U57 Preview 1: Imbue Overhaul

[Talnar00]

(Embodiment of Law - Destiny Feat) 1d8 Law damage on hit vs chaotic, 1d6 vs non-lawful non-chaotic, 1d4 vs lawful, scaling with melee/ranged power

Divine Crusader's T5 now adds Vuln + Armor Piercing on his while the Embodiment of Law toggle is active. Note that the Embodiment of Chaos upgrade in Fury is unchanged by this pass.

If Embodiment of Law isn't saucy enough, that's good feedback. The volume of changes means that it's pretty unlikely that we nailed all of the numbers on the first pass. That's why we do previews, yanno? Totally normal and expected for things to change.

As others have mentioned for KotC Paladins currently in Divine Crusader, they'd be going from 7d6 light and 12d6 law to 6d6 light or 6d(variable on enemy alignment).

Furthermore for the investment of a level 28 or 31 destiny feat, as well as taking the exclusive T5 tier in an ED, the proposed changes make Embodiment of Law and DC's T5 (Law of the Divine) only give Armor destruction + Vulnerability (I'm assuming still only on crit, since not explicitly mentioned, but even if on every hit, there's still some issues) when using the imbue. Legendary Dreadnought gets an effect (Terror) similar to armor destruction that stacks on every hit just by being in their mantle (and it stacks with other armor destruction effects), and can get a vulnerability stack on every hit in T4 after they have stacked terror 5 times on an enemy.

The level 28 or 31 destiny feat and T5 selection was already a hefty investment for arguable benefit, but with the changes it doesn't really measure up to other existing options.

I'd propose for Divine Crusader's T5 to be changed to "You apply a stack a stack of Armor destruction and Vulnerability when you critically strike with a favored weapon. If you have the Embodiment of Law feat, [insert bonuses here]" (Keeping the AD and vuln on crit for just taking the ability makes it still a worthwhile take for characters even without Embodiment of Law feat, and making it require a favored weapon makes it be similar in theme to a lot of Divine Crusader's current abilities often wanted use of favored weapons.)

For the insert bonuses I'd suggest one of, or a combination of the following:
- Adding additional imbue die scaling with level and/or epic levels (since before the combination essentially gave +1 die per epic level, maybe make it +1 per every 2 or 3 epic levels)
- Adding additional imbue die scaling with level and/or epic levels (to a lesser degree than above, think +1 die per 3/4 epic levels) and changing the Embodiment of Law's toggle to always be d8/6's regardless of enemy alignment
- Adding vulnerability and armor destruction stacks on hit if the Embodiment of Law imbue is active, and changing the imbue to always d8/6's regardless of enemy alignment
Or something of the sort, additional imbue die scaling with level, more frequent AD+vuln stacks, and/or making the imbue die not variable (similar to inquisitive's Jaded for their imbue) were the components I was playing around with for my suggested change to the combo.

The Divine Crusader T5 + feat combo is essentially 32 EDP investment into Divine Crusader, locks off access to other ED trees T5's, and costs a destiny feat at level 28 and 31 which are competitive slots for plenty of good feats. I suggested the above with that in mind.

For just the Embodiment of Law feat, and not the combo, not sure what I'd suggest for a change if anything. Maybe make getting a new imbue inherently add an extra die for every unique imbue you have access to as just a general system change? Would make Embodiment of Law and some of the other not as great imbue options still be somewhat desired picks, instead of "I already have a great imbue, why pick this up at all".

Edit: Found a bug in the preview when testing. Embodiment of Law + T5 Divine Crusader combo still seems to apply all of it's prior law damage and vuln+armor destruct even without the Embodiment of Law toggle on. The bug still remains even after exchanging the feat away and back and resetting ED tree and grabbing the ability again.

