Magic Missile: The first two strikes can be chained together about 40% slower. The third strike of Magic Missile now takes 1.4 seconds to fire (up from 1.2).
I do not understand why this change, in my view is a change baseless.
Chill Strike: This power now takes 1.2 seconds to fire (up from 1 second).
Can be dodge, do not understand why increasing activation.
Ray of Enfeeblement: This power now takes 1.5 seconds to fire (up from .9 seconds).
Ray of Enfeeblement: This power has had its recharge time increased to 18 seconds (up from 14).
Ray of Enfeeblement: Allies no longer benefit from this debuff.
CW had its damage lowered, do not understand why leaving this skill as a personal buff. Make it equal GPF, only 1 active.
Arcane Singularity: Activation time increased to 2 seconds (up from 1 second).
Arcane Singularity: Now can affect up to 8 targets (down from 15).
Activation time same the live server and affect 10 targets.
Eye of the Storm: This power now has an internal cooldown of 90 seconds. Base Duration increased to 4 seconds (up from 2). Duration increase per rank increased to 1 (up from .5).
Duration of 15 seconds and lower ICD for 60 seconds.
PS: Fix the paragons, make Opressive tree, control / dps. Thaumaturge tree, dps / (-) control and Renegade tree, dps / (+) control.
(-) less control than renegade tree.
(+) more control than thaumaturge.
I have tested it out , at least the skills I use now on live , I don't pvp , I don't 1v1 pvp so oppressor tree being OP in a 1v1 pvp fight is about a irrelevant as you can get , show me a CN or MC run with a well geared rainbow party on preview and show us these OP CW's in pve .
No, YOU show ME. We are being productive, providing reasons, stats, videos. PvE is your gig man, show US how these changes crush your class?
Provide productive feedback, no one cares that you don't PvP, just no one cares that I don't PvE. There are TWO major play modes in this game and the classes need to be balanced around BOTH of them.
"I don't care about your PvP" is not helpful....
And so... To get back on topic, this has been explained over and over but let's give it another try:
One of the purposes of these changes to CW is to make stacking several of them in PvE instances less desirable. They did this by taking away some aoe capability. Then, to make up for the loss, they game CW more single target DPS and better control mechanics.
Some of these changes have broken CW in PvP. They need to be adjusted. If you give useful feedback supported by actual testing and then present the evidence for people to see, than things can be adjusted to fix PvP w/o hurting PvE.
But first you have to accept the new Meta. No more CW stacking. Which was the purpose of the changes. Arguing that these changes take away CW stacking is actually just validating that the Devs are on the right track.
The fact remains that the control of the Opressor tree is completely absurd, specifically the broken capstone and the buff to ray of frost feat. If you want to talk about gear, please enlighten me as to how would any of your stats matter when you can lock someone in CC indefinitely from 100 to 0. I'm a completely well geared DC and I know my class back to back. A friend of mine who hasn't played in a long time, is using crappy enchants and a bilethorn, completely locked me, with nothing for me to do.
The thing about shard in PVP is that it wasn't easy to use sucessfully, and you felt accomplished when you killed someone because it meant you outplayed them. Now CW turned into a autoattack spam monger. It's not fun for them or the ones being permanently CC'd.
No, YOU show ME. We are being productive, providing reasons, stats, videos. PvE is your gig man, show US how these changes crush your class?
Provide productive feedback, no one cares that you don't PvP, just no one cares that I don't PvE. There are TWO major play modes in this game and the classes need to be balanced around BOTH of them.
"I don't care about your PvP" is not helpful....
And so... To get back on topic, this has been explained over and over but let's give it another try:
One of the purposes of these changes to CW is to make stacking several of them in PvE instances less desirable. They did this by taking away some aoe capability. Then, to make up for the loss, they game CW more single target DPS and better control mechanics.
Some of these changes have broken CW in PvP. They need to be adjusted. If you give useful feedback supported by actual testing and then present the evidence for people to see, than things can be adjusted to fix PvP w/o hurting PvE.
But first you have to accept the new Meta. No more CW stacking. Which was the purpose of the changes. Arguing that these changes take away CW stacking is actually just validating that the Devs are on the right track.
So I ran a four man CN in preview yesterday. The party was 2 CW's 1 DC and 1 GF. The run went A LOT slower. But as i was an oppressor, I was able to control the adds very well. The dracolich was a challenge compared to before but we downed it in one try. I'm very happy with the way oppressor is performing in a PVE dungeon run atm.
I feel like I can be the only CW in a rainbow CN run with confidence now as an oppressor(MOF) in preview. Granted, we are all around 15k GS with greater and perfect weapon enchants. I myself have been playing CW since the start of open beta. The GF in my group was keeping a lot of the aggro too. He did complain that his shield had such a small amount of time. And in Ice wind dale, his shield was useless against beholder attacks.
I can see how it is easily overpower in pvp, but I don't pvp and it would be so terrible if they nerfed the usefulness of the new oppressor during the pvp QQ. They should only implement these changes if they can make the skills and feats behave differently in pvp. Ot
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adernathMember, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2014
The point why I am against such drastic changes is that we have spend many time and AD/Zen into our toons because we loved exactly this playstile, i.e. playing CW as a pure DPS class. And to make a 180 degree change in your main class playstile will make all this obsolete. People should understand that this is unacceptable for many of us.
Suggestions to improve NW:
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
So I ran a four man CN in preview yesterday. The party was 2 CW's 1 DC and 1 GF. The run went A LOT slower. But as i was an oppressor, I was able to control the adds very well. The dracolich was a challenge compared to before but we downed it in one try. I'm very happy with the way oppressor is performing in a PVE dungeon run atm.
I feel like I can be the only CW in a rainbow CN run with confidence now as an oppressor(MOF) in preview. Granted, we are all around 15k GS with greater and perfect weapon enchants. I myself have been playing CW since the start of open beta. The GF in my group was keeping a lot of the aggro too. He did complain that his shield had such a small amount of time. And in Ice wind dale, his shield was useless against beholder attacks.
I can see how it is easily overpower in pvp, but I don't pvp and it would be so terrible if they nerfed the usefulness of the new oppressor during the pvp QQ. They should only implement these changes if they can make the skills and feats behave differently in pvp. Ot
Thanks, that is very helpful feedback and I think it shows that the changes are doing what they were intended to in PvE. Of course much more tweaking needs to be done to get a good balance between PvE and PvP but, from the sounds of it, they are on the right track.
