The Balance Change post

[jeremyt]

I read every response completely. No joke, I really did. What this crusty old DDO player keeps getting hung up on is the changes are effecting different builds to wildly different degrees and often time in multiple ways.

The crit change hurts sirith users most. I have had my staff slinger since around the time cap moved to 20. I have enjoyed him very much, he went from full flavor gimp to fully functional toon with the acrobat pass and introduction of sirith (even though my toon didnt maximize the uberness because he has heavy monk levels to fit with code better pre-acro pass)..Now it looks like my particular build not only is getting hit the worst out of all the weapon types my particular multiclass build setup is getting hit exponentially harder than a 18/2 or pure acrobat would. Yeouch. Can't help but wonder why, I've now played the new barbarian, bard and paladin classes a few times each to 28 and I can state easily that they are all better/MUCH better than my acrobat. So in the interest of balance I see the numbers effecting flavor/off color builds harder than common meta builds in this case, my question is why? I have seen acrobats do well, my acrobat does well, but its harder to keep alive. Getting trap skills up is more difficult without sacrificing DPS yadda yadda, ddo char gen is complicated and I don't think your changes are adding to balance or diversity, instead you are narrowing the meta game and killing some builds that are decently relevant.

Your changes to holy sword are concerning as well. I currently do not have a ranged paladin in my stable, I have grouped with quite a few though. They do seem capable generally. Rogue mechanics spank them completely for overall group contribution though, so why would you make a change to kill a very specific build. I am very specifically saying KILLING not adjusting. You are taking a critical piece of somebody's build and you just say 'nope'. Why? Do you not want ranged paladins at all? Why are you limiting build diversity? If you want to adjust ranged paladin DPS down, do it. Dont kill it completely, that makes zero sense. You will jilt players who leveled and geared up a ranged paladin toon and given them no option but to TR, delete or shelf it until new changes come along that make them playable again. This doesn't feel like a healthy maneuver to play with your playerbase.

Barbarian ravager changes: Saw it coming. The change looks large yet well thought out. Nerfing this instead of their granted monster heal amp makes it a play skill heal instead of a constant heal. This is good and will frustrate some, but it is good.

Warlock: as someone else mentioned. ***? Did you not listen to anyone that play tested them before they went live? Creating a class that is so easily played and at same time overpowered completely shifted group mechanics in the game. For the worse. Warlocks burned so many folks, it was seriously a bad bad implementation. Now rolling out your 2nd set of nerfs. Did you purposely introduce them grossly overpowered to improve sales with the plans to nerf them once people had bought something? That creates bad feelings among everyone involved. The dudes that didn't buy are regulated to support the warlock roles and think they suck (don't laugh, I've seen this repeatedly) and the dudes that bought warlock are now 'suffering' repeated nerfs as you bring them down into the realm of somewhat balanced utility. Other than that, I agree with nerfs: the aura burst should have even lower scaling IMO.

The TWF pass sounds like you based it off of single target DPS. As others have clearly stated twf builds lack much of the friendly playability that THF build variants do, and SWF users are what I view as the absolute highest meta (swashy/swashy ravagers/ravagers ive all played SWF and found it superior). TWF takes more feats, its hitbox is buggy and inconsistent and there is always the detriment for having to craft twice as many weapons. 6 melee power isn't a massive nerf, probably will not even be noticed actually, but I think its the wrong direction. In my humble opinion the current pecking order as far as attractive overall gameplay is SWF > THF > TWF. With monks needing their pass ASAP.

The armor pass I completely disagree with, it was implemented to get people to play heavy armor users instead of splashing for evasion. It worked. If you need to adjust some numbers slightly to balance things out that is great. But implementing the original armor pass change to get folks excited on some build diversity then saying 'nope' and putting them at full magic damage with no evasion again will really REALLY aggravate people who spent long hours building and gearing up heavy armor toons. I think the balance needs to come from slight MRR adjustments not complete scraping.

