Changes Based on Preview 2 Feedback

[capsela]

I guess you didn't read what he wrote? He said they underperform in melee....

Which has to do with their ridiculously low BAB, and lack of ability to take fighting feats based on that. Lack of fighting feats due to needing spellcasting feats worse for sorcs of course, but bad for wizards too. Melee wizards will be worse a spellcasting as a rule, there just aren't enough feats to go around.

[DRoark]

Post 20 Arti dog is best as a lever puller, or permanent HoT. 4d4*heal amp means you just stand still and regenerate to full HP. Even if you run dry on SP, it'll keep leaking heals.

True. If you're a toaster, and you have time between fights, it'll eventually heal you. )

[barecm]

Hey, all!

(Note: You will likely notice that these lists do not contain any further Ranged Style changes despite the large amount of feedback about the Archer's Focus/Improved Precise Shot dynamic that was available in preview 2. For the time being we are comfortable with where Ranged has landed. It is possible that we will revisit that in the future but we'd like to see how players adjust to the new dynamic before considering pulling back on the Archer's Focus movement restriction in the ways suggested in the Ranged thread.)

So... you are going to leave SoTR alacrity bonus as a non-stacking bonus that is already found on weapons that do not require a 3 feat investment?

[DRoark]

So... you are going to leave SoTR alacrity bonus as a non-stacking bonus that is already found on weapons that do not require a 3 feat investment?

They don't even know. They planned out ranged changes with a dartboard.

(Note: You will likely notice that these lists do not contain any further Ranged Style changes despite the large amount of feedback about the Archer's Focus/Improved Precise Shot dynamic
that was available in preview 2. For the time being we are comfortable with where Ranged has landed. It is possible that we will revisit that in the future but we'd like to see how players adjust
to the new dynamic before considering pulling back on the Archer's Focus movement restriction in the ways suggested in the Ranged thread.)

In the second part of that, all he did was mention Archers Focus movement, not the IPS hammer. I'm expecting mass-exodus of ranged, since it's a straight 20% whack we can't recover from.

But THEY are comfortable. Great.

[palladin9479]

Which has to do with their ridiculously low BAB, and lack of ability to take fighting feats based on that. Lack of fighting feats due to needing spellcasting feats worse for sorcs of course, but bad for wizards too. Melee wizards will be worse a spellcasting as a rule, there just aren't enough feats to go around.

Melee sorc is bad because of lack of feats, not so for Wizard. Wizard gets bonus feats at level 5,10,15 and 20.

https://ddowiki.com/page/Wizard_bonus_feats

You use those to take all your metamagic and spell focus feats which leave the regular feats open for melee stuff.

Melee wizard suffers from BAB only for feat qualification, requiring 11 BAB for the Tier III of a fighting style means Wizard won't see it until level 21. This means feat selection needs to be carefully planned ahead of time. Harper lets you use Int as damage and accuracy, insightful reflexes lets you use it as Dex, which results in Dex not being an important stat unless your doing TWF. SWF EK Wizard with an orb is pretty nice though super niche, lots of gear tetris involved and your spells all become point-blank range so you go for stuff like Mass Hold, Acid Rain or Mind fog instead of DLB, Fireball, Meteor Swarm.

[Ashlayna]

The 3-shots-per trigger isn't what it's cracked up to be, you miss out on what the other classes have to augment damage on a per-hit basis. The extra runearm
damage is negligible compared to scaling damage effects from AA or constant mechanic SA damage.

Repeaters are good at low levels, but the time you actually get IPS they're already behind the curve. Every rogue and ranger we've tested smoked it, once we hit 12 there was no contest.

The pet is boderline garbage, even with 3 druid lives, ship buff, both feats, and harper tree skill (+25 stats total), he's abysmal vs what you're actually fighting. He's basically a lever puller.

I'm not saying the ranged Artificer wasn't OK to use, I'm just saying it REALLY didn't need a damage reduction.

We've had vastly different experiences with Arti. I was zerging EE Phiarlan's Carnival, before there was a Reaper, on mine, at level, with only an Arti past life, that I wouldn't have gotten if it weren't for it bugging out and couldn't get explorers to pop. I keep at least one running for guild groups, or back when, SSS farming.

[DRoark]

We've had vastly different experiences with Arti. I was zerging EE Phiarlan's Carnival, before there was a Reaper, on mine, at level, with only an Arti past life, that I wouldn't have gotten if it weren't for it bugging out and couldn't get explorers to pop. I keep at least one running for guild groups, or back when, SSS farming.

I didn't say you couldn't run stuff, I'm just pointing out in comparison to other classes, it's pretty bad... and the nerf didn't make it sunshine and roses.

[capsela]

Melee sorc is bad because of lack of feats, not so for Wizard. Wizard gets bonus feats at level 5,10,15 and 20.

https://ddowiki.com/page/Wizard_bonus_feats

You use those to take all your metamagic and spell focus feats which leave the regular feats open for melee stuff.

