The Balance Change post

[Loromir]

I want to weigh in here before this thread explodes. It is clear that you guys have put a lot of thought into this. I haven't digested this enough to make a judgement if these are good or bad changes...but it is clear that you have put some thought into this.

I applaud you for trying to continue make this game better and keep it relevant.

I know there will be plenty of vile spewed...but realize....there are still plenty of us who appreciate your hard work.

OK masses....Flame on!!!!

[CheeseMilk]

Why ?

are you intentionally trying to screw over 'other weapons'. like light hammers, maces, maul.. .. the weapons that need more help..
why not just delete these from the game.. if that's the case

you are giving high threat range weapons like falchions a huge improvement of critical threat range for weapons that already have a good threat range and screwing ones that don't

I would rather see this reversed to even up weapons of choice not make them weaker.
* Adds +1 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +3 to all other weapons.

Dude. It's the same as it is now.

The crit ranges just won't double from enhancements and EDs into ridiculously large ranges like 7-20 anymore.

[Lonnbeimnech]

Some excellent changes.

I'm a little surprised about the twf nerf, and think that maybe the amount of damage being done by twf might have more to do with the upgrades to tempest and assassin, rather than twf in general. At the same time it's only 6 MP, so whatever.

[Loromir]

Why ?

are you intentionally trying to screw over 'other weapons'. like light hammers, maces, maul.. .. the weapons that need more help..
why not just delete these from the game.. if that's the case

you are giving high threat range weapons like falchions a huge improvement of critical threat range for weapons that already have a good threat range and screwing ones that don't

I would rather see this reversed to even up weapons of choice not make them weaker.
* Adds +1 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +3 to all other weapons.

No....completely flawed logic there.

[Krelar]

Dude. It's the same as it is now.

The crit ranges just won't double from enhancements and EDs into ridiculously large ranges like 7-20 anymore.

It's not quite the same but it's close. Named items with extra-large crit ranges are getting nerfed a bit. ESoS will go from 30% crit chance with just improved critical to 25% crit chance for example.

[JOTMON]

The changes are designed to cut back on the power of two weapon fighting Paladins, Vanguards, and fix the fact that Paladin 14 hybrids are by many players' estimation the best missile characters. Throwing weapons are not affected by Holy Sword.

Sev~

ok, still no holy sword buff for thrower builds.
and you are killing the Paladin archers.. no big loss..

[slarden]

Two weapon paladins are still doing better DPS than Paladins using two handed weapons or single weapon fighting by a good margin. But by all means, we'd love to see some test numbers from Lamannia! We added some bigger DPS kobolds in the test dojo to help players test.

Sev~

Single targets of course - but two weapon fighting is also weaker against mobs by a large margin.

[ValariusK]

While working on TWF, can we adjust the hit box on it? It's pretty annoying, especially when things are lagging even a little bit. It's even annoying when trying to do run-by box smashing.

[Cordovan]

I want to pop into the thread to encourage folks to make a concerted effort to stay on track. Ultimately, we'd much rather hear your feedback and questions to our posts than refutations of other players' suggestions. I want to be as flexible as I can be, but would prefer that this thread not shift over into a long back and forth over someone else's ideas.

It goes without saying that we will not tolerate insults, harassment, or abuse. This is a particularly important topic for us, and we really want to get meaningful feedback from all of you. Thanks!

[morqual]

Struggling with yet another proposed hit on PRR. I have had to reduce my defensive capabilities recently to increase dps in order to effectively tank in an environment where the dps of others is rising. PRR is a key part of those defenses and a previous update or two have both reduced PRR.

I know you have suggesting adding some feats to give the opportunity to mitigate some of this loss. But every feat I have is important to my build and sacrificing one or more to retain my current PRR levels will have impact elsewhere.

It is already hard enough to tank, especially in the more recent Epic Elite raids without this change, making it even harder.

Please reconsider this, or come up with a way for more defense oriented builds to retain the PRR whilst preventing the higher dps builds from taking advantage (Who I am sure are the real reason for the change). A suggestion might be to have a different PRR formula for Stalwart and Sacred Defenders, or beef up the PRR bonus earned from Durable Defense to compensate.

Heres hoping you are listening.

