Upcoming Systems Changes for U36

[Propane]

Based on feedback in this thread, we've altered the Arcane Archer fix in a way that acts closer to Swashbuckling.

• You must be carrying a Longbow or Shortbow to toggle Arcane Archer imbues on.
• Once they are on, you may freely swap things in your main hands; while you have a Longbow or Shortbow in your hands, you will have the Imbue effects. If you have anything other than those things in your hands, the effects will disappear (without turning off the toggles) until you return a Longbow or Shortbow to your hands.

It still needs to be vetted by QA, but so far it seems as if it still resolves the issues at the heart of the change, while being a little less cumbersome.

Much better thanks for digging deeper and making this change!

As for warlocks- future adjustments are always possible... if the hammer was to big - they can pull back, if the hammer was too small - they can swing again....
After a few days on live - we will have a good feel for how it is playing out...

[Deathlylife]

I would like to start with a thank you to the developer team for actually looking through these forum posts, responding, and even changing their ideas based on the feedback of the community (AA imbues acting like swashbuckler).

I have read thru all of the responses to this thread and have found a common theme that I have noticed. Those that believe that the warlock changes are good all tend to say that this will help with warlocks being overpowered for the lvl 1-20 grind and kinda sucks for early epic but is doable. Then those that believe the warlock changes are bad and tend to say that they are no where near the top dps build, they are terrible at endgame already, they are not good enough for high skull reaper already, you forcing players into the other two trees. I will address each of these views and their respective arguments.

DISCLAIMER: I admit I feel the changes are good and will help the game overall. I do not play the highest skulls, I do not stay in epics long term (one month heroic tr's, one month epic tr's to keep boredom at bay). With that said, from my own experience, the only ones I see rofl stomping the dungeons and leaving me in the dust are warlocks. I am biased against warlocks but please respect the view of another individual wanting to enjoy a game.

I shall start with those that think the warlock change is bad.
1) Warlocks are not top dps builds why do they deserve a 'negative' change? Short Answer: Warlock has terrific AoE damage which I believe plays a massive role to the overall quest.
I would like to start with agreeing with you to a point. Warlocks do not have the best 1v1/boss damage, I will not argue that. I will argue that you believe that is the only time in the quest you deal damage. I find ~3% of my total play time is devoted to boss battles (sometimes more if all I do is raid that day) ~17% messing around with vendors, gear, leveling, and forming groups and the remaining 80% of that time is trying to wade through 100+ creatures to even get to the boss. I would like to ask, does 1v1 damage work for saying warlock is bad dps? No it does not since the vast majority of time is spent dealing with a ton of monsters and not a boss. So saying that warlocks are bad at dps is not accurate as warlocks having amazing aoe dps. The vast majority of quest time is spent trying to get to a boss. Yes for a boss it may take you twice as long on a warlock then on another character to defeat them, but you still can in a reasonable time defeat the boss, a 45 second boss fight becomes 90 second boss fight (a warlock is not allowed to argue about sp management from extended fights in a boss battle because we are focusing on changes to bursts/blasts). The issue I take with people arguing that warlocks have low dps is that 80% of the time is fighting 100+ creatures to get to the boss fight. The warlock has amazing aoe damage available to them. The warlock takes way less time to deal with the 100+ and will easily save more time then the extra time it takes to defeat the boss in most dungeons. So I am sorry but you are dead wrong saying warlocks have bad dps, you have to take into account everything you deal damage to the entire quest, not just a single target over a specific time frame.

2) Warlocks are already not good at epics/end game, why reduce their early epic level damage and force feats on them? Short Answer: Early Epics they still have alot of power and what is an 'end game'?
I unfortunately do not agree with you in saying that warlocks already have bad damage in early epic levels. Yes, they do not get a massive power jump compared to everyone else, but they are still very good for early epic levels. They deal a ton of AoE damage and run through quests at top speeds because of the AoE damage. They may not scale as well as you would like but they still outperform most at low difficulties and perform well in higher difficulties. You seem to be upset that your character no longer plays the same way as it did in heroics (throw your keyboard down a staircase and if everything is dead good job, if not repeat). Yes you have to hit two buttons now or (say it is not so) have to be tactical in your positioning/fight initiation. If you are a good player, and know how to change your play style to fit your current scenario, you will not notice a difference. But if you don't recognize the fact that you are no longer a one shot wonder like in a heroics, you will die trying to pull 100+ creatures like you always do in heroics.

