Damage Boost Enhancements Changed...

[Kinerd]

On top of the fortification increase? This is an insane, almost comical buff for barbarians. Who comes up with this stuff?

[Absolute-Omniscience]

On top of the fortification increase? This is an insane, almost comical buff for barbarians. Who comes up with this stuff?

Kinda necessary buff for barbarians, if they want to keep up. Also, it's not really just for barbarians, it's just as much for humans and half elves.

It's a good change, and makes something that has been useless for quite some time - useful and viable. Rather than losing DPS, you'll actually gain a significant amount from Damage boost.

[Emili]

Kinda necessary buff for barbarians, if they want to keep up. Also, it's not really just for barbarians, it's just as much for humans and half elves.

It's a good change, and makes something that has been useless for quite some time - useful and viable. Rather than losing DPS, you'll actually gain a significant amount from Damage boost.

I agree, is about time they buffed some aspects of melee rather than toning them back more.

[azrael4h]

Kinda necessary buff for barbarians, if they want to keep up. Also, it's not really just for barbarians, it's just as much for humans and half elves.

It's a good change, and makes something that has been useless for quite some time - useful and viable. Rather than losing DPS, you'll actually gain a significant amount from Damage boost.

Also available for FvS and Rogues. Though a FvS is going to be kinda tight on APs. Not certain on a Rogue since I don't have one.

[Emili]

Also available for FvS and Rogues. Though a FvS is going to be kinda tight on APs. Not certain on a Rogue since I don't have one.

Many class/PrE combinations are tight on AP.

My kensie only sports HVII currently, attack boost being a prereq along with other things just to keep human's near par in other aspects thins them out... I suppose I'll be dropping some amp and tactic DC and something else to manage to grab least HV III or maybe IV ... it's a juggle.

[azrael4h]

Many class/PrE combinations are tight on AP.

My kensie only sports HVII currently, attack boost being a prereq along with other things just to keep human's near par in other aspects thins them out... I suppose I'll be dropping some amp and tactic DC and something else to manage to grab least HV III or maybe IV ... it's a juggle.

I know. I've been in the planner trying to get both HV and Damage Boost as high as possible on my FvS without losing too much. It's... not been good. I run with HVII for the occasional UMD boost when I need it for some reason, but more damage is always welcome. Granted, I'm also waiting to see whats up with the PrE's, might be getting Divine Avenger, and that changes everything as well... maybe.

[Kinerd]

Kinda necessary buff for barbarians, if they want to keep up. Also, it's not really just for barbarians, it's just as much for humans and half elves.

It's a good change, and makes something that has been useless for quite some time - useful and viable. Rather than losing DPS, you'll actually gain a significant amount from Damage boost.

I disagree - barbarians get better in terms of relative position as fort increases pre-11. Skewing the raid boss picture with fortification AND a new buff will put barbarians head and shoulders above everyone else.

Making something useless into something useful is all well and good, but it can't be done in a vacuum. If the Fighter Critical Accuracy enhancement was turned from critical confirmation to stacking Seeker, that would be a bad idea too.

Plus, humans and half elves already function as DPS races due to the extra feat for khopesh or rogue dilettante for SA damage. If any race needed a DPS buff it's not them.

[Cold_Stele]

Plus, humans and half elves already function as DPS races due to the extra feat for khopesh or rogue dilettante for SA damage. If any race needed a DPS buff it's not them.

Currently, Human is so far behind HOrc (14pts per swing THF) that TR'ed Barbs either dropped Toughness/Stunning Blow to get the PL feat or splashed 2 Ftr levels and gave up the capstone.

Not a single one of them TR'ed Human for the extra feat.

As for boss fortification -

Shield of Condemnation
Usage: Passive
Requires All of: Favored Soul Angel of Vengeance I
Available to Favored Soul class level 6
Enemies that strike you have a chance of suffering divine condemnation, increasing their vulnerability to light and alignment-based damage by 20%, and decreasing their fortification by 10%. This debuff stacks up to 5 times, and is dispelled by Bless effects.

