U51 Early Preview: Epic Destiny Revamp: Fury of the Wild

[srxmk2]

Lynn did say that GMoF would also be a TWF tree, so you would likely want to mishmash the two together, and you are right, that vorpal knockdown is likely the reason to max GmoF

Yeah but it's embarrasing that you have to be centered to gain the max benefit of GmoF t5, GmoF is more like a ki-based TWF. As a more generic TWF support tree,, there should be sth unique and distinctive

[cru121]

This looks like a potent tree, unlike some of the others.
I do think the doublestrike values could be doubled; they seem to be weaker than the other options.
Fortification bypass could also use a bump.
I find it funny (and sad) that you cannot use The Great Leveler while leveling in epics because it's a lvl 30 ability.
The tree could use a Spend a Rage Charge to gain benefit mechanic imho.

[A-O]

I like the tree for TWF. The issue I think is that its just better for THF. Adrenaline doesn't proc on offhand and Quick Cutter, which I assume was supposed to be the TWF option, is complete garbage. Make Quick Cutter a better option for TWF than adrenaline (roughly the same as adrenaline for THF) and I'd have no complaints.

For reference, I was seeing 50k+ adrenaline hits on a non-optimized TWF, whereas Quick Cutter was only ticking for ~1200 every 2 seconds. It takes nearly a minute of this to catch up to a single adrenaline hit.

Yea for sure. There are definitely number changes to be done. But there are clearly things here meant for TWF (+20% OH e.g.). SSG has never made a dot that's actually good except early Mod 9 god knows how many years ago when they made the creeping cold, etc. spells. After that dots have always been ****. And so have any clicky attacks that aren't +multiplier/instakill/CC. I wouldn't except them to fix quick cutter. But one can hope

I think their issues is that they can't make dots like that that scale off of our powerlevel (Except MP). So if they make them strong enough to rival 50k adrenaline hits, then a new player will just use that and nothing else and find the game "trivial" for their regular gameplay. I would love if they reworked their coding for dots like slicing blow, and this e.g. so that they can scale off of our damage in some way rather than just scaling with level +mp.

[Monkey_Archer]

Yea for sure. There are definitely number changes to be done. But there are clearly things here meant for TWF (+20% OH e.g.). SSG has never made a dot that's actually good except early Mod 9 god knows how many years ago when they made the creeping cold, etc. spells. After that dots have always been ****. And so have any clicky attacks that aren't +multiplier/instakill/CC. I wouldn't except them to fix quick cutter. But one can hope

I think their issues is that they can't make dots like that that scale off of our powerlevel (Except MP). So if they make them strong enough to rival 50k adrenaline hits, then a new player will just use that and nothing else and find the game "trivial" for their regular gameplay. I would love if they reworked their coding for dots like slicing blow, and this e.g. so that they can scale off of our damage in some way rather than just scaling with level +mp.

Easiest fix would be just make it an on-hit effect instead of a dot. 1200 damage on hit seems high, but its only slightly better than adrenaline for TWF, and likely worse for THF. In my example 1200 * 3.5 hits per swing * 13.3 swings = 56k damage per adrenaline cooldown. So an extra 6k damage, but it takes an extra 6 seconds to apply. Seems like a fair trade off. Slightly better boss dps at the expense of the trash/cc/burst potential of adrenaline.

[A-O]

Easiest fix would be just make it an on-hit effect instead of a dot. 1200 damage on hit seems high, but its only slightly better than adrenaline for TWF, and likely worse for THF. In my example 1200 * 3.5 hits per swing * 13.3 swings = 56k damage per adrenaline cooldown. So an extra 6k damage, but it takes an extra 6 seconds to apply. Seems like a fair trade off. Slightly better boss dps at the expense of the trash/cc/burst potential of adrenaline.

On hit works. But they kinda love dots design-wise for some reasons so I don't see that changing unfortunately. And that would still have the same issues (but less extreme). Where, if you're a new player and you can get 1200dmg per hit or whatever that's gonna be 3x your damage your doing normally if you're a new player.

