U5 combat feedback THF exclusively

[sigtrent]

Really getting old.

Pot... meet kettle.

People who have no idea about the fighting style commenting on it.

I have a two handed fighter with the full feat line, I do know what I'm talking about. The simple fact is that TWF does not get extra attacks while moving and they attack while moving. THF also attacks while moving and they get glancing blows while moving. The devs are leveling that part of the playing field so that neither style gets any "bonus damage when they attack while moving.

Here's a simple fact you need to understand if your going to continue in this thread:
EVERYONE - EVERY-ONE who uses two handed fighting, uses attacks while moving. OFTEN.

I'll do what I like Shade, and post what I like no matter your "OPINION" on anything.

EVERYONE - EVERY-ONE who does any kind of fighting THF or TWF or spell casting, or sword and shield etc.... attacks while moving. OFTEN.

Wow, who would have thought such a thing possible? Attacking while moving... shucks. What a revelation that is Shade.

Fact is, the game wants to reward you with extra damage for standing still. Its supposed to be a trade off. Stand still and get offensive advantages, or move around and get defensive advantages.

This game is all about active combat, monsters run around allot. Players run around allot. Players uses attacks while moving allot.

No doubt. But if you want to maximize offense, you need to take the risk of standing still. Why do you think we typically hem in bosses in raids? So we can maximize melee damage output on them. When they are running around they are hard to connect with. Same goes for characters.

All players.
Not just ones who understand twitch attack.

And not all players get their bonus damage when they are moving. TWF and THF are offensive styles. Glancing blows were invented to give THF some kind of damage parity with TWF while still being a bit different. Since they are nerfing TWF's stand and deliver attack damage they seem to have decided to take away some of THFs move and attack advantage for balance. They apparently don't want you doing maximal damage while on the hoof.

Even if you have no idea how to twitch attack. You currently do equal or better DPS using purely attacks while moving.

Only if you can stay on the target while doing so. And only if you are a THF with the GTHF feat. TWF looses all bonus attacks while moving so its a bad gig for them. Sword and board, might get some kind of damage increase from animation speed but its not easy to stay on the target that way unless you do what you do which is bobble back and forth. But your twitch is partly about resetting the animation, its faster than simply running and swinging.

All players can understand this simple concept. It's how the game is designed and is intended as it was part of the combat speed updates to equalize attacks while moving with those with standing. The difference is the -4 attack penalty.

You can't seem to understand that the devs decided letting THF get bonus damage while moving was imbalanced compared to everyone else who gets nothing while moving.

Personally I think there should be some kind of feat line that helps you specialize in attacking while moving. Like the scout class in 3.5 which got sneak attack damage only while on the move. That would reward or let players like you who want to specialize in that do so.

This is a NERF to all THF players. Period.

So? I never argued it wasn't. They also nerfed all TWF players.
That said, it does not nerf all THF players equally. Those who exclusively attack while moving are harder hit than those who only did so situationally. With my THF I couldn't be bothered to constantly be shifting around. I moved when I was taking more hits than I wanted and I stood still when I wanted to simply deliver damage, same as I do on all my melee characters.

[sigtrent]

That would be like saying that TWFs shouldnt get offhand attacks while moving.

They don't.

[Chai]

This is a NERF to all THF players that have the full THF feat line. Period.

I am still wondering what they are going to toss in that will make people want to keep the THF line.

[Chai]

They don't.

They do.

I can stun on the move with my kensai and the mob takes 2 hits and has to make 2 saves, or its stunned. This is also reflected in the combat log afterward.

I have also stunned 2 different mobs on the same stun activation while moving.

[Monkey_Archer]

TWF looses all bonus attacks while moving so its a bad gig for them.

That is inccorrect.

TWF gets "bonus attacks" in the form of offhand attacks.
THF gets "bonus attacks" in the form of glancing blows.

TWF does NOT loose offhand attacks while moving.

The proposed changes does not inicate that TWF would loose moving offhand attacks either.

[Chai]

Personally I think there should be some kind of feat line that helps you specialize in attacking while moving. Like the scout class in 3.5 which got sneak attack damage only while on the move. That would reward or let players like you who want to specialize in that do so.

There is. Its called THF. Reading the descriptions of the feats will show you this - especially GTHF.

Greater Two Handed Fighting http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Feat:...anded_Fighting

Usage: Passive

Allows you to make additional glancing blow attacks when wielding a two-handed weapon and moving, and late in your chain of attacks. Also increases the chance for weapon effects to trigger on glancing blows.

