Underpowered: a Feedback only thread

[BigErkyKid]

In 2014 we initiated the Great Balancing Plan with our Executive Producer Severlin. Turbine had recently polled us about the state of balance in the game, and we had responded that: i) there were severe imbalanced (classes, ranged vs melee, light vs heavy armor), ii) that it was not fun to play an UP character. To answer these concerns, Severlin initiated an ambitious buffing plan that has, over the course of the last 5 years, revamped every single class in the game along with numerous systems (PRR, melee power, sneak attack, reaper).

Whether the game is more balanced now than in 2014 is up to debate, but the overall state of the game is not the purpose of these thread. I would like this thread to allow players to, undisturbed, explain what they think is currently underpowered and why. This could include PrEs, feats, classes, abilities, weapons, fighting styles, items, or whatever you feel is currently underpowered.

The goal of this is for the devs to be able to look over our feedback and consider it. For this reason, I want to ask every single poster to subscribe to this very simple posting rule. I am not a mod, so I can only ask you to please play nice.

• Only post following the template below. No other posts should be added to the thread. If you agree with someone, copy their message and repost it. If you disagree, feel free to start your own thread about it. If you feel this thread is great / stupid / flawed, feel free to PM me or start your own thread about it.

Posting template:

What:
Why:
Further comments / suggestions:

[BigErkyKid]

What:
The Legendary Glittering Waistwrap
Why:
Mainly, the Melody:Bulwark effect is insignificant.
Suggestions:
Buff or change the effect to something else. Following the template of the new fate singer, perhaps have two effects: i) lower bonus for full party, ii) double that bonus for the person wearing it. Something like 20/40 or so, for example.

[cru121]

What: Sunder
Why: The effect is insignificant. Not worth putting on hotbar.
Further comments / suggestions: Add minor PRR debuff or vulnerability.

[leesun]

What: Henshin Mystic
Why: It is alright to delve into for melee power, but as an actual 41+ point tree why make a staff monk when can make a staff rogue? It's almost as though what we have is a Frankenstein's monster in which staff fighting has been forcibly put into a pre that isn't focused around staff fighting.
Suggestions: Remove staff fighting from Henshin Mystic, and focus more around the force//fire sla gimmick. Make Monkey Shen tree that is focused on staff fighting. Would fit thematically as both Henshin Mystic and Monkey Shen are from Oriental Adventures.

[Bacab]

What: Battle Engineer (Artificer Tree)
Why: Its Tier 5 and Core 6 is rougly equal to Inquisitive' Core 4 (by itself)
Suggestion: Maybe make the Tier 5 of BE have the expanded Crit Range and increased multiplier? Maybe make the Core 6 of BE add Ranged/Melee Alacrity or Double Shot/Double Strike


What: Warforged Race or Bladeforged Race
Why: Armor costs a feat
Suggestion: Put Mythril or Adamantium Body into the Warforged/Bladeforged Racial Tree

What: Mechanic (Rogue) needs Conjure Bolts
Why: It is a ranged class that does not have the ability to conjure bolts
Suggestion: Allow Mechanics to expend trap parts to make elemental bolts or just regular bolts. If they can make bombs...they should be able to make bolts.

[Potatofasf]

What:
All outdated named itens, pré-Ravenloft and Sharn

Why:
They are irrelevant, not worthy using or farm for. A bunch load of content wasting hardware space. Most of them are Bound to Character. Some itens aren't match for news itens on Level 6 (White Plume Mountain Loot), 7 (Red Fens Revamped Loots), 8 (Slavers) and 10 (Ravenloft Loots).
I.e. Sands Loots, GH Loots, Storm Horn Loots, Wheelon Loots

Further comments / suggestions:

First of all, make them on par with the new game reality, Prefix+Suffix+New standard effect+Augment Slot+Special effect. Second reduce de min level to usage. Third Set Bonus. Forth make them at least competitive with the same level loot cited above.