3) Warlocks are terrible at high skulls, why make them worse? Short Answer: Just because High Skulls exist does not mean every build should be able to run it, warlocks are not an exception.
One of the favorite arguments is that warlocks (specifically burst/blast) are terrible in high skulls and will be worse off after the changes. So? I don't see the Dexterity based Greatsword wielding Fighter/Bard/Rogue complaining that he can not play in High Skulls. The reason for High Skulls is to have a challenge. Some builds will work and others won't. Just do what you often tell others, drop down the difficulty if you can't handle it. If you want to stay competitive then change your play style or build. Just because you liked to burst/blast everything and kill it till it's dead faster than an electron spins when running r2 does not mean you should be able to do that at a higher difficulty. The point of more difficulty is.. well.. to be more difficult! Even then, warlocks now are currently able to solo r4 fairly easily. After the changes, warlocks may have to drop down to r3 to solo... oh the humanity! Now you will be closer to everyone else who has trouble with soloing r1 on their noob (insert anything but warlock) build. (Pointing out that Arti/Wolf/Monk/Anything has more power than warlock is not acceptable when you are already playing higher difficulties than the average build. Like Mother used to say, I don't care what the other kids can/will/did do, I care what you can/will/did do)

4) Warlocks will be forced into the other two trees if they cannot deal as much damage in Enlightened Spirit. Short Answer: With every other tree in the game, which one has high damage and high defenses at the same time?
Warlocks currently can get good damage (not the best a warlock can get) and also very high survivability in the same tree. Looking at every other tree in the game, none currently grant the same high damage and high survivability to the extent that warlocks get in one tree as the Enlightened Spirit does. Everyone else has to make a choice, damage or defense. Why is warlock allowed to have both in the same tree? Warlocks lose much less then others when making the choice for high defense. They still get incredible AoE dps and can hold their own in boss fights. Warlocks will have to make a choice just like everyone else, damage or defense. I have been making this decision everytime I TR, do I survive a nuclear blast but take fifty minutes to kill the boss or do I kill the boss quick and have to be more careful in my play style and decisions? For a long time a warlock could do both while cooking dinner for the kids. If you hate that your warlock damage will go down, change your tree or even your build to get more damage. Most every other class has to think and make decisions to to be survivable and still deal damage, while warlocks can get both in a single tree.

Those that think warlock change is good.
1) Warlocks will be hard early epics but doable to fix the heroic problem. Short Answer: Warlocks are hard in early epics?
I mean sure warlocks in early epics cannot rofl stomp r3 like they were in heroics. But, just because they are no longer running r3 does not mean they are in a bad spot. They may have to drop down the difficulty to r1 or even elite but they can still manage in groups and even solo. The changes will affect their damage slightly in low epics, but it won't break the class to the point they have to settle for EN dailies to ever reach upper epics. Warlocks can and will still dominate the EN daily runs for speed. They will just lose some of their ability to roll through elite and r1 while they are painting the family room. I understand they will lose power but it is not going to destroy them being able to run content, they will just have to either lower their difficulty or play with more tactics (the horror, a warlock playing with tactics)

