Dex builds need love

[HatsuharuZ]

One of the biggest problems in DDO (besides lag) is that some build styles/options are "traps", in the sense that they are quite useless at level cap, impractical, simply useless, etc.

It is really difficult to get high enough AC to be useful at high levels, so most, if not all, melee toons are simply going to try and get as much strength, constitution and HP as possible. This is simple and practical. It's the only way to build a melee toon, and that's kind of boring. My hope is that one day the devs will balance things so that AC is more useful.

So, my suggestion is that there be a couple of feats and changes to feats in order to make dexterity builds more useful.

-->Improved Weapon Finesse: While wielding a finesse weapon, and while your dexterity is higher than your strength, you gain X% attack speed bonus where X is equal to your dexterity modifier. X is equal to half of your dexterity modifier when dual-wielding.

-->Trip/Improved Trip: Make an attack that can also trip an opponent, knocking them to the ground. You use your strength or dexterity modifier to determine the DC, whichever is higher.

I would also like to see staves as a finesse weapon for the Acrobat PrE.

[InsanityIsYourFriend]

yes yes yes and YES!

Greater weapon finesse: While wielding a finessable weapon you use your dex as a dmg modifier rather than str

as for staff finessable there is the shining crescent staff which is finessable

[Keybreaker]

One of the biggest problems in DDO (besides lag) is that some build styles/options are "traps", in the sense that they are quite useless at level cap, impractical, simply useless, etc.

...

So, my suggestion is that there be a couple of feats and changes to feats in order to make dexterity builds more useful.

Aren't you just deepening the trap? More investment into more feats that seem useful, but ultimately aren't?

[InsanityIsYourFriend]

Aren't you just deepening the trap? More investment into more feats that seem useful, but ultimately aren't?

not if the feats actually make dex builds viable options that could compete with the str builds

(or are you not tired of the 50+ str barbarian havint all the fun as their str is just that high whereas dex builds need to get dex, AND str along with everything else)

[Jay203]

not if the feats actually make dex builds viable options that could compete with the str builds

(or are you not tired of the 50+ str barbarian havint all the fun as their str is just that high whereas dex builds need to get dex, AND str along with everything else)

don't think you'll ever be able to reach the same height of dex as str...
besides, what they need to do is fix AC so it's viable again, rather than going down the path of DPS only gaming style

[MaxwellEdison]

Dex builds need strength.

[Expalphalog]

what they need to do is fix AC so it's viable again, rather than going down the path of DPS only gaming style

This.

I play a dex build, so don't think I'm not sympathetic. But if they just make it so Dex is our damage and attack mod, then we're really not all that different from the Strength builds so what was the point of going Dex? However, if they fix AC, then suddenly we are not only viable builds, but fulfill our own unique roll as well.

[Dagolar]

One of the biggest problems in DDO (besides lag) is that some build styles/options are "traps", in the sense that they are quite useless at level cap, impractical, simply useless, etc.

It is really difficult to get high enough AC to be useful at high levels, so most, if not all, melee toons are simply going to try and get as much strength, constitution and HP as possible. This is simple and practical. It's the only way to build a melee toon, and that's kind of boring. My hope is that one day the devs will balance things so that AC is more useful.

So, my suggestion is that there be a couple of feats and changes to feats in order to make dexterity builds more useful.

-->Improved Weapon Finesse: While wielding a finesse weapon, and while your dexterity is higher than your strength, you gain X% attack speed bonus where X is equal to your dexterity modifier. X is equal to half of your dexterity modifier when dual-wielding.

-->Trip/Improved Trip: Make an attack that can also trip an opponent, knocking them to the ground. You use your strength or dexterity modifier to determine the DC, whichever is higher.

I would also like to see staves as a finesse weapon for the Acrobat PrE.

While I'm not sure of the balancing of the first one, both of the ideas make sense in form, in concept, and even in relation to pnp basis. Even regardless of these specific suggestions, your point has merit.

For everyone naysaying; You're correct that dex builds should never compare to strength builds. But in pnp, dex builds were all about versatility, finesse and tactical maneuvers. Think Princess Bride swashbuckling.
I'd be fun to see a bit more of that.

..wouldn't mind the Swashbuckler class, either >:]

[Kmnh]

It's not that dex builds are not viable, it's that defensive playstyles don't play well with offensive ones.

Let's say you have an amazing dex-build ranger with decent saves, evasion , good healing amp and self-healing. You go into a "zerg/byoh/we are evil elitist meanieheads/" party with a sorcerer and 4 barbs. What does your character do?

Sure, you can do some damage, but it is so much less than the barb that you will hardly ever see a kill, not to mention the sorcerer nuking/instakilling everything he can.You are not a burden to the party, but you are not contributing either.

If the devs add the feat you are asking for, you get to do 5 more damage with your main hand, and 2 with your off-hand. That won't be enough to close the damage gap. And your playstyle will still not mix well with the zerging fighters and casters.

/Signed , I guess. But I doubt this would change anything.