[Cantor]

What: Warforged Race or Bladeforged Race
Why: Armor costs a feat
Suggestion: Put Mythril or Adamantium Body into the Warforged/Bladeforged Racial Tree

ditto
ditto plus mithril sucks
suggestion: Free body feat at level 1, add a medium option, really increase the dodge cap on mithril.

What: Random loot, especially weapons

Why: Apart from low levels i cant remember last time i even bother to look at them, not asking for them to compete with raid ones but vendor trash or left in chest is not what i want. Dont see why u cant get super lucky on a good roll and have a great endgame weapon.

Suggestion: Id like to see a return of the old enchantments from years ago, "Thousand suns" "Obscenity" to name a few, then with the hundread ingredients we have, be able to make them sentient.

ditto
ditto
suggestion: random loot should have a chance to scale higher than crafted/named levels. Named items are much easier to get than a random with the right combo of effects, random should have a small chance to scale higher at all levels including cap. Loot bonus + gem +map +chest blesser in highest level content should match or rarely beat newest raid level of effects, not every time but possible. I remember having lots of fun on loot bonus weekends with a chest blesser chasing +4 tomes in DD. For weapons: rare chance of improved crit profile.

What: Bows
Why: the iconic ranged weapon and it's worse than everything but throwinq (excluding shuriken).
suggestion: Every viable ranged option has gone full-on barrage of shots. Bow is already super slow and can't compete. I'd like to see something unique, rather than ramp up the speed.
1. many new enchanted returning arrows options like the summon from void.
2. Revamp archer's focus to add special effects for bows. I like the idea of never miss. To-hit has become much more important in legendary content. If when standing (ie archer's focus active) bows never missed that would be a unique advantage that isn't just more speed/shots/etc. (balanced by bow speed and no IPS)

What: radiant servant
Why: the worst tree (I was going to say possibly but... it is)
suggestion: Any ability that has 3 ranks and is 2 AP change to 1 ap. Change aura to core 4, fill out T5 with something to boost TU, temp HP, and a very long duration heal over time. Boost the stat in capstone. Improve scaling of core 5, perhaps x3 or x4. Fix mighty turning to first apply turn then apply kill, so it works on deathwarded mobs. Add spell power scaling light damage to attacks and spell casts somewhere in the tree like spiritual retribution in ES (maybe in cores like pally KotC).

[Aelonwy]

What: Bardic Warchanter Iced Edges (Tier 2)

Why: 1d6 cold damage for 3 Action Points isn't good enough; its an additional AP sink for Frozen Fury

Suggestions:
I'd like to see it either be increased to 3d6 on rank 3, or scale with melee power.

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What: Bardic Spellsinger Mass Hold Monster (Tier 5)

Why: Cooldown is too long if it fails (for any of the myriad of reasons casting can fail in DDO). The cooldown of the regular spell is 6 seconds, but its 20 seconds (on the highest rank) in the Bard tree.

Suggestions:
I'd like to see the cooldown reduced to 10 seconds on rank 3, still almost twice as long as the regular spell.

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What: Bardic Swashbuckler Different Tack (Tier 3)

Why: Charisma to damage is great but without Charisma to hit, its better to go Dex (with weapon finesse) or Int (with Harper), elsewise the character will miss or graze a phenomenal amount of the time resulting in a whole lot of lost dps. Also this is why the best melee bard is and will continue to be a PDK. This has continued for years and its about time there was some parity with other races playing bard. (Looking at you Tiefling Scoundrel)

Suggestions: If Charisma to hit in Tier 3 is an issue (for some unknown reason) please either move Battering Barrage up to Tier 5 and reduce its AP cost (to make it more reasonable as a tier 5) and place a multi-selector enhancement that allows swash to choose their to hit in Tier 4 or leave Battering Barrage as is and place a multi-selector enhancement that allows swash to choose their to hit in Tier 5 with something additional for each choice (because I don't think to hit alone is Tier 5 worthy.) I'd also be fine with moving Battering Barrage down and Different Tack up to Tier 4 if Different Tack could be both to hit and damage.

