Devs why are you nerfing Favored Souls and Toughness?

[Xeno5k]

I just had a look at the enhancement pass on the wiki and from that we can see FVS toughness is gone replaced by + 15 HP from protection domain, and on top of that almost everything that boosts heals is gone. Sure FVS still get universal spell power but nothing beyond that, what if I wanted a melee FVS that would be foolish as I would have to spend a ton of points on the AoV tree and sacrifice some of my racial enhancements. Speaking of racial enhancements why did you guys get rid of racial toughness what nobel prize winner thought of that idea. Really, do you guys take orders from George Bush?

[Flavilandile]

I just had a look at the enhancement pass on the wiki and from that we can see FVS toughness is gone replaced by + 15 HP from protection domain, and on top of that almost everything that boosts heals is gone. Sure FVS still get universal spell power but nothing beyond that, what if I wanted a melee FVS that would be foolish as I would have to spend a ton of points on the AoV tree and sacrifice some of my racial enhancements. Speaking of racial enhancements why did you guys get rid of racial toughness what nobel prize winner thought of that idea. Really, do you guys take orders from George Bush?

Lets address that in order :

0) Wiki don't hold all the knowledge, the discussion about FvS survival through DDO-NGE is here :

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...cussion-Thread!

1) Class Toughness Enhancement

When we raised the issue, we were told that they were removed because it was discriminating between the have and the have not when it came to making groups.
Thus it was the weakest link and had to be removed. Some trees still have it, but most of the trees wont.

2) Healing

During the tests we were given to understand that FvS were not to be Healers.
If you want to be a NannyHjealBot, you will be Cleric, as Clerics won't be able to do much more once DDO-NGE has come to pass.

3) Racial Toughness Enhancement.

See 1)


Edit, here is the quote on Toughness :

We've taken out most of the racial toughness enhancements. We had previously found that Toughness was considered mandatory by many players and wanted to make it more of a choice than before.

Instead, we've added +5 HP to Heroic Durability (a feat that all characters start with at level 1), and characters also gain +5 HP when you taking the 5th, 10th, and 15th class levels for any class. (That's tied to class levels, not character levels, at this time.)

Bets are on how many people will still play after DDO-NGE has been forced down our throat.

[Xeno5k]

1) I'm out 45 HP on my FVS if this happens, so apparently since elf/drow rogues get little to no toughness nobody else should either, oh and on top of that monsters are gonna start hitting harder, what's EE now will be EH when enhacement pass comes out. Great idea devs nerf players and buff content.

2) I don't wanna be a healbot, but wasting points on caster enhacements just so that I can heal and at the same time sacrificing racial enhacements is gonna cause a ton of problems.

[Flavilandile]

Just go rummage in tho the Lamania enhancement subforum...
You'll see how well we took the preview of the enhancements...
And how we were listened to ( well that's usual, they don't care, and just keep forcing on us things that are considered bad by the majority )

Every class is more or less going to be pigeonholed into a role or two, and all the flexibility we had before will be a thing of the past.
As well, there's going to be widespread nerfs all across the board that are going to make most of the builds obsolete.
( the DC and crit problems currently on live is part of that, the obsolete enhancements ( paryer of smiting, prayer of divine life, ... ) are also part of it )
And at best we are going to have a LR... When a +20 GR is probably going to be what is required to fix our characters so they are mostly back to what they were before the DDO-NGE.

[SilkofDrasnia]

*snip*

And at best we are going to have a LR... When a +20 GR is probably going to be what is required to fix our characters so they are mostly back to what they were before the DDO-NGE.

Likewise we could just go play any other mmo as this new pass is pretty much bringing DDO into line with how other games pigeonhole classes. I mean why stay with DDO is we can get basically the same thing but with better graphics and less if no lagg at all?

They are making Neverwinter look better with this new pass.

[Satyriasys]

LOL even with the enhancement pass (of which we have only seen alpha) DDO will still have 5789674% more build options than Neverwinter.

[Xeno5k]

Likewise we could just go play any other mmo as this new pass is pretty much bringing DDO into line with how other games pigeonhole classes. I mean why stay with DDO is we can get basically the same thing but with better graphics and less if no lagg at all?