[Ethias]

They don't.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Attack_sequence seems to indicate otherwise. Is it incorrect?

EDIT: Nope it's right, others above pointed that out. URL left in in case anyone hasn't seen it.

[sigtrent]

They do.
I can stun on the move with my kensai and the mob takes 2 hits and has to make 2 saves, or its stunned. This is also reflected in the combat log afterward.
I have also stunned 2 different mobs on the same stun activation while moving.

I'll give it a careful test tonight. I've always experienced only one hit while moving on a TWF. I'll find some softie mobs (to make sure I'm not just missing) and I'll give it a go myself and see.

If what you say proves out then I'd say the change to THF glancing blows while moving makes little sense balance wise.

[sigtrent]

I did some testing and I did indeed get off hand attacks while moving.

(I did note that you have to get the monster head on for this, a side shot often only gets the sword on that side.)

Given that I see no good reason to remove glancing blows while moving.

[Vanshilar]

Well I went and programmed it up into Excel to see how general THF barbs will be affected. I simulated for both twitch and non-twitch and both pre-update and post-update. The weapons and targets were eSoS vs lit2 falchion vs Velah (0% fort 0 DR) and eSoS vs min 2 greataxe vs devil boss on normal (50% fort 15 DR). The results isn't pretty, it looks like moderately-equipped barbarians will have their DPS reduced by around 20% after the combat update, around 25% if using the epic sword of shadows.

The assumptions that I made regarding the character/equipment setup are as follows:
* level 20 pure human barbarian (to keep it simple, I didn't want to deal with stuff like dwarf damage bonus to axes but not to great swords i.e. eSoS)
* 60 str (fairly doable, remember this is for moderately equipped, not totally geared out, to make this more applicable to the general playerbase not the max possible DPSers)
* 26 base damage modifiers (again, fairly doable, just 16 from power attack, 2 from ToD FB set, 8 from bard song)
* 6 seeker from bloodstone
* no backstabbing (i.e. no Tharne's)

Regarding the weapons, I made the following assumptions:
* Epic Sword of Shadows (eSoS) stats will be changed from the current 4d6 (avg 14) base damage to 5d6 (avg 17.5), and its x4 crit multiplier will be changed to x3 crit multiplier
* Mineral 2 green steel greataxe (min2) and lightning 2 green steel falchion (lit2) stats will be unchanged
* Mineral 2 magical proc damage on hit is 7 from holy, 0 from acid burst and acid blast, and 2.5 from slicing; on crit is an additional 2.2 from acid burst and 2.2 from acid blast; on natural 20 roll is an additional 4.19 from acid blast (note that these numbers assume that devil bosses have acid resistance 10, although I have not tested this myself, let me know if you have tested results on their acid resistance)
* Lightning 2 magical proc damage on hit is 7 from holy and 3.5 from electric; on crit is an additional 5.5 from shocking burst and 5.5 from shocking blast; on natural 20 roll is an additional 14 from shocking blast; and there is a 2% chance on hit of a 600 damage lightning strike
* force damage ritual on all weapons for +1 force damage on successful hit (not that it affects much)

Regarding the game mechanics, I made the following assumptions:
* Attack speeds are taken from Monkey_Archer's testing here
* I'm going to ignore stuff like frenzy activate time and such from the DPS calculations, since this isn't meant to be a barb vs fighter vs anything else comparison, more of a barb pre-update vs barb post-update comparison, i.e. a relative measure of pre-update and post-update DPS rather than an absolute one; obviously, the inclusion or exclusion of those "dead" times don't affect the relative DPS of weapons like eSoS vs lit2
* After the update, the barbarian capstone alacrity bonus will be removed, plus madstone + haste speed will be slowed down to haste speed (as was reported in some initial testing here); otherwise the attack speeds will remain the same (i.e. I can use Monkey_Archer's numbers for after the update goes live)
* Currently, while twitching, there are glancing blows on 50% of the hits when twitching and 75% of the hits when auto-attacking
* After the update, there are glancing blows on 0% of the hits when twitching and 75% of the hits when auto-attacking

From these it's just a matter of typing in the attack damage formulae using these numbers and assumptions. The results that I get are below:





You can see if you get similar results by doing your own DPS calcs.

