Planned changes and bulette pup

karvare · September 2017

With the changes to runes, will bulette pup with 3 empowered, personalized equipment(Regen for the HP) and radiants become a better companion? 32k HP from empowered, 96k just there right? Thoughts.

heraldfayez · September 2017

nah bondings keep thier 100% uptime so bondongs still BIS

karvare · September 2017

Well, not as a summoned pet. As an active pet it would give me more HP than the Energon, will have to wait and see. Over 100k HP from a companion is a big boost to AoC and power share, more with IG 2 defense slotted equipment.

ase · September 2017

karvare said:
Well, not as a summoned pet. As an active pet it would give me more HP than the Energon, will have to wait and see. Over 100k HP from a companion is a big boost to AoC and power share, more with IG 2 defense slotted equipment.

errrr... How will it give you HP if it is not summoned ?

vincentr6669 · September 2017

Augment + 3xEmpowered Rank 14 = +100% stats and 96000 hit points
Companion + 3xBonding Rank 14 = +195% stats

You have to choose between +95% (the remaining 100% both Augment and Bonding have) of your companion's stats or 96k HP.

By my calcs that 95% would be around +10800 Power (considering Heroic Item of the Companion +4 from Illusionist's Gambit and full Radiant Rank 14 on slots) and +1000 of Armor Penetration. So that's basically 11k worth of offensive stats competing against 96k of Hit Points.

EDIT: i forgot to add the +1050 Power from Bonding 14. Triple of that is 3150 because of three Bondings. This one is multiplied by the whole 195% (instead of only 95%) because both Augment and Empowered don't have that bonus Power, thus the Paladin does not have 100% of this being added to his/her stats. That's +6142 Power, something worth 17k of stats.

vincentr6669 · September 2017

Actually there's even more difference since the Bulette Pup has Defense and Regeneration instead of Power, Critical and ArPen. I wasn't taking that in account.

That would probably be +3,3k of stats, totalizing something around 20k worth of offensive stats. If you multiply that value by 4 (that's how you calculate HP compared to other stats) it will still be inferior to 96k HP, but at the same time the utility of the HP is limited when compared with what Power + Critical + ArPen can do.

hirogarde · September 2017

I'm going to throw a monkey wrench in here and say: Bulette allows Aura of Solitude - that's an additional 21% damage. Not a "party-pick" obviously but it shouldn't be dismissed in the comparison.

captflint · September 2017

Might want to look at something with 2 defence and 1 offence.. Like a chicke,

elmeister · September 2017

The problem I see with making this work is that it will kill personal power and tanking ability since you lose a TON of power due to no powershare on augment. While you will get 10k more shareable base, which is a lot more party buff, that's it. I have slightly under 40k base on my OP, 250k hp = 65k shareable base, on dummies that goes up to 120k solo using survivor's wrap proc and bonding share + actual power on companions. In dungeons I'm looking at 150-250k depending on how much power share my comp is getting hit with. With an augment companion I will get my hp up to 350k, resulting in 75k shareable in combat, but personally I'll cap at 75k, while losing a ton of crit. AoC damage will somewhat counterweight my standing on paingiver, and everyone else will be receiving extra power, but the problem is that TW temp hp gain will be roughly half of what it's currently, and shephard's devotion will fire for a pretty hefty 5k less defense and deflect.

Bonding will remain BiS, in fact it would probably remain BiS even with the 50% uptime.

vincentr6669 · September 2017

elmeister#2511 said:
The problem I see with making this work is that it will kill personal power and tanking ability since you lose a TON of power due to no powershare on augment. While you will get 10k more shareable base, which is a lot more party buff, that's it. I have slightly under 40k base on my OP, 250k hp = 65k shareable base, on dummies that goes up to 120k solo using survivor's wrap proc and bonding share + actual power on companions. In dungeons I'm looking at 150-250k depending on how much power share my comp is getting hit with. With an augment companion I will get my hp up to 350k, resulting in 75k shareable in combat, but personally I'll cap at 75k, while losing a ton of crit. AoC damage will somewhat counterweight my standing on paingiver, and everyone else will be receiving extra power, but the problem is that TW temp hp gain will be roughly half of what it's currently, and shephard's devotion will fire for a pretty hefty 5k less defense and deflect.

