U45 Preview 1: Balance Changes Main Thread

[Xandez]

Well it ~was~ going to be good, then the cosplayers got involved and cried that they wanted to use a Charisma based Paladin. The dev's capitulated and viola nerf that wipes out most of the gains from the KoTC upgrade.

Right now the strongest Insightful Strength item is +10, meaning +5~7 damage. Insightful Deadly is +8 so immediately without any other consideration it's a nerf. But wait there's more.

Charisma around 70 isn't hard to reach and provides a +30 bonus. The original Divine Might would transfer that into +30 Insightful Strength that would then converted to +15 * 1.5 = +22 damage. The results with the above deadly is +30 damage.

The *new* nerfed Divine Might would translate that +30 into +15 Damage. The Insightful Strength is giving +7 damage for a net result of +22 damage. The more Charisma you get the worse off the gap becomes, run the math at 90 or 100 Charisma, a like value once the cap goes up, and it gets really bad.

Again the center issue was that Paladin was already getting a 50% bonus to damage from Strength and the Dev's just took that away.

Well, at least some of "The cosplayers" (like i said earlier, give options, dont nerf) did NOT want the original selector which gives insightful STR to be removed. Just to give an option to use the CHA if needed.

Dont really know why they went and removed that...

[Jerevth]

A shame there isn't a rating system option at TR when you shed a character, or when you delete it.
They don't seem to listen to input when issues are outlined, people will play the class not knowing better, and some will want the PL, even if it is handicapped. Their metrics only show who played the class, any variations, but they miss the most important factor: Was the player happy with it. And if it's a multi-class it loses something as well, but at least when the class is ignored entirely they can look back and have an aha moment to justify further changes. If it isn't too late.

"How would you rate this Class" 1-5
"Enjoyment of Play" 1-5
"What did you like best?" A couple sentences
"What did you like least?" A couple more sentences.
"Would you play this again?" y/n

Of course there would be people like Flimsy who would run a Pali and rate it 5s just to mess with the metric.

[Carpone]

One concern expressed by players who have already seen the above THF changes was that the existing Divine Might would become nearly mandatory on THF builds, including Barbarians/Fighters/etc, since the bonus to Strength would be amplified considerably further than it used to.

Not taking Divine Might on THF builds means missing out on +15 DCs (70 CHA) to Stunning Blow, Dire Charge and Trip. Insightful Combat Mastery from DM scales further than itemization could ever provide. Even if there was forthcoming itemization that allowed you to slot in +9 Insightful Combat Mastery after gear tetris (good luck Lynnabel!), that's still 6 DCs behind.

For illustration purposes:

[Ballrus]

KT with Long Sword and Battle Axe are already superior damage, nothing about this changes them. Bastard Sword and Dwarven Axes were for AoE's, mostly AoE hate with Glancing Blows. I believe StrikeThrough is still working on both those weapons so you can still build an AoE hate tank around them.

Strikethrough still works, ok.
But losing Glancing Blows will decrease single target damage.

These weapons still need a FEAT to use w/o penalty, and not everyone using a shield is a tank.

You got it?

[xTethx]

Not taking Divine Might on THF builds means missing out on +15 DCs (70 CHA) to Stunning Blow, Dire Charge and Trip. Insightful Combat Mastery from DM scales further than itemization could ever provide. Even if there was forthcoming itemization that allowed you to slot in +9 Insightful Combat Mastery after gear tetris (good luck Lynnabel!), that's still 6 DCs behind

Every build still has the option of Know the Angles, they just lack the insightful attack bonus from it. It’s a heavier investment than divine might, but does not require the splash. It’s still a huge nerf, but their are options to remedy some on the nerf, it’s just more personal choice related, rather than get everything for cheap.

[SpartanKiller13]

Ear Smash should work with Strikethrough.

Boulder's Might is a Cleave if I recall correctly, and won't work with Strikethrough.

Arcane Siphon itself should Strikethrough, but even if it gave you multiple copies of the buff, they're all Competence bonuses and won't stack with themselves.

Smite Foe should Strikethrough, but I think there's an internal cooldown on Ameliorating Strike.

Alright, thanks

Internal cooldown makes sense, even if I'm not fond of it

[Stingae]

If we are supposed to eb picking up single target attachs which should strikethrough, what about The Frozen Fury from warchanter. No particular reason to treat it differently from stunning blow and a nice bonus for the THF bards out there.

[Fearsabre]

I'm really excited for the changes that are coming to tank builds because before this update, there are maybe two or three viable/desirable tank builds which stinks because in my opinion, the strength of this game is the amount of variety in the character creation and the theory crafting that goes along with that. Hopefully these changes allow for more variety in tanks which would open up more room for theory crafting.