U48.4 Preview 1: Balance Changes: Combat Styles

[Stravix]

So looks like a bit more testing on Lam has been done. As the devs have dropped the grenade and gone AWOL, as per, can anyone confirm the nerf is from 3 to 2.5 definitely please, and not to 2?

I would assume that if that was intended, it would have been specifically called out.

I would chock that up to a bug unless confirmed by a dev otherwise.

[Carpone]

Where was all of this mathematical analysis and normalization by the devs a year ago when they increased the THF stat multiplier and released Alchemist? You know, at the same time they nerfed Inquisitive into oblivion. Surely after the "100 hours" of Inquisitive testing they claimed before release, the devs would have adopted a better methodology to avoid nerfing their own buffs a year later.

The lack of insight into the analysis and testing methodologies by the devs is largely what drives the friction and animosity with this update. Furthermore, the devs have never even posted the proposed gearsets for various builds -- something essential when making balance changes.

There's an entire player-driven quant community that has put in hundreds of hours analyzing and playing various combat styles, testing gear setups and doing the hardest content in the game. They keep to themselves because there's no engagement by devs. Anytime they challenge dev preconceptions, they get generic "this is working within expected parameters" as responses.

None of us is as smart as all of us.

[slarden]

Where was all of this mathematical analysis and normalization by the devs a year ago when they increased the THF stat multiplier and released Alchemist? You know, at the same time they nerfed Inquisitive into oblivion. Surely after the "100 hours" of Inquisitive testing they claimed before release, the devs would have adopted a better methodology to avoid nerfing their own buffs a year later.

The lack of insight into the analysis and testing methodologies by the devs is largely what drives the friction and animosity with this update. Furthermore, the devs have never even posted the proposed gearsets for various builds -- something essential when making balance changes.

There's an entire player-driven quant community that has put in hundreds of hours analyzing and playing various combat styles, testing gear setups and doing the hardest content in the game. They keep to themselves because there's no engagement by devs. Anytime they challenge dev preconceptions, they get generic "this is working within expected parameters" as responses.

None of us is as smart as all of us.

Is there any doubt dev "data" is simply opinions they gather from somewhere? Maybe tilo posts is there main source of "data" who knows, but it's not basic math or testing at end game - that much is clear.

It can also all be intentional as a way to force changes and sell hearts and other items.

[Noircere]

Where was all of this mathematical analysis and normalization by the devs a year ago when they increased the THF stat multiplier

At the time, the devs were targetting a lower stat multiplier / lower strikethrough total, but the forums exploded with cries of how the given numbers were not good enough. They bowed to public pressure, and raised the figures at the last moment.

...for my part, I posted at the time that the existing preview THF numbers were plenty strong, potentially OP, because people were undervaluing the ability to duplicate CC special attacks like Stunning Blow to several targets at once, but several, rude, loud posters shouted that idea down.

[Bjond]

all classes bot some buffs to their spell damage to offset losses except warlock.

They also didn't compensate heals for the loss of silverthread, which (for off-heal) is far more significant (50% loss of gear power, ~40% overall healing power). Bard sustain wasn't increased. Cures weren't changed. Regens weren't updated. L/DA wasn't adjusted. Renew and Cocoon are still the same.

If their intent is to make the belt change be effectively a no-op for all but alch and fire-sorc, it's an abysmal failure. I would applaud a true no-op. That would mean my bard's sustain, my weird melee undead, my tank, and my ranged/heal could still heal the same but would no longer be locked into a single belt.

That would be an amazing gain on the gear-tetris front that would have me cheering them on, but that doesn't look like their intent. Right now it looks like they don't care how many other builds are ruined by a nerf to alch/sorc DPS.

I also think the devs incorrectly ignore metamagic when comparing warlock dps.

Maybe at one time (internally) warlock auto-attacks were meta'able and they're using the old spreadsheet for balance. They have already stated they don't have any real data, just charts and spreadsheets from models.

Warlock is not ok and I am baffled how the devs concluded they need yet another warlock nerf when even prior to the last nerfs they weren't top tier dps. The devs just removed 200 spellpower which is a bigger deal to warlocks since the denominator is smaller without 300 from metamagic.

IMHO, they saw belts as low hanging fruit without considering the plethora of horrible fallout that would result from a quick hack to the type. If the dev was thinking sorc and mostly plays sorc, I could easily see them thinking the type change was no big deal and any side effects quickly minimized, because it really is no big deal to a sorc and two of the three belts only effect DPS.

