Player Character Balance

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Originally Posted by EllisDee37

What I was getting at is that I suspect he would TR out of a range build altogether, possibly into a shirardi sorc or bladeforged centered kensei. My question was implying that the only reason people play monkchers in the first place is solely because they can spam both 10k stars and manyshot essentially nonstop. They don't play monkchers because they particularly like or are invested in range builds.

If that's the case, then making those people TR is fine and dandy. If, on the other hand, they'd be trying to TR into some kind of pure ranger or maybe even a thrower build, then yeah, saying they shouldn't be forced to TR has some merit.

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If people's primary complaints about monkchers were that they could continually spam 10k Stars and Manyshot then I think that yes, they would need to be nerfed. The thing is that monkchers could spam these abilities before epic destinies and the enhancement update and they weren't considered overpowered. This leads me to believe that the problem occurred later - specifically with destiny and enhancement synergies.

As for TR'ing into a thrower with no other changes being made except for 10K Stars and Manyshot sharing a cooldown - there are those who speak of being able to throw 5-6 adrenalized (slaying arrow) ninja stars at a time while 10K stars is active (Shuriken Expertise, Advanced Nina Training). If I TR'ed my monkcher into a thrower I would lose out on the damage from my 3 Ranger past lives, but I might not necessarily lose out on any ranged damage, and I think that would be problematic. I hate to be calling for a broader nerf to Adrenaline with ranged attacks than just affecting monkchers specifically, but I think that is what is necessary. It's not the popularity of a build or "FOTM" description that I think is problematic. It is the power of having multiple ranged attacks work with Adrenaline that is problematic.

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Originally Posted by EllisDee37

Move +1 crit multiplier on 19/20 from earth stance to fire stance

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I am in favor of this proposed change. The best defensive stance (arguably - you could make a case for water as well) and the best offensive stance shouldn't be one and the same.

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Originally Posted by EllisDee37

The proper balancing for monkchers is to make 10k stars and manyshot share a common cooldown similar to how flasks work. So, for example, if you use manyshot, both manyshot and 10k stars go on cooldown for 120 seconds. If you use 10k stars, both 10k stars and manyshot go on cooldown for 60 seconds.

The other fixes are general balancing fixes for all monk splashes, not just monkchers:

1) Stance feats require 6/12/18 monk levels instead of character levels
2) Move +1 crit multiplier on 19/20 from earth stance to fire stance

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This is probably the main balance concern I see in DDO right now. Followed by too much self healing and WF clearly being the only option for sorcs.

I don't think the balance problems are really with classes, just synergies. But some classes do feel far behind others. Artificers are very strong in early levels but scale very poorly. Bards have not scaled well into the current end game.

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Originally Posted by Satyriasys

This is probably the main balance concern I see in DDO right now. Followed by too much self healing and WF clearly being the only option for sorcs.

I don't think the balance problems are really with classes, just synergies. But some classes do feel far behind others. Artificers are very strong in early levels but scale very poorly. Bards have not scaled well into the current end game.

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There is way to much self-healing but saying that will upset the solo player fans. One other thing to help this so called balance thing is to dump hirelings as they do give some builds a huge boost by shoring pig up some of their weaknesses

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Originally Posted by Turbosilk

This is my point. Claims are nothing more than claims. Perception lacking facts.

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Hi,

Shiradi casters are strong, no doubt, but I'm still not convinced that they are too strong.

Much of what makes them strong isn't just from shiradi, it's from synergies between the destiny, class and best choice for race, and the advantages of a mobile and ranged playstyle. They are simply a response to the methods the company has used to make EE content difficult, ie, inflated mob HP, high saves, and heavy melee damage output.

One thing I quite like about shiradi casters is they play well in group with other builds. They are far less damaging to other people's enjoyment of the game than instakillers are. In my view instakillers are by far too strong at almost all levels of the game, and this is another area where balance needs to be examined, not so much with DCs, but rather by extending cooldowns on instakill spells and SLAs.

