Can we stop with the everything must be pure kick?

[SirValentine]

What effort is there in fitting together a good pure? The answer is little. A great multi? Tons. And that is the difference between the two.

No, really there's very little such difference as you're making out.

Either way, you choose your feats. You choose your skills. You choose your gear. You choose your Epic Destiny, and Twists. You choose how to spend your identical number of Action Points, while choosing at most 1 set of Tier 5s.

You make all the exact same choices. There's just as much effort and skill in making all those choices either way.

Where's this special superior in making a multi-class? That you can get top-tier enhancements from a class you're barely splashing, thanks to the enhancement pass? As far as I'm concerned, that's a bug, not a feature, but not anything super-skilled either way.

We get the same amount of spend of resources as one another, its HOW those resources are spent

Hey, that's what I just said!

[Axeyu]

While I disagree that "Go multi- or go home" is "far" better, I don't want to argue it here, because it's a pointless strawman.

Few if any people are saying "Go pure or go home", and the devs sure aren't pushing that, either.

If you think that is a strawman you have not been paying attention.
Yes, people are not saying "Go pure or go home", they are asking for things that would lead to it.
X leads to "Go multi or go home". That is bad according to them, so they instead want X for pure builds.

[Axeyu]

No, really there's very little such difference as you're making out.

Either way, you choose your feats. You choose your skills. You choose your gear. You choose your Epic Destiny, and Twists. You choose how to spend your identical number of Action Points, while choosing at most 1 set of Tier 5s.

You make all the exact same choices. There's just as much effort and skill in making all those choices either way.

Where's this special superior in making a multi-class? That you can get top-tier enhancements from a class you're barely splashing, thanks to the enhancement pass? As far as I'm concerned, that's a bug, not a feature, but not anything super-skilled either way.

Making a pure build is the same as making a multiclass? Really?

[redoubt]

They are not asking for balance, they are asking for pures to be better. They have been very specific about that. "Multiclasses should be solo builds" etc.
How come your side accept that if pures are not the best no one plays them, but at the same time seems to think that people will still play multiclasses if they are not the best? The second quote proves my point.

I cannot understand their train of thought. I could care less really what your class split is as long as you have a creative and fun build that accomplishes the design goals. This is VASTLY more fun when you actually get choices in the matter than.... hurr durr just go 20 its better than any creative option you could choose..... 18/20 cores should provide a nice boost no doubt, but they should not be eclipsing anything a multi can bring as the current fb/mechanic/acro/vangaurd/proposed ranger cores are. Capstones needed some more umph, turbine just is giving them too much omph.

I just gen'd this up tonight for a friend.
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ls-first-draft

I'm playing a 16 warlock/2 rogue/2 paladin that is amazing. (Or at least I think so.)
I played a 4 fighter/2 rogue/14 bard and had a ball with it.
On my prior life I was a 6 ranger/6 monk/8 cleric.
Back a little further I did 3 lives of 14 sorc/4 fvs/2 paladin.

Its not like I don't multiclass and I'm not against you.

I also am about to play a pure paladin vanguard next life while my friend plays the SwashLock above.

As I look at multiclassing in today's game I see it as far from being dead. In fact I think multiclassing is thriving. I don't want to see the Devs go to pure only and I don't want to see multiclass only.

I've not dug into barbarian yet, but I don't see anything in the ranger trees nor anything not DC related that force you to go pure. In fact DPS for archers. melee and casters can go up significantly by multiclassing. Help me see the problem here, because it looks like you are tilting at windmills my friend.

[J-mann]

I just gen'd this up tonight for a friend.
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ls-first-draft

I'm playing a 16 warlock/2 rogue/2 paladin that is amazing. (Or at least I think so.)
I played a 4 fighter/2 rogue/14 bard and had a ball with it.
On my prior life I was a 6 ranger/6 monk/8 cleric.
Back a little further I did 3 lives of 14 sorc/4 fvs/2 paladin.

Its not like I don't multiclass and I'm not against you.

I also am about to play a pure paladin vanguard next life while my friend plays the SwashLock above.

As I look at multiclassing in today's game I see it as far from being dead. In fact I think multiclassing is thriving. I don't want to see the Devs go to pure only and I don't want to see multiclass only.

I've not dug into barbarian yet, but I don't see anything in the ranger trees nor anything not DC related that force you to go pure. In fact DPS for archers. melee and casters can go up significantly by multiclassing. Help me see the problem here, because it looks like you are tilting at windmills my friend.

