Looking at WM Numbers

[the grim yeeter]

Ultimately, what would really happen if we were to make WM something along these lines:
WM 5 you pick either increased threat or increased multiplier
Every 3 WM levels you get +1 AB.

Would we see a lot less WMs around because of that? I don't think so. Would the class be entirely destroyed? I do not think so either. You lose burst. But in exchange you get more AB, and there is actually a good reason to go beyond WM 7, opening a bit of build diversity. They will be slightly hindered in the current PvP meta, but I am still convinced it is a move in the right direction in the long term.

Honestly, WMs getting +1 AB for every three levels right from the start at the exchange of bigger threat range (the increased multiplier feat is superior to the threat range feat in PvP, so you would pick that) would make them way more powerful than they are now, so if you really think WMs are too powerful the way they are now (they are not), then you don't want that to be the "nerf".

Besides, while the latest big updates have made it less so, there is still good enough reason to go beyond WM 7 for some builds, exactly for the AB (and bonus feats) acquired at lvl 13 and 16. A good example is the naginata monk7/wm13/cot10 or, if you want, the naginata monk9/paragon5/wm16. I would absolutely take +3 AB in exchange for the increased threat range feat.

[a shrouded figure]

Removing weapon master threat bonus would just shift all the weapons to 20/x3 and 20/x4.

Having played a weapon master quite a bit, this thread seems a little silly. Honestly, there’s quite a few builds with hilariously bursty damage. Thankfully, these builds /tend/ to be glass canons. Everything has a counter. It just turns out that almost any WM build hard counters an unbuffed, low AC, low hp wizard that doesn’t do anything at the sign of violence... lol. Honestly I’d be surprised if any class lost to a wizard in these circumstances.

[Flower Power]

Unnecessary nerfs to WM's because of a poor understanding of the realities of how PvP actually happens is a bad thing. Cookie cutter Weaponmasters are very suboptimal - they work just because literally anyone (even people with shitty computers, terrible internet connection or no interest in learning the niche parts of PvP) can play them and still feel like they're doing something; in any situation where someone is more than 5 feet away from them, or has modest buffs cast on them (read: basically every situation) they're very much on the back foot. If you're 100% unbuffed, unarmored and have a WM in your face and you're still talking smack, just shrug, congratulate them (smarmily or sincerely) in tells and hit the respawn button, you earned that one.

The WM builds fill a vital niche - they're a class that literally anyone can play, and still be able to access and enjoy all of Arelith's core PvE content, but also still feel like they're contributing something when the chips are down, even if it isn't very much in comparison to most other builds that exist. Taking away simple but semi-effective builds just leads to a situation where viability and diversity of characters on the server rapidly diminishes, or puts up barriers/gateways to making a semi-relevant character because you didn't want to have to devote an exceptional amount of time (or potentially money, in the case of hardware limiters) learning niche mechanics to not get stomped.

Let's not end up having another call to arms because timestop is OP, but remember that at the end of the day, the only real question you need to ask yourself is "How does this nerf clerics?"

[Sockss]

I choose WMs mostly because of all classes guilty of this, they require the least effort, they do not require haste, they cannot do this only once per rest, you literally just need to be there and click a button, and your target may very well die instantly.

I do not think there is anyone that enjoys any instance of PvP where you are just destroyed before having a chance to do anything. I think that truly is terrible gameplay and hurts RP the most. PvP in epics generally becomes less epic due to how quick it tends to be.

Ultimately, what would really happen if we were to make WM something along these lines:
WM 5 you pick either increased threat or increased multiplier
Every 3 WM levels you get +1 AB.

Would we see a lot less WMs around because of that? I don't think so. Would the class be entirely destroyed? I do not think so either. You lose burst. But in exchange you get more AB, and there is actually a good reason to go beyond WM 7, opening a bit of build diversity. They will be slightly hindered in the current PvP meta, but I am still convinced it is a move in the right direction in the long term.

As above, your proposition makes them worse.

If you get destroyed immediately in PvP, in most scenarios there was something you could have done differently. That includes not sitting unbuffed and letting a WM stand right in your face. That includes "put on death ward". That even includes "Don't roll an elven mage with 6 CON and no CON gear".

Obviously there are things that are terrible, like AMF, HB rods etc. but they are so far removed from WM's.

