The monk changes are nice, but if you want to shift the meta . . .

[Vertigo]

KotC, HM, DH, DA, DL... really, it's all non-melee trees, right?

I should have clarified. Not one Epic Destiny supports melee imbues. Primal Avatar was kinda groovy there for 15 minutes, but the tree itself doesn´t support melee.

 

[tsotate]

What everyone here is worried about is them throwing all inquis back into the wasteland at cap, just to get rid of the 14/4/4s that might be overperforming right now

That, and them balancing things only for cap. I honestly don't care if something is overpowered at cap, if it's awful to level because none of the power kicks in until high epic. The game is TRing, and SSG reminds me of that every time I make the mistake of parking someone at cap (like my monk-splashed sacfist that caught strays from the monk changes).

 

[Shear-buckler]

Naw. People keep saying stuff like "nerf xbow". They should be posting specific builds and the aspects of them that are overpeforming; because we all know that SSG loves the nuke over the scalpel. It's no different than "nerf caster" or "nerf melee" threads. Details and specifics matter.

We also know that every balance thread is flooded with creative attempts to derail them, so I understand why people are hesitant to put in the time. It is not unreasonable to expect the devs to to their job.

 

[The Narc2]

Nah. You're missing the exact point, which is why it's so hard to learn this meta.

Happiness and enjoyment come from having something meet your expectations.

Playing what you like is a choice. All choices have results, consequences, and/or limitations. More importantly however, all expectations have minimum requirements that need to be met in order to succeed.

To meet expectations, you can either make a choice and adjust your expectations based on the limitations of the choice OR you can set your expectations and make a choice that will enable those expectations.

The meta is setting realistic expectations and making choices that ensure that your expectations are met.

Sounds like exactly what we do in EXTREME MV Permadeath, we have made the choices of setting the restrictions and we have certain expectations on the level of challenge. In general most of the dev changes have little effect on us, but some do.

I personally would happily go back to the old doubleshot restrictions to get rid of the awful slow firing animation of the repeaters which handicaps your toon from all other interactions. I personally would be ok if they just blew up the entire inquisitive tree altogether.

 

[Vox]

The irony of players whinging about alts being useless and at the same time crying about a build that works even with minimal investment

 

[SpartanKiller13]

Don't call for a crossbow nerf

Post a thoughtful and thorough analysis of why those specific crossbow builds are substantially outperforming other non meta builds.

Close the loophole, but don't just nuke the entire playstyle to bring the loophole into balance (as the devs usually do)

Inquisitive as a universal tree shouldn't be strong enough to be extremely strong by itself, allowing for full flexibility of your class and ~40 other enhancement points. It should be a good tree, but should not outperform dedicated class/enhancement splits.

I have less of an issue with RXB (since it takes more class/non-universal enhancement support, although it seems extremely strong post-update. Would like more minor/moderate nerfs compared to Inquis personally.

As a specific nerf IMO fatesinger strike etc should only work with the first hit of multishot attacks (DXB, RXB). There are specific attacks designed to function with multi-attacks, but those are in theory balanced around that. Some builds getting 2-3x as much bonus damage as others doesn't seem intended.

Ok, I'll be specific, remove the dot from Shoot First, as a T3 cleave is balanced to generally only have the cleave ability, or at most a 1d6 stacking dot, like AA's inferno shot.

If that isn't enough, also apply the standard 50% offhand doubleshot penalty to be akin to dual wield other weapon styles.

First shot gets full DS, other shots get reduced doubleshot? Seems plausible to me, and works on both RXB and DXB. Could balance the numbers as needed.

T2/3 cleaves are usually like 120% or something at best, Shoot First is 280-420% and also has a huge DoT. It's wildly stronger than other AoE's available especially at level 3.

 

[Kimbere]

No one is complaining that their meme build is a meme build

People complain when the legit B or A tier build they're enjoying playing gets knocked down to C tier or worse because it caught a stray meant for the S tier cheese build SSG was trying to nerf

What everyone here is worried about is them throwing all inquis back into the wasteland at cap, just to get rid of the 14/4/4s that might be overperforming right now

Sure, this is a valid concern. Guess I need to say it again though - this is SSG we're talking about.

Balanced and fair left the building years ago and isn't coming back anytime soon.

Expecting otherwise at this point is unrealistic and is just setting yourself up for disappointment.

I used to hope SSG wouldn't do exactly what you're worried about, too, but after watching them doing it time and time again over the years, I've given up that hope.

I lowered my expectations to where I fully expect them to completely wreck entire swaths of fun builds just to nerf one single over-performing build or ability. If I choose to play an overpowered meta build (or any build remotely related to one), I do so knowing that I'll enjoy it while it lasts, then switch to something else when they ruin it.

I haven't been disappointed by them since making that adjustment and making my build choices accordingly.

