U57 Preview 1: Imbue Overhaul

[misterski]

Finally, it is very unclear what the scaling of SP/MP is with the new system, as well what other requirements it has attached. E.g. paladin has 200% scaling on MP, but what about Bard sonic dice? Does force dice from AA actually work with non-bows now, or is this unchanged?

Imbue dice are universal. It's the base imbue toggle that is scaled by mp/rp/sp and has restrictions for use, if any.

[Flopperjack]

I has the question. In pale master, 3rd core allows the option to imbue weapons to do negative damage, does this change at all or stay a one off handful of damage? If it does change, will it also become a source of dice?

When I first read the thread my heart sank to my stomach since I am almost at enough racial ap to make an ek/aa and saw they are now exclusive, was very grateful to see that the dice add up. Will there be any classes/builds you want to favor the dice a bit more? Such as ek was mentioned by someone earlier, maybe to get a higher base die as a reward, or have a better source of dice in the tree, maybe near the end since it is a bit the posterchild for imbuement?

Also really liking the work, maybe consider the embodiment of alignment feats to have slightly higher stats since they are level 29+ feats, also not all builds of matching alignments will have an imbue so making the dice the selling point may suck a tad, mayhaps have a low hanging fruit to imbue in the destiny mantles somewhere so it stays spicy for everyone to get that feat, but dont let the mantle thing boost other dice so that its just a bit of a weak freebie that gives people a place to use their dice or say that if you dont have a toggle active you get X melee/ranged power per dice, if that is technically feasible and wont crash the game.

[droid327]

As an aside, I wonder if this means that the best blaster warlock build is now ES with all extra sources of Imbue dice you can scrounge up.

I think the best split purely for EB damage is just /2 rogue

You lose too much in pact and blast die to try and make it up in imbue die by heavily multi classing, but rogue gives +3 die and evasion for just 2 levels which is low hanging fruit

But yeah, 31 ES (core 5) 33 SE (wave+crit core) 7 ts (utterdark) 8 assa probably the way to do it. 7d6 light damage (plus non enhancement sources) beats 5d4+1d6 extra dice and some crit damage from a 20 lock SE+TS blaster build, and I think even beats 10% faster EBs

[SpardaX]

I think the best split purely for EB damage is just /2 rogue

You lose too much in pact and blast die to try and make it up in imbue die by heavily multi classing, but rogue gives +3 die and evasion for just 2 levels which is low hanging fruit

But yeah, 31 ES (core 5) 33 SE (wave+crit core) 7 ts (utterdark) 8 assa probably the way to do it. 7d6 light damage (plus non enhancement sources) beats 5d4+1d6 extra dice and some crit damage from a 20 lock SE+TS blaster build, and I think even beats 10% faster EBs

Elf AA / 20 Warlock (Or 18 / 2 Rogue) getting +6 Dice out of AA? Wouldn't be getting the SE stuff in that case though.

[Zeklijan]

That is actually a great idea. I have to wonder if its even feasible to implement, though. Runearms are very tough to get a handle on from the part of the game where most of this script work is working.

Hmmm, I wonder...

Should Runearm imbues add Imbue Dice instead of their separate procs? or...
Should Runearm imbues instead switch the damage type of the Artificer imbue? But that would make it hard to stack spellpower...
Maybe Runearms should switch the imbue type only in certain situations? Or maybe we should build in a separate Feat that allows that switch to take place?

Runearm adding imbue dice was something I thought about when you all announced the imbue changes. I think it's a good idea. Currently it scales off RP/MP, that would likely change it to scaling with Spellpower, which is something to consider.

Having the damage type be the same as the runearm is a very good idea IMO. It adds more flexibility if you are running against a lot of immunities...

[Talnar00]

If runearm imbues were to be changed at all to interact with the universal system I'd say the adding imbue dice is the way to go.

Could also do something like adds an imbue option based off the runearm, and adds imbue dice, that way instead of auto switching to the runearms damage type, the player can choose to use the runearm's imbue over whatever other imbue they may have already.

For instance could have the player get a feat "Runearm Imbue" the same time they get runearm proficiency that is a toggle where if toggled on and the player has a runearm equipped their imbue becomes the runearms.

[droid327]

Elf AA / 20 Warlock (Or 18 / 2 Rogue) getting +6 Dice out of AA? Wouldn't be getting the SE stuff in that case though.

Yeah if you're a blaster lock then the effective boost to blast speed from wave (and being able to use metas) outweighs just tacking on a few extra die and only having auto attack

If you wanted to sell out full stupid for cone imbue die though then yeah 18/2 elf lock 31 spirit 12 for cone 22 AA 8 assa gives you +12 die, need min 7 rap for that though. But you'd literally just be auto attacking with cone

[Paisheng]

Still chewing through this thread but..

