Let's Talk: Enhancements!

[dkyle]

Question if anyone figured this out regarding splashing . . .

Would a 1 or 2 levels of rogue toon be able to take haste boost 1 or would that be locked out?

would a two splash be able to get that one stat-point?

You would have to swap one of your primary class's trees out for the Rogue tree (most likely Acrobat) to pick it up. I have serious doubts that swapping out a level 18 or 19 deep tree will ever be worth what you get from a level 1 or 2 deep tree.

I did an example earlier with my Bard. Thanks to her two splashes, she actually pulls from enhancements that are likely to be split into 8 different trees. Given that she has to take the Warchanter tree, she's probably going to want to keep the Virtuoso tree (for song enhancements), and I'd be daft to forgo a Racial PrE, those splash enhancements aren't even worth considering.

[Niab]

I hate being forced to take useless AP .

Sometimes there are none you want or need listed because of prereqs but you still need to spend points on "something".

[grodon9999]

You would have to swap one of your primary class's trees out for the Rogue tree (most likely Acrobat) to pick it up. I have serious doubts that swapping out a level 18 or 19 deep tree will ever be worth what you get from a level 1 or 2 deep tree.

Haste Boost 1 on a class without this boost is THAT GOOD.

it's silly that all ENH of a class need to be tied to a PRE, I hope that's not what we see when this goes live.

[dkyle]

it's silly that all ENH of a class need to be tied to a PRE, I hope that's not what we see when this goes live.

To be honest, I don't mind it, in and of itself. We just need to get past the current notion of a PrE as a very specific specialization, and look at them as broad aspects representative of what the class is about. PrEs have never really been "special", because everyone takes them, anyway.

The real reason the lack of general class trees is a problem is the three-tree limit, and that limit is downright disastrous for deep multiclasses. Get rid of it for their sake, and splashes get their handfuls of enhancements back as well.

[grodon9999]

The real reason the lack of general class trees is a problem is the three-tree limit, and that limit is downright disastrous for deep multiclasses. Get rid of it for their sake, and splashes get their handfuls of enhancements back as well.

So say you were a horc fighter 12/ranger 6/rogue 2 (note very hypothetical as my guildie has one of these . . .)

Tree 1: Kensai II
Tree 2: Tempest I
Treer 3: Ravager III (racial)

Assuming you have all the APs . . . you can do this? just won't be able to put any APs into any of his rogue stuff?

[honkuimushi]

That was the one I remembered - and leading to all the stacking worries.

Taking class toughness, or intim, or int, or spell dc - should absolutely lock it from any other class duplicate enhancements.

No stacking. For the love of Eberron, please no more stacking.

I'm a bit worried about this as well, but there are ways to make it work. The key is to make it so that a character like a Fighter / Barbarian gets only as many Toughness enhancements as a Pure Fighter or a Pure Barbarian. This might be done by a single line that appears in multiple tabs or perhaps spreading the enhancements throughout all 20 levels. So taking 12 Fighter levels gives you acess to 3/5 (or whatever) Toughness enhancements and level 8 Barbarian gives you 2/5. A level 20 Barbarian or level 20 Fighter would both get 5 enhancements in their tab.


Ability scores would seem to be tougher. I remember the old system where a 10th level Rogue could get +2 or 3 to Dex and a 10th level Ranger could get +2 or 3 to Dex, but a level 6 Ranger/ 4 Rogue character would be limited to +1 Dex. (Though I doubt I'm remembering the numbers correctly. ) It's not as bad now and the ability lines are less powerful, but characters that have 2 classes with the same granted stat can only take one line and that slows their advancement in that line. Making it so that your combined levels count for unlocking stat modifiers would be a nice boost to multiclassed characters. The trick would be in coding this and finding the right place for these enhancements.

[Cyr]

So say you were a horc fighter 12/ranger 6/rogue 2 (note very hypothetical as my guildie has one of these . . .)

Tree 1: Kensai II
Tree 2: Tempest I
Treer 3: Ravager III (racial)

Assuming you have all the APs . . . you can do this? just won't be able to put any APs into any of his rogue stuff?

Yes, assuming that the racial cost to get ravager unlocked is 20 AP or less (can't imagine it is that expensive).

[Avidus]

The locking of three total trees is a bit disappointing to me...

I was hoping for 1 racial tree, 1 Class tree with a dropdown selection for multiclass characters and the last tree being for all the PrE's selectable via dropdown. This way you only see 3 trees at a time but could potentially have access to 13 trees on a 3 class build (1 race, 3 class and 9 PrE). This way splashes still can get the benefit of the class without locking in a tree.

