Epic stunner possible?

[Khelden]

10 strikes me as a pretty drastic drop.

Mass Hold Monster, cast by a caster with solid but unspectacular equipment (36 casting stat for 32 save DC) currently seems to hit most trash about 50% of the time.

If this jumps to 95% - epics will be dominated by arcanes, as Mass Hold suddenly starts lasting ten times as long as it does now.


Another factor after such a change will be that groups that sail through the trash fights in Epics may be woefully underprepared for what the bosses can do to them...

Have you considered instead splitting the monsters into further categories - easy trash (e.g. Wiz-King Hyenas, the Drow in Offering of Blood) and hitting them with a save penalty, whilst keeping hard trash (scorrow in OOB, WF Sentinels in VON4) as they are now?

Isn't epic ALREADY dominated by arcanes (and divines at some point...)? I always feel like we, melee, just speed up things... But are very very far of being a must-have...

Maybe they could just give epic mobs an insane spell resistance?

[Cyr]

One of the things we're changing in Update 5 is we're reducing the saves of epic trash across the board by 10.

Huh, so you guys think you overshot by a full half of the d20 dice? That is a fairly huge error. How about you guys just tweak stuff a little at a time instead of these HUGE changes. I mean if you really messed up so bad why would you have a high degree of confidence that your new number is right?

[gott_ist_tot]

Well at least I got my mouth shut on the 'do devs actually read our posts' matter.

Epics are godly boring unless you devise some techniques to speed it up. Actually the thing which makes DDO the game for me is leaving room for tactics.

As far as my knowledge goes, the best tchnique is already slanted heavily towards arcane. So heavily it allows them to solo epics, no other class can do it so effectively. I don't think reducing saves by 10 will change this more in their favor.

If anything, this will provide an alternative to arcanes, by allowing more input from tactics speced characters. Until now I thought of epic-ing melees as just another way of boosting WoF damage - nice, but you acn do without it.

[Hydro]

This change should not be going in, please buff the abilities instead of netting epics. Let's keep epics challenging...

[Josh]

[Angelus_dead]

It is pretty silly. Weighted weapons used to be just DC boosts (like Vertigo and Shatter); it's unfortunate that the secondary addition to them so overshadows the primary one.

Honestly things like Weighted, Radiance, and even Vorpal should've had a fortitude saving throw from the beginning. Probably a real high save that non-epic monsters hardly ever pass (and where vorpal gets hp damage on a pass).

[Angelus_dead]

One of the things we're changing in Update 5 is we're reducing the saves of epic trash across the board by 10.

So you're getting a lot of complaints today that this kind of reduction is too much. Here's a suggestion for a compromise:
1. Create a kind of defensive effect that prevents a natural 1 from auto-failing saving throws within a corresponding category.
2. Create a bunch of buffs that give a large (+10) bonus to a kind of saving throw (such as Fear, Poison, or Death) and also prevent auto-fails on a 1.
3. Include buffs like that as part of Epic Ward.

In particular, things like that could allow content designers to tweak monsters' vulnerability to Hold Monster and Banshee Wail, without necessarily changing their saves on other Will and Fort attacks.

[Shade]

One of the things we're changing in Update 5 is we're reducing the saves of epic trash across the board by 10. We want you to be able to reliably use your DC based tools like special attacks and spells to deal with them, if you're targeting their weak saves.

10>!?!!? TEN?!!? Tell me that's a typo.

BECAUSE THAT IS WAY TOO MUCH. Why can't you ever do things in small steps to test things out.. You always go way over board one way or the other. ugh.

-10 saves would mean the worst of the worst caster ever built, with a horrible int/cha score, zero tomes, no exceptional, no focus, no gear, no nothing - would be landing spells almost all the time. That's just wrong.
Epic says when you enter "for the best of the best"
Trash mobs having horrible saves isn't going to challenge the best of the best. And to quote a friend of yours "no challenge, no fun"

Currently most quests are balanced so that a MAX DC enchantment focus'd caster (talking somewhere in the 50 range with full past lives) already CANNOT be saved against. Monster shave to roll a 20 in most cases. We don't need lower saves, there low enough. A non-tr wiz/sorc can get a DC in the 43-46 range, and land 80% of the time against the harder enemies, 95% against the easy ones, thats perfectly fair and challenging.

