U81 Preview 1 - Level Cap Increase & Feats

[Phaedra]

I wonder if it'd work better as something that grants you charges and you would need to press an activate to gain the temp shield according to how many charges you've amassed and the stacks wouldn't run out so fast - this way you wouldn't get a "passive heal for 700-800 every 6 seconds while in combat that isnt affected by reaper penalties" but would have to be mindful of it and use it consciously when it serves you best while giving the possibility of player error of using it at a bad time as well.. but that'd make it less useful for less mindful players

On the other hand... the current proposed feat makes people who struggle currently able to tackle higher difficulties, and if we get a higher/different difficulty system that isn't just all about obliterating the enemy in one hit (goes for both monsters and players - r10 is a one/two/three shot fiesta) - then this feat will fit right in.

After thinking on it more I think this type of feat is a great idea *even if it's overpowered* and mostly shines a light on the lackings of the difficulty systems we are playing with.

Are we really advocating for a builder/spender system in 2026?

 

[Wongar]

Playing a melee at cap with the Legendary Strength of Arms feat. Ran both a 1st life build with minimal gear and an everything completionist with decent gear - solo.

I like this feat and how it works quite a bit.

It made my undergeared 1st lifer much more enjoyable to play. Having relatively low melee power and lower DPS, it was far from making him unkillable, The procs happened frequently enough to keep him in the fight and have a chance to cycle through and play different abilities. I think having it will greatly help someone new (or at least new to melee or even a given class) have fun and experiment with playstyles while still being able to play in a more challenging environment.

While it was nice to have on my more developed toon, it is more of a buffer than a game changer. He was unkillable in low skull reaper - with all the past lifes and a nod toward suitability in the build we has mostly unkillable before so no change. If pushing higher skulls solo, It might allow me to push up a skull but we are getting into an area that the temp HP buffer does not really overcome my age and slower reflexes and I depend more on game knowledge than build. So again a little more forgiving but no real change.

- It will provide some tools to learn and practice new classes/play styles
- It will make more challenging quests/skulls accessible to lower skill/geared players
- It won't do much for very established melee builds besides add small cushion
- All the stacks dropping between fights makes it unique and work this way v. just another source of temp HP

Helps new players without adding a ton of power creep - great win in my book

 

[Lotoc]

I tried the new piercing feats out on a Fire Cleric.

First comment is the feats are difficult to fit in on a Cleric. It seems the near mandatory feats required for a Cleric elemental nuker have outgrown the number of feat slots available.

You have the metamagic feats, the new piercing feats, and with the DC changes the DC feats will be required. Elemental clerics are already penalized by having to choose useful enhancements or the capstone. No other class in DDO can go pure and still need to give up the capstone so they can take enhancements in their main tree (and start 3 DC behind.)

I ran Reach for the Sky and Best Laid Plans at 15 and at cap as these are two of my most hated quests on a fire cleric.

In play, the piercing works and makes quests that used to be extremely painful for a for fire cleric much easier so they meet the basic need of working around immunity. The range is decent and for short fights are not bad to use. Having just the single target version and having multiple healed mobs is still a problem.

Managing a short term buff is tedious/annoying - especially when missing a refresh and casting a spell heals the mob.
The pierce affecting the elemental absorption of the Iron Golem was nice.

Overall, these meet the baseline given goal of allowing immunity to be handled and I will be much happier with them than without them.

In order to help with the number of feats required, can we consider adding them to appropriate cleric domains? Suggest:

Air/Earth/Fire/Water get Piercing with the level 5 SLA and Piercing Mastery with the level 14 SLA.

What I'd quite like to see for clerics is for Prophetic Zenith to be replaced with a multiselector for new domain based channel divinity spells, all functionally the same but the damage type you can select is based on your domain - fire domain picks a fire version, chaos domain locked to a chaos damage version etc. d6+4 per CL, MCL 20, placeholder name Evoke Domain.
and the t5 above it "Your Evoke Domain applies whichever Pierce feats you have taken"

 

[woq]

Are we really advocating for a builder/spender system in 2026?

I don't think it's always a bad thing - I think builder/spender type systems are only bad if you need to use it as soon as you get it so you're in this loop, that's not the case for preventative defensive abilities. But yeah, I was just spitballing not a fully thought through idea.

