U57 Preview 1: Hit Point Pass

[SWCarter]

I am a little bummed that to get the 20% HP is a multi-selector with Vendetta. Vendetta is an attack that I use often and is pretty fun (although a long cooldown!). As a full melee toon, taking that away to get the extra HP is necessary as I can't do without the extra HP. Losing Vendetta would be sad.

I think the HP buff would make more sense (arguably) at the top of the middle column which is much more defensive minded.

I agree that it shouldn't be a multi-select with Vendetta, but please don't force us into Mist Stalker unless "+25% negative energy absorption" is also adjusted to be negative healing-friendly. I commonly play a negative healing VKF build, and the entire line of Mist Stalker bonuses are unusable because of this "benefit".

[Baahb3]

Correct me if I am wrong.

FvS healer using stout of heart and Beacon of Hope 41. Couldn't care less about combat feats. The only thing I swing my weapon at is a box.

-120hp from heroic (6*20 levels)
-96hp from Epic (8*12)

Multiply that loss by 10% from Falconry and Aasimar HP boosts nets me a -237hps.

Am I just supposed to take this kick in the ass with a smile and ask if I can have another?

*Edit: Took out the line for Epic HP reduction per Torc's explanation below

[elvesunited]

Correct me if I am wrong.

FvS healer using stout of heart and Beacon of Hope 41. Couldn't care less about combat feats. The only thing I swing my weapon at is a box.

-120hp from heroic (6*20 levels)
-96hp from Epic (8*12)

Add on top of that another -60hp in epics going from 10hp per to 5hp per

Multiply that loss by 10% from Falconry and Aasimar HP boosts nets me a -303hps.

Am I just supposed to take this kick in the ass with a smile and ask if I can have another?

Hey at least your favored soul is Beacon of Hope. Mine is Angel of Vengeance and this is the second straight nerf in a row.
The rumor I heard is that favored soul casters overperformed in the hardcore previous to this one.

[Baahb3]

Hey at least your favored soul is Beacon of Hope. Mine is Angel of Vengeance and this is the second straight nerf in a row.
The rumor I heard is that favored soul casters overperformed in the hardcore previous to this one.

I feel ya. I have an AoV too. Still scratching my head on what to do with her.

[Duhboy]

Because then everyone gets to use it and there's no longer any survivability buff for melees?

Melees get a survivability buff right now anyways, it's EDF.

I'd be very happy to stuff 4 combat feats into a DC casting Wizard build for +25% HP lmao.

You and every other caster/ ranged toon would and I wouldn't blame you for it lol. If you want to take combat feats on a DC caster then I think you should be able to as this game was built on customization.

[Duhboy]

I agree that it shouldn't be a multi-select with Vendetta, but please don't force us into Mist Stalker unless "+25% negative energy absorption" is also adjusted to be negative healing-friendly. I commonly play a negative healing VKF build, and the entire line of Mist Stalker bonuses are unusable because of this "benefit".

Rogue Assassins don't get a HP buff in their tier 5. Perhaps an oversight.

[tsotate]

EDF was designed to boost melees up in durability, but a blanket buff of the magnitude needed was explicitly not applied to the fighting style feats, due to the ease of access of other styles taking them, look at a ranged ranger, for instance. Under your suggestion, they would receive a significant amount of competence %HP, simply for being a ranger, whereas now it is limited to just base HP, with that juicy %HP tucked away into the exclusive section of a melee tree.

I agree that the HP should not be tied to multiselectors where melees have to choose between HP or damage, but %HP as a baseline for all combat feats is a terrible idea, and one the devs specifically avoided in the past when the band-aid that was EDF was introduced.

Tie it to the combat feat being active, which only happens when the relevant weapon is equipped. We know that that's the case, because the buff pops up over your head/on your bar when swapping weapons. If a ranger wants to have the style feat hp bonus, that's fine; they just need to hold two weapons.

[Lotoc]

I agree that it shouldn't be a multi-select with Vendetta, but please don't force us into Mist Stalker unless "+25% negative energy absorption" is also adjusted to be negative healing-friendly. I commonly play a negative healing VKF build, and the entire line of Mist Stalker bonuses are unusable because of this "benefit".

