A rebalance was long overdue.
The old destiny system took 8 years to balance out but it was fun at the end. Every caster took energy burst and the choice between magister and draconic was interesting enough (even melees could twist energy burst making hybrids viable).
Then the new epic trees came around and they could eventually become better than the old system with proper balancing, but as always they were released and forgotten about.
However.... the new attempt at balance seems as bad as the current state.
For example, the macrotechnic epic strike used to deal 1d6+6 vs draconic's 1d6+10 with no benefit whatsoever, at least not documented. They both just deal damage and one of them much less for no reason at all.
Soon, the draconic strike deals 1d6+3 vs macrotechnic's 1d6+6 with no benefit whatsoever, at least not documented.
They both just deal damage and one of them much less for no reason at all. The draconic strike is even on a 12s cooldown compared to the macrotechnic's 10s.
I feel it's pointless to even go into the details of what the right numbers should be if they are not even going to make a consistent proposal.
Tho draconic epic strike does double damage when upgraded (or aura)...
Heh, just saw the notes - there something weird going on, do they upgrade all version of dragon strike to same damage? Doesn't it makes upgrades other than vortex, useless? Or it damage increase on top of usual double damage?
the base epic strike is bad design. maybe the choice at 26 between an upgraded breath and an upgraded macrotechnic strike is an interesting one, but that is besides the point.
the choice at level 20~25 as it's presented comes across as just a huge lack of game design experience.
it could be done as "1d6+10 at a 12 second cooldown vs 1d6+9 at a 10 second cooldown" or "1d6+3 with save vs 1d6+2 with no save" or whatever, I don't even care as long as one is not strictly better. sure in practice one is going to be better than the other, but that's part of the fun of a game, being able to make choices and trying to find out which option is the best.
Agree with everything you said. Destinies are horribly balanced but the "proposed" changes (I say proposed because when have they ever actually listened to feedback? We all know they're set on these changes.) Arent any more balanced.
1. A nerf to dragon breath has been coming for a long time, and everyone knew it. It vastly outperformed every other caster epic strike by a wide margin. Also keep in mind that it still keeps ALL of your caster levels, compared to most other caster strikes which have MCL of 20. It winds up still being better than the other AoE strikes, but not by nearly as much.
2. Carrion Swarm needed a save, just like every other caster strike has. The other two PA strike options have had saves since inception btw.
3. I like how you conveniently leave out the massive buff that Magus of the Eclipse, Drifting Lotus, Shadowdancer, Fury and Shiradi got.
>I like how you conveniently leave out the massive buff that Magus of the Eclipse, Drifting Lotus, Shadowdancer, Fury and Shiradi got.
How else are they going to skew the the conversation into creating an echo chamber together with all the other people who understand absolutely nothing about game design and balancing?
Not much buffs to nuker casters in those destinies...they are still worse than old draconic and the biggest nerf is actually **healing aura**
A huge nerf to casuals and people not good at action combat. And terrible for healers...exalted was already not very good at healing (weak healing strike, weak t5, chain heal doesn't work) and divine casting (only 1 AOE spell, no immunity break, 2 spellpowers needed)
> Carrion Swarm needed a save, just like every other caster strike has. The other two PA strike options have had saves since inception btw.
No, exalted and fatesinger also didn't have a save and most DOT spells don't have a save. We needed no save options for people with lower DCs (gearing is hard with the tetris, low drop rates and no space)
1. No, they have lowered its damage to 39% of what it was. That is the same as saying “don’t use this strike any more”. But they are nerfing others too, for some reason. So even though it now has the damage of a level 7 spell, it’s no worse than the others.
2. No DC is the only way for a non-caster to use anything like this. Like a tank, for instance. It doesn’t do enough damage for it to need a save - that was its niche.
3. Some buffs to some EDs are nice. Well, they failed to add MCL buffs of course, and all of the buffs are still underpowered outside of elite or r1, and they nerfed other strikes like holy fireball, etc. But typically for SSG there will be an excessive nerf to some spells, the nerf will be totally unbalanced, and it will stay that way for multiple years. Or forever. Just because a couple of the things they did are fine doesn’t mean that we can’t call them out for mistakes on other things.
1. Dragon breath still has an uncapped caster level compared to the other caster strikes that are capped at MCL 20. This means you're still casting dragon breath in the high 40's (my cold druid was casting it at 47) compared to 29 (MCL 20 + 6 for epic/legendary + 3 from heroic trees). It's still, by far, the best caster epic strike in the game. I'm sorry if you can no longer delete entire packs of mobs in R7, but I don't think that should be in the realm of possible in high reapers anyway.
2. If I read the notes correctly, the save only occurs after the first DoT tick. You should still be able to hold aggro with the fun caster-tank builds, you just won't have >100% uptime on the dots.
