Massive list of feat and enhancement improvements

[pelaaja]

PLEASE READ FIRST

This is my big collection of different improvements on the DDO feats and class enhancements typed in like a month span 3-4 months ago.

This is by no means to have the right balance on them right away. Treat values I post here with a grain of salt, as these can always be balanced.

The most important thing here rather is the idea itself. If the idea is liked, then it can be balanced (by toning it down or further improving it.).

That is why I again say: Do not criticize on the numbers, but focus on the idea itself.

Also another note: This post is long. almost 7000 words (which includes BBquote syntaxes) so do expect a huge wall. I apologize for the wall, and I've tried to make it as easy to read as I can.

If you have questions, lemme know. I am open for questions and constructive criticism.

Read the above?

Good, let's start the list!

General Feats:

• Trip and Sunder should rather have the DC to whatever their attacking stat is. It's not much, but it should still keep them in the skill bar for a little time for the non-STR builds.
• Improved Trip/Sunder should scale with character level as well as the previous point. Neither of them are used because they do not scale into the endgame at all. giving character level scaling (even if it's every 2 character levels) should ease it up.
• Hamstring should reduce enemy's saves and damage to give it some purpose for rogues/bards at least.
• Slicing Blow should be reworked to (for instance) that the enemy is hit with 2d3 Vulnerability stacks or so. I have never seen anyone use Slicing Blow, and a global access to vulnerability (even if it only affects living creatures) should already be available (other than named weapons)
• Stunning Blow should scale with character level (albeit weakly like third of character level) to be more usable in endgame.
• Whirlwind Attack should attack twice (like it does with unarmed monks) considering the animation. The feat should also be more accessible, like Prerequisites of Great Cleave, Improved Critical and Base Attack Bonus +11 instead of what they are now. Currently WA is simply not obtained due to the extremely harsh prerequisites. Plus it was calculated that using it causes a DPS loss thanks to the long pause after using it.
• All Cleaves should also apply an off-hand attack chance as well as doublestrike chance so that using one would be less of a DPS loss.

• Resilience should have +20 MRR or so to give it some purpose to use over Power Attack. There should also be some enhancement in epic destinies to make it better.
• Combat Expertise should have +20 PRR or so to give it some purpose to use over Power Attack.
• Improved Precise Shot should grant +3 Ranged Power considering the investment to it.

• Diehard should grant something more, like unconsciousness range. No one really picks up Diehard, and rather just obtain it through enhancements (Frenzied Barbarian) or class levels (Ranger)
• Power Critical should grant +2 Melee and Ranged Power given the prerequisite gives +2 Melee/Ranged Power as well.

• Two Weapon Defense and Two Weapon Blocking should be combined. Two Weapon Defense's bonuses should be increased as well (+2 to AC, +5 PRR and +5 MRR). I doubt even with these the feat would be uncommon to pick, but at least it would have more justification for more squishy characters.

• Mobile Spellcasting should grant +1% spell critical given how you need to get Combat Casting first.
  
• All skill bonus feats (except UMD) should be buffed. For instance Stealthy could give +10% bonus to Hide and Move Silently. So if you have 40 Hide from items and levels ups/tomes and you have this, you get 4 more ranks. This doesn't apply for Skill Focus feat, though that feat should also have increased skill bonus to +5 (except UMD).
  
• Save bonus feats should be given something more, as they're barely useful. It could be some small benefit added to them, or have the bonuses be stronger.

Race-Specific Feats

• Half-Elf Dilenttantte: Barbarian should be the same what the new Barbarian damage reduction is, just to be consistent with the original feat.
• Half-Elf Dilenttantte: Sorcerer and Favored Soul should have something more to them since it's basically better to just pic Cleric or Wizard over them since they get access to higher level stuff scrolls/wands easier. The +1 CHA in the tree isn't worth it.

• Warforged should have a medium armor choice, which would also be Druid-friendly, like Densewood. Just to give an option for Warforged Druids, Bards and Warlocks for instance (if going Warchanter/Enlightened Spirit)
• Warforged should have a racial feat at lvl 1 to choose between one of the armor feats instead of forced to use one of their feats to get any armor.

• Improved Fortification should increase the penalty by -25%, not make it immune. (given there are bugs going around on immunity to positive healing with guild buffs.) You should also get Repair Amp from this to make it at least somewhat worth to pick it despite of the flaw.

Class-Specific feats

• Artificer should have Single Weapon Fighting line as a class feat. They have ranged feats, why not SWF?

• Cleric, Paladin and Favored Soul: More Domains and Deities. Though that's a given. More options = more build variety.

• Bard: Soothing Song should scale better since you can't apply metamagic to its heal. Let it be either more Positive Spell Power amp, or that the bard levels have more of an impact.

• Monk: Unarmed Strike should give either extra damage - or extra doublestrike (maybe even off-hand doublestrike?) to compensate better for their loss of +[W].
• Monk: Elemental strikes now scale with Melee Power to make them more useful in endgame.
• Monk: Reworked/New Finishing moves: (Most of the old ones are extremely outdated. It'd be just better to update pretty much all of them to make them more useful.)
  

  - Trembling Earth: +1 Critical Threat range and Multiplier Cleave, Attempts to Trip enemies (DC 10 + Monk level + WIS modifier + Stunning modifier) for 6 seconds. Successful Strength/Dexterity save negates the Trip.
  - The Gathering Storm: Gain +10 Dodge and +10 Doublestrike for the next 10 seconds.
  - The Raging Sea: Cleave attack, attempts to Sunder enemies for 10 seconds. Successful Fortitude save (DC 10 + Monk level + WIS modifier + Stunning modifier) negates the Sunder.
  - Breath of the Fire Dragon: Save DC includes Stunning modifier now.
  - (NEW) Void-Void-Void: Expulsion. Deal 1d4 Force damage per monk level to nearby enemies (AoE is kind of like Positive Energy Burst). Scales with 200% Melee Power. Successful Will Save (DC 10 + Monk Level + Wisdom Modifier + Stunning modifier) reduces the damage by half.
  
