U72 Preview 1: Dragon Disciple Monk Archetype

[Lotoc]

It's an easy fix, but I don't think it's the best thing for the game. We don't need to lose build diversity, diversity is the strong point of this game. Or at least it was. Everything is becoming more homogeneous.

For characters like the wizard I would much prefer to see an enhancement that allows the highest elemental lore and spellpower for all elemental spells. That would allow the wizard to use his entire spellbook - as a wizard should. That's the nature of the class. Turning it into another specialist is betraying the nature of the class.

And what you say doesn't help hybrids. Hybrids don't have room for spellcasting stats and weapons in their gear. I'm afraid the real solution to this is to create archetype-specific gear, instead of generic named items with random stats. And to solve the sentience problem.

personally I'd think a way to make hybrids more valid is to look at the trance system and do something besides 1/2 ability modifier to insightful deadly.
If say, a gish like an EK or a DD had their own trance that gave insightful potency equal to their melee power (ranged power is far too problematic due to IAA) and insightful spell focus derived from something like constitution (and put out of the way of pure casters, actually this is impossible for sorc ek due to them not liking savant t5s)
Then you wouldn't have to gear for insightful spellpowers, wouldn't need to gear for insightful dcs.
There is absolutely room for trances to do more to support something besides making insightful accuracy/deadly/tactics entirely redundant itemization and considering the original implementation of trances was heavily skewed to helping Clerics melee better maybe it's about time to explore that space more in the other direction.

 

[Anurakh]

personally I'd think a way to make hybrids more valid is to look at the trance system and do something besides 1/2 ability modifier to insightful deadly.
If say, a gish like an EK or a DD had their own trance that gave insightful potency equal to their melee power (ranged power is far too problematic due to IAA) and insightful spell focus derived from something like constitution (and put out of the way of pure casters, actually this is impossible for sorc ek due to them not liking savant t5s)
Then you wouldn't have to gear for insightful spellpowers, wouldn't need to gear for insightful dcs.
There is absolutely room for trances to do more to support something besides making insightful accuracy/deadly/tactics entirely redundant itemization and considering the original implementation of trances was heavily skewed to helping Clerics melee better maybe it's about time to explore that space more in the other direction.

Yes, things like this would help hybrids.

But hybrids have a problem getting a decent spell DC without losing a lot of their weapon damage. This is the main big problem with hybrids. With a pure caster I get 14 points of DC with sentience. With a pure ranged or melee I also get a lot of ranged/melee power doubleshot/doublestrike with the sentience. Halving these values with a hybrid doesn't really work. You end up with a non-functional DC and mediocre damage.

Then, equipping for DC for multiple schools doesn't work with a hybrid either. It's already really difficult for say an artificer (only evo DC) and a ranged/melee alchemist (only transmutation and conjuration DC). Putting spells from as many schools as this archetype has is simply unviable. I challenge the devs to create a functional hybrid build that includes all the important stats for the weapon, plus spell mastery, insightful spell mastery, quality spell mastery, profane DC, sacred DC.... oh, and don't forget that the gianthold +2 dc augments eat up one augment slot each. There's not room for everything on that build, especially with the tetris that the gear is nowadays. Maybe with a gear designed specifically for an archetype, without wasting slots with useless stats because that's how tetris works, it would work. But certainly not with the current gear And no, halfway through doesn't help. The DC either works or it doesn't.

 

[tapmatic]

I think you are missing a MASSIVE trick by not adding centered with orbs to Core 1 DD. It's thematic and goes some way to address the hybrid gearing questions. Why would you not?

 

[Rull]

I think you are missing a MASSIVE trick by not adding centered with orbs to Core 1 DD. It's thematic and goes some way to address the hybrid gearing questions. Why would you not?

great idea

 

[J1NG]

I think you are missing a MASSIVE trick by not adding centered with orbs to Core 1 DD. It's thematic and goes some way to address the hybrid gearing questions. Why would you not?

I suspect the issue of that not having been implemented, may be because of how everything is structured inside DDO. Meaning they will need to go and sort the code behind the scenes to make that possible. And thus they aren't considering it because they simply don't have the time to do so. Just a guess however, would be nice, but doubt it will happen.

J1NG

 

[Genesis1912]

The Lesser Draconic Burst and Draconic Burst SLA's do not proc Arcane Warrior stacks. Not sure if that is working as intended or not. Didn't think to check the spells themselves.

 

[Havocthedemon1]

I suspect the issue of that not having been implemented, may be because of how everything is structured inside DDO. Meaning they will need to go and sort the code behind the scenes to make that possible. And thus they aren't considering it because they simply don't have the time to do so. Just a guess however, would be nice, but doubt it will happen.

