Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[Mister_Peace]

This thread currently has 1750 responses.
That is a lot of posts to read.

Eladrin, which of these statements is most accurate?
1 Each of the posts in this thread will be read because we value the community input on this issue.
2 Each of the posts in this thread will be read because we have no life.
3 Each of the posts in this thread will be read because we want to neg-rep the haters.
4 Only some of the posts will be read because we have enough input.

[Brother_Solar]

Ok, I can't find anything in this thread that answers my questions, so could someone to be frank and give me the straight up news on my current melee's. It looks like most of the testing is looking at Tempest, Pali's and Monks.

I wan't to know the effect of the proposed changes will be on my 4 melee's.

1. FB WF 18 Barbarian / 2 Rogue GTWF (HvY Picks/Khopesh) Base DEX: 17

2. FB Dorf 18 Barbarian / 2 Rogue GTWF (DA) Base DEX: 17

3. Kensai WF 18 Fighter / 2 Rogue GTWF (Khopesh) Base DEX: 17

4. Assassin Halfling 20 Rogue GTWF (Rapier) Base DEX: Can't remember, maxed out DEX.

Thank you and I appreciate your time if you answer my questions.

Erek

I don't know what the DEX requirement will be for Superior Two Weapon Fighting (STWF). I believe the BAB requirement is +15, so a pure rogue would be disqualified.

1. If you can use a higher level feat slot to take STWF, no change. Otherwise, you'll lose 20% of your offhand swings.

2. If you can use a higher level feat slot to take STWF, no change. Otherwise, you'll lose 20% of your offhand swings.

3. If you can use a higher level feat slot to take STWF, no change. Otherwise, you'll lose 20% of your offhand swings.

4. You'll lose 20% of your offhand swings.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

Something else I like the idea of using (I think some other folks have mentioned this already) :

IN RAID ZONES ONLY, use average results for the added effect rolls on weapon swings, e.g. Holy = 7, Acid = 4, Shocking Burst = 4 plus 6, 11, or 17 on criticals (depending upon crit multiplier). I think rounding up is the most fair since it is possible that this would eliminate the chance to overcome elemental resistances in certain cases (like if a creature had fire resistance 5, a flaming weapon should actually be able to do 1 point of damage 1/6 of the time, but if averages are used, it will never do damage).

This assumes that pulls from the RNG are computationally expensive. I am not sure if analysis has revealed that this is a significant load on the system (greatly depends on the RNG implementation I guess).

I don't think RNG calculations are too expensive. I would guess that the two most expensive operations would be the physics check and then the player feat lookup to determine combat hooks during swings.

The physics checks are more than halved by Eladrin's suggestion given that there are now a maximum of five per attack chain when before there were ten,and that's before even counting the reduction in combat chains per second due to the replacement of alacrity bonuses with double strike.

With respect to feats; before, the game had to check a player's twf feats during combo chain to determine whether a particular animation hook had one, two, three combat hooks attached. Now a static percentage can be cached and a d100 roll made for each animation hook to determine whether there is an additional offhand attack roll or not.

For those recommending the coalescing of multiple weapon procs into a single damage number. Remember that each type of proc has to make a separate DR check against any ablative or static spell or innate ability that the target has e.g. a mob might have stoneskin and resist fire 20 so 10 has to be subtracted from base then 20 from any fire damage then 10 has to be taken off the mob's stoneskin, and this example doesn't even take inti account DR bypassing that has to be catered for...basically there are a lot of things happening when you strike a mob and I'm sure the devs have to be very cognizant of potential halo effects. E.g. for example the creatures who currently right now fight 'two handed' need to probably be checked to make sure this change hasn't nefted them too... there is now a subtle but important difference between having a huge str and having a huge str and twf when previously they were equivalent.

Just my armchair 2c.

Garth

[Borror0]

Eladrin, which of these statements is most accurate?

I would wager that all of them will be parsed and the most interesting will be forwarded to the design team.

[Bigrtt]

Coming from a monk stand point, this update will really suck. Seems like all that effort I've put into my TR monk going wind stance, for the attack speed is going to be thrown out the window. Don't like it.

Lowering TWF dps? Most of us monks who use Kamas don't do much damage as it is, we rely on the speed of out attacks to keep up....now that's getting nerfed?

