Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Pyromaniac]

Doh!

So just pretending to fix the lag then.

Correct, just like pushing in DA (which didn't fix the lag), this nerf to DPS isn't going to do anything to fix the lag.

I wonder if the monthly subscription rate/turbine point costs will rise at some point 'to fix the lag'? I also hear generating epic tokens creates lag, so we're going to fragments

Here's some other potential sources of lag that should be on the chopping block or changed (and yes for the humor impaired, I'm kidding sort of):
-Hirelings
-More than 1 party member in a group
-Have a lineup for quests, with advertising while waiting in line
-Give all enemies one damage number roll (and definitely nerf the DQ's multiweapon fighting)
-Ingame music and sound
-Graphics above a stick figure level
-The banks
-Make all quests/outdoor areas in a 10 foot by 10 foot room with 8 feet high ceilings
-Forums (though keep the ads only)
-Get rid of trash mobs, boss fight only in each quest
-Level cap back to 10, with double reincarnate XP being the new original character XP
-In game voice chat
-Ability to move your character in any direction freely

Its great seeing gaming ads on the DDO website, gives me some alternatives to play when this trashes most of my remaining characters. No lesser token+20/full greensteel deconstruction = no money for DDO and I'll play one of those games they're advertising to me at the moment. Test Drive Unlimited 2 does look good from the ads above.

[Salvonen]

So if I understand this correctly a level 6 ranger tempest 1 will have offhand proc 90% which will be 10% higher than a lvl 20 monk in wind stance 4?

And I thought my pure monk DPS was gimped before....now I'll have to go down dueling a TR lvl 13 ranger with his greensteel weapons.

Truly you should go back and re-write the other posts where you said a 'well-equipped well-played monk can be an exceptionally powerful character' really? powerful as in...what? well equipped with every single raid loot item there is? and still end up gimped dps.

I do not post often and typically support the changes made in DDO...this will certainly push monks to splash class only status. There will be no reason to play pure monk.

Personally I think the pure monk should be the highest with respect to double-strike and off hand proc (of course I am biased), as rangers have the alternate form of dps of actually ranging most all have the many shot. Alternately rangers have the option of respeccing to becoming a THF or archer which is not available to monks. Monks are TWF by their very class with no option whatsoever (except staves of course) are you seriously suggesting that monks go out and respec their toons to become THF staff wielders in order to reduce lag?

Skeptical to say the least and potentially a game end for me -> premium with turbine and came back VIP now and likely free then gone.

[Borror0]

/snip

Good post. Gave you positive rep for it. You make the mistake of not assuming STWF in your numbers, which in result causes you to spread misinformation (as A_D later pointed out), but it does a good job of demonstrating the value of the change if STWF isn't added (and also does good job showing why STWF shouldn't be added).

[Razcar]

Alternately rangers have the option of respeccing to becoming a THF or archer which is not available to monks. Monks are TWF by their very class with no option whatsoever (except staves of course) are you seriously suggesting that monks go out and respec their toons to become THF staff wielders in order to reduce lag?

THF ranger? That sounds like a sign of the apocalypse...

[Brannigan]

This is interesting;

No exaggeration. I took the actual numbers, then rounded to the nearest tenth of a percent. Which I actually did wrong, it's -16.5%, not -16.4%.

As for the numbers on the DPS nerf, it actually doesn't matter what numbers you plug into the equation. The nerf is not attack damage based but attack swing based. In other words you'll lose the same xx.x% regardless of if you swing for 10 a pop or 100. The ONLY point of variance your stats made is whether your Strength modifier is even or odd since an even Str modifier gives you exactly 1.5x Str between your two weapons, but an odd one gives a mainhand full Str and an offhand equal to that number - 1 then divided by 2.

Ex: 22 Str: +6/+3. 24 Str: +7/+3. 26 Str: +8/+4.

So they might be off by one or two tenths of a percentile depending on character and due to rounding errors. That's a very reasonable margin for error.

