The way things are now, GWF would def lose much of damage if multiproc stops. But that only appears so since some classes got a bit buffed-up. GWF's mechanic of attacking speed, as well as HR's, are way above that of a CW in contrast. And less animation speed to cast a spell = more DPS. It's the basic math. If it takes a GWF to hit an enemy in 0.1 sec, but takes me a whole 1 sec to both cast and reach enemy (actually takes more with many spells), GWF's exponential potential is far greater to that of CW, and this becomes more visible the bigger power creep is. After a while there will be nothing that allows a CW to hit, because GWF one-shot everything, like he did in the scenario I posted above. This GWF one-shotted devils in Tiamat. With one swing using lightning ench. Would swap enchs on the fly and play reasonably well. When I say he's one of the TOP3, that means someone who KNOWS the game. Not someone whose epeen is all the way to the Moon. For the first time in many years I actually felt like the guy was unbeatable and for me to make a FLUKE Disintegrate with the exponential help of (de)buffs felt like cheating in-game, it felt like an exploit, it felt like I did not deserve to do that much damage with a single, solitary spell. And that's what I'm fighting against no matter which class it is. If you can understand this, good, if you can't, touche.
Without Prominence and AoC it is not even a question that GWF would fall behind at least 15%-20% in terms of Damage itself. DPS-wise, would still hold the TOP place, next to HR. Given the power-sharing meta, as well as what people are used to meta-wise, GWFs would still hold prevailance on many things in dungeons.
This is why it is not about reducing certain power, but managing the actual speed of attack. No matter which power it is, DPS remains the problem due to way it incorporated the power sharing. No matter how much you buff other classes, it will feel like making an exploit in order to achieve the exploity nature. In which case it makes no sense that multiproc of AoC was then taken away from "less DPS oriented" classes. What was the point of that... ?
I want you GWF advocates to explain what was the point of ninjanerfing all other classes potential to hit enemies via multiprocing of AoC, yet keep it up on GWF despite the fact that other classes weren't really having much benefit to begin with, unless they had/used a very specific set of skills (slow skills at that) and enchants? Can you give one solid rational explanation why this was left on GWFs and removed from all other classes?
Just yesterday in RaQ I got a GWF saying "it is so weird to see a CW doing more damage than me". How did this become "weird" in the first place? Or, better yet the question - why is this such a prominent trait that people openly believe that their class should be the "superior DPS class" just because it is a GWF? Where do these deranged opinions come from? I don't know what to say on that topic, tbh. But it is saddening to see such self-centrism in behavior of many GWF players I've stumbled upon. And it keeps on giving as the time passes. And this is a menacing aspect as these specific players tend to get too absorbed into personal importance to the point where every other class is nothing more but an exponent for the sake of their personal Paingiver chart. It's vitriolic to say the least. And it should stop. They lose the will to play, threaten to leave, ragequit etc. These sorts of peeps should be taught a lesson in mannerism and party-oriented play.
I also found GWF's who are not going to do a CODG run unless people pay them in UMOPS to carry them. 10 runs in CODG for specific number of UMOPS given to them just because they have exponential damage. This is wrong on so many levels for a fair gameplay. But it is happening.
DPS = / = DAMAGE. Not sure why people still interchange the two as one-the-same-thing. They ain't. But this is the problem of constantly buffing up less-prominent classes instead of fixing one, but fixing it GOOD. So, now, you have crazy CW end-boss damage with a single button and insane recovery potential. Absolutely deranged if you ask me. What's the point of playing as a CW if you whole damage changes once you switch RoE w Disintegrate asap boss comes closer to ~25%HP. And you can maybe shoot 2-3 Disintegrates at most at that time, or JUST ONE in 10+ men dungeons as it usually goes, doing exponential damage counted in tens of millions (if not more with crazy (de)buffs). It's not at all different from Shadow of Demise "double dip" problem. Now? You have two classes who depend on sole spells for their entire set of damage options. Single spells, single enchantments, how is everything fixed when it just turns from one charade to another? How will it get fixed? And I'm just taking these two for the sake of comparison, not even going to the mama-monster "power sharing" which is a problem on top of a problem. Disintegrate CWs (tabbed) alongside with SureStrikers (Prominence/Lightning combo). The latter far more expensive in contrast atm. So let us see some potential scenario(s) which happened at least twice in the past and has a tendency to happen again. a) Nerf to Power/Arpen/Crit in general. Reveals the same disparity all over again. With leftover nonfixed Power Sharing some of the non-critting pets become available again. Like Owlbear cub. God forbid. The Support meta still prevails. Nothing changes, we just all lose and start being supergrumpy. Yay.
