U55 Preview 3: The Level Cap Increase

[ahpook]

My complaint is not missing the point. My point is stated clearly and accurately.

Well, since it was not clear to me I am not certain you can make that claim. It really seemed that you were complaining specifically about the TWF being useless for the TWF fighter. Not that all the feats were not useful. A point to which I agree.

The purpose of these "Weapon Specialty Feats" is another Dev failure.

Where are the "Legendary Weapon Specialty" feats, allowing players who want ONLY ONE WEAPON STYLE to further improve the ONE WEAPON STYLE they've used for 30 levels?

Why should "Legendary Aim" be limited only to ranged combatants? Cuz no melee character would EVER uses the Precision feat? Ridiculous.

Yep, I agree with this clarification. I can't see a single feat in that list which is useful for my TWF. I guess he can buy a tome to qualify for the bonus HP. Nothing else is of value. (In theory I could take the SWF feat and remove the off hand weapon when ever he is performing a chain attack but ... no thanks to that awkwardness).

[Artos_Fabril]

My complaint is not missing the point. My point is stated clearly and accurately.
The purpose of these "Weapon Specialty Feats" is another Dev failure.

Where are the "Legendary Weapon Specialty" feats, allowing players who want ONLY ONE WEAPON STYLE to further improve the ONE WEAPON STYLE they've used for 30 levels?

Why should "Legendary Aim" be limited only to ranged combatants? Cuz no melee character would EVER uses the Precision feat? Ridiculous.

Why should anyone expect anything different after 16 yrs of the same ol' same old greasy meat sandwich served in a dirty ashtray?

Just more Dev short-sightedness. As usual.

Your complaint was clear, but misses the point of the feats being specifically not available to characters that already have that fighting style, and replicating the bonuses of Greater (fighting style)/Improved Shield mastery.

You're right that they're terrible in the vast majority of cases (doubling up on THF with SWF or Shield Specialization for hand-and-a-half users or swashbucklers picking up shield spec for their buckler being the exceptions)

As expected, Ranged get vertical progression, melee get theoretical horizontal progression that isn't supported by any other part of the game.

[Assassination]

[QUOTE=Artos_Fabril;6522471]


...

[Dandonk]

Where are the "Legendary Weapon Specialty" feats, allowing players who want ONLY ONE WEAPON STYLE to further improve the ONE WEAPON STYLE they've used for 30 levels?

The so-called "Legendary Weapon Specialty" feats are weird, mostly pointless, and mis-labelled.

They are weird, in that in order to gain benefit from them at all, you have to play in a different playstyle for the first 30 levels of your build. What? An example in this vein: I want to be a spellcaster, so therefore, naturally, I have to be sure to take no magic-enhancing feats until legendary levels? Wut?

Mostly pointless in that only a very few builds actually benefit from them, mostly those who use hand and a half weapons. Which are not that many, but I don't oppose devs trying to make those more popular. Build diversity is good. Just see point 1, they have to live without them for most of their levelling, which is seriously weird design choice. Be without a defining build element until legendary levels.... again, wut?
Other types of melees run into the problem that enhancements, feats, sentient xp grinding and probably more that I missed all tend to be very specialised to one particular weapon, making the idea of a THF pulling out a pair of daggers impractical, to say the least.

And then we come to why I quoted what I did. Mis-labelling. These feats are NOT actually "Legendary Weapon Specialty". All other specialization feats and stuff improves what you already have. You Specialize in your Great Sword to make it do more damage, you don't Specialize in a Great Sword to make TWF with kamas better.

So "Legendary Weapon Specialty" isn't the right label. It should be "Legendary Weapon Generalization" or something like that. It's clearly false marketing, or whatever the english term is.

Once again, I don't mind these feats begind there. That's fine. I do, however, mind the name (which implies the feats being something they're not), and that we don't actually have real "Legendary Weapon Specialty" feats that give actual, you know, Specialization.

[Oliphant]

Let's see.

