Earthkin Defender: feedback.

[Jencent]

Hello! I want to say something about the rework of Dwarf Defender. After a wave of really good reworks of warlock, SS, pally. Looking at all of those reworks I'm gonna go cry about DD. Why?


- Warlock now has a lot of synergy and a lot of build variations, depend on what path you wanna take.

- Pally as a div even before rework was good enough, now he has become even better. Especially with the autocast of smite.

- SS in general now have a lot of QoL things and interesting variations of weapon/armor charms.

No one of these classes doesn’t have “limitations”. And most of the feats are useful as itself on any level of play. Now let’s take a look at reworked EkD:

D-stance: gives only +1 AB, +2 DODGE AC, +2 Unisaves. And a bit of HP depended on DD level.

And you lose a lot of MS on activation of this feat. Do you remember why monks got nerf? For many reasons, but… MS on PvP means almost everything. Especially for a melee fighter. DD Lore wise is a defender by nature, and an icon of toughness.

So in stance you can be just kited till you die. And if i turn off my stance… 70% of class feats goes to the dump.

Because:
- Iron stance does not work without the stance itself.

- Mounting Resistance doesn't work too.
(It’s already 4 feats from class)

About another feats:
- Aegis is an epic class feat and gives at max 120 HP for 30 sec (+/- 5 rounds). With 4 min CD. TBH… Uptime makes this skill worthless, except in rare cases.

- Safeguard: At first level it’s similar to passive barbarian bonus from rage. At second level it’s become 15%, and a bit of SR. SR even for Mid-high PvE content is low. For 3 feats (which is a lot of feats) you will have 20% resist and 26 SR, but you need to take the last level of the feat on epic levels.

- Banner: Just a few words, which every one of us can understand: nobody will not fight with you in the range of skill which can be easily avoided by one step in another direction. It’s just not usable in PvP.

- Deterrence: at max 45 damage as biteback damage for 18 sec with 120 sec CD. And this is in “meme build”. This feat can’t be taken if you are a solo player.

- Debilitating Strike: idk what to say about. I never saw the proc of this skill not in PvE. But this is a pure PvP skill (by logic), but it’s usbale +/- on STR builds and it has a HUGE CD.

- Magebane: Probably it's a typo. Here supposed to be "mundane bane". at 16 lvl of EkD (and this is really deep) you will have only 32 SR which is around 5% chance to resist a spell from 27CLv mage. Against 30CLvl mage you have 0~ chances? Not too low for an epic feat with that huge lvl investition? Just a PvE skill.

TBH: it’s cool to have these feats “for free”, but I feel a lack of potential and creativity/balancing in those feats.

In total: For me, only Iron stance and M.resistance are usable and magebane +/- fine if you have 16+lvl of EkD and do not count on this feat in PvP. All other skills are not worth taking at all.

And all of these feats EkD will lose if turns off stance. It’s like removing all feats from paladin if he is fighting against non CE characters.

Speed penalty for a melee class is a HUGE disadvantage and EkD doesn’t have any good reasons to have that penalty compared to bonuses.


I have a concept of EkD rework, but the suggestion was closed and… I played on a lot of builds and we have much more broken classes than EkD can be in theory. Why EkD receive such rework and other classes get almost godly buff/rework?

P.S. I played a lot on DD before and after rework. And his state is almost the same as before. He is out of meta so far…

(I do hope at this time post will be not deleted.)

[Good Character]

EKD has the issue of offering survivability but forgetting that the best survivability is the thing in front of you stops hitting you.

EKD of course can never have any significant damage as it's a tank at heart. However, as I've mentioned before, it needs good crowd control mechanics. Debilitating Strike was a step towards that. However, CC is hard to offer because how action economy works in NWN. Instant action CC would make things ridiculous, especially a class that could chain CC.

Anyways, that's my two-cents. EKD feels like monk: it'll ne hard to ever get it right.

Also, Magebane is actually pretty good. Word of Faith from a scroll is at MAX 33 from a mundane class. That means it fails 90% of the time. While I hate taking a single feat to resist a single (using "single" loosely) spell, it's THE spell to resist with how dominating its effect is.

[Jencent]

EKD has the issue of offering survivability but forgetting that the best survivability is the thing in front of you stops hitting you.