They are making Neverwinter look better with this new pass.

Not just Neverwinter, this new pass looks eerily like SWTOR's enhancement system, in fact I'm pretty sure they stole it from SWTOR. The problem is that in SWTOR there is very little variety a healer is a healer a dps is a dps and so on. With this new enhancement pass that's exactly what's going to happen. These idiots are going to ruin the one thing that made DDO worth playing.

[Enoach]

While doing the Alpha preview I was sent tells by someone that claimed they lost 200 HP because of the change. Of course I knew that was balderdash.

The change in Toughness simply removes a Feat being Tied to Enhancements.

Now what they have done is:

+5 HP to the Heroic Durability Feat (Level 1 auto grant)
+5 to +20 HP for 5 Levels of a class Max of 20 HP 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th - Limit is you will be down 5 HP for every split that is not divisible by 5 (ie the 18/2 split will have 5 less HP than a 20 no split)
===
+25 HP

Now some classes and races currently have access to enhancements between 20 and 80 HP through the current enhancement system. So some builds will have fewer HP potentially as much as 55 HP Base (before stance calculations) But also have those AP to spend in other areas.

Of course if the option of not taking Toughness is taken this will be another 28 HP down or a total of 83 Base HP (High end assumes all 4 racial and 4 class Toughness enhancements were taken). I believe it is more likely that the average loss of HP will be between the 30 and 50 HP range.

Now you also have to take in the Opportunity Cost change that making Toughness basically 28 HP at Cap means...

It opens up other defensive and tactical feats that were overshadowed because of the HPs. It basically gives all Casters back a feat if they so choose.

Different builds will be effected differently by this change, but one of the best aspects of this is moving Toughness out of the MUST have and back to its, yah that is a nice feat to have category.

[Scrag]

While doing the Alpha preview I was sent tells by someone that claimed they lost 200 HP because of the change. Of course I knew that was balderdash.

The change in Toughness simply removes a Feat being Tied to Enhancements.

Now what they have done is:

+5 HP to the Heroic Durability Feat (Level 1 auto grant)
+5 to +20 HP for 5 Levels of a class Max of 20 HP 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th - Limit is you will be down 5 HP for every split that is not divisible by 5 (ie the 18/2 split will have 5 less HP than a 20 no split)
===
+25 HP

Now some classes and races currently have access to enhancements between 20 and 80 HP through the current enhancement system. So some builds will have fewer HP potentially as much as 55 HP Base (before stance calculations) But also have those AP to spend in other areas.

Of course if the option of not taking Toughness is taken this will be another 28 HP down or a total of 83 Base HP (High end assumes all 4 racial and 4 class Toughness enhancements were taken). I believe it is more likely that the average loss of HP will be between the 30 and 50 HP range.

Now you also have to take in the Opportunity Cost change that making Toughness basically 28 HP at Cap means...

It opens up other defensive and tactical feats that were overshadowed because of the HPs. It basically gives all Casters back a feat if they so choose.

Different builds will be effected differently by this change, but one of the best aspects of this is moving Toughness out of the MUST have and back to its, yah that is a nice feat to have category.

I could see huge ammounts of hp being killed off in things like defender or syb defender builds, since you gain a % of your hps from being in defensive stance. I know for a fact that I lost more than 100 hps on live when I was stripped of racial toughness/toughness. You know what really sucks? I _despise_ being forced to take toughness as a feat....
My paladin is already feat starved; getting a feat back sounds like a plan to me!

[Flavilandile]

While doing the Alpha preview I was sent tells by someone that claimed they lost 200 HP because of the change. Of course I knew that was balderdash.

The change in Toughness simply removes a Feat being Tied to Enhancements.

It doesn't remove the feat. It only remove the enhancement, and toughness the feat works differently.

While 200HP seems to be a bit harsh, I wouldn't be surprised if some people that invested heavily in Toughness ( 3+ Feats, + the 5 toughness enhancements ) lost more than 100HP though.

