Armor Up - Developer Diary #2

[Aelonwy]

First: Stop complaining about the potential for ranged classes to lose bonuses from blitz and LD. It is SPECIFICALLY designed with melee weapon fighters in mind. Ranged has ranged specific builds as well. Don't act like the arguement of "don't nerf X thing that makes the game easy mode for my broken exploiting character because I might have to change to something that actually makes sense" is something for you to hide behind. Ranged characters don't have ED's because the selection is low? What about the selection for melee? Fatesinger is subpar unless you're a bard and then it's still subpar because you're a bard. LD is the go to destiny for EVERYONE. Shiradi offers no real benefit for melee. FOTW causes major animation interruptions and other issues, the divine sphere is filled with defensive and hybrid caster builds in mind, not melee. People arguing that Blitz not affecting ranged ruins ranged builds are wrong, all it does it bring you in line with melee. Guess what you shouldn't be better than melee builds, get over that.

First: My ranged build is a pure ranger AA, no monkey business. People need to remember that OP monkchers are not the only ranged builds, there are also pure rangers, rogue mechanics, and artificiers. You want a nerf for ranged, scream as loud as you can for multishot and 10k stars to share a cooldown. I have never used blitz with her, and from my experience a pure ranger AA in Shiradi does not compare to a melee blitzer in terms of damage at all, all though the ranger can add some decent CC.

Second: Melee have choice, yes most choices are subpar but they HAVE choice. LD, FOTW, US, GMOF, DC, SD, and to a lesser extent FS.
You could argue that FOTW can be used with ranged but many are arguing that also needs to be nerfed, and you could argue that FS and SD offer an enhancement or two that work for ranged but it sure isn't much to work with for an entire destiny. And I can most certainly argue that the only ranged combat centric destiny was made better for casters than ranged.

Third: I personally don't believe ranged should have equal damage to melee, I would prefer 70% of max melee damage myself. BUT I do feel we deserve as many options. You want ranged to GTHO of your melee LD destiny? Than we need a ranged only martial destiny. A destiny for pure rangers, crossbow artificiers, mechanic rogues, and yes even monkchers *grumble grumble*.

(*Changed some words but tried to keep sentence structure*)
Third: This is kind of a request more than anything, as it's an issue that deserves some conversation. The removal of blitz benefits for ranged combat using rangers, rogues and artificiers. PLEASE DO NOT SIMPLY REMOVE THIS FEATURE. This is my current build after having my last three butchered by knee-jerk reaction "fixes" and if it goes through I would seriously consider cancelling my sub and looking for another game. Yes it's a lot of bonuses stacked onto a single ranged, perhaps too much that on a monkcher overshadows melee. BUT, and this is a big BUT, removing this benefit from ranged completely undermines the ability to use almost any destiny but Shiradi and makes it a much weaker choice. Pure rangers, rogue mechanics and artificiers are already the weakest (non-OP) ranged in the game and offer very very few options for endgame destinies outside Shiradi. Using LD (or some NEW ranged only destiny) should be relegated for offensive builds that want to benefit from pure offense. Instead of completely removing the benefit from LD for ranged combat, make them offer less advantage to ranged users, as most effects that specify ranged benefits usually do. I wouldn't be opposed to ranged blitz only gaining half the ranged power from using a blitz. I can see the concerns for double-dipping but it's counter intuitive to remove a benefit of a combination of multiple abilities that SHOULD work together within the confines of the games logic. I'm choosing to forgo more CC oriented benefits to use a purely offensive destiny and gain a significant damage benefit. Lot's of things combo with ranged feats, so simply tone down the higher level benefit instead of locking out builds. It would be yet another unarmed treatment where you look at a combat style, say hey why does everything melee oriented here say "doesn't work specifically with your style" and you get left behind because all the other combat styles do it better because nothing restricts them.

Oh wait there's lots and lots of things that say melee only and don't work with ranged combat (also a combat style). You see what I did there? And yes I happen to agree with you about shield mastery and skirmishers, but how you feel about that... lots of ranged builds feel about their build too. FYI I personally don't make sub-canceling threats, if ranged gets nerfed (more) I'll still play it, I will never play a monkcher... Its just silly that monk levels make every build better either better defense, better offense, or both.

[Amideus]

First: My ranged build is a pure ranger AA, no monkey business. People need to remember that OP monkchers are not the only ranged builds, there are also pure rangers, rogue mechanics, and artificiers. You want a nerf for ranged, scream as loud as you can for multishot and 10k stars to share a cooldown. I have never used blitz with her, and from my experience a pure ranger AA in Shiradi does not compare to a melee blitzer in terms of damage at all, all though the ranger can add some decent CC.

