Are archetypes just bad?

[kmoustakas]

From what I'm seeing, the overal oppinion is they are just terrible for serious r10 players / raiders?

Where they just badly imagined, based on incorrect game information or just used to mask pre-planned nerfs?

[misterski]

From what I'm seeing, the overal oppinion is they are just terrible for serious r10 players / raiders?

Where they just badly imagined, based on incorrect game information or just used to mask pre-planned nerfs?

The devs seemed to be afraid to make them overpowered and in the process made them underpowered.

[droid327]

Archetypes are not bad...just these archetypes are bad

The system itself is a great idea, we just got three bad examples. Well, two bad examples - Stormsinger is probably fine if somewhat pedestrian, it just was DOA because of other nerfs that werent about the subclass itself

It seems to me the biggest overriding disconnect could be described as thus: the devs still seem to be designing trees for 1-20 NHE, when most of the game (or at least the parts where your build matters more) takes place in 20+ R1. So you get a lot of stuff in each tree that quickly becomes irrelevant because it just doesnt scale into Epic play or Reaper play.

The devs just dont seem to grasp the realities of the game as they've created it

[Blastyswa]

From what I'm seeing, the overal oppinion is they are just terrible for serious r10 players / raiders?

Where they just badly imagined, based on incorrect game information or just used to mask pre-planned nerfs?

I don't really think there's any problem personally with archetypes not being designed to be the new flavor of the month for r10- there's plenty of builds, playstyles, and classes that are perfectly fine for use by the normal through low reaper crowd that have a hard time working in r10, and archetypes have past lives associated with them- so even without playing the archetype itself being build power creep, it does add an incentive for uber TRed characters to go grab a few more PLs, and it can theoretically offer a flavorful option for people who want to experience a different take on various classes.

With that said, IMO they ended up in a way too weak state. Dark Apostate's inability to bypass negative immunity isn't just an issue for high reaper, it hurts its viability everywhere in the game. And it's a caster/melee that has very, very poor support for the melee part, it's like they just forgot/ignored feedback about it missing some obvious big offensive scalars like increases to critical profile and any type of melee power support. Sacred Fist is at least somewhat fun, but it's basically a weaker version of either a monk or paladin that spends a lot of time trying to get back up to the baseline of a paladin with features that allow features to function instead of giving new and interesting bonuses, and it has things to try and boost its MRR support without anything to boost MRR cap. Stormsinger is probably the best implementation of any of them, allowing bards to feel like a knockoff sorcerer/wizard, but I think a lot of people had a bad taste left in their mouth when it was accompanied by a huge nerf (Sorry typo, I meant "huge bug fix") to sonic blast, and it's coming instead of more support for sonic caster bards being viable.

IMO the basic idea of an archetype is OK as basically a budget way to put out a new "class" without having to design an entirely new class. Even the three basic concepts, Evil/Negative Cleric, Monk Paladin, and Electric/Cold Bard, were pretty decent ideas. But this cycle of lammania had so much blatant disregard for feedback that myself, and I think a lot of others as well, don't feel like there's really any reason to give feedback anymore if there's never any response on that feedback or justification of reasoning behind things. If all of them had better numbers and scaling that wasn't based off of janky stuff like giving 300% MP scaling to various Sacred Fist abilities or adding 200% spellpower scaling to harm in dark apostate, that would have been helpful.

But honestly I think they all just needed a lot of cleaning up and consolidation of effects to make them more useful- Dark apostate should have supported negative casting and alignment damage on hit better while bringing the obvious boring things that trees need to have, like +1/+1 crit profile and +20-30 MP. Maybe some stuff like "Use negative spellpower in place of alignment spellpower for your apostate dice" as well, that way it doesn't end up with the same "light/dark" thing as divine disciple, except worse. Sacred Fist obviously should have had the huge defensive losses considered and not just partially re-added in place of a level 6 deity feat, and it needed to have more identity than just taking everything monk has and making it part of a paladin tree- they could have played so much with different types of paladin things, but instead it just got "most of what monk has, but cha based". And then stormsinger being released as the caster bard with no support being given to spellsinger and the obvious desire to have spellsinger as the buffing bard and stormsinger as the damage bard, based off what stormsinger drops compared to a base bard, basically just means it'll be rare to see a spellsinger bard that isn't someone's buffbard or someone hoping to get carried through HCL.


