Either lower the fortification for raid bosses, or...

[grodon9999]

I think it's humorous and sad that I think every one knows that the root cause of this is eSoS. I don't know what the devs thought when they were designing it. It's been Nerfed directly and by proxy, twice, and still one of the best if not the best DPS weapon in the game. Also, they could've fixed it before every self-respecting melee had one. Now it's too late and they know if they they bring eSoS down to earth the via crit range or base dmg on it, it will be pages upon pages in these forums full of complaints and not-so-friendly language. So, instead they resorted to nerfing every other melee who doesn't happen to have an eSoS (including rogues).

I still don't think the ESoS was over-powered compared to dual-khopesh. But it was very silly of Turbine to balance an entire style of play around 1 weapon instead of fixing that style. What sucks was the U9 Helplessness changes making picks complete garbage.

For what it's worth even at 80% fort Khopesh is still the best weapon for TWFing toons. Burst/blast effects still proc more and that's what keeps it there. The only build I saw in the DPS calc where the Khopesh actually goes behind at 80% fort is a Tempest Ranger using Dorf Axes if the ranger is a Dorf (and able to **** away 12 APs to make the D-axes worth using).

[Mercureal]

I know that Rogues have been traditionally treated as melee in DDO, but they're not traditionally so in PnP. I'm painfully aware that DDO != PnP, but, could it be that Turbine wants to encourage traditional PnP roles to classes? Rogues: thief/assasins <snip>

I tend to agree with Grodon that they probably don't have as coherent a plan as that. But if they do, and their recent changes are part of that plan, the aim wouldn't be to enforce a particular fantasy archetype on rogue players, it would be to reduce the number of them.

This is a combat game, with only a small amount of non-combat activity, and there simply wouldn't be enough to do with a character limited to being a sneaky burglar/trapper/scout/thief etc.

[Captain_Wizbang]

50% fort was fine and didn't marginalize any particular class to the point of uselessness.

THIS, well put Gordon

[Captain_Wizbang]

The raiding/end-game is all about DPS, rogues need to be able to contribute to this or they are pointless other than a splash-class. U11 Fortification has made them this way.

I think you are giving Turbine way too much credit regarding their long-term planning. I myself think they're making it up as they go along..

Brother man, you said it, I once again refer to the "let's try this" attitude.

[grodon9999]

This is a combat game, with only a small amount of non-combat activity, and there simply wouldn't be enough to do with a character limited to being a sneaky burglar/trapper/scout/thief etc.

Especially since you can splash and do all of that stuff just fine with 1 level of rogue.

[GentlemanAndAScholar]

I still don't think the ESoS was over-powered compared to dual-khopesh. But it was very silly of Turbine to balance an entire style of play around 1 weapon instead of fixing that style. What sucks was the U9 Helplessness changes making picks complete garbage.

For what it's worth even at 80% fort Khopesh is still the best weapon for TWFing toons. Burst/blast effects still proc more and that's what keeps it there. The only build I saw in the DPS calc where the Khopesh actually goes behind at 80% fort is a Tempest Ranger using Dorf Axes if the ranger is a Dorf (and able to **** away 12 APs to make the D-axes worth using).

While I don't agree at all that eSoS wasn't OP'd, I think the point is that whether be it weapon/style X or Y is OP'd, they nerfed weapons and style A-Z in the process because a direct nerf to X or Y would be a rather unpopular proposition.

But going back to my point, you shouldn't spread that nerf to all other classes as well (including casters), point which perhaps was not obvious in my previous posts.

[WangChi]

Fortification affects classes differently, that's the real crux of the problem.

=0% fort - rogue (esp assassin III) is absolute best DPS by a very very wide margin.
<50% fort - assassin III is still slightly best DPS by a very very narrow margin (mech/acro not so much).
>50% fort - rogue (even assassin III) starts to lose out to barbs/fighters due to their high base damage output.
>75% fort - time to take the rogue class out of your lfm, this now includes elite raids and epic raids.

Any fort % - caster dps DOES NOT CHANGE. So the real question is, if end-game raid bosses (elite/epic) are now 75%/80% fort, why bring anything but sorcs/pm's/fvs to the party?

If you want to raise the fort %, that's fine, but give the classes you are hurting better ways to reduce it. For instance, on my rogue, I took skill mastery twice instead of crippling strike or slippery mind. So why not change crippling strike so that it has a chance to proc a fort % reduction that benefits the entire group. Now, just by adding a rogue to the party (or two or three) you can keep the bosses fort % dropped to previous levels where there was melee DPS balance. If crippling strike applied a 10%-15% fort reduction for 10 seconds and could be stacked 3 times, that would be more than enough to justify bringing rogues into the group for epic and elite raids.

