IMO, there are only 3 issues with Eldritch Knight

[lppmor]

1) Permanent Tenser was removed, and now there are 3 abilities tied to the same melee transformation. Devs could easily put back Tenser toggle at tier 4-5, and also keep the current toggle for melee lovers.

2) Too many clickies in the tree, considering casters (especially Wizard) already have lots of buttons to press. Arcane Shiphon and Tempest could easily be upgrades to Eldritch Strike. Also, Improved Mage Armor and Shield don't need to be SLAs (more buttons).. they could just be passive effects. Also, there is an Action Boost in the tree, which is another button!

3) Shield Training (tier 2) simply gives proficiency to a class that already has Master's Touch. Could have a boost added, such as +5% shield bash chance.

[kelavas]

1) Permanent Tenser was removed, and now there are 3 abilities tied to the same melee transformation. Devs could easily put back Tenser toggle at tier 4-5, and also keep the current toogle for melee lovers.

2) Too many clickies in the tree, considering casters (especially Wizard) already have lots of buttons to press. Arcane Shiphon and Tempest could easily be upgrades to Eldritch Strike.

3) Shield Training (tier 2) simply gives proficiency to a class that already has Master's Touch. Could have a boost added, such as +5% shield bash chance.

1.] - Of course, a missing of the good ol' tensers is always sad, it's not anything good to be honest. A scroll of tenser's transformation can last up to 1 min 30 sec, which isn't long but it doesn't cost much to cast it.

2.] - Can't argue with that statement. Although Arcane Siphon and Tempest are actually very decent.

3.] - Okay - valid statement. It decreases SPF by 5% but that is a waste of action points.

[Oghma_Infinium]

You forget the 2 SLA 'Shield' and 'Mage Armor' consumming up to 6 AP for few benefits : 3/6/10 PRR
'Mage Armor' brings nothing and 'Shield' is a basic lvl1 buff.

[kelavas]

You forget the 2 SLA 'Shield' and 'Mage Armor' consumming up to 6 AP for few benefits : 3/6/10 PRR
'Mage Armor' brings nothing and 'Shield' is a basic lvl1 buff.

Excuse me! Those are some nice SLA clickies!
Don't you dare disrespect the name of those SLA clickies!

[Oghma_Infinium]

Excuse me! Those are some nice SLA clickies!
Don't you dare disrespect the name of those SLA clickies!

Are you joking ?
-Only 'Shield' is useful against 'Magic Missile' and you can have it from the Archmage core or as standard spell.
-PRR is nice but costly
-'Mage armor' is strictly useless , unless you're zerging around half-naked
- 10% armor bonus of nearly 'not so much' ......

[droid327]

The fact that spell sword damage doesn't scale enough into endgame doesn't concern you? Lol

Or the way spell sword die are so heavily back loaded that you can't realistically multi class an EK?

[slarden]

10% armor bonus of nearly 'not so much' ......

Kind of ironic this is so good for other classes splash 1 wiz just to get it and wizard 20 can't get enough ac to benefit from it.

[Selvera]

Kind of ironic this is so good for other classes splash 1 wiz just to get it and wizard 20 can't get enough ac to benefit from it.

On my pure Sorc I take it because martial pastlives by themselves give you useful AC in heroic levels. +10% makes them even better. (Also to fill points for those juicy +10 USP cores in the tree).

Sort of a niche enhancement for high-pastlived heroic builds or multiclassed tanks. Even if certain devs think that pure wizards/sorcs are going to take 3 feats to get heavy armor proficiency...

[capsela]

No they just made it so that WF are the only wizards who aren't "standing stones", they were before with repair spells and more so now with heavy armor for 1 feat instead of 3 and no worry asf.

I complained about the clickies in the preview thread and it is royal pain to play EK. Wiz is already a cooldown timer clickfest with spells and added clickies from EK makes it a horrible nightmare like playing the playing the guitar hero only it lags so you can't hit the notes and you will die horribly.

Why is vistani a better tree with less clickies than EK? I don't know. It pains me. I honestly feel vistani is superior in every way to the EK tree except spellpower but spellpower is only important if you have mana and mana doesn't last long on DDO wizards with terrible SLAs compared to every other caster class.

Why do wizards even exist? What is their point? Clerics cast necro better than them and can actually heal themselves no matter what race they are. Permahaste is a feat better than the spell. Bards have better CC and better everything. Sorcs have SLAs and trees that actually help them. Warlocks get wail 1 level sooner than wizards do, can heal themselves whatever race and tentacles is a better than any other wizard spell, better CC, free infinite damage spam, much better UMD. Druids are king dps and heals. What role do wizards even serve now? They are beyond neglected.