Second: Melee have choice, yes most choices are subpar but they HAVE choice. LD, FOTW, US, GMOF, DC, SD, and to a lesser extent FS.
You could argue that FOTW can be used with ranged but many are arguing that also needs to be nerfed, and you could argue that FS and SD offer an enhancement or two that work for ranged but it sure isn't much to work with for an entire destiny. And I can most certainly argue that the only ranged combat centric destiny was made better for casters than ranged.

Third: I personally don't believe ranged should have equal damage to melee, I would prefer 70% of max melee damage myself. BUT I do feel we deserve as many options. You want ranged to GTHO of your melee LD destiny? Than we need a ranged only martial destiny. A destiny for pure rangers, crossbow artificiers, mechanic rogues, and yes even monkchers *grumble grumble*.



Oh wait there's lots and lots of things that say melee only and don't work with ranged combat (also a combat style). You see what I did there? And yes I happen to agree with you about shield mastery and skirmishers, but how you feel about that... lots of ranged builds feel about their build too. FYI I personally don't make sub-canceling threats, if ranged gets nerfed (more) I'll still play it, I will never play a monkcher... Its just silly that monk levels make every build better either better defense, better offense, or both.

Ranged does do more than melee, and most of the destinies you listed off are restricted destinies. GMOF has almost NO benefit to a non-monk melee that doesn't have stances, centered, and stun/QP for the epic moment. Sure there are builds that use this but it's a selective destiny. LD mainly benefits weapon based builds NOT unarmed, since in their infinite wisdom making 90% of the melee destiny abilities not work with handwraps was a good idea. US is a tank destiny, pure and simple. The only real thing that destiny offers is health and defense, which shouldn't matter here since this is about dps builds. You don't take US to dps period. FOTW benefits ranged just as much as melee, that's why ranged builds use it. In fact it might benefit them more since Adrenaline is clunky for melee and interrupts their attack chain with a stupid cast time. Hate to burst yours and everyone else's bubble, but SD is a melee AND ranged martial destiny. Boom end of thread and discussion on LD being the only ranged martial thread. Every attack that you can take has a ranged option, every bonus to damage affects both melee and ranged. It's not anywhere near as good as the other destinies so everyone ignores it but it's there so don't even act like you have no options. DC is a relatively new destiny meant for a hybrid melee/caster style of play offering bonuses to spellpower and being in melee. It is not specifically melee and has options for both.

Guess what manyshot can be taken on anyone, just because not everyone plays something that is broken doesn't make that thing any less broken. The current destinies are what makes the powerful builds out of control, so that is what this thread is about: whether the destiny needs to retain the power (and bug because that's what it is) that allows blitz to work for ranged.

The problem with monks and this stupid stigma that it's the monks that have caused the issue is bogus. The issue isn't monks, it's the way the game treats effects and a class meant to be weaker. Zen Archery, the new Kensai enhancements, the Stance feats, it's all stupid and not necessary. You took a class that gets bonuses for gimping themselves and took away the gimp. Now you don't need full monk levels to get GMOF. You get all your bonus feats at 1,2,6. You get 10k stars as a bonus feat, zen archery, you completely remove the limitations of weapons and damage and defense for splash classes, and cripple the pure class builds to compensate. 2/6 splash builds running wild, let's nerf quivering palm for the 5% of monks that actually used it. Not the other death effects that are far more useful and effective since they are RANGED and can hit MULTIPLE enemies. But I agree that monk splash has become massive, it's because they made it so **** easy to get those class specific investments without any effort or sacrifice. That's what we call power creep.

[Monkey_Archer]

The problem with monks and this stupid stigma that it's the monks that have caused the issue is bogus. The issue isn't monks, it's the way the game treats effects and a class meant to be weaker. Zen Archery, the new Kensai enhancements, the Stance feats, it's all stupid and not necessary. You took a class that gets bonuses for gimping themselves and took away the gimp. Now you don't need full monk levels to get GMOF. You get all your bonus feats at 1,2,6. You get 10k stars as a bonus feat, zen archery, you completely remove the limitations of weapons and damage and defense for splash classes, and cripple the pure class builds to compensate. 2/6 splash builds running wild, let's nerf quivering palm for the 5% of monks that actually used it. Not the other death effects that are far more useful and effective since they are RANGED and can hit MULTIPLE enemies. But I agree that monk splash has become massive, it's because they made it so **** easy to get those class specific investments without any effort or sacrifice. That's what we call power creep.

