I don't understand the nerfing paradigm

[Shear-buckler]

-The nerfs were either excessive or targetting builds that didn't need them. Did sonic blast need to be nerfed? Were those low-level bards just REALLY needing to be reigned in?
-Did Arcane Archer need to be nerfed? Because it's literally always been worse than DS
-Favored souls didn't need their class AND nuking spell nerfed at the same time.
-No matter how good Draconic was, nerfing it by more than 70% was WAY too excessive, especially since mages deal 70% less damage at high reaper in the first place.

Agree to disagree I guess.

 

[Lotoc]

-The nerfs were either excessive or targetting builds that didn't need them. Did sonic blast need to be nerfed? Were those low-level bards just REALLY needing to be reigned in?
-Did Arcane Archer need to be nerfed? Because it's literally always been worse than DS
-Favored souls didn't need their class AND nuking spell nerfed at the same time.
-No matter how good Draconic was, nerfing it by more than 70% was WAY too excessive, especially since mages deal 70% less damage at high reaper in the first place.

- Sonic blast was basically the strongest first level spell in the game and a major reason why famine reapers were so dangerous at low levels - because the damage on it has no save (just the daze) and the area was massive, as far as the source material goes it was never an AoE spell and as an AOE CC damage spell it was in a weird position that caster bards felt significantly better than other casters at low levels.
- Arcane archer's imbue getting nerfed is a sad side effect of the imbue pass, every tree that was a core imbue tree before the imbue pass is now weaker than it was before because SSG mistakenly believe d8 spellpower scaling is overpowered while Inquisitive's d10 200% ranged power gets to exist.
- Favored Soul's nerfs and the nerfs to the alignment spells were basically the side effect of SSG trying to make Cleric casters feel worthwhile, the CL bonuses in FVS cores were absurd and while they remained in the game there was simply no way to justify actually playing a cleric nuker, the 4 alignment spells were mistakenly given damage values as if they were single target in 48.4, they were in fact massively out of line as far as fourth level spells go as they were doing 8th level spell damage to the correct alignments and 9th level spell damage to Outsiders. Even with all the nerfs to FVS that came of it FVS is still a significantly better caster than Cleric and domains aren't even close to making up the difference.
- Draconic was simply a massive outlier as far as caster EDs go, if you weren't a draconic element caster there was no reason to exist as spell DPS in epics. Now Magus is in that position and now you basically only really should play cold caster in epics. This is a persistent problem but SSG seem utterly uninterested in letting elements besides cold actually feel good to play at endgame.

 

[Kitte]

Before I opened this thread, I thought to myself: "Self, I bet you a year's salary that this thread is gonna have complaining about inquisitive repeatedly"

Lo and behold.

 

[Jasparius]

I agree. We need more nerfs, not less.

Nerfs and buffs are fine when needed.

There are a few builds/trees which are currently massively OP and a few builds/trees which are UP.

Months ago we were told the plan was to mske minor changes to improve balance. It happened once and since then nothing.

 

[Jasparius]

Before I opened this thread, I thought to myself: "Self, I bet you a year's salary that this thread is gonna have complaining about inquisitive repeatedly"

Lo and behold.

Imagine that. A thread about nerfing has mentions of a ludicrously OP tree.

Well done on such visionary insight.

 

[Kitte]

Ludicrously OP? I've got an inquisitive ... only on 4th life to be fair, and it is legendary geared. And literally all of my guild mates run circles round it as far as damage output goes.

I see a lot of claims that it's terribly OP and yet every time Strim shows off a video of some bad build he has (bad as in people here in the forums and on the discord say it's bad; I'm not enough of a builder to make the judgement myself), that build is outputting better numbers in whatever junk gear he threw together.

Since so many people think that Inquisitive is "ludicrously OP", I'd love a rundown of why. What supports that assertion?

 

[Jasparius]

Ludicrously OP? I've got an inquisitive ... only on 4th life to be fair, and it is legendary geared. And literally all of my guild mates run circles round it as far as damage output goes.

