U62 Preview 2 Balance Refresh

[Shear-buckler]

Spellpower scaling imbues have been standardized: They are all now 1d8 damage per imbue dice and all now scale with 75% spell power instead of 100%

• Affects:
  • Eldritch Knight
  • Arcane Archer
  • Warchanter
  • Warpriest/Warsoul
  • Artificer
  • Dark Apostate
  • Druid Elemental Forms
  • Blightcaster
  • Vile Chemist

Well there goes the possibilities of making builds that dont rely on active attack damage. Why?

Spellpower Imbues were strong but could not compare to the scaling of say adrenaline, which is getting a huge buff. With all active attacks being changed to +X% damage that does not affect imbue damage there is no need to nerf the scaling too.

 

[Lotoc]

Well there goes the possibilities of making builds that dont rely on active attack damage. Why? Imbues were strong but could not compare to the scaling of adrenaline.

Clearly those 3 extra imbue dice from macrotech meant imbue dice were pushed over the line.
That pesky Macrotech/Draconic/Primal imbue build.

Genuinely it's jarring that imbue builds are getting nerfed while the actual top end dps builds that everyone is aware of are receiving buffs with this update.

 

[Shear-buckler]

If you like these kinds of changes and would like to see more of them, please let us know! And if you have your own suggestions as to what should be adjusted, please feel free to let us know about those as well!

The artificer battle engineer capstone is lacking appeal since the crit multiplier was moved. I suggest adding +2 imbue dice and some electric spellpower.

 

[Elfishski]

Kensei

• Tactics is now 1AP per rank
• Weapon Focus vertical line and the Exotic Focus enhancement are now 1AP
  • in total this saves 8AP!

All in favour of bringing down the cost of some overpriced abilities, but I don't think this is necessary for Kensei - the Kensei tree is already super cheap overall especially the T5's compared to any other tree, and this makes it dangerously close to not even being able to spend enough AP to take the capstone unless you have the Dodge feat.
- Perhaps make tactics and the exotic focus 1 AP, but the weapon focus vertical line should probably stay 2ap - they're well worth it and you at least have to pick something in the tree you don't take that way so you can make a slightly different kensei on your next life.

 

[gravisrs]

Finally a nerf to EK, their imbue damage was insane due to spellpower 100% scaling!
Well not.
EK imbue damage output should be a little bit over the average cuz there are mobs immune to specific element. It's not like a fighter who can just switch weapon to overcome DR, duh!

 

[Elfishski]

Finally a nerf to EK, their imbue damage was insane due to spellpower 100% scaling!
Well not.
EK imbue damage output should be a little bit over the average cuz there are mobs immune to specific element. It's not like a fighter who can just switch weapon to overcome DR, duh!

Well, EKs can just... switch element (likely with a loss to spellpower but often to a vulnerable element), so that's not a great argument. Agree with the conclusion because imbue dice is basically the central theme of an EK who is otherwise way weaker than a fighter at doing damage, so they should have a better imbue (for high level EKs not for small splashes).

Not everything needs to be standardized...

 

[gravisrs]

I meant gear wise, It's not like you can switch your main spellpower from fire to ice in a blink of mob's eye.

 

[QuantumFX]

If you're really interested in fixing poorly implemented enhancements, then you should change the "Spell Focus" enhancement in Tainted Scholar. 3 AP for +2 to a single school is absurd. Either make it 2AP for +3 to a single school, or offer a multiselector that grants +2 to 3 different schools.

ex:
Fey Spell Focus: +2 Conjuration, Enchantment and Illusion
Fiend Spell Focus: +2 Enchantment, Evocation and Necromancy
GOO Spell Focus: +2 Conjuration, Enchantment and Illusion
Celestial Spell Focus: +2 Abjuration, Evocation and Transmutation
Abyss Spell Focus: +2 Conjuration, Necromancy and Transmutation
Carceri Storm Spell Focus: +2 Evocation, Necromancy and Transmutation

 

[Jeronimo]

My EK imbue build will be very sad over losing 25% imbue damage.

 

[l_remmie]

I like all imbues being the same from the start.
But I like to see the follow up to this by balancing things more with imbue dice numbers and spellpower.

Also, is their any progress with imbue dmg working with threat/diversion?

 

[Viamel]

The imbue changes are ridiculous, please don't go ahead with this

 

[Alternative]

Bombardier is the only tree that has 1% crit for 2ap. Most classes get 2 crit for 2ap, at least one gets 2 crit for 1ap.