Let see :

Dwarven Fighter : you have 4 Racial Toughness for 40 HP and 4 Class Toughness for 40 HP just in Enhancements. That's 80 HP

With the new stuff you will have 5 +20 = 25 HP

80 - 25 = 55 HP

So just taking into account the change in enhancement a Dwarven Fighter that had all the toughness enhancements is down 55HP.

I'm not sure but IIRC it was stated that the Toughness Feat was changing for a flat +x HP too... and that flat wasn't equal to the 27 HP you get for each Toughness feat at Level 25 it was more in line with +10 HPs or something like that. ( note : I can't remember if it's confirmed or not but I'll do the maths anyway )

Take that same dwarven fighter... that spent 3 feats in toughness... that's 27*3 : 81 HP
now if it's a flat 10 HP he gets 30 HPs.
He is down 51 Hps on the feat.

now add the 55HP and the 51 HP and you see that that poor dwarf is down 106HP with the changes.
( with the catch that I'm not sure if the feat changes or not, but even if the feat doesn't change he is still down 55 HPs )

On the other hand, going down 200 SPs is going to be easy for a lot of people with the loss of the energy lines... My clerics were down 300SPs+ when I tried them in L-Space.

[GermanicusMaximus]

During the tests we were given to understand that FvS were not to be Healers.
If you want to be a NannyHjealBot, you will be Cleric, as Clerics won't be able to do much more once DDO-NGE has come to pass.

Hmm, FvS will not be healers, and from what I have heard a fair number of people playing clerics plan on converting them to bank toons if the enhancement pass looks anything like it did when we saw the alpha.

I guess there's always the chance the devs might reconsider this foolishness, but they really didn't seem inclined to rethink the basis premise of their design.

The game could look rather interesting once there is no one left to throw heals. I guess the devs had a reason for not including a raid in the new expansion. What would be the point?

[AbyssalMage]

My paladin is already feat starved; getting a feat back sounds like a plan to me!

My guess is the exact OPPOSITE will occur. Not only will you need to purchase more toughness feats but you will be spending every AP you can for the +5 hp's. Now I could be wrong and they re-balance multiple years of content but past precedence says it wont happen. So like a few posters have stated, EE will become near impossible except for the 1%, and even then who knows, EH will become the new EE, and EN will see groups struggle through it who are not geared meaning new players will drop like flies and PUG's will evaporate. Losing 30-50 hp's (non-tank) and 100 hp's (Tank'ish) doesn't sound so bad, but remember content (NPC damage) was designed around those inflated HP totals.

[Nightmanis]

My guess is the exact OPPOSITE will occur. Not only will you need to purchase more toughness feats but you will be spending every AP you can for the +5 hp's. Now I could be wrong and they re-balance multiple years of content but past precedence says it wont happen. So like a few posters have stated, EE will become near impossible except for the 1%, and even then who knows, EH will become the new EE, and EN will see groups struggle through it who are not geared meaning new players will drop like flies and PUG's will evaporate. Losing 30-50 hp's (non-tank) and 100 hp's (Tank'ish) doesn't sound so bad, but remember content (NPC damage) was designed around those inflated HP totals.

My main is a fighter stalwart. With the change to all of this I go from about 50hp from enhancements (60 with sd3) to 25hp (30hp with sd3)

I lose 30hp. I go from a self sustained 1200hp in sentinel to........pretty much a self sustained 1200hp in sentinel. Hell I can **** near hit 1200hp in Dreadnaught and hold it for an hour if I felt like it.

If you were hurting for HP before (such as my rogue who I'm not sure if she'll have over 700hp no matter what I do) then yes you will be hurt by this. However I do believe she gains hp in this respect (took 2 of the toughness things, so yeah I gain 5hp)

But no. This change will not make EE impossible. It will not make EH the new EE. A loss of a few HP (like was posted earlier, you had to max out the toughness enhancements to lose all that) is not a game breaking change. I can think of plenty of other things that are more important than 30hp, of which most of you will only lose about 5hp total. Ever heard of heal amp? That's arguably more important than 5-20hp. Yes you can go with the whole "That nice little buffer that keeps you from going incapped vs dying" that likes to get thrown around, but in all reality if you die in EE content you're at -50 or more.

