The Balance Change post

[lyrecono]

Greetings.

We've seen a lot of community feedback, both public and private, about our ongoing plans for balance. These are some changes we are considering to increase game balance.

As with any post that outlines power reductions (aka nerfs) I am sure there will be a lot of players looking for explanations and our thoughts and results on balance that led to these changes. I will be following up this post with more details that talk about why some of these changes are being implemented.

***

Holy Sword (Paladin)
Many shield using paladins thank you


Critical Rage (Barbarian Ravager)
The bonus to critical threat range is now a competence bonus.
making it use impaired, thanks

Two weapon fighting animations have been fixed so there is no longer a weird jump on the fourth animation. This has made the fourth attack slightly quicker.
who auto attacks anymore, wolf builds and swf?

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
meh, small impact

Doubleshot values over 100% now have a chance of producing a third attack. The chance is equal to the amount the value exceeds 100. A doubleshot value of 130, for example, would always produce one extra shot and have a 30% chance to produce a third shot.

(Doublestrike will still cap at 100 for technical reasons.)

Repeating Crossbows and Doubleshot
Fixed a bug where Doubleshot was not being reduced for repeating crossbows. (Doubleshot chance is divided by 3 for repeating crossbows.)

Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Mechanical Reloader (Rogue Mechanic)
The alacrity for non-repeating crossbows is now 30%. (Was 40%)

Pulverizer (Legendary Dreadnought)
The bonus to critical threat range for bludgeoning weapons is now an Insight bonus.
gee, thanks mister

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.
meh, different wording same effect, just nerfing all the old named gear we worked so hard for to get, funny really when you think of it, they never finished the named item overhaul that feather started

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.
see improved crittical

Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.
see response down bellow
(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)

As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.
meh, offering bucket of water after you burn the building down is a tad bit.... disgusting?
Tactical Training
Requires Fighter Level 4
You gain +2 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 8
You gain +4 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Mastery
Requires Fighter Level 12
You gain +6 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Supremacy
Requires Fighter Level 16
You gain +8 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Notes: All tactical feats stack for a total of +20. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Tactical Training and forego the +2 but still have access to Tatical Supremacy.
wow, we really needed a +20....

Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.
This wasn't needed if you weren't planning to break a working system, shouldn't you focus your efforts to stuff that is actually broken?
I don't get what you're trying to do here, melee fighters aren't played in heroics or epics so far as i can see, i know of only 3 on the server and they all suck.

Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).
I'm divided on this, but i say no, only because it limits character building
Eldritch Blast and other enhancements (Warlock)
The spellpower scaling for Eldritch Blast and several enhancements has been reduced.

Ugh, more warlock nerfs, they're fun on heroics, terrible to passable in epics.
Why did they need nerfs?

I will be following up this post with some details on our thoughts on balance and design.
How about a post that this is an early April fools day joke and go back making content and fixing bugs?
Sev~

Now for the armor thing,
This is where i should be fuming over the changes


and yet, all i can do is leaving open spaces because the decision is so mind boggling(......), my first reaction wouldn't clear the censure.
so i won't.
However, this means i can park 3 heavy armer toons untill i have found the means and builds to tr them, next to a bunch of other toons i can never play again because their build wouldn't have worked nowadays.
I'm not even sure i'm gone take the time and effort fixing the mistake you're making here, not even with a +20 heart
The impact is huge and unnecessary, if you hadn't made a mess of the EE setting this wouldn't have needed, worst part is, we pointed this out to you!
The critical return was a joke, armor up was the atonement, these changes will cause a mess for melee's again.

and i tire of it

get the hint, go back to fixing bugs and creating cosmetics/content
delete the tread an forget about it, stop listening to bad advice.

Any changes to increase player population?

You can nerf all you want but I'm not spending any more money on the game until the population increases significantly. I'm forced to solo 90% of the time because: either people don't join my LFMs (they're not weird LFMs, just standard "EBB") or there are no LFMs to join. I'd rather not have to send tells to random people asking if I can join them in their quest, hoping they're playing elite and not too far in. That seems a bit intrusive.

I used to play almost every day, now I play once a week and likely to play even less. I see no reason to play a MMORPG that forces me to solo most of the time.

Sadly, you're not the only one.......