Bonding will remain BiS, in fact it would probably remain BiS even with the 50% uptime.

Well, people are talking so much on the Bonding Nerf thread about erasing the ability of the companion to share buffed stats through Bonding/Companion's Gift that if the devs listen to it then we will lose a lot of Power anyway XD

hirogarde · September 2017

elmeister#2511 said:
The problem I see with making this work is that it will kill personal power and tanking ability since you lose a TON of power due to no powershare on augment. While you will get 10k more shareable base, which is a lot more party buff, that's it. I have slightly under 40k base on my OP, 250k hp = 65k shareable base, on dummies that goes up to 120k solo using survivor's wrap proc and bonding share + actual power on companions. In dungeons I'm looking at 150-250k depending on how much power share my comp is getting hit with. With an augment companion I will get my hp up to 350k, resulting in 75k shareable in combat, but personally I'll cap at 75k, while losing a ton of crit. AoC damage will somewhat counterweight my standing on paingiver, and everyone else will be receiving extra power, but the problem is that TW temp hp gain will be roughly half of what it's currently, and shephard's devotion will fire for a pretty hefty 5k less defense and deflect.

Bonding will remain BiS, in fact it would probably remain BiS even with the 50% uptime.

Personal power and tanking ability are two separate things. Losing the personal power is kind of the point of the "nerf." Neither bondings nor share-type skills are vastly over-powered when taken alone, but the combination creates a huge gap.

Add on that Power doesn't have diminishing returns, and it makes for a huge DPS gap between those with bondings and those without. Between Bondings and power-share skills, bondings are the more powerful of the two - if for no other reason than that most classes need to be grouped to receive the power-share. So it makes sense that this is where they're starting.

As for tanking.... I think most tank builds are at/near the defensive caps so bondings aren't going to help/hurt one bit there. As for damage as a taunt... that powershare is also raising your party's damage - most of whom can make better use of it, diminishing the taunt benefit. For pure tanking: I don't think this will affect much - it'll make endurance tanks stand out a little more, but it shouldn't change survivability too much.

And ya... Bondings will still be BiS. They would have been with the 50% uptime as well... at 100% there's (still) going to be a huge DPS gap - it'll just be less huge than it is now.

elmeister · September 2017

Temporary hitpoints and their generation is a huge part of tanking as a paladin. And that's directly affected by power. As for most op tanks being close to damage resist cap, how do you figure? All the top end game paladins I've ran with on PS4 run between 5k and 8k defense, and are not even close to capping resist without shephard's procs. Once everyone runs shephard's though all members of the group cap defense and deflect. The only thing that makes a paladin tank better than say, a CW is the ability to hold threat and generate temp hp. If you nuke powershare from companions altogether, temp hp generation will go down a good 30-40 %, which means the damage paladins are able to take comfortably goes down by the same amount.

Also, discussing the point of paladins in the case of a complete nuke of powershare to companions. In that case it's better to save the ad and concentrate on leadership grind, perhaps pugging lostmauth.

hirogarde · September 2017

elmeister#2511 said:
Temporary hitpoints and their generation is a huge part of tanking as a paladin. And that's directly affected by power.

I'll agree and disagree. Temp HP is a part of paladin tanking, but there are other ways to get it; and we have a lot of other ways to mitigate damage.

What's made TW so indispensable is that it not only gives Protection paladins temp HP, but it also does pretty decent AoE damage; take the damage component away and see how many paladins would slot it. Don't agree? How many ProtOPs slot Cleansing Touch? In most cases it can sustain Temp HPs >0, but no one uses it because its heal component is (usually) less useful than the damage component of TW.

