U45 Preview 2: Balance: Main Thread

[majster67]

I. Epic Defensive Fightning.
For the first I wonder why its not support shield-based feat - I mean Shield Mastery, Impr. Shield Mastery... and where is a Greater Shield Mastery? You adding some new feats, some get changed, but where is that one? The more so there is Legendary Shield Mastery as enhancment in tier 2 US.

Secondly: the discription says - This feat is exclusive from the Enlarge Spell Metamagic toggle. But is not. Or, at least, not for tier 5 Fatesinger Enlarge feat. Took it once(as bard swashbuckler with SWF and some arcane) and seems no difference with or without it. Cannot Shout or buff or Heal a friend who standing 2steps farther then touch-range until i switch off EDF. So the more I do not want to wasting my exchange token, perfect siberys, lesser/epic reincarnation etc to check if it work with regular enarge meta-feat

Thirdly: no wonder you want to change it, its a pipe dream, but have to ask like always better to try then do nothing. Can you change that EDF will work normaly/will be exclusive for clickies, scrolls? Its really annoying when as fighter, pally or other melee char have to turn off it to raise a friend via scroll/clickies coz he running to me 9sec from his soul stone + long cast animation makes it simply scroll burner. But turning off make situation more dangerous and closer to wipe. Or just sometimes its not possible to get closer coz some traps, lava etc between me and friend while the caster is taking fire. Its usually very singular situiation, always easier to tell "turn off edf" utnil you find out in that case


II. Dark side of Strikethrough?
How about working it on mobs? All who use thf? Its only me who see that? If im correct melees they will have a harder time, not particularly easier. Now, if 3 melees beating boss, like... Orc in Cabal of One, which use greataxe. Middle player(in front of the boss) take full dmg + glanicing blow, side melees take only glancing blow. For exaplme orc hit 700/hit and 200/glancing blow. So side melees take only 200. After strikethough will come all 3 melees will take 700dmg coz, as I suppose, its a boss and he'll have more then 200% strikethrough. To be clear - just wanna illustrate a situation, do not seek out orc boss in Cabal hitting by 700 on any difficulty, its just example.

I Dont want criticize, I like the idea of strikethrough. Just trying to be more objective and see more widely. Regardless of strikethroug i think you combine too much. Will be much easier giving melees more power. All sets - Adeherent, sets from Sharn, Filigree and so on gives 5-10melee/ranged power and, in the corresponding sets, 20-50 spell power. But then you trying to make melees more powerful. It pointless. It won't hurt you when you puts more melee power to sets/feats. Melee will never have so much as sorcerers and other nukers-casters but it can help restore balance between each other. It sometimes looks like you trying invent a wheel instead of use that what you have.
This could be a part of https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-melee-dilemma but dont want go into details which are included there

Thanks for your consideration.
Best Regards

[HuneyMunster]

So these changes are mostly about starting to address complaints players have had with monsters that auto penetrate stealth. Reapers being a major case in point since they appear randomly, but also a jumble of random monsters who beat stealth for various reasons. (tremor sense, sense life, mind reading, whatever).

-T

Does Protection from Evil prevent Mind Reading? If not it seems it should as it seems like a mental compulsions that the target is compelled to give away their position. Is this also true for Sense Life? I know that floating does not prevent Tremor Sense so I'm doubting there is any way to avoid any of these.

[Xgya]

Does Protection from Evil prevent Mind Reading? If not it seems it should as it seems like a mental compulsions that the target is compelled to give away their position. Is this also true for Sense Life? I know that floating does not prevent Tremor Sense so I'm doubting there is any way to avoid any of these.

Mind reading isn't mind control. Protection from Evil only protects against direct attempts to control someone, like Charm Monster, or Dominate Monster.
Mindsight is them detecting you're in telepathic range and smart enough to understand their thoughts.

DDO's mechanics surrounding auto-detection are all very strange. At least now lore-wise it makes sense that Lifesensing creatures detect Palemasters - they no longer directly turn into an undead form, only cloak themselves in a spell that gives them some of their traits; they're still alive underneath.
As for whether it should detect Warforged, the rules aren't clear on that one, but it'd be an interesting topic.

