Armor Up - Developer Diary #2

[Cetus]

This is the perfect time to remove ranged from working with Master Blitz. Players complain that effects don't match the descriptions. Mater Blitz working with range is not as intended. Stand up for once an say range working with Blitz is not as intended. If players wated to make a build around a bug which took forever to fix, its on them.

Master's Blitz description states melee not Melee and Ranged.

Even the fluff states its a melee centric tree.
"Undisputed lord of the battlefield, the Legendary Dreadnought is capable of melee maneuvers that make enemies quake then fall, never to stand again.

This Martial Epic Destiny excels at melee battle and specializes in improved combat feats such as sunder and stunning blow. When in full swing the dreadnought deals massive physical damage and sends enemies reeling. "

Unless the description was bugged and it should have included ranged.

We don't know which way the "bug" goes here. I'd prefer that it stayed relevant.

[Enguebert]

As i understand, we will have Melee Power, SpellPower and Range Power to raise our damage

And Epic level will give +10% Melee Power only ???
Same for Epic Destinies that will give +x% Melee Power (either in innate abilities or Tier Abilities)

I think this is not good.
I would prefer to see
for Epic Level : you choose either Melee Power or Range Power or SpellPower for EACH level. So you can have +90 Melee Power (as proposed now) or +90 Range Power or +40Melee/+50 Range or +30/+30/+30 or any combination you want !

For Epic Destinies
- Innate Abilities : For each destinies, it either give one bonus, or it give a choice.
For example, Magister give no choice, you get +spell power. Fury of the wild give no choice, it give + melee power. Shiradi give choice : either ranged or spell power. LD give choice : melee or spell power...etc
And ideally, you should have multiple destinies to boost one of your power, but not all of them
- Tier x Abilities : they should give bonus to one of melee/range/spell. You could easily add some new abilites that give only power
Also Tier 1 abilites should give less bonus than Tier 3 and Tier 3 should give less bonus thant Tier 5

[Sgt_Hart]

The Paladin light damage will scale with Melee Power. We are looking at a timetable to adding Melee Power scaling to other abilities as we examine the balance of other classes and trees.

Sev~

I vote "mistake" on that. It's LIGHT damage.. Effect it by LIGHT spellpower, and give paladins some way's to get it in the tree's. Frankly, diversify all of the elemental stuff to be buffed via spellpower. Just my gut instinct here, but.. give melee's a reason to slot sPow, just liek caster's sure need to slot Heavy fort, and as much AC/prr/dodge as they can fit in.

Finish this sentence: Good for the goose, good for the _ _ _ _ _ _.

[jakeelala]

Does this mean you are *not* going to ensure that the current LD and Fury abilities continue to work as they do on live for this update?

Sev,

don't do this.

If you change LD and FoTW, you ARE AFFECTING RANGED combat. Because that's what 90% of bow users run in.

[jakeelala]

This is the perfect time to remove ranged from working with Master Blitz. Players complain that effects don't match the descriptions. Mater Blitz working with range is not as intended. Stand up for once an say range working with Blitz is not as intended. If players wated to make a build around a bug which took forever to fix, its on them.

Master's Blitz description states melee not Melee and Ranged.

Even the fluff states its a melee centric tree.
"Undisputed lord of the battlefield, the Legendary Dreadnought is capable of melee maneuvers that make enemies quake then fall, never to stand again.

This Martial Epic Destiny excels at melee battle and specializes in improved combat feats such as sunder and stunning blow. When in full swing the dreadnought deals massive physical damage and sends enemies reeling. "

Where's the ranged destiny that makes us unparalleled bow users? Sure as heck isn't Shiradi.

Stop pigeonholing people into Destiny's.

[Bridge_Dweller]

Where's the ranged destiny that makes us unparalleled bow users? Sure as heck isn't Shiradi.

Stop pigeonholing people into Destiny's.

If you didn't rely on broken not WAI mechanics for your builds you wouldn't have this issue.

[blerkington]

Sev,

don't do this.

If you change LD and FoTW, you ARE AFFECTING RANGED combat. Because that's what 90% of bow users run in.