20 rng is only 20 BAB not 28 soon to be 30.

Wrong, you gain 4 BAB in 8 epic levels, it is assumed you could gain a total of 5 BAB when the ca goes to 30
http://ddowiki.com/page/Epic_level

More changes need to made in the healing arena. This game is far too easy and teamwork/roles are not needed at endgame. No one needs a healer. Healing classes are a lost art in this game since everyone can faceroll everything and selfheal.

I hope Mythic brings back tactics, challenge, & incentive to run endgame. It will be your last chance to save DDO.

I'm sorry but i have to disagree.
I remember the times when melee's were refused from parties because the cleric in party said, and i quote, "i rather spend my manna on bladebarier, it's more efficient then healing the melee's".
I'm one of those people who welcomed self healing melee's
Nowadays clerics are hard to find, people willing to play one even rarer. People just don't like to babysit, which is inherently harder btw now that they nerf mrr on platemail.
I hope Mythic brings back tactics, challenge, & incentive.
For the less then 5% population that still wants that?
And what for? For the last 7 years i have been hauling soulstone through content, but never as much as with the introduction of champions.
Over those years i have seen the population halved, each wave of needles changes drive of player after player, some return for a week after a big impact update but fewer linger.
How are these changes helping to keep the population together?
filling a part is impossible, filling a raid happens about 5% of the time, with "server merger" threads being closed (so....off the table?) where do YOU see things going?

"Balance Change" is the wrong title for this thread. If this was actually about "balance", it would have included unarmed, shields, casting, & dungeon scaling changes as well.

Best that any caster can supply: 95% success rate of killing something not red- or purple-named from 100% health.

Best that any melee can supply: 5% chance of 50% hp loss on anything not red- or purple-named, only after rolling against AC, concealment.

So long as this remains intact, it is pointless to have any true discussion about general game balance. Rename it "Combat Balance" and it'd be much closer to the thread content.

Yes, monks were mentioned by Cordovan as "SOON". I choose to believe it when I see it.

Shields are actively neglected for offensive purposes, Vanguard included.
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...95#post5427295

No Imp Crit, no no greater/perfect Shield Mastery, once-per-second hard limiter on bashing (I don't buy "animation issues" as an excuse because the Knight of the Chalice cleaves don't animate when activated closely together, but the damage output shows up just fine). Maybe with the MRR removal from armor you give Evasion back to shield users. Will try not to mention a dual shield option. Or a Captain America option.....

It seems to not much matter how much threat gen you have, one halfway decent cast can grab just about anything off of a tank. Also, 100 base Intimidate is a near constant failure in EE Necro, ToEE, & Trials, even on non-bosses.

I am a firm believer that most of the complaints of "overpoweredness" from the community stem from the fact that Bards, Paladins, & Barbarians had, for years, been flat out neglected as far as damage output is concerned. Something suddenly being on par with other melee builds might have made them seem suddenly very powerful. This should not be seen as overpowered. Additionally, do not view a sudden spike in the quantity of these classes as them being overpowered; but rather as classes now finally being viable in the game as playable, and not just a class to suffer through until you can TR into something actually useful and fun.

Most of the listed changes seem to be to try to make changes without trying to fix some underlying bug that exists currently. I'd rather the current combat system have its bugs hunted down & fixed.

PRR boost revamp was nice, but chipping away at it every other update......see my previous paragraph on perceived versus actual overpoweredness. I foresee pajama builds being dominant again in 6 months at this rate.


Please zone into a live server & look for some of the older players & ask them advice & opinion. Asking only forumites is intentionally blocking out an entire paying, playing, knowledgeable demographic that would likely point out blind spots in development, & therefore results when it comes to your bottom line. The Player's Council & the surveys were good ideas, but transparency & follow-up is necessary to see if you're actually improving your product.

~Cuyar of Orien, non-paying player since 2012 because of changes like this.

snipped some, but i do agree

Im newbie this game, played under a year. I have my first char now legendary (36 build).
Im VIP. European, so getting pug group is quite hard most heroic levels.

I got pulled here, because I have friend who I have played together - old char.
Together we have been running heroic elites and epic hards (and some epic elites, more with pugs).
I have been trying sooloing some content with alts. Sooloing heroic elites has been very hard except with warlock. And I admit that it has been quite blast to play with it.