I see a lot of claims that it's terribly OP and yet every time Strim shows off a video of some bad build he has (bad as in people here in the forums and on the discord say it's bad; I'm not enough of a builder to make the judgement myself), that build is outputting better numbers in whatever junk gear he threw together.

Since so many people think that Inquisitive is "ludicrously OP", I'd love a rundown of why. What supports that assertion?

The issue you are likely experiencing is self inflicted.

If you cant get massive numbers of easy damsge/kills with Inq then its likely you'd struggle with rxb, sorc and melee builds with 5 levels of dragonlord.

 

[Kitte]

The issue you are likely experiencing is self inflicted.

If you cant get massive numbers of easy damsge/kills with Inq then its likely you'd struggle with rxb, sorc and melee builds with 5 levels of dragonlord.

I think that depends on what you consider massive numbers. I solo Leg elite on the daily. First number is usually a smidge under 10k, 2nd number exceeds 10k when it's purple.

But my guild mates put out numbers an order of magnitude higher.

I notice that you didn't actually support your assertion that Inquisitive is "ludicrously op" with any explanation or arguments for why, but instead took a pot shot at my personal skill instead.

 

[woq]

Ludicrously OP? I've got an inquisitive ... only on 4th life to be fair, and it is legendary geared. And literally all of my guild mates run circles round it as far as damage output goes.

I see a lot of claims that it's terribly OP and yet every time Strim shows off a video of some bad build he has (bad as in people here in the forums and on the discord say it's bad; I'm not enough of a builder to make the judgement myself), that build is outputting better numbers in whatever junk gear he threw together.

Since so many people think that Inquisitive is "ludicrously OP", I'd love a rundown of why. What supports that assertion?

I could look at what you are doing in discord or something if you need if you want to find out what you could possibly do better. There are enough explanations on how to build one on the forums that you should be able to find.

TLDR: Hunts End, Pluck, Shoot First and the active attacks in Battle Engineer tree in Artificer (as well as some other active attacks: any that say "make a ranged attack" instead of "fire a single shot") are excellent damage abilities with low cooldowns that work obscenely well with both high doubleshot and multihitting abilities. Inquisitor imbue is the best imbue in the game granted you take the upgrade in t5. Archers Focus grants inquisitors a lot of ranged power in longer encounters. Endless Fusilade (or in this case No Holds Barred) is *the best* bursting action boost in the game and the Epic Moment of Shiradi in Inexorable Advance is the best bursting epic moment in the game.

My guess for your performance would be either A) lack of using active attacks on cooldown B) using no holds barred at bad timings C) not having full ranged power / doubleshot investment in gear/filigree or completely lacking filigree in general (Ranged filigree are exceptionally powerful) D) being in wrong epic destinies aka NOT Shiradi / Shadowdancer / Fatesinger (grab t5 shiradi first, then fatesinger pluck and the 50% increase to epic strike damage, then shadowdancer up till +5% doubleshot, then fill with whatever). Use shiradi mantle - sonic for damage, light for cc in quests.

Edit: further... taking the right feats (damage); using a weapon with Legendary Dust (recommended), Legenday Ooze or Legendary Vacuum on it - maximizing the right stats in gear aka Doubleshot > Deadly > Seeker/Deception > Fort bypass > Arti Imbue / Arti Sneak dice - its a combination of a bunch of things and inquisitor makes good use of it all.

Now, there *are* things in the game in the same realm of opness as inquisitor, but inquisitor is something that is relatively easy to pull off and can be applied to most classes in the game.

 

[Jasparius]

I think that depends on what you consider massive numbers. I solo Leg elite on the daily. First number is usually a smidge under 10k, 2nd number exceeds 10k when it's purple.

But my guild mates put out numbers an order of magnitude higher.

I notice that you didn't actually support your assertion that Inquisitive is "ludicrously op" with any explanation or arguments for why, but instead took a pot shot at my personal skill instead.

There would be thousands of posts across many dozens of threads pointing out the issues (or benefits depending on your pov).

Imbue with crazy scaling. AOE will tiny cooldown including a dot which just makes it silly damage. But beyond this, the tree is so powerful for anyone that you can take 17 or 18 levels in a class and get all of those benefits without hurting your ranged damage.