So leveling a melee wizard straight up sucks because you are always behind the power curve. Even with 5 free metamagic feats you will have to give up spellpower/DCs somewhere for melee feats. Wizards are already behind the casting power curve with no free spellpower, caster levels like sorc, no blanket immunity reduction (except for undead, yippee). Melee ED's will kill your DC's endgame and it's just sad (thanks for making wizards stuck in magister, the most boring ED ever :P). Giving up all the casting power means you are stuck, you can't do both casting and melee well so you will do both badly.

[palladin9479]

So leveling a melee wizard straight up sucks because you are always behind the power curve. Even with 5 free metamagic feats you will have to give up spellpower/DCs somewhere for melee feats. Wizards are already behind the casting power curve with no free spellpower, caster levels like sorc, no blanket immunity reduction (except for undead, yippee). Melee ED's will kill your DC's endgame and it's just sad (thanks for making wizards stuck in magister, the most boring ED ever :P). Giving up all the casting power means you are stuck, you can't do both casting and melee well so you will do both badly.

Huh what ...

I have a 20 Wizard EK toon that's in epics and I do reaper level content on them all the time, they certainly aren't behind the curve. There is no feat issue, if anything you got too many feats. There are no heroic "spell power" feats, so I have no idea what your talking about there. What it really boils down to is your concentrating on Enchantment and maybe Necromancy if someone is going Pale Master as their secondary tree. Metamagics like Maximize are bad for regular spells, they are only useful on SLA's which we aren't blasting with, in fact if an EK is blasting they are really doing it wrong.

The only real issue is actually a gear one, gear tetris is quite harder because your wanting to get at least one element, preferably two, into really high spellpower while also having most of the important melee stats like doublestrike, fort bypass and deadly. With Int being the go-to stat and KtA existing it's not such a stat crunch. Thankfully spell crit isn't very important to no need to pump those up.

Why on earth are you trying to play a EK Wizard like a fire sorc? Like EK makes nuking virtually impossible because it's stances make all spells have touch range. The entire play style of fire sorc and DC wizard don't apply to EK, it's a lot more like assassinate rogue or Swash Bard, the only "caster" stat that become super important is the spellpower because that governs spellswords damage. 7D12 * Spell Power per hit, 11D12 with Eldritch blade active, Eldritch Tempest does lots of force damage that stacks with the spellblade damage and your regular melee damage. And why would they be running in Magister? Normally it's either Draconic Incarnation or Shadow Dancer depending on the specific build.

[Bjond]

And I honestly don't are about Bard even a little bit.

Hmm, with a name like that, we all know you're secretly a bard. It's OK. The internet is a safe supportive environment ...

There is one point on bard that everyone cares about: inspiration cast time. I love bards in raids and grouped, but trying to convince 12 people with "Gamer ADD" to stand around while I slowly put song buffs on every single character one by one is absurd. If devs do visit bard for any reason, this is the one critical change I'd make: inspiration applies as an AE.

Actually, I'd likely make any long duration buff that can be applied to others an AE simply to reduce buff/prep time for raids. What good comes of making folks stand around past a few GCDs worth of AE buffing?

[Baahb3]

I realize I am late to the party but the decision to add fire resist/immunity removal in a racial tree was terrible (IMO). Now you are compounding it with the Poison removal on a simple melee/ranged hit, and you are giving them 10% more damage than you do with the tiefling enhancement.

At least with sorcerers you only get that for your element as a capstone, but 20 points in a tree and you open that part up? Come on. Where is this insanity going to stop. There should be things in the game that you cannot deal with by your primary attack method. With this trend, will we have to give every caster a way to remove every resistance/immunity for every type of spell? If this continues, what is the point, EVER, of grouping or god forbid diversifying your attacks so you can overcome an encounter, even if you have to struggle just a bit.

Are fighters going to get an attack now that once struck it removes all DR and if there is no DR to be had that we do 15% more damage for 12s? No, BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE JUST AS WRONG. Yes I used caps, because this has to stop somewhere. If not, then we might as well just remove all resistances, DRs, immunities and anything else that might cause us to have to diverge from hitting hot key 3 and the right mouse button.

Sorry if this sounds like a crying post, it is not. I am just an old school DnD player that thinks struggle, if just a little, is a good thing, even in a video game.

P.S. Full BAB in core 4?! Please move this to a Tier 5 ability where all the other options for this ability are.

[cyberfanta]

Now that you are improving the shared bank. Please dont forget the true resurrect cache.
All bind to character items end there and take a lot of time to gear up. Please consider add at least filter per level.
We appreciate all your efforts.
Thank You !!!