b) Each class gets that one "kill em" spell (same like Disintegrate) which tends to get overused to good heavens and you constantly get people calling not for nerfing one class which exponentially jumps out of the picture, but all others for the sake of, what, some mutual correspondence and understanding, easier content upon which people will constantly cry about how content is easy and then give, once again, a hard time to Cryptic devs who have to follow strict guidelines from WoC? No, nerfing one class for the sake of balance is a valid and just thing, especially when it follows a pattern already made for each and every other class in-game.
And with that we're all on the losing side.
Surestrikeism needs to go away, so that we can stop the power increasing mayhem before we all get a power-hammer on our heads with crazy nerfs to each and every class whilst not really getting a fix to the main problem which lays dormant-thereof-untouched. Cut the problem in it's root before it turns into a genetically modified monster and by all accounts never allow MOD 6 to appear again since peeps will keep on crying how "content is too easy".
That being said, I do not enjoy finger of death on CWs. It's NICE, but not really something I'd say "look all my build and time invested so that I can spam this one sole little button". Taking responsibility to firstly understand what's wrong with your main class in contrast to others is what makes a good and a reasonable comment/constructiveness in terms of balance. Constantly trying to say "Hey, you do this, leave my class alone" is not at all constructive as that was never the point which I'd recognize as a valid argument to any degree.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
Endgame CW here that has played CW for nearly 2 years as main. Personally I feel at least as strong, or stronger this mod. You really do need to respec though and get used to new passives, powers and feat trees etc. There is a great guide just out for any CW interested - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NtLmerlR1CmkuawMplE5ZhG-y67b_gkp/view . And/or come to the Facebook group for hints, tips, theorycrafting, speed run videos etc https://www.facebook.com/groups/1104271683025741/
That is the prettiest CW guide I've seen, but what about Makos's Pants? They drop from bank heist. And they give, like, 1500 power on start of combat (read each start of combat) for 10 sec.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
@c1k4ml3kc3 , great post and totally agree. I have many support toons and frankly I am fed up with self serving unskilled GWF's - matter of fact, such much so, I won't run/ use them to run content with. Now, this isn't to paint them all bad, but the vast majority are as you described.
Honestly, should Ranged classes be directly on par with Melee classes in terms of DPS?(Just a question)
The best route for this game would be to make Control powers relevant. But that would demand a whole rework of how stats work in the game so let's not go there.
I see everyone demanding that GWFs shouldn't be able to multi-proc, but what logic is that if we do not have any DoT's ? What happened with the Lightning enchantment is happening to AoC. Simple.
People always complain about GWFs because they are an abundant and easy class but take skill and timing to master. If you are being out DPS'd consistently, it may be your build and/or playstyle rather then "That class is too stronkgk".
I've played with the cream of the crop of every DPS class, and the only one that falls behind is Scourge Warlocks, and even then, some still do great DPS. The real question is; if they are already doing great DPS, why can't you? Is it animation cancelling? Their rotation maximises buffs and timing? Is there enough information to support my feat choices?
**Disclaimer: This is based on Mod 14 Observations as this turned into a nerf this class too post rather than AoC discussion/mechanics**
Honestly, should Ranged classes be directly on par with Melee classes in terms of DPS?(Just a question)
The best route for this game would be to make Control powers relevant. But that would demand a whole rework of how stats work in the game so let's not go there.
