U57 Preview 1: Imbue Overhaul

[Lynnabel]

With Update 57 we are embarking on a series of global overhauls that aim to streamline and shake up the game and bring new cohesion across multiple builds. The Imbue system is one such overhaul and aims to drastically change how players approach certain builds, as well as open up a large variety of fun, flavorful, and powerful new ones. But enough talk - let's see the details!

An Imbue is a new type of toggle in DDO that adds extra damage to your attacks. This extra damage can be specific to certain weapon types, certain combat styles, or even be focused on melee or ranged. Imbues can also scale with things, such as Melee or Ranged Power. You can only have one Imbue active at a time, which means turning on a new Imbue while one is already on will turn the old one off.

Imbues scale their damage with bonus Imbue Dice. If an Imbue added, for example, 1d6 Fire damage, gaining 1 bonus Imbue dice will change that to 2d6 Fire damage. 2 bonus dice means 3d6, etc. Bonus Imbue Dice are global and universal - they do not care about which Imbue is active, and will scale each imbue based on the base Imbue's stats. This means that with the earlier example, if the Imbue in question actually did 1d12 Poison damage scaling with Melee Power, having 2 bonus dice means you'll do 3d12 damage. You can check your bonus Imbue Dice on the character sheet's Details+ Tab.

If this sounds familiar, you're right! This is exactly how our current scaling toggles work - such as Eldritch Knight or Arcane Archer! The big difference here is that there are no more "Arcane Archer Dice" or "Eldritch Knight Dice" - they all now scale off of Imbue Dice together. One of the benefits of these dice being shared is that there is relatively little opportunity cost to switching to a different element from a different tree, should you so desire. You can also aim for very specific imbues in some trees and then boost them up elsewhere. It also means that gaining a bonus dice is something that a large variety of builds will want, making trees and feats that add bonus dice highly desirable.

There are a lot of Imbues available - most of which have been adapted from existing procs scattered throughout our enhancement trees. Most of them are also designed to be available very early on in your leveling process. There are also a lot of bonus Imbue Dice available, scattered throughout areas that used to add specific dice types, or just that we thought would make sense. The sheer amount of changes and additions makes creating concise release notes relatively tough, so we've split them into sections based on the source.

Note: Some of the abilities listed here already do the damage type we're talking about - with these pass, they will be changed to imbues and turned into toggles. Furthermore, some of the places we're adding bonus dice already involved increasing the dice of a proc that's been mentioned - basically, in your head, try to remember that all procs are now imbues, and all things that boosted procs are now bonus imbue dice, and it will all make sense.

Alchemist:

• (Vile Chemist Core 2) 1d8 Poison Damage, poison spell power
• (Vile Chemist Core 2) +1 Dice per 3 Alchemist Levels - max 6 dice
• (Vile Chemist Core 4) +1 Dice (replaces dice change)
• (Vile Chemist Core 5) +1 Dice (replaces dice change)
• (Vile Chemist Core 6) +2 Dice (replaces dice change)

Artificer:

• (Battle Engineer Tier 3) 1d6 Electric damage, electric spellpower (fills in missing t3)
• (Battle Engineer - Agility Engine t4) +1/2/3 Dice with a runearm equipped
• (Battle Engineer - Unlock Potential t5) +1 Dice with a runearm equipped
• The spell Elemental Weapons now grants +1 alchemical bonus to Imbue Dice (note this is still exclusive with other weapon enchantment spells)
• The spell Greater Elemental Weapons now grants +2 alchemical bonus to Imbue Dice (note this is still exclusive with other weapon enchantment spells)

Barbarian:

• (Frenzied Berserker Core 2) 1d8 Bane Damage - Melee Power scaling only. also deals 1 damage PER DICE to you for each swing! (Known Issue: only does 1 flat damage per dice on-hit)
• (Frenzied Core 4) +3 dice while Death Frenzy is active

Bard:

• (Warchanter Tier 3) 1d6 Cold Damage on hit, cold spellpower
• (Swashbuckler Tier 3) 1d6 Sonic Damage on hit, scaling wit Sonic Spellpower (note: this was the sonic on-crit thing)
• (Warchanter) Each core beyond the first grants +1 Dice