- for a DC, CWs were OP since forever. Things changed a bit: a CW will take even more time to kill you, but will CC you even better
- for a GF, CWs are more OP now indeed. Oh well. Sorry for you guys. Since nobody will wear HV in PvP however, it should take way longer until you would be dead in a real game with proper geared toons.
- for a HR, a CW is food. Nothing changed.
- for a GWF, CW is food. Nothing changed. Maybe, just maybe CW can win against bad GWFs now.
- for a TR.... see the above 2.
So, I'm asking you.
CW losing vs 3, winning against 2.
Where do we want the CW?!? Losing against each and every class?
And what is the GS of the 2? Can you record another video and show GS for both? That is insanely relevant. For all I know I could be watching a 16k GS CW toy with a 11k GS GF...
GS in this example is pretty irrelevant. But I can see how you might think it would matter so I'll sum up their gear one more time (I have already done this in a few different posts).
The CW had about 1/2 of his gear slotted with rank 9's/10's the other half is empty, and he was wearing High Viz. The GF is nearly full rank 10's (like 3 rank 9's) maxed artifacts, 40k or so HP and full conq.
None of that matters, but there ya go.
Regardless of gear/class/skill this should not be possible for any class to do, under any circumstances period. That is all there is to it, there is not much of an argument here. A 45 second stun lock should NOT happen... EVER! The fact that people are defending it amazes me.
"Oh but CW can't do that to HR's so its ok"--- NO! (and BTW CW CAN do it to HR, Twerk posted a video of him locking an HR for a pretty long time, and he is not exactly top teir.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD1rewZUgTA)
It doesn't matter, the Devs know about it now, and pretty much every reasonable player agrees that this is silly and needs to be fixed.
There is no point in my explaining it any further, if you don't understand why this should not be allowed to happen nothing I say is going to change your mind. But I don't need to change your mind, its going to get fixed so *shrug* sorry you disagree.
I an not sure if this was stated yet in this thread tho it is obvious. The proposed changes are not fun at all. From a interesting and fun to play tho fast to die, with very immersive combat system, CW became just easy to die withouth any dynamic class. In order to control mobs you have to just stand there, next to mobs, render them frozen and wait for ticks to kill the mobs. It is borring. It is no fun at all. You can't even use teleport because you will loose window of opportunity to cast your spells because of doubled the casting time. Shield skill that used to provide some protection now is practicly unavalible because of slot limit so you die even faster if there are mobs that resist CC. Even the PVP OP factor that allows perma freeze is no fun. Right click fight with occasional Entangeling Force for more CC. In PVP it feels like you are cheating, in PVE you feel like you are a ****. I didn't start fresh character for the tests only, but I believe that now getting lvl 60 would be a torment.
Suggestion - plz provide Class Change Tokens if the changes take place.
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enorezMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 6Arc User
edited June 2014
First, sry for my poor english xD
After tested those new changes in preview shard, my toon lost about 50%~75% dmg compare to the live.
(just my feeling in DR/IWD, but the others dummy test says 2/3, my test proved this)
So TBH do u guys mean this tweak is fine?
Compare to the less boost that we can get from gears/pets/enchantments.
I think 10% DPS lost is already a painful nerf to an aoe DPS class and now is half more? my god...
Lets say stacking CW is the level design issue, not the class.
WHY we must be punished for overgeared due to lazy devs dont give us more high-end content?
The PvE meta is DPS-based, all mobs MUST be killed before we goto next stage.
Neither we can avoid them, nor shortcut or deadly trap that can be used to wipe all trash mobs in the room and only left elite.
So we have to fight, right? we need tons of dmg to kill them, right?
If the survivability is not a great problem with overgeared team, more dmg always leads to fast and smooth run.
pug farmer always prefer fast run, thats why they always looking for aoe DPS class.
Gear score request of T2 is 8K, PUGs request 14~16K, almost doubled, think about it plz.
CW used to be a boring singbot, ppl dont care about CWs DPS/GS cuz sing is everything, then devs fixed it and let it be a DPS class.
HOWEVER now it seems CW tend to be a control bot AGAIN, just stay live and keep spamming control powers,
and let the other low/single target dps class kill those trash mobs one by one,
take an hour or even more to finish a boring dun, IMO its nothin but waste our precious time.
Finally, IF U REALLY WANT THESE CHANGES HIT LIVE,
then tell me whats the difference between a well-geared and bad-geared CW now?
Does current game mechanics allow CW's control ability scale with our weapon dmg/power stats?
Lack of dmg wont give us anything if the team disband cuz spent too much time on a dumb run.
It only let some underwater problem come up, so will devs redesign all those existed dungeons?
I hope devs can do a wise & fair decision, remember we do spent incredible time or money or both in this game, dont let it to be a totally waste.
BTW, I have six toons, one each class, usually play with my guildies and legit community,
what I care about is raise my toon, enjoy the rewards - be much stronger then before, and can face some NEW challenge.
If split my score to other teammates can stop someone cry, then do it, I dont care I am the top one of the chart or not. (because in most case im not xD) but plz make my performance meet my effort, thx
The Control Wizard class has always been a glass cannon. These changes are removing the cannon and doing nothing to change the "glass" part. These changes are so over-the-top that if they actually make it to the live server anywhere close to the numbers presented here, I will simply no longer play Control Wizard. Control Wizard is currently my main, with my next closest class being level 30. I'd much rather start over from scratch with a different class than play my main with these changes, assuming I continue to play the game at all. Not sure if that's your goal or not, but that will be the result - a mass exodus from the class. The other classes are just too good to waste any time with the class you've described above.
It's a certainty that the numbers of CWs in pvp will diminish significantly (or simply be cursed by their teammates for soaking up a spot), since high damage and control (already significantly reduced) were the only things keeping CWs showing up in pvp. You're significantly reducing damage (20%+), and significantly increasing cast times (20%+) - can there be any doubt as to the affect this will have on the number of CWs showing up in pvp? Or maybe that's the goal, a money grab to get people to invest in new characters/classes?
