Winners and losers in the expansion

[luvirini]

Trying to analyze what type of characters are builds are winners and losers. I have had the following thoughts:

Most the changes happen in the epic levels, except the AC and related effects happen also in heroic.

List of probable losers:
Anyone in pyjamas who is not a pure/near pure monk-As other armor types get a buff, the unarmored category gets much harder to get a relevant AC unless you are mostly a monk that thus gets the extra increases for monks.

AC tanks: you cannot get the near invincibility you had before.

Palemasters/necro archmages. The new epic ward makes the bad old days be back where wizards are there for holds only.

Bards: They will fall further and further into a role of buffbot, with the difficulty of getting things like the heal spec epic destiny.

Healers: as the tanks will likely take more damage.

Clonks and other melee divines: The stance changes, AC changes and such makes it much harder to melee at same time as you cast.

Caster divines: will get also hurt by the epic ward and with the healing difficulty..

Probable neutrals with changes:
Barbarians: They can again get damage migation level armor class, but the cleave nerf and not hiotting always on 2 hurts.

Rangers: The AC changes likely hurt as in getting hit more, but likely benefit from the hit probability as many such had hard time hitting the tougher enemies and if range specked from the ranged epic destiny.

Rogues: the AC changes should benefit them as most rogues should reach reasonable AC and good dodge. But the epic ward will make assainate useless.

Probable winners:
Sorcerors: the epic destinies give them more nuking than ever, along with the lower enemy HP on epic quests.

Any melee that did not have top to hit probablity as they will hit a lot more often and can also often get reasonable damage migation with armor.

(More thoughs and changed ideas likely after actual testing, above is based on earlier beta versions, release notes and other reading)

[UltraMonk2]

Trying to analyze what type of characters are builds are winners and losers. I have had the following thoughts:

Most the changes happen in the epic levels, except the AC and related effects happen also in heroic.

Wouldn't it be best to actually to test all these claims first as what you think may occur may actually be different from what actually occurs? As one example you mention monks and AC without any references to the new Dodge % mechanic.

[Buggss]

Wouldn't it be best to actually to test all these claims first as what you think may occur may actually be different from what actually occurs? As one example you mention monks and AC without any references to the new Dodge % mechanic.

I think what's being said by the OP is that these are the changes he/she sees if things happen as they're being described right now. This is to give the devs some idea of what players understand of the changes being made.

Whether or not the changes change again is probably effected by this kind of feedback pr allows the devs to re-explain the circumstances in case it's been explained or mis-understood, or to do things differently if the changes cause a problem they didn't foresee.

I don't see anything wrong with the OP provising their own feedback whether or not you agree with it.

[sirgog]

Winners:


Defensively specced melees in armor. Huge increase in mitigation except in the situation that you massively outgear content.
Rangers and Rogues. Significant damage mitigation for the first time (excluding some niche builds like Dex-based AC pure rogues, which I haven't seen since the cap was 16 anyway).
Melees in general. The instakill nerfs mean your DPS matters outside of corner cases like epic drow and super-high elemental resistances (LOB). After all on Live, even if you somehow did 700 DPS on a melee you'd still be out-performed by a medium-geared first life Wizard in most content.
People that open chests. Serious improvements to random lootgen.
Divines (on the healing side). Between the substantial reduction in damage players take and the SP increases in destinies, the healing aspect of divines will cost a lot less SP.


Losers:

Unarmored melees, especially light monk splashes.
Casters that stick to U9-U13 strategies. (Casters that 'shock horror' do different things will probably still be top of the heap, but not as dominant as they are on Live).
Bards.
9th level spell classes are generally down in power a bit, but not to a ridiculous degree.

[CoasterHops]

Losers:
Palemasters, TWF Rangers and Paladins, purely for the fact they are Paladins.

Winners:
Sorcs, Heavy Armored Fighters, the Big Hitting Melees. Ohhh yeah and like Sirgog said, looters are winners, hagglebots could be winners.

At least thats how it looks to me

[SSFWEl]

Rogues: But the epic ward will make assainate useless.

WHAT? Can you explain?

Edit: Ah. The ward. Hmm.

[sirgog]

Losers:
Palemasters, TWF Rangers and Paladins, purely for the fact they are Paladins.

Winners:
Sorcs, Heavy Armored Fighters, the Big Hitting Melees. Ohhh yeah and like Sirgog said, looters are winners, hagglebots could be winners.

At least thats how it looks to me

TWF Rangers can get serious damage mitigation now.

Light armor is useful for the first time ever (increased base AC), and they can get a lot of dodge.

