RE: Patch 1 combat improvements

[Borror0]

T-T

please dont kill haste

If you want him to not "kill Haste", I think you'll have to be more clear about what that means.

[Thrudh]

Thank you for your incredibly detailed posts!!!

Another one actually kicks the attacks per minute to 90 through 95, but would require attack speed improving effects like haste to be toned down so top end attacks per minute would end up the same as pre-patch, but it would essentially perma-partial-haste everyone. Haste itself would become less critical with this change, though.

I vote for this!

[KKDragonLord]

If you want him to not "kill Haste", I think you'll have to be more clear about what that means.

That means making haste becoming so "less critical" that its benefits dont improve enough for it to matter or even just by making its speed benefit a lot less noticeable.

Becoming tiny whirlwinds of fury for a short time is an amazing "high" and i dont think i'd enjoy losing that feeling.

[Yargore]

Another one actually kicks the attacks per minute to 90 through 95, but would require attack speed improving effects like haste to be toned down so top end attacks per minute would end up the same as pre-patch, but it would essentially perma-partial-haste everyone. Haste itself would become less critical with this change, though.

That last one tend to feel the best, as the animations are nice and fast from level one to cap, but there isn't very much feeling of attack speed progression as you level, and haste becomes somewhat less of a must-have.

That sounds like a good idea.

You would have to change tempest, zeal, capstones and haste boost too though. To get it right I guess you would have to find out how attackspeed boosts really stack, and then you could share it with us


Personally I don't see the benefit of attackspeed increase as bab rises. But then again, I never played pnp.

[Borror0]

That means making haste becoming so "less critical" that its benefits dont improve enough for it to matter or even just by making its speed benefit a lot less noticeable.

Well, the speed bonus will logically be less noticeable since he mentioned toning it down.

I'll agree I don't want to see Haste become too weak for it to matter.

Becoming tiny whirlwinds of fury for a short time is an amazing "high" and i dont think i'd enjoy losing that feeling.

If it was temporary, it could have an high bonus. However, it's fairly easy to be perma-hasted at end game the moment you have a sorcerer, a wizard or a bard in your group. Since Haste can easily be maintained through the dungeon's duration, it means that developers have to balance around it.

[Junts]

Currently you're seeing attacks per minute range from 70.38 to 82.76, with a more or less linear increase from BAB 3 through 20.

One of our potential charts shifts the range to 80 to 85, with a much shallower slope as you level. (With this chart, the primary benefits of increased BAB are essentially just the bonus to hit, since the attack speed increase is so minor.) This chart would basically set everyone that's under BAB 16 to a little bit below the equivalent of the old BAB 16 speed, and everyone at 16 or higher would be approximately the same as before the patch. Attack hooks will probably end up shifted around again some more.

Another one actually kicks the attacks per minute to 90 through 95, but would require attack speed improving effects like haste to be toned down so top end attacks per minute would end up the same as pre-patch, but it would essentially perma-partial-haste everyone. Haste itself would become less critical with this change, though.

That last one tend to feel the best, as the animations are nice and fast from level one to cap, but there isn't very much feeling of attack speed progression as you level, and haste becomes somewhat less of a must-have.

I'm just gonna say El that I generally favor the last one as long as the assorted 10% boosted speeds are largely identical to how they are now; they are really, really powerful effects, and haste is so far ahead the best buff in the game that reducing its impact somewhat will probably not remove it from that throne, but its such a critical thing right now that it creates an enormous segregation in melees in the playerbase: as lowbies, the ones who can afford 600 haste pots a day are vastly superior to newbies who cant, and at cap the ones who can afford 2-3 shroud haste clickies are vastly superior to those who cant .. that segregation is a really excessive thing.

[Vivanto]

Another one actually kicks the attacks per minute to 90 through 95, but would require attack speed improving effects like haste to be toned down so top end attacks per minute would end up the same as pre-patch, but it would essentially perma-partial-haste everyone. Haste itself would become less critical with this change, though.

I wonder how a scenario like this would affect the usefulness of melee allacrity items.

[KKDragonLord]

Well, the speed bonus will logically be less noticeable since he mentioned toning it down.

I'll agree I don't want to see Haste become too weak for it to matter.

If it was temporary, it could have an high bonus. However, it's fairly easy to be perma-hasted at end game the moment you have a sorcerer, a wizard or a bard in your group. Since Haste can easily be maintained through the dungeon's duration, it means that developers have to balance around it.

Less noticeable is different than a lot less noticeable so i think that one was pretty clear.

i would never say perma-hasted, as i usually have to spend enormous amounts of plat on haste pot even on highest level content. But, high-level play is high-level play, the place where you are supposed to be a whirlwind of fury nearly all the time.

All i am asking, is that the devs be very careful with Haste as it is very much loved by melees everywhere.

[sephiroth1084]

Currently you're seeing attacks per minute range from 70.38 to 82.76, with a more or less linear increase from BAB 3 through 20.

One of our potential charts shifts the range to 80 to 85, with a much shallower slope as you level. (With this chart, the primary benefits of increased BAB are essentially just the bonus to hit, since the attack speed increase is so minor.) This chart would basically set everyone that's under BAB 16 to a little bit below the equivalent of the old BAB 16 speed, and everyone at 16 or higher would be approximately the same as before the patch. Attack hooks will probably end up shifted around again some more.

Another one actually kicks the attacks per minute to 90 through 95, but would require attack speed improving effects like haste to be toned down so top end attacks per minute would end up the same as pre-patch, but it would essentially perma-partial-haste everyone. Haste itself would become less critical with this change, though.

That last one tend to feel the best, as the animations are nice and fast from level one to cap, but there isn't very much feeling of attack speed progression as you level, and haste becomes somewhat less of a must-have.

