The April fool's joke that is not

destrowod

If it turn out to be an april fool, ill swallow my word and take the blame. But i very feel its not. So i am obviously talking about this thread.

http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1214505/upcoming-powers-balance-changes

I know its PC but if its PC now it will be Xbox soon. So honestly nerfing, nerfing and nerfing, obviously i especially like the way the dev talk about how it would be much more work to buff other artifact instead of nerfing lostmauth so they got the easier way. Typical ARC stuff :P

You know what? I am tired of the slaps in the face this game give me. I am not a wallet warrior, i am not a major duper super DPS beast. I have the losthmauth set(and i grindd hard to be able to get it) but as MOST normal players i have the belt purple, the horn orange and the necklace blue. And you know what? I don't do much DPS in dungeons... Im builded well, i use Lia knowles, its simply i don't have all artifacts jacked up in the roof, i don't have 3 lev 12 bounding stones, i am just a normal guy working his HAMSTER off to grind his way to build a good character. If there was not my "endgame" guildies with there super duper DPS and the pallies with there bubble shield (altough this one i do get it kinda kill the challenge) most dungeons would hardly be doable.

I run with extremely good geared people, and yet the spider priestess take FOREVER to kill sometimes. The dungeons are also designed in a way that without certain classes there undoable. No DPS characters can go into grey wolf or temple of the spider and take on the final boss without either a pally or cleric. If some peoples can they are certainly extremely high, probably maxed out everywhere, so at this point they deserve to be bad HAMSTER.

Every changes i read in that are made in thinking everybody is an "end game" beast. You alienate all the people that normally play this game. I play intensively since august, thats 8 months of grinding. I will admit down the road i switched from my GF to my GWF as main but in any case i only have 2 characters, and 8 months of hard work and yet i am mile away from "endgame". I don't know what i would do if i didn't had the guild and friends i have. Even with the millions of diamonds i make, im still so far from finishing my character.... Imagine if i couldn't made those.

Now maybe im overeacting and in the end the changes won't be THAT big. But still it debilate me to see changes always going AGAINST the players.

Why not work on that GUARDIAN FIGHTER instead? You know the class that was almost retired when you introduced the pally? Oh wait you even nerfed him at some point removing the bouncing damage thing. I think the GF deserve a major BUFF, and yet i am still waiting.

Honestly this is my last free to play game EVER. The way those game are designed are way too much axed on the wallet warriors for me to keep up, even with tons of free time on my hand. I know the peoples that say i have a negative attitude on the game won't be happy about this thread cause its again negativity, but i am tired to death of getting laugh at by the devs.

The more and more i am thinking of simply farming the 290 dragons i miss and be done til next mode, come back just to whipe out the achievement and go again... I feel all the effort i put into the game are always taken away from me by a fingersnap of the devs.

armadeonx

So, reduce group defence and reduce group damage. Nice.

Ofc the Pally can switch auras to all damage reduction to partially compensate, but expect dungeon runs to take a lot longer as we'll have a combination of less DPS from GWF's etc and OP's not using damage auras.

A 6 second bubble is utterly pointless, you may as well get rid of it. Their justification is that it is saved for "oh ****" moments - but given the damage output of most enemies in T2s, the party will be dead around the same time you notice the bubble 'moment' has arrived - lol.

* edit; to my mind the only decent way to offset this is an increase in HP given by armor. Running at 200k HP would give healers sufficient time to target & heal attacked players as well as offset the 1-shot abilities of enemy npc's.

thefiresidecat

yup, im glad i didnt get around to fully outfitting my pally. i was planning on mythic artis for him. the dc may or may not be useless now. I guess I'm back to just fully focusing on my HR and maybe give the left overs to my cw. (although without lost mauth the cw is also kind of useless) the fun of this game is NOT in long and boring grinds. the dungeons really aren't fun. they're just a tedious means to an end. Maybe if strategy/gambit was an actual thing in this game. but it's really not. it's just billions and billions of hit points. yawn. Every new nerf just plants one more seed in my head of why am I here? what am i doing? am I a little more than the harmless bit of insane I thought I was? Uncharted drops on ps4 in a month. i've got my fingers x'd the multiplayer is better than the alpha looked. i played the last uncharted pvps for years.

armadeonx

I now have 6 characters but I'm aiming at making my CW 3k this 2 x RP - maybe, I'll have to rethink that and put it all into my 2k GWF... I really like playing the CW though!

slagbottom

I have a warlock and a devo pally. Been on the fence about quitting the game for a few weeks now. This seals the deal. I am not going to play 2 nerfed, broken toons. One was bad enough. Lost track of how many times I have re-spec'ed my warlock trying to make the dps better. Been getting tired of grinding the same stuff over and over, anyway.

mrimsogood

defiantone99 said:

[Combat (Self)] Your Lostmauth's Vengeance deals 2288 (2138) Physical Damage to Target Dummy. My GWF on preview. LM no longer crits and is capped at less than 3k damage. No longer a viable set for DPS.