You spanked the rogue's hard with U11, now it's time to come in like a good parent and say, "I'm sorry for spanking you, but you know you deserved it. Here's some cookies and milk, now go back out there and play."

[Tinco]

I think it's humorous and sad that I think every one knows that the root cause of this is eSoS.

No, the root is a seemingly not existing vision of how the game should work and more importantly a lack of knowledge how it is played. The eSoS (especially in its original form) is probably just the boldest misstep that went on the servers. I completely agree with grodon here that the balancing steps taken in the last updates seem painfully random and direction-less. It pains me even more to see that stuff like the bravery streak and the artificer class are really well designed so it can't really be a lack of skill. The fort topic was even big on the Lamannia forums but what do I know.

It's not just Fort, elite/epic MA and LoB are so horribly overtuned (which is not the same as 'complex') that I want to throw up just from reading the pot-requirements. And while some people even cheer at that I call it a declaration of creative bankruptcy regarding raids. LFMs for pug-raids on Ghallanda have almost died, it's actually hard to even find one for a Reaver. eLailat and eVelah are boring beat-downs which are resource-intensive for the healers in the worst case. Rogues find themselves with sad damage and just borderline survivable in elite raids. Casters still roam free with just another easy-to-apply-impossible-to-resist DoT spell.

I love how DDO is not as polished and streamlined as other games but taking a step back and looking at the mess that overall balance is at the moment makes me sad.

I mean why do we even accept for example that casters can solo the gnolls in wizking in 1-2 minutes while a melee can not even hope to take down one pack without serious investment in consumables? It's gross and while probably within the strange spirit of the traditional dnd rules where casters rule supreme it's not a bearing concept for an MMO (and not even for a PnP).

[Meat-Head]

Fortification affects classes differently, that's the real crux of the problem.

=0% fort - rogue (esp assassin III) is absolute best DPS by a very very wide margin.
<50% fort - assassin III is still slightly best DPS by a very very narrow margin (mech/acro not so much).
>50% fort - rogue (even assassin III) starts to lose out to barbs/fighters due to their high base damage output.
>75% fort - time to take the rogue class out of your lfm, this now includes elite raids and epic raids.

Any fort % - caster dps DOES NOT CHANGE. So the real question is, if end-game raid bosses (elite/epic) are now 75%/80% fort, why bring anything but sorcs/pm's/fvs to the party?

If you want to raise the fort %, that's fine, but give the classes you are hurting better ways to reduce it. For instance, on my rogue, I took skill mastery twice instead of crippling strike or slippery mind. So why not change crippling strike so that it has a chance to proc a fort % reduction that benefits the entire group. Now, just by adding a rogue to the party (or two or three) you can keep the bosses fort % dropped to previous levels where there was melee DPS balance. If crippling strike applied a 10%-15% fort reduction for 10 seconds and could be stacked 3 times, that would be more than enough to justify bringing rogues into the group for epic and elite raids.

You spanked the rogue's hard with U11, now it's time to come in like a good parent and say, "I'm sorry for spanking you, but you know you deserved it. Here's some cookies and milk, now go back out there and play."

Pretty simple but effective idea: Give rogues the ability of reducing fort temporarily 10% and STACKED up to 3 times. Problem solved, rogues wanted. Enjoy your cookies and milk.

[brzytki]

The whole increased fort issue is really sad for rogues, considering we don't have ANY way to decrease it (i still believe opportunist doesn't affect SA, only crits). Thank God we at least have Wrack Construct line. Relying on other classes to lower fort (FvS, monk, ftr, barb) makes the whole rogue concept flawed and utterly stupid.

I don't think introducing lowering fort enhancement line would be good option. I mean we've just got new line, adding another one would mean even more tough choices for spending APs.

I guess the best option (apart from rolling back fort to 50% of course) would be splitting fort to crits and SAs or fixing opportunist and crippling strike so they both give around 15% fort reduction each. Stacking.

[WirelessJoe]

I know that Rogues have been traditionally treated as melee in DDO, but they're not traditionally so in PnP. I'm painfully aware that DDO != PnP, but, could it be that Turbine wants to encourage traditional PnP roles to classes? <b>Rogues: thief/assasins</b>, Barb/Ftr Melee tanking, Monks/Pally support DPS, rangers Ranged DPS and casters the best DPS (as it should be, btw) and bards all-around support. The problem right now is that everyone and their grandma HAS TO BE either dishing out max DPS or be healing, but there's no use for any roles in between -- which is something they might be trying to address.

