destroying this class is far-fetched, it just looks like they want to make as many classes on-par with each other in usefulness (pve). Even with these damage nerfs CWs will still have its place, and i doubt the warlock will do that much more damage (though their debuffs curse/hexes) may push them over CWs, whilst our CC spells are better than theres, So hopefully it all balances out.
I'm not too worried about the viability of CWs at the direction they are going, but I am concerned about how they handle the thaum and renegade trees though, but i cannot tell until the new build hits the previews. I did find it strange that they wanted to take away all the group debuffs from wizards though, and with the release of the warlock now we know why.
According to one of the Spellstorms his total damage loss on his build is about 67% from Live server to Preview. From what I've seen they have completely wrecked the Spellstorm paragon path and both the Thaumaturge and Renegade trees are completely broken at this point.
So the only functional paragon tree is MoF and paragon feat tree left is Oppressor.
Some are claiming Cryptic will change their minds. Well I am hoping so. Because the people on the boards are actually in the minority. If this hits live currently as is... I can easily see a mass exodus from the game for the majority of people playing Spellstorm, and there may even be quite a few from MoF depending on how they built.
This literally wrecks the Spellstorm path and removes a good 67% damage from certain builds and makes many higher level spells to the relative power of the First Level Newbie spells.
So Cryptic is going to have to add back a good 45-50% damage to the trees in order for this thing to even be remotely viable.
Right now on preview Spellstorms aren't even remotely competitive with Master of Flame, and only a very small portion of us actually play MoF. So it will likely blind side the Live gamers. I'm sure they were expecting an "adjustment"... not a complete Class/Paragon wrecker like that.
And lo, the claims repeat... "The <insert character class/type of choice> is doomed" and "oh it's different this time" and "everyone will quit because of this".
it's kind of depressing and funny at the same time; and yes my main is a CW, yes I've spent a lot of money and no I won't be leaving... I'll test, adapt to the new meta and carry on. Because you know why? Every class will get it's time in the sun, the adjustments will never stop. I can't honestly get that excited over a few pixels.
A world to defend
A city to protect
innocents to save
"Why?" They ask "they hate you"
We're heroes it's what we do.
*patiently waiting on Paragon City*
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
yeah but this is my entire point and the only reason I even really posted here recently , I have played since the end of closed beta and have never seen this kind of blatant disregard for their players before , at least not insofar as destroying a whole class goes
how can they think they can run a game long term by treating customers like this?
I agree,
I've been watching them do this repeatedly. Does anyone think Rogues would be having problems if they hadn't nerfed in the first place? This stuff has been a repeated failure that's only broken entire class feat trees and paragon paths.
And no... the average players on Live are not going to appreciate the entire direction of the class they were playing reversed. Nor are they going to like playing a broken paragon path.
They're not going to want to run around using only low level spells to create a half azed freeze mage. Which is what that does. While it would be nice to give that as an option... shoving everyone into an unwanted, unwelcome path is not a good way to go.
And destroying a good 66% of the class/feats/paragon path to do it isn't "balancing".... its breaking it...
... It means IF you had to go that far.... the class was obviously NOT designed to do that or be that in the first place... IF you have to COMPLETELY destroy the majority of it...
Obviously it was not what some thought it was.... and never can truly be that
On top of that, the average player isn't going to be figuring that out, and will be running around with a gimped character that is not very easy for them to use to use. Some people assume farrr too much.
How many people are going to want to "invest" their time and money into the Warlock class if they know that Cryptic is just (in time) going to destroy it anyway with Nerfs.
Who the hell wants to play a game like that?
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
edited July 2014
I wasn't even that impressive until I got my high vizer set. Felt almost like my run through the dread ring and sharandar were doubled. Then they plan to nerf everything else to nothingness.
I've seen plenty of CWs very low on the paingiver chart. Gana feel real sorry for them now.
And destroying a good 66% of the class/feats/paragon path to do it isn't "balancing".... its breaking it...
... It means IF you had to go that far.... the class was obviously NOT designed to do that or be that in the first place... IF you have to COMPLETELY destroy the majority of it...
Obviously it was not what some thought it was.... and never can truly be that
On top of that, the average player isn't going to be figuring that out, and will be running around with a gimped character that is not very easy for them to use to use. Some people assume farrr too much.
Lets be honest, there are plenty of CW right now who don't understand how incredibly under performing they are. You've seen them in PuG's using Shield and EF at the #4 Paingiver spot. I mean don't get me wrong, those are good spells, but all the time? There are bad CW now even with it being patently overpowered. I see them literally every day.
It is not at all uncommon for a decent CW with similiar GS to out DPS the rest of their group by easily double. Can a GWF get close to that? Sure. Maybe even beat it as an IV. (Another issue.) So is a 66% damage nerf still leaving them at the top of your average smart PUG? Maybe. It is certainly a shoe in for #2 or #3 all other things being equal. (Which they are not so we're all guessing here.)
It being a healer/CC/nuker/tank has got to stop one way or the other, and are any of the nerfed spells really something you ever see used well in PvP?
How many people are going to want to "invest" their time and money into the Warlock class if they know that Cryptic is just (in time) going to destroy it anyway with Nerfs.
Who the hell wants to play a game like that?
Well if you think about it, a lot of CW players are probably going to jump on Warlock like a fat kid towards birthday cake. Switch your enchants over, play for a week, and bam you're as powerful as were on a brand spanking new class.
Basically, Cryptic is set to make a quick fortune here. Smart move for a F2P title even if it's not so great for us. We'll see what Warlock looks like though, Cryptics definition of 'heavy' damage is rather undefined at this point but looking at the changes so far makes me somewhat positive about the future of the CW class as a primarily control oriented class that deals medium damage.
MoF/Thaum CWSS/Thaum CWIV/Protector GFSW/Combat HRSM/Destroyer GWFWK/Executioner TRDO/Faithful DC
I've been watching them do this repeatedly. Does anyone think Rogues would be having problems if they hadn't nerfed in the first place? This stuff has been a repeated failure that's only broken entire class feat trees and paragon paths.
......too long......
And destroying a good 66% of the class/feats/paragon path to do it isn't "balancing".... its breaking it...
... It means IF you had to go that far.... the class was obviously NOT designed to do that or be that in the first place... IF you have to COMPLETELY destroy the majority of it...
Obviously it was not what some thought it was.... and never can truly be that
............
Who the hell wants to play a game like that?
And I agree with u!
