U57 Preview 1: Imbue Overhaul

[misterski]

Can all imbue toggles be active at once or are some exclusive?

Can only have one up at a time. Imbue dice increases are universal, however.

[Lotoc]

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...

I believe the filigree on hits do not scale with melee/spellpower, they're also mutually exclusive.
As imbue dice they'll stack however which I would imagine ends up a little bit better if you're willing to set up multiple.

[Cernunan]

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

Then you would need to completely redesign the Warlock spellpower system with their enhancement trees

[Fisto_Mk_I]

I believe the filigree on hits do not scale with melee/spellpower, they're also mutually exclusive.

Sure. And?

Currently, any endgame DD build include one from such set (Reverberation usually because only 2pc set already provide bonuses). Change raw damage dice from set to +1 imbue dice just heavy nerf such builds. Any builds.

As imbue dice they'll stack however which I would imagine ends up a little bit better if you're willing to set up multiple.

Currently, appropriate filigree sets provide damage on-hit per se, without additional shaman dance for acquiring damage imbue anywhere. After - it must be mandatory, and only +1 imbue dice not help at all.

So?

[jackatthekilns]

T

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

While I will admit this makes more logical sense, it would have serious implications on essentially all Warlock builds. I have a suspicion that I would not like the complications of gearing for for force (or negative), light, and (for me usually) electric on my ES builds. If there is a way to make the system more cohesive and also provide good gearing solutions across the leveling spectrum, I guess it would be OK.

To be honest though, I have a feeling that what would happen is a nerf for what is essentially an issue of flavor and not game balance. I would rather deal with a little inconsistency and have a more streamlined gearing process than have a logically consistent made-up fantasy world with airships, living robots, and floating ghosts - that are not undead mind you, they look for all the world like wraiths but they are in no way undead, in it.

prioritize game balance, make things more logical second, maybe third.

[Wizard1406]

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

I think it would be better to keep light spellpower adding to all alignment damage, because light power is already niche, there not that many light and alignment spells. Even light focused divines use a lot of fire and physical spells too.

Negative already has the all necromancy spells and it also adds to poison spells (mostly alchemist).

And like others said it would be too much of a nerf to warlocks which is already the lowest magic DPS class (afaik).

[btolson]

I think it would be better to keep light spellpower adding to all alignment damage, because light power is already niche, there not that many light and alignment spells. Even light focused divines use a lot of fire and physical spells too.

Negative already has the all necromancy spells and it also adds to poison spells (mostly alchemist).

And like others said it would be too much of a nerf to warlocks which is already the lowest magic DPS class (afaik).

Agree. This is why Alignment got grouped with Light in the first place - there are so few of either type.

If we're looking at this as a DA problem, then give DA an enhancement to use the greater of light/align or negative spellpower to boost their evil damage, similar to some racials. Much cleaner. Far fewer ramifications. Game is too hard to gear for already.

[Zeklijan]

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

The thematic behind this makes a lot more sense to me honestly. I knew they were all linked to light spellpower for convenience, but this is good IMO. Another consideration is that it'll make the skill linked to the spellpower Heal instead of Spellcraft.

There's also Bane damage (like word of balance), which I think is linked to Force spellpower? I'm not sure what would fit best for bane damage.

[Phoenicis]

The thematic behind this makes a lot more sense to me honestly. I knew they were all linked to light spellpower for convenience, but this is good IMO. Another consideration is that it'll make the skill linked to the spellpower Heal instead of Spellcraft.

There's also Bane damage (like word of balance), which I think is linked to Force spellpower? I'm not sure what would fit best for bane damage.

Downside, a typical warlock would need light (light imbues in ES) Negative (chaos and evil for utterdark and stricken/consume) force (evards) and their pact damage spellpower.

I generally skip force right now, sticking to pact and light. but still, under that change I would need three spellpowers, not two.

[vryxnr]

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

While I do like the logic and making things more thematically appropriate, warlocks do not need to be nerfed again... and implementing this without making adjustments to warlocks would be another warlock nerf.