I've accidentally ran my sorc sans belt (oddly, my sorc can trap and belt is a trap swap) and all I thought was "hmm, my numbers seem a bit low today". It's "hmm" not "the sky is falling, the sky is falling!" That's how I think they started in on the belt .. and then they realized it would hurt other things and fixed those few .. and hopefully now they're thinking "holy cow, this is a lot".

Heh. Hadn't thought of it before, but a belt change that also included other changes that didn't hammer heals or warlocks or whatever else might be hurt outside the intended sorc/alch rebalance would be truly amazing.

[Tuxedoman96]

At the time, the devs were targetting a lower stat multiplier / lower strikethrough total, but the forums exploded with cries of how the given numbers were not good enough. They bowed to public pressure, and raised the figures at the last moment.

...for my part, I posted at the time that the existing preview THF numbers were plenty strong, potentially OP, because people were undervaluing the ability to duplicate CC special attacks like Stunning Blow to several targets at once, but several, rude, loud posters shouted that idea down.

And that is exactly the end result. When changes are made with gut reactions everything becomes inflated. The buffs and the nerfs. If most people would actually provide data with their feedback instead of a "this change sucks I hate it", then there'd probably be less sweeping changes. Although, an additional problem is the fact that we don't have well-defined metrics with which everyone can hold discussion. I mean, remember when Swashbuckler was supposed to be the standard for melee DPS? What does that even mean? Should all the proper "melee classes" (i.e. the ones that cannot cast offensive spells) be above the bard while the other spellcasters do less? Or maybe Swashbuckler is the baseline, so every melee build (to include other casters) aside from swashbuckler should be doing more damage than it? We're using vague definitions to make vague evaluations on vague changes, constantly wading through an obscuring mist of "almost but not quite"s and "seems about right"s. And this is further exacerbated by the fact that those vague evaluations are further polarized by (you guessed it) gut feelings. So for one person, it might "seem about right", but after seeing the math, it can quickly become apparent that it is very far off.

[Stravix]

They also didn't compensate heals for the loss of silverthread, which (for off-heal) is far more significant (50% loss of gear power, ~40% overall healing power). Bard sustain wasn't increased. Cures weren't changed. Regens weren't updated. L/DA wasn't adjusted. Renew and Cocoon are still the same.

If their intent is to make the belt change be effectively a no-op for all but alch and fire-sorc, it's an abysmal failure. I would applaud a true no-op. That would mean my bard's sustain, my weird melee undead, my tank, and my ranged/heal could still heal the same but would no longer be locked into a single belt.

That would be an amazing gain on the gear-tetris front that would have me cheering them on, but that doesn't look like their intent. Right now it looks like they don't care how many other builds are ruined by a nerf to alch/sorc DPS.

They explicitly stated the reason why the belts were changed, and nowhere in it did they mention sorcs or alchs. They explicitly mentioned that it was the fact that the belts were typed incorrectly years ago, and that they said they would change it with the divine spell pass, that is now happening, saying why it is happening now, not then. Full stop. If you want to argue that reasoning isn't good because of how long it look for the divine spell pass to actually happen, then sure, that is a valid argument, but claiming that it was done to hurt sorcs/alchs, when they explicitly said that was not the case is so disingenuous it hurts

[CeltEireson]

Single Weapon Fighting
New Feat: Offhand Versatility

• Req: BaB 8, Single Weapon Fighting
• Your offhand item modifies your main hand:
  
  • Runearms and Orbs now grant: when you vorpal strike, your next spell automatically crits. This has an internal cooldown of 20 seconds (lasts for 20 seconds).
  • Nothing in your offhand increases your ability score modifier to damage by 25%.
• Fighters may select this feat as one of their Fighter Bonus Feats.

Shield Mastery
New Feat: Greater Shield Mastery

• Req: BaB 13, Improved Shield Mastery
• You are exceptionally skilled with the use of a shield, and your physical resistance is increased by 10 when using a buckler or small shield, 15 when using a large shield, or 20 when using a tower shield. Your doublestrike chance while using a shield is increased by 2% to 10%. Your Combat Style bonus to Melee Power is increased by 4 to 10.
• (These bonuses do not stack with previous feats, so this is a net gain of 5 PRR with each type of shield (5 -> 10 for buckler/small shield, 10 -> 15 for large shield, 15 -> 20 for tower), 2% doublestrike, and 4 Melee Power.).
• Fighters may select this feat as one of their Fighter Bonus Feats.