I tried the new so called Control Wizard at preview shard before start to curse the Devs here... Its not Control, nor Wizard.
In what i saw, total output dmg is reduced with more than 50% - same at dummies and the map. Could't try some skirmishes or dungeon due to lack of ppl there. The most powerful skills like S. Storm and SotEA making almost same dmg as Chilling Cloud /funny eh/. DPS wizards are dead, I tried to "control" the battlefield and the mobs started to laugh at me...
Like I said , i saw it/ the NERF/ many times before to other games, but never in such magnitude. Destroying entire build, leveling it to the ground, cripple in such manner entire character class and changing the entire perspective, after ONE year, is ..... better not to say more.
Lets be honest, there are plenty of CW right now who don't understand how incredibly under performing they are. You've seen them in PuG's using Shield and EF at the #4 Paingiver spot. I mean don't get me wrong, those are good spells, but all the time? There are bad CW now even with it being patently overpowered. I see them literally every day.
It is not at all uncommon for a decent CW with similiar GS to out DPS the rest of their group by easily double. Can a GWF get close to that? Sure. Maybe even beat it as an IV. (Another issue.) So is a 66% damage nerf still leaving them at the top of your average smart PUG? Maybe. It is certainly a shoe in for #2 or #3 all other things being equal. (Which they are not so we're all guessing here.)
Cryptics definition of 'heavy' damage is rather undefined at this point but looking at the changes so far makes me somewhat positive about the future of the CW class as a primarily control oriented class that deals medium damage.
Shards at a 16.8K gear score (7600 power) does a whopping 7200 damage on average Non Crit... with a 13 second recast timer... for a whopping 533 damage per second per target...
Thats... 533 damage per second (yes fights last longer than 13 seconds in a group setting) so that's literally what that supposedly "overpowered" spell was doing.... less than our Magic Missiles.
Which means the ONLY way to do that kind of damage is IF the devs threw faaar too many mobs at a party full of Strikers (single target damagers) in the first place in a way they can't and never will be able to participate. It was a lie in the first place
So as an example... Nerfing that spell to what they did means it now does a whopping 200 damage per second per target..... 2500 damage with a 13 second recast timer. That's not "balance" that's destroying it.
And let me say it again...
And destroying a good 66% of the class/feats/paragon path to do it isn't "balancing".... its breaking it...
... It means IF you had to go that far.... the class was obviously NOT designed be that in the first place... IF you have to COMPLETELY destroy the majority of it... and force it to use all low level newbie spells.
Obviously it was not the "kind" of Controller some thought it was.... and never can truly be that
If they wanted that, they needed to design an entirely new class in the first place rather than completely destroy the existing one because of their own failure and overdoing mass mobs in a way that excludes other classes in dungeons in the first place.
They are in essence removing an entire paragon from the game at this point by destroying it... who the hell is going to want to play that?
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
edited July 2014
edited.. long winded post, that boils down to this..
No matter what Cryptic does, this game doesnt have true synergy, you simply do not need tanks, or healers, or mostly any class, because of the design of the game.. I mean a every class has potent self heals, can dodge most telegraphed attacked ect, why do you need a tank or a healer?
Simple answer is you dont, now a DC is mostly ok, because instead of dodging every attack, it makes it easier to have one and sit in circles and get healed instead, while they also buff/debuff using HG and DG over and over. So maybe you can condenscend to use one.
This nerfing, rebalancing ect, simply doesnt change the function and design of the game. CWs will still be a better option then stacking TRS /hrs /gfs over and over any day of the week, now you can argue that what they are doing to the GWF will make them useless, that may be true, will see, but to NERF a class to the point of being useless, so another can function, how is that fair to that playerbase? Simply put it isnt.
It also caters to BiS crowd, making the GWF virtually unplayable for those leveling one up , can you imagine a 9k one trying to do a t1 and dying ever other mob pack, or having to run around over and over.. there ARE new players who are added to the game, you cannot simply make classes that difficult, to reduce the effectiveness of the 17+ crowd.
But this will all be ignored , all anyone ever wants is "their" main class to be buffed and others nerfed, so they can claim top dog status or something.
Frankly, if you were legit players, you couldve joined any combination of runs for any t2s you wanted at any time. Other then maybe the GF in VT runs, that maybe was the one class that was the least viable. But legit was NEVER going to exclude any class for any t2 .. even gfs.. This is mostly about the LFG crowd in PE, who HAD to have the perfect group for speed runs..
I write this as someone who plays multiple classes, I do see the need for some to be more functional, I dont think every nerf was unwarranted, but it was the vast nerf swipe to almost every skill , feat ect that makes me boil, way, WAY to over the top. Waiving the magic nerf wand over the classes doesnt fix your game devs.
I've seen plenty of CWs very low on the paingiver chart. Gana feel real sorry for them now.
I think that is a very good point. While many CW's can crush enemies like a dump truck rolling over a carton of eggs there are also many more CW's that do similar or even less damage than other classes. I've done Pirate King runs with 13k+ CW's who did 1/8th of my damage or less. While the nerfs are going to bring the high-end builds back to the pack, they may also serve to make the lesser builds unusable.
yeah but this is my entire point and the only reason I even really posted here recently , I have played since the end of closed beta and have never seen this kind of blatant disregard for their players before , at least not insofar as destroying a whole class goes , sure they nerfed armor sets and artifacts but this is a whole other level , you must agree that this behavior is simply not right , how can they think they can run a game long term by treating customers like this?
Wat? 0.o
Are you blind?
I mean it's getting worse don't get me wrong but none of this is even remotely new behavior. It's par for the course...
Of course a lot of people don't pay attention to such things until it affects them directly. I believe Stalin called such people useful idiots.
Shards at a 16.8K gear score (7600 power) does a whopping 7200 damage on average Non Crit... with a 13 second recast timer... for a whopping 533 damage per second per target...
Silver...I just don't have the time to point out how wrong you are and how that is absolutely not at all what Shard is capable of. That is the absolute lowest end of the spectrum, and ignores the absolute bonafide fact that Shard is capable of hitting for a hundred thousand damage plus per throw. So please, shove off. Everyone knows you're lowballing here by several orders of magnitude.
While many CW's can crush enemies like a dump truck rolling over a carton of eggs there are also many more CW's that do similar or even less damage than other classes. I've done Pirate King runs with 13k+ CW's who did 1/8th of my damage or less. While the nerfs are going to bring the high-end builds back to the pack, they may also serve to make the lesser builds unusable.