The above happened in DDO for me. I spent a lot of time playing an Archmage. A powerful nerf came through targeting the exact build I had. I haven't played the game since, which was probably a good thing because it was time to move on. I don't think I'm alone in not wanting to sink my time into games that will DRASTICALLY alter the viability and playstyle of characters I've invested in. In a way, massive nerfs like this from misguided or greedy game designers are a good thing. They provide a much-needed wake-up call to find a new game to play.
Have you even played on preview over the past couple of days? also the color coding is supposed to be for feedback on the skill changes , not feedback on you not liking the nerfs and threatening to quit ,if you dislike the proposed changes then log onto preview ,play and give feedback on how the changes can be improved or made less harsh .
I feel changing the ICD from Eye of the Storm to 25 is a bit too low, given that it now lasts longer than before, unless the longer duration is also reverted. I would advocate 35-40 seconds.
I will have to fire up preview when this change rolls out and see for myself. It does seem a bit short with the new duration but you never know until you use it in game.
Well I just copied my CW over, respeced to Oppressor MoF (was Thaum MoF originally), and had a wander through IWD and Biggrins Tomb. Man alive - she's a powerhouse. The synergy between the new Oppressor tree and MoF are immense - I spent every fight surrounded by clouds of orange numbers and spawns went down hard.
I did manage to die trying to solo a 3-5 Heroic in Dwarven Valley, but I didn't bother optimising the build or my gear so no real surprise. Stacking a decent amount of lifesteal probably would have saved me (I only run around 5% in my PvP gear).
I'll give the other trees a spin when the bugged feats are fixed, but so far I'm really liking Oppressor.
Though assailing force is not working yet. I would suggest making it proc on aoes. Otherwise i am unsure where this spec would be used unless it was intended to be the pvp spec. Because in PvE it would have no place, (unless it procced alot, then it would be rather OP in pvp)
It's going in the right direction. These feedback threads are complete gold, and to know that the developers do listen is great.
My biggest concern is still the Renegade tree, with NW being reduced from 20% -> 5%. The proc on the ability is so limited now, that it makes the tree considerably weaker. In consideration, I'd think that 10% chance would be a better reduction, and would still keep the Renegade tree relevant in both PvP and PvE.
Not to mention, GFs will grant people CA in M4, TRs gain CA from stealth, and HRs get a perma-CA class feature and not to mention way OP paragon trees so a feeble 5% just isn't fair at all.
. . . Please use the Post Report () system to report incorrectly posted/roc violating posts instead of replying to them. You may review the Rules of Conduct here. Thanks! ~Zeb
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fgmfanhaMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2014
I feel sad about this changes... yes we do a lot of damage ATM but we are a bit of glass canons.. we only have 3 dodges so.. in pve and pvp to be able to survive u have to be able to get bursts of damage to heal yourself...
I felt even more sad when i read the other classes changes... almost none significant...
For the first time this game changes are making me thinking about stop playing it so much.. not because it is a bad game but because you are killing the concept of a CW in D&D and i want to play as a CW...
I read somewhere you guys were bringing back the D&D concept back to the game... i see the exact opposite...
PS.: SOrry if i couldn't be more constructive but is hard to be constructive when devs are so destructive and don't listen to its own community
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
edited June 2014
I doubt I'd be able to even kill simple redcaps without a crit shard, which is just pathetic. Turning it into a harder to use chains of light.....
Honestly I dont think CWs need any big changes. And you help no one by nerfing CWs. Why dont you buff up the other classes instead or add more control-immune mobs (like you already started)?
Such a big nerf will only p++ off many players including myself
EDIT: You not only nerf damage by up to 60% (!!!) but also limit the number of adds to control further.... why? If we are not supposed to do damage (there is still no other caster DPS class in the game btw), why nerf control even more?
They did it for the Guardian Fighter. GF's can now taunt 20 mobs using Enforced Threat. With the combined forces of both the GF and CW, the mobs will be be controlled.
How to fix the CW . . . Create a new HR - move all your good gear to him. HR is the new CW... thanks for playing.
This^.
It is sad how little outcry and awareness the devs and the community have over this new unkillable build. I guess we have to go into module 4 and have people posting on the forums about never being able to kill a well-geared HR and have a whole debacle over it. I just wish the devs could balance it while it is in the test shard but the lack of acknowledgement on this matter is alarming
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reagenlionel1Member, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2014
The problem as I see it is they are trying to balance the classes by scaling down the ones that are doing good, to the levels of the ones thats doing bad. Overall making all the classes just generally not fun to play unless you like a certain playstyle.
Most of these changes they are applying to classes thats making them worse, the most frustrating part is they only require a few simple things and everything is good to go.
CW's only needed a slight damage decrease and spells to obey armor penetration. Where in the hell did anyone ever complain about activation time of spells? Why is that nessecary?
GWF's only needed prones to respect CCresist and tenacity and have some kind of limit to thier threatening rush. (they got an at-will mobile damaging skill to the most mobile class. Who didnt see a problem with that?) All iron vanguard skills should have had an alternate but similar function to the GF's iron vanguard that fits them to begin with. not a carbon copy.
GF's just need a bigger block pool and a damage buff. If it wasnt for thier CC prones, they would deal less damage than a DC. And I never seen threat as a big problem. I dont mind the mark change, but now that just makes things difficult for anyone else that also uses marks to accidentally attract unwanted attention. As I mentioned with GWF's only nerf GF's should get is prones to respect CC resist/tenacity. In addition. Sword Master needed a grand buff in addition Swordmaster skills should work in alternate but similar function to GF's than they do with GWF's. Otherwise there is no actual benefit to even picking this paragon path besides Steel Defense. Everything Swordmaster does, Iron vangaurd does better, without even trying.
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susp3ktMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 38Arc User
edited June 2014
I agree with twilight above. I respecced to primarily oppressor last night and ran through IWD with no problems at all. Yes, the damage was lower but the cc was impressive! I slotted coi on tab, icy terrain, steal time and sudden storm....and used them in that order. Also, evocation and storm spell. I will keep testing, but it seems ok....just a slower drain vs burst kill with shard.
I couldn't find anyone to run CN but will run it with the guild tonight.
But, in my opinion, you can't see it like this. Each power has its advantages and disadvantages. To give you some examples:
Steal Time (not on Spell Mastery):
+ AoE
+ procs High Vizier set (!!!)
