The Official Fighter Enhancements Discussion Thread!

[mpetrarca]

I have only looked at the documentation presented on the DDO forums and DDOWiki and I am very ticked to say it nicely. I have spent 2 years building and playing my intimitank and I see so intimidate anywhere. Nothing is more able to control a monster/boss like intimidate. I love running in TOD or VOD or even just jumping into a mob that is tearing apart my party and using intimidate to save the party. A well designed and played intimitank can really make a huge difference in a quest. Today I ran Spinners of Shadows 3 times and each time the Spinner went straight for our party’s healer right off the bat, knocking the healer to the ground, and each time I was able to rush over and take control of the situation quite rapidly. Many a time I have been sent tells after a quest telling how great a run was because I could quickly control a boss and the run went very smoothly because of it. The loss of intimidate in DDO would be a great loss for the game and especially in raids like HOX, VOD and TOD.

[ChaosEmperorDragon]

I agree with many posters here on the issues brought up about Kensai. So many, if fact, I won't even bring them all up. I urge the development team to listen to these players. My personal favorite was Noctus:

I hear ye. I, too, dont like playing the cooldown-timer watching game.

One topic I didn't see much complaint about, I would like to discuss. This is that as a pure fighter Kensai main player, I feel completely left out in the cold compared to someone who splashes for Monk with all the free Ki bonuses on Epic Destinies and now Heroic Enhancements. Got Ki? Here you go have some free Ki benefit. Don't got Ki? Too F'ng bad; nothing for you.

What gives here? Is this a way to get people to buy Monk? If so, okay, business is business. Whatever. If it's not, then what can be done to give some sort of small benefit to those of us who give up on power to go pure? Maybe this doesn't bother anyone else, but it sure does me.

[Deadlock]

Tier 1 and Tier 3 enhancements give +1 to hit and +1 to damage with weapons in your weapon group
Tier 2 and Tier 4 enhancements give +1 to hit and +1 to damage with one handed weapons and bows, but +2 to damage with two handed weapons.

Is this WAI? I can't see any reason why tier 1 and tier 3 don't grant +2 to damage with two handed weapons.

[Cetus]

I haven't got the time to do a detailed write up right now, I'll do it tonight -

But:

Major Points:

-Devs, thank you so much for adding haste boost as an alternative to attack boost - HUGE relief.

-Change to capstone to grant two extra action boosts does not sway me over to pure - the benefits of multiclassing FAR exceed purity, nobody in their right mind would ever want to be a pure kensei.

-Weapon focus feats are still taxing us heavily. Can you guys just get rid of these insignificant nothing feats please? Why do I have to nullify two of my feats just to pick up Greater focus to qualify for some enhancement?

-There's still only a wisdom based DC on the fortification debuff, and its on the way toward tier 5 enhancements, kinda unfair to MAKE me take an enhancement based on an off stat on the way toward more relevant things.

-We are still losing tactics, you included the kensei based tactics - which is too expensive by the way, destiny points give you 1 point per 2 tactics, here its 2 points per 1 tactic. Very expensive. There's no other stunning blow or trip line that we currently DO have on live in addition to the kensei derived tactics.

I'll add a more formal write up tonight, but these were the big ones that irked me.

[IronThrone]

The Kensei Tier 4 Enhancement Weapon Group Specialization has the following requirements: Fighter Level 4, Weapon Group Specialization, and the relevant Greater Weapon Focus Feat.

The problem is that Greater Weapon Focus Feat has the prerequisite of Fighter Level 8. This defeats the entire purpose of creating Class Enhancement Trees that have a maximum 5th level requirement in the relevant class (excluding tree core enhancements, of course).

The Greater Weapon Focus Feat requirement should be removed from Weapon Group Specialization. In fact, the entire feat should probably be eliminated or revised given it's trivial impact under the implemented U14 combat system. Currently, a +1 bonus on to-hit rolls is almost negligible.

This also raises an important point regarding the Fighter Passive Past Life Feat. While the +1 to the DC's of tactical feats is still relevant, the passive +1 bonus to attack rolls has not been scaled to adjust for the new percentage chance to hit formula.

Others have previously posted their concerns regarding the above points. I encourage the Devs to address these issues.

[Teh_Troll]

Stalwart is borderline worthless. Even if the stance is changed back so it doesn't require a shield I'm not sure it comes close to the other options in the post U19 game.

I'm digging what I see in kensai. I noticed 12 fighter levels needed for the highest tier which feel more "right" to me.

[Cetus]

I encourage the Devs to address these issues.

