Holy-Sword and Improved critical are being changed, or are not being changed?

[Hammertop]

During a Deathwyrm run last week, about a half-a dozen other players were discussing that the Devs had said they were going to change Holy-Sword in the next month.

It was the first that I have heard about it, and I found it hard to believe that would be done without advising the players at large first. But these were all very good and established players, not panic-merchant types trying to be weenies.

The subject came up when someone said they were about to TR into a HolyBow, Pally 14/ranger6 and the others quickly warned them not to do it now because Severlan was planning on nerfing the Holy-Sword and the way it interacts with Improved critical.

After hearing them talk about it for a half a hour, it seemed pretty possible. So I searched the forums, podcasts, and other stuff I could think of for a answer and it all got even more murky.

So I bit the bullet, after 4 years I finally registered a forum account and PM'd the question. The PM route being a effort to avoid being abused as I have seen people who ask questions often are. Point of reference, that abuse is often pointlessly vicious.

I waited several days, and now I'm having to post here hoping that Turbine could clear this up for any us who are about to make a Paladin mixed character focusing on Holy-Sword and IPC.

While I still find it pretty unbelievable that such a big change would be made without at least some type of warning going out before hand to players, I am beginning to worry that it could actually happen out of the blue.

So would it be possible to have somebody at Turbine please give us a head's up that this is coming down the pike, or tell us that it is not?

[Enoach]

From my understanding of what I have seen mentioned by Producer Sev is that they are aware that Holy Sword (even after the last modification) is still Over-performing.

While I cannot say that they won't modify this spell, I can say that at this time the community at large has not been given any additional information on changes. This is similar to Divine Grace (Charisma to saves) that has also been discussed but as of yet not plans have been leaked to the community. Now it is possible the Players Council has seen or is seeing possibilities that Turbine has been working on but that does not mean they will be coming any time soon.

I think for the most part players are "safe" in the short term to count on changes not occurring. Long term is a different story as it might be possible that they don't rework anything until after they have made some additional class passes.

[Steve_Howe]

Sounds like at least one member of the Player's Council was in your group and talking about something that was probably prohibited by their NDA.

I doubt you'll get any sort of official answer until Severlin himself decides to disclose it to the DDO Forum community at large.

[Hammertop]

Sounds like at least one member of the Player's Council was in your group and talking about something that was probably prohibited by their NDA.

I doubt you'll get any sort of official answer until Severlin himself decides to disclose it to the DDO Forum community at large.

That could be, they were all really well informed and seemed quite switched on about it and several other topics. But honestly I don't know, because I can't really put a name to the PC members toons on my server. Keep in mind that it was several of them chatting about it. Over the course of the raid I asked a couple of questions and then just listened while I got on with turning mirrors.

I would say that my point really is that if it's going to be done, fine. Just makes sure to give players plenty of warning that it is coming.

Changing Holy-Sword & IPC, would not be the problem, not warning players that you were going to change it would be the problem, a rather large one I would guess.

[Bluegirl_Two]

Nerfing anything is a problem. Regardless of whether advanced notice is given or not, there will be yet another riot.

And here's the real problem with things -- Turbine had the opportunity to listen to players before any of the buffs went live and ignored those who said that the buffs were a bad idea. I don't care if it is paladin or barbarian or the latest mechanic update, the warnings were there and they were ignored.

I recently posted about game balance and said that if classes over perform either they should be nerfed or the environment should be buffed. This is a balance issue that will plague DDO for a long time. If the classes are nerfed then the players get angry, Turbine gains a reputation that is even more negative than it is already, the game suffers as a result. On the other hand, if the environment is buffed the remaining classes that were not over performing now under perform. Players get angry, Turbine gains an even more negative reputation, and the game suffers.

The alternative is to buff everything. Leave paladins, barbarians, etc. alone. Allow them to over perform. Learn from the mistake and buff the remaining classes to the same level. Now all the classes over perform. Restore balance by buffing the environment.

The advantage to that is players don't complain. Well, some will because they don't understand the big picture and they will whine about the game being too dumb or too easy. But, overall, players will be glad that their favorite class finally got some love.

Another advantage is that the environment doesn't complain. If it gets buffed too much and then nerfed back, it doesn't care.

Finally, Turbine gets a chance to show that it learns from previous mistakes and that it actually understands player v environment balancing.

