2019 ED Pass: Martial Sphere

[Grace_ana]

What's crazy about a lot of this feedback about Monk is a lot of our discussion internally was "wow monks are going to be way too good with new GMoF, maybe we should tone it down a little" and then you guys are all "this is clearly the end of the monk class as a whole!!!" Gonna be honest here - I didn't see this coming at all :P

I guess the crux of the issue is - GMoF as it stands was pretty OK for monks but unusable for everyone else. We're at 14 (almost 15!) classes, and it's not a great long term plan to leave an entire destiny at a stage in which only one class can actually effectively use it. The other destinies try their best to synergize with a playstyle, NOT a class (although obviously some classes are better fits for some destinies, etc etc) and gmof was the clear exception in that regard. Another big exception was Fatesinger, which we opted to literally remake in order to fix those problems. New Fatesinger has stuff that makes your Bard things better, but it doesn't ever say "wellll, you're not a Bard, so I guess half of these abilities are going to be extremely bad for you" like gmof does.

When I see monks around on live I don't see them in Gmof - I see them in LD along with 98% of the rest of melee players. It's not enough to make GMoF the best monk destiny, we actually should just make it... a good destiny. A playstyle alternative to LD or DC or SD. Something different. Something fun. I'd much rather have Monks have the choice to run in a variety of destinies than for everyone to go "well, I'm a monk, so gotta take monk levels and then take the monk ED." That puts us back at square one for Epic balance. We want people to debate, to theorycraft, to make a cool build with their own tweaks and twists, and trapping an entire class into a narrow corridor is pretty counter to what makes DDO awesome.

I definitely understand the EiN comparison to Frog from your end but on our end, when everyone says "yeah but Frog kills this many enemies at this cooldown and everyone uses it and it's the only reason this content is completable" it just makes me think "ugh, Frog is too good." Ideally, ED t6's (formerly known as Epic Moments) aren't directly comparable in power to the level 28 Epic Feats. Frog and Dire Charge are definitely overtuned, I'm sure we'll cross that bridge eventually, but the solution here isn't to throw more and more sauce into a single ability instead of actually helping a destiny that is currently barely limping above "maybe playable... maybe" for the majority of the melee builds in the game.

As far as Shadowdancer goes, it's currently extremely strong. Sneak Dice, flat melee power, Evasion, even a free DDoor. All that tree really needed to shine was some Spring Cleaning, and having played it internally the tree actually... works. It's fun. It does a lot of damage. Builds that focus on sneak dice stacking will probably want to consider landing here. Shadowform being just a toggle instead of being trapped in the Maze of Shadowdancer Confusion does a lot.

There's a lot of time before these changes even make it to public preview (we have an entirely new Raid to release before then!) and we're happy to see such lively discussion.

Semi-related - I actually played a pure handwraps barbarian gmof internally for a bit and it was pretty rad. Your mileage may vary.

I agree completely with the goal of making destinies accessible to other classes. However, I think there are a couple issues here that you guys clearly didn't see. First, the flavor of GMoF - things like extra bonuses for stances or being centered - is now missing, and that was something that helped make it worthwhile (though clearly not worthwhile enough). The destinies should be thematic, and that means that while it should give very good bonuses to multiple classes, it should still retain some monk benefits. Second, the nerf to EIN is pretty monstrous from a player perspective, and it takes away the fun of the ability. People are comparing it to Frog because that is a somewhat similar ability available in epics, but I already detailed in a previous post (and a few others mentioned too) a lot of other mass instakills that are stronger than proposed EIN changes and are available much earlier.

My suggestions for GMoF would be:

1. If EIN MUST be toned down past the more limited range, that it be on a much shorter cooldown. Still not as fun, though.
2. Have Dance of Flowers give the proposed benefits to anyone uncentered and the current benefits to anyone centered. It's a small bone to monks in what is supposed to be their go-to destiny.
3. Have the Flame/Wind/Waves/Stone changes as proposed, but add a benefit to anyone centered that it boosts their MRR cap by 20. (And not for nothing, but it would be cool to add something similar in the arcane destinies - if you are an arcane wearing cloth, increase to MRR cap by 20.)

As far as SD goes, I think the issue is more that it's still missing a decent epic moment.

And since you're reading (I hope), I would suggest dropping the LD core 6 to 30% instead of 15%, and drop the cooldowns on Lay Waste and Momentum Swing significantly (see above post).

