I am done with the game. I am moving on to other greater and better game out there with developers who really know what they are doing. All these balance for pvp is stupid. Pve is what this game is at right now the pvp is far from great ... not because of items or class balance but because of the nature of the pvp mechanism currently implemented is down right boring and the lack of interesting maps.
Come to FFXIV! It has fairy pets, unicorns, magitek mounts, even ahriman and couerl(Ok, that one is collector's edition) mounts! All for $15 a month! Flat rate! Never have to pay another cent above that again! Never have to see the word "Cash shop" ever again!
LOL? I agree nerfing this is ridiculous but stalwart is used for pve. For pvp you use timeless. Anyway i don't really care anymore i had quit the game for 2 weeks waiting on the update but with these changes i'm not coming back and having to redo my armor.
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seisem2Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
LOL? I agree nerfing this is ridiculous but stalwart is used for pve. For pvp you use timeless. Anyway i don't really care anymore i had quit the game for 2 weeks waiting on the update but with these changes i'm not coming back and having to redo my armor.
Why are you giving up? I can't think of one MMO game that I have played where new content comes out and you don't end up changing/upgrading your gear.
LOL? I agree nerfing this is ridiculous but stalwart is used for pve. For pvp you use timeless. Anyway i don't really care anymore i had quit the game for 2 weeks waiting on the update but with these changes i'm not coming back and having to redo my armor.
If you are good, this is an incorrect statement.
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bioshrikeMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,729Arc User
edited August 2013
If your ability to function is so contingent on 1 armor set, then it seems like it's more of a crutch than a blessing. There are plenty of GFs that function quite well w/o this set...
<::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::)xxxxxxxx(:::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> "Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
I play this game strictly for pvp, any pve I do is to make AD to support my PVP, and thusfar most of the nerfs across the board have hampered pvp greatly. The GF, being middle of the road in strength should have been left alone. But that is just my opinion. I will be greatly displeased if this patch comes as advertised.
GR provides at best 500 more GS than Stalwart and the bonus grants also at best 1K power. What the point of digging so deep in diminushing returns to get so less profit ? Having 200% bonus thread when you deal any damage (wich is the main way to generate threat) won't help.
I get caught by the Grand Regent too, but once you put a inch in theorycraft, it's over ...
Top tip for passing the time : Read a book, write a book or book a holiday for your book !
From a test on the Preview shard I can't say if this is a nerf or not. With Timeless + Ancient Weapon from CN I reach 16000 GS With 9k base power and mantaining the same damage reduction with like 3.2 defence and 2.2k deflect. No more need of Dark Enchantment on char himself as I rerolled from CON to DEX and I can reach the Armor penetration cap just with my Ioun Stone. The 4-p bonus set provided by Timeless give you 10% more crit and it's easy to maintain as the buff last 5 second and with all that recovery Lunging Strike have 6 sec cd, you just need to time your encounter properly. Also frontline sourge provide 3 stack if it hit 3 target making the buff even more easy to build.
Conclusion: Nerfing Stalwart just created a new whole gameplay based on Timeless, a set even more powerfull than stalwart, more viable in PvP but by making this you made us spent a lot of AD for exchange our current enchantment as we are also using a new Weapon set. I still hope in a refund.
Optional but recommended:
Swich 4x Dark Enchantment (Rank 7) with 4x Radiant Enchantment = ~120k Each = ~480k
3x Dark Enchantment for Utility Slot = ~120k Each = ~480k
Reroll= 300 ZEN = ~160k (If you don't have a free one)
This is not a nerf, it's a total different set. They are replacing the armor you INVESTED in with something so inferior that you are forced to change it. Now you either unslot all of your enchants or buy all new ones. What a screw job. I swear they actively trying to <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> everyone off with all of their changes.
This sums it up nicely. I wont be here when (if) it goes through.
I agree Stalwart Bulwark bonus is too good for t1 set and beats t2 High General by far .
It is better then the other set's not because it is OP but because the other sets are trash. Now all sets will be trash, and by association the class itself, will be trash.
PWE/ Cryptic's new AD sink scheme "make a set totally useless so you waste all those AD's dying, transmuting" after the stupid nerf's to TR and GWF i didnt think they would be able to top that... but not even a month a they preview this <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. im amazed cryptic.
It would cost me about 3.5 mil to move my enchants off my GF. And I got bored of CN farming so long ago, so I do not have it. AND there is no quality alternative. Timeless is <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> in comparison. They basically just booted me out of their game.
:mad: what about those of us who farmed for days, wasting precious time and resources, to get 6 or 8 of the helms to sell in the AH? Shouldn't I be refunded all of the potential millions of AD I could earn by selling this amazing helm? This is downright market crashing obscenity!! Even though I haven't sold them yet, I potentially could, so please refund me in advance for the AD I could possibly have made in the future....
