U48.4 Preview 1: Balance Changes: Combat Styles

[Coffey]

It does read as 1.6 in GTHF Feat and nothing is mentioned in the PTHF Feat so its the same.

[Tilomere]

Two Handed Fighting
The Two Handed Fighting, Improved Two Handed Fighting, and Greater Two Handed Fighting feats now increase your ability score modifier to damage by 25%.

Perfect Two Handed Fighting

• Now also increases your ability score modifier to damage by 25%.

New Feat: Perfect Natural Fighting[*]If in Wolf form, +15% competence bonus to maximum hit points, and you gain +2d6 sneak attack dice.

While leveling THF isn't that great compared to spell damage, can you push the nerf to legendary itemization at 28-9 by instead reducing THF weighted dice to match TWF and SWF weighted dice? Eg 2d6+6 Raid Greatsword becomes 2d6+3. At Keen 7[W] weapons + Dance of Flowers + Misc bonuses this will take off about the same amount of damage as a .5 stat reduction, but at a better place for melee vs. caster balance.

THF gets lots of hits AoE, while TWF and SWF get lots of hits more focused, so it doesn't make sense why THF has better end game weighted dice scaling. I'll admit THF is far better than swashbuckling while leveling, by about 2x, but swashbuckling is terribad.

I really like the wolf form PNF, since it will allow dropping EDF to actually cast druid heals on party members and playing a druid as a druid. Can we get the spell auto-crit every 20 seconds on bears too? It would make playing a bear as a druid instead of barbarian more reasonable. And as THF, move the nerf to raid weighted weapons.

Plus new players don't seem to need the nerf as much as veterans with BiS raid gear.

Between Dire Charge increasing trash dps by 60% and +60 damage from weighted 29 weapons increasing dps by 25%, the multiplied increase in melee output at level 29 of 1.6x1.25 = 2x damage is causing you not to be able to balance melee against casters across levels. Any reasonable chance to instead chip away at this level 29 melee power spike seems better for overall balance.

[xAmadeusx]

While leveling THF isn't that great compared to spell damage, can you push the nerf to legendary itemization at 28-9 by instead reducing THF weighted dice to match TWF and SWF weighted dice? Eg 2d6+6 Raid Greatsword becomes 2d6+3. At Keen 7[W] weapons + Dance of Flowers + Misc bonuses this will take off about the same amount of damage as a .5 stat reduction, but at a better place for melee vs. caster balance.

THF gets lots of hits AoE, while TWF and SWF get lots of hits more focused, so it doesn't make sense why THF has better end game weighted dice scaling. I'll admit THF is far better than swashbuckling while leveling, by about 2x, but swashbuckling is terribad.

I really like the wolf form PNF, since it will allow dropping EDF to actually cast druid heals on party members and playing a druid as a druid. Can we get the spell auto-crit every 20 seconds on bears too? It would make playing a bear as a druid instead of barbarian more reasonable. And as THF, move the nerf to raid weighted weapons.

Plus new players don't seem to need the nerf as much as veterans with BiS raid gear.

Between Dire Charge increasing trash dps by 60% and +60 damage from weighted 29 weapons increasing dps by 25%, the multiplied increase in melee output at level 29 of 1.6x1.25 = 2x damage is causing you not to be able to balance melee against casters across levels. Any reasonable chance to instead chip away at this level 29 melee power spike seems better for overall balance.

For the love of god don’t do any of this. The disparity between melee and casters has always been in casters favor.

[Cetus]

While leveling THF isn't that great compared to spell damage, can you push the nerf to legendary itemization at 28-9 by instead reducing THF weighted dice to match TWF and SWF weighted dice? Eg 2d6+6 Raid Greatsword becomes 2d6+3. At Keen 7[W] weapons + Dance of Flowers + Misc bonuses this will take off about the same amount of damage as a .5 stat reduction, but at a better place for melee vs. caster balance.

THF gets lots of hits AoE, while TWF and SWF get lots of hits more focused, so it doesn't make sense why THF has better end game weighted dice scaling. I'll admit THF is far better than swashbuckling while leveling, by about 2x, but swashbuckling is terribad.

I really like the wolf form PNF, since it will allow dropping EDF to actually cast druid heals on party members and playing a druid as a druid. Can we get the spell auto-crit every 20 seconds on bears too? It would make playing a bear as a druid instead of barbarian more reasonable. And as THF, move the nerf to raid weighted weapons.

Plus new players don't seem to need the nerf as much as veterans with BiS raid gear.