[Sqrlmonger]

Universal:

• (Inquisitive) 1d8 Law Damage on hit vs chaotic, 1d4 against non-chaotic, Melee or Ranged Power
• (Inquisitive) Core 4, 5, 6 grant +1 dice each
• (Inquisitive) Tier 2, 4 grant +1 dice each
• (Inquisitive) Tier 5 multiselector grants +1 dice each except for 1 grants +2

Core 4, 5, & 6 in Inquisitive currently give +2d, +3d, and +4d respectively for a total of +9d. Compared with the new system which is +1d, +1d, +1d to those same cores.

My primary play character right now is 9 Ranger, 7 Rogue, 4 Artificer. My enhancement trees are Inquisitive (41), Deepwood Stalker (21), Mechanic (11), & Harper Agent (8).

Where am I going to get imbue dice to replace that in enhancements? And please don't point to non-enhancement answers because gear, feats (e.g. scion feats), etc.. are all things everyone gets but doesn't have to make up a 6d deficit.

Again, to be clear, you are halving Inquisitive dice.

edit: FWIW - I think in the broad strokes this is a good change overall. But this design seems like it is running scared from people stacking up a bunch of dice and doing solid damage with it. But the reality is none of this damage is substantial compared to true top end damage builds. Like you know people are out there doing 6 digit damage in a single strike without imbues right? The possibility that someone works out how to make an imbue do like 2-4k damage kinda pales in comparison to that.

[thebeast1985]

Well, first of all, there are some things to say before I start.

I have no idea why you are doing this, and by that maybe my assumptions are wrong.

I have not the complete big picture you surely have for this and as stated before, maybe my statements will be wrong.


This new system, doesen't have any "D&D vibes"
It flattens the whole build system making a new meta build over splashing for optimal +D and I think it's a bad idea for DDo too.

It's too generic.
As many other stated it's too generic, doesen't have a lore behind, it's not D&D, maybe it could work, but it's uninspired by the D&D side, let's say.

Is it made to buff melee? which are in a bad state right now?

I think that there are plenty ways to buff melee and to bring them high to the scaling of the game.

I'll name some that comes to my mind.

Dire Charge ability given to all melee (at least 4 lvl in a melee class) for free, as a gap closer (1second CD) and stun (stun has a separate CD of 8-10 seconds)
Automatic melee hamstring for warrirors, you get hamsting or a lower version of it (20%) to all attacks made by the player to slow opponents.
Barbarian rage while raging all enemies in a radious (same for energy burst from Draconic) each weapon swing, gets them shaken and stop moving or be slowed as for hamstring (save lvl+intimidate+highest stat)
Daze\confusion for melee monks, making exclusive if you get ranged proficency it nullifies the feat.

Overall this new system seems empty and uninspired, I'm sorry to say that, but I've seen you on the Stream with Strimtom, how passionate you are on the Action Archeologist and this doesen't seem a good or viable option, sorry.

I think that if we work on this system we can make something good out of it, but at this state, is not a good idea, under many aspects.

[Epicsoul]

Let's see:

Currently, filigree sets like Wrath of the Flame or Reverberation, have 16d6 appropriate non-scaling on-hit damage at CL32, 56 average. After U57, it be only +1 imbue dice? Really?!

Seems as huge... tremendous nerf for me. Of course, if it will be +1 dice per Epic/Legendary lvl... it will be... acceptable, i think...

That 1 dice scales whereas the existing ability does not. Will scaling make up the difference? Probably not. But it’s not as stark a contrast as you say.

[TheMaxpower]

Three questions/comments:

1. Why exactly are you making these changes? Seems kind of "out of the blue" and unnecessary.

2. It seems these changes will have a lot of intended and unintended consequences in many parts of the game. Have you thought this all the way through? Why nerf Inquisitive and Warlock again? They are not over-performing. Alchemist is the OP class atm (happy to elaborate if necessary).

3. If you proceed with these changes, please properly test before going live. This has the potential for many bugs and many things "not working as intended."

Thank you for your consideration.

[Amoneth]

The imbue has always ever scaled with Evil Alignment spell power aka Light, but that brings up a pretty good point that I think would make the entire game a little bit more cohesive:

Should negative spellpower take over governing Chaos and Evil damage instead of Light spellpower?