See here's where the confusion lies for part of this whole deal. Those people are already useless. This won't make people like that any more or less useful than they already are. It is frankly a miracle they made it to level 60, and no amount of buff/nerf will ever change how those people play. You can't 'balance' stupid.
It is valid to bring up the GWF comparision I saw earlier, where a 9k GS GWF is going to suffer a whole lot from all of these changes. I tend to agree with that. Both the CW and GWF are beyond the developers ability to 'balance' if the last year is any kind of barometer. GWF are being beaten with a stick until they die, but somehow they just keep coming back for more.
Grimah is absolutely correct though; the CW class will live on and be strong in something. It's AoE. It's CC. It will be useful as long as those two things are core components. I would be much, much more worried about what they end up doing to the GWF, HR, and TR classes. (And yes, those are exactly what my alts are lol)
MoF/Thaum CWSS/Thaum CWIV/Protector GFSW/Combat HRSM/Destroyer GWFWK/Executioner TRDO/Faithful DC
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
Silver...I just don't have the time to point out how wrong you are and how that is absolutely not at all what Shard is capable of. That is the absolute lowest end of the spectrum, and ignores the absolute bonafide fact that Shard is capable of hitting for a hundred thousand damage plus per throw. So please, shove off. Everyone knows you're lowballing here by several orders of magnitude.
Lowballing you huh... Well how about we let everyone else be the judge of that...
Here's the character...
Ok... and you're claiming Shards at its "base level" is OVERPOWERED and UBER...
Lol here's the Tooltip straight out of the game... ON that character...
WHOA an UBER 4800 - 5700 base damage spell... HOLY <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>!!! With a 13 second recast timer... whoa that's pretty uber there...
For the record with my gear and build it does 7200 damage average... non crit... (yeah I can get you a screenshot of that too if you want...
That's about 533 damage per second PER target at Base level on an MoF who does NOT have Eye of the Storm to crit like mad with it... OooOooooOoo... wow that's pretty uber and overpowered.... huh?
You have no clue do you?
The only way that Spell even approaches that damage.... is with Eye of the Storm constantly critting... and higher Level (Greater of better) Vorpal.... AND a crapton of Mobs to stack the damage on...
.... that's the only way you're ever going to do any kind of real damage with it.
So... now they Nerfed it into ... approximately 2600 damage non crit on Preview with a 13 second recast timer... for the TOP LEVEL CAPSTONE power of the CW... because supposedly it was ... "overpowered". I can tell you now, that's petty change for an MoF... I have a ton of other DoT stackers that far outstrip that....
But for a Spellstorm its a Paragon wrecker.... not to mention the TWO feat trees that were nerfed into the ground... pretty much destroying and breaking the Spellstorm in two... and pointlessly nerfing a spell that was never overpowered in the first place.
That's not Balance... that's breaking it... that's 66% of the CW Class/Paragon/Feats, to attempt to turn CWs into a half azzed freeze mage using only your... whopping 400 damage per tick Icy Terrain... .
WHOA an UBER 4800 - 5700 base damage spell... HOLY <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>!!! With a 13 second recast timer... whoa that's pretty uber there...
sorry but what you say is just not true.
That damage on the tooltip is the roll damage, not shardplosion damage.
the shardplosion damage is more than double than that (around 14k per target) you can test it yourself if you do not believe me.
That damage on the tooltip is the roll damage, not shardplosion damage.
the shardplosion damage is more than double than that (around 14k per target) you can test it yourself if you do not believe me.
Already did Grimah... and yes its accurate.....
.... that's where the 7200 averge damage number I've been quoting came from, that I've been talking about... I walked out, threw a bunch of them at target dummies, then waited for the explosion.
That's the Shardplosion... the Shard Slam only hits about 3 targets no matter how you slice it unless you're doing a point blank hit with it...
for an aoe 8100 no-crit shardplosion only (average before HV debuff) + your roll damage. theres nothing that comes close to that from other classes.
Now its lowered to the same level as others but has a hefty prone duration bonus, making it still useful in PvE..
You forgot something Grimah... The recast timer... even IF it did 8100 damage.... a 13 second recast timer with 1 second prone... ON live server is... a whopping 623 damage per second... per target.
Not exactly "overpowered" here
The nerf which... on Preview brought that to 2600 shardplosion (again tested) ... with a 13 second recast timer... and a 3 second prone... is only around 200 damage per second... per target...
That's not Balance... that's breaking it...
Steal Time.... on preview... is now... 4500 damage with a 10 second recast timer and a 3 second stun... a lower level spell, non capstone does more DPS and has the same CC duration...
Do you see where this is going?
They just made a lower level spell more damaging and with the same stun duration.... when the original Shards was never overpowered in the first place. They knee jerked it without thinking it through.... or even keeping it in perspective, and then broke it. Along with 2 entire feat trees.
in fact my non critical shard hit>11k (blue chest)... if it is explosion, or no, i dont know.but are values that I do not see in other classes in the same gear.
personally, I do not think the "general cw damage" is the problem. but the fact that you can cause an initial very high explosion of damage, which ends up taking the opportunity of the other classes do their dps (depending on the aggressiveness of the cw).
but no, need change all... I really do not know what to do with the great Torquemada, lord of tarrasque.
There are several CWs (including 3 whom I know personally) who atm can finish every encounter on epic Mad Dragon (except the final boss) in just a few seconds using only in rank 6/7s and Greater Vorpal. That about tells me everything I need to know about the CW's true damage potential. If you haven't been around long enough to see that happen you certainly should not be arguing the point against someone as experienced as grimah.
Anyway the interaction between various CW powers, feats and items is what makes this so. Malevolent Surge and High Vizier alone can make a shardplosion crit hit for staggeringly high numbers, nevermind various other mitigation debuffs.
There is no such thing as a "lower level" spell in this game. You get some spells earlier/later but that basically only affects your leveling experience. Truth be told this is a laughable way to look at class powers - many level 60 powers are so situational they are very rarely used, for example.
I've been playing preview and imo the warlock is definitely not going to be beating the wizard at AoE anytime soon. It is really more of a single-target DPSer with multi-target capabilities and with only a few true AoEs. That said it does its job VERY well, I wouldn't be surprised if it could out-DPS a very good TR at single target or even CWs/GWFs against small groups, though unlike TRs/GWFs/CWs the SW is a true glass cannon.
There's a very good reason why one of its primary attributes is CON.