I would prefer the last of the changes. As it is, haste plays too important a role in the game. I'm curious, though: how big a hit would the spell take? Are we talking about knocking it from a 25% increase to a 15%? 10? 5? The amount may make the difference here.

Personally, I'd say that dropping it to something like 10%, but also giving back the bigger movement rate bonus is a better idea than simply dropping the attack speed boost. As it stands, that loss of movement speed kinda sucks.

I do like getting the full attack chain earlier! Really like seeing all those cool attacks with the Dreamspitter on my wizard (add the 1/4-staff 5th attack back in please! It was cool.).

With any reduction in the effectiveness of haste, however, I'd be a bit worried about arcane casters in the Shavarath content--a lot of the LFMs I'm seeing up lately read something like: "DPS, healer, and haster" or "just need a haster." The save DCs are so ridiculous and additional immunities are tossed in here and there, that there is little for a caster to do aside form haste (especially since GH is an auto-buff now). Sure, this is a separate issue, but reducing the need for haste may also negatively impact the need for casters as well.

[Mercules]

That last one tend to feel the best, as the animations are nice and fast from level one to cap, but there isn't very much feeling of attack speed progression as you level, and haste becomes somewhat less of a must-have.

As for Haste becoming less critical, I think that's a good think. Especially now with dungeon scaling encouraging smaller groups who may not have Haste.

Haste being less critical would be good and more fitting with the D&D concept of Haste where you gain an attack per round. I like Haste but I hate being "dependent" on it for adventuring. It is very much the drug of choice for successful adventurers.

[Aspenor]

Less noticeable is different than a lot less noticeable so i think that one was pretty clear.

i would never say perma-hasted, as i usually have to spend enormous amounts of plat on haste pot even on highest level content. But, high-level play is high-level play, the place where you are supposed to be a whirlwind of fury nearly all the time.

All i am asking, is that the devs be very careful with Haste as it is very much loved by melees everywhere.

It also gives arcanes something else to do besides cast displacement.

[Borror0]

But, high-level play is high-level play, the place where you are supposed to be a whirlwind of fury nearly all the time.

...and since we can be perma-hasted at high level, the developers have to balance around that fact.

[sephiroth1084]

I wonder how a scenario like this would affect the usefulness of melee allacrity items.

It'd be nice if the few things that aren't currently stacking with haste were changed to do so in the event that haste gets hit with the nerf bat.

[maddmatt70]

There is something wrong with the way rogues are implemented in DDO. One of the big negatives of a rogue in pnp is their mediocre base attack bonus which leads to less attacks and they can have trouble hitting mobs because they have less to-hit. This has not really been translated into ddo very well especially in a 12 person raid where rogues constantly get sneak attack damage so previous to this change the devs have weakened rogues in raids by using raid bosses and the like with varying degrees of fortification. This to me was not a very adequate solution. I was hoping that the changes to combat would make rogues more correct in DDO and the devs could have a 0 fortification raid boss. This proposed change how does this impact rogues?

[Borror0]

It'd be nice if the few things that aren't currently stacking with haste were changed to do so in the event that haste gets hit with the nerf bat.

Why is that? You think that Wind Stance should completely stack with Haste or that the collar should be a new bonus to alacrity?

[KKDragonLord]

I would prefer the last of the changes. As it is, haste plays too important a role in the game. I'm curious, though: how big a hit would the spell take? Are we talking about knocking it from a 25% increase to a 15%? 10? 5? The amount may make the difference here.

Personally, I'd say that dropping it to something like 10%, but also giving back the bigger movement rate bonus is a better idea than simply dropping the attack speed boost. As it stands, that loss of movement speed kinda sucks.

From my experience with Zeal i say that 15% is probably as low as it should get.

btw, haste in pnp is about 25% attack speed for characters with 16 bab since they get 4 iterative attacks, so 25% is actually logical.

[smatt]

I personally don't care about attacking faster as my BAB increases (in fact, I don't support any change that screws over battleclerics or battlewizards). If there simply must be a new system, the last one is the best if those are the only options.

I would just prefer the old system.

See here's where I differ.... Pure melee classes with high BABS should attack significantly faster than non-BAB specced builds. Waht you're saying is that multi-classing toons again should give up very little but gain A LOT. Bad move IMO..... Each class should have it's inhearant weaknesses, and giving lower BAB toons only a few less attacks would remove that from the game..... The difference in the number of attacks from between a BAB 20 and a BAB 19 shouldn't be all that much, but the difference between a BAB 20 and say a BAB 14 should be significant at least... More that 5 per minute for sure.....

[-Satureon-]

Guys not too low scaled the +1, +2, +3 for the animations as we have 20 level atm???^^
Looks like everybody fight with the same animations on med levels even not used divine power...

[KKDragonLord]

...and since we can be perma-hasted at high level, the developers have to balance around that fact.

yes, i never said otherwise, i am just saying that all this speed issue came from a fix. And that shows that they must be careful to not break things with their fix for the fix.

I would prefer the less noticeable increase in speed from BaB since its a new thing instead of losing the very nice speed ratio we had before the patch.

[Yargore]

See here's where I differ.... Pure melee classes with high BABS should attack significantly faster than non-BAB specced builds. Waht you're saying is that multi-classing toons again should give up very little but gain A LOT. Bad move IMO..... Each class should have it's inhearant weaknesses, and giving lower BAB toons only a few less attacks would remove that from the game..... The difference in the number of attacks from between a BAB 20 and a BAB 19 shouldn't be all that much, but the difference between a BAB 20 and say a BAB 14 should be significant at least... More that 5 per minute for sure.....

I don't think a class weakness like "being forced to use a shorterm clickies to deal good dps" makes the game more interesting.