Just kidding
I have no problems holding aggro on mobs and my damage is usually 2nd out of 5, AKA I am doing my job as a tank and still dealing serious damage and I DON'T USE STALWARTS SET. This is more of a QQ thread than anything else at this point. I refuse to say which setup and feats I use because we can't all be cookie cutters, but the only REAL complaint of merit in this thread currently is the one about reslotting. I would really not want to have to do that, it would be extremely upsetting to do.
The real problem with the set change is that it changes the value of ability scores for Guardian Fighters. Due the Stalwart setbonus the CON stat is an offensive one and due to its additional defensive bonusses it was superior to STR and DEX. If the Stalwart's 4 piece bonus gets changed to a mechanic not relying on maximum HP the offensive part of the CON stat gets lost. Currently there is no possibility I know of to change your race or your initial ability score roll. As one can only align stats 4 times (you cannot decide at level 30 and 60) the initial roll and race choice is way more important than the stat destribution later on.
If you play a Guardian Fighter and you want to max out your PvE DPS the nerf to the Stalwart Set would require you to delete your current character (most likely Tiefling) and start a new one (most likely Half-Orc) and then roll the stats that now are superior to CON (STR/DEX). The effect of this of course is that you have to spent around 1.5 million AD if you want to get yourself a Timeless Set, you have to spent 0.8m for the Ioun Stone, you have to get yourself another CN weapon set and get a new Greater Plaguefire enchant for it, as the other is of course bound on your old character. Talking about enchants, you need a whole new set of enchants (hopefully you didnt have rank 9 or 10s)... and of course rings, neck, waist...
The problem of the Nerf of the Stalwart Set as it is planned is the change to the mechanic. Cryptic should NEVER change the benefit you gain from ability score points, when there is no way to change your initial roll and race choice. The only option players have to change these is to delete the character and start the new one and as all equipment items are bound on equip you would have to reobtain everything. Many players see equipment as a form of achievement, thus making players have to reobtain their equipment equals losing these achievements.
Also, this nerf is being done in what is called a "Live" game, not in a beta phase. Not only will your achievements be lost, but you cannot be certain about what will come next. 90% of the GF's I know of will switch to Timeless Hero set. Besides feeling bad about having the wrong race and the wrong initial ability score roll to max DPS with the Timeless set, you also need to fear Cryptic nerfing the Timeless set. If sets get nerfed to dead in a live game how can you be sure that in a month or so there won't be the next nerf news ("As 90% of the Guardian Fighter's were using the Timeless hero set we reworked the four pierce bonus: You now get +10% Running Speed for 4 seconds when your Guard Meter runs out!")
What many people suggested in this thread was changing the Stalwart Bulwark to a T2 Set and decreasing it's bonus while keeping the mechanic. The argument ambisinisterr hold in favor of the decision was the fact that an increase in power equal to 25% of your HP is simply to much. GF's with a Max HP of 28k (should be an average number) get 7000 power from the set bonus, which is too much. I agree with that, but the math you did, that the set bonus would have to be 5% max to be balanced is incorrect. As a Guardian Fighter with the Conqueror last feat stacking Power is very easy. An increase of 7000 power DOES NOT equal 7000 power points on gear, but an increase of 3500 equipment power points (as the Conqueror feat does not increase the power you get from the set bonus).
What do other classes get from their T2 set bonusses? Trickster Rogues get 1023 Power and Recovery from Swashbuckling Captain. The Great Weapon Fighters get 1260 Power and Recovery from Avatar of War. Thats 2046 and 2520 stat points compared to the 3500 stat points the Conqueror Guardian Fighters get. Additionally Swashbuckling and Avatar of War offer an offensive 2 piece bonus that Stalwart was lacking of course. Still it is not too far from balanced and I will explain why.
Many theorycrafters say that Power suffers no Diminishing Returns. But that is not fully correct. Just like you need more and more CRIT to increase your CRIT chance by 1% you also DO NEED MORE AND MORE POWER to increase your damage by 1%. That being said a boost to a single stat like the Stalwart's 4-piece bonus did offer ON A CLASS THAT ALREADY HAS A VERY HIGH AMOUNT OF THAT STAT (like Conqueror GF's do!) will suffer very hard from Dimishing Returns. Also there will be many occasions where the set bonus will not be even up with 5 stacks, most notably pvp.
In my opinion the suggestion of making the set a T2 (switching it with Grand Regent) and reducing it's set bonus is fine. For example the set bonus could be "Adds 1.5% of your Maximum HP in power. Stacks 6 times. This bonus is affected by Reckless Attacker." The set bonus would then add 9% of Max HP when it reaches maximum stacks. If you have 28k Life this would equal 2520 Power, which is fair compared to the 2460 points Avatar of War gives concerning you suffer way more Diminishing Returns, as its a bonus to a single stat rather than two stats and that you have no offensive 2 piece bonus. Also the Defense and Deflection stats on Stalwart should be reduced by ~10-20% to reduce its defensive effectiveness. I very much agree with the point that a set should not be the best defensive and offensive set at the same time, but decreasing the bonus to 9%, while also increasing the stack number making it a bit harder to maintain the bonus and while lowering the defensive attributes of the set a little bit, making the maintaining of the bonus (getting hit by mobs or players) harder (as you lose more HP) seems fine to me. Also making the bonus stack with the Conqueror feat would make the Set still a good choice for Conqueror GF's, while not being OP on Defensive GF's. The real problem of the Stalwart Set: Offering the BEST on the offensive AND defensive side would be gone. You can no longer make a defensive feated GF and get the full offensive out of the set. Also the set would not offer a better bonus than the other melee classes T2 sets, making it not only balanced within the class itself but also balanced compared to other classes.
