Harper tree feedback

[ThomasHunter]

This whole tree looks darn fun and I'm very excited about the possibilities for sure!

I love all of the intricate flexibilities like adding a pet buff. Man, that is so cool! I do love playing my druids!

With that in mind, PLEASE (pretty please) add a multi-selector to that INT based damage for WIS. As I have written before, the Flame Blade spell simply isn't enough. Having this include WIS for damage would be extremely helpful and fun. Lots of additional possibilities. Now, I'll freely admit that I am not a "power gamer" in the sense that I don't know off-hand if that would lead to Bad Things, but I have to think the Fun Factor would make this worthwhile.

So I implore you, please give this option a go!

Thanks!
29 toons and counting (with mostly divine classes),
ThomasHunter

[HatsuharuZ]

The Artificer trees have some good stuff in it. I would say that it's hard to compare them directly. Battle Engineer has a lot of rune arm boosts which don't have any comparison and it has some good passive bonuses. The Arcanotechnican has boosts to the Iron Defender, adds AoE attacks, and has great casting buffs. Harper gets no spell critical, for example.

I don't know that a straight comparison really works, but I'd love to see some feedback on some specific builds.

Sev~

I think that artificers do need some help. The bonuses given in the core abilities of Battle Engineer are small, and the capstone is especially weak. Arcanotechnician boost spellcasting quite a bit, but it's capstone does nothing for spellcasting, but only affects certain items. Using items as a main offensive measure is not very practical at high levels when you are an artificer, with rune-arms, blade barrier and repeating crossbows.

[ddorimble]

III) Weapons that don't usually allow for a damage modifier (Crossbows mainly, as well as bows for character w/out bow strength) will be inadvertently altered by no longer requiring 6 Rogue or Arty splashes, which are currently a key point to those specific level splits.

Has this been confirmed? I'd be surprised if that worked. The Mechanic Enhancement and Artificer Spell are special in that they allow an ability damage modifier to even be applied, where none was available before. I don't read that this allows that. It's kind of like 'Replace your ability damage modifier with Int if it is higher', but if you have no ability damage modifier, there's nothing to replace.

[Bingobong]

Harper Agent is designed to have an operative feel and help create a character who is strategic and tactical. Harper Agent offers versatility as well, and is designed, as a side goal, to benefit builds with multiple roles.

Sev~

Then why tie it down to only giving dex/int/cha at the core level and dex/int at the tier level? Given that its available to all classes and your stated objectives, would it not make more sense to let people choose whatever stat they want?

[DagazUlf]

All of what Scrabbler said, plus....

• - This should have been a new Epic Destiny. It's absolutely perfect for it, and it alleviates some of the concerns. I get that maybe it's more resources to have done this as an ED, but really, that's the way it should have gone. You're king of doing an injustice to Harpers and at the same time making a mess of the whole Enhancement catalog by putting this one in there.
• - Since you're already making it an enhancement, more of the abilities should be similar to what can be had from existing racial trees. That makes it enticing for people that may have spent in racials already, as they can get the same stuff plus some cool Harper things. It also is good for other races as it opens up abilities they could not otherwise acquire.
• - Having the Melee and Ranged Power in there makes it a "must-have" for a lot of people. With the introduction of this system those abilities have now become a core necessity and by lowering that with this last prop, it made the value for MP and RP skyrocket. So, you've made a "must-have" that people have to buy instead of earn, and it will also inhibit diversity even more as it's desirability is greater than the alternatives.

Harper Feedback:

