The "Life Stealing" effect now functions as described on all items that it can appear

[Recared]

As per U20 release notes from Cordovan:

The "Life Stealing" effect now functions as described on all items that it can appear on.

Thank you very very very much!!!!!! Everybody is gonna love it. I guess Cormyrian challenges are gonna be run a lot :-)

Gyga

[cdr]

I guess maybe challenges will get run more, but pretty much everyone I know already went out and made life stealing Cormyrian stuff after the cost got dropped by 4x. Only to be disappointed, of course, that it was still buggy. There'll maybe be a lot fewer disappointed people with shortswords, shurikens, etc though.

I have to wonder about "as described" though, because "as described" is "a chance to drain levels on critical"...

[Recared]

Yep cdr, haven't tested yet but will do as soon as i can. But I am sure it will mean that it works on all criticals. Otherwise it would be a tremendous nerf to all lifestealers, woo woo builds. We will see.

[Dandonk]

This can either be very good or very bad. I will defer judgment until I see which.

[Recared]

I guess maybe challenges will get run more, but pretty much everyone I know already went out and made life stealing Cormyrian stuff after the cost got dropped by 4x. Only to be disappointed, of course, that it was still buggy. There'll maybe be a lot fewer disappointed people with shortswords, shurikens, etc though.

I have to wonder about "as described" though, because "as described" is "a chance to drain levels on critical"...

Tested: seems to be chance now... Big change... Chance is somewhere between 25-50%, can't say for sure. I'd guess around 40%.

However, it may be game-balancing... Still, I would prefer another mechanic, like life stealing procing at crits 19-20 (regardless of weapon type) or 10% to proc on any hit (even better).

That's it for now folks. We will see if it remains the final version.

[Dorian]

Tested: seems to be chance now... Big change... Chance is somewhere between 25-50%, can't say for sure. I'd guess around 40%.

However, it may be game-balancing... Still, I would prefer another mechanic, like life stealing procing at crits 19-20 (regardless of weapon type) or 10% to proc on any hit (even better).

That's it for now folks. We will see if it remains the final version.

You mean it's only a chance to proc on crit?

They better not make any changes to Nightmare. That would be a serious nerf.

[Recared]

You mean it's only a chance to proc on crit?

They better not make any changes to Nightmare. That would be a serious nerf.

Yes, only a chance to proc on crit. I guess Nightmare will be totally affected, as dreamspitter is, for example.

[Dandonk]

/sigh

[Firewall]

Omg...that's a really big nerf! If they really want to implement this i even more want the bugged extended crit range from Ninja Master on my monk fixed!

[Jay203]

yup, changed to only a chance on crit, not on crit

seems to be about 1/3 or 33% chance. at least for me (then again, my luck suck)

[FlaviusMaximus]

Well that's disappointing. I didn't find life drain to be overpowered before. Oh well, Nightmares. Into storage you go.

[Recared]

Well that's disappointing. I didn't find life drain to be overpowered before. Oh well, Nightmares. Into storage you go.

The sad thing is, because in maybe some scenarios it could be overpowered (dual wielding rapiers of obscenity with increased critical range (13-20) (I own one), etc., the decision damages other scenarios where it is balanced (a greataxe of obscenity or with life stealing effect, etc.)).
Reminds me of wounding of puncturing change.

Anyway, I would advocate for a change of the mechanics of the effect. Maybe it could have a percentage to procc on every hit, or 100% procc on crits 19-20, or another solution. However... the truth is, now, it is working as described... A nerf difficult to fight against...

-> If any dev reads, please consider this proposal: 100% apply chance on crits 19-20 and 25% rest of critical hits <-

Thanks.

[Ykt]

This can either be very good or very bad. I will defer judgment until I see which.

Knowing Turbine, bad is WAI, good is an exploit.

[Henky]

You mean it's only a chance to proc on crit?

They better not make any changes to Nightmare. That would be a serious nerf.

They did. Just logged and tested it. I would say about 10-20% of the crits are draining levels now, more 10 than 20.

[Skavenaps]

im sure meeleting EE mobs with so easie was not WAI... even in the descripcion was "a chance". Was nice while it last.. but its NOT a nerf, its a fix from what it mean to be.

dont cry more pls.

[Recared]

but its NOT a nerf, its a fix from what it mean to be.