EKD of course can never have any significant damage as it's a tank at heart. However, as I've mentioned before, it needs good crowd control mechanics. Debilitating Strike was a step towards that. However, CC is hard to offer because how action economy works in NWN. Instant action CC would make things ridiculous, especially a class that could chain CC.

Anyways, that's my two-cents. EKD feels like monk: it'll ne hard to ever get it right.

Also, Magebane is actually pretty good. Word of Faith from a scroll is at MAX 33 from a mundane class. That means it fails 90% of the time. While I hate taking a single feat to resist a single (using "single" loosely) spell, it's THE spell to resist with how dominating its effect is.

Welp. I'm more about... Devs wanted to make a party buffer from EkD, but class is noy about buffs or CC. It's a tank by the nature.

[Good Character]

Welp. I'm more about... Devs wanted to make a party buffer from EkD, but class is noy about buffs or CC. It's a tank by the nature.

In my opinion, the buff-like abilities are typical for a dedicated tank to offer if we're basing them off other RPGs. The issue is they have, as you pointed out, ridiculously high cooldowns. Either that and/or abilities that make more sense on paper than they do in practice (e.g. Deterrence and Safeguard).

[a shrouded figure]

I mean… DD was looking better, but with the new updated classes it looks rough again. The whole tiered feats is killing it.

[Sincra]

DD is hands down THE strongest tank right now.

Some of the feats could be re-evaluated but not everything needs to be made around PvP and honestly the fact you can sit in both stance and IE is good enough reason for it not to have speed equal to normal.

And yes, I have played a DD, I know how absurdly tanky they are.

[Jencent]

DD is hands down THE strongest tank right now.

Some of the feats could be re-evaluated but not everything needs to be made around PvP and honestly the fact you can sit in both stance and IE is good enough reason for it not to have speed equal to normal.

And yes, I have played a DD, I know how absurdly tanky they are.

But you can't make a rework based only on PvE because this is a bad game-dev decision. Arelith is RP server, but here is a lot of PvP because politics and stuff.

[Jencent]

Welp. I'm more about... Devs wanted to make a party buffer from EkD, but class is noy about buffs or CC. It's a tank by the nature.

In my opinion, the buff-like abilities are typical for a dedicated tank to offer if we're basing them off other RPGs. The issue is they have, as you pointed out, ridiculously high cooldowns. Either that and/or abilities that make more sense on paper than they do in practice (e.g. Deterrence and Safeguard).

Welp. At this moment EkD more like a paladin from WoW. He "a tank", but can cast buffs. Maybe it's just me, but i cannot see EkD as a buffer. Only like a tough tank which is really hard to kill.

But it's really odd to see this skills with such huge CD and low actual potential in the game.

And i start to repeating myself.

[Sincra]

DD is hands down THE strongest tank right now.

Some of the feats could be re-evaluated but not everything needs to be made around PvP and honestly the fact you can sit in both stance and IE is good enough reason for it not to have speed equal to normal.

And yes, I have played a DD, I know how absurdly tanky they are.

But you can't make a rework based only on PvE because this is a bad game-dev decision. Arelith is RP server, but here is a lot of PvP because politics and stuff.

My point is not everyone is good at everything and we shouldn't design with the belief they can be.

I agree on the cooldown for some abilities being somewhat prohibitive.
The lackluster biteback lasts far too short for the insignificant damage it does.
The temp hp epic feat amount is fine since it's not just you that gets it.

Any short term buffs should probably be made scaling duration ontop of 30 seconds based on something, or just made a flat 1 minute.

But outside this, it's hard to see why we should give a class that gets high DR, high AC, High AB and capabilities to deal high damage anything extra.

They can also just turn off stance to get movespeed back, which brings them into normal melee range capabilities but they still get high AB, DR and all the other tools to boot.

At most, there could be a second Ironstance feat that brings you to the near normal speed area, but this would become a must have, and so is probably never going to happen. EKD/DD is about choices, not being a jack of all trades.

And to all of the above I wish to add, I still defer these decisions to the internal balance team.

[Jencent]

DD is hands down THE strongest tank right now.

