Lamannia Update: EARLY Enhancements Preview

[DeathbringerGod]

My brother tried the new system with his Cleric lv 25 and he dislaked a lot the fact that you get Radiant Servant at lev 20... it change all his build, you should get some of the Radiant Servant bonuses at lv 6, 12 and 18...
the same with some bonuses from Kensai I too for example

[Aashrym]

My brother tried the new system with his Cleric lv 25 and he dislaked a lot the fact that you get Radiant Servant at lev 20... it change all his build, you should get some of the Radiant Servant bonuses at lv 6, 12 and 18...
the same with some bonuses from Kensai I too for example

Ummm, you do unless something was bugging on him or he was not understanding something. A person can get the aura in the tree at character level 11 with only 5 cleric levels if multi'd in, and the PrE abilities are at 1, 3, 6, 12, and 18, with a capstone at 20.

I had the aura and burst on a 6th level cleric I splashed in to a paladin build and had no trouble with access to the abilities, and I also have a pure cleric that had no issues at level 20 getting the capstone. I don't like the capstone, but I didn't have any issues getting it.

Right now the cleric trees look like they are heavily dependent on a splash to supplement them and the best options look like 18/2 or 17/3 splits on a cleric. They also seem like they have potential as a dip. As a pure class they cater to a specific playstyle on the surface.

More spell power in areas they didn't have before and a +2 WIS in the capstone they didn't have before so the job wasn't as bad and the forums are indicating. What the upfront view in our faces is the healing aspect while the spell power and DC's are much more subtle in the way the enhancements are laid out and that's what players are going to notice as a first impression and the visible in our faces part was a different direction than forum goers had been requesting.

I'm not a fan of how the cleric trees are implemented but I can see that there is potential gain in offensive power as far as spell casting goes.

Part of the issue is that our simplified interface is still complicated in class design.

[DeathbringerGod]

Yes he understand a little by messing around... but he lost the boost SP (Cleric: Energy of Zealot)

I too realized that the DC of my combat tactics are reduced since the fighter enhancements to feats like Trip and Stunning Blow are removed...

I have a a fighter lv 25 with 44 str, str mod 17. So before i had:
Stunning Blow DC: 10+ 17 STR + 3 Kensai III + 4 Stunning B. Enhance + 6 Epic destiny = 40 DC
Trip DC: 10+ 17 STR + 3 Kensai III + 3 Trip Enhance + 6 Epic destiny = 39 DC

NOW I have 36 DC for Stunning Blow and 35 to Trip.... on epic adventures is hard that these DCs succeed

[Aashrym]

Yes he understand a little by messing around... but he lost the boost SP (Cleric: Energy of Zealot)

I too realized that the DC of my combat tactics are reduced since the fighter enhancements to feats like Trip and Stunning Blow are removed...

I have a a fighter lv 25 with 44 str, str mod 17. So before i had:
Stunning Blow DC: 10+ 17 STR + 3 Kensai III + 4 Stunning B. Enhance + 6 Epic destiny = 40 DC
Trip DC: 10+ 17 STR + 3 Kensai III + 3 Trip Enhance + 6 Epic destiny = 39 DC

NOW I have 36 DC for Stunning Blow and 35 to Trip.... on epic adventures is hard that these DCs succeed

Yes, I get the general impression there's a blanket wide adjustment going on in a balancing move as part of the changes so there will be a lot of dust to settle before all it's all over.

I would have preferred PrC focused trees instead of devotion trees. The healing focus overshadows some added benefits and I keep seeing posts about nothing for offensive casters so I point out some benefits that were added for offensive casters.

Once we see all of the polish and adjustments we will all have a better understanding of the changes.

I never thought the SP were worth the AP before. Now Elf with a splash is nice because the elf provide 5 shots of temp SP that totals far more than we had in the energy of lines, elf still has arcanum and now it is without the requirement of being a wizard, and soul magic in the arcane archer tree helps with SP. Also, efficient maximize is far more effective than energy of lines.

A person doesn't even need to splash but it's a good idea for feats and a bad idea if a person wants 2 more WIS from a capstone.