[Shadowy Reality]

If you are telling me that your mages walk 24/7 fully buffed and they keep stepping back anytime a melee character approaches, and any mage that does otherwise deserves to die for that mistake... To this I can only say alright, we seem to be playing different servers. Because this is blatantly not how all PvP encounters go.

Things should not be only balanced around the scenario where everyone is buffed and ready to go at it, but also to their potential outside that scenario (looking at you, Harm).

I will also note that no one actually presented numbers and probabilities of their own, after stating mine were wrong. Nor did anyone justify why it is not only acceptable but balanced for a mage to have 35% chance to die without chance to do anything acceptable when the opposite is not a thing.

[Cataclysm of Iron]

If you are telling me that your mages walk 24/7 fully buffed and they keep stepping back anytime a melee character approaches, and any mage that does otherwise deserves to die for that mistake... To this I can only say alright, we seem to be playing different servers. Because this is blatantly not how all PvP encounters go.

Things should not be only balanced around the scenario where everyone is buffed and ready to go at it, but also to their potential outside that scenario (looking at you, Harm).

I will also note that no one actually presented numbers and probabilities of their own, after stating mine were wrong. Nor did anyone justify why it is not only acceptable but balanced for a mage to have 35% chance to die without chance to do anything acceptable when the opposite is not a thing.

This is sort of a fundamental principle in D&D systems though. Fully prepared and informed, a caster has the upper hand. Taken by surprise or without much good information, a melee fighter does.

I'm the last person that will advocate for a Lv30 mage walking from Cordor to Bendir with Shadow Shield and Premonition active but mages who rely on magic for their protection being vulnerable when that magic is not in place isn't a flaw in the system, it's inherent to D&D and a trade-off for how powerful those builds are when they do see a threat coming.

[Sockss]

If you are telling me that your mages walk 24/7 fully buffed and they keep stepping back anytime a melee character approaches, and any mage that does otherwise deserves to die for that mistake... To this I can only say alright, we seem to be playing different servers. Because this is blatantly not how all PvP encounters go.

Things should not be only balanced around the scenario where everyone is buffed and ready to go at it, but also to their potential outside that scenario (looking at you, Harm).

I will also note that no one actually presented numbers and probabilities of their own, after stating mine were wrong. Nor did anyone justify why it is not only acceptable but balanced for a mage to have 35% chance to die without chance to do anything acceptable when the opposite is not a thing.

People run turn/hour buffs constantly if they're looking for a fight.
People will then do whatever they can to put up short term buffs up before initiating a fight.
People will run all non-visible buffs constantly.

This happens. It's naivety to think otherwise.

If you're in tense roleplay and someone walks towards you, that is a hostile act, treat it as such. Don't let a melee sit on your head.

You want to balance around someone being completely unbuffed and clueless. The first is impossible to do without removing all long duration buffs, or at least stripping them to nothing on PvP initiation. The second is only possible to do to put PvP down to a simple dice roll.

PvP is never an even playing field and it's foolish to think otherwise. Whether it's buffs, terrain, consumables, latency or plain getting lucky, you will not be able to make a d20 system entirely skill-based.

If you're completely at a disadvantage, run. Pop a lens. Hellball yourself and gsanc (if you're a caster). Retreat. If you're not doing so when you're at such a huge disadvantage, then that's on you.

No one presented any numbers or probability of their own because there's absolutely no need to put any work in to presenting them, the argument here is so intrinsically flawed.

To sum up:

> WM's have a chance of instantly killing someone provided they are unbuffed, at low enough ac, have low enough hp, are unaware and in melee range.
> You feel this chance is high, but are unwilling to entertain any number of very reasonable measures to reduce that chance.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I feel like there are two different conversations going on here because some of you are playing a different game then others. While there are people that walk around fully buffed and ready to fight from the moment they log on until the moment they log off, if there are 250 people on across the servers they are probably (generous number incoming) 50 of those people. I think that's one of the tricks to balancing a server like this, since on one hand the pvp meta is important no doubt, but on the other a large majority of players don't fit under that category. For those players, the lore changes were great because it opened up a variety of builds that can survive some of arelith's tougher areas. I think the jury is still out on how it effects the pvp meta, but you clearly have your opinion and I have heard a similar sentiment from a few pvpers I am friendly with.

