U57 Preview 2: Imbue Overhaul

[VinoeWhines]

point 2 is that due in part to the passionate feedback in this thread we're going to nudge the dice scaling for Inq a bit (moving up from 1d8 to 1d10) so you'll actually be a little stronger in heroics.

Should be a nice boost As a reminder plz keep feedback civil or we can't really have a fun discussion :P

As civil as ever, wish this was a true statement with all the passionate feedback given in regards to nudging Rogues back to what they once were, Stealthy and Assassin's(in multiple ways).

What else can I express, as well as others, to get a response from a dev in regards to the state of this class and all that was taken from it, especially in the Shadow Dancer Tree.

Just put the Caster side of the Tree back into it's true destination - Magus of the Eclipse Tree: The Force/Illusionist split, slots in perfectly(and add the +5 Force Spell Power, is all that it needs to add, since it has the same cores).

Many passionate feedback would agree(though) I secretly would of liked to have been able to cast "Weird" as well in the tree[locked out of it], it's just that we(20 viable Assassin Rogue levels) couldn't use the Tree to tier V as a Melee/Range character, in it's current state.
Unless we get back Executioner's Strike/Shot, Consume, Shadow Manipulation.....Tumble through enemies

[Nammmmmmm]

Why overcomplicating things? If they're adding dps to all playstyles thats just a horizontal shift, may as well just decrease the mobs hp by the same percentage that is guestimated to be the average percent damage increase.

Streamlining this game is not part of its fundamentals because we're able to customize so many parts of it.

This change is equivalent to reading a book without any conviction because its full of fluff.

[MrChipinator]

Lighting the Candle simply backloads the imbue damage until you reach level 20. Even then, the change of 6d10 force on crit into 6d6 (even with the + from fire) basically doesn't do anything...because fire is meh and force is great

If you never crit it's slightly better, but since Fire is an oft resisted damage element it really doesn't do anything.
Lighting the Candle will be 50% worse from level 6 (and lets be honest people you're using Elemental Bloom + Plowshares at level 7 anyway until 20 so you would be getting crits and often), where it will only see it return to average damage pre-changes

Now if Henshin Mystic had say, +dice in the T5 or each of the elemental strikes gave an additional die OR if we could be so bold, the capstone/a T5 for Henshin made all the damage Void that'd be much nicer

While I'm here I'd also like to posit that changing Incinerating Wave/Ki Bolt/Cauldron to all Void damage would also make them considerably better, but I can say confidently I won't be taking Lighting the Candle until at least level 12, as the Ki penalty removing my extra monk strikes won't make up for the reduced damage on hit from the Imbue system

Hopefully this could get changed, it's mildly annoying that this is just a straight line in damage and doesn't offer up any exciting boosts for qstaff monks
I can't even imagine how worthless this change would be on a handwraps monk who doesn't get sounding staff for the +2 ki on it at level 6 to balance it

[Artrea]

Why doesn't Scion of Elysium give my pets Imbue dice?! ????

[TueNictGut]

I like to take up the cudgels on behalf of a more balanced scaling of the Mp/Rp Imbues and especially the monk ones once more:

Monks imbues already have suboptimal damage types. And while they provide some nice flavor with ninja poison and crit dmg. they are just bad dmgwise in comparison to say assassin or Sf scaling with 200% Mp not to mention the spellpower scaling ones.
In my opinion they will at most be a nice to have sideffect but not an option to create a build around if not changed and that really is a pity.

I dont see the reasoning behind keeping the old limiting attributes of the enhancements while applying a completly different mechanic on them, which results in a much higher impact on build possibilities and class balance.
In my opinion you create a totally new context of layout design for them, in which the limiting attributes loose their sense.

Suggestions:

- all Mp/Rp imbues should scale 200% to be more comparable to spellpower imbues

- I absolutely would love the ninja posion on crit proc. to stay passive and separate fron the imbue toggle
This would allow for some very fun poison centered buildoptions with assassin or alchemist imbue.

- Either get rid of the restricting ki cost of henshin imbue or make it stronger in some way to make it worth the cost in heroics.

- The Shin tao and especially the baldly aged ninja build could use some imbue dices.
To add them to some or all of the form feats would be a nice option too ofc.


I really think that the imbue changes would have been a great opportunity to pimp up some of the aged trees like melee ninja or t5 harper and have posted some suggestions on that theme multiple times.
But i can totally understand if that is beyond the scope of this update.

All in all iam really looking forward to try some of the new buildpossibilities of the new imbue mechanic, especially in hardcore.