  - Healing Ki heals for 1d6 plus 1d6 per monk level. Scales with 200% Melee Power.
  - Grasp the Earth Dragon: Also makes you immune to Trip.
  - Dance of Clouds: Gives 25% concealment instead of 20%.
  - Aligning the Heavens: Also reduces Ki costs by 20% for 60 seconds.
  - Walk of the Sun: Give your allies +5 Melee Power, +2 Saves and +2 Skills for 60 seconds.
  - Moment of Clarity: Give yourself True Strike and Ghost Touch for 60 seconds.
  
  - Touch of Despair: Stunning modifier added to the save DC.
  - Pain Touch: Stunning modifier added to the save DC. Doesn't work on undead.
  - Falling Star Strike: Stunning modifier added to the save DC. Doesn't work on undead.
  - Freezing the Lifeblood: Stunning modifier added to the save DC. Works on any living creature.
  - Karmic Strike: For the next 2 seconds all your attacks are treated as critical hits if they hit.
  - Curse of the Void: Stunning modifier added to the save DC. Doesn't Charm, but is confused and vulnerable to sneak attacks. (Main reason to remove charm is that you can't dispel the charm as a monk, which can delay quest completion annoyingly long)

• NEW Level 20 Finishing moves:
  

  - Beyond Good and Evil (Light-Void-Dark): By using your combined powers of Light, Void and Dark, you can halt those who oppose you. This attack attempts to stun all nearby enemies for 12 seconds (Fortitude Save DC 10 + Monk level + WIS modifier + Stunning modifier) after the clearance in their minds.
  - Poison Mist (Earth-Water-Dark): By using your combined power of Earth, Water and Dark, you create a poisonous mist which inflicts 2d4 stacks of Ninja Poison for every 5 seconds the enemies are in it.
  - Dragon's Hope (Fire-Air-Light): By using your combined power of Fire, Air and Light, you will give you and your nearby allies determination in this fight by healing them for 1d3 positive energy per monk level (Scales with Melee Power 200%) and removing most of the common debuffs as if the spell Heal was casted on them. Any Aberration, Extraplanar Creature and undead near your allies instead take 1d20 bane damage per monk level.

• Warlock should be given more pacts to choose from. For instance, some patrons where you cannot be chaotic, and so on. Celestial patron in 5e for instance looks very interesting choice for some builds.

Enhancement changes:

Artificer

• Arcanotechnician: Palliative Admixture could be changed with Shocking Bolt SLA given it would fit with the theme.
• Arcanotechnician: Shocking Vulnerability should have a much higher chance to deal the vulnerability, but only deal it once. say, 10/30/50% chance for 1 vulnerability. It would be more consistently used than the 5% chance (which is too low.)

• Battle Engineer: Master Engineer's Critical Multiplier moved to 4th Core (level 12) to be consistent with other trees. Personally I think there is too deep focus on staying pure Arti because of this.
• Battle Engineer: Master Engineer has an added effect that on a vorpal hit the weapon in your hand causes your Runearm to go into overdrive, dealing additional imbue weapon instance for every attack for 6 seconds. Has a internal cooldown of 20 seconds.
• Battle Engineer: There is basically no reason to give extra points into Caustic Strike/Shatter Defenses given it only increases the [W] and nothing else. Hence there should be both DC increase as well as extra damage added to it.
• Battle Engineer: Tactical Mobility lowered to Tier 4 enhancement. It is not worthy enough to be in Tier 5 for a measly increase to movement speed.
• Battle Engineer: Battle Mastery's Haste Boost changed to Doublestrike boost, given how it would fit better over the Haste Boost.

• Renegade Mastermaker: Radiant Forcefield should have something passively given as well, even if it's just extra PRR and MRR if using Medium/Heavy Armor or Adamantine Body.

Barbarian

• Frenzied Berserker: Supreme Cleave should have +3[W] to its damage. It's currently the weakest cleave in the game. Not so "supreme."
• Frenzied Berserker: Blood Trail should give more temporary HP per hit which could scale with Melee Power. Doesn't have ot be a strong temporary HP increase, but enough to be somewhat useful, like 2 Temporary HP per hit.
• Frenzied Berserker: Exhausting Blow should be reworked into causing Exhausted to the enemy, with a critical hit causing the enemy helpless for a short moment. Current one is not worth to use for a Tier 4 enhancement.
• Frenzied Berserker: Wade In should be reworked to give +1 Melee Power and -1 AC per enemy damaged rather than give the useless +1 to attack.
• Frenzied Berserker: Accelerated Metabolism should have a stronger base healing (4d6?), and stronger scaling with Melee Power. (200%?) Just to challenge the much more superior Raging Blows a bit better.

• Occult Slayer: Weapon Bond should also add a charge on glancing blows. Currently this whole tree is kind of bad for two-handers because of it.
• Occult Slayer: Elemental Defense should scale with something, but maybe not melee power? Constitution modifier maybe? Regardless, the 25 Temp HP won't be useful in endgame.
• Occult Slayer: Knockout might not work as intended as enemies won't wake up if you hit them while put to sleep. They are also helpless during it. Basically asking for a fix even if it nerfs it.
• Occult Slayer: Bond of Retribution reworked to give 5/10% chance on getting hit to give +10 Melee Power for 6/12 seconds. Current one is only taken because of Bond of Destruction, and the enhancement doesn't fit to the scheme of this tree.
• Occult Slayer: Kinetic Bond should apply its damage to all enemies if cleaved - and have increased damage on higher weapon bond stacks (say, 1d10 on weapon bond 50 which increases by another 1d10 every 50 stacks after that). Moved to Tier 4 because of the increased damage. Something to help Occult Slayer's group damage.
• Occult Slayer: Seeker's Strike should be less expensive to use and have higher reward for being a Tier 5. Otherwise it's rather a Tier 4 enhancement.
• Occult Slayer: Vampiric Bond's base temporary hit points should be increased to 30 - or have the trigger every 16/8/4 seconds.
• Occult Slayer: Bond of Destruction should have Melee Power and +1 Critical multiplier on 19-20 if you have 100+ Weapon Bond. Basically to move the old Bond of Retribution to this rather without the HP restriction.

