2/2 Knight Cap / High General (850 ArP) build does more damage than timeless
For what it's worth, this is what I use, and I'm very happy with it. The whole setup is dirt cheap too -- or it was dirt cheap, about a month ago on the Beholder server. Seems prices on gear sets have risen precipitously in recent days, in anticipation of the loot changes in Module 1. (A whole set of High Vizier for Wizards was ~200k a few days ago. This morning just the helm was selling for that much.)
I use Timeless for PVP purposes for a burst build. I except the fact that I sacrifice defense for higher burst that I control in PVP.
But, it sounds like Timeless should get a buff if all those Tier 1 sets are out-DPSing it in PVE, no? Why should those tier 1 sets do superior DPS than the designed tier 2 DPS set?
In PvP Survival > Burst - When you are dead you do 0 damage.
I have a Blue set that out performs STAL in PvP after the rework and I'll be using that set as it boosts my regen to 11.6% or over 2k health ticks every 3 seconds. If you've never faced a Regen Tank then your server's GF are using bad builds for PvP. Once you face a high regen tank that constantly heals they are very hard to kill.
Regen and Survival is better than Burst for 1v1, or when you are trying to "play as a GWF" and keep a point contested for a while longer by yourself before you die, as you've so described your own style of play here on the forums.
But in a team fight, we'll just kill everyone else and CC/kill the regen tank/GWF last with coordinated burst. A lack of burst is what allows regen tanks to have the time to regen in the first place.
Different roles. You are built to be a survival pest. Others are built for damage. Your Stalwart set and regen jewelry currently lets you do both, but that will change.
Regen and Survival is better than Burst for 1v1, or when you are trying to "play as a GWF" and keep a point contested for a while longer by yourself before you die, as you've so described your own style of play here on the forums.
But in a team fight, we'll just kill everyone else and CC/kill the regen tank/GWF last with coordinated burst. A lack of burst is what allows regen tanks to have the time to regen in the first place.
Why would the GWF & GF be on the same point? Sounds like you are talking pugs again which means nothing. The point is the Regen tank can 1v1 any class and able to comfortablly play vs. 2 players and able to kill one of them and then kill the other. Meaning you just sent 2 players to a point and still couldn't kill the 1 player on the point. So you have to send a 3rd which means you've now lost your power at the other 2 points and you still lose game.
There is a reason why Regen Tanks GWF/GF is so strong in PvP.
So your solution is to give everyone with a Tier 1 set that comes from Tier 1 dungeons like Throne of Idris and The Cloak Tower a free windfall upgrade to Tier 2 level with increased stats? Are you kidding? Get out of here.
I never wrote increased stats! I said the defensive stat points should be reduced(!) by 15-25%, while also reducing the 4 piece set bonus a lot. By saying "make it T2" I mean that the drop locations should then of course be switched to the Tier 2 dungeons.
Your argument of the T2 dungeons being harder would be valid IF the dungeons would have been harder than T1 when Neverwinter went live, but that was not the case. It was possible to skip half the map on Temple of Spider and get the chest without doing the boss. All Karundaxx bosses could be done solo by a CW standing in buggy positions. Frozen Heart could be run silly fast by skipping bosses and it also had buggy positions for the final boss. The Spellplague bosses could be glitch-pulled through walls. The Tier 2 instances all had bugs allowing abusers to farm them like crazy and making T2 drops drop in prices. Much of the bugs are currently being fixed and if there is a time where changing a T1 set to T2 could be justified then it is now. Before Mad Dragon's Lair was made easier it was much faster to do one Karundaxx, one Spellplague, one Frozen Heart and one Spider Run than the time it took to assemble a decent group for MDL.
The folks who suggested this change are the same folks that are okay with a Tier 1 set having an over-budget set bonus that makes every Tier 2 set look weaker, and costs half the price/less than half the effort to obtain than Tier 2. That's exactly why it should be nerfed, is going to be nerfed and should remain nerfed.
Before the Stalwart nerf was announced the price of the set was between Timeless and the other T2 sets. Getting the helm as a drop was much more frustrating than anything else in the game ever. Mad Dragon was considered a Tier 1 instance, even though it was BY FAR the hardest instance to do WHEN the game went live. What made it so much worse is that as a Tier 1 people with a GS of around 6000 could queue and you could completely forget about using dungeon finder for it. And what made it even worse was that as a GF you were the only class that cared about doing Mad Dragons Lair. Finding a decent CW for a run? You wont find one, they wanna get T2 sets. Finding a cleric? Nope. TR? GWF? Nope you wont find people. It was the hardest item to obtain for a very long time.
