U56 Preview 1 - Archetypes

[DeltaBravo]

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[DeltaBravo]

That very much is a wise truth. However, being OP as FvS definitely are (for leveling, at endgame and on HC - I have played one and played alongside others including on R10 at cap). So, there is no denying that a nerf is in order and most players knew it was coming. A very strong fellow player said just the other day "I guess I will remain a FvS till they nerf it, its just too good to not do so".

However, nerfing something from OP back to lackluster is not a reasonable approach. Nerfing CL, MCL and Alignment spells, and nerfing all of them HARD means you are going overboard. Please consider a more moderate nerf so "light/fire caster FvS" is still viable. With the proposed nerfs is most definitely is not.

I agree on this. every time the Nerf hammer drops.. wich i also agree is needed, then rather then go slowly and nerf a little over time, into its balanced, it gets nuked into uselessness and thats a very poor move for all,, in reality people leave the game due to this. Theese nerfs are way too much, and its also sad becourse the cool things in theese updates that are there get oversighted becourse of way too hard hitting nerfs.

[DeltaBravo]

I agree with that but that's long been the standard

Either nerfs hit hard or they are too broad and hit things that didn't need nerf leaving the op thinks still op

It have been the standard for way way too long.. perhaps its time that the def, took it a little more slowly on the nerfs, and was reasonable about it. And if they did not hit hard enough the first nerf. then do it again in a few months when they have more data on what worked.

[Minrothad]

Thanks for the Reaper crafting changes.

Could you please add a Reaper XP + Reaper fragments NPC to the Test Dojo?

[J1NG]

Thanks for the Reaper crafting changes.

Could you please add a Reaper XP + Reaper fragments NPC to the Test Dojo?

This is out of topic of the thread I suppose, but if possible, I too would like to request this. As half the time I read up on someone who ran into x, y, z issue, I'd love to (as other normal testing I do) perform quick tests to see if it's a replicatable bug or player misidentified bug, especially since as I don't have 50 Reaper Action Points, it means there's info I have no clue about other than through hearsay by other players (that may be wrong). So every time I read these bugs, I just hope someone comes along to do the testing to help narrow bug searches down, but it's always a thread that just ends up with frustrated players venting and no progress otherwise.

Also, would help with tracking down issues with specific Reaper features when Lam is up when players complain of non functional or incorrect abilities in the Reaper trees as well.

Back to topic:

If the Aasimar Healing Hands is to remain as is, here are a few more suggestions to handle it than the current setup, which is bottom and top heavy, but middle (core 3) is VERY light on.

(continuing from my 3 suggestions before)
4. +1 charge at Core 1 (Level 1 posssible for 2 charges), +1 charge at Core 3 (for Level 7+ at 3 charges) and +1 charge at Core 4 (for Level 16+ at 4 charges), but a T2, T3 or T4 Racial ability that grants a recharge at 180s. This forces those who invested heavily into Racial Reincarnation to be able to invest into this if desired to keep the recharge but at max 4 charges held at a time.
5. +1 charge at Core 1, +1 charge at Core 3, whilst Core 5 becomes a choice; Version A, +2 or +3 charges and Version B, -1 charge, gain recharge every 180s. For a max of 2 charges, but they recharge. This reduces the amount available, and really does make it a limited resource in most cases, but easier (Core 5) investment into the tree has allowed a player to (slowly) recover charges for use in an extended run at least. Or if desired, more charges if they feel they can make use of that better.

These suggestions spread the Healing Hands over the levels more evenly. Whilst these two most recent suggestions grant the recharge back, but through different means. Suggestion 4 favors those that invested heavily into Racial Reincarnation and have AP to spare, this is possibly more harsh for newer players however, where the extra investment into the Racial Tree, will detract from build investment into Class/Universal trees. Whilst suggestion 5 maintains the limited use of Healing Hands, but keeps it available for an emergency use if players are not in a rush, or they can survive well and didn't need to use more than 1 Healing Hand and then continue without shrining/resting.