Meanwhile Barbarians can get Stun DC's in the 50+ range easily.. Fort saves on some mobs are noticably higher so there are sitll some minor amount of saving in taht range.

So I could see a reduction of 2-5 saves to make it easier for the lower stun DC classes to get a chance to stun. But 10? 10??!!!?!?! Thats insanity.


I can understand where the complaints come from - some classes like monks, bards, rangers, paladins cannot reach the same level of DC's that more specialiazed classes like wizards, sorcs and Barbarians. But making it so everything the stronger classe use works 95% even with poor equipment, while the othe classes get 40-50% success isn't the right way to do it.

Why not simply give the other classes that don't fair so well both a reason to run epic, and a way to contribute better, you can fix 2 problems at once like this, and not create another problem.
Example: For monks:
Add new handwraps that further increase there stun DC's (but not weighted %) Example could be some Epic weighted 5% handwraps in the new epics, that are +6, weighted 5% (+10 stun) and exceptional +4 to your stunning fist/blow DC. And perhaps some more dmg like forceburst. Red slot to allow 1 dmg type bypass, or +7 upgrade.
Or get monks to run epic sentinels by making the epic jidz teka more worthwhile by further upgrading the stance son the epic version. Perhaps the lesser used stances like earth or water could grant a large bonus to ALL of your monk combat DCs.

Paladins.. Years ago you said something about designing the holy avenger. Put it in, Epic style or even non epic could be the first slashing weapon with weighted on it, perhaps 4% and an additional +4 exception to stun. Epic version DPS similar to the epic sword of shadow - just less crits but more base and stronger vs EO/Undead. Perhaps 4d6 +10 19-20/x4, Ultimate epic holy burst (4d6 base good damage, 8d6 on crits, Undead and Evil outsiders on destroyed on a vorpal strike, if they are immune to death effects, they instead take 100 good damage) Red slot, Colorless slot

Way too much, way too fast. Not a good way to update the game.

So please Eladrin, either use an alternate solution, or just try lowering them by 5, then if people still complain and you feel thats still not enough, go with 10 in update 6.

[Maegin]

10>!?!!? TEN?!!? Tell me that's a typo.

BECAUSE THAT IS WAY TOO MUCH. Why can't you ever do things in small steps to test things out.. You always go way over board one way or the other. ugh.

-10 saves would mean the worst of the worst caster ever built, with a horrible int/cha score, zero tomes, no exceptional, no focus, no gear, no nothing - would be landing spells almost all the time. That's just wrong.
Epic says when you enter "for the best of the best"
Trash mobs having horrible saves isn't going to challenge the best of the best. And to quote a friend of yours "no challenge, no fun"

Currently most quests are balanced so that a MAX DC enchantment focus'd caster (talking somewhere in the 50 range with full past lives) already CANNOT be saved against. Monster shave to roll a 20 in most cases. We don't need lower saves, there low enough. A non-tr wiz/sorc can get a DC in the 43-46 range, and land 80% of the time against the harder enemies, 95% against the easy ones, thats perfectly fair and challenging.

Meanwhile Barbarians can get Stun DC's in the 50+ range easily.. Fort saves on some mobs are noticably higher so there are sitll some minor amount of saving in taht range.

So I could see a reduction of 2-5 saves to make it easier for the lower stun DC classes to get a chance to stun. But 10? 10??!!!?!?! Thats insanity.


I can understand where the complaints come from - some classes like monks, bards, rangers, paladins cannot reach the same level of DC's that more specialiazed classes like wizards, sorcs and Barbarians. But making it so everything the stronger classe use works 95% even with poor equipment, while the othe classes get 40-50% success isn't the right way to do it.