Having reckless attacker affect the set bonus change you suggested, bratz, just means there is still no reason to ever spec anything but conqueror. Defensive feated GF's are trash compared to offensive feated GF's, because none of the content requires more mitigation than what an offensive build already has. The set would still offer the best offensive and defense, contrary to what you claim.
Your second sentence basically sums it up. But from my perspective that is the fault of the game mechanics and the aggro system, not the fault of the Stalwart set. When I switch from Stalwart to Timeless Hero I lose 2% damage reduction (from 47% to 45%) which I would not consider being squishy. By reducing defense and deflection on Stalwart by 15-25% and lowering the buff as I suggested it would not be the set offering the best defensive stats, while offering slightly higher damage output compared to Timeless or a 2 piece KC - 2 piece HC 850 armor pen combo - under the right circumstances. When doing PVP or singletargeting a slow hitting boss while having to block/dodge AOEs will be situations where the set makes it hard to maintain stacks.
Reckless Attacker should NEVER EVER work on buffs! It would completely break the conqueror tree and make GF's damage skyrocket and why it does not work with buffs now.
You are 100% right and I never said anything else, I never talked about buffs in general. To recap what I suggested was getting the bonus down from 25% at 5 stacks to 9% at 6 stacks. Currently the set gives you around 8k power. For every other class that would equal having 8000 stats more on their equipment, but as a Conqueror GF its only equal to 4000. With the Reckless Attacker Feat you stack power really fast and you get into the diminishing returns VERY FAST and please dont tell me that the use of power does not diminish. I did some runs together with another buff turtle GF and had a power buff of around 20k - Getting a Buff of 2000 Power+Crit+ArPen+Recovery would result in a much bigger damage boost and utility, even though it only delivers 8000 raw stats. Especially Crit (and to some degree) ArPen are much harder to obtain as a GF considering the current set options and especially the fact that GF is the only class that can not obtain crit by ability scores.
Getting 8000 power as a set bonus just sounds insane to other classes because - for them - indeed it would be. Giving 8000 power to a TR at Armor Pen cap and 4k+ crit with Perfect Vorpal would be completely insane, same goes for GWF and pretty much too for a CW. However the GF class does not benefit from it the same way as other classes do and I feel this is completely overlooked. OF COURSE THE STALWART BONUS IS ABSOLUTELY OP COMPARED TO OTHER CLASSES 4P BONUSSES AT FIRST GLANCE, but in reality the % increase in bonus damage is not as high as it would be for other classes. Its easy for other classes to look at the bonus and think its OP, but the same way sets like Avatar of War or Battlefield Skulker would perform sick on a Conqueror GF.AGAIN I AM NOT SAYING THAT THE STALWART BONUS SHOULD NOT BE REDUCED, but the bonus is not as overpowered as it looks and a reduction, while keeping the mechanic would in my opinion be a way better way to go than turning the set into 6 gold and 20 silver, which is what the patch is basically doing.
As for DKCandy's suggested changes to the set I really don't think you considered just how overpowered this set effect truly was. That set was supposed to be the Tier 1 version of Grand Regent but because the effect is based on HP rather than defense it allows for much, much greater results.
You might be able to stack up to 8K or so defense before just about capping out on possible stacking (and absolutely passed Diminishing Returns) so this would cap the grand regent's bonus at 1600 power.
[...]it should be on par but not superior to Grand Regent.
Grand Regent is a not a good set for most of the GF builds. At 5000 defense you will get 1000 power, which equals 500 power stats for a Conqueror. It would be like having 125 extra power on each of the pieces. You can get more stats from one ring than from the 4 piece set bonus. For PvE DPS, which is what most Stalwart wearing GFs aimed for the Grand Regent set is probably the worst in slot set. I like that you are doing calculations and I like that you want to keep the mechanic but your calculations are based on making the PvE DPS Fighter's choice "on par or inferior" to the worst in slot set for PvE DPS there currently is.
