U45 Preview 1: Balance Changes Main Thread

[Steelstar]

What about Improved Feint? It is a single-target special attack. Was it merely omitted or is there a reason it does not allow strikethrough, and if so why?

Ah. Its Bluff effect is AOE, but the damage is single-target. We can take a look into that one.

[Wongar]

Do the revised THF feats Ability Score Modifier increase apply to Dwarven Axe and Bastard Sward?

Glancing Blow damage is the thing that makes these weapons special, please don't remove it without including them in the "fix" to single target damage.

[Capricorpus]

Caster cc is vastly superior still. It affects every mob in its aoe, at range.

Caster cc has lower dcs than a tactics build and is not infinitely sustainable with the only choke point being cooldowns.

2hf without any enhancement boosts(and those enhancements are extremely expensive for what they provide, absurdly so) hits only 2 targets at melee range with higher CD

Anyone playing thf who isn't a moron is going to take whatever enhancements are reasonably available to get to 3 targets per swing. Cooldown shouldn't be relevant for any competent thf player because with these changes dire charge/stunning blow/trip should be more than enough to keep a pack of mobs cc'd while you're killing them, with no fail dcs if you're a fighter even if your gear is non optimal or the addition of ear smash if you're playing a barb.

and gearing a melee is much more intensive in the current day than a caster.

I'm not going to address your (wrong) point about caster vs. melee gear because it isn't relevant. Gear options constantly change.

Melee cc is subject to the same immunity that caster cc is, always has a spell pen check (called to hit) and they dont get to safely sit at range to do it. Sorry but you are wrong.

Melee cc is subject to most, but not all, of the immunities that caster cc is - certain champions and monsters that're immune hold can be stunned, whereas the reverse is never true.

To-hit is not remotely analogous to spell pen because it's far easier to reach a high likelihood of your attack landing under the monster ac system than it is to reach the equivalent chance of success under the spell pen system. Your point regarding melee vs caster cc range is *mostly* true, but not to the extent that you seem to think it is - glacial is one of the best sources of cc that a caster can have, and it possesses a cone-style range.

Going off on a brief tangent, I sincerely hope ear smash is nerfed before this goes live.

I don't think that thf players should have one full aoe cc on a 12 second cd and two 2-3 target aoes on 15 second cds with an additional 2-3 target aoe on a 12 second cd if you're playing a barb (and you should be playing a barb). All of these would have extremely high dcs and in the case of ear smash no dc at all on an ability that works on pretty much everything, and a decent player will be able to use some combination of these abilities to destroy packs of mobs quite easily.

[Cetus]

I agree that ear smash needs a review.

But having stunning blow affect an additional target while placing yourself in the riskiest of situations (being an offensive melee in a group of potentially one-two shotting enemies (depending on your defenses)) is not a problem at all. In fact, this is how an AoE melee character should operate. And, it gives stunning blow the much needed boost to utility that it desperately lacked in light of how awesome stunning fist worked for monks. So allowing stunning blow and trip to strike through is a massive improvement to the integrity of the fighting style.

Casters are a poor comparison. They have the benefit of distance and debuffs at their disposal.

[Carpone]

Melee cc is subject to the same immunity that caster cc is, always has a spell pen check (called to hit) and they dont get to safely sit at range to do it.

Attack bonus is not analogous to spell penetration.

Mob crowd control immunities are not the same between melee and casters.

[palladin9479]

Anyone playing thf who isn't a moron is going to take whatever enhancements are reasonably available to get to 3 targets per swing.

Unfortunately it's not that easy as those other bonus's are VERY small in comparison to what they add, I don't even then 200% is reachable because of how minuscule the other bonus's are. Remember they were originally scaled off glancing blows damage bonus's, like +5% GB damage / +5% chance at additional effect. Most should be doubled or tippled to be relevant to StrikeThrough.

[palladin9479]

Just ran the numbers and SSG just nerfed Paladin.

Of course they still nerfing Ranger, no surprise there.

[xTethx]

@Steel

So are bears going to get this additional scaling as well provided they take the natural fighting feats?

[Jerevth]

I don't think that thf players should have one full aoe cc on a 12 second cd and two 2-3 target aoes on 15 second cds with an additional 2-3 target aoe on a 12 second cd if you're playing a barb (and you should be playing a barb). All of these would have extremely high dcs and in the case of ear smash no dc at all on an ability that works on pretty much everything, and a decent player will be able to use some combination of these abilities to destroy packs of mobs quite easily.