Why worry about not having 10 AP for the energy of and 12 AP for spell pen when you can spend 6 AP for 100 SP and +3 spell penetration? The options still exists, but are found in choice of race.

[DeathbringerGod]

Yeah, my brother is playing a Dwarf cleric

[Aashrym]

Yeah, my brother is playing a Dwarf cleric

Has he tried stone hands yet, or no dragonmarks? I haven't tried that one out yet but it's on my to do list so I'm curious.

[DeathbringerGod]

Has he tried stone hands yet, or no dragonmarks? I haven't tried that one out yet but it's on my to do list so I'm curious.

He has no dragonmarks, what it does? I will read about it haha

[SirValentine]

+2 from destinies can be twisted by clerics as well

The only way a Cleric can use all 3 Spell Pen boosting ED abilities is to lose 5 points of spell pen by not being in an ED that gives them caster level. Which would defeat the purpose.

So...Cleric in EA, with Piercing twisted from Magister and Draconic.

Verus Bard in...take your pick of the 3 Arcane destinies...with Piercing x2 and Echoes of the Ancestors, one from ED you're sitting in, other 2 twisted.

There are not enough Fate Points available to twist all 3.

I'm generally a bit confused though, your argument is that bards are better offense casters than clerics

My argument isn't that they are better or worse. I was simply pointing out the claim that Bards "have the worst DC's and spell pen" isn't true.

[legendlore]

The only way a Cleric can use all 3 Spell Pen boosting ED abilities is to lose 5 points of spell pen by not being in an ED that gives them caster level. Which would defeat the purpose.

So...Cleric in EA, with Piercing twisted from Magister and Draconic.

Verus Bard in...take your pick of the 3 Arcane destinies...with Piercing x2 and Echoes of the Ancestors, one from ED you're sitting in, other 2 twisted.

There are not enough Fate Points available to twist all 3.

True (I had it in my mind that "piercing spellcraft" was a tier 2, when it's in fact a tier 3).

My argument isn't that they are better or worse. I was simply pointing out the claim that Bards "have the worst DC's and spell pen" isn't true.

Well to be fair your statement was;

Yes, the only-6-levels-of-spells and no-magical-training Specialist class is better at offensive casting than a full-9-spell-levels Spellcaster class like Cleric.

To me there is a great deal of distance between being a better offensive caster than a class with access to instant kills, persistent aoe damage spells and stack able dots etc.. and being able to reach an workable dc in a single spell school (that you can't choose yourself) and spell penetration for 3 (in endgame) usable spells by sacrificing all other aspects of your build.

[irnimnode]

not sure of something has the feats change for kensai fighter? Because before the new enhancements my fighter was a Kensai 2 Assassin 1..with the new enhancements i was only allowed 3 AP in the kensai tree 31 in the assassin tree and 29 in the stalworth defender tree. I not dissapointed with the out come my chacacter still came out a pretty tough homber but was just trying to figure out why i only was allowed 3AP on Kensai

[Seikojin]

not sure of something has the feats change for kensai fighter? Because before the new enhancements my fighter was a Kensai 2 Assassin 1..with the new enhancements i was only allowed 3 AP in the kensai tree 31 in the assassin tree and 29 in the stalworth defender tree. I not dissapointed with the out come my chacacter still came out a pretty tough homber but was just trying to figure out why i only was allowed 3AP on Kensai

Try accepting some changes mid build, close out the UI and start again. It may recalculate and allow you to spend points into it again.

[irnimnode]

Try accepting some changes mid build, close out the UI and start again. It may recalculate and allow you to spend points into it again.

ok will give it a try thanks for the info

[SirValentine]

...instant kills, persistent aoe damage spells and stack able dots etc.. and being able to reach an workable dc in a single spell school (that you can't choose yourself) and spell penetration for 3 (in endgame) usable spells by sacrificing all other aspects of your build.

I thought I was comparing Cleric to Bard, so you've lost me.

Clerics have no persistent AoE, and only a single DoT. And Bards have more than 3 usable Enchantment spells, and don't have to sacrifice all other aspects of their builds anymore than Clerics.

