DPS class balance after combat changes?

fsf4live

Hey there.

I heard that we will get the new combat changes soon on consoles. I have not enough resources to equip more than one char for endgame content. So I have to concentrate on one char. I have a dps Fighter and a Cleric healer. I prefer my dps char, but I am worried about the class balancing again. Because with the buff of all powers (comparde to Tunnelvision) and the nerf of Xuna/Chicken the class balancing should get a bigger influence. As a Fighter DPS I know from Mod 16/17 how it is to be the worst DPS class and to be excluded from trials because of the class selection. Thats why I am asking how the class balancing is now after these changes? I don't want to start a big discussion about some classes feel disadvantaged. I just want the information or a short 'list'. Maybe some of you could collect some data in endgame trials (TOMM and ZC). Thank you very much.

Kind regards, FSF.

admiralwarlord

I can tell you that the GF should be one of the easiest classes to balance since it has Accuracy in the Fort and a skill that of Combat Advantage. As it is not a class that has synergy with At-Will I believe you will use vorpal. So you already have 4 well-routed statuses missing you Power which is one of the most abundant statuses in the game. After that you will have the choices of companions with your bonuses, in my normal view would focus on CA as I did with my Barbarian, but your class would be weak to farm, since for critical strike + critical severity farm is a better choice. But there are potions for that.

Rainer on youtube provides an excellent program for you and other console players to build your chars without having to create a game account on PC to have to do this in the preview.

I hope I helped.

rjc9000

admiralwarlord#3792 said:

I can tell you that the GF should be one of the easiest classes to balance since it has Accuracy in the Fort and a skill that of Combat Advantage. As it is not a class that has synergy with At-Will I believe you will use vorpal. So you already have 4 well-routed statuses missing you Power which is one of the most abundant statuses in the game. After that you will have the choices of companions with your bonuses, in my normal view would focus on CA as I did with my Barbarian, but your class would be weak to farm, since for critical strike + critical severity farm is a better choice. But there are potions for that.

Rainer on youtube provides an excellent program for you and other console players to build your chars without having to create a game account on PC to have to do this in the preview.

I hope I helped.

Tactician's Edge only gives 10% CA as Stamina is full. You still need to boost Combat Advantage with pets and gear like every other class.

fsf4live said:

I just want the information or a short 'list'. Maybe some of you could collect some data in endgame trials (TOMM and ZC). Thank you very much.

Before the changes, it was generally agreed upon that the strongest DPS classes, best to worse from top to bottom were something like:

Trapper Hunter Ranger/Arbiter
Barbarian/Assassin Rogue/
Hellbringer Warlock/Arcanist Wizard with multiple alliance battlehorns
Fighter DPS/Melee Warden Ranger/Arcanist Wizard without battlehorns
Archer Hunter Ranger/Whisperknife Rogue/Lightning Warden Ranger/ Thaumaturge Wizard

Not (generally) tiered within rows, since you could make an argument for Trapper being better than Arbiter due to being easier, but everyone agree Trappers and Arbiters were superior to most other specs, while Whisperknife and Thaum were garbage.

Despite some classes being hurt more or less by the changes, people seem to be forgetting that magnitude per second is still the core of how good a class is and that was relatively untouched in this update. Almost all the classes would have just shifted up or down a little bit depending on how they got blessed/cursed with passives.

For example, Barbarian probably would have shifted down definitively behind Assassin Rogue, but still better than most of the other classes.

The two were already pretty close pre changes, but post change Barbarian got "nerfs" in the form of Overpenetration being a 5% buff, the 90% Critical Severity cap hurting Barbarian's huge Crit Sev lead on other classes, Barbed Strike nerf, the sucky Forte in Crit Sev, and Bloodletter bonus magnitude not getting affected by the global base damage increases. However, Barbarian's general encounter damage is still very strong in general and Rage Brash Strike is still very good, having twice as much magnitude per second as comparable At-wills.

fsf4live said:

As a Fighter DPS I know from Mod 16/17 how it is to be the worst DPS class and to be excluded from trials because of the class selection. Thats why I am asking how the class balancing is now after these changes? I don't want to start a big discussion about some classes feel disadvantaged.

For GF DPS, you have easiest time getting the most amount of 90%s and have more than enough damage to win everything in the game. But for most LFG teams that pride finding people that deal good damage with minimal effort, they probably won't pick you over other classes. GF DPS is just too honest: you don't have the raw damage numbers of Trappers and can't really apply as much cheese as Arcanist Wizards can.

admiralwarlord

@rjc9000 At some point the GF manages to have this 10% status and is equal to the GWF which only has the 10% Critical Severity when in Rage. The advantage I've highlighted is that it has the potions for other statuses while for the GWF nor does that possibility have.

zimxero

I have 3 characters topped off now except for BiS gears.

Rogue: Lost nothing in the transition. A couple minor gains, a couple minor losses.
Ranger: Lost nothing in the transition. A couple minor gains, a couple minor losses.

Dreadnought: Lost considerable FEAT magnitude damage in the transition, because while percentages remained consistent, magnitudes in feats were not bumped up 33% like all of the powers were. Dreadnought did gain the "Vigorous Strikes" class feature which adds 10% critical chance when stamina is full, but characters using it are replacing Enduring Vengeance which gave +5% damage. That change might help new Dreadnoughts, but end-game Dreadnoughts are losing about about 30 magnitude per second versus single targets, because Momentum, Weight of Vengeance, Prepared Slam, and Executioner's Cut were all nerfed.

fsf4live

Thank you very much for your replies. You wrote much more than I expected. So I learned that for DPS Fighters it is a bit easier to bring stats close to 90% and that the DPS Fighter got a little nerf because the magnitudes of feat damage is not increased by 33%. The most imported message was by rjc9000, who said that a DPS Fighter can run and win everything, but other classes should be stronger. Thats why I am still looking for a ranking of the DPS classes (maybe a list) to see in which position each DPS class is. Does somebody have something like a ranking? But only if there are some noticable differences. It does not matter, if the classes are so close together that every class could 'beat' the others.