[Yalann]

Currently, Human is so far behind HOrc (14pts per swing THF) that TR'ed Barbs either dropped Toughness/Stunning Blow to get the PL feat or splashed 2 Ftr levels and gave up the capstone.

Not a single one of them TR'ed Human for the extra feat.

As for boss fortification -

Shield of Condemnation
Usage: Passive
Requires All of: Favored Soul Angel of Vengeance I
Available to Favored Soul class level 6
Enemies that strike you have a chance of suffering divine condemnation, increasing their vulnerability to light and alignment-based damage by 20%, and decreasing their fortification by 10%. This debuff stacks up to 5 times, and is dispelled by Bless effects.

A human fighter has the same issues versus a horc fighter in terms of damage (roughly 13 THF damage for horc fighter vs human fighter not counting damage boost). This increase helps horc barbs just as much as human barbs so they both gain. This does not help a horc fighter. A 20 horc barb gets a free damage increase. A 20 horc fighter is left with the choice to go human and lose horc damage that said barbarian does not need to lose or just settle with gaining no damage unlike the barbarian. This would be fine if barbarians didn't currently have good DPS.

I understand wanting damage boost to be better but it's far more useful than attack boost and critical accuracy that a fighter has to take but those aren't being upgraded. This is where some info from a dev would be very nice so that there is less speculation.

[hit_fido]

I understand wanting damage boost to be better but it's far more useful than attack boost and critical accuracy that a fighter has to take but those aren't being upgraded. This is where some info from a dev would be very nice so that there is less speculation.

It's a nice change for barbarian characters and lets see if more adjustments are coming. It could get addressed a couple ways. Barbarians just got 10AP turned from poor value into great value. Fighters spend 12AP now on poor value, so either the features of attack boost or critical accuracy could be changed into something of great value, OR just change kensai tier requirements into "one of haste boost, attack boost, or critical accuracy".

[Khellendros13]

It's a nice change for barbarian characters and lets see if more adjustments are coming. It could get addressed a couple ways. Barbarians just got 10AP turned from poor value into great value. Fighters spend 12AP now on poor value, so either the features of attack boost or critical accuracy could be changed into something of great value, OR just change kensai tier requirements into "one of haste boost, attack boost, or critical accuracy".

Make critical accuracy a +% to crits

[baddax]

Dont we have enough power creep? or enough brute force in the game?

They should change the name of the game to DPS instead of DDO because, DPS IS the name of the game, and has been for a long time.

[Emili]

Plus, humans and half elves already function as DPS races due to the extra feat for khopesh or rogue dilettante for SA damage. If any race needed a DPS buff it's not them.

Any race may fit in Khopesh in scope of a real melee build... Toughness, twf, itwf, gtwf, Ic: Slash, PA, Khopesh (my gtwf khopesh wielding kotc is a drow If it were human it would take extend but that is not really needed and for AP I do not see many human pallys affording HV at all.)

Most Horc's if not wielding a eSoS are gtwf sporting a pair of eChoas Blades. The bursts from haste boost + hv damage boost barely place human below their par. Helf rogue dilettante only come into play when ... no rogue levels involved. To enhance it comes with costs also. If anything Horc is consistant and both human and helf are spurts of 18.4 seconds with a cooldown between, in long winded fighting such as raid bosses you must manage these. They are far from what someone refers to as "running" dps.

Scope of kensie is deep as Yalann points out... it's actually deeper for the human than the Horc. The horc shores up not only damage but tactical via str in such case, if a human kensie wants favourable dc they pay more for it via giving up DPS. I have currently HV II on my fighter ... in order to get to IV will be pretty steep cuts knocking out healing Amp completely of the picture and tactical ap gone, a fighter would never give up haste boost, and a human would not turn in greater adaptability readily. The ap is pretty dry.

... as I said before... there is no versitility in human melee builds, to gain adequate ground in any aspect of it you must be specific and often more specific than another race in counterpart.

[Vanshilar]

where are you seeing this change? I am on test now with rank IV Half Elf Human Versitility and it's still +5 damage

Actually just tested on Lamannia, yeah half-elves are suffering the same erroneous description as humans regarding human versatility, but it's a percentage damage increase just like the class-based damage boost. So yeah it's working fine.