[Denegrator]

One of the biggest problems in DDO (besides lag) is that some build styles/options are "traps", in the sense that they are quite useless at level cap, impractical, simply useless, etc.

It is really difficult to get high enough AC to be useful at high levels, so most, if not all, melee toons are simply going to try and get as much strength, constitution and HP as possible. This is simple and practical. It's the only way to build a melee toon, and that's kind of boring. My hope is that one day the devs will balance things so that AC is more useful.

So, my suggestion is that there be a couple of feats and changes to feats in order to make dexterity builds more useful.

-->Improved Weapon Finesse: While wielding a finesse weapon, and while your dexterity is higher than your strength, you gain X% attack speed bonus where X is equal to your dexterity modifier. X is equal to half of your dexterity modifier when dual-wielding.

-->Trip/Improved Trip: Make an attack that can also trip an opponent, knocking them to the ground. You use your strength or dexterity modifier to determine the DC, whichever is higher.

I would also like to see staves as a finesse weapon for the Acrobat PrE.

The whole thing is though that a dex build does not have to be a trap at end game providing you get the balance of it right, that means investing a bit in strength. Finesse really can work at end game. I don't like the idea of being all dex and no strength, that is the ultimate no no of a finesse build imo, and adding attack speed is all well and good, but if you're attacking faster than a diarrhetic olympic sprinter that has just consumed a powerful laxative but doing little to 0 damage, then it's pointless.

[HatsuharuZ]

The whole thing is though that a dex build does not have to be a trap at end game providing you get the balance of it right, that means investing a bit in strength. Finesse really can work at end game. I don't like the idea of being all dex and no strength, that is the ultimate no no of a finesse build imo, and adding attack speed is all well and good, but if you're attacking faster than a diarrhetic olympic sprinter that has just consumed a powerful laxative but doing little to 0 damage, then it's pointless.

The entire point of my idea is to make up for doing less damage by doing damage FASTER. The only way I'm going to do "little to no damage" is if I dump strength and don't being my boss beater along. My idea would simply make a dex build more viable by adding another way to build a melee toon. At the moment this game is heavily in favor of strength builds, and always has been as far as I can tell. Why can't we have something new and different?

Also, I don't think my idea is the best thing since elemental savants. It's not for everyone. A barbarian isn't going to use this, for instance. On the other hand, a dual-wielding assassin would LOVE this.

It would be nice, too, if there was an "eye gouge" feat that lets you blind your target and uses your dex or str to calculate the DC. It would be perfect for monks and anyone who likes dirty fighting.

[Orratti]

How about just making haste increase the number of attacks a dex build gets over a str build making an already quicker character with more agility even more so. They are getting ready to redo enhancements anyway so now would be the time to suggest enhancements that are dex based to give larger #s of attacks for less damage per attack. Enhancements not feats.

[Aesop]

I would prefer a modification to the initial Weapon Finesse Feat to additional Feat which would make it impossible for certain builds to excel due to the feat requirements.


my version of Weapon Finesse would be.

Weapon Finesse
With a light weapon or a weapon with the Finesse property (like a rapier), you use your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier on attack rolls as long as the Dexterity modifier is higher than the Strength modifier. Additionally, while this is true, Tactical DCs that normally key off of Strength key off of Dexterity. Also, while this is true, you strike very quickly increasing your chance to double strike by 2%. This double strike chance increases by an additional 2% at BAB 7 and again at BAB 14 for a total of +6% Double Strike. This stacks with other double strike increases.


To go with this there would be Enhancements to go along with it. Under the current Enhancement system I would Key it around the Dex Enhancements like Rogue Dex 1 2 and 3 and halfling Dex 1 and 2. The new system is going to be different but I'm not sure how. Though I would still key it around something like that if appropriate. Just 1% per tier so a Halfling Rogue could theoretically end up with 11% Double Strike with light weapons.

Other enhancements I would add in is Acrobat Q-Staff Finesse and Elven Valenar Dervish to apply Finesse to Scimitars.


Fixing AC would be nice... but that assumes that the only people who would get AC are Finesse characters. While the two are not mutually exclusive they are also not tied so firmly together that one equals the other.

Aesop

[GeneralDiomedes]

In theory, this is a great idea, and it seems realistic. Other games balance weapons this way, i.e. a greatsword swings slower than a dagger.

And AC also needs to be fixed, but in such a way that it only mitigates damage, there is a gradual curve in increased mitigation, and there is a ceiling on how much it can mitigate. The current potential of 95% of incoming damage simply doesn't work from a balancing point of view, and the all-or-nothing quality of player values doesn't work from a character planning point of view.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

More investment into more feats that seem useful, but ultimately aren't?

Who of the beginners knows that ?

Dex builds need strength.

In order to eradicate dexterity completely from the base stats ?

Let's say you have an amazing dex-build ranger with decent saves, evasion , good healing amp and self-healing. You go into a "zerg/byoh/we are evil elitist meanieheads/" party with a sorcerer and 4 barbs. What does your character do?