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
There are several CWs (including 3 whom I know personally) who atm can finish every encounter on epic Mad Dragon (except the final boss) in just a few seconds using only in rank 6/7s and Greater Vorpal. That about tells me everything I need to know about the CW's true damage potential. If you haven't been around long enough to see that happen you certainly should not be arguing the point against someone as experienced as grimah.
Well I've actually been around about that long too. And I'll argue with him any time I want to...
That said... You just basically just agreed and confirmed everything I said... whether you wanted to or not....
The only way Shards does any kind of REAL damage is with ... Eye of the Storm... Evocation... and a Greater or better Vorpal... and an enormous amount of mobs....
.....but the base damage is not that great, you have to be able to repeatedly Crit... AND have seriously increased Crit Severity in order for it to do anything... Only Spellstorms can do that....
...and Nerfing the spell down to 2600 Shardplosion isn't "balancing" anything... Its just breaking it entirely... along with two entire feat trees.... especially when you just increased the damage on Steal Time which is basically one spell lower on the CW powers levels.
But that's only one spell... there's a ton of spells that were demolished.... ALL of which affect Spellstorms.
There's a reason initial testing on the Spellstorms show their damage has been reduced by a good 67% on some builds.
That's not "balance".. that's paragon wrecking.... They've completely wrecked Spellstorms in a way that's not even remotely competitive with MoF at this point...
There are several CWs (including 3 whom I know personally) who atm can finish every encounter on epic Mad Dragon (except the final boss) in just a few seconds using only in rank 6/7s and Greater Vorpal. That about tells me everything I need to know about the CW's true damage potential. If you haven't been around long enough to see that happen you certainly should not be arguing the point against someone as experienced as grimah.
Anyway the interaction between various CW powers, feats and items is what makes this so. Malevolent Surge and High Vizier alone can make a shardplosion crit hit for staggeringly high numbers, nevermind various other mitigation debuffs.
There is no such thing as a "lower level" spell in this game. You get some spells earlier/later but that basically only affects your leveling experience. Truth be told this is a laughable way to look at class powers - many level 60 powers are so situational they are very rarely used, for example.
I've been playing preview and imo the warlock is definitely not going to be beating the wizard at AoE anytime soon. It is really more of a single-target DPSer with multi-target capabilities and with only a few true AoEs. That said it does its job VERY well, I wouldn't be surprised if it could out-DPS a very good TR at single target or even CWs/GWFs against small groups, though unlike TRs/GWFs/CWs the SW is a true glass cannon.
There's a very good reason why one of its primary attributes is CON.
My damage value is given at around 5500 power, not taking HV in account no weapon enchant or evocation etc. It is too powerful, with +shard feat, evocation, vorpal and crits this damage number goes far beyond, given the damage, its aoe radius (unlike skills like rain of arrows) and it prones, it is overpowered, saying otherwise just means you do not have knowledge of what other class skills are like.
From a glance it does not look like warlocks will be doing aoe nuker, but I've yet to level one up on preview, so that is just from looking at feats/skills.
silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
edited July 2014
Grimah that makes no sense at all,
According to that logic... Fireballs and Meteor Swarms should be removed from D&D because they do more damage than a sword or arrow.
Why even have mages in a game at all if their spells are only doing the same damage as someone's swords or arrows.
Its more about DPS... or Damage per second. ergo... a sword that's hitting for 500 damage every second, is pretty much the same thing as a Spell hitting for 5000 damage that can only be cast once every 10 seconds.
This is not how ANY MMO OR Fantasy RPG works... unless you have no mages at all.
Not really. A nuke that kills stuff in one hit but can only be cast every 10 sec is waaay better than something that can hit constantly and does the same damage (eventually) over 10 seconds. Because dead monsters don't hit back.
Walk in room, murder everything, take a sip of delicious malt whisky, move to next room.
OR
Walk in room, spend ten seconds flailing and drinking potions, realise the CW has drunk all the whisky and is waiting for you in the next room (which has also just been cleared).
In good ol' 3rd ed, things like meteor swarm were top-flight, can't memorise a lot of 'em but MAN DO THEY HURT, spells. Wizards were basically one shot nukers, and once they'd blown their load you needed dudes with swords there to mop up the rest, coz magic missile and melf's acid arrow aren't gonna hack it.
With 'cast whatever you want, whenever it's off cooldown', you're looking at an entirely different meta. And shard is ridiculously good if you're up against a mass of bunched up dudes (and when are you NOT, in this game?).
From all these changes, I'm mostly disappointed with the crippling of EotS (because srsly 90 sec ICD is "hahahhaha nope") and the broad spectrum removal of all CW team debuffs, because I kinda liked to play mine as an actual team contributor, debuffing and immobilising stuff so everyone else could have fun too. Now I guess it's just comedy freezebot.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
From all these changes, I'm mostly disappointed with the crippling of EotS (because srsly 90 sec ICD is "hahahhaha nope") and the broad spectrum removal of all CW team debuffs, because I kinda liked to play mine as an actual team contributor, debuffing and immobilising stuff so everyone else could have fun too. Now I guess it's just comedy freezebot.
Two things. One, EotS DOES NOT have a 90 sec ICD. That was proposed and reduce down to 25 seconds. And if you remember prior to Module 2, EotS (at rank 3) had an 8 second duration, 30 second CD. Now we're going back to a 6 second duration, 25 second CD. Essentially, it's reverting back to it's pre-Feywild status. It was only OP in Feywild because CoI and ST have multiple opportunities to proc it per cast. Was probably easier for them to put an ICD back in then fix those spells.
Second, they're toning down the buffs, not giving them to other classes to nerf the CW. If you took a Thaumaturge with HV and GPF, the amount of debuffs they could stack on mobs was staggering, nearly doubling the damage these mobs took. In the last couple patches, they've been slowly addressing debuff stacking to avoid well-organized parties turning hardened monsters into sticks of butter. Yeah, it sucks that we won't be able to stack all those debuffs so easily, but there's still a lot of party buffs and monster debuffs sprinkled in throughout the feat trees, especially in Oppressor.
I wouldn't be too worried morsitans. Atm it looks (and from my own testing in preview, feels) like the only class that can rival CW large scale aoe atm is the GWF.
The strongest HR nukes still need the target/s to remain still/controlled, and warlocks are looking more and more like a "hug the DC" class (pretty much only Warlocks who take the third feat path,"Temptation" iirc, are fully self-sufficient). Still, a nice change from the "run away from the blue circle" HR.