New Feat: Perfect Shield Mastery

• Req: Level 26, maximum experience in one Divine sphere Epic Destiny (same as other Perfect Combat Style Feats), and Shield Mastery.
• You are the paragon of shield usage, able to effectively leverage all types of shields in close combat. Your shield gains +1W, and you gain +20% Shield Armor Class and +5 PRR.

New single weapon fighting feat - bear in mind that a swashbuckler build that is mainly or wholly bard is going to be very tight on feats as is. What you could do for those opting for dex based builds is to put dex to hit in one of the early cores. Most other class enhancement tree for the likes of ranger, monk, rogue etc all have dex to hit somewhere in the enhancement trees, and the other options for damage in swashbuckley (int/cha) can also get to hit bonus with the relevant stat with minor outlay in a general enhancement tree. Dex builds in general tends to suffer in terms of damage and tactics bonuses as there is no trance available for dex - not that I'm advocating for yet another trance being put into the game but you might want to review dex builds in general to see if they need boosting.

Greater shield master seems a little anaemic - maybe make it 12% doublestrike.

Perfect Shield Mastery - is the 20% shield armor bonus just off the basic shield bonus or does it stack multiplicatively with other bonuses you take in the likes of defender tree or unyielding sentinel? If its just off the base then its going to be a tiny increase relative to what a shield user would already have. Even assuming a tower shield at cap the base AC from it would be 30 and 20% bonus would only increase AC by 6. Also not sure about the +1W - given that at most you can shield bash once per second the +1W is going to have a negligible effect on dps. Might be better with either a stacking attack speed bonus or even increasing the allowed frequency of shield bashes - down to maybe 0.9.

[Tuxedoman96]

That’s a really good question, because DDO is not a competitive game.
I was talking about my game experience. “Uncompetitive” in my context means: “We need a top tier dps” “Fine, I’ll be a THF pally” “**** you Tronko, are you **** kidding me, I said we need a dps”

I mean, if everything is top tier, then nothing is. That's kind of how superlatives work. Alright, let's try this. What classes do you think should be top tier and for what categories? For example, you might not think a THF cleric should be top tier DPS?

It starts getting complicated real fast when we try to categorize everything relative to each other.

[Hawkwier]

I would assume that if that was intended, it would have been specifically called out.

I would chock that up to a bug unless confirmed by a dev otherwise.

Thanks for responding and trying to help, but it illustrates why we need to know definitively from a Dev. If Tronkos Lam number of 40 damage loss is subject to the bug, then it becomes less than the issue stated when fixed. My assumption was that the 40 translated broadly to the 7% reduction in DPS we can expect, but that in turn depends on whether the number based on Lam testing is accurate or not.

If on the other hand the 7% is based on 2.5, and it ends up being 2, then the nerf is being under estimated.

Lack of clarity on this aspect is frustrating. Personally I can likely live with the c.7% loss in DPS at cap, but if it's significantly more than that then clearly that's an issue that needs challenged.

It's particularly annoying that the devs apparently blythely drop out of clarifying these matters. They should at the very least be helping us to understand the impact of the changes they are imposing with appropriate consistent clarification. It's not a particularly difficult or question to answer. The silence though, is deafening. Feels to me like, having dropped the grenade on unpopular measures, they are hiding from the fallout.

[Synthetic]

I find this feat underwhelming for a hybrid build. It's great the devs are adding something for hybrid builds, but this isn't going to push anyone into such a build. It would be nice if it was not tied to swf feat so that animal form druids could take advantage of it without spending two feats. The 20s cooldown makes it practically useless. If you removed that so it would scale with level due to the increased attack speed I could imagine it being useful.

I can't imagine anyone using the feat as it's posted currently outside of flavor builds.

[Meat-Head]

Where was all of this mathematical analysis and normalization by the devs a year ago when they increased the THF stat multiplier and released Alchemist? You know, at the same time they nerfed Inquisitive into oblivion. Surely after the "100 hours" of Inquisitive testing they claimed before release, the devs would have adopted a better methodology to avoid nerfing their own buffs a year later.

