Fall 2021 Balance Adjustment Megathread

[Skane]

All of the changes seem fine to me; only thing I might be worried about is the lower con requirement for barb and lower requirements for rage allowing for more broken multi-classing.

[garrbear758]

All of the changes seem fine to me; only thing I might be worried about is the lower con requirement for barb and lower requirements for rage allowing for more broken multi-classing.

We're keeping an eye on barb and hexblade, neither of which made the cut this time around. Barb will likely lose the 4 dodge AC if we make any changes to it. Hexblade definitely needs some adjustments but we aren't sure what they will be yet.

[Arienette]

Allow monks to go fast outside of combat like ranger speed.

[The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie]

What was the reasoning behind the decision to change the scaling of Monk Speed down to 10%, the same as a Barbarian? The introduction of the Sprint feat merely makes a monk player now click a button to move at almost the same pace for less time as any sort of Monk will not have nearly enough Con mod to have a persistent uptime outside of EKD Monks.

And if Sprint was a way for classes to have an equal playing field for these monks in general, why not just leave their speed untouched? Do not give them access to the feat, and keep it where it was. Monk speed should be as is because that is a core component of their class' identity. Sure, a monk is faster than most classes, but that's because it should be.

[Imperatrix]

A mix of changes, some of which I frankly find a little bizarre. My take away:

>Adding a free speed boost when it's already impossible to kill anyone who just wants to press W in the other direction seems weird. At least they had to drink a haste potion before transition-lensing before. I'd be curious to get some insight into the design decision here?

>Weapon Master continues to be the non-meta class everyone thinks is meta for some reason (followed closely by bcleric). I was happy that weapon masters had build options beyond dipping 5 or 7 levels. I only want them around for making dungeons easy anyway.
(This is a joke. They're good, just not game breaking, and I thought the level 10 feat was a good addition.)

>Nerfed whips instead of just nerfing the variable and loot whips?

>Drow become the only one of several playable light sensitive races that actually cares about light for some reason? Will other races be following or do we just hate drow players? I totally understand if that's the case. We all do.

>Div rogues are on suicide watch. fighter/assassin/bg was the only remaining good div rogue build anyway.

>Long awaited monk speed nerf :D

>Long awaited minotaur nerf :D

>Long awaited svirfneblin nerf :D

[Red_Wharf]

>Drow become the only one of several playable light sensitive races that actually cares about light for some reason? Will other races be following or do we just hate drow players? I totally understand if that's the case. We all do.

From the Derro and Vampire wiki pages, respectively:

Special: Vulnerability to Sunlight: Become more vulnerable to damage every hour within sunlight. Vulnerability decreases every hour when not in sunlight

Sunlight: Vampires that are exposed to sunlight will rapidly die. Every round they spend in the sunlight they will gain an increasing stack of negative regeneration until they hide in the darkness. Artificial darkness (as created by the spell), serves as temporary cover

[Eyeliner]

Not complaining about drow light sensitivity, it makes sense and I won't ever play one anyway so what do I care... But I do have to say with the time slowdown days and nights just last too darn long to work around if you're not one of those people fortunate/unfortunate enough to be on the server 24 hours a day.

[I will never sleep]

I agree strongly with Imperatrix's entire post.

The bless back and forth change I also find really bizarre. What's the rationale for changing it and then reverting it and then reverting it again?

Sprint seems to me a solely QoL thing which I appreciate, but then the duration running off HARD con mod is way too short to be used for virtually anything other than running to the bank. Not even running back.

[AstralUniverse]

Monk changes:
-I dont really have much to say about the movement nerf. If you arent using haste in combat you're doing it wrong anyway. Its mostly a QoL nerf, for reasons I dont really understand.
-Evasion moved to lvl 4 means monk dips are really bad now. Again, not sure what the reasoning is behind this change. Monk dip hasnt been that good since ubab was removed from weapons. It was 'okay' for Evasion, and now it isnt even that. Again, not really sure about the reasoning.
-Defensive roll moved 1 level lower, and Ki strike gained scaling with weapons but mostly for an investment of 16 to 19 levels. This makes me think the devs have some sort of 17 monk lvls builds in mind, to qualify for e-dodge and improved ki strike feats. We'll see if it's viable or not. I havent tested.

Barbarian buffed - Good news to some, and terrible news to others.

Weapon Master reverted - I'm biased here. I'm a bit sad about this because I really like the kind of builds deep WM allowed (Now, good luck with feats allocation when trying to pull off swash div wm, for example). But on the other hand, I've seen some disgusting things in game and I can see why this had to happen. These builds might still get some play time since they were just that good.