Why not simply give the other classes that don't fair so well both a reason to run epic, and a way to contribute better, you can fix 2 problems at once like this, and not create another problem.
Example: For monks:
Add new handwraps that further increase there stun DC's (but not weighted %) Example could be some Epic weighted 5% handwraps in the new epics, that are +6, weighted 5% (+10 stun) and exceptional +4 to your stunning fist/blow DC. And perhaps some more dmg like forceburst. Red slot to allow 1 dmg type bypass, or +7 upgrade.
Or get monks to run epic sentinels by making the epic jidz teka more worthwhile by further upgrading the stance son the epic version. Perhaps the lesser used stances like earth or water could grant a large bonus to ALL of your monk combat DCs.

Paladins.. Years ago you said something about designing the holy avenger. Put it in, Epic style or even non epic could be the first slashing weapon with weighted on it, perhaps 4% and an additional +4 exception to stun. Epic version DPS similar to the epic sword of shadow - just less crits but more base and stronger vs EO/Undead. Perhaps 4d6 +10 19-20/x4, Ultimate epic holy burst (4d6 base good damage, 8d6 on crits, Undead and Evil outsiders on destroyed on a vorpal strike, if they are immune to death effects, they instead take 100 good damage) Red slot, Colorless slot

Way too much, way too fast. Not a good way to update the game.

So please Eladrin, either use an alternate solution, or just try lowering them by 5, then if people still complain and you feel thats still not enough, go with 10 in update 6.

Oh, i do like the idea of water stance increasing special DC's. And and the water portion of Jiz bracers giving +4 to SF/QP instead of a lame para effect :/

[sephiroth1084]

OR add a percentage chance to trip or sunder with Vertigo and whatever that other useless suffix is.

I made this suggestion a month or two ago: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=220572

Lower saves by 10 seems a bit extreme; my wizard is 2-5 points from max sustainable DC for enchantment spells (Mass Hold, Dance) and tends to land these spells fairly often. On that front, monster saves have felt like they're in the appropriate range. Lowering the trash saves by 10 seems like it will just hand epic questing to casters. That will be fun, sure, but that will kind of obviate the need for Weighted or Vertigo weapons anyway.

[sephiroth1084]

10>!?!!? TEN?!!? Tell me that's a typo.

BECAUSE THAT IS WAY TOO MUCH. Why can't you ever do things in small steps to test things out.. You always go way over board one way or the other. ugh.

-10 saves would mean the worst of the worst caster ever built, with a horrible int/cha score, zero tomes, no exceptional, no focus, no gear, no nothing - would be landing spells almost all the time. That's just wrong.
Epic says when you enter "for the best of the best"
Trash mobs having horrible saves isn't going to challenge the best of the best. And to quote a friend of yours "no challenge, no fun"

Currently most quests are balanced so that a MAX DC enchantment focus'd caster (talking somewhere in the 50 range with full past lives) already CANNOT be saved against. Monster shave to roll a 20 in most cases. We don't need lower saves, there low enough. A non-tr wiz/sorc can get a DC in the 43-46 range, and land 80% of the time against the harder enemies, 95% against the easy ones, thats perfectly fair and challenging.

Meanwhile Barbarians can get Stun DC's in the 50+ range easily.. Fort saves on some mobs are noticably higher so there are sitll some minor amount of saving in taht range.

So I could see a reduction of 2-5 saves to make it easier for the lower stun DC classes to get a chance to stun. But 10? 10??!!!?!?! Thats insanity.


I can understand where the complaints come from - some classes like monks, bards, rangers, paladins cannot reach the same level of DC's that more specialiazed classes like wizards, sorcs and Barbarians. But making it so everything the stronger classe use works 95% even with poor equipment, while the othe classes get 40-50% success isn't the right way to do it.