2) Warlock dominates 1-20. Short Answer: There is a reason so many play warlocks...
No matter what people say about warlocks not being a good at high skulls or that they are not very good for epics does not matter. It does not matter that xxx build is so much better at level 30 or that yyy is better for high skulls because no matter what, the game exists for the grind from level 1-20. Heroic TR, Racial TR, and efficient Reaper xp is all in the level 1-20 range vs. Epic TR and 'end game' (I have not seen evidence of end game existing since pre-MoTU) at level 20+. Therefore the majority of the game is meant to be played in the level range of 1-20. Warlock dominates 1-20 (do not argue that others are better at 1-20 because until I see less than half of all heroic lfms having 2+ warlocks your statement does not match with the visual data that everyone plays warlock for the easy button). Now I would like to state before the inevitable "get good" and "drop difficulty" responses that I regularly solo r1 and r2 easily and contribute in non warlock groups always with the highest kill count. The issue I have is that the warlocks clear the dungeon before I even finish with my loading screen. They have no fear of dying (Enlightened Spirit or CC abilities) and have such high AoE damage (burst/blast) that they breeze through everything. The only time I can contribute when even one warlock is in the party is for the boss battle because it is only at 50% health by the time I get within melee range. If I solo it takes me half an hour to clear a dungeon from the 400+ creatures I have to kill so not to get red alert. A warlock makes the whole run in 5 minutes since they just hit burst/blast with auto run on. Yes I know, a well played xxx build stomps warlocks into the ground for 1v1 damage/High skulls/Epics. I contend that the game is rarely only a 1v1 battle, the game is not run on High Skulls for the majority of people the majority of the time, and that the majority of the population does not remain parked at cap and only play that capped character.

DISCLAIMER: I admit I feel the changes are good and will help the game overall. I do not play the highest skulls, I do not stay in epics long term (one month heroic tr's, one month epic tr's to keep boredom at bay). With that said, from my own experience, the only ones I see rofl stomping the dungeons and leaving me in the dust are warlocks. I am biased against warlocks but please respect the view of another individual wanting to enjoy a game.

Thank you if you took the time to read this and I respect others of different view points as they have likely had different experiences playing then I have had.

[Chacka_DDO]

To clarify, as it stands right now:
With U36, the Racial bonuses will stack with Gear-based bonuses. It will not stack with Diamond Soul.

Diamond Soul currently claims to be an Enhancement bonus, but really isn't. Diamond Soul is an untyped bonus that will stack with all bonuses on Gear in U36 (and probably already does on Live).

We would like to make Diamond Soul and the Racial bonuses stack as well, but Diamond Soul is coded in an archaic manner that requires us to rebuild it from scratch before we can make it stack with the Racial bonuses. We'll look into the timeline of getting this in for U36.

edit Diamond Soul currently doesn't stacks with any item spell resistance.

Sorry but...
When I read this and the planned changes for spell resistance I have the impression that you don't really know what you are doing.

Currently you can have 99 spell resistance via items in level 30 (51 enhancement + 25 insight + 14 quality + 9 Serenity).
My latest test in the Slave Pits of the Undercity quest showed that this is not enough to be save from non damaging spells from Slaver Warchanter (CR 57).
ddowiki and my other tests say that monsters normally got a spell penetration of CR+1d20.
Therefore normally you should be save against those CR57 Slaver Warchanters if you got a spell resistance of 77. But it seems like reaper difficulty gives monsters additional spell penetration.
You don't see the spell penetration rolls of monsters against you so I can only assume they have like 90+1d20 spell penetration.

So what does this mean?
If you reduce the value of item spell resistance by 1/3, spell resistance items are totally useless in such quests if your are not a drow or deep gnome.
If you are a drow or deep gnome you can have around 105 spell resistance after this changes and this is just enough to have some use against monsters with 90+1d20 spell penetration but not enough to be 100% save from those non damaging spells.

Of course it is only my opinion, but I think it should be indeed possible to have enough spell resistance to be 100% save from non damaging spells.
If I play a race with the racial characteristic spell resistance and/or if I use items with the best available spell resistance I expect it to be useful.
And I expect it to be useful especially in quests on highest difficulty (legendary quests on reaper 10 skull), in low difficulty e.g. on normal or hard, I don't need this anyway.
And useful means for me I can rely on the spell resistance of my character!

I made already suggestions for spell resistance here.

You should know how much spell penetration the monsters have and you should make it possible for a players to get enough spell resistance.
But currently spell resistance items give not enough spell resistance and you want to nerf it even more.
And if you touch Diamond Soul you should really consider to make it dependent on the character level and not on the monk level because the maximum character level is not 20 it is 30!
The same for the spell resistance buff that is also totally useless at the moment with max 32 SR even if you cast it with character level 30 (20 cleric level) in one of the divine epic destinies.
Witch is another example how senseless it is to cap every last spell at caster level 20 or even earlier!

[TDarkchylde]

Based on feedback in this thread, we've altered the Arcane Archer fix in a way that acts closer to Swashbuckling.

