U51 Early Preview: Epic Destiny Revamp: Divine Crusader

[Stravix]

Please don't limit any CC in this tree to requiring a shield. If you want to add riders when you have a shield equipped ok, but limiting abilities is not fun.

It's fine when it's in a multiselector with that same cc, just in a different shape, on the other side

[Drachmoril]

Howdy friends! It's been a crazy few days, right?

I've been gathering up a ton of feedback and I wanted to take some time to write up what I've gleaned from you fine folks so far. Note that this is not an exhaustive list, and also note that (given that this is the DC thread) it's going to be centered on stuff that directly relates to Divine Crusader. These are also in no particular order

1: A lot of players have brought up that the removal of No Remorse was a pretty big tempo loss from this tree. It's not going to return here (because the Aura itself is elsewhere and frankly the scripting was a mess) but we can take what it did and figure out a new way to reintroduce its usage. What I'm currently thinking is to change the Tier 1: Divine Smite enhancement to provide a high-impact AoE Heal whenever you Smite instead of the Temp HP buff. This heal will increase in effectiveness the more Divine Charges you have, and will feel a lot like the Ameliorating Smite enhancements (but with a little more spicy sauce on top). I think this will go a long way to help Divine Crusader fill in its niche as a sustained combat attacker, someone who can dish out damage but also helps keep their allies' topped off. No Remorse was useful for providing healing throughout combat, which is a great feeling, and this new ability will mean that as long as you're pressing Smite Evil buttons, you're also healing up your friends. This kind of healing is also far more controllable than No Remorse (since you can press a number of buttons to trigger it, rather than needing to kill something) and therefore will hopefully be a little more usable mid-fights.

2: This tree has a real problem generating Divine Tokens beyond its builder (and any myriad bugs currently present). 10% chance on crit is WAY too low and unreliable for regular use. With that in mind, another change I'm noodling on is making it so that early on in the tree (in the first 2 tiers, so right at level 20), you'll be able to get something that says "Using Sunder, Improved Sunder, or any other Sundering attack gives you 1 Divine Charge." This charge gain will have a short internal cooldown (less than 10 seconds) but will hopefully make it way easier to reliably gain charges by weaving in existing abilities. This will also help bring another big Divine Crusader mechanic a little closer together. This tree is all about Sunder, sunder DCs, sunder attacks, etc.

3: The Spenders in this tree need some work!! Big attacks are fun and all, but this one was cookie cutter and not in a good way. It's clear from your feedback that what players really want is something that can deal with crowds a la Dire Charge. So, with that in mind, I'd love for us to work together and design something that can fill that same niche (but using Sunder DCs instead of Stunning). Maybe some sort of new Crowd Control type that isn't a Stun? My current ideas are:

a: A charge attack that, if you're using a shield, does some sort of AoE CC to all enemies struck. Divine Charges increase the area of effect size, and at 3+ charges it grants you a short burst of Unstoppability (CC immunity).
b: A melee attack that always tries to apply the CC effect in a straight line backwards for a moderate distance (probably 10 feet). For each Divine Charge, this AoE cone gets wider, until at 3+ charges it's a full 180 degrees centering from where you're facing. If you're using a shield, this attack also grants you a short burst of Unstoppability (CC immunity).

The big problem with both of these ideas is that I have no idea how they'll fit into a rotation if you're a ranged character. So, with that in mind, here's my idea for the Ranged option:

For some amount of time (probably 10 seconds, with additional time for each Divine Charge you consumed), your ranged attacks apply the CC from above to all enemies struck with your basic attacks. Each enemy may only be CCed by this once every 10 seconds or so.

The only real thing that I'm stuck on is what, exactly, that CC type should be. Ideally it's disruptive, provides helplessness, makes sense to scale with your Sunder bonuses, and feels fun to hit enemies with. Any ideas?

4: Law of the Divine is too strong, also slightly inelegant now that I've given it more thought. The good news is that it's sticking around, but it needs a tiny amount of polish. These kinds of feat buffs need to work in tandem with the base feat, not just apply a better version right on top and leave the original there. I think it's clunky that it doesn't just replace the law damage on hit with a better law damage on hit proc. Thankfully this kind of thing - aka replacing the law damage - is easy to put together.

