U48.4 Preview 1: Balance Changes: Combat Styles

[Hawkwier]

Whilst reluctantly, coz I'm thf and getting nerfed, these changes do seem to broadly make sense, I can't help feeling that twf isn't getting much by way of balance at all here. Those defensive benefits seem a bit meh to me.

I think an opportunity has been missed to compensate TWF by increasing the value of its inherent versatility advantage.

Having a line akin to strikethrough where progressively offhand weapon procs and features proc for both main and offhand strikes and 100% offhand hits can be attained would enable twf to be far more competitive and present interesting choices compared to the somewhat reductive and crude balancing attempt around dps.

TWF needs a rethink imo.

[Slominator]

Natural Fighting needed adjusting to match THF, but it also needed some extra special incentives at the top so that both Bears and Wolves would be happy switching their feats to the new Perfect combat style feat.

I would like to point out that if you are looking to buff animal form then please allow them to properly benefit from Fury of the Wild. It's a Primal destiny (supposed to be fully usable by Barbarians, Druids, and Rangers) and yet they cannot use the Boulder's Might melee attack and they do not fully benefit from Strong Swings nor do they benefit at all from Bloodbath.

Also, the new Perfect Natural Fighting feat is generally terrible. If the health bonus stacked with Epic Defensive Fighting then it would be worth considering. The Bear portion is significantly better, especially for Bear tanks but it's not great for a DPS Bear. Something more along the lines of Perfect Two Handed Fighting but for Animal form would be great.

[axel15810]

I'm very sad about the THF change. So max of 300% ability to damage down to 250% with all THF feats if I'm interpreting the notes correctly?

It's gonna hurt my already mid tier level melee cleric build, *sigh*. Gonna be honest, I was having more fun than I have had in years in DDO since we got the THF buffs. THF was hands down the best melee style but casters still dominate the high reaper meta. So I thought it reasonable to instead of nerfing THF, just buff TWF and SWF so those 2 styles made more sense. It's not like melee is the meta right now.

Can you all can please address the really really weak Warpriest tree at some point? IMO as someone who has played a melee cleric for 10+ years, tier 4 and 5 is not worth taking at all on any melee cleric build right now. If we can buff that tree to make it competitive with falconry for melee clerics I'd be happy with that in exchange for the THF nerf.

[kanordog]

I see. So we'll get the full 25% to HP, then.

Thanks.

Yes and that is awesome!

Thank You guys for making s&b better.

[Cetus]

I would like to point out that if you are looking to buff animal form then please allow them to properly benefit from Fury of the Wild. It's a Primal destiny (supposed to be fully usable by Barbarians, Druids, and Rangers) and yet they cannot use the Boulder's Might melee attack and they do not fully benefit from Strong Swings nor do they benefit at all from Bloodbath.

Also, the new Perfect Natural Fighting feat is generally terrible. If the health bonus stacked with Epic Defensive Fighting then it would be worth considering. The Bear portion is significantly better, especially for Bear tanks but it's not great for a DPS Bear. Something more along the lines of Perfect Two Handed Fighting but for Animal form would be great.

Animals have some of the greatest output in the game. No to all of this.

[Monkey_Archer]

I also don’t see the long overdue correction to animal form twitch fighting. I also don’t see a review of the ridiculous amount of melee power that is packed into the KotC tree, both of which are confounding the “observed over-performance” of THF.

I'm assuming that this balance work is being done using "intended" attack speeds. I'm fully aware that twitch animals and animation cancelling TWF/SWF are top tier and/or ahead of THF. I don't think they are balancing around twitch fighting or animation cancelling, and assuming it will be fixed eventually, like THF twitch unfortunately was.

[LurkingVeteran]

I'm very sad about the THF change. So max of 300% ability to damage down to 250% with all THF feats if I'm interpreting the notes correctly?

It's gonna hurt my already mid tier level melee cleric build, *sigh*. Gonna be honest, I was having more fun than I have had in years in DDO since we got the THF buffs. THF was hands down the best melee style but casters still dominate the high reaper meta. So I thought it reasonable to instead of nerfing THF, just buff TWF and SWF so those 2 styles made more sense. It's not like melee is the meta right now.

Can you all can please address the really really weak Warpriest tree at some point? IMO as someone who has played a melee cleric for 10+ years, tier 4 and 5 is not worth taking at all on any melee cleric build right now. If we can buff that tree to make it competitive with falconry for melee clerics I'd be happy with that in exchange for the THF nerf.

The top #2 casters got nerfed from orbit though, so your melee priest might comparatively better after this patch though :-)

Just watch out for those new Druids (and maybe FvS nukers), they look a bit overtuned.

[LurkingVeteran]

While using an orb, it's trivial to get 80+% base critical chance so getting a guaranteed crit on a vorpal seems much less exciting than it should be. Love the changes to these feats otherwise.

This. They should add +50% crit damage to it so it also scales into Epics. Crit damage is also the biggest problem for hybrid casters since you need a bunch of caster LGS items you that you can't afford to slot.

Could you allow, or change the wording to indicate that: the "Nothing in your offhand" case of Offhand Versatility also works with a buckler in your offhand, if you're allowed to use bucklers and still benefit from Single Weapon Fighting feats? (E.G., with Bard Swashbuckler Skirmisher?)

Also, I love the design space you're exploring with the orb/runearm version. I hope it works out to be viable. One thing you might want to check: I believe certain long duration spells (like death aura) snapshot the modifiers on them at time of cast. I foresee Pale Masters slotting this feat in order to trigger their aura to crit on every tick for minutes on end. I don't play a Pale Master, so I don't know if that would be overpowered or not, but it might be something to consider.

