Our turn next update Devs please! - Finesse builds

[Aesop]

By that logic all weapons should be based on Dexterity and not Strength. Strength doesn't let you target any better. However Hand Eye Coordination (represented in this system, along with reaction, by Dexterity) is what would allow someone to be better able to strike their opponent. Strength is brute force, and thus would allow you to hit HARDER but not more accurately.


Weapon Finesse is not a good Feat. It gives the player the impression that a Dex Based Melee Attacker is a GOOD option. The reality is that the builds created with this feat are at a disadvantage in terms of DPS and the benefits of a higher Dex are generally NOT significant enough to off set that DPS disadvantage.

Now this is not to say that a good player can't play a Dex Based Melee well and do alright for themselves. I'm just saying that the cost of the Feat is too much for the EFFECT of the Feat.

The Feat should be improved OR removed. If removed then Light and Finesse Weapons should use Dexterity if the Dexterity is higher than the Strength. If improved, there have been a few suggestions made.

1. Dexterity Modifier adds to Critical Damage before multipliers.
2. Dexterity Modifier adds to the Double Strike Chance (full or half Mod)
3. Dexterity Modifier adds straight to damage

and because I'm a little tired I forget the others

as an aside I notice that you say 10% attack speed and Dex to hit AND to DAMAGE...

that wasn't what was said or alluded to. the Feat Weapon Finesse ONLY has Dexterity replace Strength for to hit rolls NOT for Damage. If Weapon Finesse added to Damage then Dex builds would be significantly better (though would still cost a Feat and still Strength Builds would out DPS them due to more modifiers adding to Strength than to Dexterity, but then the benefits of Dexterity to AC and Reflex save may make up for the difference in DPS)

Aesop

[Monkeytoe]

Finesse != dps

Who told the barb' how to use logical operators?

[Daunth]

imho, it's simple:
- dex-based builds need to be viable
- dex-based builds need to be different than str-based builds. they can't just do the same thing (dps)

So, dex builds have the following advantages:
- AC
- Reflex
- Ranged attack

While str builds have the following advantages
- str is easy to increase
- melee damage bonus
- tactical feat DC (except trip)
- ranged damage bonus (!!!)

So, why are dex-based builds inferior? Because their advantages are worthless in DDO.
- AC becomes worthless at higher levels, and it is hard to stack at lower levels, when it still counts, for new players (which would be the ones who would benefit more from dex builds)
- Ranged damage is inferior to str-based builds because of this abomination called bow strength. And even if it wasn't, ranged damage would still be neglectable due to the game's mechanics


So, the way to make dex viable while still making it different from str is simple: work on the known advantages of dex.
- AC won't be saved. The s&b tweaks clearly show that the devs are planning to redefine the concept of defense in DDO by working on damage % mitigation rather than binary (hit/not hit) AC. So, dex-based defense should count too. A possible solution would be to associate dex with proportional DR (for example, dex mod +6 = 4% DR, limited by the maximum dex bonus of armors and shields. Or 1 mod = 1%, or 0,5... whatever value is more balanced to prevent dex from taking s&b's place)
- ranged damage will always be inferior to melee, because if it were equal then everything would be kited to death (why should I melee and take damage if I can deal as much damage without being touched?). Bow strenght should just go away (and maybe be replaced by Bow dexterity), maybe a little str bonus could be added to composite bows like PnP, but strength tanks should never deal more damage with a bow. The problem is: content. Ranged weapons deals less damage, therefore are not needed. The solution is: design new content with many situations where melee combat is inferior, and having someome who can switch to bows is an asset. It's not hard. Give a good ranged damage to dex toons and give them quests where they can shine, and the added flexibility from being able to switch between bow and finesse weapons will be valuable. And prevent str toons from filling the same role. This would also make rangers more important, as they'd be the only ones who can deal ranged damage without specializing in it.

In other words: str = dps, dex = flexibility. Since the current content says "here's the boss, beat him as hard as you can", dps rules over flexibility. Work on the content, and dex will become more important.

