Update 23 Second Look

[Failedlegend]

On a lighter note, I'm not a fan of the new Harper tree (for any class... really?). Its not that I think the tree is bad (in fact one of my toons is going to use it), just that I think its misplaced. Almost every thing in Harper belongs in Archmage or Eldritch Knight (both of which could use some love). Archmage already sucks pretty bad, and now Your making a tree that goes better with the wizard class then two out of three of the wizard trees? All that's going to happen is that Wizards and the Odd flavor build will take Harper anyway. So fine, release it as is, but at least copy some of those things into archmage/eldritch knight (make them anti-requisites)...

Archmage - should have
First Tier - "Highly Skilled"
Second or Third Tier - "Harper's Leadership" call it Archmage's Leadership of course...
Fourth or Fifth Tier - "Magic of Patience" or "Magic of Austerity"... one but not both

Eldritch Knight - should have
Second Tier - "Know the Angles"
Cores - "Strategic Combat I-II" this is an obvious Eldritch Knight thing... its the reason they can't function past mid levels.

To not give Archmages & Eldritch Knights the enhancements they need to function will just force them to take Harper... But, I implore you, even if you find Archmage to be unworthy of a fix (which seems to be the case), you can at least give Eldritch Knight "Strategic Combat"... they are worthless without it.

This I can definitely agree with, more-so EKs since Archmae is an ok prestige tree where-as the EK is just a mess.

[-Avalon-]

that would require a bit of investment, but you can take epic reflex saves for no auto fail on a 1. that would be more useful for just the splash evasion builds that wont have 70+ reflex. just taking 2 levels rogue or monk for evasion, while useful, wont mean much without some investment but my pure paladin has a reflex of 65 at 27 with just ship buffs and gear. it really isn't that hard to get a decently high reflex score without losing anything to get it.

Are people seriously suggesting that splashing for evasion, and then getting you reflex high enough for EE, and then getting no. fail on 1 saves requires "no loss"... Its about as big an investment as can be made in DDO! How much lost does it take to get decent MRR? hey, i strapped on some heavy armor & a Tower shield, mission accomplished! When they make a "Ring of Evasion, with +40 reflex & No. Fail on 1" then you can compare the two, but until then being an evasion tank takes a Huge investment, while MRR is auto granted. If this game ever allows a None evasion character to out do an evasion character at magic defense it will cease to be a D&D game.

Zurrander, You do realize you are referring to yourself about the "smoking" issue, right? My last life was a Rogue Splash (2 lvls)/Monk Splash (3 lvls)/Cleric (15) build, and I didn't focus on saves at all, more about staves, spells, dodge... and my reflex save was 68 self-buffed only. I only failed on a 1, and didn't take the feat because, like I said, I was focused on other things... but I could have sacrificed some double attack or whatever to get it... so, please, do some basic research on the reality of the game at 28th lvl before saying anyone saying it is easy must be smoking something.

Also, while you claim that the evasion path is a ton of sacrifice, but to get a great PRR (think like 300 is great, or at least close to having that 65 Reflex with Evasion, but in reality it isn't even remotely close) let's try and get it: Heavy Armor is 36 + BAB (and unless you are pure melee, which since we are comparing splash builds, we are going to say we aren't)... so BAB of 14? We're up to 50 so far... Tower Shield gives 15. So far, your rebuttal was only need Heavy Armor and Tower Shield: Total of 65 PRR (about 1/5 of what you need to even attempt to compete with the damage reduction that Evasion provides)

Or do you mean the enhancements and augs and feats, etc etc, to get a decent PRR/MRR? Hold on, you couldn't be talking about that, because that would require great deals of sacrifice being made... and you were saying Evasion Splash (proven easily to work without even attempting to get it) is not enough because Evasion Builds require a lot of sacrifice (yet again, proven to be false), while PRR/MRR is so easy to get that all you need to do is slap on some Heavy Armor and a Tower Shield (which, unless you can prove me wrong, only provides <100 PRR/MRR without actually making LARGE amounts of sacrifice to get to 250-300, as in actually BUILDING the toon around getting that high) Oh, and the Kicker: 300 MRR prevents 75% of magical damage; A splash evasion build WITHOUT the feat for no-fail on 1, prevents 95% of it... yet, we are being led to believe they are balanced 75 != 95 where I come from...

On a lighter note, I'm not a fan of the new Harper tree (for any class... really?). Its not that I think the tree is bad (in fact one of my toons is going to use it), just that I think its misplaced. Almost every thing in Harper belongs in Archmage or Eldritch Knight (both of which could use some love). Archmage already sucks pretty bad, and now Your making a tree that goes better with the wizard class then two out of three of the wizard trees? All that's going to happen is that Wizards and the Odd flavor build will take Harper anyway. So fine, release it as is, but at least copy some of those things into archmage/eldritch knight (make them anti-requisites)...

Archmage - should have
First Tier - "Highly Skilled"
Second or Third Tier - "Harper's Leadership" call it Archmage's Leadership of course...
Fourth or Fifth Tier - "Magic of Patience" or "Magic of Austerity"... one but not both

Eldritch Knight - should have
Second Tier - "Know the Angles"
Cores - "Strategic Combat I-II" this is an obvious Eldritch Knight thing... its the reason they can't function past mid levels.

To not give Archmages & Eldritch Knights the enhancements they need to function will just force them to take Harper... and since its behind a pay wall that might have been the devs intent. But, I implore you, even if you find Archmage to be unworthy of a fix (which seems to be the case), you can at least give Eldritch Knight "Strategic Combat"... they are worthless without it.

I agree wholeheartedly with this, otoh, EK desperately needs the Strategic Combat 1 and 2, and should have always had it... as well as Archmage should have the abilities you list... /smh, this is why we end up with issues in the game, because things are not planned well, and we seem to embrace mudflation while the devs claim to fight it... seems every 'new' thing must be so much more powerful than the previous things, instead of only changing the old things to have what they should, and adding 'different' flavors that are powerful in their own right while balanced against the old things.

[Leclaire1]

So, could a dev please confirm that you have read some of the extreme frustration on one of the other Abbott dev threads over the seeming lack of a plan to fix heroic Abbott flagging? I love all the new stuff, but the thought that Abbott would be revisited without the sort of simplification of heroic flagging that we received in epic Gianthold is extremely unpalatable. Please, please get rid of the sigils or use them for some sort of reward turn-in (like the taps, shield pieces, etc) and make the only requirement for running my favorite raid be running the flagging quests and litany four times. I can guarantee you'll see a massive increase in people running the heroic raid. I am generally a fanboi and have loved recent changes and love most of the proposed one, but I can't get my mind around this issue or be excited for the update if this doesn't make it in.


PS- Also, if you are looking for player ideas as to what to do with the sigils, I'll be helpful and offer one. Perhaps the completed sigil could be turned in to provided a choice from all items which drop randomly at a low rate in Litany (Dragon Sword of Acid, Electric Haze, etc). This would make things easier as you wouldn't have to fit in designing new items, but could just provide a complete list from an NPC who will receive the completed sigil. I'd also recommend adding Atonement to the list, as this will be all the more essential in the new raid, and this feature would give divine casters a second and more reliable way of getting it.

[BigErkyKid]

Well, me and a friend tested quite a bit on Lamma, and he of course wanted to test the new Pally stuff. Afterwards, he went back to his fighter and we played our normal group, pure Fighter and pure Pally. We then redid all the content we had done with our 2 Pally group. It's anecdotal evidence, but we actually completed the content faster with the Fighter/Pally combo.

Of course, all this could be saying is that he is more comfortable with the Fighter he has played for years vs a Pally he just rolled up for a lark, but still....

I am going to bet that it was the fact that he is not used to it.

Paladin seems to be optimal (at least the crowd of powergamers agree on that) for melee.

Before, bard was an awesome kick a$$ build. Now second to paladin.

Suppose that balance is only achieved among the revised parts / classes of the game (for the rest the claim is that we have to wait in line).

How long does this "new balance" last? One update? It is clear then that the so called balancing attempts are rather short lived.