Remove Trances

[Fisto Mk I]

In fact, turn all 100%-uptime buffs into toggles with occasional automatic costs.

^^^^
This!!!

 

[kmoustakas]

The irony is that trances were created so that caster classes like FVS/Cleric/EK could approach a decent level of proficiency with martial weapons, but they were perverted from the start by pure martials using 1-level splashes. And of course, the monsters were adjusted assuming that all martials would have this bonus—leaving the original classes for whom trances were intended in the dust.

And now you want to remove them, lol.

Quite ironic. Like giving imbues to all classes and then nerfing the original imbues of the classes that need them, like EK and Archane Archer. Oh wait.

Imbues are the exact same problem. You are correct.

 

[Alternative]

I agree that trances are annoying to build around and then use. However, lets not forget that Divine Might was the dps buff for Paladins, where Fighters had power surge and Barbs had rage. If trances are removed, Paladin is going to need something to make up for it.

Whats more, if trances are removed, rage, including fury rage, is going to be the go to thing for melee dps and it might kill any sort of build variety.

 

[Macenzie]

I agree. Trances are incredibly powerful and more important than 99% of capstones out there. For 3 points plus some investment (1 point in knight of the chalice or warpriest for example, 5 in harper agent which is UNIVERSAL you don't even need to multiclass) you get +50 damage and tactics.

Yes because every melee has 110 Intelligence.

 

[Thumbed_Servant]

The developers have learned long ago that it is easier to give than to take away. Thus I doubt they would ever take away so universally used a mechanic as Battle Trances. And yup, once they give us something the player base finds ways to utilize it that the developers never thought of.

And the developers always do this constant stacking of the two piles: Give the player "pile" something, balance the monster "pile" against it; add more to the player "pile", give more to the monster "pile" to balance against the player pile add-on. It's a never ending power creep on both sides and their answer is almost always "add more to this side or that". ONLY when it is to alleviate lag do they take away: And oh how the player base complains when that happens and thus they don't normally like to take anything away.

So, an interesting conversation. I doubt you'll ever see the Battle Trances removed. I definitely could see the developers at some point saying, "We added Battle Trances some time back, added more BTs with new content, now realize they aren't balanced and so we are reworking them to be more equal across the spectrum." Cuz how many 1 level splashes of Favored Soul do we see now? Heh

 

[Synalon]

...one of the easiest ways to address the balance issues between melee/ranged/caster that people report is to give weapons some general love...

I've heard enough. Send another $3.5trillion to martials.

 

[Shmuel]

How can I upvote this? I took a break gor a few years and on coming back theres no change I like less than these battle trance. It limits build options, and requires me to refresh something every 2 minutes (not fun).

 

[Necrodancer]

I've heard enough. Send another $3.5trillion to martials.

And we should also increase the budget on Martial upkeep by at least 7% within the next fiscal year and with annuals 3% increments. I know it's a lot but we have to do it for the "R10 S&P".

 

[songswrath]

I am for it if they add more to hit-damage in trees. And/Or greatly lower mobs and bosses armor class .

 

[saekee]

/signed

I hate short clicky stuff, makes the game a chore. This is why T5 vistani is a no-no.

Dump them and devs can figure out a rebalance across trees and gear etc.

I like the idea of balancing gear in there—maybe insightful accuracy, improved destruction gear etc.

It might be time to rethink misses and grazing hits as part of the rebalance too. I have no idea here what to suggest but maybe something where some weapon effects land on grazing, like a destruction effect—so you hit the mob, don’t do much damage but wear down their defenses?

 

[Frantik]

Why not simply provide +x to hit and damage every y heroic levels and every z epic/legendary levels? And let's democratise it and have every class benefit from these "buffs". It would make the game a little (marginally) faster as there would be less buttons to press in an instance and less checking if trance activated. Would have to do something similar for Tactical DCs and SSG may as well add Assassinate DCs into the solution.

IMHO, it's the most simple and elegant solution.

 

[Qrvar]

I'd go further and say remove ALL short term buffs. 30 seconds is borderline annoying, anything less and I don't even bother most of the time.

There is nothing fun about stacking multiple buffs for like 5 seconds uptime, when your game is likely to lag for those 5 seconds anyway. Conversely, there's also nothing fun with temp buffs that have cooldowns shorter or equal to uptime, it's basically a passive buff with busy work added.

That said, every build / playstyle should have 1~2 "I WIN" buttons, but they should be flashy and extra, not a "hey you got some extra % to your numbers".

Why not simply provide +x to hit and damage every y heroic levels and every z epic/legendary levels? And let's democratise it and have every class benefit from these "buffs". It would make the game a little (marginally) faster as there would be less buttons to press in an instance and less checking if trance activated.

Or maybe just stop inflating monster HP and AC to unreasonable levels and have an actual plan for long-term game progression.

 

[axel15810]

I do wish there were better/more common and easier to slot gearing alternatives. I agree trances are absolutely mandatory and IMO too build power centralizing.

Most obvious thing they could do is add insightful accuracy augments and insightful tactics augments into the game. I don't think those exist in game currently (correct me if I am wrong). Having to slot these effects on base items is really crippling when it comes to the gear tetris, I had to make a pretty big sacrifice on a build some time ago that used a universal tree trance instead of a class trance. The game really needs augments.

 

[DBZ]

I've heard enough. Send another $3.5trillion to martials.

Steel builds our xbows thats all we need

 

[kmoustakas]

Yes because every melee has 110 Intelligence.

The ones that are int based, do. The ones that are dex based have 110 dex. The ones that are str based have 110 str. The ones that are wisdom based have 110 wisdom. The ones that are cha based, have 110 cha. Or should have if they are building for it?

 

[DBZ]

The ones that are int based, do. The ones that are dex based have 110 dex. The ones that are str based have 110 str. The ones that are wisdom based have 110 wisdom. The ones that are cha based, have 110 cha. I don't understand your comment?

Your blowing minds

 

[kmoustakas]

Your blowing minds

I had to edit it lol I was confused by the comment initially before I realised it was basically someone being a time-waster.

 

[Col Kurtz]

speak up for Trance Rights!

i go into a Trance every time I smoke on the ski lift

 

[Alpha Tester]

Fix the trance because it works then leave in the game only the things that don't work.

This is the reason they destroyed the old ED meld and the ravenloft belt: Everyone is using it so we must destroy.

Leave only nerfed nukers in DDO, the players are gonna love it, you can trust me, I am a first lifer.
Ok, for real: Trance sucks because it's a clickie that you must always activate. This sucks but this is the design of that 19 year old kid that hated the atari designers and laughed about them in a live and still kept it's job. This keep on clicking stuff adds zero fun to the game, takes old DDO players from the top tier because we lack the reflexes to do so and don't give anything new to the game: no new epic or legendary spell, not a single feature to make DDO more D& and with every change DDO becames more and more another generic mmo game.

So DDO in the end of 2025 have a LOT of bad design choices and most of them come from not listening to the playerbase. Dex pass was fine but not needed while the caster/nuker pass is non existant and casters are at least 1/3 of the game.

A game that nerfs it's own better things like the versatility in builds don't want to make money. Same for a game without support, that gave transfer responsability to players, that the website can't take lots of international credit cards and so on. Seems like the developers don't want DDO to strive because they are always wasting manpower in inutile things.

 

[SquireZed]

I've heard enough. Send another $3.5trillion to martials.

Accidentally spent it all on gacha games, send another $3.5 trillion please