Personally I'm pretty disappointed in the archetypes, the basic idea of them is cool but this first round didn't have enough development time, didn't have enough community feedback time, and too little community feedback was implemented, along with them just breaking established normal design rules like martial trees getting +1/+1 crit profile. I really think when they do big stuff like this, it needs to be previewed well in advance the way the epic destiny rework was- they revealed builders/spenders/chargers/lenders or whatever that god awful system was, community feedback was that the system was god awful, and it was far enough out that they were actually able to change stuff and make the new EDs pretty fun and decent. Archetypes feel to me like that first ED attempt, but without the part where a bad implementation gets brought back to the drawing board and reworked, instead it just got pushed through as is.

[Dmitrythewizzy]

the overal oppinion is they are just terrible for serious r10 players / raiders?

Maybe they are just not for uber players? Maybe no one has figured out the best spec/gearing yet?

[droid327]

the obvious boring things that trees need to have, like +1/+1 crit profile

Melee Clerics get theirs through War Domain. Which is something you can make a valid complaint about, but its a different complaint

[Aelonwy]

Where they just badly imagined, based on incorrect game information or just used to mask pre-planned nerfs?

The devs seemed to be afraid to make them overpowered and in the process made them underpowered.

Archetypes are not bad...just these archetypes are bad

The cynical side of me says its because these archetypes are free. Premium ones will probably be much more desirable... for a short time... likely coinciding with market saturation.

[Villefere]

From what I'm seeing, the overal oppinion is they are just terrible for serious r10 players / raiders?

Where they just badly imagined, based on incorrect game information or just used to mask pre-planned nerfs?

Yes, they are horribly designed. SSG is not run well and merit does not exactly mean much within the company. There will be many people defending archetypes but those people will literally defend ANY change SSG makes. SSG could announce the cancelation of DDO and these same people will be defending it. It is best to ignore these people.

[Tilomere]

Maybe no one has figured out the best spec/gearing yet?

You combine DA with inquisitor on a 12 FvS/5 Clr DA/3pali multiclass, with stat to dmg and DM from FvS, favored weapon from Inq, stout of heart + animal domain, and paladin 20% hp defensive stance. Move 5 FvS levels over to cleric or paladin if you want those past lives.

AP 41 Inq, 4 WS DM, 13 SaD 20% hp, 22 DA 7d6 evil

Instead of a traditional 1200 hp noob ranged character, you will end up with 1570+20% = 1990 noob ranged character that doesn't explode when looked at, requiring no tomes or PLs or RPs that could if the player was skilled survive in high reaper groups.

If you go T5 US since they nerfed T5 shiradi, and have winter 4, full reaper trees + PLs, would end up with a 5k hp inquisitor.

Instead of sucking badly in heroics due to lack of power, you can supplement heroics with spell powered DA die, because spell power is readily available in heroics.

In the animation chargeup for NHB, you can animation cancel into a shield equip, throw the shield to AoE helpless stun, animation cancel the shield throw into crossbow to finish out the NHB. If you are uber, also pick up the 450% US threat to "tank" mobs by not being in range of them.

I can just look at it, and see it is going to be a S-class dungeon tank, with best of the best defense (range), combined with solid CC (AoE stun), combined with aggro control, buffs, healing, hp, saves, and tankyness. It will also level smoothly compared to almost any other tank, except maybe sorc tank or rogue assassin tank.

My guess is you are trying to fit support classes (bard/paladin/cleric) into dps roles and matching them up against dps classes (Warlock/Sorc). Obviously DA isn't going to match up against a dps sorc. Maybe you will find more success matching them up to support roles, like the tank above. A SF paladin makes a fantastic zDPS tank that runs 20% faster so can kite better and take less damage for example. Just get shield and armor proficiencies back.

[Knightrose]

I'm on my second run with Dark Apostate and I wish I wasn't. I don't know if it's the worst of the three but it is horrendously bad as a primary. At best it supplements DD a little better than RS if you don't want to be forced to take up healing or CC (Feydark Illusionist) as a secondary tree. I posted some of my ideas to improve it in the suggestions forum. One I forgot to mention is that I think DA should be spewing out Curses like dog farts at a kennel. Bestow Curse as an SLA that ONLY hurts Undead is just really lame. Which is how the entire archetype can be summed up: Mediocre. Right now it's being carried by my Past Lives and muled gear. If I was trying DDO out for the first time I'd quite likely be attracted to the concept of this class and would be sorely disappointed by its performance. Likely quitting shortly after.