Sorry. I think instead of nerfing TWF you should be looking at other ways to handle all the DPS output. Nerfing TWF is going to be a slap in the face for all the time a lot of us have spent into making characters.

[Erekose]

I don't know what the DEX requirement will be for Superior Two Weapon Fighting (STWF). I believe the BAB requirement is +15, so a pure rogue would be disqualified.

1. If you can use a higher level feat slot to take STWF, no change. Otherwise, you'll lose 20% of your offhand swings.

2. If you can use a higher level feat slot to take STWF, no change. Otherwise, you'll lose 20% of your offhand swings.

3. If you can use a higher level feat slot to take STWF, no change. Otherwise, you'll lose 20% of your offhand swings.

4. You'll lose 20% of your offhand swings.

Thx mate. Barbarians have very few non-granted feats to play with so I guess STWF won't be an option. Fighters on the other hand have more flexibility with feats.

So basically 20% off all off handed attacks per attack sequence which is for GTWF about 3 or is it 4 attacks minus 20%?

[twoton]

Ok so I am a huge monk fan and I have a couple of questions. At this point in the thread Im pretty sure my post will get lost but here goes nothing.

If I hit my ki strike on my monk on his off hand attack does that mean I have to land the hit first and then chance to proc or, does it mean the off hand just has a chance to proc like it even swung at all and still lose the ki for the strike even if I miss the proc %?

Other question is if I hit my ki strike off the main hand and it double strikes does that mean I get twice the dmg from one ki strike for only the cost of doing it once? i.e. hitting TOD and getting a double strike I hit a mob for 1000 points of dmg for only 50ki spent?

Sorry if I still dont understand how all this would work.

[dopey69]

i gotta say if this slows down our combat like the last time it will be just enough to drop this game once and for all! will wait and see the comments from the testing on lamania before I get all the uptight about this. still does not sound good for our combat that we love ,but we will see . you guys have enough new players now so it won't matter too much to you if a lot of us bail . thanx for trying to fix lag but this.....i duno sounds horrible to me to be honest , time will tell. For myself from here on in I stop buying turbine points tho i see no reason to waste ne more money on a game that I may have to drop because of the gimping of twf ....ps ( I spend to much money on this game ne way lol i could have bought everything 4 or five times over )

[Halock]

With respect to feats; before, the game had to check a player's twf feats during combo chain to determine whether a particular animation hook had one, two, three combat hooks attached. Now a static percentage can be cached and a d100 roll made for each animation hook to determine whether there is an additional offhand attack roll or not.

Garth

Dont see why it cant check upon logging/ zone changes/ level up what feats a person has and set the number of hooks in each animation in the chain, no calculations need be made during combat this way, you're either 'flagged' for an offhand hook on this attack or not and, for monks and pallies, they dont have to play the guessing game of 'will i get a double proc from this attack when i smite.....****, maybe next time' which i foresee as being very frustrating and leading to an even further dps loss.

I still havent seen any proof of TWFs deserved damage nerf, if it needs one, fine, but i really cant get behind the random chance for offhand attacks thing

[redoubt]

There are probably 1000 others who have already said this, but I'll toss in a bit of feedback based on reading your post El.

My main character is a dex based 18 ranger/1 rogue/1 monk. This character has 38 dex and only 22 str. With rams might it goes up to 24 plus the rams might damage bonus. This character is not simply and "exploiter" as it can do any trap in the game (spot, search and disable up to elite).

This character thrives on speed. Each hit does not do great damage. It is the high rate of attack that makes the build work. Sometimes its proc'n blindness from a radiance rapier, sometimes it is dual vorpals, sometimes is w/p's. Sometimes its minII and metaline of pg for dps. One thing they all have in common is the need for doing a lot of attacks fast. Without speed this build dies. Sure it might still be a good trapsmith, but I won't play a one trick pony.

Now, I realize that many people do build STR based characters that attack as fast and some even faster than my build here. I realize that you are concerned about how much damage those builds do. Sadly I do not know how to address your problem here.

How does this impact my personal play and plans? I had just read my email from Turbine tonight and say some promotions on the store that I thought were decent. I was happy to see points on sale and excited about the +5 lessor hearts. I was all set to drop $50 on points and buy some +5 hearts to bank away for rearranging my toons pre-TR. These plans are on hold now. I'm not going to spend the money.

