Update 22 - Swashbuckler Tree Preview Discussion

[Mryal]

If Second Skin is being reduced to 2/4/6, it should definitely only cost 1 AP per tier.

En Pointe currently isn't triggering two attacks.

This.I honestly dont see why it isnt still at 12.To the people claiming OP (theres always some isnt it), you cant get it till 12, and you need to spend points on tier 5 for it.and if you took it , it means you didnt take 2 pal for saves.
Second skin is balanced vs. the fact that bard is a melee that cant get 2 pal.I think we all know how much not having 2 pal affects you on melees?

Bring back to 12 reflex please.

[Delacroix21]

There's a chance.



This is not an inherently bad thing, and definitely not something we try to balance.

We'd actually prefer for every tree to have a ton of options and make you feel like it's hard to spend all the points in that one tree.


Or to put it another way: Spending 60 points in Swashbuckler (for instance) should get you more return than 40 points in Rogue.

But that doesn't mean there should only be 40 points to spend on in each tree. That would just reduce the choices within the tree.


If someone wants to make a case that one tree or another has specific abilities that should be higher or lower (and some of you have), that's reasonable. But there's nothing inherently wrong with a tree where every ability costs 5 AP (for example), as long as those abilities are worth 5 AP in that tree.

I think there should be more than a chance for a perfect swf to have it equal the other combat styles.

I do like how almost everything in the tree is something you want to take (all trees should be like this), but that being said i dont see how anyone could make a swash and have even halfway decent casting ability. Its not just the tree offering no casting boosts (thats ok), its the spellsinger tree being so weak, and a major issue being bard lack of feats

[HatsuharuZ]

If someone wants to make a case that one tree or another has specific abilities that should be higher or lower (and some of you have), that's reasonable. But there's nothing inherently wrong with a tree where every ability costs 5 AP (for example), as long as those abilities are worth 5 AP in that tree.

Sacred Defender. Under the old system each tier of the defender stance was purchasable after buying lots of other paladin enhancements, most of which were the players choice with a few prerequisites. Under the new system, players have to spends lots of AP on the stance itself. Not only that, half of the benefits of the stance can only be used when using a shield, thus reducing the power/utility of the stance. I could also make the same argument for Stalwart Defender, as well.

I know this has no relation to bards, but you did ask.

[DemonStorm333]

Will you be making schimitars light weapons and finessable for the sake of swashbuckling thru the new bard tree or will I still have to take 3 lvls of ranger to get that??

[poltt48]

This is missing the point that a bard cannot multiclass with paladin, whereas rogues can (and most EE evasion builds these days do have to splash paladin because otherwise the saves are unlikely to be high enough to matter). The rogue can get a simple 2 level splash into paladin, which unlocks +12-15 across all saves with minimal investment in charisma.

A bard evasionist cannot splash paladin and cannot splash monk. Whether you like it or not, its a fact of life in DDO with the way the build mechanics are set up that the inability to splash those classes makes bard as a class much weaker than others. I've been following the changes to the swashbuckler tree over time, and I have to say that its gone from a very interesting tree that opened up a few novel builds to one that looks like its increasingly going to be restricted to bard heavy builds (due to the extremely high ap costs) suitable for EH content or lower only.

The only interesting thing about u22 from a build perspective now seems to be the SWF feats (provided they're also not nerfed into oblivion by feedback from players who are seemingly unaware what the power levels are that other builds can reach in the current game), because quite frankly the various bard restrictions make swashbuckler a no-go for optimised building.

The only way to salvage this now I suspect is to duplicate the swashbuckler tree to either the rogue or the fighter classes (where, quite frankly, it should have been in the first place) - because the bardic class restrictions, along with nerfing of this tree so that its 'balanced' without reference to the wider game's build possibilities, have put it back into the pure 'flavor' category that it started off in when the original version of the SWF feats were mooted.

I don't agree with you at all you don't need pally to get evasion build. I have a pure 28 rogue with 74 reflex save. Just need to know how to build your toon and get the gear out there for the saves. I am still working on him though he should end up with 76 reflex when get 2 items still want on him. He also has 58 fort save. His only downfall is his 37 will save.

[Vargouille]

If each tree "encouraged" you to spend 50-60+ in the one tree, the opportunity cost of not buying the other trees would very much hurt your character.

