Arelith

No, I really don't think so. My favorite tactic in this game is Time Stop scrolls because it nets me complete control over a combat engagement due to the simple fact I will always have enough con to survive the time it takes for the scroll to go off, and scrolls are unstoppable. It's the simplest tactic that Ive been doing well before I was any good at the game and had me escaping level 30 weapon masters on a level 17 warlock.

I still haven't seen any of the devs chime in on the possibility of adding the IB feats to the -usefeat functionality. Is there a chance that this can happen?

Also, after actually playing on live with it:

I really sobered up on the whole "omg it's op" and kind of feel a lot of people overreacted (if we put aside the bugged eviscerate damages). As it stands nerfing a tad Arcane bleed, lowering the bleed removal DC, giving a scaling to stack amounts/damage per stack, AND fixing the bug to eviscerate (which currently does 3 times the damage it should, so keep that in mind before calling it OP), that's about all that's needed. No need for some grand overhaul, grand "multi feats gating" or anything. The class is nice, but hardly OP. In PVE the bleed is a tiny damage boost but nothing worth going for over another class with more utility, eviscerate post nerf will be only ever useful for big boss battles where you have countless stacks on, and in long assed PVP with a careless foe (which never happens).

By the way, Eviscerate could use some work to make it "feel good". It's clunky in its use, and unrewarding in its feedbacks (beside omglol bugged damages). It has no animation from the player, no sound from the player, and no VFX. The "touch attack that flatfoots you", rather than "added to the next attack" like smite or kd, is really poor in terms of useability. I see myself only ever using it against end boss dungeons once it is post bug-fix damage, I prefer stacking bleeds and normal flurries damages over inflicting myself the clunkyness of it.

Crippling strike can hardly be commented upon as it is bugged.

Can't really comment on PVP as I haven't pvped with it. I can however foresee that postfix eviscerate + lowered bleed DC + (hopefully) ArcaneBleed nerf, the class adds some nice pressure, but is not "omg gamebreak", even for only a 3 levels investment. Again, if you hit reliably enough to apply a lot of stacks, it means you are trumping your opponent's AC, and that's what made you win, not the bleeds.

Cheers.

Against casters that have specific prepped spells (Wizard, cleric, and to a lesser extent druid), 20% spell failure is a BIG deal. There is a reason you get a save to try and avoid it when it is applied via other abilities, and why classes that are susceptible to it buy multiple feats just to remove as little as 5% spell failure from occurring.

A single touch attack with no save is really too much, add in the effects of a greater breach with it? No thank you. This would already be an incredibly powerful ability with JUST the breaching effect, the spell failure is way too far.

Rico_scorpion wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 7:05 pm By the way, Eviscerate could use some work to make it "feel good". It's clunky in its use, and unrewarding in its feedbacks (beside omglol bugged damages). It has no animation from the player, no sound from the player, and no VFX. The "touch attack that flatfoots you", rather than "added to the next attack" like smite or kd, is really poor in terms of useability. I see myself only ever using it against end boss dungeons once it is post bug-fix damage, I prefer stacking bleeds and normal flurries damages over inflicting myself the clunkyness of it.

I agree with this as well. It doesn't really feel good when you use Eviscerate because it makes you sit there while waiting for the start of the next round for the damage to go off. When the damage to Eviscerate gets fixed, it's not really going to be worth using in the majority of encounters because it takes too long to hit when you could just be using your normal attacks to do damage to the target.

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If Eviscerate and Arcane Bleed were made instant action on current target, I don't feel like the nerf is that bad since there aren't going to be too many people rocking heavy damage reduction. The instant action change would go a long way to making the class just flat more fun.

The nerf didnt happen yet..

In fact, is this class live on the live server already? its still bonkers.

Did I miss any update published only on discord again?

AstralUniverse wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 12:43 am The nerf didnt happen yet..

In fact, is this class live on the live server already? its still bonkers.

Did I miss any update published only on discord again?

viewtopic.php?f=23&p=264573#p264573

IB has been published for quite some time now.

I think this is a pretty reasonable change and it brings the class back to something which will build on top of what the rest of the character build does, instead of being too much of a focus gimmick.

The DC for heal is a bit low, but probably not a big deal.

The main thing that I would still like to see fixed is how eviscerate works in a combat queue. At the moment using it will wait until the next round, you get the action, then everything else is cancelled and you end up flat footed. Making this an attack ability such a knockdown, or an instant trigger ability, would make the 'feel' of this ability as you use it a great deal smoother for gameplay. (If instant trigger is too powerful, nerf the damage more. Just keep nerfing until you find the point where you can add a feature that makes it enjoyable to play)

Please don't nerf the damage more.

