ya i dont understand its like you guys were 20 steps behind last fridays patch u moved 2 steps forward and todays patch is 15 steps backwards. These Feats are terrible, there for encounters powers that most gwfs arent even going to use... like what are we doing here im trying to stay positive and keep waiting for patches but i feel like you guys are asking for information and help and you guys are just doing whatever you want anyway.. i mean i understand its your game you guys built it, but we actually play it some of the changes im ok with companions great idea, 5 areas great idea where you guys are failing is everything else. Your trying to Rebuild the whole game basically and its not working, im sorry when do we say ok this isnt working the way we want it to would it be possible to run mod 16 using mod 15 character sheets builds enchants just give us the new area and just increasing difficulty of new area. i mean we tried it your way and you guys dont have the manpower you need to try and accomplish the gigantic task at hand.. So my question to you is can we admit this is a flop keep the area campaign and just use old build character specs from mod 15 and prior. and try this again maybe in the future because this is gonna hurt you guys more then its going to help you... i love this game i have put $9,000 dollars into it i enjoyed it enough to spend a ton of money but you seem more into destroying your game then helping it at this point i almost feel pulling the plug on neverwinter would be better then releasing mod 16 in any capacity that it is in now.
Hi Bigboostime, I apologize that you are not enjoying the new feats. If these feat changes are mostly met with a negative response, they can absolutely be reverted. The issue is that not everyone shares the same preferences. Some players want to have more choices for valid builds, allowing them to take different powers than other players. Other players simply want feats to increase their damage no matter what they do, with one feat being the clear winner.
We'd like for feat choices to actually make you consider changing your build, and allowing one Barbarian to differentiate themselves form another in terms of what powers they use. That said, we are absolutely open to making further changes, including reverting changes that are disliked.
Second feat lower choice "Bloodspiller" refers to the ability Bloodspiller ("Increase the magnitude of Bloodspiller by 900 and causes Bloodspiller to deal damage to you"). No such power. I assume it is supposed to refer to Bloodletter.
Bloodletter's tooltipe does not update its listed magnitude when choosing this feat, although the damage increase is readily apparent in combat.
So we lose even more survivability by giving up our only self-heal AND dealing damage to ourselves to gain the only attack with a significant magnitude? The first choice in the feats (Relentless Speed vs. Mightier Leap) is pretty pointless as neither of these abilities will see any use once Hidden Daggers becomes unlocked. Not a fan of this change to the feats.
Thanks for the report about Bloodspiller, that is indeed a mistake, it should say Bloodletter. In regards to sacrificing your self-heal, it's certainly not a choice we wanted to force on anyone, and that's why we experimented with this idea as a feat. We are aware that Blademasters currently feel that they are not durable enough, so we are generally considering adjustments to their survivability.
In terms of Bloodspiller, however, we thought it would be an interesting choice to provide this risk-reward style gameplay for Barbarians who want to focus exclusively on offense. That being said, the feat that improves the damage of IBS should still be a solid increase to single target damage, that doesn't require you to sacrifice any more survivability.
Finally, in regards to the AoE feat tier as it relates to hidden daggers: we wanted to offer a viable choice for a third AoE at-will in a pure AoE build, we think that either of these could have a spot alongside hidden daggers and axestorm. That being said, they may not be strong enough yet if you feel like they are never worth taking.
The forth row feats is very cool, But Unstoppable Spin feat need to include Adamantine Strike(with added mag). The third row feats, replace Brutal Critical feat with Offensive Recovery(with is the last row feat of the last built, and is properly one of the most interesting feat). The second row feats are ok. The last row feats, the stun from Escalating Rage feat need to be gone and the penalty from Relentless battle rage need to be gone. The first row feats i don't know.
Hello and thanks for checking out the changes from this week's build! In regards to Rampage, I was certain this would have a mixed response, any sort of mechanic that involves a risk is going to be met with some hesitation, so it's possible I will go ahead and adjust the feat's potency and remove the risk if necessary.
The goal with Rampage was to create a reactionary style mechanic that required some forethought about how fast the attacks in your rotation are, vs. rage gain and critical rate, to ensure things line up nicely, and then give you a bit of a risk window when you proc the effect. The window is fairly generous, but if you really botch it or tunnel vision, you get punished.
While Rampage has sort of a complex and risky feel to it, Relentless Battlerage is more straightforward and simply allows the Barbarian to focus on raging as often as possible. In terms of removing the slight reduction to the damage increase, I do agree that it feels a bit bad, but there needs to be some offset for being able to battlerage twice as often, so what's likely to happen is that battlerage's damage increase will be reduced and then increased with Rampage.
Second feat lower choice "Bloodspiller" refers to the ability Bloodspiller ("Increase the magnitude of Bloodspiller by 900 and causes Bloodspiller to deal damage to you"). No such power. I assume it is supposed to refer to Bloodletter.
Bloodletter's tooltipe does not update its listed magnitude when choosing this feat, although the damage increase is readily apparent in combat.
So we lose even more survivability by giving up our only self-heal AND dealing damage to ourselves to gain the only attack with a significant magnitude? The first choice in the feats (Relentless Speed vs. Mightier Leap) is pretty pointless as neither of these abilities will see any use once Hidden Daggers becomes unlocked. Not a fan of this change to the feats.
Well, Bloodspiller easily turns into a troll feat: [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bloodletter deals 540128 (491025) Physical Damage to Forgotten Totemist. [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Vorpal Weapon deals 27006 (24551) Arcane Damage to Forgotten Totemist. [Combat (Self)] Your Bloodletter deals 280833 (540128) Physical Damage to you. [Combat (Self)] Your Vorpal Weapon deals 14042 (27006) Arcane Damage to you.
I have about 210k HPs, so the feat should be renamed 'Suicide Tendencies'. I barely survive when it doesn't crit. If it crits, I'm dead. The example above was a simple combo of Not so fast followed by Bloodletter (with Trample the fallen and Barbed Strikes as passive). CA active I believe, and most likely, the Totemist was debuffed by my tiger. I don't know exaclty what effects are counted in the figures 540128 (491025), that's a flat +10%, and 491k is high as base damage for sure. Maybe that's the actual damage and the damage prior to the application of external buffs (the tiger), but all the internal ones counted in.
Anyway. Even assuming I can fix that by increasing my defence, I still wonder what happens when in a party... I have more buffs, hence I deal more damage, am I receiving increased damage as well?
My point being, it's hard to make sense of it: - solo? nope we lack sustainable self healing capabilities, loosing health is not a good idea 99% of the times; - in a party? as a hard hitting power for bosses, when I'm fully buffed? almost certain suicide; - should I stack defensive stats like crazy in order to survive it? well that feels more like something that belongs to Sentinels, not Blademasters.
Edit: as a second thought, it makes sense if you see the Barbarian as a tank mainly with a DPS option. Everything else tuned as a tank (equip, companions, etc), you switch from Sentinel to Blademaster then Bloodspiller might make sense: you put all your defence (that you already have) into use for extra damage.
Hello! Thanks for the feedback! Bloodspiller is definitely an experiment, and also needs some further adjustments, because although it can be fun to create extreme circumstances where a skill like this kills yourself, it's far too easy to do right now. If it stays, I may also consider making it unable to kill you completely.
As you picked up on, this is a skill best used by players who see their Blademaster as their second spec for group content, but that said, this feat may change entirely, but I wanted to see how people felt about it.
Just my opinionated feedback on the Blademaster boons after trying them out. I'll go about it per column.
1. The pair of feats are somewhat weak IMO. I feel like mightier leap has a niche application (quick way to close the gap at long distances). But for Relentless Speed, it kind of feels meh. The 5% chance feels abysmal and trying it out, I don't think I'd ever slot this in even in situations where there are lots of additional mobs since I already have better AoE options: Axethrow, hidden daggers + relentless slash . Perhaps give it a larger radius and small increase in magnitude? And instead of it being 5% chance how about it becomes "after 10 at-will hits" it restores cd to give it more consistency?
2. Feats at the 2nd column are actually good. So far I really have nothing to say much about it except for decreasing Bloodspill's recoil damage. It feels like if the player get's a strong fully buffed crit hit, could ironically kill the toon itself. Perhaps change the recoil damage to percentage of max HP just to be on the safer side -> this would also make it easier to estimate when and when not to use it. I would have preferred that Bloodletter be NOT the skill that was affected since it's already got a niche usage of emergency healing.
3. 3rd set is pretty Ok. Although I'd find myself favoring overpenetration than brutal critical since critical strikes aren't what they used to be.
4. 4th set is also good. Unstoppable spin provides good progression to Battlerage saving a few ms but my issue is that Sure Slam is by far IMO the superior choice. Both Spinning Strike and Avalanche already have equal magnitude but Avalanche has added crowd control and can actually buy time for a Barbarian's cooldowns to finish while protected. The increased movement speed bonus and saving few seconds entering into Battlerage feels like it won't cut it. Perhaps include unstoppable spin also modify spinning strike to give a party wide buff? Right now there's a clear winner to choose between these two.