• Ravager: Do You Like Pain? changed from losing 10 AC to giving 1/2/3 stacks of vulnerability. Moved from Tier 1 to Tier 3.
• Ravager: Cruel Cut should have increase +[W] damage instead of the extra Constitution damage. Still has 30 second cooldown.
• Ravager: Festering Wound reworked that Cruel Cut also inflicts 1d8 Poison damage for every damage instance taken from anything. This debuff lasts for 10 seconds.
• Ravager: Dismember makes that Cruel Cut increases Melee Power by 10 for 10 seconds, but the duration is reset as long as you keep attacking the enemy inflicted by Cruel Cut's Festering Wound.
• Ravager: I Hit Back gives a chance that on getting hit to deal damage to it as if the enemy got hit by an attack. Has a cooldown of 10/5/2 seconds.
• Ravager: Laughter also gives its three extra Fury if Slaughter kills the enemy.
• Ravager: Bully removed. Instead have "You Asked For It!" which has a chance when getting hit to stun the enemy (no save) for 2/4/6 seconds. (Why is there a helpless increase if the only way to make things helpless is by reducing the stats to 0 - which is not a viable option in epic levels?)
• Ravager: Blood Strength's Heal on hit chance should be 10%, but have the heal to be equal to your barbarian level. On kill it should not have cooldown, but have the heal to be 10 Hit points. Same scaling. I mainly feel like the cooldown was a kneejerk nerf to barbarians when they first came, when the real issue rather was the amount they got healed from multiple enemies at once.

Bard

• Swashbuckler should have somewhere to also select which stat to hit they use. I see no reason to have it when you have the to-damage part there already.
• Swashbuckler: Swashbuckling does NOT need to be multiplied by Improved Critical.
• Swashbuckler: Blow By Blow should scale with sonic damage as it states it should.
• Swashbuckler: Skirmishing should not allow you to use both Shield Mastery AND Single Weapon Fighting as it gives way too strong of a DPS increase given its small investment. Either remove ability to use Shield Mastery - or do not allow Single Weapon Fighting to work.
• Swashbuckler: Skirmishing's Dodge bonus should scale instead of being just a flat number - or not at least stack with items. +1 Dodge every 3 character levels.
• Swashbuckler: Dashing Scoundrel should give +1 Damage every 3 character level, and +1% Doublestrike every 2 character level to balance out the selection between with a buckler and without anything in off-hand.
• Swashbuckler: Arcane Marauder should give +1 Universal Spell Power every Character Level to have more attraction to Spellsingers and casting class multiclassers.
• Swashbuckler: Cannoneer has an added effect that Runearm's damage is now based on the combined levels of Bard and Artificer levels to make it an actually useful option for multiclassing with an Artificer.
• Swashbuckler: Loud & Clear also add +1 to Evocation DC to make it more appealing.
• Swashbuckler: Music Box now deals 2d6 Sonic damage and scales with 200% Melee Power to make it more appealing.
• Swashbuckler: Slap in the Face deals 1 untyped damage to avoid DR issues.
• Swashbuckler: Second Skin's AP cost lowered to 1 AP per tier. 2 AP per rank isn't worth it at all, so either reduce the cost - or move it to Tier 4 and have something else be Tier 5.

• Spellsinger: Sustaining Song's healing should scale with bard levels. Maybe 1d2 Positive energy heal per 4 bard level. There's absolutely no reason for it to not scale with it. If you absolutely must, move Sustaining Song to Tier 5 like it's been done with Beacon of Hope and Radiant Servant.
• Spellsinger: Prodigy could also include to increase Bardic Inspiration level. You might as well have another bard level increase there since it's otherwise just small skill increase.

• Warchanter: Inspired Bravery added the part that it's a part of Ballad now to be consistent.
• Warchanter: Obstinance removed. Way too situational.
• Warchanter: Words of Encouragement removed. Too small amount to waste a song on.
• Warchanter: Boast moved from Tier 2 to Tier 3, and instead of being its own active, the effect is added to Bardic Inspiration.
• Warchanter: Skaldic Rage's duration should scale some way now that the song duration idea was removed.
• Warchanter: Iced Edges is very... out-of-characteristic of a bard to have. Why not make it have sonic damage which scales with spell power (kind of like Spellsword)? Why only this part is suddenly ice-focused? Following things also addresses this.
• Warchanter: Northwind remaked to stun the enemy on vorpal, which triggers at most every 30/22/14 seconds.
• Warchanter: Howl of the North renamed to Typhoon's Anger.
• Warchanter: Scaldic Scream renamed to Storm Cry. Cold Damage changed to Sonic damage which scales with Melee Power. Stuns instead of Freezes.
• Warchanter: Spinning Ice reworked to do same except stun the target instead of freeze them.
• Warchanter: Movement Booster moved to Tier 4. Not worth the Tier 5.
• Warchanter: Kingly Recovery removed. It doesn't belong to an offensive tree.
• Warchanter: new Tier 5 enhancement: Warfare Veteran. Gives yourself +10 Melee Power and +1 to Critical Threat Range. 2 AP. Bards NEEDS some way to get critical threat range other than to always go towards Swashbuckling.

Cleric

• Radiant Servant: Bliss' Temporary HP are doubled in epic levels.
• Radiant Servant: Divine Healing's healing amount should scale better, as there is no incentive to use it on higher levels due to Positive Energy Burst and Positive Energy Aura.