Hi,

Yes, don't pigeonhole us into certain destinies please.

Some people don't want to run in shiradi with their ranged characters, which is fine. They should have that option.

I don't want to be forced out of it because it is the only martial or primal destiny not getting a melee power buff.

if you have misgivings about how fury and blitz works with ranged combat, look at tuning those particular abilities instead, rather than making whole destinies a no-go area for certain builds.

Thanks.

[dunklezhan]

We also like that leveling after 20 gives additional benefit.

Sev~

Leaving aside all the ranged/melee power stuff, as I'm only half way through the thread (my current thought is why not just call it combat power and have it apply to ranged and melee, and don't add further complexity layers to gearing with all the balance and bug risk that comes with that, cannith crafting getting further behind etc etc)....


The above struck me as worth bringing up - not really for discussion here, but whilst Sev's eyes are on the thread. Levels above 20 give plenty of benefit on levelling up, the problem is they don't give you any choice. L21-25 in particular are very 'dead'. You get hit points, saves and skills most of the time - that's a lot of stuff to get every level... but as a player I did not CHOOSE those things. What is missing in epic levelling is choice of progression. Adding in more arbitrary freebie stuff is not exciting.

[Monkey_Archer]

Hi,

Yes, don't pigeonhole us into certain destinies please.

Some people don't want to run in shiradi with their ranged characters, which is fine. They should have that option.

I don't want to be forced out of it because it is the only martial or primal destiny not getting a melee power buff.

if you have misgivings about how fury and blitz works with ranged combat, look at tuning those particular abilities instead, rather than making whole destinies a no-go area for certain builds.

Thanks.

Purely ranged combat and epic destiny choices are quite odd when you look at it from an overall perspective.

Dreadnought is a tactics based destiny centered on cleaves and melee strikes. It is also the best ranged destiny why?
Fury is basically a barbarian destiny focused on THF bonuses, helpless damage and threat. Its the 2nd best ranged destiny why?
Shiradi is actually a ranged focused destiny, yet it is much better for casters and is only the 3rd choice for ranged characters why?

I completely understand the concerns for having a ranged viable destiny in each sphere for the ETR grind. I completely understand that ranged characters don't like being pigeonholed the way blitz pigeonholed melees. But this is honestly a topic for an entirely new thread and possibly an entirely new update given the scope of the problem.

[dunklezhan]

I vote "mistake" on that. It's LIGHT damage.. Effect it by LIGHT spellpower, and give paladins some way's to get it in the tree's. Frankly, diversify all of the elemental stuff to be buffed via spellpower. Just my gut instinct here, but.. give melee's a reason to slot sPow, just liek caster's sure need to slot Heavy fort, and as much AC/prr/dodge as they can fit in.

Finish this sentence: Good for the goose, good for the _ _ _ _ _ _.

That's what's been bugging me since I started reading this. I knew there was something niggling away in the back of my head - the example we keep being given is Paladin light damage. Which of course is, as you say, LIGHT damage. Why isn't that effect (and EK elemental blades, and anything else that procs magical damage) not instead boosted by the relevant spellpower, which is more what one would expect.

I've said before that DDO's stacking rules are frankly arcane to the new player. Boosting damage types which are clearly magical via melee or ranged 'power' instead of the appropriate spellpower will not help with that, and just introduces more gear types. I'd rather see better access to relevant spellpowers.

Which is not to say the idea of the free melee/ranged power as you level for pure adds to base weapon damage is not something to include, but let's not slap it on everything that we want to boost right now. Boost the things you want to boost with the right kind of buff, don't rush this.

Also.... how will this affect things like Rogue sneak attacks? Will that get boosted by this new 'power' mechanic?

[Krell]

Nice changes. More options, more diversity, ability to scale. I already started dusting off my old melee characters.

[FlaviusMaximus]

I think these are intelligent changes overall and I like the reasoning behind them. I believe that some of the changes are fine as is, some need some minor tweaking, and some need major adjusting.

Things I like:

• Spreading out power from levels 20-28. Not having destiny power linked to epic levels was a mistake that makes leveling after 20 feel a bit empty. This helps correct for that.