This would mean that the current spell power schema is:

• Light: also Good and lawful
• Negative: also evil and chaos
• Repair: also rust
• Force: also physical

Please don't do that, that would mess with the synergy of Utterdark Blast (Evil) / Light Spellpower of Warlock

Warlocks are already struggling to keep up with other casters at end game (more so now the other casters get more HPs) and ES seems to get all the good stuff so the non-ES's are even more behind in comparison. ES gets AC, PRR, MRR, Temp HPs, Max HPs AND it's the only tree with the Imbue.

[mikarddo]

Lynnabel,

I am curious what you think was broken with the way things are now - and hence why you feel the need to overhaul this particular system?

The saying "why fix it when it aint broken" is always good to consider before making changes

[Wizard1406]

Three questions/comments:

1. Why exactly are you making these changes? Seems kind of "out of the blue" and unnecessary.

2. It seems these changes will have a lot of intended and unintended consequences in many parts of the game. Have you thought this all the way through? Why nerf Inquisitive and Warlock again? They are not over-performing. Alchemist is the OP class atm (happy to elaborate if necessary).

3. If you proceed with these changes, please properly test before going live. This has the potential for many bugs and many things "not working as intended."

Thank you for your consideration.

Yes.

@Lynnabel. Is there any reason for inquisitive or warlock nerfs? Have you run the numbers and compared them to other builds? Inquisitive does not do too much damage and doesn't need a nerf. Warlocks don't need damage nerf either, quite the contrary.

[jskinner937]

Please stop fixing unbroken things and focus on fixing broken things….

Imbue pass is not needed.

Monks pass is needed.

Wizard pass is needed.

TWF pass is needed.

Trip needs reworked.

A melee universal tree is needed. Maybe with stances that only work with melee requirements. That can unlock AOE and AOE CC.

Where are these ideas coming from? These last few updates are complete and utter garbage. Stop driving away your long time players by ignoring things that need fixed and fixing things that need ignored.

[Septimus-Boldrei]

Arcane Archer non elemental/force imbues - Terror, Banishing, Smiting, Paralysing Arrows.

As it stands these get seriously devalued for me by these changes, as I used to be able to add damage to my shots alongside these effects from Eldrich Knight or similar.

To help keep them from irrelevency would it be possible as sugested earlier to have their DC's to be boosted by imbue dice?

Or some lesser amount of thematic damage to be added to these imbues? (e.g. d3 construct bane to smiting, d2 poison to paralysing, etc)?

Or make them a different type of toggle modifier that applies their effect while reducing imbue damage?

[SpardaX]

Couple things.

Actual Bug report to start with:

Logged into Dark Apostate. Took Dark Apostate imbue and Fires Fury (or whatever its called) Warpriest Imbue, to test both.

Dark Apostate evil imbue did not scale with bonus imbue dice. At 0 Bonus dice and at 8 bonus dice I was doing 3 - 18ish damage, with Spell Power at 225~ (x3.2~) 1-6 x 3 = 3-18. Maths checks out.

Warpriest fire imbue did not function at all. No additional fire damage. However, when I got a Vorpal, and the T5 Warpriest "Gain +3 Dice, and your fire damage does Light damage for 12 seconds", that functioned entirely as intended. Suddenly I was doing about +180~ Light damage. Until the 12 seconds were up and I went back to doing 0 fire damage.

Unintended side effect: Dark Apostate's T4 ability "Give 10 Temp HP per DA Imbue dice" gave 10 Temp HP per bonus Imbue dice. Didn't count the original 1 dice from unlocking the evil damage imbue, but did count the extra dice from Warpriest. Seems unintended buff but not overly powerful. Consider leaving as is?

Now onto my own personal Suggestion:

I would strongly suggest one of two things be done:
Either 1: Make every additional point spent on Imbues add +1 Imbue dice. This could quickly become excessive, so this is not the path I would choose.