[Sgt_Hart]

Heavy Armor Training
Requires Fighter Level 2
You gain +3 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 6
You gain +6 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Master
Requires Fighter Level 10
You gain +9 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Heavy Armor Champion
Requires Fighter Level 14
You gain +12 Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating while wearing heavy armor.

Notes: All Heavy Armor feats stack for a total of +30. The lower level feats are not prerequisites for the higher level feats so a higher level fighter could save a feat if he/she wanted to skip Heavy Armor Training and forego the +3 and still have access to Heavy Armor Champion.

You just typo'd " character level" as " fighter level" a bunch of times.

[hit_fido]

Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

Seems a bit much to remove MRR from armor completely. That's more or less where we started when it was determined medium and heavy armor needed something to make it attractive vs cloth/leather plus evasion. What has now changed to make some MRR unnecessary again? It was already reduced once, wasn't it? I'd prefer to see it not removed entirely. At least tie it into the enhancement bonus of the armor:

heavy grants (armor enhancement bonus) Magical Resist Rating
medium grants (armor enhancement bonus * 0.5) Magical Resist Rating
light grants nothing extra

I already *****ed about manyshot somewhere else. But nothing else here seems really objectionable to me. Even the divine grace change means a mere 2 paladin splash still gives +8 to all saves. Seems reasonable. I imagine a lot of angst over the holy sword being melee only, for those who built for it recently.

[WiseFreelancer]

snip Sev~

Number of comments about various things:

1) The manyshot/10k changes don't appear to be explained here, although I know the rational has been given in the AA threads for those who've read them.

2) The change to Improved Critical was mentioned in previous posts and seems eminently reasonable to me. HOWEVER, I found it very difficult to understand what was meant by reading this thread first time through. May need more explanation. My reaction was same as another poster - why boost scimitars/rapiers more when they're already better? It only clicked that this is only giving each weapon what they were already supposed to have after a minute or two. Doesn't this also do strange things to the attempted "balance" in the Swashbuckler Core 3?

3) Most of the "nerfs" seem relatively reasonable to me. I'm not sure whether Holy Sword really needs to be cut from bows/crossbows, given the improvements in Mechanics and Deepwood/AAs give similar bonuses to other builds now.

4) Divine Grace changes are more than fair, but does this mean we won't be getting new items with new save bonuses? This was mentioned as an alternative solution when it was discussed last time? Its still hard to get very high saves on lots of multiclass toons without paladin levels, even with appropriate stat investment.

5) I've never built a tactical DC toon, so take this feedback with a pinch of salt, but isn't +20 a bit overkill? My biggest fear is if fighters can get such a huge "up" on DCs then they might end up needing to be raised to justify characters taking these feats, but that will have very, very serious implications for DC-based casting. I'd lean towards too many new fighter feats too. Giving an incentive to get lots of fighter levels is very much needed, but maybe three each with slightly more power in the later tiers to even it out would be better? The idea of a toon with 4 armour feats is just a little boring.

6) Is the MRR going back in anywhere else? I think the current system gives too big an incentive to take Heavy armour unless you had evasion (why should a pure druid build get more out of Heavy Armour Proficiency as a feat than most other choices?), but for paladins its seems a bit tough? Is the view they are getting too much at present? Obviously Fighters can take the feats, but not sure they need that many?

7) Perhaps the strangest impact of these changes is that weapons with naturally improved crit ranges will gain relatively less than they did before. Not a big issue now that most end-game weapons don't have it, but makes a lot of the named Bows less desirable than before.

When are these changes expected? Next update? Are they all at once?

[JOTMON]

No....completely flawed logic there.

How so,
Kukri is 1d4 @ 18-20x2 and goes to 15-20 x2
Dagger is 1d4 @ 19-20 x2 and goes to 17-20 x2
light mace 1d6 @ 20 x2 goes to 19-20 x2

which weapon do you choose

Dude. It's the same as it is now.

The crit ranges just won't double from enhancements and EDs into ridiculously large ranges like 7-20 anymore.

This thread is supposed to be about balance change .. I would have hoped they are addressing the weak end of the spectrum as well... not just the top end.. aka nerf...

[Delacroix21]

Two reasons:

~ Two Weapon Fighting is well out pacing the other styles in classes not specifically designed to use that style.
~ The animation change to Two Weapon Fighting that makes it look better also gave it a slight DPS boost.