As for stealth play, I'd like it if stealth classes could get something that lets them go entirely undetected for a few seconds, skills and proximity be damned, so long as they don't leave stealth. Very short duration - long enough to pass a single creature's detection range if you have all the possible stealth speed (alright, maybe shorter than that), or to close in and melee one without it bumping into you and ruining your Assassinate attempt, resetting after a few minutes or a percentage chance to regain it on kill (to allow people to chain Assassinates together, while disallowing them to stealth the entire dungeon without killing a single monster, which is something the devs seem to disapprove of)

[Scortius]

So these changes are mostly about starting to address complaints players have had with monsters that auto penetrate stealth. Reapers being a major case in point since they appear randomly, but also a jumble of random monsters who beat stealth for various reasons. (tremor sense, sense life, mind reading, whatever).

Making the player being able to perceived that a monster could see through his stealth wasn't terribly helpful if the monster was already aggro'ing the moment they saw it, so we added a little bit of grace on the ranging.

The hope is to encourage some amount of stealth scouting in group play in reaper, without getting the rogue killed. We don't expect it to change general stealth behavior for players who are sneaking through dungeons to complete them.

The stealth system is very complicated with both technical and design issues so these are quite deliberately... baby steps.

-T

Thanks, please keep going with these steps in the future. In the past I really enjoyed slow, precise, stealth play, but I've burned out on even trying with it anymore.

[Valerianus]

As part of the pass on balance changes coming in Update 45 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

about melee "closing the gap", would that be too much to have a new autogranted feat (e.g. like trip and sunder) that mimic a charge? just a plain single target regular attack, but with a charge animation. if it is too much, how about having it added as a bonus feat if you take a combat style feat?

i'm against moar stuff to click and hotbar bloat, but such a generalistic charge could be useful, given the prereq of spring attack and given that not every melee build has a charge and\or feats to spare (till dire charge).

[Dreppo]

So these changes are mostly about starting to address complaints players have had with monsters that auto penetrate stealth. Reapers being a major case in point since they appear randomly, but also a jumble of random monsters who beat stealth for various reasons. (tremor sense, sense life, mind reading, whatever).

Making the player being able to perceived that a monster could see through his stealth wasn't terribly helpful if the monster was already aggro'ing the moment they saw it, so we added a little bit of grace on the ranging.

The hope is to encourage some amount of stealth scouting in group play in reaper, without getting the rogue killed. We don't expect it to change general stealth behavior for players who are sneaking through dungeons to complete them.

The stealth system is very complicated with both technical and design issues so these are quite deliberately... baby steps.

-T

Torc, as another baby step, can you fix it so that we can enter stealth mode while underwater? Stealth already works underwater, but currently we can't enter stealth mode (we have to already be in stealth mode before entering the water). Same for ladders, you can be in stealth on ladders but you can't enter stealth while on a ladder.

[Xgya]

about melee "closing the gap", would that be too much to have a new autogranted feat (e.g. like trip and sunder) that mimic a charge? just a plain single target regular attack, but with a charge animation. if it is too much, how about having it added as a bonus feat if you take a combat style feat?

i'm against moar stuff to click and hotbar bloat, but such a generalistic charge could be useful, given the prereq of spring attack and given that not every melee build has a charge and\or feats to spare (till dire charge).

Dream world suggestion: melee stance feat that only triggers once every X seconds and while you have auto-attack on, charges towards the target you're trying to auto-attack if it's not within melee range but within charge range.

[axel15810]

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."

Would be nice if Warpriest Divine Might also got the option to use CHA or WIS, instead of just CHA.

[Gniewomir]

I. Epic Defensive Fightning.

One the one hand i agree it's a bit unfair that shield users are the only melees not able to use EDF. One the other hand - both most popular shield dps classes (fighter and paladin) got 20% hp stance. But i still think it's a bit unfair, they have to spend ap in defender trees and take enhancement while other melees (swf, twf, thf) can use free feat and get exactly the same type of bonus (competence). If im correct since edf was introduced there were voices that there's not much reason to take this enhancement, only if you're using a shield and still: it's free feat vs few action points.

II. Dark side of Strikethrough?

Yeah, would be nice to know if it'll affect mobs that use thf too.