Thx for reading and hopefuly considering

[Shall]

I like to take up the cudgels on behalf of a more balanced scaling of the Mp/Rp Imbues and especially the monk ones once more:

Monks imbues already have suboptimal damage types. And while they provide some nice flavor with ninja poison and crit dmg. they are just bad dmgwise in comparison to say assassin or Sf scaling with 200% Mp not to mention the spellpower scaling ones.
In my opinion they will at most be a nice to have sideffect but not an option to create a build around if not changed and that really is a pity.

I dont see the reasoning behind keeping the old limiting attributes of the enhancements while applying a completly different mechanic on them, which results in a much higher impact on build possibilities and class balance.
In my opinion you create a totally new context of layout design for them, in which the limiting attributes loose their sense.

Suggestions:

- all Mp/Rp imbues should scale 200% to be more comparable to spellpower imbues

- I absolutely would love the ninja posion on crit proc. to stay passive and separate fron the imbue toggle
This would allow for some very fun poison centered buildoptions with assassin or alchemist imbue.

- Either get rid of the restricting ki cost of henshin imbue or make it stronger in some way to make it worth the cost in heroics.

- The Shin tao and especially the baldly aged ninja build could use some imbue dices.
To add them to some or all of the form feats would be a nice option too ofc.


I really think that the imbue changes would have been a great opportunity to pimp up some of the aged trees like melee ninja or t5 harper and have posted some suggestions on that theme multiple times.
But i can totally understand if that is beyond the scope of this update.

All in all iam really looking forward to try some of the new buildpossibilities of the new imbue mechanic, especially in hardcore.

Thx for reading and hopefuly considering

Agreed, I'd make the on crit ninja poison an always on passive part of the enhancement so it's compatible with the alchemist poison imbues that use spellpower. Also, I'd add a poison immunity strip to the poison darts level 12 core, if not to the ninja poison damage over time in general (so shurikens have a way to strip immunity at range when they get a crit). I realize people are hesitant about adding more bypasses, but poison damage is of such limited use without it with how much is immune to i.

I'd change lighting the candle by making it force damage on every hit, removing the ki cost, and making the elemental words line temporarily add on crit damage of their respective element so the ki cost is from maintaining that buff, kind of like sacred fist empowerment's on crit bane damage imbue has a ki cost instead of reducing ki gain

Really it seems like a lot of vital enhancements were by design spread out among the monk trees so you need to invest a little in both of your non dominant trees and restricting the wis to damage and wis trance to so high up in falconry compared to other trances sorta wrecked that. Oh well, maybe they can just add an imbue and some dice to falconry for shintaos to use (piercing damage from falcon claws?) since the tree seems close to mandatory for melee monks anyway.

[VinoeWhines]

I'd add a poison immunity strip to the poison

I third this, having poison also in Rogue is really not doing much, and with the Imbue changes it's going to be "more" of not doing much.
Point of Interest we're talking about is in end game higher difficulty.

[TueNictGut]

I third this, having poison also in Rogue is really not doing much, and with the Imbue changes it's going to be "more" of not doing much.
Point of Interest we're talking about is in end game higher difficulty.

Poison immunity strip is only in alchemist atm, but ofc d8 scaling 200% with mp is far better than ninja spys d6 with 100%

In another post i suggested to change ninja spy t5 useless crippling strike or outdated touch of detah into a poisonstrip but it got no resonance as the discussion was mainly focused around inquisistive and ninja spy is not intersting enough to the most i guess...

Edit:
I would really like the poison immunity strip on the sting of the ninja imbue itself on a vorpal or crit. al lot
Adding the steip to c4 would give a use to this useless core.

[Tilomere]

Let's look at some ballpark numbers given a reasonably-geared toon (good gear, not 12 mythic/reaper items and a MP/RP pot). Obviously could go a lot further but it's an example

At level 5, a melee is probably around:
10 Crown of Butterflies
2 Combat style
4 Remnant Tome
10 mythic/reaper random stuff
3 Dread Adversary

29 MP

Level 5 caster:
59 ML5 spellpower item
14 Spellcraft (3 airship, 8 ranks, 2 tome, +1 Int)
8 Exceptional (Autumn Winds)
4 Remnant Tome
10 mythic/reaper random stuff
6 Dire Thaumaturge

101 spellpower

2.01/1.29 = 56% more imbue damage for a spellpower-scaled imbue.

If you are talking about well geared/built mythic reaper/crowned melee, then for comparison that's lvl 1 spell power:


A level 5 caster has ~180 spell power, and let's be honest, if you are building for an imbue instead of straight AoE nuking the group for 3x their max hp non-crit in reaper mode you are doing it wrong. Sorc Fist OP.



