Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Gurbatonden_Puggh]

Huh, I don't know about other servers, but on Cannith I've never [well, rarely] run epics with another THF, with reason: they are bad.

I play THF and knows that I am on the wrong side, but I LIKE to play THF.

If TWF can't accept to be on the same level than THF, it's their problems. Unless you're a barbarian, THF is gimped. Many people plays this way, they accepted to be less effective than TWF but STILL play THF because they like it. Now, if both are even, it's a blessing.

Dude every post you have made has been I want you to change TWF because I am a THF fighting dude and I am gimped....so please nerf everyone one else because I am too lazy or not smart enough to fix my toon....I have known alot of folks who play THF and are not gimped, so this leads me to believe it has to do with player and or build. How many toons you have that will be affected by this? If your main was a monk you would not be as supportive I think.

TWF need more gear,have less points to spread around and then are only margainly beter the THF...if they were equal WHAT REASON WOULD THERE BE TO PLAY A TWF? What don't you GET!?!?!

[SirShen]

They are so going to bring this in even if we dont want it, just like they did with DA.

[Brennie]

*shrug* No reason why a fighter can't be a better TWF than a ranger. Rangers get a bunch of other nice things like spells and favored enemies.

Rogues are a bit screwed in all of this. Though I'd rather see rogues improved in damage in other ways, like boosting sneak attack as a whole to really turn them into burst DPS characters.

Rangers do get other things, but more/faster two-weapon fighting attacks is the key reason to BE a tempest ranger. Without more/faster two weapon fighting, the only advantage of being a tempest ranger is sheild bonus and reduction of two-weapon-fighting penalties (Neither of which matter to a high level player).

An Arcane Archer who invests in STWF would be only *slightly* behind a tempest ranger for two-weapon fighting ability, while packing ranged craziness for when it proves useful.

Fighters also get a lot of stuff, like Kensai, Weapon Specialization, strength enhancements, class toughness, more HPs, heavier armor, a bajillion bonus feats, and a melee helpful capstone. i was leaving that out of my post, just to do a simple "how many attacks each build can get" comparison... but tossing in the extras, fighters pull out even *more* ahead.

All i'm saying is that STWF strips tempest rangers of their biggest advantage, turning them from "One of the most awesome PrE's" into "Ew, dont' take that one, yuo can do better with AA or a TWF Fighter/Paladin"

[daniel7]

Like it's been stated before, perhaps now would be a good time to allow people to dismantle their greensteel weopons.

My rogue is currently capped on her 2nd life as an acrobat twf. The only reason why I didn't try out a staff wielding build was because I already had greensteel rapiers.

The game has changed alot over the years and more changes to enhancements and combat coming soon. Now would be good time to allow us to desconstruct our greensteel.

[Yshkabibble]

I don't know if this has been mentioned but in order to restrict the number of calculations made how about reducing the number of rolls for weapon damage by assigning an average value. That is to say:

A weapon that does d6 of a certain type of damage now does 3.5 when you are in a raid zone.

You could even use that for the base weapon damage or use an average for weapons that proc on crits. This could reduce the computations that are going on when you have so many weapons flying. Sure you would not get the spectacular results but things on average should still work out.

[le_goat]

cut off the head

because the tooth hurts.

[Cetus]

Would it be reasonable to implement the doublestrike mechanism as a TWF feature exclusively? They would function as a THF for the purposes of physical detection and the server would be able to keep up with it as if it were a bunch of THF'ers in the party.

Any dps reduction that may follow can be corrected with a percentage.

And leave THF'ers as they are now along with the glancing blow mechanism.

[Gercho]

The need of stwf will be a further nerf for feat starved classes, so while a fighter will allways have stwf, hardly a paladin or rogue will be able to afford it, even if they could cover other prerequisites... and you are still nerfing paladins and fighters twf (zeal and alacrity are half as effective as used to be).

BTW is funny that shade in every thread in the forum brags how thf fb is the highest dps in the game, and in this thread justifies nerfing twf to bring it to the level of thf, but says that thf should be left untouched

[mehlinda]

It has nothing to do with our systems ability to read the info coming in insomuch as their equipment cannot accurately send it all out to 12 different sources..it only occurs in spots where there is a large concentration of feed .. I don't know anything about code or servers myself..I am only repeating what I am told from people who do..but i bet there are people who do know reading this thread.

[TiranBlade]

Its 19 base dex in the book game, as well as 16 BAB, which means it will be a level 18 feat for just about everyone taking it except those with fighter levels. Even though monks get their flurry to even off their BAB to 20, this does not qualify them for feats as they are still 3/4, so no STWF for rogues monks cleric FvS and bards.

In the book game, its an epic feat, so those classes would have 16 BAB at level 22.

Actually in the Books it's called Perfect Two Weapon Fighting, requires you to be level 21 and have a 25 Dex, and after level 20 you don't gain more attacks due to Base Attack, because starting at 21st level you gain Epic Base Attack Bonus which stacks but doesn't continue your nomral base attack bonus.

[The_Phenx]

Thanks for the massive amount of feedback all.

We're currently thinking of adjusting the numbers to:

	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%
STWF		0	+20%	100%		100%
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.

This set switches Wind Stance and Tempest III to doublestrike bonuses, increases the benefits of the TWF feat chain, and adds an additional feat for high BAB characters.

All of the bottom rows assume that the person has GTWF, except for the STWF row.

