Opinion Poll ~ are the new Past Life feats good enough?

[Silverleafeon]

Simply put, Devs, I appreciate your listening and upgrading some of the past life bonuses.
Thank you. {Not posting my opinions here as I am very curious to see what others think.}

What do you think?
Do you as a player feel that they are worth it now?
If not, do you have any suggestions for the Devs?


From:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-10-31-2013%29

•You gain an Epic Past Life Feat.
•NEW: Healing Power has been renamed to Power over Life and Death. It now grants Negative Energy Spellpower in addition to Positive Energy.
•NEW: Colors of the Queen cooldown triggers has been reduced significantly, from 60/45/30 seconds to 30/20/10 seconds.
•NEW: Bonuses have been increased to 3% for Energy Criticals, Doublestrike, and Doubleshot.
•NEW: Added note to “Block Energy” Epic Past Life Feat that blocking does not require having a shield.




Pictures of original so I can compare:



You can only have one iconic toggle active at a time.
Cooldown for toggles is rumored at 3 seconds at this time.
Cooldown when clicking PDK is as text reads instead of 3 seconds.



You can only have one Martial toggle active at a time.



You can only have one Divine toggle active at a time.



You can only have one Primal toggle active at a time.



You can only have one Arcane toggle active at a time.


Epic Completionist ~ Dev top running idea was fourth twist slot ~ quote available but not official final word.
Later quote indicates that it will probably be auto granted.

Completionist ~ many players request that it be changed to auto grant.
No words at all from the Devs on this point.

The Devs want to make more Epic Destinies ~ quote available, no official word on details.

No official word on new spheres ~ such as psionic which exists in D&D.

[Silverleafeon]

reserved in case I track results

[redspecter23]

For my playstyle, I find they are good enough to keep me on the hamster wheel. I only play one toon and just play assorted epic quests daily anyway. I might as well be running from 20 to 28, earning past lives while I do that instead of just staying capped at 28 and doing the same thing.

I do find that each individual past life feels a bit underwhelming, but a full 9 stack of most of the passives would be quite a nice jump. I'd personally prefer non stacking, but each one more powerful, but I can live with what it is.

I find the epic grind different than the heroic TR grind. With a heroic TR grind, I find myself racing to 20 so I can start playing content I like and using destinies. With epic TR, regardless of where I am in the process, I have my destiny access and can (within a few levels) be playing any of the end game content. Because of this, it makes the epic TR system something I will enjoy more than the heroic TR. If I ever find myself wanting another heroic past life, I'll just earn it through an iconic. I don't think I'll ever be playing level 1 to 14 on my main ever again.

[Silverleafeon]

Thanks Red for the detailed explanation.
Anyone else?

[TPICKRELL]

Over all they are about right.

I look at most of them, and say, yes eventually my main will have that.

I look at them for my primary alts and see a few that are borderline must haves, and a bunch of nice to haves that I probably won't get around to.

I look at them for my second tier alts and say maybe one eventually.

To me that's the right overall balance, they are significant in the aggregate but far from overpowered individually.

There are a few that seem out of whack though.

• Arcane Alacrity -- cooldowns going from 2 seconds to 1.8? Thats underwhelming and its really the only thing you could say is targeted at DC casting... That one needs a look at.
• Enchant Weapon -- +3 damage (to hit also but meh) and +9 universal spell power is underwhelming.
• Skill Mastery -- A bit light ok for umd builds but pretty meh for most toons
• Shadar Kai stance, the cool down seems to long for the duration of the effect

[Zibowskij]

I like them

[Battery]

They're great when stacked but kinda meh if you just have one. So if you're ok with grinding out PLs on the same toon with pretty much the same build (since ETR is just an LR) for quite a long while they're great. My only complaint really is with the ETR being just a glorified LR, I need change in order to stay interested. I like Iconic TR a lot more, but that's just me, it fits the way I play.

So overall a thumbs up to the feats themselves but not so much on the grind.

[Thrudh]

I like them all...

I see all my guys constantly epic TRing... There's not much difference playing at level 20 than 28, and for a long time, I'll be able to play my primary ED all the time anyway, so it will be easy to ETR over and over..

I'm pretty slow... I don't zerg through TRs, so I'll just be playing the game normally, and it will take me a couple of years to get 3 or 6 ETRs in my main destiny on my main 3 characters...

Guess we'll see where we are then.

[Drwaz99]

They are fine at face value.

But there is no way I am going to grind in an off destiny for any of them. (nor am I going to heroic tr just to get a "meh" EPL) I'll just stick to my sphere and be done.

It's too bad to. If they changed that one "feature" they could get 6-10 more epic lives out of me per character. Seems like they don't want that.

[Raoull]

In general, I like them.

The energy absorption passive for the arcane sphere is too weak. Considering relatively easy to obtain gear gives 33% absorb (for some elements), the 9% fully stacked level is way too low. Compare it to PRR, where most gear with it has 10-16, and only one (very high level) has 24, but you can get 27 PRR from full stacking destinies (well, even more with Iconic). I think the energy absorb would be more appropriate with 4% per stack, giving 36% absorb if fully stacked. If that somehow seems too high, at least 3 percent (27 fully stacked).

And the AC boost.... well, it is lousy because AC is lousy. The quantity of AC is actually pretty high. 45 AC is a huge amount, yet will still be useless in EEs I imagine. They just need to fix tohits so AC is more meaningful in EEs. That would be a better solution than changing the destiny. If they can't do that in a reasonable timeline, they should change it to be something that actually works at end game. Perhaps 1% dodge? (leaving the cap in place would keep it from getting out of hand)

[Thrudh]

My only complaint really is with the ETR being just a glorified LR, I need change in order to stay interested.

