U62 Preview 2 Active Attacks Rebalance

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Torc

Systems Developer
New changes are in blue!

Essentially, we are going to change all attacks that have a +W component as part of their attack to use a percentage increase in their damage, following this scale:

W ScalarPercentage Boost
+1W+10%
+2W+20%
+3W+30%
+4W+40%
+5W+50%
......
+10W+100%
Pretty linear!

This means that if you had, for example, an attack that had +3W, that attack will now instead deal +30% damage.

The goal here is to make active attacks more worthwhile across the entire level bands. The big benefit of percentage boosts is that an active attack dealing 50% more damage at level 10 is the same level of efficacy as one dealing +50% at level 30, whereas +5W means a LOT more at level 10 as it does at level 30. This standardization will make attacks a lot easier to balance as they'll be worth the same percentage bonus dps no matter what level you are, what dice your weapon has, what bonus damage you have, and what W score your weapon is.

This overhaul also allowed us to rebalance a variety of active attacks to spruce them up a bit. Therefore:

  • Attacks that increased their W scale or other bonuses in a nonlinear or otherwise unusual fashion have been adjusted to be linear. This includes attacks that started at 1W and never increased beyond that across their ranks.
    • Example: Wracking Strike/Shot in the Mechanic tree now deals +10/20/30% damage instead of the +10/10/10% it would have been
  • Attacks that used to have a lesser scale for their ranged versions have been adjusted to match their melee counterparts.
    • Example: Caustic Shot in Battle Engineer now deals +10/20/30% damage, matching its melee version, instead of +5/10/15% had it matched its original W scalar
  • Attacks that used to secretly scale with W but never told you they did so have been tracked down and their tooltips have been adjusted
    • Example: Supreme Cleave was secretly dealing +0/1/2W, and now deals +10/20/30% damage
  • Attacks that used to deal in .5W scales have been rounded to deal with whole percentages. We're going to try to keep things on multiples of 10% if at all possible.
    • Example: The Fists of Light feat used to deal +.5W damage, it now deals +10% damage (rounding up what would have been 5% to 10%)
  • Attacks that hit multiple times have had their bonus damage set lower to compensate for their multi-hit status.
    • This pretty much only affects two things: Drifting Lotus and the set of Shadar-Kai's Spiked Chain attacks. Each of these are set to 10% bonus damage.
  • Attacks that had a high W scale for their level and are AOEs have been adjusted to appropriate values
    • Example: Cleave, Great Cleave, and their associated Exalted versions in Knight of the Chalice are now 10% damage for regular and 20% for the great cleave versions.
Finally, here's a FAQ:

  • Question: What about things like Vorpal on weapons?
    • Answer: That will continue to boost the base weapon dice of your weapon. Effects that adjust W will remain as-is.
  • Question: What about things like Combat Archery?
    • Answer: That is another thing that boosts the base W of your weapons, and is therefore unchanged.
  • Question: What about things that boost overall damage, like Relentless Fury?
    • Answer: That will continue to boost overall damage as before. The only thing that is changing here is the part of an active attack that boosts the effective W score of your weapon for that attack. Everything else is not changing.
  • Question: Does this boost sneak attack damage?
    • Answer: No, this only affects the attack itself, and does not adjust additional on-hit effects or Sneak Attack (which were not boosted by W changes before)
  • Question: Does the new boost multiply with melee or ranged power?
    • Answer: Melee and Ranged Power will continue to work as they did before, multiplying your melee or ranged damage respectively.
Known Issues:

  • Feats are currently not displaying their bonus damage percentage increase!
  • NEW- Boulder's Might got missed in the pass and is still using Ws so doesn't display a damage bonus (will be +50% to match 5W)
  • NEW - Drifting Lotus is striking less frequency for punch weapons than it should (we are looking at this)

 
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Jack Jarvis Esquire

Well-known member
Was supportive of the changes in P1, but it's a pity about scaling back Great Cleave in P2.

