The Balance Change post

[Axeyu]

crit change impact twf characters twice as much as other styles.

What?

[Malusny]

Our thoughts on Holy Sword:

Holy Sword was very strong when it first appeared. Over time, however, it's relative power has been blunted by additional class passes that offer alternate ways to gain those competence based critical bonuses. As such we've introduced alternate options to the ever present 14 Paladin version of builds. As we continue our class passes we feel that Holy Sword will remain a strong option, but not the only option.

This is why Holy Sword didn't see as much of a change as people might have been expecting. We really hit two weapon fighting builds as they were putting out a lot of DPS for the mitigation provided by Paladin.

Our thought behind removing a missile weapon version was feedback that many of the best missile weapon options were actually better in the 14 Paladin variant. This concerned us, and we addressed it early.

Upon reading feedback from players and re-examining our builds, we are making Holy Sword once again affect missile weapons. No, we don't want 14 Paladin missile weapon builds to be the best missile option. The removal of missile weapons from Holy Sword, however, has more ramifications that most of the other changes in this balance pass as it negates a design goal for a specific kind of build. The other changes have statistical changes, but the design intent for other builds is still intact and the builds play the same. This particular aspect of Holy Sword we feel goes beyond statistical change; removing the missile option actually messes up a design intent for a specific build.

(It also bugs us that the game has long bow as an option for the Paladin's special weapon and then we take away a strong DPS boost for Paladins that go that way.)

If 14 Paladin builds are still vastly more desirable than other ranged builds even though other builds have ways to pursue similar bonuses then we will find a way to address that.

Sev~

What about shield builds? Don't you think that it is just unfair if you remove it from shields as well? Please reflect on how a vanguard is supposed to match it? What good is a shield for if there is no chance of dealing strong damage in it? Why don't you just remove the crit threat range but keep the multiplier on the HS? That way you would make many players still happy.

I am playing a ranger now but I would really like to see fair changes so nobody gets nerfed more than others.
Please be just.

[Vorthian]

...

~ With the bug in certain Fury of the Wild enhancements, Manyshot and Ten Thousand Stars can be used to get back uses of Adrenaline. With the new reduced rate of fire of Manyshot and Ten Thousand Stars, utilizing this bug will be slightly less effective. We understand and have designed around this. We want to either legitimize this build by changing the wording on Fury Eternal so it officially supports ranged attacks or fix the bug, and we are looking forward to feedback on this from Lamannia.

...

~ Do we want to legitimize Fury Eternal's gain of Adrenaline while using missile weapons, or do we want to fix that bug?

Sev~

Now is the time to put this to rest once and for all, in one direction or another. Having the Dev's be silent on this has been tacit approval, but I absolutely hate the uncertainty that arises each time this is brought up on the forums. The unanswered question can be rewritten as, "Hey, Vorthian, we might fix this bug and drive you from the game. Or we might not, guess you'll just have to wonder. Have fun not knowing!"

[Oxarhamar]

Heh, you clearly have zero familiarity with playing any kind of ranged character at all. I've played quite a few, and I think the ranged changes are a good idea. Ranger isn't and shouldn't be the only option for any type of ranged and nobody should get a PENALTY to a style.

Personally I'm fine with making ranged Fury "legit".

Question--I know sneak attack on melee attacks scales with melee power. On ranged attacks does it scale with ranged power? Any thoughts about making sneak attack scale with 150% ranged power or similar? It'd make sense to me because there's a pretty sharp limitation on range unless you go for the DWS capstone. Maybe not necessary, but it'd make sneak-focused ranged builds scale better against burst-focused.

It's a pity that Shiradi is still so awful for ranged builds.

Your right, changes will have no effect on my running a ranged character other than dropping 14 Paladin.

[Oxarhamar]

No dev team anywhere will ever release an update every in any game that will be considered by players to be resoundingly and decidedly "balanced" across the boards. Balance is all but a four letter word, it's a near unattainable idea, because it varies so much for each player and dev.

Be constructive. Ask for some of the builds/etc. used, don't just be like "yeah right lol your internel tests are worthless." Be constructive, people. Just naysaying and bickering doesn't help improve anything.

+1

[rygard]

The change to TWF feats compensates for the DPS increase from the animation change.

The only two weapon fighting build we changed is Paladin.

Sev~

No, you also cutting down pure monks who using hwraps -which also not gonna affected by that "animation change"-. So, another nail to coffin.

[Blivit]

On two weapon fighting:

First, we smoothed out the Two Weapon Fighting animation and we saw a small bump in DPS. Since those builds are strong we were concerned that it would just exaggerate the difference in styles. We needed to compensate ~6% due to the change.

I think I've been pretty patient over the years with unarmed monks falling further and further behind as more and more enhancements, epic destinies, and whatnot break or don't work with handwraps. For example, the last update broke all %chance on hit effects on handwraps -- significantly weakening unarmed monks with end-game handwraps and/or augments -- but I'll wait to see if it gets fixed in the next update, maybe even major update, until I actually complain about it (rather than just point it out). Now monks are getting the short end of the quarterstaff, again. The justification is that non-unarmed two-weapon fighting has been made more powerful, so ALL two-weapon fighting must be nerfed to get it back in line. No, please, no. Unarmed monks don't use this animation. Unarmed monks aren't seeing this new 6% DPS increase. Please don't hurt them EVEN MORE than they already are. PLEASE address unarmed monk DPS before you consider nerfing two-weapon fighting even further. These most recent proposed changes have pushed me over the edge into actively complaining that we need a monk pass ASAP. Please do not implement the nerf to two-weapon fighting melee power until after unarmed monk DPS has been increased by some other means.

