Armor Up - Developer Diary #2

[Krell]

So I guess Blitz is the only viable option for melee again.


BOOOOOO!!!!!


Guess I can take back what I said about you guys doing something right. Blitz only providing a bonus 100% (while definitely good) was not so powerfull that it was almost required for melee. Providing 175%, yep thats a requirement.


Shadowdancer was abandoned a LONG time ago as really it only adds 6d6 sneak attack (damage wise), this would have been +15d6 with 150 melee power, which was starting to make it competitive vs Blitz.





Sev heres a personal note for you= WHY DO YOU FREAKIN LISTEN TO WHINERS AND DESTROY YOUR OWN GOOD IDEAS?! Just like your armor changes to dodge (which were actually a buff) but whiners with bad math saw it as a nerf, and so you changed it! Man whats the point of reading these wishy washy Dev posts!


My whole guild and DOZENS of others I have raided with in the past few days were excited about this, NO ONE thought it was too much. But sure, a couple loud forum posters represent the community at large, gimme a break dude!

Agreed. The original effort behind these changes was to increase diversity by making more builds viable in end game content. To me diversity means one ED is not clearly more effective than others.

[imTonE]

Disagree, the only thing we need to test as far as damage is concerned is to make sure that melee power translates directly from the % based bonuses we have now. The actual spreading around of blitz damage among innates and epic levels doesn't really need testing, we know that getting 6 stacks of blitz under the first proposal will be a hell of a lot more damage, there's nothing to test there.

Sev didn't change the melee power implementation itself, which is what I'd like to test, he's just revising his draft on how much of blitzes power should be distributed among the cores of destiny trees and epic levels. This doesn't need testing.

Well, exactly. We don't know how melee power will translate until it gets on Lamannia. We're currently all assuming it's just going to be a direct translation of percentage. But all the discussion, chopping and changing of ED melee power reaction posts isn't true feedback, it's just speculatory opinions.

[Delacroix21]

Agreed. The original effort behind these changes was to increase diversity by making more builds viable in end game content. To me diversity means one ED is not clearly more effective than others.

Agreed, if all that was needed for other trees to be viable compared to Blitz was a 75% dps increase, I don't think we would have even had an issue! But that's simply not the case.


Blitz with an extra +100% damage (from the original proposal) was more than enough to make it a great tree, along with its other goodies.


The fact is the other trees offer nothing close to a +100% damage increase, let alone a +175%, but at at least a +100% was easier to work around.

[Correlan]

Disagree, the only thing we need to test as far as damage is concerned is to make sure that melee power translates directly from the % based bonuses we have now. The actual spreading around of blitz damage among innates and epic levels doesn't really need testing, we know that getting 6 stacks of blitz under the first proposal will be a hell of a lot more damage, there's nothing to test there.

Sev didn't change the melee power implementation itself, which is what I'd like to test, he's just revising his draft on how much of blitzes power should be distributed among the cores of destiny trees and epic levels. This doesn't need testing.

Ofc it needs testing, every major change to the combat system needs testing, and to say it doesn't is very shortsighted. With testing you can adjust the values as needed, instead of releasing information on changes you'd like to bring in and then 3 days later back peddle on those changes, catering to the small number of people moaning how they aren't as ridiculously OP compared to everyone else. From a personal standpoint, I'd prefer to see a reduction in power to blitzing and a drop in over inflated hp and saves on mobs.

[Qhualor]

Well, exactly. We don't know how melee power will translate until it gets on Lamannia. We're currently all assuming it's just going to be a direct translation of percentage. But all the discussion, chopping and changing of ED melee power reaction posts isn't true feedback, it's just speculatory opinions.

exactly and frankly very disappointed on the sudden change of mind. if it had been a couple weeks of back and forth talks to present solid cases for both sides, I can see some tweaking before going to Lama, but the best way to test something is going to be actually playing the character on a variety of builds in a variety of quests with a variety of gear in a variety of group scenarios, etc.

[Cetus]

Ofc it needs testing, every major change to the combat system needs testing, and to say it doesn't is very shortsighted. With testing you can adjust the values as needed, instead of releasing information on changes you'd like to bring in and then 3 days later back peddle on those changes, catering to the small number of people moaning how they aren't as ridiculously OP compared to everyone else. From a personal standpoint, I'd prefer to see a reduction in power to blitzing and a drop in over inflated hp and saves on mobs.

I don't think you understood what I wrote

[Mryal]

What?
In scenario 2, everybody effectively gained 6 stacks of blitz. The good thing about this is that these aforementioned alternate melee trees now received a substantial increase in power, blitz has been relatively reduced in power (note, the absolute power is not changed, the relative power is dramatically changed). This has been a cause for concern because content is easy enough that it doesn't warrant a free 6 charges of blitz for everyone. The charging animations was also removed, which was a good thing.

If content is easy enough for people to not have '6 charges of blitz' , what exactly justifies someone beign able to get you know, 10 charges of blitz?

