Dear Feather of Sun...

[btolson]

Today, I've added the following into our internal development build. This is the build that will eventually become Update 21. Depending on circumstances and approvals, some of this may be able to be pulled into a patch before Update 21.

The Burst prefixes will come back. I've seen a lot of people asking for them. While they're not as powerful as the "Flaming II" you could get instead of Flaming Burst, but they are very close and not everything needs to be exactly equal... it does help to have some variety.

• Flaming Burst
• Shocking Burst
• Icy Burst
• Acid Burst

New weapon AoE damage prefixes that can appear on Epic-level loot.
The below list of prefixes appear rarely in addition to one of the normal things you'd get as a prefix on your item. They match roughly in theme- as an example, Tempestuous could come with either Shocking or Shrieking paired with it.
Some of these are old names, but they do new things.

• Infernal - 2% Chance On Hit: A blast of flame ignites your target, dealing 4 to 16 damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Meteoric (Can only be found in the highest level treasure) - 2% Chance On Hit: A falling star strikes your target, dealing 3 to 18 Fire Damage and 1 to 6 Bludgeoning Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies. Affected foes must also make a DC (20+Item Level) Reflex Saving Throw or be knocked prone.
• Glacial - 2% Chance On Hit: A burst of glacial frost chills your target, dealing 7 to 14 Cold Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Erosive - 2% Chance On Hit: A blast of acid corrodes your target, dealing 3 to 18 Acid Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Tempestuous - 2% Chance On Hit: A bolt of lightning strikes your target, dealing 1 to 20 Electric Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Righteous - 2% Chance On Hit: A blast of holy energy strikes your target, dealing 3 to 12 Good Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby non-good enemies.
• Kinetic - 2% Chance On Hit: A burst of magical force strikes your target, dealing 3 to 12 Force Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.

4 new weapon suffixes: (Bringing the amount of suffixes at each given Enhancement Value to between 12 and 14)

• Humanoid Bane (Combination of Human Bane, Elf Bane, Dwarf Bane, Halfling Bane, Orc Bane, Goblinoid Bane, Monstrous Humanoid Bane, Reptillian Humanoid Bane, and Giant Bane.
• Natural Bane (Combination of Animal Bane, Vermin Bane, Plant Bane, Magical Beast Bane, and Fey Bane)
• Feeding (On Vorpal Hit: Target incurs 1 negative level, you gain Temporary HP)
• Draining (On Vorpal Hit: Target incurs 1 negative level, you gain Temporary Spell Points)

This is just a start. There's a lot more I'd like to do.
Armor, shield, and accessories will get new things as well, as will spellcasting weapons.

Overall this is nice. I will say though that having meteoric appear only at 28+ is depressing, because this is exactly the sort of Fun Thing effect that would make gameplay at all levels much more interesting. Considering the damage and DC are described as scaling with level, I don't really see the need for it to appear only at cap. However, if other Fun Things (i.e., not just dps) are in the works for lower levels, then it is fine if this turns out to be the penultimate, level-cap-only, Fun Thing.

I don't understand why Infernal is .5 damage per ML weaker than the rest of the elemental effects... does it alter the ML by less than the other effects?

Will the new banes add to enhancement bonus the way old banes used to?

Also, I hope Potency, etc, comes back to hats, etc.

I also agree with an above poster that brand new names for effects would be preferred, to help distinguish old items from new ones. Also, it would be great if items had their effect's roman numeral appear in their name (e.g., +2 Flaming IV scimitar, instead of +2 Flaming scimitar), mainly to make it easier to find stuff in the AH.

Lastly, just want to say thanks for dealing with this (and us!) over the weekend.

[AbyssalMage]

Thanks Feather_of_Sun about the weekend reply.

Maybe they will allocate resources (employees or interns) to you so this can go out no later than Update 20.2 because I am sure there are many people on the forums that would be appreciative. And if there was any way we (the players) could recommend you for employee of the week/month/year let us know. I'm sure like any company you have such awards

p.s. And I'm serious about the recommendation, developers who make this game great should be recognized over the ones who are irking us.

[redoubt]

FoS, thanks for taking the time to bring us a little more up to date.

And now a request: could you please talk a little about the rationale behind consolidating the bane types?

(Personally, I've always liked that there are more weapons than I could haul around and therefore need to choose which ones I bring to a certain adventure. I'm hoping we don't reduce down to just a few banes to cover every mob in the game.)