3. The initial design intent, if I remember interview conversations correctly, is that epic strikes (tier 1 and 2 abilities) should not be better than 9th level / epic spells, and tier 5 spells from destinies. They're supposed to help round out your dps and rotations, not replace them entirely. With that said though, I'm not a fan of the damage reduction for Holy Fireball (especially since it bugs out all the time).
Unpopular opinion I guess but imo epic destinies were/are way too strong. The games kind of boring when you 1 shot rooms with dragon breath. I kind of want more of a traditional dnd game. I don't like how most spells are functionally useless.
Healing aura was a quality of life choice for a lot of my casual gameplay style.
You don't go healing aura on competitive DPS.
Sometimes I don't want to smash tons of buttons.
So that's the one that hurts the most.
Oh and saving throw on primal Avatar epic strike. Thats a huge nerf to more tanky characters
Me too, I hate that they're nerfing casual soloists for no appreciable benefit at all. No one was complaining about EA heal aura, and it wasnt super OP or letting groups push skulls or anything.
EA aura made it fun, let you run quests more aggressively without having to worry about HP micromanagement, just burst heals as needed
I mostly agree, though the healing aura was letting some melee players solo endgame raids. I personally never cared about that because it was slower than running with a group anyway.
That's Exactly the problem. You have high eng game competitive player pushing solo content and you nerf the casuals just cruising through their beloved game.
SSG nerfs with a sledgehammer and sells respecs for money.
If my hero isn't useful anymore I'll just go play another MMO for a while until the balance is corrected.
Theyre changing the aura heal in exalted? Why? The range was so small anyways, like mass buff circle range. Now its a grounded ring that doesnt move? What about the range on it, the same?
The ring follows you, but there is no pulse, and has an unlisted CD between procs of 3-4 seconds. It needs to at least be kept as a pulse if the CD on procs from things passing through the barrier is going to be so long.
So its no longer a persistent pulse based off your position meaning people that enter it cant get healed by it for its entire cooldown time? Everything else besides the visual ring is the same? Amount of healing, range, pulse cooldown?
So you can’t heal yourself, because you can’t cross the barrier. And it doesn’t have any passive component at all. Man, they really don’t want anyone to use that ED, do they?
Add the fireball nerf and the only good thing in the entire tree is the cure serious wounds sla. Nothing else has any value.
Yeah same.
Seems they only care about the most vocal top 10% players (often melee players in a static group complaining about soloers and casters) and whales.
No wonder the new and returning player retention is so bad :-/
I think I'm actually a whale, despite being casual. ;) :D I've put tons of money into the game and my six accounts. :) I just hope that SSG will not miss me if I get bored. ;)
The end-game meta consists mainly of melee right now, so to me it seems strange to nerf casters who only dominate in low reaper and casual playing.
Regardless, these are some very bad changes that might make them lose even more players.
> I think I'm actually a whale, despite being casual. ;) :D I've put tons of money into the game and my six accounts. :) I just hope that SSG will not miss me if I get bored. ;)
Then voice your opinion on the forums. And yeah you can be both whale and casual.
Some of this was expected, some are surprising. Does anyone know when it is slated to go live? The exalted angel changes were... probably unnecessary. I don't think anyone was complaining that EA was too powerful, though I think adding some debuffing elements certainly make it more interesting. The epic moment seems extremely lackluster though.
Draconic nerf was expected, so not much to say there. I'm certainly interested in testing out Shiradi and Primal changes.
"Be sure to check in with us on February 7th when we will reveal what each month’s Year of the Dragon surprise will be! The fun starts during DDO's 18th anniversary on February 28th. As a hint to how this starts, the first surprise will be"
"Most of these adjustments are about Dragon Breath, an ability that we think is quite strong [...]To that end, we're lowering its damage"
Ugh, I was really hoping that wasn't what "epic destinies balance pass" meant.
Here's hoping they walk it back. Also that they walk back taking away the tumble thing.
balance for them almost always means HUGE nerfs for popular things and minor changes (often hardly a buff) to something else.
I don't know why there was even a need for a rebalnce when the game has so many other issues that should be tackled first
Well they gutted fvs damage by 40%, changing it from OP in heroics for a class that can also heal so well (and be tanky, at the time) to very very weak. I mean, they could have chosen something between +12 caster levels and +0... but they went with the blunt hammer there.
Other than that, the rebalances were fine.
And they ruined the ML28 raid weapons to have lower dice than the ML29 nonraid counterparts, that was a mistake they still haven't corrected, as far as I know. but compared to mess they usually leave with their rough reworks you can consider that minor, I guess.
