Update 22 - Swashbuckler Tree Preview Discussion

[Grailhawk]

Please guys, stop asking for increased crit range on SWF or anything. Increasing crit range deepens the power creep at endgame between TWF/SWF and THF. All high frequency weapons right now combined with increased crit range makes thunderforged insanely powerful. There many other things that can be done to make SWF viable but not OP.

I don't think you need to worry about the Dev's adding crit range or multipliers to the SWF feat they have already added the crit extensions for the style in the swashbuckler tree and I don't think they will imbalance things that much.

[poltt48]

First how is this in anyway change what I said? Second divide that damage by each monster hit. Third a SWF non Swashbuckler can and will do the same damage with a Khopesh. Fourth only the first monster hit on an AOE melee attack is affected by Adrenaline...or at least it was unless they broke it again. Fifth how is this different than currently on live with a good weapon...other than 2x stat damage opposed to 1.5x on a THF weapon?

Lastly How does this in anyway refute anything I said above.


Delcroix said it brilliantly in his rebuttal.
Thus I do not bring up the same points.

I feel like I am teaching my class again and tons of kids there who do not want to be or to stupid to learn. I over simplified it if I should have added all other sources of damage a swash gets over a non swash with same feats your talking a whole lot more damage. Every point damage is 120 more damage when all totaled. So Swashes add 12 damage in there tree means a extra 1400 damage plus if anyone notice in last example I did not use the greater single weapon feat witch would have added another 2500 damage almost. Plus if you double shot this witch can happen especially seeing how swashes have about 50% doubleshot with action boost your talking about doubling these numbers.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

No, nor any other weapons.

I still think that not allowing all bard weapons is a mistake. And not just because most of my bard's best weapons are longswords (with a couple of mmorningstars). I just don't like a bard melee enhancement not allowing bard melee weapons. PLEASE seriously consider making it "bard and finessable". That makes a heck of a lot more sense than the current "thrown or finessable" rules. Or since you're bound and determined to make throwing weapons relevant, how 'bout "bard, finessable, and thrown"?

This is a bard ability. Please let bards use ALL the tools of their (jack of all) trade to use it. I don't want longswords to be finessable, but I *do* want them to be Swashbucklerable.

[nibel]

If they do this, they really need to change PTHF so that its actually comparable to PTWF.

If they add GTHF as a requisite, I would love if they added glancing blows at the second attack of the chain, thus every single standing attack with a two-handed weapon will trigger glancing blows.

Might need some math to back it up, but my impression is that it will be better than 5% doublestrike if you consider how easy is to reach the second attack in the chain while mixing up with cleaves.

[B0ltdrag0n]

I feel like I am teaching my class again and tons of kids there who do not want to be or to stupid to learn. I over simplified it if I should have added all other sources of damage a swash gets over a non swash with same feats your talking a whole lot more damage. Every point damage is 120 more damage when all totaled. So Swashes add 12 damage in there tree means a extra 1400 damage plus if anyone notice in last example I did not use the greater single weapon feat witch would have added another 2500 damage almost. Plus if you double shot this witch can happen especially seeing how swashes have about 50% doubleshot with action boost your talking about doubling these numbers.

Wow. You are so incorrect that it is painful. Wrong math and assumptions on how these abilities work and stack. Every point is 120? Just wow. That is some axer-math right there

[Delacroix21]

. So we at about 44-58. Does not seem like a lot but then we do the ability witch adds that 5 more times. We end up with 264-348. Then with crit light pick profile on swash is x5. so now where sitting at 1320-1740. Then we take adrenaline witch is 400% damage or x4. We are now sitting at 5280-6960. You can see how this gets up there very fast and we are not even including half the damage you are getting from abilities in the tree or anything else that adds more damage like items. Every point of damage is adding a lot more in the end because it is multiplicative.

what swash ability is giving you 500% bonus damage? You gave yourself 500% bonus damage, then added adrenaline 400% on top of that. This math is way off, as there is NO swash ability that adds 500% damage.

[MeliCat]

Okay since see most do not read abilities. Flowers says have to meet requirements of centered says right on it don't need monk or fighter levels for it just meet requirements. But we will not even look at that right now reason you get so much damage is the abilities are all multiplicative. so your 4.5(1d4)+12 light pick looks like nothing. Well swash adds 3 more to its +value to make it a 4.5(1d4)+15. so damage looks like 19-33. Then you add your 20 damage from 50 chr and 5 from power attack plus all other bonuses from swash witch we will not even add for this example. So we at about 44-58. Does not seem like a lot but then we do the ability witch adds that 5 more times. We end up with 264-348. Then with crit light pick profile on swash is x5. so now where sitting at 1320-1740. Then we take adrenaline witch is 400% damage or x4. We are now sitting at 5280-6960. You can see how this gets up there very fast and we are not even including half the damage you are getting from abilities in the tree or anything else that adds more damage like items. Every point of damage is adding a lot more in the end because it is multiplicative.