I think this also applies to druid regen spells. Perhaps have it only work on offensive spells?

[Cetus]

assuming it will be fixed eventually, like THF twitch unfortunately was.

And there lies the problem. This *eventuality* is taking a very long time. It is far more prudent to fix the combat animation-breaking "exploits" (not my word) before making sweeping changes like this.

But what do I know...

[Cetus]

Looking for a direct answer to these two questions:

1. What is the intended total ability mod for THF with these changes? 250%?
2. Are the melee power bonuses attached to the THF feats deliberately omitted there or not?

[Monkey_Archer]

And there lies the problem. This *eventuality* is taking a very long time. It is far more prudent to fix the combat animation-breaking "exploits" (not my word) before making sweeping changes like this.

But what do I know...

Haha... They fix the fun, skilled based "Exploit" that only gave ~15% dps to old THF, but leave in the boring no-skill based +50% dps methods for other styles...

[xAmadeusx]

Still no explanation as to the reasoning behind a THF nerf, other than a nebulous “over-performance” reference? In reference to what exactly? It’s not as if DDO has a dps log where each class can be numerically tracked and cross-referenced from each other. Casters have always dominated over melee and it seems that if melee even dare step close to being comparable in effectiveness than a nerf hammer comes swiftly along to destroy any potential for variety or fun. I think TWF and SWF ought to have the ability to be viable but not at the cost of a play style that intrinsically causes risk.

[zappy]

Shield Mastery feats now contribute to Epic Defensive Fighting (including the new ones).

long live the never nerfed wiztank!!!

[Cetus]

Still no explanation as to the reasoning behind a THF nerf, other than a nebulous “over-performance” reference? In reference to what exactly? It’s not as if DDO has a dps log where each class can be numerically tracked and cross-referenced from each other. Casters have always dominated over melee and it seems that if melee even dare step close to being comparable in effectiveness than a nerf hammer comes swiftly along to destroy any potential for variety or fun. I think TWF and SWF ought to have the ability to be viable but not at the cost of a play style that intrinsically causes risk.

The THF'ing animals who animation break and the melee-power bloated KotC'ers come to mind rather quickly.

If all we had were THF barbarian and fighter types, I suspect this "over-performance" talk would be much smaller in magnitude, especially when you see what casters (alchemists) are doing to AoE trash that THF is designed to excel at.

As far as single target goes, well THF is currently pretty behind quite a number of TWF build archetypes.

Whatever, if it's not one thing to be unhappy with (crippling lag, that recently improved actually) in this game then it's another (this nerf).

[xAmadeusx]

The THF'ing animals who animation break and the melee-power bloated KotC'ers come to mind rather quickly.

If all we had were THF barbarian and fighter types, I suspect this "over-performance" talk would be much smaller in magnitude, especially when you see what casters (alchemists) are doing to AoE trash that THF is designed to excel at.

As far as single target goes, well THF is currently pretty behind quite a number of TWF build archetypes.

Whatever, if it's not one thing to be unhappy with (crippling lag, that recently improved actually) in this game then it's another (this nerf).

If that’s the case then it’s completely nonsensical to change these base damage values. It would instead be proper to address whatever animation glitch is being exploited. And besides, who else besides someone who would take the time to break the game engine would stand to benefit from such an exploit anyway? All this does is hurt the majority of players who probably don’t even use it.

[axel15810]

The top #2 casters got nerfed from orbit though, so your melee priest might comparatively better after this patch though :-)

Just watch out for those new Druids (and maybe FvS nukers), they look a bit overtuned.

I doubt it considering he's getting hit with this THF nerf plus he's losing -202 positive spellpower from the enhanced spellpower nerf. And all the cleric spell buffs target caster cleric spells, not melee cleric spells like prayer/divine favor/divine power, so he gets no benefit there. All in all melee clerics are getting hit pretty good, it really stinks.

[Nandos]

The Perfect Shield Mastery feat looks a little weak compared to the other Perfect Mastery feats. I am also hoping that Missile Deflection (not to be confused with Deflect Arrows) could be added to one of the shield feats.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Looking for a direct answer to these two questions:

1. What is the intended total ability mod for THF with these changes? 250%?
2. Are the melee power bonuses attached to the THF feats deliberately omitted there or not?

1) Yes, good job mathing.
2) Typically speaking, if something isn't listed as a change that means it didn't get changed.

[Coffey]

HaH weapons still reads the same after the complete THF line added. Must be the same 1.6 x stat damage mod.

[Kielbasa]

Natural Fighting
The Natural Fighting feat now increases your ability score modifier to damage by 25% while in Bear or Dire Bear form.

New Feat: Perfect Natural Fighting

• Req: Level 26, maximum experience in one Primal sphere Epic Destiny, at least one copy of Natural Fighting.
• If in Bear form, your Two-Handed ability mod increases by .25, and your Bear form's bonus to Armor Class is increased by 5%.
• If in Wolf form, +15% competence bonus to maximum hit points, and you gain +2d6 sneak attack dice.

15% max hp on the wolf side of this feat is useless as they will already have 25% from epic defensive fighting.

What I propose is now that every melee fighting style has a perfect fighting feat how about we remove epic defensive fighting and add the 5% to 25% hp bonus to each of the perfect style feats? For the wolf side of PNF the hp bonus, 2d6 sa dice and some flat melee power would be appropriate. If left at essentially 2d6 sa there is no reason to swap away from perfect twf.

Making the game more similar from 1-30 would be better than this weird situation we have right now where you can spot heal your party members for most of the game but oh darn I'm level 21 now I can't heal anyone effectively on my melee character has been terrible for the game since it was introduced.