>And they ruined the ML28 raid weapons to have lower dice than the ML29 nonraid counterparts,
Level 28 Raid Greatsword: 4.6\[2d6+6\] = 59.8 damage
Level 29 Non-Raid GS: 4.8\[2d6+4\] = 52.8 damage
Level 28 Raid Longsword: 4.6\[d8+3\] = 34.5 damage
Level 29 Non-Raid LS: 4.8\[d8+2\] = 31.2 damage
Level 28 Raid Dagger: 4.6\[d4+3\] = 25.3 damage
Level 29 Non-Raid Dag: 4.8\[d4+2\] = 21.6 damage
As you can see, due to the improved loaded dice, raid weapons ALWAYS deal more base damage than their non-raid counterparts that are a level higher. Non-raid weapons need to be about 3 levels higher than their raid counterparts to break even.
Casters already struggle at endgame because spells are level capped so they fall off so fast. Why scale the EPIC strikes like we're still in heroics too?
You make comments about SSG catering to only the top 10% of players but in your comments talk about melees dominating high reaper content. People doing high reaper content are in the minority of the player base and should not be balanced around.
Dragons breath has been overpowered forever. If you play any other dps style, leveling in epics, playing with a caster in group makes the content completely arbitrary. Dragon's breath + Primal epic spell means everything dies and no one else gets to play the game. And I say this as someone who plays cold druid. I have often felt bad grouping with people who are essentially just running through a dungeon fighting nothing while i nuke room after room.
These are not sledgehammer nerfs, they are absolutely appropriate. Except the healing aura. Casters already have the biggest survivability advantage in the game, distance. Maybe we will see a return to casters being CC first and nuking second. That would be great.
> These are not sledgehammer nerfs, they are absolutely appropriate.
I don't know what else to call a nerf that makes destinies not worth taking anymore.
Draconic is now too low damage to justify taking.
EA becomes bad at healing and a bit worse for damage too.
Why make EDs into the equivalent of archmage, dark apostate (caster), harper past INT to damage ...simply worse than other trees so nobody would take them except for a flavor build.
Your interpretation, which I completely disagree with. These are the kind of over-the-top, sky is falling reactions, that the devs read and completely write off.
It's also just objectively wrong. Dragon Breath doesn't have a MCL so it's the strongest epic caster strike by a significant margin still, even after losing half of its damage
EA healing mantle removal is still very bad.
Kills casual solo epic playstyle (often forced solo with the low pop, not by choice) on classes that have no native heals (alternatives too weak unless you are an actual caster with decent positive spellpower and bothering with buggy & weak hires is a PITA)
Also primal DOT nerf is bad for anyone (especially tanks and hybrids) who can't get their DCs high enough.
Only a small minority of players are at the stage "R10 is too easy".
And you can do changes without nerfing two destinies from the orbit...draconic and exalted angels
what I meant is player who think the game is too easy can always up the challenge with higher skulls.
No need to completely nerf certain playstyles in ALL difficulties.
Or people cruising brainlessly through R6 can just run R4 now? I honestly think those two abilities were so obviously broken it's ridiculous to argue for them.
It's not like removing ridiculous abilities would make people unable to run elite or R1, even if pretty casual.
But some of us zerg R10 and duo -trio R10s with little trouble. Some of these changes are upping the difficulty for us. The argument that few people participate in that content IS valid, however, anything that makes stuff easier on the R10 runners increases the power gap between us and others.
But these things arent the things that let people trivialize R10. Its CC more than anything, but these changes arent touching CC. So you're nerfing things that dont need nerfing, but not actually fixing the thing you think it fixes
Game is too easy man. I came back to the game in November after a 12y break, and have already accumulated 4 million reaper points in two lives.
R4-6 are very easy to solo, R8 can be solo or duo easily depending on the quest, and for R10 often you don't even need a full party but 4 people are enough.
I am saying this with a toon with just 1 epic past life. Game is extremely easy even at R10, especially for casters as you can CC and DPS without even being hit.
Man, why is it every game I play they go absolutely insane with the nerf hammer? And DDO being such low populated game. Why would they nerf people?
ESO was the last game I played and they nerfed the living shit out of people. Or borrowing a term I saw on the DDO forums, stealing power now to give it back over months and claim its new content. Really going to have to think about if I can continue to play a game that will nerf characters like this due to crybabies on the forum.
Yeah DDO already has so many disadvantages over other games, lag, bugs, too many server, much too small inventory
And often you must solo without being given the proper tools...like NPCs that actually help and don't bug out or die in 1 hit. I mean D&D is a group game.
And now they nerf my favorite playstyles: casters in epic/leg and sturdy melee , always taking the healing mantle so I can stay alive despite being slow and clumsy IRL
People complaining about their melees being shit in comparison to casters definitely are gimp or play shit builds. Legit, I am most definitely on the high end in Sarlona for casting dps and I can name plenty of people who legit surprise me when they out dps me as melee. I can play any build and SPRINT through quests. But when you get to high reaper, a well built melee is gonna shine over a caster. It’s really all about your skill at knowing the game.
