Player Character Balance

[Chaios]

There are a lot of classes and class combos I haven't played. I've never played a druid, or capped a monk or a pally. So you can see that there are aspects of this game I'm probably missing out on. I imagine that everyone playing has similar gaps in their experience of DDO.

If anything in the enhancement system needs to be changed for a particular enhancement tree to be attractive enough for a player to invest 20 levels and 80 points in, the change should be in the direction of making higher tier enhancements more valuable, not raising lower tier enhancements further in the tree or making lower tier enhancements less useful. I have several capped single class casters and none of them has all 80 points in a single tree, and I don't think that the game is damaged by that or that creating a "must have" 80 points full enhancement tree for each class will improve the game.

When the +20 hearts arrived, I started experimenting with some of my old toons. One experiment is a drow 13 sorc/2 pal/2 rog (maybe I'll get him into epics when I can sit on my couch again). The saves and the evasion are nice, but he has half the sp of a pure sorc, and yeah, enough reflex to evade some spells, but not enough to dance in elite traps like my more dex focused rogues and rangers. Sure he's got cha in spades, but his base reflex save is like 5. But hey, he also does traps... Maybe it was just a bad build idea. If thats the case maybe someone can describe a particular build that gains its Uber status from the fact that evasion is a 2nd level rogue feat and divine grace is a 2nd level pally feat. By which I mean, you can't, because the thing thats causing problems with game balance isn't the defensive capabilities of some builds, its the offensive capabilities first, and ultimately the fact that the *best* of those builds manage to corner the market on both offense AND defense.

On the other hand, my experimental sorc isn't geared that well. And everyone knows how crucial good gear is to any build. In fact, if you're looking for the biggest factor between "powerful" toons and toons you tolerate because 4 years ago the person playing them gave the 7 lds you needed... you might look at gear before "front loaded" abilities, especially considering that, unlike uber gear acquired over years of play, those "front loaded" abilities are equally available to all players, old and new.

Of course, none of that compares to the unbalancing effect of continuing to allow players to exploit game mechanics that most people agree aren't working as intended.

[RapkintheRanger]

I t

Anyone trained in shields using a shield gets a % chance to make a shield bash (Just like two-weapon fighters get a free base offhand swing chance and two-handed fighters get glancing blows)

In the Defender trees add an enhancement to increase shield damage by .5/1/1.5 or something


.

nice. i see that shield bash and blocking are options, but more buttons is not more fun, so i don't play them, just go two weapon or two handed ... if shields did anything -- good protection in difficult spots or extra damage plus extra (real) protection, you would see more melee builds...

I am sure in DnD i see pictures of a melee fighter standing behind a shield which is deflecting the entire breath weapon of a dragon. Kinda like evasion...

buff don't nerf.

[MeliCat]

The inability to provide feedback on 2-6 Monk splashes, 2-4 FvS splashes, 2 Paladin splashes, 1 Cleric splashes, 1 Druid splashes etc. Is a problem. Ranking 'FvS' without knowing how many levels is off. The idea the 'dominant' class (i.e. icon) determines what 'class' a character is for purposes of the survey is also a bit flawed. In future I'd consider a section literally addressing those common splashes (and ranking them 1-5 on power or something).

Once again Aggrim speaks sense. Please listen to this man. I also thought the same of this survey layout but I hope you get what you want.

edit: also... sometimes it takes a long long time before the synergy of certain things gets "popular" and then is perceived as "overpowered". Many months sometimes. Just because people discover a synergy straight away doesn't mean it should automatically be nerfed.

[Krell]

In my experience, past attempts to create balance only resulted in an angry population base. Many players consider it smart game play to research the most effective combinations then spend time investing in those areas. In my opinion, weakening those combinations only angers those players and results in a feeling of wasted time investment. Instead take the weakest classes, destinies, and races and make them more interesting and powerful. At most moderately adjust the single most over powered thing. Consider how XP for quests were recently adjusted. One quest (Von3) was reduced. Many other quests were increased. If you don't have the resources to do it in a positive way, with little if any negative changes, then just leave it alone. Also keep in mind that if someone has paid money for a more exclusive race or class, I think they expect some noticeable benefit.

