U50 Preview 2: Endgame Itemization Adjustments

[Lynnabel]

Are you adjusting spell resistance at all?

Yes, Spell Resistance items should be updated to their new values with this preview.

So minus 10 to legendary saves.

I'm losing 14-15 DCs on my pale master.

Thanks for nothing.

It's actually -10 for legendary saves, plus the additional -6 across the board for a total of -16. Please note the top part of the post, which makes special care to say "These sections are additive - if a monster is in a Legendary Tier 2 dungeon, it will have all 3 sets of modifications as it is level 20+, level 30+, and in a Legendary Tier 2 dungeon."

[Artos_Fabril]

It's actually -10 for legendary saves, plus the additional -6 across the board for a total of -16. Please note the top part of the post, which makes special care to say "These sections are additive - if a monster is in a Legendary Tier 2 dungeon, it will have all 3 sets of modifications as it is level 20+, level 30+, and in a Legendary Tier 2 dungeon."

Were/Are there additional "raid modifiers" and if so, are they changing?

[Lynnabel]

Were/Are there additional "raid modifiers" and if so, are they changing?

I have no idea what you are asking me, apologies. That reminds me, something I totally forgot to put in the notes: Raid bosses with really high Wisdom (and therefore really high Intimidate DCs) got their Wisdom adjusted by -20 for this preview. The big ones here are The Lord of Blades and Qaspiel Mistwalker (the two with the highest DCs), but the raid bosses of Too Hot To Handle, Killing Time, Black and Blue, Legendary Vision of Destruction, and also Rudus from Project Nemesis all also got their DCs adjusted downwards.

[TFerguson]

Yes, Spell Resistance items should be updated to their new values with this preview.

What about monster SR? And our Spell pen items?

It's actually -10 for legendary saves, plus the additional -6 across the board for a total of -16. Please note the top part of the post, which makes special care to say "These sections are additive - if a monster is in a Legendary Tier 2 dungeon, it will have all 3 sets of modifications as it is level 20+, level 30+, and in a Legendary Tier 2 dungeon."

Thank you for clearing that up and I apologize for being a jerk, I'm still a little sore over this.

[Lynnabel]

What about monster SR? And our Spell pen items?

Spell Pen items did also get bumped up, which should be present on this preview. Ideally it should end up about the same as it is currently, which means that if you were bypassing mob SR right now, you'll be doing it post-U50 as well.

Thank you for clearing that up and I apologize for being a jerk, I'm still a little sore over this.

Right now everyone's just really stressed, don't sweat it. The world is kind of a big mess, all we can do is try to make the best of it. If you see anything else that you think doesn't look right or fair please let us know so we can take a look :)

[TPICKRELL]

I transferred a fairly advanced Alt to lammannia to do some testing tonight.

The toon is a half-orc level 30 barbarian with 95 past lives, 70 reaper points and very good but not fully optimized level 30 gear.

I did 2 tests tonight.

1: Into the mists R4. This is the difficulty that I typically solo on this toon. He completed without deaths, but it felt slower than normal, especially in the beat down of the boss. I was also missing noticeably more often then on Khyber both against the boss and against the wolves.

2: So, I ran Bruntsmash R5 tests on both servers. On Khyber this toon killed Bruntsmash in 26 seconds. On Lammania it took 40.5 seconds. 56% longer...

I knew that Reaper was likely to get a bit harder, but more than 50% is excessive.

[Artos_Fabril]

I have no idea what you are asking me, apologies.

I mean were there additional modifiers like Legendary/Legendary Tier 2 that applied specifically to raid bosses, or were such modifiers unnecessary because the raid bosses were all unique handcrafted(hand-statted?) characters.

[easterwhale]

-5 Influence DCs (for things like Intimidate, Diplomacy, or Bluff)

You're removing Epic Skill Focus , the slots for twisting Draconic Presence and lowering CHA( 16+ total ), but only -5 DC ?very funny.
That's only way a non cha based tank can get enough Inti.....

yeah yeah ignore me again.

[Vish]

I transferred a fairly advanced Alt to lammannia to do some testing tonight.

The toon is a half-orc level 30 barbarian with 95 past lives, 70 reaper points and very good but not fully optimized level 30 gear.

I did 2 tests tonight.

1: Into the mists R4. This is the difficulty that I typically solo on this toon. He completed without deaths, but it felt slower than normal, especially in the beat down of the boss. I was also missing noticeably more often then on Khyber both against the boss and against the wolves.

2: So, I ran Bruntsmash R5 tests on both servers. On Khyber this toon killed Bruntsmash in 26 seconds. On Lammania it took 40.5 seconds. 56% longer...