+ has a higher chance to proc Eye of the Storm
+ reveals hidden targets (PvP)
+ doesn't add Chill (in case you don't want it for higher damage from Snap Freeze)
- lags out easily, even minor lag can cause it not to activate, but still go on full cooldown
- long activation time (your are vulnerable while activating)
- very easy to dodge (PvP)
- doesn't add Chill (in case you want Chill for higher damage)
Chill Strike (not on Spell Mastery):
+ stuns on impact
+ procs High Vizier set
+ adds Chill (in case you stack chill)
+ single target (PvP)
+ follows a non-dodging target
- easy to dodge
- single target (PvE)
- adds Chill (in case you use Snap Freeze and don't want Chill on your target for higher damage)
- long activation time
Sudden Storm:
+ refreshes Arcane stacks
+ AoE (PvE)
+ relatively high damage
+ doesn't add Chill (in case you don't want it for higher damage from Snap Freeze)
- useless in PvP (red areas are too easy to avoid)
- hard to use/position
- doesn't deal damage to targets affected by Arcane Singularity
- doesn't proc High Vizier
- doesn't add Chill (in case you want Chill for higher damage)
Those are just small examples. In my opinion, it's not right to base the skills off a damage/activation time ratio. And the best example is that you nerfed many pure PvP skills, even though CW is already not viable in PvP. Why would you do that? Not the damage/activation time ratio decides how effective a skill is. The very essence of the skill decides it. You can triple Storm Spell's damage instead of nerfing it; people still won't use it in PvP (purely rhetorical; the nerf itself was a good idea since it's a pure PvE skill). This is not a board game. Based on what I see so far, you completely ignore the practical side of the skills.
Great job! I wanted myself to write something like this but I was too upset. As a top shelf PvE CW, /all R10 + 9 epic companions, changing them regarding dungeon, including the chimera lightfoot thief/, this changes will affects me lot ... really lot.
For CW at PvP, I can't say anything cuz I don't play PvP. Prefer my TR thare.... But for PvE it's a different story.
I see many ppl whining that party with CWs/or mostly CW/ can do any dungeon easy. In my experience can say that party with 5 good GWF can do the same. Last night party of 4 GWF + 1 GF including my new made GWF, without boons, rush at CN like walk in the park. Yes, its easier with 5 CW, cuz you don't need communication and synchronization, only control + dps.
For VT and MC - I played there with all kind of parties and if members are well geared, and skilled, it's same - walk in the park.
For other dungeons - they are outdated!
So what is the problem with CW?! Too much damage comparing other class?! Too easy to complete all present dungeons?! Easy and enjoyable to play with CW?! So imo it means this character reached it's top, its perfect and it needs more challenging content - new dungeons, new mobs to fight with. Here I will ask - where is the dungeon of IWD?
Not CW should be fixed, but other classes and the content of the game/I have TR and GWF/.
I saw same situation in other games. Ill point Diablo 3 - Devs nerf the Barbarian due to OP and after that they changed totally the game - all new equipment, content, skill calculation and est, with expansion.
In my experience as a gamer/ more than 20 years/ my conclusion is: If Devs have no idea how to fix something, they ruin the only 1-2 good stuff in the game, so everyone to be happy or sad equal!!! No Devs' ideas .... YES, just look the 1 year anniversary event!!! It's total joke!
I'm sure even we give lot of ideas, it will not help, CW will be burned.
Edit: In addition I see GWF nerf is coming up, TR was nerfed constantly/my combat TR was leveled to the ground, only PvP superstealth remains/, I saw some nerfs at HR, GF was left in oblivion, so at the end DC will be top dps class! Oooh i forgot DC will do more dmg that others - nerf immediately.....
Shame on you, the game is one year old and you Devs will ruin something that keeps ppl in the game. You din't even try to polish, fix, or what ever useless skills, feats and est, to provide more valuable builds, but to destroy one or two builds that are enjoyable! Time will judge you, but imo the future party will be 4 GWF and 1 DC to wipe their .... behinds.
CW's only needed a slight damage decrease and spells to obey armor penetration. Where in the hell did anyone ever complain about activation time of spells? Why is that nessecary?
Indeed. It already feels slow on live. COI, Shard, CS... on live they are already so slow that you are on the brink of getting killed in a bunch of strong hitting trashmobs - at least I often receive always a few hits until my spells go off for CCing. Shard is especially slow and tedious when you have some lag. Now this will getting even worse. Not to mention in PvP people can already dodge out of CS because the animation is very slow. I dont even want to think about what will happen if we have even slower casting animations.
For me this all looks as if everything is just not well thought-out. A few other classes could need some improvements instead, there was no need to nerf the CW in any way.
The point is that people with 14k-19k are doing instances which were meant for people with 10k-12k. Boons and artifacts combined with large amounts of adds are the result of the good performance of CWs. And IMO this is how it should be. They could simply create new dungeons and monsters suitable for people geared in this region. Add a few control immune mobs and perhaps reduce the number of adds (see Valindras last fight). And buff other classes sensible.
Suggestions to improve NW:
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
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jediknight16Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 25Arc User
edited June 2014
This is nonsense, nerfing the most fragile class in the game to make it more weak that it is already while letting other classes rule the game and be unkillable ..
You may do the dungeons however you can but you are intended to want to bring various classes. Each class is intended to bring both strengths and weaknesses to the composition and a variety is intended to be desired although not necessarily mandated. So just because you may doesn't mean you are intended to do so.
However as anybody can tell you at this point in time Control Wizard and/or GWF stacking reigns supreme replacing not only the GF but in some cases the DC as well. That is not intended.
If you can do it you may but understand that the goal will always be to make all classes desirable in dungeons.
Hi
I agrre that all the classes must be desired to run with. But how would you manage that ? Which classes ? We can only run the dungeons with a group of 5 people. There are 6 classes and more to come.
How do you think we will choose which classes to bring to a dungeon ?
Will we have some dungeons we do with a group of 5 specific classes, others with other classes, etc ?
Will we be cast out of certain dungeons because we are not welcome as a TR/DC/CW/GF/GWF/HR for this dungeon ?
Or are we going to see a possibility to have more than 5 toons in a group with the rule that there can be only one of a specific class ?
How do you think the HE in Icewind Dale will be dealt with ? I didn't see many people playing GF in IWD (not mine as will have to respec him). My CW dies a lot there even now. How will it be after mod 4 ? Do you think people will start playing their GF after months of "parking" them, after levelling other chars because being more fun/useful ?