If the splashable stuff in other trees is better than the 50th AP spent in whatever tree is under discussion, that's fine. It's also fine if the reverse is true. Yes, your character may benefit from great things in multiple places, and that's fantastic.

If you are not taking "Extra Songs" (for example) in Warchanter or Spellsinger because there's something better in Swashbuckler for the same amount of APs, then you are getting something better, and obviously not hurting your character. (Extra Songs might not be the most powerful example, of course.)

To put it another way: 80 AP should never feel like "enough", and you should always want more. If you spend 80 and feel like further points spent wouldn't really help your character, that's a sign we could do better. Ideally it should be a hard and relevant decision what you decide to spend your 80th AP on.

Will you be making schimitars light weapons and finessable for the sake of swashbuckling thru the new bard tree ...??

No, nor any other weapons.

[MangLord]

We'd actually prefer for every tree to have a ton of options and make you feel like it's hard to spend all the points in that one tree.

If that's really what you think is happening with the current PrEs, I want to know how you play certain classes. Not to sidetrack the discussion, but I feel like this pertains to a potentially awesome enhancement tree that can save a class that's basically become a pariah for DDO.

As just one example of a class, not one of the Rogue trees is particularly great. It's probably better than artificer or barbarian, but still leaves a lot to be desired. I was excited about acrobat until I tried it (enemies pop right back up after a trip attack and I'm left with a looooong cooldown and a bad weapon to specialize in. I just gave up around level 10.). Mechanic traps have the worst DCs (enemies save from the CC effects in Harbor quests, for crying out loud), and Time Bomb is a cruel joke. I tend to dip into all three trees for some low lying fruit, but the higher up you go, the crummier they get. I'm left looking at a bunch of alright stuff I have to spend 20-30AP to get to, and then not being very happy with the results. Assassin tree, which is easily the best of the three, is chock full of useless stuff. The poison attacks are pretty bad even in the Harbor, and thus toxin affinity is also pretty useless. Shiv is alright. Rogues aren't a good enough DPS class to really benefit from Killer, and Crit Acc/Dam don't seem to affect my numbers very much. Sneak attack damage pays off all the way up the tree, but that's 8 AP for an additional 4-24 damage conditional on not having aggro. Like all the rogue trees, the higher up you go, the less it scales with the level of difficulty a character is facing. Execute could be very nice, but it has such severe limitations and a lengthy cooldown. Assassinate is pretty good, but maybe I'm just not a good assassin. Most DDO mob fights are a frantic affair, and getting back into sneak mode, waiting for it to cool down and hoping your DC is high enough means that it doesn't really contribute much to combat. I mostly just circle a mob and tag each enemy once or twice and move on to the next. There isn't a whole lot of time to be sneaking around and picking your shots while a sorcerer is nuking an area. Really, the best ability in the tree is Knife Specialization. It's passive, always available, and actually does something to improve DPS.

I'd sneak more while soloing, but even fully geared with the best Hide/MS I can manage (+3 tomes on each), it's incredibly hard to maneuver into position without them sensing me much of the time. The stealth improvements both helped and hindered the actual play mechanics. There's no way to actually sneak through a quest, or even bypass very many encounters. This essentially kills an entire playstyle.

Rogue looks very good on paper, but a lot of the abilities have strong conditional restrictions. Anyone who's ever played a rogue and managed to anger a few enemies knows what kind of trouble it is to lose aggro, what with the majority of your damage output coming from sneak attacks and having a smallish HP bar.

On the other hand, monk has a couple incredibly strong trees with the addition of a fighter PrE practically tailor made for them. Just to cover Shintao, you have Deft Strikes, Unbalancing Strike, Dismissing Strike, Tomb of Jade, Violence Begets Violence and Empty Hand. The DCs on all monk abilities are fantastic, have no real conditional restrictions other than monster types that are prolific in the game, and have pretty fast cooldowns. They all cost the same AP as do the much weaker, restricted Assassin abilities. I can devote the majority of my AP into shintao tree and wind up with a powerful class that just gets even better in undead and outsider quests. When compared to Rogue, as an example, I wonder how you didn't expect monk to be insanely overpowered, or realize that a rogue is grossly lagging behind.

If someone wants to make a case that one tree or another has specific abilities that should be higher or lower (and some of you have), that's reasonable. But there's nothing inherently wrong with a tree where every ability costs 5 AP (for example), as long as those abilities are worth 5 AP in that tree.