Sure, you can do some damage, but it is so much less than the barb that you will hardly ever see a kill, not to mention the sorcerer nuking/instakilling everything he can.You are not a burden to the party, but you are not contributing either.

Experienced it myself.

Left me quite frustrated. Because I wanted to be helpful, not a "fith car's wheel".

The entire point of my idea is to make up for doing less damage by doing damage FASTER.

Sounds reasonable, especially for Dexterity.

The Principle of high Dexterity is to be more ... nimble with anything you use, no ?

[svinja]

Going with dex is fine on builds which have synergy with it, it is just a trap for pure rogues (or any build for which the following 3 things are true). The problem with rogues is that 1) their reflex can get high enough without being dex based 2) they can't achieve a very high AC even if dex based 3) all of this would help less anyway, because rogue is not the most suitable class for tanking in the first place. Compare that to a paladin/monk who can have much higher AC, enough reflex, high HP, rock solid threat, and won't even need to burn a feat on finesse even if they go pure dex.

Dex is not for rogues, or for "squishy" builds in general. For some reason, the majority of dex builds you see in the game are the this exact type of builds, I guess because they use some kind of logic that is unrelated to game mechanics when choosing their stats, like "rogues are not strong, they are nimble, so I should go with dex". A build based on this kind of reasoning is what we call "flavor build".

The reason things are like this is mostly the terrible d20 AC system.

Although, to be fair, rogues do so much damage and contribute so much with Assassinate that I don't think this is a big deal even as it is. I would not reject even a 12 STR rogue from a group. But they would be more powerful if they had gone with STR.

[Jay203]

On the other hand, a dual-wielding assassin would LOVE this.

no, the dual-wielding assassin would love insightful strike and insightful damage to come in feat form

Weapon Finesse
With a light weapon or a weapon with the Finesse property (like a rapier), you use your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier on attack rolls as long as the Dexterity modifier is higher than the Strength modifier. Additionally, while this is true, Tactical DCs that normally key off of Strength key off of Dexterity. Also, while this is true, you strike very quickly increasing your chance to double strike by 2%. This double strike chance increases by an additional 2% at BAB 7 and again at BAB 14 for a total of +6% Double Strike. This stacks with other double strike increases.

way too powerful for a single feat wouldn't you say?
not to mention there are no pre-req feats for it
while it could make sense for trip to use dex mod instead, it doesn't make any sense to use dex mod for stunning blow. the point of str to stunning blow is you hit HARDER, but with dex, you hit... finer? O_o;;;

[HatsuharuZ]

no, the dual-wielding assassin would love insightful strike and insightful damage to come in feat form

That too!

I just wish that dexterity had more use, at least for those classes that have a use for it.

For example: A barbarian doesn't need much dex because he only uses medium armor, and he needs all the HP and Str he can get (unless he goes the TWF route, but even then he doesn't lose that much hp/str due to the availability of tomes). A barb is also the best melee damage-dealer in the game, so who cares if he gets hit alot?

On the other hand, you have a rogue. A rogue has d6 hit die (compared to the d12 barb), and is best served by light armor. A rogue is also an excellent DPS class, but most of his damage comes from sneak attacks, which can be nullified by undead, constructs and certain raid bosses (to an extent). A rogue must get very close to utilize his sneak attack. He also gets enhancements to increase his dexterity. Considering that an endgame rogue assasin can get 17d6+ sneak attack damage, a few extra points of strength shouldn't be that useful to him. A rogue is *squishy*, with his low hp. To balance this, a rogue gets the tumble skill, excellent stealth abilities, and improved evasion, and high reflex saves, amongst other things. The rogue is not designed to absorb punishment like a barb or fighter. He is best at *avoiding* damage, and the one stat that helps him accomplish this is dexterity.

[licho]

IMHO there should be just a feat:

Greater Weapon Finesse:
For finesse weapons you use your dex mod for both to hit and dmg.
Note: Turning Power Attack on disable this feat.

This way this will be quite balanced even for monks, since:
- We pay 2 feats
- Its still easier to to pump str with various mods.
- The PA is another +5 to dmg.
- We are forced to finesse weapons (so no uber khopeshes)

Shinees:
+ Potencially +10 to hit on some builds (like halfing rogues with no PA)
+ If devs fix AC (mwahaha) potencially some defence, otherwise double finesse monks will have a cookie.
+ some more points into reflex save, just if you already dont have above 40
+ if devs fix ranged combat (mwahaah) some potencial with ranged

Enhacement: Maybe some for elves and rangers to make scimitars finessable.

There are already some weapons using dex for both, and balance has not be destroed, so as well we can include this as the feat option.

[Talias006]

Enhacement: Maybe some for elves and rangers to make scimitars finessable.

I can see it for Elves with the Valenar weapon enhances, and for those who favor the Undying Court.

Although, according to Lore, the Aerenal are the ones who revere the Undying Court, not the Valenar.
I don't know how these two groups got mixed up such as they are. :shrugs: