The Balance Change post

[Basura_Grande]

These nerfs are a good start, now look at the broken tree builds.

[Gurei23]

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

Agreed. The PRR/MRR feats should be universal, fighters will be way more inclined to take them because they have more feats, but making these fighter-only takes away the hard decision for other melee classes to take the new feats to sustain prr/mrr they either once carried or need to stay on par with the other classes (i'm looking at monks for helping bring them up, and feat starved classes like barb and pally that will want the extra prr/mrr they just lost anyways but taking a huge hit to reclaim it).
Although, Urthor's concern should definitely be looked into, he's a model tank and good grounds for adjustment. ...Sort of surprised Dwarves don't get more prr/mrr in their tree, given they are all about survivability, and the fact they've historically had better magic and AC defenses than other races since at least 2nd edition, possibly earlier.

I am a little bit confused with the direction of Ravager's healing t5 change, it seems to encourage single target fighting styles (2wf and sfw) but you're remarking on how there is a disproportionate amount of 2wf barbs already. Making an essential healing t5 ability get a 1 sec CD pushes more barbs into 2wf, not less.

Lastly, I think there should be far more thought put into improved crit's adjusted threat range, this is a serious nerf to weapons with appeal focused on their natural increased range. Enormous nerf to quarterstaff builds that are already largely limited to a handful of named items with threat range/crit damage increased enough to compete with other build's basics.

[Darkmits]

Thanks for the heads-up, Sev. A few concerns about issues that haven't been discussed a lot (and possibly the playerbase has no issue as they currently are on live):

- PRR and MRR are percentage based reductions. This causes the issue that they become more effective versus flat DR as damage from enemies increases. It reaches the point where DR isn't noticeable and any choice a player has to do, should it appear, is to go PRR. Have you considered changing PRR to instead being a flat DR bonus or modifying the formula to scale slower? Similarily for MRR with Element Resistances, though the effect here isn't as noticeable both because MRR values are lower, and because Element Resistances are higher than DR.

- There are some UI issues I'd like to see adressed. For one, it'd be nice if Guild Buffs could be consolidated into a single icon. Another is that temporary hit points extend in the red health bar of the party frames, but not in the personal frame (which is the correct way to display of the two). The die changes so quickly that we barely have enough time to check what it says, it'd be more useful if we had an option to make it show only failures (ie when we make a miss or grazing hit, then we fail an enemy DC, or when we fail Disabling a trap etc). We also still have windows scrolling to the top whenever info is changed. During Feat selection it is very hard to navigate the window because the scroll part at the right side is too thin, and page up/down jumps over 1 feat per screen.

- Are there plans to give an incentive to use Cannith Crafting? Outside of the odd Featherfall or Haggle craftable that gets upgraded every 2 levels, the cost to craft something and generally upgrade crafting skill is too high compared to benefits from it and its comparison to random loot.

[patang01]

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.

Yes, and back we go. Before MRR there was evasion builds and few heavy armor builds. Now they added a feat. How many can add 4 feats just to add MRR?

If the solution to the issue is to make heavy armor builds where they were before, then the only real result is heavy armor builds dumped for more ranged and evasion, or hybrids that include displacement. And then we're back to to how it was after MOTU and all the armor up changes.

[adrian69]

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.

I agree with the logic here on the armor. I think it's about right. Why take away MRR when we just got it, and it's much needed?

[JOTMON]

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.

is BAB the right way to approach PRR? it puts more PRR to better BAB classes ignoring the armor, class choices, enhancements, feats.
using BAB just seems to be a bad fit for the desired result..

Thinking about non 100% BAB classes like clerics...
~The BAB progression for players is based on their class (for creatures, on their HD), and follows one of the three following progressions:
+1 BAB per level, the best BAB progression, is reserved for the warrior classes (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger).
+.75 BAB per level, the second best BAB progression, is used by the Artificer, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Favored Soul, Monk, Rogue and Warlock.
+.5 BAB per level, the worst BAB progression, is used by the Sorcerer and the Wizard. Epic levels also use this progression.


I would preferred to have seen something applied based on the + value of the armor itself.
Especially considering higher level armor gives a higher + rating and could be used to improve PRR as the player level increase.


Also.. I would have MRR higher on light armor and decrease going to heavy armor... not just remove them all together...

[MonadRebelion]

I'm definitely on board with these changes. If you want fighters to be able to catch up with people using their feats, we need to see more feats. Anyway, nice job folks. The changes look really nice.

[UurlockYgmeov]

OK - so since this is such a sweeping and systematic change - including changes to common feats and the introduction of 6? new feats, kindly include a LR20 or at least a LR for every character when these are introduced.

If it was just changes to enhancements or one or two feats, but this is a big system wide set of changes.

TYIA, and not trying to derail.

also - with fighter, cleric, monk, handwrap, cannith crafted, random loot passes coming - I like where this is heading. Time to finish up Uurlock's Sorc lives (and related epic past lives) and move toward cleric and warlock! Gnome Warlock here I come! :P

[hit_fido]

is BAB the right way to approach PRR? it puts more PRR to better BAB classes ignoring the armor, class choices, enhancements, feats.
using BAB just seems to be a bad fit for the desired result..

I would preferred to have seen something applied based on the + value of the armor itself.
Especially considering higher level armor gives a higher + rating and could be used to improve PRR as the player level increase.

I like BAB for Physical Resist Rating because it:

- scales with level
- scales faster for those classes that should naturally be more adept with armor and mitigating physical damage

For MRR I could see the logic in tying to enhancement value of the armor as I suggested earlier. Then you're tying Magical Resist Rating to a magical property of the armor itself rather than the imagined tactical prowess of the wearer. That will still tend to scale with level (higher level equating to better quality/more magical armor) but not as fast or as high.

To be clear I'd rather they not change the MRR on armor at all, it's been lowered once already. But using some other factor like enhancement value may be a compromise to what we have now.

[UurlockYgmeov]

although I would suggest making the TWF feats each grant +1 MP instead of +2; and give 2HF a slight buff to +3 each.

Kinda makes sense since THF gives 1.5* damage.

[Vargouille]

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.

Actually one more comment on the fighter feats. I really like the tactical additions. They're going to make improved trip obsolete (unless someone really cares about 30 sec max vs 60 sec max, and anyway mobs save to stand up every 2 seconds so why would anyone care). But they give fighter a really compelling capability. +20 sounds extreme but it requires four feats and 16 fighter levels, the latter of which is a pretty miserable platform right now, at least pre fighter pass.

The four armor feats probably don't go far enough - again you're requiring four feats for the max +30/+30 prr/mrr. But that's not a whole lot more that you can attain from some low hanging enhancements. If you're not comfortable with increasing the prr/mrr what about adding a +1 max dex bonus for each feat in addition to the prr/mrr.

sev? was it a typo on those feats?

are those fighter only feats?

or can anyone take them?

i would prefer fighter only, but want to clarify them

Adding all those tactical and armor feats are really a kick in the scrotch to people who love to use tactical features. It seems fully reasonable to add more...but truly; in order to be viable as far as tactically you now have to add as many of those as possible.

Some comments about the fighter feats:

1. These require fighter levels. They can be taken with fighter bonus feats or regular feats.
2. We don't expect to rebalance monsters around Fighters with all these feats. Fighters who go all out on tactics are expected to reach 95% chance on most monsters (possibly excluding some rare bosses / raid bosses, who will often be immune to many tactics regardless.)
3. We don't expect all fighters who want to use tactical feats to take all of these new feats. This is largely why they are not a progression, but rather four distinct feats. Characters with 20 Fighter levels might opt to take just the +8 and that's enough (with other gear, STR, etc.) Characters with fewer Fighter levels won't have access to the best bonuses (as well as fewer feats, of course), so they might struggle to reach the same heights as someone who dedicates more class levels to Fighter.
4. Similarly, the armor feats can be taken one or some at a time. It's not really an all-or-nothing, and a 20 Fighter might skip the first one or two in favor or other bonuses.

