U55 Preview 3: The Level Cap Increase

[Dragbon]

Wild Force: (Note: The wolf bonus here should be "10% exceptional bonus to Armor Class", this will be fixed before release.)

This bonus giving wolves 10% more ac is useless. At least the 10% hp was useful in making wolves tankier. As is there is no reason to pick up wild force if you are a wolf.


On a broader note melee are getting screwed with the feats in that most melee are going to end up going the 100 hp because specialty feats are niche cases for use (swf bastard sword or dwarven axe) and as designed you would need a second sentient jewel that is pretty high to even think about swapping your style and even then the fighting style will still be gimp because you won't have the perfect feat.

Compare this to the ranged feat that is just a straight up increase to dps in the +10 attack and 5% dodge bypass.

I am not sure how to fix this but a start would be adding in a couple dps options for melee.

[Caarb]

Grandmaster of Flowers: Master of Philosophy: Multiselector:
Enlightening Philosophy: +3% dodge bypass, +10 Magical Resistance Rating cap. Your Stunning Blow and Stunning Fist feats are now considered Light builder attacks.
Forbidden Philosophy: +3% dodge bypass, +10 Magical Resistance Rating cap. Your Stunning Blow and Stunning Fist feats are now considered Dark builder attacks.
Aberrant Philosophy: +3% dodge bypass, +10 Magical Resistance Rating cap. Your Stunning Blow and Stunning Fist feats are now considered Void builder attacks.

This is bad. CC shouldnt interrupt your current sequence as it is used on demand not rotationally.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

I know this is a big ask, but I'd prefer more active than passive feats.

For example, give us back old momentum swing but make it auto-crit since it breaks the attack animation.

Or give melee a channeling attack that allows them to gain melee power and PRR during the animation, but roots them in place---I'd like the old tree form back but with the removal of cleaves breaking the animation.

Or give ranged an ability that limits the range of their weapon but imbues it with force damage. "Ethereal transmuted arrows." I'm thinking like the distance a greater shout travels. It turns them into pseudo melee but gives a substantive damage boost. This appeals to people who aren't exploiting the game's geometry.

Creative feats should solve game design problems. We get a one-two-punch to the meta. Currently I am not really excited by the level cap increase, except that it gives me access to more things in the ED trees---because those trees have interesting abilities that change how I interact with my character, the mobs, my friends, and the geometry. Stat increases are very bland. They don't belong on feats IMO. Again I know this is a big ask, but it is what would make the community happy in the long run.

<3

[TFerguson]

Funny I was already thinking about 'x less damage' as a vehicle to address the survivability imbalances of melee (particularly those that have no self healing like pure fighters).


How as the 5% number determined? Why not 7%?

Really like the idea!

Like these piddly numbers matter in real content.

Don't even bother with this weaksauce.

[Assassination]

Like these piddly numbers matter in real content.

Don't even bother with this weaksauce.

Here Here. Please realize these are legendary levels, not heroic pre teen. If this is how it's going to be to 40 then it's a bit of an embarrasment. Try harder.

[Nickodeamous]

To benefit from this ability in FoTW, you have to actively employ the Trip ability.

To employ the trip ability, you have to be heavily invested in the strength ability score.

This shuts out builds that are not STR/Trip invested.

Whirlwind is a mostly throwaway feat with some value for monks as I understand it.


Would love to understand the thought process and if I am missing the mark in my thinking.

Yeah, I am a monk player, and I heavily use whirlwind, so this would be something I may be interested in. I just want it to proc,a dn I am not seeing it.

Anywa, yeah, that does stink about the fact that it is a strength check. they should make trip more viable by adding other abilities as mods.

[droid327]

For Unstoppable, just make it 100% chance for 10s instead of 50% chance for 20, at the current numbers for bonuses

That lets you use it for deliberate, targeted defense over a short burst, while you counterattack- kind of a "parry and riposte" move - rather than just weaker general defense. ABs should always have a kick

[Nandos]

[*]Primal Avatar: Regrowth: When your spell points drop below 5% of max you immediate restore 500 spell points and gain nature's resurgence which increases your spell critical multiplier by 5% for the duration of the quest. This can only occur once during the quest.