I'm not going to say actual unarmed monks are weak (because they definitely are not), but the old unarmed style of play is not in a good spot. QP is only borderline effective atm. You can make it work if you build for it, but one more update of mobs with insane saves will likely kill it off completely. Dark finishing moves are in an even worse situation since they don't benefit from tactics bonuses. Elemental strikes are barely worth putting on a hotbar and have almost no impact on dps (but if you want carpal tunnel, they are great ). GMOF abilities have also been outscaled for the most part.

I'd really like to see a bit of a rework of monk mechanics. A few ideas:

• Finishing moves require 2 strikes instead of 3
• Finishing moves now benefit from tactics bonuses
• Elemental strikes cost 20 ki and have 10 second cooldown, but apply damage on hit for 6 seconds instead of only one attack. (non-stacking with other elements of course)
• Elemental strike damage now scales with melee power
• Lily petal, Orchid Blossom and Drifting lotus now scale with melee power and benefit from tactics bonuses

[Aelonwy]

Ranged does do more than melee, and most of the destinies you listed off are restricted destinies. GMOF has almost NO benefit to a non-monk melee that doesn't have stances, centered, and stun/QP for the epic moment. Sure there are builds that use this but it's a selective destiny. LD mainly benefits weapon based builds NOT unarmed, since in their infinite wisdom making 90% of the melee destiny abilities not work with handwraps was a good idea. US is a tank destiny, pure and simple. The only real thing that destiny offers is health and defense, which shouldn't matter here since this is about dps builds. You don't take US to dps period. FOTW benefits ranged just as much as melee, that's why ranged builds use it. In fact it might benefit them more since Adrenaline is clunky for melee and interrupts their attack chain with a stupid cast time. Hate to burst yours and everyone else's bubble, but SD is a melee AND ranged martial destiny. Boom end of thread and discussion on LD being the only ranged martial thread. Every attack that you can take has a ranged option, every bonus to damage affects both melee and ranged. It's not anywhere near as good as the other destinies so everyone ignores it but it's there so don't even act like you have no options. DC is a relatively new destiny meant for a hybrid melee/caster style of play offering bonuses to spellpower and being in melee. It is not specifically melee and has options for both.

GMOF, US, DC, LD, FOTW are still melee choices.... so what if they aren't the best DPS option, they are still an option, oh and how could i forget primal avatar is a melee/casting option. My AA is still filling out the Primal sphere so I haven't made it over to SD but I had previously said it had an enhancement that said it was for ranged too, so does FS but if you can complain that LD is the only worthwhile melee destiny and therefor your only option when there are actually several destinies that cover a multitude of melee styles than I can complain about the lack of ED enhancements that cover the ranged combat style. There are complaints about ED enhancements working with ranged in FOTW similar to those complaints in LD. Some melee players would have ranged options taken from both trees. What then? Personally, I would choose to either separate blitz into one ability that only works with melee but is more powerful and a blitz that works with ranged but does somewhat less damage or create a solely ranged combat ED for all the various builds that focus on ranged combat.

Guess what manyshot can be taken on anyone, just because not everyone plays something that is broken doesn't make that thing any less broken. The current destinies are what makes the powerful builds out of control, so that is what this thread is about: whether the destiny needs to retain the power (and bug because that's what it is) that allows blitz to work for ranged.

I have no problem with blitz being disallowed for range if, and only if some other similar option opens up for ranged elsewhere. For some it is about having the highest DPS or just plain being better than someone or something, for me it is about options. That is why I am here playing this game versus any other.

The problem with monks and this stupid stigma that it's the monks that have caused the issue is bogus. The issue isn't monks, it's the way the game treats effects and a class meant to be weaker. Zen Archery, the new Kensai enhancements, the Stance feats, it's all stupid and not necessary. You took a class that gets bonuses for gimping themselves and took away the gimp. Now you don't need full monk levels to get GMOF. You get all your bonus feats at 1,2,6. You get 10k stars as a bonus feat, zen archery, you completely remove the limitations of weapons and damage and defense for splash classes, and cripple the pure class builds to compensate. 2/6 splash builds running wild, let's nerf quivering palm for the 5% of monks that actually used it. Not the other death effects that are far more useful and effective since they are RANGED and can hit MULTIPLE enemies. But I agree that monk splash has become massive, it's because they made it so **** easy to get those class specific investments without any effort or sacrifice. That's what we call power creep.

I'm going to assume you meant the plural you, because my ranged character has no monk levels. Of course its not the monks that have caused the issue its the way the devs have written monks into the game, its the massive benefits of monks rather frontloaded, with very little downside. But monks didn't write the code themselves.

