Warlock NERF Again

[Vanhooger]

Will you therefore be asking for nerfs to sorc?

I do for all caster, they went up too much on the Aoe damage with spell crit multi. And I do basically play caster 90% of the time.

[BigErkyKid]

Will you therefore be asking for nerfs to sorc?

It is either the class / archetype or the quest design that needs to be adjusted.

I would suggest the following torture for you. Go play your previous TWF barbarian in slavers the next month that your guild is farming it. Then you can come here and tell us how that felt.

Some of your fellow power gamers are understanding my standpoint. Why so reticent? What is it that bothers you?

[Mr_Helmet]

I do for all caster, they went up too much on the Aoe damage with spell crit multi. And I do basically play caster 90% of the time.

The issue is the mobs don't have enough HP. Seriously the mobs in Von 1 have more than LE slavers, that's what's broken.

[Vanhooger]

The issue is the mobs don't have enough HP. Seriously the mobs in Von 1 have more than LE slavers, that's what's broken.

that's true as well, but then a blue bar caster will be sub par compared to warlock if they double they're HP. Warlock win again lol

[Mr_Helmet]

I completed a solo LE melee Slavers run. It was fun; I learnt little nuances about some fights and so on. But this is not how you are going to get your items before the next round of power creep. Efficiency matters. That's why I said screw this immediately after.

Do you have both a melee and a Caster?

If you do just segregate your runs.

If you don't, I advise making your bench a little deeper.

[Six_Gun]

It's sad the the whiners and cry babies are consistently coddled. It's no wonder these forums have become nothing but a pile of "nerf this" threads. Turbine has fully embraced the "Harrison Bergeron" model of game play.

All hail the Handicapper General and his multitude of lowest common denominator adherents!

[BigErkyKid]

Do you have both a melee and a Caster?

If you do just segregate your runs.

If you don't, I advise making your bench a little deeper.

I used to have 3 toons. Caster, melee, and experiment.

Now I am down to one because I can't keep up otherwise.

I have played plenty of warlocks, don't worry. For a while I tried to optimize a melee one.

I remember when I was getting my new toee set and running with pugs ee toee. I spent a lot of time telling people not to worry if they died in the alerts, etc. That it was not them, it was that my build was so much better for that content.

And oh boy it was.

[Rys]

Most people who are attached to some builds are the ones coming to the forums complaining when some options just pull ahead so much. You have for example Wizza and Rys complaining during the reign of melee (paladin/barb times), others like Iriale when insta killers were trash in end game (DoJ) and now some of us complaining about a lot of melee builds being at the short end right now (Slavers grind, etc).

What a blatant lie. I never came to to the forums complaining that some options pulled ahead too much. The only thing I complained about was PRR and that still stands and it affects everyone not just melees.

Also not sure what you mean by the 'reign of melee'. Didn't notice because I was probably too busy playing the game and complaining on the forums of course. Thought you would know by now I don't pug much and don't give an f about what others play.

[Vanhooger]

It's sad the the whiners and cry babies are consistently coddled. It's no wonder these forums have become nothing but a pile of "nerf this" threads. Turbine has fully embraced the "Harrison Bergeron" model of game play.

All hail the Handicapper General and his multitude of lowest common denominator adherents!

So If I ask to nerf my own build I am a whiners and a crybaby. Thanks mate!
I guess most people don't like challenge and like to run godmode, I understand that.
I don't get why dev are working on reaper if we don't even see how much power we have compared to the old AI and mechanics of 90% of quest.

[Vish]

All hail the Handicapper General and his multitude of lowest common denominator adherents!

Ha I liked that,

But on a real thread reply

They nerfed brilliance
It was refreshing hit points before if you were under normal hit points
Pretty sure anyways
Cause I'm taking a lot more damage now and not healing it back up

And on the shining through front
That used to be a nice chunck of extra hp
It always evaporates, but it gave you pause time
Now, it's nerfed to near uselessness
I don't even bother with it in slavers
Maybe sometimes if I'm tanking two bosses
But otherwise not really necessary
And that use to be x15?

Ya the boy who cried wolf, oh my

[Vint]

Again, balance is not a black-or-white, either-or issue. So, I'm not sure why you would say "nothing has worked". Game balance doesn't either 'work' or 'not work' because games are not either 'balanced' or 'unbalanced'--they are more or less balanced as a matter of degree. My broom and mop don't make my house perfectly clean with 0% dirt and bacteria. That doesn't mean I'm going to throw them out with the trash and declare that 'Cleaning Has Failed'.

