U56 Preview 3 Release Notes

[Ghustor]

Bugfixes

• Sonic blast is now properly single target (note: it will still continue to hit breakables in an AOE)

OH, COME ON. Are you saying that all this spell code was make and revised to hit in AoE but that was a bug??? Are you saying that a 16 yo spell dosent works properly like it was planed and all the Devs coded it to a more complicate behevior just by mistake???

This change isnt a bug fix, its a spell change. If you want to change the spell, just say it, dont tell us that it is a "bug fix", its a NERF. A huge nerf for low lvl casters. Why are you afraid to use the correct term? Looks like you arent secure about what you are doing and trying do mascarete it.

U56 make me fell that with this new HC season someone decided to give attention to Heroic and decide to change the things on the fly.

If you think that heroic needs a redesign, so, do it with a plan, like you did for endgame gears, spells and Epic Destiny.

Look like you are just trying to randon changes things without a project. That was what Turbine did in the past and toke the game to that mess it was few years ago. Dont make the same mistake, you are doing a great job on end game, why not do the same thing on heroic?? MAKE A PROJECT, A LONG TERM PLAN!!!

You dont need to release updates over updates, this game survived for a long time, dont need rush. What we need is a well planed desing (or even redesing), not only changes that caught us unwarned.

AND STOP TO MAKE CHANGES WITHOUT HEAR THE COMMUNIT OR HEAR JUST TO LITTLE ADJUSTS. Ask to us, we know what is wrong and we know what we want.

[Ghustor]

Bank update, free completionist, and whirlwind attack changes. Put those 3 in and send everything else back to the drawing board. Even bug fixes!

+1

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

I'm wondering if the bard nerfs are a rage against Chris Pine playing a bard in the upcoming D&D film?
I have suspicions someone's mad about how he portrayed Kirk in the Star Trek reimagining, and this is payback!

[marinersfan]

Sonic blast is now properly single target (note: it will still continue to hit breakables in an AOE)

marinerfan will now properly NOT be VIP

[Singular]

Sonic blast is one of the core spells that make air sorcs fun, especially at low level.

Super unhappy with this change.

[Lotoc]

Sonic blast admittedly is a bit out of line for a first level spell but that's because it's an AoE spell which doesn't do reduced damage on a save.
It's a 1d6+1 per level spell which is consistent with the damage dice formula for a first level aoe spells since like u48.4.
Personally I would have gone with reduced damage on saving throw before making it single target, but either way at least Famine Reapers won't be unavoidably oneshotting low level first life characters through walls with it anymore.
Really is a shame however that a staple spell of Wizards, Sorcs and Bards is getting such a big nerf, admittedly bards do overperform as a low level caster and air savants are one of the best levelers but where this leaves wizards as a caster is really disappointing.

[LittleLexi]

Bank update, free completionist, and whirlwind attack changes. Put those 3 in and send everything else back to the drawing board. Even bug fixes!

+1

[Talan]

The Sonic Blast nerf, whilst understandable for a first level spell from a technical view point, is a massive hit to caster bards in Heroic content. Effectively, no useable DPS spells until they get Shout, (Sound Burst is more of a control spell than DPS) and nothing to do whilst Shout is on cool down; which will make Heroic levelling game play a slow repetitive button press and not fun. This is added to by Shout having a small range and therefore having to stare mobs/ kite back in the face for 6 seconds whilst waiting for the recharge.

This feels like it is making Storm Singer a mandatory choice for caster bards whilst Heroic levelling, and removing an important tool from Swashbucklers.

If implementing this change can you please look at standard Bards spell books/ SLAs (potentially replacing Reverberate with something more useful), 'before' this change is made.

[Alcides]

Elemental Blast Augments - These feel weak compared to existing elemental augments, consider adding base elemental damage plus have the critical effects, since regular elemental augments do more damage than these.
Ruby of Implement Elemental Augments - These are not displaying the implement bonus granted on the item, you can see the value in the combat log when the item is equipped.
Heroic completionist automatically granted - This is great and appears to be fixed.
ToEE Revamped Gear - Could you add a legendary version of the ToEE set that adds a +20 Quality bonus to Melee, Ranged, and Universal Spell Power, PRR and MRR along with +3 Quality stats?
Legendary Crafting - Can we have the Mythic boost feature implemented for this as was stated during previews of this feature?
Sonic blast change - Consider adding a way for this spell to be an AoE for bards from cores on certain enhancement trees such as spell singer which specializes in sonic damage.
Reaper crafting change - This is still not very casual friendly, you have play an inordinate amount of time to even get 75 (last one I did took 175 hours of gameplay) of these without doing the level 1-2 trick. I think this should be limited to 50, and an additional way added to do this with threads of fate.