[Free2Pay]

I suspect the poor melee dps scaling is mainly due to the low base hit dice scaling on epic weapons or/and the increased fortification on mobs, and the increased HP of mobs. Most content is designed such that mobs are scaled to the levels of arcane dps rather than melee dps. And we all know arcane do wonderful burst dps - in that case how do you expect melee weapons to ever catch up? Spell resistance on mobs compared to fortification on mobs. Melee always has the enemies' fortification wall to overcome whereas arcane can switch to spells that do not require SR bypassing. Is that a spell fortification mechanics for mobs that reduces spell crits? Now every melee class is essentially become rogue class when everything has something to reduce melee crits.

Even amongst melee dps, there is a huge divide between 2H and twf. With so much feats investment into twf, it's still not even better dps against single target as compared 2H. No wonder everything melee dps class use 2H. If epic mobs have DR/fortification that makes it difficult for 2H to bypass, it'll definitely be more difficult for single handed weapons due to their low base dmg and low rates of attacks per second. Twf should hit twice as much to compensate. And most effects (wounding / vorpal / smithing / disruption) that had made twf interesting/fun originally are now non-existant due to the HP of mobs, stats immunities, when in the past mobs just died when u vorpaled. Now mobs don't die even when you vorpaled. So there is no use for twf at all since every melee dps is just a contest of raw dps which 2H just do much better.

There is just so much problem with divine classes. If DC casting works 50% of the time for arcane classes when they have the feats to invest and is the specialist, then there is no point for other classes (such as divines) to go in DC casting. And so much unnecessary nerfs to the divine classes - I suspect came from whoever thought the Protection Tree was passable. For a start, unnerf the divine classes.

[Silkenwise]

<...>if shields did anything -- good protection in difficult spots or extra damage plus extra (real) protection, you would see more melee builds...

I am sure in DnD i see pictures of a melee fighter standing behind a shield which is deflecting the entire breath weapon of a dragon. Kinda like evasion...

buff don't nerf.

Bolded for emphasis.

I cannot state firmly enough how backwards this game has gotten from the Dungeons & Dragons roots. Multiclassed archer specialists are BY FAR the most powerful builds in the game and single classed arcane spellcasters are among the weakest. This is simply incorrect.

Spellcasting as a whole, and ESPECIALLY spell casting at post Lvl15-thru-Endgame content needs to be completely beefed up.

Casting a spell is far slower than any other form of attack,
Is able to be interrupted unlike any other form of attack,
Drains a reserve of Mana, the most limited resource in the game,
Is entirely reliant on metamagic Feats to even FUNCTION properly,
And stops at level 17 (now mid-level). Full Stop. No more Spells.

In real Dungeons and Dragons, spell casting classes are the most powerful in the game. They take far longer to level, are much more difficult to acquire power in (because spell scolls are actually RARE), and they have VERY few castings of the few spells they have. The tradeoff is that those few casting are DEVASTATING. A Wizard in Dungeons and Dragons can (if he's lucky, and if he's put half his available slots into one thing) cast 3 or 4 fireballs spells before needing to stop for a rest. The tradeoff, is that those 3 or 4 spells will annihilate a massive area, something a fighter or archer would take many many rounds to accomplish.

In DDO casters sling spells nearly constantly, and they do very little to nothing at all. Most of the spells in the spellbook are now filler. Seriously, when was the last time you saw someone use Stinking Cloud ?

In Paper & Dice D&D, if used well it's one of the best spells in the game. In DDO, it's garbage.

Fix it by beefing up the casters at their base . Make spells BETTER. Fewer saves on spells, lower monster save levels, and (god forbid) better monster A.I.

[thegreatfox]

How can you say variety makes the game so great?
Currently there are only about 4 character types played! And with that, EVERYTHING has a yellow bar!