I also made the comparison to both first nerf numbers and second nerf numbers. This was also intentional, both to show that the new numbers don't really soften the nerf all that much, and to dispel the common myth that this nerfs Rangers the least (instead of the most, which it actually does).

Lastly, making a big deal out of 10-15% (which is actually more like 15-25%) is entirely justified since it makes a far bigger difference than you'd think. It's the difference between top tier DPS and mid tier DPS that also bring in other things. It's the difference between full raid gear and newbie gear (which another of my examples demonstrated). And it is many times more than people grind for months to gain, in effect also being expressed as negative years of progress.

MMOs, like D&D itself are very meritocratic. And they often emphasize the darker side of meritocracy - that is to say, those who cannot prove their worth on their own merits have no place. And 'having no place' means classes not accepted into groups, meaning players of those classes can't play. DDO was fairly good about this - Rogues and Rangers, Monks, and Arcane Casters were sometimes discriminated against because of bad members of these classes but the good ones had little trouble once it was established that they were in fact good. However a nerf of this magnitude flat out invalidates two weapon fighters, as a whole. And the only good news about that is the 'make it like PnP' people got what they wanted - THF as the only valid melee style. But at what cost?


With all that said, here's the numbers anyways:


Main hand attacks: Equal to BAB - 1, max 4. Since you max out at BAB 3, and anyone who has been playing for a few weeks or has a few dollars can start at level 4 (and have a BAB of at least 3) this is a quite irrelevant point. I only am mentioning it for the sake of completeness.
Off hand attacks: Equal to number of TWF feats + 1.

So any character of any class who has all three TWF feats has 4 mainhand, and 4 offhand attacks.

This can be expressed as: 100%/100%.

A Tempest in particular gains two additional benefits.

1: Tempest 1 grants +10% attack speed.
2: Tempest 3 grants one additional offhand attack.

This can be expressed as: 110%/137.5%.

Now, the tempest I'm playing right now has these numbers with the typical buff availability. They'll vary depending on short term buff usage but again this is irrelevant. It's also only the first number damage, since factoring the kickers is also irrelevant.

Mainhand: 1d10+45, average 50.5.
Offhand: 1d10+39, average 44.5.

Yes, I am aware I'm missing a few items. That's not the point.

So currently I'm looking at these numbers:

50.5 * 1.1 * 4 = 222.2.
44.5 * 1.375 * 4 = 244.75.

222.2 + 244.75 = 466.95 damage per attack sequence not counting weapon kickers, crits, whatever. Again, those are irrelevant to this example.

With the first nerf they would look like this:

50.5 * 1 * 4 = 202.
44.5 * 0.85 * 4 = 151.3.

202 + 151.3 = 353.3 damage per attack sequence not counting weapon kickers, crits, whatever. Again, those are irrelevant to this example.

353.3 is exactly 75.6612056965413855873219830817% of 466.95. A rather large downgrade to be certain.

With the second nerf they would look like this:

50.5 * 1.05 * 4 = 212.1.
44.5 * 1 * 4 = 178.

212.1 + 178 = 390.1 damage per attack sequence not counting weapon kickers, crits, whatever. Again, those are irrelevant to this example.

390.1 is exactly 83.542135132241139308277117464397% of 466.95. Not as steep, but still a very major downgrade.

Even with the revised nerf, it's a major hit for EVERYONE. Not just powergamers. Remember this applies at all stages of the game, and in many cases applies in a harsher manner at lower levels. Even quests like the one where all you do is break boxes go faster when you swing faster. So it's fair to say you'd be gimped at the whole game, even at smashing crates.

To illustrate I compared weapons so you can see how bad a hit it is right now.

So here's the math on that:

With Min 2s:

Mainhand: 50.5.
Offhand: 44.5.

Add in the following to each:

Holy: 2-12, average 7.
Acid Burst: 1-6, average 3.5 + 2-20, average 11 on a critical, which happens 20% of the time so 2.2 weighted average.
Acid Blast: 4-24, average 14 on a natural 20, which happens 5% of the time so 0.7 weighted average. Mainhand only.
Slicing: 1-4, average 2.5.