5. I love the asymmetry between these two last feats. It allows for different playstyles. Relentless Battlerage goes for consistency while Escalating Rage encourages bursting. I do however have a nitpick with Escalting Rage, some people are probably gonna say the 3 second needs to go but if you devs are adding this to balance it, then please give Escalting Rage's buff a visual cue when it's ready like Super Saiyan aura or something obvious to spot as it's very easy to get lost in the heat of the moment with (so many vfx for powers especially at queues, hard to keep trackof my toon's buffs) and not time battlerage properly. There's also the problem of crit strikes are chance based so there's a level of inconsistency there also.
Thanks for the in-depth thoughts on the feats!
In regards to choice #1: You mention that you already take Axethrow and Hidden Daggers, but what is your preferred third encounter in a pure AoE build? This feat column was ultimately aiming to provide two different options and styles of gameplay for filling out an AoE build. In regards to Mightier Leap: keep in mind that you can jump away/adjacent to the enemies and then back to get the effect, you don't need to use this only to close the gap, that was really the gameplay that I had in mind with this feat, really increasing mobility even further during combat, and actually requiring you to aim where there are no enemies for the first jump.
In regards to relentless speed: when testing this feat out in group content, I felt like it was coming up fairly often with the high attack speed of Barbarian, especially in Unstoppable. That being said, it is worth clarifying that this power doesn't reset the cooldown of Not So Fast, but instead allows you to execute it as if it had no cooldown. So you can use it freely, and then even if you were halfway through the cooldown, when this proc comes up, you can hit it, and then the cooldown continues in the background and will be back up in a few seconds.
In regards to choice #3: Glad you found these choices to be okay. The brutal critical feat is designed to encourage use of critical strike, but may need to be further buffed depending on where the final balance of critical strike lands, so I appreciate the feedback.
On choice #4: I agree that the choice is too clear cut right now and Unstoppable Spin is certain to get a buff.
On choice #5: I do believe "Rampage" comes up on the screen when you gain the buff, and it may not have made it into this build, but the battlerage icon should also light up. That said, I will look into making this effect more obvious.
Since people reported weird damage numbers for the barb, so I tested them a bit.
Blademaster IBS at 20 str with a wooden test weapon deals 733 dmg =>733/700 = 1.047143 multi from str
Sentinal deals 1612 dmg in the same setup 1612/1.04714 = 1539.42680 1539.42680/700 = 2.19918 2.19918/0.7 = 3.14169 So, Sentinal deals ~PI times as much damage as it should, hurray.
It was all an elaborate Pi day hoax, and you solved it!
(Kidding of course, I am investigating this issue and hope to have it resolved this week!)
Can now routinely 1-shot myself in lvl 80 content with Bloodletter+Bloodspiller feat, both open-world and instance.
Need to scale the self-damage to 10% or less of what it currently is to make this feat even remotely usable. Hit a mob for 200k and do 400k damage to myself, great design there...
Thanks for the report! There are definitely some issues with blood spiller, it is having some negative interactions with other powers that I did not anticipate. In internal testing, it was never hitting me for anywhere close to lethal damage, so I do apologize.
Quote by gestrisa ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. 4th set is also good. Unstoppable spin provides good progression to Battlerage saving a few ms but my issue is that Sure Slam is by far IMO the superior choice. Both Spinning Strike and Avalanche already have equal magnitude but Avalanche has added crowd control and can actually buy time for a Barbarian's cooldowns to finish while protected. The increased movement speed bonus and saving few seconds entering into Battlerage feels like it won't cut it. Perhaps include unstoppable spin also modify spinning strike to give a party wide buff? Right now there's a clear winner to choose between these two. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unstoppable Spin should make rage go to full everytime Spinning Strike is activated so Battlerage would come on at the start of Spinning strike everytime, this be cool.
Also Adamantine Strike Should be added to Unstoppable Spin(rename ofcourse), because you wont use Adamantine Strike if is not modified in some way(activating Adamantine Strike should make rage go to full aswell and Battlerage comes on, if added).
Thanks for the feedback! Adamantine Strike should still be a DPS gain in full group content (depending on your party), over either other choice due to the strength of the negative condition it applies, but I do understand that it may not be apparent that this is the case. It also may not be very interesting that Adamantine Strike is the right choice in most group play, so I'll definitely be looking at possible adjustments.
Nice visual yet once more only effects one power. This daily is one that needs to be replaced or worked on quite a bit to actually give it purpose its current state makes it probably the Barbarians worst daily due to the cast time(time not spent dealing dmg).
This be nice.
Thanks for the feedback! Keep in mind that the cast time is taken into account when damage is balanced, so even though you're not attacking, the damage is still there. Obviously, if you clip your encounter cooldowns with air time, that's bad, but if you're just missing out on at-wills, you're still talking about a damage increase. There's also a lot of utility to being able to get so many immunity frames.
Unfortunately, no. That's how the old GWF used to be. Now, for any but the easiest content, you have to avoid all red areas. We have no dodge (invulnerability) like the other classes, so we have to move away from them, not just dodge. When you're busy moving around you can't skill at-wills. It's all wasted potential dps. In order to have serious at wills, we also need some tankiness, but all the tankiness is now moved to the Sentinel path. So, strong at-wills may be an option for Sentinels, not for Blademasters, who are now kinda of glass cannons.
That is actually wrong, our tankines was mostly irrelevant in m15, because of lifesteal and Defense everyone could've stacked it, i would say we are tankier now than we were before.
That's not what I'm experiencing. I keep dying because due to slow and uninterruptible animations you can't run from red areas in time: once you commit to a power, be it atwill or encounter, mobs have all the time in the world to place a red area under your feet, go have some tea and biscuits, get back and you're still halfway of your animation. Even after you're done with the animation, there's a 2 seconds lag before you can sprint again. The right way to play blademaster now is to keep moving around waiting for long range encounters to exit cd, and hit with those from far away. If you get close and try close range atwills or encounters, you die.
What powers are you having trouble canceling with sprint? Most powers should be cancellable with sprint. (Depending on where in the power's animation you cancel, it will either have already had its effect, or you'll cancel before it fires, however.)
Blood Fury feat refers to the Blood Fury power, this seems like it should refer to Primal Fury and doesn't actually heal anything at all.
In the power bar Bloodletter shows a rage cost of 40, but doesn't have a rage cost.
Initial impressions for Sentinel.
Power changes look interesting, and I'm looking forward to trying them out.
Feats: All the problems.
The design goals we are told cause the changes are to remove trap choices. Unless you have changed the meaning of the term "trap choices" all of these feats meet at least one of the criteria for being a "trap choice", that is choosing the feat locks you into using a power to maximize the value of the feat, even if the power isn't the best choice. Locking players into powers also is counter to the other design goal of freeing up player choice (by making the choices more equal).
Leap Into Action (Mighty Leap) Frustrating Slash (Sentinel's Slash) - I don't like either power. Perhaps if Sentinel's Slash didn't have a lag after you released it I would consider its feat. But I see Challenger's Slash as the better power in general because of how quickly it puts threat out (because of cast times it puts out nearly as much threat as the buffed slash). Will take Leap Into Action because it will help more in group content, when I might run Mighty for that threat buff...but really 6s?
Sure Slash (Sure Strike might buff Bounding Slam) - ARRGGHH it locks both your at wills in! Indomitable Might (IBS) - Well I guess this is good for solo play at least. IBS will nearly hit as hard as Smite, but still cast only every 13s....hmm what? - Took Indomitable because it was the least wasteful
Disarming Takedown - (Takedown Strike) On the Move (Not So Fast) - While the speed boost for the party is nice, I'll be stiking with Disarming Takedown. The feat makes the power better in solo and group play. Its the first feat that I feel hits the "worth a power lock" level of a feat, because 10% extra damage on bosses is a big deal for Thief, Ranger, Fighter and Barbarian. Sure its not ideal, but if all the other party members are doing Magic damage, at least its helping you keep aggro on the boss by buffing your damage.
Extended Unstoppable - (Come and Get It) Blood Fury (Primal Fury ?) - So hard to tell with these 2, I lean towards Extended Unstoppable because it is a small benefit without a cost. I'm not even sure, reading it, that Blood Fury really has a benefit. - Took Blood Fury to test it.
Crushing Advance (Savage Advance) Undying Instinct (Primal Instinct) - A debuff that also reduces power utility or a small immortality frame that also speeds up the cooldown on the daily... - Took Undying Instinct because at least that might be useful, depending on what the "ignore Undying Instinct" powers are of course.
Basically I fee like all but one of these (Disarming Takedown) is a bad choice and irrelevant to play.
Feats should work to support the class role of the Paragon path, as they are locked to paragon paths, and not lock players into specific powers. For tanks the dynamic should ultimately be the choice of more damage and less threat (good for solo) or more threat and durability (good for group).
Thanks for checking out the changes this week, I can see that you're pretty frustrated with the feat choices right now, and I certainly will consider making drastic changes back towards feats that simply give some sort of passive bonuses that don't change how you build your character if the feedback is strong enough, I did want to address a few specific points though.
In regards to frustrating slash vs. challenger's slash: this first feat isn't necessarily aiming to make sentinel's slash replace challenger's slash. Instead, it gives a secondary threat-related buff to a power that you might consider taking as it lets you block and attack at the same time. It can be paired with challenger's slash in AoE situations to make challenger's slash generate even more threat when used after sentinel's slash, encouraging you to weave the two, or paired with sure strike in single target situations.