Testing was with the +1 starter dagger, which is 1d4 weapon damage, on a level 4 half elf. My str bonus and the +1 enhancement bonus makes it do 1d4+5 damage, so I should see damages of (6, 7, 8, 9). Verified that this was the case. I then activated versatility damage boost 2, which is +3 damage if it's the old version, so I would see damages of (9, 10, 11, 12), and +15% damage if it's the new version; +15% of (6, 7, 8, 9) would make the damages (6, 8, 9, 10). Verified that it's the latter case:



So yeah the screenshot pretty much sums it up. You can see the combat log damages of (6, 8, 9, 10) on the left, the inventory panel saying the damage is 1d4+5 on the right, and the enhancement description in the middle. I even won't mind if you bother to copy-paste the screenshot elsewhere because I don't know what's the big deal with going on Lamannia and getting screenshots of the enhancement description and why it would be restricted, but there it is. So yeah, it's confirmed that the half-elf human versatility damage boost description is wrong, it's giving the % damage increase just like the class-based one.

So yeah this makes things more interesting. Incidentally, for pure barbs, this damage will be "free" since you can activate damage boost during frenzy/death frenzy cooldown and thus not affect your activation timers, and will result in probably around a 13% increase in your overall DPS versus 0% fort (depending on gear), since your main damage (which is what the damage boost affects) when using the ESoS is around 80% of your overall DPS, which any self-respecting barbarian would know (those are just off-the-cuff estimates, not spreadsheet calculations). The more interesting case is how this will affect human and half-elf 18 barb / 2 fighter builds, since they will be able to use both fighter haste boost 1 and human versatility damage boost 4. Maybe my human respeccing to 18/2 wasn't a bad choice after all.

[Cold_Stele]

The more interesting case is how this will affect human and half-elf 18 barb / 2 fighter builds, since they will be able to use both fighter haste boost 1 and human versatility damage boost 4. Maybe my human respeccing to 18/2 wasn't a bad choice after all.

Surely it's HElf Ftr20 with eSOS who's benefitting most from this? SA damage is boosted, and they're not dependant upon (unboosted) elemental/frenzy damage for their DPS.

Human/HElf Barbs would have to spend an extra 10AP to buy HV IV (for damage) along with Barb DAM IV (for FB) to benefit from simultaneously using FHB I - don't know if that's worth the cost?

[brzytki]

And now my human assassin drools as she has Human Versatility IV, Haste Boost IV and Damage Boost II. All nine uses of them ^^ Another reason to keep Veriks necky instead of Shintao set.

[Monkey_Archer]

Surely it's HElf Ftr20 with eSOS who's benefitting most from this? SA damage is boosted, and they're not dependant upon (unboosted) elemental/frenzy damage for their DPS.

Human/HElf Barbs would have to spend an extra 10AP to buy HV IV (for damage) along with Barb DAM IV (for FB) to benefit from simultaneously using FHB I - don't know if that's worth the cost?

Im not convinced on the merits of THF helf fighters yet... you get that 25% damage boost but loose 13 damage per swing for not being horc. A decently geared helf would average about ~90 damage per hit base damage and boost to ~112.5, while a horc would have a consistent 103 average without having to worry about activation times or running out of boosts. With sneak attacks the helf is definitely ahead while boosts last though... Overall the benefit vs horc is minor at best.

Horc THF barbarians are going to benefit the most from this change because unlike helves, they make no dps sacrifices to get damage boost. Helf fighters will only get the same benefit if they are TWF.

[Yalann]

Im not convinced on the merits of THF helf fighters yet... you get that 25% damage boost but loose 13 damage per swing for not being horc. A decently geared helf would average about ~90 damage per hit base damage and boost to ~112.5, while a horc would have a consistent 103 average without having to worry about activation times or running out of boosts. With sneak attacks the helf is definitely ahead while boosts last though... Overall the benefit vs horc is minor at best.

Horc THF barbarians are going to benefit the most from this change because unlike helves, they make no dps sacrifices to get damage boost. Helf fighters will only get the same benefit if they are TWF.

