U45 Preview 1: Balance Changes Main Thread

[Cocomajobo]

Disclaimer

Everything seen on the preview server, Lamannia, is not final and is subject to change or removal before live release.

Hello, all! Update 45 is expected to contain a large amount of changes to systems balance in DDO. These are being done in preparation for Hardcore Season 2. Going forward we the plan is to pool most major balance changes into updates/patches that arrive before the start of new Hardcore seasons in order to make the new season feel distinct and different from previous seasons. For Hardcore season 2 this primarily takes the form of changes to Ranged Combat, Two Handed Fighting Melee Combat, and a Knight of the Chalice revamp. There are, however, a multitude of other balance changes in this preview build which weren't large enough for their own thread but were too large in total to place in the main thread. Below are a variety of different changes in this preview. Some of these things are somewhat interconnected to other balance changes and as such, it will make the feedback process the most productive that it can be to review all of the balance changes before putting forth thoughts and suggestions on individual pieces.

Individual Changes

• Aasimar's Healing Hands is now capped at 20 character levels.
• Scion of the Ethereal Plane now adds 1.5 Sneak Attack Damage per rank of Hide you have, instead of 1 for every 3 points of your total Hide score.
• Dragon Breath in Draconic Incarnation now has a 60 second cooldown
• Draconic Fury in Draconic Incarnation now has a 90 second cooldown
• Sunder is now: Tactical Melee Attack: Using this attack, you may reduce the target's Armor Class by 10% and Fortification by 25% for 6 seconds. Some creatures may be immune to the sunder effect. A successful Fortitude save negates this effect. (DC 10 + STR Mod + Sunder Bonuses). Cooldown: 10 seconds.
• Improved Sunder is now: Tactical Melee Attack: Using this attack, you may reduce the target's Armor Class by 10% and Fortification by 25% for 12 seconds. Some creatures may be immune to the sunder effect. (DC 10 + STR Mod + Sunder Bonuses). Regardless of saving throw result, enemies will suffer the Trauma effect, which is a -3 penalty to Fortitude saving throws. Stacks 5 times. Lasts 24 seconds. Cooldown: 10 seconds. This feat replaces your Sunder feat.
• Falconry: Diving Attack's cooldown has been reduced to 12 seconds from 20 seconds.
• Falconry: Coordinated Strike's cooldown has been reduced to 25 seconds from 60 seconds

Known Issues

• N/A

[Cocomajobo]

As part of U45 we're reshuffling where percentage HP can be found, as well as cleaning up and polishing the Tier 5s and late cores of Stalwart and Sacred Defender. We hope these changes open up a lot of new Tank builds and ease some of the pressure to multiclass for dedicated Tank players.

Stalwart Defense

• Stand Fast (Core 12): Instead of an Action Boost that ends Fear and Knockdown, this is now Fear and Knockdown immunity passively
• Defensive Sweep (Core 18): No longer an active. Now passively adds +15% Exceptional bonus to Armor Class , +50% threat, and +25 PRR.
• Against All Odds (Fills empty T5 Slot): +5 AC, taking damage adds a stacking +2 AC, stacks 10 times
• Reprisal: replaced with: The Thick of Battle (Tier 5): Striking enemies adds +10% Melee Threat. Max 10 stacks, 10 second timer, all stacks fade when timer runs out.

Sacred Defender

• Glorious Stand (Core 18): No longer an active. Now passively adds +10% Sacred Bonus to Max HP, +25 Healing Amp, +3 Lay on Hands charges
• Eternal Defender (Core 20): 250 Unconsciousness Range instead of 40.
• Faith Shield (Fills empty T5 Slot): +10% Armor Class (same channel as EK), you are considered Shielded versus magic missiles, and have +12 SR.
• Reprisal: replaced with: Divine Revelation (Tier 5): Improves your Aura of Courage. +4 Additional SR, +3 additional AC, +2 Additional Saves. You personally also gain +100 HP.

Percentage HP

• Stalwart and Sacred Defender: remain at 20% Competence
• Nature's Protector: remains at 25% Competence
• Unyielding Sentinel: remains at 20% Insightful
• Aasimar stays typed as Sacred, goes to 5% down from 10%
• Bladeforged gains 5% Quality in a new Tier 4 (2 AP) in their Racial Tree.
• Paladin 18th core gains 10% Sacred HP (this is also in the above notes for clarity)
• Enlightened Spirit level 20 capstone stays at 20% Sacred
• Occult Slayer t5 Bond of Destruction gains 10% Quality
• Renegade Mastermaker goes to 10% Quality down from 20% racial
• Upgraded Zombie in t5 Palemaster goes to 10% Profane
• Shintao t5 gains 10% Quality in meditation of war earth stance (up from 3% untyped)
• Falconry t3 goes to 5% Quality (already 5% just adds a channel)
• Dwarf goes from 4% stacking to 5% Quality
• Warpriest core 4 (level 12) gets 10% Quality

Thoughts? First impressions? Complaints about the removal of Reprisal? We're very much hoping that these changes make building a tank more of an exciting experience, and look forward to seeing what you all can come up with!