You can see that generally speaking, currently perfect twitch only gives about an 11% increase in DPS compared with turning auto-attack on and grabbing a drink -- and of course, this assumes that you can twitch perfectly through the vicious self-damage animation, your avatar being blocked by groupmates and spell effects (like a delayed blast fireball being cast), lag, different cooldowns as different alacrity effects wear off, etc. In other words, in real raid conditions (rather than the the "laboratory" conditions that the attack speeds are often tested in) your actual DPS when twitching is likely in between the twitching and auto-attacking DPS, depending on your level of success. The DPS increase is certainly nice for the pros that can do it but not exactly a game-changer or a game-busting feature, especially since it's something that rewards player skill as opposed to just rewarding time spent grinding through shroud/amrath runs for large mats (i.e. TWF).

You can also see that rather than the doom-and-gloom predictions, the eSoS will still be the weapon of choice for 0% fort 0 DR monsters such as Velah and trash. It will still do about 16% more damage than if you were using a lightning 2 falchion, compared with about 30% more damage currently. On the devil bosses, however, the eSoS will be knocked down to about on par with mineral 2 greataxe when on normal difficulty, compared with about 8% more DPS currently. Remember that this is for a moderately-equipped character; the eSoS will better relative to lit 2 and min2 with well-equipped characters.

You can also see that the regular GS weapons will have their DPS output decreased by about 19% compared with current. As expected, the eSoS will suffer more, around 28% for a 0 fort 0 DR case, while it's a more modest 25% with 50% fort 15 DR. You can also see that the eSoS will be pretty comparable to a min2 on normal shroud/VoD/ToD runs, meaning that it won't make a difference which one you use on normal, but on hard/elite you'll likely be using the min2. So the eSoS will be reduced to a niche weapon, i.e. useful for one set of circumstances rather than nearly all circumstances. It largely means that instead of using lit2 for trash and min2 for bosses pre-eSoS, post-update 5 it will be eSoS for trash and min2 for bosses.

To break down the 19% DPS loss for THF barbs using non-eSoS, you can sort of take a guess by seeing what happens if one aspect changed but the other aspects stayed the same (i.e. partial differentiation). In this case, the DPS loss would be:

3% if madstone + haste speed were reduced to haste speed (but twitch and barb alacrity remained the same)
10% if twitch mechanic were changed and hence you auto-attacked instead (but madstone and barb alacrity remained the same)
6% if barb alacrity were removed (but madstone and twitch remained the same)

So the majority of the loss seems to be from decreasing the effectiveness of twitch, although you lose about the same amount of DPS (i.e. around 9%) from just standing there auto-attacking pre-update and post-update. It would seem a bit difficult to reconcile with Eladrin's stated purpose of the TWF change in that it "reduces the two weapon fighting style’s extreme dominance over two handed fighting" when within the same update they will be decreasing the effectiveness of THF (specifically twitch). I don't know why any TWFers are complaining about a 10-15% DPS loss when this is currently what THF barbs face, nor how the update will adjust the balance between TWF and THF since it seems like both will take a significant DPS loss.

Note: In these examples I use a barb since that's what I'm more familiar with, I'm not sure at this point yet how the changes will affects THF fighters and paladins, I'll get around to them later I guess.

[Logic]

I'm not happy about the THF changes. I have a 20 WF FvS that uses greatswords. I think I might just drop the whole THF chain. Anybody else thinking of dropping the whole chain?

[Vanshilar]

What i mean is this:

TWF and THF attack at the same speed standing still (approximately). Suppose the changes make them do roughly equal dps. This dps would include glancing blows.

TWF and THF also attack at the same speed while moving (approximately). By removing glancing blows completely there is no possible way THF can do as much dps as TWF. (roughly 17% less on a barb)
That would be like saying that TWFs shouldnt get offhand attacks while moving.

They could make it so that THF gains glancing blows on the 2nd moving animation (i.e. the diagonally up swing) rather than the 1st moving animation (i.e. the diagonally down swing). If you're continually moving, you'd still get glancing blows on 50% of your attacks, the way it is now, while you would still lose glancing blows if twitching, which is what the developers seem to intend to discourage it.

[Zaal]

People, what is so seemingly wrong with just overall slowing down the combat system to that the servers have more time to process two weapon attacks?

Yeah, takes more time to kill something but that could be off set by more XP.

Or, if the engine is slowed down by say 10%, monster hp's could also be reduced by 10% - a net balance.
Of course not doing the numbers but if someone did, I'm sure there'd be a sweet spot where the actual battle would take the same amount of human time as it did before.

