[UO Herald] TC1 Balance Testing Changes

[Logrus]

~ OT

Nice VIP badge there, Logrus. Welcome!


*Muses* Does this mean the Mythic machine has relaxed their mandate of using real names rather than our beloved UO monikers, if one so chooses? If so, then I belt a hearty: Yea!

I'm not sure, I've still to do the official introduction thingy.
I'll probably get smited some by the bosses for posting before making official introductions, but I wanted to get in on the discussions and shed light where I could and glean information elsewhere.


I'm also looking into the finer points of spell interruption DOT stacking etc.
But considering stuff like being interrupted by damage has been in the game for more than 10 years, (I didn't play mage until mid '98) its not as simple as setting a variable or switch. You take damage you get interrupted.

Also, as I said there are many things I'd like to do (especially with regards to taking a good look at all special moves) , but if I did that, I'd be giving all the love and fun stuff to dexers.

Some fixes like just putting in a hard cap or raising mana cost etc, may solve an immediate issue but they also tend to make everything merge together and basically do the same thing.
So you end up with all these special attacks that may be written up differently, initially designed to do varying stuff, and all basically do the same thing. And sometimes a hard cap is exactly what is needed.

I don't like the idea of useless, spells, abilities, or specials. Then again looking at some things in UO as well as many of the other MMORPGs you will notice there tend to be tonnes of different abilities which usually boil down to a different name for the same thing.

 

[Kensai Tsunami]

i dont know how many times we have to say this as players but uhm, PLEASE FIX WHAT WE HAVE B4 YOU ADD NEW STUFF.

ok so the pvp'rs cried nerf again, fine, nerf the specials if they are sooo overpowered, tho there are many other more overpowered attacks than talon strike or concussion blow imo, but for goodness sake man dont keep adding NEW game mechanics when there are so many unresolved game mechanics issues as it is!!! and stop screwin with pvm just to appease the pvp'rs please?
all you do is nerf innocent people and the people who are using the exploits or cheats or whatever get new cheats and the endless ******** cycle continues. c'mon folks.

where in the heck did ya'll get this idea from anyway? immunity? gains? DOT? what???

and then you are messin with healing potions? why?

ya'll get ahold of some really good weed or what?

wow

*shakes head*

 

[AesSedai]

... Some fixes like just putting in a hard cap or raising mana cost etc, may solve an immediate issue but they also tend to make everything merge together and basically do the same thing.
So you end up with all these special attacks that may be written up differently, initially designed to do varying stuff, and all basically do the same thing. And sometimes a hard cap is exactly what is needed.

I don't like the idea of useless, spells, abilities, or specials. Then again looking at some things in UO as well as many of the other MMORPGs you will notice there tend to be tonnes of different abilities which usually boil down to a different name for the same thing.

- You seem like an excellent candidate, nay perhaps even another opportunity, for me to rehash some of the things I've written, right here on Stratics, over the years... I tell ya' what, give me about ~24-48 hours and I will try to link some of the thoughts I've had (if possible, due to the unfortunate loss of information that Stratics had last year... I will attempt to search for 'guest postings', as my username posts were part of that loss). But as a teaser: my basic theory completely revolved around establishing an universal understanding of cause/effect with all player stats & skills/items & item properties ~ special effects/etc. -&- a method to actively be able to balance them all, as necessary. As I see it: this is a game that rightly actively evolves, so how better to account for it than to be able to more easily / more actively make adjustments whenever it becomes necessary... Aye, I might not be the person for the job, perhaps I could be, but obviously not right now; yet I might be able to hook you up with a keen idea to work with, sir Logrus; of course that is for you & yours, Devs., to determine, and not lil' ol' me.

& Aye, I would like to add:
I am happy to see yet another driver is both willing & hopefully able to focus on and 'grab the reins', in order to help further straighten out this bankable little stagecoach, called UO; whose path, safety, and security we would all love to see ever-improve (even if we lose/gain a few lovers on the trail). Even though the Stygian Abyss is fast approachin', we could have this outfit ready to roll on the big tracks of progress by the time that new train arrives and signals another changing of times...
(Sorry, I felt like getting all analogous there for a moment *blush*)

 

[Traveller]

Hello all,

Question. Is there some balancing regarding hide/stealth? It is my opinion that hide/stealth is currently overpowered for ranged chars (mages/tamers/archers), underpowered for close-range templates (melee ninja/thieves), and balanced for nobody. Is that on the radar for this pass, or is left for future publishes?