Interesting point, but it's still only touch range, limited to three targets at most and the caster and ranged mobs are well outside of melee range so you have to catch the imp. I don't see many enemy casters clustering together in a tight enough pack. +5W Every 12 seconds to, at most, three melee targets is a lot of damage overall but still limited in range, cooldown and number compared to other accepted methods of attack. And a mob that can cast is likely dead before the cool down anyway. I decided when playing barb that ear smash wasn't all that useful to me but it was a while ago.
Earsmash for damage and then smack him again with another attack. He's done whether he could cast or not. Or he's a boss who doesn't get affected and has the HP to sustain that damage anyway. And there's seldom two bosses together.

I don't recall if it worked on champs, either.

The "Knockout" that is linked to "Ear Smash" would be approaching the line between good and OP, though. (Only stuns on a vorpal, however.)

[DRoark]

Of course they still nerfing Ranger, no surprise there.

They're incapable of admitting that only INQ needed changing, since the problem with a decade-old-feat only "miraculously" appeared after that tree went live.
Ranged pays the price for improper testing. Anyone with any game knowledge at all, could tell you holding two machineguns would be a Meta in the first week.

[palladin9479]

This is the piece that concerns me.

Allowing strikethrough to work with single target cc abilities is an incredibly strong buff, and allowing thf builds to keep entire packs of mobs permanently cc'd by rotating through some combination of dire charge/stunning blow/trip/ear smash along with their increased ability to deal aoe damage is too much.

Tactics dcs can be gotten incredibly high, and unlike playing a dc caster investing in tactics comes with virtually no dps tradeoff and is not subject to champion immunity, a non-infinite amount of spell points, or spell resistance. Please consider lowering the amount of aoe cc available to thf before this goes live.

Tactics DC's for those being mentioned aren't high enough at 30 to matter, Dire Charge is the only one that's actually useful.

This is from someone who plays a Tactics Fighter with over 145 DC on Dire Charge. SB and Trip doesn't get much over 100 and you need 120+ to be reliable when you need them to be.

[palladin9479]

They're incapable of admitting that only INQ needed changing, since the problem with a decade-old-feat only "miraculously" appeared after that tree went live.
Ranged pays the price for improper testing. Anyone with any game knowledge at all, could tell you holding two machineguns would be a Meta in the first week.

I'm talking about Dance of Death, no mention of them removing the stupid nerf they are doing.

They keep telling us they listen but it's become obvious they only listen to positive feedback and ignore what they don't like to hear.

[Lynnabel]

I'm talking about Dance of Death, no mention of them removing the stupid nerf they are doing.

They keep telling us they listen but it's become obvious they only listen to positive feedback and ignore what they don't like to hear.

Oh, uh, I was planning on just letting the notes let you all know, but with Lamannia 2 the cooldown is back where it was. Also, it doesn't require movement (and never did even on Lamannia 1, we really donked up the documentation on that one by not making that clearer earlier. Our bad for sure)

[Capricorpus]

Interesting point, but it's still only touch range, limited to three targets at most and the caster and ranged mobs are well outside of melee range so you have to catch the imp. I don't see many enemy casters clustering together in a tight enough pack. +5W Every 12 seconds to, at most, three melee targets is a lot of damage overall but still limited in range, cooldown and number compared to other accepted methods of attack. And a mob that can cast is likely dead before the cool down anyway. I decided when playing barb that ear smash wasn't all that useful to me but it was a while ago.
Earsmash for damage and then smack him again with another attack. He's done whether he could cast or not. Or he's a boss who doesn't get affected and has the HP to sustain that damage anyway. And there's seldom two bosses together.

I don't recall if it worked on champs, either.

The "Knockout" that is linked to "Ear Smash" would be approaching the line between good and OP, though. (Only stuns on a vorpal, however.)

That is not correct. When people talk about ear smash in this context they're typically talking about knockout, which is a no save helpless effect that works on practically every mob in the game.

[xTethx]

Tactics DC's for those being mentioned aren't high enough at 30 to matter, Dire Charge is the only one that's actually useful.

This is from someone who plays a Tactics Fighter with over 145 DC on Dire Charge. SB and Trip doesn't get much over 100 and you need 120+ to be reliable when you need them to be.

Then your “tactics” fighter needs some work. All tactics are viable at r10 with a properly geared and well built toon. The trade off is being able to get close enough.

[palladin9479]

Oh, uh, I was planning on just letting the notes let you all know, but with Lamannia 2 the cooldown is back where it was. Also, it doesn't require movement (and never did even on Lamannia 1, we really donked up the documentation on that one by not making that clearer earlier. Our bad for sure)

Clear communication seems to be the department you guys really need help in. Every thought of getting a community manager? Would help a ton with these miscommunications as they specialize in bidirectional information flow.

Still a nerf down to 3 targets but that's acceptable if the timers are the same since it's not strong.

