Speculation on upcoming Balance Pass

[Marshal_Lannes]

is entirely unfounded speculation on your part

Completely disagree.

Removing was mostly agreed by everyone to be a very good thing at this time because it frees slots at the same time other augments were buffed to more than cover the loss.

A handful of power gamers agreed because it freed up slots so they get more power. Most players have experienced a minor DC increase when you factor in the need to get specialized equipment, the nerf of GH augments, and the new anti-requisite to spell focus, plus the almost certain increase in mob saves coming or already here by Wednesday. It doesn't matter now; what's done is done, but I don't think anyone is selling this as if the DC barrier has been lowered for average-geared players, which this was presumably supposed to help.

Very likely.

Obviously that's what is going to happen.

 

[Bjond]

I don't think anyone is selling this as if the DC barrier has been lowered for average-geared players, which this was presumably supposed to help

I think we applauded because we thought it was aimed helping casters right now.

Then it released. Oh. So, DCs don't go up now, it's farmed from the new expansion.

Yeah, the folk so frustrated and downtrodden that they're about to quit definitely look ripe for a good old-fashioned shard-gouging.

 

[Krishna Devi]

On balance I got +1DC only from u80 gear, and some freed up augment slots. I got an additional +1DC from slotting a new raid augment.

However, with u81 I gain +2DC from the change to epic spell focus, and +3DC from legendary spell focus at level 36. Both of those feats are available to new players. They're not gated behind past lives or reaper points, etc.

So I think +7 DC total from u80/81 is a fairly strong buff for all players, new and old, without any change of gear, and without any reliance on pl or rxp - just by taking the upgraded DC feat line.

It's a fair and reasonable boost available to most casters isn't it?

 

[Marshal_Lannes]

I'm going to toss the 1 DC from a raid augment because most casuals don't raid. There is a 3 feat tax to get to Legendary Spell Focus. Have you gamed with casual players? They don't understand feats or are overwhelmed by the options, and much of the pathing is Byzantine, requiring minute meta knowledge. How many casuals are ever even going to qualify for Legendary Spell Focus? There are innumerable ways to have increased spell DCs without creating all these hoops. Like, I don't know, just making Spell Focus +3 DCs. But what do I know?

Compare that to Strength in Arms, which every melee will now take, and the gains far outweigh these DC "buffs".

 

[Lazuli]

I think we applauded because we thought it was aimed helping casters right now.

Then it released. Oh. So, DCs don't go up now, it's farmed from the new expansion.

Yeah, the folk so frustrated and downtrodden that they're about to quit definitely look ripe for a good old-fashioned shard-gouging.

Basically, yes. Freeing up those augment slots would have been good if the alternative they gave us wasn't worse: an even worse Tetris (equipment and insightful school) with only new gear and no augment help. Frankly, between having all the augment slots hijacked by GH augments and having to squeeze in equipment and insightful values that don't exist in augments, I prefer the GH augments.

Hooray to the devs for making caster gear more complicated. The last thing we didn't need. Well, almost the last thing. The last thing we didn't need was a nerf to our spell DPS.

 

[Lazuli]

Completely disagree.

A handful of power gamers agreed because it freed up slots so they get more power. Most players have experienced a minor DC increase when you factor in the need to get specialized equipment, the nerf of GH augments, and the new anti-requisite to spell focus, plus the almost certain increase in mob saves coming or already here by Wednesday. It doesn't matter now; what's done is done, but I don't think anyone is selling this as if the DC barrier has been lowered for average-geared players, which this was presumably supposed to help.

Obviously that's what is going to happen.

What more power? lol The devs haven't given us casters anything powerful for slotting there. Having more free augments should give us more versatility to add defense augments and such, but since they've complicated caster gear, we're worse off than before. Call it corrupted Wish.

nah, the DC barrier hasn't been lowered, they haven't touched the barriers: DC filigrees, reaper DC bonuses, DC stats difficult to find and fit in the gear, excesive complexity of the caster gear... In fact, they've increased the complexity of the caster gear.