But, the first step is no nerfs -- at least not to anything affecting players and their characters.

[Susquehana]

Nerfing anything is a problem. Regardless of whether advanced notice is given or not, there will be yet another riot.

And here's the real problem with things -- Turbine had the opportunity to listen to players before any of the buffs went live and ignored those who said that the buffs were a bad idea. I don't care if it is paladin or barbarian or the latest mechanic update, the warnings were there and they were ignored.

I recently posted about game balance and said that if classes over perform either they should be nerfed or the environment should be buffed. This is a balance issue that will plague DDO for a long time. If the classes are nerfed then the players get angry, Turbine gains a reputation that is even more negative than it is already, the game suffers as a result. On the other hand, if the environment is buffed the remaining classes that were not over performing now under perform. Players get angry, Turbine gains an even more negative reputation, and the game suffers.

The alternative is to buff everything. Leave paladins, barbarians, etc. alone. Allow them to over perform. Learn from the mistake and buff the remaining classes to the same level. Now all the classes over perform. Restore balance by buffing the environment.

The advantage to that is players don't complain. Well, some will because they don't understand the big picture and they will whine about the game being too dumb or too easy. But, overall, players will be glad that their favorite class finally got some love.

Another advantage is that the environment doesn't complain. If it gets buffed too much and then nerfed back, it doesn't care.

Finally, Turbine gets a chance to show that it learns from previous mistakes and that it actually understands player v environment balancing.

But, the first step is no nerfs -- at least not to anything affecting players and their characters.

I have always felt nerfs are a bad idea. They set a negative example and make the dev team look like they dont understand the game they are building.

[Powskier]

Nerfhammer!

[Hammertop]

Well to avoid hoopla, I am purposefully not saying how about I feel about a nerf one way or another, and there is nothing I can do about it anyway or any kind of insight I could provide the Devs concerning it that they haven't already seen.

Instead I am trying to focus on what I really think is important: If a big change like this is coming Turbine needs to give players advance warning, not a vote in the matter, but a warning well in advance so players can adjust and prepare as needed.

[garynash7070]

Ok so.... Paladins are supposed to be holy warriors right? Not just holy tanks. If you take holy sword down another notch you relegate the Pali to defense only again. The class will have some dps, but why was their even a Pali pass done? Nobody played Paladins for a long time because all they were good for was a tank. Dps was very marginal. Been playing a long time, since the beginning, and if the devs listen to people that complain about holy sword and do nerf it. Paladins once again will not be a holy warrior, just a holy tank. The devs just wasted time that could have been used elsewhere. You know where I stand. Whatever that counts for. In dollars spent, turbine, it would be over 2k since the beginning. Probably more. Again whatever that counts for. Just saying. Oh yeah, add to it I just bought the $100 double points pack. I'm not threatening, nor saying my money is any better than any others( that was put in to hopefully stop the flame posts blah blah blah), but one thing I have seen in 9+ years playing, turbine loves and needs money. So I just wanted them to see a dollar figure attached to a vote to keep palis as they are. They, like all companies, only see the bottom line.

[Jetrule]

As best as I could decipher from severlins statements about crit range buffs. The devs did not know that improved crit would aply its x2 crit range multiplier after all other crit range buffs. I think what they want is for the bonus from Improved crit to apply just to the weapons base crit range then any enhancement or spell bonuses to apply. No one has mentioned the damage multiplier from enhancements or holy swords being not wai. So if they make a change I would expect it to be to the order that the bonuses occur.

Example,

Currently a lvl 14 paladin with a standard great sword gets 10% crit chance from weapon base +5% from holy sword x2 from Improved crit slashing for a 30% (or 15-20) crit range and a x3 crit damage mutiplier from holy sword. (This is much higher on exalted smite btw)

If they changed it to what they originally intended it would be 10% base x2 from impoved crit slash and +5% from holy sword for 25% (16-20) crit range with the same x3 damage multiplier. This would be a greater drop than 5% on exalted smite..

The same would apply to all sorts of crit range multipliers including ones that have been around a long time like sniper shot and kensai's keen edge if they did a total system change though and I think they are hesitant to do it.

There has been no word on if the change will be made.

[Bluegirl_Two]

As best as I could decipher from severlins statements about crit range buffs. The devs did not know that improved crit would aply its x2 crit range multiplier after all other crit range buffs.