I see everyone demanding that GWFs shouldn't be able to multi-proc, but what logic is that if we do not have any DoT's ? What happened with the Lightning enchantment is happening to AoC. Simple.
People always complain about GWFs because they are an abundant and easy class but take skill and timing to master. If you are being out DPS'd consistently, it may be your build and/or playstyle rather then "That class is too stronkgk".
I've played with the cream of the crop of every DPS class, and the only one that falls behind is Scourge Warlocks, and even then, some still do great DPS. The real question is; if they are already doing great DPS, why can't you? Is it animation cancelling? Their rotation maximises buffs and timing? Is there enough information to support my feat choices?
**Disclaimer: This is based on Mod 14 Observations as this turned into a nerf this class too post rather than AoC discussion/mechanics**
In the interest of discussion...
1. Cryptic appears to have no interest in bringing back a control meta since they have largely stuck to their guns regarding target caps and monster resistances. Control is too difficult to balance when there is a very tiny middle ground between it being completely useless and turning everything into pinatas. I think the current balance is acceptable, where control can be a helpful bonus but isn't worth focusing on to the detriment of DPS. Short of relaxing target caps and giving us hordes of high HP adds that need to be vacuumed up, put on ice, and/or punted over ledges, they're probably not going to be making us relive the golden years any time soon.
2. Ranged vs. melee isn't a strong point of distinction in a game like this, where all classes perform at their best while in close proximity to enemies and to allies. Not to mention the fact that the majority of enemies are melee-type and will bum rush players immediately. IOW, classes with ranged abilities have no meaningful advantages in PvE that would warrant their damage being significantly lower than that of those whose powers are primarily melee.
3. Some players do jump to conclusions about entire classes based on their "one time at band camp" experiences, but many posters here have the experience to offer to an informed opinion on class balance.
4. The fact is that the change to AoC has a disparate impact across the board, ranging from having a major impact (e.g. CW, SW) to "What nerf?" (e.g. GWF). Class balance debate aside, AoC is pretty screwed up in this regard.
What i dont get why they didnt just put an internal cd on it instead of programming every power to not multiprocc
The thing is, if an ICD is placed, then the power would eventually find some new enchantment/boon/missguided proc of a proc of a proc that would be kinda hard to locate precisely without investing time and effort by community.
Although an ICD is a good idea, powers tend to get different aspects depending upon their uses. As such the powers are better of completely or segmentally rewritten than actually placed with possibility to proc with an ICD. You can't fathom what possible overlook can be placed in order, thus rendering gameplay hilarious and broken (sometimes for a long time, which affects negatively both economy and player behavior who invest in order to gain from a broken aspect).
This is majorly the case with NWO and this is why people will defend broken aspects due to being used to them for a long time. Although I'd like to say that players are wrong to assume that, fact is that allowing bugs to remain for longer than a week should be devs fault and players should proceed with a WAI mentality onward,, at least until someone actually provides a broken aspect explanation/report it for being broken, etc, which people generally try to avoid for the sake of exploiting the game.
So to sum it up, even a slight change can leave a loophole. When things get properly fixed (after a long time) players tend to be extremely negative about it, and players who do not exploit or try to exploit by any margin do not really get any benefits as players who do exploit tend to get all goods, sometimes with a minimum problem.
For instance - Guild PvP Storm the Castle. People used to play it by exploiting it's original content, placing one player on one side, and the rest on other side, basically scamming the system. But EVERYONE were doing it and getting Blood Ruby. On multiple characters. Give enough time for such an exploit to go on, people get used to getting easy rewards in a game that already has a very rigorous system of rewards, and you get an angry mob.
Since PvP itself does not interest me, and since I can attain enough RP for the day, it was never really interesting to me to play it. But I know a lot of people who did. Were they wrong to do it? Perhaps morally to some extent. Factually, this was the overlook by developers and developers alone. So I can't really blame players for being both angry and disappointed.