[bbqzor]

I have just been too busy IRL to get a proper post together, but I am making time tonight. This set of changes misses some key things which seem only apparent with a great deal of play experience, and cannot be expressed simply by "math" or "internal testing". A breakdown by change:

Holy Sword (Paladin)

When Paladin came out, many changes and/or additions were suggested. A very great deal of those were told "we cannot or would not, because Holy Sword is big". This is the second nerf to Holy Sword since that pass. And it continues to undermine the validity of that pass. Simply put: if you are going to continue to reduce the oomph Holy Sword provides, it needs to be revitalized back into the enhancements with some tweaks there. Otherwise, while multiclass situations which took Holy Sword out of balance get addressed, but in the process pure or mostly-pure actual Paladin builds simply get reduced.

You have repeatedly specified that the idea was specifically to target TWF Paladins... but why. If TWF classes are generally more dps as you say, why only make Paladin TWF worse? Must all Paladins be low-dps self-sufficient characters? The way the enhancements were set up you cannot really do much to counter this:

- If you take Vanguard to 41 you lose too much without a shield on, but suffer reduced volume of KOTC procs, as well as less additional Light d6s if you spent points in Sacred Defender to raise the stance up.
- If you take KoTC to 41, you cannot get enough shield bash or melee alacrity via Vanguard to compare to TWF or SWF rate of attack, meaning you are forced to put the other points into Sacred Defender and rely solely on KotC for damage.
- If you take Sacred Defender to 41, you both cannot get enough bash/alacrity in Vanguard to offer good dps, nor can you take KoTC high enough to get any of the good melee power boosts.

In all cases, the only solutions are to either move toward TWF, or to simply not be 20 paladin and spend 41 pts in one tree. Thats just a flat out bad design situation. Taking TWF (and to a noticeable extent, the buffed shield on Vanguard since paladins to not have the feats of a Fighter to capitalize on the other gains from that tree) off the Holy Sword list just shoves this problem even more to the front.

If this happens, PLEASE: Go back and look at those paladin threads. Look at all of YOUR DEV POSTS saying "well, thats a good idea but cant: Holy Sword too good". Because its just not anymore. And Paladins deserve some dps options too. Forcing everyone into s/b fighter clones sans the feat support, or swf kotc builds trying to ride out 7d6 light damage like it even compares even to something like swashbuckling is not a good place to leave the class. And its otherwise going to be ages before that class gets looked at again. Dont let all the "self heal prr/mrr" stuff blind the dps issue... in many cases the level of defense is overkill and essentially just represents losing dps for nothing. The class should have some strong dps options, not just one medicore one.

Blood Strength (Barbarian Ravager)

I assume you mean when they hit an opponent. It procs on Hits. If its changed to on-kill... thats an extremely massive nerf. Assuming its just a 1s cd on hit, I guess people can roll with that. It won't impact 2hd much just twf, and thats probably fine given what the other barbarian healing options do.

Critical Rage (Barbarian Ravager)

Fine. Related: PLEASE put the type of bonus for crit threat range and multiplier into all the tool tips. Its getting real complicated remembering which items/feats/destinies/enhancements/buffs/etc all stack. Just have some guy load up each tree and skim, if it says "crit anything" go add the type. I am sure players can provide a comprehensive list to label if that is easier for you. But, Get The Labels In!!

Two weapon fighting animations have been fixed so there is no longer a weird jump on the fourth animation. This has made the fourth attack slightly quicker.
Two Weapon Fighting (all feats) no longer grants melee power.

Good change. The dps changes from my work show roughly a 1% dps swing, and thats minimal enough that the better looking / better playing animations are probably worth it. Especially if you feel this helps address balance and/or lag.

Doubleshot values over 100% now have a chance of producing a third attack. The chance is equal to the amount the value exceeds 100. A doubleshot value of 130, for example, would always produce one extra shot and have a 30% chance to produce a third shot.

Essentially pointless, as the only situations this addresses are from Manyshot / 10K (see that reply below).

Repeating Crossbows and Doubleshot

Can you explain why this is balanced? That might sound like I'm an idiot, so be it. Doubleshot provides extra attacks per unit time, based on rate of fire. Repeaters do NOT shoot 3x faster than other ranged options... why should they get only 1/3rd the boost in rate of fire?

I understand the "layman's math" that if one mouse click is 3 bolts, then doubleshot should be 1/3rd, so its the same amount of extra arrows per mouse click. Except that the mouse click has exactly nothing to do with rate of fire... thats wholly controlled by animation time and things like alacrity values. So if Repeaters and other options shoot similar numbers of times per minute... why does one of those get 1/3rd less doubleshot?

(Note, I'm not trying to say don't fix the bug, I am just asking for a direct explanation of why that was intended in the first place. We have never gotten an explanation actually based on attack rate comparisons since the ability even showed up in game. It was just the guy doing it said "repeaters shoot 3x so 1/3rd boom" and we were all like "wait what" and then it went live. So yea...)