I surely hope so, but give us the possibility to choose the number of players in a dungeon, lock the number of chars of a given class in the group. And change the queuing in the game. Let us see the groups being created. Let us do the dungeons with a team made with chars of each class. Scale the dungeon acordingly if you want.
Just don't nerf for the just nerfing without changing the the way pve is dealt with actually.
Anyway thanks for the game. I hope I will play it for long in the future.
My friends and guildies I will test our toons in preview in 2/3 weeks, after some cleaning has been done, so I will not discuss the changes in the classes. I just hope we will be able to play a toon that we like to play and not be forced to change everything just because our CWs are useless with the actual build.
Thanks and sorry for my english.
Best regards.
Just don't destroy all the fun/feeling we have playing our toons.
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lukejones77Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 282Arc User
edited June 2014
Uploaded my SpellStorm Thau to the Preview Shard (GS 17.2K, Power 8.2K), and got limited confirmation that what I saw on paper plays out in tests. I ran a comparison between the Live & Preview Shards, using the Dread Ring/Arsenal area. I frequently gathered multiple mobs where I could, to simulate the larger dungeon mobs that are the specialty of the CW.
Admittedly I didn't feat respec to adjust to changes, but it seems clear enough that it wouldn't help. I run the standard best build/rotation for a DPS Thau.
I use the standard Thau DPS approach of Vorpal/EotS, and as expected, the crits are way down, further nerfing the final damage to the already nerfed base damage.
It's clear on paper that we're been herded towards MoF/Oppressor, and frankly from what I'm seeing, if that doesn't work for you - go play something else.
The talk I'm hearing about a module 4 CW being viable has absolutely nothing to do with Thaus or Renegades. Whilst I completely agree that some nerfing was needed (opposite for PvP!!!), I never anticipated anything as destructive as this.
My average hit per dmg is massively nerfed across the board as follows (Steal time gained 1%, Sudden Storm down to 45%, Shardplosion down to 23%!!!!, Shard Slam down to 41%, Magic missile up 1%, Conduit of Ice down to 52%). I did generic testing across almost all powers, with similar results - but this is the gold standard for Thau DPS.
Note this is just the individual per hit loss, the overall dmg nerf is higher on mobs where the number of affected targets is lowered. Further, the DPS is reduced again on top of those factors, due to the greater cool downs of the powers (with nice exceptions for CoI and Steal Time).
Taking the Sing targets from 15 down to 8 applies an additional 47% reduction to the already nerfed individual dmg. This power is one of the reasons CWs get invited to party, and I notice GWFs in particular get demanding about having this done for them. Everything else seems to be about the GWF, so is it possible this has been done to match their own AOE target limit
Putting damage mostly aside, here's the ridiculousness of the modified class at it's "shining best":
The top tier power (lev 60) powers and class features are:
- Maelstrom of Chaos: ignored by everyone and not slotted. We used to keep 1 rank for Valindra in MC 3/3, but that got nerfed.
- Eye of the Storm: Pretty much nerfed by the cool down. Cant see anyone who knows what they're doing persisting with this
- Shard/Avalanche: Re-check the dmg nerf above (explosion down to 20% of original!!!). Can't see a case for this.
Soooo... The top tier for the SpellStorm is now nerfed to the point of being unslottable. Very, very strange class design.
How about the top tier of Feats in the Thau tree?
- The nice Assailing Force debuff for the party from CoI is now gone. We're down 5% for a single target. It's highly possible that you're better off spending that point else where.
- Transcended Master is basically a 30% and 50% dmg nerf.
- Elemental Empowerment - for cold you trade a (max) 30% weapon dmg for a 15% chance at 85% (translates to ave 12% instead of steady 30%). It's even worse for Arcane powers (translates to ave 7% weap dmg), but you lose the nice debuff you gave the party.
Sooo.... More across the board nerfing, but I'm completely mystified as to why the debuffs we gave *the party* have been taken away. The party always loved it when the Thau rocked up in their HV suit, Greater Plaguefire and debuff feats - giving everyone a nice damage boost.
The clear overall effect here (and hopefully not the intent) is that any reason the party had to invite the Thau is been taken away.
I'm not even going to describe what this means for PvP. I get that single target isn't as nerfed, but the CW is just broken. When the GWF sees you, he catches you very quickly, and he 2 shots you, with you immobilized waiting for the second shot. I won't argue the point, other than to point out right now that there are no CWs in the top 20, and only 8 in the top 200. That's really all you need to know about CW balance in PvP. Yeah, maybe the Oppressor can survive in Module 4 PvP, but this is about what the Thau has to look forward to, as Cryptic are continuing to offer it as a tree.
I can only hope that overall effect here is unintended, and won't be how it goes live.
I guess my recommendation is that if the intent for Thau is to go live as is - everyone will be better off if Cryptic just deletes it instead.
Comments
I do not understand why this change, in my view is a change baseless.
Chill Strike: This power now takes 1.2 seconds to fire (up from 1 second).
Can be dodge, do not understand why increasing activation.
Ray of Enfeeblement: This power now takes 1.5 seconds to fire (up from .9 seconds).
Ray of Enfeeblement: This power has had its recharge time increased to 18 seconds (up from 14).
Ray of Enfeeblement: Allies no longer benefit from this debuff.
CW had its damage lowered, do not understand why leaving this skill as a personal buff. Make it equal GPF, only 1 active.
Arcane Singularity: Activation time increased to 2 seconds (up from 1 second).
Arcane Singularity: Now can affect up to 8 targets (down from 15).
Activation time same the live server and affect 10 targets.
Eye of the Storm: This power now has an internal cooldown of 90 seconds. Base Duration increased to 4 seconds (up from 2). Duration increase per rank increased to 1 (up from .5).
Duration of 15 seconds and lower ICD for 60 seconds.
PS: Fix the paragons, make Opressive tree, control / dps. Thaumaturge tree, dps / (-) control and Renegade tree, dps / (+) control.
(-) less control than renegade tree.
(+) more control than thaumaturge.
No, YOU show ME. We are being productive, providing reasons, stats, videos. PvE is your gig man, show US how these changes crush your class?
Provide productive feedback, no one cares that you don't PvP, just no one cares that I don't PvE. There are TWO major play modes in this game and the classes need to be balanced around BOTH of them.
"I don't care about your PvP" is not helpful....