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Ironzerg: thanks for that, I stand corrected. Glad to see they're taking a "start at ridiculous, move toward reasonable" approach. I could probably live with 25/6.
Hey all, I wanted to drop in and share a few more changes that will be hitting in the next week or two.
We still want Wizards to feel like a viable DPS class while they are specced into Thaumatuge (and a bit more group utility focused in Renegade) so we are making some buffs to feats in those trees to reinforce that.
Thaumaturge:
Transcended Master: Shard of the Endless Avalanche now deals an additional 5/10/15/20/25% damage (up from 2/4/6/8/10%). Icy Rays now deals an additional 5/10/15/20/25% damage when used on a single target (up from 2/4/6/8/10%) and has a 1/2/3/4/5 second shorter cooldown if used on two different targets (up from .5/1/1.5/2/2.5).
Elemental Empowerment: Warped Magics now deals 100% of Weapon Damage each tick (up from 50%). Creeping Frost now deals 170% of Weapon Damage each tick (up from 85%).
Assailing Force: ICD reduced to 5 seconds (down from 15 seconds).
Renegade:
Nightmare Wizardry: When you critically strike a foe you have a 4/8/12/16/20% chance (up from 1/2/3/4/5%) to grant you and your allies Combat Advantage against the target for 12 seconds.
Phantasmal Destruction: Now has a 40% chance to activate (up from 25%).
Chaos Magic: Chaotic Nexus now grants 10% Armor Penetration and Critical Chance (up from 5%).
Chaos Magic: Chaotic Fury now grants 10% increased damage and 5% direct Life Steal (rather than adjusting your stats).
These changes should move much more of the performance into the feat trees, allowing Wizards to use their feats to more accurately define their performance and style of play.
after running comparison tests, my dps dropped by 20-22% this is after taking adjustments to certain feats, swapping eye of the storm for evocation, and some encounters around. (check test forums)
Spellstorm is fine despite someone spamming that spellstorm is destroyed, EotS is nerfed, its effectiveness with the 25 ICD has reduced my crit from 70% to 50% (34% base crit) storm spell is even more potent now because of icy terrain and CoI changes
Ironzerg: thanks for that, I stand corrected. Glad to see they're taking a "start at ridiculous, move toward reasonable" approach. I could probably live with 25/6.
It's the same approach they took with the GWF and HR adjustments last time around. They have the one "extreme" of the Live server, then start at another "extreme" on Preview, then adjust accordingly.
With the latest adjustments Crush announced this afternoon, we're really seeing things get more dialed in. Module 4 CW is going to be fine. If you want an all out DPS nuker class, then by all means check out the Warlock (that's what it's suppose to be anyway), but if you like the AOE/Control aspects of the CW, they're going to be great (and perhaps even better) in Module 4.
after running comparison tests, my dps dropped by 20-22% this is after taking adjustments to certain feats, swapping eye of the storm for evocation, and some encounters around. (check test forums)
Spellstorm is fine despite someone spamming that spellstorm is destroyed, EotS is nerfed, its effectiveness with the 25 ICD has reduced my crit from 70% to 50% (34% base crit) storm spell is even more potent now because of icy terrain and CoI changes
It definitely depends on the spell rotations that you used, though. I noticed you use Icy Terrain, which was actually buffed in Mod 4. I used Conduit of Ice, which was pretty badly nerfed. Your 20-22% drop is more like 30-35% for me after switching feats around.
Your point still stands, though. Spellstorm is still viable now that they're toning down their changes a bit.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
Your point still stands, though. Spellstorm is still viable now that they're toning down their changes a bit.
Yes Abbadon, thankfully, I am glad to see them starting to reverse themselves on these.
I remember being blindsided last time around by the nerfs that literally destroyed everything I was doing back then. And I was never even on the boards a year ago. I remember it though, all of a sudden everything just sucked the life out of the game and at the time I had no idea how to correct it. Even left the game for a good 4 months. Though having a girlfriend sucking up all my time was part of that. And while I would never go back to doing that anymore on CW...
Most people never even visit these boards so they're completely oblivious. I still won't be going back to Spellstorm regardless as I enjoy MoF too much. But it is good to know they're not going to completely destroy the people who are playing that path.
It sucked when they did it to me back then. I don't like seeing that happen.
Grimah... your idea of Shards is through the eyes of a Spellstorm. It is very different as an MoF, when you move over to that path. You lose all of those things that you take for granted as a Spellstorm. Suddenly the spell that used to be one of the main powerhouses in your inventory becomes just plain jane. And you go from Criting with EoTS upwards of 20k+ down to just regular non crits for 7000 damage and recast at 12-13 seconds. You want screenshots of it, I'll go take some for you... its not the same... you get to see the spell for what it really is... not what a Spellstorm Makes it into.
Luckily as an MoF you have so many more powerful things that make up for it. And you learn the true strength of a DoT caster. Shards becomes little more than petty change, and nothing that special in your build other than a strong finisher. Its nice... and still handy and a good solid spell... but by no means is it "overpowered".
You don't realize just how mediocre the spell really is until you don't have those things anymore that make it powerful the way a Spellstorm does. It never needed nerfing in the first place.
And with the 25 second CD on the Eye of the Storm Spellstorms won't be wreaking havok or overkilling with it anymore if thats what you were worried about. That was all that was needed in the first place.
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I'm not too worried about the viability of CWs at the direction they are going, but I am concerned about how they handle the thaum and renegade trees though, but i cannot tell until the new build hits the previews. I did find it strange that they wanted to take away all the group debuffs from wizards though, and with the release of the warlock now we know why.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
And lo, the claims repeat... "The <insert character class/type of choice> is doomed" and "oh it's different this time" and "everyone will quit because of this".
it's kind of depressing and funny at the same time; and yes my main is a CW, yes I've spent a lot of money and no I won't be leaving... I'll test, adapt to the new meta and carry on. Because you know why? Every class will get it's time in the sun, the adjustments will never stop. I can't honestly get that excited over a few pixels.
A city to protect
innocents to save
"Why?" They ask "they hate you"
We're heroes it's what we do.
*patiently waiting on Paragon City*
I agree,
I've been watching them do this repeatedly. Does anyone think Rogues would be having problems if they hadn't nerfed in the first place? This stuff has been a repeated failure that's only broken entire class feat trees and paragon paths.
And no... the average players on Live are not going to appreciate the entire direction of the class they were playing reversed. Nor are they going to like playing a broken paragon path.
