U57 Preview 1: Imbue Overhaul

[Lynnabel]

I haven't found an answer to this yet, the notes states that agility engine is 1/2/3 damage dice. Does this replace its existing enhacment of 3/6/10 doubleshot and doublestrike or just add dice to it? Its a 10% damage nerf to anyone using this enhacement if it's replacing the current live one. It's a big nerf to builds that are already struggling. I dont see artis running around with any sense of the word "overperforming" or even viable . As a matter of fact i dont ever see artis... melee or ranged.

My great crossbow build takes agility engine for the doubleshot and it straight up nerfs my double from 100 to 90. That is a 10 percent nerf to my damage. The 3d6 die wouldn't even be worth the ap to me after the change. 10.5 damage scaling with maybe the 300 spell power I could get would be like 44 damage vs the live version which just gives me 10% more damage. I would very much like to retain my doubleshot unless your internal numbers suggest that artis with repeaters/great crossbows/hand and a half weapons need a 10% nerf to damage. Thanks for reading

The doubleshot is still there.

[Xezom]

I like the idea of altering the scaling on Inquis to offset the dice change. I think the only other change I'd make would be to reset Jaded back to it's old number rather than the 1d6.

I will say this, these changes definitely make me wish I'd actually gone through and gotten my racial completionist on my main. Getting free (almost) access to AA on anything with an Imbue would be very helpful. That said, I still think EK AA need a little razzle dazzle to keep them unique as trees and not just splash masters. Particularly AA since it doesn't require multiclassing to get it's benefits where EK does. Since AA toggles still require a bow, it would definitely still limit the abusability of what ever alterations or shinies it was given. Alternately, adding something to Runebow Or Moon Bow would work too since they're T5's and not likely that anyone other than pure AA is going to take the T5 AA.


Wanted to take a quick second and say Thank you Lynn for addressing the Inquis and Law/Chaos issue with us. Know we tend to get rather... passionate here, but want to let you know that your work and responses are greatly appreciated. Like you said, impossible to respond to everything, but it's good to see and feel like we're being heard. And I'll echo, math time really helps. It helps understand the way you see it and what you realistically expect builds to look like after these kind of changes so it's easier for us to gauge the "fairness" of said expectations. I don't think 1-2 dice from other sources is unrealistic as far as an expectation considering that a lot (not all) of race trees/universals get them.

[misterski]

I haven't found an answer to this yet, the notes states that agility engine is 1/2/3 damage dice. Does this replace its existing enhacment of 3/6/10 doubleshot and doublestrike or just add dice to it? Its a 10% damage nerf to anyone using this enhacement if it's replacing the current live one. It's a big nerf to builds that are already struggling. I dont see artis running around with any sense of the word "overperforming" or even viable . As a matter of fact i dont ever see artis... melee or ranged.

My great crossbow build takes agility engine for the doubleshot and it straight up nerfs my double from 100 to 90. That is a 10 percent nerf to my damage. The 3d6 die wouldn't even be worth the ap to me after the change. 10.5 damage scaling with maybe the 300 spell power I could get would be like 44 damage vs the live version which just gives me 10% more damage. I would very much like to retain my doubleshot unless your internal numbers suggest that artis with repeaters/great crossbows/hand and a half weapons need a 10% nerf to damage. Thanks for reading

The doublstrike/doubleshot is still there.

[Lynnabel]

Wanted to take a quick second and say Thank you Lynn for addressing the Inquis and Law/Chaos issue with us. Know we tend to get rather... passionate here, but want to let you know that your work and responses are greatly appreciated. Like you said, impossible to respond to everything, but it's good to see and feel like we're being heard. And I'll echo, math time really helps. It helps understand the way you see it and what you realistically expect builds to look like after these kind of changes so it's easier for us to gauge the "fairness" of said expectations. I don't think 1-2 dice from other sources is unrealistic as far as an expectation considering that a lot (not all) of race trees/universals get them.

You're very welcome! Happy to be here and bring this system to life with you all

[Stravix]

Question on the filigree set changes.

The different "elements" used to be exclusive to each other, are they still that way?

AKA: If i get 2 piece reverb and 3 piece snake bite, will I get 2 imbue die, or will they remain exclusive and only give me 1 imbue dice?

[Argavyon]

You're going to be heartbroken to hear this but unfortunately last night I made the sad and regrettable decision to cut the feature. I know, I know, its a pretty huge loss in flavor and fun factor, and watching players blow themselves up in the Test Dojo is going to remain in my top 10 DDO team memories, but it simply had to be done. Unfortunately the self-damage feature seems to trigger the on-hit "flinch" behavior on certain combat styles (most noticeable in Claw from my end) which causes a pretty drastic reduction in the visual flow of our animation system and also made a lot of horrible noise. So it's sad to say, but the self damage will end up on the cutting room floor for now. Please send flowers and well wishes to - well, you get the joke by now :P

Honestly, I'm glad on-hit self damage goes away. I don't think a lvl 3 barbarian can handle that much self damage, even less if they're a first lifer.
I do, however, like the idea of a barbarian being able to go insane for damage, and would suggest either a reduction on AC/PRR or trading barbarian damage reduction for extra Frenzy die.