Join a PUG raid sometime. Count the number of barbarians and Paladins. ZERO! Monk 4-6, Ranger 2-4, Sorc 2-4, Whiz, 2-4, and a cleric or two.
There is NO VARIETY when a 12 man raid consists of only 4 classes!
Before MoTU, when raids were endgame, a typical raid had two hjealors, two or three casters(including bard), a trapper, and the rest were DPS characters. When I say DPS, I am talking about Fighters, Barbs, Monks, Rangers, Pally's (yes we thought of Pally as a DPS class).
When is the last time you saw a Barb in a raid? If you did, he was prolly running at half speed while chugging SF pots like Lindsay Lohan chugs vodka!

I'm a barb who posts for Pug raids

I make sure to bring along healers, always.

But I agree, its pretty amazing how far the game has gone into the "self-heal or don't bother" region. One time I posted for an EH Fot run, got everyone together but 1 healer (had 1 already). I had a guy apply who was not a healer and he tried to argue with me that EVERYONE is self healing and 1 healer should be the absolute maximum for the raid.

And yes, when it comes to self healing I'm chugging the SF pots, and I hate every second of that 30 second debuff. Especially when something hits me with an exhaustion that I didn't see before drinking the pot and now I'm suddenly helpless and moving at 50% speed for 30 seconds. I like barbs, they are fun to play. Lots of spin to win and high damage and HP. But very little self healing, and defenses are pretty minimal.

Also, storm's eye. Come on....
Who really thought that was a good ability? For a capstone? Pleeeeeeeeeease change it? Maybe into something that doesn't get me killed even quicker? I would use one of the other trees but my barb just wouldn't feel the same without the frenzies and supreme cleave.

[Delacroix21]

Ranged and shiradi casters are not overpowered, as technically casters could (or should do more damage with maxed out spells) and blitzing meele easily out dps ranged monk archers.


The reason we see all these builds is not because they are so good, but because others are so BAD!


Players are forced to range as EE monsters hit to hard. They can not be tanked, and this game (and raids!) have become a joke of people running around like idiots ranging and casting as it's the only way to do EE. Casters are FORCED into shiradi as EE mobs save and evade all their spells, in addition they have too many HPs and casters would be out of mana in no time using tradition spells to kill them. How should a non-shiradi cast kill a mob with 100k hp? Tell me how and why you designed that!


The reoccurring theme here is:
1. Nerf monster saves, hp, to-hit, and damage

THEN buff weaker classes, PrEs, and EDs


Then, and only then, should you look at nerfing other abilities, and if it's even needed.

[Captain_Pengie]

Please do not waste time trying to balance character classes/races/destinies as IT IS NOT NEEDED. There is NEVER going to be equality between the killing ability (which is what I assume you mean by 'power') of all builds. D&D is not a game where this type of balance has ever been possible or even desirable. Each character is not supposed to be a killing machine, they are supposed to be able to contribute to the success of the PARTY using their skills/abilities according to the role they play (healer, trap monkey, CC etc) not have everyone aiming to be top of the kill chart. If all that people desire is to be death dealers then everyone would simply play monks - or better yet play WOW.

D&D is about dungeon delving with a party setting out to achieve a goal - not about who kills the most. A healing spec'd cleric who keeps his party alive despite overwhelming mobs of monsters but does not achieve a single kill is many times more valuable (i.e. powerful) than an assassin that can kill with a glance.

DO NOT seek character balance - that is for lesser games which promote the stupidity of PvP (something which should not even exist in DDO). What you should be seeking is balance between the character builds which fulfil a similar ROLE so that each can feel they are able to contribute to that role despite their personal preferences for race/class/enhancement/destiny combinations. e.g. a healing spec'd FS (currently not possible - a failing in role balance between divine classes) should be able to achieve as much positive energy as a healing spec'd Cleric, and a Rogue/Artificer should be able to achieve a similarly high Spot skill as a Ranger (at the moment impossible as the Ranger has Wild Instincts on top of everything else while Rogues/Artis have no obvious way to boost their skill that high and thus can easily miss traps in EE dungeons).