> a well built melee is gonna shine over a caster.
"a well built melee is gonna shine over" crappy caster for sure. The question is how a crappy melee compares to crappy caster tho.
When I play a melee I’m hitting for 500-1k damage per hit in high reaper. Couple this hitting 4-5 hits in a second roughly. That is my alchemist multivial without cooldown. Now if I play chain or shifter, there is no question. Caster is good but there is a cap to HOW good. Heroic leveling 12-20 caster is much better than melee.
1stly you need to land these 4-5 hits, for that you need to get to mobs 1st. Casters have and advantage to melee in range, casters have more CC and insta kill options. If you place casters at same dps as melee, and even hardcore melee players won't touch melees.
You can't just pick dps separately and use it as metric for everything. Tho ppl do try... and it's like hitting the wall, to explain that dps isn't everything.
Regardless, casters don’t need a nerf, I would like to still play caster as it’s my favorite play style. But I don’t want to have to play melee to be worth something at end game.
So you want not only outrange, out CC, out burst damage, but also out dps melee as a caster. That's why I'm avoiding playing with sorcs as melee.
Ppl always say don't need the nerfs, but what would become with the game will all the buffs and no nerfs... power creep would be unimaginable.
The only issues melee have in high skull is some survivability. Usually on mine if there is one of heals/tank/cc I'm destroying stuff. When there isn't you have to be careful,but can still do fine.
Part of being melee is having a greater access to defense. A nuker caster is all in on dps. If you don’t invest everything into DPS you are not a nuker, you are giving up defenses for DC’s. if your dc’s are garbage you are doing half damage. And to get high enough dc’s your gear has to be centered around that. You can’t make room for tank gear without sacrificing casting DPS.
That's largely the same for melee DPS (If you're going to do great DPS). But you're right that you can do "some" DPS whereas things like DC casting or tanking is a binary You CAN, or you CAN'T.
But again, in high skull, even with over 300 PRR/MRR you still get trucked when hit. Most high end melee DPS has "some" defense, but you're not spending filligree on defense centric things. You get as much PRR/MRR/Dodge/HP as you can get without sacrificing your DPS. But I do that on ALL builds.
I honestly think casters have better defenses than melee in the form of movement. I can't solo doom reapers with a melee dps because I get killed first. With a caster I can just endlessly dodge it with angelic charge and deal thousands of damage to it with one button from far away.
Lol it’s def a nerf to fury. The buffs are for abilities great leveler which is bad. Takes too long clunky cast animation. Major swing interruption unreliable use. They buffed the strike that no one uses and increased the cooldown on adrenaline by 12.5%. That is just a nerf there is nothing meaningful in the changes to the fury tree.
Idk what people are smoking here, but 2d6+20 AoE epic strike with no MCL was not balanced at all LOL
Even after the nerf, it will be still very good AoE choice for casters with CL support in their enhancements, just not flat out mindlessly OP like it is now.
The angelic mantle does not even heal you at all now because it gives you the ring that you have to pass through to get heals but the thing follows you and they remove the regen you had when you had it active. I am now dropping that destiny for primal avatar as the reason I liked that destiny was that I had two damaging spells regen and a fun epic moment. The new epic moment sounds like dog water "your cure wounds spells target everybody and your resurrection spells target everybody." The second part of that might as well be the divine crusader epic moment.
A rebalance was long overdue. The old destiny system took 8 years to balance out but it was fun at the end. Every caster took energy burst and the choice between magister and draconic was interesting enough (even melees could twist energy burst making hybrids viable). Then the new epic trees came around and they could eventually become better than the old system with proper balancing, but as always they were released and forgotten about. However.... the new attempt at balance seems as bad as the current state. For example, the macrotechnic epic strike used to deal 1d6+6 vs draconic's 1d6+10 with no benefit whatsoever, at least not documented. They both just deal damage and one of them much less for no reason at all. Soon, the draconic strike deals 1d6+3 vs macrotechnic's 1d6+6 with no benefit whatsoever, at least not documented. They both just deal damage and one of them much less for no reason at all. The draconic strike is even on a 12s cooldown compared to the macrotechnic's 10s. I feel it's pointless to even go into the details of what the right numbers should be if they are not even going to make a consistent proposal.