I have no problem investing heavily into the swashbuckler tree, but I want to feel excited about it and feel like my AP are well spent. Realistically, Warchanter doesn't have much to offer, and I can take a light dip into Spellsinger and get everything I really want for about 10AP. If you can make Coup De Grace less reliant on CC, I have no problem spending 4-6AP on it. Keep in mind that's a full 1.5 levels worth of AP to sink into one ability. I really haven't played with it much, but having to "prep" a mob with Fascinate or Greater Shout (and investing feats and skill points into making my CC spells work reliably on a feat starved class that's already asking for three feats to be spent on SWF, not to mention Empower Heal), and then getting one, maybe two CdG out of the encounter doesn't seem all that helpful over the course of a long quest. I'll still wind up beating down the other 5-6 mobs with basic attacks. Unless my DPS is good enough to take out the majority before my CC wears off, I'm gonna be in trouble with the slimmer HP and SP pools that bards get.

The capstone needs to be made much better, (for pretty much every PrE) because there is no reason to go pure bard when you can just take a couple rogue levels and get the best feature of the capstone with a small splash.

If you make every PrE with the assumption that people are going to splash, why bother putting capstones in there?

Ranger Enhancements are a model you guys should look to for what is a really good level of power from level 1 to end game. I love playing my pure ranger, and always felt like I had something to work with building him from level 1 back up to epics. Some abilities are a touch overpowered for low levels, like Deepwood's Sniper Shot (1ap and kicks off the fun starting on the first AP you spend) and AA paralyzing arrows, but they all even out once you reach epic levels. The AA capstone is even fairly decent. Sniper Shot is still one of my best and most reliable attacks because of the bluff effect and crit modifier at level 27, but paralyzing arrows have basically become useless once I got into epic Gianthold and beyond. Anyways, I'm super happy with my Ranger and would like to see Swashbuckler make Bard class just as fun.

So there's my argument.

[Seikojin]

If the splashable stuff in other trees is better than the 50th AP spent in whatever tree is under discussion, that's fine. It's also fine if the reverse is true. Yes, your character may benefit from great things in multiple places, and that's fantastic.

If you are not taking "Extra Songs" (for example) in Warchanter or Spellsinger because there's something better in Swashbuckler for the same amount of APs, then you are getting something better, and obviously not hurting your character. (Extra Songs might not be the most powerful example, of course.)

To put it another way: 80 AP should never feel like "enough", and you should always want more. If you spend 80 and feel like further points spent wouldn't really help your character, that's a sign we could do better. Ideally it should be a hard and relevant decision what you decide to spend your 80th AP on.



No, nor any other weapons.

I agree that the AP are 'tight' for a balance reason. And it allows tremendous build capabilities.

As for the Scimis; even if we take enhancements to make them considered light (as odd as that would be).

[MangLord]

Regarding capstones in general, perhaps when designing them it would be more logical to power them as a way to scale a character just entering into epic levels. Currently, pretty much all of them feel like appropriate core heroic level ability progression, but fall short when scaled against the jarring increase of difficulty upon reaching epic content.

Given the quick, far more potent results you can gain by splashing in synergistic classes (paladin/sorcerer, fighter/monk/ranger, etc), I don't see it as game breaking to offer a special prize for those willing to specialize in one class, or encourage people to seriously consider foregoing a couple paladin levels and a significant save boost in favor of a meaningful boost to spellpower, doublestrike or whatever serves that particular class best. I'm certain that if the Fire Savant capstone offered better than what a couple levels in FvS could give you, say, +50 combustion or +15% crit chance, you would see an awful lot more pure Sorcerers.

I feel like all discussion regarding capstones has fallen on deaf ears, but I think it's something that really needs to be rethought. Otherwise, it's usually not a good idea to build an end game character without falling back on a few monk or paladin levels and we get stuck with the current state of largely homogenized end game play.

[MangLord]

If you are not taking "Extra Songs" (for example) in Warchanter or Spellsinger because there's something better in Swashbuckler for the same amount of APs, then you are getting something better, and obviously not hurting your character. (Extra Songs might not be the most powerful example, of course.).

