You will die to SWORD!

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RedGiant
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You will die to SWORD!

Post by RedGiant » Sat Jan 15, 2022 3:52 pm

This thread was prompted by the planned Barbarian Temp hitpoint reduction from 6* barb lvl to 3* barb lvl.

Obviously at 30 levels this was 180 hp: enough to soak 1 IGMS, 1 Falchion WM swipe, or about 2/3rds a Cavalier charge. With the proposed change, none of that really rings true anymore. This was kind of the trade off with Barbarian and there was a niche for, as one player put it, "full-unga" Barbarians: largely pure-class, with crap AC, but impressive soak. With this change, I don't see any real reason to go that route anymore and predict a decline in Barbarian build diversity.


-----BREAK-----

This leads to another thought, which I have voiced overtime, but really seems to be building its own case. We have nerfed or otherwise "brought into line" everything but fantastic weapon damage numbers, hence the title of this OP, "You will die to Sword!" We've cut AC to select classes, consigned spell-related damage reduction to the scrap heap of history (except for Diviners - LOVE IT!!), moved damage shields to the top of the breach list, knee-capped archers (not complaining, kiting IS problematic), and most recently, dramatically cut-back on temporary hitpoints (barb + healer).

However, I think this leaves us in a weird place, where we are back to if you see someone with a Falchion on their shoulder, you know you are about to lose in PvP.
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MissEvelyn
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Re: You will die to SWORD!

Post by MissEvelyn » Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:04 pm

RedGiant wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 3:52 pm
This thread was prompted by the planned Barbarian Temp hitpoint reduction from 6* barb lvl to 3* barb lvl.

Obviously at 30 levels this was 180 hp: enough to soak 1 IGMS, 1 Falchion WM swipe, or about 2/3rds a Cavalier charge. With the proposed change, none of that really rings true anymore. This was kind of the trade off with Barbarian and there was a niche for, as one player put it, "full-unga" Barbarians: largely pure-class, with crap AC, but impressive soak. With this change, I don't see any real reason to go that route anymore and predict a decline in Barbarian build diversity.


-----BREAK-----

This leads to another thought, which I have voiced overtime, but really seems to be building its own case. We have nerfed or otherwise "brought into line" everything but fantastic weapon damage numbers, hence the title of this OP, "You will die to Sword!" We've cut AC to select classes, consigned spell-related damage reduction to the scrap heap of history (except for Diviners - LOVE IT!!), moved damage shields to the top of the breach list, knee-capped archers (not complaining, kiting IS problematic), and most recently, dramatically cut-back on temporary hitpoints (barb + healer).

However, I think this leaves us in a weird place, where we are back to if you see someone with a Falchion on their shoulder, you know you are about to lose in PvP.
The Barbarian along with other classes have been nerfed to accommodate for multi-class combinations that were considered overpowered.

Why we're punishing the pure classes instead of nerfing multi-class combinations is beyond me. It seems to me that the mechanical narrative especially going forward is, dip into multi-classes or suffer greatly.

But of course, I can't presume to speak on behalf of the team 🙂


Dedman1234
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Re: You will die to SWORD!

Post by Dedman1234 » Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:30 pm

As for barbs, I get where the devs were coming from. You could make a barb/wm that deals massive damage and has tons of HP, have the munchkin wield a falchion and you are suddenly playing a point-and-click adventure game where you click on things and they die, without having to worry too much about your own safety.

Still, the change kinda screws over the builds you mentioned. Plenty of barb's bonuses are locked behind a high CON score, so why not do the same for temp HP?

Here is an idea: give it the Mighty Rage treatment.

Instead of making it 3*lvl, make it Hard CON*lvl. Or just require like 18-20 CON to get the old bonus. That way the builds that want to take WMs or other classes now have to juggle their points appropriately. If you want to have a massive str score and enough dex for WM, then your HP is gonna suffer. If you want to enjoy a massive pool of temp HP, you gonna have to give up some AB and dmg, or maybe give up going WM altogether.

