U50 Preview 2: Endgame Itemization Adjustments

[slarden]

Winter set bonus HP is down to 10% and LGS set bonus stays the same. That is strange adjustment. Same with Autumn's SP. And LGS is 26 ml while Feywild sets are 29.

It's actually quite the opposite. Winter set shows 10% on the description but is actually granting 20% hp bonus. LGS 2-piece material opposition set grants 7% now, presumably 1% + 1% /augment - this is down from 18% so it's a very heavy "stat squish" compared to other squishes.

[slarden]

Legendary Magewright's Spectacles:
- +9 Spell Penetration?

Normal items have +8 so this seems to be working as intended.

[nicklesmack]

It's actually quite the opposite. Winter set shows 10% on the description but is actually granting 20% hp bonus.

Is this true, the hit point reduction is not even fully being seen yet for our toons, expect another drop when the dust settles? Or did I mis-read your comment?

[slarden]

My warlock is primarily used to solo quests on R4-R6 or shortman with friends on R8-R10. It's a balanced build rather than a min/max build due to the need for decent DCs, defenses and enough dps to take down bosses solo albeit a bit slowly compared to most builds. The build is effective for dungeon clearing, but the character has no role in most raids due to dps being far behind top-tier dps builds. The only current reaper raids this character participates in is Dryad and the Demigod (clearing trash in center) and Vision of Destruction to place salted clouds if nobody with dancing sphere is a available or off timer.

Here is the pre-U50 build:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post6412576

I am happy to provide the math for any of these #s except hp and sp - I just did a simple comparison between live and lama for those 2 #s. All the others were mathed out and compared. Some of the #s will likely change when issues are fixed on lama. For example the fey winter set description indicates 10% hp bonus for 4-piece set, but actual in-game experience is that I am getting 20% hp boost on Lamannia.

The comparison is with gear "as is", but the reality is since stat changes are not equal across gear this character and all my characters will require a complete gear swap. As an example legendary crown of snow and attunement gaze both have +7 spell focus master and +4 insightful spell focus mastery on live. On Lama legendary crown of snow has +4 spell focus mastery/ +2 insightful spell focus mastery while attunement gaze is best in class for universal dc with +5 spell focus mastery and +3 insightful spell focus mastery. 2 DC is alot to give up so swapping these goggles forces me to swap out magewright set, etc. etc.

Hit Points
Live: 2136 outside reaper / 3108 inside reaper
Lama: 1868 outside reaper / 2841 inside reaper

Note: actual experience on lama is over-stated as I use winter set which is providing 20% hp bonus rather than the stated 10%. I expect to lose another 150 hp when this is fixed.

Spell Points
Live: 4438 outside reaper / 4557 inside reaper
Lama: 4028 outside reaper / 4147 inside reaper

Note: This combined with the dps loss noted below is concerning as I rely on arcane pulse and greater ruin to boost the inherently weak warlock dps. The cost of those spells aren't going down, yet I will need to use the spells more to take down bosses.

Spellpower (in reaper mode)
Cold and Force Live: 734
Cold and Force Lama: 597

Spell Crit Chance (in reaper mode)
Cold Live: 69%
Cold Lama: 48%
Force Live: 60%
Force Lama: 39%

Spell Crit Damage Boost (in reaper mode)
100% Base
100% Standard Critical Bonus
30% Tainted Scholar Cores
Total: 230%

Overall DPS (in reaper mode)
Cold Live: 834%x31%x100% + 834%x69%x230% = 15.82
Cold Lama: 697%x52%x100% + 697%x48%x230% = 11.32

Cold DPS on Lama compared to Live (expressed as percentage): 71.55%

Force Live: 834%x40%x100% + 834%x60%x230% = 14.85
Force Lama: 697%61%x100% + 697%x39%x230% = 10.50

Force DPS on Lama compared to Live (expressed as percentage): 70.76%

Enemy HP dropping 25% with no MRR drop, so overall slight DPS loss with U50 as dps is dropping slightly more than 25%

DC
Necromancy Live: 126
Necromancy Lama: 111
Enchantment Live: 117
Enchantment Lama: 103

Tier 2 enemy saves are dropping 16 so this is about break-even in tier 2 content. Non-Tier 2 saves are dropping 6 so spells will be less effective against high-save enemies in older legendary content, e.g., werewolves in ravenloft might save against this necro dc where it's currently no-fail.