Manyshot

Adding to Doubleshot and Ranged Power mathematically keeps this change close. It is a loss (about 10% from what I can tell) in general, in terms of uptime. Anyone using a bow 24/7 will come out ahead over time due to no penalty afterwards, possibly barring "burst" situations like manyshot+fury which now get watered down. Anyone not using a bow 24/7 will be roughly similar (though worse) meaning classes like Fighters or builds like Tempest can still use this.

Let me just go on record saying I think this is a bad solution. I would have done something different. But since you are not budging and this just went post to lama (to live soon enough) its obvious no significant deviation will happen.

So instead I'll simply say, it could have been worse. I hope you add more doubleshot options to the game to help offset this in the very near future (meaning ones that stack, like a new ranger buff or add another lv30 destiny feat for another 10 or something). Another 10-20% of that which is somewhat readily obtainable without dumping your other gear choices can help ensure anyone wanting this diversity can work to obtain it without compromising themselves.

Ten Thousand Stars

If this can be used every 1 minute, and the idea is to not force people into using 10k stars, AND you are making AA DCs based off wisdom... I am seeing some things just not really changing.

Dropping Manyshot CD to 1 min as well might be the change needed to bring them more in line and prevent "forced" multiclassing. Interestingly, if this happens it also makes my above comments on Manyshot moot.... Having it there more often means taking a hit per use would balance out. If anything, it might encourage MORE diversity, with it being more "worthwhile" for someone like a Fighter to sink the feats building up to Manyshot since it adds a new dimension to their class. Appealing idea, no?

Mechanical Reloader (Rogue Mechanic)

Reason for this? They just doing too much dps or something? Maybe it could stay 40% for Great Crossbows or something.

Pulverizer (Legendary Dreadnought)

Again, add labels please.

Improved Critical and Keen

Ugh. This seems like its going to cause a lot of fury over not much in-game difference. I do see that you are going to add some redesign on Assassin and Swashbuckler to prevent that from getting "messed up" which is good.

But otherwise, its just going to mean the current "good" choices change, and future ones will just be designed with that in mind so will wind up where they were "aiming" at regardless. Just shuffling the status quo for no reason is a good way to anger the players. If it has to happen though, fine, its not the end of the world and it affects literally everything so... it is what it is. I hope you have some future idea which makes the growing pains here worth it.

PS, while youre there, add labels to crit related bonus types. Thanks.

Armor Changes

Big changes..... PRR wise, Heavy, Medium, Light .. Old:New

BAB 24, 60:48, 40:36, 24:24. Okay, small changes, but fine.
BAB 17, 53:34, 35:25, 20:17. Alright... bigger changes.
BAB 12, 48:24, 32:18, 18:12. Wow really big changes.

This basically means armor isn't good if you don't have BAB. Period. And no MRR, period. Just, wow.

This really makes spending feats on the proficiencies a pretty bad idea. No one is going to use armor that didn't get it already. And no one is going to bother with something like Eldritch Knight much (not that there were tons of them now, but there just isn't the same incentive).

If this was made to stop "heavy armor only" style play, I think it is grossly missing the mark. Dropping ~50 MRR (avg of what heavy armor adds now, and its what heavy armor on a bab24 tank would add if it existed post changes) is really significant. It means everyones going to take quite a bit more damage than they would otherwise... but it makes the lighter end of the scale hurt worse. At least barbarians or paladins or whatever still have a big hit die, and access to con boosting effects like a defender stance or rage. Classes/trees like eldritch knights, warchanters, druids, favored souls, etc are all just going to take more spell damage without any alternatives. And I am not sure that is good.

Not just because of "omg Ill die more". Fact is, in non-EE style situations, most people will still be fine. But it undermines the advantages those sorts of build decisions were supposed to offer when they went in. Druids and Favored Souls could spend a feat to get heavy armor. That feat now only adds something like ~15 prr, where as before it added 20+ prr and mrr. And a Warchanter taking Medium armor enhancement only gains maybe 6 prr now, rather than 15 prr/mrr. And using Eldritch Knight to try and cast in armor... forget about it.

Those other armor options need to be looked at. Something like the Warchanter enhancement can just have +5 prr/mrr on it. Just add that in there! Build diversity is going to take a hit here... people will adapt to the new efficient, and its not going to be just doing the same thing for less return. Do NOT let those class options go to waste.

As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.

Meh. Fighter Only stuff is of little consequence. They are the ones hurt least by the changes. They already had sort of only "one" armor option (heavy unless evasion splash then light, always just one "choice") and have the biggest PRR totals by far, making a small loss negligible to them. The will feel the MRR loss, sure, but I dont think a few more DC or losing feats to get back what they had is any sort of solution.

But if you want to add a lot of feats to create a ton of unbalance hey feel free. I seriously doubt fighters having DCs 10-20 above everyone else won't ever cause a future problem. Nor will adding feats that provide more MRR than the entire paladin class either. Its cool, paladins still have that going for them. I mean after the fighter uses 2-3 feats to catch up to paladin hes only ahead like 7ish so itll work out.