At least dragonlord you need 5 levels. And still need to be somewhat melee based.

 

[Hafeal]

These changes are not always bad but they are also not always good.

No doubt. Devs are human too. They make changes with good intent but sometimes fail, or have poor execution.

Adjusting game balance is always on a teeter totter.

 

[cocopufff]

Arcane archer's imbue getting nerfed is a sad side effect of the imbue pass, every tree that was a core imbue tree before the imbue pass is now weaker than it was before because SSG mistakenly believe d8 spellpower scaling is overpowered while Inquisitive's d10 200% ranged power gets to exist.

Seems like we at least agree here that this nerf was silly.

- Favored Soul's nerfs and the nerfs to the alignment spells were basically the side effect of SSG trying to make Cleric casters feel worthwhile, the CL bonuses in FVS cores were absurd and while they remained in the game there was simply no way to justify actually playing a cleric nuker, the 4 alignment spells were mistakenly given damage values as if they were single target in 48.4, they were in fact massively out of line as far as fourth level spells go as they were doing 8th level spell damage to the correct alignments and 9th level spell damage to Outsiders. Even with all the nerfs to FVS that came of it FVS is still a significantly better caster than Cleric and domains aren't even close to making up the difference.

The alignment spells dealing 1d6+8 is far less out of line when you consider a max caster level of 10. Or even when you compare to Flame Strike, a 5th level spell that does literally double the damage and max caster level of 15. Hell, Fireball/Acid Blast (third level spells) deal the same hit dice with the same max caster level. At the very least, they could've also given these a max caster level buff or something similar so that they're not so pitiful.
And if the goal was to make Clerics feel better, nerfing their main SLA in Divine Disciple was... an approach, certainly. I suppose Clerics would feel better if they finally fixed the buff where power balance actually works.

Draconic was simply a massive outlier as far as caster EDs go, if you weren't a draconic element caster there was no reason to exist as spell DPS in epics. Now Magus is in that position and now you basically only really should play cold caster in epics. This is a persistent problem but SSG seem utterly uninterested in letting elements besides cold actually feel good to play at endgame.

Was it so massive of an outlier that they needed to nerf it 70%? I genuinely think this is overkill.

Magus is problematic because negative energy is desperate for some kind of an immunity strip--there are already so many cold strips (Druids have one, Sorcs have one, now Wild Mage can get one on Eladrin) and so you're basically screwing yourself over if you spec into negative energy which doesn't hit way too many types, so.... just cold.

 

[SpartanKiller13]

The buff to arcane archer is basically that arcane archer is now okay for like a ~10 sp dip, which doesn't feel like a buff to the playstyle at all.

The draconic strike nerf was insane, they cut the damage by like 70% and added a maximum caster level nerf on top of that. It feels similarly to the FVS nerf, where they nerfed one of their main leveling spells and then also nerfed the tree itself. And what gamebreaking problem was found in bards have an early level AOE?

Like, it feels like the effort here isn't to balance, it's to kill.

No, but being able to have 30 dice for Arcane Archer is a buff to the playstyle. Does it make the playstyle top-tier? No. But it's better than the previous amount lol, even back when you could exploit and have all the 1d6 buffs at once.

Oh yeah, Dragonbreath went from miles above everything to pretty underwhelming. I'm pretty sure most people agree it was an overnerf.

The gamebreaking problem was that Bards (well everyone with Sonic Blast, which also features Sorc/Wiz) could just spam it on everything for AoE reliable no-save Sonic damage with some CC that goes against Will saves (generally enemies worst save). For 4 SP. It's kinda like Fireball at home, if Fireball had CC and had no save. Now you have to use Soundburst instead, for 15 SP lol.

Pretty sure if you try Stormsinger you'll find it stronger than Bard pre-Sonic Blast nerf though, possibly aside from levels 1-3 or so (which you can Vet or eat XP rocks for most of). The power creep exceeds the nerf, at least according to everyone I've talked to who played both base Bard and Stormsinger.

If everything is nerfed into the ground to do 1 point of damage and every ability is the same cause "balance", then is that what makes the game more interesting and fun to play?