Cleric:

• (Dark Apostate Tier 1) 1d6 Evil damage, evil spellpower
• (Warpriest Tier 4) 1d6 Fire damage, fire spellpower - replaces t4 active attack
• (Warpriest) Core 2, 4, 5 grant +1 Dice
• (Warpriest T5) Wrathful Weapons now grants +3 dice instead of its separate proc, and turns your Fire imbue to Light for the duration
• (Dark Apostate) Tiers 2, 3, 4 grant +1 Dice
• (Dark Apostate) Tier 5 grants +2 Dice
• (Dark Apostate) Core 3, 5, 6 grant +1 Dice

Druid:

• (Automatically granted when you choose Fire or Water Elemental Form) 1d6 Fire or Cold, elemental form locked, spellpower scaling
• Elemental Forms now grant a flat +3 Dice (requires 11 druid)

Favored Soul:

• (Warsoul Tier 4) 1d6 Fire damage, fire spellpower - replaces t4 active attack
• (Warsoul) Cores 2, 4, 5 grant +1 Dice
• (Warsoul T5) Wrathful Weapons now grants +3 dice instead of its separate proc, and turns your Fire imbue to Light for the duration

Fighter:

• n/a

Monk:

• (Ninja Spy Tier 3) 1d6 Poison Damage, melee or ranged power, also continues to do its regular Ninja Poison on-crit stuff
• (Henshin Mystic Tier 3) 1d6 Fire and 1d6 Force, melee or ranged power
• (Henshin Mystic) Each core grants +1 Dice

Paladin:

• (Kotc Core 1) 1d6 Light Damage on hit, scaling with Melee or Ranged Power
• (Sacred Fist Core 1) 1d6 Fire or Light damage, melee power
• (Sacred Fist) Each core beyond the first grants +1 Dice
• (Sacred Fist) Tier 3, 4 grant +1 Dice each
• (Knight of the Chalice) Each core beyond the first grants +1 Dice

Ranger:

• (Ranger - Tempest) 1d8 Electric, melee or ranged power
• (Ranger - Arcane Archer) 1d8 Fire/Cold/Acid/Electric, appropriate Spell Power (they get all 4 elements, pick one)
• (Ranger - Arcane Archer) 1d8 Force, force spellpower
• (Arcane Archer) Tiers 2, 3, 4, and 5 grant +2 Dice each
• Note: All other primary Arcane Archer imbues are also now imbues in this system.

Rogue:

• (Assassin Tier 1) 1d8 Poison, melee or ranged power (note this swapped places with Toxin Affinity which is now tier 2)
• (Assassin - Toxin Affinity) moves to t2 (swaps with imbue), +1/2/3 dice

Sorcerer:

• (Eldritch Knight Core 2) 1d8 Fire/Cold/Acid/Electric, appropriate Spell Power (they get all 4 elements)
• (EK Core 2) +1 Dice per 3 Sorcerer levels, max 6
• (EK Core 4) +1 Dice (replaces dice step change)
• (EK Core 5) +1 Dice (replaces dice step change)
• (EK Core 6) +2 Dice (replaces dice step change) + the proc for +4 temporary dice

Wizard:

• (Eldritch Knight Core 2) 1d8 Fire/Cold/Acid/Electric, appropriate Spell Power (they get all 4 elements)
• (EK Core 2) +1 Dice per 3 Wizard levels, max 6
• (EK Core 4) +1 Dice (replaces dice step change)
• (EK Core 5) +1 Dice (replaces dice step change)
• (EK Core 6) +2 Dice (replaces dice step change) + the proc for +4 temporary dice

Warlock:

• (Enlightened Spirit Tier 4) 1d6 Light, Light spell power (ALSO APPLIES TO ELDRITCH BLASTS, no other toggle does this)
• (Enlightened Spirit Core 5) +3 bonus dice while in Celestial Spirit form

Racial:

• (Drow - Racial Tree) 1d8 Poison, melee or ranged power (same as Assassin)
• (Drow - Racial Tree) +1 dice in tier 3, 4 (new enhancements, fills in missing space
• (Shadar-kai Racial Tree) 1d4 Cold on sneak attacks, melee or ranged power
• (Half-Elf - Warlock Dilettante feat) 1d4 Fire damage, fire spellpower, also works on spells!
• (Tiefling - Racial Tree) 1d4 Fire Damage on hit, scaling with Fire Spell Power vs enemies below 75%, upgrades to 1d6 below 50% and again to 1d8 below 25%
• (Tiefling Scoundrel - Racial Tree) 1d4 Sonic Damage on hit, scaling with Sonic Spell Power vs enemies below 75%, upgrades to 1d6 below 50% and again to 1d8 below 25%

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

Feats:

• (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
• (Embodiment of Chaos - Destiny Feat) 1d8 Chaos damage on hit vs chaotic, 1d6 vs non-law non-chaotic, 1d4 vs chaotic, scaling with melee/ranged power
• (Enhanced Elemental Dice - Destiny Feat) +1 Dice
• (Scion of the Feywild - Legendary Feat) +3 Dice
• (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
• (Offhand Versatility) - Orb gains +1 Imbue dice

Destinies:

• Shiradi Champion mantle gains 1d77 per 7 bonus dice - this is not an imbue toggle BUT gains benefits from your imbue dice!
• Draconic Tier 3 now grants +1/2/3 Dice

Items:

• Filigree Set Bonuses that used to give a scaling imbue on-hit now give +1 Dice
• Augments from Hunt or Be Hunted Raid now give +1 Enhancement bonus to bonus Dice
• Certain Set Bonuses get +1 Dice in heroics, 2 in epics, 3 in legendary (artifact typed):
  
  • Profane Experiment
  • Echoes of the Waking Ancestors
  • Crypt Raider

Misc Changes:
As a part of this, we're also doing the following small set of changes to facilitate this system's cohesiveness:

• Pain Touch 1 and 2 from Ravager lose their small on-hit proc and gain +5 Melee Power each instead (for a total +10)
• 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.
• Rather than the upgrade for Tempest's Lightning Stance increasing base damage, the base toggle now is the imbue and the upgrade grants the full +30% absorb

So! A pretty huge list of changes, lots to digest. Your thoughts, questions, suggestions are always welcome!

[Ipsum]

Nice consolidation. Is it possible to make imbue dice crit with this change?

[Cadic]

Seems like a decent system overall, but I think the races will need to be looked at. The two tiefling toggles will never be used at all if you have any other imbue for instance. It is such a downgrade compared to any other toggle, so it really feels like it needs some more "oomph". Maybe add some dice at those % thresholds so that if you have an imbue you get a benefit out of it?

Are filigrees loosing the damage boost to just give +1 dice? It's not clear from below.

Does the barbarian taking damage on every swing scale with reaper damage amplification? If so, that's going to be painful.

[Alternative]

So in the case of KOTC,

Currently I have 7d6 light die scaling with 200% melee power - after the changes it's going to be 6d6 scaling with 100% melee power? Degree of scaling is not mentioned anywhere, hence I'm assuming it's just 100%.

Currently I also have Embodiment of Law with tier 5 in Crusader, which also add a fair amount of law damage scaling with 200% mp - after the changes, if all imbues are exclusive, I'll just have to chose either kotc light damage, or the law damage.

So another nerf, and a big one. Really excited, thanks.

[Zeklijan]

With the changes to characters getting imbues that focus on Melee/Ranged power and not spellpower, it would be nice to have an option of a +1/2/3 imbue dice in a tree that isn't focused on spellcasting like draconic.

[Lynnabel]

So in the case of KOTC,

Currently I have 7d6 light die scaling with 200% melee power - after the changes it's going to be 6d6 scaling with 100% melee power? Degree of scaling is not mentioned anywhere, hence I'm assuming it's just 100%.