[Aesop]

The idea of Dex adding to Mitigation similar to how Shield Mastery and Improved Shield Mastery now are is interesting, but adding content specifically for Dex based wouldn't fix the issue it would just polarize the players.


Finesse can be damage dealing. Finesse is speed and accuracy. So focus on those aspects and you can create a different dps while still having dps.

The 3 suggestions most related to these concepts are

Dex Mod added as Sneak Attack Damage

Dex Mod to Critical Damage (before Multipliers)

Dex mod (or a fraction there of) to Double Strike Chance


Heck you could go with all of these in some form as long as you included that Dex must exceed Strength for the benefits to apply and it doesn't make dex too powerful.


I do like (while simultaneously having reservations about) the idea about Dex Mitigation.

Perhaps 1/2 Dex Mod as mitigation... but then there are a bunch of issues that brings up as well

Aesop

[lhidda]

Finesse != dps

Want dps?
Reincarnate to strength build.

There is no other solution.

No. Just no.

[NaturalHazard]

When I first started playing I rolled a dex toon, weapon finess feels like a waste when I could get my Str higher than my dex by quite a margin, and that was with 14 starting str and 18 starting dex, 5 level ups into dex, 5 from enhancements into dex, titans grip, madestone boots and my my str is higher than my dex.

When i tr, im definately not going dex based.

[THOTHdha]

That sexy shoeless god of war, the halfling ranger using daggers needs to be balanced with the raging barbarian with the big two handed axe. Dev's you can do it.

But they already did add the fix for this. Quite awhile ago.
http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Item:..._Heart_of_Wood

[JasonJi72]

Yes, ac should be meaningful.

No, bow strength should not be deleted.

Yes, Finnesse builds need some love.

No, Dex should not equal str in dps.

Suggestions:

Ranged deals dex damage.

Provide an evasion % for very high dex (either stackable with or not made useless by blur and displacement).

Improved Weapon Finesse ~ Prereqs: 19 Dex, Combat Expertise, Weapon Finesse, Melee Weapon Focus.
Provides +5% Stackable doublestrike to melee weapons you are focused in, or provide +10% speed to focused weapons like Tempest I used to (the high dex and feat requirements should limit exploitation to some degree).

Allow more weapons to be finessed: Staff and spear come to mind... please add spear btw lol.

OR... You could avoid all that and just make AC relevant.

Good Times!

[Daunth]

AC will never be balanced. This is because the original concept of AC 3.5 is flawed: either you try to get max AC, or you neglect it at all, because enemy attack bonus is balanced around max AC (otherwise some toons would be invincible). It's 1 or 0.

AC can only be fixed when having 100 AC is better than 40 which is better than 30. Right now, 40 is equal to 30 which is equal to 0. In other words, it will be fixed when it will be useful to have +1 AC, regardless of your current value and level. Nothing can be done without changing the d&d 3.5 system.



Also, regarding weapon damage, in AD&D some weapons like daggers had a damage modifier based on Str/2+Dex/2. That would help a lot, really.

[Khanyth]

Sorry........ when did barbs get love?

[Truga]

I'd be a pretty easy fix.

Improved Weapon Finesse: Light weapons use your dex bonus instead of strength bonus for damage.

2 feats to let you dump Str? Seems pretty fair considering you would still be at the mercy of carrying capacity, easily reduced to 0 str by ray of enfeebling/shadows, lose out on powerattack (probably), and you can't pump dex as high as strength anyway. If another feat is too costly, maybe a 4AP enhancement unlocked by weapon finesse.

This. Everyone already knows it's "easy" to get str sky high, while stacking dex is a bit harder. Just let finessers use rapiers/light weapons with dex only, their dps will not do what str dps does due to str stacking way higher.

This will still leave str build in a nice dps advantage position, but let dex builds slot AC gear, rather than str gear.

Heck, I'd even make weapon finesse free on rapier/light weapons and make the weapon finesse feat add dex as damage mod. It's still costs one feat, it's still in every way except AC inferior to str. I don't see why shade & co. are afraid of this change.