Also, slowing down the engine would give the devs more opportunity to in future play with the cycles to do other stuff - no, not suggesting the fill up the gain so that we're back in the same situation.

Also, with the engine slowed down, animation would be easier to sync.

Sure, players would perceive the slow down in animation and assume the game is slow but, the hardcore base would know what's up.

Anyway, if the combat system were slowed down, there'd be no need to nerf anything - till the next time

[Cetus]

They do.

I can stun on the move with my kensai and the mob takes 2 hits and has to make 2 saves, or its stunned. This is also reflected in the combat log afterward.

I have also stunned 2 different mobs on the same stun activation while moving.

I can confirm this.

[BlackSteel]

Well I went and programmed it up into Excel to see how general THF barbs will be affected. I simulated for both twitch and non-twitch and both pre-update and post-update. The weapons and targets were eSoS vs lit2 falchion vs Velah (0% fort 0 DR) and eSoS vs min 2 greataxe vs devil boss on normal (50% fort 15 DR). The results isn't pretty, it looks like moderately-equipped barbarians will have their DPS reduced by around 20% after the combat update, around 25% if using the epic sword of shadows.

when I worked it out I get 'similar' numbers. only reason I say similar is b/c I used maxed out numbers that anyone thats routinely running epic velah should have anyway.

not counting tharnes prenerf, I get ~650 DPS for the eSoS, after the nerf I have ~ 450. squeezing out those last few points really escalate it up there simply by the fact of the sword's high critical power. Almost a 30% loss. (if the situation was reversed it would be almost a 50% gain)

yes the sword is still usable in some situations, but its not much of an upgrade over lit2 on autocrit situations (which comes nowhere close to a TWF with picks in the same situation) Unusable of most types of DR. And honestly in my opinion, no longer much of an upgrade over the original SoS. The sword gains 16 damage and a red slot. Neither of which improves on what the sword was originally good for (an awesome crit machine) or makes the sword more viable in other combat scenarios (DR bypassing/autocrit/crit immune)

[Vanshilar]

I went through and did similar DPS calculations for fighters. I don't presume to know the fighter class that well though, so if there's some important fighter thing that I'm missing, please let me know. The results are fairly similar, although the DPS decrease won't be as big as for the barbarian. I want to emphasize that it probably isn't valid to compare the numbers with the ones for the barbarian above, this is mostly for a relative measure for a fighter pre- and post-Update 5.

The character/equipment setup assumptions were as follows:

* Level 20 human pure fighter (once again, don't want to deal with racial bonuses)
* The fighter is kensei, specialized in each weapon being considered (note that this means I'm comparing builds, since a particular fighter wouldn't really be able to switch between greatsword, falchion, and greataxe at will without losing out on specializations)
* 50 str to be comparable with a similarly-equipped barbarian; note that a barbarian gets +12 str from rage, +4 from death frenzy, +2 from frenzy, +2 from barbarian might, and +2 from the ToD FB set for a total of +22 str, while a fighter gets +8 from kensei power surge and +3 from enhancements for a total of +11 str
* 30 base damage modifiers (10 from power attack, 4 from the kensei weapon enhancements, 2 from the fighter weapon enhancements, 4 from the weapon spec feats, 2 from FB set, and 8 from bard song)
* 14 seeker, 6 from bloodstone and 8 from kensei enhancements for THF weapons
* +1 kensei 3 critical range that doesn't stack with imp crit (so eSoS has a crit range of 13-20 instead of 14-20 for when have imp crit)
* no backstabbing (no Tharne's)

The weapon assumptions are the same as given above.

For the fighter attack speeds, the assumptions were:
* I assume that the fighter capstone currently is providing the same alacrity as the barbarian capstone, though I don't really know if that is the case. The attack speeds are given in the link above
* To take into account haste boosts (assuming quickdraw), the number of attacks are multiplied by (19.4*1.3 + 10*1)/30, which is basically a 30% attack speed increase for 19.4 seconds (the duration of the haste boost) and the regular attack for 10 seconds; I know that the actual attack speed increase may be slightly different, but, assuming that it doesn't change in Update 5, the DPS measures will still be accurate as a relative measure of pre-Update 5 and post-Update 5
* I assume that (as with above), madstone + haste attack speed will be reduced to the current haste speed, i.e. assuming that madstone's alacrity increase will be reduced
* I will assume that the fighter capstone gives a 10% chance of double strike, rather than an alacrity bonus, after the Update

From this, the stats for the THF fighter can also be graphed out:





