Player Character Balance

[Teh_Troll]

On the contrary, epic hard makes more than just 4 builds viable. It is perfect. It is too easy for guys like you madmatt but guys like you should be roaming in epic elite only. In epic elite is the flaw. Making only 4 builds viable is the flaw.

Wrong.

[zwiebelring]

Nope. Totally right. Damage avoidance vs. damage migitation is the flaw and epic elite shows that in a very obvious way. Tuning up ehard only shifted that flaw into that difficulty. Wow, what a balance we had then....

[RapkintheRanger]

Something that doesn't utilize both 10k stars and Manyshot since there would no longer be a point having both. Possibly a Ranger/Rogue if they take the doubleshot penalty off Manyshot or a Monk that doesn't have Ranger splashed into it. Either way, "fixes" that cause characters to TR and rebuild are a touch inconvenient for people who utilize such builds.

I have a level 20 ranger
I also have a level 12/8 ranger/monk (i know it isn't exactly the most optimal build)

A nice capstone for a pure build ranger would be to bypass the current double shot penalty.

Right now it doesn't make sense to have a pure ranger if your goal is to be the highest most effective ranged DPS. The L6 monk splash allows you to bypass the double-shot penalty by activating 10Kstars in between to maintain your ranged DPS. If you are just a ranger, you work to get a 20-25% doubleshot that never goes off becasue it is suppressed by using your many shot. So finding a way to bypass that makes rangers better without requiring a monk nerf.

By the way: my monkchers's first life: warforged barbarian... so there.

[CeltEireson]

Probably everything I'm going to say has already been covered but as you're asking for opinions here you go. most of it is generic rather than specific:

First off - survey - as others have said not really geared towards one of the primary problems which is single class v multiclass. Although I know actually teasing this kind of information out using a questionnaire is likely to be very difficult given the variety of possibilities.

Pure class, with the exception of DC casters, would appear to always be significantly weaker overall than many multiclass builds. In my opinion pure classes should be viable at all levels of the game, not necessarily the best but certainly viable and able to contribute even at epic elite levels which Im not sure is the case currently.

Low hanging fruit - too many powerful abilities are available in the lower tiers of enhancements - for instances the kind of saves boost you get from splashing only two levels of paladin. Part of the restrictions of evasion was that you needed a good reflex to take advantage of it - and with certain builds getting that reflex save isn't that difficult. Basically you've ended up with a situation where splashing gives much more benefits than you lose. Whereas, as others have mentioned, in traditional DnD you generally lost power by multiclassing but ended up more versatile, though I know 3.5 which DDO is based on did change this.

Too much synergy in certain class/enhancement combinations - introduction of the ability to wield any weapon and remain focused could be considered one of them.

Higher tier core enhancements are probably not as powerful as they should be particularly the level 18 and capstone. And

I don't like the idea of 'fixing' pure class inequalities by using capstones although I know the imbalances tend to be more extreme in epic levels rather than heroic. Why not introduce a free feat or add something to the first core enhancement for each class that scales a little as you progress in levels but is disabled on multilclassing - call it hmmmm devotion to the cause so a bonus say at levels 10, 15 and 20 of some sort. Just a thought.

Damage - as others have pointed out the sheer level of damage being dealt out by mobs in epics, particularly elite, means that damage mitigation is essential, except that currently the only real damage mitigation worth a **** is dodge and the likes of etherealness/displacement etc. AC and PRR are relatively worthless - building for AC means that your DPS drops so much that basically youre considered to be piking, and PRR also requires a fairly massive investment if youre a traditional tank (well unless you're a monk in earth stance). This one is likely more difficult to balance as I know you don't want a situation where a really good tank can stand there being hit only 5% of the time and then taking little damage. I have no problem with lightly or unarmoured characters being able to avoid damage, but I think damage reduction on these types of characters should be very limited - i.e. they don't get hit as often but when they do they know all about it, whereas heavier armour wearers or shield wearers should be able to absorb/deflect more of the damage they're taking than they currently do. I also don't like the idea of forms of defence that can't be bypassed, like dodge, there's no opposed roll for these, 25% dodge is the same at level 10 as it is at level 28 regardless of the opponent you're facing.