In terms of Indomitable Might vs. Sure Slash, these are both single target focused feats. With that in mind, I assume you're bringing sure strike to any single target scenario, so the idea with that feat is to give bounding slam an alternate use in a single target build, and create a reactionary change up in your at-will use.
In regards to Blood Fury vs. Extended Unstoppable, I'm glad to hear that you had a hard time deciding on this feat. Ultimately, that's the goal of the feat choices, there is not meant to be a correct solution, but instead we are hoping to allow you to make the choice that fits with your playstyle more or supports a playstyle you're interested in trying. In regards to Blood Fury, there is a benefit, you regain health based on the damage you deal with Primal Fury, if you're un unstoppable, and you can use it without paying its rage cost. The fact that it cancels unstoppable immediately, just means that you want to try to use it right at the end of Unstoppable. However, if you need health desperately, you could click it at any time during unstoppable. So there's some moment-to-moment choices to be made about how to use it.
In regards to what powers ignore Undying Instinct, this is basically limited to damage of the type "Unavoidable," like boss ultimate attacks, and isn't very common.
Although I've taken time to respond to your feedback with information about the design goals and thoughts that went into the feat choices, that doesn't mean I'm not considering making further changes. I do hope you'll continue to play around with them.
-The Unstoppable Spin feat doesn't activate if you are using the Wyvern Eye set (you get the Wyvern Rune drop but no Rage). Haven't tried the other Mod 16 sets, but I am guessing any of the other Mod 16 sets also bug this feat.. -Relentless Slash seems to have some spazzing issues when I held down the attack button, similar to the issues on the HR's Rapid Strike -It was briefly possible to get two Relentless Slash icons on my buffbar. I have no clue how to reproduce it and I don't even know if means that you get the buff twice - I have no clue how I even got the Brash Strike artifact bonus on a testing weapon, but it happened only to my Barbie and none of my other classes.
Feedback
-Raging Strikes: Rewrite the tooltip so how the effect works is clearer, in addition to possibly upgrading the damage bonus to something like 7.5%.
I was not honestly sure how the thing works due to the vague tooltip. I only noticed it worked by whacking a dummy without the class feature and then whacking it a whole bunch of time with the class features.
-Brash Strike: Find a new animation, or increase the swinging speed (yes, even considering rage), or dramatically increase the magnitude (something like 110).
This power feels awful to use and is not worth using, given how good Hidden Daggers is. I think most of the issue is the swinging speed, emphasized with the pause between the animations of the first and second hits. If the power was a bit faster (even considering Rage) and/or dealt more damage relative to it animation, I think it would possibly dethrone Sure Strike as the go-to single target At-will.
If you plan to replace the animation, I'd suggest reusing the Sunsword's 3 hit At-will, as that one feels good to use (even though Sunsword's spinning at-will is far better...).
Thanks for the bug reports and the feedback! I apologize for the animation stuttering with certain attacks, this is an issue we are hoping to isolate and have fixed soon.
Blood Fury feat refers to the Blood Fury power, this seems like it should refer to Primal Fury and doesn't actually heal anything at all.
In the power bar Bloodletter shows a rage cost of 40, but doesn't have a rage cost.
Thanks for checking out the changes this week, I can see that you're pretty frustrated with the feat choices right now, and I certainly will consider making drastic changes back towards feats that simply give some sort of passive bonuses that don't change how you build your character if the feedback is strong enough, I did want to address a few specific points though.
In regards to frustrating slash vs. challenger's slash: (snip)
In terms of Indomitable Might vs. Sure Slash, these are both single target focused feats. (Snip)
In regards to Blood Fury vs. Extended Unstoppable, I'm glad to hear that you had a hard time deciding on this feat. Ultimately, that's the goal of the feat choices, there is not meant to be a correct solution, but instead we are hoping to allow you to make the choice that fits with your playstyle more or supports a playstyle you're interested in trying. In regards to Blood Fury, there is a benefit, you regain health based on the damage you deal with Primal Fury, if you're un unstoppable, and you can use it without paying its rage cost. The fact that it cancels unstoppable immediately, just means that you want to try to use it right at the end of Unstoppable. However, if you need health desperately, you could click it at any time during unstoppable. So there's some moment-to-moment choices to be made about how to use it.
In regards to what powers ignore Undying Instinct, this is basically limited to damage of the type "Unavoidable," like boss ultimate attacks, and isn't very common.
Although I've taken time to respond to your feedback with information about the design goals and thoughts that went into the feat choices, that doesn't mean I'm not considering making further changes. I do hope you'll continue to play around with them.
I left the bug report from my original post in as it’s kind of important to the Blood Fury v Extended Unstoppable discussion.
For solo play I have ended up running Sure Strike, Challenger’s Strike, Bloodletter, Punishing Charge, IBS with Undying as a daily and a single target dps daily (not where I can look and don’t remember all the GWFpower names). That set was the only way I could “safely” clear Waning with the Cleric companion summoned (and even then I died to the boss because she is broken) and similarly the Master Expedition with a rune slotted (only the busted Undead Ogre killed me there).
I tried Primal Fury with the feat, and as it was not healing (or the healing was so small as to be irrelevant) I had to do a full respec (because that’s the only way you can change Feats atm) to replace it. I certainly understand the idea of triggering it just before Unstoppable runs out, but that’s far less effective (or not working) than hitting with Bloodletter buffed under Unstoppable and getting a heal of up to 200k HP, and still having full immunity for the duration. This becomes particularly important if you combo with Undying, because your using the “don’t die” button when something is stripping all your HP or about to one shot you, so you need to get back to 100% possibly multiple times in succession. (Play experience today.)
The whole experience of solo play for me has been that the AoE powers make you resolve combat slower vs groups than using the peak single target stuff.
So back to Frustrating Slash, you’re taking a feat to give threat to a power that doesn’t generate threat for half or more of the time you are using it. Even at tap speed Challenger’s is faster and so you can weave it with the faster attack speed of Sure Strike to build Rage and get Unstoppable going faster. This has been a big deal in my play.
Sure Slash’s problem is it’s a 10% chance to make a utility power dps. So you cannot weave threat through Sure Strike (with at-wills) because now you have a utility power slotted on the chance it will become a dps power. So the feat is a 2 layered trap. The real point of the other one is that it makes IBS a “starting finisher”, all solo trash pretty much wilts under it this way.
My frustration with the feat choices is derived entirely from the feeling that on the character sheet these are the most important choices across all classes. But the design philosophy being applied across the classes has been to make them very restrictive for what they do. You keep saying (and thank you so much for saying it on your Sunday morning) that you want players to have freedom to create unique roughly balanced builds and to feel they have options to choose different powers. The way you have been making powers better options is by removing options, or at least placing opportunity cost on those options. Both of these lock players into “cookie cutters” because ultimately a “best” set of gear will evolve and the “best” set of powers will evolve as well, taking feats to try and patch the gap will just worsen the problem.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
First of all, thanks @asterdahl for all the responses in this thread and others - it is really appreciated.
A lot of people are complaining about the feats due to the changes and I'm unfortunately also not happy with most of them. However, I like the "experiment" approach you are doing, iterating the changes until something, that most people like, is found. Perhaps you could add an "experimental" tag to feats/powers that you are just testing out, so everyone understands.
Back to the feats: I want to explain what exactly the problem with most of the feats of the barbarian (but also dc) is, instead of just saying "they are bad". For a bit of background, I main a CW and really like the (feat) changes made to that class, particularly the Thaumaturge feats - the reason as to why I will come back to later in my post.
A recurring problem when re-creating both the Sentinel and Blademaster builds after this week's patch was having to choose between two feats that did nothing for me: This is due to most feats ONLY modifying one power and the problem arises when I don't use either power. One might argue that I might feel more drawn to use one of the powers when choosing the feat, but I don't "feel drawn" to it - instead, it's more like "I feel forced". And that's not good since it's once again limiting my choice. This is not a problem of one particular (pair of) feat(s) but a fundamental flaw whenever a feat only affects one power. That being said, some effects/ideas were more creative that others and the aforementioned problem can be excused for those, so I'm just going to list the most problematic ones:
Blademaster 1st tier (Not useful if I want to go AoE spec, limiting otherwise)
Blademaster 2nd tier (What if I want to go AoE? - I will use neither skill. Otherwise, the bloodspiller effect is creative)
Blademaster 4th tier (I use neither daily and I don't want to)
Sentinel 1st tier (threat generation is pretty useless in solo play and I'd like to play sentinel solo since I enjoy the playstyle)
Sentinel 3rd tier (I don't use either power)
Sentinel 5th tier (This choice should affect all my powers, and not just one each)
So how to fix it? I see four options that can be mixed and matched to get a variety of interesting, non-limiting, feats:
Conditional bonuses: In a previous post you said that you don't want to provide merely AoE damage through a feat. However, to some extend feats should have such boring effects, as long as these effects are conditional. Such effects should only appear on the first (or second) tier of feats, but would be better than what these feats currently do. Here are a few examples:
When striking more than one enemy, you generate x% more rage / AP / ...
