Player Character Balance

[rcmcneil]

Throughout the game's history, builds have been made with the intention to operate most efficiently within its current environment. The aim will always be towards higher damage output, higher spell DCs, higher spell penetration, higher saves, higher player damage mitigation, fastest quest completion. "Character Balance" is a current reference point as to what will happen with player abilities in the next update. Players who have found the best "balance within the current environment" are deemed overpowered by others who either didn't figure it out first, or who have decided that some abilities should simply not exist in the game. The point remains the same: most efficient within the environment. There's a reason warforged pick barbarians are not the frontline in epics anymore.

The previous best reference point was Epic (prior to its changes). It was the target of many discussions about how a player could operate best in the game, and many builds existed with the main goal of operating within epics. Now, the current best reference point is Epic Elite, with its combination of incoming damage & its mitigation, saves requirement, offensive spellcasting requirements (DCs & spell penetration), healing needed, & player damage output needed for a timely completion. It is also a good reference point because of the majority of player's benefit to running only elites (Bravery Bonus, XP rewarded, named loot, Commendations of Valor, max favor). These incentives have made elite (especially Epic Elite) the most often run difficulty in the game, & Epic Hard & Epic Normal run mainly for a quick completion either for a raid flag, raid completion, or fast XP.

There is an issue with Epic Elite. Yes, it should be difficult. But there is a difference between challenging & suffering. The difference between Epic Hard & Epic Elite is significantly larger then Epic Normal & Epic Hard. Elite, on the quest entrance screen, states that it feels like a quest 2 levels above its difficulty on normal. However, a level 22 quest run on Epic Elite does not feel like a level 24 quest on Epic Normal. The monster hitpoints, saves, & damage output in a Epic Elite level 22 quest is much higher than monster hitpoints, saves, & damage output in an Epic Normal level 24. This means a much higher investment on the part of players to find builds that operate well in Epic Elites (massive damage output, insanely high saves/hp/sp, self healing, maximum spell DCs & spell penetration, as much miss chance gear as you can get (Ghostly, Blurry, Dodge, & PRR/AC if you can spare it). The squeeze on resources that Epic Elite has pressed on those who run it have created the new builds that survive best in them, & are therefore blazingly powerful on lower difficulties.

The dynamic between the game (& those who design it) & those who exist within it (the players) is one of Selective Evolution. The builds no longer capable & efficient in the game have gone extinct; outrun, out-survived, & out-built by new recombinations. This will always be the case. There is no true balance between player & player, the balance exists between the player & its environment.

[HatsuharuZ]

That was an interesting write-up, Varg. Thanks for posting! The "most powerful class" was a bit surprising, except for monks and sorcs being near the top. I would have thought that fighters would be less powerful than bards since they can't self-heal or use multi-target crowd control abilities.

On another note, I hope that if you must nerf the manyshot + fury synergy, then you do so at the same time EE mobs are nerfed. Otherwise EE will be... overwhelming.

[redspecter23]

A big part of what I read in the statement by Vargoille is that the devs plan to dumb this game down further by making mobs do less damage on ee. I really hope this is not the case. EE is a nice challenge at the moment it is just the mobs do not attack the players properly. There should be different spells used by the mobs and player ranged characters and spellscasters should be targeted more then they currently are. Epic Elite is epic elite. Epic hard is a joke. Making epic elite a joke will just cause more of us to leave.

I read it a bit differently. I'm hoping the intent is to make EE mobs hit less hard for players wearing heavy armor and shields and to a lesser extent, medium armor. This gives melee armor wearers a nice defensive edge against the current monk splashes and fotm multiclass toons. If this is the case then I'm all for it. If it's just an across the board reduction in damage, then it's not helping much.

I do think it's promising that we may see more mobs casting more spells that aren't reflex based, giving some defensive benefit to characters, even if they don't have evasion.

[jskinner937]

Interesting read and great charts!

