New Imbue System Is No Fun

[Handsome_Potato_86]

Hi everyone!

Okay so to me it is somewhat new,
to the rest of you folks, maybe not so much...?
Anyway...

I am of course talking about the change they did
to all sorts of extra damage dice to your attacks.
Like for example Artificers would buff you with extra
elemental damage of their/your choosing, Lv.28
would give you lawful and/or chaotic damage,
and many many more sources, which you could all
stack neatly on top of eachother.

Now, i do understand the idea of cleaning things
up a bit, wanting to keep it simple...

What they ended up with though, i am not a fan of.
Let's say your class does NOT have their own imbue(s).
Fighters could still benefit from Artificer buffs & Filigrees,
but now those only give extra imbue dice. Meaning
if you don't have one to begin with, you get nothing
from it. Or in case of the aforementioned buff,
you could choose which element to get. Not anymore!

I would really love to know what their reasons
for this were, and whether or not they are planning
to tweak this new feature in future updates.

Maybe give EVERY class (at least) one imbue of their own.
And i am sure you could definitely find a fitting version.
Let's say... Fighters! Might not have much in terms of magic
going on... Maybe give them extra bleed damage?
Maybe force (because if their semi-mystical kensei tree)?
Or how about alignment base extra damage?

I mean please correct me on this if i am wrong, but like...
EVERYONE else has an imbue, no?

[droid327]

Yes, not everyone has an imbue and can benefit from imbue dice

But the buffs that became imbue buffs were pretty much negligible anyway. The extra 1d6 damage you got from e.g. Artificer was non-scaling, so it didnt really matter past very early levels at lower difficulties. Likewise Reverberation wasnt really giving significant damage for Epic play.

[rabidfox]

Let's say your class does NOT have their own imbue(s).
Fighters could still benefit from Artificer buffs
but now those only give extra imbue dice.

Deadly weapons is still the buff of choice from artificers there; heck even people with an imbue build may prefer deadly still instead of greater elemental weapons depending on their build/stats.

[mbartol]

I would really love to know what their reasons
for this were

If I recall correctly, it was to shake things up, and to streamline imbues into a single system that allows them to have a better handle on balancing diverse capabilities.

[cmecu]

Me personally I hate the imbue system. It just adds another thing to having to balance the game. They destroyed the Tiefling/Scoundrel core tree by putting imbue in it. They should left it the way it was.

[DaviMOC]

I find it fun. Another tool to play with.
Saved some abilities that was useless due to lack of scaling and made EK free from having to go too deep on the tree to keep its spell swords meaningful.
Yes some was left behind but honestly I dont miss it on my pure fighter.

I would say what the system is missing is to be present on some sort of Universal tree for the sake of accessability if its really necessary. Its not that it exists that you need to dive on it.

[Oxarhamar]

Yes, not everyone has an imbue and can benefit from imbue dice

But the buffs that became imbue buffs were pretty much negligible anyway. The extra 1d6 damage you got from e.g. Artificer was non-scaling, so it didnt really matter past very early levels at lower difficulties. Likewise Reverberation wasnt really giving significant damage for Epic play.

Incorrect

Old Elemental weapons buff was useful for everyone using Melee or Range even if it didn’t scale

Old Elemental Weapons buff allowed for the swapping of elements

Deadly is still better for Melee & Ranged in most cases

New Imbue Elemental weapons is completely useless now for any Melee or Range with no Imbue

[Oxarhamar]

I find it fun. Another tool to play with.
Saved some abilities that was useless due to lack of scaling and made EK free from having to go too deep on the tree to keep its spell swords meaningful.
Yes some was left behind but honestly I dont miss it on my pure fighter.

I would say what the system is missing is to be present on some sort of Universal tree for the sake of accessability if its really necessary. Its not that it exists that you need to dive on it.

It’s completely unbalanced with 1 dice giving way different numbers for different builds due to dice & scaling differences

[elvesunited]

If I recall correctly, it was to shake things up, and to streamline imbues into a single system that allows them to have a better handle on balancing diverse capabilities.

I'm pretty sure the point was to reduce the number of processes on each attack to reduce lag. Now we have your imbue ( if your build has one ) and whatever is directly part of or slotted on your weapon.

That ( in some cases ) this resulted in a system where you could pull off a decent imbue that was better than what you were doing before was sweetening to make the pill go down.

