Capstones need to be as powerful as 2 levels in any class

[Trasak]

I have been over all down right unimpressed/disappointed by the 20 levels in a class required capstones. By and large with the exception of monk, barbarian and FVS, level 19 and 20 are dead levels with little benefit that would not be great out weighted by two levels in a complimentary class or one in two of them.

If anything the enhancement pass will further enhance the value of multi-classing 1-5 levels in another class as it will open a host of other abilities that were not present in a pure character. The 20 level capstones need to be adjusted to be in line with the with the level of power a character must give up in order to take a sole class into epic levels.

The Capstones needs to be far and away the best enhancement on the entire tree and should make the character truly outstanding in their focused field.

It is difficult to make suggestions on what the capstones should be as not all three trees are even close to what I had expect and the current capstones are basically imprints of the old ones. I will use my example for the cleric trees that should have been.

Diety Weapon / Melee focused
The tree should have been about increasing your dietys favored weapon, spending turn atempts to increase melee damage and significantly discount personal combat buffs. The idea being a melee battle cleric that hits hard but still has most of its mana available for healing.
The capstone would be While wielding your dietys favored weapon you have a full base attack bonus, add your wisdom bonus to melee in addition to strength and your next healing domain spell after a critical hit has empowered healing added for free.

Healing Conjuration and Abjuration
This tree should have been the healer tree. The abilities would be mostly about improving healing effectiveness, adding alternative healing methods, mostly through adding effects to the cure lines, improving efficiency to the point of empowered healing being free-ish, increasing the range and area of healing spells and improved protective buffs. The idea of this tree is to make healing fast and easy allowing either a relatively weak game player to fulfill his party role or a skilled player to micro manage a ton and use a combination of healing and crowd control to help a whole raid.
The capstone should be a positive aura stance that heals all within it, possibly with the exclusion of the cleric it is centered on, with added stacking protective buffs and periodic negative effect cleansing, side effect of turn undead triggering on the same timer as the cleansing.

Exorcist/ Holy Vengeance
This tree should be all about light, force and alignment damage. Alternative uses for turn undead, possibly to include daemons, devils and aberrations. Spell like abilities that can do respectable amounts of damage for low SP costs and strong crowd control abilities. This tree should definitely include a silence SLA that can be point in space targeted. The purpose of this tree is similar to that of the melee cleric. Give them something to do that can help the party damage wise without sapping their SP too much so that they can still heal sufficiently without just becoming a nanny.
The capstone that I would see fitting with this tree the most would be a SLA similar to meteor storm but light instead of fire damage and it would do slightly less the meteor swarm does now to most targets but would do double damage to undead, devils, daemons and aberrations. I would also give the explosion splash positive energy that heals players and damages any of those four types.

Remember these capstones are intended to be VERY strong as a balance to the sacrifice you make in dedicating yourself to a single class and a single tree. I would love to hear what other capstones people feel should be made for either already released trees, yet to be released trees and other trees that should have been.

P.S. Core abilities should be auto granted as you are already paying a cost in level and in points spent in tree, but if so capstone would need to be purchased if at exactly 40 or free if above 40.

[Lyria]

I have to disagree with this. Capstones should not be insanely powerful mega-abilities. What you're asking for is the equivalent of like 5-6 levels in another class, or a heroic moment ED ability. Capstones are there to be a nice bonus, not a top-tier ED heroic moment power that's always on.

[Valakai]

I am also going to disagree with this. More powerful capstones would once again make it almost mandatory to stay pure. One of DDOs great strengths is the amount of possible builds and combinations. And you can still spend points in 2 class trees + possibly a racial prc even if pure.

[Kilbar]

I am also going to disagree with this. More powerful capstones would once again make it almost mandatory to stay pure. One of DDOs great strengths is the amount of possible builds and combinations. And you can still spend points in 2 class trees + possibly a racial prc even if pure.

Yes, as it stands, it's almost mandatory to multi class, and we can't have that changing, now can we?

