters are gimped by their design at level 1. If your Drow Paladin only has an 8 starting Constitution regardless of how much time and effort you put into the game there is no way to make up that loss of HP. Now the reality of the problem with Paladins is too many Paladins have too low of a Strength score. Thus are one of the few melee types in the current game that have difficulty hitting some end mobs on a regular basis. So you built a HIGH AC HIGH HP paladin who can’t hit anything. Okay so you don’t get hit often why do you need 600 HP?

Needless to say not all character designs are equal, some are superior to others. In addition some are easier to play. A Paladin class requires a lot of clickies and active participation to play well (Smites, Divine Power, Righteousness and so on) while a TWF Ranger can do more damage without a single clickies.

You will never with the use of a capstone bring all those into line.

I also have a capped paladin. The thing is that builds are not equal in all situations. Sure in a Shroud most barbarians are more helpful then most paladins but a paladin is more helpful in other situations, which may change from mod to mod, from quest to quest, and from party to party.
A mod to mod situation is when the desert came out. The very unpopular paladin class all of a sudden became the prefered tank.
A quest to quest example could be any quest that requires high saves and/or immunites compared to one that doesnt.
A party to party situation being a group with no cleric where you need higher ac, saves, self buffing and self healing compared to a party with a cleric devoted to healing a barbarian.

So will capstones make all classes equal, like Goldygolpher said no, they aren't suppost to be.