Player Character Balance

[SoSoh]

You already know what you are going to nerf, so I will propose fixes that I suspect won't be too expensive or have unintended consequences.

First, please provide full LR+20 hearts.

Shiradi Missle/Ray Nerf:
Make Shiradi procs apply only to ranged attacks or 'primal' spells. Please don't nerf the Shiradi destiny for builds similar to a pure druid, ranger, or artificer. Multiple Shiradi procs per arcane spell is what is broken; the destiny itself is creative and fun.

Monkcher Nerf:
Make Adrenaline not work with bows or crossbows. Please don't go too far when you nerf ranged characters. Just taking away adrenaline should do the trick. I would leave adrenaline for the throwers, because for them it makes a little 'real world' sense.

Monk Splash Nerf:
1) Tie monk stances to monk levels.
2) Eliminate some or all of [Power Attack, Cleave, and Great Cleave] as requirements for Overwhelming Critical. The monk's bonus feats will be less mandatory.
3) Generate loot with Incorporeal 25% or greater. This is an indirect nerf to characters splashing 6 monk. Unfortunately, it will also be a bit of a nerf to wraiths.

Regarding Master's Blitz:
It is overpowered when I solo, but I found it hard to keep a blitz going in a group with strong players. In a group, it requires some teamwork and cooperation to keep a blitz running, and I think that should be rewarded.

Buffs:
Change the PRR curve to help out the people in actual armor. PHYSICAL Resistance Rating should probably be limited to armor and shields instead of rings or jewels.

[Alfhild]

Monkcher Nerf:
Make Adrenaline not work with bows or crossbows. Please don't go too far when you nerf ranged characters. Just taking away adrenaline should do the trick. I would leave adrenaline for the throwers, because for them it makes a little 'real world' sense.

Making Adrenaline NOT work with bows or crossbows nerfs any Artificer or non-monk Ranger in Fury as well. The nerf to Monkchers on the other hand is minimal since with only a few adjustments and fairly easily acquired gear, they now become Furyshotting Shuricannons..

[Scraap]

On the mobility bit in particular, a buff/nerf that might free ya'lls hands a bit may very well be to mod existing tech in order to divorce locked motion from locked attacking.

Say, allow PCs and mobs to counterattack while webbed or earthgrabed for instance. Not dis-similarly from the solid fog mechanic. Seems that'd at least mitigate the issue with having to choose between halting players entirely or giving them total motion.

[Seikojin]

This is what I was seeing as well.

I think Armor feats should contain the juice to beef armor. At levels 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29;
Cloth/robes ~ No AC boost, no PRR boost, no dr, no resist, no caps.
Light ~ +1 ac, +1prr, +1 dr/-, +1 elemental resist, usual stat caps.
Medium ~ +2 ac, +1.5prr, +2 dr/-, +2 elemental resist, usual stat caps.
Heavy ~ +3 ac, +2prr, +3 dr/-, 3 elemental resist, usual stat caps.

I think all shields should get a boost to resist as well, passive and active (when blocking). At levels 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30:
Passive; +1 ac, +1 prr, +1 dr/-, +2 elemental resistance
Blocking: +2 ac, +2 prr, +2 dr/-, +4 elemental resistance

Two weapon blocking should make your offhand weapon count as a shield (this would boost pallys, fighters, and tempests most gutted pre's).

I love the monks using 10k stars and manyshot. I think that is awesome. However, I think manyshot and 10k stars in their own right are broken. It would be easier to make them a toggle that offers +X to doubleshot based on class level and leave it at that. This would reduce the math of one system while promoting an inherently easier one.
Manyshot: When active, provides +25% to doubleshot; +an additional 10% for every Ranger level.
10,000 stars: When active, provides a +25% to doubleshot a ranged attack; + an additional 10% for every monk level.

Or make them passives, if stances is too strict. You can math out the chances if a pure Ranged doubleshooter would be doing 5 arrows per attack in this way.

I think melee attacks should auto-intim with a d20+the damage done; when executed. Throw intim skill on timer. I think this would help a ton for melee crowd control. Or mix and match, have some abilities that auto bluff, diplo, or intim with damage replacing the skill portion.

Bards need a lot of work and so do barbarians.