Edit: What I want to add is that there is no valid reason why a T1 Set should not be changed to a T2. The argument that T2 is harder to obtain is simply invalid. From open beta on the T2 instances had all kinds of glitches that were farmed by so many people getting the T2 equipment into the Auction House at very cheap prices. Before the Mad Dragon's big spawn was changed recently the Tier 1 Helm was the hardest item to obtain, thus making collecting the full T1 set harder than completing the full T2.
Honestly I think the Stalwart Bulwark Set was way overpowered and needed a hefty change.
The Stalwart Bulwak is a defensive set. If you look at the actual sets Guardian Fighters can obtain it is clear that it was intended to be the T1 version of the Grand Regent Set yet the four set bonus far exceeded the four set bonus of the Grand Regent. It should never of been both the top defensive and offensive set with a four piece set better than the Tier 2.
I think this was needed but not nearly to the extent it was done. Getting even two stacks of Stalwart Bulwark would bring it in line with my Grand Regent Bonus (5K Defense only grants 40 Bonus Damage for me) but such a bonus should not be limited to one attack. It should be a passive stack which generates and degenerates over time after blocking attacks. Even if you do manage to get to 10 stacks (easily possible) it is less than useful if it wears off after a single strike.
If such a degrading nature was built into the set it would need to give less bonus damage, perhaps +10 per stack, depending on how fast the benefit degraded but no matter what this current change, while needed, should not go into effect as a single hit or miss set-up.
Yah, no offense, but you obviously don't play your own game. The bonus may have been high, but I still wasn't doing more damage than any of the dps classes with it fully enchanted in any of my dungeon runs. Agro is complete <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> in this game, and since just being able to apply damage is a huge importance to me. It's premature opinions like these, ON TOP of the fact there is NO compensation for the AD and Enchantments invested (my time and money), that have made me stop spending money on the game. I have no confidence that you will not hurt my gameplay in the future so will not make any further purchases.
At bare minimums you should have made this change much sooner before so many GF's paid premium prices to acquire it. You can't seriously make me believe you didn't know what the set was doing months ago or the dev team is not very bright. Not to mention you could have kept the sets that are in the game currently the same and changed the new ones that drop. Or you could have just diminished the buff it gave (called tuning) and found a balance for the mechanical bonus but kept the theme the same. Making and defending this decision just shows that you do not listen to you player base and that saddens me greatly.
timeless turns you into a paper tank, its garbage.
on this i do not agree, cause even if you only swap sets you will reduce only 4% in mitigation total, so yes you are les tankier but not paper you still survive quite well and deal also a lot of damage
The real problem with the set change is that it changes the value of ability scores for Guardian Fighters. Due the Stalwart setbonus the CON stat is an offensive one and due to its additional defensive bonusses it was superior to STR and DEX. If the Stalwart's 4 piece bonus gets changed to a mechanic not relying on maximum HP the offensive part of the CON stat gets lost. Currently there is no possibility I know of to change your race or your initial ability score roll. As one can only align stats 4 times (you cannot decide at level 30 and 60) the initial roll and race choice is way more important than the stat destribution later on.
If you play a Guardian Fighter and you want to max out your PvE DPS the nerf to the Stalwart Set would require you to delete your current character (most likely Tiefling) and start a new one (most likely Half-Orc) and then roll the stats that now are superior to CON (STR/DEX). The effect of this of course is that you have to spent around 1.5 million AD if you want to get yourself a Timeless Set, you have to spent 0.8m for the Ioun Stone, you have to get yourself another CN weapon set and get a new Greater Plaguefire enchant for it, as the other is of course bound on your old character. Talking about enchants, you need a whole new set of enchants (hopefully you didnt have rank 9 or 10s)... and of course rings, neck, waist...
The problem of the Nerf of the Stalwart Set as it is planned is the change to the mechanic. Cryptic should NEVER change the benefit you gain from ability score points, when there is no way to change your initial roll and race choice. The only option players have to change these is to delete the character and start the new one and as all equipment items are bound on equip you would have to reobtain everything. Many players see equipment as a form of achievement, thus making players have to reobtain their equipment equals losing these achievements.