[Xgya]

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

I understand and love the flavor behind the theme, but it would hose a few casters outright. (mostly poor ES warlocks)

Frankly, I'd love it if we had less spell power categories but it might make certain parts of the balance harder to do.
(say, like by moving Positive straight into Light, and making Force and Repair take the same source)

[elvesunited]

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 would badly nerf my enlightened warlock build to the point where its viability would be called into question.

[GeoffWatson]

Items:

• Filigree Set Bonuses that used to give a scaling imbue on-hit now give +1 Dice

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

[cmecu]

I see you can no longer have two things going at once.. Example. you used to be able to have say sacred fist Sacred flame and Dark apostate evil damage toggle on both together.. So I was doing fire damage and evil damage.. but it loosk like they are making it so you can no longer do something like that..

I tried the new spiritual retribution in warlock tree tier 4.. its now an imbue dice.. but I am also a sacred first paladin. I could not have Spiritual retribution and sacred flame on together.. so that kinda sucks.

[Zhentasmeister]

I see you can no longer have two things going at once.. Example. you used to be able to have say sacred fist Sacred flame and Dark apostate evil damage toggle on both together.. So I was doing fire damage and evil damage.. but it loosk like they are making it so you can no longer do something like that..

I tried the new spiritual retribution in warlock tree tier 4.. its now an imbue dice.. but I am also a sacred first paladin. I could not have Spiritual retribution and sacred flame on together.. so that kinda sucks.

I was concerned about this too.

But if you think about it, with the changes/additions to Dice increasing using items/gear/in enhancements, the one Imbue toggle you end up using will have more or similar dps compared to having multiple toggles on, compared to currently not having those additions.

Currently, in heroics, having multiple Imbues is SO good on some builds, obviously having them as well with this new system would be too OP.

Regardless, I still think they should not make the Tiefling's imbue a toggle since it's already gated by mobs' HP percentage. It should be left as a passive.

[jskinner937]

Overall, the extension of imbues seem like a cool idea, but reality is they are kind of weak for the new ones.

How about we fix trip DCs/reliability and make it workable on most melee builds? Melees really need more AOE and CC. If you gonna make changes to imbues, for melees specifically, please add an aoe proc for damage and cc with a reasonable DC check that maybe is tied to your to hit/dmg stat.

I just cannot see 3d6 scaling with even 200% MP even being much use like suggested.

[Alternative]

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

No, you forgot to take into account that currently various sources stack, so more accurately (in my case):

Before (aka now): 7d6 light from kotc AND 12d6 law (1d6 per epic level) AND 4d6 + 12d6 sonic (reverberation fili set) = 35 dice of various damage.


And on top of that, I often see mobs being made vulnerable to sonic, but not to light. So even more damage lost in some situations.

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.

This is unreasonable expecting melees to be drow, run draconic, but you know that. And even with everything you listed I'd be going down from 35 dice to 25 dice. More realistically, without all this additional investment, I'm going down from 35d6 to what 9d6?

The only thing I'm confused about here is whether this is intended or accidental to be such a nerf. IMO you should keep dice number the same as they currently are. If tier 5 crusader give 1d6 law per epic level - make it still add the same. If filigree sets add 4d6 + 1d6 per epic level, then they should still add the same, even if it suddenly feels like a lot.



Bonus question, melees typically run Scion of Arborea or Astral, those are not getting any dice I assume?

[Sqrlmonger]

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

Would it have an internal cooldown like Vampirism?

It's far from a huge issue, but this reminded me of it so I'll ask. I've often wondered why vampirism cooldown was added in the first place. The amount it heals was so minuscule to begin with I assumed this only hurt newer players. I could be wrong on that though.

[Xezom]

Honestly, it's an awkward situation.
Dark Apostates would love the change (except for the fact they lack higher end evil/chaos spells) but warlocks would absolutely hate it, and to be honest warlocks by design are currently the main class to use chaos and evil damage. Would it be feasible to give all evil/chaos a higher of nullification/radiance?