Kiting aside, personally I believe its comical to see an archer or caster be as good or better at taking damage from mobs as a high DPS melee. This makes no sense considering their job is to smack mobs in the face toe to toe. It would make sense to give melees better defenses when holding melee weapons. Even without a shield, a weapon can be used to mitigate damage.I said this in another thread. Give Barbs, Pallys and Fighters a stacking PRR bonus when holding a melee weapon for every 5 levels...say + 15 PRR per 5 levels. Give Rogues, Rangers, Monks and Bards a stacking +2% dodge bonus and increase in dodge cap for every 5 levels when wielding melee weapons or handwraps.

This would go a long way to balance DPS melees versus ranged/casting.

[Postumus]

Turbine has taken a lot of people's money for access to the Bladeforged Iconic, in large part specifically due to this crazy-good ability. Even if it would OTHERWISE be a prime candidate for nerfing, you might want to weigh in how much of a bait-and-switch sort of vibe you want to put out.

Nobody bought specifically bought Furyshot or 10K Stars the way they bought Bladeforged.

I can see a lot of premium players being upset by this. If I had purchased BF because of this ability I would definitely want a refund depending on how they nerf it.

Personally I don't see the ability as OP in epics. You can't quicken it. You can't maximize it. You can't cast it on other players. And a 200ish point reconstruct isn't worth much when you lose that and more every time you're hit.

[Stanley_Nicholas]

IMO, anyone who ranked Favored Souls as more powerful than Druids and Clerics should have the entirety of their feedback considered highly suspect. FvS (beyond a 4 level splash) are weaker at both casting and melee than the other divine caster classes and could really use a bit of a boost.

[Singular]

What’s specific items do players consider overpowered?
Major caveat: Anything considered overpowered by some is also loved by others. We’re aware of this. Anything on this list is also NOT automatically going to be nerfed or changed in any particular way, but these are things we may take a closer look at. There’s quite a few other possibilities we might look at, but these were near the top of the list for discussions.
• Ranged Fury of the Wild
• Monks using 10K Stars and manyshot (monkchers)
• Bladeforged Reconstruct

Comments:

- Ranged Fury is basically the only thing that helps out xbow dps. If you nerf it b/c of monkchers, you're going to make artificers the new bards.

- people paid for Bladeforged. (I didn't, I don't play toasters, but I can guarantee you that those people will be upset if you nerf BF too hard).

- It would be nice if you looked at armor and being hit in EE stuff.

Thanks for going through 1000 surveys. That's time consuming.

[Singular]

TBH, im loving BF Paladin. i don't feel like my character is OP in the slightest, but he is also not geared out for the class like i would do if BF Paladin was his last life. the only difference i can see between a fleshy Paladin and a BF Paladin is BF get a little more hp back in repairs than a fleshy would in a CSW spell. i am actually considering reincarnating my WF Kensei Fighter into BF Paladin. my hope is that the devs take into consideration how any nerf to BF reconstruct could actually hurt melees if its a universal change, but that depends if/when and how much of a nerf.

That's the problem isn't it? Some of these abilities - like BF recon or Furyshot - make otherwise not-OP builds work like Paladin or pure Artificer. Nerfing them to "balance" out the OP builds simply moves everyone down the ladder of meh.

[rcmcneil]

I can see a lot of premium players being upset by this. If I had purchased BF because of this ability I would definitely want a refund depending on how they nerf it.

Personally I don't see the ability as OP in epics. You can't quicken it. You can't maximize it. You can't cast it on other players. And a 200ish point reconstruct isn't worth much when you lose that and more every time you're hit.

My Quickened, repair-spellpowered Reconstruct hits myself for 400-500 depending on my weapon, & about 425 on fellow construct players.

[Zerkul]

Sorcerer's main weakness in EE content is the mana bar VS mobs hit points and evade/reflex. You overcome the problem with a mixed approach which gimps the maximum DPS potential but gives you much longer low DPS rotation: 2 FVS levels and shiradi procs = almost endless mana on no Empowered/Maximise MM-like spells.