To clarify my previous statement, the damage nerfed to what it is (magic to slashing which opens it up for being resisted) and Eviscerate in the way that it currently operates, this feat is basically worthless to use. Especially if you have Sneak Attacks and are being guarded by a high AC buddy. My character has 5d6 sneak attacks (and at 30 will have 8d6) and 6 attacks per round. Why would I use Eviscerate to get MUCH less damage when it takes so long to use and puts me in a bad state by being flat footed.

I'd say revert the damage to 3d6 but leave it at slashing and make Eviscerate either instant use or something like Knockdown (that is on the -usefeat list so you don't have to click the icon and then click the target) and see what happens. Furthermore, while these numbers are still being tweaked, release these changes to the PGCC to give people a test run to try it out before dropping it. I agree it was the right move to push this change to live while the damage was bugged, however, now that it's not anymore give us some time to play with it and then iterate on it before pushing it to live.

For encounters that last long, eviscerate is a kill-button that will force your opponents to use a heal-kit or resto. It's in a good place.

Have you used it?

With damage reduction, hardly a kill button. Say you do hit every 6 attacks (assuming 3 APR, 2 dual-wield, 1 haste) every round. To do 100 damage on average, you're looking at least 4 rounds (before the usual 10% immunity).

Realistically, hitting 2-4 hits per round. That's 10 or 5 rounds. Damage should be at least bumped to 2d6 or returned to magical for Eviscerate.

Good Character wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 6:33 pm With damage reduction, hardly a kill button. Say you do hit every 6 attacks (assuming 3 APR, 2 dual-wield, 1 haste) every round. To do 100 damage on average, you're looking at least 4 rounds (before the usual 10% immunity).

Realistically, hitting 2-4 hits per round. That's 10 or 5 rounds. Damage should be at least bumped to 2d6 or returned to magical for Eviscerate.

Having it be a more responsive and immediate action would be great for this ability and make it far more balanced with a lesser dmg score. Then with better action economy it's actually bonus damage through a cool means, that's unique to a class, not a gimmick you can sometimes make work with perfect execution to explode someone.

Having the action be immediate would remove counter-play. Once you see the healkit applied or resto used, you'd activate it.

Ok but as it stands, there is literally no reason to ever use it. If as you say, it's meant as an execute, you'd get a much better effect by just continuing to attack.

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cantalyssa wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 8:27 pm Don't agree with you there Ork, it being instant doesn't remove counterplay. The damage is clearly displayed every round. You not wanting to use a heal kit to remove the damage and heal, or if you have no heal, use a restoration scroll bought from a merchant, after seeing a damage tick for let's say 30 (10 stacks), that's your own fault. I would say that it NOT being a free action like hex/blinding speed, makes eviscerate never get used now.

Maybe it's just me, but when something can be so easily circumvented in the first place by literally vendor-buyable items anywhere in the game, an arguement for "no counterplay" doesn't really have any legs to stand on..

And doing on average 40 slashing damage, prior to any physical reductions for those 10 hits, is abysmal at best. The damage is so low and meaningless you actually benefit more just letting the bleed stack and never even touching eviscerate.

This exactly.

I have a sneaking suspicion that rather than it being a dip, its 3 levels are a limit so that classes like rogue can't max their AB without adding a third class and all the trade offs that come with it. Dodge is taken by a couple classes mainly shadowdancer and weaponmaster, I think perhaps dirty fighting would fit Invisible Blade nicely. Could even be modified by the class to act as one of the abilities, trading all attacks in a round for something special sounds about right.

cantalyssa wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 9:00 pm

• The breach nerf makes this basically just a free scroll to cast once per 3 minutes, which isn't really worth an ability. Breaching only 4 spells likely means your going to be needing multiple uses, so scroll are coming into play here anyways. Oh, and it requires a successful touch attack so it can fail, which makes it just worse than a normal scroll you're going to be using anyways.