Seek balance for well put together parties filling by characters that target a role, not individual players out to top the kill count. DDO is a group game and should not go the path of dumbing things down to the point where everyone solos their way through using the flavour of the month killing build.

[Aviya]

Changes that would bring more balance and help more teamplay

• Give Heal and Mass Heal full spell positive power instead of half.
  
  
• Add 10 hp for each point spent in the following dps enhancement trees: kensei, berserk, Knight of the chalice, Henshin, Acrobat, Assassin, Warchanter, Tempest
  Add 20 hp for each point spent in the following tank trees: Stalwart, Sacred, Shintao
  More Hp means more survivability, really needed when engaging epic elite mobs.
  
  Right now when I play a healer I find that my job is most of the time to rez people: usually either the melee is at full health or is (almost) dead after they are hit by something. They have so low hp that very often the reaction time required for a healer it's too problematic.
  
  
• Remove doubleshot penalty from manyshot but keep it for Ten K stars. Basically the idea is that a monk-cher can use ten K and manyshot but sacrifices all his doubleshot. Other classes will have manyshot and doubleshot.
  
  
• Arrow of Slaying becomes 250 untyped damage with a 9 second cooldown that cannot be multiplied by crits or adrenalines (so it can be done twice during a manyshot instead of one)
  
  
• Bladeforged communion of scribing no longer gives you access to reconstruct sla. It adds instead the reconstruct spell to your paladin spellbook as a level 1 spell (prerequisite 4 paladin levels). This means the spell is now like a normal reconstruct, and can be interrupted if not quickened
  
  
• Adrenalines fully work on cleaves: The boost to the damage hits all the mobs you can hit with your cleave attack instead of just one.
  
  
• Master blitz can be charged only when tactical feats hit a monster but never fades when you go through portals or loading screens.
  When you start your blitz you deal 25% more damage and have 1 minute to kill something. Then you have 40 seconds for stack 2, 25 secs for stack 3, 18 secs for stack 4, 12 seconds for stack 5, 8 seconds for stack 6, 6 for stack 7, 4 for stack 8, 3 for stack 9 and 2 for stack 10 (at this point the decay is similar to archer focus)
  
  
• Modify core 2,3 and 4 of Draconic Incarnation Destiny. Right now they are just a filler (they repeat what is already typed in core 1).
  New Core 2: for 1 minute the cost of all your spells is reduced by 50% (cool down 3 minutes); Core 3: Each time you crit with a spell you get 5 temporary spell points; Core 4: your evocation spells have a 10% chance to slow enemies (non boss) movement speed and attack speed by 50%
  
  
• Shiradi procs can only happen once for each spell you fire. Magic missile, Chain missile and scorching ray can only proc once. Arrows, repeaters and throwers can instead proc every time as they do now.

[Thumbed_Servant]

I'd like to add another broad area to that list: pure-class versus multi-class.

I feel that not only should every single class be viable and able to contribute, but that every single class when pure-classed should be viable and able to contribute.

For me, that should be the basic starting point for balancing classes, and multi-class measured against that yard-stick.

I don't mind if someone figures out clever, synergistic combinations that are a bit more powerful overall, but there should be trade-offs. Multi-classing should never be a no-brainer, and pure-class should never be an outright bad choice.

Traditionally in D&D, multi-classes, being less specialized, had less raw power, balanced with more versatility. It seems in some cases in DDO, they get more versatility AND more power, making pure-classes strictly inferior.

The enhancement pass contributed a lot to this. I think a hard look at capstones is in order.

And, though I know some people will hate it, perhaps revisiting the class levels needed for each tier of enhancement. Personally, I think 1/3/6/9/12 would be more appropriate than 1/2/3/4/5.

There is a lot of wisdom in this post.