Thanks again the update.

[nibel]

Or alternatively, Unnatural Bane, combining Aberrations, Constructs and Oozes?

But oozes are natural monsters. Well, as natural as a griffon or displacer beast.

I would love if you merged smiting/disruption/banishment in their proper banes and scale it up. Using smiting as an example:

Smiting: 1d6 damage against constructs. 25 damage on vorpal.
Smiting II: 2d4 damage against constructs. 50 damage on vorpal.
Smiting III: 3d4 damage against constructs. 50 damage on vorpal. Weapon is considered adamantine for DR-breaking purposes (not durability/hardness)
Smiting IV: 4d4 damage against constructs. 100 damage on vorpal. Weapon is considered adamantine for DR-breaking purposes (not durability/hardness)
Smiting V: 5d4 damage against constructs. Instantly destroy weakened constructs on vorpal. If immune to instant destruction or over 1000 HP, deal 100 damage. Weapon is considered adamantine for DR-breaking purposes (not durability/hardness).

And so on. Ghostbane can get disruption-like properties and bypass good DR. Banishers affect extraplanars, outsiders and elementals (no DR-breaking purposes for hitting a larger pool of mobs). Humanoid bane gets the manslayer properties. etc, etc, etc

[ZeebaNeighba]

• Infernal - 2% Chance On Hit: A blast of flame ignites your target, dealing 4 to 16 damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Meteoric (Can only be found in the highest level treasure) - 2% Chance On Hit: A falling star strikes your target, dealing 3 to 18 Fire Damage and 1 to 6 Bludgeoning Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies. Affected foes must also make a DC (20+Item Level) Reflex Saving Throw or be knocked prone.
• Glacial - 2% Chance On Hit: A burst of glacial frost chills your target, dealing 7 to 14 Cold Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Erosive - 2% Chance On Hit: A blast of acid corrodes your target, dealing 3 to 18 Acid Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Tempestuous - 2% Chance On Hit: A bolt of lightning strikes your target, dealing 1 to 20 Electric Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Righteous - 2% Chance On Hit: A blast of holy energy strikes your target, dealing 3 to 12 Good Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby non-good enemies.
• Kinetic - 2% Chance On Hit: A burst of magical force strikes your target, dealing 3 to 12 Force Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.

Out of curiosity, can you throw on an augment on a weapon to raise its ML, and that way get a more powerful "blah blah damage per minimum level" effect? Or not decided yet? Seems like you could level up without having to change weapons every other level that way.

[Thordarr]

Looks good - but could at least SOMETHING be added to the Cannith Crafting system with this too? Surely some prefixs/suffixs wouldn't hurt :-)

Pretty please

[Saravis]

I don't know if this has been addressed or not, but its one issue I've noticed with loot lately.
Can you please reserve some unique enhancements for named items. Its not fun to see a named item that doesn't feel unique because you've seen similar generic items. At this point a lot of named items are only unique in their combinations of enhancements, not the enhancements themselves. While that can be okay, a named item is much more interesting when it has something unique going for it.

[Dandonk]

I'm happy to see some of the new weapon enhancements coming out. Good job on that. What I'm missing, though, is stuff that is not straight DPS - the old wintry, erosive and so on. While higher DPS weapons are fun, of course, I think that if everything is pure DPS it gets boring in the end. Can we please have some CC, more debuff, and stuff like that?

And... I do not see anything about heal amp and those things... are they coming back? Plox?

EDIT: And any word on making this new system searchable on AH? And/or adding stuff to crafting?

[redspecter23]

I'm happy to see some of the new weapon enhancements coming out. Good job on that. What I'm missing, though, is stuff that is not straight DPS - the old wintry, erosive and so on. While higher DPS weapons are fun, of course, I think that if everything is pure DPS it gets boring in the end. Can we please have some CC, more debuff, and stuff like that?

And... I do not see anything about heal amp and those things... are they coming back? Plox?

EDIT: And any word on making this new system searchable on AH? And/or adding stuff to crafting?

I agree with this. The problem with so many dps affixes is that you can just do some math and assign a very static number to the weapon. You can say this weapon does 100 dps or this one does 105 dps making the first weapon completely useless outside of flavor. By adding non dps variables to weapons you can muck with the math to make weapons interesting without simply making them strictly more powerful. Weapons which apply stun or freeze type effects, especially those with relevant saves or no saves can make a weapon more valuable without simply making it deal more straight up damage. You add a defensive element and a situational offensive benefit at the same time.