... I'm trying to say, I think this needs a lot more thought. A LOT. Because its not fixing things, its just making Fighter as good or better than other choices. Thats not a fix, thats a build redo (Put a fighter with these feats next to a paladin post holy sword changes. The paladin will have better saves, and worse everything else. Thats not really ideal, I hope).

Divine Grace (Paladin)

If this fixes some concern you have, cool, don't think it will really do much harm. Side note: you may want to look at Half Elf Dilettants (both paladin and others). As time has gone on, they become more and more worthless. Changing them to something more contemporary would be extremely welcome.

Relevant example: Paladin Dilettant: add your Cha to saves (cap of 2 + pal lvl x3), where pal lvl = 1-3 based on how many AP spent in that tree.

Just a thought, the race is pretty dang far behind, it could use its main class feature being something people may actually want instead of a paltry 1d6 sneak or +2 saves or something... no one has the AP to really sink into that tree anymore, be good to make the choices actually decent.

Eldritch Blast and other enhancements (Warlock)

So overall, Warlock dps drops about 10% in relative terms (after accounting for spellpower and such). Thats probably fine, they have a lot going for them.

One thing I would like to say is, don't make Chain under 100%. I really do not think any warlock power should actually adjust your values down. Chain may be popular because it lets the player be lazy, but its is not anywhere near over powered. The cap on how many mobs it affects makes it pale next to other choices. The appeal is lazy factor, and less missed shots while kiting. That is not worth actually "losing" base spell power.

If they go down fine, and if that one needs to be a flat 1:1 scale due to ease of play and lazy factor, okay. But it is not their best dps ability, nor does it do anything they cannot do with another option, and as a player getting less than 1:1 just isnt *fun*. Cap it at that, as a minimum, if you feel its otherwise too attractive to players.

-----

Wow lots of feedback. Hope it is helpful. Thanks... for hopefully having time to get eyes on this and digest it. Cheers.

[mikarddo]

Exactly. You'll see a small decrease in number of attacks (which at 26% is pretty much spot on where we want to be), and the large boosts in Ranged Power to compensate. The strategy of fishing for vorpals (similar to fishing for saving throw rolls of 1 to exaggerate the effectiveness of CC) will be slightly less effective while DPS will be close to live.

Sev~

Thank you for the reply. Kindly dont refer to a 26% cut as "small" though because its not - if my paycheck was cut by 26% it would not be a small cut Also, referring to archery as fishing for vorpals seems very odd when archery is easily and by far the type of weapon with the lowest RoF including manyshot, 10k and doubleshot. Do you intend to lower the RoF of other weapons by 26% as well or is that honor reserved for bows?

Anyway, kindly decide if you want to make Adrenaline work with ranged or not. If "not" the rest of your changes to archery are completely irrelevant as far as I am concerned as Furyshots are what makes archery fun and different. So, kindly dont remove that unique style of play.

[BigErkyKid]

No dev team anywhere will ever release an update every in any game that will be considered by players to be resoundingly and decidedly "balanced" across the boards. Balance is all but a four letter word, it's a near unattainable idea, because it varies so much for each player and dev.

Be constructive. Ask for some of the builds/etc. used, don't just be like "yeah right lol your internel tests are worthless." Be constructive, people. Just naysaying and bickering doesn't help improve anything.

I see. Be constructive as in doing exactly what I did in the second part of the post you carefully cropped?

They constantly reference their data and tests and very frequently it is at odds with our experience. Truth is, it s like pulling teeth asking for what they actually tested. As for balance being hard to achieve, all I can say is duh. I have been vastly more constructive than the majority of people in this thread who are just crying and threatening to cancel their sub of their op xp farmer toon gets nerfed.

But being constructive does not mean just giving applause. The proposal in the op was good in spirit (remove stacking of ic) but very bad in its implementation. I showed how it hurts the balance between weapons in swash and how it also hurts the balance between thf crit classes and the rest. One has to wonder, did they really not notice that short swords were getting the short end of the stick with the changes? Because last I saw now they are saying they will change it to preserve the balance.

I said it in my posts but I'll say it again. I stand behind the necessity of these changes. However, I don't have a single ounce of blind trust for the devs left in me. They have shown that they can make massive blunders and quite frankly this whole balance update is one giant mea culpa. It is a recognition of 1 whole year of incorrect decisions.

I applaud the courage to accept the mistakes. I stand with them that this is needed. But don't ask me to blindly accept their data and tests when those have been so obviously wrong that we now nerf a massive need update. I will bow to facts, not to "our data shows". I think it is fair.

[bbqzor]

And more feedback!

With the bug in certain Fury of the Wild enhancements, Manyshot and Ten Thousand Stars can be used to get back uses of Adrenaline. With the new reduced rate of fire of Manyshot and Ten Thousand Stars, utilizing this bug will be slightly less effective. We understand and have designed around this. We want to either legitimize this build by changing the wording on Fury Eternal so it officially supports ranged attacks or fix the bug, and we are looking forward to feedback on this from Lamannia.

Just change the text. Its the Primal Sphere, it should support Primal playstyles, and its is definitely not overpowering anything or breaking anything. Blitz works on both, Fury should too.

It's not that we mind two weapon fighting Paladins doing decent DPS, or two weapon barbarians doing decent DPS, but these builds should not be outperforming builds based on other styles by 40% or higher.