Also also...a lot of people end up running in a specific destiny because of the stat points it offers. I think that is the reasoning behind the push to make those more inclusive across the board. If a toon needs those stat points to hit DC/AC/save/etc. break points, they aren't going to try other destinies.

[Arkat]

What's crazy about a lot of this feedback about Monk is a lot of our discussion internally was "wow monks are going to be way too good with new GMoF, maybe we should tone it down a little" and then you guys are all "this is clearly the end of the monk class as a whole!!!" Gonna be honest here - I didn't see this coming at all :P

I guess the crux of the issue is - GMoF as it stands was pretty OK for monks but unusable for everyone else. We're at 14 (almost 15!) classes, and it's not a great long term plan to leave an entire destiny at a stage in which only one class can actually effectively use it. The other destinies try their best to synergize with a playstyle, NOT a class (although obviously some classes are better fits for some destinies, etc etc) and gmof was the clear exception in that regard. Another big exception was Fatesinger, which we opted to literally remake in order to fix those problems. New Fatesinger has stuff that makes your Bard things better, but it doesn't ever say "wellll, you're not a Bard, so I guess half of these abilities are going to be extremely bad for you" like gmof does.

When I see monks around on live I don't see them in Gmof - I see them in LD along with 98% of the rest of melee players. It's not enough to make GMoF the best monk destiny, we actually should just make it... a good destiny. A playstyle alternative to LD or DC or SD. Something different. Something fun. I'd much rather have Monks have the choice to run in a variety of destinies than for everyone to go "well, I'm a monk, so gotta take monk levels and then take the monk ED." That puts us back at square one for Epic balance. We want people to debate, to theorycraft, to make a cool build with their own tweaks and twists, and trapping an entire class into a narrow corridor is pretty counter to what makes DDO awesome.

I definitely understand the EiN comparison to Frog from your end but on our end, when everyone says "yeah but Frog kills this many enemies at this cooldown and everyone uses it and it's the only reason this content is completable" it just makes me think "ugh, Frog is too good." Ideally, ED t6's (formerly known as Epic Moments) aren't directly comparable in power to the level 28 Epic Feats. Frog and Dire Charge are definitely overtuned, I'm sure we'll cross that bridge eventually, but the solution here isn't to throw more and more sauce into a single ability instead of actually helping a destiny that is currently barely limping above "maybe playable... maybe" for the majority of the melee builds in the game.

As far as Shadowdancer goes, it's currently extremely strong. Sneak Dice, flat melee power, Evasion, even a free DDoor. All that tree really needed to shine was some Spring Cleaning, and having played it internally the tree actually... works. It's fun. It does a lot of damage. Builds that focus on sneak dice stacking will probably want to consider landing here. Shadowform being just a toggle instead of being trapped in the Maze of Shadowdancer Confusion does a lot.

There's a lot of time before these changes even make it to public preview (we have an entirely new Raid to release before then!) and we're happy to see such lively discussion.

Semi-related - I actually played a pure handwraps barbarian gmof internally for a bit and it was pretty rad. Your mileage may vary.

Your (SSG's) problem with GMoF is the fact you came up with such a cool power (EiN). It's cool on a couple of levels besides the fact it's effective in certain cases.

1. The idea of a power erasing foes from existence is the coolest thing about it.
2. The very NAME of the power is cool. "Everything is Nothing"...what this conveys thematically is cooler than any other ED power. The fact the DCs had become too low to be used only in certain situation in end-game content did not detract from its "cool factor." Honestly, I was very hopeful for EiN to be generally useful again with the "Stunning" additions to its DC but then I read the nerfs to it.

Turbine (SSG) created such a cool concept with a cool name. But the nerf to its area of effect and the limits to the number of mobs it affects goes against the very name of the power AND its concept. If you're going to reduce its area of effect AND the number of mobs it can affect, you may as well change its name and its description. It would be improper to call this new thing "Everything is Nothing." Maybe "A Few Things are Nothing" would be better?

Oh, and for the record, Arkat, my handwrap monk, only ever ran in the GMoF destiny. That was mostly because of EiN.

[Grailhawk]

What's crazy about a lot of this feedback about Monk is a lot of our discussion internally was "wow monks are going to be way too good with new GMoF, maybe we should tone it down a little" and then you guys are all "this is clearly the end of the monk class as a whole!!!" Gonna be honest here - I didn't see this coming at all :P
...
As far as Shadowdancer goes, it's currently extremely strong. Sneak Dice, flat melee power, Evasion, even a free DDoor. All that tree really needed to shine was some Spring Cleaning, and having played it internally the tree actually... works. It's fun. It does a lot of damage. Builds that focus on sneak dice stacking will probably want to consider landing here. Shadowform being just a toggle instead of being trapped in the Maze of Shadowdancer Confusion does a lot.
...