Interesting. And you say you saw this working on Lamm? Did you get any screen shots?

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Actually, I feel the opposite, about nearly every tree on my characters--that I wish I didn't have to waste AP on pointless/crappy prerequisites just to get to the stuff I want, and that some of the higher tier abilities simply aren't worth spending AP on at all. There are few trees that I want to spend 41 AP in (capstone), and only a few more that I want to spend 31-37ish AP on (multiple tier 5 abilities).

*SNIP*

The enhancement trees could use some cleaning up, dropping the cost for some of the more lackluster items and replacing some of the truly garbage enhancements. Also, it would be a good idea to provide some more incentives to remain pure-classed, provide some competition with multi-classing. It shouldn't be simply a question of, "which class(es) to splash/mix, and how deep" but also whether one should multi-class at all. Right now, though, that's not the way the game is set-up. A decent place to start would be permitting pure classed characters at level 20 to get tier 5 abilities in more than one class tree.

I like both this idea and the "extra 10 points" idea.

I've mostly liked the enhancement pass changes, but one thing I've hated from the get-go is the hard splits in the trees. IMHO, cores should be reliant on points spent in a tree, but the tiers shouldn't. The tiers should be unlocked based on points spent in the CLASS, not the TREE. In other words, I should be able to put 20 points in Spellsinger and open up tier 4 in Warchanter without putting a single point in Warchanter (other than maybe the first core to 'open' it). I'd even be willing to increase the amount of points required (though probably not doubled). However, I couldn't get the additional cores without spending that many points - but I could skip entire tiers. There's a *lot* of stuff that I don't want but get simply because I want something in the next tier - which I could ignore if points from other racial trees fit (my ranger/rogue has to get to Venomed Blades *somehow*, even if he won't use anything from T1... I mean, Shiv is nice, but I'd rather spend those points somewhere else.)

Also IMHO, cores should be autogrants if you spend X amount of points in the tree.

And racial trees should be tier-locked based on total points spent (this could easily be doubled from current without being too onerous)

[Scrabbler]

The fictional/historical "swashbuckler" warrior is typically depicted using a one-handed sword, such as a rapier, longsword, shortsword, or scimitar. But for some reason the DDO Swashbuckler tree only supports half of those weapons.

Please fix Swashbuckler to support more one-handed sword weapon types.

The way to do that is to remove the limitation to light/finesse weapons for Swashbuckler stance, and then add Longsword to the list of items that get Shortsword/Dagger bonuses and Scimitar to the Rapier/Kukri list. Easy! Note that as non-finesse weapons, builds using those items would have to be strength based (or use some other enhancement to get dexterity hit, as seen in elf or ranger trees)

[Scrabbler]

The tiers should be unlocked based on points spent in the CLASS, not the TREE. In other words, I should be able to put 20 points in Spellsinger and open up tier 4 in Warchanter without putting a single point in Warchanter (other than maybe the first core to 'open' it).

That would defeat the point of even having separate trees at all. If the devs made that change, they'd have to follow it up by picking out the "good" enhancements from each tree and making them 3x or 4x as expensive...

Also IMHO, cores should be autogrants if you spend X amount of points in the tree.

That's how it originally worked, but it was bad so they changed it. If they were to lower cores from 1 AP to 0 AP, they'd have to make other enhancements more expensive to compensate.

[Loriac]

If they add GTHF as a requisite, I would love if they added glancing blows at the second attack of the chain, thus every single standing attack with a two-handed weapon will trigger glancing blows.

Might need some math to back it up, but my impression is that it will be better than 5% doublestrike if you consider how easy is to reach the second attack in the chain while mixing up with cleaves.

The problem with glancing blows is that they don't scale with crit profile, whereas doublestrike etc. do. With the massive levels of critical profile enhancement possible these days (e.g. most Sireth / eSoS wielders are running around at 13-20x3, those in divine crusader at 11-20x3) the glancing blows are relatively speaking anemic.

The only real way to fix this if you want THF to be the AoE style is to allow glancing blows the full weapon crit profile. That would make it worthwhile to actually dps down a crowd of trash using glancing blows, and keep top end two-handed fighting competitive with TWF (which benefits more from the overpowered procs on thunderforged weapons).