[droid327]

In the animation chargeup for NHB, you can animation cancel into a shield equip, throw the shield to AoE helpless stun, animation cancel the shield throw into single crossbow for maximum doubleshot to finish out the NHB (base attack animations/second including offhand is the same for both modes under NHB, but single crossbow has higher DS so will multistrike more attacks).

FR though, if you want a Cleric PL and dont like caster gameplay, Inqui DA is an option. DA doesnt really benefit Inqui, so its not something you'd want on its own, but Inqui can compensate for DA.

18 Clr/2 Arti, CHA>CON, Animal domain, 41 Inqui 7 Fey 4 War 21 DA (Core 4) 7 DD (4 cores + Inflict SLA)

Basically just a regular inqui, getting the incorp/conceal from the DA cores, the extra imbue, and a cheap spot heal, and then a bunch of bonus HP and fort bypass from the domain and the usual divine heals and buffs

[Marshal_Lannes]

For a deep dive into Sacred Fist see the link below. I would suggest playing the new archetypes instead of listening to what people on the forums say about them (many who haven't even played them).

https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showth...91#post6539291

[Memnir]

Archetypes are, imho, DDO MadLibs.
Sometimes you do a MadLib, and they turn out amazing - something you'll remember years later. Other times, nothing jibes they wiff hard. I'll let my opinion on the matter tell you what I think of the current crop of Arche's.


Archetypes have potential, but if I'm being honest - I'm worried about what we'll get next... an Alchemest/Monk, who has to "oil" himself up before a fight? An Artificer/Cleric who uses cyberflesh-grafts and bio-weapons? A Druid/Fighter who shapeshifts into the weapons who then wields themselves? I mean, I rattled those off off of the top of my head - and they could be pretty cool, now that I look them over and edit this in... buuuuut...

Not to mention the messing with the skill trees to even kinda make these work, but feel more like brute forcing them into existence...


I need a ____class____, a ____verb____, and a ____skill tree___ please.

[cmecu]

can they be multiclassed?

[misterski]

can they be multiclassed?

Yes, just not with their base class.

[Xezom]

I'm on my second run with Dark Apostate and I wish I wasn't. I don't know if it's the worst of the three but it is horrendously bad as a primary. At best it supplements DD a little better than RS if you don't want to be forced to take up healing or CC (Feydark Illusionist) as a secondary tree. I posted some of my ideas to improve it in the suggestions forum. One I forgot to mention is that I think DA should be spewing out Curses like dog farts at a kennel. Bestow Curse as an SLA that ONLY hurts Undead is just really lame. Which is how the entire archetype can be summed up: Mediocre. Right now it's being carried by my Past Lives and muled gear. If I was trying DDO out for the first time I'd quite likely be attracted to the concept of this class and would be sorely disappointed by its performance. Likely quitting shortly after.

1000% agree. Many of us pushed for it to be a curse/debuffing tree to fill that dark cleric feel even if it lacked SOME damage. Unfortunately, the devs seemed to selectively hear the "we're okay if it lacks damage" feedback, and ignore the "as long as it does some useful debuffing in raids/high level play."

First life DA Primary is downright doggy-do. It's such a conceptually awesome tree, but it is so lack luster in game that it hurts.

Stormsinger is probably the only one of the three that I would argue is good as a first lifer. But as someone else pointed out, it just left a sour taste in many people's mouths cause the nerfs that came to other arcane casters due to trying to balance check it via Sonic Blast "bug fix."

Sacred Fist is decent, but not as a first lifer/without Tomes. Pallies are already stat hungry, Sacred Fist is even moreso.

[Bagel99]

FR though, if you want a Cleric PL and dont like caster gameplay, Inqui DA is an option. DA doesnt really benefit Inqui, so its not something you'd want on its own, but Inqui can compensate for DA.