Removing the cherry picking by raising the minimum level-in-class requirements for class trees has a lot of merit.

The idea of a *class* tree separate from the *prestige* trees is also intriguing. Special *prestige* powers would be in prestige trees with higher minimum-in-class level requirements so multi-classing is still able to utilize different class abilities but not cherry pick the most potent *prestige* abilities.

Before the enhancement trees the powers of *prestige* enhancements was broken up: some at lvl 6, more or the rest at 12, more or the rest at 18 (with rare exception). Now with the trees most of the abilities can be had with only 5 levels in a class, allowing access to abilities from tier 1 to tier 5, with only core abilties 3, 4, 5 and 6 out of reach. That's a huge difference. THIS is one of the things I was referencing in my post about power creep...why did Turbine have to make so many of the *prestige* enhancement powers available so much lower in the class levels when they made the enhancement trees? WHY could they not rework the mechanic of the enhancement system but leave the access to the powers more or less the same? When we raise the level cap, there of course should be more power added at the characters will be higher level and facing higher level challenges; when you rework a system that will still apply to the same base of characters WHY make the system offer more power? You might make people more happy in the short term, but then you have to up the challenge of the content to now match the more powerful characters, and again we end up with stupidly high numbers for mob hit points/ saves/ ability-spell dc's/ etc.

[Free2Pay]

Loot disparities is every much an aspect for class balancing. Melee classes are more heavily dependent on gears and loots than their spell casting counterparts (with their multiple past lives). Not only do we need gears to perform their basic functions, we need even better gears to cover our weakness which are now often more deadly than ever. What role can melee perform in a spells-heavy content? Dps? If one is to argue that arcane should be the dps master, than that dps department in raid for melee has become non-existant. Tank all the spells in heavy armor perhaps? When even tanking trash melee mobs are a problem? For all the efforts one can put into melee classes, that same amount of effort is optimally much better spent on arcanes that has natural better survivability (due to range/kiting/displacement/incorpeal), utilies (ddoor/jump/cc), self healing (reconstruct/palemaster) and dps (various synergies with EDs).

[J2345678]

Don't nerf fun things, buff weak ones.

* Ranged combat:
Non-ability (Multishot / 10k Stars) bow and non-repeating crossbow damage is too slow and weak.
Reducing Doubleshot after abilities is bad.
Make arrows and bolts stack up to 1000, like the Artificer spell Conjure Bolts.

* Melee Combat:
Melee need more physical damage reduction and elemental resistance.

* Spellcasting:
All non-epic destiny (Draconic: Energy Burst) spells cost too much mana for the number of enemies and their health / saves.
You should be able to dispell monster buffs.
You should never remove or dispell party members' spell effects (Niac's/Eladar's/Creeping Cold/ect).

* Class & Race Balance:
These enhancements should be under 30% health:

• Rogue, Assassin: Execute
• Fighter, Kensei: A Good Death
• Ranger, Deepwood Stalker: Hunter's Mercy

* Epic Destinies:
Fatesinger, T6 Turn the Tide: cooldown needs to be 5 minutes like other epic moments not 6.
Magister, T6 Arcane Tempest: cooldown needs to be 30-60 seconds not 3 minutes.

* General thoughts on character balance:
Abilities should never buff monsters or weaken characters who take them.
Capstone enhancements need to be stronger for every class.

Ten-thousand Stars: Should be shuriken only.
Many Shot: Is fine, don't nerf it.
Master's Blitz: I don't like having to get the killing blow to gain stacks and duration.
Shiradi Champion: Is fine, don't nerf it. *see General thoughts on character balance
Monk class: Is fine, don't nerf it.
Adrenaline Overload: Should be melee only.

[red_cardinal]

[color=red]

Ten-thousand Stars: Should be shuriken only.
Many Shot: Is fine, don't nerf it.
Master's Blitz: I don't like having to get the killing blow to gain stacks and duration.
Shiradi Champion: Is fine, don't nerf it. *see General thoughts on character balance
Monk class: Is fine, don't nerf it.
Adrenaline Overload: Should be melee only.