PRR and MRR
PRR Live: 272 (73.2% damage reduction)
PRR Lama: 240 (71.6% damage reduction)
MRR Live: 209 (67.7% damage reduction)
MRR Lama: 186 (65.3% damage reduction)

Actual Questing Experience - Best Laid Plans
On live I am able to solo most legendary quests R6 without dying, but I die more than R4 (requires rescue mission from alt sometimes) and have the occasional vengeance reaper mishap on R6. I am able to solo R4 and almost never die except when I am paying too much attention to netflix or some other super sloppy mistake.

One of the more difficult quests for this build is best laid plans. I rarely attempt this on R6 on live and usually just run it R4 and very rarely die on live.

On Lamannia my hp are lower, but it doesn't seem like the damage output is much less from some enemies. The force damage from constructs and artificers in best laid plans seems over-tuned compared to the reductions I am getting as a player - it's definitely worse than live. This will be even worse if the winter set is fixed and providing only 10% rather than the 20% bonus I am getting on lamannia right now. I would encourage the devs to look at this and other forms of damage with little to no mitigation such as cyclonic blast and horrid wilting to make sure those #s make sense in a stat squish world.

All stat squishes are equal but some stat squishes are more equal than other stat squishes

In terms of gear there are winners and losers. Legendary Crown of snow seems like a clear loser to me. Legendary Crown of Snow and Attunement Gaze both had +7 spell focus mastery and +4 insightful spell focus mastery before U50 and now attunement gaze provides 2 more universal DC making that item and esoteric set in general best in slot for more builds. LGS material opposition set appears to be an extreme loser. a 2-piece set goes from 18% hp boost to 7% hp boost - getting hit harder than other hp bonus items. Presumably the new formula is 1% + 1% per augment.

Thunderforged off-hand is providing 100 potency and 17% universal lore and 6 to a specific school dc while legendary queen's sceptre is only providing 98 potency. Mysterious cloak and bottled rainstorm still have old stats making them really good compared to alternatives.

This is going to result in a full gear swap for most if not all of my builds and the use of many jewelers toolkits. Please consider providing players with 20 btc jewel toolkits to make this gear swapping process less painful.

[slarden]

Is this true, the hit point reduction is not even fully being seen yet for our toons, expect another drop when the dust settles? Or did I mis-read your comment?

The tooltip show 10% hp bonus but I am getting 20% on Lamannia. So assuming the tooltip is right you will lose another 10% when this is fixed.

[nicklesmack]

Heart of Soli fire abs was reduced down from 30% to what 22-23% to match the alignment. It seams like the fire abs is going now be a waste on this item completely...if we need Fire Abs on an item, we are going to have to slot another item to get maximum affect. it is not like swapping out the HoSuli is an option for some quests.

speaking of abs.
I tried normal role of tanking Kor Kaza on KT Hard. I didn't bother with energy sheath because who knows where that one will end up with U51 and wanted to see how things went. The reduction in HP, MRR, Abs from ring, HA was significant and could feel it pretty harshly. Will the vulnerability that Kor Kaza throws be augmented at all? i have not been killed by Kor Kaza on hard in a LOOOONG time and just like that i could not keep up.

I am trying to take all of these reductions in character capabilities in stride, i mean we have not seen the end product yet...BUT one thing that i see happening is that the game design is looking like it is going to force people to specialize roles more. For this discussion lets talk about dedicated healers being ABSOLUTELY necessary. We already know that there are not a lot of players who want to slog it out as a dedicated healer. I will not. I want to play what i want to play, and so should everyone else. Removal of low hanging abilities that help round a party out and bolster niche abilities like abs are what makes being able to run raids for us possible. The player pool is dwindling and many of the folks in our guild and our sister guilds don't play healers. Why they don't...it doesn't matter. Some don't like the stress, some don't like the role, some think it is boring, some cannot physically keep up with the necessary articulation on the keyboard. If it is going to have to be necessary to have PC's babysit tanks or literally spam heals for the rest of the group for raids again on lower difficulty quests instead of doing what they want, that is not fun.

