Relic Gear Nerf: Why?

thefabricant

I am not going to harp on this much, with mod 11b the devs lowered the over all stats of the vivified relic gear. In place of the Vivified Relic Gear, they added the new Masterwork gear which has the same stats as the old Vivified Relic Gear.

Helm Stats:

Live:


Preview:


Chest Stats:

Live:


Preview:


Arms Stats:

Live:


Preview:


Boots Stats:

Live:


Preview:


So, in short:

1) If you run SKT content pretty much exclusively and are a dps, 3 pieces of the vivified gear and 1 piece of the masterwork gear will be BiS for you. This is because of the set bonus for Vivified Relic Gear, which outweighs the extra stats.
2) If you don't run SKT content, then 4 pieces of masterwork is BiS. This means that if you already have the Vivified Relic Gear pretty much all your efforts to acquire it and maintain the voninblood cost just went down the drain. If you didn't acquire it, then you are lucky since you skipped the wasted AD.
3) The MW gear does not require Voninblood empowerment, it has better stats and doesn't involve the large grind/hassle.
4) I cannot remember which dev said it @mimicking#6533 but I distinctly remember 1 of the devs stating that the best gear in the game should be acquired from farming the content and not being bought on the auction house. You know, this was the reason why there are no more BoE gear drops right? So, why is it possible for those who do MW to now craft and profit off BoE gear which has BiS tier stats? Why is it now possible to acquire BiS gear by quite literally buying it off the AH? Tbh, I don't really care about whether or not it can or can't be, what does bother me is you taking 1 stance and then going against it 1 mod later.

My question is:

Why did you reduce the stats on Vivified Relic Gear? Considering you have to go to a lot of effort to sustain it (there is no maintenance cost for MW gear) it should at least be equal in stats to the updated MW gear and even if you wanted MW gear to have more stats, you could have simply added a tier of stats above relic instead of reducing the stats of relic.

That is all.

cellablock

did you see the new artifact belt and neck on stronghold as well? hopefully with the new event for stronghold there is also new armor as to be bought with the currency for it for i am not looking forward to mw gear , sad what happened to relic gear but i doubt everyone would like to keep it for another mod.

loboguild

I personally also don't think there's any harm of having Masterwork gear on par with Relic. Then you basically have the choice to farm your or acquire the gear through Masterwork / Auction House.

aaramis75

You have my vote for Relic on par with Masterwork, if not better. Certainly not below for sure.

If anything, I'd like Relic to be able to keep it's tiers permanently. Maybe set certain refinement numbers for Voninblood to get it to the next tier, and then it stays at that tier until you reach the next - much like all the other refinement methods. No more degrading gear, that's a PITA to upkeep.

thefabricant

Edited in Stats comparisons.

agilesto

That's unbelievable. This is a nerf for absolutly no reason of a gear that needed so much hamster grind to get. The team that decided that really doesn't understand anything of its game.

wickedduck22

This sucks... paying from 5-10 million AD to get a piece that has slightly better stats. They shouldn't have nerfed it.

wickedduck22

The empowerment being gone from them is enough.

gorillalike

Well they sure do know how to annoy.

nerological

I feel like the developers like to use nerfs to force people to run the latest content under the theory that the more time spent ingame equals a greater likelihood of dollars spent on zen. The numbers probably bear out that theory or they wouldn't be trying it, but using nerfs to do it is a ridiculous policy. "We want people to grind for the new companion gear so let's finally get around to nerfing the Underdark rings." "We want people to chase the new mastercraft gear so let's nerf the relic gear."

The problem with nerfing things that don't actually need nerfs for balance reasons is that you HAMSTER off a lot of your players and they leave for other games. This nerf drops the gears to stats that if they had been there originally people might well have just made/bought the old mastercraft gear and avoided the massive PITA of SKT and the voninblod grind. It negates a choice made to undergo months of work. It devalues peoples' efforts and acheivements. This is a terrible policy. There are only so many times a player will put up with having their builds senselessly nerfed before they switch games. Perhaps the devs should do some numbers analysis on stop-loss and the reasons for players leaving the game.

