Revaulting wrote on Jun 7^th, 2017 at 2:27am:

Frank wrote on Jun 9^th, 2017 at 7:14pm:


Juggernaught?

Edrein wrote on Jun 10^th, 2017 at 2:23am:

Which changes were these? 

Edrein wrote on Jun 10^th, 2017 at 2:23am:

I don't think they ever will, TBH.

Whenever I had an Eldritch Night character, it was not to build a "Gish", but rather to have a Caster who, when the chips were down or he was out of spells or in a situation where casting wasn't an option, he could defend himself with weapons.

It wasn't supposed to be a Full-On Melee with spells, it was just supposed to be a caster who wasn't completely useless with a weapon in its hand.

And we're all stuck with Enlightened Spirit, because it's so easy to roll one and sacrifice... Basically Nothing.

Edrein wrote on Jun 10^th, 2017 at 3:54pm:

The most incredible thing is I managed to be surprised by this. 

Asheras wrote on Jun 13^th, 2017 at 7:36am:


Dude.. why are you even bothering? You KNOW there are people who spent obscene amounts of time minimaxing some 'build', and will be butt-hurt by anything that out performs it... just as there are people who will bitch about literally anything.
I kinda stopped paying attention when the posts were running about how 'eldritch knight' didn't go far enough to make Wizards melee viable  (sigh)

ZooperDooper wrote on Jun 13^th, 2017 at 10:25am:


I hear you.  To me there are different versions of "challenge" in this game. 

I sometimes enjoy playing a min/maxxed build that is the best it can possibly be and seeing how much it can pwn Elite/EE (before) and low skulls (now) and how well it performs in high skulls to R10. 

But, it is also fun to take a sub-optimal build and see what you can do with it.  Can it complete elite/EE with relative ease?  Can it handle R1 or R2?  That is a different type of challenge as a builder.  But still a fun one.

The point of building is taking a class/build further than it should be able to go via creative class/enhancement/feat mixes, PL's, gear, and in-quest skill.  Whether that is taking the best possible builds (10's on a scale of 1-10) and seeing them execute on the highest difficulties or taking a build that should only be a 4 or 5 and seeing if you can make it perform like a 7 or 8. 

That is where even meta/build masters can have a lot of fun, imo.  But that's not for everyone. 

Other game example:  Some people play NbA2K and always play the Warriors.  They like to see how badly they can beat everyone and if they can go 82-0 and win the title in straight sweeps on Hall of Fame diffculty.  Some people like to take the Brooklyn Nets or 76'ers.  To them it is more fun to see if they can take them and win the title with an obviously crappy team, irl.  You could argue that takes more skill than going 82-0 with the Warriors.   

Edrein wrote on Jun 13^th, 2017 at 1:08pm:

Swash was arguably the best Melee build in the game when it came out.

Obviously, it's been well surpassed, but its combination of Melee DPS, Evasion, Buffs, Self-Healing, UMD, CC and Instakills all based off its strongest stat made it one of the few classes I took all the way to Epic cap (Rogue, Warlock and Paladin being the others).

I don't know that you can make Eldritch Knight THAT good without making it broken. Remember, Wizard and Sorc are f2p classes, so you don't want it to be TOO good (even if they only really shine with p2p races, although Human is f2p so that's not much of a theory).

To my mind, Eldritch Knight was designed to be like Stalwart Defender/Deepwood Stalker/Harper.

It's supposed to be a complimentary tree, not something you take to Capstone or even spend many points in.

Warpriest is a little different... Since Clerics and FvS are already heav(ier) armour types with shield proficiencies and martial weapon options. They lack the sheer nuking power of Arcane classes, and are self-healing, so tweaking a few improvements for Melee use makes sense.

Doing that however, without making Paladin (or Fighter, or Barb) obsolete is the trick.

One look at that new proposed War Domain had me thinking: "This is better than Paladin in every way."

And I'm not even a Meta-game min/max builder.

Anyway, this topic is Old Hat.

Back to my gimps. 

Edrein wrote on Jun 13^th, 2017 at 7:23pm:

All of my PnP/ NWNx Clerics were Warpriests. Hell, even some of the Paladins were.

I would agree that making it SOMETHING like Swashbuckler would be cool... But then that leaves you with:

Option #1) Make the "Domains" weapons behave like Swashbuckler, extending crit. multi/threat range so they were all effectively the same
Option #2) Open up Martial Weapon proficiency early and give them nothing else
Option #3) Keep the same ridiculous garbage that they have now with useless, non-scaling To Hit/ Damage bonuses

The real issue, IMHO, it that they are scared of doing this because Cleric and FvS are full-spellcaster classes, getting complete access to all spell levels.

Paladin does not, Bard does not, Ranger does not. Even Artificer does not.

So now, they're stuck with something like Nature's Warrior, which is a bad place to be.

Not sure what the answer is here, but even if it went Live as is, it'd be an improvement.

Now, excuse me while I take my Pure 20 Druid Horc Nature's Warrior out for a romp through Stormhorns. 

Edited:

5 Foot Step wrote on Jun 15^th, 2017 at 10:55am:

True.

But Divine Power as a spell has a short duration (24 seconds plus 6 seconds per caster level so ~2.5 minutes at Lvl 20), and can be dispelled by beholders or any trash mob with Greater Dispel Magic or Break Enchantment.

So you're stuck re-casting it all the time, or taking the Extend Spell feat, which would be tough to squeeze in on a Melee build (eg. Standard STR-based Melee: Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, (Fighting Style) Line of Feats, Empower Healing and Quicken).

Not that a Warpriest has anything else to do with it's SP, but I find constant re-buffing to be a royal pain in the ass, so gimme and un-dispellable enhancement any day.

But as it stands, yes, it's some serious junk.

Mostly because there's nothing else in the tree to support taking it, or that benefits from it (even with full BAB, melee DPS from a Longsword/Heavy Mace/Shortsword/etc. is still woefully sub-par).

5 Foot Step wrote on Jun 15^th, 2017 at 3:45pm:

I don't think the Warpriest or Angel of Vengeance changes have been posted yet.

Wow so much idiocy based on some really bad wannabe game designer theory.

Be it 2nd or 3rd ed cleric was the best melee class. Between buffs heals and offensive spells to soften up a foe no pure fighter or other warrior class could compete or should even be expected to. Why people think non magic users are supposed to be other then grunt cannon fodder I'll never know.

Oh fuck it. Fuck DDO and all the trash who think warriors are supposed to be other then worthless in high levels.

If this game had flying and mounts and dragons using all their potential only wizards clerics and paladins would be remotely useful in end game.as it should be.

karavek wrote on Jun 16^th, 2017 at 11:39pm:

Yep...Gay & Retarded™