As to the original point of the thread, I think nerfing wms is a bad idea. Melee characters are already at a disadvantage vs casters in both pve and pvp. And while I understand the feeling that burst damage can be scary, as pointed out in this thread by several others WM's are not the scariest thing a player can play. While you do sometimes get epic battles out of it, NwN pvp for the most part is meh at best. The good news is that a game like this is about the story, not who wins or looses in PvP, so while I fully recommend building and playing to be the best at what you do its not the end of the world if you loose. Being great at PvP doesn't equal being a memorable character, its the characters that tell great stories that people talk about 2, 5, 10 years later.

[the grim yeeter]

Balance always needs to be based on the most ideal assumptions, within reason, for both sides. Being prepared with buffs as a mage absolutely belongs to this assumption.

Balancing around suboptimal conditions and players who do not know what they are doing, is bad and will actually tip the scales in favour of skilled players even more. Consequently, it will make the game harder for inexperienced players and suboptimal character builds, as the skilled players and optimal builds will, by definition, always be able to take more advantage of whatever implemented change than a suboptimal player will. Why is this so hard to understand for some of the people here?

In other words:
Unskilled players do not benefit from balancing decisions based on their lack of skill or mechanical awareness.

[Shadowy Reality]

...
Why is this so hard to understand for some of the people here?

In other words:
Unskilled players do not benefit from balancing decisions based on their lack of skill or mechanical awareness.

Because you are just saying things without any backing. What is your evidence to state that? Perhaps less mechanical aware players would actually like not to instantly die to Weapon masters because they have no idea what is going on, I haven't asked them, have you?

For unskilled players I would argue anything that diminishes the time to kill is a benefit to them, because most of the time they will be panicking and having no idea what to do, where to move and the more time they have to figure that out the more chances they will have to do something right.

Harm was changed from vanilla to what it is now, it surely was not balanced with the ideal scenario in mind, because in that scenario the target is immune. IGMS is capped, Hellball was changed to what it is now because it was very binary (it either did nothing or it nearly outright killed those that did not have the right wards) why is removing burst from spells that can be negated to certain degrees considered balanced, and yet removing burst from a class feature not balanced? Hell, you can also look to the thread next door where people are arguing archers should lose some of their bonus damage. How do you justify all of these but support the current numbers barbarian/wms can pull off without much effort?

[Ork]

Let's give it a rest, yeah? We're jumping from barbarian/wm to wizard to spellsword and everything in between just to make a point - and I still haven't been able to glean what that point is other than you're miffed you got insta-gibbed by a weaponmaster.

[Aeralad]

Let's give it a rest, yeah? We're jumping from barbarian/wm to wizard to spellsword and everything in between just to make a point - and I still haven't been able to glean what that point is other than you're miffed you got insta-gibbed by a weaponmaster.

Actually I want to see where this goes, even if someone is legit miffed about being gibbed. Keep the discussion going please.

[Ork]

Let's give it a rest, yeah? We're jumping from barbarian/wm to wizard to spellsword and everything in between just to make a point - and I still haven't been able to glean what that point is other than you're miffed you got insta-gibbed by a weaponmaster.

Actually I want to see where this goes, even if someone is legit miffed about being gibbed. Keep the discussion going please.

Where could this go? Facts presented already contradict OPs original position, and OPs data points are grasping at best.

[Aeralad]

Ah but that's the point, to find out where it could go haha.
I hope I'm not incorrect in saying you might disagree Ork? Okay, and if you want to say something else cool. But yeah it would be nice to see where others are and where this discussion goes. To me at least.

[Shadowy Reality]

At this point I am just repeating myself over and over. Most people seem to disagree, what do I know. I will be abandoning thread after this.

As a sidenote, I have not been involved in any PvP for months, and I cannot recall the last time I PvPed a weapon master. I am surely no master of PvP but I more or less know what is going on. In fact, I currently play a barbarian/wm.

It is mostly based on what I have seen over the years in Arelith. I think we all have seen that weird PvP fight where a guy just gets trashed in a couple of hits because he forgot to turn on IE, or just took a couple seconds too many to react. Weaponmasterr builds punish this the hardest. I find that detestable and am usually an advocate for diminishing the skill level between players when it comes to PvP.