I agree with this. People are rolling Monkchers because you guys can't distinguish an arrow from a shuriken. It's a bad mistake to use 10k stars with arrows. It only overpowers one build.
Also, adrenaline working with ranged weapons is also a bad mistake. Whole raids were soloed on EE because of this. Look at achievements forums and you'll get it.

But, that's only a minor fix. I'm irritated more because of the fact that it takes an hour-two to fix it and Turbine doesn't see it and lets it be in the game for over a year.

--------

From my point of view, I would define balance as:
- equal damage output by any build in a fixed time frame through the use of any abilities or spells in a 30 meter radius on 1 mob,
- equal damage output by any build in a fixed time frame through the use of any GROUP affecting abilities or spells in a 30 meter radius on X mobs,
- equal cooldown time, casting time, number of abilities with insta-kill characteristic and an equal chance for that insta-kill to proc successfully for any build on 1 mob in 30 meter radius in a fixed time frame,
- equal cooldown time, casting time, number of abilities with insta-kill characteristic and an equal chance for that insta-kill to proc successfully for any build on a GROUP mob in 30 meter radius in a fixed time frame.

So, what does that mean? DDO can't fit that definition of balance because it was built by board game rules and these rules don't include TIME. Implementation of TIME with the static rules unbalances the game.
Not to mention Turbine's twisting of rules. So the corruption is even more deadly to the balance.

[Singular]

If we can spend a day or a week pulling back on the strongest rather than months increasing everything else, that leaves us far more time to implement new features.

I apologize, the above is disturbing. Yes, I know that you have limited developer time but it's sad that you have to pull down builds in order to support other builds.

[zwiebelring]

Where they fail is percepting what actually is the strongest. In case of burst ranged dps it is Furyshot. But I fear they nerf absolutely everything now.

Just let Adrenaline + epic moment work with melee attacks only. That cancelled just the insane burst dps but let people keep their build intact on its very base. And remove doubleshot penalty from manyshot.

[Free2Pay]

Yes, do NOT nerf anything. It does absolutely nothing for melee and divine classes. I suggest the quick fix of tweaking loots instead of various enchancements and EDs or quest difficulty/content. Bring back the various original vorpal abilities, add 2W to base weapon dmg etc. Unnerf divine classes. Give us epic dragontouched armors to improve survivability etc. You can easily rollback changes to loots than to enhancements/EDs no?

[Seljuck]

Ranged and shiradi casters are not overpowered, as technically casters could (or should do more damage with maxed out spells) and blitzing meele easily out dps ranged monk archers.

Try run blitz in FoT or any other quest with portals or 12 ppl who steal kills etc... I wish u good luck with that.

The reason we see all these builds is not because they are so good, but because others are so BAD!

Others are bad, because they don't have chance to learn how to play when You zerg through quest on Your shiradi or monkcher and kill everything. From the other hand Iconic charakters didn't help here too. Starting on lv 15 w/o knowledge how to play on higher lv content didn't help too.

Players are forced to range as EE monsters hit to hard. They can not be tanked, and this game (and raids!) have become a joke of people running around like idiots ranging and casting as it's the only way to do EE. Casters are FORCED into shiradi as EE mobs save and evade all their spells, in addition they have too many HPs and casters would be out of mana in no time using tradition spells to kill them. How should a non-shiradi cast kill a mob with 100k hp? Tell me how and why you designed that!


The reoccurring theme here is:
1. Nerf monster saves, hp, to-hit, and damage

THEN buff weaker classes, PrEs, and EDs


Then, and only then, should you look at nerfing other abilities, and if it's even needed.

I agree here with sick monster stats. That part of EE content must be rebalanced. Crowd control must start working in EE content.
In the second part of your statement I can not agree. Someone tells you to kill the mob with 100k hp alone? Take 1-3 dps, divine and they kill that mob. This is MMO game not a single player, You dont have to do everything solo.

