Changes Based on Preview 2 Feedback

[Kinerd]

It's a straight up nerf! I hit 4 targets consistently cuz I know how to plant myself within mobs to maximize that. Forget the fact I only miss on 1s. Tempests should be getting 300% percent strikethrough if for nothing other than a poor attempt at making up for the fact that barbs now get up to 400% strikethrough.

thf being better at AoE than twf is design intent

barbarians can only get up to 395% for 30 seconds out of 300 if they time it with an on-vorpal effect and they're a race with great weapon aptitude

[Reesi]

I got a stupid question.

Why do people call Bear Barbarians Bearbarians? It definitely sounds better if you say Barbearian. You don't really need to answer this. I'll forget I asked it and I also don't really care.

Good points about Kensei people have brought up. Kensei never crossed my mind because I can't really solo one unless I splash other stuff or play Aasimar. I thought KotC wasn't doing enough, but Kensei does seem borked.

I also still very much dislike that EK can't get a solid enough BaB to take the style feats and IC and other BaB prereq feats. It also really sucks how resistance works in this game. Finally...LOLOL Warpriest why couldn't this have been good?

Play style choices need to be moved to universal trees. It would help end the constant complaints about balance if anyone that wants to tank, or melee dps, or ranged or caster or whatever shared the same set of enhancements - instead of having a unique tree. It would also provide a standard baseline to evaluate exactly what being a warpriest gives you, put the class flavor in the class enhancement tree. Want to be a Warpriest tank? Take the warpriest tree and the tank tree. Warpriest Melee DPS, take the melee melee dps tree. Also the play style enhancement trees should only go to tier 4 so you can take your class tier 5 without having to make a choice between the two and the play style capstone shouldn't block another capstone, in fact, the entire tree should provide everything you need with only perhaps 20 enhancement points to leave room for a splash or racial choices. The play style trees could give some of the feats (much like Ranger does) necessary to be good at your choice. So an EK tank would get all the various shield mastery feats in the tank tree, proficiency, extra hitpoints etc - while a EK melee would get their choice of all the TWF, or THF, or SWF. Frankly there has been feat creep anyway without giving anyone more feats, it is frustrating.

From the developer standpoint, if they gave the melee dps universal cores 10 melee power, and removed them from the class trees, they would then know every melee dps will have 60 melee power at 20, then make a decision if say the level 20 monk deserves 40 more in their pure class capstone rounding them out to 100. They are not creating an imbalance to one class if they "make a pass" on another class, or if they do, it is much more apparent to draw comparison.

[Tilomere]

[*][*]The cap on Strikethrough targets is now 5 (at 400%).[*][*]The THF feat now grants 60% Strikethrough.[*][*]The ITHF feat now grants 30% Strikethrough.[*][*]The GTHF feat now grants 30% Strikethrough.[*][*]The PTHF feat now grants 30% Strikethrough.

Barbarian: Frenzied Berserker: Angry Arms now grants +5/10/20% Strikethrough Chance.
Barbarian: Frenzied Berserker: Mad Munitions now grants +5/10/20% Strikethrough Chance.

Rogue: Thief Acrobat: Rogue Improved Glancing Blows has been renamed to "Improved Second Strikes", and now grants +5/10/20% Strikethrough Chance
[*][*][*]Paladin: Knight of the Chalice: Replaces "Knight's Command" with "Improved Second Strikes" which grants +5/10/20% Strikethrough Chance

Greater Two Handed Fighting now also improves Bastard Sword and Dwarven Waraxe to 1.6x your relevant Ability Score Modifier to damage

[*][*]Ranger: Tempest: Dance of Death (200% strike through) now applies it's strike through buff even if the attack does not make contact with an enemy.

(Prior Update 45 Preview 2 THF)
Ranger Enhancements
Dance of Death's buff now grants you the ability to Strikethrough with melee attacks regardless of Combat Style for the duration of the buff (10 seconds), and grants +50%/100%/200% Strikethrough Chance for the duration of the buff. These replace the previous component that allowed you to hit multiple targets directly. Cooldown remains at 15 seconds.

So if I'm reading this right a 15 paladin/5 Ranger can have 370% strike through with DoD active? Will Dance of Death require having two weapons equipped to activate?

3 bard 5 ranger 3 rogue Swashbuckling sunblades (bastard swords typed as short swords) THF with DoD will give 200% DoD + 150% THF + 20% (Acrobat evasion splash) = 370% Strike Through while swashbuckling with a 1.6 stat multiplier?

DoD will cause strike through to work now in any animal form using natural fighting? So if I take a 12 Druid 5 Ranger 3 barbarian, we can have 30% PTHF, 40% Frenzied Berserker, 200% Dance of Death = 270% strike through in wolf form?

Am I reading this wrong?

[Pilgrim1]

So if I'm reading this right a 15 paladin/5 Ranger can have 370% strike through with DoD active? Will Dance of Death require having two weapons equipped to activate? It will work now in any animal form?