Besides, soloing epic elite is not only the province of FOTM builds; the Gianthold walkups and below are well with the range of a diverse number of builds, including some flavour ones, provided you can play intelligently. I know this from my own experience of the game, playing on my main, and I'm only a competent player, not one of the game's rockstars by any means.

These next things are unfortunate and unpopular to say, but it will be difficult to have a sensible discussion of what is and isn't overpowered with a community consisting of many players who are not particularly competent, and/or have little direct experience of what the different builds can do. [Edit: Or of what the EE endgame is like.]

Some of the loudest howling for nerfs is coming from people who are just not very good, and simply appear to resent the fact that they are having trouble completing content which in fact is largely just not that difficult, or who have a desire for a game where people are forced to group together because they think our characters should be narrowly specialised.

I think there are some things that need to be rebalanced, but this shouldn't become a free for all based on people's personal prejudices and desire to avenge their in-game experiences when good players made them feel inadequate.

Thanks.

To me, the biggest part of balance problems is the lack of build options for Melee artificers, simply a runearm that grants Tenser's Tranformation, Dream Vision 9, speed X, and Exceptional Fortification +50%

As a nerfing measure, it should curse you with 5 negative levels for the next five minutes when you switch to using a ranged weapon (Regardless of resistances).

Force Imbue

Force type blast

Nightshade Venom!

Colorless Augment Slot

Blue Augment Slot

If you can not balance it right then do not do it at all.

Balancing it easy by nerfing just makes people leave. That has always been true and you guys have driven so many players over the years away that I have played with it is just silly.

You guys do not get what is really good and what is not. Example, the recent colors of the queen change. Double Rainbow/Colors IS NOT what makes the builds in shiradi great nor would a foolish change that makes the ability not only worse, but downright griefing to use in parties the way to address it if it was.

That is why you need to buff not nerf. You buff something no one uses and you get someone to use it maybe. It is much less dangerous and much easier to slowly increase the power of and see the results. (For nerfs they are too often binary like the colors change...you use it and you are now griefing your party/playing a bad build/just plain destroys build)

Suggestions for BUFFS to help the game overall...

* Paladin class needs more DPS. It is behind the 8-ball. Not just pure pali, but through the level range.
* Real self healing outside of twists should be reasonable for any build which invests. Barb rage if it prevents these needs to be WAY MORE POWERFUL then it is now.
* Pile of hit point toons should have that option OR dps. Now they often have only that option. Look into that wherever it comes up (US/comparative trees for classes/cost of these things in build resources)..I am talking the well over a 1000 HP toons not the well built dps plus decent HP toons.
* Less mobs who kill clerics who do not gain agro otherwise. Seriously, this is a critical issue for people who USED TO play these types of toons and those who wanted them around.
* Restore the forum settings to a state where people are not typing black on a grey background...seriously.
* Stop wasting time on marginal abilities like boulder toss and double rainbow and addressing them like they are OP. Buff the STUPID GIMPED ABILIITES that are everywhere in destinies and enhancements.
* MORE DPS for melee outside of the top 2 destinies for melee DPS.
* More DPS for ranged outside of shiradi and Fury.
* More DPS for casters outside of shiradi and draconic.
* More nasty attacks for mobs to use on enemies which gain their agro in EE. Stuff like feeblemind really really hurts in the new content when you are hit with it. That is a good example of a nasty attack for a mob to use. Always attach things which have to overcome for these attacks to land...no more no save no nothing abilities. Something like a magical net that some EE sahagin throw in AoE and grants a reflex save/to hit roll to land. There should be mobs which are better at taking on casters (like the feeblemind guys mentioned before), mobs which are better at taking out ranged (tendon slice really does suck on a ranged toon when it hits you, but more creative less no save garbage is better), and mobs which are better at taking on melee (lots of mobs in game like that now). So really more focus on the first two is needed. What is NOT needed is more mobs who take out people who have no agro. They are not really as big of a threat or help in current DDO play...this is not shroud release time after all.
* Make more abilities work on all types of combat (ranged/melee/unarmed/thrown) and work equally. It is easier to balance without having to put in so many speciality abilities to get players to play really bad options (like ranged used to be and STILL IS if you are not built right and in the right destiny).