[nibel]

• Make Prism/Rainbow/Double Rainbow only procs once per second. (This remove multi-procs from magic missiles and such)
• Make Nerve Venom procs only on ranged attacks (you poison your arrows, not your fingertips to fly with your spell)
• Make Adrenaline and Slayer Arrows only affect the first arrow in a Manyshot/10k/Doubleshot hit.
  
  • If the engine can't work out to make it only hit on the first arrow, turn it into bane damage, and NOT multiplied on crits.
• Make Fury Eternal only works on melee vorpals.
• Make Blitz starts at full power, but only lasting 20~60 seconds, to match every other Epic Moment. (What makes Blitz so powerful is not the bonus, but how you can keep it up the whole quest)
• Move the monk extra crit multiplier from Earth Stance to Fire Stance. Earth is supposed to be the tanking stance. Fire is supposed to be the offensive one. Make it so.
• Remove the Reconstruction SLA from Bladeforged tree. Paladin Bladeforgeds can survive having access to only Repair Critical Wounds, just like non-Bladeforged paladins.

I think that properly nerf everything people are afraid of being nerfed. Make it so.

[blackdoguk]

Why you would even approach this topic with the disclaimer that you don't have the ability to give this the attention it deserves baffles me. Balance is the core of the game, and varied/interesting synergistic possibilities keep people around. If you are going to alter this then you run the risk of alienating players and I have no desire to lose more friends as I have in the past because of thick headed decision making and as Seph said "band aids over bullet wounds..."

The whole issue is rather simple in my head, and goes to the heart of running games, be it on a table top or over an internet connection. I've been a DM in my local group for seven years and if there was one lesson I could extract from my time it is as follows

"If you force players to relinquish something you have already granted them or retroactively diminish a power level your PCs have achieved you are doing it wrong."

Don't mistake this for a "game is OP nothing we can do about it now" attitude. Instead the game, at least at EE has evolved into something that people still extract a lot of challenge and satisfaction from. On a stat level yes it can be hideously inflated, but that's a natural progression that power gamers will find themselves in. Instead of just chopping away at a given destiny spend that dev time giving us another option - even ONE MORE DESTINY that can compete in terms of viability is infinitely preferable to the nerf bat. As creative people isn't that far more satisfying that going back on what you have already brought into existence?

Some other people have commented on it, but I think there is an element of torch and pitchfork community mentality here. A lot of players have demonstrated quite a level of ignorance as regards some of these classes - especially shiradi. While yes this is indeed a powerful class, it sits behind an enchant specced draconic wiz with good spellpower by some distance. Take the two into EE Storm horns and the wiz will clean up while energy bursting held mobs - there's no contest. That's before they even try insta death spells.

Master's blitz? If anything this needs a buff in my opinion. Keeping this up in a full raid group of pugs is near impossible - people just don't want to prep mobs/refrain from killing and this encourages a really reckless style of play. In my opinion it requires an expert level of communication which is something that we want to encourage. I have never once in the year or so that I've come back to the game post MOTU thought "oh that darn blitzer is so OP." Not once. If anything I feel blitz should start with 2 stacks/3 if under 50% HP. Asking someone to sit at 400hp on EE if even for a few seconds while wading into melee is a death sentence on harder content. I'd be happy with a 50% reduction in damage in favour of more stability. In addition your fix to portals and charges is arguably worse than before - now we don't know whether going through a portal will adversely affect us or not.

I remember before I left the game in 2011 listening to a DDOcast round table discussion where Lessah spoke about the "current state of haves and have nots in the game." This was an issue at the time and is an issue today. It will be an issue in 2017 if we are (with any luck) still going at this. The game has been homogenised (at least in terms of loot) somewhat since the days of 20 cap epic grind fest, and this has largely been effective, but there are always going to be people decrying the power of others. Give them a viable option as an alternative instead of reigning in the ability of others to combat 500k hp giants.