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!")
great read, but i find that this is the most important part of it
This is "just" preview, right? Is it certain to be included in the final version?
no DEV has come up to any of these thread to tell us their points of view, so we asume that yes this changes will go live and no explanation on why the decided to create a total new set or if they changed their minds or if we will b e refunded at least the enchants that we used to create our builds.
one of the things that i really feel sorry is the poor group of people that got affected for the change in set lv and this :S, so they happen to gather first pieces that were not working and cryptic told them that they should find the set with the lv fix, and after they finally were able to buy/get the final set, cryptic is telling them that stalwart is not the BiS and after spending 1.5 more than other players they will need to spend more again to have the BiS set lol.
Everything works out in the end . If it hasn't worked out yet, it isn't the end...
bye bye neverwinter. i'm not gonna fall for this **** again. cryptic's logic: if everybody's using the same set, then it is OP.
IT IS NOT. it is just THE ONLY PLAYABLE set. was. whatever.
i didn't think gf's could be more useless in pve than they were. but - wow - they can! nice balancing.
now they only need to eliminate control wizards as class since it's the most useful char in any dungeon. balancing, yo.
What I find interesting is the Dev's make a post about GWF changes but when GF's ask for compensation for this nerf to one of the most used sets. We get a deft ear.
Just goes to show the reason for the rework is to line their pockets with Zen purchases.
The "need to get hit first" mechanic aside, that is one of the reasons that I did not invest gems into a Stalwart Set. It was only obvious that would get nerfed as it gained massive popularity thanks to dkcandy, fearitself and rokuthy's popular guides all pointing everyone right at it. Just read their guides.
You can find a statement by each author in their guide that states, paraphased, "Timeless is okay, but Stalwart's gives you both better defense AND better offense, not to mention it's Tier 1 so it only costs half the price!"
Now the forums are awash with "OMG how could you?!?!" posts.
Protip> when you invest capital in something, consider both the short term and long term gains of that investment. Do this whether it is your real money, your virtual game currency or your time.
I also play gf and to be real stal set that i own also needed to be nerfed :P But i need an answer in a question guys. Why bother tell them some things that they have to fix them on their own? I haven't seen a game in my life where a rogue can kill a tank with 30k health in one shot...Even in WOW and other games no mages neither the rogues could kill in one shot a tank.If you ask my opinion nerf critical severity that make all skills of mage and rogue op.This is not skill!Also if you made that you could make a game more challenging for all.I think that every gf has to put away his class so a day maybe they see that they have destroyed the only class that is really needed in any situation.I'm not from these guys that will cry for nerfing gf class but think about this: With all this mess now a party of 4 (2 cw,1 dc and 1 tr) you can complete the "most" difficult dungeon (CN epic) in under 40 min without the need of a tank. That doesn't make any sense i think... So plz think about what role a gf has to take in game and correct the trees or say goodbye to this class for ever. I'm not asking to buff this class,just make it as it has to be. Sry for my bad english
sfxer001 - Timeless is still just ok. The issue with the set is the 4pc set bonus. It works off of encounters which means you need to stack Recharge to reduce the downtime of encounters to gain benefit of the bonus. You can do equal damage with a mix of blue/epic items that cost a few k ad each on AH.
This is why timeless has always been a massively overpriced set IMO. The set is good T2 set but when cheaper items give the same effect but on a consistant basis it doesn't really make sense to spend the cash.
So tired of reading posts from people saying: "it was obviously overpowered, so deal with it". You entirely miss the point. I'll draw a RL comparison - an economic one. No sane government would change laws to punish successful businesspeople for being successful. If they did make a change, e.g. to tax laws, affecting companies' tax strategy, they would phase it in gradually. What PWE is doing here is penalising smart players, who made the best available choice when presented with the option of Stalwart Bulwark or other sets. Why? Because of the investments (e.g. race-choice, gear-pieces, enchants) made into setting a character up to work with Bulwark. This is no way to run a game, because those players will remember this decision by PWE, and do what companies do when faced with business-hostile regulatory environments - leave. They didn't exploit any bugs, they made a rational choice based on what was available to them at the time of choosing. If PWE wants to remove the set, because it is OP (which it may be), fine - but they need to do so in a way that doesn't penalise those players. Otherwise, they are punishing players for playing well - a recipe for making players unhappy with a game. Nobody wants to play a game where good play is penalised. My proposed solution: unbind all enchants from the changed SB pieces AND offer a trade-in facility, where GFs can trade in old SB pieces for any other equivalent T1 piece on a 1:1 basis, OR any T2 piece on a 2:1 basis. This will never happen, of course (even if it did, it would still leave those players hundreds of thousands of AD out of pocket). Still, given the dire bug situation, I doubt that gameplay considerations are high on the agenda, but this is going to hurt PWE - presumably they are too foolish to realise they could manage the situation (of nerfing an "OP" set) in a better way.