For a total of +15.9 main hand and +15.2 off hand, giving...

Mainhand: 66.4.
Offhand: 59.7.

With completely ordinary +5 weapons:

Mainhand: 50.5.
Offhand: 44.5.

And here are the modifiers on those:

Is not Greensteel: Smaller damage die (1-8 instead of 1-10), amounting to -1 average damage.

This gives us...

Mainhand: 49.5.
Offhand: 43.5.

Now plug both into the calcs.

With Min 2s:

66.4 * 1.1 * 4 = 292.16.
59.7 * 1.375 * 4 = 328.35.

292.16 + 328.35 = 620.51 damage per attack sequence, not counting crits but now counting weapon kickers because they ARE relevant.

With plain old +5 weapons:

49.5 * 1.1 * 4 = 217.8.
43.5 * 1.375 * 4 = 239.25.

217.8 + 239.25 = 457.05 damage per attack sequence, not counting crits but now counting weapon kickers because they ARE relevant.

457.05 is about 73.657% of 620.51. You want that accurate beyond three decimal places, you get a calculator. I'm tired of typing all that.

73.657% is 'almost' 75.661%.

Now, my original statement on the subject.


Do you have a Tempest with a pair of Min 2s? Use them against a mob that is evil aligned with 0 acid resistance and no DR. Now, take off your Greensteel. Attack the same mob with plain +5 weapons. That is almost the exact difference between your effectiveness now and your effectiveness with the same weapon after the original nerf.


As switching from the Greensteel you have grinded for months to a plain +5 weapon almost models the DPS downgrade of the Greensteel you have grinded for months pre nerf and the same weapons you have grinded for months post first nerf, that statement was true. And anyone, and everyone should be very scared and offended to have the uber weapons they put months into reduced to vendor trash levels. ESPECIALLY the non power gamers, because getting a dual shard (or two!) is a lot harder when you play in a non power gaming manner.

Anyone, and everyone WAS very scared and offended. This is why Eladrin revised the nerf after about 750 posts of nerd rage.

So here's the comparison there:

Same numbers on the Greensteel.

With Min 2s:

Mainhand: 66.4.
Offhand: 59.7.

66.4 * 1.1 * 4 = 292.16.
59.7 * 1.375 * 4 = 328.35.

292.16 + 328.35 = 620.51 damage per attack sequence, not counting crits but now counting weapon kickers because they ARE relevant.

For the comparison weapon (+5 Holy) take the last set of numbers:

Mainhand: 49.5.
Offhand: 43.5.

And add to each:

Holy: 2-12, average 7.

Which gives us:

Mainhand: 56.5.
Offhand: 50.5.

Now run the calcs again.

56.5 * 1.1 * 4 = 248.6.
50.5 * 1.375 * 4 = 277.75.

248.6 + 277.75 = 526.35.

526.35 is about 84.825% of 620.51. You want that accurate beyond three decimal places, you get a calculator. I'm tired of typing all that.

84.825% is 'about' 83.542%.

My original statement on the subject again.

The revised nerf is tamer. To get an idea of how much that will nuke your DPS fight the same mob with Min 2s and then plain +5 Holy weapons. Still a huge difference

As switching from the Greensteel you have grinded for months to a plain +5 Holy weapon almost models the DPS downgrade of the Greensteel you have grinded for months pre nerf and the same weapons you have grinded for months post first nerf, that statement was true. And anyone, and everyone should be very scared and offended to have the uber weapons they put months into reduced to lowbie weapon levels. ESPECIALLY the non power gamers, because getting a dual shard (or two!) is a lot harder when you play in a non power gaming manner.

And that's what you have to look at now, post nerf. As much damage with the weapons you grinded for for months as you could get RIGHT NOW with subpar level 12 lootgen weapons. Or you could just take the dev hints they've been throwing out for months and roll a THF Fighter or Barbarian like everyone else.

Of course despite the fact there have been far more than an additional 750ish posts of nerd rage about it, it has not been revised a second time. This leads me to believe that it will not be revised, and combined with the smokescreen tactics and timing I am deeply suspicious of their motives in the matter.

