Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Backley]

I hadn't considered that. Is this the end of double assassinations?

This. The 0.15 second delay and re-target after the main hand assassinate is probably what allows the 2nd hand to connect to another mob and assassinate it too. Even more nerf to my TWF rogue.

/sad panda

[Borror0]

There's an interesting question about why you went ahead with Epic SOS after it had been leaked and the overpoweredness had been thoroughly discussed.

Momentary insanity.

Still catching up on the thread but that reply is is full of win.

[GottDDO]

Have you heard about running speed, hitpoints, fortitude, knockdown, stun, or DR?

Ah. Running speed. That brings so much to a group. I always invite five barbarians to my group for just that reason.

Fortitude (saves, I'm guessing?), DR, run speed and hit points are not utility. That's part of a barbarians survivability.

Knockdown? You mean trips? Yes, trip and stunning blow are utility. However, it'd be hard for a barbarian to come close to the tactical abilities of a fighter without sacrificing too much, given their limited amount of feats.

[Creeper]

You make a good point. Perhaps Rangers should be lower DPS than a THF Barb, but the problem is, in the new system, TWF Rangers are the best TWF DPS, and they can't even beat THF Barb. The best TWF character should beat the best THF character in DPS, because the TWF requires twice as much work on weapons.

I will accept that and modify it, tell me what you think:

The best TWF character should beat the best THF character in NUMBER OF ATTACKS and SPECIAL WEAPON PROCS AND EFFECTS, because the TWF requires twice as much work on weapons.

THF can wield one weapon.
TWF can wield two.

Perhaps one +insight weapon and one +healing amp weapon for example. Perhaps two vorpal weapons. A THF cannot do this.

The problem is the TWF sacrifice does not justify this additional number of attack increase/weapon effects because DPS is king and none of the other weapons procs are regarded as "worth it" (giving up dps).

Perhaps if some other weapon procs or effects were added (that work on epic besides weighted) and then placed in your off hand it would justify the extra dex and feats for someone?

I don't think TWF should automatically do more DPS than THF just because they give up more. I think a TWF SHOULD have added benefits from wielding a weapon in the off hand and SHOULD have added benefits of extra attacks.

You spend three feats and 17 dex to get your TWF feats. That is a big deal. And nearly ANY non-barb build posted on these forums will currently get puked on if you don't have GTWF. They are a whole lot more powerful/essential than taking THF ITHF and GTHF.

You will still get more attacks per round than THFs. How will this benefit you? That is what you have to decide when you make your build I reckon.

TWF benefit should not be more DPS, it should be more attacks and being able to wield an extra weapon, an extra item slot if you will. Now we have to create ways to make it still worth taking.

[Lestarion]

I didn't read all responses, but I think I catched all Dev-Responses, but what I'm still wondering: Does this mean, that attackbonus on offhandweapons is irrelevant now? Since only Mainhand is rolled, I could use +1 weapons in offhand and have the same chance to land the attack, as long as Mainhand is +5?

[Luis_Velderve]

Most of players do not like this and those that do are THF that decided their fighting style freely. Maybe a few octocores can fix this, maybe some contractor can identify a way to improve the code or that pile of books ---->(PnP books) may give some pointers.

I can not agree with this unless this change is equal to zero. How is that? Less DPS =weaker Mobs and Bosses.


I got to say that this is the only game that I know that takes players feedback in consideration.

/not signed

[Lithic]

Ah. Running speed. That brings so much to a group. I always invite five barbarians to my group for just that reason.

Fortitude (saves, I'm guessing?), DR, run speed and hit points are not utility. That's part of a barbarians survivability.

Knockdown? You mean trips? Yes, trip and stunning blow are utility. However, it'd be hard for a barbarian to come close to the tactical abilities of a fighter without sacrificing too much, given their limited amount of feats.

DDO is 99% DPS, 1% puzzle solving. The puzzle solving can be accomplished by anyone with an internet connection and the capacity to type the quest name into a google search engine.

If barbs are at 120% dps of everyone else, why would you need anything else? Maybe a bard for songs and haste, and one healbot per barbarian to make sure their dps is uninterrupted.

[Khelden]

I like Monkey suggestion... However, there's still the problem that glancing blows can't crit and that smite evil is fired on 2 attacks instead of 1 for TWF.