This is the reason why small things need to be fixed asap, otherwise they are left to plague the system and people will find out how to exploit and use stuff to their benefit.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
0
ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
ICD will ruin the class utterly. They won't know how to implement that. Not even I can think of a way to make that work. You'll just end up with an inferior buffer that no one wants to take.
Run with the CW named Kevv on PC and say CWs can not hold a candle to GWFs in CoDG he/she will prove your theory wrong as will numerous HRs and TRs. You are beating a dead horse to death.... GWFs can do NOTHING else but dps, nothing, so to constantly whine about their dps is silly. If GWFs are so godlike then why don't CoDG parties have 7 GWFs in them? This game IS all about buffs and has been for a while and ANY class that provides a buff is more desirable than a GWF in most parties. It is hard to get get groups as a GWF since there are so many GWFs out there. All GWFs are NOT created equal by no means to say all GWFs are OP is just silly. I spend a lot of time LFGs on my GWF but as soon as I log onto my SW/temp I get 10 request to join parties in 10 minutes and same goes for my DC. Where you place on the Pain Giver chart should not matter as long as your team is finishing the dungeon in a timely manner and you are getting to open reward chests. If that is your goal then you need to find out why other CWs are doing so much better than yourself and make changes to your play style.
All of that is the right general sentiment, but it gets more problematic when you see that CWs aren't particularly great support, either. As of mod 14, CWs are truly desirable at end game only in content like CoDG, which has 10 player slots to fill. The main reason you would not want to fill 7x GWF (or TR, or HR) is simple: multiplicative buff stacking is king.
I feel like these discussions can look binary: either CW is completely fine or it's absolute garbage. Not only is the truth is much more nuanced than that, a good anything looks amazing compared to the average anything else in this game. Comparing apples to oranges does not give us a solid bead on class balance issues, and too many players use personal anecdotes as evidence without supporting data. For every player who thinks CWs can never do decent DPS, we have another who, one time at band camp, saw a CW top the Paingiver chart in a random CoDG. I've been that CW before, but I play enough classes in end-game that I feel that I have a generally realistic notion of how CW compares.
I'm mostly staying away from Mod 15 testing because I'm waiting to be surprised on live and hopefully note some measurable improvement to CW competitiveness.
Back to the original post briefly, the change to AoC functionality is absolutely impactful to a class with a number of previously multi-proccing abilities like CW. We'll see what happens.
I totally agree with you but I am also tired of people who think the only way to fix their class is to nerf another class. There are many problems in this game and every class has been at the bottom at one time or another but making the CW better dps than all other dps classes isn't the answer. The DEVs started messing around with entity procs and yes that hurt the CW because of the play style that was META for the class and the AoC changes for MOD 15 will compound that issue. The DEVs need to define each classes role then give that class all the tools to be a master at that role. If someone figures out how to be a master of multiple roles then hats off to them. No class should be a master of everything. I do not try to compete or worry about what other classes are doing I instead try to do as well as the 1% in the class I am playing or at least try to figure out why I am not doing as well.
I think the ask for AoC is to change it so it works similar for all classes that are not the OP. Maybe adjust AoC so it provides a group wide 10% damage buff and a 30% buff for the OP on targets that the OP hits. Similar to how TI now works for a DO. This would be fair and balanced for all classes.
I would even make it not work with TI just to help to move away from 2 DC, OP, etc.. meta we have now.
Well if you need an example .look at the owlbear cub. In essenz it should be the exact same script.
No Matter what u do there is always the possibilty for a loophole.
Now its an oversight that all classes got a balance but one.
Im completly with u to fix broken mecs. But they should do it entierly. Some classes went over this prosses a few times and got left in the dust
Yes, exactly. Some classes are left with greater benefits than others, on numerous aspects.
Unfortunately, one developer post from while ago explained that it doesn't serve them any good to micromanage fixes i.e it doesn't serve them to any extent to minmax each ability to find that perfect fine-tuning point, so many changes tend to be rather drastic in comparison.
