Revisit Racial Trees

[Rofaust]

I'd like to see 2 things: 1) I'd like to see racial trees improve just enough to make them competitive with class trees, particularly at the lowest tiers; and 2) revisit the idea of racially unlocked trees like elven arcane archer and how obtaining them works.

Many of the racial trees require too much of an investment of points to get anything good and are still short in value when compared to what you could get for the same amount of points in a class tree. One example, if for some reason I decided to make a half orc barbarian, I can't imagine trading points from any barb tree for half orc enhancements: 8 points total to get lock-bash plus feat, 16 to max improved power attack, and 19 if I wanted full power rage. At the very least I think we could reduce some of the AP costs from 2 points to 1. Half-Elf Dilettante improvement points are also very cost prohibitive as is Elven Arcanum. Spell-like abilities that consume dragonmark uses are absolutely never worth taking in my opinion, but if you gave them an sp or hp cost, removed the limit of uses per rest and perhaps lengthened them to a moderate cooldown, I think they could be both useful and balanced to casters and other classes alike.

I enjoy arcane archer and would like to be able to use it on some elven archer builds, maybe fvs, ftr, rog, arti or clr, but 14 relatively worthless points in the elf tree is crippling to a build. It would be nice if instead, being an elf unlocked AA for free selectable in addition to class trees like Harper is. To keep elf balanced with other races we could include other archetypal racially unlocked trees as well. It would be cool to see dwarven defender, resembling stalwart defender most likely, finally become available for dwarves as it was intended earlier in the game's development. For halfling could be acrobat, drow tempest and half orc berserker or ravager. Human is pretty strong and adaptable as is and I don't think it needs another. WF and BF trees are also pretty strong but WF Juggernaut would be interesting though I'm not sure what it would be based on... I'm not sure the racial tree revamp would need to be applied to Iconics but Shadar Kai - Assassin seems most obvious, probably PDK - Vanguard and Sun Elf Divine Disciple (Only relevant if you use a +heart of wood).

[jalont]

I'd like to see 2 things: 1) I'd like to see racial trees improve just enough to make them competitive with class trees, particularly at the lowest tiers; and 2) revisit the idea of racially unlocked trees like elven arcane archer and how obtaining them works.

Many of the racial trees require too much of an investment of points to get anything good and are still short in value when compared to what you could get for the same amount of points in a class tree. One example, if for some reason I decided to make a half orc barbarian, I can't imagine trading points from any barb tree for half orc enhancements: 8 points total to get lock-bash plus feat, 16 to max improved power attack, and 19 if I wanted full power rage. At the very least I think we could reduce some of the AP costs from 2 points to 1. Half-Elf Dilettante improvement points are also very cost prohibitive as is Elven Arcanum. Spell-like abilities that consume dragonmark uses are absolutely never worth taking in my opinion, but if you gave them an sp or hp cost, removed the limit of uses per rest and perhaps lengthened them to a moderate cooldown, I think they could be both useful and balanced to casters and other classes alike.

I enjoy arcane archer and would like to be able to use it on some elven archer builds, maybe fvs, ftr, rog, arti or clr, but 14 relatively worthless points in the elf tree is crippling to a build. It would be nice if instead, being an elf unlocked AA for free selectable in addition to class trees like Harper is. To keep elf balanced with other races we could include other archetypal racially unlocked trees as well. It would be cool to see dwarven defender, resembling stalwart defender most likely, finally become available for dwarves as it was intended earlier in the game's development. For halfling could be acrobat, drow tempest and half orc berserker or ravager. Human is pretty strong and adaptable as is and I don't think it needs another. WF and BF trees are also pretty strong but WF Juggernaut would be interesting though I'm not sure what it would be based on... I'm not sure the racial tree revamp would need to be applied to Iconics but Shadar Kai - Assassin seems most obvious, probably PDK - Vanguard and Sun Elf Divine Disciple (Only relevant if you use a +heart of wood).

Is there anyway to make the racial trees "more competitive" without resulting in even more player power?

[Ayseifn]

Is there anyway to make the racial trees "more competitive" without resulting in even more player power?

Not really?

If they're weaker than class trees no one will spend AP there but if they're stronger people will.

Could give them tier 5's and have those lock out all other tier 5's though similar to Harper, that way if the low hanging fruit is worth it people will invest like now with human damage boost and if the tier 5's are worth it then burning a few points on garbage to get to tier 5 wont feel so bad. Just need to make the whole journey from tiers 1 to 5 better than spending in the class tree for at least some builds which would obviously mean more player power.

Only other way I can see it working is cutting off some AP from the global pool of 80 and forcing players to spend some on their racial tree, probably get too much hatorade from trying that though.

[-Avalon-]

Is there anyway to make the racial trees "more competitive" without resulting in even more player power?

I'm not sure I understand your definition of 'Power'... by making racial trees more powerful, they would be detracting from class trees, meaning players still only get 80 points, to put any in racial means that they have less to spend in class trees... that doesn't say 'power' to me, only 'alternatives'.

I like the idea of a racially opened class tree, however. DDO, and 3.5 D&D, are both all about options and alternatives. A dwarven cleric SHOULD have Stalwart Defender available, they're a DWARF lol. Devs, if they like the idea, should open up polls or something to find out what people think would best suit the races... I think most of the failures Devs have had over the years, comes from not including players. The council definitely is a step forward in fixing that, and think the changes over the last couple years have been, overall, better and more successful ones. But, for this, maybe take council discussion more heavily, while still asking the players in general as well.

[Ligraph]

I'd like to see 2 things: 1) I'd like to see racial trees improve just enough to make them competitive with class trees, particularly at the lowest tiers; and 2) revisit the idea of racially unlocked trees like elven arcane archer and how obtaining them works.

I don't think Racial trees are designed or intended to be self-contained trees. They are (I think) designed to supplement class trees.

I would definitely like more racial unlock Enhancement trees.

[Xiongrey]

Is there anyway to make the racial trees "more competitive" without resulting in even more player power?

What if the AP costs were reduced, maybe remove some of the filler, even if that dropped the racial trees to 3 tiers, players could get some of fruit, that are now lower hanging, with less AP spent. That wouldn't add a great deal to the power creep, I would think.

[Starla70]

I would like to see racial trees ap cost cut back some. Any extra points help so much.