[~Lleo]

Two Questions come to my mind when I'm reading all of this:

1) The DPS lag issue is supposed to be mostly in the high level raids. As near as I can figure with the proposed changes, by the time a character is ready for these high level raids they'll already have the various feats/enhancements/stances/etc... and be back to 100% or near 100% proc on the off hand anyway. So how is this helping? Or is it the idea that by making it harder on us at lower levels we'll be less likely to end up TWF'ers at the higher levels and thus there will be fewer of us.

2) Another concern I have is in regards to rogues, particularly at lower levels. Rogues (again, keep in mind I'm specifically talking about lower levels) are very limited in both the type/quality of armor and weapons short of spending extra feats or multiclassing obviously. Being limited to light armor and only d6 weapons along with no spells makes them a very squishy character, especially if trying to solo and thus severely limiting their backstab. TWF is a survival trait for many rogues but with the new system at lower levels you've almost eliminated it. In trying to address an issue that's affecting high level characters you're most hurting the low levels. Perhaps some sort of compensation is in order for Rogues. It seems you're thinking about the Tempest Rangers and the Monks and forgetting anyone else in regards to the TWF change. The original PnP game allowed Dex to offer some penalty alleviation in addition to the TWF feats, what about implementing something along those lines. Since Rogues tend to have high Dexterities anyway this would help.

[Borror0]

Until they introduce Epic Levels.. STWF should be left out of the game its a lvl 21 Feat.

STWF does not exist. It's a made up feat by Turbine. You are thinking about Perfect Two Weapon Fighting which requires a character level of 21 and a Dexterity of 25. While it does not invalidate the position that STWF should not be added, it is false to say STWF is an epic feat.

Although I will say that posting this in a Friday before a long weekend seems shortsighted.

QFT. It would have been better to post this on Tuesday.

Well, S&B also needs improvements to its DPS output, since the game is so heavily skewed in that direction, and because if you don't have aggro, having a shield out tends to be fairly pointless.

Bring your line of thinking a bit further and you will realize why increasing S&B's DPS is unnecessary. Like you said, unless you are getting hit in some ways, wearing a shield is detrimental because you have lower DPS and get nothing back in return. In this most cases, it means wearing a shield is pointless unless you have aggro and what S&B offers is reducing the total damage taken by the party. Unlike DPS builds, how much damage S&B builds do is the least important aspect of their effectiveness. It is more important to significantly reduce the damage taken by the party and gaining the aggro than to deal more DPS, for them.

That is not to say that it wouldn't be helpful to improve their DPS. It might be, but it's a much lesser priority than giving them proper aggro tools, making sure that their Armor Class do matter and ensuring that hostile mages don't kick their ass.

[Razcar]

Two Questions come to my mind when I'm reading all of this:

1) The DPS lag issue is supposed to be mostly in the high level raids. As near as I can figure with the proposed changes, by the time a character is ready for these high level raids they'll already have the various feats/enhancements/stances/etc... and be back to 100% or near 100% proc on the off hand anyway. So how is this helping? Or is it the idea that by making it harder on us at lower levels we'll be less likely to end up TWF'ers at the higher levels and thus there will be fewer of us.

It is not related. Like many others you are confusing two things:

1. The TWF nerf
2. The behind-the-scenes change to TWF that is supposed to reduce lag.

These two are COMPLETELY separate. They could do one but not the other. But now they are doing both.

1. The TWF nerf lowers DPS for many builds, unless you take a new proposed feat, Superior TWF. Builds that will not be able to take this feat are just screwed, plain and
simple.

2. The lag reduction concerns how the game knows if the target is in range or not for all the "extra" attacks a TWF:er gets. This will be changed. This is supposed to reduce lag. And has nothing to do with point 1, the nerf.

[FluffyCalico]

STWF does not exist. It's a made up feat by Turbine. You are thinking about Perfect Two Weapon Fighting which requires a character level of 21 and a Dexterity of 25. While it does not invalidate the position that STWF should not be added, it is false to say STWF is an epic feat.

