Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Natashaelle]

STWF would be cool if they changed the first feat...TWF...to maybe an enhancement or even give it free...TWF that is not STWF.

Ranger 2 gets you TWF for free

[vVAnjilaVv]

I believe that better hardware would solve the lag problem. It was downgraded at least once or twice before the recent 'upgrade'. Also I believe we're not going to get better hardware.

Lag showed up once the hardware started getting its downgrades. Coincidence? I think not.

Hardware is not going to stop them from proposing a nerf.....unless you just meant that gesture on a side note...the nerf has very little to do with the lag issue.....in fact if the physical detection is what is causing the lag they don't have to nerf TWF at all...just adjust accordingly with the new combat engine......unfortunately I think the WANT to nerf it.

[vVAnjilaVv]

Ranger 2 gets you TWF for free

Evil...just pure evil

[FluffyCalico]

The Feat is a completely made up thing

You can say that as often as you want, repeating it won't make it true.
What is true is it's a feat not normally allowed to players on standard races :P

[BurningDownTheHouse]

This just kills variety of character builds.

Unless you're building a caster, cleric, or bard, there is no reason to make a DPS character anything but a THF Barbarian with an Epic Sword of Shadows (30% chance for 400+dmg and up to 800dmg on a 19 or 20 roll).

But it's TWF that they want to nerf?

Unless you are very lucky, getting an Epic SoS is far more grind than getting double greensteels.
A barbarian with Epic SoS is not a template. It's a character that had a lot of work put into them so they can be the best. You can't assume the best weapon in the game as a given. A goal maybe, but not a given.

And according to the calculators here, apparently TWF still comes ahead unless the weapon is Epic SoS.

Stop using Epic SoS as a benchmark.

And chill.

EDIT: Don't take this post as me being in favor of the nerf. I'm just tired of people using irrelevant data to support their opinions.

[Aesop]

You can say that as often as you want, repeating it won't make it true.
What is true is it's a feat not normally allowed to players on standard races :P

example?

[Therilith]

Yeah, This old souped-up Asheron's Call engine has apparently reached its limits. The game engine cannot cope with the content of the game.
Upgrade the game engine - don't downgrade the content of the game.

How is decreasing DPS "downgrading content"?

[vVAnjilaVv]

How is decreasing DPS "downgrading content"?

Because there is already enough freakin' grind in this game!

[Pyromaniac]

Yes the hardware comment was a side note. The lag = hardware problem imo. The nerf = The nerf which is unrelated. Having them tied together tries to ensure the nerf happens.

[osirisisis]

Maybe it will solve lag but not the way they intended.

When all those who have invested so heavily in dual greensteel Mineral II's get nerfed and decide to quit, then server stress will be reduced by the reduced player population

just like all those that quit when green steal was introduced and all there random loot they had worked for got nerfed due to green steals massive magic bloat effect, or when w/p got nerfed cause players couldnt handle players being 30% effective on trash mobs......
I have 13 tier 3's on 5 toons and I would rejoice if turbine removed all the green steal from the game =)

[maximus123123]

With epic mobs having literally 10,000 hit points, you'd think they'd want to increase everyone's DPS.

[Natashaelle]

That's not a pnp database nor is it even WotC.


The Feat is a completely made up thing

Notwithstanding that STWF is not a core D&D Feat, I can only advise you to listen to what other people, who may know a lot more about 3.5 than I do, have been saying about it -- that yes, the Feat exists, and no it's not a completely made up thing.

Besides which, this would be no reason whatsoever why Turbine should not wish to introduce it for their own design purposes.

[Aesop]

just like all those that quit when green steal was introduced and all there random loot they had worked for got nerfed due to green steals massive magic bloat effect, or when w/p got nerfed cause players couldnt handle players being 30% effective on trash mobs......
I have 13 tier 3's on 5 toons and I would rejoice if turbine removed all the green steal from the game =)

heh... funny. I never seem to agree with you, but this one was a close call. I definately wouldn't mind seeing a rebalancing though... 600 damage lightning strikes and all. Maybe then 10000 hp trash mobs wouldn't need to exist... maybe they'd even be only like 5000 hp trash mobs


Aesop

[Aesop]

Notwithstanding that STWF is not a core D&D Feat, I can only advise you to listen to what other people, who may know a lot more about 3.5 than I do, have been saying about it -- that yes, the Feat exists, and no it's not a completely made up thing.

