Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Beethoven]

I just think its silly that a fully trained and specalized (kensai III) would be less skilled at dual weilding his weapon of choice.

Kensai: master of a specific weapon.
Tempest: master in dual-wielding weapons

How is that silly?
They already throwing the fighter class a bone by translating the 10% Fighter Weapon Alacrity to 10% Doublestrike, whereas the Tempest 10% Dual Wielding Alacrity is translated to 5% Doublestrike and still limited to dual wielding only.

Nothing changed. All other things being equal (ie: build, gear, etc.)

Tempest still (statistically) gets one more off-hand hook. Kensai still does more damage per swing (which more than makes up for the one less off-hand attack per attack chain, not even counting Powersurge).
The only other thing that changed (in regards to fighter vs ranger comparison) is that the fighter capstone has become more useful (in relation to the changes).
Personally I believe they put that in there not because rangers are so much more uber than fighters but to make going 20 fighter more worth it.

[Therilith]

Overpowered says who?

Eladrin

[Cyr]

If the physics check is now only checks main hand, will this change my rouge assassins ability to sneak up behind two mobs and assassinate both with one strike?

Yes, it should prevent your makeup from killing two targets with a single assassinate.

[The_Phenx]

Ranger:

• Currently: 9*1.1*1.15=11.4 attacks per unit of time
• After change: 8*1.05*1.15= 9.7 attacks per unit of time
• Loss: 14.9%

Fighter:

• Currently: 8*1.1*1.15=10.1 attacks per unit of time
• After change: (4*1.10+4*0.90)*1.15= 9.2 attacks per unit of time
• Loss: 8.9%

Understood... FIghters loose less than rangers... hopefully they re-adjust hp levels to compensate, and then we "shouldn't" notice much of a difference.

Sad that my acrobat is being slowed down a bit

[Borror0]

if sword and board had an offhand attack added to attack with sheild

While you're clearly being sarcastic, that comment actually is a good suggestion.

Improved Shield Bashing, as currently implemented, is a wasted feat slot. If the design team feel like S&B could use a bit of a DPS boost, the proposed change would help in (hopefully) making it easier for S&B to add shield bashing procs to your attacks.

hopefully they re-adjust hp levels to compensate, and then we "shouldn't" notice much of a difference.

Why would they lower mobs' HP? If they felt THF were not doing enough damage, they wouldn't have nerfed TWF characters.

[Cyr]

Ranger:

• Currently: 9*1.1*1.15=11.4 attacks per unit of time
• After change: 8*1.05*1.15= 9.7 attacks per unit of time
• Loss: 14.9%

Fighter:

• Currently: 8*1.1*1.15=10.1 attacks per unit of time
• After change: (4*1.10+4*0.90)*1.15= 9.2 attacks per unit of time
• Loss: 8.9%

Note this does not reflect madstone, haste boosts, or both going at the same time. Let me add the madstone case since it is substainable for ranger (fighter is the same idea of course). Oh and I think the new ranger number is incorrect as it uses 1.05*8 and my understanding is that double strike will only apply to the main hand attack so it should be (1.05*4+1.00*4)*hasted speed boost. I guess the fighter one would be then too after looking at it further. Yup just checked Eladrins last post with fighter alacrity. It is 10% on the main hand only.

Ranger:
* Currently: 9*1.1*1.25 = 12.375 attacks per unit time
* After change: (4*1.05+4*1.00)*1.25 = 10.25 attacks per unit time
* Percentage reduction ~17.17%

[gemineye]

...
You Acknowledge This Bug..

Yet The fact That The Capstone Is Bugged In Another Major Way - It Never Increased Glancing Blow Damage.. You Never Comment On, And Leave Out.

Fix The Broken Aspects Making It Worse Before Worrying About The Broken Aspects Making It Better.

This^^

[The_Phenx]

Kensai: master of a specific weapon.
Tempest: master in dual-wielding weapons

How is that silly?
They already throwing the fighter class a bone by translating the 10% Fighter Weapon Alacrity to 10% Doublestrike, whereas the Tempest 10% Dual Wielding Alacrity is translated to 5% Doublestrike and still limited to dual wielding only.