• You must be carrying a Longbow or Shortbow to toggle Arcane Archer imbues on.
• Once they are on, you may freely swap things in your main hands; while you have a Longbow or Shortbow in your hands, you will have the Imbue effects. If you have anything other than those things in your hands, the effects will disappear (without turning off the toggles) until you return a Longbow or Shortbow to your hands.

It still needs to be vetted by QA, but so far it seems as if it still resolves the issues at the heart of the change, while being a little less cumbersome.

All along, I was glad that the fact that AA imbues were NOT working as intended was finally being addressed, but the original implementation y'all were going to go with was a pretty bad way to do it from a QoL standpoint. Maybe if we didn't have to switch to wands or melee weapons to break down walls, webs and doors...

So thanks for listening on this, this is a GIGANTIC QoL fix.

[Whitering]

This is what Warlock means to me

1) Block with skyvault
2) Hit, on rotation 1, 2
3) If boss, 3, 4
5) If champs, Reavers add button 5 and maybe 6 if not undead, shift 6 if undead

Voila, every two minutes I hit shift D for displacement, and if I need some health, Shift H for temp hp, Ctrl H for health pot. I must admit to mouse clicking Fire Shield.

Blocking the whole time. I've tried Ranger, I really have, I am sorry to say they sucketh compared to Ranges in LotRO, and YES, I know it's a different game, but I play them both and I vastly prefer my Ranger in that game. Barrage eats manyshot for lunch.

I think different builds come into their own at different levels, the Warlock you need to get to tier 4, and maybe 5 before you move into boom mode. Rangers kind of hit their stride when they get the relative bow, level 7 ish.

Clerics really hit it big around Tier 5, for fighter clerics that's when you get your Aura and become largely unkillable.

Barbs, Fighters, Bards, level 4 or 5 for Carnifex (can't remember), but self healing never really comes for fighter until Epics, but your melee power/defense is sufficient that you an just carry a healer hireling through quests if you wish to solo, no problemo.

[cdbd3rd]

Based on feedback in this thread, we've altered the Arcane Archer fix in a way that acts closer to Swashbuckling.

• You must be carrying a Longbow or Shortbow to toggle Arcane Archer imbues on.
• Once they are on, you may freely swap things in your main hands; while you have a Longbow or Shortbow in your hands, you will have the Imbue effects. If you have anything other than those things in your hands, the effects will disappear (without turning off the toggles) until you return a Longbow or Shortbow to your hands.

It still needs to be vetted by QA, but so far it seems as if it still resolves the issues at the heart of the change, while being a little less cumbersome.

Don't have a dog in that fight currently, but that's still an awesome improvement. I agree with others over the last couple pages that that sub-routine would work great on some other toggles.

"You have given out too much Reputation in the last 24 hours, try again later."

Covered it.

[Gargoyle69]

Based on feedback in this thread, we've altered the Arcane Archer fix in a way that acts closer to Swashbuckling.

• You must be carrying a Longbow or Shortbow to toggle Arcane Archer imbues on.
• Once they are on, you may freely swap things in your main hands; while you have a Longbow or Shortbow in your hands, you will have the Imbue effects. If you have anything other than those things in your hands, the effects will disappear (without turning off the toggles) until you return a Longbow or Shortbow to your hands.

It still needs to be vetted by QA, but so far it seems as if it still resolves the issues at the heart of the change, while being a little less cumbersome.

****, Steel, you're on fire!

This right here is everything we could ask for in terms of Dev / Community interaction.

Bravo.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Based on feedback in this thread, we've altered the Arcane Archer fix in a way that acts closer to Swashbuckling.

• You must be carrying a Longbow or Shortbow to toggle Arcane Archer imbues on.
• Once they are on, you may freely swap things in your main hands; while you have a Longbow or Shortbow in your hands, you will have the Imbue effects. If you have anything other than those things in your hands, the effects will disappear (without turning off the toggles) until you return a Longbow or Shortbow to your hands.

It still needs to be vetted by QA, but so far it seems as if it still resolves the issues at the heart of the change, while being a little less cumbersome.

THANK YOU. This makes it so much better. I was dreading having to remember turning the imbue back on every time I came across a root wall that needed punching.