This can be for two possibilities, one of them is that economic turmoil which such changes gives them some form of a benefit (or at least did a while ago when having multiple characters was kinda mandatory, but since then players grew weary and relentless for each and every change which comes forward so noone wants to spent any unnecessary AD or ZEN) and 2nd one is that it is extremely time-consuming to fine-tune each aspect, and they do not have potential resources to do so (despite some players openly offering a hand, which would in most MMO practices I had before kind of had to be under NDA and maybe on a slight payroll, which I doubt Cryptic needs atm or any other moment for that matter). Fine-tuning would result in a lot of server downtime, a lot of uploads and reuploads of database (i assume) and so forth, eventually creating more problems than before.
Other than that, it is better for them financially to incorporate devs occasionally who will fix things on specific calendar dates. One of the biggest actions was held prior to MOD13. And since some of those developers DO NOT actively play Neverwinter, nor follow meta, nor can really plunge deep into reading each and every topic at forum, many things tend to be rather overlooked when it comes down to powers or clipping. For instance the way Dragonborn are made, they have a clipping problem and they can't wear each helmet/armor in the game. Other than that, they tend to clip into other players, sometimes forbidding any passage. There you can easily see that different developers developed models for Dragonborn race and other races, or at least some numbers aren't similar or do not follow similar power tree...
I figure that by now people should realize that writing about bugs prior to the release of MOD on Live server doesn't always translate to the bug being fixed. Although players are eager and expect bugs to be solved prior to live, sometimes bugs tend to go and pass the door to live server. For this game it is normal and expected that each particular novelty will have issues, so many people sarcastically or cynically stop caring and tend to play just for fun.
However, I did notice that some exploits economy-wise tend to get fixed rather fast (for Neverwinter standards of speed anyway), such was the recent wax creation i profession which made people to get quite a bit of gold despite the fact that it was a very low lvl item.
Copper/Silver/Gold coins and items tend to have some rather weird buy/sell points. I can never understand why some rare item costs more than an epic one. People should have a way to earn gold by working professions, and Gold should be more prominent. This started, but it is still not there yet. Gold coins system is such a mess that I don't even know where to begin on that... But it is good that professions now need commission since that will make gold kinda useful, I guess? More attention to that particular economic resource.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
I promoting an easy tangible solution to fix a not wai problem for all classes
What ur saying is that the devs or the people behind them ar purosly not fixing, further more exaggeting the Problem by favourtism.
I get that dev staff changes. Bug there should be a prio list to Balance the game.
Problem with new devs is how they manage code; two people operate differently and that can result in difference in the game and how thing work now vs. previously. Keeping the core team together while balancing the classes out is important; having people leave impacts the group ability to ensure that all classes get equal treatment.
My solution of making aura of courage like TI is a better way to balance the ability and a way to give a good increase in the OP damage without making the ability useless.
Comments
And less animation speed to cast a spell = more DPS. It's the basic math.
If it takes a GWF to hit an enemy in 0.1 sec, but takes me a whole 1 sec to both cast and reach enemy (actually takes more with many spells), GWF's exponential potential is far greater to that of CW, and this becomes more visible the bigger power creep is. After a while there will be nothing that allows a CW to hit, because GWF one-shot everything, like he did in the scenario I posted above. This GWF one-shotted devils in Tiamat. With one swing using lightning ench. Would swap enchs on the fly and play reasonably well. When I say he's one of the TOP3, that means someone who KNOWS the game. Not someone whose epeen is all the way to the Moon. For the first time in many years I actually felt like the guy was unbeatable and for me to make a FLUKE Disintegrate with the exponential help of (de)buffs felt like cheating in-game, it felt like an exploit, it felt like I did not deserve to do that much damage with a single, solitary spell. And that's what I'm fighting against no matter which class it is. If you can understand this, good, if you can't, touche.
