Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Cyr]

So, question.

If *our* DPS is being nerfed, how about slightly nerfing mob HP/DPS to go along with it? The changes might be much less noticeable if there was an across-the-board reduction.

Less DPS means more of a burden on healers as well. Such a reduction would help healing characters that have to deal with mobs dropping slower as a result of these changes.

Too many halo effects here Sirea. TWF barbs and arcanes would be getting a huge buff by that. You can't fix this crazyness by more wide ranging changes. They need to kill the idea of reducing DPS and just keep the good idea of eliminating the extra physics checks.

[The_Phenx]

2 things Eladrin.

#1 The Kensai fighter is supposed to be a blade master... yet he receives the same offhand attack chance as a twf paladin?

How about a 5% per tier offhand attack chance for Kensai I II III... or something to that equivalent.

I realize tempest rangers are supposed to be the twf masters...but they shouldn't be that far ahead of a fighter who is specialty trained with one weapon and one form.

#2 How is this going to impact acrobats... are their tier I and II speed boosts being left alone since they are THF?

3. FIghter alacrity bonus the 30% speed boost is that being left alone?


All that ebing said.. not happy that my fighter I have had for 3.8 years is getting slammed with a big giant nerf bat.

[xTethx]

They wont tune down mob hp, cause then that just boosts THF. And as far as this fixing lag, no.

[Eladrin]

Are haste boosts getting the shaft also here?

At this time there are no changes planned for haste action boosts.

And of course this means Zeal, Fighter Alacrity, and Monk Wind Stance (Insight Portion) no longer help ranged attacks, meaning this partly nerfs ranged attacks. Can we expect double-shots (or heck, triple shots for the shuriken in wind stance) at a later date?

You are correct, double strike at this time does not apply to ranged or thrown attacks. We are planning on investigating various improvements to ranged combat in a future update.

Who cares if lag is reduced if mobs take 50% longer to kill.

Monsters would take 50% longer to kill only if the off-hand chance was reduced to zero, and a chance to attack under 100% was applied to the main hand as well. (As main hand attacks deal more damage than off-hand, with the exception of the monk.)

[Tharlak]

The Fighter Alacrity capstone, and the Paladin spell Zeal would be changed to a +10% bonuses to double strike.

Proposed Numbers:
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.)

In my read, you differentiate between effects that grant speed vs effects that add to off hand proc rate. Speed morphs into double strike, while TWF line adds to off hand proc rate. That make's sense, but you mix that in places such as the monk air stances. Since these stance offer a speed increase, shouldn't they increase double strike not off hand proc. Or perhaps speed increases should do both, provide double strike on main hand and added proc on off hand.

For instance the Monk with staff example (somewhere in this thread). As airstance is a speed increase (insight increase on attack, plus speed enhancement) why not have the insight portion add double strike similar to Zeal and Fighter Alacrity?

[Lithic]

If 2handers and 2weaponers are going to be equal DPS, could you set it so that I no longer get -2 to hit with both weapons (or -4 with dual rapiers), and allow me to have a single weapon in hand but treat it as two (kind of like monk handwraps)?

We 2weaponers have to grind twice as much to reach our dps levels, and there should be a significant upside to it, especially considering someone with a 2hander and ZERO feats is about 90% effective in that style, while someone with no feats is about -25% as effective as someone with all 3 feats while using 2 weapons.


Oh and don't think I haven't noticed that this hits rogues the hardest once again. The class that is supposed to have devastatingly superior DPS in PnP is the only melee without a usefull alacrity bonus and the only class that really suffers from enemy fortification and sneak damage immunity (which is pretty much 100% of worthy enemy bosses, and all undead/constructs/slimes and a large portion of the IQ/DD monsters for some reason). And now you are taking away 25% of our sneak attacks. Great.

If I wasn't TRIng my brains out right now, this would likely be the last straw. Anyone know where Brenna ended up? He might get some company.

Nice to know someone admits they went overboard on the sword of shadows. Overboard as in "jumped out of the boat and into the next galaxy" that is. Now if only this mistake was aknowledged early on when people in the know were sounding the overpowered alarm. You could have avoided half the server switching over to 2handed style and grinding out an epic sword of shadows. If you do nerf it, you know the waves of nerd-rage will crash the forums again.

[J1NG]

I'd like to see these changes first on Lamannia too since I'm not on that other internal play test server.

But you know what?

I CAN'T go on Lamannia and test it out when you try it out. Why? Monk. WF. Premium. 'Nuff said.

I'm not really important, but expect lots of b!4h!ng and moaning from me because I can't even test it out and give a valid opinion from the changes when it comes out. And you KNOW that there isn't going to be enough testing and trying out.

Shintao III won't help make me happy now.

J1NG

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Well I'll put it this way, I'm in the middle of Lamannia release notes as we speak. We're going to be doing another wipe of characters on Lamannia to allow people to copy over their most recent characters, so I highly recommend hitting lamannia and getting into some combat, since it will have a two fold effect - feeling out the combat, and trying out some of the new guild-related features (will have a dev diary with more information about the guild part of things).

Thanks for the Lama character reboot!

[Aashrym]

I like the part about cutting the physical contact check in half but the rest of it I do not agree with... I don't even play many two-weapon fighting characters but you will upset a good portion of your player base by gimping them in your proposed manner.

I'm not sure they are so much as gimping the playstyle as correcting it. It really does dominate melee for a reason.

If it helps lag I am for it.

I do think some players might not be too happy about it tho

And, Eladrin, thank you very much for the communication. It is appreciated.