Bard:
They need a way to add their perform skill tot heir spell dc's. Their enhancement trees are good, but they need some boosting everywhere. Like every single enhancement needs touchup. All tied to bard levels.
Their songs need work. They need to boost better. The feat can be fixed to provide more gains, then the enhancements can stack on top.

Barbarian
Like mentioned above, they need more dr. Pretty much all of their abilities in enhancements needs touching too. I think barbs rage should be boosted significantly. Offer more dr while raged, offer resistance boosts to elements while raged. All tied to barb levels.

Capstones:
I think they should boost the enhancements in their trees in addition tot he boosts they currently provide. +1 here and there, or +1. Maybe a 10% boost here and there, or +20%. Depending on what the enhancement does. So like a stat increase, the capstone would add 1 or 2 more. Crit chance on spells? There are 5 tiers? The capstone would add 1% to each of them, for 5% overall. Etc, etc. I think this level of boost would make pure viable for its role, without penalizing MCers enough to make everyone go pure.

This really. Most people would see a change to 10k stars and manyshot as a nerf, but it would be a boost, much like doublestrike and offhand procs has become.

[Silkenwise]

There is a general consensus throughout the thread the Epic Ward is pretty badly broken, for EE difficulty monsters. It's a blanket effect that makes trash mobs harder than bosses, and kills variety.

So how about splitting it three ways.

Epic Physical (high melee DR, HIGH physical resist, non-bypassable fortification) LOTS of HP
-balance it out with Low WILL or Low Fort save, comparatively.

Epic Magical (ungodly high SR, massive elemental resists, immunity to charms/cc)
-balance that out with lower HP, and lower Fort

Epic Shield (massive ranged defense: Displaced vs. range, high Dodge, high arrow deflection)
- balance out with low reflex and STR saves. Webbing and Grease should be usable again, ditto Trip and Melee Combat Feats.


The problem with Epic Ward is the uniformity and ubiquity, not the concept itself. Also the lack of diversity in EE monster saves is KILLING variety. A bog standard hobgoblin henchman shouldn't be CR:50 and immune to mental compulsions. He should be a meatsack with a boatload of HP and tons of DR, who swings for the fences; the opposite for epic casters, they should be physical wimps with massive magic immunities and huge nukes.

[BigErkyKid]

You already know what you are going to nerf, so I will propose fixes that I suspect won't be too expensive or have unintended consequences.

First, please provide full LR+20 hearts.

Shiradi Missle/Ray Nerf:
Make Shiradi procs apply only to ranged attacks or 'primal' spells. Please don't nerf the Shiradi destiny for builds similar to a pure druid, ranger, or artificer. Multiple Shiradi procs per arcane spell is what is broken; the destiny itself is creative and fun.

Monkcher Nerf:
Make Adrenaline not work with bows or crossbows. Please don't go too far when you nerf ranged characters. Just taking away adrenaline should do the trick. I would leave adrenaline for the throwers, because for them it makes a little 'real world' sense.

Monk Splash Nerf:
1) Tie monk stances to monk levels.
2) Eliminate some or all of [Power Attack, Cleave, and Great Cleave] as requirements for Overwhelming Critical. The monk's bonus feats will be less mandatory.
3) Generate loot with Incorporeal 25% or greater. This is an indirect nerf to characters splashing 6 monk. Unfortunately, it will also be a bit of a nerf to wraiths.

Regarding Master's Blitz:
It is overpowered when I solo, but I found it hard to keep a blitz going in a group with strong players. In a group, it requires some teamwork and cooperation to keep a blitz running, and I think that should be rewarded.

Buffs:
Change the PRR curve to help out the people in actual armor. PHYSICAL Resistance Rating should probably be limited to armor and shields instead of rings or jewels.

Common sense quick fix. I like it. However it does leave situations unresolved, like what to do with arcane casters in end game.

[Sam1313]

If any class or race gets "Nerfed" theres gonna be a lot of angry people, AND a LOT of people leaving the game for good. Just something to think about there. I've already had a few people in my guild say they would just delete their characters. I've also had a lot of people in the guild saying they will just quit and go find something else to waste time on.
Instead of "Nerfing" anything try fixing what is broken.

