U57 Preview 2: Imbue Overhaul

[Azarak]

Every imbue toggle you invest points into should give one imbue dice. The reason being that many trees require that you invest in the imbue toggle before you invest in the imbue dice in the tree. When you are multi-classing this means you are forced to waste points in the initial imbue toggle because it will not stack with the toggles you have already taken elsewhere.

[Anurakh]

As this change stands after testing on Lamania and even optimizing for imbue dice,.... Running a Ranger 18/ Arti 2.... my DPS is dropping about 25%.... Law damage on Cannith is 450-1100 on Lamania it's 180-800

Deepwood stalker has zero imbue die... so with half points in it and the other in Inquisitive , even tried splashing arcane archer to get an extra 4d to get those numbers... giving up 20% temp morale bonus to doubleshot and the extra damage from killer....

I understood the initial nerf, a bit heavy handed, but I could live with a character that was at the bottom of the DPS tree, but lowering the gap even more after spending over 1000 additional hours and MONEY, to get back 10% of what was taken in the first nerf this feels like the final straw to me. Some of us want to build a character and have spent literally thousands of hours getting all of the tetris gear and raid filigrees for that particular build, to have all of those gains wiped out in one update and then set back a few more pegs is really not my idea of fun. Grinding for progression is something I will do, grinding for regression is something I won't.

yes, it is a problem that I pointed out in the first preview with the inquisitive nerf. To compensate for the number of dice lost in many builds, we have to invest in other trees where we didn't have points before, and since the number of APs we have is the same as before, we have to give up other benefits to recover what we lost. Some inquisitive builds aren't affected much, but for others it's a huge nerf. I have the same problem as you with my ranger/arti inquisitive; investing in arcane archer means I have to change my enhancements, and it's a very big nerf because I lose a lot of things to gain only the imbue damage that I already had before. And if I don't change anything, obviously the imbue law is much lower.

But I will tell you that even my pure arti inquisitive has suffered a nerf. In his case not because of the dice reduction of the imbue law, but because a single imbue does less damage than the two he had before. A disaster, another nerf for inquisitive builds. As if they weren't overnerfed anymore...

[Anurakh]

Lynnabel: Currently law/chaos feats don't have an alignment requirement, and your change makes them directly useless for neutral characters. While due the feat background the change doesn't seem bad to me, the truth is that the change is a direct nerf to our builds, and one that we have to pay for. Please give us a free alignment or feat change. Don't add to the annoyance of the nerf on top of the affront of making us pay for your nerf, please.

[Lotoc]

Lynnabel: Currently law/chaos feats don't have an alignment requirement, and your change makes them directly useless for neutral characters. While due the feat background the change doesn't seem bad to me, the truth is that the change is a direct nerf to our builds, and one that we have to pay for. Please give us a free alignment or feat change. Don't add to the annoyance of the nerf on top of the affront of making us pay for your nerf, please.

Chaos is basically a dps buff even if you don't get an imbue dice as long as you aren't doublestrike capped.
Embodiment of law is a damage loss if you aren't t5 divine crusader, aren't lawful or aren't using an imbue...
The thing is the amount of damage the feats alone give right now is pretty paltry.

[Anurakh]

Chaos is basically a dps buff even if you don't get an imbue dice as long as you aren't doublestrike capped.
Embodiment of law is a damage loss if you aren't t5 divine crusader, aren't lawful or aren't using an imbue...
The thing is the amount of damage the feats alone give right now is pretty paltry.

Feats now give a buff to neutral characters, big or small it doesn't matter, they give a buff. After this change, they will not give it. I'm not opposing the change, however. All I'm saying is if they're going to nerf them, don't make us pay for it.

I'm tired of re-specializing my toons because of the constant changes in the game, and even more tired of having to pay for it.

Also, if they want to add an alignment condition for the background of the feats, don't introduce a background mismatch by keeping the name "elemental weapons" spell or feat. They no longer increase elemental damage, so the name needs to change. Don't be hypocritical enough to sneak a nerf into a feat by background reasons and then ignore the background of other spells and feats.

[Lotoc]

Feats now give a buff to neutral characters, big or small it doesn't matter, they give a buff. After this change, they will not give it. I'm not opposing the change, however. All I'm saying is if they're going to nerf them, don't make us pay for it.