If you look at it this way Wizards MM are stronger and their survivability with 2+FVS levels and 2MNK it's much higher making this kind of builds the best for EE content. They can use metamagics on SLA and have stronger "endless" spellcasting rotation... Still inferior to sorcerers maximum DPS but almost endless. After all burning mana on few minutes is not going to "kill the boss" but it's more likely to make you drink pots to sustain it.

[Thumbed_Servant]

No one is "focusing on nerfing multi-classing". If you got that impression from the writeup, perhaps we were not clear enough.

Some forumites suffer nerf-xiety

[Thumbed_Servant]

No one is "focusing on nerfing multi-classing". If you got that impression from the writeup, perhaps we were not clear enough.

And seriously...posters on the forums over use nerf. Nerfing implies making something completely useless. Reducing overpowered abilities/feats/enhancements (hereafter simply ability(ies)) does not necessitate them being nerfed. If one ability being reduced in power nerfs a character then that character has been 1) built poorly, and /or 2) built to unduly take advantage one very narrow mechanic.

How many players will willingly say, "This power I am using is over powered, please remove/reduce it?" We as humans find it easier to complain about things we don't want to lose than to complain about having too much of a good thing. Let this be a learned: It is far far easier to add things and grant MORE power to the player base than it is to later reduce power and remove things (NERF in the overused venacular) ...so be cautious and underwhelm us with power and abilities at first, and then adjustments can be made UPWARDS and the complaints from the community about the adjustments will be almost nil.

For those with the bravery (or gall) to ask for power reduction, there is a gaming term for things game-breaking-over-powered, the antonym for nerf...it's called broken.

When abilities are broken they need to be nerfed for the betterment and health of the game.

[Delacroix21]

Thank you very much for recapping your thoughts on the changes, and for the graphs. I do believe less is more with nerfs, and some abilities really aren't as overpowered as some have claimed them to be.


For example:
Fury with ranged is not OP. Fury with manyshot is.
Bladeforged SLA is not overpowered, lots of people can heal. The issue lies more with meele viability.
Monks using 10k stars. Yes this is nice, but would mean less if doubleshot was actually usefull. As it is now doubleshot is disabled on ranged characters 90% of the time and so it's considered useless. Changing this mechanic would make doubleshot and rangers capstone more desirable. I am ok with 10k stars being shurikens only, but please then buff shurikens more.


You mentioned you MiGHT consider nerfing monsters, and the fact that this is a "maybe" instead of a definately is very distressing. The only thing posters have agreed on is nerfing monsters, so why is this a maybe?


You also mentioned giving monsters no-save abilities. There should always be a save! Just add more will and fort save opportunities.


Some Eds and pres are just plain weak, mainly this is most relevant to bards and the fate singer tree (the tree is DESIGNED for bards, and yet is seen as a horrible ED for bards. This tree needs some SLAs for caster bards, and some more meele/ranged buffs for warchanters.


That brings me to another point, the trees offering a balance of ranged, spell, and meele boosts. The new diving crusader is a GREAT ed as it is viable for ranged (needs a bit more), meele, and spells. Every tree should have abilities useable by those 3 combat styles, but some are very narrow focused and are only usefull to one of the 3 combat styles. Considering players are forced to level these trees (barbarians in magister) in order to get fate points, this tree (and others like it) should offer some abilities that work with the other two combat styles as well.


I am glad shiradi casting was left off the list because it really isn't that powerfull compared to other builds. That being said DC and evoked casting needs love. Without shiradi, how is a caster supposed to kill multiple 5k+ hp monsters? They will run out of mana using "old spells" like fireball etc. after clearing a few rooms while meele keep swing and ranged keep shooting. Old spells need to somehow have their damage scale higher (maybe remove level caps on spells, and make caster level character level). It kinda sucks that in epic content all your heroic damage spells are to weak to kill monsters and use must then resort to SLAs and twists in order to deal adequate damage. Casters using 1-8 spells are the lowest dps there is, which should not be the case. SLAs should be nice additions to characters, not the ONLY way to deal "decent" damage with spells. Shiradi is favored because the procs give your weak old spells the needed boost to actually do damage. It is CLEAR something is wrong with damage output of spells when the procs account for the majority of your dps, not the spells themselves.