Would it be too much to just make the monk stances give an imbue for their relevant element? Then give the punches a +Dice per tier?

Example:
Forms would give you 1d6 Base
Adept would give +1 Dice
Master would give +1 Dice
Grand Master would give +1 Dice

Then Air Punch I would give +1 Dice when used for just that one strike. Air Punch II would give +2 Dice, III +3 and IV +4.

Total if running in GM Wind Stance and punching with Air IV would be 8 dice. Does not seem to be too bad.

This would give the opportunity to add some +dice in Grandmaster of Flowers somewhere

I strongly support this -- all monks including Shintao's use the elements, so all should be buffed accordingly. This seems like a very reasonable way to improve all monks' melee damage and if you need to tweak a particular tree from this base, like ninja or hensin, then so be it. Don't leave the Shintao's out "of" the cold..or heat or wind etc.

[Paisheng]

. And it's also very D&D to build systems that cause players to go "hmmm I wonder if this build would work well with this multiclass"

I like the idea that you want to make more interesting multi-class builds; however I fear pure builds will be lack luster after such a pass. Pure's I think of specialists in their fields and should be the best at what they do cause that is what they dedicated themselves only to. They lose all the multi selecting trees and spells and benefits of other classes therefore they should really stand out more at their specialties -- including melee pures. Shouldn't they do the most effectual damage than 1/2 fighter and 1/2 caster for example?

Perhaps putting more damage -- through W's, melee power, or Imbuements in the higher cores 12, 18th and especially the 20th core to reflect this.

+1 W (12) + 2W (18th) and +3W for 20th These would be cumulative so total of +6W

or

+1dice imbuement (12) +2 imbuement (18) + 3 imbuement (20) Total +6 Imbuement

or

+ 5 melee power (12t) +10 melee power (18) +20 melee power (20) Total +35 melee power


This rewards the more dedicated (pure) builds. Please remember the pure builds in this new system

[Lotoc]

I strongly support this -- all monks including Shintao's use the elements, so all should be buffed accordingly. This seems like a very reasonable way to improve all monks' melee damage and if you need to tweak a particular tree from this base, like ninja or hensin, then so be it. Don't leave the Shintao's out "of" the cold..or heat or wind etc.

This probably wouldn't work out unless the "form imbue" was a separate toggle from the stances themselves, otherwise you'd get your monk stances disabled by turning on an imbue, including sting of the ninja and lighting the candle.
And anyway, you can use lighting the candle with handwraps and the changes to lighting the candle kinda make it worse for a quarterstaff than handwraps.

[Paisheng]

This probably wouldn't work out unless the "form imbue" was a separate toggle from the stances themselves, otherwise you'd get your monk stances disabled by turning on an imbue, including sting of the ninja and lighting the candle.
And anyway, you can use lighting the candle with handwraps and the changes to lighting the candle kinda make it worse for a quarterstaff than handwraps.

I am sure they could, cause they have already had more than one toggle work at the same time. Monk Stances work at same time as Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Falcon Bird toggles, etc. I'm sure they could build these into the monk stances as additional bonuses and they could stay on with special attacks or toggles from other trees.

Regarding Lighting the Candle: The handwrap tree is Shintao and maybe they could put Lighting the Candle or some variation of that in Shintao tree for imbuements and Handwrap DPS improvement. (monks --not quarterstaff monks -- but handwrappers are at the bottom of the DPS barrel). The cost to add tier 3 (13 pts) for lighting in Henshin is not feasable with a wisdom monk that wants to get Falconry (24 points) to get the dps benefit out of tier 4. In such a case one has to give up the wisdom bonus dps (Insightful Deadly) to get the Imbuement dps bonus. Does not seem like buffing monk handwrap melees.... Just a trade off of DPS.

[ivorycoaster]

Still chewing through this thread but..

Would it be too much to just make the monk stances give an imbue for their relevant element? Then give the punches a +Dice per tier?

Example:
Forms would give you 1d6 Base
Adept would give +1 Dice
Master would give +1 Dice
Grand Master would give +1 Dice

Then Air Punch I would give +1 Dice when used for just that one strike. Air Punch II would give +2 Dice, III +3 and IV +4.

Total if running in GM Wind Stance and punching with Air IV would be 8 dice. Does not seem to be too bad.

This would give the opportunity to add some +dice in Grandmaster of Flowers somewhere

I completely support this idea as well. I was just wondering, today, how Shinato was going to get love out of this update, as they have been consistently been left behind for multiple major passes and really only been negatively affected disproportionately by nerfs.