One thing to notice is that twitching on a fighter using eSoS still provides a slight advantage over auto-attacking after the update. If you understand where a barbarian's DPS comes from, this shouldn't be too surprising. As it stands currently with the stats given above, a barbarian using the eSoS would do around 217 damage per main hit, and around 53.5 damage per glancing blow (twitching, of course, decreases this by 50% and thus around 26.75 damage per actual swing). This amounts to around (11% of the barbarian's total DPS) when twitching. But if you break this down even further, you'd find that it's because on each glancing blow, the eSoS weapon component would be around 35 damage on a glancing blow, while the frenzy and death frenzy component adds a total of 6d6 = 21 damage per glancing blow. Unlike many magical weapon effects, which have an additional glancing blow proc rate (in the 20-30% range) that must succeed before they occur on a glancing blow, the barbarian frenzy and death frenzy enhancement effects occur on every single (successful) glancing blow. So these enhancements provide about 38% of the glancing blow damage (and it's an even bigger portion of the glancing blow damage if DR is involved).

A fighter however does not have this component. Thus, for a fighter in the same setup, glancing blows are worth less since there is only the weapon component. In this case, using the eSoS, the fighter does around 189 damage on the main hit and only 34 damage on a glancing blow (halved when twitching of course). So a glancing blow, when twitching, is only worth around 8% of a fighter's damage compared with 11% of a barbarian's damage.

After Update 5, with the changes to the eSoS, when auto-attacking, the glancing blows (coming out on 75% of swings) will contribute around 21% of the main hit's DPS (or 17% of the total DPS) for a barbarian. Since twitching only gives a 19% attack speed increase over auto-attack, auto-attack gives more DPS. For a fighter however, because the glancing blows do not have the frenzy / death frenzy damage, the glancing blows only contribute around 16% of the main hit's DPS (or 13.6% of the total DPS). Thus, for a fighter using the eSoS, it is still preferable to twitch.

But anyway, you can see that for fighters, after Update 5, with GS weapons will be losing around 12.5% of their current DPS. Using the eSoS, fighters will be losing around 26% of their current DPS vs Velah and around 23% of their current DPS vs 50% fort 15 DR targets.

[emptysands]

Looks like you missed the extra +2 size damage for Ram's Might for total +3 damage (+1 from +2 STR and +2 from size).


Strength 34 : 18base +5level +6item +2ram's might +1human adaptability +2 tome.

Avg base damage:
5.5 avg GS khopesh
+5 weapon
+12 str (+6 offhand)
+2 Ram
+5 power attack
+7 holy
+14 FvNME
50.5 per hit (44.5 offhand)

Avg crit damage:
5.5 avg khopesh
+5 weapon
+12 str (+6 offhand)
+2 Ram
+5 power attack
+6 seeker
+14 FvNME
49.5 x 3 = 148.5 per crit (130.5 offhand)
+7 holy = 155.5 per crit (137.5 offhand)

Base attack rate @ bab20 = 88 attacks/min
current tempest attack rate = 97 attacks/min * 5/4 (tempest3) = 121 (97 offhand)
new attack rate = 88*105%*105% = 97 attacks/min (88 offhand)
*assuming tempest 3 extra main hand attack actually adds this amount. no values provided

Avg dps:
current:
avg dps main hand = [50.5 * (15/d20) + 155.5 * (4/d20)] * 121attacks/min * 1min/60sec = 139.1
avg dps off hand = [44.5 * (15/d20) + 137.5 * (4/d20)] * 97attacks/min * 1min/60sec = 98.4
total current TWF dps = 237.5


Not sure about your new numbers, but that is a 104% difference against the old numbers.

Let's see what happens when we compare the dps of a human twf tempest ranger, with a human thf frenzied beserker. I'm using human because it is a good average baseline race, and because I can compare the two styles independent of racial enhancements/abilities (not gonna count HV boosts). I'm also only going to compare only what each class/style brings to the table, so no external buffs, class specific raid loot, pots, or item clickies. Just the spells/enhancements/abilities that come with the build.

Assumptions: Min2 khopesh or Great Axe vs acid immune mob, + 6 stat items, bloodstone, 18 base Str, +2tomes, max damage related enhancements.
Sources: http://ddowiki.com/page/Enhancements
http://ddowiki.com/index.php?title=Attack_sequence&
http://ddowiki.com/page/Glancing_blow
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=201535

TWF tempest ranger
Strength 34 : 18base +5level +6item +2ram's might +1human adaptability +2 tome.