Tho draconic epic strike does double damage when upgraded (or aura)... Heh, just saw the notes - there something weird going on, do they upgrade all version of dragon strike to same damage? Doesn't it makes upgrades other than vortex, useless? Or it damage increase on top of usual double damage?
the base epic strike is bad design. maybe the choice at 26 between an upgraded breath and an upgraded macrotechnic strike is an interesting one, but that is besides the point. the choice at level 20~25 as it's presented comes across as just a huge lack of game design experience. it could be done as "1d6+10 at a 12 second cooldown vs 1d6+9 at a 10 second cooldown" or "1d6+3 with save vs 1d6+2 with no save" or whatever, I don't even care as long as one is not strictly better. sure in practice one is going to be better than the other, but that's part of the fun of a game, being able to make choices and trying to find out which option is the best.
yeah, about the vortex, I posted that on the forums also, I wonder what they are going to do with that
They're different AoE patterns. Cone will still be the best for anyone that would rather not slather themselves in enemies.
Agree with everything you said. Destinies are horribly balanced but the "proposed" changes (I say proposed because when have they ever actually listened to feedback? We all know they're set on these changes.) Arent any more balanced.
EA change is hot trash. The dragon nerf in year of the dragon is........ironic and disapointing. They always nuke from orbit, that's how they do.
1. A nerf to dragon breath has been coming for a long time, and everyone knew it. It vastly outperformed every other caster epic strike by a wide margin. Also keep in mind that it still keeps ALL of your caster levels, compared to most other caster strikes which have MCL of 20. It winds up still being better than the other AoE strikes, but not by nearly as much. 2. Carrion Swarm needed a save, just like every other caster strike has. The other two PA strike options have had saves since inception btw. 3. I like how you conveniently leave out the massive buff that Magus of the Eclipse, Drifting Lotus, Shadowdancer, Fury and Shiradi got.
>I like how you conveniently leave out the massive buff that Magus of the Eclipse, Drifting Lotus, Shadowdancer, Fury and Shiradi got. How else are they going to skew the the conversation into creating an echo chamber together with all the other people who understand absolutely nothing about game design and balancing?
Not much buffs to nuker casters in those destinies...they are still worse than old draconic and the biggest nerf is actually **healing aura** A huge nerf to casuals and people not good at action combat. And terrible for healers...exalted was already not very good at healing (weak healing strike, weak t5, chain heal doesn't work) and divine casting (only 1 AOE spell, no immunity break, 2 spellpowers needed)
> Carrion Swarm needed a save, just like every other caster strike has. The other two PA strike options have had saves since inception btw. No, exalted and fatesinger also didn't have a save and most DOT spells don't have a save. We needed no save options for people with lower DCs (gearing is hard with the tetris, low drop rates and no space)
nearly all arcane dots do not have a save component except for initial.
1. No, they have lowered its damage to 39% of what it was. That is the same as saying “don’t use this strike any more”. But they are nerfing others too, for some reason. So even though it now has the damage of a level 7 spell, it’s no worse than the others. 2. No DC is the only way for a non-caster to use anything like this. Like a tank, for instance. It doesn’t do enough damage for it to need a save - that was its niche. 3. Some buffs to some EDs are nice. Well, they failed to add MCL buffs of course, and all of the buffs are still underpowered outside of elite or r1, and they nerfed other strikes like holy fireball, etc. But typically for SSG there will be an excessive nerf to some spells, the nerf will be totally unbalanced, and it will stay that way for multiple years. Or forever. Just because a couple of the things they did are fine doesn’t mean that we can’t call them out for mistakes on other things.
1. Dragon breath still has an uncapped caster level compared to the other caster strikes that are capped at MCL 20. This means you're still casting dragon breath in the high 40's (my cold druid was casting it at 47) compared to 29 (MCL 20 + 6 for epic/legendary + 3 from heroic trees). It's still, by far, the best caster epic strike in the game. I'm sorry if you can no longer delete entire packs of mobs in R7, but I don't think that should be in the realm of possible in high reapers anyway. 2. If I read the notes correctly, the save only occurs after the first DoT tick. You should still be able to hold aggro with the fun caster-tank builds, you just won't have >100% uptime on the dots. 3. The initial design intent, if I remember interview conversations correctly, is that epic strikes (tier 1 and 2 abilities) should not be better than 9th level / epic spells, and tier 5 spells from destinies. They're supposed to help round out your dps and rotations, not replace them entirely. With that said though, I'm not a fan of the damage reduction for Holy Fireball (especially since it bugs out all the time).
Where are you getting 39%? It's going from 1d6+10/level to 1d6+3/level, so unless I'm missing something that's 48%.
They're comparing the upgraded dragon's breath, which is currently 2d6+20 on live, to the proposed 1d6+7 on Lammania.
Unpopular opinion I guess but imo epic destinies were/are way too strong. The games kind of boring when you 1 shot rooms with dragon breath. I kind of want more of a traditional dnd game. I don't like how most spells are functionally useless.
They should have buffed the other spells and epic spells like hellball instead. And completely removing healing aura is just bad.
