Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Borror0]

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.

I agree. I shouldn't have used "unnecessary" in that post, does not really represent what I meant.

My position is better represented by what I say in the second paragraph: [improving S&B's DPS is] 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.

[Vhlad]

3.5 monster manual 1 has "superior two-weapon fighting" as an ettin feat.

"An ettin fights with a morningstar or javelin in each hand. Because each of its two heads controls an arm, the ettin does not take a penalty on attack or damage rolls for attacking with two weapons."

OK. I will accept STWF if Turbine lets us have two heads.

[Therilith]

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.

I'm going to respond to that by quoting my good friend and mentor Therilith.

To all the people saying that this change sucks because you won't be able to play your TWFers: FEAR NOT!

Using my mighty brain I have come up with a solution to your problem!

"Keep playing your TWFers."


That is all.

His brilliance blisters the very soul.

[melkor1702]

3.5 monster manual 1 has "superior two-weapon fighting" as an ettin feat.

"An ettin fights with a morningstar or javelin in each hand. Because each of its two heads controls an arm, the ettin does not take a penalty on attack or damage rolls for attacking with two weapons."

OK. I will accept STWF if Turbine lets us have two heads.

You only get two heads if you live in Tasmania

[Beethoven]

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.

I am still not following.

The difference between a fighter specced for melee (ie: Kensai) and a ranger specced for the same thing (ie: Tempest) is:
Tempest gets /1/ offhand hook more resulting in a slightly superior attack speed.
Kensai gets all the benefits from Signature Weapon and Power Surge resulting in superior damage per swing.
You need to either compare class vs class (without PrE benefits on either side) or compare PrE's.

Last I checked, rangers (the class) get Two-Weapon Fighting, Bow Strength and ranged feats for free even in DnD (outside of DDO). Ranged combat is mostly useless in DDO, so to me it always made sense to include a PrE to help Rangers be a viable melee class. The only broken thing here is that they get a lot of benefits early (personally I'd have switched Tempest II with Tempest III), but that really only matters if you are overly concerned with low levels - which most people generally aren't.

I am not really sure what you think the role of a ranger should be; on mine melee is 90% of what I do. There are some (few) cases where I shoot things with an arrow. The rest of the time I buff bark. You criticize both, ranged and melee. That would leave buff bark.

Also, rangers do no get the equivalent of Stwf, it's part of the Tempest Pre. Include Stwf and what exactly would be the benefit of going Tempest? I don't even have to compare Tempest with Kensai (who get the same attack speed and higher if they take their capstone - and in addition get the full Kensaid Pre perks stacked on top of it, which is nothing to sneeze at). Alone comparing Tempest to a Ranger without Pre but Stwf:

* Tempest requires 3 minimally useful feats and 14 AP
* Stwf requires BaB (which they got), 1 feat (which they can easily fit in since they save 3 by not choosing the PrE) and a higher Dex. So, putting some more points into Dex results in having nearly all the same benefits of the entire Tempest Pre and leaves them with 2 more feats, 14 AP more and ability to choose a different PrE.

Now, as far as I am concerned that is far more stupid and broken than things currently are.

[Krag]

I'm going to respond to that by quoting my good friend and mentor Therilith.



His brilliance blisters the very soul.

Trolling much?
Yes, you can keep playing your gimp, but will you be able to join raids and contribute in a meaningful way? Will it be fun to play?

Yes, you can reduce clerics to healbots, bards and monks to buffbots, rogues to trapmonkeys. Sure they are still useful... at least in some quests, but certainly not fun anymore.

[Boromirs]

This is a big make or break decision for Turbine. Maybe the devs are like "meh we are just changing the attack rate", but it's much much more then that, if they go through with this it is demonstrating to the pbase that they will without warning/notice completely turn upside down a vast chunk of builds/invested time/money without blinking.

Maybe casters don't realize this, but this would be tantamount to making casters memorize a certain number of spells they can use each per day and not based off their mana. It is MEGA huge for meleers across the board.

They need to do this smart, they need to do this carefully. I'm starting to fear for the life of the game.

[SquelchHU]

Yes, MYDDO often bugs with permadeath characters.

Permadeath characters also often encounter the negative consequences of their chosen ruleset around level 10 or so, causing them to rarely have any experience or feedback about the game beyond well... the content available at first release, really.

If you're that scared of people knowing who you are then post screenshots of the character sheet with your name blacked out.

Of course, you know and I know the real reason you are refusing to answer this.



I personally do not think I have ran with Galactius but I am on the same server, and in the same channel.

Lol, negative rep for telling someone who clearly has little gaming experience to stay out of the discussion or at least not enter it as if he knew what he was talking about?

[Boromirs]

Read Shade's build about TWF, he clearly states...

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...l+death+frenzy

"TWF gets some nice benefits over THF like double stun, trip chances, and even triple now with the mod9.1 update. As well as more attacks per minuit resulting in good success with stat damaging weapons and vorpals. Overall DPS is a bit lower then THF at the maximum strength levels, but still extremely high."

[Borror0]

Lol, negative rep for telling someone who clearly has little gaming experience to stay out of the discussion or at least not enter it as if he knew what he was talking about?