If you mean twf paladin is 40% more than twf otherclass then I have to say, poor builds are at fault. If you are saying twf paladin is 40% more dps than 2hd paladin or swf paladin, then I would say "well you designed the enhancement trees and spells in that manner and this was pointed out during the pass".

Let me put it another way: Go try to build a pure 20 paladin based around a non twf style which is supposed to be a "dps build". You kind of can't. The enhancement trees are not setup for that. This is part of why I say go back and look at the trees a bit in my previous post. I feel strongly it is needed. I also believe some concrete demonstrations would be simple to make. Like, all the dps pretty much comes from kotc, which favors attack rate not attack type, and yeah. Case in point. Thats not really twf's fault (or holy swords fault even). Its the enhancement pass's fault.

We think there has been a lot of good discussion in particular on MRR, armor, and whether these changes will put us back into a state where everyone feel compelled to take Evasion. We have read suggestions that some smaller amount of MRR might be added back to armors and we've been looking at that option. I just wanted to point out the reductions do not put us back to pre Armor Up balance. The PRR formula is more generous, and the PRR offered by armor is still higher. Heavy armor mitigates a lot more damage than before Armor Up. In addition, there are many sources of MRR, including gear, that simply did not exist before, including enhancements that only work with medium or heavy armors. Armored characters are still in much better shape than in the past

Yeah but theyre not in better shape BECAUSE OF their armor. You could wear no armor, throw on a 24 sheltering ring before even hitting 20, and have 27 prr from past lives, and just walk around taking 50% less physical damage. So yes of course we are better than before the armor/prr/game-mechanic change.

But its not because of armor. Which is what the armor pass was supposed to focus on. Again, please look at those fighter feats next to paladin enhancements. Look really close. Its not a picture I think will be healthy for the game. Let alone the non-"tank" classes' situations.

We have been reading with interest the concerns with named weapons that have increased threat ranges built in and how they interact with Improved Critical. This interaction is part of the design, as these threat ranges provided too much benefit previously. The fact that some of these weapons with lower level requirements were better than end game weapons highlights the problem fairly well.

Critical related situations have cropped up from time to time, sure. But trying to say that Item ML should directly correspond to a linear increase in weapon effectiveness is a lost cause. DDO is just not tightly or skillfully itemized enough for that. Its not a player-side problem.

The only real solution to that concern is having itemization guys know their game stats, their game play, and their ability interaction at top notch levels. And yes, thats asking a lot. Its complicated stuff and takes many hours of play to get a feel for. The next best solution is to give players a lot more chance to provide feedback, or be a lot more flexible with that feedback.

Maybe thats something the council does now... but I remember back in the day guys like Gensei would source ideas or feedback and a lot of it worked out very well. Now we see little or no change from preview to live, and have not for many releases. We need a chance to adjust items before this kind of stuff gets into game... and things like crits are a part of that.

Manyshot and Ten Thousand Stars still provide a massive burst of damage; we really don't think these builds will lose their burst feel when these abilities provide an additional 200-300% damage increase depending on gearing.

Not sure how you get that number... using them will not triple anyones DPS. Okay if you're like level 20 and have no ranged power and no doubleshot then yes, clicking 10k to get 50 ranged power and 100% doubleshot will triple your dps. But to even say that here is misleading... its not a real world example that will ever happen. More likely, youll go from like 50% doubleshot and 80 ranged power, to 130% and 160 power... which is like double.

So its a x2 clicky, where it used to be closer to a x3.5 or x4 clicky. As I said before in the end its somewhat okay, but I do think future choices should support this new direction sooner rather than later.

our live builds using two weapon fighting are testing really high. I'll be honest, it concerns us that there seems to be a large disconnect on what we are seeing in testing and the players perception on two weapon fighting. We are seeing two weapon fighting build posting numbers that are 30-40% higher than builds that use two handed weapons and single weapon fighting.

As an example, we don't want to remove a two weapon fighting option for Paladin, but we also don't think it should be doing 30-40% more damage than other styles either.

I wanted to bring this up because as we read the thread I don't think we've done a good enough job communicating why we are concerned about two weapon fighting builds.

This also completely ignores mention of the fact that building for TWF is the hardest. It has the worst stat requirements to deal with (17 dex and 3x feats). It also has the worst itemization requirements (for the entire games history, getting 2 good weapons has been more work than any alternative form of weapon itemization by a significant margin... and it continues to be so).

If you make any changes to twf (which I strongly feel you should NOT do) it would have to reverse those situations as well. Frankly, at this point in the game, thats a can of worms best left unopened. It is what it is, and has a lot of drawbacks as well (shortest hit box, most farming demands, affected the most by dr, etc).

In terms of paladin specifically... again go to the source. A twf assassin isnt so far behind a 2hd acrobat because they have support for both choices. Paladin doesn't. Its that simple.

If Barb (the other class mentioned at times) twf is outperforming Barb 2hd by margins that big, I think the builds or players are at fault. Its simple for a 2hd bbn to keep pace with a twf bbn on live for all good players/builds Ive ever encountered. Some are better/worse at different things. But neither one is taking any sort of dps or kill lead by virtue of style alone, and certainly not by such large margins. Barbarian is a class which has support for both indirectly, some things work better with twf some better with 2hd but both offer great, compareable, competitive dps without being specific. Rogue choices are specific. Paladin choices don't exist.