• Giving melee a boost. Casters and ranged characters (with the sometimes exception of when solo'ing or in very small groups and Blitzing) have an edge, in my opinion, and this helps correct for that.

• Bringing up the power of melee destinies, such as Shadowdancer, Primal Fury, Grandmaster, Fury, and eventually Fatesinger is a good idea and is necessary for balancing the destinies.

• Getting rid of the kill requirement on Blitz is a very good idea since having such a requirement can promote antisocial game play.

• I like adding a bit of melee power to the THF feats to help balance it with SWF. TWF needs an equal amount of power added per feat, however. The only reason TWF received less lobbying than THF following the implementation of SWF is that TWF is already far less popular than THF.

Suggestions:

• I think in the attempt to avoid nerfing Blitz, all melee characters would be getting a crazy large boost to their damage under this proposal. In other words, instead of trimming back one epic moment, everything else is coming up to meet it, which would result in a large amount of power creep.
  
  
  
• This first proposal is for all characters to get 2.5x their melee damage upon reaching level 28 (+90 melee power from levels +60 from destiny cores). To me, 2.5x melee damage is too much even for a player in full Blitz and shouldn’t be the base level for all melees at 28. I would say to cut it in half and start giving the bonuses out at level 21 instead of 20. 5 melee power per level from 21-28 (40 total), 5 for each core ability of any destiny not specifically aimed at casters (30) for a total of 70 melee power at level 28. 70% more damage per attack is probably still too much but melees have a bit of catching up to do. This is closer to being a reasonable increase.
  
  
  
• I would suggest giving ranged weapons 1/2 the melee power from levels 21-28 (20 total) and no increase from core abilities. Giving ranged characters an increase in their ranged power from 21-28 helps make gaining epic levels meaningful, while limiting the total increase to 20 (as opposed to 70 for melees), keeps the substantial boost to melees intact.
  
  
  
• As for Blitz, allow it to add 70 melee power at full stacks. That doubles what a player would get from epic levels and destiny core abilities (under my proposal), which is pretty generous considering that Dreadnought is the equal (in terms of DPS) of destinies such as Shadowdancer, Primal Fury, and Fatesinger even if you remove Master’s Blitz entirely.
  
  
  
• I agree that Swashbucklers should not get additional melee power from the shield feats, but it is not a bug that shield mastery feats are able to be taken alongside SWF feats since Swashbucklers allow for specific shield use. Finding a clever way to not allow Swashbucklers to take advantage of the proposed melee power from the shield mastery feats would be far more preferable than borking a whole lot of Swashbuckler builds presently being utilized used by making the feats mutually exclusive.
  
  
  
• I'm not sure how I feel about glancing blows while moving because I'm not entirely sure how powerful this will make twitch fighting. Only one of the two attacks will receive glancing blows (the first, the second will not), but this could potentially raise single target DPS from THF up to a place that could just end up requiring TWF to be the next in line to receive another boost. I hope that someone does some calculations on how much DPS THF will do while twitch fighting in the proposed system. (twitch fighting resets the attack chain after the second attack, eliminating the much slower third and fourth attacks, resulting in a faster attack rate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMNKRrRrYP8) As of right now, I suspect that allowing for glancing blows while moving without adjusting the THF attack chain and addressing twitch fighting would be a mistake.

Questions:

• It was stated that melee power would affect other types of damage. Does this include sneak attack damage? I hope it does since any additional damage that doesn't benefit from crits has been falling behind.

[mikarddo]

The idea behind the melee power change is decent - but the numbers are off the charts.

A (melee) blitzer running 10 stacks is the dominant force in almost every quest (and in some raids). This is somewhat tempered by the risks and annoyances of running Blitz. The 50 stack build up is an annoyance - the risk of never getting the Blitz going once activated - the inability to afk a few mins without losing stacks - the inability to keep stacks when killing off a huge boss without adds etc, etc.

