The Balance Change post

[Grailhawk]

Could you clarify assassin knife spec and daggers with IC Pierce? Krelar reinforced my suspicion that it will be 16-20/3 instead of 15-20/3, making Kukris the assassin weapon of choice. . .despite all the named assassin daggers that have been added.

This actually does need some attention It did seam that the original intent of Knife Specialization was to make Daggers and Kukris have the same crit profile.

[valarmorghuliis]

Please reconsider the use of BAB for this. It will make having full BAB incredibly important meaning that anyone without other means of doing so need to scroll Tensors for Manyshot always. Be that pure rangers or monkchers. Thats simply annoying for no good reason. Please change to use character level instead for basically the same effect without the annoyance.

You should be scrolling tensers anyway as it is +2 base dmg per arrow and a significant increase to ranged alacrity.

[Requiro]

(...) you won't touch monkcher (...)

Well, thay did. With new 10K Stars, Doubleshoot bonus is from Monk levels.

so the tempest changes are getting an unintended 15% dps reduction? just after they were redone and people felt they were (argueably) up to pally/barb??? remember some of us don't play dual khopesh builds and light weapons need to stay where they are at currently to be competative.

is the hit box changing for TWF because i can't hit much in front of me to get dod working with light weapons.

They should add some MORE bonuses to Light Weapons in Tempest Tree IMO.

[esotericist]

Please reconsider the use of BAB for this. It will make having full BAB incredibly important meaning that anyone without other means of doing so need to scroll Tensors for Manyshot always. Be that pure rangers or monkchers. Thats simply annoying for no good reason. Please change to use character level instead for basically the same effect without the annoyance.

... Aren't rangers full BAB anyway?

[patang01]

Some comments about the fighter feats:

1. These require fighter levels. They can be taken with fighter bonus feats or regular feats.
2. We don't expect to rebalance monsters around Fighters with all these feats. Fighters who go all out on tactics are expected to reach 95% chance on most monsters (possibly excluding some rare bosses / raid bosses, who will often be immune to many tactics regardless.)
3. We don't expect all fighters who want to use tactical feats to take all of these new feats. This is largely why they are not a progression, but rather four distinct feats. Characters with 20 Fighter levels might opt to take just the +8 and that's enough (with other gear, STR, etc.) Characters with fewer Fighter levels won't have access to the best bonuses (as well as fewer feats, of course), so they might struggle to reach the same heights as someone who dedicates more class levels to Fighter.
4. Similarly, the armor feats can be taken one or some at a time. It's not really an all-or-nothing, and a 20 Fighter might skip the first one or two in favor or other bonuses.

These feats help power up the Fighter class, reward taking more Fighter levels, fit into the theme of "Fighters get more feats!", and help provide some differentiation for builds. It matters a bit more if you want to spend your final 2 levels on Fighter vs. another class, and we don't expect every player to make the same decision. We're happy for Fighter to remain interesting for multiclass builds, while also rewarding purer builds. We feel these eight new feats spread across levels 2-16 helps with many kinds of characters.

No. Not really.

A fully invested tactical user today will do fine in heroic. A fully invested tactical user will be increasingly more useless in Epic. 2 things - first. A ludicrous amount of CR on EE where trying to use tactical feats at level is generally worthless and the prolific use of orange and red named makes the whole thing moot anyways.

Second - by forcing people to add feats to close the gap you strike down diversity. A fighter build will generally compensate the generally lower DPS with more feats that add up some melee power but also weapon proficiency. Be it bow, blunt and slashing or say sword and board. By making it a condition to be proficient to invest so heavily in say feats in order to be 95% with upper end content, you kill diversity. Fighters will be single arms type and less overall DPS.

This is almost a fact. I've used tactical feats since 2009 on most of my guys, even when it wasn't in vogue - and it's near stupid to try in EE's at level. Pointless. But doing a basic investment of say improved trip and stunning blow at least add that option for EH. But adding 4 more feats will just make me be the typical stick that tries to find the best DPS weapon in order to compensate for the investment of feat.