Some of the feats could be re-evaluated but not everything needs to be made around PvP and honestly the fact you can sit in both stance and IE is good enough reason for it not to have speed equal to normal.

And yes, I have played a DD, I know how absurdly tanky they are.

But you can't make a rework based only on PvE because this is a bad game-dev decision. Arelith is RP server, but here is a lot of PvP because politics and stuff.

My point is not everyone is good at everything and we shouldn't design with the belief they can be.

I agree on the cooldown for some abilities being somewhat prohibitive.
The lackluster biteback lasts far too short for the insignificant damage it does.
The temp hp epic feat amount is fine since it's not just you that gets it.

Any short term buffs should probably be made scaling duration ontop of 30 seconds based on something, or just made a flat 1 minute.

But outside this, it's hard to see why we should give a class that gets high DR, high AC, High AB and capabilities to deal high damage anything extra.

They can also just turn off stance to get movespeed back, which brings them into normal melee range capabilities but they still get high AB, DR and all the other tools to boot.

At most, there could be a second Ironstance feat that brings you to the near normal speed area, but this would become a must have, and so is probably never going to happen. EKD/DD is about choices, not being a jack of all trades.

And to all of the above I wish to add, I still defer these decisions to the internal balance team.

Huh... 27/3 figher can sit even on higher AC and AB but will have only -/9 EDR. (57 AC and 53 AB. With Dex build you can achive much more AC) And you will have tons of feats, most of your AC can't be dispeled and you don't need to turn off/drop your guard. Div builds can reach stats even better in turns of AC/AB.

Also other classes doesn't have such trade in builds or HUGE CD/only party oriented skills.

I just wanna to say: ekd doesn't have such advantages to have such disadvantages. I like whole idea of reduced MS, but at what cost?

>And to all of the above I wish to add, I still defer these decisions to the internal balance team.
I just waited DD rework for so long, and after i took a look at pally rework... Which was good even before... I start to think... Why and for what? And this smite rework...

[Dreams]

I like whole idea of reduced MS, but at what cost?

Reduced movement speed IS the cost.

[Mattamue]

An AoE slow while in stance would be cool. Simulate not letting people past in tight quarters.

[Jencent]

I like whole idea of reduced MS, but at what cost?

Reduced movement speed IS the cost.

I mean: all those bonunses but... the cost is overwhelming all of it. With haste you have +/- basic MS.

[Jencent]

An AoE slow while in stance would be cool. Simulate not letting people past in tight quarters.

I just wanna freedom of movement as a passive on stance activation (epic T3 feat for stance if you have iron stance).

But TBH. I wanna to see global rework of ekd. Like with paths.
- Reckless defender: Lower AC, but higher speed/AB/damage. But can't take a lot of def.feats.
- Hall defender: More AC/def feats, but at cost of speed. But can't take party buffs.
- Field commander: Basic stats, but can have acces toall buffs.
- Guardian of elements: Same as Hall defender, but have lower AC/def, but an take elem.defence feats and so on.

[Altair01]

I played an EKD a while ago and while I didn't do much PvP, I did think that either the duration of the abilities I had (Aegis and Safeguard) should be increased or the cooldown should be decreased. 5 rounds for Aegis is way too little, I would increase it to 1 round per EKD level so it had a duration similar to Mass Haste and could actually be used for a good chunk of the battle. As it is now, the abilities are only meant to be used once per battle, and their effects fade out before even half the battle has ended.

If you get 3-4 EKDs and they all tell each other to use Aegis after their own Aegis expires (I don't think different characters' Aegis effects stack), the above can be mitigated, but I didn't see anything like this happening while I was playing an EKD.

[Dreams]

It's a tiny cost for the huge amount of bonuses it gets. You were raving in discord about how strong they are and flashing your sheet to show off big numbers, why the change of heart?

[Jencent]

It's a tiny cost for the huge amount of bonuses it gets. You were raving in discord about how strong they are and flashing your sheet to show off big numbers, why the change of heart?

I didn't change my mind. Just i have no clue why we have such odd CD and bonuses on the class, when other classes recieve overall good reworks with paths and other stuff?

[Sincra]

You literally have paths in all but name, they're even less restricted as you can pick and choose.