And so... To get back on topic, this has been explained over and over but let's give it another try:
One of the purposes of these changes to CW is to make stacking several of them in PvE instances less desirable. They did this by taking away some aoe capability. Then, to make up for the loss, they game CW more single target DPS and better control mechanics.
Some of these changes have broken CW in PvP. They need to be adjusted. If you give useful feedback supported by actual testing and then present the evidence for people to see, than things can be adjusted to fix PvP w/o hurting PvE.
But first you have to accept the new Meta. No more CW stacking. Which was the purpose of the changes. Arguing that these changes take away CW stacking is actually just validating that the Devs are on the right track.
The thing about shard in PVP is that it wasn't easy to use sucessfully, and you felt accomplished when you killed someone because it meant you outplayed them. Now CW turned into a autoattack spam monger. It's not fun for them or the ones being permanently CC'd.
#1 Enemy Team PvP Devoted Cleric
Best rapper 2014
Alpha female
So I ran a four man CN in preview yesterday. The party was 2 CW's 1 DC and 1 GF. The run went A LOT slower. But as i was an oppressor, I was able to control the adds very well. The dracolich was a challenge compared to before but we downed it in one try. I'm very happy with the way oppressor is performing in a PVE dungeon run atm.
I feel like I can be the only CW in a rainbow CN run with confidence now as an oppressor(MOF) in preview. Granted, we are all around 15k GS with greater and perfect weapon enchants. I myself have been playing CW since the start of open beta. The GF in my group was keeping a lot of the aggro too. He did complain that his shield had such a small amount of time. And in Ice wind dale, his shield was useless against beholder attacks.
I can see how it is easily overpower in pvp, but I don't pvp and it would be so terrible if they nerfed the usefulness of the new oppressor during the pvp QQ. They should only implement these changes if they can make the skills and feats behave differently in pvp. Ot
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
Thanks, that is very helpful feedback and I think it shows that the changes are doing what they were intended to in PvE. Of course much more tweaking needs to be done to get a good balance between PvE and PvP but, from the sounds of it, they are on the right track.
- for a DC, CWs were OP since forever. Things changed a bit: a CW will take even more time to kill you, but will CC you even better
- for a GF, CWs are more OP now indeed. Oh well. Sorry for you guys. Since nobody will wear HV in PvP however, it should take way longer until you would be dead in a real game with proper geared toons.
- for a HR, a CW is food. Nothing changed.
- for a GWF, CW is food. Nothing changed. Maybe, just maybe CW can win against bad GWFs now.
- for a TR.... see the above 2.
So, I'm asking you.
CW losing vs 3, winning against 2.
Where do we want the CW?!? Losing against each and every class?
Think about it.
GS in this example is pretty irrelevant. But I can see how you might think it would matter so I'll sum up their gear one more time (I have already done this in a few different posts).
The CW had about 1/2 of his gear slotted with rank 9's/10's the other half is empty, and he was wearing High Viz. The GF is nearly full rank 10's (like 3 rank 9's) maxed artifacts, 40k or so HP and full conq.
None of that matters, but there ya go.
Regardless of gear/class/skill this should not be possible for any class to do, under any circumstances period. That is all there is to it, there is not much of an argument here. A 45 second stun lock should NOT happen... EVER! The fact that people are defending it amazes me.
"Oh but CW can't do that to HR's so its ok"--- NO! (and BTW CW CAN do it to HR, Twerk posted a video of him locking an HR for a pretty long time, and he is not exactly top teir.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD1rewZUgTA)
It doesn't matter, the Devs know about it now, and pretty much every reasonable player agrees that this is silly and needs to be fixed.
There is no point in my explaining it any further, if you don't understand why this should not be allowed to happen nothing I say is going to change your mind. But I don't need to change your mind, its going to get fixed so *shrug* sorry you disagree.
The proposed changes are not fun at all. From a interesting and fun to play tho fast to die, with very immersive combat system, CW became just easy to die withouth any dynamic class. In order to control mobs you have to just stand there, next to mobs, render them frozen and wait for ticks to kill the mobs. It is borring. It is no fun at all. You can't even use teleport because you will loose window of opportunity to cast your spells because of doubled the casting time. Shield skill that used to provide some protection now is practicly unavalible because of slot limit so you die even faster if there are mobs that resist CC. Even the PVP OP factor that allows perma freeze is no fun. Right click fight with occasional Entangeling Force for more CC. In PVP it feels like you are cheating, in PVE you feel like you are a ****. I didn't start fresh character for the tests only, but I believe that now getting lvl 60 would be a torment.
Suggestion - plz provide Class Change Tokens if the changes take place.
After tested those new changes in preview shard, my toon lost about 50%~75% dmg compare to the live.
(just my feeling in DR/IWD, but the others dummy test says 2/3, my test proved this)
So TBH do u guys mean this tweak is fine?
Compare to the less boost that we can get from gears/pets/enchantments.
I think 10% DPS lost is already a painful nerf to an aoe DPS class and now is half more? my god...
Lets say stacking CW is the level design issue, not the class.
WHY we must be punished for overgeared due to lazy devs dont give us more high-end content?
The PvE meta is DPS-based, all mobs MUST be killed before we goto next stage.
Neither we can avoid them, nor shortcut or deadly trap that can be used to wipe all trash mobs in the room and only left elite.
So we have to fight, right? we need tons of dmg to kill them, right?
If the survivability is not a great problem with overgeared team, more dmg always leads to fast and smooth run.
pug farmer always prefer fast run, thats why they always looking for aoe DPS class.
Gear score request of T2 is 8K, PUGs request 14~16K, almost doubled, think about it plz.
CW used to be a boring singbot, ppl dont care about CWs DPS/GS cuz sing is everything, then devs fixed it and let it be a DPS class.
HOWEVER now it seems CW tend to be a control bot AGAIN, just stay live and keep spamming control powers,
and let the other low/single target dps class kill those trash mobs one by one,
take an hour or even more to finish a boring dun, IMO its nothin but waste our precious time.
Finally, IF U REALLY WANT THESE CHANGES HIT LIVE,
then tell me whats the difference between a well-geared and bad-geared CW now?
Does current game mechanics allow CW's control ability scale with our weapon dmg/power stats?
Lack of dmg wont give us anything if the team disband cuz spent too much time on a dumb run.
It only let some underwater problem come up, so will devs redesign all those existed dungeons?