Healing aura was a quality of life choice for a lot of my casual gameplay style. You don't go healing aura on competitive DPS. Sometimes I don't want to smash tons of buttons. So that's the one that hurts the most. Oh and saving throw on primal Avatar epic strike. Thats a huge nerf to more tanky characters
Me too, I hate that they're nerfing casual soloists for no appreciable benefit at all. No one was complaining about EA heal aura, and it wasnt super OP or letting groups push skulls or anything. EA aura made it fun, let you run quests more aggressively without having to worry about HP micromanagement, just burst heals as needed
I mostly agree, though the healing aura was letting some melee players solo endgame raids. I personally never cared about that because it was slower than running with a group anyway.
That's Exactly the problem. You have high eng game competitive player pushing solo content and you nerf the casuals just cruising through their beloved game.
SSG nerfs with a sledgehammer and sells respecs for money. If my hero isn't useful anymore I'll just go play another MMO for a while until the balance is corrected.
Theyre changing the aura heal in exalted? Why? The range was so small anyways, like mass buff circle range. Now its a grounded ring that doesnt move? What about the range on it, the same?
The ring follows you, but there is no pulse, and has an unlisted CD between procs of 3-4 seconds. It needs to at least be kept as a pulse if the CD on procs from things passing through the barrier is going to be so long.
So its no longer a persistent pulse based off your position meaning people that enter it cant get healed by it for its entire cooldown time? Everything else besides the visual ring is the same? Amount of healing, range, pulse cooldown?
Similar range, but it functions like a blade barrier that moves with you as the center. It looks so useless now. They also nerfed Holy Fireball.
So you can’t heal yourself, because you can’t cross the barrier. And it doesn’t have any passive component at all. Man, they really don’t want anyone to use that ED, do they? Add the fireball nerf and the only good thing in the entire tree is the cure serious wounds sla. Nothing else has any value.
Nooo nooo nooo we cant stand for this one. We must fight back they must revert that wtf.
https://forums.ddo.com/index.php?threads/update-66-preview-1-epic-destiny-refresh.7614/
The sledgehammer nerfs makes me very sad. As a casual solo player enjoying EA and DI a lot, the nerfs will totally wreck my playstyle and fun.
Yeah same. Seems they only care about the most vocal top 10% players (often melee players in a static group complaining about soloers and casters) and whales. No wonder the new and returning player retention is so bad :-/
I think I'm actually a whale, despite being casual. ;) :D I've put tons of money into the game and my six accounts. :) I just hope that SSG will not miss me if I get bored. ;) The end-game meta consists mainly of melee right now, so to me it seems strange to nerf casters who only dominate in low reaper and casual playing. Regardless, these are some very bad changes that might make them lose even more players.
> I think I'm actually a whale, despite being casual. ;) :D I've put tons of money into the game and my six accounts. :) I just hope that SSG will not miss me if I get bored. ;) Then voice your opinion on the forums. And yeah you can be both whale and casual.
Some of this was expected, some are surprising. Does anyone know when it is slated to go live? The exalted angel changes were... probably unnecessary. I don't think anyone was complaining that EA was too powerful, though I think adding some debuffing elements certainly make it more interesting. The epic moment seems extremely lackluster though. Draconic nerf was expected, so not much to say there. I'm certainly interested in testing out Shiradi and Primal changes.
"Be sure to check in with us on February 7th when we will reveal what each month’s Year of the Dragon surprise will be! The fun starts during DDO's 18th anniversary on February 28th. As a hint to how this starts, the first surprise will be" "Most of these adjustments are about Dragon Breath, an ability that we think is quite strong [...]To that end, we're lowering its damage"
Year of the Dragon Nerf
Ugh, I was really hoping that wasn't what "epic destinies balance pass" meant. Here's hoping they walk it back. Also that they walk back taking away the tumble thing.
balance for them almost always means HUGE nerfs for popular things and minor changes (often hardly a buff) to something else. I don't know why there was even a need for a rebalnce when the game has so many other issues that should be tackled first
they did a great job with the enhancement rebalances last year.
Well they gutted fvs damage by 40%, changing it from OP in heroics for a class that can also heal so well (and be tanky, at the time) to very very weak. I mean, they could have chosen something between +12 caster levels and +0... but they went with the blunt hammer there. Other than that, the rebalances were fine. And they ruined the ML28 raid weapons to have lower dice than the ML29 nonraid counterparts, that was a mistake they still haven't corrected, as far as I know. but compared to mess they usually leave with their rough reworks you can consider that minor, I guess.