[geoffhanna]

Based on feedback in this thread, we've altered the Arcane Archer fix in a way that acts closer to Swashbuckling.

• You must be carrying a Longbow or Shortbow to toggle Arcane Archer imbues on.
• Once they are on, you may freely swap things in your main hands; while you have a Longbow or Shortbow in your hands, you will have the Imbue effects. If you have anything other than those things in your hands, the effects will disappear (without turning off the toggles) until you return a Longbow or Shortbow to your hands.

It still needs to be vetted by QA, but so far it seems as if it still resolves the issues at the heart of the change, while being a little less cumbersome.

This is awesome, and thank you for making the adjustment.

[Niminae]

Once they are on, you may freely swap things in your main hands; while you have a Longbow or Shortbow in your hands, you will have the Imbue effects. If you have anything other than those things in your hands, the effects will disappear (without turning off the toggles) until you return a Longbow or Shortbow to your hands.

But, but, but... Now I can't beat things to death with an imbued scroll!

[Niminae]

Just to be clear, I liked the usefulness of the Warlock at heroic. Yes, they are OP, overperforming, easy button, etc, but if you are going to make be farm, then I want the tractor with the Air Conditioned cab, GPS navigation, and WiFi. I'll pass on the ox and plow thank you. Save that for end game.

You didn't get the memo about the new TPS cover sheet? Farming heroic lives IS the endgame.

[dunklezhan]

Based on feedback in this thread, we've altered the Arcane Archer fix in a way that acts closer to Swashbuckling.

• You must be carrying a Longbow or Shortbow to toggle Arcane Archer imbues on.
• Once they are on, you may freely swap things in your main hands; while you have a Longbow or Shortbow in your hands, you will have the Imbue effects. If you have anything other than those things in your hands, the effects will disappear (without turning off the toggles) until you return a Longbow or Shortbow to your hands.

It still needs to be vetted by QA, but so far it seems as if it still resolves the issues at the heart of the change, while being a little less cumbersome.

Thank you. That's how it should have been working to begin with.

[sirgog]

Based on feedback in this thread , will you consider canceling the nerfs to Warlock?

Do not do this.

If players want the play experience of an un-nerfed Warlock, they have that option. All they need to do is enter the dungeon one difficulty level lower, and their easy button is back. Plus they can do this with other classes too, and get the Warlock easy button on them too.

[Eldarlyn]

This is a ridiculously huge nerf. Removing more than half of the light damage?? That's insane. Plus, that damage isn't given back in epics.

I get there is a very loud "we hate warlocks" crowd. Warlock is strong for a caster class, but overall I don't see them being any stronger than other classes than have received their pass. You say you can't bring the power of other classes up to that level, but sorc isn't too far behind, and the proposed domains for cleric would zoom way past where warlocks are on live.

I've played a lot of classes and builds, and warlock wasn't my most powerful. I really think you should reconosider this.

Agreed!! This is a huge step back. If you don't like Warlocks then don't play one or have them in your party, end of story, time to move on. I love playing my Warlock because it is actually my one character where I can actually excel and have a chance at some dungeons, to gimp them in this way is horrible and will make me rethink playing this game. My Warlock is actually my favorite character by far, and before I built him I thought I would not like playing a spell caster like that but that changed because I actually had 1/2 a chance to play harder dungeons without giving up. Remember, their armor class is lower than a lot of other classes so even though they maybe able to dish out some damage if they are built right, they cannot go head to head in combat like a fighter. Each class has their own pros and cons and that is what draws people to like to play certain ones over others, totally gimping this one is a really bad idea, please reconsider.

On a side note, since this game was bought out earlier this year there have been no sales on DDO points, this coupled with gimping my favorite character class is going to make me reconsider how I spend my time and money....if it is no fun to play then time to go elsewhere.

[Kulothar]

Since you are making some large scale changes to basics here are some of my comments.

Hello!
U36 is shaping up to be a very large update, with some great new content, Artificer changes, and a fairly large number of Bug and Quality-of-Life fixes. There are a few of these changes we wanted to let you know about ahead of Lamannia in order to provide some design insight and provide a bit of advanced notice.

Warlocks
With U36, the following changes are being made to Warlocks:

These look fair.