For whatever reason, this feat issue has fallen on deaf ears for as long as I remember it being in discussion. It seems like a terribly inefficient system when a class is granted free feats as a perk to just get them taken up with worthless requirements.

[Scraap]

I'm becoming increasingly concerned that Stalwart is turning into a One-Trick-Pony tree. Might be a nice trick, but let's be real:

DPS stacks. Tanks don't.

The costs and available abilities need to account for the fact that at some point, two fighters might meet, leaving one of em to have to have an option for what to do when they aren't the one getting beat on, and I'm not really seeing that reflected in the design at present. Wish I had something more concrete there to offer suggestion-wise that hasn't already been gone over.

[FlaviusMaximus]

You listened to the player base and added Haste boost and extra action boosts into the Kensai tree. This is much appreciated.

I look forward to figuring out a nice Kensai weapon wielding monk build. I think you guys have done nice work here.

[ChaosEmperorDragon]

Cetus' post is spot on.

-Devs, thank you so much for adding haste boost as an alternative to attack boost - HUGE relief.
Yes. Attack boosts bad, haste boosts good.

-Change to capstone to grant two extra action boosts does not sway me over to pure - the benefits of multiclassing FAR exceed purity, nobody in their right mind would ever want to be a pure kensei.
Exactly. Pure fighters get rolled over and buried with kensai. The advantages of multiclassing should be for variety and customization, not make the character stronger than a pure class choice could ever be.

-Weapon focus feats are still taxing us heavily. Can you guys just get rid of these insignificant nothing feats please? Why do I have to nullify two of my feats just to pick up Greater focus to qualify for some enhancement?
Developers, why tout fighters' big benefit as having the most feats in the game when half of those feats are pretty much mandatory and bad?Their main selling point is a sham.

IronThrone brings up a real pet peeve of multi-life fighters.

This also raises an important point regarding the Fighter Passive Past Life Feat. While the +1 to the DC's of tactical feats is still relevant, the passive +1 bonus to attack rolls has not been scaled to adjust for the new percentage chance to hit formula.
Please, for the love, can this past life atrocity and give us something generic and useful to fighters. Why is a past life feat better for other classes than the one it's granted for? Even a plain +1 damage would be better.

[Cetus]

I started a separate thread in discussion, but will repost my thoughts here:

Kensei Enhancement Tree:

• Critical Accuracy:
  
  Costs 2 action points in order to receive +1 to confirm criticals. This ability is a pre requisite to "critical damage" and "A good death" abilities.
  
  Spending 2 points per tier for nothing will result in no action point expenditure in this segment of the tree. If you feel like leaving it, go ahead, just know that its wasted coding. I mentioned this in the alpha, but nothing was changed here. Critical accuracy = Garbage.
  
  
• Critical Damage:
  
  2 action points for +1 crit damage is outrageously expensive. No thanks.
  
  
• A Good Death:
  
  Will never be used due to the first two bullets. Ability itself is decent at best, the pre reqs drive the last nails in the coffin for this one.
  
  
• Extra Action Boost:
  
  These are the kensei boosts we were missing. Thank you for including them.
  
  However - Current fighters have an extra action boost line in ADDITION to the boosts we get from kensei. This new tree removes those additional boost opportunities, and keeps these kensei ones at 2 AP per tier, which is very expensive.
  
  Suggestion: Call this enhancement Kensei Boost: 1 AP per tier, 3 tiers. Create new enhancement called Extra Fighter Boost available to both stalwart and kensei: 2 AP per tier, 3 tiers. This way we have easier access to the kensei ones, and further access to the more expensive ones if we feel that our boost count is low.
  
  
• Attack/Haste boost:
  
  You folks nailed this one, wonderful change. Thanks for this one!
  
  
• Tactics :
  
  Major issues here. 2 AP for +1 to tactics is stupid. These were the kensei tactics that we were missing, so thanks for including them. But, we are still missing the specific tactic lines that we currently have on live in addition to the kensei tactics. My stunning blow DC is down because this tree lacks specific tactic enhancements in addition to the generic one.
  
  Suggestion: Kensei tactics should be innate. I'm a fighter for crying out load, I don't need the choice of taking tactics or not - this needs to be inherent in the prestige, and also gives fighters a better reason to take more fighter levels. Then, change this enhancement into Stunning blow: 1 ap per tier, 5 tiers. Include sunder and trip lines as well.
  