I see some potential in the new proposed neg level affixes as they attempt to give dps as well as debuffs and situational healing/sp regen. These are the sort of interesting effects that really need to be explored, especially on random loot gen as there are certain loot gen weapon types that just simply can't compete with named items of the same type in a dps competition. Greatswords/ESoS comes to mind in particular. Now if a loot gen greatsword was less dps, but offered more utility and situationally higher dps under the right circumstances, you create more choices for players rather than just packing ESoS and never looking back. And it's all done without directly nerfing the ESoS itself, which is a win for both players and developers.

[Book_O_Dragons]

I'd like you to consider writing a new burst version (visually) more like the synergy enchantments in the 3.5 version of the DMG2.
I'm thinking it could be implemented by triggering a second roll when certain enchantments come up such as flaming, shocking or holy in tier 2 or higher. If the roll then says that it is a burst weapon reduce the tier by 1 and add a second ability as the burst effect that is only the burst effect.

Example:
A +2 flaming 4 long sword is generated causing the loot generator to make another roll.
If the second roll comes up as a burst effect the chest then contains a +2 flaming burst 3 long sword with the abilities +2 enhancement bonus, flaming III (3d4 fire) and flaming burst (new effect that does 1d10 fire damage per critical multiplier).

I definitely want to have everything FULLY searchable on the AH including masterful craftsmanship, augment slots and even cursed items.

What about other elemental equivalencies to meteoric? Cometary might work for cold damage and otherwise identical. Other elements might require a different effect on save failure. Acid might be 3d6 and no bludgeon damage but apply a DoT on a failed save. Sonic daze or stun. Electric the same as sonic.

While you are looking at the DMG2 could you look at the fortifying defence synergy ability.

I think that my separate burst damage effects could give some nice design space for named weapons. Say an epic raid weapon that has:
maul
3[1d10] bas damage
12-20/x2 crit
5 burst effects (sonic, elec, fire, acid, cold)
greater vicious

This weapon is meant to compete with the Epic SoS and was specifically not given impact to make players decide on one or the other.

[Scraap]

Today, I've added the following into our internal development build. This is the build that will eventually become Update 21. Depending on circumstances and approvals, some of this may be able to be pulled into a patch before Update 21.

The Burst prefixes will come back. I've seen a lot of people asking for them. While they're not as powerful as the "Flaming II" you could get instead of Flaming Burst, but they are very close and not everything needs to be exactly equal... it does help to have some variety.

• Flaming Burst
• Shocking Burst
• Icy Burst
• Acid Burst

Good. I would suggest if you're tying this stuff to a tiered system, consider increasing the die step in addition to the die count. The point of a burst is, after all a spike. (As an analogy: Compare for example the utility difference between a greatsword and greataxe vs a self-healing mob, for instance, when it comes to getting in that last blow before it's regen cycle kicks in, and how that multiplier is impacted by character progression.)

New weapon AoE damage prefixes that can appear on Epic-level loot.
The below list of prefixes appear rarely in addition to one of the normal things you'd get as a prefix on your item. They match roughly in theme- as an example, Tempestuous could come with either Shocking or Shrieking paired with it.
Some of these are old names, but they do new things.

• Infernal - 2% Chance On Hit: A blast of flame ignites your target, dealing 4 to 16 damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Meteoric (Can only be found in the highest level treasure) - 2% Chance On Hit: A falling star strikes your target, dealing 3 to 18 Fire Damage and 1 to 6 Bludgeoning Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies. Affected foes must also make a DC (20+Item Level) Reflex Saving Throw or be knocked prone.
• Glacial - 2% Chance On Hit: A burst of glacial frost chills your target, dealing 7 to 14 Cold Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Erosive - 2% Chance On Hit: A blast of acid corrodes your target, dealing 3 to 18 Acid Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Tempestuous - 2% Chance On Hit: A bolt of lightning strikes your target, dealing 1 to 20 Electric Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.
• Righteous - 2% Chance On Hit: A blast of holy energy strikes your target, dealing 3 to 12 Good Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby non-good enemies.
• Kinetic - 2% Chance On Hit: A burst of magical force strikes your target, dealing 3 to 12 Force Damage per Minimum Level of this item to all nearby enemies.