[mezzorco]

The fictional/historical "swashbuckler" warrior is typically depicted using a one-handed sword, such as a rapier, longsword, shortsword, or scimitar. But for some reason the DDO Swashbuckler tree only supports half of those weapons.

Please fix Swashbuckler to support more one-handed sword weapon types.

The way to do that is to remove the limitation to light/finesse weapons for Swashbuckler stance, and then add Longsword to the list of items that get Shortsword/Dagger bonuses and Scimitar to the Rapier/Kukri list. Easy! Note that as non-finesse weapons, builds using those items would have to be strength based (or use some other enhancement to get dexterity hit, as seen in elf or ranger trees)

It makes sense.

Thematically correct, flavourful, roleplaying-friendly. And given that you would have to use STR (or a workaround for DEX) it doesn't change game balance/mechanics.
I don't see why this hasn't been done already.


Note to devs: choices are good, more weapons supporting swashbuckling is good, more favored weapons would be good too.

[IronClan]

It makes sense.

Thematically correct, flavourful, roleplaying-friendly. And given that you would have to use STR (or a workaround for DEX) it doesn't change game balance/mechanics.
I don't see why this hasn't been done already.


Note to devs: choices are good, more weapons supporting swashbuckling is good, more favored weapons would be good too.

I would at least like to see Longswords added, this was suggested multiple times in the PC threads. I feel like they are missing due to pure oversight...

[Nayus]

Found some weird combo issue, dunno if this is wai or not. Ravager enhancements seem to prevent exploit weakness from working. Will post a spread of enhancements later.

HOLD ON O...O

Seriously?? :x
Can anyone test this? :x I'll send him a PM.

[WiseFreelancer]

The fictional/historical "swashbuckler" warrior is typically depicted using a one-handed sword, such as a rapier, longsword, shortsword, or scimitar. But for some reason the DDO Swashbuckler tree only supports half of those weapons.

Please fix Swashbuckler to support more one-handed sword weapon types.

The way to do that is to remove the limitation to light/finesse weapons for Swashbuckler stance, and then add Longsword to the list of items that get Shortsword/Dagger bonuses and Scimitar to the Rapier/Kukri list. Easy! Note that as non-finesse weapons, builds using those items would have to be strength based (or use some other enhancement to get dexterity hit, as seen in elf or ranger trees)

I've said it before, but this change would also throw some deity weapons into the Swashbuckler tree for non-drow, which can only be good. Warpriest splashes are unlikely to be popular, but I see no reason why they shouldn't at least be supported.

[N-0cturn]

Regarding the Longsword:

I agree that it should be added. However since it is a d8 Weapon and all other weapons are d6 or lower there should be a downside as well. You could for example add an enchantment to unlock LS for Swashbuckling. Maybe 2 Tiers one for the unlock and one to increase the crit profile to 18-20 x3, for a total of 4 AP.

I feel like this would be appropriate since it would give 1 - 4.5 damage depending on the weapon.

[Scrabbler]

Maybe 2 Tiers one for the unlock and one to increase the crit profile to 18-20 x3, for a total of 4 AP.

I feel like this would be appropriate since it would give 1 - 4.5 damage depending on the weapon.

4 AP is a lot too much for such a small damage bonus.

[Seikojin]

HOLD ON O...O

Seriously?? :x
Can anyone test this? :x I'll send him a PM.

Found out, wrong weapon in hand. My bad.

[Funny_looking_mole]

4 AP is a lot too much for such a small damage bonus.

Well, an upgrade of a die type normally takes a feat, exotic weapons, Whirling steel monkey grip (in P&P). So the question is how many AP is worth 1 feat?

[Scrabbler]

Well, an upgrade of a die type normally takes a feat, exotic weapons, Whirling steel monkey grip (in P&P). So the question is how many AP is worth 1 feat?

Upgrading your weapon one die size would be a pretty bad use of a feat slot, if DDO allowed that. A better thing to compare against is Empty Hand Mastery in the Shintao tree, which does upgrade from d6 to d8. That costs 2 AP, and is a lot better than the proposed 4 AP Longsword enhancement in several ways.

That version of a Longsword enhancement doesn't directly upgrade your damage; it merely allows you to use a different weapon type, with all the limitations that entails. Obtaining a good Longsword is often a lot more difficult than getting a good Rapier/Shortsword/Pick/Dagger, especially if TR is considered. And the finesse-incompatibility is another drawback.