[Cetus]

If content is easy enough for people to not have '6 charges of blitz' , what exactly justifies someone beign able to get you know, 10 charges of blitz?

1 person having 10 charges of blitz in situations where you need to constantly feed it with kills vs. everyone having 6 charges permanently, regardless of content doesn't conjure up an obvious difference in your mind?

You used the words "someone...able to get" this contrasts quite a bit with "everyone, permanently having".

In the end my main point is this: Giving everybody 6 blitz charges, with the remaining 4 being the power of "new blitz" without even having to maintain it with kills will trivialize content.

So, keeping everyone with 3 charges, rather than 6, dampens the impact by a bit, and lowers the relative power of blitz with respect to the rest. 175% is better than 250%. Small steps are a better approach, rather than sweeping changes.

[Mryal]

1 person having 10 charges of blitz in situations where you need to constantly feed it with kills vs. everyone having 6 charges permanently, regardless of content doesn't conjure up an obvious difference in your mind?

You used the words "someone...able to get" this contrasts quite a bit with "everyone, permanently having".

I see! So the justification for blitz having 10 stacks is it feeds on kills, ok.Another question then:

What if theres one or two people in the quest only, in wich case theres no one else to get a kill, so, the whole drawback is lost.In this case, what justifies the 10 stacks?
Actualy, if theres no one else in the quest other than you, with blitz on.The scaling is also of 1 person, while vs a 6 people full party with a scale of 6, still only one person has blitz on, other melees are resigned to do well, much less dps.How would you explain the balance in that?

[mikarddo]

Based on player feedback and our own internal testing:

We are reducing the bonus to melee power from the Epic Destiny innate abilities and epic levels. We bumped up Master's Blitz a bit. With the changes to Master's Blitz it is now effective against long boss fights and it is much easier for multiple melees to all have it running.

Sev~

Much better.

However, you still need to face the fact that 3 stacks permanently and removing the buildup phase as well as the charge on kills is a huge buff to the already best ability Masters Blitz. Please consider not buffing Blitz this way.


Also, whats the news about ranged blitzers?

[Grailhawk]

To many people like being pigeon holed.

The current ratio 25/75 changes nothing and is point less it would be better if they just left things as they are and spent there time developing a new wilderness area. At least then we would get pretty scenery.

[Cetus]

I see! So the justification for blitz having 10 stacks is it feeds on kills, ok.Another question then:

What if theres one or two people in the quest only, in wich case theres no one else to get a kill, so, the whole drawback is lost.In this case, what justifies the 10 stacks?
Actualy, if theres no one else in the quest other than you, with blitz on.The scaling is also of 1 person, while vs a 6 people full party with a scale of 6, still only one person has blitz on, other melees are resigned to do well, much less dps.How would you explain the balance in that?

Blitz absolutely favors short man/ solo players. No question about it, since the solo blitz player pretty much guarantees having it going. However, if content was designed to kinda keep that in mind - then I don't view this as that huge of a problem. I still die occasionally even when fully blitzed, so it isn't auto win even when I have it - even with the defenses my build has.

Like I said, small changes at a time are better than sweeping revamps. It won't be perfect, but it'll be more in line with players wishes than the current situation, it seems.

[BDog77]

Not only are Divine Crusader/Unyielding Sentinel supposed to be the 'paladin EDs', but a new paladin isn't even able to start at the best ED for his own abilities (Legendary Dreadnought), because he only unlocks the divine sphere.

While I love to talk about buffing Paladins, IIRC any character reaching Epic levels is free to choose any ED they want to start in, whether it's good for them or not, the first time. Or has this changed?

As for the rest, well, Blitz was broken from the start, no Dev thought that people could keep this epic "moment" running all the time. However, EEs were then balanced around this broken destiny, so now we are stuck. In order to make the other destinies worth it, could we please make sure their epic moments are worth it, and then turn those always on also? I think that might give us some more choices to run in....

[N-0cturn]

I though about this a bit more and I think you should keep the gaining of stacks on kills.

To be honest balance wise it would be best to change it completely to work for a limited time like the rest of the Epic Moments. However the use of Blitz has become a play-style which many people like. Any change now should be done carefully. Of course you can improve the experience by removing the stupid charging, this is a simply quality of life fix.

However when you change it to gain increments on a hit this is a major change which allows you to use blitz in almost every situation and makes gaining the increments much more trivial. To balance this you would have to reduce the damage or even more people would use it. You would change an ability that gives a lot of damage and can be kept up in most content when soloing and with some effort in groups into an ability that is trivial to keep up and works in all content but only gives a mediocre boost to damage.

I am fine with LD as the best destiny for soloing on a melee in most quests. Currently there is to much difference in power compared to other destinies but your changes already address this. Just don't make it even easier to use, especially not with the current numbers.