Besides which, this would be no reason whatsoever why Turbine should not wish to introduce it for their own design purposes.

actually it was made up... in fact it originally was made up for DDO. There may have been some third party suppliment out there that had it, but like I posted before thats not relevant to here. Here the Epic Feat is the one that would technically apply. Then again THF and its line doesn't exist either in pnp.

Understand that I'm not against adding in new feat that do not exist in PnP. While I would like to maintain some integrity of the game I do not feel the PnP is unquestionable. There is potential in this nerf to help the game balance more effectively and actually promote new build ideas. Superior Two Weapon Fighting would not help that in the least. It would lead to more of the same with no regard for the builds it left bleeding on the side of the road.


Anyway I have to actually go to work so.

have fun all I'll come back later and see if there are any flames to put out

Aesop

[Borror0]

3) STWF is a NON-epic feat that that requires BAB 16 and DEX 19 that grants 1 additional offhand attack. If you gained an extra main hand through other means you would not get yet another offhand through STWF like you would with PTWF.
4) STWF is mainly a feat used in monster manuals, melee supplements and additional race supplements but it does exist and is NOT epic feat.

STWF, in the context of DDO, stands for Superior Two Weapon Fighting. The only occurrence of Superior Two Weapon Fighting in any official 3.0 or 3.5 D&D material, that I am aware of, is in regards to ettins (a two-headed monster race) where its description is "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."

In other words, you made false several claims in regard to Superior Two Weapon Fighting:

• It does not require 16 BAB.
• It does not require 19 Dexterity.
• It does not grant an additional attack.
• It does not exist in melee supplements.
• It requires a second head, which is an important omission.

Perhaps you are mistakenly believing that "STWF" stood for Supreme Two Weapon fighting. If so, you are wrong. The DDO feat has always been called Superior Two Weapon Fighting as can be seen in this post, which is why Aesop and I are justified in our claim that Superior Two Weapon Fighting is a made up feat.

In fact, Superior Two Weapon Fighting is no where to be seen on Wizards of the Coast's official 3.5 D&D feat list.

Before you go on to claim that you meant Supreme Two Weapon Fighting, let me do a little bit of preemptive refutation: the feats is, like Superior Two Weapon Fighting, no where to be seen on Wizards' official 3.5 D&D list which suggests no supplement offers it as a general feat; it is, to the best of my knowledge, only available to master of the Wild's Tempest prestige class so there is no reason for it to be available as a general feat; and it's still not called Superior Two Weapon Fighting so, even if you were to refute the two previous points, the position that Superior Two Weapon Fighting is a made up feat still stands.

[Dendrix]

Limited number of servers is going to cause lag issues, that should be obvious.

No it's not. What you see as a "server" is an "instance of the DD) world" - there are many machines that make up that world

[zealous]

inconsistent DPS, which makes decisions on character build and comparison more difficult No more inconsistent than it is now, with sufficient number of attacks it averages outHow is the possibility of dealing an off-hand attack on a given animation of ~80% equal to the way TWF functions now, where you know when you're getting your extra attacks?

Because any one attack isn't important as far as builds and comparisons go. For one minute swing time you have a 95% probability of getting between 72%-88% off hand procs, for 2 minutes 95% probability of getting between 75%-85%.

2minutes swing time is a minor part of a quest, a negligible part of an evening of playing, a forgettable part of the life of a character.

slower combat from a visual perspective For some builds, based on the speed effect of the barb capstone going unnoticed for so long it will hardly be significant No one thought to look, and the capstone wasn't stacking with Haste or Madstone Rage, from what I've read, which explains why no one was noticing it initially.

Noone has refuted this:

So the barb capstone is providing an attack speed boost that stacks with madstone. Feel free to do your own testing if you think this isn't the case, since my video capturing setup isn't that great.

So as far as we know it does indeed stack with madstone and thus, if a "10%" (8%) difference is noticeable, would have been noticed earlier.

slower combat in general as less DPS will mean longer fights Since DPS is scaled down, one could certainly argue that mobs HP should be scaled down too Yes, but there has been no mention of this, and since THF DPS isn't getting reduced in any real way, the argument for reducing monster HP has no teeth.

The only THF DPS that was in any way close to being comparable to 2wf, intended or not, is getting a 10-20+% reduction.

potential for characters wielding two weapons to get the -2 penalty on attack rolls without actually making an off-hand attack This is no different than it is now for no twf/twf/itwf How do you figure? Right now, you get a -2 penalty (or -4 if using an 1-handed weapon in the off-hand) and gain off-hand attacks. With the change, it is entirely possible for one to be swinging with the penalty, while not getting the additional attacks. And if you were referring to the TWF and ITWF feats, this will be worse than it is currently for them, and has no remedy.