My personal preference is option 5, as this is more readily available and useful for all Aasimar players at that point, maintains the limited use that Devs appear to want, but keeps it regenerating at Core 5 at a further reduction to Healing Hands, or allows players to have more but not regenerate. This gives options to all players playing Aasimar, not just those who have done the RR train.

J1NG

[Jerevth]

The nerfs, in general, leave a lousy taste.
FvS caster looks like it's being gutted, outright. "Angel of Vengeance core abilities no longer provide bonuses to caster level and max caster level" The cores: arguably one of the most valuable aspects of an enhancement tree, and certainly a balancing factor for the rest of the FvS Caster build behind the scenes when the class is designed, just wiped clean. Nothing added to replace it; Spell power, crit chance. Recommend testing this as "First, Third, Fifth Core" instead of wiping it completely.

Otherwise, let's just change the name to "Free-lance Celestial"? There's no "favored" here. Can we at least get something useful in place of the archon? Has anyone found actual value in a short range, low damage turret of aggro, anyway. I'm a little salty about this since I recently bought the enhancement tree and caster FvS was fun- still died, but it was fun.

Losing so many healing hands affects doesn't make sense, really, in a real-time game. It's a number game to have enough for self/others as a healer in party. But, sure, why should an angelic being seem... I dunno, angelic?

Overall huge chunks of crit damage loss for certain caster types, too, as others mentioned.

Finally, no stated argument for "why", only "we are changing/removing these values".
It's arbitrary and heavy handed. Explain why you feel the need to make these changes, please.

But look, storage change! Woot. (It does look good, but I'm peeved and wondering if I'll even bother to appreciate it for long.)

Some of us think like adults, and when presented with a rational discussion for why you feel something needs to be changed, and the opportunity for us to provide a counter argument, we can come to a more palatable result. The issue with the nerf hammer approach is, often, you figure one and done, refusing to adjust again due to other projects/ nerf targets. Or, you walk it back a little, but the gamers are bitter that we had to fight so hard.
And tired. There's no sense of victory to be found in those results.

Sure, there have been times where a nerf was reduced but... ****, is it really so difficult to have an actual discussion to outline the concerns and listen to feedback before salting the earth?

Also: "Base Attack Bonus is now capped at 25." Ummm? Attack speed will never be legendary? PRR won't scale further? Soft- Capped damage bonus (one source of the full damage bonus, at least)?
It seems you targeted the melees and casters all in one fell update.

[LightBear]

Bugfixes

• Familiars from Feydark Illusionist and Falcons from Falconry now remain active while you are dead
• Feydark Illusionist Familiars no longer fall through the world
• Feydark Illusionist Familiars no longer spawn twice and then one explodes
• Familiars and Falcons no longer block mouse selection

Not sure if related to this but if you have a black cat as a pet and the white cat as a fey familiar, summoning one can cancel the other.
Mostly noticeable once alive again in a quest and resummoning your fey cat, poof goes your black cat pet.
Maybe not that relevant anymore since now the Fey Cat stays active on revival.

[KLJJ]

The ones that need archtype power creep nonsense are monsters.
And hirelings. Please for the love of god can hirelings not be completely ******** and also die in 1 hit.

[GoldyGopher]

Gameplay Changes

• There are 3 new Gameplay options:
• 
  
  • Gather Trap Parts: (default True) while true, disabling traps will cause you to gather Trap Parts from them. Turn this off to stop gathering trap parts from traps you disable.
  • Experimental Tumble Controls: (default False) while true, pressing Block while moving will cause you to Tumble instead of causing you to Block. If you continue to hold Block, you will end the tumble in the blocking state.
  • Disable Full Character Effect Overlays: (default False) while true, full character effect overlays on your character will be disabled. Affected visuals:
    
    • Stoneskin
    • Barkskin
    • Goldskin
    • Fire Shield (Cold)
    • Fire Shield (Hot)

That's great news, I know many former players that would have been excited to see this change, if they were still here.

