U42 Preview 2: Named Loot

[Propane]

Sure, what if I just co-opted Dust? It's the hot new thing nowadays.

Real talk - I am least happy with the Raid Weapons. I want them to be more rad. Throw me raid weapon suggestions.

For weapons-
At least one for each weapon in the new Knightly Training List. (Long Sword / War hammer)

A few effects idea...

Seeing Stars - you strike so hard your enemy's can not see straight - you have 50% doge for X seconds
Forced Fumble - your strikes disrupt your foe that they can not swing straight - they roll 1's for their next X number of attack rolls
Funny Bone - you strike your foes funny bone - they are forced to jump around (dance) for X seconds as they recover.
Though the gate - you break through your foes defenses and strike 3 times (3 damage rolls on x% of hits)
Positive / Repair Surge - Surge of energy release - Mass heal / repair cast centered on you

[Bunker]

What if the weapon upgrade wasn't Fetters but it instead gave the option of fetters, Ash, dust & ooze

Giving players an option. Is that possible?

[Thar]

Where is the love for Force and Sonic? there isn't much at cap that really adds to that. They are niche, but EKs would love it, Chain Missile and Disintegration users would love it, Blade Barrier/untyped damage spell users would love it. Air sorcerors and Bards would love more resonance items. Is it possible to have some alternate items (or standalone non weapon/orb items) for some of these in spell based sets to get these types? Acid isn't really represented in these sets either. Given the singular nature of specific spell power groups, it would be nice if more of these items were like the Barovian belts, with different combinations. You have it started with those staves, but that won't help my EK. Force/Resonance, Light/Positive, Cold/Negative, Elec/Fire, Fire/Light, Cold/Acid, Acid/Repair (for the elusive rust spells), Elec/Resonance, etc. You have some of these represented in set bonuses, why not reflect that in standard bonuses? Arcsteel gauntlets can easily give bonuses akin to the set bonuses for fire/elec/force without being game-breaking. Getting multiple types is tough, especially when you are likely trying to get multiple focus items amongst schools, and then with EKs, also getting some melee gear. Non casters don't have to deal with benefits to certain weapons or damage types outside of melee/ranged, stop making it so difficult to use the spells of less represented damage types or underused spells. And as a wizard, who doesn't specialize by damage type like other casters, it would be nice to legitimately be able to use more than 2 elements in lockstep with each other (Fire/Acid,Elec/Cold) or types that seem almost nonexistent in gear (Force/Sonic, to a lesser extent Light, though clearly that is a focus in the Divine gear). The only balance change of having more of these dual typed spell power/crit abilities is being able to use a couple more viable spells to help coverage and helps close the gap of being shut out by certain mobs. The barovian belts didn't exactly break the game or make casters OP. I was hoping for more items of that format in this expansion.

echo these comments. what's with the caster staff love.... most use 2 items or item+orb but no option for this in this update for arcane.

[SerPounce]

How about a raid Falchion? That would aid the THF style.


Falchion: Radiance - Keen V, Sovereign Vorpal, Coruscating (10d6 Light damage), Metalline, - Upgrade to add chance of Sunburst that does lots of additional Light damage (40d6?) in an area and forces a DC 90 Will save or the foe that was hit is blinded.

Also add: Red Slot & Purple Slot

The visual effect of the weapon (what it looks like) could be similar to the Sunsword but it would be bigger and falchion-shaped.

I already asked, it was a "hard no" You can have uber raid khopeshes and long swords (knight's training) with great crit ranges, but apparently a raid quality two hander with any kind of improved crit range would be too much.

[Lynnabel]

I already asked, it was a "hard no" You can have uber raid khopeshes and long swords (knight's training) with great crit ranges, but apparently a raid quality two hander with any kind of improved crit range would be too much.

The hard no was because I like the current art asset of the greatsword that you wanted me to swap over, not because I hate two handers, sheesh :P The current art asset for our raid greatsword is very much a straight blade and you wanted it to be a Falchion. We're past the point where I can walk up to art and go "I need this in Falchion form ASAP" - especially because the blade splits in half to form its bsword and shortsword counterparts.

