driller wrote: ↑Mon Jan 14, 2019 6:16 am
I'm sure this will be a healthy topic ...
Driller braces for impact ...
It's interesting reading the responses so far. Hopefully not too many spoilers have been revealed about in-game specifics. I suppose this is the sort of thread where in-game specifics are going to be listed though, so without trying to spoil too much, here are my thoughts on the 5 proposed changes.
Long post incoming! [and the odd edit to fix mistakes...]
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1. AFAIK, there is only 1 item with 100% damage immunity on it [to a particular element], and it is basically a PVP item. Removing this will I suppose at least make said element useful for mages in PvP, though builds with Evasion are probably not going to notice anything when fighting opponent mages.
2. [semi spoiler time] The ring. I mentioned this in the pve player discord, and it feels appropriate to mention it here as well.
Currently, with regards to top-end Blackstone PvM, there are 3 classes of build:
Melee Tank,
Melee DPS, and '
everything else'. Out of the 'everything else' category, clerics and mages are the most useful as they can provide utility to a large party in the form of buffs and heals. And then unfortunately, for high end PvM at least, the rest of the game's classes and builds are inefficient or useless, some worse than others.
Removing or nerfing the Nine Lives Ring will most likely introduce a 3rd high-end build category along with Melee Tank and Melee DPS:
Healer [i.e. Cleric or Cleric/Druid]. At present, a Melee tank [like the afore mentioned Fighter DD with tons of resistance gear], can just use a Nine Lives ring to stay afloat indefinitely when fighting top level opponents. I'm surprised that this safety remained for them after the Dove's Harp nerf.
So:
Tank, DPS and 'everything else' to
Tank, DPS, Healer and 'everything else'. I like the idea behind it, but I can see a lot of cranky people as a result of this change.
3. I can see a few people getting cranky over this change as well, but not as many. Even with the nerf, Crown of Thorns will still be a very useful tank item for its' resistances, and will force people to attach more regeneration stones to their items.
4. I'm assuming that DR in this context means Damage Resistance. If so, this would effect elemental resistance items the most, and in a similar vein to the 100% damage immunity item change, make it easier for Mages in PvP. Outside of this I cannot see it effecting much.
5. At present, the only items that are over +6 ac from what I can gather are +7 armours and tower shields. That's 2 AC points in total, and builds typically use crafted +6 armour anyway for the damage immunity [so it's really only 1 AC point].
At present, I quite like using +7 tower shields instead of forged/+6 ones, but TBH I wouldn't really care too much if I were forced to lose an AC point over it. Sword and Board builds are typically stronger than Duel Wielders or Two handed in PVP, so I suppose this change is a 'teeny' nerf to shield users and a 'teeny' respective buff to two handers and duel wielders in PvP.
I think this one will make more people cranky than happy, but I don't mind either way what happens here, as it probably won't amount to much.
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There's also been a fair bit of side-comment on the ideals of 'what classes should succeed on the server and in what way' , brought about by the item nerfs that tend to target specific classes. I actually think most of the changes besides the ring are PvP related rather than PvM related, but regardless, here are some of my thoughts on some of the comments.
Cornflower wrote: ↑Mon Jan 14, 2019 7:04 am
If you put more focus on class/ability than items, perhaps look at the bosses too? Today you have a situation where you HAVE to have a Dwarven Defender AND a Weaponmaster (excepting some mage builds and possibly AA) in order to kill the end-game bosses. It would be nice if other builds could be feasible. One way of doing that is making soak viable again.
As I mentioned earlier, high end PvM is unfortunately just Tank/DPS/'everything else' , and at the very least the ring nerf/removal may bring about Tank/DPS/Healer/'everything else' . But ... this is just a manifestation of what happens when you make raid-boss level monsters in the toolset and ask players to kill them.
Because the stats of these creatures are so extreme [We're talking +20 weapons, 100 strength (can't go over because of an encumbrance bug), 100-255 constitution, and 60-120 characters levels, which results in monsters with 100+ AB and 10,000+ HP] , things are reduced down the the most simple elements: A character to bear the brunt of the boss' melee attacks [i.e a Tank], and characters around it to deal damage on the flanks [i.e. Melee DPS]. Add a Healer to the mix if healing equipment is scarce, and if not, a Tank can just rely on healing items [like they do now with the Ring and previously Dove's Harps].
Unfortunately, there isn't very much that can be done to make other classes in the 'everything else' category viable without directly buffing the classes in some way, and even then that might not be effective for high-end PvM. Spellcasters tend to struggle in high end PvM because they have only a finite amount of spells that have to get through a boss monsters' super high HP, so they just tend to run out of juice compared to melee DPS. Then you have a bunch of classes with abilities that work within certain niches [Assassin Death attack, any spell with a DC attached, Barbarians with Rage, even Bard Song / Taunt to an extent], but once you start dealing with ridiculous numbers like saves and discipline/concentration skills in the 100's, these abilities and their attached classes become almost worthless.
Anyway: I feel like this wasn't meant to be the focus of the discussion anyway, but again, as some of the item nerfs tended to target specific classes, this became an inevitability I guess and people see an opportunity to suggest class balance changes. I'd personally leave these for another thread, as they'll most likely drown out the conversation heh.
As for Soak: I feel like this is still most certainly viable, at least in comparison to making a pure AC build. There are of course mobs that deal lots of hard-to-resist damage like Magical and Divine. I guess to stay in line with the regen changes , these could be toned down a bit.
Also, if you want to make class/abilities even more important, you could re-design the random remover-thingy so it can't remove limitations from items. (Oh, the other players are going to kill me for mentioning this.... I need to change my name and move to a new city.)
driller wrote: ↑Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:20 am4.I will.
As Jakemaster said, most high level builds have UMD in the mix for magic items. But there are some builds, like Barbarian/Fighter/Monk focused builds, already that are usually not very optimised for PvP or PvM, that do not. Removing the Item Property remover is only going to hurt these classes and force everybody to use UMD. That's it. It's not going to increase class diversity; it's going to decrease it. So I oppose this change for this reason.
Pretty Fly White Guy wrote: ↑Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:21 am
*lots of numbers*
The hardest I have been hit by an attack is ~60, which to me is very reasonable. The only stat that falls outside of the parameters Driller has suggested is the regeneration, although I would be able to reach that by individually forging it onto all of my items. I feel like I am a quintessential tank, and I feel like it's working as intended.
May I suggest trying to seek out and fight the Astral Witch if you're after a challenge then.
Terankar wrote: ↑Mon Jan 14, 2019 1:27 pm
I second the fact that class diversity should be a thing. I just do not see a multitude of rogues +13, pure druids, champion of torm +20, blackguards+20, assassins +20, palemasters+20, barbarians+20, rangers +20, monks +20. the list goes on. I get that some classes have begger uses, but the server is quintessentially a mix of three types of classes: cleric, fighter, arcane caster, dwarven defender.
there is very little difference and the endgamd demands such niche specific builds from my understanding except if you are cleric, wizard, sorc or bard a your main class.
I personally like an old server, higher grounds. they havde made every single class viable to their respective role.
This might be a bit of a ranty post but that is how i currently see, a month into the server.
See my response to Cornflower's quote. I don't think that much can be done about this sadly, besides buffing individual aspects of certain classes. Just the way that high level PvM monsters are designed and the resulting optimum approaches to killing them [which tbh is 'make use of an old game's ordinary AI'] makes the top-end PvM build scope extraordinarily narrow.