Nothing changed. All other things being equal (ie: build, gear, etc.)

Tempest still (statistically) gets one more off-hand hook. Kensai still does more damage per swing (which more than makes up for the one less off-hand attack per attack chain, not even counting Powersurge).
The only other thing that changed (in regards to fighter vs ranger comparison) is that the fighter capstone has become more useful (in relation to the changes).
Personally I believe they put that in there not because rangers are so much more uber than fighters but to make going 20 fighter more worth it.

Possibly... I was just saying a fighter shouldn't be gimped with his ONE weapon of choice... using anything else he should be nuked. But that one weapon that he has always trained with he should be pretty proficient. If that's two kopeshs, he should be able to keep up with a ranger, but if he grabs two maces he would fall apart.

Which looking at the numbers now seems that is kinda how its working out to be. I realize the nerf bat is swinging, but it does bring things somewhat more in line.

And don't forget power surge is more than offset by favored enemies.

[moorewr]

To me the thinking should go like this:

* How many swings, at level, do you get from the TWF feat progression as opposed to THF/SnB in PnP?
* What is the most efficient technical means to render that same approximate result in DDO?

Everything else is of secondary importance. Even ignoring the various ways to increase your swing rate in DDO, TWF was generating too many off-hand hits in DDO vis a vis PnP. So, from that standpoint, Eladrin is right.


I quote Vhlad here, hope he doesn't mind...

                d20 numbers       current numbers       proposed numbers
no feats            25%                   25%                    20%
TWF                 25%                   50%                    40%
ITWF                50%                   75%                    60%
GTWF                75%                   100%                   80%

We're going from: 25% difference from the SRD in TWF, ITWF, GTWF. Total cumulative difference = 75%
to: 5% difference in no feats, 15% difference in TWF, 10% difference in ITWF, 5% difference in GTWF. Total cumulative difference = 35%

[geoffhanna]

Ranger:

• Currently: 9*1.1*1.15=11.4 attacks per unit of time
• After change: 8*1.05*1.15= 9.7 attacks per unit of time
• Loss: 14.9%

Fighter:

• Currently: 8*1.1*1.15=10.1 attacks per unit of time
• After change: (4*1.10+4*0.90)*1.15= 9.2 attacks per unit of time
• Loss: 8.9%

This does not include the chance of killing on the first blow and thereby completely negating the offhand attack which previously would apply against a different opponent.

Would that apply to double strikes too?

[Cyr]

This does not include the chance of killing on the first blow and thereby completely negating the offhand attack which previously would apply against a different opponent.

Would that apply to double strikes too?

Yes. For overkill damage this is a big change. For vorpals less so because they only proc less then 1 time out of 20 already so a double vorpal is a pretty rare occurance.

[Blade420]

If the DPS attacks are only causing problems on high end quests and raids would it not be simpler to just move larger quests and raids to another server? I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed but to my addled mind at least it seems a lot less complicated to do that than it is to completely rework coding for a characters attack. Also bear in mind many people may have already used their TR allocations and if the change does come around they are kind of stuck in a rut due to no fault of their own so they will be stuck with a character that is "gimped" for want of a better word

[Borror0]

I think the new ranger number is incorrect as it uses 1.05*8 and my understanding is that double strike will only apply to the main hand attack

You're right. I didn't remember correctly. Double strike only applies to the main hand.

With double strike applied properly...

Ranger:

• Currently: 9*1.1*1.15=11.4 attacks per unit of time
• After change: (4*1.05+4)*1.15= 9.4 attacks per unit of time
• Loss: 17.5%

Fighter:

• Currently: 8*1.1*1.15=10.1 attacks per unit of time
• After change: (4*1.10+4*0.80)*1.15= 8.7 attacks per unit of time
• Loss: 14.3%

[Gercho]

Ranger:

• Currently: 9*1.1*1.15=11.4 attacks per unit of time
• After change: 8*1.05*1.15= 9.7 attacks per unit of time
• Loss: 14.9%

Fighter:

• Currently: 8*1.1*1.15=10.1 attacks per unit of time
• After change: (4*1.10+4*0.90)*1.15= 9.2 attacks per unit of time
• Loss: 8.9%

the "after change" number for fighter is wrong,
edit, nevermind he corrected it in the previous post

[Deathseeker]

The more Im reading about this, the more Im warming up to the overall set of changes coming in U5. I don't think you can look at the TWF nerf in a vacuum.