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Originally Posted by blerkington

Hi,
Some of the loudest howling for nerfs is coming from people who are just not very good, and simply appear to resent the fact that they are having trouble completing content which in fact is largely just not that difficult, or who have a desire for a game where people are forced to group together because they think our characters should be narrowly specialised.

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Pure gold.

The customisation and imbalance are what makes DDO different from other games.

Adapt or die.

Each class/build/destiny get's its turn eventually. If you don't make the changes you get left in the dust. It's just the way it is.

Seeking balance is a daunting task. What we have here is a game that doesn't only offer only classes but also multiclassing and we got Epic Destinies on top of that, these are supposed to bring us nearer our goal of making DDO the best game when it comes to character options. However, when the trend is to splah the same one or two classes over and over again we are actually stepping further from such goal. What I recommend to look up is not only how the different classes stand by themselves but what the class is offering at different level intervals, specially the lower levels and higher levels. Least popular classes could get attractive options at lower levels to incentivize more multiclassing variety and / or getting better capstones to incentivize remaining pure. Hint: Pay close attention to alignment restrictions.

When players build their characters they have goals in mind:

People who like to customize and multiclass should have more options when building, this process should never end in "I am being forced take this class to achieve my build goals", in my opinion there should be more "I can take X to achive this set goals or I can take Y or Z to achieve this other set of goals (e.g. Do I want more survivability in exchange for offensive power or do I want the oppositte?). Here the players will take decisions on how to approach their character's effectivness, they will balance their own strenghts and weaknesses.

Please do not mistake this as making whatever you do effective. This is not what I mean, what I am saying is that, like cooking, you can experiment and try different recipes to create different kind of dishes, some will taste better than others and most will be just edible. Burning your own bowl of cereals will never taste good let alone nutritious.

On the other hand we have players who prefer pure classes and being welcomed by a depressing capstone takes a lot of the motivation to go pure away. While multiclassing gives you options and versability, capstones should make your character outstanding at what they do. Think of it from a roleplaying perspective: Adventurers train for years, even decades to be better and competitive at what they do, a muticlass character follow a holistic approach and excel at different skills while pure class adventurers dedicate themselves to master their only trade and they should be masters at that particular skill.

I should emphatize that I am not recommending to bring the game into a state where no matter what you do you will rock althought messing up should still be possible for experimentation, educative or even comedic purposes. The way I would approach balance is to allow for more options, more customization, more creativity, more fun rather than locking everyone into Flavor of the Month builds or the highway.

I leave the numbers to you.

Thanks.

I think foodling around with the numbers is beside the point. You want to know what the hardest things in the game are to complete? I'll tell you.

Kobold Island Challenges.

Not because the mobs are super-strong or hit super-hard or have super-high saves or super-high spell DC's or super-massive SR. Nope, none of that. It's because even getting CLOSE to five-starring these requires 6 people who can split up and solo AND pay attention AND coordinate what they're doing. Imagine how freaking insane people would go if there was some massively awesome gear that REQUIRED you to 6-star Kobold Island challenges to get the parts to make it. People would be SCREAMING that the game is TOO FREAKIN HARD ZOMG. Yet no individual aspect of this challenge is difficult. It's the fact that you have to do ALL OF THEM AT ONCE IN A TIME LIMIT that makes it so hard.