[alceste007]

Point One: I think you overestimate how good TWF is, and I suspect this is because of how you test/play the game (hint: it is not how we do). Standing still and swinging in front of an immobile opponent, TWF is indeed quite good, as your tests probably show you. However, that is not how combat works in DDO. Movement and positioning really are everything, and the very active combat is the one of the best parts of the game. If you learn how, you can avoid a great percentage of melee attacks, particularly in clumps of enemies, by strafing around the perimeter swinging. Some styles benefit from this herky-jerky style: THF, SWF, and S+B all have higher DPS from constant movement via twitching. TWF by contrast does not: not only are the TWF animations while moving noticeably slower, they have a really tiny hitbox, and often miss enemies all together. I highly encourage you to please try a much more movement-based combat style with TWF vs either THF or SWF if you don't know what I'm talking about: it's a very real phenomenon and it isnt subtle. The result is that the on-paper TWF dps is often much higher than the in-game DPS, where movement is constant (at least on EE, if you don't want to go splat), and the wedge between TWF and SWF/THF either disappears or goes negative. If you really want to adjust TWF down, you need to address the moving animations/hitbox issues. Otherwise leave it as is: TWF is somewhat better standing still and substantially worse while moving (ie vast majority of time).

Point Two: Warlocks are hilariously OP in heroics, and quite good in low-epics, but I'm not sure they need to be nerfed. As I mentioned in the warlock Lamma thread, warlocks suffer from the epic-caster problem, that DPS between lvl 20 and lvl 28 is probably only a factor of two difference (likely less), versus more like a factor of 5 for melee. The explanation for this observation is that casters essentially only benefit from increased spellpower from lvl 20 to 28: their caster levels are already maxed, and lore items are close to maxed. Further, they might have 250 spellpower at level 20 and 500 at lvl 28, but metamagics make that effectively 475 vs 725- a roughly 70% difference. Melee conversely benefit from going from 6 melee power to about 150 (already a factor of two there), destiny abilities increasing crit profiles, and vastly superior weaponry (TF tier3 vs Greensteel). The result is that you can balance caster-classes at level 20 or at level 28 versus melee, but not both: they have different power progressions as implemented. Warlocks are relatively on-par with strong melees at lvl 28, and stupidly strong in heroics. C'est la vie.

I just could not agree more. Two weapon fighting while moving and dealing with tiny hitboxes is much worse than other styles 90% of the time. How often can you just stand still and beat on stuff? I have not seen any complaints about warlocks dominating in epics either to be truthful. This set of nerfs really demolishes a lot of two weapon fight builds. I am very, very disappointed atm. I even do not have the motivation to login atm.

[patang01]

Tactics are good at level EE with proper gear. Except Stormhorns really underlevel and Demon Assault/Archon Trial.



Almost noone plays monk archers anymore.

At level no. Overlevel yes. I use fully geared tactical builds from Vanguards to fighters will everything from stunning blow, stunning shield and stunning blow. At upper level EEs only stunning shield works semi usefully because of it's particular properties. Trips are increasingly worthless and stunning blow as well. Yes. Adding all these feats will change that but the cost will be DPS. And considering that it's one target at the time it's almost debilitating to concentrate so much ability to focus on so few targets.

[HastyPudding]

- Holy Sword changes
About dang time. It's holy SWORD, not holy BOW (for a basic example of it). I, for one, am sick of seeing half of every party and raid be a 14/15 paladin / 4/5 xxx build. If something is THAT good and there are so many people playing it, something must be fundamentally wrong with said build.

- Two-Weapon Fighting changes
I see nothing else here but a monk nerf. I'll reserve my judgement for the monk pass when I get to dust off my shintao stunbot.

- Improved Critical / Keen changes
This needs some clarification and rewording. I'm with JOTMON on this one; when I first read it it looked like you were literally giving +3 crit range to the 'strongest' weapons in the game. After it was explained I understood it but my first thought when seeing it was 'holy **** what are they doing!?'

- Armor changes
I can see why this is going to change, I don't like it because I enjoy my vanguard/defender character, but I understand why it's happening.

- New Fighter Feats
LOVE IT!! Fighters should be the epitome of a tactical class with that so-called 95% success rate. That's kind of their thing; more and more feats, hyper-specialization, and tactical prowess. I love making pure fighter vanguards, and these feats are going to make stunning shield awesome.

- Divine Grace changes
This should have been done a while ago.

