Major balance changes and HC6 (update 56 concerns)

[Tanky]

Gift every person in Hardcore a +20 Heart of Wood to reroll their characters when the change goes live.

Does nothing to address the 3000 astral shards I've spent on rerolls farming for gear for myself and my group. And that's just heroic Feywild and Sharn.

[Diarden1]

Does nothing to address the 3000 astral shards I've spent on rerolls farming for gear for myself and my group. And that's just heroic Feywild and Sharn.

This is an entierly fair point, and not much can be mitigated on this front. I've done the same.

[LT218]

The main classes affected (clerics and fvs) will still be fine after nerfs. Their main strengths (hp, strong sla, death ward, word of recall) are still untouched.

Tiefling's main advantage of bypassing fire immunity is also still there. Aasimar nerf will hurt but they will still have self-healing.

Nope. SLAs are being changed and nerfed, too.

[vageta311]

If they implement this during hardcore it would be the most asinine thing I've ever seen the dev team do. You don't do major balance patches mid-season after others have already collected all their rewards. These aren't exploits being fixed, they're balance patches meant to affect the long term health of the game as a whole. Why in god's name would they implement this on HC during the event? It's one thing if there was no leaderboard or rewards, but this makes a very uneven playing field for people. Those that no-life the first week or two are rewarded, while those that play normal hours due to work/school are being punished.

I've been playing this game for around 6 years now. Never once have I came on these boards to complain about nerfs or anything of the like, I always just roll with the punches even if they occasionally make me shake my head. This however really ****es me off if they do this. If you can't separate patches between normal server and HC then make the sane choice and wait until the HC event is over. Or why not just save HC until after the nerfs?

I'm playing a PM right now so I don't think the nerf will even affect me but this makes me want to just walk away from the game as I will have zero trust left in the devs. This is some really amateur decision making.

[Mindos]

I could've swore I'd seen Dev posts roughly saying they would NOT make changes during a hardcore season.

Meh. Maybe they didn't use the word "Not".

Maybe it was "try really hard not to, unless it was inconvenient"

Someone dig up the real quotes so we can see for ourselves. I'm too disillusioned to even bother.

[fatherpirate]

I like HCL more than many ... however.

Asking for a pause of development of the regular game
for the sake of not disrupting HCL (it lasts 3 months, that
is a long time ... half a year total is you
consider there are usually 2 a year) is to assume
that HCL is more important than the regular game.

HCL is not more important than the regular game.

So, if there are changes mid season ... get over it.

Part of wisdom is to understand that just because
you like something, that does not make it more important
than everything else.

[Aelonwy]

So, if there are changes mid season ... get over it.

Its not fair play to their customers, its callous and though not illegal certainly unscrupulous in a competition situation which HC is for many. You get over it. I have a long memory for business actions that I consider unfair or otherwise unethical and I spend my money accordingly and advise others to do similarly.

[hale99]

FVS, Druid and Cleric are so OP, it's ridiculous. As someone that plays a caster FVS, I'm agreeing with the changes.

That said. To Cordovan, Tolero, whomever reads this...

Gift every person in Hardcore a +20 Heart of Wood to reroll their characters when the change goes live. You mitigate the argument of folks that sunk time, money and effort into their characters to build entirely new, keeping the tomes that they purchased.

Your trolling by saying that you agree with those changes. Either you haven't played fvs for very long or your not very good with the class. The changes wreck them. They gut them. So you agree with that? I main fvs and I have for almost a year now. I can understand dialing back on some things but this is beyond ridiculous.

The +20 heart is a good idea for sure. Especially since they're doing these changes mid hardcore which is also trolling.

[rabidfox]

If they implement this during hardcore it would be the most asinine thing I've ever seen the dev team do. You don't do major balance patches mid-season after others have already collected all their rewards. These aren't exploits being fixed, they're balance patches meant to affect the long term health of the game as a whole. Why in god's name would they implement this on HC during the event? It's one thing if there was no leaderboard or rewards, but this makes a very uneven playing field for people. Those that no-life the first week or two are rewarded, while those that play normal hours due to work/school are being punished.

I'm not sure how one is supposed to consider an event with rated leadership boards to be valid when things get changes like this. It muddies the waters of the rankings when pre/post-u56 will be quite different conditions.

Asking for a pause of development of the regular game
for the sake of not disrupting HCL (it lasts 3 months, that
is a long time ... half a year total is you
consider there are usually 2 a year) is to assume
that HCL is more important than the regular game.

HCL is not more important than the regular game.

So, if there are changes mid season ... get over it.

This is implies they randomly toss out HC seasons and updates with zero advanced planning. The timing for HC and updates are both part of a planned out schedule (done well in advanced) where management knows when they want things released by. No one is saying "don't do updates", we're saying "Use your calendar and plan things out in a way where they don't fall at the same time". They've obviously been working on these class/race changes for a while, they could've delayed HC by a month or so if the update was the more important thing. But this HC season, they should seriously consider delaying some of these changes to a 56.1 patch that would launch after HC ends.