I'm not saying "make quests that require 5 people to all pull levers within a 3 second window so people have to group up". I'm not saying "MOAR TIME LIMITS PLZTHX!" By all means, let people solo at their own pace if that's how they want to play. But the most challenging aspects of this game are building a character that can function alone WHILE WITH A GROUP and arranging coordination between people. THAT'S where the challenge should originate, not "how can I stack up 3 more points of DC" or "where's the safe spot so I can turn on auto attack and go get a drink while my character plinks the boss down".

Haunted Halls actually does a fairly awesome job at being interesting and complicated, but pretty much every pack in the game has some version of "stand in this room and fight the spawning mobs until they're all gone". That's not a quest. That's friggin Missile Defense.

OK, monks do not need nerfed! If you play P&P then you would know monks are OP, always have been, because its how they are specked. They are powerful hand to hand combatants. They do not need nerfed, it would be stupid and unnecessary.

For the person that said Monk should be splashed with Barbs and Bards... LOOK AT THE ALIGNMENTS! They can't, always will and should be that way. Also monk splashes aren't bad, some like my builds utilizes the stances to help improved my survivability as a character, some for 10k some for other reasons, but its what makes the builds special and thats what DDO is about...multiclassing.

Nothing really needs nerfed, instead how about just finding a way to up melee's damage and improved them, theres a thought. This could solve so much with out stepping on players feet.

My survey is done, just wanted to point out some issue I saw.

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Originally Posted by Teh_Troll

This.

I mean seriously . . . is ANY pure 20 build close to OP?

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This won't be popular but pure Sorc and pure wiz are getting close.

There are a lot of aspects of the new raids that actually make things pretty tough on ranged characters and are well designed, from the archers, to the spell casters, to the long range dragon attacks, but shock and awe by itself makes things pretty tough on melees, in my opinion. If we are taking about the viability of melee VS ranged in the new stuff, that's one enemy ability that I think should be looked at.

Others may disagree. I must admit that my experience is the new raids is fairly limited. Just throwing it out there for discussion.

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Originally Posted by redspecter23

I think the one big thing at the core of the class balance issue is that going up close to melee in EE is infinitely more dangerous than staying at range to fight. Players that want to engage in melee don't have the proper tools to survive, while ranged toons can ignore the issue outright by just not engaging. Add to this the fact that the two new raids both feature dragons (which are a melee nightmare and a ranged dream fight) and you have your problem staring you right in the face.

It's just not worth it to play a melee in the current game/metagame in epic elite. Ranged is safer and potentially much more powerful.

Balance your melee/ranged issue first before going deeper and examining individual classes and abilities. Why is it so hard for a melee to get up close and stay alive for more than a few seconds without looking at specific abilities like bladeforged reconstruct or other built in burst heals? Is it intended that even with over 150+ PRR and an AC over 200 that a "tank" should still need to be burst healed every few seconds when engaged in EE combat? Shouldn't he have the tools to survive more that a second or two compared to another melee with 40 PRR and 0 AC?

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Yeah, and me favoring the Melee artificer build concept makes me want to hug you XD

In my opinion, nerfing will only continue to make epic content even more of a drag. I could not imagine enjoying Thunderholme the way it stands without quickened/empowered cocoon and adrenaline boosts. Smashing each skeleton forever with 20 more to follow would bore me to death and I'd find another game to occupy my time if that's what end game becomes. Maybe other people like it, but I find the amount of enemy HP extremely boring if you're not putting out 1000's of points of damage. 2000 damage at level 25 feels like 20 damage did at level 15.

If you nerf ranged power, that would certainly make monkcher look less interesting, but would render a pure ranger pretty useless.

Making capstones really, really great as a reward for a pure build might not solve all your problems, but it might help. +2 dex and +20% doublestrike as an AA capstone, for example, is hardly worth it when you take into account all that you get with even just two monk levels. I feel like you guys are afraid to give us anything really nice in an effort to maintain game balance, but overlook the elephant in the room of multiclassing. There are no real penalties for multiclassing, and hardly a benefit to sticking with one class and specializing.