- Eldritch Blast changes
These were a long time coming. Just for clarification, is the Enervating Shadow shape going to be reduced from 150% to 130% to be the same as the standard eldritch blast? I use enervating shadow in place of the standard blast (the neg levels are handy and it's so much better against moving targets). Contrary to a lot of people with these changes, I'll be playing my warlock a lot more because I won't feel like I'm part of a meat-packing plant and just another one of the bunch. VIVA LA DC WARLOCKS!

[jeremyt]

Another important point I forgot to mention in my first wall of text:

The largest balance issues in-game today are based off of buggy combat and buggy feat stacking (tree form and wolf form respectively).

And while I do appreciate rebalancing and what it does for the long term health of the game I will absolutely state without blinking an eye that it is a massive waste of time with the current state of the game. Dev time would be better spent killing bugs, the memory leak fiasco, ladders and 'balancing' builds that take advantage of broken mechanics (tree and wolf form).

[Grailhawk]

THF should have the greatest DPS --- slow but deadly. Weakness: attack speed and defense. (there is a quote, wish I could remember from what, 'beware anyone who wield a two handed sword, because either they are just that good or just that crazy or both")

TWF should be next in DPS --- getting more attacks but less damage per attack with some defense coming from the second weapon.

S+B and SWF should be next in DPS getting crowd control from specialized attacks and shield bashes. Someone with Improved Shield who is actively blocking with a tower shield should have insane PRR and DRR and be considered 'rooted'. DPS and defense come from how far one specializes with this tactic (example swashbuckler). Anyone can pull out a big giant huge arse shield, but only the dwarven defender knows how to plug a door with it and hold it. :P

just my 2 coppers.

Combat styles should be balance so that they have the same DPS potential but do it differently.

THF - slow but hard hitting
TWF - fast attacks but not as that hard
SWF - some where in the middle not as fast as TWF but faster then THF; not as hard as THF but harder then TWF.
S&B - this one can be less DPS but should make up for it by having more defense.

Another way to have differences is the AoE vs Single Target difference that exists today
AoE: THF > SWF = S&B > TWF
ST: TWF > SWF > THF = S&B

But under no circumstance should one style clearly be better DPS than any other.

[Nubom70]

Notes: All fighter tactical feats stack for a total of +20.
....Awesome, now a fighter with stunning blow will replace monks even more, since they already took a crippling hit with the AC > PRR change.

Two Weapon Fighting no longer grants melee power.
....Nice. The one thing lightly-armored finesse/unarmed characters could get an edge on, gone..... *watches more monks jump off a cliff*.

Armored characters were well behind Evasion builds.
....That made me laugh out loud. Evasion builds are great, until you get hit.... and you will get hit.
....The average end tank, on top of all the armor PRR (and DR 30/epic), can still get conceal, and incorporeal.
Puts them ahead of any evasion build mathmatically, and they have more health and require less healing.

[Sgt_Hart]

you may disagree with a change like this on principle, but i have to ask you, have you played a fighter lately? they could be worse, but the bottom line is that they kind of blow.

Nope, but I kinda knew that already.

if a pure fighter were to take all of the new +dc feats and all of the new +prr/mrr, suddenly you have less than 0 dps again. id call that balanced.

Negative DPS.. this is why I'm gonna have a hard time treating you like an intelligent, serious person.

will a pure fighter be that much tankier than another character with 30 more prr paid for with 4 feats (which is actually a lot more significant even on a pure fighter than the people who dont play them but ***** and moan about how many feats they have realize)? i have my doubts that it will make fighters better tanks than paladins, but at least with these new feats and the holy sword nerf fighter tanks may at least be viable and not the utterly idiotic choice that they currently are.

I think you're confusing my point of "These shouldn't be fighter specific feats." with "Don't give fighters Shinies!" Hint: I linked to a page of fighter bonus feats, the tech already exists to do similiar things in some enhancement tree's. Such things really should be implemented as general feat's(Which they are) and as fighter bonus feats(which they are).

i dont think most fighters will even take all four of these either, tbh.