These feats help power up the Fighter class, reward taking more Fighter levels, fit into the theme of "Fighters get more feats!", and help provide some differentiation for builds. It matters a bit more if you want to spend your final 2 levels on Fighter vs. another class, and we don't expect every player to make the same decision. We're happy for Fighter to remain interesting for multiclass builds, while also rewarding purer builds. We feel these eight new feats spread across levels 2-16 helps with many kinds of characters.

[adrian69]

Where are the data? I can estimate too...

I ran EH GH saga last night with a 14 paladin 4 rogue 2 arty and an 18 rogue 2 arty and a 12 ranger 6 monk 2 something. I know all these guys too, they're good players. Kill list looked something like this in MS Crater:

18 rogue/2 arty: 170 kills
12 ranger/ 6 monk: 60 kills
14 pally 4 rogue: 55 kills
16 arty 3 pally 1 wizzy: 24


These values were pretty much the same in every quest. I was farming Seeds more or less with friends to TR back to a ranger, but I left the group last really wanting to play a rogue archer. He's not the first archer I've seen either dominate.

[JOTMON]

I enjoy playing with more useful 'buttons' than "attack" and "forward". I'm probably not the only one.

but would you spend 4 feats to improve tactics for things like trip, sunder, stun,...
besides.. opening up +20 to tactics in 4 fighter only feats is just opening themselves up to have to nerf it so no one else but fighters can hit the benchmarks.
These tactics are too costly and tier too high at the end.
Reduce the overall range and put them in the fighter enhancement tree and also make them available as open feats. most classes cant afford them anyway.

[Henky]

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~

It has been asked already, but what happens with pure monks? They don't get melee power from enhancements.... all monks should be shuriken throwers now or what?

[Kielbasa]

At a cursory glance deepwood stalkers receive a lot of nerfs from these changes. They lose out on some crit range with any weapon with a unique crit range especially named bows. They also lose burst from manyshot and also lose 6 melee power from feats. You may want to toss some more melee and ranged power back into their tier 5 abilities to balance this out. They are already behind tempest and looking at the new arcane archer they will be behind them as well. Don't let them slip through the cracks please.

[ForgettableNPC]

While we're on the subject of changes, can we get Smite Foe and related Enhancements on Warpriest Tree to be able to work with Longbow users for any of those Faith is that of the Silver Flame? It IS their Favored Weapon after all...

[Gleep_Wurp]

11/10/2015 fallout 4 .

[Lonnbeimnech]

is BAB the right way to approach PRR? it puts more PRR to better BAB classes ignoring the armor, class choices, enhancements, feats.
using BAB just seems to be a bad fit for the desired result..

Thinking about non 100% BAB classes like clerics...
~The BAB progression for players is based on their class (for creatures, on their HD), and follows one of the three following progressions:
+1 BAB per level, the best BAB progression, is reserved for the warrior classes (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger).
+.75 BAB per level, the second best BAB progression, is used by the Artificer, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Favored Soul, Monk, Rogue and Warlock.
+.5 BAB per level, the worst BAB progression, is used by the Sorcerer and the Wizard. Epic levels also use this progression.


I would preferred to have seen something applied based on the + value of the armor itself.
Especially considering higher level armor gives a higher + rating and could be used to improve PRR as the player level increase.


Also.. I would have MRR higher on light armor and decrease going to heavy armor... not just remove them all together...

fighters paladins rangers and barbarians get full bab
centered monks get full bab though obviously they don't wear armor
clerics and fvs that invest in the warpriest or cast divine power or are running in divine crusader get full bab
bards that invest in warchanter or run in divine crusader get full bab
wizards and sorcs that invest in eldritch knight or cast tensors transformation get full bab
warlocks that invest in enlightened spirit get full bab
artificers that cast tensors get full bab

that basically leaves druid and rogue that are not in crusader, and caster builds.

[Grailhawk]

that basically leaves druid and rogue that are not in crusader, and caster builds.

Rogues can make a go at Tensors scrolls.

[CaptainPurge]

Go ahead and announce free +20 hearts with the update.
This will help chill the thread before it gets billions of doom replies. (Adds a little DRR (DOOM RESISTANCE RATING)).