You must be lowered gear then me, mines isn't capped at 3k
I've just tested it and seen it crit for as high as 22864 (15977)

zephyriah

mrimsogood said:

defiantone99 said:

[Combat (Self)] Your Lostmauth's Vengeance deals 2288 (2138) Physical Damage to Target Dummy. My GWF on preview. LM no longer crits and is capped at less than 3k damage. No longer a viable set for DPS.

You must be lowered gear then me, mines isn't capped at 3k
I've just tested it and seen it crit for as high as 22864 (15977)

On the PC preview server where the changes are active? I don't think so.

mrimsogood

zephyriah said:

mrimsogood said:

defiantone99 said:

[Combat (Self)] Your Lostmauth's Vengeance deals 2288 (2138) Physical Damage to Target Dummy. My GWF on preview. LM no longer crits and is capped at less than 3k damage. No longer a viable set for DPS.

You must be lowered gear then me, mines isn't capped at 3k
I've just tested it and seen it crit for as high as 22864 (15977)

On the PC preview server where the changes are active? I don't think so.

Ah yeah I don't have the set on PC

manyvengeance

Doesn't seem like its a joke, my pally was becoming my main, she's at 2.7k IL and was actually gonna start spending money on this game for the x2 RP that is coming, now it makes no sense to get her higher. It makes little sense to keep playing the game tbh, like you said, all the changes, the 'fixes', the 'balancing' is always against the players.

The bugs that make you do less damage or be more useful are still there, and keep stacking, like the GWF's Unstoppable, or that Out of range shxt that's been happening to my HR's Hindering strike. The list of changes that are happening in the Preview shard are gonna make the pally the most useless class in game and will practically kill the DPS from the CWs.

The OP seems like an undergeared low dmg-not as good buffs GF, and the CWs will fall into a support roll?

thefiresidecat

armadeonx said:

I now have 6 characters but I'm aiming at making my CW 3k this 2 x RP - maybe, I'll have to rethink that and put it all into my 2k GWF... I really like playing the CW though!

I'd wait until after the changes actually drop to make any serious decisions. lostmauth is the major nerf and it's going to nerf a lot of classes. maybe it won't really be that bad as it will be across the table for most dps classes. they've also said they're gonna see what things look like after people play on test servers and things may change. so we can all keep our fingers x'd that maybe some of these changes are a little less bad then they currently seem.

daburneq

At this time I will hold back comments on the proposed nerf bat to both pally and great weapon fighter, but if the nerf bat hits as hard for both classes, then I will decide the best course of action. I have two toons (guess which two that I play) one is maxed with the Loth's set and have spent alot of time and money to get him above 4k gear score and doing the end game content that I enjoy. The second toon is around 3000 gear score and that one will be useless with the changes. I will admit I have spent to much money on this game. Being which, most have gone into the refinement of the items and lock boxes.

With this nerf bat coming, a case can be made that ARC and the new ruler on Neverwinter has no concerns for the players themselves but for the cash they can put in thier coffers of the players backs. They are setting more and more of a track record of bait and switch each month and as they do so it makes it easier for players to have a way to address them thru multiple means. Yes the basic EULA they make all sign by agreeing is binding but when they constantly break it and show no remose then itself becomes useless.

This is my first post to these forums, literally hate posting, but I have played D&D games for over 20 yrs and I believe in doing so I have the experience to comment on what is happening.

You put something in the game and come back months laters and say oh it broken and we have to fix it now when so many have invested time and hard cash and say oh sorry but do it again this way, what a load of bs. I do read these forums alot and can see that most of the complaints for the nerf come maily from pvper guilds who hate the pvers. And guess who spends more money on the game, not hard, pvpers. In the 20 years I have played morphs and this is one, you can't have both worlds on the same platform. It just doesn't work. You either are on one platform or the other, but with ARC they have done everything to max out profits and care little for the players. So let's see the final nerf bat and then let's see the track record and what really can be done because they are constantly breaking their side of the EULA and leaving a recourse for players to take action.

grandpaxxx

Well if you knew it was broken you had to see it coming. I did anyways, you chose to jump on the flavor of the month max him out, spend cash and then they finally say hey we found the problem were gonna fix it a few months down the road or they said hey lets see how it goes and deal with it down the road. Omg, why did you let me waste my time. It's a victim mentality.

