Player Character Balance

[SirValentine]

If you put some effort into learning the game you are playing now, rather than arguing how it is or should be more like another, different game, it will help you to become a better player, I promise.

Since this thread is entirely about us arguing about how we think DDO should be, I think it's quite fair for someone to argue that it should be more like D&D's rules.

[blerkington]

Since this thread is entirely about us arguing about how we think DDO should be, I think it's quite fair for someone to argue that it should be more like D&D's rules.

Hi,

The majority of that particular tangent has been about how things are now, but fair enough.

For what it's worth, I think stripping rangers of half of their feats would be a very bad thing for the class and the game.

Thanks.

[danlan]

The problem of balance is only relevant in the context of epic elite, which is directly caused by the following features of epic elite (and the issue is worsening since update 15):

1. inflated monster hp (especially for orange and red named)

2. inflaged monster saves (literally untouchable)

3. inflated monster damages (renders non-ranged combat styles nonviable)

4. infated monster dc (causes players to overly focus on building up saves at the expense of all other varieties; if you dont build saves, you die instantly from cometfall/evo spells/soundburst etc.)

5. especially from update 19, the number of trashes also increase dramatically. This is very annoying combined with the above 4 points.

All of the above render almost all classes combinations powerless except only quite few ones like shiradi arcanes and furyshot monchers. This worsening situation is killing the versatility of builds (which is IMHO what most people like about this game) and the health of the game.


IMHO, the following need to be done as a matter of urgency:

1. EE monster's hp/saves/damages and spell dcs all need to be tuned down to ensure viability for a variety of other builds (not just Shiradi arcanes and furyshot monchers).


2. Shiradi casters can hit from long distance, remain totally unaffected by monster saves, and do more damage than any other casters! Also worth noting is that current mechanism allows shiradi arcanes to multi class like 4 fvs and 2 monk/2 pal etc, and that allowed shiradi arcanes to enjoy top-notch dps, best sustainability and best saves. This is too much of a privilege inaccessible to all other builds. (well, except the furyshot shot build as noted below).

My suggestion would be while making adjustment to Epic elites, it would be necessary to make all procs by shiradi magnified by say, 40% (or another ratio deemed appropriate by the dev team) of spell powers.

I believe with this change in place, shiradi arcanes will remain as a top-notch build (retain solid dps and can maintain top notch defence/sustainability), but will not be so overwhelmingly better than other casters as the current situation stands.


3. Furyshot moncher

Again current mechanism allows furyshot moncher to multi class 6 monk and 2 pal, and that allowed moncher to enjoy THE BEST dps (burst dps so far ahead of any other builds), and THE BEST DEFENSE (top notch saves, fly, dodge, high hp, stay ranged...). This is too much of a privilege inaccessible to all other builds.

I would suggest that adrenaline can only work on the first damage from manyshot/ten thousand star (if techically possible)

If the above is not possible, then maybe make adrenline not regenerating from ranged attacks.

At the very least, maybe change ten thousand star to not work on bows.


Even if dev changes so that adrenaline can only work on the first damage from manyshot/ten thousand star, furyshot moncher will remain as a top-notch build (retain top-notch dps but not overwhelming dps) and can maintain best defence), but will not be so vastly superior to all other builds as the current situation stands.

[Eth]

One thing I would like to throw into the discussion is that character balance and character power is something that doesn't have to be tied to classes, enhancements and destinies only.
Have you tried playing a naked character? Not very powerful, no matter your build.
Itemization is a big factor when it comes to character power.
We already have an item that uses an interesting mechanic. There's not even developement time needed to implement items which powers differ depending on race/class/level.
http://ddowiki.com/page/Divine_Vengeance

Now let's make an example with a current cookie cutter build:
12 Fgt/ 6 Monk/ 2 Pali using an ESOS

Now lets introduce a new weapon comparable with the ESOS, for the sake of simplicity, that scales with fighter levels:
Standard version: Greatsword, 2[2d6] + 6, 19-20 x2
Fighter lvl 1 modification: Greatsword, 2.5[2d6] + 10, 18-20 x2
Fighter lvl 12 modification: Greatsword, 2.5[2d6] + 10, 18-20 x3
Fighter lvl 20 modification: Greatsword, 5[3d6] + 15, 18-20 x4

Now our fighter has to make a DECISION. Do I want to keep my monk/pali splash for more survivability or do I want to wield that shiny sword with 20 fighter levels for more DPS (and grab the fighter capstone while I'm at it)?