[rabidfox]

The +20 heart is a good idea for sure. Especially since they're doing these changes mid hardcore which is also trolling.

A +20 heart is pointless on HC for anyone going after favor. You can't LR when you have banked XP and anyone doing favor will be double-hard capped. So it'll be impossible to even use the +20 heart without then locking out a bunch of quests from the +2 above level limit. So it's not an actual solution because of the conditions one plays under with HC rules.

[Oxarhamar]

I like HCL more than many ... however.

Asking for a pause of development of the regular game
for the sake of not disrupting HCL (it lasts 3 months, that
is a long time ... half a year total is you
consider there are usually 2 a year) is to assume
that HCL is more important than the regular game.

HCL is not more important than the regular game.

So, if there are changes mid season ... get over it.

Part of wisdom is to understand that just because
you like something, that does not make it more important
than everything else.

I agree development of the game should not stop for HCL but a compromise would be to not update HCL during the season only update the regular servers leave HCL as it was

But we already know that changes have and will be made because of HCL FVS likely is on of them

[Karthunk]

Your trolling by saying that you agree with those changes. Either you haven't played fvs for very long or your not very good with the class. The changes wreck them. They gut them. So you agree with that? I main fvs and I have for almost a year now. I can understand dialing back on some things but this is beyond ridiculous.

The +20 heart is a good idea for sure. Especially since they're doing these changes mid hardcore which is also trolling.

It's the same story for everyone supporting this nerf. They don't understand exactly how drastic this change is. We are talking about some spells losing ~+40% damage. This is beyond rediculous.

If they go through with these nerfs, because of hardcore, I want to see blood tribute nerfed as well.

[Diarden1]

Your trolling by saying that you agree with those changes. Either you haven't played fvs for very long or your not very good with the class. The changes wreck them. They gut them. So you agree with that? I main fvs and I have for almost a year now. I can understand dialing back on some things but this is beyond ridiculous.

The +20 heart is a good idea for sure. Especially since they're doing these changes mid hardcore which is also trolling.

I absolutely am not trolling by saying that I agree with the changes.

It is entierly unbalanced when a fvs can one shot the end-boss of Shadow Crypt with a 33k crit at level on reaper. It's entirely unbalanced for a fvs to one shot a hound post 10+ quest level. Where almost every other class has to work harder to be as effective as a fvs, the fvs can just face roll through content.

Yes, the changes will diminish their effectiveness, but it doesn't wreck them. They will still be effective, just not game-breaking.

I played a fvs through the entirety of last season and didn't break a sweat. I decided to main a warlock this season, so while the change doesn't affect me at all, I still have played an entire HC life through the current itteration of the class, and feel comfortable weighing in.

I agree that a change should not be made on HC server mid-season, and agree that those that used astral shards to reroll gear would be adversely affected (I've spent over 2k shards rolling for warlock gear and gear for my team). BUT, I also agree that balance changes should not hinge on the HC server if the update needs to go out during a regularly scheduled content update.

[Kayze]

No competition in the world, olympics, or professional sports, allows things to change during an active event. That would disqualify the entire event.

This sort of thing happens in esports all the time. Look at DOTA2, LoL, Apex Legends, etc. Major patches happen all the time, even during the world and regional competitions.

Nope. SLAs are being changed and nerfed, too.

Only a single one (holy smite) and it's for cleric and not fvs.

[rabidfox]

Nope. SLAs are being changed and nerfed, too.

Only a single one (holy smite) and it's for cleric and not fvs.

While not the SLAs themselves for FvS, they're reduced by +6 CL/+12 MCL as a result of the cores losing those. So effectively all those SLAs are nerf'd by quite a bit of power (both when leveling and at cap).

[Karthunk]

I absolutely am not trolling by saying that I agree with the changes.

It is entierly unbalanced when a fvs can one shot the end-boss of Shadow Crypt with a 33k crit at level on reaper. It's entirely unbalanced for a fvs to one shot a hound post 10+ quest level. Where almost every other class has to work harder to be as effective as a fvs, the fvs can just face roll through content.

Yes, the changes will diminish their effectiveness, but it doesn't wreck them. They will still be effective, just not game-breaking.

I played a fvs through the entirety of last season and didn't break a sweat. I decided to main a warlock this season, so while the change doesn't affect me at all, I still have played an entire HC life through the current itteration of the class, and feel comfortable weighing in.

I agree that a change should not be made on HC server mid-season, and agree that those that used astral shards to reroll gear would be adversely affected (I've spent over 2k shards rolling for warlock gear and gear for my team). BUT, I also agree that balance changes should not hinge on the HC server if the update needs to go out during a regularly scheduled content update.