The post in question: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post6203369

[SerPounce]

RE: Repair vs. healing amp on the arty set.

There's already a bunch of sets that have healing amp, many of which will work well for an arty either ranged or melee. Having one set with repair is good. Repair can be quite effective up to about r8 or so with reconstruct spell+SLA with the right gear and build. Sure a self repair build kind of falls apart in r10, but r10 is not the whole game.

If you want to do both that's cool also, but repair shouldn't just be abandoned because the 0.01% of the playerbase that runs all r10 all the time doesn't find it useful.

[SerPounce]

The hard no was because I like the current art asset of the greatsword that you wanted me to swap over, not because I hate two handers, sheesh :P The current art asset for our raid greatsword is very much a straight blade and you wanted it to be a Falchion. We're past the point where I can walk up to art and go "I need this in Falchion form ASAP" - especially because the blade splits in half to form its bsword and shortsword counterparts.

The post in question: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post6203369

OK, but we're getting a bit pedantic here. I think it was reasonably obvious that what I was getting at was a desire for a raid quality falchion with good effects like the greatsword has. In fact I reformed that request because you asked for "specific suggestions." It's not like the name and flavor text is what I wanted to be in falchion form.

And I don't think you "hate two handers." But it's objectively true that the best one hand weapons are a lot better weapons than the best two hand weapons right now. There's no two handers with the khopesh/knight's training crit range, and no raid ones with even the scimitar/rapier/kukri crit range. I guess there's the maul with silvanus, but that's super niche: FR iconics with 6+ divine levels... why should that be the only competitive way to build a 2hf. Why should it even have such an advantage?

[JOTMON]

Lynn - If you just add a light armor option to the Esoteric Influence Set and the Flamecleansed Fury Set, I think you solve a lot of issues that have been raised in this thread. Pretty please?? Thank you for your consideration.

We're not going to do that, sorry. I know you guys want it, but the answer is no.

What we can do is release sets in the future that fit the niches you guys are looking for. A set designed specifically for hybrid casting/attacking/healing like Bards, or for a more sustained and tanky casting like Warlocks. Those sets will not be as purely offensively focused like Esoteric, but they'll fit the areas you'd like to see. They are also a lot easier for us to control and balance instead of throwing more and more armor options into a sufficiently more open ecosystem than Ravenloft's.

We have asked in both first and second round of loot evaluations.

any particular reason you are denying light armor caster based builds.

Warlocks and bards default to light armors, and from what i see of the caster sets you have made a concerted effort to specifically avoid a light armor set bonus for what should be preferred light armor caster builds.

[Bunker]

More than a few people have mentioned they're not pleased with the cold iron and want to replace it on the weapons. Would replacing coldiron instead with a slot and a cold iron gem be too much. I'm sure on un slotting the cold iron augment would not please people however if they were so inclined to then their weapons would have three slots maybe red orange and purple when fully upgraded.

At the very least the items would remain having cold iron and at the player's discretion they could remove it.

[Lynnabel]

OK, but we're getting a bit pedantic here. I think it was reasonably obvious that what I was getting at was a desire for a raid quality falchion with good effects like the greatsword has. In fact I reformed that request because you asked for "specific suggestions." It's not like the name and flavor text is what I wanted to be in falchion form.

Oh, sorry. I took the comments about how there were already Greatsword to mean you were tired of seeing them, and that's why I responded with my reasoning of "this one looks cool and I want to use the asset" because, well, it looks cool and I want to use the asset. It matches the Forgewraith reddish-pink. It glows in the dark. It splits in half - what's not to love?

More than a few people have mentioned they're not pleased with the cold iron and want to replace it on the weapons.

I agree with that critique, and lot of the "Cold Iron" has been replaced with some spicy debuff procs (Ash, Dust, etc).

[SerPounce]

Oh, sorry. I took the comments about how there were already Greatsword to mean you were tired of seeing them, and that's why I responded with my reasoning of "this one looks cool and I want to use the asset" because, well, it looks cool and I want to use the asset. It matches the Forgewraith reddish-pink. It glows in the dark. It splits in half - what's not to love?

.