Then there's evasion - the level of damage from spells etc is such in some quests that evasion is considered by many to be essential, resists are of limited value compared to the level of incoming damage even assuming you have the room to fit 50 resist items for all of the damage types you might encounter, absorption helps to a degree but again fitting it in is the issue. You changed armour to add PRR, it might be an idea to add in some level of built in elemental absorption (equipment bonus so that it stacks) that is considered 'part' of the armourwith progressively more absorption from light to heavy armour, it would also give people more of a reason to wear the heavier armours, with a similar bonus for shields, although I must admit part of it is that I am sick of seeing melee and archers running around in robes and outfits rather than traditional armour . It would allow non-evasions types to have some sort of damage mitigation for spells - just needs to be set at the right level so that its not a replacement for evasion.

Items - on a related note epic level items can give much higher bonuses than are currently available from similar spells - barkskin, resists, shield of faith etc. As a lil boon to pure classes and to epic destinies that boost caster level could you maybe consider allowing such spells to progress further so you can get similarly high levels e.g. at level 20 a pure wizard could cast 40 resist and at caster level 28 50 resist. Of course improving barkskin and shield of faith would have to mean AC is meaningful again.

Mob stats - part of the problem is you're way of making the quests challenging which is simply either giving them immunities, massive saves or boosting their hitpoints to stratospheric heights. These all tend to force players down certain paths simply because theyre more efficient.

Self healing - seems to be with us for good, not entirely sure I like it, yes I know some people don't like healing with the clerics/fvs and I know others don't like to have to rely a healer. Obviously some builds are much better at it than others, barbarians particularly suffer from a lack of it in many ways given their primary ability tends to make that an issue. But like everything else I think it should be a matter of having to give up something to get it i.e. if you want to be able to self heal (with exception of those who have healing spells as a core ability - cleric/fvs/bard) then you have to accept that you'll do less damage, which isn't really the case at the moment.

And if you do make changes - tell us early and often, put them up on lamannia in plenty of time, and whilst I know you have a schedule to stick to if something is discovered to be massively wrong don't put it on live and say youll fix it later - your track record for adjusting things after the fact is poor. If you put something on live that is badly out of whack and it stays that way for a while people will just start building more FOTM characters that depend on those changes and you'll just alienate more people when you have to change things further, either that or you'll end up leaving it like that and the time spent trying to balance things will have been waited. Or in simpler terms do it right first time so that only small changes need to be made thereafter.

And make sure everyone can redo their character at no expense - if people do feel the need to change their character following any changes you make then they should be able to make the changes all in go to make it as painless as possible i.e. able to not only relevel the character but able to change alignement at the same time and also able to reset their epic destinys for free. This might mean you having to make a new reincarnation stone, but think it would be worth it in terms of player relations.

[die]

IMO, If your intentions are too stream line all classes to be the same . Then you have completely left the name DnD behind. I hate neverwinter online. because of this

fact. There is no way to build a class its already done for you yea you can take path x or y but that about it. But really why do I care I don't even log in any more this

game has gone too the doody pot. But I hold out hope and just the simple fact you (the Dungeon master) are asking us, what you should do . that says loads.. you have no idea any more. The ship is sinking . The original crew had a vision and I loved it. the vision is dead. Please start ddo 2

[CaptainSpacePony]

I'd like to add another broad area to that list: pure-class versus multi-class.

I feel that not only should every single class be viable and able to contribute, but that every single class when pure-classed should be viable and able to contribute.

...

Traditionally in D&D, multi-classes, being less specialized, had less raw power, balanced with more versatility. It seems in some cases in DDO, they get more versatility AND more power, making pure-classes strictly inferior.

The enhancement pass contributed a lot to this. I think a hard look at capstones is in order.

And, though I know some people will hate it, perhaps revisiting the class levels needed for each tier of enhancement. Personally, I think 1/3/6/9/12 would be more appropriate than 1/2/3/4/5.

I agree with quote.