Spell Resistance
With U36, the following changes are being made to Spell Resistance:[*]The majority of item-based sources of Spell Resistance have had their values reduced by about 1/3.

But yet you are not reducing the Spell DC for the mobs. So basically if not FoW/WaW ability or natural SR everyone may be toast/held/instakilled by Casters, Drow, Beholders, etc. if the new calculations are off. Has this been tested on the beta server? I have several characters that can testify that SR is not overpowered to where a 21 SR should become a 7 SR in epic. Maybe we should all just become Drow, elf, gnome or similar natural SR races? I will withhold complaining until I see how it works since you say they were calculated wrong but hold person, level drain and disintegrate were working quite well the past week in epics.

Aggro & Stealth
With U36, the following changes are being made to Aggro and Stealth:

• Monsters will take the distance of their targets into account now. Closer targets are more likely to be targeted (assuming they have not yet taken much damage) compared to Live.
• If a monster kills or loses their primary target, they’ll now aggro correctly on who has the most hate next (as opposed to the closest target, as they often do now on Live).
• Monsters with the “see stealthed” property will now display an angry red eye icon to anyone observing them in stealth. Note: The see through stealth property, aka “tremor sense” is not True Sight or See Invisible. Those abilities don’t actually don’t affect sight checks against players just using the stealth skill. For example, Spiders and Slimes typically have the See Through Stealth property, per 3.5 edition rules. Red- and Purple-name bosses also tend to get this ability.

This looks good.

Area of Effect Spells
With U36, most Area of Effect spells cast by enemies (such as Ice Storm and Web) now have visible indicators of their boundaries on the ground. This should make more clear where enemy effects begin and end, and improve players' ability to analyze the battlefield.

Not necessary if you are aware but nice to have.

• Arcane Archer Imbue toggles will only grant their effects while wielding a Longbow or Shortbow.
• Arcane Archers must have a Longbow or Shortbow equipped to toggle on the Imbues from that tree. Equipping something other than a Longbow or Shortbow in your main hand will cause Arcane Archer Imbues to toggle off.

(Edit: We've made some changes to how this fix is implemented. See this link.)

I get it that you are reducing the dps of artificers but what about other builds. This screws over any opportunity to have any crossbow AA. Which is it? You can't be an archer if you use an xbow or you can't be archaine? Did we just take xbows away from elves, mages, sorcerers, rogues or did we just take bolts away from xbows? You cannot tell me there were never flaming bolts because historically they existed. You just killed any Elf rogue from being an AA and made either one or the other enhancements (mechanic) useless due to wasted points.

[Grace_ana]

Nerf Warlocks More.



Also nerf pact die progression, and move 3 pact die to epic feats. This will make warlocks equal to other dps casters, who get 10 die at level 24 with the Master of X feats.

Why would we want warlocks equal to other caster classes that are waiting for their passes because they are underpowered?

Seriously. Stop with the nerf demands. So sick of it.

[masterofthewand]

OMG they're going to nurf my most favorite novelty class? I Quit! And I'll quit twice as hard if you nerf my temporary hit points in reaper! And don't you dare take away my reaper enhancements!

[Phoenicis]

Why would we want warlocks equal to other caster classes that are waiting for their passes because they are underpowered?

Seriously. Stop with the nerf demands. So sick of it.

I seriously think there are people who won't be happy until every class does the exact same DPS with different graphics.

[Krelar]

I seriously think there are people who won't be happy until every class does the exact same DPS with different graphics.

That other classes graphics are prettier than mine! I demand the same graphics!

[Dullthud]

I have to listen to some boring broadcast, so I thought I'd read some forums.

The most disappointing aspect of the Warlock nerfs is that I will have to change my game style. I currently like to play Warlocks as melees, but after the update I feel I will have to play as a ranged to be anywhere near as effective. I would have said caster, but let's face it Warlocks are nowhere nears as good as Wizards and Sorcerers from distance.

Fortunately I haven't yet made a five-piece Slaver's set I had planned for an upcoming Warlock. I think I'll now go with Paladin, which in my hands is well OP (imminent nerf alert). Has anyone actually considered that certain classes aren't OP, rather that some players are.