Without Prominence and AoC it is not even a question that GWF would fall behind at least 15%-20% in terms of Damage itself.
DPS-wise, would still hold the TOP place, next to HR. Given the power-sharing meta, as well as what people are used to meta-wise, GWFs would still hold prevailance on many things in dungeons.
This is why it is not about reducing certain power, but managing the actual speed of attack. No matter which power it is, DPS remains the problem due to way it incorporated the power sharing. No matter how much you buff other classes, it will feel like making an exploit in order to achieve the exploity nature. In which case it makes no sense that multiproc of AoC was then taken away from "less DPS oriented" classes. What was the point of that... ?
I want you GWF advocates to explain what was the point of ninjanerfing all other classes potential to hit enemies via multiprocing of AoC, yet keep it up on GWF despite the fact that other classes weren't really having much benefit to begin with, unless they had/used a very specific set of skills (slow skills at that) and enchants? Can you give one solid rational explanation why this was left on GWFs and removed from all other classes?
Just yesterday in RaQ I got a GWF saying "it is so weird to see a CW doing more damage than me". How did this become "weird" in the first place? Or, better yet the question - why is this such a prominent trait that people openly believe that their class should be the "superior DPS class" just because it is a GWF? Where do these deranged opinions come from?
I don't know what to say on that topic, tbh. But it is saddening to see such self-centrism in behavior of many GWF players I've stumbled upon. And it keeps on giving as the time passes. And this is a menacing aspect as these specific players tend to get too absorbed into personal importance to the point where every other class is nothing more but an exponent for the sake of their personal Paingiver chart. It's vitriolic to say the least. And it should stop. They lose the will to play, threaten to leave, ragequit etc. These sorts of peeps should be taught a lesson in mannerism and party-oriented play.
I also found GWF's who are not going to do a CODG run unless people pay them in UMOPS to carry them. 10 runs in CODG for specific number of UMOPS given to them just because they have exponential damage. This is wrong on so many levels for a fair gameplay. But it is happening.
DPS = / = DAMAGE. Not sure why people still interchange the two as one-the-same-thing. They ain't.
But this is the problem of constantly buffing up less-prominent classes instead of fixing one, but fixing it GOOD.
So, now, you have crazy CW end-boss damage with a single button and insane recovery potential. Absolutely deranged if you ask me. What's the point of playing as a CW if you whole damage changes once you switch RoE w Disintegrate asap boss comes closer to ~25%HP. And you can maybe shoot 2-3 Disintegrates at most at that time, or JUST ONE in 10+ men dungeons as it usually goes, doing exponential damage counted in tens of millions (if not more with crazy (de)buffs). It's not at all different from Shadow of Demise "double dip" problem.
Now? You have two classes who depend on sole spells for their entire set of damage options. Single spells, single enchantments, how is everything fixed when it just turns from one charade to another? How will it get fixed? And I'm just taking these two for the sake of comparison, not even going to the mama-monster "power sharing" which is a problem on top of a problem.
Disintegrate CWs (tabbed) alongside with SureStrikers (Prominence/Lightning combo). The latter far more expensive in contrast atm.
So let us see some potential scenario(s) which happened at least twice in the past and has a tendency to happen again.
a) Nerf to Power/Arpen/Crit in general. Reveals the same disparity all over again. With leftover nonfixed Power Sharing some of the non-critting pets become available again. Like Owlbear cub. God forbid. The Support meta still prevails. Nothing changes, we just all lose and start being supergrumpy. Yay.
b) Each class gets that one "kill em" spell (same like Disintegrate) which tends to get overused to good heavens and you constantly get people calling not for nerfing one class which exponentially jumps out of the picture, but all others for the sake of, what, some mutual correspondence and understanding, easier content upon which people will constantly cry about how content is easy and then give, once again, a hard time to Cryptic devs who have to follow strict guidelines from WoC? No, nerfing one class for the sake of balance is a valid and just thing, especially when it follows a pattern already made for each and every other class in-game.