[Daze]

36 pages of walls of text posts to say something that takes a few lines.



All balanced means is every class/race should be just as playable as every other class/race:

Fix Bards

Fix Barbarian rage to be cast through ... give it a cost or some prereqs etc. that's fine.

Fix the thrower crit range ... it's almost the only thing that makes a halfling useful .... that and as sacrifices to the loot gods.

Fix melee in general ... how is it that a fighter in fullplate is squishy to trash mobs?



Done

Oh and while on the subject of balancing. Why not a central Karma pool and the ability to gain XP in an off destiny from your main ED ... at an XP loss.

[blerkington]

I'm so hurt right now I'm literally in tears, maybe because I'm female Idk. All this time I thought I was playing Dungeons & Dragons. So what have I been playing? What is this game? Someone please tell me I'm so lost.

Hi,

I'm very sorry to hear you are that upset. The tone of some of your earlier posts raised my hackles and some other people's too, by the look of it.

There are plenty of very good AA builders and players around. I'd suggest you spend some time talking to them, either here on the forums or in-game on your preferred server.

Despite your recent bad experiences on the forums here the in-game community is generally a friendly place, and if you ask for help and guidance you will have a queue of people offering it.

I really hope you get the answers you need. Best of luck.

Thanks.

[Delacroix21]

I have allready presented the most fair and balanced changes to be made that wont destroy builds, but i will restate them again with some editions:

1. Nerf EE monster saves, hp, damage, spell penetration (to give SR meaning again), and to hit (to give ac meaning again)
2. Reduce shiradi procs to 50% spell power
3. Disable adrenaline with manyshot (remove manyshot doubleshot penalty)
4. Keep masters blitz at 10 stacks, but cut damage bonus in half


NEW ideas:
1. Allow barbarians and bards to be lawful
2. Buff bard trees, remove suicide hp drains from barb tree
3. Calculate DR AFTER prr!
4. Calculate elemental resist AFTER absorption!
5. Give shields passive elemental absorption (not just when blocking)

[nibel]

36 pages of walls of text posts to say something that takes a few lines.

Not really. There is a lot of stuff that don't fit in a few lines.

Fix Bards

How?

Fix Barbarian rage to be cast through ... give it a cost or some prereqs etc. that's fine.

Which cost or requisite?

Fix melee in general ... how is it that a fighter in fullplate is squishy to trash mobs?

How?

Done

Definitelly, not done. It is very easy to say "stuff X is broken, just fix it". The problem is when the fix end up being more broken than the original brokeness. And it can break on both sides (becomes too strong or too weak).

Sure, we can just point out broken stuff and let the devs figure out how they should "fix it". But then, why were people being on torches and pitchforks for the devs to come out and ask us our opinions, and let us give out feedback?

There are a ton of suggestions on this thread. And I'm actually happy that isn't much noise here of the same six people repeating their same opinion every two pages. Except you.

So, please, stop copypasting that same thing every few pages. Thank you.

[Delacroix21]

Fixing bards will require more work than barbarians.

Barbarians would get a big boost from DR being calculated after PRR.


Bards however need new songs, new enhancement trees with usefull abilities (gathering cold, COMON!), I would also like their meele song to scale better by having it increase physical damage by a percentage (say 10%) instead of by a static number. Enhancements and EDs that add to inspire courage will increase this percentage to perhaps a cap of 20-25% for pure 20 bards? Also give caster bards the 2 shout spells as SLAs with meta's attached.

[Nédime]

EE Von3 Solo

I've done it in harder content too, that is just what I have a video of.

yeah exactly what I was saying, we're not speaking of Korthos. I mean I didn't watch the whole thing (33 minutes to complete von3 !) but the 5-6 bursts I saw in your video make less than 15k damage (the one after audience with the queen hits for like 12k). So two things : in EE what goes up for instance 1. you won't one shot mobs with that amount of damage and 2. I don't know about your DCs but hitting mobs in 'classic' EE epics (phiarlan, von, sentinels ...) is not hitting them in new stuff like EE GH, storm horns, prison. I mean it requires like +15 to your dc in comparison - and I'm pretty sure I'm beyond the truth.