• There are two new spells:
  
  • True Seeing, Mass: Cast True Seeing on yourself and your allies. Clr/Fvs 8
  • Freedom of Movement, Mass: Cast Freedom of Movement on yourself and your nearby allies. Clr/Fvs/Drd 7

What is the point? A change that would have been well received in 2009 that is pretty worthless today.

• Reaper Crafting's cost has been reduced to 75 Reaper Fragments.
• You may now dissolve Reaper items at the second Reaper NPC at any amount of reaper points (note: crafting using these ingredients still requires 50 Reaper points)
• Reaper crafting no longer accepts level 1 or 2 items

Most of the game population cannot use reaper crafting and now you are making even harder to get the reaper items (yes I realize the abuse of the re-roll in boirderlands).

• Warchanter iced edges now scales with spellpower
• House J Favor buffs now have a "give me the works" option that charges the total plat you'd get from just clicking them all individually.'
• House P Favor buffs now last 60 minutes.

• Fred can now combine Dragonshards for you.
• Spells that may target undead friends (aka Inflict spells) can now validate the caster as a redirected target (aka be cast targeting the caster implicitly) as long as the caster is undead.

A nice quality of life change.

• The spells Bless, Prayer, and Bane all now have a cooldown of 10 seconds.

Wait, what why?

• The Winter Hunt buff from Nature's Warrior core 5 now grants +5 Cold Spell Crit Chance and +15% Cold Spell Crit Damage

Howl of Winter?

• Aasimar and Scourge core 3 no longer provides a bonus to Healing Hands charges
• Aasimar and Scourge core 5 no longer provides a recharge ability to Healing Hands charges, and also now provides +2 healing hands charges

What what, why?

Is this being abused somehow?

• Angel of Vengeance core abilities no longer provide bonuses to caster level and max caster level

Nerf Anvil Drop. Talk about an ouch, in the middle of a hardcore season, no less.


Yes it is overpowered, at least on heroic elite, not sure about reaper, but why the sledgehammer approach to the fix. Especially since the next build build of the month is going to have the same problem. I am looking at you cleric.

• Base Attack Bonus is now capped at 25.

This might be the biggest Nerf in the bunch, while the other nerfs touch upon leveling, this is on endgame characters at 30 plus. The whole selling point of Devine Crusader was the BAB 30. So now that people bought it you want to take it a away. What are you going to do to buff up that tree?

[/quote]

• Tiefling's Incinerations are now: +2% and +3% Fire Spell Critical Damage.[/quote]

Ouch, talk about a nerf sledge hammer approach.

• Holy Smite, Order's Wrath, Chaos Hammer, and Unholy Blight now deal 1d6+4 damage per caster level.

See my comments about Divine Soul.

• Completionist is now automatically granted upon reaching level 3. Current characters with Completionist have been given a free feat respec token.

A Nice Quality of life change.

UI Changes

• The XP Bar on the character sheet has been removed to facilitate Archetype and Class Displays. If you would like to view your character's total level progress, you may rotate through available XP bars by pressing the XP Bar Toggle at the bottom left hand corner of your screen, next to the & symbol.

I certainly don't like this change.

[ZER0DIVISION]

Some fairly nice QoL changes, I like it. Thanks for taking the time to make things a bit easier for the playerbase.

But man, there's some pretty heavy nerfs that will compound on each other here, and seems odd to just throw them all out at once.

FvS have historically been pretty strong, but gutting the CL/MCL bonuses pretty much negates the entire reason for spending points in the AoV tree. The SLAs offered don't scale into endgame. The archon was cool when it first released, but now just tickles everything with pathetic light damage that hardly scales at all. Aura of Menace and Crown of Retribution are neat I guess. It never feels good to have a component of a tree just ripped out with no substitute or other way to support the playstyle.