[janave]

Why does Character Balance matter?

Being able feels good.
Being useful feels good.
Not being commented on for gimpedness feels good. (Peeps compare a lot, some voice it out in their own 'style')
Die-ing much doesnt feel good.
Success feels good, overcoming challgenge feels good. Forced challenge, that is hard to do anything about but rebuilding the whole character does not feel good.
...

Why isn't every character made stronger, to match the strongest characters already out there?

Some powergap is not an issue, there is just too much scaling from too many sources now. Also those who have the power sources usually know the quests better, since they have probably completed them much more times. If Vets would group with Vets, this would be less of an issue.

The contrast is just too big now for newer players, or in other words Vets are too far ahead in comparison. Id probably try with a TRx2 only difficulty, that yields more xp and lets say 2% better named stuff drop, lets see how this work out. This would ease the conflict between vet group vs newbie, newbie group vs vet.

What would really have improved my overall experience as new player is not having that guy who narrated the whole quest so we can "explore and discover" stuff, instead of taking a guided tour on a railride.

What are some examples of things that could be better balanced?

Progression:
-> Casters getting instant kills when/where mob hp is starting to escalate out of proportions is a good indicator of lackful balance.
-> Autogrant abilities, feats, spells etc should be looked into.
-> Melee characters lacking survivability, Casters getting super-defenses too easily is a common balance problem.

Characters that are more demanding to play, mostly due to external expectations should be easier to cope with, and bring them line with the content. A nod to 'Heal Savvy' classes.

Epics: Currently feels like a totally different game on top of the 'old' game.

Gear: (This might be hard to swallow for some) I would tone down all the ingame gear, as it is going a little hack&slashy.. we can already dualwield ponies. It is time to think about all that twink that was 'left in' for later review. If all gear is toned down fairly/evenly, noone will complain (much).
People will find ways to cope with the added challange, and you can start improving the balance right away.

Raids: being less elite-centric. Make them challenging without being straight punishing(euw Abbot). I dont mind if there is a challenge++ mode, where the random loot, rare loot (tomes) drop is somewhat better, named loot should not be EN/EH/EE distributed, this just widens the gap.

Classes:
I would touch multiclassing with great care, that is the single most attractive feature of character customization in the entire game.

[Vyxern]

Personally rather than the nerf bat being weilded , I would rather see Capstones revisited , at the very least , taking FVS as an example the Capstone giving 2 Cha and not even the option for +2 Wis (or choice of either) is weak and if capstones were increased to be inline with the game as it stands now I feel this would help "pure" builds vs multiclass (which doesnt reduce the attractiveness or effectiveness of multi's which is a major plus for the game over others) .

[GoRinNoSho]

Currently my thoughts on character balance are as follows:

Every adjustment in character capabilities causes a shift as min-maxers attempt to find the new thing. There have already been several cases of unintended side effects. We know that level 30 and an adjustment to Epic Destinies or at least Epic Destiny feats coming down the line.

Assuming that this topic relates to near-term work, then the re-balancing will just tip the player base only to have them tipped again when we get level 30. Thus you have 2 re-balances in the queue as inevitably, there will be a period where some adjustment will be required due to the new capabilities gained at 29 and 30.

My recommendation would be to wait and adjust after 30 has been a thing for a bit. Why? People have already gotten use to the FotM and have used them for a while. 30 will bring the final stake in the sand for basic innate character development. 30 is in a few updates.

Instead of character balance at the moment/near term, I would focus on content coming with the new level set. Every level bump has seen a vacuum of level appropriate content for the new area. While there are currently 2 raids and 1 quest in the 29-30 range, that isn't much to cover the estimated ~3.2 million experience required for 28 to 30.