 

[RichDC]

I have just read through near enough every post on this thread,

Personally i use pots (a HELL of alot) but even i dont use them as much as i see the script chuggers using them, this seems to be a reasonable way to try and combat this.

I think the reason alot of people are moaning is because they use the script.My thief for examples only for of healing is 18hpr and 80%ep..but i dont see how this is going to hurt that...i tend to only use one heal and a cure (maybe an apple) and im outta there and long gone!!

when i fight on my dexxer i may go through 5pots a fight, but quite often there is at least 30s between uses.

I love sound of the new conc blow damage, getting hit for over 60 in one hit was ridiculous (Hit spell velocity normal hit and conc blow!!)

On a final point as Draconi mentioned, this is not all of it. Im going to assume they have ALOT more but due to this being a new system it needed some live testing. Pet damage and others im guessing are alot simpler to implement.

 

[drinkbeerallday]

Well I guess some people are doing testing and some in depth research on at least one of the changes.

Strangely I was pretty sure I'd get more yelling over concussion than healing potions.

The balancing process is complex, and while there is an overall plan and fix list, the reality is not all can be done at one time, and those things may change.

I am listening, I do read alot of board postings, regarding problems and some of the proposed solutions. So please keep the information coming.


For those of you testing this stuff out I do have a few requests.
Its great to get information on how everything works, I think thats not just helpful to us developers, but the community as well.

What is really helpful, is if you try to break it. Exploit it, abuse it. I want to use these fixes in ways completely unintended.
For example:
How does Talon strike stack with a template that uses Necro, poison and bleed?
As a mage can you defend against that at all?

If not then, that may be a change that has to be addressed.

When I'm out PvPing, Or PvMing Necro Dexer Ninja templates just dont seem to be that popular, but you can be sure that as a player, after reading this post I'd be making on on TC. Maybe its the new flavor of the month.

This kind of testing is really, really, really helpful. It's much easier to fix something before publish than after.

The UO world allows this kind of whacked out infinitely customisable playstyle.


------------------------------------------------------------------
Lorgus

I charge $100 an hour to QA video games.

 

[Exgirlfriend]

I hope this change helps verse people that cheat by using medic scripts. I also hope it helps with the people that spam special moves.

And i also hope the dev's change the game so that only one dot spell can affect you at a time. Some people use a war fork to bleed you then switch to a kryss to chain the posion attack over and over.

Being a mage, it's true weapon special moves are overpowered when spammed.


have a nice day
Ex

 

[Fox (Europa)]

I love UO's ability to mix and match skills and templates. UO's lack of class restrictions, for me, the most fun MMORPG available.

The fact is there are some things that are, a bit overpowered. Some combinations of skills, items, abilities etc that are EXCESSIVELY overpowered.

Unfortunately somtimes a fix isn't as simple as flipping a switch.

For example, lets take concussion blow at its former.

to quote myself
-Damage was calculated based on the difference in Percent of MANA and HP.
Minimum 10 damage.
Take a Character with 100 HP, 100 Mana.

This character is hit for 20 Damage

If they continue fighting and are hit with a concussion, the concussion now does 20% of its bonus damage + the concussion base 10 damage + whatever damage the weapon and spell effects hit for.

If the player instead heals themselves using 12 mana in the process and is then hit with a concussion: the concussion does 12% of its bonus damage
+ concussion base 10 damage + whatever damage the weapon and spell effects hit for.


This basically means that it is a Lose/Lose situation for the Defender and Win/Win for the attacker.
The defender essentially gets penalized no matter how they choose to fight.​

This has been in the game since AOS. It did not immediately become the over used special it is now. There was the fun of uncapped armour ignores, lightning strikes, perfection slipping through in PvP, and a horde of other stuff that was much more popular.