[Nestroy]

@ Sev, Varg, rest of gang,

you did a great thing to react to the most validated concerns about TWF, Holy Sword and Manyshot/10k. We got answers to the looming MRR debacle, albeit not promissing ones (that MRR on armor gets something in between current heights and zero MRR). I still do not like to go back to pyjama builds. Some MRR should be given with medium and heavy armor. If it is too high currently, tone down a bit. Make nonproficient toons not gain any MRR (and only half PRR?) from armor they are not supposed to wear. There should be a balance between evading damage (or dodging it) and sitting it out in armor. If you have the impression of MRR beeing too much on armor, tone it down. Do not reduce it to zero totally.

That leaves a last concern, regarding Warlocks. I would like to ask you a few questions on this:

1.) Is the change to blast damage done to balance out heroics?
1a) If yes, are you aware that this will get WL into serious problems in epic content?
1b) If yes, are you aware that there would be better ways to balance the WL in heroics, e.g. reducing benefits from Shining Through and making blasts cost SP?
1c) If no, is this blast pass done to reduce WLs in epic content?
1c1) If yes to epic tuning down, are you aware that even now before the pass only a handful of WL builds can compete in EE at all?
1d) If no, is this blast pass done because of some players comlaining?
1d1) Based on what numbers? Or is this just perceived power of WLs?
1d2) Complaints about what stage of the game? Low end heroics, high end heroics, epics? Epic Elite?
1e) Since only a handful of WL builds can compete in EE and you are nerfing epic damage too, are you aware that this will make WL less attractive?

2.) Is nerfing blast damage the most cost efficient way to balance WL? Meaning that the other ways are just more resource-intensiv to do.

Sorry to be that inquisitive. I fear that the blast damage pass is done out of the wrong motivs, hitting the wrong stage of play (epic and epic elite) and does more damage than good. Warlocks need some balancing, no doubt. But imho they do not need it in the DPS department. Especially not across the board.

Warlocks gain their power from the fact that they do not sacrifice anything for their main source of DPS. They just need to lv. up. And they gain their power from the fact that they are nearly indestructible w/o sacrificing much in terms of farming / grind, feats or SP. It´s not the raw DPS they are OPed in. On epic elite they even loose out against most if not all correctly done Paladin or Barbarian builds, Bard Swash and most Monkchers. I now leave out other xploiter builds on purpose. Warlocks easily win against Sorc and Wiz, tho, but these are in the doghouse for years now, and these are no p2p classes - and new ones at that.

If you do tone down Warlocks, tone them down for heroics. Leave their DPS intact in epic levels and for EE. Make them sacrifice more for what they get. Either tone down on Shining Through. Or make blasts cost SP. Or do both. But leave the DPS intact on epic levels.

[Raynebowdragon]

After some discussions with others and a little time thinking about this, some of these changes do make some sense.

The changes to twf, at first glance is a nerf on Rangers, however it's not really.

Rangers get boosts on their Tempest Tree to offhand weapons, which those who simply take the feat as a fighting option do not.

Unless ofc they splash in Ranger, however unless they are willing to transfer enhancement points into the tempest Tree from their main class Tree this would be a bit of a bad idea as to gain in one area they would lose in an area affecting the main class of their toon...

I can see why they would restrict a class using TWF that is not Ranger, due to the extra DPS that comes from simply being a big DPS melee class, so essentially this is balancing out the output from big DPS class and giving Ranger class a little more punch via their enhancement tree.

Still not pleased about the Barb changes, not sure they needed a cool down on their heals simply because everyone these days scream at you for not self healing, it is not likely there is even a healer in the party and if they are they usually self obsessed with offensive casting rather than healing and lets face it the small Barb heals and pots on a 2500 hp Barb just don't quite cut it do they?

The Pally changes I can see would affect many, but does not affect me so much because I am already building a monk splash Pally, that utilizes evasion, deflect arrows and dodge and will build up prr and mrr via ETRs.

Bit disappointed that Holy Sword can no longer be cast on hand weapons, because they gave my wraps a little extra punch required when only having 3 levels of Monk splashed on a Pally. But she is still built to intimidate and take punches while dealing out some decent dmg, her survivability is a little low right now but a few ETRs under the belt and problem solved!

As far as nerfing Warlocks go I am all for that, you party with a Warlock when you're a player not a piker and it's quite simply not any fun at all, as you wind up running round an empty Dungeon looting chests and as a Barb the Warlock steals your kill shots and you get no heals from your enhancements at all... As far as I am concerned nerfing some Warlock dmg is the best news I have heard this week!

Which by the way all these guys boasting they have 500 prr and mrr because they have ETRd a hundred times are the reason they are nerfing the prr and mrr on items, also I am guessing to encourage people to buy tomes with remnants, tomes from the DDO store and ETR more!

I have a few questions on the change to Many Shot:

Are you more or less changing to the same dmg in less shots?
Are you changing the cool down to suit the possibility of less dmg due to the shorter duration of the attack?

[AzureDragonas]

On two weapon fighting:

There has been a lot of two weapon fighting talk, specifically about the changes to the feats and to Holy Sword and I wanted to talk about our design intent.