• If you need money and think this will get it, I can't begrudge that. Haven't seen your secret lists of what sells and what doesn't.
• Since the designers a year ago swore up and down that they couldn't add a tree available to all classes, this looks like a big insult.
• Adding a new enhancement tree when the others aren't finished yet looks bad. Adding it when the designers don't seem to have studied the existing trees looks worse. Adding a tree that wasn't obviously missing (such as another FVS or Druid option) makes it worse still.
• Truly the worst part is adding a new enhancement tree before fixing and finishing the old enhancements. If you had time to make something new, that time could've been spent fixing from a big list of blatant mistakes. (Or a head start on Rangepower, etc)
• Having a tree named after a Faerun-only organization looks weird when players all start on Eberron.
• A missed opportunity to make the Harper tree accessed by looting a Harper tome from a new adventure pack. (It would feel more like something the character had earned, etc)
• It looks bad to add Meleepower and Rangepower to a new tree, when there are probably existing trees where it made more sense and was more needed.
• The fact that Harper is a lot more powerful to just a couple of the existing classes makes it seem unfair, like you are singling out those specific classes for extra money to play their character styles.
• It looks funny to consider someone using Intelligence for hit and damage with a Greataxe, and is somewhat bad. Note that existing Intelligence-melee options (like Artificer) intentionally limited it to weapons that weren't as explicitly heavy.
• Three enhancements provide Intelligence melee effects. It has already looked weird that Bard had Intelligence melee while Wizard did not, but this is much stronger than the Bard effect. So this tree is extra-important for any melee builds off of an Intelligence class (Wizard, Artificer, and Rogue Assassinator).
• Remember that although Artificer had Intelligence to hit and damage already, it couldn't use both at once. That was an intentional limitation, to keep Intelligence melee well behind Strength melee. Now they can use both.
• As written, I can use Strategic Combat and Know The Angels at the same time to use 150% of Intelligence mod to damage with a one-handed weapon. Wow. And GSWF might add yet another 50% Int mod. (Note that Divine Might is considered a comparable effect, but it never allowed someone to double-up like that)
• The text of Know The Angels says it benefits tactical feats, which doesn't include Frozen Fury or other things that are not feats.
• If Throat Dagger is going to cost spellpoints and allow metamagic, it should decide to feel like a spell and get a name that doesn't sound like a martial trick. It's weird for a spell effect to do damage but not allow Maximize and Empower.
• Seeing Enchantment of Righteousness on there is somewhat insulting to Paladin players, who have gone over a year with their similar enhancement nonfunctioning.
• A lot of existing capstones in Intelligence-linked classes compare unfavorably to spending a few AP in Harper. For example, both Pale Master and Eldritch Knight capstones are weak in comparison. This may make it more attractive to splash Monk2 or Rogue2 on melee Wizards instead of going for a capstone.
• Probably Harper should've been patterned like a race tree instead of a class tree. Then no need to try creating a balanced, competitive tier5 and capstone.
• Weathered Traveller gives a bonus to energy resist. All enhancements that give an additive bonus to energy resist (or AC, or DR) should scale the benefit according to your level.

[Portalcat]

Fundamentally, if you can justify the development work required in making new, general enhancement trees which wouldn't otherwise see the light of day by making them pay-for-play, then as long as they follow this model where VIPs get them as paid subscribers, I like that model.

I'd like to see more prestige classes like this in future. It will increase build diversity and flesh out the game.

[Aelonwy]

This whole tree looks darn fun and I'm very excited about the possibilities for sure!

I love all of the intricate flexibilities like adding a pet buff. Man, that is so cool! I do love playing my druids!

With that in mind, PLEASE (pretty please) add a multi-selector to that INT based damage for WIS. As I have written before, the Flame Blade spell simply isn't enough. Having this include WIS for damage would be extremely helpful and fun. Lots of additional possibilities. Now, I'll freely admit that I am not a "power gamer" in the sense that I don't know off-hand if that would lead to Bad Things, but I have to think the Fun Factor would make this worthwhile.

So I implore you, please give this option a go!

Thanks!
29 toons and counting (with mostly divine classes),
ThomasHunter

If, and only if wis is ever added to hit/dmg it should be directly added to a druid tree, preferably tier4 or 5. Of course as soon as that happens there would be a massive influx of druid/monks. Imagine for just a moment if Wis to hit/dmg were added to a general any class tree like this one what a boon that would be for monk.

[droid327]

The Artificer trees have some good stuff in it.

No. They. Don't. Arti is a great class, but its despite its Enhancements, not because of it.

I hate to make this overused accusation but do any of you even play an Arti? This statement is completely at odds with reality.

Battle Engineer has a lot of rune arm boosts which don't have any comparison and it has some good passive bonuses. The Arcanotechnican has boosts to the Iron Defender, adds AoE attacks, and has great casting buffs. Harper gets no spell critical, for example.

Runearm damage is gated by unboostable, untenable DCs, wonky targeting mechanics, and a slow fire rate. Its at best only ancillary DPS. And, past the first two tiers, the *only* thing BE Runearm enhancements gives you is enhanced mobility. But you still have to stop dead to charge from Tier 3-5, regardless.

Iron Defenders are gated by Arti levels (which means they're only useful for pure/near-pure artis), a lack of modern-style enhancements, a deeply flawed AI (stops attacking, gets stuck, breathes fire for 1d6 damage in Epic), and the inability to acquire all the basic gear-based functionality you need for endgame survivability.

AT casting boosts are about the only bright spot. Arti SLAs are among the best (though I suspect LS is so awesome because its not WAI), but even then - its ancillary damage unless you build a dedicated Caster Arti. Compare the two Druid trees for comparison; SH gives casting bonuses and SLAs too, but Nature's Warrior gives way more to Animal Form fighting. Compare with Wiz/Sorc; they have dedicated caster trees with SLAs, but EK gives way more for weapon fighting (and PMs can build for a pet too to boot). Compare with Bard, the other "generalist" class; Spellsinger for casting and SLAs, Swash for weapon fighting (and WC too).

