Warlock NERF Again

[Chai]

You mean the question whether he played a sorceror recently because you assumed he said 3k SP instead of 3k extra SP? Why would he even have to answer that before you apologize for misreading?

hes claiming its not enough, without being specific as to where its not enough - which by degree in DDO is vastly incorrect.

premise?

[Chai]

So let me get this right, if you say warlock is not over performing is right, based on what?
If I say warlock is overperforming is wrong based on what?

Didnt claim that. In fact, my post you quoted specifically shows where they are overperforming. But instead of going with that as a case for a nerf, you incorrectly claim they are on top of the DPS meta, which is incorrect and misleading.

We do have different opinion. But only you're opinion seems right. OK, that's cool.

Witch question?

If you think I play with bad sorc you play with bad warlocks, and that will be sad since WK is so easy to play, as you said.

And just for you to know I played my main as a sorc last 3 month (tr'd last weekend to try monk) and my second toon is a pure 20 warlock scholar capstone. If I say something it's because I can compare it.

Now, do you play Wk and sorc? Can you compare it?

If you want screenshot on my sorc and wk, I can post them rigth away, well that's not true...need to go home from work first

Could you do the same? If not please stop assuming things on me.

I do play warlock and sorc. Heres my comparison.

Warlock, endgame geared: ABCDF comparison
DPS B level
Survivability A level
Recovery B level

Sorc, endgame geared ABCDF comparison
DPS A level
Survivability C level
Recovery: B level

Warlock, endgame geared: scale 1-10 comparison
DPS 7
Survivability 9
Recovery 7

Sorc, endgame geared scale 1-10 comparison
DPS 9
Survivability 5
Recovery: 7

The case AGAINST a survivability nerf is as follows:

All nerfing their survivability will do however, is cause more warlocks to go cha, so if your premise is they already outkill you on your sorc, then they will outkill you even faster when they LR out of con based and go cha based which means killing even faster. The repeated claims against warlock backfired in a hilarious fashion due to repeated claims based in misinformation. The claims that con based locks are outkilling everyone caused a survivability nerf, which is going to result in more cha based locks killing even faster. The end result will be another "all points into DPS and instakills" class in a game already loaded to the gills with "all points into DPS and instakills " classes. Allowing something that is more survivability oriented to stay in the meta is not such a bad thing.

[Forzah]

hes claiming its not enough, without being specific as to where its not enough - which by degree in DDO is vastly incorrect.

premise?

The question still stands. You personally attacked him on his game knowledge based on misreading. Why would he answer before he receives an apology?

On the last page Mr Helmet quoted me; premise is right there.

[BigErkyKid]

Didnt claim that. In fact, my post you quoted specifically shows where they are overperforming. But instead of going with that as a case for a nerf, you incorrectly claim they are on top of the DPS meta, which is incorrect and misleading.



I do play warlock and sorc. Heres my comparison.

Warlock, endgame geared: ABCDF comparison
DPS B level
Survivability A level
Recovery B level

Sorc, endgame geared ABCDF comparison
DPS A level
Survivability C level
Recovery: B level

Warlock, endgame geared: scale 1-10 comparison
DPS 7
Survivability 9
Recovery 7

Sorc, endgame geared scale 1-10 comparison
DPS 9
Survivability 5
Recovery: 7

The case AGAINST a survivability nerf is as follows:

All nerfing their survivability will do however, is cause more warlocks to go cha, so if your premise is they already outkill you on your sorc, then they will outkill you even faster when they LR out of con based and go cha based which means killing even faster. The repeated claims against warlock backfired in a hilarious fashion due to repeated claims based in misinformation. The claims that con based locks are outkilling everyone caused a survivability nerf, which is going to result in more cha based locks killing even faster. The end result will be another "all points into DPS and instakills" class in a game already loaded to the gills with "all points into DPS and instakills " classes. Allowing something that is more survivability oriented to stay in the meta is not such a bad thing.

This doesn't make any sense at all. So if we nerf the survivability of a warlock then more people will choose to invest LESS in survivability?