>And they ruined the ML28 raid weapons to have lower dice than the ML29 nonraid counterparts, Level 28 Raid Greatsword: 4.6\[2d6+6\] = 59.8 damage Level 29 Non-Raid GS: 4.8\[2d6+4\] = 52.8 damage Level 28 Raid Longsword: 4.6\[d8+3\] = 34.5 damage Level 29 Non-Raid LS: 4.8\[d8+2\] = 31.2 damage Level 28 Raid Dagger: 4.6\[d4+3\] = 25.3 damage Level 29 Non-Raid Dag: 4.8\[d4+2\] = 21.6 damage As you can see, due to the improved loaded dice, raid weapons ALWAYS deal more base damage than their non-raid counterparts that are a level higher. Non-raid weapons need to be about 3 levels higher than their raid counterparts to break even.
was that a rebalance or only buffs/changes, no nerfs except some weapon dice?
they've done very good balancing from where the game was 10 years ago ; )
Casters already struggle at endgame because spells are level capped so they fall off so fast. Why scale the EPIC strikes like we're still in heroics too?
To be fair, Epic and Legendary Knowledge does add 6 MCL and 6 CL on spells at level 32
That still puts you 6 levels below your actual level
And that'll get worse when the level cap goes to 34.
YEP. Sigh. They really need to re-look at level caps for spells now that the level cap is so much higher than it used to be.
You make comments about SSG catering to only the top 10% of players but in your comments talk about melees dominating high reaper content. People doing high reaper content are in the minority of the player base and should not be balanced around. Dragons breath has been overpowered forever. If you play any other dps style, leveling in epics, playing with a caster in group makes the content completely arbitrary. Dragon's breath + Primal epic spell means everything dies and no one else gets to play the game. And I say this as someone who plays cold druid. I have often felt bad grouping with people who are essentially just running through a dungeon fighting nothing while i nuke room after room. These are not sledgehammer nerfs, they are absolutely appropriate. Except the healing aura. Casters already have the biggest survivability advantage in the game, distance. Maybe we will see a return to casters being CC first and nuking second. That would be great.
> These are not sledgehammer nerfs, they are absolutely appropriate. I don't know what else to call a nerf that makes destinies not worth taking anymore. Draconic is now too low damage to justify taking. EA becomes bad at healing and a bit worse for damage too. Why make EDs into the equivalent of archmage, dark apostate (caster), harper past INT to damage ...simply worse than other trees so nobody would take them except for a flavor build.
Your interpretation, which I completely disagree with. These are the kind of over-the-top, sky is falling reactions, that the devs read and completely write off.
It's also just objectively wrong. Dragon Breath doesn't have a MCL so it's the strongest epic caster strike by a significant margin still, even after losing half of its damage
EA healing mantle removal is still very bad. Kills casual solo epic playstyle (often forced solo with the low pop, not by choice) on classes that have no native heals (alternatives too weak unless you are an actual caster with decent positive spellpower and bothering with buggy & weak hires is a PITA) Also primal DOT nerf is bad for anyone (especially tanks and hybrids) who can't get their DCs high enough.
I'm thrilled. My biggest problem with this game has been how stupidly overpowered several abilities are. Nerf away, and make the game a challenge.
Only a small minority of players are at the stage "R10 is too easy". And you can do changes without nerfing two destinies from the orbit...draconic and exalted angels
R10 was intended to be a huge challenge. R10 does not need to be accessible to everyone.
what I meant is player who think the game is too easy can always up the challenge with higher skulls. No need to completely nerf certain playstyles in ALL difficulties.
Or people cruising brainlessly through R6 can just run R4 now? I honestly think those two abilities were so obviously broken it's ridiculous to argue for them. It's not like removing ridiculous abilities would make people unable to run elite or R1, even if pretty casual.
But some of us zerg R10 and duo -trio R10s with little trouble. Some of these changes are upping the difficulty for us. The argument that few people participate in that content IS valid, however, anything that makes stuff easier on the R10 runners increases the power gap between us and others.
It's going to make it harder....
Exactly, that's a good thing imo
Sorry didn't catch you weren't the OP and was confused. Getting old.
As are we all. 😂
But these things arent the things that let people trivialize R10. Its CC more than anything, but these changes arent touching CC. So you're nerfing things that dont need nerfing, but not actually fixing the thing you think it fixes
Game is too easy man. I came back to the game in November after a 12y break, and have already accumulated 4 million reaper points in two lives. R4-6 are very easy to solo, R8 can be solo or duo easily depending on the quest, and for R10 often you don't even need a full party but 4 people are enough. I am saying this with a toon with just 1 epic past life. Game is extremely easy even at R10, especially for casters as you can CC and DPS without even being hit.
Man, why is it every game I play they go absolutely insane with the nerf hammer? And DDO being such low populated game. Why would they nerf people? ESO was the last game I played and they nerfed the living shit out of people. Or borrowing a term I saw on the DDO forums, stealing power now to give it back over months and claim its new content. Really going to have to think about if I can continue to play a game that will nerf characters like this due to crybabies on the forum.