I don't think they will either, but that remains an absolutely atrocious justification to say "Fighter only".

currently there is not much incentive to splash fighter levels. pure pally is better. pure barb is better. pure ranger is better. the builds with 6 fighter (such as the old swash build) are pretty much nonexistent these days. adding these feats in a scaling fashion and requiring fighter levels is, i think, a great implementation to actually give fighter some appeal and just a tad of exclusivity (which they are pretty lacking these days. their flavor is basically their distinct lack of any).

We'll disagree there. What I'd like is more overall feats that are missing, but DDO presently does as enhancements. Perhaps the best analogy I can give is that fighters are vanilla ice cream, but have full access to the selection of toppings. Every other class is a flavor of ice cream like rocky road, or peanut butter ripple, or Neapolitan, and allowed a topping, or two.

removing the fighter level requirement of these feats would pretty much invalidate the purpose of adding them. at that point i think it would be better to just roll with the nerfs to armor and not include these feats.

I disagree.

[barecm]

While you're all at it, Nerf Mortal Fear.

and make some of the other the other tier three upgrades worth taking, like mind breaker for instance. That is currently useless. Unless that happens, don't touch mortal fear since it is the only one that actually does anything useful.

[daniel7]

Greetings.

We've seen a lot of community feedback, both public and private, about our ongoing plans for balance. These are some changes we are considering to increase game balance.

As with any post that outlines power reductions (aka nerfs) I am sure there will be a lot of players looking for explanations and our thoughts and results on balance that led to these changes. I will be following up this post with more details that talk about why some of these changes are being implemented.

***

Holy Sword (Paladin)
This is now a spell that affects the paladin and buffs whatever melee weapon is being wielded in the main hand. I don't like this but maybe its too early to complain.
It no longer persists on your weapon but instead buffs the melee weapon you are holding in your main hand. (Yes, this buffs your two handed weapons.)
It no longer affects missile weapons. I think most people were surprised when it worked on bows when it was first changed anyways, good call.
It no longer can be used to buff off hand weapons or shields.Again. Not a fan of the off hand nerf and no one really cares either way for shields I bet.
If you change weapons the spell will drop off the unequipped weapon and instead be applied to the newly equipped weapon. Good.

Blood Strength (Barbarian Ravager)
The portion of this enhancement that heals the user when they kill an opponent now has a 1 second internal cooldown.

Critical Rage (Barbarian Ravager)
The bonus to critical threat range is now a competence bonus.

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. I think this might make people swap from from TWF to SWF and for some classes. I would suggest that instead you buff how Power Attack works with THF.

Doubleshot values over 100% now have a chance of producing a third attack. The chance is equal to the amount the value exceeds 100. A doubleshot value of 130, for example, would always produce one extra shot and have a 30% chance to produce a third shot.

(Doublestrike will still cap at 100 for technical reasons.)

Repeating Crossbows and Doubleshot
Fixed a bug where Doubleshot was not being reduced for repeating crossbows. (Doubleshot chance is divided by 3 for repeating crossbows.)

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.)

Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)

Mechanical Reloader (Rogue Mechanic)
The alacrity for non-repeating crossbows is now 30%. (Was 40%)

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

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.
I'd like to see more of the unpopular weapons buffed via Enhancements or by Racial Feats (more Iconic Races?).

Keen
This loot effect 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.

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 like the heavier the armor the PRR it should give but the lighter the armor the more MRR it should give, though I realize its the evasion guys that need MRR the least.
(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.

Tactical Training
Requires Fighter Level 4
You gain +2 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Combatant
Requires Fighter Level 8
You gain +4 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Mastery
Requires Fighter Level 12
You gain +6 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Tactical Supremacy
Requires Fighter Level 16
You gain +8 to the DC of all tactical feats.

Notes: All tactical feats stack for a total of +20. 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 Tactical Training and forego the +2 but still have access to Tatical Supremacy.

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.


Divine Grace (Paladin)
Divine Grace now provides a maximum bonus equal to 2 + (Paladin level x 3). This isn't that big of a shock and some type of nerf was needed. Good job.


Sev~

Overall I think you guys did a good job, just needs testing.

[Blivit]

[*]Two Weapon Fighting builds are dealing too much DPS ... but that was a world before Assassin and Tempest were updated, and players largely equated Two Weapon Fighting to those trees. Now that those are updated we can look at re-adjusting the two weapon fighting feats.

