Weekly Dev Activities 04/14/08

[Galath_Eralion]

What about a WotA Rogue/Paladin soloist? Can we use the new Paladin enhancements in conjunction with sneak attack?

[Impaqt]

Lol... Remind me not to Cleric for you!

Seriously... Wall of Fire is not supposed to be an offensive spell. Use of wall of fire as an offensive spell should have probably been considered an exploit from the beginning. It is supposed to be a barricade... The monsters either have to stand behind it and take ranged damage, or run through it (once and only once) to get to where they want to go.

It's supposed to hurt players as well as monsters, but because of the anti-griefing thing necessary to MMOs (where nothing you do can hurt another player), it doesn't. But you are not supposed to be able to drag an Ogre back and fourth through it until it dies.

In short, I hope this works well... It will nerf the hell out of my caster, but will overall be very good for the game. And my scorching rays should still one-shot a lot of things, so I think my Sorc will still be viable.

I suppose if your Tactic is to drop the Wall and then let a Tank block for you it could be considered a nerf.... I generally Stoneskin, Blur, Displace, and Jump myslef. Drop the WoF, and drag the mobs into the wall myself...

I dont see how that could change.

[Ministry]

Weekly Development Activities
The following are items which are in development or QA testing for release in Module 7.

• NEW Paladin Smite Evil uses now regenerate at a rate of 1 every 90 seconds. New Feats
• NEW Bestow Curse is now removed on rest.
• NEW Trap boxes, upon discovery, now emit a small stream of particles for a few seconds to aid rogues and their party in finding them.

My 3 Favorite...

The change to Smite Evil is HOT... I had originally suggested and hoped for every 60 seconds... but 90 is decent... Nice work guys.

The bestow curse is so annoying at low levels and it's great that will be gone on rests... very nice.

Steam emitting from traps... I LOVE IT!!! It's funny... it's like "Traps for dummies"... Very cool.

[Westerner]

NEW Monsters will react more intelligently to being prevented from reaching their desired targets.
NEW Charmed monsters should be less indecisive about picking out enemies. Likewise, your foes will less indecisive about who they focus aggression toward when a summoned or charmed monster is near them.

Nice AI improvements and a potential game-changer.

[jkm]

would it be possible to have the +2 damage (in effect a passive seeker) on crits be considered "subtle" damage if you have subtle backstabber option on?

heck i'd have thought this was the most awesome enhancement ever if it considered all critical damage "subtle".

[Impaqt]

would it be possible to have the +2 damage (in effect a passive seeker) on crits be considered "subtle" damage if you have subtle backstabber option on?

heck i'd have thought this was the most awesome enhancement ever if it considered all critical damage "subtle".

I dont think any specific damage is considered subtle or not...


If you do enough damage ot grab agor, theres a Roll behindthe scenes. If the mob failes the Subtle backstaber check, he remains agroed on his previous target instead of moving on to you. Whether your doing 80 or 150 points of damage is academic.

What would be WAY cool is if WotA II added some stacking Subtle backstaber bonus as well....

[dameron]

you're right: i don't expect any pugs to wait for this... it's on par with fascinate there.
then again, not all groups are pugs, and we shouldn't base the usefulness of an ability on the group that's least likely to take advantage of it.

of course, that's far from the only way to use the enhancement. personally, any mob that's worth vorpaling is worth using death attack on. if you can't come up with valid ways to use this attack DURING a fight, then perhaps this isn't the enhancement for you.

I'm not saying it's useless, I'm saying it's not worth the cost. It's way overpriced for that it might be able to do against a select group of foes, if you hit on your lowest BAB attack and the mob fails their save, if you've successfully shed agro, if you've successfully stealthed.

And they also took away the +4 sneak attack damage too.

It's way overprice. Call it a "niche" product, interesting at first glance but pretty lame in the end.

[Shyver]

I dont think any specific damage is considered subtle or not...