[Amideus]

GMOF, US, DC, LD, FOTW are still melee choices.... so what if they aren't the best DPS option, they are still an option, oh and how could i forget primal avatar is a melee/casting option. My AA is still filling out the Primal sphere so I haven't made it over to SD but I had previously said it had an enhancement that said it was for ranged too, so does FS but if you can complain that LD is the only worthwhile melee destiny and therefor your only option when there are actually several destinies that cover a multitude of melee styles than I can complain about the lack of ED enhancements that cover the ranged combat style. There are complaints about ED enhancements working with ranged in FOTW similar to those complaints in LD. Some melee players would have ranged options taken from both trees. What then? Personally, I would choose to either separate blitz into one ability that only works with melee but is more powerful and a blitz that works with ranged but does somewhat less damage or create a solely ranged combat ED for all the various builds that focus on ranged combat.

Here is where you are wrong, misinformed, or missing my point. Firstly you said there was no other option for ranged in the martial tree. That is a lie. Shadowdancer offers THE SAME benefits to ranged classes that it gives to melee. There is nothing about that ED that gives an advantage to melee outside of an arguement that defenses are less useful for ranged, but that's just nitpicking. Second US is A TANK DESTINY. It would be like me saying that ranged have options because Draconic Incarnation exists. It is an entirely different build and style of play with it's own unique combat feats. Is it a "melee" attacker, sure. Is it remotely relevant to this discussion? absolutely not. FOTW once again is another ED that gives ZERO benefit to melee over ranged in this scenario. All the abilities in that destiny specify melee OR ranged for all their attack effects. Don't believe me go look. The people complaining about ranged using it with multishot have a problem with a single adrenaline charge that should affect the "next attack" is actually affecting the next X attacks for multishot. That destiny is still an option.

I never said LD was the only worthwhile melee destiny, what I and the rest of this thread are talking about is the huge disparity between Master's Blitz and the other epic destinies. The destiny itself is fine and so are many of the others, including GMOF although it is almost exclusively centered monks so that's kind of splitting hairs calling it a melee destiny. Blitz is clunky, far more powerful than any other destiny ability, and currently IS BUGGED AND AFFECTING RANGED DAMAGE. That's right it's a BUG, and clearly was never intended to function with ranged attacks as evidenced by the rest of that ED and their countless posts in response to monks asking about handwraps not working with most of the ED.

So let's do a little comparison with what I have already said.
Melee ED's: LD, DC, SD, FOTW, GMOF(not really)
Ranged ED's: Shiradi, FOTW, SD

So melee had TWO more ED's for themselves, one of which is almost exclusively for monks, and the other functions almost exclusively for melee casters. So let's not just blanket all these destinies as "melee" destinies. There are only three true "melee" destinies. LD, FOTW, and SD are the only destinies that specifically enhance melee dps builds without any added fluff that has zero benefit to a melee build. Likewise ranged has Shiradi, FOTW, and SD. Again all three of those destinies have no added fluff that they cannot gain benefit from as a ranged damage class. Maybe not all ideal, but all give benefit clearly for ranged or melee builds.

People focus far too much on the destiny they use to break the game or play their specific character, not what other options are there that can be used. There are 12 epic destinies for Christ's sake, and guess what I know ranged builds that use three of them. Guess how many melee builds use more than 2?

And yes this is MELEE DPS BUILDS, melee tank builds that only focus on augmenting defensive stats and threat generation do no count.

[Franinho]

I don't usually post on the forums, esp regarding gameplay changes. Throughout the 5 years I've been playing I've always welcomed changes, but only because they were for the better (for the most part). Seeing some of the talk regarding the ability of shield mastery feats working with SWF has made me pretty sad, seeing that, to be honest, it's a marginal increase in DPS, as well as the synergy with stawlart stance. Devs, i URGE you to reconsider this decision. DDO has always been most appealing to me (and most players i think) because of character customisation. Please leave unnecesary changes limited, and this is one of them. The swash ive been playing for some time now has been lots of fun, please leave it that way. Tnx

[Dreppo]

Swashbuckling with a buckler and using shield-related feats at the same time is NOT overpowered. Remember you are spending feats to get those additional shield benefits. Like any other feat, the benefits should be balanced against the cost of spending a feat, and I think they are fairly well balanced in the case of the shield feats. Not only that but most of the shield feats (Shield Mastery, Improved Shield Mastery, Shield Deflection) scale based on shield size -- they give much more benefit for large and tower shields than they do for bucklers and small shields.