I don't know that a straight comparison really works, but I'd love to see some feedback on some specific builds.

Sev~

A pure Arti, focused on Repeaters, and fully invested in BE will get +3 Enhancment, +2 Damage, +2 Seeker, +4 Int, and either Fusillade or Damage Boost. That's every applicable damage bonus from BE. You can also add a whole +0.5[W], but only if you're WF/BF (and thus have it anyway in Racial, for cheaper and no T5 lockout), or Construct Essence (and take a huge hit to your Heal Amp + spend a Feat), and you also cant unequip your weapon.

My Repeater-focused Arti is 12 Arti/6 Rgr/2 Rogue. The non-Arti levels gives me +4d6 Sneak damage and a +2[W] +2/+2 Crit attack I can use at least 25% of the time, and that also Bluffs with 66% uptime so I can make use of those Sneak die. So even ignoring the Sneak die, that's like a permanent +0.5[W] +0.5/+0.5 just from 11 points in DWS, which is comparable if not superior to the entire BE tree.

The new Harper class as described would give +3 damage vs Evil (how many neutral mobs are there in endgame?), +24 Ranged Power, +2 Enhancement/Imp Deception or +4 Enhancement/Righteousness, +4 Int, Int-to-Hit (while Arti has to choose between Int for hit and for dmg), and most damningly: Int Divine Might with 100% uptime. That one Tier 2 enhancement alone offers more by far for Repeater damage than the entire BE tree. Let alone the other enhancements in Harper to casting (USP) and to pets.

=======

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the Harper tree - I love it and I'm excited that there's finally a way to get INT-to-dmg for Repeater builds that isn't locked into Arti or Mechanic. This would make things like Repeater Rangers, Repeater Wizards, Repeater Paladins etc. viable. And I would love to have all those things available to spend AP on with my current build.

I just don't want to see Artis locked out of their own party because you have to buy Harper to be optimal with repeaters. This is an *unequivocal* P2W class for Repeater builds, which goes against everything you've said before about not wanting to create a P2W tier of players through the Store.

PM me if you need any further elaboration on how Harper would completely blow existing Artis out of the water...

[Aelonwy]

To people asking why the Attribute enhancements don't include Charisma; there was too much Charisma stacking available in the game, so we had to cut some back. It felt better to keep it in the cores.

Sev~

What charisma can you acquire that has no equivalent in intelligence?
Seriously asking here... is there a source of charisma that I have somehow overlooked?

[patang01]

The tech needed was tricky for sure.



We've made good progress on this. With Vanguard we have filled out Paladin and Fighter. We also did a lot of work on Knight of the Chalice, and added changes to Sacred Defender and Stalwart Defender as well.

We know Druid and Favored Soul need a third tree, and then Artificer. Sorcerer is a special case since Savant is essentially four trees already so that will come later.



We'd love to see feedback on specific trees when we focus on those classes. We are looking at doing a Barbarian pass next.



There are a lot more ways to stack Strength, and Rage doesn't stack with Intelligence. We believe Strength builds will still be great, and we are eager to get feedback on specific builds that use Harper Agent.



Harpers have always been very good at enchanting their weapons.



We are also doing a Paladin pass for this update so if something is broken make sure you bug it!

Sev~

Arti last? I tell you, my **** pet still floats after walking up ladders. Arti needs to wait till last? Almost every single class have something that adds significantly to their class. Almost every single class have a specific destiny that adds great synergy.
Arti, well they're okay up till 20 then they fall behind. I don't know if this 'adds' anything to it. I'll have to play around, but it certainly doesn't have synergy. Anyways.

[Dagolar]

. The balance of the tree itself is of course subject to change before release\).

Melee Power and relevant enhancements

You're still having serious problems, with the fact that you decided to apply melee power to base weapon damage (which scales naturally into epic items) as well as with special abilities/weapon enchantment procs.

In this case, you've got Harper Agent giving a whopping +24% to all damage: base, and procs all.
Assuming an average of 3*8+3*5 for levels and Destiny melee power (total of +39), you're still looking at a total of +17% to total damage over what the base melee power gives.

Compare that to, say: Dwarf Fortress: While wearing full plate and using a shield, you gain +1/+2/+3 Armor Class, Intimidate, and Will saving throws vs. Fear, and you deal +3%/+5%/+7% additional weapon damage

Takes an entire tree to get, and it only applies to weapon damage. Okay, sure; You could change [the dwarf enhancement] to +3/6/9 melee power instead, and it'd balance in reasonably well.

