offhand versatility nerf not sensical.

[01000010]

I dont post much anymore. I used to post stronger builds i created and found fun, they would then nerf some aspect of it slightly hurting the build but destroying many other builds that needed that aspect to barely be viable. This made me feel like an ahole, the collateral damage on others was too high and i felt partially responsible, the devs and perhaps their egos (offended by the fact that some player was using abilities in a way they hadnt considered) were primarily responsible.

Many of the nerfs were irresponsible, for example things of medium impact would be nerfed where many other things were drastically overpowered. Often things would be nerfed and the reasoning would be severely flawed or some shortcut would be applied rather than fixing the real problems. This is the case with offhand versatility.

Offhand Versatility prenerf made many different builds possibly, from tanky closeup casters weaving melee and spells to fast moving charging intermittent melee aoe burst to glass canon builds using a destiny tricks to melee at range and nuke from relative safety.

If offhand versatility was nerfed due to the fact that long duration damaging buffs or dots were critting for the entirety of their duration the correct fix wouldve been to address the fact that the spells dont roll for crits on eact tick, this would also adress the problem of super low damage on dots due to them almost always not critting for their entirety.

I cant think of any other reason to nerf it, its addition to the game went a long way toward dealing with the problem of mage survivability vs melee survivability, it offered a choice of higher damage at greater risk, it also allowed for many hybrid builds that could not work without it.

Ive seen a lot of bad nerfs over the years, this one is hard to beat. The 1.5 sec thing seems insane as well, but i assume its a bug.

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

agreed - especially considering +1 imbue dice is not even close to enough to justify offhand versatility as a feat -

not since Sony's Star Wars Galaxies have I seen such a reckless disregard player experience - 'imbue' may just be the worst change I have seen in all my time playing DDO.

[cmecu]

What do they do any more that makes sense... me personally I wish I could stand atop a hill with a megaphone shouting.. Leave the game alone..!!! Stop trying to add and change things .. get he game fixed first.. then ask us what we think is ideal for the game..
They are breaking this game more than fixing it.

[01000010]

3 players, more than 45 years.

All on same page.

[Impaqt]

3 players, more than 45 years.

All on same page.

Just shows that even though some folks proclaim doom and gloom.. veterans can still enjoy the game...

[Wizard1406]

AFAIK the imbue change is for the health of the game. Instead of multiple procs on hit - only 1 imbue, so less game calculations.

Offhand versatility was only OP for "snap shotting" death auras (and maybe other "over time" effects?). 1 imbue dice is much too low as a replacement. Please buff the feat, otherwise it is not worth taking.

[01000010]

idc about the imbue change, it really has nothing to do with this nerf. The idea of a already mediocre attack stance both offensively and defensively becoming the imbue stance is kind of funny really, hell, unnerf offhand versatility and fix the actual problem with spell crit/ non crit repeats and leave the imbue **** just for laughs.

[Xgya]

Please buff the feat, otherwise it is not worth taking.

There's a LOT of feats that would merit a relooking at. LONG before this one.

They just essentially gave every melee combat feat the benefit of Toughness. A spellcaster will gain more HP from taking Two-weapon fighting than they would the feat whose sole purpose is giving people more hit points.

Skill feats remain untouched by anyone worth their salt.

At worst, this makes Offhand Versatility taken about as often as Snake Blood (it won't - the feat might not be worth MUCH, but it's worth something to a build that's not feat-starved).

Fingers crossed for an upcoming feat rework? THEN, we can talk about whether Offhand Versatility is at least worth as much as every other option on board.

[01000010]

There's a LOT of feats that would merit a relooking at. LONG before this one.

They just essentially gave every melee combat feat the benefit of Toughness. A spellcaster will gain more HP from taking Two-weapon fighting than they would the feat whose sole purpose is giving people more hit points.

Skill feats remain untouched by anyone worth their salt.

At worst, this makes Offhand Versatility taken about as often as Snake Blood (it won't - the feat might not be worth MUCH, but it's worth something to a build that's not feat-starved).

Fingers crossed for an upcoming feat rework? THEN, we can talk about whether Offhand Versatility is at least worth as much as every other option on board.

Idc about the another feat being useless even, just so happens that this feat enabled an entire playstyle, and that was its original intended purpose, when they realised it was too strong because of how they designed the spell crit system for duration spells rather than fix this system they destroyed the playstyle, so "at worse" they are destroying a playstyle and many builds and possibly driving people from the game with this sillyness.

Ive been here 15 years, but all of the players i used to play with quit due to thoughtless nerfs like this, all of them.

[kmoustakas]

I believe this nerf shows how disconnected the developers are from the game and the vast disparity between "good" players and "casual" players.

On one hand, you have the "solo r10 ez" and on the other hand you have "elite is too hard but I don't want to run hard"

[tapster]

As said in the Lamannia imbue thread...

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.

...and roundly ignored. Just fix snap shotting if it's that game breaking. All that'll happen now is it takes 2-3 casts to snapshot a DA crit. Just like it always was.

[Dilbon]

How often is the feat used with nothing offhand then? Nothing changed there.