It really should be a multiselection vs whirling wrists, the idea with the competence HP bonuses is predominantly that they are for melee builds so it absolutely should be exclusive with the thing specifically only useful for ranged damage, not the thing both ranged and melee have use for.

Rogue Assassins don't get a HP buff in their tier 5. Perhaps an oversight.

It does "Rogue
T5 Assassin Light Armor Mastery Rank 3 - Grants a 20% competence bonus to hit points in addition to it's original bonuses."

[TheAlicornSage]

Epic destinies and epic past lifes changed this game from what it was (heroic adventures) to what it is today (epic/legendary). Comparing epics/legendary it to 3.5e is a bit of an overreach. I never saw anything in the OP that said this was to help low levels at all. The statement was to help new players and I think the design goal was intended to balance 20+, not heroics. So your logic is misapplied, but the sentiment is felt based on your own personal experience.

20+ is not for new players. There is no new player option to just start at epic level. By the time someone gets to epic level they are not new, maybe not yet an old veteran but definitely not new.

The "new player experience" starts at level 1, without past lives, previously collected best gear for level, etc.

[jskinner937]

20+ is not for new players. There is no new player option to just start at epic level. By the time someone gets to epic level they are not new, maybe not yet an old veteran but definitely not new.

The "new player experience" starts at level 1, without past lives, previously collected best gear for level, etc.

How old is "new" to you, or to the dev? I think the multiple posts on the forums when people just started and after 1 month have a fully capped toon. Even from level 1, it doesnt take long to get to 20 on a first life character, even for a casual player. To me this is still new. If you are talking semantics and saying brand new, then that is still incorrect due to the fact that iconics and veterans status are all options for new characters.

Semantics aside, clearly EDF was intended to compete with the inflated numbers for melees in 20+ content, not really heroics. Veteran players have Divine PLs, Barbarian Lives and Reaper Points to make up the difference, while a newly rolled character in 20+ does not.

I have played the evolution from beta, to F2P, pre and post MotU. When epic quests were first introduced, the mechanics were the same as heroics, just everything did 10x the damage and had 10x the HPS. But the mechanics were kind of cheesy as mass hold, IKs, Auto Crits were all tactics used. Only the elites lead/played Epic quests inititally. The post MotU introduced epic levels and new quests, along with new epic difficulties. Much of the mob HPs and damage scaling was reduced, but around the time GH went Epic, this scaling in EE, etc got crazy high again and mob saves went through the ceiling. This trend continued and eventually around the time WPM was introduced, we got EDF. But reaper bonuses werent all maxed out either. So yes EDF was created to help newer melees to not get one shot. Shortly after WPM, reaper bonus came and now EDF is not needed for vets with all their HP bonuses compared to newer players.

[eightspoons]

Not exactly on topic, but I think that the Barbarian Past Life should be changed from a flat 10HP per tier to +1% HP per tier. Maybe even a flat 10HP in addition to 1% so heroic doesn't get nerfed. That would be an asset to invested tanks at higher levels, and would help mitigate some of the loses seen here.

I'm not really aiming for completionist myself (been there, done that, got bored of it), but if I was, Barbarian would be one of the last because that 10HP is really ... uninspiring ... in this day and age.

[Javha]

Your base hit point score is a good 500 points higher than the top range of what we were expecting after the stat squish. (Congrats?) We were kind of expecting the tip top people to maybe drop 50-100 hit points which in the grand scheme of things probably won't change the time to kill on them on any meaningful difficulty.

This is why we have previews.

Please remember this is preview 1 (of I believe 3) and it's very easy to tweak numbers. Also consider that the EDF casting range limitations will be going away. This may not be something you've cared about on a tank build before, but you have an easier time flexing into caster healing or maybe something else and there has to be trade offs to that even if you have no intention of using them.

I'd love to know more about your build. How you put that total together and what PRR/MRR are you running?

-T

Most of the tanks I play with, especially the tanks in my guild (across multiple classes including cleric, FVS, pally, and barb) very easily hit 7k hp and 500prr/300mrr standing or with minimal buffs. I am not a tank player... but I have seen their build files and it is quite easy to hit these numbers given the proper set bonuses and LGS pieces.