It's a fairly safe bet that there is no imbue build in the game that will ever match AoE 1 shotting groups. The least of the balance concerns should be a sorc fist running around whacking things with a stick.

[VinoeWhines]

Another option for Rogue/Ranger/Monk would be that if you go with Poison and Immune on Crit damage, would be to, on Crit, the Poison should be more virulent and add a stack of "Bleed" poison damage.

[VinoeWhines]

That's lvl 1 spell power:


A level 5 caster has ~180 spell power, and let's be honest, if you are building for an imbue instead of straight AoE nuking the group for 3x their max hp non-crit in reaper mode you are doing it wrong. Sorc Fist OP.



It's a fairly safe bet that there is no imbue build in the game that will ever match AoE 1 shotting groups.

And this is were the devs have to look at.

1. If DPS Caster is going to be the king of AOE damage, that's fine.
2. Range should have similar Single target Range damage.
3. Melee should have fastest biggest DPS damage.
4. Assassinate isn't a Spell(deathward), if you can DPS something you should be physically able to Assassinate/physical damage a mob. Red Name/Boss excluded.

[TueNictGut]

And this is were the devs have to look at.

1. If DPS Caster is going to be the king of AOE damage, that's fine.
2. Range should have similar Single target Range damage.
3. Melee should have fastest biggest DPS damage.
4. Assassinate isn't a Spell(deathward), if you can DPS something you should be physically able to Assassinate/physical damage a mob. Red Name/Boss excluded.

I really like the suggestion to improve Assassinate.... Maybe deathward could reduce assassinatechance and only provide a partial protection this way...?
The bleed instead of poison idea is very stylish, just many things immune to poison are also immune to bleed, so its not solving anything

[Ereshkigal]

And this is were the devs have to look at.

1. If DPS Caster is going to be the king of AOE damage, that's fine.
2. Range should have similar Single target Range damage.
3. Melee should have fastest biggest DPS damage.
4. Assassinate isn't a Spell(deathward), if you can DPS something you should be physically able to Assassinate/physical damage a mob. Red Name/Boss excluded.

100% agree, though I want to add that my personal preference would be to see Range, Melee, etc., receive buffs vs. Caster AOE receiving a nerf.

[neain2008]

And this is were the devs have to look at.

1. If DPS Caster is going to be the king of AOE damage, that's fine.
2. Range should have similar Single target Range damage.
3. Melee should have fastest biggest DPS damage.
4. Assassinate isn't a Spell(deathward), if you can DPS something you should be physically able to Assassinate/physical damage a mob. Red Name/Boss excluded.

I'm just adding my voice here to let the devs know that some people don't like this idea. Damage is used when getting from 1 to 32, and if you are going to pigeonhole a style of combat into these roles then that would be far more limiting than what we have today.

1. DPS casters should be able to be AOE or single target depending on what type of spells they choose.
2. Range needs more aoe than just IPS (Improved Precise Shot) because so much of this game is now "walk down hallways and kill large packs of mobs".
3. Melee already has both single target and AoE DPS depending on the combat style
4. I don't play assassins so have no comment.

If those were how they ended up at the very end game that would be (mostly) fine, but if that was how they made leveling then the ranged characters (which are fairly rare now) would mostly cease to exist unless specifically built to be end game.

From my own playing with Caster, Ranged, and Melee it has felt that ranged needs more AOE, Melee needs to be far tankier (Thank you hit point pass), and casters are mostly in a good place for now.

[Stravix]

I'm just adding my voice here to let the devs know that some people don't like this idea. Damage is used when getting from 1 to 32, and if you are going to pigeonhole a style of combat into these roles then that would be far more limiting than what we have today.

1. DPS casters should be able to be AOE or single target depending on what type of spells they choose.
2. Range needs more aoe than just IPS (Improved Precise Shot) because so much of this game is now "walk down hallways and kill large packs of mobs".
3. Melee already has both single target and AoE DPS depending on the combat style
4. I don't play assassins so have no comment.

If those were how they ended up at the very end game that would be (mostly) fine, but if that was how they made leveling then the ranged characters (which are fairly rare now) would mostly cease to exist unless specifically built to be end game.

From my own playing with Caster, Ranged, and Melee it has felt that ranged needs more AOE, Melee needs to be far tankier (Thank you hit point pass), and casters are mostly in a good place for now.

100% agree with most of this, but one thing: "casters are mostly in a good place for now."