Two Weapon Fighting builds are dealing too much DPS. This is generally because on-hit effects now scale with melee power, and we've relaxed many internal cooldown limits on to-hit effects. We expected Two Weapon Fighting builds to scale quickly when we changed on-hit effects, and balanced the fighting style feats to compensate, but that was a world before Assassin and Tempest were updated, and players largely equated Two Weapon Fighting to those trees. Now that those are updated we can look at re-adjusting the two weapon fighting feats.

I would like to see unarmed Monk also addressed before any further nerfing is performed to TWF. Unarmed Monks are hurting enough as it is :-(

[*]We have a problem with 14 Paladin hybrids being better than other options due to Holy Sword, yet a severe nerf to Holy Sword would drag down Two Handed Fighting and Vanguard paladins a little too much.

Since paladins are so feat starved compared to a fighter, I am thinking that the nerfing of armor, such that additional fighter feats are required for MRR and additional PRR, will only lead to more reason to play a 14 Paladin / 4-6 Fighter hybrid. With the new method, 14 Paladin may still be better than pure Paladin, just for a different balance of reasons.

[daniel7]

Combat styles should be balance so that they have the same DPS potential but do it differently.

THF - slow but hard hitting
TWF - fast attacks but not as that hard
SWF - some where in the middle not as fast as TWF but faster then THF; not as hard as THF but harder then TWF.
S&B - this one can be less DPS but should make up for it by having more defense.

Another way to have differences is the AoE vs Single Target difference that exists today
AoE: THF > SWF = S&B > TWF
ST: TWF > SWF > THF = S&B

But under no circumstance should one style clearly be better DPS than any other.

Agreed.

Pretty much every THF takes Power Attack. Just have Power Attack buff THF weapons a bit more than it does now. I think we will see some people swap from TWF to SWF. I think this might being an overreaction to Paladins be almost always TWFers. Now you will see a lot SWF Paladins and that is just weird.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

...So Monkey Grip to allow SWF with a greatsword...

never.

At level no. Overlevel yes. I use fully geared tactical builds from Vanguards to fighters will everything from stunning blow, stunning shield and stunning blow. At upper level EEs only stunning shield works semi usefully because of it's particular properties. Trips are increasingly worthless and stunning blow as well. Yes. Adding all these feats will change that but the cost will be DPS. And considering that it's one target at the time it's almost debilitating to concentrate so much ability to focus on so few targets.

how can you say you use "fully geared tactical builds" and not have very reliable stunning blow? outside of a handful of situations you should be at 95% success rate without the new +dc feats easily.

Combat styles should be balance so that they have the same DPS potential but do it differently.

THF - slow but hard hitting
TWF - fast attacks but not as that hard
SWF - some where in the middle not as fast as TWF but faster then THF; not as hard as THF but harder then TWF.
S&B - this one can be less DPS but should make up for it by having more defense.

Another way to have differences is the AoE vs Single Target difference that exists today
AoE: THF > SWF = S&B > TWF
ST: TWF > SWF > THF = S&B

But under no circumstance should one style clearly be better DPS than any other.

i think its debatable whether thf or twf is best for aoe. dod is kind of uber.

[HazyOne]

But instead of just making holy sword not work on missle weapons, why not require x amount of Pali lvls to apply holy sword to any weapon. As the changes stand I really hope they send out +20's!

HazyOne

[Fengsuede]

There are some class skills - e.g. trapping that undermine whole classes where people just take a "slight" splashes of multiclass.

e.g. people running around with a mere one or two levels of rogue or arti being able to trap incredibly complex locks (locks many levels higher than the pertinent class).

Alternately... A warlock running around meleeing in a bathrobe without being cut into the thousand squishy pieces of pink flesh that they are.


This is a long time gripe of mine and nothing more than an exploit and something that removes the benefit of long term dedication to study (the sword, the lockpick etc). Seasoned (or in game parlance, epic) professional over gifted amateur.

Everyone would scream blue murder if this was the case, but it is akin to a rogue with one level of magic use having disintegrate/otto's spells in their spellbook (not using scroll) - and the dc for near automatic monsters saving throw fails. Magic use is more properly regulated with scrolls for the gifted amateur, spellbook the seasoned professional - so please fix the ease with which gifted amateurs can do cross class stuff such as lockpicking (or using a sword with great skill).