Also, this nerf is being done in what is called a "Live" game, not in a beta phase. Not only will your achievements be lost, but you cannot be certain about what will come next. 90% of the GF's I know of will switch to Timeless Hero set. Besides feeling bad about having the wrong race and the wrong initial ability score roll to max DPS with the Timeless set, you also need to fear Cryptic nerfing the Timeless set. If sets get nerfed to dead in a live game how can you be sure that in a month or so there won't be the next nerf news ("As 90% of the Guardian Fighter's were using the Timeless hero set we reworked the four pierce bonus: You now get +10% Running Speed for 4 seconds when your Guard Meter runs out!")
What many people suggested in this thread was changing the Stalwart Bulwark to a T2 Set and decreasing it's bonus while keeping the mechanic. The argument ambisinisterr hold in favor of the decision was the fact that an increase in power equal to 25% of your HP is simply to much. GF's with a Max HP of 28k (should be an average number) get 7000 power from the set bonus, which is too much. I agree with that, but the math you did, that the set bonus would have to be 5% max to be balanced is incorrect. As a Guardian Fighter with the Conqueror last feat stacking Power is very easy. An increase of 7000 power DOES NOT equal 7000 power points on gear, but an increase of 3500 equipment power points (as the Conqueror feat does not increase the power you get from the set bonus).
What do other classes get from their T2 set bonusses? Trickster Rogues get 1023 Power and Recovery from Swashbuckling Captain. The Great Weapon Fighters get 1260 Power and Recovery from Avatar of War. Thats 2046 and 2520 stat points compared to the 3500 stat points the Conqueror Guardian Fighters get. Additionally Swashbuckling and Avatar of War offer an offensive 2 piece bonus that Stalwart was lacking of course. Still it is not too far from balanced and I will explain why.
Many theorycrafters say that Power suffers no Diminishing Returns. But that is not fully correct. Just like you need more and more CRIT to increase your CRIT chance by 1% you also DO NEED MORE AND MORE POWER to increase your damage by 1%. That being said a boost to a single stat like the Stalwart's 4-piece bonus did offer ON A CLASS THAT ALREADY HAS A VERY HIGH AMOUNT OF THAT STAT (like Conqueror GF's do!) will suffer very hard from Dimishing Returns. Also there will be many occasions where the set bonus will not be even up with 5 stacks, most notably pvp.
In my opinion the suggestion of making the set a T2 (switching it with Grand Regent) and reducing it's set bonus is fine. For example the set bonus could be "Adds 1.5% of your Maximum HP in power. Stacks 6 times. This bonus is affected by Reckless Attacker." The set bonus would then add 9% of Max HP when it reaches maximum stacks. If you have 28k Life this would equal 2520 Power, which is fair compared to the 2460 points Avatar of War gives concerning you suffer way more Diminishing Returns, as its a bonus to a single stat rather than two stats and that you have no offensive 2 piece bonus. Also the Defense and Deflection stats on Stalwart should be reduced by ~10-20% to reduce its defensive effectiveness. I very much agree with the point that a set should not be the best defensive and offensive set at the same time, but decreasing the bonus to 9%, while also increasing the stack number making it a bit harder to maintain the bonus and while lowering the defensive attributes of the set a little bit, making the maintaining of the bonus (getting hit by mobs or players) harder (as you lose more HP) seems fine to me. Also making the bonus stack with the Conqueror feat would make the Set still a good choice for Conqueror GF's, while not being OP on Defensive GF's. The real problem of the Stalwart Set: Offering the BEST on the offensive AND defensive side would be gone. You can no longer make a defensive feated GF and get the full offensive out of the set. Also the set would not offer a better bonus than the other melee classes T2 sets, making it not only balanced within the class itself but also balanced compared to other classes.
Edit: What I want to add is that there is no valid reason why a T1 Set should not be changed to a T2. The argument that T2 is harder to obtain is simply invalid. From open beta on the T2 instances had all kinds of glitches that were farmed by so many people getting the T2 equipment into the Auction House at very cheap prices. Before the Mad Dragon's big spawn was changed recently the Tier 1 Helm was the hardest item to obtain, thus making collecting the full T1 set harder than completing the full T2.
on all this i do agree basically all GF will require to create a new character and invest all over again to have a perfect character around a new set that probably will be timeless
Everything works out in the end . If it hasn't worked out yet, it isn't the end...
All of you people crying about GF loss of damage are just silly. I play with grand regent set, and im tactician specced.
Sure I do terrible damage, but I don't have any problems with threat. Why you people are so worried about damage for the utility GF is designed to provide a group is secondary. It isn't necessary anymore since they increased our threat on all abilities to do damage. In open beta before the live patch, you needed the damage to get threat. but since live its NOT NECESSARY TO DO DMG.
Get off your high horses. besides, the damage buff from the stalwart bulwark set in remake is 200 damage, not power to your abilities. The real question is if the stacks disappear when you use one. If they don't then this set is still a viable DPS conq whatever your preference spec.
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kolbe11Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited August 2013
I DO NOT care about the loss of damage... I CARE about the fact this is such a different set now that many of us will have to outright ditch what we have vested large amounts of time/resources in enchanting AND have to restat our toon.
