Have not read the topic beyond the first page. I don't play Epic Elite. I prefer Eberron over Forgotten Realms, which makes me TR more than I would like to, since there is no Eberron content beyond level 24.

Said that, there is my pinch on balance:

Artificer

Artificer is the most powerful soloing class in the game right now. The dog is helpful to take off the heat and pull levers, you frontload a lot of crossbow feats to make it useful from level 1, and most things die quickly under your shooting volley (or blade barrier). With self-healing, UMD and trap skills, the only thing keeping it to be a perfect class is the lack of evasion (and that can be fixed with Shadowdancer).

Besides that, I think artificer class is actually in a good balanced spot. Yes, it is a powerful solo class, but it does not dominate the field when grouping. The buffs are welcome in any party, and the class is not multiclass-friendly because of their best spells being on their highest level acessible.

Barbarian

Barbarians are in a sad state for a few years now. Rage prevents you from doing MANY things, including some that shouldn't, like quaffing potions. Their DR used to be decent when the level cap was lower, but now any level 3 cleric/fvs can get the same DR as a level 14 barbarian (5/-). They have innate dodge, but have a low dodge cap for being medium-armor users. And don't get meaningful AC because of all the sub-buffs that lower AC under what a wizard can attain.

Supposedly, the trade off for all those weakness were massive melee damage. That they simply do not have.

Barbarians should have a HUGE increase on melee DPS. Link them to the 5th and 6th core enhancements to incentive pure classing (Maybe changing Storm's Eye to be Blitz-like?). Give them some easy way to recharge temporary hit points (let's say, 5 per character level when an enemy dies), so what it is not "true" self-healing, it should be enough to keep him alive between heals, or while soloing lower difficulties.

And we need a way to recharge Rage uses.

Bard

I have zero experience with bards after the enhancement pass, so I'll not give any outdated info.

Cleric

Clerics are supposed to be to Favored Souls like Wizards are to Sorcerers: You have a lower SP pool in exchange to access to a larger spell set to cast. That is not a real benefit currently for the simple lack of high level divine spells. A Cleric 20 can slot all level 9 divine spells that exists. Where are the options? We need more divine spells. Specially high level ones.

Turn Undead got some nice buffs in the previous updates and are working at-level as it should be. The Enhancement Pass was also nice to clerics, allowing them to go full melee, full casting, or full support. Or a mix at your desire. Their trees are well distributed (I miss every cleric having a Healing Aura, but that is ok), and you can give good uses for all their abilities.

I think clerics are ok-ish as they are now. The only balance pass necessary for them are better capstones (it is hard to not splash 2 monk for +2 Wis, 9% dodge and Evasion) and more level 7-9 spells.

Druid

I have zero personal experience with druids. Pre or post-EP. I'll skip them.

Favored Soul

As said previously, they are suppoed to be the sorcerer of cleric's Wizard. However, while wizards get more spell slots and feats to play with, fvs get more toys to play than their divine brothers: three innate elemental resists, and wings.

Wings, by itself, is a game-changer. I think you guys know this well, considering how many wing-like abilities you added to the game recently (Exalted Angel, Air Savant, Thief-Acrobat, Shadar-kai, Cannith Boots of Propulsion, druid's wolf form spells...). The problem that make FvS such an easy choice when going for your divine class is that it does not have any significant drawbacks when compared to a cleric. Sure, you lose Turn Undead, but your Warpriest Divine Might is powered by spell points. So, you basically do not lose anything.

FvS need to be a harder choice between it and clerics. Adding good high level spells is a way to do this. The other is making Divine Might turn-required regardless of class (So FvS should multiclass for it, or twist turns from Exalted Angel). The third option is giving Cleric extra feats, like Wizards have.

Strengthening the capstones will also make them miss the easy and cheap monk/pal splash for god-like saves.

Fighter

Fighters have the same basic innate problem of Barbarian: Absolutely no way to self-heal. However, you can raise UMD, use clickies, and still retain your full capability. You are not crippled out of your battle mode if you want to whip a wand, like barbarians are.

Currently, there are three types of fighter archetypes that vastly differs on power and balance solutions.

The first one is the tank archetype. This one goes deep on the Stalwart tree, and dons heavy armor and shield, to lock down the most powerful threat in the room, while your group deal with it. There are two inherent problems with this character: 1) There is almost no tanking required nowadays (and on EE, intimidating a full room of monsters is a death sentence), and 2) most of your tree abilities relies on a shield (I think it should rely on heavy armor).