I would argue that spellcaster AoE is a bit overtuned and spellcaster single target damage is a bit poor atm. Are they the closest to right? Wholeheartedly, but it still needs some touching up IMO.

[Monkey_Archer]

From my own playing with Caster, Ranged, and Melee it has felt that ranged needs more AOE, Melee needs to be far tankier (Thank you hit point pass), and casters are mostly in a good place for now.

With the caveat that we desperately need a new difficulty setting that doubles or triples monster hp and adds more deathward, then I agree somewhat. Casters are in a good place right now when you consider raid level monster hp, but completely trivialize everything else.
The hp pass may be enough for some melee builds, will wait and see...
Ranged getting more AOE I'm ok with, as long as its a multi-selector ability with hunt's end. As much as people cry about the IPS nerf, its still decent AOE and infinitely better than anything TWF can get. Letting ranged keep hunts end dps and 'better than IPS' AOE would be a mistake.

[Artos_Fabril]

With the caveat that we desperately need a new difficulty setting that doubles or triples monster hp and adds more deathward, then I agree somewhat.

I don't see the benefit of increasing mob HP. All it does is drag the game out and make it less fun for everyone, and it's even worse for melee that have to stand toe-to-toe with a mob twice as long than a caster who has to throw a second AOE. Maybe it would make EKs better by proxy for their ability to AOE cleave any mobs that survive to melee range.

[ivorycoaster]

I don't see the benefit of increasing mob HP. All it does is drag the game out and make it less fun for everyone, and it's even worse for melee that have to stand toe-to-toe with a mob twice as long than a caster who has to throw a second AOE. Maybe it would make EKs better by proxy for their ability to AOE cleave any mobs that survive to melee range.

except that scaling with imbues is broken. I believe it was said that the formula is (imbue damage/resistance)x spellpower. it should be (imbue damage x spellpower)/resistances.

I could be wrong, but regardless, it feels as though imbue damage VERY quickly falls off in reapers.. I rely more on my primal mantle procs in r10 for killing mobs. that damage does not crit, has an internal cooldown. all in all, yes, the game has some balance issues right now.

it's very clear immunity stripping casters are the meta. they don't fight at touch range, they do tons of damage and they strip immunity. it's a general remedy for success in r10. that being said, I would rather see a very well thought out adjustment, or none at all, because at the end of the day it doesn't break my heart to see 1 good alch and 1 good caster win r10 while i occasionally hold and heal them XD

All joking aside, if this is true, this imbue pass will not change the viability of an EK for r10, but they are built for either hybrid casting (which will change a ton and be very good the hp pass) or boss DPS (which they are top tier.) I play hybrid so i can support an r10 group, but the boss dps is still pretty good and far, far better than a full on DC caster.

[LurkingVeteran]

To my previous response: Yes, it's possible for a build to both scale poorly in reaper and be top5 raid DPS (because people rarely run raids on reaper). These are two different things

except that scaling with imbues is broken. I believe it was said that the formula is (imbue damage/resistance)x spellpower. it should be (imbue damage x spellpower)/resistances.

I could be wrong, but regardless, it feels as though imbue damage VERY quickly falls off in reapers.. I rely more on my primal mantle procs in r10 for killing mobs. that damage does not crit, has an internal cooldown. all in all, yes, the game has some balance issues right now.

it's very clear immunity stripping casters are the meta. they don't fight at touch range, they do tons of damage and they strip immunity. it's a general remedy for success in r10. that being said, I would rather see a very well thought out adjustment, or none at all, because at the end of the day it doesn't break my heart to see 1 good alch and 1 good caster win r10 while i occasionally hold and heal them XD

All joking aside, if this is true, this imbue pass will not change the viability of an EK for r10, but they are built for either hybrid casting (which will change a ton and be very good the hp pass) or boss DPS (which they are top tier.) I play hybrid so i can support an r10 group, but the boss dps is still pretty good and far, far better than a full on DC caster.

I think the imbue reaper damage formula is (dice_damage*reaper_reduction-monster_resist)*spell_power. This means if reaper reduction brings the base dice damage close to the flat monster resistances, they do almost zero damage because spell power is applied afterwards.

[Monkey_Archer]

I don't see the benefit of increasing mob HP. All it does is drag the game out and make it less fun for everyone, and it's even worse for melee that have to stand toe-to-toe with a mob twice as long than a caster who has to throw a second AOE. Maybe it would make EKs better by proxy for their ability to AOE cleave any mobs that survive to melee range.

People who don't want a challenge have 14 other difficulty settings to chose from