5: The Tier 5 of this tree needs some sort of big flashy thingie that feels great to press. Something that we'll probably go into more detail later on is that we didn't realize that players were so attached to the idea of an Epic Moment. Now, granted, the original Epic Moment of this tree (Celestial Bombardment) is prooobably not the best fit to return, but the good news is that we have more than enough time to think of something a little bit better suited to the new Divine Crusader paradigm. Part of me wants something that provides a ton of mobility, part of me wants to let you drop a super-pumped up Consecration, and part of me wants to wait and see what you fine folks come up with.

6: This tree needs to physically be rearranged so that the Consecration buffs end up in a line and the Mantle buffs end up in a line. Also I need to bring back the old Aura of Purification visuals for when Holy Mantle is turned on.

There's definitely more stuff to adjust (animation changes, buffs to the cores, etc) but these are the big ones I wanted to be sure to bring up ASAP. And of course, if you have any questions or further comments, please feel free to add to the discussion. Thanks!

Lynn you're just cool. Always took note of the way you interacted with the forum and community at large. The game design stuff with Strim has also been fun to watch.

You don't know how much I respect notes like "needs some sort of big flashy thingie that feels great to press." I've only made a few small games myself, but even I can recognize the significance of this point (despite the word "thingie") in prioritizing gamefeel as an *end* (which ostensibly does consider things like power, balance).

I wish there were a thousand little Lynn's working in the DDO mines all day. Keep up the responsive work

[GramercyRiff]

It's fine when it's in a multiselector with that same cc, just in a different shape, on the other side

Yeah that could work for sure. Good idea.

Thanks for putting CC in the tree by the way. I'm of the strong opinion that melee has to have some form of CC and multiple options of it. It's fun.


The CC for DC should be tied to some kind of divine wrath that is channeled through the favored weapon. We're talking wrath of god here. It writes itself.

[CaptainSpacePony]

1: What I'm currently thinking is to change the Tier 1: Divine Smite enhancement to provide a high-impact AoE Heal whenever you Smite instead of the Temp HP buff. This heal will increase in effectiveness the more Divine Charges you have, and will feel a lot like the Ameliorating Smite enhancements...

2: This tree has a real problem generating Divine Tokens beyond its builder (and any myriad bugs currently present). 10% chance on crit is WAY too low and unreliable for regular use. With that in mind, another change I'm noodling on is making it so that early on in the tree (in the first 2 tiers, so right at level 20), you'll be able to get something that says "Using Sunder, Improved Sunder, or any other Sundering attack gives you 1 Divine Charge." This charge gain will have a short internal cooldown (less than 10 seconds) but will hopefully make it way easier to reliably gain charges by weaving in existing abilities. This will also help bring another big Divine Crusader mechanic a little closer together. This tree is all about Sunder, sunder DCs, sunder attacks, etc.

3: The Spenders in this tree need some work!! ... I'd love for us to work together and design something that can fill that same niche (but using Sunder DCs instead of Stunning). Maybe some sort of new Crowd Control type that isn't a Stun? My current ideas are:

a: A charge attack that, if you're using a shield, does some sort of AoE CC to all enemies struck. Divine Charges increase the area of effect size, and at 3+ charges it grants you a short burst of Unstoppability (CC immunity).
b: A melee attack that always tries to apply the CC effect in a straight line backwards for a moderate distance (probably 10 feet). For each Divine Charge, this AoE cone gets wider, until at 3+ charges it's a full 180 degrees centering from where you're facing. If you're using a shield, this attack also grants you a short burst of Unstoppability (CC immunity).

The big problem with both of these ideas is that I have no idea how they'll fit into a rotation if you're a ranged character. So, with that in mind, here's my idea for the Ranged option:

For some amount of time (probably 10 seconds, with additional time for each Divine Charge you consumed), your ranged attacks apply the CC from above to all enemies struck with your basic attacks. Each enemy may only be CCed by this once every 10 seconds or so.

The only real thing that I'm stuck on is what, exactly, that CC type should be. Ideally it's disruptive, provides helplessness, makes sense to scale with your Sunder bonuses, and feels fun to hit enemies with. Any ideas?