1) People just hate nerfs the EIN nerf stings and people cant see the forest from the trees.
2) Blitz/LD is perceived to be 28 MP better then all the +10 per core destinies, Blitz is also a case of too much offence and defense in the same place really hard to pass that up.
3) Finally Action Hero is crazy good but you know that

Until we start play testing this stuff we aren't going to be able to clearly see if this is a in the same ball park or not. In the case of SD I think it is but I cant be 100% sure one way or the other without testing. Don't take this to mean don't show us stuff early please.

[Lynnabel]

I'm just worried that at the end of the day everyone is still going to be in LD.

I doubt it, honestly. I think there are a lot of people right now that are sick of LD and want something new, and I have a hunch our current trajectory will put us past that goal post. Worst case scenario, we can keep making adjustments when these go to preview. I can say from firsthand experience, though, holy hell the EDs actually working and not breaking and stopping your movement and giving unrelated bonuses to stats that don't matter is HUGE. It's like a whole new game. Be hype

[apep1412]

To reiterate what some have said about this, taking away the prereqs for these attacks doesn't really do any good if the cooldowns are still really long unless you have those prereqs. Unless I have a way to reset the cooldowns the same way or the cooldowns are much lower, it's still a waste for me to put points into them on a toon that doesn't have cleave, and since cleave requires power attack...we're back to the original issue you were trying to resolve.

The spamming cleaves at thin air to reset these abilities is reminiscent of the old Blitz charging. It's either going to reset quickly for classes that have enough feats for the 2 cleaves and have access to other cleaves in enhancements *coughbarbariancough*; or it's going to be a long wait, making it pointless. The power attack requirement removal does allow builds with other cleaves to use these abilities effectively, but it still leaves the buggy reset mechanic in. Although, removing that mechanic may be outside of the time constraints they have.

[Harkmar]

I doubt it, honestly. I think there are a lot of people right now that are sick of LD and want something new, and I have a hunch our current trajectory will put us past that goal post. Worst case scenario, we can keep making adjustments when these go to preview. I can say from firsthand experience, though, holy hell the EDs actually working and not breaking and stopping your movement and giving unrelated bonuses to stats that don't matter is HUGE. It's like a whole new game. Be hype

With Blitz giving a huge MP/RP scale that is always on you can change special attacks all you want. If the end result is the always on damage goes down moving out of LD you will be hard to get people out of that ED. Couple this with the fact things scale 150% or 200% with MP/RP that T6 ability will still hold others.

I know on my rogue my sneak attack scaled rather nicely with blitz stacked to 10. Now with Inquisitive law damage scaling 200% with RP it makes blitz that much better. Fun clicks or mobs taking dirt naps, I think people will do the latter.

[Nickodeamous]

I have a slight suspicion, that you also going to change EIN because it can save a raid from a wipe in the too hot to handle raid.
I was in this raid only for two tries so far in a pick-up group and therefore I cannot tell much currently (I play DDO mostly in pugs because I'm not in a big raiding guild).

Howsoever, I have the impression that you have in general a big misconception about who is responsible for server performance issues.
Rather than thinking at the first place what YOU can do against lag you just assume in the first place that the players are responsible for performance issues and it needs to punish them so they play in a performance friendly way.
One of your "great ideas" is the Dungeon Alert mechanic...
And now another "genial idea" is to nerf EIN from an ability that can potentially save the day to a simple death spell.
Yes, indeed EIN as it currently is encouraging players to pull as many as possible monsters together and wipe them out of existence all at once and yes indeed I just assume this can cause server performance issues.
But I hardly believe that it causes issues when one EIN kills 6 instead of 4 targets at once...

Anyway, I wonder still if you ever get the idea that you have to make DDO player friendly and not the players DDO friendly?
Do you not see that DDO is for the players and not vice versa?
e.g. if too many agro monsters cause performance issue you should get ideas to prevent that no matter what the players do.
The best way for this would be most likely code optimization and/or better performing servers, my suspicion is that the foremost better code would use much fewer server resources.
And if you going to handle the problem with game mechanics, then you should think in the first place about things like limiting the monster spawn or how many monsters can be agro at a player at once.

