Increased character levels with the Feywild expansion provide context for the Ethereal Plane nerf. Having both Arborea and Ethereal would have been ludicrous for DEX based characters.
Increased character levels with the Feywild expansion provide context for the Ethereal Plane nerf. Having both Arborea and Ethereal would have been ludicrous for DEX based characters.
Khyber: Ying-1, Kobeyashi, Nichevo-1 | 75 million Reaper XP
A bit of a preview of a couple of changes we're tentatively planning for Lamannia Round 2:
Two Handed:
- The Two Handed Fighting feat now raises your Damage bonus from your Ability Score Modifier to 2x that Modifier in addition to its other effects.
- The Improved Two Handed Fighting feat now raises your Damage bonus from your Ability Score Modifier to 2.5x that Modifier in addition to its other effects.
- The Greater Two Handed Fighting feat now raises your Damage bonus from your Ability Score Modifier to 3x that Modifier in addition to its other effects.
This is a change from the last Lamannia, where Greater Two Handed Fighting was pushing this to 2x. Our goal here is to push single-target Two Handed DPS past what it currently does on Live, to compensate for the loss in single-target damage from Glancing Blows and to push them closer to other styles. Across the several THF builds we've tested with this change, a small number broke even with their Live damage numbers, but most pushed ahead of their Live damage numbers.
Two Handed, Continued:
- Most single-target special attacks should allow you to Strikethrough, hitting two to three targets.
- Smite Evil has been modified to allow Strikethrough.
- Exalted Smite has been modified to allow Strikethrough.
- Hamstring has been modified to allow Strikethrough.
- Sap has been modified to allow Strikethrough.
- Slicing Blow has been modified to allow Strikethrough.
- Sunder has been modified to allow Strikethrough.
- Improved Sunder has been modified to allow Strikethrough.
- Trip has been modified to allow Strikethrough.
- Improved Trip has been modified to allow Strikethrough.
- Stunning Blow has been modified to allow Strikethrough.
With this change, Strikethrough should work on most attacks that aren't already AOE. (AOE attacks will act as they currently do, which in most cases should be better than overriding that for Strikethrough). One notable exception is Falconry attacks, which will not Strikethrough because multiple clone birds, while hilarious, aren't something we're aiming for. We'll have ears out on Lamannia for any attacks we've missed, as well as how the balance looks in this environment.
Divine Might & Trance Balance:
- All instances of Divine Might (Cleric, Fvs, and Paladin) are now: "Battle Trance: You gain an Insight bonus to Attack, Damage, and the DC of tactical feats equal to 1/2 of your Charisma modifier for 30/60/120 seconds."
- War Soul's Divine Will is now: "Battle Trance: You gain an Insight bonus to Attack, Damage, and the DC of tactical feats equal to 1/2 of your Wisdom modifier for 30/60/120 seconds."
- Divine Might, Divine Will, Harper's Know the Angles, and Falconry's Deadly Instinct's Damage components now provide an actual Insight bonus to Damage (as their tooltips claim they do), meaning:
- They all provide Damage to both Melee and Ranged attacks
- They do not stack with other Insight bonuses to Damage.
- The ones that provide Attack do not stack with other Insight bonuses to Attack.
- War Soul's Divine Presence is now redundant (doing exactly what the new Divine Might does), so it has been removed.
For most builds using Divine Might, this change comes out to the same Attack and Damage numbers. For Two Handed Weapons, it comes out somewhat lower but should be compensated for in the above Two Handed changes. (If it isn't offsetting that well enough, we can make further changes before U45 goes Live). One concern expressed by players who have already seen the above THF changes was that the existing Divine Might would become nearly mandatory on THF builds, including Barbarians/Fighters/etc, since the bonus to Strength would be amplified considerably further than it used to. We wanted to ensure that this wouldn't cause anyone to lose Attack, so we've added that to Divine Might and Divine Will. This makes those slightly stronger than Know the Angles and Deadly Instincts in those respects, but we are alright with the class-based versions granting Attack while the Universal-tree-based Trances do not. This should be a buff for many characters using alternate to-hit and to-damage stats, as well as to Divines who use skills that scale with Tactical Feats (Sunder, Trip, etc, which now work with Strikethrough as above).