• Warpriest/Warsoul: Resilience of Battle's Damage Reduction changed to PRR rather as you've tried to remove DR from the game.
• Warpriest/Warsoul: Sanctuary should rather be Enchant Weapons or Enchant Armor. The action boost is just not useful and be constantly be spammed to be worth it. Have a combat-based buff rather
• Warpriest/Warsoul: Sacred Touch could rather scale with half of Cleric/FvS level to be more better of an investment.
• Warpriest/Warsoul: Radiant Flourish and Wrathful Weapons should rather be scaled from Spell Power, as the tree does NOT provide Melee/Ranged Power at all.
• Warpriest/Warsoul: Radiant Flourish could be a Cleave rather, which puts the feat Cleave on cooldown.
• Warpriest/Warsoul: Radiant Flourish and Silence the Wicked should not be limited to only favored weapon. Wrathful Weapons is already really strong for them.
• Warpriest/Warsoul: Silence The Wicked could silence longer. 6 seconds?
• Warpriest/Warsoul: Wrathful Weapon's damage should scale with Light spell power instead, given the lack of melee power in the tree.
• Warpriest/Warsoul: Divine Intervention removed. It's more support-based active than what a melee user would do.
• Warpriest/Warsoul: To address the lack of favored weapon options, added new Tier 5 enhancement, Crusader, which allows you to choose a one weapon out of a big-ish group, which you can treat now as a favored weapon. This enhancement can be removed once there are much more deities.

Druid

• Nature's Warrior: Throat Rip should not be Wolf-exclusive. Currently the only thing bear can get from tier 5 Nature's Warrior is the cleave. Better give something else as well since bear has two enhancements which both forms can get.

• Nature's Protector: Force of Nature should be Bear-exclusive.
• Nature's Protector: Lightning Strikes the Mountain should not be Bear-exclusive, though the MRR and Threat Generation should still be bear-exclusive.

• Season's Herald: Crown of Summer's light damage could scale with your Light spell power to scale it better for end game.

Favored Soul

• Angel of Vengeance: Cometfall SLA is very out of place. Sunbeam is a much better choice if not Divine Punishment. However there is another idea which I'll explain later...

• Beacon of Hope: Good Hope SLA only has one rank, costing 2 AP. SP cost 5 SP, cooldown 3 seconds. There is absolutely no reason for this SLA to have ranks as it is a buff.
• Beacon of Hope: All Hope actives's duration could scale with heal skill. Currently you're basically spamming them, which personally I don't see it being good.
• Beacon of Hope: Hope for Protection changed from Tier 3 to Tier 1. It's the weakest of the actives.
• Beacon of Hope: Added new Tier 3 enhancement, Hope for Endurance, which heals the target for a short amount of time. Has a longer cooldown than normally. Heal doesn't have to be strong. It can easily be just 1 per 3 favored soul levels.
• Beacon of Hope: Death Ward SLA changed to Panacea SLA. It fits the healing tree better than some SLA which is barely useful.
• Beacon of Hope: True Resurrection SLA changed into Divine Intervention. Divine Intervention fits much better thematically here than in Warsoul.

• See Warsoul's changes in Cleric part.

Fighter

• Kensei: Power Surge gives +1[W] when active to be a bit better on the par with other strong active boosts.

• Stalwart Defender: Toughness's Fortification bonus removed. Instead each core gives +5 PRR and MRR.
• Stalwart Defender: Overbalance also gives +20 HP and +25% Fortification.
• Stalwart Defender: Stand Fast's active removed. Reworked to give another +5 PRR and MRR for each Stalwart Defender core, as well as another +30 HP and +25% Fortification.
• Stalwart Defender: Defensive Sweep's Action Boost changed. The boost now gives you bonuses as if you were blocking (including AC bonuses, reduced damage) for the next 10 seconds. You are still free to act otherwise. Cooldown increased to 90 seconds. Gives also +50 HP.
• Stalwart Defender: Last Stand's action boost removed and renamed to Perfect Guard. Rather grants that whenever you block an attack with your shield, There is a 20% chance that you don't take damage from blocking an attack and instead heal for the amount you would've taken.

• Vanguard: Shield Combat II's +1[W] moved to Vicious Shield I.
• Vanguard: Vicious Shield II's +1 Critical Threat range moved to Shield Combat II. Make it less of a hit if you don't take higher cores.
• Vanguard: Shield Champion's Stun's modifier changed to be the highest stat instead of STR to be consistent with the other actives.
• Vanguard: Shield Riposte reworked by dealing the shield bash's damage, but on an internal cooldown of once every 16/8/4 seconds. Current version is just straight up bad due to its low damage.
• Vanguard: Disorienting Smash is now only one rank, giving your shield Improved Destruction. Has 2 AP cost.
• Vanguard: New Tier 5 Enhancement: Shield Specialist. +3 to hit, damage and AC. Requires Shield Specialization IV to obtain.
• Vanguard: Shield to the Face's AP cost reduced to 1 AP.

Monk

• Monk: Elemental Ki Strikes reworked (most of them were too situational again. This is to give them distinctive purposes):
  

  - Eagle Claw Attack: +2[W] Damage, Attempts to Slicing Blow.
  - Knock on the Sky: +1[W] Damage, attempts to Sunder.
  - Unbalancing Strike: Attempts to Hamstring.
  - Fist of Iron: Attempts to Trip, doesn't have increased critical threat or multiplier.

• Henshin Mystic: Animal Forms reworked (as most of them were extremely situational). Fifth increase added to level 20:
  

  - Clever Monkey: +1 to Haggle, Saves against traps, and +2 MRR per increase.
  - Elegant Crane: +1 to Diplomacy, +1 Ki on critical hits, -2 PRR per increase.
  - Faithful Hound: +1 to Listen, +2 to hit and to damage from sneak attacks per increase.
  - Patient Tortoise: +1 Concentration, +5 HP per increase.
  - Tenacious Badger: +1 Intimidate, +1 Damage, -2 MRR per increase.