[Nubom70]

[QUOTE=Blivit;5703564]I would like to see unarmed Monk also addressed before any further nerfing is performed to TWF. Unarmed Monks are hurting enough as it is :-(

Agree. Monks took it so hard over the last few years, and never got addressed, now they're getting another DPS nerf. Lowering DPS,
no innate PRR (since they lost any real AC benefit), wraps are still broken (yay augments), and still no greensteel. Way to go, dev team.

[Vellrad]

There are some class skills - e.g. trapping that undermine whole classes where people just take a "slight" splashes of multiclass.

e.g. people running around with a mere one or two levels of rogue or arti being able to trap incredibly complex locks (locks many levels higher than the pertinent class).

Alternately... A warlock running around meleeing in a bathrobe without being cut into the thousand squishy pieces of pink flesh that they are.


This is a long time gripe of mine and nothing more than an exploit and something that removes the benefit of long term dedication to study (the sword, the lockpick etc). Seasoned (or in game parlance, epic) professional over gifted amateur.

Everyone would scream blue murder if this was the case, but it is akin to a rogue with one level of magic use having disintegrate/otto's spells in their spellbook (not using scroll) - and the dc for near automatic monsters saving throw fails. Magic use is more properly regulated with scrolls for the gifted amateur, spellbook the seasoned professional - so please fix the ease with which gifted amateurs can do cross class stuff such as lockpicking (or using a sword with great skill).

You know that rogue got more class abilities than just disabling traps?

[CorinBrightbane]

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~

I guess I don't understand why you need to "fix the fact that paladin 14 hybrids...". I have been running one for a long time and did a demo test for the Dev team with mine. If that fed into this happening, then I can think of no reason to help the Dev team in the future. It is a different style of play that the 12 monk 6 ranger 2 whatever, or pure Ranger. Yes the damage is slightly higher. But as with any ranged toon, there are lots of variables that go into damage what happens if your adrenaline charges are slow to charge for example, you lined up poorly on an improved precise shot, etc. With going on cool down you suddenly do much less DPS than other toons for a period of time and make up that difference when you go off cooldown. I enjoy playing my ranged toon. But how many pally archers are on the servers that are played compared to other classes. Why ruin the diversity of toons on a server in destroying a build simply because it wasn't "as intended".

I get the balance thing. But it has also been one of my biggest frustrations over the years. Classes should do DIFFERENT damage. Otherwise they all become the same and it doesn't matter what you play. I love this game despite all the complaints people make, but the one thing that gets me frustrated, is when I put a lot of time into building and tweaking a build, and the entire build gets squashed by the Dev team in the interest of Balance.

So my question stands. Why is the fact the 14 pally hybrid ranged toon exists a problem There are a TON less on the server I play on than there ever were the tradition 12/6/2 monitor. Bring up the classes that lag, don't tear down the ones that exist.

[Ellihor]

I like this kinds of threads, they show an intresting reality: most poeple here have no idea about what's going on the real game.

Really, crying about 16 points in PRR is very lame. I laigh when people say "tone down the defenses", as if it was a tone less. When you alreadt have over a hundred PRR, 16 PRR is extremly marginal. You can't feel it. You wouldn't notice if it was not on your sheet.

GO CRY TO YOUR MOM.

MRR claims are legit, it shouldn't have been completly removed from armors, but reduced.

Now the 2 things I don't like here is the TWF not getting the mlee power, and holy sword not affecting off-hand and shields. TWF is already the worse mlee style. Go try it out in real game, not on a kolbold or bruntsmash.Fix the hit box, as everyone is saying here.

Tanks are having real problems in current game. Nerfing theyr DPS even more is bad. Also, you may look at the damage at Thunder Peaks and tone them down. It's ridiculous that we need tanks only in 3 situations in current endgame (ok only 2, since in MoD the deathknigths don't need a real tank) and one of them (FoTP), well, you just can't tank and the best tank is a kitter. This sucks.

[pjw]

...

It all looks promising except the Warlock stuff, which seems more like tinkering than actually balancing. It seems likely to be about as effective as the last Warlock nerf.