As far as multi classing goes I believe it should be encouraged and not discouraged. This character build system is the best of any mmo! and why should very narrow focused "pure" characters be as powerfull? That being said capstones across the board should get a buff, and the bonuses be more meaningful. The capstone should seem to offer a similar benefit to splashing 2 other classes, but they don't. They are rather weak and easily passed over in favor of a few enhancements from other class trees.


To sum up:
1. Fury and ranged is not OP. Manyshot with fury is. Simply make adrenaline only effect 1 arrow (or 2 with doubleshot)
2. 10k stars could be shurikens only, but then add some more enhancements to monk trees that benefits them. As is now there are very few enhancements that apply to shuriken.
3. Bladeforged SLA is fine. The real issue lies in meele viability without tons of instant heals.
4. Buff bards and fate singer, add some SLAs as well.
5. Offer more synergy in each tree with all 3 combat styles. Too narrowly focused trees are bad.
6. Buff DC casting and buff "old spells". Base caster level off character level (you do with NPCs) as remove damage scaling caps. SLAs and shiradi procs should not be the ONLY viable way to do spell dps.
7. Nerf monsters and buff meele damage mitigation (not just for plate, monk tanks exist too).
8. ED core enhancements that increase caster level should increase them for ALL casters (not just 1 type).

[Alternative]

There will always be fotm builds, how many times does this need to be repeated? if you want "variety" you should buff weaker builds/classes, nerfing will only make the existing fotm change into something else. Used to be a time when a pure barb was fotm, if you nerf monkchers/shiraid/BF we might just go back to that, only prob is there are no hjealbots anymore.

Also, when did all those surveys happen?

[Thumbed_Servant]

...

Survival & Defense
We’re thinking about the possibility of making some changes to how armor and shields work, with the goal of making medium and heavy armor more viable forms of defense in epic content. These discussions are at the most preliminary stages, but we’re aware there are issues here.

...

A+ for your paper here Vargouille! Well thought out, organized, and written, with graphics!!!

A feat suggestion for improving shields in epic:
*Epic Shield Deflection - When having equipped any type of Shield you are proficient with, you *gain a Competence bonus based on the type of shield to completely ignore Acid, Cold, Electric *and Fire damage.

***Buckler: 20%, Small Shield: 25%, Large Shield 30%, Tower Shield: 40%

*Actively blocking with a shield that you are proficient with raises the above values by +20% to:

***Buckler: 40%, Small Shield: 45%, Large Shield 50%, Tower Shield: 60%

*Prerequisite: Shield Deflection

[BigErkyKid]

To sum up:
1. Fury and ranged is not OP. Manyshot with fury is. Simply make adrenaline only effect 1 arrow (or 2 with doubleshot)
2. 10k stars could be shurikens only, but then add some more enhancements to monk trees that benefits them. As is now there are very few enhancements that apply to shuriken.
3. Bladeforged SLA is fine. The real issue lies in meele viability without tons of instant heals.
4. Buff bards and fate singer, add some SLAs as well.
5. Offer more synergy in each tree with all 3 combat styles. Too narrowly focused trees are bad.
6. Buff DC casting and buff "old spells". Base caster level off character level (you do with NPCs) as remove damage scaling caps. SLAs and shiradi procs should not be the ONLY viable way to do spell dps.
7. Nerf monsters and buff meele damage mitigation (not just for plate, monk tanks exist too).
8. ED core enhancements that increase caster level should increase them for ALL casters (not just 1 type).

4. Bards need love. This is the ONE that everyone wants.
5. While this can be interesting, I would like to see what the explanation of why we have to level in a given ED. Why not a central pool, even if it is by sphere? It just looks to me like a scheme to sell fate keys.
6. Whereas most people cannot DC nuke, some people have figured out very elaborate DC based nukers. Many past lifes, top gear, superior knowledge of mobs and quests can make it work. Check DrPepper s pure air savant. Needs to be a bit more feasible for someone without grinding for months (perhaps a DC nuker would require some more work, but def not AS MUCH work just to avoid being gimp).
7. They said they would do that, but the crow that needs urgent help are knights in shining armor. At the very least monks have good all around defenses.