I understand that you are bringing Reaver difficult for old players. But I do not understand current changes, which hit harder for new players than old players (peeps without all crafted gear and epics from low level raids - running with mostly greens and some blues). Are you meaning that I should go and solo only normal and hard, instead elites. Or idle and hope that someone joins my elite -group, so they can do it for me?
Do you know how hard epics are, when you dont have destiny points, nor gears for it - only AH greens and stuff what you picked up?

Welcome and grats,
I fully understand your point, something i brought up now and then on the forum now and then.
People like you are gone be hit the hardest with these stupid changes, i hope guys like you survive the oncoming storm.

[maddong]

Again overall I love the changes.

But I don't see why we are nerfing twf (which I think gets hit harder with the improved crit changes) when we should just be nerfing mortal fear instead. If you nerf mortal fear then the game becomes more challenging, twf can keep its +6 MP and holy sword can still affect the offhand.

Also, why aren't we nerfing tree builds 3-5 hits/target/cleave (just make tree cleaves 1 hit only)?
Why are we still letting trees cleave while shield blocking?

Why isn't SWF disabled when in wolf form?

[EllisDee37]

I do feel bad for my friends build. I have a friend and static group member who loves his dual bastard sword wielding pure fighter. 3 feats for two handed weapon fighting 3 feats for two weapon fighting

The THF feats aren't doing anything for him. Bastard Swords (and Dwarven Axes) don't deal glancing blows when you have a weapon in your off-hand.

[Jetrule]

Again overall I love the changes.

But I don't see why we are nerfing twf (which I think gets hit harder with the improved crit changes) when we should just be nerfing mortal fear instead. If you nerf mortal fear then the game becomes more challenging, twf can keep its +6 MP and holy sword can still affect the offhand.

Also, why aren't we nerfing tree builds 3-5 hits/target/cleave (just make tree cleaves 1 hit only)?
Why are we still letting trees cleave while shield blocking?

Why isn't SWF disabled when in wolf form?

Great points. These nerfs would specifically target some of the most overpowered content trivializing aspects of the game while not harming most casual or newer players. Especially the mortal fear nerf. I think wolves should be able to use swf but like any standard melee it doesn't work with 2wf or shield mastery unless you have the swashbuckler enhancements and are using a buckler. If however that proves impossible to code then ok let it disable swf. Still swash buckling wolf bard is fun.

[Zistra]

We have multiple servers to avoid overloads. On each server we have a mix of PUGgers and those in long-term guild relationships that seldom or never group with outsiders.

Wouldn't it make sense to aggregate each type on their own server? Put all the insular guild-runners on one set of servers and the PUGgers on another set. That would instantly multiply the number of people putting up and responding to LFM's on the servers where there'd be any. Which would make the game much more enjoyable for those who PUG. And the Guild-mated won't likely notice the difference.

(Limits the possibility of moving from one group to the other, of course...).

[Gogolboy]

What I don’t understand is why make all these so called balances of gameplay even need to come into play? The loss of your player base should be a huge issue, you guys don’t like to make money? Instead of pumping out all of the new content coming out, rehash the old stuff and improve the experience of playing that pack, or eliminate it all together. If you guys ‘the developers’ would focus more on the little things it would bring back some old players who would be willing to spend their hard earned monies on this game. I’m going to leave it at that, and I would like some of you guys to chime in and fix some of these issues.

[ranthrock]

I know this has been brought up by several others, but I'd like to add my voice to the mob. The IC changes are a 1-for-1 swap for normal weapons, but this change will *specifically de-value* those rare/sought-after expanded crit range weapons that I and many others have spent hours collecting.

ESOS, several Tome of Legend choices, Silver Longbow are all affected, but I think quarterstaves are getting the biggest hit. Theurgic Staff, Breeze, Bone Crusher, Sireth... I don't think anyone was accusing staffers of over-performing. No one uses normal random-drop q-staffs. To be effective, you need one of these named items, and even then they are basically on-par with an average greatsword. Now they will be mathematically inferior. I think this will drive people away from clever builds using rare/odd weapons and into vanilla crit-fisher builds with rapiers, scimitars, khopeshes and falchions.