For THF, glancing blows while moving being removed (thus eliminating twitching) and eliminating the barb capstone bug will reduce dps (i guess the latter isnt exclusive to THF).

For TWF, it appears that all the classes are fairly relatively getting a 10% to 15% hit on dps. Im not clear on monks from reading through this though.

In exchange, we are getting saves reduced in Epic, and mob to-hits reduced in Epic. Additionally new PrE's are being added/modified for Rogue, Monk and Cleric. Bastard swords and Dwarven axes will also produce glancing blows.

So what is the overall effect of all of this? Seems like it brings S&B closer in relation to other styles in terms of dps. Also brings ranged dps closer. Not sure its enough for S&B but goes in the right direction.

If you look at both the dps nerf and the mob nerfs in epic, appears to me epic will still be easier not harder. But it will open up Epic to more styles of play than are currently used if AC and casting become more useful.

So where does the dps reduction really matter? If not epic, then where? Maybe it will take a minute or two longer to run shroud and VOD. Those arent exactly difficult at this point. The only place I see the dps reduction really affecting play is Elite Amrath, as those mobs aren't being nerfed yet those are still challenging quests at end game. Other than that, what's the problem, as on balance it seems like the game is opening up to more variety of builds/playstyles?

Im looking for comments to the above as I still may not be grasping the weight of the change or something Ive said is mistaken. Not pretending to fully grasp all this yet, these are just initial impressions.

[Magusrex777]

I am all for eliminating lag, I also believe game balance is very important. My wife and I play a Ranger Tempest X/Rogue 1/Monk and a TWF KotC Paladin, maybe we are overpowered, maybe not, much of our ability to Duo most of the game comes from having Imp curse in one hand and para in the other. A lot of time and resources have been spent on gearing and building these toons. I have been trying to follow this thread to see how the proposed changes will affect us. If we are no longer able to duo content effectively after these changes(we duo elite now) due to procs we would be very unhappy. We just do not have the time to reroll and we are happy to be doing high level content now, we would hate to go redo the beginning before we see the end. If you make changes such as this I hope you grant a free respec, I have played other games and when such a thing is done they have always offered free respecs, I feel it would it would be unfair to force people pay for them.

I know I give away any leverage I have by saying that we would not quit even if you completely nerfed our characters into uselessness and I do not believe that to be even close to the case here. You would lose some goodwill if the only way to change our characters would be for us to pay for it. The lag doesn’t bother us, if at all but I do place the needs of many over the needs of the two of us. I hope the proposed changes will fix the issue at such a drastic cost. In building our character, it sure feels like we have had to sacrifice a great deal in stat placement(dex) and feats(rigid builds) to be able to produce high DPS, in light of that I feel like TWF should do more DPS than THF or other build with more flexibility. I dunno, I will wait to see what actually happens before I get too bothered by anything. Asking for feedback is a great way to start, thanks.

[Natashaelle]

AC is not a worthwhile goal. The game design makes this so.

Like I said, "obviously, not every player is going to be convinced that this is a worthwhile goal". I'm glad we can agree on that, at least

Players will always do what the mechanics encourage them to. Always.

Except that this has little to do with the mechanics per se, but rather with the loot that's available in the game. The loot that is provided in DDO is VERY heavily weighted in favour of easy access to DPS, and away from easy access to high AC -- although it is true that the introduction of grazing hits has somewhat significantly reduced the value of high AC, especially in the Epics, the core function of Armour Class has not been simply vanished away by it.