I feel like the ED system sucks, to be brutally honest. Grinding through off destinies is terrible. If we could buy an item that allows us to gain xp in a destiny or overall sphere while staying in our primary destiny, I would buy those like candy. My melee in an off destiny is basically a level 20 character again.

Monk is horribly overpowered, and somehow the change in enhancement trees a while back made them even better. The first time I made a monk, as a life I needed to TR through, I felt like I was cheating. I didn't multiclass and stuck to the spirit and flavor of the class, and still had an answer for every situation beside locked chests. I never had much interest in them, and don't want to feel like I need monk levels to make all my characters 1000% better. That class needs a huge nerf, or you need to make evasion a feat any class can take and give other classes the same incredible saves and DCs. I hate nerfing when the game is hard enough as it is, but there should be no reason for everyone to feel like every class needs some monk levels to be viable. The fact that you keep adding new OPness like vorpal strikes as a monk specific feat makes me think it's entirely intentional.

I really like playing pure classes, especially melee and specialists. The way that multiclassing can exponentially increase power is a tough hurdle to deal with when thinking about balance. Everything you guys do will be analyzed by a highly motivated player and combined to create an overpowered character, no matter what. I feel like the fact that so many people feel the need to do so points to a larger issue in the overall difficulty of the game.

As game designers, are you OK with the fact that 95% of your players will utterly fail every time on EE? As a company, why are you catering to powergamers and the top 5%? That seems like an odd business plan.

Whatever you take away will certainly be replaced by whatever else is the least bad, and the powerbuilding FotM cycle continues. Juggernauts, monkchers, toasters, whatever it is now. As you continue to nerf, the quests stay just as hard to do as they are now, and non-powergamers, first lifers, etc are left with even less tools to work with. The only real way to assure that someone cannot come up with an insanely overpowered character is to eliminate multiclassing. My high school DM wouldn't allow it because we had two min/maxers willing to come up with overpowered characters. I wouldn't want that limitation here, but obviously some people are breaking your game.

I've got a few things, kinda scatter brained, but I figure something is better than nothing.

1. Synergy as pointed out above, is causing more problem than any particular overpower. Fury isn't crazy, FurySHOT is. Monks aren't crazy, Monk SPLASHES are. Sorcs are not crazy, Shiradi-Monk-Bladeforges are. Consider trying to modify the way these abilities work laterally, it will technically nerf the FOTM, but I think thats inevitable, any change nerfs something.

2. Realize that some things can't be done without in the current game, you must either provide a way to get them or an alternative to them. Evasion, PRR, Dodge chance and Crit Range stand out as the things no melee can live without, although I could be blind to some. My point is that as long as AC doesn't really equal the damage reduction of PRR(It in no way does), then only builds that can have PRR will really happen. As long as I can have no fail reflex saves for Evasion and the prr for 45%+ damage reduction on the same toon, its a no brainer. There shouldn't be a no brainer, if it can be avoided.

3. A personal plea. I see that sorcs are hard to balance, I have played with Bladeforged Shiradi-Monk splashes. They get evasion, excellent self healing, no-save high damage with CC implications for very little sp. Options for PRR and immunities from race. This is essentially everything except traps. Please stop balancing Sorcerer as a class on the basis of this combination. Flesh sorcs, even in Apotheosis form(which grants several great immunities) cannot hold a candle to the warforged combo, and Savants playing in Draconic get embarrassed on every level by the Shiradi build. Since we obviously can't ratchet up the damage on Savants and Draconic, what is to be done? There's no advantages to the Draconic build and that's the one You guys gave us. Really seriously consider how you want to balance the class, because one race-splash-ED combo is dominating the field, but the pure class build is actually fairly well balanced. Also Draconic Invulnerability is no fun, I don't take it and I know no-one who does, consider making something more like Drac. Fury only more so. Imagine ratcheting all of your dcs to 100 and doubling spell damage for 30s(LONG cooldown), or give us a Draconic form, perhaps some Tensers-esque melee tradeoff that would make the Eldritch Knight consider Draconic again. Imagine transforming into a dragon like the FoT disciples,unarmed claw damage, halve the cooldown on all draconic(Not Energy Burst/Sheathe/Tempest) abilities during form, regenerate breath attack 1per minute and regenerate 2d6 hp/sec. The whole thing is 5 minutes.