18 Clr/2 Arti, CHA>CON, Animal domain, 41 Inqui 7 Fey 4 War 21 DA (Core 4) 7 DD (4 cores + Inflict SLA)

Basically just a regular inqui, getting the incorp/conceal from the DA cores, the extra imbue, and a cheap spot heal, and then a bunch of bonus HP and fort bypass from the domain and the usual divine heals and buffs

To run this melee i found that it works well but i only ran DA cleric to 15 and had to multi class for some extra defense and damage from 2 barb levels (Occult slayer bond benefits, power attack bonus damage 2Hander), and 3 levels of fighter for Stalwart Defender. Ends up with a naked 150ish prr and 80Mrr. Filled out Warpriest, HAD to take War domain for +1/+1 crit stuff, stalwart got like 15 pts, occult another couple and sadly DA ... ended up being just 13 points of my melee toon.

DA was used as a side tree to bypass Warforged healing issues, extra damage on hit and ghost touch. Thats all it had to offer, Divine disciple or the caster tree i put points in the cores to get spell power and both level 3 for +4 to all saves and some prr and mrr.

I have to say DA has very little in the way of forward scaling for melees and the T5 abilities dont really impact much. The dice never grow like Alchemist or EK and they for sure are not top tier builds, as stated above neg resistance or straight immunity make it rough to want to cast with the class and the touch range hurts the feel early on. So if it were to be a half and half tree the left half or two columns could be caster focused and the right two columns could be melee focused while the center is the dice or added damage stance (which now that i think on it is even less than AA's damage as they get 2 dice per tier of investment and its considered only ok at 1d8s). I saw a dark apostate as a good hybrid but with some unique abilities similar to warlocks consume and stricken mixed in with curses. The thing that needs to happen to allow for these dice based builds to scale is to allow critical multipliers to affect the total damage done or maybe something tamer like allowing spell crit damage% to affect them on crit. Cursed enemies could also take 2-3x the amount of damage of the dice, T5 having an ability that allows turn undead to curse all enemies in range with no save or something like DC Necromancy = (16+1/2 Cleric level + wisdom modifier + necro DCs)

Either way i can't hate too much because i have a nice well-rounded toon and its been a nice cruise to play, but im still primarily an old build that i ran before with some visual goodies and a new way to heal myself. (As far as Dark Apostate is concerned) I can't speak for sacred fist or the bard but im sure they can all be made to work well, sadly they all need just a touch of magic from the devs to make them work well stand alone

[kmoustakas]

The cynical side of me says its because these archetypes are free. Premium ones will probably be much more desirable... for a short time... likely coinciding with market saturation.

Oh wow, nice thinking. Like premium universal trees, you're right! (Until they make money then nerf them)

[Duskofdead]

My three cents.

Disclaimer that I don’t run r10 power trains or finish lives in 1-3 days so this is more of a thematic response.

I have done multiple lives in holy/unholy/dc instakill cleric builds. I thought the tools to do that already were fine. I didn’t see why it needed a dedicated archetype for something you could already do very nicely with the existing tools. In my current life as a non-archetype negative energy/kill cleric, the only net change to me was that I lost half of my enhancements and several slotted spells... either removed altogether or migrated to be archetype only. I thought that was a little annoying since the concept already felt a little redundant.

I can’t comment too much on bards. It’s a weak point in game knowledge for me. I will say that I feel like current bard (excluding caster bards) seem like their standard and suggested build types have fallen behind relevance and maybe some rework could have been done in the base trees before just creating a fourth one.

And I don’t understand the fixation with trying to support nichey hand wrap build combinations so much. It seems like a great deal of dev focus goes to this when I don’t feel there’s a huge number of people particularly invested in it. It seems like there’s a very big list of broader mechanics that could use focus and would benefit a lot more players with the same amount of dev attention. I can’t imagine any other one weapon being focused on this hard to build trees and class types for it to try to push popularity on it.

[PaddyMaxson]

And I don’t understand the fixation with trying to support nichey hand wrap build combinations so much. It seems like a great deal of dev focus goes to this when I don’t feel there’s a huge number of people particularly invested in it. It seems like there’s a very big list of broader mechanics that could use focus and would benefit a lot more players with the same amount of dev attention. I can’t imagine any other one weapon being focused on this hard to build trees and class types for it to try to push popularity on it.

Best guess is that the monk animations were made by someone who still works there and everyone is afraid of them as they're also the mocap actor for them >