It's one thing when one build does 80 single-target, another 40 AoE, and a third 30 single-target but as a stacking DoT, and a fourth does 50 but to two enemies/swing, and a fifth does 30/hit but super fast - these are decisions that can be fun and interesting. But when there's another build doing 300 AoE do you consider that a good game balance?

Sure, you can just not play it, and you can squelch everyone who does, and not join every public LFM, and not be able to complete the new content that expects at least 200 as a baseline (since the game is now balanced around the possibility of having 300 AoE). But is that why you're in a MMO?

I don't think so. I think build diversity and some builds performing better AT SOME THINGS over others, which is kinda what D&D was meant to be... Is what makes games fun. Not everyone whining how "this class is overpowered at 'X thing' but I am not".

It's not diversity when some builds are better AT ALL THINGS than other builds. I too can click all the BBcode modifiers, which must make my argument more true.

Why would you play a handaxe thrower when you can play a shuri thrower and just have like 5x the DPS output? With better healing and defenses and party buffs and mobility as well?

People need to get over themselves. I get that balance needs to be a thing, for instance with caster DC and melees not having to deal with that, thus they are 'overperforming COMPARED TO CASTERS' in high reaper right now, but nerfing AN ENTIRE BUILD because it overperforms BETTER THAN OTHER BUILDS is just silly and you are a dog chasing your tail because in a game with builds the entire idea behind that is to have well-performing builds and not-so-well performing ones. THAT'S what makes this game interesting and I dare someone to argue me on this, but I am 100% sure someone will.

Way I see it. Being an MMO enjoyer of 26 years (since EQ 1999), There's basically two types of players in this paradigm. One type wants all builds, classes, abilities to be the same across the board in power, the other does not. Which player are you? (Speaking to the entire community here). There are going to be some outliers who don't fit into this paradigm, but they are going to be a minority compared to the 2 groups/examples.

Balance needs to be enough of a thing that people aren't excluding others purely on the basis of their builds lol. I'd rather run a LN raid than exclude a bunch of low-DPS builds, but I'm not very excited to lead a LN raid "whooo our great victory we sure showed them"

I don't want all builds to be the same in power lol, but I want there to be meaningful choices other than "pick Quick Cutter, it's the best melee strike, the others are all trash". Give me options, make it interesting.

It's fine if one is a bit better this year and another next year - especially so the devs can profit from selling content. It's not fine when it's "oh yeah we don't let DPS casters into raids" which is where a lot of the meta is aiming towards.

 

[Lotoc]

The alignment spells dealing 1d6+8 is far less out of line when you consider a max caster level of 10. Or even when you compare to Flame Strike, a 5th level spell that does literally double the damage and max caster level of 15. Hell, Fireball/Acid Blast (third level spells) deal the same hit dice with the same max caster level. At the very least, they could've also given these a max caster level buff or something similar so that they're not so pitiful.
And if the goal was to make Clerics feel better, nerfing their main SLA in Divine Disciple was... an approach, certainly. I suppose Clerics would feel better if they finally fixed the buff where power balance actually works.

fireball and acid ball are d6+3
the standard spell damage formula is d6+(spell level) aoe or d6+(spell level x2) for single target, 9th level spells break this pattern going to d6+(spell level x2) for aoe or d6+10+(spell level x2) for single target, at least that's the case for acid well, thunderstroke and iceberg (and the t5 Magus SLAs) Divine spells however get a raw deal when it comes to 9th levels, while Tsunami gets to be d6+9 + d6+9 (3.5 average base damage more for a tradeoff of split damage (harder to build for)
Meteor swarm is a little more mathy, 4d3+4 + 4d2+4, so averaging 22 per caster level vs 21.5 for acid well.

Actually meteor swarm should be buffed a little to make up for the split damage.

Though the point here is Holy Smite Etc. were massively out of line for fourth level aoe spells at d6+8 or even 2d6+16 against outsiders, have you ever looked at sunburst? That's an eighth level spell that only does d6+4 per caster level.

