Alchemical weapons cant be ONLY way for DPS in DDO

[xandariant]

Exactly!

However, I understand your idea is to buff the renewed epics. I'm not sure I like where this is going.

(Too?) powerful alchemicals, further upgrades to epic weapons.

First issue would be an obvious decrease in item's balance. Some hard-to-obtain items, especially the desert ones (Chaosblade, Marilith chain) are becoming less and less useful. I really hope new content mobs/bosses are lawful or chaosblades will become even less worth farming for (I don't own the epic versions anyway so I'm neutral). They used to be must-haves for some builds, which made up for the time you spent looking for them, now you can craft something nearly as good, if not better, or replace them in many ways.
So they could either increase desert epic shards/scrolls drop rate (meh solution) or make the old epic items (not just carnival/sentinels ones) more powerful (even more meh solution), or tune down the new crafts a bit...not much, just enough to make epics a viable pick over them, and the especially hard to obtain epics stronger. I highly doubt crafting a new T3 will be harder than crafting a eMC anyway...might even be easier than crafting an eSoS...

Another problem, as someone said, is that with more powerful gear around, the devs will eventually make a further increase in difficulty, which might just translate into even more boss damage/hp.

However, more powerful gear might also mean that we're getting the stage set for epic levels next year (yay!). Which would be nice, but still wouldn't solve the problem "Why am I killing myself for this epic marilith chain when I can have seeker +10 on a dps weapon that is "viable" at worst".

To sum up, I agree with people who said that new weapons might not look OP in a few months since more powerful stuff is likely to pop up in next updates, hence more seekers, stunners, etc etc., but this still inevitably makes old, already uber rare stuff, less worth farming for, and this is not good IMHO. And there's always the monks' thing...monks are gonna hurt bad now...

You know what I mean. We can just toss all made epics and run for new ones. That's just mad.
Each items should have its usefulness and there have to be new items with better abilities, but don't so far better than a lot of stuff that was said will be remade to give players more balance.

And I'm sure difficulty will be lifted again when more ppl get better DPS so they won't get bored screaming for "challenging" that I personally hate to hear so often... Anyway be sure it will happen. Bust in U11 will be only for now.

I think the gist of what I was trying to say is this:

Want new stuff, old stuff irrelevant = loss for turbine

Don't want new stuff, old stuff wanted = no gain for turbine, loss in production costs

Want new stuff AND want the old stuff = Gain for turbine (basically, there's a reason I want both weapons/necklace etc)

Exactly so that is why i believe renewed epics should mach more not be weaker form the very start. Or have its uses like Epic Midnight Greetings or Epic Elyd Edge.
Items like Epic Antique Greataxe is behind (and shouldn't be) and items like epic chimeras fang should be upgraded with more dmg for sure considering new DPS output of Alchemical Weapons.

Actually they got something completely right with alchemical weapons. They are a boost to dps in a lot of cases (this has to be the case to make them desirable) but they all have a lot of utility and that's the point that really sets them apart from shroud weapons. Nothing wrong here.

Its not that Alchamical Weapons are bad, its about renewed content that is too far behind what we get to craft in U11. In this point its like upgrading your old PC and spending on it as much cash as for buying newer and better one instead. It's just sick joke if it goes like this.

[Chai]

Here we are again with the "if it aint first, its last" approach. If this is how you feel, then yes, you ground out all those epics in the past for nothing.

For everyone else who understands that having a weapon that does a few points of damage less per swing than the new big thing does not equate it to being useless, more power to you. Keep playing your game.

Lets consider the alternative, shall we. What would have happened if Turbine created all this new content and the weapons were under par compared to normal epics? More complaining. So they make a new tier of weapons and what happens? More complaining. Catch 22.

[xandariant]

Here we are again with the "if it aint first, its last" approach. If this is how you feel, then yes, you ground out all those epics in the past for nothing.

For everyone else who understands that having a weapon that does a few points of damage less per swing than the new big thing does not equate it to being useless, more power to you. Keep playing your game.

Lets consider the alternative, shall we. What would have happened if Turbine created all this new content and the weapons were under par compared to normal epics? More complaining. So they make a new tier of weapons and what happens? More complaining. Catch 22.

Not exactly.