Here is what fixing concussion touches, that I'm trying to take into consideration.

1.) PvP (the most obvious.)
2.)PvM (not as much as PvP since the damage was calculated the same against Mobs.
3.) The UO Economy: Crafters, resource gatherers, Player Vendors.

While some consider PvP changes to only affect the Fel crowd, just try to imagine the horror of crafters, vendor owners, etc if that mace they had on their vendor suddenly became as useful as the Tessen?

So rather than aiming at "nerfing" concussion blow, I instead aimed at making it more "situationally useful" with a control system to hopefully limit the rinse and repeat abuse present with alot of other things.


As for soloing bosses, I guess my un-well thought out opinion on that is: It should not be impossible, but should definitely not be remotely easy.


**Thanks JC,
I had it initially as an "Immunity" system but after explaining it to some others it was easier to explain it as kind of diminishing returns. Also some seemed to take immunity to mean that complete immunity was always achieved instead of partial immunity. Maybe I'll steal that effect saturation phrasing from you.

The reason that concussion blow is considered 'over-powered' is because if you get really lucky you can get a high damage hit with it and people get killed by this and say its like that every time. In fact the average damage is less than AI but people ignore this.

Another reason it gets complaints is that it just happens to be one of the better specials that hasn't yet received the total nerf stick but there has to be one special that is slightly better than others in some circumstances or you might as well say every special does exactly the same damage, say 35, as all the others.

Seriously, if you carry on chipping away at the specials all you will end up is half a dozen specials that all do the same damage and then whatever weapon happens to do a little more DOT is going to be the one used by everyone.

Just leave concussion blow alone and stop listening to the liars and/or mistaken who whine that it does 75 damage every time.

Fox

 

[RichDC]

Te reason it is overpowered is because you can get 4hits and pretty much half healthed...follow that up with another and your a gonner!

(Normal hit, Veloicty, Hit spell &concussion damage)

Plus characters with low intelligence high HP really get hit hard!!!

 

[Demonous]

One of the worst cheats right now is logging out to save your pet in PvP. Anyone doing this should be perma-banned.

who cares about that bug, theres nothing wrong with it, its a pain getting your pet rezed when it dies so this fixes that... what needs to be looked at closely are dismount tamers, it is so cheezy to get off a Cu, shoot someone with a heavy crossbow dismounting them, then moving shot them while they run until they can remount, now the dismounted person is helpless because some genious on the dev team thought it would be funny to screw over balls of pet summoning and actually make you stand still and summon the pet with the possibility of being interrupted from summoning it instead of a simple double click like it used to be, so the person on foot cannot summon their swamp dragon and is killed with ease... This is a big issue on chesapeake and lake austin, certain guilds on those 2 shards master this annoying as hell template making it impossible to fight the character 1v1, very lame stuff, on a side note, good decision nerfing heal pots, sick of people chugging like its a keg of beer

 

[Vexxed]

RichDC

Plus characters with low intelligence high HP really get hit hard!!!

This is incorrect... Concussion damage bonus is based of the PERCENTAGE difference in HP & Mana... so technically having a smaller mana pool makes it easier to keep full and thus means you will take LESS damage from Concussion asuming you also are trying to keep your life full.

Demonous

some genious on the dev team thought it would be funny to screw over balls of pet summoning and actually make you stand still and summon the pet with the possibility of being interrupted from summoning it

Actually I think your totally wrong. The problem with pet summoning balls is that they work TOO well. Imagine if not only you could disrupt the pet ball by damaging the pet owner but by damaging the pet as well? Then you could simply choose to attempt to kill the pet instead of the person and he wouldn't simply be able to run away and call his pet to him unless you were unable to disrupt the pet sumons... That would go along way to fixing tamers.. Their ability to "fire & forget" the pets and simply run the other way and petball it while the pet does / does not get a kill is broken.

 

[-Whiskey-]

Nerf Fire Breath. 40 Damage

Leave Concussion Blow alone.

Leave Healing alone.

No Loss Returns.

DONE!

