U82 Preview 1 - Monster DR Rework

[The Narc2]

What is it that you concur with? The false premise that there's even such a thing as an optimized weapon for all situations? That melee players are completely brainless but the cold druid spamming ice flowers every three seconds is playing a game of chess? Or are you just happy that people are annoyed by this?

Here's the thing: targeted nerfs for problem areas are fine. Saying "blanket 50% damage reduction for not breaking dr" for no rhyme or reason isn't. Present a good argument as to why a particular build should have a better or worse time handling dr and I'll support it. I'm not sure this change was thought out at all.

I concurred with everything that was in the oost that I concurred to, read that post and you will have your answer.

I am not interested in embracing your attempt to move the goal posts to what you want to discuss while questioning what I am concurring to, find some other sheep to herd.

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

There are no doubt certain caster aficionados who are laughing up their sleeves at what they mistakenly see as payback for martials on this.

Mik IMO isn't one of them.

And we've had our differences over the years (though Mik is one of the more reasoned ones) so I'm not saying this out of some misplaced sense of loyalty. It's because it's just not true.

It's OK to be pissed at nerfs. Of course it is. But have some sense of perspective please. I mean really, it's not like any mobs are going to be immune, or that even all mobs are affected, even in a worst case where DR can't be broken due to Dr/- or lack of preparation.

This change in isolation means that worst case some mobs will take longer to kill. And therefore have a longer time to present threat.

But it's important to remember this change isn't being applied in isolation. Recent changes have seen improvements to melee survivability (and yes I'd be the first to agree avoidance>>>mitigation, but still it's undeniably an improvement), and have also just received access to a major DPS potential improvement.

Ironically I've seen over egged arguments from casters trying to make their case before, such as claims about Visage whilst ignoring it's obvious limitations, and claims casters are excluded from even LH raids (still never once seen that happen btw running pretty much every raid 2xper week), and been called all sorts for doing calling out BS. So I'm not about to support similar hyperbolic nonsense just because it happens to come from martials this time.

Have some perspective folks and maybe we walk a mile in our new shoes before flying off the handle, eh?

If Mik and I broadly agree on something, that tells me there is at least something of merit there.

And BTW it's fine if you don't like this message and want to shoot the messenger. Join the queue. There are plenty of casters in line ahead of you already. You might even see Mik there!

 

[justin credible]

To be honest they could absolutely offer "spears" and "glaives" as piercing and slashing quarterstaves in expansion weapon suites, especially the ones with raid tier upgrades.

would also be nice for thf builds in general to have a pierce option that isnt a one handed weapon

 

[Darksteel]

It is quite appalling to see so many melee complaints about the DR stuff on some _mobs_ when the DStrike buff is huge for _all_ mobs.

Martial dps has had it incredible easy these past few years. The very same plan for ALL mobs - just pure dps with the same optimized weapon for ALL mobs. No need to think at all - just plowing with a single minded plan.

Add a little bump and boom.

Please keep the 25% / 50% DR and have players adjust.

Edit: My comment here is about cap play. For leveling things are different but not really hard and no different from what magic users experience.

I think you must sit this one out for your own respect because you have no clue how melee damage works or what this change entails. Dont change this thread into melee vs caster crap like you always do throughout all year whining in the forums, we are trying to have meaningful conversation with Tonquin.

 

[Phaedra]

What mob that matter even have a damage type reduction? The list on the wiki is clearly not comprehensive, but the only DR I can think of on any raid boss or significant threat enemy in a quest are material+alignment.

 

[Skulz]

Devs, just a heads-up: weapon swapping isn't a realistic solution because many builds rely on a single weapon type, and Sentient weapons are a major investment.

Here is what will actually happen with most players who care about it:

1. Slot Good and Adamantine (Deconstructor).
2. Take Fury for Cold Iron and because it still provides the only good melee DPS strike.
3. Feel forced to take Grandmaster of Flowers (GMoF) for another alignment and material bypass (most likely Lawful and Silver).
4. 80–90% of the playerbase will ignore the rest (potentially skipping points 1 through 3 as well) and just accept a 25% damage penalty for the weapon type, and 50% for missing other materials and alignments.

The vast majority of players won't start swapping weapons now; they already don't do it for things like Prowess and temporary HP.