That's not the point though- it's that you're adding such a potent ability and tossing it out so freely. It dramatically overpowers old enhancements- even the newer bard/paladin ones often fall short; again, simply due to how melee power affects all damage.

Would you rather, say, invest into another core tier of KotC for +1d6*melee power light damage;
Or would you rather invest in two tiers of Harper Agent for +12 melee power, for +9% total damage?

Assuming the average person is dealing 300 damage including procs at cap [YMMV] then you're looking at +27 damage. With the 1d6, you're looking at an average of +5 damage (3.5*1.39).

And that's just for going 3 tiers into Harper instead of going tier 3 or 4 in KotC.


The IDEA is good, but the balance seems sorely off.


Higher Tiers
The higher tier Harper abilities (Tier 3-5), other than the melee/etc power ones, lack real build appeal except for specific spellcasting builds; and tier 5 is rather uninteresting, in large part due to:
Moment of Clarity: For the next 12 seconds the DC of your spells and your tactical feats is increased by +10. Cooldown: 5 minutes.

12/5?
Okay, +10 is a bit ridiculous, sure, but if you're going DC caster, reliability is your aim. Assuming someone goes this high in the tree for that ability, they generally want something they can use more readily.

Ex: For the next 20 seconds, the DC of your spells and tactical feats is increased by +6; Cooldown: 2 minutes.

Of course, a major issue here is the combining of spell DC and tactical DC; obviously the format works better for tactical DCs.

Either way, 12 seconds is way too short, no matter the other elements of the layout.

Harper Enchantment to Magic (tier 5) should be increased to +15, to compare well to other spellcaster trees that provide similar at lower tiers (though not universal; that's the benefit of tier 5).



Int/Dex? Should be Int/Dex/Cha each level, same as the core ability. They're HARPERS for Mystra's sake. Charisma is part of the shtick.




SPEAKING of Core abilities..

Those are some of the worst Cores I've seen.

I mean, REALLY?

Ex: You gain +1 to hit evil and undead creatures. Your attacks deal 1d6 additional Light damage. You resist evil influences particularly well, gaining a +2 bonus to saves against spells and effects produced by evil creatures. All Light damage from core abilities scale with 100% Melee Power.

Ex2: Agent of Good I: +1 to hit versus evil, +1 Universal Spell Power.


What. :P

The sad thing is, this goes through all the Cores for Harper.

I could understand wanting to make a universal tree a bit weaker than class ones- especially since it's unaffected by multiclassing-
But holy **** is it bad.
It's like, original, released halfway-into-the-last-day-of-beta Warchanter bad

Lets do a mock-up:


Core1: Agent of Good: The Harper is an esteemed agent of good, known far and wide for their efforts. +1 to hit and damage versus evil, +1 to saves versus evil, +3 universal spell power, +1 diplomacy.

Core3: Harper Training: +1 Int/Dex/Cha. You gain the Negotiator feat (+2 diplo, +2 haggle).

Core6: Agent of Good 2: +2 to hit and damage versus evil, +2 to saves versus evil, +5 universal spell power, +1 diplomacy and +1 haggle.

Core12: Harper Training 2: +1 Int/Dex/Cha. You gain +1 to all skills.

Core 18: Agent of Good 3: +3 to hit and damage versus evil, +3 to saves versus evil, +10 universal spell power, +2 diplomacy, +2 haggle.

Core 20: Master Harper: +2 Charisma, +2 Intelligence. +5 melee power, +5 ranged power, +10 universal spell power.
Harper's Freedom: Dispel most detrimental effects from you and add +10 to all saving throws for 20 seconds. Cooldown: 5 minutes.


Give us SOME reason to take the cores, eh?

BACK to the tiers:


Weathered Traveler: +1/2/3 Energy Resistance -> 2/4/6 (other elemental resist enhancement lines should be brought in line to the modern game as well).
Harper's Leadership: Your hirelings, summoned, and charmed creatures gain +2/3/4 to all ability scores and gain +1/2/3 to saving throws and critical hit damage.




Okay, that's it!

Again, mock-ups are just to show expected strength, not entirely to function as actual suggested abilities.

The rest of the abilities are well-balanced, and the int/versatility factor of the tree is rather interesting


P.S.
Thank you for finally giving us an easy to access int->combat line. I've been aching for it ever since kukris were changed.

[bbqzor]

Sorry but this hit a nerve.

We've made good progress on this.

I imagine you feel much differently about this than we do. We were promised, over a year ago now, 3+ trees per class, and 1+ trees per race (depending on how dragonmark heir fit in). There were 8 races at the time, and 13 classes. Thats 47+ trees.