TY UO

 

[Lord_Puffy]

Cap Fire Breath on the Greater Dragon and put an 8 second timer in between using the stealth skill combo'd with any other skill. Hide/Stealth Basically like Medi/Hide ect ect.


That is some common sense balance right there, if you have 60 fire resist, those greater dragons can do 80-90+ in one fire breath. Say the average player has 100-110 hps, that leaves you with 20-30 hps and if you are damaged by one of the flamestrikes/ebolts/lightnings/poisons/paras/bleeds inbetween the firebreath dmg you are dead.


You are dead. - Those dragons are too overpowered fix them PLEASE!

 

[drinkbeerallday]

I don't think a stealth nerf is necessary.

 

[UOKaiser]

I don't think a stealth nerf is necessary.

lol. I can see it now. I think youre template is in trouble. The tamers on this forum probably already notice how much anti tamer you are and noticed the skills you use like stealth I assume. When they get nerfed im sure they gonna get toghether and target stealth melee etc.. templates to get them nerf for revenge then when thats done the other templates will target them again heh 11 years of class warfare lol. In the dev team am sure there divided by it as well.
Too bad my dexter,my tamer,my mage,my everything will all get nerfed eventualy again because of class warfare I might as well play them till i can then when I can't I'll stay on my crafter. Notice crafters get nerfed and helped when new systems are put in but are never nerfed for being over powered because players cant complain about them. Everyone should use all there slots to play multiple templates will be less nerfes and more happyness all around.

 

[MerchantAtHome]

I don't think a stealth nerf is necessary.

On production shards....I don't know.

On Siege, it is way, way, waaaaaaaaay, overdue.

 

[Arcades]

Logrus,

Why not reverse the formula for Concussion Blow damage so that it will hit for maximum damage when HP/MANA are at 100% and decreased as the difference gets larger.

Here's a sample formula:
[] = absolute value

X = ( [HP(current) - HP(total)] + [Mana(current) - Mana(total)] )
If X = 0 then dmg taken is MAX DMG
If X > 0 then dmg taken is %MAX DMG (less dmg as X gets greater)

Simple and will allow players to have a nice opening attack, but prevents spamming since the dmg will not increase the more dmg the defender takes unlike the current formula.

 

[AesSedai]

Hail-o again Logrus,

Well, it turns out that I couldn't find much of anything on the internet from MrTact's massive Diminishing Returns thread that was in the old Developer's Corner; I thought it might've, but it just didn't survive the Stratics forum losses last year..

The only thing I found relating to it was this; it was on an old hard drive / old computer, heh.
I put it in a new thread so as not to flood this one much more.
Maybe it can offer some food for thought; maybe not. I did have a much more simplified version on that old thread, but what I post is all I have left from then (12-17-2005). Feel free to holler if ya' want.

 

[athos_uo]

A user of Britannia Bibliothek offers an improved plan for Immunity System of Heal Potions. I have translated it.


--

The original Immunity System of Heal Potions by devs gives penalties not to having Enhance Potions but to using Healing potions, which disadvantages players without Enhance Potions most. But the actual problem is not that players can drink Heal Potions in successtion, but that they can reap too great benefit from using Heal Potions in successtion because they can reach the max value of Enhance Potion so easily. Therefore the Immunity System should not be applied to using Heal Potions in general, but players should have so much higher immunity to Healing Potions as the total amount of Enhance Potions they have increases. So I'd like to offer an improved plan.

My general plan goes as follows:
1. The higher the total amount of Enhance Potions of a player is, the longer the period of being immune to Healing Potions becomes.
2. The value amount of Enhance Potions gets reduced at each time when a player uses Heal Potions. The reduced amount of Enhance Potions will not be recovered during the Immune period, but will be recovered at the same time when the Immunity period will end. The rate how Enhance Potions gets reduced will be remitted by having Alchemy skill.
2-a. The reduced amount of Enhance Potions by using Heal Potions will be applied only to using Heal Potions.
3. The status of being immune and the reduction of Enhance Potions will removed after a proper time.
(*) The time and rate of reduction of Enhance Potions depends on the total amount of Enhance Potions of a player:
0 <= the total amount of Enhance Potions <= 50.0: -10% 30 sec
50.1 <= the total amount of Enhance Potions <= 80.0: -5% 25 sec