[Trasak]

I would pose you two a question then, do you have any pure builds that are not monk, barbarian, FVS? If so how do you think their power level compares to any of your level 20 multi class builds. I have pushed Sorcerer and FVS to 20 but the rest of my builds have all been multi class characters even before this overhaul. Currently multi-class is significantly more powerful then pure.

Sorcerer does also lend itself well to being pure but I believe that the savant capstones once they are exclusive are down right pathetic, another step of savant, really thats it? My suggestion would be something more like as follows.

Air Savant Capstone: Kin with lightening
Stance: You gain the air elemental subtype and the immunities that go with it. You are bared from using any earth spells while in elemental form. All of your damaging spells now do half electric damage and your pure electric damage spells are counted as 2 levels higher for caster level and mcl.

[cforce]

I'd agree with the OP's basic point: many capstones are far worse than a 2-level splash.

Capstones should not be made so good that they become the obvious choice. Ideally, they should be good enough to make it a really, really hard decision.

Phrasing 2-level splashes as capstones, they simply look more powerful than most of the actual capstones. For example, let's say we phrased a 2-level monk splash. For the sake of argument, let's say that the 2 extra feats go to Dodge and Mobility. Since we also save 2 AP, I throw in 2 ranks of the tier 1 "Acrobatic" enhancement so that the AP cost stays the same.

Zen Master (requires class level 20): You gain evasion. You gain +3 to all saves. You gain 7% Dodge, plus an additional 4% Dodge if centered.

Or how about the Pally spalsh?

Divine Blessing (requires class level 20): You gain +12 to all saves.

This is the power level that class capstones need to be at to "make it a tough choice". Many of them do not come close to this.

[Kawai]

/signed

[TPICKRELL]

I almost agree.

The (Capstone + 2 levels of your pure class) need to be roughly equal to what you get from the 2 levels of a splash. Levels 19 and 20 in your pure class do bring something to the table... Sometimes quite a lot.

Most of the current capstones arent even close, so I thiknk I agree with your premise just not quite the way you stated it.

[Phidius]

I think the Wizard capstone is just right - while it hasn't been powerful enough to inspire me to build a pure wizard, it keeps me mulling the idea over.

To be honest, though, I think the capstones are just a band-aid for lackluster class design. Every level of a class should be worth taking, not just a "18 or 20" choice.

That's one of the things I love best about multiclassing - it seems like every single level has something exciting waiting for me!

[SableShadow]

That's one of the things I love best about multiclassing - it seems like every single level has something exciting waiting for me!

Except for the ones that don't!

[Vargouille]

Ideally any capstone is at least as good as Evasion (if not better).

We understand some work may need to be done on individual abilities to achieve the proper balance.

[~Thelaasa]

Ideally any capstone is at least as good as Evasion (if not better).

We understand some work may need to be done on individual abilities to achieve the proper balance.

realistically, most capstones are far worse than evasion. especially when you effectively gut the capstone my making half of it not work with 1/3 of the tree's enhancements. In particular, the shintao capstone is +2 wisdom, and removes the downside of the top tier stance. That top tier stance cannot be active at the same time as the defensive stance, which means that all of the enhancements that modify that defensive stance (about 1/3 of the tree) or the capstone are effectively useless. All of the sorcerer capstones are beyond horrible. The elemental forms that you gave them were horrible when you gave them to druids, and they are still horrible now that you have given them to sorcerers.

[~NotAllowed]

A capstone should be as good as a free Epic Feat, or Epic Destiny ability, now that such things exist in the game.

Give us a REAL incentive to stay pure.

As it is now, Capstones are as rubbish as Past Life Feats have become.

[~SeikojinSama]

A capstone should be as good as a free Epic Feat, or Epic Destiny ability, now that such things exist in the game.

Give us a REAL incentive to stay pure.

As it is now, Capstones are as rubbish as Past Life Feats have become.

The problem with making a capstone very powerful is destroying anyone wishing to MC.

I think if the capstone offered some boosts specific to that tree's design, and then some broad sweeping boosts to the enhancements in that tree, it would be very useful, but still not too strong to deter people from MCing.

[Trillea]

The problem with making a capstone very powerful is destroying anyone wishing to MC.