If you think a Bard has a tougher time CCing with Otto's Sphere than a Cleric's Greater Command, I don't know what to tell you.

But anyway, that's all beside the point: Wizard enhancements currently give them unfair DC advantages over all other spellcasters, and arcane items & EDs give them unfair Spell Pen advantages over divines.

[DRAXnekro]

Since I cant log into Lamannia (because of the connect/wait issue) I have only read a lot about the new enhancements and I got some thoughts about them. I hope this is the good place to post it

First of all we should be really grateful to Turbine for letting us get into the alpha phase of new enhancements and not doing something like “Here you go! We have new enhancements for you! We hope you will get use to them and if not just stop playing!” like they were doing it for the last few years with other major game changes. So please stop crying all over the forum how much nerf will the changes bring, especially clerics – wait for the warpriest to be released – and just say what you don’t like and how would you like see it changed. Now you seems to want a cleric with a healing and protection domain to be a killer machine with spells and weapons. In some part I understand this and with the new enhancement you have to go all healbot PrE with mostly no more points available to spend for a bit effective offensive spellcasting compared to that you have on live. This is only alpha so this is the first version and there is still lot of work on this. Anyway I think that some of the newly shown enhancements are even better than epic destinies (some of kensai and ranger abilities) and other could get some boost (like knight of the chalice and the racial enhancements) so there is a lot of balancing work to do (epic destinies also could get some balancing reworks but not gonna talk about it here).
So here comes my idea of few changes to the enhancements that might be a good solution to getting forced in spending all the available AP into one PrE to get the SOOO GOOOD tier 5 abilities.

Now the enhancements are like this:
tier 5 abilities require: lvl 5 of current class, 40 AP spend in the tree and required feats or lower tier enhancements
core abilities (that are like the PrE enhancements them self in the life server) require current lvl in class up to lvl 20 and AP spend in the tree

My suggestion is to change the AP requirement of the abilities for exaple :
tier 5 abilities would require: lvl 5 of current class, 40 AP spend overall (so you will be able to get it at lvl 10-12 not earlier), and 20 or 30 AP spend in tree (so you wont be able to get the yummy skills from all the PrE without any cost, 20 AP requirement might be too low for multiclassing and result in OP what I dont want) and required feats or lower tier enhancements if there are any.
I would leave the core abilities requirement as its logically that you have to specialize in the class and PrE to get the highest tier ability and capstone just like it is on live servers but make them auto-granted when you hit the requirements.
Also would like to see all the characteristic enhancements for a class in every PrE from it. Fighter was a fighter no mater if its a kensai or stalwart and you could take haste boost and toughness enhancements in both. They are 2 different types of fighter so the enhancements could be placed in different tiers (kensai toughness in tier 3 and stalwar toughness in tier 2 or 1) and taking one of it would made it unable to take in other tree (you have to pick one of, kensai or stalwart toughness).
I can imagine that the 20 AP spend in tree to get the highest tier ability might be to low and result into having too many too powerful skills for a single character and have to be tested in-game. If so making a character able to pick tier 5 ability only from one tree could fix this.

For the racial enhancements now we got:
4 core abilities that require current character lvl and cost AP
and 4 tiers of abilities with requirement in AP spend in the tree.

On live all the race enhancements require only character lvl and overall AP spend to get them and I like it this way. My suggestion in the racial tree is to change the core abilities into auto-grants with a bit lower AP spend in tree and character lvl requirements that the class ones (for example the last core ability should have lvl 16 and 20 AP spend in tree requirement). The rest non-core racial abilities would have overall AP spend and character lvl requirement. Most of people picks some races just to get into one or two of it enhancements (like human for versatility and healing amp) and forcing them to spend to many precious APs to get it is a mistake.

Now I got a request to all of you. PLEASE don’t turn to much rage and hate for what I think but make a constructive conversation and tell me if I think wrong

P.S. Sorry for my English and typos

[IronClan]

If you think a Bard has a tougher time CCing with Otto's Sphere than a Cleric's Greater Command, I don't know what to tell you.

Heightening a GC takes it from a level 5 spell for DC purposes to a level 9, the Otto's sphere not so much (Bard's max 6th level spells) that said I admit I'm nit picking and I've run with some nice CC bards.