What we got was Artificer abilities split into 2 trees so everyone had to divide their character up. Barbarian abilities spit into 2 trees, with a third one which basically does nothing and makes no sense. Bard only had 2 until recently. Cleric was given 3, but shares one with Fvs. Fvs only even has 2, and one of them is shared. Druid still only has 2. Fighter has 2, one of which is basically a monk tree (until we see vanguard, not counting it). Monk has 3, but in the transfer lost its ability to use void strikes without a T5 (nerfing Curse of Void and Moment of Clarity) as well as eliminating any way for Shintao to power up its Light finisher outside of waiting on 3x cd. Paladin has 2, one of which was broken until now (again, until vanguards live no dice, and even still its another shared tree). Ranger got its 3 okay, though theres still a balance pass needed. Rogue has 3, but one of them is basically useless (never seen a T5/capstone mechanic in serious play). Sorcerer technically has enough, but its really just one tree (Elemental Savant) with all the abilities taken off being a Multiselector. No sign of the Acolyte of the skin still. Wizard has 3 by virtue of EK, but again thats shared with sorc.

What that really boils down to is, from the original missing PrEs, most of the new ones are either Shared between trees, or only exist because they were split out of one tree. The only actual unique new one is Swashbuckler, and it kinda shows with it being generally pretty cool. With this approach youre never going to hit that 47+ unique situation. Its going to be more like "well, every class has 1-2 unique trees, then a lot of common/shared ground thats just generally appealing, oh and then a few lucky classes get 3 trees of stuff focusing on their abilities woo!".

The reason bards are cool now? They actually have full support behind them, with contemporary gameplay elements taken into account when implemented. The reason other several of the other classes lack so much? They dont have full support, and arnet getting full support, and the only element taken into consideration for implementation seems to be "can we do it before patch time".

What we need is a clear message of direction that you are, still, intending to go back in and give each class the unique support it deserves to highlight its abilities and make pure class work. Because all these "common ground" abilities and "shared trees" homogenize game play.

(cue tie in to harper): You know why harper is going to be successful? Not because its T5 is any good, and not because its core is any good. But because anyone can splash 10-15 or whatever points into it, and grab some of that "appeals to everyone" stuff and help their multiclass 16/4 or 18/2 or 16/2/2 build out with it. Thats whats going to happen.

Your concerns about Cha stacking? Unfounded. No Cha focused build can sink another 22 points into this tree to get 2 more Cha in T3 and T4. If they do, theyre taking Cha away from somewhere else. But it does highlight the situation where a lack of unique and focused enhancement support doesnt prop up anything other than sitting there multiclassing out trying to max bonuses. Because thats what the current system does with its "shared trees that have to appeal to everyone" approach.

With Vanguard we have filled out Paladin and Fighter.

No, with Vanguard you havent done anything. We dont have it yet. In a players world, it does nothing. It means nothing. It addresses zero problems we have, and fills no gaps. Furthermore, the idea that those two classes will essentially share 2 of their 3 trees (between sacred and stalwart is pretty cosmetic, when you start considering what people will actually find room to spend AP on) just blends it together even more. Thats ... less than ideal shall we say, since anything else may land me in hot water.

We also did a lot of work on Knight of the Chalice, and added changes to Sacred Defender and Stalwart Defender as well.

A lot of work? Like what happened to bards? With total redesigns, new coding, and a complete overhaul? Oh no, you mean "we added cleaves and made your d6s scale, woo". If you think those minor changes and the ones to the defender trees are even close to what was needed, especially in light of how great the bard work was, I am not sure what to say. This is like giving one kid a chocolate factor, and another one a chocolate peanut, and being like "hey kids you both got chocolate, high five". My paladins allergic to peanuts =(.

We need to know that this isnt the only paladin adjustment. That youre going to do a little more later on to plug the gaps. If this is it... uh... let me say I hope U23 is really, really delayed so you can fit more in. It needs some custom attention. Being told "well your T5 weak-vorpal-clone is just staying lame because no time" doesnt actually address the class needing something good in T5. It just says youre out of luck. Thats no good....

We know Druid and Favored Soul need a third tree, and then Artificer.

Now Im afraid that druid and fvs will share a tree with artificer.

Sorcerer is a special case since Savant is essentially four trees already so that will come later.

As for sorc coming later... well.. when you take one element it locks out another. So they really only have EK plus 2 Element trees at a time. Still, thats 3, so not saying they should be moved up. (Additionally, as a class, theyre doing rather well so no need there either). Just saying, special case for having four, okay, but you need to also realize its a special case because its the ONLY class where taking trees PREVENTS other trees. Those 4 elements are really 2 trees, because thats all it lets you use at a time.

We are also doing a Paladin pass for this update so if something is broken make sure you bug it!