Now, with the change you propose someone in LD will have zero downsides - the blitz will start at 60% value and easily go up from there with no risk of dropping below 60%! So, you have taken the possibly strongest ability in the game and made it much easier to use including making it possible to use in places where it wasnt before and with a much faster setup. To me that very much defines a bad idea. You simply cannot remove the minusses to LD blizting while keeping all the positives - thats not reasonable. If you want to remove the minusses - and I understand your reasons though I dont agree with them - then you need to curb the max power rather significantly as well.

As for giving a free 60% blitz to melee in other destinies thats possibly even worse. The overall idea of making LD blitzing non-mandatory for melee is very good - but adding a free 60% blitz to say a pure monk i GMoF who was already very competitive with most other builds in the game seems entirely off. So, please reconsider not the basic idea - but the scale - probably even adding 30% of the blitz off to everyone would be a bit much but atleast semi-reasonable.

Please adress the fact that your suggestion would not only "not nerf" blitzer but will infact make them a good deal stronger. Do you really feel blitzers are currently in need of such a solid boost? If not, please reconsider either removing the risks and annoyances or the max power of blitzing.

[blerkington]

Purely ranged combat and epic destiny choices are quite odd when you look at it from an overall perspective.

Hi,

Yes, they are.

The devs have repeatedly told us that destinies are not for any one class or role, but this change to melee and ranged combat appears to be a significant step away from that.

I completely understand the concerns for having a ranged viable destiny in each sphere for the ETR grind. I completely understand that ranged characters don't like being pigeonholed the way blitz pigeonholed melees. But this is honestly a topic for an entirely new thread and possibly an entirely new update given the scope of the problem.

I agree. There are two reasons why I've brought it up here though.

Firstly, shiradi is not particularly powerful for non-casters. It is certainly leagues behind Fury and LD when it comes to DPS, which is a very important thing for melee, ranged or hybrid characters, whose main job it is to kill things.

Jakeelala is right when he says most ranged characters run outside of shiradi - it's a good flavour choice, good for soloers too, but that's about it. I like it, but I realise for one of the main tasks in the game, putting out optimal dps, it is far from the best choice.

The proposed changes are a large proxy nerf for that destiny, because while every other martial and primal destiny (and some divine and arcane destinies too) appear to be on the verge of getting a substantial increase in melee dps, shiradi has been singled out as not getting it.

While I do think the relative power of the destinies is a separate topic, I am having trouble understanding why a proxy nerf of this sort is being made to just one of a whole set of destinies. The two topics are connected.

Shiradi has very little to offer a melee character, and melees or hybrids running in it are already well behind other primal and martial destinies. This is because the destiny lacks any active or passive abilities to enhance melee damage.

What I am asking is for the destiny, is that hybrid characters, like your classic ranger, who may want to be moderately good at two combat styles, rather than best in one or both, not be left behind everyone else with respect to melee dps.

The casters who use shiradi won't gain a great deal from increased melee power for this destiny. They are not normally built or geared to be useful in melee anyway, and the playstyle is completely different. Offering some melee power to casters who happen to run in shiradi will not create effective meleeing arcanes by accident.

Nor will offering non caster shiradis a 'cost of living' increase in melee dps to match the inflation of other destinies create hybrid super characters who can melee and range as well as or better than anyone else.

The second reason I am discussing it here is because I think if these issues are not dealt with now, they may never be addressed, or not for some indeterminately long period of time.

It is somewhat selfish, but I have no desire to go back into the long dark winter that the game was in for my preferred build when I first joined and started work on my ranger.

I'd be very happy if we could get the simple change of including shiradi in the melee power buff. That is only asking to keep pace with other builds, not get better than them.

I would also like to learn more about the ranged power pass, even if only the barest details are available now. That would help us assess these changes in a broader context rather than in isolation, and may set the minds of other people whose builds are threatened at rest and/or encourge them to participate in the discussion of what is to come.

Thanks.

[Monkey_Archer]

The idea behind the melee power change is decent - but the numbers are off the charts.

A (melee) blitzer running 10 stacks is the dominant force in almost every quest (and in some raids). This is somewhat tempered by the risks and annoyances of running Blitz. The 50 stack build up is an annoyance - the risk of never getting the Blitz going once activated - the inability to afk a few mins without losing stacks - the inability to keep stacks when killing off a huge boss without adds etc, etc.