What IS overpowered (IMO) is being able to be in Stalwart Stance at the same time as Swashbuckling stance, thereby getting all the associated defensive benefits (HP, PRR, etc.) of Stalwart at the same time as all the associated offensive benefits of Swashbuckler. The shield feats are irrelevant because they pale in comparison to either Stalwart or Swashbuckler. You can disallow the shield feats but that would do nothing to address the OPness of this combo. One fix is to make Stalwart stance and Swashbuckling stance mutually exclusive. A more moderate approach, would be to make the Greater Stalwart enhancements not work with bucklers. Right now they work with any shield, so instead make them work with any small/large/tower shield. That way a swashbuckler/fighter could still get some benefit out of Stalwart stance the same way a THF or TWF character could, just not the extreme benefits which come with the Greater Stalwart enhancements.

[Scrabbler]

Swashbuckling with a buckler and using shield-related feats at the same time is NOT overpowered.

That's a tricky conclusion to make, since you don't even know exactly what the new version shield feats do yet. Remember that the shield feats will need to be buffed enough to make S&B style acceptable for general kinds of characters.

Like any other feat, the benefits should be balanced against the cost of spending a feat

Combat Style feats such as TWF or Shield Mastery should not be balanced against the cost of a feat slot. They need to be more powerful than something you can get just for spending a slot. There are multiple reasons for that:

• Compensate for limitations of gear. (Often times taking a style from totally foolish into fairly attractive)
• Compensate for not being able to use two kinds of Combat Style feats at once.
• Not be excessively biased in favor of classes with bonus feat slots.

What IS overpowered (IMO) is being able to be in Stalwart Stance at the same time as Swashbuckling stance, thereby getting all the associated defensive benefits (HP, PRR, etc.) of Stalwart

That might be the case, but it shouldn't be. The devs shouldn't design Stalwart stance to be so powerful that that's a concern. (They shouldn't have done that for Swashbuckling either).

The reasons for that:

• S&B usage should be strong enough on its own so that it makes sense for several classes, even ones like Cleric that don't have a Defender tree in the style of Fighter or Paladin. But if S&B is fairly strong anyhow, Defender doesn't need to be super-strong on top of it.
• Even if something is done so that Stalwart stance can't work at the same time as Swashbuckler stance, it's not as if the devs can go around to every other tree containing melee bonuses and make it incompatible with Swash. Most KOTC and Kensei effects, for example, will certainly be usable in Stalwart stance. And enhancements from many other classes will work too. If Stalwart is too strong for Swash, it'll probably be too strong in those combos too.

[Amideus]

Swashbuckling with a buckler and using shield-related feats at the same time is NOT overpowered. Remember you are spending feats to get those additional shield benefits. Like any other feat, the benefits should be balanced against the cost of spending a feat, and I think they are fairly well balanced in the case of the shield feats. Not only that but most of the shield feats (Shield Mastery, Improved Shield Mastery, Shield Deflection) scale based on shield size -- they give much more benefit for large and tower shields than they do for bucklers and small shields.

What IS overpowered (IMO) is being able to be in Stalwart Stance at the same time as Swashbuckling stance, thereby getting all the associated defensive benefits (HP, PRR, etc.) of Stalwart at the same time as all the associated offensive benefits of Swashbuckler. The shield feats are irrelevant because they pale in comparison to either Stalwart or Swashbuckler. You can disallow the shield feats but that would do nothing to address the OPness of this combo. One fix is to make Stalwart stance and Swashbuckling stance mutually exclusive. A more moderate approach, would be to make the Greater Stalwart enhancements not work with bucklers. Right now they work with any shield, so instead make them work with any small/large/tower shield. That way a swashbuckler/fighter could still get some benefit out of Stalwart stance the same way a THF or TWF character could, just not the extreme benefits which come with the Greater Stalwart enhancements.

The problem with removing the functionality for swashbuckling with a buckler and gaining shield bonuses is that it completely undermines the entire point of choosing skirmisher in the first place. You give up the extras from other enhancement lines or options to gain more defenses and some extra strength. Currently there is little reason outside of dwarf builds to even bother using anything other than the +6 strength from the greater stance on swash, it just doesn't benefit you unless you're trying to play a pure tank, which is the problem we're having now. Pure tanks just don't get played because they aren't relevant, but then people scream OP the moment a viable tank style build comes along. Swash with fighter splash for defenses is sadly 100% required for most melee builds because you need those tank stats not to tank but to just survive being in melee in a lot of EE. It's really dumb how much you have to jury rig a build to have high PRR, decent dodge, and fair AC to be a melee or die. You take away stalwart from skirmisher builds and you completely cripple the enhancement line.