Divine Champion:
-Wrath nerfed. And probably not enough(?). I dont think Cot is much different and I think we'll be seeing a lot of the same in that regard.
-AB buffed. 20 cot levels with 8 cha get 2 free ab they didnt get before, combine that with +4 from wrath and unchanged damage and we're looking at 3 ab nerf from high 50s down to mid 50s. I... guess it's alright.
-The scaling of ab with base cha seems to be nothing more than a measured love tap to Great Smite builds as far as I can see. Go fighter/pally/20cot with as many great smite feats you can realistically take. Now theoretically your ab shouldnt suck entirely while you enjoy div feats with very high cha mod. I like this buff.

Invisible Blade: Any small QoL buff that doesnt change the power creep of the class too much but makes it more accessible to players to actually play, is a welcomed one really. So I like this one.

Rogue:
-I will refer to the e-dodge/div shield interaction here - I dont think you've nerfed cot enough to justify this nerf. I will admit I do play a div rogue, but I dont think that build has been as stomping for quite a while now (since grenades and other things were nerfed) and this nerf is a bit too much imo. I welcome nerfs to Shadow dancer but this really hurts some generic and quite standard and balanced builds out there, like 25 rogue 5 div (including harper/zhent).
-proficiency in all finesse weapons.. if that's what it is? Do rogue and swash still need exotic prof to use two-sided sword? Not much else to say here.

Weapon changes:
Kama - I can only assume ubab is being decoded out of kama finally if we're buffing it. So great.
No opinion on the others, but I'm glad I'm not a spear user.

Two-hand bonus nerfed: Absolutely fantastic. I've felt for a while now that in the kind of meta we're in, the damage bonuses alone are enough to justify dropping the shield to 2hand for plenty of builds so really appreciate it. While at it, I think we should also buff dual wielding in a similar manner - reduce 1 ab from the penalty and nerf Dual Wield Mastery to +1, so rangers come out the same.

Sprint:
This up front without too much thought seems like a big buff to Mundane characters. We'll see big horcs and gnolls et cetra, sticking to casters at significantly higher movement speed than haste. And, timed correctly, give really huge advantage that has very little to no counters. I'd like to hear the Dev's in depth thought process specifically on this new mechanic. Very curious.

Svirf Nerf: A treat for my eyes, it really is.

Drow actually mechanically enforced to be hurt in the sunlight - Very much needed change.

Minotaur: No more 5 fighter 5 wm 20 cot, with a 2handed weapon + shield. Good ridden. Builds like that are perfect example for why the Sprint mechanic is not balanced by the way.

Cleric and FS nerfed: Needed. And I say this, biased, as a fs player, the ab was too high. Before this change I could reach the +20 ab cap with a damask weapon where as now I can still reach the cap with GMWed weapon but it would cut my damage some, so it makes perfect sense and it also means I can take Heal for qol instead of that Warcry or maybe just keep the Warcry for the damage. what do you guys think? And since Bless is now in rounds, the windup duration remains the same. it's just a flat drop in 2 ab basically. Good change over all.

[Drowboy]

I'm going to agree here that the Dex div change maybe went too far while the cot change didn't go far enough, reigning in high ac, sure, but CoT is still pushing past uncomfortably high for most ac ranges, and now it can stick to you better with sprinting, and isn't as allegedly dead in the water outside of wrath.

[Shadowy Reality]

For Minotaur changes.

Are remakes going to be allowed here since the loss of Spring Attack can break some builds?

[MRFTW]

Invisible Blade is still a late-epic class with no 4th level. You can't take it while levelling unless one of your other classes has tumble.

No 4th level in IB means you can't use it to attain 16 BAB on 3/4 classes

Is IB any good? Not willing to wait 26 levels to find out, especially with -relevel removal now hanging over us like a sword of Damocles.

[Quidix]

I think the changes are fantastic.

Svirf nerf is so, so, long overdue. Love it.

[I will never sleep]

Sprint:
This up front without too much thought seems like a big buff to Mundane characters. We'll see big horcs and gnolls et cetra, sticking to casters at significantly higher movement speed than haste. And, timed correctly, give really huge advantage that has very little to no counters. I'd like to hear the Dev's in depth thought process specifically on this new mechanic. Very curious.

I explicitly asked Garrbear if Sprint went past the 150% movement speed cap and it doesn't.

