U82 Lamannia Preview 1 - Global Weapon Combat Changes

[Cetus]

This is a very nice change. Uncapping doublestrike will incentivize players to actually invest in it. Not just meet the threshold number and then go HAM on every other attribute. It may bring relevance to builds, abilities and enhancements that have fallen out of favor again.

Melee power, damage, crit damage, fort bypass, to-hit etc. do not have caps. Neither should this.

 

[mikarddo]

This is a very nice change. Uncapping doublestrike will incentivize players to actually invest in it. Not just meet the threshold number and then go HAM on every other attribute. It may bring relevance to builds, abilities and enhancements that have fallen out of favor again.

Melee power, damage, crit damage, fort bypass, to-hit etc. do not have caps. Neither should this.

Sadly, it will also very likely be horribly over powered - and for that reason it should be reconsidered.

Some builds will definitely hit 200% DS during burst for a 50% increase in damage. Such a buff seems to be well outside the scope being for.

 

[Lotoc]

Double Strike is no longer capped

Is this applying to offhand doublestrike for non handwrap weapons or is it still overall capped at 65%?

 

[Rosze]

Is this applying to offhand doublestrike for non handwrap weapons or is it still overall capped at 65%?

This a good question. If it’s 50% or 65% of main hand at 200% you would basically be doing 5 hits. Which sounds rather strong.

I hope they don’t soft cap double shot because there might be TWF just getting more hits than a thrower with this. Again why a soft cap of 400% makes more sense for double shot if you must give it a soft cap.

 

[saekee]

Sadly, it will also very likely be horribly over powered - and for that reason it should be reconsidered.

Some builds will definitely hit 200% DS during burst for a 50% increase in damage. Such a buff seems to be well outside the scope being for.

I would cap everything not just doublestrike—let people hit caps through gear, PLs etc and then you level playing fields in some ways while allowing veteran toons greater flexibility instead of unchecked uber power

 

[Rosze]

Caps in general are just lazy design. I understand that it simplifies balancing but it just makes the game feel less like DDO. Best part of DDO is taking something and trying to min max it.

 

[twilight]

This appears to nerf manyshot/multitude/10k by 50% (of DS value) as almost all ranged builds currently reach 200 DS without effort. So, I gather the message we're supposed to take from this + the crossbow nerfs is that the devs HATE ranged builds? I enjoy ranged builds but, the more I read of U82, the more I'm wondering if they will even be viable anymore.

 

[mikarddo]

This appears to nerf manyshot/multitude/10k by 50% (of DS value) as almost all ranged builds currently reach 200 DS without effort. So, I gather the message we're supposed to take from this + the crossbow nerfs is that the devs HATE ranged builds? I enjoy ranged builds but, the more I read of U82, the more I'm wondering if they will even be viable anymore.

That is a funny conclusion.

Ranged have been king of the hill for quite a while now - does not seem like the devs hate ranged.
Bows are being buffed - maybe even too much - does not seem like the devs hate ranged.
Posts from people doing R10 duo on Lam also suggests that repeaters are still very viable.

So, no, thats not the message we're supposed to take from this.

 

[Rosze]

This appears to nerf manyshot/multitude/10k by 50% (of DS value) as almost all ranged builds currently reach 200 DS without effort. So, I gather the message we're supposed to take from this + the crossbow nerfs is that the devs HATE ranged builds? I enjoy ranged builds but, the more I read of U82, the more I'm wondering if they will even be viable anymore.

Well they are nerfing with a sledge hammer again. The cap is too low since all ranged reach 200% with no effort

 

[mikarddo]

Well they are nerfing with a sledge hammer again. The cap is too low since all ranged reach 200% with no effort

Well, if the point is to lower ranged dps then having a cap above what people are getting would not work.
I am unsure why you consider the cap too low when it does exactly what it is supposed to do.

 

[Rosze]

Well, if the point is to lower ranged dps then having a cap above what people are getting would not work.
I am unsure why you consider the cap too low when it does exactly what it is supposed to do.

Mostly because i disagree in the need for a cap. They are already lowering the damage in other areas. For throwers this hits harder because the idea of them is that you throw more projectiles. Now you end up saying you can only throw 3 projectiles probably 4. I think 5 is closer to what it should be.

I think removing the double strike cap will already push melee ahead enough.

Bows just need extra doubleshot to be around the 400% mark.

And casters needed a boost

 

[Psych]

I havent read through all this and I know how it is with feedback here, and Im just returning again and there is an insane amount if changes, hard to tell where things land. BUT it would be nice if different builds valued different stats like a base damage build, a Dstrike build, a strikethrough, a speed build, and crit focused build, a crit damage build and so on, like stats give bonuses to damage or increase damage taken, and yes hard to balance these but its what games do so that different characters gear up and play differently and while there will always be a number 1, atleast it isn’t everyone does the number 1 stat, like double strike.

Please forgive my post if its out if line, like I said I haven't tested and am not fully read up.

 

[Drachmor]

Very sad to see you run with the extremely bad idea to uncap doublestrike.
It will only end up creating more imbalance.

I agree, and I love melee and only play melee atm lol.

Ugh... ;-;

Well this is a huge shake-up if it goes through but I think we're gonna see a shrinkening of build variety after these changes. Reaching 100 DS was like reaching 100 spell crit chance. Sort of a build goal that can be approached or maybe even checked in certain cases. But uncapped, mannnnnnn. I wonder if we'll finally see some *kukri* builds!

