Burgfräulein, Paladin build in v12, discuss nerf in v13

[Flix 5,184]

I think that is a sound idea. I have implemented it for v13.

I attached the current v13 spells.txt below if it's needed now, but I haven't had a chance to update the French texts yet.

These are the current Paladin changes in this file vs. v12:

• Conviction: Duration and hits per second now match to prevent a stacking exploit. Base range reduced. Base damage sensitivity is halved and scales more slowly. Sensitivity from Singe/Chill/Zap modifications scales more slowly. "Assurance" modification reduces 1% armor per level instead of 10%. "Weaken" modification is replaced with "Subdue" which lowers opponent defense rating.
• Holy Fire: Base damage doubled (including Combustion modification), but damage, hits per second, and chance for burn scale more slowly. Base range and range scaling greatly reduced (including Explosive modification).
• Holy Shield: Duration now scales with CA level (results in 2 seconds gained at max level). Energy Shield Absorption is now 50% + 0.1% per level. Max Shield Energy scales more slowly. 
• Prayer: Hitpoint regeneration effect scales more slowly. Perseverance/Insight modifications now grant 5 Willpower/Intelligence points per level instead of 30.
• Fist of the Heavens: Damage per level scales more slowly.
• Holy Bolt: Normalized damage bonuses against Undead/Demons/T-Mutants.
• Blessed Hammer: Reordered modifications so damage/speed are bronze mods, racial damages are silver mods, and damage conversions are gold mods.
• Holy Freeze: Base range and range scaling slightly reduced.

spells.txt

[Androdion 899]

The changes in the BH mods make all the sense to me as well, I think those choices are much more relevant now.

Cool to see all other changes already implemented as well. I haven't had the chance to play again since I've started Nightmare but I'll pick up the "v13" spells.txt and run with it, the same way I've been doing so far. I'm curious to see the newly balanced effect of Conviction because I think Weaken was clearly OP.

Sadly I have no ETA on when I'll try it right now. I haven't stopped at home and these next few days will he more of the same. I plan to lock myself at home next Sunday so that's a pertinent date for me to try the changes.

@Flix - The changes in the order for the mods in BH don't affect anything on the current save do they? They update dynamically right?

[Flix 5,184]

1 hour ago, Androdion said:

The changes in the order for the mods in BH don't affect anything on the current save do they? They update dynamically right?

That is correct.  The modification tooltips will not be changed though without the updated global.res file - a cosmetic thing only.

[Androdion 899]

Nice. The tooltips are a non-issue so no biggie.

[Androdion 899]

On 12/24/2019 at 3:13 PM, Flix said:

• Conviction: Duration and hits per second now match to prevent a stacking exploit. Base range reduced. Base damage sensitivity is halved and scales more slowly. Sensitivity from Singe/Chill/Zap modifications scales more slowly. "Assurance" modification reduces 1% armor per level instead of 10%. "Weaken" modification is replaced with "Subdue" which lowers opponent defense rating.
•  

So I finally found some time to try out the new version of spells.txt and here are my findings. Before I said that Holy Fire+Conviction was still a very powerful match, and I thought that Weaken was mostly to blame for that. Guess I was wrong since the burn damage is still taking many away even in Nightmare. It's not as brutally effective as before because of the change in modifications, but it's still burning a lot more than I'd expect without Damage Lore being a part if my toon's skill set. So I have to believe that the biggest factor at play here is the sensitivity to fire damage, ergo Singe. My proposition is to change the order in which the modifications appear on Conviction, namely making the bronze mods be the gold mods and have the other ones appear prior to those. So it would be:

• Bronze: Zap/Subdue
• Silver: Nulify/ Assurance
• Gold: Singe/Chill

This would make Conviction's modifications more interesting to choose with a warrior type toon, with Fanaticism and the Devout Offense tree in mind. The one-up on both fire and ice auras would be left for last.

Still regarding Holy Fire, I believe that mastering the Lore skill has a huge impact on it so if the idea is to play an Auradin with burn damage that's a priority mastery, even more than Ancient Magic or Damage Lore. On both Paladin builds I've used that mastery and it results in a proper growth of the CA in practical terms. It's well balanced now, and with further levelling you can raise the damage even more with AM and DL for higher levels where mobs have much higher HP.