Well yes and no. I remember (but I won't search that thread right now) a dev made a comment about dreamspitter years ago regarding life stealing proccing on all criticals and not just a chance on them. The dev said that they were leaving it like that for some reason (I believe because a chance on crits (only 19-20 at that time) was too underpowered for the weapon).
The crit ranges have changed dramatically nowadays, and that same weapon can procc that effect on hits 17-20. The simple sacrificial daggers can procc that on 15-20...
Yes, it is working as described, but it is more than a fix, as at some point we were told it to be working as intended when proccing on all criticals.
At the end of the day, life stealing on 13-20s is a bit crazy...

[Arlathen]

Oh nice one, so my Dreampiercer Monk/Rogue acrobat has been nerfed to oblivion? Thanks turbine

I distinctly recall a Dev in the Big F*n stick build thread promising that named Quarterstaves would continue to receive a 100% On-Crit Life-stealing ability.

So why the nerf, Devs? This is another character spec down the toilet, that was done with the U19 LR+20 heart. Can I have another LR+20 heart to replace it?

Gutted

[Arlathen]

Ok, it took a massive amount of digging up, but I found it:

I can't say for sure, but I'm reasonably confident that the reason the Dreamspitter's level drain effect was reduced from on-crit to chance-on-crit was because of the relative ease of Holding a target and then level-draining it to death via autocrit. In light of how the Held status will be changing soon, I'm thinking it'd be fair to buff these effects back to happening on all crits (or at least the majority of them). I can't give a solid date for when that change will happen, but know that it's on my radar now. Thanks for bringing it up!

Dreamspitter and Staff of Shadow were definitely changed to be 'on-crit' in Update 9: Harbinger of Madness. This was done as a final response to the changes made with Hold and Auto-Crit - On-Crit Life-stealing weapons we're initially nerfed due to the Aut-Crit rules, but with the change to +50% damage Quarterstaves we're given that break back to be on-crit.

So Dev's, do the right thing and make Quarterstaves drain levels on-crit, and alter the text appropiately. And don't give us the utterly poor excuse of 'fixing it because the text said so'.

[redspecter23]

Ok, it took a massive amount of digging up, but I found it:



Dreamspitter and Staff of Shadow were definitely changed to be 'on-crit' in Update 9: Harbinger of Madness. This was done as a final response to the changes made with Hold and Auto-Crit - On-Crit Life-stealing weapons we're initially nerfed due to the Aut-Crit rules, but with the change to +50% damage Quarterstaves we're given that break back to be on-crit.

So Dev's, do the right thing and make Quarterstaves drain levels on-crit, and alter the text appropiately. And don't give us the utterly poor excuse of 'fixing it because the text said so'.

The mistake seems to be that the text was never updated (typical Turbine). Now they go back and "fix" the weapons to match the text that was wrong as per the quote above.

I really don't get why we aren't allowed to kill EE trash quickly. Is there some rule I'm not aware of that's written somewhere saying what the appropriate amount of time required is for killing EE trash mobs? It might be good if you let players in on that number so we don't go around thinking one thing, when the devs are thinking another. Again it all comes back to a lack of communication on how they want the game to work compared to how it actually works.

[FlaviusMaximus]

The sad thing is, because in maybe some scenarios it could be overpowered (dual wielding rapiers of obscenity with increased critical range (13-20) (I own one), etc., the decision damages other scenarios where it is balanced (a greataxe of obscenity or with life stealing effect, etc.)).
Reminds me of wounding of puncturing change.

Anyway, I would advocate for a change of the mechanics of the effect. Maybe it could have a percentage to procc on every hit, or 100% procc on crits 19-20, or another solution. However... the truth is, now, it is working as described... A nerf difficult to fight against...

-> If any dev reads, please consider this proposal: 100% apply chance on crits 19-20 and 25% rest of critical hits <-

Thanks.

I agree that life drain is very effective on large crit range weapons, but I didn't find it over powered relative to what is possible in the game. You can kill things in fewer hits on a blitzing melee than you can life draining them down, and it obviously only takes one hit from a QP monk to kill an enemy.

I just looked at life drain weapons as a way to be effective and add some variety to builds, and now I feel a few of my more interesting melee builds being pushed back to the same slight variation of the same thing, which is play in LD and everything revolves around blitz or hitting Quivering Punch every 6 seconds.

Currently I dual wield Nightmares on one of my characters, and they level drain on a 15-20. It's very fun to see the graphic and hear the noise when it procs, but challenging mobs are only getting level drained a couple times before they die of being blitz DPS'ed anyway.

Life drain applying on only 19 and 20 wouldn't cut it for me either. Only in a crazy scenario where you fill a party with people using large crit range life drain weapons can I see it only taking a couple seconds of everyone life draining the same mob to kill it, but frankly, if everyone is hitting the same mob with or without life drain weapons it should die that quickly.