Also: How useful would TW be if it required a charge (like BL) or needed a target (like Divine Touch)? It's easy to use, does damage to a bunch of stuff and adds a personal "shield"... that's why it's important to the paladin.

I think at some point the whole TW/Temp HP thing just got away from the devs, and now it "feels" like we need it because they've built the game around us having so much of it.

elmeister#2511 said:
As for most op tanks being close to damage resist cap, how do you figure? All the top end game paladins I've ran with on PS4 run between 5k and 8k defense, and are not even close to capping resist without shephard's procs. Once everyone runs shephard's though all members of the group cap defense and deflect.

Again, we're playing the game that ran away from the devs. That 5-8k defense will get you to the magic 80% when you need it (I'm not even 7k, and easily get to 80% in combat). Why would you chase higher numbers? It's more beneficial to start building offensive stats than to overcap defensive ones - dead mobs do zero damage.

elmeister#2511 said:
The only thing that makes a paladin tank better than say, a CW is the ability to hold threat and generate temp hp. If you nuke powershare from companions altogether, temp hp generation will go down a good 30-40 %, which means the damage paladins are able to take comfortably goes down by the same amount.

Hold threat and absorb damage is a better way of putting it. And when it comes right down to it - with all the AE/CC being thrown around, even CWs need to be able to absorb damage. As for threat - most our threat is coming from damage output... again relying on offensive stats for tanking. If they'd fix a couple of the useless auras, we could move away from that paradigm and start building real tanks instead of a heavily armored DPS class.

rubytrue · September 2017

I plan on using the Bulette pup as a DevOP....I currently only sit at 180K HP, and DevOPs don't get the temp HP from TW or really the same powershare mechanic as ProtOPs (though we do get Aura Gifts). Those always-on HPs from the Bulette Pup mean more AoC damage for us, and it also provides an extra layer of damage mitigation vs one shots. I have a new build planned out where I will be using 4 augments and an energon.

Come Mod 12b, I have a sneaking suspicion that heals are going to be needed again because folks are going to need to pick and choose what attributes they focus on---if you want a 100% crit build, what are you willing to give up? What are you going to give up to make sure your ArP is capped? Will Shepherd's Devotion still cap if the team hasn't put everything into power now? The bottom line is that now choices are going to have to be made as to how people create their build--that will result in fights taking longer and people taking more damage.

Looking at companion/augment options (along with equipment) that I hadn't considered before, I'm seeing a lot of potential for the Burnadin and variations of that build to shine in 12B and beyond--even with the recent nerfs.....

elmeister · September 2017

hirogarde said:

elmeister#2511 said:
Temporary hitpoints and their generation is a huge part of tanking as a paladin. And that's directly affected by power.
I'll agree and disagree. Temp HP is a part of paladin tanking, but there are other ways to get it; and we have a lot of other ways to mitigate damage.

What's made TW so indispensable is that it not only gives Protection paladins temp HP, but it also does pretty decent AoE damage; take the damage component away and see how many paladins would slot it. Don't agree? How many ProtOPs slot Cleansing Touch? In most cases it can sustain Temp HPs >0, but no one uses it because its heal component is (usually) less useful than the damage component of TW.

Also: How useful would TW be if it required a charge (like BL) or needed a target (like Divine Touch)? It's easy to use, does damage to a bunch of stuff and adds a personal "shield"... that's why it's important to the paladin.