If you do enough damage ot grab agor, theres a Roll behindthe scenes. If the mob failes the Subtle backstaber check, he remains agroed on his previous target instead of moving on to you. Whether your doing 80 or 150 points of damage is academic.

What would be WAY cool is if WotA II added some stacking Subtle backstaber bonus as well....

I always thought that the way the enhancement worked was it took whatever % you have off of your total damage in regards to aggro on the mob. So if you were doing 100 damage then at subtle backstabber 4 the Mob would think you were only doing 60 in regards to aggro. Since it was my understanding that aggro was generated by damage taken by the mob.

I don't think there is any subtle backstabber check, it just reduces the damage the mob "thinks" your doing. But even with that once you surpass the damage done by others, the mob turns aggro to you.

Always thought it was a pretty lousy enhancement line. Then again I play a dwarven strength rogue that uses stunning blow.

[Impaqt]

I always thought that the way the enhancement worked was it took whatever % you have off of your total damage in regards to aggro on the mob. So if you were doing 100 damage then at subtle backstabber 4 the Mob would think you were only doing 60 in regards to aggro. Since it was my understanding that aggro was generated by damage taken by the mob.

I don't think there is any subtle backstabber check, it just reduces the damage the mob "thinks" your doing. But even with that once you surpass the damage done by others, the mob turns aggro to you.

Always thought it was a pretty lousy enhancement line. Then again I play a dwarven strength rogue that uses stunning blow.

Hmmm.. Interesting THeory...

Would be nice to get a dev response on how subtle backstabber really works.

[Corran99]

NEW Trap boxes, upon discovery, now emit a small stream of particles for a few seconds to aid rogues and their party in finding them.

THANK YOU.

[GeneralDiomedes]

You would Stand ina Maximized, Empowered, Superior Potencied Critical Wall of Fire?

I doubt it.

I think you overestimate players, especially newbs who have never seen an enemy cast one before (I actually put the enemy AI at about the level of new players).

Now, if there was actual fire melting your skin off, of course you would move. But this is a video game.

[bobbryan2]

Re: WotA II and Stealth mode:

I don't really like this change. Not because it doesn't make sense, and not only because it's a little more inconvenient to use. I don't like this due to the lacking mechanics of stealth mode in general.

A) If you have 2 weapons and TWF, you still only get one attack on your first attack
B) The attack breaks your attack progression
C) You sneak attack at the lowest possible BAB bonus

These three things aren't true of sneaking in PnP, and really hurt this ability more than it should.

If you go ahead with these changes would you fix attacking from sneak attack damage to use your highest iterative bonus and to use both hands to attack?

[Shyver]

Hmmm.. Interesting THeory...

Would be nice to get a dev response on how subtle backstabber really works.

Yes it would be. There are a few enhancements that could be interpreted differently out there. Getting this one cleared up would be nice.

That aside, even if the enhancement works like I think it does, a stacking bonus to subtle backstabber would be nice. I mean they added the need to be "sneaking" and reduced the bonus to +2 dmg and only on a critical from the +4 on all backstabs that it was originaly.

Throw us a freakin bone.

[The_Phenx]

NEW Paladin Divine Sacrifice II:
* Benefit: Giving up some of your life force to win the battle, you empower your next blow against your foe. This attack deals an additional 7d6 Good damage to evil opponents and increases the critical multiplier of your weapon by 1

Good for pally's really good.

But once again pure class fighters seem to be getting left in the dust... we're now one of the only classes without a crit multiplier enhancement...when we are supposed to be the "weapon masters" I don't get it.

No superior twf either

Your making me pout.