I even made a post about this. Theres a half dozen bugs and a half dozen suggestions easily. Some of the implementation isnt even there. As in: *you couldnt have possibly logged in and hit the button once to see if its even working, because it isnt, and one single button press would have shown your own testers that*. So why do we need to bug report this exactly? Havent you, at one time or another, even had a human sit down in house and like, oh I dont know, hit smite? That classic paladin thing? And seen if he got 10 melee power? Seems like something you might do when making an enhancement which does exactly that. Just saying. Hope someone over at turbine reads that post, because even if you didnt log in to look I did.

Sorry if its slightly off topic (some of its about harper at least) but man. Good progress..... No. Some progress yes. Some of it was even good progress. But cut and pasting new trees into multiple classes, and then adding more trees shared by everyone, so that everything is a generic "+stat everyone can use" feel isnt going to really solve anything except your ability to meet a deadline. Every class should have what bards got. What rangers could easily have with some tweaking. What we hope barbarians get since they have 3 trees already to patch up. Three unique trees, focused to help that class out, and highlight it to make it shine. I guess /rant off. Hopefully still helpful, in some capacity. Sigh.

[ThomasHunter]

If, and only if wis is ever added to hit/dmg it should be directly added to a druid tree, preferably tier4 or 5. Of course as soon as that happens there would be a massive influx of druid/monks. Imagine for just a moment if Wis to hit/dmg were added to a general any class tree like this one what a boon that would be for monk.

So, could this just be done for non-Monks? Probably not since that takes splashes out of the question. Maybe tie it to animal/elemental forms? There are pet buffs here so it would be in that vein I think. I so want this to happen on some level, but understand the Monk conundrum. I have faith it can be solved!

[droid327]

We know Druid and Favored Soul need a third tree, and then Artificer.

Most of what's in Harper should *be* the third Artificer tree. Make AT all about casting, make BE all about runearm/pet enhancements, and then have a dedicated Repeater DPS tree.

But you're not *charging* for Vanguard. You're not *charging* for Swashbuckler. You're not *charging* for EK, or any of the other revamped or new trees that have come out since the original EP. You ARE charging Artis for Harper.

[Dagolar]

We know Druid and Favored Soul need a third tree, and then Artificer. Sorcerer is a special case since Savant is essentially four trees already so that will come later.

You may be the only one who believes that.

Now, from a design standpoint, I get where you're coming from.

But in terms of toon building?

You can go Eldritch Knight. Doesn't synergize well with any of the savants. Okay.

You can go X savant path. You can take one of two other savant paths as well- again, basically no synergy.


In terms of toon building, Rangers have two paths (deepwood+tempest or deepwood+arcane archer).

With that in mind, Sorcerers have ONE path. (savant or eldritch knight). The rest is just a way of dumping your remaining enhancement points into something.

Until sorcerers get their generalist path (remember Acolyte of the Skin?) they'll FAR suffer behind the other classes.

Arti is similar- BE can support AT, but AT can't support BE, essentially giving Arti only 1.5 paths.



I'm not arguing that Favored Soul or Druid need love- hardly, I've been aching for an additional FvS tree for a good while, and I'm still hoping to either see a generalist melee or a healing- or hell, any casting path that doesn't have an aggravating seasonal mechanic- for Druid.

Just please, don't underestimate how poorly Sorcerers are right now, for build versatility.

I end up LR+20 or Heart of XPing my sorc lives when I have to take them, or simply skipping over them when they're not essential to the TR.

They're /just that limited (and thereby boring) in build options/.

The other four (Arti, Druid, FvS, Ranger) classes are problematic as well, but at least you can multi-class Arti and wild-shape-druid well, FvS has two solid trees, and the potency of druidic casting makes up for any prestige path..quirks.

I make no excuses for Ranger.


So yeah.

Again, not trying to argue your statement persay, just trying to clarify that sorcs are in desperate need of attention and that shouldn't be underestimated just because of a quirk in their prestige path formatting.

Thanks

[merridyan]

If the tree's can't be earned in game, I will be leaving here with Rove.

Seems like an incredibly stupid thing to be upset about. Turbine needs to make money to keep the game afloat. Whats wrong with making an optional tree that VIP get for free and others have to pay for? It's not like the pure PTW of Otto's boxes, which don't seem to upset you. Honestly of all the things they add that has to be paid for this seems like a really odd one to draw the line on.

[maddong]

If you are adding a Pay to Play tree to everyone you might as well call it: "DM's Ticket to Win" instead of "Harper"

I'm fine with Pay to Play trees but let's at least make them thematically accurate:
Harper Tree once purchased (or free to VIPs) is available to Rangers, Bards, Wizards, and Druids (with tiers unlocked based on your levels of those classes)
If the tree is mainly to be wanted by artificers (I'm not sure who the main target audience is) then change it to something thematically appropriate (Eberron instead of FR) and limit it to a different series of classes.