And there's your problem. How could the developers not know? It is their responsibility to know. Before they ever write one piece of code it is their job to know what impact that code will have.

The ignorance explains why the game breaks every time an update occurs. The development process is break it and then fix it.

Again, that would not ever be necessary if Turbine would listen to people when things run on the test server. Almost every problem has been identified in advance and ignored.

Break it and then fix it, that's the Turbine way.

I'd be more upset except that I fear it is the industry standard as well. Turbine probably thinks it is following best practices.

[Steve_Howe]

If they nerf Holy Sword, my pure 20 Vanguard Paladin would no longer be worth playing. My 14 Pal/6 Ranger would wind up not being played at all even though I could theoretically LR him into something different. I won't though because I've redone the toon so many times, I'm sick and tired of buying and spending DDO points on Lesser Hearts of Wood to "fix" what Turbine "breaks."

[unbongwah]

The alternative is to buff everything. Leave paladins, barbarians, etc. alone. Allow them to over perform. Learn from the mistake and buff the remaining classes to the same level. Now all the classes over perform. Restore balance by buffing the environment.

This would be fine if Turbine could afford to rebalance all the classes simultaneously. The last time they tried to do that was the U19 Enhancement overhaul and we all loooooved that so much, didn't we?

So instead we've got this more incremental approach of the last few updates, with classes going under the knife one by one. But the problem is the glacial pace of these revamps. In ten months (June `14 - Apr. `15), they've tackled four classes: bard, pally, barb, rog. At that rate, it would take them another two years to finish revamping the remaining nine classes; probably longer, since Warlocks are coming out first.

So what we have is a game where a handful of classes are overperforming and the rest of them are waiting - probably for months if not years - for the chance to catch up. Ultimately I think it's going to boil down to which requires fewer dev resources to re-balance the game in the short term: nerfing the most OP of the class revamps of the last year to narrow the performance gap; or buffing every other class to keep pace with the power creep? From that perspective, I think it's far more likely that Nerfs Are Coming(tm).

Re: Holy Sword etc. The most probable nerf IMHO is that Competence bonuses to crit range will stop being doubled by Improved Crit. This will affect Pulverizer, Keen Edge, Swashbuckling, Holy Sword, the Ninja capstone, and Knife / Staff Spec. Most of these bonuses only add +1 to crit range, so most of the time this hypothetical nerf reduces crit range by 1: e.g., greataxe+Holy Sword+IC:Slash would go from 17-20/x4 to 18-20/x4. But in the case of certain Swashbuckling weapons and Ninjas w/shuriken, this would reduce crit ranges by 2, which is a more significant DPS hit for those builds.

While I'm sure nobody wants to see their crit ranges and therefore their DPS shrink, the advantage to nerfing things this way is it affects most builds the same way; i.e., most of them give up the same 5% crit chance, although the actual hit to DPS depends on crit multiplier. [Like I said, pure shuriken Ninjas & certain Swashbuckler builds will take a bigger hit, but those are edge cases and could be compensated for by tweaking their DPS in other ways.] Furthermore, this won't change the way other crit bonuses like Celestial Champion and Crit Rage are applied, so nobody's build is broken. Some people may decide to change their weapon types based on rejiggered DPS math, which means refarming weapons; but frankly, that's always a risk factor in DDO if you always want to be top-tier DPS.

[AdamSmith]

I remember when Turbine nerfed Wizard Archmages using chain missles. Now hardly anyone uses them. Holy Sword should not be nerfed imo, it actually made paladins useful. All their other abilities are pretty much trash.

[Hammertop]

I would like to reiterate once again:

The question of this thread is not whether Holy-Sword or IPC should or should not be nerfed, that question is covered in many many other threads almost all of which are filled will bile and anger, something I'm not into and I don't want to see this thread descend into.

Instead:

I am trying to focus on what I really think is important: If a big change like this is coming Turbine needs to give players advance warning, not a vote in the matter, but a warning well in advance so players can adjust and prepare as needed.

The players that told me about the upcoming changes were not flighty or ranting, they were so matter of fact that I began to see it is possible that they knew something I was unaware of.

So it would be for the best if that is going to happen that Turbine get out in front of it and advise players that it's coming, or if not advise players that is not coming. Very simple really.