And again - saying this as a Kukri main lol. I just. Worry about buffs I guess when I fear they could lead to nerfs that are even MORE impactful than the buffs, so. As long as the devs can pledge to not do that

 

[Torm]

Change the paladin Spell Zeal to scale as +1 Doublestrike / Doubleshot per caster level.

 

[Shear-buckler]

I agree, and I love melee and only play melee atm lol.

Ugh... ;-;

Well this is a huge shake-up if it goes through but I think we're gonna see a shrinkening of build variety after these changes. Reaching 100 DS was like reaching 100 spell crit chance. Sort of a build goal that can be approached or maybe even checked in certain cases. But uncapped, mannnnnnn. I wonder if we'll finally see some *kukri* builds!

And again - saying this as a Kukri main lol. I just. Worry about buffs I guess when I fear they could lead to nerfs that are even MORE impactful than the buffs, so. As long as the devs can pledge to not do that

Yeah spot on.
The cap is not only good for balance, but also for character building and gear tetris solving. Reaching 100% doublestrike is a satisfying goal, far more satisfying than just another linearly scaling stat.
Furthermore, I disagree with the premise that melee needs an endgame damage buff. Monsters already evaporate far too quickly, and even with the Reaper changes, melee really does not need a damage boost.

 

[Contessor]

Type	Name	Value
Enhancements
	Aasimar Scourge: +5	5​
	Ninja Spy Shadow Double: +50 for 12 seconds	50​
	Vistani Knife Fighter enhancements: 1x +5	5​
Epic destinies
	Fury of the Wild and Wilder Weapons 3/6%	9​
	GMoF Tier 2 Running with Wind grants +[1/2/3]% to Doublestrike if you are in Monk Wind Stance.	3​
	GMoF Tier 2 Hail of Blows grants +3% to Doublestrike.	3​
	Shadowdancer Shadowstriker +5%	5​
	Shadowdancer Dark Imbuement +2%	2​
Feats
	Harbringer of Chaos	2​
	Wind Stance: up to +12	12​
	Doublestrike: +5	5​
	Scion of the Astral Plane: +4, +8 if centered	8​
Past life feats
	Epic Martial Past Life: Doublestrike:to +9 in this martial stance.	9​
	Aasimar Scourge iconic PL feat: up to +6 in the iconic stance.	6​
Boost
	Reaper	30​
Gear
	Enhancement	17​
	Artifact	15​
	Insightful	8​
	Quality	4​
	Profane	3
Total		201​

It's a fair bit stronger QQ and unarmed since offhand is full % so monk's won't lose dps this patch. DPS in pug raid difficulties will be carry-level.

Divine Crusader gives some DS options as well, although you cannot take all 4 ED options. But I think DC is also an excellent tree to consider. You could forgo GMoF and gain 3% if in ocean or fire, because nobody runs in wind stance. And consecration w/ cower fits nicely with cauldron stacked on top.

 

[Dythan]

glad to help, as mentioned razorclaw is also affected.Also while im tagging you about razorclaw... monk PL feat .5w is also now not working since the expansion patch

Anyone confirm this? About to take monk PL at 18, but I can save it for 27 and give the devs a chance to fix

 

[Gavaleus]

I dislike the soft cap above 200% solely because I feel stats should always work the same. Having an arbitrary point where a stat works differently is weird and awkward.

Instead of a soft cap I'd prefer if some sources of doublestrike and doubleshot were brought down instead, so that we're not reaching such high values anyway.

 

[Monkey_Archer]

Sadly, it will also very likely be horribly over powered - and for that reason it should be reconsidered.

Some builds will definitely hit 200% DS during burst for a 50% increase in damage. Such a buff seems to be well outside the scope being for.

So I've been doing a deep dive on all the possible doublestrike stacking builds. Here's my rough conclusion so far

1) Every character can currently hit about 70 doublestrike from pastlives/gear alone. Combine this with 30% reaper boost and we have a baseline 100% doublestrike

2) Every pure class in the game has between 10% and 19% untyped doublestrike available. The exception being dragonlord and barbarian, which are conveniently the only 2 classes with access to +2 multiplier, so I think that's fair. Some specific multiclass builds such as swashbucking battle engineer warpriest can hit around 30% doublestrike, but I'm not sure this is a problem though given the dps loss in other areas for those builds.

3) All builds can get up to 21% doublestrike from destinies.

4) Combined, this allows virtually all melee builds to go from 100 capped doublestrike to somewhere between 130-150 depending on build, ie a 15-25% increase in total dps. I believe this is fairly balanced and reasonable.

5) There are only 3 exceptions to this: Vistani builds, 2 monk splash builds, and acrobat. Adding 30%/40%/45% doublestrike respectively. I believe this is where this buff goes too far. 30-40% additional doublestrike essentially makes one of these mandatory for all dps builds, massively limiting build options. Vistani is already the top melee dps, they definitely don't need an additional 15% dps above other builds.

6) The solution offered of adding more sources of moral bonus to doublestrike I believe is not ideal. For one, I think the total of nearly +50% dps is too much of a buff, and second, it will just be picking winners. ALL builds will need a source of moral doublestrike. Its just too powerful not to have. Its essentially trance 2.0. I think the better option would be to remove it entirely before it becomes this.

 

[Kimbere]

Uncapping doublestrike sounds good in theory since you usually hit cap in mid to late heroics, could have some unintended consequences.

Wut?

Please post some examples builds that hit >75% doublestrike by mid to late heroics, preferrably non-monk builds since if only monks can do that, you're citing an exception rather than the rule. Also, short-term boosts don't really count unless it's possible to get 100% uptime on them.