This change was needed. Just like all the alternatives we have to the khopesh nowadays, soon we won't NEED to take toughness. Having feats that are considered mandatory is a flaw in an otherwise decent character building system.

I still don't see why everyone is so mad about the enhancement pass. Multiclass builds can now take 3 prestiges, pure class builds can potentially take 3 prestiges (if they have 3), and you can increase your defense without sacrificing your offense as much. Sure yeah they could remove some of the arrows, but I have a strong feeling most of the people complaining simply do not want to have the system they've gotten used to (that's a horrid, horrid disgusting layout and should have never been implemented in the first place) in favour of something that is more intuitive and easier to learn. THAT is what has been needed in this game for years, not what we have now that unless you have someone experienced explain it to you, 90% of people who try DDO will never come back because they can't even figure out how to build their character to even start questing.

And DPS are now only DPS? What, were you expecting to heal a raid on your Barbarian? Yes the Clerics are getting shafted by being turned into a heavier healing build, and I have no clue what is going on with Protection, but Rogues are going to be amazing, Arti's are getting a setup that is more in line with the Devs original idea of the Arti (personal opinion) vs the WF FVS monstrosity that is the Juggernaut, Fighters still need some tweaks and to have some abilities re-added to them, and I can't remember the others off hand. There are flaws, and there are things that need to be changed and maybe a prestige or 10 that needs to be added to the game for each class.

Clerics as far as I'm concerned are just going to be better at healing (of which they are the paragon Healing build) while their offensive spells are going to take a bit of a nerf (be honest, how many of you only used BB/Implosion/DP of which only DP uses through enhancements) and people are going to complain even though most of the clerics I see at all levels of content usually are just BB spamming heal bots.

[Flavilandile]

Clerics as far as I'm concerned are just going to be better at healing (of which they are the paragon Healing build) while their offensive spells are going to take a bit of a nerf (be honest, how many of you only used BB/Implosion/DP of which only DP uses through enhancements) and people are going to complain even though most of the clerics I see at all levels of content usually are just BB spamming heal bots.

You don't play a Cleric then... Clerics are going to be shelved or TRed by a lot of people that don't want to have to deal with being pigeonholed into HjealBot role thorugh the huge nerf in everything except healing that is going to happen with the NGE-Pass.

There's more than DP/Implosion/BB, there's Banish, there's Cometfall, there's Command ( Mass )... and more... and they are all going to be hit hard with the changes.

Healing is also going to be hit, though as there's no other choice for a Cleric right now ( the protection tree being so stupid that it's not worth spending more points on it than those needed to get toughness to max [ Tier 1 thingie... 3 Points for 15 HP, yeah instead of the 50 I had before from the enhancements... Joy... ]. ) it's going to be fully developed, thus reducing the hit. ( still there is a hit on aura heal per tick, also on the number of aura you can have, and a serious hit on SPs that will make Clerics go OOM faster in EE ).

And I'm not even talking about meleeing as a Cleric, it's going to be a thing of the past.

[Sindeara]

You don't play a Cleric then... Clerics are going to be shelved or TRed by a lot of people that don't want to have to deal with being pigeonholed into HjealBot role thorugh the huge nerf in everything except healing that is going to happen with the NGE-Pass.

There's more than DP/Implosion/BB, there's Banish, there's Cometfall, there's Command ( Mass )... and more... and they are all going to be hit hard with the changes.

Healing is also going to be hit, though as there's no other choice for a Cleric right now ( the protection tree being so stupid that it's not worth spending more points on it than those needed to get toughness to max [ Tier 1 thingie... 3 Points for 15 HP, yeah instead of the 50 I had before from the enhancements... Joy... ]. ) it's going to be fully developed, thus reducing the hit. ( still there is a hit on aura heal per tick, also on the number of aura you can have, and a serious hit on SPs that will make Clerics go OOM faster in EE ).

And I'm not even talking about meleeing as a Cleric, it's going to be a thing of the past.