  
• The Weapon Specialization Line:
  
  Terrible. Why does the first tier give +1 to damage for 2 AP, and then subsequently alternates with +2 damage giving versions in higher tiers for the same 2 AP? Who designed this? The entire tree gives a grand total of: 1 + 2 + 1 + 2 = +6 to damage for: 2ap + 2ap + 2ap + 2ap = 8 action points.
  
  Suggestion: Absolutely most emphatically INCREASE the damage portion of each weapon specialization enhancement to +3 damage. That way, we get a total of +12 damage for 8 action points instead of a measly 6. Now I feel more like a kensei.
  
  Also, each one should also add +1 tactic if you choose not to incorporate my above suggestion of making it innate. This will make up for the loss of the other tactic lines and cushion the AP hit for taking the expensive tactics line currently available.
  
  If not, then add +1 doublestrike to the chosen weapon. I'm SPECIALIZING. Make me feel like a specialist. Come on devs, you can do better than this.
  
  
• Weapon Meditation:
  
  Good ability, but again 2 ap for incremental speed is expensive. 6 action points to make this tier 3 is rough.
  
  
• Shattering Strike:
  
  Horrible. Think about this devs, you are incorporating an enhancement that relies on an off stat as a PRE REQ for upper tier abilities. See anything wrong here? You are essentially nullifying 1 AP from this tree, because the ability won't work for most str based kensei's. Sure, it'll work for niche builds, which is why it should be a NICHE ability, not part of a main pathway toward upper level enhancements. Stupid design.
  
  
• Deadly Strike:
  
  Hey devs? I crit all the time. I don't need a special button that I can hit out of the thousand things I already have to keep track of, just to score another crit...this ability stinks to high heaven, and should be thrown in the garbage.
  
  I'm not relying on a vorpal to make use of this, I don't even hotbar it. No suggestion for this one, throw it away. It sucks, we SCREAMED this point in alpha, and nobody listened. THIS ABILITY IS CRA_P.
  
  
• Ascetic training:
  
  Too expensive, 1 AP per tier is reasonable.
  
  
• Spiritual Bond:
  
  I don't like this - this should be on rolls of 19 or 20, and stackable up to 10 times, simple and direct. Forget all that # of innates higher than charges bull, too complicated and unnecessary. Also, that would ease my point expenditure on weapon meditation if I can charge it a bit easier that way. That would go along well with my goals.
  
  
• One Cut:
  
  Who cares? This is why fighter after level 12 has ZERO appeal. I couldn't care less about this one.
  
  
• Alacrity:
  
  Nice ability, but when confronted with the splash benefits, its weak. I'm splashing my fighter as it stands now, kind've a no brainer. The 2 extra boosts don't really help it along that much.
  
  Now, if you add +5 tactics, mobs don't save against your tactic DC on a roll of a 20 if it would otherwise have been sufficient, and a mass stunning blow affect with a 1 minute cooldown, NOW you got me thinking...
  
  Hell, the mass stun alone would get me thinking...
  
  Why? because its exclusively useful to PURE fighters, something that no splash can do. That's what entices people to go down that road.

[Necromane]

Most of this is taken directly from a survey I recently filled out for the class enhancements. I want to begin by giving the developers kudos for:

Keen edge
A feature that used to be exclusive to lvl18 fighters now made available for any kensai-dedicated builds that's willing to invest heavily in the tree

One with the Blade
An amazing expansion of character building options regarding kensai. For the first time non unarmed fighting styles can dapple in the art of ki

Action Boost: Haste
A classic of fighter class. Very glad to see this get returned to the prestige

And for some of the nays:

Critical Accuracy
A terrible enhancement, both cost-wise and benefit-wise, and combining the availability of seekers gears and a prestige that is innately trained in confirming criticals, there is absolutely 0 incentives for me to spend points on this enhancement

Critical Damage
Ruined due to its horrible prerequisite enhancement mentioned above.

Shattering Strike
Perhaps obligated to take for ki using kensai build, and granted that the benefit is very nice, but application is terrible as DC calculation is wisdom-based for a prestige that is inherently strength oriented. Expand the DC option to be either STR or WIS, whichever one is higher, to compliment both unarmed monk using kensai tree and fighters wanting to experiment with ki in their build

Well the rest are more nays, but before I go there I want to say that one thing I really enjoy from this enhancement overhaul is the the fact that devs have separated the prestiges from the classes themselves. It's very liberating to no longer feel the need to be 12/6/2, or 18/2, or 12/7/1, or to follow whatever certain level mold when I want to multiclass due to the prestige and enhancements being tied directly to the class level. As far as the purpose of "increasing character differentiation through distinct character builds" goes, I think this is a key feature to be focused on. With that said, here are the rest of the rants:

Spiritual Bond
A very minor aspect of the prestige, but nevertheless a redundancy that I cannot stand. The ability literally states: "a weapon's battle meditation may stack up to 10 times, but only if the weapon has less stacks than number of kensai core abilities possessed, which is maximally 6". I'm not sure if this is just an oversight, or that the developers really want the bonus to cap at 6. Whichever case it is is fine, but please remove this kind of discrepancies. Enough of them and players wouldn't know what they're getting when building their toon anymore.