Honestly, I think "extra songs" is one of the only things in the other two trees worth spending AP on. I'm certainly not going to blow AP on intimidate bonuses and added threat for a lightly armored character with a thin HP bar. I actually laughed when I saw Breath of Frost. For 2 AP, that's like taking a $20 out of your wallet and burning it. Spellsinger is better than Warchanter, but neither have much to work with for a character looking to contribute to even a heroic elite PUG. Realistically, Swashbuckler is the only hope for bard ever becoming a fun, versatile class to play.

[Nascoe]

Honestly, I think "extra songs" is one of the only things in the other two trees worth spending AP on. I'm certainly not going to blow AP on intimidate bonuses and added threat for a lightly armored character with a thin HP bar. I actually laughed when I saw Breath of Frost. For 2 AP, that's like taking a $20 out of your wallet and burning it. Spellsinger is better than Warchanter, but neither have much to work with for a character looking to contribute to even a heroic elite PUG. Realistically, Swashbuckler is the only hope for bard ever becoming a fun, versatile class to play.

From what I have seen from it playtesting a bit, ti could actually make being a bard fun to play in heroic lvls at least. Stacking up on dodge, using blur, displacement etc. combined with good dex and finesse and taking the enhancements that get mobs to knock down, or even use the slap in the face can end up with you standing on a pile of mobs, having time to pull out the lute for a nice tune to boost damage of your palls (unless the mobs kill themselves before that from not hitting you and getting sonic guarded).
Its still too slow to really compete against fireballs, walls of fire and riskier (with actually having to be there) than the various DoT area spells or really big crits, but it does bring a bit of fun back into it (for me at least during testing it, I really felt like taunting the mobs a bit)

[LucasMacKinnon]

What I thought would be better is instead of just adding charisma to damage for swashbuckler. How about for the swashbuckler core allowing bards to use Charisma for attack as well, or dex which ever is higher. Or for the damage make it cost 4 ap and give us the choice for dex or charisma for both attack and damage. I know My bard personally without items has a base strength of 12 because of a +4 tome. I am a charisma based bard. Or perhaps giving bards another feat or 2 because It is difficult to take the single weapon feats as well as feats like quicken, or other feats for casting. We can't really have a balance of the 2 You basically have to pick one side or the other.

[Thar]

If the splashable stuff in other trees is better than the 50th AP spent in whatever tree is under discussion, that's fine. It's also fine if the reverse is true. Yes, your character may benefit from great things in multiple places, and that's fantastic.

If you are not taking "Extra Songs" (for example) in Warchanter or Spellsinger because there's something better in Swashbuckler for the same amount of APs, then you are getting something better, and obviously not hurting your character. (Extra Songs might not be the most powerful example, of course.)

To put it another way: 80 AP should never feel like "enough", and you should always want more. If you spend 80 and feel like further points spent wouldn't really help your character, that's a sign we could do better. Ideally it should be a hard and relevant decision what you decide to spend your 80th AP on.



No, nor any other weapons.

I could spend all 80 pts on a tanking tree and not feel like it's enough. it's because the stuff in the tree is too expensive for the limited usefulness that it gives. Really... 2 pts for 1 AC? (tanks) really? No one wants to play tanks now as you can't kill or keep agro with the non dps options available in the tree. if you branch out into another tree for dps then you lose what little benefits you had tanking.

yes you should always want more. but each tree should be equal in ability and pts. maxing out all pts in swashbuckler should be the same pts for defender for pally and give equal increases in playability/fun for each class. this gives each class the ability to branch out to other trees/race tree equally. fighter/pally's don't... and need a revamp.

[jakeelala]

There's a chance.



This is not an inherently bad thing, and definitely not something we try to balance.

We'd actually prefer for every tree to have a ton of options and make you feel like it's hard to spend all the points in that one tree.



This is not automatically true based on the argument made here.

It still might be true, but that's a different, unrelated issue from "how many abilities cost 2 points?" Spending 40 points here or there should ideally be somewhat similar (with some acknowledgement that buying up to higher tiers or cores should be more rewarding).

Or to put it another way: Spending 60 points in Swashbuckler (for instance) should get you more return than 40 points in Rogue.

But that doesn't mean there should only be 40 points to spend on in each tree. That would just reduce the choices within the tree.


If someone wants to make a case that one tree or another has specific abilities that should be higher or lower (and some of you have), that's reasonable. But there's nothing inherently wrong with a tree where every ability costs 5 AP (for example), as long as those abilities are worth 5 AP in that tree.