This is exactly the problem I have with this. It seems like a change that should have been included in an overall rebalance of races/classes in a single update. The overall result of this is going to be that all barbarians, rogues, FvS, and humans/helves who also use haste boost will be better. It is definitely nice for certain class/race setups.

This means that anything that doesn't fit into this list though, such as monks, paladins, rangers, non-human rogues, or non-human fighters, will be outright shafted. A horc fighter who could compete with horc barbs is now weaker since said barb gained DPS while the fighter gained nothing. Races like dwarves and elves now fall even further behind in everything.

This should really be implemented as part of an overall rebalancing of classes/races that focuses on improving poor feats, enhancements, and class features rather than introducing new ones. For instance, replacing the rather useless critical accuracy line with something for fighters to balance them vs barbarians in the same update, would be much better. Upgrading the racial weapon bonuses for races like dwarves/drow/elves would make them more appealing as well. Otherwise, this update just further pigeonholes top DPS into all being THF Horc barbarians or human/helf TWF haste boost builds.

[Kinerd]

Currently, Human is so far behind HOrc (14pts per swing THF) that TR'ed Barbs either dropped Toughness/Stunning Blow to get the PL feat or splashed 2 Ftr levels and gave up the capstone.

Not a single one of them TR'ed Human for the extra feat.

Not sure what you're getting at here. Of course a THF would go half-orc - no benefit from khopesh, much less benefit from sneak attack. TWF was the superior style for non-barbs, and that's where humans/helves were already shining.

As for boss fortification -

Shield of Condemnation
Usage: Passive
Requires All of: Favored Soul Angel of Vengeance I
Available to Favored Soul class level 6
Enemies that strike you have a chance of suffering divine condemnation, increasing their vulnerability to light and alignment-based damage by 20%, and decreasing their fortification by 10%. This debuff stacks up to 5 times, and is dispelled by Bless effects.

In anything besides those all-FvS raids, have you ever seen the debuff stack 5 times? I've never seen it get past 3, and that only once.

Any race may fit in Khopesh in scope of a real melee build... Toughness, twf, itwf, gtwf, Ic: Slash, PA, Khopesh (my gtwf khopesh wielding kotc is a drow If it were human it would take extend but that is not really needed and for AP I do not see many human pallys affording HV at all.)

You don't count Tempest as a real melee build?

Most Horc's if not wielding a eSoS are gtwf sporting a pair of eChoas Blades. The bursts from haste boost + hv damage boost barely place human below their par. Helf rogue dilettante only come into play when ... no rogue levels involved. To enhance it comes with costs also. If anything Horc is consistant and both human and helf are spurts of 18.4 seconds with a cooldown between, in long winded fighting such as raid bosses you must manage these. They are far from what someone refers to as "running" dps.

The point wasn't that they're going to beat half-orcs, the point was that they can already make DPS contributions. They don't need any more buff in that department, especially if doing so comes at the cost of dramatically unbalancing melee DPS.

[Vanshilar]

Actually it doesn't just buff barbarians, although naturally most of my analysis will focus on barbarians since that's my main. FvS and rogues can also benefit, and especially humans and half-elves, since their race-based boosts (i.e. human versatility) can be activated at the same time as things like haste boost. So obvious beneficiaries are also human/half-elf fighters and human/half-elf rogues; they'll now be able to have both haste boost and damage boost active at the same time.

For barbarians, since damage boost 4 is required for the Frenzied Berserker prestige enhancement, this will essentially be "free". Human/half-elves that are looking to take advantage of the fighter/rogue haste boost * human versatility damage boost synergy, such as fighters, rogues, and 18/2 barbarians, will have to come up with AP to invest in human versatility, which may be at the expense of other enhancements, so it's somewhat of a trade-off issue -- most people will likely do it, but some other things will be sacrificed. I know, I know, it's going to be tough to ditch item defense for the sake of more DPS.