Slightly less chance than a vorpal when attacking 2 or more mobs, best used when facing two or more mobs. Logical for supporting AoE attack character builds. As others have mentioned, unless that DC can be augmented via an equivalent to wand and scroll mastery, the curve is going to need to be nonlinear to maintain utility.

4 new weapon suffixes: (Bringing the amount of suffixes at each given Enhancement Value to between 12 and 14)

• Humanoid Bane (Combination of Human Bane, Elf Bane, Dwarf Bane, Halfling Bane, Orc Bane, Goblinoid Bane, Monstrous Humanoid Bane, Reptillian Humanoid Bane, and Giant Bane.
• Natural Bane (Combination of Animal Bane, Vermin Bane, Plant Bane, Magical Beast Bane, and Fey Bane)

I really don't see the merit in making more mobs bleed together from a consumption standpoint, but it does simplify the design a bit, I suppose, and it's really no worse than the typical super-everything-banes we've come to see by way of raw damage output mutations.

• Feeding (On Vorpal Hit: Target incurs 1 negative level, you gain Temporary HP)
• Draining (On Vorpal Hit: Target incurs 1 negative level, you gain Temporary Spell Points)

Kill epic ward with fire, and those could prove useful outside of being used by a pack of folks all piling onto one mob.

This is just a start. There's a lot more I'd like to do.

Like tying it to named systems? (Had to.) Seriously though, something to consider for crafted, named, and raid-crafted gear may be a sister system to ML and AML: EML (effective minimum level). Say, +2, +4, and +6 levels respectively for purposes of scaled mutations as a way of keeping relative utility for items that require going above and beyond box-smashing. That way if you really feel the need to change a power-curve, you can change a power curve without nearly so much obsolescence creeping in.

Armor, shield, and accessories will get new things as well, as will spellcasting weapons.

Should be interesting to see, provided the defensive ones take into account the average number of hits we take to go from 100% to -10 better than some of the newer offerings.

[jakeelala]

Returning Shuriken...

No nut seriously to even begin to be competitive at the very highest levels with end-game raid weapons, these things you've laid out are nice, but not really going to cut it. What is going to gen here that approaches, say, a base Cleaver (Hemorrhaging, Doublestrike, big damage Dice and Limb-chopper), even without the set bonus? With a 2% proc rate:
Meteoric:
3d6x28 + 1d6x28 = 294 + 98 = 392 / 50 (2% = 1/50) = A whopping 7.84 dmg per swing. That's about as a good as Fire III, which is 3-12 (3d4) or 7.5 avg dmg per swing. And like, ML 10 or something.

That's the BEST lvl 28 random lootgen damage effect you can pull? Really? That's pretty underwhelming. In EE, everything will save against it, so the knockdown is pretty MEH. Make the DC equal to twice the 10+2*ML. Who cares if it has a great DC, it only happens a whopping 2% of the time. How can that be game breaking?

I'm not trying to hate, I appreciate the direction you're going. But really, this is my honest opinion, I probably wouldn't use these weapons if this is as good as they can get.

[TalieNeEllyll]

I do not understand the need for the new equipment. At least for me, it is no fun if I can just wipe a quest. 1/2 the fun is knowing that I and my party completed a quest. When you can just run through them even in Zerg mode, they are horribly boring. To be honest I wish quests could be made somewhat dynamic so when you enter you do not know what you will get or where.

Right now I am slowly (when all my TR group are on) doing multiple lives. I can easily do them solo. I have to have the group for the camaraderie. My multiple lives have made the quests so simple, I have literally fallen asleep from boredom while in the quests.

I really think if you want to make even more powerful items, do something like the Greensteel or Cannith crafting but have parts dropped in many locations but very rarely, maybe even Bloodstone rare. When you get all the parts, you can take them to the Stone of Change and create/upgrade the desired item.

[Lonnbeimnech]

how about a burst effect that causes a rainbow of ponies to stampede in all directions causing random elemental and stat damage...

[Dandonk]

I do not understand the need for the new equipment. At least for me, it is no fun if I can just wipe a quest. 1/2 the fun is knowing that I and my party completed a quest. When you can just run through them even in Zerg mode, they are horribly boring. To be honest I wish quests could be made somewhat dynamic so when you enter you do not know what you will get or where.

Right now I am slowly (when all my TR group are on) doing multiple lives. I can easily do them solo. I have to have the group for the camaraderie. My multiple lives have made the quests so simple, I have literally fallen asleep from boredom while in the quests.