I was interested to see how it played off against the Whirlwind Attack line with its earlier value as WWA has other advantages. Guess there's no need to bother now, which is pretty disappointing. Oh well. ☹️
 
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wdhvenrick

Well-known member
Hmmm I also agree with Jack that the cleave and great cleave changes are a pity. In recent years I basically all but stopped taking them on my melee builds because by cap I already have enough active attacks to keep throwing one out constantly around each others cool downs. Great cleave and cleave we're almost back on the table as viable with the into epic scaling. But now dropping them lower when they almost needed to be better is just terrible. I would advise probably keeping cleave, great cleave as it was. The enhancement tree cleaves can stay worse as 1 enhancement point is not nearly as valuable as 1 feat.
 

seph1roth5

Well-known member
Yeah I think they're overestimating certain attacks. If cleave/great cleave followed the normal formula it'd still be iffy on taking them, because of all the cleaves in enhancements already. Better to LEAVE great cleave stronger so it's an actual consideration.

Same with shadarkai chains. Looks strong on paper (and is fun!) but it's not meta by far, just used for killing trash.
 

rabidfox

The People's Champion
The cleave/great cleave feat tax is a limiting factor in taking them. It's like IPS, it's a feat tax for an abilitity that's only situationally useful (and often worse to have turned on) vs other feat options. Could be way worse I suppose, they could be like improved fortification that's a feat tax to make a character actively suffer.
 

MSC

Well-known member
I'd suggest a lighter nerf to the cleaves %'s, if at all. WWA is a fast cooldown +20% 360 degree attack that hits twice. Cleave and Great cleave both hit once, in a tighter aoe. Cleave was already at +1W/+10%, keep it there and equalize the enhancement versions to it, but great cleave was a +4W/+40%, maybe make it a +30% (and make the enhancement versions equal to it) to make it not as bad compared to WWA.
 

Toprak

Active member
I think I'd agree with others on the reduction in % for cleaves - with the advent of strikethrough, something like Cleave that interrupts attack animation really needs to be worth using.

While Cleave is an AoE, we already have a constant AoE in the form of strikethrough. However, that's a big benefit for THF. When considering TWF or SWF, cleaves now become even less valued, and they already don't do nearly as well with groups.

If there's a concern about its power due to the level it can be attained, maybe we should consider how we balance against that, rather than making cleave something that we may not want to use in higher levels.

Does Cleave doublestrike? If not...can it? Could we make it that way if it doesn't already?
 

Monkey_Archer

Well-known member
I'd suggest a lighter nerf to the cleaves %'s, if at all. WWA is a fast cooldown +20% 360 degree attack that hits twice. Cleave and Great cleave both hit once, in a tighter aoe. Cleave was already at +1W/+10%, keep it there and equalize the enhancement versions to it, but great cleave was a +4W/+40%, maybe make it a +30% (and make the enhancement versions equal to it) to make it not as bad compared to WWA.
I agree with this. Both require 3 feats, but whirlwind is just better.
 

Hammatimes

Well-known member
  • Attacks that had a high W scale for their level and are AOEs have been adjusted to appropriate values
    • Example: Cleave, Great Cleave, and their associated Exalted versions in Knight of the Chalice are now 10% damage for regular and 20% for the great cleave versions.
This makes no sense. You're nerfing these abilities because they have a high W scale for their level? Adjusting it to a % system was already a nerf in the low levels so they're already nerfed at the level they're attained. When it comes to AOE damage for leveling melees completely suffer against casters, I don't see the reason for the triple nerf (W removal from Barovian weapons, Actives scaling worse at low levels, this nerf to cleaves). These cleaves are only going to surpass the nerf of this system change until later levels anyways, what was the thinking here? The opportunity costs of taking these abilities is going to be the same no matter what level they're gated.

Also, since when is level 12 for a T5 for Avenging Cleave considered a low level? This is the same pass that you buffed T3 supreme cleave up to 30% and that has a 3s cooldown.

Boulder's Might was also nerfed to remove all W while Fast and Furious kept it's +30%. Is level 20 now considered too low of a level for even a +10%? If you were worried about it multiplying with adrenaline then this approach makes no sense either because Adrenaline doesn't cleave.

As far as I can tell, these were the only nerfs. Every other ED active and Heroic enhancement remained the same even if they're lower level and stronger. You have a T1 Rapid Slash and T4 Wide Sweep scaling higher than the T5 Avenging Cleave.

The response to feedback is disappointing on these.

This is what the Tooltips now look like btw
image.png
 

Monkey_Archer

Well-known member
Boulder's Might was also nerfed to remove all W while Fast and Furious kept it's +30%. Is level 20 now considered too low of a level for even a +10%? If you were worried about it multiplying with adrenaline then this approach makes no sense either because Adrenaline doesn't cleave.