They're not going to want to run around using only low level spells to create a half azed freeze mage. Which is what that does. While it would be nice to give that as an option... shoving everyone into an unwanted, unwelcome path is not a good way to go.
And destroying a good 66% of the class/feats/paragon path to do it isn't "balancing".... its breaking it...
... It means IF you had to go that far.... the class was obviously NOT designed to do that or be that in the first place... IF you have to COMPLETELY destroy the majority of it...
Obviously it was not what some thought it was.... and never can truly be that
On top of that, the average player isn't going to be figuring that out, and will be running around with a gimped character that is not very easy for them to use to use. Some people assume farrr too much.
How many people are going to want to "invest" their time and money into the Warlock class if they know that Cryptic is just (in time) going to destroy it anyway with Nerfs.
Who the hell wants to play a game like that?
I've seen plenty of CWs very low on the paingiver chart. Gana feel real sorry for them now.
Lets be honest, there are plenty of CW right now who don't understand how incredibly under performing they are. You've seen them in PuG's using Shield and EF at the #4 Paingiver spot. I mean don't get me wrong, those are good spells, but all the time? There are bad CW now even with it being patently overpowered. I see them literally every day.
It is not at all uncommon for a decent CW with similiar GS to out DPS the rest of their group by easily double. Can a GWF get close to that? Sure. Maybe even beat it as an IV. (Another issue.) So is a 66% damage nerf still leaving them at the top of your average smart PUG? Maybe. It is certainly a shoe in for #2 or #3 all other things being equal. (Which they are not so we're all guessing here.)
It being a healer/CC/nuker/tank has got to stop one way or the other, and are any of the nerfed spells really something you ever see used well in PvP?
Well if you think about it, a lot of CW players are probably going to jump on Warlock like a fat kid towards birthday cake. Switch your enchants over, play for a week, and bam you're as powerful as were on a brand spanking new class.
Basically, Cryptic is set to make a quick fortune here. Smart move for a F2P title even if it's not so great for us. We'll see what Warlock looks like though, Cryptics definition of 'heavy' damage is rather undefined at this point but looking at the changes so far makes me somewhat positive about the future of the CW class as a primarily control oriented class that deals medium damage.
Some people seeing illusions... First try it and then tell me what do u think.
And I agree with u!
I tried the new so called Control Wizard at preview shard before start to curse the Devs here... Its not Control, nor Wizard.
In what i saw, total output dmg is reduced with more than 50% - same at dummies and the map. Could't try some skirmishes or dungeon due to lack of ppl there. The most powerful skills like S. Storm and SotEA making almost same dmg as Chilling Cloud /funny eh/. DPS wizards are dead, I tried to "control" the battlefield and the mobs started to laugh at me...
Like I said , i saw it/ the NERF/ many times before to other games, but never in such magnitude. Destroying entire build, leveling it to the ground, cripple in such manner entire character class and changing the entire perspective, after ONE year, is ..... better not to say more.
Shards at a 16.8K gear score (7600 power) does a whopping 7200 damage on average Non Crit... with a 13 second recast timer... for a whopping 533 damage per second per target...
Thats... 533 damage per second (yes fights last longer than 13 seconds in a group setting) so that's literally what that supposedly "overpowered" spell was doing.... less than our Magic Missiles.
Which means the ONLY way to do that kind of damage is IF the devs threw faaar too many mobs at a party full of Strikers (single target damagers) in the first place in a way they can't and never will be able to participate. It was a lie in the first place
So as an example... Nerfing that spell to what they did means it now does a whopping 200 damage per second per target..... 2500 damage with a 13 second recast timer. That's not "balance" that's destroying it.
And let me say it again...
And destroying a good 66% of the class/feats/paragon path to do it isn't "balancing".... its breaking it...
... It means IF you had to go that far.... the class was obviously NOT designed be that in the first place... IF you have to COMPLETELY destroy the majority of it... and force it to use all low level newbie spells.
Obviously it was not the "kind" of Controller some thought it was.... and never can truly be that
If they wanted that, they needed to design an entirely new class in the first place rather than completely destroy the existing one because of their own failure and overdoing mass mobs in a way that excludes other classes in dungeons in the first place.
They are in essence removing an entire paragon from the game at this point by destroying it... who the hell is going to want to play that?
No matter what Cryptic does, this game doesnt have true synergy, you simply do not need tanks, or healers, or mostly any class, because of the design of the game.. I mean a every class has potent self heals, can dodge most telegraphed attacked ect, why do you need a tank or a healer?
Simple answer is you dont, now a DC is mostly ok, because instead of dodging every attack, it makes it easier to have one and sit in circles and get healed instead, while they also buff/debuff using HG and DG over and over. So maybe you can condenscend to use one.
This nerfing, rebalancing ect, simply doesnt change the function and design of the game. CWs will still be a better option then stacking TRS /hrs /gfs over and over any day of the week, now you can argue that what they are doing to the GWF will make them useless, that may be true, will see, but to NERF a class to the point of being useless, so another can function, how is that fair to that playerbase? Simply put it isnt.
It also caters to BiS crowd, making the GWF virtually unplayable for those leveling one up , can you imagine a 9k one trying to do a t1 and dying ever other mob pack, or having to run around over and over.. there ARE new players who are added to the game, you cannot simply make classes that difficult, to reduce the effectiveness of the 17+ crowd.
But this will all be ignored , all anyone ever wants is "their" main class to be buffed and others nerfed, so they can claim top dog status or something.
Frankly, if you were legit players, you couldve joined any combination of runs for any t2s you wanted at any time. Other then maybe the GF in VT runs, that maybe was the one class that was the least viable. But legit was NEVER going to exclude any class for any t2 .. even gfs.. This is mostly about the LFG crowd in PE, who HAD to have the perfect group for speed runs..
I write this as someone who plays multiple classes, I do see the need for some to be more functional, I dont think every nerf was unwarranted, but it was the vast nerf swipe to almost every skill , feat ect that makes me boil, way, WAY to over the top. Waiving the magic nerf wand over the classes doesnt fix your game devs.
I think that is a very good point. While many CW's can crush enemies like a dump truck rolling over a carton of eggs there are also many more CW's that do similar or even less damage than other classes. I've done Pirate King runs with 13k+ CW's who did 1/8th of my damage or less. While the nerfs are going to bring the high-end builds back to the pack, they may also serve to make the lesser builds unusable.
Wat? 0.o
Are you blind?
I mean it's getting worse don't get me wrong but none of this is even remotely new behavior. It's par for the course...