I run wizard all the time and I tell people not to play the class. It's almost impossible to do successfully without a ridiculous amount of pastlives and absurd amounts of knowledge.

What good is melee if your BAB is so bad you can't take fighting feats until much later levels and improved critical at LEVEL 18!?

What good is free metamagic feats if you can't afford to use them?

A wizard's lament.

[Vish]

Look,
Ek addressed one main problem
Free dps
They can melee pretty good for free,
Spells on top just the icing
If you can't play it,
You probably can't build it

[Zretch]

No they just made it so that WF are the only wizards who aren't "standing stones", they were before with repair spells and more so now with heavy armor for 1 feat instead of 3.

I complained about the clickies in the preview thread and it is royal pain to play EK. Wiz is already a cooldown timer clickfest with spells and added clickies from EK makes it a horrible nightmare like playing the playing the guitar hero only it lags so you can't hit the notes and you will die horribly.

Why is vistani a better tree with less clickies than EK? I don't know. It pains me. I honestly feel vistani is superior in every way to the EK tree except spellpower but spellpower is only important if you have mana and mana doesn't last long on DDO wizards with terrible SLAs compared to every other caster class.

Why do wizards even exist? What is their point? Clerics cast necro better than them and can actually heal themselves no matter what race they are. Permahaste is a feat better than the spell. Bards have better CC and better everything. Sorcs have SLAs and trees that actually help them. Warlocks get wail 1 level sooner than wizards do, can heal themselves whatever race and tentacles is a better than any other wizard spell, better CC, free infinite damage spam, much better UMD. Druids are king dps and heals. What role do wizards even serve now? They are beyond neglected.

I run wizard all the time and I tell people not to play the class. It's almost impossible to do successfully without a ridiculous amount of pastlives and absurd amounts of knowledge.

What good is melee if your BAB is so bad you can't take fighting feats until much later levels and improved critical at LEVEL 18!?

What good is free metamagic feats if you can't afford to use them?

A wizard's lament.

A VKF caster build fights against itself. Every gearing choice you make, every feat choice you make, every AP point your spend is pulling something away from your casting in favor of melee. Equipping a melee build forces tradeoffs in both spellpower and DCs, meaning that you do end up wondering why you're even a wizard.

An EK build allows you to ignore some of those tradeoffs. You switch to prioritizing spellpower and DCs and really only have to worry about an accuracy item. That means you drop Silent Avenger so you can equip a Burnscar/Thrummingspark/Silverthread (for refreshing Death Aura). It means you don't go into LD because blitz isn't helping your spellsword damage, so you go ShadowDancer for good melee power, evasion, and +6 int to help your DCs. It means you slot a phasecloak instead of shadowhail and you can keep your slavers 5 piece without fretting over your Adherent set bonus. Why? Because you're not trying to be a melee DPS, you're still a wizard but now when you mass hold and drop a meteor swarm, you can tempest AoE as a cheap followup and clean up anything still alive with melee quickly and efficiently. It also means you can pop a twisted haste boost and help out against boss mobs without killing your mana bar.

You won't be top tier melee DPS, even if you gear for it 100%, so don't. Take 4 feats (SWF, ISWF, GSWF, PSWF), slot accuracy on one of your slaver's items, and build for DCs with spellpower as secondary. Drop maximise/empower/intensify and swing your nightmother's scepter rather than casting SLAs. Be a wizard like you always were, but a more efficient version.

Oh, and stop with the "I have to be superior at something to all other people in the game just by virtue of picking class X". It'll kill the enjoyment of any game you play. A wizard's strength is versatility.

[capsela]

A VKF caster build fights against itself. Every gearing choice you make, every feat choice you make, every AP point your spend is pulling something away from your casting in favor of melee. Equipping a melee build forces tradeoffs in both spellpower and DCs, meaning that you do end up wondering why you're even a wizard.

An EK build allows you to ignore some of those tradeoffs. You switch to prioritizing spellpower and DCs and really only have to worry about an accuracy item. That means you drop Silent Avenger so you can equip a Burnscar/Thrummingspark/Silverthread (for refreshing Death Aura). It means you don't go into LD because blitz isn't helping your spellsword damage, so you go ShadowDancer for good melee power, evasion, and +6 int to help your DCs. It means you slot a phasecloak instead of shadowhail and you can keep your slavers 5 piece without fretting over your Adherent set bonus. Why? Because you're not trying to be a melee DPS, you're still a wizard but now when you mass hold and drop a meteor swarm, you can tempest AoE as a cheap followup and clean up anything still alive with melee quickly and efficiently. It also means you can pop a twisted haste boost and help out against boss mobs without killing your mana bar.