I think if the capstone offered some boosts specific to that tree's design, and then some broad sweeping boosts to the enhancements in that tree, it would be very useful, but still not too strong to deter people from MCing.

It destroys nothing. It gives choices, which this enhancement pass is severely restricting, and would be very welcome.

[~Krio2gen]

Capstone is not solution. Problem is what class gives at each level.

Casters don't MC much (and if they do they ask themself 3 times before they do it) because so much depends on caster levels. Spell pen, spell slot, mana, DC (because of highten), higher damage dice. Some none-caster classes also get something valuable with more levels like Rogue (extra SA), Monk (better fist, new and powerfull feats).

Problem are classes like Fighter. You don't get anything new past 12. Yes, you get more feats. But by 12 you already have most if not all combat feats you wanted.

Fix what class gets at every level or a couple of levels. Don't patch it with capstone. It should not be just 20. Should also be 13, 14, etc ...

[Mosasi]

I agree that capstones should be as rewarding as multi classing, and 'as is' they currently are not. It is a separate, but adjacent issue that the on-level gains stagnate as a character hits 12+.

I would also go as far as to say in regards to the capstones, that while them being on par with an epic moment is a tad much they should be class-related and powerful enough to balance the benefits of splashing a couple levels in something else. Passive benefits would be ideal (in contrast to an epic moment type ability which has a CD) in my opinion as well, as they to provide a consistent improvement (like evasion) over the possibility of being without the proposed gain.

Activated abilities are nice, I enjoy them as much as the next guy, but once it fades and we await the CD we lose the benefit of the capstone - unlike a splash which would always maintain the benefits of evasion (or other passive benefits).

[~Hexfax]

Ideally any capstone is at least as good as Evasion (if not better).

We understand some work may need to be done on individual abilities to achieve the proper balance.

It's good to see a Dev at least comment that the Capstones should be as good as Evasion. Now if we can actually see improvements to the capstones...

Capstone is not solution. Problem is what class gives at each level.

Casters don't MC much (and if they do they ask themself 3 times before they do it) because so much depends on caster levels. Spell pen, spell slot, mana, DC (because of highten), higher damage dice. Some none-caster classes also get something valuable with more levels like Rogue (extra SA), Monk (better fist, new and powerfull feats).

Problem are classes like Fighter. You don't get anything new past 12. Yes, you get more feats. But by 12 you already have most if not all combat feats you wanted.

Fix what class gets at every level or a couple of levels. Don't patch it with capstone. It should not be just 20. Should also be 13, 14, etc ...

Krio2gen is partially right. Since DDO is based on pnp, getting stuff at every level shouldn't be where improvement should be though. The improvements should be in the Core Abilities. For most of the classes, the Core Abilities are really lacking, while most of the power is in the Enhancements. Many of the Core Abilities should be beefed up as a reason to continue to take levels in a class. This isn't much different than on live, where the Prestige Class tiers usually contain the most powerful effects, while the Enhancements "enhance" the class/build.

Notice, I'm saying to beef up the Core Abilities and not waterdown the Enhancements...

[SerPounce]

Some capstones could use a boost, but it's really the opposite ones than the ones that get complained about most. Everyone complains about sorc capstone, but no one multiclasses their sorc anyway because you need those 9th level spells (and the spell pen). Most other casters stay pure also (wis, fvs, clr). They just don't have that much to gain from the splash compared to what they loose from not having the class levels even if capstones didn't exit.

OTOH barbarians and paladins are often touted as having great capstones, but most people multiclass them anyway because they have so much to gain from the splash and little reason to need the class level abilities.

I've never really gotten why some people have an aversion to splash builds. If the splash is better go with the splash... it usually adds some character and variety to the builds anyway as multiple splash options compete (2 monk vs. 2 fighter vs. 2 rogue vs. 1 wiz/1ftr vs. etc,etc). It's also a reward for putting a bit more effort into your build, nothing wrong with that.

[Deamus]

I agree some capstones are weak. Generally all capstones need a buf or give more insetive to go pure by letting the pures choose 2 tier 5 enchantments. It is almost mandadory now to go multiclass.It seems with the new enchantment pass pure builds except casting based will be dead.