I'm tired of re-specializing my toons because of the constant changes in the game, and even more tired of having to pay for it.

Reread the feats.
Embodiment of chaos is doublestrike and doubleshot to all characters, and an extra +2 imbue dice to to chaotic
Embodiment of law is prr and mrr to all characters and an extra 2 imbue dice if lawful
It is not "nothing"

[Anurakh]

Reread the feats.
Embodiment of chaos is doublestrike and doubleshot to all characters, and an extra +2 imbue dice to to chaotic
Embodiment of law is prr and mrr to all characters and an extra 2 imbue dice if lawful
It is not "nothing"

I have read them. I have the law one, and the PRR/MRR it gives is ridiculous (+3. seriously? LOL). I don't spend a feat on it. It's a nerf, and I don't want to pay for a nerf.

[clagor]

Changes from first preview are in this green!

Feats:

• (Embodiment of Law - Destiny Feat) is now: +3 PRR and MRR. if you are lawful, you also gain +2 imbue dice
• (Embodiment of Chaos - Destiny Feat) is now: +2% doublestrike and doubleshot. If you are chaotic, you also gain +2 imbue dice

So if you like to be neutral, you get no dice at all.
These two level 28 destiny feats are in general very disappointing!

How about the following:

(Embodiment of Law - Destiny Feat) is now: +5 PRR and MRR. You also gain +1 imbue dice, if you are lawful double the dice.
(Embodiment of Chaos - Destiny Feat) is now: +3% doublestrike and doubleshot. You also gain +1 imbue dice, if you are chaotic double the dice.

[Anurakh]

So if you like to be neutral, you get no dice at all.
These two level 28 destiny feats are in general very disappointing!

How about the following:

(Embodiment of Law - Destiny Feat) is now: +5 PRR and MRR. You also gain +1 imbue dice, if you are lawful double the dice.
(Embodiment of Chaos - Destiny Feat) is now: +3% doublestrike and doubleshot. You also gain +1 imbue dice, if you are chaotic double the dice.

This would be acceptable. The nerf that they want to introduce is not acceptable, unless they give us the means to respecialize for free.

[tapster]

The spell crit on vorpal for orbs and runearms have been replaced by +1 imbue dice in Offhand Versatility in Preview 2. In Preview 1 only orbs had the +1 imbue dice and runearms still had the spell crit on vorpal. Looks like it's gone for good :/

So this sucks. Free's up a feat slot I suppose. Relegated to pointless feat now unless you have an empty offhand.

Way to kill another playstyle. I mean the opportunity risk is high as you need to be in melee range for it to proc (for SWF) and you need to spellcast in the couple of seconds it's up. If snapshotting death aura is the intent then just fix snapshotting of death aura.

Not happy. At all.

[Aelonwy]

yes, it is a problem that I pointed out in the first preview with the inquisitive nerf. To compensate for the number of dice lost in many builds, we have to invest in other trees where we didn't have points before, and since the number of APs we have is the same as before, we have to give up other benefits to recover what we lost. Some inquisitive builds aren't affected much, but for others it's a huge nerf. I have the same problem as you with my ranger/arti inquisitive; investing in arcane archer means I have to change my enhancements, and it's a very big nerf because I lose a lot of things to gain only the imbue damage that I already had before. And if I don't change anything, obviously the imbue law is much lower.

But I will tell you that even my pure arti inquisitive has suffered a nerf. In his case not because of the dice reduction of the imbue law, but because a single imbue does less damage than the two he had before. A disaster, another nerf for inquisitive builds. As if they weren't overnerfed anymore...

This^! Absolutely agreed and its absolutely sucking the fun out of the game trying to salvage characters ruined by their constant changes.

[cmecu]

I think Tiefling scoundrel should just add imbue dice rather than having it's own toggle that is limited by HP %. The damage is not good enough to warrant the limitation of HP% and it doesn't stack with resonant arms from swashbuckler meaning if your a swashbuckler it's useless.

I also think Pale Masters vampire and negative damage melee cores should scale with imbue dice, as the damage output and healing is fairly terrible.