Currently with TWF you don't get off hand attacks on 50% of the animations, and still get penalties without actually making an off-hand attack.

reduced value for the TWF feat chain, making it a less attractive option The alternative to 2wf, 2H twitch, will be scaled down more than 2wf, thus 2wf becomes more attractive. Disregarding 2H twitch, 2wf being less attractive is attractive That's debatable, and, again, twitching is clearly not an intended functionality, and therefore cannot be used to compare or justify the nerf to TWF. TWF being less attractive in the sense that there are other, viable alternatives, is attractive, but actually taking the feats being less attractive is not a good thing.

Twitching, intended or not, is a factual reality. IMO it's a serendipitous bug in that it increases balance between 2H and 2WF and more importantly capitalizes the strengths of the DDO combat system.

The need for the nerf is based on the fact that 2wf is too attractive compared to no twitch 2H.

lower ki generation for monks And lower amounts of attacks requiring ki strikes thus increasing damage/kiThat's debatable, and I'm dubious about that ending up as a net gain for monks, rather than a net loss.

Not really debatable.
Cooldown for strikes/ToD remain the same, how many strikes you can use is dependant on A. ki generation, B. attack speed, A is dependant on B.

Lower tier strikes has worse damage/ki ratio than higher tier strikes.

Scenario A. Sufficient ki generation thanks to stunnable mobs: Smaller number of attacks leads to fewer ki strikes possible to use, stop using lower tier strikes. Loss of damage is proportionally lower than loss of attacks.

Scenario B. Insufficient ki generation: Less available ki leads to fewer ki strikes possible to use, stop using lower tier strikes. Loss of damage is proportionally lower than loss of ki generation.

Net loss relative to pre change monks, relative gain compared to post change "other classes".

possible difficulty for some classes/characters to obtain full TWF bonuses (STWF) Not to mention increasing the gap between TWF and the restMore importantly, increasing the gap between some TWFers and other TWFers much more so than exists currently.

Agreed.

loss of the ability to perform certain types of actions that depend upon separate collision checks for the main and off-hand attacks (double Assassinate, for example), which are A) not gamebreaking in the least, and B) something many people enjoy Minor issue, if warranted a exception for such abilities to retain separate collision detections could certainly be made.Again, no mention of this has come up, so we cannot assume that any such exception will be made.

Agreed.

How will visual stimuli change at all, other than for combat to be slower as a whole?

Pretty little numbers on the screen, sometimes more of them, sometimes less of them.

Like going with a double bursting of maiming weapon just to get that warm cuddly "BOOOM HEADSHOT!" feeling every time you score a crit.

I'm fairly certain that most people enjoy lucky streaks of vorpals and crits because they are incidental, in that you aren't really paying anything for them. Plus, there will be the memory of the way in which TWF used to function coloring everyone's impressions of the new system. I sincerely doubt that many people will be overjoyed at a streak of off-hand procs.

Agreed. However, old farts like us aren't really that important, longevity of the game is though. We'll either embrace the change, grow to accept it or quit.

When DA got introduced I flew into a nerdrage rampage being all up in flames about not being able to run quests the way I want to. I have since grown to appreciate the added challenge, and added fun, it brings to zerging...most of the time...that "sure I can just skip the first shaft, I have plenty of haste pots" coal is not one of my fondest ddo moments.

When glancing blows got introduced I flew into a nerdrage rampage being all up in flames about why they would add a negligeble and forgettable damage income to my invincible AC builds. I have since come to appreciate that despite glancing blows presenting a forgettable danger, I actually notice when I gather up a crowd of 20 or so mobs and become more engaged, have more fun.

Unless the developers felt TWF was doing "just enough" damage and THF "not enough damage," there are no good reasons for them to scale monsters' HP down. However, if that was the case, it makes no sense why they would nerf TWF instead of buffing THF. It would certainly make less people angry.

Well one option would be to keep 2wf as is, i.e. /100%, let tempest keep it's off hand attack at III and get 5% double strike at I/II while scaling up S&B as well as THF.
How one would scale up non-2wf though, that's tricky since the easy fix of upping attack rate would increase collition detection...

[Swedishchef]

I just want to say: You can´t log in to Thelanis right now i writning moment, and you want to fix lag... fix the **** server/s first numptys.

[SquelchHU]

I'm a little surprised that so little is said about the new THF S&B in U5, I think many people still don't realise exactly how much of a boost it will be for S&B in general. Although, OK, the false mantra of "AC is useless in the end game" hasn't been at all helpful towards S&B

You mean 'zero'?