Of course a lot of people don't pay attention to such things until it affects them directly. I believe Stalin called such people useful idiots.
Silver...I just don't have the time to point out how wrong you are and how that is absolutely not at all what Shard is capable of. That is the absolute lowest end of the spectrum, and ignores the absolute bonafide fact that Shard is capable of hitting for a hundred thousand damage plus per throw. So please, shove off. Everyone knows you're lowballing here by several orders of magnitude.
See here's where the confusion lies for part of this whole deal. Those people are already useless. This won't make people like that any more or less useful than they already are. It is frankly a miracle they made it to level 60, and no amount of buff/nerf will ever change how those people play. You can't 'balance' stupid.
It is valid to bring up the GWF comparision I saw earlier, where a 9k GS GWF is going to suffer a whole lot from all of these changes. I tend to agree with that. Both the CW and GWF are beyond the developers ability to 'balance' if the last year is any kind of barometer. GWF are being beaten with a stick until they die, but somehow they just keep coming back for more.
Grimah is absolutely correct though; the CW class will live on and be strong in something. It's AoE. It's CC. It will be useful as long as those two things are core components. I would be much, much more worried about what they end up doing to the GWF, HR, and TR classes. (And yes, those are exactly what my alts are lol)
Lowballing you huh... Well how about we let everyone else be the judge of that...
Here's the character...
Ok... and you're claiming Shards at its "base level" is OVERPOWERED and UBER...
Lol here's the Tooltip straight out of the game... ON that character...
WHOA an UBER 4800 - 5700 base damage spell... HOLY <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>!!! With a 13 second recast timer... whoa that's pretty uber there...
For the record with my gear and build it does 7200 damage average... non crit... (yeah I can get you a screenshot of that too if you want...
That's about 533 damage per second PER target at Base level on an MoF who does NOT have Eye of the Storm to crit like mad with it... OooOooooOoo... wow that's pretty uber and overpowered.... huh?
You have no clue do you?
The only way that Spell even approaches that damage.... is with Eye of the Storm constantly critting... and higher Level (Greater of better) Vorpal.... AND a crapton of Mobs to stack the damage on...
.... that's the only way you're ever going to do any kind of real damage with it.
So... now they Nerfed it into ... approximately 2600 damage non crit on Preview with a 13 second recast timer... for the TOP LEVEL CAPSTONE power of the CW... because supposedly it was ... "overpowered". I can tell you now, that's petty change for an MoF... I have a ton of other DoT stackers that far outstrip that....
But for a Spellstorm its a Paragon wrecker.... not to mention the TWO feat trees that were nerfed into the ground... pretty much destroying and breaking the Spellstorm in two... and pointlessly nerfing a spell that was never overpowered in the first place.
That's not Balance... that's breaking it... that's 66% of the CW Class/Paragon/Feats, to attempt to turn CWs into a half azzed freeze mage using only your... whopping 400 damage per tick Icy Terrain... .
sorry but what you say is just not true.
That damage on the tooltip is the roll damage, not shardplosion damage.
the shardplosion damage is more than double than that (around 14k per target) you can test it yourself if you do not believe me.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Already did Grimah... and yes its accurate.....
.... that's where the 7200 averge damage number I've been quoting came from, that I've been talking about... I walked out, threw a bunch of them at target dummies, then waited for the explosion.
That's the Shardplosion... the Shard Slam only hits about 3 targets no matter how you slice it unless you're doing a point blank hit with it...
Now its lowered to the same level as others but has a hefty prone duration bonus, making it still useful in PvE.
All the spell nerfs won't affect PvE much infact the duration/control will make it easier but no longer go-to-paingiver.
The biggest concerns currently is:
Thaum capstone.
PvP (serious concern) - all PvP CWs will most likely go warlock due to high CON and a ArP stat
Doubt we will be getting the debuffs back though so no point asking for that again, which is where most of the damage loss will be coming from.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
You forgot something Grimah... The recast timer... even IF it did 8100 damage.... a 13 second recast timer with 1 second prone... ON live server is... a whopping 623 damage per second... per target.
Not exactly "overpowered" here
The nerf which... on Preview brought that to 2600 shardplosion (again tested) ... with a 13 second recast timer... and a 3 second prone... is only around 200 damage per second... per target...
That's not Balance... that's breaking it...
Steal Time.... on preview... is now... 4500 damage with a 10 second recast timer and a 3 second stun... a lower level spell, non capstone does more DPS and has the same CC duration...
Do you see where this is going?
They just made a lower level spell more damaging and with the same stun duration.... when the original Shards was never overpowered in the first place. They knee jerked it without thinking it through.... or even keeping it in perspective, and then broke it. Along with 2 entire feat trees.
personally, I do not think the "general cw damage" is the problem. but the fact that you can cause an initial very high explosion of damage, which ends up taking the opportunity of the other classes do their dps (depending on the aggressiveness of the cw).
but no, need change all... I really do not know what to do with the great Torquemada, lord of tarrasque.
Anyway the interaction between various CW powers, feats and items is what makes this so. Malevolent Surge and High Vizier alone can make a shardplosion crit hit for staggeringly high numbers, nevermind various other mitigation debuffs.
There is no such thing as a "lower level" spell in this game. You get some spells earlier/later but that basically only affects your leveling experience. Truth be told this is a laughable way to look at class powers - many level 60 powers are so situational they are very rarely used, for example.
I've been playing preview and imo the warlock is definitely not going to be beating the wizard at AoE anytime soon. It is really more of a single-target DPSer with multi-target capabilities and with only a few true AoEs. That said it does its job VERY well, I wouldn't be surprised if it could out-DPS a very good TR at single target or even CWs/GWFs against small groups, though unlike TRs/GWFs/CWs the SW is a true glass cannon.
There's a very good reason why one of its primary attributes is CON.
Well I've actually been around about that long too. And I'll argue with him any time I want to...
That said... You just basically just agreed and confirmed everything I said... whether you wanted to or not....
The only way Shards does any kind of REAL damage is with ... Eye of the Storm... Evocation... and a Greater or better Vorpal... and an enormous amount of mobs....
.....but the base damage is not that great, you have to be able to repeatedly Crit... AND have seriously increased Crit Severity in order for it to do anything... Only Spellstorms can do that....
...and Nerfing the spell down to 2600 Shardplosion isn't "balancing" anything... Its just breaking it entirely... along with two entire feat trees.... especially when you just increased the damage on Steal Time which is basically one spell lower on the CW powers levels.
