Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Calebro]

I highly doubt that at this point a 19 dex would be required. I do not think the devs could hand out stacks of lesser reincarnates to various player accounts. They could give a free feat change to all characters or something similiar.

I highly doubt at this point that it would have any requirements at all.

1) I've been convinced that STWF is not a benefit to the game. Instead of opening up new options, its presence instead would close many.

[zed1]

I highly doubt that at this point a 19 dex would be required. I do not think the devs could hand out stacks of lesser reincarnates to various player accounts. They could give a free feat change to all characters or something similiar.

Well, even so, STWF would benefit fighters far more than others as every TWF kensai would have it. Which feat would a pure barb, monk, or paladin exchange? What about rangers? Tempest I splashes, which are already nerfed would be completely useless.

[Gornin]

It's been proven DPS lag is caused by damage piling up on a target over extended periods. This is why taking a pause works to fix it. Bosses that move around, or teleport around, or throw you across the room don't let you pile it up. Those that just stand still and auto attack with you do.

Try surrounding Harry in part 5, then try it letting him out often.

I think it fair to say it's tied to non moving bosses.

Also, I rarely get any lag in part 3. Blades are there too. In fact I'd say there's more of them.

I think what bobbyryan is getting at is that it is the combination.

Shroud 3 doesn't have a beatdown, just the blades and very little lag, if any. Part 4 has Harry beatdown and blades and big lag. Part 5 can have big lag when you are in a DPS lite group and the portals spawn and blades start whirling around. Part 1, lag happens with all the spawning while DPS-ing portals.

It is the extra stuff going on while the DPS dog pile happens.

[Scraap]

You know what would make the two weapon damage downgrade a nice trade-off, rather than a blanket lowering?

Enhancement lines for the DC effectiveness of cursespewers, paralizers, knockdowns, stat damagers, ect as well as an enhancement line based off two weapon defense.

Right now, it's all about the damage because you've made it all about the big numbers rather than applying tactics come end-game. Change that, and that opens up a whole new world, rather than just closing off the old one.

Just sayin.

[Mister_Peace]

it's Very Very Idiotic That One Specific Raid Weapon Makes A Fighting Style. That's Much Much Worse Than Wops Ever Were. If Anything All That Proves Is That The Esos Needs To Be Nerfed.

+1

[Wraistlynn]

now i guess my question would be will the haste spell be affected by this change at all?
instead of giving an attack speed bonus would it give those affected "double strike"?

[Gratch]

So with the updates... a Monk12/Ranger6/Ftr2
has the possiblity of having:
GTWF: 80% off hand base
Wind Stance 3: +15% -> 95% off hand
Tempest 1: +10% -> 115% off hand (capped at 100%)...

Does Tempest 1 now work with handwraps as well? or would it be 95% handwrap speed and 115% kama/short sword/long sword speed.

Plus Fighter Haste Boost 1: still +15% alacrity to swing speed.

Since the ratio would cap at 100% and I'm not enamored with a different monk stance (yet)... maybe I don't need to spend 3 feats on Tempest 1 anymore. Just take the ranger 6 for it's free feats and have even more feats for um... meeting Shintao reqs or such. Mobility and Spring Attack can go back to the dumper.

Or has Wind Stance been converted to a 2.5% doublestrike bump per tier... reaching 10% at Wind Stance 4? *Confused still since Eladrin didn't break down wind stance per tier in the *less-of-a-nerf-redo*

[Visty]

Or has Wind Stance been converted to a 2.5% doublestrike bump per tier... reaching 10% at Wind Stance 4? *Confused still since Eladrin didn't break down wind stance per tier in the *less-of-a-nerf-redo*

tier4 does 10% doublestrike, yes

but how do you come to +15% offhand for wind3?

[SquelchHU]

Oh I totally agree. Tell that to SquelchHU, and the others in this thread who somehow think it's impossible for a barb to lose aggro.