The description of my improved plan in details:
Definition 1: The Immunity period
0.0 <= The total amount of Enhance Potions <= 50.0 : The Immunity period(sec)=[ delay for using Healing potions + (the total amount of Enhance Potions including Alchemy skill / 2.5) ]
50.1 <= The total amount of Enhance Potions <= 80.0 : The Immunity period(sec)=[ delay for using Healing potions + (the total amount of Enhance Potions including Alchemy skill / 2.5)-(Alchemy skill / 10)*1.7 ]
(*) round down after the decimal fractions of the last result

Definition 2: The reduction of Enhance Potions
The reduction of Enhance Potions(%) = [ 10 - ( Alchemy skill / 20 )]
(*) round down after the decimal fractions of the last result

Process: Following two penalties are given soon after you use a Healing Potion.
1. You get the Immunity period and the reduction of Enhance Potions. It will be noticed as follows:"You get the Immunity to Heal Potions and the reduction of Enhance Potions."
2. You get these penalties from using Healing Potions of any intensity. Penalties will not be removed even if you remove the equipment with Enhance Potions.
3. The shortest of the Immunity period is 3 seconds and the longest is 30 seconds.
4. You get the Immunity period every when you use Healing Potions. This period doesn't stack and the last one overrides preceding ones.
5. The minimum value of reduction of Enhance Potions is 5%, its maximum value is 10%.The reduced amount of Enhance Potions will not be recovered during the Immune period, but will be recovered at the same time when the Immunity period will end.
6. The reduction of Enhance Potions stacks only during the Immunity period. But Enhance Potions doesn't go under 0.
7. These two penalties will be removed with the following message, if you don't use another Healing Potion during the Immunity period:
"All the penalties to Healing Potions are removed."

My improved plan meets the followng 3 conditions, which are supposed to be intended by devs:
1. To prevent players with over 50% Enhance Potions from healing themselves with Heal Potions at too high rate.
2. The higher the total amount of Enhance Potions is, the severer the penalties are.
3. The higher the Alchemy is, the less severe the penalties are.

List( not always accurate )
( EP means Enhance Potions. EP-% means the reduction of Enhance Potions. GHPot means Greater Heal Potion. Alc means Alchemy. )
EPtotal | EP-% | sec = GHPot + EP - Alc

(*)
EP:00.0-50.0
00 = 00+00 | -10% | 10sec = 10 + 00 - 00
05 = 05+00 | -10% | 12sec = 10 + 02 - 00
10 = 10+00 | -10% | 14sec = 10 + 04 - 00
15 = 15+00 | -10% | 16sec = 10 + 06 - 00
20 = 20+00 | -10% | 18sec = 10 + 08 - 00
25 = 25+00 | -10% | 20sec = 10 + 10 - 00
30 = 30+00 | -10% | 22sec = 10 + 12 - 00
35 = 35+00 | -10% | 24sec = 10 + 14 - 00
40 = 40+00 | -10% | 26sec = 10 + 16 - 00
45 = 45+00 | -10% | 28sec = 10 + 18 - 00
50 = 50+00 | -10% | 30sec = 10 + 20 - 00

06 = 00+06 | -09% | 12sec = 10 + 02 - 00
30 = 00+30 | -05% | 22sec = 10 + 12 - 00

(*) explanations:
The calculation on the left: The total amount of Enahance Potions = [Enhance Potions by Equipments] + [Enhance Potions by Alchemy]
The number in the middle: The rate of reduced Enhance Potions when you use a Heal Potion
The calculation on the right: The total Immunity period = [the original delay for using Heal Potions] + [the Immune period based on the total amount of Enhanced Potions] + [the remitted time of the Immune period by having Alchemy]