Questioning his experience is an ad hominem. Attack the argument, not the poster.

[Therilith]

Yes, you can keep playing your gimp, but will you be able to join raids and contribute in a meaningful way? Will it be fun to play?

Are you saying that TWFers will be gimp because you have actually done the math and compared it to THF, or are you simply saying that any decrease in DPS is unacceptable to you no matter what?

This is a big make or break decision for Turbine. Maybe the devs are like "meh we are just changing the attack rate", but it's much much more then that, if they go through with this it is demonstrating to the pbase that they will without warning/notice completely turn upside down a vast chunk of builds/invested time/money without blinking.

Yeah, if only someone had created a thread detailing the changes they are considering...

[Consumer]

Read Shade's build about TWF, he clearly states...

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...l+death+frenzy

"TWF gets some nice benefits over THF like double stun, trip chances, and even triple now with the mod9.1 update. As well as more attacks per minuit resulting in good success with stat damaging weapons and vorpals. Overall DPS is a bit lower then THF at the maximum strength levels, but still extremely high."

DPS of a TWF Barb is currently loltastic, not sure what you wanted to point out there, with STWF it will still suck but will be more balanced with all the other newly sucky DPS around.

[Razcar]

you forgot the great evasion nerf of 2008

This will be the big hoochie mama of the DDO nerfs though.

A day which will live forever in infamy, when the very foundations of Stormreach shook from the dissonance of 10 000 kopeshes collectively crying out in pain! (Am I spreading it on a little too thick maybe?)

[SquelchHU]

Let me say what i have said many times before. I am opposed to DnD/DDO game balance, DnD is not a balanced game, it never has been from a combat spec perspective, Casters have always sat on the top the heap power wise in this game, followed by specialty combat types, like min/max two weapon fighters, in PnP a Two handed Barbarian would get his lunch ate by a duel weapon Kensai for many reasons.

Fail. In DDO TWF has merits, but in D&D it is complete and utter trash. A TWF Kensai would get mulched by a THF WIZARD. I am not kidding. Not a gish mind you, but a wizard.

[JOTMON]

A little off topic, but in the efforts to reduce overall lag and is an easy thing to change in any update....

Turn Off the Checkbox in the WHO tab on the Social Panel.

Rant explained below....

Currently the checkbox is defaulted on and is set to all classes for all levels. Now consider that every player on the server is defaulted to check for every other player coming and going from the server. I believe it is a serious waste of server resources and can be easily tested by any individual player. Login track the time while you are stuck in place waiting for everything to load. Login again and type /who wwwww . then press enter. you will see that you become active much more quickly since you are no longer collecting data on other players. I have personally noticed a difference in game and in comabt as I belive this removes data from the overall bandwith of data coming and going from the server.

I have been asking for this change for almost 2 years now and still the default is set on.

The only time I use the who tab is when I am actively looking for either a specific person, class, and usually defined within specific levels. There is no reason to have this defaulted to the on position for levels 1-20 and all classes.

Now back to the disgruntlement for all my multiclass 2WF....

[Razcar]

Fail. In DDO TWF has merits, but in D&D it is complete and utter trash. A TWF Kensai would get mulched by a THF WIZARD. I am not kidding. Not a gish mind you, but a wizard.

Yes, there's lot of strangeness in D&D 3.5 that would make this game become unplayable. That system has been so thoroughly raped by PnP powergamers (and by WotC themselves)that without extreme DM supervision and selection it is a joke.

[krud]

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.

More justification to bump the dex prereq to make it a feat only finesse builds will get (if it is ever implemented). As long as it is not a free feat for anyone not meeting the prereqs (including rangers). Creates more balance between dex and str twf. No more "finesse builds are teh gimp". Go with str twf for higher damage/swing, dex/finesse for more attacks. As long as in the final setup twf doesn't fall behind THF.

[Aerendil]

As an aside, Eladrin's last post on Friday evening was back on page 43.

This thread is now at page 119...

I don't envy your job this morning, El

[SquelchHU]

Cripes, can you please STOP asking Calebro to show you his toons ?

It is becoming very tedious, and is undermining your own credibility rather than anyone else's that you expect someone's MyDDO page to be of any relevance at all to this ongoing discussion.

It is very relevant. The underlying question is "Calebro, do you actually have any high level experience with the affected characters to speak as though you do?"

And a MYDDO page showing he does in fact have one or more high level TWFers is directly and immediately relevant. If his MYDDO actually is bugged, then a picture of his character sheet would do the same thing. And he can even block the name out if he is that scared of others knowing who he is.

The fact he persistently refuses to do this clearly indicates he has no horse in this race. Which is fine, but then he needs to stop acting as if he does.

[LookingForABentoBox]

I'm not going to stick my head in the STWF fight, but regarding the change to twf feats:

Does 2-weapon-fighting still do more damage than 2-handed fighting to a significant margin? Yes
Do twf fighters still vorpal at a higher speed than 2hf? Yes
Will 6 levels of ranger still benefit 2 weapon fighting builds? Yes
If so, what's the problem?

For the record, I have a level 19 ranger/rogue with monk splash that uses 2 weapons and a level 14 paladin that uses falchions