And with that we're all on the losing side.
Surestrikeism needs to go away, so that we can stop the power increasing mayhem before we all get a power-hammer on our heads with crazy nerfs to each and every class whilst not really getting a fix to the main problem which lays dormant-thereof-untouched. Cut the problem in it's root before it turns into a genetically modified monster and by all accounts never allow MOD 6 to appear again since peeps will keep on crying how "content is too easy".
That being said, I do not enjoy finger of death on CWs. It's NICE, but not really something I'd say "look all my build and time invested so that I can spam this one sole little button".
Taking responsibility to firstly understand what's wrong with your main class in contrast to others is what makes a good and a reasonable comment/constructiveness in terms of balance. Constantly trying to say "Hey, you do this, leave my class alone" is not at all constructive as that was never the point which I'd recognize as a valid argument to any degree.
Proofed!
The best route for this game would be to make Control powers relevant.
But that would demand a whole rework of how stats work in the game so let's not go there.
I see everyone demanding that GWFs shouldn't be able to multi-proc, but what logic is that if we do not have any DoT's ?
What happened with the Lightning enchantment is happening to AoC. Simple.
People always complain about GWFs because they are an abundant and easy class but take skill and timing to master.
If you are being out DPS'd consistently, it may be your build and/or playstyle rather then "That class is too stronkgk".
I've played with the cream of the crop of every DPS class, and the only one that falls behind is Scourge Warlocks, and even then, some still do great DPS.
The real question is; if they are already doing great DPS, why can't you?
Is it animation cancelling? Their rotation maximises buffs and timing? Is there enough information to support my feat choices?
**Disclaimer: This is based on Mod 14 Observations as this turned into a nerf this class too post rather than AoC discussion/mechanics**
In the interest of discussion...
1. Cryptic appears to have no interest in bringing back a control meta since they have largely stuck to their guns regarding target caps and monster resistances. Control is too difficult to balance when there is a very tiny middle ground between it being completely useless and turning everything into pinatas. I think the current balance is acceptable, where control can be a helpful bonus but isn't worth focusing on to the detriment of DPS. Short of relaxing target caps and giving us hordes of high HP adds that need to be vacuumed up, put on ice, and/or punted over ledges, they're probably not going to be making us relive the golden years any time soon.
2. Ranged vs. melee isn't a strong point of distinction in a game like this, where all classes perform at their best while in close proximity to enemies and to allies. Not to mention the fact that the majority of enemies are melee-type and will bum rush players immediately. IOW, classes with ranged abilities have no meaningful advantages in PvE that would warrant their damage being significantly lower than that of those whose powers are primarily melee.
3. Some players do jump to conclusions about entire classes based on their "one time at band camp" experiences, but many posters here have the experience to offer to an informed opinion on class balance.
4. The fact is that the change to AoC has a disparate impact across the board, ranging from having a major impact (e.g. CW, SW) to "What nerf?" (e.g. GWF). Class balance debate aside, AoC is pretty screwed up in this regard.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Although an ICD is a good idea, powers tend to get different aspects depending upon their uses. As such the powers are better of completely or segmentally rewritten than actually placed with possibility to proc with an ICD. You can't fathom what possible overlook can be placed in order, thus rendering gameplay hilarious and broken (sometimes for a long time, which affects negatively both economy and player behavior who invest in order to gain from a broken aspect).
This is majorly the case with NWO and this is why people will defend broken aspects due to being used to them for a long time.
Although I'd like to say that players are wrong to assume that, fact is that allowing bugs to remain for longer than a week should be devs fault and players should proceed with a WAI mentality onward,, at least until someone actually provides a broken aspect explanation/report it for being broken, etc, which people generally try to avoid for the sake of exploiting the game.
So to sum it up, even a slight change can leave a loophole. When things get properly fixed (after a long time) players tend to be extremely negative about it, and players who do not exploit or try to exploit by any margin do not really get any benefits as players who do exploit tend to get all goods, sometimes with a minimum problem.