J1NG

*insert dragonball joke here*

 

[SteelStar]

I think you are missing a MASSIVE trick by not adding centered with orbs to Core 1 DD. It's thematic and goes some way to address the hybrid gearing questions. Why would you not?

This is something we made a solid attempt to add, but isn't working as of now. If, somehow, I end up with a lot of spare time before U72 and can get it working, it's a possibility.

 

[Draco]

This is something we made a solid attempt to add, but isn't working as of now. If, somehow, I end up with a lot of spare time before U72 and can get it working, it's a possibility.

Would be huge for Dragon Disciples if you can manage it.

 

[Havocthedemon1]

This is something we made a solid attempt to add, but isn't working as of now. If, somehow, I end up with a lot of spare time before U72 and can get it working, it's a possibility.

Also if you could give monk a DBZ style animation of blasting and melee fighting seamlessly I’d pay a premium amount of $$

https://imgur.com/G1bVD1Q

 

[SpardaX]

This is something we made a solid attempt to add, but isn't working as of now. If, somehow, I end up with a lot of spare time before U72 and can get it working, it's a possibility.

Im sure people wouldn't mind it coming a bit late, if they know that it is coming.

 

[KylerrTheMajty]

Past Life Feat:
You were a Dragon Disciple in a past life. Others find you strangely compelling when you speak or take to the battlefield. Each time you acquire this feat you gain +1 Attack and -1 to the Spell Point cost of the Maximize Metamagic. This feat can be stacked up to three times.

Make it:

You were a Dragon Disciple in a past life. Others find you strangely compelling when you speak or take to the battlefield. Each time you acquire this feat you gain +1 Damage and -1 to the Spell Point cost of the Maximize Metamagic. This feat can be stacked up to three times.


you added so many spell power pl and universal power so give melee some love

 

[Lotoc]

thought more on spellbook suggestions
In general: Razorclaw/shifter have retooled druid animal SLAs, dragon disciples thematically should have claw attacks, the shifter SLAs would make a solid fit, I know the druid animal forms are not possibke but perhaps ones already retooled can work.

First level
Shillelagh, Flameblade and Thornblade, can't be said enough how good these fit.

Second level
Fire Shield
Angelskin (renamed to Dragonhide or something similar)

Third level
Between gew and displacement in this tier its hard to make a suggestion, but I think goldskin could make sense. DI has the turning foes to gold effect, goldskin as a defensive variation on that makes thematic sense.
Sacred Flame Empowerment (rethemed, spellpower scaling on bane damage on crits) would be a solid fit but may be overboard on a class with GEW.

Fourth Level
Call Lightning Storm: This is largely a hybrid suggestion, Call Lightning Storm leaves you plenty of time to focus on meleeing during the uptime and is an effective stacker of Arcane Warrior in epics.
Cauldron of Flame: Very good AW stacker, without henshin core/capstone misses the big power behind it of henshin so shouldn't feel too bad to borrow.
Flesh to Gold: getting into that draconic hoarder nature.

 

[Qubert]

I just finished play testing DD. Overall, I'm really enjoying it! Feedback below

Bugs:

• Spell Focus feats are not showing up on the level 2 and 6 lists when leveling up
• Black Dragon Bolt was not on the level 4 list of spells
• (potential bug) For Draconic Devastation I'm getting inconsistent applications of mobs going from Shaken to Afraid. For example if I cast the SLA version it will Shaken them regardless if they save against the damage of the SLA. Then when I follow up with the spell version it does not fear. From testing it only fears them if they fail their saving throw. Is that by design? If so it would help if it is worded like that in the spell description
• Getting the animation of Acolyte's Breath but no damage after doing the SLA version into the Spell version, and vice versa.
• Meditation is not adding charges to the trance.

Things I liked:

• The tree is super cheap. 51 points to fully max it out is really nice. While most will do 41 points there is usually a reason to pick up almost everything in here.
• The SLAs and Spells are snappy. Feels good once you get Quick Draw to go from spell into melee.
• Core 20 seems very good. Getting 5-6 breath attacks during the active felt fun and the damage is nice.
• I thought I would dislike the fear affect from Draconic Devastation but with the 90% movespeed debuff it works well.
• Adding Wis to hit and damage with a trance is amazing! Falconry is a cool tree to splash into but this gives options.
• Having all the different elemental types adds flexibility to builds
• Different weapon choices for centered makes for cool splashes

Things I would liked changed:

• Core 12 attack is great in damage but the animation is really slow for this type of snappy hybrid. I would love to see this scale with attack speed.
• Core 20 animations look awesome. It would be great if they are scaled up to see the visuals better.
• Having the trance regain charges from meditation is fine personally. I know this will be unpopular with players. It would be cool if we can get an enhancement like Embrace the Void in the tree to make using meditation in combat a little more effective. For example "While meditating you get 10% damage reduction and create and aura of fear that monsters have to save against or be afraid with 90% move speed penalty."