I think many of us could live with it being nerfed into a true T1 set, it is the outright change to the set bonus that makes it downright game breaking.
"It is said that idle hands are the Devil's tools: Idle geek hands, however, came up with gunpowder, nuclear weapons, and toilet plungers." -Illiad
Get off your high horses. besides, the damage buff from the stalwart bulwark set in remake is 200 damage, not power to your abilities. The real question is if the stacks disappear when you use one. If they don't then this set is still a viable DPS conq whatever your preference spec.
Someone posted screenshots a coupla days ago displaying the 'outrageous' 200 dmg you get for one hit when fully stacked. Note that it really is just 200 straight damage as opposed to 200 weapon dmg which is a completely different thing. In other words, they basically removed the set bonus in its entity. (Note that I couldn't test and confirm this myself yet, this is 2nd hand information)
All of you people crying about GF loss of damage are just silly. I play with grand regent set, and im tactician specced.
Sure I do terrible damage, but I don't have any problems with threat. Why you people are so worried about damage for the utility GF is designed to provide a group is secondary. It isn't necessary anymore since they increased our threat on all abilities to do damage. In open beta before the live patch, you needed the damage to get threat. but since live its NOT NECESSARY TO DO DMG.
Get off your high horses. besides, the damage buff from the stalwart bulwark set in remake is 200 damage, not power to your abilities. The real question is if the stacks disappear when you use one. If they don't then this set is still a viable DPS conq whatever your preference spec.
It will cost from 1M to 3M to people that were using stalwart to remake a viable gear, do you really think it affects only 4 gear pieces ? Nope, i went on preview to make a optimized gear before doing **** on live (hehe) and i had to remove all my enchants. But still, unslotting specific enchants wouldn't be worth it because they cost less than the price we have to pay for unslot wich mean "I bought you but now i waste you".
And just to sum up the few GF set :
-Valiant warrior : High Vizier wanna be for GF but i'm not sure about his effectivness compared to High Viz'. -Knight Captain : Despite of the usefulness of Deflection, this set provides any Deflection and the 4/4 bonus doesn't apply on the GF. And the lack of stat because it's T1 will make the GF too much fragile (sometimes, a dps is better than a dps buffer). -Stalwart : Pathetic bonus, stacks are used each time you do a single hit. Not worth stacking, not worth using, not worth at all. -Grand Regent : Made to stack Defense wich is a high waste because of diminushing return, does not provide enough power but too much defensive stats that put the GF way too much unconfortable with diminushings returns. -High General : As Knight Captain, 0 Deflection and the set bonus is not even worth it compared to a Vorpal or the 4/4 Bonus of CW's Shadow Weaver. -Timeless : Good stats but both 2/4 and 4/4 bonusses are decentralized to the GF mechanics or non-mechanics, there is any mechanics relied to Deflection and the Crit (roughly 10% bonus to crit chance) isn't enough to be useful and the duration isn't enough long to make it worth. Plus, while it makes the GF able to tank in PVE (3k1 Def and 32 CA is enough with Armor Spec feat to get the 50% Damage reduction "cap") it will most of the time put his damage reduction under 20% in PVP against Damage taken debuff, Armor debuff and Armor Pen. -Legendary Llyanbruen : Same stats as GR but with a different 4/4 bonus wich i can't tell if it's trully viable. We'll see upon FoF is released.
To sum up this sum up, Timeless is the best of the worst, barely followed by GR and KC's set. I will just go on double set-bonus for now until a better way rise from ashes (or not^^). But not instantly, i have to collect around 1m5 AD !
Top tip for passing the time : Read a book, write a book or book a holiday for your book !
i being doing testig and timeless is the only one worth getting for hybrid builds, correctly spected and with the ancient set of weaponand shield as somebody mention deflect and defense reach stalwart lv, you lose power/crit/arpen due the change on weapon but with the def/defelct/recovery gain is barely noticible, also weapon damage is a little bit bigger so this helps mitigate the reduction in power, it is not a bad option without changing to much the equip if you have an hybrid build and on top of that you will have 16k GS
Everything works out in the end . If it hasn't worked out yet, it isn't the end...
Ok my tank never used this set but I think all tanks who have any piece of this gear equipped need to get a free unsocket on all their gear if this change is going through. I would have been pretty upset if i had this gear and it was changing like this. A better solution however would have been to simply nerf the 4 set bonus but keep it's effect the same.
The nerf to this set is too harsh! (not I don't use it and had no plans to but I feel for everyone that has been using it)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
Yah, no offense, but you obviously don't play your own game.
Correction: I am a player and actively play the game. My title is 100% voluntary and I do not work at Cryptic or PWE. If I didn't play that game I wouldn't be here.
That aside please check out this post. Stalwart Bulwark was extremely overpowered compared to the other sets. It really can't be argued. And certainly not by comparing yourself to DPS Classes which are far, far squishier. The Stalwart Bulwark set gave the Guardian Fighter a far higher DPS:Survivability rate than any other class. Comparing outright damage is only part of the balance.