You "nerv" the relative damage boost to 100% (175 --> 250) but change it to have no real drawback. This will only tip the balance more in favour of LD because you can now use it in situations where you could not use it before and it is still the superior option (although a little less superior, but that hardly matters as long as it is still clearly better).

So in my opinion:

1. keep the gain of charges of a kill
2. In that case 75 / 175 sounds about right. Maybe even a bit much for blitz, 75 / 125 would probably still be enough to keep LD as best DPS destiny. Especially for levelling when the bonus from epic levels is lower. I am aware that you don't want to nerf stuff, but you already give Blitz a boost by applying it to other damage sources, giving three permanent stacks and removing the build up phase. It is always easier to give stuff than to take away but this only leads to more power creep. Blitzer will still be in a good place even with +200% max damage instead of +250% and every other melee will win anyway.

EDIT: 100 / 150 seems like a good solutions as well although in this case you still buff blitz.

[Monkey_Archer]

congrats on trying to make everything viable but giving into the crying of a few people about waaah blitz and making blitz the most important again.

Oh and your own internal testing... uhuh... 3 days later NOW your internal testing says reduce the numbers by half.... sorry I dont buy that one at all.. no one drops that info and then 3 days later goes oh wait now our testing shows we need to half it..... if you think most of us buy that, then do you have a big island some where in new york to sell us to????

As someone who knows a bit about design and programming, being able to respond to feedback, conduct internal tests based on that feedback and make changes within ONLY 3 days is pretty amazing. Huge props to Sev for this.

[oradafu]

While I love to talk about buffing Paladins, IIRC any character reaching Epic levels is free to choose any ED they want to start in, whether it's good for them or not, the first time. Or has this changed?

Unless there's been a major change, it has Always been the case that players can only start an ED in the Sphere their class(es) belong in. Paladins, unless they splash Fighter, Monk or Rogue, cannot go into the Martial sphere, they must start in the Divine Sphere. Artificers have a similar problem, since they must start in the Arcane sphere and unlock several EDs to get to their best ED, the Sharadi Champion.

[BDog77]

Unless there's been a major change, it has Always been the case that players can only start an ED in the Sphere their class(es) belong in. Paladins, unless they splash Fighter, Monk or Rogue, cannot go into the Martial sphere, they must start in the Divine Sphere. Artificers have a similar problem, since they must start in the Arcane sphere and unlock several EDs to get to their best ED, the Sharadi Champion.

Huh, thanks, never noticed this before. Kinda goes away from the whole stated purpose of ED (that they are not tied to heroic levels at all).

[RD2play]

Reduced. Sorry. I said dropping meaning "dropping the overall melee power bonus" but what I wrote isn't clear.

Each epic level gives 5, each innate gives 5 for a total of 75 Melee Power.

Sev~

There is one thing I don't understand, ok that each epic level gives the same amount MP I can understand, but why does each innate need to give the same amount of MP ? I think it should differ per sphere or even per destiny.

[Monkey_Archer]

I think Blitz should be removed personally and a more party friendly epic moment put in. I said this when Blitz was previewed 4 years ago and I say this now. It is not party friendly and it is about E-peen. I see no reason why you changed Blitz back a bit here. It still will be the most popular melee epic destiny from what I can tell other then divine crusader. Primal Avater, Fury for melee, shadowdancer, grandmaster all will be second fiddle.

I've been hesitant about this, and I don't want to just jump on the "nerf blitz" bandwagon, but to be completely honest, the entire Legendary Dreadnought tree is extremely poor design. All of the interesting tactical abilities are either bugged, broken or just too weak to bother using. The entire tree is basically irrelevant and meaningless while leveling up compared to the huge powerspike that blitz offers.

I don't know how much can be changed before the next update, and I suspect that redesigning destinies is outside the scope of this update, but LD really badly needs it. If it were up to me, I'd make legendary dreadnought a good destiny choice because of the tactical abilities it offers, rather then raw dps.

[Monkey_Archer]

So, keeping everyone with 3 charges, rather than 6, dampens the impact by a bit, and lowers the relative power of blitz with respect to the rest. 175% is better than 250%. Small steps are a better approach, rather than sweeping changes.

This.

Small, measured buffs or nerfs is a much better approach then throwing huge changes out at once. A 75 melee power boost is quite frankly, still a massive increase to what we have on live. Anyone acting like thats small or meaningless either doesn't have a very good understanding of character dps capabilities, or is just comparing it to blitz in a jealous way.
A 75 melee power nerf to blitz would also be a fairly small and measured approach as well, if only to see how it works out in testing. However, its extremely hard to tell exactly because we still have no details on how the new blitz will get and retain charges.
Is it going to be permanent like on live or have a set duration?
Will it be more difficult to charge?
Will it even be possible to keep multiple blitzers going in a quest?

I think most people are assuming that blitz will remain a permanent ability, but I'd really like confirmation on this before giving real feedback on whether its still too powerful or too weak, given the other changes.