Yeah as it is there's not enough justification to change it to scaling with negative spell power. DA is just not strong enough in the evil department to make any alterations to the current function. Perhaps if you raised the damage of pray for Mercy up to 1d4+2/1d6+3 it'd be more fitting. Another option would be to make it like Cursed Words where it scales up with DA Dice?Imbue dice at a rate of 6d6 per. Make it actually do notable damage then it might be worth discussing, but even then you'd be tuning for DD and DA (to a lesser extent still) and kinda screwing over Warlocks (who mostly convert their force to evil so they can more efficiently scale off of light plus pact type).


Also, How does this change effect skills like Cursed Words that deals 6d6 of bane damage per Dark Apostate Dice to undead? Will it now deal 6d6 of bane damage per imbue dice instead? I would assume so since the function shouldn't really change. I'd hate to see it take a hit since it's the only point in the DA tree that actually does respectable damage. The skill itself is not worth investing into other trees for more imbue dice since it only works on undead, so it's not like casters are going to gain extra power from the changes on it.

This overhaul it'd be a great time to make PFM and Cursed Words both scale with Imbue Dice. There aren't enough good matching trees that would scale it up to insane levels that you'd have to worry about it, since going up to Warpriest t4 or core 4/5 for 2/3 extra dice is serious investment for a caster spec just to get a little extra firepower on those spells. Yes, I will find any opportunity to plug for a DA PFM power increase any chance i get, just so happens that this change to imbues effects a DA Spell (Cursed Words) so makes for a good place to plug for it.


These changes will be very nice for DA Gish/Melee/Silver Flame Archers tho. My running Buddy who is an inquisificer is going to really love these changes too.

[thegreatcthulhu]

OK, so to answer my own question - this doesn't seem to affect and/or benefit proc on hit effects in any way. From testing out my weapon from live (I had to re-create it on lam unfortunately with the vendor because my bank slots are not showing up), the procs work just the same. So nothing exciting there. :-/


Firstly, regarding the changes and how it affects Embodiment of The Law:

I paid Vix the Deceiver a visit, and my fight with him was about the same as usual - killed him in about 2.5 minutes. I can't say that the change really seems to make a huge difference to a pure Paladin / DC as to whether or not they use the light or Embodiment of Law imbue end game in their setup. Embodiment is the clear winner since it does slightly higher damage; the debuff might be playing a role, but I have always had difficulty gauging whether or not that debuff actually matters.

Edit: I tested him again with the following setups -

Draconic incarnation with slayer of evil imbue - no noticeable change vs live, although light damage seemed to be a bit higher

Draconic Incarnation with embodiment of law turned on - no noticeable change vs live, law damage was slightly better than slayer of evil's

No draconic incarnation with slayer of evil - Again, no noticeable change vs live, light damage was worse than embodiment of law's

No draconic incarnation, embodiment of law turned off - There's definitely a bug where the extra damage from embodiment of law is still showing up, but the damage is so small that it was hardly anything I'd call a huge exploit, but still a bug none the less.


Overall, it seems to me that Embodiment of the Law and Law of the Divine need something else tweaked with them, because as it stands, the only build "variety change" I am seeing here is that it's better off to just ditch the feat and spend the destiny points somewhere else. Draconic Incarnation's change doesn't really seem to help here either.


Secondly, regarding the whole Imbue change itself:


I can see the POTENTIAL for it to open up more build variety, but for right now, I really am not seeing any serious change being made other than perhaps, simplification from a development standpoint* and some unfortunate downgrades for Inquisitives and Warlocks. I hope you can add more dice options in other destinies and universal trees, because this could be actually exciting. However, for now, I feel like this is more or less an unwelcome change because now we have to manage more toggles on our hot bars. I know that's a first world problem, but at the end of the day, it's still annoying to me and I don't appreciate it.

*Refactoring is always great IMHO but when it feels like an intrusive refactor... that is where I personally draw the line since users don't understand the benefit unless they see tangible results. Here, I am not seeing anything tangible and beneficial.


Sorry if I'm coming off harsh Lynn, but I think this change needs more time in the oven or you need to put some more sauce in here somewhere to make this seem like it's really opening up new build options. For what it is worth though, I really love the idea of adding more martial potential to Draconic Incarnation.