Honestly, makes sense both mechanically and thematically. Why should some angry no-CON wannabe berserker be able to take exactly the same amount of swords to the face as a true man of the wilds that dumps Dex and can facetank an angry DM without flinching?

As for the falchion - Yup.
I once tested a two-handed scimmy wild dwarf build on the PGCC and the things I saw... as soon as I saw the falchion pop up with the 18-20 crit, I knew there would be problems. Still, those problems are temporary. I am pretty sure that the falchion will be nerfed.

Look at some older feedback threads. Not too long ago, monks were OP as hell. A few months living in a monk-infested hellscape and they were nerfed. Before that, I think casters were the bane of the server. Now people are complaining about them being underpowered. Remember PMs? They were incredibly strong and now the class is hardly worth taking. I am currently playing a melee character that could wield the falchion, but I am seriously torn on even picking up the exotic prof on them, since I am CERTAIN that falchions will be nerfed to the ground anytime now.

I pretty much avoid following the meta, since it's boring, and always gets nerfed at some point.

AstralUniverse
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Re: You will die to SWORD!

Post by AstralUniverse » Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:58 pm

PCs with Falchion on their shoulders also just lost wands/scrolls of Holy Sword.
This is also after the WM buffs were reverted back to vanilla WM and whirlwind just got nerfed in that it applies -1 apr for the round.
Barb also just got buffed 2 big updates ago when Cot was nerfed, just before the paladin rework in which simultaneously cot was nerfed again. Literally everyone got nerfed in the past 3 updates, except caster paladin.
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Re: You will die to SWORD!

Post by Nintendo Entertainment System » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:20 pm

The real play is to pick up exotic weapon prof for dire maca.

In all seriousness, it's hard to suggest alternate scaling without the developer(s) working on the nerf weighing in with the rationale. I imagine they're juggling spreadsheets when it comes to comparing damage outputs and soak potential, and one can only guess at the exact reasoning unless they explain why something is being done.

That said, my general impression is that recent changes are meant to reign in excesses and edge cases. CoT wrath and passives were nerfed and/or given CHA requirements to reign in high AB builds. WM and WW strike were nerfed to reign in single round deletions. There have even been minor downward adjustments to the performance of Hex Blade and STR Ranger. It appears they have goals in mind when it comes to normalizing how DPS builds perform and the kind of numbers being put out.

So I wouldn't see the barbarian HP change in a vacuum. There's been a number of changes lately tamping down on the damage output of popular melee archetypes.

Wings of Peace
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Re: You will die to SWORD!

Post by Wings of Peace » Sun Jan 16, 2022 7:06 pm

RedGiant wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 3:52 pm
This thread was prompted by the planned Barbarian Temp hitpoint reduction from 6* barb lvl to 3* barb lvl.

Obviously at 30 levels this was 180 hp: enough to soak 1 IGMS, 1 Falchion WM swipe, or about 2/3rds a Cavalier charge. With the proposed change, none of that really rings true anymore. This was kind of the trade off with Barbarian and there was a niche for, as one player put it, "full-unga" Barbarians: largely pure-class, with crap AC, but impressive soak. With this change, I don't see any real reason to go that route anymore and predict a decline in Barbarian build diversity.


-----BREAK-----

This leads to another thought, which I have voiced overtime, but really seems to be building its own case. We have nerfed or otherwise "brought into line" everything but fantastic weapon damage numbers, hence the title of this OP, "You will die to Sword!" We've cut AC to select classes, consigned spell-related damage reduction to the scrap heap of history (except for Diviners - LOVE IT!!), moved damage shields to the top of the breach list, knee-capped archers (not complaining, kiting IS problematic), and most recently, dramatically cut-back on temporary hitpoints (barb + healer).

However, I think this leaves us in a weird place, where we are back to if you see someone with a Falchion on their shoulder, you know you are about to lose in PvP.
Between the temp hp and pray Barbarians could hit almost 1200ehp. I'm really not sure dropping that to somewhere closer to 1100 changes the core viability so much. Especially now that they're so hard to cc.

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