The Balance Change post

[dunklezhan]

Warlock is still massvely OP, but not because of DPS. The only thing that does not need "fixing" in Warlock is DPS. What needs fixing is the tremendous advantage a WL (and WL splash!!!) gains thru ES tier 5 "Shining Through". That is the worst case of OP I have seen in DDO for years, and that includes the Pally before the 1st Holy Sword nerf. On a second thought, if WL is still perceived too OP after that fix, make blasts (not base blast, but all else, like chain blast...) cost SP. Problem solved. WL needs an up on DPS in epic levels, by the way. Any chance we get Draconic and Magister scale WL levels too?

meh, I dont' have much time for warlocks, but even I know eldritch blasts should NOT cost SP. The whole point of a warlock's "eldritch" abilities in pen and paper is that they are always on, no cost to the warlock. That is a vital part of the "feel" of the class. That's probably why I don't like them - infinite ammo and infinite swings, doing way more damage than weapons with none of the downsides but that's what the warlock is (In DDO they did break this mould somewhat, because they gave them nominal spell/day like other casters - but that's as far as the compromise should go on that score). Seems to me that controlling (whether nerfing or buffing) their DPS should probably be a matter of cooldown length, damage output per blast, and looking at things like AP investment bang for the buck. For this pass, they're looking at damage output per blast and messing with spellpower.

I'm not making a comment on whether they've got it right - I don't have a warlock so I have no way of knowing (though all - I mean all - my warlock-playing friends have been urging me to buy warlock so I can "enjoy it in heroic before it gets nerfed back to the stone age" - because they think its massively overpowered and that a nerf was inevitable, and they know I basically avoid epic play like the plague). I'm just saying that inifinite eldritch blasts is more or less their class signature from the mothergame and you can't mess with that without making them seem even more like a force-specialised sorcerer. It'd be like making unarmed not the best dps for monks: all kinds of wrong, thematically speaking. A monk only sullies their hands with weapons for special effects or maybe a bit of reach or range in pnp.

[Nestroy]

So, you are telling us that this will BALANCE the game for the players, but it looks like the fighters will be the new class to make. After the changes people will now want to just make fighters instead of other classes. I played THF barbarian for about a year, that is about how long it takes me to TR. I ETR'ed into a TWF barbarian, and really enjoyed it. I didn't feel overpowered compared to when I played THF, I just had fun playing the game. And I was planning on TR'ing into a TWF again, so now I am not sure what I am planning on doing now. I feel like I am going to lose a lot of survivability with the changes to PRR and MRR. Fortunately, I still have my black scale robe, I guess I need to take a couple of levels of rogue and about 18 of fighter. I hate the idea of multi-classing, and I haven't even done it for the 6 years I have been playing.

Actually, the TWF does not exactly get a nerf. What TWF gets, is a correction and hence rebalancing. They fixed a bug eating on the performance of TWF and now rebalance TWF to get back in line with the rest of fighting styles. You loose 6 points of melee power and gain a better damage output. I would not name this nerf, actually.

I think, TWF actually is not the big fun killer with that proposed changes. Pally gets a much bigger hit, albeit fairly said this is technically a bug fix too. Holy Sword, actually, was always supposed to be melee only. And the crit hit nerfs all and everybody. The new feats are fighter only, so we will see the return of the fighter, on cheap. Why on cheap? That way the devs save on reworking the fighter enhancement tree, that, frankly, stinks big time.

And the only class that gets the full nerf bat is the WL. Here we see a DPS reduction of about 10-20% across the board. What for? the WL is barely endgame EE amyways and cannot be easily trimmed endgame EE as we can trim so many other classes. So pure WL gets the shaft. The big splashing machine, WL 5 ES tier 5 Shining Through does not get the well deserved nerf. Pure class dead, long live the splash! Well done, Turbine! */sarcasm=off*

[Wh070aa]

Greetings.
Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon.

Can you please change silver flame paladins not to get longbow proficiency then? Or better yet remove them from game completely.

Seriously why you can't make classes work with their favored weapons. All I want is ranged elf paladin.

[Nestroy]

meh, I dont' have much time for warlocks, but even I know eldritch blasts should NOT cost SP. The whole point of a warlock's "eldritch" abilities in pen and paper is that they are always on, no cost to the warlock. That is a vital part of the "feel" of the class. That's probably why I don't like them - infinite ammo and infinite swings, doing way more damage than weapons with none of the downsides but that's what the warlock is (In DDO they did break this mould somewhat, because they gave them nominal spell/day like other casters - but that's as far as the compromise should go on that score). Seems to me that controlling (whether nerfing or buffing) their DPS should probably be a matter of cooldown length, damage output per blast, and looking at things like AP investment bang for the buck. For this pass, they're looking at damage output per blast and messing with spellpower.