I'm expecting Tempests to take significantly less damage in any melee situation where there's unavoidable cleave damage (Velah, Arraetrikos), from avoidable cleaves where you screw up (Suulo when you are poorly positioned), and the like. Less mitigation than a fullplate Kensai, but the fullplate Kensai doesn't have Evasion or the ability to pop out a bow and Manyshot.

The monk-splashed ones though - they got hit hard.

[CoasterHops]

TWF Rangers can get serious damage mitigation now.

Light armor is useful for the first time ever (increased base AC), and they can get a lot of dodge.

I'm expecting Tempests to take significantly less damage in any melee situation where there's unavoidable cleave damage (Velah, Arraetrikos), from avoidable cleaves where you screw up (Suulo when you are poorly positioned), and the like.

The monk-splashed ones though - they got hit hard.

In respect to the TWF Rangers was really from a ED Perspective, nothing really seems to be focused for them.
Just how I felt when looking through them all.

[Stillwaters]

Wouldn't it be best to actually to test all these claims first as what you think may occur may actually be different from what actually occurs? As one example you mention monks and AC without any references to the new Dodge % mechanic.

Heavy armored fighter defenders can reach around 19%dodge!!

Unless they change the way dodge stacks or have major boosts planned for the dodge items. Currently that's about all the %dodge you can put on a cloth build (a little higher with certain Epic Destinies), with less AC (even pure monk), and less PRR

[Ivan_Milic]

That cleave nerf for barbs is big one.

[Jasparion]

Winners:
People that open chests. Serious improvements to random lootgen.

This bit made me smile.

[Ape_Man]

In respect to the TWF Rangers was really from a ED Perspective, nothing really seems to be focused for them.
Just how I felt when looking through them all.

Dude . . . Shadowdancer? Just the passive 6d6 sneak-attack on a toon with 100% off-hand attacks is worth the price of admission.

[Alcedes]

seriously. dont go by reading the notes. PLAY the toons. everyone is winning.

[orakio]

Heavy armored fighter defenders can reach around 19%dodge!!

Unless they change the way dodge stacks or have major boosts planned for the dodge items. Currently that's about all the %dodge you can put on a cloth build (a little higher with certain Epic Destinies), with less AC (even pure monk), and less PRR

No they can't and thats not about all the dodge% you can put into a cloth build. Even a dwarven fighter with 24 AP spent on fighter+dwarven armor mastery is typically limited to a MDB of 13 with a towershield equipped, or 15 with a mithral light plate and a heavy or light shield. It gets slightly higher if you can epic crafting slot Greater Nimbleness on your armor, but at that point you have to figure out where to get the epic light plate (none in game) that has epic gem slots (which doesn't happen on new gear) so its kind of impossible.
Paladins are more like a MDB of ~9 with mithral light plate but limited to just 7 from the tower shield.

Depending on how items stack max dodge possible is ~10% from items(14% if you include seal of dun'robar and it stacks with icy raiments). 7% from dodge+mobility+spring attack. 3% from magister ED tier1, 3% from GMoF tier 1, 3% more in water stance from GMoF Tier3(most won't have this), 3-6% from in the weeds tier 4 of Shiradi, and up to 6% more from uncanny dodge passive(not sure if imp uncanny stacks on top of normal uncanny).

In addition you have active abilities that further increase dodge %
A Scattering of Petals in GMoF tier 6, 25% for 12 seconds (1min cd)
Legendary Dreadnought's epic moment for 50% dodge
Meld Into Darkness Tier3 shadowdancer, 100% for 6/9/12 seconds (2min cd)
Untouchable from Shadowdancer tier5: 1% dodge for every shadow charge you hold
Uncanny/Imp uncanny dodge: 50/60% dodge for a longer CD short duration.

That gives you 26(no imp water stance, seal doesn't stack, and no uncanny dodge)-42%(everything stacks passively) passive dodge with activateables for even more dodge. Likely enough of a gap to make up for the PRR difference.

[JasonJi72]

Why are Bards placed in the 'loser' category. Can someone clarify this please?

Does fascinate and song of capering still work, and/or do you need to have an insane dc?

[Ape_Man]

That gives you 26(no imp water stance, seal doesn't stack, and no uncanny dodge)-42%(everything stacks passively) passive dodge with activateables for even more dodge. Likely enough of a gap to make up for the PRR difference.

I've done the math, it's not.

[donblas]

Based on my toons (29 of them on Khyber ranging from lvl5 to 20), and analysing their combat damage mitigation (I must emphasise that this is just my own bunch of toons). Other people with different builds will no doubt have different experience. Numbers in bracket show number of toons in that category:

All those (11) on live that were hit less than 50% of the time are now hit more; all those (15) that were hit more than 50% of the time are better off.

Lower level toons (7) built for AC are "nerfed" the most (ie biggest increase - hit up to 8 times as often); higher level toons (5) tend to have gained out of the new system (although none of mine have AC over 60).