[grodon9999]

OR... You could avoid all that and just make AC relevant.

It would make things so much easier now wouldn't it? We can now insta-kill in epics yet AC is too much?

[Truga]

OR... You could avoid all that and just make AC relevant.

Thing is, I can already get "relevant" AC for most content on normal my "gimp" rogue by doing a large amount of grind to get all the relevant gear. However, said rogue will do utterly pathetic damage due to dps (who are we kidding) err str gear being on the same spots AC gear sits.

I dumped str at creation (first char etc, 10 str I think), and can now hit 22 consistently with minimal (very minimal) gear and a tome. (10+2 tome +6 item +2 ship +2 rage) 12 STR cheap.

My dex sits at 30. I started with 18, 3 level ups, +2 tome, +6 item +1 enhancement. At 16-20 I put the point in CON, since it's better spent there, which I now know (first char, 10 base con). I could get it to 36 dex if I stacked all the enhancements and level ups, but it would make exactly 0 difference in my combat efficiency. It doesn't add to damage, and while it does add to AC, AC doesn't help when you're doing 10 damage per hit at level 20.

If, however, dex gave the same kind of bonus str gives, I'd have enough damage to not be laughed when I used AC gear instead of only having str and hp gear fitted.

And, since there's no sight of anything changing, I'm going to TR this rogue into a WF monster dps character. Rage, madstone, titan gloves, etc, etc. STR is just plain easier to get sky-high than AC is, and current meta-game prefers HP and damage over anything else.

[grodon9999]

Thing is, I can already get "relevant" AC for most content on normal my "gimp" rogue by doing a large amount of grind to get all the relevant gear. However, said rogue will do utterly pathetic damage due to dps (who are we kidding) err str gear being on the same spots AC gear sits.

I dumped str at creation (first char etc, 10 str I think), and can now hit 22 consistently with minimal (very minimal) gear and a tome. (10+2 tome +6 item +2 ship +2 rage) 12 STR cheap.

My dex sits at 30. I started with 18, 3 level ups, +2 tome, +6 item +1 enhancement. At 16-20 I put the point in CON, since it's better spent there, which I now know (first char, 10 base con). I could get it to 36 dex if I stacked all the enhancements and level ups, but it would make exactly 0 difference in my combat efficiency. It doesn't add to damage, and while it does add to AC, AC doesn't help when you're doing 10 damage per hit at level 20.

If, however, dex gave the same kind of bonus str gives, I'd have enough damage to not be laughed when I used AC gear instead of only having str and hp gear fitted.

And, since there's no sight of anything changing, I'm going to TR this rogue into a WF monster dps character. Rage, madstone, titan gloves, etc, etc. STR is just plain easier to get sky-high than AC is, and current meta-game prefers HP and damage over anything else.

No you cannot, not in epics. At a buffed 90 AC trash still hits me every shot which is ridiculous.

With all the gear we have in the game now that adds to DPS it is completely reasonable to lower the mob to-hits significantly. Every piece of gear your slot, stat you distribute, level you take, and feat you pick for AC affects your DPS. We're looking at 20+ a swing now in the difference between AC and DPS gear slotting. It's a enough of a sacrifice that it absolutely should be of value.

The to-hits in Elite Amrath are good, it's impossible to be invulnerable there on a build that can actually hurt things yet you can still mitigate damage via defense.

If AC worked in the whole game (it's fine in non-epic content) nobody would try to come up with creative solutions for finesse to give more DPS. Shade's right, finesse is NOT DPS but it should be of some value throughout the whole game.

[Monkeytoe]

If a... Dex build... could match the DPS of a Str build... Then Dex builds would be the new "build this or you're a no0b!!11!" build: Max DPS and max AC FTW!

It wouldn't add any new viability to "flavor builds" or create a renaissance in the art of AC tanking. It would only encourage the lunatic fringe to respec to the new uber... with much gnashing of teeth, sure... but just as there will always an uber spec, there will always be some degree of teeth-gnashing.