That's why I have 3 main characters... Right now, I TR one, get him back to cap, then TR a different one... Takes me 3 months to TR, so it's usually 6 months before I'm back to the original guy TRing again.

3 main guys are melee TWF fighter/ranger/monk, wizard, and monk-archer... They all play very differently... I also have a cleric and a barb and a bard/rogue that I screw around with now and then... So that's how I keep things fresh.

[Thrudh]

But there is no way I am going to grind in an off destiny for any of them.

At least it's not as bad as fate point grinding... I mean LD instead of Fury (or vice-versa) for a melee isn't THAT terrible.

Even Unyielding Sentinal isn't that bad for a melee... Although I'll won't do that more than 3 times.

[Enoach]

If you look at them as a single stack I would say that they are not worth the effort. However, If you look at them from a MAX stack 3x per feat and 9x for the passive, they start to have more appeal.

However, based on my own playstyle I don't see any of them as MUST haves, I'm still only seeing them as NICE to haves and still not seeing 9x's as a goal in my next year of play. Maybe sometime down the road.

My feeling on this is because of the stance and the stance limitation of only being able to have 1 per sphere active at any given time.

Now, I do have plans to Dabble with the Epic TR, but I don't think I'm going to get on the wheel for 36 lives worth at this time. Maybe 2 to 3 per character. But I also never put being a completionist as a goal for myself with the current TR system.

[Wizza]

I'd like to be more precise and give a Yes or no answer for every of them:

- Bladeforged: No to both Active and passive. Active should be in the passive slot and make a new Active one.
- MorningLord: Yes.
- Shadar-kai: Passive yes. Active no way.
- PDK: Active no. Passive yes.

Martial Sphere:

- Doublestrike: Yes.
- Skill Mastery: Hell no.
- Fortification: Maybe.
- Passive: No.


Divine:

- Healing Power: Yes.
- Brace: Toggle should be improved.
- Block Energy: Yes.
- Passive: Yes but doesn't belong to Divine sphere.


Primal:

- Doubleshot: DS in general is useless so no.
- Fast Healing: Yes
- Colors of the Queen: Yes if only stacked, so no.
- Passive: Yes.


Arcane:

- Energy Criticals: Yes.
- Enchant Weapon: No.
- Arcane Alacrity: Yes.
- Passive: Hell no.

[Lonnbeimnech]

[*]Arcane Alacrity -- cooldowns going from 2 seconds to 1.8? Thats underwhelming and its really the only thing you could say is targeted at DC casting... That one needs a look at.

For spells like power word kill, power word stun and symbol of death, it's nice.

[Drwaz99]

At least it's not as bad as fate point grinding... I mean LD instead of Fury (or vice-versa) for a melee isn't THAT terrible.

Even Unyielding Sentinal isn't that bad for a melee... Although I'll won't do that more than 3 times.

I totally understand what your saying. But at the point I am in this game, it needs to be FUN, rather than "not that terrible" for me to play it. That is just me and the reason I haven't done much if anything in the new update.

[Wipey]

How good they are depends on how you answer one question to yourself :
Will there be ANY content worth doing ( xp, loot, fun, more people doing it, whatevs ) where you would put it to good use or all we are going to see is different hamster wheels till the end of the game without any "vision" or goals for your characters ?

Because the "meaningful point of improving characters or hunting for gear " is at all time low.

[Teh_Troll]

They do pay off but . . . and this is a big but . . . like the kind Sir Mixalot would write a song about . . .

You really need to go full-****** on the stacking to see a huge pay-off. Like 20-30 PLs.

Basically if you wanna be ubber dump all your toons but one and ETR 30 times.

[TPICKRELL]

For spells like power word kill, power word stun and symbol of death, it's nice.

It's nice, but for me at least, the cooldown on PWK is so long, that I reserve it for emergencies, so 189 seconds vs 210 seconds will very rarely make any difference in how much I cast it. If you keep them on timer then its a nice boost, I just don't use them that way because I hate watching timers instead of watching the action.

[pasterqb]

Bladeforged: Good, with certain builds its pretty awesome.

Morninglord: Might just be me but this seems terrible.

Shadarkai: Not gonna lie this seems great and my favorite Iconic past life. However the proc only going off on below 50% AND hit seems disappointing. Maybe make it below 75% and hit or trigger when below 50%.

PDK: Passive seems pretty good but action boost is a little disappointing to say the least.

Doublestrike: Awesome i will definately be getting x3 on this.

Skill Mastery: I guess it can be acceptable but wouldnt be my cup of tea on any build except one with an abundance of Fort such as wf caster or PM.

Fortification: Good and even great on some builds.

Power over Life and Death: With the improvement its not that bad. Will probaly get it for my PM but can it compete with +3 to all saves?

Brace: Great

Block Energy: I dont like this one but it could be my playstyle. Not only is their no end game where you need takes but how can a toggle that only works when you block compete with one that works all the time? I know its easy to switch but even when it does work i still think Brace is better.

Doubleshot: Good but don't know if its worth it with the -100% Doubleshot penalty

Fast Healing: Not bad with some heal amp

Colors of the Queen: Hard to tell without knowing the random effect but this had peaked my interest to say the least. Will love to get this to try it out.

Energy Criticals: Good

Enchant Weapon: What? Only mainhand? Seriously? It's not a huge deal but i don't see why it wouldnt be offhand as well. Yes it is an artificer epic past life but the arti spell works with both atleast.