 

[5 Other People]

So...DDO has the hamster wheel concept, that is designed to keep players doing stuff, changing builds, past lives, new gear...etc.

Nerfs are just one of the rungs on the hamster wheel....something new comes out, folks flock to try the new thing, then something newer comes out and the flock needs to be pushed onto the next new thing and making old builds lame is a strong motivator...it's just marketing.

 

[The Narc2]

Ludicrously OP? I've got an inquisitive ... only on 4th life to be fair, and it is legendary geared. And literally all of my guild mates run circles round it as far as damage output goes.

I see a lot of claims that it's terribly OP and yet every time Strim shows off a video of some bad build he has (bad as in people here in the forums and on the discord say it's bad; I'm not enough of a builder to make the judgement myself), that build is outputting better numbers in whatever junk gear he threw together.

Since so many people think that Inquisitive is "ludicrously OP", I'd love a rundown of why. What supports that assertion?

The streams you are watching are providing you with poor builds maybe look somewhere else and separate yourself from mediocre/new player advice that comes from the streams you are watching.

 

[1Th13rteen3]

If you nerf the OP ability today, everyone will just to the OP ability of tomorrow

100,000% this!!^^^^

It will happen until like I said every ability, every single point of damage is the same across the board and the only difference in builds is how blond, black, or brown you made your hair during character creation.

5 Other People:

So...DDO has the hamster wheel concept, that is designed to keep players doing stuff, changing builds, past lives, new gear...etc.

AND SPENDING!

 

[1Th13rteen3]

Balance needs to be enough of a thing that people aren't excluding others purely on the basis of their builds lol.

That's so weird that you champion the march of progress with unchecked nerfing of player power, but then again you miss the point where no one seeks out rogues any more for traps because almost everyone can do traps. You mention about one build doing everything better than all others, well let me tell you - I am running a level 1 artificer, 7 blightcaster druid and I can do traps and get evasion/imp evasion with swarm so am I as good as a rogue? Sure I don't get sneak attack die but I coulda swapped out the arti for dark ranger and got it - but I wanted UMD so I favored Arti, and I am glad I did. Can it literally do everything BETTER than all other builds - this is an absurd argument as I don't think there is a single "one build rules them all", like you espouse and if there is, it's highly coveted knowledge within the upper whale echelon of fight club and will never see the light of day here - but I digress. You are kind of all over the place with your talking points and I didnt really read them all. You also white knighted SSG in another thread so I guess you are another one of those apologists, who refuse to even apologise. Whatever - you guys are a dime a dozen and you arent worth the elevated blood pressure, I am way too old for that.

 

[Jasparius]

100,000% this!!^^^^

It will happen until like I said every ability, every single point of damage is the same across the board

That is simply not true. And has never been true. Nor will it ever be true.

If builds are similar in damage most people will choose based on flavour. Some will only care about the very best DPS but they are doing this already.

Doing nothing because its not worth doing unless it can be 100% even just sounds like a copout used by lazy devs designers and producers.

 

[cocopufff]

fireball and acid ball are d6+3
the standard spell damage formula is d6+(spell level) aoe or d6+(spell level x2) for single target, 9th level spells break this pattern going to d6+(spell level x2) for aoe or d6+10+(spell level x2) for single target, at least that's the case for acid well, thunderstroke and iceberg (and the t5 Magus SLAs) Divine spells however get a raw deal when it comes to 9th levels, while Tsunami gets to be d6+9 + d6+9 (3.5 average base damage more for a tradeoff of split damage (harder to build for)
Meteor swarm is a little more mathy, 4d3+4 + 4d2+4, so averaging 22 per caster level vs 21.5 for acid well.

Actually meteor swarm should be buffed a little to make up for the split damage.

Though the point here is Holy Smite Etc. were massively out of line for fourth level aoe spells at d6+8 or even 2d6+16 against outsiders, have you ever looked at sunburst? That's an eighth level spell that only does d6+4 per caster level.

You also have to take into account that all of those spells deal zero damage against things of the incorrect alignment, and again, scaling issues. Most level 4 spells scale up to level 15, not level 10. I'd be fine with the nerfs if they at least extended out the scaling of it.