[bbqzor]

While a summary of what we said is appreciated, as someone with a regular presence in the game and on the forums for years, it was generally all previously known information. At this point, its become beyond obvious that we play your game more than you play your game, and what is apparent to us as regular long-time players is not readily apparent to you. Even in those summaries, obvious bells chime over things like Grandmaster of Flowers being in the middle of the pack. Its great when its great, its not when its not, so in aggregate it came out in the middle. Despite having unique and useful abilities, and one of the best executed epic moments, it suffers from being a poor choice for many classes/builds.

Its impossible to say how that "balances" against anything without YOU, the developers, stating some direct goals. Or if not outright statements, at least a direction to move in. I appreciate your tone seems to have changed from your original post (which was "we don't have enough time so are going to do a few nerfs"), to a more reasonable one (which is "it will probably take many small adjustments made in many areas of the game over a large time frame"), but again that should have been obvious from the start. My point in all this is, you NEED to provide direction, or our feedback will be exactly what it was here: repeated commentary all over the board, with most of the conclusions being so common-knowledge for long time, high level veterans that often times they don't even rate as worth blinking over.

And, second to that extreme need for specific direction, you NEED to get up to speed on your game. I understand that may result in laughing at this post, but I mean it sincerely. You guys have been through a lot of personnel rotating, are stuck competing against ill-conceived time tables and deadlines, and generally don't get enough time to just get on top of everything to start seeing what we see. We, as epic veterans of millions of xp, have seen all the loot, seen all the changes, seen all the previous mistakes, and you guys NEED that trained eye. There is no substitute for experience. You need to level up yo! Or believe us when we start to get very specific on our feedback... notice most, if not all, feedback related posts have a great deal of CONTEXT. That is critical. This survey was garbage because it lacked context. Your summary was so general as to be common knowledge, it lacks context.

We NEED you to provide some goals. We NEED you to develop a trained eye. We NEED context, in order to achieve balance. We don't need a summary saying "furyshot is probably doing more dmg than intended lawlz". Welcome to over a year ago. You disabled it on Sep 10, 2012. You turned it back on Nov 12, 2012. You, Vargouille, know this. Indeed you were the dev commenting on it. See:

There was a bug at one point where Adrenaline could last for multiple hits of Manyshot. That should be fixed now, and if it isn't, expect that to change at some point!

So like, why has it taken nearly two years for you to do anything about it? And why did you need to do a survey to find that out? You should have known that for the last 17 months Adrenaline was landing on 4 arrows and was meant to land on 1 arrow. It works that way for every other attack in the game. And it is that one singular thing, which was stated, again, 17 months ago to be known as not working quite right, that is making archery a bit excessive. Not monkchers, with manyshot and 10k stars... thats not even remotely a problem. In fact, that multi-class is the only real way to build a viable 100% uptime-with-a-bow character. And there are tons, absolutely tons, of people who want to play a bow guy, and just use a bow, and thats fine, and the game should allow that. Its part of diversity. You know, that thing you are striving to have more of. And monkchers shouldn't get nerfed over a 17 month old unintended error you guys somehow forgot about fixing. But that error... yea it probably needs fixing. Like it has been. For 17 months.