Here's what this change will do. Few people are going to play fighters. Their viability comes from tactical diversity but with the removal of MRR people will instead move towards monkcher builds again. Since you now incentive it through this DC builds using Wisdom. This was the case after MOTU when turbine destroyed tanking and now going back on MRR you'll do it again. Fighters are the worst self healers in the game. Bar none. And once the situation stacks up where full investment means maybe useful in tactical feats but dreadful against red named you'll see people just moving away completely.

I see update 29 being another move where most go into arcane casting of some sort (maybe less Warlocks) and more Monkchers again.

Now for a while there you guys made it sound like you wanted to enhance Kensei again to be more tactical. But it seems you picked the worse choice by making high PRR and okay MRR with better tactical use be conditioned on fighter levels and feats. Tying up 8 total feats for anyone to be half okay at tripping and soak some damage but overall useless in a fight against a boss. It the point was to bring us back to how worthless tanks were back in the day outside not being hit - then maybe this will get us there. But it's a build no one wants to play.

I might be wrong of course. But that is what lead us to where we are today. Destruction of tanking through MOTU and eventually better in armor up. Now when we're disarming the armor up and making it feat heavy there's little incentive for anyone to even bother. Yes - you'll see a scant few doing the heavy tank, but all future content points at high HP ludicrous bosses like the one we see in ToEE. And I'm sick of standing and carving HP for 5 minutes out of something I can't effect tactically in any way shape and form.

I'm guessing I'll roll a Monkcher like everyone else.

BTW - destroying the threat range, burst damage of manyshot and taking away melee power from 2wf will make tempest rangers mediocre. Before the recent changes I hadn't played mine for years. And it seems it's time to put him back in the dusty locker again.

I get nerfs but most of these changes seems to remove diversity and favor explicit investments in order to be entirely singular good in something. And that will ALWAYS lead to path of least resistance.

[Lauf]

Greetings.

We've seen a lot of community feedback, both public and private, about our ongoing plans for balance. These are some changes we are considering to increase game balance.

I like the changes, each and every one of them. they are well thought out and (having read all your posts on this thread) I like where you're going with this.

my only concern is that when it comes to warlocks you may not have cut back enough
as it is today, there's no point in building a warlock for DCs instead of spell power, as everything just dies too fast from the eldritch blast. this makes playing them fun initially, but then quite boring. this is the only class I've played to date where on my triple completionist, which has all the gear you could ask for, I find myself running with empty gear slots. that's how dumbed down the class is. a casting class that has no need for casting. a class capable of melee that actually suffers a dps loss from trying to do so. it's a class where you actually get penalized for trying to get more out of it.

and to make matters worse, it also takes the fun out of it for anyone running with them in the party. people who run up to a mob to hit it, and swing away trying to kill it, and then a warlock just walks by and not only that mob but every mob in the area just fall over and die, without the warlock even targeting them.

makes you rethink your life choices... and should make you rethink the power you've given it.

I'll reserve my judgement on your proposed change until I've had a chance to test it, but on paper it doesn't seem like enough.

aside from warlocks though, I'm very impressed with the work you've done on re-balancing the game.

[Blastyswa]

If intimidated by the large amount of text, scroll to the bottom of post and read what it says. That is the most important thing in this post, although everything else is important as well of course.

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.

This one is very annoying, in particular the missile weapons part. I would definitely have preferred the adding of more options as opposed to simply completely eliminating a build, since as I understand it the entire purpose of all the class changes has been to open up more build options. In example, Steelstar's signature says "We don't only build for the builds that exist". This confuses me, since this change completely kills any holy archer type builds (As in, there is now no reason to play one outside of flavor) and is a dramatic nerf to S&B players (Who already put out less DPS than other fighting styles, as can be supported by anyone who has ever played a paladin). Paladin bowmen are a valid option, but by no means "14 Paladin hybrids being better than other options due to Holy Sword" (Directly quoted from post #2). If internal DPS tests are showing that 14/5/1 paladin/rogue/artificer or similar cookie cutter builds are performing better than similarly built 18/2 rogue/artificers or 20 rangers, I will be happy to provide whatever evidence I need to in order to prove that as inaccurate.

