U62 Preview 2 Balance Refresh

[somenewnoob]

Over nerfing spell dps?….

Muh ha ha ha ha ha.

WARLOCK says “Hi, Welcome to the club. Your Weak DPS Membership Card will arrive in the mail next week.”

Bro......we don't talk about that any more. Once a year we visit the memorial in somber silence and pay tribute to what was.

 

[saekee]

Based on these numbers, no.

All but one are in the range: 10 +/- 2. Even reducing that to 10 +/- 1 only drops out Vanguard and Swashbuckler.

Thus, Kensei is the only significant outlier.

Hi CBDunk consider that I did not go through all of them and my key argument is to keep them all max 10AP so you can go tier 5 and get capstone at 41 AP.

You forgot all of the worst offenders:

Tempest costs 13
Occult Slayer costs 13
Warchanter costs 14
Sacred Defender costs 14
Arcanotechnician costs 14

I would love for most 3 ap abilities in T5s to get an ap cost reduction.

Thanks for adding this research! Builds really well on my argument

 

[Subfive]

Monk Class

• Monk combo builders now deal +10% damage, and their alignment based builders deal +15% damage
• Monk Finishers now deal +30% damage
• Touch of Death now deals +30% damage
• Touch of Despair now scales with the highest of Dex/Wis and uses Assassinate DCs to determine its DC

I love those changes but I would love to see those have a Ranged selector added. Especially the touch of death which is a tier 5 ability in the tree for Shuriken Build and other weapon than Quaterstaff/handwraps and is currently limited to melee attacks only. the other tier5 in ninja spy is also a Melee attack.

Most monk attacks are melee limited and I would love to see ranged variant(either for shuriken or bow builds if you take the feat for it).

The other tree are anly working on quaterstaff or handwraps so it leaves only ninja spy for anything ranged and only passive are usefull since the finisher and combo builder are not working with ranged attack and the active themself are not working with ranged either it leaves nothing usable from what makes the Monk unique.

 

[Thor]

Please look at tempest tree. The whole 9 pts for a little more dodge is offensive. This tree could use some real help, but lowering the cost of things considerably would be a start.

 

[Boondocks Mike]

I would really love if the Weapon Focus/Spec. feats granted unique bonuses to MP/RP and were +3/4 instead of +2 (whatever would compensate for not being stackable, although I don't think this needs to be a perfectly power neutral change to be a good change). Stacking the same feat repeatedly for a fairly minimal individual benefit is neither interesting, creative, rewarding, or fun. Better feat variety and revamping existing feats to be more viable would be really cool.

I would remove Combat Expertise as a prereq for any currently existing feat and I would remove Sneak Attack as a prereq for Hamstring and Feint.

It was mentioned by Sev a while ago that Kensei doesn't support heavy armor at all, it's disappointing to see that that is not going to change. Hopefully it does.

 

[Neilfladech]

Here's what we've gotten so far in terms of bug fixes and feedback responses:

Bugs Fixed:

• The Known Issue about feats not working with our new tooltip flow has been resolved.
• Fixed: Swashbuckler and Warchanter imbue not scaling at 75%, also fixed their tooltips
• Fixed: Boulder's Might still using the old system
• Fixed: Force Arrows correctly use their Tier 3 Values
• Fixed: Elf AA Tree is all kinds of weird with some of the 3-ranks condensing to 1
• Fixed: Vial SLAs in Bombardier erroneously sharing a cooldown

Balance Updates:

• Cleave and Great Cleave have been updated to deal +20% and +40% damage respectively
• Divine Vessel in Warpriest/Warsoul now deals +30% more damage
• New: Arcane Archer core 1's enhancement bonus now stacks with everything.
• New: Arcane Archer's tier 5 Improved Elemental Arrow's critical hits now scale with Imbue dice, dealing 1d10 per imbue dice on a critical hit, and apply to the Force Arrows imbue. (this replaces the current force arrows on-crit 1d10)

If you see any other bugs or have further feedback on balance let us know!

Please take a look at sacred fist AP cost on the left side of the tree. The entire line is tied together and they all cost 2 AP. They also don't give the same bonus each time. I know it's not thw worst thing but I feel sacred fist could use a little polish still.

P.S. if you wanna add divine might in that'd be cool too.