If you know something isn't working as it should and choose to use it then it's your fault for not seeing the writing on the wall but atleast you enjoyed the ride while it lasted.

Guess you can hope it won't be so bad. Guess no one has personal responsibility anymore for there choices to use items or equipment that is broken then get angry when it gets fixed.

manyvengeance

In case of the Lostmauth set, it could be the case, I have it with my HR and my GWF and I didn't even knew that it wasn't working as intended tbh.

But how can you blame us if we invested so much time, effort, money even, in a class that some us loved to play? With this 'balance' they made the OP basically an underleveled, undergeared, low dmg-not as good buffs GF, so its useless. Why bring an OP when a GF tanks way better now? Every class is viable atm in Xbox, but with this changes, they are killing not only the pallys, also the Virtuous DCs and the DPS from CWs.

What's next? Let's 'balance' the Trapper HR coz its doing more dmg and has more control than the Archery and Combat!! Balance the other 2?? Why?! This way we only shxt on the Trapper...

grandpaxxx

The OP's are not gonna be irrelevant if the changes are made. They of course will have to rework themselves to be effective.

Everyone knew from the beginning OP's were out of line with all other classes it was no secret you see so many. If you enjoy the class you will find a way to make him work if not then I don't know what to tell you.

Every class will be reined in eventually it's just a matter of time.

I have played with cryptic since the beginning on PC side and although they let things slide like elol for awhile it's only a matter of time before they get to it. So now you know if you choose to use classes or items that are bugged they will eventually rein them in.

It was a good run while it lasted.

manyvengeance

I don't see how? DCs offer more in the way of healing, buffs and mitigation than Oath of Devotion, GFs offer more in the way of aggro, tanking, buffs and even damage than Oath of Protection now. This class wasn't bugged, they released it the way it was taking into consideration the overpowered mobs they put with the release of mod 6.

OPs are getting reduced to a game of auras now, we will run with Aura of Radiance to equal the aggro of a GF, that gives us only one Aura to choose from, being Courage, Vengeance, Wisdom as one of the most useful but GF keeps being superior.

I'm sorry if i'm not seeing things as clearly and optimistic as you do, but i'm so sad atm (a little mad too, of course), I can't see any way OPs could bring something to the table to any team comp that would be better than what other classes have to offer. They nerfed echoes of light and Heroism too, so we won't have ANY chance in PvP either, coz the cc has always destroyed us and we can't kill anyone on our own.

kittysparkles01

I'm absolutely thrilled with every one of these changes, Lostmauth set was clearly over damaging, bubble pallys were a joke, and only major decrease to Clerics is a proper amount of AP gain from haste.

Have a protection Pally that never used the bubble, does a great job tanking through T2s, doesn't drop aggro ever, who needs to make dps invincible?

No class benefits from the excessive damage from Lostmauth setat alow item level anyway, it's only the kill everything with one swipe type DPS that will even notice a difference. I'm sure they will be OK to kill em on the back swing.

No one, and I mean no one need that much AP lol, haste Clerics were out of control. They will still provide decent AP gain, and maybe they can try healing, damage mitigation, or debuffs. Very versatile Class, almost no wrong feat path to choose.

Deal with the changes and adapt, what's the fun in 100% guaranteed success? Change things up, it might be fun

ddem0n888

I'm not going back to the Dark Days!! (Mod 4/5). Lol

I'll wait to see what happens. If I need to switch to another set then I will. TG they made all artefact equipment double RP. Annoyed that I applied reinforcement to then but hey ho.

Or I'll play as a GF. The (new/always were good but idiots can't run without a bubble) elite class in Neverwinter.

dreadvenemous

I've got no comment to make on the need for the changes, the potential effectiveness of the implementation, or the new balances that will arise in game play. We'll see all of that when the code goes live.

What I DO have a comment on is the BS factor here.

I'm amused that, out of all of the game busting bugs to target, and with another stupidly over powered class (SW) ignored, the devs target three changes that will dramatically impact their bottom line while spinning it as addressing game play.

Bottom line, thousands of players of those two classes will have to respec and regear, along with untold thousands of DPS characters switching to a new artifact set.