This reminds me of a player who started a group with his 2.5k HP barbarian on R8 in the oath of vengeance quest.
He died in like 1-2 seconds and his opinion was the healer heals him not fast enough.
While he is of course not completely wrong because healers can, of course, heal faster if he is not literally one shot...
As I asked him that his character might be simply not ready for R8 in that quest he told me: no he is completely fine and it is just the healer who is the problem.
(as additional information, I told him before the start that my FvS is an Arcane Archer and only a semi healer)
Just to mention it, I created a barbarian on my next life with 4.7k to 7.5k HP and with this, it was not very hard for any healer to keep me alive in that quest on R8, even a Warlock was able to heal me enough.
Unfortunately many have the misconception to rather make others responsible than thinking about ways what they could actually do to improve themselves.

Basically the same with the DDO developers, you think with DDO everything is fine, but you should rather think about ways to improve DDO rather than punish players for there normal playing.
Many other games can handle way more monsters than DDO without any noticeable performance issues.
So please stop to find cheap excuses by making players responsible and find real solutions!

Ok, this is going to go a little overboard. I am trying to be as calm and honest as possible. I voice my opinion on every nerf to monks (listed below), and it gets laughed at, but honestly this may be the straw that breaks the camels back for me. I try and be positive and look a the bright side each time, but I don't think I can do that for long, which makes me very sad because I love this game. I only play monks because they to me are fun/challenging.

I play in GMoF as a pure 20 monk. I like the playstyle myself. I have a few things I twist in, but this ED works great for me. EIN is fun for the Party as a whole. I don't care about kill counts, I care about helping the party out. I am kinda tired of when people say, "hey, this is more powerful then that! Lets kill it!". I spend good money on this game, and lets admit, this is only a game, but seriously, if now you are thinking the frog and dire charge are next, with all due respect, monk players see the Devs agenda. I am a VIP and have been for years, and I am at my limit. I am tired of switch and bait. lets gets something cool out there, then nerf it back to the stone age. Sorry if this is coming off sour, but I am just being honest. I really try hard to put things in perspective, but what good has the last 2 years been for monks?

1. QP nerf
2. duality nerf
3. henshin/spy nerf
4. W nerf
5. EIN Nerf
6. Prowess Nerf
7. Frog/dire charge nerf (looks that way at least)

What good has happened for monks?

1. platinum knuckles - you see this as a fun change, but to be honest, nobody likes it. (you have to give up a glove slot!)
2. I think that's it.

This change makes me incredibly sad and if dire charge/frog is next, then I am out. I know $200 a year in ave revenue is no big deal for the company, but to be honest, I work in strategic pricing for a large corporation, and this is not the way to keep churn down.

Sorry for the long post, but I just see this as a kick in the teeth.

[Lynnabel]

3) Finally Action Hero is crazy good but you know that

Don't we ever :P It's so good people accused us of nerfing it in this very pass, even though... we didn't... you know... actually do that :P

7. Frog/dire charge nerf (looks that way at least)

Same as above. We're literally not touching those abilities. Literally. LITERALLY. THEY ARE NOT CHANGING. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[Nickodeamous]

Don't we ever :P It's so good people accused us of nerfing it in this very pass, even though... we didn't... you know... actually do that :P



Same as above. We're literally not touching those abilities. Literally. LITERALLY. THEY ARE NOT CHANGING. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

"I definitely understand the EiN comparison to Frog from your end but on our end, when everyone says "yeah but Frog kills this many enemies at this cooldown and everyone uses it and it's the only reason this content is completable" it just makes me think "ugh, Frog is too good." Ideally, ED t6's (formerly known as Epic Moments) aren't directly comparable in power to the level 28 Epic Feats. Frog and Dire Charge are definitely overtuned, I'm sure we'll cross that bridge eventually, but the solution here isn't to throw more and more sauce into a single ability instead of actually helping a destiny that is currently barely limping above "maybe playable... maybe" for the majority of the melee builds in the game."

Not this time, but correct me if I am mistaken, but doesn't it state about thatFrog and Dire Charge are definitely overtuned, I'm sure we'll cross that bridge eventually? This signals another unwanted change in the future. I don't think it would be stated if this is not on the table for a future update? am I wrong here? I really don't mean to anger anybody. I am just reading what it says

[Lynnabel]

am I wrong here?