So, the work around here is to add each separate imbue to the tier 1 element tree, then subsequent adept/master/grandmaster adding dice. Getting some dice out of GMOF would also be pretty sweet.

[Shedrakzo]

• Certain Set Bonuses get +1 Dice in heroics, 2 in epics, 3 in legendary (artifact typed):

Is it possible to add Huntmaster's Favor to the imbue dice sets? Feels thematic given the raid drops the augments and gives the set a bit more value.

[DRoark]

IT peeps, there's nothing you've shown here that can't be done completely passively, skipping the entire Imbue toggle system entirely.
If it's never going to be toggled off, it's a complete waste of variable number-crunching. (Remember the conversation on consolidation?)

Take X you get a Dice, take Y you get a Dice, ETC. Why are you/they/some unpaid intern making this more complex than neccessary?

[rabidfox]

If it's never going to be toggled off, it's a complete waste of variable number-crunching. (Remember the conversation on consolidation?)

People will toggle it off. If you're against a monster that heals from whatever damage type is on one's imbue then a wise player will toggle it off (or if one's got more than 1 imbue option from their build, they'll swap to an alternative damage type toggle).

[DRoark]

People will toggle it off. If you're against a monster that heals from whatever damage type is on one's imbue then a wise player will toggle it off (or if one's got more than 1 imbue option from their build, they'll swap to an alternative damage type toggle).

Even in that instance, they can make them a long duration self-buff, and still not have a toggle system at all. Fire immune? Acid buff!
I get your point, but there's several ways to not add more toggles to an already over-toggle-happy cluster. Already have 2 bars full. )

...............................

Part of the current system doesn't even make sense. Like EPLF togs. You somehow "forget how to heal" when you are using a bow, ETC.

[Lynnabel]

IT peeps, there's nothing you've shown here that can't be done completely passively, skipping the entire Imbue toggle system entirely.
If it's never going to be toggled off, it's a complete waste of variable number-crunching. (Remember the conversation on consolidation?)

Take X you get a Dice, take Y you get a Dice, ETC. Why are you/they/some unpaid intern making this more complex than neccessary?

If we make them toggles, people can take more than one and switch between the one that's most appropriate for the situation They can also turn them off in situations where they're trying to measure certain parts of their DPS, or against monsters that might be resistant or heal from that kind of damage.

Even in that instance, they can make them a long duration self-buff, and still not have a toggle system at all. Fire immune? Acid buff!
I get your point, but there's several ways to not add more toggles to an already over-toggle-happy cluster. Already have 2 bars full. )

...............................

Part of the current system doesn't even make sense. Like EPLF togs. You somehow "forget how to heal" when you are using a bow, ETC.

I as a player drastically prefer set-and-forget toggles to a buff I have to remember to re-cast every however many minutes.

[DRoark]

If we make them toggles, people can take more than one and switch between the one that's most appropriate for the situation They can also turn them off in situations where they're trying to measure certain parts of their DPS, or against monsters that might be resistant or heal from that kind of damage.

Thus the buff comment. You can even do it as "lasts until death", so you use it once. Most of the EPL section should have been passive from day one, really.
There seems to be a real gung-ho push over "new and exciting let's revamp everything!" game changes lately, but some of it seems overbaked and rushed.

[Artos_Fabril]

I completely support this idea as well. I was just wondering, today, how Shinato was going to get love out of this update, as they have been consistently been left behind for multiple major passes and really only been negatively affected disproportionately by nerfs.

The easiest way I can see to buff Shintao out of this is to add an imbue to one of the early cores. If they hadn't just made Sacred Fist, it would be even easier, by putting a light imbue on/with smite tainted and adding imbue dice to that line.

Maybe something more like the flat damage that Lyn mentioned for fighters, or some other non-standard use for imbue dice based on stance:
Earth Stance: +1 AC, +2PRR +5HAmp per imbue die
Fire Stance: +2MP/RP per imbue die
Ocean Stance: +2MRR/+4 MRR cap per imbue die
Wind Stance: +1% Imbue Bonus to melee alacrity per imbue die

Meditation of War: doubles Stance bonus from imbue dice in addition to current benefit (or maybe just grants +2-3 dice)
To Seek Perfection (capstone): Add 2-3 imbue dice to existing effect.
Smite tainted - Jade Strike - Tomb of Jade - Kukan-do: add imbue dice to this line

[rabidfox]

I as a player drastically prefer set-and-forget toggles to a buff I have to remember to re-cast every however many minutes.

I do too; I have so many buffs I already cast and manage that I don't need more. Toggles are so much easier to just let do their own thing.