[Havocthedemon]

I realize I am late to the party but the decision to add fire resist/immunity removal in a racial tree was terrible (IMO). Now you are compounding it with the Poison removal on a simple melee/ranged hit, and you are giving them 10% more damage than you do with the tiefling enhancement.

At least with sorcerers you only get that for your element as a capstone, but 20 points in a tree and you open that part up? Come on. Where is this insanity going to stop. There should be things in the game that you cannot deal with by your primary attack method. With this trend, will we have to give every caster a way to remove every resistance/immunity for every type of spell? If this continues, what is the point, EVER, of grouping or god forbid diversifying your attacks so you can overcome an encounter, even if you have to struggle just a bit.

Are fighters going to get an attack now that once struck it removes all DR and if there is no DR to be had that we do 15% more damage for 12s? No, BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE JUST AS WRONG. Yes I used caps, because this has to stop somewhere. If not, then we might as well just remove all resistances, DRs, immunities and anything else that might cause us to have to diverge from hitting hot key 3 and the right mouse button.

Sorry if this sounds like a crying post, it is not. I am just an old school DnD player that thinks struggle, if just a little, is a good thing, even in a video game.

P.S. Full BAB in core 4?! Please move this to a Tier 5 ability where all the other options for this ability are.

No, it would not be just as wrong. There are more poison immunes the game than almost anything else, especially at cap. Think about the endgame content, demons, devils, constructs in sharn, undead, among a few others.

https://ddowiki.com/page/Immunity_to_Poison

Your example is a classic fallacy. There is nothing that is completely immune to physical damage which would make a fighter absolutely useless against a majority of the monsters in any quest, unlike casters who dedicate themselves to a specific element. Your argument had merit if no one here had any higher form of education than 10th grade and had limited game knowledge. You were late to the party and that’s ok but please bring something more insightful than “fighter no like magic man,” (and trust me I like melee more than anything else, monk ftw!).

[Altamedes]

Since Paladin's smites came up a few times, good to remember - monsters have to actually be coded as "evil" for it to work. And the reality is that outside of undead and devils/demons, there are precious few that are coded as "evil". Many are presumed evil due to PnP history but it's not too difficult to test via Adrenaline Exalted Smites in Fury of the Wild when you can guarantee every smite is a crit. I've long considered it a situational ability.

[Baahb3]

No, it would not be just as wrong. There are more poison immunes the game than almost anything else, especially at cap. Think about the endgame content, demons, devils, constructs in sharn, undead, among a few others.

https://ddowiki.com/page/Immunity_to_Poison

Your example is a classic fallacy. There is nothing that is completely immune to physical damage which would make a fighter absolutely useless against a majority of the monsters in any quest, unlike casters who dedicate themselves to a specific element. Your argument had merit if no one here had any higher form of education than 10th grade and had limited game knowledge. You were late to the party and that’s ok but please bring something more insightful than “fighter no like magic man,” (and trust me I like melee more than anything else, monk ftw!).

Insult was not needed.

Believe me, I understand that Poison immune covers more monsters than any element, by a long shot. I have played this game since 2006 and DnD for over 30 years. I understand the game.

I was using an absurd argument with the DR break to make a point about the absurd ability we are seeing with the immune removal. Not only are you bypassing that natural immunity, you are gaining bonus damage on top of it. If they just removed the immunity, I would still have issues, but less so.

And there are more than a few monsters that if you don't have the right DR bypass, your damage is severely reduced. The construct at the end of Blown Deadline, the Mind Flayer in Thralls of the fungus lord just to name a couple. How about targets melee cannot get to, Irk in Project Nemesis just name one. Melees have to have different attack forms to deal with different situations all the time.

Vile Chemist is clearly a Poison variant of Eldritch Knight. Yet that enhancement tree does not have this ability. It is a huge boon to this tree compared to that tree. Even the recently revamped Pale Master's 'removal' ability is not this good. It requires a spell cast, not an attack and then just to undead creatures, not all creatures (constructs). And it does not include the +15% damage boost to said undead.

It would have been better for all of these types of ability if they had a +10% vulnerability/attack or effect, to that damage type up to 50% vulnerability. Then if you did not want to build a secondary type of damage, you could still use it, just at a less than optimal attack form, instead of a better attack form (+15% damage).

Back to my over all point. Having creatures that are immune/highly resistant to one form of damage is GOOD. For those, you should have to have some form of attack to deal with it. Again, I understand that Poison covers a lot more than any element but then design a mechanic around that, not just give them an easy button to remove that struggle.

And yes, Monk ftw.

[Havocthedemon]

Insult was not needed.

Believe me, I understand that Poison immune covers more monsters than any element, by a long shot. I have played this game since 2006 and DnD for over 30 years. I understand the game.

I was using an absurd argument with the DR break to make a point about the absurd ability we are seeing with the immune removal. Not only are you bypassing that natural immunity, you are gaining bonus damage on top of it. If they just removed the immunity, I would still have issues, but less so.