Sev~

So as I understand it, monk unarmed dps will be nerfed slightly by this change, Even though it is allready the WORST melee dps in the game? Are we supposed to wait 6 more months for tye monk pass to finally have this addressed?


An easy (and temporary) fix for monk dps is to change the base die from 1d6 to 2d6, as their damage is allready less then half other melee builds.

[DarigTheLost]

please tell me that tactical and armour feats are a line of feats that are chosen. ie not something u must spend a regular feat on.... like say the cleric deity feats..... hmmm my language skills are lacking atm. a better example would be at level 4 u get one or the other, same for level 8 and so on..... if this costs fighters a regular feat, well, we need more feats to spend.

huge question mark here ?

[fangblackhawk]

Soon.
Yes.
Willing to listen.
Ranged Alacrity "cap" is built into the animation system and unlikely to change, at least for this update.

As an aside, we added larger kobold dummies to the basement of Lamannia's test dojo to help players test DPS changes. The new DPS kobolds have five times the hit points of the old ones we dropped into the test dojo so it should help normalize the test and using burst abilities a bit more.

Sev~

can i still one shot them with a mabar neg level aug? with out adding death block to the little rat eaters?

[Siccan]

You guys are going to HAVE to offer +20 HoW if you're changing the game this much.

[Dace]

Just snipping out the bits relevant to me.

Two weapon fighting animations have been fixed so there is no longer a weird jump on the fourth animation. This has made the fourth attack slightly quicker.

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Improved Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
Greater Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.

If the ranger pass has made it overperform slightly, don't punish anyone else who takes it. Leave the +2 MP in please. Nerf all TWF/SWF/THF feats to +1MP, whatever but keep this consistent with TWF/THF.

Pulverizer (Legendary Dreadnought)
The bonus to critical threat range for bludgeoning weapons is now an Insight bonus.

Great.

Improved Critical
These feats now add a bonus to critical threat range based purely on weapon type.
* Adds +3 to critical threat range for falchion, kukri, rapier, and scimitar.
* Adds +2 to the critical threat range of bastard sword, dagger, great crossbow, greatsword, heavy crossbow, khopesh, light crossbow, long sword, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, short sword, and throwing dagger.
* Adds +1 to all other weapons.

+2 for druidic animal forms please.

Armor Changes
The amount of Physical Resist Rating that armor provides has been changed.
* Heavy armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 2) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Medium armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1.5) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
* Light Armor now increases Physical Resist Rating by (base attack bonus * 1) and no longer adds Magical Resist Rating.
Fixed a bug where players were getting Physical Resist Rating for armor with which they were not proficient.

(Note: The Physical Resist Rating and Magical Resist Rating offered by shields remain unchanged.)

As a result of dialing back armor, some fighter only feats that will boost their effectiveness with armor and add to tactical DCs will also be included.

Fine, but please keep this in mind when you are busy manually balancing content. Necro 4 has already become considerably more difficult on EE, and these changes aren't going to make things any easier ^

Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3).

Aha, back again! Seems reasonable.

Eldritch Blast and other enhancements (Warlock)
The spellpower scaling for Eldritch Blast and several enhancements has been reduced.

Spellpower scaling of Warlock Abilities

Ability	Old	New
Eldritch Blast	150%	130%
Eldritch Blast Cone	130%	130%
Eldritch Blast Chain	110%	95%
Eldritch Blast Aura	150%	130%
Stricken (Souleater)	150%	125%
Consume (Souleater)	150%	125%
Eldritch Burst (Enlightened Spirit)	120%	100%
Spirit Blast (Enlightened Spirit)	120%	100%

I can't say I disagree with the Warlock nerf BUT (and its a bloody big BUT) this is a brand new class that you had direct control over and it has been formulated with little to no consideration of its excessive power. So why nerf it now, if you werent willing to listen to feedback about this prior to release?

Some people might infer that you released it in an overpowered state to help sales, and then reduce its power once the initial purchase spike has subsided. Was this your thinking behind the Warlock class or have I misunderstood?

[rfachini]

Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)
Sev~

It may be unavoidable because of the desire to decrease lag, but this change penalizes archer builds where the desire is not to inflict a lot of damage, but to cause effects like paralysis to a large number of opponents. (You no longer get multiple shots, you get more damage per shot.)