It somehow needs to scale beyond MP. Either by incorporating main stat into the formula, or weapon base dmg, or something. Maybe just have it scale off the hit that proced it. So if you hit for 5k it's gonna tick for 20% of that per 2 sec over 6 seconds or whatever. Bad DPS-wise, but at least that lets you proc it with a big hit and get a strong dot going. Basically something in that vein, numbers to be adjusted as best suited.

[TPICKRELL]

I've continued to do testing trying to figure out what is wrong with my DPS on my Fury Barb.

I read the minutes from the dev event and they confirmed that Fury is supposed to get its DPS from pairing Adrenaline with a Big Attack. So I narrowed my testing down to that usage style.

Found some interesting things today, that may be related to lammania lag, or may be due to my relatively slow internet connection (rural area, only option is DSL).

1) I can not maintain attacks while hitting adrenalines and use timing to control what attack will get the adrenaline, spent hours trying to sync them up.

2) Adrenaline is not firing reliable in a key sequence. Sometimes I have to hit it 3 times to get it to fire if I'm hitting other keys during a fight. This makes maintaining charges very difficult as well, since delaying an adrenaline can easily cause all charges to reset.

3) The only way to pair Adrenaline with a specific hit, on my system with my connection on Lammania is to stop attacking for 1/2 second, hit the Adrenaline key, stop for another 1/2 second, hit the attack I want Adrenaline to hit, stop for 1/2 second, resuming attacking.

Once in a while if I'm not hasted the adrenaline will apply and will hit the attack I want, but its less than 1 in 5 times, much less if hasted. Note I am seeing significant delays between hits and the results showing up on the screen, sometimes several seconds.

This is not an optimized Barb, its on a bad race (razorclaw) and is using sub-par gear, since he is only a barb to get the razorclaw past life. As a result his "Big" hits are not nearly as big as my main would get, and the 1.5 or 2 second stop attacking to pair adrenaline with an attack are eating a lot of the Big hit's extra DPS. I can't test my main because he doesnt show up on the copy list of toons (probably because hes a guild leader). I suspect he would do better in this scenario since hes much more optimized to specifically be a Barb and his big hits would be a lot bigger.

But the reliability of Adrenalines/Attack pairs is cutting my DPS by a huge amount (he is doing 50 to 75% less damage on Lammania compared to Khyber). By modern standards, I have a horrible internet connection, but it all that's available to me. And it was fine for DDO before these ED Changes. It may be more reliable on live, but if not the new Fury will be nearly unusable.

I'm quoting myself because something Lynnabel said on one of the streams this week explains what I am seeing(from the outside only).

Lynnabel said that the Queue for processing actions is only 1 action deep in order to make the system more reactive to the user. IE for example if something doesn't fire when you hit the key, you are likely to spam the key several times. Then the situation changes and you need to heal yourself. If the queue is deeper all those spammed actions would have to be processed before the heal could be processed. (My take on what Lynnabel said).

So, a one deep queue appears to mean:

Scenario 1: I hit Adrenaline, it goes into the queue. If I hit the strike and it arrives on the server to be processed before the adrenaline is processed, the Adrenaline is thrown away and the strike replaces it in the 1 deep queue. Net result the Adrenaline doesn't fire and has to be hit again AND the strike does fire and is on timer so can no longer be paired with the Adrenaline.

Scenario 2: I hit Adrenaline, it goes into the queue and gets processed. I hit the strike and it goes into the now empty queue. But my regular attack now comes through before the strike is processed, and the regular attack goes into the queue replacing the strike. The Adrenaline that applies to the regular attack and the Strike doesn't fire. The Adrenaline is now on timer unavailable to be paired with the strike.

The slower the internet connection, the more likely that things arrive in bursts, so the more likely these these scenarios are to occur.