These "imbalances" have been obvious since the introduction of the LM set and virtually since the introduction of the OP class on PC. With multiple mods under their belt when the "imbalances" could have been addressed, along with an endless parade of changes that focused on player wallets before all else, there have been virtually limitless opportunities to address the issues before now.

The timing, gentlemen, is the key. The OP/HC gravy train has been milked to the limit by Arc - players have spent what they're going to spend in order to build and equip their bubble paladins and haste clerics - and now there is far more money to be made by forcing players to spend real life currency to remain relevant.

Keep it all in perspective.

cscriv79

with the right group I thought a Pally was able to use its Daily again within 6 seconds.

I have stopped playing simply due to the fact the game is too easy and high geared characters are pointless in PvE. Bring back the mob 100% armour pen again, that made dungeons fun and a struggle. Not to mention the only bugs that get fixed are the ones that stop Zen sales. bugs that affect the players experience are just left there mod after mod.

A T2 should not be a 20min speed run, it is meant to be end game difficulty and thus be a challenge for a well geared group of 5.

About time LM set got put to what it is meant to do, means other sets will be a viable choice for DPS and not have EVERY DPS class running the same thing.

Soon you will have to buy all BIS items from the Zen market.

thefiresidecat

yup I can see the concerns for pvp but it hurts pve badly. pve and pvp should not share any stats. they shouldn't try and make these things gel. once you enter a pvp state your stats should just alter from the pve world. it sucks that balance for one half the game effects the other that really didn't need a balance shift. Especially since even with these nerfs pvp is still unbalanced and wonky. this was very badly done imo.

sundance777

I have some mixed feelings about the pally nerf as well. I admit the bubble was too much protection but if this changes sticks as written, the pally will not be able to protect people that need it and if you should try the bubble, it will kill you. So fine, the pally needed a nerf but I do feel like my efforts have been a bit wasted. I am excited to maybe rework and relearn an alternate tanking method with it or transfer all the stuff over to a GF. I guess that is the only class the elites play so I must play like them or quit.

manyvengeance

What happened here was that PvPers that know shxt about PvP strategy were annoyed coz they couldn't kill a Pally within seconds, so we got nerfed to the ground for us to not have any value in PvP, and we will see it happen for the other classes as well, the perma stealth TR, the perma stuns from CW and HR, and thanks to the mediocre PvP mode of this game, all this classes will be nerfed as well. But they will continue to bring bs such as the Shadowclad enchantment, the drains and the Ambush rings to PvP, because you will need to farm a shxt ton and maybe spend some bucks in the process to get them, because Pay to Win, right?

thefiresidecat

sundance777 said:

I have some mixed feelings about the pally nerf as well. I admit the bubble was too much protection but if this changes sticks as written, the pally will not be able to protect people that need it and if you should try the bubble, it will kill you. So fine, the pally needed a nerf but I do feel like my efforts have been a bit wasted. I am excited to maybe rework and relearn an alternate tanking method with it or transfer all the stuff over to a GF. I guess that is the only class the elites play so I must play like them or quit.

FTR.. the pally was not op for pve.

telprydain

I’m really, really looking forward to the changes. I really like Neverwinter over all, but this is going to address a lot of the issues. I’m looking forward to healers that get to heal (rather than haste), tanks that will need to tank, DPS that will need to worry about positioning, buffers that need to utilise a range of options and a range of powers on my pally skill-tree that are currently totally irrelevant to the game.

Unfortunately, while this may fix the difficulty deficit and add some excitement back into the game – the rewards are really sub-par (and way worse than the gear you’ll get from Underdark content). They should bring back the old system wherein the dungeon armour is the same as the seal-brought armour, only with different set bonuses. (Although let’s not go back to drops that people boot each other over).

thefiresidecat said:

the dungeons really aren't fun. they're just a tedious means to an end. Maybe if strategy/gambit was an actual thing in this game.

I’d argue they used to be fun, and the pally-bubble is a big reason they went from engaging to boring. And, since everyone currently relies on bubble, groups are now utterly incapable of devising any actual strategy to address the challenges.

Ironically, I think the dungeons were more fun when they were longer (and had hidden objectives/areas). The small, boring race-tracks they have now struggle to recreate the epic feeling of a hour(s)-long dungeon delve.

cscriv79 said:

I have stopped playing simply due to the fact the game is too easy and high geared characters are pointless in PvE.
…
A T2 should not be a 20min speed run, it is meant to be end game difficulty and thus be a challenge for a well geared group of 5.