For what reason? Seems super backwards to me. You ought to stop copy pasting your post. This is exactly what you said when people argued that they should nerf the dps of warlocks. You said they would go cha based.


We can argue in theory all you want, but the fact remains that we have evidence of how ridiculously broken the class is. We see people just standing there and letting bosses traps and mobs hit them while they push three buttons and win.

No, the same cannot be done with all classes. Yes, even revamped ones. No, it's not jellies, and yes i am affected by power disparity.

We the players said we wanted balance. Turbine did a freaking survey on it. When I was trying to solo slavers on my fleshy kensei and compared to warlock it did not feel fair and balanced in the least.

[Vanhooger]

Didnt claim that. In fact, my post you quoted specifically shows where they are overperforming. But instead of going with that as a case for a nerf, you incorrectly claim they are on top of the DPS meta, which is incorrect and misleading.

That's you're opinion I respect it.
But I think you're incorrect, which is misleading.

So, In short we don't agree on that topic, we can argue about that for hours but result will be the same.

[Vanhooger]

I have already done it and posted it. It is possible, it is FAR more painful than the casual stroll that that guy was taking on his warlock. And I don't think all fleshy melees can do it; my barb certainly couldn't, and I had good gear and PLs. Then, I could on my ranger.

As for the discussion on casters: mana efficient casters are now more powerful and survivable than the majority of melees IN QUESTING. Raids are a bit different, its a discussion on its own.

Warlock remains the easiest one of them all, and it is certainly good enough to obliterate any quest in the game in any difficulty. Everyone knows that. No, I cannot do that on all other toons. Some can complete, but the utter level of destruction and how it makes it look like its always casual setting is a big comparative grudge.

PS - So the current meta is to farm slavers. Which toon provides the easiest walk in the park? I would say warlock. I know how freaking easy it is to go through those halls like a hot knife through butter. Or I can take my former fleshy kensei and have the hell of a time. Which would be good if it wasn't because I know that in the instance next to me someone is 10 laps ahead of me crushing the quest. Or if we group, I can pike.

There is a reason why people overwhelmingly answered IN A REAL POLL that they wanted more balanced classes. Turbine acknowledged it. Yet, some years later, here we are, the lack of balance it is at an all time high. Take a human kensei in slavers VS a ES/TS warlock and report the difference. It isn't the same game...

This. But people seems blind sometimes or they like to be god mode warlock cake walk slavers.
But the reign of warlock aura top dps will probably end once reaper is live. If they don't, dev missed the last occasion to make this game a bit harder then the usual close you're eyes with Warlock and macro 3 button so I don;t even have to click.

[Vanhooger]

All nerfing their survivability will do however, is cause more warlocks to go cha, so if your premise is they already outkill you on your sorc, then they will outkill you even faster when they LR out of con based and go cha based which means killing even faster. The repeated claims against warlock backfired in a hilarious fashion due to repeated claims based in misinformation. The claims that con based locks are outkilling everyone caused a survivability nerf, which is going to result in more cha based locks killing even faster. The end result will be another "all points into DPS and instakills" class in a game already loaded to the gills with "all points into DPS and instakills " classes. Allowing something that is more survivability oriented to stay in the meta is not such a bad thing.

That's why I said that nerfing shining was wrong move, nerfing the crit chance was way more important than shining thing, that I don't even take on my warlock.

Warlock max CHA are already there and they're on the top 5 dps already, and If I say that it's because I'm palying it, so I see how does it perform.

Only place where they're not top 5 dps is LE raids(maybe), so 3 quest for now. Everywhere else they're overperforming. Period.

See page 2 post #22 of this thread.

Never talked even once of Con based warlock.

[Talon_Dragonsbane]

I thought paid classes/race/trees (harper) were supposed to be better than non-paid classes/race/trees, otherwise why bother paying at all?

How much better they are supposed to be is debatable, but I would certainly argue against equal performance.

[Chai]

This doesn't make any sense at all. So if we nerf the survivability of a warlock then more people will choose to invest LESS in survivability?