This creates an even bigger problem during leveling and for all new players. While veterans with past lives, gear, and Reaper points can brute-force R1 leveling despite the damage reduction, newer players cannot.

Over time, this change will simply push players toward endgame builds that have access to as many DR breakers as possible. Ultimately, this limits build creativity (which is a massive part of DDO) by forcing players into mandatory archetypes just to handle damage reduction.

Again, weapon swapping isn't a viable solution due to how the game was designed over the past couple of decades. Finally, I strongly recommend adding alignment, metalline, and physical type (bludgeoning/slashing/piercing) augments. For example, a Maul build can only use a Maul; with a slashing augment we can cover another weapon type.

Edit: Also, please consider adding all weapons like The Shattering Death to Relentless. That weapon is Metalline and allows crafted alignment, meaning weapons like it might become the new meta (I was planning to use the maul from the new raid, but might just stick to this instead).

 

[f1b041b3]

What mob that matter even have a damage type reduction? The list on the wiki is clearly not comprehensive, but the only DR I can think of on any raid boss or significant threat enemy in a quest are material+alignment.

I frequently see players that do no dps because they can't break dr on trash mobs. I know that anecdote doesn't exactly make my case as the changes will benefit them, but it is what it is.

Anyway, suppose that a boss's dr is material and alignment based. It still disincentivizes chasing after any weapon that can't be made metalline and aligned.

 

[justin credible]

Devs, just a heads-up: weapon swapping isn't a realistic solution because many builds rely on a single weapon type, and Sentient weapons are a major investment.

Here is what will actually happen with most players who care about it:

1. Slot Good and Adamantine (Deconstructor).
2. Take Fury for Cold Iron and because it still provides the only good melee DPS strike.
3. Feel forced to take Grandmaster of Flowers (GMoF) for another alignment and material bypass (most likely Lawful and Silver).
4. 80–90% of the playerbase will ignore the rest (potentially skipping points 1 through 3 as well) and just accept a 25% damage penalty for the weapon type, and 50% for missing other materials and alignments.

The vast majority of players won't start swapping weapons now; they already don't do it for things like Prowess and temporary HP.

This creates an even bigger problem during leveling and for all new players. While veterans with past lives, gear, and Reaper points can brute-force R1 leveling despite the damage reduction, newer players cannot.

Over time, this change will simply push players toward endgame builds that have access to as many DR breakers as possible. Ultimately, this limits build creativity (which is a massive part of DDO) by forcing players into mandatory archetypes just to handle damage reduction.

Again, weapon swapping isn't a viable solution due to how the game was designed over the past couple of decades. Finally, I strongly recommend adding alignment, metalline, and physical type (bludgeoning/slashing/piercing) augments. For example, a Maul build can only use a Maul; with a slashing augment we can cover another weapon type.

Edit: Also, please consider adding all weapons like The Shattering Death to Relentless. That weapon is Metalline and allows crafted alignment, meaning weapons like it might become the new meta (I was planning to use the maul from the new raid, but might just stick to this instead).

i havent seen anyone mention it yet, but you can get ml8 augments from lahar for 20 tokens of the 12 that bypass alignment, and ml 16 augs to bypass cold iron/silver/adam. byshk is also ml 8 for some reason

https://ddowiki.com/page/Category:Lahar_purchasable_augments

 

[Skulz]

i havent seen anyone mention it yet, but you can get ml8 augments from lahar for 20 tokens of the 12 that bypass alignment, and ml 16 augs to bypass cold iron/silver/adam. byshk is also ml 8 for some reason

https://ddowiki.com/page/Category:Lahar_purchasable_augments

Yes, but we have only 2 slots. It would be nice if they added a ML30+ augment that adds Metalline for example.

 

[nicholas]

So everyone just lost 50% damage, because we're not carrying around five or six different fully upgraded sentient weapons.

This idea is dumb with the current sentient gem system. And love how they left player DR completely worthless...

Just Break The DR... how is it that hard of a Concept to Grasp? Just BREAK DR

 

[Bravgji]

Just Break The DR... how is it that hard of a Concept to Grasp? Just BREAK DR

Did you read the post you were replying to?

 

[f1b041b3]

Did you read the post you were replying to?

Did you read his post? Just break the dr! He's cracked this whole thing wide open! Forget about the twenty-one pages of comments explaining why that's a heavy burden on the players! We can wrap this one up, boys. Just break it!