Between Dire Charge increasing trash dps by 60% and +60 damage from weighted 29 weapons increasing dps by 25%, the multiplied increase in melee output at level 29 of 1.6x1.25 = 2x damage is causing you not to be able to balance melee against casters across levels. Any reasonable chance to instead chip away at this level 29 melee power spike seems better for overall balance.

This post is horrifying

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

Disclaimer

Everything seen on the preview server, Lamannia, is not final and is subject to change or removal before live release.

This is the BALANCE CHANGES: COMBAT STYLES portion of the release notes.

Preface
When looking at the spread, popularity, and usability of combat styles, we came up with a few concrete goals. We wanted to boost the DPS and versatility of SWF, expanding its usage outwards to better cater to hybrid builds. We also wanted to tone down the DPS of THF slightly while leaving the AoE capabilities top-tier, as that niche is part of what makes THF so compelling. We also looked at the DPS of TWF, and found that while we think it's in a balanced place offensively, the companion feats for TWF needed a lot of help to become more compelling defensive options. We ran through several iterations of Two Weapon Blocking before we decided to simply remove it entirely, merging it with Two Weapon Defense, and we also wanted to further incentivize it by adding a MRR cap boost. 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. Finally, we wanted to add more compelling combat options for Shield Fighting. Its Perfect combat style feat is very defensive, but that's Shield's niche, and we wanted the style to retain its defensive elements at the top end. These are also coupled with some buffs to the Vanguard tree's T5 options, to help make that tree more of a competitive choice versus Kensei or Knight of the Chalice, and you can see those in the Balance Changes: Enhancement Trees/Misc Post.

Single Weapon Fighting
New Feat: Offhand Versatility
[LIST][*]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%.

Melee artificer builds are not going to be particularly concerned with offensive spell criticals, it would be better to have this feat improve the DC associated with weapon proc saves belonging to whatever weapon is equipped, or proc chance even. Another thing is, you could have this feat make the new soulgem creating legendary runearm actually create soulgems half as frequent as the heroic version does as right now it feels like it is limited to about one soulgem per hour of use.....

A thing I have been suggesting for a while now is to bundle Bastard Sword and Dwarven War axe proficiency for artificers under "Hand And A Half Weapons" as a single feat.

[Rull]

Perfect Two Handed Fighting

• Now also increases your ability score modifier to damage by 25%.

I'm assuming this increases your ability score modifier to damage by 25% when Two Handed Fighting, right?
Or is it like "perfect two weapon fighting" where it benefits everyone (which makes it a fine feat, just the name isn't the best). In that case it'd be a huge boost to, say, TWF also. Please clarify if you want feedback on balance because these things can impact a lot.

Under the assumption is benefits only the "Two Weapon Fighting Style": If I understand correctly, a Bastard Sword user with nothing in the offhand will count as Two Handed Fighting (even without the feat line).
So it'll get 2.35x Ability Mod with the following feats:
base (110%)
SWF
iSWF (+25%)
gSWF (+25%)
Offhand Versatility (+25%)
perfectSWF (+25%)
perfectTHF (+25%)

It'd have just 50% strikethrough though (20% base and 30% perfect THF)

Correct?

I'm still trying to wrap my head around bear form with and without shield, and wolf form with and without...

[Tilomere]

This post is horrifying

Plus it has the additional horrifying effect of normalizing overly dominant FoTW boulder's might-adrenaline weighted damage die scaling interaction with LD, Fatesinger, and DC.

[FuzzyDuck81]

A shame about the nerf to 2hf but understandable considering it was making that style the optimum single target as well as multi-target dps option.

Offhand versatility looks like it'll be really nice for a number of builds, though will that auto-crit be expended only on a triggered spell or will it also apply to ongoing effects like auras? Otherwise the healing/repair/death auras will end up eating it up when you might want to take advantage of a guaranteed thunderstroke crit for example.

Perfect natural fighting is interesting.. I use sword & board approach on my bear so won't bother taking it on that one, though having it include the HP bonus certainly makes it a good choice for wolves.

[Seph1roth5]

50% reduction on thf doesn't SOUND that bad, assuming that's what it actually winds up as. But again, this whole nerf thing is ridiculous. The whole REASON 2hf wound up being so strong is because everyone hated strikethrough when it was first on lammania. After multiple changes the increased ability modifier was how they balanced out the lesser AoE (and when it didn't really work with special attacks).