 

[Shmuel]

You guys really need to add sone feats that help with caster dps. This is the time to do it.

Some suggestions:
A feat that uses your highest spellpower for all spell types: make this wizard only

Legendary spell casting feat that eliminates max caster level for all spells. Make this ml 30.

Epic spell casting feat increasing cl and mcl for all spells of a particular damage type by 10. You could rework the master of feats for this.

A Legendary metamagic that adds 500 or 1000 spellpower but makes spells cost twice as much.

 

[PaleFox]

I tried the new piercing feats out on a Fire Cleric.

First comment is the feats are difficult to fit in on a Cleric. It seems the near mandatory feats required for a Cleric elemental nuker have outgrown the number of feat slots available.


In order to help with the number of feats required, can we consider adding them to appropriate cleric domains? Suggest:

Air/Earth/Fire/Water get Piercing with the level 5 SLA and Piercing Mastery with the level 14 SLA.

I think just about every class that hasn't got a strip immunity could benefit from free feats in a similar fashion.

 

[Kimbere]

They are never going to balance out high reaper raiding because it's not worth their manpower. It's a small segment of the player base that raids, I am in that group, and only a small sliver of that already small group who does high reaper raiding.

Yes, I'm aware.

However, that doesn't invalidate my point about the feat that as it currently stands, it will trivialize non-high skull content even more than it already is while not helping much in the highest difficulties, which is the only place melee currently struggle defensively.

I doubt that outcome is the intention the devs have for this feat.

 

[Bjond]

Legendary Spell Focus

30+

Epic Spell Focus

+3 to all Spell DCs

That's a hefty feat tax. Non wizards won't be able to afford both metas & DCs; my non-wizards already skip the focus line in favor of metas and only use PL:Wizard in heroics.

Epic Precision	21+	Precision	Your Precision stance grants an additional +5% to-hit and +15% Fortification Bypass.
Epic Power Attack	21+	Power Attack	While in Power Attack, you gain an additional +5 damage.

Thematically sensical as followup feats, but the additional accuracy and bypass from regular precision is already sidelining power-attack builds. This makes me wonder if PA builds will be completely non-viable in the future.

Improved Inspiration Melody: Excellence

30+

Inspiration Melody: Excellence

Your Inspire Excellence now grants an additional +2 to all Ability Scores.

Another seemingly sensible follow-on, but I'm unsure increasing the power of buff-bots is a good thing. I love my little bard-buffers, but IMHO, it would be healthier to buff ballad/aura than inspiration.

If you want a high-value inspiration improvement, consider making the default inspiration an AE buff. There's no good reason to make a raid wait for 12x bard singles.

Legendary Trick Shot

30+

Trick Shot

Your Trick Shot now grants +80 to Ranged Power and +10 to Attack for 4 seconds when you Tumble. In addition, your Tumble charges recharge an additional 0.5 second faster, for a total of 1 second.

Ugh, don't. In fact, remove Trick Shot. The whole "ranged tumble" thing is 100% antithetical to actual ranged combat. It's not just immersion-jarring but also button-flow jarring for a gamer, and the power jump is insane.

(and this is coming from someone with a high-dps ranged character -- we're strong enough already!)

If you want to give something to ranged, consider another accuracy+bypass feat or even a feat that makes skill-based attacks never miss. Doesn't truly alter DPS, but it's a HUGE "feel-good" win because every ranged hates seeing "deflected" on Hunt's End; they're pretty rare, but it's a big enough "ugh" to make such a feat feel like a good deal.

Strength of Arms	20+	None	Your melee strikes grant a temporary HP shield equal to your melee power. Has a 8 second cooldown, Shield lasts 10 seconds, stacks 2 times.
Legendary Strength of Arms	30+	Strength of Arms	Your melee strikes grant a temporary HP shield equal to twice your melee power. Has a 6 second cooldown. Shield lasts 10 seconds, stacks 3 times.

My melee would adore these, but honestly, they're outrageously strong. This would be a 2x200 HP shield at L20 and 3x600 at cap. Extra TMP HP is fantastic, but it should be intraparty rather than solo.