[-XXX-]

Sprint:
This up front without too much thought seems like a big buff to Mundane characters. We'll see big horcs and gnolls et cetra, sticking to casters at significantly higher movement speed than haste. And, timed correctly, give really huge advantage that has very little to no counters. I'd like to hear the Dev's in depth thought process specifically on this new mechanic. Very curious.

I explicitly asked Garrbear if Sprint went past the 150% movement speed cap and it doesn't.

Does it stack with haste?

[I will never sleep]

Sprint:
This up front without too much thought seems like a big buff to Mundane characters. We'll see big horcs and gnolls et cetra, sticking to casters at significantly higher movement speed than haste. And, timed correctly, give really huge advantage that has very little to no counters. I'd like to hear the Dev's in depth thought process specifically on this new mechanic. Very curious.

I explicitly asked Garrbear if Sprint went past the 150% movement speed cap and it doesn't.

Does it stack with haste?

If you are walking faster than 150%, sprint or no, it's unintended.

[Kenji]

Here's a monk WM build, have some fun:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... =665175241

[Skibbles]

Very happy to see svirfs back to less-obscene levels. For a while the population skyrocketed and it wasn't because players were suddenly interested in all that sweet gnome lore.

Maybe it's finally time for that bug report to RDI, unless it's intended to divide and 'share' that particularly heavy grind spot. It counts as 'Day' there.

Big thanks to the cover change (or fix?) I actually thought it worked this way already and spent some time wondering what I was doing wrong. Now I know!

[Ork]

Good change. There's just odd scaling with CoT being tied to hard CON that doesn't make a lot of intuitive sense.

[Complex]

Barbarian getting multiple buffs (Sprint included) is weird, considering how they were incredibly powerful already. I understand that the change was to allow for smaller races to be able to be Babarians, but this also changes things for everyone else, giving the class an even better stat distribution.

Also, Div Dex got killed instead of nerfed. You make a huge investment not only in stats, but also in gear, so halving the AC and the duration just makes having both Divine Shield and Epic Dodge pointless. With a Charisma mod of 8, you only get 4 ac for 24 seconds, which is very little AC for very little time. It would have been good if the duration was kept whole. Otherwise, remakes should be offered.

The skill disparity between Barbarian and Div Dex should be taken into account. One class revolves around pressing a single button that stuns, fears, cleanses, gives you AB, movement speed, boosts your defenses, and keeps you at around 1000 HP plus DR/DI to maneuver with, while the other must time its cooldowns and play around with high AC but less than half the HP. The investment and ability required to play them is a major difference.

Cleric and Paladin receiving nerfs surprises me. Would it not have been possible to keep Bless as Turns/Level from Spellbook, and cap the consumables from stacking? Classes that need to wind up for their 53-54 AB really suffer when they lose either 1 AB or have to invest another round to get it back.

[a shrouded figure]

Generally speaking these all seem appropriate. I am fairly terrified of the upcoming hex whooping stick as I main one, and am well aware of why it needs to be toned down… lol.

I was a bit surprised to see the 2h weapon knock, it really felt like most people use shields anymore but maybe I don’t get out enough lol.

[AstralUniverse]

Also, Div Dex got killed instead of nerfed.

The thing is, div dex wasnt killed. Div Rogue and Div SD were killed, specifically.

Most powerful div dexer builds have like 10-12 swash levels. They dont reach epic dodge anyway (except a very specific one build only allowed with zhent/harper). This nerf really just screwed the deep rogue and SD builds, which I can understand for the SD but not for the Rogue. If you want to nerf SD - just do something about that obnoxious HiPS instead of nerfing Rogue which has been quite balanced properly for a while now. This change is really beyond my understanding and I'd stretch and say it even annoys me a little, at least until I understand the reasoning. I feel like it was a collective punishment to the entire classroom because of one or two problematic kids.

[Complex]

Those two builds were not the most powerful Div Dexers, nor was it anything with Swashbuckler levels. Even then, halving both AC and duration is excessive in any situation. At least the duration should have remained whole for action economy. They had already addressed that factor with the Blinding Speed nerf.

[Memes at its finest]

Here's a monk WM build, have some fun:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... =665175241

Hey man, this is the feedback forum, not the bad build forum. Incase you wanted the BBF, here you go http://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Character_Builds

[Curve]

I think Complex has the right of it concerning the E-Dodge and Divine Shield change. It's a giant nerf. I think either the amount of AC or the duration should have been changed and not both. Nerfing the amount of AC over duration would be best if for nothing more than the annoyance of having to split up the cooldowns. That seems to subtract fun in favor of complication.