The second one is the Monk splashed Kensai. Using One With the Blade to harness the benefits of monk stances with any weapon is dangerous (I'll say more about it on the monk entry below), and it should require an AMAZING capstone to avoid every non-tank fighter to just splash 2 monk and be done with it. Fighters have enough feats to waste all the way to the Grandmaster Stance.

The third one is more rare, and is the non-monk Kensai. This one in the current game is just justified if, for any reason, you don't have access to monk. Otherwise, the access to monk stances just make it a poor choice.

So, basically, boost the Kensai capstone, and make heavy armor an requirement for Stalwart stance, and work on it knowing it will have a low dodge cap and no evasion.

Monk

Monks have a ton of balance issues. The only drawback is that you can't wear armor if you want the stances, and can't go over light armor if you want Evasion. Considering all the buffs you get from Earth stance, it is a non-issue.

Monk 2 is VERY frontloaded. For two levels of monk you get the elemental stances, Evasion, +3 to all saves, 4% dodge, two feats, and access to Fists of Iron. There is no other 2-level class splash that give so many benefits.

Monk 6 gives you a third feat, Shadow Veil, 2% extra dodge, Adept of Forms, and access to 10k-Stars. If you want to be a decent archer, you requires 10k stars, so it makes that funny situation where the class with a bow icon is worse at ranged attacks than the class with a fist icon.

There is also the problem that the elemental stances are very unbalanced currently. Earth giving out PRR on par with heavy armor is what makes the no-armor requirements so trivial. And as a bonus, Earth is also the best melee stance to be anyway because of the bonus it gives to weapon critical multiplier. And that is funny, because Earth is supposed to be a defensive stance. Why is it giving out offensive benefits?

Backload some of Monk dodge bonus to the levels of rogues and barbarians, move the critical multiplier form Earth stance to Fire stance, and make 10k-stars either only work with shuriken, or not requiring monk levels at all.

Paladin

I haven't played a paladin post-Enhancement Pass, so I'll skip deep commentaries. I will just say that everything I said about Stalwart Defender is valid for Sacred Defender, and that paladins need a lot of more spells for all levels. Ah, and that Holy Sword should be an imbue spell.

Ranger

Ranger is another great solo class, with 9 free feats up to level 11, decent melee and ranged damage, and good enhancement trees. But since the enhancement pass, it is hard to keep up both melee and ranged damage on par with each other. Either you specialize in one of them, or you end up not using half of your tricks while you are on each mode. But other than that, I think the class is on a balanced spot.

On top of that, they only need more spells. The only worthwhile level 4 spells they have is Cure Serious Wounds and Freedom of Movement.

Rogue

Since the changes on U21 to Mechanic and Acrobat capstones, I think the class is on a nice place as well. The three trees are vastly different from each other, but all of them have generic stuff that makes them important for the others.

However, there is an issue, not with the class, but with a specific attack: Assassinate. Currently, there is only two items that allow us to raise its DC (and a third one that is Shadar-kai exclusive). Give us a bone and make at least generic Tactics bonus add up for it as well.

Sorcerer

Currently, it is considered the most powerful class in the game (unlike monk, which is just an amazingly good splash class). Can we list out the reasons?

  • It attacks from far away, so you can stay mobile while dealing your full damage potential.
  • If you are War/Bladeforged, you can self-heal reliably.
  • Full Casters requires less gearing than melee classes (Fortification, Ghostly, spell power, spell crit, Constitution/False Life, and Charisma, and you are at 90% of your gear power).
  • Double Rainbow and multi-hit spells means you have tons of chances to proc an effect.
  • Lots of SP.


Sure, a MM-caster deals much less damage than almost any other character. But the constant procs of Rainbow and Nerve Venom make them efficient. I think it is more a Shiradi issue than a Sorcerer issue. By themselves, using only spells, they are basically the magic barbarian. Excepot this time, they DO deal double damage over everyone else.

Wizard

There are seven spell schools in the game. We basically only use three (Necromancy, Enchantment, Evocation). Give the other schools more spells.

Other than that, almost everything I said about the sorcerer also apply here: Most of the cheesiness of the class is based on EDs, not the class itself.

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I might take the time to write about the EDs in a future post. Maybe not.