I won't get into semantics with you. Over the years I have seen many threads:

Nerf wings on FS (amrath) 20 level cap
Nef Shiradi (after MoTU release)
Nerf EIN
Nerf shuriken builds
Nerf crit rage on Barbs (years ago)
Nerf PM's
Nerf swashbuckler

These are just a few. You can make claims that there is or is not balance, but if this is true you would not have seen these threads (and a million like them) spamming the general forums for years.

[Soleran100]

Does anyone really think that if warlocks were just sightly better than the rest this thread would have gone to 16 pages and going ... The difference is so huge that it looks like a you're playing another game or difficulty.

Paladins had threads like this over holy sword and if you look at the posters it isn't as though this particular thread has new posters providing content but rather the same people that have asked and stated over and over in the past to nerf other classes after/during/before respective class passes.

[changelingamuck]

I won't get into semantics with you. Over the years I have seen many threads:

Nerf wings on FS (amrath) 20 level cap
Nef Shiradi (after MoTU release)
Nerf EIN
Nerf shuriken builds
Nerf crit rage on Barbs (years ago)
Nerf PM's
Nerf swashbuckler

These are just a few. You can make claims that there is or is not balance, but if this is true you would not have seen these threads (and a million like them) spamming the general forums for years.

It's not semantics. It's accurately describing the topic at-hand. You made an argument that balancing classes wasn't worthwhile because the game will never be 'balanced'. I pointed out that this was an inaccurate way of describing game balance. And I actually didn't make any claims that there is or is not balance. I said the opposite--that game balance varies as a matter of degree and is not a black-or-white, either-or thing. So, I'm not sure what you mean by this.

The fact that there is no such thing as a perfectly balanced MMORPG and the fact that a game is only more or less balanced as a matter of degree is precisely the reason that there are always threads about balancing classes and always will be. Balancing a game is a continuous effort in every MMORPG that isn't in maintenance mode. Just like household cleaning is a continuous effort in every house with occupants.

[Knight_slayer]

It is either the class / archetype or the quest design that needs to be adjusted.

So not a nerf to warlock specifically then? This makes more sense to me. I call for nerfs across the board. Nerf healing across the board, I support that because self healing is super op on just about all builds. I support buffing the content, which also nerfs across the board.

I would suggest the following torture for you. Go play your previous TWF barbarian in slavers the next month that your guild is farming it. Then you can come here and tell us how that felt.

Do you think I think all classes are equal in slavers? Why do you think I think that? I'm pretty sure that every single player in DDO would know that isn't the case. Do you expect all classes to be even remotely competitive in every specific dungeon? I know from experience that in most cases different dungeon design and quest mechanics will swing the balance in that specific dungeon so that some classes can complete it 100% faster than others, sometimes the other classes cant complete it at all (talking solo's). If DDO nerfed different classes depending on the latest content release can you imagine how that would go?

[BigErkyKid]

So not a nerf to warlock specifically then? This makes more sense to me. I call for nerfs across the board. Nerf healing across the board, I support that because self healing is super op on just about all builds. I support buffing the content, which also nerfs across the board.

Do you think I think all classes are equal in slavers? Why do you think I think that? I'm pretty sure that every single player in DDO would know that isn't the case. Do you expect all classes to be even remotely competitive in every specific dungeon? I know from experience that in most cases different dungeon design and quest mechanics will swing the balance in that specific dungeon so that some classes can complete it 100% faster than others, sometimes the other classes cant complete it at all (talking solo's). If DDO nerfed different classes depending on the latest content release can you imagine how that would go?

No, I don't think all classes should be equal in all content. I don't think the difference should be so large, though. That the whole point. For different reasons: first and quite importantly, because end game in DDO is so freaking scarce that if your build sucks at it, you are pretty much damned. Now end game is a chain and maybe 1-2 raids. For a lot of people its only slavers though. So unless you are grinding PLs, sucking at slavers is a pretty bad thing.

Now the dominance of certain builds over others is not restricted to slavers at all, it is pretty universal. Taking some of the current top performing builds and pitching them against other legitimate builds (say a THF kensei, or an assassin) reveals that for a lot of content there are extremely large differences. Even within a class. For example, an occult slayer barb vs the usual FB/ravager. In the vast majority of content, even with the same gear and skill, one build will dominate the other by a lot. Its not that I am talking about flavor builds, those are iconic DnD builds.