The 3 tree total limit seems like 18/2 or pure is the way to go for racial tree plus main PrE plus splash. I guess we'll really have to wait and see but it is becoming more and more like Underwater Combat is coming! and Half-elves are our most beautiful race yet! Without more details this is the way I feel about the upcoming change now.

Lets temper the excitement over finally finishing the PrE's and cleaning up the enhancement UI with all of the things that we might not like about this new system. Will three steps forwards for 2 (or more) steps back be acceptable?

Caution and patience must be counseled here.

[Riggs]

More thoughts about divorcing class from the prestige lines.

Make a different, and more appropriate set of prerequisites for each pre line. Skills for skill heavy classes like rogue, feats for melee pre lines, and metamagics or casting levels for arcane/divines. For example;

Assassin 3 - requires 12 ranks in hide/move silent (making it impossible for a non-rogue to get as cross class), plus say 5d6 sneak damage.

How could a halfling get this? Make certain skills class skills for racial favored skills.

So halflings get sneak, jump, tumble, balance as class skills regardless of class. Halflings get sneak damage - each tier would count as 1d6 for a prerequisite.

So a rogue could qualify as Assassin without spending AP on these things, or a Halfling could as a different class if they spent a bunch of AP on sneak/sneak damage.

Or as a human fighter - say humans can choose any 3 skills (not umd) as class skills, but they dont get sneak - so a human would have to take at least 9 levels of rogue, and the skills, to get the line - but they would not need 18 levels of rogue as would be now - so they could be a 9 rogue/11 ftr or 9/11 wiz, or 9/11 cleric if they wanted. There is no reason why a part wizard or cleric should not be able to try assassinating should there?

Acrobat 3 same thing, requirement 12 ranks in jump, tumble, balance - easy for a rogue, hard for anyone else.

Each pre would/should have a set of prerequisites that make it easy for the main class to get it, and possible, but harder and costlier - for a different class or multiclass to take it.

Kensai 3 - need say 4 feats, weapon focus/specialization, greater both, and a bab of (12-15). Easy for a fighter to take, much harder for any other class, except maybe monk.

However there is also no reason logically for the old pnp 'fighters only can take weapon specialization' - that is old thinking for an old balance that no longer exists - esp not in DDO. There is no reason why a wizard that blows 4 feats cannot be better with a sword than a wizard that focuses on being a wizard. No one in their right mind is going to argue a wizard with +2 to hit and +4 damage is an OP melee.

For casting classes, it makes more sense to stay pure - there is no way around an Archmage needing to be able to cast level 9 arcane spells, and be a wizard - as it is the antithesis of the lack of versatility a Sorc has. So archmage needs 18 wiz levels...no way around it.

But say there are three lines, make 1 casting pre class specific, the other two possible for another class to take. So you could have a Sorcerer PM - it just takes at least 3 feats say, so much harder to give up other feats on a feat starved class, but easy for a wiz.

Likewise, make one sorc line - like dragonblood, sorc specific, but why not an earth savant wizard?

For barbs, and rangers, given the lack of outdoor skills - a min level 6 in the class seems reasonable - but 18 levels of any melee pre really should not require pure classes. Or at most 12 levels. A fighter 12/6/2 or 12/8 anything else should be able to qualify for Kensai or SD 3. 12 barb/8 whatever could still be a FB or Ravager.

Divine lines would follow the same pattern as arcanes. One pure, two possible to mix from other classes. Warpriest would be the perfect example of not needing 18 cleric levels to qualify for tier 3.

The other bonus from this would be the concept of racial class skills - opening up more options even without going into pre lines. A sneaky halfling cleric, a dwarf with search and spot and disable device - and no rogue levels, humans pick any 3 etc.

People would probably like this option better than simply having 3 pure class pre lines I think.

[Cyr]

Yeah, I'm especially concerned about Divines. Currently, Clerics and FvS can be top-of-the-line Raid healers with very little build focus on it. If all the healing enhancements get shunted into a single Tree, then in order to be good healers, they'll have to spend one of their tree picks on that tree. And if Healing Racial PrEs are available, there'll be a lot of pressure to drop a non-Healing-focused Class PrE to pick it up. We could quickly reach the point of "healbot or GTFO" for Clerics and FvS in the highest level Raids. Not just "you'll play like a healbot for the tank during this Raid", but "you must be built as a healbot, so get used to that role at all times".

I am thinking more along the lines of what happened when the toughness enhancements were released...every toon suddenly got a large percentage increase in their hit points, but in this case only on the specialist toons.