I knew that Reaper was likely to get a bit harder, but more than 50% is excessive.

on a 25% nerf, 50% off top end part of exponential curve seems right? all the power is in the exponetial third after .7, which really accounts for the jump in 29 gear

[Zretch]

I didn't notice any mention of skill checks in the adjustments. Not direct mob skill checks like intim or bluff, but quest skill checks like using diplomacy in Make Believe to prevent 3 of the tower fights, or disable device checks on traps. We're down at least 5-7 DC from stat adjustments and another 2-4 DC from reductions to skill / insightful skill adjustments on items. That's pretty significant on a d20 if you weren't well into no-fail territory to start with.

[Lynnabel]

You're removing Epic Skill Focus , the slots for twisting Draconic Presence and lowering CHA( 16+ total ), but only -5 DC ?very funny.
That's only way a non cha based tank can get enough Inti.....

yeah yeah ignore me again.

You are talking about changes that are slated to be in U51, not the current update which is U50. Right now we're focusing on making monsters feel good for the endgame itemization adjustments, not for any upcoming changes beyond that. We'll have a lot more to say about those future monster adjustments when we do more preview for U51.

[QuantumFX]

Turns out I just missed a whole big bunch of shields, which are now all fixed. Also, Spell Pen and Spell Resistance both got across-the-game item-focused buffs, and are reflecting their new, higher values on those items. We talk about this in this post right here.

EDIT: Answered my own question. Cannith Crafting appears to be scaling with the new values, but the new augments are not scaling. (ex. The level 16 augment is only +3, which is weird because the CC Insightful at level 17 is also +3.)

My Alchemical prototype runearm is still showing the old values for spellpower and crit. I would assume this also affect any Legendary Alchemical weapon.

ADDITION: Quest difficulty feedback:
Character: Level 21 Warforged Artificer (Arcanotech) Draconic Incarnation.
- Partycrashers on R4 difficulty. Trash mobs seemed to be tuned correctly. Illusionary Scorpion, and Illusionary Fire Giant need some toning back.
- Treasure Hunt on R4 difficulty. The Reflex saves on Goblin and Bat mobs are still absurd. 70 DC shouldn't result in Save
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results.

[Nickodeamous]

Hi Lynnabel,

I tend to hit QP up to and including high skulls. I noticed that the decrease to my DC was about 9-10%, which in comparison to my Stunning fist (which had a decrease of about 16%), seemed to be ok...until I tested it. I just ran 2 saltmarsh solos on R1,and for whatever reason, I am having a very hard time landing QP. Even with boosted deadly instincts, it doesn't hit as often as I am used to. I basically miss on my first try and I get the +4 boost, then I'd say its about a 30-40% chance my next hit will be an instakill.

In live, I can land QP on high reapers, and this test was just on R1. Not talking about a new toon either as I am completely loaded at level 30. If I jump into a mob, which I need to do to actually hit things, I use QP as one of my first strikes, and it lands considerably more on Live than on the Test Server.

So, is it the mobs in saltmarsh having higher than normal DCs? Or is an over correction for this specific ability.

Just wondering.

Nico

[MikeCash]

In the change description you state

This will not affect anything other than the named items found within legendary content and Cannith Crafted Loot that used the "Minimum Levels 31-34 Shards

After copying to Lam, my upgraded DoJ and Mod items have had their stats reduced, my non upgraded items are still the same (and below the upgraded items still). Neither of these raids are Legendary, so are you actually doing all epic items. If so, why not fix up my non upgraded versions as well?

[QuantumFX]

After copying to Lam, my upgraded DoJ and Mod items have had their stats reduced, my non upgraded items are still the same (and below the upgraded items still). Neither of these raids are Legendary, so are you actually doing all epic items. If so, why not fix up my non upgraded versions as well?

When you say "non-upgraded", do you mean the older ML: 28 versions of the gear? Also, is the non-upgraded gear in your TR cache?

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

Party Strength is a value that each member of the party you are in contributes to as soon as they step within the dungeon. A lower Party Scaling value is better than a higher one. The lower the number, the greater the reduction in damage, maximum HP, and player-affecting-CC duration in your instance. Previously all characters were considered party strength 1.5 in most of Epics, while in heroics most players are closer to 1 if not 1 exactly. We've changed this so that all players at level 21+ have a party strength of 1. The results are as follows**:

A 1 person party (party strength 1) will have monster hit points of at 62% of normal (compared to right now, which is 68% for a party scaling of 1.5)
A 2 person party (strength 2) will have monsters at 75% hit points instead of 87% (because they were strength 3 previously)
A 3 person party (strength 3) will have 87% (previously 100% because strength was 4.5 for 3 people)
A 4+ party will operate the same (because 4 is the maximum)


This is a great change for the game and its about time this was done. Party Scaling has been one of my biggest gripes with DDO for a long long time - Excellent! Bravo - of course hoping too that it extends down to heroics

[MikeCash]

When you say "non-upgraded", do you mean the older ML: 28 versions of the gear? Also, is the non-upgraded gear in your TR cache?