• Eviscerate is the "capstone" ability. Losing an entire round worth of attacks for a single melee touch feels bad, especially when you're putting the work in for the ability in the rounds prior. Your target has to literally sit there and do nothing to let this stack up to get ridiculous damage numbers (which have been guttered anyways)

Greater Breach is a 6th circle spell that only three classes get in Arelith. A touch attack is *not* hard to land on the vast majority of casters and you can apply it with far better action economy than the full round needed to cast a scroll (and those scrolls have a wholesale cost of 1,237gp, if the wizard making them is your absolute best friend). Only breaches four spells? Let me remind you that the vast majority of the spells on the breach list are absolutely the sort of wards you desperately want removed from an enemy. Four spells is going to hurt, it's guaranteed to remove Premonition and any damage shield warding, and likely get rid of some immunity wards in the process too. For two levels of class, a Greater Breach on cooldown is damn good, and obviates much of the need to invest in lore up to 35 if you are hurting on skill points for your build. That being said, a free action would be nuts. It essentially means that for EVERY three minutes of combat, you remove four wards from someone, with no downside. Additionally, any group doing a dungeon that has enemies which cast acid sheath or flame shield will be thanking their lucky stars they have someone with cooldown-based breach to keep them from having to melt themselves to death in melee.

As for eviscerate, the "capstone" ability is for three levels. The minimal dip investment possible under Arelith rules. While it can be countered, that is true of a LOT of abilities in Arelith. Effected by daze? drink a clarity potion. Blind? Resto or Remove B/D. You're a CL 27 shadowmage/Palemaster with an obscenely high enervation DC that just horrendously level drained your target? Ah, too bad, they had a restoration wand. Most powers have counters, but it requires the defender to 1. Notice the need to IMMEDIATELY use said counters, and 2. Defender needs to use some of THEIR action economy to fix it, while you are still punching them in the face for other sources of damage. Simply having a counter to your power doesn't make it useless, unless you only fight extremely competent opponents WHILE relying on just that one tool to fight them.

It sort of sounds like you are saying that because they have to use their action economy to counter your ability while you still stab them, then you don't have to use it for it to be effective. So the threat that you will use the ability is good enough for the ability to not be useless? Then why even have it at all?

Just a few thoughts on IB as it stands now.

Magic Damage: Nothing but the most specific spells should ever be doing magical damage since it trivializes nearly all encounters in the module. As far as I know the Juggernaught and maybe one or two other high-end bosses resist magic damage, while all characters and monsters have no resistance to it whatsoever.

Bleeding: According to its description this class revolves around mundane 'bleeding' which most monsters and supernatural creatures don't even have blood in the first place (or at least don't need it to survive such as the undead). If anything - creatures that are crit immune should just be ignoring this feature just like they do rogue sneak attacks.

Following this logic might be a reason to consider raising the damage again, or tweaking it to a slightly more favorable number based on some kind of scaling, now that it is slashing and thus subject to DI and DR and has a smaller window of effectiveness. Likely we should just wait to see how people end up breaking, or not breaking, the newest balance pass first before taking the numbers higher again.

The Bleeding effect is a real hangup for me as it requires a considerable suspension of disbelief that I struggle reaching in its current format given the obvious rogue-ish element and its long standing relation to creatures with immunities directly related. In fact, doing some research on the class from the wiki's links before firmly placing my foot in mouth, I found:

NWN 2 Wiki wrote:At 1st level, when an Invisible Blade hits with a successful sneak attack...

It seems specifically tied to sneaks in the other systems - implying that my initial immediate thoughts are supported.

The Class: The release of IB was puzzling to me in the first place. It's like a rogue that's better than being a rogue with only a sixth of the level investment and anyone can take it (sans the rogue grenades which by all accounts are pretty excellent, though when I think 'rogue' I don't usually think 'grenadier').

Thankfully some small mitigating prerequisites are now added, but I honestly think IB should be exclusive to classes that have sneak attack and rely on successful sneak attacks to proc. I think by limiting the classes involved in the manner it was originally intended may make balancing much easier to do, and make its abilities far more believable in the first place and open up the class to more flavor without shattering the meta at the same time.

Obviously I'm more or less proposing another full rework - but bleeding skeletons is just too campy for me, and the supporting documents specifically address this by stating its direct relationship to sneak attack.

Edit:

Did some more reading on the class. As follows:

Opponents immune to critical hits ignore damage from Bleeding wound unless the attacker also has the Epic Precision feat, in which case full damage may be delivered.

I really think this class just needs a full ground-up reenvisioning more in line with the source material from which it was born, but should have potential to be a large and fun, albeit niche, investment if a rogue wants to focus on sneak attacks instead of grenades.

Edit again:

I just want to add onto the earlier remark someone made about the close relationship to WoW's rogue ability Eviscerate, which I also found personally meh. I really hope we can steer away from this sort of explosive one-shot shotgun meta. It's just not fun to be on the receiving end of a one-shot kill, which is presumably why such spells like Death Ward remain off the breach list, although I do appreciate the list of counters involved with it - it just doesn't feel like it belongs in the game regardless.