It makes baby Jesus cry to see a Turbine Developer write these words.

YOU guys designed enhancement trees so that even pure classes would need to spend in multiple trees to get what they wanted. You went so far as to make arbitrary decisions like only 1 tree would have Damage Boost for a class so that if you wanted to spend it all in one tree, you would no longer nesc. get some things you had before the enhancement pass.

You're basically trying to ignore your earlier design paradigm, and you're sort of trying to make Swashbuckler it's own class by forcing every AP to be spent in the tree, which is a bard only tree.

This is becoming a bit of a fail, and now we know why. It's because the above written is your position on enhancements.

Let me take a wild guess about you personally Varg: you like pure class characters?

[Lauf]

No, nor any other weapons.

However, Light weapons gain bonuses while swashbuckling
scimitars, even when considered light weapons (=ranger splash) do not gain advantages while swashbuckling.

do you have any intention of adding *light* scimitars to the list of light weapons that benefit from swashbuckling?

[mezzorco]

However, Light weapons gain bonuses while swashbuckling
scimitars, even when considered light weapons (=ranger splash) do not gain advantages while swashbuckling.

do you have any intention of adding *light* scimitars to the list of light weapons that benefit from swashbuckling?

Did someone say kukris?

[bbqzor]

Yes, your character may benefit from great things in multiple places, and that's fantastic.

Replace with "your character must benefit from things in multiple places because we intentionally designed necessary things in different trees to incite such behavior". You dont seem to acknowledge that the design decisions you made when doing the overhaul put things characters need into multiple trees, thus making such decisions mandatory, not a choice. We dont have a choice. We have to spend in multiple trees in order to remain optimized enough to undertake the harder game difficulties. Again, its not a "may" its a "must". Should I provide examples or something? Not sure how else to phrase it, to be EE or sometimes even EH playable, you cant just dump a single tree no matter how appealing the choices might be on their own merits.

If you are not taking "Extra Songs" (for example) in Warchanter or Spellsinger because there's something better in Swashbuckler for the same amount of APs, then you are getting something better, and obviously not hurting your character. (Extra Songs might not be the most powerful example, of course.)

Flawed logic, it assumes you have a fair, unbiased choice over where those AP go. Frequently when dealing with these trees, you do not. So instead of choosing between A and B, and deciding what is best for your character, you are forced to choose between A and B, where B might be appealing but A is mandatory so you have to do it. When a single tree gets too costly in total, it impacts those "required" options, and makes building a character a pain. I dont know how else to put this. You guys put required stuff in multiple places, which means we need some kind of minimal overhead of points to use to get those things. When one tree is too expensive, it eats the overhead budget up, and we get caught always lacking something. Thats not fun, thats annoying. Again, if a single tree cannot provide its signature stuff for 41-50 pts, it becomes very difficult if not impossible for it to work within the system because the other trees generally require a minimum investment as well to get basic building block type stuff you need to actually play at the upper levels.

To put it another way: 80 AP should never feel like "enough", and you should always want more. If you spend 80 and feel like further points spent wouldn't really help your character, that's a sign we could do better.

This is a correct sentiment, but the problem is how it plays out. Its more like 20ish AP go to things you essentially have no choice over in the lower tiers of all trees, 41-50 go to your main tree, and you maybe have a few left over for fun choices. Each point isnt metered out with the same measured weighing of all choices. Its not that further points wont help us, or that I (or we) want 80 to feel like enough. Its saying that if we cannot get the "required basics" on the budget we have, the cost is too expensive and thats on you guys. 6 Ref for 6 AP is one example... its just never going to be purchased. 6 for 12 was ok, it should be 3 for 6 to remain okay if you want to tone the bonus down. But keeping the costs high relative to the reward just eats points, undermines the necessity of spreading out into many trees, and generally makes it difficult to use the expensive tree in question. Thats just plain bad.

If that's really what you think is happening with the current PrEs, I want to know how you play certain classes.

Bingo. Players have seemed to forget or gloss over, Spellsinger and Warchanter were promised revisions next, so its difficult to make this case with specifics for bard right now, as any example anyone would use is effectively null and void from a design standpoint, as all the comparisons are potentially changing. But the core fact that the tree has to remain reasonably priced in total and in relation to other trees remains unchanged. And that is very easy to show using any number of other classes.