I think you should be able to use Shadar-kai's Winter Favored with rogue Venomed Blades or Winter Favored should give some imbue dice or something. Currently since you can't uses both there's really no point in taking Winter Favored ever because it takes less points to get to venomed blade and venom blade is simply better in every way...

Its broke right now anyway. The core of Tiefling Scoundrel.. I didnt try regular teifling yet, but scoundrel doesnt do sonic damage at the appropriate time. Damage should start at 75% , but if you have bloodsong II , damage doesnt start until 50%, and if you have bloodsong III you wont see damage appear until 25% ..

I hate they even messed with Tieflings core.. It was better to have additional damage appear at 75 50 25 , 3 different numbers appear, and also they nerfed bloodsong III from 200% spell power to 100% ... playing a tiefling and also being a swashbuckler using resonart arms doing 6d6 sonic with hits, and taking fey legenary feat which added more sonic damage to hit.. I just hate it when they make changes so drastic it utterly destroys builds you enjoy playing.. turns me off to the game.

[Duckology]

The numbers were much higher than they are now, significantly more, than they are now with a single imbue. .

Just to clarify before the update if you had multiple imbues you were getting multiple sets of dice rolls so the minimum damage number was at least double for some builds triple.. what the new imbue system is going to give you. While the maximum damage may only take about a 25% hit to dps..the average dps loss is going to be more severe, looks like about 40% less dps on average base attacks.... so when the update goes live a ranger/inquisitive will lose more than I previously calculated. Even if I spend another 2000 hours and 10k shards on rerolls for mythic/reaper bonus on ranged damage increases in gear, I won't be able to get even close to the almost viable end game dps I was doing before the update.

Just an FYI for the devs, the subreddit for D&D on Reddit has 3M active users, compared to 8000 for DDO. It would be financially prudent to attract and retain a large portion of that demographic. The one constant for D&D is that the rules are very clear for character generation and development, they have not changed in the last 30 years.

[cmecu]

Every imbue toggle you invest points into should give one imbue dice. The reason being that many trees require that you invest in the imbue toggle before you invest in the imbue dice in the tree. When you are multi-classing this means you are forced to waste points in the initial imbue toggle because it will not stack with the toggles you have already taken elsewhere.

I agree. Example, Barbarian in the blood frenzy is now an imbue. I dont want to blood frenzy because of an Imbue I use else where.. but I should benefit from the imbue dice.. it should be +1 passive for all imbues.

[Ereshkigal]

Imbues homogenize the mechanics - good for the software maybe - but removes the differentiation between abilities.

Moving things to Tier 5 drastically reduces viable character build options.

Are we looking at the popularity of 5e & the excitement over dAnDdOnE and thinking about going the same path of simplification or is this all about optimizing game performance?

It seems like the devs might be considering the complexity of character building in DDO as a barrier to entry instead of a retention tool to keep the same players for decades.

I spend as much time playing with build combinations as I do playing DDO. It's what keeps me interested in the game since 2006. It feels like this is another step towards nuking variety? Meh, it's just a first impression and with transfer broken I'm not on Lamannia yet for this phase 2.

If you're reducing some of these lower tier options that can be combined during multiclassing because you know you're going to be adding more variety down the road, please let us know that intention.

Also, while I'm here, I'd like to ask again for some more Illusion spells to be added to the game. I feel like some of these spells could re-use existing mechanics for other spells, and make playing an illusionist more viable.

Lvl 2 Silence (Bard 2, Cleric 2)
Lvl 2 Mirror Image (Bard 2, Sorcerer 2, Wizard 2)
Lvl 4 Rainbow Pattern (Sorcerer 4, Wizard 4)
Lvl 4 Zone of Silence (Bard 4)
Lvl 4 Shadow Conjuration (Sorcerer 4, Wizard 4, Bard 4)
Lvl 5 Shadow Evocation (Sorcerer 5, Wizard 5, Bard 5)
Lvl 5 Greater Shadow Conjuration (Sorcerer 5, Wizard 5)
Lvl 6 Greater Shadow Evocation (Sorcerer 6, Wizard 6)
Lvl 7 Invisibility, Mass (Sorcerer 7, Wizard 7)
Lvl 8 Scintillating Pattern (Sorcerer 8, Wizard 8)
Lvl 9 Weird (Sorcerer 9, Wizard 9)

