Monk ki strikes buffed.

[Borror0]

/snip

I'm surprised you did not take advantage of the situation to suggest possible changes to Fortification.

[...] except that the new feat respec costs make it insane to switch to test (and back).

I never understood why the feat respec was gated by dragonshards. To me, a respec is something you want to give your playerbase to adapt to rule changes and to recover from mistakes made while learning the game (or experimenting). If that is the goal, then limiting the access to it by requiring a rare item seems counterproductive. Even less when the respec could instead be used as a moneysink to take some of the virtual currency out of the game.

If there is a concern about frequency of use, a timer or a cost that increase after each use (with a cap and lowers when not used after a certain amount of time) could be used instead to ensure that the players don't use it too often (if that's really a concern or a problem).

This, by the way, also applies to Lesser Reincarnation.

[jakeelala]

I'm surprised you did not take advantage of the situation to suggest possible changes to Fortification.

I never understood why the feat respec was gated by dragonshards. To me, a respec is something you want to give your playerbase to adapt to rule changes and to recover from mistakes made while learning the game (or experimenting). If that is the goal, then limiting the access to it by requiring a rare item seems counterproductive. Even less when the respec could instead be used as a moneysink to take some of the virtual currency out of the game.

If there is a concern about frequency of use, a timer or a cost that increase after each use (with a cap and lowers when not used after a certain amount of time) could be used instead to ensure that the players don't use it too often (if that's really a concern or a problem).

This, by the way, also applies to Lesser Reincarnation.

I agree but I think we can all understand pretty clearly it's a way for Turbine to make more money on the Turbine Store by making the item so rare and impossible to find that you pretty much just have to keep buying them.

I really don't understand the VIP things anymore. It just makes way more sense to go FtP, and I think Turbine knows it, they're just waiting for us all to go that way.

[rimble]

I never understood why the feat respec was gated by dragonshards. To me, a respec is something you want to give your playerbase to adapt to rule changes and to recover from mistakes made while learning the game (or experimenting). If that is the goal, then limiting the access to it by requiring a rare item seems counterproductive. Even less when the respec could instead be used as a moneysink to take some of the virtual currency out of the game.

If there is a concern about frequency of use, a timer or a cost that increase after each use (with a cap and lowers when not used after a certain amount of time) could be used instead to ensure that the players don't use it too often (if that's really a concern or a problem).

This, by the way, also applies to Lesser Reincarnation.

Yeah, they've been needing a mechanic to grant respecs (or Reincarnates). Something they can pass out after significant changes, or pass out per character that is affected by a specific change, or hell even just a veteran reward, or like a free 16-month old character reward or something.

I think having a cost normally is fine, but when we need to fix ourselves after changes, having to pay for that is kinda rude.

[Vhlad]

Touch of Despair
You strike your opponent down with a terrible curse, halving all positive energy healing done to the target, reducing its fortification and increasing its negative energy vulnerability by 25%. A successful Fortitude save negates this effect. (DC 10 + Monk Level + Wisdom mod) The target receives periodic saves to attempt to break free of this effect.

Anyone test to see if the enemy monks are spamming this on the players now? (say, for example, in monastery).

Not many mobs heal. Not many players use negative energy. Many raid bosses are immune to curses. And enemy fortification (discounting undead, elementals, certain constructs) is not an issue in most content. Seems like a great attack for mobs to use on us though. The days of critical hit instakills appear to be returning. At least WF will have a benefit to that 125% fortification, but urgh. Not excited to see this ability in the game.

Edit:
We can chug a remove curse pot to remove this, right?

[jakeelala]

Yeah, they've been needing a mechanic to grant respecs (or Reincarnates). Something they can pass out after significant changes, or pass out per character that is affected by a specific change, or hell even just a veteran reward, or like a free 16-month old character reward or something.

I think having a cost normally is fine, but when we need to fix ourselves after changes, having to pay for that is kinda rude.

It is very rude to make us pay for them changing the rules and pulling the rug out from under us every mod. Every time there's a big rule change you should get 3 or 4 days and 2 respec shards (that disappear after the 3 or 4 days) to swap out feats for FREE.

Anything else is literally a classic con game called a "bait and switch". I know this is only an MMO, but it's bordering on the illegal, especially now that you have to pay for it.

It's really most similar to a car company making you PAY for a recall repair.

Would you ever pay for a recall repair?

[Eladrin]

But um, it only has an effect if the boss actually has healing of some kind, which is just a slim minority of them.

Many named and raid bosses have some degree of fortification, which Touch of Despair now reduces. (...reducing its fortification and increasing its negative energy vulnerability by 25%)

1 million fragments...

Fragments aren't the only type of khyber shards that drop these days.

[Dylos_Moon]

I really don't understand the VIP things anymore. It just makes way more sense to go FtP, and I think Turbine knows it, they're just waiting for us all to go that way.