Or 2: Make every imbue ability cost 1 point to open. Reasoning / Example: Bard. I tested my bard on Lam. Picture as follows:



I want resonant arms. Of course I do. Bard. Sonic. Is good. Costs 1 point for 1d6 scaling off spell power sonic imbue. Good. Great. Love it. Also I want to be a warchanter.....with the cold....attacks.....Now I need to spend 3 points to get the 1d6 scaling off spell power cold imbue? That I'm not even going to use? When the sonic one cost me 1 point for literally the same thing?

Why does the sonic one get to be 1 point for 1d6, but the cold one is 1d2, 1d4, 1d6. 1 Point, to take an Imbue I don't want, just to get the stuff above it? Sure thats fine. But 3 points? To get the same power imbue as the one in Swashbuckler that actually did cost 1 point seems rough. The same applies to the Poison imbues. But at least they have the decency to end at 1d8 per dice.

I think just make them all cost 1 point. Seriously.

[Zavolar]

So looking at the changes, what I am observing It's no longer possible to "just hit hard" and every class have to delve a bit into procs or vicious.

This seems to be counter intuitive on the long term. While it is good for some prestige classes such as Eldritch Knight and Arcane Archers to have a more scaling option for their class fantasies, I see no reason why they should lose their identity in the name of providing imbues for more or less every class. Given that it is harder to scale the weapon damage this is not a favourable approach.

On top of this, looking ahead I do see classes such as fighter having no benefit out of this. Fighters are currently a hyper focused class which gets no benefits on neither the HP changes or Imbue changes. It makes me wonder, why would anyone play a fighter or barbarian for that matter.

---

There is also the scenario for the new players. These changes are good for existing player base but how do you intend to introduce new players to the changes? As the prior UX was more or less clear.

I have yet to test these changes but overall this proposal needs to be tuned further / outright postponed for one update.

[Rull]

Especially people getting a couple of 1d6s here and there are losing out:

bascially, 3d6 fire + 1d6 cold + 1d6 poison
becomes 3d6 fire OR 3d6 cold OR 3d6 poison

only if you go deeper in mulitple added dice types, adding them up becomes relevant, but I doubt if I ever played a build that went past the initial imbue in multiple.

I mean for example this just removes Embodiment of Law from the game, right?

(Embodiment of Law - Destiny Feat) 1d8 Law damage on hit vs chaotic, 1d6 vs non-lawful non-chaotic, 1d4 vs lawful, scaling with melee/ranged power

but it doesn't add to your dice, so if you are a paladin and you already have 7d6 light imbue, all this feat now does is giving you the option to do 7d8/7d6/7d4 instead (which is probably worse anyway)

[Fisto_Mk_I]

So it drops from 4d6-16d6 to 1d6? That's a big reduction.

As far as i understand ( i may mistake, english is not my native language), it's slightly worse - we lose 16d6 non-scalable damage dice and gain instead not scalable 1d6 damage dice, but +1 dice multiplier for other imbues, it's all.

That 1 dice scales whereas the existing ability does not. Will scaling make up the difference? Probably not. But it’s not as stark a contrast as you say.

Again, as you can see from my answer to GeoffWatson, i think we just lose 16d6 dd and gain +1 imbue dice multiplier (for other, non-included to filigree set, imbues).

But, if i'm mistake and you correct and it's 1d6 scalable dice, we lose... well, let's check... Last time when i check Carpone/Epicsoul ()/Sno ranged builds, they have average 370 permanent + 110-115 boosted RP... so, instead 16d6 damage dice we become max 5d6 dd after scaling.

Still seems huge nerf for me. And for you?

[Kortar]

Mostly for flavor. If people are truly dead set against this then it can get cut, but I have a fondness for downsides and wanted to at least gauge the temperature in the room before giving up on my dreams :P

Those changes (combined to the stealth changes on lam not mentioned in the notes) are a pretty big nerf on pure barbs.