And there’s the issue that Cryptic/PW are having to struggle with. There’s crying that there’s no good, hard PVE content – but a nerf to the classes that are trivialising the experience leads to crying and recrimination (often from the same people).

telprydain

destrowod said:

Why not work on that GUARDIAN FIGHTER instead? You know the class that was almost retired when you introduced the pally? Oh wait you even nerfed him at some point removing the bouncing damage thing. I think the GF deserve a major BUFF, and yet i am still waiting.

Errm... did you miss that the same patch was giving the GF a buff?

misanthropyx

Sure haste and bubble were op but are any of you looking forward to spending the extra time in these few dungeons we have for the little to no rewards it yields?

tgwolf

TR - Master Infiltrator/Executioner Lv70 - Lostmauth Set
SW - Hellbringer/Fury Lv70 - Black Ice Set
DC - Divine Oracle/Faithful Lv70 - Imperial Set
GWF - Swordmaster/Destroyer Lv70 - Lostmauth Set
GF - Swordmaster/Conqueror Lv70 - Lostmauth Set
CW - Spellstorm Mage/Renegade Lv70 - Black Ice Set
HR - Stormwarden/Trapper Lv70 - Lostmauth Set
OP - Oath of Devotion/Justice Lv70 - Black Ice Set
SW - Soulbinder/Fury Lv70 - Black Ice Set
CW - Master of Flame/Renegade Lv70 - Black Ice Set
OP - Oath of Protection/Justice Lv70 - Black Ice Set
DC- Anointed Champion/Righteous Lv70 - Imperial Set
HR - Pathfinder/Trapper Lv70 - Lostmauth Set

In this I'm not concerned.

After further testing, while still too severe, the OP nerfs are acceptable. The Divine Protector power needs to be set to 10 seconds, not 6 but other than that, most of the changes are fine.

You can see my full thoughts here:

http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1214507/oathbound-paladin-devoted-cleric-changes/p12

They are a WIP themselves.

telprydain

tgwolf said:

The OP nerfs in a PvE sense are foolishness epitomized. There was little wrong with it, without the Haste spam it would only be specifically spec'd OPs that could keep the Bubble 100% uptime, this makes them basically useless for anything else so there's nothing to worry about.

My main is a Dragonborn Pally with a single guild-boon and a gearscore of 2.6k.
I can keep the bubble up 98.5% of the time (that 1.5% is me being bounced about and the shield failing while I’m prone/controlled/flying through the air).
I’ve topped out the damage in epic dungeons and in eDemo. Not all the time, but often enough that it’s a concern.

I’d rather have seen a removal of the damage mitigation than such a large cut to duration, but it’s silly to suggest it wasn’t broken in its current state.

oggycz

telprydain said:

tgwolf said:

The OP nerfs in a PvE sense are foolishness epitomized. There was little wrong with it, without the Haste spam it would only be specifically spec'd OPs that could keep the Bubble 100% uptime, this makes them basically useless for anything else so there's nothing to worry about.

My main is a Dragonborn Pally with a single guild-boon and a gearscore of 2.6k.
I can keep the bubble up 98.5% of the time (that 1.5% is me being bounced about and the shield failing while I’m prone/controlled/flying through the air).
I’ve topped out the damage in epic dungeons and in eDemo. Not all the time, but often enough that it’s a concern.

I’d rather have seen a removal of the damage mitigation than such a large cut to duration, but it’s silly to suggest it wasn’t broken in its current state.

I wonder, how can you do top damage with pally?

unitedweevil679

I must have typed and retyped this post a dozen times to get it to be something the devs might read, and consider. I've finally given up gift wrapping it and decided to instead point out the obvious. What is broken about pally was not their bubble duration, it was their damage mitigation. A permabubble could use binding oath before it expired, making them immune to damage. Bubble eats too much damage. They would have been fine if binding oath started cool down at the end of the move instead of the beginning(like dreadtheft), and tweaked the damage make paladins still take 50% of the damage, instead of 20. Move that 20 onto the characters it protects. Now a pally using a 20 second bubble in pve doesn't destroy the parties need to dodge. A 20 second bubble in pvp no longer amounts to a team of immortals.

sundance777

oggycz#5356 said:

I wonder, how can you do top damage with pally?

I have done this a few times with my pally, it is usually in a group of lower item level players. The damage is mainly generated from absorbing all their damage and the mob damage and reflecting damage with the right enchant and companions.