4. Some abilities that could potentially be competitive just aren't available in the numbers needed. I get that rogues are the sneak attack masters, but the die available to a Deepwood needs to be better or its not worth capping the tree, theres nothing on offer in a ranged sneak attack that competes with Slayer Arrows. Archmages don't have an ability in their tree to compete with Lich form, Rangers have no counter-offer to 10kStars at all. Barbs are so one-dimensional they are falling right off the map, if they can't get some sort of passive heal, an on-hit heal or something, then they need to ignore 25% of every kind of damage, FLAT. And that is to stack with the rest of the available systems.

5. Moar Notez
CC casting needs to be unhinged from Instakill casting. It is well and truly crazy to imagine that it takes the same amount of work to build a character whose primary skill is holding things still for other players to kill, and to build one who waltzes around instantly voiding everyone's life force. If you make DC casting as a whole viable again, it will wrench the balance back out because suddenly all the Wizards will bypass the 50k HP mobs and drop them with a no-fail spell. If you don't make some DC casting viable again you'll alienate a huge portion of the game as well as continue to make DPS the only way to play.
Self healing doesn't need to be universal, but if it's not going to be, healing/party support needs to be viable, interesting and fun. Offering the ability to self heal to some toons and not others, while offering comparable dps and defense to both is asking for trouble. As long as WF can heal well enough to tank, Flesh sorcs are going to feel painful. As long as fighters can scroll and take Cocoon, Barbs will be on the outs.
Do not just kill cocoon, going back to the days where pure-class flesh non-divines only had UMD is not the solution.

Traps skills need to be necessary in more quests, but getting around traps(albeit with penalty of some sort) also needs to be an option. Quests you can't pass without a rogue are bad, so are entire expansions with nothing for a trapper apply their hard-earned skills to.
Melee DPS should be higher in the long run(especially single target), casters in the short run vs groups, ranged should hold its own(better than pre-pass) against all but not rule the roost. Casters expend a limited resource to do damage, they should get good value for the investment. Melee take great risks being in close, they should get the damage advantage as time goes on(sooner than they do currently). Ranged is making the choice to stand off and avoid damage, they should certainly do good damage, arrows aren't marshmallows, but they shouldn't be top of the pile, its not reasonable.
Finally, Fixing AC would be great in this case. Right now getting competent to-hit takes no brains, and getting AC to try and avoid hits is a dead-end. We should seriously seek to make both AC and To-Hit a significant factor in damage-dealing viability. The bonuses and skills to drive that system still exist, lets leverage them and make meaningful choices about more damage vs more ability to hit evasive enemies or more chance to avoid hits vs other bonuses.

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Originally Posted by Turbosilk

Pure gold.

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Hi,

Thanks, but what I've said needs to be read in the context of my other remarks. I'm not an elitist and don't want to be presented as such.

Giving melee extra [w] boosts would be a good start. Maybe an extra .5 at levels 15, 20, and 25, with an extra 2[w] at level cap?

The problem is not being able to kill the 5-6 enemies standing in front of you quickly enough. Back in heroic elites, you got a good crit on a trash enemy, and they were almost done. In turn, you had less stuff hitting you over time, and the cleric didn't have to blow all her SP on you in one encounter. High PRR, AC and DR are pretty hopeless and seem like a bad investment of resources when you're still getting hit for 100's of damage from multiple sources. My epic Cloak of Night gives me what, 10/good? When a stupid hobgoblin can hit me for 200 damage, what difference does 10 points make?