Just something to think about. maybe this is not the best time for this conversation. But i guarantee that if part of this whole redesign is going to start forcing folks to play character types and roles they don't want to, then you are going to lose MORE players than anything you are doing will draw in. Nobody wants to play a game they are not going to having fun playing.

[Carpone]

The Mantle of Suulomades set no longer has any Sneak Attack Dice. Is this WAI?

Clarity from a dev would be appreciated.

[SWCarter]

Details with numbers.

Nice overview, thanks for posting.

This is going to result in a full gear swap for most if not all of my builds and the use of many jewelers toolkits. Please consider providing players with 20 btc jewel toolkits to make this gear swapping process less painful.

100% agreed. The players should not have to bear the brunt of such massive changes in real-world monetary expenditures. Given the far-reaching implications of all these changes, providing augment toolkits, sentience toolkits, and a +20 lesser heart for good measure at the launch of U50 would be the right thing to do.

[Kelledren]

Artifacts have double the ilevel jump, and will be better than raid items of the same level, which are better than quest items of the same level.

I’m still a little confused. I thought raid items would be a +1 stat higher than named loot of the same level i.e. Collective Sight ML 29=+13 int; Magewright Spects ML 29=+14 int

Maybe it’s like this: if the bump for raid items is “+1 min level” on chart above, then we would only see that increase in stats if going from even level to an odd level? Do I have that correct?

If this is the case then imo raid items should be +2 MLs and Artifacts +3 over standard named loot (if you want to keep artifacts higher). This would keep raid items a bit more special given the “squish.” Otherwise any Raid loot at an odd ML will be meh. Or another option would be to make all raid loot an even ML. Sharn=ML28 to align with RL, maybe Fey ML30 with some other Legendary raids? Not sure how I feel on this tho.

Not sure how I feel about Feywild Winter hp % dropping from 20% to 10% given the stat squish will already lower these numbers. I don’t have LGS but I’m sure people who ground out those items feel the same. I get they will be lowered but consider a little higher % given base HP pool is lower. 15/10% Fey/LGS?

Thanks

Edit: Nevermind question above: looking at the wiki for cannith crafting the chart shows ability increases at every 2/3/3 levels starting at level 5. I think raid loot and artifacts should just be a straight +2ML stat increase over named and cannith crafting.

[nicklesmack]

The tooltip show 10% hp bonus but I am getting 20% on Lamannia. So assuming the tooltip is right you will lose another 10% when this is fixed.

so worse than we are already seeing it...I thought this stat crunch was supposed to see about the same "relative power" for our characters...I don't think that is what i am seeing with what i've looked at so far.

If we are limiting the conversation to our reduced damage vs. reduced defenses of monsters, than ok those don't feel that different.

once we start to expand that relative comparison of other stats and capabilities, not so much, i am seeing overall weaker toons. If the answer is then, just play lower difficulty...then my response will be, So we are to play longer with overall less reward as far as gear, runes, threads, xp goes. That is just not acceptable.

[Carpone]

With the stat squish, please decouple Reaper tree PRR/MRR enhancements from previous tier choices. It's quite difficult to get 100 MRR on a light armor character without those enhancements, but taking all MRR enhancements is also overkill.

[Kelledren]

Sentient and Jewelers Toolkits
Honestly there should be a couple month time period where you can get a temporary version of both of these toolkits for plat to make all your changes for the massive gear adjustment. Then at the end of that period remove the temporary version of the toolkits if that’s possible.