For what reason? Seems super backwards to me. You ought to stop copy pasting your post. This is exactly what you said when people argued that they should nerf the dps of warlocks. You said they would go cha based.


We can argue in theory all you want, but the fact remains that we have evidence of how ridiculously broken the class is. We see people just standing there and letting bosses traps and mobs hit them while they push three buttons and win.

No, the same cannot be done with all classes. Yes, even revamped ones. No, it's not jellies, and yes i am affected by power disparity.

We the players said we wanted balance. Turbine did a freaking survey on it. When I was trying to solo slavers on my fleshy kensei and compared to warlock it did not feel fair and balanced in the least.

It makes perfect sense. There are two popular warlock builds currently. Cha based and Con based. Nerfing survivability makes Con based less attractive, and more and more people will go cha based.

The issue with this is DDO is already a game loaded with max DPS / insta-kill builds, where survivability builds are a flavor niche at best. Causing those playing warlocks to gravitate toward cha builds, in a game already loaded to the gills with DPS /instakill builds homogenizes the game even more. Actually having an attractive survivability option a la con based ES = more build diversity in game.

What the nerf demands are accomplishing is not balance. It accomplishes re-ordering the meta. We have 10 years of evidence, where the meta has never been balanced, always has had max dps builds, always has had flavor builds. etc.

Furthermore, nerfing warlock survivability pushes DDO away from balance,e not toward it. DDO is already loaded with full offense builds. Nerfing con based locks means people will play cha based locks. If the premise is con based locks are outkilling everyone else, congrats, nerfing just pushed them toward builds which make them outkill everything else even faster. (of course, that claim is hyperbole, as warlock is not top of the meta DPS) - in order to have balance there needs to be diversity - and advocating nerfing survivability builds doesn't create diversity in DDO, it removes it.

[2pc2]

So we want a video of this done on a fleshy melee?

Yes or ranged I don't care really, that would be pretty cool because 9 pages later and lot of words about imaginary completions still no one posted a vid of a fleshy melee or ranged doing it, easy or not. A barb would be the best imo, if only to see how many SF pots it takes.

We only have got a screenshot that shows a fleshy melee takes double or 100% more time than the warlock on the vid to end the same quest on the same dificulty, but that's not the same as a vid to tell the real difference in difficulty and resources.

[Rys]

Well that could be an option, though it's hard to believe that someone fears a nerf when other builds (tree,warlock,shiradi) already can solo it easy. Another option is that no one did it because it's pointless to run it on such builds and use a lot of time and resources when you can use easy button builds or be a bladeforged and complete it with half the time and half the troubles. That excuse could be used by everyone, even slarden, I personaly won't believe it if I don't see it. As someone said there's a lot of imaginary uberness in here

My monkcher fears the forum hate. Because it's cheesy and stuff.

[slarden]

I didn't make that claim.
Except for Elite Legendary Shroud part 1 I have yet to run out of SP on my sorc. In slavers I skip half the shrines. No idea.

DC casters are in a good spot right now, even without having a pass.

I can't and won't comment on warlocks, since I never played one, except for the very first round on lamma (where they were pretty bad).

Agree

Well, except for whiners, I think the point is not that casters are useless now, if not that warlocks are easier and better now. The former is inevitable; the second is not a big difference in epics if the caster is full geared and with a few PLs. I think that many people doesn’t have top gear and is jealous with the easy entrance in epics of warlocks (casters are in good point, but need a lot more of work than a warlock, that is more forgiving in gear and PLs)

But they should think too that casters have not had their pass too. I hope that the pass will not foused in give big numbers that are not needed and focus in polish things (so maaaany useless spells!) and improve some too expensive things (as metamagic reduction, too many APs for too few reduction…)

I agree a warlock can be effective with less past lifes. Gear is still a big game changer though.

I can understand why someone playing cleric feels weaker than warlock - that is true but can be partially fixed by making energy burst and hellball work off of wisdom in addition to cha/int. I don't understand why people think wizards are weaker - they are different but equally strong but with totally different strengths.

I am running two wizards at the moment. A 17wiz / 3 fvs pm shiradi caster in shroud of the wraith and a 18 wizard / 2 rogue high dc illusionist.