Would it have been better to do sooner? Sure. But if the change was brought out a month later or a month sooner the response would still be the same: why now?
It needed to be nerfed. There's no way to justify leaving such an unbalanced set in the game.
Correction: I am a player and actively play the game. My title is 100% voluntary and I do not work at Cryptic or PWE. If I didn't play that game I wouldn't be here.
That aside please check out this post. Stalwart Bulwark was extremely overpowered compared to the other sets. It really can't be argued. And certainly not by comparing yourself to DPS Classes which are far, far squishier. The Stalwart Bulwark set gave the Guardian Fighter a far higher DPS:Survivability rate than any other class. Comparing outright damage is only part of the balance.
Would it have been better to do sooner? Sure. But if the change was brought out a month later or a month sooner the response would still be the same: why now?
It needed to be nerfed. There's no way to justify leaving such an unbalanced set in the game.
but changing it to a completely useless set when people already invested so much on it is justified?
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited August 2013
Read my posts. I am agreeing that this set effect is utterly horrible and needs to be greatly improved.
No matter what the old set was utterly overpowered and needed to be nerfed. I have the stats listed in the post I linked and even with moderate HP 5-7% of HP going to power is just barely in line with the Grand Regent Set Effect on a person who stacked defense well passed diminishing returns.
It had to get nerfed. It might even have to be outright changed as they proposed.
But it can't stay the way was without losing roughly 20% effectiveness and the new set effect is too weak (especially for Conquerors) in order to be viable in any way, shape or form.
Comments
Catalina Erantzo - GWF 13.9K GS
<Future> Guild on Dragon - Legit Non Exploit Guild (We are always recruiting great players)
Future Guild Recruitment Thread: http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?475381-lt-Future-gt-Legit-Non-Exploit-Guild-Recruiting
Come to FFXIV! It has fairy pets, unicorns, magitek mounts, even ahriman and couerl(Ok, that one is collector's edition) mounts! All for $15 a month! Flat rate! Never have to pay another cent above that again! Never have to see the word "Cash shop" ever again!
Ah....
Why are you giving up? I can't think of one MMO game that I have played where new content comes out and you don't end up changing/upgrading your gear.
Catalina Erantzo - GWF 13.9K GS
<Future> Guild on Dragon - Legit Non Exploit Guild (We are always recruiting great players)
Future Guild Recruitment Thread: http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?475381-lt-Future-gt-Legit-Non-Exploit-Guild-Recruiting
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
I get caught by the Grand Regent too, but once you put a inch in theorycraft, it's over ...
Conclusion: Nerfing Stalwart just created a new whole gameplay based on Timeless, a set even more powerfull than stalwart, more viable in PvP but by making this you made us spent a lot of AD for exchange our current enchantment as we are also using a new Weapon set. I still hope in a refund.
$$$: 3x Silvery enchantment (for defense slot: Shield/Chest and Pants) = ~40k Each = ~120k
1x Radiant enchantment (for weapon offense slot) = ~100k
Swap Greater Negation/Soulforge = ~208k
Swap Greater Plague Fire = ~240k
Optional but recommended:
Swich 4x Dark Enchantment (Rank 7) with 4x Radiant Enchantment = ~120k Each = ~480k
3x Dark Enchantment for Utility Slot = ~120k Each = ~480k
Reroll= 300 ZEN = ~160k (If you don't have a free one)
This sums it up nicely. I wont be here when (if) it goes through.
Just kidding
I have no problems holding aggro on mobs and my damage is usually 2nd out of 5, AKA I am doing my job as a tank and still dealing serious damage and I DON'T USE STALWARTS SET. This is more of a QQ thread than anything else at this point. I refuse to say which setup and feats I use because we can't all be cookie cutters, but the only REAL complaint of merit in this thread currently is the one about reslotting. I would really not want to have to do that, it would be extremely upsetting to do.
If you play a Guardian Fighter and you want to max out your PvE DPS the nerf to the Stalwart Set would require you to delete your current character (most likely Tiefling) and start a new one (most likely Half-Orc) and then roll the stats that now are superior to CON (STR/DEX). The effect of this of course is that you have to spent around 1.5 million AD if you want to get yourself a Timeless Set, you have to spent 0.8m for the Ioun Stone, you have to get yourself another CN weapon set and get a new Greater Plaguefire enchant for it, as the other is of course bound on your old character. Talking about enchants, you need a whole new set of enchants (hopefully you didnt have rank 9 or 10s)... and of course rings, neck, waist...
The problem of the Nerf of the Stalwart Set as it is planned is the change to the mechanic. Cryptic should NEVER change the benefit you gain from ability score points, when there is no way to change your initial roll and race choice. The only option players have to change these is to delete the character and start the new one and as all equipment items are bound on equip you would have to reobtain everything. Many players see equipment as a form of achievement, thus making players have to reobtain their equipment equals losing these achievements.