I still get flashbacks when back in the day the justification for timestop scrolls being balanced being you should counter it with your own. As if everyone had a reaction time to do that.

[AstralUniverse]

It is mostly based on what I have seen over the years in Arelith. I think we all have seen that weird PvP fight where a guy just gets trashed in a couple of hits because he forgot to turn on IE, or just took a couple seconds too many to react. Weaponmasterr builds punish this the hardest. I find that detestable and am usually an advocate for diminishing the skill level between players when it comes to PvP.

You know... it might sound crazy but very often it's the 'noob' that plays the WMs and has an opportunity to win a pvp against a veteran player by catching them off-guard. I dont know if diminishing the skill level between players would keep that 'charm' of the game.

[Dr. B]

I just discovered this thread, read through it and then burst out laughing. You want to nerf a class because it can quicly kill an unbuffed, unprotected character? I'm speechless. Never mind that WMs are not the only class that can do this.

[Aeralad]

Astral raises a good point too. Please continue if anyone has any other thoughts on this.

[Aellowyn]

Hello everyone! I would like to start this off by saying I played a fwmr for years and have spent much time among the mages. I LOVE melee classes and am a recovering WM, been clean several months now. I love learning my friends weaknesses and beating them up, IG of course. That being said, I will allow math to speak on the original topic of this thread:

Situation A:
1. Both are unbuffed
WM vs Wizard

408 - 90= 318HP, since I want this Wizard/Ranger at their worst.

2. The opponent does not have an optimal, standard build:
318- 90= 228HP, since I want this Wizard/Ranger to be suboptimal as well. (What did they put this extra Con on? I hope not Intelligence.)

3.The opponent misplays
You dead.

Now combined points 1) 2) and 3) and you can see that the weaponmaster’s chance of killing its target in a split second is actually extremely high.

This wizard did not act first, fumbled around tripping over their own feet and is dead.

Situation B:
1. Both are unbuffed
Wizard vs WM
588 HP, since I want this WM to be at their best?
(What did I do wrong with my build, my unbuffed HP is not that high?? )

2. The opponent does not have an optimal, standard build:
318- 90= 228HP, since I still want this Wizard/Ranger to be suboptimal.

3) The opponent misplays
Mage goes first this time.
DC 40 Wail vs

HP: 588 HP Saves: 32/25/19 (38/32/26 vs spells)

Now combined points 1. 2. and 3. and you can see that the weaponmaster’s chance of killing its target in a split second is actually 36%, while a Mages chance of killing the weaponmaster is 64%.

That is more than a 50% chance of instant death, based upon a 50% chance the mage goes first vs wm.
Now, take into consideration RP before PVP, there is a 50% chance someone will get the hint that PVP is about to happen....

Please note: This math is based solely upon a specific situation and does not take into consideration the large amount of variables, or calculate the overall WM output vs other classes and situations.

My personal belief is, that making a change to balance a class should be based upon it's overall performance and disparity compared to other classes in various situations.

[Aeralad]

Unfortunately in the current meta, melee's need burst or they can't kill anyone.
As shown, mages can be more bursty than WM's, and they're not the only thing.

I agree. Mages can be bursty. Many other classes can be bursty. But this is fighting fire with fire, if you accept this all we are doing is creating builds that maximize the chance to kill while minimizing the counter play the other person can have.

I choose WMs mostly because of all classes guilty of this, they require the least effort, they do not require haste, they cannot do this only once per rest, you literally just need to be there and click a button, and your target may very well die instantly.

I do not think there is anyone that enjoys any instance of PvP where you are just destroyed before having a chance to do anything. I think that truly is terrible gameplay and hurts RP the most. PvP in epics generally becomes less epic due to how quick it tends to be.
...

Hey Aellowyn thanks for that! Your points about other classes being able to do it are good. What do you think about the part of the thread I've quoted? Regarding the game, from what I can tell you mentioned it in a tiny way by saying "I love learning my friends weaknesses and beating them up."
Do you have anything else to add with regards to that?

[DM Rex]

While we appreciate the notion, these sorts of threads aren't currently needed.

If players feel there is a startling imbalance to a class they're welcome to report their concerns. But this emotional loading on characters and pliability is revealing less to do with mechanics and more about how people feel about the class.