You have a 100% chance to main hand attack before and after the nerf.
x% alacrity changes to an equal chance to double strike.
Double strike is FUNCTIONALLY IDENTICAL to alacrity when using a single weapon, which both THF and S&B do.

End result?

You attack slower, making the combat less visually appealing but not reducing your actual effectiveness.
Effects that trigger on a specific hit become slightly better, as before you could not Double Smite Evil with a two handed weapon.

= No change to THF, no change to S&B, nerf to TWF.

Now it was mentioned somewhere else that glancing blows will be removed while moving. I can't find this but that would be a THF nerf. I don't know how much since I don't know the mechanics in depth like I do for TWF.

However Shade does. His response? NONE! Reason? Proper twitching does NOT have you move at the time of attack. Since you aren't moving at the time of the attack, you'll still get full glancing blows.

It was mentioned somewhere else that Bastard Swords and Dwarven Axes will get Glancing Blows with S&B. Of course Glancing Blows do a fraction of your damage, and S&B does very gimpy damage so this is practically a cosmetic feature... and one that only affects dwarf S&B characters, as it doesn't suddenly make the Bastard Sword worth taking. Or the Dwarven Axe, for that matter (but dwarves get it for free).

I disagree, I think that providing this (v expensive) option to people who absolutely want to be 2WF specialists is a good thing. It will encourage people to think about the level of 2WF that they want, which levels of sacrifices they are willing to make, and it will provide a boost for Fighters and Rangers, including some of the deeper multiclassed toons, in this domain versus people who were just jumping on the Ranger 6 Tempest band wagon as a cheap and easy solution for more DPS.

Because we need more Fighters and Barbarians right?

To all these people that claim TWF is unmatched DPS, riddle me this:

Why are Warforged Barbarians the preferred tanks for 'A Vision of Destruction' and 'The Tower of Despair'?

For VoD, you have a no healing curse to worry about. Sully delivers it on his critical hits, even if you are immune to critical hits. It does not affect repair spells, so that's why you're a warforged.

So why Barbarian? Well, the hit points are nice. But the real reason is because if the tank loses aggro, he will turn around and attack the party.

Listen carefully, because this is important.

Barbarians are chosen because they can be relied upon to not lose aggro. To anyone.

And since aggro is a direct measure of DPS, that means the Barbarian is doing the most damage out of anyone in the party.

And guess what? He's a THF. So much for uber TWF DPS.

The only other way of doing it is with an AC tank. You need 75 on normal. Good luck finding a character with an AC of 75 (or higher) that can still hold hate aggro. In fact you won't, so everyone will have to hold back considerably. Yes, even if the high AC guy is Ranger TWF based. He's better off than sword and board in that respect but is by no means 'unmatched DPS'.

(Yes, I know about Intimidate. You really think that's going to work out in all the lag, of the non DPS variety?)

For Tower of Despair, it's the same thing. No healing curse, but a lot more damage coming in so being healable by arcanes and divines makes a big difference. And losing aggro also makes a big difference, because if he shifts from 500 point Disintegrating + 100 point DoTing the WF Tank to doing the same thing to anyone else the run will fail.

Once again, people bank on the THF Barbarian being able to outdps the party.

Now, I am not calling for a THF nerf. And as this happened before, and after the epic SoS I'm not talking about that either. However it is quite clear that if TWF was as uber as is claimed, then these important jobs would at least be entrusted to a TWF Barbarian if not a TWFer of another class.

[SquelchHU]

Well, in my groups, the EXACT same number of people beating on Horoth in 3 as on the Master in 2. What this tells me is that the two encounters are coded completely different. There is a coding problem with Shadowfiends... they lag people out. It isn't the DPS in that encounter, it's the fiends. Yes... DPS lag magnifies these problems. Extremely high DPS groups have issues with the first spawns of shadowfiends.. lower DPS groups do completely fine until he's half dead.

DPS lag is a problem... don't get me wrong. But it's only a big deal because there are other bugs going on.

Part 1: One boss is kited. The other is beat down, but is mobile and blows everyone away. Trash mobs join in periodically. No DPS lag.
Part 3: One boss is tanked and beat down. Again, he can move. Trash mobs join in periodically. Another boss is kited or killed. No DPS lag.
Part 2: One boss is surrounded and beat down. He does not move. One kiter does his thing. Massive lag.

The common thread here is that DPS lag comes from non moving targets.

How else do you explain the encounters with MORE activity having LESS lag?