Instead all it gets are nerfs. Having to pick different damage types just for slas and thus having to spec for them is too much cost for too little gain.

If you want to push alch into using different elements, you should start by putting multivials on separate cooldowns.

Not a fan of changing reflex save to fort. Why is that needed?

 

[QuantumFX]

Also Improved Weapon Finesse in Deepwood Stalker needs to affect crossbows. First, due to other changes you made to DDO, it's not the game meta breaking change you tried to make it out to be 10 years ago. Second, with crossbows, I have 3 different ways to get INT to hit and 4 ways to get INT to damage, 2 different ways to get WIS or CHA to hit and damage, and nothing for DEX to damage.

 

[The Blonde]

I am in utter disbelief. No way you're actually nerfing AA. The enhancement cost reductions are almost irrelevant, as all those things with the exception of Force Arrows would not be used even if they were a single AP (let alone two) due to how weak they are. AA is the weakest of the 3 Bow trees. If you go forward with the 25% nerf (which is massive btw), compensation should be a no-brainer for AA and maybe even EK.

Runebow doesn't stack with weapon enchantments, and so ends up being useless. Maybe move the crit option of Improved elemental arrows to this spot so you can get the crit and the imbue dice? Or maybe something else/more to help spice up these two tier 5s that are just lackluster. Maybe a crit range increase to match the cores multiplier.

This is not true. Runebow works as advertised and fully stacks with items' enhancement bonuses. It's the first Core of the tree that is mostly useless. Although I agree that "Improved Elemental Arrows" is a prime candidate for rework/buff.

It seems iced edges was changed but just not in the notes.

The other 3 however are still not d8 on lam.

These do need adjusting for sure, hope they don't miss them.

 

[The Blonde]

• Touch of Despair now scales with the highest of Dex/Wis and uses Assassinate DCs to determine its DC

Please ensure the tooltips of Touch of Despair & Touch of Death accurately reflect that they scale with Assassinate, as Touch of Despair in its current version doesn't indicate that it scales with Stunning.

 

[Shear-buckler]

Spellpower scaling imbues have been standardized: They are all now 1d8 damage per imbue dice and all now scale with 75% spell power instead of 100%

Alright. To make up for the nerf, how about you double the number of imbue dice in the enhancement trees?
EK for example gets 10 imbue dice from the tree while about 20-25 is available from EDs and items (mostly filigrees). Bumping EK to give 20 imbue dice would roughly cancel out the nerf while making the character less reliant on endgame gear and specific EDs.

For the record: You can double the imbue dice from enhancement trees and retain the x1 scaling and it still would not be overpowered.

 

[Sholekar]

This is not true. Runebow works as advertised and fully stacks with items' enhancement bonuses. It's the first Core of the tree that is mostly useless.

I was not precise in how I said that. External enchantments, aka the enchant weapon spell or any of the other Artificer weapon buffs (like the +2 imbue dice that is essential for an AA) don't stack with this, unless I have greatly misunderstood things.

And you are correct also about the cores. If you have an arti in the group or scroll their weapon enchantments, none of the enhancement boosts in AA do anything. If you don't have an arti, then only the T5 +2 works, which is really lackluster with the changes to enhancement bonus a while ago anyway (and is almost matched by a level 1 spell). It's +2 to hit and damage.

 

[Ying]

Any AP reduction is welcome because it opens up new build options. I do wonder why some enhancements get so easily overlooked though when you're already changing enhancement costs in that tree. For example: Dwarf's Child of the Mountain ranks 1 and 2 costing 2 AP for +1 Fort save each. That's ridiculously overcosted.

Alchemist changes are solid. Though you still won't see Alchemists as primary healers (majority of AP spent in Apothecary) because their heal vials are too slow. Panacea Poultice (T3) remains useless because of the touch range. The restriction on ally-only is also needlessly limiting.

 

[Sholekar]

With AA, could we have the para/other arrows scale with highest if int/wis/cha? Especially considering it is "Arcane" Archer and no arcane caster scales with Wisdom?

 

[The Blonde]

I was not precise in how I said that. External enchantments, aka the enchant weapon spell or any of the other Artificer weapon buffs (like the +2 imbue dice that is essential for an AA) don't stack with this, unless I have greatly misunderstood things.

Just tested, Greater Elemental Weapons doesn't overwrite Runebow's +2 to-hit/+2 to dmg.