Also, this nerf is being done in what is called a "Live" game, not in a beta phase. Not only will your achievements be lost, but you cannot be certain about what will come next. 90% of the GF's I know of will switch to Timeless Hero set. Besides feeling bad about having the wrong race and the wrong initial ability score roll to max DPS with the Timeless set, you also need to fear Cryptic nerfing the Timeless set. If sets get nerfed to dead in a live game how can you be sure that in a month or so there won't be the next nerf news ("As 90% of the Guardian Fighter's were using the Timeless hero set we reworked the four pierce bonus: You now get +10% Running Speed for 4 seconds when your Guard Meter runs out!")
What many people suggested in this thread was changing the Stalwart Bulwark to a T2 Set and decreasing it's bonus while keeping the mechanic. The argument ambisinisterr hold in favor of the decision was the fact that an increase in power equal to 25% of your HP is simply to much. GF's with a Max HP of 28k (should be an average number) get 7000 power from the set bonus, which is too much. I agree with that, but the math you did, that the set bonus would have to be 5% max to be balanced is incorrect. As a Guardian Fighter with the Conqueror last feat stacking Power is very easy. An increase of 7000 power DOES NOT equal 7000 power points on gear, but an increase of 3500 equipment power points (as the Conqueror feat does not increase the power you get from the set bonus).
What do other classes get from their T2 set bonusses? Trickster Rogues get 1023 Power and Recovery from Swashbuckling Captain. The Great Weapon Fighters get 1260 Power and Recovery from Avatar of War. Thats 2046 and 2520 stat points compared to the 3500 stat points the Conqueror Guardian Fighters get. Additionally Swashbuckling and Avatar of War offer an offensive 2 piece bonus that Stalwart was lacking of course. Still it is not too far from balanced and I will explain why.
Many theorycrafters say that Power suffers no Diminishing Returns. But that is not fully correct. Just like you need more and more CRIT to increase your CRIT chance by 1% you also DO NEED MORE AND MORE POWER to increase your damage by 1%. That being said a boost to a single stat like the Stalwart's 4-piece bonus did offer ON A CLASS THAT ALREADY HAS A VERY HIGH AMOUNT OF THAT STAT (like Conqueror GF's do!) will suffer very hard from Dimishing Returns. Also there will be many occasions where the set bonus will not be even up with 5 stacks, most notably pvp.
In my opinion the suggestion of making the set a T2 (switching it with Grand Regent) and reducing it's set bonus is fine. For example the set bonus could be "Adds 1.5% of your Maximum HP in power. Stacks 6 times. This bonus is affected by Reckless Attacker." The set bonus would then add 9% of Max HP when it reaches maximum stacks. If you have 28k Life this would equal 2520 Power, which is fair compared to the 2460 points Avatar of War gives concerning you suffer way more Diminishing Returns, as its a bonus to a single stat rather than two stats and that you have no offensive 2 piece bonus. Also the Defense and Deflection stats on Stalwart should be reduced by ~10-20% to reduce its defensive effectiveness. I very much agree with the point that a set should not be the best defensive and offensive set at the same time, but decreasing the bonus to 9%, while also increasing the stack number making it a bit harder to maintain the bonus and while lowering the defensive attributes of the set a little bit, making the maintaining of the bonus (getting hit by mobs or players) harder (as you lose more HP) seems fine to me. Also making the bonus stack with the Conqueror feat would make the Set still a good choice for Conqueror GF's, while not being OP on Defensive GF's. The real problem of the Stalwart Set: Offering the BEST on the offensive AND defensive side would be gone. You can no longer make a defensive feated GF and get the full offensive out of the set. Also the set would not offer a better bonus than the other melee classes T2 sets, making it not only balanced within the class itself but also balanced compared to other classes.
Edit: What I want to add is that there is no valid reason why a T1 Set should not be changed to a T2. The argument that T2 is harder to obtain is simply invalid. From open beta on the T2 instances had all kinds of glitches that were farmed by so many people getting the T2 equipment into the Auction House at very cheap prices. Before the Mad Dragon's big spawn was changed recently the Tier 1 Helm was the hardest item to obtain, thus making collecting the full T1 set harder than completing the full T2.
Yah, no offense, but you obviously don't play your own game. The bonus may have been high, but I still wasn't doing more damage than any of the dps classes with it fully enchanted in any of my dungeon runs. Agro is complete <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> in this game, and since just being able to apply damage is a huge importance to me. It's premature opinions like these, ON TOP of the fact there is NO compensation for the AD and Enchantments invested (my time and money), that have made me stop spending money on the game. I have no confidence that you will not hurt my gameplay in the future so will not make any further purchases.