EP:50.1-80.0
( * calculated at Alchemy = + 16.5 )
55 = 50+05 | -09% | 30sec = 10 + 22 - 02
60 = 50+10 | -08% | 29sec = 10 + 24 - 05
65 = 50+15 | -07% | 28sec = 10 + 26 - 08
70 = 50+20 | -06% | 27sec = 10 + 28 - 11
75 = 50+25 | -05% | 26sec = 10 + 30 - 14
80 = 50+30 | -05% | 25sec = 10 + 32 - 17

56 = 50+06 | -09% | 29sec = 10 + 22 - 03

Example: a character of Human with Enhance Potion 50 and with Alchemy 0(=20 by JOAT) uses Greater Heal Potions every ten minutes ten times:
The Immunity period: 29 sec = [( a delay for Heal Potions 10 ) + (total amount of Enhance Potions including Alchemy 56 / 2.5 ) - (( Alchmy 20 / 10 ) *1.7)]
total : 119 sec =[ ( 10*9) + 29]

The reduction of Enhance Potions: -9 % = [ 10 - ( Alchemy 20 / 20 )]
total -90% = [ 9 * 10 ]
current value of Enhance Potions: 0 % ( doesn't go under 0 )

If you wait for 29 seconds after you use a Greater Heal Potion at the last time, all the penalties will be removed.

 

[Der Rock]

If you wait for 29 seconds after you use a Greater Heal Potion at the last time, all the penalties will be removed.

i hate this whole crap,
that means nothingelse then:" if u need a potion u cant use it"
all this timer crap, they destroyed whole templates with "timer-crap"

the dev´s should rethink for whom they want to do theire work.
for average player (maybe also for new player sometime) or for the 1% hardcore player who dont play the game without pen and paper and calculator on the desk

people want to play the game!

Dev´s REMOVE ALL CAPS for PVM
implement all caps and timer u like and wish for PVP

PVM player are suffering because of this cheater pvp crap

 

[Turdnugget]

So concussion blow is returning to it's former self (in a way) that it now lowers int/mana like it used to?

Interesting... So what will 2 concussion shots do to you in a row? Damage wise since your mana/int is getting halved...

Also, does immunity build up if two people are fighting you with concussion blow faster? Or is it still calculated on a per person basis?

 

[Beefcake101]

i hate this whole crap,
that means nothingelse then:" if u need a potion u cant use it"
all this timer crap, they destroyed whole templates with "timer-crap"

the dev´s should rethink for whom they want to do theire work.
for average player (maybe also for new player sometime) or for the 1% hardcore player who dont play the game without pen and paper and calculator on the desk

people want to play the game!

Dev´s REMOVE ALL CAPS for PVM
implement all caps and timer u like and wish for PVP

PVM player are suffering because of this cheater pvp crap

I agree 1000% Why change it because of the few PVP players. Why does PVM have to suffer all the time. I am really upset by this. What will be next/ A PVP will cry about a dragon killed him again so you will nerf dragons again. There has to be a punishment in Fel. You did a crime to get red so live with it.

 

[Zero Day]

I fail to see how any of the proposed changes make PvM suffer.

In most games there are certain mobs that are just really hard to solo. Balances geared at PvP sometimes should affect PvM.

If you're getting attacked by 5 players, you should probably die.

If you're getting attacked by 5 dragons, again you should probably die.


Nobody likes to die but some people think that every mob in game should curl up and die if they so much as mouse over and anything in game that could potentially cause them a few minutes of monochrome should be cut out.

If you want to take UO on the fast track out after its lasted this long, go ahead and install an EASY button.


Potions, Apples, Enhanced/Faction Aids, + Skill Items, all allow you to reap benefits without investing any skills.

Players want to survive what they call a gank, and then turn around a cry because they cant kill someone 5 v1.

Players want to do 300+ dmg every hit to everything then complain that there's no challenge.


-----------------------------------------------

Fix Every weapon and spell does 1 dmg
Players regenerate hp at 100 hp /second

All monsters have 1 hp.


This way in PvP it takes 100+ people to gank somone
and all monsters die in 1 hit.


QED: UO has now been fixed, you are now free to move about sossaria

 

[Ravahan]

Sounds like a good start.