First, we smoothed out the Two Weapon Fighting animation and we saw a small bump in DPS. Since those builds are strong we were concerned that it would just exaggerate the difference in styles. We needed to compensate ~6% due to the change.

That said, our live builds using two weapon fighting are testing really high. I'll be honest, it concerns us that there seems to be a large disconnect on what we are seeing in testing and the players perception on two weapon fighting. We are seeing two weapon fighting build posting numbers that are 30-40% higher than builds that use two handed weapons and single weapon fighting. These builds can still generate a lot of AoE through cleaves and cleave replacements. Although the AoE of two weapon fight would be behind two handed fighting, it isn't far enough behind to warrant such a large damage differential.

As an example, we don't want to remove a two weapon fighting option for Paladin, but we also don't think it should be doing 30-40% more damage than other styles either.

I wanted to bring this up because as we read the thread I don't think we've done a good enough job communicating why we are concerned about two weapon fighting builds. As we get ready for Lamannia we will be watching player feedback on their experiences with these changes and hopefully some DPS testing to see if the players are seeing more balance or if we need to look more closely into two weapon fighting.

Sev~

I still don't get why it's wrong duals are best DPS single target option in game, they already require lot more farming grinding etc than other weapons, requires more ability score investment also and get penalties.

There are already dozen drawbacks why you dont wanna play duals
1. Investments on abilities requirments.
2. feat hungry.
3. you need to put 2x more efforts to get good end game items than rest play styles.
4. you will have low damage as base but its compensated by attack number.
5. There are dozen better damage builds (wolfs, trees, warlocks, any multiple shooting mortal fear) and prob hardest warchanters (with which i can solo EE just becouse freezing mobs while having 80+ dc for 10-20 secs makes sense) or even lets take qstaffs where you can go doing 500-700 base on helpless and crits up to 8k, Bows u plan to nerf and still ignored repeaters which after updates already beat fury archers.
6. There is no option for multiple clearing couse if on duals you use cleave suddenly entire lane becomes lowest dps in game.
7. requires dozen gear just to get doublestrike attack speed tanky enough etc.
8. short range required to even hit target, so you must fight nearly surrounded by trash mobs.

Why you think fighters who specialize on mob clearing runs arround swinging they THF falcons 99% of quest and swaps to duals just to kill boss faster.

And you still think duals are so overhelming that you ignore fact its payback for those who worked hard to even get this far, sure i agree just by attacking 1 not moving kobold and looking in dps might appear not fair but try then test in real circumstances in some ee quests where you have to deal with champions and multiple monsters at same time.

[GroundhogDay]

Upon reading feedback from players and re-examining our builds, we are making Holy Sword once again affect missile weapons.

What about throwers?

And will we see a nerf in casters power? I mean, if balancing is the endgame of all this mess, i'd like to see less casters clear any room with ONE spell.

And will dodge get a nerf? It hardly seems fair that we heavy armor build get nerfed and light armor still have dodge, give higher dodge to heavys to compensate or trash dodge completely, right? It's only balancing

[SirValentine]

If having 10 MRR on light armor, 20 MRR on medium armor and 30 MRR on heavy armor is too powerful, why did you add 25 stacking MRR to the mysterious remnant cloak?

These are the type of decisions that boggle my mind. it's ok to add stacking 25 MRR to a cloak, but on armor it's way too powerful.

From my perspective things seem very chaotic and haphazard.

I don't think we need the extra MRR, but I'm with you on the apparently contradictory decisions.

Reminds me of when they nerfed the stacking DC bonus off of raid loot (e.g., Stormreaver's Napkin), then, very shortly thereafter, added a stacking DC bonus on purchasable Augments.

Or when they added per-spell metamagics, then, later, nerfed our ability to choose to Heighten Heal.

[Nestroy]

(...)As far as nerfing Warlocks go I am all for that, you party with a Warlock when you're a player not a piker and it's quite simply not any fun at all, as you wind up running round an empty Dungeon looting chests and as a Barb the Warlock steals your kill shots and you get no heals from your enhancements at all... As far as I am concerned nerfing some Warlock dmg is the best news I have heard this week!
(...)

In what content, heroic, heroic elite, epic, epic elite? WLs are uber in lv. range 4-22, then they begin to loose out on other builds. If you are complaining EE end game, please consider that most WLs do an average of 600-800 damage in that content with critting at about 1600. In EE this is not too much, especially if compared to some other builds doing 15k damage in the same quests, albeit burst damage. It´s right that in heroics the WL can easily best all and any high level heroic elite on solo. But there is a reason the WL can do this, and the reason is not DPS. It´s that the WL does not have to fear any retribution from mobs. When Wiz and Sorc were top of the crop, these classes often lead kill counts and were generally considered quite OP. But woe to the one or two times these classes got hit by a mob. I had quite some pugs where a Sorc or Wiz was leading the kill count AND the death list. Class Cannons. Now, the WL can clean the dungeon without even thinking about hit points. Self heal and temporary hit points make the WL a true survivability monster. The WL is not supposed to be that OP (especially with only one single enhancement from one single tree)! The complete disregard for the tactical situation is what makes the WL so powerful.