At bare minimums you should have made this change much sooner before so many GF's paid premium prices to acquire it. You can't seriously make me believe you didn't know what the set was doing months ago or the dev team is not very bright. Not to mention you could have kept the sets that are in the game currently the same and changed the new ones that drop. Or you could have just diminished the buff it gave (called tuning) and found a balance for the mechanical bonus but kept the theme the same. Making and defending this decision just shows that you do not listen to you player base and that saddens me greatly.
on this i do not agree, cause even if you only swap sets you will reduce only 4% in mitigation total, so yes you are les tankier but not paper you still survive quite well and deal also a lot of damage
on all this i do agree basically all GF will require to create a new character and invest all over again to have a perfect character around a new set that probably will be timeless
Sure I do terrible damage, but I don't have any problems with threat. Why you people are so worried about damage for the utility GF is designed to provide a group is secondary. It isn't necessary anymore since they increased our threat on all abilities to do damage. In open beta before the live patch, you needed the damage to get threat. but since live its NOT NECESSARY TO DO DMG.
Get off your high horses. besides, the damage buff from the stalwart bulwark set in remake is 200 damage, not power to your abilities. The real question is if the stacks disappear when you use one. If they don't then this set is still a viable DPS conq whatever your preference spec.
I think many of us could live with it being nerfed into a true T1 set, it is the outright change to the set bonus that makes it downright game breaking.
Someone posted screenshots a coupla days ago displaying the 'outrageous' 200 dmg you get for one hit when fully stacked. Note that it really is just 200 straight damage as opposed to 200 weapon dmg which is a completely different thing. In other words, they basically removed the set bonus in its entity. (Note that I couldn't test and confirm this myself yet, this is 2nd hand information)
Edit: Here's the post I was referring to: http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?447221-stalwart-reworked&p=5641951&viewfull=1#post5641951
It will cost from 1M to 3M to people that were using stalwart to remake a viable gear, do you really think it affects only 4 gear pieces ? Nope, i went on preview to make a optimized gear before doing **** on live (hehe) and i had to remove all my enchants. But still, unslotting specific enchants wouldn't be worth it because they cost less than the price we have to pay for unslot wich mean "I bought you but now i waste you".
And just to sum up the few GF set :
-Valiant warrior : High Vizier wanna be for GF but i'm not sure about his effectivness compared to High Viz'.
-Knight Captain : Despite of the usefulness of Deflection, this set provides any Deflection and the 4/4 bonus doesn't apply on the GF. And the lack of stat because it's T1 will make the GF too much fragile (sometimes, a dps is better than a dps buffer).
-Stalwart : Pathetic bonus, stacks are used each time you do a single hit. Not worth stacking, not worth using, not worth at all.
-Grand Regent : Made to stack Defense wich is a high waste because of diminushing return, does not provide enough power but too much defensive stats that put the GF way too much unconfortable with diminushings returns.
-High General : As Knight Captain, 0 Deflection and the set bonus is not even worth it compared to a Vorpal or the 4/4 Bonus of CW's Shadow Weaver.
-Timeless : Good stats but both 2/4 and 4/4 bonusses are decentralized to the GF mechanics or non-mechanics, there is any mechanics relied to Deflection and the Crit (roughly 10% bonus to crit chance) isn't enough to be useful and the duration isn't enough long to make it worth. Plus, while it makes the GF able to tank in PVE (3k1 Def and 32 CA is enough with Armor Spec feat to get the 50% Damage reduction "cap") it will most of the time put his damage reduction under 20% in PVP against Damage taken debuff, Armor debuff and Armor Pen.
-Legendary Llyanbruen : Same stats as GR but with a different 4/4 bonus wich i can't tell if it's trully viable. We'll see upon FoF is released.
To sum up this sum up, Timeless is the best of the worst, barely followed by GR and KC's set. I will just go on double set-bonus for now until a better way rise from ashes (or not^^). But not instantly, i have to collect around 1m5 AD !
The nerf to this set is too harsh! (not I don't use it and had no plans to but I feel for everyone that has been using it)
Correction: I am a player and actively play the game. My title is 100% voluntary and I do not work at Cryptic or PWE. If I didn't play that game I wouldn't be here.
That aside please check out this post. Stalwart Bulwark was extremely overpowered compared to the other sets. It really can't be argued. And certainly not by comparing yourself to DPS Classes which are far, far squishier. The Stalwart Bulwark set gave the Guardian Fighter a far higher DPS:Survivability rate than any other class. Comparing outright damage is only part of the balance.
Would it have been better to do sooner? Sure. But if the change was brought out a month later or a month sooner the response would still be the same: why now?
It needed to be nerfed. There's no way to justify leaving such an unbalanced set in the game.
but changing it to a completely useless set when people already invested so much on it is justified?
No matter what the old set was utterly overpowered and needed to be nerfed. I have the stats listed in the post I linked and even with moderate HP 5-7% of HP going to power is just barely in line with the Grand Regent Set Effect on a person who stacked defense well passed diminishing returns.
It had to get nerfed. It might even have to be outright changed as they proposed.
But it can't stay the way was without losing roughly 20% effectiveness and the new set effect is too weak (especially for Conquerors) in order to be viable in any way, shape or form.