[TheGuyYouKnow]

As best as I could decipher from severlins statements about crit range buffs. The devs did not know that improved crit would aply its x2 crit range multiplier after all other crit range buffs. I think what they want is for the bonus from Improved crit to apply just to the weapons base crit range then any enhancement or spell bonuses to apply. No one has mentioned the damage multiplier from enhancements or holy swords being not wai. So if they make a change I would expect it to be to the order that the bonuses occur.

correct, currently the buff changes the base of the weapon(not wai) eg. the base of a khopesh goes from 19-20/x3 to 18-20/x4 and then improved crit comes in and doubles the crit range of the weapon(wai) ending up with 16-20/x4. this is especially bad when paired up with weapon that already have buffed crit range and celestial champion. eg. Drow Khopesh of the Weapon Master ends up with 13-20/x4.

if they moved the current holy sword spell to the level 18 or even 20 KotC core i feel it would be far more balanced and people would stop putting 15 paladin into every build

[Oxarhamar]

As best as I could decipher from severlins statements about crit range buffs. The devs did not know that improved crit would aply its x2 crit range multiplier after all other crit range buffs. I think what they want is for the bonus from Improved crit to apply just to the weapons base crit range then any enhancement or spell bonuses to apply. No one has mentioned the damage multiplier from enhancements or holy swords being not wai. So if they make a change I would expect it to be to the order that the bonuses occur.

Example,

Currently a lvl 14 paladin with a standard great sword gets 10% crit chance from weapon base +5% from holy sword x2 from Improved crit slashing for a 30% (or 15-20) crit range and a x3 crit damage mutiplier from holy sword. (This is much higher on exalted smite btw)

If they changed it to what they originally intended it would be 10% base x2 from impoved crit slash and +5% from holy sword for 25% (16-20) crit range with the same x3 damage multiplier. This would be a greater drop than 5% on exalted smite..

The same would apply to all sorts of crit range multipliers including ones that have been around a long time like sniper shot and kensai's keen edge if they did a total system change though and I think they are hesitant to do it.

There has been no word on if the change will be made.

Yes Sev though that it worked like in PnP & it actually use to work like that with Kensei PreMOTU so he was not far off.

[AdamSmith]

What a ridiculous statement to make. If they want to nerf something, then they're going to go ahead and do it. They don't need to warn you 2 weeks in advance so you can "prepare". Get real. If they make it happen, then you can make the adjustments afterwards.

Players do not need to be notified of every single game change. Not everyone reads release notes or patch notes. People that are actually playing the game will respond accordingly to future nerfs and or buffs and certainly a single spell change isn't newsworthy enough to include in the game launcher.

[Hammertop]

What a ridiculous statement to make. If they want to nerf something, then they're going to go ahead and do it. They don't need to warn you 2 weeks in advance so you can "prepare". Get real. If they make it happen, then you can make the adjustments afterwards.

Players do not need to be notified of every single game change. Not everyone reads release notes or patch notes. People that are actually playing the game will respond accordingly to future nerfs and or buffs and certainly a single spell change isn't newsworthy enough to include in the game launcher.

First please let me say that there is no call or justification whatsoever for you to be this rude and insulting, and I have no idea what makes you think it is alright to speak to or about other people in this fashion.

Secondly, within your attack I didn't see that you suggest any reason why it wouldn't be better to warn players about major changes to the game, as Turbine regularly does. Not one example of why it would be "bad" for Turbine to let us all know in advance of a very major change if it is coming.

Please be advised that I have tried to respond to your unprovoked attack in a even-handed manner and answer the question it posed. In future I will not respond to this type of abusive post, as I have no desire to see this become yet another yelling match. Honestly? the forums have too many of those already.

[Algreg]

What a ridiculous statement to make. If they want to nerf something, then they're going to go ahead and do it. They don't need to warn you 2 weeks in advance so you can "prepare". Get real. If they make it happen, then you can make the adjustments afterwards.

Players do not need to be notified of every single game change. Not everyone reads release notes or patch notes. People that are actually playing the game will respond accordingly to future nerfs and or buffs and certainly a single spell change isn't newsworthy enough to include in the game launcher.

First of all, let players decide for themselves what they "need to be". Turbine does not have to do anything, still, that is unrelated to things being either a good or bad idea. And people not using easily available information like release notes are to blame for this themselves.