Unarmored toons (9) with some thought put into AC (including monk splashes) are pretty much the same (except for big increase in damage for low levels(3))

Light armor wearers see big increase in damage at low lvl (3); most in the middle (5) got slightly better; lvl16 (4) and up got significantly better

Medium armor (2):almost exactly as now.

Heavy armor (a) SD, DoS (2): low level is hit three times as often; lvl 16 hit 10% more.
Heavy armor (b) 2HF (2): hit between a third less and half as often

[Ape_Man]

Unarmored toons (9) with some thought put into AC (including monk splashes) are pretty much the same (except for big increase in damage for low levels(3))

That's wrong.

[Miow]

TWF Rangers can get serious damage mitigation now.

Light armor is useful for the first time ever (increased base AC), and they can get a lot of dodge.

I'm expecting Tempests to take significantly less damage in any melee situation where there's unavoidable cleave damage (Velah, Arraetrikos), from avoidable cleaves where you screw up (Suulo when you are poorly positioned), and the like. Less mitigation than a fullplate Kensai, but the fullplate Kensai doesn't have Evasion or the ability to pop out a bow and Manyshot.

The monk-splashed ones though - they got hit hard.

Hmmm given how they changed the armors i kinda wish i hadn't just made epic red pyjamas for my rogue(toon i'll tr the most)...

[Stillwaters]

No they can't and thats not about all the dodge% you can put into a cloth build. Even a dwarven fighter with 24 AP spent on fighter+dwarven armor mastery is typically limited to a MDB of 13 with a towershield equipped, or 15 with a mithral light plate and a heavy or light shield.

Its higher on a dwarf defender:
Heavy armor = Planetouched LIGHT fullplate (MDB6)
+3MDB dwarf armor mastery
+3MDB fighter armor mastery
+3MDB T3 defender prestige
+2MDB mobility feat
(+2 gtr nimbleness slotted assuming we find epic slots on these armors)
--------
17 (19)

10%dodge (from dodge 1, 2, 3, 4%) 4% from new ring!
3% dodge feat
2% mobility feat
2% spring attack
---------
17 (19 if haste and dodge RITUAL give another +1% each)

3 feats on a fighter isn't too tough to pull off - the 20AP is harsh but some can be used as pre req for stalwart defenderIII
Assuming you can get DEX to 30 (+10) really tough to do
you are actually BETTER off in light fullplate and celestial heavyshield
than a planetouched fullplate and towershield regular sack Dex "Joe" (or paladin)
You will have higher ac AND dodge than they can achieve!!!
Side benefit is keeping the hard won dodge items

and I could STILL choose a 2 splash!! (pally2 or ranger2, heck even monk2 for 2 feats)

Min-maxing is why we cant have "nice" things

Depending on how items stack max dodge possible is ~10% from items(14% if you include seal of dun'robar and it stacks with icy raiments). 7% from dodge+mobility+spring attack.

so 21%.... vs 17% (or 19%).. so far 4% ahead of HEAVY armor

3% from magister ED tier1, 3% from GMoF tier 1, 3% more in water stance from GMoF Tier3(most won't have this), 3-6% from in the weeds tier 4 of Shiradi,

You cannot twist ALL of those!!! lets assume maybe +6% more from ED?

and up to 6% more from uncanny dodge passive(not sure if imp uncanny stacks on top of normal uncanny).

You ain't getting 6% on a MONK cloth build, and if non monk why are you in cloth??
Max +5% from here... and rogue only as Barb and monk dont mix!

In addition you have active abilities that further increase dodge %
A Scattering of Petals in GMoF tier 6, 25% for 12 seconds (1min cd)
Legendary Dreadnought's epic moment for 50% dodge
Meld Into Darkness Tier3 shadowdancer, 100% for 6/9/12 seconds (2min cd)
Untouchable from Shadowdancer tier5: 1% dodge for every shadow charge you hold
Uncanny/Imp uncanny dodge: 50/60% dodge for a longer CD short duration.

Boost dodge bonuses work regardless of MDB - i could use the above with a tower shield on! (aside maybe from ShDncr-Untouchable)

Best case scenario:
a 18rogue 2 monk splash in cloth....
So far you got +15% dodge avg ahead in cloth, and sacrificed nearly ALL PRR% and a fair bit of AC% to boot!!!
Plus your boost takes you to 60% 1/4 of the time anyhow?!!?
I could switch down to MEDIUM/LIGHT armor and accomodate that, and STILL have higher AC and PRR%

Normal scenario:
didnt take rogue (-5%) and only got 3%(-3%) from ED cause you twisted other things...
Total +7% dodge
The other guy is in Heavy armor and a HVY shield!!!