And there are more than a few monsters that if you don't have the right DR bypass, your damage is severely reduced. The construct at the end of Blown Deadline, the Mind Flayer in Thralls of the fungus lord just to name a couple. How about targets melee cannot get to, Irk in Project Nemesis just name one. Melees have to have different attack forms to deal with different situations all the time.

Vile Chemist is clearly a Poison variant of Eldritch Knight. Yet that enhancement does not have this ability. It is a huge boon to this tree compared to that tree. Even the recently revamped Pale Master's 'removal' ability is not this good. It requires a spell cast, not an attack and then, just to undead creatures, not all creatures (constructs). And it does not include the +15% damage boost to said undead.

It would have been better for all of these types of ability if they had a +10% vulnerability/attack or effect, to that damage type up to 50% vulnerability. Then if you did not want to build a secondary type of damage, you could still use it, just at a less than optimal attack form. Instead of a better attack form (+15% damage).

Back to my over all point. Having creatures that are immune/highly resistant to one form attack is GOOD. For those you should have to have some form of attack to deal with. Again, I understand that Poison covers a lot more than any element but then design something around that, not just give them an easy button to remove that struggle.

And yes, Monk ftw.

I didn’t insult you, I merely stated that we are not idiots here in these forums. Now, if you want to inspire change, absurd examples aren’t exactly the way to do it, especially if they are false or based on a false perception of the state of the game. I agree that monsters with DR and such immunities are good, but you break that DR as a melee from multiple things, enhancements, feats, class features, etc.

A sorc can’t put a “fire vulnerability” augment in their caster stick like a melee would do for bypassing good DR. That’s exactly what this enhancement is doing, and it’s that simple. There really is no argument here that immunity breaking exists and needs to exist to make those builds (sorcs, druids, etc) viable.

Now if you want to argue that is “too easy” to get, well you might have something there, but my guess is that it’s fine, the game will be fine, and you’re overreacting a bit. The reason EK doesn’t get to break the DR with their spellsword is because they can change the element toggle in 2 seconds, obviously vile chemist cannot. Hence the poison vulnerability which lets be honest, if it didn’t exist would make the poison ability a joke.

The real thing to question is why aren’t the AA imbues brought up to speed with the EK imbues. Not only do you have to choose one element, the scaling is terrible.

[Baahb3]

The reason EK doesn’t get to break the DR with their spellsword is because they can change the element toggle in 2 seconds, obviously vile chemist cannot. Hence the poison vulnerability which lets be honest, if it didn’t exist would make the poison ability a joke.

The real thing to question is why aren’t the AA imbues brought up to speed with the EK imbues. Not only do you have to choose one element, the scaling is terrible.

Excellent point on the AA Imbue.

For the EK, swapping to a different element is helpful but it is doubtful that that secondary element is anything close to what your primary is. Chemist can just focus on one spell power and pump it up making them the clear winner in that argument.

And I have to bring constructs up again in this discussion. It won't matter what element the EK switches to, it will all be reduced, yet the immunity removal the Chemist gets has full damage and +15% to boot.

It just seems way too much.

[Stravix]

Excellent point on the AA Imbue.

For the EK, swapping to a different element is helpful but it is doubtful that that secondary element is anything close to what your primary is. Chemist can just focus on one spell power and pump it up making them the clear winner in that argument.

And I have to bring constructs up again in this discussion. It won't matter what element the EK switches to, it will all be reduced, yet the immunity removal the Chemist gets has full damage and +15% to boot.

It just seems way too much.

I have to agree, alch does seem to also get a decent chuck on non-poison based damage in the form of crit bonuses that even EK does not have. Alch looks like it is designed to completely invalidate EK as a build

[Baahb3]

you break that DR as a melee from multiple things, enhancements, feats, class features, etc.

This is the rub. Others have to plan for multiple things as you put it. Less than optimal weapons. Taking Feats or certain APs spent on enhancements or certain levels of a class to get them.

These immunity removal abilities are not 'multiple things'. It is a one ability covers every scenario that may come up thing, and I think that is bad for the game.

[Victoreze]

So Turn Undead Changes that were originally Tier 1 or Tier 2 Enhancements were moved to Tier 4 because a Paladin doesn't receive the ability to Turn Undead until Level 4. This means the Extra Turn Undead Enhancements require you to spend 20 Points in KOTC before you can take those Enhancements...

So basically you only get 4 AP per level so a level 6 Paladin is required to take these Enhancements now...

I don't think this was the intended outcome but I think this was overlooked in he planning. Divine Might should be left as is with Cha to Str or option for the proposed changed and should remain using Turn Undead charges and the Tier 4 Turn Undead should be moved to allow the Paladin to enhance Divine Might uses.

Thank you