[bloodnose13]

however you look at it it was bound to happen sooner or later, because at this rate we would have been at +30 items soon, and what then, +40?,50? and im frankly happy it happens finaly.
i love the idea of mixing and matching gear from diffrent packs that it would open up,...... except there is one issue, set effects.
set effects as they are now, will prevent most of it, especialy fey one since it requires crazy amount of items for full bonus, and yes im totally aware of the fact you DONT HAVE TO use set effects, but can you afford not to really? ever since ravenloft appeared i had a bad feeling about set effects that they will make itemization much harder and they did, swapping one item is not swapping one item anymore but whole set, and then you have to find things that will be able to compete NOT just with item itself, BUT WHOLE SET.

now if set effects would become a preslotted augments in own set effect specific slot, it would allow us to mix items as we see fit, but then again that creates issue of cheating the system, set effects would need to be exclusive to each other and not allow use of more of primary sets than one.

i would prefer for set effects to disapear completely, but they wont, so maybe they should become sometihng that is less annoying to use, i seen this in my own gearing tetris that i often have to use item that i dont like or have use for but i MUST use it if i want set effect.

[Daedricz]

You guys had mentioned changing mobs bloated hp in old epic quest, any chance of adding that change to the preview notes?

[Stravix]

You guys had mentioned changing mobs bloated hp in old epic quest, any chance of adding that change to the preview notes?

That is for Update 51 and the ED pass, not update 50

[Tilomere]

All stat squishes are equal but some stat squishes are more equal than other stat squishes

That's because it isn't just a stat squish. It is also pruning away of branches of a fruit tree don't bear new fruit. To do that, they have to target sticky items with a % that due to a % would otherwise remain viable forever. % HP stacking items, % DS stacking items, % damage stacking items. Anything with a %, and especially a rare % type that would otherwise be hard to replace, is gona get pruned so that the tree can bear more fruit.

It is the LGS/RL exceptional spell power nerf, across the entire database of every rare stacking sticky bonus item.

This and U51 will prune a buncha players as well. This will prune the players who currently level with the Tier 0-1 legendary reaper dungeons, as they will eat massive nerfs and get kicked out of reaper Grim/RL where they currently farm points and build their character.

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

• -6 Saving Throws

Changes that affect all Monsters in all content that is level 30+ (Legendary):

• -25% Maximum HP
• -25% Armor Class

Changes that affect all monsters in all content from Sharn onwards (Legendary Tier 2)*:

• -60 Attack Bonus
• -4 AC
• -10 Saving Throws
• -35 Melee Power
• -35 Ranged Power
• -45 Universal Spell Power
• -100% Fortification
• -150% Fortification Bypass
• -10 Spell Penetration
• -5 Influence DCs (for things like Intimidate, Diplomacy, or Bluff)
• -10 Physical Resistance Rating

So if you are an uber R10 Sharn player, you will still be an uber R10 Sharn player. But if you are a weaker R6 RL character or weaker hybrid build losing 12 DCs and only getting 6 back, you will be a weaker R2 RL character after this patch is done. R2 doesn't reward substantial RXP, so you are basically kicked out of progression while contributing, which means find another game.

Then U51 is going to hit right after and prune the explorers who want to explore builds and not have them be level gated behind 10M XP, who won't have weaker content to explore the majority of weaker builds in.

[Akoriv]

i would prefer for set effects to disapear completely, but they wont, so maybe they should become sometihng that is less annoying to use, i seen this in my own gearing tetris that i often have to use item that i dont like or have use for but i MUST use it if i want set effect.

The sets in this game are a half-assed joke. The game would be better off without the.

The games where sets and set bonuses are core to the gear do them for every class and spec that their game supports. DDO does not do that. With the top tier sets, we get gear choices for the gear sets that are close to perfect for a very few classes/specs, and if you are not using one of those pigeon holes, you find yourself lacking things really want or need.

The game would be a lot more fun if sets were completely removed, but since the gear choices in the majority of the best sets appear to be tuned for the class/specs a certain dev has said that dev likes to play, we can never expect them to go away.

[Chacka_DDO]

just a few things...

I still wonder why you don't nerf SoS and Xuum if you really think a weapon with that crit profile is overpowered.
I would suggest a nerfed but different SoS with an effect that fits thematically to a sword of shadows, the weapon is very powerful but honestly not very exciting. And then you could also introduce a level 30 version for the SoS

I wonder if you can give the Epic Unkor's Cleaver in the level 20 and 30 version constitution for damage and to hit like the heroic version has, I thought always it is very sad and wondered if the developer who did this just only forgot to give that axe this feature.