• Henshin Mystic: Elemental Words removed except for All-Consuming Flame, which is going to be Tier 3 Enhancement. No other enhancement of the Words were useful to this tree itself.
• Henshin Mystic. New Tier 5 Enhancement: Handle The Heat. If the enemy dies while they have the debuff from All-Consuming Flame, deal 1d4 fire and 1d4 force per monk level to other nearby enemies. Reflex Save (DC 10 + Monk Level + WIS modifier + Stunning Modifiers) halves the damage.
• Henshin Mystic: Void Strike moved to Tier 1. Now only deals +1[W] and 1d6 force damage which scales with 100% Melee Power. This is to give any monk a chance to get void finishers again, like they used to.
• Henshin Mystic: Tier 2-4 new enhancement. Improved Void Strike. Increases Void Strike's damage by 1d6-2d6-2d6. Tier 4 increases damage by +1[W].
• Henshin Mystic: New Tier 5 enhancement: Black Void. Improves Void Strike's damage by 4d6, has +2[W], +2 Critical Threat and Multiplier, and Vorpal erases the enemy from existence (no save).

• Ninja Spy: Impending Doom should make you get temporary HP based on your monk level * 3 to scale it better towards endgame.
• Ninja Spy: Poisoned Soul should rather just give 2d3 Ninja Poison stacks immediately, given the enemies die before you can even sometimes get the second stack with the old one.
• Ninja Spy: Touch of Death has Stunning Modifier added to it to be consistent with other Monk's abilities.
• Ninja Spy: Sting of the Ninja's internal cooldown reduced to every 2 seconds, as every 3 seconds is too long.

• Shintao: Iron Hand should also gain +1 AC and saving throws like other cores do.
• Shintao: Argent Fist should have +1[W] when using Handwraps.
• Shintao: Touch of the Void Dragon gives +4 to all Ability Scores and Tactics DC instead of relying on the dice.
• Shintao: To Seek Perfection's Melee Power decreased from +15 to +10 to compensate adding the extra [W] to Argent Fist.
• Shintao: Ki Shout should definitely be fixed as it currently is just straight up intimidate skill which uses intimidate as its skill check and doesn't reduce Ki.

Paladin

• Knight of the Chalice: Attack Boost removed.
• Knight of the Chalice: Exalted Cleave and Avenging Cleave could deal extra light damage if the damage is critical to make them a bit different from just being cleave replacements.
• Knight of the Chalice: Divine Might's AP cost reduced to 1 AP per tier to be consistent with Warpriest/Warsoul's version.
• Knight of the Chalice: Rally changed from Channel Divinity to add into the Aura of Good instead, given the high AP cost of this enhancement.
• Knight of the Chalice: Improved Restoration combined with Extra Remove Disease.
• Knight of the Chalice: To address one of my biggest issues with Paladin at the moment, added new Tier 3: Endless Turning (same as Radiant Servant's Endless Turning).
• Knight of the Chalice: Divine Sacrifise's attack also has +1 to Critical Threat Range to have some more use for it.
• Knight of the Chalice: Passion reworked to give on damage extra light damage on Divine Sacrifise. +1d6/3d6/6d6 Light Damage.
• Knight of the Chalice: Empowered Smite removed to be replaced with something else Paladin wants.
• Knight of the Chalice: New tier 4: Ever Smite. Reduces the smite recharge time by 10/20%.
• Knight of the Chalice: Holy Retribution's Evil creature part to simply have Banishing effect instead of having to make a save. I don't think anyone considers putting most points into Charisma when making a Paladin.

• Sacred Defender: Divine Righteousness should have the +5 increase to PRR and MRR as well.
• Sacred Defender: Glorious Stand's cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.
• Sacred Defender: Reprisal removed. Since it's only the next attack, it's really bad of an enhancement. This could work better on a lower tier enhancement, but not as T5.
• Sacred Defender: New Tier 5 Enhancement: Steel Wall. Become immune to magic missile and ray spells as long as you're using a shield. 2 AP.
• Sacred Defender: New Tier 5 Enhancement: My Sword is my Shield. Gain AC and PRR based on your main hand weapon's Enhancement bonus.
  (both new enhancements are there to make the Sacred Defender more tankier, and fits the theme of a shield paladin much more.)

• See Vanguard's changes in Fighter part.

Ranger

• Arcane Archer: Arcane Archer's enhancement bonus to bows should stack with the bow's existing enhancement bonus, give it is useless in higher levels.
• Arcane Archer: Conjure Arrows should have the increasing enhancement bonus to the arrows depending on ranger/character levels, just like Conjure Bolts has.
• Arcane Archer: True Strike should be a guaranteed hit no matter what (a.k.a. bypasses Blur, Incorporeality and Dodge). Current version is pretty much useless. Could even make it that it gives a buff that the next attack you make has no way to miss (to use it with your actives)
• Arcane Archer: Elemental Arrows should have an elemental burst in their option, just like how Force Arrows has one.
• Arcane Archer: Final Strike should scale with Ranged Power to scale better for endgame.
• Arcane Archer: Runebow should have +10 Ranged Power attached to it as well, given you can't get ranged power anywhere in this tree.

• Deepwood Stalker: Tendon Cut should act like the new Slicing Blow.
• Deepwood Stalker: Survivalist should work with Warforged's Mithral armor.
• Deepwood Stalker: Extra Favored Enemy removed. It is too high cost for just another Favored Enemy.
• Deepwood Stalker: New tier 5 enhancement: Favored Enemy Hunter. If you Vorpal your favored enemy, that enemy is killed instantly if it's under 1000 Hit Points. Otherwise, deal extra 100 bane damage to the target. 2 AP

• Tempest: Shield of Whirling Steel's additional increases to AC, PRR and MRR should be +2, not +1. +1 is pretty much useless.
• Tempest: Improved Defense changed to grant you Two Weapon Defense. If you have that feat already, this enhancement doubles the bonuses of that feat. 2 AP. Should be a much better than what the current one is for higher AP cost. Moved to Tier 2 because of it.
• Tempest: Improved Parry moved to Tier 1. Is now a prerequisite to Improved Defense.
• Tempest: Bleed Them Out removed. Bleed damage is irrelevant nowadays.
• Tempest: Elaborate Parry's cooldown reduced to 60 seconds to be consistent with other kinds of bonuses like these.
• Tempest: A Thousand Cuts changed to also give 50% off-hand Doublestrike. Only has one rank, but costs 2 AP.
• Tempest: Many Cuts changed to not increase Melee Power. Instead increases DoubleStrike and Off-hand Doublestrike by 10%. Costs 2 AP.
• Tempest: Graceful Death has added effect which gives +5% Doublestrike chance to both main hand and off-hand weapon, given you can get the same in Vistani tree. Doesn't need to stack with the Vistani tree though.
• Tempest: Dervish should work with Warforged's Mithral Armor as intended.