To be specific, if there is a need for it, I was going to drop two +5 lessors on the character i described above. Push the character to 11 monk/1 rogue/8 ranger. Then TR the second time (but picking up the monk past life feat instead of the ranger one.) That's 3 expensive hearts, plus the money for the supreme +2 tome that I'd do to help with the leveling. I think that's something north of $100 on just that one character.

I've already excepted that this is not a high dps character. I make it work by playing smart and always grabbing the best weapon for the moment. I move and attack aggressively. I love this character. I play this character 90% of the time. Dropping another 13.5% to 40% of my damage (the estimates are pretty wild at this point) is not acceptable to me. I'm already down on dps compared to any dps build.

I guess I should end soon, so BL: for me if dex based twf'rs slow down/lose dps I'll spend at least $100 less in the store (for just this one character, prolly less on others as well) and I may even drop my 4 year old VIP account and quit all together. I've retired several other characters when you have nerfed them. When this character retires, so do I.

I've loved the game so much it hurts, but this might be our last dance.

[eonfreon]

Okay I just got back and I could only read a little bit but I did catch another tidbit that rankles me.
Perhaps it's been covered but I have a question.

So Eladrin states:
That's useful feedback as well. We're attacking the lag issues because people often say it's the most important thing for them. If maintaining their DPS is more critical to them than a smoother play experience, that's valuable for us to know, and we'll look at other, less aggressive (or different) options to solve the problems. I'd bet that greensteel weapons would be changing significantly in a future update if we revert these changes.

Now I'm getting this from someone else's post, so I may be putting it all out of context, but I do hve some question.

The supposed "dps lag fix" is the piggybacking. The TWF nerf is a separate issue, correct? Or not?
Or is Eladrin trying to say that we NEED to hit less often to reduce lag for a couple of endgame Raids?
This seems a bit like a scare tactic. Accept this or we'll revert it and go after your next "favored" item, is how it comes off.
So, am I to believe that reducing the collision detection is not really enough? That we need to miss by the original numbers and that the new numbers will require a further tweak.

Really?
"If maintaining their DPS is more critical to them than a smoother play experience"
Sorry, but that is too funny. Too close to fear-mongering.

Let me spell it out: Our dps is important to us because Turbine MADE it important to us.

Remember Grazing Hits? How that was supposed to help melee that couldn't hit (huh?).
Remember the promise?
With Grazing Hits implemented Turbine could create MOBS with a LOWER to hit and make lower then the outrageous (at the time) need for a 60-70 AC (lol those were the days) and make even a 40-50 AC relevant.
So when did that promise come into fruition? With EPIC? LOL. Thanks for the laugh.
Yes, I know that it's as off-topic as asking for DA to be removed in it's own way.
But the fact is I and several others agreed with the need for Grazing Hits because we were assured that other ideas were going to be implemented soon. Lowering To-hits and Mob "base" damage for starters.
So then Endgame created EPIC and the game went the complete other way from what was initially proposed.

So, do not try to tell me that the lag fix and TWF nerf are related.
Do not try that route, please.
We can have our dps AND your initial lag fix.
If you feel the need to nerf TWF then state that separately. Don't try to scare folks into worrying about their crafted weapons because you may have to "revert the changes" if they prove too unpopular.

So stop intentionally or unintentionally confusing the two. The smoothness of our experience (I assume you mean lag) and a possible TWF nerf are NOT the same.

You can improve our experience by doing your proposed lag fix and getting rid of the useless offhand collision check.

And then when that's proven to do something positive for us, go ahead and start kicking around how to balance the game and the fighting styles.

Turbine isn't even releasing any NEW endgame content (sorry the EPIC option is a joke). So all this will do is take the "tried and true" and make it take longer for all fighting styles.

Sure folks can say "well now they can reduce MOB hit points, etc".
Yes, if Turbine had actually gone through with the promise of lowering MOB to-hits when they introduced Grazing Hits I would be more optomistic.
But TUrbine didn't. They went the other direction. Heck, they raced to the other side. They made AC even LESS useful.
When a change is understood to have a part 2, eventually that part 2 has to be implemented. It can't be forgotten.

