U57 Preview 1: Imbue Overhaul

[Firebreed]

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.

Looking forward to seeing a lot more elves running around than we've had in a long while.

Don't see why you'd think that. As I've mentioned before, next to nothing changed for the Arcane Archer, despite obvious need for change:

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?

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

Hi,
Not sure if this was reported before, but the 3 dice available in the assassin tree don’t seem to add any damage. I tried them with the Assassin poison, Monk burning the candle, and half-elf warlock dilettante, and the damage seemed to not include the 3 assassin dice from Toxin Affinity.

Hope this helps, as it opens up a lot of you can splash rogue and keep getting some damage progression for imbues!

[Hipparan]

Law/Chaos ED Feat Musing:

Several thoughts in no particular order:

• We could just boost the damage on these feats considerably. Say 1d12 vs opposite alignment, 1d8 vs everyone else
• That would feel kind of bad though, it means you'd feel obligated to drop a flavorful melee/ranged scaling imbue for a different one based purely on DPS
• Its also kind of bad to have an obviously best Imbue out there.
• Counterpoint to the above, unlike other imbues, this one costs a Feat slot instead of just AP, so since its a higher cost doesn't that mean it should be better?
• What if these also gave bonus imbue dice if you match the alignment of the feat, say Embodiment of Law also granted +2 dice if you were lawful, even if you don't actually use it as your imbue. That would mean that there's some additional bonuses to vectoring alignment into your builds (since right now people tend to gravitate towards Neutral if available).
• That being said, its also very very late in the game to be giving an imbue. So following the previous thought, maybe these should simply grant you a bunch of stats if you're the matching alignment (and then some of those stats are imbue dice) and we forgo the actual imbue altogether?
• This would also mean that non-imbue characters can take these feats for the regular boost in DPS, and further encourage players to step out of True Neutral.

Lots to noodle on.

I believe that currently you can take either embodiment feat regardless of what alignment you are. I remember I at least had Embodiment of Chaos on a lawful character.

How about tying those to their respective alignments, and then it's a separate toggle that changes your current imbue to be lawful or chaos damage, scaling with whatever the original imbue scales with?

[Arlathen]

Law/Chaos ED Feat Musing:

Several thoughts in no particular order:

• We could just boost the damage on these feats considerably. Say 1d12 vs opposite alignment, 1d8 vs everyone else
• That would feel kind of bad though, it means you'd feel obligated to drop a flavorful melee/ranged scaling imbue for a different one based purely on DPS
• Its also kind of bad to have an obviously best Imbue out there.
• Counterpoint to the above, unlike other imbues, this one costs a Feat slot instead of just AP, so since its a higher cost doesn't that mean it should be better?
• What if these also gave bonus imbue dice if you match the alignment of the feat, say Embodiment of Law also granted +2 dice if you were lawful, even if you don't actually use it as your imbue. That would mean that there's some additional bonuses to vectoring alignment into your builds (since right now people tend to gravitate towards Neutral if available).
• That being said, its also very very late in the game to be giving an imbue. So following the previous thought, maybe these should simply grant you a bunch of stats if you're the matching alignment (and then some of those stats are imbue dice) and we forgo the actual imbue altogether?
• This would also mean that non-imbue characters can take these feats for the regular boost in DPS, and further encourage players to step out of True Neutral.

Lots to noodle on.

A "best-in-class" DPS option is never a good idea, it just becomes a 'must have' on every build of the same damage archetype.

DCs Law of the Divine essentially makes the Embodiment of Law a Flat 12D6 Law damage/Scaling with MP that stacks with other added on damage types. Playing Paladin (Class most likely to to go T5 DC potentially?), add on 7D6 Light Damage/scales with MP, so I can see the trouble this is causing because it requires heavy investment from your early example to get to this kind of Imbue Dice.

What about simply acknowledging that this extra damage doesn't fit the new Imbue system and throwing a different ability all together into the mix?

- Feat: Embodiment of Law: Weapon and Unarmed Attacks that have the Lawful damage type have a 3% to Stun an enemy, no save. +3 Imbue Dice.
- Feat: Harbinger of Chaos: Weapon and Unarmed Attacks that have the Chaos damage type have a 3% to Stun an enemy, no save. +3 Imbue Dice.

Then in the Destinies:

- DC: Law of the Divine: You gain the Embodiment of Law Feat and +3 Imbue Dice. If you already have the Embodiment of Law feat, your attacks now cause Vulnerability and Armour Destruction on Critical Hits.
- FotW: Scarred by Chaos: +50 Hit Points and +10 Physical Resistance Rating. Doubled if you have the Harbinger of Chaos feat, and your Melee and Unarmed Attacks that have the Chaos damage type have a 3% chance to cause Confusion in enemies, no save.