Using an encounter increases at-will damage by x% for y seconds
Blocking a crowd-control effect or attack that deals more than x% of your health in damage grants y% increased damage and threat generation for z seconds
Multiple power modifications: Feats that modify a power should at least modify 2 powers in the same way - 3 would be even better.
Come and get it and enduring shout both grant extended unstoppable. This bonus can stack, but the second stack increases duration by only 6 seconds total.
Using a gap closer power (mighty leap, bounding slam, punishing charge) increases your threat generation for x seconds. You instead deal y% more damage for that duration if no allied players are nearby
Mechanic modifiers: This is where I come back to why I like the Thaumaturge's feats a lot: They modify a mechanic and thus, are not dependent one a single power being used. And the barbarian already has some of those feats, but there need to be more of those. Let me just write down some ideas that randomly cross my head:
Your rage generates as long as it is below 25% (fast out of combat). It will not decay below 25%
While unstoppable, all rage related bonuses are as strong as when they were when you activated unstoppable (so the decay during unstoppable does not reduce the potency
When entering unstoppable you damage and stun nearby enemies
After sprinting briefly or dodging out of a red zone you gain flaking, granting you combat advantage against nearby enemies for x seconds.
Since the barbarian is lacking in class mechanics compared to the wizard, feats could also add new mechanics and if both feats in a row add the same mechanics under different conditions, a later feat could even build on that. Here's how it could work:
Blademaster, Upper Tier x Feat: A full combo of sure strike or brash strike on one enemy causes them to Bleed for y seconds, dealing z magnitude damage over the duration.
Blademaster, Lower Tier x Feat: Hitting an enemy with 2 encounter powers or a daily power causes them to Bleed for y seconds, dealing z magnitude damage over the duration.
Blademaster, Any x + 1 Feat: Attacking a bleeding enemy builds x% more rage / while at least one enemy bleeds your cooldowns cool down y% faster / you gain z% action points per second / ...
Hopefully you are able to understand my problem with the current feats of the barbarian (and also some other classes like the cleric). I'm not expecting any of my suggested feats to be implemented since I'm sure somebody come up with more interesting effects, but hopefully they helped in understanding my point and might serve as an inspiration fur future iterations.
To close this on a positive note, some of the feats like Escalating rage or Relentless Battlerage go in the right direction and provide the interesting effects that I was looking for when I heard about the feat rework.
What powers are you having trouble canceling with sprint? Most powers should be cancellable with sprint. (Depending on where in the power's animation you cancel, it will either have already had its effect, or you'll cancel before it fires, however.)
Pretty much everything, atwills, encounters, dailies. A daily power that locks you in place I don't really mind, those are rare hard hitting powers that it only makes sense you have to time correctly and will leave you open to attacks if done poorly.
Overall I keep finding myself saying 'come on, sprint already, the animation is over' all the time. It doesn't feel like server lag, it's just slow response to sprint. It feels like powers lock you there from a while. Later I'll test and will try to isolate specific powers. Anyway the overall feeling is that we're way slower in moving away from red areas if we're using powers.
The removal of movement speed might be it. The ability to place yourself in the right position is paramount for a class like ours. In the past we used to laugh at most aoe attacks, and just keep hitting. Now that we die at all red areas, we desperately need the speed to move away and get back in place fast. Sprint shoud initiate immediately no matter what your doing. It should cancel the animation at any point. It might be early (neither the power nor its cooldown is triggered), or after the power lands, in any case it should activate immediately.
The char I'm using to test is a L80 Barb not fully M15 geared. Usually we test Master Expeditions. I haven't tested much old L70 contents, my feedback refers to new contents. And usually in a party, with a tank.
Basicly I had to beef defence up (replaced one ring with a defensive one). I might need to do that again, I'm evaluating giving up on offensive stats and go for defense first, in an attempt to be able (again) to survive some red areas. That's for Blademaster of course.
BTW thanks for your effort both in working on the class, and listening to our feedback. Most feedback is focused on things that aren't working, of course, but that's doesn't mean we don't appreciate your work.
Hello! Thanks for the feedback! Bloodspiller is definitely an experiment, and also needs some further adjustments, because although it can be fun to create extreme circumstances where a skill like this kills yourself, it's far too easy to do right now. If it stays, I may also consider making it unable to kill you completely.
As you picked up on, this is a skill best used by players who see their Blademaster as their second spec for group content, but that said, this feat may change entirely, but I wanted to see how people felt about it.
I totally liked it, it's the first thing I tried actually. It totally fits with the Barbarian theme.
Well, as I wrote early, it may take some work to make it viable, as a player, I mean. Maybe going full defense, with 80% damage mitigation, using it only when in Rage, things like that.
I hope you don't mind me offering a suggestion.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bloodletter deals 540128 (491025) Physical Damage to Forgotten Totemist. [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Vorpal Weapon deals 27006 (24551) Arcane Damage to Forgotten Totemist. [Combat (Self)] Your Bloodletter deals 280833 (540128) Physical Damage to you. [Combat (Self)] Your Vorpal Weapon deals 14042 (27006) Arcane Damage to you.
It seems I mitigated 48% of the damage only. My defense is 43800 so some AP applied apparently. Which one? Mine or the mob's? Here's my suggestion. Don't use AP when computing the reverse damage. It doesn't seem right to use the mobs' AP, since they are not the source of the damage (it doesn't depend on their skill). It doesn't seem right to use my AP, since I'd be using my own skill against myself. Overall, it doesn't feel right to count AP twice (that 540128 is already the result of appling my AP to their defences).
So just let the player's defense apply fully to the reverse damage.
If this turns out to be too much, then consider doing so only while in rage.
In my case, I have've sacrificed some offensive stats for defence, that's why I'm at 43800. I'd be able to use Bloodspill with 80% mitigation instead of 48%. A viable option. If you limit this to Battlerage only, out of rage, still it would be suicide for me, but not for a natural Sentinel who turned Blademaster for a while (I expect them to sit at 64k+ defense anyway).
Just want to chime in on feats. Above all else the severe limitation of the binary choice is quite off putting. Magnified further by the fact that in some instances neither choice will have any impact since the referenced skills wont be used at all. In fact game play is not really hampered by choosing NO FEATS at all (been there done that).
The illusion of choice is not choice at all. The hyperbolic extreme would be . . why not just provide everyone single build for each path and be done with it . . . save everyone the head ache.
In conclusion, I borderline hate the feat system. Hate the design philosophy that led to the implementation of dictating our choices. While I can understand the convenience of doing so for the sake of ease of balancing I am not here to make your life easier. I demand a certain level of choice in my character customization and this approach does not meet the threshold of acceptable. You would be better off lumping all the feats into a single pool and giving us the opportunity to choose 5. At least then I could feel like I had some choice is defining my character.
Can you please make the companion and mount tab common and accessible to all characters on account; so that once you have collected a companion/mount, on one character, you can use it on all characters, on same account.. I will probably want to change my main after m16 and don't want the time/money I have spent, on my current main, over the last couple years, to go to waste... I believe this would help the morale of your heavily invested players... also it would be nice to see boons unlock account wide after one hade 2 character with all boons unlocked on same account, but this is not as important as the companions and mounts being unlocked...
In regards to choice #1: You mention that you already take Axethrow and Hidden Daggers, but what is your preferred third encounter in a pure AoE build? This feat column was ultimately aiming to provide two different options and styles of gameplay for filling out an AoE build. In regards to Mightier Leap: keep in mind that you can jump away/adjacent to the enemies and then back to get the effect, you don't need to use this only to close the gap, that was really the gameplay that I had in mind with this feat, really increasing mobility even further during combat, and actually requiring you to aim where there are no enemies for the first jump.
In regards to choice #3: Glad you found these choices to be okay. The brutal critical feat is designed to encourage use of critical strike, but may need to be further buffed depending on where the final balance of critical strike lands, so I appreciate the feedback.
On choice #4: I agree that the choice is too clear cut right now and Unstoppable Spin is certain to get a buff.
On choice #5: I do believe "Rampage" comes up on the screen when you gain the buff, and it may not have made it into this build, but the battlerage icon should also light up. That said, I will look into making this effect more obvious.
Thanks for replying @asterdahl . I think I'm gonna give Relentless Speed another chance but I do prefer slotting a single target nuke inside when I go AoE focused for emergencies. As for Mightier Leap's intent, I think the Blademaster's sprint mechanic is already enough to cover that. It feels as though you're trying to sell Mightier Leap as an additional dodging option for Barbies similar to how TR/HR/DCs dodge/slide using their shift skill, and it's a cool idea but a lot of Barbs were already dodging/re-positioning stuff using sprint alone so I am not sure if this will even be popular among Barbarians. There's also the extra action turning the mouse away from to target to jump out and re-target to jump in. It's just way easier to press "shift+s" to move away and create distance.
Also to clarify regarding Rampage being up, rather than the word "Rampage" and the buff icon go up, I think it'd be way easier if it gets it's own battle effect similar to when Barbarian goes Battlerage/Unstoppable they get a giant'ish/turn red effect. I know it's gonna be extra work for your animators but it'd be great if Rampage gets a similar treatment cuz I'm really liking it's "risky factor" designed into it.
you are filling in the preview only of things that don't work. I expected a game evolution and more appropriate changes to the roles of our characters' classes and above all an improvement in playability. - you built tables of numerical statistics made at random without meaning and without logic, it's all unbalanced. - there is no longer the right to create a character to your liking for the most varied game situations. - the basic damage of a pet with 5k of power is 10 times higher than the basic damage of a character with 100k of power - some common enemy or field mini-boss inflicts a few hundred damage despite holding a very high defense. For some years now I've been playing neverwinter and in anticipation of this module 16 the current situation is likely to act as a repellent and remove the most passionate people for a gameplay completely destroyed in many respects. I would like to be able to be more helpful and deepen the situation by reporting problems and proposing solutions, to whom can I turn?
Some players want to have more choices for valid builds, allowing them to take different powers than other players. Other players simply want feats to increase their damage no matter what they do, with one feat being the clear winner.
We'd like for feat choices to actually make you consider changing your build, and allowing one Barbarian to differentiate themselves form another in terms of what powers they use. That said, we are absolutely open to making further changes, including reverting changes that are disliked.
feats granting effect for using one specific encounter are horrible ... They don't offer possibility, they force you to use it because otherwise it's a waste having to chose between pairs of feats without using them ...
feats with overall class effect are the way to go ... Basically right now the encounters viability are gated behind feats which is not a good thing.
If you wanted to make some powers have a completely different effect such as Bloodletter costing life but dealing more damage .. then that's not worth a feat, that's a new game functionality to implement to the game.
I join the proposals of changing feats. They should not join specific skills, this implies a rigid binding to these skills and if you do not use them, then you lose the feat.
I would like to propose not to introduce feats that raise or lower stats to a fixed amount. An example, if 1500 stats today give an increase, then when you enter more powerful enemies 1500 stats will lose their effectiveness. This also applies to passive abilities.
"Some players want to have more choices for valid builds, allowing them to take different powers than other players. Other players simply want feats to increase their damage no matter what they do, with one feat being the clear winner."
but that is not the point... if i dont care about "not so fast/might leap/restoring strike (w/o heal)/ibs/avalanch of steel/spinning strike". what that means? 3 tiers on the trash. BUT your second tier (build rage to do more damage vs do a lot more damage but take some damage back) created here a possible dicotomy/antagonism system that this class need to have your own personality. you created the same "vibe" in the last tier of barbarian powers and that is amazing. if that is too hard to think now, so create a antagonism between passive/system effects vs powers boost, but dont power A vs power B.
The thing is @asterdahl you have more variety IF you don't force people to use specific powers, like you are with some of those feats. Make feats that you use passively, rather than HAVING to slot a power to make use of it.
Also, as for Bloodletter, maybe make it apply a bleed to you, so it can do a buttload of damage, without oneshotting the user, and having it be a high risk, high reward thing where you can actually survive if you got a good group.
Yes i appreciate you taking the time out to reply to everyone that posts on here i know there is much to do, instead of fiddling around with the character and fine tuning certain new moves and feats to actually making the surrounding stats, mounts insignias companions artifacts all work appropriately first.
Right now we are trying to test all of our toons with a majority of things that normally buff are toons are working not as intended. So isnt trying to tweak a character before you fix things that are going to make us hit harder a little redundant.
we can go back and forth all day but the end result is going to be ok, the characters are working how we like it now the companions are over buffing or underbuffing and your going to have to adjust the characters all over again.... or changing the way companions proc or just changing the way they work entirely either way its a tremendous amount of more work
The feat choices are bad or atleast take into consideration the moves the classes are going to use and make the other ones just stat buffs, we know everyone is going to use axethrow now right because its new animation works and its an aoe so why not make that into a feat lower the cooldown on that not lets put it on something no one is going to use like mighty leap the only thing mighty leap needs in this game is REMOVED and REPLACED or just remove it idc i would rather be down an encounter then even have that in our encounters its a worthless move that takes way to long to cast not advantageous its just bad
I literally logged in Friday night saw the feats started to read them and said after 45 minutes of bewildered rage i really dont want any of these i think i picked 1 in the 3rd path and still have the others open cuz i logged off... it saddened me i didnt even want to test anything it literally made me just rather not play.
i think we need to fix the companions, Artifacts, Mount insignias Bonuses first before we even attempt to work on or try and balance or potentially destroy characters because we cant accurately test anything until we know that 100% of our support/Buff solo content is working properly.
I noticed that I completely removed the blue class bonus(15% crit power). I offer the option "Wild" for example, if you are not in a group then you have 10% damage bonus BUT you lose 1% for each member in the group and the maximum debuff is 5% This option describes the social component.Or the option that in the presence of magic classes will be a debuff for the berserk and such classes as warlock and cleric in the heal path of the ideal will be counted as shamans * (or just healers) for the barbarian himself. It's just an idea to think about, because then some players won't want to go with certain classes.I would also like to understand, initially, you start from the board game DnD? After all, in the board game you don’t always get to do what you are planning to do a combination for maximum damage like in mmorpg there is a DM brake for this. I understand the old players who are difficult to adopt innovations. We will only issue that everywhere in our favorite class reduce damage and the old ways to cause damage are not relevant. As I understand your idea is to give 2 options for dealing damage in a solo target(Boss) and Aoe. People want to understand what you are trying to convey to them inflict heavy damage on several targets or quickly inflict on 1 target(which ultimately shows a big DPS). You know for sure that not all people who describe adequately perceive the changes on the test server here so separately blog you for understanding patience and your endurance. Returning to the initial sentence, is it possible after m17 to see a combination of abilities in classes? I understand that this may turn into refusals by some members of the party to accept certain classes in the party. For example that we can observe now Knock back and trample the fallen It was one of the variants of the game of the Barbarian* and the Fighter* the concept that players need allies to get bonuses conclude that skills and abilities will give additional properties if combined. What makes it harder for people to go solo. There are examples of rogues if you are standing and doing damage in the back and the enemy has not chosen you as a target, then your damage will increase. This is a working concept and I do not take as an example the combat advantage. I mean that the characters get not just from finding group members around the enemy, but their abilities will work better. For example, if a Barbarian stuns a target, it will be easier for the thief to poison the target the wizard will be able with a great chance to freeze the target or continue stunning or another skill will have more opportunity to knock back. Abilities could reduce the resistance to control of the enemy that would allow to use more features and skills in different situations.I hope you understand what idea I am trying to convey to you.And as always, I apologize for my bad English
I've played for a while and I main a GWF. There has been loads of solid feedback in this thread already, so I'm just going to touch on the bigger picture, which is where I see the most issue.
You're simplifying classes and slowing down combat. OK, not a choice I would've made, but here we are. These changes will make things more challenging, which flies in the face of what a typical player would expect from limited character progression choices. Was this intended or accidental? I'm honestly curious on the reasoning behind this.
Toward that end, a big reason why all of this has been received negatively is there has been no effort to "sell" these changes to the playerbase; why they are a good thing, etc. This is still a product. People still have to buy into this. As much as I like what I've seen of Undermountain and the stuff with expeditions, if I'm stuck with a broken, unfun class I'm not going to buy into it.
For example, lifesteal could have been kept in the game (as the straight up removal of a stat is a pretty hard sell no matter which way you shake it) by having it work normally during solo content, but be disabled or diminished during group content. Alternatively, it could be gear-based toward the expected gear level of a zone. As a player gears up and eventually past that content, their lifesteal stat fully works again. I use lifesteal as an example here since the GWF relies so heavily upon it for sustain. I'd sell this to players by reverting lifesteal back to the way it used to be: a flat percentage of damage dealt returned as life rather than the chance to steal life that it is now. You would be able to tightly regulate when and how it would be used and you'd still leave in the incentive to gear up against current content.
I understand that you want to make the game easier to manage and yet still maintain challenge to keep player attention. But bear in mind that everyone will get bored eventually, no matter what you do, and they will leave. Players that leave happy but a bit bored will probably come back eventually. Players that leave angry will not only leave, but tell everyone they can exactly why they are angry.
I'll be honest; from everything I've seen so far, this looks like an impossible situation to solve. Even when all the bugs are stamped out and stuff is working as intended, we'll still be left with a game that will play very differently than the one we've been accustomed to for the past several years. The hard sell here is why a player should continue with Neverwinter (and Crypic products in general) versus finding another, more stable, MMO. I wish I could offer some advice on that problem, but I honestly have none.
Despite my reservations, I do wish you guys the best of luck at solving this. Even if mod16 turns Neverwinter into something I no longer wish to play, I will still have many hours of fond memories to look back upon. And for that, thank you.
Bug(s?): Hidden Daggers -The follow up effect seems to only be dealing 200 magnitude damage rather than the stated 300 magnitude. -The tooltip doesn't list the duration for the follow up attacks. Or, alternatively, it's proccing on hits after the first. (I am not sure which design in the intended one).
Feedback: Hidden Daggers. Aside from the godawful stepback animation that I have to circumvent by jumping and casting, this power leaves me with mixed feelings.
Don't get me wrong, this power is great and feels good to use. I like that this power encourages the Barbarian to stop, pause, and wait to use it with Rage. It reduces some of the poor muscle memory, as it gives the Barbie to a similar playstyle as before (getting Rage, staying in Rage, and using At-wills under Rage).
Lastly, Hidden Daggers brings Barbarian to be within 1% of the DPS level of Wizard and Warlock (as found by @greyjay1 and @thefabricant, the class possibly does more if the player makes no mistakes), which is pretty balanced. Keep in mind that is considering that Hidden Daggers is not giving the correct follow up damage (200 vs 300 magnitude damage), if that is ever correctly fixed, I think Barbarian will pull ahead of those classes by a decent margin (possible 5-10%?).
However, what has me mixed is that it seems to be doing pretty much all of my damage.
Seeing as it does not quite mimic the damage distribution envisioned for most classes, I fear that you will nerf it and make the class un fun to play, even though I can see the reasoning as to nerfing it.
I propose two suggestions:
-Leave Hidden Daggers as is and update the tooltip to reflect its true status (update the tooltip to say the effect is 200 magnitude and procs per hit done for its duration). -Increase At-will magnitude by 100 and eliminate the follow up effect on Hidden Daggers. Then add in/change a feat that lets Hidden Daggers do its current follow up effect for 100 magnitude damage per hit (possibly lower it to 75 if overpowering?)
The former is easy enough and leaves Barbarian in a decent state, though it has the weakness of locking Barbarian into only being competitive with Hidden Daggers. The latter suggestion is so players aren't locked into a situation where they always need to have Hidden Daggers because of the "great with Hidden Daggers, awful without Hidden Daggers" situation.
@asterdahl I think the takeaway from a lot of us, not just on the barbarian but in general, is that feats that buff powers aren't necessarily bad, but that feats that buff a single specific power are frustrating because rather than "making you consider changing your build," as intended, the impact is more like "make you feel locked in to specific power choices to avoid wasting something you _can't_ freely swap around," effectively reducing the playstyle flexibility (and therefore potentially longevity) of a given character... and feats that buff a specific combination of two powers are even moreso.
Please consider a design direction where two characters with the same feat selection could reasonably be running no more than two powers in common, yet with no feats "wasted." In other words, feats that have a playstyle buff, with a more focused buff on a specific power that it was designed around, but whose impact is still felt when you don't have that power slotted.
In regards to Bloodspiller, rather than recoil damage, perhaps remove Bloodletter's heal in exchange for a moderate increase in damage, but make your all encounter powers cause the target to bleed for damage based on your Power. Notably, this iteration of the feat is a very consistent improvement in sustained damage, but not in burst, and doesn't require a specific power slotted (but it DOES change the focal power and playstyle in a material way, going more glass cannon/healer's headache in exchange for increased burst on one power and increased sustained damage overall, and even change up the way you use your Encounter Powers as a whole, since you'd want the bleed to run for a while before reapplying it)
As something of an aside, please consider putting damage back onto Daring Shout and the Fighter's Enforced Threat. Powers that are just taunts feel... unsatisfying, especially with the relative dearth of effective and rewarding-ffeling AoE damage options for the tank paths.
Comments
We'd like for feat choices to actually make you consider changing your build, and allowing one Barbarian to differentiate themselves form another in terms of what powers they use. That said, we are absolutely open to making further changes, including reverting changes that are disliked.
In terms of Bloodspiller, however, we thought it would be an interesting choice to provide this risk-reward style gameplay for Barbarians who want to focus exclusively on offense. That being said, the feat that improves the damage of IBS should still be a solid increase to single target damage, that doesn't require you to sacrifice any more survivability.
Finally, in regards to the AoE feat tier as it relates to hidden daggers: we wanted to offer a viable choice for a third AoE at-will in a pure AoE build, we think that either of these could have a spot alongside hidden daggers and axestorm. That being said, they may not be strong enough yet if you feel like they are never worth taking.
The goal with Rampage was to create a reactionary style mechanic that required some forethought about how fast the attacks in your rotation are, vs. rage gain and critical rate, to ensure things line up nicely, and then give you a bit of a risk window when you proc the effect. The window is fairly generous, but if you really botch it or tunnel vision, you get punished.
While Rampage has sort of a complex and risky feel to it, Relentless Battlerage is more straightforward and simply allows the Barbarian to focus on raging as often as possible. In terms of removing the slight reduction to the damage increase, I do agree that it feels a bit bad, but there needs to be some offset for being able to battlerage twice as often, so what's likely to happen is that battlerage's damage increase will be reduced and then increased with Rampage.
As you picked up on, this is a skill best used by players who see their Blademaster as their second spec for group content, but that said, this feat may change entirely, but I wanted to see how people felt about it.
In regards to choice #1: You mention that you already take Axethrow and Hidden Daggers, but what is your preferred third encounter in a pure AoE build? This feat column was ultimately aiming to provide two different options and styles of gameplay for filling out an AoE build. In regards to Mightier Leap: keep in mind that you can jump away/adjacent to the enemies and then back to get the effect, you don't need to use this only to close the gap, that was really the gameplay that I had in mind with this feat, really increasing mobility even further during combat, and actually requiring you to aim where there are no enemies for the first jump.
In regards to relentless speed: when testing this feat out in group content, I felt like it was coming up fairly often with the high attack speed of Barbarian, especially in Unstoppable. That being said, it is worth clarifying that this power doesn't reset the cooldown of Not So Fast, but instead allows you to execute it as if it had no cooldown. So you can use it freely, and then even if you were halfway through the cooldown, when this proc comes up, you can hit it, and then the cooldown continues in the background and will be back up in a few seconds.
In regards to choice #3: Glad you found these choices to be okay. The brutal critical feat is designed to encourage use of critical strike, but may need to be further buffed depending on where the final balance of critical strike lands, so I appreciate the feedback.
On choice #4: I agree that the choice is too clear cut right now and Unstoppable Spin is certain to get a buff.
On choice #5: I do believe "Rampage" comes up on the screen when you gain the buff, and it may not have made it into this build, but the battlerage icon should also light up. That said, I will look into making this effect more obvious.
It was all an elaborate Pi day hoax, and you solved it!
(Kidding of course, I am investigating this issue and hope to have it resolved this week!)
In regards to frustrating slash vs. challenger's slash: this first feat isn't necessarily aiming to make sentinel's slash replace challenger's slash. Instead, it gives a secondary threat-related buff to a power that you might consider taking as it lets you block and attack at the same time. It can be paired with challenger's slash in AoE situations to make challenger's slash generate even more threat when used after sentinel's slash, encouraging you to weave the two, or paired with sure strike in single target situations.
In terms of Indomitable Might vs. Sure Slash, these are both single target focused feats. With that in mind, I assume you're bringing sure strike to any single target scenario, so the idea with that feat is to give bounding slam an alternate use in a single target build, and create a reactionary change up in your at-will use.
In regards to Blood Fury vs. Extended Unstoppable, I'm glad to hear that you had a hard time deciding on this feat. Ultimately, that's the goal of the feat choices, there is not meant to be a correct solution, but instead we are hoping to allow you to make the choice that fits with your playstyle more or supports a playstyle you're interested in trying. In regards to Blood Fury, there is a benefit, you regain health based on the damage you deal with Primal Fury, if you're un unstoppable, and you can use it without paying its rage cost. The fact that it cancels unstoppable immediately, just means that you want to try to use it right at the end of Unstoppable. However, if you need health desperately, you could click it at any time during unstoppable. So there's some moment-to-moment choices to be made about how to use it.
In regards to what powers ignore Undying Instinct, this is basically limited to damage of the type "Unavoidable," like boss ultimate attacks, and isn't very common.
Although I've taken time to respond to your feedback with information about the design goals and thoughts that went into the feat choices, that doesn't mean I'm not considering making further changes. I do hope you'll continue to play around with them.
For solo play I have ended up running Sure Strike, Challenger’s Strike, Bloodletter, Punishing Charge, IBS with Undying as a daily and a single target dps daily (not where I can look and don’t remember all the GWFpower names). That set was the only way I could “safely” clear Waning with the Cleric companion summoned (and even then I died to the boss because she is broken) and similarly the Master Expedition with a rune slotted (only the busted Undead Ogre killed me there).
I tried Primal Fury with the feat, and as it was not healing (or the healing was so small as to be irrelevant) I had to do a full respec (because that’s the only way you can change Feats atm) to replace it. I certainly understand the idea of triggering it just before Unstoppable runs out, but that’s far less effective (or not working) than hitting with Bloodletter buffed under Unstoppable and getting a heal of up to 200k HP, and still having full immunity for the duration. This becomes particularly important if you combo with Undying, because your using the “don’t die” button when something is stripping all your HP or about to one shot you, so you need to get back to 100% possibly multiple times in succession. (Play experience today.)
The whole experience of solo play for me has been that the AoE powers make you resolve combat slower vs groups than using the peak single target stuff.
So back to Frustrating Slash, you’re taking a feat to give threat to a power that doesn’t generate threat for half or more of the time you are using it. Even at tap speed Challenger’s is faster and so you can weave it with the faster attack speed of Sure Strike to build Rage and get Unstoppable going faster. This has been a big deal in my play.
Sure Slash’s problem is it’s a 10% chance to make a utility power dps. So you cannot weave threat through Sure Strike (with at-wills) because now you have a utility power slotted on the chance it will become a dps power. So the feat is a 2 layered trap. The real point of the other one is that it makes IBS a “starting finisher”, all solo trash pretty much wilts under it this way.
My frustration with the feat choices is derived entirely from the feeling that on the character sheet these are the most important choices across all classes. But the design philosophy being applied across the classes has been to make them very restrictive for what they do. You keep saying (and thank you so much for saying it on your Sunday morning) that you want players to have freedom to create unique roughly balanced builds and to feel they have options to choose different powers. The way you have been making powers better options is by removing options, or at least placing opportunity cost on those options. Both of these lock players into “cookie cutters” because ultimately a “best” set of gear will evolve and the “best” set of powers will evolve as well, taking feats to try and patch the gap will just worsen the problem.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
A lot of people are complaining about the feats due to the changes and I'm unfortunately also not happy with most of them. However, I like the "experiment" approach you are doing, iterating the changes until something, that most people like, is found. Perhaps you could add an "experimental" tag to feats/powers that you are just testing out, so everyone understands.
Back to the feats: I want to explain what exactly the problem with most of the feats of the barbarian (but also dc) is, instead of just saying "they are bad". For a bit of background, I main a CW and really like the (feat) changes made to that class, particularly the Thaumaturge feats - the reason as to why I will come back to later in my post.
A recurring problem when re-creating both the Sentinel and Blademaster builds after this week's patch was having to choose between two feats that did nothing for me: This is due to most feats ONLY modifying one power and the problem arises when I don't use either power. One might argue that I might feel more drawn to use one of the powers when choosing the feat, but I don't "feel drawn" to it - instead, it's more like "I feel forced". And that's not good since it's once again limiting my choice. This is not a problem of one particular (pair of) feat(s) but a fundamental flaw whenever a feat only affects one power. That being said, some effects/ideas were more creative that others and the aforementioned problem can be excused for those, so I'm just going to list the most problematic ones:
- Blademaster 1st tier (Not useful if I want to go AoE spec, limiting otherwise)
- Blademaster 2nd tier (What if I want to go AoE? - I will use neither skill. Otherwise, the bloodspiller effect is creative)
- Blademaster 4th tier (I use neither daily and I don't want to)
- Sentinel 1st tier (threat generation is pretty useless in solo play and I'd like to play sentinel solo since I enjoy the playstyle)
- Sentinel 3rd tier (I don't use either power)
- Sentinel 5th tier (This choice should affect all my powers, and not just one each)
So how to fix it? I see four options that can be mixed and matched to get a variety of interesting, non-limiting, feats:- Conditional bonuses: In a previous post you said that you don't want to provide merely AoE damage through a feat. However, to some extend feats should have such boring effects, as long as these effects are conditional. Such effects should only appear on the first (or second) tier of feats, but would be better than what these feats currently do. Here are a few examples:
- When striking more than one enemy, you generate x% more rage / AP / ...
- Using an encounter increases at-will damage by x% for y seconds
- Blocking a crowd-control effect or attack that deals more than x% of your health in damage grants y% increased damage and threat generation for z seconds
- Multiple power modifications: Feats that modify a power should at least modify 2 powers in the same way - 3 would be even better.
- Come and get it and enduring shout both grant extended unstoppable. This bonus can stack, but the second stack increases duration by only 6 seconds total.
- Using a gap closer power (mighty leap, bounding slam, punishing charge) increases your threat generation for x seconds. You instead deal y% more damage for that duration if no allied players are nearby
- Mechanic modifiers: This is where I come back to why I like the Thaumaturge's feats a lot: They modify a mechanic and thus, are not dependent one a single power being used. And the barbarian already has some of those feats, but there need to be more of those. Let me just write down some ideas that randomly cross my head:
- Your rage generates as long as it is below 25% (fast out of combat). It will not decay below 25%
- While unstoppable, all rage related bonuses are as strong as when they were when you activated unstoppable (so the decay during unstoppable does not reduce the potency
- When entering unstoppable you damage and stun nearby enemies
- After sprinting briefly or dodging out of a red zone you gain flaking, granting you combat advantage against nearby enemies for x seconds.
- Since the barbarian is lacking in class mechanics compared to the wizard, feats could also add new mechanics and if both feats in a row add the same mechanics under different conditions, a later feat could even build on that. Here's how it could work:
- Blademaster, Upper Tier x Feat: A full combo of sure strike or brash strike on one enemy causes them to Bleed for y seconds, dealing z magnitude damage over the duration.
- Blademaster, Lower Tier x Feat: Hitting an enemy with 2 encounter powers or a daily power causes them to Bleed for y seconds, dealing z magnitude damage over the duration.
- Blademaster, Any x + 1 Feat: Attacking a bleeding enemy builds x% more rage / while at least one enemy bleeds your cooldowns cool down y% faster / you gain z% action points per second / ...
Hopefully you are able to understand my problem with the current feats of the barbarian (and also some other classes like the cleric). I'm not expecting any of my suggested feats to be implemented since I'm sure somebody come up with more interesting effects, but hopefully they helped in understanding my point and might serve as an inspiration fur future iterations.To close this on a positive note, some of the feats like Escalating rage or Relentless Battlerage go in the right direction and provide the interesting effects that I was looking for when I heard about the feat rework.
Overall I keep finding myself saying 'come on, sprint already, the animation is over' all the time. It doesn't feel like server lag, it's just slow response to sprint. It feels like powers lock you there from a while. Later I'll test and will try to isolate specific powers. Anyway the overall feeling is that we're way slower in moving away from red areas if we're using powers.
The removal of movement speed might be it. The ability to place yourself in the right position is paramount for a class like ours. In the past we used to laugh at most aoe attacks, and just keep hitting. Now that we die at all red areas, we desperately need the speed to move away and get back in place fast. Sprint shoud initiate immediately no matter what your doing. It should cancel the animation at any point. It might be early (neither the power nor its cooldown is triggered), or after the power lands, in any case it should activate immediately.
The char I'm using to test is a L80 Barb not fully M15 geared. Usually we test Master Expeditions. I haven't tested much old L70 contents, my feedback refers to new contents. And usually in a party, with a tank.
Basicly I had to beef defence up (replaced one ring with a defensive one). I might need to do that again, I'm evaluating giving up on offensive stats and go for defense first, in an attempt to be able (again) to survive some red areas. That's for Blademaster of course.
BTW thanks for your effort both in working on the class, and listening to our feedback. Most feedback is focused on things that aren't working, of course, but that's doesn't mean we don't appreciate your work.
Well, as I wrote early, it may take some work to make it viable, as a player, I mean. Maybe going full defense, with 80% damage mitigation, using it only when in Rage, things like that.
I hope you don't mind me offering a suggestion.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bloodletter deals 540128 (491025) Physical Damage to Forgotten Totemist.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Vorpal Weapon deals 27006 (24551) Arcane Damage to Forgotten Totemist.
[Combat (Self)] Your Bloodletter deals 280833 (540128) Physical Damage to you.
[Combat (Self)] Your Vorpal Weapon deals 14042 (27006) Arcane Damage to you.
It seems I mitigated 48% of the damage only. My defense is 43800 so some AP applied apparently. Which one?
Mine or the mob's? Here's my suggestion. Don't use AP when computing the reverse damage. It doesn't seem right to use the mobs' AP, since they are not the source of the damage (it doesn't depend on their skill). It doesn't seem right to use my AP, since I'd be using my own skill against myself. Overall, it doesn't feel right to count AP twice (that 540128 is already the result of appling my AP to their defences).
So just let the player's defense apply fully to the reverse damage.
If this turns out to be too much, then consider doing so only while in rage.
In my case, I have've sacrificed some offensive stats for defence, that's why I'm at 43800. I'd be able to use Bloodspill with 80% mitigation instead of 48%. A viable option. If you limit this to Battlerage only, out of rage, still it would be suicide for me, but not for a natural Sentinel who turned Blademaster for a while (I expect them to sit at 64k+ defense anyway).
Give it a try, maybe.
Just want to chime in on feats. Above all else the severe limitation of the binary choice is quite off putting. Magnified further by the fact that in some instances neither choice will have any impact since the referenced skills wont be used at all. In fact game play is not really hampered by choosing NO FEATS at all (been there done that).
The illusion of choice is not choice at all. The hyperbolic extreme would be . . why not just provide everyone single build for each path and be done with it . . . save everyone the head ache.
In conclusion, I borderline hate the feat system. Hate the design philosophy that led to the implementation of dictating our choices. While I can understand the convenience of doing so for the sake of ease of balancing I am not here to make your life easier. I demand a certain level of choice in my character customization and this approach does not meet the threshold of acceptable. You would be better off lumping all the feats into a single pool and giving us the opportunity to choose 5. At least then I could feel like I had some choice is defining my character.