See, its all about context. And, 9/10 times, that context falls on the unintended accumulation of detritus in your coding left over from a hundred barely met deadlines. More than anything else, WE ABSOLUTELY NEED A BREAK FOR FIXING. If that 17 month old bug never went live, that problem wouldnt exist. Tell your bosses, beg them, make them come read this post. You know what Id rather have more than a new quest? Fixed broken stuff. And that includes the new Deathwyrm raid... its broken. Oh it might work as intended, but anything that fun destroying, rage log inducing, irresistible everything, repetitive puzzle requiring, and long should be burned in a tire fire the likes of which tires have never seen. Cut the number of mirror puzzles down to 2. Delete half the other garbage, like jumping puzzles wholly dependent on mario skills which are just easy for people who can and impossible for people who cant. Dont limit completion to people with perfect latency, great eyesight, or fast precise character movement. Plenty of older people, or young people, or people with older machines play this game. Make beating level 28 raids about having level 28 characters, and level 28 playing experience, and level 28 game knowledge. Not about having perfect hand-eye ability and zero latency. Thats something a level 1 can do, level 28 has nothing to do with it, it should be deleted. Sorry side rant there... Point is, you need to stop churning out new stuff and fix old stuff. Believe me, people would be amazingly happy to see a patch that was just 1000 fixed enhancements, destiny abilities, items (handwraps are broken again you know, new crafted ones arent getting dragon bane, the Deconstructor aug doesnt apply dice to them, etc), and so on. Stop future issues like this before they start.

And since this has gotten long enough, and Ive already sidetracked over shadow dragon rage, heres some snips from your summary I thought worth commenting on. I hope this post has been helpful, if forceful. Ive been around a long time in MMO land before DDO, and a long time at DDO, and I grow weary of seeing the same errors repeated (evasion vs heavy armor vs ac issues anyone, next stop combat system rework 3.0). Thanks for (hopefully) taking the time to read.

Oh and one last thing: Haunted Halls was very well done. I could write an entire post on why that is, and maybe I should. But you should take a moment and realize the amount of win from making that step with other classic modules. Temple of Elemental Evil... its already done, waiting to be converted. Do it, and others like it. Everybody wins if the quality stays as high as Halls. Now, feedback:

we may think about how common Reflex saving throws are vs. other saving throws, and other no-save effects that feel fair for monsters and players both. This would be a long-reaching goal, and would need to be made in concert with other changes, such as making sure that players aren’t simply dying, if Evasion was the only thing keeping most characters alive.

No-resist mob and dungeon effects, totally a pet-peeve...

The harpies in the stormhorns are not no-save either, but each harpy that joins in the group attack debuffs the will save of everyone who can hear it, so it might be landing on you even on high will characters if you are caught by a large group of them.

I have never ever made a save against one of them. It doesnt show in the log, it doesnt seem possible to do, and I see no debuff icon or character screen modification of which you speak. My bard has a Fascinate DC of 111+d20 (which still doesnt land on half of anything it should via Spellsinger Core lines btw, whatever was fixed there isnt working on live as of today even with dc over 9000), so if youre giving the mobs DCs like that I should STILL have saved by now with a 20, even if nothing else works. Can you actually go check this?

And all the other epic no-dc abilities youve given mobs recently? Like battlerager slow? Things that just hit you that you have to live with are totally lame. Give us an out, that encourages us to work towards a specific goal IN CONTEXT instead of just weabooing around while it wears off or making builds which can simply tank through. Its okay for players to have no-save effects from time to time (like the fvs aura, it just hits you), or for some event/mob effects of that nature (the room effects in PoP are a great example). But just slamming us with deathward bypass negative energy because, I dont know, youre out of ideas? Lame. The Fire Dragon raid is a much better example, chance for real life reflexes to dodge the fire, or character reflexes failing that, but you get a chance. Your abilities matter. Your build, loot, time, progression matters. Battlerager slow? /puke.

Class Level Requirements: The U18 Enhancements largely required 6/12/18 class levels to get “the good stuff”. Both internally amongst the design team and publicly amongst the players, during the Enhancement pass a great variety of class level restrictions were proposed for the 5-tier trees we have now. These included some very strong calls for 1/3/6/12/28 (similar to the old system), all the way down to not requiring any class levels at all (essentially just requiring access to the tree). I’ll take personal responsibility for fighting for the 1/2/3/4/5 system we have today, which was for the goal of meaningful choices along with interesting possible builds. Instead of nearly every build being 20 or 18/2 or maybe 12/6/2, there’s a much wider variety of builds that players consider and actually take. Along with the third Core enhancement requiring level 6, there’s at least some real reasons to want anywhere from 1-6 class levels at least. And there are definitely some builds that splash 2/3/4 levels for specific enhancements and synergies. While these synergies do provide extra power, they also provide a much wider array of possible choices while still being choices (compared to only requiring 1 level of a class to access the entire tree). There’s still some debate that perhaps 1/2/3/4/5 is too generous, but this isn’t something we’d change lightly.