[Battlehawke]

The biggest problem with all of this, is that some people have spent 4 years collecting weapons and building toons that are 2WF, and some of them are pretty freaking good! Some of them are "Godly" compared to most. I have 6 2WF's and 3 THF's. I enjoy playing the THF's more, but the 2WF's clearly outclass the THF. Like I said, people have spent YEARS developing and fine tuning these toons and outfitting them. Now you plan to make adjustments to all of that and it may take them years to get them back to being the "best".

If you want to get past all the fears that most of these people have then you may have to make some sacrifices, such as;

Allow a full/free respec
Allow Greensteel items to be changed (years of farming gone/useless for some toons)
Allow DT runes for DT Armor to be returned or adjusted (years of farming)

Some people have farmed for years to make their toons great and now will think YOU are nerfing them. YOU ARE! But for the benifit of all, and I think it's great! I can't begin to tell you about all the 2HF's in Pre Launch that were VERY discouraged when they figured out that they were being out gunned by Khopesh and Dwarven Axe dual wielders.. and then when WOPS came in to play....eek....

Anyways, you are bringing a whole lot of fear into people that have worked for years to get their toons to being the BEST... Help them get over it... give them some options... just in case.

Battlehawke

[Beherit_Baphomar]

So this will be in U5 on Lama within days/weeks?

Yeah, nothing to see here, move along.

[TFPAQ]

So even with the hit to handwraps ... potentially 1000 damage on my attack? Sweet ...

Hey Shade, lets have a "single swing" contest ...

My halfling Dark Monk potentially kicks your FB butt ... If he could reach that high ...


lol

[Razcar]

I wonder what the incentive will be to play rogues after this though. They will be a combat class with low hit points, 3/4 BAB, which do not get their DPS automatically but have to create the "right situation" to get it - but will now have almost 25% less DPS than they used to.

Guess this will kill the rogue class. Ah well, killing rogues have been going on for a while, might as well get over and done with it.

[Seosamh]

...have a chance to proc (trigger) an off-hand attack based on the number of two weapon fighting feats (or related enhancements) you possess. Off-hand attacks would have a chance to proc on any main hand attack now, instead of being predetermined on certain attacks. Having more TWF feats increases the % chance of proccing an off-hand attack.[/I]

So...sometimes I have two arms and sometimes my second arm is magically gone?

I'm against this, a lot.

[Cyr]

At this time there are no changes planned for haste action boosts.

Color me confused then. Why in the world is this not being implemented as a double strike add and an off hand hook add of equal percentage to the speed boost to maintain the same dps, but remove the extra physics checks?

If it is not the physics checks that are causing dps lag then you must fix your code instead, because simple math should not be lagging out anything with modern computers.

[Boromirs]

OP,

Hello, Im relatively new so I need a bit more clarification about any mechanics changes. Sorry, but tell me if Im understanding this correctly...

Say you are a fighter doing 600 damage per minute with your primary hand and 500 damage per minute with your off-hand.

Then, currently the total damage output W/ fighter alacrity is,

[Main Hand = 1.1 (110%) x 600 + Off-Hand = 1.1(110%) x 500] = 660+550= 1210 Total Damage.

After proposed changes to DPS, the total damage will be.

[Main Hand = 1.1(110%) x 600 + Off-Hand = .55(55%) x 500] = 935 Total Damage.

I think this is correct from what I have been reading. If so, fighters, paladins, and tempests and others who use TWF would need a boost of approx. 25% more damage to sustain them in-line to previous DPS levels. I know lag is a huge issue for your servers and most likely any out of-game mechanics changes that may result in a in-game side effect might not have been in the foremost of your considerations (it's understandable, Lag Monster effects everyone including your bottom line). Please, concern yourself with the lag first, but if the above calculations is correct please come around and remedy the side effects that your lag fixes will have on the TWF community. Thanks.

[Comfortably]

So, question.

If *our* DPS is being nerfed, how about slightly nerfing mob HP/DPS to go along with it? The changes might be much less noticeable if there was an across-the-board reduction.

Less DPS means more of a burden on healers as well. Such a reduction would help healers that have to deal with mobs dropping slower as a result of these changes.

*crediting this idea to Clam (DragoonPenguin) because he's having a hissy fit in userchat right now saying I stole his idea*

I don't mind DPS lag, it's a good kinda lag. ;P Something like this would have to be changed though, because it would totally screw the game up.

I'd rather just see something like in EVon6, where you have broken up the fight with the threat of being charred to a crisp.

[nicro]

Does Double Strike mean that a Monk's Touch of Death has a chance to double proc now?

[Eladrin]

How about a 5% per tier offhand attack chance for Kensai I II III... or something to that equivalent.

Interesting possibility.

We may instead go with a small double strike chance at each Kensei tier, which I think is more appropriate to the flavor of the PrE.

#2 How is this going to impact acrobats... are their tier I and II speed boosts being left alone since they are THF? Then it seems if in air stance using a staff it will just generate a 5% chance for a double strike in the first swing?

Currently the Thief-Acrobat has been left unchanged. We considered changing their staff haste to a double strike with staves ability, but decided to leave it alone for now.

3. FIghter alacrity bonus the 30% speed boost is that being left alone?

Correct.

So...sometimes I have two arms and sometimes my second arm is magically gone?

Sometimes there's an opening for an attack and sometimes there isn't.

[xTethx]

Does Double Strike mean that a Monk's Touch of Death has a chance to double proc now?

If I'm reading right, monks do not get double strike so no; but plz someone correct me if im wrong, i want to be