5: .... Part of me wants something that provides a ton of mobility, part of me wants to let you drop a super-pumped up Consecration, and part of me wants to wait and see what you fine folks come up with.

Thanks!

1. Interesting. I like the idea.
2. I guess..??? I'm still really stuck on the fact that I HATE THE WHOLE IDEA OF A BUILDER/SPENDER SYSTEM!!!
3. See 2 above, and instead of shield, could it be shield OR favored weapon? I would prefer my 2HF divine types to feel at home in this tree.
5. Divine Crusader is not, imo, a mobiity tree. Put that in GMoF please.

[Stravix]

1. Interesting. I like the idea.
2. I guess..??? I'm still really stuck on the fact that I HATE THE WHOLE IDEA OF A BUILDER/SPENDER SYSTEM!!!
3. See 2 above, and instead of shield, could it be shield OR favored weapon? I would prefer my 2HF divine types to feel at home in this tree.
5. Divine Crusader is not, imo, a mobiity tree. Put that in GMoF please.

Per your 3, check out 3b.

5) Agreed in full. Mobi in GMoF, something else here

[droid327]

1: provide a high-impact AoE Heal whenever you Smite instead of the Temp HP buff

2: 10% chance on crit is WAY too low and unreliable for regular use. With that in mind, another change I'm noodling on is making it so that early on in the tree (in the first 2 tiers, so right at level 20), you'll be able to get something that says "Using Sunder, Improved Sunder, or any other Sundering attack gives you 1 Divine Charge.

3: The Spenders in this tree need some work!! Big attacks are fun and all, but this one was cookie cutter and not in a good way. It's clear from your feedback that what players really want is something that can deal with crowds a la Dire Charge. So, with that in mind, I'd love for us to work together and design something that can fill that same niche (but using Sunder DCs instead of Stunning).

The big problem with both of these ideas is that I have no idea how they'll fit into a rotation if you're a ranged character.

4: Law of the Divine is too strong, also slightly inelegant now that I've given it more thought. The good news is that it's sticking around, but it needs a tiny amount of polish.

5: Something that we'll probably go into more detail later on is that we didn't realize that players were so attached to the idea of an Epic Moment. Part of me wants something that provides a ton of mobility, part of me wants to let you drop a super-pumped up Consecration, and part of me wants to wait and see what you fine folks come up with.

1. This is a great compromise and addresses both the lack of combat heals and the lameness of 20 Temp HP in Epic Especially since the Spender is itself a free Smite, so that'll be a regular part of the rotation

2. I want to provide a voice against this. As an Inqui DC, I found the passive on-crit building was more than sufficient to provide me with charges. Maybe its different for melees, but it was definitely a fun aspect of the build when playtesting. I dont mind Charge on Sunder for melees if they need another source, but I wouldnt want to lose Charge on Crit for Inquis (and probably TWF). Having a passive building option REALLY improves gameplay because you're not having to consciously manage your charges constantly, and if you can avoid reliance on spamming your builder its a huge QOL improvement to the flow of combat. A lot of the complaints I'm seeing about this new system are about the charge build/spend mechanic and how annoying it can be.

3. Melees losing Dire Charge is a very widespread concern, yes. Ranged arent really that concerned with it, though. I'd strongly suggest to just keep the current ranged spender as-is...its fantastic, its exactly what ranged builds want. A high-damage attack that applies a significant defense debuff. Ranged isnt nearly as reliant on CC as melee, because we stay out of combat range. What we want ARE those big-hit attacks so we can kill stuff faster. Being able to stick a linear short-term CC really isnt that helpful, and plus its redundant with the other on-hit CC we already have such as Tendon Slice, or Nerve Venom if you're in Shiradi.

4. Yeah its pretty awesome as it stands right now Maybe have it apply a stacking Law Damage debuff (1d6 per char level every 2 secs over 8 secs?) so that its more relevant against harder targets, and not just a straight instantaneous DPS boost? Max stacks based on Divine charges.

