Flame Blade Scaling

[PsychoBlonde]

Torc, is it possible you could squodge in some time to take a look at flame blade scaling? It potentially opens a very limited option for druids to get wisdom to hit and damage, but the scaling on it is quite poor.

[Xario]

Not only for druid. It is also nice option for elven warpriest (he can take active druid past life to can cast the Flame Blade 3x per rest) for example.

(of course with a flaw/bug, that his enhacement bonus to favorite weapon will break pure fire damage of the Flame Blade, so it will not bypass DR no more)

[Saekee]

/signed

[unbongwah]

That reminds me: does Flame Blade's WIS to-hit and damage finally apply in animal forms? It's still weaksauce, but at least it provides options for heroic leveling.

[SerPounce]

That would be cool.

There's just so much that ought to be done with a druid pass. I hope this doesn't get rushed out. I'd rather wait another update or two and get a proper revamp rather than some tree shuffling and basic melee functionality right now.

[edrein]

Not only for druid. It is also nice option for elven warpriest (he can take active druid past life to can cast the Flame Blade 3x per rest) for example.

(of course with a flaw/bug, that his enhacement bonus to favorite weapon will break pure fire damage of the Flame Blade, so it will not bypass DR no more)

In this day and age that sort of weapon breaking is extremely easy. Arcane PLs, Arborea, friendly warchanter/artificer, etc.

Edit: I'm in agreement with SerPounce on atleast pushing the druid pass back another update or patch or two. Still too much to be done to let it go live with the initial update.

[Iriale]

+1. Please

[PsychoBlonde]

That reminds me: does Flame Blade's WIS to-hit and damage finally apply in animal forms? It's still weaksauce, but at least it provides options for heroic leveling.

Yes, I tested it, it was working.

[Silverleafeon]

Yes, I tested it, it was working.

Sweet, definitely opens up some new options.

Makes shifting into Bear/Wolf on a caster build to melee on cc mobs doable, potential hybrid caster builds, ect...

Hopefully, we can get some better Epic Scaling when we get Air & Earth Forms if not before...
Would be nice to see a Cold/Electric/Acid selector option as well if one is going into the spell...

[unbongwah]

Yes, I tested it, it was working.

Nice, some of my build ideas are marginally less gimp than I feared.

[MrChipinator]

I don't even play Druids at all and this would be awesome.

[dgtgtd]

I realize this is necroing a rather old thread, but this does need to be addressed. Druid flame blade is useful for such a narrow range of content that it really is not worth using, at the very least it should be redone for modern scaling effects and should be given a 25 and 30 version. No need to change it being useless against enemies immune to fire, but it does need to have its strength boosted to be useful when enemies aren't fire immune.

[K_9]

I would love this for one of the spells to see some love with better scaling. It doesn't even need to be BIS until late epics, but at least situationally decent choice until low 20s.

Historically one of the best uses I used to use it for on druid lives is to bypass high DRs like the ghostly skeletons in delereas for lower level fleshrenders. One other point I never previously attempted was use it on a monk as they are meant to remain balanced while using it as well as the wisdom thing.

[FuzzyDuck81]

I'd love this to get an update too, it's a cool spell in concept but the base damage scales terribly.

Historically one of the best uses I used to use it for on druid lives is to bypass high DRs like the ghostly skeletons in delereas for lower level fleshrenders. One other point I never previously attempted was use it on a monk as they are meant to remain balanced while using it as well as the wisdom thing.

Yep it was handy for that for sure... monks do remain centered when wielding them, but they still count as scimitars which monks aren't proficient in (so a pure monk with the druid past life is out of luck), so any amendment should ideally add the "weapon proficiency: scimitar" feat on every level version of them.

[Pilgrim1]

My suggestion for flameblade to keep it relevent is to treat it more like holy sword. Have it be a buff that you cast on your existing weapon to make it use wisdom to attack/dmg and gain a +fire dmg on hit effect.

I think making the weapon into doing pure fire-damage is a way to fail, ddo does not have a good track record with that kind of weapon effect. Also It would be cool to have the added fire damage scale off of druid level, maybe 1d6 per druid level. This would allow pure/heavy druids to use the weapon with good effect while thoes who take the past life just gain wisdom to hit and damage.

This introduces another option for wisdom hit and damage other than falconry and fvs. But since both falconry and fvs have wisdom trances its not as strong as spending the AP or class levels. I think its a good traid-off.

[janave]

this is a good idea

[Xgya]

Imma suggest something a bit more radical.

Try and make Flame Blade count as a spell everywhere it can.
It gets Spell Power bonuses, Spell Level bonuses, Spell Criticals and everything in between, and uses its own fighting style.
I don't know how we could make it scale properly, but all the above scaling makes letting it doublestrike a bit iffy.

Allow Druids that can bypass elemental resistances do so with the completely-fire-based Flame Blades.

A Druidic melee-range sword-swinging-animation Eldritch Blast.
Let them keep their current weapons equipped, recasting the spell simply cancels it so they can hit with other weapons at lower levels.

[K_9]

Imma suggest something a bit more radical.

Try and make Flame Blade count as a spell everywhere it can.
It gets Spell Power bonuses, Spell Level bonuses, Spell Criticals and everything in between, and uses its own fighting style.
I don't know how we could make it scale properly, but all the above scaling makes letting it doublestrike a bit iffy.

Allow Druids that can bypass elemental resistances do so with the completely-fire-based Flame Blades.

A Druidic melee-range sword-swinging-animation Eldritch Blast.
Let them keep their current weapons equipped, recasting the spell simply cancels it so they can hit with other weapons at lower levels.

Sounds good to me

[Forcystus]

As spoiled in this post , Flame Blade changes are on the way.



Not as much as SOME people here hoped, but it's something...