 

[mikarddo]

Capstone requires 40 AP so if you need 30 AP to get to tier 5, it should not cost more than 10 AP to get the best of a tree and a capstone IMHO.

I am curious why you think so. The trees are meant to provide options not meant to be something you take everything in - and you even have the option to simply spend more than 41 points in the tree if you so wish.

So, I dont think you have a strong argument here. Infact, I might argue the reverse - that trees with fewer than 10 ap worth in T5 needs more options so you are forced to either pick or spend above 41.

 

[Mand O'Lin]

Please take a look at sacred fist AP cost on the left side of the tree. The entire line is tied together and they all cost 2 AP. They also don't give the same bonus each time. I know it's not thw worst thing but I feel sacred fist could use a little polish still.

P.S. if you wanna add divine might in that'd be cool too.

This is similar to the Monk Henshin Mystic tree. The Henshin Mystic tree alternates between +1,+1 and +1,+2 while the Sacred Fist tree alternates between +1,+1 and +2,+1. Both cost 2 AP each and only apply to very specific weapons. I see them as a way of spending APs to get to the next Tier. The additional damage is nice bonus!

 

[Neilfladech]

This is similar to the Monk Henshin Mystic tree. The Henshin Mystic tree alternates between +1,+1 and +1,+2 while the Sacred Fist tree alternates between +1,+1 and +2,+1. Both cost 2 AP each and only apply to very specific weapons. I see them as a way of spending APs to get to the next Tier. The additional damage is nice bonus!

You are correct, I just think it could use some balancing. Same would go for Henshin mystic in my opinion. But as usual, your milage may vary. ?

 

[Lotoc]

A lot of weapon based trees have that exact line of enhancements where they get +1/+1 and +1/+2 attack and damage alternating with their weapons, in fact I believe barbarian and eldritch knight trees are some of the only classes without an equivalent.
Kensei is the only one that is getting a cost reduction, likely for the same reason archmage got AP reduction on their metamagic reductions.

What you really should keep in mind is that +1 attack and +2 damage is equivalent to gaining 2 strength with a 2handed weapon, having these enhancements cost 2 when 2 strength costs 4 is already very efficient.

 

[Mand O'Lin]

A lot of weapon based trees have that exact line of enhancements where they get +1/+1 and +1/+2 attack and damage alternating with their weapons, in fact I believe barbarian and eldritch knight trees are some of the only classes without an equivalent.
Kensei is the only one that is getting a cost reduction, likely for the same reason archmage got AP reduction on their metamagic reductions.

What you really should keep in mind is that +1 attack and +2 damage is equivalent to gaining 2 strength with a 2handed weapon, having these enhancements cost 2 when 2 strength costs 4 is already very efficient.

Understood. I am not complaining and feel that 2 APs is reasonable. However, I do then to look at it as AP filler with the added benefit of extra damage.

 

[droid327]

Understood. I am not complaining and feel that 2 APs is reasonable. However, I do then to look at it as AP filler with the added benefit of extra damage.

There's very little in SF that's filler-tier enhancements, to be fair, relative to many other trees. Skills (but that always is), offhand (bc Fist is best played SWF dagger), Shout are all T1 filler. So even if you reduced the damage line to 1 AP...you're probably still just burning that extra AP on something useless to unlock the next tier anyway

Oh and VBV in T5, that's the one piece of real honest-to-goodness trash in the tree

The problem with Fist tree is more what it lacks, not so much what it has

 

[FVSHasBeenEvenMoreGutted]

There's very little in SF that's filler-tier enhancements, to be fair, relative to many other trees. Skills (but that always is), offhand (bc Fist is best played SWF dagger), Shout are all T1 filler. So even if you reduced the damage line to 1 AP...you're probably still just burning that extra AP on something useless to unlock the next tier anyway

Oh and VBV in T5, that's the one piece of real honest-to-goodness trash in the tree

The problem with Fist tree is more what it lacks, not so much what it has

idk bout that, my sacred fist builds always put 31 points in tree minimum and I take absolutely nothing useless (only take 2 things in t5, one of which is the stun on outsiders which doesn't work, so its just comp hp ?‍ )

 

[Kipp]