Is the issue that FvS is too strong early on in hardcore? Why not move them into the later cores so the bonuses are backloaded? I feel like there are better avenues to rebalancing this than nuking a nuker from orbit. Toning down the alignment spells already puts divine nukers in a better spot when it comes to AoE damage...

I'm not sure I agree with the Tiefling changes either. Tieflings are strong with fire, and with some of that strength being taking away, more and more will move away from it in favor of Dragonborn, which will probably now work better for fire sorcs, as well as any other traditional element.

Casters have always been sitting on top, but my opinion is the disparity should be addressed by giving melee builds better tools to close that gap and fill their role better.

[Kza]

It is nice to see the mass spells as some quality of life changes for casters.
But when can we get mass inspiration for bard? That thing has an even higher cooldown than True Seeing or Freedom of Movement.
I can totally understand any bard who just uses the buffs only on himself, because it takes so painfully long to buff 6 people every god **** quest.

Yes, plz plz do this. Let it cost 12 songs and all in raid/group get it insta.

[Tanky]

Mass Bardic Inspiration please. Make it a function of higher Bard levels and Perform, or include it within Inspire Excellence or Master of Music epic feats, or somewhere in the Fatesinger tree. Anywhere, really. Please.

[draven1]

No adjustment for more overpowered AOE spells like Ice Flowers, Tsunami, Sanctified Vial, Celestial Bombardment, Divine Wrath?

And most damage casters would just go to next OP race : dragonborn.

[mikarddo]

Can we at least get something useful in place of the archon? Has anyone found actual value in a short range, low damage turret of aggro, anyway.

The Archon is one of the stronger points of the FvS at end game. Swap to debuff weapons, cast Archon, watch archon proc those debuffs. Ooze + Affirmation is popular.

[mikarddo]

Mass Inspiration for bards would indeed be very welcome, and not OP in any way, shape or form.

[mikarddo]

A Nice Quality of life change.

Making Completionist auto-grant is not QoL but raw power. Not that I mind the change at all.

[Brrorgh]

The XP Bar on the character sheet has been removed to facilitate Archetype and Class Displays. If you would like to view your character's total level progress, you may rotate through available XP bars by pressing the XP Bar Toggle at the bottom left hand corner of your screen, next to the & symbol.

You just added second icon for learning books and now you're removing both of them completely? Nuh-uh, you're not! That's true - I don't care about XP bar on character screen, but boy, oh boy, don't forget to put the learning book icons back somewhere!

[ShifterThePirate]

My only concern so far with Archetypes is building a character will be even more complicated and confusing for new players. More and more characters will get gimped because of 'beginner/bad' choices. We really need to get a better system to change our characters class levels and to undo these kinds of mistakes. Getting a free Lesser Heart of Wood on character creation doesn't cut it anymore.

[Lotoc]

No adjustment for more overpowered AOE spells like Ice Flowers, Tsunami, Sanctified Vial, Celestial Bombardment, Divine Wrath?

And most damage casters would just go to next OP race : dragonborn.

Ice flowers damagewise is just flamestrike with different elements, it is far from out of line.
Celestial Bombardment and Divine wrath are balanced by their really long cooldowns.
Druid nuker is getting the nerfs to it's build that is most out of line already.

FVS has been a problem for a very very long time, getting +9cl +15mcl in tree to a bunch of spells because those spells USED TO BE bad enough to warrant it made the class out of line when many of those spells got buffed in the divine pass the other year to be on par with arcane spells of the same level, it was terribly overtuned and those cores should have been nerfed during the divine pass.

[GoldyGopher]

Making Completionist auto-grant is not QoL but raw power. Not that I mind the change at all.

I am going to disagree here to a point. What else are you know going to take. You either add +2 to all stats and get the associated bonuses if you weren't taking it OR you are taking the weakest feat you dropped to take completionist. So it is not that it isn't more power, but rather it is not a whole lot of power in my book.