A possible compromise I could envision on ranged and shield holy swording would be just change it to a multiselector on them, in order to still maintain some power. This is still a horrible idea, because despite the popular belief, Holy Sword is NOT the absolute best option out there. Like I've stated before, if I get a response to this post I will be happy to do a true statistical analysis proving this, however, I'm not going to do it if it just gets lost in the depths of this thread.
(Also, S&B does not require a nerf, but it will still survive despite these changes so that is a lesser matter)
Additionally, as an afterthought; will artificer buffs continue to apply alongside holy sword, or is that being changed? I can not recall whether or not that was ever stated as WAI or not.

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.

(Doublestrike will still cap at 100 for technical reasons.)

Thank you very much for this one. Otherwise, the manyshot changes would have likely turned out to be a nerf the better a build's doubleshot is. My only question is, over 200%, will there be a chance to fire 4 arrows? I ask because on my current build when I'm going for burst damage, I will have 112 (Manyshot) +20 (Killer) +10 (Feat) + 10 (Celestial Champ) + 9 (EPL) + 50 (Zeal) Doubleshot temporarily, which translates to 211%. Since that will only be sustainable for 20 seconds, it does not actually matter much to the build either way, but out of curiosity as a pure ranger could get more doubleshot than this with investment.
Doublestrike not changing is fine, as I can not imagine many builds sustaining very high doublestrike anyways (The most I can think of off the top of my head is 15/4/1 Paladin/Ranger/Anything, using a shield and US twist with Fellblade or First Blood for (10% zeal +20% killer + 9% EPL +5% TWF +15% Imp Shield Mastery/Leg Shield Mastery +15% weapon +3% Draconic Feriocity +3% Hail of Blows) 80% sustained, 130% with zeal. That would be a horrible build, so no complaints on doublestrike capping.

Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

This should be a minor buff to most builds I believe, especially if the build already has doubleshot (In my above build, this is a massive buff). Looks good.

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Did not bother including the Keen section in my quote as it looks like it is basically the same information. I question the logic behind this distribution, since this will push the +3's quite ahead of +1's, and to some degree +2's.
For example, in the current model, a Divine Crusader Paladin with a falchion is looking at 11-20x3. Using a greataxe, that number is 15-20x4. Counting each doubling of damage as 1, falchions have 10 opportunities of 2 each, or 20, while greataxe has 6 chances of 3 each, or 18. Under the new model, the falchion will have 13-20x3, 8 * 2 for 16, while a greataxe will have 17-20x4, 4 * 3 for 12. That means that before falchions, just looking at crit ranges, had an ~11.11% increase in damage on greataxes, while under the new model they will have ~33%. Based on this data, I would say changing +1's to +2 would make more sense, making a falchion now have 13-20x3 (16) vs. greataxe having 16-20x4 (15). The Falchion-Greataxe DPS comparison would change to a ~10.67% (Both sides would round to 11%) which means that while both weapons are still getting nerfed, neither one is pulling out very far ahead of the other.
If I could change one thing from these notes, this would be it, because it statistically makes sense unless the goal is to make weapon choices less even.

Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)

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.

...

Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.

