U45 Preview 2: Alchemist Vile Chemist Tree

[Quikster]

Bump for at least hope of a “seen by a dev” on the many, many thrown attack speed bonuses not working. Since Alchemists are supposed to be good at thrown weapons.

I played with it some. Seemed to have potential. While I didn’t test like you did, several times it felt like I was attacking, but no attack was registering. I throw a dagger, no sound, no number, nothing. Happened in a variety of places including quests

[Paladin_of_Power]

I played with it some. Seemed to have potential. While I didn’t test like you did, several times it felt like I was attacking, but no attack was registering. I throw a dagger, no sound, no number, nothing. Happened in a variety of places including quests

I saw that exact same thing happen to me when throwing darts. didn't bring any throwing daggers. Hope we can Make Simple Weapon Throwing Great Sometime.

[Carpone]

Male Morninglord 18 Alch/1 Barb/1 Warlock with 204 PRR in no reaction. I activate Orchidium Reaction: My PRR temporarily increases to 338 for 12 seconds. My PRR then drops to 256 after the short term reaction buff wears off, which is a delta of 82 (this is expected: 10 + [Alch level * 4]). So far, so good.

What doesn't add up: Why there's only a 52 PRR increase from the starting 204 PRR. Here's why:

PRR:
05 Vile Chemist core 2
05 Vile Chemist core 3
05 Vile Chemist core 5
08 Vile Chemist Unbreakable Ambition
36 Orchidium Reaction (long term: Alch level 18 * 2)
--
59 PRR in Orchidium

Am I factoring something incorrectly in this calculation, or is 7 PRR mysteriously vanishing?

Note: It's not clear if Vile Chemist core 4 should also be providing an additional 11 PRR when in Orchidium Reaction since my BAB increases from 19 to 30 while wearing light armor.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Barbarian Half Orc level 20
BAB +20
All feats chosen as Shield Mastery/Tower Shield proficiency/etc so that it won't have an effect on thrown attack speed.
Thrown attack speed listed under "+" as 0.
Zero AP spent. Shiradi destiny chosen but 0 XP earned in that destiny.


52 daggers thrown in 60 seconds.
repeated test 50 daggers thrown in 60 seconds.
repeated again 53 daggers thrown in 60 seconds.


took Maximum Epic XP to pick up all of the cores in Shiradi, but did not level above 20. Did not spend any Shriadi AP.
51 daggers thrown in 60 seconds. (just did this to make sure there were no surprise hidden bonuses)


Spent AP on active abilities that I will not use in Shriadi plus Whirling Wrists. Whirling wrists is the only attack speed change active. Still level 20. I now have 6% Doubleshot because of Whirling Wrists.
Thrown Attack Speed "+" now listed as 60%
66 daggers thrown in 60 seconds.
63 daggers thrown in 60 seconds.


That's not even close to a 60% increase in thrown attack speed, but I guess there's "reload" time to include? Time to go visit fred and see what Quick Draw does here.
Fred erased Improved Shield whatever and added Quick Draw.
Thrown Attack Speed "+" now listed as 81% with Quick Draw plus Whirling Wrists.
71 daggers thrown in 60 seconds.
second attempt: 62 daggers thrown in 60 seconds. What the heck? I'm hitting Start on my timer and starting my autoattack at the same time. I'm stopping right as I hit 0 seconds left on the timer. Why is there SO MUCH variation?
Third attempt: 67 daggers in 60 seconds. During this run, I had a few double daggers from the Doubleshot, but I also saw three consecutive "draw dagger/throw dagger" animations without seeing my in-hand inventory number drop. That's three full attack cycles where no dagger got thrown at all.




Reset my Shiradi AP so I now have Quick Draw, but no Whirling Wrists:
51 daggers thrown in 50 seconds. That's showing ZERO improvement over level 20 without the Quick Draw feat. That "+" Thrown Attack speed number of 21% I have listed from Quick Draw is not having any actual in-game effect on my actual thrown attack speed.




I advanced to level 30 and took all spellcasting feats plus the Scion of Shadowfell so that they would have no effect on my thrown attack speed. After doing this test, I'm going to have Fred swap one of those spellcasting feat for Blinding Speed.
Currently BAB +25, doubleshot 0%
20 Barbarian Half Orc/10 Epic
Quick Draw is my only relevant feat for throwing weapons.
21% Thrown Attack Speed bonus listed under "+"
52 daggers in 60 seconds.
repeated test 58 daggers in 60 seconds. I'll mention again that I have 0 doublehot. Why is this large variation in number of daggers thrown in 1 minute happening?
one more try! 55 daggers thrown in 60 seconds


So it looks like going from BAB +20 to BAB +25 does have some effect, but it's hard to measure when there are randomly not-thrown daggers happening.


Next test for this session: Blinding Speed.
Still BAB +25, doubleshot 0%
Quick Draw and Blinding Speed should both be relevant to thrown attacks. "+" Thrown Attacks speed still only listed as 21% (from Quick Draw), but my combat log showed "(Effects): ---Enhancement modifier to Ranged Attack Speed: +22%" when Fred gave me the Blinding Speed feat. Strangely, this is not shown under the Ranged Attack Speed Bonus under "+".
first test: 55 daggers in 60 seconds.
second attempt: 60 daggers in 60 seconds
Third attempt: 65 daggers in 60 seconds.
fourth attempt: 55 daggers in 60 seconds.


So is Blinding Speed having an effect on my thrown attack speed? I honestly have NO IDEA! It doesn't have any noticable effect on the speed of the animation (although that's very hard to measure just from watching it).


Final test: Blinding Speed + Quick Draw + Whirling Wrists.
Thrown Attack Speed Bonus under "+" shown as 81%.
Bow Attack Speed Bonus, Non-Repeating Crossbow Attack Speed Bonus, Repeating Crossbow Attack Speed Bonus all displaying as 0% even though Blinding Speed should at least be having an effect on those numbers even if it somehow doesn't have an effect on Thrown Attack Speed Bonus.
I turned on Epic Defensive Fighting to remove the 6% doubleshot that comes from Whirling Wrists.
First test: 73 daggers in 60 seconds.
Again - a noticable difference, but not even close to 60%
Seconds test: 70 daggers in 60 seconds.
third test - 66 daggers
fourth test: 62 daggers (I saw SO MANY failed throws on this run)
fifth test: 68 daggers
final test for this session: 69 daggers.




Things I observed during this testing:


--Those failed throws weren't just misses. When the dagger inventory counted down, I saw hits or misses in the combat log . When I saw a dagger draw/throw animation where the inventory in my hand did not count down, no attack showed up in my combat log.


--Quick Draw appears to have zero effect on actual thrown attack speed. The 21% thrown attack speed bonus is not valid at all.


--Blinding Speed should have an effect on how fast you throw your weapons. It is not having any effect at all that I can see and it is not displaying anything in the "+" screen.


--Whirling Wrists does have a beneficial effect on your thrown attack speed, but it isn't even close to 60%.


--BAB does have a beneficial effect on your thrown attack speed.


--SO MANY BUGS WITH THROWN WEAPONS! AAARRGHHHHH!

[HungarianRhapsody]

Just tried throwing daggers on my Sorc 20/Epic 7 BAB +14 on the live server (Argonessen) for fun to see how different it is.
2% Ship buff doubleshot.
I have the Quick Draw feat from Eldritch Knight core
63 daggers in 60 seconds. No Haste active. I do have a Quiver of Alacrity equipped. No idea if that's actually doing anything for me.
second run 62 daggers in 60 seconds.
third run after casting Haste - 62 daggers in 60 seconds.

Significantly less variation here and confirmation that Haste does nothing for Thrown Weapon attack speed.

I did not see nearly as much "failed throw" problems on the Live server. There was an issue where the attack animation and the actual attack effects seemed a little out of synch - like a bus with windshield wipers that run at two slightly different speeds. The inventory countdown and the combat log were not just slightly delayed compared to the animation. They were actually a little slower. So that I was getting slightly more attack animations than actual attacks.

[Carpone]

With 450 doubleshot, never saw a 6th dagger attack when it should have been easily observable. The most number of throwing daggers observed in a single attack is five.

200 standing doubleshot
100 Multitude of Missiles
100 Whirling Blades
050 Zeal of the Righteous
--
450 doubleshot

So what gives? If MoM and WB apply bonuses to the same "channel", please update the descriptions to make that clear.

[Carpone]

Just tried throwing daggers on my Sorc 20/Epic 7 BAB +14 on the live server (Argonessen) for fun to see how different it is.
2% Ship buff doubleshot.

You can enable Epic Defense Fighting to reduce doubleshot to 0 for rate of fire testing.

[Quikster]

You can enable Epic Defense Fighting to reduce doubleshot to 0 for rate of fire testing.

Nice catch.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Lots of dev attention in some other threads. I fully understand that the many big balance changes are important and need more attention than bugs that have existed for a long time, but since a big part of this new class is throwing weapons, could a dev please at least poke their head in here to say, "Yeah, I read this and we're going to look at fixing these" or "Yeah, I read this and we're not going to fix any of these for game balance reasons" or at least "read by a dev"?

It would be really nice to have a list of what does/doesn't actually increase thrown weapons attack speed since there are so many things that don't seem to have an actual effect on it that should (based on the ability's description) and I'd hate to see new Alchemists spending feats and AP and gear slots on effects that don't actually do anything.

[Quikster]

Lots of dev attention in some other threads. I fully understand that the many big balance changes are important and need more attention than bugs that have existed for a long time, but since a big part of this new class is throwing weapons, could a dev please at least poke their head in here to say, "Yeah, I read this and we're going to look at fixing these" or "Yeah, I read this and we're not going to fix any of these for game balance reasons" or at least "read by a dev"?

It would be really nice to have a list of what does/doesn't actually increase thrown weapons attack speed since there are so many things that don't seem to have an actual effect on it that should (based on the ability's description) and I'd hate to see new Alchemists spending feats and AP and gear slots on effects that don't actually do anything.

...seriously...

[capsela]

...seriously...

Where is, repeat, where is Task Force Thirty Four? The world wonders.

[Alled78]

Male Morninglord 18 Alch/1 Barb/1 Warlock with 204 PRR in no reaction. I activate Orchidium Reaction: My PRR temporarily increases to 338 for 12 seconds. My PRR then drops to 256 after the short term reaction buff wears off, which is a delta of 82 (this is expected: 10 + [Alch level * 4]). So far, so good.

What doesn't add up: Why there's only a 52 PRR increase from the starting 204 PRR. Here's why:

PRR:
05 Vile Chemist core 2
05 Vile Chemist core 3
05 Vile Chemist core 5
08 Vile Chemist Unbreakable Ambition
36 Orchidium Reaction (long term: Alch level 18 * 2)
--
59 PRR in Orchidium

Am I factoring something incorrectly in this calculation, or is 7 PRR mysteriously vanishing?

Note: It's not clear if Vile Chemist core 4 should also be providing an additional 11 PRR when in Orchidium Reaction since my BAB increases from 19 to 30 while wearing light armor.

Seems to me the new class will be a lag feast with all stat changing every spell casted.
It is like change items

[Carpone]

Seems to me the new class will be a lag feast with all stat changing every spell casted.
It is like change items

I wasn't changing reactions in combat as a Vile Chemist, as I generally dont heal until out of combat. For melee, I could see triggering the 12sec Orchidium buff to gain up to 90 PRR before Dire Charging.

[mr420247]

I'm very curious after seeing the one lock pic-video

Any way to auto proc that prr boost with warlock aura or put it in a combo