Well said - I have myself 1 cleric, 2fvs all lvl25, another cleric (9) and Fvs (19) in the pipeline and my little project was planned to be a WF fvs with about 10 past lives (more than half way done). Looking at those changes I am now looking at 5 bank toons or 5 possibilities for TR. Healing amount, damage amount from spells, DC's, HP nerf, SP nerf - well we still can buy SP pots from the store right? to keep Turbine up and running. Healers were always my favorite but if this **** goes live I am not having a single healer anymore. guess I need to get friendly with the classes I hate like Monk, fighter, Sorc.

[rsking]

Well said - I have myself 1 cleric, 2fvs all lvl25, another cleric (9) and Fvs (19) in the pipeline and my little project was planned to be a WF fvs with about 10 past lives (more than half way done). Looking at those changes I am now looking at 5 bank toons or 5 possibilities for TR. Healing amount, damage amount from spells, DC's, HP nerf, SP nerf - well we still can buy SP pots from the store right? to keep Turbine up and running. Healers were always my favorite but if this **** goes live I am not having a single healer anymore. guess I need to get friendly with the classes I hate like Monk, fighter, Sorc.

I have a cleric but its a battle cleric but i still don't buy pots from the store its easier for me to get the medium eberron dragon shard fragments than it is to farm favor to get sp pots, hell 20 major clickies for 150k- 500k a set is easier for me to get than farming points just to buy a 10 stack of crappy sp pots.

but hell if i'm going to be forced to be a heal bot then i'm just going to make a WF wiz or some class that can self heal really fast and say screw the cleric class

[FestusHood]

There's more than DP/Implosion/BB, there's Banish, there's Cometfall, there's Command ( Mass )... and more... and they are all going to be hit hard with the changes.

Because there are so many enhancements on live right now that improve those spells, right?

[FestusHood]

Well said - I have myself 1 cleric, 2fvs all lvl25, another cleric (9) and Fvs (19) in the pipeline and my little project was planned to be a WF fvs with about 10 past lives (more than half way done). Looking at those changes I am now looking at 5 bank toons or 5 possibilities for TR. Healing amount, damage amount from spells, DC's, HP nerf, SP nerf - well we still can buy SP pots from the store right? to keep Turbine up and running. Healers were always my favorite but if this **** goes live I am not having a single healer anymore. guess I need to get friendly with the classes I hate like Monk, fighter, Sorc.

You do realize that damage amounts from non light spells will all be higher right?

You do realize that your spell dc's will be completely unaffected, or possibly improved, right?

Clerics have a toughness enhancement on the new system. They have 0 now. So i guess that's a wash.

They may need to reduce the number of hp's characters generally have, just to keep the game challenging. So many of the classes are going to be considerably more powerful than they are now.

[Nightmanis]

Because there are so many enhancements on live right now that improve those spells, right?

Currently I don't think there are any enhancements that improve them. Yes you can improve your light spellpower (DP, the only one effected in that list) currently, and I'm not entirely sure how it's taken care of in the Enhancement pass, but all those other spells he mentions (and I mentioned) are not effected by your enhancements other than the amount of Wisdom you have.

If anyone can show me the enhancements that improve the damage of Blade Barrier, Cometfall, make Command more effective, make Banish...banish harder, I would love to see it. Currently you're all complaining about losing something you don't even have to begin with.

[JasonJi72]

I am in the "It's not the end of the world club too".

From what I can see, and from the builds that I have started drawing up using the new system is that there will be a noticable increase to party dps, and not much of a decline in hp. They have also stated that the new system will allow them to introduce more prestiges much easier. I do not think that clerics and fvs' will be stuck with 2 prestiges for very long.

An archer potentially gains FOUR feats under the new system from not having to take weapon focus, mental toughness, bow strength, and toughness. That itself free's up a lot of feats if you want to make a caster archer or a better melee archer. If you are elven, you would also gain +4 to damage too.

The changes to heal/repair and the addition of spellcraft also allow you to buff your spells without having to use the enhancements to do it. This will allow you more choices about how you want to make your character unique.

I will grant you that I am upset with no buffs to Inspire Courage for Bards, but I am still hoping that they will fix that. It is in Alpha btw, just fyi.