The Chaos blade and the cleaver should have 2k vorpal in the level 20 version and 3000 vorpal in the level 30 version, not to mention that it would be better to have a vorpal effect with a very small chance for an instant kill no matter of the monsters hit points (for example after a 20 you could have a second roll and the chance that the second different confirmation roll leads to an instant kill could increase the fewer hp the monster has)

And in my opinion, you could basically drop the name prefix "epic" and "legendary" This is especially with the new (and very good) changes not necessary, not to mention that level 20 is per definition (in the rest of DDO) not epic and still heroic and level 30 should be not legendary per definition (this should start at level 31+)

And last but not least even if it would surprise me a LOT if this ever happens (even if I'm convinced it would fit PERFECTLY to DDO) the new S/S/S items could turn into a scaling version of the items if you have all 3 items (the low-level version, the level 20 and 30 version).
If you have all 3 versions you could combine them into a new version of these items and depending on your character level they have either the stats of the low-level version or the level 20 version and if you use them at level 30 they have the level 30 item sats (this would feel much better IMO and it would save us a lot of inventory/bank space. (even better ofc if you have real scaling witch each character level)

[slarden]

This will prune the players who currently level with the Tier 0-1 legendary reaper dungeons, as they will eat massive nerfs and get kicked out of reaper Grim/RL where they currently farm points and build their character.

There are many quests in the range level 20-29. I think level 30 quests should be balanced against level 30 players and if lower level players want to join that is fine as long as they are strong enough for it, but the devs shouldn't balance for that.

So if you are an uber R10 Sharn player, you will still be an uber R10 Sharn player. But if you are a weaker R6 RL character or weaker hybrid build losing 12 DCs and only getting 6 back, you will be a weaker R2 RL character after this patch is done.

Right now there is a big disparity between grim and barrett/ravenloft and sharn/fey and it seems much of that is due to the additional tier 2 scaling. With that going away there will be a more consistent level of difficulty across legendary quests which I view as a good thing.

I suspect grim and barrett and ravenloft content will still be easier compared to when ravenloft was new and it wasn't especially difficult back then. So yes I fully expect my spells not to land as consistently in older legendary content, but I don't think that was avoidable if they are trying to smooth out the difficulty across all legendary content.

[Tilomere]

There are many quests in the range level 20-29.

With that going away there will be a more consistent level of difficulty across legendary quests which I view as a good thing..

Reaper lockout says you can't even enter most of them, and none of them have good rxp/sxp/item/character progression, which is why basically no one does them.

So let's take a concrete example, say a weak hybrid build like Axel's THF Melee Cleric Build. As per Axel it is a R1 (Sharn)-R5 (RL) solo build.

Melee Cleric with as much DPS as possible while still remaining a fully capable main party healer in Reaper and in Raids. Using Falconry with WIS to hit/damage and CC with a focus on Two Handed Fighting utilizing Silvanus with Mauls. Capable of soloing endgame reaper content. You won't be solo'ing any high reaper endgame content with this build but I have solo'ed content anywhere from R1 through R5 at level 30 with this build. So while this is not a top tier build by any means, it is viable.

In terms of solo power, it is as a healing hybrid it is far below say Mitheriana, Transformed to Grace which can solo Sharn on R6. However, Axel really likes it, and sticks with it.

When U50 makes all the difficulties consistent with Sharn, Axel's build will become an R1 build reducing Axel's access to legendary reaper solo progression by four skulls. In contrast, the R6 Sharn Mitheriana build stays an R6 build.

When U50 hits some (hybrid) characters will lose 4 skulls of difficulties they can solo or contribute in and others will walk through those difficulties as if nothing happened. The available gameplays lost will correspond to lost players of those gameplays.

I was in favor of this as a stat crunch because it made better grouping 20-30. But this isn't an even stat crunch. Anyone that is uber on a single focus build is unaffected, and anyone that is not uber or on a flavor build is taking a 4 skull reaper penalty.

If progression wasn't gated based on skulls and was a given amount of rxp/min for being in a reaper dungeon then it would be less impactful to nerf weaker builds 4 skulls and leave stronger builds alone.