Might I also suggest giving a bit more power the Imbues of Imbue-centric trees (such as EK or AA) on their respective capstone? It'd feel somewhat off if the way to maximize EK damage wasn't to capstone on EK imo.

Overall, this seems a healthy change that gets rid of some needless complications.

- A

[Sqrlmonger]

Alrighty, brace yourselves, more math!

Inquisitive Before: max 14d8 at 150%, which means 14 * 4.5 * 1.5 = 94.5 av damage
Inquisitive Now: max 8d8 at 150%, which means 8 * 4.5 * 1.5 = 54 av damage

So, lets poke at the scaling a bit. At 200%: 8 * 4.5 * 2 = 72 av damage

This puts the break even point somewhere between 2 and 3 bonus dice:
8 * 4.5 * 2 = 72 av damage
9 * 4.5 * 2 = 81 av damage
10 * 4.5 * 2 = 90 av damage
11 * 4.5 * 2 = 99 av damage

This means that each dice is worth 9 damage, versus before where each dice was worth 6.75, so the bonus dice mean more than they did before.

First, thank you for addressing the issue directly. Full Stop. I think devs and players both suffer from our own perspectives to some extent. Players because we cannot see what devs are doing most of the day and we care a lot about these things but feel ignored when we don't see movement. Developers because while you see all the times you do respond, you cannot know all the times we poured our heart into a comment and felt ignored. So coming into any feedback discussion there is a LOT of background for most of us.

Topic:

First, I will say I think 200% scaling definitely helps a lot.

But I do want to say the topic is more complicated than presented, this is a few points on how:

From levels 1-11 law on your side does d8's to non-lawful creatures and d4's otherwise but ONLY with light/heavy crossbows, all scaling at 150% RP, but at level 12+ you have the option to change the paradigm. Here is what the full progression looks like.

• Level 1 with 3 AP invested in the tree you can get the imbue at 1d
• Level 2 for 2 AP with 5 AP Required you can get +1d
• Level 4 for 2 AP with 20 AP Required you can get +1d
• Level 12 Core for 1 AP with 20 AP Required you can get +2d
• Level 12 for 1 AP with 30 AP Required you can get +0d to effect all targets regardless of alignment, +1d but inverting it to non-chaotic taking d8s and chaotic targets taking d4s, or +2d as is.
• Level 18 Core for 1 AP with 30 AP Required you can get +3d
• Level 20 Core for 1 AP with 40 AP Required you can get +4d

Fundamentally though the problem that remains is that you recognized in the case of vile chemist that taking away their die size increases devalued the AP spent unlocking and purchasing those cores. So you replaced it with +1 imbue dice per die size increase. For inquisitive you came in and stripped out 6d of damage and left the enhancements as is otherwise.

So I think the 200% fixes the damage side of things. But I don't think it fixes the value side of things where you devalued these enhancements similar to what vile chemist saw, but did not add anything back to them.

My suggestions:

True Seeing (Core 4) - Give it 3% Dodge Bypass since you are trying to bring dodge bypass into the game and ranged already have to deal with deflect on top of every other defense. This is most acutely felt during Cove/Night Revels where tons of these dodge heavy champions make running heroics as a ranged character annoying.
Undaunted (Core 5) - I wanted to pick something defensive here and something that wouldn't overlap well with Alchemist builds so my suggestion is Defensive Roll Feat while wearing light or no armor.
Master Inquisitive (Core 6) - 100% Returning Bolts (Make this summon a bolt if its easier, this is Quality of Life) and make our "off-brand" damage against lawful (or chaotic if people went that route) do a d6 instead of d4s.

Edit: I made several edits to clean up and simplify things.

[misterski]

Master Inquisitive (Core 6) - 100% Returning Bolts (Make this summon a bolt if its easier, this is Quality of Life) and make our "off-brand" damage against lawful (or chaotic if people went that route) do a d6 instead of d4s.

They should just make conjured bolts returning like conjured arrows. No idea why they made them different in that respect.

[Avocado]

The doubleshot is still there.

Sweet, thank you for the answer and leaving the doubleshot/doublestrike.

The doublstrike/doubleshot is still there.

Thank you for checking!

I sadly do not know about the loss of doubleshot, but I would want to say that it is a 5% nerf to your damage, not 10%, as going from 2x damage to 1.9x damage is not a 10% loss.

Math isn't my strong suit so thanks for the correction. 1.9/2 is .95 or 95% of the damage.

[Sqrlmonger]

They should just make conjured bolts returning like conjured arrows. No idea why they made them different in that respect.

I'm not against this.

[Black_Ninja]

While we are in the AA tree changing the imbues, any chance we can get the Force arrows dropped from 6 AP total? There's a lot that needs polishing in the tree, but dropping the cost on that is easy low hanging fruit.