We don't only build for the builds that exist.
We don't only build for the builds that are good right now.
The fact that some changes are necessary is not diminished by the fact that other necessary changes have not happened yet.
So basically now we itemize Insightful Strength (or whatever damage stat) instead? And it works for non-Str-based builds?
I honestly thing this is a pretty cool set, if Preview 2 goes live I'd probably quite enjoy it.
Smiting three people at once sounds awesome
Was the list given a full list, or just a few demo items?
- Will non-listed stuff like Barbarian's Ear Smash or FotW's Boulder's Might hit all enemies?
- Will EK's Arcane Siphon allow you to get +60 or +90 USP if you multi-hit with it?
- Will Warpriest/War Soul's Smite Foe work with it, and if so will Ameliorating Strike be able to proc 2-3x?
Thanks!
Ear Smash should work with Strikethrough.
Boulder's Might is a Cleave if I recall correctly, and won't work with Strikethrough.
Arcane Siphon itself should Strikethrough, but even if it gave you multiple copies of the buff, they're all Competence bonuses and won't stack with themselves.
Smite Foe should Strikethrough, but I think there's an internal cooldown on Ameliorating Strike.
We don't only build for the builds that exist.
We don't only build for the builds that are good right now.
The fact that some changes are necessary is not diminished by the fact that other necessary changes have not happened yet.
Insightful Deadly: If you're a character with Divine Might, and the bonus you would get from Divine Might exceeds the bonus you're getting from an item, then no! Slot something else there.
Insightful Strength: Given that this will no longer provide any bonus to Strength, equip away.
We don't only build for the builds that exist.
We don't only build for the builds that are good right now.
The fact that some changes are necessary is not diminished by the fact that other necessary changes have not happened yet.
With stunning blow and trip does this mean you would stun or trip 2 or 3 things at once? That woukd make twf really left behind
Khyber IN BAD COMPANY Longand Drunkmage Sexyheals Fullforce
Just to be clear, the bonuses from PDK Knights Training will continue to stack with Divine Might's new iteration, right?
This is going to be great for STR based THF since STR is generally the most buffable stat. And that seems as it should be - barbs rampaging with giant 2 hand weapons, smashing everything in the face.
I kinda wonder if this will create a niche build for Sunblades - now you can Swashbuckle with a Bastard sword, doing strikethrough and getting 3x stat damage instead of 1.5x? You lose 30% attack speed, but it should still be a net increase. No endgame Sunblade though, Celestia is tops.
In a broader sense, I worry that hand-and-a-half THF may displace SWF when you're not locked into a specific weapon type. Or if that's necessarily a worry or not; Dwarven Daxe EK PM Wizard? 3x INT to dmg, KTA, and strikethrough double-tapping Spellsword damage?
FvS Inqui just got a HUUUUGE boost now that Divine Might/Will works with ranged!
Last edited by droid327; 01-24-2020 at 12:49 PM.
Very cool changes. The triple ability MOD to damage from GTHF in particular sounds like it has potential - keen to test on Lammania as soon as it's up. That this works with Sap is kind of awesome!
Will Strikethrough work on instakills? Specifically:
- Quivering palm (with a THF weapon such as quarterstaff or something weirder if you go 15 Monk / T5 Kensai
- Executioner's Strike from Shadowdancer
- Assassinate(?). Assassinate's full-weird already with the two attacks with a delay between, but I would love to see some Acrobat rogues blackjacking 3 mobs simultaneously with a q-staff.
- Void Strike from Tier 5 Henshin
Khyber: Aggrim (Completionist!)
In Von 3 the breakables in the Troll Ambassador optional room are slow to get to and unnecessary for ransack.
Blind insta-kills floating eye balls.
Khyber: Aggrim (Completionist!)
In Von 3 the breakables in the Troll Ambassador optional room are slow to get to and unnecessary for ransack.
Blind insta-kills floating eye balls.