[Flix 5,184]

1 hour ago, Androdion said:

My proposition is to change the order in which the modifications appear on Conviction, namely making the bronze mods be the gold mods and have the other ones appear prior to those.

Good idea! I have been rearranging CA modifications a lot this week, so this is the perfect time for it.

I realized I did something unconsciously when I first started making mods, and that is that I would often design things so I could get all the "good" modifications for a CA, which is what I always wanted as a player.  As a developer though, I think modification choices should be properly paired, so that it's not always easy to choose.  If there is a modification that the player would always choose no matter their build or playstyle, then something is broken in the pairing. 

In v13 I found and adjusted a number of pairings where there was an obvious choice paired against a "trash" mod. 

[Flix 5,184]

11 hours ago, Androdion said:

Guess I was wrong since the burn damage is still taking many away even in Nightmare. It's not as brutally effective as before because of the change in modifications, but it's still burning a lot more than I'd expect without Damage Lore being a part if my toon's skill set.

I did discover one thing, that the Opponent's Armor - X% property was not doing what it said it was doing. It was actually giving a chance to reduce armor to "0" with each damage pulse. This was also happening with the Barbarian's War Cry modded a certain way.

I have corrected this in v13 at the bonus level (not released yet) so it may temper Holy Fire's killing power somewhat - though only against enemies who already have fire armor.

For Conviction, I decided the swap the bronze & silver mod pairs, and left the gold mods as is.

[chattius 2,631]

On 11/1/2019 at 9:29 AM, chattius said:

A strange behaviour at energy shield playing hell level 142. Suddenly the full energy shield drops at first hit it seems.

Clicking the holy shield icon it says the shield has 800140 points when new.

Clicking the blue ring it says 2537333 points.

When being getting damage 200+% of it are directed to the shield.

The funny thing is: wearing equipment with less good modifiers the energy shield keeps up when fighting the same monsters.

 

I fear an overflow bug, but the numbers are nowhere close to 2^15, 2^16, 2^31 or 2^32.

 

 

Seems the overflow theory is right

https://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/18511-how-is-sacred-2-weapon-damage-calculated/&do=findComment&comment=7146236

 

[Flix 5,184]

15 hours ago, chattius said:

Seems the overflow theory is right

https://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/18511-how-is-sacred-2-weapon-damage-calculated/&do=findComment&comment=7146236

 

I'll take note of this and adjust the value if/when v16 is released.

[SLD 418]

9 hours ago, Flix said:

I'll take note of this and adjust the value if/when v16 is released.

If there's a way to limit all shields to a maximum of 2million that would make the most sense.
Lowering the values somewhat only means that someone who stacks more +% shield amount would reach it again some time or that the shield without significant stacking of that mod would be completely worthless.
Another balancing option would of course be to remove all bonus shield mods from gear and willpower, thereby making the possible shield amounts more controllable. But that would kinda screw up game balance as well...

[chattius 2,631]

For the D2F paladin it is also  HIGH willpower from a buff. We noticed the shield drop at character level 143 with nearly maxed out skills. So in the paladin case the effect of reducing shield values from emergency shield and a bit reducing the willpower from buff shiuld be enough. It is a non permanent  emergency shield after all.

For the original game solutions can be different. All changes for D2F can be done with spells.txt. No need to touch the code I think.

 

[chattius 2,631]

Probably also works for the original game. Raising the start-value but reducing the per-level-value would keep usable shields at low levels but staying away from an overflow at highest levels.

[SLD 418]

14 hours ago, chattius said:

For the D2F paladin it is also  HIGH willpower from a buff.

The wiki says prayer only gives 35+3*Lvl willpower. Doesn't sound high to me at all. Maybe the wiki numbers are wrong again?