I'm not making a comment on whether they've got it right - I don't have a warlock so I have no way of knowing (though all - I mean all - my warlock-playing friends have been urging me to buy warlock so I can "enjoy it in heroic before it gets nerfed back to the stone age" - because they think its massively overpowered and that a nerf was inevitable, and they know I basically avoid epic play like the plague). I'm just saying that inifinite eldritch blasts is more or less their class signature from the mothergame and you can't mess with that without making them seem even more like a force-specialised sorcerer. It'd be like making unarmed not the best dps for monks: all kinds of wrong, thematically speaking. A monk only sullies their hands with weapons for special effects or maybe a bit of reach or range in pnp.

Ever asked yourself why the WL is perceived OP even by WL players? Ask your friends.

Ask them two questions. 1st - how good is raw damage output OP, compared to Cetus builds, Shirardi Sorc or TWF Trees? 2nd - is the free handed survivability boon (namely Shining Through) OP? Ask them if they actively use Shining Through? I bet the answer will be "Yes".

Warlock gets handed superior survivability on the silver plater. You may reach the same output for every other build simply by splashing 5 levels of Warlock. Now, the Warlock not only gets superior survivability, the Warlock also gets decent damage, at least until lv. 22 or lv. 23 in epics. Only then the Warlock starts to loose ground on other DPS builds.

Why nerf DPS then? The true culprit is Enlighted Spirit tier 5 enhancement Shining Through. Without that enhancement the Warlock still has some good DPS, but gets into the same glass cannon category as is Wiz or Sorc. And has the same end game problems.

Since some critiques said WL is massively OP in late heroics, I came up with the SP idea. True, the core Warlock class from pnp does not have SP costs for blasts. I am fine if the blasts stay free. But this does not go for Chain Blasts, Auras and the like that are not supported by the core pnp class in any way. And them costing SP would go a great lengths to make the WL to be perceived less OP as it is now. DPS on the WL is not the problem. It´s the fact that this DPS does not come at any costs to the WL.

[gwonbush]

Can you please change silver flame paladins not to get longbow proficiency then? Or better yet remove them from game completely.

Seriously why you can't make classes work with their favored weapons. All I want is ranged elf paladin.

Then good news, they changed their mind. There's a lot of dev posts in this thread after the initial few, so I suggest reading them all via the dev tracker.

[slarden]

you guys at Turbine are going to implement whatever changes you want regardless of the rants that are here in these forums.

Best summary in the whole thread and very true.

There is more to the story than just "balance". Some exec at Turbine micromanaged and said "do this" and/or they no longer wish to do reaper mode and realize they can't make ee a challenge without these changes and/or they realize the biggest source of lag in the game is their recent changes and/or their player #s are dwindling and this is a total punt - hoping that reversing directions will bring back more players, but even if it doesn't it is a talking point they can give their leaders to show they are doing something.

My 'data' shows it's more probable than not that they will lose 10%+ of their player base from these changs alone. Not because they are reducing player power, but rather from the player point of view it seems like total chaos over at Turbine. They clearly value developer time (as do we all), but they don't value player time at all. Furthermore the "balance" part of this change is all an illusion - these changes won't bring balance - and ironically all the exploit builds go untouched - as has been the case for years.

They make things so time-consuming and grindy and then have no regard at all for how much player progress is lost when they do something like this. They haven't touched the subject of thuderforged crafting exchange and free lesser hearts of some kind - and they probably won't. They will blame "exploiters" for not touching thunderforged crafting even though those folks are either long gone or have all the mats to make what they need. It's the honest players that need to recraft their weapons. I don't give them any kind of free pass for blaming things on "exploiters" because the bugs were known and explained to them before thunderforged crafting went live - and they ignored it.

My confidence in Turbine has dropped significantly, not because of these changes, but because they are unable to set a clear vision for the game and stick with it. They are highly reactive and although that can be a positive trait, in this case I think it's the knee-jerk kind - or they simply aren't telling us the real reasons why they are doing this.

[EllisDee37]

Will the change to keen be nerfing named items that have Keen as a property? As in, will...

...Carnifex change from 17-20x3 to 18-20x3?
...Tiefling Assassin's Blade change from 15-20x2 to 16-20x2?
...Razorend change from 15-20x2 to 16-20x2?
...Oathblade change from 15-20x2 to 16-20x2?
etc...

[Walking_Ride]

Then good news, they changed their mind. There's a lot of dev posts in this thread after the initial few, so I suggest reading them all via the dev tracker.

While they are at it, they should also implement the same changes for holy sword regarding off hand weapons.