Alchemical weapons have advantage in their abilities, like double strike, seeker 10, stunning 10 etc, and for that they are great, but renewed weapons (not no mention old epic items) fall a lot behind if we don't look at masterpieces like epic Midnight Greetings or Elyd Edge, that are designed for a specific play styles and those are great, some utility items like epic Phiarlan Dagger are nice too, but DPS weapons scream for more.

And yes, 4 or more dmg per swin does a nice difference, a lot of melees can tell you that, so in the end I think its forcing upon them to farm new items that are "must to have" instead of being a "nice option" or "I will make an offhand with 6% double strike or seeker 10 to have a bit better dmg". Now its just do them or your DPS will suck soon compared to others.

Basically the idea was that to make old content worth some effort again and alchemical weapons will again narrow playable content again as it happened before ppl heard about renewing epic items. Lately i played a lot ppl farming epic parts for new items and it was great fun to be with them, instead of waiting 30min or more to gather 6 ppl to run any of those old epics.

I think each pack should offer something to make ppl want to spend time playing it. So I don't really get how can they make such move in the same update like renewing items and allow they at the start fall behind with new adventure pack loot.

[Crystalizer]

if they were not adding to the game some new grind the game would die and players would complain about the lack of stuff to do. the more you play the more you need to grind to stay up-to-date.

[krogyy]

Pfff "all they add is utility". And swapping also means dps, very few builds can afford quick draw. And lit II comparison in the numbers is made assuming no DR. Maybe YOU should check them better after all.

I could agree about the farming time (not difficulty), we'll see.

Epic chaosblade is one of the hardest items to farm, takes sooo long. It's great vs devils but you could definitely consider a FBurst Fblast seeker 10 acid blast disintegration elec. blast for main hand (not even the best option among alchemicals), and the triple air for off.

But sure, if new content will give more awarenesses 4, seekers +10, stunning +10 etc. nice slot saving stuff, they might not be that OP. Always talking about current content...

ok, so let's see the class that seems to benefits the most from alchemical weapons: monks.

dark monk with cannith crafted wepons, holy/elec burst rings: 396, 352, 308 dps vs 0%, 50%, 100% fort respectively.

dark monk with alchemical triple air, holy/acid burst rings: 395, 350, 304 dps in the same situations with no elemental resistances.

the cannith crafted wraps are superior vs targets resistant to elemental damage, the alchemical ones are superior vs targets where the stunning and/or insigth is useful.

hence, the alchemical wraps are not the best dps weapons in all situations.

[FengXian]

ok, so let's see the class that seems to benefits the most from alchemical weapons: monks.

dark monk with cannith crafted wepons, holy/elec burst rings: 396, 352, 308 dps vs 0%, 50%, 100% fort respectively.

dark monk with alchemical triple air, holy/acid burst rings: 395, 350, 304 dps in the same situations with no elemental resistances.

the cannith crafted wraps are superior vs targets resistant to elemental damage, the alchemical ones are superior vs targets where the stunning and/or insigth is useful.

hence, the alchemical wraps are not the best dps weapons in all situations.

Could we get to see some math about that?

Did you consider doublestrike 6% in your calculations?

And hmmm wraps having more or less the same dps (assuming math is right) PLUS stunning +10, insight ac +4 and exc dex +2 look way superior. Hey, you'll get more dps vs Lailat with the cold iron cannith ones, she's immune to lightning so that's ok. But that's kinda it.

[grgurius]

OP you are right, alchemical weapons cant be and are not the only way for DPS in DDO.

[Tinco]

And hmmm wraps having more or less the same dps (assuming math is right) PLUS stunning +10, insight ac +4 and exc dex +2 look way superior. Hey, you'll get more dps vs Lailat with the cold iron cannith ones, she's immune to lightning so that's ok. But that's kinda it.

And again the question: Why is this a problem? Small dps upgrade and big utility upgrade is way better than the other way round, right? Or do you really think that new content with some bad gear would make people happy?

[krogyy]

Could we get to see some math about that?

Did you consider doublestrike 6% in your calculations?

And hmmm wraps having more or less the same dps (assuming math is right) PLUS stunning +10, insight ac +4 and exc dex +2 look way superior. Hey, you'll get more dps vs Lailat with the cold iron cannith ones, she's immune to lightning so that's ok. But that's kinda it.

i used A_O dps calculator and, yes, i added the 6% doublestrike.

what you are forgetting is that the cannith ones have 2-4 to-hit advantage also, which is very significant for most builds at end game.

Edit: i should add that there is a group of builds that will benefit greatly from the alchemical weapons/shield. precisely it's AC tanks, both armored and pijama styles. but i don't see a problem with that as they are rarely played and deserved a boost.

[xandariant]

Well its sad you always miss the context...

The problem is not overpowered alchemical weapons but making other epics weapons, so they are weaker than newly introduced. I don't look on utility as I said in my 1st post - utility of alchemical weapons and renewed epics is OK.

As for Lailat, she isn't full immune to other elementals if im right, to acid (earth/earth/earth) for example probably would add a bit DPS on rolling 20 and on disintegration, as well as +6 enhancement will damage her more.

As for counting content, I would say very little of game content is immune to elementals. Even if it is immune to lightning i isn't to acid, so pretty much aside of golems you can do 2 or 3 weapons in alchemical crafting that will always have great DPS.

But please stop arguing how great alchemical weapons are and how much they aren't and compare then to renewed old epics. I agree we have to get new better items but doing loot revolution is kinda bad, just to sell 1 adventure pack.

[FengXian]

Well its sad you always miss the context...

The problem is not overpowered alchemical weapons but making other epics weapons, so they are weaker than newly introduced. I don't look on utility as I said in my 1st post - utility of alchemical weapons and renewed epics is OK.

As for Lailat, she isn't full immune to other elementals if im right, to acid (earth/earth/earth) for example probably would add a bit DPS on rolling 20 and on disintegration, as well as +6 enhancement will damage her more.

As for counting content, I would say very little of game content is immune to elementals. Even if it is immune to lightning i isn't to acid, so pretty much aside of golems you can do 2 or 3 weapons in alchemical crafting that will always have great DPS.

But please stop arguing how great alchemical weapons are and how much they aren't and compare then to renewed old epics. I agree we have to get new better items but doing loot revolution is kinda bad, just to sell 1 adventure pack.

Point. No one was still able to reply to this.

And yes, little dps boost + great utility boost IS still OP. Utility is "useful", DPS isn't the end of all. You free up slots you may use to further increase your survivability and even DPS itself.

[Tinco]

DPS isn't the end of all.

DPS is the end of all. Utility is just convenience, you don't have to swap weapons/items as often as before to achieve certain effects. And as soon as one element is resisted the alchemical weapons fall behind the physical damage heavy epic weapons and even shroud weapons.

Seeker +10 comes with Flaming Burst, this is a heavily resisted element in a lot of content.
Stunning +10 comes with Shocking burst, this is a resisted element in the new cannith content and on lailat.
Greater Stone Prison is very strong while leveling but later on the DC is not that great anymore, acid is resisted quite a bit in devil/demon content.

Lightning Strike and 6% ds come with exceptional dex, the least desired melee attribute in general.
+2 exceptional str comes with Incineration, same problem as flaming burst, there are a lot of immunities.

Point is, of course you can make perfect alchemical weapons for almost all situations but this will take a very long time. There's no all-content-owning-with-perfect-utility-effects-in-one-while-doing-great-dps weapon possible (like Lit II/MinII). I would agree if we could slap holy or force on them but that's not the case.

This is the next big thing after shroud crafting and honestly it's about time that there's something new. Most epic weapons that are worth it at the moment will still be worth it after the update. The badly designed epic items (there are still lots of them) should not be the reason to hold back a hopefully interesting and fun new crafting experience.

The slight damage bump is reasonable when the circumstances are supporting your choice of elements on the weapon. The utility makes them something special, something to look forward to while not overpowering anything because those effects can be achieved otherwise for the most part - with less convenience admittedly but that's the selling point of alchemical crafting and it's a good selling point in my book, way better than say a 20% damage bump for all situations or some exclusive new stacking effects (exceptional +3 stats, untyped damage bonuses, etc.)

[krogyy]

Well its sad you always miss the context...

The problem is not overpowered alchemical weapons but making other epics weapons, so they are weaker than newly introduced. I don't look on utility as I said in my 1st post - utility of alchemical weapons and renewed epics is OK.

As for Lailat, she isn't full immune to other elementals if im right, to acid (earth/earth/earth) for example probably would add a bit DPS on rolling 20 and on disintegration, as well as +6 enhancement will damage her more.

As for counting content, I would say very little of game content is immune to elementals. Even if it is immune to lightning i isn't to acid, so pretty much aside of golems you can do 2 or 3 weapons in alchemical crafting that will always have great DPS.

But please stop arguing how great alchemical weapons are and how much they aren't and compare then to renewed old epics. I agree we have to get new better items but doing loot revolution is kinda bad, just to sell 1 adventure pack.

if you are not concerned about utility then you should have been started complaining long ago. Holy burst of grater bane weapons out dps most epic weapons. Heck, even the ancient lit II outdps most epic weapons.

so now pre-U11 the optimal choices with respect to dps are:

thf vs bosses: eSos with devil ruin, cannith crafted if you don't farm eDA
thf vs trash 0% fort: eSos
thf vs trash 100% fort: cannith crafted

twf vs bosses: cannith crafted
twf vs trash: lit II

unarmed vs all: cannith crafted

after U11 the optimal choices will be:

thf vs bosses: eSos with devil ruin, cannith crafted or alchemical if you don't farm eDA
thf vs trash 0% fort: eSos
thf vs trash 100% fort: alchemical for the added utility and greater generality

twf vs bosses: cannith crafted main hand, alchemical off hand for the utility and 6% double strike on your main hand
twf vs trash: lit II main hand, alchemical off hand for the same reasons

unarmed vs bosses: cannith crafted for the better to-hit
unarmed vs trash: alchemical for the added utility and greater generality

so, alchemical will not be optimal for dps in many situations and the epic weapons you are concerned about are suboptimal in most situation both pre and post U11, even considering the buffed versions.

[Thrudh]

... and so I ran a couple HoX and VoD with afriend last night, I thought to myself "what are we doing here?" Is not likely we'd ever use anything from here again, just killin time and I guess jokin' round. He's leaving game in a few weeks... boredom caught up I suppose and tweaked out nothing to do. Question be however is why does everything need be consolidated into "one area" all the time. This has been true of this game ever since the shroud was released... prior to that you could find people running a smathering of everything.

Am ViP always have been... there have been a quite a few times P2P friends have asked me if they should buy "3bc" ... or many of the more obscure packs and I always answer them in honesty... well if you've TP to burn oe just feel like completeness of content otherwise just is nothing there. I cannot help turbine sell something unless there is some value to friend... in game to it.

I think is the point which the OP is getting at though... If you entice someone to spend all on a few packs such as vale and the new one why would they need to consider others? We only run those things which have some form of pay-off.

Fens for instance ... eclaw, I cannot imagine too many people looking at running those at all laters - it's exhausted. Why run for that set when you may use your time wisely getting better from the new? Fens becomes entirely dead content.

The desert was nice due it's variance but eventually once eMarilith and eChaos Blades are replaced there become no point outside a token, why bother? House D and P epics never worth much from start they gave it a shot in the arm but if you think about it, it's just a shot of morphine to releave the pain on some dyin' quests.

Scope being the OP is asking the Dev's intent I believe?

I think all of you are only looking at this from a power-gamer vet standpoint...

Plenty of us casual (time-wise) vet players, plus a lot of new players are still very interested in the House D, House P, and Red Fens epics...

Desert, we'll never do, since that is way too time-intensive. Only the hard-core powergamers grind that stuff out.

Sure, we're going to run the Alchemical quests... but there is still plenty of decent epic gear too...

[Thrudh]

When they make new content, they need to make the loot a little bit better.

In order to keep people running the old stuff, they should up the drops rates on outdated gear - i.e. so the old stuff becomes a stepping stone on that loot ladder.

This is a good point...

Dragonscale armor from GH should only take like 5 scales to make...

And Shroud recipes (both GS blanks and upgrades) should change to make it easier/quicker to craft.

Drop rates on raid items in Titan, Reaver, VoD, and Hound (basically any raid that doesn't have epic versions) should increase as well.

[Thrudh]

not hating monks, just wanna know if things will be staying like this, so I TR into one myself...

FYI...

Things will NEVER stay the same in a MMO....

Learn that now, and you'll be much happier in the long run...

Play the race/class that you have the most fun with... or TR every 6 months into the next flavor of the year... either way is fine.

[Thrudh]

Here we are again with the "if it aint first, its last" approach. If this is how you feel, then yes, you ground out all those epics in the past for nothing.

For everyone else who understands that having a weapon that does a few points of damage less per swing than the new big thing does not equate it to being useless, more power to you. Keep playing your game.

Heh, great post... Most of my guys are still using Min II weapons... Oh no!! They're totally gimp!

LOL...

[Thrudh]

And yes, 4 or more dmg per swin does a nice difference, a lot of melees can tell you that, so in the end I think its forcing upon them to farm new items that are "must to have" instead of being a "nice option" or "I will make an offhand with 6% double strike or seeker 10 to have a bit better dmg". Now its just do them or your DPS will suck soon compared to others.

You're proving Chai's point...

Your DPS will not SUCK compared to others. No one will even be able to tell that you're only doing 90 points a swing instead of 95. And it really doesn't matter if we complete while the FvS still has 1000 SP left or 800 SP left.

I think each pack should offer something to make ppl want to spend time playing it. So I don't really get how can they make such move in the same update like renewing items and allow they at the start fall behind with new adventure pack loot.

The upgraded epic items aren't all weapons... There are some very nice additions... And the few that ARE weapons are very cool niche weapons... The Edge, Midnight Greetings, the Chimera Fang... Those all will still be sought after even as people build up their alchemical collection.

I think the devs did a great job here... We all want the alchemical stuff, but it doesn't totally overshadow other epic gear (maybe desert gear, but that should get a epic pass here soon)

[Thrudh]

DPS is the end of all. Utility is just convenience, you don't have to swap weapons/items as often as before to achieve certain effects. And as soon as one element is resisted the alchemical weapons fall behind the physical damage heavy epic weapons and even shroud weapons.

Seeker +10 comes with Flaming Burst, this is a heavily resisted element in a lot of content.
Stunning +10 comes with Shocking burst, this is a resisted element in the new cannith content and on lailat.
Greater Stone Prison is very strong while leveling but later on the DC is not that great anymore, acid is resisted quite a bit in devil/demon content.

Lightning Strike and 6% ds come with exceptional dex, the least desired melee attribute in general.
+2 exceptional str comes with Incineration, same problem as flaming burst, there are a lot of immunities.

Point is, of course you can make perfect alchemical weapons for almost all situations but this will take a very long time. There's no all-content-owning-with-perfect-utility-effects-in-one-while-doing-great-dps weapon possible (like Lit II/MinII). I would agree if we could slap holy or force on them but that's not the case.

This is the next big thing after shroud crafting and honestly it's about time that there's something new. Most epic weapons that are worth it at the moment will still be worth it after the update. The badly designed epic items (there are still lots of them) should not be the reason to hold back a hopefully interesting and fun new crafting experience.

The slight damage bump is reasonable when the circumstances are supporting your choice of elements on the weapon. The utility makes them something special, something to look forward to while not overpowering anything because those effects can be achieved otherwise for the most part - with less convenience admittedly but that's the selling point of alchemical crafting and it's a good selling point in my book, way better than say a 20% damage bump for all situations or some exclusive new stacking effects (exceptional +3 stats, untyped damage bonuses, etc.)

Good post.

[FengXian]

SIX consecutive posts? Really? O_o One of them being an obvious and useless reply about evolving MMOs -_- w/e

Anyway, I'm aware there is no weapon for ALL situations. But as I sais before, if the new weapons came with less utility, say seeker +6 or stunning +8 or doublestrike 3%, they would still be VERY good and sought after, but wouldn't overshadow epics, cuz now they do.
Should I farm for an eSoS knowing I'll need devil ruin to make it work, or just make a permanently DR-breaking-still-great-dps-and-huge-utility Greataxe? That might even be a slashing stunner, btw?

And no, it's not all about DPS now, there are many many more aspects one needs to consider. SOME builds forsake everithing else for DPS, but there are many, many more that don't...