Known Issues

• N/A

[Cocomajobo]

Our changes focus on two major areas: all-seeing/tremor sense visibility and range, and movement speed while sneaking.

Stealth Movement Speed

• All Sneak Speed enhancements are now on the Enhancement channel, and therefore will not stack. We've also fixed the Antirequisite flags on these abilities to more reliably prevent players from taking more than one.
• Shadow Training II in Shadowdancer now gives a 150% Enhancement bonus to Stealth Movement Speed instead of setting you to the normal base movement.

Stealth Mechanics

• Monster's sight detection of stealthed players has been decreased by 28% (was 25 meters, now 18) if their Stealth score exceeds the monster's spot skill. This includes bosses and monsters that can see normally through stealth (All-Seeing).
• When the player is Stealthed, they now see a visual purple eye VFX over any monster that pierces Stealth (All-Seeing and All-Hearing/Tremorsense).
• Hearing range on "All-Hearing" monsters (aka monsters with Tremorsense) has been reduced by 10% (from 20 meters down to 18).

Known Issues

• N/A

[Cocomajobo]

As part of the pass of balance changes for Hardcore Season 2 we are giving Melee builds the ability to quickly close the gap with enemies. We're doing this in the form of opening up the availability of "Charge" attacks that allow melee characters to quickly get into melee range with enemies and improving the reliability and feel of charge attacks across the board.

Changes

• The Feat "Spring Attack" has been redesigned to be an active charge attack that causes you to "Leap forward striking a target enemy and all those around them. Requires a visible target and that you are holding a melee weapon."
• As part of the Knight of the Chalice revamp that enhancement tree now has an active charge attack ability in tier 3 called "Lead the Charge"
• All "targeted" charge abilities (the fast movement attacks that require you to target a specific enemy to use) will now get you to the enemy faster than previously.
• All "targeted" charge abilities now handle turning more gracefully.
• All "targeted" charge abilities now have had their animation smoothed out (the strange hitch when charging should now be gone).
• All "targeted" charge abilities will more easily handle changes in elevation (charging at enemies up ramps and the like).

Known Issues

• N/A

[SirValentine]

As part of U45 we're reshuffling where percentage HP can be found, as well as cleaning up and polishing the Tier 5s and late cores of Stalwart and Sacred Defender.
...
Percentage HP

• Stalwart and Sacred Defender: remain at 20% Competence

You didn't mention Epic Defensive Fighting. Is Fighter Tier 5 %HP still inferior to and redundant with an auto-granted-to-everyone feat?

[Assassination]

Love "Spring Attack" ! Very impressed with changes!

[Lynnabel]

You didn't mention Epic Defensive Fighting. Is Fighter Tier 5 %HP still inferior to and redundant with an auto-granted-to-everyone feat?

EDF has significant, playstyle warping tradeoffs that 3 levels of Fighter do not.

[SpartanKiller13]

With slight reformatting/sorting by type.

Percentage HP:

• Nature's Protector: 25% Competence
• Stalwart/Sacred Defender: 20% Competence
• Unyielding Sentinel: 20% Insightful
• Enlightened Spirit capstone: 20% Sacred
• Paladin Core 5: 10% Sacred HP
• Aasimar: 5% Sacred, down from 10%
• Occult Slayer T5: 10% Quality
• Renegade Mastermaker: 10% Quality down from 20% racial
• Shintao T5: 10% Quality in meditation of war earth stance (up from 3% untyped)
• Warpriest Core 4: 10% Quality
• Bladeforged: 5% Quality in a new Tier 4 (2 AP) in their Racial Tree.
• Falconry T3: 5% Quality
• Dwarf: 5% Quality
• Pale Master T5: 10% Profane upgraded Zombie form

Thoughts? First impressions? Complaints about the removal of Reprisal? We're very much hoping that these changes make building a tank more of an exciting experience, and look forward to seeing what you all can come up with!