You're probably right, especially considering when I told Tarrent that I was going Psudo-VIP F2P with all content during the lamannia closed beta awhile ago, he said it was a good idea. (or something similar, I don't have an exact quote.)

[Borror0]

I agree but I think we can all understand pretty clearly it's a way for Turbine to make more money on the Turbine Store by making the item so rare and impossible to find that you pretty much just have to keep buying them.

I know but I have been pretty clear in the past that I dislike that strategy.

Personally, I have no problem with them selling "respec tokens" (ie dragonshards now grant a free feat respec with no additional fee, Lesser Heart of wood grant Lesser Reincarnation with no additional fee, etc.) in the DDO Store but I would like the ability to respec to be fairly accessible. It just seems unwise to make it so cumbersome to respec and expansive to respec.

[Angelus_dead]

I never understood why the feat respec was gated by dragonshards. To me, a respec is something you want to give your playerbase to adapt to rule changes and to recover from mistakes made while learning the game (or experimenting).

Well, there are multiple different reasons you might want to respec:
1. I just changed my mind. (my fault)
2. I wanted to try something for variety. (my fault)
3. I screwed up before. (my fault)
4. The documentation is incomplete or wrong. (dev's fault)
5. The game rules changed after I made the choice. (dev's fault)

For case #5, which is a very important one, feat respec tokens should be sent to characters whenever a major change happens (which would be essentially every large update). A shard requirement can be used for reasons 1-3.

[Angelus_dead]

Many named and raid bosses have some degree of fortification, which Touch of Despair now reduces.

Crits on liches! O_o

Fragments aren't the only type of khyber shards that drop these days.

It's sib for respec, and yeah, I got 28 Flawed Sib shards in an outdoor Shav chest the other day. Counting the multiple bank slots full of sib shards I had from before, I'm still not quite 50% of the way to swapping a single feat.

A 10x factor between level 16 and 17 is too steep.

[Dretharis]

... If that is the goal, then limiting the access to it by requiring a rare item seems counterproductive. Even less when the respec could instead be used as a moneysink to take some of the virtual currency out of the game.

This, by the way, also applies to Lesser Reincarnation.

Just wanted to highlight that. The game could really use a drain besides repairs and scrolls. Without one, inflation will spiral even further out of control, with the intial F2P population hitting the point where they can farm explorer areas and sell to vendors.

[Borror0]

2. I wanted to try something for variety. (my fault) [...]

A shard requirement can be used for reasons 1-3.

I would argue that #2 is something you want to encourage and that shard are a blockade to that.

[Monkey_Archer]

Hmm... buff to Dominion causes a disturbance in the force... triggers argument about feat respec it does...

Yes... give in to your hate... join me on the dark side...

[jakeelala]

I know but I have been pretty clear in the past that I dislike that strategy.

Personally, I have no problem with them selling "respec tokens" (ie dragonshards now grant a free feat respec with no additional fee, Lesser Heart of wood grant Lesser Reincarnation with no additional fee, etc.) in the DDO Store but I would like the ability to respec to be fairly accessible. It just seems unwise to make it so cumbersome to respec and expansive to respec.

Hey man, I'm with YOU.

I'm just calling it how I see it, not endorsing the play.

[Monkey_Archer]

Many raid bosses are immune to curses.

Correct me if im wrong but arent only horned devils immune to curse, while it should still work on pit fiends?

[Angelus_dead]

Many named and raid bosses have some degree of fortification, which Touch of Despair now reduces. (...reducing its fortification and increasing its negative energy vulnerability by 25%)

That negative vulnerability made me think it would be cool to combine Touch of Despair with the new Death's Touch weapon from the Dreaming Dark, which does 2d6 negative per hit. But that wouldn't work: it's a sickle, so monks won't be centered.

Therefore, a suggestion:
Change Death's Touch from a sickle to a kama, but make it grant kama proficiency to the wielder. (A possible negative implication would be it becoming too easy to stack Fist of Light + Lesser Vampirism for easy self-healing)

[Borror0]

Hey man, I'm with YOU.

I'm just calling it how I see it, not endorsing the play.

I know. I'm just using your post as an excuse to jump on my soapbox. I was about to start a thread about that topic. Now I don't need to.

[Junts]

Correct me if im wrong but arent only horned devils immune to curse, while it should still work on pit fiends?

horned devils and pit fiends are both immune to curses

[Monkey_Archer]

horned devils and pit fiends are both immune to curses

Just tested this on the battlefield and managed to land touch of despair on both the pit fiends and horned devils out there. Pehaps they are only immune to the actual curse spell?

Another interesting note: while the desciption on the touch of despair finisher on Live hasnt changed, when you examine the target it has the new effects listed (-25% fort, +25% neg energy)....

[schroedingercat]

nt