I, too, seriously question what is seen as acceptable play among some of the classes in the devs eyes now. To use monk as an example, removing force except for T5 henshin, and removing passive Ki regen from all the capstones to put it in Henshin (contemplative, not the henshin capstone), are two cases in point. If you want to use the force combos, you have to go henshin. If you want to maintain any passive ki regen, you have to go henshin. Monks dont get a choice, as they used to, that choice was a casualty of the enhancement revamp which sits uncontested. It would be an easy fix to just add 1 passive ki back to all capstones, and add a regular force strike (doing something like 1d4/4 mnk lvls or whatever) to the "elemental strikes" selector. Problem solved, monks would no longer be missing previously core abilities, and be forced to put something into henshin. But its not done, and they have to go there (or live without ki, which for some monks is manageable, but that gets into "wanting to know how (devs) play certain classes"). So yea... I dont see the point in using bard examples with revamps coming but the state of the mechanic game wide is undeniable.

Swash is getting a lot of bloat at the end, and its critical that it is adjusted before going live. Who knows how long until the next pass on what will be the newest tree... look at how long it took EK to get its scroll mastery fixed. This needs to be right, and soon. I hope we see some corrections next lama.

Edit to add, as these were posted while I was writing:

I could spend all 80 pts on a tanking tree and not feel like it's enough. it's because the stuff in the tree is too expensive for the limited usefulness that it gives. Really... 2 pts for 1 AC? (tanks) really?
...
yes you should always want more. but each tree should be equal in ability and pts. maxing out all pts in swashbuckler should be the same pts for defender for pally and give equal increases in playability/fun for each class. this gives each class the ability to branch out to other trees/race tree equally. fighter/pally's don't... and need a revamp.

Great point. Sacred Defender especially is so overpriced its literally ridiculous. While all trees cannot reasonably expected to land exactly parallel on costs per tier or costs in total or what have you, the should feel roughly proportionally equal in terms of bang for your buck. Glad its not just me seeing the bloat.

YOU guys designed enhancement trees so that even pure classes would need to spend in multiple trees to get what they wanted. You went so far as to make arbitrary decisions like only 1 tree would have Damage Boost for a class so that if you wanted to spend it all in one tree, you would no longer nesc. get some things you had before the enhancement pass.

You're basically trying to ignore your earlier design paradigm, and you're sort of trying to make Swashbuckler it's own class by forcing every AP to be spent in the tree, which is a bard only tree.

This is becoming a bit of a fail, and now we know why. It's because the above written is your position on enhancements.

Again, great point. We are seeing a change in design stance, in real time, and wondering why the disconnect. If the trees are supposed to be shifting towards more self contained, higher cost nature... well... it may be time for another enhancement pass. Otherwise, you need to pay homage to your own decisions and ensure backwards compatibility. Glad I am not the only one seeing this too.

Thanks guys.

[Seikojin]

Outside combining the coup with guardbreaking's no save, I think it is a solid tree now. I mentioned elsewhere or in here as a bug; exploit weakness+coup de grace+epic swashbuckler=easy kills. Due to the no save component of guardbreaking along with the almost always critting exploit weakness, every mob will be perma cc'd. And you just cc till they fail the save on coup.

Ask the players who were victims of it on Friday's pvp event.

[Seikojin]

However, Light weapons gain bonuses while swashbuckling
scimitars, even when considered light weapons (=ranger splash) do not gain advantages while swashbuckling.

do you have any intention of adding *light* scimitars to the list of light weapons that benefit from swashbuckling?

If Lama is up when I get home, I will try that splash and test.

[Seikojin]

Replace with "your character must benefit from things in multiple places because we intentionally designed necessary things in different trees to incite such behavior". You dont seem to acknowledge that the design decisions you made when doing the overhaul put things characters need into multiple trees, thus making such decisions mandatory, not a choice. We dont have a choice. We have to spend in multiple trees in order to remain optimized enough to undertake the harder game difficulties. Again, its not a "may" its a "must". Should I provide examples or something? Not sure how else to phrase it, to be EE or sometimes even EH playable, you cant just dump a single tree no matter how appealing the choices might be on their own merits.



Flawed logic, it assumes you have a fair, unbiased choice over where those AP go. Frequently when dealing with these trees, you do not. So instead of choosing between A and B, and deciding what is best for your character, you are forced to choose between A and B, where B might be appealing but A is mandatory so you have to do it. When a single tree gets too costly in total, it impacts those "required" options, and makes building a character a pain. I dont know how else to put this. You guys put required stuff in multiple places, which means we need some kind of minimal overhead of points to use to get those things. When one tree is too expensive, it eats the overhead budget up, and we get caught always lacking something. Thats not fun, thats annoying. Again, if a single tree cannot provide its signature stuff for 41-50 pts, it becomes very difficult if not impossible for it to work within the system because the other trees generally require a minimum investment as well to get basic building block type stuff you need to actually play at the upper levels.



This is a correct sentiment, but the problem is how it plays out. Its more like 20ish AP go to things you essentially have no choice over in the lower tiers of all trees, 41-50 go to your main tree, and you maybe have a few left over for fun choices. Each point isnt metered out with the same measured weighing of all choices. Its not that further points wont help us, or that I (or we) want 80 to feel like enough. Its saying that if we cannot get the "required basics" on the budget we have, the cost is too expensive and thats on you guys. 6 Ref for 6 AP is one example... its just never going to be purchased. 6 for 12 was ok, it should be 3 for 6 to remain okay if you want to tone the bonus down. But keeping the costs high relative to the reward just eats points, undermines the necessity of spreading out into many trees, and generally makes it difficult to use the expensive tree in question. Thats just plain bad.



Bingo. Players have seemed to forget or gloss over, Spellsinger and Warchanter were promised revisions next, so its difficult to make this case with specifics for bard right now, as any example anyone would use is effectively null and void from a design standpoint, as all the comparisons are potentially changing. But the core fact that the tree has to remain reasonably priced in total and in relation to other trees remains unchanged. And that is very easy to show using any number of other classes.

I, too, seriously question what is seen as acceptable play among some of the classes in the devs eyes now. To use monk as an example, removing force except for T5 henshin, and removing passive Ki regen from all the capstones to put it in Henshin (contemplative, not the henshin capstone), are two cases in point. If you want to use the force combos, you have to go henshin. If you want to maintain any passive ki regen, you have to go henshin. Monks dont get a choice, as they used to, that choice was a casualty of the enhancement revamp which sits uncontested. It would be an easy fix to just add 1 passive ki back to all capstones, and add a regular force strike (doing something like 1d4/4 mnk lvls or whatever) to the "elemental strikes" selector. Problem solved, monks would no longer be missing previously core abilities, and be forced to put something into henshin. But its not done, and they have to go there (or live without ki, which for some monks is manageable, but that gets into "wanting to know how (devs) play certain classes"). So yea... I dont see the point in using bard examples with revamps coming but the state of the mechanic game wide is undeniable.

Swash is getting a lot of bloat at the end, and its critical that it is adjusted before going live. Who knows how long until the next pass on what will be the newest tree... look at how long it took EK to get its scroll mastery fixed. This needs to be right, and soon. I hope we see some corrections next lama.

Edit to add, as these were posted while I was writing:



Great point. Sacred Defender especially is so overpriced its literally ridiculous. While all trees cannot reasonably expected to land exactly parallel on costs per tier or costs in total or what have you, the should feel roughly proportionally equal in terms of bang for your buck. Glad its not just me seeing the bloat.



Again, great point. We are seeing a change in design stance, in real time, and wondering why the disconnect. If the trees are supposed to be shifting towards more self contained, higher cost nature... well... it may be time for another enhancement pass. Otherwise, you need to pay homage to your own decisions and ensure backwards compatibility. Glad I am not the only one seeing this too.

Thanks guys.

I do hope warchanter and spellsigner get tuned due to the new pre. However, even Sacred defender and stalwart defender offer bonuses for their specific builds if you invest deeply into them. Same with all the other pre's. It ultimately depends on what you are building. When I make a triple class, I amd going for 1 or 2 key tier 4 and 5 abilities. The rest is flavor enhancement for the build's playstyle. Like people making warpriests. They usually are splashing 4-6 cleric to get ameliorating strike, some healing spellpower, some ac boosting, etc. Then go deep in their main class tree. When I made some tanky swashbuckler builds on lam, the same held true. I gave up a lot of abilities that the pre offers because I am not looking for those bonuses. Ultimately it is about choice and possibility. There is a ton of it as is, so I don't see cost problems along the trees and I think most things are properly balanced.