Consider altering healing spells to "stack up" TMP HP when they overflow. This inspires intraparty synergy (the big fun in an MMO) and makes healers more useful -- a role severely lacking in game now. I'd tie caps to target's Hamp, perhaps bumped up for "wearing a shield" for even more team synergy at the build level.

Another alternative would be to make it an effect of US:Mantle. Replace the pointless law-damage pulse node with a 123 node that progressively makes a TMP buffer like this apply on attacks. This is assuming that the above feats are intended to inspire more aggressive tanking styles -- something I love to play. It's so much more fun to attack as a tank than turtle-up.

Piercing Fire

1+

Magical Training

Activate to apply a debuff to a single target removing all of its ability to resist this element for 15 seconds. 15 second cooldown.

NICE! However, I would not worry about keeping existing strippers "special". Saving on the feat tax is a HUGE win. Instead, I'd make these feats auto-apply rather than activated.

Also, tiny warning: casters are beyond feat-strapped already. One extra "mandatory" feat is too much. Consider giving all casters a couple extra? This would help with the DC/focus tax, too.

Bulwark of Defense is now:

• When in a defensive stance, you gain an additional +2 to all saving throws, +5% Armor Class, and +10 Melee Power.
• This feat now works while in Nature's Protector's stance.

Bulwark is tank-only until incite is split from defensive stances. The MP is a good thought for enticing more aggressive tank builds -- certainly every hate-tank in game (including mine!) will love more MP. If your goal is to help melee, this isn't the route. If you're trying to inspire regular tanks to attack, it won't help; classic 'timi-turtles don't have enough accuracy to hit a phone pole with a truck.

If it's a reward for playing a hate-tank instead of a 'timi-turtle, you may be on the right track!

 

[Shall]

It does seem like there are too many required feats nowadays for a caster to fit in any more. Maybe they could just be added in as a group of active components into a passive feat casters have to take anyway. Mental toughness maybe? That would mean you would need to take greater mental toughness to get the aoe effect with the epic mental toughness feat, but seems like most nukers want the crit chance from that anyway. Could be something that could interact with the archmage tree too, like have an enhancement that gives a debuff to targets with increasing magnitude as you have afflict them with more than one strip, sort of like an option to switch to a debuffer role in combat by cycling through more than one strip in your rotation at the cost of having to drop a couple of damage spells as needed. Or maybe triggering an explosion of secondary damage when your arcane blast hits a target with more than one strip on them so it doesn't just be something where a group would want no more than a single archmage.

 

[Dulkhan]

Can Legendary Trick Shot last 8 seconds if you are using a bow or a greater crossbow

Yeah it's a power attack bonus, it's double bonus for two handers

This bonus need a pump considering how much range power there is available for players, this could use adding 10 melee power too

 

[Skjoldofr]

Bulwark of Defense can be used with:
Combat Expertise
Defensive Fighting
Resilience

and also:
Sacred Defender
Stalwart Defender

Combat Expertise, Defensive Fighting & Resilience cannot be active at the same time as Precision or Power Attack.
Sacred Defender & Stalwart Defender can.

I'm not opposed to this in principle, and with Strength of Arms I think that you could get some very tanky melee characters with limited feat investment. I do worry that you'll end up with yet more paladins & fighters forgetting to turn off their stance in raids or group content where they aren't tanking and negatively affect other player's experiences in higher-level play.

IMO it'd be REAL cool if defensive and offensive stances had different channels so you could run resilience and power attack (as an example). If not this then maybe divorce melee incite from the defensive stances and add more incite to the stance multiselectors in the enhancement tree?

 

[Dulkhan]

Is there any chance that bow can get a +1 critical threat range on Epic precision? or maybe an update on fairy aim?
bow should be the defacto best critical range build, just consider how slot the attacks are because of the aiming needed for this ^^ it just make sense, but seriusly bow doesnt need more attack speed it needs more raw power on their slot attacks, and this could be a good start.
Having double the bonuses of range attacks could help too close the gap to dual crossbows and repeaters that basically get this already...

 

[droid327]

Shouldn't Power Attack get something that would actually make you use it over Precision for non-ragers? Or are you content with it being a C-tier feat just for barbs?