I think at some point the whole TW/Temp HP thing just got away from the devs, and now it "feels" like we need it because they've built the game around us having so much of it.
elmeister#2511 said:
As for most op tanks being close to damage resist cap, how do you figure? All the top end game paladins I've ran with on PS4 run between 5k and 8k defense, and are not even close to capping resist without shephard's procs. Once everyone runs shephard's though all members of the group cap defense and deflect.
Again, we're playing the game that ran away from the devs. That 5-8k defense will get you to the magic 80% when you need it (I'm not even 7k, and easily get to 80% in combat). Why would you chase higher numbers? It's more beneficial to start building offensive stats than to overcap defensive ones - dead mobs do zero damage.
elmeister#2511 said:
The only thing that makes a paladin tank better than say, a CW is the ability to hold threat and generate temp hp. If you nuke powershare from companions altogether, temp hp generation will go down a good 30-40 %, which means the damage paladins are able to take comfortably goes down by the same amount.
Hold threat and absorb damage is a better way of putting it. And when it comes right down to it - with all the AE/CC being thrown around, even CWs need to be able to absorb damage. As for threat - most our threat is coming from damage output... again relying on offensive stats for tanking. If they'd fix a couple of the useless auras, we could move away from that paradigm and start building real tanks instead of a heavily armored DPS class.

TW damage output is not really why you use it as compared to CT, it's ease of use and more consistent temp hp. CT is really great for 10 man trials, but the variance is huge, in my experience anywhere from a 500k low to 6 mil temp hp. But regardless of that, whether or not paladin tanking AND buffing being based on an offensive stat (power) is a desirable situations, that's a fact. And btw, also the healing done by CT is directly affected by power in a similar way as TW, but it is ALSO affected by crit, and so even more reliant on offensive stats than TW. Now, if you were to nerf said buffing potential by 75%, and said tanking stats by 50%, that would constitute as a pretty effing huge nerf, no? Were paladins reworked into getting better hard taunts, flat damage reduction skills and flat buffs, such as the GF, then then a powershare nerf obviously wouldn't nerf them into oblivion.

The non power related mitigation or absorption options are binding oath, which is horribly inadequate compared to the actual tanking requirements of msva and 1st part fbi, and absolution, which obviously sucks.

As is, most content in the game does not require a tank for the reason of tanking, but to provide group buffs. When I run with my core groups, I am already slotting CoP, SW and bane or smite, depending on which debuff setup we have for the most part of fbi and msp, once debuff changes roll in, I'm probably going to run bane/vow/sw. If the powershare gets nerfed by 75%, I suspect that AC/DC and OP will become obsolete, with HR, CW, GF, DO/DC, SW being able to provide better buff potential, better dps and half of those classes will be able to handle the tanking requirements of current (mod 11 on ps4) endgame.

elmeister · September 2017

Btw, I'm generally not opposed to rolling back the power bondings are giving, and I like the idea of not everyone being basically a power build since crit and arpen is capped by even support and tanks. Just emphasizing how MASSIVE the impact of cutting all powershare to 25% of the current level will be for the OP class. Sorry about the thread getting derailed.

hirogarde · September 2017

I'll take some of that blame for derailing... and thank you for admitting the sky isn't falling

As for the Bulette, I've been looking at one for a long time - just never jumped in because there were better things to spend AD on. Now that the prices have skyrocketed (with the release of the bonding changes), they're back out of reach again.

Overall it's a good companion (on paper at least):

3x defensive slots if you want to transfer more stat% - or just more HP in general.
nice emergency heal for those big hits that break through your Temp HP (or a half-full+ bang from BO)
as an augment, it offers the opportunity to use Solitude - which will come in handy if you have it slotted for defense.
Neck + 2x Waist isn't as ideal as 3x ring. But at least it's not 3x Sword Knot (you know... because puppies chew on rope toys)

I don't know that pure HP is the way to go for it though. Outside a few fights, 200-250k is plenty of wiggle room, so offensive gear + Eldritch might be more useful overall. Unless you've built for pure offense already (or DevOP w/o Temp HP).

elmeister · September 2017

Btw, since the tanking requirement isn't very high for most content, if you're able to hold agro the 10k extra powershare might be close in group utility, even if you sacrifice half of personal dps. But then you get beaten by the DOs on paingiver, and that's annoying. :P

vincentr6669 · September 2017

hirogarde said:
I don't know that pure HP is the way to go for it though. Outside a few fights, 200-250k is plenty of wiggle room, so offensive gear + Eldritch might be more useful overall.