On live it does so it will probably keep its functionality. Im guessing that the thf feets will only give strikethrough if you have a 2h weapon equiped. Im not sure about other ways of getting strikethrough. I wonder how a bear ranger with a bastard sword main hand and a weapon off hand would work for tempest dance of death. Will require testing!

[Kielbasa]

On live it does so it will probably keep its functionality. Im guessing that the thf feets will only give strikethrough if you have a 2h weapon equiped. Im not sure about other ways of getting strikethrough. I wonder how a bear ranger with a bastard sword main hand and a weapon off hand would work for tempest dance of death. Will require testing!

Fairly certain dod only actives when 2wf. When they nerfed the 10/6/4 druid/ranger/fighter build much of what made that good was made non functional in animal form. If for some reason you can hold 2 weapons hit dod and then swap to a 2handed weapon all the universal cooldowns on swapping gear around will bork that up in a hurry and you'll miss half the activation time. Even with quick draw I have a hard time swapping gear around to cast better heals and stuff like that. Its what has made playing a monk or any other class that requires a lot of button mashing to become a lot more annoying compared to the past.

Prepare to be disappointed.

[darknoobslayer]

So if I'm reading this right a 15 paladin/5 Ranger can have 370% strike through with DoD active? Will Dance of Death require having two weapons equipped to activate?

3 bard 5 ranger 3 rogue Swashbuckling sunblades (bastard swords typed as short swords) THF with DoD will give 200% DoD + 150% THF + 20% (Acrobat evasion splash) = 370% Strike Through while swashbuckling with a 1.6 stat multiplier?

DoD will cause strike through to work now in any animal form using natural fighting? So if I take a 12 Druid 5 Ranger 3 barbarian, we can have 30% PTHF, 40% Frenzied Berserker, 200% Dance of Death = 270% strike through in wolf form?

Am I reading this wrong?

From frenzied tree angry arms requires two handed fighting feat and mad munitions requires greater two handed fighting with focus wide requiring mad munitions. Would it be worth it on druid builds to take the 3 natural fighting feats plus 2 two handed feats?

[flabbagonged]

Is Dwarven Axe Training still +5% strikethrough for each rank?

[Bloodskittle]

Better at the cores.

Here's what I envision

Tier 1 5%
Tier 2 5%
Tier 3 5%
Tier 4 15% (This is a minimum of 8 fighter levels due to a feat requirement)
Tier 5 20%

LvL 12 core 10%
Lvl 18 core 10%
Lvl 20 Core 20%

Fighter is one of the weakest Pure classes in terms of its functionality in high reaper,
If it isn't making up for that somehow it becomes a dead class.

[Blah2]

will you be doing something about defender?
because its the worst designed tree in the game currently,.

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL Archmage is a horrific tree. AA cores are terrible 6 cores for 5 benefits. LOL LOL LOL

[Zites]

I’m a tough critic but I got to give credit where credit is due. Although I don’t agree with everything, and some Have certainly made some reasonable tweak suggestions like the comparison between barbarian and Kensai. As well as single target DPS for KOTC Still under performing by about 15 to 20% IMO.

Overall GOOD WORK And it is now time to release the update no more previews let us test it on live then you can see what needs to be done if anything.

So therefore I will not vote to impeach 45, although not perfect Balance is at an all-time high record-breaking frills, cosmetics, horses, hard-core ect.

You have my vote team, for more years, for more years to come

[MaeveTuohy]

I got a stupid question.

Why do people call Bear Barbarians Bearbarians? It definitely sounds better if you say Barbearian. You don't really need to answer this. I'll forget I asked it and I also don't really care.

I and everyone I know calls them Barbearians.

I think the problem for some people is that when spoken there is little or no difference between barbarian and barbearian. This lack of distinction may drive the use of bearbarian.

[Cetus]

I mentioned that Kensei fighters have been neglected since the very beginning of these changes, and there was barely any acknowledgment. I really hate to have to constantly find myself in a position of fighting for this **** enhancement tree. But the facts are as they are, and Kensei is overtly being ignored. I mean, they're an entire *extra target* behind barbarians on strikethrough, they're even behind paladins now, and they are forced to use particular weapons to do this!

I posted a point-for-point comparison between what a kensei fighter achieves versus a frenzied barbarian as a result of all of these changes, with both greataxes and falchions. And there is still not even a tweak or a reason for why my conclusions may be false. I don't know how else I can provide feedback in order to get across the fact that this is an issue. Or just say that you want Kensei's to be objectively weaker than the competing options, and that's it. Otherwise, I'm wasting my time trying to improve this balancing act by posting all of these numbers on here.

And, I still think allowing THIS many targets to be attacked simultaneously via strike through and adding that stat scaler to hand-and-a-half weapons is too much. Vanguard was performing very well when I tried it on lamaland, this additional scaler is absolutely not needed. I think these changes are too much.

[Seph1roth5]

I like the rethought strikethrough, thanks for (mostly) listening to everyone's feedback.