I hope devs can do a wise & fair decision, remember we do spent incredible time or money or both in this game, dont let it to be a totally waste.
BTW, I have six toons, one each class, usually play with my guildies and legit community,
what I care about is raise my toon, enjoy the rewards - be much stronger then before, and can face some NEW challenge.
If split my score to other teammates can stop someone cry, then do it, I dont care I am the top one of the chart or not. (because in most case im not xD) but plz make my performance meet my effort, thx
It's a certainty that the numbers of CWs in pvp will diminish significantly (or simply be cursed by their teammates for soaking up a spot), since high damage and control (already significantly reduced) were the only things keeping CWs showing up in pvp. You're significantly reducing damage (20%+), and significantly increasing cast times (20%+) - can there be any doubt as to the affect this will have on the number of CWs showing up in pvp? Or maybe that's the goal, a money grab to get people to invest in new characters/classes?
The above happened in DDO for me. I spent a lot of time playing an Archmage. A powerful nerf came through targeting the exact build I had. I haven't played the game since, which was probably a good thing because it was time to move on. I don't think I'm alone in not wanting to sink my time into games that will DRASTICALLY alter the viability and playstyle of characters I've invested in. In a way, massive nerfs like this from misguided or greedy game designers are a good thing. They provide a much-needed wake-up call to find a new game to play.
Have you even played on preview over the past couple of days? also the color coding is supposed to be for feedback on the skill changes , not feedback on you not liking the nerfs and threatening to quit ,if you dislike the proposed changes then log onto preview ,play and give feedback on how the changes can be improved or made less harsh .
I will have to fire up preview when this change rolls out and see for myself. It does seem a bit short with the new duration but you never know until you use it in game.
I often wonder if this is to push CWs to use it in PvP to counter permas. With this buff, as it is written, it should cause them hell.
I did manage to die trying to solo a 3-5 Heroic in Dwarven Valley, but I didn't bother optimising the build or my gear so no real surprise. Stacking a decent amount of lifesteal probably would have saved me (I only run around 5% in my PvP gear).
I'll give the other trees a spin when the bugged feats are fixed, but so far I'm really liking Oppressor.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Not to mention, GFs will grant people CA in M4, TRs gain CA from stealth, and HRs get a perma-CA class feature and not to mention way OP paragon trees so a feeble 5% just isn't fair at all.
I felt even more sad when i read the other classes changes... almost none significant...
For the first time this game changes are making me thinking about stop playing it so much.. not because it is a bad game but because you are killing the concept of a CW in D&D and i want to play as a CW...
I read somewhere you guys were bringing back the D&D concept back to the game... i see the exact opposite...
PS.: SOrry if i couldn't be more constructive but is hard to be constructive when devs are so destructive and don't listen to its own community
Create a new HR - move all your good gear to him.
HR is the new CW... thanks for playing.
They did it for the Guardian Fighter. GF's can now taunt 20 mobs using Enforced Threat. With the combined forces of both the GF and CW, the mobs will be be controlled.
This^.
It is sad how little outcry and awareness the devs and the community have over this new unkillable build. I guess we have to go into module 4 and have people posting on the forums about never being able to kill a well-geared HR and have a whole debacle over it. I just wish the devs could balance it while it is in the test shard but the lack of acknowledgement on this matter is alarming
Most of these changes they are applying to classes thats making them worse, the most frustrating part is they only require a few simple things and everything is good to go.
CW's only needed a slight damage decrease and spells to obey armor penetration. Where in the hell did anyone ever complain about activation time of spells? Why is that nessecary?
GWF's only needed prones to respect CCresist and tenacity and have some kind of limit to thier threatening rush. (they got an at-will mobile damaging skill to the most mobile class. Who didnt see a problem with that?) All iron vanguard skills should have had an alternate but similar function to the GF's iron vanguard that fits them to begin with. not a carbon copy.
GF's just need a bigger block pool and a damage buff. If it wasnt for thier CC prones, they would deal less damage than a DC. And I never seen threat as a big problem. I dont mind the mark change, but now that just makes things difficult for anyone else that also uses marks to accidentally attract unwanted attention. As I mentioned with GWF's only nerf GF's should get is prones to respect CC resist/tenacity. In addition. Sword Master needed a grand buff in addition Swordmaster skills should work in alternate but similar function to GF's than they do with GWF's. Otherwise there is no actual benefit to even picking this paragon path besides Steel Defense. Everything Swordmaster does, Iron vangaurd does better, without even trying.
I couldn't find anyone to run CN but will run it with the guild tonight.
A different play style, but all is not lost...
Great job! I wanted myself to write something like this but I was too upset. As a top shelf PvE CW, /all R10 + 9 epic companions, changing them regarding dungeon, including the chimera lightfoot thief/, this changes will affects me lot ... really lot.
For CW at PvP, I can't say anything cuz I don't play PvP. Prefer my TR thare.... But for PvE it's a different story.
I see many ppl whining that party with CWs/or mostly CW/ can do any dungeon easy. In my experience can say that party with 5 good GWF can do the same. Last night party of 4 GWF + 1 GF including my new made GWF, without boons, rush at CN like walk in the park. Yes, its easier with 5 CW, cuz you don't need communication and synchronization, only control + dps.
For VT and MC - I played there with all kind of parties and if members are well geared, and skilled, it's same - walk in the park.
For other dungeons - they are outdated!
So what is the problem with CW?! Too much damage comparing other class?! Too easy to complete all present dungeons?! Easy and enjoyable to play with CW?! So imo it means this character reached it's top, its perfect and it needs more challenging content - new dungeons, new mobs to fight with. Here I will ask - where is the dungeon of IWD?
Not CW should be fixed, but other classes and the content of the game/I have TR and GWF/.
I saw same situation in other games. Ill point Diablo 3 - Devs nerf the Barbarian due to OP and after that they changed totally the game - all new equipment, content, skill calculation and est, with expansion.
In my experience as a gamer/ more than 20 years/ my conclusion is: If Devs have no idea how to fix something, they ruin the only 1-2 good stuff in the game, so everyone to be happy or sad equal!!! No Devs' ideas .... YES, just look the 1 year anniversary event!!! It's total joke!
I'm sure even we give lot of ideas, it will not help, CW will be burned.