To a certain extent, I think it's true that this is simply power creep, and continues the problem of slowly inflating numbers across the board. Eventually Turbine will run into 32-bit integer issues with hit points the same way there are 32-bit integer issues with plat currently (just kidding, there's a few more years before they'll really have to confront that problem). However, unless you count human adaptability strength 1, this will be one of the few (albeit major) DPS benefits to using humans, so it's a pretty nice bump for a race that otherwise don't get much for DPS.

I'll have more setups later this week after I get some schoolwork done but some preliminary results are below. It looks like barbarians will get roughly a 9-10% damage increase depending on setup (a bit lower than the 13% I estimated earlier because when writing it I forgot to account for losing 5 base damage during the boost since that's what's being swapped out for this percentage increase change). Interestingly, it looks like for half-orc ESoS barbarians, it's better to go pure again; currently, you get somewhat more DPS by splashing 2 fighter (or 2 rogue) and using haste boost 1, hence the "18/2" moniker. But this damage boost change is not only better than haste boost 1 for DPS, it also doesn't require any extra AP, since it's already a prerequisite for FB. For humans and half-elves, going 18/2 rather than pure barbarian continues to be an attractive choice. Just for kicks I also put in half-elf pure fighter and pure rogue for comparison. Fighter/rogue haste boost 4 coupled with human versatility damage boost 4 looks to be pretty nice.



The setup was pretty top-end gear, against 0% fort, so keep that in mind when you look at the numbers (hey, if Turbine can inflate their numbers, so can I...). It's assuming max str, +4 str tome, shintao set, ravager set, epic marilith chain, epic claw set, litany, epic red helm, and a single madstone. Does not include bard song though, nor those new bracers. Weapons were ESoS for THF and dual Lit2 Khopesh for TWF, both with force ritual. Obviously rogues win out against 0% fort, but remember that this assumes the rogue also went for the claw set, epic marilith chain (who needs evasion when you can have more DPS?) etc., and didn't compromise the damage for more to-hit but can still hit on a roll of 2, so take it with a grain of salt. Also, rogue DPS will drop significantly with the new raid boss fortification amounts. I don't have experience with half-elves but assumed that the non-rogue builds would go rogue dilettante for an extra 3d6 sneak attack damage, and that the rogue would go fighter dilettante for an extra +1 class-based strength (I assume it stacks with human adaptability). Let me know if those aren't correct. As with any preliminary results that I only had a few hours to spend on and didn't bother to double-check, I may update some of the numbers if I find I plugged in some numbers wrong (since they were done manually). Some sample builds are below:

20Barb	18B/2F	20Fight	20Rogue	Classes
H-Orc	Human	H-Elf	H-Elf	Race
eSoS	eSoS	Lit2Kho	Lit2Kho	Weapon
17.5	17.5	5.5	5.5	Weapon Dice
6	6	4	4	Weapon Crit Range
3	3	3	3	Weapon Crit Multiplier
10	10	5	5	Weapon Enhancement Bonus
				
				str section
20	18	18	18	base
5	5	5	5	level-ups
4	4	4	4	Tomes
4	2	4	2	enhancements
13	13	13	13	equipment
20	16	8	0	self-buff
2	2	2	2	ship buffs
2	2	2	2	group buffs
70	62	56	46	final str
45	39	34	27	str-based THF dam bonus
30	26	23	18	str-based TWF dam bonus
15	13	11	9	str-based TWF offhand bonus
				
				other base damage bonuses
22	16	5	5	power attack
4	0	0	0	racial
0	0	0	0	bard song
2	2	2	2	shintao/FB (tod sets)
5	5	5	5	claw set/litany
2	2	2	2	ship buffs
0	0	8	0	class-based
				
0	0	4	0	seeker
10	10	10	10	bloodstone
				
0	0	0	0	Monster DR
0	0	0	0	Monster crit fortification
0	0	0	0	Monster sneak fortification
				
8	8	18.5	79.5	sneak
				
21	21	0	0	per hit effects (always on glancing blows)
7.5	7.5	18	18	per hit effects (has magical proc rate on glancing)
0	0	9	9	other effects
0	0	22	22	crit effects
0	0	14	14	roll 20 effects
				
0.6	0.5	0.5	0.5	glancing base damage multiplier
5	5	5	0	damage boost damage addition
0	0	0	0.25	damage boost additional multiplier
				