Yes. Eventually and now are different words. Eventually the sun will explode, but right now it's a pretty beautiful day Speaking pretty seriously, though, we have no plans to change Frog or Dire Charge. I'm sorry for giving you that impression.

[droid327]

Yes. Eventually and now are different words. Eventually the sun will explode, but right now it's a pretty beautiful day

Every moment, its possible the sun already exploded 8 minutes ago and we just dont know it yet

[Lynnabel]

Every moment, its possible the sun already exploded 8 minutes ago and we just dont know it yet

I knew we should have nerfed action hero when we had the chance

(this is a joke please don't kill me)

[ChadB123]

What's crazy about a lot of this feedback about Monk is a lot of our discussion internally was "wow monks are going to be way too good with new GMoF, maybe we should tone it down a little" and then you guys are all "this is clearly the end of the monk class as a whole!!!" Gonna be honest here - I didn't see this coming at all :P

I guess the crux of the issue is - GMoF as it stands was pretty OK for monks but unusable for everyone else. We're at 14 (almost 15!) classes, and it's not a great long term plan to leave an entire destiny at a stage in which only one class can actually effectively use it. The other destinies try their best to synergize with a playstyle, NOT a class (although obviously some classes are better fits for some destinies, etc etc) and gmof was the clear exception in that regard. Another big exception was Fatesinger, which we opted to literally remake in order to fix those problems. New Fatesinger has stuff that makes your Bard things better, but it doesn't ever say "wellll, you're not a Bard, so I guess half of these abilities are going to be extremely bad for you" like gmof does.

When I see monks around on live I don't see them in Gmof - I see them in LD along with 98% of the rest of melee players. It's not enough to make GMoF the best monk destiny, we actually should just make it... a good destiny. A playstyle alternative to LD or DC or SD. Something different. Something fun. I'd much rather have Monks have the choice to run in a variety of destinies than for everyone to go "well, I'm a monk, so gotta take monk levels and then take the monk ED." That puts us back at square one for Epic balance. We want people to debate, to theorycraft, to make a cool build with their own tweaks and twists, and trapping an entire class into a narrow corridor is pretty counter to what makes DDO awesome.

I definitely understand the EiN comparison to Frog from your end but on our end, when everyone says "yeah but Frog kills this many enemies at this cooldown and everyone uses it and it's the only reason this content is completable" it just makes me think "ugh, Frog is too good." Ideally, ED t6's (formerly known as Epic Moments) aren't directly comparable in power to the level 28 Epic Feats. Frog and Dire Charge are definitely overtuned, I'm sure we'll cross that bridge eventually, but the solution here isn't to throw more and more sauce into a single ability instead of actually helping a destiny that is currently barely limping above "maybe playable... maybe" for the majority of the melee builds in the game.

As far as Shadowdancer goes, it's currently extremely strong. Sneak Dice, flat melee power, Evasion, even a free DDoor. All that tree really needed to shine was some Spring Cleaning, and having played it internally the tree actually... works. It's fun. It does a lot of damage. Builds that focus on sneak dice stacking will probably want to consider landing here. Shadowform being just a toggle instead of being trapped in the Maze of Shadowdancer Confusion does a lot.

There's a lot of time before these changes even make it to public preview (we have an entirely new Raid to release before then!) and we're happy to see such lively discussion.

Semi-related - I actually played a pure handwraps barbarian gmof internally for a bit and it was pretty rad. Your mileage may vary.

Hey Lynnabel, thanks for keeping the dialogue open.

I understand you’re looking at things from a balance perspective, but sometimes we are too. Hence, I and other make comparisons like EIN vs Frog. And yet, your conclusion is that only means Frog is too powerful and Dire Charge. Maybe you’re right. But taking players on a roller coaster ride of “balancing” is not fun. These decisions should be made before years of live server testing. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to play a game the devs have given us for years, only to be told it’s wrong.

So, if we can’t compare EIN to Frog (because that needs nerfing too), what standard do we as players have for providing feedback? We can’t. Because any standard we use may not be deemed a good one by devs who leave OP abilities in the game for YEARS.

There is a lot of good stuff in the ED pass. A lot of the changes to SD and GMOF looks nice on paper. But I won’t buy into a EIN nerf to this extreme. You’re just as likely to see 98% of monks still in LD. Decrease the cool down to 2 min at least, please. Otherwise, spare us more years of live testing and just beat us all with nerf bats. Then maybe I can have some standard for providing feedback.