Lvl 2 Shadow Blade (Sorcerer 5, Warlock 5, Wizard 5)
Lvl 3 Phantom Steed (Wizard 3) {Yes, illusionists should have fantastical illusory mount options}
Lvl 5 Creation (Artificer 5, Sorcerer 5, Wizard 5){for stuff like spell components, or ammo, etc.}
Lvl 6 Mental Prison (Sorcerer 6, Warlock 6, Wizard 6)
Lvl 8 Illusory Dragon (Wizard 8) {sort of like a summon}

[ivorycoaster]

Its broke right now anyway. The core of Tiefling Scoundrel.. I didnt try regular teifling yet, but scoundrel doesnt do sonic damage at the appropriate time. Damage should start at 75% , but if you have bloodsong II , damage doesnt start until 50%, and if you have bloodsong III you wont see damage appear until 25% ..

I hate they even messed with Tieflings core.. It was better to have additional damage appear at 75 50 25 , 3 different numbers appear, and also they nerfed bloodsong III from 200% spell power to 100% ... playing a tiefling and also being a swashbuckler using resonart arms doing 6d6 sonic with hits, and taking fey legenary feat which added more sonic damage to hit.. I just hate it when they make changes so drastic it utterly destroys builds you enjoy playing.. turns me off to the game.

I think the best way to fix this is to return the damage to scion feats and make the tiefling/scoundrel imbues core 1, no HP dilemma (or at the very least 1d4, 1d6 at 75%, 1d8 at 50%) and add 1 dice at core 3 and core 5. As mentioned in preview 1 thread, the current change renders the cores almost useless aside from adding spellpower, making it basically another caster only buff.

The scion feats in and of themselves are losing about 40% of their damage and all the potential of adding damage versatility, making immunity an even bigger problem for anyone who can't strip. Bit of a bummer there, as immunity stripping casters already dominate the end game content. They get to just ignore a major mechanic of the game while everyone else has to deal with mobs who either don't take damage from said element, or worse, heal from it..

[Thuranel]

I've already reported these bugs and most of those already have been reported in this thread, but I figured I would repost to give more visibility to other testers:

Artificer - Battle Engineer - Thundershock Imbue - Deals 1d8/imbue dice. Tooltip says 1d6.
Ranger - Arcane Archer - Elemental Arrows tier 1 - Does not provide a bonus imbue die.
Alchemist - Vile Chemist - Poisoned Coating - Can be used at the same time as other imbues.
Wizard - Eldritch Knight - Spellsword - Can be used at the same time as other imbues.
Draconic Incarnation - Arcane spellsword - Does not appear to give its bonus imbue dice
Spell - Greater elemental weapon - Does not appear to give its bonus imbue dice
Spell - Elemental weapon - Does not appear to give its bonus dice

[misterski]

I've already reported these bugs and most of those already have been reported in this thread, but I figured I would repost to give more visibility to other testers:

Artificer - Battle Engineer - Thundershock Imbue - Deals 1d8/imbue dice. Tooltip says 1d6.
Ranger - Arcane Archer - Elemental Arrows tier 1 - Does not provide a bonus imbue die.
Alchemist - Vile Chemist - Poisoned Coating - Can be used at the same time as other imbues.
Wizard - Eldritch Knight - Spellsword - Can be used at the same time as other imbues.
Draconic Incarnation - Arcane spellsword - Does not appear to give its bonus imbue dice
Spell - Greater elemental weapon - Does not appear to give its bonus imbue dice
Spell - Elemental weapon - Does not appear to give its bonus dice

The (greater) elemental weapon bugs are display bugs according to Lynnabel. They still give the correct dice.