[Lorz]

At a glance....and yes i have TWF as well as a couple of monks and a couple rangers.

This does not bother me.

In the end, yes a little less dps. But one thing ive learned is we as a player base adapt. I love how some talk of shelving toons over this...if you entire game revolves around being at the apex of performance...well your already off it...as soon as you summit it. The point being we have more way to fix toons and adjust for changes than we HAVE EVER HAD. So why all the worry, why all the screams of angst. Things change...Adapt or die.

So make it...lets see if it helps...you can always undo it. But if it helps the heavy DPS lag....great.

The rest is just people whining about change....like they generally do.

My $0.02/worth.

[Wurmwood]

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[Aesop]

ok... Initial thoughts. ... Could be worse.



First and foremost.

1. The difference between GTWF and Tempest seems a little heavy. 55% vs 85-90%. Not that tempest shouldn't have the advantage, but an advantage of 30-35% is a little too much I think. Or perhaps its just that 55% is too low.

Base Chance to Proc OH (Off Hand) = 15%
TWF = +15%
ITWF = +15%
GTWF = +15%

total 60%


Tempest 1: +10% Insight Bonus
Tempest 2: +7.5% Insight Bonus
Tempest 3: +7.5% Insight Bonus

total +25%

Wind Stance 1: 5% Insight Bonus
Wind Stance 2: 5% Insight Bonus
Wind Stance 3: 5% Insight Bonus
Wind Stance 4: 5% Insight Bonus

total +20%

Dexterity benefit = +Dex Mod%

I thnk A_D was mentioning something like this. Certainly would help Finesse fighters out a touch. Actually if this could translate into the Double Strike suggestion for the Weapon Finesse feat... it would be similar to a suggestion I made a week or so ago.

which would be a Tempest With a 40Dex would have 100% TWF

alternately the Dex benefit could be .5x Dex Mod% so that the max TWF Proc rate (at this time) would be about 97%


2. Double Strike seems like an interesting concept and idea. I would definately advocate Kensai gaining a bonus to Double Strike... as it stands with this proposal MC Kensai TWF are getting hosed. Multiclassing doesn't need to be hosed any more than it already has been.

so really what I should be saying is that Kensai should have a split benefit.


Kensai 1: +2.5% chance to DS (Double Strike) AND +2.5% chance OH (when TWF)
Kensai 2: +2.5% chance to DS AND +2.5% chance to OH (when TWF)
Kensai 3: +2.5% chance to DS AND +2.5% chance to OH (when TWF)

total +7.5% Chance to DS AND +7.5% chance to OH (when TWF)

So instead of 100/55% for an MC Kensai twf (which is the way its proposed) it would be 107.5/67.5% and a Pure Kensai TWF would be 117.5/67.5% with its Special Weapon while a Tempest Ranger would have 100/85% all +Dex Mod Benefit (which a ranger would likely have a higher modifier for as they have Enhancements for it... though not 100% of the time)

3. The reduction of usefulness of Wind Stance could be an issue... then again the rest of the Stances do fall far behind, but catching them up by gutting Wind Stance isn't a great way to go about it. I'm curious to here about the plans for Water Stance being a Staff Stance?

I mean the Negative to Strength would certainly be ... well a negative for Staff Fighting in general. perhaps an increased chance to Proc Glancing Blows? 5/10/15/20% maybe?


4. I thought I saw something mentioned about ToD line needing a change and that hitting it should trigger an unarmed attack regardless of what is in your hands... this would be AWESOME and help balance out weapons and Handwraps a bunch I imagine.


5. My greatest concerns do come from my personal pet peeve of course and that is Ranged Combat. I was DEEPLY concerned about the Ranger Capstone and now that a bunch of the speed increasing effects are likewise being changed this brings that bonus into even larger relief.

We are in need of a Ranged Combat rewrite. I don't care if you start ranged combat off slow at low levels but the increase in RoA as levels increase needs to be higher. The Ranger Capstone needs to change as well. This all stems back to (beta ) the Haste and combat Style change (which was a good thing), Then ranged combat stayed the same and everyone else gained base attack speed to catch back up to where their attacks were before the change.