As far as I can tell, these were the only nerfs. Every other ED active and Heroic enhancement remained the same even if they're lower level and stronger. You have a T1 Rapid Slash and T4 Wide Sweep scaling higher than the T5 Avenging Cleave.

The response to feedback is disappointing on these.

This is what the Tooltips now look like btw
image.png
Nerfing boulder's might and not fast and furious doesn't make much sense to me, but I can see why 50% would be too much.

Tooltips look great though, and that seems to be a very nice buff to shadowstrike :)
 

Hammatimes

Well-known member
Nerfing boulder's might and not fast and furious doesn't make much sense to me, but I can see why 50% would be too much.

Tooltips look great though, and that seems to be a very nice buff to shadowstrike :)
Is it really too much when you can also pair adrenaline with shadowstrike or eldritch tempest for a +3 mult and +50% damage? Both of those are also cleaves. I know there's longer cooldowns with those but the only reason they used for their nerfs was level. It's nerfing THF AOE by moving them to fast and furious and then nerfing their single target by going from 50% to 30% while their single target is already lower than SWF or TWF.

This is bringing Boulder's Might to do less damage while using a 4X weapon than a +1 mult +20% attack or even a +50% attack when paired with adrenaline. I see no logic in the nerfs with this preview and why they didn't address the adrenaline multiplying issue. This is only going to cause even more balancing issues down the line.
 

Dragnilar

Dragonborn of Bahamut
Hmm... More Paladin nerfs. No thanks. I'll go ahead and cancel my VIP billing tonight. Thanks for the fun, while it lasted, Turbine / SSG.
 

Curupira

Member
Attacks that hit multiple times have had their bonus damage set lower to compensate for their multi-hit status.
  • This pretty much only affects two things: Drifting Lotus and the set of Shadar-Kai's Spiked Chain attacks. Each of these are set to 10% bonus damage.
Handwraps Drifting Lotus wants to talk...
 

Monkey_Archer

Well-known member
... and why they didn't address the adrenaline multiplying issue. This is only going to cause even more balancing issues down the line.
Right, this is the core issue. I'm happy that they are working to lessen the buff to adrenaline, but it seems that perhaps adrenaline itself is the problem rather than which strikes are too powerful to chain with it?

I liked your additive instead of multiplicative idea, but perhaps adrenaline should just be an attack itself that cant be chained with anything... Give it an automatic +2 multiplier and be done with any funny interactions? (same for hunts end of course)
 

Hammatimes

Well-known member
I liked your additive instead of multiplicative idea, but perhaps adrenaline should just be an attack itself that cant be chained with anything... Give it an automatic +2 multiplier and be done with any funny interactions? (same for hunts end of course)
I personally enjoy the engaging gameplay that comes with chaining attacks and prebuffing to start encounters with double adrens. I wouldn't be thrilled for changing this ability into lazy gameplay, too much of this game is just holding down left mouse already
 

Monkey_Archer

Well-known member
I personally enjoy the engaging gameplay that comes with chaining attacks and prebuffing to start encounters with double adrens. I wouldn't be thrilled for changing this ability into lazy gameplay, too much of this game is just holding down left mouse already
I have mixed opinions on this... I like active game play, but trying to get adrenaline chained properly during raid lag with DDO's no input queue system is not fun either...
 

Jack Jarvis Esquire

Well-known member
Don't know how many times I need to repeat this... Nerfing adrenaline is NOT the way to go IMO. It's strong for melee but the last thing the poor saps with no guns need is a nerf.

The only thing they should be doing with adrenaline is FIXING THE DAMNED MISFIRES! 😡

If the other melee epic strikes need a buff to catch up with adrenaline, and they do IME, then that's the way to go.

If this W conversion is heading into OP territory, and I'm not convinced it is, then they would do better to scrap the whole damned thing and leave things as they are. If it ain't broke...

All I'm seeing in this P2 is rowing back on stuff that was really interesting in P1, and introducing artificial comparative nerfs that defy logic in many cases. I'm wondering if it's really worth the bother at all now. ☹️

"How do you hurt a man who has lost everything?

Give him something back, broken."

This is beginning to feel like that.

Definitely ditch P2. If you're not convinced by P1. Fine. Ditch the whole thing.
 
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