But that's only one spell... there's a ton of spells that were demolished.... ALL of which affect Spellstorms.
There's a reason initial testing on the Spellstorms show their damage has been reduced by a good 67% on some builds.
That's not "balance".. that's paragon wrecking.... They've completely wrecked Spellstorms in a way that's not even remotely competitive with MoF at this point...
My damage value is given at around 5500 power, not taking HV in account no weapon enchant or evocation etc. It is too powerful, with +shard feat, evocation, vorpal and crits this damage number goes far beyond, given the damage, its aoe radius (unlike skills like rain of arrows) and it prones, it is overpowered, saying otherwise just means you do not have knowledge of what other class skills are like.
From a glance it does not look like warlocks will be doing aoe nuker, but I've yet to level one up on preview, so that is just from looking at feats/skills.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
According to that logic... Fireballs and Meteor Swarms should be removed from D&D because they do more damage than a sword or arrow.
Why even have mages in a game at all if their spells are only doing the same damage as someone's swords or arrows.
Its more about DPS... or Damage per second. ergo... a sword that's hitting for 500 damage every second, is pretty much the same thing as a Spell hitting for 5000 damage that can only be cast once every 10 seconds.
This is not how ANY MMO OR Fantasy RPG works... unless you have no mages at all.
unless of course that is your intent.
Walk in room, murder everything, take a sip of delicious malt whisky, move to next room.
OR
Walk in room, spend ten seconds flailing and drinking potions, realise the CW has drunk all the whisky and is waiting for you in the next room (which has also just been cleared).
In good ol' 3rd ed, things like meteor swarm were top-flight, can't memorise a lot of 'em but MAN DO THEY HURT, spells. Wizards were basically one shot nukers, and once they'd blown their load you needed dudes with swords there to mop up the rest, coz magic missile and melf's acid arrow aren't gonna hack it.
With 'cast whatever you want, whenever it's off cooldown', you're looking at an entirely different meta. And shard is ridiculously good if you're up against a mass of bunched up dudes (and when are you NOT, in this game?).
From all these changes, I'm mostly disappointed with the crippling of EotS (because srsly 90 sec ICD is "hahahhaha nope") and the broad spectrum removal of all CW team debuffs, because I kinda liked to play mine as an actual team contributor, debuffing and immobilising stuff so everyone else could have fun too. Now I guess it's just comedy freezebot.
Two things. One, EotS DOES NOT have a 90 sec ICD. That was proposed and reduce down to 25 seconds. And if you remember prior to Module 2, EotS (at rank 3) had an 8 second duration, 30 second CD. Now we're going back to a 6 second duration, 25 second CD. Essentially, it's reverting back to it's pre-Feywild status. It was only OP in Feywild because CoI and ST have multiple opportunities to proc it per cast. Was probably easier for them to put an ICD back in then fix those spells.
Second, they're toning down the buffs, not giving them to other classes to nerf the CW. If you took a Thaumaturge with HV and GPF, the amount of debuffs they could stack on mobs was staggering, nearly doubling the damage these mobs took. In the last couple patches, they've been slowly addressing debuff stacking to avoid well-organized parties turning hardened monsters into sticks of butter. Yeah, it sucks that we won't be able to stack all those debuffs so easily, but there's still a lot of party buffs and monster debuffs sprinkled in throughout the feat trees, especially in Oppressor.
The strongest HR nukes still need the target/s to remain still/controlled, and warlocks are looking more and more like a "hug the DC" class (pretty much only Warlocks who take the third feat path,"Temptation" iirc, are fully self-sufficient). Still, a nice change from the "run away from the blue circle" HR.
More changes:
Spellstorm is fine despite someone spamming that spellstorm is destroyed, EotS is nerfed, its effectiveness with the 25 ICD has reduced my crit from 70% to 50% (34% base crit) storm spell is even more potent now because of icy terrain and CoI changes
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
It's the same approach they took with the GWF and HR adjustments last time around. They have the one "extreme" of the Live server, then start at another "extreme" on Preview, then adjust accordingly.
With the latest adjustments Crush announced this afternoon, we're really seeing things get more dialed in. Module 4 CW is going to be fine. If you want an all out DPS nuker class, then by all means check out the Warlock (that's what it's suppose to be anyway), but if you like the AOE/Control aspects of the CW, they're going to be great (and perhaps even better) in Module 4.
It definitely depends on the spell rotations that you used, though. I noticed you use Icy Terrain, which was actually buffed in Mod 4. I used Conduit of Ice, which was pretty badly nerfed. Your 20-22% drop is more like 30-35% for me after switching feats around.
Your point still stands, though. Spellstorm is still viable now that they're toning down their changes a bit.
Yes Abbadon, thankfully, I am glad to see them starting to reverse themselves on these.
I remember being blindsided last time around by the nerfs that literally destroyed everything I was doing back then. And I was never even on the boards a year ago. I remember it though, all of a sudden everything just sucked the life out of the game and at the time I had no idea how to correct it. Even left the game for a good 4 months. Though having a girlfriend sucking up all my time was part of that. And while I would never go back to doing that anymore on CW...
Most people never even visit these boards so they're completely oblivious. I still won't be going back to Spellstorm regardless as I enjoy MoF too much. But it is good to know they're not going to completely destroy the people who are playing that path.
It sucked when they did it to me back then. I don't like seeing that happen.
Grimah... your idea of Shards is through the eyes of a Spellstorm. It is very different as an MoF, when you move over to that path. You lose all of those things that you take for granted as a Spellstorm. Suddenly the spell that used to be one of the main powerhouses in your inventory becomes just plain jane. And you go from Criting with EoTS upwards of 20k+ down to just regular non crits for 7000 damage and recast at 12-13 seconds. You want screenshots of it, I'll go take some for you... its not the same... you get to see the spell for what it really is... not what a Spellstorm Makes it into.
Luckily as an MoF you have so many more powerful things that make up for it. And you learn the true strength of a DoT caster. Shards becomes little more than petty change, and nothing that special in your build other than a strong finisher. Its nice... and still handy and a good solid spell... but by no means is it "overpowered".
You don't realize just how mediocre the spell really is until you don't have those things anymore that make it powerful the way a Spellstorm does. It never needed nerfing in the first place.
And with the 25 second CD on the Eye of the Storm Spellstorms won't be wreaking havok or overkilling with it anymore if thats what you were worried about. That was all that was needed in the first place.
I'm just going to say that Shard is apparently still going to be overperforming in Mod 4. Oh well.