Reaper HP Bonuses

[Blastyswa]

The Reaper tree buffs scale down with skull level? or you can get the 1700 hp for skull 1 or 2? If they give powerful buffs designed for reaper skull 10 they should scale down depending the skull lvl (for example 100% skull 10, 90% S9, .., 10% S1 or diminishing returns for higher skulls, etc)

About the hp bonuses applying equally no matter the type of build, I'm totally agree is not well designed. There should be penalties or restrictions of the reaper buffs depending the type of build ( the type of weapons they use (meele, ranged or caster)) and the main reaper tree invested, which brings another point of why can a build get all reaper trees enhancements (it shouldn't be main tank or main dps or main spell but not all trees at the same time?)
For example ranged dps builds should get at least a 50% penalty of the tank tree buffs (spell tree as well), 25% hp penalty just by being ranged. Melee builds should get something like 25% tank and spell tree penalties if spec into dps tree. ( I mean builds should get only a main reaper tree focus, then get penalties into other trees)
(Other option is just restrict the number of enhancements you can take so you can invest only into one main reaper tree and half other, having the option to respec enhancements when you change your build)

Yes, I don't really understand the reasoning behind being able to take every single reaper enhancement, including core 6's and tier 5's. The vast majority of the HP isn't coming just from the tank tree (<1000 available from tank tree only) It's coming from the +10 hp for every. single. point. spent in the other trees. At the very least, if the power creep is going to be retained, I'd like for caster to change to +5/10 sp per point spent and weapons to be changed to +1 PRR or +1 AC or something, just break up the homogenization in some way.

[Mr_Helmet]

Until they take a page from WarCrafts bosses and turn DDO into DDR, one shot or not one-shot is really all they can really do.

Wrong.

[Blastyswa]

Happens in live very similarly with PRR.

Not necessarily; PRR can still be pumped quite a bit. For example, this is the comparison between my thrower build and my tank build:
Thrower build:
38 PRR Item
20 PRR Iron Skin
18 PRR Past Lives (3x Divine 3x PDK)
17 PRR Insight Item (Legendary Devil Commander)
8 PRR Quality Item (Legendary Devil Commander)

101 PRR

While still below what I typically would want for a build, the fact that it stays at ranged so much makes this relatively acceptable (In reaper I potentially might try and fit in a little more PRR)

Tank Build:
60 PRR Heavy Armor
38 PRR Sheltering Item
30 PRR Deific Warding
30 PRR Heed no Pain
25 PRR Sacred Defense
25 PRR Harbored by Light
20 PRR Improved Combat Expertise
18 PRR Past Lives (3x Divine 3x PDK)
17 PRR Insight Item
15 PRR Legendary Shield Mastery
15 PRR Sacred Defender Cores
10 PRR Improved Shield Mastery
10 PRR Large Shield
10 PRR Epic Damage Reduction
8 PRR Quality Item
331 PRR

This doesn't include defense boost, and the build doesn't have rem tomes and I didn't bother logging in to check what mythic bonuses I have (I think my actual PRR is around 335 in game, so no huge difference).

I presume the homogenization of PRR you speak of is how every heavy armor fighter tends to have around the same PRR, every robed thrower tends to have around the same PRR, and every heavy tank tends to have around the same PRR. If you're talking about +36 maximum PRR from past lives being the homogenizing factor, then I would point you towards a fighter kensei with +85 PRR (+60 Heavy Armor, +25 Stalwart Defender) versus a robed build with at least 2 monk levels with +20 PRR (Iron Skin). If you're talking about the formula for asymptotic regression used to make each PRR point the same effective value, then I would point you towards freshmen college algebra.

Well, I guess you agree with me now then? I seem to recall you saying that the level of damage taken was fine