5. You think? LOL that was a pretty big oversight...Epic Moments are great and so popular because it lets you go into "boss mode" for fighting bosses, who otherwise can be frustrating sacks of HP at higher difficulties. Whatever the Moments evolve into, it should fit into that role: something that lets you boost your combat efficacy to super levels, for a short term, but long enough to encompass an average boss fight. I dont think a super-consecration is really the answer...I'd lean more towards offense, maybe put the Crusade effect on super-steroids for 45 seconds.

[Stravix]

1. This is a great compromise and addresses both the lack of combat heals and the lameness of 20 Temp HP in Epic Especially since the Spender is itself a free Smite, so that'll be a regular part of the rotation

2. I want to provide a voice against this. As an Inqui DC, I found the passive on-crit building was more than sufficient to provide me with charges. Maybe its different for melees, but it was definitely a fun aspect of the build when playtesting. I dont mind Charge on Sunder for melees if they need another source, but I wouldnt want to lose Charge on Crit for Inquis (and probably TWF). Having a passive building option REALLY improves gameplay because you're not having to consciously manage your charges constantly, and if you can avoid reliance on spamming your builder its a huge QOL improvement to the flow of combat. A lot of the complaints I'm seeing about this new system are about the charge build/spend mechanic and how annoying it can be.

3. Melees losing Dire Charge is a very widespread concern, yes. Ranged arent really that concerned with it, though. I'd strongly suggest to just keep the current ranged spender as-is...its fantastic, its exactly what ranged builds want. A high-damage attack that applies a significant defense debuff. Ranged isnt nearly as reliant on CC as melee, because we stay out of combat range. What we want ARE those big-hit attacks so we can kill stuff faster. Being able to stick a linear short-term CC really isnt that helpful, and plus its redundant with the other on-hit CC we already have such as Tendon Slice, or Nerve Venom if you're in Shiradi.

4. Yeah its pretty awesome as it stands right now Maybe have it apply a stacking Law Damage debuff (similar to other stacking debuffs) so that its more relevant against harder targets, and not just a straight instantaneous DPS boost? Max stacks based on Divine charges.

5. You think? LOL that was a pretty big oversight...Epic Moments are great and so popular because it lets you go into "boss mode" for fighting bosses, who otherwise can be frustrating sacks of HP at higher difficulties. Whatever the Moments evolve into, it should fit into that role: something that lets you boost your combat efficacy to super levels, for a short term, but long enough to encompass an average boss fight. I dont think a super-consecration is really the answer...I'd lean more towards offense, maybe put the Crusade effect on super-steroids for 45 seconds.

Seeing as how I don't play ranged builds, what would your thoughts be on #2 being a multiselector?

Have crit passive generation on one side, with sunder passive generation on the other?

[FuzzyDuck81]

The only real thing that I'm stuck on is what, exactly, that CC type should be. Ideally it's disruptive, provides helplessness, makes sense to scale with your Sunder bonuses, and feels fun to hit enemies with. Any ideas?

How about nauseated? A sunder attack blasting through your enemies armour to make them lose their lunch could be a good one to use somewhere I think about the only thing that uses that at the moment is stinking cloud, but while it doesn't prevent movement it stops enemies doing a lot of things. I guess it might be more appropriate for a poison-related tree instead though.

[Shagarot]

Using Holy power, you could "Command" you foe to lay down on the floor (a la the Cleric Command spell).

You sunder the enemy's will and force them to grovel at your feet

I really like this one if only just for roleplaying flavor.

[droid327]

I vote against this, while this may work for solo play, any group play with this will be a PitA

There's a reason we've never had a Knockback ability, or any other ability that will let us reposition mobs: it can be used to break pathing AI and can lead to bad things like quest progression getting stuck, being able to knock mobs off cliffs or put them in places they cant hit you back, etc.

5) Agreed in full. Mobi in GMoF, something else here

I think what Lynn meant was trying to decide between a super-Consecration, or another option that preserves mobility (because Consecration locks you into the zone of effect). Not that the new Epic Moment would give you bonuses to mobility.

Seeing as how I don't play ranged builds, what would your thoughts be on #2 being a multiselector?

Have crit passive generation on one side, with sunder passive generation on the other?