Just because i feel like playing a twf paladin, doesn't mean it should be behind other classes by 30-60% of its dps. Just saying.


Don't try to trick me with prr/mrr or better self healing. Anyone not dumb can self heal through cure spells and epic destiny.

Almost every class also has access to prr/mrr enhancements.

[Walking_Ride]

Actually, the TWF does not exactly get a nerf. What TWF gets, is a correction and hence rebalancing. They fixed a bug eating on the performance of TWF and now rebalance TWF to get back in line with the rest of fighting styles. You loose 6 points of melee power and gain a better damage output. I would not name this nerf, actually.

I think, TWF actually is not the big fun killer with that proposed changes. Pally gets a much bigger hit, albeit fairly said this is technically a bug fix too. Holy Sword, actually, was always supposed to be melee only. And the crit hit nerfs all and everybody. The new feats are fighter only, so we will see the return of the fighter, on cheap. Why on cheap? That way the devs save on reworking the fighter enhancement tree, that, frankly, stinks big time.

And the only class that gets the full nerf bat is the WL. Here we see a DPS reduction of about 10-20% across the board. What for? the WL is barely endgame EE amyways and cannot be easily trimmed endgame EE as we can trim so many other classes. So pure WL gets the shaft. The big splashing machine, WL 5 ES tier 5 Shining Through does not get the well deserved nerf. Pure class dead, long live the splash! Well done, Turbine! */sarcasm=off*

Dude, what the heck ? If holy sword is supposed to work with melee weapons, then why the hell isn't it affecting off hand weapons ?

THEY ARE MELEE WEAPONS TOO !

Why the hell can a lvl 12 ranger get the better version of crit multiplier and threat range across the board while two weapon fighting ?

Why the hell can a assassin get the better version of crit multiplier and threat range across the board while two weapon fightng at lvl 5 and 18 ?

Barbarians even get the frenzied berserker capstone, storms eye.


Seriously, this is messed up man. Who the hell came up with the idea of twf paladins being ahead in terms of dps by 40 % ? This is a HUGE lie.

Before you shafted the **** out of holy sword the above classes including paladins were perfectly balanced (especially rangers).


Now you do this ? This is the last nerf i am going to tolerate if it goes live.

Me and some of my friends are going to quit paying/playing this game for sure after that.

[slarden]

Will the change to keen be nerfing named items that have Keen as a property? As in, will...

...Carnifex change from 17-20x3 to 18-20x3?
...Tiefling Assassin's Blade change from 15-20x2 to 16-20x2?
...Razorend change from 15-20x2 to 16-20x2?
...Oathblade change from 15-20x2 to 16-20x2?
etc...

Carniflex gives 1 bonus to the axe (19-20) and keen gives one more for 18-20.

Other weapons work the same way. For keen weapons remove half the range from the weapon (as it shows today) and then add back to the range to the bonus # in sev's original post based on weapon type.

[EllisDee37]

Carniflex gives 1 bonus to the axe (19-20) and keen gives one more for 18-20.

Other weapons work the same way. For keen weapons remove half the range from the weapon (as it shows today) and then add back to the range to the bonus # in sev's original post based on weapon type.

You're saying that yes, named items will be nerfed.

I'm asking why should named items be nerfed? Carnifex has been an iconic named item in DDO for years and years. It shouldn't be nerfed. None of them should.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Undecided on what I really think about this.....


But I've always thought that the way to achieve class balance is through dungeon design.

Design dungeons with a variety of challenges that give various builds times to shine and times to call for their friends to help them out.


One quick example.
If Evasion is perceived as strong.... have monsters use spells that have saves other than ref saves.

and....(I guess this is actually a second example... but it piggybacks off the first one)

Revisit those Illusions....
That trap that used Will save was good IMO, but it should have done no damage to anyone who made their Wil save... regardless whether they had Evasion or not.

Could do the same with illusionary fireballs.

Just don't overdo it...
Variety... sometimes your super powers work, sometimes they don't.
(but they should work most of the time, otherwise people get too frustrated and mad that the character they built is useless too often)

[ccd1977]

With all these changes, what is the impact of our characters VS mobs now? Are the enemies impacted too so they are more powerful by us not having certain DPS? I am still amazed how a Shadar-Kai assassin whip is probably 4 times more DPS than our capability to build one.

[Walking_Ride]

With all these changes, what is the impact of our characters VS mobs now? Are the enemies impacted too so they are more powerful by us not having certain DPS? I am still amazed how a Shadar-Kai assassin whip is probably 4 times more DPS than our capability to build one.

I suspect that the difficulty level will remain the same. More one shoting players situations and more time taken to cut up 300k hp mobs.