We have entirely different definitions of max difficulty questing. In your posts you tend to consider anything 10 skull max difficulty questing, many quests of which I don't consider max difficulty at all (10 skull slavers, 10 skull ToEE, 10 skull Haunted Halls, 10 skull LShroud flaggers, etc.). In fact, I basically don't consider max difficulty questing to be max difficulty at all, which is my fault in my written classifications. I don't have issues with 1000 HP 100 PRR monk builds being one-shotted in 10 skull slavers, when a 2000 HP 150 PRR monk build or a 200 HP 200 PRR armored build can take more than one hit, allowing for healing. What I consider max difficulty is quests/raids that actually result in one-shots against the above provided melee builds, such as 10 skull LTS, 10 skull LHoX, 10 skull DoJ, and especially 10 skull LShroud. Again, the level of damage taken in 10 skull slavers killing the typically 1000-1300 HP 100-150 PRR builds you see survive just fine on live is completely fine to me, AS IS the level of damage in LShroud 10 skull. The difference, which I was trying to clarify, is that 10 skull slavers can be survived just fine by a decently geared decently built melee with a strong emphasis on defense (Earth Stance or LShroud/Slavers set monks blitzing, Tempests blitzing, heavy armor builds, particularly those with sacred/stalwart defense). 10 skull LShroud can be survived a little bit by a 12k HP 380 PRR melee build. I fully stand by the statement that " a melee who ISN'T completely defensive is going to be silly terrible in max content." but I reject the extension that max level content is every single quest and raid that can be played on 10 skull.

[Blastyswa]

Wrong.

Care to expound upon that? I agree with you, but reasons are always good. For example I think that the self-healing debuff and death timer were steps in the right direction, as are adding reapers with unique debuffs and revamping the champion system. I would prefer if more power was switched from base damage to debuffs/champions, and self-healing/death timer were given additional oomph.

For examples, instead of 10k damage base (2.5k through 300 PRR) have 3k damage base and a 6 second debuff that deals 7k damage base if remove curse is not cast within that time; give it an obvious visual indicator, but cause it to remove the players ability to cast/drink/scroll/wand remove curse (Require the healer to pay attention to more than HP bars). Or have the enemy inflict a powerful poison on hit that makes the player immune to healing and the remove poison side effect of healing spells, requiring an actual cast of the remove poison spell before the player can be healed more. Or have a debuff that causes 20% of incoming damage to launch as slow moving homing missile blasts towards nearby characters, that can be stopped by hitting an obstacles (The melee gets hit, a slow moving (Slower than the player) ball moves towards the healer who has to move around and reposition himself so that the ball hits an obstacle, and in quests like Thunder Peaks (no obstacles) that obstacle might be another character who can survive the hit.

Champions could be given auras that increase the abilities of nearby monsters (Which is shown by an aural glow around affected mobs) that goes away after the champion is killed. Self-Healing could be entirely removed, and healing timers could be increased (Requires multiple heals and cycling instead of tapping heal over and over). An ability could be added in a reaper tree that causes the players outgoing damage to be reduced by 100%, but has an absolute reduction on aggro (Mobs are treated as if the sanctuary spell from P&P is casted on the player, completely ignoring them in favor of other players). This ability could be a toggle that can only be toggled in public areas, meaning you have to choose whether you're going to heal or fight before the quest (No abuse to avoid damage in quest while still attacking). Death timer could be extended to make the player immune to scrolled revives and clickies, reducing the power of everyone carrying stacks of 100 resurrection scrolls with 50+ UMD.

These are just ideas I'm throwing out off the top of my head, there's endless possibilities, some of which will actually be feasible with the game's engine.

[Mr_Helmet]

Care to expound upon that?

Not really, there's not much point in making sense on the forums anymore.

[BigErkyKid]

I presume the homogenization of PRR you speak of is how every heavy armor fighter tends to have around the same PRR,[...]

PRR is HP against physical hits. The more base PRR we can have (quality, insight, sheltering, artifact, reaper trees), the more than the armor type and so on is washed out.

If you're talking about the formula for asymptotic regression used to make each PRR point the same effective value, then I would point you towards freshmen college algebra.

I will let this one slide because you are a friendly poster most of the time. I will just say that asymptotic regression has no meaning here, so please be careful with overly snarky comments that could very well backfire and make you look like a math nub.

We have entirely different definitions of max difficulty questing. In your posts you tend to consider anything 10 skull max difficulty questing, many quests of which I don't consider max difficulty at all (10 skull slavers, 10 skull ToEE, 10 skull Haunted Halls, 10 skull LShroud flaggers, etc.).

No need to put words in my mouth. I haven't identified anything as "max difficulty". The point is that outside of tanks, playing melee is a stupid option in reaper. Holding skill constant, a party of uber ranged toons can get further than a party of uber legit melees. That you can complete "easier" content says absolutely nothing about the imbalance.

But as our beloved nipple-free halfling yielding creature says:

Not really, there's not much point in making sense on the forums anymore.

So I am going to leave it here. See you in Ravenloft (maybe).