Also to clarify regarding Rampage being up, rather than the word "Rampage" and the buff icon go up, I think it'd be way easier if it gets it's own battle effect similar to when Barbarian goes Battlerage/Unstoppable they get a giant'ish/turn red effect. I know it's gonna be extra work for your animators but it'd be great if Rampage gets a similar treatment cuz I'm really liking it's "risky factor" designed into it.
- you built tables of numerical statistics made at random without meaning and without logic, it's all unbalanced.
- there is no longer the right to create a character to your liking for the most varied game situations.
- the basic damage of a pet with 5k of power is 10 times higher than the basic damage of a character with 100k of power
- some common enemy or field mini-boss inflicts a few hundred damage despite holding a very high defense.
For some years now I've been playing neverwinter and in anticipation of this module 16 the current situation is likely to act as a repellent and remove the most passionate people for a gameplay completely destroyed in many respects. I would like to be able to be more helpful and deepen the situation by reporting problems and proposing solutions, to whom can I turn?
feats with overall class effect are the way to go ... Basically right now the encounters viability are gated behind feats which is not a good thing.
If you wanted to make some powers have a completely different effect such as Bloodletter costing life but dealing more damage .. then that's not worth a feat, that's a new game functionality to implement to the game.
I would like to propose not to introduce feats that raise or lower stats to a fixed amount. An example, if 1500 stats today give an increase, then when you enter more powerful enemies 1500 stats will lose their effectiveness.
This also applies to passive abilities.
but that is not the point... if i dont care about "not so fast/might leap/restoring strike (w/o heal)/ibs/avalanch of steel/spinning strike". what that means? 3 tiers on the trash.
BUT your second tier (build rage to do more damage vs do a lot more damage but take some damage back) created here a possible dicotomy/antagonism system that this class need to have your own personality. you created the same "vibe" in the last tier of barbarian powers and that is amazing. if that is too hard to think now, so create a antagonism between passive/system effects vs powers boost, but dont power A vs power B.
Make feats that you use passively, rather than HAVING to slot a power to make use of it.
Also, as for Bloodletter, maybe make it apply a bleed to you, so it can do a buttload of damage, without oneshotting the user, and having it be a high risk, high reward thing where you can actually survive if you got a good group.
Yes i appreciate you taking the time out to reply to everyone that posts on here i know there is much to do, instead of fiddling around with the character and fine tuning certain new moves and feats to actually making the surrounding stats, mounts insignias companions artifacts all work appropriately first.
Right now we are trying to test all of our toons with a majority of things that normally buff are toons are working not as intended. So isnt trying to tweak a character before you fix things that are going to make us hit harder a little redundant.
we can go back and forth all day but the end result is going to be ok, the characters are working how we like it now the companions are over buffing or underbuffing and your going to have to adjust the characters all over again.... or changing the way companions proc or just changing the way they work entirely either way its a tremendous amount of more work
The feat choices are bad or atleast take into consideration the moves the classes are going to use and make the other ones just stat buffs, we know everyone is going to use axethrow now right because its new animation works and its an aoe so why not make that into a feat lower the cooldown on that not lets put it on something no one is going to use like mighty leap the only thing mighty leap needs in this game is REMOVED and REPLACED or just remove it idc i would rather be down an encounter then even have that in our encounters its a worthless move that takes way to long to cast not advantageous its just bad
I literally logged in Friday night saw the feats started to read them and said after 45 minutes of bewildered rage i really dont want any of these i think i picked 1 in the 3rd path and still have the others open cuz i logged off... it saddened me i didnt even want to test anything it literally made me just rather not play.
i think we need to fix the companions, Artifacts, Mount insignias Bonuses first before we even attempt to work on or try and balance or potentially destroy characters because we cant accurately test anything until we know that 100% of our support/Buff solo content is working properly.
You're simplifying classes and slowing down combat. OK, not a choice I would've made, but here we are. These changes will make things more challenging, which flies in the face of what a typical player would expect from limited character progression choices. Was this intended or accidental? I'm honestly curious on the reasoning behind this.
Toward that end, a big reason why all of this has been received negatively is there has been no effort to "sell" these changes to the playerbase; why they are a good thing, etc. This is still a product. People still have to buy into this. As much as I like what I've seen of Undermountain and the stuff with expeditions, if I'm stuck with a broken, unfun class I'm not going to buy into it.
For example, lifesteal could have been kept in the game (as the straight up removal of a stat is a pretty hard sell no matter which way you shake it) by having it work normally during solo content, but be disabled or diminished during group content. Alternatively, it could be gear-based toward the expected gear level of a zone. As a player gears up and eventually past that content, their lifesteal stat fully works again. I use lifesteal as an example here since the GWF relies so heavily upon it for sustain. I'd sell this to players by reverting lifesteal back to the way it used to be: a flat percentage of damage dealt returned as life rather than the chance to steal life that it is now. You would be able to tightly regulate when and how it would be used and you'd still leave in the incentive to gear up against current content.
I understand that you want to make the game easier to manage and yet still maintain challenge to keep player attention. But bear in mind that everyone will get bored eventually, no matter what you do, and they will leave. Players that leave happy but a bit bored will probably come back eventually. Players that leave angry will not only leave, but tell everyone they can exactly why they are angry.
I'll be honest; from everything I've seen so far, this looks like an impossible situation to solve. Even when all the bugs are stamped out and stuff is working as intended, we'll still be left with a game that will play very differently than the one we've been accustomed to for the past several years. The hard sell here is why a player should continue with Neverwinter (and Crypic products in general) versus finding another, more stable, MMO. I wish I could offer some advice on that problem, but I honestly have none.
Despite my reservations, I do wish you guys the best of luck at solving this. Even if mod16 turns Neverwinter into something I no longer wish to play, I will still have many hours of fond memories to look back upon. And for that, thank you.
-The follow up effect seems to only be dealing 200 magnitude damage rather than the stated 300 magnitude.
-The tooltip doesn't list the duration for the follow up attacks. Or, alternatively, it's proccing on hits after the first. (I am not sure which design in the intended one).
Feedback: Hidden Daggers.
Aside from the godawful stepback animation that I have to circumvent by jumping and casting, this power leaves me with mixed feelings.
Don't get me wrong, this power is great and feels good to use. I like that this power encourages the Barbarian to stop, pause, and wait to use it with Rage. It reduces some of the poor muscle memory, as it gives the Barbie to a similar playstyle as before (getting Rage, staying in Rage, and using At-wills under Rage).
Lastly, Hidden Daggers brings Barbarian to be within 1% of the DPS level of Wizard and Warlock (as found by @greyjay1 and @thefabricant, the class possibly does more if the player makes no mistakes), which is pretty balanced. Keep in mind that is considering that Hidden Daggers is not giving the correct follow up damage (200 vs 300 magnitude damage), if that is ever correctly fixed, I think Barbarian will pull ahead of those classes by a decent margin (possible 5-10%?).
However, what has me mixed is that it seems to be doing pretty much all of my damage.
Seeing as it does not quite mimic the damage distribution envisioned for most classes, I fear that you will nerf it and make the class un fun to play, even though I can see the reasoning as to nerfing it.
I propose two suggestions:
-Leave Hidden Daggers as is and update the tooltip to reflect its true status (update the tooltip to say the effect is 200 magnitude and procs per hit done for its duration).
-Increase At-will magnitude by 100 and eliminate the follow up effect on Hidden Daggers. Then add in/change a feat that lets Hidden Daggers do its current follow up effect for 100 magnitude damage per hit (possibly lower it to 75 if overpowering?)
The former is easy enough and leaves Barbarian in a decent state, though it has the weakness of locking Barbarian into only being competitive with Hidden Daggers. The latter suggestion is so players aren't locked into a situation where they always need to have Hidden Daggers because of the "great with Hidden Daggers, awful without Hidden Daggers" situation.
@asterdahl I think the takeaway from a lot of us, not just on the barbarian but in general, is that feats that buff powers aren't necessarily bad, but that feats that buff a single specific power are frustrating because rather than "making you consider changing your build," as intended, the impact is more like "make you feel locked in to specific power choices to avoid wasting something you _can't_ freely swap around," effectively reducing the playstyle flexibility (and therefore potentially longevity) of a given character... and feats that buff a specific combination of two powers are even moreso.
Please consider a design direction where two characters with the same feat selection could reasonably be running no more than two powers in common, yet with no feats "wasted." In other words, feats that have a playstyle buff, with a more focused buff on a specific power that it was designed around, but whose impact is still felt when you don't have that power slotted.
In regards to Bloodspiller, rather than recoil damage, perhaps remove Bloodletter's heal in exchange for a moderate increase in damage, but make your all encounter powers cause the target to bleed for damage based on your Power. Notably, this iteration of the feat is a very consistent improvement in sustained damage, but not in burst, and doesn't require a specific power slotted (but it DOES change the focal power and playstyle in a material way, going more glass cannon/healer's headache in exchange for increased burst on one power and increased sustained damage overall, and even change up the way you use your Encounter Powers as a whole, since you'd want the bleed to run for a while before reapplying it)
As something of an aside, please consider putting damage back onto Daring Shout and the Fighter's Enforced Threat. Powers that are just taunts feel... unsatisfying, especially with the relative dearth of effective and rewarding-ffeling AoE damage options for the tank paths.