 

[Putti]

What does "hitting all enemies very close to you" mean? How does it compare to "hitting all enemies close to you"? Does it have any equivalent in-game already?

 

[glass_jaws]

Bugs I noticed last night:
* Power in Practice does not grant it's imbue dice if you are using your fists. This is just a minor problem at low levels until you get a weapon.
* Shintao Studies, and Ninjutsu are not granting their bonuses to hit and damage with DD. Unclear to me why. I went up the entire line and didn't get any bonuses from it.
* Draconic Devotion buff says its requires quarterstaves (This appears to just be a text issue)
* Hand of Healing leaves the shaken debuff on you and your allies if you have Draconic Devotion II. I worry that it will also strike you with imbues, etc if it's counting as an attack on yourself but didn't get a chance to test that.


Concerns:
* The scaling on the spells/SLAs go to up to MCL 30. Is this how you intend the DD to scale? If so, this does not work. The caster level stops at 20 at level 20, and you only get your epic improvements. So at 34, you are caster level 27, with max caster level 37. There is no way that I know of for the DD to get +10 caster levels to use the scaling available to the spells, so if this is built into your calculations, the DD will be well behind what you anticipate.

 

[droid327]

the non specialist issue could easily be solved by just making an epic feat for each element that gives a way to deal with immunities.
Solving the overspecialization issue of gear, spellpowers, the epic destiny trees, the epic spellpower feats and the scion feats is so much more work than just giving everyone at least an option to spec into a bypass for whichever damage type they want.
At this point which class has strips and who doesn't is so incredibly arbitrary and it's absolutely brazen how important being able to deal with immunities is by just looking at a single damage type - Poison.
Poison only started being considered seriously by SSG as an actual damage type when alchemists were introduced 5 years ago and in those 5 years poison has now become the damage type with the most widespread immunity stripping. With them now giving an immunity strip to ninja spy monks basically every single class that would care about doing poison damage can find a way to do poison damage consistently.

Specialization is so much bigger an issue than simply single-element vs multielement casters

Yes, it'd be nice if there were a "[Secondary Element] Specialty" feat that let you use your highest spellpower/lore for a second element, to increase your options for spell rotation and deal with immunities without a breaker. I'd probably make it a Heroic feat though, not a L31 Epic one.

However, the game still pushes players into specialization for things like DC casting vs nuking, for ranged vs melee, for martial vs caster, etc. Too often, trying to do two things decently (even when it seems the game intends and supports such a split) just means you dont do either of them adequately well for endgame content.

The only solution there is going to require the devs to reject their deeply-held orthodoxy that hybridization must incur HUGE tradeoffs in efficacy, and let you do two things 90% as well as a specialist, instead of 60% as well. They just dont understand that efficacy isnt linear. They think doing something 50% as well makes it 50% as good. In actual gameplay, though, anything below 90% is "bad" and anything below 80% is "dont even bother"

For DD, that'd mean giving them significantly more spellcasting efficacy than just a couple 1d6+3 and +6 bursts. But they're seemingly stuck on the idea that since DD has nearly full Monk melee support, their spellcasting must be terminally nerfed and DOA.

 

[Hireling]

This is something we made a solid attempt to add, but isn't working as of now. If, somehow, I end up with a lot of spare time before U72 and can get it working, it's a possibility.

Just wanna say thank you for answering the question and explaining "why not" and not making a promise, but showing that you agree and have plans for it possibly later.
Masterclass in community communication right there.

 

[questions]

Hello, everyone!



Dragon Disciple Enhancement Tree

• Core 6: Way of the Mighty Dragon II: Your Way of the Mighty Dragon now includes +2% Doublestrike. At Dragon Disciple levels 9 and 15 this bonus increases by +1. You gain True Seeing.

​

The True Seeing in Core 6 doesn't seem to work. Couldn't see low level secret doors and missed melee strikes for displacement against a displacer beast.

 

[QuantumFX]

Since "Stunning Fist" isn't going to become "Stunning Strike", could you add all the metamagic feats to the DD bonus feat list instead? I have a feat hole at level 6.