I feel like the stats, damage hp, etc has gotten so inflated at epic levels to be almost comical. My friends and I were in Thunderholme last night and we all started laughing when our artificer, who is usually pretty quiet, casually said "these are some really healthy bats".

You are going to get a lot of flawed data from this poll by virtue of the fact that you essentially ignore the currently realities of perceived OP character builds., specifically that they are multi-classed and not pure. Monks are OP because of Monkchers? No, Monks are not OP. Monkchers may be because of the synergies between 6 levels of Monk, 6 levels of Ranger, access to all of the AA tree and FotW.
Also you will have people rating class with which they are really not knowledgable about. For instance:

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Originally Posted by Somone in this thread

Taking 2 levels of monk is just insanely broken -- it gives you evasion, 2 free feats, great saves, along with access to one of the best ranged options in (zen archery/10k stars).

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Evasion and 2 feats: yes
Getting monks saves for 2 levels are great? Decent yes, but give me a 2 pally splash for great saves.
Zen Archery and 10K starts best ranged options?
Zen archery allows you to stay centred and use WIS to hit. Hardly game breaking.
10K Stars allows for about an average of 2 arrows per Volley for every 1 minute out of every 2 assuming you have about 40 WIS. While better sustained DPS than the 4 arrows provided by Manyshot which can be used 17% of the time, Manyshot has the better burst value with Furyshot. But more importantly, 10K stars requires 6, NOT 2 levels of Monk.
You poll is going to reflect popular opinion which is not necessarily informed opinion.
Right now people multi-class because a) some classes are front loaded b) some classes synergize extremely well and c) MOST L20 CAPSTONES ARE NOT WORTH IT.
Rather than nerf the strong, I would suggest buffing the weak.
Strengthen L20 Capstone Cores and (in some cases) make the L5 required abilities more desirable. I mean who wants to invest 41 pts in Tempest when the top abilities are so terrible?

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Originally Posted by blerkington

Hi,

Shiradi casters are strong, no doubt, but I'm still not convinced that they are too strong.

Much of what makes them strong isn't just from shiradi, it's from synergies between the destiny, class and best choice for race, and the advantages of a mobile and ranged playstyle. They are simply a response to the methods the company has used to make EE content difficult, ie, inflated mob HP, high saves, and heavy melee damage output.

One thing I quite like about shiradi casters is they play well in group with other builds. They are far less damaging to other people's enjoyment of the game than instakillers are. In my view instakillers are by far too strong at almost all levels of the game, and this is another area where balance needs to be examined, not so much with DCs, but rather by extending cooldowns on instakill spells and SLAs.

Besides, soloing epic elite is not only the province of FOTM builds; the Gianthold walkups and below are well with the range of a diverse number of builds, including some flavour ones, provided you can play intelligently. I know this from my own experience of the game, playing on my main, and I'm only a competent player, not one of the game's rockstars by any means.

These next things are unfortunate and unpopular to say, but it will be difficult to have a sensible discussion of what is and isn't overpowered with a community consisting of many players who are not particularly competent, and/or have little direct experience of what the different builds can do.

Some of the loudest howling for nerfs is coming from people who are just not very good, and simply appear to resent the fact that they are having trouble completing content which in fact is largely just not that difficult, or who have a desire for a game where people are forced to group together because they think our characters should be narrowly specialised.

I think there are some things that need to be rebalanced, but this shouldn't become a free for all based on people's personal prejudices and desire to avenge their in-game experiences when good players made them feel inadequate.

Thanks.

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I agree with all of this.

DCs are back into the make the group not fun for the rest of the group levels. People tend to clamor behind nerfing what was powerful rather than what is the cutting edge. Dial back EE melee mob dmg, raise the ranged damage, make PRR and AC higher from heavy/medium/armor and shields.