Yeah that's fine, whatever setup is most workable, just as long as they dont take away something that works well for some people, just because it doesnt work well for others.

[Kelledren]

A CC multi selector: Ranged/Shield/Melee weapon

Each with its own slightly different effects, but based off of Sunder.

I keep thinking about the animations that would be awesome: throwing melee weapon with electric burst (ranged dire charge?), a ranged shot with a huge thunder burst, or pounce with shield or thrown shield. I know this is getting super hero-ish but would be cool. I feel end result would be a knockdown, maybe short knockdown with a few seconds of reduced attack speed (thematically to pick up sundered weapons).

I hate the idea of a charged system… but could be 2-3 mobs+1 per charge?

[J-mann]

In PnP sunder can be used to break weapons and shields, so what about a short term debuff that massively reduces the enemies melee/ranged/spell power to the point where they do negligible if any damage and reduces prr/mrr roughly equal to what most players have for additional helpless damage?

This is a great idea. The devs really need to lean more on soft cc and debuffs than hard cc being the be all end all. It would give the game much more flavor.

[J-mann]

Howdy friends! It's been a crazy few days, right?

I've been gathering up a ton of feedback and I wanted to take some time to write up what I've gleaned from you fine folks so far. Note that this is not an exhaustive list, and also note that (given that this is the DC thread) it's going to be centered on stuff that directly relates to Divine Crusader. These are also in no particular order

1: A lot of players have brought up that the removal of No Remorse was a pretty big tempo loss from this tree. It's not going to return here (because the Aura itself is elsewhere and frankly the scripting was a mess) but we can take what it did and figure out a new way to reintroduce its usage. What I'm currently thinking is to change the Tier 1: Divine Smite enhancement to provide a high-impact AoE Heal whenever you Smite instead of the Temp HP buff. This heal will increase in effectiveness the more Divine Charges you have, and will feel a lot like the Ameliorating Smite enhancements (but with a little more spicy sauce on top). I think this will go a long way to help Divine Crusader fill in its niche as a sustained combat attacker, someone who can dish out damage but also helps keep their allies' topped off. No Remorse was useful for providing healing throughout combat, which is a great feeling, and this new ability will mean that as long as you're pressing Smite Evil buttons, you're also healing up your friends. This kind of healing is also far more controllable than No Remorse (since you can press a number of buttons to trigger it, rather than needing to kill something) and therefore will hopefully be a little more usable mid-fights.

2: This tree has a real problem generating Divine Tokens beyond its builder (and any myriad bugs currently present). 10% chance on crit is WAY too low and unreliable for regular use. With that in mind, another change I'm noodling on is making it so that early on in the tree (in the first 2 tiers, so right at level 20), you'll be able to get something that says "Using Sunder, Improved Sunder, or any other Sundering attack gives you 1 Divine Charge." This charge gain will have a short internal cooldown (less than 10 seconds) but will hopefully make it way easier to reliably gain charges by weaving in existing abilities. This will also help bring another big Divine Crusader mechanic a little closer together. This tree is all about Sunder, sunder DCs, sunder attacks, etc.

3: The Spenders in this tree need some work!! Big attacks are fun and all, but this one was cookie cutter and not in a good way. It's clear from your feedback that what players really want is something that can deal with crowds a la Dire Charge. So, with that in mind, I'd love for us to work together and design something that can fill that same niche (but using Sunder DCs instead of Stunning). Maybe some sort of new Crowd Control type that isn't a Stun? My current ideas are:

a: A charge attack that, if you're using a shield, does some sort of AoE CC to all enemies struck. Divine Charges increase the area of effect size, and at 3+ charges it grants you a short burst of Unstoppability (CC immunity).
b: A melee attack that always tries to apply the CC effect in a straight line backwards for a moderate distance (probably 10 feet). For each Divine Charge, this AoE cone gets wider, until at 3+ charges it's a full 180 degrees centering from where you're facing. If you're using a shield, this attack also grants you a short burst of Unstoppability (CC immunity).

The big problem with both of these ideas is that I have no idea how they'll fit into a rotation if you're a ranged character. So, with that in mind, here's my idea for the Ranged option:

For some amount of time (probably 10 seconds, with additional time for each Divine Charge you consumed), your ranged attacks apply the CC from above to all enemies struck with your basic attacks. Each enemy may only be CCed by this once every 10 seconds or so.

The only real thing that I'm stuck on is what, exactly, that CC type should be. Ideally it's disruptive, provides helplessness, makes sense to scale with your Sunder bonuses, and feels fun to hit enemies with. Any ideas?

4: Law of the Divine is too strong, also slightly inelegant now that I've given it more thought. The good news is that it's sticking around, but it needs a tiny amount of polish. These kinds of feat buffs need to work in tandem with the base feat, not just apply a better version right on top and leave the original there. I think it's clunky that it doesn't just replace the law damage on hit with a better law damage on hit proc. Thankfully this kind of thing - aka replacing the law damage - is easy to put together.

5: The Tier 5 of this tree needs some sort of big flashy thingie that feels great to press. Something that we'll probably go into more detail later on is that we didn't realize that players were so attached to the idea of an Epic Moment. Now, granted, the original Epic Moment of this tree (Celestial Bombardment) is prooobably not the best fit to return, but the good news is that we have more than enough time to think of something a little bit better suited to the new Divine Crusader paradigm. Part of me wants something that provides a ton of mobility, part of me wants to let you drop a super-pumped up Consecration, and part of me wants to wait and see what you fine folks come up with.

6: This tree needs to physically be rearranged so that the Consecration buffs end up in a line and the Mantle buffs end up in a line. Also I need to bring back the old Aura of Purification visuals for when Holy Mantle is turned on.

There's definitely more stuff to adjust (animation changes, buffs to the cores, etc) but these are the big ones I wanted to be sure to bring up ASAP. And of course, if you have any questions or further comments, please feel free to add to the discussion. Thanks!

1. So long as the cd is ok and reaper penalty doesnt nuke it from orbit, sure. Definitely better than FIVE temp hp. I am really really confused about what the thought process of that was.

2. Ok not going to argue. I personally hate the builder spender mechanic as it is very bug prone. I have played bear druid quite a bit and savage roar frequently doesnt work right despite having the right number of KI. Also if we are staying with the buggy builder spender mechanics you really need to let charges last longer than 10 seconds. That is rediculously short and we will frequently not get to use our spender as fights might not last long enough.

3. I agree, the spender does nothing but provide damage and vuln stacks that build fast in a group anyways. I would love to see a really good soft cc in here, such as heavily reduced mob damage, heavily decreased mob attack speed, or mass confusion/blind on the mobs (if you can make blind make mobs attack the pc less..... instead of just the standard miss chance). If we must use a hard cc I could see the mass command option someone else mentioned being fun.

4. Not sure what to do here. It is definitely too powerful at d6 per level, would love to see some creative things. Maybe boost the damage of the feat a bit and add extra effects to mobs further from lawful good, again I would look into more of the realm of soft CC than hard CC, as imo Hard CC should be limited and long cooldown, otherwise you will need to make sure all players have hard ccs or the mobs will be too hard for them (sound familiar?). Examples that come to mind are things like if the mob is chaotic the mob will suffer a stacking -1 prr/mrr/mp/rp/sp debuff per strike, or if the mob is chaotic evil it suffers the limb chopper effect, or mobs that are evil are dazed for 1 second or something.

5. Yes, Ideally every tree should have something spicy at the top that makes you want to main it just for the cool factor of that ability. How about a leap attack that does an explosion on landing that drops a consecration while you are at it? Make the damage scale off of Melee/ranged/fire spell power. For the ranged version it could be a shot that explodes on the target for much the same way. That would be pretty neat. Speaking of at the top, the top tier mantel needs work. It should not just be fore shield wielders, it needs to provide something of benefit to all play styles the tree supports, not sure why you are trying to dedicate an entire tree to vanguards...... it should be a pally three that supports all pally play-styles just like the fury tree supports 2wf, animal, and 2hf. Also look into buffing the lower level mantel abilities they are pretty weak for their price point and compared to other mantels. LDs and furies are both better even without their top tiers as it stands, especially for the cost (looking at the 3 points for +3 attack and damage and turning into an implement...... that is way expensive for what it is and locked to the mantel).