Why not simply give the other classes that don't fair so well both a reason to run epic, and a way to contribute better, you can fix 2 problems at once like this, and not create another problem.
Example: For monks:
Add new handwraps that further increase there stun DC's (but not weighted %) Example could be some Epic weighted 5% handwraps in the new epics, that are +6, weighted 5% (+10 stun) and exceptional +4 to your stunning fist/blow DC. And perhaps some more dmg like forceburst. Red slot to allow 1 dmg type bypass, or +7 upgrade.
Or get monks to run epic sentinels by making the epic jidz teka more worthwhile by further upgrading the stance son the epic version. Perhaps the lesser used stances like earth or water could grant a large bonus to ALL of your monk combat DCs.

Paladins.. Years ago you said something about designing the holy avenger. Put it in, Epic style or even non epic could be the first slashing weapon with weighted on it, perhaps 4% and an additional +4 exception to stun. Epic version DPS similar to the epic sword of shadow - just less crits but more base and stronger vs EO/Undead. Perhaps 4d6 +10 19-20/x4, Ultimate epic holy burst (4d6 base good damage, 8d6 on crits, Undead and Evil outsiders on destroyed on a vorpal strike, if they are immune to death effects, they instead take 100 good damage) Red slot, Colorless slot

Way too much, way too fast. Not a good way to update the game.

So please Eladrin, either use an alternate solution, or just try lowering them by 5, then if people still complain and you feel thats still not enough, go with 10 in update 6.

Yeah, really have to agree with Shade on this one.

My caster's DC:
10 base
+16 (42 Int)
+2 Dreamspitter
+1 SF: Enchant
+9 Heightened spells
____
38 and epic monsters with weak Will saves seem to fail over half the time

+1 Spellsinger
+1 Yugo pot (dangerous as hell to use, so I only consume one on rare occasions)
__
40

+1 wizard PL
+1 bard PL
+1 (+4 tome + Litany of the Dead)
+1 Greater SF: Enchant
__
44 projected sustainable enchantment DC

-10 to saves is going to mean that my character without the PL and extra gear is going to land every Hold and Dancing Ball she throws even before hammering out the rest of the DC stuff over a few TRs.

[ahpook]

ya, maybe i'm also tyring to read into Eladrin's post... it sounds like he's adding something to weighted weapons... the secondary effect overshadows part....

He isn't adding something, the primary effect was to add to the DC (+10 to sunning blow DC). The secondary effect was a % chance to stun on a successful hit.

TO lessen the secondary effect, as A_D has suggested, institute a saving throw. Then make weapons such as vertigo and shatter also have a secondary effect with a saving throw to make them more attractive. I don't know if the DC bonus has to be upped as Impaqt suggested. +10 already seems pretty good.

[Riggs]

...
Currently most quests are balanced so that a MAX DC enchantment focus'd caster (talking somewhere in the 50 range with full past lives) already CANNOT be saved against. Monster shave to roll a 20 in most cases. We don't need lower saves, there low enough. A non-tr wiz/sorc can get a DC in the 43-46 range, and land 80% of the time against the harder enemies, 95% against the easy ones, thats perfectly fair and challenging.
...

Wf wiz, 18 int, +2 tome, +3 enhancements, +5 levels, +2 capstone, +6 weapon/item and +3 exceptional weapon/ring hits a 39 int. +3 tome and /or +1 litany or +4 tome say after grinding and 40 int.

40 int + 1 dc napkin, +2 for feats + heighten; 10+9+3+15 = 37 dc for a capped, 'normal' raid geared wizard.

Curious where a non-tr wizard is going to pick up to 9 more dc (18 more int say), as you seem to imply it is easy. Also curious how a couple TR's (even with 3 wizard past life feats for +1 dc), adds up to a 50 dc as well. A drow, with yugo and store pots, and +4 tome, and litany, seems to hit maybe a 46 dc even with 3 wiz TR - and that in itself is a f-ing stupid amount of grinding just to be able to start landing spells at level 20 on any kind of regular basis - and its still not 50dc.

Excluding store bought potions and abbot gear, as no 'easy' calculation is allowed to include cash/points and 20-40 runs of a raid many people still dont run.

TR should help, not be a required benchmark just to run new content. Ditto 'buying' your way into more dc.

