Combat Feedback for Update 5.

[grodon9999]

Except that instead of setting three feats on fire for TWF, ITWF, and GTWF you set... 4 on fire for Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, and Oversized TWF.

So no, Rangers do not come out ahead in feats. At least not if they want the only worthwhile Ranger PRC they don't.

And archery is at best useful 20 seconds/120 seconds, so no one really cares.

if this goes through as proposed, respeccing to an AA makes sense, the TWF isn't going to be that much better with Tempest III over GTWF. Manyshot for 20 seconds and switch to blades, if you can UMD a sheild wand what else does Tempest give you?

[Monkey_Archer]

My conclusions so far:

Thumbs up for starting to tackle the dps lag issue.
Thumbs way up for promoting open discussion about it.

Thumbs up for weapon style balance (dps calcs indicate that standard autoattack dps for both styles will be alot closer then it is currently)

2 Thumbs way down for combat enjoyment.
Ever play a dps character with only TWF, but no ITWF or GTWF? Its boring and feels slow and painful (much like the overly slow attack rates before the fix/haste nerf corrected it)
Ever attacked a portal while standing still? Its boring, but if moving glancing blows get nerfed thats going to be the goal... stand still, turn on auto attack, maybe go afk... maybe play something interesting like tetris until its loot time...

Ok, its not going to be that bad... but this is obviously more then just an anti-lag change.
There are many good aspects to this idea, but the impression i get is that, even though this could reduce lag and help balance weapon styles, the combat system itself is going to suffer, and become less enjoyable.

Of course, will have to test it first....

[Khurse]

VoD: Anti healing curse. Does not affect repair spells. Getting any WF FB is easier than getting someone with 72+ AC for Normal (more for higher settings) that still DPSs enough to hold aggro. Remember, 18/1/1s are mid tier DPS without the nerf. Enough to matter, not more than Kensai and FBs and such.

ToD: Only HP matters really. WF Barbs naturally have very high HP. 18/1/1s have significantly less HP. You need at least 500 just to survive a 1 vs disintegrate, and considering he also DoTs you and melees you very fast 600+ is a safer bare minimum. Can you get 600+ on an 18/1/1? Yeah, barely. And it'd be a pain to do, because madstone boots happen to share the same spot as boots of anchoring.

Depends on your groups I guess. Maybe I'm just lucky but
Run both of these (usually) with some awesome intimis, and they work much better than any FB.
My KOTC has pulled aggro from numerous FB's who said they could tank, don't think he has from good intimi build.

But anyway, this is getting way off topic.

Still wondering if this has been looked at from an actual class by class basis, not just a "well if we cut attacks by xx% across the board, everything will even out"

[SquelchHU]

always trying to bring it back to pnp....then weres my +5 defender that i can choose tohit bonus or ac bonus?

weres my ac that matters....weres the mobs having real hit points and stats....weres barbs only the uberist haveng 25 str at top.....weres 18/00 str weres many things...

i SAY THIS Todo WERE NOT IN PNP ANYMORE

I can barely read this but...

Your AC that matters got lost somewhere around 2nd edition. Yeah, like 2 decades ago.

Same with people capping out at Str 25. Try 42 for a PnP Barb.

[Tobril]

First, monks aren't the fastest attackers. Rogues and Fighters both get 30% attack speed boosts which put them WAY ahead of monks much of the time. And while I don't know what a twitching acrobat on haste boost wearing madstones gets for attacks per second with a staff, I know it's really high. Regardless "DPS" lag happens with all barbarians in shroud, this clearly has NOTHING to do with monks OR TWF.

Second, as for optimization, a monk strikes a little over 4 attacks per second typically. The number of floating point operations, even unoptimized and in 3 dimensions to calculate if the two objects are in range for the strike to land can be counted on one hand. With the number of operations of a server being counted in the GFLOPS thinking that cutting down on a few operations per second will have any significant impact is misguided to say the least.

Third, it's not impacting the server the way you think it is. If you've both kited in and meleed in part 2 of ToD you'd know that being any distance away from the melee gives you a dramatically different experience than being on the platform with the melee group. It's not the instance choking. It's not the server choking.

Fourth, why the lag in part 1 of shroud going up the steps to the chests after the final, NW portal is broken? Everyone gets it. Maybe you should look at that instead of jumping on the "DPS lag" that, while a catchy term, is only something that people who don't understand software could believe is a problem.

BTW, fix the zone/character changing memory leak problem that is causing the majority of the game crashes. It's been pointed out to you in the forums for months now. Fix the bloody thing.

Last I knew boosts only lasted a few seconds, and even then they interrupt the attack chain for a second or so.

Regarding lag, I run into occasional lag on my monk when soloing, let along raiding. Even when the lag doesn't cause movement problems I still see damage numbers running for a few seconds after a monster has become deceased.

[arminius]

I haven't seen lag in TOD or VOD or Shroud 1 or 5 that was disruptive, so as far as I can see you're really talking about making a global catastrophic destruction of TWF from level 1 to Epic to save Shroud 4.

I would sooner you walked over to the master replication server and selected the Shroud 4 folders and hit Delete.

Better that than gut the rest of the game to save it.

[Razcar]

What would jeets do?

TR as a THF barb.

[Angelus_dead]

well, the issue I see is, if you do not have all the feats you will not get too many off hand attacks...

That's not a change. It already doesn't make sense to dual-wield if you don't have the whole TWF feat tree.