Imagine toughness enhancements (with a flat cost because Eladrin likes flat costs) across three PrE trees and a racial tree with 2-4 steps in each tree (to match current game) with all of them stacking. That would be alot of extra hit points for our tank toons without even thinking about stacking con enhancements or defender stances.

The power creep potential here is just enormous and really comes in a manner which could lead to even more refined toons having much larger comparative stats then others (hit points/dr/dps/dcs/spell damage/....)

[Gulain]

Yeah, I'm especially concerned about Divines. Currently, Clerics and FvS can be top-of-the-line Raid healers with very little build focus on it. If all the healing enhancements get shunted into a single Tree, then in order to be good healers, they'll have to spend one of their tree picks on that tree. And if Healing Racial PrEs are available, there'll be a lot of pressure to drop a non-Healing-focused Class PrE to pick it up. We could quickly reach the point of "healbot or GTFO" for Clerics and FvS in the highest level Raids. Not just "you'll play like a healbot for the tank during this Raid", but "you must be built as a healbot, so get used to that role at all times".

I can see that you would be concerned about the "healbot or GTFO" however I don't see why all FvS and Clerics wouldn't be able to take the full heal line + another full prestige line that lets them play in their own style?

In your own words in a previous post a pure (or 18/2) should be able to get:
Tier3 + Tier3 + Tier1
or
Tier3 + Tier2 + Tier2.

So Full Heal + Offensive style of choice + minor points in other type for first situation. Or Full Heal + Moderate Boosts to both other play styles
Or Full Boost to other playstyle, moderate heal boost, moderate other playstyle boost (similar to what you see out of AoV FvS now).

Any healer with less than 18/2 already pays for their versatility now in their healing output/selection as it is (all the Clonks out there) so I don't see a status quo change there. If anything FvS and Clerics are getting more opportunity to play they want to now while still having the solid healing required for endgame.

edit: As opposed to making another post with my viewpoint on this entire thread I'll just append it here...

I'm very excited to hear about the plans for all of this, and while I believe that there will still be weak links among all the classes I really think that the flushed out PREs will lead to much more playstyle choices for EVERY class. We'll have to wait and see where things stand and it is a near certainty that some current builds will be broken. However, all in all it should be a rather positive change that will address some major concerns this community has had for years.

I do generally think that 12/6/2 builds will fall off a little bit from where they are now. As others have pointed out there will be a limit to the total PRE tiers that they can get now compared to full pure builds of a class. However, I find that an acceptable cost considering that generally deep multiclasses are also getting major class features added in as well in doing so. Bonus feats, evasion, sneak attack dice, class skills are all still major reasons for these deeper splits. Being able to take advantage of multiple new racial PREs also really helps flush them out and will make these builds still extremely viable (if no longer necessarily the go-to builds that some of them are now).

These splits will generally still be best on classes that generally have trees that have very different purposes that a character may not be designed to exploit. Instead they can multi-class to other classes to absorb more major benefits. {specifically talking about tempest rangers, fighters, paladins}.

[dkyle]

I had CC'd Eladrin on my PM to MadFloyd yesterday, and I just got this back, with some interesting new info:

#1 is what we're currently looking at. 1 Racial tree, 3 Selectable trees. There are various ways to add trees to your list of selectable ones. (Take a level in a class being the easiest one, the racial unlock being another, and with this system we've got the tech to theoretically do things like favor or feat based unlocks as well.)

Now, I wouldn't read too much into the theoretical tech. I'm sure there are lots of theoretically possible things in the game that aren't used. But the notion of a favor-based PrE is... interesting. I'm not sure how to feel about that. I think my instinct is that granting a PrE competitive with Racial/Class PrEs would be way too much for a favor reward, and that if it isn't competitive, it'll just be a waste of dev time to put in.

EDIT: for reference, here is the "#1" option I sent him:

1. A Racial tree, plus 3 Class PrEs, one of which might be swapped out for the Racial PrE purchased by AP on the Racial tree.

[Riggs]

Yeah, I'm especially concerned about Divines. Currently, Clerics and FvS can be top-of-the-line Raid healers with very little build focus on it. If all the healing enhancements get shunted into a single Tree, then in order to be good healers, they'll have to spend one of their tree picks on that tree. And if Healing Racial PrEs are available, there'll be a lot of pressure to drop a non-Healing-focused Class PrE to pick it up. We could quickly reach the point of "healbot or GTFO" for Clerics and FvS in the highest level Raids. Not just "you'll play like a healbot for the tank during this Raid", but "you must be built as a healbot, so get used to that role at all times".