Will EDF remain a Competence bonus? If it doesn't, there's options; if it does, AFAIK here's the new tier list for %HP for Epic content:

Updated Tier List:

• PM T5, Warpriest Core 4: 65% bonus HP (EDF, US, Warpriest) - requires Wizard 5 and T5, Cleric 12
• Artificer T5: 60% bonus HP (EDF, US, Aasimar) - requires Artificer 5 & T5
• Barbarian T5: 60% bonus HP (EDF, US, Aasimar) - requires Barbarian 5 & T5
• Monk T5: 60% bonus HP (EDF, US, Aasimar) - requires Monk 5 & T5
• Paladin Core 5: 60% bonus HP (EDF, US, Falconry/BF/Dwarf)
• Warpriest Core 4: 60% bonus HP (EDF, US, Aasimar) - requires Cleric 12
• Other: 55% bonus HP (EDF, US, Aasimar, Falconry)

Why is Wizard the top-tier option? Why does Monk get more %HP than Fighter after level 20?

My first suggestion is to change EDF's bonus type; if not that, my next is to make Stalwart/Sacred defender stances split bonus types, so they're still useful with EDF (like 10% Competence, 10% Racial).

As part of the pass of balance changes for Hardcore Season 2 we are giving Melee builds the ability to quickly close the gap with enemies. We're doing this in the form of opening up the availability of "Charge" attacks that allow melee characters to quickly get into melee range with enemies and improving the reliability and feel of charge attacks across the board.

Very cool, I'm looking forward to this! For enemy-targeted abilities, can you set them to not go on cooldown if the enemy dies immediately after activation (and the dash doesn't go anywhere)? It's extremely frustrating to lose your gap-closer because you picked the same target as an instakiller in your party.

Thanks for your hard work!

EDF has significant, playstyle warping tradeoffs that 3 levels of Fighter do not.

With respect, for most tanks it doesn't have a huge impact. It mostly only affects hybrid tanks and throwing rezzes (and you can still kite past a dead player most times).

[SirValentine]

EDF has significant, playstyle warping tradeoffs that 3 levels of Fighter do not.

Does that mean yes? It was a yes/no question, asked because EDF was omitted from the list of things that grant +%HP.

Also is Tier 5 now going to be available with only 3 levels?

[Kinerd]

very excited for spring attack

[lumpilein1973]

[QUOTE=Cocomajobo;6281675]As part of U45 we're reshuffling where percentage HP can be found, as well as cleaning up and polishing the Tier 5s and late cores of Stalwart and Sacred Defender. We hope these changes open up a lot of new Tank builds and ease some of the pressure to multiclass for dedicated Tank players.

[*]Defensive Sweep (Core 18): No longer an active. Now passively adds +15% Exceptional bonus to Armor Class , +50% threat, and +25 PRR.[*]Against All Odds (Fills empty T5 Slot): +5 AC, taking damage adds a stacking +2 AC, stacks 10 times[*]Reprisal: replaced with: The Thick of Battle (Tier 5): Striking enemies adds +10% Melee Threat. Max 10 stacks, 10 second timer, all stacks fade when timer runs out.[/LIST]

Sacred Defender

• Glorious Stand (Core 18): No longer an active. Now passively adds +10% Sacred Bonus to Max HP, +25 Healing Amp, +3 Lay on Hands charges
• Eternal Defender (Core 20): 250 Unconsciousness Range instead of 40.
• Faith Shield (Fills empty T5 Slot): +10% Armor Class (same channel as EK), you are considered Shielded versus magic missiles, and have +12 SR.
• Reprisal: replaced with: Divine Revelation (Tier 5): Improves your Aura of Courage. +4 Additional SR, +3 additional AC, +2 Additional Saves. You personally also gain +100 HP.

[[*]Aasimar stays typed as Sacred, goes to 5% down from 10%[*]Bladeforged gains 5% Quality in a new Tier 4 (2 AP) in their Racial Tree.[*]Paladin 18th core gains 10% Sacred HP (this is also in the above notes for clarity)[*]Renegade Mastermaker goes to 10% Quality down from 20% racial


Thoughts? First impressions? Complaints about the removal of Reprisal? We're very much hoping that these changes make building a tank more of an exciting experience, and look forward to seeing what you all can come up with!


Hi, and thank you for the detailed heads up. Soooo, making building a tank a more exciting experience means rendering the heavy investment in the Aasimar racial tree (now that we have gone through racial past lives to have the points to spend in it) 50% less valuable; that is not more exciting, but more restrictive! Decreasing the racial HP bonus in Renegade Mastermaker to 10% and changing the type will result in fewer, if any, players, using that tree (with 5 levels of Artificer) for tank builds. Is "fewer build options" now synonymous with "exciting experience"? None of these bonuses were OP or game breaking, but allowed for some really interesting build options, which are now being reduced due to the 'invitation' to build around 18 levels of Fighter or Paladin. Seems like we are being forced to gravitate to 18 Fighter or Paladin builds to take advantage of newly introduced or increased bonuses.
Defensive sweep: should add either MRR (which is MUCH harder to come by) or PRR and MRR.
Thank you for removing Reprisal; +3 to damage for a Tier 5 was...useless.
Against all odds: not very useful in higher difficulties. Simply put: a tank in r10 that get hits often enough for the ac bonus to matter will be dead before the stacks are reached. What is the expiration timer? How many maximum procs/second?

[Quikster]

Disclaimer [INDENT][I]
Individual Changes

• Scion of the Ethereal Plane now adds 1.5 Sneak Attack Damage per rank of Hide you have, instead of 1 for every 3 points of your total Hide score.
  

Known Issues

• N/A

Per rank of hide, as in upto 23?, so like 34.5?

[PsychoBlonde]

You didn't mention Epic Defensive Fighting. Is Fighter Tier 5 %HP still inferior to and redundant with an auto-granted-to-everyone feat?

Good question, and it ain't just Fighter that has this problem.

[janave]

EDF has significant, playstyle warping tradeoffs that 3 levels of Fighter do not.

The classes gaining most from EDF have significantly better things armored Fighters do not have, not just evasion . Dont like Aasimar losing 5% hitpoints boost, like barbarians getting some, dont like monks getting the same as barbs. Dwarf could get another 5% higher up.

[PsychoBlonde]

With respect, for most tanks it doesn't have a huge impact. It mostly only affects hybrid tanks and throwing rezzes (and you can still kite past a dead player most times).

For the vast majority of melee characters it has no impact. People simply turn it on and leave it on.

All that noise on the forums about "I can't throw healzzz!!!1!" is flat nonsense. Heck, it's hard enough to get legit healers to bother healing you. And this "complaint" could be fixed (in kind of a nasty "be careful what you ask for" way) by making it that instead of reducing your casting range and being super-annoying, if you cast a spell on someone else it simply *turns the toggle off*.

[SirValentine]

For the vast majority of melee characters it has no impact. People simply turn it on and leave it on.

All that noise on the forums about "I can't throw healzzz!!!1!" is flat nonsense.

My melees turn it on and leave it on, but it legit has the impact that I no longer routinely heal/rez/buff my teammates. That's not nonsense.

[PsychoBlonde]

I'd suggest moving the Druid temp HP ability from the caster tree to the tank tree, btw. Would make up for the VERY tight multi-classing restrictions on Druid. I like the paladin tank bonus HP, that helps make up for the tightness on Paladin and multi-classing.

[PsychoBlonde]

My melees turn it on and leave it on, but it legit has the impact that I no longer routinely heal/rez/buff my teammates. That's not nonsense.

If this was significant *problem*, you wouldn't turn it on and leave it on, because it'd be tactically NECESSARY that you do all that other stuff. It's not, so you elected to altogether quit doing the insignificant thing. It is not tactically NECESSARY for melees to heal/rez/buff their teammates, hence why they ALL turn the feat on and leave it on. The only reason people complain is because they don't like being REMINDED that the restriction exists when they forget, not because it's created a common tactical problem. Take away the restriction and simply make it turn the feat off and people will stop complaining about their imaginary issue and have a MUCH more realistic idea of how often they ACTUALLY run up against the restriction, to wit, almost never.

Another benefit of this method would be that they could then exempt specific spells or abilities from turning the feat off. My suggestion would be to exempt all epic abilities and the spells Heal, Mass Heal, Resurrection, True Resurrection, Regeneration, and Mass Regeneration. Those require some investment to access, which makes it a good tradeoff instead of a categorical annoyance.

[Vorachtin]

Disclaimer

Everything seen on the preview server, Lamannia, is not final and is subject to change or removal before live release.

Individual Changes

• Scion of the Ethereal Plane now adds 1.5 Sneak Attack Damage per rank of Hide you have, instead of 1 for every 3 points of your total Hide score.
  

This is a huge nerf, I don't think people will catch onto yet. Pay attention to wording, they are basing it off your RANK now instead of your MODIFIER. My assassin rogue is crying.

[SpartanKiller13]

For the vast majority of melee characters it has no impact. People simply turn it on and leave it on.

All that noise on the forums about "I can't throw healzzz!!!1!" is flat nonsense. Heck, it's hard enough to get legit healers to bother healing you. And this "complaint" could be fixed (in kind of a nasty "be careful what you ask for" way) by making it that instead of reducing your casting range and being super-annoying, if you cast a spell on someone else it simply *turns the toggle off*.

My melees turn it on and leave it on, but it legit has the impact that I no longer routinely heal/rez/buff my teammates. That's not nonsense.

Eh, I got really good at jump-casting near allies; I use rezzes, cocoons, and buffs just fine with EDF, just not quite as immediately as I do on a ranged toon.