And you have not listed the most recent passed classes but bard..... Barbarians, Rogues enhancement trees, and at the current rate ranger tempest (lamania talk here), and vangaurds are so vastly superior either 18/2 or pure that its laughable. Just because there isnt a dc that has class levels means little, look at the 12, 18 and 20 cores and how loaded they are for those builds. If this trend continues then when the pass is complete 18/2 or 20 will be the vastly dominate play mode (again. I remeber those times before the enhancement pass.... everyone was the same it was pretty boring). Bard is one of the few done right, a 20 bard is very useful and has nice abilities, but not required.

[J-mann]

Making a pure build is the same as making a multiclass? Really?

Yup totally. Finding the class synergies, how to spend points in many more trees, how to make sure your bab works out, knowing what levels are the optimal cut off points is exactly the same as just going twenty, spending 41 points in one tree and the remainder picking up whatever complements it is totally the same...... sarcasm if you couldnt tell.

[J-mann]

In case you didn't notice, 18 Rogue / 2 other stuff IS a multiclass. But that doesn't explain the plethora of Rogue 4 or 5 / 15 or 16 other stuff, or Rogue 1 or 2 / 18 or 19 other stuff, among other Rogue multi-class builds I see very commonly in-game. I do see some pure Rogues, but not overwhelming numbers.

I think it's kind of nice to see pure actually worth going for also, instead of only splashing. Don't know why people hate pure and want us back on an everything-must-be-multi kick.

18/2 is a splash not really a multiclass. I am not saying that currently a splash of rogue has no uses (unless you want to use a qstaff. an xbow, or be an assasin) but that only remains true as there are classes that have not had their cores uber buffed as rogue vangaurd and barbarian have. This is also not a rogue multiclassing its another class splashing rogue.

About the only builds that you see that are rogue icon that are not 18/20 rogue anymore are thrower builds, because the other builds that were possible with primary rogue are now so much better 18/20 pure rogue that it would be foolish to not be. If this current trend continues you will see the low level splashes (with the possible exception of /2) vaporize as well.

18/2 or 20 only is a very very very boring game.

[Qhualor]

And you have not listed the most recent passed classes but bard..... Barbarians, Rogues enhancement trees, and at the current rate ranger tempest (lamania talk here), and vangaurds are so vastly superior either 18/2 or pure that its laughable. Just because there isnt a dc that has class levels means little, look at the 12, 18 and 20 cores and how loaded they are for those builds. If this trend continues then when the pass is complete 18/2 or 20 will be the vastly dominate play mode. Bard is one of the few done right, a 20 bard is very useful and has nice abilities, but not required.

barbarians have always been a tough class to multi class. not many builds splashed barb like the Bowbarian, bards or the fighter that took 2 barb levels. one life a few years ago I did a 12 fighter/6 ranger/2 barb. there was always a good reason to go pure on a barb, but they fell behind in survivability when DDO became a BYOH game.

rogue has and will always be a splash build for a variety of reasons. there is good reason to go pure, but it was done right with class abilities getting stronger by the class levels. I just think that Mechanic is too powerful and faster sneaking improvements was so rogue players could keep up with the fast paced game.

it looks to me like Tempest has good reasons to go pure, but I don't see the 15/5 paladin suddenly falling behind due to the trees improvements. before the enhancement pass, my Tempest was 18 R/2 F because the capstone wasn't worth it with more melee dps a better choice. I don't see though how these improvements are going to make ranger splash builds less viable.

multi classing has not died or will die out. there is still plenty of low fruit for these builds to get. if you are caught up in the min/max play style than all these class revamps are doing is altering the multi class builds to make tougher choices, but still making them just as viable if not stronger.

[PermaBanned]

I am not sure why you feel pures should be so special? What effort is there in fitting together a good pure? The answer is little. A great multi? Tons. And that is the difference between the two. While multis being strong doesnt really effect you (you can pull a build off the net if you cannot be bothered to craft your own) pures being overbearing (the current trend) completely eliminates the class and enhancement building system in this game.

I'm not sure why you think I feel pures should be special. I think they shouldn't suck; and I think when it comes to character design "What happens if I take all levels in one class?" should be just as interesting of a question as "How best can I mix and match all the low hanging fruit?" In other words, neither should inherently be the "if you do that, you're going to suck" option.

[J-mann]

barbarians have always been a tough class to multi class. not many builds splashed barb like the Bowbarian, bards or the fighter that took 2 barb levels. one life a few years ago I did a 12 fighter/6 ranger/2 barb. there was always a good reason to go pure on a barb, but they fell behind in survivability when DDO became a BYOH game.

rogue has and will always be a splash build for a variety of reasons. there is good reason to go pure, but it was done right with class abilities getting stronger by the class levels. I just think that Mechanic is too powerful and faster sneaking improvements was so rogue players could keep up with the fast paced game.

it looks to me like Tempest has good reasons to go pure, but I don't see the 15/5 paladin suddenly falling behind due to the trees improvements. before the enhancement pass, my Tempest was 18 R/2 F because the capstone wasn't worth it with more melee dps a better choice. I don't see though how these improvements are going to make ranger splash builds less viable.

multi classing has not died or will die out. there is still plenty of low fruit for these builds to get. if you are caught up in the min/max play style than all these class revamps are doing is altering the multi class builds to make tougher choices, but still making them just as viable if not stronger.