Rogue

• Assassin: Poison Strikes should also have INT or DEX modifier like how Assassinate has it. Wouldn't also mind giving full Rogue level instead of half to the DC as well.
• Assassin: Execute's hit point threshold increased to 50%, like how Merciful Shot/Strike is.
• Assassin: Assassinate should also work if the target is susceptible to sneak attacks. You could however add that doing it from the sneak gives it extra DC.

• Mechanic: Hip Flask shouldn't have RNG added to its action boost. Rather have increased ranged power from it then, like +20 Ranged Power instead of +1d6 ability score and +2d6 to attack/damage.

• Thief-Acrobat: Cartwheel Charge should increase Melee Power after tumbling instead of just providing +2 to STR and DEX as they're lackluster.
• Thief-Acrobat: Followthrough increases STR and DEX by 4 instead of 2, and increases Balance, Jump and Tumble by 5. It also increases Melee Power by 10. Current bonuses are a bit lackluster for a capstone.
• Thief-Acrobat: Sweeping Strikes cooldown reduced to 30/18/12 seconds to be a tad more useful.
• Thief-Acrobat: No Mercy removed. There is no way in Thief-Acrobat or even as a rogue overall to make the enemy helpless, hence making this enhancement useless to a pure Rogue. Plus, the sneak attack already provides enough damage for a person who is helpless.
• Thief Acrobat: Shadow Dodge's DEX and Maximum Dodge removed. Currently this enhancement is too loaded, and is better to rather have it in two parts.
• Thief-Acrobat: new Tier 4 Enhancement: Nimble Staffwork. Increases +1/+2/+3 Maximum Dexterity while wearing light or no armor. Rank 3: Your Staff's Enhancement Bonus is added to your PRR.
• Thief-Acrobat: Improved Defensive Roll has one rank only costing 2 AP. Value is 50%. Mostly just to make Defensive Roll somewhat useful at least, though I think the bigger issue is still with the feat itself. If the feat had its requirement upped to 50%, I think people would still have hard time picking it over some other choices Rogue has as their rogue feats.
• Thief-Acrobat: Spinning Staff Wall now needs a prerequisite of Staff Lunge. Spinning Staff Wall's bonus changed to rather deal damage to an enemy who missed you as if you attacked it while the buff is going. Buff duration reduced to 6 seconds. Spinning Staff Wall is also a part of Staff Lunge now. (Spinning Staff Wall activates when you use Staff Lunge).
• Thief-Acrobat: Vault now doesn't have prerequisites to move out of the way of Spinning Staff Wall.
• Thief-Acrobat: New Tier 5 enhancement: Offensive Roll. Whenever you roll towards an enemy, they must make a balance check (DC 10 + Half Rogue Level + DEX Modifier + Trip Modifiers) or they are tripped. Has a cooldown of 12 Seconds. This is to give another way to trip an enemy and not just rely on the cleave.

Sorcerer/Wizard

I am NOT going to touch to Sorcerer or Wizard in this because there hasn't been Sorc/Wiz pass just yet. The only exclusion to this is the Eldtrich Knight tree. However I will address couple of things which could be a possibility for the trees

• Savant trees should have the elemental Bolt available at tier 1, and the current tier 1 SLA moved to tier 2.
• Each of the elemental forms in Savant tree should offer some kind of bonus, and should be kind of an equal at least. can always use PRR/MRR and Dodge/Incorporeality to make them a big different.

• Eldtrich Knight: Spellsword should scale into Epics by giving it an extra +1d6 every 2 Epic Levels.
• Eldtrich Knight: Knight's Transformation should be given +1 to-hit, +1 Damage, +2 doublestrike, +5 Universal Spell Power and +1% Spell Critical Damage every 4 sorcerer/wizard levels instead of the current version. It's a tad of a power spike when you get this in Tier 4 on its own.
• Eldtrich Knight: Improved Knight's Transformation should rather just give +1 Critical Threat Range and +1 Critical Multiplier on its own, given how much you sacrifise to use Knight's Transformation.
• Eldtrich Knight: Force's Edge reworked to instead give you an additional temporary spellsword whenever you cast an offensive spell. The element of this buff depends on the offensive spell's element. Effect lasts only for a little time, or maybe even just the next attack.
• Eldtrich Knight: Knight's Striker should have +2 to Combat Tactics DCs given the other one has +4 Spell Penetration in it.
• Eldtrich Knight: Eldtrich Tempest's +[W], Critical Threat Range and Multiplier removed. Instead three consecutive Eldtrich Strikes happens on the spot, where the first strike deals the additional 1d6 force damage per character level to all nearby enemies. The damage of this is way too strong for now. This shouldn't just suddenly deal over a thousand damage at lvl 12 because you run around with a heavy pick and spam this.

Warlock

I assume there is going to be a Warlock pass at one point in the future, but I wanted to still chime in a litte bit.

• Warlock: Enlightened Spirit tree removed.