The lack of insight into the analysis and testing methodologies by the devs is largely what drives the friction and animosity with this update. Furthermore, the devs have never even posted the proposed gearsets for various builds -- something essential when making balance changes.

There's an entire player-driven quant community that has put in hundreds of hours analyzing and playing various combat styles, testing gear setups and doing the hardest content in the game. They keep to themselves because there's no engagement by devs. Anytime they challenge dev preconceptions, they get generic "this is working within expected parameters" as responses.

None of us is as smart as all of us.

Rock solid. They need to consult some high-level players. Much of this could be avoided. They could easily tell the deva what was over-tuned and some reasonable solutions. Instead they seem to go knucklehead-with-a-hammer on things they see as OP.

[Stravix]

Thanks for responding and trying to help, but it illustrates why we need to know definitively from a Dev. If Tronkos Lam number of 40 damage loss is subject to the bug, then it becomes less than the issue stated when fixed. My assumption was that the 40 translated broadly to the 7% reduction in DPS we can expect, but that in turn depends on whether the number based on Lam testing is accurate or not.

If on the other hand the 7% is based on 2.5, and it ends up being 2, then the nerf is being under estimated.

Lack of clarity on this aspect is frustrating. Personally I can likely live with the c.7% loss in DPS at cap, but if it's significantly more than that then clearly that's an issue that needs challenged.

It's particularly annoying that the devs apparently blythely drop out of clarifying these matters. They should at the very least be helping us to understand the impact of the changes they are imposing with appropriate consistent clarification. It's not a particularly difficult or question to answer. The silence though, is deafening. Feels to me like, having dropped the grenade on unpopular measures, they are hiding from the fallout.

Fair enough, from the way it was worded it sounded like you were looking for confirmation from the people who were doing testing on Lam, in lieu of a response from the devs, thus my statement. You're good. I agree that a response from a dev would definitely be the more definite answer, and would be the preferable route. But until that comes, I think it would be best to just consider that a lama bug and not dwell on it too much.

Spell damage numbers being off is one thing (look at ice flowers for instance) but a fundamental change in the way 2HF damage is calculated is not something I would think that they just forgot to mention.

[voxson5]

The feats, in a vacuum, are the worst of the feats, yes. We can agree on that. If you want to move power around from specific builds to general archetypes, that's fine, and I agree with you. But that said, atm ranger and VKF show what the archetype of 2WF can do, and as such, discussions of the strength of that archetype would be remiss to dismiss those as "not the fighting style itself"

Burst AoE Damage, but yes. When people complain about Burst AoE Damage, those are who they are typically referring to, not Druids or FvS. This is actually the exact reason why fire sorc and alchys are getting nerfed and the other burst AoE damage ones are being buffed, as a means to redistribute that power.

So, regarding twf, and given your admission that ranger & VKF is the pinnicle of 2wf, why should the so called 'balance change for combat styles' ignore other 2wf options, such as monk or fighter? Should the neglected combat style not be given support as well?

It seems you're saying Ranger & VKF are either overperforming or everything else is underperforming. Either way, 2wf needs some better love that the backhand it has been given.

[droid327]

I find this feat underwhelming for a hybrid build. It's great the devs are adding something for hybrid builds, but this isn't going to push anyone into such a build. It would be nice if it was not tied to swf feat so that animal form druids could take advantage of it without spending two feats. The 20s cooldown makes it practically useless. If you removed that so it would scale with level due to the increased attack speed I could imagine it being useful.

I can't imagine anyone using the feat as it's posted currently outside of flavor builds.

Agreed, I don't see anyone taking it except maybe a swf wiz ek who's already flush with spare feats. It's not enough to make you want to spend a feat on it, let alone take swf for it.

It needs to be like 5s icd if you want it to make an impact on people's playstyle. Then you'd be critting once every 6-8 seconds, ie one SLA on cd

[Cetus]

Arrghh!

That's what happens when you're doing on-the-fly calcs while covering the ER.

Here's the point I was trying to make. Let's try again:

A 50 STR character with a 270 damage mod loses 10 damage with this nerf, 3.4% loss on an extremely low strength melee.

