Racial Enhancement Trees

[edrein]

It seems that most folks aren't discussing the changes; either they like them or at best they're tolerating them for the upcoming racial past life grind.
The ultimate issue is most of the changes are still lackluster and leave human as the top-dog go to choice; especially once players have the +10AP from 'racial completionist' by doing every life.

Warforged/Bladeforged: The changes here were mostly AP cost reductions, small quality of life, and a nice new T3 and T4 option for regular Warforged.
Half Orcs: To me the changes here were perfect; it breathes new life into a race that is almost new used save new players.
Half Elf: Overall this one is nice as well, although I'd love to see the dragonmark improved as well. Give the DC's on Electric Loop and Call Lightning Storm proper scaling based on charisma score and player level. Additionally; update Power of the Storm to be a toggle in line with other racial weapon damage effects. Allow it to scale with melee power or spell power and call it a day.
Dwarf: Remove the Dragonmark requirement for the new and improved Hands of Stone, or separate it from using Dragonmark charges and turn it into an SLA similar to the Drow treatment in this pass. Also lower the Dwarven Shield Mastery cost to 1AP per rank.
Drow: Solid changes. Only improvement necessary is double checking that Drow Venomed Blades actually scales with melee power. As the tooltip for this one has been out of date for a long time, while the Assassin version notes the scaling.
Elf: A nice quality of life bump that affects all races that share the Nothing is Hidden ability.
Shadar-Kai: Yes, all of my yes. I've wanted the chains to scale properly for a long time now, and now you've given it to me. Worthy of a few testing lives for builds using the chains in Reaper.


All in all; the changes so far have been great quality of life updates. But for the most part they leave the situation as we started. Most people will play humans; either for the extra feat, visuals, or frankly that once we've got our racial pastlives done, we now get the best benefits from the racial tree for free.

I think the best addition at this point without coming up with completely new ideas is to follow the rumored and suggested ideas by Severlin a year or two back to add the other racial prestiges. If they follow the example of Elven AA; and cost a total of 14AP each to get. This would open new build options for certain race-class combos, without creating massive power creep. Ultimately I think giving us the trees will create better diversity rather than the return to mass humans you're going to see once the racial TR train is finished by the majority of the player base.

[edrein]

Additionally; I think it would be wise to provide two trees per race as an option to reflect their heritage. In the case of Half Orcs; Frenzied Beserker or Season's Herald due to the Gatekeepers. Dwarves; Stalwart Defender or Battle Engineer (with runearm use attached). Drow; Angel of Vengeance and Assassin/Ninja Spy (due to their mastery of poison in Eberron, though Tempest is another candidate thematically.) Halfling; Radiant Servant or Thief Acrobat. Half-Elf could possibly get a Bard line? Elf could get Archmage? Gnome for Archmage and Arcanotechnician. Ideas like that to increase diversity and ideas for multiclass combos that might normally not exist.

[WiseFreelancer]

I like the changes that were made but I am a little disappointed they didn't go slightly further with pruning AP costs in some trees.

In particular, the weapon enhancements for Elf, Drow and Dwarf are over-priced for what they give you. 8AP for +4 damage with a longsword or scimitar? Gnomes and Halflings get a much better deal on their equivalents, and they get a crit bonus at the top. Throw Your Weight Around and Grace are nice (and only cost 1 AP), but do they really need an 8 AP tax to obtain, considering they already require 15 AP in the tree to take?

[Saekee]

I like the changes that were made but I am a little disappointed they didn't go slightly further with pruning AP costs in some trees.