On Live FB and Ravager Cores grant :
+6 Strength
9d6 per hit (scaling with MP)
at the cost of 30 HP per minute (frenzy/death frenzy activation)

On lam it grants :
+4 Strength (+2 from Frenzy is gone)
4d8 per hit (scaling with MP, dice from Ravager cores are gone)
at cost of 20 HP per minute (Frenzy is a toggle now) + 4 HP per hit
at a very low attack rate of 1/sec that's still a grand total of 260HP per minute.

You could replace the damage per hit by a 10HP per minute cost for the frenzy toggle (instead of 10 HP when turning it on which is weird) to keep it neutral compared to live.
Going this route you could also turn Death Frenzy into a toggle.
Ravager cores should really grant extra imbue dice or provide an alternate imbue. (I guess we could always put points in Inquisitive instead to get extra dice, is that the intention? or flavorful?)

[cru121]

Couple issues/inconsistencies that I found. I only tested one character: Bard 3 / Druid 17 (a.k.a. mass regen swashbuckler, i.e. the build you've never heard about, and never will)

Warchanter "Iced Edges" is actually tier 2, not tier 3 as written in the release notes.
Also, it costs 3 AP to unlock 1d2/1d4/1d6. That's gross. Should be 1-2 AP. Maybe it should be indeed moved to Tier 3 (as the release notes say), swapping position with The Frozen Fury. This would also alleviate the problem of one of the previous posters in this feedback thread who doesn't need the imbue but would like the Frozen Fury in T3 (and these enhancements are linked). Or unlink T2 and T3.

Druid elemental form is granted at Druid 13 (not 11 as the release notes say). Couple notes here as well. The text is unclear. I was hoping that a druid 17 with 2 elemental forms would benefit from 6 imbue dice. But nope, this is not the case. You get 3 dice, and they are only active while in an elemental form.

Another observation: In addition to say Fire Elemental Form you now also have a second toggle for Fire imbue. It is possible to activate Cold Imbue as a Fire Elemental. Both toggles show as active, however, the imbue does not work.

It would be nice if the game offered some kind of feedback why some imbue does not work. For example, you're in a wrong elemental form; you're not swashbuckling, etc.

Anyway, I started a wiki page for Imbues to document all the various peculiarities of different imbues and extra dice. Contributors welcome.
https://ddowiki.com/page/Imbue

[droid327]

Core 4, 5, & 6 in Inquisitive currently give +2d, +3d, and +4d respectively for a total of +9d. Compared with the new system which is +1d, +1d, +1d to those same cores.

....

Again, to be clear, you are halving Inquisitive dice.

This

This This This

I assume the rationale is that being able to apply all the Inqui die (scale on RP) to EK imbue (scales on SP) would be too strong...

I run a heavy imbue-based build....Inqui EK 18/2. I get partial EK die and full Inqui die, so right now I get 12d8 Law/1.5 RP and 6d8 Element/SP. Assuming I can run at ~200 RP and ~500 SP endgame, and with 1d8 = 4.5, that's 4.5*12*4 + 4.5*6*6 = 378 imbue per hit

After the nerf, that falls down to 8d8/SP from EK, and +7 from Inqui (assuming the +2 option in T5 becomes BIS for anyone running cross-imbue). That's 4.5*15*6=405

So I gain a 7% increase on my per-hit imbue - about neutral - but its also now entirely elemental and subject to more immunities than Law. But anyone who ISNT applying their Inqui die to a SP-scaling imbue would suffer a 50% loss. That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and creating a condition where an Inqui feature requires you to apply it to a class feature in order to make it work decently.

If your tuning is "those fully invested in imbues will see little change; those partially invested may see heavy losses", that's bad balance.

I think the issue here is MP/RP scaling vs Spellpower scaling. Spellpower imbues are inherently better because you can scale your SP much higher than your RP/MP, even at 150%. I think all RP/MP imbues need to scale 300% to bring them on par with SP imbues....then you've really homogenized all Imbues so they're interchangeable, and that would restore the lost damage on the die steps for pure Inquis.