First of all we should be really grateful to Turbine for letting us get into the alpha phase of new enhancements and not doing something like “Here you go! We have new enhancements for you! We hope you will get use to them and if not just stop playing!”

Actually for the reasons you just mentioned, TURBINE should be grateful they aren't doing that. Because doing that historically in many MMO's has resulted in the MMO going down hill and losing players. Star Wars Galaxies being the most famous example.

I'm mr, Turbine apologist around here when it suits others to think that, but if they break a bunch of builds when it's been proven that two simple changes will avoid breaking ANY BUILDS, then maybe they deserve some of that heat.

The simple fact is they know they are breaking builds, Squeek edited out "we know we're going to break your builds" from one of her posts... And they have 100% for sure already seen the suggestion for removing "AP spent in tree" and making it global points spent which with one other change would allow for NO BROKEN BUILDS. But they've not acknowledged that yet. Until they do,I think anyone who doesn't want their build broken had better speak up and make it known throughout this alpha phase and beta phase.

[~rachealgoss]

I did the ranger skill tree for tempest and one of the top level skills is x/3 and all the prerequisite skills for it are x/1. So the top level skill can only ever be 1/3 (since "you cant have more points in a skill . . . ) and needs ot be changed to x/1 or the others need to go to x/3. I am not logged in and dont remember which one but it is easy to find.

[caquias]

If this is any indication if the radiant servant I will be leaving the cleric class behind. Went from hitting burst at 400 to 600 and heals for 600 and up to go down to less then 250 is heart braking and will cost to much. I love both my clerics and its hard for me to even change them a little because good healing is hard to come by. I know I'm not alone when I say please don't make the clerics work harder after all we keep the groups standing.



We are oft to blame in this,-- 'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage.
And pious action we do sugar o'er. The devil himself.

[legendlore]

I thought I was comparing Cleric to Bard, so you've lost me.

Clerics have no persistent AoE, and only a single DoT.

Blade barrier is a great persistent aoe spell, this spell alone makes clerics a viable solo class in the mid levels.
You miss understand me with the dots, the point was that you can stack multiple dots (which has a far greater damage potential than non stack able dots as say acid arrow), not that there is access to multiple dot spells.

And Bards have more than 3 usable Enchantment spells, and don't have to sacrifice all other aspects of their builds anymore than Clerics.

There are 2 more that 'can' be used, both being lesser versions of better spells, Hold person; to juggle multiple timers to somewhat mitigate that bards don't have mass holds (most don't do this in my experience though). Otto's resistible dance; to keep monsters dancing longer than the irresistible version (personally I haven't used this since around u12-13 when I played Lord of blades and needed buff time between the waves).

And yes a bard does in fact sacrifice more than any other caster class when going the caster route simply because it doesn't have access to any damage capability through casting. Ddo is a very dps focused game, building a character without dps can work in a static group, but it won't be much fun when trying to play one outside of a static group.

If you think a Bard has a tougher time CCing with Otto's Sphere than a Cleric's Greater Command, I don't know what to tell you.

Never said anything of the sort and if you think I did you haven't read my posts. I've argued against your statement that bards are better offensive casters than clerics.

But as a 'fun' (tragic really) fact since you brought it up, bards do in fact have a weaker dc than clerics in enchantment spells until (and if) they reach level 20 and get their capstone, even if they buy both spell focus feats they're still one dc behind.



For me being an better offensive caster means more than having a higher spell penetration potential than another class, it means a greater ability to deal damage through spells. Since bards don't have this ability I'm afraid I wont ever be convinced otherwise until this changes.

From what I've read out of your posts it seems that you deem bards being better off than clerics due to their Epic destiny sphere being better (not being a better base class in them self) which I however can agree with and I do hope that a nice cleric destiny will be released soon.

Any way I don't believe we will get much further in this discussion and I'll agree to disagree.

[zaphear]

This update is going to ruin every splash build in the game.. I seriously hope they give everyone free +20 greater hearts of wood. Otherwise I'm going to be extremely ****ed..