The current live Epic Destiny gets a lot of its power from Adrenaline Overload which will apply to regular hits for most folks most of the time (purposely syncing strikes with an invisible timer is pretty tricky). This leveled out the DPS somewhat so that the inability to pair a specific strike and Adrenaline is less critical. The new Fury gets almost all of its DPS from pairing Adrenaline to a strike. And I can't do it without stopping all DPS for periods of time.

This is all conjecture from a user perspective, I have no idea how this really works under the covers. But from a user perspective it explains the behavior I am seeing.

The solution? SSG is in a better position to come up with solutions. But adding a builder that pairs Adrenaline to a decent damage strike in the same action, so they are an atomic action would help. This Adrenaline Strike would be either exclusive to, or on a shared timer with the stand alone adrenaline.

Note that I went back and watched carefully on live with my main, and he was not reliably pairing a strike with Adrenaline either, his base damage is a lot better, so he is getting decent numbers with an adrenalined base attack.

[Kielbasa]

Everything on the opposite selector of adrenaline needs a massive boost. Devs you know there are wisdom based wolves and bear right?... And wisdom shifters right? I can see a lot of people foregoing the mantle a little healing over time and better damage vs trash meh.

[Monkey_Archer]

On hit works. But they kinda love dots design-wise for some reasons so I don't see that changing unfortunately. And that would still have the same issues (but less extreme). Where, if you're a new player and you can get 1200dmg per hit or whatever that's gonna be 3x your damage your doing normally if you're a new player.

It somehow needs to scale beyond MP. Either by incorporating main stat into the formula, or weapon base dmg, or something. Maybe just have it scale off the hit that proced it. So if you hit for 5k it's gonna tick for 20% of that per 2 sec over 6 seconds or whatever. Bad DPS-wise, but at least that lets you proc it with a big hit and get a strong dot going. Basically something in that vein, numbers to be adjusted as best suited.

Scaling with 200% melee power typically solves this issue. The biggest difference between new and experienced/endgame players is melee power from sentient weapons and mythic/reaper bonuses. Base damage for adrenaline is easier to acquire than raw melee power for 200% scaling on hit effects.
1200 per hit is with ~250 melee power I was sitting at while testing, optimized builds will see higher (to match 100k adrenaline hits) and newer players would see much lower.

If it has to be a DOT then it would need to be nearly 10x stronger to compete with adrenaline. Why bother taking 6 seconds to setup a DOT when you could do all the damage upfront and knockdown in the process? DOTs need to do more damage not less.

[A-O]

Scaling with 200% melee power typically solves this issue. The biggest difference between new and experienced/endgame players is melee power from sentient weapons and mythic/reaper bonuses. Base damage for adrenaline is easier to acquire than raw melee power for 200% scaling on hit effects.
1200 per hit is with ~250 melee power I was sitting at while testing, optimized builds will see higher (to match 100k adrenaline hits) and newer players would see much lower.

If it has to be a DOT then it would need to be nearly 10x stronger to compete with adrenaline. Why bother taking 6 seconds to setup a DOT when you could do all the damage upfront and knockdown in the process? DOTs need to do more damage not less.

I agree that it has to do more damage, but I don't agree that 200%MP solves that issue of new players vs. old.
Even if a old player has literally 3x as much MP, they're only gonna do 6x the damage with it. If it's really good for old players at X damage. It will be stupid OP for new players at X/6. 300%-400% scaling might be a better solution.

[Shakanos]

A major thing I've gotten from this thread is that primal charges across destinies are in a weird spot specifically due to the melee/range/caster focuses. This raises the question - is it really absolutely necessary to have four different charge types or is that just a remnant from the spheres of the old system? Would just designing for universal charges (and thus opening more build diversity) be particularly bad in the long run?

[Chilianna]

I noticed that only TWF support has been added to this tree.