An alternate chart had the TWF not giving a bonus to off-hand proc rate, but increasing each tier to 25% - so it would have been 25%/25%/50%/75%/100%

I am in favor of STWF being brought back in to essentially leave things where they are. It gives an advantage to fighters since they have SO many feats to spread around... Which means only tempest rangers and purpose built fighters will have s***...fighters with a much heavier investment.

BUT...doesn't this essentially put things right back to where we are? Or is it that the lesser feat having classes will only be at GTWF and therefore there will be a partial 20% drop across the board?

[Chai]

It has nothing to do with our systems ability to read the info coming in insomuch as their equipment cannot accurately send it all out to 12 different sources..it only occurs in spots where there is a large concentration of feed .. I don't know anything about code or servers myself..I am only repeating what I am told from people who do..but i bet there are people who do know reading this thread.

Youre right, there are, and most of them dont even agree with eachother. heh.

The ones who do know are the ones who coded this game.

[Persnoody]

So u guys are planning on making a cross classed monk better then a full monk? what the hell... im already gettin tired of people taking a whatever/2monk over a 20 monk... i mean come on and now u plan on making that more apparent? that is so messed up, wind monks are the masters of twf.

Oh and for unarmed dmg there really isnt an off hand, since wraps are a 2hw there should be no nerf to off hand attacks (with handwraps)

While we are talkin bout updates, why the hell do monks get to use short swords and long swords before u guys introduce gs handwraps? u knew it had to be comin and im sure its been mentioned already...Why! would a monk want to use a short sword when unarmed dmg or far greater, there isnt much of a difference from a kama to a short sword, figured since we dont get gs then letin monks use a few named items will make up for it?

[Cetus]

The need of stwf will be a further nerf for feat starved classes, so while a fighter will allways have stwf, hardly a paladin or rogue will be able to afford it, even if they could cover other prerequisites... and you are still nerfing paladins and fighters twf (zeal and alacrity are half as effective as used to be).

BTW is funny that shade in every thread in the forum brags how thf fb is the highest dps in the game, and in this thread justifies nerfing twf to bring it to the level of thf, but says that thf should be left untouched

I am a strong proponent of leaving the THF system untouched, the problem with lag is the surplus if information coming from TWF that the server can't handle. THF have nothing to do with this, just change the TWF combat system to be more of a THF mechanism in terms of the doublestrike implementation, and let THF be...

[Therilith]

If this is in fact a way to lower TWF DPS in disquise of fixing DPS lag, I would say just come out and say we want to NERF TWF.

They did.

[Quijonsith]

Thanks for the massive amount of feedback all.

We're currently thinking of adjusting the numbers to:

	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%
STWF		0	+20%	100%		100%
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.

This set switches Wind Stance and Tempest III to doublestrike bonuses, increases the benefits of the TWF feat chain, and adds an additional feat for high BAB characters.

All of the bottom rows assume that the person has GTWF, except for the STWF row.

An alternate chart had the TWF not giving a bonus to off-hand proc rate, but increasing each tier to 25% - so it would have been 25%/25%/50%/75%/100%

I'm not sure I understand how wind IV, zeal, and alacrity will work with GTWF in this chart. When you say 'the bottom rows assume the person has GTWF' then does that mean the 80% off hand is only coming from the GTWF feat and the only bonus from say wind IV is 10% increase in main hand attacks and 10% chance to double strike?

If I understand that correctly a monk in wind IV with that proposal isn't nearly as far behind now as the would have been in the initial suggestion. If this actually does help lag then the above chart is much much better and something i could live with and have no regret about it.

You show a breakdown of tempest I, II, and III. How would wind I-III breakdown for this? Would it be the same as the insight bonuses to speed we have now? As per the entry in the compendium: 2.5% insight bonus per wind stance tier up to the 10% at wind IV.

The more I look at your chart the more I think I understand it and I must say I'm on board for this if it does help lag. It is a very reasonable nerf compared to the first proposal.

[stockwizard5]

This is really far too complicated a change for what you are looking to do. This has the fundamental effect of changing the balance between all TWF builds and to be honest - I don't think the team really has a solid grip on what the changes really do.

I know this is way early in the process but stuff like replacing 12 levels and 3 feats with one feat is so drastic as to obilterate huge swaths of builds (and not by a little).

I am all for DPS lag reduction (it sucks) but I would look in two areas that effect performance more than mechanics first:

1. Change the way the combat log works (turning it off should not effect dps lag and it does)
2. Change the way bonuses are applied to reduce the number of effects (e.g. force ritual adds +1 to base weapon rather than new effect).

Start with the stuff that doesn't make fundamental change to everything first!

[Shmuel]

Most of my fighter-type characters are twf.

I do understand the need to make changes to mechanics to reduce lag, and will not be horribly angry about that per say BUT:

I do think, and always have thought, that when changes are made to game mechanics then some attempt to allow players who have invested significant time and effort in building toons and acquiring gear based on the mechanics being changed to adapt to the changes. In this case, for example, a free LR token and, most importantly, an effort to implement greensteel deconstructions should mitigate these issues for most players.

[Borror0]

The need of stwf will be a further nerf for feat starved classes, so while a fighter will allways have stwf, hardly a paladin or rogue will be able to afford it, even if they could cover other prerequisites

Rogues are not supposed to be a feat starved class. Sadly, DDO does not allow them to pick a free feat at level 10, 13, 16 and 19 like in PnP.

[geoffhanna]

Yet...

How much of the problem is the physics detection?

Couldn't you achieve much of the same result by eliminating the second offhand detection (as you are already suggesting) and assuming that the offhand is still in range?

And not change anything else?