So as I am seeing it, this is a nerf to all heavy armor wearers while shifting the defense over to fighters. I am actually completely fine with this if the plan is to make fighters valid tanks. Switching all defense to fighters will merely give us a palimpsest of pre-Armor Up! however, as so much defense now is tied in with the PRR/MRR mechanics. Consequently, this would be better saved for until after some defense is added to casters, due to the fact that wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers (oh my) running around in heavy armor wielding Skyvault Shields is not just because it looks cool. It is because defense is otherwise lacking quite a bit on casters, who do not have access to (much) tank type defenses (PRR/MRR) after this change, or flighty type defenses (Evasion/Dodge, without investment) like monks rogues or rangers, while thanks to Greensteel every class has access to Displacement, one of the most potent defensive tools in a casters arsenal. (I'm mainly talking about arcanes, because although divine's could use some defense, they get by as is just fine).

Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).

Long overdue. I am happy to see this finally come into play, as I must admit this was too much power loaded into the front of a class. However, I would also like to see buffs, in gear or feats or wherever it feels right, to saves for all classes. Keep in mind that people aren't going 18/2 Warlock/Paladin for the feeling of having too high of saves, it is because casters (along with fighters, and many other classes) can not reach no-fail saves against difficult content without this splash (Barring any strange completely all out saves builds that I might be missing, although these sacrifice other options).

Eldritch Blast and other enhancements (Warlock)
The spellpower scaling for Eldritch Blast and several enhancements has been reduced.

Spellpower scaling of Warlock Abilities

Ability	Old	New
Eldritch Blast	150%	130%
Eldritch Blast Cone	130%	130%
Eldritch Blast Chain	110%	95%
Eldritch Blast Aura	150%	130%
Stricken (Souleater)	150%	125%
Consume (Souleater)	150%	125%
Eldritch Burst (Enlightened Spirit)	120%	100%
Spirit Blast (Enlightened Spirit)	120%	100%

Thank you.


(Summary) Assuming everything posted to this thread is being read by a developer, if nothing else in my post is viewed, at least read my section on the Improved Critical changes. If I need to provide any additional statistical evidence on why it should be my proposed version, and not the currently proposed one, I will be happy to respond as needed.

[Thar]

Honest question, with zero sarcasm: It is really hard to code the spell so it only affect the favored weapon of the paladin's deity?

Sure, DDO Paladin is a main Melee class, but the Silver Flame is a deity with Longbow as their favored weapon. There is PnP support to make ranged smite evil attacks and such for Silver Flame devotees. Trying to build a SF paladin that is mainly a ranged character is within lore, and while I agree it should not be the top tier ranged build in the table, it should be within viable.

If that is a technical issue (either because of hours needed of code, or complexity of code, or whatever), then this solution is reasonable.

so then there should be additional dieties added so that you can select what weapon you want. why isn't dwarven waraxe a dwarven diety weapon? or hammer? elf rapier?

how many FR dieties are there?

[Theolin]

Things I see as a theme

1) you must have full BAB
2) smart / flavor builds do to much damage
3) smart / flavor builds need to take more damage
4) oh and we want everyone to be EXACTLY the same - regardless of build or planning or skill or .....

did I miss something?

[Ykt]

Any changes to increase player population?

You can nerf all you want but I'm not spending any more money on the game until the population increases significantly. I'm forced to solo 90% of the time because: either people don't join my LFMs (they're not weird LFMs, just standard "EBB") or there are no LFMs to join. I'd rather not have to send tells to random people asking if I can join them in their quest, hoping they're playing elite and not too far in. That seems a bit intrusive.

I used to play almost every day, now I play once a week and likely to play even less. I see no reason to play a MMORPG that forces me to solo most of the time.

[patang01]

Under the proposal, Improved Critical would offer a +1 to the critical threat range of a quarterstaff. So, a regular quarterstaff that is 20/x2 would become 19-20/x2, and a named quarterstaff with a natural crit range of 19-20 would become 18-20.

That's no different from how improved critical works anyways for q-staffs. Well except for with +1 the threat range on staffs with expanded threat ranges will be worse than before.

[Saekee]

Goodbye, TWF pallies, repeater pallies, and monkcher pallies, I guess.

Personally I was hoping Blood Strength got moved to OS tree. I didn't want it nerfed; I just thought it ridiculous that Ravager had the best DPS and the best self-healing T5 abilities.