The problem is that DDO doesn't allow for infinite permutations for roles, you're DPS, nuker, or healer. There's not a "thief" roll in any quest (except maybe stealthy repossession, but that's one dungeon) and no "assassin" role for end-game bosses (or even mini-bosses). So a rogue's roll has (in my case) become janitor (taking out trash) and end-boss lousy dps/scroll healer. The problem with that is, as bosses now have stupid high HP and fort, no group wants to give up a DPS spot so my rogue can spot heal with cure serious scrolls.

[Tinco]

Pretty simple but effective idea: Give rogues the ability of reducing fort temporarily 10% and STACKED up to 3 times. Problem solved, rogues wanted. Enjoy your cookies and milk.

The question is: Why even introduce contrived and complex mechanics when 50% fort was a point where melees among themselves were reasonably close? That's what I don't get. It's not like high fort makes fighting any different or even more exciting (the opposite is true). It draws out the fight length but you can achieve that without wonky side effects from just increasing the HP of a boss.

[grodon9999]

The question is: Why even introduce contrived and complex mechanics when 50% fort was a point where melees among themselves were reasonably close? That's what I don't get. It's not like high fort makes fighting any different or even more exciting (the opposite is true). It draws out the fight length but you can achieve that without wonky side effects from just increasing the HP of a boss.

There is no reason, this all situation is a poorly thought out stupid change on Turbine's part.

Just lower the forts to 50% and move on tot he next issue.

[Eladrin]

Before anyone says Shield of Condemnation (which can lower fort by 50%) or Improved Sunder, Shield of Condemnation, I'm told, lasts 20 seconds. In order to get the enemy fortification lowered by 50% percent (and the math is not well known. Does a 50% fortified mob get lowered to 0%, or 25%?), a supposedly 5% proc chance must proc five times within 20 seconds, before the timer resets. The only boss with enough attacks per second for this to be reliable is Queen Lailat, who doesn't have very high fort after the update, anyway.

This is incorrect. Every time Condemnation procs, the stack increases and the 20 second timer will restart. It's a 10% proc chance on taking damage.

A 50% fortified monster with a -50% fortification effect will be at 0% fortification.

Improved Sunder is more consistent, but elite devils have seriously high fort saves.

It has stacking fort save reduction attached to it, even on successful saves. If you're still having trouble landing it after working that stack up to -15, there are several ways to increase the save DC. (Shatter weapons, higher strength, Kensei, various Tactics enhancements.)

Shintao monks can also use Jade Strike on devil bosses to lower their fortification by 25% as well, on a failed Will save. That's a bit tougher to land though. Against non-devil bosses, the dark monks have Touch of Despair available for 25% (and Improved Sunder makes it more likely to land). Opportunist also reduces opponent fortification by 10%, but that's personal only.

50% fort was fine and didn't marginalize any particular class to the point of uselessness.

Every Pit Fiend and Horned Devil raid boss' fortification is currently 50% on normal, 65% on hard, and 80% on elite. Epic Velah's fortification is 50%. Epic Lailat's fortification is 80%. Even the Lord of Blades left his heavy fort item at home, and is sitting at 80% (even though he really should have the Improved Fort feat).

If people are working together to reduce fortification, those numbers are able to be significantly lowered or even reduced all the way to zero, and all of the physical DPS goes up.

The idea is to make sword-and-board tanking viable, or even required. That's why they raised the boss damage to 120-150 a tick, also.

There is a strong desire for tanking characters to be welcome in more difficult raids. The Lord of Blades and Master Artificer encounters were built with this in mind.

We also like things like Improved Sunder and the other active fort reducing attacks having value. Currently Condemnation is the biggest single source of potential fort reduction, but it's less reliable than the active attacks.

We want to encourage teamwork for these high end encounters when possible. It's a sacrifice for me to take Improved Sunder and use it, but it helps everyone. (Even the guy casting Disintegrate.)

Fortification affects classes differently, that's the real crux of the problem.

The increase in fight length is the part that casters have a tougher time dealing with than melee, since melee characters don't run out of gas in the same way.

The whole increased fort issue is really sad for rogues, considering we don't have ANY way to decrease it (i still believe opportunist doesn't affect SA, only crits).

Opportunist should improve sneak attack percentages on creatures that are not inherently immune to them. (Undead, elementals, etc.) At this time it does not permit sneak attacks on sneak attack immune opponents.

Edit: After doing some investigation, I can confirm that there is indeed a bug with sneak attack and opportunist. It's not always being applied correctly.

[Dolphious]

is is not just some made up blanket immunity. It's ridiculous that bosses don't have it. It makes perfect sense that they should have it.

Huh? Say what you will about the existence of heavy for, but it most certainly is "some made up blanket immunity." IMO it's the blanket immunity of the worst kind: one where anyone with a vague sense of maximization gets it ASAP.