[DaviMOC]

It’s completely unbalanced with 1 dice giving way different numbers for different builds due to dice & scaling differences

And yet even if you build around it you wont get a unbalanced build. Its not like EKs, AAs, SFs and DAs are the new cold druids.

Few dices on a build that dosent enforce it wont change much as it dosent change on the dedicated builds either. Its just different the arrival of the system gives uneven benefits across the classes but it dosent produce unblanced builds/gameplay in the end, yet.

Balance is not equality.

[amessi1]

Me personally I hate the imbue system. It just adds another thing to having to balance the game.

it's like a painful easter egg hunt. and i'm a huge fan of gear tetris.

I'm pretty sure the point was to reduce the number of processes on each attack to reduce lag.

The more I play and read about this game, the more I'm convinced that it's not that the game developers dislike melee builds, it's that melees are harder to code for without creating lag.

So, then, if i want to build a strong single target dps character for end game raids & reaper that does not overly tax the delicate game ecosystem, what does that build look like?

[Drachmoril]

Imo it is a bummer that the old +Xd6 filigree no longer work without an existing imbue. That used to be a nice chunk of elemental damage on top of an early-epics weapon.

I wonder if they'd consider adding imbue damage to such effects if you didn't already benefit from imbue dice.

[Soulfurnace]

The last time fun was had in DDO was 2018. I was there when fun died.

But really, just... whatever? The 2d6 elemental damage never mattered on your melee. It was better than nothing, but not to an appreciable degree; being upset about it is hilarious. Instead, those imbue builds - with SCALING imbues, unlike old elemental weapons - actually benefit from the spells now.
2d6 fire damage? whatever. 2d6 fire damage scaling 200% with 300 melee power? Much better.

And if you aren't an imbue build... deadly exists.

And if you really want an imbue, but don't want to change your class or make any scary decisions, both SDK and drow have an imbue in their enhancement trees; quite a nice one, at that. SDK one is actually one of the strongest with a d12, but requires you to land sneak attacks. But if getting sneak attack is hard - what if you have agro??? - but that's okay, drow has a 1d8 imbue, gives 2 imbue dice in the tree, and doesn't require sneak attacks.

[Fnordian]

Hi everyone!
What they ended up with though, i am not a fan of.
Let's say your class does NOT have their own imbue(s).
Fighters could still benefit from Artificer buffs & Filigrees,
but now those only give extra imbue dice. Meaning
if you don't have one to begin with, you get nothing
from it. Or in case of the aforementioned buff,
you could choose which element to get. Not anymore!

Yes, this is extremely annoying. You can't even benefit from it for your Artificer him or herself until you spend 10 points in the Battle Engineer tree. Granted, you don't have to be high level to have 10 action points but you can get Elemental Weapons as soon as you reach level 3 (at which point I believe you only have 8 AP).

I have nothing against imbues per se, but reducing the usefulness of some spells and completely denying fighters from gaining their benefits isn't fun.

Maybe give EVERY class (at least) one imbue of their own.
And i am sure you could definitely find a fitting version.
Let's say... Fighters! Might not have much in terms of magic
going on... Maybe give them extra bleed damage?
Maybe force (because if their semi-mystical kensei tree)?
Or how about alignment base extra damage?

I mean please correct me on this if i am wrong, but like...
EVERYONE else has an imbue, no?

Yes, but I'd even be fine if they gave ALL characters an automatic feat at level 1 for a 0 dice imbue toggle.

[Ereshkigal]

Hi everyone!

Okay so to me it is somewhat new,
to the rest of you folks, maybe not so much...?
Anyway...

I am of course talking about the change they did
to all sorts of extra damage dice to your attacks.
Like for example Artificers would buff you with extra
elemental damage of their/your choosing, Lv.28
would give you lawful and/or chaotic damage,
and many many more sources, which you could all
stack neatly on top of eachother.

Now, i do understand the idea of cleaning things
up a bit, wanting to keep it simple...

What they ended up with though, i am not a fan of.
Let's say your class does NOT have their own imbue(s).
Fighters could still benefit from Artificer buffs & Filigrees,
but now those only give extra imbue dice. Meaning
if you don't have one to begin with, you get nothing
from it. Or in case of the aforementioned buff,
you could choose which element to get. Not anymore!