[Thraxes]

UPDATED Rogue Way of the Assassin II:
Cost: 2 Action Points
Prereqs: Rogue Level 12, Rogue Way of the Assassin I, Rogue Sneak Attack Accuracy III, Rogue Sneak Attack Training III, 42 Action Points Spent
Benefit: Grants an additional +2 bonus to damage on critical hits (before multipliers), +2 bonus to Bluff, Hide, and Move Silently skills and a +1 bonus to Fortitude saves against poison. Also grants the ability to make devastating melee attacks that can kill a living target instantly on a successful sneak attack made from stealth if the target fails a Fortitude save, DC 10 + Rogue Level + Int Modifier. (15 second cool-down, can only be performed while stealth and when sneak attacking.)


Thanks DEV's for totaly nerfing this! i thought you were going to show some rogue love, i thought wrong! how am i going to tell the sorc hay i know you can just finger or PK them but if you give me 5min i can sneak up there NOT!!! or tell all the fighters to hold on i will sneak up there! NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!! so i ask what do you plan to do for rogues to put them on par with sorc's, barbs extra crit and vorpal welding fighters?

[Spell]

Weekly Development Activities
Paladin Divine Sacrifice I:

• Prereqs: Paladin level 5, Paladin Extra Smiting II, 15 Action Points spent
• Cost: 1 Action Point
• Benefit: Giving up some of your life force to win the battle, you empower your next blow against your foe. This attack deals an additional 5d6 Good damage to evil opponents and increases the critical multiplier of your weapon by 1, but costs you 10 hp and 1 sp, whether or not the attack is successful. (3 second cool down)

Ok Paladin's can boost their next attack...But where's the caster's "True Strike" spell???

[The_Phenx]

UPDATED Rogue Way of the Assassin II:
Cost: 2 Action Points

Thanks DEV's for totaly nerfing this! i thought you were going to show some rogue love, i thought wrong! how am i going to tell the sorc hay i know you can just finger or PK them but if you give me 5min i can sneak up there NOT!!! or tell all the fighters to hold on i will sneak up there! NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!! so i ask what do you plan to do for rogues to put them on par with sorc's, barbs extra crit and vorpal welding fighters?

But thats being a rouge.. your supposed to sneak up behind folks and kick their butts.

And yes tell us fighters... if you wanna go sneak around a corner and drop an orange named or a beholder in one hit.. great its about team play good sir, make your voice heard and get faster sneaking and wear 30% striders .

Oh and vorpals are lame... Dps all the way

[Rkik_Dnec]

Lol... Remind me not to Cleric for you!

Seriously... Wall of Fire is not supposed to be an offensive spell. Use of wall of fire as an offensive spell should have probably been considered an exploit from the beginning. It is supposed to be a barricade... The monsters either have to stand behind it and take ranged damage, or run through it (once and only once) to get to where they want to go.

It's supposed to hurt players as well as monsters, but because of the anti-griefing thing necessary to MMOs (where nothing you do can hurt another player), it doesn't. But you are not supposed to be able to drag an Ogre back and fourth through it until it dies.

In short, I hope this works well... It will nerf the hell out of my caster, but will overall be very good for the game. And my scorching rays should still one-shot a lot of things, so I think my Sorc will still be viable.

That's fine, as I play a cleric myself

And if I'm on my Barb, I'll be jumping over whatever's in my way to get to the darn casters that are casting the firewall. And if they are standing in the wall, well then we'll see who dies first, I guess.

[Talcyndl]

NEW A bug which prevented the player from purchasing items at a barkeep (and other vendors who do not repair) has been fixed.

Cool. I think my bug report in the Bug Hunter Lodge may have led to the fix on this one.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

He can be DPS'd just fine...... Adamantine breaks his DR. He doesnt have that many hit points.

While I agree with you on a twinked group, the same is not true for new players or an untwinked group. I certainly never saw an adamantine weapon, or even a high DPS weapon, before entering STK.

That said, yay on the devs for fixing the AI. The "stand in the door but dont swing while the caster firewalls" has always made me insane. Its DULL and the 12 ogres on the other side of the door should have a high enough int (ie >1) to bash that which is standing in the way of their killing the caster....