I humbly ask that you re-consider this impact of the IC change. Perhaps a bonus based on the weapon's existing crit range rather than weapon type. For example, all 20s get +1, all 19-20s get +2, etc., regardless of what kind of weapon (sword, staff, bow).

I can't agree more. As someone who has done fun flavor builds (dual morningstars, for example), it would be a huge hit to weapon variety to essentially break the named quarterstaffs and other lesser weapons in the game. I know that for most of these it's only a 5% chance to crit you're losing, but for marginal weapons, that makes a huge impact in players devoting resources to obtaining them or being willing to take the hit to DPS to use them.

Think about phosphor, which goes from (with IC) 15-20x2 to 17-20x2. Unless other changes were made (adding +1 to crit multiplier instead of just threat, e.g. making phosphor 20x4, with IC 19-20x4), there are a lot of weapons in the game nobody will even bother with anymore.

[FlaviusMaximus]

Taking MRR out of the armors was smart. Gives more reasons to roll evasion characters.

I'm on the fence about the Holy Sword change. While it does give a large incentive to roll a TWF character that isn't utilizing Holy Sword and Dance of Death, it hurts all TWF Paladins. Is there a way to scale back Holy Sword Tempests without hitting TWF Paladins in the process?

I understand the crit range changes and support them overall. The one area of concern I have is that named weapons that have enhanced crit ranges naturally built in will be much less appealing if their crit ranges cannot be doubled. For these types of weapons, the draw is generally the crit range and not much else. That means if their crit ranges get scaled back by a good amount, some of these weapons may no longer serve a purpose in the game. A couple items like this that come to mind are the beloved Deathnips, which I do not have, but according to what I see on the forums, are still enjoyed by a portion of the community, and the Snowstar shuriken. My suggestion is to alter the crit ranges of these types of weapons so that with the new crit feats added in, they will equal the old crit modifiers or at least come closer. This allows some of the enjoyable flavor type weapons to remain somewhat relevant.

[Sgt_Hart]

Fighter only feat are the best way to buff fighters those feat are a fighter buff there is no reason for any other class to have them just like no other class gets access to the Weapon Specialization Feats.

And yet, the fighter only feat list is three feat's, all to do with weapon usage. I'll change my opinion, when you can source me a version where fighter specific feat's weren't/aren't just about being highly trained in a weapon. You're opinion isn't wrong, but keep in mind, this implementation is diametrical to how Dungeons and Dragons has handled fighters. I'm convinced this is the wrong way to buff fighters. More feats, More useful feat's, More Feat's that got hijacked into vanguard for example. These are thing's we Know DDO has the tech to do, god know's a great many flavors of Dragons and Giants love to push PC's all across the bloody map.

Why isn't Improved Disarm a thing yet? We know NPC's can weapon swap,(Kai-Teng Fairuza ring any bells?) Why isn't knocking the blade out of his hand for 10 seconds or so a productive thing to do? Oh sure, it'd need an internal "Can't equip" timer, but I could write that into Neverwinter Night's Bastardized C+ back in 2002, and it was a hobby for me, not my day job.

How about Snatch Arrows huh? Fine, adapt it to DDO and let it just be insta-rebounded at the attacker once every few seconds, as a function of BAB(Moar BAB, less cooldown) and deal damage to the attacker when a character's getting peppered by archers. Again: Character, not fighter. The iconic fighter is the guy who can afford to take all the tricks, Not Auto grants, not exclusive feat's.

And if I haven't convinced you yet, that's fine. I still think tweaking down PRR/MRR across the board, and introducing a fighter-only line of feat's to gain it back is a bloody terrible idea. No one thus far has offered me any compelling argument to the contrary other than "Fighters need help".

We agree on that. What we disagree on is that fighter only armor-training is a solution. Nick Fury said it best:

[TheDr0wRanger]

i think the new fighter feats are pretty well implemented. they add some uniqueness only available to fighter (something desperately needed now that keen edge is the worst of the BUNCH) and are tiered without forcing a linear progression allowing you a great degree of optimization.

if these feats were accessible to everyone, then pretty much everyone would take the champion feat and ignore the rest, and thered be no advantage provided to fighters. do you honestly expect many pure fighters to take all four feats of either of these lines? i know i probably (almost certainly) wont be, unless theres some significant mp added to kensei and i dont feel the need to have 9 mp feats.