[Nickodeamous]

Yes. Eventually and now are different words. Eventually the sun will explode, but right now it's a pretty beautiful day

Haha! I like this analogy I hope the sun doesn't explode!

I think I have a suggestion btw that may not have been contemplated (or maybe it has). Could you open it up so that Tier 5 ED abilities can be twisted in? perhaps there is some triple completionists get this as a bonus? Just a thought.

thanks again,
Nico

[Lynnabel]

So, if we can’t compare EIN to Frog (because that needs nerfing too), what standard do we as players have for providing feedback?

I would compare it to the other T6 ED abilities. Frog and Dire Charge are level 28 Feats, EiN and Blitz are level 20 ED abilities.

Being afraid of us is a pretty dangerous road to fall down and helps no one involved. We want to make DDO fun, you guys want DDO to be fun - we're on the same team. There's a lot of weird animosity here that makes discussion with you guys unnecessarily adversarial and limits my ability to, uh, talk to you guys like real humans. I don't like being the bad guy in discussions any more than you guys like having me be mean.

In any case, to bring this full circle, if EiN isn't cool enough, we can make it cooler. There's a lot of time to push things around and your preview feedback is pretty important for that. Right now, I'm pretty confident in my assessment that very few people currently enjoy GMoF (I'm pretty sure some people begrudgingly struggle through it) and the changes listed will drastically help that. We're keeping a close eye on feedback, so definitely make sure to post constructive criticism if you've got it

[Vorachtin]

I would compare it to the other T6 ED abilities. Frog and Dire Charge are level 28 Feats, EiN and Blitz are level 20 ED abilities.

Being afraid of us is a pretty dangerous road to fall down and helps no one involved. We want to make DDO fun, you guys want DDO to be fun - we're on the same team. There's a lot of weird animosity here that makes discussion with you guys unnecessarily adversarial and limits my ability to, uh, talk to you guys like real humans. I don't like being the bad guy in discussions any more than you guys like having me be mean.

In any case, to bring this full circle, if EiN isn't cool enough, we can make it cooler. There's a lot of time to push things around and your preview feedback is pretty important for that. Right now, I'm pretty confident in my assessment that very few people currently enjoy GMoF (I'm pretty sure some people begrudgingly struggle through it) and the changes listed will drastically help that. We're keeping a close eye on feedback, so definitely make sure to post constructive criticism if you've got it

Im fine with EiN changes, except it should be 6 mobs cap not 4 a t6 epic destiny ability should not be worse then a spell you get at level 17-18 i.e implosion and wail, it has the extra cool down over those spells which is fine but the mob insta kill cap should be 6.

[ahpook]

The 4 limit to EiN is rough but I can understand why it is being pitched out. Would it be possible for the 4 limit to ignore immune creatures so that you don't trigger EiN end up with almost no results because the 4 it "chose" for you was a red named and 2 champ with immunity? If it skipped over red named and death warded creatures it would be more useful without adding more power in most circumstances. It would also differentiate it from other mass kill spells.

[Paisheng]

I guess the crux of the issue is - GMoF as it stands was pretty OK for monks but unusable for everyone else. We're at 14 (almost 15!) classes, and it's not a great long term plan to leave an entire destiny at a stage in which only one class can actually effectively use it. The other destinies try their best to synergize with a playstyle, NOT a class (although obviously some classes are better fits for some destinies, etc etc) and gmof was the clear exception in that regard. Another big exception was Fatesinger, which we opted to literally remake in order to fix those problems. New Fatesinger has stuff that makes your Bard things better, but it doesn't ever say "wellll, you're not a Bard, so I guess half of these abilities are going to be extremely bad for you" like gmof does.

When I see monks around on live I don't see them in Gmof - I see them in LD along with 98% of the rest of melee players. It's not enough to make GMoF the best monk destiny, we actually should just make it... a good destiny. A playstyle alternative to LD or DC or SD. Something different. Something fun. I'd much rather have Monks have the choice to run in a variety of destinies than for everyone to go "well, I'm a monk, so gotta take monk levels and then take the monk ED."

I definitely understand the EiN comparison to Frog from your end but on our end, when everyone says "yeah but Frog kills this many enemies at this cooldown and everyone uses it and it's the only reason this content is completable" it just makes me think "ugh, Frog is too good." Ideally, ED t6's (formerly known as Epic Moments) aren't directly comparable in power to the level 28 Epic Feats. Frog and Dire Charge are definitely overtuned, I'm sure we'll cross that bridge eventually, but the solution here isn't to throw more and more sauce into a single ability instead of actually helping a destiny that is currently barely limping above "maybe playable... maybe" for the majority of the melee builds in the game.