One upside is this makes Pulverizer useful to blunt weapon users who currently already get competence bonuses: Acrobats, pallies, Swashbucklers, Kensei (all two of you! ).

This is actually a bigger nerf to Imp Crit than I had anticipated. By providing a static bonus to crit range, it lowers the total crit bonus on weapons with larger-than-average crit range; e.g., eSOS goes from 15-20/x3 to 16-20/x3. And since it no longer doubles competence bonuses, then those with +1/2 crit range bonuses now will lose 5/10% crit chance.

Let's run thru a few scenarios to see if I understand how the new crit bonuses are supposed to work vs the existing mechanics.

Ravager barbarian using mauls or warhammers in Legendary Dreadnought:

• Old: 20/x3 base -> 19-20/x3 Pulverizer -> 17-20/x3 IC:Blunt -> 15-20/x3 Crit Rage -> 15-18/x3 19-20/x6 Overwhelming Crit + Devastating Crit + Death Frenzy
• New: 20/x3 base -> 18-20/x3 Crit Rage -> 17-20/x3 IC:Blunt -> 16-20/x3 Pulverizer -> 16-18/x3 19-20/x6 (OC+DC+DF)

Net loss of 2 effective hits, which actually puts them on par with barbs using axes (17-18/x3 19-20/x7). Mauls / hammers still pull slightly ahead vs trash mobs thanks to higher proc chance for Anvil of Thunder, but at least axe barbs will feel like less of a mistake after this.

Swashbuckler using Skullsmasher in LD:

• Old: 20/x3 base -> 18-20/x4 Swashbuckling -> 15-20/x4 IC:Blunt -> 15-18/x4 19-20/x6 Overwhelming Crit + Devastating Crit
• New: 20/x3 base -> 18-20/x4 Swashbuckling -> 17-20/x4 IC:Blunt -> 16-20/x4 Pulverizer -> 16-18/x4 19-20/x6 (OC+DC)

Net loss of 3 effective hits

[I don't see any mention of Celestial Champion; so in my analysis, I'm presuming it will continue to stack with other crit bonuses.]

KotC paladin using eSOS in Divine Crusader:

• Old: 18-20/x3 base -> 17-20/x4 Holy Sword -> 16-20/x4 Celestial Champion -> 11-20/x4 IC:Slash -> 11-18/x4 19-20/x5 Overwhelming Crit
• New: 18-20/x3 base -> 17-20/x4 Holy Sword -> 15-20/x4 IC:Slash -> 14-20/x4 Celestial Champion -> 14-18/x4 19-20/x5 OC

Net loss of 9 effective hits

Acrobat using Sireth in DC:

• Old: 18-20/x2 base -> 17-20/x3 Staff Spec -> 16-20/x3 Celestial Champion -> 11-20/x3 IC:Blunt -> 11-18/x3 19-20/x4 Overwhelming Crit
• New: 18-20/x2 base -> 17-20/x3 Staff Spec -> 16-20/x3 IC:Blunt -> 15-20/x3 Celestial Champion -> 15-18/x3 19-20/x4 OC

Net loss of 8 effective hits

I'm not passing judgment on whether this is the "right" amount of DPS nerfage. Just pointing out that the changes will not impact all builds or weapon types equally. It seems to me like DC builds will be the biggest losers, which just further cements LD's status as the One True Melee ED. Ummm...yay?

That would be good to know.

And for the first time I'm suddenly thinking... oh f*** that's a lot of comms I spent on two fully upgraded and now subpar Agony's... and oh... that's a lot of TF materials on my daggers.... dammit!

This actually does need some attention It did seam that the original intent of Knife Specialization was to make Daggers and Kukris have the same crit profile.

a solution might be to make knife spec add 2 to dagger's crit range. Remember that assassins just lost 6 melee power with the TWF nerf.