Currently I also have Embodiment of Law with tier 5 in Crusader, which also add a fair amount of law damage scaling with 200% mp - after the changes, if all imbues are exclusive, I'll just have to chose either kotc light damage, or the law damage.

So another nerf, and a big one. Really excited, thanks.

Nope, if scaling% isn't mentioned it's because it's unchanged. So you're going from 7d6 to 6d6 if and only if you take literally no other bonus dice from anywhere else. And if you later decide to pick up Embodiment of Law, those bonus dice from Kotc now scale that imbue as well. The easy fix in my eyes is to just have Law/Chaos scale with more Melee Power than the heroic ones means its a pretty clear upgrade to heroic counterparts.

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.

[C-Dog]

You can only have one Imbue active at a time, which means turning on a new Imbue while one is already on will turn the old one off.

Does this mean that, for example, a 7/7/6 multiclass build will only, at most, get 7 levels of imbue dice at any time, and won't be able to "stack" dice from their other classes?

If so, big gut-punch to multiclassing. :/

[Lynnabel]

Does this mean that, for example, a 7/7/6 multiclass build will only, at most, get 7 levels of imbue dice at any time, and won't be able to "stack" dice from their other classes?

If so, big gut-punch to multiclassing. :/

No, the exact opposite of this.

[YUTANG75]

Does this mean that, for example, a 7/7/6 multiclass build will only, at most, get 7 levels of imbue dice at any time, and won't be able to "stack" dice from their other classes?

If so, big gut-punch to multiclassing. :/

No, quite the opposite. There is only one type of bonus dice so you can grab the +bonus dice abilities from all different classes/trees/feats and have them boost the imbue you want to use.

The big difference here is that there are no more "Arcane Archer Dice" or "Eldritch Knight Dice" - they all now scale off of Imbue Dice together. One of the benefits of these dice being shared is that there is relatively little opportunity cost to switching to a different element from a different tree, should you so desire. You can also aim for very specific imbues in some trees and then boost them up elsewhere. It also means that gaining a bonus dice is something that a large variety of builds will want, making trees and feats that add bonus dice highly desirable.

[Lynnabel]

Quick MATH POST apropos of nothing since I think it will facilitate discussion:

On Shiradi:

Right now it does 7d77, after it will do 7d77 + 1d77 per 7 imbue dice. so each bonus imbue dice adds approx 5.5 damage to the base of 269.5 damage, or just about a 2% increase. players can get approx 25 dice at max if you're moderately working for it, so that means 21 x 2% = a 42% buff to shiradi mantle dps (assuming a moderate imbue dice build). And if you've hit the 28 dice threshold, this is a 28 x 2% = a 56% buff to shiradi (max dice imbue build).

On Total Dice:

The Kotc example is a great one to explore because I find its a great example of how this system is easier to explore into than it was before. Say you're a pure paladin and want to add bonus light damage.

Before: 7d6 light damage

After: 1d6 light damage + 5 dice from kotc + 1 from epic feats + 3 from scion feat + 3 from filigree + 1 from augment + 2 from elemental weapons + 3 from draconic + 1 from offhand versatility + 3 from set bonus + 2 from Drow = 25d6 light damage. And yes, not all pure paladins are drow Single Weapon Fighters with an Orb in Draconic running with an artificer friend and wearing that set bonus - but it's likely that you'll be able to pick up some of these dice from somewhere if not all of them. And if you want to multiclass, other trees have great low-hanging bonus dice to dip into. The big difference here isn't even about total dice this or damage that - its that now as a paladin you can think about this vector of character building and put together something that meets your needs.

Anyway, the nature of this chance means that we're gonna be doing a lot of math, so if you're confused about how this shakes out let us know and I'll post more math.

[Talnar00]

So the emeralds of etc empowerment will all give +1 enhancemant imbue die?

[rabidfox]

I want a heal imbue toggle on cleric/FvS/EA that effects positive spells; I don't need one, but I want one so I can have a shiny new toy too...

[Zeklijan]

I believe the imbue for Warlock half elf dilletante has a 2s cool down. If so, will it remain after the update?