It is not the job of the players to balance classes and archetypes. However, the current way most content AND system changes are created vastly favor some builds over others. This means that those of us who are not switching to the current FOTM often feel that they don't contribute much to parties, that their build is vastly outclassed, and quite inefficient and finishing content and getting gear.

No one likes that. You wouldn't like it either, that's why you are switching toons with the meta. The deal is that some of us would want that the meta changes don't bring such large disparities. Accepting that one build is 10-20% better than another is something I am willing to do; I can live with that. But when one build is just so much better than the other is left piking, that becomes a problem.

There are different kinds of players. Some like to constantly optimize their build for content, others are attached to their archetype. Currently DDO is giving a big middle finger to those that are not constantly switching.

[slarden]

Some people just play cheese because it is the only way they don't look mediocre at playing this game.

I am very capable of looking mediocre on a powerful build, but it takes alot more creativity.

[Feralthyrtiaq]

I play a couple Warlocks currently and have done a half dozen or so total Warlock lives.

They are fun as hell with a number of playstyles. I love them and feel they have a necessary and distinct place of their own in DDO.

However, my TWF Khopesh PDK Kensai in DC is MILES ahead of of my EA Lock for LE Slavers.

Now my lock does have 3x Sorc/Wiz/FVS/Cleric lives and a small handful of EPLS so I can land CC and do OK DPS vs rednamed mobs. Even with Arcane Pulse/HellBall/Stricken/Consume/Spirit Blast/Eldritch Burst/Divine Wrath/Vaccuum LGS and a few bells-n-whistles I STILL DO NOT EVEN COME CLOSE TO THE SURVIVABILITY AND DPS OF MY KENSAI!

I just have to feel bad for the humans whose brains come up with these kooky ideas for nerfs and balance and BS.

Poor humans...

[Merlocke]

So your issue is not with warlock specifically but with all classes/builds more powerful than what you choose to play? And even though warlock is not more powerful than other powerful builds/classes you want it nerfed because it just happens to be more powerful than what you choose to play? So basically anyone else that chooses a class that happens to be more powerful than what you choose to play can shut up and accept a nerf because its all about you right?

Exactly.

And those players have only a few options, ..... whine until the devs make an adjustment.

that you and your sock (2pc2) see this as a viable option speaks volumes.

But your are naturally having an easier time in DDO because you move with the meta. Those of us who don't are the ones at the wrong end of the spear.

Adapt and Overcome

[count_spicoli]

However, my TWF Khopesh PDK Kensai in DC is MILES ahead of of my EA Lock for LE Slavers.

Lol. You must have built the worst warlock of all time.

[Chai]

It's not semantics. It's accurately describing the topic at-hand. You made an argument that balancing classes wasn't worthwhile because the game will never be 'balanced'. I pointed out that this was an inaccurate way of describing game balance. And I actually didn't make any claims that there is or is not balance. I said the opposite--that game balance varies as a matter of degree and is not a black-or-white, either-or thing. So, I'm not sure what you mean by this.

The fact that there is no such thing as a perfectly balanced MMORPG and the fact that a game is only more or less balanced as a matter of degree is precisely the reason that there are always threads about balancing classes and always will be. Balancing a game is a continuous effort in every MMORPG that isn't in maintenance mode. Just like household cleaning is a continuous effort in every house with occupants.

Most of these nerf requests are due to the top end players being witnessed blazing through quests at rates the rest cannot keep up with. It has very little to do with the actual class itself, other than the top players demonstrating what the optimal builds are, and how to best play them.

Nerfing or adjusting the classes just re-orders the meta, while not bringing us closer to game balance, and the top end players gravitate to the next best build, and again demonstrate how they can plow through the same content at breakneck speeds the rest cant keep up with. This then serves to instigate the same crowd to demand more nerfs of whatever they just witnessed the top end players handedly defeating quests with.

For true game balance, the players themselves would have to be nerfed, not the classes. MMOs would be more like bowling, where the worst players are spotted a "handicap" score so there can at least be some competition.

It surprises me that the good players even post builds or videos any more. Doing so just lets the cat out of the bag, and gets the next nerf train started.