So basically, there is no need to revert the "dps fix". Go ahead. Piggyback the offhand to the main hand. It only makes sense.
Then we can enjoy a "smoother play experience".

But don't try to sell the TWF nerf as part of the "fix".
And if our dps is too much for the game then remember why we need that dps. Because Turbine created the MOBS with the outrageous number of hit points and immunities that make that dps necessary.

Sorry for the rant and the wall of text. I would edit it but it is Saturday and I did just get home.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

Ok so I am a huge monk fan and I have a couple of questions. At this point in the thread Im pretty sure my post will get lost but here goes nothing.

If I hit my ki strike on my monk on his off hand attack does that mean I have to land the hit first and then chance to proc or, does it mean the off hand just has a chance to proc like it even swung at all and still lose the ki for the strike even if I miss the proc %?

assuming I read Eladrin's post right, if you proc on your main hand then you also proc on any additional (either offhand or double strike) attacks as well. If you're spending Ki then you're guaranteed the ki attack on your main hand and also potentially getting it on offhand and double strike.

Other question is if I hit my ki strike off the main hand and it double strikes does that mean I get twice the dmg from one ki strike for only the cost of doing it once? i.e. hitting TOD and getting a double strike I hit a mob for 1000 points of dmg for only 50ki spent?

Assuming a monk in wind 4 and full twf feats, and assuming I've read Eladrin correctly, and assuming a specific exception to these rules for ToD hasn't been made... then a monk hitting ToD has a 74% chance of hitting for 1000, a 18% chance of hitting for 500, and a 8% chance of hitting for 1500 (avg 950 for 50ki).

Garth

[noinfo]

I agree with most of what you say here however...

What about dex builds?

Its more realistic that a high dex build will have STWF than min maxed str builds who take the min dex requirement just to fit the feat in. My 40 dex rogue wont have access to this due to the BAB 16 requirement but a 19 dex fighter will have access to it. Unrealistic at best. I believe they will have to change to requirements to please people, and if they do, whats to stop all the clerics, bards, and FvS from jumping on that bandwagon too?

I believe what you say about fighters, and Id toss barbarians in there too. If you bring everyone elses melee too close to theirs, it takes away from fighters and barbarians. If I can build a FvS that can melee 90% as well as a barbarian or fighter, I will take that any day of the week.

Which is why i suggested:



Drop STWF

Currently 20% is the starting point for no 2wf make it 10% + current dex. This reflects the higher dex toons ability to weild 2 weapons effectively. Rogues for the most part have a higher dex and will benefit, Pallies will probably still have to equip dex items for 17+6 -10 or +13 bonus.

Expanding on this:

A good dex rogue with 34 dex with full gtwf would have +24% allow the 4% chance to proc a double strike with off hand. It would be a nice way to boost dex based toons dps a little.


And maybe get rid of grazing hits? :-p

[Brother_Solar]

Thx mate. Barbarians have very few non-granted feats to play with so I guess STWF won't be an option. Fighters on the other hand have more flexibility with feats.

So basically 20% off all off handed attacks per attack sequence which is for GTWF about 3 or is it 4 attacks minus 20%?

Not 20% damage off, simply 20% fewer off hand attacks.

Currently, with GTWF you get an off hand attack for each main hand attack you make. With the proposed change you will only have an 80% chance of getting an off hand attack when you make a main hand attack.

Hmmm, I'll put it in number terms, that may make it easier.

Currently, let's say your barbarian, while under the effects of the Haste spell, is making 105 main hand attacks and 105 off hand attacks per minute.

With the proposed change, you will still be making your full 105 main hand attacks per minute, but you'll only be making 84 (which is 0.8*105) off hand attacks per minute.

That is going to wind up being slightly less than a 10% DPS loss overall for your TWF characters.

[Brother_Solar]

Assuming a monk in wind 4 and full twf feats, and assuming I've read Eladrin correctly, and assuming a specific exception to these rules for ToD hasn't been made... then a monk hitting ToD has a 74% chance of hitting for 1000, a 18% chance of hitting for 500, and a 8% chance of hitting for 1500 (avg 950 for 50ki).