Ideally, Different Tack could be both to hit and damage but the devs have shown extreme reluctance to do so and pretty much only because of Charisma as you can get Dex to hit and Int to hit fairly easy with only PDK giving access (on limited weapons) to Cha to hit.

[Tyrande]

In 2014 we initiated the Great Balancing Plan with our Executive Producer Severlin. Turbine had recently polled us about the state of balance in the game, and we had responded that: i) there were severe imbalanced [...]

Posting template:

What: Pure ranger using long/shortbows fighting style 100% of the time
Why: Mechanics, Inquisitive, 8 rogue/8 fighter/4 artificer kind of builds 4+ x more DPS
Suggestion: Make Manyshot cool down the same as the cool down for finger of death: or just eliminate the cool down; and surprisingly, its not overpowered considered the many inquisitive/mechanics running around with dual hand crossbows, or the many master of fire/earth maximized empowered intensified emboldened meteor throwing sorcerers.

[Chai]

What: F2P classes

Why: P2P classes are made too OP to stimulate sales

Further comments / suggestions: P2P classes can be made more powerful by 10% using the scaling mechanisms without having to make it so powerful it needs to be nerfed later on due to being on its own playing field.

[CSQ]

What: F2P classes

Why: P2P classes are made too OP to stimulate sales

Further comments / suggestions: P2P classes can be made more powerful by 10% using the scaling mechanisms without having to make it so powerful it needs to be nerfed later on due to being on its own playing field.

Sorry, I know this is not in the format, but can you clarify your comment's suggestions? Do you mean that F2P classes should be made more powerful by scaling? Do you mean that P2P classes should have increased dungeon scaling, effectively making the game more difficult for them which brings them into parity with F2P? The suggestion as it reads doesn't make sense to me.

[Chai]

Sorry, I know this is not in the format, but can you clarify your comment's suggestions? Do you mean that F2P classes should be made more powerful by scaling? Do you mean that P2P classes should have increased dungeon scaling, effectively making the game more difficult for them which brings them into parity with F2P? The suggestion as it reads doesn't make sense to me.

P2P classes can be made slightly more powerful than F2P classes (the 10% suggested in my previous response) without having to make them so powerful that F2P versions cant be viable in the same settings with equal investments.

Scaling mechanisms include melee power, ranged power, PRR, MRR, etc...

Example: If F2P class gives X melee power, then if they want the P2P class to have more it can be X*1.1 (10% more)

There are exceptions to this, where F2P classes hold their own, but not many. Typically they require far more investment.

[Zhijie]

What: Enhance Pay to win

Why: I need to be able to solo all raid

Further comments / suggestions:
It takes a long time to find Raid teammates.Very long
Many people lack the Riad experience or not speak English

[SirValentine]

What: Nothing. I'm not sure there's a single thing that's under-powered. The power scale is so far out of whack, the difference is between over-powered, grossly over-powered, and massively over-powered.
Why: The "balancing" was actually just repeated massive power creep.
Further comments / suggestions: Nerf, nerf, nerf. Sure, start with the most ridiculously OP stuff, but eventually nerf everything. "Hard" should be hard.

[Bacab]

What: Nothing. I'm not sure there's a single thing that's under-powered. The power scale is so far out of whack, the difference is between over-powered, grossly over-powered, and massively over-powered.
Why: The "balancing" was actually just repeated massive power creep.
Further comments / suggestions: Nerf, nerf, nerf. Sure, start with the most ridiculously OP stuff, but eventually nerf everything. "Hard" should be hard.

I am actually in agreement with a lot of this.

When the TR grind started (2009), the quests were balanced to the gear that was available at that time.

There was a time when doing ToD on Hard was hard and only the BEST could even try it on Elite.

Basically everything here is how stuff is "balanced now": "What is the newest thing of tree to be re-worked? Play that!"