Could the activation threshold % be increased a bit? 5% is low and I can see this never going off or being a chore to activate in some party/quest situations.


Also, it would be awesome if trip/improved trip would at least use the higher of strength or dexterity.

[GramercyRiff]

lol that 100% Unstoppable is considered "NO WAY" but current Druid does what it does.

also it definitely sucks that a lot of melee dps will just take 100 hp. that's about as boring as it gets.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

lol that 100% Unstoppable is considered "NO WAY" but current Druid does what it does.

also it definitely sucks that a lot of melee dps will just take 100 hp. that's about as boring as it gets.

As a sorc I can't really afford epic spell focus, so me too!

[Ganak]

Yeah, I am a monk player, and I heavily use whirlwind, so this would be something I may be interested in. I just want it to proc,a dn I am not seeing it.

Anywa, yeah, that does stink about the fact that it is a strength check. they should make trip more viable by adding other abilities as mods.

If done as a mutli-selector choice, I would hope it would be easy to implement at this late hour.


Such as an option for "If duel wielding, using punch weapons or in animal form gain a +5% Epic Damage bonus to all physical attacks."

[Azoyhn]

For your consideration:

• Legendary Dreadnought: Unstoppable: When you activate an action boost, you gain the Unstoppable effect for 20 seconds. Unstoppable: You take 5% less damage from all sources, gain a +5 Action Boost bonus to Fortitude Saving Throws, and a +3% Action Boost bonus to Uncapped Dodge.

(Not intended as a "we're shifting plans to it", just "up for hearing some thoughts about it").

Please don't change this core, i'm not sure how much many people aren't going to notice that this is actually extremely good. This core is in a good place a long with some of the other cores. The one core that i'm not too excited for is the Draconic, but there was presumably a reason for not giving casters more of a buff.

[Zeklijan]

I think a 100% proc chance with half the current bonuses would feel better in play for the legendary dreadnought ability. I can't imagine activating an ability and it doing nothing half the time... That's a bit odd to me

[Entyri]

Id vote for 100% chance for 8-10% dmg decrease or 100% chance for 5% dmg decrease and cc immunity please and thank you. LD doesnt seem like the place for dodge cap.

Unyielding still doesnt (or at least for me didnt) scale with positive spell power or crit chance. Any chance we could get this? Or make it scale off something else? Like gain 3x your prr in positive energy or something?

Grandmaster of flowers: fantastic idea, but please also give the option of none of those? I can imagine not wanting my stunning fist to interrupt my finishing sequence I have going, so giving me that as an option would be nice.

Shiradi: please make it centered on the enemy you have targeted and not on self. Also fascinate has a lot of rules on what it can affect which limits its usefulness kinda heavily...

Primal: Can we bump up the threshold? Your average nuker / healer at cap has 5-7k spell points, and 5% of that is 250-350. If you are trying to let yourself get that low to get that proc before tapping rings / trinkets you may run into some serious issues. 10% seems a bit more reasonable to me.

Draconic: Kinda a cool idea, can we also add the crit damage from primal (but not the spell point regen and it doesnt stack) Would spice it up a bit.

Magus: Making cool buttons do cool things > passive bonuses almost always. Can we up the chance for cc and decrease the spell pen?

fatesinger/exalted/shadowdance/fury: very cool

Thank you!

[Tobril]

Wasn't the old unstoppable a separate "boost" that self cleansed CC and gave % damage reduction?

Is there a reason the ability has to stay attached to regular boosts?


Self cleanse/bubbles are much better on-demand in anticipation, or automatic when getting damaged/cc'd.

% procs to do something specific and critical are not particularly desirable due to the lack of dependability.

[Tobril]

Wolf %HP being changed to %AC is a huge downgrade and turns a decent feat into a "never-take" option.

[Dandonk]

We're still getting commoner levels that are in no way epic.