For the record, I've always liked Mr.Tact and his soft caps approach. He liked to give us the ability to really go wherever we wanted, as long as we thought it was worth it, with our character. I may mess around with it a little later.

 

[Ravahan]

Dev´s REMOVE ALL CAPS for PVMimplement all caps and timer u like and wish for PVP

PVM player are suffering because of this cheater pvp crap

Thankfully, you're not a developer.

Please, for the love of all things holy, do not listen to this man. As a primarily PvM player, I'm here to tell you that players are overpowered as-is compared to most monsters. We cannot eliminate caps for PvM. As I said, I've always been a fan of the soft caps approach. Want to stack inscription, a scrapper's, +10% SDI on both jewel sets and a hat of the magi for your uber WoD spam? Fine. But you're sure as hell shouldn't get 60%+ SDI from items. As you continue to stack the SDI, it should give less and less return, thus allowing you to intelligently choose your level of investment in any particular stat AND making it so that you can't do some crazy amount of damage to the hardest monsters in the game.

 

[Stupid Miner]

Thankfully, you're not a developer.

Please, for the love of all things holy, do not listen to this man. As a primarily PvM player, I'm here to tell you that players are overpowered as-is compared to most monsters. We cannot eliminate caps for PvM. As I said, I've always been a fan of the soft caps approach. Want to stack inscription, a scrapper's, +10% SDI on both jewel sets and a hat of the magi for your uber WoD spam? Fine. But you're sure as hell shouldn't get 60%+ SDI from items. As you continue to stack the SDI, it should give less and less return, thus allowing you to intelligently choose your level of investment in any particular stat AND making it so that you can't do some crazy amount of damage to the hardest monsters in the game.

Mmm yea, would have to agree with you. I remember pre-300% di caps seeing a guy 3 shotting Shadow Wyrms with a reptile/dragon slayer bow.

 

[Kojak]

I use a greater heal pot once in a blue moon - this helps me because it screws other people - I love it - lol

The devs are wonderful people - and the thing that makes it the best is reading all these posts in this thread from people crying like little .... - it warms my heart - hehehehe

 

[Turdnugget]

Logrus, if you're going to take a look at weapon specials, please take a look at double strike. I do pitiful damage with my axe using a double strike... not even worth the mana or effort to use that special. You'd think a 'double' strike would do some pretty gnarly damage... it doesn't.

Also, what about all of the samurai/ninja weapons? And a lot of the new ML weapons... they have some pretty crappy specials. Feint, Block, Defense Mastery,Dual Wield (whats the point if you're already pretty much at cap?) Force of Nature (only used it a couple times, not impressed even though it's definition seems like it should rock) Pyschic Attack...Seems this special doesn't even really work.

 

[Arrgh]

Seriously some of it sounds like it was translated from Japanese on Babblefish:

 

[WarUltima]

Logrus, if you're going to take a look at weapon specials, please take a look at double strike. I do pitiful damage with my axe using a double strike... not even worth the mana or effort to use that special. You'd think a 'double' strike would do some pretty gnarly damage... it doesn't.

Also, what about all of the samurai/ninja weapons? And a lot of the new ML weapons... they have some pretty crappy specials. Feint, Block, Defense Mastery,Dual Wield (whats the point if you're already pretty much at cap?) Force of Nature (only used it a couple times, not impressed even though it's definition seems like it should rock) Pyschic Attack...Seems this special doesn't even really work.

Double strike is a joke since they nerfed it from always hit full dmg each to not always hit and 90% dmg each with a steep mana cost even if you whiff on the 2nd hit.

For two weapon that's doing the same amount of damage against 70s opponent, AI will always do 90% of the raw dmg capped at 35 while double strike would do 54% raw dmg assuming both hits land, that's also 27% dmg if the 2nd hit misses. On average assuming same weapon skills and dci hci (50% chance to hit) AI has an average return on 45% raw dmg while double strike yields 13.5% raw. Unless you get a HUGE base damage weapon with hit lighting on it, it simply doesnt worth it.

At very least double strike should cost half mana if 2nd hit whiffs and both hit should do full dmg, even so double strike will still have less return compared to AI or concussion blow.