I'm replying to you in lieu of the 3 other people who said the same thing.


Creating more feats for everyone only allows linear power growth got non-fighters until they have used up all of their feats, which occurs LONG before fighters have run out of feats. Once that cap is reached, fighters start getting a bigger and bigger advantage from their number of feats. If there are 12-15 totally solid melee feats, everyone but a fighter is going to have to make choices and sacrifices, where fighters will get to just take every one of them, if they want. Which is in keeping with the flavor described, wherein fighters are really good at melee, man-at-arms combat. Same can be done with archery, especially since everything that currently wields a bow is pressed for feats already. More meaningful feats means more options for everyone, more things they can't take that fighters can.

The best part is this avoids needless exclusionary feats that are far more in keeping with the way a Paladin is made, and the fact that if they are fighter only feats their balance will take a back seat, whereas the devs will stay on top of a widely-used feat list.

This is really not complicated, if a good feat list that is larger than the number of feats available to non-fighter classes is presented, the advantage in the feat game is with fighters. In the current game where a Tempest can get every worthwhile melee feat, and an AA can get every bow feat than has major impact, fighters can't compete because they don't have the enhancements of the specialist trees, but they also don't have any feats to pick up that slack, since they don't have important feats available to them that the other classes don't also have. The way to give fighters the edge isn't in fighter-only feats, that creates a situation where you have undesirable feats that get taken a lot because they are all there is to take. Instead, let them be able to afford A and B feats for whatever fighting style, where the other classes in that fighting style have to take A or B.

Think this way, if A and B feats both gave approximately equal value, the fighter gets both and the other class gets A, then the fighter is ahead by whatever value B has. He's got as much power advantage over the other class as he would have if he took B and they got nothing.

[Malusny]

Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon.



I am sorry to say but I think I will be just cancelling my subscriptions to this game because of suggested changes. I don't mean that nerfing is a bad idea however, in my opinion, you nerf some things to the point that it will become useless again. Please tell me what is the point of making a paladin vanguard if the Holy Sword won't work for shields? Many of the changes that you suggest are just a result of some players complaining that they are being outplayed by other people who know how to make strong builds. Please be reasonable and don't "shut the doors" for people who want to do TWF or S&B builds. The melee power reduced is already a big deal.
I am seriously upset because we will start seeing only evasion builds, monk or rogue splashes again.

I think you should consider holy sword to work for all sorts of weapons. If you think paladins are too strong then why don't you take some melee power off from all paladin builds, not just vanguards.

I am openly angry and seriously thinking about abandoning this game/paying for it if the changes are an another "step back". You have nerfed the holy sword before, you nerfed warlock enhancements before, nerfing more will not make players happy. Some will just leave the game and other will switch to characters that produce the highest survivalability/dps. There is always going to be something stronger, better and people who don't know how to make it so strong will call it "over performing" or "over powered".

I agree that warlock on heroic is too strong. I agree that paladin is overall a strong build but step backs are a baaaaad idea for you guys, you will loose customers and eventually this game will go down and eventually - you loose your jobs.

This is not a threat of course. I played this game for a long time and see how you have been trying to cover some exploits, bugs and abuses that players always come up with but the truth is that nerfing some very specific types of builds or their features (eg holy sword) will just discourage players from using it completely.

Anyway, I just came back from work and I don't even want to start this .... game after I read the balancing thread.

I have been playing a new build (ranger) recently and now and I am successful at it and I don't need to be a paladin.

What I know is that now we will probably see only paladins with big two handed swords because other enhancements/weapon options are not going to work with the holy sword. I think this is messed up. Seriously.


Cheers.