The 17 wiz / 3 fvs solo's whole slaver chain no problem even with my son and his friend piking at the front while they do their homework - soloing scaled for 3. I give it a very slight edge in slavers of an ES blasting warlock due mainly to poison immunity which is useful against the traps but most importantly the end fight of part 3 and also the passive healing. Both are DPS builds that don't struggle with SP. My wizard has 1700 hp and my warlock has 1900, but the wizard has slightly better passive healing with the belt, aura, lgs neg 150 and of course high crit chance and damage. Even though I give slight edge to wizard both are good for soloing slavers chain.

My 18 wizard /2 rogue is deep gnome with 3 phantasmal killer options:
- deep gnome pk sla costs 5sp, 16 second cooldown 103 dc
- archmage pk sla costs 10sp, 6 second cooldown 103 dc
- unmeta'd pk spell costs 20 sp, 8 second cooldown, 98 dc without heighten

I keep a meta'd pk spell on my hotbar with 103 dc but the only place I really use it against the slaver kobolds (either fear resistance or illusion resistance) and the ogres (high saves). I have the 5 piece slaver set now with named orb and ring. I try and target lower fort save enemies with the unmeta'd pk as it saves me a bunch of sp with that setup versus always using the meta'd version.

Finger of death and wail still work well against low-med fort enemies. cc works well in general. Spiders are immune to fear so pk doesn't work for example. Wail does reasonably well in a mob of spiders.

I can swap between magister and draconic giving up 3 dc in draconic because I don't take any int. My wiz has 1500 hp and 103 reflex save with evasion. 120 or so search and disable. The character never died in slavers chain since I geared him up. I switch to draconic for soloing, but rarely solo. In draconic I have energy burst, hellball, dragon's breath options which is a nice backup for mobs that cant' be instakilled. i also have ruin / greater ruin/ arcane pulse - this is not a max dc build.

It's not really the best soloing build but i did solo slavers chain LE for fun and that was before I had all the gear I have now and yes I did invis and zerg past mobs when possible, but still could handle end fight in part 3.

As someone playing both wizard and warlock heavily at the moment I don't agree warlock is better than wizard. It was when the level cap was 28 but not now. My illusionist and es blasting builds are both posted on the forum - total transparency there - none of the builds are using any favorable bugs. I don't have the 17/3 posted, but it's not exactly hard to figure out either. I am assuming, although I don't for certain that the build is weaker than the 10/6/4 shiradi zombie builds, although many i see don't understand how to play that build well.

[Chai]

That's why I said that nerfing shining was wrong move, nerfing the crit chance was way more important than shining thing, that I don't even take on my warlock.

Warlock max CHA are already there and they're on the top 5 dps already, and If I say that it's because I'm palying it, so I see how does it perform.

Only place where they're not top 5 dps is LE raids(maybe), so 3 quest for now. Everywhere else they're overperforming. Period.

See page 2 post #22 of this thread.

Never talked even once of Con based warlock.

Nerifng DPS on something that isn't even in the top 5 for DPS is not the right move for balance. There are plenty of other conditions where warlock isn't in the top 5 DPS builds than what you are saying here.

This is the hole that was dug by giving everyone similar levels of easy recovery options post level 20. It cant be taken away from 1 without taking it away from all.

My suggestion - the D&D way - choose one or the other, cant have both - this is how real balance is achieved, by enforcing trade offs:

1. switch ES capstone and shining through. T5 ES gives 20% HP, not stackable with fighter or paladin defender HP increases, and shining through, un-nerfed, is the ES capstone.
2. Make crit chance the TS capstone. (not crit damage, but crit chance)

No need for a nerf. Just make people choose one or the other.

Doing this, there will still be warlocks outkilling people, but they wont be doing it on a max survivability platform which took very little effort. They would have to forgo shining through in favor of crit chance, and build for cha to get instakills. This adds value to PLs as people would still want survivability that PLs provide, as well as DCs and spell pen. The easy entry into LE build would still be con based, with full ES, which the player elected to be less DPS as they wanted survivability to be max or near max. It wouldn't have the DCs to land instakills, or the crit chance to damage, but could still put out a zero opportunity cost eldritch blast for sustained damage, with far less crit chance than the TS capstone lock would have.