And losing shield mastery wouldn't be so bad if there was some way to compensate losing the benefits from US destiny and the doublestrike/PRR from that combination. If they buff the shield masteries by adding melee power, simply make that exclusive to all shields that aren't bucklers, and start treating bucklers as small shields that help to bridge the gap between melee and tank hybrid builds. This would keep the power of pure tank builds, would not affect the more damage oriented builds and allows people to play the in-between game and be able to swap between roles as necessary with enhancement or destiny changes. It fits the bard theme of jack of trades well, and with buffs to both sides the swash/shield builds will no lose power, but they will be behind because pure tanks will gain power. This to me feels like a good balance that doesn't cripple playstyle or current builds while achieving the goal they want.

[Nascoe]

Swashbuckling with a buckler and using shield-related feats at the same time is NOT overpowered. Remember you are spending feats to get those additional shield benefits. Like any other feat, the benefits should be balanced against the cost of spending a feat, and I think they are fairly well balanced in the case of the shield feats. Not only that but most of the shield feats (Shield Mastery, Improved Shield Mastery, Shield Deflection) scale based on shield size -- they give much more benefit for large and tower shields than they do for bucklers and small shields.

What IS overpowered (IMO) is being able to be in Stalwart Stance at the same time as Swashbuckling stance, thereby getting all the associated defensive benefits (HP, PRR, etc.) of Stalwart at the same time as all the associated offensive benefits of Swashbuckler. The shield feats are irrelevant because they pale in comparison to either Stalwart or Swashbuckler. You can disallow the shield feats but that would do nothing to address the OPness of this combo. One fix is to make Stalwart stance and Swashbuckling stance mutually exclusive. A more moderate approach, would be to make the Greater Stalwart enhancements not work with bucklers. Right now they work with any shield, so instead make them work with any small/large/tower shield. That way a swashbuckler/fighter could still get some benefit out of Stalwart stance the same way a THF or TWF character could, just not the extreme benefits which come with the Greater Stalwart enhancements.

I fully agree with the part about swashbuckling with a buckler (skirmisher) and benefitting from any shield feats is perfectly fine, and it was exactly what the enhancements were developed for to allow a month or 2 ago.

As for Stalwart and swashbuckling, If I remember right, the idea the devs presented was to untie stalwart (and the paladin equivalent) stance from using a shield. Making it work with either heavy armor or heavy shields. I think in that case it would be fine if it just did not work together with a buckler, although I don't see a problem if it did work even in the future (although getting even more melee power in that case would probably be too much good if combined with swash)

[Nightmanis]

I fully agree with the part about swashbuckling with a buckler (skirmisher) and benefitting from any shield feats is perfectly fine, and it was exactly what the enhancements were developed for to allow a month or 2 ago.

As for Stalwart and swashbuckling, If I remember right, the idea the devs presented was to untie stalwart (and the paladin equivalent) stance from using a shield. Making it work with either heavy armor or heavy shields. I think in that case it would be fine if it just did not work together with a buckler, although I don't see a problem if it did work even in the future (although getting even more melee power in that case would probably be too much good if combined with swash)

The main thing that caused the whole idea of the SWF being divorced from the shield feats is because right now the shield feats are granting doublestrike while holding an orb.

Fix that, and you don't have to do anything different than we have now.

[GeoffWatson]

FOTW once again is another ED that gives ZERO benefit to melee over ranged in this scenario. All the abilities in that destiny specify melee OR ranged for all their attack effects. Don't believe me go look.

OK, I looked.
There's plenty of melee only stuff in FOTW.
Tunnel Vision, Injury, Unstoppable Fury, Malicious Weapons, Wild Weapons, Sense Weakness, Overwhelming Force, and Fury Eternal (at least as written).

Geoff.

[Amideus]

OK, I looked.
There's plenty of melee only stuff in FOTW.
Tunnel Vision, Injury, Unstoppable Fury, Malicious Weapons, Wild Weapons, Sense Weakness, Overwhelming Force, and Fury Eternal (at least as written).

Geoff.

Pretty sure Fury Eternal is most likely a mislabeled tooltip, as every other adrenaline ability on there gives its bonus to ranged attacks. Glancing blow bonuses are a really low blow and I will ignore them as arguments since there is little glancing blows really accomplishes anyway. Sense weakness gives partial benefit to ranged by still increasing your damage against helpless targets, not every destiny needs to give full benefit for everything to ranged class to be considered a ranged destiny. Injury gives the shaken affect only to melee, however I have yet to confirm if the bonus damage and paralyzing is offered to ranged. Either way this is highly weak overall for both melee and ranged outside of some questing where healers would not be handy, since most people would be kept topped off in a normal instance. The other two are meant to tie the destiny in with barbarians as that was the basis for the destiny.

