Epic SoS Nerfed to +10 5d6/x3

[Krag]

I agree, besides, if you left the epic sos as it was, what the next epic two handed weapon would have to be? or they would have to be even more overpowered, or people will say, well, this is a joke, the new weapons are all useless, none is better than the epic SoS!!!

Just an idea. They could have made a weapon that bypasses common DR but deals less damage against regular trash.

[Do'Urden]

Correct, but people are claiming that they are so rare, when they are not. They are common enough they they are on the AH for sale for small enough amounts of plat.

I agree. The scroll, however, is by far the least of your problems as it pertains to actually making the eSoS.

[Gercho]

Just an idea. They could have made a weapon that bypasses common DR but deals less damage against regular trash.

And then people will say, hey, this is an epic item and its the same than my min II that is lvl 12! i think that if anything, this open more room for new epic weapons that could be worthy too...

[Krag]

3 large/red scales was the common price for SoS scroll not-so-long-ago on Argo. Enough to make any singlesharded GS item.

[Krag]

And then people will say, hey, this is an epic item and its the same than my min II that is lvl 12! i think that if anything, this open more room for new epic weapons that could be worthy too...

I have no problem with a better version of Min II.
If you follow the GS pattern, you can see there trash beater (Lit, Earthgrab), dr-breaker (Min) and there is still enough room for situational weapons like skelly-beaters, greater banes, etc. Easy to implement, happy customers.

[Aaxeyu]

• FACT: The Epic SoS now does comparable DPS to Tier II/III Greensteel (data presented several times earlier in this thread).

That is false.

It's way better than mineral II, except against high DR mobs (Hence I think they should replace adamantine with metalline).

The math goes (I'll use a level 20 WF fighter as example):

27,5 base damage
16 PA
6 WS
4 kensai
8 bard buff
1 prayer
30 from strength (50 strength)
92,5 Damage

6 seeker from BS
8 seeker from kensai
14 Extra crit damage

Crit: 14-20 x3

(92,5*12 + 319,5*7)/20=167,32 average damage per hit.

GS greataxe:
15,5 base damage
16 PA
6 WS
4 kensai
8 bard buff
1 prayer
30 from strength (50 strength)
80,5 Damage

6 seeker from BS
8 seeker from kensai
14 Extra crit damage

3,5 elemental effect
7 holy
2,5 slicing
12 Effect damage

11 burst
11 blast
22 crit effect damage

Crit : 18-20 x3
(92,5x16 + 317,5*3)/20=121,625 average damage per hit


ESoS: 167,32 average damage per hit.
GS GA: 121,625 average damage per hit

This is just a random example. The point is that it's still a brutal weapon that every THF character will want to have.

[Matuse]

The Epic SoS should be and is MUCH harder to grind than a Tier III Greensteel weapon unless you have people passing you Shards & Seals (just as likely as someone passing you a Large Devil Scale in the Shroud)

Strange, 2 SoS shards showed up in the VoN6 chest just yesterday, and BOTH of them were put up for roll by the people they appeared for.

Wrongmuch?

[Asketes]

Agreed. The item is still "epic," just not quite as "epic," at least in DDO terms.

What I don't understand is why people think that the esos should be the single most dominant weapon for all targets, all the time. This has never been the flavor of DDO.

well, now that people have the idea of buying teh uberz in the store. They want *forgive the reference* one <insert item> to rule them all..

Yeah i know, p*sspoor reference, but you get the point.


*on another note*
I love seeing monks loot the SoS while saying: I will not be TR'ing; I won't ever use it, but seeing as no one offered me enough for it I am gonna take it.

*while it IS their loot, it's kind of rude to say that. They should just loot it and move on, not rub it in*

[Asketes]

Strange, 2 SoS shards showed up in the VoN6 chest just yesterday, and BOTH of them were put up for roll by the people they appeared for.

Wrongmuch?

WOW, not sold huh!

This is good, that is much more in the spirit of things.

[LordPiglet]

Not at all true...unless you're talking about the 1% subset of the Level 20 population that actually runs Epic Desert on a routine basis. I've never even SEEN the Shard or the Seal in hundreds of runs. A 3x Greater Mnemonic clickie is hardly worth the grind unless they also make SIGNIFICANT changes to Epic beyond those already announced.

I got one of those the other day on my 3rd epic DQ, put it up for roll. Now I wish I hadn't.

[Cyr]

[quote=Aaxeyu;3006447]dps calcs[quote]

A few notes.

A) Epic SoS gets more benefit the higher the str + higher the PA bonus.
B) Interesting choice of GS weapon...Min 2 also does less damage then a host of other GS weapons against non DR targets.
C) The difference is therefore much less then you listed for some builds and just less for others.
D) Epic SoS in it's new incarnation is still worth having. It is just not nearly as compelling.

[Do'Urden]

Strange, 2 SoS shards showed up in the VoN6 chest just yesterday, and BOTH of them were put up for roll by the people they appeared for.

Wrongmuch?

Using an extreme outlier in terms of probability and calling me Wrongmuch? Laughable...at best...

[Aaxeyu]

A few notes.

A) Epic SoS gets more benefit the higher the str + higher the PA bonus.
B) Interesting choice of GS weapon...Min 2 also does less damage then a host of other GS weapons against non DR targets.
C) The difference is therefore much less then you listed for some builds and just less for others.
D) Epic SoS in it's new incarnation is still worth having. It is just not nearly as compelling.

