Neverwinter Module 16 Mechanics

There are many fundamental systems changes coming in module 16, but perhaps the most important one is the changes to game mechanics. This post serves to briefly underline the changes, as well as what ratings should be prioritized in module 16. Keep in mind these changes are still on preview. This means they are subject to change. Expect that at least some of this article will be out of date by the time it goes live. Also, this covers the changes in PVE and is not considering ramifications for PVP.

The Changes

For the sake of readability, I am breaking this up into subsections with a brief explanation. A good place for a more detailed explanation is over on Janne’s Website. If you just want the short version on what to stack, skip to the bottom.

Basic Statistic Overhauls

      • Ratings now grant 1% per 500, up from 1% per 400.
      • Tertiary Ratings like Combat Advantage and Action Point Gain are no longer diminished and have a matching 500:1 curve.
      • Recovery, Lifesteal, and Regeneration were removed from the game.
      • Critical Strike is now countered by Critical Resist. You have 5% base Critical Strike Chance and it caps at 50% chance.
      • Deflection is now countered by Accuracy. Your Deflection chance caps at 50%.
      • Combat Advantage is now countered by Awareness. Your Combat Advantage Bonus caps at 100% and has a base value of 10%.
      • Defense is still countered by Armor Penetration. Your Damage Reduction has a maximum value of 80%.
      • Power and Hit Points do not have counters.

The ratings are implemented in an additive manner. For example, if you have 24000 Critical Strike and an enemy has 24000 Critical Resistance, you will have a 5% chance to deal a critical hit (your base chance). Percentage bonuses to Critical Strike are countered by Critical Resistance. In the same example above, if you had only had 21500 Critical Strike, you would not have been able to deal critical hits. Your statistics (both offensive and defensive) can be reduced to 0 by counter statistics, but not below.

Critical Severity and Combat Advantage

Critical Severity and Combat Advantage are additive with each other. On critical hits, if you have 75% Critical Severity and 100% Combat Advantage bonus, you will deal 175% increased damage, not 350% increased damage. Combat Advantage is a multiplier on your damage that you only gain when you are flanking an enemy. This occurs when you are behind them, or you and an ally are on opposite sides of the same enemy.

Buffs and Debuffs

Whilst there are still some buffs, there are not many. The buffs that still exist are drastically reduced. For example, Controlled Momentum went from a 10% buff to a 2% buff. However, the core functionality of buffs remains largely the same. They are still multiplicative with each other.

Debuffs, on the other hand, are in a weird position. Currently, the debuffs on player powers have been drastically reduced, but the debuffs on pets and artifacts remain unchanged. They are still additive, like before. There is, however, a catch. Compared to module 15, they are actually in a stronger position than before. This is because they are no longer diminished and there are less of them.

In the case of both buffs and debuffs building a character as a support is definitely no longer an option. The values for buffs and debuffs are just too low to justify doing so.

The Combined Rating

The Combined Rating adds a flat amount to every statistic that has a resistance. To be more specific, it adds the amount on the tooltip to everything except Power and Hit Points. The purpose of this is to prevent players who are not planning their characters from having below the minimum thresholds for statistics. In reality, the net result is that it becomes very difficult to optimize your character. This is because if you want to dump a statistic down to 0 and invest it elsewhere, it isn’t possible.

Enemy Statistics

Keep in mind, the values here are subject to change but can be found in full here. Currently, at level 80 enemies have 24000 of every statistic. This means in order to start dealing critical hits or Combat Advantage damage (or in order to start mitigating damage) you need to exceed 24000. It also means you need to exceed this value in Armor Penetration and Accuracy.

Statistic Priority

The long and the short of all this is that you should prioritize offensive statistics as follows:

  • First priority is Armor Penetration.
  • Once you have capped Armor Penetration, you should focus on Accuracy.
  • After these 2 statistics are capped, power gives the biggest boost.
  • Finally, if you have a lot of statistics, you should invest in Critical Strike and Combat Advantage.

The last 2 statistics depend on how much Critical Severity you have. If you have more than 100% Critical Severity, Critical Strike is usually better. If you have less than that, Combat Advantage is usually better. Keep in mind however, if you hit the cap of either rating, investing more does nothing. As of the current preview patch, these caps are at 46500 for Critical Strike and 69000 for Combat Advantage. I strongly recommend if you want to min-max your statistics correctly, using the optimizer on Janne’s Website.