I really think if you want to make even more powerful items, do something like the Greensteel or Cannith crafting but have parts dropped in many locations but very rarely, maybe even Bloodstone rare. When you get all the parts, you can take them to the Stone of Change and create/upgrade the desired item.

It's not that I want more powerful items, as such. But I want something other than generic flaming of ghostbane weapons. And something other than straight DPS affixes. It would spice things up, make loot interesting and a choice - instead of just choosing flaming VII over flaming VI.

[sirgog]

Very nice, Thank you Feather.

One concern I have though is with the following:




Epic Ward (on Epic Hard / Epic Elite) causes a mob to regen negative levels and stat damage (which they're 90% resistant to in the first place) every 3 seconds. If the suffix is only 1 neg level, instead of 1d3 or 1d4, 99.999999999999999% (may be a small bit of hyperbole) the mob will regen that neg before you will vorpal again.



So, obviously, the solution is to just get rid of Epic Ward (PLEEEEEZ!). CR 70 Mobs with 130,000 HP don't need blanket immunities that prevent non-max-DPS classes to get them On-The-Die again.

Neg levels are very powerful even when they regen fast. If the mob has >90% HP when it cops one neg, it will fall to 90% after the neg fades.

It'd be paired with Flaming VIII, which by itself is an average damage of 20 per hit.

For comparison, the old Flaming Burst, Holy, Flaming Blast, and Incineration all together are worse than Flaming VIII by itself.

Level 28 items.


Correct. What you get currently on Live at +2 prefix value instead of Flaming Burst is Flaming II.
Flaming II is 2-8 damage on hit. It's better under nearly all circumstances.

That said, I don't mind putting the bursts back in, it adds variety to that level range of treasure!




If you actually used a Ghost Touch weapon for Dream Scourges before, you could just use a Ghostbane one for it now. It does the same thing.
It sets "Ghost Touch = TRUE" on your weapon.

Or are you trying to troll me? If so, good job.

Old Meteoric was Greater Incineration, which has been tested to be (to 95% confidence interval) 5% for 284 average damage (as well as the other stuff). IIRC it was 20-25 damage a swing on average (14 from Greater Incin alone). Greater Incin also applies some damage to mobs with moderate fire resist (e.g. back at the 20 cap, Greater Incin was OK on bosses with 50-100 fire resist like Lord of Blades, which meant that the Epic Elemental Greataxe of Fire was solid against him).

The big thing that is missing, though, is Convalescent bracers. These are best in slot for almost every melee character, not really replaceable, and only available as legacy items now. These need to be back ASAP. (All three tiers are somewhat relevant, but the 20% tier is the irreplaceable one).

[sirgog]

One more thing to add.

The popularity of Flaming Burst and similar effects is the variance. Getting a very very big crit as a lowbie is memorable, and burst effects make this happen.

A +1 Flaming II Greataxe does indeed do more damage than a +1 flaming burst greataxe, but the latter will have cool moments where it crits for 22+ fire damage total.

I would like to see a higher level elemental burst added for this reason. Something like +7 equivalent, 4d4 fire damage base, +60d4 on vorpal. That's only slightly better than Flaming VII in raw power (only difference is that a vorpal strike is more likely to become a confirmed crit than a random attack is to hit), but it will have those cool 'big number' moments often.

This is also why Lightning Strike remained so popular for so long, despite most Lit 2 weapons being outclassed a while ago.

[Wizza]

Wrong math was wrong.

[HuneyMunster]

Flaming VIII: 8d4 dmg ( avg: 20 dmg per hit).


I also find the lack of +Assassination DC very disturbing. We have exactly ONE ITEM that increases it while everything is getting a constant bump that brings them in the 70s and 80s. A rogue to achieve that has to sacrifice a lot and has to spend his whole questing time in sneak.

So yeah: how about adding +Assassinate DC in your loot plan? Or even better: how about giving it a pass like you did with Quivering Palm and let it use +Sunder/+Trip/whatever DC items?

It would be nice to see Assassinate +1 and +2 Augments added in game like with spell DC's.

[Wizza]

It would be nice to see Assassinate +1 and +2 Augments added in game like with spell DC's.

You mean +5/+8 right?

We have Quivering Palm able to get to high 70s with a 6 second cooldown. A 30 second Assassinate should at least get on par with the DC of a 6s ability without having to sneak for the whole quest.