People need to remember that not everyone parks at lv 30 with their 500 past lives/100 reaper point characters. Try to think of some of these changes affecting people as they level and not just what it means at cap.

[PrinceOfAsphodel]

Why? Because it put it into competition with casters/ranged who don’t have to risk anything at all to annihilate a room or boss? God forbid an offensive melee play style actually have some fun.

It depends on the difficulty, really. Casters really shine in low reapers but in mid to high reapers (which is what a lot of people like to play the most) casters can't even compare to THF builds. Alchemists could, but they're getting nerfed into the ground. I actually feel this was a good nerf for THF. We suspected we were going to get hit with one and were praying it wouldn't be too bad. I think THF is still the #1 melee style even after this nerf, just not by as large of a margin. Compared to the nerfs to some spells and spell power gear, this was nothing.

[PrinceOfAsphodel]

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 Bucklers were intentionally left out of this because the reward for using a buckler are that stats you get from that buckler, rather than nothing from an empty second hand. This way there would be more diversity since you get to choose between the extra 25% ability mod to damage or the abilities you get from a buckler. Yeah, I would have liked to get extra buffs for my Swashbuckling but I do follow the logic of why it doesn't work like that.

[PrinceOfAsphodel]

long live the never nerfed wiztank!!!

Lol, yeah. Now hybrid PMs can use shield mastery instead of SWF. How neat. We did get a small nerf in losing Silverthread enhancement bonus. Fighting red named bosses isn't getting any easier for Pale Masters, lol.

[Rull]

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.

This seems not to be the case.
Tested on Lammania 2021-02-10T12:16:37Z
naked character, cormyrian knight training using charisma for damage.
Weilding longsword, and nothing in offhand
When looking at the Details section of the inventory, after closing-reopening:

with SWF, iSWF, gSWF:
40 Charisma (+15 mod): 58dmg
80 Charisma (+35 mod): 88dmg (wearing gear with just 40 charisma, no deadly)

with SWF, iSWF, gSWF AND Offhand Versatility:
40 Charisma (+15 mod): 58dmg
80 Charisma (+35 mod): 88dmg (wearing gear with just 40 charisma, no deadly)

When adding 40 charisma (20 mod), instead of the expected difference of 35 damage (x1.75), the difference is just 30 damage (x1.5). And as you can see the numbers are wrong to begin with, taking or dropping "Offhand Versatility" changed nothing in terms of damage

[rayworks]

Seems reasonable but why make it so high in the first place that you have to nerf it at all?

Because they don't properly play test in the first place.

[Rull]

Two Handed Fighting
Perfect Two Handed Fighting
Now also increases your ability score modifier to damage by 25%.

This ALSO does not seem to be the case.
Tested with no THF at all (it doesn't list them as prereq).

[Buddha5440]

...
Misc Combat Style Changes

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

FINALLY!!!
How the shield mastery feats were not the first ones considered for use with EDF is beyond me.

[Rull]

Actually all twohanders seem to be broken in general. Without feats they should still give 1.5x, but it gives only 1x.

What a mess

Well, it's nice to see the proposed change, but currently playing on lammania to get a feel for the new numbers is only going to give false feedback.

[Marshal_Lannes]

50% reduction on thf doesn't SOUND that bad, assuming that's what it actually winds up as. But again, this whole nerf thing is ridiculous. The whole REASON 2hf wound up being so strong is because everyone hated strikethrough when it was first on lammania. After multiple changes the increased ability modifier was how they balanced out the lesser AoE (and when it didn't really work with special attacks).

People need to remember that not everyone parks at lv 30 with their 500 past lives/100 reaper point characters. Try to think of some of these changes affecting people as they level and not just what it means at cap.

It's not a 50% reduction on THF. It's a 16.6% reduction of base stat (which in itself is maybe 30-40% of damage source). This is actually an incredibly smart adjustment. Primarily, this will affect overloaded characters whose stat is 100. Those whose stat is 50 will barely notice any change.

[kanordog]

Actually all twohanders seem to be broken in general. Without feats they should still give 1.5x, but it gives only 1x.

What a mess

Well, it's nice to see the proposed change, but currently playing on lammania to get a feel for the new numbers is only going to give false feedback.

So... with taking 4 thf feats you can boost your damage to 2x, nice.

[Hawkwier]

So... with taking 4 thf feats you can boost your damage to 2x, nice.

No. Only ability stat damage. And it should be 2.5 as opposed to currently 3. 2 seems an error. As it should be 0.5 without any feats. Could a Dev please clarify?