Cool. Strike through is still way too low if you want it to be an aoe style but at least now it's not a dps loss on single targets vs gbs. Strike through should start at 50% and go up 50% per feat and get rid of the silly cap (unless you plan on capping sorcs too?). I should not need to wait until legendary to hit 2 targets consistently. Also the ap costs for strike through in trees is insanely too high for the benefit provided. 3 ap for 5 st is just insulting. 1 for 5 feels better. Are you going to buff cleaves into actual usefulness? They need to scale with speed and doublestrike and work with adrenaline.
XxMazexX the Rogue SneakATank.Maze's SneakATank Assassin
Definite upward improvements,
thanks Steel.
I was going to suggest 2HF get an optional feat chain in lieu of the Cleave chain where it's a vertical chop down/ up/ double single target (Increased single target damage on par with cleave bonuses +1) but in light of the V2 update no one would play 2WF anymore. I'm kind of excited about playing the Bladeforged Iconic I just bought recently, now.
Someone asked about the need to sometimes avoid AOE type attacks (Which Strike Through could definitely muck up.) when dealing with specific quests and challenges (i.e. Vengeance Reapers, Faithful Departed) or where it could break a quest optional. Not sure of a method for that, though, without a toggle.
Last edited by Jerevth; 01-24-2020 at 01:11 PM.
In all posts: Assume I'm just providing a personal opinion rather than trying to speak for everyone.
*All posts should be taken as humorously intended and if you are struggling to decide if I insulted you; I didn't.
This is the piece that concerns me.
Allowing strikethrough to work with single target cc abilities is an incredibly strong buff, and allowing thf builds to keep entire packs of mobs permanently cc'd by rotating through some combination of dire charge/stunning blow/trip/ear smash along with their increased ability to deal aoe damage is too much.
Tactics dcs can be gotten incredibly high, and unlike playing a dc caster investing in tactics comes with virtually no dps tradeoff and is not subject to champion immunity, a non-infinite amount of spell points, or spell resistance. Please consider lowering the amount of aoe cc available to thf before this goes live.
Cap, Ascendance, Cannith
Capricorpus / Capiorcorpus
Caster cc is vastly superior still. It affects every mob in its aoe, at range. 2hf without any enhancement boosts(and those enhancements are extremely expensive for what they provide, absurdly so) hits only 2 targets at melee range with higher CD and gearing a melee is much more intensive in the current day than a caster. Melee cc is subject to the same immunity that caster cc is, always has a spell pen check (called to hit) and they dont get to safely sit at range to do it. Sorry but you are wrong.
this is certainly a step in the right direction, especially for leveling builds
obviously getting single-target squared away first is more of a priority, but i'm still concerned about the general AoE-ness of THF. going from hitting everyone for low damage to hitting two for good damage (and only a guaranteed two with Perfect THF!) even if it matches the overall damage output feels less AoE-y, and if new Cleaves are just treading water with old Cleaves (which they should if new single-target is with old) that's not the answer either
what if the [W] of Cleaves scaled with THF feats? so in the same way THF gives 2x STR, it could make basic Cleave do 2[W], ITHF 2.5[W], GTHF 3[W], and Great Cleave could go 4 5 6[W] in the same way. it shouldn't matter much for single target DPS but multiplied out over a crowd i think would be really palpable
or(/and?) what if the THF feat line included an active Cleave-like ability that got better with each feat? 1[W] for THF, 1.5 for ITHF, 2 for GTHF, and to keep the feats relevant it could have a 12s cooldown
strikethrough is hard capped at 3 targets though, and the highest stable strikethrough THF build can get (without some really weird splashes) is only 125% (i.e. 2 targets and once in every four swings one 3rd)
that also requires a barbarian build running in fury of the wild (or making some seriously poor twist choices), so we're not talking fighter LD level DCs
What about Improved Feint? It is a single-target special attack. Was it merely omitted or is there a reason it does not allow strikethrough, and if so why? So far all I am seeing are disadvantages for dex based thief-acrobats. The change to the TA capstone is a big hit to dex based TA's. It largely removes our ability to hit two targets simultaneously, an ability that is currently situational, and replaces it with only a 55% chance to strikethrough after tumbling (20 base + 10 Improved Second Strikes + 25 Followthrough). The changes to THF ability score modifier will only push dex based TA's further behind. Is there any way we could get some strikethrough added to the higher cores that only applies if one does not have the THF feats?