It's also clear that the devs seem to be encouraging the high DPS game, because it provides the quicker and easier means of providing gaming satisfaction.

Enemies have high to hits: This makes the difference between low and high AC hit on a 2 or hit on a 2... no difference. But the low AC guy has more HP, DPS etc and is therefore superior in every way.

I would agree with you somewhat concerning DEX-based high AC, I mean that it requires sacrificing HP, STR, etc ... but when I talk about high AC I don't mean AC that has a larger number but affords no extra protection against mobs, but AC which is high enough to make a difference. I would have thought that was obvious.

Many attacks bypass AC entirely: Horoth is the main offender here. No amount of AC will stop Disintegrate, or his other spells. At which point only HP matters.

I've yet to tank Horoth, because my battle cleric tank needs to be wary about going into full mêlée in that encounter, and especially about getting aggro in case any emergency healing services are suddenly required ; so I can't comment on tanking that particular boss, because all that I've ever done against him involved a combination of DPS and Healing

Having said that, obviously making a heavily armoured wilting flower is not necessarily one of the greatest character concepts around ...

Certain mechanics encourage disabling the mobs entirely: No one is going to AC tank epic mobs. Even if you actually can. Why? You need to stun and auto crit em to kill them some time today. That means lots of Fighters and Barbarians using Stunning Blow. It also means the mobs aren't fighting back at all.

Personally, I find that it can be situationally useful to do so, but I would certainly not rely on it to get me through every epic mob fight. Situationally though -- yes, useful.

Most characters with worthwhile ACs in the areas it actually works in have gimp DPS:

I do agree with you here though, it takes a LOT of effort to accrue AC *without* also completely gimping up your DPS. I can justify the effort for my main, because she's a battle cleric and a backup healer, so that any means to increase my own survivability and decrease the amount of self-healing I need, increases the amount of healing I can provide to the rest of the party, and helps to prevent wipe. AC can also be quite worthwhile on an intimitank. AC can also be very useful on a toon that does a lot of soloing.

But I would agree with your position to the extent that AC can be a luxury that most fighters just can't afford ; and that the benefit/expenditure ratio of focusing on DPS exclusively versus also attempting to build up AC is quite massively in favour of DPS.

You may be taking less damage over time, but it will also take you longer to kill the mob and therefore the mob will get more swings at you. This is particularly true with ROLL A BARB Blows, which can actually result in the Barbarian taking LESS damage than a defensive specialist to do the same thing. While also killing the mobs some time today. Check the Sins Elite thread. No mitigation Barbarian, and he's taking less damage over the course of the quest than someone's S&B tank.

I'm certainly not going to be arguing against you on the merits of a well-made and well-played Barb, they are well-known to one and all.

[Drfirewater79]

Eladrin's proposed change, now without STWF, nerfs rangers more than fighters.

EDIT: By that I mean that rangers get nerfed while fighters don't nerfed, other than the global -10% DPS every TWF build lost.

fighters have a 100-80% off hand .... how is that not a nerf?

i understand you did some weird number play which makes no sense to me cause i dont program and i sure as hell dont program this game ...

but when i see rangers hit 100%-100% while only needing tempest II it makes me think why should i be a fighter at all ...

in fact using that set up .. i could take 12 ranger tempest II and 8 barbarian frenzy that would give me higher attack speed more hit points ... a ranged option though i wouldn't use it much .. and more dps through raging and attack speed then any pure fighter build even with fighter capstone and kensai powersurge.....

cause then i could hit a 40+ str higher ac self healing and buffing faster attack and 100% offhand attacks ....

right now pure fighters have only one major advantage attack speed boost from capstone which draws them pretty damd close to tempest (if i am not mistaken tempest is a 15% speed increase and fighter capstone takes it to 10% leaving a 5% difference which is not a heck of a lot of difference at end game)

with this change even when you would have hit normally you will miss 20% of the time with your off hand weapon as a fighter and wont miss as a ranger ... so even by them taking out one attack per combo from ranger tempest which would only equal them out to fighter with capstone .... they still hit 20% more often with off hand ..

seems to me based on what is said in the OP fighters get it worse off then anyone ... cept maybe monks who get royally screwed by this ...

cause wind stance is not the only stance for monks and if you like to support heal or buff or like to have enough ki to use the 500 point attack if dark monk.

then you need to be in fire stance .... which currently puts attack speed around that of a fighter with twf ...

after the new changes its likely that fire stance water stance and earth stance are going to be quite useless cause wind stance will hit with a higher probability

but already much lower the currently cause even in wind stance 4 we lose 20% of our to hit for no reason explainable through PnP rules.