Greater Weapon Focus
Another huge oversight in this prestige is related to this feat, which is a prerequisite for tier 4 Weapon Group Specialization. Whereas players are only generally required 4 levels of the a class class to access tier 4 enhancements, this feat requires 8 levels of fighter, once again imposing class level to character build. Please consider changing the level requirement of the Greater Weapon Focus/Specialization feats themselves, or, even better, drop the feat as a prerequisite altogether. If developers are worried about level-power appropriation, make ap progression requirement fulfill that role. You don't have to worry about one out-of-place requirement because right now it is already out of place...
Many Kensai players have expressed their unhappiness about this extremely underwhelming, thorn-in-the-side waste-of-a-feat. +1 extra attack for a prestige that inherently excels at attack rolls is as yucky as currently making Kensai take 2 tiers of attack boost and confirm crit (really? really?). Revamping this feat might be a longer term solution, but until that good day, please don't torment Kensai by making them take it.

Thanks again for all your efforts!

[Hajutze]

+1 For the Greater Weapon Focus.

Either remove it or add similar requirements for the other classes as well - you can take 2 out of the 3 rank5 enhancements but the last one has a requirement. God knows how can they do it considering not every class has a class-specific feats at lv8 xD.

For example Improved Evasion for a Monk ... well you can get a lv10 rogue as well for the req. but you get the idea.

[Krenshar_White]

The Kensei Tier 4 Enhancement Weapon Group Specialization has the following requirements: Fighter Level 4, Weapon Group Specialization, and the relevant Greater Weapon Focus Feat.

The problem is that Greater Weapon Focus Feat has the prerequisite of Fighter Level 8. This defeats the entire purpose of creating Class Enhancement Trees that have a maximum 5th level requirement in the relevant class (excluding tree core enhancements, of course).

The Greater Weapon Focus Feat requirement should be removed from Weapon Group Specialization. In fact, the entire feat should probably be eliminated or revised given it's trivial impact under the implemented U14 combat system. Currently, a +1 bonus on to-hit rolls is almost negligible.

This also raises an important point regarding the Fighter Passive Past Life Feat. While the +1 to the DC's of tactical feats is still relevant, the passive +1 bonus to attack rolls has not been scaled to adjust for the new percentage chance to hit formula.

Others have previously posted their concerns regarding the above points. I encourage the Devs to address these issues.

+1 to that.

The whole point of the new enhancement system (along with rebalancing) is giving more perks for going pure, but also to make it so that you can most of these high tier abilities with only 5 levels of a given class. As an example, 5 levels of ranger will grant you the ability to buy slayer arrows. However, NONE of the prestiges have feat prerequisits anymore, why are you giving us a class that gives us a bunch of free feats, only to bog us down with a ton of ABSOLUTELY USELESS prerequisite feats (+1 to attack? after you destroyed the attack system? yeah right.)

And more importantly, you have an ability which sais < Prereq: Fighter 5. < but also has a prereq feat that has its own prereq of < Fighter 8.
remove that feat prereq. In fact, you really should remove ALL of them. It is completely inconsistent, and biased.

[AylinIsAwesome]

Tier 1 and Tier 3 enhancements give +1 to hit and +1 to damage with weapons in your weapon group
Tier 2 and Tier 4 enhancements give +1 to hit and +1 to damage with one handed weapons and bows, but +2 to damage with two handed weapons.

Is this WAI? I can't see any reason why tier 1 and tier 3 don't grant +2 to damage with two handed weapons.

It is WAI as far as I know.

All of the racial weapon damage enhancements are working the exact same way.

Major issues here. 2 AP for +1 to tactics is stupid. These were the kensei tactics that we were missing, so thanks for including them. But, we are still missing the specific tactic lines that we currently have on live in addition to the kensei tactics. My stunning blow DC is down because this tree lacks specific tactic enhancements in addition to the generic one.