You won't be top tier melee DPS, even if you gear for it 100%, so don't. Take 4 feats (SWF, ISWF, GSWF, PSWF), slot accuracy on one of your slaver's items, and build for DCs with spellpower as secondary. Drop maximise/empower/intensify and swing your nightmother's scepter rather than casting SLAs. Be a wizard like you always were, but a more efficient version.

Oh, and stop with the "I have to be superior at something to all other people in the game just by virtue of picking class X". It'll kill the enjoyment of any game you play. A wizard's strength is versatility.

Swing your scepter? Lol. Good luck with that. Making excuses why wizards suck. Or saying "learn to play" to people who can't run one. That's the state we are currently at.

[slarden]

Look,
Ek addressed one main problem
Free dps
They can melee pretty good for free,
Spells on top just the icing
If you can't play it,
You probably can't build it

I think people are missing this basic thing. If you heavily tilt towards DC casting which I think is for the best, your melee DPS is still far superior to what you can get with casting dps without giving too much from a casting perspective - especially for a wizard that gets 5 free casting feats.

The same funny people say a first lifer caster can be a strong contributor to R10 and then turn around and say an arcane warrior will suck for missing a few DC. Truth is arcane warriors have one problem and that problem is nightmother sceptre sucks as a melee weapon and the next best answer involves 3 killing time items and it's not being run enough to worry about it with a new xpac right around the corner. Hopefully the new xpac will support an arcane warrior a bit better with gear.

Shadowdancer doesn't suck as a destiny despite people saying "LD or go home".

[Xgya]

I can only attest for heroic levels, but, so far, it has been a blast.

I tried a Warforged Wizard. Might try doing racials by going undead for the self-healing, because of just how much fun I'm currently having.

The only thing I was slightly miffed about is the fact that, unlike the Paladin light damage, Spellsword damage doesn't automagically proc on glancing blows, and I have to work for it. Though it DOES make my strikes more powerful, because two-handed weapon Ws are slightly better off.
The other thing that surprised me is spellsword doesn't work unarmed (not "handwraps unarmed". Unarmed). I forgot to bring an ooze beater in a lower level quest, and went fisticuffs.

I have a lot less issues taking down bosses, and can skip shrines much more readily with this build.

[pjw]

The fact that spell sword damage doesn't scale enough into endgame doesn't concern you?

This.

I didn't really want to use the new EK, but since my Wizard does melee until he gets decent AoE spells I have it a try and enjoyed it. But dumped it almost completely near 20. Also, no int-to-damage means Harper is more useful when you have About 20 AP. My basic pattern next life will be:

- EK to Level 5-ish
- Harper (for int-to-everything) + EK (6 points to get 2nd core)
- extra points in EK until I can get 5th tier PM, Wraith and keep at least 12 in Harper (so 42 AP...so level 12 ish)
- still try to keep 6 points in EK for extra damage
- by 20 go max stat for DCs since EK damage so low compared to a real melee.

Last life I persevered with EK until 22; the damage became severely sub-par. If this enhancement line is intended to be used in epics then it needs a lot of work (or support in the Magister/Draconic trees ... eg melee power). Once in epics my kill-count dropped to 25% of total (2 players). When I respecced back to a more traditional DC caster, I went back to near 50%. I have 24 points in Harper and 6 in EK.

Edit:

Some suggestions:

- remove the awful "sigils" from magister destiny
- add "10/20/30" melee power and "2/4/6" DCs while in Knights Transformation
- add "5/10/15" doublestrike
- add reductions to Tempest cooldown

The DC suggestion above may seem excessive, but bear in mind all spells have a range of "touch" in KT, and you have given up a bunch of INT to get tier 5 EK (approx 6-8 in my case).

[askrj1]

For someone who's been playing melee-centric for the past 9 years the EK pass is huge for me. It's not top tier melee, but it deals with a lot of the issues I would have had playing as an actual caster, mostly for doing those caster pastlives.

Spellsword does a LOT more damage than it used to and no longer drains your SP per hit, if you stack on beacon of magic (EK doesn't actually enjoy much benefits from silent avenger) you should regularly hit for close to 400 on average for just the elemental portion (outside of reaper), which is not shabby at all. The problem is it not getting large juicy crits like standard melees, but on top of that you still get your AoE spell options, and with any luck land CCs, finishing off with arcane tempest etc.

I think we should all be aware by now the devs mostly work by "data" when making decisions, and few probably spend enough time doing lategame questing/raiding. I avoid using "endgame" because once I say that people will pounce on me saying endgame is all high reapers and none of this stuff works, but I don't think the devs should balance anything around reaper, let alone high reaper. To top that EK is not meant to be a tree for top melee DPS, it's meant to be a melee option for wiz/sor and that's it.