I agree that it's very unlikely to go away on the player side - it's simply too late to fix that mistake - but why double down on a bad idea by making it standard issue on monsters also?

[altrocks]

I said this before in another thread-- split fortification for bosses into 2 parts, crits and Sneak Attacks. Leave fortification where it is for crits. That makes khopeshes, ESoS, and falchions a little less powerful, but tends to buff bastard swords, dwarven axes, greatswords, and greataxes. It also lowers the damage of Kensai III and Frenzied Berzerkers a bit.


On the other hand, put Sneak Attack fortification back where it was. That allows Rogues to still be high DPS on bosses.

One thing that worries me a bit is that with the increased fort, increased hp, new bosses that hit harder, and the new UI is that Rogues are getting hit doubly and everyone knows it. The increased fort takes away their greatest offensive ability when it counts most, They are also the most strapped for hp of any melee class. They get a d6 and no class Toughness. They also tend to be MAD so that spending more than 10 build points on Con is pretty tough. The fact that elves and drow are fairly popular choices for Rogues just makes it tougher. Warchanters and Artificers ate least get extra hp through their PrE.

So you take a class that tends to have a hard time getting high hp, increase damage in some fights making hp more valuable, give people a tool to enforce hp thresholds, and nerf that class' DPS in boss fights. I am not sure that that is a good idea.

A thousand times THIS!

At least make opportunist work with Sneak Attack. If I bypass fort with Opportunist on my rogue, I should get the SA damage as well. I don't care what kind of Fort they have, I've bypassed it with a Feat, arguably the most expensive enhancement type in the game (okay, so it's a class feat, still, the logic stands, bypassed fort is bypassed).

I love my rogue being god-like and almost on the level of casters when it comes to outright killing of mobs, but to make us almost completely useless on boss fights is just... well stupid. I can live with being stuck on trash details in ToD and other raids, but when it comes time to beat down the big boss, I feel like my Assassin is throwing pebbles at a freight train. (Same goes for my AA and any other ranged toon out there, but that's a completely different thread).

[grodon9999]

Every Pit Fiend and Horned Devil raid boss' fortification is currently 50% on normal, 65% on hard, and 80% on elite. Epic Velah's fortification is 50%. Epic Lailat's fortification is 80%. Even the Lord of Blades left his heavy fort item at home, and is sitting at 80% (even though he really should have the Improved Fort feat).

If people are working together to reduce fortification, those numbers are able to be significantly lowered or even reduced all the way to zero, and all of the physical DPS goes up.

You sure about that Velah number - that 'feels' low.

So you've pretty much confirmed we need to bring 3 people with us who can lower fortification just so a rogue isn't worthless on epic/elite. With these changes you're blatantly saying "rogues don't belong in Elite/Epic raids" and excluding an entire class is a horrible way to run a game.

Were they considered that over-powered that this needed to be done?

[Eladrin]

At least make opportunist work with Sneak Attack.

I've done some investigation, and I can confirm that there's a bug with opportunist and sneak attack.

[Tinco]

The increase in fight length is the part that casters have a tougher time dealing with than melee, since melee characters don't run out of gas in the same way.

And that's why we see three-digit pot uses in the new epic raids, right? Casters do not have a tougher time dealing with higher raid times, it's just more expensive. Ask rogues and fighters how it feels without using haste boosts or barbs without rages. Probably you should introduce boost-refilling pots in the store.

And I repeat my question: Why did you just not increase the HP? Same result without side effect amongst the melees. Fort reduction is as reliable as my 86' ford, you can't reliably keep a stack of condemnation up against standard attack speed bosses and sneak attack does not seem to work with the reliable ones. Great.

[Mercureal]

This is incorrect. Every time Condemnation procs, the stack increases and the 20 second timer will restart. It's a 10% proc chance on taking damage.

A 50% fortified monster with a -50% fortification effect will be at 0% fortification.

[Improved Sunder] has stacking fort save reduction attached to it, even on successful saves. If you're still having trouble landing it after working that stack up to -15, there are several ways to increase the save DC. (Shatter weapons, higher strength, Kensei, various Tactics enhancements.)

Shintao monks can also use Jade Strike on devil bosses to lower their fortification by 25% as well, on a failed Will save. That's a bit tougher to land though. Against non-devil bosses, the dark monks have Touch of Despair available for 25% (and Improved Sunder makes it more likely to land). Opportunist also reduces opponent fortification by 10%, but that's personal only.

Thanks for joining the conversation, Eladrin. A question though - can you comment on whether the fort-lowering options in the quoted section above are intended to reduce the Fortification for Sneak Attack too? There have been a lot of posts observing that the reductions only seem to have an affect for critical hits.