So my thoughts for now would be to focus on content now to cut the inevitable complaints with the arrival of 30. Then focus on re-balancing after the level 30 adjustments have had time to bake. Unless balance is wrought through the advancement to 29-30.

[FlaviusMaximus]

Ok example: Monkchers can use a bow and PRETEND to be a RANGER.....BUT Make it to where only the PINON can even be picked up and equipped by a pure build Archer Ranger.

There is math floating around out there (in other DDO forums, not sure if it has been discussed in these ones) that the Thunder Forged bow does more dps than the Pinion. Do with that information what you will.

Apologies for the derailment. Really, any discussion about the bows that are available to archers is essentially a derailment anyway, right? - since the central issue (when discussing archery) is the difference in survivability of ranged attackers VS melee, and secondarily the possible imbalance in dps potential that comes from enhancement/destiny synergies for ranged characters? I mean, the tens of thousands of damage that can potentially come out of a Slaying, Adrenalized Manyshot following a Pin doesn't really have much to do with the bow.

[BigErkyKid]

First of all, thank you for this. I appreciate enormously feeling that the devs do listen to the balance concerns and second shame on the guys that spam this thread. I blame you for not letting me read what other forumites think. (Is there active forum moderation? I would love to be able to report spam, specially in "important" threads like this)


1. Ranged vs melee.

Problem: Ranged characters have the best defense through kiting and they hit very hard.
It is clear that it is too easy to kite to death enemies. Adding the shiradi effect and other destinies that allow for enormous high burst damage has made ranged as effective as melees at damaging while keeping enormous survivability.

Solution: Nerf kiting.

* Huge drop in backpedalling speed and higher drop in speed from casting / attacking.

* Nerf jump-cast, jump-shoot. It should slow you down as much as doing it while NOT jumping.

Ranged may keep some high damage, but now they need to be shielded by some front line fighters to stay alive. If they choose to improve their defense, they should then sacrifice damage.

PS-EDIT: Give mobs better ranged abilities to avoid people shooting from unreachable places! A melee mob should always try to melee, but if he cannot because he cannot reach (because he is blocked by terrain, not because he is engaging another player), then he should hit ranged and hit hard!

3. Self healing.

Problem: Healers mostly redundant outside of raids, favors soloism, introduces imbalances between those who can heal very well and those who can't.
I guess I am most famous for asking some changes in the ability WF/BFs have to self heal as arcanes. In any case, it is clear that some classes/races/builds have advantages in self healing over others without sacrifizing much in exchange.

Solution: Re think self healing.

* If you get better self healing in a class/race/destiny, you should sacrifize something in exchange.

* In relation to monster damage, should primarily non healing classes be able to self heal by how much: a) completely - be able to stay alive throughout the quest without additional healing, b) partially - either need to be extremely careful or need to have external heals, c) almost not relevant - external heals needed, self healing mostly as relieve for healers.

A choice needs to be made and monster damage / healing ability adjusted according to it. My preference is b).

3. Shiradi and using ED out of one's natural sphere.

Problem: Shiradi provides the best DPS in the game at very low sp cost and ranged.

Again, see the point melee vs ranged. In addition, Shiradi has made redundant any in ED any caster than does not specialize in insta death (good luck with that, not very effective even for high DCs given cooldowns and other mechanics) or in spamming missiles and no-save rays. The amount of damage that it provides for very low SP usage is insane.

Solution: Shiradi procs not affected by spell power.

This would bring back shiradi procs to what I think was the original intention, a side bonus to an attack that was sizable in epic levels (1-6 cold damage not cutting it anymore in a mob that has 10K HP). Think about base damages so that they remain useful but NOT determinant to the point of making the base spell redundant.

A broader problem is that some classes synergize extremely well with ED outside their spheres. Perhaps you may want to restrict people to using the powerful abilities of only ED in their sphere. Some slight splashing allowed through fate, but not much.

Important: if you nerf shiradi, give nukers some chance in epic content. They cannot hit the mobs effectively now, they blow their blue bars killing trash.