Your problem isnt with the low end here. Not at all. Its the high end. Having tons of reasons to do all kinds of crazy splash builds is great and good for the game. And I say that as a staunch pure-class kinda guy. The problem is, theres almost no reason NOT to do it. Its the Core abilities. The upper ones (sometimes level 12, often level 18, almost every single level 20 one) require a ton of levels, and even worse a ton of enhancement points. They often make little sense with the class or sometimes the tree itself. And in some cases, they dont even work. Warchanter for example, the 6th Core ability lasts 12 seconds, not even a full action boost duration. Knight of the Chalice, the 6th core ability doesnt provide the good dr bypass it should. And dont even get me started on Barbarian. On top of a T5 ability which requires Improved Trip (which requires combat expertise, which you cant even use when raging even if you somehow wanted to not power attack, and takes int 13 to boot, or basically the total opposite of barbarian anything), the Frenzy Berserker 6th core kills you so fast for such little damage how would it ever encourage anyone to take 20 barb? And while the Occult Slayer 6th core might (its actually pretty awesome to have SR of 70+, if not game-changing), the SR bugs out when your con changes (like, anytime different rage effects go on or off, so often) and the various Bond effects require resetting your counter every quest to work correctly which makes playing the tree annoying at best (really, just cut down the number of bond stacks needed to like 30: sitting out on your prestige enhancement abilities for an action boost cooldown seems more than enough balance for something as common as a weapon swap... its like making a weapon change cause an action boost cooldown, thats punitive enough, 2+ minutes is just cruel).

In the forums, many players agreed that if something was going to be changed, it should be changed right away. However, there were some interesting notes, such as: “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.” Also, the survey responses suggested that we should try to avoid any kind of immediate kneejerk reactions.

This is true and a good point. I am glad you picked up on it.

As a contemporary note: When something is nerfed for Divine Crusader on Lamannia, or between Lamannia and live launch of the patch, this is sometimes an example of this in action. With our efforts to try to get features in front of players on Lamannia sooner, you are likely to see more changes, including ‘nerfs’. (It’s difficult for designers to even think of changes as nerfs, for a feature that has never been live. Internally here at Turbine, a design may change many times before players even seen it, the power level going up and down all the time.)

This is true, and fine, but also please try to remember that we like things for a reason too. And its not always because "zomg moar powerz". Sometimes its just neat, or fits a playstyle or theme which resonates with a particular player. And when it gets changed to peanuts, we go panda. Not that Divine Crusader was in that boat in particular, but some things like Bards getting Cha to atk/dmg in the original Epic/Enhancement drafts back in pre U14 days, that was really cool. And (Id link if I could but I think that beta forum got cube'd) you said something to the effect of "dont worry we got your back bards" and then no cha to atk/dmg anything in the live version... thats some sads. Instead we get warchanter adding cold damage... fitting for a Skald theme but as a warchanter it could just have easily been sonic damage. Or related to cha atk/dmg. Its not called WarSkald (not that warchanter needs changing, just that we do see things which are awesome which die or get changed so badly we no longer care). So both are true. Remember things we like, and try to work them in later even if its not right then (which I think you do sometimes, but wanted to say keep doing it).