Pure HP might not be the way to go, but in this case you should go with Bondings not with Augment + Eldritch.

3xBonding Rank 14 = +195% stats plus any buff or debuff the companion can use while summoned (Con Artist, Dread Warrior, Harper Bard, Sellsword, all come to mind) versus Augment + 3xEldritch 14 = +176,5% stats plus nothing (since Augment doesn't attack or buff or debuff)

It seems to me that Bondings is still superior (not as much as it once was). The only reason to ever going Augment (Bulette Pup to be more precise) is exactly to use 3xEmpowered 14, so if the HP build is not that good just stay with Bondings then.

niadan · September 2017

delete (changed my mind and stupid post after coffee and actually reading the thread lol)

hirogarde · September 2017

vincentr6669 said:
Pure HP might not be the way to go, but in this case you should go with Bondings not with Augment + Eldritch.

3xBonding Rank 14 = +195% stats plus any buff or debuff the companion can use while summoned (Con Artist, Dread Warrior, Harper Bard, Sellsword, all come to mind) versus Augment + 3xEldritch 14 = +176,5% stats plus nothing (since Augment doesn't attack or buff or debuff)

It seems to me that Bondings is still superior (not as much as it once was). The only reason to ever going Augment (Bulette Pup to be more precise) is exactly to use 3xEmpowered 14, so if the HP build is not that good just stay with Bondings then.

If we're talking purely end-game BiS with nothing more to shoot for... I'll agree. But some of us are still ranking things up - so I offer an argument:

Fully ranked Eldritch vs Fully ranked bondings: you'll gain an additional 18.5% stats + 3k power/defense with bondings (power being the key for offensive). AoS can give an additional 21% damage - which comes out to ~15-20% more than AoW (check my math HERE).

AFAIK, Power isn't scaled at the moment, so the math is doable (using 400 power = 1% damage).
Take a base companion power of 10k - and assume the augment is statted/geared the same as the companion.
Bondingsx3: (10k + (1050*3)) * 195% = ~26k additional power = ~64% additional damage.
Eldritchx3: (10k * 176.5%) = ~17k power = 44% damage * AoS 115% damage = ~66% additional damage.
(a 5k power companion makes the bonus ~40% for both)

That's a pretty tight race if you ask me. The biggest gain from bondings is going to be the companion's damage and effect.

Now check out the r10 difference:
Bondingsx3: (10k + (550*3)) * 135% = ~16k additional power = ~39% additional damage.
Eldritchx3: (10k * 146.5%) = ~15k power = 37% damage * AoS 115% damage = ~57% additional damage.

Now... that AoS is specific to paladins, but this IS the paladin forums, so I figure it's fair play. Even without it though (when in a party), you won't see HUGE shift in damage until you get into r11+.

Paladins can also have Aura Gifts - which give bondings an edge; but we know they've got something in the works to change how all those mechanisms work too.

To summarize... Augments aren't the "best" choice, they haven't been for a long time. But now (with the coming changes) they can remain competitve for a bit longer without being forced into bondings. And yes... Bulette is probably better served to deliver more HP, but that doesn't mean it's not useful for offense.

greyjay1 · September 2017

Hey folks,

i compared some scenarios to see if stacking HP to increase the Power-Buff-potential via Aura Gifts would compensate the dps-loss from Bondings.

What i did was, i calculated how the personal dps loss affects the party-dps:
party_dps% = 1 - pally_dps%*dps_loss%.

And then calculated what buff would be needed to compensate that loss:
buff = 1/party_dps% - 1.

Next step is to see how much Power will be needed to generate this buff:
Power_final = (party_power/40000 + 1) * buff * 40000 .

To see how much Base Power we need to buff that final Power to a player we divide it by a multiplier gained from bondings and player and then divide it by 0.25 (Aura Gifts = *4).

Power_base = Power_final *4 / multiplier

I fed a table with these calculations for a few different scenarios, i hope it helps to decide if the choice will be worth it for you.

https://imgur.com/a/NmthX

Edit: it doesn't factor in the debuff-loss from Sellsword

thuzkaw · September 2017

Bulette pup 3 x empowered = 96k hp
3 x defensive gear with 6 x R14 rads = 24k hp
5 x legendary companions = 31% bonus stats on active pup
Totalling approx 160k hp

Add in other HP from other sources and you could end up with approx 500k HP. While it isn't bis nor a viable way to play a Paladin it's worth looking into.

Once I get the time between 2 jobs and Destiny 2 I'll try this build out.

Another thing too consider is that as far as I'm aware it'll cost be approx 7 mill AD to get either bonding or empowered to rank 14, something that will not happen over night so all this talk about what is bis won't happen for 90% of the players playing a Paladin. Better to have a build that works well for rank 12 and forget about rank 14 altogether.

armadeonx · September 2017

I bought a bulette pup and have 3 r9 Empowered stones standing by.

The augment will increase power to other players but decrease power to the pally so to do it seriously you're also going to need to rank all 5 companions to Legendary to partially compensate.

As to what works out best? Time will tell, it will probably be companion/bondings but they are also changing the proccing mechanism so it could be that we get gaps in bonding uptime - that could sway the vote in harder fights.

It's also worth bearing in mind that at some point the devs will probably remove power sharing via companion - at that point the augment will definitely be the way to go. If you see a cheap Bulette Pup in the AH just grab it and shelve it - I got one for 20k

onodrain · September 2017

Empowered have been adjusted to 20k hp. Dual and triple enchants have also been adjusted. The front page is updated here:

https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1234035/refinement-technical-details/p1

To add to Rubytrue...I play my OP in both Dev and Prot, depending on what I am doing. My Dev is burnadin build and it performs very well in PUG groups. While it is not as overpowered as it was, I still do well. And in sub-par groups it far outshines my DC. It is as fun to play in Dev as Prot. With the Random Q changes, it will be a very strong contender in the random epic dungeon pugs.

onodrain · September 2017

OK...so now they adjusted Empowered Runestones to be 80k each on test. That is alot of extra HP. I guess they want to see how much is needed to entice people to get off the bonding crack.

greyjay1 · September 2017

enticed.

niadan · September 2017

Not so fast...check out the technical thread before you get too excited.

rjc9000 · September 2017

RIP @greyjay1's and @thefabricant's 600k HP dream.

~~But, as a plus, at least I won't need to change my OP's name to "Sharp's Pocket OP"...~~

almondum · September 2017

Hello,

I don't have a 70 OP, but this HP thing made me wonder.

Main:In this comparison, are you considering the 58% power (AA+ WoL+BoB) that comes back to the paladin from DC synergy?
How to clarify this, paladin gets more HP and gives more RAW power to others. An ACDC gives AA+WoL+BoB to the paladin, giving him 58% of raw power that he/she gave the cleric.

Secondary: I could have missed something, apologies in advance if this is something dumb.
Looking from afar more offensive stats is very tempting, but giving additional power to the group can do wonders since bonding is getting a nerf and extra raw power for ACDC is greatly needed. OP might "sacrifice" his bonding setup, in order to bring the raw power value to the new "viable" treshold (was it 50k+ raw power for ACDC?). This "sacrifice" would bring bonding powersharing closer to what it is right now (pre 12b) to the whole group except the paladin (no bonding) - he would only get those extra 58% power back.

Have fun,
Almondum.

onodrain · September 2017

I think you can still go to test and live the dream there. But noworries said that it will be 20k on live.

Planned changes and bulette pup

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