Are we getting support for SWF on any tree?
Can we please

[Ordinary]

Acute senses is described as: +[2/4/6] Fortitude, Reflex, and Will Saving Throws Vs. Traps.
Rank 3: Your dodge cap is increased by 1%

What does the first line actually mean?

[Krelar]

Acute senses is described as: +[2/4/6] Fortitude, Reflex, and Will Saving Throws Vs. Traps.
Rank 3: Your dodge cap is increased by 1%

What does the first line actually mean?

at rank 1 you get a +2 bonus to those saving throws vs trap damage
at rank 2 you get a +4 bonus
at rank 3 you get a +6 bonus and the dodge cap increase

[Ordinary]

at rank 1 you get a +2 bonus to those saving throws vs trap damage
at rank 2 you get a +4 bonus
at rank 3 you get a +6 bonus and the dodge cap increase

Still doesn't really make sense. The "save vs traps" is a special variant of the reflex save. Why would you need to have the same for Fort and Will vs traps?

[Pandjed]

Still doesn't really make sense. The "save vs traps" is a special variant of the reflex save. Why would you need to have the same for Fort and Will vs traps?

Spell wards and poison traps (many of them requiring fortitude). Also some future proofing.

[Claver]

Character Tested:Bladeforged 14 paladin/5 cleric/1 rogue @ level 30 using Spear of the Mornlands as a favored weapon

Primary Destiny: Fury of the Wild
Secondary Destiny: Divine Crusader..smite evil stuff and divine mantle for favored weapons

Location: Needle in a Feystack on Reaper 1 as well as the test dojo

Overall Conclusion: This character felt much more powerful on Lamannia using the new system than on live (where he uses Legendary Dreadnaught). The reason is because this is a second life character with only 2 or 3 destinies unlocked.

The Epic Destiny Revamp really shines for newer players and those, like myself, who play waaay too many alts.

[*][*]Adrenaline: Primal Builder: Your next melee attack deals +25/50/100% damage, and increases your Critical Threat by 16. You gain one Primal Charge when the strike connects. Requires a melee weapon to use. Cooldown: 8 seconds.

I greatly appreciate having a builder that is not an active attack. It allows me to use other more varied and situationally appropriate activated abilities in my attack chain rather than spamming the same builder attack over an over.

Adrenaline followed by smite evil, exalted smite, divine sacrifice and smite the wicked (divine crusader) gave me very big damage numbers for this character.

Most builders in other destinies are self contained as a single attack/spell. Adrenaline can be combined with everything else. This makes it better - perhaps too much. Adrenaline would probably work better as a spender rather than a builder to keep parity between the various melee destinies.

[*]The Great Leveler: Melee Attack: +3/4/6(W), +4/8/16 Critical Threat Range. You stop in place to create a shockwave that blasts all enemies in a small narrow cone. The size of the cone increases with each Primal Charge you have. Does not consume charges. Applies a Trip to all enemies struck (DC 20 + Highest of STR/DEX/CON + Trip DCs).[/LIST]

This is a cool ability on paper and the primary reason I took Tier 5 in this destiny.

In practice, it did much less damage than expected...even when proceeded by adrenaline. By comparison adrenaline + smite evil did about 5 times as much damage (single target of course).

I also didn't trip monsters as often as expected even though I was trying to build this character as a trip specialist.

Performance didn't meet expectations. I didn't have enough time to investigate why.

[Hawkwier]

A major thing I've gotten from this thread is that primal charges across destinies are in a weird spot specifically due to the melee/range/caster focuses. This raises the question - is it really absolutely necessary to have four different charge types or is that just a remnant from the spheres of the old system? Would just designing for universal charges (and thus opening more build diversity) be particularly bad in the long run?

Indeed. It's quite restrictive. Particularly if they continue to give us access to only 3 trees and no twists. I will want to build from martial destinies as well as Fury, in all likelihood more so than from Primal Avatar or GMOF. Best move would be to bin the whole unnecessary and unwanted builder mechanic entirely. No charges means no issues. I really hope they do this as they consider their options...