Overall half of what you said in incorrect as they are not melee only, just grant more benefit to a melee than a ranged. The destiny is still one of the strongest for ranged and provides them with incredible power. If your point is that I was being overly general in my statements, point taken. It still does nothing to change my stance or counter my argument that ranged have just as many options as melee, should lose their blitz bonus because they shouldn't have ever gotten it to begin with, and overhauling the martial or primal destinies simply because most ranged don't like the destinies that they have currently offered is not enough of a reason to let them keep abusing a bug.

[harry-pancreas]

This is my problem. They don't want to change or nerf ranged classes right now like this, but they are fine to constantly screw over any melee build. Look at how they have handled all the changes so far.

Instant death effects too powerful in EE? Nerf Quivering Palm instead of the DOZENS of ranged kill options that are arguably more effective.
Trying to add melee power to buff melees? Let's remove shield mastery bonuses from swashbucklers completely for relatively little reason.
Want to bring melee ED potential up closer to ranged by reallocating Blitz power? Decides an obvious bug that benefits ranged should be made WAI.

They seem to only care about stepping on toes when it is directed at all the ranged builds that are ruining the dynamic of EE content. Why bother grouping for anything anymore, just load up a ranged blitz build and go to town. Kiting and exploiting are the number one players in endgame content, healers tanks and melee be damned.

yep, and they take an eternity to realize logical things like 10k stars and manyshot really should share a cooldown. I do not care what people do, i'm fine with everyone rolling a monkcher if they want, but it's just silly.

[Zerkul]

It has been probably already answered somewhere in this long topic but I haven't found it sorry. Could someone PM me what exactely it influences? I mean does it amplify raw damage only or weapon properties as well? Class Features?

Thanks.
z.

[Therigar]

We will look into the specific case of Swashbucklers with bucklers to make sure they don't get the shield feats as well as SWF.

I do not believe I have ever participated in a developer discussion. In general I am happy to play the game and to let others debate the validity of game changes. However, I do believe that this might be a mistake.

The whole concept in single weapon fighting is to build a character that is reasonably capable without pursuing THF or TWF. SWF with a shield equates to sword and board which, until now, has been the least effective combat choice in the game. Yet, it should offer a reasonable and close alternative so that, depending on character build and gear, it rivals the other combat styles.

Adding combat power to characters using shields should be examined closely with respect to the type of shield being used with some understanding of how shields actually work in the real world. Larger shields are primarily defensive and should have little effect on combat power but rather should impact defensive power. Smaller shields are primarily offensive and should have little effect on defensive power but should impact combat power.

The Swashbuckler effect of combining bucklers with shield feats along with SWF ought not be neutered -- rather the same ability should be extended to both fighter and paladin classes to replicate real-world sword and buckler techniques. The goal ought to be to encourage sword and board builds giving players the build options that cover the range of fighting styles from the almost exclusively defensive tower shield, to the mostly defensive but minimally offensive large shield, to the balanced defensive/offensive small shield and ending with the mostly offensive but minimally defensive buckler.

I very much appreciate the Swashbuckler tree for bards. To be honest, until now I had little motive to play a bard because they add very little to a party and they become problematic as a solo character at higher levels -- at least they did for me. Now, they do too much damage and without the benefits of the shield feats they have too little protections from the aggro they pull.

That might not be true for elite players in elite groups. But it has been true for me, an ordinary player running in ordinary groups. I was forced to change epic destinies and run in Unyielding Sentinel in order to escape the damage I would get by pulling the aggro from the rest of the group (so you know, at L25 in US I'm running 28% dodge with AC 104 (65% at level) and PRR 61 (29.79% reduction) with 50% obscure due to displacement -- I'm only missing a form of ghostly).

What the game does not need is for characters like mine to become even more vulnerable due to a drop in defenses. The idea of sword and buckler is to take the relatively low defenses -- primarily represented here by PRR -- and compensate through faster, more effective killing. That is Swashbuckler as it is right now but at the forced cost of choosing an epic destiny not designed for bards.

Allowing the shield feats to stack with Swashbuckler in this way should carry over to the revised system by allowing the increase in combat power. And, it should also become the third tree in both the fighter and paladin classes with class specific modifications. For example, in fighter and paladin there should be options to enable Swashbuckling to work in medium and heavy armor and with light and heavy shields (but not tower shields).

Swashbuckling with light or heavy shields should reduce the defensive power of the shield in order to increase the offensive power of the Swashbuckling (with light shields permitting more offensive power at greater defensive cost and large shields giving less offensive power but at a lower defensive cost).