Avg base damage:
5.5 avg GS khopesh
+5 weapon
+12 str (+6 offhand)
+5 power attack
+7 holy
+14 FvNME
48.5 per hit (42.5 offhand)

Avg crit damage:
5.5 avg khopesh
+5 weapon
+12 str (+6 offhand)
+5 power attack
+6 seeker
+14 FvNME
47.5 x 3 = 142.5 per crit (124.5 offhand)
+7 holy = 149.5 per crit (131.5 offhand)

Base attack rate @ bab20 = 88 attacks/min
current tempest attack rate = 97 attacks/min * 5/4 (tempest3) = 121 (97 offhand)
new attack rate = 88*105%*105% = 97 attacks/min (88 offhand)
*assuming tempest 3 extra main hand attack actually adds this amount. no values provided

Avg dps:
current:
avg dps main hand = [48.5 * (15/d20) + 149.5 * (4/d20)] * 121attacks/min * 1min/60sec = 133.7
avg dps off hand = [42.5 * (15/d20) + 131.5 * (4/d20)] * 97attacks/min * 1min/60sec = 94.0
total current TWF dps = 227.7

new:
avg dps main hand = [43.5 * (15/d20) + 134.5 * (4/d20)] * 97attacks/min * 1min/60sec = 107.1
avg dps off hand = [41 * (15/d20) + 120 * (4/d20)] * 88attacks/min * 1min/60sec = 85.3
total TWF dps (new) = 192.4


THF frenzied berzerker barbarian
Strength 50 : 18base +5level +6item +12rage +2 frenzy +4death frenzy+1human adaptability +2 tome.

Avg base damage:
10.5 avg GS Great Axe
+5 weapon
+30 str
+16 PA
61.5 base per hit
+7 holy
+21 vicious = 89.5 per hit

Avg crit damage:
10.5 avg Great Axe
+5 weapon
+30 str
+16 PA
+6 seeker
67.5 x 5 = 337.5 per crit
+7 holy
+21 vicious = 365.5 per crit

Glancing blows:
61.5 base damage * 30% = 18.5 per hit
*estimated glancing blow damage, ddowiki. No info on FB extra effect proc rate.

Base attack rate @ bab20 = 88 attacks/min

Glancing blow rate = 88 * 3/4 = 66 attacks/min

Avg dps
avg main dps = [89.5 * (17/d20) + 365.5 * (2/d20)] * 88attacks/min * 1min/60sec = 165.2
glancing blow = 18.5 * 66attacks/min * 1min/60sec = 20.4
total THF dps = 185.4


Hopefully my calculations are correct.

p.s. The interesting thing I see is how much higher dps goes when all external factors are considered (buffs, songs, clickies, extra gear effects, etc). When people post 300+dps numbers, fully 1/2 to 1/3 of their dps comes from factors unrelated to the build. Are there truly gimped builds, or is it mostly just a lack of the right buffs and farmed gear? Makes me wonder just how far can you buff up and gear out a "gimped" build? Can you actually make it respectable with enough buff, fluff, and stuff?

[Enscriptor]

I'm not sure if someone has even hit on this point as this thread is getting a bit thick and I've skipped a few of the posts. However, there is almost no time when you are NOT moving and attacking save for a few specific instances. i.e. boss fight (maybe) and portals in shroud. 99% of this game is running around chasing mobs. No one EVER stands in one spot and fights some mobs. NEVER HAPPENS! EVER!!!! It can't! Either your running to mobs that are running after another character or your running to mobs that are running away from you to do range attacks or their just backing up (and jumping onto walls that you can't even hit untill everyone runs 5 miles away and they finally jump down).

After reading all the pros/cons people stating about this change I'm confused to think that someone is sitting there thinking, "Ok, we'll run to each pack of mobs, ENTIRE party stands still, we kill those mobs that AREN'T running from us or towards another or just plain running away, now move to next pack".

Are they serious? Have they even played this game? EVERY fight in the game is mobile except for a few boss fights which you don't normally even have extra mobs to do glancing on... We'll never have glancing blows again.

It all comes down to the fact that YOU NEVER STAND STILL AND ATTACK IN THIS GAME because YOU'D NEVER HIT ANYTHING IF YOU DID. Most Two Handed feats are worthless with this patch on the whole...

Thats my take on all this. Feel free to bash my idea or whatever. Its fact.

Spark!