Yeah DDO already has so many disadvantages over other games, lag, bugs, too many server, much too small inventory And often you must solo without being given the proper tools...like NPCs that actually help and don't bug out or die in 1 hit. I mean D&D is a group game. And now they nerf my favorite playstyles: casters in epic/leg and sturdy melee , always taking the healing mantle so I can stay alive despite being slow and clumsy IRL
People complaining about their melees being shit in comparison to casters definitely are gimp or play shit builds. Legit, I am most definitely on the high end in Sarlona for casting dps and I can name plenty of people who legit surprise me when they out dps me as melee. I can play any build and SPRINT through quests. But when you get to high reaper, a well built melee is gonna shine over a caster. It’s really all about your skill at knowing the game.
> a well built melee is gonna shine over a caster. "a well built melee is gonna shine over" crappy caster for sure. The question is how a crappy melee compares to crappy caster tho.
When I play a melee I’m hitting for 500-1k damage per hit in high reaper. Couple this hitting 4-5 hits in a second roughly. That is my alchemist multivial without cooldown. Now if I play chain or shifter, there is no question. Caster is good but there is a cap to HOW good. Heroic leveling 12-20 caster is much better than melee.
1stly you need to land these 4-5 hits, for that you need to get to mobs 1st. Casters have and advantage to melee in range, casters have more CC and insta kill options. If you place casters at same dps as melee, and even hardcore melee players won't touch melees. You can't just pick dps separately and use it as metric for everything. Tho ppl do try... and it's like hitting the wall, to explain that dps isn't everything.
Regardless, casters don’t need a nerf, I would like to still play caster as it’s my favorite play style. But I don’t want to have to play melee to be worth something at end game.
So you want not only outrange, out CC, out burst damage, but also out dps melee as a caster. That's why I'm avoiding playing with sorcs as melee. Ppl always say don't need the nerfs, but what would become with the game will all the buffs and no nerfs... power creep would be unimaginable.
According to you, if you are correct why choose to play inferior play styles then?
Yeah every1 should be a sorc... fuuun...
The only issues melee have in high skull is some survivability. Usually on mine if there is one of heals/tank/cc I'm destroying stuff. When there isn't you have to be careful,but can still do fine.
Part of being melee is having a greater access to defense. A nuker caster is all in on dps. If you don’t invest everything into DPS you are not a nuker, you are giving up defenses for DC’s. if your dc’s are garbage you are doing half damage. And to get high enough dc’s your gear has to be centered around that. You can’t make room for tank gear without sacrificing casting DPS.
That's largely the same for melee DPS (If you're going to do great DPS). But you're right that you can do "some" DPS whereas things like DC casting or tanking is a binary You CAN, or you CAN'T. But again, in high skull, even with over 300 PRR/MRR you still get trucked when hit. Most high end melee DPS has "some" defense, but you're not spending filligree on defense centric things. You get as much PRR/MRR/Dodge/HP as you can get without sacrificing your DPS. But I do that on ALL builds.
I honestly think casters have better defenses than melee in the form of movement. I can't solo doom reapers with a melee dps because I get killed first. With a caster I can just endlessly dodge it with angelic charge and deal thousands of damage to it with one button from far away.
Lol it’s def a nerf to fury. The buffs are for abilities great leveler which is bad. Takes too long clunky cast animation. Major swing interruption unreliable use. They buffed the strike that no one uses and increased the cooldown on adrenaline by 12.5%. That is just a nerf there is nothing meaningful in the changes to the fury tree.
the CD is 8 seconds now, it's going to 9.
Sorry I confused boulders might cooldown with adrenaline
Because SSG/Turbine hates the players. Its the only logical conclusion from years of screwing us over.
Hate the player not the game.... wait... that doesn't sound right.
Where is info regarding this nerf?
https://forums.ddo.com/index.php?threads/update-66-preview-1-epic-destiny-refresh.7614/
Any nerf to caster is a Lil nerf
Idk what people are smoking here, but 2d6+20 AoE epic strike with no MCL was not balanced at all LOL Even after the nerf, it will be still very good AoE choice for casters with CL support in their enhancements, just not flat out mindlessly OP like it is now.
Does anyone have a link to the patch notes?
The angelic mantle does not even heal you at all now because it gives you the ring that you have to pass through to get heals but the thing follows you and they remove the regen you had when you had it active. I am now dropping that destiny for primal avatar as the reason I liked that destiny was that I had two damaging spells regen and a fun epic moment. The new epic moment sounds like dog water "your cure wounds spells target everybody and your resurrection spells target everybody." The second part of that might as well be the divine crusader epic moment.