6. Cool, and I will reiterate the t5 mantel buff needs something for the vast majority of pallies that are not vanguards......... Oh and why are our cores strictly weaker than other EDs? make the mp and hp the same. and core 1 should offer something small, just like all the other cores.........

[QuantumFX]

Honestly, I think this tree should be centered around Favored Weapons and you should stop trying to make Fetch (aka shields) happen. You have the entirety of Unyielding Sentinel to make shields a thing. By all means, pull shields into the Favored Weapons system, but also add some stuff for divine SWF, THF and TWF fighters.

As for a CC attack:
1) Make it a cleave. Not everything needs to be a charge attack.
2) How about an AoE Save vs. fort or take a 30 second long debuff that roots the targets to where they are, and causes -20/-40/-60% to the following: Melee Power, Ranger Power, PRR, and Attack speed. Basically trading the short term potency of Dire Charge for a longer term debuff that stacks with an AoE helplessness effect.

[QuixoticNeutral]

3: The Spenders in this tree need some work!! Big attacks are fun and all, but this one was cookie cutter and not in a good way. It's clear from your feedback that what players really want is something that can deal with crowds a la Dire Charge. So, with that in mind, I'd love for us to work together and design something that can fill that same niche (but using Sunder DCs instead of Stunning). Maybe some sort of new Crowd Control type that isn't a Stun? My current ideas are:

a: A charge attack that, if you're using a shield, does some sort of AoE CC to all enemies struck. Divine Charges increase the area of effect size, and at 3+ charges it grants you a short burst of Unstoppability (CC immunity).
b: A melee attack that always tries to apply the CC effect in a straight line backwards for a moderate distance (probably 10 feet). For each Divine Charge, this AoE cone gets wider, until at 3+ charges it's a full 180 degrees centering from where you're facing. If you're using a shield, this attack also grants you a short burst of Unstoppability (CC immunity).

The big problem with both of these ideas is that I have no idea how they'll fit into a rotation if you're a ranged character. So, with that in mind, here's my idea for the Ranged option:

For some amount of time (probably 10 seconds, with additional time for each Divine Charge you consumed), your ranged attacks apply the CC from above to all enemies struck with your basic attacks. Each enemy may only be CCed by this once every 10 seconds or so.

The only real thing that I'm stuck on is what, exactly, that CC type should be. Ideally it's disruptive, provides helplessness, makes sense to scale with your Sunder bonuses, and feels fun to hit enemies with. Any ideas?

Before you go rushing off to change it, can I just add that I actually AM happy to see that the spender for DC is a big damage attack (indeed the best big damage attack of all the EDs previewed so far) and would actually consider it a big nerf to see it changed to some CC spender. To counter the opinion that DC's finisher feels "generic": Let LD and Fury have their CC abilities in Dire Charge and Adrenaline. Turning DC's one shining aspect (that is has the best damage dealing finisher) into a CC for the sake of parity would only make the EDs feel more homogeneous.

[GramercyRiff]

Agree that DC should be all about favored weapons. I'd prefer this be the major focus of this tree. I don't dislike the shield stuff, and I'm ok with shields having rider effects. I just don't think shields should limit the abilities here. I can understand wanting to buff shields for offense. Shields need it.

I also don't think we need to sacrifice Law of the Divine for a powerful CC. We can have both. I missed the part where Law would be replaced for CC. Of course, Law is very powerful as written right now, and I always expected it to get nerfed. That's fine. Don't nerf it too hard though. These are level 30 abilities. If they aren't powerful then what is the point? Powerful is a ton of fun for a lot of people that play this game.

CC = Soul Sunder = Will Save with Sunder boosting the DC. Only affects non-good enemies. Blind and severely slow and helpless on a failed save. With some number of divine charge, it also stuns/paralyzes. With max?/3+? charges it kills/destroys evil enemies. Undead and evil outsiders in the aura of the Divine Crusader get a penalty to the saving throw. On top of all this, it should debuff reds and purples in some way (vulnerability and penalty to fortification). You could also have this CC deal no direct damage, but I don't think that's necessary. It's divine power from the deity channeled through the favored weapon. Cooldown shouldn't be prohibitive. Melee are in the mix of things constantly. I can't speak for ranged since I rarely play ranged.

So Law of the Divine = Lawful. Soul Sunder = Good.

[Xgya]

Every use of Sunder in DDO right now is about breaking armor.

Make the new CC-like-effect Charge a Shatterstorm, shattering both armor AND weapons and forcing enemies to fetch out their extras out of the golf bag we all carry.
So instead of helplessness, a 100% ranged/melee/spell power debuff (making enemies do no damage but still able to move around), along with a slight MRR/PRR debuff.

[GRow]

[QUOTE=Lynnabel;6439327]Howdy friends! It's been a crazy few days, right?

3: The Spenders in this tree need some work!! Big attacks are fun and all, but this one was cookie cutter and not in a good way. It's clear from your feedback that what players really want is something that can deal with crowds a la Dire Charge. So, with that in mind, I'd love for us to work together and design something that can fill that same niche (but using Sunder DCs instead of Stunning). Maybe some sort of new Crowd Control type that isn't a Stun? My current ideas are:

a: A charge attack that, if you're using a shield, does some sort of AoE CC to all enemies struck. Divine Charges increase the area of effect size, and at 3+ charges it grants you a short burst of Unstoppability (CC immunity).
b: A melee attack that always tries to apply the CC effect in a straight line backwards for a moderate distance (probably 10 feet). For each Divine Charge, this AoE cone gets wider, until at 3+ charges it's a full 180 degrees centering from where you're facing. If you're using a shield, this attack also grants you a short burst of Unstoppability (CC immunity).

Not being able to see all of the trees greatly hampers my ability to understand the logic and full impact of the changes, but for a tree that supports divine melees, the emphasis on shields in this tree (forcing towards a vanguard paladin) seems odd. Did you similarly nerf vanguards in the Unyielding Sentinel tree? Does that one have lots of goodies (including the spender) for THF and TWF?

[Stravix]

[QUOTE=GRow;6439853]

Howdy friends! It's been a crazy few days, right?

3: The Spenders in this tree need some work!! Big attacks are fun and all, but this one was cookie cutter and not in a good way. It's clear from your feedback that what players really want is something that can deal with crowds a la Dire Charge. So, with that in mind, I'd love for us to work together and design something that can fill that same niche (but using Sunder DCs instead of Stunning). Maybe some sort of new Crowd Control type that isn't a Stun? My current ideas are:

a: A charge attack that, if you're using a shield, does some sort of AoE CC to all enemies struck. Divine Charges increase the area of effect size, and at 3+ charges it grants you a short burst of Unstoppability (CC immunity).
b: A melee attack that always tries to apply the CC effect in a straight line backwards for a moderate distance (probably 10 feet). For each Divine Charge, this AoE cone gets wider, until at 3+ charges it's a full 180 degrees centering from where you're facing. If you're using a shield, this attack also grants you a short burst of Unstoppability (CC immunity).

Not being able to see all of the trees greatly hampers my ability to understand the logic and full impact of the changes, but for a tree that supports divine melees, the emphasis on shields in this tree (forcing towards a vanguard paladin) seems odd. Did you similarly nerf vanguards in the Unyielding Sentinel tree? Does that one have lots of goodies (including the spender) for THF and TWF?

The second spender has extra goodies if you are using a shield, but doesn't require it.

This is, in Lynn's words, something like an epic vanguard tree.

This tree is meant to push shield as an offensive style, while still having plenty of options for people not in that style.

At least, that's my understanding.

[Certon]

Objection: assuming facts not in evidence

I'm sorry, I know you're just doing your job, and I don't think you'd be radically rewriting the core of the game unless you were being put in a position where you have no choice

But I'd honestly rather the game go into maintenance mode than this. At least I'd end our time together with positive thoughts and memories

I couldn't agree with you more. I'd rather the game be what it was than for it to go in this horrible direction. Huge nerfs everywhere--character builds with weeks to months of grinding time to create something special, WIPED away in one update. I am SORELY disappointed in the devs.