I would really love to know what their reasons
for this were, and whether or not they are planning
to tweak this new feature in future updates.

Maybe give EVERY class (at least) one imbue of their own.
And i am sure you could definitely find a fitting version.
Let's say... Fighters! Might not have much in terms of magic
going on... Maybe give them extra bleed damage?
Maybe force (because if their semi-mystical kensei tree)?
Or how about alignment base extra damage?

I mean please correct me on this if i am wrong, but like...
EVERYONE else has an imbue, no?

making it so that lots of things that each used separate calculations into 1 thing that used the same calculation - imbues - was to reduce computational load on the server and ultimately is a small part of the many things there are doing which is supposed to reduce lag.

Personally I dislike it. I haven't seen an improvement in lag, but then I never thought lag was bad enough to call a problem 99% of the time, either.

I feel like sometimes they are dumbing down a game whose only saving grace has been it's complexity of choice. It depends on how far they go with simplification and removal of the perception of choice I suppose, but if they take it too far, at some point I'll probably lose interest in the game. Hopefully I'm wrong and this will not be the case though, because I do enjoy ddo quite a lot.

[Scrag]

I only know the new system. My thoughts are that I _love_ it. I am trying to eek out some more dice from warpriest on my dark apostate; I regularly do as much, if not more damage just with the imbue as my weapon (raw, not including flaming etc etc, just straight damage). At 39 points in and t5 heresy, once curse tags something I am doing 350-450 damage per hit from imbue on cursed targets. I will at some point tr into dark apostate again, and when I do I will probably mix it with something with a better crit range capability. Probably paladin3 for greatsword and whirlwind/epic whirlwind.

In any case, I rather like it, and I like that it dovetails into other abilities I have in the tree. I also like EK imbues mixed in on my sorc which do pretty good with my spell power.

Just my 2 cents.

[Oxarhamar]

And yet even if you build around it you wont get a unbalanced build. Its not like EKs, AAs, SFs and DAs are the new cold druids.

Few dices on a build that dosent enforce it wont change much as it dosent change on the dedicated builds either. Its just different the arrival of the system gives uneven benefits across the classes but it dosent produce unblanced builds/gameplay in the end, yet.

Balance is not equality.

Indeed it does create unbalanced builds & gameplay just one dice can add 10x the damage to some builds than it adds to others the builds that get 10x the damage are already ahead in other damage

[Mamalian]

The imbue system is broken as hell. Expect it to be nerfed.

[Oxarhamar]

I only know the new system. My thoughts are that I _love_ it. I am trying to eek out some more dice from warpriest on my dark apostate; I regularly do as much, if not more damage just with the imbue as my weapon (raw, not including flaming etc etc, just straight damage). At 39 points in and t5 heresy, once curse tags something I am doing 350-450 damage per hit from imbue on cursed targets. I will at some point tr into dark apostate again, and when I do I will probably mix it with something with a better crit range capability. Probably paladin3 for greatsword and whirlwind/epic whirlwind.

In any case, I rather like it, and I like that it dovetails into other abilities I have in the tree. I also like EK imbues mixed in on my sorc which do pretty good with my spell power.

Just my 2 cents.

Yeah I’d probably be happy with it if that’s what kind of damage it produced it’s just not there for everyone

[axel15810]

Here's my main criticism -

Why not auto grant an imbue toggle to every character at level 1? This base level 1 toggle would simply allow you to benefit from imbue dice, but not grant any dice itself or any other benefits. Then devs can focus on only adding dice to the trees and remove the unnecessary layer of complexity of knowing where and when you can get a toggle and what toggles grant imbue dice and which don't.

Most players right now don't understand that you don't benefit from imbue dice unless you have a toggle that both qualifies for granting imbue dice and is toggled on. It's super confusing for most players, and unnecessarily complex.

Just give everyone a toggle as base. Or better yet, change the system so imbue dice are always applying and aren't tied to toggles at all. I don't understand why it was designed that was in the first place. If it's a balance concern, there's gotta be a better way of going about it.

If nothing else, the description in every feat/enhancement where extra imbue dice are granted should have a disclaimer in it that you don't actually get the dice unless you have a qualifying imbue toggle active. And every single toggle that grants your character the ability to benefit from imbue dice should also clearly state so in the toggle's description.