Now, with the change you propose someone in LD will have zero downsides - the blitz will start at 60% value and easily go up from there with no risk of dropping below 60%! So, you have taken the possibly strongest ability in the game and made it much easier to use including making it possible to use in places where it wasnt before and with a much faster setup. To me that very much defines a bad idea.

As for giving a free 60% blitz to melee in other destinies thats possibly even worse. The overall idea of making LD blitzing non-mandatory for melee is very good - but adding a free 60% blitz to say a pure monk i GMoF who was already very competitive with most other builds in the game seems entirely off. So, please reconsider not the basic idea - but the scale.

Please adress the fact that your suggestion would not only "not nerf" blitzer but will infact make them a good deal stronger. Do you really feel blitzers are currently in need of such a solid boost? If not, please reconsider either removing the risks and annoyances or the max power of blitzing.

"Off the charts" is basically an understatement. My quick estimate/calculations predict that a well designed divine crusader build is going to deal around twice as much damage as a fully stacked blitz build on live, if these changes go through.
Again I'll reiterate, the concept is EXACTLY what this game needs, but the implementation is absolutely absurd.

[Recared]

Your own videos show SWF only has about a 15-20% lead for your particular build. The 20 melee power alone will basically close that gap. Not to mention there are other builds and destinies that have better synergy with THF then a blitzing centered kensai. I'm pretty sure you know what glancing blows while moving means to a skilled player as well.

Yes, there will still be certain swashbucker builds that have additional gains, but thats more an issue with swashbucker, and not SWF by itself.

I think you friends are wrong. The 20 MP extra that thf feats will provide will not close any gap at all with SWF extreme benefits. This extra 20 does not translate into 20% more damage, it is not multiplicative per se. This adds (!) to the total multiplicative factor of the MP formula, like spell power does. This 20 MP is like an extra 20 Fire spell power on a 300 fire spell power arcane, to understand. This does not translate into a 20% more damage. The SWF feats do work immediately as a separate multiplicative factor: 30% attack rate improvement overalls around 30% more damage straight. 20 extra spell power on a 300 spell power arcane translates in a multiplicative factor of 4.2 instead of 4.0, the increase is around 5%. Something similar will happen to those 20 MP from THF feats if they will work as presented here.

Thanks for all the THF defense, Cetus, by the way, you presented the data clearly and with objectivity.

Gyga

[Monkey_Archer]

I think you friends are wrong. The 20 MP extra that thf feats will provide will not close any gap at all with SWF extreme benefits. This extra 20 does not translate into 20% more damage, it is not multiplicative per se. This adds (!) to the total multiplicative factor of the MP formula, like spell power does. This 20 MP is like an extra 20 Fire spell power on a 300 fire spell power arcane, to understand. This does not translate into a 20% more damage. The SWF feats do work immediately as a separate multiplicative factor: 30% attack rate improvement overalls around 30% more damage straight. 20 extra spell power on a 300 spell power arcane translates in a multiplicative factor of 4.2 instead of 4.0, the increase is around 5%. Something similar will happen to those 20 MP from THF feats if they will work as presented here.

Thanks for all the THF defense, Cetus, by the way, you presented the data clearly and with objectivity.

Gyga

I completely understand that the 20 melee power is not going to result in 20% overall damage. But, the example of the 300 spell power arcane is not accurate either. The top dps builds under the new system will not be blitz at all, but rather divine crusaders with 150-200 melee power. The top THF builds will not be centered kensai with falchion but rather paladins with sticks. So while I do understand that Cetus's particular build might still be better off as SWF, THF overall will be much stronger when you look at all the possibilities.

[CoasterHops]

It looks to me that the numbers are a bit too high.

I think the numbers maybe should be cut in half for the freely available boosts: Eg, 5 per epic level for 45 and 5 per Epic destiny core being another 30 = 75 at lvl 28 and in a maxed destiny, then look at making Blitz offer a further boost, but make it boost slower than it does at present and degenerate quicker or something along these lines.