DDO would benefit from using this concept everywhere else as well, and not just on warlock. The fact that any character can build for any aspect is not the issue. The fact that they can build to be good at all aspects in the same build is the issue.

Simply nerfing an aspect doesn't accomplish balance. Enforcing trade offs where people cant build for all at once, does.

[Enoach]

While I agree that the DPS/DC capabilities of the Warlock are still strong and the modification to Shining Through from a 12x Constitution to 8x Constitution does not change that I do think the change to Shining Through still needed to be made.

Now the difference between 12x and 8x is only 4 points per Constitution Score

50 Constitution = 600 Temporary Hit Points at 12x
50 Constitution = 400 Temporary Hit Points at 8x

200 HP is a significant amount and this is based on a 50 Constitution where many builds using this feature were pushing above this amount. The reason was because they could as they were only sacrificing DCs and these builds were not dependent on DCs. Some of these builds could have turned their Pact Damage off and not seen a significant decrease in their DPS.

Now that the above survivability change has been made the next question that Turbine needs to look at is a balance between DCs on abilities as well as not only the Critical Chance but the additional Critical Multiplier that some of these builds can achieve. Especially since these effect abilities with high base damage with little to know resource requirements, but do have cool downs.

My only concern is that Turbine needs to refrain from making a hasty next step on Warlock modifications. Making one to soon could hamper the Wizard/Sorcerer/Druid passes where I think options should be made to allow for critical multiplier increases. During that time Turbine should then adjust multipliers to match how they see sorcerer multipliers should be.

[2pc2]

My monkcher fears the forum hate. Because it's cheesy and stuff.

Monkchers lol. I thought no one serious played that anymore... If someone considers monkchers cheesy and stuff nowadays they must be playing another game.

Anyway if you ( or anyone) can somehow solo it on a monkcher make a vid and post it here, there are vids of shiradi mages, warlocks, and trees doing it so I doubt it would generate much hate. Or you can just say you can do it but you don't want to post a vid because you fear hate, that's legit, but then don't be surprised if some people don't beileve it, that's it.

[BigErkyKid]

Yes or ranged I don't care really, that would be pretty cool because 9 pages later and lot of words about imaginary completions still no one posted a vid of a fleshy melee or ranged doing it, easy or not. A barb would be the best imo, if only to see how many SF pots it takes.

We only have got a screenshot that shows a fleshy melee takes double or 100% more time than the warlock on the vid to end the same quest on the same dificulty, but that's not the same as a vid to tell the real difference in difficulty and resources.

I can tell you how I did it.

First, the build is semi flavor. CON/STR based dwarf with KTA, usual split with more AP in tempest than in deep wood. It is not top tier gear, but OK. It has a STR/Stun/Healing lore Slavers item, executioner's helm, the light armor from tempest, trinket from slavers, bluff epic golden guile, ring of prowess, CON ring, boots of devil commander, dodge/sneak belt from good intentions. Uses mornh and a TF warhammer. INT item for hot swap. Uses dire charge with >100 DC and has scion of sneak attack.

Second, the strategy. I noticed that I couldn't tank all bosses at the same time. Its not only the damage, but the (as far as I can tell no save) trips and I was afraid of getting banished by the mage. What I did was to use a bow (!) on the main guy until I killed him. I am not optimized for ranged DPS so that was painful. Circle kite with displacement and good healing and you can take the punishment. A couple time I was tripped with a bunch of mobs and got close to dying (I have no class based speed boost). Then, I separated the bosses using terrain and killed them one by one. It took so freaking long because again it was hard to drop the main guy. I also experimented a lot with terrain. I wasn't going for speedy, I wanted to understand the mechanics.

Third, resources. Only a single minor SP pot was used. I didn't want to scroll heal or use SF pots. I felt it would be pretty stupid to risk the completion after having spent so much time.