Now, I understand that the boards are dominated by players whose greatest focus is to preserve their favorite build and to ensure that it remains at the top of the power curve. And, I understand that Swashbuckling has introduced a hiccup in the otherwise well ordered universe.

But, I would argue that the hiccup is good. The greater the number of options for building EE competitive characters the greater the game variety and the greater the likelihood of keeping the most number of players at least optimistic about their ability to have a top flight character.

The solution is not to reduce bards by removing offensive power from Swashbucklers. It is to spread that wealth to the fighter and paladin classes by making their third enhancement tree look very Swashbuckler like.

The game balance becomes the trade-off of defense v offense, which is where it should be.

Do not remove this offensive power from bards. Retain it and extend it by giving a Swashbuckler like, viable, sword and board enhancement option to fighters and paladins.

[Zerkul]

[...]
Do not remove this offensive power from bards. Retain it and extend it by giving a Swashbuckler like, viable, sword and board enhancement option to fighters and paladins.

I play DDO since it's very first day of release and for what my opinion matters I disagree strongly with you. Swashbucklers are right now extremely far from being fragile and far from being weak in offense. The class itself already offers the trade off between offense and defence in form of with/without shield (see enhancements: without shield buffs your damage and double strike). The only flaw right now is that if you take as well S&B feats suddenly with a twist of fate the damage output of using a shield raises above this very enhancement line i'm talking about created with the finality of being the offensive one and this should not happen. Shield becomes 15% dB vs 10% dB + few points of fixed damage: mathematically with good weapons shield option becomes superior both in offense and defence.

[Therigar]

I am not seeing this. Maybe I'm just stupid. That is often the case. However, I have yet to see a way to build a bard using Swashbuckling and restricted to light armor + buckler that, presuming optimal gear and ideal epic destiny and twists, betters the offensive and defensive balance that exists for TWF and THF builds.

What Swashbuckling should be, IMO, is a template for S&B builds where the choice of shield type creates the gradations between higher offense oriented builds and higher defense structured builds -- with light shields enabling a near balance between offensive and defensive power.

Bards, by their nature, are compelled to use light armor and bucklers to Swashbuckle at all. Fighters and paladins, OTOH, should have enhancement options within a Swashbuckler like tree that lets them get the damage output bards are seeing and still remain "swashbuckling" while using medium or heavy armor and using a light or heavy shield.

The resolution is not to nerf bards by excluding Swashbuckling with bucklers but to improve fighters and paladins -- the "combat" classes -- by giving them an equivalent and perhaps superior boost.

[Scrabbler]

The Swashbuckler effect of combining bucklers with shield feats along with SWF ought not be neutered -- rather the same ability should be extended to both fighter and paladin classes to replicate real-world sword and buckler techniques.

An S&B character should have that offensive + defensive power with only 3 Shield-style feats. Spending 3 more feats on SWF shouldn't be needed.

If you take the position that S&B builds should be allowed to use SWF at the same time, it would logically follow that TWF and THF should have the option of adding SWF too.

[Therigar]

An S&B character should have that offensive + defensive power with only 3 Shield-style feats. Spending 3 more feats on SWF shouldn't be needed.

If you take the position that S&B builds should be allowed to use SWF at the same time, it would logically follow that TWF and THF should have the option of adding SWF too.

You are incorrect, no such point of view logically follows from advocating that S&B builds ought to also be able to use SWF at the same time. TWF is two-weapon fighting. There is no single-weapon fighting associated with this. THF is two-handed fighting. I suppose that literally one could argue that this by default is single-weapon fighting but, within the context of D&D combat styles, this too would be wrong.

Single-weapon fighting exists specifically to describe those things that are not TWF or THF. Sword and board is exactly single-weapon fighting with a shield for some purpose in the off hand. The four types of SWF identified in DDO are sword and buckler (at present), sword and runearm, sword and orb or sword and nothing. Like the other combat styles, offensive improvement comes through training: SWF, ISWF, GSWF, PSWF.

Shield use is an entirely different skill and gaining the most effective use of the shield similarly requires training. If a player wants both for their character they should reasonably be expected to take both feat lines separately. A player then sacrifices feat choices in order to achieve the combination and reap both the offensive and defensive benefits that potentially accrue to the character as a result of doing so.

Enabling a Swashbuckling like enhancement tree that mitigates the offensive and defensive balance based on type of shield selected (buckler gives large offense/small defense, small shield gives medium offense/medium defense, large shield gives little offense/large defense) is the way to go about enhancing the feats if they are all selected.