Just give +1 Tactics DCs with Spiritual Bond, Power Surge, One Cut, and Alacrity. If I'm not mistaken that will bring it back up to what Fighters currently get on Live for less AP (8 AP for Kensei 3, 12 for useless prereqs, 10 for Stunning Blow DC vs. 6 for universal tactics DC + 10 for core enhancements).



One Cut could also use a bit more. Some extra doublestrike upon killing an enemy would be nice.

[Carpone]

I dont understand the feat requirements for Kensei Tier 2, Tier 3 and Tier 4 Weapon Group Specialization. The enhancement pass did away with all other feat requirements (such as Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack for Tempest). Why is Kensei the hold out?

The problem: Requiring Greater Weapon Focus for tier 4 Weapon Group Specialization requires Fighter level 8. Only Fighter level 4 should be required for a tier 4 enhancement.

[Andilor]

I have tested 'One with the Blade' and a twisted 'A Dance of Flowers (3/3)' and cannot see the +1.5[W] damage anywhere. More to the point, with this setup, out of 100 swings my base/crit damage went from 85/223 to 82/188 averages.

Test character is 12 Fighter / 6 Barb / 2 Rogue with 'One with the Blade'. Fury of the Wild active and 'A Dance of Flowers' twisted in.

I also tested while in Grandmaster of Flowers and had the same averages.

[AlteredState]

Does anyone know if Keen Edge(what appears to be the new incarnation of the kensei mastery 3) is supposed to apply to weapons with Keen in them and if it is? For example using Nightmarehttp://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Nightmare,_the_Fallen_Moon the crit range would be increased to 16-20 if I am reading it correctly.

From the wiki http://ddowiki.com/page/Threat_range
The Fighter Kensei Mastery III enhancement will add 1 to the threat range of a single specific weapon type, such as Kukri. This stacks with Improved Critical or Keen/Impact, but is applied second. With Improved Critical: Slashing and Kensei Kukri Mastery III, for example, an equipped Kukri will have a threat range of 14-20.

[R_2_D_2]

I'm having a little problem with the fighter's Kensai tree. Basically its the early abilities that involve the need for Dodge and Moblity, not to mention the One with the blade which is my general irk with the entire tree itself. To put it simply... The Fighter is not a dipping class for the Monk! That's what the whole being centered thing makes me feel the fighter is being turned into.

To make things easy I'm just gonna enumerate those problems and make it easy for you guys.

• The fighter gets 11 feats plus 7 feats due to progression (not taking into account a human character) with a need for 14 feats (WF, WP, GWF, GWS, SWF, TWF/THF, ITWF/ITHF, GTWF/GTHF, PA, Cleave, GCleave, Imp. Crit, Power Crit., Toughness) that basically leaves 3 feats to play with of course that's not taking into account if you choose to use a Khopesh and need to add EWP and possibly Oversized two weapon fighting so that would actually leave one feat to play around with. Two if you are a human, but of course you may want a Dragonmark feat so that would leave non or 1 to play around with. There is just no real use for those abilities or even a way to get them without sacrificing the build so they can be pretty much dumped completely.
• The whole centered thing is unnecessary. The lack of ki for the fighter just explains it completely.
• The lack of versatility, and loss of str for those who focus on str, in the tree just makes me think that you guys just keep the old tree and not even waste your time with the Enhancement pass if this is what's to become the new kensai fighter.

Suggestions:

• If you want to keep the centered ability, give the fighter a ki bar. He can gain ki by making successful attacks. You could even change Blade Meditaion to work based off the ki bar so that its enhancement bonus starts low but goes up as he keeps on hitting opponents and/or the longer the battle goes on for. Those activated abilities could also be based off the ki bar.
• In PnP, the Kensai could add magical enhancements to his chosen weapon. Not just to hit bonus, but also Flaming, keen and so forth. Adding something like that to the DDO Kensai that allowed the signature weapon gain things like flaming and other abilities would be an interesting thing and provide several levels of possibilities and versatility to the kensai.
• Adding something akin to the Barbarian's Barbarian Power Attack enhancement. After all, he has enough BAB and to hit bonus that he can sacrifice some. Plus a little extra damage never killed anyone.

[ComicRelief]

So it looks like we still only have the Kensei and Stalwart Defender trees? Nothing for fighters who want to specialize in TWF (or even THF, for that matter)? And/or those who want to remain "generalized" and not tied to a specific weapon (kensei)?

Fighters are so versile in the type of builds available (arguably *the* most versatile class), shouldn't we have more than just "weapon specialized (kensei)" and "Sword and Board (stalwart)" trees available?

Seems really, really short-sighted, to me.