I can also tell you my experience on a barb. Simple, I die a lot. Even making it to the end fight, I died a lot. Granted, I play aggressively. And frankly there is no way right now that I can see of doing that end fight. I wouldn't be able to kill the guy in the middle and stay alive.

All that to say, it is OBVIOUS that it is much harder on a melee. Maybe someone can shave off minutes from mine, but seriously, it is a major PITA. And frankly in a class with less healing I just don't see it happening. Take a fleshy acrobat in there or something like that, it would be hard.

On warlock it is a piece of cake. Not only the fight, every single part of the quest. Every single quest in the game is easy on a warlock. Every single one, you can sleep walk, you can step in a casually make it through. Not a single LE quest is challenging on a warlock. ToEE can still pawn you on a melee if you aggro too much (**** archers). On a warlock? I used to do long runs without even using hell ball or SP based attacks. I used to do it on freaking MELEE ES/bursty warlock.

The class is broken. The current pass to magic overdid it because there are some easy button builds out there that are simply OP with respect to some baselines. For me the real baseline should be fleshy kensei. That's the level of power I'd like to see in all classes. If it has better self healing than fleshy kensei, must drop DPS. And so on.

[BigErkyKid]

It makes perfect sense. There are two popular warlock builds currently. Cha based and Con based. Nerfing survivability makes Con based less attractive, and more and more people will go cha based.

No it DOES NOT make Con less attractive. On the contrary, if the baseline of warlock is less survivable, people will have to invest more in survivability to remain in a standing similar to what the have now. There is plenty of room for that, as the video from the Sarlona guy is showing you. He is CON based, does plenty of damage, doesn't he? Enough to complete content without it being a snore fest.

The issue with this is DDO is already a game loaded with max DPS / insta-kill builds, where survivability builds are a flavor niche at best. Causing those playing warlocks to gravitate toward cha builds, in a game already loaded to the gills with DPS /instakill builds homogenizes the game even more. Actually having an attractive survivability option a la con based ES = more build diversity in game.

Build diversity? Holy guacamole. You don't need a silly CON based lock to beat that quest. On a CHA based it can be done just fine. I see a lot less CON based these days. Presicely because DPS is so much better on a lock nowadays that you can kill things fast enough.

As for lock being diversity, I don't agree in the least. Diversity meaning that there are similarly powerful builds across classes. Take a freaking kensei fleshy in there and tell me how you do. Right, you won't. No one will because it is freaking nightmarish.

What the nerf demands are accomplishing is not balance. It accomplishes re-ordering the meta. We have 10 years of evidence, where the meta has never been balanced, always has had max dps builds, always has had flavor builds. etc.

Bad dev work doesn't mean that it should not be attempted. Every competitive game I know has nerfs and buffs because aside from FarmVille DDO, in most games they understand balance is necessary.

Furthermore, nerfing warlock survivability pushes DDO away from balance,e not toward it. DDO is already loaded with full offense builds. Nerfing con based locks means people will play cha based locks. If the premise is con based locks are outkilling everyone else, congrats, nerfing just pushed them toward builds which make them outkill everything else even faster. (of course, that claim is hyperbole, as warlock is not top of the meta DPS) - in order to have balance there needs to be diversity - and advocating nerfing survivability builds doesn't create diversity in DDO, it removes it

.

That makes no sense.

[BigErkyKid]

Monkchers lol. I thought no one serious played that anymore... If someone considers monkchers cheesy and stuff nowadays they must be playing another game.

Anyway if you ( or anyone) can somehow solo it on a monkcher make a vid and post it here, there are vids of shiradi mages, warlocks, and trees doing it so I doubt it would generate much hate. Or you can just say you can do it but you don't want to post a vid because you fear hate, that's legit, but then don't be surprised if some people don't beileve it, that's it.

A screen shot would be enough for me. I know how to do it anyway, just want to see if it is possible.

[Chai]

No it DOES NOT make Con less attractive. On the contrary, if the baseline of warlock is less survivable, people will have to invest more in survivability to remain in a standing similar to what the have now. There is plenty of room for that, as the video from the Sarlona guy is showing you. He is CON based, does plenty of damage, doesn't he? Enough to complete content without it being a snore fest.