In regards to the OP's 3 things:

Transformation grants full BAB, and Tenser is still available to you as a spell. Keep in mind tensers confers a rather hefty penalty on your casting, and it was mostly a niche thing for using the BAB/AlchStat for other builds rather than EK itself being effective. Transformation also confers a bunch of other bonuses that are both good for melee and casting we wouldn't get sticking with tensers either.

I see what you mean by too many buttons, I'm starting to get used to it, there's only so many you need to be aware of at any single instance. Decide what you want to do with your EK and line up the shortcuts, Kenseis aren't in much better shape either with 101 melee clickies. Don't feel forced to fill 45 shortcuts just because you can load 45 spells, really, you won't be using at least half of them, and probably no more than 10 in any one go.

Shield proficiency was probably just a copy over from pre-pass EK, and this one I agree with you. Given access to Master's Touch and all the -ASF otherwise in the tree, and easy shield proficiency from any multiclass, this was just lazy.

[droid327]

Some suggestions:

- add "10/20/30" melee power

I thought your suggestions were all fine except this one. I kinda like the design philosophy of EK where its NOT about physical damage. There's no INT/CHA-to-dmg, its just about hit rate and proccing more procs...so BAB, Attack Speed, and Doublestrike. I also like that, because its a nonphysical melee build, its not beholden on crit profile for DPS scaling like every physical melee build.

I'd just want to see the elemental damage scale enough to keep pace with physical....scale with spell crit and crit damage and give bonuses to those stats, etc. It can be competitive with traditional melee builds without completely becoming one.

[Xgya]

I thought your suggestions were all fine except this one. I kinda like the design philosophy of EK where its NOT about physical damage. There's no INT/CHA-to-dmg, its just about hit rate and proccing more procs...so BAB, Attack Speed, and Doublestrike. I also like that, because its a nonphysical melee build, its not beholden on crit profile for DPS scaling like every physical melee build.

I'd just want to see the elemental damage scale enough to keep pace with physical....scale with spell crit and crit damage and give bonuses to those stats, etc. It can be competitive with traditional melee builds without completely becoming one.

You COULD be right. That is, if the tree didn't already grant Melee Power, damage and critical improvements.
As of now, you're meant to supplement both decent melee and decent spell damage and make it into one whole.

If you don't do sufficient melee damage, you're losing a lot.
If you don't cast spells powered by decent DCs and spell power while wading in melee, your questing speed drops a ton.

To be fair, I'd be a lot more satisfied with the tree if the higher tiers granted more effects to spellblade instead of the current critical chances, or if they allowed spellblade procs to crit (at least allow the cleaves, that basically cast an AoE spell when you hit - those show as a separate damage "hit" anyhow)

[askrj1]

You COULD be right. That is, if the tree didn't already grant Melee Power, damage and critical improvements.
As of now, you're meant to supplement both decent melee and decent spell damage and make it into one whole.

If you don't do sufficient melee damage, you're losing a lot.
If you don't cast spells powered by decent DCs and spell power while wading in melee, your questing speed drops a ton.

To be fair, I'd be a lot more satisfied with the tree if the higher tiers granted more effects to spellblade instead of the current critical chances, or if they allowed spellblade procs to crit (at least allow the cleaves, that basically cast an AoE spell when you hit - those show as a separate damage "hit" anyhow)

I suspect they are unable to make the additional elemental portion crit, if it did I really wouldn't mind just using a caster stick hit bash mobs in the head. If that worked out no additional melee stats would be needed besides to-hit (obviously, so that the stick actually connects). Bottom line you can still hope to land CCs on a properly stacked wizard, or at least just throw out large nukes to go with the melee as supplementary/finisher damage.

My biggest peeve about EK at this point is actually not the damage, it's the incompatibility with armour. Getting light and medium prof with no ASF is all grand and nice, until you realize to maximize the damage output between spellsword and spells otherwise you'll be best running in cloth, which in turn also gains no additional bonus from PRR for the full BAB toggle, and no real AC to stack on, all of which will tie back in to the poor survivability of a high/pure arcane melee. Unless of course, you're a tincan and willing to spend a feat on adamantine body, which is similarly what you can do for Vanguards but both of these are subpar at this point.

[pjw]

I thought your suggestions were all fine except this one. I kinda like the design philosophy of EK where its NOT about physical damage....

You COULD be right. That is, if the tree didn't already grant Melee Power, damage and critical improvements.
...
To be fair, I'd be a lot more satisfied with the tree if the higher tiers granted more effects to spellblade instead of the current critical chances...

I agree with both of you...the tree should focus more on spell effects and less on melee. The spell critical chance should be used for elemental damage on spellsword, and the Magister ED should add to spellsword element critical chance, not melee power.

I'd be very interested in that.

Or, if changes to EK are not possible, then add melee power to Magister when in KT.