In particular, the weapon enhancements for Elf, Drow and Dwarf are over-priced for what they give you. 8AP for +4 damage with a longsword or scimitar? Gnomes and Halflings get a much better deal on their equivalents, and they get a crit bonus at the top. Throw Your Weight Around and Grace are nice (and only cost 1 AP), but do they really need an 8 AP tax to obtain, considering they already require 15 AP in the tree to take?

the xendrik blades/valenar blades vs gnomish weapon training...it makes no sense. I suggest top tier would let drow boost the multi on short swords and elves on longswords. This would allow for some fun build options that would not be gsmebreaking

[edrein]

the xendrik blades/valenar blades vs gnomish weapon training...it makes no sense. I suggest top tier would let drow boost the multi on short swords and elves on longswords. This would allow for some fun build options that would not be gsmebreaking

I wouldn't mind something like that on all the races. Certainly makes a nice bandaid for anyone wanting to do a melee divine or arcane, given all of those trees currently lack multipliers innately and most likely won't see those bonuses if the devs stay true to their previous comment about hearing player feedback and not wanting to give every class tree damage multipliers.

[Saekee]

I wouldn't mind something like that on all the races. Certainly makes a nice bandaid for anyone wanting to do a melee divine or arcane, given all of those trees currently lack multipliers innately and most likely won't see those bonuses if the devs stay true to their previous comment about hearing player feedback and not wanting to give every class tree damage multipliers.

I can see some fun drow monk splashes, and elves could suddenly make longswords exciting. Consider how mauls, handaxes, gxbows etc have become viable. I am so glad we are long past the Khopesh-only days.

There are also many named short swords and long swords with expanded crit range so this makes for fun flavor building

[Seikojin]

I am down with what they have done, and with the racial past life boon of 10 AP for racial trees, I think any issues there will diminish since you get 1/3rd of the effort 'free'.

[edrein]

I am down with what they have done, and with the racial past life boon of 10 AP for racial trees, I think any issues there will diminish since you get 1/3rd of the effort 'free'.

How exactly? A 10AP rebate isn't much on making races beyond human and elf really appealing for most builds. If anything this tips the scales further in the favor of human and elf. Now for those doing AA splash builds they only have to invest 4 points in the racial tree to gain AA access. For humans you net; Action Boost, +1 ability score, up to +3 ability score while using an action boost, 20 heal amp, and/or Don't Count Me Out for the expanded unconcious range and extra PRR when below 50% HP. Honestly, human is making it out as a bandit for the free 10AP compared to any other race, especially when you consider no stat penalties at creation and a free feat to boot.

[Requiro]

I agree that most racial Tree are still unattractive. And Human is still the best one. That's why I wrote new Thread (here: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...l-improvements) that will bring more interesting changes for race.
The big problem was Half-elf, where most of Dilettantes are so week, that no one even consider taking it - and it was the most time consuming to me, to bring there balance.

BTW: Devs are strongly state that they don’t bring any new Racial Prestige class like AA for Elf/Helf in the near future (here: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5948663)

[Cantor]

There are also many named short swords and long swords with expanded crit range so this makes for fun flavor building

I would love to see longswords actually usable. As an old 2nd edition player, it's the iconic weapon.

[edrein]

I agree that most racial Tree are still unattractive. And Human is still the best one. That's why I wrote new Thread (here: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...l-improvements) that will bring more interesting changes for race.
The big problem was Half-elf, where most of Dilettantes are so week, that no one even consider taking it - and it was the most time consuming to me, to bring there balance.

BTW: Devs are strongly state that they don’t bring any new Racial Prestige class like AA for Elf/Helf in the near future (here: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5948663)

I was aware of Steelstar's response when I made my own suggestion. The issue is exactly what your own rework of the Dilettantes bring. A need for a full fledge rework and boost on most of the racial trees to put them on par with human. Its easier to avoid that level of extended work by simply adding the original proposed racial enhancement trees to better provide diversity. Even now everyone's speculating on a million and one elf/half elf monk AA's with the free 10AP rebate. Which still leaves the other races lagging behind.

Simple quality of life changes go a long way. Boosting the racial weapon lines to fall in line with how the gnome and deep gnome versions are would help. Make unique racial traits scale like you suggested. But honestly; even with you suggestion you've really only added drow into the build meta for Warlocks really.