How to limit Ranged Power and Fury - Use the epic moment start at maxed Range Power decreasing by 10 ranged power every 1 second to a low cap of 0 , once Epic Moment is finished range power increases by 10 every second to max. They probably need to look at something along these lines, will allow for a little more burst right at start of moment.
Standard Adrenalin shots are not boosted by range power.
Grant 10 Ranged Power per level of Shiradi. (5 per lvl of other destinies maybe 10 for SD?)

All epic moments/top tier abilities need to be revisited! This should be a priority...... should be minimum of two decent abilities to choose from with the stat selector granting a 2 point bonus to stat for 2 points,

Just some really quick thoughts that have been put together... probably doesn't make any sense

[Wizza]

Okay, this is complicated. Let me ask some questions to see if I get this straight. I may have missed something but I don't really get how Melee Power is working.

1) Melee Power (MP): is it working on base damage right? And if so, how much? If I'm doing, let's say, 100 Base damage + 100 Sneak Attack + 1d6 Holy damage per hit, and I have 100 MP, how much am I going to hit? 1 MP = 1% more damage? So will it be 200 Base damage + 200 Sneak Attack + how much holy damage? Is it working on Sneak Attacks? I really hope so or you are going to screw classes like Rogues.

2) MP on enhancements: I understand that you are introducing this so that Enhancements like Iced Edge, Venomed Blades scale well into epics. Just how is this working? If we take Venomed blades, 1d6 poision damage on hit, and we have 100 MP, what is the damage going to be? Is it going to be 2d6 with 100 MP?

~ Each epic level (including level 20) will now provide a passive bonus of 10 Melee Power. This means that at level 28 characters will have an additional 90 Melee Power.

3) Why? Spellcasters didn't get 90 free Universal Spell power. If I understand MP correctly, this is just 90% more damage for free that they get?

Master's Blitz will now build up to 100 Melee Power through charges.

4) So you are giving 150 Melee power to everyone for free, that is basically 6 charges of blitz to everyone while blitzers will only get 100 MP? Numbers are over the top to me. You should get rid of those 90 MP in the 8 Epic levels and just let blitzers build up to 200 MP.

~ Shadowdancer also gains damage from its innate abilities. Shadow Training 1 through V and Shadow Mastery will each provide a passive and cumulative 10 Melee Power. This means Shadowdancer will gain 90 Melee Power from levels and 60 from innate abilities to keep it competitive.

5) Related to Shadowdancer: MP is working with Sneak attacks, right? How is the Epic moment going to be? It's just 2d6 unholy damage now. Compared to everything else, it's nothing. Compared to 100 Melee Power that blitzers get, also nothing. If I get this straight, with the 150 MP that we get from a capped Character in Shadowdancer, this is going to get scaled to 3 or even 4d6? Still pointless.

~ Fury of the Wild also gains damage from its innate abilities. Adrenaline, Brawn, Adrenaline II, Brawn II, Adrenaline III, and Adrenaline Overload will each provide a passive and cumulative 10 Melee Power. This means Fury of the Wild will gain 90 Melee Power from levels and 60 from innate abilities to keep it competitive.

6) Will Adrenaline still be 400% damage?

Two Handed Fighting adds 10 Melee Power while wielding a two handed weapon.
Improved Two Handed Fighting adds an additional 5 Melee Power while wielding a two handed weapon.
Greater Two Handed Fighting adds an additional 5 Melee Power while wielding a two handed weapon.

Shield Mastery adds 10 Melee Power while wielding a shield.
Improved Shield Mastery adds an additional 5 Melee Power while wielding a shield.
Improved Shield Bash adds an additional 5 Melee Power while wielding a shield.

7) Where is Two Weapon Fighting? It seems like the red bastard step-child of DDO. Noone ever talks about it. I see the discussion going on on THF and SWF but TWF is not even mentioned. It falls behind both THF and SWF. It does worse than a SWF on a single mob and let's not even talk about a group of mobs, it stands no chance.

[Vanhooger]

All I care about is having all melee destiny worth something in EE, not just the LD. This is the best change in a while.