I posted that the current proposed modification Divine Might is actually a nerf, primarily due to available gear and how SWF and THF got a 1.5x stat bonus that's being replaced with a 1.0. Now THF's base stat bonus is going up so it'll largely absorb the difference, but SWF just got shat on hard. Would it be possible to just have it as a multi-selector? Previous Divine Might or the newer Divine Presence? Basically Divine Might's replacement needs to be +3/4 Charisma Mod to those things instead of 1/2, that or have a selector to have the previous one or not.

[Capricorpus]

Then your “tactics” fighter needs some work. All tactics are viable at r10 with a properly geared and well built toon. The trade off is being able to get close enough.

^^^
Very much this.

[palladin9479]

Then your “tactics” fighter needs some work. All tactics are viable at r10 with a properly geared and well built toon. The trade off is being able to get close enough.

Sorry but Stunning Blow and Trip both have too low a DC growth to be useful.

SB

(DC: 10 + Strength modifier + other modifiers)

Trip

(DC: 10 + Strength modifier + other modifiers)

Dire Charge

(DC: 20 + highest ability modifier + bonus to stun attacks)

How seeing that we would think that Dire is just 10 above stunning, but in actual play something is going on with those modifies because it's frequently 20~30 above.

I'm actually doing the last eTR for the new martial DC bonus which will push me over 150. When I swap in quality combat mastery I will get it to around 160, but that starts coming at a serious DPS loss. This is without temporary boosts like potions, that +STR rage from Barb and so forth. Just me standing in town with what I have on me.

The point was that what most people mean by "tactics" is actually "Dire Charge" as Stunning Blow / Trip / Sunder DC growth is kinda low. Useful up to Elite, and kinda useful on low reaper, but won't land worth a **** on mid to high reaper.

[J-mann]

Caster cc has lower dcs than a tactics build and is not infinitely sustainable with the only choke point being cooldowns.

Caster "sustainability" has largely been irrelavent in most play for a long time now. Pretty much only in raids and reaper levels the player is just barely ready for. The dc difference on stunning blow and trip vs casters is not as large as you seem to think. Further I need a seperate item for each of them.

Anyone playing thf who isn't a moron is going to take whatever enhancements are reasonably available to get to 3 targets per swing. Cooldown shouldn't be relevant for any competent thf player because with these changes dire charge/stunning blow/trip should be more than enough to keep a pack of mobs cc'd while you're killing them, with no fail dcs if you're a fighter even if your gear is non optimal or the addition of ear smash if you're playing a barb.

You cannot hit 3 regardless of what combo you take. Did you even read the notes and do the math? Casters crying about things they do not even know is rich. The best Ive seen is 185 st and they had to spend a ton of aps just on st.

I'm not going to address your (wrong) point about caster vs. melee gear because it isn't relevant. Gear options constantly change.

Played both, list of needs is a time and a quarter longer than casters, at least.

Melee cc is subject to most, but not all, of the immunities that caster cc is - certain champions and monsters that're immune hold can be stunned, whereas the reverse is never true.

Stunning blow is subject to the same immunities that caster stuns are. A hold is not a stun, it is effective against some monsters that stun is not and I cannot think of many if any examples of the reverse. Trip does work on most mobs, but does not induce helplessness and there are trip like spells as well (comet fall for divines comes to mind)

To-hit is not remotely analogous to spell pen because it's far easier to reach a high likelihood of your attack landing under the monster ac system than it is to reach the equivalent chance of success under the spell pen system. Your point regarding melee vs caster cc range is *mostly* true, but not to the extent that you seem to think it is - glacial is one of the best sources of cc that a caster can have, and it possesses a cone-style range.

To-hit is exactly analogous to spell pen, with one exception every mob HAS AC not every mob has SR. Even in the best of cases melee CC has 2 5% chances of a fail whereas casters only have 1, additionally modern packs mob ac have bloated so much that even with precision we are seeing glances on 2s and 3s and occasionally on a 4 against a particularly high ac mob in high reaper.

Going off on a brief tangent, I sincerely hope ear smash is nerfed before this goes live.

Ear smash is pretty good, but has the draw back of needing to be barb. Not sure it needs a nerf just to be fixed to work properly (as in a hit interrupts the sleep effect).

I don't think that thf players should have one full aoe cc on a 12 second cd and two 2-3 target aoes on 15 second cds with an additional 2-3 target aoe on a 12 second cd if you're playing a barb (and you should be playing a barb). All of these would have extremely high dcs and in the case of ear smash no dc at all on an ability that works on pretty much everything, and a decent player will be able to use some combination of these abilities to destroy packs of mobs quite easily.

no differently than a properly played caster..........

[SerPounce]

Bear innate attacks ( eg maul , great maul) need to be added to the strikethough special attack list).

Also aren’t bears still taking a single target damage nerf here?

#SaveTheBears