[Jencent]

You literally have paths in all but name, they're even less restricted as you can pick and choose.

With this approach we can call any build as "path". For me, at moment i see only few useful feats.

[Skibbles]

I barely know how EKD works, but I have fought one before so I can comment on at least that.

I don't think I've ever used a silver bell, with two 5% +5 weapons, both with a temp essence on top, used true strike, had applicable bane of enemies, then laid in with 7 attacks at capped AB...

...and practically been laughed it. The tank potential of this class is obscene, and I remember I just had to give up and call the fight a draw after doing the above combo more than once.

It seems very, very good at what it's supposed to do.

Edit: actually come to think of it I've fought I think at least two. Both of them crazy hard to kill.

[Archnon]

The recent shift to making safeguard an instant action and removing the charisma requirements was a move in the right direction. EKD can be very good at what it does. And 5 EKD's in a group can actually be completely invincible to physical damage as safeguard stacks.

My big complaints:
1.) It tries to be both high AC and high DI. These are usually two different paths and it would be nice if it dropped one (probably the AC) and leaned a little harder into the other.
2.) A good EKD deep build requires Epic damage reduction (EDR) 3. It really is non-optional. The problem is that the class only gets bonus feats in epic levels that apply to class feats. This makes going above 16 in EKD non-optional if you want to pick up other typical epic feats. You are almost forced to take fighter feats in epic classes to make up for this gap. It would be nice to see it decouple epic bonus feats from class-specific feats and let it have epic bonus feats at 14 and 18. Or give up the level 15 armor skin and grant EDR 1, 2, and 3 at 13, 16, and 19 respectively. or even, an EDR feat at 14 and 18.

[a shrouded figure]

Honestly my most effective EKD was a pale master that just stood inside of a Banner III and shot gonne’s at people LOL

It was a glorious build.

[Jencent]

The recent shift to making safeguard an instant action and removing the charisma requirements was a move in the right direction. EKD can be very good at what it does. And 5 EKD's in a group can actually be completely invincible to physical damage as safeguard stacks.

My big complaints:
1.) It tries to be both high AC and high DI. These are usually two different paths and it would be nice if it dropped one (probably the AC) and leaned a little harder into the other.
2.) A good EKD deep build requires Epic damage reduction (EDR) 3. It really is non-optional. The problem is that the class only gets bonus feats in epic levels that apply to class feats. This makes going above 16 in EKD non-optional if you want to pick up other typical epic feats. You are almost forced to take fighter feats in epic classes to make up for this gap. It would be nice to see it decouple epic bonus feats from class-specific feats and let it have epic bonus feats at 14 and 18. Or give up the level 15 armor skin and grant EDR 1, 2, and 3 at 13, 16, and 19 respectively. or even, an EDR feat at 14 and 18.

This too. You are doomed to take fighter's levels at epic to fit all feats what you need. EkD is feat starving class, probably the most feat starving.

[Jencent]

Honestly my most effective EKD was a pale master that just stood inside of a Banner III and shot gonne’s at people LOL

It was a glorious build.

Yea. Because MAIN ekd weaknesses is critical strikes. So you must have high AC or be crit immune. TBH: vampire ekd was funny to play.

[a shrouded figure]

Yea. Because MAIN ekd weaknesses is critical strikes. So you must have high AC or be crit immune. TBH: vampire ekd was funny to play.

I’d argue the main EKD weakness is the complete lack of offensive capability to threaten an opponent. DR turtles somewhat work versus dex builds. In the world of cannons, my spell sword will eat an EKD before I ever worry about his DR.

EKD is the only class that is still kiteable by archers… lol. Most of their feats are traps, and the ones that aren’t are given a weird pedestal that makes people terrified. “But they have biteback!” That lasts long enough to deal negligible damage… “they have 22/- DR!” I deal 50 physical + elemental… but +4 Ac and +2 ab on demand! And for the same investment I can have +2 ab and +2 ac without moving like molasses.

We literally stripped movement speed from monks because of the ridiculous power that it offers. An EKD taking iron stance deserves to literally be unkilliable for the penalty of walking as fast as a tree grows. If a bonus to speed made monks give no value to death, the EKD speed malus should reflect Earthkin not giving value to life, lol.