I'm listening to people in my guild who are really very angry (yet again) and let me tell ya, if it weren't for the camaraderie of my guild I'm pretty sure all of them would have left this game a long time ago. My guild is a very rare exception.

hypergorila2

So I come back to the game after a big break (fishy fish trauma) and one week later the devs are already throwing so much HAMSTER around that they make me want to quit again.
Dear devs I honestly thank you for quickly reminding me of why I quit in the first place, maybe this time I wont waste so much time here....

fogcrow

Imo its a really bad idea to nerf something that required so much work to create, and maintain.
And its an even worse Idea to have Masterwork gear as the games best, because it puts players who choose to remain guildless, or stay loyal to pre rank 12 guilds at too big of a disadvantage.

c4pfen

@thefabricant, Youre right ...

It was so much grinding, all these hours of lanolin farming(over 30 hours), and FBI farming (more than 150 runs) for nothing?
And now they will release a new bis gear which you can buy with AD ?! This change makes the devs very implausible...

Would like to get a statement ..

beckylunatic

defiantone99 said:

I hope this is unintentional.

Yeah, I'd wait for word from the devs, as this looks like a mistake to me.

mightyeriksson

The nerf to Vivified seems too weird/dumb to be WaI.

Also, in the topic "Waaaah, M11 weapon are too good" I was going to say, that the same thing will no doubt be screamed when they eventually give us new (proper) armor, and I guess this is the beginning of that...

oldbaldyone

There is a big difference between releasing better gear making a new bis set, and nerfing the old bis set and making the new set the same stats. I dont think they have ever done that for gear stats before.l and would be just sick.

This seems more like an empowerment bug than a nerf though. Makes little sense otherwise.

That said, when the time comes that relic weapons and armor are not bis anymore...yes, there will be crying. The amount of crying will be based on the number of mods there are between. People didnt like relics being not bis in mod 11 because of the level of grind involved, and the fact that it was the very next mod. If it goes away in 12 or 13, i think people woild be ok with that.

oldbaldyone

Thats just what you concluded. But still, even people who would love to see relic gear not be bis anymore evening after a half a mod have to see what's it would be wrong to retroactively nerf the set just to release a new set with those same stats.

niszdog

The ilvl of the relic armor is wrong. Which is obviously messing with the stats. Most likely the 150 base ilvl of non vivified is being multiplied by 3 in the new ilvl conversion, but the vivified bonus of 10 ilvl is not. Which leads to it showing at 460 ilvl instead of 480 like it should.
Its clearly a bug that will get fixed. This is the whole purpose of the preview server.

loboguild

defiantone99 wrote: »

I do not think so, I think those with relic weapons and armor sort of want them to always be BIS. BIS should be 3 to 6 months, not 9 months to a year. If you get something and never have to grind again, what is the point of the game? That makes it stale. Especially when the Relic set bonus is only for SKT content.

I don't generally disagree, but it's a completely wrong assessment in terms of MW. They have been an alternative path to something with extremely high costs attached to it. MWs are absurdly gated, probably even less players have access to it than Svardborg and Vivified. The next logical step in the progression is not another tier of armor, it's giving an easier path to item levels 150-160 first. Something like Mod 11 did with Relic weapons.​​

fluffy6977

Looks like a bug, quacks like a bug, must be a nerf. You're smarter than this Sharpy, what gives?

fizgigtiznalkie

Can we get an answer from the devs on this @nitocris83 ? A lot of us on the console are still grinding FBI for this gear.

nightbringer121

defiantone99 said:

The new MW gear will likely equal Vivified or be slightly above it, with no empowerment needed. That is what you will have to live with. VB is now easy to get. The MW armor is not easy to get, by any means.

Oh so waiting a month for full gear is easy to get? Great thinking...

werdandi

I hope the preview is incorrect.
And as somebody said above, it is not good to have masterwork gear THAT best "because it puts players who choose to remain guildless, or stay loyal to pre rank 12 guilds at too big of a disadvantage".

rickcase276

Its not only on the vivified armor that the nerf happened, it is the same for regular relic armor too, as my boots are also not the same stats as on live. And they are not vivified.