What is my dex ranger supposed to do in epic now?

[grodon9999]

Join those of us that think Weapon Finesse needs a boost.

Maybe if you have Weapon Finesse your DCs should be based on Dex instead of Strength?

Maybe Finessed weapons should have a Double Strike Proc Chance based on the Dex(or dex mod) of the character weilding them?

Maybe Dexterity Mod should be added to Critical hits (before multiplier)?


Maybe all of the above?

Aesop

/signed

[dragonruler]

Stan, you need to give away all your stuff, delete everyone, come out to alabama and join our monthly pnp games, and play golf in the interim. Its what I've been doing and working out well for me so far

/nod

What he said

[Stanley_Nicholas]

Join those of us that think Weapon Finesse needs a boost.

Maybe if you have Weapon Finesse your DCs should be based on Dex instead of Strength?

Maybe Finessed weapons should have a Double Strike Proc Chance based on the Dex(or dex mod) of the character weilding them?

Maybe Dexterity Mod should be added to Critical hits (before multiplier)?


Maybe all of the above?

Aesop

Something like this would definitely help. However, it wouldn't do anything about the fact that the weighted nerf makes stunning blow a mandatory feat for all viable melee who want to run epic. All this would do is keep finesse builds from being removed from the list of viable melee altogether.

Absolutely finesse needs to be improved and I would support everything you mentioned above, but the root of the issue as far as epic is concerned is that getting enemies into an auto-crit state is the only reasonable option for most melee in epic. This is what the devs need to address, not nerf the only reasonable option for all finesse and feat-starved (i.e. paladin) builds. Give us other options before taking away the only one that we do have.

[Stanley_Nicholas]

Stan, you need to give away all your stuff, delete everyone, come out to alabama and join our monthly pnp games, and play golf in the interim. Its what I've been doing and working out well for me so far

You moved to Alabama?

Actually that sounds fun, except I'd have to move back to Texas in less than 3 months to go back to school.

[Kiranselie]

You moved to Alabama?

Actually that sounds fun, except I'd have to move back to Texas in less than 3 months to go back to school.

Dude, I've been in Bama the whole time I played DDO, Im just not from here. And 3 months will get you three game sessions ( Friday and Saturday for aprox. 16-18 hours a day). Plus Alabama has some of the best public courses in the country.

[kingfisher]

ok here's the plan:
first complain a lot and then fake-leave, stop your sub, but delete no toons. then create a couple free acounts, come here, complain to everyone about how its not fair that dex-based toons r teh suk, yada yada. waith for nerfgate 6 and vola! they will make everyting gravy for you.

footnote: this will also work for complaints about the core rules of the game, so use your new powers wisely, dont go asking them to make us collect 200 ogre ears ok?

[Stanley_Nicholas]

Dude, I've been in Bama the whole time I played DDO, Im just not from here. And 3 months will get you three game sessions ( Friday and Saturday for aprox. 16-18 hours a day). Plus Alabama has some of the best public courses in the country.

Oh I knew you were in Alabama. I thought I was being funny.

[Kiranselie]

Oh I knew you were in Alabama. I thought I was being funny.

oh

[Stanley_Nicholas]

ok here's the plan:
first complain a lot and then fake-leave, stop your sub, but delete no toons. then create a couple free acounts, come here, complain to everyone about how its not fair that dex-based toons r teh suk, yada yada. waith for nerfgate 6 and vola! they will make everyting gravy for you.

footnote: this will also work for complaints about the core rules of the game, so use your new powers wisely, dont go asking them to make us collect 200 ogre ears ok?

Ha, I think you might be on to something...

[JOTMON]

What was your dex ranger ever going to do in epic. Epic is all about DPS. Regardless of these new changes or not, there are no circumstances where taking a str based fighter or barb wouldn't be better for an epic group than your dex based ranger. Sorry.. the new changes didn't make you an epic piker, you always were one.

Untrue, a High dex Ranger/monk splash or monk build with weighted handwraps and high attack speed would often stun mobs to achieve crits for the entire poarty to take advantage of. Stunned Mob does no damage for a few seconds so less healing required, crits from the heavy hitters kept everyone close. This change effectively wipes out weighted usefullness in Epic( changes to 3% plus mobs have a save DC33, Epic mob saves are through the roof so they will never fail, reduced attack speed makes everything take longer to hit. bad for clerics bad for dex builds). Resists, and other buffs are picked up by rangers to allow healers to conserve mana for healing.

I can see this making my mixed class dex builds effectively slightly better than useless in Epic now and is not looking good for any of my clerics. Hoping adjustments to the mobs are made as well to balance that side of it otherwise there will be a big imbalance between player effectiveness and Mob hp/damage.

[completelylost]

I'm very new to the game, and have never done any epic type stuff, but from what I can tell from reading the forums it seems that AC (which is the point of the high dex/monk splash 'exploiter' builds) was pretty much useless in epics.

I was lookin at the patch notes though and I saw that the trash mobs are getting a reduction to their to-hit apparently, along with lowered saves if I remember right.

So, wouldn't that nerf to the mobs make AC (and therefore exploiter builds) more useful in epic content? Or am I just completely misunderstanding the whole thing?

[Aesop]

Something like this would definitely help. However, it wouldn't do anything about the fact that the weighted nerf makes stunning blow a mandatory feat for all viable melee who want to run epic. All this would do is keep finesse builds from being removed from the list of viable melee altogether.

Absolutely finesse needs to be improved and I would support everything you mentioned above, but the root of the issue as far as epic is concerned is that getting enemies into an auto-crit state is the only reasonable option for most melee in epic. This is what the devs need to address, not nerf the only reasonable option for all finesse and feat-starved (i.e. paladin) builds. Give us other options before taking away the only one that we do have.

Is Stat damage viable to bring thingies down to crit range? If not ... maybe it should be

Aesop

[Chai]

What was your dex ranger ever going to do in epic. Epic is all about DPS. Regardless of these new changes or not, there are no circumstances where taking a str based fighter or barb wouldn't be better for an epic group than your dex based ranger. Sorry.. the new changes didn't make you an epic piker, you always were one.

Another strength swearing absolutist. Thought you /ragequit already, or are you just threatening to do so and hanging around like most other people who threaten to do so?

5 points of strength doesnt make someone gimp. With a ranger, you can still get into the mid 30s with dex before applying shroud gear and hit 28 (30 with rams) on strength.

Of course, pointing this out goes entirely against DPS absolutism.

[Stanley_Nicholas]

Is Stat damage viable to bring thingies down to crit range? If not ... maybe it should be

Aesop

Nope, all trash mobs in epic are nearly immune to stat damage. I'm not sure exactly on the numbers, but based on my experience wounding will apply on only roughly 20% of hits, and puncturing is reduced by half so it only hits for 1d3. Also, epic mobs regenerate stat damage much faster - it only lasts for a matter of seconds. Dex builds may as well not even bother with epic if this goes live as-is, because they'll be doing nothing but piking.

[Ranmaru2]

Untrue, a High dex Ranger/monk splash or monk build with weighted handwraps and high attack speed would often stun mobs to achieve crits for the entire poarty to take advantage of. Stunned Mob does no damage for a few seconds so less healing required, crits from the heavy hitters kept everyone close. This change effectively wipes out weighted usefullness in Epic( changes to 3% plus mobs have a save DC33, Epic mob saves are through the roof so they will never fail, reduced attack speed makes everything take longer to hit.

Top it all off with the fact that they're trying to decrease server load yet add a DC to Stunning....yeah that makes sense

[Gornin]

Is your character female?

Does she have a cheerleaders outfit?


If so, you know what to do.

[Aesop]

Nope, all trash mobs in epic are nearly immune to stat damage. I'm not sure exactly on the numbers, but based on my experience wounding will apply on only roughly 20% of hits, and puncturing is reduced by half so it only hits for 1d3. Also, epic mobs regenerate stat damage much faster - it only lasts for a matter of seconds. Dex builds may as well not even bother with epic if this goes live as-is, because they'll be doing nothing but piking.

well maybe they need to change that...

Maybe the "Minions" that they talk about will have a reduced AC and resistance to Stat Damage along with their reduced Saves... lotta maybe there huh.

Maybe it'll require some balancing all around

and maybe they'll actually look at the lower dps characters and do something about it

Aesop

[MrWizard]

With weighted being nerfed big time, what are dex based characters supposed to do in epic? No point in taking stunning blow even if they can spare the feat (even though they probably can't), since the DC would be too low anyway. So my options are to either TR into a strength build, or farm all the stuff on a different character and pass it to the dex build? Bleh! This nerf sucks a lot of fun out of the game.

trip works well.

DCs of the mobs are supposed to be lower..

bring in an AC intimitank and just beat them from behind...

[Stanley_Nicholas]

well maybe they need to change that...

Maybe the "Minions" that they talk about will have a reduced AC and resistance to Stat Damage along with their reduced Saves... lotta maybe there huh.

Maybe it'll require some balancing all around

and maybe they'll actually look at the lower dps characters and do something about it

Aesop

Yeah, a whole lot of maybe. I do hope they do something about it though. It's really not good design to leave entire build paths out in the cold for the intended endgame environment. Hopefully they just didn't realize how much a nerf to weighted would impact certain builds, and will do something to remedy the situation quickly. I think it's also a bad idea to make stunning blow near-mandatory for the other (strength based) melees too, but I haven't seen much comment on that from anyone else. And it would be nice if they gave finesse a bit of a boost in the non-epic portions of the game as well.

trip works well.

DCs of the mobs are supposed to be lower..

bring in an AC intimitank and just beat them from behind...

I guess that's another very small option. I'd hate to have to rely on another highly specialized build just so I can be a few notches above useless though. Offhand I only know one true intimitank who runs much epic though, and he usually runs with his guild (which I'm not a member of). I can't expect others to carry a significantly weaker toon along unnecessarily. I want a better option that simply doesn't exist.

[Deathseeker]

How much strength are your really talking between your dex based ranger and a str based ranger? If you started at 8 str, then yeah, that's gonna be rough. But if you went 14 or 16 str, I don't think the difference is going to be enough to go from effective to gimp.

Some of these perceived differences in builds get a bit carried away.

It will be very interesting to see how things play out with AC effectiveness vs epic mobs. If ac has become more important that will change things a bit...