There's still no useful destiny feat for most melees.

And apparantly, the dodge debuff is still a thing.

Can we please not get the level cap increase? As it stands, it will actively make the game worse.

[elvesunited]

Shiradi: please make it centered on the enemy you have targeted and not on self. Also fascinate has a lot of rules on what it can affect which limits its usefulness kinda heavily...
!

I'd put this one as most likely to be nerfed before release. Yes highly llimited on foes it can affect but the whole "no save" thing is ripe for abuse. Being able to fascinate at a distance would make this even more unbalancing.

Primal: Can we bump up the threshold? Your average nuker / healer at cap has 5-7k spell points, and 5% of that is 250-350. If you are trying to let yourself get that low to get that proc before tapping rings / trinkets you may run into some serious issues. 10% seems a bit more reasonable to me.

Of course if you are using the temp spell points from the mantle you may find even 10% a impossible benchmark to reach.

Magus: Making cool buttons do cool things > passive bonuses almost always. Can we up the chance for cc and decrease the spell pen?
!

This makes me wonder if magus is going to be a must have destiny at cap for a CC based character. As monster spell resists go up they need new sources of spell penetration to keep up. The spell pen is far more valuable than the minor chance ( even if increased ) of freezing an enemy that enters the zone.

[Pandjed]

For your consideration:

• Legendary Dreadnought: Unstoppable: When you activate an action boost, you gain the Unstoppable effect for 20 seconds. Unstoppable: You take 5% less damage from all sources, gain a +5 Action Boost bonus to Fortitude Saving Throws, and a +3% Action Boost bonus to Uncapped Dodge.

(Not intended as a "we're shifting plans to it", just "up for hearing some thoughts about it").

Personally, I feel it's better than a 50% chance to proc. With reaper difficulty, we want to rely on our abilities, and with the small timeframe of an action boost, looking if I got the damage decrease or not will most likely take 1-2 seconds away from my 20 (depending how many buffs that character has to manage).

In consideration what kinds of builds want to be in LD, how about a multiselector? One for a damage decrease and one for uncapped dodge, while both also gets knockdown immunity? This would cover the dex based users (like Tempest Rangers, the path of dex fighters that Tabaxi opened, and rogues that don't want to be in SD, but do have problems getting their PRR up and rely on dodge as a main-defensive mechanic in addition to the melee focused paladins and fighters that do wear heavy armor and don't get much dodge anyway and therefore a percentual damage reduction would work with their main-defense.

Then it wouldn't feel too much to increase the numbers a bit (like 10% either reduction or uncapped dodge). In both cases, you get statistically 10% less damage, in one by reducing all damage, the other by ignoring 10% of the hits.

[DeltaBravo]

• Divine Crusader: Sunder Evil: Using Sunder or Improved Sunder deals 1d6 light damage per character level and applies a Divine Sundering effect. The light damage scales with 200% of the higher of your Melee and Ranged Power. Divine Sundering: -10% AC, -25% fortification, -3 saving throws. Lasts 12 seconds.

Pretty pretty please add the Epic DC to Divine crusaders cores.. It still makes no sense it aint there..

• Legendary Dreadnought: Unstoppable: When you activate an action boost, you have a 50% chance to gain the Unstoppable effect for 20 seconds. Unstoppable: You take 25% less damage from all sources, gain a +20 Action Boost bonus to Fortitude Saving Throws, a +10% Action Boost bonus to Uncapped Dodge, and are immune to knockdown.

Others allready said it.. iam not a big fan of the gambling effects. And i like the

For your consideration:

• Legendary Dreadnought: Unstoppable: When you activate an action boost, you gain the Unstoppable effect for 20 seconds. Unstoppable: You take 5% less damage from all sources, gain a +5 Action Boost bonus to Fortitude Saving Throws, and a +3% Action Boost bonus to Uncapped Dodge.

Allot more.. However I would rather just see a flat 10% less damge .. The +5 fort and the +3 dodge cap is not usefull for alot of people. the 10% is usefull for alot more players.


cheers
Deltabravo