 

[erethizon1]

The problem with that isolationist logic is that the content keeps creeping in power along with the meta, not with your flavor build

"Play what you like" eventually becomes "you can't play this content"

Only if they are designing content around exploit builds. If people want to make super powerful builds that make the game easy, I say we let them. If they then complain the game is too easy, that is their problem. The game doesn't need to be made harder because they went out of their way to make it too easy. The developers don't need to make content to challenge people that design characters solely with the goal of avoiding challenge. If they wanted to be challenged, they wouldn't have designed their characters to avoid it.

 

[erethizon1]

Power creep is a demonstrable problem, and when builds get left behind by meta creep, that's a problem with game design, and not with your expectations of being able to keep playing at a competitive level

I think it's a fair complaint to say don't let the meta keep creeping... Not just telling people "it's ok, you just need to learn to accept you suck now"

If you have to do anything but update your gear to be just as powerful as you were before, that is a design problem. They shouldn't be making the game harder just because some people are trying to play on easy mode with builds that circumvent challenge.

 

[Alternative]

Nerf xbow so every racial comp can go back to the same razorclaw build. What fun.

 

[erethizon1]

No one is complaining that their meme build is a meme build

People complain when the legit B or A tier build they're enjoying playing gets knocked down to C tier or worse because it caught a stray meant for the S tier cheese build SSG was trying to nerf

What everyone here is worried about is them throwing all inquis back into the wasteland at cap, just to get rid of the 14/4/4s that might be overperforming right now

And this is where even so-called surgical nerfs are still a problem. Even if they nerf one specific thing that is overperforming, I bet it is only overperforming when the upper 10% of players are doing it. The bottom 90% of players don't need that ability nerfed at all because it isn't too strong when they do it. A surgical nerf only works when it has no impact on weaker players even if they are playing the exact same class and using the exact same abilities as the overperformers.

 

[Geezer]

I just want a tree using dual phasers. That will end the xbow dominance!

 

[Cildar]

. . . you need to nerf the beejesus out of Crossbows.

In typical SSG cadence we're going on 6+ months with something brokenly over-performing. Time to do it, nerf them from orbit.

So I have run a gnome light repeater pure arti build a few times in the past couple of months. I don't get outrageous numbers at end game. It's an int build and uses endless fusillade. What the heck am I doing wrong? Where is all this out of balance coming from that people talk about? Basically, what did I do wrong to make mine so sub-optimal?

 

[woq]

Meh. A pretty small nerf would do it tbh. Nerfing "the bejeesus" out of them would be excessive. Throwers, monks, shurimonks (when fixed...?), razorclaws, twf builds, swf builds are all doing well. We don't need inquisitors to be deleted. Perhaps a slight trimming could do.

I think Shoot First and other AoE multihitting shots overperform somewhat but autoattacking does not. A large nerf to multishooting weapons' doubleshot could effectively make inquisitors (and repeaters) useless compared to throwers and other damage focused characters except casters cuz honestly buffing casters would be way more important than nerfing inquisitor at this time.

But if we had to balance inquisitors instead of buffing underperforming classes left to rot by the wayside, may I suggest targeting Shoot First and Shoot Later.

Drop RP scaling on Shoot First DOT from 200% to 150%.
Drop Shoot First Increased Damage % from 40% to 30%.
Drop Shoot Later Increased Damage % from 60% to 50%.

Done. Those would still be powerful attacks and Inquisitors would still have value and they would lose little of the fun factor, but their "delete packs instantly" -power would be reduced.

 

[Teh_Troll]

The real meta is to play what you like and stop worrying about what other people are doing.

That's the hardest meta to learn though. Few people ever do.

But true happiness is making others miserable.

Nerf 'em all.

 

[Raedier]

If *let me get on my first life inq with an ML20 random gen crossbow because we don't have enough dps* is a perfectly valid statement to make when swapping off my triple comp caster toon with 3 capped sentient gems and idk how many years investment, then yeah, it should probably get nerfed.

(In legendary r10s btw)

 

[Fisto Mk I]

I vote we nerf the devs!

They already nerfed-from-orbit after LynnQuinn leaving.

 

[Vertigo]

If *let me get on my first life inq with an ML20 random gen crossbow because we don't have enough dps* is a perfectly valid statement to make when swapping off my triple comp caster toon with 3 capped sentient gems and idk how many years investment, then yeah, it should probably get nerfed.

(In legendary r10s btw)

Either your caster is very crap or are you comparing a cc-build with a fresh DPS one?

You won´t be doing magical x-bow damage if your gear is crap and if the build is lacking, as all other classes optimization and stacking is key. That is why you see plenty of Inq and Artis that are not really that superb in PUGS.

 

[Kimbere]

But true happiness is making others miserable.

You'll never be on SSG's level. :LOL:

Look at all the people they've caused to quit the game over the years and yet they're still coming up with new ways to break people (i.e. MD loot).

 

[Teh_Troll]

You'll never be on SSG's level. :LOL:

Challenge accepted!