A. Yes it does, so as time goes on ut will be even more superior to GS.
B. That is true, but the difference is not that big anyways. ESoS is still way better than any GS.
C. And even greater for some. No matter how you twist it, ESoS is better than GS in many situations.
D. Indeed, it's no longer completely broken. How is that a bad thing? Rangers will no longer deal more damage with THF than TWF. That's pretty darn good if you ask me.

[Cyr]

D. Indeed, it's no longer completely broken. How is that a bad thing? Rangers will no longer deal more damage with THF than TWF. That's pretty darn good if you ask me.

Or they could have just added good epic one handed weapons to the game.

[Solmage]

Meh, the way I see it, the people bemoaning it will go to any non-logical (ie irrational) lengths to argue why this is wrong.

I'll offer the following:

- Balancing a weapon by making it "very rare" is terrible game design, unless you artificially limit the number of them. (For example, "max 5 per server drop, ever" - then it's only bad game design.)

- The weapon in question was not even "very rare" (or even very challenging to get). it was EASY as heck to get! FAR LESS work than a shroud weapon unless you already have a stockpile of larges, but then the comparison is biased.

- You didn't need shroud weapons to do this raid. In fact the power gamers were not using min IIs vs Velah, they were using holy or holyburst of greater dragon bane with icyburst with force.

- The nerf isn't THAT bad - it still is a very powerful weapon, more powerful than anything else in DPS. It's just no longer ridiculously so.

- Epic creatures and auto-crit: If you were having ANY issues killing an epic trash creature in auto-crit in more than 6 or so seconds, you and your group don't belong in epic quests. It's possible for epic trash you may have a better weapon than the SoS for when the stuff is auto-crittable - but this is a good thing! Having a single weapon be the absolutely best weapon for all possible scenarios wasn't good.

- They already nerfed min IIs because they were the best possible weapons for all scenarios for this same reason. And they were not nearly as powerful as this SoS. (I still think it was a mistake, and they should have ONLY nerfed min IIs instead of all transmuters, but whatever)

- The min level of the item plays no role as to how useful it is. This has been a trademark of DDO for a very long time, and it's a GOOD thing because it keeps old content worth running. The shroud is still considered an end game raid, and arguing that "no min lvl 12 item should be close to the SoS" is simply begging to have the shroud changed to level 18 and the shroud items to get a min lvl 18. It's not like they haven't nerfed the min lvl of shroud items before you know.

- People who didn't quit because of the w/p insane nerf which not only invalidated ***years*** of effort for people but ALSO crapload of builds (with it, the viability of dex-based builds went right out the window, as well as the dual-wielding barb) and which WALKED ALL OVER the D&D rules, aren't going to quit over this overall moderate nerf. PS: I am STILL upset about the w/p nerf. I'll forget the SoS nerf in four weeks time, tops.

- People may no longer run the von raid non-stop like crazy to have the most must-have weapon in the game. But this raid is fairly easy, and kinda fun, and still has a lot of other nice stuff, so it'll still get run a lot.

- I WILL agree that it is a really bad idea to release something into live that even in Lamannia is seen as incredibly overpowered, and then nerf it after lots of people have worked for said item.

[Aaxeyu]

Or they could have just added good epic one handed weapons to the game.

If every new weapon they add should be twice as good as the current top weapons things will scale up very fast.

The complaints about this nerf is just silly tbh. It really brought out the crybabies.

[SquelchHU]

A few notes.

A) Epic SoS gets more benefit the higher the str + higher the PA bonus.
B) Interesting choice of GS weapon...Min 2 also does less damage then a host of other GS weapons against non DR targets.
C) The difference is therefore much less then you listed for some builds and just less for others.
D) Epic SoS in it's new incarnation is still worth having. It is just not nearly as compelling.

Pretty sure he compared to fort 0 as well.

Which means either:

The comparison should have been vs Lit 2, the GS trash mob weapon.
The comparison should have considered 50% fort, the most common number for bosses.

[Solmage]

Try again.

24 Larges = 16 runs. It will likely take a little more than this due to duplicates. It can also take less than this if you buy some ingredients.

Actually, 24 larges is approximate 20 runs. 24 SPECIFIC larges is approximately 60+ or so runs. Have you forgotten the HUGE number of people who originally went "I'll never run the shroud enough times to craft anything, so I'm selling this large for X..." back when it was released? Heck, without multiple characters, you might as well forget shroud crafting, or you have to do the even more tedious and mind-numbing recalling before part 5 is over shtick, bringing your total number of runs up into the insane realm.

So now try running 60+ shrouds WITHOUT any characters in the raid being decked in green steel and compare it against the effort of running von1 and von2 for scrollies. Incidentally my last sos scroll came from the CR 12 spectators after von1. Also, von1 and 2 epic can be run without a cleric in what, 12 minutes or so?

As for the actual epic raid? Don't make me laugh, it's over in what, 10 mins as well? 15 tops if you're conservative with your dps to avoid lag? And a guild in Sarlona just finished it in THREE minutes.

[Chai]

As for the actual epic raid? Don't make me laugh, it's over in what, 10 mins as well? 15 tops if you're conservative with your dps to avoid lag? And a guild in Sarlona just finished it in THREE minutes.

But but but its sooooo rare....

Its not even on farm anymore, its on plow.

[Mellkor]

but this is a good thing! Having a single weapon be the absolutely best weapon for all possible scenarios wasn't good.

why not?