[Thar]

Actually with a good crit range this is excellent against red and purple names

I dont think the game would be served by making other T3's as good as Mortal Fear. Nerfing mortal fear and making the other T3's not completely useless could go a long way however. I mean who is ever going to make Greensteel if it isn't better than Mortal Fear? And how can it better than Mortal Fear if isn't just instant death on a Vorpal?

vorpal is 20 only, not on crit so a good crit range is only good for half of that recipe. not enough to make it good when neg energy is blocked or heals so much since undead has to be everywhere.

mortal fear is on hit damage which was the only one worth building the extra damage it does helps to pull it ahead. As the Devs have said, new weapons may have a comparable dps to mortal fear. it's just the first. Anyway back to my point, make the others useful then it would have been used. take it away and then you use the below or keep it tier 2 as tier 3 is garbage for most combo's.

your probably thinking of the other useful recipe,

Crippling Flames: On Crit: 135 to 325 Fire Damage. On Hit: 5% chance to apply 2 Negative Levels.

all the nerf this nerf that... let people have fun in the game. no fun, then no more player base. no player base no money. no money no game. it's not that hard to understand. the lack of lfm's should warn people.

although the negative levels are argueablely useless at epic levels due to the quick regen.

[Zakharov]

These seem like very positive changes. Adding inherent magic resistance to all armor types by default was silly and overboard. If anything I would dial back more than what you've listed.

One concern I have is the new tactical feats - they seem too good. You say the goal is someone who invests heavily can get 95% success even against a high save opponent. As a general philosophy I don't think 95% success for any ability or spell should be easily attainable against a challenging opponents strong save.

I think highly specialized, heavily invested abilities should reach that lvl against weak or even average saves, but not strong saves.

Overall I find this topic encouraging, everyone I played with basically got bored and left. The exodus started with underdark and ended with armor up. Maybe this & epic shroud will bring some people back.

[Thar]

Nick Fury said it best:

ha ha ha... i need to learn how to do that.

[Axeyu]

2) Melee monks, already nerfed hard, are going to be even worse. Yay?

What? Unarmed will look relativley better now that other classes has gotten their far superior crit modifiers nerfed. Heavy armor nerf is also good for monks.
I wouldn't worry so much about losing 6 MP.

[PermaBanned]

You are looking at roughly 150 dps from stricken + 1.4k dps from consume + 4233 dps from eldritch blast - 5.6k dps. This is the absolute max end of it. There are a vast collection of builds on the forums that do upwards of 7000 dps.

What about the additional 3d6 Light damage/attack from ES tier 4? And/or the additional 3d6 Light damage/attack from ES lvl 18 core? And/or the additional 2d6 Chaotic damage from {enhancement I forgot the name of} vs targets marked by Consume? (iirc all of those scale w/Spellpower too.) Are any or all of those part of your absolute max?

[archerforever]

I ran warlock numbers before and after and I feel the reduction is too light. Warlocks are outperforming many classes and builds on their first life with nothing really special going on. Yeah, it is a reduction, but not enough of one.

I agree with you. Warlock is totally overpowered on heroic and still very efficient on epic.

[Thud]

Keen
This loot effect now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

I'm not sure why you want to do a blanket revision. Why not Keen I-V that adds 1-5 critical threat range? Isn't that how the system works now? I can see why random loot would be easier to generate with this system, but what about named items with exceptional ranges like the Carniflex and SoS? Are these items that I've spent years collecting for leveling different toons just going to become trash? That would be very sad.

[Malusny]

Dear Devs,

Please enlighten me and tell me who will play a Paladin Vanguard after these changes? What will happen is that everybody will start switching to other classes and nobody will doing a Sword and Board builds because you nerfed the holy sword twice already and now Shields will not be affected by it. What is the point of having that spell at all then?

If you have to nerf the Holy Sword or the Paladin builds significantly, take away the Crit Range from it, leaving as it is the Crit Multiplier at least and allow the ranged oriented and shield oriented characters to still have some good use of that spell. Otherwise playing paladin will be absolutely useless.

(by the way, I played warlock recently and now I am playing a pure ranger and I still think that paladins should not be stripped off Holy Sword).

Cheers again.

[archerforever]

or they could change the recipies so something else is worth making. the other recipies for tier 3 are mostly junk with an exception or two. ie

Body Breaker: On Hit: 5% Chance Fortitude Save -5, Sunder Attempt. who would make this as a tier 5... seriously...

Burning Emptiness: On Vorpal: 55 to 110 Fire Damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds. On Crit: 108 to 260 Negative Energy Damage. - looks good until you see the on vorpal part...

In my opinion, only Mortal fear is good as tier 3 with TF weapons ( not speaking about casters ). All others tier 3 are junk for fighters ( melee and ranged )