There's a few ways to add the Lawful/Chaos damage type to a weapon, Ruby of Law/Chaos, DC Holy Mantle, Weapon Imbues from Arti, and a lot of popular weapons have these as built in effects anyway.

[Abilbo]

Currently the system works to allow you to choose 1 of 4 options to place on your weapon. Now the spell seems to add 1 imbue dice, and then 2 imbue dice with greater elemental weapons, but there is no base to the spell, meaning you have to be getting the imbue from somewhere else. If you are in the battle engineer tree, your only option is to add electric damage, and then adding further dice to that electric damage, which is all very good and all until you meet those mobs that are immune or healed by electric damage.

Also, is the character sheet supposed to accurately reflect the correct number in imbue dice you are getting? Example, I am a 20 artificer with 41 points in battle engineer, taking the 1d6 electric imbue, and then the T4 and T5 additional imbue dice. I also went into Draconic ED and chose the 3 extra imbue dice there as well, but on my character sheet, under general combat, it is showing 1 bonus imbue dice. This is confusing.

and another simple clarification for those of us who don't excel in math.

If i am playing a multi class character, say Arti/Paly/Ranger with imbue dice in each class enhancement, so i have a 1D6/1D6/1d8 and then I pick up extra sources of imbue dice, do the extra sources apply to each of the imbue dice? or do they all get wrapped up in one bundle? Just trying to figure that out.

[droid327]

and another simple clarification for those of us who don't excel in math.

If i am playing a multi class character, say Arti/Paly/Ranger with imbue dice in each class enhancement, so i have a 1D6/1D6/1d8 and then I pick up extra sources of imbue dice, do the extra sources apply to each of the imbue dice? or do they all get wrapped up in one bundle? Just trying to figure that out.

All the sources of +Imbue Die will apply collectively to whichever Imbue you have active. You can only have 1 active under the new system

So if you had a 1d6 and a 1d8 toggle and +3 die altogether, then the first one would be 4d6 and the second would be 4d8 when you had them on

[droid327]

Law/Chaos ED Feat Musing:

Several thoughts in no particular order:

• We could just boost the damage on these feats considerably. Say 1d12 vs opposite alignment, 1d8 vs everyone else
• That would feel kind of bad though, it means you'd feel obligated to drop a flavorful melee/ranged scaling imbue for a different one based purely on DPS
• Its also kind of bad to have an obviously best Imbue out there.
• Counterpoint to the above, unlike other imbues, this one costs a Feat slot instead of just AP, so since its a higher cost doesn't that mean it should be better?
• What if these also gave bonus imbue dice if you match the alignment of the feat, say Embodiment of Law also granted +2 dice if you were lawful, even if you don't actually use it as your imbue. That would mean that there's some additional bonuses to vectoring alignment into your builds (since right now people tend to gravitate towards Neutral if available).
• That being said, its also very very late in the game to be giving an imbue. So following the previous thought, maybe these should simply grant you a bunch of stats if you're the matching alignment (and then some of those stats are imbue dice) and we forgo the actual imbue altogether?
• This would also mean that non-imbue characters can take these feats for the regular boost in DPS, and further encourage players to step out of True Neutral.

Lots to noodle on.

Dont forget about T5 DC, that's pretty much handcuffed with EoL for all practical purposes

So its not just the 10+20 damage on the feat itself that needs to be preserved, its also the 10d6 scaling damage with the feat + T5 Destiny. Which is a pretty high opportunity cost, so it needs to have a commensurate value...

[Talnar00]

1. I'm still looking at the Law/Chaos ED feats (remember, its been less than 24 hrs since the preview started :P) and have a few cool ideas but nothing concrete. If you've got a radical idea for these feats now's the time!

While not specifically about the feat itself, I'd like to talk about Divine Crusader's Law of the Divine T5 ability.
I think the ability should be changed to have the vulnerability + armor destruction stack proc on crit if you take it period. Legendary Dreadnought already gets an rough armor destruction equivalent on every hit in Terror just by being in their mantle, and get a vulnerability stack on every hit on enemies that have 5+ stacks of terror (available just hitting an enemy 5 times). Having Divine Crusader's T5 have AD+Vuln on only crits seems to be fairly powerful considering the investment to get there and how T5's lock out T5's from other trees, especially when equivalent abilities stacking similar or same procs do so every hit in another ED. If you think that AD+Vuln on every crit is still too much for a ED's T5, you can add the restriction that it only works with favored weapons, which fits the theme as some other abilities in Divine Crusader already.

I'm not sure if it should have any interaction with the Embodiment of the Law feat, but if it does (and embodiment of law remains something to do with imbues), I'll again suggest looking into one of the possible following effects if you take the feat + T5:
- Adding imbue die per every few epic levels. At current it essentially gives +1d6 per epic level, but that is probably a bit much in the fully converged system, so something akin to +1 die per every 2 or 3 epic levels.
- Changing the Embodiment of Law's toggle to always be d8's regardless of enemy alignment
- Having the AD+Vuln from the T5 be on-hit instead of on-crit if you use the Embodiment of Law imbue (or if it's too strong add multiple stacks per crit?)