[rabidfox]

LGS pieces.

I'm surprised they didn't go after LGS sets beyond 2piece/winter level HP percent bonuses with this HP pass.

[jskinner937]

Not exactly on topic, but I think that the Barbarian Past Life should be changed from a flat 10HP per tier to +1% HP per tier. Maybe even a flat 10HP in addition to 1% so heroic doesn't get nerfed. That would be an asset to invested tanks at higher levels, and would help mitigate some of the loses seen here.

I'm not really aiming for completionist myself (been there, done that, got bored of it), but if I was, Barbarian would be one of the last because that 10HP is really ... uninspiring ... in this day and age.

It is nice in heroics, but yeah at end game is pretty uninspiring, especially compared to pally PLs, which is healing amplification (% improvement to healing).

Overall, I really do not think PLs need elevated anymore. Aside from a few, most of them provide little benefit, outside of the collective culmination of them x3 and completionist. Epic Primal PLs already provide a pretty substantial boost in heroics.

Either way, I would favor a flat unique, stacking 1 (or 2) % HP from Barb instead of a flat 10HP/life. Or possibly 10HP per stack + an additional 1-2% at 20+ makes more sense even.

On further consideration, maybe melees need some PL love. Monk and Rogue provide little value to melees, HAMP is valuable to everyone, ranger is substantial to ranged (especially xbows), caster DCs, Mana increases and spell penn all are valuable to...well casters.

One thing that comes to mind is possibly offering a free feat selection to classes on first level. Make this feat selection a path like how many races or deities are selected. You choose melee, spellcasting or ranged specialty. Depending on your choice, you unlock various PL benefits for each class. In other words, certain class PLs can be specific to that playstyle so that they all have value to the selected playstyle. For example, wizard could be spawn screen cast x3/day, or +1 to hit for range per stack, without changing its current benefit to casters. Hmm. But it would have to be all in at feat selection to which path so there is no picking and choosing benefits. With this in mind, it would be easy to add additional HPs to melee classes without impacting other playsyles. And it would also be easier to implement where bonuses go where intended since you have to make a playstyle choice and potentially lose out on caster or range benefits by making a selection to go melee, which eliminates the issues associated with EKs, Warsouls, ES locks, etc.

[Cashiry]

I'm surprised they didn't go after LGS sets beyond 2piece/winter level HP percent bonuses with this HP pass.

I would like to see a 20% legendary bonus be added as the 7 piece set bonus of the winter set from feywild gear. Move set bonus 5, 6 and 7 down a tier. This is a tanking set.

[Torc]

d4->d6 = +40 hp
epic hp/level: 10>5 = -50 hp

= net change: -10 hp


Now, although Torc explicitly stated EPIC levels were changing, the table in the OP also appears to identify that LEGENDARY levels are also being changed from +10 to +5 per level. Assuming the levels 21-32 are all going to be +5hp/level, this means -60hp vs currently on live.

So it's actually a -20 hp nerf

No epic/legendary levels give the same amount of hit points. The bonus you get from Heroic Durability treats those levels at half value so you get +5 instead of 10 for the combat style bonus.

[Black_Ninja]

No epic/legendary levels give the same amount of hit points. The bonus you get from Heroic Durability treats those levels at half value so you get +5 instead of 10 for the combat style bonus.

Will the HP from animal domain be boosted by the combat style feats?

[Stravix]

Will the HP from animal domain be boosted by the combat style feats?

Sincerely doubt it, as it is only supposed to help your "Hit Die" based health.

[rabidfox]

I would like to see a 20% legendary bonus be added as the 7 piece set bonus of the winter set from feywild gear. Move set bonus 5, 6 and 7 down a tier. This is a tanking set.

That would work; but it would mean need to roll those extra HP every few levels increases into new gearsets too to keep modern gear relevant to tanks without the old % bonuses dominating over newer gear tetris.

They could also do something like roll +5% "tank bonus" HP into each shield mastery feat to encourage sword and board tanks while shifting HP heavy tanks into that feat line vs limited gear choices.

[Torc]

Will the HP from animal domain be boosted by the combat style feats?

No animal domain is a flat bonus per level it doesn't actually change your die type.