[Alternative]

One solution that comes to mind regarding embodiment of law, is to make it a separate toggle. It's an EPIC feat that becomes pretty much worthless, and be extension makes Crusader that much worse. Have one exclusive heroic toggle, and if you pick Law or Chaos epic feat you get another, also exclusive epic toggle.

And yeah, it might not be a big deal for some, but that's a silly reason to justify a nerf. If it's not that great, maybe it should be buffed instead?

[Rull]

The imbue has always ever scaled with Evil Alignment spell power aka Light, but that brings up a pretty good point that I think would make the entire game a little bit more cohesive:

Should negative spellpower take over governing Chaos and Evil damage instead of Light spellpower?

This would mean that the current spell power schema is:

• Light: also Good and lawful
• Negative: also evil and chaos
• Repair: also rust
• Force: also physical

That law/chaos classification is weird. The whole point of the good/evil and law/chaos axis is that they are perpendicular.

Heh if anything they should be reversed, as throughout history, the people who would be categorized as Chaotic tend to have been on the right side of the moral compass more often. But even better would be to not mix them at all.

• Positive: also Good
• Negative: also Evil
• Light: also Chaos and Lawful like they are now
• Repair: also rust
• Force: also physical

would make more sense, if you don't want to involve the elements (fire chaotic vs water lawful stereotype)

[Arlathen]

Your thoughts, questions, suggestions are always welcome!

Feats:

• (Scion of the Plane of Earth - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
• (Scion of the Plane of Fire - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
• (Scion of the Plane of Water - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
• (Scion of the Plane of Air - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
• (Scion of the Feywild - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice

Ok. **Breathes**. All of my characters, which are ELEMENTALLY Themed, have been significantly theme-nerfed by this change.

Quistris - Cleric 'Angel of Grace, associated with Life, Healing and the Earth. Uses the Scion of the Plane of Earth for extra defense and added Acid Damage to her attacks. Gears using the Bound Elemental Ring of Acid and Legendary Sunken Slippers to maximise the damage output. Completely LOSES all acid damage and has no Imbue toggle as a Falconry/Radiant Servant Melee/Healer Cleric.

Azraiyel - Paladin 'Angel of Death', associated with everything of death, frost and the grave. Uses the Scion of the Plane of Water to add Cold Damage to his attacks, gears using a Glaciation Ruby and Sunken Slippers to boost the damage of the additional elemental damage. Now completely loses this additional Cold Damage, and has to just rely on his Light toggle (boring)

Tiryael - Paladin 'Angel of Justice', associated with Retribution, Law and the power of the sacred Flame. Uses the Scion of the Plane of Fire for balanced defense and added Fire damage to attacks, as well as buffing his Consecration ability. Even working wear the Legendary Red Dragonplate & Helm amongst a very complicated Tank Gear setup. Red Loses any access to a Fire Damage ability, and has to just rely on his Light toggle (yawn)

Furiyen - Ranger 'Stormbringer'. WIP Melee Tempest, so, you guessed it, associated with Air and the power of the Storm. Since the Tempest Lightning toggle was so incredibly, laughably bad, was aiming to use Scion of the Plane of Air for improved Dodge and again added Electric damage to attacks that could scale.

These characters are currently copied to Lammania, so as a Dev, please, feel free to go look at them, there gear, there cosmetics and looks, there Bio's, and see this isn't some empty complaint. Some of us play DDO because of the genuine love for theme and fluff within our characters, as well as appreciating the intricate arrangement of numbers and build choices to make these theme builds work as well as possible, even if they are 'sub-optimal' choices the hardcore R10ers on here.

Suggestion:

• Please, please, PLEASE, let the Scion Feats add a 1D6 Imbue toggle of the appropriate element to the feat, scaling with the best of 200% Melee / 200% Ranged / 100% Spellpower.
• Also, please keep the addition of the +3 Imbue dice in the feat. This would put the basic Feat on similar dice to what it does now, but with new opportunities to scale with a few changes in gear and feats.

These are LEGENDARY Scion feats that we have to wait to get until level 30, so can we keep them a little bit special in what they do? Please?

Also: I will send you cookies, Lynn.