...yes, I said it. Just remove the whole tree. The main issue with the tree currently is that every lock uses it because it gives way too good of survivability and burst for a warlock that it's ridiculous. If the tree was meant to be a melee tree, then make it a proper melee tree like Eldtrich Knight is, and nothing like this tree is. Take a look at Hexblade in 5e for instance for a great look at the melee-focused warlock. If the tree was meant to be a tanking tree, then it has failed poorly because it is also one of the best DPS trees of Warlock.
...Remember how I said something about Angel of Vengeance spot earlier? Well you could maybe put some kind of version of Eldtrich Burst and Blast in that tree instead, since it would fit a bit better thematically.

• Also, overall just rework the other trees as well. Tainted Scholar is kind of alright but could use some things outside of using the Depravity stacks, and Soul Eater has a lot of useless enhancements in it like Dark Feeding or Burning Blood SLA. Hell, even the Capstone is bad because the DC of it is not what the description says it to be.

Other suggestions:

• Currently AC still doesn't matter in higher difficulties. There must be SOMETHING you can do to someone who invests into AC to over hundred.

• There should be a two-handed piercing weapon. A Spear and/or a Halberd for instance. It doesn't have to glance if people don't like it, but it could at the very least have an increased melee range and do the Glancing damage to the target.

• There should be better options for Acid spells, especially in spell level 5-7 where they have basically nothing good. Even the Black Dragon Bolt is kind of meh.
• Moreover, most Acid Spells should honestly be Conjuration OR Evocation, not a mixed bag of Conjuration and Evocation. This way Earth Savant could be much more viable option to pick up.
• Adding to that I believe most of Ice spells should also be Conjuration, too, to give some different use for Conjuration Focus items.

• Some of the older adventure packs which no one runs anymore (Sorrowdusk Isles, Restless Isles, Ruins of Threnal, Shan-to-Kor and the Catacombs for instance) should either have a massive overhaul on the named items - or become free to play. Maybe even both to some packs like Restless Isles.

• Some of the older quests should have their XP rewards buffed to make them more appealing to purchase. Red Fens, Path of Inspiration and Dreaming Dark for instance.

• Speaking of older content, keep up with updating the old packs' named items into up-to-date versions. Though I'd also hope the same treatment to the epic versions as well. Some of the heroic versions might be actually better than the epic versions. (Xuum and Flint for instance)

Alright, I think that's most of what comes into my mind for now.

Again, I'm open for discussions. This is a forum post after all, not a closed feedback to SSG.

And once again, remember that these are just ideas with no deep thought put into balance. The idea is the main thing here, not the numbers.

Regards,

Grisdalli from Argonnessen
10 year veteran

[Potatofasf]

Funny how players come with nice ideas and improvement to the game as a whole, while the Devs do not.

Congratz!
Add to Reputation
/signed

[Grailhawk]

Ranger

• Tempest: A Thousand Cuts changed to also give 50% off-hand Doublestrike. Only has one rank, but costs 2 AP.

You want to take one of the best burst melee abilities (Its the closest thing to Manyshot, 10K Stars melee can get i think) and make it cheaper and better ...

I know DoD gets a bit too much attention on Tempest but really its the Combo of Haste Boost, Growing Strom, 1k Cuts, and DoD that melts things like butter.

I see other things like this on that list but that one was so egregious it had to be pointed out.

[pelaaja]

You want to take one of the best burst melee abilities (Its the closest thing to Manyshot, 10K Stars melee can get i think) and make it cheaper and better ...

I know DoD gets a bit too much attention on Tempest but really its the Combo of Haste Boost, Growing Strom, 1k Cuts, and DoD that melts things like butter.

I see other things like this on that list but that one was so egregious it had to be pointed out.

Would you rather suggest that the active version of A Thousand Cuts to be removed and it'd be only a passive? Coz that is fine by me as well.

[Xgya]

Some pretty neat ideas.

As for giving the Sunder/Trip the advantage of using the character's attacking stat, I'd make it into a feat (much like Weapon Finesse changes the attacking stat, Versatile Tactician would change the tactical DC stat)

Hamstring. I remember a few abilities using the debuff. Giving the proposed buff only to the feat-given version is key here, but I otherwise agree.
Slicing Blow. Well, it's a thing nobody ever uses, giving it some use sounds good enough.
- I'd add my preferred solution here, because of just how low-key and unused those abilities currently are. Remove the Sneak Attack prerequisite, and make both attacks a single feat. Hamstring now also hits the enemy's constitution and applies vulnerability. I'm still not quite certain I'd take it, but it does make the feat more palatable.

Whirlwind/Cleave changes: support. Admittedly, getting a DPS loss against a single target because you're using a multi-target attack IS pretty logical (Iceberg should and does hit harder than Acid Well), but the loss from using those attacks at higher levels as-is is pretty massive. Perhaps not granting them full doublestrike, but still handing partial benefits.

I disagree about giving a buff to Improved Precise Shot - the feat is already a HUGE boost to any ranged character, it doesn't need anything more to entice people to take it.

As for Resilience and Expertise, that's a lot to give to a first level character. Make the bonus scale (from 5?10? at level 1 up to the proposed 20 or maybe higher. If 20 is kept, making it fully available at level 15 seems reasonable)

Diehard. Because the feat is auto-granted, buffing it would be a direct buff to the classes that use it. While unconsciousness range isn't a very useful combat statistic, we still have to be careful. Granted, the classes buffed aren't really overperforming right now, but there's a lot of high-powered DPS builds that go above Ranger 3 and certainly don't need any more power, be it this small. Barbarian getting it wouldn't be too much though, but I think this says more about the class balance, and not about that singular feat.

Power Critical. No real need for the buff, the feat is already present on many builds. I understand the logic behind it, but I disagree with the balance purpose that goes along.

Mobile Spellcasting. I like it. It's a 2-feat combo, both of which are seldom taken, that now grants a 1% crit chance. Decent.

Save/skill feats. Make the bonus scale with level? Don't go overboard, but making it scale at the same speed ship buffs go (level 1, 11, 21) doesn't sound that awful.
Another option would be making the save feats grant the benefit of a single skill feat and leave it at that. (mixing two feats that nobody usually takes MIGHT turn them into a single feat worth looking at). Lightning Reflexes + Acrobatic, Fortitude + Athletic, Iron Will + Alertness.
Then we wouldn't need to buff either feat to be happy with the result, and the total available player power wouldn't be changed by much, since the max numbers for saves/skills didn't change, only how available they are.