Governments change laws that affect business all the time when business is unfairly practiced. When it's obvious that a particular tax loophole is being exploited, it is often closed. Businesses take advantage of it until it is closed. They saved extra money on their taxes until it was closed.
Same deal with Stalwarts. Users of that set benefited from having an extra 7k power + higher defensive stats than every other set for many months. It's your fault you invested so much of your personal capital into taking advantage of the set until it was finally fixed for being unfair. It was plainly obvious it was overpowered and you made the investment anyway, knowing the cost of unsocketing enchants ahead of time. You just aren't smart with your money.
Since Stalwart's is a Tier 1 set, which you can get from Tier 1 dungeons and most pieces cost half the price of a T2 set that isn't as good, you can put all the money you saved not investing in a 1.2 million+ Timeless set into your unsocket costs and you'll come out about even with the rest of the population. You should have plenty of cash lying around!
Since Stalwart's is a Tier 1 set, which you can get from Tier 1 dungeons and most pieces cost half the price of a T2 set that isn't as good, you can put all the money you saved not investing in a 1.2 million+ Timeless set into your unsocket costs and you'll come out about even with the rest of the population. You should have plenty of cash lying around!
Plenty of cash - from what? Donating?
Tanks were not needed in pve. No good T2 dungeon-running group ever wanted a GF in their runs, with or without stalwart. How were we supposed to grind all that loads of cash i wonder?
I don't have any. I spent all of it for a companion - cat - and now it is reduced in price! Hurray, i was robbed even here.
Governments change laws that affect business all the time when business is unfairly practiced. When it's obvious that a particular tax loophole is being exploited, it is often closed. Businesses take advantage of it until it is closed. They saved extra money on their taxes until it was closed.
Same deal with Stalwarts. Users of that set benefited from having an extra 7k power + higher defensive stats than every other set for many months. It's your fault you invested so much of your personal capital into taking advantage of the set until it was finally fixed for being unfair. It was plainly obvious it was overpowered and you made the investment anyway, knowing the cost of unsocketing enchants ahead of time. You just aren't smart with your money.
Governments do indeed change laws, for example to increase tax revenues, by closing loopholes. But there is no unfairness practised by companies who play by the rules to their best advantage. There was nothing unfair done by any GF who used Stalwart. The idea of saving upfront is a spurious one - a GF in competition with other GFs wasn't saving anything by picking the best set. He was simply competing on an even footing (e.g. for a place in a group) with the other GFs who also picked the best set. If you actually look into how governments make these changes, they don't do it like PWE have done, for precisely the reasons I already alluded to. They give companies plenty of warning. They research, consult and check what distorting impact new rules will have (if any). They phase things in. They provide accommodation for changeover where new rules will cause problems. It's called creating a business (read: player)-friendly environment, something PWE have failed (like most cash-cow MMOs) to do.
PS. I have rank 5 enchants in my set. I'm not arguing for great benefit to myself. I'm arguing because what has been done is wrong in principle, and counter to any semblance of good game design. What's not smart here is PWE's handling of this issue.
Comments
For what it's worth, this is what I use, and I'm very happy with it. The whole setup is dirt cheap too -- or it was dirt cheap, about a month ago on the Beholder server. Seems prices on gear sets have risen precipitously in recent days, in anticipation of the loot changes in Module 1. (A whole set of High Vizier for Wizards was ~200k a few days ago. This morning just the helm was selling for that much.)
In PvP Survival > Burst - When you are dead you do 0 damage.
I have a Blue set that out performs STAL in PvP after the rework and I'll be using that set as it boosts my regen to 11.6% or over 2k health ticks every 3 seconds. If you've never faced a Regen Tank then your server's GF are using bad builds for PvP. Once you face a high regen tank that constantly heals they are very hard to kill.
But in a team fight, we'll just kill everyone else and CC/kill the regen tank/GWF last with coordinated burst. A lack of burst is what allows regen tanks to have the time to regen in the first place.
Different roles. You are built to be a survival pest. Others are built for damage. Your Stalwart set and regen jewelry currently lets you do both, but that will change.