That is a huge argument for the idea that lines not be restricted to one prestige tree.

Healing would be/should be one of the 'general' cleric enhancements - and qualify for any or all of the three theoretical possibilities. Otherwise - yeah builds become way more cookie cutter - and in the case of clerics - super limited.

[dkyle]

I can see that you would be concerned about the "healbot or GTFO" however I don't see why all FvS and Clerics wouldn't be able to take the full heal line + another full prestige line that lets them play in their own style?

In your own words in a previous post a pure (or 18/2) should be able to get:
Tier3 + Tier3 + Tier1
or
Tier3 + Tier2 + Tier2.

So Full Heal + Offensive style of choice + minor points in other type for first situation. Or Full Heal + Moderate Boosts to both other play styles
Or Full Boost to other playstyle, moderate heal boost, moderate other playstyle boost (similar to what you see out of AoV FvS now).

But if we can stack together Healing PrEs, then the "Healbot" with two, or even three, healing PrEs becomes much better at healing than than the Melee/offensive-casting-focused Divine. Whereas currently, Healbots gain very little healing power over more well-rounded builds.

[Riggs]

Yes, I am for one such update. That's my point.
U13 in 2 months

- bugfixes only,
- undone enhancements and prestiges only.

Period. And after that watch the Hears of wood sales go over the top.

Ok this will be my last response to any more gibberish you say.

You are replying to posts - and not even reading them. You have zero idea what timelines Turbine operates on, despite Turbine telling everyone what they are, and despite it being posted in here.

Obtuse by design, or obtuse by ability - you are not making a single rational point because you choose not to read what other people write - including Turbine.
/squelch on

[dkyle]

So say you were a horc fighter 12/ranger 6/rogue 2 (note very hypothetical as my guildie has one of these . . .)

Tree 1: Kensai II
Tree 2: Tempest I
Treer 3: Ravager III (racial)

Assuming you have all the APs . . . you can do this? just won't be able to put any APs into any of his rogue stuff?

Yes, that build would work.

But, it's competing against a Drow (or maybe Human/Half-elf) pure Barbarian TempestIII/FBIII/RavagerI.

[grodon9999]

Wait a tic . . . so it's racial tree and up to three class based trees?

[Razcar]

Wait a tic . . . so it's racial tree and up to three class based trees?

No, racial (if picked) replaces one of the three class trees. Edit: Sorry, PrE, not tree.

[dkyle]

Wait a tic . . . so it's racial tree and up to three class based trees?

Racial tree, which is not the Racial PrE tree, plus three class-based trees, one of which could be your Racial PrE tree.

The Racial tree is where you purchase your Racial PrE (so that you can swap a class tree for it), or other general racial enhancements (like Scimitar/Bow damage for Elves, assuming those lines are kept).

[orakio]

@Dkyle

Under the old system multiclass characters were almost universally better as you had a better ability to pick pure dps boosting enhancements instead of wasting points on useless enhancements just to get to the next step of enhancements. Under the new system the relative value of the split is all dependant on what the actual enhancements are and their requirements under the new tree. Also don't forget that multiclassing lets you take advantage of things like class bonus feats (monk/fighter), inherent feats(ranger), or unique feats that you can't otherwise acquire like evasion (monk/rogue/ranger). That is a massive advantage if you also get to include superior enhancement selection.

A pure character is not able to get any higher in it's total ranks of PrE's than a multiclass character in the new system. They don't have more tree slots, and they don't have the old capstone bonuses that helped to bring incintive to pure characters. They have new capstones that require 41 points in a tree but those last 11 points trade off for 2 ranks of a PrE bonus (level 5 and 10) and may even prevent more than that depending on the costs of unlocking racial PrE's.

You could be correct, it could be that high level enhancements are so good that you are really missing out on something by not staying 18+ in a class. You could also be entirely wrong if those high level enhancements are just limited to higher ranks of stuff you were already picking up (like in live version) and don't have the same AP cost.

The problem is you are creating a hypothetical situation in which heavy multiclass characters are inherently weaker because thats how you feel it is going to be with no data to back that up at the moment. If you want to voice an opinion it is ok to say "I am worried that 3 trees won't be enough or fair to heavy multiclasses but i need to see", but stating "3 trees isn't enough for heavy multiclasses and pure characters are going to be better" has no real ground to stand on. Voice the opinion, make sure the developers hear your concerns but don't automatically assume that they haven't taken it into consideration already considering multiclassing is such a big part of DDO and D&D.