4. Multiclassing

Problem: Front loaded key enhancements and feats favor deep multiclassing to be achieve very powerful and "unnatural" builds.

Examples can be found everywhere, the most common one evasion being used by almost every single build nowadays.

Solution: backload the cool enhancements and feats.

Careful to leave some for earlier on to allow for some flavor multiclass builds.

5. Evasion vs other forms of damage avoidance.

Problem: Evasion is prince in damage avoidance, only topped by kiting.

Solution: Give PRR and AC more relevance. Give melees a fortitude spell damage soaking ability (elemental absorption).

The trade off should be: if I evade/dodge i don't get meaningful PRR and AC. If I have meaningful PRR and AC, it is helpful enough in some situations to compensate the loss of evasion and dodge. To sum it up, give more chances to shine to other defenses beside evasion.

6. Epic mobs and the "tactical approach".

Problem: Epic mobs negate sophisticated gameplay. They save against tactical feats and spells and the most effective way to play them is to have top DPS.

Solution: More mobs and weaker.

I am all in for providing a different feel for epics (not just heroic scaled up in abilities and power). For me, this different feel would be to bring EPIC battles into play. An epic battle is NOT beating the same troll as in level 13, except that now he hits for massive amounts and is insanely resilient. An epic battle is dealing with hordes of enemies that drain you and require group efforts to fulfill the different necessities of the group.
Epic mobs should be resistant to jacks of all trades but NOT to specialists. That is, a CC specialist should be able to perform CC if he has given up on other functions but a nuker sorcerer should not be able to effectively do CC. Melees and casters should not be able to self healing without external help.

Finally: careful with LAG! I am sure instances can be broken down in smaller areas and other tricks can be brought in to fight the lag monster.

7. Healers and group efforts.

Problem: the game is moving more to BYO everything.

Solution: Require specialists and give healers slas.

See my point 6 for the specialist approach. Finally, give healers healing slas so that they don't feel that they either just heal (not fun!) or just kill (not useful for the group, they don't excel at it anyway!). An alternative is giving enhancements that heavily discount SP usage for healing.
Don't by shy increasing healing abilities to healing specialists, it will surely benefit the game!

[EdsanDarkbane]

I really respect the change to ranged combat. I have seen all types of rangers and Multi-Class builds shine. I would shy away from debuffing these classes and synergies. Players found something that works great, let it be.

The Angelic Epic Destiny...Transform into an Angel of Heavens!? *** awesome! I feel like we are losing out by the lack of this destiny's design. It needs way more power.

Taking a look at adding the popular Overwhelming Critical, into race lines may help the less played races. I.E. Longbows for Elves.

Top players i new always had UMD to self heal, or a couple of loh's to toss out. You wont remove this play style. Please dont try.

Maybe the way to go is to Advertise these builds that everyone wants nerfed. Add in some new kick ass ones while ur at it.

How about being able to raise base dmg dice on a given weapon based on the players Monster Manual completion?

[noble_pirate]

The state of balance in the game is terrible.

At the 20 cap, there were several 'best' archetypes for character builds and many more that were good. To list a few, ALL of which were viable in speedruns of the harder content:

- Primarily healing divine (viable but mediocre)
- Offensive casting divine (top-notch)
- Melee divine, monk splash (solid)
- Melee divine, no splash (mediocre)
- Evasion melee warchanter (solid)
- No evasion melee warchanter (solid)
- Spellsinger with Enchantment DC casting (fringe viable)
- Spellsinger with personal melee capability (fringe)
- Rogue, TWF Khopesh all-out DPS (solid)
- Barbarian melee DPS (solid)
- 'Wall of HP' Stalwart fighter (top-notch in some raids, meh in 6 person content)
- AC/HP Stalwart fighter (solid in some raids, absolutely incredible in others)
- Barbarian 'wall of HP' tank/DPS hybrid (fringe)
- Paladin self-healing tank with or without AC (fringe)
- Enchantment WF wizard with DoTs (top-notch)
- Necro WF wizard with DoTs (top-notch)
- Necro Pale Master with Torc (the best build)

That's just a few archetypes that come to mind.