I mean that sounds awesome, and the art department has been doing outstanding work. Unfortunately when I'm playing my wolf druid I mostly just see all that great art when I die ;( We need more animal cosmetics!

What I would like is to see some two-handers that are at least as strong as the better one handers. We have raid khopeshes, longswords (knight's training) , scimitars, etc with great crit ranges and great effects. The best two-handers are just not as good. On top of that 2hf is not as good as 2wf or swf. I"m not saying you should make up all that ground with itemization, but at the very least they shouldn't be weaker.

[Satyriasys]

Can you make an xbow that doesn't use ammo but shoots magical bolts? or would that be a nightmare to code? I like the theme of Hallowed Splinters and thought maybe it could shoot searing lights or nimbus's instead of bolts.

DDO would light itself on fire and jettison itself out to sea.

Well it wouldnt have to be coded as an actual spell. Just a visual effect and use no ammo. I am trying to think of fun interesting items instead of just xbows with better stats. So far all the named xbows have been pretty boring. I would like to see some more interesting proc effects for sure.

Also Nightshade Shooter is pretty underwhelming. Con Damage on hit is not kinda useless, unless maybe it could proc an insta death once their con gets low enough.

I can make a Legendary Nightshade Venom for the 29 version. I think Con on hit is a little underrated, especially with a fast proc rate. YMMV.

Con on hit is definatly not underrated, not anymore. But I was thinking it might be interesting to have a insta-death proc maybe on a lower dc which would require a few hits first to lower their fort saves before it landed.

What we can do is release sets in the future that fit the niches you guys are looking for. A set designed specifically for hybrid casting/attacking/healing like Bards, or for a more sustained and tanky casting like Warlocks. Those sets will not be as purely offensively focused like Esoteric, but they'll fit the areas you'd like to see. They are also a lot easier for us to control and balance instead of throwing more and more armor options into a sufficiently more open ecosystem than Ravenloft's.

Instead of giving us a best in slot top tier raid full plate dc armor a great compromise would be to just release some blue items in the future which pander to these niche builds.

[HastyPudding]

We have asked in both first and second round of loot evaluations.

any particular reason you are denying light armor caster based builds.

Warlocks and bards default to light armors, and from what i see of the caster sets you have made a concerted effort to specifically avoid a light armor set bonus for what should be preferred light armor caster builds.

A bunch of us have already stated it but she doesn't get it. Ravenloft screwed over light armored casters with the beacon of magic set and now Sharn is doing the same with ALL FOUR of the caster-oriented sets. It's not a tradeoff, it's blatant denial of class features of DC bards and warlocks and then making us pay a tax to get that feature back in order to use sets that are aimed directly at those builds, that's what it is.

[GramercyRiff]

Can't help but agree it's bad design for a class like Bard to not have a proper (light) armor option for a certain set bonus.

[HastyPudding]

Can't help but agree it's bad design for a class like Bard to not have a proper (light) armor option for a certain set bonus.

And yet melee bards get their choice of set bonuses that they don't have to jump through hoops or nerf their defenses to get (swashbucklers are already proficient in light armor and warchanters just need 2 AP to get medium proficiency which is already up their primary tree, anyway). I guess this 'tradeoff' only extends to spellcasting bards, which are, by far, the least offensively-oriented bard builds (and one of the least offensively-oriented builds in the game, only narrowly beating out healbot clerics and a handful of tanks).

[PublicEnemy]

Havnt seen any mention about this in the first preview...and didnt check that one.

But any possibility to see some Negative healing amplification put in one of the sets...? Except rage set there's not much for that currently (RL one is giving profane bonus which is....the default bonus type for neg amp).

Also, any chance to see boon of undeath or even greater boon of undeath added on one of the items...? fairly rare bonus as of now, would be better on the ring, but an armor would be fun (actual armor not a robe).

thoughts? thanks!

So uhm...completely went unnoticed, I know that Lynnabel (or any other dev) can't / won't see every demand/question/rant....
But it seems nobody really commented about us undeads ..so here I am, also,
hope this second feedback post won't run down into another heated argument about how many Virgin unicorns the devs sacrificed for their own pleasure this morning....(/s)

[Aelonwy]

A bunch of us have already stated it but she doesn't get it. Ravenloft screwed over light armored casters with the beacon of magic set and now Sharn is doing the same with ALL FOUR of the caster-oriented sets. It's not a tradeoff, it's blatant denial of class features of DC bards and warlocks and then making us pay a tax to get that feature back in order to use sets that are aimed directly at those builds, that's what it is.