[valarmorghuliis]

IIRC Pulveriser does not work with quarterstaff so unless that gets changed my staffer is going to take a huge hit.
.

Pulverizer just checks damage type rather than weapon type so it didn't work with sireth but it would with other quarterstaves. Although they will wind up behind what they currently are since the tier 5 will no longer double putting them at 17-20x3 for thunderforged and 16-20x3 for sireth instead of 17-20x3 for thunderforged and 13-20x3 for sireth.

[mikarddo]

... Aren't rangers full BAB anyway?

20 rng is only 20 BAB not 28 soon to be 30.

[Wongar]

First off - I like most of the changes and think they will be good long term for the game. Like others, I also greatly appreciate the this thread and the view it gives us into the devs plans.

A full BAB class such as Ranger has a BAB of 24 cap.
When using an ability that increases BAB to level (Divine Crusader, Tensors) the BAB raises to level = 28

This will mean that running in DC will give Manyshot an extra 16 Ranged Power and and 16 DoubleShot. When the level cap goes to 30 this will jump to 20 Ranged Power and 20 DoubleShot. I'm afraid that this will make getting full BAB viewed almost mandatory for using Manyshot.

I understand that BAB progression in Epics is set to the lowest possible, but this seems to put full BAB builds at a disadvantage. Non full BAB builds often have ways to increase their BAB (Divine Power, Tensors, Warchanter, Enlightened Spirit) but full BAB builds do not - mainly because they should have full BAB.

Given the increased importance of BAB with Manyshot, Is there a possibility of changing Epic BAB progression to reflect the BAB progression of the build?

A suggestion to change Epic BAB progression would be to use an Epic progressions scaled from Heroic BAB. The simplest scale would be to use Heroic BAB/20.
So Epic BAB = Heroic BAB + (Epic Level * (Heroic BAB/20))

Examples:
Epic BAB = Heroic BAB + (Epic Level * (Heroic BAB/20))
pure Fighter 20 + (8 * (20/20)) = 28
pure Rouge: 15 + (8 * (15/20)) = 21
pure Wizard: 10 + (8 * (10/20)) = 14
10 Wiz / 10 Fighter = 15 + (8 * (15/20)) = 21

[AbyssalMage]

Greetings.

We've seen a lot of community feedback, both public and private, about our ongoing plans for balance. These are some changes we are considering to increase game balance.

As with any post that outlines power reductions (aka nerfs) I am sure there will be a lot of players looking for explanations and our thoughts and results on balance that led to these changes. I will be following up this post with more details that talk about why some of these changes are being implemented.

The problem with "power reductions" is that you have designed content for the last 2 years with the current "power" in mind. You stated you are willing to listen to players so you need to be willing to undo 2 years worth of content also. Otherwise many of your suggestions, although are filled with good intentions, are very dangerous.

***

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.

The problem is players consider 14 Paladin a splash and you have bought into it, hook, line, and sinker. Along with your other proposed changes, this is too much. I've grouped with 14(15)/X ranged Paladin builds, and compared to equivalent redesigned classes, are not Over Performing unlike what forumites say. I see more 20 (or 18/2) Mechanics than 14/6 Paladin splits so please look at your servers. Maybe all the 14/X Paladin's come out once I log off. Otherwise, this is truly an overreaction.

Blood Strength (Barbarian Ravager)
The portion of this enhancement that heals the user when they kill an opponent now has a 1 second internal cooldown.

Amazingly I still die. Guess I will just die more often after this change. A better change would be all of the HAmp or auto-granted HP's in the cores.

Critical Rage (Barbarian Ravager)
The bonus to critical threat range is now a competence bonus.

Actually can't argue this change but I can be sad.

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 no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.