[MyraScott]

I took the survey, but I wish I hadn't because you won't learn anything from the way the survey is worded.

[Nédime]

Bards however need new songs, new enhancement trees with usefull abilities (gathering cold, COMON!), I would also like their meele song to scale better by having it increase physical damage by a percentage (say 10%) instead of by a static number. Enhancements and EDs that add to inspire courage will increase this percentage to perhaps a cap of 20-25% for pure 20 bards? Also give caster bards the 2 shout spells as SLAs with meta's attached.

Dunna if they need new songs or - on the contrary need their songs to merge into something like combat songs, spell songs ... Mainly for homogenous duration.
I'm perfectly fine with the % thingie : while inspire courage is one of the best buffs on heroics it makes no sense in epics. I definitely like the idea of Greater Shout as a SLA - this could be a decent mix of damage and CC at a decent cost.

[Pandir]

You already know what you are going to nerf, so I will propose fixes that I suspect won't be too expensive or have unintended consequences.

Monkcher Nerf:
Make Adrenaline not work with bows or crossbows. Please don't go too far when you nerf ranged characters. Just taking away adrenaline should do the trick. I would leave adrenaline for the throwers, because for them it makes a little 'real world' sense.

Eh please leave it with crossbows, Artificers have it hard enough if they go crossbow and not caster. Actually it probably would be enough to change how adrenaline works with Manyshot or anything shooting multiple projectiles.

Actually thinking about it, we could really use a good artificer/ranged ED spec.

[General_Gronker]

All balanced means is every class/race should be just as playable as every other class/race:

No, that's not what it means. All characters are playable. Balanced means each is able to contribute equally, yet differently, to the successful completion of an adventure (i.e., they share screen time).

The first step to getting balance back is to go back and fix so many of the nerfs you've implemented over the last couple of years. Go find a Player's Handbook. That's a good place to start.

[Recared]

If you ae looking for OP unbalanced classes then you might want to start with the whopper of all that is unbalanced. the shardi caster mm build. Im going to get alot of grief for this post im sure but It needs to be addresed. Lolz i can go into pretty much any EE quest from EE tor to EE lines of supply up to and including quest like EE brothers forge and EE study in the sabel and with pretty much hitting 8 keys solo them in much less time than 90% of the gamers out there in full groups. There are many different shardi caster mm builds out there some great some not so great but in general the shardi caster mm build is way OP and completly unbalances the game.

Easy is not the same as Overpowered. There are mobs and bosses immune to mm, by the way. Is it more dps than monkcher? Is it faster to complete quests than monkcher? If melees could handle the damage input on ee, would shiradi be more dps than them? would complete faster? In my opinion, based on my experience, the answer is no to all questions.

Also, and this has not been discussed: How will affect new crafted weapons to all balance of power (let's call this a mix between effectiveness/dps/speed)?? Because with the new weapons, you can hit for around 500 damage average per hit. Take a speed hitter and you have an incredible dps. I can elaborate on that number if anyone is interested. Shiradis won't see their dps increased by much at all with all these new loot/crafting.

[Recared]

1. I think Sorcs DPS is not out of the realm of reason considering their role and abilities, when E-burst is taken out of the picture. Dragon Breath is sweet, but at a long cooldown and 5/rest they don't drive the damage. I find that I can reasonably hope to get almost all of the kills in a party if I rely solely on E-burst with some fireballs to clean up the stragglers. I never run out of SP if I take any interest in not doing so. I think E-burst is OP and Sorcs are poorly equipped outside of that.

EB is available to everyone. I used it almost on every build.

[Uska]

If any class or race gets "Nerfed" theres gonna be a lot of angry people, AND a LOT of people leaving the game for good. Just something to think about there. I've already had a few people in my guild say they would just delete their characters. I've also had a lot of people in the guild saying they will just quit and go find something else to waste time on.
Instead of "Nerfing" anything try fixing what is broken.

Part of the problem is a d20 system is going to break on hitting high lvl it happens in pnp and it did here to dnd isn't balanced so I don't figure it really happening here. They added a lot of things that added power to characters to try and make them more interesting well it worked but it also lowered the point at which characters become broken.


Things need to be "nerfed" both characters and monsters or they will never get anything near a balance.