Can't help but agree it's bad design for a class like Bard to not have a proper (light) armor option for a certain set bonus.

Guys... this is their answer:

we want to enforce some actual relationship between armor types and their role in DPS/mitigation in the highest levels of play at cap in DDO, and set bonuses are an easy way to do that. *snip* but yes, they are intentionally restricted to force players to actively choose between high effective DPS and high effective defenses.
*snip*sometimes as a game designer you need to enforce restrictions on your players for long term fun.

Despite having feats and enhancements allowing us to build our characters however we want. Despite some classes natively getting access to Light Armor without Arcane Spell failure. Despite that being a fact in PnP D&D... what they are telling us is at the

highest levels of play at cap in DDO

they don't support those character choices/builds and want to enforce a particular archetype through armor choice/set bonuses.

I don't blame Lynn, this sounds like a design directive beyond just her choice. I think its misguided but I also think at the highest levels of play at cap Light Armor can hardly equate to high effective defenses on a pure caster. But this is clearly their design goal so we can either swallow it and ignore natural proficiency without arcane spell failure, ignore EK tree armor enhancements and -ASF, ignore augments of -ASF or build for all of those defenses and ignore their new item set. We could also build for defenses for the main portion of the game and respec at cap but that's too expensive for my tastes.

Now where's that animated GIF of the poor dead horse?

[Lynnabel]

So uhm...completely went unnoticed, I know that Lynnabel (or any other dev) can't / won't see every demand/question/rant....
But it seems nobody really commented about us undeads ..so here I am, also,
hope this second feedback post won't run down into another heated argument about how many Virgin unicorns the devs sacrificed for their own pleasure this morning....(/s)

Oh, sorry, I meant to reply to this - Boon of Undeath/Greater Boon of Undeath made it on an item in this pack.

[jimcricket]

regarding the longbow
Why is keen getting so popular with devs, anyone built to use longbows will obviously have improved critical, yeah keen adds a little +W but still that's only half an effect for someone built as a longbow specialist. are all these keen bows/weapons made for people not focusing on that weapon type?

Then there is armor piercing on it as well, as mentioned if your built for dps you'd want that on a item not weapon. that's 2 effects from 4 doing next to nothing.

Elasticity is sorta ok.
Please change keen to a real improved critical profile.
Change armor piercing to something that does damage. (handy for a dps class).
Even the poison would be better changed but not so fussed about that, just that there are a lot of poison bows.

You've had your cheap shot at longbow users, with poison! lol.
It's cool that you are engaging in this thread a lot so worth a try i guess.

make me buy sharn!

[Lynnabel]

Guys... this is their answer:

You misunderstand me - when I say that I don't want the Esoteric set to have Light Armor, I am not saying that I don't want there to be light armor casting sets. I am saying Light Armor doesn't fit in this particular set. I don't mind building specific sets for specific archetypes, but there's not really room in Sharn for literally every archetype ever. It is a given that some styles of play are left with less obvious choices for a single release. There is no actual way we'd be able to cover literally every single playstyle in a single itemization suite. Doesn't mean a Light Armor Casting Set won't show up later, it just means that of our current 7 sets, none fit our criteria for Light Armor Casting.

You can tell me I am misunderstanding you all that you want, but there's no chance I'm going to wedge it in somewhere it doesn't truly fit, and we're way past the point where I can fit in a Light Armor Casting Set in this current release without further overloading the treasure tables (something that has historically caused a lot of frustration, especially in Raids). I'd also have loved to build quite a few other sets in release - such as Undead Melee, or Defensive Light/No Armor, or Sneak Dice focused Melee DPS (likely limited to light/no armor like Silent Avenger), or Warpriest/Warsoul hybrid divine melee, or specifically wildshape focused mDPS that really likes you being in Wild Shape - but we needed to choose the sets that would appeal the broadest to as many players as possible.