As I understand, the new druid dice does nothing for purely spellcasting druids because it only applies on melee/ranged attacks. Is this correct?

Thanks

[Taurnish]

Why no imbue for the fighter class? Fighters should be one of the highest non-spell damage in game and have the expertise to be able to hit an opponents weak spots. I think they deserve some type of imbue (I would suggest you consider bane damage or damage based upon the fighter's alignment). If chaotic then chaos damage, lawful the law damage, and neutral could be un-typed.

[Andrasari]

Am I reading this correctly? Core 3 of EDK is the imbue now, but core 2 gives imbue dice? I feel like this should be a typo because if not, that means EDK must wait until 6 wizard/sorc to get their imbue. This hurts multiclassing harder and goes against what was previously stated "designed to be available very early in the leveling process". 1d6 wasn't a lot before but it still felt good to get it at level 3 wizard/sorc.

What I'm hoping is this gets correctly swapped back to what it was/should be (Core 2 has the imbue toggle, core 3 is bonus dice), or if this was a typo, was addressed.

Not to say that EDK is dead if this was an intentional nerf to level 3-6 EDK, but it seems unnecessary.

[Firebreed]

- Arcane Archer has been lacking as a tree for some time now, especially on higher levels. To my surprise, given that it is the de-facto imbue tree along with Eldritch Knight, nothing really changed for it (besides Force Arrows being d8s instead of d6s). Would you consider making its imbues scale with Ranged Power? Or adding some dice in the cores? Or merging (probably partially) the tier 5 Imbue Dice/Improved Elemental Arrows?

- Do the non-damage Arcane Archer imbues scale with Imbue Dice at all?

- May I suggest that the Hunt or Be Hunted emeralds (Vile/Eldritch/Arcane Empowerment) be consolidated into a single new augment to avoid confusion and redundancy?

[Lynnabel]

Am I reading this correctly? Core 3 of EDK is the imbue now, but core 2 gives imbue dice? I feel like this should be a typo because if not, that means EDK must wait until 6 wizard/sorc to get their imbue. This hurts multiclassing harder and goes against what was previously stated "designed to be available very early in the leveling process". 1d6 wasn't a lot before but it still felt good to get it at level 3 wizard/sorc.

What I'm hoping is this gets correctly swapped back to what it was/should be (Core 2 has the imbue toggle, core 3 is bonus dice), or if this was a typo, was addressed.

Not to say that EDK is dead if this was an intentional nerf to level 3-6 EDK, but it seems unnecessary.

Whoops, that's a typo - the Imbue is still in Core 2. It hasn't moved at all.

[Andrasari]

Whoops, that's a typo - the Imbue is still in Core 2. It hasn't moved at all.

Cool, thanks for the clarity!

[cmecu]

Just seen offhand versatility ... It originally is

If you have an Orb or a Runearm in your Offhand, your Vorpal strikes cause you to gain Versatile Empowerment. Versatile Empowerment: Your spells automatically crit for the next 5 seconds. Cooldown: 20 seconds.

But now they are taking crit away from orb users and replacing it with +1 imbue... and giving rune arm users the spell crit..

please dont take away the crit spell with Orbs in off hand.

For example , you taken something in Enlighten Spirit warlock tree Spiritual Retribution Your Eldritch Blasts, Melee Attacks, and Ranged Attacks gain 1d4/2d4/3d4 Light damage that scales with Spell Power . Now you spend 2 enhancement points to get 1d6 light , and you have to spend a feat and use an orb to get +1 imbue die.....

This is horrible change. I get the imbue ok thats nice, but dont make warlock orb offhand +1 imbue.. the crit was nice to have offhand. I havent tested it yet.. im about to.. but I dont really see how good this will be.

[Phoenicis]

Warlock:
(Enlightened Spirit Tier 4) 1d6 Light, Light spell power (ALSO APPLIES TO ELDRITCH BLASTS, no other toggle does this)

Spiritual Retribution is currently a 1d4/2d4/3d4, is it changing to 1d6/2d6/3d6 or to a flat 1d6?