Miscellaneous stuff
Shifter - Brute fighting enhancement is not granting additional melee threat
Nature's Protector - Thick Hide enhancement is not granting a stacking Natural AC bonus
Rising Fury druid spell - This should last 9 seconds per level instead of having a 30 second duration
Radiant Forcefield - The duration is not increased with the Extend spell feat. Sorry, but this is not implemented correctly since Extend is supposed to increase the duration of spells with a duration longer than instantaneous.

[SilentRunning]

It's nice to see some people can express disappointment at a change made on a preview server and then of course there all the toxic sludge comments.

[Sowahh]

All other sub-topics have already received a lot of answers from the devs.
Can one of the devs address the topic of spell blast changes? The reasoning behind it, what issues it actually addresses?
A simple "we REALLY thought this through, this adresses the issues with X, Y, Z and we're aware that the side-effects A, B, C are there and we plan to fix them in a F, G ways" would put a lot of people at ease.

[tanuki013]

The DC of Druid Innate Attacks (like Takedown and Snowslide) are not calculated correctly.

For example. the DC for Snowslide is listed as 10 + Druid Level + Highest of WIS,DEXor Strength + Stun Bonues.
My character has 36 Stun Bonues, Druid Level is 18 and WISDOM is 96.
In that case, the DC of Snowslide is 10+18+43+36=107.
However, the actual DC shown is 62.

If I lower Stun Bonues from 36 to 20, the DC of Snowslide becomes 52.

I don't understand.

Furthermore, there is no change in DC after or before using Deadly Instinct in Falconry Enhancement Tree Tire 4.

The following Innate Attack and Druid enhance ability have wrong DC calculations.
Takedown , Snowslide, Shred,Great Maul,BearChargeJaws of Winter,Tremor

Please Fix.

[Sho-sa]

OH, COME ON. Are you saying that all this spell code was make and revised to hit in AoE but that was a bug??? Are you saying that a 16 yo spell doesn't works properly like it was planned and all the Devs coded it to a more complicate behavior just by mistake???

I have been VIP since the beginning. Taken a break from the boards as they are so toxic, but I still enjoy playing. If the Devs change anything about Sonic Blast rather than change the new Stormsinger, that will be the final nail to convince me to walk away for good.

[Tajuh]

All other sub-topics have already received a lot of answers from the devs.
Can one of the devs address the topic of spell blast changes? The reasoning behind it, what issues it actually addresses?
A simple "we REALLY thought this through, this adresses the issues with X, Y, Z and we're aware that the side-effects A, B, C are there and we plan to fix them in a F, G ways" would put a lot of people at ease.

They've avoided bringing up why Sacred Fist drops Divine Might in the KOTC replacement tree too, so I can feel your pain.

[Singular]

If you go back to the posts after the news of the nerf to aasimar healing hands in cores 3 and 5 -- over 20 posts expressed great concern about these nerfs. About 1/5 of all the early posts came out requesting no nerf or a much less severe nerf.

The new updates and corrections make no amends to this and no response has been given concerning this in the forums. 2 heal from levels 1-15 and 4 heals total thereafter with out recharges is serious game play change for such toons. It is easy to use up 4 heals for yourself and others in a single encounter. In reaper (or the dogs of HC 6) even with 7 heals it is a balancing act of when to give them out.

Please include at least 2 more heals for core 3 as original (6 total at level 16) with no recharges or maybe 4-5 charges with recharging as in the past but with like a 5 min timer instead of 3.

omg, I made my fighter an Assimar just to get the healing. Then I stopped being VIP, so had to actually buy the race.

This and the nerf to sonic blast . . . ugh. For a sorc I play.

Oh, well, I'll check in again in a few months, see what's up.

Enjoy!

[Havocthedemon]

They've avoided bringing up why Sacred Fist drops Divine Might in the KOTC replacement tree too, so I can feel your pain.

The refusal to even attempt to explain their reasoning behind stupid decisions is infuriating. Like why are we nerfing Aasimar healing hands? It brings such an interesting dynamic to a fighter that can decide to go wisdom based. Why do they wanna nerf melee so bad, which is the only kind of characters who cared about Healing hands? All the spellcasters have real healing magic - why can’t a fighter go all in on wisdom and have an emergency heal clicky? Whatever devs decided this was a good idea are actually just trash people. If they think it’s too OP for hardcore then change it for hardcore - no one gives a f about that server anyway.