So go pure or 15pally/5 tempest.... wow didnt you just make my point for me? Holy Sword Mutt or pure those are my options yay! Such a thrilling example of deversity.

[J-mann]

I'm not sure why you think I feel pures should be special. I think they shouldn't suck; and I think when it comes to character design "What happens if I take all levels in one class?" should be just as interesting of a question as "How best can I mix and match all the low hanging fruit?" In other words, neither should inherently be the "if you do that, you're going to suck" option.

And I agree, problem is the recent passes have been loading more and more into the 18/20 core that its go 18/2 or pure (discounting the holy sword mutting). I feel the bard pass was about right, 20 bard has uses and is a perfectly good choice, but will be outperformed in certain areas by more specialized multi builds at the cost of loosing a few late bard goodies.

[redoubt]

And you have not listed the most recent passed classes but bard..... Barbarians, Rogues enhancement trees, and at the current rate ranger tempest (lamania talk here), and vangaurds are so vastly superior either 18/2 or pure that its laughable. Just because there isnt a dc that has class levels means little, look at the 12, 18 and 20 cores and how loaded they are for those builds. If this trend continues then when the pass is complete 18/2 or 20 will be the vastly dominate play mode. Bard is one of the few done right, a 20 bard is very useful and has nice abilities, but not required.

Mechanic: The 18 core is good, but is it okay to put it lower? The 20 is meh.
Assassin: Also gets crit bonus at 18. I think the bigger one for them is assassinate DC which is unrelated to the enhancements.
Acrobat: 20% doublestrike at 18.
Beserker: crit bonus at 18
Slayer: Doesn't look interesting, but I've not played it.
Ravager: has the capstone fear kill thing that is a nice trash killer, but I'm not sure how that matters when barbs have huge dps anyway.

Tempest: 5% doublestrike at 18 is nice, but not something you can't live without. 20 has 12.5% doublestrike (assuming you get your offhand up to 100%). That's pretty good, but what makes it really good is that ranger doesn't have the need to multiclass to get evasion and because it gets many extra bow & TWF feats it is not as likely to need extra feats from fighter or monk. Paladin levels could add saves, but ranger doesn't push CHA.
Deepwood: 20 ranged power is huge because it is hard to find. But then again, would you build a 20 ranger archer over a moncher or a thrower?

So I think you are correct that there is a lot of good stuff at 18 & 20. I also think there is really good stuff at warlock 18/20 but I still chose to multiclass. I do see the need to not destroy multiclass, I'm just not sure I agree that the current list of 18/20 enhancements are must haves.

Swash, which you think is perfect, is built the opposite. Its best stuff is low in the trees. So lets talk about putting the 12.5% doublestrike from tempest down at level 3 like swash. Now 3 ranger becomes a must have for TWF builds. The one exception would an assassin that wants max DC. A TWF paladin KOTC will take 3 ranger. A TWF fighter will take 3 ranger.

I worry about putting too much low because then people want it nerfed. Heck, holysword requires 14 levels of paladin (FOURTEEN!!!!) and people call taking 14 levels of pali a splash and now want holy sword nerfed! What happens when you take any good stuff in the 18/20 cores and move it to 3/6/12? Will it just get nerfed because its too good to be that low? I don't know the answers to those things.

I like seeing things that make me think hard about how many class levels to take of each thing. There has been no reason to be a 20 ranger for years. The new stuff gives something worth taking, but do you really think it is so good that no one will multi-class ranger anymore? Will it become the next FOTM and everyone will be a pure ranger?

[redoubt]

And I agree, problem is the recent passes have been loading more and more into the 18/20 core that its go 18/2 or pure (discounting the holy sword mutting). I feel the bard pass was about right, 20 bard has uses and is a perfectly good choice, but will be outperformed in certain areas by more specialized multi builds at the cost of loosing a few late bard goodies.

Okay, lets do this the opposite way for a few minutes...

What classes are so good pure that you would only build them pure?

I'll start with DC casters, though I have seen many arguments where even DC casters are only taking 17 or 18 levels of their main class.

Your turn.