• Hard to get anywhere playing this game as a new player.
• Would be nice at least if a new player could focus, really stack up benefits and at least be good at one thing.
• No, instead EDs push you into breadth, not letting anything stack up (i.e. spell DCs).
• No, new legendary feats are all about branching out, swapping styles.
• Meanwhile new players can't even make one style work.
• I don't get it.

[VinoeWhines]

Weapon Specialty Feats:

Choose to upgrade your Weapon Specialty Feat and choose another Weapon Specialty inherent bonus from another style.(*Weapon Specialty inherent bonus)

• Legendary Single Weapon Fighting: Your Single-Weapon Fighting bonus is increased to a +40% Combat Style bonus to attack speed and 2 additional Melee Power.
• Legendary Two Handed Fighting: Increases the Strikethrough chance by an additional 40% and gives 4x ability modifier damage scaling with two handed weapons and 2 additional Melee Power.
• Legendary Two Weapon Fighting: Reduces the to-hit penalty to main hand and offhand to zero (-0/-0 )when using two weapons at the same time. Increases the chance to proc an off-hand attack by 20%, bringing the total chance to 100%.
• Legendary Range Expertise: Gain Doubleshot equal to your Weapon Ability Attack Modifier Score.
• Legendary Toughness: +120 maximum hit points. This can be taken multiple times.
• Legendary Point Blank Shot: Toggle: With ranged weapons, your attacks cause -10% slower attack and movement of enemy and deal 15% more damage. On Vorpal Blinds enemy with no save for 10 seconds.
• Legendary Specialty Attack: Your specialty Attacks and Defenses reduce their cooldowns by 25% (Uncanny Dodge, Diplomacy, Bluff, Trip, Improved Trip, Assassinate, Sap, Cleave, Greater Cleave, Improved Feint, Whirlwind Attack)

*Weapon Specialty inherent bonus. Choose one from:

• Single Weapon Fighting bonus: Gain +20% Legendary Combat Style bonus to attack speed and an additional 5 Melee Power.
• Two Handed Fighting bonus: Gain 2.5x Ability modifier damage scaling with weapons and an additional 5 Melee Power.
• Two Weapon Fighting bonus: increases the chance to proc 20% doublestrike.
• Range Weapon Fighting bonus: Gain Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot as Feats (Prereq: Dex 19, Base Attack Bonus +11).

[VinoeWhines]

Epic Destinies

• Shadowdancer: Cut to the Soul: You are unbothered by the physical restraints of the world: From the Shadows now allows you to pass through enemies in a cloud of smoke proccing an Improved Deception and gaining 3% uncapped dodge stacks 3 times on Tumble and lasts for 10 seconds while in stealth(like Measure the Foe). +3% dodge bypass, +3% fortification bypass, +3% damage versus the helpless.

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Tumble through enemies was already an ability that shouldn't of been taken away. Grandmaster of Flowers kept it in their destiny even now.

These removal of valuable abilities*:

*Consume. (Could easily of been the multi-choice of Weird if you didn't cast x-level spells)
*Shadow Manipulation. (Shiradi now gets this in Beguile Charm? Why?)
*Executioner's Strike/Shot. (Just as Weird is hard coded for casters, this should of been hard coded for assassinate ability)
*Meld Into Darkness (was used as a separate ability from attacking).
*Removing the AOE explosion in Dark Imbuement range proc.
*Removing Pass through enemies on Tumble.

Putting Stealthy and Assassinate bonus' as a separate choice when they where part of the same bonus ability.
Putting in a useless Wand and Scroll Mastery that doesn't stack how about changing it to:

Sleight of Hand should be:

Sleight of Hand: Traps and Vial Mastery: You can make Noisemaker Traps or Noisemaker Vials(on exploding they stick to door/wall and make ticking sound), with the ability to place or throw in stealth.

(Tier 1): If you have the Trapmaking Feat, you can now add your Sneak Attack Dice and Damage to Traps and Vials.
(Tier 2): You can use the higher of Melee or Range Power to Traps and Vials you Throw.
(Tier 3):You can inscribe scrolls as Traps and Alchemical Recipes as Vials.