Now that I think about it this change might make my SWF bardbarian use an orb. Previously the feat provided no offensive buffs with orbs, just crit heals, but now it might be worth it.

[01000010]

How often is the feat used with nothing offhand then? Nothing changed there.

Now that I think about it this change might make my SWF bardbarian use an orb. Previously the feat provided no offensive buffs with orbs, just crit heals, but now it might be worth it.

The only build i can imagine using this now would be a build devoted to extremely fast swf aoe attacks, but then that wouldnt work right now with that 1.5 second timer bs going on i guess, bardbarian or artificer/fighter cleave build, maybe some hand and a half weapon users(bastard sword and dwarven axe). On a bardbarian id consider adding runearm with 2-4 arti lvls, but thats a tough call since 6 fighter(multiplier for certain weapons swashbuckled) adds a lot to that build if you can fit it in.

Regardless it a tough call because empty offhand adds a lot of dps that multiplies on crits, bread and butter for those builds.

And this is the problem in a nutshell, there are now just a handful of build that would use swf as their optimal attack type let alone swf with orb or runearm, last week i couldve come up with 50+, no joke.

This isnt changed back(fixed right) ill wont be paying them monthly anymore, thats for certain, have a son that mainly plays because i do, he spends his money a lot more loosely for ddo than i, lol.

Its been a while since a nerf was so aggressively ignorant that its hit my motivation to play and experiment so badly.

[Bjond]

takes 2-3 casts to snapshot a DA crit. Just like it always was.

Yep. As pointed out in Lam threads. I never took OH.Versatile simply because I could snap a crit L/DA already. Almost never need to spend time doing it, but now and then there's a fight where making sure it's a crit helps.

devoted to extremely fast swf aoe attacks, but then that wouldnt work right now with that 1.5 second timer bs

Heh, uh, SWF builds mostly have no AE unless they chase 'em down deliberately; eg. SDK chains, FB S.Cleave, or maybe WWA. Regular Cleave and G.Cleave have been broken for at least the past 6 months. Use one and it looks like it's ignored, but the button will grey and CD timer start. Eventually .. often AFTER the button comes back .. the damage will hit the pack. It's so delayed that I'll get 2~4 kills before the cleave will register.

I don't know about FB's S.Cleave or WWA; I've not tested those two. SDK chains are very nice, though.

[01000010]

Yep. As pointed out in Lam threads. I never took OH.Versatile simply because I could snap a crit L/DA already. Almost never need to spend time doing it, but now and then there's a fight where making sure it's a crit helps.



Heh, uh, SWF builds mostly have no AE unless they chase 'em down deliberately; eg. SDK chains, FB S.Cleave, or maybe WWA. Regular Cleave and G.Cleave have been broken for at least the past 6 months. Use one and it looks like it's ignored, but the button will grey and CD timer start. Eventually .. often AFTER the button comes back .. the damage will hit the pack. It's so delayed that I'll get 2~4 kills before the cleave will register.

I don't know about FB's S.Cleave or WWA; I've not tested those two. SDK chains are very nice, though.

Aoe attacks are a bit faster while swf, most at least, can chain them decently or at least you could before last patch. There are also a few ways to get decent strike through while swf with bastard swords and dwarven axes,. Yeah I've noticed some cleave problems,. I was able to workaround by changing order and adding other special attacks in between usually. Wasn't saying any of this is ideal, just that the handful of builds most advantaged by the dumb changes to ov
were by of these types.

[capsela]

I was just coming back to the game after a few years off. Excited to try this new feat then it was nerfed as I was building my new character. Now, I'm thinking about not coming back at all.

[Uska]

3 players, more than 45 years.

All on same page.

add another 16 just for fun

[01000010]

add another 16 just for fun

Lol, ill bet if there were a real tally there would be 100s of years of opposition to this shortcut nerf, may as well define a new phrase.

Shortcut Nerf: The act of destroying an aspect of a game overperforming due to a bug rather than addressing the bug itself.

Shortcut nerfs often lead to nerf-denial, dev doubling down and lots of misinformation(tm).

[misterski]

Lol, ill bet if there were a real tally there would be 100s of years of opposition to this shortcut nerf, may as well define a new phrase.

Shortcut Nerf: The act of destroying an aspect of a game overperforming due to a bug rather than addressing the bug itself.

Shortcut nerfs often lead to nerf-denial, dev doubling down and lots of misinformation(tm).

The worst part about the change is that there was no real discussion on it, it was a stealth change. The only thing the preview notes had on it was the addition of imbue dice to the feat, no mention of the loss of the spell crit on vorpal ability. It took players checking the feat on Lammania to discover the change. And then nothing from the devs when it was asked about.

[01000010]

I was just coming back to the game after a few years off. Excited to try this new feat then it was nerfed as I was building my new character. Now, I'm thinking about not coming back at all.

It was fun, some casters were actually going inside vs groups, high risk for high reward for sure. Some melees used it as well, didnt need to gear for spell crit chance, was great with thorns from primal for melee, temp health and some damage. SWF isnt the best damage meleewise, but the VERSATILITY made it a valid option. All they had to do was fix multicrit/nocrit dot bug.