[Jetrule]

I too have a question about monsters. Are they currently made so that much of their power and defence comes from gear and feats like a player characters? Are Skeleton knights for example currently benefiting from prr and mrr from heavy armor and shield? Or are they basically cosmetic items with the monsters combat values being set by another means? Do the monsters have feats like shield mastery or single weapon fighting, to increase their offence? Is there any npc opponent in game who has manyshot or 10k stars? Does a Boss like Carver or Karlat have 2wf that will be impacted?

[elvesunited]

Evasion doesn't bug me. You're trading the protections of armor for a reflex save driven immunity. ( always fails on 1 until late epics )
For spell caster types you're also trading 2 out of your 20 levels to a decidely non-spellcaster class ( making capstone impossible ) and often a feat. ( Unless you are pure swashbuckler. ) That's the way it should be. A trade off. The trouble is that for the longest time and now it seems in the future, medium and heavy armor's benefit was/will be lackluster.

[Ykt]

i do have a question on this -

if you have a pally with cha 134(yes i know that is currently unreachable) - +62 mod - even a pure pally wouldnt get the full bonus. would destinies factor into this or is it hard coded?

so a say 4 pally splash in ld would have 2+ (4x3) = +14 max saves
would that same play splash in say dc have 2 + (10x3) = 32 max saves?

That's irrelevant, we're nowhere near 134 CHA, not even 100 CHA

[Ykt]

Any time we've tried to do a partial update to shore up a particular tree or class to give them some relief until their full pass we've had negative player feedback on those efforts.

Sev~

Hm ok so what you call player feedback is actually "how many threads did these 3 people (who don't play the game anymore) post to rant about whatever we did?"

1% is unhappy and screaming, 99% is just fine and currently playing instead of going to the forums

[Trillea]

That's irrelevant, we're nowhere near 134 CHA, not even 100 CHA

True, I believe that the max reachable ingame with all available gear and buffs is 94. I have reached 88 with only a +6 tome, only using 2 of 4 twist slots, only heroic Litany, and with only 1 of 3 possible epic CHA feats. This includes several very short-term buffs and extensive firsthand testing of what stacks and what does not.

[Thoden]

As a long-time (VIP) player of many toons who finally found his favorite playstyle, I'd love to see this post addressed. I admit, I only made it through 20 pages before I needed to get some coffee, but...

I'm totally ok with frequent and well thought out balance changes, games like Destiny and WoW are generally much better games than DDO at given points in time, because they simply change what must change.

That being said,

Throwing has ALWAYS been the red headed step child of combat styles.
-It has no improved combat style feats (it has SE, but that's weapon specific, not style). There are no Improved Throwing feats, though there are IPS and PS for general ranged.
-Shuriken are now, and from what I can tell into the future, the only remotely viable throwing weapon. And this requires at least 3 levels of monk. A big part of this problem is that passive bonuses to the crit multipliers (the very few that exist) don't work, ie Swashbuckler, and Rogue Mechanic (lvl 18 core). Holy Sword has never worked.

Really, the biggest issue with Throwers (and I bring this up in this thread because it is a BALANCE issue), is that no throwing weapon is compelling outside of Shurikens. And for the most part, an almost perfectly played and geared thrower (TF Tier 3, ToEE set, all the latest raid gear, etc. Like my main), can barely keep up with an above average-ly played 18-20 Rogue mechanic with middle to above average gear. If the very best incarnation of thrower is challenged and occasionally bested by someones xbow Rogue alt, we have a balance problem.

Please explain to me, if you please, why you think that is acceptable for what is arguably one of DDO's more interesting and unique combat styles?
-Do you have a future plan to address any of this? Most specifically, the issue with Throwing weapons not benefitting from increased passive critical multipliers.
-Have you ever played a thrower? Do you know that it's really fun and everyone should be able to try it like the other combat styles?
-Are you totally opposed to just adding a feat to the game called Throwing Expertise that works for all throwing weapons that is not a shuriken, and gives an extra chance for a projectile based on an ability score (Dex or Int)? Just remove Shuriken Expertise, and make it Throwing Expertise. Make it a multi-selector when you take the feat for which stat to use.

I'm am not looking to boost the throwing characters and builds I already have, though that would be nice since they are behind xbows, and may be behind archers depending on final AA and game balance changes.

I am looking for a couple of very small and easy changes that you could make to the game to make throwing, of all sorts, a viable endgame combat style for a number of different builds and classes.

I would really like to hear your (the devs) positions on these current issues, and your positions on fixing or addressing them in the future. I've spent 3 years playing and building throwers, and I want to know if it's just time to give up and go back to bows or not.