If this character goes up to the more realistic 100 str, he gains an extra 25 strength modifier or 75 damage = a new 345. With the nerf, 45 mod * 0.5 = 22.5 loss. That's 6.5% loss and is nearly identical to the loss of the "top 1%er"

So whether you have 100 str (most casual players can achieve this) or 132 strength, you suffer essentially the same loss to your DPS as a result of this nerf, give or take a fraction of a percent to account for the alternate sources of damage affecting the denominator.

[Stravix]

So, regarding twf, and given your admission that ranger & VKF is the pinnicle of 2wf, why should the so called 'balance change for combat styles' ignore other t2f options, such as monk or fighter? Should the neglected combat style not be given support as well?

It seems you're saying Ranger & VKF are either overperforming or everything else is underperforming. Either way, 2wf needs some better love that the backhand it has been given.

I wholeheartedly agree. VKF seems to be overperforming relative to other 2WF variants, from what I have heard, and I would love to see some of that power shifted to a more general fighting style option.

That said, there is a difference between balance between styles and balance within a style. I think getting the balance between styles right first is a higher priority than getting the balance within a style right.

Both are important, but if you want to play a combat style (say SWF for instance), there should at least be a reasonable build in that style first and foremost to be available (like swash), then you can focus your efforts on balancing that build vs others in that style.

I think we both want the same thing, I just feel like it would be best done incrementally, instead of as a sweeping change affecting both in style balance and between style balance, as that would be a lot harder to get right.

[Tuxedoman96]

I find this feat underwhelming for a hybrid build. It's great the devs are adding something for hybrid builds, but this isn't going to push anyone into such a build. It would be nice if it was not tied to swf feat so that animal form druids could take advantage of it without spending two feats. The 20s cooldown makes it practically useless. If you removed that so it would scale with level due to the increased attack speed I could imagine it being useful.

I can't imagine anyone using the feat as it's posted currently outside of flavor builds.

Hmm. They haven't really detailed how it works. For example, I don't know if it's supposed to crit every tick for a DoT or Aura (or persistent AoE). I also don't know if runearms are supposed to benefit from the critting and whether or not the runearm is supposed to crit for the entire duration because using them technically isn't considered spellcasting. Also, the feat itself is bugged such that it's not working with orbs, it doesn't offer the extra .25 modifier with no off-hand, and the buff doesn't go away after casting a spell. Until I know these things I'm going to reserve my judgement.

[Hawkwier]

Fair enough, from the way it was worded it sounded like you were looking for confirmation from the people who were doing testing on Lam, in lieu of a response from the devs, thus my statement. You're good. I agree that a response from a dev would definitely be the more definite answer, and would be the preferable route. But until that comes, I think it would be best to just consider that a lama bug and not dwell on it too much.

Spell damage numbers being off is one thing (look at ice flowers for instance) but a fundamental change in the way 2HF damage is calculated is not something I would think that they just forgot to mention.

You're right I was looking for certainty from anywhere given the devs apparent abdication. But it wasn't sufficiently certain from your response, beyond assumption, which though perfectly reasonable, I was looking for a bit more than that. I'm happy to accept something definitive from any source, but the responsibility sits wit the devs imo. Again, thanks for trying to help.

I guess my question in the absence of dev confirmation would be, is the 40 reduction based on confirmed observed reduction from 3 to 2, or was a reduction to 2.5 observed in that testing?

[Stravix]

Arrghh!

That's what happens when you're doing on-the-fly calcs while covering the ER.

Here's the point I was trying to make. Let's try again:

A 50 STR character with a 270 damage mod loses 10 damage with this nerf, 3.4% loss on an extremely low strength melee.

If this character goes up to the more realistic 100 str, he gains an extra 25 strength modifier or 75 damage = a new 345. With the nerf, 45 mod * 0.5 = 22.5 loss. That's 6.5% loss and is nearly identical to the loss of the "top 1%er"

So whether you have 100 str (most casual players can achieve this) or 132 strength, you suffer essentially the same loss to your DPS as a result of this nerf, give or take several fractions of a percent.

That is kinda the point. Yes, it will always be a nerf to all builds that use it for single target damage, that was a given. But even then, a nerf which is more heavy handed to the extreme examples, even if slightly, is, fundamentally, a good design for the nerf. You can argue that the nerf was heavy handed, but at a sub 7% nerf, most would argue that you are being somewhat unreasonable, given 2HF's general dominance over the meta, and the fact that it was comparable to other options in the one field that it was supposed to be bad at.