0	0	1	0	crit range bonus
3	3	0	0	crit mult bonus on rolls of 19-20
0.2	0.15	0	0	glancing proc rate
				
				base damages (boosted):
112.5	96.5	71.5	64.375	base damage (THF)
97.5	83.5	60.5	53.125	base damage (TWF primary)
82.5	70.5	48.5	41.875	base damage (TWF offhand)
122.5	106.5	85.5	76.875	base crit damage (THF)
107.5	93.5	74.5	65.625	base crit damage (TWF primary)
92.5	80.5	62.5	54.375	base crit damage (TWF offhand)
67.5	48.25	35.75	32.1875	base glancing damage
8	8	18.5	99.375	base sneak attack damage
				
				damage per proc (boosted)
220.125	190.525	114.175	94.406	THF main damage per proc
34.675	34.675	49.425	125.156	THF magical damage per proc
64.125	45.838	33.963	30.578	THF main glancing damage per proc
21.375	21.019	3.848	0.000	THF glancing magical damage per proc
192.375	166.475	98.225	79.219	TWF primary main damage per proc
34.675	34.675	49.425	125.156	TWF primary magical damage per proc
164.625	142.425	80.825	64.031	TWF offhand main damage per proc
34.675	34.675	49.425	125.156	TWF offhand magical damage per proc
				
				base damages (unboosted):
107.5	91.5	66.5	51.5	base damage (THF)
92.5	78.5	55.5	42.5	base damage (TWF primary)
77.5	65.5	43.5	33.5	base damage (TWF offhand)
117.5	101.5	80.5	61.5	base crit damage (THF)
102.5	88.5	69.5	52.5	base crit damage (TWF primary)
87.5	75.5	57.5	43.5	base crit damage (TWF offhand)
64.5	45.75	33.25	25.75	base glancing damage
8	8	18.5	79.5	base sneak attack damage
				
				damage per proc (unboosted)
210.875	181.275	106.925	75.525	THF main damage per proc
34.675	34.675	49.425	106.275	THF magical damage per proc
61.275	43.463	31.588	24.463	THF main glancing damage per proc
21.375	21.019	3.848	0.000	THF glancing magical damage per proc
183.125	157.225	90.975	63.375	TWF primary main damage per proc
34.675	34.675	49.425	106.275	TWF primary magical damage per proc
155.375	133.175	73.575	51.225	TWF offhand main damage per proc
34.675	34.675	49.425	106.275	TWF offhand magical damage per proc
				
				activations
0	0	0	0	per 60 sec
1.2	0.6	0.6	0.6	per 30 sec
				
37.6	38.8	38.8	38.8	time per minute boosted
20	20	20	20	time per minute unboosted
				
				Overall damage per proc (boosted)
254.800	225.200	163.600	219.563	Overall THF main damage per proc
85.500	66.856	37.810	30.578	Overall glancing damage per proc
227.050	201.150	147.650	204.375	Overall TWF primary damage per proc
199.300	177.100	130.250	189.188	Overall TWF offhand damage per proc
				
				Overall damage per proc (unboosted)
245.550	215.950	156.350	181.800	Overall THF main damage per proc
82.650	64.481	35.435	24.463	Overall glancing damage per proc
217.800	191.900	140.400	169.650	Overall TWF primary damage per proc
190.050	167.850	123.000	157.500	Overall TWF offhand damage per proc
				
0	0	0.1	0.03	doublestrike chance
				
99.6	112.4	133.3	133.3	boosted standing attacks per min
99.6	99.6	102.2	102.2	unboosted standing attacks per min
1	1	0	0	THF main proc per swing
0.75	0.75	0	0	THF glancing proc per swing
0	0	1.1	1.03	TWF mainhand proc per swing
0	0	0.8	0.8	TWF offhand proc per swing
502.1	480.0	526.7	690.7	standing damage per second
20Barb	18B/2F	20Fight	20Rogue	Classes
H-Orc	Human	H-Elf	H-Elf	Race
eSoS	eSoS	Lit2Kho	Lit2Kho	Weapon