Why would the GWF & GF be on the same point? Sounds like you are talking pugs again which means nothing. The point is the Regen tank can 1v1 any class and able to comfortablly play vs. 2 players and able to kill one of them and then kill the other. Meaning you just sent 2 players to a point and still couldn't kill the 1 player on the point. So you have to send a 3rd which means you've now lost your power at the other 2 points and you still lose game.
There is a reason why Regen Tanks GWF/GF is so strong in PvP.
You read that wrong. GF/GWF as in either or, not both on the point. I could have been clearer.
I never wrote increased stats! I said the defensive stat points should be reduced(!) by 15-25%, while also reducing the 4 piece set bonus a lot. By saying "make it T2" I mean that the drop locations should then of course be switched to the Tier 2 dungeons.
Your argument of the T2 dungeons being harder would be valid IF the dungeons would have been harder than T1 when Neverwinter went live, but that was not the case. It was possible to skip half the map on Temple of Spider and get the chest without doing the boss. All Karundaxx bosses could be done solo by a CW standing in buggy positions. Frozen Heart could be run silly fast by skipping bosses and it also had buggy positions for the final boss. The Spellplague bosses could be glitch-pulled through walls. The Tier 2 instances all had bugs allowing abusers to farm them like crazy and making T2 drops drop in prices. Much of the bugs are currently being fixed and if there is a time where changing a T1 set to T2 could be justified then it is now. Before Mad Dragon's Lair was made easier it was much faster to do one Karundaxx, one Spellplague, one Frozen Heart and one Spider Run than the time it took to assemble a decent group for MDL.
Before the Stalwart nerf was announced the price of the set was between Timeless and the other T2 sets. Getting the helm as a drop was much more frustrating than anything else in the game ever. Mad Dragon was considered a Tier 1 instance, even though it was BY FAR the hardest instance to do WHEN the game went live. What made it so much worse is that as a Tier 1 people with a GS of around 6000 could queue and you could completely forget about using dungeon finder for it. And what made it even worse was that as a GF you were the only class that cared about doing Mad Dragons Lair. Finding a decent CW for a run? You wont find one, they wanna get T2 sets. Finding a cleric? Nope. TR? GWF? Nope you wont find people. It was the hardest item to obtain for a very long time.
Your second sentence basically sums it up. But from my perspective that is the fault of the game mechanics and the aggro system, not the fault of the Stalwart set. When I switch from Stalwart to Timeless Hero I lose 2% damage reduction (from 47% to 45%) which I would not consider being squishy. By reducing defense and deflection on Stalwart by 15-25% and lowering the buff as I suggested it would not be the set offering the best defensive stats, while offering slightly higher damage output compared to Timeless or a 2 piece KC - 2 piece HC 850 armor pen combo - under the right circumstances. When doing PVP or singletargeting a slow hitting boss while having to block/dodge AOEs will be situations where the set makes it hard to maintain stacks.
You are 100% right and I never said anything else, I never talked about buffs in general. To recap what I suggested was getting the bonus down from 25% at 5 stacks to 9% at 6 stacks. Currently the set gives you around 8k power. For every other class that would equal having 8000 stats more on their equipment, but as a Conqueror GF its only equal to 4000. With the Reckless Attacker Feat you stack power really fast and you get into the diminishing returns VERY FAST and please dont tell me that the use of power does not diminish. I did some runs together with another buff turtle GF and had a power buff of around 20k - Getting a Buff of 2000 Power+Crit+ArPen+Recovery would result in a much bigger damage boost and utility, even though it only delivers 8000 raw stats. Especially Crit (and to some degree) ArPen are much harder to obtain as a GF considering the current set options and especially the fact that GF is the only class that can not obtain crit by ability scores.
Getting 8000 power as a set bonus just sounds insane to other classes because - for them - indeed it would be. Giving 8000 power to a TR at Armor Pen cap and 4k+ crit with Perfect Vorpal would be completely insane, same goes for GWF and pretty much too for a CW. However the GF class does not benefit from it the same way as other classes do and I feel this is completely overlooked. OF COURSE THE STALWART BONUS IS ABSOLUTELY OP COMPARED TO OTHER CLASSES 4P BONUSSES AT FIRST GLANCE, but in reality the % increase in bonus damage is not as high as it would be for other classes. Its easy for other classes to look at the bonus and think its OP, but the same way sets like Avatar of War or Battlefield Skulker would perform sick on a Conqueror GF.AGAIN I AM NOT SAYING THAT THE STALWART BONUS SHOULD NOT BE REDUCED, but the bonus is not as overpowered as it looks and a reduction, while keeping the mechanic would in my opinion be a way better way to go than turning the set into 6 gold and 20 silver, which is what the patch is basically doing.