PS: BTW, it wasn't just once, but multiple times. We had a pretty **** good laugh heckling him about it.

Ranged aggro is buggy. I believe you know well enough to know that, so I don't know why you hold raid bosses' (rightful) hate of ranged attackers up as a serious point. It certainly isn't because the ranged attacker is doing more damage...

[Gratch]

tier4 does 10% doublestrike, yes

but how do you come to +15% offhand for wind3?

I was going off Eladrin's OP post:

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.)

If by saying "Wind Stance 4 = 10% double strike he's implying that you get 2.5% doublestrike per Wind Stance tier and the off-hand bump from the initial post is gone... then guess I need to keep Tempest 1 to get 90% total off-hand chance and 7.5% doublestrike chance. (for the monk12/ranger6/ftr2 example)

[Alintalkin]

tier4 does 10% doublestrike, yes

but how do you come to +15% offhand for wind3?

The original idea for the change to windstance was increasing off-hand by 5% per teir of stance 5%/10%/15%/20%. He probably heard of both option for the changes and wasn't sure which was correct.

Edit: Got ninja'd. Hopefully I will be the one ninja'ing when Ninja spy comes out

[Lillith87]

Please leaveTWF alone ... that is myfeedback vote...

[Jacoby]

With all due respect Eladrin and because I really appreciate you guys asking but I must say when I saw these probelms begin to arise I knew there would be problems. The game has outgrown the mechanic. This game was originally modeled as group oriented instanced questing. It has become raid group instanced grinding, even more so than WoW with and plethora complex checks going on.

My solution is simple but likely not feasible for what this game has become.

It's time to rebuild the game, take what you know forward and make another WoW or go back to your roots and make a quality group oriented D&D style game. The weapons, crafting, questing, etc. has become so far removed from D&D that it's no longer apealing to many of us and no longer sustainable on your servers. I'm all for small groups with complex character creation, intricate combat, in depth story and voice overs entralled in a good story with multiple options for directional endings. I abhore grinding quests over and over and over to make a super weapon which has no limit in the game reality. The Dev's have simply made the weapons and enhancements too uber for your current engine and now you want to sacrifice quality for smoother playability. Wow... it's a dilema and I know you guys will do whats right from a business perspective so I can't really offer any solutions you will like. Die hards want quality and depth! For example it really bent me when I saw you guys removing cool animations in the first lag nerf. I would have more prefered to see 4 man parties and 8 man raids.

[Zargarx]

The proposed change has mass implications throughout for a large percentage of DDO customers. Here are some suggestions that should help smoothen the path.

1. Going TWF is often a primary build consideration. If going for a TWF build, race selection and stat selection is critical.
With the major impact on TWF, respec is going to be a very important for many and that should also include race.
Race selection should then be part of the lesser/greater heart-of-wood respec.

2. TWF is common for rog/brd/mnk blds with most intending to have strong support melee capability.
So this chng has huge impact, the worst being btwn lvl l9-14, but l15+ (after get gtwf) is also quite bad.
To help rebalance these clasess, some suggestions are:
Monk to uses warrior bab instead of 3/4 (this overshoots the balancing so would need adjustment some of the enhancements)
Bard to have prof in more sngl handed wpn choices (such as bstrd swrd) plus no spell fail when using a buckler/small shld.
Rogue to have faster buff & improved feint timers

[Oreg]

With all due respect Eladrin and because I really appreciate you guys asking but I must say when I saw these probelms begin to arise I knew there would be problems. The game has outgrown the mechanic. This game was originally modeled as group oriented instanced questing. It has become raid group instanced grinding, even more so than WoW with and plethora complex checks going on.

My solution is simple but likely not feasible for what this game has become.

It's time to rebuild the game, take what you know forward and make another WoW or go back to your roots and make a quality group oriented D&D style game. The weapons, crafting, questing, etc. has become so far removed from D&D that it's no longer apealing to many of us and no longer sustainable on your servers. I'm all for small groups with complex character creation, intricate combat, in depth story and voice overs entralled in a good story with multiple options for directional endings. I abhore grinding quests over and over and over to make a super weapon which has no limit in the game reality. The Dev's have simply made the weapons and enhancements too uber for your current engine and now you want to sacrifice quality for smoother playability. Wow... it's a dilema and I know you guys will do whats right from a business perspective so I can't really offer any solutions you will like. Die hards want quality and depth! For example it really bent me when I saw you guys removing cool animations in the first lag nerf. I would have more prefered to see 4 man parties and 8 man raids.

first off - classic line in red above

More importantly I am surprised that the other comments come from a 4 year vet, especially the WOW reference. I think you have to admit that they have breathed life into the game in the last year. You may not like all the changes but they have (finally) shown some balls and are willing to try some game changing things - don't be surprised if they continue to make sweeping changes without thinking them through completely, and then modifying to appease and appeal as they go. It seems to be the formula for Turbine these days - and by and large it's hard to argue with their recent success record.

[Aesop]

	Doublestrike	Bonus	Main hand	Off hand
No feats	               0	20%	100%		20%
TWF		0	+20%	100%		40%
ITWF		0	+20%	100%		60%
GTWF		0	+20%	100%		80%
Tempest I	0	+10%	100%		90%
Tempest II	0	+10%	100%		100% 
Tempest III	+5%*	0	105%		100%
Wind IV		+10%	0	110%		80%
Zeal		+10%	0	110%		80%
Alacrity        	+10%	0	110%		80%

* Only when wielding two weapons.

So I was looking at these numbers and I thought "this doesn't look right to me"

so I thought I'd play around with it a little.

	Doublestrike	Bonus	Main hand	Off hand
No feats	               0	30%	100%		30%
TWF		0	+15%	100%		45%
ITWF		0	+15%	100%		60%
GTWF		0	+15%	100%		75%
Tempest I	0	+10%	100%		85%
Tempest II	0	+10%	100%		95% 
Tempest III	+5%*	+5%	105%		100%
Wind IV		+10%	+15%	110%		90%
Zeal (spell)            +10%	+10%	110%		85%
Kensai 1                +2.5%     +5%        102.5%                 80%
Kensai 2                +2.5%     +5%        105%                    85%
Kensai 3                +5%        +5%       110%                     90%
Alacrity        	+5%	+5%	105%		80%
Opportunist            +10%      0            110%                     75%

Conditional Modifiers

Moving                   0             -20%      100%                     55%
Movement
w/ Spring Attack     0              -10%     100%                     65%
Attack sequence 1   0              0           100%                    75%
Attack sequence 2   0             +5%       100%                    80%
Attack sequence 3   0             +10%     100%                    85%
Attack sequence 4   0             +10%     100%                    85%
Target feinted         +5%        0            105%                    75%
Improved Feinted    +10%      0            110%                    75%

* Only when wielding two weapons.


just to bring the theorized progression in for THF

	Doublestrike	Bonus	Main hand	Glancing Blows
No feats	               0	20%	100%		20%
THF		0	+10%	100%		30%
ITHF		0	+10%	100%		40%
GTHF		0	+10%	100%		50%
FB I         	0	+10%	100%		60%
FB II        	0	+10%	100%		70% 
FB III       	0	+10%	100%		80%
MonkStance IV       0	+20%	100%		70%
Zeal (spell)	+10%	+10%	110%		60%
Alacrity        	+5%	+5%	105%		55% 
Kensai I                 +2.5%     +5%       102.5%                  55%
Kensai II                +2.5%     +5%       105%                    60%
Kensai III               +5%       +5%       110%                     65%
Warforged I            0            +5%        100%                    55%
Warforged II           0            +5%        100%                    60%
Warforged III          0            +5%        100%                    65%

Conditional Modifiers

Moving                   0             -20%      100%                     30%
Movement
w/ Spring Attack     0              -10%     100%                     40%
Attack sequence 1   0              0           100%                    50%
Attack sequence 2   0             +5%       100%                    55%
Attack sequence 3   0             +10%     100%                    60%
Attack sequence 4   0             +10%     100%                    60%

Then I thought what about a Shield Bash attack that is based off a similar Proc idea

	Doublestrike	Bonus	Main hand	Shield Bash
No feats	               0	20%	100%		20%
Shield Bash*	0	+10%	100%		30%
ISB		0	+10%	100%		40%
GSB		0	+10%	100%		50%
SD I         	0	+10%	100%		60%
SD II        	0	+10%	100%		70% 
SD III       	0	+10%	100%		80%
Zeal (spell)	+10%	+10%	110%		60%
Alacrity        	+5%	+5%	105%		55% 
DoS I                     0            +10%      100%                    60%
DoS II                    0            +10%      100%                    70%
DoS III                   0            +10%      100%                    80%

Conditional Modifiers

Moving                   0             -20%      100%                     30%
Movement
w/ Spring Attack     0              -10%     100%                     40%
Attack sequence 1   0              0           100%                    50%
Attack sequence 2   0             +5%       100%                    55%
Attack sequence 3   0             +10%     100%                    60%
Attack sequence 4   0             +10%     100%                    60%

* new Feat line Shield Bash, Improved Shield Bash, Greater Shield Bash to mimic the other offensive Feat lines.


I figure the Conditional modifiers will also give a little bit of variation so that things aren't so static. I mean we have to hit penalties while moving (unless we have Spring Attack) so it seems these would be appropriate.

Or something like them.

Now I imagine that the DPS all around will be slightly lower with this... though S&B would actually slightly increase though still not to the levels of the others styles. This would likely precipitate a slight decrease of some of the Mobs' HP at the higher levels.

Add in some defensive measures that can be attained as well and it would be good start I think.

		Bonus	Automatic Block
No feats w/Shield  	10%	10%
Shield Mastery	+10%	20%
ISM		+10%	30%
SD I         	+5%	35%
SD II        	+10%	40% 
SD III       	+10%	45%
Alacrity        	+05%	50% 
DoS I                     +10%      35%
DoS II                    +10%      40%
DoS III                   +10%      45%

Buckler *                  5%          5%
Improved 
Buckler Defense*      +10%      15%

TWF no Feat             0             0
TWD     **                   +5%        5%
ITWD   **                    +5%        10%
GTWD   **                   +5%        15%
Tempest I                 +5%        20%
Tempest II                +5%        25%
Tempest III               +5%        30%

* Allow Bucklers to be used by those using Two handed weapons at an attack penalty and add in Improved Buckler Defense to improve the benefit and reduce the penalty. Make the penalty like -5 to attack and have IBD reduce it to -2.

** combine TWD and TWB into a single feat and expand the line to the Improved and maybe even the Greater versions.

so crazy huh...

Aesop

[Vallen-Mabar]

Acrobats might of already been addressed, but I haven't seen it, so heres my questions. . .

What about the speed boosts Acrobats get with their staves?

[Coldin]

Your tables got a bit screwed up Aesop. Looks like you're suggesting making base off-hand proc a bit more frequent, and then reducing the amount the TWF line gives.

[Uproar]

If the change were made, as best I can tell from what I managed to read in this thread and based on my own analysis / guesswork, I'd probably end up having to delete around 50% of my builds.

I multiclass a lot. I take tempest 1 (only) on quite a few builds. I move around a lot during combat. This change will make my toons worse. Perhaps much worse. It will also make the game play slower and more boring.

DO NOT MAKE IT PLEASE. Or allow us to bypass it somehow. Lag is not THAT bad That Often. Lag is just the top of the list of complaints. Knock it off and people will just find the next thing to complain about -- which may very well still be lag.

[Keridan]

I had hoped for more response today.