 

[Ying]

For Longbow it is super easy to bypass slash/bludgeon with 6AP in Arcane Archer, Morphic Arrows secondary imbue.

That's not a real solution. All that does is stifle the revitalized bow meta before it gets off the ground by pigeonholing builds into a required heroic enhancement tree.

 

[Phaedra]

Players either:

• lose more than 50% damage by switching weapons to break DR, and so forego switching
• lose less than 50% damage by switching weapons to break DR, in which case you switch regardless of how far from your optimal weapon your DR breaker is.

If that means we can have raid bosses with less than 15,000,000 HP because there are other considerations than just equipping the BIS weapon for your build with the BIS sentience layout and mashing attack until all the HP are gone, that's a good thing, both for interesting encounter design and for the health of the game.

 

[Greywolf]

That's not a real solution. All that does is stifle the revitalized bow meta before it gets off the ground by pigeonholing builds into a required heroic enhancement tree.

I 100% agree with you, it is not good. As I read this DR update now, I think it is even worse than that, and this would pull in all throwers and crossbows into the new "every ranged has to use longbow with 12 Ranger levels now" bucket (for Morphic, Metalline, and Aligned arrow secondary imbues).

 

[Diaari]

What mob that matter even have a damage type reduction? The list on the wiki is clearly not comprehensive, but the only DR I can think of on any raid boss or significant threat enemy in a quest are material+alignment.

• Karliath, Kor Kaza, Aurgloroasa, and Truthful One - DR/bludgeoning (I was corrected by Tonquin here)
• Zweilanar, Ophael, Demon Lords - DR/cold iron+good (demons)
• Suulomades, Arraetrikos, Strahd - DR/silver+good (devils and vampires)
• Warforged titans, Lord of Blades - DR/adamantine and DR/adamantine+good (living constructs)

 

[Igognito]

New DR change as suggested will be a disaster.
Please consider new players, different difficulties, interaction with PRR.

Do not assume new players will understand what is happening and what they need to do.

In terms of a challenge, this will be interesting. I would even argue make monsters Immune to some type of damages. But in terms of game play a lot of people will rage.

 

[f1b041b3]

Players either:

• lose more than 50% damage by switching weapons to break DR, and so forego switching
• lose less than 50% damage by switching weapons to break DR, in which case you switch regardless of how far from your optimal weapon your DR breaker is.

If that means we can have raid bosses with less than 15,000,000 HP because there are other considerations than just equipping the BIS weapon for your build with the BIS sentience layout and mashing attack until all the HP are gone, that's a good thing, both for interesting encounter design and for the health of the game.

My current main's on the reincarnation train. Before starting another life I do a handful of legendary sagas at cap with a Calamitous weapon slotted with miserable planar, a Deconstructor, and a Ruby of the Vampire Slayer. Cold iron bypass from Fury makes it effectively metalline and aligned, so I'm already sacrificing dps in many areas to play the dr breaking game for some quick rxp convenience. Believe me, none of my gear is best in slot, but despite that I'm not so arrogant to believe that players with optimized toons parked at cap for end game hijinks should have to be crippled just because others think boss hp is too high. Anyway, since many seem to be under the illusion that breaking dr is an entirely trivial matter, I don't see how this would solve the matter of hp bloat.

 

[Bjond]

The entire DR change should simply be punted into a different patch while they retool it to include their desired solutions. As-is, all it does is create HUGE balance problems, especially in late heroic & epic for BPS and single-weapon trees.

There's so much OTHER balance stuff in U82, much of it good, that will need a second patch to tune that the game would far better be served by moving the DR to U83 or U82.1 or whatever they want to call the "yeah, gotta fix our (hopefully minor) U82 mistakes" patch.

 

[Diaari]

I just checked my two melees to see what I'll need:

• TWF pally (Clatter, Kindling): breaks slashing, good, lawful, adamantine, and cold iron.
• TWF dragon lord (undying kukri, clatter): breaks slashing, adamantine on mainhand only

So I will need a way to break silver DR on my pally, and I'll need material + good on my DL. Breaking blunt DR will mean getting those new Ooze weapons in warhammer flavor until I feel it merits crafting something.

The only part of the change that I'm salty about is that I still have to buy augments from Lahar and run those decrepit legacy epic quests for tokens. Make them available from a vendor for comms, please. Better yet, let me trade comms for tokens.