For instance - Guild PvP Storm the Castle. People used to play it by exploiting it's original content, placing one player on one side, and the rest on other side, basically scamming the system. But EVERYONE were doing it and getting Blood Ruby. On multiple characters.
Give enough time for such an exploit to go on, people get used to getting easy rewards in a game that already has a very rigorous system of rewards, and you get an angry mob.
Since PvP itself does not interest me, and since I can attain enough RP for the day, it was never really interesting to me to play it. But I know a lot of people who did. Were they wrong to do it? Perhaps morally to some extent. Factually, this was the overlook by developers and developers alone. So I can't really blame players for being both angry and disappointed.
This is the reason why small things need to be fixed asap, otherwise they are left to plague the system and people will find out how to exploit and use stuff to their benefit.
I would even make it not work with TI just to help to move away from 2 DC, OP, etc.. meta we have now.
No Matter what u do there is always the possibilty for a loophole.
Now its an oversight that all classes got a balance but one.
Im completly with u to fix broken mecs. But they should do it entierly. Some classes went over this prosses a few times and got left in the dust
Unfortunately, one developer post from while ago explained that it doesn't serve them any good to micromanage fixes i.e it doesn't serve them to any extent to minmax each ability to find that perfect fine-tuning point, so many changes tend to be rather drastic in comparison.
This can be for two possibilities, one of them is that economic turmoil which such changes gives them some form of a benefit (or at least did a while ago when having multiple characters was kinda mandatory, but since then players grew weary and relentless for each and every change which comes forward so noone wants to spent any unnecessary AD or ZEN) and 2nd one is that it is extremely time-consuming to fine-tune each aspect, and they do not have potential resources to do so (despite some players openly offering a hand, which would in most MMO practices I had before kind of had to be under NDA and maybe on a slight payroll, which I doubt Cryptic needs atm or any other moment for that matter). Fine-tuning would result in a lot of server downtime, a lot of uploads and reuploads of database (i assume) and so forth, eventually creating more problems than before.
Other than that, it is better for them financially to incorporate devs occasionally who will fix things on specific calendar dates. One of the biggest actions was held prior to MOD13. And since some of those developers DO NOT actively play Neverwinter, nor follow meta, nor can really plunge deep into reading each and every topic at forum, many things tend to be rather overlooked when it comes down to powers or clipping. For instance the way Dragonborn are made, they have a clipping problem and they can't wear each helmet/armor in the game. Other than that, they tend to clip into other players, sometimes forbidding any passage. There you can easily see that different developers developed models for Dragonborn race and other races, or at least some numbers aren't similar or do not follow similar power tree...
I figure that by now people should realize that writing about bugs prior to the release of MOD on Live server doesn't always translate to the bug being fixed. Although players are eager and expect bugs to be solved prior to live, sometimes bugs tend to go and pass the door to live server. For this game it is normal and expected that each particular novelty will have issues, so many people sarcastically or cynically stop caring and tend to play just for fun.
However, I did notice that some exploits economy-wise tend to get fixed rather fast (for Neverwinter standards of speed anyway), such was the recent wax creation i profession which made people to get quite a bit of gold despite the fact that it was a very low lvl item.
Copper/Silver/Gold coins and items tend to have some rather weird buy/sell points. I can never understand why some rare item costs more than an epic one. People should have a way to earn gold by working professions, and Gold should be more prominent. This started, but it is still not there yet. Gold coins system is such a mess that I don't even know where to begin on that... But it is good that professions now need commission since that will make gold kinda useful, I guess? More attention to that particular economic resource.
I promoting an easy tangible solution to fix a not wai problem for all classes
What ur saying is that the devs or the people behind them ar purosly not fixing, further more exaggeting the Problem by favourtism.
I get that dev staff changes. Bug there should be a prio list to Balance the game.
My solution of making aura of courage like TI is a better way to balance the ability and a way to give a good increase in the OP damage without making the ability useless.