Yeah, this needs to be scrapped. This adversely effects too many builds. Build diversity should be your goal and this does the exact opposite. TWF already has the disadvantage of not working well with cleaves (AoE attacks). You also need 2x the ingredients to craft weapons which is a TWF deterrent. Rogue's, Monk's, and Ranger's are hurt the most by this change yet anyone who doesn't want to go SWF + Orb or THF have now been given a greater incentive to do so. And it was just recently that TWF had a resurgence (since Barbarian Update to be precise).

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.

(Doublestrike will still cap at 100 for technical reasons.)

Repeating Crossbows and Doubleshot
Fixed a bug where Doubleshot was not being reduced for repeating crossbows. (Doubleshot chance is divided by 3 for repeating crossbows.)

With impending HS and 10K nerf, you may be destroying Ranged for everyone but the hardcore player. In theory I like this change, in theory.

Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Yeah, you don't like Monkchers (or ranged), and neither does the melee forumites, yet the game has existed just fine since U15. That is all I am going to say about this because everything, but mechanic, has given me a negative feeling.

Mechanical Reloader (Rogue Mechanic)
The alacrity for non-repeating crossbows is now 30%. (Was 40%)

And here I was saying Mechanic was your one bright spot on otherwise a dismal ranged design stance.

Pulverizer (Legendary Dreadnought)
The bonus to critical threat range for bludgeoning weapons is now an Insight bonus.

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Way to nerf IC. So instead of changing the formula to make it P&P, you do the exact opposite. Now I know why keep the quote in my "sig."

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Read above

Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)

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.

Tactical Training
Requires Fighter Level 4
You gain +2 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 8
You gain +4 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Mastery
Requires Fighter Level 12
You gain +6 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Supremacy
Requires Fighter Level 16
You gain +8 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Notes: All tactical feats stack for a total of +20. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Tactical Training and forego the +2 but still have access to Tatical Supremacy.

Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.

Yeah, you still haven't figured out your changes during U15 are still reverberating all of these years later and continue to make the game worse. Please scrap this. No one here believes you will re-code U15 through U29/U30 to take into account the lower PRR/MRR values most players will now have. Fighters are not the only class that wear Heave Armor. It's bad enough that the game has been reduced to cloth/light or Heavy Armor. Focus on buffing Medium Armor and scrap this pile of mess.

Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).

Yeah, this has been coming for awhile. Still haven't addressed the reason why people feel compelled to splash 2 Paladin levels. Maybe your time would be better spent implementing gear or augments that mimic Paladin Divine Grace (which would not stack with DG) and leave this ability alone.

Eldritch Blast and other enhancements (Warlock)
The spellpower scaling for Eldritch Blast and several enhancements has been reduced.

Spellpower scaling of Warlock Abilities

Ability	Old	New
Eldritch Blast	150%	130%
Eldritch Blast Cone	130%	130%
Eldritch Blast Chain	110%	95%
Eldritch Blast Aura	150%	130%
Stricken (Souleater)	150%	125%
Consume (Souleater)	150%	125%
Eldritch Burst (Enlightened Spirit)	120%	100%
Spirit Blast (Enlightened Spirit)	120%	100%

I will be following up this post with some details on our thoughts on balance and design.

Sev~

Thanks for explaining why you feel you have to do these changes. The problem is you are doing these changes without addressing the "elephant in the room" so these changes overall don't change anything. NPC's damage is designed against a certain AC/PRR/MRR/Saves/Resists.

Once you implement your proposed changes, NPC's will be doing more damage while players have no new ways to counter this increased damage. Think about EE ToEE after you beefed up Rangers. Now you are planning on further reducing player DPS and survivablity. Worse, you publicly stated that you are "hand crafting" the difficulty for CR 30 content which means changes are even slower to fix as you have to individually fix each adventure/NPC.

I know the elitists will welcome this change. The problem is, they will leave this game and find the next MMO regardless of the changes you make today or in the next 2 years. Those of us who have enjoyed the game will have to adapt or quit in frustration. I've adapted just fine so far but players have a breaking point where the fun of the game is lost because of the screams of the 1%.