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

This is what the sonic blast change should be:

for Sorcs, Wizards and Bards:
Level 1 the addition of
Sonic Bolt Evocation
(Sonic) Fires a small sonic orb at a target, doing 1d6+2 sonic damage per caster level (max 10d6+20 at caster level 10). This spell shares a cooldown with Freezing Bolt, Shocking Bolt, acid bolt, and Flaming Bolt.

Level 3 the addition of
Sonic Blast Evocation
(Sonic) Blasts with an explosion of loud high-pitched sound, dealing 1d6+3 sonic damage per caster level, (Maximum damage 10d6+30), in a 20 feet radius. The targets must make a successful Will save or be Dazed.

(keep its existing cooldown to recast).

[toapat]

Sonic blast will be a huge nerf, please don't do it, bards are now pretty usable, this change will be a really hit for any non stormsinger bard. Bards aren't overpowered atm, pls don't nerf them.

it also cripples Air Savant, where youre basically waiting till Chain Lightning for a spell that does your primary element in damage, and until then Sonic Blast is your only spell worth its spellpoints

I can see that Sonic Blast is OP for a level 1 spell. I'm still using it on a level 23 sorc in epic reaper quests and still frequently stunning mobs without heighten. Making this change in the middle of HC season would be unfair to the large population of people running spellsinger bard on that server (and maybe a few air sorcs). I also know that the devs view this as a bug but it has been that way for a very long time. I will miss it very much.

Sonic Blast isnt overpowered though. you have to specifically spec for its' DC to have it work consistently in Elite+ content and it only looks good in the context of being the sole lvl 1 spell that actually works as a dps spell. Except for Spellvial, every other lvl 1 spell affected by the Master of Element feats is vastly underperformant at epic, and even Sonic Blast is at that point a filler spell, not a core spell to anyone besides a bard.

They've avoided bringing up why Sacred Fist drops Divine Might in the KOTC replacement tree too, so I can feel your pain.

That was in a Strimtom stream: Lynn doesnt like the 4E style Everything can be shifted to a single primary stat and by extension the trances. Conceptually i dont either, but both of those things were introduced specifically as bandaids to fundamental issues with the way 3.5 works when pushed to its extreme limits, and thats the problem. DDO is well past where 3.5 was ever conceptualized as reaching mathmatically, and adjusted along its way over 15 years of work. we have character races from 3.5, 4e, and 5e, classes from 3.5, 5e, and PF, and itemization taking the ideas introduced by the Diablo 2 supplement and having been abused so far as to barely resemble PnP item design.

so the answer, that no one likes, is that Lynn doesnt want to give SF Divine Might, because hes not familiar with the game in a way as to understand the logic of that request. At this point, (Stat-10)/2 to modifier means that your progression is performed in starts and leaps, rather then granular steps, but Lynn doesnt get that its a sloppy solution to a much lower level problem that cant be adjusted without reworking half the game's actual design.

[Caarb]

so the answer, that no one likes, is that Lynn doesnt want to give SF Divine Might, because hes not familiar with the game in a way as to understand the logic of that request. At this point, (Stat-10)/2 to modifier means that your progression is performed in starts and leaps, rather then granular steps, but Lynn doesnt get that its a sloppy solution to a much lower level problem that cant be adjusted without reworking half the game's actual design.

Trance isnt optional at endgame- the lack of trance means you have the ridiculous situation where endgame Sorc EK builds taking the harper agent trance. The same will happen with Sacred fist or they will be splashed with fvs as the current capstone is weak

Divine Might is so iconic to the DDO Paladin I would include it over the Char to hit and Damage

[Tajuh]

Trance isnt optional at endgame- the lack of trance means you have the ridiculous situation where endgame Sorc EK builds taking the harper agent trance. The same will happen with Sacred fist or they will be splashed with fvs as the current capstone is weak

Divine Might is so iconic to the DDO Paladin I would include it over the Char to hit and Damage

That's the thing she misses, Divine Might has been a part of the Paladin in some way, shape, or form since the level cap was at least 20. It may have been slightly different back then, but a Paladin without Divine Might is just a worse Cleric.

And while you have that damage dice, why the hell wouldn't you just go Clonk instead? Paladins already have the worst skill point progression and trying to make a Paladin a off-healer isn't going to work. The SP just is not there.