.

1) STWF did exist in DnD the SRD until about a year ago with dex of 19 required in 1 reference and 23 in another and 25 in another. This is no way changes that STWF has been a part of DND for a long time. It vanished shortly after 4.0 was released and then the never ever heard of before ptwf showed up. All they did was rename it to match up with 4.0 in all the old SRDs.

2) Also STWF was in the game feat list at release you just could not take it because the cap was 10. And it required DEX of 19 which was correct for 1 of the 3 references. The others were 23 and 25

3) STWF is already in the game its just only available to rangers which is stupid.

[Borror0]

STWF did exist in DnD the SRD until about a year ago with dex of 19 required in 1 reference and 23 in another and 25 in another. This is no way changes that STWF has been a part of DND for a long time. It vanished shortly after 4.0 was released and then the never ever heard of before ptwf showed up. All they did was rename it to match up with 4.0 in all the old SRDs.

Both my Epic Level Handbook, printed in July 2002, and the history of the wiki article I linked to you, which goes all the way back to April 2006, says you're wrong.

STWF is already in the game its just only available to rangers which is stupid.

Tempest rangers have an ability which is the same as what was intended for STWF. I have no idea why that would be "stupid."

[Angelus_dead]

you will realize why increasing S&B's DPS is unnecessary. Like you said, unless you are getting hit in some ways, wearing a shield is detrimental because you have lower DPS and get nothing back in return. In this most cases, it means wearing a shield is pointless unless you have aggro and what S&B offers is reducing the total damage taken by the party. Unlike DPS builds, how much damage S&B builds do is the least important aspect of their effectiveness. It is more important to significantly reduce the damage taken by the party and gaining the aggro than to deal more DPS, for them.

Increasing the DPS of S&B specialists is very necessary, because the amount by which their other features can be boosted is limited. That is, if the devs give S&B builds enough personal defense and "aggro tools" to compensate for that much lower DPS, those abilities will have to be so strong that they probably change the gameplay too much and make it less fun for some teammates.

It isn't too much fun for DPS-spec players to just butcher through piles of monsters who won't do anything to fight back against them. That already happens sometimes in dungeons where an intimitank is highly effective. Yes, some games are based all around that principle, but DDO should try to do better.

Suppose that Improved Shield Bash granted a toggleable 50% offhand rate with the shield (subject to BAB limits). That would be a good increase to DPS, so not as much party defense is needed to justify including the character in the team.

And note that aggro tools are just one example of how a character can protect his teammates. It's possible and sometimes helpful to give them abilities which don't change who the monsters attack. For example, consider a feature where the monster you attack gets a 4-second debuff causing it to treat whoever he attacks as having some portion of your own AC/DR defenses...

[Angelus_dead]

1. The TWF nerf lowers DPS for many builds, unless you take a new proposed feat, Superior TWF.

Most characters who do get STWF still come out with a little lower DPS, as their 10% alacrity bonuses change into 10% doublestrike (which does not benefit the offhand).

[FluffyCalico]

Tempest rangers have an ability which is the same as what was intended for STWF. I have no idea why that would be "stupid."

Which part the part where they get all the ranged feats and melee feats for free which they should not or the part where they get a higher melee attack rate for the first 19 levels than a fighter who specializes in melee. Choose either broken part. And the stupid part I was referring to was them being granted yet another feat for free than has nothing to do with their class that no other class is even allowed to take. To sum up rangers have nothing in this game to do with rangers in DnD they are completely broken in 10 different ways right down to their spells like resist energy.

[Bloodhaven]

1) Casters used to DPS so they have monsters 100X the hp and made greensteel weapons.
2) People use to run past trash mobs so they gave us DA
3) People used to make AC toons so they gave us Glancing blows
4) People used to love min 2 so they nerfed it
5) Casters use to debuff and finger of death stuff so they gave everything that matters blanket immunities
6) People used to use w/p so they broke it
7) People used to take the 2hf feats so they are breaking them now
8) People used to make 2wf so they are nerfing them

Did I miss anything?

you forgot the great evasion nerf of 2008

[FluffyCalico]

Most characters who do get STWF still come out with a little lower DPS, as their 10% alacrity bonuses change into 10% doublestrike (which does not benefit the offhand).