[SquelchHU]

Or for normal runs, where healer lags, where healer gets tripped by something, some raid parts.
I'd agree if all you ever do is raid and run epic, probably not that big a deal.
For all those that don't just raid and run epic, kinda handy.

Well if you can't survive more than a few seconds on your own, the problem is your HP.

< Raids, quests, does not epic. Still thinks AC is not that valuable. Mains an 18/1/1. Doesn't like WF Barbs much, too one dimensional.

[bobbryan2]

Depends on your groups I guess. Maybe I'm just lucky but
Run both of these (usually) with some awesome intimis, and they work much better than any FB.
My KOTC has pulled aggro from numerous FB's who said they could tank, don't think he has from good intimi build.

But anyway, this is getting way off topic.

Still wondering if this has been looked at from an actual class by class basis, not just a "well if we cut attacks by xx% across the board, everything will even out"

Pulling aggro is bad. Just choose not to pull aggro.

[grodon9999]

I can barely read this but...

Your AC that matters got lost somewhere around 2nd edition. Yeah, like 2 decades ago.

Oh, you mean the last GOOD edition of D&D

[Eladiun]

Ill agree to disagree - your referncing stuff that most people use in mid levels because in engame what are you paralyzing? enfeeb/puncturing? (that being probably the only exception to the rule). It has been my experience that in endgame that side effect items are fodder or nominal. Stunning being the main application or side effect, but then I might as well use a maul and arc my hits to a bigger mob.

In the end, that bone tossed by E about beneficial IS nominal.

I had another thought in the car...if we are losing overall DPS on TWF maybe this is a good time to re-evaluate the stat damage nerf as a counterbalance.

[SquelchHU]

Right... so those 18/1/1s aren't as survivable.

That was my point. People like to point out this mythical "balance" between survivability and DPS. That 18/1/1s are more survivable and barbs do more DPS... but when it matters most, at end game raids, barbs are more survivable as well.

Yes, we're in agreement. Not as survivable where it matters most, and when the difference does apply it still doesn't really matter due to mass cures.

[Ganolyn]

Not at all. If this nerfs my damage output at all I'm canceling my sub.

I'll even bet this doesn't help lag at all either.

I've known you for a lot of years and I think we both know you'll get over it. Don't be so reactionary, they seem to be honestly trying to feel this out. They may nerf the whole idea or come up with something better.

As a user of special effect weapons in my off hand I don't like the idea of it hitting less, but then again if the only concern is for the high end stuff as people trample over the more balanced content on their lemur run to the grind treadmill from hell, then DPS will be the determining factor in the success of this decision. If there is no other way to succeed than a beat down, anything you do to decrease DPS will be taken as a negative step. Making all classes have a chance to be useful at those levels might be a better approach. Good luck with that.

[Marupal]

Am I understanding this right? My offhand +5 sword of killerness will have the same chance to hit as a rusty sword? Please, no. I agree, this sounds like it is going to reduce the lag by cutting off the DPS. Maybe a little lag is better.

I like Maxelcat's method. If all of the physics calcs are really being performed on the server side (is that really true?) then shunt some of it to the client side. It would reduce lag and the stutter effect if clients could determine proximity and hit calcs. No more player ->I ran up to it and swung my weapon but the server put me back 15 feet away. Client physics would keep the calcs based on what the player is actually seeing and where they are.
Another solution might be to allow the raid party member with the highest transfer speed/processor speed to act as the raid quest server.

[xTethx]

And the reason I think this is a dangerous road to go down: in a word, rogues. But to a lesser extend, bards, favored souls, clerics, etc.

Too much combat ability is being given through enhancements rather than feats already. Putting all those combat bonuses into class specific enhancements means two things. One that the piddling amount of damage clerics were already doing is being reduced further... and two: That every class would then need a melee PrE... and if every class is going to get one... why even make them in the first place?

I think the best option is giving better benefits to the feats themselves with only small additions to class specific stuff.

Good point Im sure if i toned the numbers down a bit for all those enhancements i listed, one could say that the TWF feats provide 5% double strike, and 15% chance to proc off hand per feat. That way like you said rogues etc, dont get shafted as much.

[Tolero]

Wait for it wait for it....


DOOoOOooOOOoOOooooOoM!

Hasn't been said yet......... Just thought I'd add it to the mess in here

I believe it was Judo who said that far earlier in the thread.

[SquelchHU]

if this goes through as proposed, respeccing to an AA makes sense, the TWF isn't going to be that much better with Tempest III over GTWF. Manyshot for 20 seconds and switch to blades, if you can UMD a sheild wand what else does Tempest give you?

Hm. -30% offhand damage comes out to... Close to, but not quite a 15% dps hit. That's still quite significant. But nonetheless, I have no desire to be a ranged gimp.

[grodon9999]

Yes, we're in agreement. Not as survivable where it matters most, and when the difference does apply it still doesn't really matter due to mass cures.

Regardless, do 18/1/1s need any more nerfage at this point? other than THF fighters the status quo is fine.

[grodon9999]

Hm. -30% offhand damage comes out to... Close to, but not quite a 15% dps hit. That's still quite significant. But nonetheless, I have no desire to be a ranged gimp.

You're only a ranged-gimp if you never put down the bow. Now, with an STR based AA, who switches to melee when manyshot is off, the DPS isn't that far off. I'm not even counting variables from lining up other targets.

When we know what the attack rates will be will be able to crunch the numbers, I'm betting it'll close the gap.