I don't really get all the kensai griping though. Barbarians getting more strikethrough makes them a better 2hf...so what? Does every class have to be the same at everything? Fighters might not have as much strikethrough but with the extra feats they're more versatile.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for various trees getting beefed up, but that sounds like more of a kensai or fighter pass, instead of people wanting 50,000 things changed in a 2hf thread.

Side note, why doesn't the mysterious remnant guy come around more?!

[Cetus]

I like the rethought strikethrough, thanks for (mostly) listening to everyone's feedback.

I don't really get all the kensai griping though. Barbarians getting more strikethrough makes them a better 2hf...so what? Does every class have to be the same at everything? Fighters might not have as much strikethrough but with the extra feats they're more versatile.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for various trees getting beefed up, but that sounds like more of a kensai or fighter pass, instead of people wanting 50,000 things changed in a 2hf thread.

Side note, why doesn't the mysterious remnant guy come around more?!

5 of those extra feats I've already accounted for in the melee power calculation, besides being required to work up the kensei tree. A pure fighter gets 11 bonus feats. The rest of it will be used just to keep up with barbarians with heavy armor PRR/MRR and tactics.

Where's the versatility? You can maybe try to squeeze in whirlwind attack. That's about it. Theyre objectively worse, and the only purpose of a kensei is to be a master with their selected weapon. The weapon specialization enhancements in the tree even have bonuses adjusted for two-handed weapons, but none of it was ever changed to accommodate this new strikethrough system.

The main purpose of the kensei tree right now is just to be vanguards pet, and augment it as the AP allow

[Captain_Wizbang]

kensei is to be a master with their selected weapon. The weapon specialization enhancements in the tree even have bonuses adjusted for two-handed weapons, but none of it was ever changed to accommodate this new strikethrough system.

The main purpose of the kensei tree right now is just to be vanguards pet, and augment it as the AP allow

I like the update. BUT.......................

Your post is spot on, Kensai via the weapon spec isn't on par w/ the update

[Zites]

5 of those extra feats I've already accounted for in the melee power calculation, besides being required to work up the kensei tree. A pure fighter gets 11 bonus feats. The rest of it will be used just to keep up with barbarians with heavy armor PRR/MRR and tactics.

Where's the versatility? You can maybe try to squeeze in whirlwind attack. That's about it. Theyre objectively worse, and the only purpose of a kensei is to be a master with their selected weapon. The weapon specialization enhancements in the tree even have bonuses adjusted for two-handed weapons, but none of it was ever changed to accommodate this new strikethrough system.

The main purpose of the kensei tree right now is just to be vanguards pet, and augment it as the AP allow

I agree with your Kensei comparisons to barbarian but Your statements on Vanguard couldn’t be more incorrect.

Not sure How are you could come to that conclusion, your statement that got divine might NERFED had some merit but this. Why the pally hate, bitterness? Anyway It appears from season to season the meta may be changing so the current Best in slot THF build or what ever build may not be the best anymore, change is Eminent.

[Son_of_the_South]

There is more NaCl in this thread than the Punjab mines!

[korgzz_bloodaxe]

I mentioned that Kensei fighters have been neglected since the very beginning of these changes, and there was barely any acknowledgment. I really hate to have to constantly find myself in a position of fighting for this **** enhancement tree. But the facts are as they are, and Kensei is overtly being ignored. I mean, they're an entire *extra target* behind barbarians on strikethrough, they're even behind paladins now, and they are forced to use particular weapons to do this!

I previously asked you but you didn't answer. Can you show how a pure Barbarian gets to 100% doublestrike? All your claculations were based on that, when it is far easier for a pure fighter kensai to hit 100%.

[Cetus]

I previously asked you but you didn't answer. Can you show how a pure Barbarian gets to 100% doublestrike? All your claculations were based on that, when it is far easier for a pure fighter kensai to hit 100%.

Yes. It's easier on a pure fighter, which I mentioned already. But the benefit of this "ease" in terms of twists or what not does very little to offset the huge DPS advantage barb has given these changes.

24% Enhancement
11% Insightful
9% Epic past life
3% Iconic Past life
10% Profane bonus
15% Sharn Set bonus
5% PTWF
6% Running with wind
3% Hail of blows
5% Cannith Combat Infusion
3% Shattered Device
______________________________
94%

The rest is up to the player:

5% Vistani

or

4% Quality (belt)

or

5% Asimar (if not horc for whatever rason)

or

Additional filigree to make up the difference

or

Warchanter bard

or

Elf with a falchion

[Cetus]

Fighters melee power vs. Paladin melee power:

15 mp from this new freebee spell they got
10 mp from divine sacrifice
25 melee power from sanctified fervor filigree
5 mp from exalted smite
potentially *45* extra from tier 5 against undead/evil outsiders
____________________________________

Pally's get 100 potential melee power that is specific to them. That's 30 over fighter including the entire enhancement tree AND *5* feats.