A lvl 9 fvs did not do 33k dmg to Nerezza. I do think that it's cute that you used a vampire (+150% light weakness) vs a light spell caster as your measuring stick for if something is unbalanced.

Also a fvs is not going through lvl 10+ quest one shoting hounds. Most well built classes could one shot the under lvl 9 hounds.

The only way that would even be in the realm of possibility if it was a champ hound weak the light dmg and even then the hp jump is really large.

[Diarden1]

A lvl 9 fvs did not do 33k dmg to Nerezza. I do think that it's cute that you used a vampire (+150% light weakness) vs a light spell caster as your measuring stick for if something is unbalanced.

Also a fvs is not going through lvl 10+ quest one shoting hounds. Most well built classes could one shot the under lvl 9 hounds.

The only way that would even be in the realm of possibility if it was a champ hound weak the light dmg and even then the hp jump is really large.

Before you try to burn someone down, you should really think through your logic. Let's take a look at your math really quickly.

A level 9 fvs doing Shadow Crypt would be at a disadvantage. As Shadow Crypt is a level 9 quest, it's presumable that it would be a level 11 fvs. I stated in my post that I played fvs last season, which had a +4 cap, thus meaning a level 13 fvs could run Shadow Crypt. A 33k crit is absolutely in the realm of possibilities, especially if hit with vulnerability.

Perhaps you're not running with the same folks I am, or perhaps you're not geared correctly if playing the class currently. You admit that it's possible for a fvs built correctly against a certain hound can one shot, and yet it's unfathomable for it to happen?

My Warlock can take out a level 10 hound in less than 2 stacks of an aoe at level 10 (Consume + Stricken + burning blood + cone blast). So it's unfathomable that a current class that can boost their caster level on their main attacks can't do better?

[Karthunk]

Before you try to burn someone down, you should really think through your logic. Let's take a look at your math really quickly.

A level 9 fvs doing Shadow Crypt would be at a disadvantage. As Shadow Crypt is a level 9 quest, it's presumable that it would be a level 11 fvs. I stated in my post that I played fvs last season, which had a +4 cap, thus meaning a level 13 fvs could run Shadow Crypt. A 33k crit is absolutely in the realm of possibilities, especially if hit with vulnerability.

Perhaps you're not running with the same folks I am, or perhaps you're not geared correctly if playing the class currently. You admit that it's possible for a fvs built correctly against a certain hound can one shot, and yet it's unfathomable for it to happen?

My Warlock can take out a level 10 hound in less than 2 stacks of an aoe at level 10 (Consume + Stricken + burning blood + cone blast). So it's unfathomable that a current class that can boost their caster level on their main attacks can't do better?

I have a lvl 13 fvs ATM so I am well aware of my hound killing potentially. I was not killing lvl 10 quest hounds in one shot and I am most definitely not killing hounds in lvl 11 quests with a single spell.

I would assume you are saying that at lvl 13 you walked into the shadow crypt and one shot the end boss with a searing light spell.

Unless my math is drastically wrong you would be doing 412 base dmg on a perfect searing light roll. To get to this magical 33k number you need to get your dmg to around 6,600 dmg before critical and before the 150% light weakness.

Let's say you somehow on hardcore server have 1000 light spell power at lvl 13, we are still only at 4120 dmg. This isn't even counting the extra damage you need to do because of reaper mode.

In short - your numbers don't add up. I don't care how perfect you think your gear is or how wonderful the people are that you run with.

You cherry picked the perfect dmg target for the fvs to use a reason why fvs should be nerfed and ontop of that tossed out an absurd dmg number.

[Diarden1]

I have a lvl 13 fvs ATM so I am well aware of my hound killing potentially. I was not killing lvl 10 quest hounds in one shot and I am most definitely not killing hounds in lvl 11 quests with a single spell.

I would assume you are saying that at lvl 13 you walked into the shadow crypt and one shot the end boss with a searing light spell.

Unless my math is drastically wrong you would be doing 412 base dmg on a perfect searing light roll. To get to this magical 33k number you need to get your dmg to around 6,600 dmg before critical and before the 150% light weakness.

Let's say you somehow on hardcore server have 1000 light spell power at lvl 13, we are still only at 4120 dmg. This isn't even counting the extra damage you need to do because of reaper mode.

In short - your numbers don't add up. I don't care how perfect you think your gear is or how wonderful the people are that you run with.

You cherry picked the perfect dmg target for the fvs to use a reason why fvs should be nerfed and ontop of that tossed out an absurd dmg number.

I just read through your post history in the last few weeks, and you tend to only chastize people and leave negative posts. This does not seem surprising.

Perhaps instead of tearing things down, you should try and build things up?

[Karthunk]

I just read through your post history in the last few weeks, and you tend to only chastize people and leave negative posts. This does not seem surprising.

Perhaps instead of tearing things down, you should try and build things up?

This has absolutely zero to do with the topic on hand.

If you're going to make claims expect for them to be challenged.