And please let's not add more Divine Might abilities to the game. Especially if it is going to be the new requirement for usable tactics abilities on EE.

[DagazUlf]

ALL
.
OF
.
THIS!

(I feel like you guys are even more disconnected from your own players and game than you have been in a long time now. Which is just incredible, and I thought was likely impossible to achieve.)

Sorry but this hit a nerve.



I imagine you feel much differently about this than we do. We were promised, over a year ago now, 3+ trees per class, and 1+ trees per race (depending on how dragonmark heir fit in). There were 8 races at the time, and 13 classes. Thats 47+ trees.

What we got was Artificer abilities split into 2 trees so everyone had to divide their character up. Barbarian abilities spit into 2 trees, with a third one which basically does nothing and makes no sense. Bard only had 2 until recently. Cleric was given 3, but shares one with Fvs. Fvs only even has 2, and one of them is shared. Druid still only has 2. Fighter has 2, one of which is basically a monk tree (until we see vanguard, not counting it). Monk has 3, but in the transfer lost its ability to use void strikes without a T5 (nerfing Curse of Void and Moment of Clarity) as well as eliminating any way for Shintao to power up its Light finisher outside of waiting on 3x cd. Paladin has 2, one of which was broken until now (again, until vanguards live no dice, and even still its another shared tree). Ranger got its 3 okay, though theres still a balance pass needed. Rogue has 3, but one of them is basically useless (never seen a T5/capstone mechanic in serious play). Sorcerer technically has enough, but its really just one tree (Elemental Savant) with all the abilities taken off being a Multiselector. No sign of the Acolyte of the skin still. Wizard has 3 by virtue of EK, but again thats shared with sorc.

What that really boils down to is, from the original missing PrEs, most of the new ones are either Shared between trees, or only exist because they were split out of one tree. The only actual unique new one is Swashbuckler, and it kinda shows with it being generally pretty cool. With this approach youre never going to hit that 47+ unique situation. Its going to be more like "well, every class has 1-2 unique trees, then a lot of common/shared ground thats just generally appealing, oh and then a few lucky classes get 3 trees of stuff focusing on their abilities woo!".

The reason bards are cool now? They actually have full support behind them, with contemporary gameplay elements taken into account when implemented. The reason other several of the other classes lack so much? They dont have full support, and arnet getting full support, and the only element taken into consideration for implementation seems to be "can we do it before patch time".

What we need is a clear message of direction that you are, still, intending to go back in and give each class the unique support it deserves to highlight its abilities and make pure class work. Because all these "common ground" abilities and "shared trees" homogenize game play.

(cue tie in to harper): You know why harper is going to be successful? Not because its T5 is any good, and not because its core is any good. But because anyone can splash 10-15 or whatever points into it, and grab some of that "appeals to everyone" stuff and help their multiclass 16/4 or 18/2 or 16/2/2 build out with it. Thats whats going to happen.

Your concerns about Cha stacking? Unfounded. No Cha focused build can sink another 22 points into this tree to get 2 more Cha in T3 and T4. If they do, theyre taking Cha away from somewhere else. But it does highlight the situation where a lack of unique and focused enhancement support doesnt prop up anything other than sitting there multiclassing out trying to max bonuses. Because thats what the current system does with its "shared trees that have to appeal to everyone" approach.



No, with Vanguard you havent done anything. We dont have it yet. In a players world, it does nothing. It means nothing. It addresses zero problems we have, and fills no gaps. Furthermore, the idea that those two classes will essentially share 2 of their 3 trees (between sacred and stalwart is pretty cosmetic, when you start considering what people will actually find room to spend AP on) just blends it together even more. Thats ... less than ideal shall we say, since anything else may land me in hot water.



A lot of work? Like what happened to bards? With total redesigns, new coding, and a complete overhaul? Oh no, you mean "we added cleaves and made your d6s scale, woo". If you think those minor changes and the ones to the defender trees are even close to what was needed, especially in light of how great the bard work was, I am not sure what to say. This is like giving one kid a chocolate factor, and another one a chocolate peanut, and being like "hey kids you both got chocolate, high five". My paladins allergic to peanuts =(.

We need to know that this isnt the only paladin adjustment. That youre going to do a little more later on to plug the gaps. If this is it... uh... let me say I hope U23 is really, really delayed so you can fit more in. It needs some custom attention. Being told "well your T5 weak-vorpal-clone is just staying lame because no time" doesnt actually address the class needing something good in T5. It just says youre out of luck. Thats no good....