[Merlocke]

Blood Strength (Barbarian Ravager)
The portion of this enhancement that heals the user when they kill an opponent now has a 1 second internal cooldown.

More changes need to made in the healing arena. This game is far too easy and teamwork/roles are not needed at endgame. No one needs a healer. Healing classes are a lost art in this game since everyone can faceroll everything and selfheal.

I hope Mythic brings back tactics, challenge, & incentive to run endgame. It will be your last chance to save DDO.

[Enoach]

Greetings.

We've seen a lot of community feedback, both public and private, about our ongoing plans for balance. These are some changes we are considering to increase game balance.

As with any post that outlines power reductions (aka nerfs) I am sure there will be a lot of players looking for explanations and our thoughts and results on balance that led to these changes. I will be following up this post with more details that talk about why some of these changes are being implemented.

***

I like that not only are you looking at these items that you are putting them out to us the Players to make some comments.

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.

I play a S&B Paladin (41 in Defender, rest in Vanguard). I play a Tank that uses its shield. Now to that end I enjoyed the fact that Holy Sword gave not only an AC bonus but also enhanced my shield bashes. While I'll be sad to see this go I can understand why.

The idea that it is now a buff that only needs to be cast once and transfers as you switch weapons means less SP for buffing a weapon as I change them out to have the best tool for the job.

Now while Range is not my primary, I will be sad to see this go away as it help me get more out of my Pinion since I have zero invested. And sometimes even a tank needs a good range damage dealer.

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.

(Doublestrike will still cap at 100 for technical reasons.)

This is a nice change. Especially the part listed with the Manyshot and 10K no longer having the Doubleshot debuff

Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

I run an AA/EK Elf Fighter/Wizard. I don't have full BaB naturally, but can buff for it. I am interested to see how this plays out. But wouldn't it be better if both of these abilities had the same Cooldown? One working off BaB and the other working off Wisdom or Monk Levels?

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

This now means that named weapons with enhanced threat range won't be more "special" because of the enhanced range. This change has been coming for a long time.

Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)

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.

I have to admit MRR didn't make sense on Armor. It did on the Shield and I'm glad you are keeping it there. This will be a decrease in PRR on my Heavy Armor Tank. I'll wait to see how this effects my current build that has 200+ PRR with the current system.

Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).

This is a change I was expecting. My only issue is that you are limiting pure paladins to 134 Charisma anything above that won't help with saves . This still gives 10 Levels of Paladin enough to get full benefit of charisma mod. Even at 5 Levels you get up to +17 Modifier (44 Charisma)

It still gives 2 Levels of paladin +8 saves. Charisma builds like Sorcerer/Warlock with 2 Levels of Paladin will most likely feel the sting on saves, but even +8 to saves is a significant boost.


I'm looking forward to see how everything shakes out.

[nibel]

so then there should be additional dieties added so that you can select what weapon you want. why isn't dwarven waraxe a dwarven diety weapon? or hammer? elf rapier?

how many FR dieties are there?

I asked for that as well, but that is another line of discussion.

[patang01]

Yes, warlocks do a lot of damage. I can see them needed some nerf-age in the heroic levels, but as other have also pointed out, at high end warlocks are not the dps monsters that they are in heroic and they are pretty easy to kill if you get sloppy for even a moment.

Better would be to find a way to tone them down in heroic and leave them alone in epic.


Thank you for the communication!

I see in heroic. They're pretty player friendly.

Epics? Not a DPS leader. My savant threw out thousands of points of damage with magic missiles. Incredible ROF.

Warlocks - slow to start firing, slow firing doing at the most 600+ crits. Sure. It's cheap. But not really a big leader in DPS. Plus lack of diversity in spells. Your pact will more or less determine the type of spells that suits your build.

It takes my Warlock forever to destroy red named compared to when he was a savant. I get readjustments But chained for example got a massive haircut and with the speed of switching target it'll be super boring to stand there and autofire for so much longer.