6. Have you considered giving Tempest improved off hand fighting capabilities in terms of damage done... ie instead of .5 Str mod each level could increase that by a touch say

Normal = .5 Strength Mod
Tempest 1: .6 Strength Mod
Tempest 2: .7 Strength Mod
Tempest 3: .8 Strength mod

or

Normal = .5 Strength Mod
Tempest 1: .65 Strength Mod
Tempest 2: .75 Strength Mod
Tempest 3: .85 Strength mod

or

Normal = .5 Strength Mod
Tempest 1: .5 Strength Mod
Tempest 2: .75 Strength Mod
Tempest 3: 1 Strength mod


That could help alieviate a little of the issue. Monks are already at 1 Strength Mod for unarmed combat so it shouldn't be too bad and you wouldn't feel as bad for removing a couple of off hand attacks here and there

I forget what else I was going to say

Aesop

[Ranmaru2]

Eladrin,

I'd like to propose another change to either go with this or to be an alternative.

Currently, when I'm in PUGs who don't have greensteel loaded to the teeth but still have metalline pure good weapons, I notice that the amount of lag in the group is less than going into, say, a TOD with a group of guildies who have a Lightning Strike + Mineral II weapon combination or any variant of greensteel weaponry. While I'm not fully attributing the problem to greensteel itself, I would like to point out that the characters in each group are getting an equally comparable amount of attacks per second, but due to the amount of extra effects being rolled/calculated per hit, you come up with a massive differential in lag capacity. In this case, I'm not sure if its the characters' swing animations that are producing the lag, but rather the damage rolls necessary for the total calculation per swing.

The same thing can happen in Gwylan's Stand in the initial open forest area if a Wizard/sorcerer runs up and aggros every single mob in that initial area without them rubber banding and then dropping a Firewall. You can start to lag out at the number of damage rolls that need to be produced (especially if you drop two firewalls) versus going into Stormcleave and doing a firewall on each group of monsters. It would seem its more of the capacity of calculations and/or style that you have calculations for damage taking place in the system more than the actual amount of calculations that occur.

I'm not sure if you've checked this out internally, but it might be your roll modifier system that leads to some or more of the lag for the attack system than the number of attacks taking place.

So here's a proposal, while not meant to derail the thread, it is meant to be an option to look at for one of the sources you said might have to receive a fix in future updates if this doesn't go into live or has to be modifier, aka Greensteel.

- Tier I weapon upgrades should be reduced to being the Touch effect equal to +2 damage*

- Tier II weapon upgrades upgrade to the basic frost, acid, shock, etc (come up with a good effect or something for positive/negative?)

- Tier III is where you can get into the burst effects (This would eliminate blast, but ultimately go a way to reduce the weapons' effectiveness to allow Epic weapons to get more consideration)

- Dual Shard effects or proc effects can now be changed to be like the Dreamspitter which seems to have had its Negative Level fixed to be a perfect 1-in-3 hits occurrence. The X-in-Y occurrence could be something for debate with the playerbase as to each effect that can occur.

*This still allows positive/negative first tier weapons to bypass DR as they're producing a good/negative damage effect, so no change to the intent of Holy/Unholy.

Now I realize this seems more like a cry to nerf Greensteel weapons, but its more or less meant to balance off the number of rolls in weapons that, in my experience, contribute more to DPS lag than a group of equally statistically equipped characters wielding Metalline of Pure Good or even Holy Greater XXXXX Bane even with the same number of attacks.

I, for one, don't like seeing the decrease to Zeal's usefulness, as it currently seems like Paladins have a lower base attack speed and need Zeal just to catch up to other classes anyway (Comparing a 18/2 clr/ftr in this case without Divine Power to the swing speed of my Paladin using Sword and Board attack style. Somehow, some way, the 18/2 attacks faster with a shield UNLESS I initiate Zeal). Zeal was meant to be a spell to bring Paladins up as equals in DPS viability, and I think this is one spell, considering its spell level placement in the Paladin spell sheet that should remain unchanged in its giving an attack speed while also granting the double strike percentage.

---------------------------------------------------

Another proposal to look at internally.

What happens when a bunch of HUGE number effects have to impact a single target? Does this start to produce DPS lag? I've been in Epic VoN runs where we had DPS lag from a bunch of TWFers up on Velah, but I've also been in runs that have had it when we had a bunch of Two Weapon fighting types up there smacking her for massive amounts of damage at a time. This is a scenario that doesn't make much sense if the culprit is supposed to be the necessary amount of physical checks that need to take place (unless its the glancing blows in this scenario?).

[SquelchHU]

Now we have to create ways to make it still worth taking.

In a game all about DPS, which means DPS.

By the way, a THF Fighter or Barb did more damage than a TWF 18/1/1 even without factoring this nerf.

Edit: Wow, 8 people ninjaed me.

[DarkFlash]

I take the changes as a challenge for my monk. I LIKE CHALLENGES!
Its already too easy to play as a (light) monk.

[Tanka]

Now you're just being illogical. So if you don't have the most, then it's not solid or viable?

One of the many wonders of D&D is the class-based system which allows you to build characters how you want, using pre-determined classes.

Brb20 should not be the only path to high DPS. Rog19 is also high DPS, but only when they get SA. KotC Pal gets high DPS vs EO, HotD Pal gets high DPS vs Undead, Rangers get high DPS vs all their FEs (anywhere between 1 and 5, granting +2dmg/FE, plus Enhancements). Kensai Ftr gain DPS increases via crit boosts, plus Ftr20 gaining Alacrity 10%. Any Pal with 14 levels can pick up Zeal, which is also a 10% Alacrity.

With these changes, the best TWFers become Temepst 3 Rangers. Rather than only being marginally better than Ftr20 (thanks to Kensai 3 crit boosts) or Pal20 (vs EO/Undead), they have become possibly 10% worse in the mainhand and 30% better in the offhand.

[Eladiun]

DPS lag is all about red names. Wouldn't it stand to reason that the fixes for DPS lag revolve around red name fights?

You're changing the argument on the fly... stay on topic. Right now there is almost zero DPS benefit for doubling the grinding time.

We all know double the grinding time is a load of **** too. It's such a red herring. It implies you have 1 character running the shroud. If you are really grinding for the purpose of crafting, you are running multiples and swapping components you don't need for ones you do. It doesn't end up being double.

Double the bonuses is only not a benefit because Red Names and quest design are screwed leading to a huge favoring to dual wielding Aspect of Mineral otherwise Exception Str in one and Con/Dex in the other would be a large benefit.

And there are reason to stay TWF other than only boss DPS saying a DPS reduction removes any reason to be TWF is why I bring up paralyzers and etc.

[Kaldais]

Personally I think you are making things way too complicated.
If it were me, I would just tie the off-hand attack on the attack roll of the main-hand in the following order.

Store your main-hand and offhand to-hit value in a variable somewhere, store all your weapon effects in a variable somewhere.

1st attack/no-offhand attack
2nd attack/offhand attack -5 from die roll (if have TWF, otherwise extra -2 or -6 from die roll )
3rd attack/offhand attack -5 from die roll (requires ITWF)
4th attack/offhand attack -5 from die roll (requires GTWF)
5th attack/offhand attack -5 from die roll (requires STWF)

refresh values and goes to next round.

There you just cut down your sever calculation by 50%.

[Angelus_dead]

Also, I'd even go and say a THF requires much more work than any TWF due to how weak they are compared to TWF. To be on par with a TWF using Greensteel, one must have epic sos.

So those thousands of THF barbarians and kensei going around with greensteel falchions and greataxes prior to the release of Epic Sword of Shadows... what were they doing?

[SolarDawning]

Here's another proposal to cut down on the number of attacks without cutting out attack speed.

What if Two-Weapon Fighting was changed to, instead of proccing extra attacks, to add together the damage of the main and offhand weapons, with 1.5x strength bonus, same as a two-hander?

For example:
Currently, two handers get 1.5x strength modifier to damage.
Two weapons: Main hand has 1.0 strength modifier, and off-hand has 0.5 strength.

Proposed change:
Two-Handed: Unchanged.
Two Weapon: Cut out all extra attack procs. Base number of hits becomes the same as Two-Weapon. Instead, combine base damage dice from both weapons, give the attack 1.5x strength modifier, and combine proc effects from each weapon.

This would serve the goal of significantly cutting down the rate of attacks (and thus lag), without TWF characters losing a very large portion of their damage output.

[Wurmwood]

Do I have to write up a proposal? geez, who do I sent it to? I can have it written up this weekend.