Edit: In addition I see GWF nerf is coming up, TR was nerfed constantly/my combat TR was leveled to the ground, only PvP superstealth remains/, I saw some nerfs at HR, GF was left in oblivion, so at the end DC will be top dps class! Oooh i forgot DC will do more dmg that others - nerf immediately.....
Shame on you, the game is one year old and you Devs will ruin something that keeps ppl in the game. You din't even try to polish, fix, or what ever useless skills, feats and est, to provide more valuable builds, but to destroy one or two builds that are enjoyable! Time will judge you, but imo the future party will be 4 GWF and 1 DC to wipe their .... behinds.
For me this all looks as if everything is just not well thought-out. A few other classes could need some improvements instead, there was no need to nerf the CW in any way.
The point is that people with 14k-19k are doing instances which were meant for people with 10k-12k. Boons and artifacts combined with large amounts of adds are the result of the good performance of CWs. And IMO this is how it should be. They could simply create new dungeons and monsters suitable for people geared in this region. Add a few control immune mobs and perhaps reduce the number of adds (see Valindras last fight). And buff other classes sensible.
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
Hi
I agrre that all the classes must be desired to run with. But how would you manage that ? Which classes ? We can only run the dungeons with a group of 5 people. There are 6 classes and more to come.
How do you think we will choose which classes to bring to a dungeon ?
Will we have some dungeons we do with a group of 5 specific classes, others with other classes, etc ?
Will we be cast out of certain dungeons because we are not welcome as a TR/DC/CW/GF/GWF/HR for this dungeon ?
Or are we going to see a possibility to have more than 5 toons in a group with the rule that there can be only one of a specific class ?
How do you think the HE in Icewind Dale will be dealt with ? I didn't see many people playing GF in IWD (not mine as will have to respec him). My CW dies a lot there even now. How will it be after mod 4 ? Do you think people will start playing their GF after months of "parking" them, after levelling other chars because being more fun/useful ?
I surely hope so, but give us the possibility to choose the number of players in a dungeon, lock the number of chars of a given class in the group. And change the queuing in the game. Let us see the groups being created. Let us do the dungeons with a team made with chars of each class. Scale the dungeon acordingly if you want.
Just don't nerf for the just nerfing without changing the the way pve is dealt with actually.
Anyway thanks for the game. I hope I will play it for long in the future.
My friends and guildies I will test our toons in preview in 2/3 weeks, after some cleaning has been done, so I will not discuss the changes in the classes. I just hope we will be able to play a toon that we like to play and not be forced to change everything just because our CWs are useless with the actual build.
Thanks and sorry for my english.
Best regards.
Just don't destroy all the fun/feeling we have playing our toons.
Admittedly I didn't feat respec to adjust to changes, but it seems clear enough that it wouldn't help. I run the standard best build/rotation for a DPS Thau.
I use the standard Thau DPS approach of Vorpal/EotS, and as expected, the crits are way down, further nerfing the final damage to the already nerfed base damage.
It's clear on paper that we're been herded towards MoF/Oppressor, and frankly from what I'm seeing, if that doesn't work for you - go play something else.
The talk I'm hearing about a module 4 CW being viable has absolutely nothing to do with Thaus or Renegades. Whilst I completely agree that some nerfing was needed (opposite for PvP!!!), I never anticipated anything as destructive as this.
My average hit per dmg is massively nerfed across the board as follows (Steal time gained 1%, Sudden Storm down to 45%, Shardplosion down to 23%!!!!, Shard Slam down to 41%, Magic missile up 1%, Conduit of Ice down to 52%). I did generic testing across almost all powers, with similar results - but this is the gold standard for Thau DPS.
Note this is just the individual per hit loss, the overall dmg nerf is higher on mobs where the number of affected targets is lowered. Further, the DPS is reduced again on top of those factors, due to the greater cool downs of the powers (with nice exceptions for CoI and Steal Time).
Taking the Sing targets from 15 down to 8 applies an additional 47% reduction to the already nerfed individual dmg. This power is one of the reasons CWs get invited to party, and I notice GWFs in particular get demanding about having this done for them. Everything else seems to be about the GWF, so is it possible this has been done to match their own AOE target limit
Putting damage mostly aside, here's the ridiculousness of the modified class at it's "shining best":
The top tier power (lev 60) powers and class features are:
- Maelstrom of Chaos: ignored by everyone and not slotted. We used to keep 1 rank for Valindra in MC 3/3, but that got nerfed.
- Eye of the Storm: Pretty much nerfed by the cool down. Cant see anyone who knows what they're doing persisting with this
- Shard/Avalanche: Re-check the dmg nerf above (explosion down to 20% of original!!!). Can't see a case for this.
Soooo... The top tier for the SpellStorm is now nerfed to the point of being unslottable. Very, very strange class design.
How about the top tier of Feats in the Thau tree?
- The nice Assailing Force debuff for the party from CoI is now gone. We're down 5% for a single target. It's highly possible that you're better off spending that point else where.
- Transcended Master is basically a 30% and 50% dmg nerf.
- Elemental Empowerment - for cold you trade a (max) 30% weapon dmg for a 15% chance at 85% (translates to ave 12% instead of steady 30%). It's even worse for Arcane powers (translates to ave 7% weap dmg), but you lose the nice debuff you gave the party.
Sooo.... More across the board nerfing, but I'm completely mystified as to why the debuffs we gave *the party* have been taken away. The party always loved it when the Thau rocked up in their HV suit, Greater Plaguefire and debuff feats - giving everyone a nice damage boost.
The clear overall effect here (and hopefully not the intent) is that any reason the party had to invite the Thau is been taken away.
I'm not even going to describe what this means for PvP. I get that single target isn't as nerfed, but the CW is just broken. When the GWF sees you, he catches you very quickly, and he 2 shots you, with you immobilized waiting for the second shot. I won't argue the point, other than to point out right now that there are no CWs in the top 20, and only 8 in the top 200. That's really all you need to know about CW balance in PvP. Yeah, maybe the Oppressor can survive in Module 4 PvP, but this is about what the Thau has to look forward to, as Cryptic are continuing to offer it as a tree.
I can only hope that overall effect here is unintended, and won't be how it goes live.
I guess my recommendation is that if the intent for Thau is to go live as is - everyone will be better off if Cryptic just deletes it instead.
Not to mention there are bugged feats in the Thaum tree at the moment so the class is not WAI right now.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder