Post from Eladrin:
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?&postid=4172199#post4172199

Sounds like the devs are thinking about rebalancing the overall power of various weapons, including eSoS. Let the wailing begin.

Mustn't be enough people grinding out Cannith weapons to suit their tastes, so it looks like they will get a relative boost compared to greensteel. The word "boost" is used rather loosely, as it may mean a nerf to some greensteel.

This does bring it back to D&D style bonuses where anything that "doubles" something only adds the base value, so that x2 and then x2 again becomes x3.

Just thinking about this some more. Weren't the big TWF changes introduced by Eladrin in this same way? Innocuous post in the forums, much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but a complete fait accompli on the back end that rolled out pretty much the way he described it in his original post?

Bigjunk wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 4:10pm:


Nerfed...
So you've got your point blank shot and an epic bow or even that Unwavering Ardency with it's fancy 2dX damage to take advantage of it...

Currently you will get 4dX damage in point blank.
After change you will get 3dX damage in point blank.

You end up with around 3.5 to 6.5 base damage less per shot depending on your bow.

Unchanged...
Regular 1dX bows will still be 2dX in point blank, so they're unchanged.

Slightly boosted...
Shroud longbows go from 1d10 to 1d8+(1d8*.5) base and +1d8 in point blank.
Around 11.25 base damage in point blank, up from 11 currently.

Alchemical longbows go from 1d10 to 1d8+(1d8*.75) base and +1d8 in point blank.
Around 12.375 base in point blank, up from 11 currently.

In both of these cases, even though it's slightly more damage, it's despite point blank doing 1pt less than it does now on the same bows.

Double nerfed...
You people with your fancy greensteel heavy repeaters with increased number of damage dice just got knocked back down to a single die + 1/2 of damage on top of point blank doing less for you.

This change won't really matter for current content aside from bows/point blank shot.  Where the difference wil be is in Deadly Weapons.

With the new multiplier system, "enhanced" weapons like eSoS, Greensteel and Alchemical weapons will get the same absolute bonus as regular weapons. 

eSoS will get +2d6 damage from Deadly Weapons.
A GS Greatsword will get +2d6 damage from Deadly Weapons.
An Alchemical Greatsword will get +2d6 damage from Deadly Weapons.

The relative nerf comes from the fact that the super-weapons won't get a more super buff from Deadly Weapons than their regular counterparts.  That means that the eSoS will get a smaller percentage boost than a generic +5 Greatsword, but that's just because the eSoS is already such an amazingly kickass weapon that "just" another +2d6 won't make as much of a difference as it will for a generic lootgen Greatsword.

Glenalth wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 4:36pm:


Heh, this makes me kinda sad...I crafted a litII for my arti lives, hate to see it nerfed.

I think the Alchems need a boost.  They are not that amazing in comparison with the GS, unless you get the Tier 3, which is challenging for 95% of the player base.  Even with the tier III you are limited in your crafting options to 4 effects per tier and have a limited ability to match the elemental types with the side effects.

On GS, I can put heightened Awareness on my LitII or my MinII, if I want.  (I don't, but I have the choice along with 5 other options)  With these, I am limited.  If I want a particular effect, (like righteousness) I have to take fire.  A terrible end game element. 

For the grind, the Alchems bring less flexibility and mostly underwhelming DPS improvement over GS.

I think eSoS is out of sync with the rest of the epic weapon options.  Even the eChaos Blade.  But nerfing it instead of boosting the other epic weapons is the wrong path.  Most epic weapons yield less benefit than GS and have a tougher grind.  The progression should be clear:  Loot Gen -->  Cannith Crafted ---> Raid Loot ---> GS ---> Alchem ---> Epic.

How fucking hard is it?

And if melees get a bit of a buff in the process, who gives a care.  Melees are underpowered atm.

Combat Wombat wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 11:52pm:

Be fair, you're not being cynical.  You're being illiterate.

Oakianus wrote on Nov 15^th, 2011 at 12:00am:


phew was worried there for a minute

Oh, seems poor Axer's barbarian are getting nerfed...

/cynism and sarcams on

Maybe it's because all his whining : the game is too easy and the mass whine from the rest ' shroud is unplayable now' registered in the 2 brain cells of some people at Turbine and instead of making the game harder for everybody they decided to make it harder for Axer instead.

/cynism and sarcasm off.

All in all I don't care, I don't have an E-SOS, I don't have a point blank shooter. But that's inte'resting to know anyway.

Auran wrote on Nov 15^th, 2011 at 12:51am:


Priceless.

Oakianus wrote on Nov 15^th, 2011 at 2:36am:

I'll be cunting on you to live up to that promise!

Jaxx wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 4:45pm:

I did not even read his post, but I knew what it would say.

I wouldn't mind tuning the base Khopesh down to 1d6, btw.

In general, I do like the idea of standardization.