I wouldn't get hopes up too high for this just yet. Currently, ToD operates differently than the standard ki strikes as it actually breaks your attack sequence so it will only hit once (rather than allowing it a "hook" attack roll as well). Eladrin seemed non-to-sure about how it would operate with the double strike mechanic.

If they impliment the DS mechanic on the preview server, then I'm sure extensive testing will be done on our end to check it out. Until then, I'm going to maintain my reservation about the possibilities.

[Erekose]

Not 20% damage off, simply 20% fewer off hand attacks.

Currently, with GTWF you get an off hand attack for each main hand attack you make. With the proposed change you will only have an 80% chance of getting an off hand attack when you make a main hand attack.

Hmmm, I'll put it in number terms, that may make it easier.

Currently, let's say your barbarian, while under the effects of the Haste spell, is making 105 main hand attacks and 105 off hand attacks per minute.

With the proposed change, you will still be making your full 105 main hand attacks per minute, but you'll only be making 84 (which is 0.8*105) off hand attacks per minute.

That is going to wind up being slightly less than a 10% DPS loss overall for your TWF characters.

Gotcha. Great explanation. I do apologize. I have never invested the time to understand the underlying mechanics of the game. I only have a very general understanding. Thanks again.

So to compensate builds who loose 10% they could increase the amount of damage for off hand attacks. It seems that this problem is really about a CPU crunching a long sequence of numbers very frequently, so don't change the string of off hand numbers just make one of the existing variables higher in the off for those affected.

[westudi]

Most TWF classes/builds (rogue falls into this category too) would be losing 10% DPS. I don't see that as reason enough to throw in the towel, but your opinion may differ.

I admittedly didn't read the whole thread, but I was planning on TRing him to a paladin. It seemed like dual-wielding paladins were going to take a substantial hit. Maybe I misunderstand what I read. At any rate, there is no reason to get too upset until we see these proposed changes in action.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

I wouldn't get hopes up too high for this just yet. Currently, ToD operates differently than the standard ki strikes as it actually breaks your attack sequence so it will only hit once (rather than allowing it a "hook" attack roll as well). Eladrin seemed non-to-sure about how it would operate with the double strike mechanic.

If they impliment the DS mechanic on the preview server, then I'm sure extensive testing will be done on our end to check it out. Until then, I'm going to maintain my reservation about the possibilities.

very true, I wouldn't get my hopes up either, but it could potentially be a silver lining to the twf nerf cloud. It's possible that if Eladrin decides that it breaks the combat chain then double strike would still remains on the one handed attack, meaning a 10% chance of double strike 1000 damage jackpot, increasing the average damage of a ToD to 550.

Eladrin this is not the post you're looking for... /waves hands

Garth

[Calebro]

Okay I just got back and I could only read a little bit but I did catch another tidbit that rankles me.
Perhaps it's been covered but I have a question.

So Eladrin states:
That's useful feedback as well. We're attacking the lag issues because people often say it's the most important thing for them. If maintaining their DPS is more critical to them than a smoother play experience, that's valuable for us to know, and we'll look at other, less aggressive (or different) options to solve the problems. I'd bet that greensteel weapons would be changing significantly in a future update if we revert these changes.

Now I'm getting this from someone else's post, so I may be putting it all out of context, but I do hve some question.

The supposed "dps lag fix" is the piggybacking. The TWF nerf is a separate issue, correct? Or not?

It is a separate issue, yes.
BUT
They also thought of a way to further reduce lag slightly by changing the dynamics of exactly how TWF works. So the nerf was because it needed it, as shown by this part of Eldarin's post:

I won’t hide that these proposed changes do reduce the effectiveness of off-hand attacks, which reduces the two weapon fighting style’s extreme dominance over two handed fighting. Skipping the extreme outlier of the Epic Sword of Shadows (we got a little carried away there, didn’t we?), estimated damage output over time for the two styles should be extremely close to each other if we go this route. (Which style is superior ends up being heavily dependent on your character's abilities.)

This, to me, makes it obvious that they intended to nerf it anyway at some point.
So the fact that they thought of a way to do that by also reducing lag was just gravy.

[Souless]

?

Because regardless of any other factors, barbarians generally produce more DPS and hatred than any other character class ?

This is totally unrelated to issues of 2HF versus 2WF ...

Based on this answer...my response is remove the barb class from the game...thus eliminating the DPS lag problem....