Making CC type feats more practical for Dex builds, defining some path or criteria for adding Dex bonus to these feats... seems more likely to make dex builds more fun for the people who enjoy playing Dex builds and more appreciated by parties that will always be majority straight-forward DPS.

Weapon Finesse should give you stacking double-strike equal to your DEX bonus.

I think that would be cool, especially in the case of a Dex based AC build in a sword and board situation.

I think that some kind of synergy between finesse and CE might be interesting, or some added benefit that having both could give to melee-CC feats.

I don't mind doing less DPS on an AC build, what I mind is the concept of AC build being a "one-trick pony", the practical fact that only the absolute highest AC will enable that pony to do its one trick when a party really wants someone to tank, and the fact that all of the feats a high AC "melee-controller" type character would want to use are better served by DPS builds!

[Truga]

If a... Dex build... could match the DPS of a Str build...

A dex build can never do as much DPS as a STR build even in an 1:1 damage ratio situation, because STR just stacks way higher. I've often seen 50+ (even seen screens in high 60s) STR fighters/barbs, but I've yet to see a 50+ dex build. So that's almost a 20 point difference. And then there's the problem with carry weight, jump, constant knockdowns by trash (if they can hit your AC obviously), etc. There's a lot of downsides to dumping str, no matter what the people here try to tell you, not just non-existent dps.

No you cannot, not in epics.

I did say normal. :P
But yeah, that's besides the point, in epic I hear AC in the 100s doesn't really do anything in most if not all quests.

My problem with dex offering exactly _zero_ extra damage is mainly with the HP inflation in ddo. At levels 1-10 dex builds are awesome (you never get hit, and enemies have ****all hp so damage won't matter too much). Arguably 1-13. After that, enemies will start having more and more hp. I can't imagine playing an AC monk in elite IQ/Shavarath. The damage is appalling, the enemies often have >2000 hp, and vorpals won't work until you take half it's hp down.

The second problem is new intimidate/hate mechanics. While there's no difference for hate tanks, and DoS/SD sport a huge hate generation bonus (do they? I haven't played any since u9 :P), how would a dex AC tank keep aggro on itself? It has no str (gear in AC/dex/hp, no space for str/dps). It has low damage, and the only thing it's going for it is high saves, evasion and of course AC. The build, however, cannot steal aggro even from a gimp dex rogue like mine, because the rogue will at least be getting 17d6 SA damage each hit, and probably sport well over 20 str (10+2 tome +6 item +2 ship +2 rage = 22 on my dumped str rogue with no madstone/exceptional/titan's gripu/etc).

Since intimidate doesn't work for them anymore, how are dex AC builds supposed to keep aggro? This doesn't concern me, since I don't have one of these but it is a problem. And, with the enormous amounts of HP, going str is pretty much the only option because enemies still hit you on a 20 even with AC, so if you can't take them down fast, they will kill you eventually if you're only hitting for 50/hit.

[Monkeytoe]

A dex build can never do as much DPS as a STR build

Maybe I'd have a better chance of being understood in the French or German forums...

[DustTheWind]

I agree with those above that state ranged and weapons finnesse weapons damage should be increased by dex bonus. Looks like it was already implimented in D&D as well.

And even if AC was more usefull it would still be rather useless if it still take you twice as long to do the same job. There by taking twice the damage. Ranged being only a part exception to that but even they have to deal with swaping out for normal weapons cause of slow kill time.

[elujin]

number 1 fix is beeing able to stack dex higher then str so you get a to hit bonus over str this would help new players.
seccond a way to make dex = more defence

the dps is fine and not that far behind str you just don't gain anything in return for your lost dps by doing so at this point

edite : oh and if you take away bow strengt il kill you all

[mikesharpshooter]

finese Builds Shouldnt Be Dps Builds.

What Needs Fixing Is The Ac Or Some Other, More Worthwhile Benefit Should Be Gotten Of Being A Finese..

+1