Take back the massively OP ES tier 5 enhancement Shining Through to "meaningful" levels and you go a great length to have WLs doing massively less damage to mob hordes. Because if they do otherwise they spend most of their time in a dungeon as a beautiful little soul stone.

Then make the WLs pay a price for their blasts. Make them cost SP: Especially on lower levels this will massively reduce the use of blast auras and (at the right SP price) blast chains. Then again, the WL will use the auras and chains in the right times, but the massive AOE damage output is limited to the SP pool.

Then, and only then, cut back on direct DPS. Especially if still too high on heroics. On epics (namely EE) the DPS was never too high.

[andina]

I'm not impressed with any of the changes other than removing the doubleshot penalty. With the current changes to level30+ quests places like EE orchard non champ mobs can hit for over 700 in one shot on my bard with 100+prr.
It seems to me like the idea of balancing the game means make sure you have a healbot cleric or fvs with the party. You should reconsider your "balancing act". I am pretty sure you will implement whatever changes you have planned such as not recharging adrenaline from ranged without listening to the players that are not just doing the "yes man" act. I don't agree with these changes and that is all i'm going to say about it. Just scrap the whole thing. fix the bugs and glitches and lag and make the game more playable. Don't take the fun out of it. Claiming it isn't working as intended after its been that way since MOTU sounds like you simply want to break ranger/monkcher builds. Get it right this time and hear what the player base has to say, not just the posts that say what you would like to hear

[Bluenoser]

DDO's greatest strength is customizable character design. I appreciate that it can be a nightmare for the devs, but it is the feature of DDO that I have heard players appreciate the most over the past 6 years--and in particular, the feature that is the most often cited by those who took time off but came back. The parts of the U19 enhancement pass that I liked least were those that effectively killed off certain creative builds by allowing only a pretty narrow conception of a class (advanced defensive stances in Stalwart Defender and Sacred Defender requiring med or heavy armor or shields were among the worst offenders). So when I read that Sev's defense for nerfing Holy Sword for off-hand weapons (not to mention cutting melee power for TWF line) was that TWF should be for rangers and not paladins, my immediate thought was, "here we go again with the cookie-cutter approach". I'm still running around with a TWF pally-monk in pyjamas, because it's a fun toon. She's a glass cannon, what with so little PRR. THAT'S balance: I sacrifice defence for DPS (and then only single-target DPS, as AzureDragonas notes above). Do I currently out-DPS a Tempest Ranger, just because I have Holy Sword and smites? Maybe, but I doubt it given the latest ranger enhancement pass. And let's not forget that HS requires 14 levels of pally, and if all you have is 14 pally, equipping HS means you don't equip Zeal, CSW or Deathward--that's some serious opportunity cost (compare that to what you can get with only 5 bard or rogue!). As well, as a pally I don't get a complete line of fantastic ranged feats *for free*. That's a choice on my part, but I don't see how it's "unbalanced". If the devs made TWF Tempest rangers too powerful, well, there's an easy fix for that in their enhancement trees. And focus on fixing the actually non-WAI OP stuff, like animal-form druids.

A couple of other quick thoughts about the proposed changes:
1) Warlock is too powerful only in heroic. It is especially not OP in EE. A better solution might be to employ a warlock-level-based escalator to the power multiplier of each blast shape. From my own experience, the thing that's really OP about Warlock (again, in heroics) is the chain blast--it is ridiculously effective at hitting a very large number of mobs, even those who are hidden. Then again, what isn't OP in heroic, if you have some decent gear and past lives?

2) Quarterstaff improved critical nerf: please consider upping it (and all the bludgeoning weapons) to +2. Even under the current system, base weapon damage and crit profile are terrible for a two-hander, and rare or named items are only slightly better. Sireth, even fully upgraded, is a very, very long way from God Mode.

3) weapon criticals more generally: I *loved* that Swashbuckler made otherwise completely useless weapon types useful again; I cannot fathom why you would go backward on that. Frankly, I'd like to see DDO move closer to the idea that weapon choice is a player's stylistic preference, rather than that some weapon types (pretty much everything bludgeoning) are garbage or that some are clearly superior. The proposed change takes the latter course. I get that crit ranges on some items are getting expanded in ways not intended, by the unexpected "doubling" effect IC has on enhancements and EDs that affect crit range. But can't this be fixed in some less-drastic way? Others in this thread suggested looking at "order of operations". Basically, please look at *any* other way to fix the problem.

4) Sev mentioned that further changes will be necessary to the crit system to help out nerfed weapons. Great--but do that before rolling out any of it. We're all still waiting for the rest of the changes to the loot gen tables started (with a massive nerf) what, 3 years ago? This is going to have a huge ripple effect, so best to get it right the first time as much as possible.

[CeltEireson]

I don't think we need the extra MRR, but I'm with you on the apparently contradictory decisions.

Reminds me of when they nerfed the stacking DC bonus off of raid loot (e.g., Stormreaver's Napkin), then, very shortly thereafter, added a stacking DC bonus on purchasable Augments.

Or when they added per-spell metamagics, then, later, nerfed our ability to choose to Heighten Heal.

The difference for armour MRR is opprtunity cost, items with MRR you're potentially giving up another item that may improve another aspect of your character, on armour the MRR is 'free' as its on every piece of similar armour and doesn't count as one of its bonuses.