Now we have Monkchers if you want to do physical damage, and Shiradis if you want to cast spells as the ONLY top-notch builds, and Master's Blitz and Fury of the Wild as the ONLY other viable builds. Everything else is so far behind that it is ridiculous. And now content has been designed that (at least on EE) assumes all players have one of these broken builds.



The solution is simple but a lot of work.

First, nerf the hell out of Furyshot and Blitz and Shiradi, with the goal of reducing their effectiveness to at most 105% of the effectiveness of other characters.
Secondly, rebalance all of the quests that were designed under the assumption that players are using broken builds. If optimal group DPS falls from 50000 party-wide to 20000, then mobs need to lose 60% of their HP.
Third, there'll be a couple of people that whine over the nerf (despite the fact that their characters are still capable of completing quests in about the same amount of time and with the same overall difficulty). Grease the door, so that it DOES hit them on the way out. Hard. These people are poison - let them go and ruin a competing MMO.
Finally, offer some form of respec options to players whose characters are significantly broken by the change, ideally including the option to 'respec' now-useless Ranger past lives into different passive past life feats.



Edit: Perfect balance is unattainable. That is no excuse for having a situation that is so unbalanced that only 2-3 builds are even remotely viable. In Heroic levels, Sorcerers are significantly overpowered compared to every other class, but the Fighter doesn't feel totally useless in most content.

well said, +1

[Fhauvial]

1. Ranged vs melee.

Problem: Ranged characters have the best defense through kiting and they hit very hard.
It is clear that it is too easy to kite to death enemies. Adding the shiradi effect and other destinies that allow for enormous high burst damage has made ranged as effective as melees at damaging while keeping enormous survivability.

Solution: Nerf kiting.

* Huge drop in backpedalling speed and higher drop in speed from casting / attacking.

* Nerf jump-cast, jump-shoot. It should slow you down as much as doing it while NOT jumping.

Ranged may keep some high damage, but now they need to be shielded by some front line fighters to stay alive. If they choose to improve their defense, they should then sacrifice damage.

PS-EDIT: Give mobs better ranged abilities to avoid people shooting from unreachable places! A melee mob should always try to melee, but if he cannot because he cannot reach (because he is blocked by terrain, not because he is engaging another player), then he should hit ranged and hit hard!

The more I read this thread, the more I think the issue is not kiting, and this concerns me. It's not that ranged damage is stronger, but that melees can't engage. If you nerf kiting, you're removing what has always been a ranged characters primary defense (hiding and running away) and still not addressing the root of the problem. This is going to put the game into a worse state than it already is, and almost certain to result in a lot of players leaving the game.

Kiting is a symptom of a deeper problem with the defensive system. It's not the problem in itself. The solution is to fix the defensive system.

---

The rest of this post I (mostly) don't agree with. Shiradi is not the best damage in the game. I've been experimenting with different builds in Shiradi lately and this definitely isn't the case. It's SP-effecient, and a product of designing encounters with very high HP monsters and casters having a limited mana pool. The reason it's a popular destiny has less to do with damage and more to do with resource management.

Much of this post shows an ignorance of the current state of the game (no offense).

[phalaeo]

Barbs aren't suppose to be able to heal PERIOD! ABSOULTE FINAL! and that goes double for casting of

What about Halfling Barbs with dragonmarks?

[elvesunited]

Solution: Nerf kiting.

I get this. Really it isn't the damage. It's the ability to inflict damage while staying out of harms way at the same time. But of course the flip of this is that the developers have rendered the top level enemies so powerful that range is the only option for beating them. Take away the kite and some epic elite content may become impossible. And of course you could end up gimping archers if you go too far.

Problem: Healers mostly redundant outside of raids, favors soloism, introduces imbalances between those who can heal very well and those who can't.

The underlying issue being that characters are simply taking too much damage. I don't mind self-healing so much because I like to have the option of soloing easier content when I don't feel like grouping. But I've also tended to avoid classes with no healing ability whatsoever such as pure rogues, fighters, an barbarians. ( who pretty much have to take hires to solo anything past a certain point )

I guess I am most famous for asking some changes in the ability WF/BFs have to self heal as arcanes. In any case, it is clear that some classes/races/builds have advantages in self healing over others without sacrifizing much in exchange.