[Tuxedoman96]

• Adrenaline: Primal Builder: Your next melee attack deals +25/50/100% damage, and increases your Critical Threat by 16. You gain one Primal Charge when the strike connects. Requires a melee weapon to use. Cooldown: 8 seconds.

• Furious: +1/2/3 Strength while Raging. Adrenaline damage bonus is increased by 25/50/100%.

• Overwhelming Force: Adrenaline now grants and additional 25/50/100% bonus to damage. Rank 3: Foes struck by your Adrenaline attacks are now knocked down for 4 seconds.

If I understand correctly that Adrenaline is now no longer working off of charges, then there's simply no good alternative for it in this tree in its current iteration.

• Quick Cutter: Primal Builder: Melee Attack: When you use this attack, you gain a Primal Charge and gain the effect Quick. If you use this skill again while Quick is still active you instead apply Cutter to your current target. Quick: +2/4/6% Dodge, Duration 9 seconds. Cutter: 2d6 Bane damage per Character Level every 2 seconds. Stacks 3 times, scales with 200% Melee Power, Duration 24 Seconds.

There's honestly so many enhancements that improve or rely on Adrenaline that there's no real point choosing Quick Cutter over it. I'd have it as a separate enhancement or put in some enhancements that would upgrade Quick Cutter somehow.

• Embrace Your Nature: You have a 3% chance to gain a Primal Charge with each melee attack.

I think it would be better to increase the chance of proc'ing and have it tied to raging (maybe you have a 10% chance of gaining a charge when you hit something while raging or something). After all, you get the barbarian rage ability in the destiny and even have an enhancement to get them back.

• Eternal Rage: If you are not raging and are currently out of rage charges, you have a 10/20/30% chance to gain a charge of rage whenever you gain a Primal Charge.

I'd rather have it as a 10% chance to gain 1/2/3 charges of rage (since there are some abilities that expend rages), but that's probably just me.

• Spirit of the Beast: +2/3/4 Attack bonus. Rank 3: The effects of Ram’s Might and Animal Growth are doubled for you.

Not bad. The problem though is that it's competing against Adrenaline, and quite honestly, Adrenaline is winning by a landslide.

• Embrace the Pain: When you drop below below 15/25/40% HP, you immediately heal 2d10 Positive Energy Healing, and continue to do so every 6 seconds until you are over 15/25/40% HP. This healing scales with the highest of 100% Positive Spell Power or 200% Melee Power.

We already get healing from the mantle (and almost every class has some access to healing at this point). I'd change it to a temporary boost to PRR or something to that effect.

• Fear my Vengeance: Against Shaken and Feared enemies, you gain +1/2/3 to hit and damage. Adds to your Fury of the Wild Destiny Mantle: Enemies that strike you in melee range become Shaken.

+3 damage seems pretty low for a T4. Maybe a chance to stun shaken creatures for a few seconds with no save or maybe do 3% extra damage against shaken creatures?

• Primal Force: +1/2/3 to Hit and 2/4/6% Fortification Bypass. Rank 3: While Two Weapon Fighting or in Animal Form, gain +2% damage with all attacks.

Shares the same problem with Spirit of the Beast. Also, I'd bump up the fortification bypass to 5/10/15%

• Unquenchable Rage: Reduce all damage taken, except Untyped, by 10/15/25% for 5 seconds after you consume a rage charge or use Primal Scream. Rank 3: You also apply the effects of a Heal spell to yourself, scaling by Melee Power.

This only further makes Embrace the Pain unnecessary in its current state. I'd have this swap places with Embrace the Pain and then have Embrace the Pain have the effect of Unquenchable Rage automatically go off at 15/25/40% hp.

• Doublestrike: +1/2/3 Doublestrike

I'd up doublestrike to 3/6/10%. Only getting 3% doublestrike as a T5 is criminal.