[Lynnabel]

I've already reported these bugs and most of those already have been reported in this thread, but I figured I would repost to give more visibility to other testers:

Artificer - Battle Engineer - Thundershock Imbue - Deals 1d8/imbue dice. Tooltip says 1d6.
Ranger - Arcane Archer - Elemental Arrows tier 1 - Does not provide a bonus imbue die.
Alchemist - Vile Chemist - Poisoned Coating - Can be used at the same time as other imbues.
Wizard - Eldritch Knight - Spellsword - Can be used at the same time as other imbues.
Draconic Incarnation - Arcane spellsword - Does not appear to give its bonus imbue dice
Spell - Greater elemental weapon - Does not appear to give its bonus imbue dice
Spell - Elemental weapon - Does not appear to give its bonus dice

All of these have been fixed! Except for the AA Tier 1, which is not meant to give any bonus Imbue Dice. Those tooltips have instead been corrected.

1. alchemist VC imbue doesnt deal any damage with (simple) ranged weaps (darts, throwing daggers)
2. damage doesnt appear to scale off anything for the dice (~ 700 posion power, 22 dice and hitting 40-50)

Both of these have been fixed as well!

yes, it is a problem that I pointed out in the first preview with the inquisitive nerf. To compensate for the number of dice lost in many builds, we have to invest in other trees where we didn't have points before, and since the number of APs we have is the same as before, we have to give up other benefits to recover what we lost. Some inquisitive builds aren't affected much, but for others it's a huge nerf. I have the same problem as you with my ranger/arti inquisitive; investing in arcane archer means I have to change my enhancements, and it's a very big nerf because I lose a lot of things to gain only the imbue damage that I already had before. And if I don't change anything, obviously the imbue law is much lower.

But I will tell you that even my pure arti inquisitive has suffered a nerf. In his case not because of the dice reduction of the imbue law, but because a single imbue does less damage than the two he had before. A disaster, another nerf for inquisitive builds. As if they weren't overnerfed anymore...

With inquisitive, even though we are adjusting the ranged power scaling of the base imbue to 200% scaling (up from 150%), I feel like I should clarify that with the Inq tree (or any other tree for that matter) we are specifically not trying to recreate the current exact numbers as they stand today. The intention is for multiple parts of your character's build to be able to group together and build each other up. That's why we're worried about setting Inq to the exact same numbers as they were before - because now, a ton of other stuff can feed into that particular section. For an overhaul that ties a bunch of disparate stuff together we need to be extra sure that individual parts are not too strong since it all interacts together. This is kind of compounded by the ranged power increase - no matter what your current ranged power is, ranged power matters 33% more than it did before by changing the scaling from 1.5 to 2.0, so gaining bonus dice means more than it did before this change.

One other thing I should mention that was brought to my attention here but I can't find a post about to quote is that certain Filigree sets are getting a slight boost - set bonuses that gave an on-hit proc and just that proc (so not the ones that also give 50 spellpower) will be raised to +2 imbue dice from +1. For notation's sake, these set bonuses are the ones that are affected: Electrocution 3, Long Shadow 3, Snake Bite 3, Beast Mantle 4, and Reverberation 2.

[droid327]

With inquisitive, even though we are adjusting the ranged power scaling of the base imbue to 200% scaling (up from 150%), I feel like I should clarify that using the Inq tree alone we are specifically not trying to recreate the current exact numbers as they stand today. The intention is for multiple parts of your character's build to be able to group together and build each other up. That's why we're worried about setting Inq to the exact same numbers as they were before - because now, a ton of other stuff can feed into that particular section.

This is bad logic. Right now, you already CAN combine Inqui synergistically with other class trees. E.g., I have an Inqui/EK right now and I get full benefit of Law on your Side alongside full benefit of Spellsword, for the AP I have invested in each.

Now that I can either run Law or Spellsword, there's no reason that the individual contributions from those two trees need to be less. Every tree should more or less contribute the same after the patch as it did before.

Yes, Spellpower scaling is better than Ranged Power scaling, even at 200%, so those Inqui die are worth more as Spellsword bonus die than they are as Law die. But you cant design Inqui with the intention that someone just uses it to boost another tree's Imbue - it has to stand alone at the same level it is now, or its a straight and undeniable nerf to Inqui, which is what everyone's been saying.

If you cant balance all the imbues relative to each other AND without nerfing them individually...then maybe you shouldn't be trying to unify all the imbues like this, maybe you just unify some of them and leave others as-is

(btw: I worry the system you're creating does over-favor Spellpower scaling imbues)