In theory the trade off here is that standard cleric healing of the WF/BF is significantly hampered.

Important: if you nerf shiradi, give nukers some chance in epic content. They cannot hit the mobs effectively now, they blow their blue bars killing trash.

The issue here being that you'd effectively wipe out an entire build concept. Nukers simply aren't effective in epic elite. The hp and saves of the enemies are simply too high.

A broader problem is that some classes synergize extremely well with ED outside their spheres. Perhaps you may want to restrict people to using the powerful abilities of only ED in their sphere. Some slight splashing allowed through fate, but not much.

Some classes like the Battle Engineer Artificer or dexterity based fighter or DPS Paladin synergize very poorly with the ED in their spheres. Personally I like the variety to be able to experiment with other epic destinies. Don't make changes that pigeonhole classes into a destiny. Variety is the spice of life.

Solution: backload the cool enhancements and feats.

The genie has already been let out of this bottle. For example changing when Monk/rogue gets evasion would ruin a ridiculous number of builds. Any changes made should not destroy build designs. Players should not wake up one day and find their character build they planned and spent much time building has suddenly been rendered utterly gimped.

Problem: Evasion is prince in damage avoidance, only topped by kiting.
Solution: Give PRR and AC more relevance. Give melees a fortitude spell damage soaking ability (elemental absorption).

As mentioned before this is actually a dungeon/monster problem. When the number of reflex save spell attacks becomes unbalanced ( 6 enemy casters all doing fireballs? ) all characters who don't have evasion suffer. I'd think that characters need some sort of elemental resistance based on armor worn. Here's a radical thought. How about PPR effect spell elemental damage as well?

[BigErkyKid]

The more I read this thread, the more I think the issue is not kiting, and this concerns me. It's not that ranged damage is stronger, but that melees can't engage. If you nerf kiting, you're removing what has always been a ranged characters primary defense (hiding and running away) and still not addressing the root of the problem. This is going to put the game into a worse state than it already is, and almost certain to result in a lot of players leaving the game.

Kiting is a symptom of a deeper problem with the defensive system. It's not the problem in itself. The solution is to fix the defensive system.

---

The rest of this post I (mostly) don't agree with. Shiradi is not the best damage in the game. I've been experimenting with different builds in Shiradi lately and this definitely isn't the case. It's SP-effecient, and a product of designing encounters with very high HP monsters and casters having a limited mana pool. The reason it's a popular destiny has less to do with damage and more to do with resource management.

Much of this post shows an ignorance of the current state of the game (no offense).

Thanks for the gentle criticism. Would you care to elaborate on the defensive system? It is an obscure statement so far.

Regarding shiradi:

1. Only competitive option for a nuker (disagree on that?) and hence best damage for casters.

2. Very high in the damage ranking. Perhaps not best damage among ALL classes when played in caster (monkchers do reach insane amounts of damage using synergies with other ED), but it takes very specific builds to beat it. Yes, I have also seen some of the melee youtube videos.

Couple that with the fact that it is not a gear reliant build (just grind the millions of xp to the correct sphere or buy your way to it) and I would say it is one of the easiest top damage builds out there.


Other than the precision on shiradi, would you care to elaborate what I am getting wrong in the rest of points? This is partly because I am a bit offended (not raging, but no one likes to be told he got "everything wrong" ) and partly because if I am misunderstanding a game mechanic, I would very much want to know.

[Leclaire1]

After initially writing a book on my thoughts on this subject I then deleted it and am trying to restate what I think to be the core problem succinctly.