What’s specific items do players consider overpowered?
Major caveat: Anything considered overpowered by some is also loved by others. We’re aware of this. Anything on this list is also NOT automatically going to be nerfed or changed in any particular way, but these are things we may take a closer look at. There’s quite a few other possibilities we might look at, but these were near the top of the list for discussions.
Ranged Fury of the Wild
Monks using 10K Stars and manyshot (monkchers)
Bladeforged Reconstruct

Again, this is all context. Fix quad adrenaline shot and Furyshot is probably fine. 10k+Manyshot is fine, the real culprit here is doubleshot being hard to get and almost pointless. Upping the Arcane Archery capstone was a good start, Id consider adding some more sources elsewhere (anything that does doublestrike should do doubleshot for items, perhaps also some other abilities or destinys could gain some doubleshot). Archery needs to be viable, and that build makes it viable. Thats not the problem. Once people can get some real doubleshot so 10k+MS isnt way out in front, itll be fine (note, monkchers should still be better, theyre building for it, but a ranger with a bow shouldnt be miles and miles behind. Just maybe 1-2 miles behind. Etc).

Side note... why is doubleshot 1/3rd for repeaters? Yes, they shoot three arrows, but they shoot slower. It may be equal "per mouse click", but its not equal "per unit time" and thats the only measure that matters. Let repeaters actually shoot more, its what they do. Its on the side, like Desert Eagle .50... I dont want my repeater to say Replica =(. Really, its all about attacks per minute, and repeaters shouldnt get penalized just because they attack in clumps, they have similar overall speeds. I believe as much was said when it went in, but Im saying it again now... attacks per unit time. Parse that. Then delete the silly reduction on the only crossbow people use, giving them a viable direction to itemize in.

As for bladeforged... any self heal worse than recon is useless even before epic, and people paid for this. Real dollars. Changing it now would kinda be a jerk move. That said, its a bit too good due to the lack of comparable options, not because its OP itself. Fvs can self heal, and theyre not on the list (random example). Point is, if other melee could get Potions of Cure Epic Wounds no one would notice this. The solution? Make some Silver Flame sized potions which A) dont debuff you and B) stack to 100 like regular pots and C) are just on a vendor so we can all get them to use, and things would be fine. Make them ML21 so its epic only if need be, or require some favor, or something. But recognize that nerfing bladeforged just shifts the focus back to things like casters self-recon and results in a lot of angry customers. We can already heal, so let us heal. The potions can have a 12s cd, so twice as long as recon, and (I think, going off memory) 4x as long as SF since they dont debuff. No new abilities gained, nothing we can do we couldnt do before, but now people got options and everyones happy.

None of those three need serious nerfs, just a fix to a 17 month old mistake, a pass to bring doubleshot up to par, and getting over adding heals to players who already have heals. Easy problems.

Thanks for the great feedback! We’ll be reading along and looking for your ideas and opinions.

I hope so. Even when its weary feedback. Cheers.

[EllisDee37]

And dont even get me started on Barbarian. On top of a T5 ability which requires Improved Trip (which requires combat expertise, which you cant even use when raging even if you somehow wanted to not power attack, and takes int 13 to boot, or basically the total opposite of barbarian anything)

Ha! Brutal.

[SpiderPig]

I must be confused, they have mentioned that the BF, Monkchars and range fury are the 3 main problem areas. However the charts clearly state that arcane are the most powerful ?????

I am sure I am not alone when I say the only reason I purchased BF was for the reconstruct ability.

[danlan]

What’s specific items do players consider overpowered?
Major caveat: Anything considered overpowered by some is also loved by others. We’re aware of this. Anything on this list is also NOT automatically going to be nerfed or changed in any particular way, but these are things we may take a closer look at. There’s quite a few other possibilities we might look at, but these were near the top of the list for discussions.
• Ranged Fury of the Wild
• Monks using 10K Stars and manyshot (monkchers)
• Bladeforged Reconstruct





Thanks for the great feedback! We’ll be reading along and looking for your ideas and opinions.

Dear Vargouille,

Thank you and other devs for the such high quality and thoughtful response.

Just one area that I would like to seek feedback from you.

The epic destiny power survey clearly shows that shiradi champion is considered by the player base as the most power epic destiny. And it has nothing to do with shiradi archers. It has everything to do with Shiradi arcane casters.

Quoting from my own post on page 32:

"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."

My belief is that shiradi casters are significantly more powerful than all other casters. And the survey clearly shows the same opinion here.



IMHO, shiradi should be put in your list of "What’s specific items do players consider overpowered?".