Could also combine two of the above like +1 imbue die per 4 or 6 epic levels and guaranteed d6's regardless of alignment, or something of the sort for the combo of Law of the Divine T5 + Embodiment of Law.

For the feat itself, I don't have suggestions for it, aside from I think that as a system change, every ability that gives an imbue should probably also give an inherent +1 imbue die, As in, if you only have one imbue and no other imbue die adds, it's just one die if you use that imbue (Ex: only drow poison imbue, only does 1d6 poison), but if you have both say Drow's poison imbue and Paladin's KotC light imbue, and no other imbue die adds, using one of the two imbues should have 2d6 light or 2d6 poison. This would make taking other imbue options still inherently worthwhile for imbue die focused characters even if they don't plan on fully using the other imbues. For EK imbues, while they technically get 4 different imbues I think they should just count as a +1 die if you go with the whole every imbue you have access to adds another die thing.

[nobodynobody1426]

The radical idea might simply be "leave them as they are"

Just because you're streamlining proc damage into one system doesnt mean EVERY SINGLE source of proc damage is going to become part of the system

Things like Dripping and the acid proc on Dino weapons arent converting to Imbue die...I think the Embodiment feats could remain their own standalone procs too, especially since A) they're restricted to L28+ characters anyway, and B) DC interacts with Emb of Law in a way that cant easily be translated to the all-in-one Imbue system

I just cant think of any other way to preserve that 10d6 boost to your DPS, if you're not willing to simply give it +10 Imbue Dice

Speaking of which...there's a bit of fuzzy math involving the initial die step. Each imbue starts you off with 1 die, but that initial die doesnt transfer to other imbues. So anyone running two imbues right now is going to be 1 die short when you put them together. Can we make it where the initial imbue also gives +1 steps to other imbues?

That would be the correct answer, it's simple and doesn't screw around with the rest of the game balance. Of course it also means it likely won't be done.

Embodiment of Law is just 10 bane damage on everything, 20 against chaotic monsters. It's the DC T5 that makes it actually useful at 12D6 (42) law damage scaling at 200% melee power. Nerfing one of the lower DPS / higher support tree's in the name of art seems pretty mean. Of course everything here seems to be an across the board nerf to any build with scaling proc dice cause math.

[Andrasari]

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

If we're going in this direction, I'd rip up the whole carpet and say death to Light spellpower.
Let Positive govern Positive Healing, Light, Good and Lawful, and Negative govern Negative Healing, Poison, Chaos and Evil.
That way the dichotomy makes sense and overall consolidates spellpowers that the affected classes would stack for their damage types anyway.

If that's too complicated to implement, I'd say any buff to less popular alignment casting is fine and as written seems good.

[rabidfox]

[*](Half-Elf - Warlock Dilettante feat) 1d4 Fire damage, fire spellpower, also works on spells!

The 2 second cooldown and it only hit 1 mob when casting AoEs made this feel very meh when I tried it. Without the cooldown, it might make Helf a competitive choice with other caster preferred races; but with the 2-sec cooldown, it's a non-starter for me. It's a little damage where one has to invest AP/augments to get extra dice and with the cooldown it just not worth the effort vs reward.

[Sqrlmonger]

I don't know if ignoring the comments on the Inquisitive changes is intentional or not. But there are enough of us saying it that I think you need to address it Lynnabel.

Is the nerf to Inquisitive dice intentional and if so what is the logic behind it? Please stop ignoring the people asking about it.

Thanks.

[dkyle]

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.

Agree. I'd rather it stay the current small damage boost, rather than make it into a toggle that's almost strictly worse than the ones in the Bard trees. Or make it a +1 die at each of the thresholds. As it is, it's tax to get the ability cores.

[rabidfox]

Should rework weapon/gear/guard procs to scale off melee/ranged power, spell power, & imbue dice to go along with this too.

[Lynnabel]

That would be the correct answer, it's simple and doesn't screw around with the rest of the game balance. Of course it also means it likely won't be done.

Embodiment of Law is just 10 bane damage on everything, 20 against chaotic monsters. It's the DC T5 that makes it actually useful at 12D6 (42) law damage scaling at 200% melee power. Nerfing one of the lower DPS / higher support tree's in the name of art seems pretty mean. Of course everything here seems to be an across the board nerf to any build with scaling proc dice cause math.