Speaking of which why are they making the capstone benifit 2hf more than twf? Should the cap stone not be a 10% DPS buff for both instead of 10% for 1 of them and what 6-7% for the other? Broken

[FluffyCalico]

you forgot the great evasion correction of 2008

fixed that

[Angelus_dead]

Speaking of which why are they making the capstone benifit 2hf more than twf? Should the cap stone not be a 10% DPS buff for both instead of 10% for 1 of them and what 6-7% for the other? Broken

Limiting doublestrike to mainhand attacks is evidently an intentional part of the TWF nerf, which was motivated by the idea that TWF currently is too damaging.

[FluffyCalico]

Limiting doublestrike to mainhand attacks is evidently an intentional part of the TWF nerf, which was motivated by the idea that TWF currently is too damaging.

What they are going to get is 20000 twf that are not going to regrind 2hf weapons that leave the game. If that is their goal they are right on track.

[Borror0]

And the stupid part I was referring to was them being granted yet another feat for free than has nothing to do with their class that no other class is even allowed to take.

STWF-like ability was granted by Tempest III, which is a prestige enhancement inspired by the Tempest prestige class. The tempest prestige class has an ability called Supreme Two Weapon Fighting which, alike the bonus granted by Tempest III, gives "an additional attack with her off-hand weapon when she is wearing light armor or no armor."

If fidelity to PnP is your problem, there is no problem with Tempest III granting a STWF-like ability.

[Meetch1972]

Proposed Numbers:
A character with no two weapon fighting feats has a base 20% chance to proc off-hand attacks.
The Two Weapon Fighting feat grants a +15% bonus to proc off-hand attacks.
The Improved Two Weapon Fighting feat grants a +10% bonus to proc off-hand attacks.
The Greater Two Weapon Fighting feat grants a +10% bonus to proc off-hand attacks.
Monk Air stances now grant a +5%/+10%/+15%/+20% insight bonus to the chance to proc off-hand attacks instead of an insight bonus to attack speed. (Enhancement bonus to attack speed remains.)
Ranger Tempest now grants a +10%/+20%/+30% bonus to the chance to proc off-hand attacks when dual wielding instead of a bonus to attack speed or granting additional off-hand attacks.
Monk Air Stance and Ranger Tempest now stack with each other for these purposes.
Attacks with two handed weapons while moving no longer perform Glancing Blows.

Hmmm... now that I read it again, is it likely the offset to this would be the lack of to-hit penalty? Ie if I understand the system as it stands:
* Everyone can wield 1 weapon. With TWF you suffer a penalty on each hand.
* TWF skills reduce your to-hit penalty for each hand - depending on skill level - and
* The chance to proc off-hand attacks is 100%
* TWFers get no glancing blows.

But with the new system perhaps it could be more like:
* Everyone can wield 1 weapon.
* Most classes can wield 2 weapons, with a more or less static to-hit bonus based on stats, and TWF skills hardly affect the chance to hit if you proc with the off-hand, but
* Your proc off-hand chance may typically be less than 100% (but you are still more likely to hit when you proc because your to-hit is higher).
* It's possible some 1-h weapons like the dwarven axe will result in glancing blows, potentially even carrying the proc further - so perhaps you may proc more often in total (or the same), but somewhat less likely on the intended target.

The one downside for the TWFs is that off-hand vorpal proc is only going to happen proc that percentage directly proportional to the current (100%) off-hand proc chance when you roll a 20. (oversimplified, maybe, but you get the picture).

As for the maths on that, not my forte. Is this right, or how wrong are my assumptions? 8-) I play a pally by preference, and I don't looking forward to an all-downside solution, but something like outlined above wouldn't stop me doing the pally thang.

Go ahead, pull my logic to pieces if only to straighten out this reckoning. Ciao!