Pure classes are too weak atm. Not only does that limit "viable builds" it increases the complexity of character construction which is already a significant hurdle for new players. A weak build can quickly frustrate a new player and could chase them away. Not good.

Evasion is too powerful/important.

Restrictive alignment, Armor, and shields (gasp) can't compete with a monk 2+ splash.

Sneak attack damage does not scale well epically. Addition < multiplication.

Adrenaline should not work on ranged attacks. IRL cheating archers take beta blockers to enhance performance, not amphetamines.

I would like to see more than 2-3 EDs be viable. (Viability is at-levelish EE. EH can be run in off or no destiny.)

I think spending feats for higher tier monk stances is unbalancing (pun intended) and should be pulled.

The most powerful builds tend to:
Be Shriadi, Dreadnaught, or ranged furies
and "Splash" from one or more of the following:
-2 or 6 Monk for feats, deflect arrows, evasion, stances, and often 10k stars
-2 Paladin for saves (I expect to see more of this now since recent updates)
-5-12 ftr for centered kensai. Power surge is also very synergistic w/dreadnaught
-2ish FvS (or sometimes cleric) for divine might
-6 ranger for ranged feats and arcane archer tree

[CaptainSpacePony]

One of the things I see for balancing and making different classes viable for one is rogue and arti. Since when should 2 levels of rogue or arti be enough to do traps with a CR of 30? Hell even a cr 10. I think a 2 level splash of rogue or arti should only be able to do up to a cr 5 maybe trap. It doesn't make sense that they can do epic traps. If you think about it from the perspective of how much trapping training would one receive with just 2 levels of that class? Not that much. How could you be competent at something that would take a skilled mechanic rogue or artificer to do?

I do think it would be reasonable for something like +1 search/spot/disable/open locks per 4ish levels of rog or arty.

[Grizzt14]

Why isn't every character made stronger, to match the strongest characters already out there?

• Challenge: We want to be able to provide challenges to those who seek that kind of gameplay. There should be limits to player-character power in order to achieve this, when comparing player characters against monsters, traps, bosses, etc.
• Understanding what's already there: Minimizing changes also allows everyone to keep a consistent idea of what exists. If almost everything changes, it's like starting over from scratch, and therefore much harder to get everything right.
• Time and resources matter: We can save a great deal of time by only changing a few overpowered abilities, rather than changing all other characters, monsters, traps, and quests to match those few most overpowered abilities or features. If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features.

The problem with the "we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else" is we all know this is not the correct way to operate. Artificers, Barbarians, Bards and non-splash Paladins are rarely seen in my personal experience for one sole reason: They offer nothing notable or exciting to bring to an endgame party.

• Artificers lack Evasion, DPS, a matching ED and the enhancement trees are far far too narrow and specialized.
• Barbarians are notoriously hard to keep alive, can't cast spells or use UMD while Raging (Come on Turbine, this limit alone left this class in the dust. I used to love this class before content got blown way out of whack in endgame. I would love to run one again someday.), have mediocre saves and suffer heavily from non-existent armor defenses and over the top dodge penalties.
• Bards, while they're getting a Swashbuckler enhancement tree down the road, is largely a support and niche class. They aren't terrible, but they could use some spotlight attention and some improvements outside of a new tree, get creative here.
• Paladins, the age old red-headed stepchild of DDO. Tanking is dead which drops Pally enhancement trees down to one and the KoTC, even with an undead-focused U21 can't cut it. Paladin has been and only got better as a splash class in the new enhancement pass. Give us something to draw us to this class for once and for all, drop the pick undead or evil outside choice and give us both already. With improved DPS all-around and some genuine tanking love (See Barbarian for a gloss-over on damage mitigation for starters) Paladin could easily make a comeback.

• Ranged combat vs. Melee Combat vs. Spellcasting, at all character levels. As an example, not so long ago, ranged combat was largely considered inferior to melee combat. We made some conscious decisions to try to improve the viability of ranged combat. That's at least a partial success, but has brought along some issues of its own.
• Class & Race Balance: They don't all need to have identical appeal from a power perspective (as there are other reasons to play any class), but we should try to get them close enough that it doesn't feel bad to play any particular race or class, or that you feel forced to take any levels in a particular class to feel powerful.
• Epic Destinies: We know some destinies are more popular than others, and also considered more powerful. Sometimes this is a result of unintended bugs. This could include discussions of Twists of Fate, so individual abilities vs. other abilities can still matter, though we don't expect to make every ability equally viable as a Twist of Fate (for its tier). Abilities that can't be twisted (Innate abilities and tier 5 & 6) should be largely considered as a group when comparing entire Destinies.

This does mean potentially looking at things that rhyme with ten-thousand cars, many fought, caster's fritz, chirashi cambrian, the bunk crass, or american overtoad.

• Ranged Combat is fine, Monkchers and the Adrenaline + 10k/Manyshot combo is not. Monkcher ranged combat is frankly too good as it stands, no exposure to melee damage with significant burst dps and kiting abilities leads many many players down this road compared to melee. Run "Fire on Thunder Peak" a few times and you'll see a perfect picture of this issue. Take a look at the solo achievement boards and what of the three "forms" of DPS are being used. Ranged. Ranged. Ranged. We need mechanics and bosses that don't beat melees into a bloody pulp and/or knockdown + stunned and actually challenge ranged combat. On the flip side, Doubleshot and non-Monkcher ranged needs some love, Doubleshot is still far too weak, Doubleshot penalties from 10k and Manyshot are <insert banned forum words here>. Doubleshot has tremendous potential, please please please put it to use.
• Race Balance? Bladeforged. Move their racial reconstruction into the Paladin spell line at Level 4 Spells. Most racial problems solved in one fell swing. If you're feeling bold, give us reasons to run Warforged instead of Bladeforged.
• Epic Destines: Point blank, if it isn't LD, Fury, Shiradi or DI, it needs buffing at what it does or a complete rework. Give Artis an ED. Seriously, its that bad at the moment (Not considering Lamma WIPs). Nerfing Blitz, Shiradi, or Fury would be devastating considering the overblown and overinflated state of EEs at the moment.

TLDR: Nerfing is a terrible idea compared to buffing the things in DDO that don't work. Put in the proper work and execution to fix the lacking areas of DDO and we all will have a much more enjoyable game in the long run. Have a good day.

[FlaviusMaximus]

A nice capstone for a pure build ranger would be to bypass the current double shot penalty.

I'm in total agreement that the doubleshot penalty stinks, but my feeling is why make it a capstone? The 20% doubleshot bonus is already a strong enough draw for ranged characters to go deep into Ranger or be an Elf. The doubleshot penalty after Manyshot should be eliminated altogether. I'm actually surprised it isn't gone now, since doing so would encourage epic TR'ing for extra doubleshot - something that I think would be in Turbine's best interest.

Of course, doing this wouldn't help eliminate the complaints that people have against Furyshot archers at the moment, but it does allow for more build variety. My ideas for scaling back Furyshot while not completely eliminating the FOTW destiny as an end-game option are on page 5 of this thread.

* 15 pages and 300 posts in 24 hours for this thread - not a popular topic or anything :P

[TheDr0wRanger]

Moar Thoughts

1. I see alot of people want to nerf damage on the "prime" classes, not the uber builds but the classes themselves, monks, sorcs wizards etc. Please ponder that in the case of Sorcs this means taking away what we are good at, what we sacrifice versatility, durability and generality for. For Monks this means their focus needs improvement, Shintao leads to tanking, but its also the source of unarmed dps through the bypasses, what is a melee dps unarmed monk to do but end up crazy tough? For Wizards this means improving their evocation options so wizard dps is something to be sought outside of the necro-shiradi, and DCs are viable.

2. Casters need improved mitigation too, not the screwy bonuses that we have now, but ways to achieve similar results on a smaller scale to what melee wants. Right now I have a sorc that can dodge/displace/blur/incorp out of hits, but if he catches one its a huge lopping chunk out of his health. If you took the "miss or murder" chances away for some sort of mitigation, such as a stone skin that granted prr for a duration(self only) then we might be more balanced as well.

3. Self healing. I understand removing the universal ability to heal oneself, but to do that, you first need to concentrate on solving an issue that presents itself at build time. "Can I complete a quest with one bar's worth of HP?" or even " Can this party survive threats without someone replenishing our health?". This isn't PnP, people don't make their toons to balance those around them(at least not most) and the number of people willing to play a support role of any sort is really small. If we had the defense to take a 1k hp bar and make it through endgame quests, it'd be far too easy, obviously. So the question becomes, what can we do? If I can't block enough damage to care for myself in party, I can't expect to reliably find someone willing to provide healing as I take damage. I can't heal myself if I play a Pure Sorcerer(flesh), Barb, Fighter, Rogue, non-necro Wizard or any mix thereof, or at least I won't be able to if the detractors take my cocoon. I mean if you take cocoon, why leave Heal Scrolls and pots? Scrolls stopped being enough at level 20 anyway, so its moot.

Since I hate detractors that don't actually offer options: Try the math for a slow hp regen, something akin to 3-5 hp per 10seconds for everyone, modified by heal amp it would still be inadequate to turn a fighter into o a tank, but it would offset the complete lack of options for keeping some kinds of characters alive if there isn't someone offering to sit and spend points on them. Another options is to strongly consider 150-200pt heal pots(pick one value and lock it in, no dice). Don't allow heal-amp to modify these, make them work on every toon at the same exact level, ignoring race and forms. Sell them for a reasonable plat rate, min level high enough to keep them from wrecking the low-game, and give them a cooldown of a 30seconds or more. Suddenly I can quaff pots to regen between fights, I can get a boost if I'm in a fight and things get a little hairy, but I can't exceed the bounds of my class for survival. Parties with no healers can do quests, but they will still value the healer's contribution as he saves them pots and heals them better. This frees you to make divines more offensive and versatile. The divines with their big heal spells and cheap cures are still leagues ahead of the pots in terms of hp-regen per minute, but the rest of the game doesn't require another player following them around to be viable.

[Uska]

IMO, If your intentions are too stream line all classes to be the same . Then you have completely left the name DnD behind. I hate neverwinter online. because of this

fact. There is no way to build a class its already done for you yea you can take path x or y but that about it. But really why do I care I don't even log in any more this

game has gone too the doody pot. But I hold out hope and just the simple fact you (the Dungeon master) are asking us, what you should do . that says loads.. you have no idea any more. The ship is sinking . The original crew had a vision and I loved it. the vision is dead. Please start ddo 2

DDO 2 wouldn't be any better sadly it would be based on dnd next at best which is a bigger pile than 4e in my mind our best hope might be pathfinder online as I don't have much hope for this balance baloney but hopefully we will know a lot more before august when my VIP renewal is due

[Uska]

Moar Thoughts

1. I see alot of people want to nerf damage on the "prime" classes, not the uber builds but the classes themselves, monks, sorcs wizards etc. Please ponder that in the case of Sorcs this means taking away what we are good at, what we sacrifice versatility, durability and generality for. For Monks this means their focus needs improvement, Shintao leads to tanking, but its also the source of unarmed dps through the bypasses, what is a melee dps unarmed monk to do but end up crazy tough? For Wizards this means improving their evocation options so wizard dps is something to be sought outside of the necro-shiradi, and DCs are viable.

2. Casters need improved mitigation too, not the screwy bonuses that we have now, but ways to achieve similar results on a smaller scale to what melee wants. Right now I have a sorc that can dodge/displace/blur/incorp out of hits, but if he catches one its a huge lopping chunk out of his health. If you took the "miss or murder" chances away for some sort of mitigation, such as a stone skin that granted prr for a duration(self only) then we might be more balanced as well.

3. Self healing. I understand removing the universal ability to heal oneself, but to do that, you first need to concentrate on solving an issue that presents itself at build time. "Can I complete a quest with one bar's worth of HP?" or even " Can this party survive threats without someone replenishing our health?". This isn't PnP, people don't make their toons to balance those around them(at least not most) and the number of people willing to play a support role of any sort is really small. If we had the defense to take a 1k hp bar and make it through endgame quests, it'd be far too easy, obviously. So the question becomes, what can we do? If I can't block enough damage to care for myself in party, I can't expect to reliably find someone willing to provide healing as I take damage. I can't heal myself if I play a Pure Sorcerer(flesh), Barb, Fighter, Rogue, non-necro Wizard or any mix thereof, or at least I won't be able to if the detractors take my cocoon. I mean if you take cocoon, why leave Heal Scrolls and pots? Scrolls stopped being enough at level 20 anyway, so its moot.

Since I hate detractors that don't actually offer options: Try the math for a slow hp regen, something akin to 3-5 hp per 10seconds for everyone, modified by heal amp it would still be inadequate to turn a fighter into o a tank, but it would offset the complete lack of options for keeping some kinds of characters alive if there isn't someone offering to sit and spend points on them. Another options is to strongly consider 150-200pt heal pots(pick one value and lock it in, no dice). Don't allow heal-amp to modify these, make them work on every toon at the same exact level, ignoring race and forms. Sell them for a reasonable plat rate, min level high enough to keep them from wrecking the low-game, and give them a cooldown of a 30seconds or more. Suddenly I can quaff pots to regen between fights, I can get a boost if I'm in a fight and things get a little hairy, but I can't exceed the bounds of my class for survival. Parties with no healers can do quests, but they will still value the healer's contribution as he saves them pots and heals them better. This frees you to make divines more offensive and versatile. The divines with their big heal spells and cheap cures are still leagues ahead of the pots in terms of hp-regen per minute, but the rest of the game doesn't require another player following them around to be viable.

NO! To universal hp rgen this isn't wow or 4e some classes just shouldn't have good self heal and yes I think cocoon needs to go or at the very least made tier 4 or 5 self healing needs to be reduce by a huge magnitude and left to the healing classes that's part of the current problem everyone thinks they should be able to do it all!

[CaptainSpacePony]

...I would say that the crit multiplier should be split between master and grandmaster (currently, it's +1 on 19-20 at master level; I think it should be +1 on 20 at master level and +1 on 19-20 at grandmaster).

Sounds good to me.

[CaptainSpacePony]

...


2nd, you don't need to have been here very long to know that every class and every new ability and every new level cap raise has resulted in a slew of forum posts crying OP. Nothing will ever stop that. There will always be unhappy people wanting to have what others have, wanting to take away what others have, not willing to put in the effort on their own builds, gear, imagination, etc. Your original post tries very hard not name names and quote threads, but it seems obvious that you are reacting to the current complaints about "evasion required" and "nerf BF reconstruct". For the love of all that's holy, please make it SOP to ignore those types of threads. I mean, unless you intend to either a) make all classes play exactly the same, or b) play an endless game of catchup as you rotate nerfs around every class, chasing everyone who feels their neighbour has better shinies.

3rd, take your cue from Magic: The Gathering. No, seriously. Why is M:tG so successful? Why is it so strategically deep? Because there are tens of thousands (100's of 1000's?) of cards in play. Yes, they regularly obsolete some cards that are deemed to be game-breakingly OP as the environment evolves and grows. BUT it's only because they constantly are adding new spells and abilities that their players are able to come up with fantastic, strategic, winning decks. As far as DDO is concerned, sure, many players gravitate to FotM builds (just like the M:tG community tries to replicate or at least base their decks around champion players ideas), but the vanguard players, the theory-crafters, the flavour build experimenters, ... these players will be constantly finding new and interesting ways to build for power. Have faith in those people, and feed them what they need. MORE choices, in the form of more gear, more abilities, more PrEs, more EDs, and yes, MORE challenging quests. The LAST thing you need to be trying to do is remove abilities, nerf abilities, pigeon hole classes, restrict build options. Expansion, not Restriction should be your mantra.

I completely disagree with your use of MtG to support your point. MtG maintains balance by removing OP elements by rotating them out (or banning them in extreme cases). Older formats that draw upon larger card pools tend to be less balanced.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Hi,

This is an interesting post because it highlights the extent to which the focus of this discussion has turned to be about endgame EE content.

The balance between classes/races/builds is quite different at different points in the game, both level wise and difficulty wise. It's even quite different in EH upper level quests compared to EE endgame.


Thanks.

You are correct, however the discussion SHOULD be about endgame EE content. Almost all other content is more forgiving and can accommodate more/most builds.

[Seljuck]

But you should watch them cry when they die in a trap that a monk just walked through without noticing. delicious.

If u dont know... most popular shiradi wiz build now is 16wiz/2fvs/2mnk... that's mean evasion works. Add to this Epic Reflex... and You can go afk to make coffe in EE trap.

[Ivan_Milic]

I'm in total agreement that the doubleshot penalty stinks, but my feeling is why make it a capstone? The 20% doubleshot bonus is already a strong enough draw for ranged characters to go deep into Ranger or be an Elf. The doubleshot penalty after Manyshot should be eliminated altogether. I'm actually surprised it isn't gone now, since doing so would encourage epic TR'ing for extra doubleshot - something that I think would be in Turbine's best interest.

Of course, doing this wouldn't help eliminate the complaints that people have against Furyshot archers at the moment, but it does allow for more build variety. My ideas for scaling back Furyshot while not completely eliminating the FOTW destiny as an end-game option are on page 5 of this thread.

* 15 pages and 300 posts in 24 hours for this thread - not a popular topic or anything :P

Make ranger capstone: 20% doubleshot and you dont get doubleshot penalty when using manyshot.

[TheDr0wRanger]

NO! To universal hp rgen this isn't wow or 4e some classes just shouldn't have good self heal and yes I think cocoon needs to go or at the very least made tier 4 or 5 self healing needs to be reduce by a huge magnitude and left to the healing classes that's part of the current problem everyone thinks they should be able to do it all!

Lets be straight here, I've been reading your contributions. You offer opinion without logic to support it, you write every post as if you are the authority dictating how the game is to be played. You chase every person offering ways to give other classes options and try to shoot them down, while offering no advice yourself. For crying out loud the last post was a single run-on sentence in 3 different statements. You need to seriously tighten up your posting habits if you want to be taken seriously, and I mean this kindly, you are just being irritating by running around chanting at people. Contribute with a well thought post, and I'll be happy to discuss it.

Now, to your point:
This. Is. Not. Pnp. This game has diverged from that model and it is right that it should do so. DnD was designed for co-operative story telling, this game is a platform for character design and questing. In PnP healing is as satisfying as killing things, from a strictly mechanical point of view, in this game if you do blow up the room full of mobs your kill count is crazy and people applaud, healers aren't flashy outside of raids, but you want them to be strictly necessary all of the time. I thought that once too, but then I realized diverse parties are great, provided you can form one, many cannot and its past time they stopped being on the outs because the IP had this one mechanic we are supposedly holding sacred.

I hear frequently that DDO has no healer class, and I can accept that that is the case, if that is true then let everyone get more diversity.
But as long as Divines get instakills and DPS so they don't need a fighter to do their damage, I don't see why Fighters, Rogues, Sorcs(flesh) and the like have to rely on a divine to do their healing.

[Nandos]

I think most of us will agree that defensive oriented playstyles (weapon and shield fighting) and enhancement trees (Stalwart Defender/Sacred Defender) are considered weaker and inferior by most players. The increase in AC or PRR they provide does not balance with the large DPS decrease they have vs the offensive trees and playstyles. You could add a few tweaks here and there to help out with this large DPS gap like:

Anyone trained in shields using a shield gets a % chance to make a shield bash (Just like two-weapon fighters get a free base offhand swing chance and two-handed fighters get glancing blows)

In the Defender trees add an enhancement to increase shield damage by .5/1/1.5 or something


Make these trees more useful outside of rare hard boss fights.

[GMoneyMackDaddy]

Give monks back their stance.

No reason to go pure monk anymore, we are shunned by all.

But monk splashes rock!

Unbalanced period.