Good gravy, such pessimism! I genuinely find your analysis spot-on - its why everyone is talking about the Law feat and not the Chaos one - and its not a bad idea to divorce the two sections of these mechanics entirely. Its why I am leaning towards changing the law/chaos feats into something that isn't an imbue at all, which would give us room to redesign the DC tier 5 into something equally as fun and powerful. I would only ask that you fine folks help me help you by keeping this a fun and lighthearted dialogue. If things get too spicy in here it makes it hard for me to have these discussions. There's still plenty of time for adjustments in every direction.

[droid327]

If we're going in this direction, I'd rip up the whole carpet and say death to Light spellpower.
Let Positive govern Positive Healing, Light, Good and Lawful, and Negative govern Negative Healing, Poison, Chaos and Evil.
That way the dichotomy makes sense and overall consolidates spellpowers that the affected classes would stack for their damage types anyway.

This makes good thematic sense but it still leaves ES locks out in the cold, since they'd be Positive for their light imbue but Neg for their Utterdark damage, or Force. Think they'd need a version of Utterdark that changes it to Lawful under this scheme

Also gets a little wonky with Heal vs Spellcraft too, so locks might need a change to class skills

Other than that it's nice, should keep most gear aligned since fire/light/pos is already the trifecta for divine caster gear. And it'd let healers have some offense with their pos power too.

I don't know if ignoring the comments on the Inquisitive changes is intentional or not. But there are enough of us saying it that I think you need to address it Lynnabel.

Is the nerf to Inquisitive dice intentional and if so what is the logic behind it? Please stop ignoring the people asking about it.

Thanks.

Yeah the more I see it discussed and modeled, the more inqui stands out as the gross outlier here

I think I get what they were afraid of, but I just don't see any real justification for treating them different. Inqui needs to remain as self-complete as it is already, you can't nerf it with the intention of making people make up the difference in their class tree. That's adding a huge new opportunity cost to just stay where we already are. 41 points should get you roughly what it already does, regardless what the other 27 get you.

And if, e.g., an EK wants to go 31 inqui just for the extra 7 imbue die....eh, ok, go for it. That isn't game breaking for what it costs. Someone totally selling out for imbue should have an awesome imbue, that's not a bad thing.

[Komradkillingmachine]

Howdy folks, time for a Thursday Bugfix Roundup. Stay tuned till the end of the post for some spicy stuff, but first...

Bugs Fixed (and therefore do not need further reports):

• barb frenzy now scales correctly offensively

Balance Stuff! (fun part!)

• Barbarian's Frenzy now only deals 1 damage to you on hit regardless of your dice

You cant just take away 2 Strength from Frenzy (active) and leave it like that, at the very least it needs to be rolled into Death Frenzy, so the total is unchanged 6 Strength (while active).

Barb already struggle to hit their tactics DCs even maxed out item swap for trance and fully boosted strength.

[dkyle]

Bug: OP says all Warchanter cores beyond first should give +1 imbue die, but Core 4 (Fighting Spirit) doesn't. Description is missing it, and I didn't see an additional bonus imbue die on character info upon taking it.

[Stravix]

Good gravy, such pessimism! I genuinely find your analysis spot-on - its why everyone is talking about the Law feat and not the Chaos one - and its not a bad idea to divorce the two sections of these mechanics entirely. Its why I am leaning towards changing the law/chaos feats into something that isn't an imbue at all, which would give us room to redesign the DC tier 5 into something equally as fun and powerful. I would only ask that you fine folks help me help you by keeping this a fun and lighthearted dialogue. If things get too spicy in here it makes it hard for me to have these discussions. There's still plenty of time for adjustments in every direction.

Either that or sever DC's T5 from the feat completely. I could see making the feat an imbue for those who want to make a law spellsword (make it scale with alignment spell-power), while letting the ED just have it's law themed bonus damage that scales with Melee power.

[Lotoc]

Good gravy, such pessimism! I genuinely find your analysis spot-on - its why everyone is talking about the Law feat and not the Chaos one - and its not a bad idea to divorce the two sections of these mechanics entirely. Its why I am leaning towards changing the law/chaos feats into something that isn't an imbue at all, which would give us room to redesign the DC tier 5 into something equally as fun and powerful. I would only ask that you fine folks help me help you by keeping this a fun and lighthearted dialogue. If things get too spicy in here it makes it hard for me to have these discussions. There's still plenty of time for adjustments in every direction.

An unfortunate thing around all this is that a lot of the reaction around embodiment of/law of the divine is that Law of the Divine for many is half the reason they even consider divine crusader.
Divine Crusader for the playerbase is the melee raid support tree and its main saving grace personally for the player in that destiny is Law of the Divine, it's the entire reason a paladin or a sacred fist or whatever who takes Beckon Divinity to save raids from wipes doesn't feel awful when it isn't exactly needed.
Law of the Divine is just simply such a good asset of the tree people are angry at the idea of losing it and changing this one thing about said tree isn't going to be well received unless DC gets some more personal strength on par with what would be lost (and they probably aren't going to be happy with even more shield bashy stuff.)