Maybe have specific Alchemical Vials like Mass Suggestion/Confusion, Turn to Frog/Bat, a real Tanglefoot a la "Sharn exploding goo"(with DC: Reflex (DC 20 + Rogue Level + Stat Modifier + Assassinate Bonus)
and Shadow-Thunderstone: Alchemical Vial Trap Attack: 1d6+2 Force damage per character level and dazes in an area. Fort DC (12/16/20 + Rogue Level + Stat Modifier + Assassinate Bonus).

Creating traps and throwing vials was a Rogue ability, even having a mechanical dog in the beginning.

[VinoeWhines]

You know sometimes I really don't want to log on to a message board and complain, complain, complain. I do feel bad at times for the developers that have to take the heat of a community that 90% of the time it seems is complaining; but some times it is, self-inflicted.
Can the round table be setup in a way where it could add to a class or better yet fix issues of the class then keep increasing abilities and changes to abilities. In order to keep the game going, metrics push for improvements/"power" to the game world, that can't be escaped.
And it does seem that there is a focus on balancing the game and being able to build with a structure going forward, whether it's proper scaling/difficulty and increase in power.

The tagline: "Reaper should be hard and not solo friendly" but then leaving mana cookies for casters to consume but not leaving HP cookies for melees to raise their health doesn't show this concept at all but gives casters "rewards" for spell points in game, which is fine but what do melees get for the same result = nothing. Where is that balance? It seems like free Major SP pots have a chance to drop in Reaper dungeons if you get 240 SP souls, you should be able to get 120-240 HP souls. (Highlander style= their can only be one...The Quickening!)

I'm not necessarily asking to remove the SP souls from Reaper but it should exist symbiotically with other classes as well for their benefit in taking a mob out. Everyone could use a HP heal from the dungeon if that's the case, or +10 Melee/Range Power from a soul, +5% 20 seconds dodge, +10 Tactics DC's, etc. If they are going to go and keep the SP souls in dungeon, just to make that mechanic "balanced" and not just for casting style play.


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If Shadow Dancer would of been left as is, minus the Stat choices, it would of been stronger than what it is as it's current form.
Yes some perks were added, but they could of been added without the take away of it's major strengths.
"Balancing" the tree by taking away it's identity is not beneficial for the class and style of play at all.
GMoF kept it's theme and signature attacks(Everything Is Nothing) and added some improvements, obviously it took away some nice things but it's identity is somewhat kept.

Shadow Dancer tree brought in an orphan(Caster) and took away the residents identity by giving the orphan more than it's original occupant and gave the orphan an AOE tier V(Mass PK) that the resident can't even use, and gave the neighbor (Shiradi Champion) the keys to the second car(Beguile Charm = Shadow Manipulation) as a lower tier choice that should of stayed as well in Shadow Dancer.


Here's an example of what was and should still have been:

Welcome to the Release Notes for Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited Launch Update (Also known as Module 9). These release notes were posted Monday, August 31st, 2009.


Rogue
Rogue Assassin III
Prerequisites: Rogue level 18, Assassin II, Sneak Attack Accuracy IV, Sneak Attack Training IV
Cost: 2 Action Points
Benefit: Your lethality is unmatched in battle. Grants an additional +2 bonus to damage on critical hits (before multipliers), +2 bonus to Bluff, Hide, and Move Silently skills and Fortitude saves against poison. Also, any sneak attack that also counts as a vorpal strike (natural 20 followed by critical confirmation) that you make will kill most living targets.


Requires: Level 20 Rogue
Rogue Cheat Death: +2 dexterity and a chance of self-resurrection, but this chance drops each time you die and Maruts dislike you.

We also had a choice to build a mechanical dog as a hireling.

We also have vials that could be thrown but don't scale at all like the Alchemists do. (No Rogue Level damage increase/Sneak Die to damage/Assassinate bonus/Melee-Range Power increase to damage)

Shortbow proficiency for nothing.

[Assassination]

..