No matter what people want to claim about 'best of the best' yadda yadda - there is one simple fact that escapes their notice.

Epic content is not 'over level 20' as in the books - it is level 20 content. It is what we are getting instead of new quests - new level 20 quests.

Level 20 content that cannot be run by 'non-maxed out 60 abbot raid, 8 tr' characters - or rather having level 20 characters unable to use any abilities or spells even with the maximum possible stats not counting store items and massive xp grind trs is just insulting.

People seem to bash the idea of a mass hold spell landing as 'it is all about the arcanes'...umm really? Like after mod 4-5 when casters actually could solo and kill everything in the game with a couple spells? No. It is just a limited way to allow maxed out melees the chance to beat something down with massive hp and not also take 4 clerics to keep them alive while getting hit back for massive damage. A mass hold without a few good melee types to jump in isnt going to finish the quest.

A 500 hp player doing 40-50 damage a hit, or 80+ twf, fighting a 8000 hp monster that hits harder simply means the cleric gets to drink lots of pots without good cc. A caster isnt going to be running around casting Fod and Wail like everywhere else. Sure sounds like fun...maybe someone will notice one day all the epic lfms that go up - looking for healers. Yay epic pugs! Sign my cleric up!

Melee combat dcs of course should go up, and a way to make dex substitute for str for things like tripping maybe with finesse - and say make player trip as good as monster trip i.e be able to trip on every hit, and last more than 1-2 seconds.

I mean, a fighter gets a feat that adds +1 to something. A caster levels up and gets insta kill spells they can cast 20-40 times per shrine - which is more useful? Or mass cc, or mass damage etc. High level feats and enhancements should be on par with high level spells. High level classes should be getting powerful abilities - and currently only casters do so people need casters to get most things done in epic say.

And Amrath saves need to be looked at too.

We dont need another d20, we need stuff that actually starts falling in the normal curve of what is achievable in the current game.

**edit
For the record -10 is maybe too much to start with for will saves. However standing around watching melees beat on a held monster gets pretty boring after a while too - instead of just making one thing easier classes need to be balanced more, and more options for casters need to be added to do something other than cast a couple spells and then hide. Fort saves are probably too high on most things anyway.

[Riggs]

He isn't adding something, the primary effect was to add to the DC (+10 to sunning blow DC). The secondary effect was a % chance to stun on a successful hit.

TO lessen the secondary effect, as A_D has suggested, institute a saving throw. Then make weapons such as vertigo and shatter also have a secondary effect with a saving throw to make them more attractive. I don't know if the DC bonus has to be upped as Impaqt suggested. +10 already seems pretty good.

+10 for a weapon is fine.

What is missing is melee enhancements and feats that actually matter at high levels.

Mass hold vs trip. Mass hold and auto crit vs an area vs a lower dc stun that ...if it hits, still gets a save and only hits one monster.

And using a +10 stun weapon means your NOT using your good dps weapons. Which means every single hit that isnt a stun is lower damage than you could be doing - because even a 40 str character isnt going to be stunning anything useful with their 'overpowered' 25 dc stun save.

[Eladiun]

Does this count?

[sephiroth1084]

+10 for a weapon is fine.

What is missing is melee enhancements and feats that actually matter at high levels.

Mass hold vs trip. Mass hold and auto crit vs an area vs a lower dc stun that ...if it hits, still gets a save and only hits one monster.

And using a +10 stun weapon means your NOT using your good dps weapons. Which means every single hit that isnt a stun is lower damage than you could be doing - because even a 40 str character isnt going to be stunning anything useful with their 'overpowered' 25 dc stun save.

I agree.

One problem that exists with melee DCs is that there is just no very good way of improving them.

The on-weapon effects take up a DPS slot (really think we should see these effects start making their way onto shields and other items...maybe as crafting rituals).

The enhancements that some classes/races receive are incredibly expensive for fairly minor benefits: 1 AP for +1 DC is reasonable, but 4 AP for +DC is prohibitively expensive and weak. That barbarians tend to get higher DCs for trip and Stun than fighters who have spent oodles of AP on these abilities is problematic, but so is the fact that anyone but these characters can't really attain enough of a DC to matter.

And balancing them is difficult, since in some content lowish DCs can totally dominate a quest, while in others even moderate to high DCs have virtually no effect.

Then there's the fact that, not only do these abilities require AP investment, and item/DPS investment, but also require one or two feats (and CE as a prereq for Improved Trip basically makes that a fairly undesirable feat for most characters).

[Borror0]

I made this suggestion a month or two ago: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=220572

I was looking for that thread, to link to it. Apparently, I'm too late to the party to act like if I'm smart.

Honestly things like Weighted, Radiance, and even Vorpal should've had a fortitude saving throw from the beginning. Probably a real high save that non-epic monsters hardly ever pass (and where vorpal gets hp damage on a pass).

Exactly.

It is pretty silly. Weighted weapons used to be just DC boosts (like Vertigo and Shatter); it's unfortunate that the secondary addition to them so overshadows the primary one.

As a slight tangent to that point, notice how Vertigo and Shatter are unpopular whereas Weighted is actually used. Part of that does come from the fact that Stunning blow is the best out of the three feats but the secondary effect does play a large portion in it.

With that in mind, I suggest the following weapon enchantment:
+x Strategy: Increases the wearer's Stunning Blow, Trip, Hamstring and Sunder DC by +X (enhancement bonus). In addition, it gives a X% chance to stun, trip, slow or reduces the target Armor Class by 5 for six seconds.

It's Weighted, Vertigo, Hamstring and Shatter all in one (which means they should be removed from the loot tables), with a x% chance to hit the target with Stunning Blow, Trip, Hamstring or Sunder for six seconds. The chances went up from Weighted's (X/2)% because it is diluted by the other weaker effects and the duration of all effects is capped at 6s, because more than six seconds of Stunning Blow is overpowered.

[Eladrin]

try lowering them by 5, then if people still complain and you feel thats still not enough, go with 10 in update 6.

We're considering this sort of more cautious tiered rollout. Thanks for all the feedback everyone.

[shadosatblackphoenix]

Ahh, the end game blues, that all MMORPGs that focus on endgame (instead of giving good reasons to start over...DDO's better than most on that though), have.

The more you can specialize or focus in a category, the more problem you have balancing the game: You either please the general populace, or the vocal "Lol I have 42 DC on my spells EASY" crowd.

Personally my wizard's DCs are:

10 base
20 int (drow) + 2 tome + 6 item + 3 enhancement + 2 capstone + 5 levels = +14
+2 from dreamsplitter
+2 from feats
+9 heighten
=
37. Could squeeze a bit more with an easy to get +int greensteel, i guess, but even then in Offering of Blood Epic, I land about 1/3, if that (that is, 1/3 mobs if i toss an AOE).

It sounds great, and with the -10 DC it would land about like it does in Amrath areas right now, which may sound overpowered, but its not like you can cast that over and over. There's SP limitations here that melees don't have

Then you have barbarians who can crit stuff for 370-400 damage using one of the pre-defined builds at character creation with nothing more than a Min 2 greataxe, then think that if i want to do Epic ADQ I have to spend quite a few SP pots to last the fight...

Sure, now a perfectly speced out arcane decked out in raid loot will dominate, but a melee with the same amount of effort put into it just mows through stuff in there too.

Keep in mind that in the end, the D&D system revolves around a D20, so there's a very very fine line between "It lands all the time", and "it never lands", which means the devs pretty much have no choice: they either make it challenge for the high end players, or make it too easy for them. There's virtually no room for in between.

Reminds me of the thread about trap DCs in VoN...people complaining how it was way too easy now, but the thread described some pretty serious investments to get it to be "too easy".

[REALb0r3d]

We're considering this sort of more cautious tiered rollout. Thanks for all the feedback everyone.

You guys are awesome. I'd just like to know if this decision was as a result of this thread or something you were already considering.

They're listening to us guys. I'm going to stop complaining.
Honestly.

Mostly.