...

i simply wonder what your calculations come up with the loss for monks in wind stance and monks in non windstance due to changes

bad enough monks are already lower dps then they should be ... now its going to be forced into wind stance and just pray that somehow even with the twf nerf our dps will be fixed with pre's ... but now that wind stance is only way to get close to as many hits thus reducing the ki generation rate meaning the ki requirements for dark fist attack (500 pointer requires 50 ki) and the potential future exalted smite for light fist (prolly also going to require 50 ki) all the while attempting to buff the party at 1 min at a time ... (the worst buffs in the game to date) ... and mass healing at 30-100 points of healing per hit ....

however now ki generation becomes a major factor in monk dps and that loss can be seriously bad for monks too.

[Solmage]

Dear Eladrin,

I am very much against changing the combat system to a "chance" of doing an offhand attack. The more we deviate our attacks from the actual animation, the more of the combat feel we loose. So far we've only added 1 or so hooks outside of it, which we were able to overlook.

But I really firmly believe that changing combat to this system fundamentally changes the feel of melee combat for dual wielders. Anything from smite evils, to how we've come to expect certain attacks to happen when we do X and Y, etc.

I think your goals are too ambitious in this regard, and I think that simply eliminating the physics check for the off-hand should be enough, without sacrificing the way combat feels.

I would also leave bonuses like tempest, zeal and capstones alone. Instead I submit that having 6-9 people suddenly swing at a 45% swing rate for the first 20 seconds of every round/minute vs a raid boss has a significantly higher impact on performance.

I would also submit that changing the way green-steel weapons operate could help. For example, currently a mineral II, the most popular choice, does holy, acid, acidburst, acid blast, and acid blast, slicing, and often force burst (1d4). That's a lot of effects. What's even worse, against the enemies you most want to use this for, most of those are wasted effort because they don't penetrate the acid resistance.

If instead greensteel tiers kept upgrading one or two effects, it would reduce the number of individual effects being calculated and sent to all the other people meleeing. Acid burst could be changed into "greater acid burst" or holy could be changed into "greater holy" (ok so the names need help, sue me). The gist is that the number of effects would remain low, just their magnitude would increase.

DPS Lag as I'm sure you know is significantly and most often caused by the clients, not by the server, (ie client-side lag) which is why different people in the same fight have such varying degrees of lag.

I don't know if optimizing the client to take better advantage of multiple CPU cores (multi-threading) would have an effect on this problem at all or not, since the problem may be hardware related - I personally suspect the motherboard chipsets which are in charge of networking on 95% of computers are creating a bottleneck in which the rest of the system halts while it handles thousands of packets per second with not a lot of info in them. Ie the chipset may be designed to handle a certain bandwith load, but this is more like a DoS attack, thousands of packets with very little info in them.

As evidence to this, I'd like to point out how Spyderwolf on Sarlona generally has MUCH lower lag than even reasonably low lag people like myself in the same raid, and he installed on his system a dedicated network card that does not use his motherboard's chipset (or the CPU for that matter) to handle traffic.

--

Because this post is too long, I'll try to summarize my point: DDO's Combat **Feel** is perhaps it's most important feature. Stuff like Balanace, and even Lag are secondary to this. DPS Lag is bad, sure, but we manage. We've been managing for years, and even without content. That was because of said combat. We need to find solutions that do not change said combat's feel.

[SquelchHU]

If the physics check is now only checks main hand, will this change my rouge assassins ability to sneak up behind two mobs and assassinate both with one strike?

Yup.