As far as defensive statistics are concerned, unless you are able to exceed 24000 Defense by quite a large amount, Hit Points is the best way to go. Deflection is strictly worse in PVE then Defense. You can probably ignore it. Awareness and Critical Resistance are both awful, enemies do not have enough Critical Severity (25%) and mobs are too stupid to position for CA.

Conclusion

This concludes this analysis of ratings for the current preview of module 16. I expect at the very least, the values of enemies counter statistics to become obsolete at launch. However, the core systems will likely remain the same. Hopefully, this can provide some useful insight into how to plan your character in module 16.


Do you already have an idea how to min-max your characters in module 16? Share your thoughts and experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit our message board!

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21 thoughts on “Neverwinter Module 16 Mechanics

  • March 13, 2019 at 11:03 am
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    Another good article, with lots I did not know. Thanks for doing these!

    [i]Recovery, Lifesteal, and Regeneration were removed from the game.[i]
    What about Armour Class?

    I suppose we can do without DoTR (as long as the Dwarf gets a racial that works)
    and I suppose we won’t miss AoER (as long as my Paladin Sigil gets a suitable replacement stat)

    but I really don’t see why they took out Armour Class.

    Armour Class is in every single edition of D&D and AD&D since Chainmail magazine.

    And if your Wizard stands there in cloth robes next to my Fighter in a full suit of Field Plate Mail and a Body shield, do the mobs REALLY have the same chance to hit and damage us both?

    ~

    And your other article, attribute scores give only 0.25% bonus per point?

    Does that mean that a Wizard with 30 INT gets 5% damage bonus instead of 20%?

    Or is it 7.5% because it is no longer (INT-10) * 0.25, it is INT * 0.25 = 7.5%?

    🙂

  • March 13, 2019 at 11:05 am
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    Damn, could you fix that formatting? 2nd tag is meant to be [/i].

    That’s what I hate about this blog, I can not edit my own mistakes.

    Cheers!

    • March 13, 2019 at 12:07 pm
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      It is Int*0.25=7.5%.

      • March 13, 2019 at 1:32 pm
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        Cheers. That is still quite a nerf.

        x_X

        • March 13, 2019 at 1:35 pm
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          And, of course, completely contrary to the rules of every edition of D^D and AD&D ever. What the hell do they think they are doing?

          Does a naked Dwarf Barbarian have the same hp as a naked Elf Wizard, ignoring CON bonus?

  • March 13, 2019 at 11:28 am
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    Armor Class also removed.

  • March 14, 2019 at 2:14 am
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    The elimination of buffs and debuffs leaves the biggest spot ever for a bard class.

    • March 14, 2019 at 2:50 pm
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      I thought the same Marco, and it’s long overdue. As far as this being a “nerf” of a expansion or not following D&D mechanics I think that argument is pretty weak considering how current mechanics work.

    • April 16, 2019 at 10:39 pm
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      And how would you make it playable while soloing? Would you put buffs just on Powers and let the player decide to DPS or buff? Because if you can do all the two together you would remove challenge from a party run. Looks like they are going the DPS route for every character.

  • March 14, 2019 at 7:33 pm
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    I think one thing there is incorrect. You state that if your enemy’s Critical Resistance exceeds your Critical Strike then you would not be able to deal critical hits. You would actually have a 5% chance still. 5% is not the base, it is a “bonus” after the calculation.

    The Dev Blog on the subject gives the following example:
    “Let’s look at an example where you have 10,000 Critical Strike and the opponent has 7,000 Critical Avoidance.

    Critical Chance = (10,000 – 7,000) / 500 = 6%

    The final results cannot go negative. If the opponent in the above example had 20,000 Critical Avoidance, your chance to critically strike would be 0%.”

    But, near the end of the Dev Blog it introduces the 5% figure as follows:
    “Critical Strike gets a bonus 5% chance by default. My example up above showed how any given set of opposing ratings work, but since Critical Strike gets a 5% bonus, the player would actually have an 11% chance to crit instead of a 6%. Critical Strike is now capped at 50%.”