[Qhualor]

So go pure or 15pally/5 tempest.... wow didnt you just make my point for me? Holy Sword Mutt or pure those are my options yay! Such a thrilling example of deversity.

no I didn't. I showed the flaw of what you were saying. barb class always been tough to multi class, but still doable. Assassins and Mechanics are powerful pure, but splashing them can also make a multi class powerful with some extras that rogues get. rangers have normally been multi class for 5/6 levels, but still good pure.

[walkin_dude]

They are not asking for balance, they are asking for pures to be better. They have been very specific about that. "Multiclasses should be solo builds" etc.
How come your side accept that if pures are not the best no one plays them, but at the same time seems to think that people will still play multiclasses if they are not the best? The second quote proves my point.

I certainly never said that. There were other participants in this thread who also never said it.

My preference is with more options, not less. More options, ideally, means that multi-classing has value and staying pure has value.

You do seem to have trouble with the "in-between" of things. Very rarely does something have to be all-or-nothing.

[Axeyu]

I certainly never said that. There were other participants in this thread who also never said it.

My preference is with more options, not less. More options, ideally, means that multi-classing has value and staying pure has value.

You do seem to have trouble with the "in-between" of things. Very rarely does something have to be all-or-nothing.

How come your side accept that if pures are not the best no one plays them, but at the same time seems to think that people will still play multiclasses if they are not the best?

[walkin_dude]

How come your side accept that if pures are not the best no one plays them, but at the same time seems to think that people will still play multiclasses if they are not the best?

My side?

C'mon, Axe, are you even reading this stuff?

If there are "sides" and they involve invalidating either or both of multi-classing or pure class toons, then I want no part of them.

Let me say it real slow this time: I want both ways to be worth doing.

[Axeyu]

My side?

C'mon, Axe, are you even reading this stuff?

If there are "sides" and they involve invalidating either or both of multi-classing or pure class toons, then I want no part of them.

Let me say it real slow this time: I want both ways to be worth doing.

I can't really help that you steped into an ongoing discussion.

I also want both ways to be worth doing.

[Coyopa]

It's pointless to even argue with the anti-ever-be-pure people about which way it "should" lean, when the truth of the situation is that DDO has been so wildly, stupidly tilted towards multi-classes for quite some time. Even with a few token recent changes to capstones favoring pure builds a bit more, it is still highly tilted towards multi-classes. If the day ever comes when it actually becomes kind of close between pure & multi, then we can actually have an honest conversation about how it "should" be. For now, pure classes still need tons more love for that to even be close to true.

Yeah. This is absolutely true. It's kind of amazing the intellectual dishonesty on display by the Must-Always-Multiclass crowd. It's been 3 years and 3 months since Menace of the Underdark and the enhancement pass went live. In all that time, multi-class builds have been king and pure builds have been gimp. Now that things are starting to shift toward the middle, the strict multi-classers are whining. I suppose the thing to keep in mind about them is that they build strictly for maximum DPS and maximum survivability. So, if pure builds (or 18/2 builds) do even 1 DPS more than their favorite multi-class build, then they're going to cry and whine and throw tantrums - which is exactly what we're seeing here. Part of their tantrum-throwing is to paint everyone who doesn't agree with them as trying to make it so only pure builds are the way to go and that we're trying to nerf/gimp/make non-viable all multi-class builds in one fell swoop.

[Coyopa]

Except if you want to be a barbarian, an acro, a mechanic, an assasin, a vanguard, sure they are not. And lets see how many names are added to that list as the pass marches on.... starting to look like tempest is going to be as well, especially if the purists get their way.

You really can't include assassin in this list because it's always been best to be a pure rogue if you're going for an epic elite assassinate DC, since assassinate DC is tied to rogue level. I mean, I suppose they could tie assassinate DC to character level or a skill (a la Coup de Grace), but we know they aren't going to do that. So, to include assassins and DC casters in your list is a strawman. I still see plenty of multi-classed acrobats running around. So, there goes that one. Same for mechanics; not everyone uses great crossbows. As for multi-classed barbarians, I think initially the pendulum swung very far to the side of "pure barbarian is better". However, I'm seeing more and more multi-classed barbarians; in fact, I grouped with a few just last night on a Shroud run. I've been thinking about switching my 17 bard/3 fighter over to barbarian. Since I've got no recent experience with the class, I was thinking about going pure. However, I know I want to add in some fighter (at least 3 levels) and so I would end up TR'ing again and running a multi-classed barbarian. It's good for pure builds to at least be viable and competitive so people who either haven't played the class or haven't done so recently can learn about the class's strengths and weaknesses in order to see how they want to multi-class to bring in other abilities they value. As far as Vanguards, that's just one kind of paladin. Not all paladins are going to be Vanguards.