Build diversity? Holy guacamole. You don't need a silly CON based lock to beat that quest. On a CHA based it can be done just fine. I see a lot less CON based these days. Presicely because DPS is so much better on a lock nowadays that you can kill things fast enough.

As for lock being diversity, I don't agree in the least. Diversity meaning that there are similarly powerful builds across classes. Take a freaking kensei fleshy in there and tell me how you do. Right, you won't. No one will because it is freaking nightmarish.



Bad dev work doesn't mean that it should not be attempted. Every competitive game I know has nerfs and buffs because aside from FarmVille DDO, in most games they understand balance is necessary.

.

That makes no sense.

Read my post on enforcing trade offs (post 174). If you feel that makes no sense in a game with D&D in the name, then I guess we are done talking, and you may continue to advocate for directly nerfing specific abilities, which never achieves game balance to anywhere near the degree that enforcing trade offs does. you do so however, knowing full well you will never be happy with the state of balance in DDO if this continues on in that direction. It has been demonstrated enough times now that balance is not achieved in this manner, so advocating more of he same, will only result in more of the same.

If anyone truly feels DDO has had bad dev work for 10 years, and that is the reason why there has never been balance, Id have to question why they are still here playing, and posting. Thus, I hereby dismiss attributing lack of game balance over a decade of time as "bad dev work" as hyperbole. Furthermore, blaming it on the devs continually is being done for no other reason than not wanting to admit they gave players what they asked for, and the players realized only after the fact that this is actually worse than it was before - which is yet another community issue that continually repeats itself over and over again.

Diversity meaning that there are similarly powerful builds across classes

That's not build diversity, that's class homogenization.

Build diversity is when the survivability build is as attractive to play as the DPS build is. In order for there to be diversity, there needs to be a choice however. If we can build both into every character, that isn't a choice, and does not demonstrate diversity.

Most eSports games, most pvp games:
You can build for high levels of one of the following, but not all in the same build. DPS, recovery, mitigation.
gw2 is a good example - you can build a max DPS ranger or a max healing ranger or a max survivability ranger. You cant have all 3 near max in the same build. Not even close. Maxing one is at the direct cost to the other 2.

DDO:
You can build for high levels of all of the following into the same character. DPS, recovery, mitigation.

No trade offs = no build diversity.
Since sorc and warlock were debated in this thread, I will use them as an example. If sorc and warlock had same DPS, same recovery, and same mitigation, that's class homogenization, not build diversity. If sorc is the better DPS class and warlock is the better mitigation class, that's more diverse.

[BigErkyKid]

That's not build diversity, that's class homogenization.

Build diversity is when the survivability build is as attractive to play as the DPS build is. In order for there to be diversity, there needs to be a choice however. If we can build both into every character, that isn't a choice, and does not demonstrate diversity.

Most eSports games, most pvp games:
You can build for high levels of one of the following, but not all in the same build. DPS, recovery, mitigation.
gw2 is a good example - you can build a max DPS ranger or a max healing ranger or a max survivability ranger. You cant have all 3 near max in the same build. Not even close. Maxing one is at the direct cost to the other 2.

DDO:
You can build for high levels of all of the following into the same character. DPS, recovery, mitigation.

No trade offs = no build diversity.
Since sorc and warlock were debated in this thread, I will use them as an example. If sorc and warlock had same DPS, same recovery, and same mitigation, that's class homogenization, not build diversity. If sorc is the better DPS class and warlock is the better mitigation class, that's more diverse.

Did I say I wanted all to do the same DPS? Straw man much. I actually agree with with the basic premise of this example.

Just not the warlock bit. As I have played a lot of them, I know how they perform wrt to other classes. Same player, two different builds, day and night. So yeah you can argue all you want but you won't trump actual gameplay experience.

I ask you to go in slavers LE on a pure kensei fleshy. Then on a warlock. Now come and tell me there is balance. There isn't, and you won't do it because you know I am right.