Any chance we could reduce/remove the cleave KI costs from Sacred Fist? It seems weird they have a cost, when no other version of them does. I know it was added at a time when Sacred Fist had nothing to spend Ki on, but then ki spells were added. Maybe then people would take both of them :O

 

[Lotoc]

There's very little in SF that's filler-tier enhancements, to be fair, relative to many other trees. Skills (but that always is), offhand (bc Fist is best played SWF dagger), Shout are all T1 filler. So even if you reduced the damage line to 1 AP...you're probably still just burning that extra AP on something useless to unlock the next tier anyway

Oh and VBV in T5, that's the one piece of real honest-to-goodness trash in the tree

The problem with Fist tree is more what it lacks, not so much what it has

I'd argue evasive dance is even worse. The t5s of sacred fist are just simply not compelling when compared to vistani, both VBV and Evasive dance need scrapping.
I'd love to see something like a way to gain spell crit for your ki spells and a trance take their place.
Sacred fist just has the issue of being designed by a dev well known for hating trances so left it out of the tree, ultimately harming the archetype.

 

[saekee]

I am curious why you think so. The trees are meant to provide options not meant to be something you take everything in - and you even have the option to simply spend more than 41 points in the tree if you so wish.

So, I dont think you have a strong argument here. Infact, I might argue the reverse - that trees with fewer than 10 ap worth in T5 needs more options so you are forced to either pick or spend above 41.

That is a great point and totally valid. I think that is up to the devs. I feel that tier 5s should not amount to more than 10AP and that things could be tweaked to make it so. Here for example, Tronko struggles to get the basic assassin goods due to Tier 5 costs. Of course, he makes his choices, and you can argue that is the cost of the Dex trance. I solved the issue for my build by going Kukris, for example, and only spending 2 AP on the trance.

It just seems arbitrary to me that some trees can get everything covered under 10 AP and others go over. That is my main point--a kind of standardization, a sort of weird 'fairness' I suppose. There does not seem to be any logic as to why Kensei spend only 1 AP for Keen Edge or 1 AP for their 25% HP boost while Assassins are dropping 2 for each. And so on--some of these things could be combined, some plopped down into tier 4 even or maybe a core--I have not thought too deeply about it as that is not my job (and anyway, will the devs take this under consideration anyway?). For assassin, since I play the tree heavily, I would make Measure the Foe simply be 2AP, not 1AP per rank. That sets the Assassin tier 5 to 10AP. If one goes Kukris, and saves himself or herself from having to spend on Knife Spec, about 1 AP is saved for some other choice.

And on another note--thinking of hosting some kind of first life competition again? I suggest using the HC server as that guarantees a more even playing field.

 

[Neain]

The big issue for me that is threat reduction isn't available equally across the board; so even if it is working off spell threat reduction, it just isn't good enough still. Add ranged & spell threat reduction on treachery and/or add in other filigrees with those threat reductions. Add spell threat reduction to the Happy Calm coffee.

and melee/ranged cant take a feat to get 60% threat reduction from magus of the eclipse. Would it be really nice if I could find (and fit) +50 or +75 more spell threat reduction? yes. but sadly I think in this case its more along the lines of tradeoffs. though you could make the argument that casters need a few more options than they currently have.

 

[rabidfox]

and melee/ranged cant take a feat to get 60% threat reduction from magus of the eclipse. Would it be really nice if I could find (and fit) +50 or +75 more spell threat reduction? yes. but sadly I think in this case its more along the lines of tradeoffs. though you could make the argument that casters need a few more options than they currently have.

My comment on threat reduction source was influenced because of imbues pulling hate and unequal sources of theat reduction on gear/coffee. If an imbue based melee/ranged has to burn a feat and go magus to not pull hate then it's a broken threat system.

 

[The Nameless One]

Devs are seeing something with imbues that we aren't. Admittedly, the whole imbue nerf caught me side-ways but I have a hunch they have meta-data they are pulling from the game and they don't like the amount or level or whatever with the damage coming out of imbues.

 

[Shear-buckler]

Devs are seeing something with imbues that we aren't. Admittedly, the whole imbue nerf caught me side-ways but I have a hunch they have meta-data they are pulling from the game and they don't like the amount or level or whatever with the damage coming out of imbues.

I have a hunch they made a simplistic DPS calc and failed to include a lot of what makes DPS builds tic.