    Therefore, it follows that if the calculated percentage is 0% (it cannot be negative) then the final chance is actually 5%. If, for example, the calculation had come to 47%, then the final chance would be 50% (the cap).

    Likewise, Combat Advantage has a “10% boost”. Therefore, no matter how much Awareness the target has you will always still do at least +10% damage if you have Combat Advantage.

    • March 24, 2019 at 5:50 am
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      The dev blog is incorrect, if you test it in game the 5% critical strike chance functions as 2500 critical strike and can be nullified.

      • March 26, 2019 at 10:20 am
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        Figures the devs would screw up this code where what they state is not how it works. Making the code achieve that 5% mark after the counter stat is very easy code. How could they allow such a mistake to hit preview. They must be new to coding.

  • March 18, 2019 at 11:51 am
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    Is 46500 the cap for ArPen and the other stats? or is that the 50% threshold? Also, could you explain what Hit Point Strength does? I imagine the Companion Influence stat on a lot of things now either increases their stats, or acts like a bolster for you, but I’m not sure which.

    Also, on a side note, the Janne’s website you’ve pointed to in the last 3 articles comes up as blocked by Malware Bytes. I’ve only seen maybe 2-3 other sites ever blocked by it, so I’m hesitant to continue on and look at it.

    • March 23, 2019 at 2:23 pm
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      What exactly malware says? I don’t see the issue, nor there should be any reason for the block . Is it a certificate / https error or something else?
      If it is, it was updated for https, though there is nothing really to encrypt there.

      • March 25, 2019 at 8:09 pm
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        Hi Janne,
        It says the website blocked due to possible suspicious activity. It then goes on to explain that could entail cryptojacking, browser hijacking, or other types of harmful, or risky objects. I’m sure it’s probably just the .info suffix, but it still doesn’t sound promising.

  • April 16, 2019 at 10:40 pm
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    I just tested the build part and ‘soloing’ Tyranny of Dragons but despite initially been perplexed now I really enjoy everything (I’m in Neverwinter from Mod 5 but abandoned the game after the latest Mod, it became just ‘trash’, too much gap from player to player, both in PVP and PVE, unenjoyable dungeon runs, P2W and so on…). It’s true that builds are simplified but they aren’t stupid at all, I do find them actually enjoyable and differentiated. I’ve been able to do both a working melee and ranged TR, a strong melee and ‘mixed’ HR, a working DPS DC and a decent healer (healer looks very different, more damage oriented, less damage mitigators). I can survive easily with a pure DPS warlock while soloing (before it was just good with Soulbinder and Borrowed Time, IL 8k); actually campaigns are far less stressing; surely if you do a bad build you are going to suffer but all in all it’s very fun. Every class was good to build and to play (it took me 3 or 4 days to put up 16 working and enjoyable builds, all classes). I would like to test a dungeon run but it’s impossible on Preview, that will be the true test for the new Mod, because everything is new and we must test the party mechanics, those must be enjoyable. Looks like it’s no more P2W, gear looks less important, and old tanks are going to finish in DPS slots with appropriate DPS builds (so less tanks available? I’m gonna do some dungeon runs with my new DPS ‘Fighter’). Eventually tanks are going to be less important, looks like it will be harder to threat and defend together. Eventually I’ll renew again my monthly subscription, since everything looks more balanced, fair and less stressful. Looks like Heaven for new players too. I really wish good fortunes to the staff and share my compliments especially to the system/mechanic/build designer(s?) that renew them in a very good way, he(they?) can be proud of it. But still have to test party play, heh! ;P

    So far so good.

    P.S.: Buffs and debuffs are reduced, that’s something good too, looks like there will be less preferred classes (DC was top before, in my opinion), eventually I have some doubts on SW… need to test it more thoroughly, looks slower and I must really test it in party as a DPS and see if the Healer acually work well in ‘party mode’. So new…).

  • April 16, 2019 at 11:06 pm
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    Getting 21% damage from Lostmauth’s Vengeance with Mod 16. It’s broken again. Meh.

  • April 17, 2019 at 8:52 pm
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    hey Sharp, any input on the Paranoid Delusion or slyblade kobold in mod 16 for cw? thanks

  • April 18, 2019 at 11:33 am
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    The good part is…. NO more annoying gifs!

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