[TueNictGut]

Yep, a heartfelt "Thank you" from me too Lynnabel
Great communication and engagement!

[Terpilar]

Ok first post here, so...

About the 5 Scions Legendary feats, taking these should also grant a 3-dice base imbue of their respective element type (a new toggle) in addition to the bonus dice, then we'd have old 2d20 and new 6d6, same average damage exactly - otherwise any build currently using these feats without any other source of base imbue dice are just suddenly stuck with a much less useful feat - and there could be less poilte ways to say it :P

[ivorycoaster]

I would love to see EK and AA be able to set themselves apart from other imbue based builds by having an immunity strip built into core 5 (lvl18) or tier 5. Vile chemist can strip immunity in tier 2, yet the EK and AA both do not have this luxury still. This is a reasonable way to bring even a wizard caster into some level of relevance compared to sorcs, alchs, and druids, albeit they would still trail measurably in damage. While wizard should be known for versatility over massive numbers, they are severely lacking both in damage optimization AND immunity workaround. It is one of the great cruxes of a class that is not well represented in end game content.

I know maybe this isn't the best time or place to mention this, but I would guarantee you that warlocks would love to make the same argument, although even they have half their damage as light or force and so are not rendered quite as useless.

[Avocado]

There seems to be some weird disparity in how scaling of die is being handled. Sometimes by spell power and sometimes by melee or ranged power. It seems that you did some thinking on which builds might get more benefit out of one vs other based on the tree they are put in. M
Melee/ranged power max is significantly lower then spell power max. By maybe 3to1. All things that scale with melee/ranged power should maybe be 2x or 3x melee power scaling just so the imbues are significantly stronger for spell power stackers.

Also fighter should get like a bleed imbue. Fighters are master of weapons and tactics. And it seems flavorful to give them some bleed imbue as much it does for barbs to get chaos imbue.

[btolson]

What is still changing is the actual Law and Chaos ED Feats. We've got a pretty unique opportunity here to change them from badly-scaling small procs into something relatively unique, so...

Embodiment of Law: +2% doublestrike and doubleshot. If you are lawful, you also gain +2 imbue dice

Harbinger of Chaos: +3 PRR and MRR. if you are chaotic, you also gain +2 imbue dice

We hope very much that these feats encourage players to step out of the True Neutral experience a bit. We want to offer incentives for alignment to mean more in character building and these feats are an excellent place to try that kind of design out. You won't need to actually be the listed alignment to take the feats, just to get the imbue dice, so if you just want doublestrike or some PRR feel free to snag em as you level up.

Anyway, thank you all for your feedback so far! We can't wait to show you this and all of the other changes we're making during the next preview.

So, those are really weak options if you don't match the alignment.

Couldn't you do something like:
"If you are neutral, you gain [something idk what rn]. Instead, if you are lawful/chaotic, you also gain +2 imbue dice."
So that if you match with lawful/chaos you get a strong bonus. If you are neutral you get a medium bonus. And if you are the opposite alignment you get nothing.


And I also think they should provide an imbue. Yes it is late in progression. But maybe somebody wants to swap their sometimes-crappy cold damage imbue for an at-least-situationally-better chaos imbue. You can also solve the "late in progression" issue by decreasing the level required for the feats and scale them so they give half power at level 22 and full power at 28, or whatever.

[droid327]

I'm not against this.

I'd rather they make the capstone 99% returning on all bolts, so we can actually use non-summoned bolts in a practical way

[rabidfox]

I'd rather they make the capstone 99% returning on all bolts, so we can actually use non-summoned bolts in a practical way

I'd rather they removed the use of ammunition entirely (you can fire with no ammo at all) and used the arrow slot where it is just used for altering your damage type/bonuses (equip an arrow of human slaying and all your shots are now human slaying attacks until you swap in a different arrow to do another effect).

[TueNictGut]

Fundamentally though the problem that remains is that you recognized in the case of vile chemist that taking away their die size increases devalued the AP spent unlocking and purchasing those cores. So you replaced it with +1 imbue dice per die size increase. For inquisitive you came in and stripped out 6d of damage and left the enhancements as is otherwise.

So I think the 200% fixes the damage side of things. But I don't think it fixes the value side of things where you devalued these enhancements similar to what vile chemist saw, but did not add anything back to them.

Actualy in my opinion you get the same bang for your bucks and also the possibility to further increase your damage with imbue dice.
Taking into account that inquisitive is already the most powerful universal tree in the game, a bit of nerving would not have harmed it too much. In my opinion there is no need to give it more goodies because a constructed core devalue problem, while you get the same or nearly the same dmg as before from the tree for the same points and some new possibilities to enhance it with imbuedice.
From my point of view this is overcomplicating the changes unnecessarily.

[Yamani]

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• Scion of Arborea feat now grants +1 Imbue Dice

Chaos damage in scion of limbo could go to Imbue dice too? (maybe 4-6 since this is a random temporary buff)
Also Shadow weapons(silence of the tasty hams from night revels) to Alchemical +1 imbue dice?