Anyway lets say you manage to get like 2.5k willpower at level 143.
"LifeAttribut"(balance.txt) in D2F is 25.

now we turn to Maneus' glorius science:

On 9/23/2024 at 8:48 AM, Maneus said:

WillpowerHitpoints = (10 / (10 + CharacterLevel)) * Willpower * BaseEnergyShieldHitpoints / MAX(LifeAttribut, 1)

TotalEnergyShieldHitpoints = FLOOR(BaseEnergyShieldHitpoints + WillpowerHitpoints)

In the "BaseEnergyShieldHitpoints" we already have the +%bonuses from the skill and gear.

So for a lvl 143 char with 2.5k willpower we get:
WillpowerHitpoints = (1/15.3) * (2500/25) * BaseEnergyShieldHitpoints
WillpowerHitpoints = ~6.54 * BaseEnergyShieldHitpoints

That means that, without any willpower bonus at all, you would have had at least (Overflow/7.54) > 250k energy shield from the skill and item mods.
First of all, why does a lvl 143 character need 250k energy shield? That's like 5 to 10 times the amount of life a character at that level would have. And you probably had more than 250k as you probably didn't have 2.5k willpower.
The size of that base shield is just enormous. Or you went "uber ham" on the gear. I mean if that is what you can reach at lvl 143, by lvl 200 everyone would have that overflow problem.
The enormous influence of high willpower could only be lowered by increasing the "LifeAttribut" value that would however also screw up vitality in the same way. Alternatively you could reduce/remove the values you can get from gear rolls and the warding energy lore skill. And the third multiplier is the base this skill gives.
That also touches on the reason why scaling vitality does nothing in comparison, because there is no +%life modifier from gear and skills. That and that the baselife is probably a lot more reasonable than that holy shield

So with three multipliers, willpower -> unchangeable, gear -> unchangeable if you want to keep the amount of player agency, that only leaves the skill itself as an option.
I just checked spells.txt and everything relevant on the "notschild" seems to be lower in D2F than in the addendum or the base game. If there's nothing else affecting the CA than that would mean it should be even worse in the addendum or the base game. So at least I can rule out a typo there.
Is there something else I'm missing? Otherwise it seems that CA has always been bricked.

[chattius 2,631]

I think willpower bonus from prayer was already reduced in patch 13,14.

[SLD 418]

14 hours ago, chattius said:

I think willpower bonus from prayer was already reduced in patch 13,14.

That is very possible.
Evidence pointing to that gathered from this very thread:

On 11/27/2019 at 4:01 AM, Flix said:

I attached an emergency hotfix spells.txt.  Please try this out and tell me how it does.  I haven't tested, back up your character in case I did something dumb like omitting a comma.  Modification texts will still have old text/formulae.

On 11/27/2019 at 4:01 AM, Flix said:

Holy Shield -

• Duration scales ever so slightly with CA level now. This will result in 2 full seconds gained at max CA level.
• Shield Energy scaling per CA level halved.

Prayer - 

• Perseverance/Insight modifications: Willpower/Intelligence scaling changed from granting 30 attribute points per level to 1 attribute point per level.

and a bit later:

On 11/29/2019 at 5:36 AM, Flix said:

We can always make more adjustments.  I intentionally cut the spells down to match vanilla Sacred 2 spell values, with the intention to slowly increase if needed until a sweet spot is reached.

Bear in mind that Prayer is granting you significantly less Intelligence and Willpower than before.

I still haven't read this thread but I searched all pages for "Willpower".
So according to these quotes prayer once gave 30 points per level. That changes the calculations significantly as with a character level of 143 you can easily turn on a prayer aura of level 100+ giving more than 3000 bonus points to willpower, so you definitely had far more than 2.5k at some point. Because I did not read the thread I don't know wether that was the time where the overflow was reached but it would make sense if it was. It would also mean that with the current values you'd probably need to farm quite a lot of hellfire arenas to reach the overflow point so the problem might already no longer exist in the current D2F v15c.

[gogoblender 3,243]

On 10/3/2024 at 12:17 PM, chattius said:

I think willpower bonus from prayer was already reduced in patch 13,14.

I knew it ! Chatius you took your forest cat and turned into into your  Halloween Avatar!! I thought i recognized that cute-eyed thingy  Pretty Ambitious, gruesome and little funny  

errr... he turns back into a cat at midnight after Halloween...right?

gogo