Yes, the older original versions that dropped when the raids first came out. All items are in the bank, beside each other. The upgraded items now have ability stats of +13, the originals are still level 28, but +11

[MIvan]

With the current item changes I lost 20 on each saves.
Are monster offensive DCs adjusted to match this?
And the trap DCs?

[Chacka_DDO]

Yes, Spell Resistance items should be updated to their new values with this preview.

Yes, they are updated to their new values but could you maybe explain how exactly did you determine the new values?
Honestly, I have the slight feeling you just only added a bit more without any conception but maybe (and hopefully) I'm completely wrong...

With this basically, everything is said but here why I think so and you might see that my opinion is founded...

All I can see is that the armor from Chronoscope has still its SR removed and items like the epic Phiarlan Mirror Cloak are still nerfed (the classic version has 30 SR and the new version 28 SR).
And an ML6 named armor from Price of Freedom got now 12 SR (9 SR before).
But this is still NOT enough...
The measure is given by the spell Spell Resistance and if you cast this spell at level 6 you get 18 spell resistance from it.
And 18 spell resistance is not even a lot if you enter a level 4 quest on elite (effective level 6) you have CR6 normal monsters and CR10 minibosses, this means if you use the spell Spell Resistance you have a 60% or 40% chance that your SR works.
But with your new value (SR12), it is 30% or 10%.

Remember this is when you enter a level 6 quest with an item that has ML6, even in this ideal case your item does almost never something for you.
And even worse, if you do this quest in the reaper difficulty the monsters get additional spell resistance (it is still a mystery for me how a developer got that idea) and this means even in the ideal case your item does NOTHING for you if you do the quest with 4 or more reaper skulls.

But that's not all, what does Minimum Level on an item actually mean? This means you START to use an item at level 6 but you are expected to use this item for more than one level or do you seriously expect players to have 30 item sets for ONE build? (this would be AT LEAST 420 items for lvl 1-30)
Therefore even in the ideal case, the SR score on your item is almost useless but if you use an ML6 item in character level 10 it is complete nonsense.

Especially the SR on items makes it extraordinary obvious that DDO needs items that change their values with the character level...
But seemingly everyone is adamantly against that idea (I have no idea why) but then you should see that the score you get from the Spell Resistance is the absolute minimum you should give on an item.

And this especially if you see that monsters in DDO have rediculous high CR scores (in epic levels and higher) which means that the Spell Resistance spell that comes from pen&paper D&D is much too weak for DDO conditions!
And as a side note this makes it also obvious that the maximum caster level 20 on the spell Spell Resistance is obviously nonsense unless you want that this spell has no use in epic levels.

I think players should have access to 100% working spell resistance if they invest enough effort as a way to get similar protection like a construct (warforged and bladeforged) and undead player characters.
Even 100% working spell resistance is NOT overpowered!
In my opinion, every character should have access to 100% working spell resistance but for some, it should be just easier to get that (drow, monks occult slayer barbarian, etc.)
And to make this possible you basically need a quite simple base conception.
you have a certain amount of stacking spell resistance scores (enhancement, insight, quality, primal) and this SR comes either from Spell Resistance, items, races, classes, feats, enhancements, etc.

This means for example if you play a drow you don't need the buff Spell Resistance and if you invest in your racial tree from SR you don't need an item with primal SR and if this drow is also a Monk he doesn't need an item for insightful spell resistance and if this monk also invests in one of the enhancement trees that provide it, he also doesn't need quality spell resistance.
Therefore such a drow monk needs no items for his 100% working spell resistance (the scores should be balanced in a way that you need for normal monsters only enhancement SR and for mini-bosses also insightful and for red bosses also quality SR and for raid bosses also primal SR)
And if a human fighter wants the same amount of SR he needs items that provide all 4 kinds of SR.
You see a quite simple concept but ideally, all SR should change their value with the character level (also when they are on items).

[kpak01]

Changes that affect all Monsters in all content that is level 20+ (Epic and Legendary):

• -6 Saving Throws

This looks different from the previously-mentioned idea of removing Epic Resilience. Is removing Epic Resilience still planned in addition to this, or is this a replacement for that, or is this a wildly inaccurate description of that?

It matters a lot in the balance of spells versus DC-based abilities like Assassinate, since Epic Resilience is only versus spells.