I do miss when dungeon scaling was not a thing, Elite meant that you needed a few people to complete stuff unless you just had a monster of a build. It pushed teamwork a lot more.

Elite Amrath quests used to be so hard.

My favorite classes were/are Cleric, Bard and a crowd control Wizard. Back when you had to group, I could easily fit into a group and you'd hear "nice heals", "great mass hold there", "nice fascinate".

We fell off of the d20 a long time ago.

PS: I still love this game and that is why I keep coming back.

[Indubitably]

What: Bows
Why: Terrible speed and DPS, outside of manyshot their base attack is terrible. Rangers are the worst ranged class!
Suggestion: Low-mid tier Survivalist Ranger enhancement that increases ranged speed with bows (stacks T4/5 ranged speed boosts)

What: Bards (in general)
Why: One of the earlier passes, like KotC, a little outdated and before certain decisions were made RE balance
Suggestion: Spellsinger T5 abilities cheaper, fix their SLAs a bit (resonance, Mass Hold), force CHA to damage instead of choosing stat, make a 2nd option for CHA hit. Some of the procs could be better in both melee trees.

What: Harper
Why: Its used for either INT to DAM/ATK/KTA or all three, nothing else. It's T5 and Capstone are terrible
Suggestion: Give it a stronger pet/hire/summon focus. Other ideas but lets be honest, this tree wont get touched.

What: Trap Making
Why: Its a good idea, but could really be an amazing mechanic with just a bit more effort.
Suggestions: Allow more than 3rd level spells. Allow some method of increasing the caster level past the scroll caster level (either based on disable skill or enhancements) Allow the elemental traps to scale off spellpower...

[Bacab]

What: Trap Making
Why: Its a good idea, but could really be an amazing mechanic with just a bit more effort.
Suggestions: Allow more than 3rd level spells. Allow some method of increasing the caster level past the scroll caster level (either based on disable skill or enhancements) Allow the elemental traps to scale off spellpower...

I really like this idea.

I have been toying with making my next life a Mechanic...(I like the idea of sneaking around and being a "tinkerer")

I remember a while back that traps seemed really good, but once you went up to elite or higher levels, they really struggled to do anything.

I really think it would be cool if traps scalled off of spell power or disable device skill (like say disable device skill x some number = a spell power equivalent).

I know the DCs scale off of disable device...I just meant the actual damage.

[Lonnbeimnech]

What: THF
Why: the fact that THF don't get glancing blows on cleaves or double strikes from glancing blows
Suggestion: allow THF who invest in inquisitive to hold a two handed weapon in each hand.

What: bow users
Why: dps of bows compared to other ranged options is way down, esp in heroic levels
Suggestion: Allow bow users who invest in inquisitive to use a longbow in each hand

What: meteor swarm
Why: taking the 6th core in fire savant actually lowers the caster level of meteor swarm by 2, because it also counts as an earth spell
Suggestion: allow casters who invest in inquisitive to shoot 4 meteors out of each hand at the same time.

[Ralmeth]

What: Update Paladins
Why: Paladins are the red-headed step child of character classes, and they haven't been updated since update 23, which was released Sept 29th, 2014, almost five years ago.
Why not (counter-argument from the developers): This is a gothic version of D&D! We love undead, and devils, and bloody, invisible ink footprints! We HATE Paladins because they're a bunch of stuck up do-gooders. Grrr.
Suggestion: On a more serious note. I know that the plan is to update the Knight of the Chalice, which is great, but the one thing that you are REALLY missing is that people that gravitate to playing a Paladin want to play S&B. That would be my preference, but since S&B is SOOOO bad if I play a Paladin I go THF because that's at least not as bad, but is still not good. So, when the Knight of the Chalice update is worked, please consider updating Vanguard as well so that Paladins in general will have a viable option to go either THF or S&B.

[Oliphant]

What: New Players
Why: Besides skills, which is natural, extreme power backloading and absurd power differential possible. Terrible quality-of-life-monkees on their backs. Too many options with insufficient guidance from environment.