It feels like the rich getting richer by giving Precision more of what makes it great while PA just gets another scoop of the same mediocrity. If it was something like +5% MP then that might actually move the needle on some builds

 

[Rosze]

I’m quite worried about feat tax with new caster feats. There’s already so many feats you need from dc to meta magic to mental toughness… it’s too much.

Maybe some give casters more feats? But that could cause some problems. Maybe give something similar to monk mastery of forms. Where you can get some for free with levels in caster but you can also buy it for feats in niche builds. Not sure how that would work but there’s just so many feats

 

[Krishna Devi]

Well very good changes but still warlock should have bypasse on pact at least, the only warlock available to play smooth is with fey pact, the others its impossible without a way to strip, new feats cant solve this, warlock should have something like sorc just for blast. OVERALL VERY GOOD CHANGES BUT I WANT TO PLAY WITH ABYSS WARLOCK

Hi King
Aren't the new pierce feats specifically for this purpose?

"It removes all immunity/healing or multiplication of the value that isn't in your favor. So if it heals from fire, now it'll take 100% damage, if it takes 50% from fire, it'll take full now. If it takes double from fire, it still will and the effect shouldn't do anything."

 

[VinoeWhines]

With Update 81, the Level Cap for all players is increasing to 36!

At level 35, you will gain...

• 4 more Destiny Points to spend within your Epic Destinies
• 1 more copy of Legendary Power

At level 36, you will gain...

• 4 more Destiny Points to spend within your Epic Destinies
• 1 more copy of Legendary Power
• 1 more copy of Legendary Knowledge
• Ability Score Increase
• General Feat selection

New Feats​

There are new feats debuting with Update 81.

NAME	LEVEL	REQUIREMENTS	DESC
Legendary Spell Focus	30+	Epic Spell Focus	+3 to all Spell DCs
Epic Precision	21+	Precision	Your Precision stance grants an additional +5% to-hit and +15% Fortification Bypass.
Epic Resilience	21+	Resilience	While in Resilience, you gain an additional +4 Saving throws, as well as +10 MRR and +10 MRR cap. In addition, you no longer fail any saves automatically by rolling a Natural 1.
Epic Power Attack	21+	Power Attack	While in Power Attack, you gain an additional +5 damage.
Legendary Martial Arts	30+	Improved Martial Arts	While centered, your weapons gain +1W.
Legendary Sneak Attack	30+	Improved Sneak Attack	+3 Sneak Attack Dice
Improved Inspiration Melody: Excellence	30+	Inspiration Melody: Excellence	Your Inspire Excellence now grants an additional +2 to all Ability Scores.
Legendary Trick Shot	30+	Trick Shot	Your Trick Shot now grants +80 to Ranged Power and +10 to Attack for 4 seconds when you Tumble. In addition, your Tumble charges recharge an additional 0.5 second faster, for a total of 1 second.
Strength of Arms	20+	None	Your melee strikes grant a temporary HP shield equal to your melee power. Has a 8 second cooldown, Shield lasts 10 seconds, stacks 2 times.
Legendary Strength of Arms	30+	Strength of Arms	Your melee strikes grant a temporary HP shield equal to twice your melee power. Has a 6 second cooldown. Shield lasts 10 seconds, stacks 3 times.
Piercing Fire	1+	Magical Training	Activate to apply a debuff to a single target removing all of its ability to resist this element for 15 seconds. 15 second cooldown.
Piercing Cold	1+	Magical Training	Activate to apply a debuff to a single target removing all of its ability to resist this element for 15 seconds. 15 second cooldown.
Piercing Acid	1+	Magical Training	Activate to apply a debuff to a single target removing all of its ability to resist this element for 15 seconds. 15 second cooldown.
Piercing Electric	1+	Magical Training	Activate to apply a debuff to a single target removing all of its ability to resist this element for 15 seconds. 15 second cooldown.
Piercing Poison	1+	Magical Training	Activate to apply a debuff to a single target removing all of its ability to resist this element for 15 seconds. 15 second cooldown.
Piercing Negative Energy	1+	Magical Training	Activate to apply a debuff to a single target removing all of its ability to resist this element for 15 seconds. 15 second cooldown.
Piercing Mastery Fire	20+	Replaces Piercing Fire	Activate to applies a debuff to a single target and nearby enemies removing all their resistances to this element for 20 seconds. 15 second cooldown.
Piercing Mastery Cold	20+	Replaces Piercing Cold	Activate to applies a debuff to a single target and nearby enemies removing all their resistances to this element for 20 seconds. 15 second cooldown.
Piercing Mastery Electric	20+	Replaces Piercing Electric	Activate to applies a debuff to a single target and nearby enemies removing all their resistances to this element for 20 seconds. 15 second cooldown.
Piercing Mastery Acid	20+	Replaces Piercing Acid	Activate to applies a debuff to a single target and nearby enemies removing all their resistances to this element for 20 seconds. 15 second cooldown.
Piercing Mastery Poison	20+	Replaces Piercing Poison	Activate to applies a debuff to a single target and nearby enemies removing all their resistances to this element for 20 seconds. 15 second cooldown.
Piercing Mastery Negative Energy	20+	Replaces Piercing Negative Energy	Activate to applies a debuff to a single target and nearby enemies removing all their resistances to this element for 20 seconds. 15 second cooldown.