Improved Fortification needs love, for sure. Granting extra Repair Amp sounds jolly. Not sure about removing the immunity, but that's mostly because I like the feat's flavor, and I wouldn't be opposed to a change in that direction for balance reasons.

Class feats. Artificers can and will go single-weapon fighting into battle now that there's a melee tree for it. Makes total sense.
Soothing Song: I don't think the ability needs a change. It was kept in-game because people complained and said they used the ability to mass heal as a bard, so it was kept, but I don't think it should be changed beyond the moderately usable state it's currently in.

I won't comment about the Monk abilities too much, but I'll add that a 12 second AoE stun would be quite OP. (To the point that some people will build entire character concepts around being able to use a 6 second stun with a much lower potential DC - looking at YOU, Soundburst!)

I'll keep my answers to specific sections to better help any discussion after the fact. Great work!

[Grailhawk]

Would you rather suggest that the active version of A Thousand Cuts to be removed and it'd be only a passive? Coz that is fine by me as well.

No I'm saying don't touch it its a good ability and doesn't need any change.

[pelaaja]

Some pretty neat ideas.

As for giving the Sunder/Trip the advantage of using the character's attacking stat, I'd make it into a feat (much like Weapon Finesse changes the attacking stat, Versatile Tactician would change the tactical DC stat)

I like this actually. I support the idea of a feat giving your attacking stat to any combat DCs instead of STR.

Remove the Sneak Attack prerequisite, and make both attacks a single feat. Hamstring now also hits the enemy's constitution and applies vulnerability. I'm still not quite certain I'd take it, but it does make the feat more palatable.

As long as the enemy CON is not made as stat damage and is instead a part of the debuff, I thin kI can get behind that.
As for sneak attack not being prerequisite, yeah I can see that but then I think I'd want a feat behind it maybe? like Weapon Finesse or Single/Two Weapon Fighting.

Whirlwind/Cleave changes: support. Admittedly, getting a DPS loss against a single target because you're using a multi-target attack IS pretty logical (Iceberg should and does hit harder than Acid Well), but the loss from using those attacks at higher levels as-is is pretty massive. Perhaps not granting them full doublestrike, but still handing partial benefits.

Yeah agree, it could maybe even be like the chance is reduced to [doublestrike chance]*[Glancing Blow damage], so THF would get higher benefit out of it. (so for instance, you have 20% chance to doublestrike. You have 50% glancing blow damage. That means there is a 10% chance to doublestrike with the cleave)

I disagree about giving a buff to Improved Precise Shot - the feat is already a HUGE boost to any ranged character, it doesn't need anything more to entice people to take it.

Fair enough. I just saw IPS as kind of like the final tier of feat list like GTHF is. Fine with me if it ain't there.

As for Resilience and Expertise, that's a lot to give to a first level character. Make the bonus scale (from 5?10? at level 1 up to the proposed 20 or maybe higher. If 20 is kept, making it fully available at level 15 seems reasonable)

oh yeah I forgot about that. Yeah it could scale. Maybe +1 PRR/MRR per character level?

Diehard. Because the feat is auto-granted, buffing it would be a direct buff to the classes[ that use it. While unconsciousness range isn't a very useful combat statistic, we still have to be careful. Granted, the classes buffed aren't really overperforming right now, but there's a lot of high-powered DPS builds that go above Ranger 3 and certainly don't need any more power, be it this small. Barbarian getting it wouldn't be too much though, but I think this says more about the class balance, and not about that singular feat.

The buff wouldn't be too big of a thing. Something along the lines of that you get up faster if you get downed or something.

Save/skill feats. Make the bonus scale with level? Don't go overboard, but making it scale at the same speed ship buffs go (level 1, 11, 21) doesn't sound that awful.
Another option would be making the save feats grant the benefit of a single skill feat and leave it at that. (mixing two feats that nobody usually takes MIGHT turn them into a single feat worth looking at). Lightning Reflexes + Acrobatic, Fortitude + Athletic, Iron Will + Alertness.
Then we wouldn't need to buff either feat to be happy with the result, and the total available player power wouldn't be changed by much, since the max numbers for saves/skills didn't change, only how available they are.

As long as there are multiple options to choose from the skills (like Stealthy OR Acrobatic to Reflex saves, Athletic OR Self-Sufficient for Fortitude and Negotiator OR Alertness for Will) then I'd be on board.

Soothing Song: I don't think the ability needs a change. It was kept in-game because people complained and said they used the ability to mass heal as a bard, so it was kept, but I don't think it should be changed beyond the moderately usable state it's currently in.

True enough, though I would't still mind it scaling a tad better for late game.

I won't comment about the Monk abilities too much, but I'll add that a 12 second AoE stun would be quite OP. (To the point that some people will build entire character concepts around being able to use a 6 second stun with a much lower potential DC - looking at YOU, Soundburst!)

Bear in mind that it's a number. It could as well be 6 second stun as well. Plus you must still go for Henshin then to get to that finisher (since you need both light and dark ki attack)

Thanks for feedback!

[Xgya]

As long as there are multiple options to choose from the skills (like Stealthy OR Acrobatic to Reflex saves, Athletic OR Self-Sufficient for Fortitude and Negotiator OR Alertness for Will) then I'd be on board.

Simple solution. Remove the saves feats from the game. Give an appropriate save bonus to all the skill feats. It also allows you to give personalized bonuses, such as two +1s instead of a single +2 for each feat.

[pelaaja]

Simple solution. Remove the saves feats from the game. Give an appropriate save bonus to all the skill feats. It also allows you to give personalized bonuses, such as two +1s instead of a single +2 for each feat.

Sounds nice to me at least. I'm on board!