There's a lot of time before these changes even make it to public preview (we have an entirely new Raid to release before then!) and we're happy to see such lively discussion.

Semi-related - I actually played a pure handwraps barbarian gmof internally for a bit and it was pretty rad. Your mileage may vary.

Thanks for entering the fray Every dev comment helps us get a better insight into your goals and designs.

I agree with your overall goal stated here that you want 1) GMOF be appealing to other melee builds and likewise GMOF not become the only suitable choice for monks after the changes. I bet most monks like myself fully support this vision. Here's the caveats...

1. GMOF should appeal to other melee builds both for melee success and a different flavor. So eliminating the centering requirements I don't have a problem with, but this is
a designated "monk" ED tree, so as others have mentioned, an additional boon to centered melees should be handed out. So "A Dance With Flowers" is a nerf to what monks
already have (and they are behind on DPS compared to the LD tree) so give centered characters that 1.5 W bonus.

A. Other weapon users not normally centered to have several options in Kensai, Ninja trees to get their weapons centered. Alternatively maybe give another GMOF selector
that allows any single weapon choice to be centered. If memory serves there was still a tier 4 slot available which would be perfect. With an extra point or 2 they could
still get the "centered" benefits.

B. There should be both cost and benefit to leaving one's primary tree, both in flavor and synergy of class abilities. People don't mind there being a cost to their normal
class functions, if some of their class functions are simultaneously enhanced.

2. Likewise GMOF should be the best tree for most monk builds, but other EDs should still offer a different flavor with enough benefits to make it useful too. I don't think other
melee trees have or should be as good as GMOF. I mean Grandmaster of Flowers is the monk pinnacle to attain and this tree should make their monkiness greatly more
monky.

A. Other trees should enhance maybe and aspect or two of a monk flavor. Currently LD does that by being the better DPS tree even for monks. Ninja monks should find
more effectiveness in Shadowdancer with synergy toward their monk sneak abilities and damage etc. All this said, Ninja monks and DPS monks, Henshin Monks, and
all other monk builds should find the greatest synergy within their own monastery, GMOF. There should likewise be some cost and benefit to going to another tree.
Otherwise all the melee trees become blander offering overall success of defense and offense with just "different names." This hasn't happened yet but this is the trend
of many of these new ED proposals. Therefore I offer you encouragement to strike the right balance because I do like your vision and am excited by it.

B. EiN is one of the most unique flavors and powers in the whole game and perfectly fits in the monk ED tree. By greatly reducing its effectiveness on the number of mobs
makes it just another ki power in the left lane of the tree (which you have greatly improved with the proposed changes). I think most of us are saying we'd rather have
that capstone of abilities once, maybe twice in a quest that has great epic impact than just a frequently used minor impact. This is a well beloved monk power that
brought many of us to this tree even though LD offered the greater DPS. We don't want to be just another LD tree with a few tricks up our sleeve. We want our
cherished EiN for that magical epic moment where for a brief display we truly are the Grand Master of Flowers!

We look forward to your continued dialogue on all the changes and as you say it's great to see the passion of the player base on this; and I know the Devs have the same passion for a game they helped us to all care about and love so much. Cheers to DDO and more decades of such pleasure.

[Vorachtin]

The 4 limit to EiN is rough but I can understand why it is being pitched out. Would it be possible for the 4 limit to ignore immune creatures so that you don't trigger EiN end up with almost no results because the 4 it "chose" for you was a red named and 2 champ with immunity? If it skipped over red named and death warded creatures it would be more useful without adding more power in most circumstances. It would also differentiate it from other mass kill spells.

No, the 4 cap doesn't make sense even for "performance issues". Neither does comparing it to mass frog, that was silly from the start. several abilities have a slightly higher cap, quicker cool downs and are achievable before even hitting 20. The cap should be 6, and it would be hunky dory.

[Shadow_Jumper]

My two cents;

If casters, who were already in a good spot, get an ~8-10% DC increase because of a few people complaining that their Finger of Death didn’t work, and were too lazy to try a Hold Mass Monster, then ANY nerf is unjustified to other builds. Restore Combat Brute and bring the other EDs up to LD instead of nerfing melee.