Notes on Piercing Feats
1. They cost 2 SP each to use
2. They are not considered spells in of themselves
3. They cast slightly slower than a quickened spell (about 1 second vs 0.8-0.9)
4. One of our goals is that these are not meant to eclipse or displace existing strips so their not overly optimized. These things are meant to do the job, but a weird tree, race or destiny much do it a little better depending on your build. This is just mostly adding flexibility to the build meta.

Revamped Feats​

Bulwark of Defense is now:

• When in a defensive stance, you gain an additional +2 to all saving throws, +5% Armor Class, and +10 Melee Power.
• This feat now works while in Nature's Protector's stance.

Spell Focus Feats:

• A lot is happening with these! Please feel free to check out the Spell DC Pass Wave 2 thread for more information!

Please let us know what you think!

A Feat that could help (Really Help) is for those that have to be in "Sneak Mode" for Attacks/Abilities to function. (Very Slow and Dangerous)

Epic Sneak (for every 2 Seconds remaining in Stealth):
Gain, Skulking Patience:

• +10 Hide/Move Silently, +5 Assassinate, 2d6 Sneak Dice, 20MP, 20RP, 10 PRR/MRR, 10 AC, +5 Jump, 2% Dodge/Cap.

Can Stack 3 times, last for 12 seconds. Loose 1 stack on expiration.

Legendary Sneak:
You no longer get bumped out of Stealth on getting hit.
Your Sneak Attacks in Stealth gains Sovereign Vorpal on a roll of 20 and Weapons gain Improved Deception.

• You are able to perform all abilities as if you were Standing and take no penalty in movement speed or jump while sneaking.

Gain 1 more stack of Skulking Patience.

 

[Drachmor]

WOW. Wowowowow.

This is a very interesting move. Packing so many chase feats into a very limited feat space where all classes are equal (lvl 20+ feats). I really like this move.

You have to make actually interesting choices here. People’s “builds” will actually be different depending on which feats they choose.

I will say, as a melee, that HP shield seems almost too good to be true. Then again, I am torn between taking it and taking some more damage or to-hit. Bravo!

 

[Bulwark]

Can we make the US mantle considered a defensive stance plz?

Ummm no?? That makes 0 sense

 

[saekee]

I am betting the next store-only class or race will be a ranged toon with some kind of active attack that will qualify as a tumble without actually tumbling.
AoE ranged attack: +50% damage, You bluff your enemies, making them think you will tumble, but remain firmly rooted. Gain the benefits of the tumble skill but remain in place, 4 second cooldown.
Store cost: 1600 points, not free to ViP.

 

[Fisto Mk I]

I am betting the next store-only class or race will be a ranged toon with some kind of active attack that will qualify as a tumble without actually tumbling.
AoE ranged attack: +50% damage, You bluff your enemies, making them think you will tumble, but remain firmly rooted. Gain the benefits of the tumble skill but remain in place, 4 second cooldown.
Store cost: 1600 points, not free to ViP.