I don't think the problem is a couple of highly powered abilities. I think the core problem is that balancing quests in the way the devs have has made many builds irrelevant or frustrating to run at high levels. In particular, casters who don't have a persistent DPS option are pretty much left in the dust as their sp pools run out real fast if they dish out damage the way most persistent options do at these levels (and there are still plenty of mobs left behind when sp is gone) and they can't hit the DCs for CC and instakill spells (which are the best method of sp preservation at high level) unless they put all their feats in spell pen and school spec and run in magister with all AP in Int boosts. And that sucks. I won't even begin to mention the lack of shrines in the new raids and many other epic quests which only magnify this torture. I have two wizards that I loved playing in heroic levels, but I don't play them any more because it sucks so bad on epic. They are both sitting at 20 collecting dust until I TR one of them and run her in heroic content where playing an arcane is actually enjoyable. I already Tr'ed my FVS and am running her as a warpriest simply because I don't want to torture myself damage or dc casting on epics anymore.

On the other hand, I think it ridiculous when people say that "only two or three builds are viable" on EE content anymore. IMO, this is pure nonsense. I run EE often on a variety of non-uberbuilds all the time and enjoy doing so and am not irrelevant. As long as I have persistent DPS, some measure of self-sufficiency, and a little bit of self healing I am good. Hence the state of the epic (elite) game- persistent, self-sufficient DPS rules and playing a blue bar sucks badly and then you die. This is also true of the new raids.

Thus, in my estimation, the solution is not about nerfing two or three power builds, it is about finding various avenues to buff non-persistent DPS. If casters with limited blue bars can regain relevance in raids and EE quests we'll be a lot closer to player balance.



PS- If contrary to this you decide to go ahead and nerf certain key abilities, please remember that you can't have it both ways. If you nerf these abilities, you have a moral obligation to also nerf all the quest content which was built with these abilities in mind. In the post you said you'd rather change one or two key abilities than to make broad content changes, but it doesn't work that way. Either you nerf these abilities along with all content built around them (starting with the new raids!) or you find ways to make other builds relevant in said content as well. I'd obviously prefer the latter, but I think we all have a nightmare of waking up to a game where it suddenly sucks to play all builds and not just half of them, and I'll take the middle option over that any day.

EDIT- Yes, I do realize that shiradi caster is a decent persistent option, and that is what I theoretically plan for my other wizard. What sucks is that it is the ONLY option for blue bars these days (on account of, as someone just said above, resource management), and is really only fantastic for wizards with missile SLAs who can capitalize on on proc chances with multiple projectiles. This does not make blue bar playing relevant or enjoyable as a whole.

[Uska]

is it ok if I agree with this..sorta? I can go along with rage increasing DR tied to class level, but at 20 would like to see a good increase that scales appropriately for epics. if its done right and theres good survivability, could give pause to players to either multi class or stay pure.

I like the idea better that someone else came up with having PRR tied to type of armor where heavy armor would offer the highest amount and those pajama wearers cant even come close. if DR is already scaling better for barbs, than the PRR from armor plus enhancements, etc to boost it would add to a better defense for them. this of course depends on how much reduction, if any, the devs do with epic mobs dps.

It should scale for epics I do think barbs need some boost there for survivabiluty just not self-healing they should soak up and ignore damage.

[Uska]

Balance is not fun, Rock paper scissors is perfectly balanced.

Gaming is the act of making choices that are meaningful and entertaining, rock paper scissors doesn't have much entertainment value... because the choices are shallow and thus not meaningful.

Balance is vanilla, bland. D&D has never had balance and yet is one of the the most successful games in the history of games. Why? Because all the classes can bring something to the table, most of them are "the best" at one specific thing, but variously bad/awful/hilarious at other things.

FORTY YEARS OF PLAYTESTING... They could have made the classes rock paper scissors 25 years ago... Wonder why they didn't?

Your forgetting lizard and Spock

[Aeryyn]

A few tidbits that I have picked out of the chatter:

• Monks are overpowered. Well, no, not really. The way monk splashes are implemented make them seem overpowered.
• The EE content demands these uber builds. I personally have no experience at that level, so I'll take y'alls word for it. If that is the case, fix the content, not the characters.
• Balance means many things to many players. To me, the balance in this game is in the party, not the character. The characters are designed to each bring something to the table to make the adventure successful.

Just my 2cp.

[Uska]

What about Halfling Barbs with dragonmarks?

The exception that proves the rule?