Now Im afraid that druid and fvs will share a tree with artificer.



As for sorc coming later... well.. when you take one element it locks out another. So they really only have EK plus 2 Element trees at a time. Still, thats 3, so not saying they should be moved up. (Additionally, as a class, theyre doing rather well so no need there either). Just saying, special case for having four, okay, but you need to also realize its a special case because its the ONLY class where taking trees PREVENTS other trees. Those 4 elements are really 2 trees, because thats all it lets you use at a time.



I even made a post about this. Theres a half dozen bugs and a half dozen suggestions easily. Some of the implementation isnt even there. As in: *you couldnt have possibly logged in and hit the button once to see if its even working, because it isnt, and one single button press would have shown your own testers that*. So why do we need to bug report this exactly? Havent you, at one time or another, even had a human sit down in house and like, oh I dont know, hit smite? That classic paladin thing? And seen if he got 10 melee power? Seems like something you might do when making an enhancement which does exactly that. Just saying. Hope someone over at turbine reads that post, because even if you didnt log in to look I did.

Sorry if its slightly off topic (some of its about harper at least) but man. Good progress..... No. Some progress yes. Some of it was even good progress. But cut and pasting new trees into multiple classes, and then adding more trees shared by everyone, so that everything is a generic "+stat everyone can use" feel isnt going to really solve anything except your ability to meet a deadline. Every class should have what bards got. What rangers could easily have with some tweaking. What we hope barbarians get since they have 3 trees already to patch up. Three unique trees, focused to help that class out, and highlight it to make it shine. I guess /rant off. Hopefully still helpful, in some capacity. Sigh.

[Dagolar]

Most of what's in Harper should *be* the third Artificer tree. [...] You ARE charging Artis for Harper.

I'm hoping I don't have to explain why in the world outside of your imagination, that doesn't follow :P

So long as they plan to release a future arti tree, you can't assert any such thing.

No, with Vanguard you havent done anything. We dont have it yet. In a players world, it does nothing. It means nothing.

You led in with commenting that a nerve had been hit, so I'm going to assume this is more of a over-emphasis than anything;
But yeah, so long as we're in beta, you can't say something doesn't exist just because you haven't seen it, or comment about it existing in the player world.
That'd be like saying "What's in the raid isn't important, because we haven't gotten to test it yet!" if a dev had said a week ago (ex) "The raid has all the named weapons".


For the rest of what you said..
So much rage! And you're seriously overestimating what the devs are capable of doing in a certain amount of time!

aaaaaaannnnd..

I agree with everything else you said.

Pushing aside the rage and high expectations of the devs, you make some very solid points.

Hopefully the devs manage to see those points as clearly, as well

2) MAKE IT FAVOR UNLOCKABLE

As far as I know, not a single person gives a **** about the broken Harper favor line.
Making it favor unlockable just seems <DUH>, and it's a bit confusing that it isn't tied in.
Perhaps it's planned for the future, when they can add an additional, hard-to-obtain tier for Harper favor; that would make more sense than avoiding the inclusion entirely.

1) INT for hit and damage is currently an either or buff for Artificers for a limited number of weapons (1-handed w/ rune arm or crossbow) requiring a 6 level investment, and only as a damage option for Mechanics for ranged/thrown. Putting the two abilities at T1 & T2 is a VERY small investment that introduces horrendous balancing issues. Specific issues include SOME of the following:

Not going to argue with your point- that's purely a subjective opinion that you have full right to-
But going to clarify that Harper int only applies to- assuming I understand right- thrown weapons and melee weapons; NOT ranged weapons of any sort.

Again, just making a potential clarification, not asserting in either direction about the balance.


Though I will note, I'm thrilled the int-> is finally in play (as I mentioned earlier, I miss Kukris, which used to be int->), and that normal class trees only require 6 AP to get Stat->, while Harper requires..11? 12? and so aren't entirely out of balance.

On the flip side, it COMPLETELY invalidates 'Different Tack' from Swashbuckler, SOOOOOO.

Again, just pointing out things for consideration


Be kinda interesting if they kept the int->attack low, and moved the int->damage to tier 4, making Swashbucklers get a small perk with Different Tack.

[LeoLionxxx]

*snip*
I'm thinking it would basically be like the Artificer class modle: Included with ViP, unlockable with Favor from appropriate pack(s), or directly purchasable - everybody wins?

I very much agree. Not only is it the most appealing, it makes so very much sense.

I suggest that for this update the buying status be left as-is, with the promise that a future epic-level Harper favored adventure pack will give enough favor to grant it; I say epic level pack because it's relatively easy to get max Harper favor by playing the heroic versions of the quests with epic toons, so you should be forced to play content at a difficult level in order to get this sweet reward.