Grand Regent is a not a good set for most of the GF builds. At 5000 defense you will get 1000 power, which equals 500 power stats for a Conqueror. It would be like having 125 extra power on each of the pieces. You can get more stats from one ring than from the 4 piece set bonus. For PvE DPS, which is what most Stalwart wearing GFs aimed for the Grand Regent set is probably the worst in slot set. I like that you are doing calculations and I like that you want to keep the mechanic but your calculations are based on making the PvE DPS Fighter's choice "on par or inferior" to the worst in slot set for PvE DPS there currently is.
great read, but i find that this is the most important part of it
found it: http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?447201-Release-Notes-NW-5-20130812b-2
This is "just" preview, right? Is it certain to be included in the final version?
no DEV has come up to any of these thread to tell us their points of view, so we asume that yes this changes will go live and no explanation on why the decided to create a total new set or if they changed their minds or if we will b e refunded at least the enchants that we used to create our builds.
one of the things that i really feel sorry is the poor group of people that got affected for the change in set lv and this :S, so they happen to gather first pieces that were not working and cryptic told them that they should find the set with the lv fix, and after they finally were able to buy/get the final set, cryptic is telling them that stalwart is not the BiS and after spending 1.5 more than other players they will need to spend more again to have the BiS set lol.
We'll find out really soon.
bye bye, bulwark.
IT IS NOT. it is just THE ONLY PLAYABLE set. was. whatever.
i didn't think gf's could be more useless in pve than they were. but - wow - they can! nice balancing.
now they only need to eliminate control wizards as class since it's the most useful char in any dungeon. balancing, yo.
Just goes to show the reason for the rework is to line their pockets with Zen purchases.
to finish that set "how could you not see a nerf coming?"
And yes, having over 10k-15k+ power on a tank was OP.
You can find a statement by each author in their guide that states, paraphased, "Timeless is okay, but Stalwart's gives you both better defense AND better offense, not to mention it's Tier 1 so it only costs half the price!"
Now the forums are awash with "OMG how could you?!?!" posts.
Protip> when you invest capital in something, consider both the short term and long term gains of that investment. Do this whether it is your real money, your virtual game currency or your time.
This is why timeless has always been a massively overpriced set IMO. The set is good T2 set but when cheaper items give the same effect but on a consistant basis it doesn't really make sense to spend the cash.
Same deal with Stalwarts. Users of that set benefited from having an extra 7k power + higher defensive stats than every other set for many months. It's your fault you invested so much of your personal capital into taking advantage of the set until it was finally fixed for being unfair. It was plainly obvious it was overpowered and you made the investment anyway, knowing the cost of unsocketing enchants ahead of time. You just aren't smart with your money.
Since Stalwart's is a Tier 1 set, which you can get from Tier 1 dungeons and most pieces cost half the price of a T2 set that isn't as good, you can put all the money you saved not investing in a 1.2 million+ Timeless set into your unsocket costs and you'll come out about even with the rest of the population. You should have plenty of cash lying around!
Tanks were not needed in pve. No good T2 dungeon-running group ever wanted a GF in their runs, with or without stalwart. How were we supposed to grind all that loads of cash i wonder?
I don't have any. I spent all of it for a companion - cat - and now it is reduced in price! Hurray, i was robbed even here.
Governments do indeed change laws, for example to increase tax revenues, by closing loopholes. But there is no unfairness practised by companies who play by the rules to their best advantage. There was nothing unfair done by any GF who used Stalwart. The idea of saving upfront is a spurious one - a GF in competition with other GFs wasn't saving anything by picking the best set. He was simply competing on an even footing (e.g. for a place in a group) with the other GFs who also picked the best set. If you actually look into how governments make these changes, they don't do it like PWE have done, for precisely the reasons I already alluded to. They give companies plenty of warning. They research, consult and check what distorting impact new rules will have (if any). They phase things in. They provide accommodation for changeover where new rules will cause problems. It's called creating a business (read: player)-friendly environment, something PWE have failed (like most cash-cow MMOs) to do.
PS. I have rank 5 enchants in my set. I'm not arguing for great benefit to myself. I'm arguing because what has been done is wrong in principle, and counter to any semblance of good game design. What's not smart here is PWE's handling of this issue.